What's broken with MMOs and their combat?

They also fail to mention majority of other MMOs are backed on the play 4 free, pay for better model of gameplay. Americans tend to hate microtransactions but Korea doesn't seem to mind so much.

Western philosophy of MMOs is currently $50 for the game you may or may not like and an additional charge a month. Very few people would be able to resist the temptation of leaving proven grounds (WOW, Everquest) if it was $15 for the game and your first month of gameplay.

And also, combat does suck, but having to walk back to your body for 10-15 minutes sucks even more. If you want gamers to take more risks, reduce the penalties when they fail.

Hear Hear! Sheppy. Well said.

I play my Korean MMO's to death. I love them.
Also, I'd like to praise Acclaim (for once) for bringing the Korean MMO's to the US... along with other companies. 2 Moons is gonna Rock!

Sure you have to grind and do cheesie quests. But it's F2P with premium shops. You can't beat that.

Sheppy said it. Taking a risk just to have to take 15 minutes to walk back to your corpse does not equal fun. Not to mention the current standard of MMO combat really limits how far up you can go. The system doesn't really stress skill as much as it does level making it very cut and dry what you can and can't kill. Planet Side is really the only MMO I know of that put in any layer of skill to the genre.

When I can't use the same routine over and over again for the same monster or can say that I can't beat a monster when I'm tired but can when I'm alert is when MMOs have taken a step towards depth in combat. DDO took a step in the right path, unfortunately Turbine took a step back from both DDO and AC (both with innate mechanics that added some [very little] skill to combat) with the new LOTRO adopting a combat system oddly familiar to WOW.

The day UO (pretrammel) (Best PvP system ever) and Planetside merge is the day MMOs will shine the brightest.

I don’t care about MMO combat. Give me something more to bite onto in the agro management department.

MMO PVP blows. Its the wrong kind of game for it. If you like it there is this great genre you should try:

FPS

he's right about why arent their different types of mmo's on the american market. If i could get a nickel for every sword and socery style mmo i'd be a million aire by now!!

two words:

Guild Wars.

combat does not suck. no stupid body runs, just a temp death penalty to prevent constant self kills and whatnot. combat is about skill because all players have max stat items, armor, and skills in PvP. Thus the whole stupid grind for the 1-hit kill sword is negated, and it's just "who can use skills in the best scenario on a consistent basis?" matter

The closest thing to an MMO that I have played is Guild Wars, and that is really the only thing I have played for almost two years. Generally, the combat is ridiculously easy, enough so that even in high-level areas my friends and I make it a habit of taking a smaller party, just to make things difficult. Also, the penalty for failure isn't too terrible, although if you start dying a lot things become next to impossible to accomplish.

""Why does combat suck" in MMOs?"

Because role-playing is not part of the game design in current so-called MMORPGs. You have all the limitations of a role-playing game in that combat success or failure is based not on your personal skills but the skills of your character, yet the reasons you fight are completely mindless and have virtually nothing to do with you role-playing the life of your character and everything to do with just bettering yourself so you can do more of the same mindless fighting under elevated circumstances. MMO fighting will stop sucking when the reasons for fighting do.


"So, why haven't those types of MMOs caught on in other places...?"
Because Korea is a place where they watch Starcraft tournaments in sold-out arenas(still). It's a different culture that embraces games heavily, pure and simple.

Step 1: Take Guild Wars
Step 2: Add a larger skill bar
Step 3: Make it a real MMO
Step 4: Make money

One of the many things that turns me off of MMORPGs is the lame point-click-watch combat. I would love to see an MMO with a combat system like Fable's or Jade Empire's or Oblivion's or God of War's.

MMO PVP is a lot different than standard FPS combat. I think the Realm vs Realm system in DAOC has been the most fun I've experienced. Also, their combat styles with counters and response styles makes it more thank the old auto-attack and wait combat of EQ.

@ Twist, I agree, I'd also like a more real-time combat system. To be honest, I've never played a MMO, I just wasn't interested in playing a point-and-click or turn-based combat RPG, if I wanted to do that I'd just play a traditional RPG, because I put up with that dated (to me) system of combat for the story.

I wanted to try PSO, but I took one look at it and felt bored. Give me an Elder Scrolls game online and I'm there.

"Taking a risk just to have to take 15 minutes to walk back to your corpse does not equal fun"

"The day UO (pretrammel) (Best PvP system ever) and Planetside merge is the day MMOs will shine the brightest."

UO had the harshest death penalties of any MMO ever. If you died, you usually spent more than 15 minutes looking for a wandering healer, ran back to your corpse with nothing more than a death robe on, and when you finally got back to your corpse, it was robbed of all items and possibly even chopped up into pieces. WoW has one of the most generous death penalties I've seen in an MMO. It sucks to have to run for a few minutes but at least you never lose your stuff.

I've rarely been able to stand any MMO game for more than a few months (although I think I played UO for three or four). Here are the problems with MMOs:

1) World is static: You can't actually ever change anything in the world. You kill someone, and they come back. You go on a mission from your guild--and someone else does the same mission two seconds later. Nothing you do matters. Sometimes, you literally have to stand in line to complete a quest. This does not make me feel special.
2) Time: No matter how often you play, some kid is going to end up playing more. He doesn't have a job, and his grades suck--but he's level 43...and that makes him better than you.
3) Role-playing: If you can suspend disbelief and pretend that, despite the static world, you are a character in another world, then someone is going to spoil it with some RL-speak or just talking about going on a quest to kill a character you already killed.


Those are the basic problems as I see them--and those are the issues that inevitably make the games boring. Combat is actually just about the only part of MMO games I enjoy.

Space cowboy has some of the greatest fighting EVER in a mmo!
http://sco.gpotato.com/


i am loving the whole casualness of guild wars and the balanced pvp makes pvp fun!

I'm probably going to be saying mroe than I should but one of my projects (way, way, way, WAAAAY down the pipeline) is a JRPG game that mixes realtime elements but among one of the bigger concepts we have rolling is a system entirely removed from leveling up. So there is no grinding. Based upon how you play characters when you do fight balances your base stats and while weapons, equipment, training all boost certain stats, each character is a blank slate, begging to be molded by the way you play. Of course, all this needs to be tested and we don't even have the battle engine up yet.

My lack of interest, no, hatred of MMORPG combat has NOTHING to do with risks.

In fact, the games themselves discourage you from taking risks. As mentioned, the 15 minute run to your corpse sucks, and sometimes you have to keep repeating it because you can't make it back to a safe town without dying a few dozen times (I accidentally respawned in a cemetery for level 40s in my 10 day WoW stint. Took me FOREVER to get somewhere safe.)

But the gameplay doesn't reward risks. You have very little control over what you can actually do. In GoW your skill can cover your ass. If you do something dumb and risky you can still shoot your way out. In WoW you're screwed. Your character can only do so much attacking.


Beyond that, the attacking blows. Blows. It takes the worst of real time and turn based. The big strategic element of turn based combat is gone because it's moving so quickly, but the excitement of real-time is gone because you're just choosing an attack and watching it happen, rather than control it.

Again, my description of WoW, which I played on a virtually empty, new server:
1) Get quest to find 10 horns. Horns appear on 10% of hornmonsters.
2) Go to fields where hornmonsters graze. See three hornmonsters. See four people. Wait for hornmonster to spawn. Run to hornmonster. Get beaten there by someone else. Wait for another one to spawn. Engage it.
3) Hit 5 to cast time spell.
4) Hit 4 to cast time spell.
5) Hit 3 to cast time spell.
6) Hit 1 to attack with sword.
7) Sit there watching you guy attack. Do nothing yourself. Just watch.
8) Search hornmonster. No horn. Repeat. Takes about an hour to find enough hornmonsters not being attacked to get all the horns.
9) Get 100 gold.


Arg. It's bad enough that quests are designed to take extra long because not all hornmonsters have horns, even though you see them as you fight them. The bad part is that you just push a button and watch. Your guy keeps swinging that sword. You have no control over where or how fast. He just keeps doing it. I'll never understand how that can be fun.

@Sheepy

[And also, combat does suck, but having to walk back to your body for 10-15 minutes sucks even more. If you want gamers to take more risks, reduce the penalties when they fail.]

I have a couple of issues with this. If you remove the penalties then aren't you also removing the risk? Thus, the players are no longer taking risks anyway. Also, if you remove the walk back to the body then the combat, especially, PvP, would need to be reworked. How would a big PvP battle ever end if people just kept respawning where their body was? They would at least have to be ineligble to fight for a while, but that too has drawbacks. Basic mob combat would also suddenly be too easy if you could just simply respawn on the spot and continue fighting. WoW, for example, already gives you the option to spawn with your body at the graveyard, you just take a hit in your armour durability (if I remember correctly).

So what would you consider to be an acceptable penalty for dying?

Crap... I ment 'Sheppy', not 'Sheepy'.

Appologies if someone said this already, but keep an eye out for Age of Conan MMO. It looks to have the makings of a skill based combat system, and for melee, ranged, and spell based combat to boot! Plus the DX10 screens look to ROXXOR.

-A recovering WOW addict.

I'm with Twist; a MMORPG with Zelda-like (or Fable-like, or whatever your favorite adventure game is) controls would be several different kinds of awesome. Just imagine the boss fights! In adventure games, you need to start a whole new file if you want to re-fight a particularly fun boss, but with Twist's idea, the fun would only end when you want it to.

When you reach higher levels in WoW a graveyard rez reduces your stats greatly for 10 minutes. This makes you useless for that time. You might be able to kill something about 10-15 levels lower, but that's it. Personally, I take risks all the time in WoW. On my alt I attack anything within 5 levels of me or so, knowing there's a good chance I'm going to die. When I do, I laugh about it and think of what I could have done to turn the fight in my favor then go back and try again. Even on my main character I like to test myself by soloing multiple players at once. When I lose it's not some depressing thing because I knew that I might die.

@14 and 17:

Play Guild Wars, none of these are an issue:

1. Time spent: lvl cap is 20, and you are almost assured to have "max" items, no 13 year old wankers will be killing you just cuz they have more time.
2. Combat: aside from the most basic attack, all skills and spells and special attacks you must activate in real time, often in split seconds.
3. static: most areas are instanced, so if you kill a major character or destroy some area, everytime you go there, it will be that way
4. no monthly fee!
5. no stupid "rat" quests. if you need to collect drops (very rare) monsters drop them 100% of the time. Most quests need you to save people, or investigate something, etc.

@vidicron

Wow was just the example. But let's put it this way. VC runs. If you've ever played Alliance, you know what this is. You go into an instance and, should you die, you have to backtrack all the way to the entrance of the instance just to return to your body. Meanwhile, what if your friends are all the way on the pirate ship? Likely, you'll have to solo a couple patrols just to get back to your friends. Of course all of this can be circumvented by getting a rez, but this requires the necessity of a priest or a pally in the party. While a pally can take care of themselves, the role of other players quickly become "protect the priest" in party situations. If an instance is not cleared within a certain amount of time, everything respawns. Thus, if instances have any hope of being cleared, you need to not only find a balanced party but also players that "know their roles." This preparation can often take much more time than the actual instance to clear and I heard end game is much, much worse. Also, if you rez at a cemetary, you not only take durability damage but also you have rez sickness (a 90% hit to all of your stats) which, if you were killed by PVP, completely turns your character into either a "city dweller" for 20 minutes just because it's safe or an honor farm.

Now, having said that, WOW really is based on stat gameplay so it's rather hard to convince yourself to take your lv30 against a lv30 gold elite. So in a game like WOW, risk vs. Reward chances are very low. As I said earlier, the walk alone makes death annoying, not really punishing. Other games are much worse. But if death was more like in Gears Of War, where you return to a checkpoint only slightly behind where you were, more people would be willing to throw a little caution to the wind. But if your risk equates to 15-30 minutes lost just making your way back to it, then that takes a direct effect on the number of risks you're willing to take.

The solution, of course, is a level based reward system (obviously, VC should drop better loot for a party consisting of lv17s than lv40s) as well as keeping the player close enough to avoid a trek should they die. I know, it lessens the element of "risk" but you're forgetting one very core important thing. Gaming should be about fun, not inconvenience. If the developer is spending is time trying to figure out how to punish his audience, then he should obviously be working for Fox, not Blizzard.

Well stated, Sheppy. I agree, I think there should be a treasure system that provides greater rewards for people taking greater risks.

Checkpoints might work, but I still worry that such a system could make combat too easy. In GoW if you, or both you and your parnter in co-op, die then not only do you go back to the checkpoint, but all the NPCs since the checkpoint are back too, so you are faced with the same challenge again. It wouldn't work like that in game like WoW. Your teammates would be continuing the fight while you made the short trek back to continue where you left off. So how a checkpoint works in GoW is totally different to how it would impact a game like WoW.

Also, I know you seemed to think that "protecting the priest" is a bad thing, but it's really not. It's part of the strategy. If your checkpoint system was implemented then the value of Priests and similar classes is significantly reduced. Why not just go into an instance with the highest firepower possible and forget about healing/ressurection? Who needs that when you can just respawn at that last checkpoint that isn't too far back?

I see your point and I agree. The simple solution of mimmicking GOW will not work, but examining why it works in GOW is a major step in the right direction. I personally long for the day when RPGs abandon Grind style systems. Why must anything in a game be a chore?

The "protecting the priest" example was just a short example on the problem at hand. The WOW episode of South Park explains my point much better. Where they are going into battle, talking to each other, what to equip, skills to use, items, equipment. I wish I could say that was exaggeration but I actually HAVE partaken in situations like that before. Yes, I even once joined a group for an instance and we spent an hour and a half preparing for the instance (one person financed peoples blowing away of their skill trees just to have them allocate skills how he deemed fit for the instance). And yes, people DO run numbers before instances. It's this kind of system that's stiffling the MMO industry. Hell, it got so bad for me, I simply kept creating lv1-30 characters since that was the much better half of the game.

I think we agree on most of the points, just working out the best system takes some thought. You also sound a lot like me. Grinding is what eventually drove me away from WoW and RPGs in general.

"Grinding is what eventually drove me away from WoW and RPGs in general. "

Yeah, the "chore" elements of gaming in general turns me off. I tell you what helped me love RPGs more though, Gameshark. Grinding is much easier with Gameshark. You have to be careful not to make the game too easy when you back out the codes though (I got stuck in the volcano section of Lunar long ago, and threw in a code for "easy leveling" and in a battle where your average monster spits out 700+ exp and 1ex = lv gained, gameshark officially killed the fun of this title).

I'd like to point out one of the reasons for the stats based systems. In FPS type games skill is key but..it usually boils down to who has the best internet connection, lowest latency, best computer hardware to render faster etc etc. Stat based systems work best for evening the playing field. Now the question, how do you develop a system were skill and stats are evenly important?

It really is all in how you play the game; I know there are people who run the numbers and min/max their characters and blah-de-blah-de-blah. That crap drives me nuts, so I ignore it.

I play a mage in World of Warcraft, and I think one of the reasons that I have so much fun is because I DON'T try to work all the numbers out, or decide what talents or spells would be most beneficial. I generally say to myself "I wonder if I can do X without Y," and then I go and do it, or I fail, die, laugh with my guildies at my foolishness, and alter my strategy. Dying is kind of annoying, yeah, but compared to the wtfpwned experience penalty in games like Final Fantasy XI, I'll pay the couple gold to repair my items and take the 5-10 minutes to get back to my body. Better taking 10 minutes to run back to my body than losing a half-hour's work leveling because I got caught between four respawns.

If you approach the game as a statistician and you're NOT a statistician by trade, you probably won't enjoy it. If you approach it with the attitude that "I am a mage (or class of your choice) and I am going to make this world my bitch through sheer force of will and guesswork" then you have both your risk and the reasonable chance of success and reward.

Guild Wars, for what it's worth, I didn't like at all. It was too... easy, I guess, and there wasn't really any reason for me to try and stay alive. Suicidal runs just lose their excitement when there's nothing on the line.

What I dislike about MMO combat is that it feels like a thinly veiled layer on top of a paper-based RPG. It feels slow and turn-based and nothing at all like "combat". Just the fact that I see running comments about how many HP an attack did destroys all sense of "role-playing" for me. I should be able to look at the enemies and *tell* that they are close to dying or that I landed a solid hit, not need some silly status bar.

This is probably blasphemous to MMO but I'd prefer that when in "normal" mode you have minimal attacks you can perform, similar to Oblivion, but if you go into a "focused mode" you get something closer to a FPS, perhaps like Shadowrun, where controls are tighter and all buttons/actions are combat related. Skills and spells and upgrades and abilities and buffs and whatever would still greatly affect the outcome but it would still require *some* skill on your part.

I'm probably in the minority but I'd rather you get penalized *more* for dying. You should really have to think about what you're doing before you pull that sword or charge that spell. By the same token you should also be able to visually size up a situation instead of using status bars, knowing base HP for certain creatures, etc.

I want to see enemies limping or bleeding or actually moving slower. It's like every creature in every game is on crack or angel dust, they pretty much fight the same right up until that last HP, then they just keel over. You should see them struggling to get up if their health is weak, not just loop the same 1.2 second animation every time.

HP and AC and all those stats were in RPG's as a way to track and gauge your progress, plus to build in the concept of experience of actually getting better in the world. To me they were always a necessary evil but a computer should track all of that for you and you shouldn't ever have to see a number or stat. All information about the world around you should be inferred, not put into stats form. This would make combat *a lot* more fun.

This is a good debate I enjoyed reading it. If you guys are really interested in MMOs i recommend you read the following article. I believe it holds a lot of insight into the current state of MMOs and also the potential downfall of casual gamers outnumbering the hard core gamers even in non MMOs:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041103/bartle_pfv.htm

Do your self a favor and spend the time to check out the article...

EVE online, 'nuff said. best PvP ive ever experienced

I don't mind MMO combat so much, because I play healers. You remove a good chunk of the actual combat, and instead you become the person managing the entire group and keeping people alive. Nothing compares to how fun that is.

Even if I didn't like the combat so much, I play for the online community, so as long as that doesn't suck *coughwowcough* I'll keep paying.

Yes, EVE has great PvP if you like click and watch combat.

However what about those of us that would like something closer to Freespace or Freelancer, Zelda or Halo? We are left in the cold whilst games with "strategy" combat (If you can call stat based combat 'strategy') like EVE and WoW flourish.

Hopefully MMOs like Huxley, SUN, and Tabula Rasa destroy the notion that an MMO is a social network first and an actual, viable game second.

I've always wondered why MMO must = RPG. There are loads of other genres that would work great in MMO.

As for MMORPG combat.. i've never yet seen one with combat that interests me.

Good point with EVE, dont get me wrong, it makes my heart happy thinking about an mmofps/action adventure etc...anything other than an RPG. But, now stick with me here for a minute, EVE I know is harder than just about any other mmo ive ever played, and thus it's user base is only about 30k~ish, a minority considering its depth (even if it looks a little bland) Whereas WoW, which was originally made for more casual gamers, has about 8 million subscribers. It just seems like people(in general) dont actually want to be challenged when they play these things. hat combined with technical limitations, its a bit hard to get a fast paced game to run smoothly, simply put lag+mmorpg=discouragement, lag+fps=just threw my keyboard out my window. Sorry for the long post.

Personally, I wouldn't like to play an MMO-game that is intensive and almost purely skill-based; they're too taxing to play consistantly for any lengthy amount of time. And, knowing MMOs, they're almost all required to be played a lot.

Frankly, I don't want my MMORPGs to become an FPS quick-draw.