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

deleted220614-000183

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


Hey this it is very suggestive question.
The real question is WHY IS THE PVP COMBAT IN ESO BAD for years and nobody cares.

Here are couple of answers form me.
Disclaimer:
these are MY answers (yeah, only IT professional and 20 years of experience of developing and testing SW applications)

1. Game industry is a business and fix something means a lot of money = less profit
2. PVP fight is much more complex then PVE (in PVE you have complexityO(1/n), in PVP O(n/n)) hence much more difficult to fix
3. PVP is much more demanding for HW resources (who cares about 0,1sec lag in PVE for god's sake ?)
4. PVP is much more complex to balance as PVE mobs don't complain getting one hitted and instant killed
5. ESO PVP was poorly designed from the beginning
6. ESO PVE is not that bad, just boring and easy but who cares as the game have tons of content


Conclussion. PVP in ESO is bad because money talks.
PVE is easy because payers want feeling that they are good players.

But you can always write your own free to play game based on PVP with complex, difficult and creative PVE, lose couple hundred of millions USD and then starting something useful, for example MMORPG game with some minor PVP content and easy and boring PVE based on endless repeating and grinding.

JUST MY OPINION

Cadbury

Meh. Go into any popular MMO forum and you'll see alot of smack talk regarding other MMOs. Its a vicious cycle

Vindold

People who don't play ESO and say that combat is bad is actually right, it's bad, it's clunky and here is the main reasons of such reaction:

1. VFX is the first what ppl see. VFX is seriously outdated, they were outdated since day 1
2. Animations is what they see next and combat animation doesn't look impressive or visually appealing partly because of #3
3. Animation cancelling. Our characters look like they have epileptic seizure and that's why combat look so clunky
4. Homing arrows in 2022. That's just hillarious...

and even when they try to know the game better they see\hear how simillar all classes plays, they see how 'much' abilities we have, that's not what makes ppl want to play this game.

Vevvev

ESO combat is fun and engaging... when it works. I honestly don't care much about the animations as long as the effects of what's going on appear on my screen. See a DK's Leap coming in? Hold block. See the unmistakable golden spear trying to kill you? Stun them, Mist, cast Major Evasion, or try and Block Heal. Hear a Cliff Racer? Dodge roll. Etc, etc, etc.

Real frustration comes down to when you die when you don't get a queue of what's coming. Reverse slice comes in so fast so can barely react to it, Proc sets being stacked to the point nothing you do can avoid the attack sucks, and add in the horrendous lag at Prime Time in PvP, and sometimes even Trials, and the game gets frustrating.

Bugs and lag are why people quit, and that kind of stuff never leaves their mind. A good friend of mine's first impression of ESO was not the difficult overland of pre-One Tamriel or the smooth as silk PvP of Summerset, it was the long grind of Elsweyr/Greymoor, the horrendous lag, and the big bad enemies of the overland content falling to his feet is less than a minute. Dude didn't even have CP and he was crushing the overland content in this game after I gave him a few pointers.

The combat of ESO in his eyes despite being fluid and reactive on paper was a mess because of those issues. He wanted to PvP but why PvP when you're more likely to die to lag than a legit error on your part? Why do PvE overland when the content is so easy a toddler could do it? It didn't matter to him how much he enjoyed the stories of Summerset and Orsinium, or how awesome he could make his character.
He was there for the combat and it let him down.

WiseSky

I love animation canceling, but I have an mmo mouse g600 and g13.

I honestly would hate any combat on a keyboard n traditional mouse.

I love the eso combat

MEBengalsFan2001

I came from DCUO and combat in ESO was similar when I first started to play ESO but slower. You know the light attack weaving you all do now, that how I played DCUO in 2012ish. So yeah, it's nothing new to those who think it is the best thing since slice bread, nothing is better than slice bread.

Combat here is to repetitive and as long as you have resources you can kill kill kill kill. What would happen if a cool down timer is added, even in PVP, is that players would have to drop heals or other skill to push out more damage this would encourage more players working together in PVP instead of people running solo. It would also make content harder as you cannot blast your way through content repeating the same skill over and over.

I've played games that had cool down timers and those games you have to use your light/heavy attacks quite a bit more; some of those games had ways to reduce the cool down timer and if you found the right build it would ensure endless usage of abilities. Typically devs adjust and tweak the game and those so called endless usage builds go way because endless usage of abilities ruins the game and makes content easier.

ESO is in a weird position as it is still a fun game and its combat is somewhat unique, the downside is it gets boring rather quickly with repetitive button pushing, which can become a drag.

Abnaxos

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

More skills =/= better. I am very glad that I have only 5 skills active and can easily bind them to a small number of keys. The skill limit is part of the design and your build, as is the 4-slot CP limit. Why so many players just refuse to notice this I don't understand at all. It is also worth remembering that eso was developed for consoles and a gamepad cannot have 25+ buttons. In my opinion, ZoS did an excellent job with the design of a limited number of slots for active skills. And I'm happy that ESO has more action-oriented combat gameplay.

Again that old argument with the controller, which is simply not true. In FFXIV, I have 48 slots for skills at my fingertips using the controller. Since no class has that many skills, the slots are also filled with other important stuff like e.g. the focus target. I could do even more slots, but that would become awkward to use (akin to bar swapping in ESO). Many people on PC actually prefer the controller for combat. No, alleged limitations of the controller aren't the reason why ESO is the way it is.

I do agree, however, that the limited amount of skill slots was a deliberate design decision, and it makes sense for ESO. It allows to lean more towards action oriented combat. More importantly, it forces people to think about their build and choose what they want on their hotbar. It's the foundation of what sets ESO apart from other MMOs, the flexibility when making your own build.

I personally find bar swapping very awkward, I'd prefer another solution there. Something like holding a trigger to use the secondary weapon. Other than that, I'm absolutely fine with the amount of equipable skills.

Parasaurolophus

Many cite FF14 as an example. For me, they are completely different games with different dynamics. It doesn't look like Eso. Just compare this and vAS+2 for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPzfqdXivxE&ab_channel=DarkAnima

Khami

ixthUA wrote: »

In ESO DPS can be from very low to very high. Newbies tend to have very low DPS, due to lack of knowledge, which turns them away.
By default, damage is not displayed (must be turned on in options), ability cooldowns are not displayed (before required addons, now need to turn on in options), DPS is not displayed (requires addons). Without these 3 things players cannot improve their DPS and thus combat looks bad.

Cooldowns are default off, you have to turn them on. So are the numbers/percentage info on the bars.

ESO UI is very minimalist in nature, but the info is there, you have to turn it on.

LightningWitch

Hurbster wrote: »

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.

To understand why combat is clunky in this game is to understand how the game was designed.

Back during original development, much of the game source was copied from other sources, mostly from Bethesda Softworks.

It is not a coincidence the combat is similar, because the mechanics behind it is.

A few changes were made for MMO combat, which introduced animation canceling/weaving, which the developers did not recognize during development.

When the game was released, several prominent players discovered the animation canceling technique, and realized this weaving mechanic could introduce thousands of points of dps.

It has never been patched.

Most early MMOs which had this mechanic patched their game to remove it. Some people adapt to it very well, others do not. Those who cannot adapt to the mechanic, regardless of reason, has an unfair advantage to those that do.

The other issue is related to contact pointing, or "hit box recognition". It's gawdawful in this game. Whether auto-aim is used or not is irrelevant when the target cannot be acquired by the combat engine.

You can tell this is a problem when enemies can shoot you through walls and stairs, but you can't shoot them because a tree branch is in your way.

This is a bad design, and it's frustrating at times. As a Nightblade, I cannot tell you how many damn bugs I killed because the game saw them as a target than the actual enemy I was aiming for. Anyone who cites this mechanic as good needs to know it's not good. We just tolerate it because it hasn't been fixed in the 7+ years the games been out.

For me, the biggest issue I have with combat is the inability to map my controller to buttons which make more sense. I will never understand the STUPIDITY of using the D-pad L as a weapon swap option, which forces us to remove our thumb from a control system.

The entire premise of "bar swapping" seems out of date to me, as FFXIV actually uses two bumpers + buttons to control a variety of spells. No swapping needed and it's a much more intuitive system.

If this doesn't drive home why combat is considered bad in this game, just remember it took this dev team over 6 years just to give us the basic counters we need to manage the spells and cooldowns of what they offer in the game.

Something every other MMO has at launch.

It is no secret most of the dev team working on this game had/has zero experience working on MMOs, and much of what they have learned has come from outside help and what they're learning from a base of a game they didn't write themselves.

Here's hoping the announced changes work out for the better, but honestly, I'm not holding my breath they will be.

The team still hasn't addressed many of the issues in the game now.

I've come to terms with what we have because I feel the game and its environment can offset the combat, but it does feel very old when we're having to constantly fight our way through even the most mundane quest, and it's truly noticeable when coming off another game.

*crosses fingers

Drdeath20

trpajzla wrote: »

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


Hey this it is very suggestive question.
The real question is WHY IS THE PVP COMBAT IN ESO BAD for years and nobody cares.

Here are couple of answers form me.
Disclaimer:
these are MY answers (yeah, only IT professional and 20 years of experience of developing and testing SW applications)

1. Game industry is a business and fix something means a lot of money = less profit
2. PVP fight is much more complex then PVE (in PVE you have complexityO(1/n), in PVP O(n/n)) hence much more difficult to fix
3. PVP is much more demanding for HW resources (who cares about 0,1sec lag in PVE for god's sake ?)
4. PVP is much more complex to balance as PVE mobs don't complain getting one hitted and instant killed
5. ESO PVP was poorly designed from the beginning
6. ESO PVE is not that bad, just boring and easy but who cares as the game have tons of content


Conclussion. PVP in ESO is bad because money talks.
PVE is easy because payers want feeling that they are good players.

But you can always write your own free to play game based on PVP with complex, difficult and creative PVE, lose couple hundred of millions USD and then starting something useful, for example MMORPG game with some minor PVP content and easy and boring PVE based on endless repeating and grinding.

JUST MY OPINION

You think they lose money?

Parasaurolophus

LightningWitch wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

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.

To understand why combat is clunky in this game is to understand how the game was designed.

Back during original development, much of the game source was copied from other sources, mostly from Bethesda Softworks.

It is not a coincidence the combat is similar, because the mechanics behind it is.

A few changes were made for MMO combat, which introduced animation canceling/weaving, which the developers did not recognize during development.

When the game was released, several prominent players discovered the animation canceling technique, and realized this weaving mechanic could introduce thousands of points of dps.

It has never been patched.

Most early MMOs which had this mechanic patched their game to remove it. Some people adapt to it very well, others do not. Those who cannot adapt to the mechanic, regardless of reason, has an unfair advantage to those that do.

The other issue is related to contact pointing, or "hit box recognition". It's gawdawful in this game. Whether auto-aim is used or not is irrelevant when the target cannot be acquired by the combat engine.

You can tell this is a problem when enemies can shoot you through walls and stairs, but you can't shoot them because a tree branch is in your way.

This is a bad design, and it's frustrating at times. As a Nightblade, I cannot tell you how many damn bugs I killed because the game saw them as a target than the actual enemy I was aiming for. Anyone who cites this mechanic as good needs to know it's not good. We just tolerate it because it hasn't been fixed in the 7+ years the games been out.

For me, the biggest issue I have with combat is the inability to map my controller to buttons which make more sense. I will never understand the STUPIDITY of using the D-pad L as a weapon swap option, which forces us to remove our thumb from a control system.

The entire premise of "bar swapping" seems out of date to me, as FFXIV actually uses two bumpers + buttons to control a variety of spells. No swapping needed and it's a much more intuitive system.

If this doesn't drive home why combat is considered bad in this game, just remember it took this dev team over 6 years just to give us the basic counters we need to manage the spells and cooldowns of what they offer in the game.

Something every other MMO has at launch.

It is no secret most of the dev team working on this game had/has zero experience working on MMOs, and much of what they have learned has come from outside help and what they're learning from a base of a game they didn't write themselves.

Here's hoping the announced changes work out for the better, but honestly, I'm not holding my breath they will be.

The team still hasn't addressed many of the issues in the game now.

I've come to terms with what we have because I feel the game and its environment can offset the combat, but it does feel very old when we're having to constantly fight our way through even the most mundane quest, and it's truly noticeable when coming off another game.

*crosses fingers

ZoS fixed animation cancellation a long time ago. Today it is no longer possible to cast a skill faster. And even more so, canceling the animation never broke gcd.
I will reiterate that you can play without weaving. Your damage will be reduced by 15-17%. is it critical?

vilio11

Athan1 wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

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"

@bluebird thank you, this is an amazing analysis that perfectly summarises why everytime I log on ESO I eyeroll and cringe with the combat and switch over to GW2 and BDO.

ESO developers need to listen to player feedback and meaningfully update their game.

I do not think that they are going to listen

Destai

In before we get, “in many cases…” from a mod.

This is one of those cases. Please don’t close down this evergreen topic.

Four_Fingers

Just think, these posts hadn't even seen U35 yet...

Destai

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Just think, these posts hadn't even seen U35 yet...

This thread feels like an ongoing dialogue about how the combat can be improved, both mechanically and in the larger gaming community.

U35 onwards has been rocky, with core combat being shaken by some nasty bugs. Things like that really help perpetuate the notion that combat is bad.

JMadFour

They're definitely talking about "weaving" and animation canceling.

Then only people who don't think both are incredibly stupid are the ESO Parse Dummy Gawds.

isadoraisacat

I think it’s that a good portion of us players started with the single player games and many never played an mmo prior. The combat is a bit different from the main series. Mainly because of the light attack weaving has a steep learning curve.

I think oakensoul fixes it his problem though.

But once you get used to it, it’s fine it’s not a deal breaker for me being the lore / world building is great and expands so much on the single player games.

Would I prefer single player combat personally..yes but I have adapted to the combat and I don’t find it bad it’s just different from the single player games.

isadoraisacat

Hallothiel wrote: »

No idea. Find combat skills quite easy on console/controller. And as I have 18 characters I like to play around with different skills outside the ‘meta’ choice.


(What is it with requests for capes?! Why?)

I never got the capes thing. I mean there are I think 2 armor pieces in Skyrim with capes. I guess they are cool 🤷🏻‍♂️ not really my style