SWTOR

[AutomaticZen]

No auto attack?  That's an interesting choice.

[Venkman]

I think it makes sense if you're into the whole "less diku-y = more button mashing" line of thought. Nobody wants to hit autoattack and then go make a sandwich anymore. Though of course, nobody has actually done that since grinding our GM Swordsmanship in pre-T2A UO But regardless, button mashing gives the impression that one must constantly adapt to ever changing conditions.

Of course that's generally not the case in these games with AI being little more than walking treasure chests. But as long a player isn't relegating to just mashing the same exact skill over and over and over, it should be closer to WoW than, well, UO.

[AutomaticZen]

I think it makes sense if you're into the whole "less diku-y = more button mashing" line of thought. Nobody wants to hit autoattack and then go make a sandwich anymore. Though of course, nobody has actually done that since grinding our GM Swordsmanship in pre-T2A UO But regardless, button mashing gives the impression that one must constantly adapt to ever changing conditions.

Of course that's generally not the case in these games with AI being little more than walking treasure chests. But as long a player isn't relegating to just mashing the same exact skill over and over and over, it should be closer to WoW than, well, UO.

Well, as they explained it, basic attacks (like Saber Strike on the Sith Inquistor) are multi-hit attacks that cancel out if you kill the target.  I assume if you hit Saber Strike, your guy will do his thing for three or four hits, and you can cancel out of basic with any other ability.

From Darth Hater:

The first thing we noticed while playing the Inquisitor was the uncomfortable sensation of not having an auto attack. Instead we were supplied with “Saber Strike,” a multi-hit attack that causes damage and regenerates force points. It should be noted that “Saber Strike” is different from attacks in Age of Conan or Diablo, where a single button press results in a single attack. Hitting the hotkey, or clicking the right mouse button on a target, results in multiple hits that span the length of the global cooldown.

Another interesting note about “Saber Strike” is that each individual hit does damage and the animations reflect this. For example, if a target dies after only the second hit the Sith Inquisitor stops attacking. This prevents players from having to watch a series of preset animations when an enemy has been defeated after the first few strikes. This also means that the animation sets used in “Saber Strike” can be varied, preventing them from appearing visually repetitive.

[Venkman]

Darth Hater is used to auto-attack and all he points out is that instead of auto attack you need to hit a hot key or you won't do anything at all. Even if it appears as a sequence of actions and even if each of incremental hit/misses are individually calculated, this is still the 1-hotkey = 1-action we're all used to already.

In terms of cancelling out, all I keep seeing is that if the target dies, the animation dies. I haven't seen any promise of some sort of in-line/real-time change based on pressing a key during the sequence of executing your prior key.

Ultimately in other words, nothing new to see.

[Malakili]

From Darth Hater:

The first thing we noticed while playing the Inquisitor was the uncomfortable sensation of not having an auto attack. Instead we were supplied with “Saber Strike,” a multi-hit attack that causes damage and regenerates force points.

Sounds a little like Champions Online in terms of using "energy builders" and then expending your energy on bigger attacks.  Although, there were several different settings that you could do for your Builder in Champions (have to press the button every time, have it continue until your target is dead, have it fire as soon as you have an enemy selected).   I actually like that general mechanic and I think the Champions combat is actually the games second strongest point (after character customization),  I just don't like the idea of spamming buttons, cause it doesn't add anything as far as I'm concerned.  

Give me the option to make it auto, I guess, is my point.

[AutomaticZen]

Sounds a little like Champions Online in terms of using "energy builders" and then expending your energy on bigger attacks.  Although, there were several different settings that you could do for your Builder in Champions (have to press the button every time, have it continue until your target is dead, have it fire as soon as you have an enemy selected).   I actually like that general mechanic and I think the Champions combat is actually the games second strongest point (after character customization),  I just don't like the idea of spamming buttons, cause it doesn't add anything as far as I'm concerned.  

Give me the option to make it auto, I guess, is my point.

Well for awhile there in CO beta, we didn't even have the option of putting it on auto.

I think this could be fine, depending on the time between hitting a basic attack again. At 3 or 4 seconds, it probably won't feel like spamming.  But we'd have to wait and see really.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Lack of auto-attack worked great in AOC 

[Count Nerfedalot]

If there is an basic repeating attack that is just like having autoattack except I have to keep pressing a button to keep it going, then just make the stupid thing an autoattack.  Having my character standing there like a fence post because I got briefly distracted by RL is just stupid.  Even our pets aren't that stupid.  In fact, give me a button I can toggle like my pet's that lets me autodefend when I'm attacked!  FFS I'm still suffering from carpal-tunnel issues acquired in the late 90's from playing Diablo!

Removing autoattack just to implement its equivalent but with more button mashing is stupidity worthy of a marketing guy.  No developer should let his/her name anywhere near such oxygen-deprived asshattery.

[Kageru]

Those would be linked attacks so they can have a different animations to make it look like you (or your character) are doing complex combination attacks. Champions online did that with some of their melee attacks so 5 presses of the "ego blade" attack would produce several different animations that flowed together. Net gameplay value is zero but it looks pretty.

I'd be perfectly happy with a co-operative RPG. A public lobby / city / mission hub and then instanced scenarios we can play through together. However I won't pay a sub for it because once we exhaust the content that would be it, though happy to buy new adventure packs if the prices are reasonable. However that model is pretty much incompatible with long dialogs. If there's my X friends ready to game no one wants to sit through long spiels, even less so if it only relates to one character.

[Margalis]

This seems exactly the same as auto-attack except more of a pain in the ass.

I wish more MMO devs would demonstrate familiarity with other genres. Look at Torchlight, they made it so that instead of clicking over and over again you could just hold down the button - moving in the opposite direction. Which makes sense because clicking over and over is just busy work.

Removing auto-attack makes sense if you replace it with something more genuinely acttiony. If you have different attacks with different properties, or timing really matters, or you stand still while attacking - you know, things that have been common in action games since 1990. But if you don't go that route making people continually press a button to continually auto-attack makes little sense.

[Nevermore]

CoX did non-autoattack well, imo.

[Ratman_tf]

I wish more MMO devs would demonstrate familiarity with other genres. Look at Torchlight,

Or Diablo -> Diablo 2. Basic refinement.

[Montague]

From Darth Hater:

The first thing we noticed while playing the Inquisitor was the uncomfortable sensation of not having an auto attack. Instead we were supplied with “Saber Strike,” a multi-hit attack that causes damage and regenerates force points. It should be noted that “Saber Strike” is different from attacks in Age of Conan or Diablo, where a single button press results in a single attack. Hitting the hotkey, or clicking the right mouse button on a target, results in multiple hits that span the length of the global cooldown.

Another interesting note about “Saber Strike” is that each individual hit does damage and the animations reflect this. For example, if a target dies after only the second hit the Sith Inquisitor stops attacking. This prevents players from having to watch a series of preset animations when an enemy has been defeated after the first few strikes. This also means that the animation sets used in “Saber Strike” can be varied, preventing them from appearing visually repetitive.

2004 called. Crusader Strike X 3 + Holy Strike sucked then. It will suck in 2010.

[AutomaticZen]

2004 called. Crusader Strike X 3 + Holy Strike sucked then. It will suck in 2010.

Didn't you have to hit Crusader Strike all three times?

[Murgos]

Pushing a button and then having to wait for your next chance to push a button is not fun.  It is exactly the reason games have moved to push button, something happens, push next button, watch something else happen and etc...

[Montague]

Pushing a button and then having to wait for your next chance to push a button is not fun.  It is exactly the reason games have moved to push button, something happens, push next button, watch something else happen and etc...

Yes. That plus I know I'll never play an Inquisitor in PVP. Melee class gets double fucked by not being in melee = no damage + no force (mana) regeneration. Kite and drain, where have we seen this before?

I'm beginning to see what Schild is talking about with Bioware Austin. 

[Threash]

Lack of auto-attack worked great in AOC 

Yeah because the shitty combat is the first thing people complained about 

[DLRiley]

Lack of auto-attack worked great in AOC 

Yeah because the shitty combat is the first thing people complained about 

Complaints about the age of conan combat was pretty common, the people who jizzed themselves over the combat generally toughed it out. Those that didn't left promptly.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Lack of auto-attack worked great in AOC 

Yeah because the shitty combat is the first thing people complained about 

Complaints about the age of conan combat was pretty common, the people who jizzed themselves over the combat generally toughed it out. Those that didn't left promptly.

Combat was one of the worst offenders for me when i tried playing any type of melee. caster wasnt so bad but it just made melee combat feel, sluggish. 

[Malakili]

This goes back a page to the alignment/dialog discussion, but oh well:

[Sheepherder]

The reason why ability queueing and auto-attacks are a good thing immediately becomes obvious once you play on a connection with ping higher than 800 ms with a tendency to randomly drop you or desynchronize once you start moving significant amounts of data.

[Merusk]

Well clearly the answer to that is: "Then you shouldn't be playing an online game.  Get broadband and move to a real city you hick!"

 

[Velorath]

The reason why ability queueing and auto-attacks are a good thing immediately becomes obvious once you play on a connection with ping higher than 800 ms with a tendency to randomly drop you or desynchronize once you start moving significant amounts of data.

That's quite possibly one of the most retarded things I've ever read here.  Are you honestly suggesting that developers should design combat around the concept that even if you lose connection or desync that you should still be able to win fights?

[Malakili]

The reason why ability queueing and auto-attacks are a good thing immediately becomes obvious once you play on a connection with ping higher than 800 ms with a tendency to randomly drop you or desynchronize once you start moving significant amounts of data.

That's quite possibly one of the most retarded things I've ever read here.  Are you honestly suggesting that developers should design combat around the concept that even if you lose connection or desync that you should still be able to win fights?

People often say death penalties should be light because lag can kill you too.  Its the same basic idea.  Hell, there are plenty of times in a game like WoW where as long as I was fighting only one thing I could hit a massive spike and still end up killing whatever it was fighting.

[Murgos]

So, then, the argument is that the game designers should make the game the least fun they can for the majority of their subscribers so that a few with, possibly temporary, connection issues can 'sort of' play the game?

[Zetor]

This goes both ways, and I think this issue has been rehashed a few million times in the various 'mmog vs. twitch' threads. Personally I play on west coast US servers from Europe (constant 600+ ping) because I like to play with my guild that happens to be international. Aussies will have terrible latency to US servers as well, even if they use a pay service such as lowerping or whatever.. and I think there are quite a few of 'em.

Properly-implemented global cooldowns and (even single) command queues are must-haves for me, and the lack of both was why playing a few days in aion beta was enough to ensure I wouldn't play it in release even before I knew of TEH GRIND. OTOH, autoattacks aren't really needed, COH works just fine for players with bad latency (edit: even though you can toggle a power to autofire, so that's sort of like autoattack, but not really).

[Malakili]

So, then, the argument is that the game designers should make the game the least fun they can for the majority of their subscribers so that a few with, possibly temporary, connection issues can 'sort of' play the game?

Nah, I actually agree with you, I'm just saying, this isn't some  new concept we are dealing with.   

[Murgos]

This goes both ways, and I think this issue has been rehashed a few million times in the various 'mmog vs. twitch' threads. Personally I play on west coast US servers from Europe (constant 600+ ping) because I like to play with my guild that happens to be international. Aussies will have terrible latency to US servers as well, even if they use a pay service such as lowerping or whatever.. and I think there are quite a few of 'em.

In this case you are deliberately choosing the less optimal, high-latency, experience.  I understand that you want to play with the people you want to play with and that decision guides your (in particular you) spending but do you think that pursuing the dollar of the person choosing to play with high-latency is a long term money earning strategy for investment purposes?

Another way to say it is that I get that there is 'a' market for high-latency optimized gaming but is that market worth $50 or $100 million or more in speculative financing?

[Zetor]

Yeah, I'm not making a case for myself (I cope with playing caster types who don't rely as much on good latency), but Aussies don't have a choice, and I'd say that's a pretty big market. To my knowledge there are no MMOGs with datacenters in Aus, so they play on US servers or don't play at all. There could be players in BFE Idaho who only have dialup or satellite connections. Etc.

Also, I was mostly disagreeing with the entire

game designers should make the game the least fun they can for the majority of their subscribers so that a few with, possibly temporary, connection issues can 'sort of' play the game

bit, which is not true at all. Adding a single-spell queue to a game (like WOW has) is relatively simple, doesn't impact the play experience of most players at all, and makes the difference between playable and unplayable for those with high pings.


edit: speling hard

[Sheepherder]

That's quite possibly one of the most retarded things I've ever read here.  Are you honestly suggesting that developers should design combat around the concept that even if you lose connection or desync that you should still be able to win fights?

Are you honestly suggesting that if your significant other / sibling / dog trips over your router on the way out of your mancave while you have the mob at 5% health remaining and you're at 80% that you should lose the fight just because?  You don't even have to be sitting at [godawful] ms to see that that line of reasoning is pure Grunk level sadomasochism.

[tmp]

Are you honestly suggesting that if your significant other / sibling / dog trips over your router on the way out of your mancave while you have the mob at 5% health remaining and you're at 80% that you should lose the fight just because?

I'd imagine it's not just "because" but rather because you're simply no longer there to react to situation by defending yourself and attacking. Which is pretty sensible reason to lose a fight. Just like in any other game if you stop responding with the enemy at 5% health and yourself at 80%, they'll eventually kill you.

[WindupAtheist]

I think if I have Zangief at 5% energy and then drop the controller, Zangief should just be knocked out anyway. Hur hur. Also, the entire continent of Australia has a population only somewhat larger than Mexico City and markedly smaller than Tokyo. Just saying.

[Furiously]

I am still reading the title as secret weapons of the old repulic.

[Velorath]

That's quite possibly one of the most retarded things I've ever read here.  Are you honestly suggesting that developers should design combat around the concept that even if you lose connection or desync that you should still be able to win fights?

Are you honestly suggesting that if your significant other / sibling / dog trips over your router on the way out of your mancave while you have the mob at 5% health remaining and you're at 80% that you should lose the fight just because?  You don't even have to be sitting at [godawful] ms to see that that line of reasoning is pure Grunk level sadomasochism.

It's not the developers' responsibility to make sure the game mechanics compensate for your retarded significant other/sibling/dog.  How often do you find your fucking router getting unplugged?  If it's enough that you think major combat design decisions need to take that into account, I'd suggest the problem lies with you.  Sadomasochism has nothing to do with it.  If lag, or a power outage or something results in my character dying, who really gives a shit?  Death penalties in most major MMO's are practically non-existent now.  You just rez and get back to what you were doing.  Oversimplifying combat to the point where you can win when you aren't even connected to the game is the wrong answer.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I am still reading the title as secret weapons of the old repulic.

Hah!  So I'm NOT the only one.