Why is MMO combat so....well...lack luster?

[rokaraged]

Now I totally understand that some others do not feel this way,

But to me, most mmo combat always seems to devolve into RNG number games and cooldown juggling. Every time I seen "action bar" in a screen shot its like an almost complete turn off for me.

General mmo combat, may feel cool for the first few hours given some fancy effects and animations, but to me loses all immersion and interest after a day or two in. It becomes extremely tedious and repetitious. Pressing 1...then 2....then 6....then 2 again. Maybe occasionally side step to the right to avoid a clearly displayed aoe attack. Cool, I had to hit that rat TWELVE times with my BATTLEAXE for it to die.

Some of the combat i've seen also looks ridiculous too. Oh a 40ft tall monster! "Lets swing our swords at its toes. That'll totally kill it!"

I guess my question is, how the heck are MMO's so popular and so interesting when the combat (which is like 80% of the game if not higher) is so bleh? The standard is set so low sometimes. I recently layed NWN, and while a lot of people lauded the combat, I was falling asleep on it past level 12.


I granted I know there are some exceptions to the rule, I tried Tera a while back and the comba was greatly interesting. Heck I might go back to it right now.....

 

[Corven]

This may be wrong but I think the past focus on hot-key based combat in MMO's was largely attributed to poor internet speeds, for example you can play WoW on a 56k modem.

With the spread of faster and faster internet more developers can switch to an action based combat system since latency is becoming less of an issue, TERA is an example you mentioned.

The reason most monsters in MMO's are large is so that you have a target that you can see. Think how hard it would be to do a 40 man raid if the boss was the same size as the players.


And if none of these answers are what you're looking for, why not try an MMO that isn't an RPG, like Planetside 2?

 

[Zythrone]

Some combat systems aren't bad.

Mabinogi has a decent combat system, although is hardly as glorious as most single player games...

It mostly comes down to internet speeds, less action means less lag.

 

[rokaraged]

I understand why Raid bosses have to be so big, but my point was it was immersion breaking to see my character and everyone else's try to fight it in a such a conventional manner. Hence why I said it was weird to be swinging swords at a dragon's toes.

I have tried other "mmo" esque games such as planetside. They all vary in quality and are relatively few in number in the market.

(For me particularly, my poor little PC cannot handle planetside very well.) 180 units on screen + relatively weak optimization gets bad FPS on mine.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I dunno, I enjoyed the combat in Dungeon Fighter Online. MapleStory had some pretty awesome combat, too. Although I stopped caring about that game right around the time they started rebalancing and streamlining everything 50 times.

 

[The_Scrivener]

I have more of an issue with community than combat, but I see your point. I never feel like MMOs are immersive. I feel like I'm playing with a bunch of real people represented by weird characters instead of actually being around weird characters.

 

[Smertnik]

I imagine a combat system based on hotkeys and autoattacking is noticeably easier to develop than a direct action one like in Tera since you don't have to worry about things like hit detection. It also takes less effort (and is probably safer, too) to implement already proven and successful mechanics (possibly with some changes) than to invent a completely new one.

 

[The Madman]

Internet speed. Hotbar combat is something that can be implemented to work well even on slower internet connections, whereas a system that takes into place more advanced movement and physics is much more demanding not just of a computer but the internet connection as well. Making a multiplayer game with a dozen or two dozen players isn't terribly hard, but take that number up to the hundreds and then expect dozens at a time to be interacting with one another at any given moment and suddenly all sorts of problems are popping up. Then there's also the need to make the game accessible to not just those boasting high end PC and fast internet, in order to be successful an MMO needs to try and appeal to as large an audience as possible.

As for size, it's for exactly the reason stated earlier: Visibility. Early on in World of Warcraft for example there were more 'realistically' sized enemy bosses, but the problem was they'd be lost under all the spell effects and people attacking them making it difficult to see what's happening. And in the world of MMO's function trumps immersion so bigger bosses were implemented even if it does look a bit silly.

 

[skywolfblue]

Sometimes simplicity is part of the appeal.

There's a lot of players who would be put off by say... a Dark Souls combat system. They just want something simple.

 

[omegaweopon]

This is the issue that lead to me branching out like crazy with my MMO's. I stopped playing anything regarded as typical, and picked up things like Puzzle Pirates, DDTank, DWO and Wakfu. Combat being interesting is a very, VERY important deciding factor on if I play an MMO or not. My advice? Look around, and you'll be surprised to find many game devs breaking the mold. Many MMO websites are out there to help you find the right one.

CAPTCHA: Oh wait

I forgot to mention, plenty of those games don't require subscriptions to play! Heck, only one of the ones I listed has a subscription, and that one is 6 bucks.

 

[Clowndoe]

Yeah I'm still waiting for a game to have, say, Dark Souls or Witcher 2 combat in it. I don't know what I'd do for a game like TOR because it's a lot easier to balance ranged and melee combat with traditional combat mechanics, the problem being that killing random jobbers that make up the traditional MMO mobs with blasters would feel so wrong if it took as long as it did while you were up in their face like Battlefront or Jedi Knight, which would condense what content you have in your game further. With hotkey-based MMO combat the pace of combat feels more natural given that they don't want you to blaze through content.