SE stop doing the "norm"

[Elexia]

Not trying to start anything or be a jerk...just stating my pov and experience from FFXI

Which seems to be the problem. You're allowed to state your PoV and Experience in/with any MMO that is anything but FFXI.

[Babydoll]

Which seems to be the problem. You're allowed to state your PoV and Experience in/with any MMO that is anything but FFXI.

Ah this is true. How quick I am to forget that

[Soukyuu]

Yeah, try to find a group for Argon Corpus hardmode in Tera with tier 12 gear, see how well it goes for you. The same goes for B&S.

I can't comment much on that since the EU publisher of TERA is incapable enough to not be able to fix a bug in a tutorial quest, so I didn't get far in that. For B&S, I didn't go far to not spoil the story since I can't really read/understand Korean.

Still, I don't think any gear will save you if you just stand there idly/spam your attacks and take the hits. The difference is the time span that has to pass before you kiss the floor, and IMHO, in action-based combat it happens much faster.

Every MMORPG depends a lot on gear, no matter how much the developer promises it doesn't. A MMORPG not depending on gear would lack a crucial progression factor and would bomb because people would lose interest faster.

I can't really argue with that...

In high level encounters of both TERA and B&S (in B&S a little less than Tera, but just a little and not nearly losing it's content gating factor) you can be a master twitcher, but if you go undergeared into an endgame instance you die. No question asked.

The difference is though, that in FFXIV, once you have the gear, you're mostly safe and you don't have to worry about anything beyond a set routine/positioning.

Tera and B&S are based on gear AND on twitch. Tera is a little less based on individual twitch and more on party synergies.

FFXIV, The Secret World and many other MMOs are based on gear AND positioning/tactics/party synergy. Mind you, their advanced encounters (at least for the two I named) are actually way more challenging than anything B&S and Tera offer.

Which is kinda weird, since action based combat doesn't only rely on correct positioning/tactics/synergy but also on your reaction that goes beyond "read battle log msg x -> run to other spot in the arena -> continue spamming".

Gear is still a determining factor. The skillset on its side is just different. Neither is more "skillful" than the other.
Twitch does not necessarily mean challenge.

It's a different type of challenge, as you said yourself. Each skillset is there to overcome a type of a challenge. The difference in my eyes is, if you have reaction-based challenges on top of positioning/synergy, which adds one more variable, making a game much more fun.

A MMORPG not dependant on gear is simply nothing else than a pipe dream. You have to give people things to look forward to and the only really viable gating factor is gear. If everyone can access every piece of content off the bat (or even as soon as they leveled to the cap), they'll check it out, lose interest and quit to the next MMO released that offers them new content.

Why does it have to be all about the gear though? For me, the game is not all about grinding for a piece of an armor... so that I can go grind for a new weapon next. If anything, that bores me to death and kills any motivation to log in, especially when it is implemented in the way that requires you to spam the same content over and over again.

There is so much more out there, PvP (which doesn't get old so fast since you're not fighting an AI), world exploration, crafting, simply running around helping people, communicating etc etc.

IE: a MMO with action combat is invariably less challenging, tactically, than one with target-based combat.

Define "tactically". It's a different type of tactics than target-based combat, that's all.
I don't agree on the bandwidth part, either. A typical MMO is using about 1-5kb/s of spike bandwidth. With current minimal speeds of around 50kb/s, there is still about ten times of bandwidth free. In the end, it's all about how the system is implemented.

Which one is "better" is simply an individual matter of taste. They simply challenge different kind of skills, but saying that Blade & Soul or Tera require more "skill" than FFXIV, TSW, SWTOR or even WoW mind you, is simply conceptually false, and is as valid as saying than an FPS requires more "skill" than XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Generally speaking, you're right. It just annoys me that in FFXIV it's mostly BLM burn instead of actual tactics (or used to be, I'm not logging in much) and the fact that most of the time you just concentrate on spamming your skills as fast as possible, not caring about defense because "magic" will heal you anyway.

I guess you could say that this type of gameplay is not my taste.

[Abriael]

Still, I don't think any gear will save you if you just stand there idly/spam your attacks and take the hits. The difference is the time span that has to pass before you kiss the floor, and IMHO, in action-based combat it happens much faster.

No gear will save you if you're very bad. The same can be said about every MMORPG that simply isn't super-easy or in which you're not way overgeared for the challenge. Mind you, when you're way overgeared you're safe even in action-based mmo.

The difference is though, that in FFXIV, once you have the gear, you're mostly safe and you don't have to worry about anything beyond a set routine/positioning.

Yeah, and in action based MMOs you're mostly safe unless you screw up action. Positioning and group tactics are the basics of the challenge of target-based MMOs, while action is the basics if action-basics MMOs. Neither is safer than the other when you're overgeared. They're just "safe unless you screw up". There are just different things to screw up.

Which is kinda weird, since action based combat doesn't only rely on correct positioning/tactics/synergy but also on your reaction that goes beyond "read battle log msg x -> run to other spot in the arena -> continue spamming".

Action based mmos rely on correct positioning/tactics/synergy a LOT less than other MMOS, for a physical matter of netcode and for a simple reason of balancing.

It's a different type of challenge, as you said yourself. Each skillset is there to overcome a type of a challenge. The difference in my eyes is, if you have reaction-based challenges on top of positioning/synergy, it makes a game much more fun.

The point if you can't have the same level of position/synergy.

Why does it have to be all about the gear though? For me, the game is not all about grinding for a piece of an armor... so that I can go grind for a new weapon next. If anything, that bores me to death and kills any motivation to log in, especially when it is implemented in the way that requires you to spam the same content over and over again.

You're minority. Gear collection is a major element that makes MMORPG addictive for most people, and it's in a developer's best interest for their MMO to be addictive. You'd be probably better suited for a more immediate kind of game with no real gating like MechWarrior online.

There is so much more out there, PvP (which doesn't get old so fast since you're not fighting an AI), world exploration, crafting, simply running around helping people, communicating etc etc.

PvP doesn't get old only for those that actually like it. We already know this won't be a MMO geared primarly to PvPers. World exploration gets old when you have explored the whole world. ArcheAge has one of the biggest, most expansive and fully explorable worlds in the market, yet you can explore it fully in a couple days (I know because i did).
Crafting is as niche as pvp, with the added malus that you *do* run out of possible progression.

Running around and helping people are in no way less relevant in gear based games, with the additional bonus that in gear based games you have more reasons to help people, as the best gear requires collaboration to get.

Define "tactically". It's a different type of tactics than target-based combat, that's all.

No, it's not. It's exactly the same tactics, just with different levels of complexity. Action based combat requires less complex mechanics, leading to a less tactical approach.

I don't agree on the bandwidth part, either. A typical MMO is using about 1-5kb/s of spike bandwidth. With current minimal speeds of around 50kb/s, there is still about ten times of bandwidth free. In the end, it's all about how the system is implemented.

To be totally honest, you not agreeing is irrelevant. That's just client-side bandwidth. It has to be multiplied by everyone communicating with the same server. Bluehole had to develop a completely different netcode to make tera possible, and had to do a TON of compromise with encounter complexity in order to achieve it.

Generally speaking, you're right. It just annoys me that in FFXIV it's mostly BLM burn instead of actual tactics (or used to be, I'm not logging in much) and the fact that most of the time you just concentrate on spamming your skills as fast as possible, not caring about defense because "magic" will heal you anyway.

I wonder what level of encounters you're talking about, because BLM burn will carry you only so far.

I guess you could say that this type of gameplay is not my taste.

That is fine. It just means that ARR won't be for you. At the moment, though, the majority of MMO players seem to prefer (just looking at subscriber numbers) target based combat.

Action combat is interesting, but is also niche, as people that like that kind of approach tend to prefer less gated games like pure third person shooters, or third person shooters with limited MMO elements like world of tanks, mechwarrior online, war of the roses and so forth.

[Jynx]

Even though this stuff is "solo" according to you, it still required you to party with others in order to progress your character to the point of being able to solo.

Your point? Once you had a appropriatly leveled character you could still preform all this content solo. Is it a bad thing that you required a party to level so you could be gated to other content such as exploration?

I don't get what you are trying to say here, the content I mentioned is still solo content as having a party to preform most of it (Aside quests perhaps) was usually not the best way to go about them. Leveling was a integral part of the game that required a group yes, it still doesn't mean that Solo content did not exist in the game.

IDK what ******** XI you played but you needed a pt for 97% of everything in XI

Hope you don't mind if I censored you being rude...anyways I'd love to hear what 97% of the game required a party. We could surely hash out a real percentage of what % of the game needed, I doubt I'll get a response because you are as wrong as could be.

Of course it would be easy to assume your being hyperbolic, but just because leveling and group endgame content was a large part of the game doesn't mean it was the entire game.

[Soukyuu]

Action based mmos rely on correct positioning/tactics/synergy a LOT less than other MMOS, for a physical matter of netcode and for a simple reason of balancing. The point if you can't have the same level of position/synergy.

Why not? I don't see how balancing is a reason for that. Yes, it makes things more difficult if you have to think about tactics, positioning and synergy at the same time. But it's much more rewarding if you achieve it, so simply saying "it's not possible because it would be too hard" is not an argument for me.

You're minority. Gear collection is a major element that makes MMORPG addictive for most people, and it's in a developer's best interest for their MMO to be addictive. You'd be probably better suited for a more immediate kind of game with no real gating like MechWarrior online.

I guess I am, what do you mean by "gating"?

To be totally honest, you not agreeing is irrelevant.

Excuse me? I was under the impression we were having a discussion here.

That's just client-side bandwidth. It has to be multiplied by everyone communicating with the same server. Bluehole had to develop a completely different netcode to make tera possible, and had to do a TON of compromise with encounter complexity in order to achieve it.

Server farms are not running on a DSL-lite type connection, and Bluehole did make it possible. Team Bloodlust seems to have done better, not concentrating only on making combat appealing, at least so far.

Even assuming B&S does just as bad as TERA, using those 2 games to say action combat = less complex encounters is generalizing. If it's not possible atm, it will be possible sooner or later. TERA and B&S did a step in the right direction, others could simply expand on it and learn from the mistakes they did.

Meanwhile target-based combat is getting more and more stale with each game that is using it.

That is fine. It just means that ARR won't be for you. At the moment, though, the majority of MMO players seem to prefer (just looking at subscriber numbers) target based combat.

Action combat is interesting, but is also niche

It's not clear whether the majority prefers it or just settle for it because the majority of the games come with target-based gameplay because it's the current norm. TERA didn't fail because of it's combat, but because of failing publishers (EU) and the game not giving you anything interesting except for the combat.

Anyway, I'm not claiming TERA/B&S are better than FFXIV, but this thread is about SE settling for the norm, which is not the way to go imho.

[Elexia]

Excuse me? I was under the impression we were having a discussion here.

One does not simply have a discussion with Abriael.

[Firon]

something like .hack might be right around the corner if this here takes off, at least the half-virtual part. As for player-skill based MMOs, Blade&Soul seems to fit that bill pretty nicely, too bad it isn't out in the west yet.

ARR's combat, from what we have seen so far, is going to be based around gear once again, not about timing and positioning.

What the hell? The current FFXIV is based both on skill and gear do fool your self.

If you wanna play a game that 100% skill play monster hunter you can beat every monster in the game while naked, I did it.

[Firon]

Hope you don't mind if I censored you being rude...anyways I'd love to hear what 97% of the game required a party. We could surely hash out a real percentage of what % of the game needed, I doubt I'll get a response because you are as wrong as could be.

Of course it would be easy to assume your being hyperbolic, but just because leveling and group endgame content was a large part of the game doesn't mean it was the entire game.

Lets see i quit before the cap raise so lets see all the solo content in XI.

Lvl 60 job Fights for job spec gear.

Campaign

A hand full of side quest/story missions.

Fields of Valor.

I think that sums up all the solo content before the level cap raise.

[Soukyuu]

What the hell? The current FFXIV is based both on skill and gear do fool your self.

Different kind of skill than what I meant, as Abriael pointed out.

Besides, too many people just wait for a common strategy to be established, to be able to clear something instead of trying it themselves. Not really a fault of the game in this case, though.

If you wanna play a game that 100% skill play monster hunter you can beat every monster in the game while naked, I did it.

If only it's MMO was released in the west... but Capcom is being stingy.