SWTOR

[caladein]

See: MxO's first combat system.

Page 200!

[tmp]

That's just trading one form of immersion breaking for another, and would look absolutely terrible when you're fighting a bunch of guys with blasters.

How often do 3+ people fire their guns at exactly the same time? Other than when working as part of execution squad, anyway.

Not sure why having one guy fire a second after another so the results could be animated properly would be such an immersion breaking deal or look terrible. It happens often enough as it is, when "fire at will" is in place.

(and if that has a side-effect of reducing impact of 5v1 gang bang approach in PvP then that's more of a plus in my book than a disadvantage...)

[Samprimary]

Tho that still doesn't explain why clubs and stone spears took out an entire legion of the Empire's best troops. 

now hold on there were also some pretty ingenious logs used there, to be fair to the geurilla prowess of the cute and cuddly early indicators of lucas' cinematic dementia

[tmp]

They also start to take some good beating after the initial surprise factor wears out. That part is just unmercifully short.

[Sheepherder]

You don't even have to have every attack proc a dodge animation.  The logical course is to check what animation is currently playing, and if it cannot be interrupted or cut short to insert a dodge/parry animation without making the result look spastic then simply set the destination of the upcoming bolt/blade attack so that it is visually a very near miss.

[luckton]

Page 200!   

Where's our subforum unlock?

[ezrast]

Global cooldowns are something I've never seen the attraction or value of. Attacks take some amount of time, finish one, you get to choose the next.

I've always assumed that GCD's served a few purposes:

1) they are a way to equalize latency differences

2) They eliminate the ability of some classes to have ridiculous spike damage (hit all instas at the same time)

3) They force more strategic use of abilities.

Without GCD's, every combat ability has a cast time. When every ability has a cast time, everyone at f13 complains that the combat feels floaty/underwater and isn't as responsive as WoW's.

I really don't know what you could replace them with that would work better. GCD's are just a way to stick the activation time onto the end of an ability rather than the beginning, which makes melee feel snappier and also sidesteps pesky issues like "what if my target moves away (or behind me) during my melee ability cast?" People don't like having delays in their attack...

Not sure why having one guy fire a second after another so the results could be animated properly would be such an immersion breaking deal or look terrible.

Ohai.

I also can't fathom the concern for whether your psionic space laser-sword monk does sweet flippy attacks all the time, or only some of the time, and doges bullets like a total ninja, or only half a ninja. But then, I can't fathom most of the concern for this game.

[Amaron]

Without GCD's, every combat ability has a cast time. When every ability has a cast time, everyone at f13 complains that the combat feels floaty/underwater and isn't as responsive as WoW's.

People probably want stupid shit like frame canceling.   Of course if we had frame canceling everyone would just cheat.   When you get right down to it there really are technical reasons why the system hasn't changed much.   Unless some law comes out where internet nut punchers are mandatory for all internet related activities.

[Velorath]

That's just trading one form of immersion breaking for another, and would look absolutely terrible when you're fighting a bunch of guys with blasters.

How often do 3+ people fire their guns at exactly the same time? Other than when working as part of execution squad, anyway.

Not sure why having one guy fire a second after another so the results could be animated properly would be such an immersion breaking deal or look terrible. It happens often enough as it is, when "fire at will" is in place.

(and if that has a side-effect of reducing impact of 5v1 gang bang approach in PvP then that's more of a plus in my book than a disadvantage...)

Take a look at Assassin's Creed combat.  The way it works is that you've got a group of enemies, and only one at a time is the primary attacker.  The others hang back and do nothing.  The pacing of the combat is very slow compared to something like Star Wars, because it's heavily based on counter attacking and you need to give the player a window of opportunity to respond (would probably have to be an even bigger window in an MMO to account for lag).  In the case of three enemies with blasters, you'd have one take a shot, and then the player would react by dodging or blocking the shot and then reacting (or getting hit), all the while the other two guys are doing nothing.   I like the AC games and all, but anyone who thinks that the combat there looks any less ridiculous than the average MMO is crazy.

[sam, an eggplant]

As some already mentioned, autoattack is simply the old style of MMO combat, before several layers of recent innovation. It originates from the EQ days when latency was a major consideration and melee only occasionally hit buttons. Everquest1 warriors had two buttons upon release, for example; kick and taunt.

WoW released late 2004, and you didn't really have to worry much about supporting very high latency connections. Everybody had DSL or cable. Upon its release several melee classes were constrained by resources and expected to hit buttons in rapid succession, pooling those resources for a finishing move. Several were constrained by cooldowns, but those cooldowns tended to be fairly short. Melee had actual gameplay in 10s "rotations".

More recently in WoW, the developers modified melee mechanics so they worked on priorities rather than rotations, provided every spec with a resource (some more effectively than others, admittedly) and eliminated the majority of "dead" periods. Melee now hits buttons pretty much every global cooldown. You can't /afk to victory.

Question is, if you're already pressing a button every 1.0 to 1.5s, why do you need autoattack in the first place? Autoattack can be relegated to the lowest priority ability; whichever one gives the least bang for the buck. Makes perfect sense to me.

[tmp]

Take a look at Assassin's Creed combat.  The way it works is that you've got a group of enemies, and only one at a time is the primary attacker.  The others hang back and do nothing.

True, but then a page back or so i was suggesting not copying the combat from AC directly, but just the animation component -- that is, the idea that the fight is broken on the animation level into separate 1v1 bits, and these are played in sequence. Meaning you can have multiple people target the same person and hit their skill buttons, and these skills can all play one by one as the target animates rection to them. On the functional level this is no different from how these games already do their stuff, the only difference is in the game engine arranging the incoming attacks into a sequence (something it already needs to do under the hood anyway)

edit: when it comes specifically to figthing enemies with blasters the complaint feels especially hollow, as you can pretty much have single dodge/block take care of all of them at once. In fact, iirc it's how the single player KotOR games did it -- they had animation of the player waving the saber in a single flourish and that'd reflect all shots incoming at the given moment.

[Ingmar]

that is, the idea that the fight is broken on the animation level into separate 1v1 bits, and these are played in sequence

Aren't we then sitting around while it plays X different animations before we get to do our next ability then? That would never fly with people in general.

[Sheepherder]

The simpler argument is how the fuck is your server maintaining synchronicity.

Everybody had DSL or cable.

You are wrong.

[tmp]

Aren't we then sitting around while it plays X different animations before we get to do our next ability then? That would never fly with people in general.

Depends how often you get to do your next ability, i'd imagine. Or in other words, how many people have to attack the same target before you actually have to wait any longer than you have to wait anyway when attacking the same targets all on your own?

(to elaborate, i don't expect the game to do something like require the player to mash button for every single shot and/or saber swing their character takes. So in situation when it's three characters attacking rather than one, could easily see the regular animation of 2-3 swings be replaced with 3 separate sequences of single swing/parry each)

[sam, an eggplant]

You are wrong.

Thanks for the useful contribution, Professor. "Everybody" indeed did not have DSL in 2004. Your comment will be filed in the proper place.

[Kageru]

CO was dreadful before they finally put auto-attack in it. If I'm focused on something else or waiting to trigger a combo I don't want to be tapping "1" every .5 seconds and taking a latency penalty on each press. Auto-attack as a representation of your characters baseline damage seems fine to me and makes long MMO sessions more tolerable.

Is this some sort of console thing where if a couple of seconds pass without pressing the "hit it" key people get bored?

[Ingmar]

I'd rather have auto-attack than the Rift 'spam this single button when you're not doing anything else' model. A button press should have a meaningful result beyond 'generic swing', I think.

[Zetor]

Yeah, filler attacks suck. Same reason I can't play a hunter in WOW (that, and a 1sec global cooldown sucks with my 600+ ping), all that spamming of steady/cobra shot is a huge bother.

[Samprimary]

All this while the dessicated husk of FFXIV goes through a desperate, pathetic, song-and-dance routine to get autoattack in. Of course, it's not directly comparable because a good enough combat system doesn't really need autoattack, where XIV's combat system is such a dire piece of shit that autoattack is needed just even to make it slightly less painful to deal with.

[Murgos]

God damn, the last three pages suck.

[Malakili]

This would be good enough for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ_A95Vptvg

[Sheepherder]

Thanks for the useful contribution, Professor.

You're welcome.

[Draegan]

God damn, the last three pages suck.

You sure we don't need another 2 pages of neckbeards going back and forth about GCDs and Autoattacks?

[Murgos]

Oh, I'm sure we can segue into 4 or 5 pages of the importance/lack of importance of day/night cycles in an MMO (SWTOR will have set time of day lighting per planet).

[UnSub]

Oh, I'm sure we can segue into 4 or 5 pages of the importance/lack of importance of day/night cycles in an MMO (SWTOR will have set time of day lighting per planet).

SWOR will not have dynamic weather systems. Discuss.

[Amaron]

I think we should have neckbeard discussions of Taunting  .

[Malakili]

Oh, I'm sure we can segue into 4 or 5 pages of the importance/lack of importance of day/night cycles in an MMO (SWTOR will have set time of day lighting per planet).

SWOR will not have dynamic weather systems. Discuss.

This is an outrage, page 45 of the Star Wars: Worlds of the Republic Compendium clearly states that Alderaan has a yearly rainfall of  150cm, and that the majority of thing occurs during the planets wet season.  WHY IS BIOWARE RUINING STAR WARS

[Draegan]

Ok that wins page 200.

[Bunk]

That guild page isn't exactly full of win. Once I sat through five minutes of loading to actually pull up the roster, I tried to find a way to update my profile - no such luck. Apparently I am to be permanently undecided on which class I'm starting with.

[Paelos]

I signed up for tanking duty on the F13 guild. RAWR WARRIOR

[Malakili]

I'm impressed people have chosen a class already at all.

[DraconianOne]

I'm impressed people have chosen a class already at all.

A guy in my old SWG guild has a 20 page character background document for his Imperial Agent. He wrote it a year ago. 

[eldaec]

This would be good enough for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ_A95Vptvg

She was a fucking bitch.

I seem to remember the trick being to use the platforms and force her to jump up to you. I have the high ground etc.

[Sky]

That guild page isn't exactly full of win. Once I sat through five minutes of loading to actually pull up the roster, I tried to find a way to update my profile - no such luck. Apparently I am to be permanently undecided on which class I'm starting with.

It's under "guild application" in My Account.

I'm impressed people have chosen a class already at all.

I saved proof-of-purchases to mail order a Boba Fett action figure when I was a kid. Also, ootini!

Guild cleanup note: pending apps from 4 people I don't recognize. Please sound off if it's you:

steak
Kagemushya
JohnOC
Meccan

[caladein]

I'm impressed people have chosen a class already at all.

Well I know...

... what side I'm going (because of my guild/friends): Sith Empire.  4 classes left.
... what role(s) I'd like to perform: Healing and Ranged Damage.  2 classes left.
... that I'd rather not be a Force user.  Bounty Hunter.

Honorable mentions to Agent/Inquisitor because a) they're healers and b) I have a great love of spy fiction.