Crowfall

uniqueuser said:

Even a certified weeb admits the combat is trash, Kirun . "Best in the space" in this case amounts to biggest cat turd in the litterbox.

This action combat (which Crowfall is emulating, and badly) that was introduced by cashgrab Asian grinders is one of the worst things to infect Western MMOs in the last decade. They thought it'd be cool to translate fighting game concepts to an MMO, but that doesn't work well in practice so what you're left with is everyone spastically zooming around excrementting AoEs until something dies.

There's gotta be a middle ground somewhere between the sloth-like, tab-targeting past and this tedious spectacle of the present.

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Ok, boomers.

Srathor said:

This is a larger keep siege we had last week. I was running around on Edwen. (Not the point of view)

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Characters move like old people trying to escape some moving staircase.

uniqueuser said:

There's gotta be a middle ground somewhere between the sloth-like, tab-targeting past and this tedious spectacle of the present.

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This game exists and it's called GW2. Are you playing it currently? If no, why not?

EDIT: At some point you Boomers are going to have to face facts. You don't actually want anything beyond tab-targetting snorefests, because they require actually paying attention and that thing you claim you all want in MMOs...skill. Anytime an MMO tries to develop a combat system "outside the box" of tab-targetting, it's always met with "OMG IT'S LIKE A SEIZURE ON-SCREEN!!!", "I'M NOT PLAYING A DDR-FEST GAME!!!" type comments. Why is that?

You guys say the combat stinks, but I just saw a battle stress test in Mortal Online 2 and it was trinash. I can't see a justification any longer for bashing Crowfall while MO2 continues to be pumped up for its engine.

Crowfall is fine when viewed through a OG MMO lense circa 1999-2000.

Pyros said:

To be fair, I'm a big fan of action combat, and I still didn't like BDO. But I think it wasn't the combat itself(which was alright although I didn't get very far into it) and more the mindless grinding aspect on thousands of trash mobs in camps repeating over and over, without any sort of actual challenging relevant content. In that regard it's a lot more like Diablo than your traditional mmo(although I believe they're adding the first actual dungeon soon-ish). I much preferred the Tera and BnS approaches of making action combat but with group content as the focus(and with skilled play the ability to solo said content). Dragon's Nest and Invictus too, if they weren't riddled with the korean F2P disease(more so than the previous 2).

GW2 also does action combat differently, again not a fan of how it plays(and why I only have very mild interest in Crowfall since it looks so similar) but unlike BDO it's the actual combat that bothers me instead of the mmo aspects.

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There are MANY criticisms you can levy at the feet of BDO and some of those you listed are valid reasons why you can dislike the game as whole. It's just that its combat system isn't a criticism that is valid. It is objectively the best, most fluid, interactive combat available currently in the MMO space. People who complain about it either haven't spent enough time learning it or quite literally have fucking Boomer hands and get frustrated by the fact that it actually requires skill/input beyond staring at a wall and hitting a CH macro. Now, we can criticize the fact it doesn't really have much in the way of boss mechanics, group encounters, DDR dungeons design, how it's basically an ARPG in a 3D/MMO world, etc. and most of those would be valid critiques. Combat though? You're a fucking old-timer who is past his fuckin' prime if you think BDO's combat system sucks and any "shaking up" of the tab-targeting system people claim to want isn't actually true then.

And for people who claim to want an "in-between", GW2 is literally that exact system. It has "tab-targeting", while also maintaining an actiony combat system, which can be slanted even more to one end or the other with settings/camera tweaks. And yet, that thread is almost completely dead. I wonder why? It couldn't possibly be because you EQ fossils just want to bitch and moan about the "good 'ole days", complain there isn't any innovation, while continuing to stick to your TLP and "classic" server rotations, could it?

There's PLENTY of innovation and shakeups happening within the MMO space and while this is starting to get off-topic in relation to Crowfall, I just absolutely hate the fucking narrative that MMOs aren't "innovating" anymore. Especially since most of it comes from 35+ year old luddites on their 17th hour of a Ghoulbane camp.

It is more fun to play once you get a clue on what is behind the scenes. Each class has three Promotions. Each toon can have 2-4 minor disc that can be passive abilities and active abilities. Then you can have 2 major discs which give 2 major abilities ( or a passive power or 2)

That is a ton of ways to build a toon. And identifying what you are fighting is a big part of the small unit tactics. To a layman watching a video all that is ignored. In the dregs it is open world GvG based fighting. You fight over farming areas, camps with mob spawns up to and including Captain, chiefs, and king mobs as well as random spawning heralds of one of the gods. (Captains are mostly soloable, Chiefs are small group based mostly some classes might be able to solo one, Kings are 1-2 group based unless you can cheese it. Heralds are 2-5 groups depending on type.

There are random spawn animal mobs as well regulars up through ancient spawns with special loot. There are ghostly spawns at night that can drop the discs for certain things and crafting materials for Major discs and other things.

The Forts and keeps and Castles and outposts are all spots that can be taken and captured, and owned for your guild. Some can be built up and changed some.

All built on and around a modular random land system that changes with each world/campaign that is put out, with variable rules depending on what type of game the GM's want.

If you have an account try it. It has VASTLY changed from even a year and a half ago. And much of its overall charm is in it's flaws.

Whats your FPS in mass pvp?

Kirun said:

There are MANY criticisms you can levy at the feet of BDO and some of those you listed are valid reasons why you can dislike the game as whole. It's just that its combat system isn't a criticism that is valid. It is objectively the best, most fluid, interactive combat available currently in the MMO space. People who complain about it either haven't spent enough time learning it or quite literally have fucking Boomer hands and get frustrated by the fact that it actually requires skill/input beyond staring at a wall and hitting a CH macro. Now, we can criticize the fact it doesn't really have much in the way of boss mechanics, group encounters, DDR dungeons design, how it's basically an ARPG in a 3D/MMO world, etc. and most of those would be valid critiques. Combat though? You're a fucking old-timer who is past his fuckin' prime if you think BDO's combat system sucks and any "shaking up" of the tab-targeting system people claim to want isn't actually true then.

And for people who claim to want an "in-between", GW2 is literally that exact system. It has "tab-targeting", while also maintaining an actiony combat system, which can be slanted even more to one end or the other with settings/camera tweaks. And yet, that thread is almost completely dead. I wonder why? It couldn't possibly be because you EQ fossils just want to bitch and moan about the "good 'ole days", complain there isn't any innovation, while continuing to stick to your TLP and "classic" server rotations, could it?

There's PLENTY of innovation and shakeups happening within the MMO space and while this is starting to get off-topic in relation to Crowfall, I just absolutely hate the fucking narrative that MMOs aren't "innovating" anymore. Especially since most of it comes from 35+ year old luddites on their 17th hour of a Ghoulbane camp.

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If the only innovation your MMO has is combat, then its not really an innovation at all. Whatever "innovation" you can put in within that aspect has been done in a single player game, but much, much, much better. No game aspect in MMO's is ever innovative because its a watered down version of what you can find in any number of single player games.

That's why the MMO genre is dead or stagnate. The mechanics will always be the weakest aspect of MMOs--focusing on combat is like trying to say Michael Bay films would be better IF ONLY the action sets were even more amazing. No one sees the one virtue of these games anymore--especially their developers.

Srathor said:

Oh and we have not had an innovative MMO in 15 years?

This one is trying to be. The worlds we are playing in are generated. The map we are fighting on this week is vastly different than the one from last week. Normally campaigns are supposed to last for a month to 3 months. But they are running faster campaigns to get patches out in beta.

The world rulesets can be somewhat variable. They have not played with it much yet. Still trying to get shit nailed down. But there are lots of talks about wildly different ruleset campaigns. But we will see.

This is the current weeks campaign map.

This is last weeks map.

Yeah some folks are bent on hating the game from info from 5 years ago. Or because they Hate Gordon Walton. Or many various other reasons. Some are even valid.

The graphics suck. The lighting is poor, the animations are clunky, performance sucks. Blah blah blah. Blow it out your ass, you entitled whiny cuntflaps. Shame some of yall have forgotten what it is like to game.

I hate the fact that I am having fun in Crowfall. But I am having fun.

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I haven't kept on it, but this is still a 'start at 0 but retain some gear' on each new "world" right? (Or "Campaign")

So its mixing in a MOBA-MMO-Roguelite system still or have they changed that? For me that was their one decent idea, since it made it kind of NOT an MMO--and I feel like they could compete in that long-term Roguelite-MMO genre since the only games who were really doing it at the time were survival games. (Now you have an explosion of popularity in that genre, but very few MMO style games in that vein since it naturally goes against an MMO's qualities...But even look at the new Viking game. People are really hungry for this niche to be filled....Despite bitching about it, people like the grind, as long as its always productive and feels like its earning them genuine power in the game).

Just curious if the 'vision' has changed or not.

Yeah it has persistence between campaign worlds. They have a clunky import export embargo system. When you are in a campaign world your toon is locked there, and the spirit/world/account bank is separated from the campaign bank. When you join a campaign you have to import in your gear and stuff you want to bring. (Limited amounts based off stacks) Like my Paladin has 12 pieces of gear I want to import in. Out of 50 total imports (account based) for that specific campaign.

When the campaign is done you export out what you want. (use extra accounts to export out extra stuff.) Guild do a LOT of bullshit logistics over this.

You have gear progession and charecter progression with 30 base levels then 5 more levels based off of the "Vessel" you have made. Necromancy made bodys you equip/meatsack into)

You start in a free base Grey vessel. Level cap is 30.
You can get a white vessel made custom. Level cap is 31.
You can get a green vessel made custom. Must be level 31 to equip. Level cap of the green is 32.
You can get a Blue vessel made custom. Must be level 32 to equip. Level cap of the green is 33.
You can get a Purple vessel made custom. Must be level 33 to equip. Level cap of the green is 34.
You can get a Orange vessel made custom. Must be level 34 to equip. Level cap of the green is 35.

They are also introducing a Battle Royal mode. 6 man teams 12 of them. Fight! They have base 30 archtypes for randos. Players can use a copy of thier Crafted toons in the BR.

FPS? I need a steady 30 FPS to actually move forward with installing it.

if 20 FPS and chipping into the teens is common, I'll have to pass.

Lithose said:

If the only innovation your MMO has is combat, then its not really an innovation at all. Whatever "innovation" you can put in within that aspect has been done in a single player game, but much, much, much better. No game aspect in MMO's is ever innovative because its a watered down version of what you can find in any number of single player games.

That's why the MMO genre is dead or stagnate. The mechanics will always be the weakest aspect of MMOs--focusing on combat is like trying to say Michael Bay films would be better IF ONLY the action sets were even more amazing. No one sees the one virtue of these games anymore--especially their developers.

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Not innovation at all? I must've forgot all the AMAZING, totally not boring combat present in MMOs then! Do you mind naming me a couple? Because prior to Tera, they were all tab-targeting snorefests, except maybe a few quirks/gimmicks coming out of Korean "MMOs" like Granado Espada. Tera started what BDO has almost perfected. So, while you could maybe make the argument that BDO was more on the iterative side, to claim that revolutionizing a fundamental aspect of MMOs isn't "innovating"? You couldn't "No True Scotsman!" harder if you tried. If that doesn't reach your bar for innovation, I don't know what possibly could. Each aspect of MMOs looked at on an individual basis will always be done better in a single-player environment.

BDO is also one of the only MMOs out there offering a truly open world. Something a LOT of "vets" here claim they want in the MMO space, no? You can literally play the game almost however you want. Want to just be a tradeskiller that never does combat? Yup! Want to breed horses all day trying to breed the perfect mount? Go ahead! Want to be a fisherman that sails out to the deep ocean for the best fish? You can.

There are really only about two (three depending on what you consider standard) "industry standard" things that BDO doesn't have. One is meaningful PvP progression - you can't really PvP "for gear" in BDO, nor can you climb the gear ladder via PvP. The game does force you to engage in some sort of PvE aspect to make meaningful gear progression. It does cap gear score in T1 node wars, however, so you can PvP without gear advantage making a difference. The only other thing it doesn't really have is "raid" content - at least if we're assuming "raid" content is the classical EQ/WoW model. It did away with the "holy trinity", you can farm/grind whatever mobs you want, many of those locations having rare spawns/drops/"bosses", extremely rare but extremely valuable/useful items that can take days worth of time to farm, etc. "Open-world" dungeons/content designed for group play, etc. I guess there might be a third if you consider "quest to progress" a standard now (there is a point in the game where questing can be an effective method of leveling, but it's an extremely brief window that only lasts a few levels and is still less efficient than group-play). I personally don't, but I could see how some would and you could include it as a third standard the game is missing.

People bitching about having to "grind" in BDO or "running around in circles" killing mobs are the same people longing for the days staring at the fucking safe wall in LGuk. If you hated it in EQ and it wasn't the game for you while also shitting on BDO for it? Fine. But a lot of the people bitching about what a "grindfest" BDO is are the same fucking people who spent 30 hours camping for their SMR while playing every other TLP Darkpaw drops. I fail to see how plopping yourself in a room and staring at a wall while mobs are corralled to you is at all fundamentally different than running around a cave/"dungeon"/open-world area farming respawning mobs.
While none of those systems are obviously innovative systems by themselves, they've combined a lot of "industry standard" stuff along with revolutionizing one of the most fundamental things present in MMOs - combat. If that isn't "innovative", I don't know what the fuck could ever meet your impossibly high bar of moving the genre forward. By those standards, WoW did nothing to move the genre forward - all Blizzard really did was iterate and "perfect" systems EQ/MUDs had set and the "! questing" system is only innovation in one area! Hell, you could even argue the same of EQ in '99. All Verant "innovated" was moving MUDs to 3D. By your standards, fundamentally changing a singular aspect isn't enough and single player games did it better anyhow - System Shock 2 and Unreal Tournament both released that year, which were far better in the context of 3D innovations.

Pyros said:

the mindless grinding aspect on thousands of trash mobs in camps repeating over and over

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I dunno, sounds like Everquest to me.

Kirun said:

This game exists and it's called GW2. Are you playing it currently? If no, why not?

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No, for three reasons: A) it's gay, 2) it's old news, and D) it's shit overall. The pace isn't as feverish but it's still afflicted by the same Asian disease and the usual comorbidity of cooldown management cancer. As an aside, arbitrary cooldowns + MMO action combat has to be the most contradictory pairing ever conceived. As if cooldowns don't already disrupt the flow of combat and distract from it directly, who here enjoys getting jacked up just because all your egg timers happen to be ticking when the other guy's aren't? If I could travel back in time I wouldn't bother murdering Marx but hunt down the moron that first suggested this concept and pop everything on a skillshot to his nuts.

As for BDO and its ilk, a dexterity requirement doesn't set the bar for player ability and even boomer hands can still reliably cancel animations to perform state-based combos. You're bringing to mind the FPS retards who always clamor for manual aiming in MMOs, believing that splashing fireballs at your enemy's feet is the truest test of skill instead of mostly a crapshoot in this environment. Take these elements and add them to the typically overdesigned RPG and it creates the illusion of more strategic/tactical depth than actually exists.

MMO combat doesn't have to rely on early CRPG tropes or mechanics from other genres to be good. It should be built from a skeleton of simple, thematically appropriate actions that can be assembled in either expected or emergent ways to produce complexity without being complicated. It should try to take advantage of the technology available today in a novel fashion but always in deference to its limitations and the constraints of our prehistoric human-computer interface. I know this is a vague prescription but I don't think many devs are even starting from these principles, let alone expanding on them.

Kirun said:

BDO is also one of the only MMOs out there offering a truly open world. Something a LOT of "vets" here claim they want in the MMO space, no? You can literally play the game almost however you want. Want to just be a tradeskiller that never does combat? Yup! Want to breed horses all day trying to breed the perfect mount? Go ahead! Want to be a fisherman that sails out to the deep ocean for the best fish? You can.

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Last I knew the game has instanced housing and controlled PvP areas. Having the option of doing nothing but fishing and crafting things is incidental to the world being "open". It's a pseudo-sandbox at best.

Kirun said:

If that isn't "innovative", I don't know what the fuck could ever meet your impossibly high bar of moving the genre forward.

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Jumping in here, but we could start with this:

and if the implementation is true to the spirit, that'd do it for me.

That's how low the bar is at this point.

Kirun said:

how it's basically an ARPG in a 3D/MMO world, etc

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Kirun said:

Combat though? You're a fucking old-timer who is past his fuckin' prime if you think BDO's combat system sucks and any "shaking up" of the tab-targeting system people claim to want isn't actually true then.

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Right, it's a great ARPG combat system where you're aoeing down hordes of mobs and doing some good action-oriented combos and stuff. Slower-paced EQ-style combat isn't comparable because it's a completely different genre outside of the MMO aspect, so it's really apples and oranges not some "objectively better" thing.