The problem with the combat in TSW is that there is just too much of it. Its like it is only there to slow you down a little in between quest lines. The perfectly spaced mobs just didn't do it for me.
The most fun I had with combat in this game was trying to find different ways of avoiding it.
That's half the fun. Avoiding open world danger. Amazing that most MMO players these days want no hardship in their games. The problem with TSW combat is that it is builder combat. Spam the same abilities in the same order over and over and over. It's amazing people can't figure out why the TSW combat is not enjoyable. Building with the same button over and over is not fun. But people blame it on mob spacing and animations. It is so damn obvious the issue and people still confuse themselves.
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
I see tons of people who stand there with a sword and play whirling dervish.
I will tell them if they move and dodge they can avoid pretty much all of the damage.
But they still stand there trying to force their way through.
Then they come here and complain its the games fault they didn't to make use of the mechanics.
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
I would bet that no matter how imaginative your deck build is you still press 1 to 2 keys many times more than the others just because of how the builder system works. And it's much worse at lower levels when you don't have the options like you do once you start to fill out the wheel more and get your aux weapon. I don't think TSW's combat is as bad as many people seem to write it off as and the animations don't bother me to much but the combat is pretty basic even if the system of building decks has a lot of options. All in all the world especially after you complete Egypt is worth playing in although I ended up drifting away from the game because of how hard it is solo to make the jump from Translavania to issue 9 game play. I don't know if they made that easier or not but the gear/ap jump needed to effectively play in issue 9 was pretty big. I understand why it happened because issue 9 was built for the established player base that had been gearing up for a long time but at least the time I played it created a pretty big wall for new players to get over.
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
I would bet that no matter how imaginative your deck build is you still press 1 to 2 keys many times more than the others just because of how the builder system works. And it's much worse at lower levels when you don't have the options like you do once you start to fill out the wheel more and get your aux weapon. I don't think TSW's combat is as bad as many people seem to write it off as and the animations don't bother me to much but the combat is pretty basic even if the system of building decks has a lot of options. All in all the world especially after you complete Egypt is worth playing in although I ended up drifting away from the game because of how hard it is solo to make the jump from Translavania to issue 9 game play. I don't know if they made that easier or not but the gear/ap jump needed to effectively play in issue 9 was pretty big. I understand why it happened because issue 9 was built for the established player base that had been gearing up for a long time but at least the time I played it created a pretty big wall for new players to get over.
Agreed on the need for builders, but with 2 weapons the builders fill up very quickly. The number of players running around with one weapon equipped is too high. There was even a player on the forums who stubbornly refused to equip a 2nd weapon and kept complaining about combat.
This is a fundamental thing Funcom could fix by emphasizing the need for a 2nd weapon (and explaining how they work toegether) at the outset.
I never looked at this game because for some reason i didn't think my pc could run it. But i was wrong and got the game for 10 bucks on amazon. As far as combat being dull well i guess that's the OP's feelings and he has a right to them. But i'm enjoying the heck out of this game. I made a build with shotgun and sword and its so dam fun. I love the setting finally no elves or dwarfs. But truthfully, mmo combat has never been amazing. Games like Firefall have better combat because they are shooters first.
Originally posted by Gorwe Oh one more hint for all you that don't know this:
You can switch the targetting systems from dull tab-target to sort of Soft lock. With crosshair and all-over the shoulder camera. I think it is accessed by pressing "x"(by default).
Anyhow, look it up! It could affect your stance towards TSW.
(If only swtor had that crosshair mode...)
"t", not "x". "x" activates/deactivates fast run speed
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
I would bet that no matter how imaginative your deck build is you still press 1 to 2 keys many times more than the others just because of how the builder system works. And it's much worse at lower levels when you don't have the options like you do once you start to fill out the wheel more and get your aux weapon. I don't think TSW's combat is as bad as many people seem to write it off as and the animations don't bother me to much but the combat is pretty basic even if the system of building decks has a lot of options. All in all the world especially after you complete Egypt is worth playing in although I ended up drifting away from the game because of how hard it is solo to make the jump from Translavania to issue 9 game play. I don't know if they made that easier or not but the gear/ap jump needed to effectively play in issue 9 was pretty big. I understand why it happened because issue 9 was built for the established player base that had been gearing up for a long time but at least the time I played it created a pretty big wall for new players to get over.
They did make a number of changes to Issue 9 to make it easier on new players.
The combat itself doesn't bother me, it's the horribly clunky animations and stiff movement that accompanies them. They're even more horribly noticeable after playing GW2 and FFXIV for a bit before returning to the game, which I did (as both of those game have fantastic, fluid animations and movement).
If you can look past the above, however, the rest of the game is a gem.
Clunky is bad enough for me. If there is one thing that needs to be handled well is the perception of game clunkiness. If the UI is the user experience the more clunky the game more the more it takes away from the user experience.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
He kinda has a point, though. (and I may be wrong, but it sounds as though when he's saying he couldn't get passed the carpathians, it wasn't due to skill, it was due to a lack of motivation).
While there are a few synergies in this game, they are mostly very dull / uninspired. When I used to play this game more often I played around w/ the anima system quite a lot. And sadly, to this day, I found that the most interesting skill synergies were almost entirely useless for this game. Blood magic wasn't bad, but tbh nearly all of the decent / good builds in the game played out the same way, and it felt very dull / 1-dimensional as a result.
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
He kinda has a point, though. (and I may be wrong, but it sounds as though when he's saying he couldn't get passed the carpathians, it wasn't due to skill, it was due to a lack of motivation).
While there are a few synergies in this game, they are mostly very dull / uninspired. When I used to play this game more often I played around w/ the anima system quite a lot. And sadly, to this day, I found that the most interesting skill synergies were almost entirely useless for this game. Blood magic wasn't bad, but tbh nearly all of the decent / good builds in the game played out the same way, and it felt very dull / 1-dimensional as a result.
The game is built upon synergies. From the abilities you use that work together for your build and the abilities that work with the other players you group with.
The whole ability system is built on building a deck based on synergies.
One thing is for sure, there isn't one build to rule them all.
So many combinations and synergies.
Character Build Guides
We'd like to start creating some consolidated resource stickies in the various forums. Rather than having a page full of stuck posts that you have to scroll through, we'd like to have one that has links to the best resource threads.
Nominate your favorite threads by replying here and I'll update this thread with the community's favorites.
Build Guide Sites/Blogs Note: The sites listed below have TSW character build information on them. These are community driven sites and therefore we have no control over their content.
Deck Builders These external sites have tools to let you experiment with ability selection to find how your weapons and abilities synergize with each other.
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
He kinda has a point, though. (and I may be wrong, but it sounds as though when he's saying he couldn't get passed the carpathians, it wasn't due to skill, it was due to a lack of motivation).
While there are a few synergies in this game, they are mostly very dull / uninspired. When I used to play this game more often I played around w/ the anima system quite a lot. And sadly, to this day, I found that the most interesting skill synergies were almost entirely useless for this game. Blood magic wasn't bad, but tbh nearly all of the decent / good builds in the game played out the same way, and it felt very dull / 1-dimensional as a result.
The game is built upon synergies. From the abilities you use that work together for your build and the abilities that work with the other players you group with.
The whole ability system is built on building a deck based on synergies.
One thing is for sure, there isn't one build to rule them all.
So many combinations and synergies.
This conversation doesn't need a massive link of builds, thanks. You can keep that for youself.
I never said the game didn't have a lot of synergies. I said that they were all very dull and 1 dimensional. It's a question of 'depth' NOT abundancy. And there is most definitely a difference.
Having every spec have a synergy of 'I use skill X to build myself up, and skill Y to do something impressive' is not depth. There are damage types, but most of the specs involve boosting your own damage type. It's all very self-contained.
By comparison you can look at other games. You may not like some of them, but for the sake of argument look at GW1. You have builds that are similar to what TSW primarily has (build a resource, then spend it). You have some builds where the inverse happens (you keep spending until you've built up too much, and then there's a cool off period). You've got builds that reactive in nature (act off a state, condition, or specific timing). Builds that are based completely around counter-action. Build that buff other people's builds, and builds that are completely self-contained.
There's a lot of variety there, and more importantly there's a lot of varying paces between builds. It's not a 1-note system. There's a whole ensemble of different beats / rythms / pacings that allow different playstyles to shine through. TSW barely has any of that. With very few exceptions, nearly every build feels the same. The damage type may be different, the damage numbers may change, but most of them play out the same way.
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
He kinda has a point, though. (and I may be wrong, but it sounds as though when he's saying he couldn't get passed the carpathians, it wasn't due to skill, it was due to a lack of motivation).
While there are a few synergies in this game, they are mostly very dull / uninspired. When I used to play this game more often I played around w/ the anima system quite a lot. And sadly, to this day, I found that the most interesting skill synergies were almost entirely useless for this game. Blood magic wasn't bad, but tbh nearly all of the decent / good builds in the game played out the same way, and it felt very dull / 1-dimensional as a result.
The game is built upon synergies. From the abilities you use that work together for your build and the abilities that work with the other players you group with.
The whole ability system is built on building a deck based on synergies.
One thing is for sure, there isn't one build to rule them all.
So many combinations and synergies.
This conversation doesn't need a massive link of builds, thanks. You can keep that for youself.
I never said the game didn't have a lot of synergies. I said that they were all very dull and 1 dimensional. It's a question of 'depth' NOT abundancy. And there is most definitely a difference.
Having every spec have a synergy of 'I use skill X to build myself up, and skill Y to do something impressive' is not depth. There are damage types, but most of the specs involve boosting your own damage type. It's all very self-contained.
By comparison you can look at other games. You may not like some of them, but for the sake of argument look at GW1. You have builds that are similar to what TSW primarily has (build a resource, then spend it). You have some builds where the inverse happens (you keep spending until you've built up too much, and then there's a cool off period). You've got builds that reactive in nature (act off a state, condition, or specific timing). Builds that are based completely around counter-action. Build that buff other people's builds, and builds that are completely self-contained.
There's a lot of variety there, and more importantly there's a lot of varying paces between builds. It's not a 1-note system. There's a whole ensemble of different beats / rythms / pacings that allow different playstyles to shine through. TSW barely has any of that. With very few exceptions, nearly every build feels the same. The damage type may be different, the damage numbers may change, but most of them play out the same way.
"There's a lot of variety there, and more importantly there's a lot of varying paces between builds. It's not a 1-note system. There's a whole ensemble of different beats / rythms / pacings that allow different playstyles to shine through. TSW barely has any of that."
500+ abilities and there is none of what you said above. Your agenda to slag the game is obvious.
"This conversation doesn't need a massive link of builds, thanks. You can keep that for youself."
Some of the links actually discuss how the combat system works in depth so you can understand how to use the ability wheel to build those synergies.
But like you said, you don't want the information.
I think one of the issues with TSW combat is the same issue people had with ESO combat at the start. There's no "oomph" in it. Like you don't always feel like your hitting a solid object. I went back to playing Lineage 2 over the break and even my friend that played WoW said... those animations were amazing even now. They just need to make hit response more than they are and it will probably make people enjoy the combat a bit more.
You can tell the animation issues when you're running directionally and your character sort of slides directionally.
Katana, though does have some oomph to it when you get penetrations etc. I was leveling up hammer as well, but haven't gotten around to using it much yet.
Originally posted by Shadester9 I personally found the combat a little dull and slow paced when I first started playing as well, but I gave it a chance and made it to end-game. I did not regret it. The mechanics in some of the areas and dungeons are truly great.
Yeah, I have to say that I think I didn't really love the combat at the start, but I was too distracted by the Lovecraftian vibe of Kingsmouth to care. The dungeon bosses, though... Machine Tyrant is my second favorite fight and Hel is my favorite (I just wish it was available year-round). I'm the one in the dreads:
That fight looks pretty boring to me. Boss doesn't move, has really obvious tells, and a massive attack that you just stand behind a pillar to avoid. Was there any need to interrupt key abilities of the boss? Was there a tank taunting and you guys dpsing while getting healed and avoiding the circles on the floor by walking out of them? (trying to understand what is good about this).
This is the new mmo combat system in them all now. Run around alot.
Comments
That's half the fun. Avoiding open world danger. Amazing that most MMO players these days want no hardship in their games. The problem with TSW combat is that it is builder combat. Spam the same abilities in the same order over and over and over. It's amazing people can't figure out why the TSW combat is not enjoyable. Building with the same button over and over is not fun. But people blame it on mob spacing and animations. It is so damn obvious the issue and people still confuse themselves.
I've never really got the complaint about the animations. Most of the animations are relatively good, and the movement itself is nowhere near as "stiff" as FFXIV where you are pushed into animation locks and thumb twiddling long GCDs.
The problem with TSW's combat and animations has primarily been it's repetitiveness and spammy nature. You might have a beautiful sword flourish animation, but when you repeat it back to back to back to back.... ad nauseum, it becomes pretty stale. Which is a shame, because the rest of the combat system(the way different skills interact with each other) is quite good.
I put the spamming comments down to unimaginative decks and/or a fundamental lack of understanding of the way combat works. Funcom could do a better job of explaining as part of the beginning tutorials and starter missions
I see tons of people who stand there with a sword and play whirling dervish.
I will tell them if they move and dodge they can avoid pretty much all of the damage.
But they still stand there trying to force their way through.
Then they come here and complain its the games fault they didn't to make use of the mechanics.
I would bet that no matter how imaginative your deck build is you still press 1 to 2 keys many times more than the others just because of how the builder system works. And it's much worse at lower levels when you don't have the options like you do once you start to fill out the wheel more and get your aux weapon. I don't think TSW's combat is as bad as many people seem to write it off as and the animations don't bother me to much but the combat is pretty basic even if the system of building decks has a lot of options. All in all the world especially after you complete Egypt is worth playing in although I ended up drifting away from the game because of how hard it is solo to make the jump from Translavania to issue 9 game play. I don't know if they made that easier or not but the gear/ap jump needed to effectively play in issue 9 was pretty big. I understand why it happened because issue 9 was built for the established player base that had been gearing up for a long time but at least the time I played it created a pretty big wall for new players to get over.
Agreed on the need for builders, but with 2 weapons the builders fill up very quickly. The number of players running around with one weapon equipped is too high. There was even a player on the forums who stubbornly refused to equip a 2nd weapon and kept complaining about combat.
This is a fundamental thing Funcom could fix by emphasizing the need for a 2nd weapon (and explaining how they work toegether) at the outset.
change your abilities to make it less dull?
There are like dunno, thousands of combinations
I never looked at this game because for some reason i didn't think my pc could run it. But i was wrong and got the game for 10 bucks on amazon. As far as combat being dull well i guess that's the OP's feelings and he has a right to them. But i'm enjoying the heck out of this game. I made a build with shotgun and sword and its so dam fun. I love the setting finally no elves or dwarfs. But truthfully, mmo combat has never been amazing. Games like Firefall have better combat because they are shooters first.
"t", not "x". "x" activates/deactivates fast run speed
They did make a number of changes to Issue 9 to make it easier on new players.
Clunky is bad enough for me. If there is one thing that needs to be handled well is the perception of game clunkiness. If the UI is the user experience the more clunky the game more the more it takes away from the user experience.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I didn't mind the combat per se. I leveled a character to the point I had L10 weapons in three different skill trees and couldn't progress further in the Carpathians. I tried to restart with a new character and the wall I hit was that there just aren't enough synergies in the game. I would level up, get a fair number of skill points and when I went looking for new abilities to buy, just have no enthusiasm. I played Blades/Pistol/Blood, and got just enough synergies to feel powerful. When I went back and tried to find other weapons sets that synergized well, I found that the majority of the weapons had lousy synergies. This mystified me, as each weapon had over FIFTY different skills and you only needed one to create a synergy with another weapon. They could have put synergy powers in the beginning of each second tier branch to easily tie together disparate weapons. But no.
So even though I was actually willing to play through the game a second time, I looked at the skills available in each tree, and couldn't find one I would be excited about leveling.
The fact that you say that there was no synergy and couldn't get past the carpathians isn't an issue with the game. Its the player.
The only gating factor in this game is the players understanding of how it works.
If there is a game that alts aren't needed its this one. All abilities can be learned by one character, there was not a need to restart. You could have swapped to whatever weapons you wanted and used them at anytime and get more ability points. 500+ abilities and none of them were interesting.....user problem.
Seems you tried to bully your way through and that play style fails allot in this game.
He kinda has a point, though. (and I may be wrong, but it sounds as though when he's saying he couldn't get passed the carpathians, it wasn't due to skill, it was due to a lack of motivation).
While there are a few synergies in this game, they are mostly very dull / uninspired. When I used to play this game more often I played around w/ the anima system quite a lot. And sadly, to this day, I found that the most interesting skill synergies were almost entirely useless for this game. Blood magic wasn't bad, but tbh nearly all of the decent / good builds in the game played out the same way, and it felt very dull / 1-dimensional as a result.
The game is built upon synergies. From the abilities you use that work together for your build and the abilities that work with the other players you group with.
The whole ability system is built on building a deck based on synergies.
One thing is for sure, there isn't one build to rule them all.
So many combinations and synergies.
Character Build Guides
We'd like to start creating some consolidated resource stickies in the various forums. Rather than having a page full of stuck posts that you have to scroll through, we'd like to have one that has links to the best resource threads.Nominate your favorite threads by replying here and I'll update this thread with the community's favorites.
General Build Guidelines
- TSWGuides' "My first 60" Point starting builds - has several starter builds for the early zones of the game.
- Protection (Phys/Mag) vs Mitigation (Evade/Glance/Block)
PVP Build Guides- PVP Builds (Consolidated)
Tanking Build Guides- Tanking Stats Revisited by Primislas
- Katarina1: Healtank & Leechtank Guide (High Performance)
- Tank NM -Shotgun/Blade- High Mobility, Single Target, Ranged Capability
- Bringing Hammers Back. A Blunt Approach to Tanking NM
- Ciritty's Pink tanking guide (Not furry!)
- Tanking: the current state of things
- Tanking: Evade vs Block vs Defence
- Blade/Chaos Tanking - Normal, Elite & Nightmare Dungeons
Healing Build Guides- The Reaper: The Complete Guide to Leeching (Beyond Healing)
- Fist Healing - Normal, Elite & Nightmares
- Bloody Assault - An AR/Blood Healer build
- Empowerment to the People! Theorycrafting for Fist Healers
- Aela's End Game Fist Healing Guide(s)
- Blood/fist healing guide for normal, elite and nightmares
- Fist/pistol endgame healing builds/guide
Damage Build Guides- Joining the Special Special Forces: A DPS Player's Primer
- Nightmare Dungeon DPS Build Theory & Practice
- End-game DPS guide by Katarina1
Hybrid Build Guides- One build to Solo Transylvania
- Introducing the Full Support to Nightmares
- Regen like Wolverine (a good solo farming build)
- The Bard - A DPS Hybrid
Build Guide Sites/BlogsNote: The sites listed below have TSW character build information on them. These are community driven sites and therefore we have no control over their content.
- The Secret Database - Builds
Deck BuildersThese external sites have tools to let you experiment with ability selection to find how your weapons and abilities synergize with each other.
This conversation doesn't need a massive link of builds, thanks. You can keep that for youself.
I never said the game didn't have a lot of synergies. I said that they were all very dull and 1 dimensional. It's a question of 'depth' NOT abundancy. And there is most definitely a difference.
Having every spec have a synergy of 'I use skill X to build myself up, and skill Y to do something impressive' is not depth. There are damage types, but most of the specs involve boosting your own damage type. It's all very self-contained.
By comparison you can look at other games. You may not like some of them, but for the sake of argument look at GW1. You have builds that are similar to what TSW primarily has (build a resource, then spend it). You have some builds where the inverse happens (you keep spending until you've built up too much, and then there's a cool off period). You've got builds that reactive in nature (act off a state, condition, or specific timing). Builds that are based completely around counter-action. Build that buff other people's builds, and builds that are completely self-contained.
There's a lot of variety there, and more importantly there's a lot of varying paces between builds. It's not a 1-note system. There's a whole ensemble of different beats / rythms / pacings that allow different playstyles to shine through. TSW barely has any of that. With very few exceptions, nearly every build feels the same. The damage type may be different, the damage numbers may change, but most of them play out the same way.
"There's a lot of variety there, and more importantly there's a lot of varying paces between builds. It's not a 1-note system. There's a whole ensemble of different beats / rythms / pacings that allow different playstyles to shine through. TSW barely has any of that."
500+ abilities and there is none of what you said above. Your agenda to slag the game is obvious.
"This conversation doesn't need a massive link of builds, thanks. You can keep that for youself."
Some of the links actually discuss how the combat system works in depth so you can understand how to use the ability wheel to build those synergies.
But like you said, you don't want the information.
I think one of the issues with TSW combat is the same issue people had with ESO combat at the start. There's no "oomph" in it. Like you don't always feel like your hitting a solid object. I went back to playing Lineage 2 over the break and even my friend that played WoW said... those animations were amazing even now. They just need to make hit response more than they are and it will probably make people enjoy the combat a bit more.
You can tell the animation issues when you're running directionally and your character sort of slides directionally.
Katana, though does have some oomph to it when you get penetrations etc. I was leveling up hammer as well, but haven't gotten around to using it much yet.
This is the new mmo combat system in them all now. Run around alot.