Why is it the general impression of people who don't play ESO is that the combat is bad?

Einstein_

i DISSAGREE with most ppl here.

ESO has the best combat of all mmos, thats why alot ppl keep playing it even tho lagg/bugs/balancing is horrible.

Alot ppl here say its bad because of animation cancling/ LA weaving ...ect. But that is what makes it great compared to other mmos, ESO has a verry skillfull combat system.I guess the more casual players might not like it because this resons. But for players with some skil thats the diffrent way arround, because you feel you have some impact if you play good and not just have good gear.
That especially is true for PvP.

If you want to press your keys mindless from 1-9 on a Tap-target go play FF14 or WoW.

Grandchamp1989

For me Combat is ESO is the strong points.

Its an MMO with an RPG adventure type combat which is very rare and much appreciated.

I think for some people light attack weaving is an aquired taste which I understand 100%

I also think some of the things with performance have maybe had an impact on how people view combat.

For me personly when combat in ESO works its some of the best out there. dynamic combat, roll dodges, reactionary.. sprinting, blocking, bashing.. playing with two types of weapons at any given time. Its very neat.

Artanisul

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I absolutely do not understand what kind of animation cancellation you are talking about. Animation canceling has been gone for a long time. Yes, many skills used to be cast faster if their animation was skipped. But this has not been done for a long time. Weaving remained, but this is not canceling the animation.

When you hit a skill...and can then do something that makes that animation cut short by hitting another skill, that's a cancelled animation....thus animation cancelling. It's not rocket science and it is still here.

If you dont use this "skill" while playing ESO you will do half the damage you could. The fact it exists in this game is why balancing is a nightmare and we cant all move forward in fixing the game up.

Hurbster

@ZOS_Kevin

Maybe you could forward this to the combat team so they have more of an idea of people's feelings on the combat.

BXR_Lonestar

The combat system isn't really fun to be honest. I love eso, I've been a big Elder Scrolls fan for a long time. Hate ESO's combat system. I don't find maintaining high up-times on short-lived buffs to be all that fun or engaging. I don't find having to follow a strict rotation to get decent DPS fun or engaging. Feels like button mashing in a certain order. Kudos to the people who like that style of play, but I absolutely hate it, which is why I prefer to play support.

If they remade the combat system to be slower paced and less about strict rotations and more about maintaining a sustainable output of DPS (which factors in skill with making a build and maintaining sustain), then I think the combat system would be more enjoyable [but que the people screaming that part of the skill is maintaining high uptimes on buffs/debuffs - again, I can do it, its just not fun or engaging].

spartaxoxo

The things that give the best dps are neither intuitive nor feels great on the hands.

TwinLamps

I dislike eso lag
And lack of stamwhip

Franchise408

Because the combat in ESO is bad?

The light weaving / animation cancelling is easily one of the worst design "features" I've ever seen in a game, and for it to become such an integral part of the combat mechanics of this game... well, it's one of the main reasons why I can hardly stand playing a DPS in this game.

Vevvev

slimwaffle wrote: »

The target system is terrible and doesn't let them lock on or ignore targets.

There's a keybinding for that. Highlights the target and gives them priority even if they're behind a lot of enemies that'd normally be targeted instead. It's Tab by default and called "Cycle Preferred Enemy Target" in settings.

Sylosi

redacted

SammyKhajit

Pros: button mashing
Cons: button mashing

It does get tedious with animation canceling and this one has no idea what is weaving

Xebov

Its different from most MMOs out there and as such seeing the combat doesnt give away how it works very well. Dont forget that many MMOs use all skills and explicit targeting while ESO uses only a few and mouse on targeting.

FlopsyPrince

Edaphon wrote: »

Well, they're not entirely wrong.

The combat system definitely is one of ESO's weakest points, it's very repetitive and boring.

Also, mandatory animation cancelling is kinda stupid.

I have only played a few (WoW, Tera, Destiny, SWTOR), but the combat doesn't seem "much worse" than those.

I share the disgust with the lack of a true AH, but that won't change and it is not combat.

I briefly tried the free trial of FFIV and found it to be much harder to control, at least on the PC.

Supreme_Atromancer

Whelp. My light attack ratio is great and my dps is very high. The rate at which I learned to do it tells me its easy with practise, and if I really enjoyed standing in front of the combat dummy as much as I already have, I feel confident I could get higher. But there's not actually that much higher to get, and I don't feel like I have anything to prove. I can get all the hardest content in this game with what I have.

And I hate animation cancelling. I do it, because I want the cool stuff, but I hate it. Its not lack of skill or experience, or knowledge. Its not because I insist it be like other MMOs.

Its overly abstracted away from what its meant to represent and it looks ***. Sure I can weapon swap out of a skill you will never see me even cast. For me it feels like another aspect of the mechanics originally designed to be organic, intuitive and readable that the developers aren't holding true to.

TheImperfect

I prefer the combat system in Eso to other mmo's I've tried including Wow and Guild Wars. They have good combat systems but ESO is far better as it's less boring and far more interesting in practice to use than just a rotation with cool downs.

Iccotak

https://youtu.be/bbvwpXlTvAA

For this guy it’s about animation canceling, the animations themselves, and the flow of combat

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The things that give the best dps are neither intuitive nor feels great on the hands.

Key word there. It doesn’t feel good when using animation canceling to get good dps

If combat is going to take up so much time you’re going to want it to feel good for the vast majority of players.

Eshkerigal

I know people, who tried ESO but they quit before lvl 10 because of strange combat system.

It's some kind of hybrid between old system (like those in wow/ff/swtor/lotro) and action system (like bdo).

Personally I hate it. I hate it in Vateshran, when even with tab targeting, my skills don't hit shade but boss above my head. I hate epilepsy animation called "lightweaving" aka "animation cancelling".

ESO has strange mechanics, tanking is bad (taunt idea and no corner pulls because many mobs just stay in place), doing dps is...well not fun.

Also, many setups look almost the same. What is the difference between bow/bow warden and magden? - change your morphs into stamina and change staff wall into bow aoe. It's a bit different rotation because of mechanic of stam bugs...but that's all (ok, different stats etc but gameplay is almost the same).

Even if we get many unique skills from many skill lines they are useless (for example morphed guard from alliance skill war, or warden's frozen gate morph, or mending from psijic order they are all useless for many reasons. And main reason is: we have better skills for meta. We don't have slots on our skillbars to use them.

Variety of skills and sets gives only an illusion of freedom with creating characters. There are meta builds and meta sets. If I would like to play as an archer and people in more difficult dungeons would see that I am using skills from my bow only, I would be kicked because lack of dps.

This is why my friends don't like and don't play eso. This is why i don't like eso but I play eso, because it's the only game with a lot of new content, story and developers give their game so much love. And non asian cute thingies like fox races, small girls with big hammers and other strange things from korean mmos.


I don't want to offend anyone. It's my opinion.

Kiralyn2000

Eshkerigal wrote: »

Variety of skills and sets gives only an illusion of freedom with creating characters. There are meta builds and meta sets.

Of course, if your position is "I must follow meta", then there's no "choice" in any other MMO, either. If you don't follow meta and don't do "good DPS", you get kicked from vet/hardmode groups in every online game. That's not a flaw of ESO's combat system, that's a flaw of people.

Destai

Because it is.

I like ESO's combat - when it works. Overall, it's smooth and you can build your character a lot of different ways. There are some cool animations for some skills and in general I can build to whatever fantasy I have in mind for a character.

That being said, my main gripes are.
1. Animation cancelling. It's just awkward. I can't do it in a sustained fashion and I feel like given how low the average DPS is, many others can't.
2. Hard to tell what skills are for what. It's hard to tell what's a spammable, what's my DOT, what's my heal. This is one thing I think GW2 did well - you know what 1 -5 are for and it's consistent.
3. Magicka is given priority. I feel like every class skill is better in the magicka version. I don't know if having a stamina tree, magicka tree, and tank tree would be better, but there's some massive gaps.
4. Long wait to ready. It takes so long to get so many skills required for most meta builds, let alone a general sense of the class. If the tutorial landed you at level 15 with a preset bar of weapon and class skills, maybe it'd be better, I dunno. On top of that, you need to grind for meta skills for a long time. It often feels like the game is really more about getting to play the game, rather than actually playing the game.
5. Skill clog due to lag. It's a pretty frequent occurrence that I'll fire a skill, it'll lag and then 3 skills come out at once. Or my character has to get their bar out, bless themselves, get their coffee, take a shower, and then fire the skill.
6. Weight. The game in general has a lot of floaty systems - jumping being one of them, but combat feels floaty too. It's gotten better over the years, but I still find many of my attacks don't really connect. It's just a wiff in the air from my weapon and then eventually the sound plays - delayed. Or the NPC stands there for a few minutes, checking their Daedra phone, and then they're like, "Ope, that's right, I'm dead!" *Dies*
7. Meta variation is low. I think some other people have called this out, but all DPS/Healers/Tanks feel the same, with one or two skills different. A burger's a burger, ya know?
8. Unresponsiveness. I've noticed this after bashing or something, my character's skills won't respond for a few seconds. I'm pressing buttons and just nothing happens.

Iccotak

the amount of animation that is being canceled seems absurd, and as the video pointed out just artificially raised the skill ceiling to a completely unnecessary degree.

I don’t have a problem with the concept of animation canceling, but it’s the how much animation is being canceled that feels ridiculous and immersion breaking.

Very epileptic.

And having that be a required skill in endgame 🤢🤮 sounds like a lot of pressure, and I play a tank.

DreamyLu

I don't think it's a matter of bad or good. I believe it's more a matter of preferences. Personally, I prefer the combat concept of other games, like GW2 for example. However, many of my friends prefer that of ESO.

To my eyes, the ESO concept is by far easier and is also slower in action than the other games I know.

colossalvoids

DreamyLu wrote: »

I don't think it's a matter of bad or good. I believe it's more a matter of preferences.

Exactly, especially that's apparent reading reviews of people who have already pretty strong opinions coming from other games they've enjoyed more be it other mmo or single player elder scrolls.

Some really see the combat as "spasmatic" or "epileptic" but others just chuckle on those opinions because it's not actually like that in reality for other part of population, I'd even argue that most involved players always mention combat system as something that actually holds them here despite different problems the game have/had.

Kind of the same as auction house discussions, different people like different approaches but that doesn't really mean eso is anyhow flawed in those departments, it's just different and people would feel way better just adapting to it's systems than arguing on fundamentals of the game. Could they do better adjusting animations further (it was done like what, 3 times already?) so "cancelling" would look more fluid? Obviously they can, but is it really worth it right now? Not sure, but they will obviously revisit stuff like that again in the future, just not the way some people expect calling it bugs or whatsnot.

Eshkerigal

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Eshkerigal wrote: »

Variety of skills and sets gives only an illusion of freedom with creating characters. There are meta builds and meta sets.

Of course, if your position is "I must follow meta", then there's no "choice" in any other MMO, either. If you don't follow meta and don't do "good DPS", you get kicked from vet/hardmode groups in every online game. That's not a flaw of ESO's combat system, that's a flaw of people.

Yes and no.

In eso most classes look the same.
For example healers:
- all of them have to use springs (or other aoe ground dot), orb, prayer, horn, wall, ele drain, maybe one class aoe...
- there is not much variety, I can use bol or resistant flesh or mushrooms or matriarch... But gameplay feels almost the same on every class even if they do something a bit different, there is not much difference in playing templar or necro healer.

My point is that meta makes all classes/specs the same - I was trying to make different healers because I'm a bit bored but after few dungeons I said: meh, nothing new.

When I rolled from operative healer to sorcerer healer in swtor it was like: WOAH! Those two specs are so different!

_adhyffbjjjf12

Einstein_ wrote: »

i DISSAGREE with most ppl here.

ESO has the best combat of all mmos, thats why alot ppl keep playing it even tho lagg/bugs/balancing is horrible.

Alot ppl here say its bad because of animation cancling/ LA weaving ...ect. But that is what makes it great compared to other mmos, ESO has a verry skillfull combat system.I guess the more casual players might not like it because this resons. But for players with some skil thats the diffrent way arround, because you feel you have some impact if you play good and not just have good gear.
That especially is true for PvP.

If you want to press your keys mindless from 1-9 on a Tap-target go play FF14 or WoW.

this is the most ironic statement i have read in many a year, rolling your face over a keyboard every .2 of a seconds to spam a spell inbetween your spells (or are you using macros) is the the perfect example of mindless play.

wazbaumukerb14_ESO

Hurbster wrote: »

"The combat is the only reason I don’t play ESO".
"Here’s me hoping that New World’s launch will make ZOS improve stuff on ESO, like animations, capes and the AH".
"If ESO could improve its combat system to not be absolutely trash it would kill most other MMOs with the rest of the content it offers".
"They fix the combat and add an AH to get rid of that awful trade guild (aka pay us to be here) system and I’ll consider playing the game again".

Those are literally from one topic on Massively about the Deadlands release date and I see these comments all the time.

Maybe it's because I played quite a bit of DCUO after I quit WoW (after Cataclysm - hated the rework) but animation cancelling has just become natural for me.

One other complaint I see is from people hating weapon swapping. Is it awkward using a controller? I just assigned a side mouse button to it.

I was wondering if anyone could give some ideas, maybe a newish player as I have been playing since 2014 and I genuinely do not have problems with the combat.

Unfortunately the combat really is bad and it's the reason I don't play anymore despite playing a lot at release. I really *want* to like this game because I like the ES world, but the game just plays like absolute garbage. I know it is fun to hate on WoW right now, but the gameplay is just so dramatically better - smoother, better abilities, sensible rotations, etc.

Firing an Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire on my hunter feels 10x better than any of the weird archery abilities in this game. Honestly, firing bows in unmodded Skyrim feels better than this game. And yeah, the animation stuff is an absolute abomination.

The trouble is that they don't want to risk changing stuff and alienating existing players, which is probably the smart move. But it also means that this game is stuck in a morass of truly awful gameplay and will never grow out of it.

wazbaumukerb14_ESO

Just to add to this, the buff system is also terrible. Having to maintain a ton of buffs and chug potions etc is so degenerate it is amazing the developers think this is good gameplay in 2021. I could never take difficult content in this type of game seriously because of that.

Like, even SWTOR and its terrible engine doesn't have these problems.

luen79rwb17_ESO

People with wow mind set call it simple and floaty.

But personally I much rather prefer ESO combat than having half of my screen filled with icons, yikes!

Franchise408

Eshkerigal wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Eshkerigal wrote: »

Variety of skills and sets gives only an illusion of freedom with creating characters. There are meta builds and meta sets.

Of course, if your position is "I must follow meta", then there's no "choice" in any other MMO, either. If you don't follow meta and don't do "good DPS", you get kicked from vet/hardmode groups in every online game. That's not a flaw of ESO's combat system, that's a flaw of people.

Yes and no.

In eso most classes look the same.
For example healers:
- all of them have to use springs (or other aoe ground dot), orb, prayer, horn, wall, ele drain, maybe one class aoe...
- there is not much variety, I can use bol or resistant flesh or mushrooms or matriarch... But gameplay feels almost the same on every class even if they do something a bit different, there is not much difference in playing templar or necro healer.

My point is that meta makes all classes/specs the same - I was trying to make different healers because I'm a bit bored but after few dungeons I said: meh, nothing new.

When I rolled from operative healer to sorcerer healer in swtor it was like: WOAH! Those two specs are so different!

I agree with this. The game might have 6 classes, each capable of performing 3 roles, making it seem like there are 18 different combinations to play, but really, the game has 4 classes: tank, healer, mag DPS, stam DPS. Because your effects are going to be the same based on your role, regardless of class. My Necro tank and my Warden tank are the same thing. My Necro healer and my Sorc healer are the same thing. The animations of their abilities might be different, but the practical, in game effects, are all the same across the board.

Seeing how that dynamic plays out has killed my enthusiasm for creating alts. I had a lot of different character ideas I wanted to try, but they all ended up playing the same way, and so I ended up deleting them and stopped creating new alts.

It's one reason why I don't understand the need for people to go up to or beyond 18 characters.

kargen27

_adhyffbjjjf12 wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

_adhyffbjjjf12 wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

Mandatory animation canceling for good DPS

Incorrect. average dps would be relatively the same for all if there was no animation cancelling, and we would not need to be mindlessly spamming every half seconds - which is not skill.

So this argument always confuses me, There are two points that detractors make. They either say it's A ) skill-less, in which case, why can't everyone do it. Or B ) requires too much skill that is impossible for most humans - to which I say, most people can play chopsticks and twinkle twinkle little star on the piano. So it can't be that hard.

It sits right in that happy middle ground where it should be. Relatively easy to learn with just enough of a challenge to keep it interesting. Right where it should be. An no - it's NOT a bug. It's an intended part of the game.

The people that have learned to light weave have only learned to spam a spell every couple hundred milliseconds in-between every single skill. that is neither skilful or compelling gameplay, its rote rather than reactive gameplay ala wow stylee. Its spamming (or really macros in a lot of cases i'm sure) that forces other people to also spam 2+ skills a second or be non competitive. Its also a hack for a thing the devs could not fix.

I doubt many people think spamming 2-3 spells a SECOND is fun, what is really going on is people who have learned it like it because it gives them an advantage over non spammers.

Imagine server performance if skill requests sent to the server was literally halved.. So yeah, get rid of animation cancelling, get a massive server boost, take away the advantage a spammer/macro user has over non spammers and have a more competitive relaxed game style where skill and reactive gameplay is allowed to flourish.

Every game, every one of them, is basically muscle memory on your rotation. That works well for PvE. In PvP you also need to know when to break from your rotation so even if weaving you don't rely entirely on muscle memory and your rotation, not if you want to live. You throw out your damage skill now do you light attack, dodge or block? It matters. Macros would be more a hindrance than a help in PvP. When you cast damage over time or an area of effect skill the server has to calculate that for each player in the effect and recalulate for the duration. The light attack is one target one hit. Not half the calculations the server makes in a fight. The Templar has a skill that boosts the next light attack. Makes sense when that skill is slotted to weave light attack with that skill.

wishlist14

personally i think soome people don't like eso combat cos they have tried it and they did not give themselves time to practice and get comfortable with it. Once you are hooked, you cant go back to key mashing as in world of warcraft.

I love it that eso combat feels organic meaning more real, you feel the clink of metal when your sword hits something hard


I also think that a nother reason some people complain about eso combat is that animation cancellation etc takes a lot of practice to master while maintaining a good solid rotation, keeping your dps up as high as possible and getting through some of the mechanics on the vet hm or the vet trials. Imo eso combat is quite challenging at endgame.