A lot of new or future MMO’s try to go the action combat route. I understand this as FPS games and games like Fortnite do not have tab target. These games are immensely popular and lucrative. Action combat games look flashy and have this fast paced combat. Watch it and it looks great.
The problem? It is twich reaction heavy and requires a lot of focus to play well. And you have to dumb down enemy mechanics a bit, otherwise its just too demanding on the player. Also you are punished very hard for not playing it well. Either that, or Enemy AI is tuned so low, that it basically cant kill you.
The other main issue is time played. It gets exhausting trying to play an action combat MMO for a long period. You need to take breaks. You arent going to play for 8 hours straight, because your sensory system will just be tired.
In WoW you can play for extended periods and not feel that fatigue. Also you can take breaks, but still play the game. Run a stressful M+ or raid? Then do some World Questing. Players of every range can play the game and enjoy it. Also even though On the higher end of play, rotations and play are punished. On the lower end, they still feel good to use. You can quest and level and run content playing non optimally. You dont have to do your rotation right to play the game.
I will use Wildstar’s Combat as an example. They had a mix of tab target with action combat. The combat was fun in open world. As you leveled and things got harder, it became tiresome to play. The constant moving out of this, aiming this, running in, aiming this. As a healer, it felt horrible to line up a heal, and then everyone moves out of it. It got worst in the instances and raids. The ground was a mess of overlapping telegraphs. Then you factor in trying to aim your telegraphs over them, wile moving away from one. It just became exhausting to play. And the instances and raids were fun. Just after running an instance, you needed a break from the game.
Action combat does not play well with MMO’s. If the game is completely focused on Arena style PvP then yes. If it is going to be in a FPS style, then yes. But in a 3rd person adventure style MMO? You need tab targeting.
I can assure you that I can and have played action combat games for 8 hours straight.
The reason why action MMOs wont replace WoW is because they’re not competitors to each other. MMO isn’t really a genre, which is why it’s usually followed by RPG or FPS or whatever.
MMO is just a tag for “persistent overworld with thousands of other players in it”.
I kind of have to agree. Action combat should emphasize snappiness, quick kills, even quick deaths in some cases - just really punchy-feeling abilities and a sense of power.
Every MMO I’ve played with ‘action’ combat seemed to forget this almost immediately, as MMO bosses are so often HP sponges. This isn’t a huge deal in a tab target MMO, as they’re so inherently passive, but dealing 0.01% of a bosses’ HP in damage from what should be a powerful-feeling input, because otherwise the boss would melt in seconds, just doesn’t feel good. At all.
On PC in particular, it devolves more into clickclickclickclickclick - just look at ESO. PvP in that game is reasonably fun, as is most world content - but fighting anything with an HP bar bigger than your little toe is agonizing.
“Action” can carry different connotations. In the space of “delay-action”, like lining up heal spells to watch everyone move out, it would get frustrating quick. Also, controls where you push F to pay respects, but you’re then frame locked for 1.37 seconds before you actually perform the action feel horrible - I want responsiveness on my buttons. And that was exactly a design goal with WoW. You have the GCD immediately after the use (most cases) but the use isn’t delayed based on action animations.
I’d say that’s a separate issue than what the OP has squished in together with the scope of “action”, because I think sometimes it’s doable over a longer period. There is a niche out there looking for a methodical playstyle but I really feel that’s why differentiation on class and talent design needs to be valued.
Maybe I’m a freak but when I hit days off it isn’t unusual for me to play the same FPS or high action game for 16 hours. Especially right now with the mandatory isolation my company has us under.
Edit: Forgot to include the “straight component”. I stop to bio and that’s it.
I didn’t play Wildstar but I’m not really sure I would call what’s being described here as action combat or even a hybrid. The delay isn’t really any different to a cast time, which WoW has used on abilities you have to target ground on before.
I’d call action combat a game that focuses more on mechanical skill by making the player manually aim the majority of their attacks in real time and that kind of combat gameplay is just fundamentally a different genre from what WoW does.
Though yeah, every game benefits from feeling responsive and WoW did a great job on that.
I can agree or disagree with the OP, but it’ll really depend on the game - not all action combat games are designed equally. There are some action-combat games I like over another. Case in point, I enjoy Tera’s style the most.
That game is the only action-combat game I’ve played where they have a chain combo system - a built-in attacking function similar to using WoW’s /castsequence macro. You arrange whatever abilities you use in a chain and just press one button when a prompt comes up. It is more comfortable playing vs other action-combat games where you just spam-click abilities.
This in turn does help with that fatigue problem that may happen as the OP mentioned, but everyone experiences fatigue in all games regardless of combat style; I know that feeling chain-running M+'s here. I would have to take a break overall, not just from running dungeons. If anything, if a game feels fun enough for you, it may encourage one to play even longer. I feel that way playing an action-combat game over tab-target.
The healing issues with people running out happens here as well - druid’s efflorescence, priest’s holy word: sanctify, monk’s healing spheres, shaman’s healing rain… it really is frustrating to see people running out of these making you burn your mana more keeping people alive, so it isn’t just action-combat MMOs. Granted, these are abilities you’d just set while you’re still free to move, as opposed to you having to stand still to get an AoE heal lined-up off in an action-combat game (the “frame lock” Deos mentioned)…just to watch people move out of it… /rage
I enjoy both styles equally. Outside of combat aesthetics, I do feel the immersion of the class fantasy more in an action-combat MMO simply because you aren’t locked to a target.
I think there’s an important distinction between an action game, designed with short snappy combat in mind, and an action MMO - where you can have bosses with a heck of a lot of health, among other things.
When you headshot a dude a couple times in a shooter, for example - they go down. They’re dead. But a boss, in an MMO style game? Well, a headshot might give you some bonus damage, I suppose…
Making 200 headshots on a single enemy versus one or two is just a whole world of difference. At least, it is for me - it changes them from being a snappy and rewarding way to encourage accuracy, and a thing you just need to do to maintain good DPS.
Hardly. Vindictus probably still has the best action based combat I’ve ever played in an MMO, if Vindictus even qualifies, and I wish more games had that style of combat. It’s tight, responsive, you can cancel everything and each class has a unique offensive or defensive gimmick.
Light of Dawn for HPal is probably the closest context, because you physically have to align yourself to achieve. The others are area effects but you can lay them down anywhere from within range.
Agreed on those points. Then again I avoid “shooter-lite” games that have bullet-sponges for opponents. I hate bullet sponges in RPG’s too but they are ingrained in the genre.
I’ve seen some call WoW’s tab-targeted model “outdated”, but I don’t agree with that at all. It has appeal all its own in all sectors of the game, and I don’t think it’d be doing anybody a favor to convert it to an ARPG twitchfest. There’s more of those than there are stars in the sky already, no point in putting WoW among their ranks.
This is my problem with Warframe; I love the concept but I can’t play for more than an hour or two at a time because it’s as grindy as any MMO but it demands too much attention.
