<!--quoteo(post=1856324:date=Jun 25 2011, 04:50 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Jun 25 2011, 04:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1856324"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's fine, I'll knock it for it on your behalf. It's a combat system that made it big because it was somewhat lag-resistant, which allowed it to be used with MMOs in ye olden dayes where your internet speed was measured in kbps (or even BAUD) and your latency could be timed with a stopwatch. In a day and age where such technical issues should be a thing of the past, that's no excuse anymore. Planetside managed to do real FPS play. Yes, it still had some issues. It was also released in mid-2003, and by the time I played it in late 2005, it was pretty much lag-free. That was six years ago. There is NO excuse for bland and boring combat systems anymore, NONE.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1887168:date=Nov 27 2011, 05:44 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Nov 27 2011, 05:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887168"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Macroing a sequence of attacks that works in almost every situation is what the hotbar game is all about. Have you ever played dps in WoW dungeons or raids? It's all about finding the optimal rotation of abilities to use, and then slavishly hammering that combination. Sometimes you have two different ones, one for fights you expect to be short and one for fights you expect to be long. Sometimes you slightly modify the rotation as your gear gets better. But in the end, if you don't use the optimal rotation, then all else being equal the one who does will have higher dps than you. It all comes down to what Eve Online is always accused of: Numbers in a spreadsheet. MMOs need to start looking at other genres for combat systems, and adapting those.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There have been some MMOs that try something different but in most cases two issues come up:
1. It gets repetitive or tedious regardless the type of combat (MMOs need to be grindy or else people will leave as soon as they finish everything). General idea is that unless developers can crank out content in time, people will generally get bored because they have nothing left to do.
(As for an MMORPG that is grindy "and" has a fun combat system? I cannot compute for some reason >.>. There's Battlefield 2 in a sense.)
2. Hacks guys! MMORPGs are notorious for having bots or every hack just automate everything anyway. Might as well make the gameplay simpler because of it. In games like BF2 (for example) you simply have server admins spectate the player and ban on a case by case basis. MMORPGs on a larger scale will have problems with that (especially if hackers aren't being too obvious when using them).
The whole auto attack while simply pressing a few buttons and cycling through them avoids those two issues (for the most part).
Though I'm not saying that there can't be an MMORPG with a better combat system but that since things haven't really worked out so well, they probably want to play it safe by using the try and trusted method.
<b>There are still ways to make the gameplay fun and interesting in that type of system. One method is making players play more than one role at a time (in general damage dealer just deals damage and worries about nothing else but if we can change that...).</b>
Though in terms of MMORPGs-like games - Battlefield 2 (or <insert FPS game with levels here>) is kind of like an MMORPG: Grinding is there (takes forever to rank up at the later levels). There are 64 players which is another thing MMO-like (most MMORPGs barely have you interact with more than 5 other players most of the time. Maybe 30 in end game stuff but that's it). Since a lot seem to care only about PvP, the lack of PvE is a non issue (even though I personally prefer PvE MMOs I know the general like PvP).
There you go BF2 is kind of like an MMO. Levels don't really matter that much (you get extra weapons) but it's still there.
I guess the one sure way for MMORPGs to be different is for it not really be an MMORPG in the first place. <b>IMO the whole hundreds of players being in the same area is kind of a gimmick considering you rarely interact with that many at the same time. It's just means a bigger chat channel. If you do try to make hundreds of players matter at once, you can't really balance it as easily as something in a smaller scale like 64 player servers.
(For example if you had say a bigger BF that had 1024+ players at the same time with huge maps, it is very possible for the game to get really one sided real easy. Currently in 64 player games, you just transfer a few good players to one team, then a few good to the other then hope everything balances itself out but in larger numbers it'd be harder to do.)</b>
Bobby Kotick has thought about trying something like that (pay to play CoD with more grindy stuff).
Can a server really handle non-hotbar combat for thousands of players at once? I understand Planetside had a crack at this, but I heard the hit registry wasn't great.
Planetside couldn't really. Even if you consider the fact that there was no location based hitboxes ie headshots, and it was client side hit detection (Worst. Idea. Ever) both of which take a lot of work off their hardware, servers still chugged when a full 450 person fight was going on.
Well, I can think of two reasons: 1 is simply far more powerful hardware which increases the amount of people your servers can support, or the more stuff your games can do with the same amount as old days. 2 is far more experience with MMOs, efficient software for that many people and load balancing on your servers/shards.
Thousands of players at once? No. Even hotbar combat crumbles when it's asked to handle thousands of players at once. But Planetside pulled off hundreds pretty well, and that was years ago. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Comments
<!--quoteo(post=1887168:date=Nov 27 2011, 05:44 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Nov 27 2011, 05:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887168"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Macroing a sequence of attacks that works in almost every situation is what the hotbar game is all about. Have you ever played dps in WoW dungeons or raids? It's all about finding the optimal rotation of abilities to use, and then slavishly hammering that combination. Sometimes you have two different ones, one for fights you expect to be short and one for fights you expect to be long. Sometimes you slightly modify the rotation as your gear gets better. But in the end, if you don't use the optimal rotation, then all else being equal the one who does will have higher dps than you. It all comes down to what Eve Online is always accused of: Numbers in a spreadsheet.
MMOs need to start looking at other genres for combat systems, and adapting those.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There have been some MMOs that try something different but in most cases two issues come up:
1. It gets repetitive or tedious regardless the type of combat (MMOs need to be grindy or else people will leave as soon as they finish everything). General idea is that unless developers can crank out content in time, people will generally get bored because they have nothing left to do.
(As for an MMORPG that is grindy "and" has a fun combat system? I cannot compute for some reason >.>. There's Battlefield 2 in a sense.)
2. Hacks guys! MMORPGs are notorious for having bots or every hack just automate everything anyway. Might as well make the gameplay simpler because of it. In games like BF2 (for example) you simply have server admins spectate the player and ban on a case by case basis. MMORPGs on a larger scale will have problems with that (especially if hackers aren't being too obvious when using them).
The whole auto attack while simply pressing a few buttons and cycling through them avoids those two issues (for the most part).
Though I'm not saying that there can't be an MMORPG with a better combat system but that since things haven't really worked out so well, they probably want to play it safe by using the try and trusted method.
<b>There are still ways to make the gameplay fun and interesting in that type of system. One method is making players play more than one role at a time (in general damage dealer just deals damage and worries about nothing else but if we can change that...).</b>
Though in terms of MMORPGs-like games - Battlefield 2 (or <insert FPS game with levels here>) is kind of like an MMORPG: Grinding is there (takes forever to rank up at the later levels). There are 64 players which is another thing MMO-like (most MMORPGs barely have you interact with more than 5 other players most of the time. Maybe 30 in end game stuff but that's it). Since a lot seem to care only about PvP, the lack of PvE is a non issue (even though I personally prefer PvE MMOs I know the general like PvP).
There you go BF2 is kind of like an MMO. Levels don't really matter that much (you get extra weapons) but it's still there.
I guess the one sure way for MMORPGs to be different is for it not really be an MMORPG in the first place. <b>IMO the whole hundreds of players being in the same area is kind of a gimmick considering you rarely interact with that many at the same time. It's just means a bigger chat channel. If you do try to make hundreds of players matter at once, you can't really balance it as easily as something in a smaller scale like 64 player servers.
(For example if you had say a bigger BF that had 1024+ players at the same time with huge maps, it is very possible for the game to get really one sided real easy. Currently in 64 player games, you just transfer a few good players to one team, then a few good to the other then hope everything balances itself out but in larger numbers it'd be harder to do.)</b>
Bobby Kotick has thought about trying something like that (pay to play CoD with more grindy stuff).
Even BF3 struggles to keep speed with 64 players.