So i was looking at some videos of some upcomming games.  Both have "action" combat vs tab target.

Everything looked interesting with both of them untill i saw a boass fight.

On the ground they draw a red shape based on where the bosses next attack will damage...

I stopped and though "wow we have a game for really dumb people i guess"

Moved on to another video of another game comming out soon...and again it looked all good...then i saw the boss fights....WTF...again...draw littel ground shapes so i know not to stand there while the bosses animation runs thought...again...

Im getting worried that this is a new trend.  A way to make slightly difficult endgame encounters that required one sliver of brain power, a tad of following direction, and a pinch of competance...now reduced to "dont stand on the red shapes on the ground" as all you need to know for any and all boss fights.

I really hope this isnt a trend.  Its already hard enough for me to want to jump into a themepark, even hard for me to stick around for endgame...but with this new dummy proof boss mechanics... i dunno

Yes i relaize they kind of always had a form of this in games, usually it wasnt for every skill used.

Its a byproduct of the action bar / hot key style that nearly every mmo action or not uses.  Fact is without them you would have little warning of when a boss was about to one shot you.

How would you do it?  While keeping in mind factors like "drawing of the eye" and field of vision?

Everything is dumbed down now.

Take a look at questing. Instead of actually having to think about any given task, you simply hit "M" and follow the trail. It's boring...

Originally posted by Crunchy222

So i was looking at some videos of some upcomming games.  Both have "action" combat vs tab target.

Everything looked interesting with both of them untill i saw a boass fight.

 

On the ground they draw a red shape based on where the bosses next attack will damage...

 

I stopped and though "wow we have a game for really dumb people i guess"

Moved on to another video of another game comming out soon...and again it looked all good...then i saw the boss fights....WTF...again...draw littel ground shapes so i know not to stand there while the bosses animation runs thought...again...

 

Im getting worried that this is a new trend.  A way to make slightly difficult endgame encounters that required one sliver of brain power, a tad of following direction, and a pinch of competance...now reduced to "dont stand on the red shapes on the ground" as all you need to know for any and all boss fights.

 

I really hope this isnt a trend.  Its already hard enough for me to want to jump into a themepark, even hard for me to stick around for endgame...but with this new dummy proof boss mechanics... i dunno

 

Yes i relaize they kind of always had a form of this in games, usually it wasnt for every skill used.

LMAO ever play wow?  This is why people that are 'good' raiders in wow suck everywhere else.  They can't do a boss fight...almost a trash fight without being told where to stand and what skill to cast/use.  It is comical to watch though!

Originally posted by Kothoses

Its a byproduct of the action bar / hot key style that nearly every mmo action or not uses.  Fact is without them you would have little warning of when a boss was about to one shot you.

 

How would you do it?  While keeping in mind factors like "drawing of the eye" and field of vision?

The same way a real-life boxer can avoid a blow. He doesn't get some arrow warning on which way to dodge or where not to stand. He has watch everything to predict a blow, e.g., watching for shoulder movement, foot and balance movement, etc.

I agree with the OP. It makes MMOs feel like a dumpy Nintendo game.

Its not even about really dumbing it down i guess, or a byproduct of action combat.

It use to be fun getting the party wiped because the boss did something crazy you werent expecting...then to go back and remember what to watch out for. 

Bosses use to be about learning how to counter. It was a learning experience untill masterd made the event difficult...which was the point.

With this, bosses are about "now its going to take 5min to kill this instead of 20seconds with normal mobs"

Theres no learning, theres no questioning or theorizing how its best to complete the event...its just...dont stand in the retard proof red spots and be done with it...its BORING

To me its like making the boss tank'N'spank easy but making you dance a bit so it doesnt feel like your just standing there and tanking or mashing DPS without doing anything.  Guess its a step up from that, but still a big step down from difficult and mysterious boss encounters.  Mind you it was usually very obvious when to get the hell away from a boss due to animations that let you know something thats gonna hurt is comming.

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

Everything is dumbed down now.

First heard the day after they expanded the size of the original Pong paddle.

Everquest managed to go through 13 years and something like 19 expansions without any of that.  EQ2 has about 8 years going without any red outlines of doom.  LOTRO does not have any things like that.  Seems to work well in those games.

The mobs would say something or go through a specific animation and that would be your cue that something was about to happen.  In original EQ, sometimes they just did it and there was nothing you could do...either you were positioned right or wrong and died.

Nowadays you don't have to actually think.  You get your quest, your quest book, your quest log, and your quest update thing so no reading.  You get your little golden path of goodness so you never stray one foot from where you are led by the hand.  And the mobs are even curteous enough to outline their AOE effects with red chalk....how nice of them.

Yea...the genre has really evolved into something.

Originally posted by Hatefull

Originally posted by Crunchy222

So i was looking at some videos of some upcomming games.  Both have "action" combat vs tab target.

Everything looked interesting with both of them untill i saw a boass fight.

 

On the ground they draw a red shape based on where the bosses next attack will damage...

 

I stopped and though "wow we have a game for really dumb people i guess"

Moved on to another video of another game comming out soon...and again it looked all good...then i saw the boss fights....WTF...again...draw littel ground shapes so i know not to stand there while the bosses animation runs thought...again...

 

Im getting worried that this is a new trend.  A way to make slightly difficult endgame encounters that required one sliver of brain power, a tad of following direction, and a pinch of competance...now reduced to "dont stand on the red shapes on the ground" as all you need to know for any and all boss fights.

 

I really hope this isnt a trend.  Its already hard enough for me to want to jump into a themepark, even hard for me to stick around for endgame...but with this new dummy proof boss mechanics... i dunno

 

Yes i relaize they kind of always had a form of this in games, usually it wasnt for every skill used.

LMAO ever play wow?  This is why people that are 'good' raiders in wow suck everywhere else.  They can't do a boss fight...almost a trash fight without being told where to stand and what skill to cast/use.  It is comical to watch though!

No not a wow player.

However i did raid in Rift early on when the game was new...and those raids were hard.  I remember just with hardmode dungeons, took us about 30 tries to beat one boss, trying to figure how how to do it.  Once we learned it was great.  We felt like the only people able to do it and kind of made us go to people on advice.

See even when you tell others either through text or voice chat how to do a good boss encounter...its still hard to master for those who dont know.  So yeah telling everyon what to do makes it easier, but you still need to learn by doing.  Telegraphing you dont.

Originally posted by Crunchy222

So i was looking at some videos of some upcomming games.  Both have "action" combat vs tab target.

Everything looked interesting with both of them untill i saw a boass fight.

On the ground they draw a red shape based on where the bosses next attack will damage...

It is not dumbed down, it is simply a different gameplay that relies on reaction of the player. In a game it is hard to see and react to "realistic" indicators such as muscles movement, eye movemetn, etc, that you would use to judge your opponents move in real life, thus more simplistic indicators such as red circles have to be introduced.

Originally posted by Kothoses

Its a byproduct of the action bar / hot key style that nearly every mmo action or not uses.  Fact is without them you would have little warning of when a boss was about to one shot you.

 

How would you do it?  While keeping in mind factors like "drawing of the eye" and field of vision?

You don't need that warning. You should be able to distinguish what attacks a boss may do based on his movements. You'll learn the patterns as you fight a boss. That's how it's worked in Vindictus.

Good example is this boss fight.  Brutal, but players learn how to deal with it as they fight.

Uphill, in the snow, both ways!

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

The same way a real-life boxer can avoid a blow. He doesn't get some arrow warning on which way to dodge or where not to stand. He has watch everything to predict a blow, e.g., watching for shoulder movement, foot and balance movement, etc.

Playing a video game is same as boxing in real life?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

The same way a real-life boxer can avoid a blow. He doesn't get some arrow warning on which way to dodge or where not to stand. He has watch everything to predict a blow, e.g., watching for shoulder movement, foot and balance movement, etc.

Playing a video game is same as boxing in real life?

I suppose you could draw a parallel between the hand/eye coordination required in boxing with hand/eye coordination in FPS or action games, of course Boxing requires more than hand/eye coordination. I don't think it's a bad comparison. Besides, If you're fighting an enemy, why should he tell you where he's going to hit?

I can already imagine the monster's chat option:

- I'll kill you! But hey, if you move slightly left my attack will miss and you will survive!

-Out of the way, I'm using a large attack that could kill you....even though I want to kill you but hey, get out of the way anyway!

-See those water bucket over there? Use them to extinguish my fire so I can't kill you...even though I want to kill you!

-Take cover in that bunker, I'm using my ultimate attack!

Certainly doesn't feel too epic for a boss fight...

Are you against the boss giving any indication at all that it's going to attack?  Or are you only against it drawing on the ground "this is exactly where the boss is going to attack so you might want to move away"?  If the former, then I disagree, as getting killed without any way of knowing that it's coming or countering it does not make for interesting gameplay.

If the latter, and you're fine with a boss winding up to indicate that, say, it is in the process of swinging a sword, early enough that you can react quickly to mitigate the damage, then that's a different matter.  A game should at least make it clear after the fact where you would have taken damage, though this can be done by making the damage zone match the animation.  That's actually harder to do than you might think, though.

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

Everything is dumbed down now.

 

Take a look at questing. Instead of actually having to think about any given task, you simply hit "M" and follow the trail. It's boring...

then you certainly haven´t played TSW which raised the bar of quality on how MMO quests should be done

How is this a "new trend' it's been happening since the NES. Anyone play Punch Out? It had telegraphs. If you didn't avoid some of the boxers moves, you got OHKO'd.

So as for the guy that made the boxing analogy, there are telegraphs in real life boxing as well: shifting weight, eye movement, etc.

I like telegraphs, it means that if I don't get out of it that I'm bad and need to pay attention to more things. If I'm standing somewhere and the boss just instantly oneshots me for no reason then how does that make it more challenging or fun at all? It doesn't.

Older games, like EQ, had some tells - it started with something simple like enrage (which happened at 9% health every time and lasted for a set time period), but it eventually turned into something a bit more sophisticated - usually the boss /shouting something, or some other text trigger.

The biggest difference with "action" based games, vice tab-targeted games, is that you have the additional burden on the player of manually directing their attacks. They can't just watch the boss, spam abilities, and move out of the fire. They have the additional requirement to make sure they are aimed/lined up/in melee range/facing the right direction/etc - and that's a fairly large change, and requires a bit more concentration than the older tab-target system.

Sure, if your just swinging a 2h sword in a circle, it doesn't take much more coordination - but most combat systems are more robust and intricate than this, requiring character placement with relation to the opponent, in addition to manual aiming and timing - all while trying to watch for boss tells, pay attention to the group/raid force around them, watch the environment around them, perform their optimal combat strategy, and

Adding in a giant red circle just reduces the learning curve. Rather than taking 3-4 attempts to learn that "when the boss does this animation he's about to throw a fireball", you just reduce that learning process by reenforcing the action with another more obvious action. It doesn't make the act of moving any easier, or of performing any other actions any easier. Some people learn to associate a boss tell with an action sooner than others - depending on their level of concentration, their perception, their interest in the activity, etc. A big red circle just shortens that learning period for everyone, it doesn't change the actions that you have to take in order to respond to it.

Some people don't like it - I'm rather indifferent. Some people can't play without it, not everyone has near-superhuman perception and reflexes, and by lowering the barrier to entry (by making the encounters faster to learn), it broadens the audience.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

The same way a real-life boxer can avoid a blow. He doesn't get some arrow warning on which way to dodge or where not to stand. He has watch everything to predict a blow, e.g., watching for shoulder movement, foot and balance movement, etc.

Playing a video game is same as boxing in real life?

some ppl aparently think it is :D and it would be realy funny to find out what percentage of ppl are able to block or avoid punch in real life :D

A perfect example of an "action combat" game that does telegraphing right is Monster Hunter, no little red shapes on the ground but you can pay attention to what the monsters going to do and act accordingly.

Actually I'm pretty sure TERA is also very close to this (although there are some attacks with shapes on the ground) it's close enough. And to a lesser extent RaiderZ does this as well.

Some games are going to be easy to appeal to a mass audience, if you don't like them just avoid 'em.