Combat in MMORPGs: Tab Target vs Action Combat
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- čas přidán 19. 09. 2018
- A little backstory on both combat systems, the pros and cons to both, and finally my thoughts on which is best moving forward.
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#DOAG - Hry
13:43 "Think Jedi Academy or Unreal Tournament"...
...
I think about them every day
Or just play Warframe, if you define the term MMO vernacularly rather than literally.
Never forget
There won't be game like that again because controllers.
Still waiting for Jedi Knights 3
I'm new to the MMO scene/lingo but if I'm understanding correctly, in basic terms tab target system is "auto lock" and action combat system is "free aim" 🤔
Well not necessarily, many action combat games have a lock on systems but you are correct in most cases. Pacing is a big thing here too, tab targeting games often end up with perfect rotation as you stand there and spam 123545 buttons to do max dmg and on action combat you often have combos that change depending on the targets hitbox or a weapon you are using.
yea im trying to find a simple video describing them that shud be like 30 seconds for a definition, but he did a 15 min pro/con video and I still cant tell the difference really
@@Willz828 tab target is when you lock on a target and don't need to constantly click to attack. It attacks automatically. But action combat is when you have free control to attack with even combos while
And it's not automatic
You attack yourself
@@Willz828 to elaborate on what Ryan said: tab targeting traditionally uses the Arab key to cycle your target focus on available enemies. And action combat is closer to the combat in shooter games like counterstrike or Fortnite… except in a big MMO world and not a small shooter game map
The fact that this video is still relevant after 3 years makes me feel like we have been stagnant on this genre for a while, specially since no one seem to be even talking about this topic anymore
I personally prefer action since as far as I can tell, in tab target, you generally select an enemy, attack, wait repeat, that is generally not intresting.
You do the same thing in a action combat mmo
@@heavyflamerheresy2581 You dont.
Is just so much better.
Dash attacks, sidesteps or rolls for actual dodges, hold for strong attacks, combo one type of attack with another, stun attacks, shoulder bashes, wake up attacks, grabs, attacks actually have collision moving the target with each hit, etc. You can do so much cool stuff with action combat.
MMOs are just: lock, use the same 3-4 spells on rotation while maintaining the needed distance to cast them. Repeat.
Action combat is just bad in mmorpgs. Feels shit, plays shit.
The thing about action combat is that it has to "feel" right to be effective, and suddenly you start dealing in unquantifiable factors, and you can see how a company can get it wrong while assuming they got it right.
I'd ESO is an example of this. ESO is my main MMO and I love it, I love the combat system but there are 2 things in it that really annoys me (and it's what make people think the comabt is clunky, when it's not), The animation canceling thing is a pain in the ass, once you learn it's fine but it's not a good thing. It fucks up people who have high latency, and make the combat feel strange, cause your basic attacks don't conect with enemies but it' still does damage. The secodnd thing is animations themselves, specially for basic attacks. Whe you attack with a sword, you just swing it to the left and right with no variations, and when the attack connect, ther's no visual cue showing it. I don't expect a shower of blood or flashy lights when I attack in ESO since it's more serious and realistic, but nothing is awful.
@@kidren50 i think ESO feels bad due to the things you listed and its a big determining factor as to why I don't main the game
tab target is clunky and old af, even modern offline rpg games didn't use tab target except for isometric games
@@aryantzh2028 yes offline, offline dont have 100000 of players. If every one can target everything snd shot eveything everywhere you need better internet and there will be more clutter. Makeking more clutter on the ground from your allies spells as they throw them on the ground.
As an Australian, most MMOs I play (with the exception of big ones like WoW) don't have local servers, and my average ping to MMO servers is around 250-300. For action combat games, the latency absolutely ruins the combat for me, as the delay can be unplayable.
Unless your MMO has servers based in every region around the world, action combat just isn't viable. And if you do have so many servers around the world attempting to give players the best connections possible, you're also dividing the playerbase between those different servers.
Ultimately, the combat system of choice for future MMO games is almost entirely dependant on the scale they're aiming for.
Even with tab-targeting/cooldown combat, ping can still ruin high-level play. You can't do tight rotations due to unreliable ability timing/activation, so your DPS sucks, and avoiding AoE rings becomes a dice-roll.
"you're also dividing the playerbase between those different servers." That's why I love OldSchool RuneScape. You have a lot of different server for different regions and you can swap them as you like. So while you can play on your lowest ping possible, you can also join let's say EUROPE/USA players as an Australian, if you wish so.
agree.
I said and I say again the only thing that can/could kill wow during its glory days is a game that.
1: can be played on a toaster (wow ran on a toaster) all the other MMORPG went graphic bling... and no one except those whit Monster gaming rigs could play them.
2: game play designed on that at least one player is playing from the Moon (hight latency and High latency differential tolerance) wow had it sort of and it worked well untill wrath and the argent tournament horse riding stuff.
and I was playing on a EU server and I lived in Sweden but my ping bounced anywhere between 100Ms to 600MS up to in rare cases 1000MS (poor WIFI and ADSL network yay).
can I do PVE raids yes, can I PVP yes can I become the server PVP champion No but I can at least try... and that is something I can´t say for a lot of other MMO.
also back then and even today the ability to chat and fight is crucial.
a lot of action combat are so fast pased that by the time a player write "incoming east" the group is already dead and if not well during that time the player typing is in most cases standing still and will get free hits on by the enemy.
in a tab target it dont really matter as much from my experience.
Hopefully in time world wide connection speeds will improve making that less of an issue. Until then though, you have a very good point.
@@101jir Unless scientists figure out a way to send data faster than the speed of light, world wide latency times can not improve.
honestly amazing how much vindictus got right as a pioneer and how much it still holds up today
dragon esnt too
i always mix vindictus and continent of the 9th
Hey Nerdslayer! I love your videos!! I really appreciate how I can listen to most of your videos without needing to watch (i listen at work most of the time in background).
!!keep up the GREAT work!!
I love Tera's combat but I just wish it wasn't so ping reliant.
That's on the lazy devs. When they were making the game, they didn't even think about whether it will be released globally, they were worried if it will release at all. So the netcode is great if all your players are in a small country like S Korea.
That being said, they could've done something about it after the game's success worldwide, but they didn't.
VeryMelonCB It's also very ping reliant because it doesn't have a skill queue. When you used a skill you had to wait until the animation was over before you could activate the next skill which always had the ping between. By games that weren't programmed by retards you have a queue system where you can put the second skill in a queue and it starts that skills animation as soon as the first skill is done. With a 150 ping you would always have an additional delay of 150ms between every skill which is massive.
There was a workaround but at least NA managed to repel the devs of the workaround which was managed by a third party. It was a community made mod but they can't get around the anti cheat system anymore.
How I feel about Aion's combat
The ping never quite bothered me... the endgame was such a poor deployment that it fell short quite a bit. They aligned it a few years back, but it was still just a bit too grindy, a bit too random, and there wasn't really a good balance of difficulty. It always seemed to either be either easy or impossible, it was never the right amount of challenge.
Your Calpheon music in the background brings back memories of my old guild in BDO
There ARE mechanical skills involved in tab-target systems, they are just different ones and perhaps less obvious. Personally, i am SHIT at aiming, i'm just no good at it and that's just something I learned to accept. So i prefer the systems that allow me to skip aiming as much as possible
I agree, it's an MMORPG not an FPS.
@@chinhphan4787 indeed
Thank you for shining a light on this.
I've been loving your videos lately, thank you so much for putting in the hard work just to entertain us!
Two videos in a row, Omg i'm so hyped good work as always
I want to enjoy FF14, but I just can't get my head past the pure tab targeting combat. It's so slow paced and constricting, and because of that everything regarding combat feels just about the same. Now, charging moves healing and weapon skills are as different as they are, but the thing about tab targeting is that at some point everything is essentially the same but with a different look and that's painful to acknowledge. You target something, you press a button, you get the effect, you get the animation. That's it. Now, you can argue that every video game is like that, but when gameplay is stifled due to global cooldowns you're able to completely notice the idea, whereas in action combat you're too buys pressing different buttons and making combos and holy shit you barely dodged this attack with a button but go back in with a dash and hit 'em with the knockup and ahhhhhhhhh
I agree with the sentiment that something between the two is best. I see that you have Aion displayed with tab targeting but I feel that it's a bit more. Not as much as Blade and Soul, but moreso than WoW or FF14. Combat isn't just a matter of strategy and meta gaming. It's motion and positioning, rather fast-paced combos, NO GLOBAL COOLDOWNS, and overall the sense of engagement with the game. Aion, Blade and Soul, and games like that limit the time spent with your attention away from the game and that's what marks a well-designed combat system. If at any point in time (aside from the typical grind) you can play the game without paying attention to what you're doing, in my opinion it's just not a good game.
I like both, separate or together, idc as long as it’s done right. Tera Rising did action combat right and I haven’t played tab target in a long time but because it’s old school it’s still right for that nostalgic feel.
*Bless Online didn’t do it right*
The MMO I play most often is Realm of the Mad God. I believe this game has the action oriented combat system, based on what you have described in the video. However, it is also a bullet hell perma death game, which has kept me coming back to the game since its release in 2010. Though I do have a feeling eventually there will be a video on the death of this game. They are working to port it to unity (cause by some literal miracle, it has survived on FLASH all these years)
Nicely summarized 👏
i cant see myself choosing tab over action
I remember playing Underlight. We had little training courses on how to fight and move at the same time. I remember it got drilled into my head, 'never stop moving'. :)
I think you pointed out exactly why I didn't enjoy BDO's combat when I tried it out. 90% dashing, 5% incapacitation, 5% actually fighting. It's like the gameplay is on heroin. Personally, I'd love an "action combat" system that was *also* less jump-obsessed and more "static", with slower movement and more reliance on actual skill use - I think that'd bring in some of that "performance dependent on knowledge of abilities and timing" upsides of tab-targeting while also keeping action combat.
there is also the implicit "precision" stat that you NEED to actually HIT even if you aimed properly.
That stat have been added just before release as a last "fck you" to the "EVE-esque" marketting of "a low level but skilled player can defeat a high level one since they are no item level per se"
So if during a fight you seems to loose: yea, you probably are not hitting him even fi you aim ti right. You can try it when you are leveling and hitting purple(higher level than you) monster: they will dodge 90% of your strike. so you have to spam many hit and low damage attak. because doing with a big nuke is useless if he "dodge" even when being hit
we need more crackhead action mmo games. wish platinum games made an MMO with crazy combat
lol! You probably didn't even reach lvl 50.
Tera was for you then. Well at least Tera's combat system was for you but the game suffered from many flaws.
future mmos should make combat like dark souls, a mix of both tab and free aiming.
hell no, the minimal amount of ping and you are screwed. No one plays with 20 ms ping :P
So, bless unleashed combat?
dark soul combat is so slow and will never fit in grinding games like MMORPGs , just imagine clearing dungeon with dark soul combat lol
the best combat for MMORPGs are : kurtzpel , soulworker , tera , blade and soul , dragon nest
@@darkmagiciansels5833 If the Dark Souls-esque combat were simply shoehorned into the standard MMO trash-filled dungeon, then yes, it would be awful. But in the hands of a competent dev team, we would assume that implementing Dark Souls-like combat would also come with a new approach to encounter design as well as dungeon and environment layouts. Playing a game like Remnant: From the Ashes, which is often described as Dark Souls but with guns, and it's easy to see what steps could be taken to evolve that to be workable in an MMO environment.
@@WPharolin well it wont be fun since dark soul combat is more focused on Boss Fights and not in monster kiilling and farming like MMO's maybe in a boss simulation game but not in MMORPG game , it need to be fast and have many skills and many play style , thats why there is class system in MMO games , if it darksouls like combat it will have 1 class
I enjoy both. I think that the best experience I had was in Wildstar, but it was a mess in PvP.
A mess to be sure, but I loved playing stalker in the first pvp map you unlock, just waiting for those folks to go for the flag and then going in for the attack!
I think it was because of the endgame. I crafted better gear than I could get in dungeons a few days after I hit max lvl and could do raids only once a week while there weren't many raids to do.
Guild Wars 2 seems perfect to me. The smothness of an action combat (gw2 is truly action tho, you dont need a target to use skills, im talking about sword swings and stuff) and it still has the skillset and pros from a target style
i enjoy the guild wars 2 hybrid style most, feels really good
I remember having high hopes for ArcheAge due to the huge amount of classes that it had. You basically had to choose three of (nine, maybe?) skillsets, and your class would be named out of that.
The skillsets ended up not having the amount of free synergy that i initially expected, so the optimal classes arrived quite soon.
_________
On a sidenote, have you thought of taking a look at Wizardry Online? I think it had an interesting combat system, it was tabtargetting, but apparently you could dodge almost everything by moving around.
Not to mention it's iconic permadeath mechanic (also, i just want to see what footage you endup finding for it).
I sense a different kind of nostalgic feeling for that game - I never got to play it, but i often find myself daydreaming while watching it's videos. I wish i had the chance to play it back then.
Very nice vid! 💯👍
So, are DCUO, Archage and Blade & Sword still your favourite combat mmo`s?
I want a full action combat game, but you can press tab to soft-lock onto a target, keeping the camera in their general direction. Some abilities can have different effects when softlocked.
That sounds like aim assist which flattens the skill differences, removing a lot of the appeal of action combat (mechanical skill based combat)
@@vinapocalypse Yeah you are right maybe they were thinking about a MMORPG.
thank you for not writing tab target off as easy. i love wow combat from a pvp standpoint and became a multi glad in cata. your reasoning was accurate; usually comp, knowledge and cooldown management decide 90% of matches. however, once you reach opponents at the same level of understanding nuances in micromanagement, positioning and etc become more evident.
Ugh I hate all of that. It literally sounds like a rudimentary math glass. Just tedious not hard but tedious. Eh just not for me.
WoW combat is the worst.....
@@gearsofwill9 not math, its just strategy and tactics. Tab target much more like playing strategy game because you have so many options to choose when fighting a enemy. Fear, slow, freeze, root, interrupt, silence, disarm... Every class have their kind of skills that needed for survival and burst ofc. Gameplay becomes so boring if they not gonna add any burst skills but because of that skills they also need to add defensive skills. So it's automoticly turns cooldown management. Rotation skills (which ac mmos also have that) not just a hitting skills. They rng based so you not just clicking same buttons always and they give some buff or cd reset or heal etc. Also specially for wow is very fast paced, probly one of the most fastest mmorpg game. Animations not collaborate with cooldowns like in action combat which in ac mmos you mostly have cool and long animations. In New World you cant use dodge if your attack animation not ended, its also same with Lost Ark. You cant even walk if your animation not ended and its so f. stupid. Guild Wars 2 and Eso not look good when you see animations but its makes very sense because you can walk constantly and its makes the game much more fast and enjoyable
RaiderZ had the best combat imo, because it combined an action approach with an actual feeling of impact which many others are missing.
What I feel the best way to go moving forward is hybrid with a prioritization of action combat. Base combat being action with the way skills being executed instead of combo’s or cooldowns it’s a resource similar to mana(maybe slit up into bars like dragon ball xenoverse 2) while skills being pre-set aimed or lock on targeted aimed being manually aiming with no aim assist. Pre-set being if I shoot a rain of arrows I don’t aim nor does it lock onto the target but it has a pre set destination making arrows land directly in front of the player in rows(never played it but I believe this is how either Diablo or Poe does some skills) and lock on being using a lock on system the attack tracking the target or going directly to the place the target was when the skill was launched. All of these can be used in a single combat system just all used for different skills.
So ashes of creation and new world are the upcoming action oriented MMOs? I gotta try them, I'm planning to play my last two SWTOR classes in late 2021 or 2022 whenever the graphic and tech modernization is added.
i just wanted to know the difference thanks for explaining it :)
Great video! What I would like to add is that action vs tab isn't necessarily just a birth of tech limitations. Think about Point and Click skills in MOBA's vs Skillshots. Some sorts of skills just don't make sense as being aimed or requiring a person to land a skill shot. Then you have problems of aim creep, in which devs will redesign almost every single skill as a skill shot just for the sake of doing so.
I think your points about why devs have held onto tab targeting for so long are extremely valid, but I think the complexity of both system's issues also adds another layer. As you said in action games there is a lot less depth in the skill design, and in full tab games there is a lot less mechanical skill. I feel like devs have struggled to figure out how to really bring the cerebral nature of tab target skill design to life in action systems.
My ideal game would be action based. However, I think going forward we need to really think hard on how best to represent a lot of the cerebral nature of tab targeting, and design things with functionality that makes sense to the nature of the skills themselves. Therefore, we will see a mixture of aim, soft locking, hard locking, but where it all makes sense.
I think it's not *that* dependent on control scheme. For example TTK is a huge factor in reflex vs tactics balance in most game genres.
When you said cross platform play with eso as in you can play with people on other consoles? Like xbox one to ps4? If so that is not the case the each console has their own megaserver the are bound to and those servers are split between NA and EU regions. Though you can select which region to play it when booting the game.
As someone who lives in the SEA area, I've had little to no problems participating in all high-level PVP/PVE content in GW2. Yes, there's a delay, but often you can compensate by having meta knowledge on a fight or match up (prediction and pattern recognition).
Moreover, most movement is client based and a lot of abilities have huge allowances for ping. By far the smoothest experience I've had in an MMORPG.
What name have a combat system where you cast target skill by aim with mouse and aoe skills by pick location of cast? (aka dota\lol where u dont have tab target lock)
Thank you! I learned something about MMOs after watching your video!
That's a goal of my channel 😌
Also, the mmorpg Tibia had an action combat system in 1997, though by some definitions, Meridian 59 could be classified as action
Great Video i enjoy all ur videos so much keep the good work up and thanks for responding to my discord dm
Could not play both- FFIV and WoW mor than 10 minutes because of target system. Also they have very uncomfortable for me charachter controll system.
So many games fail at tab target combat, few games are even close to being as smooth as WoW and when combat is the main focus of the game (like most themepark MMO's) when you get the basics wrong then the game is awful.
Yeah... it's funny. When you have a primary way that you interact with the world, and most of the time playing is spent doing it, you'd think that would be something to focus on and get right. I've played too many where abilities are just handed to you and it is obvious almost no thought was put into how they are supposed to work together.
WoW is still the only game with tab targeting that I 100% like. All others have a targeting order which is annoying to me lol
THE DOUBLE UPLOAD
Lol with people saying that Action combat doesnt require as much strategy as tab target and that is all twitch responses. In fact, action combat has both, it requires fast responses and reflexes ( you dodge if you are quick enough and you land hits if you aim good enough and are quick too) AND strategy, and even better because it is real time strategy, you have to think how to counter your opponent and how will you react to everything ASAP, instead of the slow ass pace of the tab target that gives you a little more time to think on your actions. The enemies want you death, they shouldnt give you a chance to think about anything, they would attack quick to end your existence right there XD. That is one of the good thing about action combat too, that it gives you room to improve alot and get better with your reactions and timing, if you are skilled enough you will notice the improvement in your gameplay. Although lag is indeed a problem, I would rather have lag than clearly avoiding an enemy attack and still being hit by it cause it is tab target, it would be basically the same as having lag at that point, which is bs.
It's true that there is a greater potential to develop a convoluted strategy in a turn based or slower combat. I agree with you that it's not a hard rule, but I too see a tendency where a fast action design gravitates towards giving more emphasis on your action skills first and foremost. It's the same rationale as to why a more convoluted strategy games on PC still use an adjustable time scale or even turn-based.
Both combat styles are great and i am looking forward to innovations to both of them. Personally i prefer tab targetting or a little mix on it. because my reflexes are not good enough to play a full action combat style. as such i stay away from mmos that have it.
Gw2 has one of the best combat gameplay and the best hybrid action/tab target that even allow you to switch on full action mode with a crosshair and mouse click auto attack. As there is no animation cancel, ping is less of a problem since you can queue your next spell and movement abilities like the dodge are client side.
I used to love playing Vindictus Online. It was huge when it started. Just browsed the site and saw it's not much talked about anymore. What happened?
shoutouts for my fav action combat game Vindictus! :D
I'd like to make 2 - Death of the Game video requests. Dark Age of Camelot and Voyage Century Online (even though the info gathering may be hard for that one seeing it wasn't a huge game - but it is one of 2 F2P, upon release, MMORPGs in my personal top 10 of all time.)
I want BDO without the hotkes. its amazing when pressing walk backwards and F does something different than pressing walk sideways and F.
That kind of fighting style would be so fun with real hitboxes but it seems like every mmo I play, you just press "4" and then wait for the health bar to go down. Might as well press the "automatically fight for me" button that they all have, knowing that their combat isn't exciting.
Does anyone have any recommendations for mmos that reward physical execution?
although SWTOR starts off as mostly Tab-target , they do also have some / few Action-combat abilities. Plus, they also have " Hybrid-Builds " for each, but its based on Gear and not an actual Skill Tree Discipline Path
I LOVE how you framed the discussion in the correct light: there are pros and cons to every design decision. Developers need to understand this, and play to the strengths of the systems they use. As for tab target, its advantage over action combat is the ability to focus on strategy... something that is not understood well and why most tab target games feel rather bland.
In fact, I would even argue WoW has lost sight of this. As they pruned abilities, it really began to anger players (especially those interested in PvP). Why? It removed strategic decisions, and at its heart, strategy requires choices, consequences for choices, and most importantly different ways to approach the same situation. If there is simply one "right" way to deal with a situation, there is no room for the nuance of that situation to have any bearing on how any given problem can be approached. As for PvP at least, with less abilities it feels less like a game of chess, and more like a game of tic-tac-toe.
They removed niche and utility abilities that had little impact or use in PvE without thinking much of the impact these abilities have in PvP (where they are much more important and frequently used). I think part of the solution might be to create more situations on the PvE side where these niche abilities can be used. They discussed how much of a gulf there is between how PvE and PvP is played (players new to PvP feel very intimidated) and I think this can both help to lower that gap as well as making even questing mobs feel more varied and interesting.
Strategy can give a game more options that can solve long standing problems. For instance, tanks in WoW (and many other tab target games) are the hardest to find as players don't think they are very interesting. Since most tanks tend to be melee, I think this is where more "pseudo-action combat" abilities could be used to help. For instance, your character might have a shield but never uses it to actively soften the blow of a large attack. Certainly, you cannot implement true action combat hit detection... but what you can do is allow it to reduce the damage of an attack from the front by a percentage. If the ability was only active for a very short period (or shields for less and less when held down), timing the ability properly would become more important (and thus, feeling a bit closer to an action combat game). It would also make tanking mechanics reward skill.
Threat mechanics alone are not interesting enough. Imagine we have a warrior archetype who uses a shield and rage and we are only discussing tanking a single target like a boss. The shield can be used to reduce incoming damage. However, while shielding the player is not able to attack, meaning they do not generate rage which is necessary to use high damaging abilities. The abilities which do high damage also increase the amount of threat done to the mob. If you give a bar (or something which displays the information to the player) which shows their threat, this now creates an interesting balancing game. You want to reduce the amount of damage done so the healer can keep you alive, but you also want to do enough damage to keep the mob focused on you.
This is just the foundation to build upon and standard CDs which reduce damage or a taunt mechanic can become more interesting and have more of a strategic use. For instance, your threat might be getting low on the boss, but you can't sacrifice the health to keep him on you. In this instance a taunt mechanic which raises the bar for a short time would allow you to shield and buy time for your healer so you can both survive and keep the attention of the boss. On the other hand, a standard CD that decreases damage taken could have more varied use. You could, say, combine this CD with your shield, allowing you to survive heavy damage for a short time. You could also use the CD so that you can do more damage to maintain threat if taunt is on CD.
This style of play will not be for everyone, but it would certainly appeal to some people and tanks would have a group of players who couldn't get enough of the play style.... creating a situation which is better for all players even if they don't care for it. Imagine what the implications would be for PvP, where melee vs. melee and ranged v ranged tend to be more dull than the back and forth of melee v ranged. You could also have different talent builds to either allow for this or a more "traditional" MMO tank for players who enjoy this style instead, or for those who are not skilled enough yet to be viable.
Depth can be added without adding more complexity in the form of more buttons to push... and if this is the foundation that is built upon, the strategy involved in playing a tab target game could easily surpass that of what an action combat game could offer. I could go on and on about different examples, but I think this spells out the general approach designers should take when choosing tab target.
Man this is to long bruh
@@nvisiondk8791 , it's a complex topic... I'll give you a TLDR. Pros and Cons to every design decision; people only consider pros of action combat and cons of tab target. A pro of tab target and its slower combat is you can focus on strategy; MMOs don't do that and it makes combat boring and PvP stale. You can't do this as well with action combat, but I give a basic example on how this could be done on a tank while also adding psuedo action combat to a tab target game (a hybrid). Depth does not equal complexity.
Yea
If they can some how put strategy gameplay to action combat it will be the best combat system for a long long time , no doubt
@@nvisiondk8791 , so here's some of that complication. Strategy is more than just having choices and consequences for the choices you make; strategy requires more than one way to approach a problem. Why is this a problem with action combat? First, strategy requires at least some time to think, which is at odds with the fast pace. It would be closer to dark souls than bayonetta... but in the former like in a fighting game, you commit to an action and are locked in with the animation. Even if you allow for cancels it is more about reaction and prediction than planning. The more emphasis on reaction, the less ability you have to track the CDs of abilities or buffs the enemy has or time to think about the overall state of the battle.
Second, action combat doesn't do as well the more abilities you have. If you notice, in action combat you tend to have fewer abilities that are spammable. The best strategy games have a TON of options you can take, so that there isn't always a best strategy and you have to react in real time to what an opponent is doing. Chess, which is built all around strategy, has 318 billion possible things that both players can do in the first four moves. Since it's turn based, you have all the time in the world to consider all of these options. The faster a game is, the less abilities you can reasonably have, the less options you have, the less room for strategy.
I think the best place to start is with tab target, and then add action combat like mechanics on top of it because of this, and the fact that only being able to target one enemy at a time creates more choices, and therefore, ways to approach a fight. You have a CC, but you can only use it on one enemy. So when and who do you choose to use it on? This isn't to say you can't put action combat like mechanics into a tab target game, but it is far more difficult to put strategy into action combat.
Dragon's Dogma Online had a VERY smooth action combat system that was also fun. The Seeker(rogue)class in that game is like a scout in Attack on Titan, where you have to use a 'rope' to tether to the big bosses. Climbing on enemies was an important element in combat and it's quite impressive how they all were mechanically stable ping-wise.
Even on a bad VPN, lag was uncommon in fights. It's a shame the game is going to shut down the end of this year.
love the mmo theory not enough of these going around.
I just want full dive VR MMOs already!
Action combat can feel amazing in 1v1 pvp or solo pve content. But as soon as you get into a bigger group it all turns into a horrible mess. I have yet to experience a action combat MMO that actually feels good in large groups.
If you asked me if I wished I could do WoWs raids but with action combat, that would be a resounding "NO"
When action combat feels good in group play I would support it but as of right now it does not work.
@@129das have you tried dragons dogma online? Action combat and group raids feel absolutely amazing. Only in Japan tho ☹ quit cuz of school but there's english patches if you're interested !
What about it doesn't feel good though? Vindictus has more pure action combat than most (and the best combat of any online game imo), yet it has large-scale raids and feels just as good there. Unless you explain what you actually dislike about it, I can't really understand what you mean.
"I have yet to experience a action combat MMO that actually feels good in large groups."
Because group combat in TT doesn't suck? Maybe that's why RvR in WoW really is a thing... I don't know any game where there weren't any complaints about group fights, there's always something that annoys someone and it's often NOT the combat system.
yeah, when people spit on tab target it is clear they never played Guild Wars 1. I agree that most mmorpgs have a shit skill system if they were anything close to gw1 people would appreciate the depth of a tab target and how action packed it can feel while in pvp or high-end pve
This is something I've pondered myself a great deal. As a seasoned Darkfall player, I vastly prefer the action style of combat, however, I often feel that the greatest flaw in action system is that they are "Too" action. I play MMOs to live in a virtual world, and invest time and energy into this community. That kind of mind set is very different from the general mind set of high speed FPS Quake like combat which you mentioned. There's certainly a place for that style of combat, in Quake, but I'm not sure I want it in my MMO. I feel a best style would be more action combat, but slowed down, less dashing all over, less 360 no scope headshot, and more cerebral / planning based, which you mentioned as pros for the tab target style. I always lean to something like Mount and Blade, which does have skillful combat, but it is much slower than something like DarkFall where people run in figure 8s around each other swinging swords. Mount and Blade might be TOO slow, and there definitely still needs to be room for Player Skill, but for the "MMO crowd" I think too many action games take the fast paced "adrenaline pumping" combat too far.
as a wow player i could never reasonably play another mmo on the side. the amount of time to invest when beginning with not only leveling, gearing, professions but also getting good with theorycrafting and learning to be good overall. not to mention another subscription
Nice video, thx for good content.
Did tab-targeting manifest as a simplified version of targeting things in Ultima Online knowing it came before Everquest?
Just want to confirm if single player Ultima games (at least 7 & 8) had some influence at the time.
I have never really enjoyed tab-targetting and much prefer, as you call it, the more visceral twitch-style, but I am of the pre-AoS UO school. The most recent MMO combat system I liked was Darkfall, and I pretty much agree with all your criticisms of that game - beta turned out to be the most fun.
I still remember playing Vindictus EU, I gotta get back into that shet, it's probably my favorite MMORPG of all time. I was always a big fan of the Devil May Cry series so when I found Vindictus, I was like "Multiplayer Devil May Cry? Fuck yes!" Though of course, not as fast-paced, the combat is just as satisfactory.
I think you should have thrown Planetside 1 and 2 a mention here. Yeah they are FPSes but ps2 is a full physics game that does, mostly, work with hundreds of players. Sure they had to compromise with clientside hit detection, but its not awful.
I just wonder if instead of sniper or assault rifle rounds, you shot fireballs and had to lead and account for drop over time. Would be genuinely neat to see a modern game try this.
i liked tera but one of the main missions forces you to find a team but i couldnt't find one
I really like how ESO plays out, it feels action enough, at least you choose your target with the mouse instead of a button. A game with physics you might as well put an IP block to it, because nobody outside your country will be able to play.
Tera, I believe has the most competitive battle system in any mmorpg. The combination of animation locks, skill cooldowns, staggers, knockdowns, blowdowns, and launchers help establish a good balance and gives game combat a feeling much like that of a fighting game.
The combat is best exemplified in Tera's most prominent pvp mode 3v3.
Unfortunately the devs are focused too much on the idea of cycling out content to keep things fresh, rather than adding more, so they've largely done away with PvP and killed the PvP that remains by adding EQ gear, which takes away builds, which is an important part of any MMO. So while Tera is easily top spot for combat system, it doesn't have the PvP content or build system to really matter. It ends up as just another PvE game, and the longer it's like it the more the PvE players and devs fuel each other to make it more of a PvE game.
As an avid player of FFXIV i can tell you that the combat there is like 100% pre-planning and execution based in higher end content, i do not have the best reaction time and pre-planning and execution really make me happy, although the game itself suffers from the Metagame issue you were talking about(im playing a class thats bad for raid progression at a very high level but im not taken in any group/team) and bad server netcode, the servers there are 10 tick which is horrid.
When I quit playing WoW I spent a couple of months playing Witcher 3 before starting FFXIV. I find that Tab Target just fits my playstyle the best.
NIce Vid! I'm a Darks Souls 3 Vet looking for a new game. I didn't even realize there were games that you don't have to aim at all 😂. Is it possible to get Dark souls combat in an MMO? Which one? I don't want to play a game where skill in the player is not the most important thing, any suggestions?
Darkfall, Life is feudal, Mortal Online, APB, dragons dogma, and PlanetSide 2
@@nerdSlayerstudioss Oh thank so much! These look super interesting! I almost lost hope! TY TY TY~
I am currently playing in a WoW guild with a very high age gap. I couldn't see the action combat style work for many the players, who only really played WoW.
It is definetly more accessable and "chill" but also leaves room for very highend content where reaction time comes in affect again.
Risk Your Life (RYL) was prolly the first hybrid mmorpg, developed around 99 and released around 2001-2003 in Korea (US websites often type 2004 or later but that's for the US release of RYLII, I was playing RYL 1 back in 2002-2003 in South America so imagine how long before we got it here), had quite good pvp mostly due to open world PK with faction vs faction fighting 24/7 over their territory.
Too bad I can't find anything closer to it that includes open world pvp of factions, the WvsW from GW2 is just not the same (maybe Warhammer online was the closest thing to it but too much focused on tab target)
Tab targeting done like archeage please and thank you world
What games are at 2:27, 0:58, 7:30, 12:44?
Thanks!
I feel like FFXIV has the best tab target combat as for DPS/Tank jobs, there’s a huge difference in the way combat feels between jobs, and at level 7 there are even ways to subvert the typical tab target style, all while having relative balance. The downside is that there’s less build customization, as there’s pretty much one build that everyone aspires to.
tab target is clunky and old af, even modern offline rpg games didn't use tab target except for isometric games
The cool thing about MMORPGs, in my opinion, is the Massive multiplayer part. I do enjoy action combat a lot, but I think they are more suited for single player or co-op games, since there is more room for improvement at your own pase and "selfish" gameplay. Tab targeting allows for a smaller barrier to entry, leaving room for the casual crowd to fill the world, as well as allowing even skilled players to sometimes just phase out and grind something while watching a show or a movie, which I also find to be a big appeal of the genre. I also think the holy trinity is the best system so far, playing mostly tank myself, and enjoying the clear distribution of roles and responsibilities of the system. I haven't really found any action combat mmo that has implemented the trinity very well.
For me, the hybrid style of GW2 has been the most appealing one, as it finds a nice balance between accessibility and skill, which I think contributes to how well the open world feels. However it can feel a little "floaty" on the timing, where I think the GCD of wow makes for a cleaner experience. I think their structured content would be much better if they hadn't tried to avoid the holy trinity from the start, since it's at an awkward position now with "you're doing the job of role x, but you're not really an x".
I could ramble on forever on this topic, but a youtube comment on a four year old video is probably not the place to do it :P
Funny thing is, i havent pressed "tab" to target enemies in wow since wotlk.
So, on tab targeting cons i have one or two things that i do not agree with. You say it does not allow for friendly fire but i cannot think of a popular MMORPG that has friendly fire, for a few reasons. 1. It would require higher levels of communication making PUGs miserable depending on who you get. 2. Unless you make every ability super strong, it would slow down combat significantly because everyone would need to move away from enemies for a Mage to cast a fire wave. 3. Some skills or abilities would not be useful at all if they had AOE FF because in most MMORPGs, you should have a tank and a good percentage of enemies are melee enemies or are wanted to be close to the tank who is usually melee focused and wants to be close to have aggro. This makes it impossible for you to hit the enemies with AOE abilities without hitting the tank. This would have to be compensated by either CCing everyone at once and the tank running away or not using the skills at all. And the CC strategy would once again require good communication. Another point i disagree with is meta developing because of being knowledge dependent. Metas develop on every game ever. Smite has a Meta, WoW has a Meta and Overwatch has a Meta. 3 very different game types but Metas develop based on balance. If every character had equal pros and cons in a game then you would not need a Play style or Character Meta you could build a team how you felt like building it. It's a issue that all games deal with including Action MMORPGs but was not on the Action Cons. Next, Staleness is a matter of personal opinion. I have never had an issue or even noticed the tab targeting until action MMOs released and i found out how miserable it is to cast a heal while your teammates are moving everywhere like morons. If a game and encounters are engaging and require activeness you will be active. Tab targeting does not encourage you not to be active, bad encounter design does, because the same can be said about Action MMOs. Oh and don't forget. Action MMOs have very specific rotation, too. You can say it's easy because you just target something and hit buttons but Action MMOs only add the aspect of having to aim the cursor, and sometimes the mobs do not even move which means its the same.
Lets talk about Action MMOs. Your entire first page of Pros was opinions which left only 1: It requires more skill to use, although as you pointed out that is completely dependent on what level of action combat. Games like Tera are basically Tab targeting rotations where you just hit the mouse buttons and 1-4 keys in the order the screen tells you to while keeping your mouse on the enemy(which by the way, most people playing tab targeting games still have their screen centered on their targets, they just get the benefit of looking around and prepping their next spell without having to manic about getting a lock-on again).
Hybrid systems are where i hope we continue to go but Tab targeting is still preferable in any game where more than 3 targets are in a fight at time, especially varying on size. Action targeting or you have to be staring centered on the enemy(or ally) to perform the ability on them is very tedious in fights with large amounts of mobs or very large mobs that can take up your screens. Your summary of Tab targeting being Rigid and not allowing many classes is kinda annoying, since most Action MMOs i have seen are usually very stringent on number of classes offered with the exception of maybe BDO, but that loses points because half the classes are just a gender specific barely different version of the other gender but they all perform the same function and some are just different takes on already existing classes but with a tweak.
In essence, your Tab targeting Pros were mostly facts about the system, your cons are not very good(mostly generic problems with balance), your action pros were opinions except the last one and Hybrid targeting systems are pretty fun. I do not trust the future to Action MMOs. I prefer to hope that tab targeting stays and we get more active on other forms of combat because contextual targeting is atrocious.
My two cents:
Tab targeting - I played about 3000 hours of WoW from early WotLK through early MoP and round 2000 hours so far (still have an active sub) of FF14. I absolutely hate playing dps in tab targeting games. For all of WotLK and half of Cata I played Fury Warrior and I've played a max level Monk in FF14 and while I got enjoyment out of it, having to stick to a rigid rotation is such a chore, especially as a melee character constantly having to move out of raid boss AoEs. That being said, I switched to Disc Priest in WoW and main AST in FF14 and absolutely love healing. Without having to use a rotation and having to think on your feet frequently in mythic/savage/extreme raiding healing in tab targetting games is really exciting to me. It is also the best class to "carry" with.
Action - The only "MMO" with action combat I've played was my first "MMO" back around 15 years ago in a game called Conquer Online. It was grindy as far as leveling went but the PvP was fairly good (though heavily pay 2 advantage). That being said, I have played a lot of action games that aren't MMOs such as thousands of hours of Heroes of the Storm (a MOBA) and Dauntless (a Monster Hunter clone). As you mentioned in your Aion video and maybe this one too, melee is kind of painful sometimes if your enemy, either monster or another player, moves nonstop such as in Dauntless. HotS is one of my favorite games though and that makes me think if done right an action based MMO could be really good.
My eye is currently on a KR game called Lost Ark that an English spekaing streamer by the name of Quin69 has been playing. It is a true MMO with systems in place like WoW, but it is isometric and full action. It is basically a mix of WoW, Diablo3, and Monster Hunter.
4:30 i hear black desert ost hmm nice
Theres a few things I wished you would have perhaps gone over more. Instance based action combat can actually handle absurd levels of ping (as long as you don't have massive packet loss) and work flawlessly. The difficulty in action netcode is other players. The easy example is PSO2 which you could play from the US on the japanese servers and feel like you were playing an offline console game it was so accurate and smooth. PvP is typically where you feel the lag.
Theres a few more staples of action combat that IMO don't make any sense. It feels like MMO devs are too slow to move away from tab target even when they pick an action combat system. A game like tera really might as well be tab target in PvE. You can't really miss, you can't really hard dodge, it's all just i-frames and spell rotations.
Theres no reason MMORPG combat shouldn't be exactly as diverse as regular RPG combat. It sickens me how stuck in their ways they seem to be. Specifically action combat REALLY benefits from having either no cooldowns or very few cooldowns and fewer skills overall. In an action combat system you should be using the move that fits the situation the best, not using whatever optimal dps move is off cd, but they just refuse to design them that way for the most part.
It's also worth noting that it takes more resources to develop enemies and thus new content in an action system. The enemy also needs hitboxes and a variety of animations.
DDO, 2006, Action combat+tab target used together, review the combat in that game and actually play it.
Right now hardcore leagues are going to kill the game for good
I play Black Desert and GW2 but prefer tab target most of the time. Mostly though I want a good turn based MMO Atlantica was pretty good once and Wakfu is very limited.
If the market moves to action games then my interest in MMOs will wane or possibly end. As you get older your twitch reactions get slower and over 50 years old getting destroyed by players 20 years younger with better reactions isn't an experience I'll pay for.
At a certain point in life you can't "git gud" cause you already "got old".
Thing is, as an over 50 I have much much more disposable income than I had in the 80's and 90's. Quite happy to spend a couple of hundred a month on games and gaming. It's spare cash.
Most of my middle aged contemporaries are in the same boat. Love gaming but not as quick on the joypad as they were 20 years ago... Mostly with 10x more cash to splash on games than back then. But if they don't make games for us.... They don't get our cash.
^ exactly I am not old yet but this is a great point reaction based games do appeal to everyone. Tab targeting can have reaction bases classes and bosses but not all need to be, Most healer may need a good reaction to be the best. But being a tank can be more about managing cool-downs. And you do have more disposable income.
That seems to apply mostly to PVP though. A lot of action MMOs aren't that difficult to get through. I'd say a couple of them were back in the day, but as population dwindled, they were excessively nerfed. I think most difficulty will be found in their end games.
Even then though, with PVP, you're still going to have to get good depending on the competition and reaction speed is always going to be a factor there, TAB or action wise.
I think the biggest missed point is the "RPG" aspect. Tab Targeting is much closer to the traditional idea of the role you are playing getting stronger, leaving way more room for this idea.
Sure, it's not like that doesn't exist in action-based combat at all, but it is way more watered down. Your character is always bound by your mechanical skill. People didn't solve complex tasks when they wanted their character to perform an action in DnD either and I don't think this is a general desirable way a MMORPG should work.
Class fantasy ties into this. Maybe I want to play as a mighty mage, but my aming is crap and I am forced to play an easier melee class, which would suck. And maybe I want to spend a lot of time doing classic RPG stuff rather than focus on my aiming. If I wanted to focuse on that, I would play Call of Duty.
That being said, there totally is room for a good MMORPG/FPS, I just really don't think it is the "next step" that only isn't taken because developers don't want to leave an outdated tab target system.
This remind me alot of the projectile vs hitscan debate in the fps world. Hitscan being older and more reliable. Projectile being newer and more in depth. Hitscan worked with hardware limitations not being able to actually track multiple projectiles flying through the air at any given moment. Now just as projectile is taking over I feel that action based will take over tab target.
I can go to a website right now find a wow guide that will have me raising and pvp at the highest of levels. I can't find a guide that magically tells me how to aim better, how to anticipate better, how to dodge better. All of this skill and more gets thrown out with tab target for a more tedious safer option. Hopefully we move on.
I prefer action combat style, but my sister prefers tab targeting. I figure both are gonna be sticking around for a long time, but there definitely needs to be more innovation.
What class is that at 1:00 on guild wars 2?
elementalist weaver spec
What class was he playing at 13:50
when i play an mmo i play to be immersed and that's why i like action combat
I think Tab target is the safest option and makes the game a bit easier in terms of long grinds action feels better but after my 10th hour of hammering the mouse button it gets old.
more action oriented combat is kind of all or nothing either it's really good or it's really bad I have yet to encounter one that is just Okay
RaiderZ combat was perfect, more games with combat like that and it will evolve
You could implement most of tab targeting elements into action combat.
I wish there was an MMORPG with Battlerite combat system :(
I feel like there is a big misconception going on when it comes to this topic when discussed online. Many times when people talk about Tab-Target vs Action Combat they are not referring to the mechanics or features, they mean the pace of the combat.
What category Blade and Soul relates to? tab target? action combat?
Tab Target with action combat elements (combos and movement)
I prefer tab target because I play MMORPGs with mouse and keyboard. I think mouse and keyboard are necessary for MMORPGs, so you can easily chat with other players. And switching between controller for playing and keyboard for typing is a pain and thus not an option for me.
An action combat system requires more time critical inputs. I find it harder to perform this with a keyboard. An tab target combat just works better with keyboard and mouse in my opinion.
Great explanation. I just tried my first MMORPG (New World open beta) and loved it. Then, I tried Guild Wars 2 and hated it, and now I understand why. I'm definitely in the Action Combat camp, though I can see why people like tab target as well - it's just not for me. Based on your video, I'll try Vindictus, as I think I prefer the hard target box vs. soft target box. Any other recommendations for hard hit box MMORPGs?
i do think a hybrid between both systems is the best for gameplay, IF pvp is important for you.
in pve i believe action combat has to be very well exectued to be a positive for the game. action based forces you in most situations to always look at the boss, with the center of your camera, to deal damage, which is very detrememtal to overview.
also on pure action base, where you can dodge every ability, raid and dungeon encounters quickly boil down to "dont stand in the fire" and design space gets very limited for the devs. also try spamming your auto attack (generally lmb) for 3+ hours non stop.
while hybrid can definitely work in raid style fights, i dont thint action only has a place in those, as it has barely any upside and huge downsides. it should be for pvp games only
Could u make a lost of "hard hitbox" mmorpg's
FYI tab target is NOT a technical limitation of the 90s, it's an adaptation of traditional RPG combat that works in real-time. RPGs generally had turn-based combat where you had a party and gave commands to your characters, and then you have chance to hit, chance to miss, etc. to simulate your character's aiming and evasion.
So it makes sense that the MMORPGs genre, which is a derivative of the RPG genre, largely uses a version of that kind of combat that works in a game that works in real-time. (Because obviously you can't have turn-based in a MMO.) That it was simpler to code is just a bonus. I don't think Blizzard and Square-Enix are lazy or uncreative for sticking to tab-target combat in 2020 or that their games are worse for it.
As someone who prefers traditional RPG combat instead of action in single-player RPGs, it's not a shocker that I find WoW and FFXIV generally more enjoyable than BDO or TERA. Although I'll admit that GW2 combat is pretty good as well. Not my favorite but really well done.
So whats the best action mmo right now?
For now, I agree that action combat should be persued more just because it's a less explored territory atm. I don't think there is an inherent direction of progress from tab target to action though; there're just different. Tab target just happened to get explored first due to its natural confluence with older tech. The rest is just your preference.