Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What MMO's have REAL targeting. This this tab/soft tab target select BS?
LurchUSA
Member UncommonPosts: 97
Apart from FireFall and to a lesser extent TERA, what MMO's require to actually aim your shots?
I'm not talking about soft tab targeting, where you have to put your target recital over the target to attack, but actually having to aim so that you can miss your target if they move out of the way. Having arrows do impossible curve flight, because all tab targeted attacks hit, is rather immersion breaking. I would rather miss than have trick-shot arrows/magic missiles/bolts, etc.
I'm not talking about soft tab targeting, where you have to put your target recital over the target to attack, but actually having to aim so that you can miss your target if they move out of the way. Having arrows do impossible curve flight, because all tab targeted attacks hit, is rather immersion breaking. I would rather miss than have trick-shot arrows/magic missiles/bolts, etc.
Comments
A majority of your non-tab skill based MMO's are open loot.
Trove, Elsword, and Spiral Knights definitely allow mobs to dodge your attacks. You attack in a direction and hit whatever happens to be there--or quite possibly nothing. Most ranged attacks take a while to get there, and if the mob got out of the way, you miss. None of them have mobs that are especially clever about dodging, though some mobs in Trove will circle strafe you.
Darkfall did, but am not sure if it still does.
Moratl online, but I've never tried so can't say what it's like.
DDO has a mixture of both.
There's also STO which sort of does but not really.
Darkfall is the opposite, it is fast and frenetic and still does have twitch combat, but it's very chaotic and there's not much strategy involved.
DDO is very hybrid, similar to ESO, in its aim-combat mode. Forgot about that one.
There are also a few ship based games.
There is a way to keybind the new action camera controls too if you prefer to aim with a reticule but I prefer the tab targeting one since it allows me to cast backwards easier. The default controls also provide more map awareness if you like to turn the camera regargless of what direction your character is facing. You can play the whole core game for free with some fair limitations if you wanna give it a shot. Otherwise it's B2P with a single purchase that includes the expansion if you like the F2P core game.
Of course it's not an FPS in terms of aiming and hit boxes but it has a unique and deep action combat system that many of us enjoy. Also you can start structured PvP right from lvl1 since gear, skills and levels are normalized in sPvP so that everyone is basically like a level 80 in a selection of best gear stats and with lvl80 skills, traits unlocked. The expansion offers even more possible variations to your builds and a 9th playable class once you decide to buy the game.
Since you mentioned TERA's combat as an example I thought that GW2 could be an option for you if you have never tried it yet.
Wildstar, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Age of Conan (limited to melee chars) all come to mind.
In the near future Crowfall I can say for sure, MAYBE Black Desert not sure how the combat actually feels myself but I am on the same page as you OP. I am still disgusted by bow users firing behind themselves on ESO and the lack of urgency about changing it they had.
Back in the days when missiles "missed", it's determined by stats which tied to progression. In this way it more feels like a RPG than a FPS, and this "stats determination" makes transfer data much easier and more reliable. Nowadays with MMORPG market filled with demanding FPS junkies, RPGs suddenly all have to be FPS?
PS: this so-called "tab/soft tab target select BS" is literately modern MMORPG foundation that advanced from point-click isometric.
Why would someone want to play a full blown MMO with gear progression as a core tenant than have the system ignore most of what separates those games from FPS's? Twitch targeting undermines most of what makes traditional MMO's a MMO. There is nothing wrong with games that go that path but I wouldn't really call any of them MMO's in the classic sense and there is a good reason for that.
There is only one.. thats darkfall online.. which is gonna be relaunched soon
darkfall vid:
relaunch darkfall online
https://riseofagon.com/
- server side projectiles calculations
- full open world no instanci
- huge battles
nobody beats darkfalls skill ceiling. i am happy to debat with anyone who thinks otherwise
little info:
There are only 2 games that manage to produce and engine for huge battles in the fps genre
planetside 2
darkfall
The key is not to make "traditional" MMOs.
What did console games of the SNES/Genesis era and before do? Most had no analog controls, but many managed to make aiming your shots matter. What did the early Zelda games do, or Metroid, or Mega Man? As early as Space Invaders (1978), there were mobs that could dodge attacks, and possibly before that, even.
First person perspective was rare back then, as hardware couldn't handle it unless you did something awfully simple (e.g., Faceball, or in an earlier era, Battlezone). But plenty of games had you attack in some direction and hit whatever happened to be there--or hit nothing at all.
You can still do that today without needing to turn it into a first person shooter. I cited Elsword above, which has side scrolling action combat where both you and mobs can dodge each others' attacks. I also cited Spiral Knights, which takes an overhead view, but again, both you and mobs can dodge each others' attacks. In Spiral Knights, you'd better dodge most attacks or you'll end up dead in a hurry. Both of those games do use 3D rendering techniques, not the sprite-based approach that was common 30 years ago.
These are the two I know of at least
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
You don't need tab-targeting to have interesting CC .. how about hitting a mob (that you have to target) will CC it for a while? How about AOE CC? How about putting an effect on the ground (like snare) that can CC? All done in games without tab-targetting.
But look at any advanced Strategy and Turn based RPG on older consoles, and they all used tab target.
The larger your party or raid, the more elaborate your combat system, the more healing, CC, and pulling matter, the more there is a need to target specific group members and mobs.
If you don't implement a rigid targeting system, your game just ends up in zerg instead.
tab target on megadrive:
But then games like Zelda and Landstalker, were solo RPG, they were the birth of action RPG. You no longer controlled a group of characters, you controlled one character and instead of taking turns you had fast action.
If anything, not much has changed since then, MMO that are action focused also tend to be solo MMO, even if you raid in those MMO, you feel like a solo character, instead of getting targeted heals, you spam health potions, same with CC, tanking, pulling, etc.
In action MMO without a rigid tab target system, I never feel part of a greater collective, you don't feel like you're working together, you don't feel a connection, it's far more zerg than strategy. The combat speed is higher, you're allowed to make many more mistakes, you're focused more on the mob than your group or raid, it feels exactly like action RPG on consoles, very unsatisfying to me.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
It is a shame is not a MMORPG, it would be awesome.
Yeah Darkfall still has the manual targeting, if you like hardcore PvP that's your game
And really, all RPGs are turning into FPS? Theres really a handful being made, most mmos coming out have tab targetting.