Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Yeah, I mean, I understand your argument and your preference for tab targeting. I agree that it is most focused on pure decision making, by virtue of requiring less aim than action combat.
It's all preference though. There's a distribution of players who value pure decision making (e.g. turn-based games) to pure hand-eye coordination (e.g. fps), and everything in between. I'd prefer like 70% decision making and 30% hand-eye coordination. I feel like a lot of tab targeting MMOs require no more than like 5% hand-eye coordination for perfect play.
As we've already established, a tab targeting system could be translated into action combat. This effectively gives you a slider to adjust how much hand-eye coordination is required depending on the tools given to the player (which affects the weight of decision making).
Finally, I like games that overload players. My favorite non-mmo game is probably starcraft 1, which I played extensively. In that game, it is literally impossible to play even remotely close to perfect, so there can be wide skill gaps at all levels of play (even at the very top level with some players winning over 90% of professional matches against all other professional players). It challenges your hand-eye coordination, while still having overall decision making be more important. I feel like this is the perfect balance. Tab targeting has never really challenged my hand-eye coordination, so I personally find it lacking in this regard. I think that it may be possible to implement a tab targeting system that challenges the player in this way, but it is really difficult to achieve in a game where you control only one player without implementing aiming. But anyway, it's all personal preference.
The hybrid combat isn't really ''hybrid'' as people think. People who choose mostly tab skills will play it like a tab target game with few AoE/aimed skills and vice versa for action folks. We already saw how it'd be like to play it with 100% action in APOC (albeit in BR setting with very limited abilities, short time to kill + very first iteration of action combat in general) - you can imagine that in MMO setting with some tab targeted abilities.
As for my preference, I just want combat to be skillful. Both tab and action can be unskillful tho it is true that due to it's nature (% based on mathematical forumula), tab tends to be more stat based rather than pure mechanical skill. So I lean more towards action. All in all, it comes down to combat design (hence why Intrepid is currently hiring / have hired developers that specialize in designing combat). I do believe they will be able to please both of the crowds and those in between.
Both systems can be taken to extreme lengths, so there is no point in saying one is easier or harder than the other - both are exactly as easy or as hard as the developers want to make them.
I agree.
Funny thing is, the closest thing I have been to overloaded in an MMO is in a pure tab target game against top end content (the kind of encounter that only comes around once every few years).
Action games usually give you more to do against base population, but tab target games give you much, much more to do against top end content.
I don't know if an action combat game "could" give content like a tab target game - none have even tried, so none of us can really talk about it outside of hypotheticals.
Also, I cannot see a reason that AC could not give content like a tab target game other than requiring aim could push a very difficult tab target encounter into almost impossible AC.
I have seems quite a few AC enthusiasts in the comments that share a similar view, which is almost as if MMORPGs with TT for them are pretty much inherently skilless, so i find myself wondering what is their concept of skill and which MMORPGs with TT they played and if they played it at a high competitive level.
Because i played quite a alot of AC, TT and even hybrids such as GW2, and must say that some TT games required more "skill" in their combat in non-mechanical ways which AC definitely exceeds.
But as Wandering Mist stated in his recent post "Types of skill (WARNING - RANT)" "people have narrowminded view when it comes to skill" and that skill in MMORPG can mostly de categorized in:
1. mechanical skill - the ability to push the correct buttons at the correct time.
Which gets more complex the more button options you have and with the necessity of precise aim.
The type of skill that is the most focused and most important aspect in AC games.
2. Problem solving skill - the ability to decide what to do in any given moment.
The decision making skill, the best choice gets the best outcome quite simple isn't it?
Nah, not really, when games push their complexity of possibility choice and variables to incredible levels it becomes a truly hard to master skill. Mist used Chess as example which i find quite fitting.
TT games usually exceeds in this aspect.
I would also add:
3. Strategy skill: the ability to prepare and/or predict possible outcomes and interactions beforehand.
Good old knowledge, your gameplan, the intel you have about your opponent which can lend you advantage, Your opponent class? His most important skills? His specific Gear? Previous interaction? All those info can help you build your way to victory.
4. Adaptation skill: the ability to adapt on the fly when strategy fails or/and new variables comes into play.
Missplays? Variability? Luck? Your opponent pulled a fast one at you. Your gameplan fell to the ground, what now? The ability to fast adapt is truly an important one, which require hella fast thinking to remake your gameplan and to recover from possible misfortunes and mistakes on your part or on your opponents part for you to take advantage of.
Honorable mention: Character Optimization skill?
In my opinion all of the skills mentioned are equally valid and important for any MMORPG combat system and adds more depth and complexity to it! Some people tend to overly focus on the Mechanical skills aspect which i believe is a mistake but in the end of the day everyone have their own preferences and i hope AoC delievers the best hybrid combat system they can taking in consideration all skills.
Aren't we all sinners?
Thing is, since they could create a tab target system that is above and beyond what a player is reasonably able to do, there is no need to take tab target skills and make them require more from the player.
If the developers want more from the player, they can ask for more in a tab target system - up to and beyond what is reasonable to ask of a player.
The same can be said of action combat, of course - this is not a point I would argue with.
The reason I am saying this is - as was said earlier in this thread - since both systems can be created to be more than what a player is reasonably able to maintain, there is no point in discussions along these lines. Both systems can and will be set to be exactly as hard as the developers want, and both systems could be made to be harder than the developers decide to set them at.
If develoeprs take a tab target skill and require it to be aimed, this absolutely does require more from the player. However, if the same developers take that same skill and require it to be more precisely used, or add in more situations where it is the skill you should use over other skills, then that skill now requires more of players than it did, while still being completely tab target still.
Could the develoeprs then take this new tab target skill and add aiming? sure.
Could they also take it and make it even more demanding of players in a tab target setting? sure.
The limit to how far develoeprs can take this one skill in either path is essentially limitless (or at least is beyond the limits of what they would ever do).
This is why the argument that you could just take a tab target skill and add aiming to make it harder simply doesn't hold any weight. Developers decide where they want the difficulty to be set, and both systems are more than capable of exceeding that point. As such, taking a tab target skill and adding aiming to it either requires something be taken from that skill (or other skills used in conjunction) or the skill will now be out of spec for the game.
I can see why this doesn't happen.
Tab target combat is designed around the encounter providing a good portion of the engagement. This means that base population in a tab target game can be considered quite boring, but top end content is some of the most engaging content of any game from any genre you will find.
Action combat is based around the engagement coming from the combat system, not the content.
Since the engagement from an action game is not coming from the content, it means there is less scale to alter the content in order to provide a challenge. Most action combat games have an increased HP or damage output as their only means of adding additional challenge, while such gimmicks are indeed just considered gimmicks in a tab target game.
Since the difficulty/engagement level of the game is pre-determined by the developers, and 90%+ of that engagement in an action combat comes from the combat system itself, with the rest from the content, that simply doesn't leave room for the content to scale up in difficulty at all.
With tab target, maybe 50% of the maximum potential engagement is from the combat system itself, while the rest is from the content. This means there is massive scale for content to scale up in difficulty.
Again, since the difficulty of the game is determined by the developers, if they attempted to make an action combat game with content as engaging as that found in a tab target game, it means they would need to have significantly less engagement while using that action combat system against base population.
I'll take the question. (Answering for me personally.)
(Short Answer)
My concept of skill is based off of the games ability to provide challenges that require me to learn and improve in order to succeed. Generally in TT I can pick up the game more rapidly than AC. AC is so different on a per game basis. Wildstar and Tera are there own skills. So were Darkfall and Mortal Online. Yes WOW,FFXIV,GW2,ESO,RIFT,EQ2, ect are all very different, but I did find the skills more transferable and take less time for my to improve in.
(Opinion piece) -skip if you want
Like I have said in the past I just love good combat. I like a challenge. When I am not playing MMORPGs I play survival crafting games to chill (Ark, Minecraft, Satisfactory, Factorio, ect), and I play Shmups when I want to struggle against a challenge (Ikaruga, Mushihimesama, Touhou Project, ect). Both of those game types lean heavily into the different skill sets that Mist was talking about. Mechanical vs Problem solving. I like both, MMORPGS allow me to get a little of both in one game.
I did state that TT can be complex and require great skill, but it is on a per game basis. Initially when I first played FFXIV I thought it was a babys game with a long GCD and no complexity. It does lack complexity in many areas. What I have noticed is that if the audience within the game is asking the DEVs to push the combat system to its limits. Very complex fights can happen in both TT and AC. It took many expansions in both WOW and FFXIV for things like Ultimate/Mythic raids to emerge. It took the DEVs pushing the combat systems to their limits to make these fights a reality. Anyone who says these fights lack skill because of the TT system is crazy. They are highly skill intensive fights, but the targeting system is only a piece of the pie. It mostly comes down to learning good coordination and reacting to mechanics correctly as presented, and playing perfectly if you are there week one.
The same is true for AC, Tera and Wildstar both had complex raid bosses that pushed their games to the limits. Tera and Wildstar both had to ease off the pedal with difficulty because the combination of AC, and complex mechanics was causing some high-end encounters to be too challenging. This does happen in TT games as well, It has happened a few times in the history of WOW bosses.
My take on AC vs TT is, assuming all other things are equal. The addition of having to aim vs having the game game decide for you if you hit or miss adds a layer of skill that makes it more challenging. There are fringe cases where like in Windstar for example. As a medic if someone was not near me they were not getting healed. Targeting someone to heal them was easier because I could just turn to them and heal them. The trade off was that to heal the tank I generally had to be closer to the boss because my range was not long. This made me have to dodge more templates than healers in other systems might have to deal with otherwise(something I enjoyed). In TERA you literally had to FPS aim some heals at the tank to heal them, which sounds like fun until the tank has to dodge a billion things and you have to dodge a billion things at the same time. Tera healing was the hardest healing I ever encountered, because I would have to find and aim my heal at anyone who was low health. In TT I could have just stood back and hit F5 keys. This is the polar opposite of something like ESO where some heals just go to whoever needs it the most magically.
PvP is the same, both systems can be complex, it is just now on the players to push the game to its limits. Generally more skills with more complex actions make for more complex PvP regardless of the targeting system. Still the only games I have seen really fail to foster a real PvP scene were FFXIV and HOTS (a Moba). Otherwise if the PvP is fun the players will push the combat system to its limits. Things like wild imbalance tend to be the biggest threat to PvP, not the targeting system.
(Conclusion)
I hope this helps, I know I can be wordy. I just have a lot of thoughts on this subject.
I don't want to see AC skills in Ashes go unused due to unreliability in landing attacks. I do believe both systems can complement each other.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
If you are picking the game up quickly in a tab target game, it is because you are not making full use of the full tab target combat system.
You do not make full use of it until you are taking on the hardest encounters in the game.
Action combat games, on the other hand, don't have this content component of it's over all difficulty.
I fully agree that a tab target game is easier to pick up and kill a random trash mob than it is to do the same in an action combat game.
However, when you are doing that in an action combat game, you are using 90% of what the game has to offer, whereas you are only using 50% or less of what the tab target game has to offer.
I encourage you to read the part of my post where I talk about how both systems can push combat system complexity to its limits or play a AC game and get to some content where this complexity is pushed to its limits, and see for yourself.
You are very much making the exact same generalization. Nearly every mechanic that can happen in a TT system can and does happen in a AC system.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I wrote that "tab targeting has never really challenged my hand-eye coordination", which is very different from claiming that it is "inherently skilless". I meant that the need for precision (aka hand-eye coordination) is almost non-existent in tab targeting, unlike action combat. I was trying to say that I prefer having this particular skill as part of the complexity of a game, but I still value overall decision making more. I think you just misunderstood my point, because tab targeting is literally like aim-bot in that it doesn't require precision.
I'm not particularly against tab targeting. In fact, I'm fine with tab targeting as long as the game is complex enough that it creates hard decisions and rewards players who make good decisions. My ideal game, however, are games that are like this, plus an additional component that requires mechanical precision.
I can't speak for Wildstar.
I'm not making any generalizations, and I have said many, many times on these forums that I agree that anything that can be in a tab target game could be in an action combat game.
The problem is, I am not getting my point across well, it would seem.
Imagine developers want a game with 100 difficulty. They can make an action combat system that can go up to 250 difficulty a tab target system that can go up to 200 difficulty, and they can make content that can go up to 200 difficulty.
These points are all actually accurate - even if I have thrown in arbitrary numbers. Develoeprs can make a combat system for either style that is far harder than they would want, and content that is far harder than they would want.
Now, developers making an action combat game have always gone for a higher number in the combat system, anywhere from a 75 in games like Tera, up to 95 for games like BDO.
The remainder is filled in with content, 25 for Tera, 5 for BDO.
Tab target games tend to go more of a 50/50 split.
What this results in is that in games like BDO, when you are fighting random base population, you are using 95 out of 100 of those difficulty points that the developers put in the game. Doing the same in Tera sees you only using 75%, and in a tab target game like EQ2, you would be using 50%.
This is why many people play a few games for a few weeks or a few months, and decide that action is better. It is better on the content they have access to, but they have not yet fully unlocked tab target difficulty yet.
Each of these decisions has it's pro's and con's. Making your combat system 95% of the difficulty of your game is a no-brainer in games where the PvE is not the focus. You aren't going to add in giant raid encounters to offer up a challenge to players, so this leaves you open to make your combat system harder on the base population you are offering your playerbase.
On the other hand, leaving some of the difficulty to reside in the content rather than the combat system leaves you open to offer up a wider variety of challenges to your player base. The more of the difficulty that is derrived from the content, the more scope you have to add in variation.
The argument that anything that can be in a tab target game can also be in an action game is an invalid argument, as doing so would result in a game with a difficulty of 120, when the developers only want 100. Now, you could say that this is a good thing, as it makes the game more difficult, but remember that the difficulty for action combat goes up to 250, while content and tab target go up to 200 each, giving developers a total of 650 they could play with if they wanted to, but they only want 100.
As such, in order to keep the game at that 100, if they take aspects of tab target and move them in to an action combat setting, they will have to drop some aspects of action combat in order to keep that difficulty at 100.
---
This is a point I have been trying to make on these forums - on and off - for well over a year. This is as good a description as I can offer, I hope it helps illustrate my point.
Tera did have insane PvE at one time, I did state some where on here that Tera eased off the pedal a little. Wildstar kind of had a guy on the hood of the car spitting fuel into a turbo intake when the pedal would not go down any further.
I am going to try to put it in my own words to make sure I understand what you are saying correctly.
Are you saying this:
If their is a finite amount of difficulty developers are willing to put into their games. AC games tend to front load that difficulty by putting it into the start of the game(making the perception of a harder game). Where TT games will more gradually raise the difficulty though out the game(making the perception of a easy game). Ultimately you believe that TT games end up with more difficult encounters because AC games do not push their content as far as TT games. You believe this because the inherit difficulty added in AC games reduces the room in the finite amount of difficulty for complex mechanics. Where TT games have that much more room for complex mechanics?
Agree or Disagree?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I don't agree that there is an inherent additional difficulty in action games, but that people think there is because the bulk of content that people play (especially people that shop around MMO's a lot) is base population, not top end content - and action combat against base population is indeed harder (probably should be in quotes there, but what ever).
In practice, neither system is inherently easier or harder than the other. Both are as hard as the developers make it, and both can be made far harder than any developer ever would make a game.
I also do not specifically think that it is inherent that a tab target game has to be made with content providing half of the difficulty, or that action games have to be made where the combat system is 75%+ of the difficulty - I simply believe that this is what makes the most sense from a design perspetive.
If a game were to be action combat, but wanted to add in top end content in order to offer players variation, then they would have to make some sacrifices to the action combat system in order to not see the game go over the developers arbitrary 100 difficulty points from above. This would result in a combat system that was less engaging than many other action combat systems when fighting base population.
Further, if Intrepid plan to have any difficulty in their content, and also wish people to be able to chose to mostly use action combat abilities against these encounters, they will have to implement action combat in a way where it is not as engaging against base population as action combat in some other games. One very obvious example of a thing they would have to do is lower the precision required for aiming, by not having headshots, and having cylidrical projectile hitboxes, rather than pin-point ones.
I wasn't trying to push make tab target into a harder system. I was just responding to whether AC can present the kind of challenges available in TT games.
When GW2 released, it was a tab target game. The action combat was created as a addon by a player. After a year or 2, ArenaNet added almost the same addon as base functionality to the game. All they did was make it so if a player aimed toward a target, the target would be selected just like a tab target. There was no change to the abilities.
Personally, I would love for this system with projectiles and hit boxes rather than a modified tab target. The main problem with a direct copy of tab target ability to AC is damage balance.
This is what I've said many times on this forum. TT and Action abilities in a Hybrid game don't need to be wildly different from each other. They can all be hybrid abilities if you do it right.
Not doing so gives the two types of abilities feel disjointed from each other.
Edit: If you want to reward free-fired aiming, just add a damage modifier or something to non-aim assisted casts.
Well, I just disagree with your assessment. I did strongly consider it. I just don't think DEVs hit the difficulty marks they aim for often. In practice difficulty is not just on a per game basis, not just on a per patch basis, but a per encounter basis. Even then it is subject to gear cheese. DEVs set markers for where they want difficulty, but when the content goes live the player decide if the content is too easy or hard. This is true for AC and TT.
I still whole heartily believe that anything that can happen in TT does and has happened in AC. I still believe that aiming is harder than selecting a target in TT. Especially when there is a million mechanics going on that all need to be done right.
We don't know how intrepid is going to tune AC vs TT moves, but I did come to the realization that if a similar skill in TT is being used more than its sister skill in AC. The DEVs can assess and nerf/buff these skills as needed. The freedom from rotations and the focus on build customization is something I praise here. As it should allow the systems to coexist.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I've seen tab target content that looks possible, but in practice is literally not. Not due to some cheesy rage mechanic or some such, just due to being too damn hard. For a good while, the developers on EQ2 did this on purpose with every new top end encounter, and then tuned things down from that point.
This is why arguments as to what is easier or harder are pointless in my eyes. I have seen many tab target encounters that are literally impossible. As far as I am concerned, that is the end of that line of discussion, as there is no point talking hypothetical outside of what is possible.
I've spent a fairly good amount of time looking in to what raids Tera had, as they have been cited a number of times as an example of action combat with good content. Most of the information that I trust is from people that have run raids in Tera, that have also been in raid guilds with me in other games (specifically EQ2 and Rift - obviously mostly EQ2).
The raids that come up the most are Nexus (both the open world and instanced thing) and Dreadstorm. Other things also came up, but from what I gather, they were more single group dungeons than raids (I asked more generally about PvE content than raids specifically).
Either way, literally all people that I have talked to about this that have also participated in top end PvE content in EQ2 and/or Rift said the same thing. They said that the PvE in Tera was (was, not is, specifically) the best PvE content in an action MMO that they have seen, but is nothing at all compared to the best PvE content in the other games in question.
Now, some of these people I trust more than others, but when all of them are giving me the same answer, and I know the game history of all of these people, I have no reason to doubt what they have to say.
When people talk about good PvE content in an action game, Tera and Wildstar are the games that come up. Since I do not know anyone that played Wildstar personally, I do not want to speak to that game at all. This is why I dismissed it earlier. However, if it is being given as an example along side Tera, as opposed to being a higher example, then I have to assume it was roughly on par with Tera. The fact that Wildstar doesn't exist any longer, and Tera doesn't have raids any longer absolutely says something about attempting such content in an action game, but I'm not really going to try and interpret exactly what it is that it says, other than that it so far hasn't worked.
The specific points that were made that are what these people felt PvE in Tera wasn't as enjoyable or interesting as in other games was that there was a LOT less variation in encounters, there was a lot less going on in terms of mechanics, the mechanics that were there were much more forgiving, there was a lot less of a connection between players (little real need for teamwork in comparison), and the individual fights were far too short.
There were a few other points that were made, but these are the ones that were universal.
I fully believe that people that have experienced this content but not top end content in better quality tab target games would think that these encounters are on par. I literally have no doubts about that.
Thing is, they aren't even close. The best description given was that Nexus Sovereign reminded one of my friends of a particular EQ2 encounter - both were about as hard as each other, both had AoE attacks and summoned a lot of adds.
The problem was, the EQ2 encounter was a trash mob at the start of a several hour raid zone.
They just don't compare, sorry.
There have been bosses in both TT and AC that were impossible until nerfed.
Most modern MMORPGs have had a boss like that.
DDO(A game not known for difficulty) had a raid in back in the day called "Ascension Chamber" that was made nearly impossible to beat after the DEVs found out players were cheesing the puzzle mechanics. The raid sat undefeated for months until nerfed. Even after the nerfs few players were able to beat the raid until more nerfs still later down the line made the raid just a challenge instead of a nightmare. I remember us going in there and whipping over and over looking for the way the DEVs were beating it, as they insisted it was possible.
So like I saying difficulty is variable over the life of the content. You are right that it is kind of pointless to argue over when is harder when they both can be tuned just as hard. Your friends anecdotal reviews of Tera are likely perfectly valid for the time period they played in.
You can't just deny that anything that happens in TT can happen in AC just because you personally have not seen it. I personally have never seen anyone other than you say that EQ2 raids are difficult or complex. It is my personally experience that everyone just disregards EQ2 as a game unworthy of note. I have not really heard anyone talk about EQ2 outside of you since the mid 2000s. That does not mean I don't believe you. At worst it makes me wonder if something I perceive as a difficulty 6 is a difficulty 9 for you, but I would rather give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume when you tell me something is a 9 or a 10. It is a 9 or 10.
I don't think we have managed to change each others minds on this issue. If anything all this conversation has done for me, once again is made me want to play EQ2's endgame for myself. Unfortunately you have also told me its not worth getting into unless the stars align on a fresh start server. I do enjoy the effort you always put into your prospective.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
My bad it seems that my AC aim missed your point in that quote... Jokes aside, it applies to some diehard AC only players around the thread/forum.
I'm not particularly against AC, the thing is, the Mechanical Skill and the necessity of precise aim overwhelms all the other skill types in AC which can heavily maim the complexity of the combat by overly focusing on a single type of skill that determines 90% of the combats outcome.
While mechanical skill is alot of times overlooked in some TT games, some TT games mitigates it by moving into the hybrid direction throught the addition of some AC skills, Archeage is a good example of that.
There is also pseudo-action mechanical skills that TT combat can use such as small frame window precise Blocks/Fades/Reflects/Counters skills, Target Cancelation skills, Non-target mobility skills, CC Breakers and etc.
Aren't we all sinners?
Tab targeting is an aim hack. Any complexity that can be given to skills in a tab system can be given to a free aim system, there is just aiming on top of it. Basic aiming is not so complex that it consumes the user's mind and doesn't allow them to think of anything else. On top of that, in a free aim system, there is more variety on how skills can be delivered. you can make skills that are more challenging to aim for a variety of reason, further adding depth and complexity to the system, complexity that tab skills can't have.
Yes, "aiming isn't that hard and there are ways to make skills forgiving", it's called assisted aim and alot of AC games have it(BDO added an even further helper called combat assistant for example) and may be classified as an aim hack? Anyway its hard to consider a game "pure AC" with this feature that moves it closer to hybrid, and yes "Any complexity that can be given to skills in a tab system can be given to a free aim system" the problem is that those complexity factors gets overshadowed by how the extreme importance of mechanical skill precision (specially for skillshot type of skills) becomes without assisted aim.
Aren't we all sinners?
Even the minor inconvenience of having to open an inventory screen or menu or hit the Windows key to move my cursor to my second or third monitor is always going to keep Action Combat as a negative for me.
I'm very surprised so many people are defending it as if it takes skill. It doesn't. It takes attention, that's completely different and a complete waste of a player's attention if you ask me.
And the world suffers. If there's something really cool going on to the right of me with the world or with players or whatever and I'm currently engaged in Action Combat with a mob... how do I look to the right and aim my shots at the same time? I can't. I have to finish the battle, then look what's going on.. and by then.. I missed something amazing. Thanks Action Combat. Yes, some games allow you to move your camera to see what's going on, but then my aim isn't at my target... so sure I can see the world, I just have to interrupt the flow of the combat to see it.
This isn't a good argument. It's like saying "What PvX MMORPGs are you guys playing that are so great? Just follow the WoW cookie cutter PvE model, that's the only type of MMORPG that can ever be truly great."
Also, people don't generally complain about BDO's combat. That's one of the strengths of the game, not a con.
Aiming takes skill. If it didn't take skill, then everyone who could focus for 10 seconds in FPS games would be at the same level as professional players.
Try hitting 20 headshots in a row on moving targets that are dodging and shooting back at you. If it's so easy that you think it takes no skill, then congratulations, welcome to the MLG.
This is generally true. People tend to get tunnel-vision trying to aim while killing someone.
You can get better at this with time, but a game with tab targeting allows players to maintain more situational awareness than action combat. It's probably a good thing that AoC isn't going full action combat. Hopefully the hybrid system allows for different playstyles based on the class and the player's preferences.
Such a discussion is literally talking theory about the impossible.
Also, I am not saying that things can happen in a tab target game that cant happen in an action, I am saying that things have happened in tab target games that have not happened in action games, and the action games that set out on a path to attempt those things either walked away from that path, or closed down.
This isn't to say it cant be done, just that no one has yet done it.
I have my theories as to why - adding in content that takes as much attention as a high end tab target raid would mean the combat system cant demand as much attention as an action target games combat system is expected to, which leaves action combat outside of those bosses feeling lacklustre.
However, while I cant find any evidence to disprove this theory, I also can't find any to prove it - this is why it remains a theory. If this theory is true, no game will ever release with an action combat system that meets the desires of those that want good action combat, and also meets the content expectations of people that want high end raids.
It was done.
Here was the "first" raid encounter in a Wildstar raid(They get harder).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=V5PPaN7cIK8&ab_channel=moepork
I don't like to look for these raid guides because it depresses me to no end knowing these raids are gone.
Likely forever unless a leak like what happened with "City of Heros" happens.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
It always makes me sad that Wildstar failed, it's combat was so good.
And for the thread don't use the "outdated" card too much. AoC is based on a lot of """outdated""" game design feature (like open dungeons or slow travel).
I literally never spent any time in Wildstars open world doing anything unless I had to. I capped with PvP in town and only went to dungeons as needed to get things done. To me this was not outdated just a different style of game. I barley remember anything about Wildstars open world because I was almost never in it unless I had to be. I guess I totally threw me outside of Wildstars game world.
In the case of AoC. The focus on open world is a feature that supports all of the other systems in the game. It is not "outdated" game design, but a different approach to it. Remember Wildstar was a Themepark MMO. The open world is never significant in these games. At the most you will get some optional system like "Rifts, FATES, world quests", but the open world is not that important, and sometimes skippable.
Some have called AoC a "Sandpark", but I personally don't see it. I see a handful of "Themepark" style features supporting a otherwise completely "sandbox" game. The slow travel and open world is very important in a sandbox. The open world is the dangerous stage that the whole game takes place in where nearly anything that can happen does happen. World PvP makes the game would dangerous and unpredictable in a way that could never be accomplished in a scripted world.
It is just different styles of MMORPGs. I like both for what they are, I just prefer the chaos of Sandboxs.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
The """outdated""" stuff, i miss probably some " to show how much i think it's a bad argument.
When it's mostly what you how you want orientate the game. For me AC isn't really more, by design, modern than TT. It depends of execution. I feel AC depends far more on visual aspect of a game (and i guess that why i suppose BDO is heavily gender/race lock).
I have test GW2( a lot in game launch, and you made me re-install it and just meh), Wildstar (one month, iliked the general settings and that housing was crazy good), BDO (couple hours, but it was really totally boring for me, if AC mean this, my brain scream "noooo"), none of these games hook me by the combat system.
First of all, I will say that it looks like fun, and there are some aspects of the encounter that I actually quite like (the soft enrage mechanic for one).
That said, the whole thing looks like it is aimed at children, with the visuals (but I can happily ignore this), but more specifically with the encounter tuning.
Needing to keep the two targets in the encounter to within a percentage of total HP is a good mechanic, but 0.5% should be the threshold there (I would even happily accept up to 2%), not the 5% that this encounter has.
Then you have the purge mechanic, another solid mechanic that has similar analogous mechanics in EQ2, and other games. Thing is, in this video, the player with purge on them has a telegraph on them - this makes the mechanic so blatantly obvious to all involved that it should never be an issue. In EQ2, mechanics like this are not represented in game at all - this makes the same mechanic several magnitudes of difficulty harder.
This is what I am talking about with action combat vs tab. Sure, if you list of the mechanics they may be almost comparible, but that doesn't mean the encounters as a whole are comparible.
What this looks like to me is if a developer from EQ2 made an encounter, released it, people liked it, and then mid tier players (not casual, not top end) complained that they couldn't participate in it - so the developers retuned it and made an easy version with softer encounter tuning.