What makes WoW combat so good?

Lord.Bachus · January 2016

i recently have come to the conclusion that there is several things i like when it comes to combat

- tab targetting
- trinnity for group based combat
- as many skills as possible..

wow fits this cattegory perfectly...

to me there are two things that make WoW outstand when it comes to combat compared to other games that fit the above profile..

- annimations, very very fluent
- skill interaction, there is much more interaction between skills then in other MMO's

so whats your opinion on this?

Hotcell · January 2016

I think it's just personal taste. Good for you that WoW has all the things you like and I do agree the fluidity of it makes it better than most games. e.g for some reason I feel ESO's movement and combat "stiff".

Some people may like a more "active" combat style ala Blade and Soul.

Volgore · January 2016

For me it has always been the responsiveness of my character. While newer mmos caught up in this department, often times there is still a slightly laggy feel to the overall combat even in modern games.
WoW always felt like i am fighting, instead of me controlling a character that performs actions according to my keyboard input. If you get my drift.

Back in the old days when CC was still a thing and classes were different, i also loved the many various skill interactions in groups. An instance run was always different with every other group setup and combat was always a unique experience.
Having say a hunter, warlock or mage in your group made the same dungeon a different thing than the previous run, because combat always used to play out in so many various ways.
But not only in dungeons, everywhere in the game you always approached mobs and situations in other ways according to which other class you quested, fought and duo'ed with -instead of just pulling the whole thing and nuke away.

jesteralways · January 2016

RPG at it's core is about playing a system. A system that is design to handicap players but also providing them with enough chances to overcome the handicap and continue to build character to the position where the handicaps become less and less like handicaps and more like advantage. Tab targeting is true to that idea, in tab target combat player's success or failure is dependent on the system and how much the players have build up themselves to use the system to their advantage. WoW accomplishes that perfectly accompanying it fluent animations and responsiveness of characters.

Leon1e · January 2016

As many skills as possible ... but you only really use ~5-10 unless you are raiding and you press all the buttons in rapid succession.

I don't know what you mean by fluent animations, every game has fluent animations, if you get that 60 fps we all keep talking about. In WoW characters usually get their hands up and wait for the cast bar to finish. Such animation prowess. Or the super unrealistic melee fight where to damage in melee you don't even graphically hit your target if you are far enough. How is that animation fluent or perfect?

I'm happy for you that you prefer WoW since it was probably the first MMO you played but animation/UI is far from perfect in WoW. And it can't be any other way, it's 10+ years old MMO.

I mean, there are still people that prefer vinyl to digital music (albeit they haven't really heard a high definition audio system) ... some people are bound to become dinosaurs through their ignorance.

Little-Boot · January 2016

In answer to the OP; an inability to accept change.

vectrexevo · January 2016

WoW is a great MMO.

Adjuvant1 · January 2016

Leon1e said:

I don't know what you mean by fluent animations, every game has fluent animations, if you get that 60 fps we all keep talking about. In WoW characters usually get their hands up and wait for the cast bar to finish. Such animation prowess. Or the super unrealistic melee fight where to damage in melee you don't even graphically hit your target if you are far enough. How is that animation fluent or perfect?

Pretty sure he meant "fluid", as in appropriately responsive, properly timed and articulated, intuitive.

Wizardry · January 2016

OP it is true they got that part right but when you figure the MAIN GAME,why does it matter?
The main game which is linear questing can be played while eating,watching tv and your eyes closed pressing 1/2/31/2/3.
Linear questing is or at least the way Blizzard designed it to EASILY hand hold you to max level.Why even bother to play a game like that unless you want no challenge and no thinking?It also 100% totally removes the Trinity system,so again why bother?
So in reality the ONLY game Blizzard has resides inside of instances doing boss runs,so the ANTI mmo.

Also since the main game"linear questing" is so easy,why would you care or even need a lot of skills?
You see i think too many Wow fanbois are lost in this dream that the only game that exists is instancing content,are you forgetting about the entire game?

So point being,IF they actually knew how to create a mmo,then yes everything would be great but they don't so it is meaningless outside of instances,they should have just created 3 buttons that said kill in 3 hits and move on to next quest.
That is why i got so bored so fat with WoW,i got tired of constantly waddling around chasing yellow markers for quests and being incredibly bored with combat,i seriously was half asleep i could do the combat with my eyes closed.Only reason you needed to have your eyes open was to watch for aggro because they copied Everquest and just dumped a ton of mobs into tiny areas to force you to fight everything to get to your goal.

yaminsux · January 2016

Skills are easy enough to understand. Combat is fast paced.

Volgore · January 2016

Leon1e said:

I don't know what you mean by fluent animations, every game has fluent animations, if you get that 60 fps we all keep talking about.

Fluent animations are not about frames per second, but how overall character movement is executed, if each motion has a natural transition to another etc.
Just yesterday i saw a clip of a burglar in LOTRO fighting some mobs. Having killed a mob, the character sheated his weapons and during that animation, the legs didn't move. So the char was skating with stiff legs from one mob to another, because the sheating animation didn't allow/include independent leg movement.

Leg movement has been an issue in many games, like in some games characters doing a forward running animation while strafing sideways in combat.
TERA (as i remember it) has no strafing at all, but various angles of forward running animations without any transition into another, which is a total no go to me and kills any immersiveness in combat.

In other games the character doesn't feel "connected" to the ground very well or feel too "light", like even in the technically very well made GW2 some races are skating. This also affects the feeling of GW2's combat to me in a negative way.

I've played one or another game in which casting animations weren't in sync with projectiles fired. Another combat killer to me.

Or maybe you remember back in Age of Conan when female melee characters (i guess it was mainly the assassin class) did less DPS than their male counterparts because the knife combat animations of the female char included rather wide swinging motions and were therefore slower than the quick and shorter male animations. Hence the male assassins connected faster and did more DPS. Funcom "corrected" that issue later on by sort of clipping the female animations into another, what made them look way less fluent.

tom_gore · January 2016

Glad you like it OP. For me, after GW2's much more active combat, I haven't been able to play MMOs with WoW-like combat any more.

If WoW had an active combat like GW2/ESO/BDO/Vindictus I'd probably still be playing it.

Leon1e · January 2016

Volgore said:

Leon1e said:

I don't know what you mean by fluent animations, every game has fluent animations, if you get that 60 fps we all keep talking about.
In other games the character doesn't feel "connected" to the ground very well or feel too "light", like even in the technically very well made GW2 some races are skating. This also affects the feeling of GW2's combat to me in a negative way.

I would've otherwise agreed with you but the quote is just fanboy opinion. Gw2's character tech has your character split in 2 for animations, basically lower body and upper body so your legs are going all directions while your upper body follows the camera. The only way you can "skate" in Gw2 is if you glitch it somehow. The game may or may not have much (depending on the beholder i guess) but animations are top notch. And casters don't just raise their hands.

Sephiroso · January 2016

Best thing about wow's combat is its super fucking smooth and responsive. Way to many mmos, the combat is janky as fuck. This problem is exacerbated in action combat mmos where the input doesn't happen EXACTLY when you press the fucking hotkey.

Everquests combat was shit because of all the downtime. WoW's there's little to no downtime depending on your class. There's always something you should be doing in a fight. But then you have other games, even modern ones where you can go quite a long time unable to do anything because all your skills on cd.

Aelious · January 2016

tom_gore said:

Glad you like it OP. For me, after GW2's much more active combat, I haven't been able to play MMOs with WoW-like combat any more.

If WoW had an active combat like GW2/ESO/BDO/Vindictus I'd probably still be playing it.

The GW2 dynamic camera feature feels more natural than the original state, so good.

To the OP I would have to agree that the responsiveness and right combination of sounds/animations makes WoW's combat shine. In contrast I couldn't play LotRO because the animations were really bad, just felt like you were swinging through air. No impactful feel. WoW nails this IMO.

As to preference, I do like having distinct roles in battle as a form of identity but some improvements could be made (Tank CC mechanics > taunt, for instance) but I find it harder and harder to like tab target. This could be offset by situational abilities that unfold through a fight, not just instant procs, but I need something more interactive. BDO mechanics felt really good though ability wise more Valk type support, even heals, could be good.

Edit: As a side note, if you're looking for a tabbed target MMO with a trinity and a lot of buttons EQ2 is where it's at. So many fluff skills and most have in-depth effects. I would argue that auto attacks aren't even needed in most cases!

GunnJD · January 2016

As I'm sure you all know, the Draneor expansion's character animations and graphics upgrades were probably the best thing about it.

So WOW is an old game with some serious polish and improvements. They do a really good job at making it look good after all these years.

I don't know a thing about programming, but it is probably comparatively easy for them to make individual animations look super good, opposed to upgrading or changing the way separate entities interact with one another.

So the criticism that your warrior could be attacking a target, but his blade is just swiping the air and not really hitting it, is fair. I just think its too tough for them to change it.

The older WOW gets the more its age will show, and our experiences with new MMOs will exacerbate its flaws and heighten our expectations.

I remember playing a Warrior in vanilla. After years of Asheron's Call, it looked pretty good!

tom_gore · January 2016

Aelious said:

tom_gore said:

Glad you like it OP. For me, after GW2's much more active combat, I haven't been able to play MMOs with WoW-like combat any more.

If WoW had an active combat like GW2/ESO/BDO/Vindictus I'd probably still be playing it.

The GW2 dynamic camera feature feels more natural than the original state, so good.

It is. I switched using to that when it was introduced and haven't looked back. Made the awesome combat even better.

tom_gore · January 2016

Aori said:

In most games when people are waiting or just chatting, they sit still, not moving just there. However in WoW, people are always moving, flying, jumping and a lot of times they just move around for hours with no goal.

So WoW is good because it's filled with people suffering from ADD?

Thane · January 2016

actually the WoW combat system ain't that good.
the good part is the network tec. the chars do what you tell em to do instantly, the feeling is excellent.

the tab target stuff, meeeh. but the movement and fluidity of the game is awesome.

Yaevindusk · January 2016

It's my personal opinion that WoW has among the most basic of animations in the "Triple A" MMO Market at present.

They've sported the same melee animations since they started the game that are incredibly basic and or doesn't even make sense (or just looks horrid). That said, the new melee animations in Legion are pretty great and improve the game significantly when it comes to melee based combat.

When it comes to the numbers of skills, I'm in a neutral stance. On the one hand, I don't want to have to start making macros and macros for my macros and then macros for my Naga -- or even have a need to use a Naga -- due to their being so many buttons. But on the other, when it comes to games like GW2 I just couldn't stand being so limited. Likely because the combat as a whole didn't feel like it had any "umph" behind it or the connection with my clicks and their hits just felt off for most abilities. If all of the abilities were more too my liking in that regard... and / or I was able to pick what weapon skills I want (with there being choices) to be placed in the limited sections, then I'd probably enjoy it.

With skill interaction, I'd have to say it's (WoW) fairly light on that as well. Would be interesting if they had legitimate combos that are less based on RNG or can simply be called "combos" because rotation (and little to no penalties for not following through or having to make decisions on the most efficient approach to take). They're also continuously making rotations and specializations easier and easier to complete, even going so far to say as they didn't want people to play Demonology because it was rotationally complex. Though when it comes to rotations, I'm actually not a big fan of them as it doesn't seem fun or entertaining as you might as well just be hitting one button instead of a few in a row (so I'm personally fan of their new emphasis on class fantasy over past rotations).

It's certainly fluid and you can maintain the fluid control when only using a mouse -- something a lot of people look for when moving their characters about. But it also negates a sort of immersion with your character just teleporting to face the opposite direction. But I think it's also a factor of enjoyment for people. It's a perfect balance of having enough sturdy control while not feeling too floaty.

Looking forward to what WoW will bring to the table. When it comes to complex rotations, combos, importance of positioning, etc. then I have FFXIV and welcome any changes to WoW with Legion.

Lord.Bachus · January 2016

Little-Boot said:

In answer to the OP; an inability to accept change.

I have been all around mate, played MMO's since EQs and ACs beta... And my preferences have been all over the place during that time...

on top of that, WoW itself is a game that changes comtinously, with every xpac they take a different direction to make it feel "fresh" again..

josko9 · January 2016

WoW has one of the worst Combat in the genre actually..wel technically tab-targetting can't compare with Action combat so there is that..however WoW also has the most basic animations.

deniter · January 2016

It's the combination of responsive controls, animations and sound effects. Their timing was perfect and made a player 'feel' the impact of his/her character's attacks.

Also, there was no 'animation lock' like there is in some korean games. You could move your character whenever you wanted, even in the middle of casting.

Even tho i hate modern WoW's gameplay from the bottom of my heart, i have to say moving and fighting in it is still a very pleasant experience.

Lord.Bachus · January 2016

deniter said:

It's the combination of responsive controls, animations and sound effects. Their timing was perfect and made a player 'feel' the impact of his/her character's attacks.

Also, there was no 'animation lock' like there is in some korean games. You could move your character whenever you wanted, even in the middle of casting.

Even tho i hate modern WoW's gameplay from the bottom of my heart, i have to say moving and fighting in it is still a very pleasant experience.

I think modern day WoW combat is much better then vanilla...

Thats because of my 2nd point, skill interaction.. skills influence eachother in different ways... making the combat much more interactive then the simple rotation you see in other tab targetting games..

True, Vanilla combat had other things standing out, but the current game just works well as it is when it comes to combat. While some things are simplified, other things have more depth..

Jakobmiller · January 2016

Darkfall has the best combat when it comes to MMORPGs... Period! WoW is pretty sad these days.

zaberfangx · January 2016

Lord.Bachus said:

i recently have come to the conclusion that there is several things i like when it comes to combat

- tab targetting
- trinnity for group based combat
- as many skills as possible..

wow fits this cattegory perfectly...

to me there are two things that make WoW outstand when it comes to combat compared to other games that fit the above profile..

- annimations, very very fluent
- skill interaction, there is much more interaction between skills then in other MMO's

so whats your opinion on this?

WoW combat is good for it's for the game was befor right now it's getting older and the annimations very out of date very old.

Tab target can still work but not in a older system with out more to the combat system then it is now.

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