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Ildur · **08-13-2013, 05:43 PM**

TERA was grindy, yes, but that had nothing to do with the combat and all to do with the quest design. There were only three things at which TERA was good: the combat, the art design and unique racial-gender animations/clothes.
Quests were boring 'kill ten bears for their rears' which are a sad strapple of MMO games.

I also don't know how you could get bored of circle straffing a mob to death unless all you played were warriors (and maybe slayers, but I never got the hang of slayers). The other classes had to kite, dodge, slow the enemy...the most boring class was probably lancer, because they could sit in a spot and block constantly. But even -them- had to turn around and block the other way when facing hyenas. Those friggin' hyenas.

I accept that the reticle and camera controls could have been better, but a lot of action games (of the non mmo variety, like Dark Souls or Kingdoms of Amalur) also center the camera on the mob. I also think you could hold a directional key to force your character into attacking in a particular direction. I remember doing so constantly with my berserker, at least.

Twinflame · **08-13-2013, 05:54 PM**

TERA's Nexus was just the stupidest fucking thing and was nothing like anything else in the game at all ever period. It was the most ridiculous rip-off of Rift events and didn't even look like them and broke the servers every three hours and as long as I live I hope I never see anything like it in video games ever again.

That's all I have to say about that. <3 u all ~

Naunet · **08-13-2013, 05:56 PM**

(08-13-2013, 05:36 PM)allgivenover Wrote: Oh yes, so different and revolutionary~ it's still a bunch of high level people surrounding a boss mob and spamming heal/dps moves, while occasionally moving out of the way of area of effect attacks.

... You post a video of nexus to illustrate TERA combat. I am having so many lols right now. xD

Nexus is a low-fps zergfest that everyone hates but they do it because you get need the crafting mats for the top tier endgame gear. It's awful and certainly not representative of TERA's combat.

Try this video of a warrior soloing a smoldering moloch bam or maybe a video of Manaya's Core Hard Mode. But definitely not the craptastic zergfest of nexus. xD

[edit] Weird. I coded for URL links, but it embedded the videos anyway... ew. D:

(08-13-2013, 05:54 PM)Twinflame Wrote: TERA's Nexus was just the stupidest fucking thing and was nothing like anything else in the game at all ever period. It was the most ridiculous rip-off of Rift events and didn't even look like them and broke the servers every three hours and as long as I live I hope I never see anything like it in video games ever again.

Bahahahaha yes. So true. xD

allgivenover · **08-13-2013, 05:59 PM**

I still don't see how it's different from moving out of a mob boss's frontal cone area attack, or backing off to avoid a mob centered aoe in a traditional tab target MMO. The interface the player uses is different, that's really it.

Naunet · **08-13-2013, 06:02 PM**

(08-13-2013, 05:59 PM)allgivenover Wrote: I still don't see how it's different from moving out of a mob boss's frontal cone area attack, or backing off to avoid a mob centered aoe in a traditional tab target MMO. The interface the player uses is different, that's really it.

You can avoid literally every attack a mob does in a game like TERA. Every attack has a "telegraph", even if it's just a very brief lifting of one arm. That is not the case for tab-target games, as most attacks from mobs are completely unavoidable. That pirate punching you in the face? He'll be punching you in the face even if you try to run to one side or behind him. That caster mob spamming fireballs at you? Those fireballs will hit no matter where you go. This turns tab-target combat into a race of "who can do the most damage fast enough", which takes a lot of the control out of the hands of the player.

Ildur · **08-13-2013, 06:07 PM**

I don't see how First Person Shooters are any different from MMOs: they still rely on not getting hit by the enemy by moving yourself away from wherever they are aiming, or backing off to avoid their grenades. The inferface is different, that's really it.

See? I can also reduce all combat systems to 'don't get hit by the enemy'. Tongue

LandStander · **08-13-2013, 06:07 PM**

I'm okay with the tab targeting-esque style that SE has decided to implement. I have played Tera and other action oriented combat games and think that they were nice for awhile, but I usually always end up going back to something a little more slower and turn based. I personally would prefer the current system to be slightly slower so I can actually type, but I guess I will have to buy a mic and actually speak online *remembers the days of having to talk to people over Xbox Live*Â Undecided

.Â Something about actually giving planning my moves out has always appealed to me; probably because that is the kind of RPGs that I have been raised on.Â

I personally think GW2 had a much better combat system than Tera. It had a nice amount of action with dodging, jumping, etc., and it was not overwhelming with a bizzilion hotkeys to press. If only they had some kind of endgame that existed that was outside of PvP.

Edit: In response to the article I think its a bit bs. Its saying that people in their 30's and 50's can't keep up with teenagers in gaming because they have dulling senses when the opposite would be true. It has been scientifically proven that gamer's have faster reflexes and also have a much lower chance of acquiring brain degenerative diseases such as Alzheimers.

I'm personally just more lazy than I was 10 years ago and don't want to keep myself in a high stress twitch kill environment like I was back in high school when Counter-Strike was all the hype. That is the reason why I have a job to help the greying of my hair :3

Ildur · **08-13-2013, 06:12 PM**

My problem with GW2 is...well, not the combat. That was actually quite nice and fun. They screwed it up with dungeon design and the implementation of all those 'one hit kills' that are supposed to be telegraphed but you can't see. Why can't you see them? Because the animation gets buried into a pile of special FX.

allgivenover · **08-13-2013, 06:15 PM**

Only in poorly designed content. It's certainly not limited to a DPS epeen race as you describe. An earlier post of yours...

Quote:I was very heavily into progression end game raiding and arenas in WoW for some time, so I'd also like to clarify that the "spamming buttons and winner takes all" perception is also very off-base. There was a lot of strategy that went into pretty much every button I pressed when healing a raid or in an arena

...is that strategy and timing of your heals not evidence that it's not the control scheme or lack of being "trapped in a tab-target" interface that determines how skill based a game is? It's certainly a different way of going about it, but I disagree that it's inherently superior and that ARR would've benefited from an action combat system.

In my case I actually enjoy playing the odds and don't like the fact that an entire attack can be mitigated if my ping is high enough and I can get out of the way in time. I wasn't around in TERA for very long, but it was infuriating to lose out in PVP because someone lived much closer to the servers than I did.

Speaking of server latency and infrastructure, yes, South Korea has better internet infrastructure than we do, but even if we had an equal level of infrastructure we still wouldn't see nearly the same amount of reduced latency that South Korea enjoys. South Korea is roughly 100 timesÂ smaller than the USA, and in our case the vast geographical distance that connections have to cross would cancel out a good portion of the benefit that better infrastructure would provide.

Naunet · **08-13-2013, 06:21 PM**

(08-13-2013, 06:15 PM)allgivenover Wrote: ...is that strategy and timing of your heals not evidence that it's not the control scheme or lack of being "trapped in a tab-target" interface that determines how skill based a game is?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here and in fact haven't brought up the word "skill" at all in any of my posts in this thread. My post was in response to people likening a faster-paced game to mindless button mashing, which it is not.

[edit] Incidentally, there's not all that significant a difference in ping between playing any given MMO on the east coast or the west coast or in the middle of the country or whathaveyou. Maybe a few tens of ms.

Zyrusticae · **08-13-2013, 06:25 PM**

(08-13-2013, 05:12 PM)lady2beetle Wrote: That's why it really makes me happy that FFXIV is moving more in the direction of the latter. More strategy, more cooperation, less reflex. *shrugs*

But the way the developers described the harder fights in the game, you'll have to maximize your DPS down to the decimal point to win the most difficult challenges. I somehow fail to see how that's very different from reflexes being a major factor in the design (and you can bet they will be a part, as you'll have to react quickly to certain changes on the field in order to succeed).

CallmeYahweh · **08-13-2013, 06:27 PM**

I am firmly in the 'tab targeting' camp of MMO players.

I'm okay with it being mostly a numbers game; that's what old school roleplaying games were. Generally, I find that the 'twitch reflex' games are better left to FPS and fighting games. When it's put into an MMO, the result is, (I feel!) a shoehorned attempt to stay 'with the times' or whatever. Tera's combat felt lackluster and I quickly got tired of clicking my mouse over and over again. GW2 was a solid mix of tab and action but the game turned into a huge spamfest with very little considerations put into place for the systems. And, my hands got tired pretty quickly while playing.

When playing Tera I kept thinking to myself, why don't I just go pop Devil May Cry into my PS3 and do that instead?

allgivenover · **08-13-2013, 06:29 PM**

(08-13-2013, 06:21 PM)Naunet Wrote: [edit] Incidentally, there's not all that significant a difference in ping between playing any given MMO on the east coast or the west coast or in the middle of the country or whathaveyou. Maybe a few tens of ms.

Wow, yes there is. If there was no difference then explain the vast popularity of proxy services like WTFast and Smoothping. You should try playing Aion PVP at endgame, where in some cases having a ping as high as 120 ms as I do can translate to a huge disadvantage when facing someone with a ping as low as 80 ms due to them living a state or two closer. Some classes are downright impossible to play well if you live too far from Texas, where the servers are located. /cough Assassin.

Ildur · **08-13-2013, 06:29 PM**

I'd just like to point out that TERA's PVP stinks like a dead cow left to rot in a deep trench filled with other dead creatures for various reasons. The most obvious reason was that PvP was gear dependant, so getting punched in the face when you didn't have the top gear (which required a lot of defeat-grinds in battlegrounds) resulted in you being dead in one nanosecond.

The other reason is that it sucks the same way First Person Shooters suck: if you had anything more than 100ms, you were at a disadvantage. If you were higher than 200, you were a serious liability. More than 300 and you were dead before being able to say "Dead!".
Well, technically anything higher than 40ms is a disadvantage on hardcore PvP. But details.

I think we have stablished that action combat isn't everyone's cup of tea, mostly thanks to how latency dependant it is.

Hyrist · **08-13-2013, 06:32 PM**

(08-13-2013, 06:02 PM)Naunet Wrote: You can avoid literally every attack a mob does in a game like TERA. Every attack has a "telegraph", even if it's just a very brief lifting of one arm. That is not the case for tab-target games, as most attacks from mobs are completely unavoidable. That pirate punching you in the face? He'll be punching you in the face even if you try to run to one side or behind him. That caster mob spamming fireballs at you? Those fireballs will hit no matter where you go. This turns tab-target combat into a race of "who can do the most damage fast enough", which takes a lot of the control out of the hands of the player.

Which is more than fine by me. Honestly I prefer to have some unavoidable attacks there.

I disagree with the implication that FFXIV in particular is all about who can do damage fast enough. There's plenty of avoidable, telegraphed attacks in the game. And honestly, compared to games like Tera and Guild Wars 2, the system feels more solid to me. In action combat MMOs I feel the burn out a lot quicker. Even that FFXIV and games like it are slower paced, they're appropriately paced.

There is a pacing in there that keeps fights going and engaging even multiple runs in, where in a faster paced, action MMO it feels like it would lend itself better to, well honestly, console games. Even with FFXIV I feel better with a gamepad in my hand than with key-binds and a gaming mouse. Sure, I preform better with such things on games like Guild Wars 2 but the result is a more stressful experience for ultimately no additional return on enjoyment.

But this has nothing to do with the aging of gamers and more to do with simply preferring a different playstyle. You can make heated accusations of 'boring' or 'dull', but these are ultimately subjective. MMOs will always and forever be about appealing to a niche, and that niche is not the same from game to game, nor should it be reflective on the game's quality what particular appeal it is leaning towards - but rather that it does so effectively.

However, more to the subject of the thread: Roleplayers will decide on an individual level what sort of games appeal to them - not on a culture based level. Action MMOs, Traditional MMOs, all of it is irrelevant, really. If someone is in love with the story and lore of a game, and has a penchant for roleplaying there will be some.

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The greying of the MMO and what does it mean for RP players?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes