dunno. but if he was responsible for some of vg class designs, i'd want some of that design onboard (just not leading)
EQ Never
- Thread starter Convo
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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So much this. I don't think MMO combat can ever be "fun". Not unless something revolutionary happens. By their nature, MMOs are social constructs. You can't socialize if 70%+ of your time is spent "interacting" with combat.
Dyvim
Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Well long downtime to regen up wont come back, even EQ1 introduced OOC regen eventually (i think it was 60 secs no aggro and filling up a bubble on all your bars per tick, even works when youre freshly rezzed back into raid action).
But the longer drawn out abilities/spells +cooldown worked to a longer combating and chatting while still paying at least somewhat attention to keep control of the fight.
For example slow not sticking, mob runs, snare not sticking, puller gets trained, or jumped by respawn etc. these difficulties required bascially every role in the group to pay some attention to the show or chances were you could look for cleric pal to rezz your groups lousy butts.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Which is exactly what some people sound like. They want to hit attack, then just chat away via text to their group so they can live up to what they think a "MMORPG" is.
And this is such a load of horseshit. Especially that last line.
I think what we miss most is for damage to be secondary and not a great show of skill of who can use what abilities in the right order. In EQ damage was secondary to the fact of actually managing what was going on all around you. You had enchanters doing CC, melee beating on stuff and keeping them off casters, wizards and druids on snareing, monk pulling, healer healing and managing aggro and bring mobs back to the tank if they pulled aggro. However if the group worked well together all of it could be done while chatting away and having fun. Nothing ever seemed so hectic as to stop and focus all attention on actually killing the mobs unless you had massive respawns or got trained.
In WoW you have so many skills you need to hit and constantly have to move to find new mobs in dungrons that no one really has time to chat. Combat gets hectic watching every one of your abilities and hitting them in the right order to make sure you do optimal damage or risk getting booted from the group for doing lousy dps.
In Eq you had a small set of abilities that had reasonable cooldowns and such that allowed for a more casual combat. Sure you had some hardcore groups that wanted massive trains everytime for max xp, but alot of people were content to actually talk and play casually.
WoW changed it all up unfortunetly.
In WoW you have so many skills you need to hit and constantly have to move to find new mobs in dungrons that no one really has time to chat. Combat gets hectic watching every one of your abilities and hitting them in the right order to make sure you do optimal damage or risk getting booted from the group for doing lousy dps.
In Eq you had a small set of abilities that had reasonable cooldowns and such that allowed for a more casual combat. Sure you had some hardcore groups that wanted massive trains everytime for max xp, but alot of people were content to actually talk and play casually.
WoW changed it all up unfortunetly.
There was not that much downtime in dungeons go get that clarity, someone would always hook it up if you came to them. Boom that leads to socialization and relationships. Then they die your cleric res them. Or play something else I had no down time ever on monk. Bards and chanters made it non stop combat unless there was a huge pull or something random happened.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Are people straight up refusing to join community Teamspeak servers or use PTT? I swear people think you can only socialize by typing.
Ya well sometimes voice chat blows. Example during rift launch Draegan when he is tired sounds like Buffalo Bill.
No it includes heroics as well, we did some of those. They were a lot better, but still I didn't like them for all the reasons I've previously described. DPS had nothing to do besides dance dance revolution, so they spent their time obsessing over their numbers. Occasional adds were handled by turning them in to a fucking sheep, which couldn't be resisted or broken or whatever. Aggro was managed by looking at the agro-o-meter, healers seemed to have plenty of mana, tanks could fly around aggroing shit easily, mobs didn't respawn and wanderers were very uncommon and very predictable, idiots were helped by putting a giant star icon above the mob they had to kill etc.etc... The whole thing was basically just a McDungeon which was easy to handle, and after you've done it once, there are never any surprises in the future because it's exactly the same every time you ever play it again.
EQ might have been a lot simpler in terms of technology - no scripted things with cutscenes or whatever, but it was a lot more chaotic and challenging and I much prefer that.
More or less the same. I quit EQ in the early days of AA's and never went back.
I found EQ very interesting, I still play it today. I don't think there is a technical issue with it, I think they are just too busy whoring themselves out to the lowest common denominator gamer these days. The games are expensive to make, they want them to be playable by *everyone*, but that includes your 8 year old nephew and his 7 year old brother and your 65 year old nosey aunt who has never played games before, and little timmy 14 year old who has only ever played Callodoody before and is confused by all these different colored buttons and stuff.
So they make it simple enough to be played by everyone, and it becomes hugely popular, and now that is the standard everyone else goes with. Great, except for the minority who want something harder.
p.s. And we've still never really had anything since EQ. Even when they were making Vanguard, they chickened out of making it with hardcore gamers in mind. They were so scared of even saying the word "hardcore", that they came up with that bullshit term, "Core Gamer" instead, which was a total nonsense. The result imo, is that it doesn't really appeal to the casual/noob types because they hated having no fast travel, long levelling times, etc.. And yet it didn't appeal to the hardcore gamers either because it inundates you with on-rails quests, WoW auction house, over tuned dungeons, easy combat, etc.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I reckon they would have been far better to just go one way or the other. They should have either made it a pure WoW clone (like it is now - but back when it was new), or just make it a true hardcore game like a new EQ, which it almost was but not close enough.
So they make it simple enough to be played by everyone, and it becomes hugely popular, and now that is the standard everyone else goes with. Great, except for the minority who want something harder.
p.s. And we've still never really had anything since EQ. Even when they were making Vanguard, they chickened out of making it with hardcore gamers in mind. They were so scared of even saying the word "hardcore", that they came up with that bullshit term, "Core Gamer" instead, which was a total nonsense. The result imo, is that it doesn't really appeal to the casual/noob types because they hated having no fast travel, long levelling times, etc.. And yet it didn't appeal to the hardcore gamers either because it inundates you with on-rails quests, WoW auction house, over tuned dungeons, easy combat, etc.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I reckon they would have been far better to just go one way or the other. They should have either made it a pure WoW clone (like it is now - but back when it was new), or just make it a true hardcore game like a new EQ, which it almost was but not close enough.
I feel like any skill that you must press every 1.5 seconds to maintain dps should just be baked into autoattack. I want skills to be be about reactivity, timing, and using an effect to change the flow of a fight. Not to repeat forever and ever without any purpose than +damage. Using a stun to break casting, using a quick damage absorb skill to prevent an incoming damage spike...stuff like that. I just hate the constant predictable and repetitive button mashing rotations. I don't want to just slack off in group and have it be easymode, I want /more/ skill in my game if anything. But I want it to be fun, interesting, and engaging.
The core problem is that MMOs are almost never challenging nor fun. I absolutely do not want to play hotbar DDR until my brain melts. When MMO's start being fun, challenging, and interesting in combat, then I'll change my opinion. Until that happens, I absolutely want to hit autoattack and chat it up rather than do the same dps-optimal rotation ad nauseam. Any wow dps build, for example, can probably be distilled into 7 steps or less for a rotation to use basically forever. That shit is boring. Something like a competitive FPS game constantly has you thinking and reacting. MMOs simply don't do that, and it becomes routine, bland, and insipid. I hate hotbar DDR to the core of my being (while not standing in the fire, to prove that you're still awake) and would absolutely take autoattack over it. They take about the same amount of brainpower and skill, one just requires more tedious repetition.
Without damage skills you can't pvp. Speaking of PVP whats this rumor im hearing smed said theres open world pvp??
Well, yeah. And I always felt that pvp-oriented skills were different than pve ones. You might use fast cast spells instead of of the "efficient" ones since they were harder to interrupt or channel through. I totally get that. I guess my biggest complaint is that DPS rotations become really tedious and repetitive in pve. PVP's a whole other ball game.
I think I would be perfectly happy with some form of hotbar /melody for pve, and have more discretion for pvp. Last time I played EQ, for example, I basically had my g15 constantly clicking flying kick, stunning kick, and about 6 other triggered attacks that for 95% of the time I was never *not* going to use. Kick is the perfect example. When the fuck would I not want to use kick when it was up and ready to use? For most encounters stunning kick was exactly the same since mobs couldn't be stunned due to level cap issues.
I think I would be perfectly happy with some form of hotbar /melody for pve, and have more discretion for pvp. Last time I played EQ, for example, I basically had my g15 constantly clicking flying kick, stunning kick, and about 6 other triggered attacks that for 95% of the time I was never *not* going to use. Kick is the perfect example. When the fuck would I not want to use kick when it was up and ready to use? For most encounters stunning kick was exactly the same since mobs couldn't be stunned due to level cap issues.
Kuro
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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How am I supposed to pretend to be a female wood elf if you can hear my voice!
I'll never get any loots!
Convo
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Not everyone likes wearing a headset and having conversations at your monitor. My gf certainly doesn't appreciate it while she's trying to sleep either.