Best examples of Action Combat? Starting to Feel Like Tab > Action

Yours truly is trying a lot of different MMO's lately, and it's starting to feel pointless to have an Action-style combat system in a real MMORPG.

Now, I've tried Lost Ark - which is probably the end-all of Action-style combat systems. I didn't stick with it (80 hours, according to the tracker) because Lost Ark feels like a single-player game. It's almost akin to a 2D-scroller, except you can move in all of the compass directions. The most useful insight it provided is that Action-style combat really isn't very useful against a single opponent, since the game is capable of not registering that you're trying to hit the enemy; it's true usefulness seems to be in fighting against groups of enemies. However, most MMO's will let you tab-target either yourself or a single enemy, and then fire off an AoE ability, in fighting groups.

Since enemies in MMO's tend to gather directly around you or bunch up together in small, cloistered groups that you can just AoE, is it really necessary to HAVE Action-style combat in an MMO? Isn't it more of a hack-and-slash game feature?

Just started trying Guild Wars 2 - which in previous forums-threads, some people identify as Action-combat, while others identify it as Tab-targeting. I've come to define GW2 as Action-combat, since you don't have to have an enemy targeted to use your combat abilities, and your weapon swings freely - damaging any enemies in your way. I've already tried Lineage 2, since AoC is supposed to take a lot of inspiration from it's systems, and just find it too static/old now to really get into, as a new player.

Are there some really good examples of Action-based systems anyone can recommend? I'm not enjoying the feel/gameplay of GW2, atm.

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Noaani

mcstackerson wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Okeydoke wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

PvP-centric MMORPGs rarely have enough players to last long.

God damnit Dygz.

Pvp-centric mmos, which I'm assuming to mean mmos with a higher pvp focus, are capable of doing just fine. Black Desert Online, Archeage, Lineage, others I'm sure I'm missing. We're talking player counts in the millions between all these games. Tens of millions potentially

While each of these games attracted a million or more subs at some stage, none of them retained that many players for all that long, and only BDO has a population that would be able to support Ashes staying live.

This has been the story for new MMOs for a while now, not just the ones you are cherry picking.

I didnt pick them, they were picked as examples of high population PvP MMO's by someone else.

And yes, it is normal for population drop offs to happen. However, the initial drop off with PvP is generally significantly higher than the drop off for PvE.

Sadly, we haven't had a recent PvE MMO to compare recent PvP drop offs.

However, I do agree with you that it is not singular aspects of games that make them popular. However, some games are indeed limited by their feature set.

Okeydoke

Noaani wrote: »

I'm going to pull you up here.

My point isn't about the current player base of Lineage II, a 15 year old game. Nor is it about the current player base of Archeage, a 9 year old game that destroyed it's player base with p2w, broken promises and unchecked cheating/hacking within a few months of launch.

Nor is it about the current player base of Black Desert, a 7 year old p2w, mmo. I think you missed my point entirely.

The point is that these games prove there is a market for more...I don't even know what to call it at this point, is it pvp focused, is it pvp centric, nah bro its pvx. Ok, you know what I'm talking about though. Games with more pvp features than average. Open world pvp. They prove there's a market for it. And this is only three games, there's far more.

The market is there for a profitable game, it's undeniable. The main point of my post was that you have to make a quality game if you want to capture and maintain a sizeable part of that market. The games I listed, they all have problems. Moderate to major problems. And some of them are still running and apparently profitable. Some of them are even coming out with sequels lol. Archeage 2, the at least partially Lineage inspired Throne and Liberty.

These people must be nuts right? Why would they make these games just to lose money? What is Steven DOING, someone warn him omg

I don't know how many Korean players Ashes will pull. I know they're going to have servers in the region so they intend to pull some. Who knows how many. Kind of depends on...how good the game is.

Your BDO number of 150k you listed as a daily count, not total. Not sure if the other two are daily or total. But totals are higher. Regardless, we know the potential pool of players that Ashes can pull from is in the millions. Doesn't mean they'll get them all, or get them all immediately.

The games not even out yet, has years before it will be but there's already millions of people at least interested.

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/47073/aoc-has-gotten-roughly-2-million-new-registered-accounts-in-2-years

We'll see how it turns out. There are no guarantees, but there is very big potential. If they make a good game.

Noaani

Okeydoke wrote: »

The point is that these games prove there is a market for more...

I dont think they do prove that.

I think they prove that there is a market for a game with a 3 month persistent PvP cycle, and nothing more.

Dygz

There is a market for PvX games? Maybe.
If you can pretty much completely avoid PvP, I wouldn’t call that a PvX game.

PvP-centric MMORPGs are ones that most PvE players will refuse to play. And those games tend to be niche.

Of course, PvE players will play MMORPGs where they can completely opt out PvP.
There is certainly a large market for that.

There seems to be a large percentage of PvPers who want to play on the same servers as the PvEers. With no segregation for those two playstyles. Yes. There is market for that. Problem is, PvEers tend to be reluctant to do that.
And Steven will tell you that it’s the PvErs who are the backbones of MMORPGs.

So, we’ll have to see whether it’s possible for PvX MMORPG to become more common than the rare PvP-centric MMORPGs.

And we still have to see if Ashes will even have action combat. Though, hopefully it will.

Okeydoke

Noaani wrote: »

I think they prove that there is a market for a game with a 3 month persistent PvP cycle, and nothing more.

Not sure what you mean. As in it will take 3 months on average before one side completely dominates a server, and then people start quitting?

If so, yeah I have concerns about that. Not overly concerned at this point, but some concern.

Noaani

Okeydoke wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I think they prove that there is a market for a game with a 3 month persistent PvP cycle, and nothing more.

Not sure what you mean. As in it will take 3 months on average before one side completely dominates a server, and then people start quitting?

People don't start leaving when one side starts dominating, they start leaving when they start losing.

From a game publishers standpoint, any player that has a win/loss ration worse than 2/5 is at a serious risk of leaving the game. This is why things like arenas and matchmaking put players in brackets - they want as many people as possible floating around a 50/50 ratio. Get too far above that ratio, and they put you in a higher bracket. Go below it by enough, and they start giving you easier opponents.

Open world PvP takes that and throws it hard against the wall, scrapes it up with a spoon, and flushes it down the toilet. There will be anywhere from 25 - 60% of players with a ratio that low at the start of a game, and the game punishes them for it, rewards those that are already beating them, and then throws the two back together to do it all over again in the hopes of a different outcome.

If the paradigm of persistent, open world PvP were put in to a lobby/matchmaker type game, literally every player would look at it and ask the developers what the fuck they are doing.

Since we have not heard a single thing from Intrepid as to what they plan to do about this, imo it should literally be every potential Ashes players primary concern, as it will be what reduces the games population by as much as 75% in the first 6 months.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

The possibility doesn’t matter as much as how much it actually happens.
More PvP-centric than Ashes does not make Lineage II inherently PvP-centric by design.

The PvP part of Lineage II dying more and more supports my claim.
What you seem to be saying is that some PvPers perceived Lineage II to be PvP-centric. The dev updates did not support that because the devs don’t perceive the game to be PvP-centric.
And you freely admit that you are in a bubble with a heavily biased and narrow view.

Yeah, just like the designer of this children's toy wanted its players to put different shapes into different holes. Except he left the possibility of putting everything into the same one.

Like I said, players' preferred playstyle doesn't always match with dev's content goals. And if anything, I'd say that all the people who stopped playing L2 after certain updates voted with their wallets in the same way millions of WoW players left after WoTL. I'm sure if you ask all those millions of players whether the current WoW and the vanilla expansions that they remember are the same game, they'd probably say that it's not even close. And I'd assume that's because the devs made changes in the game's direction that those players didn't like.

And L2's changes hit its playerbase way harder exactly because it went from a pvp game to an instanced mmo. But I get that it's pointless to bring up this point because you don't value player experience as high as dev intentions, so whatever.

234Graph

ELRYNO wrote: »

Personally, I've played a few games in the past that have provided interesting ways of incorporating "action combat" into their games I'll list a few below.

Witcher 3
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Dragons Dogma
Elden Ring
Smite (Moba)

And last but not least: Spellbreak (Very much a BR "action-spellcaster" but could have been an amazing action combat RPG).

For me at least, this game was a complete success in pushing the boundaries of a "projectile" based combat game that resulted in fast paced and intense PvP. The game did however feel pretty chaotic because of the high level of mobility, APOC felt similar in a lot of ways where the pace of combat was consistently at 110mph with very few dips in intensity. The Developers of Spellbreak created a trajectory arc based aiming system, the projection of some spells is shown by an indicator and would cause aoe damage on impact. Please see below images.

All abilities can be combo'd with other spells. Most spells will leave elemental effects behind such as frozen zones, burning zones, poison zones etc and made for some interesting interactions. I will leave a video below that better shows off the spells and combinations.

Spell combination & trajectory indicator examples - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3WmEOhzTKk

Now, slightly more off topic, but I have always envisioned a toned down style of Spellbreak combat that would be interesting in an MMORPG, I'm not necessarily saying Ashes, but an MMORPG nonetheless. :

The thought of using a system similar to Spellbreak's but incorporating deeper class mechanics & a variety of abilities has always peaked my interests. Using this trajectory based missile system with ranged classes in an MMO where the spells are able to be aimed whilst on the move, causing splash damage + secondary effects that could be combo'd with other classes. The thought of running into battle and arrows / fireballs raining down on my enemies from my ranged team mates behind me just looks awesome in my head. It's also noted that although Smite is similar in it's approach to combat, however it is no way near as intuitive & fluid as Spellbreak's combat in my opinion, ofcourse they are two entirely different genre's but style of combat is similar.

My thoughts are that spells could be "charged" and then released, e.g certain spells damage would increase based on the length of charge time, therefore encouraging ranged classes to think moreso about positioning and setup to get a clear shot, but they could also get their spells off quickly and reposition by casting the spell earlier in it's "charge", this wouldn't be hugely effective damage but they wouldn't be locked into a cast timer that they are forced to cancel halfway through due to being gap closed. I think this would encourage dynamic combat and spell placement rather than having a pre-determined location or target. Additionally AOE damage would mean that the player didn't have to be 100% accurate to hit, similarly to melee swings or charged melee attacks that are usually based on proximity and "cleave" rather than accuracy.

The spell cycle would go something like this "Press spell > Spell charges > during spell charge player movement is still possible > button is clicked to confirm missile release > right click / dodge / esc to cancel spell charge" The "missile" based spell in these scenarios would have multiple outcomes such as direct hit, AOE damage & zone control but could also combo up, E.G if two direct hits land from a frost spell in the last 5 seconds the target will be frozen in place for 2 seconds. This in combination with cone, frontal & line based "Skill shots" would, in my opinion be very interesting in the MMORPG space.

One thing I think an MMORPG desperately needs when compared with these action games is a variety of meaningful melee barrier spells and ranged zone control spells. What I mean by this is physical blocks, cone & frontal "skill shots" and abilities to disengage effectively, whether that's blocking an opponents path toward you, reflecting spells or telegraphed attacks that allow for counter play. I'm frankly a bit bored of an AOE blizzard or a big slash of my sword, give me abilities like Sejuani's Bola Ulti or Braums Shield.

Now I know this is a completely different genre of game, but seriously lets take LOL for example, the champion Taliyah can wall off parts of the map, lay down large aoe slows & displace her enemies using a dynamically positioned & rotated AOE ability, they have 4 abilities but the pace and dynamic feel, fluidity & polish of the combat is unmatched (Sorry Dota Fans). However, the possibility of outplaying these abilities is always there which is a key part of PvP and "skill expression".

Is it a case that these sorts of combat interactions can't be incorporated into a 3rd Person game, or they simply haven't been successfully incorporated yet? Alas the above is just opinion and take from it what you will ☺️.

Edit: Possibly the direction in which Riot are going with their MMO? Who knows?!

Love this idea

234Graph

NiKr wrote: »

One of my biggest dreams for an mmo is a particle-based spell-crafting mmo. The balance would be around character stats (that you yourself allocate), which would determine your range of control when in comes to spell-crafting. But the main point would be that you can create your own spells. I feel like UE5 could manage to support such a design idea and make it look really cool, but I dunno if there's development tools that can streamline the coding process for it. And depending on the coding part, you could determine which combat system would fit the design the best.

"Two Worlds 2" had something like that and that came out in 2010

Ludullu

234Graph wrote: »

"Two Worlds 2" had something like that and that came out in 2010

Never even heard about that game, but after watching this video I now want an mmo with this kind of system even more

it's pretty much what I had in mind, except mine was a bit more granular and based on your stat attribution rather than preexisting cards. And obviously making that kind of system for an mmo would be an absolute balancing and coding hell, but god damn would it be fun as hell and the most unique spell system in the genre.

superhero6785

I'm curious how stats like "dodge chance" or "accuracy" will work with action combat. It would suck to land a great snipe only to see the word "Miss" float up. Those are great stats when using Tab Targeting but irrelevant for Action Combat. How will a hybrid system take this into account?

Zyvan

superhero6785 wrote: »

I'm curious how stats like "dodge chance" or "accuracy" will work with action combat. It would suck to land a great snipe only to see the word "Miss" float up. Those are great stats when using Tab Targeting but irrelevant for Action Combat. How will a hybrid system take this into account?

I've been hoping that only the tab target skills are affected by stuff like dodge/guard/etc. Because as you said, I don't want to have to aim a skill only for "Miss" or "Blocked" to pop up over my target's head. Hopefully action skills are only affected by defense and/or resistances, and if rng stats must come into play then they'd only affect them to a lesser extent.

Dygz

I mean… it’s more that tab-target will be vs RNG and action defenses will have little RNG vs action attacks.

My player twitch skill vs your player twitch skill for action combat.

You can’t really actively dodge or block a tab-target attack.

Burnzey

I think for action style games you need at least 5 abilities, any less and the combat feels repetitive and reduces total user utility.

ESO has this, but because there are no cool downs and a lot of the abilities are boring anyway it's combat mechanics are super lackluster for me angway

Merek

I guess we'll have to wait and see what Intrepid does, they supposedly know what we all want, but I'm not holding my breath for anything mind blowing. I expect the system to fall into a very safe space, as to not scare away customers. Which is a disappointing thought.

OP: Dragons Dogma Online is a decent example of action combat, but the service closed years ago. You can always try Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen, as the combat is nearly 1:1. It's a PvE centric game, so the combat isn't built with PvP in mind.

Cypher

OP, Lost Ark is a bad example of an Action Combat system because it’s a hack and slash game. Yes, it technically has action combat, but as you said it really isn’t great against single target enemies because it’s just made to destroy hordes of them rather than big bosses. I also think a lot of the immersion that comes from action combat is truly lost in an isometric game like Lost Ark, compared to a 3rd person game. (Camera positioning)

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