The current state of MMORPGs

[Bjond]

because I do not like action RPGs.

I view DDO as more of an action game

DDO is about as far from an action MMO as you can get without taking it turn-based. IMHO, most of the ones calling themselves "action" got it wrong. Terra was the original -- gotta hit that to see what it really means.

It does not mean fast paced button mashing. It means responsive and immersive. It's about the immersive focus being on the "action" and NOT the UI. There's no classic healer in an action game because those spend all their play time watching the UI (babysitting bars). It's about binding your attention to the game world by making all your actions effect the world.

VKF was DDO's try at "action" and it's nearly a full 180 away from real action play because of it's short CD button mashing. It certainly keeps you busy, which is a form of immersion. And, it keeps you focused. But it's all watching CDs tick down, not playing in the game world.

The abilities in a real action game always have instant effect. It's like moving in DDO versus casting Disco. Take a step. Happens immediately. Feels like you're part of the world. Cast Disco. So, nothing is happening. What's going on? Is it working? Is it lag? Why am I moving so slow? When will it fire? Oh. There it is. Absolutely horrifically bad implementation from an action game standpoint purely because the long animation shifts attention away from the world.

An action version of Disco would never slow your character down while casting it. Your char makes a dancing hand-wave and the ball appears immediately. Now, if you want a delayed onset similar to current cast time, you do it with the ball animation. Start it falling from the sky, add lights, add twirling, add music. You can move full speed during all of this and indeed start other actions. That's an action game's take on it.

Done right, action play feels so very nice. It's usually on the fast side, but you don't mind because of how it feels. Done wrong, it just feels busy and frenetic with attention divided and scattered between UI and Game.

[Eantarus]

It means responsive and immersive.

The "responsive" part is what a lot of people dislike. I know its super popular with some demographics right now, but there's always going to be some demographics that are in to some things and other demographics that aren't. Personally I belong to the demographic that hates responsive combat. I also don't like "stealth" games or real time strategy. I'm sure everyone has a genre they don't enjoy playing.

I suspect a lot of the current shift towards "action" RPGs has more to do with streamers than anything else. Personally, I find the notion of watching someone else play video games to be dumber than a box of trumps, so seeing the game industry shift in that direction means fewer and fewer games I would actually like to play. Hopefully this trend will end fairly soon and we can go back to making games that are fun.

[Annex]

As far as I am concerned, DDO is very much an "Action Game" and very little a "Role Playing Game". I have never seen the term "Action Game" used in the way described by Bjond.

I suppose that is part of the problem with having any meaningful discussion about games. No one agrees on terms.

[Eantarus]

I suppose that is part of the problem with having any meaningful discussion about games. No one agrees on terms.

This is definitely true.

I don't really agree with Bjond's definition either. To me an "action" game is defined as being one with active interaction mechanics, EG active blocking etc. Otherwise known as "stuff that doesn't work at all when lag happens".

[Oxarhamar]

DDO is about as far from an action MMO as you can get without taking it turn-based. IMHO, most of the ones calling themselves "action" got it wrong. Terra was the original -- gotta hit that to see what it really means.

It does not mean fast paced button mashing. It means responsive and immersive. It's about the immersive focus being on the "action" and NOT the UI. There's no classic healer in an action game because those spend all their play time watching the UI (babysitting bars). It's about binding your attention to the game world by making all your actions effect the world.

VKF was DDO's try at "action" and it's nearly a full 180 away from real action play because of it's short CD button mashing. It certainly keeps you busy, which is a form of immersion. And, it keeps you focused. But it's all watching CDs tick down, not playing in the game world.

The abilities in a real action game always have instant effect. It's like moving in DDO versus casting Disco. Take a step. Happens immediately. Feels like you're part of the world. Cast Disco. So, nothing is happening. What's going on? Is it working? Is it lag? Why am I moving so slow? When will it fire? Oh. There it is. Absolutely horrifically bad implementation from an action game standpoint purely because the long animation shifts attention away from the world.

An action version of Disco would never slow your character down while casting it. Your char makes a dancing hand-wave and the ball appears immediately. Now, if you want a delayed onset similar to current cast time, you do it with the ball animation. Start it falling from the sky, add lights, add twirling, add music. You can move full speed during all of this and indeed start other actions. That's an action game's take on it.

Done right, action play feels so very nice. It's usually on the fast side, but you don't mind because of how it feels. Done wrong, it just feels busy and frenetic with attention divided and scattered between UI and Game.

Ypu did snip out the rest of that

DDO is definately an action game its just not a 2 button hack & slash action game

Those animations are the actions Everything doesnt have to be instant

The move towards the button mashing busywork cooldown gameplay was dieappointing so glad the romoved builder spenders for the most part

[Eantarus]

Ypu did snip out the rest of that

DDO is definately an action game its just not a 2 button hack & slash action game

Those animations are the actions Everything doesnt have to be instant

The move towards the button mashing busywork cooldown gameplay was dieappointing so glad the romoved builder spenders for the most part

Except that DDO employs hitboxes and cooldowns, it does not rely on "timing". That's really what distinguishes "action" RPGs - the timing component of the game. If you're going to call DDO an aRPG then the term has lost all meaning.

[Oxarhamar]

Except that DDO employs hitboxes and cooldowns, it does not rely on "timing". That's really what distinguishes "action" RPGs - the timing component of the game. If you're going to call DDO an aRPG then the term has lost all meaning.

Action RPG as a genre refers to real time combat as opposed to turn based

There are many variations

There is timing involved in quite a bit of the game just not to the obnioux levels other games employ

[Weemadarthur]

DDO is about as far from an action MMO as you can get without taking it turn-based. IMHO, most of the ones calling themselves "action" got it wrong. Terra was the original -- gotta hit that to see what it really means.

It does not mean fast paced button mashing. It means responsive and immersive. It's about the immersive focus being on the "action" and NOT the UI. There's no classic healer in an action game because those spend all their play time watching the UI (babysitting bars). It's about binding your attention to the game world by making all your actions effect the world.

VKF was DDO's try at "action" and it's nearly a full 180 away from real action play because of it's short CD button mashing. It certainly keeps you busy, which is a form of immersion. And, it keeps you focused. But it's all watching CDs tick down, not playing in the game world.

The abilities in a real action game always have instant effect. It's like moving in DDO versus casting Disco. Take a step. Happens immediately. Feels like you're part of the world. Cast Disco. So, nothing is happening. What's going on? Is it working? Is it lag? Why am I moving so slow? When will it fire? Oh. There it is. Absolutely horrifically bad implementation from an action game standpoint purely because the long animation shifts attention away from the world.

An action version of Disco would never slow your character down while casting it. Your char makes a dancing hand-wave and the ball appears immediately. Now, if you want a delayed onset similar to current cast time, you do it with the ball animation. Start it falling from the sky, add lights, add twirling, add music. You can move full speed during all of this and indeed start other actions. That's an action game's take on it.

Done right, action play feels so very nice. It's usually on the fast side, but you don't mind because of how it feels. Done wrong, it just feels busy and frenetic with attention divided and scattered between UI and Game.

Sorry but have to disagree with almost everything said here. To start Vindictus was 3 years before Terra and that is most definitely an action MMO. I would go as far as to say it has probably the best action combat system I have encountered in any MMO to date (and yes I did play Terra too) but since the update where they nerfed the 1st 100 levels most players will get bored before you really need to learn how to use it.

That aside your definition of an action game is very subjective. Diablo is probably the best known action rpg and if you stripped DDO down to its basic combat and scrolled the view out to an isometric view point both games would play exactly the same way. Just because a game doesn't do action well doesn't mean its not an action rpg. DDO is based on active combat (which is what I was referring to in my previous posts) which is something that at the time of release would have been impossible to implement in an open world. Newer games will have improved active combat but that doesn't mean that DDO's combat is not active. Just because Tekken had better combat than IK+ doesn't mean that they weren't both combat games.

Now the point of my previous posts was to say that technology has advanced to a point now where game devs no longer have to choose between active combat and open world play. Ashes of Creation has both. Combat is as active as DDO's. The game has a lot of depth with good character customization. Most importantly this has all been achieved in an open world. It is in short the next step for MMO's and from my experience to date it looks as if it could be a very good and very large step.

Now whether you agree that DDO is action based or not is pretty much moot. We can just agree to disagree there. The fact is though that the next generation of MMO's will have active combat to a greater or lesser degree. As time passes I fully expect that the active aspect will be improved upon as new games are released with even more depth and character customization. I personally think that Alrik is correct in so far as games will become more action based but disagree that it will effectively come at the cost of gameplay, depth or customization. Eventually I honestly think we will end up with a game with DDO's level of customization, Vindictus levels of action combat and Red Dead Redemption quality graphics. It won't mean all games will be action games but as they are for now at least popular you expect that the lions share will be.

[Annex]

Of the games I tried, Divine Divinity, Torchlight, Torchlight II, and Titan Quest play most like DDO. Good Old Games classifies the first three as Role-Playing, Action, Fantasy. Titan Quest is Role-Playing, Combat, Fantasy. Since I am not a gamer, and they are, I pretty much took my definition from them.

To me, a true role playing game requires a mechanism such that story and adventure opportunities change based on player actions. Games like DDO are more like interactive action books. They offer a bunch of options during character creation, then everything immediately collapses into a rigid story where all major plot points are scripted. The Druidess at the end of Thorn and Paw always dies. Zawabi always get his revenge against Queen Lailat. We cannot keep and study the Codex Pages for ourselves. I cannot kill Jeets. Every quest resets after completion, ready for the next person in line at the amusement park.

I am not complaining about any of these things. It just surprises me when people consider DDO a 'real' role playing game when our choices are all meaningless, all rides reset upon completion, and we spend 99.9999% of our time running and murdering stuff.

[Septimus-Boldrei]

I am not complaining about any of these things. It just surprises me when people consider DDO a 'real' role playing game when our choices are all meaningless, all rides reset upon completion, and we spend 99.9999% of our time running and murdering stuff.

DDO is an MMO where you play a role in a pre written story. Compare that to an MMO like Elite : Dangerous where you are given a world to interact with basically without any story.
You cannot say DDO is not a role playing game - it is just one with very little player agency, whereas E : D is an MMO you can chose to roleplay within.

[Weemadarthur]

Of the games I tried, Divine Divinity, Torchlight, Torchlight II, and Titan Quest play most like DDO. Good Old Games classifies the first three as Role-Playing, Action, Fantasy. Titan Quest is Role-Playing, Combat, Fantasy. Since I am not a gamer, and they are, I pretty much took my definition from them.

To me, a true role playing game requires a mechanism such that story and adventure opportunities change based on player actions. Games like DDO are more like interactive action books. They offer a bunch of options during character creation, then everything immediately collapses into a rigid story where all major plot points are scripted. The Druidess at the end of Thorn and Paw always dies. Zawabi always get his revenge against Queen Lailat. We cannot keep and study the Codex Pages for ourselves. I cannot kill Jeets. Every quest resets after completion, ready for the next person in line at the amusement park.

I am not complaining about any of these things. It just surprises me when people consider DDO a 'real' role playing game when our choices are all meaningless, all rides reset upon completion, and we spend 99.9999% of our time running and murdering stuff.

There are a few issues here.

1) you are comparing single player games to MMO's which are 2 completely separate types of game in both how they function and how they can be played.

2) you are using tags that are applied to games as definitive descriptions of what the games are rather than a general guide to the type of gameplay involved. As an example here Titan quest is tagged as Role playing, combat, fantasy but if you actually look up the game itself on google the description states specifically that it's an action, roleplaying, hack and slash video game. So with that being the closest by your own admission to DDO that pretty much confirms DDO as an action based game too.

3) You are using a very narrow set of parameters to define role playing here and one that is mostly inapplicable to computer games in general and pretty much impossible to apply to an MMO. In short you are defining the rpg genre as a whole by what you would like to see in an rpg. I don't disagree with what you want to see here in any way but just don't think that you should be using that as any kind of definitive description. You can play PnP D&D with a bad DM who railroads you into doing the quest the way he wants you to and gives very few options. It doesn't make D&D less of a role playing game it just means you had a bad DM. Think of DDO as just having a bad DM who uses combat as the only solution to every issue and it makes a lot more sense.

[Oxarhamar]

Snip~
I am not complaining about any of these things. It just surprises me when people consider DDO a 'real' role playing game when our choices are all meaningless, all rides reset upon completion, and we spend 99.9999% of our time running and murdering stuff.

It’s not much different than most RPGs with a predetermined storyline

PnP DND has had many modules that are done in this way sure you can go off the path a bit but if you want to complete the objectives it’s going to be following the story Dragonlance for example

RP is about role playing your character more than the storyline of the game itself



An RPG game that does Action & gives you chioces that effect the story but does both extremely poorly is Dragon Age

While the combat is active you control one party member at a time the AI is just aweful forcing you to switch party members is you want them to do anything useful and switching party members requires a pause to the action which just defeats the purpose so does casting pause the action
As far as the effecting the story it doesnt really it still the same story no matter what you choose with differnt cut scenes or endings but the path is unchanged

[Eantarus]

1) you are comparing single player games to MMO's which are 2 completely separate types of game in both how they function and how they can be played.

This is among the major problems I run into when trying to talk about games. I'm an MMO gamer, so people telling me "You would like this single-player game" isn't terribly useful.

[Bjond]

The "responsive" part is what a lot of people dislike

Responsive would mean the world responds. Movement is one of the things all MMOs try to make VERY responsive. It's why people run in circles and jump about in MMOs. The immediate response of the character to input fabricates immersion in the (virtual) physical space of the game.

"action" game is defined as being one with active interaction mechanics, EG active blocking etc. Otherwise known as "stuff that doesn't work at all when lag happens".

I would term that "reactive". It requires "responsive" skills, but responsive doesn't require reactive. It is highly unlikely to become mainstream for two reasons: too ping dependent (expensive to support) and limited by age -- older players don't like it.

As time goes on older market will become bigger and bigger. Boomers are the last of the "didn't grow up playing video games", but they're just a part of everyone else's life experience. As gamers age, they're unlikely to enjoy fast twitchy games.

A lesser reason is that reactive play often requires people to have an encyclopedic knowledge of animation twitches. Filling your brain with that level of detailed nonsense chases adults away. No time for that kind of thing in adult life.

DDO is very much an "Action Game" and very little a "Role Playing Game"

It's a sliding scale. DDO is more action than EQ, but so far away from the "true" action games that DDO feels essentially identical to EQ to me compared to Tera or even to Aion (tab-targetted, but very responsive).

Pretty pixels to fool them all,
Shiney ADs to find them,
Storied action to bring them all,
And in the game world bind them!

Heh. Role-playing with forked story lines in an MMO is v.rare. SWTOR is the only one I know. It has unique forking story for each class. Light or dark or shades of grey as Sith or as Jedi is via accumulated story choices, not via one laughably hokey stereotype at creation. And, there are many many other choices.

Exceptional story depth exists in MMOs, too, but it's also rare. SWL has mind-bogglingly rich story, but it's still single-arc (or triple arc if you consider each faction).

animations are the actions Everything doesnt have to be instant

HA! I just won a bet with myself -- I figured someone would call the animations "actions". Didn't win the other bet, though I might still.

They aren't though. They're so slow that I think "huh .. what is my character doing .. is my character doing anything .. something is broken". I have time to look at the ping meter and other out of game metrics to see if things are still working. That never happens in an action MMO unless something really is broken. The bad ones make themselves so busy that there's no time for that thought. The good ones do it by ensuring the world responds immediately.

Vindictus was 3 years before Terra and that is most definitely an action MMO. I would go as far as to say it has probably the best action combat system

I never played it. Wish I had based on your description of it as "better than Tera".

the next generation of MMO's will have active combat to a greater or lesser degree

I agree The Big Streamlining will happen, but it won't happen soon. MMOs are past the Model-T era (M59, EQ), but still dealing with huge tail-fins or white-wall tires or running boards or big chrome grills or .. etc etc..

Where I see MMOs heading, quickly, slowly, eventually, like a crazed bumper car, is towards immersion. The focusing of attention on the game world to the exclusion of all else, particularly the UI. Dropping the tab from targeting. Shortening the active skill list. These are all prevalent in newer games and all have the same result: removing the UI from focus.

[Oxarhamar]

HA! I just won a bet with myself -- I figured someone would call the animations "actions". Didn't win the other bet, though I might still.

They aren't though. They're so slow that I think "huh .. what is my character doing .. is my character doing anything .. something is broken". I have time to look at the ping meter and other out of game metrics to see if things are still working. That never happens in an action MMO unless something really is broken. The bad ones make themselves so busy that there's no time for that thought. The good ones do it by ensuring the world responds immediately.
.

Again Action RPG genre refers to non turn based where a player controls a character instead of a menu

animations don’t need to be instantaneous to be actions

Just because you think they are slow you know some things take time

If you bet someone would say that what it is is what it is grats on that

[myliftkk_v2]

It is imho very EASY to predict :

Games will become more and more streamlined. Just like cars do.
Everything that players don't like or consider as a chore will be taken away.
Every mechanic stuff will be taken away from the player.
And in general, games will become more and more action games. More action games.
Everything will move even closer to the genre of Action-RPGs.
And everything will be made to cater more extrovert people.

Elden Ring is the future.

Seamless ARPG. Beautiful open world. On demand grouping without compromising the economy.

[Annex]

Bjonds comments kinda remind me of a Pirate game I tried. I never got out of the starter area because the combat and movement made no sense. Is my brain now wired for games like DDO? Could I play a game without the training wheels of a user interface? How come I cannot wrap my bubblehead around Blender? Is the same lack of learning elasticity responsible?

If a role playing game is just walking my "character" through someone else's story, story becomes really important. Who wants to waste time reading a bad book? I mostly gave up on books for games. Why? What am I getting from DDO that I do not get from a book?

Do I really care about the story in DDO? Is DDO really a maze game with an addictive power accumulation system?

What does Alrik really want? What do I really want? What does anyone here really want?

Why am I even here?

[myliftkk_v2]

Of the games I tried, Divine Divinity, Torchlight, Torchlight II, and Titan Quest play most like DDO. Good Old Games classifies the first three as Role-Playing, Action, Fantasy. Titan Quest is Role-Playing, Combat, Fantasy. Since I am not a gamer, and they are, I pretty much took my definition from them.

To me, a true role playing game requires a mechanism such that story and adventure opportunities change based on player actions. Games like DDO are more like interactive action books. They offer a bunch of options during character creation, then everything immediately collapses into a rigid story where all major plot points are scripted. The Druidess at the end of Thorn and Paw always dies. Zawabi always get his revenge against Queen Lailat. We cannot keep and study the Codex Pages for ourselves. I cannot kill Jeets. Every quest resets after completion, ready for the next person in line at the amusement park.

I am not complaining about any of these things. It just surprises me when people consider DDO a 'real' role playing game when our choices are all meaningless, all rides reset upon completion, and we spend 99.9999% of our time running and murdering stuff.

Should have played Souls games if you wanted to be able to kill NPCs. ;-)

[myliftkk_v2]

As time goes on older market will become bigger and bigger. Boomers are the last of the "didn't grow up playing video games", but they're just a part of everyone else's life experience. As gamers age, they're unlikely to enjoy fast twitchy games.

A lesser reason is that reactive play often requires people to have an encyclopedic knowledge of animation twitches. Filling your brain with that level of detailed nonsense chases adults away. No time for that kind of thing in adult life.

Millions of older e-sports game players would say you are wrong.

I play the same kinds of games I enjoyed decades ago. I don't think that changes like you think it does. There's no evidence that playing choices decay like you suggest (without any studies, you're only extrapolating your own biases).

Games today are actually less twitchy than they used to be. The old 2d EA stuff was was less fluid and far more twitchy than any arpg is now. The problem most people have with arpgs, isn't twitching, it's unable to be patient in playstyles rather just lazy button mashing.

[Theolin]

As someone who has played 'role playing" games since zork & hitch hikers, then through wizardy1, ulitma1, etc ....
1st they have gotten easier to play
2nd they have gotten more 'flashy' & "pretty"
3rd it is practically impossible to make a game killing mistake forcing you to start all over

The first several RPGs were ruff on killing you off for anything at all ... type a wrong word - dead, step on the wrong square - dead, stand still too long - dead .....

So I expect that trend to continue, I mean why change a 45 year trend

now git off my lawn, says the guy shaking the cane & rocking the chair