Older MMO's tended to use tab target auto combat with a lot of skills on bars. ESO's is a lot more interactive, but is probably becoming more of the standard these days moving forward. MMO's older formulas grew stale, I mean WoW is still around but I don't think those styles can keep up long term.

Below is what I'd written initially, but looking at the comments posted in the intervening time, it sounds like I'm doing someting wrong in ESO


Depends on what you mean by "MMO". Opinions probably differ on definitions, but I think the following is reasonable for an impression:

ESO is a Western MMORPG in the WoW-lineage, alongside Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and the like. These all have fundamentally the same combat control mechanism with rows of individual abilities that you activate.

Neverwinter Online is a Western MMORPG almost all ways, but has more of an ARPG-style combat control system.

Black Desert Online is in many ways similar to a Western MMORPG in aesthetics and feeling (or at least it did years ago, I think it's gone more Korean-style weird modern outfits now), with some interestingly different features, but IIRC had a 'spectacle-fighter'-style combo-based combat system like many Asian games which didn't suit me personally.

Then there's ARPGs with varying levels of MMO-like features, like Diablo III/IV, Lost Ark, and Path of Exile, which obviously have a different viewpoint and control system.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were still sprite-based 'pre-WoW' MMORPG servers alive, like Ultima Online and Ragnarok Online.

ESO's combat is sort of like a hybrid between MMO combat like WoW and action RPGs like TES V: Skyrim.


To compare it directly to Skyrim, you have your Ultimate ability which is a parallel to the Shout/Power ability you select in Skyrim. Funnily enough, ESO's implementation of Werewolf is very similar to Skyrim's — you activate a Power/Ultimate (that can only be used once per day or costs a lot of Ultimate) to transform, and you can feed on slain enemies to extend the transformation. Also of note is how the default keybind on PC for using a Shout/Power is "Z", which is the sheath/unsheath weapon button in ESO, while the default keybind for using an Ultimate is "R", which is the sheath/unsheath weapon button in Skyrim.

Light and Heavy Attacks work similarly between ESO and Skyrim, except Heavy Attacks restore resources in ESO, while they deplete resources in Skyrim — there was an overhaul to Light/Heavy Attacks planned for the Greymoor Update which was going to make it more similar to Skyrim, but the overhaul was canceled and moved to a Mythic item coming in Update 46.

Skyrim doesn't really have "abilities" the way ESO and other MMORPGs do. The closest parallel would be wielding spells in your left or right hand — in ESO, you always have a weapon equipped, but you activate an ability to use those sort of spells. So, it's actually better than in Skyrim because you don't need to unequip your weapon to use magic.

ESO combat is light years ahead of most MMOs. The old EQ/WoW paradigm is pretty awful to me in 2025.

It's unfortunate that eso combat gets worse every year. It was SUCH a rush the first few years because players could die fast if they weren't sharp in both PVE and PVP. It's a snoozefest today in comparison. Like the heavy attack cue is so long in most cases now, it's actually absurd. I remember having to stay focused on the enemy animations to avoid a lot of one-shots.

Because of this, the kind of player who would actually appreciate the fast, fluid, high apm fundamentals of eso combat is often repulsed by how ridiculously easy it is.

I believe a time will come when its fundamentals will be implemented by another dev to good effect.

OK. Thanks folks for giving me MMO information.

So, according to major opinion, ESO is based on average MMO game concept.
That means ESO will become my first MMO and last MMO. Each time I hear combat
BGM starting in ESO, my heart go to deepest depth of the sea. Every combat of ESO is
so painful, dull, boring, nonsense, disgusting always. Simply it's not cool. Without
ElderScrolls IP, then I didn't buy this game in 2014.

But...

Just I want to know "2" issue. If ESO is average MMO style game....

Q1, Why MMO combat is not cool at all. And, why it keeps staying ancient fossil gaming style?

Q2, Some MMO fan say, "GuildWar2 is better MMO than ESO". Why?

ESO's action combat design was pretty innovative back when the game released. Back then (heck, even still today) a lot of MMOs used tab-targeting, which is far inferior to action combat in terms of getting you invested in the "action" of a fight, not to mention immersion. Then there's also secondary mechanics that also impact combat, like dodging, sprinting, and sneaking, all of which were not the industry standard either.

But these days action combat is very much the norm, at least from the new MMOs I've seen on the market. So I can understand it feeling a bit stale for some people. Yet for an MMO I don't know what more we could get (aside from a huge evolution like VR combat).

It's pretty clear that the ESO team tried to make the game's combat reminiscent of the single-player TES games, with action combat, broadly free-aiming abilities/attacks, sprinting, etc. But the "aimbot" thing you mentioned was necessary because otherwise it would be virtually impossible for a ranged player to land a hit in fast-paced (PvP) combat. It's one thing to practise a bit in Skyrim and learn to land hits on a moving dragon, but it's another to fight a player spinning around you and weaving behind every obstacle known to man. So simplifying things like projectiles was a sacrifice they needed to make for gameplay.

Other combat mechanics like targeted injury (which isn't available in single-player TES games, but people tend to add with mods) also wouldn't have made sense because the game was designed to play in zoomed-out third-person perspective, where targeting individual limbs is next to impossible. Sure, you can play in first-person (that's how I like to do my questing/world content for immersion), but do a single dungeon and you realise that everything was designed around seeing the entire battlefield, not just what's in front of you.

Orbital78 wrote: »

Older MMO's tended to use tab target auto combat with a lot of skills on bars. ESO's is a lot more interactive, but is probably becoming more of the standard these days moving forward. MMO's older formulas grew stale, I mean WoW is still around but I don't think those styles can keep up long term.

This, the classical is the WOW tab targeting, usually using mouse to move like in strategy games.
ESO playes much more like Oblivion I say except selecting an ability uses it not selecting it for use.
Rotation is important in pretty much any MMO, you use an buff, put down AoE, perhaps an debuff then an damage over time before the spamable.
Make me wonder, with the spell maker in Oblivion remastered could you mod in cast on use of 1-8 for rotation 😺

sans-culottes wrote: »

“High APM” is just button spam dressed up as depth.

It is only "spam" if one chooses to spam the same ability over repeatedly, which would be an example of poor play.

Decent ESO players execute deliberate rotations contextually. The actual shortcoming is not spam, it's that combat can become too procedural. Fortunately, most groups are so chaotic that dynamism is normal.

It is only in highly structured groups that combat becomes completely procedural, but this is after a long process of trial and error.

Even though it is so easy, I still get a lot of satisfaction from the ESO combat by executing smoothly and essentially competing with myself to improve.

Though we say rotation like it's completely static, in reality rotations are usually composed of many sub rotations, particularly in PVP. It is really gratifying to smoothly combine subroutines in the moment while reading and reacting with only a split second to make a decision.

eso has the most flexible combat system. You have a wide variety of things to slot and ways to equip. No other mmo can match these systems. Even the 1 second gcd is a great system as this idea is sound.

it comes apart when excessive weaving, buffing and cancelling is required to do damage. its overkill, and has always limited this game. People want to play the game not mash buttons as fast as they can. it was already great with the 1 second gcd...It dont work for most players and dont work for pvp due to latency. This is why outside these forums the combat system is considered one of the worst.

let it be a lesson in reasonability. You can go too far with something.

The combat system is the main reason I play ESO and not other MMO's. The quests, the lore in ESO is incredibly mediocre (the world building and housing is good) compared other MMOs so the combat is what keeps the game somewhat unique.

The day they change the fundamentals of the combat is the day I'm out.

Thysbe wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

eso has the most flexible combat system. You have a wide variety of things to slot and ways to equip. No other mmo can match these systems. Even the 1 second gcd is a great system as this idea is sound.

I disagree - played all the DD classes and specs and it´s always the same - a spamable 2-5 Dots you have to keep up and if you want to go for high DPS its the same skills repeating in every DD. The difference between the classes is neglible as well as range combat is basically dead since u35 - it´s 1 camp, daggers are the to go weapon for years now.

This point comes up so often but in truth the only wide variety you have is in Roleplay builds were 20-30k more or less don´t matter. The variety in more demanding PVE is close to zero.

Arcanist is awful with the beam - what is fast and flexible about that? I mean its fun to use it and try to find optimal angle to get as much cleave as possible, but its very static gameplay.

In Wow you have high Damage burst skills you have to use knowingly in the right situation, there are trade offs between the classes - rouges made ultra high damage but were hard to play and squishy as medium armor classes right in front of Boss melee cleave. And to clear a mythic trial you need all those different classes with their different strenghts and buffs.

GW2 is way faster and more fluent than ESO, same for throne and Liberty - where I enjoyed combat so much. Since everything was weapon bound you could easily reskill a character. Bow/Staff felt awesome, Hurricane in big scale PVP was a blast. Dungeons were fast paced with punishing mechanics. Loved it but it was too PVP focused with all dominating professional guilds for my taste.

I am in the "I stay for housing" camp too.

its still the most versatile on a player basis. I agree the content design is generally bad and pushes overly dps centric builds rather than well rounded characters.

I've played a lot of Guild Wars 2. A lot of the skills there are target based - in fact, there are a fair number which will basically say 'you need to have a target to use this skill'. And the unfortunate fact is that if you use any form of auto targeting, it basically sucks, and the big fights (where you actually care about efficiency tend to have lots of extra creatures about).

In some ways, I like the simpler/more flexible combat of ESO. GW2 have 10 skills (actions) for combat, but the first 5 are determined by your weapons, and of the other 5, one is your healing skill, one is your elite (ultimate), which leaves 3 other ones.

But this is certainly preferential. As I get older (don't we all), my reflexes are not getting any faster, and while some complain about ESO being too slow (and thus easy to block/dodge/move from attacks), I found with GW2 that more often I'd just be a tenth of a second too slow to react, or not able to identify the few safe areas on a battlefield covered in AoE in time. And more and more, to make things challenging, GW2 made it so if you miss that dodge/movement, you are dead (or nearly so such that the next attack takes you down).

One thing is that every MMO is going to have real time combat, but necessity. If you don't want the real time combat, then single player games can be a good choice. But I think one would really need to try the different games and see what they like and it would be hard to make blanket statements.

ESO is also my first— and so far my only— MMO, so I have no experience with combat in other MMOs.

But comparing ESO’s combat to other TES games, I enjoy it a lot. It’s great to be able to assign specific actions— attacks, defenses, heals, buffs, debuffs, etc.— to specific keys and then directly fire them off at will.

The quickslots wheel can be tricky, since you must select which quickslotted action or item you want to use before you can actually use it, but it’s handy once you get the hang of it.

One thing I haven’t tried yet is using a game controller instead of mouse and keyboard. It looks like most PvP streamers use a game controller, and the combat does seem to be designed with game controllers in mind.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ESO's combat is sort of like a hybrid between MMO combat like WoW and action RPGs like TES V: Skyrim.


To compare it directly to Skyrim, you have your Ultimate ability which is a parallel to the Shout/Power ability you select in Skyrim. Funnily enough, ESO's implementation of Werewolf is very similar to Skyrim's — you activate a Power/Ultimate (that can only be used once per day or costs a lot of Ultimate) to transform, and you can feed on slain enemies to extend the transformation. Also of note is how the default keybind on PC for using a Shout/Power is "Z", which is the sheath/unsheath weapon button in ESO, while the default keybind for using an Ultimate is "R", which is the sheath/unsheath weapon button in Skyrim.

Light and Heavy Attacks work similarly between ESO and Skyrim, except Heavy Attacks restore resources in ESO, while they deplete resources in Skyrim — there was an overhaul to Light/Heavy Attacks planned for the Greymoor Update which was going to make it more similar to Skyrim, but the overhaul was canceled and moved to a Mythic item coming in Update 46.

Skyrim doesn't really have "abilities" the way ESO and other MMORPGs do. The closest parallel would be wielding spells in your left or right hand — in ESO, you always have a weapon equipped, but you activate an ability to use those sort of spells. So, it's actually better than in Skyrim because you don't need to unequip your weapon to use magic.

As someone who is currently going back and playing through Skyrim because I'm bored in ESO, the werewolf feels INSANE in skyrim lol you just run around shredding entire towns and feel beyond powerful. ESO's werewolf is super weak and it's bizarre that the devs have said absolutely nothing. Same for vamp. I'd love a pure vamp and pure werewolf character but they're incredibly weak