Category Archives: Games

#Transistor – A Solid Indie

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I will start with a clear message.  Go and buy Transistor.

From the same folks that brought you Bastion, comes Transistor.  You can watch a ton of YouTube about the art and flow of the game, which really is only a portion of the fun.  The real meat and potatoes is the strategic combat.

Background first.  You start in media-res, with little explanation as to why you have a talking sword (the game’s namesake).  He points you around and explains things briefly but the core story is like reading a book, gently exposing more and more story as you move along.  The game is set in a virtual world, where the Program determines people’s outcomes.  Your sword can absorb people’s essences or you can acquire them through choices in the level up process.

Purty

These essences are the skills used in combat.  Each has 3 functions, either as a primary attack, as a boost to another primary attack (2 per), or as a passive boost (4 max) to your character.  Each has a set “value” and you can only equip a certain total amount of values at any given time.  As you level up, you get the choice of adding more to that cap, or unlocking more boost and passive slots.  You also get to unlock Limiters, which drastically increase the difficulty of the game but also increase your experience rewards.  You could enable enemies to deal double damage and respawn quickly for example.  It adds a serious level of challenge.

The core skills are varied enough.  Some are direct short attacks, others long range of over time.  Combining the skills provide additional lore and can make a heck of a difference in combat.  I use a long range DoT attack, that also has a front end damage spike and an AE effect upon contact.  Combined with a Stealth-get-out-of-dodge move, I play a more defensive/stealthy game.  I’ve also tried a brute force attack, which was a combination of a “vacuum” pull attack combined with a big AE and knockback.  I think I’m at about 15 skills now, so the options are pretty wide.

Combat also runs in two distinct modes.  First is the regular active combat in real time.  You also can pause time and use “Turn()” to plan out attacks.  Each attack takes up a portion of the meter but you move so fast that sometimes it’s better to use it defensively.  After you send the attack, it takes a while to generate more Turn and your skills are locked, so you’re pretty defenseless.  You need to really think things through!  If you do end up losing your hit points, you lose access to one of your active skills.  Lose them all and it’s game over.  You can restore skills at save points.

You do get a “home base” of sorts, with challenge rooms.  Some are pretty darn hard but once you complete them, it really changes the way you look at the game.  The game proper is only about 6 hours but there’s a New Game+ option.  The dynamic combat, quick pickup and play and system flexibility certainly give it a lot of replay value too.

I will end with a clear message.  Go and buy Transistor.

#Wildstar – Getting Ready

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To the surprise of no one, I have a rather large hankering for some Wildstar.  Given that the game’s approach to classes is akin to SWTOR (every class plays DPS and either Tank or Healer) and that time has shown me that I have no tolerance for tanking, I am going heals baby!  That and telegraphs in your face aren’t so much fun thanks Neverwinter!  That leaves 3 classes, Esper, Medic and Spellslinger.  I have played all of them to about 15 in the beta.  They play drastically different from each other.

Side note, Wildstar has a “tiered” difficulty setting, per zone.  The starter zone and the tutorial (once you actually land) get you to about level 7-8.  They are cake and meant to show you how all the systems work together.  The next zone (2 per faction) gets you to level 15-18 and shows you every other system but mounts.  It is quite a bit larger than the previous and a fair chunk harder.  The next zones…those ones are where the real difficulty starts.  Multiple enemies, you have access to all core skills, lots of telegraphs, new quests, lots of exploring.  So, tutorial ‘til about 7, learner’s permit ‘til about 15, meat and potatoes after that.

Back to classes, I have to say that I’ve found more fun in the Esper than the other two.  Medic has to get into near-melee range and the Spellslinger’s mechanics with Spell Surge don’t particularly jive with me.  The Esper is a pain in the butt to start, given that their core attack skill requires you to stand still, but the payoff later is a lot of flexibility.  The upside is that they are by far the least played class in the game, which means that if I stink, there’ll be less people to compare to!  I do plan on running Dominion too, just because I like their storyline a bit more.  Unfortunately, the race selection or rather restrictions, mean that I can only really run a Chua Esper.  Not so bad but I was hoping for more choice than Human and hamster.

I also reserved my name.  Even with the tech issues, no one is getting Asmiroth but me.  Dibs for sure!

But that’s the core of a themepark MMO.  The framework.  What really makes a difference is playing the game.

UI – I like the UI.  It’s a combination of MOBA action with tab-targeting for some other skills.  There’s a lot going on but the simple UI keeps it tidy.  Movement is fluid, telegraphs are very visible, effects are clear, graphics are solid.  The extra bits, lore and whatnot, are in additional UI elements that are hidden from the core set but still accessible.  Even the Path UI elements work well.  The only thing that doesn’t is costumes, as you need to be in the capital city to access it.  I expect that to change.  I also like the art style, which I think is going to be the #1 thing for most people.

Combat – Things work.  Check YouTube for a ton of streams that show how combat actually flows between the various skills.  Resource management works.  Priority skill management too.  Active combat does have some hectic parts but it isn’t so overwhelming.  You aren’t tasked with doing 8 things at once.  If you have to avoid stuff, then that’s all you need to do.  The good part is that you need to pay attention and the bad side is that you need to pay attention.  The days of face-rolling and standing in the fire are done.  Red stuff will kill you, which is going to make for a very steep skill wall for most players.  I think that FF14s success has shown that players are ready for this.

Lore & Flavor – This part is often overlooked but is the heart of the game.  How the various pieces interact and the reasoning for moving forward.  The storylines aren’t throwaway, they are consistent across the entire faction.  While SWTOR set the bar on story delivery it lacked a fair amount of cohesion.  ESO lore is excellent and I can easily compare Wildstar to that.  Lore pieces are everywhere.  Each nook and cranny holds something new.  All the paths except Solider also provide a fair amount of insight into the lore.  I do like that NPCs consistently appear between zones and mean something.  Hemmit Nesingway resounds with people.  I expect to have dozens of those examples within Wildstar.  Plus housing.  I could write an entire post on housing.

Social – The grouping tools were pretty smooth, guilds too.  You can downlevel to play with friends and instances use a Rally system to level you to the correct level for dungeons and PvP zones.  There is little phasing that blocks grouping too and since there are so many open quests that you can re-run, there’s plenty of opportunity to find other folk.  Downside is the spawn rate on some of those open quests.  I think that GW2 and FF14 use this system very well and it seems to work here too.

Economy – This one is a bit different.  Auction house is similar to GW2 with buy and sell orders.  It also separates commodities from items, which is pretty neat.  Beta was not a good example of how this system will work, just due to poor volume and low level characters.  It’s a solid thought but I’m curious as to how volume will “bottom out” the market as it is in GW2 currently.  Crafting is solid though, with 2 separate streams, similar to the AH.  Consumables use a hot/cold mini game to craft.  Items can be mass produced or customized.  They are also generated every other level like ESO, which avoids the “item gap” present in most other games.  A talent-like system is also there, which provides some customization.

 

Now I know this comes off as very fan-boi and there’s a whole lot of truth to it.  You basically have to like the art style, the “theme” of off-the wall zaniness (which I personally find closer to irony than otherwise) and the combat model.  If those 3 click for you, then you’re in for a fun ride.  If they don’t, then there really isn’t a point in trying.  For me, I’m really quite looking forward to a new take on the themepark model.

#Wildstar – Music

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So, while I am rarely a OST fan I think WildStar might be doing me in.  Here’s a quick (super quick) video of the 2nd starter zone for Dominion – Ellevar.  When I say starter zone, I mean the level 7+ zone.

While this is more gregorian chant, the music actually changes to a more instrumental violin affair after about 5 minutes.  While my wife is not a gamer, she was highly impressed by the music – which is the complete opposite normally.  I have earphones on all the time but this one is a likely exception.

Hats off Carbine.

Neverwinter – Icewind Dale

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I make no secret that I am a rather huge D&D fan.  I don’t get the chance to play the tabletop version anymore but the world and rules have always fascinated me.  Neverwinter has that near perfect combination of lore/structure and action-oriented combat to keep me coming back.

Expansion #3 is out today, Curse of Icewind Dale, and it seems to be adding a fair bit of content to boot.  Raids, dungeons, a new campaign with daily quests, new paragon path for the Ranger, a new profession (Black Ice) and dynamic group content (aka Public Events).  While there is some vertical progression, as the game uses a gear score, there’s actually a fair amount of horizontal progression as well.  Experience is no longer “wasted” and you continue to gain “levels” of a sort.  These give you points to allocate to your active skills.  You can’t slot more skills, you just have more skills to choose from.

The previous post spoke about the 3 phases of ESO.  Neverwinter has 2.  First is the leveling aspect, from 1-60.  You have access to companions, customization, foundry (awesome), dungeons, skirmishes (5 minute dungeons) and a whole slew of other features.  Phase 2 starts at 60 and adds 2 things.  First, elite dungeons and raids, where the gearscore/skill requirement is a fair bit higher than before.  This is the typical end-game for themeparks and the time commitment is manageable.  Second are campaigns, which are themed daily quests with gates.  Pretty much what 1-60 gave you, you’re just limited to about 1 hour’s worth per day.

This new expansion seems to add a few more 1-60 things to do without the need for typical end-game progress, which is pretty darn good.  I know that breadth doesn’t equate to depth but we’re not talking about a game that is aiming a whole lot at the latter – it’s an action RPG after all.  I do know from my experience in the dungeons/raids that you need to be attentive to what’s going around.  Proper stat allocation is also pretty important but that part is rather hard to gimp yourself with, due to core mechanics.  SWTOR’s customization (and WoW’s now-dead reforging) provided way more options than Neverwinter.

It’s free, there’s a ton of content.  Give it a shot.

ESO – Veteran Levels

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It’s a simple fact that all games that want to have retention need re-useable content.  Sandboxes have a distinct advantage here as the content is generally created by the players and not the developers.  EvE, UO, ATitD are examples of user-generated worlds.  Themeparks have contained experiences that, by and large, are the same for all players.  The “ride” is balanced against other rides and provides a more uniform experience.  UO, until the shard split, was  near death-trap for any new players venturing outside, with a completely different experience depending on time spent in-game.  Themeparks are the same formula from 1-max level, with a few variations at the top (raiding, achievements, PvP, collecting, etc…)

While I have posted a bit about Wildstar and its approach for end-game activities (there are many), ESO has taken a slightly different approach.  First though, some quick context.

ESO has 3 main “phases” compared to the typical 2 in other themeparks.  There’s the 1-50 phase, following a central quest structure through a half-dozen zones for your faction.  As you level, you have full access to PvP and level appropriate dungeons, across all factions.  Once you hit 50, then you reach the veteran levels, of which there are currently 10.  That’s phase 2.  This phase encompasses a central quest structure for the other 2 factions, split between the levels, with a bit more challenge.  Phase 2 is therefore twice as long to get through as Phase 1.  You still have PvP access and you now have access to veteran-ranked dungeons, which are rather unforgiving in terms of tactics compared to their regular variants.  Phase 3 is what happens at veteran rank 10, and this is where the new Craglorn content comes in to play.  Group-based open world objectives, is the main gist of it. That said, there are dozens of quality of life changes in the pipes (fixing many grouping issues).

J3w3l goes into it from her personal experience.  Phase 1 is simple, phase 2 is significantly more complex and unforgiving and then phase 3 has no relation to either previous phase.  Due to the odd grouping mechanics, where it’s rather difficult to find someone to play with during Phase 1-2 (phasing, quest progress, etc…) you’re in a solo-only world for about 400+ hours.  I am curious how Phase 3, with a heavy if not singular focus on group content will work with the player base.

On top of that, given that 99% of the content is consumed by phases 1 and 2 (all quests across all factions) and that you have enough skill points to fill out 80% of all skills (which works out to more than 100% of the useful ones) there’s no replayability, outside of the 3 class-specific skill lines.  There’s a difference between a Dragonknight and a Mage but not enough to fill out 400+ hours.

Finally, as current metrics seem to indicate that the wide majority of players are in the mid-30s at the end of the first month, or somewhere around 60 hours in, and that the new content requires 400+ hours to even access – you need to wonder about the design direction.  I give a lot of flak to Wildstar for their 20-40 person raid commitment as end-game content (it’s just stupid to do in 2014) but ESO deserves a fair amount of head scratching too.  If you want to retain people, there’s only so many turns on the Magical Tea Cups that people can stomach before heading to the door.

The Weekend Approacheth

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I know they say April showers bring May flowers but it seems like it’s raining every other day here.  With 2 kids suffering from cabin fever due to a near 6-month winter, good weather is sorely needed.  Fingers crossed that Mother’s Day is sunny so the kids can leave my wife alone.

Neverwinter

I am short on gaming time, with under an hour per night, if I can get a night.  Neverwinter does scratch an itch with their daily quest progress.  I can do Sharandar and the Dread Waste quests in about 30 minutes with my Cleric.  I have noticed that a Cleric deals, oh, about half as much damage as any other class but I am quite literally impossible to kill.  I also have a Guardian (tank) who is quite good at soaking up damage but wow, Cleric in Neverwinter are a solid choice for the solo player.

Also have a Rogue (mid 40s) who is a ton of fun to play but has trouble on elites or long fights.  I made a few AH purchases and my “gear score” went up by 50%.  That made a difference.  Anywho, it’s like playing a 3d arcade game really.  Scratches a heck of an itch.  Plus, for a F2P game, it doesn’t scream “give me money”.

Wildstar

Open beta has started, which is a good thing for anyone wanting to give it a shot without forking over some dough.  Plus, you get access up to level 30, which is more than previous beta had.  I think I’ll try a couple more classes up to level 10, see if there’s another option out there.  Right now though, my sights are on a Chua Esper.  A squirrel that shoots birds.  Come on, that’s cool!

Recent patch had a fair chunk of fixes, including the GW2 overflow server concept.  I am really hopeful this becomes the defacto launch practice (outside from mega-servers like ESO)  Nothing worse than trying to play on the same server as your friends only to see “server full” or “queue ETA is 1 hour”.

1849 – Android

I like city building sims and this one takes it to the frontier using a scenario approach.  Rather than the delicate balance of self-sufficiency, 1849 requires you to continually trade in order to keep your folk happy.  Some scenarios let you log, others only let you hunt.  So each is unique in a way.  The hardest part is juggling the housing, and employment ratios.  Sometimes I prevent upgrading just to save me the hassle of too much unemployment, then an increase in crime.  Suppression for the win!

I’ve played a bunch of tablet city sims, they are all F2P money grabs of some sort.  This one is an actual sim, with a $5 entry cost, with what I expect to be a solid 50+ hours of gaming to boot.  It’s rare enough to get a decent tablet game (last one was Room 2 for me) so I highly recommend it.

Continual Content – Gated Dailies

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Themeparks have to give you a reason to run the ride again and again.  There’s a carrot somewhere that makes that switch in your brain go, “ok, one more time”.  Way back in the day, this was more or less organic – run a dungeon.  Eventually it turns into formal quests as we know them today – dailies.  For a very long time, this was mostly about money.  Free cash!  Just jump up and down!  Then this became a reputation grind to get items.  Just 18 more dragon eggs before you get a new shoe.  Then we reached a really weird stage where dailies were the precursor to more dailies. Hello Golden Lotus!

Dailies were also typically capped in terms of how many you can complete in a day.  Not only are the individual quests on a timer but you could only do X amount per day.  The reason for this was three-fold.  First, this was a massive money tap that could be exploited easily.  Millions of gold entered an economy per day unchecked.  Second, they often rewards reputation scores for better gear – which was vertical progression.  If you could do them all, then you would be progressing very fast.  Third was the natural gating requirement of time.  The game should last Y amount of time.  People would (and did) burnout.

Using WoW as a solid example, dailies went through many iterations and nearly all based around expansions.  From BC to MoP, there have been different flavors.  The main driver, or success if you will, for dailies is an alternative progression path.  Certainly, given the choice people will naturally take the path of least resistance.  Dailies however give you a chance to “quickly” make progress through alternate means.  The tabard/daily quest reputation grind made sense.  It fit both playstyles.  The “only-dailies all the time” approach of MoP put in an artificial gate that could not be bypassed.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the cloud serpent faction as the quests were related to the outcome.  Pat Nagle progressed through fishing-related activities.  Golden Lotus had (before 5.4) no purpose other than to gate access to 2 other (and more rewarding) reputation grinds.

SWTOR takes a slightly different approach in that “zones” have daily quests that share rewards.  Tokens/progress is made.  This supplements the raiding/dungeon game with modifications.  There’s a fair amount of horizontal progress as well (customization).  It works for me.

Neverwinter is an odd mix.  Daily quests reward Astral Diamonds based on activities – been there since day 1.  It works in that the rewards are the same, regardless of the content consumed.  Most of that content is social so, more people doing things together = good for the community.  The last 2 expansions added “gated dailies” where the rewards are not item based but content based.  You complete a few and get access to new dungeons.  A few (a lot) more and you get passive stat buffs that are not gear related – you keep it forever even if you get new items.  You complete more and get a better chance at loot.I like that this is daily and gated but that brings me to the final daily hiccup.

If you miss a day, you miss a day of progress.  Missing a raid means you have, usually, another shot in the week (assuming the timer is a week).  Miss a dungeon, then run 2 the next day.  Dailies are the only content with a short expiry.  I personally think it would be great if you could “store up” daily quests for a period of 3-4 days, or perhaps have the rewards reflect that “store”.  Have it run at a reduced ratio too, say 25% per day missed.  I know a game wants a hook to have you login often but unless that game is offering off-line progress (and an interface), then after a while you just lose interest.

If I knew that after a long weekend I could come back and make some additional progress, even reduced (which would be double daily rate based on the numbers above) I think that would motivate me to login and spend more time.  Especially if it related to gaining access to new content (and not items).

Why I’m Looking Forward to Wildstar

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There’s about 3 weeks to go before the head start of Wildstar and I am certainly looking forward to that date.  I wasn’t lucky enough to get into the fall beta but I did get into the Winter one which was “feature complete” and obviously the pre-order weekends too.  I played all the classes in the tutorial, which really means squat.  I did get an Esper to the mid teens, to get an idea of mechanics but I skipped over ALL THE FLUFF.  Which was really hard, since I really like fluff.  I think I may be one of 3 people in ESO that read the books I found. This post is to describe the parts I’m really looking forward to, as well as a couple things that I’m not so souped up about.

Art style

To me, gaming is an escape from reality.  I like comics, anime, hyper-realistic art, sci-fi… stuff I can’t find in the real every day world.  Photorealism doesn’t work for me – maybe a little too uncanny valley?  ESO’s world is amazing but I really think the characters are awful.  I rather enjoy Wildstar’s depiction of everything.  There’s size variation between objects, movement is fluid, attacks are unique, targets are distinct and varied.  I can tell when I’ve changed zones or even areas.  When I’m seeing the same wolf art at level 2 as I’m seeing at level 40, it irks me.  You know how in Avatar, all the wildlife looks like it belongs?  Everything has 6 legs, body types are similar but different enough… that’s consistent design.  I think Wildstar really gets this right.

Combat

Let’s not kid ourselves, combat is the majority of content in all MMORPGs.  The days of stand and fire are gone for me.  Zerg runs to the Plane of Fear or just throwing more bodies at Sulfuron… we’ve move on.  I’ve expounded on the fact that I really, really enjoy Neverwinter’s active combat system.  You need to be moving often, near around half the time. Movement is easy too and obvious.  There’s skill balance and synergy.  The Limited Action Set (LAS) works for me too, so I don’t need to map 100 buttons and move my mouse all over the screen to find that one skill I use once a month.  I like the theory crafting for selecting skills and not having 5 that do the exact same thing (looking at you ESO).  Combat flows, each class is distinct and can fill their role without gimping themselves.  It works for me.

Horizontal Progress

Shiphand missions (solo dungeons), dungeons, housing, warplots, crafting, meta-gaming, raiding, paths, adventures (dungeons with random events), battlegrounds.  I wanted to take the time to write them all down as each is distinct and likely will attract a different audience.  I personally enjoy all of them, minus those that require 19-39 friends and take 4 hours to complete.  I am disappointed that paths are more of a side quest than a true alternative to leveling but at least it’s more stuff to do.

Crafting won’t reach the bar that FF14 has set but I do like that it’s not an afterthought and is rather complex and involved.  Also that gear “levels” are only 2 levels apart and are relevant.  In most MMOs, you get crafting level ranges, where by level 20 you can make gear that fits a level 12, 16 and 20 player.  Typically the gear is next to useless compared to world/quest drops and leveling is so fast that it takes you 30 minutes to skill up to craft for the next tier, negating the craft completely until max level.  The system works as an evolution from the basic crafting macro, which is great.

Housing, from my limited experience (a couple hours) of tinkering is a massive money sink of fun.  I really enjoyed managing my house in Rift and this aligns pretty closely to that.  That housing drops are all over and there’s a crafting profession just for this, awesome.  It makes me feel a part of the world.

Customization is also pretty nice.  You get costume slots from the get-go and it’s a lot of fun to make some sets.  Dyes are in-game too.  The current implementation (as of last weekend) has you go back to the capital to manage it, which I am hoping due to massive negative feedback gets reversed.  Seems weird to offer so much flexibility but only a single interface to manage it in.

Lore

I am a sucker for lore and I want to be a part of the world and understand what’s going on.  Wildstar’s twitter approach to quests is novel in that everyone should have enough information to complete activities but the true lore hours have a bunch of other interfaces for more data.  Datacrons, lore books, the exploration/scientist paths.  There is a lot of love/attention being put into a consistent story.  The 2 factions are really separate in ideals too, which I find is a tad more consistent than other games.  That said, I do miss the voice acting in more recent games.  Still, I have more faith that Wildstar can continue to deliver content at par quality in a ~2 month timeframe compared to the more iceberg pace of other games on the market.

The thing I’m worried about

End game stuff mostly.  There seems to be a rather large focus on raiding and warplots.  The latter one I don’t have such an issue with but raids are core focus at max level is a recipe for disaster.  I’m sorry but the days of 40 man raids died 5 years ago.  Your “average” player isn’t going to be able to put in more than 2 hours per night on average.  WoW has clearly shown that people who raid are in a drastic minority.  FF14 isn’t much different as the top quality content is 4 person dungeons.  I will gladly run some dungeons (only 4 so far at max) and adventures (there are 6) at max level.  I’d also love to run some shiphand missions (no clue how many).

Fingers crossed

3 weeks to go.  Beta has been fun, things look promising.  I’m not putting the game on a pedestal but I am hopeful for its long-term success.  Many of the core concepts of the game appeal to me and I’m hoping they appeal to enough people to make the game a long-term prospect.

The Future of MMO Combat is Here

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While I hung up my ESO sword, I do have a few comparisons to make with other games.  The Internet and I have an outstanding issue with the combat in ESO (it’s better than Skyrim but combat in Skyrim was never the point) and the mix between a limited action set, “don’t stand in the red”, and free-flowing combat.

Combat is, for better or worse, more than half of the time you spend in game.  Figuring out the model that works for you is key.

Limited action set

I won’t say that League of Legends created it but it certainly put it to the forefront.  LAS provides a strategic (what skills can I slot) and tactical (what skills can I use) view to combat.  There’s a fair amount of situational choice and LoL exemplifies that, to a degree.  LAS in MMOs is best seen in Neverwinter and soon Wildstar (which also combines resource management).  There’s skill variety, different variables (similar to the morphs) on a given skill and the flexibility to change pretty quickly outside of combat.  I think it’s fair to say that LAS is going to be the way forward for MMOs and games in general from this point forward.  It has a low skill barrier as you don’t have to map 18 keys so it’s easy to learn, hard to master.  Good stuff all around in my opinion and sort of makes WoW look like a dinosaur in comparison.  Mind you WoD is cutting what seems half the skills due to bloat.

Don’t stand in the fire

It seems any 3d game with terrain today has an indicator system rather than a numeric damage system.  We’re no longer trading punches (which in Molten Core was 90% of the battles) and debuffs.  There are damage spikes but also telegraphs or visual indicators to avoid it.  Smart play avoids damage, bot play dies.  The margin for error on this is where games differentiate themselves.  Some have a lot of room (SWTOR) and some have next to none (Wildstar, WoW).  Most straddle the line and allow different levels of skills.  This brings in a bit more of the action-aspect of gaming from consoles and makes every fight thematically different as the bad stuff is different as well as the dance to avoid it.

Free flowing combat

This is a bit harder to define but it deals with combat on the move.  Older games were more of the “stand and shoot” variety.  The traditional glass cannon mage is a good example.  Cast-times where you cannot move are a more old-school system, mind you they combine the risk/reward system for decision making.  At a low/medium skill level though, it’s far from evident how you decide to keep casting with 0.25 seconds left or just stop and move.  More recent games force you to be mobile for the majority of an event, with Neverwinter and Wildstar really pushing this concept.

The hiccup with moving combat is keeping track of your target.  With the screen moving everywhere, you want to be able to continue attacking even if you aren’t directly looking at the enemy.  This is a skill thing as circle strafing (a FPS concept) is very difficult for most players to grasp.  For tab-target games, like WoW or FF14, this is built-in.  For free-from games like Neverwinter or ESO, then you lose targeting when you move the screen.  Wildstar uses a hybrid approach. The basic concept is “can I deal damage while moving”.  Depending on the auto-target configuration, ranged and melee attackers have different situations too.

Current Options

Of all current games, I consider Neverwinter the current best case scenario for active combat in an MMO outside of a MOBA.  It’s got skill variety, plenty of stuff you should avoid and stuff to stand in, and a very response active combat system. You need to dodge, dip, duck dive and dodge a lot.  It’s frantic but manageable.  Given that it’s a free to play game, it gives the chance for everyone to give it a shot to see if the model (and not so much the rest of the game) fits.  I won’t compare other games to this system as it’s really personal preference.  It does bode well moving forward that the combat from this point forward is going to be more engaging and require more than a macro of pressing 1, 2, 3 for 10 minutes at a time.

ESO – First Month Review

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A month after launch, ESO is at a spot where I consider it “review ready”.  From a feature/bug perspective, the kitchen sink patches have been applied, servers are stable and the initial floodgates are closed.  While I stated that my trip down this path is at a close, I still think it merits an overview of what went well and what needs some work.

What Works

If you like Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim in particular) then the mechanics will be very familiar.  First or 3rd person view (no one should play 1st person), mouse to target, mouse buttons for main attacks, inventory control, organic skill progression based on use, focus on discovery, quick travel, customization, and non-linear quests with multiple steps.  All that is there.  There are a few tweaks that can be irksome, such as if you take any crafting skill your bags will be 90% of that material and perennially full.  More or less, if you like the single player experience from before, it’s very well replicated in ESO.

There are hundreds of quests and when you’ve completed your faction, you simply start doing the other 2 factions.  This drastically reduces any replay value outside of 4 alts, given there are currently only 4 classes but the amount of time required to consume everything is likely around 3-4 months.  Fully voice acted too, and the lore makes sense.  Some quests are mirror copies of others (so much Worm Cult) but the paces within are decent enough.

There’s a ton of build variety and you can swap between without too much hassle. Skill point distribution makes sense, though I’d prefer to know the morphed abilities first.  Easy enough to wiki-it though.  Raising skills is intuitive and the power curve, generally works.  Instead of fixed level ranges, ESO uses a scaling system for power.  You could be killed by a bunch of level 1s at max level and you can take on an enemy 20 levels higher than you, which is very different from the standard.

PvP, in my limited experience, is fun.  It’s massive, there are goals, factions are “balanced” enough that no one group can completely dominate the entire map forever.

Dungeons are fun when they work.  It’s a middle ground between GW2 run everywhere and the traditional trinity of tank taking all the damage.  You’re basically mitigating problems and saving the healer with the tank taking on the big guy in the room.  More like FF14 if you’ve played that.

The art is impressive.  The initial player customization has a ton of sliders but only 3 races – humans, cats and lizards.  Enemy variety is also very limited – 80% humans, 10% skeletons, 10% bears/cats/fauna.   That’s a lore limitation though, one that SWTOR had to live with too (which uses the same engine co-incidentally).  Often times I found myself stopping to just look around.  The atmosphere is really well done and while a lot of the set pieces are reused, their combinations are often unique.  Maybe it gets better at higher levels but you generally have no idea what class anyone is until they use a class skill and telling two players apart (assuming same race) is pretty hard.  But they do look good, which is a plus.

What Needs Work

This one is basic enough but there are still dozens of game breaking bugs.  The forums are full of them.  Designer hat for a second but it’s clear they needed another 2 months or so to clean that up.  The first 2 weeks of launch and entire faction couldn’t progress to veteran content.  They are being fixed slowly but I found at least one bug every 20 minutes that either required a /reloadui or a relog.

The combat itself, I have a lot of trouble with.  Aiming doesn’t use a soft lock system (Neverwinter does) so if things are moving, you’re missing.  There’s little feedback outside of knockdowns.  Class skills are unique but the weapon skills aren’t (except for the blingbling of destruction).  I am not a fan of the flow nor the combination of resource management and basic attacks.  A standard fight is 2-3 attacks but a big enemy or a boss is all auto-attacks after 10 seconds.  Pretty boring.

Social structures currently don’t make much sense.  In an MMO you want to see other people.  In ESO that just doesn’t seem the case, outside of PvP.  Quests are phased, which means it’s hard to team up with people or friends.  You’re 5 quests ahead?  Can’t do them again or see any of the targets.  Public events do not scale.  So a “rare” dark anchor event balanced for 4-5 people usually has 20-30 and everything dies before it actually spawns.  Public dungeons are worse.  Open tagging helps but you still need a hit or 2.  Guilds serve next to no purpose other than to have auction houses (which I think is a smart move with a mega-server) and a shared bank.

Crafting needs some work.  You can make something for every other level of progress, which is a great thing.  The days of 5 levels between tiers is gone.  However, there’s no real variety outside of enchantments and the process for increasing skill is pretty boring.  The unique crafting stations, that make item sets, don’t really seem to have much purpose since you need to have a ton of pre-requisite steps complete before.  Just doesn’t seem balanced.  The only good thing I see about crafting right now is that repair costs are so prohibitive, that crafting is a free alternative.  A full repair at level 35 costs about 2,000 gold which takes about 3 levels to actually fund.  By crafting, I’ve easily saved about 30,000 gold.  It’s odd that this is the first game where crafting is not a money maker but a massive money saver.  Does raise concerns around high level repair where you might not be able to re-craft….

Balance is sorely needed.  Many skills don’t work as described, or don’t scale or just don’t work.  Maybe the tooltips need to be changed.  I do know that AE skills are currently uncapped, which makes coordinated PvP efforts essentially an AE spam-fest.  AE stacking of 5 attacks can kill 1 person like it can kill 20.  It makes bottlenecks that much deadlier (or zergs).  Stat scaling and enemy scaling also need tweaking.  1 hand and shield does ~50% of the damage of all other attacks.  Assuming they are using a tank build, they also take ~20% less damage (armor is not linear).  That math doesn’t work.  Some enemies appear to be scaled incorrectly, or designed for multiple people.  The main quests in particular are unforgiving.

Summary

ESO is a decent game and scratches quite a few itches.  If you enjoy the single player aspect of the ES franchise and like the massive PvP then you’re in a good spot.  I think $15 is a bit much for that but that’s my opinion.  The MMORPG stuff, that still needs a lot of work.  If you’re on the fence for trying it, I’d suggest coming back after the summer.