I loved the stream today but WHY is auto attack going to still be used as a base mechanic. Please move on from this, it was good in everquest but for the love of god move towards actual engagement and not quasi afk players who do nothing but auto attack and chat half the time in groups....
I think this is a case of, if it aint broke dont fix it. auto attacking is sort of connected to the slower combat pace (which personally i like). the only other system that would work is the click to action style and a low cooldown skill that you click to hit over and over to fill between stronger attacks is basically just an auto attack anyway.
All action combat does is make you spam your left mouse button. Certainly not something that makes you more engaged. It also leads to combat system that requires you to run around the mob and bunny hoping to stay out of telegraphs on the ground. Not what many, likely most everyone here, of us want. We have gotten tired of ground telegraphs and mouse button spamming that has taken over many MMOs these days.
Bluefyre said:All action combat does is make you spam your left mouse button. Certainly not something that makes you more engaged. It also leads to combat system that requires you to run around the mob and bunny hoping to stay out of telegraphs on the ground. Not what many, likely most everyone here, of us want. We have gotten tired of ground telegraphs and mouse button spamming that has taken over many MMOs these days.
Bunny hoping is largely irrelevant (they solved that in ESO with you not being able to use abilities/spells in mid-air. Auto attack again will lead down the road to lazy combat mechanics.... 17 years of MMORPG gaming has proven this out already.
I think the idea of auto attacks being a problem in any game is a symptom of somthing much bigger and not a problem with auto attacking at all.
take for example this type of game is trying to go the route of eq1 and i wont disagree that many melee fighters in eq would sit there and not really do much but wait and see what happens but that was not a problem with auto attacking in general but rather the lack of things to do or watch between small actions such as kicks. this ofc didnt affect anyone else since all other classes had things they needed to do between actions in combat (tanks taunting and watching for adds untill they can be CCed or casters medding between casts).
removing auto attacks for an action system wont be more engaging if there is nothing else to do other then spamming the basic action combo if there is still nothing to do inbetween attacks. that is a bigger problem with combat systems in many games.
take WoW for example no one can say that mid fight you have nothing to do even with an auto attack ffxiv is the same you are kept engaged by your skills and rotations (or should be really)
now this is going to be a slower paced game i think thats easy to see so far as they have said they want it to be more about tatics then just spammy action combat but as long as melee is given more to do and think about then just wait 20 seconds before i can kick again, i dont think having auto attack will be a huge problem in this game really.
Strykr619 said:I loved the stream today but WHY is auto attack going to still be used as a base mechanic. Please move on from this, it was good in everquest but for the love of god move towards actual engagement and not quasi afk players who do nothing but auto attack and chat half the time in groups....
I don't know how I feel about this. PRF is a tab targeting MMO with plenty of skills and abilities to use. How else do we go about our base attacks? ESO has a light and heavy base attack with the click of the mouse button but they also have a more fluid action style combat system with active blocks and active attacks ON TOP OF not having a tab targeting system. So if PRF does away with auto attacks do we click a button each time for our regular base attacks?
I personally don't mind the auto attack. It's fine for our regular base attack and then we click buttons for our special skills and abilities. PLUS, in VG there was some skill to auto attack. Not everyone knew this but you could time your abilities with your auto attacks and squeek out extra damage/dps. Instead of just hitting your abilities as soon as they refreshed, you could wait until you auto attacked and then click your ability and you'd produce more dps. (or something along the lines of that, my memory is a little fuzzy)
NoobieDoo said:Strykr619 said:
I don't know how I feel about this. PRF is a tab targeting MMO with plenty of skills and abilities to use. How else do we go about our base attacks? ESO has a light and heavy base attack with the click of the mouse button but they also have a more fluid action style combat system with active blocks and active attacks ON TOP OF not having a tab targeting system. So if PRF does away with auto attacks do we click a button each time for our regular base attacks?
I personally don't mind the auto attack. It's fine for our regular base attack and then we click buttons for our special skills and abilities. PLUS, in VG there was some skill to auto attack. Not everyone knew this but you could time your abilities with your auto attacks and squeek out extra damage/dps. Instead of just hitting your abilities as soon as they refreshed, you could wait until you auto attacked and then click your ability and you'd produce more dps. (or something along the lines of that, my memory is a little fuzzy)
Well said Noobie. I like the way they are handling combat. I am tired of required skill rotations and twitchy combat in mmo's. I want tactics to matter more than rote memorization of skill rotations or who has the fastest fingers. Having time to chat is the icing on the cake imo.
I've recently got back into ESO and I am enjoying it but I much prefer the combat system in games like EQ1 and what appears to be like in Pantheon. I hope they don't go for an action combat system as that really detracts from the game for me. I'd much rather see a slower paced game where there was time to sit around and chat in your group while you were killing mobs than an action system where everyone is too busy to talk all of the time.
The social aspect is what makes this game for me and if a slower combat style improves the social aspect then I am all for it.
On one hand, oversimplified combat systems are too easy to master and massively reduces the skill ceiling of a game. On the other hand, spammy combat systems leave you with carpal tunnel.
Surely there's a middle ground somewhere. I like auto attack as a mechanic, but I hope it plays less of a role than it does in old school EQ. I can practically go AFK in the middle of fights and not lose any DPS from classic through POP. It isn't until GoD that mechanics actually become demanding enough for you to play more actively and have more buttons to press.
I thought Vanguard was about perfect, granted auto attack was worthless in Vanguard, but it felt like a good system still.
Long. Live. Auto. Attack.
You can make combat diverse enough with additional skills and combat mechanics (we saw just a glimpse of that in some of the boss encounters in yesterday's stream). But those players who chat half the time in groups are one of the things that's missing right now in MMO gaming.
Hannar said:Long. Live. Auto. Attack.
You can make combat diverse enough with additional skills and combat mechanics (we saw just a glimpse of that in some of the boss encounters in yesterday's stream). But those players who chat half the time in groups are one of the things that's missing right now in MMO gaming.
One thing to take not of is that melee DPS are disproportionately negatively affected by EQ's combat system. Auto attack does nothing to alleviate the issue. You still have to worry about positioning, spammable skills, etc. Without fail, caster DPS has the least responsibility of any archetype in the game, second only to non-Cleric healers and Clerics third. You don't have to joust AEs. You don't have to time discs. You just press the same 3 buttons until you're oom or the mob dies.
My point is, even EQ failed by allowing casters and healers to have a much easier time communicating while fulfilling their responsibilities. Melee DPS, tanks, pullers, etc. don't have time to sit around chatting or they're not doing their jobs.
Liav said:My point is, even EQ failed by allowing casters and healers to have a much easier time communicating while fulfilling their responsibilities. Melee DPS, tanks, pullers, etc. don't have time to sit around chatting or they're not doing their jobs.
Learning to pull and type at the same time was one of the many skills I learnt playing EQ1 :). I should put it on my CV :D.
Strykr619 said:I loved the stream today but WHY is auto attack going to still be used as a base mechanic. Please move on from this, it was good in everquest but for the love of god move towards actual engagement and not quasi afk players who do nothing but auto attack and chat half the time in groups....
I'm not even a little interested in mouse click spam fest. And that's aside from the fact that they kinda like the idea that you'll spend half your time chatting... It's sort of the point of designing a game thats meant to be more social.
Keep auto attack. Had enough wrist and hand issues prior to EQ finally adding auto attack for ranged. There are many other things you can do with auto attack running as a damage baseline. If you want to play lazy with just auto attack and nothing else, it will show and your reputation will be affected. Like they stated in the stream yesterday, rep matters. The true social aspect of the MMO will return. Players have always known who was good at doing their job and who wasn't. A lazy auto attack only person will definitely be noticed.
Hannar said:Long. Live. Auto. Attack.
You can make combat diverse enough with additional skills and combat mechanics (we saw just a glimpse of that in some of the boss encounters in yesterday's stream). But those players who chat half the time in groups are one of the things that's missing right now in MMO gaming.
I couldn't agree more with this. I was very glad to see that Pantheon currently has a reasonably paced combat system, a la EQ1. Spamming the optimal rotation of hotkeys to produce optimal dps or healing throughput does nothing to increase my enjoyment of MMO combat. If playing my character effectively always requires careful focus on a rotation of cooldowns or hotkey combinations (and I can't ever cruise with some lazy auto-attack or single-nuke spamming) the combat experience starts to feel more and more anti-social, with each person in a group just slavishly spamming complex rotations and monitoring cooldowns. It becomes a chore, frankly, and not something I could imagine doing for more than a few hours a day, if that. Definitely hoping for a more contemplative but relaxed style of gameplay, including with an auto-attack feature that does very meaningful (even if not optimal) dps for melee classes.
It would basiscally come down to click left mouse everytime you need to auto attack VS figuring out the right combinations of ablilities to use to maximize DPS and using resources efficiently while auto attack is on. I doubt you wil find much support for the spam left mouse for auto attack each time.
The way I currently maximize my DPS in EQ is either by using MQ2 or a mouse macro to automatically spam my abilities on cooldown. I genuinely hope Pantheon doesn't have that problem. This is what I'm trying to avoid. People are simultaneously clamouring for "hardcore" mechanics while simultaneously asking for one the lowest skill-ceiling combat systems in the history of the genre. My mind is boggled.
Vanguard is another game that a lot of people love here and that combat system actually meant something. At the same time though, you weren't able to hold a conversation in the middle of a fight as any class.
Liav said:Aich said:I love auto attack, lets me watch the fight more closely, interact with people more by chatting and to grab a drink.
Sounds like such an old school, hardcore game to me. Let's let the game play itself!
Sort of like caravans and magically porting alt characters into the depths of a dungeon. Makes the game too easy and it just plays itself.
The engagement of combat is not in the attacking and using of abilities most of the time, it is the the strategy and tactics of the fight. In having to pay attention to things like adds and stuff on the ground.
Auto attacking could be viewed as a way to space out damage to make it less bursty and in a way prevent people from going in and out of melee all the time, a way to force melee to stay melee.
The argument of being able to chat feels a little outdated in this age where we go voice chat, VR even mentioned adding VOIP directly into the game.
Also guys, using "Because EQ1" as an argument for everything is a pretty bad way of laying it out and adds very little to discussion and I would suggest refraining from that.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu/Svartie
Auto attack as a mechanic is fine. Auto attack as a "go afk and grab a beer while the game plays itself" is not fine. Cognitive dissonance between the core tenets of the game (old school, hardcore) and a super easy combat system is not fine.
I understand that tactics are a separate issue, however, a super simple combat system doesn't really allow for tactics. Not unless you want a puzzle game that revolves 100% around how you position your character.
EQ's combat system is a relic of a brand new genre. It is not necessary to replicate it to have a successful game that aligns with old school tenets. Fortunately, Pantheon's combat system doesn't seem to be as simple as EQ's, and I hope it stays that way. However, seeing posts like Aich's don't really inspire a lot of confidence in me for what people actually what Pantheon to be.
Do you want a difficult game, or do you want an easy game? I don't like to propose dichotomies, however, it's hard for me to see past mutually exclusive concepts like this. For the record, no, EQ was not a difficult game. Once you understood the mechanics of EQ, it becomes a pretty simple game compared to many others. DAoC's combat system for instance was a ton more involved than EQ's. Tedium is not difficulty.