ESO combat quality is FAR WORSE from its competitors?

Pr0Skygon

No no no, we're not talking about class balance or anything of that concern, I'm talking about raw combat quality, about how it feels, how it plays and satisfying is it.
And no, "MMORPG combat are generally sucks" is not a relevant thing anymore, or "I still find ESO combat fun, so it's fine". Yes, it is fun, that's why we're all playing it, but it can be better, much better.
For example (and there's a lot of them), 1H weapon is weightless to swing; the hit box for all melee weapons are off, the weapons don't even touch the enemies, but the damage is still done; animation canceling feels too clunky (I'm not talking about deleting animation canceling all together though), my stam characters always twitching while in combat, it's like they have seizure or something; range light attack often jam and can't perform the follow up skill; range heavy attack often stuck in animation (especially staves); a lot of skills just look and feel ridiculous, such as "Low Slash", which is nothing more than gently scratch the enemy's legs; etc.
To sum it up, after the change of animation in 2016, the games combat feels and plays a lot worse, not just for me, but for a lot of people. Even some big ESO name like Alcast and Joy actually feel the same. But I'm not just jumping into conclusion here, so I'd love to see your vote on this subject

Huyen

Nope, not at all.

I'd rather do combat in ESO then in WoW for example.

Quick breakdown: I played 10 years of WoW, trying to manage over a dozen skills at 4x12 slot bars, often mistaken in rotation, possibility's etc. with a gc on nearly everything, and on top of that cooldowns that add up to sometimes 30 minutes on a ability, so you have to save it up and cant use it on the go.

ESO on the other hand had me hooked with the combatsystem since I entered the beta: no more auto-attack, no more hoarding ability's on your bar, but simplified and more realistic fighting, and most of all: no more autoblock! Forces you to think before you act.

phaneub17_ESO

It's fine as it is, but I'd love to see some improvement.

As far as the combat goes, it's not at all bad I just don't like the fact that "animation cancelling" between swings as an effective way to increase your damage. It wasn't designed to be that way, but ended up being that way.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

Huyen wrote: »

I'd rather do combat in ESO then in WoW for example.

Quick breakdown: I played 10 years of WoW, trying to manage over a dozen skills at 4x12 slot bars, often mistaken in rotation, possibility's etc. with a gc on nearly everything, and on top of that cooldowns that add up to sometimes 30 minutes on a ability, so you have to save it up and cant use it on the go.

ESO on the other hand had me hooked with the combatsystem since I entered the beta: no more auto-attack, no more hoarding ability's on your bar, but simplified and more realistic fighting, and most of all: no more autoblock! Forces you to think before you act.

My friend, you're comparing ESO to a 14 years old game. It's like comparing Dark Souls combat to Divinity 2 combat, those 2 games may fall into the same RPG genre, but the different miles apart, same case for ESO and WOW. If you want to compare ESO, I think compare it to BDO, which came out the same year 2014, or Blade and Soul would be more ideal. By that, you can clearly see that ESO is falling behind those game by a large margin.

AlienatedGoat

It's fine as it is, but I'd love to see some improvement.

Would like to see some variation. Same old moves gets stale.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

As far as the combat goes, it's not at all bad I just don't like the fact that "animation cancelling" between swings as an effective way to increase your damage. It wasn't designed to be that way, but ended up being that way.

I actually don't oppose the idea of animation canceling, but the way they implemented and changed it, that's what I have trouble with.

MF_Sl0th

It's fine as it is, but I'd love to see some improvement.

I think the combat in ESO feels a lot less smooth than in Skyrim but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, the style of combat is suited to the type of fast paced game that ESO is, where as Skyrim I feel is a lot more immersive and atmospheric.

Huyen

Nope, not at all.

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Huyen wrote: »

I'd rather do combat in ESO then in WoW for example.

Quick breakdown: I played 10 years of WoW, trying to manage over a dozen skills at 4x12 slot bars, often mistaken in rotation, possibility's etc. with a gc on nearly everything, and on top of that cooldowns that add up to sometimes 30 minutes on a ability, so you have to save it up and cant use it on the go.

ESO on the other hand had me hooked with the combatsystem since I entered the beta: no more auto-attack, no more hoarding ability's on your bar, but simplified and more realistic fighting, and most of all: no more autoblock! Forces you to think before you act.

My friend, you're comparing ESO to a 14 years old game. It's like comparing Dark Souls combat to Divinity 2 combat, those 2 games may fall into the same RPG genre, but the different miles apart, same case for ESO and WOW. If you want to compare ESO, I think compare it to BDO, which came out the same year 2014, or Blade and Soul would be more ideal. By that, you can clearly see that ESO is falling behind those game by a large margin.

And yet WoW is still close in player-base to ESO, so it cant be as "outdated" as you claim it to be. And regarding ESO its using a system close to Diablo 3 and Sacred 2 (the latter one over 15 years old now). Besides that every game has its own ideas as everything is protected with copyrights these days.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

MF_Sl0th wrote: »

I think the combat in ESO feels a lot less smooth than in Skyrim but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, the style of combat is suited to the type of fast paced game that ESO is, where as Skyrim I feel is a lot more immersive and atmospheric.

My friend, did you read my post below? It's not about fast pace or not, it's about things legitimately don't work as intended, or just bland bad, such as some skills animation, or light/heavy attack animation.

MF_Sl0th

It's fine as it is, but I'd love to see some improvement.

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

MF_Sl0th wrote: »

I think the combat in ESO feels a lot less smooth than in Skyrim but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, the style of combat is suited to the type of fast paced game that ESO is, where as Skyrim I feel is a lot more immersive and atmospheric.

My friend, did you read my post below? It's not about fast pace or not, it's about things legitimately don't work as intended, or just bland bad, such as some skills animation, or light/heavy attack animation.

Nah, it's early and I'm tired, my apologies, I also didn't read that it was compared to "competitors" and not "predecessors", again, my apologies.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

Huyen wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Huyen wrote: »

I'd rather do combat in ESO then in WoW for example.

Quick breakdown: I played 10 years of WoW, trying to manage over a dozen skills at 4x12 slot bars, often mistaken in rotation, possibility's etc. with a gc on nearly everything, and on top of that cooldowns that add up to sometimes 30 minutes on a ability, so you have to save it up and cant use it on the go.

ESO on the other hand had me hooked with the combatsystem since I entered the beta: no more auto-attack, no more hoarding ability's on your bar, but simplified and more realistic fighting, and most of all: no more autoblock! Forces you to think before you act.

My friend, you're comparing ESO to a 14 years old game. It's like comparing Dark Souls combat to Divinity 2 combat, those 2 games may fall into the same RPG genre, but the different miles apart, same case for ESO and WOW. If you want to compare ESO, I think compare it to BDO, which came out the same year 2014, or Blade and Soul would be more ideal. By that, you can clearly see that ESO is falling behind those game by a large margin.

And yet WoW is still close in player-base to ESO, so it cant be as "outdated" as you claim it to be. And regarding ESO its using a system close to Diablo 3 and Sacred 2 (the latter one over 15 years old now). Besides that every game has its own ideas as everything is protected with copyrights these days.

First, what with combat quality dealing with copyright? Second, combat quality and popularity are 2 very different things. WOW combat resemble the style of its old RTS style, while ESO is clearly trying to be a more action combat heavy game, yet many of the combat mechanic simply doesn't work. In PvP, you can face your back at your enemy, use execute in midair and the enemy will suddenly die. And I don't know about you, but ESO combat does not always this twitching and clunky, before Dark Brotherhood patch, the combat looks much smoother, light attack and skills connect more naturally, which makes animation canceling a lot more fun. But now, not so much.

Ackwalan

Animation canceling was never supposed to be a thing. It is a broken mechanic that ZOS could never figure out how to fix.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

MF_Sl0th wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

MF_Sl0th wrote: »

I think the combat in ESO feels a lot less smooth than in Skyrim but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, the style of combat is suited to the type of fast paced game that ESO is, where as Skyrim I feel is a lot more immersive and atmospheric.

My friend, did you read my post below? It's not about fast pace or not, it's about things legitimately don't work as intended, or just bland bad, such as some skills animation, or light/heavy attack animation.

Nah, it's early and I'm tired, my apologies, I also didn't read that it was compared to "competitors" and not "predecessors", again, my apologies.

Coffee?

TheShadowScout

It's fine as it is, but I'd love to see some improvement.

Combat in ESO is better then any other fantasy MMO I played so far, despite the mentioned shortcomings. Admittedly, I did not play too many.

I love the fluidity of it as compared to staring at two dozend cooldown timers and trying to set up your "perfect rotation"...

But there IS ample room for improvement.

Weapons hit detection improvements would be one, so people don't get hurt from us just waving our swords before them. Perhaps even reduce the block to 180° frontal, but add an "auto-turn into PoV direction when blocking" feature to keep it feasable... while still allowing speedy and agile opponents to get past your shield...

There could be an option for combinations... for example, do light-light-heavy-heavy and get an special attack instead of the last heavy blow; do light-light-light-heavy-skill and get 20% effect boost on the class skill use; and more of the like. (would be a nifty way to sneak in additional animations!)

And "bloody mess" weapon critical kill animations, just like we already have for magic effects... wouldn't it be cool if critical kills not only let an enemy burn up in flames or melt into diseased goo, but also offered decapitation, headshorts, etc.? I would not mind if that came as extra DLC to buy either...

More weapons to play with would also be great, but me saying that would come as no surprise, huh: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/371862/additional-weapon-skill-ideas-mk-ii

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

Ackwalan wrote: »

Animation canceling was never supposed to be a thing. It is a broken mechanic that ZOS could never figure out how to fix.

Well it's not actually a bad thing, but somehow in the Dark Brotherhood patch, ZOS managed to make animation canceling became much worse.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Combat in ESO is better then any other fantasy MMO I played so far, despite the mentioned shortcomings. Admittedly, I did not play too many.

I love the fluidity of it as compared to staring at two dozend cooldown timers and trying to set up your "perfect rotation"...

But there IS ample room for improvement.

Weapons hit detection improvements would be one, so people don't get hurt from us just waving our swords before them. Perhaps even reduce the block to 180° frontal, but add an "auto-turn into PoV direction when blocking" feature to keep it feasable... while still allowing speedy and agile opponents to get past your shield...

There could be an option for combinations... for example, do light-light-heavy-heavy and get an special attack instead of the last heavy blow; do light-light-light-heavy-skill and get 20% effect boost on the class skill use; and more of the like. (would be a nifty way to sneak in additional animations!)

And "bloody mess" weapon critical kill animations, just like we already have for magic effects... wouldn't it be cool if critical kills not only let an enemy burn up in flames or melt into diseased goo, but also offered decapitation, headshorts, etc.? I would not mind if that came as extra DLC to buy either...

More weapons to play with would also be great, but me saying that would come as no surprise, huh: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/371862/additional-weapon-skill-ideas-mk-ii

That last part is a damn good idea, someone gives this person a sweetroll please.

Fermian

Nope, not at all.

Some melee animations can be improved. But i like the system as it is. To me it feels rpg worthy. Never expected I would like a system with only a couple skills on my bar.

FakeFox

Nope, not at all.

While I generally agree with your points I still think ESO is doing better of then most MMOs in that regard.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

Fermian wrote: »

Some melee animations can be improved. But i like the system as it is. To me it feels rpg worthy. Never expected I would like a system with only a couple skills on my bar.

My friend, you might need to read my post first ESO combat has a lot of broken stuff.

coplannb16_ESO

Other (leave your comment below, I'd love to read them)

PvE is fine, but that animation cancel, (macroed) skill/la spam + charge + procs + whatever in PvP is utter garbage.

What I mean is not its real combat effectiveness, but the huge client-side lag it causes on the receivers end.

I most of the time do not die to better skill of the enemy player or lack of skill on my part, but simply my game engine freezing until Iam dead and see the death recap.

this is especially noticeable on certain cheese-players... wonder why...

Olupajmibanan

Nope, not at all.

Combat itself is fine. But PvP system is FAR FAR WORSE than from it's competitors.
Currently there are only two PvP modes:
1, For fun only, large scale open world PvP,
2, For fun only, small scale instanced PvP.

The key words here are "for fun only" because ESO PvP seriously lacks core aspect of succesful PvP - competition. Seriously, show me any MMO game without ranked mode for PvP outside ESO.

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Combat itself is fine. But PvP system is FAR FAR WORSE than from it's competitors.
Currently there are only two PvP modes:
1, For fun only, large scale open world PvP,
2, For fun only, small scale instanced PvP.

The key words here are "for fun only" because ESO PvP seriously lacks core aspect of succesful PvP - competition. Seriously, show me any MMO game without ranked mode for PvP outside ESO.

So, all of the problem I said in post is totally fine? I get you with the PvP rank, and I'm quite on board with that, but what about the legit broken things in combat?

Pr0Skygon

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

PvE is fine, but that animation cancel, (macroed) skill/la spam + charge + procs + whatever in PvP is utter garbage.

What I mean is not its real combat effectiveness, but the huge client-side lag it causes on the receivers end.

I most of the time do not die to better skill of the enemy player or lack of skill on my part, but simply my game engine freezing until Iam dead and see the death recap.

this is especially noticeable on certain cheese-players... wonder why...

Nah not even in PvE is fine recently. Character stuck in heavy attack animation, range light attack jamming and can't perform any followup skill, etc.

Zinaroth

Nope, not at all.

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

PvE is fine, but that animation cancel, (macroed) skill/la spam + charge + procs + whatever in PvP is utter garbage.

Has nothing to do with macroes, and if you actually knew what a maco is and how it works you would know it isn't.
Using a macro to fire off skills would be beyond *** since it does not, and can not, account for ping, lag or delay - of which there's plenty of in this game and especially in PvP.
The macro argument has become a crutch for the unknowing player base in this game to disregard their own lack of knowledge and experience with the advanced game systems and just blame it on people hacking or using unfair programs.
Occasionally you might run into a person cheating but most of the time if you get slaughtered they're just better players who have better knowledge of the animation cancelling, and NEVER is it because someone is "macroing".

Olupajmibanan

Nope, not at all.

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Combat itself is fine. But PvP system is FAR FAR WORSE than from it's competitors.
Currently there are only two PvP modes:
1, For fun only, large scale open world PvP,
2, For fun only, small scale instanced PvP.

The key words here are "for fun only" because ESO PvP seriously lacks core aspect of succesful PvP - competition. Seriously, show me any MMO game without ranked mode for PvP outside ESO.

So, all of the problem I said in post is totally fine? I get you with the PvP rank, and I'm quite on board with that, but what about the legit broken things in combat?

Well, If I compare the state of combat now and before, I can say it is 1000 times better than it was. Yeah, sure, there are some problems here and there, but nothing gamebreaking.
The things you mentioned are only cosmetic ones and should be taken into consideration after fixing core problems.

Olupajmibanan

Nope, not at all.

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

No no no, we're not talking about class balance or anything of that concern, I'm talking about raw combat quality, about how it feels, how it plays and satisfying is it.
And no, "MMORPG combat are generally sucks" is not a relevant thing anymore, or "I still find ESO combat fun, so it's fine". Yes, it is fun, that's why we're all playing it, but it can be better, much better.
For example (and there's a lot of them), 1H weapon is weightless to swing; the hit box for all melee weapons are off, the weapons don't even touch the enemies, but the damage is still done; animation canceling feels too clunky (I'm not talking about deleting animation canceling all together though), my stam characters always twitching while in combat, it's like they have seizure or something; range light attack often jam and can't perform the follow up skill; range heavy attack often stuck in animation (especially staves); a lot of skills just look and feel ridiculous, such as "Low Slash", which is nothing more than gently scratch the enemy's legs; etc.
To sum it up, after the change of animation in 2016, the games combat feels and plays a lot worse, not just for me, but for a lot of people. Even some big ESO name like Alcast and Joy actually feel the same. But I'm not just jumping into conclusion here, so I'd love to see your vote on this subject

There is one animation that you forgot to mention. All these are only cosmetic problems but Strife (Siphoning NB skill line) have seriously bad animation negatively affecting your LA weaving and thus lowering your dps by solid margin because magNB is tremensously dependant on the quality of your LA weaving (Infused staff+element enchant, merciless resolve, siphoning attacks).

Iccotak

Do you want something more like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlRmU7yfW0I

eso_lags

Other (leave your comment below, I'd love to read them)

It used to be a lot better. Now its clunky AF. I land like 50% of my heavy attacks with 1h/2h/s&bs.. animation canceling probably hinders me now more than it helps. It never used to be like this. Somewhere along the road they did something that really botched it, and im thinking it was either one tamriel or morrowind. Regardless, it just gets added on to the list of reasons why i think competitive play is going bye bye in this game more and more each update..

Its far worse on xbox than on PC.. Its still alright on PC but noticeable. Anyway, i think most of it goes to what im guessing is input lag(im no expert). All i know is heavy attacks work half the time, animation canceling sometimes even less than half depending on how laggy it is, and just overall when i hit buttons and skills dont go off its absurd.

inf.toniceb17_ESO

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

OK so this is from a PvE perspective: If there is anything in ESO that i hate more than having to remake my builds every few months cuz of all the balance changes it is combat. It's boring, clunky, unresponsive and built around an exploit the couldn't fix. It feels like i'm playing and old mortal kombat game where i have to execute some fatality rotation over and over till the enemy is dead and it's boring. GCD while may be nescesarry forces me to press each button like five times before ability fires off wich makes it feel unresponsive and contrary to pupular belief it doesn't feel fast paced at all. As for weaving it's not actually a bad mechanic per se but considering all of the above and animation problems that pop up from time to time and aren't fixed for months (i'm looking at you strife). it turns eso combat into a nightmare for me. Now yes its a problem of nerly every MMO out there, yes, but most of them doesn't have some semi-hidden mechanics that aren't explained anywhere in game at all and don't really work that well sometimes.

Ragnarock41

Not far worse, but yeah, worse.

I do have to say without lag its fine.
But when lag is involved it becomes absolutely horrible.

But yes, the animation update kind of killed something.

jr88

It's Pretty bad dude lol...it's use and spam this one ability approach to *** and hope it crits lol