Empirical_Data Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I remember having to stare at my skill bar in EQ for Kick, Bash to refresh. And I recall a similar refresh mechanic in SWG. So no. WoW not the first. Although like so many other aspects, you could say WoW 'perfected' the need to watch your skill bar. Seems like combat isn't as fluid as it could be. Maybe next year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Seems like combat isn't as fluid as it could be. Maybe next year? seems more fluid to me than other games i've played. This is in part due to effort from the user as well, how you rotate etc. F off with the stupid maybe next year crap , getting tired of the reflex cynicism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moofanchu Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Seems like combat isn't as fluid as it could be. Maybe next year? I'm still waiting for noobs to get better...Maybe next year?? /sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebbikenezer Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Welcome to the modern mmorpg, where every game copys the combat system from wow.... Guild wars 2 is going to change that tho Guild Wars used that system, where you pick a few abilities when you go into an instanced area. It sucks TERRIBLE. It's actually the only reason I will NOT be playing GW2: b/c they are using the same system. I don't mind limited abilities, but I mind NOT being able to use everything my class knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norke Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Am I the only one who gets the feeling the OP used to play an Arcane Mage in WoW? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenbruton Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Heres a genius idea. If you think you have too many abilities... dont use some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Am I the only one who gets the feeling the OP used to play an Arcane Mage in WoW? ....using a keyboard with a single button labeled " NUKE " that he could then bash his face into repeatedly? perhaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightchrome Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 A simple cascading macro system like Rift has would solve most of the problems, allowing the combination of reactives and instants, making more room for situational/utility abilities on the hotbars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDFX Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 It seems that too many design teams feel “clicking bunches of buttons” is what makes for an addictive game rather than granting good output for a select number of needed abilities is what sells lately. I’ve come to feel this game could benefit from a degree of ability consolidation and conversion to passive boosts in some cases. While it might get me shot at, I’d even turn class “energy builders” into auto-attacks. It’s about having fun in the strategic management of one’s limited resources rather just banging on fifty keybinds. The amusing thing about the typical learn to play argument in regards to ability consolidation in order to combat ability bloat in MMOs is that it boils down to someone telling you to buy a multi-button gaming mouse and gaming keyboard so you can pretend to be skilled cause you’ll click keybinds faster than the average PC user. Who says gaming isn’t pay to win for many, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Traumahawk Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Don't need a ton of abilities to make combat fun or hard or engaging. Lots of people are drawing false correlations between combat difficulty and amount of different abilities. Should have one filler/resource builder (or dump) and the rest should serve a specific function. Look to LotRO's warden or runekeeper classes for different approaches to traditional combat. Of course, SWTOR is very traditional--and that's putting it politely. Not to be a downer, but myself and many others asked Bioware to have Assault and Sundering Assault merged into one ability for Juggernauts. We received no reason as to why this wasn't an option, and as you see, nothing has changed. I doubt fundamentals will be refined until pink slips start going out. Edited February 22, 2012 by Traumahawk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 A simple cascading macro system like Rift has would solve most of the problems, allowing the combination of reactives and instants, making more room for situational/utility abilities on the hotbars. we do need macro, if only for the chat functionality and its many applications , LFG messages, raid warnings, just fun vanity or role play things. wtb macros Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randomness Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Most of the abilities are situational. SOME of them are so situational that they probably shouldn't exist or should be fused with other abilities. Pretty much this. My assassin has a ton of skills. But for the most part, my usual rotation is... six or seven abilities: Flurry, Thrash, Death Field, Crushing Darkness, Creeping Terror, Discharge. Then I have my CC in Electrocute and Whirlwind. After that... I use sprint to close gaps/get around, and my stealth skills to evade enemies. Force Shroud/Force Cloak for escape. That's everything I use with any kind of regularity. Oh, Recklessness, because it's a decent steroid and doesn't use GCD. My powertech might actually have a larger rotation. I could go for simple macros. No branching functionality, no looping functionality. Under no circumstances should the structured program theorem kick in. Ever. Edited February 22, 2012 by Randomness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Pretty much this. My assassin has a ton of skills. But for the most part, my usual rotation is... six or seven abilities: Flurry, Thrash, Death Field, Crushing Darkness, Creeping Terror, Discharge. Then I have my CC in Electrocute and Whirlwind. After that... I use sprint to close gaps/get around, and my stealth skills to evade enemies. Force Shroud/Force Cloak for escape. That's everything I use with any kind of regularity. Oh, Recklessness, because it's a decent steroid and doesn't use GCD. My powertech might actually have a larger rotation. The word " Fused " caught my attention. Take those situational abilities off the GCD , introduce macros and merge or " Fuse " two abilities into one hotkey spot, alla Rift , or WoW , probly some other games have this. I'm making the comparison to reaction abilities in other games that are often triggered by some combat occurence like block or dodge etc. Edited February 22, 2012 by Blavatsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
usausa Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I agree too many buttons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mufutiz Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Wow IS the reason why players have to stare at their ability tool bar and watch for flashes and cooldown in mmorpg nowaday. Unless you can provide me the name of the mmo that requires ppl to do that pre-wow? the major difference is, in WoW you can have an absolutely slick interfacxe with various cooldown/proc/duration timer bars (or whatever way works best for you) and other visual cues, allowing you to focus on gameplay. In SWTOR we are stuck looking at tiny icons at fixed positions for procs and dot durations etc. The only way to check your cooldowns is to stare at your bars. this was acceptable in 1999. It's not in 2012. the problem is not the amount of abilities. It's the complete lack of any meaningful UI customization that would allow you to focus your eyes on actual gameplay. That's what is not fun. Edited February 22, 2012 by mufutiz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 the major difference is, in WoW you can have an absolutely slick interfacxe with various cooldown/proc/duration timer bars (or whatever way works best for you) and other visual cues, allowing you to focus on gameplay. In SWTOR we are stuck looking at tiny icons at fixed positions for procs and dot durations etc. The only way to check your cooldowns is to stare at your bars. the problem is not the amount of abilities. It's the complete lack of any meaningful UI customization that would allow you to focus your eyes on actual gameplay. That's what is not fun. can anyone argue with this post , i cant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terminova Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Am I the only one who gets the feeling the OP used to play an Arcane Mage in WoW? Technically, it was just how the Mage class works overall regardless of spec choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Empirical_Data Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 can anyone argue with this post , i cant. Thats actually a GREAT post. I'm still waiting for noobs to get better...Maybe next year?? /sarcasm Do your man parts feel bigger now? I assure you, they are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terminova Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) the major difference is, in WoW you can have an absolutely slick interface with various cooldown/proc/duration timer bars (or whatever way works best for you) and other visual cues, allowing you to focus on gameplay. In SWTOR we are stuck looking at tiny icons at fixed positions for procs and dot durations etc. The only way to check your cooldowns is to stare at your bars. the problem is not the amount of abilities. It's the complete lack of any meaningful UI customization that would allow you to focus your eyes on actual gameplay. That's what is not fun. Then you spend your entire time staring at different bars.... this was acceptable in 1999. It's not in 2012. I might agree with that if the game just started development in 2012, but it didn't. Much of the UI design was probably done several years ago. Edited February 22, 2012 by terminova Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiiRahnedancer Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 If you feel that you have too many abilities to keep track of them all then simply don't. You're probably not going to use them all in a general situation anyway. Pick the ones you use most often and place them on whichever hotbar is convenient for you. Put the others on some other hotbar or simply disregard them altogether. If you know you are going to be in a situation or situations where you'll need a different set of abilities that you normally don't use you can set up another hotbar with those abilities ahead of time. Then you spend your entire time staring at different bars.... Exactly. I don't see how the example allows one to focus on the action any more than what we already have. Whenever I play a class that is new to me there is a period of time getting used to that class' combat style where I find myself focused more on the cooldown timers than what's going on around the character. Once I have unlocked a number of abilities and establish a decent general rotation I find that I have a feel for the cooldowns of the most used abilitites and I can focus more on the action and less on my hotbars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Karsk Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Problem with TOR alot of the things you get is just pure crap. Like blitz on the trooper only works on stunned npcs. Yeah right delete skill bye bye. And other classes have some of the same things, these silly little buffs and skills on a 2.3 m cd etc.They should all have been passive skills triggered on other skills.Something tells me the devs have alot to learn when it comes to good gameplay.Skills like riposte on the JK what a joke.Actually something a tank is forced to use making the player staring at the ui for when one can use it.And some skills are better with some specs so some of the skills you dont even have to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xNonphixionx Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I actually find it refreshing having to use all my keybinds. I mean...Whats fun about having macro's cutting all your skills in half? Heck, in Rift you could macro as many skills into 1 button as you wanted. I had a Rogue spec with 12 skills on 1 button...It was a 2 button rotation lmao. 1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-2 That's really fun yo! Honestly though...Players that cannot cope with this many skills are the ones that stand in fire until they die and break CC's in controlled PvE environments. Having to manage ALL THEM SKILLS at once while actually watching your character and the environment is nearly impossible for some people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wattser Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I miss EQ2 with 12 hotbars with 12 slots each all full. Using about 45 individual skills for a single boss, probably about 30 of them constantly. Now I find on bosses depending on class your rotation is hardly ever greater than 3-4 skills + 2-3 situational skills, off procs and such. I attribute it to the GCD system and as long as they keep making games like that i cant see things getting complex again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Empirical_Data Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Honestly though...Players that cannot cope with this many skills are the ones that stand in fire until they die and break CC's in controlled PvE environments. Having to manage ALL THEM SKILLS at once while actually watching your character and the environment is nearly impossible for some people. Hey look, another glaring generalization that has nothing to do with the issue. I want to watch the animations and enjoy the special effects so I must be a mouth breather with the reflexes of a banana slug. Anything else you want to say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blavatsky Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Hey look, another glaring generalization that has nothing to do with the issue. I want to watch the animations and enjoy the special effects so I must be a mouth breather with the reflexes of a banana slug. Anything else you want to say? I chuckled at Banana slug... but to add to the discourse. I think All games essentially have too many abilities. By that I mean , more than you can hotkey. So as others have stated , part of solving the problem is selecting what needs to be a quick reaction ability and so deserves a coveted keyboard slot. Can add more abilities to the keyboard by introducing macros and clever use of cooldowns allowing you to stack multiple abilities in a single macro alla Rift and even WoW to some extent . But not to the point where a complex assortment of abilities are then simplified into a few clicks among master keys. Fine line we walk Edited February 22, 2012 by Blavatsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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