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

Athan1

I used to like the combat system until I played Black Desert Online. A few problems of the ESO combat system:

- The game is using a game engine designed 10 years ago. While not as bad as tab targeting games (e.g. FFXIV), it still feels aged, and a company with such high profit from this game refusing to update game engine, graphics, animations etc, says a lot. Remember when a few patches ago they changed the ticks and duration of Jabs to better match the animation, thus making it more clunky, instead of changing the animation?
- Only 5 weapons (SnB, DW, 2H, Bow, Staff) to choose from. Don't fool yourselves, all other "flavors" (e.g. axe vs sword or flame staff vs ice staff) are simply copy/paste assets and don't count as separate weapons.
- Mages have only one viable weapon choice (staff), which is extremely boring and banal. In BDO I am a mage using a floating cube that manipulates time-space, and a summoned spear of lightning (what the Templar was supposed to be).
- All non-tank warriors must have a bow, meaning you only get to choose one weapon, further decreasing weapon diversity.
- You may be used to it, but it's extremely weird and clunky when our weapons disappear to summon other weapons for class skills and then reappear. E.g. as a nightblade you are holding a fire staff, then the staff disappears, you summom two spectral daggers, then the staff appears again. Wut? (That's why I don't play a NB). All classes should have the crystal shards animation (iirc) where you put your staff on your back (upside down..?) to cast the spell, it's still weird but it feels more fluid and logical.
- Only one "weapon" for healers. Tbf I play a stam healer using a greatsword, but I can't be competitive in anything above dlc dungeons. FFXIV has at least three different weapons.
- No class identity, everyone has access to almost everything and builds look identical (save for 2-3 must-have class abilities, that give a faint idea of class identity).
- Too few classes while at it. I actually love how they go for quality over quantity (each class is more like three classes in one, e.g. look at the Warden, cryomancer, druid, and beastcaller all in one). While this is a great concept, it is poorly executed and given the lack of class identity, classes don't feel meaningful or even relevant.
- Too many skills to choose from yet too few slots, leading to player fatigue and boredom as you end up spamming the same 2 skills. In BDO or FFXIV I can use all my skills.
- Weaving is a non-sensical mechanic that makes dps very clunky. Not to mention finger pain reported by many players.
- - Auto-attacks deal far too much damage, when your auto-attacks are your main source of damage then what is even the point of using skills.
- Healers are obsolete. The mmorpg trinity worked for pen and paper rpgs but is dead for mmos, where people typically solo. ESO is catching up on the current trend, which is tanky dps with self-heals, hence the disgusting ring and other self-heal mechanics were introduced, making healers obsolete in everything but HM trials.
- More importantly, One Tamriel prevents us from ever feeling strong, since everything scales with us. Even at max level/spec, enemies in turorial zones cannot die in one hit without self-buffs. Mudcrabs still need two hits to die!
- Not only do we not feel stronger over time, but we actually get weaker as we level up, since our stats drop. This is a bad mechanic.
- Pvp fights are too short, you can die in less than a second from 1-2 enemy skills.
- After years of experience at designing this game, devs still refuse to separate skills between pve and pvp. FFXIV has separate pvp skills, while in BDO the damage coefficients are reduced for pvp. Balancing the exact same skills for pvp and pve is impossible, which is why no mmo is doing this.
- Combat is so fast-paced that given bad ping, which is another major issue, you can get by 3-4 skills in less than a second and die before you even see this happen.
- Too many one-shots in pve, thinking this makes dungeons or bosses "fun" and "challenging". No, it's just unfair. Also too much CC, though this is a problem in most mmos.

- To end on a positive note, I love the skill names in ESO, they are lore friendly and meaningful, compared to other cringey skills in other games, like "bio" or "ruin" in FFXIV, like wut.

Malthorne

Athan1 wrote: »

I used to like the combat system until I played Black Desert Online. A few problems of the ESO combat system:

- The game is using a game engine designed 10 years ago. While not as bad as tab targeting games (e.g. FFXIV), it still feels aged, and a company with such high profit from this game refusing to update game engine, graphics, animations etc, says a lot. Remember when a few patches ago they changed the ticks and duration of Jabs to better match the animation, thus making it more clunky, instead of changing the animation?
- Only 5 weapons (SnB, DW, 2H, Bow, Staff) to choose from. Don't fool yourselves, all other "flavors" (e.g. axe vs sword or flame staff vs ice staff) are simply copy/paste assets and don't count as separate weapons.
- Mages have only one viable weapon choice (staff), which is extremely boring and banal. In BDO I am a mage using a floating cube that manipulates time-space, and a summoned spear of lightning (what the Templar was supposed to be).
- All non-tank warriors must have a bow, meaning you only get to choose one weapon, further decreasing weapon diversity.
- You may be used to it, but it's extremely weird and clunky when our weapons disappear to summon other weapons for class skills and then reappear. E.g. as a nightblade you are holding a fire staff, then the staff disappears, you summom two spectral daggers, then the staff appears again. Wut? (That's why I don't play a NB). All classes should have the crystal shards animation (iirc) where you put your staff on your back (upside down..?) to cast the spell, it's still weird but it feels more fluid and logical.
- Only one "weapon" for healers. Tbf I play a stam healer using a greatsword, but I can't be competitive in anything above dlc dungeons. FFXIV has at least three different weapons.
- No class identity, everyone has access to almost everything and builds look identical (save for 2-3 must-have class abilities, that give a faint idea of class identity).
- Too few classes while at it. I actually love how they go for quality over quantity (each class is more like three classes in one, e.g. look at the Warden, cryomancer, druid, and beastcaller all in one). While this is a great concept, it is poorly executed and given the lack of class identity, classes don't feel meaningful or even relevant.
- Too many skills to choose from yet too few slots, leading to player fatigue and boredom as you end up spamming the same 2 skills. In BDO or FFXIV I can use all my skills.
- Weaving is a non-sensical mechanic that makes dps very clunky. Not to mention finger pain reported by many players.
- - Auto-attacks deal far too much damage, when your auto-attacks are your main source of damage then what is even the point of using skills.
- Healers are obsolete. The mmorpg trinity worked for pen and paper rpgs but is dead for mmos, where people typically solo. ESO is catching up on the current trend, which is tanky dps with self-heals, hence the disgusting ring and other self-heal mechanics were introduced, making healers obsolete in everything but HM trials.
- More importantly, One Tamriel prevents us from ever feeling strong, since everything scales with us. Even at max level/spec, enemies in turorial zones cannot die in one hit without self-buffs. Mudcrabs still need two hits to die!
- Not only do we not feel stronger over time, but we actually get weaker as we level up, since our stats drop. This is a bad mechanic.
- Pvp fights are too short, you can die in less than a second from 1-2 enemy skills.
- After years of experience at designing this game, devs still refuse to separate skills between pve and pvp. FFXIV has separate pvp skills, while in BDO the damage coefficients are reduced for pvp. Balancing the exact same skills for pvp and pve is impossible, which is why no mmo is doing this.
- Combat is so fast-paced that given bad ping, which is another major issue, you can get by 3-4 skills in less than a second and die before you even see this happen.
- Too many one-shots in pve, thinking this makes dungeons or bosses "fun" and "challenging". No, it's just unfair. Also too much CC, though this is a problem in most mmos.

- To end on a positive note, I love the skill names in ESO, they are lore friendly and meaningful, compared to other cringey skills in other games, like "bio" or "ruin" in FFXIV, like wut.

Except those two ability names are actually steeped in Final Fantasy lore and have been used in the series for almost 30 years lol.

A lot of the abilities in ESO have no lore meaning at all. Wrobel himself even admitted to basically willy nilly making the skills up, and I’m paraphrasing here, just to “be cool.” Not to mention that the class lore books do not even accurately describe the abilities or class design we have in eso.

Athan1

Malthorne wrote: »

Athan1 wrote: »

I used to like the combat system until I played Black Desert Online. A few problems of the ESO combat system:

- The game is using a game engine designed 10 years ago. While not as bad as tab targeting games (e.g. FFXIV), it still feels aged, and a company with such high profit from this game refusing to update game engine, graphics, animations etc, says a lot. Remember when a few patches ago they changed the ticks and duration of Jabs to better match the animation, thus making it more clunky, instead of changing the animation?
- Only 5 weapons (SnB, DW, 2H, Bow, Staff) to choose from. Don't fool yourselves, all other "flavors" (e.g. axe vs sword or flame staff vs ice staff) are simply copy/paste assets and don't count as separate weapons.
- Mages have only one viable weapon choice (staff), which is extremely boring and banal. In BDO I am a mage using a floating cube that manipulates time-space, and a summoned spear of lightning (what the Templar was supposed to be).
- All non-tank warriors must have a bow, meaning you only get to choose one weapon, further decreasing weapon diversity.
- You may be used to it, but it's extremely weird and clunky when our weapons disappear to summon other weapons for class skills and then reappear. E.g. as a nightblade you are holding a fire staff, then the staff disappears, you summom two spectral daggers, then the staff appears again. Wut? (That's why I don't play a NB). All classes should have the crystal shards animation (iirc) where you put your staff on your back (upside down..?) to cast the spell, it's still weird but it feels more fluid and logical.
- Only one "weapon" for healers. Tbf I play a stam healer using a greatsword, but I can't be competitive in anything above dlc dungeons. FFXIV has at least three different weapons.
- No class identity, everyone has access to almost everything and builds look identical (save for 2-3 must-have class abilities, that give a faint idea of class identity).
- Too few classes while at it. I actually love how they go for quality over quantity (each class is more like three classes in one, e.g. look at the Warden, cryomancer, druid, and beastcaller all in one). While this is a great concept, it is poorly executed and given the lack of class identity, classes don't feel meaningful or even relevant.
- Too many skills to choose from yet too few slots, leading to player fatigue and boredom as you end up spamming the same 2 skills. In BDO or FFXIV I can use all my skills.
- Weaving is a non-sensical mechanic that makes dps very clunky. Not to mention finger pain reported by many players.
- - Auto-attacks deal far too much damage, when your auto-attacks are your main source of damage then what is even the point of using skills.
- Healers are obsolete. The mmorpg trinity worked for pen and paper rpgs but is dead for mmos, where people typically solo. ESO is catching up on the current trend, which is tanky dps with self-heals, hence the disgusting ring and other self-heal mechanics were introduced, making healers obsolete in everything but HM trials.
- More importantly, One Tamriel prevents us from ever feeling strong, since everything scales with us. Even at max level/spec, enemies in turorial zones cannot die in one hit without self-buffs. Mudcrabs still need two hits to die!
- Not only do we not feel stronger over time, but we actually get weaker as we level up, since our stats drop. This is a bad mechanic.
- Pvp fights are too short, you can die in less than a second from 1-2 enemy skills.
- After years of experience at designing this game, devs still refuse to separate skills between pve and pvp. FFXIV has separate pvp skills, while in BDO the damage coefficients are reduced for pvp. Balancing the exact same skills for pvp and pve is impossible, which is why no mmo is doing this.
- Combat is so fast-paced that given bad ping, which is another major issue, you can get by 3-4 skills in less than a second and die before you even see this happen.
- Too many one-shots in pve, thinking this makes dungeons or bosses "fun" and "challenging". No, it's just unfair. Also too much CC, though this is a problem in most mmos.

- To end on a positive note, I love the skill names in ESO, they are lore friendly and meaningful, compared to other cringey skills in other games, like "bio" or "ruin" in FFXIV, like wut.

Except those two ability names are actually steeped in Final Fantasy lore and have been used in the series for almost 30 years lol.

A lot of the abilities in ESO have no lore meaning at all. Wrobel himself even admitted to basically willy nilly making the skills up, and I’m paraphrasing here, just to “be cool.” Not to mention that the class lore books do not even accurately describe the abilities or class design we have in eso.

Just because these names are old doesn't mean that they're good. Usually they're poor translation/localization from the original material, a problem you don't get if you play in the native language.

ESO skill names indeed sound cool even if they have fake lore basis.

Raideen

My perspective and feeling is animation cancelling. Combat itself in ESO is fun, but the constant mouse push, button push, mouse push, button push back and forth is tiresome on my hands. Its literally physically fatiguing.

I can't speak for anyone other than my significant other, she feels the same way. Much of our coming and going in regards to ESO often has to do with this. Being unable to maintain the expected DPS from our peers in dungeons or trials (because we choose not to animation cancel) is often what drives us away.

Because of this, we prefer to just do content she and I can do together.


We both tried New World recently. I wont get into a debate about that here (but should be an obvious debate as I am not playing it right now), but I personally found their combat quite...boring. I love the musket because it was fun to finally play a ranged weapon that was TRULY ranged and not limited by an arbitrary number. But the issue is that if you pick off a mob at a loooong range away, trying to train your sniping ability...the mob resets half way. So, its kind of a useless feature.

Anyway, I found their combat overly simple. I prefer ESO's more button pushes. What I will say is that preferred their version of weapon swapping as it felt like you were swapping weapons for a real purpose, not just a buff bar, if that makes sense.

GreenhaloX

Well.. speaking generally for console (or PS4, rather,) the combat sequence with using the controller is very clunky and can be not so smooth at times. I mean, it can be enjoyable, but there are just a lot of issues with delayed bar swapping and skills firing off, or even misfiring. Then, you have the slow sequence of heavy attack to add to the roughness. Another is the notion of having to press each trigger and button one at a time. It can be missed, because you're moving your fingers too fast; thus skills not firing off. Furthermore, having to swivel your left thumb back and forth to press the left directional bar to swap bar; sometimes, you're doing it too fast and not pressing down on the bar right to activate the bar swap. Other times, due to lag issues, the bar swap is delayed, even when pressed right on.

If any ever play Tera, you see the difference. It is a big difference. It is much smoother and faster in implementing and executing the skillsets in Tera. To swap bars there, you press the L1 and L2. Your left hand's index finger is already right there on L1 and L2; thus, making bar swapping to the other skillsets very quickly and easily. You can also chain in multiple follow-on skills to fire off after firing off the first skill. There are also double the amount of skills you can use in Tera than ESO.

Don't get wrong.. despite the many issues plaguing ESO, it's still fun and enjoyable just frolicking around and killing things, and when the combat skills are firing off right. Just hate some of the cast time and delays in skills execution, when occur, in ESO.

bluebird

Oof, there's so much misinformation... It's fine to like a certain system, but let's not applaud it based on reasons that don't make sense. In almost every aspect I can name a game that does it better than ESO. The combat really is quite bad.

- Regarding "fast-paced combat": quick combat is not exclusive to ESO, and it's not synonymous with repetitive button-mashing. GW2's Weaver with Alac and Quickness plays piano on all its keys just as fast as anything in ESO, same as Firebrand, Engineer, you name it. If you played WoW Fire Mage after getting enough crit, you're firing off fire blasts, phoenixes, pyroblasts in rapid succession as well. In fact, mashing through your various ability keys is much more engaging than having to spam the same light attack button.

- And on that note, regarding rotations: ESO's customisable builds don't result in more variety, and that freedom ironically makes things far more similar and more pre-determined. When people have free access to the best damage skill, the best buff skill, the best CC skill, everyone will want to use those, and only those, instead of inferior options. This results in virtually every dps build having the same rotation of "buff up, apply DoTs, and spam your spammable while weaving inbetween it all". Honestly, a Frost Mage, Arcane Mage, and Fire Mage in WoW have more rotation variety within a single class than all of ESO's dps builds combined.

- This is in a large part due to the cooldown issue: In GW2, the Thief class has no cooldowns on their abilities, and are limited only by their resources... which results in the same braindead 'rotation' of picking the strongest skills and spamming those like in ESO. In other games, players need to keep track of several abilities to press them as soon as they're off cooldown, or abilities that need to pressed in a certain sequence, or trying to line up your burst windows by optimising how and when to use your impactful abilities which is engaging and rewarding. Not just... "reapply this whenever it runs out, but it's always available to cast don't worry".

- And that applies to buffs as major offenders too: Depending on the class, you can have access to around 3-5 short-term "you do more damage" buttons. How is that good combat design? Wow has figured it out, and ESO should catch up, but buff gameplay isn't engaging. If it's just a flat out damage bonus without any cooldown, just make it last 30-60mins. If a buff is short-term, it needs to be calculated, impactful, and not always available - e.g. a short-term burst where you strike twice that you may want to save for when the adds spawn, or a short-term bonus to damage you want to activate when you have to break through the boss' shield. Having to dedicate half of your available skill slots for short-term buffs that you can and should keep up all the time anyway is completely pointless.

- Regarding targeting and "skill": tab-targeting isn't in any way worse than ESO, and ESO doesn't need particular skill. Many skills in all games do damage in an area, or in front of you, so you need to be in range and face the mobs anyway, and ESO isn't any more precise - it's not like you need to line up headshots with snipe lol, you just mouse over the target and press the ability... just as in "tab-targeting" games we use mouse-over to target. Furthermore, ESO is incapable of recreating more precise mechanics that tab-targeting games can do for this reason - there is no precision-bash, or precision-spin-to-win. In other games, there can be a single mob in a swarm that needs to be interrupted suddenly, even spells that mustn't be interrupted or you wipe, or if you need to do damage to some priority target while avoiding doing damage to the other mobs that reflect it back at your party; ESO doesn't have such mechanics because it doesn't have precise targeting.

- Regarding complexity and reactive gameplay: ESO's combat isn't innovative, original, complex, anything of the sort. It's really basic, borrowing from hack-and-slash button-mashers but still coupling it with the many skills on an MMO, and it doesn't match well. It's really static, predictable, and repetitive, and being able to dodge or block doesn't change that. GW2 includes dodges too, in fact some builds even weaponize their dodges as part of their rotation, similarly in WoW some classes have movement skills and positioning in their rotation. But WoW for example is better than GW2 and ESO because it has procs - quick, instant-reacting skills that require you to pay attention and manage your class well instead of going through the same skills on a timer while mashing the mouse.

- Regarding animations and the GCD: This is really the elephant in the room isn't it. And it all derives from the fact that the devs weren't able to code the game to have the player interrupt an action without the damage registering as complete, and decided to embrace it. Don't get me wrong, being able to interrupt actions is good, but if the cast time of the spell is 1s, then doing anything other than that in that 1s shouldn't make it land. ESO has skills that are not instant, that have long animations, but which they expect you to cancel - if players aren't supposed to complete those animations, why even make them that long in the first place??? Wow and GW2 do it far more smartly, as they have skills they can cast off the GCD between other abilities. They have no lengthy janky animations, they are designed to fire off quickly while you're using your GCD for something else. The end result is me channeling my flamethrower, while shooting a homing rocket from my utility belt - a far more elegant solution than my ESO character spazzing out between spell casts, with a weapon that keeps appearing and disappearing for a split-second Light Attack between spell animations lol.

- On that note, regarding a smaller skill bar: I hate to say it, but an ancient game like GW1 (yes, one) had a better skill system than ESO. You could change your build point allocation at any rest zone, and create a loadout of a limited number of skills you wanted to take. And there were actually choices, rather than the kindergarden-level system of ESO, because a smaller limited skill bar doesn't automatically mean it should be repetitive. GW1 wasn't just about buff-debuff-DoT-damage, it had unique skills that resulted in actually unique combat. Dervish skills that triggered when you applied or lost a buff, assassin combo skills you had to activate in a specific sequence, Paragon echoes that refreshed their duration if you used a Shout or Chant, Elementalist skills that did extra damage in exchange for reducing your resource cap for some time, etc. Even in GW2 the devs are pushing the envelope when it comes to unique skills, class mechanics, novel ways to play, not just the same button-mashing across the board.

- Combos / Synergies are another example of the basic-ness of ESO combat design: Synergies are the most banal idea of teamwork ever. You get a flashing button every 10 seconds and you press it for "instant teamwork" What is this? In GW2 abilities interact with each other and other players in unique and meaningful ways. If my Ranger lays down a poison trap and starts to shoot enemies through it, the projectiles will apply poison. If my Weaver friend leaps to the fray in a fire AoE, they will be engulfed in a Fire Aura which damages mobs that attack, and if my Warrior stomps in a healing spring, they will splash healing waters around themselves to everyone. It's far more complex and interactive than "Oh, your teamwork button is flashing, here's a sound cue too, press the button"

Anyway, this wasn't a response to any one poster specifically, just in general about some of the points I've read in this thread. There's just a big difference between "this works, I guess" and "I like it this way" and "this is amaaazing game design, so genius and revolutionary" And I say that as someone who's been playing RPGs for two decades now and as someone who clearly loves things about all the games - but let's give credit where credit is due, and maybe learn from other games that figured out a better solution (e.g. to buff gameplay or off-the-gcd-inbetween-animations skills).

MentalxHammer

ESO combat is what keeps me playing, skill plays a factor in PvP more so than any other MMO, that’s why there’s such a disparity in power levels in PvP.

spartaxoxo

Auztinito wrote: »

Edit: The game would be much better if light attack weaving and damage potential was nerfed drastically. The average player dps was 5-10k, I believe. Knowing that, good players could settle on a max potently of 9-14k. It would solve the difficulty complaints, too.

You don't have to know how to light attack weave or do anything beyond an extremely basic rotation to hit 20k.

If you forced the rest of the playerbase to play like absolute garbage, they'd just leave. The only people who aren't hitting 20k are casuals who don't care about good builds and people who are flat out bad at the game. And that's not what damage should be balanced around. Awful suggestion.

Finedaible

I personally dislike how spammy ESO combat requires you to be in order to be competitive. Some claim this is "skill" but whether button mashing the same sequence (rotation) over and over as fast as you can can be considered 'skillful gameplay' is questionable. To compound on that, the vast majority of player buffs and debuffs have extremely short durations which makes it hard for new players to pick up on, and even experienced players can get screwed over during server lag. I suspect players with lower-end hardware might have the hardest time staying competitive simply because fps will affect your input time and input accuracy here.

Combat is also very unintuitive for an rpg. Combat is inconsistent between zones and areas, ranging from pitiful one-shots to tooth-pullingly difficult even though the amount of enemies and their supposed 'difficulty level' haven't visibly changed according to the game's UI. Visual cues like the various types of AoE attacks are never properly explained. Other MMOs give you a much clearer picture of enemy difficulty and how you can engage them. ESO is like, "here's an enemy, you may or may not be equipped to handle them! We give you 0-3 pips next to their name but you can ignore that because it doesn't actually mean anything here, lol."

moo_2021

What other MMOs have better combat? I tried GW2 today and it felt very awkward with auto attack. Not fun killing things at all.

AC: Odyssey is still the game with best combat for me, though it's SP only:
https://youtu.be/e32EcvPr4sw?t=67 (1:07)

Sylvermynx

I'm a casual player (though I spend 8-9 hours most every day in game), and I've been here about 3.5 years. I don't like the combat at all; that's due to the limiting factors of satellite (my only available connection other than dial-up, and no I am NOT joking....): high ping; and the round trip to the satellite before the server can register my actions and "reply" to the client.

I cannot bar swap due to the ping, so my available spells/skills are 5 on the bar plus the ultimate. Using weapon skills on a non-pet class can be really problematic. I tend to concentrate on wardens and sorcs for that reason, though I just got my 6th character to 50 today - a templar (for me, kind of a "one trick pony" class).

If the combat pets were better able to hold aggro (like in WoW and RIFT), I'd be in better case with the game. But they don't do as well with that (and no, I have ZERO interest in playing those other games again). I like ESO, I just don't like the combat. I don't talk to others about it though - I'm a virtual loner, don't know anyone else much who plays games like this who isn't already playing ESO....

Jpk0012

Because the combat is bad until you fully level up and get all your abilities. I assume most people don't stick with it that long.

slimwaffle

To answer the

Hurbster wrote: »

Now, first of all, this is not bashing anyone as I personally have never had a problem with the combat in ESO. My main is a Warden with 2H and bow and to me, the combat is fluid and responsive. I appreciate how playing a different class gives a different experience but honestly, I've had fun using everything from Nightblades to Templars to Dragon Knights. Now I happen to prefer the 2h/Bow playstyle but I have not found a playstyle I have not had fun with. Now PvP is another matter, but that is a technical problem that is purely up to ZoS to sort out. I have a reasonable PC and good internet.

With that caveat out of the way (sorry it's so long but I felt I needed to put some context in) one thing I have noticed o MMO forums, reddit, etc is that people are saying the combat is bad. I was watching a Taliesin and Evitel video about Evitel's experience with FF14 and one of the things she says is 'well ESOs combat is...(makes a vague stabbing motion with her hand)' and this seems to be a general consensus and I was wondering why (the second thing mentioned is generally the AH system but that is a discussion that has been played out to death here).

On MMO forums I read I hear things like:

"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.

The quick answer to your question. The poor target system and performance. The combat is clunky and unresponsive for anyone not blessed by the ESO gods.

LordRukia

Well I don't think it's clunky , it's rather fluid but there are some glaring issues which drag it down.

Having to recast buffs every 10 seconds. Targeting can be impossible at times , pets in pvp is straight up griefing. Adds in pve can be an issue as well. Focus target is simply a visual effect. La weaving probably turns many off once they start looking into how to be efficient in end game. It's a very demanding combat compared to other MMOs. I still think it's better than any other option but it could be even more fun and less tedious .

HyekAr

moo_2021 wrote: »

What other MMOs have better combat? I tried GW2 today and it felt very awkward with auto attack. Not fun killing things at all.

AC: Odyssey is still the game with best combat for me, though it's SP only:
https://youtu.be/e32EcvPr4sw?t=67 (1:07)

Hahah imagine this animation in ESO, it would be amazing

The reality is that the world's MMO did a big developing jump and improved a lot, we see those MMO and want this features be in TESO(bcz U like the lore) but TESO refuses changes

So you see in other MMO ppl climbing, full interaction with the world, flying, underwater content, amazing animations for skills and fighting combats, and wants them in TESO

Parasaurolophus

HyekAr wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

What other MMOs have better combat? I tried GW2 today and it felt very awkward with auto attack. Not fun killing things at all.

AC: Odyssey is still the game with best combat for me, though it's SP only:
https://youtu.be/e32EcvPr4sw?t=67 (1:07)

Hahah imagine this animation in ESO, it would be amazing

The reality is that the world's MMO did a big developing jump and improved a lot, but TESO refuses changes

Now imagine 12 players who are circling like this near each boss in the trial.

Aznarb

Sylosi wrote: »

Some reasons the combat is considered bad:

1 - It mostly feels very floaty, clunky and lacks impact.

2 - Is supposedly based on aiming, but really the aiming is largely a joke, you look vaguely in the direction of your target and you will hit.

3 - The light attack weaving is just tedious for many people.

4 - The animation cancelling is absolutely low skill garbage, because firstly you generally have a massive window that you can cancel in, rather than a small window at the end of the animation. Secondly because you have that massive window you can often cancel nearly immediately, which means no meaningful skill animation for your opponent to react to, which is laughable. Literally the worst implementation of animation cancelling I've ever seen.

5 - The lack of variety, every class uses the same mechanics (stam, magicka, etc), has access to every weapon, every armour type, most skills are available to every class (world, guild, weapon, armour, alliance war, etc), which gets dull.

6 - The vast majority of the PvE content is so trivial it means the combat is trivial and sends people to sleep. I mean if I can solo a veteran dungeon as someone who only plays this game sporadically, am quite lazy about weaving in PvE, etc, that in itself tells you how laughable the content is and don't even start me on alleged "world bosses" most of which can be done in your sleep.

7 - Somewhat related to the above is healer and tank are basically surplus to requirements for much of the content, so the combat is busted in many peoples eyes. Also not helped by how high heals scale off basically the same stats you need for damage, why bother with healer most of the time, when you can take one heal skill on a DPS and survive fine with that. There is a reason games have a heal stat.

and so on...

Can't agree more.
I like the game, I've done close to everything we get as content in hardest difficulty.
But I will never agree with the combat "balance & Style" choice and trash server we get.

HyekAr

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

HyekAr wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

What other MMOs have better combat? I tried GW2 today and it felt very awkward with auto attack. Not fun killing things at all.

AC: Odyssey is still the game with best combat for me, though it's SP only:
https://youtu.be/e32EcvPr4sw?t=67 (1:07)

Hahah imagine this animation in ESO, it would be amazing

The reality is that the world's MMO did a big developing jump and improved a lot, but TESO refuses changes

Now imagine 12 players who are circling like this near each boss in the trial.

Would be beautifull, thats why i bought graphic card, not for playing 90's doom

Also even here, there should be option to minimize máximum all graphics if someone has truble, but not develop the game bcz of it

Nanfoodle

Animation cancelling is standard for some things like dodge in most MMOs but eso has its on all skills. That's seen by most mmoers as bad and I agree. I love this game but combat in this game is about spamming abilities, not planing strategies. One of the reasons ESO would never even be considered for ESports.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

AVaelham wrote: »

Most people I've seen complaining about the ESO combat system are veteran MMO players who are used to tab-targeting, having 5 bars full of skills that do all kinds of flashy damage, playing the game like a piano simulator. With the weapon swapping, slotting only a handful of skills and the fast-pace of combat, you have to do a lot more thinking in this game and there's definitely a learning curve.

Before ESO, I used to play Lord of the Rings Online a lot, a game with ye olde WoW era combat. Going through 15-20 skills, applying a ton of buffs and debuffs, waiting for the long-ass cooldowns... ESO combat flows naturally, even with animation cancelling that is such a taboo lol. Sure, it's not for everyone, but calling it objectively bad...mkay buddy.

The tab function in ESO combat is kind of wonky.
I have a hard time cycling through what I want to hit and it's frustrating when it's not working.

Parasaurolophus

Aznarb wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

Some reasons the combat is considered bad:

1 - It mostly feels very floaty, clunky and lacks impact.

2 - Is supposedly based on aiming, but really the aiming is largely a joke, you look vaguely in the direction of your target and you will hit.

3 - The light attack weaving is just tedious for many people.

4 - The animation cancelling is absolutely low skill garbage, because firstly you generally have a massive window that you can cancel in, rather than a small window at the end of the animation. Secondly because you have that massive window you can often cancel nearly immediately, which means no meaningful skill animation for your opponent to react to, which is laughable. Literally the worst implementation of animation cancelling I've ever seen.

5 - The lack of variety, every class uses the same mechanics (stam, magicka, etc), has access to every weapon, every armour type, most skills are available to every class (world, guild, weapon, armour, alliance war, etc), which gets dull.

6 - The vast majority of the PvE content is so trivial it means the combat is trivial and sends people to sleep. I mean if I can solo a veteran dungeon as someone who only plays this game sporadically, am quite lazy about weaving in PvE, etc, that in itself tells you how laughable the content is and don't even start me on alleged "world bosses" most of which can be done in your sleep.

7 - Somewhat related to the above is healer and tank are basically surplus to requirements for much of the content, so the combat is busted in many peoples eyes. Also not helped by how high heals scale off basically the same stats you need for damage, why bother with healer most of the time, when you can take one heal skill on a DPS and survive fine with that. There is a reason games have a heal stat.

and so on...

Can't agree more.
I like the game, I've done close to everything we get as content in hardest difficulty.
But I will never agree with the combat "balance & Style" choice and trash server we get.

And I partially agree. Although I love the fight in teso, it has its drawbacks:

1. The fight is really too smooth. Sometimes it is not clear whether there was an aircraft or not. He lacks a certain "rigidity".

2. I don't see any problems with aiming. Technically, under such loads it cannot work as a shooter.

3. A matter of habit. Weaving is a good factor for a player's skill. However, its importance is greatly overestimated. You can complete any Veteran content without using weave. Or you can use it as you like, for example, only between spam attacks. Weaving is something that scares many new players, however, it needs to be approached gradually. Just looking at the guides on YouTube gives the impression that there is no dps without weaving. This is not true. In fact, any content is designed for an average 25k dps from each player. But this is according to my feelings.

4. Cancellation of animation is no longer as effective as it used to be. You can no longer speed up casting with it. Yes, you can still hide your skills behind a dodge or swap. But in my opinion, this is no longer a big problem and it can be considered a player's skill.

5. In the past, the classes were really badly identified. But now each class feels unique. Class skills are getting better. I think that if most of your skills are class, then this is already good. Another thing is that the skills themselves differ little from each other.

6. Do you mean overland content? You can of course complete Veteran Dungeons solo, but why? It's too long and not fun. The difficulty of the veteran dungeons is fine. There are certain problems with too high dps.

7. Yes, I agree. This makes healing unnecessary in dungeons and poses a lot of problems in pvp.

bluebird

Naftal wrote: »

[snip]

Erm... ESO is strategic in what way, compared to what exactly? Compared to Skyrim, because ESO has skills in addition to mouse attacks, or what? The one thing we can say about ESO is that it's "faster", and that really is due to spamming light attacks between skills. The skills themselves, even when animation-cancelled with a barswap or a block aren't actually faster than other games that have genuinely instant-cast skills they can use off the gcd during other abilities that have no such animations in the first place (which makes sense, doesn't it - the spazzy moves of ESO show that weaving/AC was an accidental afterthought, not a deliberate combat system development).

And the same goes for strategy, there really isn't any strategy is ESO combat (and if you're talking about PvP, there are only the usual player-versus-player strategies that exist in other games too, so it's not due to the combat system).

• A WoW Frost Mage's main ability is Ice Lance, an ability that does triple damage if the target is frozen. Many mage spells apply the frozen effect like Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Glacial Spike, etc - so there is inherent strategy is casting Lances against pre-Frozen enemies, including activating your Water Elemental's Deep Freeze ability at the right time if you're running the minion build and managing the various ways you can apply freezes.
• Frostbolt and Frozen Orb also have a chance to proc a Fingers of Frost buff that allows your next Lance to triple-hit against any target not just frozen ones, so you want to line up your Lances with that proc.
• Frostbolt occasionally also activates a Flurry proc that allows you to instant-cast a usually channeled ability that makes your target take damage from skills as if it was frozen. And since it's got a tiiiny duration but is instant cast, and your Frostbolt has a projectile travel speed, you need to cast a Frostbolt before using up your Flurry proc so that your target will act as frozen by the time it lands, and then quickly follow that up by Lances. but not empowered Lances, otherwise you're overlapping your frozen debuff from Flurry and the buff from Fingers of Frost and wasting them.
• And that's not even going into any Talent builds that can add to this or change this in various ways, and not counting dps cooldowns like Time Warp of Icy Veins you want to line up properly. And a Fire Mage works in completely different ways, where it's all about wanting to crit on two spells in a row to be able to cast a hard-hitting spell instantly. So even the same class plays in completely different strategies and rotations, while in ESO every dps build plays the same.

That was just an example, but the same goes for GW2 where classes can piano mash actual varied attack skills, while ESO builds are 70% buffs and DoTs you just reapply between spamming the same 1 skill and LAs. Like Sorc where Crystal Frag can proc sometimes while you spam... or NB where you spam stuff until you can press your spectral bow, then go back to spamming stuff ... wow, such strategy. So how is ESO not spammy and static and unstrategic compared to other games? And truly, I'm not saying people aren't allowed to enjoy it - I often enjoy playing buttonmasher games on my brother's console too - just that it's really inaccurate to praise ESO for strategy or a well-designed and complex combat system or for not-being-spammy when it's the opposite.

[edited to remove quote]

Aznarb

bluebird wrote: »

That was just an example, but the same goes for GW2 where classes can piano mash actual varied attack skills

Seem someone play engi or ele
Engi

Saieden

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

@Saieden

Saieden wrote: »

This to me highlights the crux of the issue. Players conflate their opinion of combat mechanics with whether or not they are actually good or not.

I think you can distil that issue even further:

If you don't like technical inputs that reward practice and mechanical skill, then you won't appreciate animation cancelling and the lack of auto-attack.

The "you" in your observation is the casual, immersion-type person. Most of the latter don't really care less about immersion. Most of the former don't necessarily think that performance and twitch skills should be as important. Its not surprising to see the sides of this discussion pretty much reflecting this.

The combat system is designed EXCLUSIVELY for the latter type of player, and by the way it continues to abstract away from immersion for the sake of power-gaming, performance and balance, it is exclusive against the former.

And those elements people are against are not cohesive with the original vision of the game, as evidenced by its early history. And none of the awkward changes they've made since - as sound as they are mechanically - have anything to do with immersion or the spirit of Elder Scrolls stuff.

"The people who typically champion and appreciate it are the people who are about performance and power-gaming. "

I would say rather they are "typically are the most vocal about...", which of course applies to both sides of the spectrum. I do think most fall in the middle somewhere, leaning to one side or the other. There is also the argument to be made that having technical challenge is it's own kind of immersion in and of itself, because without a minimum amount of engagement with your character's actions, you are more or less watching a movie. Hence, I fundamentally disagree with:

"The combat system is designed EXCLUSIVELY for the latter type of player, and by the way it continues to abstract away from immersion for the sake of power-gaming, performance and balance, it is exclusive against the former."

since ultimately this is first and foremost a game, not a simulator, which serve fundamentally different objectives in their design. In the end, some balance of pure immersion and mechanical engagement is required, and on the side of the player, a degree of suspension of disbelief. If you want to play all of the game's content for a purely immersion-based experience with without requiring the intricate combat mechanics, normal difficulty will more than suffice for RP/story runs.

Iceman_mat

It is the same reason people think no man sky is still a bad game.

The judgement at launch and in beta of a game are usually carried through it's life.

It is in every game and does not go away. I would not worry about it.

-cheers

Kiralyn2000

Hmm, that video of AC combat looked terrible. The overdone sparky parry, the slow-mo, the really repetitive parry/combo/repeat cycles... it definitely didn't look at all "realistic" or rational, so I can't imagine the people who believe in "immersion" would like it.

Thanks for that video, though - it put a final nail in my "I'm tempted to get AC:Odyssey" debate.


but again, on all these "oh, ESO's animations look so bad/animation canceling looks so bad" comments - how are you even seeing the details of these animations? I've tried to pay attention while fighting recently (because of these comments), and I still can't tell you much about the combat animations my character is doing. I'm too busy paying attention to dodging stuff, aiming at enemies, firing off actions... who has time to look at how their character is swinging a weapon with all that going on?

Asgaeroth

x

Vhozek

No, I've played enough ESO and the combat doesn't have any weight to it. NW combat is just simpler ESO combat but it feels stronger. ESO combat also lacks skill. Everything is spammable and there's too many heat seeking skills.
I'm currently having fun basically putting my first person shooter practice to work because every skill needs good aim in NW.

Jamdarius

I mean it is bad, if community has to rely on bug (animation cancelling) to make good dps and it became a part of the game so that even devs make the combat/dungeon/fights in mind including it as a feature.

Uvi_AUT

Because the combat is terrible. Every class and every specc feels the same. You have 3 8-12 second dots on the backbar. 1 singledps 1 burst and 1 execute on the front bar plus one heal or shield. Rest fillers for passive effects.
Plus the pve is basically kill everything with light attacks and then suddenly hit a massive brick wall with veteran encounters with the worst telegraphed abilities I have ever seen. And don't even get me started on all the stuns you have to deal with in dungeons or the 400% dps gap between baseplayers and topplayets Awful, just awful