I'm a WoW fan and a TES fan, and I don't particularly care for the direction they're taking TES Online. I already have Warcraft. I don't need another MMO that's just like it.

I mean, what's wrong with making an online Action RPG?

the combat (as described) is not remotely similar to wows.

Yes its FAR closer to guild Wars.

Which is a game many people love for the specific fact that it doesnt play like woW

Also, combat is not remotely similar to Skyrim.

yep, its very twitch/skill based.

there will be staggering as well.

Isnt that a good thing?

Skyrim's most generally hated upon feature is its poor combat, that and its magic system, or nearly lack there of, and its choiseless quests.

If that is so, then it is about as weaksauce an excuse as it gets, as that implies that "traditional" MMO combat with hotbars is the only way to make MMOs work, which is demonstrably false. Anyone that says "it can't be done that way" when there are already games that do so is either not knowledgeable in his own field or is being disingenuous. There have been action-focused MMOs since before WoW.

I don't think it will make much of a difference, for me personally, being a pc player of TES, it will go from clicking a mouse to... clicking a mouse. As far as they way you attack, I would have preferd Age of Conans style, where you make directional attacks to string together combos, based on the openings your enemy leaves to you, and then you can use special moves like a heavy overhead blow that knocks the enemy back or whatever.

What I think everyone needs to keep in mind, is that they have supposedly been making this game for five years. Now think back to five years ago, and what mmo was the most popular, WOW. That was the setup accepted by most mmos, and so that is obviously the one they had in mind at the beginning of development. Now, could they update some of the systems, probably. Would it be difficult and cost money, yeah, I'm sure it would. I think we need to wait, because there is still a whole year between now and launch and there is no telling what they may change.

actually it seems fairly close. there will be active blocking, staggering, and sprinting via a stamina bar.

all hotkey based means is that you press a keyboard button to attack instead of using your mouse.

Being playing WoW since 2005. Not happy about this at all. As others have said, it's more likely to turn me away from the game then to try it out. I've never much enjoyed hot bar combat systems and I really hoped a TES MMO would be the game that would try something different. Sadly, that's not the case.

In comparison to what, exactly? Are you saying that Oblivion's was better? I use a modded combat system now(but then I did the same for both Oblivion and Morrowind as well), but the combat is an upgrade from its predecessors'. All the complaints I've seen about Skyrim's combat has been in comparison to Dark Souls. And in response I would point out that Oblivion's combat was compared unfavorably to that of Mount & Blade, and Morrowind's was often criticized for having false depth(best attack, anyone?). So sure, if you want to say that Skyrim's combat is not the absolute best in the industry while simultaneously ignoring the faults of every previous game, I guess you could, with tremendous heaps of hyperbole, call Skyrim's combat "poor."

Still better than what the GI article describes.

If I wanted to play something with WoW features, I'd go play WoW. I gave a gaming company the benefit of the doubt back in December with Bioware. It turned out exactly as I feared it would. I won't play WoW with a thin, Elder Scrolls veneer on it. I won't even play Guild Wars 2 with an Elder Scrolls veneer on it. I want something unique, something innovative, something different. It they can't offer me that, I'll wait for another company who can.

Most other video games, especially RPGs.

TES combat is its most criticized feature in the gaming circle. That being said, they should have worked to improve it especially with Arkane Studios now in Zenimax.

Who cares what WoW players are happy or unhappy about. Blizzard and its unholy spawn, World of Warcraft, set the MMO industry back at least a decade, and we're still discovering how deep the rot really went.

Besides, for those of you who are familiar with DAoC, I am willing to bet that WoW players will gravitate towards the most popular faction, and proceed to be the major fodder feeder to the zergs.

Bad does as bad is.

Any MMO that takes designs base around Wow is a piece of crap. It's old, it's tired, and it's out dated. If this game doesn't feel like oblivion or skyrim, or any of the other elder scroll games, it's not even worth buying, however we still have limited knowledge about the game. At least I do since I haven't gotten my copy of game informer yet.

I can tell you that the game shares FAR FAR more gameplay mechanics with Guild Wars 2 then it does WoW, at least according to the Game Informer info.

That's about as much of a non-answer as you could have given. Let me rephrase my question then. What about Skyrim's combat is it that people are saying is bad? Because the only thing I've heard is that Dark Souls was better, and for that, see my above response.


Okay, you keep saying that, so I checked GW2 on Youtube. Now granted, you can only get so much from watching a game instead of playing it, but after watching a Boss fight and a PvP video, I would have believed you if you had told me that it was a graphics update to WoW. I saw less differences from WoW there than I did in SWTOR. So if that's your idea of a game being nothing like WoW, then you have a much broader definition of the word "different" than I.

The main diffrences between WoW and Guild Wars is Guild Wars use of a dodge system that drains a fatigue bar and a dedicated healing spell for all clases so it removed the need for the "trinty" the TANK/DPS/HEALER combo tha WoW uses.

In WoW you have pre-defined roles of someone is a Tank, a Healer, and a DPS, while in Guild Wars 2 every class can play every role to some extent. You cant really see it from watching vids but if you played the beta you would understand how it works.


TES Online mimcks Guild Wars 2's self-reliance system with its Fatiuge bar that lets you block, sprint, intterupt, and negate some hostile spell effects.

It lets each player do more things on thier own so you dont have to need those dedicated role and you dont have to stand around yelling "GROUP LOOKING FOR HEALER FOR RAID" for 20 mintues

There's hotkey based combat and then there's hotkey based combat. DAOC was way ahead of it's time with reaction styles, positionals, chain styles, etc. Combat was very engaging and visceral. Some of the more "modern" MMO games have very boring click 1,2,3,4 pause 1,2,3,4. You get the idea - if ZOS has improved on their heritage (DAOC) then it will be great, if not, then it won't. We'll all have to wait and see.

I know TES Online does have skill combos between classes, which is a nice thing to add.

Makes things more interesting

the biggest fundamental difference between wow, rift, star wars etc and games like guild wars 2, tera, and AoC is the lack of an auto attack.

i dont see ESO having an autoattack.

Exactly. I don't understand the sudden praise for TES combat. It's totally boring, which is mitigated by all the other things you can do in the games, but in a competetive multiplayer environment, it would be horrible.

Personally, I'm very happy. I want an RPG, not an action game. And it seems TESO's combat is much closer to an RPG again.

In terms of bad things in the ES games.

The biggest complaint about Morrowind, I ever heard of, was how bad its combat was
The biggest complaint about Oblivion, I ever heard about, was how bad its combat is
The biggest complaint about Skyrim, I have heard about, is how bad its combat is

Like when did TES ever have good combat?


The series combat was never good, unique, or its strong point. It was the exploration that made TES great, and TES Online supposeidly has the SP game's exploration.

Since TESO was announced and people wanted something new to complain about?

This is actually one of the less disappointing things to me about the announcement. I mean, consider what the combat has been in morrowind/oblivion/skyrim. Smack, backstep, smack, backstep, smack, backstep. Or, if you're a magic user, fireballfireballfireballfireballfireballfireball ooh a dunmer lightningboltlightningboltlightningbolt...etc. Hotbar based combat can provide a bit more strategy.