ONLY MMO with better combat is Guild Wars 2 (which is A LOT worse in general than ESO). Other games either have worse combat or are not MMOs

So much better than tab-targeting imo.

1. The OP's post is a bit "bipolar" in that the topic talks about "competitors" while the text talks about ESO today vs. ESO of a couple of years ago. I suppose one can be one's own competitor, in a sense. Still.

2. Insofar as competitors, it depends on what one means by "competitor". MMOs in general? Fine, compare this to combat in World of Tanks. I will be sitting here, sniggering. MMORPGs (specifically) using more or less the same combat model (no auto-targeting, et cetera) as ESO? Umm...I am sure some exist, but WoW, TOR and LOTRO aren't it. [And we have very strong evidence that WoW and TOR have more subs than ESO based on Activision's and EA's filings.]

I would say that across the spectrum of MMOs, ESO's combat is a lot more "twitch"-based - another word is "arcade" - especially with the need to constantly weave and swap weapons at least twice every eight seconds. This is not bad per se, but it is a lot different than, say, the Dragon Age trilogy (auto-targeting, skill/order based, no bar switching, pause at any point). I.e. it works better for some, worse for others.

2a. Someone above flat-out declared that "Guild Wars 2 is best, all others are worse or not MMOs" - well, all right, except there are probably just as many people who would say WoW is best and all others are worse. That illustrates my point beautifully - it's all about subjective judgment because all these combat models are different.

Moreover, MMO just means "multi-player online" - World of Tanks is an MMO, both technically and practically. It's just not an MMORPG.

2b. To wit, I am using an old and beaten-up X360 controller on my PC, which just isn't quite as responsive as a new top-of-the-line model when it comes to attack weaving (particularly on destro staff, melee weapons feel better). This means I can get decent results, most of the time, but there is a very small chance I'll ever be able to kick out "top tier" DPS. Whereas in other games (Fallout 4, even, thanks to VATS), this is hardly an issue at all.

3. So is ESO "far worse" than its "competitors"? I wouldn't say that - just that it's different. Is it "far worse" than ESO from two years ago? Honestly, I do not remember. I do remember that two-three years ago I knew nothing about attack weaving, so fights actually involved fewer button presses than now.

I do think that ZOS had gone down the wrong path in terms of combat design by making this game "twitchy". Because one would guess that the average casual player might not clear certain hurdles (practicing weaving/bar switching/rotations) with anywhere near the ease as in WoW/TOR/LOTRO (where you memorize the sequence of numbers to punch on your keyboard at 1.5-3 second intervals, essentially). But I do not know how to change anything without changing everything, so I guess we are sort of stuck for now.

I do wish ZOS would take a look at making light attack more responsive on some of the weapons. For those of us with old, beaten-up X360 controllers...

Dredlord wrote: »

andreasv wrote: »

If I compare to BDO it is worse. It doesn't feel as powerful. I don't get the impression that attacks connect with my target. But the best thing about BDO combat is how skills are constructed. It's not just a simple number press (although you can set it up for some skills), but it's key combinations. And building up some combos is not just LMB, 1,2, LMB, 3,4,5 but rather:

[SHIFT]+[SPACEBAR] followed by
[F] then
[SHIFT] + [F] followed by
[SHIFT] + (S) followed by
(S)+[F] followed by
[RMB] then
(S)+[E] and
[SHIFT]+[LPM+PPM] finishing with
[LMB].

But I guess BDO has been designed with grinding XP via combat in mind, whereas ESO is more about Story and lore.

Why dont you rebind your keys so you can make whatever combo you want...

ESO currently has the best action combat gameplay in an MMO and I have played almost every pvp mmo since UO.

I dont macro and i have found the animations better since that update, macroers have had a harder time with it.

Its funny most of those saying it sucks offer nothing they think is better and they are still playing eso.

Some mentioned BDO and gw2, give your head a shake...

ESO might be good, but it's far from the best while talking about combat
Yes, I'm only talking about combat.

Motherball wrote: »

So much better than tab-targeting imo.

But I'm not comparing it to tab targeting, I'm comparing it to other action combat MMORPG

Jarryzzt wrote: »

1. The OP's post is a bit "bipolar" in that the topic talks about "competitors" while the text talks about ESO today vs. ESO of a couple of years ago. I suppose one can be one's own competitor, in a sense. Still.

2. Insofar as competitors, it depends on what one means by "competitor". MMOs in general? Fine, compare this to combat in World of Tanks. I will be sitting here, sniggering. MMORPGs (specifically) using more or less the same combat model (no auto-targeting, et cetera) as ESO? Umm...I am sure some exist, but WoW, TOR and LOTRO aren't it. [And we have very strong evidence that WoW and TOR have more subs than ESO based on Activision's and EA's filings.]

I would say that across the spectrum of MMOs, ESO's combat is a lot more "twitch"-based - another word is "arcade" - especially with the need to constantly weave and swap weapons at least twice every eight seconds. This is not bad per se, but it is a lot different than, say, the Dragon Age trilogy (auto-targeting, skill/order based, no bar switching, pause at any point). I.e. it works better for some, worse for others.

2a. Someone above flat-out declared that "Guild Wars 2 is best, all others are worse or not MMOs" - well, all right, except there are probably just as many people who would say WoW is best and all others are worse. That illustrates my point beautifully - it's all about subjective judgment because all these combat models are different.

Moreover, MMO just means "multi-player online" - World of Tanks is an MMO, both technically and practically. It's just not an MMORPG.

2b. To wit, I am using an old and beaten-up X360 controller on my PC, which just isn't quite as responsive as a new top-of-the-line model when it comes to attack weaving (particularly on destro staff, melee weapons feel better). This means I can get decent results, most of the time, but there is a very small chance I'll ever be able to kick out "top tier" DPS. Whereas in other games (Fallout 4, even, thanks to VATS), this is hardly an issue at all.

3. So is ESO "far worse" than its "competitors"? I wouldn't say that - just that it's different. Is it "far worse" than ESO from two years ago? Honestly, I do not remember. I do remember that two-three years ago I knew nothing about attack weaving, so fights actually involved fewer button presses than now.

I do think that ZOS had gone down the wrong path in terms of combat design by making this game "twitchy". Because one would guess that the average casual player might not clear certain hurdles (practicing weaving/bar switching/rotations) with anywhere near the ease as in WoW/TOR/LOTRO (where you memorize the sequence of numbers to punch on your keyboard at 1.5-3 second intervals, essentially). But I do not know how to change anything without changing everything, so I guess we are sort of stuck for now.

I do wish ZOS would take a look at making light attack more responsive on some of the weapons. For those of us with old, beaten-up X360 controllers...

Just to be clear, I've read your entire comment, thanks for taking the time Though I have to sorry in advance that I can't do the same to reply to you.
But I gotta say, do I think ESO combat has gone into the wrong path? Not entirely, the skill balance are progressing in a more positive note for sure, for ZOS has finally learnt to listen to the community (shocking, I know). But in order to achieve that balance, ZOS has also abandon the outdated animation, and also somehow made it worse actually.
ZOS actually had a bad habit of doing whatever the hell they think is good for the game. Thankfully our voice is now more valuable than ever before. Some might calls me whining, or utterly negative, but that's the cost for being different and honest to the mass, and I'd happily pay for that.

Undo the animation changes and we have good combat.

I played with GW2, that is too fast to me, but sometimes I feel ESO much faster (since I learned animation cancel especially).

Honestly? I am not fun with animation cancel because thus combat+dungeon teams build high dps mechanincs if the dungeon/trials parties have high dps you can skip almost every mechanics. But without anymation cancel we can't live :P

I would like
- see dungeons, trial where not required the high dps, rather require timeing, team work, skills, dexterity.
- if all dmg can be dodgeable. I don't like that I need learn that which boss mechanics dodgeable and which not (can stay in the enemy aoe just roll dodge when need VS need finish roll dodge or run away)
- swap weapon during dodge roll.
- use skills during I'm running almost all skill just stop running, and a few one don't stop for example rapid maneuver. I usually use run from enemy aoes and thus I need w8 a little bit before I can use a skill for example dmg shield.
- toogle skills would need on 1 bar (pets etc).

It's okay but the only thing I don't like is endgame rotations. But for PvE I wish boss combat had a lot more finesse than just trying to keep up an endless boring rotation for max DPS. For this reason I never do trials any more, as I find this to be extremely boring gameplay.

I don't know what the solution would be though. But I wish that skills were more situational than just trying to stack as many damaging effects and debuffs as possible. If you get adds. Maybe skills cost way more resources, but also make them stronger, so that you would use them when appropriate and not in a mindless rotation. Or maybe boss mechanics should be harder focus more on disrupting rotations.

End game Boss fights at the moment are just DPS races which i find very boring. Maybe more boss mechanics with insta kills, or possibility to steal aggro from tank if you generate too much DPS aggro. Less predictable and more random boss mechanics?

I'm not sure what the solution would be, but at the current state of end game I'm not really enjoying it. Hence I mostly solo or normal and vet group dungeons, as questing and exploring is a pushover and trials are boring.

The_Brosteen 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.

really trying to push the "eso combat is bad" stance kinda desperately there.

eso was my first mmo I ever played. I was one of those console plebs who got the game thinking it was going to be like skyrim.

Since I have tried many other mmos and quit each after less than a week because combat is not nearly as fun. The style of combat eso provides is much less slower pace, bland, or hack n slash, than other mmos. So what does that boil down to? preference.

side note, people who still complain about animation canceling crack me up. it's done man, let it go. or you could play something else.

so we'll just gonna ignore the issues that has been there since forever, and accept to live with it? Come on

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I think “MMO combat generally sucks” is a perfectly fine opinion, lol.

I’ve played more than a few MMOs over the years, and yeah, ESO’s combat is above average, imo. Sure, I can think of a few single player games with better combat mechanics, like Dark Souls. As far as MMO’s go, I can’t really think of any.

No, just no. Sorry but you're the first person that I have to 100% disagree. There's no reason for a game, coming out in 2014, but with combat of its 2006 cousin.

The first thing i want to improve, is to make melee range a melee range. The weapons can hit from absurd distances. One can rolldodge back from enemys attack and the blade hits few meters away from its tip.

The second thing is that game needs more weapon skill lines. Unarmed, one handed and staves fpr example. Staves could be like an extension to switch to whren one wants the destro or resto staff to turn in to melee weapon.