Mythic Employees Forced onto Waaaaaaaghbulance

[Tarami]

You're saying in response that it's wrong but yet I never said it was right. Just that it makes sense from a certain perspective, that of animation.

[Lantyssa]

Movement in LOTRO is like a really old jeep or truck with 6" of play in the steering wheel. That's the best way I can describe it. AC2 was the same way.

Yeah, pretty much I as a player don't care WHY it happens.  The fact that it seems slow makes it seem clunky and unfun.

It's my observation as well.  People who have gotten used to it may not notice it at all, but it's too large a hurdle for some of us, because we do notice.

[Arthur_Parker]

For my part I wasn't trying to explain why it happens.  No doubt any combat system can be improved.  I just don't agree with people who want to defend LOTRO and say it's not slower, it is, it's just that slower doesn't always have to be a bad thing.  If there are x number of options available to you in a combat round, having an extra second or so to consider them isn't such a bad thing.  Unless, you think the extra delay is really annoying, in which case, it is really annoying.

[Mrbloodworth]

Guys, are we talking about COMBAT, or MOVEMENT.

Because some of you are getting them confused.


Also, LOTRO has a unique animation for just about every ability.... I can't think of another MMO that does.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm talking about combat, that's why I keep using the codeword "combat", when/if I ever start to talk about movement I'll try to indicate that with the codeword "movement".

[tazelbain]

What is this Scanners, where combat has no movement? 

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, wasn't looking at you Arthur.

[Arthur_Parker]

Movement doesn't bother me, it might be slower but I'm used to it and it's been years since I played WoW.  If someone says movement is slower, that seems like a perfectly valid comment to me.

Edit And no, as a Guardian (Tank) I don't tend to move much in combat.

[Ingmar]

Is it just that running speed is a little slower relative to the environment? I don't remember noticing any particularly glaring issues with movement when I played LotRO.

[Lantyssa]

Guys, are we talking about COMBAT, or MOVEMENT.

Because some of you are getting them confused.

Both, though Combat was the bigger sticking point for me.

[Numtini]

It's not movement speed, it's movement responsiveness. It feels like you're walking in mud.

[Modern Angel]

I'll tell you what it is and you don't even realize it. Tab target sometime when you have more than one mob. In fact, do it with three mobs and a squirrel. Turn yourself just a little bit so the squirrel is in your field of vision. Tab. Tab again. Tab five more times. You will target the squirrel. You will then go through your targets, EVEN ONES NOT IN FRONT OF YOU, in a preset order.'

That's not actually what you guys are talking about but we've turned into a LotRO kvetch thread now so I'm jumping in. And I both play and like LotRO. But there's little things, the mushiness, the tab target mechanics, the fact that you never really feel more powerful in combat, that can and do get under peoples' skins.

But mainly fuck tab targeting, especially as a tank, in that game.

[Sjofn]

It's not movement speed, it's movement responsiveness. It feels like you're walking in mud.

I'm glad I read that whole little offshoot, because this quote right here finally explained the "movement" thing to me in a way that I could think back to playing and think, "Oh right, yeah." It does feel, at the very least, like when you push to run forward your little person takes a second to realise you want to move, then takes a couple of steps to actually start *running*. I can see why that makes sense animation-wise, but it does make the responsiveness feel shitty.

Still, that is SO overshadowed by the slow-ass combat (and yes, once I get used to it, it's "fine" but ... "fine" isn't really going to hack it, especially when Ingmar is such a damn WoW fanboy I'm lucky to get him into LotRO once a YEAR) that I really couldn't remember what about the movement would be slow.

I should go back and see if turning off autoattack helps my perception enough to get me into the 30's. I always peter out in the early 20's.

EDIT: Oh God, the tab targetting, I forgot about that. Although to be honest, most games I play I don't like the tab targetting, it always winds up targetting something a million miles away instead of the one closest to me/next closest/etc to me.

[Venkman]

I just don't agree with people who want to defend LOTRO and say it's not slower, it is, it's just that slower doesn't always have to be a bad thing.

There's having the time to make tactical course corrections, and there's a non-instant feedback to your keypresses. These are separate impressions. LoTRO suffers from the latter.

When I click a key, I want to see an action. And I'm not zoomed in to see the tendons of my arm sync up with gripping a sword tighter while swinging it. I'm taking an action that's showing me a number or percentage and only tangentially supported by an emote of that event. I appreciate when they try to sync things up, but the number and instantaneous feedback is priority 1.

[Arthur_Parker]

I was talking about the skill queue system they have, at higher levels I like it, at lower levels you don't have many choices to make so it doesn't work nearly as well.  I wouldn't advise anyone to stick with LOTRO or try to say it gets better as you level, because everyone has their own taste, LOTRO combat is just a bit different.

[WindupAtheist]

Man I know I was philosophical about it before, but I hope all this EA buttfuckery doesn't lead to UO getting shitcanned. I just resubbed and I'm having fun. The Valentine's junk this year includes a summonable cupid that recites lines of poetry you program it with. I'm having mine recite dirty lymericks at the bank.

[Delmania]

It's people like you WHO WON'T LET THE FUCKING GAME DIE ALREADY that ensure UO will remain online for years to come.

[Triforcer]

I'm having mine recite dirty lymericks at the bank.

We use our brief mortal existences so very well 

[tmp]

I'm glad I read that whole little offshoot, because this quote right here finally explained the "movement" thing to me in a way that I could think back to playing and think, "Oh right, yeah." It does feel, at the very least, like when you push to run forward your little person takes a second to realise you want to move, then takes a couple of steps to actually start *running*. I can see why that makes sense animation-wise, but it does make the responsiveness feel shitty.

Well, i just spent last 15 or so minutes trying to see this effect in game but unfortunately, plain can't. Was testing it with help of nearby walls and such as feedback, and as soon as i'd press the key, the stuff would start scrolling by. At constant speed, no less. So no pause to think, no acceleration, nothing of the sort.

The one part where i could spot the delay was perhaps coming to a stop after a longer run. If the movement key was pressed for long enough, if i let it go in mid-step, the character would complete that step moving slightly farther in the process, rather than stop immediately and reset the animation to idle stance. I can accept this could lead to feeling of sluggishness if one has expectation to have the character come from all-out run to full stop immediately, all physics be damned. From what i gather this is one of these things that split lot of games as well as their designers, into two camps.

EDIT: Oh God, the tab targetting, I forgot about that. Although to be honest, most games I play I don't like the tab targetting, it always winds up targetting something a million miles away instead of the one closest to me/next closest/etc to me.

I have mapped function to 'target the closest enemy' to ctrl+Tab in LotRO, saves me most of the belly-aching.

[Fordel]

It's people like you WHO WON'T LET THE FUCKING GAME DIE ALREADY that ensure UO will remain online for years to come.

And that is what makes UO players totally awesome. They'll sit there with their gun and can of beans until the lights are turned off.

[WindupAtheist]

I will admit to feeling a certain sense of Schadenfreude when I realized that I was reading about the imminent demise of Tabula Rasa, looking at the picture of a Gamestop dumpster full of TR boxes, while tabbed out from banksitting in UO. (How's that taste, Richard Garriot? Oh, it tastes like money? Never mind then.) They could shitcan the game tomorrow and the real diehards would just go "I can't believe it lasted this long!", fuck off to some freeshard, and kill harpies in Covetous until they die of old age.

[Draegan]

I just don't agree with people who want to defend LOTRO and say it's not slower, it is, it's just that slower doesn't always have to be a bad thing.

There's having the time to make tactical course corrections, and there's a non-instant feedback to your keypresses. These are separate impressions. LoTRO suffers from the latter.

When I click a key, I want to see an action. And I'm not zoomed in to see the tendons of my arm sync up with gripping a sword tighter while swinging it. I'm taking an action that's showing me a number or percentage and only tangentially supported by an emote of that event. I appreciate when they try to sync things up, but the number and instantaneous feedback is priority 1.

I agree with this as well.  WOW is pretty good with keypress -> something happens.  LOTRO puts the skill into a queue then executes at the first available time.

[Sunbury]

I played LOTRO as a guardian in open beta, and via a 'friend' key. 

I forget what level I got to, but I never bought it.

Main reason was my system could not handle it, even gfx turned down.

But the main reason:   I found, that I could just randomly 'drum' the special attack keys, instead of stare at them and hit them at the 'right' time - and be just as effective in combat.

Find target, approach, start combat, just randomly keep pressing 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 target dies.   I just didn't care for that.

[Draegan]

I got a guardian up to level 30 something before quitting.  There was a certain rhythm to combat once you got into it that I enjoyed.  There were some reactionary skills and chains that you could use that was entertaining.  Like some say, there is a tiny flavor of strategy to it.  Like you're playing some sort of card game. 

But there is a definite disconnect to what you're doing and what your character is doing.

[Numtini]

Main reason was my system could not handle it, even gfx turned down.

I think I'm the biggest hater of LOTRO on the forums, probably because I want to like it so much. But this is one they really did fix. I would say that from launch to the last time I played in December, my framerate probably doubled. At launch I had to significantly dumb down the dx9 graphics, when dx10 went in it was a total show stopper, and two months ago I was mid to upper settings, dx 10, with no framerate issues at all.

Wish I could say the same about Dalaran.

[Venkman]

Find target, approach, start combat, just randomly keep pressing 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 target dies.   I just didn't care for that.

I played a Minstrel into the 30s, but my life did start at random keypressing. Then it evolved into something again to a slower EQ1 Bard songtwisting method. I'm one of those nuts that actually liked that, as it gets closer to player skill than just compartmentalization-by-stat. Also liked it as Mage Assassin in SB. Quick short-duration buffs that could be synchronized, and sometimes even build off of each other.

[raydeen]

Main reason was my system could not handle it, even gfx turned down.

I think I'm the biggest hater of LOTRO on the forums, probably because I want to like it so much. But this is one they really did fix. I would say that from launch to the last time I played in December, my framerate probably doubled. At launch I had to significantly dumb down the dx9 graphics, when dx10 went in it was a total show stopper, and two months ago I was mid to upper settings, dx 10, with no framerate issues at all.

Wish I could say the same about Dalaran.

I can attest that they definitely optimized something. I played at the end of open beta and framerate was horrendous even on lowest settings (2 year old laptop GPU ftl) but I d/l'd the client and tried it again a day or so ago and it's much improved. I still don't think I'm going to go past the 10 day trial but it's more playable now than it was then.

[Delmania]

I am trying to enjoy LotrO as a minstrel, I keep telling myself if I make it to 20 to get Warspeech, things will improve, but that disconnect between pressing a button and when the action occurs is getting to me.  There's also the fact that I am playing in Tolkein's world, in which the characters have no real depth.  They're either pure noble like Aragorn or Faramir, or utter douchebags like Saruman.  The only people who had eny depth to them in the books both died.

[Modern Angel]

Who were the two? Thorin and Gollum?

[sidereal]

Treebeard and Radagast.



Seriously, I have no idea what people are talking about with the muddiness.  I just fired it up again.  Its perfectly responsive.  We're playing different games.

[Sjofn]

Who were the two? Thorin and Gollum?

Boromir maybe?

Whoever Delmania meant, they're probably still alive right now! LotRO's timeline is movng slowly.

[Merusk]

I figured he meant Boromir and Theodan.

[Soln]

Seriously folks all  aside about LotRO what are you comparing it to?  Perfectly reasonable to say “It doesn’t work for me” but for those of you playing WAR or EQ2 it feels slow?  

[Venkman]

Been too long for me since EQ2, but yea, LoTRO combat when I played felt more sluggish than launch-day WAR (after they fixed some things there).

[Modern Angel]

I meant Theodan, too. Theodan and Gollum. Gollum was the most complex character in the series.