Why I don't enjoy this game.

[Sky]

I just loaded up a bargain bin game I got a while ago: Gladiator Sword of Vengeance. Within a minute I was doing combo spin moves, jumping off guys and combo attacking secondary targets. MMO combat just sucks compared to any decent single player game. Even co-op stuff like XML2 is better than most mmo. Part of it is a latency thing, but c'mon. I remember playing Oni and thinking how cool my EQ monk would've been if he had those moves (which, c'mon devs, lets see more combat like that awesome game...4-way attacks, grab an enemies weapon while he's still holding it and shoot his buddy...what a game).

[shiznitz]

If you had those sweet combo moves but only 4 classes and 4 races, would you be happy?

[Sky]

You only need one good class and race that suits you, really.

[Furiously]

The number of abilities you have doesn't really matter, what matters is how differentiated they are. A kick and a slash that both do damage might as well be the same attack. Now make it so that the kick can interrupt an enemy special attack but does a lot less damage and you may have something.

Exactly - every special should be a choice of "What do I want to do this round", like the global spell recycle in WOW. Not, "Oh the timer is almost up on this ability, Grog smash button." One way a bot could play better then me, the other, I might actually have to think a little.

[Sky]

Continuing with my griping about diku mechanics, there is also the fact that you pretty much just stand there. Even if you have interesting combat choices, you really don't get the benefit of the environment. For instance, in BF2 I may be somewhat limited in 'attacks' (knife, rifle, grenade for my assault kit, for instance), but the ways in which I can implement those attacks is so varied because of the environment, and also stances. So while running and gunning might get me killed by the 'boss mob' say, a tank, lying low, sniping out support infantry and lobbing in some grenades is a good 'special move'.

I'm not great at fps, but it's consistently been the best implementation of real-time combat imo. Even Planetside (though in disclosure I played a grenade launcher guy in that game, too...avoiding the cone of fire once again!).

It was one of the first things my girlfriend noticed about CoV. "Why do you just stand there?" And that was with a traps MM, I moved around a bit to place traps...Having a non-gamer perspective around is great.

[Margalis]

I think having people who have played action games but never a MMORPG play them for the first time would uncover some very obvious issues that MMORPG devs and players have learned to ignore. Like "why did he take damage 5 seconds after you attacked him?" and "how can he hit you facing the wrong direction?"

[jpark]

I have a new theory:  SOE bought Vanguard to make folks feel better about playing EQ2 

[Surlyboi]

Seriously, you're like the fucking Eddie Haskel of the EQ2 forum. Find a better hobby. Don't you have a crusade to burn or something?

[trias_e]

I don't necessarily want FPS or fighting game mechanics in an MMORPG.

You can say that MMORPGs seem dumb to people watching, but Final Fantasy looks pretty stupid to someone just watching for the first time as well. 

I don't really care if it looks or seems dumb to the uninitated.  That has nothing to do with my enjoyment of an RPG.  I just want the RPG mechanics to be interesting, have some tactical depth, and maybe a little aesthetic appeal.  I'm not saying that mixing genres couldn't be fun (played deus ex or system shock 2 recently?), but I don't think that's really the core of the matter here as much as design decisions are.  CoH actually failed for me partially because it was stuck in between two worlds, and I really wish it would have just went one way or another, to be honest.  Of course, YMMHV (may have varied).

And again, WoW did a better job of RPG mechanics than EQ2 did, even with it's simplistic style.  Not that I love WoW.  But, imagine if someone took the baseline of WoW (important abilities, cool looking abilities), and gave the system less spam and more depth.

I think in an MMORPG it's perfectly fine to not be spamming something all the time.  Auto-attack is a very reasonable convention, simply because this is an RPG, not necessarily street fighter. 

[Surlyboi]

See, but that's you and you're entitled to that opinion. If I hadn't played UO and EQ and AO and SWG before WoW, I might feel the same way. Unfortunately, I did play those games and more. WoW is more of the same except sped up and flashier for the ADD crowd. Of course, that's my opinion. I could be wrong, but that's the feeling I get when I play it or watch other people play it. The constant ding grats is still a treadmill, Blizzard just disguises it better.

[trias_e]

Well, to clarify, I don't think WoW is innovative at all.  But I do think it does get the 'distinct, interesting' abilities part down, generally speaking.  I did play EQ, and WoW is much better at this.  WoW is simple and flashy, however.  It is all about lots of short-term gratification (in all three levels:  Combat, Quest, Level) , until bait and switch raiding sets in at 60.

But my point is that the problem with WoW or EQ2 isn't that they are using RPG mechanics.  It's that they are using them poorly.  In EQ2's case, lacking the distinct and impressive part.  In WoW's case, lacking depth.  But I think WoW really demonstrates that distinct and interesting abilities should be the number 1 concern in RPG combat, the baseline for adding depth to.

[Surlyboi]

I agree with you almost completely, except I think depth should be number one.

You got your chocolate in my peanut butter...

[Sky]

Great. But we've got how many auto-attack, stand-in-place games out there in mmo? Even Tabula Rasa is going to be in that category, for most purposes. I'm still very skeptical about Huxley.

What I'm saying is if you have great combat mechanics, like the chick from Oni (Konoko?) as a model for monk/martial arts-style melee, Soul Calibur as a model for weapons style, shooters like BF2 (with cover, concealment, prone/kneel positions) as models for ranged...and then you put that on top of a solid rpg world with questing and lore (unlike, say, Planetside's empty bland world)...that's what /I'm/ talking about.

And then add minigames, from Chess to Poker to Golf (where you actual go into a Tiger-esque instance with your avatar as your golfer, spend ingame dough to upgrade your clubs, etc)...

That's when mmo begins to shine imo. It's the magic idea I had when I first heard of the genre, and the genre has really not done anything to progress beyond MUDs, imo. How many meeelions for EQ2 and Vanguard? Give me a break.

[jpark]

Seriously, you're like the fucking Eddie Haskel of the EQ2 forum. Find a better hobby. Don't you have a crusade to burn or something?

That was good :)

[UD_Delt]

Not sure if this is a rehash since I didn't bother to read the entire thread yet (it's late) but for me it comes down to a simple difference...


WoW is easy, EQ2 is not (at first).

I finally got around to playing WoW late last year and took every class up to about 30, except paladin. Currently I'm playing a 42 Druid and a 43 Hunter. There was no barrier to entry in WoW you could just jump right in and level with ease. You don't really have to learn a thing, equipment drops like candy and you just stop by a trainer every 2 levels and buy the best level of spell available. There really is nothing to it. Same with crafting. Harvest enough stuff, click a button, come back 10 minutes later and that skill is maxed for your level range. You don't even really need to quest to figure things out.

EQ2 on the other hand is more difficult at first. To start you only have apprentice 1 level spells which is a really big disadvantage starting by level 10 (an hour or two later). Now you have to figure out the upgrade paths there, where to get the materials to upgrade, etc... Decent equipment can only really be had by questing at those levels as well unless you tradeskill. It really is a tough game for someone starting up their very first character and without putting in a bit of effort to figure it out you will REALLY start to struggle around level 20-25. If you don't keep up with your skills AND equipment that's when the downslope of your power vs. mobs will really become aparent.

On the other hand once you've played one character through EQ2 and can provide the spell upgrades leveling can be really easy depending on how far you take the twinking.

I fully expect a lot of wowtards would never be able to get a single char up to level 70 in EQ2.

Just my 2 cents...

[Margalis]

What I'm saying is if you have great combat mechanics, like the chick from Oni (Konoko?) as a model for monk/martial arts-style melee, Soul Calibur as a model for weapons style, shooters like BF2 (with cover, concealment, prone/kneel positions) as models for ranged...and then you put that on top of a solid rpg world with questing and lore (unlike, say, Planetside's empty bland world)...that's what /I'm/ talking about.

You do realize that Oni, Soul Calibur and BF2 are all entire games on their own right?

Also I hate it when people mention tech limitations wrt MMORPGs, but there really are some limitations.

I agree with you in spirit - and I do think you can come up with a fighting system *far* more advanced than what MMOs have today. I've been thinking of some ideas that would be fun and very doable.

[Sky]

You do realize that Oni, Soul Calibur and BF2 are all entire games on their own right?

Holy shit! I never realized that. I guess that explains the long load time between zones.

[Margalis]

Ha ha.

[pxib]

You do realize that Oni, Soul Calibur and BF2 are all entire games on their own right?

Holy shit! I never realized that. I guess that explains the long load time between zones.

This was meant flippantly but I think it's actually cogent... at least where Soul Calibur is concerned. There are notable load times before each fight as the game processes the animations for just two characters' fighting styles... and they don't have to deal with attacks from multiple directions simultaneously. Oni has more options, but fewer animations. Importantly, the main character never has to interact with enemies fighting as acrobatically as she.

Even ignoring the high-ping latency problems inherent to online play, we have yet to see the systems you are requesting combined in a single player game. I would not be surprised to see a more worldy version of Planetside produced along the BF2 model... but it will be a long time before we see Soul Calibur Online.

[Merusk]

RISE FROM.. Er.. well,  4 posts down.   Damn shallow graves.

So I downloaded the "Play The Fae" trial and gave EQ2 another shot.  It's come a good ways from when last I tried it. Being able to pick the class I want to play from the get-go helps A LOT.  As does the actual neutral-evil-good races. (Pretty sure the Half-Elf I made last time had to be "good") 

Dittered around with the Fae for 5 or so levels and the starting area felt a lot better than the old island.  Very pretty, too. Switched over to playing a half-elf shadowknight and that was LOTS of fun for a bit as well.  Kudos to the game on coming a long way.

It still won't get me to switch over from WoW, though.  It was all about the little things, though, and not so much that I thought the gameplay sucked this time.   That's a VAST improvement.

Things that niggled at me still.
*  Although it's a lot faster (part of that is probably the new rig) it was still fairly unresponsive.  Keypresses felt like they took a little long to activate, and mouseovers took a second or two to pop-up.
*   Little touches absent.  Things  like strafing animations.  A few times I was running forward and sideways and my avatar just 'glides' on that 60 degree angle rather than shifting hips and body position.  It was like my character had a rod rammed up its ass.   
*  Armor still wayy uninspired.  Blobby, and simply 'meh' .  A game this pretty to have armor this ugly is a crime.  Even low-level WoW armors look snazzy, if a bit plain.
*  SWG syndrome.  All these detailed sliders and cusomizations for a face you hide under a helmet.  Even if you DON'T hide it (and I swear I thought there was a 'hide helm' option, but I couldn't find it after that first time)  the tweaks are so small that you may as well have gone the oldschool route of offering a limited number of different face skins and saved some resources.
*  The Interface;  My god, there's so many flips, levers, sub-menus and toggles it's distracting.  I gave up on tweaking settings because it just wasn't presented that nicely.   Then there weren't some nice convienances, like "open all bags" and "close  all bags"  I love that key in WoW. it's the best.
*  It feels 'dark'  Maybe I should've upped the gamma, but it felt like I couldn't see anything clearly.  Better than when I felt it was 'brown' though.  :-D
*  Mob names faded in-out too late.  I think there was a toggle for this, but again I'm not sure.
* Apprentice II spells/arts.  Why bother?  Maybe later levels there's a bigger difference, but it felt in the first 5 levels they were just deisgned to take money from the foolish who say "Oh it's II, it MUST be better!"  Hell there was only 1 Shadowknight Apprentice II art that had any difference from the I arts.  The rest did the same damage and took the same time to cast and refresh.  Boy I feel bad for folks who just up and buy them.
* Tradeskills.  The original newbie isle had a nice intro into them.. I didn't catch a trainer on the Evil Isle. Did I miss it? If not, then pity the noob who fills their bags with rocks, wood, plants and other what-not that has "NO VALUE"   If I did miss it, then it's hidden somewhere funny, and that's not good.


So it's not any one big thing, it's just a lot of little things at this point.  You've come a long way, baby.

[Murgos]

The command to show/hide the helm is I, believe, /show helm or possibly /show hood.

As for the rest of your comments I mostly agree but I haven't noticed the unresponsiveness thing.  The standard armors are still sort of Meh, which is something they are addressing in the future with a new PC skeleton to make creating armors easier on their art dept.

[Merusk]

If all you'd played for a long time were EQ2, I don't imagine you'd notice it.  I'm so used to the quickness of WoW, and the instant info popups that the half second to second delay on those is noticeable.   It was the same way with skills. The delay isn't much, but enough that it stands-out when you're used to something else.

See, I knew there was a hidehelm, and I was sure I saw it as a toggle not just a / command, but as I said. I'll be damned if I could find it after that first time for the 2nd character.

[Murgos]

Before coming back to EQ2 this time around I had just done a stint in WoW to check out burning crusade so lets not go down the path of how my expectations are inferior because I have no concept of the Glory That Is WoW.  There is a sidestepping/strafing animation btw and I really don't notice any delay in the pop-ups or sluggish button clicking.

It really sounds to me that you are looking for nit-pickie things to say "Meh" about.  You really don't need to justify yourself, if you prefer WoW go play WoW.

[Numtini]

I've never seen any delay in anything in EQ2. It's very responsive. I'm honestly not sure of what you nean. LOTRO, now there's a game with delays. Could this be something with your particular computer?

App 2s? Well they're vendor trash. There's several dozen shops in WOW where NPCs sell crap weapons. I feel sorry for the people who buy those too. The real upgrades in both games are available in the AH/broker.

Hiding your helm, your illusionary form (ie, bear form for shamans, cat for druids etc), your cloak, or the guild label on your cloak is under EQ2 menu/persona/Options. Persona is your standard character sheet so it's not that obscure. There's a / command as well. You have the option to show a helm, to show a hood but not a helm to show no head cover. Lots of options, several of which I don't think are available in WOW. LOTRO wins over both games because it lets you not display your boots--all important for the hobbity folk.

Open all bags has options /togglebankbags will change it so you automatically open all bags if you go to the bank. There's a key to open all your bags (alt b? control b? B?) Honestly, I don't know what the command is in either WOW or EQ2 because I never use it.

The faydwer is dark because it's dark. There are other places that aren't. The night elf starting area is dark and the orc one isn't. Same thing.

[Lt.Dan]

I recently resubbed and cancelled less than a week later due to boring combat.

Sure, sure, diku combat is inherently boring but EQ2 somehow manages to suck the very life out of you.  As a 31 bruiser I have about a dozen combat moves, none of which are particularly special, none of which are sync'd up to button mashing, none are in the least bit responsive to the situation.  I could write a macro to chain them up and go and do something else and I'd still never die.  Mobs don't run, call for help, or even notice their buddies getting whacked.  They stand there and take a pummeling. 

Combat is two simple equations.

1. combat length = mob hps divided by player dps
2. if monster dps times combat length > player hps then run away, else mash specials and collect loot.

In the end the only way I could die was by me pushing the envelope, "hmmm I wonder if I can take 3 Level 33 ^^ mobs", "oooh, I can, now I wonder if I can do it with long timer specials down"

[Murgos]

I think that maybe the Bruiser is just way to easy for you.  Neither my paladin or my assassin can handle anything remotely heroic that isn't borderline green/grey and even then there must be no chance of an add. Yellow con solo mobs are about the extent of their solo abilities, they both do very well in groups though.  I rolled a bruiser specifically because they are one of the best solo classes in the game (Possibly Wizards are better?  But no feign death) but have yet to get past level 10 with him.

I agree with you on the button mashing and fights coming down to an equation almost but I can't think of one Diku based game thats not that way, WoW Warriors and Rogues certainly are as are all the classes form LoTRO that I beta'd.  The Assassin has a lot of positional attacks that require careful use of stuns and moving around the mob on tougher fights but I'm not sure what else you can expect from Diku combat.  Necro's probably require the most strategy to operate efficiently due to life/mana taps and pet control and etc but I haven't played one.

[tazelbain]

That's why I really only want to play the grouping game in EQ2.  A lot more "OH SHit!" moments to overcome and named chasing is like playing slot machines.  But the under 70 game is empty to say the least.

[Merusk]

Before coming back to EQ2 this time around I had just done a stint in WoW to check out burning crusade so lets not go down the path of how my expectations are inferior because I have no concept of the Glory That Is WoW.  There is a sidestepping/strafing animation btw and I really don't notice any delay in the pop-ups or sluggish button clicking.

It really sounds to me that you are looking for nit-pickie things to say "Meh" about.  You really don't need to justify yourself, if you prefer WoW go play WoW.

OH fuck you, dude.  Get the chip off your shoulder, it was an innocuous comment and you come in here dickwaving.  I was trying to guess at something and I was wrong. Oh fucking soooo sorry.

Yes, they're nit-picks.  I pretty much said that.  It's the small stuff that gets to you over time, and it's the small stuff that keeps me from playing things.  I wasn't looking for excuses not to play or any such bullshit, I was offering up an opinion. Cram it sideways up your ass with your ego, shitbrick.

[Bandit]

I am not going to get into this argument again....

just wanted to note that you can adjust your tooltips to display instantly or set a delay in the options, or make it more opaque or more transparent, or what info is included in the popup...etc.

As mentioned, there is also a hide helm or cloak in the persona options.

Open all bags, is "b"

Never had a problem with darkness, but that can be adjusted with gamma as you mentioned.

The "sliders and levers" in the graphics options can be avoided by just using the default Extreme Performance up to Extreme Quality.  Make adjustments from there and you can save your custom setups.

I love the Apprentice I-IV, Adept I-II, and Masters...me likey loot and upgrades. Personal choice on that one I guess, but they are somewhat useless in Tier 1.

Not sure what you mean by response time when clicking combat arts/spells....they come up instantly with casting times, never ever had issues with that...unless yer mashing all your skills at once and not waiting for refresh timers...dunno?  You want unresponsive... try LOTRO (which I am really digging), I push a skill and it might go off sometime in the next 5 seconds, not that it is a bad thing, just different from what I thought were lighting quick responses in EQ2.

[Murgos]

OH fuck you, dude.  Get the chip off your shoulder, it was an innocuous comment and you come in here dickwaving.  I was trying to guess at something and I was wrong. Oh fucking soooo sorry.

Heh.  'Tard.

[Falconeer]

The UI is probably the most flexible around in any MMORPG, everything can be customized without the need to know xmls or whatever.

I stopped playing after 18 months because of the boring and "unresponsive" combat. It's not so "delayed" that I loathed it, it's just doesn't feel right. As a berserker I had too few "instant" attacks and too many bars to fill. Not like it, I am not spellcasting, I am whacking for Brell's sake.

Finally, as I said multiple times, your attacks are usually not synchronized with the whacking animations. Not like it at all. Feels like I am "directing" the fight, not actually doing it. More like Dragon's Lair than Double Dragon. Not like it.

But as I said, it took 18 months to stuff me up. It's a hella of a good game. A pity they didn't nailed combat.

[Merusk]

OH fuck you, dude.  Get the chip off your shoulder, it was an innocuous comment and you come in here dickwaving.  I was trying to guess at something and I was wrong. Oh fucking soooo sorry.

Heh.  'Tard.

I was grouchy and your post set me off.  Kiss kiss.

[Murgos]

Feels like I am "directing" the fight, not actually doing it. More like Dragon's Lair than Double Dragon.

I agree with this just as a general complaint about Diku combat in general.  It's the same 'hit A and go get a sandwich' problem.  Even with all the clicky buttons now in these games it really hasn't improved the mechanics.  It's just broken it up into smaller segments.  Heck, many games allow you to macro the combat commands back into one button anyway.

Having lots of abilities doesn't really improve anything if you just sit and hit them in succession as soon as they pop up.

[Falconeer]

Feels like I am "directing" the fight, not actually doing it. More like Dragon's Lair than Double Dragon.

I agree with this just as a general complaint about Diku combat in general.

Sadly, as much as I loved EQ2, it's personal. I played them all, as I am sure you did too. EQ2, save for uncanny LoTRO, is the one with the less satisfying combat I've ever played. And, as I said, that is basically because of the unsynched combat/visuals and for the general lack of "true instant" skills/arts/spells.

I obviously agree on the general dullness of MMORPGs combat, but EQ2 represents a step back in my book, while LoTRO is two giants step back.

[Numtini]

It's fascinating how different people perceive things because I find when I play WOW or even more LOTRO that I miss all the different tools and feel of my rattie berserker from EQ2.

I'd agree about LOTRO btw. Which is funny since it's the game I'm actually playing. But let's be honest, it's AC2 reskinned.