Whats your favorite elements of combat from which mmorpgs?

Please rank all of your favorite elements, from your preference of action/tab target/hybrid/etc. mmorpg combat systems.

Feel free to bring up your favorite combat system- if it helps spark any ideas, most people tend to use the following games' combat systems to draw inspiration from- BDO, Blade and soul, Terra, GW2, WOW, etc.

Which mmorpg combat system did what best, and why?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

FallenPaladin

Neverwinter Nights EE & NWN 2

Turn-based
--Feats
--Melee Attacks
--Ranged Attacks
--Sneak Attacks
--Skills
Action/Tab-target
--Metered target
--Special/VFX effects

Ludullu

Lineage 2's click to move, stand in place to attack, no gcd, animation-based combat. I like the visual progress of the combat's speed. Animation speed was dependent on atk/cast speed, so your whole combat would become faster the higher in lvls you went. It felt like a true progress of your character.

Tab targeting allowed for a more strategic view of the battlefield (with L2 having huge pvp battles), while click to move still kept the apm high because you should always be on the move for better positioning.

Haven't played enough of other mmos to rank anything correctly.

Ace1234

@SupremeKnight
-thanks for the input- what are you referring to by "metered target", do you mean having a dps meter you can see?

Ace1234

@NiKr
Thanks for the input- so essentially are your saying you like how the animation speed is relevant, and you like how you can progress in that area, with engaging combat that centered around positioning within a large viewable area?

Ludullu

Ace1234 wrote: »

so essentially are your saying you like how the animation speed is relevant, and you like how you can progress in that area, with engaging combat that centered around positioning within a large viewable area?

Pretty much.

CROW3

I prefer Neverwinter’s action combat. The blend between soft-targets (using my reticle) and hard target (using a target lock) allowed a good diversity of attack abilities with combos.

I particularly liked their take on Ranger where the switch between ranged and melee combat was almost seamless (I just wished they let me use a shield).

The ability to map left and right MB actions was also very helpful - and gave combat an ARPG feel - which was useful for ranged. The draw-aim-fire ranged attack is best served in single-player RPGs not MMOs - there’s just too much discrepancy between a ranged attack and a swing timer (which is a single click event). This is most obvious in ESO, and balanced in MO2 - which is why so many melee folks complain about the ‘feel’ of combat in MO2.

NWO felt very intuitive and I hope (especially for Ranger) it’s taken into consideration by the devs.

Ace1234

@CROW3
Interesting- so pretty much you enjoy diversity in attacks and the practicality of combos, accessible controls, and balanced ranged/melee combat?

CROW3

Ace1234 wrote: »

@CROW3
Interesting- so pretty much you enjoy diversity in attacks and the practicality of combos, accessible controls, and balanced ranged/melee combat?

Here’s how I’d synthesize it:
- Combat needs to feel smooth, like it’s one thing instead of 30 things in sequence
- Transitions between ranged and melee combat are critical to get right, especially when there are minimum distances
- Directional attacks need to be intuitive and take advantage of soft and hard targeting

Ace1234

@CROW3
Ah I gotchya- I really like the idea of having a cohesive system that requires you to transition between different types of attacks smoothly

I think having lots of options with situational uses could help give that cohesive and varied feel to combat- and the animations and controls can play a big role in that smoothness

Ace1234

@NiKr
Yea I like those ideas- animations being important requires you to time and space your attacks well and further emphasises the importance of decision making and positioning- all of which requires a greater amount of skill and mastery over the system which is great.

And progression can give you that feeling of power over those who havent put in the time or effort- to give you that extra edge over an opponent who might be puting up a good fight skill wise

FallenPaladin

Ace1234 wrote: »

@SupremeKnight
-thanks for the input- what are you referring to by "metered target", do you mean having a dps meter you can see?

In certain MMO's when you use the bow it switches to a mode where there's a "metered target" and you can zoom in/out and move the camera at slow motion and aim with the bow. I believe during the beginning of kickstarter AoC had this with casting magic spells as well, where there was a meter that ran up and down and a shaded area where when you activate the spell the meter runs and when you click the mouse it stops - if it stops inside the "gray area" the spell hits, if not the spell misses. I remember seeing something like this a long time ago if I am not mistaken. I think over time it got removed.

Ace1234

@SupremeKnight
Oh I gotchya- Sounds like a little timing mini-game to make your skills work. Yea you are right I definitely remember Ashes having a form of that a while back. I think it can be a seriously cool mechanic if it isn't required for your skills to work- but instead could be optional to be used for either added affects if you succeed or detrimental effects if you fail the mini-game, for an extra "risk/reward" element during combat. (Kind of like in a shooter game where you can go through your normal reload- or you can do a mini-game to for a faster reload/higher ammo pool at the risk of failing to reload altogether with a cooldown before you can shoot again).

I think people's main issue was that it could be distracting by bringing your attention away from the battle itself- but that would only be an issue if you are looking at the bar to try to do the mini-game, wheras if you master the timing you don't need to look at the bar. The devs could also have repositioned the bar over the enemy or at the space between you and the enemy so you can still focus on the battle while being able to see it.

Dolyem

-WoWs pacing and fluidity.
-guild wars 2 original stability buff to deal with CC and the ways to dispell it. And it's affect on small groups fighting massive groups in pvp.
-guilds wars 2 action/tab targeting hybrid combat
-age of conans system of button combos to activate specific attacks was pretty interesting

Ace1234

@Dolyem
Yea-
- pacing is a big one for me too, I tend to like a pacing on the fast side, the benefit to me is that it enables more proactive play, without people just reacting to all your options and countering you, which requires making good decisions on which options you choose and also rewards prediction/being unpredictable-
I absloutely like the ability to also react to different situations though- so a blend of fast and slow paced options in combat is ideal imo.

- fluidity is also extemely important, I interpret this as responsiveness and freedom- this opens up the possible actions you can take which allows for more creativity and strategy, whule also being more engaging because you always have control over what you do rather than be locked into place or waiting to take actions

- yea im interested how they are gonna handle cc in group content. I think leaning to hard into allowing that will make the combat feel more restrictive and go against that fluidity you mentioned, and will make it harder to balance that group content. Plus its more fun to me to have that game of "footsies" where your spacing and positioning is really important, as opposed to everything revolving around "who gets stunlocked the most"

-combo system sounds interesting- it sounds like they are having something similar in Ashes- I like the idea of having follow up attacks to capitalze with higher reward options for when you succesfully land a hit- im interested to see how practical they will be to pull off- since you will have to go through a set amount of actions being being able to access a certain attack you want, and
also since staggering doesn't seem very prevelant from the showcases weve seen. The combo attacks might end up being very avoidable, but things are still a work in progress so we will see.

grisu

I still think WoW till BC, maybe Wrath had it figured out the best. Granted Classic had a lot of overall issues and the class balance stayed janky in every patch but it was in an acceptable range( most of the time) imo. It was an overall amazing combat feel.
You had a lot of interclass dependency that always made you relevant.
A lot of actual different play styles from rotations, to priority systems, to different resource/ stance dance management types. You had quick reflex builds, laid back builds, various skill ceilings, complexity ranged from semi afk to wtf are you even doing. It just had all the choices back then. Gimme back stutter stepping. >:[
Class identity was a thing, imagine.
It just felt good, everything flowed pretty naturally. You got introduced to more and more skills that worked with one another in some way from the get go that made sense and once you sit down to really look at the details it often provided just another layer of depth to it.
And then there was all that flair. Life was good back then. To bad they shilled out.

Savic Prosperity

on a mostly un-translatable note into more modern gaming I really really like Dofus' turn based combat. I haven't had it happen extremely often within the spurts of time I play it but there have been some times where my tactical decision making in that game have paid off so good it felt absolutely amazing
Sometimes it just became about doing a combination of abilities to make a mob set very farmable with certain map layouts.
+ the class design in the game. I have been obsessed with trap based gameplay since playing a trap Sram in dofus and nothing else really gives me the same feeling. (mind you for a long time they had their AI know exactly where you placed most of the traps and it was just suffering)
Sram is basically just an assassin type class in reality mind you so you can play it pretty assassin'y for the game
its like a curse that i liked it so much; the only other game i can remember giving me similar vibes with traps was path of exile when i tried it years ago but it wasnt the same still

but the class design for a lot of their classes is just really cool imo. They varied so so much based off your build and how you played them could change with who you were playing with too (and if you throw in wakfu even more)

Hinotori

I really enjoyed eve online combat. The real fight wasn't fought with guns.

It was fought with meme links to gifs in local chat telling the other side how shit they were to make them feel bad and propaganda hype music to make your side pumped up.

If they weren't english speaking then people had other folders full of more gif links for every conceivable nationality tell them in the local language to stop being shit and just go home so your own team could complete the objective.

Ace1234

@grisu

Yea-I like a lot of that as well in a combat system.

-While I do agree that team play and team composition should matter- I don't think it should be to the extent that you are totally useless without teammates without any kind of indpenency. I think classes should have a certain amount of self-sufficience, but be able to have their effectiveness bolstered by strategic class compositions. That way you can still have that social and strategic element be impactful and more optimal, but without completely neutering the solo player.

-I love your idea of not only having many gameplay styles combat wise- but also having many gameplay styles from the perspective of what skills are being tested by the player. This is a really cool way to make sure that players who excel at different things can be effective.

-Its also an interesting thought when you mention different skill ceilings. A lot of people have the misconception that everything has to be equally viable. There is such a thing as having some classes and builds be more viable than others, but require more skill. This can make it to where higher skilled players can rise above, while allowing lower skilled players more accessible class options that can still compete, without setting such a high skill expectation for them to use classes if they were all equally balanced gameplay-performance wise. As long as all players have access to the same builds and classes then its balanced gameplay wise, because all players can strive to get to the level of skill to use those best classes/builds.

The only unbalanced aspect is the classes/builds themselves, which only really matters from a variety standpoint because this design can limit the "meta" builds available.So, as long as they take that into account and make sure there is variety, then you can satisfy meta chasers as well as more casual players.

It looks like they are somewhat taking that route through the hybrid/action combat design which is neat- action requires additional skill so it gets rewarded more- but tab target is still viable for those who want to stick with that. Its a good approach imo.

Sapiverenus

SupremeKnight wrote: »

Ace1234 wrote: »

@SupremeKnight
-thanks for the input- what are you referring to by "metered target", do you mean having a dps meter you can see?

In certain MMO's when you use the bow it switches to a mode where there's a "metered target" and you can zoom in/out and move the camera at slow motion and aim with the bow. I believe during the beginning of kickstarter AoC had this with casting magic spells as well, where there was a meter that ran up and down and a shaded area where when you activate the spell the meter runs and when you click the mouse it stops - if it stops inside the "gray area" the spell hits, if not the spell misses. I remember seeing something like this a long time ago if I am not mistaken. I think over time it got removed.

Oh a timing mini game. I think those sorts of things are good.
Rhythm game for Bard, timing for Ranged aim (like aiming in real life, timing heart beat and breathing and muscle contractions all together).
I can imagine the range in which your shot is accurate increases or decreases based on movement, breathing and heartbeat; with the breathing/ heartbeat stuff more for sniping. Other stuff could factor in too.
There could be a wider "hit" range and narrow "crit" range too.

I really hope the Anti-cheat is STRONG in Ashes of Creation.

Ace1234 wrote: »

@SupremeKnight
Oh I gotchya- Sounds like a little timing mini-game to make your skills work. Yea you are right I definitely remember Ashes having a form of that a while back. I think it can be a seriously cool mechanic if it isn't required for your skills to work- but instead could be optional to be used for either added affects if you succeed or detrimental effects if you fail the mini-game, for an extra "risk/reward" element during combat. (Kind of like in a shooter game where you can go through your normal reload- or you can do a mini-game to for a faster reload/higher ammo pool at the risk of failing to reload altogether with a cooldown before you can shoot again).

I think people's main issue was that it could be distracting by bringing your attention away from the battle itself- but that would only be an issue if you are looking at the bar to try to do the mini-game, wheras if you master the timing you don't need to look at the bar. The devs could also have repositioned the bar over the enemy or at the space between you and the enemy so you can still focus on the battle while being able to see it.

If the anti-cheat is weak, it should be a small gain and small loss to miss it or the exploitation is PvP and balance ruining.

Ace1234

@Savic

Yea I love having tactical elements as well. I feel like Ashes could capture that tactical aspect to a degree even in a hybrid combat system.

In a tactics system, positioning and cohesively using all your character options is crucial and part of the fun to me at least, as well as thinking your actions through. I feel that if Ashes provides you with many tools that can be used in synergy with each other, while also making that positioning really important with your movement and having options with different ranges- it would make it imortant to consistently consider how far away you are now, and how far away you want to get, in order to strategically use your options at different ranges, and in different orders to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness.

At that point I think that could simulate those fun aspects to an extent.
A lot of that is still possible in a faster paced combat system where you have to make those decisions on the fly- but if the system encourages that tactical approach, you could make plans ahead of time- as well as having that higher time to kill in combat which allows you more time for strategic thinking and counter-planning.

So I think there are ways to incoporate those ideas with good design.

Child Item