So far from what I can see of the official previews the combat for the game is looking a bit lack luster. I'm hoping this is just a placeholder for a better combat system. Both player charaters and NPCs seem to be VERY boring right now. Will their be anything like combos to help differientiant a good player from an average player where it takes some speed and skill to pull it off well?
As a background I came from Everquest, WoW, and Wildstar. From those I miss the need to group even to level from EQ but as far as combat goes EQ felt rather weak in a lot of ways. Many classes would just spam their top spell for damage or just faceroll whatever ability was off cooldown. The best combat experience I actually had was Wildstar. That game had some SWEET challenges. Not only were you trying to keep up as best as you could with your damaging rotation but things that made it better included positioning to hit more mobs, dashing sprinting and double jumping to avoid enemy abilities, and even interupt armor where when a mob started to cast an ability he would gain interupt armor where everyone in the group had to pitch in interupts to get it. Can we expect any fast paced difficult to master combat like this?
challenge in EQ for combat came from classes synergy, and when using the right skill at the right time (for example, stunning a mob trying to gate back to it spawn point otherwise it would bring many more "friends" wiping the group/raid), you also had to manage enrage, flurry, rampage, stuff like that, you had to manage your aggro as well, in fact you had to manage a lots of things and sometimes it was hard to do that correctly with everything you had to take care at once.
you ask combos, dynamic combat (i mean jumping and moving like crazy around an ennemy while spamming abilities), something like black desert online, wow, or lots of korean mmorpgs ? if so, i doubt you ll find that with Pantheon, but i may be wrong, i have no idea of how the combat will be, however, if the combat in Pantheon is like everquest 1 combat, i will be very happy, EQ1 combat asked for a lots of skills and was not static at all.
Combat animations may or may not be placeholders. But combat itself being slow paced is intentional.
Things like:
dashing sprinting and double jumping to avoid enemy abilities
Aren't what this game is about. It will not be a twitch based combat system. We have a very different opinion of what combat should be if you think that type of combat is the "best combat" you have ever played.
coeurdelion said:challenge in EQ for combat came from classes synergy, and when using the right skill at the right time (for example, stunning a mob trying to gate back to it spawn point otherwise it would bring many more "friends" wiping the group/raid), you also had to manage enrage, flurry, rampage, stuff like that, you had to manage your aggro as well, in fact you had to manage a lots of things and sometimes it was hard to do that correctly with everything you had to take care at once.
you ask combos, dynamic combat (i mean jumping and moving like crazy around an ennemy while spamming abilities), something like black desert online, wow, or lots of korean mmorpgs ? if so, i doubt you ll find that with Pantheon, but i may be wrong, i have no idea of how the combat will be, however, if the combat in Pantheon is like everquest 1 combat, i will be very happy, EQ1 combat asked for a lots of skills and was not static at all.
zendrel said:Not only were you trying to keep up as best as you could with your damaging rotation but things that made it better included positioning to hit more mobs, dashing sprinting and double jumping to avoid enemy abilities, and even interupt armor where when a mob started to cast an ability he would gain interupt armor where everyone in the group had to pitch in interupts to get it. Can we expect any fast paced difficult to master combat like this?
Not to disappoint but I'm fairly sure Pantheon will not be like Wildstar and Black Desert. In my opinion, those incorporate more hack and slash, arcade style combat systems.
Not to say Pantheon is going to be slow and boring. I'm all for nail-biting close battles and have no doubt Pantheon will deliver. However, I'm expecting more downtime in Pantheon.
How I see it, Pantheon/Vanguard/EQ gameplay = Dark Souls while Wildstar/Black Desert = Diablo/Path of Exile. All great games with similar goals but require different skills. I haven't seen a ton of Wildstar gameplay so correct me if I'm wrong.
And keep in mind Pantheon is in Pre-Alpha so we can only speculate.
The stream with max level shaman looked pretty cool in gameplay to me : Melee swings, dots, heals, nukes. It looked like a pretty versatile gameplay, but it will depends of the pace that MP or Stam regen will imply.
Warrior gameplay as an example, looked pretty dull for now (looking at .. Aradune ? Was aradune's toon a warrior or a ranger placeholder ? or the main tank beeing, Michal I think ?) but I think they just gave them an aggro strike for streams and a kick for snake's purpose.
Monk looked like they had some interesting skill too, some synergy.
MauvaisOeil said:Was aradune's toon a warrior or a ranger placeholder ?
Brad's character is a WarWizard. A (normally) non playable class based on the game of the same name he created in 1993.
In some epic type quests we may be able to temporarily play as a Warwizard as part of the quest.
zendrel said:So far from what I can see of the official previews the combat for the game is looking a bit lack luster. I'm hoping this is just a placeholder for a better combat system. Both player charaters and NPCs seem to be VERY boring right now. Will their be anything like combos to help differientiant a good player from an average player where it takes some speed and skill to pull it off well?
As a background I came from Everquest, WoW, and Wildstar. From those I miss the need to group even to level from EQ but as far as combat goes EQ felt rather weak in a lot of ways. Many classes would just spam their top spell for damage or just faceroll whatever ability was off cooldown. The best combat experience I actually had was Wildstar. That game had some SWEET challenges. Not only were you trying to keep up as best as you could with your damaging rotation but things that made it better included positioning to hit more mobs, dashing sprinting and double jumping to avoid enemy abilities, and even interupt armor where when a mob started to cast an ability he would gain interupt armor where everyone in the group had to pitch in interupts to get it. Can we expect any fast paced difficult to master combat like this?
Keep in mind a few things. The game is in pre-alpha and likely about 2 years from release. A LOT will change between now and then. Combat will evolve. But also remember that Pantheon is going to use an auto-attack based combat. It's not going to be twitchy action oriented. You will target a mob, hit auto attack,and mix in some abilities/spells. There may be additional abilities that trigger from other players or enhance damage.
So yeah, it's not final, a lot will change, but the basic way of fighting is not going to change.
zendrel said:So far from what I can see of the official previews the combat for the game is looking a bit lack luster. I'm hoping this is just a placeholder for a better combat system. Both player charaters and NPCs seem to be VERY boring right now. Will their be anything like combos to help differientiant a good player from an average player where it takes some speed and skill to pull it off well?
As a background I came from Everquest, WoW, and Wildstar. From those I miss the need to group even to level from EQ but as far as combat goes EQ felt rather weak in a lot of ways. Many classes would just spam their top spell for damage or just faceroll whatever ability was off cooldown. The best combat experience I actually had was Wildstar. That game had some SWEET challenges. Not only were you trying to keep up as best as you could with your damaging rotation but things that made it better included positioning to hit more mobs, dashing sprinting and double jumping to avoid enemy abilities, and even interupt armor where when a mob started to cast an ability he would gain interupt armor where everyone in the group had to pitch in interupts to get it. Can we expect any fast paced difficult to master combat like this?
Early to judge combat systems just yet...work in progress.
At this stage in building a game I would assume that many things are placeholders.
Heck, I remember playing an entire starting zone area in early BETA for Vanguardsoh that wasn't even part of the release version.
The entire zone was a placeholder.
Right now is the time to build and perfect systems to be used in the release version. What you see right now is NOT what you get.
It's going to be much, much better.
If it is just placeholder, and is changed more to something resemebling every other MMO currently existing, then I imagine they'll lose a significant portion of their playerbase (but gain a different base, obviously).
World, immersion, even graphics are important to me. But the reason I'm here is the combat. I simply CANNOT get this type of combat (RPG type combat, ala Final Fantasy, etc) ANYWHERE in the MMO sphere, without going full indie. Heck, even EVE Online, the one remaining titan of the old school method, has folded and now provides high levels of twitch action, sensitive latency based tricks, etc.
If I wanted to react on 0.25 second time scales I'd go play an FPS or just raid in WoW, where I already have thousands of hours invested.
Whilst on some level I liked the ground 'telegraph' system (graphical indicators of combat ability/area that you could jump or dodge or whatever) in games like Wildstar, it makes for a very different feel and pace.
Not 'bad' per se, but really different.
I would say that people who prefer the EQ-style tab-targetting system where movement and position is a much more basic consideration like it that way because it emphasises the group interdependency and tactics of resource management and ability timing.
Yes, it's slower, but because of that it's more thoughful.
You could say that the need to jump, roll, dodge, etc *as well* would *add* to the experience, but I think others may feel that would distract and, effectively, detract from the importance of non-'physical' actions.
If you perfectly time a shield, debuff and strike but the enemy just jumps or rolls or whatever the game can turn into a gymnastics event rather than a chess game.
Yes EQ had some hard limitations for certain classes. Clerics, as you say, could really get stuck in a rut of having to repeat certain effective spells and meditation. I distinctly remember wanting to use the odd damage spell and my hammer 'pet' but groups would tell me "if you use those spells and run out of mana for heals, you'll be kicked". Not fun. But, that was a limitation of the game, not the style of combat.
I'm sure VR will avoid those traps, but I'm also sure they will be following a more 'traditional' combat style.
Tab targetting. Melee/bow/spell ranges. Abilities requiring 'rear' position (backstabbing). Line of sight. Meditating...
Will there be things like: Defensive/Offensive buff/de-buff for flanking. Smoke/flame/steam blocking line of sight. Interaction of abilities (eg. fire an arrow through a flame wall makes for fire arrows)...
bigdogchris said:The game is in pre-alpha and likely about 2 years from release. A LOT will change between now and then.
I really hope it isnt two more years! I was hoping a year of testing total, maybe 6 months of Pre-Alpha and Alpha, 6 months of Beta, putting the potential release date as 4th Q 2018 or 1st Q 2019. Either way I 100% support the dev's policy of not moving too fast and focussing on the quality of the product.
As far as dynamic combat goes, in several streams they have said definitively that it is nowhere near finished, so you can expect them to continue to add to it.
I also remember in one of the streams Brad mentioned that skill combos and synergy are going to be cross class, which should continue to add more focus on grouping and group synergy instead of gearing it towards the individual.
That being said, the other thing that is going to make combat dynamic is the PvE interaction. NPC dispositions, the aclimation system, and inteligent AI will hopefully make it so that you have to change the way you fight each time you do an encounter rather than just rinse and repeat. Remember that VR is not interested in simply copying some other game's system. I doubt we have anything to compare what the final incarnation of the combat system to right now. With any luck we can expect a modern, creative system that might incorporate some aspects of other systems, but which stands out as totally unique and dynamic in its own way.
At the moment, five guys standing round hitting one enemy for a couple of minutes does not inspire me.
Exciting combat without running about and doing backflips is perfectly doable, you just need to have mechanics in place for both the players and the mobs that make it interesting, a range of abilities that need to be countered and dealt with, groups of enemies that need to be carefully managed, character animations that are visually pleasing and exciting to look at etc etc etc
We have to remember that most games would not release as much footage as VR have at the stage of development they are at and there is a long way to go...
I have no doubt we will have tough, thoughtful, exciting combat. That is the core of the game and if it is not up to scratch then the game won't last very long.
I hope it's not too much of a placeholder cause what I saw in streams is what I look for : pull, CC, taunt, dps, slow, etc ... strategy, intelligence with realistic moves instead of spamming overdose of action with extravagant moves.
It's EQ style and I'm ok with that, I trust VR to add new features coherent with that philosophy. One point though, I remember that bows were not enough used at the beginning of EQ, I just hope these weapons will be more interesting in Pantheon. Could be nice also to make some contat weapons able to hit from a larger distance, like pikes, halberds, spear, that could help to make the fight more "readable".
Kipling said:
I have no doubt we will have tough, thoughtful, exciting combat. That is the core of the game and if it is not up to scratch then the game won't last very long.
Great discussion here! Agree with Kaen on the variations of combat.
As far as actual information goes, THE WIKI does a great job of exactly repeating what they have said for a very long time and seems to remain unchanged between game iterations.
Make your own inferences tho, Iteration 1 (where they were fighting Ghouls on the island of Su'Roa; yeah there once was a video for that- OMG it's still out there! watch before they get it taken down! lol ) was pretty much fighting skellies at lvl 1 in EQ, while the latest streams are more like post lvl 30 battles in EQ. If any active abilities or strategic abilities enter the fray, i expect it will be more into alpha as they expand on animations, code, status checks, position checks, AI checks, combat systems (positional blocking, CC, Fear wells, silence, paralysis, etc.)
I'm fairly sure that combat is more of a placeholder atm but to me at least it looks pretty fluid. I'm not picturing the current combat at face value, since I'm sure there will be gear that will do things like increase attack freaquency as well as double(or more) attacks. Theres also the stamina bar(I believe, it's been a while since I've watched a stream) that we don't really know how it will affect our abilities...we can very well have some form of a combo that greatly depletes the bar...
I'm hoping combat will hit a sweet spot between classic mmo and the twitch based combat of today. No flashy dancing between lazers but at the same time I'm not waiting an eternity for my character to throw a punch.....Hoping I see battles unfolding like, "Should I wait to zerg the boss when it has 20%ish hp...wait this boss uses a particularily nasty ability at about 65% percent so I should zerg there to force it out of that mode. " At least thats what I'm hopping lol.... and of course I want to have to take into account some positioning! If I try to punch a mob in the face it should have the capability to block it!
The current combat system is basically a skeleton of what it will eventually become. You need to have a solid foundation before you build anything up too much. So the basics are there and working - the core is not likely to change dramatically. But there will definitely eventually be additional layers added to make it more dynamic, such as:
- NPCs will have special abilities and the tactics to use them strategically. (Ex.: healing, ranged, taking cover, cleave, knockback, knockdown, charms)
- New dynamic encounters will be introduced, such as Ambient mobs. (Ex.: on a balcony, there could be a battalion of archers that periodically launch a volley of arrows after a loud shout. Players will need to find ways to either dispatch the archers, or take cover when they fire their waves of arrows.)
- Expect to see more details soon regarding new NPC Dispositions, such as Pyrophobic, Predator, and Sniper.
- Animations will continue to be improved.
They specifically addressed this in one of the streams. Listen to Joppa's explanation here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/139626575?t=18m19s
Target/Auto-Attack is the primary model of the combat system with even casters having a possibility of a wand like auto-attack, I bet Baz could find the quote. The rate of that auto attack and the rate of the mob auto attack sets the pacing for all the game timers and response times. Encounters will be a function of that game wide average attack rate. The average MMO player has a maximum twitch response speed which is then reduced by PC rendering lag and server communication lag.
The level of lethality Pantheon mobs will have is at least on par with Dark Souls Elite mobs if not even higher for a single character. A slower paced system auto-attack rate will allow for a few more milliseconds of response time for each decision a player must make. These decisions will sometimes take several accurate clicks to execute which further increases the amount of time required to go from game information output to player input.
A slower paced, but very lethal, system auto-attack emphasizes class synergies and interdependencies that require 4+ players to respond correctly to the greater majority of game information output or disaster and death will soon follow. When you look at group encounters as being a string of more than 100 game information outputs it quickly becomes apparent why combat will become challenging and exhausting over time and why twitch based combat just does not mesh well.
This system auto-attack speed can be manipulated zone by zone to make certain area’s harder due to decreased available response time.
I personally prefer the real time strategy game style of play over the button mash Street Fighter combo system style of play.
Trasak
The combat in Wild Star was the one thing that put me off the game, all that jumping and dodging got pretty tiresome. I much prefer slower paced combat, it allows much more time to explore, take in the environment and socialise. One of the best things in EQ was the downtime; mana regen, it allowed players to actually talk to each other instead of just spamming buttons constantly.