Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

Eidal_sl said:

These friends just alternate between EQ99 and wow vanilla emus. They want to smoke bowls, bullshit, and grind mobs. The direction modern MMOs have gone aren't their thing; they don't want "twitch" in an MMO.

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I'll go out on a limb and assume your friends are not the target demographic of MMO companies looking to make a profit since they spend most of their time on free emus.

On that note, when designing any MMO I always assume making a profit is the underlying primary factor that affects every major decision. A design decision that improves the quality of a game will typically lead to more profit. Players recognize quality when they see it which in turn leads to them choosing to continue playing that game versus switching to a different game.

Let's use WoW as the comparison baseline since its success has led to massive profits for Blizzard. Despite it's success, a common complaint about WoW has been how addons like Deadly Boss Mobs and GTFO have negatively impacted the game by dumbing it down. For the most part, all a player needs to do to succeed in raids is learn the Dance Dance Revolution mechanic and follow the instructions of DBM and GTFO.

I am not aware of any MMO released after WoW that opened up their API to the extent WoW did that allows addons like DBM and GTFO. Games like WS, Neverwinter, GW2 etc use methods such as telegraphs and dodge mechanics to give information to the player versus having an addon tell them what to do. Which system is better is in the eyes of the beholder.

My personal opinion is that WoW has spoiled a couple of generations of gamers to the point any game that does not support an addon like DBM, is remotely challenging/difficult and doesn't hand out phat loot like candy is a "bad" game. The action style of combat is games like WS, GW2, Neverwinter and TESO is superior to WoW in almost every category IMO. That apparently is a minority opinion though based on MMO popularity. WoW is still the king of MMOs which leads to the conclusion that the large majority of MMO gamers who are willing to pay a monthly subscription do not want challenging and difficult content. In their eyes, games that are too hard are "poor" quality. WS is the perfect example because aside from the combat system and PVE difficulty, almost everything else about the game is cloned from WoW.

If WS is officially deemed a failure, then IMO that is not good news for the future of MMOs. Carbine took a risk with their design and it backfired on them. Future MMOs will look at Wildstar as an example and when they are designing their MMO, will likely go the WoW route and dumb down the gameplay to suit the masses.

Rescorla_sl said:

The action style of combat is games like WS, GW2, Neverwinter and TESO is superior to WoW in almost every category IMO.

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Playing Wildstar right now is as rewarding as getting into a Simon's game orgy fest. Endgame PvE is wrongfully called hard and requires commitment for fallacious reasons. PvP is irrelevant.

ArenaNet's GW2 action combat gameplay is AoE spam galore with questionable character animations like double dip hit, boonstacking abuse and out of fucking nowhere damage sources.

TESO combat gameplay during launch was like watching disabled people welding sledgehammers. It still has slug-like combat gameplay with random hitreg in PvP and heavy exploiting in PvE.

I've played Neverwinter for like 4 hours before finding its combat gameplay involves "let's stuck you to the ground" character lock skills "because you have to commit to your decisions".

I think Action Combat Gameplay is current MMO development's lazy way to reinvent the wheel. MMO genre is actually on a uninovative boogaloo because at some point you have to provide a combat gameplay that's as challenging for hardcore dedicated people than casual Friday couch dudes. Managing 30 skills it too much of a chore ? Well maybe it's time to stick to your own dedicated, dumbed down market.

Rescorla_sl said:

Future MMOs will look at Wildstar as an example and when they are designing their MMO, will likely go the WoW route and dumb down the gameplay to suit the masses.

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So, summary:

People wanting laid-back combat aren't the target demographic. Newer games keep pushing the combat envelope and not let combat be 'easy' like WoW. Which system is better is in the eye of the beholder. The playerbase seems to have made their choise, as newer games keep being pushed out with more 'innovative' and 'challenging' combat and are subsequently skewered for their spastic dodge-like-a-drunk-monkey combat and are considered a failure, not played, and flop, as people keep playing WoW or playing ancient emulated games as if they're just cheap instead of wanting combat that isn't a fucking seizure simulator.

Maybe, just maybe, if WS is officially deemed a failure (whatever that means) it may in fact be good news for future MMOs, who may stop trying so hard to make MMO combat so innovative and fast and actiony when that clearly doesn't seem to be working out so well.

I personally don't want more button presses and more staring at red circles to constitute the 'challenge' of future MMOs, and MMO combat has never been particularly hard, so maybe I'm just 'lazy' and don't want 'challenging' content, but I'd rather put in less effort for something that's going to ultimately not be that hard in most cases anyhow.

You're not nearly as special, elite or hardcore as you want to think, and spastic combat masquerading as challenge and meaningful interaction isn't going to make you that way.

Bondurant_sl said:

MMO genre is actually on a uninovative boogaloo because at some point you have to provide a combat gameplay that's as challenging for hardcore dedicated people than casual Friday couch dudes. Managing 30 skills it too much of a chore ? Well maybe it's time to stick to your own dedicated, dumbed down market.

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If MMO combat has every been what was challenging for the 'hardcore dedicated people' then it wasn't challenging, you were just bad. No MMO combat has every been particularly good. What's the best, gold-standard for MMO combat? And how much did that combat actually contributed to the challenge of the content. The real challenge has always come from coordinating increasingly larger amounts of people with decreasing amounts of time for instruction and in less forgiving environments. Those can all be had whether you really fucking badass and able to juggle 30 skills or the, what 15 skills in GW2?

Seriously, since when was fucking MMO combat, even managing 30 skills, somehow a source of pride for people wanting to be seen as hardcore? You're not a badass because you think MMO combat is dumbed down. It always has been!

If we consider a game 'action combat' because you add a dodge/immunity frame hotkey and mobs have a casting animation I think we're pretty fucked.

I downloaded WS, got a quest to kill 5 things which didn't fight back, turned it in for coin, xp and an item with random stats, logged off and uninstalled. I know I didn't give it a proper shake but there's simply too many other good games out there to do another quest hub hopping "Meh"-fest right now. Just did a MMO of the month club for Neverwinter Nights and it was the same thing. The combat was okayish, a little bit of an improvement. The hand-holding was way too much for me and I got rapidly sick of the "Go kill 8 of these, right click on 4 of these ground spawns, kill this named and then come back for the breadcrumb quest to the next hub where you'll do it all over again!" gameplay.

As for EverQuest goes, you really can't compare any modern game to it because EQ wasNOTa game. EQ was a chat room with a mini-game built into it. You had 10~30 minutes to kill between 3 minute spurts of action. Once you were done studying and doing your laundry you either read a book or chatted.

Truth be told I think one of the things that kill off modern MMO's is auto-logoff. I liked being able to hit /afk and come back 4 hours later to check out my chat log.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

If we consider a game 'action combat' because you add a dodge/immunity frame hotkey and mobs have a casting animation I think we're pretty fucked.

I downloaded WS, got a quest to kill 5 things which didn't fight back, turned it in for coin, xp and an item with random stats, logged off and uninstalled. I know I didn't give it a proper shake but there's simply too many other good games out there to do another quest hub hopping "Meh"-fest right now. Just did a MMO of the month club for Neverwinter Nights and it was the same thing. The combat was okayish, a little bit of an improvement. The hand-holding was way too much for me and I got rapidly sick of the "Go kill 8 of these, right click on 4 of these ground spawns, kill this named and then come back for the breadcrumb quest to the next hub where you'll do it all over again!" gameplay.

As for EverQuest goes, you really can't compare any modern game to it because EQ wasNOTa game. EQ was a chat room with a mini-game built into it. You had 10~30 minutes to kill between 3 minute spurts of action. Once you were done studying and doing your laundry you either read a book or chatted.

Truth be told I think one of the things that kill off modern MMO's is auto-logoff. I liked being able to hit /afk and come back 4 hours later to check out my chat log.

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Oddly enough, FFXIV doesn't log you off automatically (unless there's an option for it) and I frequently forget to do so and then come back hours later. Out of the current crop of games, it is probably the subjectively best. The combat isn't super twitch for all classes, unless you are a monk in which case lawl have fun, and the general speed and flow of combat a bit more smooth. It is -very- telegraph happy though, so if you don't like having to pay attention to your surroundings, it isn't the right place for you.

And yeah, EQ was a chat room, with the same mechanics of one. The only people actually playing a game for more than a couple of minutes every 30 were those that were pulling.

And even then it was just to check if another camp had missed a mob. Most pullers I knew simply had an egg timer. I know I did for when I did the Cynd camp or in Kunark for quadding raptors.

I tried FFxiv at launch and hated it. Have been meaning to give it a try but I just can't get over the fact that everyone I knew who played xi was a pock faced desperate weeaboo. I've been fairly vocal in my dislike for JRPG's in general. I've heard a lot of good things though. Need to exhaust my list of shitty F2P mmo's before I try a shitty mmo that wants money.

If you're not interested in WoW for any reason, I don't really see what FFXIV would offer you that wouldn't fall under that same category.

If you're not interested in WoW for any reason, I don't really see what FFXIV would offer you that wouldn't fall under that same category. Given your recent "I uninstalled WS in min" statement... yea... I'd be astounded if any modern "solo to level cap and then group!!" MMO appeals to you.

J

popsicledeath_sl said:

If MMO combat has every been what was challenging for the 'hardcore dedicated people' then it wasn't challenging, you were just bad. No MMO combat has every been particularly good. What's the best, gold-standard for MMO combat? And how much did that combat actually contributed to the challenge of the content. The real challenge has always come from coordinating increasingly larger amounts of people with decreasing amounts of time for instruction and in less forgiving environments. Those can all be had whether you really fucking badass and able to juggle 30 skills or the, what 15 skills in GW2?

Seriously, since when was fucking MMO combat, even managing 30 skills, somehow a source of pride for people wanting to be seen as hardcore? You're not a badass because you think MMO combat is dumbed down. It always has been!

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If the real challenge is coordinating large groups of people with decreasing amounts of time for instruction and in less forgiving environments, does WoW qualify as the MMO gold standard since all the hard work is performed via addons? The point I was trying to make is that to get away from WoW, devs have controlled what information is provided to addon APIs which means newer games don't have addons like DBM and GTFO to hold their hand. So the challenge now is how to make combat and boss encounters more challenging without going the WoW dance dance revolution route.

Sylas_sl said:

lolwut. TESO is an action combat mmo now? Did you mean Tera? WS certainly isn't as i and others have already explained it's failings.

The Secret World, Tera, Neverwinter, and eh, maybe GW2 would qualify as action mmo's. There's a couple of other asian style games can't keep track of all of them.

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Is there a list of official criteria that determines if gameplay is action combat? I listed TESO in that group because it is marketed as an action MMO. All characters have the ability to dodge, block and interrupt while the combat has features such as telegraphs, animation windups and emotes to give the players information to react to. Another common trait of action combat MMOs (at least the ones I have played) is they limit the number of skills/abilities a player can use at one time ( WS 8, GW2 10, TESO 6, NW 7, TSW 8) One other common trait of the action combat MMOs is that your character's build follows the deck building strategy. I realize saying anything positive about TESO is not allowed on this board, but if you are considering TSW as an action MMO, then you have to include TESO as well. TSW has tab targetting combat with one ability hotbar that IIRC you can put 8 skills on (the deck building strategy). Been a few months since I played TSW but while the skill wheel concept was unique, I thought actual combat was boring. The lore, quests and cutscenes were the best things about that game.

Wild Star was the epitome of action combat to me. GW2 had a lot of tab targeting and their "dodge" were just invulnerable buffs with an animation.

Xevy_sl said:

Wild Star was the epitome of action combat to me. GW2 had a lot of tab targeting and their "dodge" were just invulnerable buffs with an animation.

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Odd. I can't think of a functional difference between WoW and Wildstar except in Wildstar I had to spam my builder and interrupt mechanics took group effort.

The interrupt mechanic was a nice idea, rewarding dumb dps players by giving them a +DPS cookie for successfully interrupting was a good training method.

Eidal_sl said:

Odd. I can't think of a functional difference between WoW and Wildstar except in Wildstar I had to spam my builder and interrupt mechanics took group effort.

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The fact you had to aim everything may sound gimmicky, but then gave rise to all sorts of other shit. It brought in pulls, and pushes, and knockdowns, and all that jazz that were just stuns in other games into something much MUCH more useful. Lining up a group so people could utilize their often small interrupt on multiple things at once then burn them down together. I'm not saying they invented grouping and AEing. Obviously that was the go-to tactic for dungeons in WoW and other games forever. I'm saying it made selecting those abilities out of your 8 a good choice in dungeons.

I don't know why people keep saying this is WoW combat. Because there's no skill combo system just combo generators? I played TERA, Neverwinter, AION, GW2, and Wild Star. Wild Star felt like the most action in the combat.

GW2: Fun for sure, but it still had a lot of tab targetting. It had a lot of ground TAE's which is nothing new since Burning Crusade started using them heavily with mages.
TERA: One on one combat could be fun, but it was still just WoW cooldown duels and hoping your gear was better while not animation locking at the wrong time.
AION: Combo system was mostly useless. Aiming is great and everything, but besides flying combat I don't even remember half of it.
NeverWinter: I was a cleric so I don't know how it was for others. I just put down heals and aimed at people and shot heals at them. Very much what WS healers did.

I think the 'every ability is cone of cold' is one of the biggest generalizations I've ever seen. Might as well say every single target damage spell is just fireball.

Tera felt fundamentally different to me in a way that Wildstar didn't specifically because of animation locking. Initially, I hated how it restricted freedom... but then I realized it was instrumental in making my choices have gravity and importance.

Wildstar just felt like WoW but more spammy. Maybe I just didn't get to the level of content that would change my mind, but I really doubt I'd feel anything different other than having to mash buttons a tad bit faster than WoW.

Tera was fundamentally more Street fighter type just because you had to watch and react to player animations rather than not standing in red.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

If we consider a game 'action combat' because you add a dodge/immunity frame hotkey and mobs have a casting animation I think we're pretty fucked.

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That's pretty much it. It's action combat if you can dodge/roll out of the red circles instead of just running. And yeah, TESO is considered action combat in most circles. In short, considered MMO combat as fucked as ever.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

I downloaded WS, got a quest to kill 5 things which didn't fight back, turned it in for coin, xp and an item with random stats, logged off and uninstalled.

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Remember how fucking amazing it was the first time in WoW, though? I remember one of the first quests as a green something on Horde you had to run around beating on peons to wake them up. Ah-fucking-mazing! Holy shit, they've finally built into the game actual QUESTS and track them instead of just awkward text-based fumbling! Of course, I got bored with them by level 30, but most players are still going strong and it's something they celebrate.

Hell, I was just reading on Ten Ton Hammer I think it was about how WS not only won best combat of the year, but people in the forums were raving about how there are a ton of QUESTS!!!

What's the next innovation, though? Only way forward, at this point, is to go backward.


edit: oh, also, FF:ARR wasn't bad looking, but by level 15 I had not only not read a single bit of quest dialog as I usually don't, but had also literally barely even looked at mobs I was targeting to fight. You could play the game by minimap and indicators alone. Just get the quest, run to where it says run, it'll put an indicator over what mobs you need to fight, then just target and spam attacks and it'll tell you when you're done and where to run back to. I didn't even get a chance to play long enough to find the guild I usually run with for the month or so before I quit a game.

NCSoft released their quarterly earnings report and apparently their entire company took a major financial hit this past quarter with Wildstar bringing up the rear with less than $3 million in revenue.

Earnings Releases


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