I don't like action combat, and it could very potentially stop me from playing

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I feel like many of us (maybe it was just me?) got caught up in explaining to Mag that Action Combat elements tend to get stripped away in large battles, bringing it 'back to Tab', but didn't actually understand that Mag thinks that Tab games don't require things like 'facing the enemy and making sure you face them for abilities' or 'spacing abilities that hit a certain distance in front of you' or 'dodging out of attacks that strike as lines rather than just being swung at your character's general location'.

Since so few of us seem to have seriously played such games, it appears that we all just play "Action Combat" and since Mag also basically agreed that 'removing some of the requirements' (which are pretty minimal, but not the ones Mag perceived to be present in the games being discussed) is fine for large scale PvE, I think there is actually... no real debate?

SWTOR is apparently just a game where you can use most of your abilities without even looking at your enemies and never need to reposition to avoid attacks I guess?

I'm unfamiliar, so I can't say.

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From what it looked like, that seems like a semi-abuse tactic where a part of the raid can stand in one particular place to minimize received dmg. We'd need Noaani to explain that particular raid for us.

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Here's a boss from 2006. Super simplistic mechanics-wise. Super fast, super big aoes, super random aggro, super fast regen (iirc), fear/dot/stun as skills (iirc) and a shitton of lava that supposedly damages you (I tried looking at the hp values when the dude had the debuff, but couldn't see it going down, maybe it's more of an accumulative debuff, I don't remember rn).

Due to how fast the boss is and how big his aoes are, you gotta be constantly on the move. Melee classes do more damage from behind so they, ideally, want to always be in the back of the boss (helps with survival too). And running around in lava is dangerous, while the non-lava spots are super thin and very spotty. The max limit of people is 200, dunno whether they had the full stack there, but I'd assume they did, cause it takes a ton of dmg to bring this fucker down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS3yWUfLZ00

To me, this kind of fight looks more difficult than that NWO one. Like I said, I'm sure I'm missing a ton of context for it, but the hecticness of L2's fight seems higher. And all that is in a game with a click-to-move system and a much more tab targety combat than it later became.

And exactly due to this hecticness, when I imagine an action combat peak design pve - I imagine a fight where you're at your physical limit of reactions and movement. Because why the hell would you have pure action combat, when you can "just stand around" in tab just fine. And I'm pretty sure this is Noaani's point. Why use action combat, with big pve in mind, when your encounter design will be literally the same as the one from a tab game. Either design it in a way that pushes action combat to its limit, or just have tab. And in quite a lot of cases that "tab" is already hybridy, because afaik quite a lot of tab games have action skills. And imo the potential depth of interactions and utility abilities is much higher in a tab game, where you don't need to push reflexive mechanics onto people.

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Eh, it's just the classic pointless bickering of headstrong people who can't, for the life of them, see eye to eye.

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I'm fairly sure you'd need more than just a quick test to really get into the real depth of the game. And that's probably the case with most deep games. You'd need to get a proper feel of your class/character and then put it to the test against a proper difficult enemy.

In L2 that enemy would be a counterclass in pvp, while in EQ2, I'd assume, it's some hardish raid.

NiKr wrote: »

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I'm fairly sure you'd need more than just a quick test to really get into the real depth of the game. And that's probably the case with most deep games. You'd need to get a proper feel of your class/character and then put it to the test against a proper difficult enemy.

In L2 that enemy would be a counterclass in pvp, while in EQ2, I'd assume, it's some hardish raid.

It could still be a valid test.

For example, if someone told you that in Ashes, the Cleric Skill 'Castigation' could be applied to your Tab Target, and you assumed that meant 'it will hit the enemy at any range and behind you' because that's what you thought 'Tab Target' meant, it would take very little time to boot up Alpha-1, attempt to hit something with the skill, realize that it told you 'Target not in Range' and go:

"Oh this is an Action Combat skill, it just lets me use Tab to decide which target within range it is trying to go for."

Azherae wrote: »

It could still be a valid test.

For example, if someone told you that in Ashes, the Cleric Skill 'Castigation' could be applied to your Tab Target, and you assumed that meant 'it will hit the enemy at any range and behind you' because that's what you thought 'Tab Target' meant, it would take very little time to boot up Alpha-1, attempt to hit something with the skill, realize that it told you 'Target not in Range' and go:

"Oh this is an Action Combat skill, it just lets me use Tab to decide which target within range it is trying to go for."

I think you're trolling Mag a bit too much at this point Though I do get your point, I don't think mag is going that far. I think he just meant that you can hit people w/o having your camera pointed at them, which was the case in L2. The character still had to be in range and turned towards the target, but your camera didn't have to be. And I understand how, from an action player's perspective, that could feel like "cheating".

Even though in my experience it was the opposite, where I had to run towards the camera w/o really knowing exactly where I was going because I always had to look back at my enemy for any cast to dispel or maybe to use the line of vision to prevent them from casting shit. A properly lined up tree right between me and my pursuer saved me many a time.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

It could still be a valid test.

For example, if someone told you that in Ashes, the Cleric Skill 'Castigation' could be applied to your Tab Target, and you assumed that meant 'it will hit the enemy at any range and behind you' because that's what you thought 'Tab Target' meant, it would take very little time to boot up Alpha-1, attempt to hit something with the skill, realize that it told you 'Target not in Range' and go:

"Oh this is an Action Combat skill, it just lets me use Tab to decide which target within range it is trying to go for."

I think you're trolling Mag a bit too much at this point Though I do get your point, I don't think mag is going that far. I think he just meant that you can hit people w/o having your camera pointed at them, which was the case in L2. The character still had to be in range and turned towards the target, but your camera didn't have to be. And I understand how, from an action player's perspective, that could feel like "cheating".

Even though in my experience it was the opposite, where I had to run towards the camera w/o really knowing exactly where I was going because I always had to look back at my enemy for any cast to dispel or maybe to use the line of vision to prevent them from casting shit. A properly lined up tree right between me and my pursuer saved me many a time.

I promise you and Mag that my intention is not to troll Mag at all.

I admit that sometimes when I'm trying to talk to someone at a specific level it comes off as trolling, but I have also often experienced in life, in fact, more often than not, that if one does not approach it in an extremely condescending way, one finds that they actually do need to relate in the way you're doing, they're just resistant to you being a smug ass about it.

The difficulty is making it clear to them that you're not trying to do that, no matter how much it sounds that way.

Basically, in order for me to be 'trolling' here, I would have to be making the assumption 'There's no way this person believes this thing/hasn't experienced what I'm talking about'.

I find that about 80% of the time, I can't afford to make that assumption.

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Now I obviously dunno where's the chicken and where's the egg, but it seems interesting to me that the rise of more action mmos corelate with the drop in pve quality. Mainly in said action mmos, because WoW's raids have only become more difficult (Asmon likes to complain about that) and FF14's raids have also stayed at high difficulty throughout the years afaik. Just an observation of mine

Azherae wrote: »

I promise you and Mag that my intention is not to troll Mag at all.

I admit that sometimes when I'm trying to talk to someone at a specific level it comes off as trolling, but I have also often experienced in life, in fact, more often than not, that if one does not approach it in an extremely condescending way, one finds that they actually do need to relate in the way you're doing, they're just resistant to you being a smug ass about it.

The difficulty is making it clear to them that you're not trying to do that, no matter how much it sounds that way.

Basically, in order for me to be 'trolling' here, I would have to be making the assumption 'There's no way this person believes this thing/hasn't experienced what I'm talking about'.

I find that about 80% of the time, I can't afford to make that assumption.

Yeah, I think I get what you're saying. I often try to stop myself from thinking "how da hell is that your thought process?" and try to think more in line of "why would the think so?" And I'm sure I come off as quite condescending often enough too

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Great, thanks for clarifying.

I've only ever seen EQ2 played, I haven't played it, so I was counting on what Noaani said.

Just understand that not everyone who plays these 'Tab Target' games has the same experience.

I can't face away from my enemy in FFXI and still strike them with melee. Basically at all. No Weapon Skills. Certain special strike attacks don't work either because they're directly positional.

I can't do it in Neverwinter, Onigiri, or any of those other games where I have a 'Lock On' that centers them on my screen. If I am 'unlocked' from the enemy for any reason, I have to manually face them again.

If anything it's easier in NeverWinter because Rogue has so much AoE, that I can at least 'face away and still hit stuff behind me'. Most Action games I play have huge hitboxes on swings so anyone 'to the side' still gets hit. I have more trouble hitting enemies in MineCraft .

Note before you make any specific notes that I definitely have played less MMOs than you, so I'm deferring to your experience here. I'm just also 'realizing that what you mean when you say Large Scale Action Combat can work, is not as complex as what I would assume that to mean.

Anything further is between you and Noaani, have a good one.

Azherae wrote: »

I can't face away from my enemy in FFXI and still strike them with melee. Basically at all. No Weapon Skills. Certain special strike attacks don't work either because they're directly positional.

I think this is what Mag is talking about. The camera points forwards, the enemy is at the character's back and not in the view of the camera. When the character in the vid uses an ability, the character turns around on its own and hits the enemy w/o requiring you to spin the camera. The timing is 1:40
https://youtu.be/FQ9QDoi61hY?t=100

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I can't face away from my enemy in FFXI and still strike them with melee. Basically at all. No Weapon Skills. Certain special strike attacks don't work either because they're directly positional.

I think this is what Mag is talking about. The camera points forwards, the enemy is at the character's back and not in the view of the camera. When the character in the vid uses an ability, the character turns around on its own and hits the enemy w/o requiring you to spin the camera. The timing is 1:40
https://youtu.be/FQ9QDoi61hY?t=100

Yeah, not an option where I come from.

You can definitely 'be locked on and because you are locked on, walk backward'.

You can 'face away, run away, lock on, and because you locked on, it is easy to turn toward the advancing enemy quickly'.

But your character never turns on their own. The Camera might, like in a Zelda game.

If I face north, and the enemy runs past me to my left chasing someone else, I might strike at them once if they pass close enough. Other than that, nope. I'm going to stay there, facing north, while the Camera and only the camera points toward the enemy.

No autopath to them if they go around a corner or around a ravine either.

A mage could cast behind them, definitely, but conal attacks will fail, Ranged attacks will just not fire off at all until you turn around, etc.

TIL that FFXI is 'Tab Heavy Hybrid Combat' I guess?

Azherae wrote: »

TIL that FFXI is 'Tab Heavy Hybrid Combat' I guess?

Yep, quite a lot of "tab games" were just hybrids or became hybrids with updates (L2 was this way). And this is mainly why I say that tab games can do most, if not all, things action games can and more, cause they kinda never were "just tab".

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So wait, now I have a question... what's the range on a spell? Is it just unlimited?

This is a question for @NiKr too. Once the enemy is targeted, are they guaranteed to be hit?

I'm used to being able to just run out of the range of big spells, allowing one to treat them as a 'telegraph' if you did not feel like you could CC the enemy to prevent it. There comes a point where the spell being cast just fails because I got out of range, and depending on the enemy and spell in question, this is just 'a strategy you can use', even in the limited PvP the game provides.

I'm starting to make a lot of potential connections about why people might have called FFXI 'too hardcore'... and quite frankly I'm kind of upset about this...

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

TIL that FFXI is 'Tab Heavy Hybrid Combat' I guess?

Yep, quite a lot of "tab games" were just hybrids or became hybrids with updates (L2 was this way). And this is mainly why I say that tab games can do most, if not all, things action games can and more, cause they kinda never were "just tab".

Right but that means that there's a rather big difference in potential perceptions. When a player says "I hope this game is Tab Target" or "I hope I don't have to aim my abilities", I was previously thinking (not necessarily assuming outright) that they didn't mean 'I just want to press Tab until I see the right name and hit the hotkey".

Because if that's what some people want, they are going to be REALLY disappointed to find out that Ashes might require you to face in the direction of your target, on your own, no less, even for Tab Target skills (I don't know this for any certainty please don't hold me to anything).

It's my fault entirely, but I literally never thought of 'I don't want to have to aim' as 'I don't even want to have to face in the general direction of my enemy, I want the game to do that for me too', but here I am, learning that this may very well be the expectation of people.

Azherae wrote: »

So wait, now I have a question... what's the range on a spell? Is it just unlimited?

In L2 it was ability-dependent. Some had melee range, some had mid range, some had long range. If you were outside of the range and clicked it, your character would automatically turn and run towards your target until it got into range and used the skill.

Iirc, you could break a cast by going behind an obstacle or by going out of range. Though I'm not completely sure about those cause it's been quite a while since I've played and a ton of different servers/game versions had different settings so it's kinda jumbled in my mind.

Azherae wrote: »

It's my fault entirely, but I literally never thought of 'I don't want to have to aim' as 'I don't even want to have to face in the general direction of my enemy, I want the game to do that for me too', but here I am, learning that this may very well be the expectation of people.

Yeah, that definitely might be some people's understanding of the system. But at that point it's on every person to learn what the game is about and how it works, and it's on Intrepid to know what they want to develop and implement feedback accordingly.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

So wait, now I have a question... what's the range on a spell? Is it just unlimited?

In L2 it skill-dependent. Some had melee range, some had mid range, some had long range. If you were outside of the range and clicked it, your character would automatically turn and run towards your target until it got into range and used the skill.

Iirc, you could break a cast by going behind an obstacle or by going out of range. Though I'm not completely sure about those cause it's been quite a while since I've played and a ton of different servers/game versions had different settings so it's kinda jumbled in my mind.

Azherae wrote: »

It's my fault entirely, but I literally never thought of 'I don't want to have to aim' as 'I don't even want to have to face in the general direction of my enemy, I want the game to do that for me too', but here I am, learning that this may very well be the expectation of people.

Yeah, that definitely might be some people's understanding of the system. But at that point it's on every person to learn what the game is about and how it works, and it's on Intrepid to know what they want to develop and implement feedback accordingly.

Well, you said 'break a cast', but let's assume for example that you were just outside of the range of a midrange skill and you clicked it, and your target began to run... does that immediately stop the cast from happening, or will your character 'keep following them until they stop and end up in range and then cast it'?

I suppose you could just as easily 'keep activating it' so that you just keep chasing them, but idk about that either.

I always said that I don't believe in 'Tab vs Action' as a question because it's a spectrum.

I now wholeheartedly renounce this stance and offer apologies to everyone who has been subject to it. I personally consider 'I clicked the button and my character continued to autopath into range until they unleashed the ability' to be outside of that spectrum.

See, I couldn't have come to that conclusion before because I didn't auto-follow.

Azherae wrote: »

Well, you said 'break a cast', but let's assume for example that you were just outside of the range of a midrange skill and you clicked it, and your target began to run... does that immediately stop the cast from happening, or will your character 'keep following them until they stop and end up in range and then cast it'?

You'd need to break it as they were casting it. I thiiiiink that worked, but really don't take my word for it cause this is the one I'm the least sure about. The wall move definitely prevented the hit from finishing, though again, you'd have to move into cover during the cast.

But if you were already out of range, the attacker would in fact just run after you until they were in range, which, when I think about it, makes me think that running out of range might've not been a thing

I think this mechanic was mainly due to the click-to-move system. Though if other tab target mmos w/o such system had the same mechanic, then it's definitely the most tab feature out there.

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It wasn't even about the projectiles. I'd really have to doublecheck it, but I feel like at least on some version of the game you had a cast snap distance, where if you went over that distance the cast of your attacker would cancel. Now this won't leave my head, cause I can't remember it for sure