With the release of the Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (AoC) open beta, there has been a lot of talk about the game’s combat system. Sure, it’s different in that it allows the player swing his melee weapon in different motions and without a target selected. But is it really “revolutionary,” a term that’s being used more in relation to AoC than Linkin Park songs are used in Dragon Ball Z fan videos. So who is right?
Keen and Graev, a blog hosted by two guys who have been covering a lot of Age of Conan news lately, both providing videos, podcasts, and insight, tackled this question not too long ago. And, despite their excellent coverage of the beta events and news, I just can’t come to grips with where they stand on the combat system… errr, at least where Keen stands, as proven by this post:
AoC’s Combat: Truly revolutionary or more buttonmashing?
Now, I’m not going to just quote block his entire post… you can read it yourself.
To me, the word “buttonmashing” has lost its original meaning. People used to refer to buttomashing as the random pushing of buttons. The key word there is random. Buttonmashing is more commonly associated with action/fighting games, where players were encouraged to memorize button combinations to perform special attacks. Unfortunately, many fighting games suffered from buttonmashers, who would randomly hit buttons and still defeat opponents who were trying to perform special attacks.
Age of Conan is not buttonmashing for the simple fact that pressing random buttons would probably mean you’d never successfully complete a combo that was more than 2 unique keys. What Keen fails to realize is that there are more factors associated with the combo system. For example, once the player activates a combo to begin, he can stall the combo for a short time, or even progress through the combo until the last key.
Here’s a scenario: Let’s say you are standing opposite of an enemy player. You want to use a combo on him that will cause him to steadily lose hit points over time. However, the combo to do that requires you to hit 5 keys before completing. The way AoC’s combat system works, you can begin the combo and get all the way to the 4th key and stop. Then, you can get yourself close enough to the other player, hit the 5th key, and perform the combo. What you’ve basically done is turn a 5-key combo into a 1-key combo based on timing and position. Of course, doing such a thing would require practice and great timing skills, but it is achievable.
Now, Keen also discussed the macroing of combos using gaming keyboards, allowing players to assign one key to perform the entire button combination automatically. While such a feature would definitely alleviate the need to “buttonmash,” it certainly would keep the player from being able to delay his special attacks.
To combat the ability to macro combos using special keyboards, one AoC player recommended randomizing the keys that are needed. Personally, I think it is an excellent idea. On the other hand, Keen has a different opinion:
MeanKeenLurikeen: The day they randomize combos is the day I quit then. There are times when I come home from a long day and all I want to do is grind away on mobs or run a few quests. If I have to focus in on exactly every action I’m taking at all times to be effective then I’m out. I don’t think Funcom would be that silly.
This statement brings me to my next topic, which is more about the MMO gamer than AoC or its combat system.
Laziness.
I’ve seen this more times than I’ve been Rick-rolled. I don’t come from an MMO background. As a gamer, my roots are in FPS and action games. So, as an outsider looking in on the mass of MMO gamers, I can’t help but scratch my head in confusion. If there is an evolutionary cycle of gamers, surely MMO gamers would be just about to invent the wheel, possibly making the transition from the nomadic lifestyle. How else can you explain it when they sound like a chorus singing the same damn tune?
MMO Gamer Tune:
I go to work all day… I don’t want to have to come home, sit down, breathe in and out, log onto Age of Conan, left-click to select my character, use WASD to move around, and then HAVE to press 3-5 extra keys in succession to perform special attacks and abilities!
Keen, sadly, falls straight into this category. While the rest of the gaming community has been busy inventing airplanes, skyscrapers, and space stations, the MMO gamers have been wiping their asses with leaves and still complaining they work too hard. How are they ever going to function when gaming takes the next step into virtual reality, where RL movements dictate what happens?
MMO Gamers are Autopiloters
Autopiloters… that’s what MMO gamers have widely become. Yes, I made that word up, but I think it fits the description. Keen said it best when he wrote, “If I have to focus in on exactly every action I’m taking at all times to be effective then I’m out.”
That’s like a pilot complaining that he has to sit there and fly the plane, check his readouts, and monitor the radio. So what happens, some guy invents the autopilot, which just makes everything automatic. Yeah, it is a great invention for something like flying an airliner, but come on, people play games to PLAY games, not switch the autopilot on.
MMO Gamers are NOT Gamers
Which brings me to my last point: MMO gamers, as a majority, are NOT gamers. Gamers are people who enjoy playing games, whether that means hitting 5 keys or 1,000 keys. They are people who like paying attention and being in control of every action. They are people who see games as fun activities.
MMO gamers are people who generally don’t enjoy playing their games. They often confess to hating MMOs because they are “timesinks.” They are people who constantly complain about buttonmashing, despite never understanding the actual definition. They are people who believe that games that require the player to provide comprehensive inputs are stupid and tasking. They are people who just want to sit back and watch things happen rather than do them. They are people who do dungeon raids because they have to, not because they want to and they are the people who believe that anything that requires more than 2 mouse clicks deserves its own button macro.
Behold the devolution of gaming.
Filed under: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Keen and Graev, MMO Gamers, MMO Gamers are Lazy, MMO Games and Buttonmashing, Video Games
That’s quite a bold generalization to say that MMO players are not gamers. Additionally calling those who enjoy the RPG pacing “lazy” and then being so bold to say that “MMO gamers are people who generally don’t enjoy playing their games” is very, very elitist.
Since you’re using me as your example and in quite a negative connotation, I want you to know that you missed point behind my blog entry on button mashing. Funcom promised a revolutionary real-time system that would be the future of mmorpgs. In reality their system is not revolutionary, innovative perhaps, but not revolutionary. Their combo system is simply a more active version of traditional mmorpg skills. They failed to deliver what they set out to create. They still have a good system, but in the end all they have done is add one addition middle-step from input to result.
I never said it wasn’t a bold generalization, but for the sake of the argument, not anyone who plays MMOs can be lumped into such a category. There are many MMO gamers out there who do believe that Age of Conan’s combat system is revolutionary to the MMO genre. Sure, I can agree it isn’t a revolutionary combat system in online gaming, because then you have to consider games across every genre.
As far as those MMO gamers being lazy… it is hard to notice it unless you aren’t a part of it. You’ll notice it more during discussions of a game in beta testing, both in the beta forums and in general public forums. Gamers will be discussing the list of possible features for the game, and argue that things are too difficult, that they are timesinks, etc. For instance, Age of Conan USED to have a manual targetting system for all ranged combat. You know what happened to it? The lazy players thought it was too hard (boo hoo) and cried until Funcom gave them “options.” Now, those of us who wanted our ranged combat to require a modicum of skill, are left a water-downed system designed to cater to those who just don’t want to learn something new.
And why are additional steps between input and result not considered revolutionary for the genre? It isn’t exactly the first MMO to do it (so I wouldn’t consider it to be innovative like you state), but it is probably the only one to do it this well. Is that not revolutionary? World of Warcraft is nothing but a melting pot of all the other MMOs that came before it, so it didn’t bring anything new to the table, and it could still be considered revolutionary in the way it broke open the worlds of MMOs to the casual gamer.
What do we expect when we hear the word “revolutionary?” What does an MMO have to do to be considered revolutionary in its combat system? I mean, input is the basic function of controlling a video game. The developers have to have a way for players to provide input, so the only options available are creating more or less inputs, or changing the nature of the input, such as motion sensor control.
Perhaps I’m swaying away from the point a bit, but it is difficult to remain focused when there are much larger questions that need to be considered. As far as Funcom’s failure to deliver… I believe they did deliver on what they set out to create… it just wasn’t what you wanted them to create. Which, brings me to my next point that you don’t even know what you want them to create. You feel like you’ll recognize revolutionary when it gets here, but, in reality, it is already here. To dismiss the “middle-steps” from one thing to another as not being revolutionary is just failure in seeing the bigger picture and the impact it will have on the industry, the gamers, and the other developers.
Excellent response. Articulate and well-structured. While perhaps, my ideal combat system would be a little more articulated than AoC’s current, I feel like this is a move in the right direction. The use of macroing I feel is great for creating icons for simple commands (/skill X /wait 5 /party Yeah I just skill x’d you!) I find that pvp fairs better without it, where thinking on your toes should be the necessity not the exception. I am hoping like so many others for randomized combos.
Holy crap, AT. This was a brilliant post and something I’ve been thinking for the past few days. I’ll be commenting and linking from my blog shortly.
Note to Keen: Not because he called you out, but because I happen to agree with him in his statements.
You could quite simply boil this down to the statement.
MMO gamers and FPS gamers have incompatible playstyles. Because that’s effectively what you are saying. You are calling one camp lazy because they don’t share your viewpoint on what should be done in a game.
It would be like calling people who play board games lazy because they don’t want to deal with all the rules of some RPG.
I think any attempt to marry the two types of games is always going to cause this kind of aggravation and friction. Call me lazy if you want I’m with keen on this one. Complicated is cool at first. But once you master the mechanic it just becomes a pain.
“It would be like calling people who play board games lazy because they don’t want to deal with all the rules of some RPG. ”
Oh! Are we playing a game to see who can come up with the worst analogy? My turn!
It would be like calling people who go deep-sea diving lazy because they don’t want to deal with a 5-key combo in Age of Conan.
Your argument can be simplfied to say:
If you do something enough times, it gets boring.
Well that is just a simple fact of life. So, whether you need to enter a 5-key combo or a 1-key macro, the end result is the same.
For the sake of time, let me just jump way down the line, since this is basically where you’re going, by asking, “What is the meaning of life?”
The answer to the question of the ultimate meaning of life, the universe, and everything, is 42.
Well spoken and you got my blood boiling with some of your comments but I’ve had time to calm down and re-read it.
I shall go and ponder what’s been said.
Your definition of whether a gamer is ’skilful’ or ‘lazy’ seems to be based entirely upon whether they enjoy using button combos or not.
I agree with you the Button Mashing is not the same thing as Button Bashing, but pressing 5 buttons rather than 2, in a 5 second period does not mean you need to be more skilful.
My WOW interface probably has 30 buttons on it. Gosh, how would your average fps player cope? If anyone is lazy, it’s all those people playing HALO/CS/Gears of War: See enemy, hold down trigger button until they are dead. Reload. Target next enemy.
There is nothing “Revolutionary” here? It is button mashing…?
I think the fact I have to focus more on what is going on in the game makes a huge difference..The game also does not have the standard MMO fare of “Go collect this”, look for “shinies”, etc…
Now the ADD or OCD afflicted cannot watch TV while playing…oh my..
Of course…, this may kill longevity not having those little “extras”…so it is hard to say. But, Halo does not need shinies, Half Life or other FPS games do not need that extra thing to make it fun…
I think AoC feels like a GTA/Halo type of game or even like a Baldurs Gate/Diablo mix..and maybe if it is looked at as an online RPG, and not an MMO (notice the missing RPG for that MMO part)…the success could be huge, as in those respects, I think AoC succeeds..
Lets just not call AoC an MMO..
It feels more like Guild Wars…without the heavy instancing…it is an evolution of GW..
Thoughts?
@Vlad:
Your argument would work if the amount of options in an FPS game were decided upon by the gamers… and not the people who made it. You can’t call an FPS gamer lazy because he has less keys or buttons to push because how many he has to push is out of his/her control. It isn’t like FPS gamers demand less buttons or keys and that is why there are less.
However, MMOs dedicate a large amount of their development time to larger-scale beta testing, where the gamers DO get to have a say in how the game forms. Also, I never said that pushing more keys makes you more “skillful,” so I’m not sure where you’re pulling that from… unless of course you are referring to the manual targetting system I cited that used to be in AoC. In that case, you are wrong because that wasn’t just about longer key combos, it was about manually aiming at your targets before firing.
Anyway, the sad truth is that MMOs just don’t hold your attention. Hell, most people talk about how they are playing an MMO, watching TV, making dinner, and surfing the web all at the same time. To me, a game is something that your involved in–something you interact with. So I agree with Openedge1; it seems that the main reason the traditional MMO crowd doesn’t like AoC’s combat is because they can’t hit the obligatory autopilot, minimize the game, and watch their porn.
[...] Not since Tipa’s comment on Age of Conan’s boobies has there been such an outcry. Alex Taldren is stirring the pot this time with his comments on Age of Conan’s “revolutionary” combat [...]
No, I was not referring to auto-targeting. In fact, putting your cross-hair onto some poor guy and pulling the trigger is very satisfying.
Currently I play Wow, but that does not mean I am an MMO gamer and that’s it. I play every type of game going, but my limited play time means I don’t play much else at the moment. The last game I played was Far Cry offline, and I had great fun with that for a long time.
I love sports sims, FPS, RTS, turn-by-turn wargames, even beat-em-ups (many nights have turned into day whilst playing DOA 2 and 3).
My post was really in response to your categorizing anyone who played MMOs as lazy people who cba to play any game that is more taxing than pressing Aimed Shot every 5 seconds or whatever.
As for people watching TV or browsing the net whilst playing, I have never done that. I give games 100% of my attention, and I often wonder why people want to do other things at the same time.
I certainly don’t want to press some macro key, go make lunch and come back to find myself surrounded by npc corpses, I mean, what’s the point?
Well I’m not lumping anyone who plays an MMO into this category. I plan on playing Age of Conan and am even signed onto a guild for it.
What I’m saying is that people rooted in MMO games, meaning they play them more than any other genre, fall into this category. They have been living in the genre of stagnation–a genre where every innovative step is greeted with forum threads of hate, disgust, and disappointment.
In the end, Vlad, it looks like you actually share my sentiment. You don’t want to press some macro key and put the autopilot on, but they do. They don’t want games to be engaging or require a degree of effort beyond a single mouse click. And, this is also why MMOs are ages behind the other genres in nearly all cateogries of development.
The reason why MMO gamers’ seem lazy is because PVE combat in general is incredibly simple. That is not because the attacks are too simple and you need to press too few buttons. That is because the enemy is generally effectively autoattacking or casting one offensive spell.
Let me try to make an illuminating example. I watched a wow video of someone teaching how to play a mage in pvp.
Every couple of spellcasts the video stopped and the player explained the why’s. Something like this: “Ok now I’m really pushing him trying to get him to blow his AoE fear.. aaand here it comes. Now just wotf out and I can pop my water elemental and do a shatter combo since I know he doesn’t have interrupts and he can’t easily get rid of the elemental.”
Do you think you could macro that? Or want to?
Now lets take the same mage doing a “kill 30 rats” quest.
Now granted I havent seen him grind, but I think a grinding video would consist of him spamming frostbots at a rat until its dead and repeating while the rats will walk to him and bite for a bit of damage.
Do you think you could macro that? Or want to?
Now granted I don’t think AoC PVE fights are any more involved then the previous games’, but I don’t think the right way to make them more insteresting is to make the player have to watch the buttons he has to press for the combos to go off.
Sorry for the double post – I couldn’t find the edit button and I noticed I wanted to say something about the combo direction randomizing:
I would be pissed off about it too. That isn’t the same as having to sit there and fly the plane, check readouts and monitor the radio. That’s more like having the stick directions randomised (for example yanking it to the left would make the plane dive at one point), having a monitor overhead saying what way is what atm and not having any readouts or a radio.
The tools are complex enough, but there isn’t enough to do with them.
[...] REAL game. As played by REAL gamers. Who are not us. How does AT Wire’s Alex Taldren come by this startling conclusion? Keen of Keen and Graev’s posted recently that Age of Conan’s combo-based melee system [...]
So let me see if I get this right–you don’t care for a specific genre of game, so you decide it’s not a “real” game?
I’ve been in the game industry for a few years now both as a writer and as a dev, and I think this ranks right up there with Ebert’s “games are never going to be art” statement. This is ludicrous at best and simply reaffirms the notion that any one with an outrageous idea can get a blog and type what they want.
I guess I should post some sort of factual-based refutation, but honestly, there are some claims that just refute themselves.
@Daniel
No, I’m not talking about the games, I’m talking about the gamers. Besides, did I say I didn’t care for a specific genre? I’ve already mentioned that I’m in a guild that is ready to play Age of Conan! And, you’ll find I have a lot of experience playing MMOs, ranging from large-scale successes like WoW and Planetside, to the cheap, free-to-play successes like Silkroad Online and Cabal.
I suppose I continue telling you how you need some lessons in reading comprehension, but honestly, there are just some people who just refute themselves.
Oh look, it’s the “Casual vs. Hardcore” argument. How nice to see you here.
As for radomizing buttons to execute a combo in an MMO, this idea is stupid. Learning how to play a game is a series of skills that you as a player learn how to do. First you learn how to make your character swing a sword, then you learn how to use a shield with it. Eventually you learn how to behead 5 enemies in a circle while doing a death cry or master a raid but there’s a lot of task mastery between those two things.
If you were to randomize the steps required to do these skills, no one would ever progress beyond basic skill mastery and in fact this would only encourage people to write scripts to do basic tasks. I sure as hell wouldn’t sit down every day and say, “Ok, how do I swing a sword today? Ok… how do I use a shield today?” I’d just write a script that would do it or (even more likely) I’d go play something fun like GTAIV. Complication does not equal fun as many games have demonstrated and in fact over complication can kill an otherwise good game.
The only time I think it *might* work, is if the game was focused on that random mechanic like in some sort of “Gods of War” meets Simon color flashing matching pattern following MMO game thing and that would be weird.
@18Rabbit
I see what you’re saying, but the problem is that the current combo system encourages people to write scripts or setup macros since they are unchanging button combinations.
There are two main ideas on how to fix it. The traditional MMO gamer will say to just make it one button because they don’t want to have to click a bunch of keys. Others are trying to explore other ways of doing it, and the randomized combinations is just one of their ideas.
Also, don’t look at it as learning how to swing a sword each time you do it. It is more like, I know how to do it, but I do it differently each time.
“To combat the ability to macro combos using special keyboards, one AoC player recommended randomizing the keys that are needed. Personally, I think it is an excellent idea. On the other hand, Keen has a different opinion:”
This is a horrible idea. How would an FPS player feel if pressing the key to switch to their railgun instead switched to some random weapon? It takes an element that you can commit to twitch response and makes you have to think about it. This is ALWAYS a bad idea when you are in a situation that requires situational awareness. You want to focus on what your enemy is doing, not on what button you should be pressing next. That should be unconscious.
I don’t see the macroing issue as one of laziness. I see it more as a way to automate lower level functions (for example, hunter shot rotations in wow) so that I can focus more on high-level concerns (healing my pet when he’s low, hitting runners with concussive shot, not standing in the fire, etc etc). Granted sometimes that does boil down to hitting the same damn key repeatedly, but it allows me to keep an eye on new threats. And knowing that your user base is going to macro heavily, you can create encounters that require more situational awareness.
There are better ways to make the gameplay interesting than “randomizing the combo keys”. Like for instance, having players have multiple counters and reversals to attacks, so that you have to watch what they do in order to determine your next move. That seems a lot more strategic, skillful, and fun than some sort of God of War quicktime nonsense. I’d rather out-think my opponent than play whac-a-mole.
I find your conclusions concerning MMO gamers to be hasty and ill-conceived. I suppose that may be typical of an FPS gamer because your world is all fast paced action and snap decisions. The point you miss about MMO gamers is that their game lies in thought not in twitch skills.
Instead of buttonsmashing and jumping around like an idiot while shooting, the typical MMO gamer will spend many hours solving puzzles on quests, developing strategies for character builds and learning how to succeed against endgame raid encounters. Much of this activity does not even require that you are actually in the game. All it requires is knowledge of your game and thought.
To FPS gamers this type of contemplation and depth is an alien concept. They would consider it boring and not worth their time. Yet when you build a space station or a skyscraper, it is exactly what is needed. Careful consideration and planning is exactly how complex projects become successful. The FPS gamer might be analogous to the construction worker getting their hands dirty building the skyscraper. But the MMO player is more like the engineer designing it all.
So I completely disagree with your assessment. I would say that the MMO gamers are indeed building skyscrapers. It is just that your ability to analyze had been flawed the the snap judgment mentality of an FPS gamer.
All MMO gamers are fat and lazy nerds. All FPS gamers are slim and athletic socialites. Anyone who tries to argue that FACT is in denial. Although, I can see some of you have progressed into the latter stages of the emotional roller coaster like anger. Just get to acceptance already and spare the rest of us the trouble.
Regards,
Slim & Athletic FPS Gamer
I got threw about first 10ish responses and deiced to throw in my own 2 cents. Any particular group of gamers can’t be considered lazy, heck they’re playing a controller instead of sports its more a matter of whose more lazy (thats a joke so no one freak out). I think I could be considered an MMO person, as thats majority of what I play. I am also one of the people that “multi task” and play at same time. However I am still a big fan of FPS, my main being halo. Two reasons I stay with MMO’s more, A) its Massive Multi player, bringing much more in terms of people to the table then any FPS currently can. Now some will say theres tons of people playing Halo at all times but your stuck the usual max of 16 per round and majority of people are “ha! head shot, suck my” types. B) I’m not particularly good at FPS. Those people who can jump back 30 feet, zoom in and get a head shot with a sniper rifle, my hats off to you.
I don’t want to be called lazy because I don’t want to deal with a lot of the people in FPS, or because I’m not particularly good at aiming a grenade to bounce off a wall and land perfectly. However, I’ll admit my self that the games I’ve been playing aren’t keeping my attention. And even though I don’t think MMO players are necessarily lazy I do have to agree with AT here. I read small things about AoC about having to aim for ranged in first person and having to generate combos, I was psyched. The idea of them changing it because the general mass didn’t like extra effort saddens me. In this concept I would say that the players are lacking…
As Tomas stated though theres much more to MMORPG’s then just swing and miss, with a few buttons to push here and there. Each genre requires skill development, either making snap decisions with aiming a rifle while moving, or dealing with all the aspect of a raid encounter. Neither are lazy, just excel at different aspects of playing.
Disappointed as I am in lazy group of MMO players for screwing over my FPS aspect of AoC, I’ll stick with it
[...] my dose of adrenaline playing TR, so with Mass Effect I’m allowing myself to go back to my “Lazy gamer” ways. Posted in Single-Player Goodness [...]
Calling people lazy just because they think that AoC combat system is too much, is a bit over the top, because it is too much.
It’s fun at first, different, but then it loses it’s novelty value and it becomes just another attack with some buttons pressed to make it work, and then it’s not very fun nor intuitive anymore.
It would be like making an FPS game where instead of just pressing R to reload, you would have to press one button to turn your gun, another to eject the clip, a third to reach for your new clip, a fourth to grab it, a fifth to bring it to your gun, a sixth to slam it in and a seventh to slot the first bullet before you could fire again.
If you wanted to bring up old Iron Sight, you would have to press a button to raise it up from hip fire, another to put it to your shoulder, a third to see if you want to align straight up or cock it slightly to the left, a fourth to align your head with the scope and a fifth to stop you blinking before you could fire again.
Would you call that innovative and revolutionary or would you call it something akin to playing with lead mittens on, just for the sake of being different?
There are more intuitive ways for Funcom to have made the combat system even while retaining the combo system, but right now it seems more done for the sake of doing it. Which leads to it becoming very stale and “heavy” after a while.
I\’d get so much more work done if it wasnt for mmos and web games