Combat is the weakest link for me.

Gahmerdohn

ESO does a lot of things right but for sure the combat system is one of the worst aspects of this game. Everybody that says this is the best they've played so far or they don't want to go back to tab target have all the right to say so based on their experience but in my opinion, they should probably try to play some good games, some well-designed games (in terms of gameplay at least).

Even if you forget and cut off all the flashiness try to play games like BDO to understand what it is to have gameplay that feels really good and no matter the content you're doing it's always fun to fight.

Should ESO look like other games? Not at all the point but surely ESO should improve its gameplay on the road it has chosen. It's really important to make improvements, the gameplay is the only aspect that hasn't been touched from the start and it's a subject that has received a lot of complaints.

Regardless of your backstory as a gamer and how you perceive ESO gameplay because of that this combat system is the biggest pain point of this game and the reason why so many people are turned of by this game and also why nobody watches it on twitch and we have to help them with mounts ...but I go off-topic.

Even if there's a lot of content, if the gameplay doesn't feel right we'll not do it or we'll just do the story once to know what happens and never do it again like most of us do already.
We simply got used to it but look at what most people do...they do what they have to do in ESO for the objective they have in the game than actually go to play some other game that actually feels good and come back the next day or week or month or...never.
If we add the fact that the world doesn't feel at all like a dangerous place due to the extreme low difficulty of 80 of the content that also makes that nobody have to learn to play it and we pay the price with every new lv 50 ... you have the recipe for disaster.

Anyway, if the gameplay is improved all the people that are actually already fine with it will enjoy the game even more and it will help other people to come and enjoy Tamriel with us. The community will grow more money for them more fun and friends to play with for us what can go wrong? (well provided they don't change to make it worse...)

Stop rejecting every person that ask for improvement, what they are trying to say is: yes the game is okay but it could be better and getting better is the only way to survive. Everything about this world works the same , in-game and out, "If there is no improvement for a long period of time about something anyway it'd die inevitably"...and nobody wants it.

good night

GQManOfTheYear

Combat is weak too. You bring up WoW and the nerds groan. You can't tell me ESO's fighting and skill system is better than WoW's.

Ermiq

LA weaving makes dps extremely dependent on ping. Fundamental design flaw for an MMORPG.
And the necessity of braindead clicking light attack right before every ability has nothing to do with 'skill' at all, it's nothing but an additional click for the sake of an additional click. It makes the combat feel more 'action-ish' for some people though.
Not to mention the incredible server overload created by LA weaving. People remember lag free Cyrodiil in Beta, and one of the reasons why there were less lag is LA weaving wasn't a thing back then. When LA weaving had became a known thing and people started to use it, servers started to chock more often. See, there're reasons why MMORPGs are made with cooldowns (global and per-ability), the main reason is it significantly decreases server load.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

That video is complete BS from first 10 seconds, i stopped looking after that.

So you literally got nothing out of the video and decided to discard and disregard it anyway. I get it, you're one of those people.

As for the OP I kind of agree. I wish we just had less twitchy combat, less canceling, more smooth combos, more skills to fit on a bar, longer buffs and weapon switching was automated or made in a way that feels better than the current system.

I have no problems playing what we got, I've done all endgame content + high ranked PvP, but honestly it's never been fun for me once.

The only reason I haven't given it up yet is the quest and exploration content, RP, amazing community, endless possibilities and custom build access etc.

I wish the combat was more fluid, more satisfying with actual skill synergies and required smart timing and placement, instead of brain dead muscle memory combos, multitude of stupid debuffs and canceling that completely destroys all the fun and amazing visuals that not only are but could have been.

First phrase from video is utter nonsense about ESO has "much better" world design and writing/quests then single player TES games. This is just hilarious. We may say that best hand picked parts of ESO are comparable to single player TES, true, but nowhere near "much better".

But it's true, man. The most part of BGS's cities feel utterly tight and crumpled (just look at Skyrim's Windhelm and Riften and compare them to ESO's), BGS's dungeons and caves are just garbage in terms of level design (there's no level design involved at all). BGS got better in level design with Fallout 76 though, but Oblivion and Skyrim worlds were just meh.

jcm2606

The combat in itself is fine, IMO. It's the animations themselves and the garbage performance that's letting the combat down.

In lieu of the current state of the game, with the continuously worsening performance, myriad of bugs that have plagued the game for years without a fix in sight, balance constantly being uprooted every patch causing issues that aren't addressed until 3-6+ months down the road, I've been looking into other games/MMO's to rotate between ESO and other games I play in short spurts, and in doing so I've realised that I absolutely hate cooldowns.

I don't mind them if they're relatively short (a few seconds) or otherwise on skills that I'll only be using once or twice (emergency heals, utility skills, etc), but if a game has cooldowns for the sake of cooldowns, I'm out. I find that they rip me out of the game, forcing me to stare at my skill bar to see if the skill is up, and they make gameplay less fluid and responsive, overall leading to less enjoyable gameplay, IMO.

I vastly prefer action-based combat systems with skills that pull from a particular resource pool, especially if I can build to more easily sustain that pool, as it allows me to focus more on what's going on in the fight (so long as I don't over-spend on that resource, I should generally be able to sustain it), while also making gameplay more fluid and responsive (if the enemy dodges or blocks my skill, I can immediately follow up with another cast, at the cost of over-spending on that resource).

As a bonus, I feel as if action-based combat systems do allow for an actually higher skill ceiling, as it allows players to further perfect their build and playstyle. Even if the system doesn't offer an active means of restoring resources (such as heavy attacking in ESO), it still offers a higher skill ceiling as players can learn to adjust their gameplay around their limited resources (by not over-casting skills, knowing which buffs/debuffs they can let drop for a few seconds to conserve resources, etc), and so allows them to build a little more into damage. If the system does offer an active means of restoring resources, well, add well-timed uses of that to the list.

That's also another advantage of action-based combat systems, too. They address the problem of powerful skills without hurting immersion and responsiveness. By having a naturally high cost on powerful skills, it forces players to make a choice in how they go about using those skills. They can either over-use them, running their resource pool dry, effectively putting all skills on a global cooldown of sorts while they wait for their resource pool to regenerate. Or, they can use them sparingly in well-timed combos. Or, they can sacrifice their strength (and hence the power of their skills) to build for more sustain, which allows them to over-use a now weaker version of that skill. Either way, they make a sacrifice in using powerful skills -- they either run their resource pool dry, use these skills sparingly, or sacrifice damage for sustain.

ESO's combat system, at its very foundation, offers exactly what I love about combat systems. It's fast, it's responsive (when it works), it's fluid (when it works), it's immersive (assuming you can properly sustain your playstyle), and it's fun (when it works).

Again, when it works, and that is the problem with ESO's combat system. The horrendous performance, combined with the plague of bugs, causes combat to not work more often than it does. Light attack weaving is perfectly viable with high latency -- I'm an Australian who plays with 250-300 ping with a VPN, and I can weave just fine by just slowing down a little. Bar swap is a little delayed, but it's manageable, same with roll dodge.

ESO's combat strangely works on a regular Australia-to-NA connection, it's when the servers have a fit that it stops working. Ping jumps up 200+, and skills fail to fire, bar swaps don't actually swap, you're dodging stuff that still hits you, etc. Fix the server performance, and I'd personally have no issues with how combat plays, at least up to balancing which is a different story.

With how combat looks, though, I agree, it does need some updating. Skill animations are pretty clunky, animation cancelling does make your character look like they're having an epileptic fit, and there is a distinct lack of weight behind attacks, but all of that is pretty much aesthetics, and so isn't relevant to how combat actually plays. Moving to a modern and more robust animation system, adjusting animations to blend better and have some variation between weapons, adding some slight camera effects such as slight shaking when a powerful swing hits a target, and re-recording audio to just sound more meaty would all go a long way to making combat feel more impactful, as that's all that impactful combat boils down to in my experience -- it just looks and sounds meaty, the actual attack is nothing more than just a number popping up on screen and a health bar dropping considerably.

Donny_Vito

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Yeah, combat in this game is clunky but if start trying to challenge the idea that combat is not amazing you'll get lots of negative feedback from the community. Most of us enjoy the game regardless, but still it's pretty obvious to admit this combat system has a lot of flaws.

canceling that completely destroys all the fun and amazing visuals that not only are but could have been.

So true. We've been trained to animation cancel everything and ZoS has reluctantly claimed this to be a feature when it just negates all the hard work that went into the art and animation of combat. The only problem is that we're pot-committed, as a gambling reference. We've already invested so much time and effort into this game that overhauling combat and animations is not an option. We're stuck with it, so we just have to pucker up and make the best out of it.

No it was a bug that they knew about from alpha. They acknowledged it as a bug and left it in game then they called it a feature once they had made it part of the dps meta and a requirement. to do minimum dps checks for end game you have to be medicore at it . Now weaving is also part of it.

Right, I understand all that and I don't disagree. The only thing I stated was that I agreed with the OP that the bug-turned-feature just diminishes some of the hard work that went into making the visual effects for combat animations. Couple that with poor performance and that half the animations aren't even visible to fellow players.... yeah you can see how it feels clunky to people.

rager82b14_ESO

I doubt it would get fixed this far in. I really do think they would get even more players if they would just make the combat better, make for weapon damage builds to be stronger, and that would give that elder scrolls feel to the combat. Make buffs last longer, or just have them a toggle so they take a skill slot, but don't got to recasting it every 15 seconds.

RexyCat

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

Animation cancelling and La weaving suck.

No, what sucks is when you skills are greyed out as you aren't exactly in position with your reticular to get your skills to activate. This is happening a lot when you play in third person view.

//RexyCat

Rungar

the same people that will play wow classic cant play eso without dps animation cancelling/ weaving.

nobody sees anything wrong with that i guess.

the game plays plays fine without weaving, not sure about some of your situational add though.

ScruffyWhiskers

It took 3 minutes to hear the complaints lol. I'm a really old fart compared to most of you. I played Ultima Online, Asheron's Call and Everquest before we all thought the world was going to end in 2000. (Nice appeal to authority I know)
How many of you remember hitting the melee attack button in Everquest? Yep, hit that button and chase Gnasher Furgutt down the road.

The combat system is the best thing in this game. Seriously, this guy's complaints are ludicrous. Tastes can vary of course, but being peeved about animation canceling which isn't mandatory for the 90% of the players who never hit level 50 (supposedly according to XBOX achievements as a data point) and resource management is silly.

rager82b14_ESO

ScruffyWhiskers wrote: »

It took 3 minutes to hear the complaints lol. I'm a really old fart compared to most of you. I played Ultima Online, Asheron's Call and Everquest before we all thought the world was going to end in 2000. (Nice appeal to authority I know)
How many of you remember hitting the melee attack button in Everquest? Yep, hit that button and chase Gnasher Furgutt down the road.

The combat system is the best thing in this game. Seriously, this guy's complaints are ludicrous. Tastes can vary of course, but being peeved about animation canceling which isn't mandatory for the 90% of the players who never hit level 50 (supposedly according to XBOX achievements as a data point) and resource management is silly.

I'm a old person also, and I played everquest. I was in the plains of power kiting mobs for players wishing I was on the hill, but because I was a ranger, with sow. I was on kite duty.

I've also played UO, and old school stuff. So like you i know about the old days.


For me I have two major problems with the combat. One buff system, second the lack of weapon damage focus builds. Spamming Skills is boring, and the attack/block system feels more like elder scrolls, and ya spamming aoe skills is not fun for me or many people it seems in the youtube comments. and I would say animation cancel but I would not do that so i would not care.

ScruffyWhiskers

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

I'm a old person also, and I played everquest. I was in the plains of power kiting mobs for players wishing I was on the hill, but because I was a ranger, with sow. I was on kite duty.

I've also played UO, and old school stuff. So like you i know about the old days.


For me I have two major problems with the combat. One buff system, second the lack of weapon damage focus builds. Spamming Skills is boring, and the attack/block system feels more like elder scrolls, and ya spamming aoe skills is not fun for me or many people it seems in the youtube comments. and I would say animation cancel but I would not do that so i would not care.

What would you differently for the buff system? Also what do you mean by weapon damage focus builds?

The dilemma for any modern designer is spamming vs. pro forma rotations. I think they balance that pretty well. Got a lot of adds the AoE. Got a boss the single target. That said I pretty much just pvp now although I have finished Cadwell Gold, Summerset, most of Morrowind and clockwork city. Maelstrom arena, probably 3/4 the group dungeons on vet and the 2 first easy trials. I'm not a great player by any means. But in PvP there is no other game out there like this one and I have tried a bunch of the modern ones too. If there is any real complaint it would be server performance but I just thank god that I'm not their engineer working on that.

rager82b14_ESO

Well, what draws me into this game is elder scrolls, and the story. The thing is in elder scroll games, I use melee swings, and archery to get kills. Not spam skills.


The buffs in this game are annoying. They last 20ish? seconds and i got to keep up with them.

How I would handle the buffs is making them like the old Siphoning Strikes. Just a toggle you can put on. That way the buff can take a skill slot, and you don't need to spam keep it up. Also that would open up options for a just pure light or heavy attack builds with this new buff system.

evoniee

position character in real time
aiming target manually
proactive gameplay

atleast all of that make this game superior

too bad recent pvp changes are broken and not balance, too many inconsistency from update to update.

remember sload apocalypse?
this patch is worse than that.
introducing "too good you cant miss it" is a bad step for the game.

Lucky28

I think Animation cancelling is one of the best parts about ESO Combat system. so, disagree.

Jeremy

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbvwpXlTvAA



So I see I'm not alone in thinking this. I just don't like how the skills work in this game. Switching weapons, short buffs, and just a endless rotation.



So my question is this, Can a Weapon Damage build work well in this game? One where you don't need to use many skills. I've never tried it, but it sounds more fun and when I play an elder scrolls game. I focus heavily on weapon damage not skills.

This game has an excellent combat system. The problem is the world is just too simple - so players can often just spam a single rotation over and over to slaughter everything. If the enemies had more health to where they could actually put players on the defensive it would make the combat more interesting. But the over all system itself is well done.

Try playing Final Fantasy 14 if you want to see bad combat. When I go questing on my White Mage literally all I do is put up dia and then spam glare.... there is literally nothing else to do. Where as this game gives me all kinds of available strategies - which I can customize to my own personal preferences. ESO actually has one of the most versatile combat systems I've ever seen with endless potential to grow and expand. They just need a world that is challenging enough to actually accommodate it.

Gilvoth

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbvwpXlTvAA



So I see I'm not alone in thinking this. I just don't like how the skills work in this game. Switching weapons, short buffs, and just a endless rotation.



So my question is this, Can a Weapon Damage build work well in this game? One where you don't need to use many skills. I've never tried it, but it sounds more fun and when I play an elder scrolls game. I focus heavily on weapon damage not skills.

i Strongly agree with you on this.
i know alot of people think that same way as well.

danno8

Combat needs more combos and interactivity between skills. Right now it's just buff up, apply DoT's then spam. Rinse repeat every 10 seconds.

They say next patch they are looking at class identity. Hopefully they make class skills work better with each other and provide special buffs or powers that can only occur when skills are used together intelligently and concurrently. Tougher to do when you don't have cool downs, but still possible.

Sleezly

OwnerOfSuccuby wrote: »

I use build before that was focused on heavy attacks - 47.5 k dps very easy rotation - now buged and do not work.

It is easy to make rotations like this.

Some kind of 1234, swap 1234 swap with out light attacks or just 3 skills and all other is light attacks.

It is not hard to make builds like that.

But gear is hard to combine - it needs special traits. And when you do it - 4-5 month play and stupid ZOS bug or change something.

It is not hard to make builds like this with 40+ k dps. And even more. The problem is: you have not got unlimited transmutation and time.

I changed my gear more than 10 times already - plague docror, warrior poet, ebon = trash now -> perfect youlnokrean.

Maelstrom bow->oblivion sets->eternal yokeda - mailstrom lightning stuff = buged or do not work with some skills = to trash in some builds.

And each time the same.

I already hate zos - i have not got time farm so much transmutations for all this garbage and make it gold.

Stop change the game or give me my transmutation and money back each time you change something !!!

I have not got unlimited time and all races of each class pn account !!!

Do you mind sharing your heavy attack build which is currently bugged due to molten armaments? I'd be curious to see the gear + traits and skills used to achieve that.

Thanks.