Many people are somehow making the assumption that when i say "combat feedback", i am talking about "giant numbers floating on screen". This couldn't be farther from the truth. Personally, I find numbers on the screen extremely distracting. I turned this feature off in every one of the MMOs i've ever played.
What I'm talking about is being able to find out (for example) exactly how much you're hitting for. This can be done in a log. Heck, this can even be done via the (existing in ESO) character sheet. For example, if examining your weapon shows that it does 5-7 damage, if this screen were to be made more detailed and dynamic and show that: Weapon does 5-7 damage, crticial hit is 12 damage, sneak attack is 14 damage, hit versus light armor is 5 damage, hit versus heavy armor is 7 damage, etc. And if all those numbers update based on all your passing and active skillboosts and are actually accurate, then that's all i need.
In the heat of combat, i coudln't care less about different numbers. I am "playing the game", "having fun", etc. But when my character goes home for the night and pulls out the training dummy in order to hone his combat skills, THAT is when i (the player) need to know exact numbers so that i can improve my play and make better choices in combat.
Some people talk like getting better at the game is the opposite of fun. For me it's not. There is fun in fighting and there is fun in getting better. If getting better and improving your stats and hitting the monster harder next time wasn't fun, then all these games wouldn't be so focused on progression.
I want to stab a goblin in the eye, then go home, practice my stabbing, go out into the world and KNOW that i am now stabbing the goblin in the eye better than i did before.
It's the same way wither, though, man. What you're asking for is access to the numbers. You know as well as I do that at that point, the game no longer is about the game. It's about the numbers you produce. This allows for a min/max mentality. I know people want to defend this until they are blue in the face, but all it does is ruin the fun.
I've played table-top RPG's for years and years. And what I have noticed is 90% of the players I run into are only interested in one thing - how to maximize a character build. They care absolutely nothing about actually playing the character or being involved with the story. They only care about when they get to use their next big nuke, or when how they can apply one of their unbeatable skill scores in a particular situation. They actually cut themselves off from possibility, because they are allowing themselves to be narrow-minded. For instance, they don't see the value of playing a Paladin, because the Cleric does everything a Paladin does... only better.... and then some. In fact, the Cleric can do everything, while the Paladin is limited. They miss the point that with a Paladin, they have an opportunity to do something truly heroic - pulling off the impossible, when you're not technically able to.
Simply put... that gets old. It cheapens the experience. It's like in Skyrim or Oblivion when you would run across some ridiculously powerful artifact that totally obliterates all enemies. The game isn't even challenging or fun.
On top of this, this mentality ruins PvP. It forces rebalances based on metrics. When this happens, classes and powers have to be rebalanced. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, the problem is when you use these metrics, you're not seeing the whole issue. You're only seeing that line of data. This is like SWTOR in the first two weeks of Live. The game went through all of Beta testing and alpha, and then suddenly 2 weeks after launch, a knee jerk reaction to an issue completely ruined the game... and the problem wasn't even caused by what they put a fix on. And it was all due to a PvP complaint because people had access to numbers that allowed them to exploit certain features of a system. If they didn't have access to those numbers... I'd argue the issue simply wouldn't have come up in the first place, and the Devs would have eventually fixed what was really screwing things up, based on their own internal metrics. The bigger issue is, that when they implemented this fix based on a PvP issue... it screwed up the entire balance of the PvE game as well.
All I'm saying is that this sort of feature in any capacity will never lead to good things. If this were a table-top RPG, I would argue differently, because you need those numbers. But... as this is a computer game... we can be afforded to not need them and instead put our attention on other things.
As proof that this is not NDA-breaking, this review talks about how there is absolutely no combat feedback in the game. There are no numbers telling you how much you're hitting a mob for, etc.
This seems extremely counter-intuitive. One one hand, one can say "well,the game is not for power-players, it's not for people crunching numbers to figure out best ability loadout. We leave this out because we want immersion!"
I can totally buy that setup.
But.. if that's they way you're going, then why are you giving us all these abilities that have tiny number differentials. Example (taken from this site):
Ability 1:
+5% damage when invisible or crouched.
Ability 2:
Targets in front of caster take 1 magic damage per second for 10 seconds.
Ability 3:
+30% attack speed (heavy and light)
If you don't want people crunching numbers and trying to figure out DPS, why the hell are you giving us these abilities that result in miniscule increases that would ONLY be evident if you COULD see the actual numbers?!
I mean, if it's about immersion and not about crunching numbers, should the abilities just read "Increases damage when invisible", "Damages target in front of you".
The way the have the game set up, you basically need to get an excel spreadsheet and manually calculate what you're doing with every single skill in order to figure out which one is best. How the heck is this any more immersive than having combat numbers log available? I mean, the game is obviously making these calculations, so the numbers exist, they're just not available to players.
Anyone else think that they need to pick a side? Either go for immersion and get rid of these tiny numbers or keep the numbers and let us see the actual results of using them in combat. The in-between state is like the worst of both worlds - you still HAVE TO think about numbers and make decisions, yet you don't have enough information to make those decisions well.
Well the downside of this then will be, yes there are no numbers, how are we gonna figure out if the skills actually do mroe dmg?
Because I on the other hand have also figured out that you not even level up your abilities by fighting most of the time. You level them up by QUESTING. Strange isnt it? Yes this has also been set a couple of times and is also not NDA breaking.
At the end it might all be just one big placebo pill, the whole +5% crit / dmg increase that you click and feel stronger but your character is not actually increasing in strenght.
I hope this will not be the case. Especially for pvp.
It's the same way wither, though, man. What you're asking for is access to the numbers. You know as well as I do that at that point, the game no longer is about the game.
The game is about whatever you want it to be. Pretty much every MMO in existence has numbers and people still play any way they want - i know countless people who don't care about numbers.
Plus, it's not like numbers have been completely taken out of ESO, there are still TONS and TONS of numbers. The people who want to min/max will still min/max. That same dumbass who kicks people from group for doing less than 200 damage, will now kick people from group for carrying a weapon that is below 70-100 rating The same person that spends days looking at his parses will build a spreadsheet and calculate his damage based off those numbers that ARE available in ESO and if he chooses to be elitisit and throw it in your face, he will.
If you're trying to build a game entirely without numbers, you need to build it entirely without numbers - and not halfway as ESO has gone.
Watch this crafting video just posted in another thread - there are 300 different ways of squeezing out every possible maximum number out of the weapon you're creating. If the game somehow means for us to not care about the damage we do, then why have this extensive system of getting higher number weapons?
I' It forces rebalances based on metrics.
So instead of a rebalance based on metrics such as "curved sword hits for 10, while straight sword hits for 12", you'd rather have rebalances based on random bitching like "oh, it feels like i can't do as much damage with my curved sword! I don't know for sure, but seems like it. I swear, my curved sword looks like it takes one third of the mob HP bar, but the straight one takes one half. Although i might be critting, i have no idea."
All I'm saying is that this sort of feature in any capacity will never lead to good things.
Well.. experience tells me different. Every single one of the best 10 or 20 MMOs that i've played has had combat numbers. Is it theoretically possible that ESO will be the first great MMO not to? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As far as leading to good things - me getting better at playing my character and having more fun playing the game is at least ONE "good thing."
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
Originally posted by nerovipus32 I suppose you want a dps meter in there also? So many people calling ESO a clone and yet they complain when it's not following the traditional EQ/WOW mechanics. The irony is delicious.
There isn't really anything ironic about it. Good entertainment is always a narrow path between the all to familiar and the all too strange.
Look at it this way: WoW was doubless a very succesful formula. As with all great succeses, there are those who try to make money by blatantly copying it, and those who try to make all purposefully the opposite. Both are trapped in the idea of their predecessor; they are essentially slaves of the idea. The one by copying it, the other by artificially avoiding it. Those are the two failures you'll see. Making a MMO all too much like WOW or one trying to reinvent the wheel.
ESO did the latter. They were so afraid avoiding "being like WoW", they made too many things different for the sake of, especially in the MMO department.
As to the OP's topic: yes, alone from looking at the many videos you can see how "floaty" combat feels. I do not think real collision detection would be needed, but some more "oomph". If you played Age of Conan, and hacked your axe into an enemy, you know what I mean. That was "oomph", impact. GW2 also manages to feel like you do actual combat, because the animations are VERY detailed.
Just stand on a slope with an ESO and a GW2 char: the ESO char will have 1 foot sunk into the graphics and the other floating above it; in GW2 both feet are corrently planted on the slope or the stairs. These are small things, but all big things are made up of many small things. And the result is: floaty combat and unrealistic feeling of movement.
ILLUSTRATION:
This is how a GOOD game makes characters stand, like GW2, on a slope:
This is how a bad game does it. The example is AION, because I am not allowed to post my ESO pics, but trust me that ESO makes it the same way:
That is one example, but overall these sort of neglected details make the combat aninmations of ESO horrible. They are no realistic, they pay no attention to detail. I could list a hundred examples of body movement in ESO vs GW2. But one example IMO stands for many.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
pfft, when i played age of conan, i didn't bother with an axe, i tore through a man's chest with my bare hand, pulled out his still-beating heart and took a bite. THAT is what i did in AoC. What else could be best in life?
(ik ik, totally off topic, but this somehow made me miss AoC)
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
It's the same way wither, though, man. What you're asking for is access to the numbers. You know as well as I do that at that point, the game no longer is about the game.
The game is about whatever you want it to be. Pretty much every MMO in existence has numbers and people still play any way they want - i know countless people who don't care about numbers.
Plus, it's not like numbers have been completely taken out of ESO, there are still TONS and TONS of numbers. The people who want to min/max will still min/max. That same dumbass who kicks people from group for doing less than 200 damage, will now kick people from group for carrying a weapon that is below 70-100 rating The same person that spends days looking at his parses will build a spreadsheet and calculate his damage based off those numbers that ARE available in ESO and if he chooses to be elitisit and throw it in your face, he will.
If you're trying to build a game entirely without numbers, you need to build it entirely without numbers - and not halfway as ESO has gone.
Watch this crafting video just posted in another thread - there are 300 different ways of squeezing out every possible maximum number out of the weapon you're creating. If the game somehow means for us to not care about the damage we do, then why have this extensive system of getting higher number weapons?
I' It forces rebalances based on metrics.
So instead of a rebalance based on metrics such as "curved sword hits for 10, while straight sword hits for 12", you'd rather have rebalances based on random bitching like "oh, it feels like i can't do as much damage with my curved sword! I don't know for sure, but seems like it. I swear, my curved sword looks like it takes one third of the mob HP bar, but the straight one takes one half. Although i might be critting, i have no idea."
All I'm saying is that this sort of feature in any capacity will never lead to good things.
Well.. experience tells me different. Every single one of the best 10 or 20 MMOs that i've played has had combat numbers. Is it theoretically possible that ESO will be the first great MMO not to? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As far as leading to good things - me getting better at playing my character and having more fun playing the game is at least ONE "good thing."
If the same thing will happen anyway... then it will happen anyway. This doesn't really help the argument that numbers need to be there in the first place. Numbers didn't exist in any of the TES games since Morrowind. Many RPG's get away without showing numbers. SImply put... you don't need them. Oh... you can want them, sure. Just like I can want an MMO that does a lot of things different. This is simply a non-issue, as you've put it, things that happen with numbers present... will happen anyway.
As for balance based on metrics, I don't think you really understood what I was saying there. Balancing on metrics is fine - as long as they are internal metrics. Giving people the numbers is exactly what causes the bitching in the first place. This is exactly what happened in SWTOR and plenty of other games. In SWTOR, people bitched non-stop about Scoundrel's ability to kill Sorcerers in about 3-6 seconds. The uproar was so huge, within 2 weeks of Live... the Scoundrel class was nerfed.
The problem was that the issue had absolutely nothing to do with the Scoundrel abilities or anything else about the class in the first place. I remember writing a huge essay about this back when this happened, explaining in detail what was actually going on and how the nerf to the Scoundrel class would ruin the entire game. Of course, 80% of the player base simply wouldn't listen, because back then... Sorcerer was the #1 class to play - because it was LIGHTNING!
Anyway, the whole issue with the Scoundrel being able to do this was that they were able to min/max various consumables that stacked critical damage. And it wasn't just Scoundrels doing it either - everyone was doing it. Never mind the way Expertise worked at the time. My point is, people were explaining via-number crunches vs time exactly how much damage was taking place and when. Because this was occurring, people freaked out, and literally shut the forums down with complaints. Being able to see a huge 6000K Damage suddenly pop-up on screen goes a long way for selling an idea rather than an abstract meter of red.
EA had no option but to shut the class down and cave to player demand, instead of actually resolving the problem. This lead to an immediate class redesign across the board, because it was all designed to work together. Screwing up that engine caused the whole thing to collapse. One month after Live - and they're already going into serious redesign, because now class balance was totally borked beyond repair without going back to how it was originally, and nerfing what actually needed to be nerfed instead - consumables.
And why did all of this happen? Because of player bitching thinking they had the problem solved with their number crunches... and really... they had absolutely nothing. What they had was evidence of a problem - not evidence of THE problem. This same evidence would have been apparent without the numbers present. But it would not have been so definitive in the player base mind had the numbers not been there.
Ever wonder why SWTOR failed? It's because of this very issue, 2 weeks after the game went Live. Because they had to redesign all the classes immediately... everything else in development was put on hold. And because a lot of the game really needed that development time... people left. This forced them into F2P.
You don't have to take my word for it - I'm sure you have your own magic formula for why it happened. But, the reality is - that is what happened. And this is why the player base does not need access to the numbers. If players hadn't have had access to such definitive numbers, the whole issue would have been more abstract from the word go. This would have allowed the dev internal metrics to be processed accordingly, resulting in a more correct fix to the issue. The funny thing is... right after the nerf to the Scoundrel class (which screwed up the entire game balance in both PvP and PvE), they actually did the right thing.... they nerfed the consumables, like I told them to. But they didn't change Scoundrel back - and that was the end. I actually jumped ship after the first month because of this. I already knew what was coming... they'd spend all their development time working on class balance, and never would get around to fixing everything else - just like SWG. And as far as I can tell... that's exactly what happened.
Yeah, well... the 10-20 best MMO's you've ever played likely weren't that good to begin with, and were probably carbon copies of WoW anyway, which is probably in that list somewhere.
But in the off-chance that I'm wrong - I'll say this. Because ESO doesn't use TAB targeting, auto-aim, or random dice mechanics in the background... there's no need for you to really worry about how much damage you're doing on screen. The weapons tell you how much you're doing. The abilities tell you how much you're doing. The passives tell you how much your abilities are increased. And if you swing your sword and connect to the target... the guess work is pretty minimal.
Really, man... this is a non-issue. I promise you.
pfft, when i played age of conan, i didn't bother with an axe, i tore through a man's chest with my bare hand, pulled out his still-beating heart and took a bite. THAT is what i did in AoC. What else could be best in life?
(ik ik, totally off topic, but this somehow made me miss AoC)
Ah yes, combat was epic in AoC!
I miss it too. -__-
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Originally posted by rygard49 Dude you're comparing a 50 degree slope versus a 10 degree slope...
Do I REALLY have to log into GW2 to make a pic of a 50 degree slope?
Do you trust me word when I say, a GW2 char always makes it right??
EDIT: Now extra for rygard49 I logged in to find some steeper slopes:
Happy now?
Elikal I agree with you that the attention to what you showed needs to be improved with ESO, but it may and can over time. Also many of the UI things I know bother you and some others like the minimap I guarantee you will be added by the Mod community, including damage meters and the like. I think the UI modding community is going to have a large impact on this game.
I was surprised how good the combat felt this weekend beta and all you are worried about is how you didnt see damage numbers floating on the screen?
Its actually good that those numbers dont show. That would break the immersion i get from an Elder Scrolls game.
I think the numbers on the skill tooltips are there to show the effects of the skill and nothing else. I dont see the problem there. Weapons have their damage stats and your character screen has your character damage stats too.
Maybe the skill tooltips show effects based on those character and weapon numbers? who knows, but i still dont see anything wrong with that. Hopefully this game wont become a gear score based, rendering player skill useless...
I agree about the immersion part. But that works better for a single player game,because in single player games, devs don't feel the need to balance the hell out of every single choice.
But in a MMO that makes PVP an important feature, it is obvious that people (who play PVP) want as much info about build choices as possible. This is the only way you can effectively theory craft to come up with a great new build. Instead of having to rely on guides on the web.
Please, that's not an "instead of." Even with all the data, most people just refer to the guides written by the theorycrafters anyway. Having all the data easily accessible at best does little more than speed up the time-to-publish for the guides that everyone else will rely on.
At worst, it does the theorycrafter's work for them, shifts the gaming focus to only that which is easily quantifiable, and rewards lazy thinking.
The time for how long it takes for builds to be posted on the web is meaningless. Because in both cases it is still relatively short after game release.
The difference is that when skill descriptions are deliberately vague, it just severly limits on how you can come up with a new build for yourself. It will be mainly guesswork and wasting time testing if you guessed wrong.
Having vague skill descriptions just means more ppl make uninformed choices. I mean what is the point of that anyway?
When did we shift from "no combat feedback" to "vague skill descriptions"?
Noting that the OP suggested that if we don't have combat feedback we *should* have vague skill descriptors to go along with it. Which implies that right now we don't have vague skill descriptors...
Originally posted by nerovipus32 I suppose you want a dps meter in there also? So many people calling ESO a clone and yet they complain when it's not following the traditional EQ/WOW mechanics. The irony is delicious.
There isn't really anything ironic about it. Good entertainment is always a narrow path between the all to familiar and the all too strange.
Look at it this way: WoW was doubless a very succesful formula. As with all great succeses, there are those who try to make money by blatantly copying it, and those who try to make all purposefully the opposite. Both are trapped in the idea of their predecessor; they are essentially slaves of the idea. The one by copying it, the other by artificially avoiding it. Those are the two failures you'll see. Making a MMO all too much like WOW or one trying to reinvent the wheel.
ESO did the latter. They were so afraid avoiding "being like WoW", they made too many things different for the sake of, especially in the MMO department.
And yet, RPS still calls it a wow-clone...
More relevantly: have you any support for the assertion that their decisions were based on fear of "being like WoW" - rather than, say, fear of being "not enough like Skyrim"?
I ask because I see plenty of areas (this one in particular) where those two disparate motivations might wind up leading them to the same end decision for different reasons. And in a bit of projection, for myself there's very little I find more offensive than someone making disparaging guesses about my motivations and getting it wrong. So it's something I'm hesitant to do to others. (Unless I'm deliberately aiming to be offensive.)
As to the OP's topic: yes, alone from looking at the many videos you can see how "floaty" combat feels. I do not think real collision detection would be needed, but some more "oomph". If you played Age of Conan, and hacked your axe into an enemy, you know what I mean. That was "oomph", impact. GW2 also manages to feel like you do actual combat, because the animations are VERY detailed.
I dunno about that example - I felt GW2 was a bit *over* animated myself - like I was watching someone else doing combat rather than being involved in the combat myself. Had the same problem with the Bioware NWN game ages ago.
I can't speak about how ESO combat feels though; I've either not experienced it, or I'm under NDA and can't speak on the experience.
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
I agree with you. I'm all for the small things too, like why there was no Pazaak in Star Wars...but ESO did get a lot of the small things right. Mike of mmorpg's article showed some of those, as well as some of the videos here. Regardless, I agree its frustrating when a previously released game shows something like the pictures you showed and you just want to ask the developer to look at them and say "did you not notice this?" lol. I guess I tend to look at the bigger picture in that this is the first themepark MMO to have you explore in quest hubless way and my attraction to that as opposed to searching for datacrons exceeds my negative reaction to some of the smaller things. I'm just am optimistic that the smaller things will be fixed. Even Lord of the Rings Online, over 6 or 7 years old, improved their animations and textures. If they can do it, so can ESO lol.
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
Different strokes for different folks...
In Skyrim you have a limit to how much weight you can carry, not how many items. That means you have to be selective on which loot items you carry out of a dungeon, because there'll inevitably be more than you can carry. Leave the 10kg greatsword and take the 2 5kg bows ? Hmmm... which is worth more ? Of course, that whole aspect of the game will be void if you can just "instantly sell" loot while you're still in the dungeon...
ESO appears to have many of these "old-fashioned" player decisions built-in to the game. You cannot have it all, you must choose one and leave the other. I love it !
I was surprised how good the combat felt this weekend beta and all you are worried about is how you didnt see damage numbers floating on the screen?
Its actually good that those numbers dont show. That would break the immersion i get from an Elder Scrolls game.
I think the numbers on the skill tooltips are there to show the effects of the skill and nothing else. I dont see the problem there. Weapons have their damage stats and your character screen has your character damage stats too.
Maybe the skill tooltips show effects based on those character and weapon numbers? who knows, but i still dont see anything wrong with that. Hopefully this game wont become a gear score based, rendering player skill useless...
I agree about the immersion part. But that works better for a single player game,because in single player games, devs don't feel the need to balance the hell out of every single choice.
But in a MMO that makes PVP an important feature, it is obvious that people (who play PVP) want as much info about build choices as possible. This is the only way you can effectively theory craft to come up with a great new build. Instead of having to rely on guides on the web.
Please, that's not an "instead of." Even with all the data, most people just refer to the guides written by the theorycrafters anyway. Having all the data easily accessible at best does little more than speed up the time-to-publish for the guides that everyone else will rely on.
At worst, it does the theorycrafter's work for them, shifts the gaming focus to only that which is easily quantifiable, and rewards lazy thinking.
The time for how long it takes for builds to be posted on the web is meaningless. Because in both cases it is still relatively short after game release.
The difference is that when skill descriptions are deliberately vague, it just severly limits on how you can come up with a new build for yourself. It will be mainly guesswork and wasting time testing if you guessed wrong.
Having vague skill descriptions just means more ppl make uninformed choices. I mean what is the point of that anyway?
When did we shift from "no combat feedback" to "vague skill descriptions"?
Noting that the OP suggested that if we don't have combat feedback we *should* have vague skill descriptors to go along with it. Which implies that right now we don't have vague skill descriptors...
That is the same problem. If you don't know what the 5% increases from a skill, you are still left guessing. And still can't make an informed choice. Just replace my comment with 'the difference is that when the statistics are deliberately vague...'.
No, restricting information just pisses people off enough to extract the data from the data files themselves.
I like to have everything in front of me, so I can figure out what I want to do (min/max.. for my own playstyle).
Look at games like path of exile that are based all around that.
This. I also find it very refreshing to see POE handle this different.
It should be fun enough to chose a build based on how you want to play. For this you have to be able to make informed choices based on the information that is available ingame. Instead of guessing and then waste time testing if you guessed right , like in most modern MMO's
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
If they just said "improves critical strikes" how would you know which one was better? They need some way to show one skill improves it more than the other.
Originally posted by Fendel84M If they just said "improves critical strikes" how would you know which one was better? They need some way to show one skill improves it more than the other.
No you woudln't, but that would be the whole point. Saying "we're not going to tell you how much a critical strike is or how often it happens, but would you like to improve it by 2%?" is just dumb.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
It's like gay marriage. Allowing gays to marry doesn't take straights anything away.
Same here. Allowing these conveniences doesn't rob you of the chance to just play without them. Don't like name tags, minimap and auction house? Well don't USE them. Problem solved. But don't force others to play by your rules, due to your personal preferrence.
And sorry, if you feel GW2 combat animations are generic we must live in paralell realities. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
It's the same way wither, though, man. What you're asking for is access to the numbers. You know as well as I do that at that point, the game no longer is about the game. It's about the numbers you produce. This allows for a min/max mentality. I know people want to defend this until they are blue in the face, but all it does is ruin the fun.
I've played table-top RPG's for years and years. And what I have noticed is 90% of the players I run into are only interested in one thing - how to maximize a character build. They care absolutely nothing about actually playing the character or being involved with the story. They only care about when they get to use their next big nuke, or when how they can apply one of their unbeatable skill scores in a particular situation. They actually cut themselves off from possibility, because they are allowing themselves to be narrow-minded. For instance, they don't see the value of playing a Paladin, because the Cleric does everything a Paladin does... only better.... and then some. In fact, the Cleric can do everything, while the Paladin is limited. They miss the point that with a Paladin, they have an opportunity to do something truly heroic - pulling off the impossible, when you're not technically able to.
Simply put... that gets old. It cheapens the experience. It's like in Skyrim or Oblivion when you would run across some ridiculously powerful artifact that totally obliterates all enemies. The game isn't even challenging or fun.
On top of this, this mentality ruins PvP. It forces rebalances based on metrics. When this happens, classes and powers have to be rebalanced. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, the problem is when you use these metrics, you're not seeing the whole issue. You're only seeing that line of data. This is like SWTOR in the first two weeks of Live. The game went through all of Beta testing and alpha, and then suddenly 2 weeks after launch, a knee jerk reaction to an issue completely ruined the game... and the problem wasn't even caused by what they put a fix on. And it was all due to a PvP complaint because people had access to numbers that allowed them to exploit certain features of a system. If they didn't have access to those numbers... I'd argue the issue simply wouldn't have come up in the first place, and the Devs would have eventually fixed what was really screwing things up, based on their own internal metrics. The bigger issue is, that when they implemented this fix based on a PvP issue... it screwed up the entire balance of the PvE game as well.
All I'm saying is that this sort of feature in any capacity will never lead to good things. If this were a table-top RPG, I would argue differently, because you need those numbers. But... as this is a computer game... we can be afforded to not need them and instead put our attention on other things.
Well the downside of this then will be, yes there are no numbers, how are we gonna figure out if the skills actually do mroe dmg?
Because I on the other hand have also figured out that you not even level up your abilities by fighting most of the time. You level them up by QUESTING. Strange isnt it? Yes this has also been set a couple of times and is also not NDA breaking.
At the end it might all be just one big placebo pill, the whole +5% crit / dmg increase that you click and feel stronger but your character is not actually increasing in strenght.
I hope this will not be the case. Especially for pvp.
The game is about whatever you want it to be. Pretty much every MMO in existence has numbers and people still play any way they want - i know countless people who don't care about numbers.
Plus, it's not like numbers have been completely taken out of ESO, there are still TONS and TONS of numbers. The people who want to min/max will still min/max. That same dumbass who kicks people from group for doing less than 200 damage, will now kick people from group for carrying a weapon that is below 70-100 rating The same person that spends days looking at his parses will build a spreadsheet and calculate his damage based off those numbers that ARE available in ESO and if he chooses to be elitisit and throw it in your face, he will.
If you're trying to build a game entirely without numbers, you need to build it entirely without numbers - and not halfway as ESO has gone.
Watch this crafting video just posted in another thread - there are 300 different ways of squeezing out every possible maximum number out of the weapon you're creating. If the game somehow means for us to not care about the damage we do, then why have this extensive system of getting higher number weapons?
So instead of a rebalance based on metrics such as "curved sword hits for 10, while straight sword hits for 12", you'd rather have rebalances based on random bitching like "oh, it feels like i can't do as much damage with my curved sword! I don't know for sure, but seems like it. I swear, my curved sword looks like it takes one third of the mob HP bar, but the straight one takes one half. Although i might be critting, i have no idea."
Well.. experience tells me different. Every single one of the best 10 or 20 MMOs that i've played has had combat numbers. Is it theoretically possible that ESO will be the first great MMO not to? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As far as leading to good things - me getting better at playing my character and having more fun playing the game is at least ONE "good thing."
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
max party only 4 people. there is no raid in this game.
no dps meter?
no floating combat?
Its Not A Big Deal. I dont miss it at all. Its fine as it is.
There are only 5 ability slots. This is not a dps spam game.
Its Not Hard To Figure Out Your Rotation.
The current system is fine. Give it more time before ppl start jumping just because its not your typical WOW mmo.
There isn't really anything ironic about it. Good entertainment is always a narrow path between the all to familiar and the all too strange.
Look at it this way: WoW was doubless a very succesful formula. As with all great succeses, there are those who try to make money by blatantly copying it, and those who try to make all purposefully the opposite. Both are trapped in the idea of their predecessor; they are essentially slaves of the idea. The one by copying it, the other by artificially avoiding it. Those are the two failures you'll see. Making a MMO all too much like WOW or one trying to reinvent the wheel.
ESO did the latter. They were so afraid avoiding "being like WoW", they made too many things different for the sake of, especially in the MMO department.
As to the OP's topic: yes, alone from looking at the many videos you can see how "floaty" combat feels. I do not think real collision detection would be needed, but some more "oomph". If you played Age of Conan, and hacked your axe into an enemy, you know what I mean. That was "oomph", impact. GW2 also manages to feel like you do actual combat, because the animations are VERY detailed.
Just stand on a slope with an ESO and a GW2 char: the ESO char will have 1 foot sunk into the graphics and the other floating above it; in GW2 both feet are corrently planted on the slope or the stairs. These are small things, but all big things are made up of many small things. And the result is: floaty combat and unrealistic feeling of movement.
ILLUSTRATION:
This is how a GOOD game makes characters stand, like GW2, on a slope:
This is how a bad game does it. The example is AION, because I am not allowed to post my ESO pics, but trust me that ESO makes it the same way:
That is one example, but overall these sort of neglected details make the combat aninmations of ESO horrible. They are no realistic, they pay no attention to detail. I could list a hundred examples of body movement in ESO vs GW2. But one example IMO stands for many.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
pfft, when i played age of conan, i didn't bother with an axe, i tore through a man's chest with my bare hand, pulled out his still-beating heart and took a bite. THAT is what i did in AoC. What else could be best in life?
(ik ik, totally off topic, but this somehow made me miss AoC)
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Yes but the GW2 char has nicer tits.
If the same thing will happen anyway... then it will happen anyway. This doesn't really help the argument that numbers need to be there in the first place. Numbers didn't exist in any of the TES games since Morrowind. Many RPG's get away without showing numbers. SImply put... you don't need them. Oh... you can want them, sure. Just like I can want an MMO that does a lot of things different. This is simply a non-issue, as you've put it, things that happen with numbers present... will happen anyway.
As for balance based on metrics, I don't think you really understood what I was saying there. Balancing on metrics is fine - as long as they are internal metrics. Giving people the numbers is exactly what causes the bitching in the first place. This is exactly what happened in SWTOR and plenty of other games. In SWTOR, people bitched non-stop about Scoundrel's ability to kill Sorcerers in about 3-6 seconds. The uproar was so huge, within 2 weeks of Live... the Scoundrel class was nerfed.
The problem was that the issue had absolutely nothing to do with the Scoundrel abilities or anything else about the class in the first place. I remember writing a huge essay about this back when this happened, explaining in detail what was actually going on and how the nerf to the Scoundrel class would ruin the entire game. Of course, 80% of the player base simply wouldn't listen, because back then... Sorcerer was the #1 class to play - because it was LIGHTNING!
Anyway, the whole issue with the Scoundrel being able to do this was that they were able to min/max various consumables that stacked critical damage. And it wasn't just Scoundrels doing it either - everyone was doing it. Never mind the way Expertise worked at the time. My point is, people were explaining via-number crunches vs time exactly how much damage was taking place and when. Because this was occurring, people freaked out, and literally shut the forums down with complaints. Being able to see a huge 6000K Damage suddenly pop-up on screen goes a long way for selling an idea rather than an abstract meter of red.
EA had no option but to shut the class down and cave to player demand, instead of actually resolving the problem. This lead to an immediate class redesign across the board, because it was all designed to work together. Screwing up that engine caused the whole thing to collapse. One month after Live - and they're already going into serious redesign, because now class balance was totally borked beyond repair without going back to how it was originally, and nerfing what actually needed to be nerfed instead - consumables.
And why did all of this happen? Because of player bitching thinking they had the problem solved with their number crunches... and really... they had absolutely nothing. What they had was evidence of a problem - not evidence of THE problem. This same evidence would have been apparent without the numbers present. But it would not have been so definitive in the player base mind had the numbers not been there.
Ever wonder why SWTOR failed? It's because of this very issue, 2 weeks after the game went Live. Because they had to redesign all the classes immediately... everything else in development was put on hold. And because a lot of the game really needed that development time... people left. This forced them into F2P.
You don't have to take my word for it - I'm sure you have your own magic formula for why it happened. But, the reality is - that is what happened. And this is why the player base does not need access to the numbers. If players hadn't have had access to such definitive numbers, the whole issue would have been more abstract from the word go. This would have allowed the dev internal metrics to be processed accordingly, resulting in a more correct fix to the issue. The funny thing is... right after the nerf to the Scoundrel class (which screwed up the entire game balance in both PvP and PvE), they actually did the right thing.... they nerfed the consumables, like I told them to. But they didn't change Scoundrel back - and that was the end. I actually jumped ship after the first month because of this. I already knew what was coming... they'd spend all their development time working on class balance, and never would get around to fixing everything else - just like SWG. And as far as I can tell... that's exactly what happened.
Yeah, well... the 10-20 best MMO's you've ever played likely weren't that good to begin with, and were probably carbon copies of WoW anyway, which is probably in that list somewhere.
But in the off-chance that I'm wrong - I'll say this. Because ESO doesn't use TAB targeting, auto-aim, or random dice mechanics in the background... there's no need for you to really worry about how much damage you're doing on screen. The weapons tell you how much you're doing. The abilities tell you how much you're doing. The passives tell you how much your abilities are increased. And if you swing your sword and connect to the target... the guess work is pretty minimal.
Really, man... this is a non-issue. I promise you.
Ah yes, combat was epic in AoC!
I miss it too. -__-
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Do I REALLY have to log into GW2 to make a pic of a 50 degree slope?
Do you trust me word when I say, a GW2 char always makes it right??
EDIT: Now extra for rygard49 I logged in to find some steeper slopes:
Happy now?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Elikal I agree with you that the attention to what you showed needs to be improved with ESO, but it may and can over time. Also many of the UI things I know bother you and some others like the minimap I guarantee you will be added by the Mod community, including damage meters and the like. I think the UI modding community is going to have a large impact on this game.
There Is Always Hope!
When did we shift from "no combat feedback" to "vague skill descriptions"?
Noting that the OP suggested that if we don't have combat feedback we *should* have vague skill descriptors to go along with it. Which implies that right now we don't have vague skill descriptors...
And yet, RPS still calls it a wow-clone...
More relevantly: have you any support for the assertion that their decisions were based on fear of "being like WoW" - rather than, say, fear of being "not enough like Skyrim"?
I ask because I see plenty of areas (this one in particular) where those two disparate motivations might wind up leading them to the same end decision for different reasons. And in a bit of projection, for myself there's very little I find more offensive than someone making disparaging guesses about my motivations and getting it wrong. So it's something I'm hesitant to do to others. (Unless I'm deliberately aiming to be offensive.)
I dunno about that example - I felt GW2 was a bit *over* animated myself - like I was watching someone else doing combat rather than being involved in the combat myself. Had the same problem with the Bioware NWN game ages ago.
I can't speak about how ESO combat feels though; I've either not experienced it, or I'm under NDA and can't speak on the experience.
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I agree with you. I'm all for the small things too, like why there was no Pazaak in Star Wars...but ESO did get a lot of the small things right. Mike of mmorpg's article showed some of those, as well as some of the videos here. Regardless, I agree its frustrating when a previously released game shows something like the pictures you showed and you just want to ask the developer to look at them and say "did you not notice this?" lol. I guess I tend to look at the bigger picture in that this is the first themepark MMO to have you explore in quest hubless way and my attraction to that as opposed to searching for datacrons exceeds my negative reaction to some of the smaller things. I'm just am optimistic that the smaller things will be fixed. Even Lord of the Rings Online, over 6 or 7 years old, improved their animations and textures. If they can do it, so can ESO lol.
There Is Always Hope!
Different strokes for different folks...
In Skyrim you have a limit to how much weight you can carry, not how many items. That means you have to be selective on which loot items you carry out of a dungeon, because there'll inevitably be more than you can carry. Leave the 10kg greatsword and take the 2 5kg bows ? Hmmm... which is worth more ? Of course, that whole aspect of the game will be void if you can just "instantly sell" loot while you're still in the dungeon...
ESO appears to have many of these "old-fashioned" player decisions built-in to the game. You cannot have it all, you must choose one and leave the other. I love it !
No, restricting information just pisses people off enough to extract the data from the data files themselves.
I like to have everything in front of me, so I can figure out what I want to do (min/max.. for my own playstyle).
Look at games like path of exile that are based all around that.
That is the same problem. If you don't know what the 5% increases from a skill, you are still left guessing. And still can't make an informed choice. Just replace my comment with 'the difference is that when the statistics are deliberately vague...'.
This. I also find it very refreshing to see POE handle this different.
It should be fun enough to chose a build based on how you want to play. For this you have to be able to make informed choices based on the information that is available ingame. Instead of guessing and then waste time testing if you guessed right , like in most modern MMO's
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
No you woudln't, but that would be the whole point. Saying "we're not going to tell you how much a critical strike is or how often it happens, but would you like to improve it by 2%?" is just dumb.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
It's like gay marriage. Allowing gays to marry doesn't take straights anything away.
Same here. Allowing these conveniences doesn't rob you of the chance to just play without them. Don't like name tags, minimap and auction house? Well don't USE them. Problem solved. But don't force others to play by your rules, due to your personal preferrence.
And sorry, if you feel GW2 combat animations are generic we must live in paralell realities. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert