Why isn't combat fun?

[TrillOG-]

Run some 50 ops or fps as a 55 if you want to feel like "you're doing damage." Edited August 20, 2013 by TrillOG-

[Karkais]

As a matter of interest: Which classes are you all playing, and do you find combat fun as them?

 

Marauder, dps sorcerer, powertech tank, scoundrel healer, jedi guardian tank are my characters above 45.

 

Sure its bit more droll soloing as a healer, but cant have everything. Imagine it would be JUST as droll, but with only 5-7 abilities in total to use.... Secret world is like that.. I guarantee things can be worse. Particularly in MMOs that were made with console version of the game in mind like DCUO.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Karkais

[AlienEyeTX]

Hmm, I don't know if that's it. At least not for me. When I'm leveling a WoW toon I'm never in danger, especially with heirlooms, but it still feels very different to hit mobs, with melee weapons or with spells.

 

Maybe it's a combination of all three things I mentioned: there's no delay between button click and visual effect, the damage isn't caused until the visual effect lands, and each hit takes a huge chunk out of my target.

 

I think it's because there's not much reaction to getting hit. More reactive animations would go a long way to make combat feel better.

[ELRunninW]

Absolute matter of perception! here is an example:

 

player 1) I think it takes too long to kill a mob in SWTOR, it feels like enemies are taking too long to die.

 

player 2) I think it does not take long enough to kill a mob in SWTOR, it feels like enemies are dying too fast.

[Serkazong]

Slower combat is one thing I really like better than WoW. In WoW I never got to use more than 2 or 3 skills, because everything was dead by then. In SWTOR (and LOTRO for that matter) I like that each fight takes longer, and cooldowns are longer. I can put thought into which skill to use next.

[JimG]

1) SWTOR seems to require a LOT more hits to kill level appropriate mobs. Even normal/weak ones take a lot of individual hits. So maybe it feels like I'm not doing damage because none of my hits take a huge chunk off their health. (I should go kill mobs in a lowbie zone and see if it feels different.)

So it's not "fun" because you can't just run around and 1 shot everything? Sorry, If you could just maul everything in sight, then that sounds like a pretty boring game. Also, not sure what your gearing situation is for your toons, but I've 1 shotted a mob of 5 or 6 weak guys at the same time with a crit hit on saber throw with my Sent.

 

2) The timing of abiliies (button presses) to animations to damage is wonky. I noticed that when I use abilities that stun or knock back, the effect happens before the animation, that is, as soon as I click the button (assuming its off cooldown). So I started looking carefully and realized that the damage happens instantly, too, without waiting for the animation. So maybe it doesn't feel like I'm "doing damage" because the changes in health aren't synced with the animations?

Yeah, the damage on certain abilities has never been synched to the time it takes the animation complete because it would lead to too much player confusion....particularly with PVP'ers......and complaints that certain classes were at an unfair disadvantage because the animations were delaying their damage.

[branmakmuffin]

This isn't a "Bash SWTOR" thread. I like SWTOR, and after taking a year's hiatus have been leveling up some toons again. It's a neat game.

 

But. [...]

Ever hear the old adage about ignoring everything before the word "but?"

[asbalana]

 

Why is this?

 

 

1. Ability delay.

2. Ability misfires

3 Bad sync between client and server

4 Lag

5 Bugs - for example sometimes the bar for channeled abilities appears and sometime it does not.

6 Bad design - some abilities just do not work well or sync together in timing

7 Two many overlapping / useless abilities

8 To much rng with no clear / sharp indicators which makes you focus on the ability bars and not the fight

9 Left open so others can add their observations if they want.

 

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

In WOW I can feel a clean clear crisp flow in combat and never have to look at my bars: I can feel the timing. When I fire something it goes off. When something hits. the damage is registered at the proper time.

.

Edited August 20, 2013 by asbalana

[TechbotAlpha]

I know what annoys me most; no fixed camera/turn to face target. When I fire an ability, and the target is someplace other than in front of me, I expect the character to damn well turn and face what I want to hit. Not have to manually turn and face in the middle of combat. The only other MMO I played, City of Heroes, made it so that the character would always turn to face whoever you were attacking, and that the camera is always locked behind the character.

 

You could change it in options and stuff, and that was fine. But not knowing which damn thing you're attacking in a mob that all looks the same can be a real pain, and makes combat so much more confusing and clunky than it needs to be.

 

Also coming from City of Heroes, having a few enemies still being a potent threat can be very annoying at times. The droids from Athiss spring to mind; those ****s spit out some grossly high DPS, even on a fairly well armoured tank! Still, gotten mostly used to that. Although the arbitrary 'strong' and 'Elite' labels making stuff massively more powerful is still a bit lazy in my books, but w/e.

 

The one thing that REALLY annoys me at the moment? Bloody moves like Sith Warriors 'Ravage', where it says, very clearly "CAN NOT BE INTERRUPTED". So, what happens every other damn fight? Intterupted! Knocked-back, stunned, whatever; if it CAN be interrupted, DON'T say it CAN'T be! So aggravating...

[Karkais]

Slower combat is one thing I really like better than WoW. In WoW I never got to use more than 2 or 3 skills, because everything was dead by then. In SWTOR (and LOTRO for that matter) I like that each fight takes longer, and cooldowns are longer. I can put thought into which skill to use next.

 

I would say a problem is more about zone design than in designing "slow combat". Some areas in the game are designed to be maximum pain in the backside possible, and going thru those places is even more annoying when you are playing a non-dps character. Its not about difficulty, its just about wasting maximum amount of a player's time.

 

Yesterday I wanted to strangle whoever dev had designed Gorma-koss while playing my guardian through the area. Huge area with tons of mobs placed with maximum spread so that you couldn't run between them without aggroing somebody, Geometry such that you have to either run thru long tunnels infested with mobs or take long detours (look at that stupid long ridge at Gorma-Koss which has mission contact at the tip); strong patrols frequently walking into already started fights, mobs in the same group placed far apart to be least vulnerable to AOE, etc.

 

This does not mean that slow combat itself is the problem.

 

ps. Running around one-shotting everything is WAYYYY more boring than slow combat where you actually get to use the multitude of abilities you have. If you want easy combat, try champions online with a freeform character. The easy and boring combat put me off that game.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Karkais

[Thorkir]

My opinion regarding combat is as follows.

 

I think that combat is fairly engaging (though the lag between pushing the button, the animation starting, and the numbers appearing is a bit odd), and some of the mobs are actually quite challenging. I enjoy it more than WoW's combat, for certain.

 

Part of the frustration with it could stem from the repetitive "Kill 20 mobs", "Kill 40 mobs", "Kill 80 mobs" style bonus quests. Those are annoying, as I'd much rather avoid killing everything (especially in areas that are difficult to solo, Heroic quests and what-not. Yes, I'm aware that you're supposed to do those as a group, but that's where the fun is. ).

The one thing that REALLY annoys me at the moment? Bloody moves like Sith Warriors 'Ravage', where it says, very clearly "CAN NOT BE INTERRUPTED". So, what happens every other damn fight? Intterupted! Knocked-back, stunned, whatever; if it CAN be interrupted, DON'T say it CAN'T be! So aggravating...

Strictly speaking, it does give you immunity to interrupts. Force Kick and other spell-interrupts don't work on it, though basically anything else does. It would be good if it rooted you while you cast it, or something...so that knockbacks didn't mess it up.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Thorkir

[MahneWarrior]

All jokes I sometimes run lowbie Flash Points to get the sense that I am using a light saber. True story,

 

Strictly speaking, it does give you immunity to interrupts. Force Kick and other spell-interrupts don't work on it, though basically anything else does. It would be good if it rooted you while you cast it, or something...so that knockbacks didn't mess it up.

 

That would be pretty OP for PvP... not being able knock back and being forced to eat a gore + ravage if you do not have a stun up. CRY!

Edited August 21, 2013 by MahneWarrior

[Nemmar]

1. Ability delay.

2. Ability misfires

3 Bad sync between client and server

4 Lag

5 Bugs - for example sometimes the bar for channeled abilities appears and sometime it does not.

6 Bad design - some abilities just do not work well or sync together in timing

7 Two many overlapping / useless abilities

8 To much rng with no clear / sharp indicators which makes you focus on the ability bars and not the fight

9 Left open so others can add their observations if they want.

 

Hope that helps answer your question.

 

In WOW I can feel a clean clear crisp flow in combat and never have to look at my bars: I can feel the timing. When I fire something it goes off. When something hits. the damage is registered at the proper time.

.

 

You forgot: And it recycles the same 3 animations overs and over dozens of abilities.

Yes, WoW is responsive. No, it doesnt feel better. Its boring (every class has ramp up stacks) and repetitive.

 

Also, the ability delay on SWTOR has been fixed. Its the ability failure/ghost cooldown that persists.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Nemmar

[TechbotAlpha]

That would be pretty OP for PvP... not being able knock back and being forced to eat a gore + ravage if you do not have a stun up. CRY!

 

1) Balancing for PVP instead of PVE is full of 'wut'. Penalising PVE'ers for PVP sake as well.

 

2) Radical idea. Make the powers, gasp, behave slightly differently when the target is a player! So players can be balanced against players AND against mobs, without one side getting kicked in the fork over something they have little to no intention of ever touching with a bargepole! Mad that, right?

[Mistwaver]

I think a part of the problem is in WoW the mob takes damage as soon as the ability goes off. If it's a casting ability, the mob takes damage as soon as casting is finished, if it's an instant ability, the mob takes damage pretty much as soon as you hit the ability. SWTOR takes a much more realistic approach. In SWTOR, mobs do not take damage until the projectile actually reaches and makes contact with the mob.

 

IMO, combat is much more fun in SWTOR because I'm, not just hitting the same ability over and over until the mob dies. Abilities actually have a cooldown, and I'm forced to rotate and make use of nearly ALL of my offensive abilities during combat.

 

To each their own though, but I definitely disagree with you about combat in this game. This game has one of the most interactive combat systems since EQ2. Nothing will ever compare to EQ2's combat system in my book. You literally had to use EVERY ability on your hotbar. Definitely made combat feel more alive rather than just pressing the same button over and over.

[CosmicKat]

1) PvE is crazy-easy. You could literally fall asleep at the keyboard and your companion would win 9/10 fights without you.

 

2) Far too many redundant abilities. Does a sentinel really need 6 different ways to "stab"?

 

3) #1+#2 = a game where you watch your icons refreshing more often than you watch the action.

[Thorkir]

1) PvE is crazy-easy. You could literally fall asleep at the keyboard and your companion would win 9/10 fights without you.

 

2) Far too many redundant abilities. Does a sentinel really need 6 different ways to "stab"?

 

3) #1+#2 = a game where you watch your icons refreshing more often than you watch the action.

Eh...

 

My companion can take out small groups of standards, or maybe ONE silver at a time, but since mobs are rarely so convenient as to stand in a corner alone...

[ptwonline]

I played (and loved) WoW for a number of years, but quit about halfway through the Cataclysm expansion. So if things have changed a lot since then I am unaware of it.

 

The difference in SWTOR combat IMO is the following:

 

1. Too many abilities that are not distinguished enough between them, and it ends up feeling like ability bloat. I think my Jedi Guardian (Vigilance tree) is the worst, with I think 3-4 single saber strikes that are not really special in any way except being called different abilities. THeorycrafters will figure out that you only should be using a small number of these abilities, but for most players I think they see and use a LOT of these other abilities. The system could stand a haircut.

2. Resources that are (more or less) always fixed, and so as you scale up in power/gear your rotations always feel the same, and you don't always feel more powerful. This is especially true for healers.

3. WoW's combat usually felt like it had good flow or rhythm whether it was building up combo points, or a specific kind of rotation, or a fairly simply rotation but where you looked for procs and reacted to those. I get much less of the same feeling from SWTOR, possibly because of the ability bloat.

4. Too many large groups of mobs and too many of the tougher--and slower to kill--mobs all over the place. Battles start to feel like a slog.

5. Terrain designed to make you slog through a zillion enemies to getanywhere also makes it feel more like a chore.

6. Too much similarity between classes and their attack visuals. Basically you have variations of blasters, lightsabers, and a caster/saber hybrid. In WoW you have so much more unique combat styles because of the different classes and trees. For example, a Frost Mage will feel and look very distinct to a Fire Mage. Mages are very different from caster Druids and Warlocks as well, and they are all very different from another ranged class like Hunters. And so on. I realize because of lore there may be little Bioware can do about that, but there it is just the same.

[Karkais]

1) PvE is crazy-easy. You could literally fall asleep at the keyboard and your companion would win 9/10 fights without you.

 

Well yeah... IF you are outgeared for the content.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Karkais

[VitalityPrime]

1) PvE is crazy-easy. You could literally fall asleep at the keyboard and your companion would win 9/10 fights without you.

 

I call bull****

 

 

I don't know...maybe I'm just extremely terrible at this game...which I don't think is the case...

 

...but I was on Nar Shaddaa...and I had to use Introspection after every other, if not every, single group I encountered. I was also level 34-35...so I was 2-4 levels above the groups I encountered.

Edited August 21, 2013 by VitalityPrime

[RahaylaCora]

I never played another mmo, so i can't compare, and also don't need to do it. Combat in SWTOR is funny, you have some powers to mix, animations are fine for what powers do (i can talk about imperial agent, sentinel and commando) and you can plan tactics if you are alone or with your companion; even each companion makes you "rethink" what you are going to do and how you must solve "unexpected incidents" while fighting. I don't see how someone can't find the fun in this combat system. Maybe too powerful, so the combats aren't challenging?

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

It's an MMO, unless it's a boss or an elite or PvP combat is boring. Actually I don't even need to say MMO you could say RPG. Trash mobs are called trash for a reason, fighting them is always boring. That's just how these games work.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

1) PvE is crazy-easy. You could literally fall asleep at the keyboard and your companion would win 9/10 fights without you.

 

True and related to above. You're not supposed to struggle with every mob, just the big boys. I don't normally fall asleep but when I'm solo PvE leveling I normally spend a lot of time on my 2nd monitor watching Netflix.

 

NOTE: I don't consider that a bad thing either. It's one of the reasons I like these games. I can keep up on shows/watch movies, while doing something to get my characters ready for the real game, end game, PvP, playing the GTN, etc.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Arlon_Nabarlly

[asbalana]

You forgot: And it recycles the same 3 animations overs and over dozens of abilities.

Yes, WoW is responsive. No, it doesnt feel better. Its boring (every class has ramp up stacks) and repetitive.

 

Also, the ability delay on SWTOR has been fixed. Its the ability failure/ghost cooldown that persists.

 

I will respectfully disagree. The ability delay has been addressed to the point that it is better. It has never been fixed and the impact and noticiability varies from time to time.

 

I also forgot in my response, ghost imaging of mobs and mobs that when killed do not fall down.

[Jrea]

You will find that it gets lots more Dull the higher you level, on the starting world you one shot mobs with really nice attack's. By level 4 you are just hacking away at hit points. They really need to equalize the combat at higher levels.

 

Try to focus more on AOE attacks and use your dps companions, the fights go faster and you won't get so bored.