What are Action-MMORPGs lacking ? Or not lacking ?

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,408
185
Many a debate has been had around here about Action MMORPGs vs traditional tab target MMORPGs. Personally I nearly always fall back to the traditional style because i feel that group and caster gameplay tend to suffer in action MMOs.

That said, I have been playing a few older games of late ( solo RPGs ) and one caught me by surprise with its combat. That game is Mass Effect - I played it years ago but played a sniper while this time I went Biotic with a pistol. With essentially crowd control abilities ( biotic talents ) I act as a Crowd control class and aid the DPS in my squad by "lining up" mobs to be taken down.

All I keep thinking is, this could be a neat way to improve both spell casters and even more so group play a) spells are still interesting and its more than 1-2 of them with upgrades and b) there is a real group dynamic in place.


Couple other ideas.

AI needs to improve- Action combat with a mob just standing there in sight waiting for you to hit it seems like the game at the carnival where you shoot water into the clowns mouth ? seems odd developers have not improved on the old "aggro range" thing... In an action game to me if you are going for that realism aggro range should be sight based, they see you they come.

Dungeon alerts and infiltration- There should be benefits to infiltrating dungeons and not just plowing in. In the past we did this via "pulls" but if you are thinking more action, taking enemies out when their friends are out of hearing range ( silent kill or other ) would be an interesting start and if you make noise they should send the lot at you.


Curious what ideas folks have here to improve group play with more action style of combat.
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,346
11,737
Casters should be able to cast while moving. If they wear light armor there is no cast penalty but wearing heavier increases the spell time.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,518
583
Less strategy. Example is healing spam in DCUO. Also exhausting after 4 hours of play.
 

bixxby

Molten Core Raider
2,750
47
Being a wow clone with slightly more involved combat has been the bane of every action mmo so far.
 

axeman_sl

shitlord
592
0
They just tend to lack progression room. So many of these modern MMORPGs have no substance whatsoever, you play for two weeks and then you've run out of ways to improve your character. Then the main reason for playing an MMORPG is missing, and since the games tend to have shit PvP as well, there's no reason whatsoever to even stay past the sign-up month. I want an MMORPG where it takes some time and effort to accomplish things and where the top end stuff is at least a little exclusive, not something every single player can easily accomplish simply by continuing to play. Everquest had it right, but it was a little too demanding of the player. WoW had it right for the first three or four years. Nothing has since provided anything remotely like that, and the genre is not lacking new gimmicks or fluid actiony controls, it's lacking a reason to fucking play the games for long enough that you feel invested in it. Developers need to stop basing games around irrelevant shit like "I want to remove targeting" or "I want players to be able to change their class at any time" and start making games that the players will fucking care about.
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,346
11,737
tl;dr: A massive world needs a to be utilized and not reduced to cities to be AFKed at while in queues. 50 huge zones mean fuckall when your game is a glorified lobby system for phases and instances of the month.
 

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,587
11,901
I love action combat and prefer it over tab target crap. I would love to play a MMO though that had Final Fantasy type combat though , not the mmo but games like FFIIIIII.
 

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,408
185
Stop trying to dress up wow combat and call it an action game
Have to agree... its funny as much as I have rejected action combat MMOs i think its because they are just wow dressed up with 1/2 ass action combat. I am playing Dragon's Dogma right now and all i see there are possibilities for MMOs...
 

Furious

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,921
4,994
Fliber floppers or danglers in the non lithuntic sense. Maybe if there was a few more put in, putin would play more.
 

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,587
11,901
Can't have true action combat because all the frail bitches come and cry about their carpel tunnel.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,518
583
Can't have true action combat because all the frail bitches come and cry about their carpel tunnel.
It's not so much the carpel tunnel as the fact with EQ/VG/Vanilla WoW Combat I can watch TV, cook lunch and or dinner, write a bit, surfpornthe internet, all while playing the game for 8+ hours on a Saturday.
 

Abefroman

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
12,587
11,901
It's not so much the carpel tunnel as the fact with EQ/VG/Vanilla WoW Combat I can watch TV, cook lunch and or dinner, write a bit, surfpornthe internet, all while playing the game for 8+ hours on a Saturday.
Zero problem with that. The problem is not realizing some people want different things and shitting up every thread with omg carpel.