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[NullForceOmega]

There are actually a few of them now, BDO, TERA, and probably a couple more that I don't know.  Real-time combat MMOs aren't really groundbreaking anymore.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

There are actually a few of them now, BDO, TERA, and probably a couple more that I don't know.  Real-time combat MMOs aren't really groundbreaking anymore.

Eh it's still just like obviously "press button for damage dice roll"--I mean all games are that if you abstract the mechanics far enough, at least TERA is like that when ive seen it (havent played), it's just not... engrossing? I dont feel like im really doing anything. (BDO looks kinda interesting, in that its Hack n Slash-y, but still...eh)

super awesome and refined and in-depth combat isn't necessarily what I want to replace action bars and what have you? I mean it's nice when you get a game like Last Oasis that is ostensibly an MMO and has directional combat (which is pretty good and not laggy actually--idk recently, haven't played in a little while), but really I just wanna see something that shifts the whole design paradigm. Like Foxhole, but not emulating the terribly boring reality of 1900s wartime logistics.

Combat is certainly fun and it's 100% what I was complaining about, but like... however you slice it (pun very much intended, kek) in most MMOs it's just not very interesting? It's canned. It's like watching an action cartoon, but the animation direction is boring and slow and ill-paced. And more to the point, let's just get something ***DIFFERENT*** in the MMO market, TERA and BDO are very much... run of the mill, even if they're well executed.

And to be completely fair, the "indie MMO" scene is getting there. In a variety of formats. Lands of Lords. Last Oasis. Barons of the Galaxy. Foxhole. The Bannerlord Online mod. Tons of others. These are all Massively Multiplayer, they have combat elements, they have social and roleplaying elements, and theyre super different (and I dont necessarily like all of them lol), I just wanna see more varied ideas.

[NullForceOmega]

Tera is most definitely not push button and wait for dice roll.  Fully real-time melee combat with everything in the game.  You swing weapon, if it connects with hitbox you do damage, you do not connect with hitbox no damage.  You use skill, it connects with hitbox, you do damage and so on and so forth.  Some of the classes play more like traditional 'tab targeting', but that is very certainly not true of all of them, hell even blocking is actually directional (if you're playing one of the classes that even has the option).

As far as questing etc, Tera is in fact more of the same ol' WoW style shit, I can't speak to BDO as I haven't played it.  But I'm going to point out that every MMO that has tried to do something different where questing and basic gameplay are concerned has failed spectacularly.

Edit: I suppose that in the interest of being fair, Guild Wars 2 tried to do something a little bit different with questing, but I can't say that it felt any different while actually playing.

[Aoi]

Edit: I suppose that in the interest of being fair, Guild Wars 2 tried to do something a little bit different with questing, but I can't say that it felt any different while actually playing.

I thought the end result, in terms of questing, was quite different, from both a conceptual and practical standpoint-- at its fundamental, it did away with the norm of each player working on their own distinct quest chains in favor of the map as a whole meeting the objective.

[NullForceOmega]

I can see where you're coming from with that train of thought, and I agree on a conceptual level.  However, in terms of actual gameplay and execution, the only place I really felt like it mattered was very particular world events.  When it came to just playing through the zones it felt very much like every other MMO, with the caveat that it was much easier to go 'off-script', but I always still felt like there was a 'script' in each place I went.

That said, everyone is going to have their own feelings about such things, so what felt just as restrictive as all the rest to me might have been really liberating to someone else.  I don't want to give the wrong impression either, I liked GW2, but I couldn't 'get into' it, there just wasn't enough to hold my attention.  But that's how I've felt about every MMO I've ever played, I think the demands of the genre make innovation extremely difficult and potentially hazardous (to the devs'/publishers' bottom line).  So all the big devs are going to play it safe because at the end of the day they want to get paid, and the indies go bust over and over again.

I'd like to see something really original and different from MMOs also, because it's a genre of game I've always been interested in, but have always bounced off of because it just isn't engaging.

[Damiac]

How is the combat in tera? Is it basic hack and slash, some kind of strong/weak 3 hit combo system, or closer to something like monster hunter?

[NullForceOmega]

It's sadly not the most engaging, the biggest draw is that every class plays totally different (there's a little overlap for the spellcasters, but they aren't identical).  You have basic attacks, which combo with themself (up to five hits?  Sorry it's been a few years and my memory can be spotty) and skills, which can also be comboed into some pretty long and devastating attack sequences, that part is customisable too.

Normal mobs are generally curb-stomps, but the combat gets good with the BAMs, sadly never Monster Hunter good, but I played up to level 55 on my main soloing BAMs, and it was a ton of fun.

There is a definite caveat to the game tho' you NEED to be able to put up with the fan service, armor and costumes for both sexes (tho' way worse for the females) are prettyoversexualised, that shouldn't be surprising, it's a Korean MMO and that kind of thing is standard.  I played every race and sex, and some of the female animations made me just a bit uncomfortable, as did some of the vocalizations.

[Aoi]

There is a definite caveat to the game tho' you NEED to be able to put up with the fan service, armor and costumes for both sexes (tho' way worse for the females) are prettyoversexualised, that shouldn't be surprising, it's a Korean MMO and that kind of thing is standard.  I played every race and sex, and some of the female animations made me just a bit uncomfortable, as did some of the vocalizations.

Good ol' Penny Arcade...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Iduno]

I'm noticing a lot of games that I've been playing lately (Circadian Dice, Graveyard Keeper, Gearhead to a lesser degree) depend way too much on getting a strong start, and it's very difficult to come back from early mistakes.

I end up not finishing a game because I get too concerned with going through the beginning "correctly" or don't actually enjoy playing them. In my current Graveyard keeper game (I'm giving up on restarting because it's a long game) I recently spent like 3 weeks (in-game) grinding to get one character's store improved, so I can do an event for another character for 3 weeks in a row, so I can get the materials to do anything else efficiently.

Edit: I missed a step. 3 more weeks of growing and improving crops before I can spend 3 weeks using those crops. Ugh. I know I have infinite time, but it's not like I'm doing much other than just focusing on these plants because the plot demands I help this guy before I can get to more interesting things.

[Aoi]

I'm noticing a lot of games that I've been playing lately (Circadian Dice, Graveyard Keeper, Gearhead to a lesser degree) depend way too much on getting a strong start, and it's very difficult to come back from early mistakes.

I end up not finishing a game because I get too concerned with going through the beginning "correctly" or don't actually enjoy playing them. In my current Graveyard keeper game (I'm giving up on restarting because it's a long game) I recently spent like 3 weeks (in-game) grinding to get one character's store improved, so I can do an event for another character for 3 weeks in a row, so I can get the materials to do anything else efficiently.

I'm kind of like that too, though I broke the desire to perfect HM-esques on Stardew Valley when I realized that, unlike a lot of older games of its ilk, it'll patiently wait forever for you to do... whatever. Admittedly, it might mean you have to cycle another entire year, but nothing's lost.

Kind of interestingly, I'm exactly the opposite for Factorio though-- I will cheerfully sit there and watch my 5SPM factory chug away for two hours to research something to avoid having to spend 10 minutes expanding my base to cut it down by half.

[Iduno]

Inventory management BS. I'm almost through Graveyard Keeper, and I'm spending an increasing amount of my time trying to find out where I stored quest items, because I keep running out of inventory and storage space.

I just spent 30 minutes checking every one of my (dozen?) storage containers, and can't find the item I need to progress. The game isn't very fun, and I'm thinking I'm better off just looking up the ending somewhere.

[AlStar]

Inventory management BS. I'm almost through Graveyard Keeper, and I'm spending an increasing amount of my time trying to find out where I stored quest items, because I keep running out of inventory and storage space.

I just spent 30 minutes checking every one of my (dozen?) storage containers, and can't find the item I need to progress. The game isn't very fun, and I'm thinking I'm better off just looking up the ending somewhere.

You're going to be somewhat disappointed - it's an ending, but it's certainly not a great or terribly satisfying one.

I completed the game in 72 hours. I really enjoyed ~65 of those, and I put up with the rest to finish off the game. Near the end, there was just too much "craft this object, give it to quest giver, wait a week, take object back from quest giver, give it to other NPC, wait a week, etc."

[Iduno]

Inventory management BS. I'm almost through Graveyard Keeper, and I'm spending an increasing amount of my time trying to find out where I stored quest items, because I keep running out of inventory and storage space.

I just spent 30 minutes checking every one of my (dozen?) storage containers, and can't find the item I need to progress. The game isn't very fun, and I'm thinking I'm better off just looking up the ending somewhere.

You're going to be somewhat disappointed - it's an ending, but it's certainly not a great or terribly satisfying one.

I completed the game in 72 hours. I really enjoyed ~65 of those, and I put up with the rest to finish off the game. Near the end, there was just too much "craft this object, give it to quest giver, wait a week, take object back from quest giver, give it to other NPC, wait a week, etc."

It doesn't help that the 6 NPCs you need to help you are 4 terrible people who treat you bad, 1 who kind of takes advantage of you, and one who just doesn't care about much other than fixing an old mistake. And also I don't care about any of them. Donkey is the only one who seemed cool, and that was for about 5 minutes.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I am not peeved because people enjoy graphical realism or high fidelity graphics (for lack of a better term)...



I AM peeved because people who enjoy those things can't love anything else and constantly shit on games that look different or older. It's incredibly frustrating.

First of all, art direction is the most important aspect of graphical design in games IMO, and like... so many modern games have such shit art direction, but people love the looks because its vaguely "cool". Whereas games like Morrowind or Halo 1 or idk any slew of old RTSes are constantly derided as having bad graphics, because they have low poly count or weak anti-aliasing, but are incredibly immersive, allow you to suspend your disbelief, and retain their legibility even in the face of ultra realistic graphics--which is pretty impressive.

It's kind of like a music production vs composition issue, like okay sure, better sound quality is great, but if the song sucks--it sucks. Subjectively, ofc.

Besdies that, not every game needs to be realistic looking! I dont need to see the pores in peoples' skin in 99% of games, sure realism does help in the dark, psychological thrillers that have been hits in recent years, but most games AREN'T THAT. And it's not that every company is doing this, we got BOTW and Borderlands and Torchlight to name a few, but like this ridiculous amount of fan/consumer/gamer pressure to just keep maxing out graphical quality is setting games back so far. IMO, we got to a point in 2007 where like I really dont care how much more realistic it looks after that.

Content is suffering, both in quality and volume. Art direction is suffering. Gameplay and mechanics are suffering. Just to keep apace the tidal wave of realism, rendering effects, and framerate--none of which add anything to fun. And I get it, its fun to look out over a beautiful vista, but the effort the industry puts in to that is sapping the fun out of everything else. It sucks. And I am mad about it. And I will die mad about it.

[SeriousConcentrate]

For what it's worth, you're not the only one with that view.