I don't know when giving you a multitude of skills that do the same thing suddenly became the norm, but more complex it is certainly not. It gets to a point where you lose immersion because of those dang buttons. Our guild in EQ2 got together for the final fight of a heritage quest. This involved waves of mobs coming at us which I never actually saw because I was so focused on my buttons. Take a look at these hotbars:
So what I have here are four heals that I use. And the reason for them? Because they each have refresh timers, so I must switch to another heal while the other is refreshing. Now really why not one heal that refreshes right away? Am I more skillful because I know how to use my other heals? The same goes with my cures. I have four cures for various ailments. There is a cure for them all, but it's got a very long refresh so the single versions are better. I won't even go into the other buttons plus the bars you don't see that I keep at the top of my screen.
I've used my mystic here as example, but the same goes for my melee alts. All these damage dealing buttons that do the same thing with varying degrees of damage. I'm playing a button MMO. Press, press, press, keep watching for refresh, press, press.
I especially became more aware of this after sticking my nose back in EQ1. Their recent expansion pack dropped in price and hubby wanted to see what things were like now (but that's another story for later). I logged in my beastlord to see my one lonely hotbar:
Now there is a limited spellbar off to the side with my slow I use at the beginning of the fight and a heal for emergencies. And also there are special abilities on a separate bar I can only use once every few minutes. But for the most part it's attack on and kick. I took her out for a trial run to get a feel for the gameplay again. When things get tough or adds come, you're relying on non-hotbar abilities to get through. The biggest difference I noticed while playing was that I saw everything going on around me because I wasn't having to stare at my bars. I could actually enjoy my environment. What you're really relying on here is your gear and quick responses.
EQ1 may be a bit too extreme as far as limited abilities go in today's market but really I think things have gone overboard in some MMO's. You're getting the same thing disguised with different names and long refreshes so that it "feels" like you're getting more for your buck. I realize not all MMO's are as extreme as EQ2 as far as the volume of abilities go. But I do hope it's not a trend in upcoming MMO's. I'd really like to get back to enjoying the environment around me.
4 comments:
agreed.. completely. I wish they were more along the lines of motion control because I'm a wii addict but yeah.. every MMO I play has at least 30 different moves by the end game and your supposed to know how to use at least 80% of them if not all... :P
I think having 10 strong abilities throughout the game would be enough, so long as said abilities receivd upgrades to make progression felt when leveling (if we're talking about a class-based game anyway).
I don't mean "rank 4 of 10" either. But say going from Fireball to Firestorm to Fire Tempest. Same basic premise, but more umph behind each increase, and a new animation to make the change visual.
I mean, in WoW my Hunter has what, 9 billion skills and spells and I use maybe 10 on a rotation. Options are good, choices are nice, but too many to make can kill a good recipe.
If Spellborn is executed the way it's supposed to, then your answer is right there. You have a skill deck which rotates (I think its five options each time, and when you use a skill it rotates through four sets of five) but you also need to use an aiming reticule and if you aren't aimed directly at the target, you will miss, and likewise, you can dodge attacks as well. I'm not saying it will work flawlessly or completely as planned, but this satisfies both your desire for less skills to focus on as well as focusing more on the game itself.
I could absolutely deal with 10 abilities and something more fun than the ranks as you suggested, Bildo.
As for Spellborn, from what I read previously, I definitely agree the combat mechanics sound interesting. If it weren't for certain other aspects of the game, I would most definitely be giving it a try.
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