Age of Conan

All the talk about melee combat is fine but what about nukes and ranged attacks. Do you actually have to aim? or is it target mash mash mash like all other mmos?

As for macro'n combos to one button that sounds horrible to me. People without these macros will be at a huge disadvantage vs people with them. 1 button for 3-4 attacks dumbs the game down. I really hope they dont allow you to macro up the attacks (same sequence every time for each combo) and randomize the directions when the combo starts.

Originally posted by URMAKER

get you a g15 or similar keyboard/gamepad where you can create macros. you can macro all the steps in any combo to 1 button and you'll never mess one up. no one uses active blocking stamina is to valuable. as far as dbl tapping try to learn to dbl tap forward all the time its almost a guaranteed stun.

It's an interesting combat system, and maybe with more practice I'll become much better at it.

But right now I'm most effective leaving my shield balanced and just spamming my combat attacks and not worrying about dodging and blocking.

I haven't gotten the foward dbl tap to work yet. No stuns.

And the movement + attacking is only a problem if dealing with bunny hoppers. I do of course use the mouse to turn/look but also to click action bar slots 6-0 so...

I dunno. It's a good attempt, it's fun and interesting, but no where near perfect. WIth time and practice I may enjoy it better.. but I've logged at least 20 hours this weekend playing and as I said the most effective solution I've found is spamming abilities.

I dunno.. I guess my perfect combat system would be taking the fighting from one of the Legend of Zelda games and putting it in a MMO.

Having to click an ability button then fire off the combo sequence just seems more like an annoyance then an innovation. The no auto-attack 3 direction swinging it great, but it really really really should trigger your abilites if you use the right combination.. without having to pre-click the ability.

I dunno, maybe it's just me.

Originally posted by URMAKER

Originally posted by heerobya

It's pretty cool... but also annoying.

It's GREAT for the PvE because you have to pay attention to your enemies defenses and such.

In PvP it can be annoying as hell.

 

Using WASD to keep yourself in range and facing your target + having to use the 1,2,3 keys for everything....

I end up screwing up a lot of combos. This burns the cooldown on the ability without firing it off.

It makes Bunny Hoppers 10x times worse.

I don't know how the shield rings are useful in PvP. You can't see your opponents shield rings in PvP so what's the point in using them? You can't see their defenses so you can't react to them, might as well just leave your shield rings evenly distributed.

I doubt ANYONE can react fast enough to redistribute their shield rings using the CTRL + 1,2,3 keys while using WASD to stay in range and 1,2,3 to run their attacks and combos... It's almost too much.

You simply can't do it all at once. 

Also I've barely noticed anyone actually using the Active Blocking (X) system that is suppose to increase your chance to parry / block an incoming attack.

And I don't think I've ever seen anyone use the Active Dodging (double tap WASD) effectively.

 

get you a g15 or similar keyboard/gamepad where you can create macros. you can macro all the steps in any combo to 1 button and you'll never mess one up. no one uses active blocking stamina is to valuable. as far as dbl tapping try to learn to dbl tap forward all the time its almost a guaranteed stun.

WoW!

This actually takes bunnyhopping to whole new levels

Now not only you will be largely disadvantaged against dexterfingers that are able to strafe jump turn and press skill buttons , but they are using 100$ specialized hardware to cheat the gameplay ....

Autofire FTW

The combat is interesting but honestly it seems the fights don't last long enough to really take advantage of alot of it. The shield position is a good example. It was a nice idea but poorly implemented imo. It would have made alot more sense to make hotkey buttons for the shield positions similar to the directional attacks.

As far as combos and macros ect. I would have thought it would have been more interesting to have the combo moves random rather than being the same all the time. So when you click a combo the follow up directional attacks are random making it more of a reaction than just memorizing or macroing certain keys.

Maybe when people get used to the system more it will be different but right now it pretty much just seems like people run into each other and spam combos without paying a whole lot of attention to defense.

Originally posted by skeptical

As far as combos and macros ect. I would have thought it would have been more interesting to have the combo moves random rather than being the same all the time. So when you click a combo the follow up directional attacks are random making it more of a reaction than just memorizing or macroing certain keys.

The thing with random combos would make people just stare at the combat rose the whole time and not really fighting... IMO.  I'd rather play the game then the interface if you ask me.

Originally posted by Illius

Originally posted by skeptical

As far as combos and macros ect. I would have thought it would have been more interesting to have the combo moves random rather than being the same all the time. So when you click a combo the follow up directional attacks are random making it more of a reaction than just memorizing or macroing certain keys.

The thing with random combos would make people just stare at the combat rose the whole time and not really fighting... IMO.  I'd rather play the game then the interface if you ask me.

I'm sure the same people that are complaining about the combat system being too much like wow will be the same people using macros to make the combat.....just like wow....go figure.

Having combos start just with pressing your attack buttons is how the game used to be. And while it certainly meant players that memorized them and learned them were better, it also had several draw backs.

First, at high lvl you'd have so many combos on only 5 attack directions. You might have 2 or 3 per direction, and a few players would know their combos, the majority would just be spamming what ever keys lit up.

Next, combos didn't feel 'unique' enough.  There didn't feel like there was a reason to use one over another.

As the above poster said, people were staring at the 'combat rose' to watch for what next attack would light up, as most wouldn't memorize their attacks.

The system didn't know what combo you were executing until you hit that last combo 'key'. For this reason the devs couldn't add any unique animations or fx to combos until the very last attack.

Now, the system could have worked, but it would have been rather archaic and the average player would have resorted to just smashing buttons to see what happens.

With the current system, because you press a hotkey to start a combo, the system knows immediately and can apply 'early' affects. Specific attacks, animations, starting affects ,etc.

Players now know which combos they are using, so they spend much less time staring at the combo bar. You can still memorize your combo 'moves' because even after pressing the hotkey you've got 1-5 presses to follow up with, and because the combat has synergy and uses momentum. A player who knows which keys to press in a long combo, will get that combo finished much quicker and more efficiently. You see this especially in PvP. Where combos take real practice and timing and reflexes to pull of well. But they can be devastating. Even at lvl 20.

So it could be argued that the combat system is a bit 'dumbed down.' But it is easier to learn, while still having a lot of depth and variety and still uses a lot of player skill to achieve at full affect.

Edit: I almost forgot..

..and it's fun as hell! It's a 'breath of fresh' air in a genre stuffed with 'press a button and go make a sandwich' combat. It has as much depth as you want, while still being simple to learn, but difficult to master. You can do the same combos over a month, and still find it enjoyable. You can get a fatality 15 times, and still go 'OOH DAMN! on the 16th!

THAT, is what will make AoC successful. Well, that and a beautiful world designwith rich story and questing and and hellacious PvP.

Originally posted by Fion

Having combos start just with pressing your attack buttons is how the game used to be. And while it certainly meant players that memorized them and learned them were better, it also had several draw backs.

First, at high lvl you'd have so many combos on only 5 attack directions. You might have 2 or 3 per direction, and a few players would know their combos, the majority would just be spamming what ever keys lit up.

Next, combos didn't feel 'unique' enough.  There didn't feel like there was a reason to use one over another.

As the above poster said, people were staring at the 'combat rose' to watch for what next attack would light up, as most wouldn't memorize their attacks.

The system didn't know what combo you were executing until you hit that last combo 'key'. For this reason the devs couldn't add any unique animations or fx to combos until the very last attack.

 

Now, the system could have worked, but it would have been rather archaic and the average player would have resorted to just smashing buttons to see what happens.

 

With the current system, because you press a hotkey to start a combo, the system knows immediately and can apply 'early' affects. Specific attacks, animations, starting affects ,etc.

Players now know which combos they are using, so they spend much less time staring at the combo bar. You can still memorize your combo 'moves' because even after pressing the hotkey you've got 1-5 presses to follow up with, and because the combat has synergy and uses momentum. A player who knows which keys to press in a long combo, will get that combo finished much quicker and more efficiently. You see this especially in PvP. Where combos take real practice and timing and reflexes to pull of well. But they can be devastating. Even at lvl 20.

 

So it could be argued that the combat system is a bit 'dumbed down.' But it is easier to learn, while still having a lot of depth and variety and still uses a lot of player skill to achieve at full affect.

 

Edit: I almost forgot..

 

..and it's fun as hell! It's a 'breath of fresh' air in a genre stuffed with 'press a button and go make a sandwich' combat. It has as much depth as you want, while still being simple to learn, but difficult to master. You can do the same combos over a month, and still find it enjoyable. You can get a fatality 15 times, and still go 'OOH DAMN! on the 16th!

THAT, is what will make AoC successful. Well, that and a beautiful world designwith rich story and questing and and hellacious PvP.

Yes but anyone with a marco for the hotkey AND all subsiquent moves will fair much better in pvp than someone going through the progression  manually would they not? Even if you have all your combos memorised it wont be as perfect as a macro doing it for you. Also with the macro you can use more of your attention on movement... I have not played AoC yet but this seems very discouraging to me.