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Author Topic: The Elder Scrolls Online  (Read 755837 times)
Mrbloodworth
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Reply #700 on: November 14, 2012, 11:30:17 AM

I did not mean it seriously.

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Zetor
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Reply #701 on: November 14, 2012, 11:41:50 AM

I am baffled that any of you find the mob AI in GW2 and Skyrim "better" than WoW or SWTOR. It isn't different in any noticeable way, except when it is worse (Skyrim dragon flies in circles for 10 minutes, occasionally stopping to fry a deer, ignoring player putting arrows into it.)
Yeah, this. My stealth archer used the same 'tactic' of kiting and running away while pew pewing stuff from level 1 to 30 (to be fair, I did get to do it in slo-mo once my skill got high enough), whether I was facing draugr, a high-level vampire caster, or a dragon. On tougher enemies maybe I needed to maybe use some power-up potions and poisons first and use the knockback shout against multiple enemies.

As for a variety of ways to approach a situation, I definitely didn't have the option to use melee or magic in any meaningful situation on my archer... I don't think swinging a melee weapon at 3 skill would've done more than amuse the dragon while it was busy nom nomming on the idiot in front of it.  awesome, for real

edit:
Right now tab-target character-skill nets a wider market share than click-to-kill or FPS player-skill.

Uh, Call of Duty Elite numbers a userbase over 12M people. The answer is simple. Put action combat into MMOs. It's already in some of the most popular multiplayer games of all time.

I mean I look at something simple like the combat from Jedi Knight 2 from over a decade ago, and wonder how hard that model is to put into an MMO?
Man, I'd kill for a game with JK2 combat again. In a mmo with latency though? Eh, the thought of playing a rogue in WOW makes me rage as it is. (it's not just a "get better internet noob" problem, it's a "lol you live in Hungary lol" problem that I can't fix unless I emigrate... so yeah)
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 11:45:57 AM by Zetor »

Trippy
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Reply #702 on: November 14, 2012, 12:08:29 PM

You may wish to use that term minority carefully. There will always be standard MMORPG combat holdouts. But the trend, is moving away with every new game that's not just an emulation of the wow model. IMO, where TERA went wrong, was innovating the combat ( Innovation in MMO terms, catching up in terms of game in general ), but gave the expected questing system of old.
I like WoW-style questing systems but TERA's quests and world are just really boring (though nice to look at).
Rokal
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Reply #703 on: November 14, 2012, 12:13:58 PM

Right now tab-target character-skill nets a wider market share than click-to-kill or FPS player-skill.

This is a good point and it explains why games like League of Legends and Call of Duty are doing so poorly.

 Ohhhhh, I see.
Paelos
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Reply #704 on: November 14, 2012, 12:35:04 PM

It wasn't Merusk's finest hour on that one, but we can forgive.

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Ingmar
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Reply #705 on: November 14, 2012, 12:43:03 PM

If you add "...in MMOs" to the end of Merusk's statement, which I think was implied, it's true.

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Reply #706 on: November 14, 2012, 12:46:39 PM

If you add "...in MMOs" to the end of Merusk's statement, which I think was implied, it's true.

The point is there is a target market that enjoys other forms of action combat at even higher numbers than the tab-target, regardless of the game's genre.

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Nebu
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Reply #707 on: November 14, 2012, 01:23:05 PM

I think that the targeting method is less important than the slope of the learning curve.  Make the curve too steep and your title instantly becomes niche regardless of the targeting type. 

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Rokal
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Reply #708 on: November 14, 2012, 01:30:11 PM

If you add "...in MMOs" to the end of Merusk's statement, which I think was implied, it's true.

I don't think you can say this either. Of the current crop of MMOs, those with traditional tab-target action bar combat are more popular. I think that says more about the quality of those games than it does about combat preferences. TERA is the only recent MMO that has gone for more skill-based or action combat, but there were plenty of things going against that game besides the combat which have already been mentioned in this thread (controversial aesthetic, boring quests, unpopular Korean-MMO mechanics, etc.).

League of Legends is basically MMO battlegrounds without the boring combat and unfair persistent items, and it's arguably the most popular game in the world right now. MMORPG elements like leveling, classes, and equipment have even seeped into annual console shooters and proven extremely popular. One of the most popular games this season, Borderlands 2, is only a few steps away from being considered an MMO. Saying that LoL or CoD players would not be interested in an MMO offering similar style combat seems pretty narrow-minded.

I think Titan will end up being the true test of this. I think they realize that action-bar combat has gained what audience it could and that the genre has started to stagnate. If you were Blizzard, would you really make another game that played like WoW? We may finally see an MMO that evolves combat and actually has some money behind it, which has the potential to capture a wider audience and refresh the genre.
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Reply #709 on: November 14, 2012, 01:33:06 PM

If you add "...in MMOs" to the end of Merusk's statement, which I think was implied, it's true.

The point is there is a target market that enjoys other forms of action combat at even higher numbers than the tab-target, regardless of the game's genre.

But the fact that they enjoy that gameplay says nothing at all about whether they enjoy any of the OTHER things that make an MMO an MMO. You can't draw the conclusion that there's a huge market of unserved MMO fans who want action combat, just because a whole lot of people are playing a non-MMO with action combat. They may hate everything else that goes into an MMO, it isn't a safe assumption to make.

Rokal, any argument that starts with "League of Legends is an MMO..." is one I can't take seriously. It isn't. It's a multiplayer game, yes. 10 people on a map does not an MMO make, there's no character persistency, etc., etc., etc. It's less of an MMO than non-MMOs like Borderlands or Diablo.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 01:34:50 PM by Ingmar »

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Reply #710 on: November 14, 2012, 01:45:30 PM

It wasn't a safe assumption that a 5M in WC3 sales would translate to a tab target combat if you took out the stupid grind and put in casual questing. Turned out 12M jumped in. It wasn't a safe assumption that a market existed for a game console that was entirely based around flailing your arms like a jackass instead of the traditional controller. 97 million units later, turned out there was a massive demand.

At some point, somebody has to break the MMO mold with a solid IP, good financial backing, and not do the same old shit. They have to try the type of combat you've always guessed would be loved by a huge amount of gamers. I fully expect that's what Titan will actually do, but we won't know for a while.

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Rokal
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Reply #711 on: November 14, 2012, 01:57:25 PM

Rokal, any argument that starts with "League of Legends is an MMO..." is one I can't take seriously. It isn't. It's a multiplayer game, yes. 10 people on a map does not an MMO make, there's no character persistency, etc., etc., etc. It's less of an MMO than non-MMOs like Borderlands or Diablo.

It's a multiplayer game, played with/against a massive pool of players, with persistent leveling (your 'summoner'), gear, and different "classes" (champions) to pick from and level up. It would be like arguing that WoW suddenly was is longer an MMO when battlegrounds are played with template characters. Or that Rift suddenly stopped being an MMO when they normalized gear levels and there was no way to progress your character's gear or level between matches.

Trying to define whether the game qualifies as an MMO isn't a helpful direction to bring the conversation in any case. Regardless of what you want to call it, it offers a *very* similar gameplay format to MMO battlegrounds but has completely eclipsed MMOs in popularity. You can think about whether the different style of combat has anything to do with that, or you can argue semantics.


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Reply #712 on: November 14, 2012, 02:17:48 PM

The different style of combat has nothing to do with LoL's popularity vs. say WoW. It's the fact that you jump in with a character you don't have to level up, can get in and out of a match in seconds, you don't have to organize with other people to do stuff, you don't have to mess around with any long term planning or goals or anything.

And all that stuff you *don't* have to do, is what MMO fans like about MMOs. It gives them a sense of 'this is my character' that all those other games utterly lack.

That's ultimately why this is kind of a bullshit discussion; you're never going to attract the people who don't want to do any of that stuff to a medium that's defined by doing all that stuff, simply by tweaking the combat system.

EDIT:

And I should say, you have a much better shot at getting Skyrim fans than LOL or Modern Warfare fans. They're already playing a game with all the trappings. But the combat system stuff is a distraction, I would hazard a guess that most of the people playing Skyrim don't play it because they love the combat system, they play it because it's pretty and you kill dragons and explore and it tells a story. That's what they have to capture, the minutia of the combat system is a distraction for game design wonks like us.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 02:25:51 PM by Ingmar »

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HaemishM
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Reply #713 on: November 14, 2012, 02:29:33 PM

The different style of combat has nothing to do with LoL's popularity vs. say WoW. It's the fact that you jump in with a character you don't have to level up, can get in and out of a match in seconds, you don't have to organize with other people to do stuff, you don't have to mess around with any long term planning or goals or anything.

You've never played League of Legends have you?

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Reply #714 on: November 14, 2012, 02:38:03 PM

I've played DOTA2. Correct me if I'm wrong about any of that stuff (I don't consider leveling up the hero you're using in a match 'leveling up a character' in the MMO sense, if that's one of the things you mean. Nor is 'having a plan for what to do in this match' the same thing as long term planning or goals in the sense I mean them.)

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Reply #715 on: November 14, 2012, 02:47:23 PM

In LOL, there is plenty of long-term planning to deal with from setting up the correct rune pages for different roles as well as changing masteries for the same reason. It's not a far piece from tacking on a sandboxy world outside of the matches to being just a typical MMORPG - like Pokemon the MMORPG. MMOG raids/PVP/battlegrounds are roughly equivalent to LOL matches - there just happens to be more stuff tacked on before you get to that end game material in typical MMOG's (the grind) than in LOL.

No it's not the same, but don't think for a second there isn't an equivalent amount of meta-game in a game like LOL or CoD as there is in MMORPG's. In fact, I think that kind of special little pony thinking among development teams is part of the reason why MMORPG's are so stuck in the same gameplay mechanics.

eldaec
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Reply #716 on: November 14, 2012, 04:00:19 PM

One thing I would say has become a problem in character skill based games is that since 2004 they haven't allowed positioning, ability stacking, ability/class synergies to affect anything. Character development gas been offering fewer and fewer options, without making those that are left especially interesting.

Again, not the fault of the character skill approach.

The sorts of character synergies and game changing abilities you see in dota pretty much drained out of post-2004 MMOGs.

But you can look at something like CoX and realise it doesn't have to be that way.

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Draegan
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Reply #717 on: November 14, 2012, 05:48:57 PM

Now you're just bitching that games are below your skill level. 

My only advice to your argument is stop being stupid.
Draegan
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Reply #718 on: November 14, 2012, 05:55:28 PM

I am baffled that any of you find the mob AI in GW2 and Skyrim "better" than WoW or SWTOR.

Then I assume you haven't played those two games with any significant time.
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Reply #719 on: November 14, 2012, 05:58:58 PM

One thing I would say has become a problem in character skill based games is that since 2004 they haven't allowed positioning, ability stacking, ability/class synergies to affect anything.

Don't LOTRO, AoC, DDO and TSW offer aspects of the above?

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Reply #720 on: November 14, 2012, 06:09:40 PM

GW2 dragon battles were terribly boring, though for the most part GW2 battles were more interesting than most tab targeting.


 You guys need to come up with a new term that properly defines what you hate about MMO combat.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 06:29:14 PM by Phred »
Phred
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Reply #721 on: November 14, 2012, 06:12:21 PM

It's not necessarily about the fact you can like tab-target combat. The point is that it's been done to fucking death, and it's failed in every single attempt to capture a major audience after WoW.
Guild wars 2 has tab targetting. Hardly a failure. Why don't you guys drop the hyperbole?

I didn't say it was a failure. It's not hyperbole at all to say that a tab-target game hasn't captured the 10M user audience of WoW.

Financially, however, GW2 is a different beast. It's based entirely on box sales, which makes it roughly in the same market as any other game release. It's also published by a Korean company that handles a slightly different market contingent for its games. GW2 made about $42M in sales for NC Soft per their recent financial release in Nov 7th. Only 16% of their overall income for that quarter was from the US.

All that being said, revenues were still down for the company, and income was down compared to the prior year even with the GW2 release. The stock has taken a hit as a result. Was it a failure? No. Was it the success that NC Soft wanted? No.

And of course this is all because gw2 has tab targetting. sheesh.
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Reply #722 on: November 14, 2012, 06:17:22 PM

GW2 dragon battles were terribly boring, though for the most part GW2 battles were more interesting than most tab targeting.
WTF Does this mean. Guild wars 2 has fucking tab targetting ffs. You guys need to come up with a new term that properly defines what you hate about MMO combat. Sheesh.
GW2 combat is twitchier than some of the other tab-targeted MMORPGs out there.
Phred
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Reply #723 on: November 14, 2012, 06:22:41 PM

GW2 dragon battles were terribly boring, though for the most part GW2 battles were more interesting than most tab targeting.
WTF Does this mean. Guild wars 2 has fucking tab targetting ffs. You guys need to come up with a new term that properly defines what you hate about MMO combat. Sheesh.
GW2 combat is twitchier than some of the other tab-targeted MMORPGs out there.


Hence why I suggest adopting a new term for what they hate. Thank god they dropped Diku combat. Now we just have to cure them of reaching for whatever is handy.
As someone else mentioned this is reminding me horribly of the arguments against turn based games.



« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 06:31:46 PM by Phred »
Sheepherder
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Reply #724 on: November 14, 2012, 08:43:15 PM

In the above linked video, environment means jack and shit. The player presses on button and walks past an entire room of waiting to die Mobs. Trying to compare than with the player choice of using sneaking and stealth, and the hugely more difficult act of preforming to accomplish the goal in a system of combat and environment requires more self awareness, situational awareness and environmental awareness is a huge stretch.

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Reply #725 on: November 14, 2012, 08:54:19 PM

And of course this is all because gw2 has tab targetting. sheesh.

You didn't really make any argument to suggest otherwise. Enlighten us as to why you believe the game didn't meet expectations?

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Ingmar
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Reply #726 on: November 14, 2012, 09:29:17 PM

This is the first I've heard of the game not meeting expectations. Source?

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Zetor
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Reply #727 on: November 14, 2012, 09:41:44 PM

Btw, GW2 isn't purely a box sale - it has a fairly elaborate cash shop that's bringing in large amounts of $ on its own (and will continue to do so), I'm pretty sure. GW1's cash shop offered much less, and it still made crazy amounts of money 5+ years after the game's original release.

Also,
I am baffled that any of you find the mob AI in GW2 and Skyrim "better" than WoW or SWTOR.

Then I assume you haven't played those two games with any significant time.
See my example above. My stealth archer used precisely one tactic from start until endgame, and all mobs were stupid enough to fall for it. Compared to that, mobs in WOW are tactical geniuses since they have the sense to evade bug.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 09:43:39 PM by Zetor »

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Reply #728 on: November 14, 2012, 10:00:56 PM

Let's not forget mobs who set off the traps in their own dungeon where they've been living for hundreds of years.  Ohhhhh, I see.

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Reply #729 on: November 15, 2012, 03:49:40 AM

They are just so excited to see someone new!

blackwulf
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Reply #730 on: November 15, 2012, 04:05:44 AM

And I should say, you have a much better shot at getting Skyrim fans than LOL or Modern Warfare fans. They're already playing a game with all the trappings. But the combat system stuff is a distraction, I would hazard a guess that most of the people playing Skyrim don't play it because they love the combat system, they play it because it's pretty and you kill dragons and explore and it tells a story. That's what they have to capture, the minutia of the combat system is a distraction for game design wonks like us.

That's true in my case.  I love Elder Scrolls games, but never have found the combat to be particularly engaging.  I mean Skyrim was swing, backstep, swing, backstep, swing, backstep til mob was dead.  Pretty easy.  Ranged classes were even easier.  Interested to see what ESO brings to the table.  The people who have previewed it claim that the combat is very engaging and that mobs have good AI - using synergies with other mobs, etc.
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Reply #731 on: November 15, 2012, 05:01:54 AM

GW2 dragon battles were terribly boring, though for the most part GW2 battles were more interesting than most tab targeting.
You guys need to come up with a new term that properly defines what you hate about MMO combat.

I don't hate tab combat, I hate GW2 dragon battles because they are shittly designed once you get past the "oooh neat" aspect, they don't require much skill or strategy, don't require much attention, and don't seem like it's possible to fail since they always have a zerg around them.
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Reply #732 on: November 15, 2012, 05:22:16 AM

GW2 dragon battles were terribly boring, though for the most part GW2 battles were more interesting than most tab targeting.
You guys need to come up with a new term that properly defines what you hate about MMO combat.

I don't hate tab combat, I hate GW2 dragon battles because they are shittly designed once you get past the "oooh neat" aspect, they don't require much skill or strategy, don't require much attention, and don't seem like it's possible to fail since they always have a zerg around them.
FWIW I've come close to failing a dragon event once (only had 2 people on shatterer, which means that his periodic regen crystals did more healing than we could do damage, and we got nearly overwhelmed with summoned adds... eventually 2 more people joined in and we downed him, but it definitely wasn't trivial or easy). Also, the 3 dragon fights in GW2 are not really representative of anything except for 'put big enemy against unorganized zerg' like Wintergrasp/Tol Barad bosses in WOW, invasion bosses in Rift, etc. Come to think of it, I'd say the Claw of Jormag fight is better than any of those...

In general, group fights/events in GW2 (and Rift for that matter) get better if your group/zerg is smaller. I had some really memorable fights with 1-2 other people against a champion boss / group event. When you have 20 people it's going to be crap no matter what - the only alternative would be to put in some heavy-handed zerg-busting mechanics, which would be... bad for any number of reasons.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2012, 05:46:58 AM by Zetor »

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Reply #733 on: November 15, 2012, 06:07:13 AM

And I should say, you have a much better shot at getting Skyrim fans than LOL or Modern Warfare fans. They're already playing a game with all the trappings. But the combat system stuff is a distraction, I would hazard a guess that most of the people playing Skyrim don't play it because they love the combat system, they play it because it's pretty and you kill dragons and explore and it tells a story. That's what they have to capture, the minutia of the combat system is a distraction for game design wonks like us.

That's true in my case.  I love Elder Scrolls games, but never have found the combat to be particularly engaging.  I mean Skyrim was swing, backstep, swing, backstep, swing, backstep til mob was dead.  Pretty easy.  Ranged classes were even easier.  Interested to see what ESO brings to the table.  The people who have previewed it claim that the combat is very engaging and that mobs have good AI - using synergies with other mobs, etc.

And Igmar's description is precisely the reason so many of us think TESO will not be good.  Exploring and telling a story is something most MMO's suck at, even though we have seen attempts made in that direction by GW2 and SWOTOR recently.  "Oh look I'm the head of the assassins guild - just like fifty thousand other people!"  GW2 certainly encourages exploration better then most, but IMHO part of the fun  of exploring the vast world is doing it on your own and finding something interesting as a result.  It's hard to make an MMO generate the sense of "this story/experience is completely mine" they way a single player game can b/c of the mass of people sharing it with you and the ultimate static nature of the gameworld.  The nature of the thing works against you.

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Reply #734 on: November 15, 2012, 06:46:59 AM

This is the first I've heard of the game not meeting expectations. Source?

The game in Q3 financials sold less than Aion in Q1. It's comparable to the income they made on average for Lineage 1 in Q1-2 of 2012.

When you're talking about net effects to financials, the release of the game made them about $9M using their 20% margin rate before Other G/L unrelated to operating.

The point is that they were looking for a bump from sales to beat total earnings in Q3 2011. Even with an extra 45M won coming in from GW2, NC Soft still only tied their YTD revenue totals on the year, and their total operating Margins have plunged from 25% to 12% on the year. They put money into this thing and they only have 56M to show for it in operating profit. Last year they had over $118M on the same amount of total income.

As a result the stock took a hit. Price has gone from 344,000 to 162,500 in the matter of a year. Again, this isn't to say that GW2 didn't sell. It did, but they missed on the same PC gamer market where Diablo 3 sold over 8M copies, and WoW has 10M subs, and the investors answered those missed expectation with a selloff.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2012, 06:51:12 AM by Paelos »

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