Active combat/real physics in an MMO.

[Drizzitdude]

Yet with all the good that I witness in a game like wow there is still one thing that truly bothers me. The combat system/physics engine.

Just want to point out WoW has no physics engine. All the "physics" are pre-generated animations. Absolutely no physics calculations are involved >.>

Also a major flaw with active combat, is actually making it active. Think about fable, you only get 2 abilities, to make it simpler for the user. The abilities also have timers and cast times. In that time you can be doing something else, but the effect is has is just like a passive battle system. You click and you wait until you can click again.

The real key to active battle would be taking out percentage based combat statistics, like dodge or hit. and make them real time (however you'd need collision detection for everything, which means more calculations..) Also more animations for being hit, and you'd need more scripting to make the AI work with the new mechanics, like say...running around, dodging. It's much more work.


You'd also have to have really really really good netcode. Many games don't.

I am nort sure if you read the post or skimmed it or what. The entire point of my comment about wows physics engine was regarding the point it had none.

Meaningless, I was saying you were wrong in stating the game had a physics engine at all. It does not.

Also please elaborate how in fable you had '2 abilites'

1: Melee attack
2: flourish
3: dodge/block
4: The rather large list of spells I am not going to go into
5: Ranged attack/zoom

Left mouse button. Right mouse button. Attack, flourish, or 2 spells. You only get 2, unless you're really quick at switching. In an MMO that'd be a huge turn off. (I dont' remember the Xbox controls.)

also myu entire post was about adding the REAL hit boxes and collision detection over the old percentages, where u restating this simply to add the note that it would be harder? (I am soprry if I am coming off as rude after i reread my statement it kind of sounded like an attack but really I just want to know where u are coming from here)

when I go into gaming I am going to go into the industry with this in mind.

You can always tell games are improving when it becomes simpler, smoother, more viseceral, more accessible for your customers without sacrificing qaulity and harder for you the devoloper. Improvement isn't about things being easy.

You want hit percentages AND hit boxes? ...Why? If you go with RPG stats, having a 90% hit chance would mean, statistically, for every 100 hits, you should hit them 90 times. That makes the hit box useless. Having the character swing with a button, and then using the hit box to calculate hit, makes the percentage useless.

also,

Yet with all the good that I witness in a game like wow there is still one thing that truly bothers me. The combat system/physics engine. Lets be honest in WoW (and so called 'wow clones') all we really do is watch our character autoattack while we use skills every now in then. It doesn't seem very active and to be honest I don't think any of us have ever had the feeling of there being weight behind our blows with slashes or spells. It just seems to phase through the enemy as if they were insubstantial, the only real indicator of damage being done is the number you see flying up and the enemies health being reduced.

When I first played 'Fable' and 'Fable: The Lost Chapters' all those years ago one giant fact hit me, the game had an EXCELLENT combat system. It existed in a realm above other rpgs for the simple fact your ACTIVELY controlled your characters actions. Every slash, spell, block or roll everything had weight to it. When you hit an enemy they reacted now wouldn't this be great in an mmo? Where instead of the game just rolling off of hidden dice rolls it, would exist in that realm where if I slash my sword, anything caught in that slash will be hurt by it? A realm where if I see a boss swinging a meat cleaver in my direction I could attempt to roll out of the way or block it to nullify a percent of the damage and if I acted like I do in wow and simply stood there and took it (I tank) there would be consequences?

The bolded points have nothing to do with an active battle system at all. You just want more animations by the sound of it, not an active battle system. Hit calculations are there in WoW, and on hit, they can have the game play an animation. That kinda sounds like all you want.

The italicized point is closer to an active battle system. However, you want to keep the percentages of things like dodge, so why move out of the way? He might miss anyway. Magically.

The only real way to see active combat is by removing the chance stats, that way you can rely on collision detection rather than numbers. You'd need a collision box for every character type, a good one too, not just a cube. More animations to give the player more feedback than damage numbers, and have the ability to press more buttons, rather than 2 or 3 without it being too clunky, as it's an active battle, you will need to be on your toes. (Or as I explained with fable, things have cast times and their own attack speeds, which makes the system just like WoW, only more transparent)

My points were to displaey that an active battle system is much more work than a passive one, and many MMOs are about content, not combat.

Another note would be to say WoW -is- an active battle system, as it is not turn based. I won't do that to you though

Apparently by saying 'over' you thought I mean as well as. I Mean in place of sorry for the confusion. As in NO hit percentages. Where everything in the path of my sword WILL be hit by my slash and it is NOT affected by some hidden dice mechanic. Thats why you were confusing me at first it seemed to me you were restating what I just said back to me as an arugment. Really you were basing everything you said off a poor choice of wording a made earlier I see now. So yeah we clear now?

Also by the word 'active' I was refering to the increase in control over the characters actions/movements. such press and hold (insert key here) to block rather than simply pressing a skill and having my block rate magically increased by 50% or other such nonsense.

NOTE; Also on your earlier point of the amount of skills in fable; well thats the wonderful thing about being a computer isn't it? We have all these pretty buttons on the keyboard to choose from. And the console version was 3 spells (when holding right trigger your spells replaced x (melee hit) Y (block/dodge and B (sprint/flourish) that you could put on multiple preset and cycle through for more variety. But I wasn't saying stick exactly to the fable engine/formula but simply use it for a basis of what we would want. It could easily be tweaked so your spells/skills went to your 1-9 bar instead. Then add a few original skills, seperate them into classes and bam.

 

[oplinger]

Apparently by saying 'over' you thought I mean as well as. I Mean in place of sorry for the confusion. As in NO hit percentages. Where everything in the path of my sword WILL be hit by my slash and it is NOT affected by some hidden dice mechanic. Thats why you were confusing me at first it seemed to me you were restating what I just said back to me as an arugment. Really you were basing everything you said off a poor choice of wording a made earlier I see now. So yeah we clear now?

also myu entire post was about adding the REAL hit boxes and collision detection over the old percentages

Over was not the problem.

If I added a bed sheet over myself, I'd still be there, I'd have a bed sheet on top of me.

If I took the bed sheet over the blanket, there'd be no blanket.

It's also silly to think that's what I've based my entire post on. I think I also commented on your confusion as to what it means to have an active battle system. Not to mention outlined the work that'd need to go into it. Good job trying really hard to write me off though.

 

[Drizzitdude]

Apparently by saying 'over' you thought I mean as well as. I Mean in place of sorry for the confusion. As in NO hit percentages. Where everything in the path of my sword WILL be hit by my slash and it is NOT affected by some hidden dice mechanic. Thats why you were confusing me at first it seemed to me you were restating what I just said back to me as an arugment. Really you were basing everything you said off a poor choice of wording a made earlier I see now. So yeah we clear now?

also myu entire post was about adding the REAL hit boxes and collision detection over the old percentages

Over was not the problem.

If I added a bed sheet over myself, I'd still be there, I'd have a bed sheet on top of me.

If I took the bed sheet over the blanket, there'd be no blanket.

It's also silly to think that's what I've based my entire post on. I think I also commented on your confusion as to what it means to have an active battle system. Not to mention outlined the work that'd need to go into it. Good job trying really hard to write me off though.

Tried to be reasonable here but now you are just being nitpicky and keeping the arguement going for arguements sale. Fine 'replacing' are you happy now? Here is the revised sentence

"Also my entire post was about replacing the old percent based system with REAL hit boxes and collision detection"

Also by acknowledging half of the arguement that has been clogging this thread came from a miscommunication on my part and apoligizing for it is 'writing you off?'.

And keep in mind I also acknowledged the work that would have to go into such an undertaking and said (in a nutshell) just because it is hard doesn't mean is isn't worth doing. Making improvements on things isn't always easy but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them.

 

[Kae]

The problem with active combat in an mmo would be lag.

The auto attack with special abilites makes the game playable and enjoyable even with a full second of lag between your input and the games reaction, as the global cooldown on spells/abilites blocks your next action for 1,5sec anyway.

Could you imagine actually aiming at an enemy with a second delay?

In your fable example, your client would have to display something when you attack, so he would propably guess wether your strike hit a monster and make that monster recoil from damage. But if the server disagrees about whether you actually hit something, your client will update the monsters position later, resulting in a monster that teleports a few feet closer to you and may actually be already hitting you.

This guy got it right on the money, I've been playing a game with a very active although weird combat system it's called Mabinogi (Vindictus is a prequel to this game I believe), and although the controls are not exactly hack and slash it does require you to have good timing and if you lag even for one second it WILL cost you you're life, I know because every time I lag for 1 second I'm not able to counter the enemy attack or roll out of the path of the arrow or land an attack before the enemy attacks you, I like the game but it's really annoying that many deaths are because of lag, although not most since the game is actually kinda hard.

 

[Drizzitdude]

The problem with active combat in an mmo would be lag.

The auto attack with special abilites makes the game playable and enjoyable even with a full second of lag between your input and the games reaction, as the global cooldown on spells/abilites blocks your next action for 1,5sec anyway.

Could you imagine actually aiming at an enemy with a second delay?

In your fable example, your client would have to display something when you attack, so he would propably guess wether your strike hit a monster and make that monster recoil from damage. But if the server disagrees about whether you actually hit something, your client will update the monsters position later, resulting in a monster that teleports a few feet closer to you and may actually be already hitting you.

This guy got it right on the money, I've been playing a game with a very active although weird combat system it's called Mabinogi (Vindictus is a prequel to this game I believe), and although the controls are not exactly hack and slash it does require you to have good timing and if you lag even for one second it WILL cost you you're life, I know because every time I lag for 1 second I'm not able to counter the enemy attack or roll out of the path of the arrow or land an attack before the enemy attacks you, I like the game but it's really annoying that many deaths are because of lag, although not most since the game is actually kinda hard.

Perhaps in the future such would be possible on a console (doubt it would be this gen -_- ) where the connection is more reliable and everyone is more stable.

 

[Hristo Filaretov]

Well, Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG and it has active, dynamic combat. There is no holy trinity, classes can fulfill all roles (damage, control, support) in their own unique way. There are no dedicated healers or tanks. The strongest healing skills are the self-heals- skills that heal only your character (there are several self-heal skills per class)

Positioning, moving and dodging are key elements in combat.

Most ranged projectiles can be dodged, so you shouldn't just stand there tanking hits. You're are going to die that way.

When you shoot a projectile and something is standing in the way of your foe, the projectile will instead hit the first target it encounters (either another hostile foe or an environmental object).

And if you stand on higher ground your ranged abilities will have longer range.

The developers have said that they don't want you just standing there doing your rotation over and over again. Combat is not about who can use more abilities in 5 seconds or who has better gear, it's about positioning and avoiding enemy hits, instead of being a practice dummy.

I think I missed a few things, but you get the general idea.

One major problem, though. The game hasn't been released yet and if you aren't going to any of the game conventions this summer, you'll have to wait until open beta

 

[Drizzitdude]

Well, Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG (it hasn't been released yet and there is no official release date) and it has active, dynamic combat. There is no holy trinity, classes can fulfill all roles (damage, control, support) in their own unique way. Positioning, moving and dodging are key elements in combat. You should really check it out.

We discussed guild wars 2 and I (being aa fan of the first game) have to say I am looking forward to it. Where did you here I didn't have the holy trinity though? I though it might after looking at the 'guardian class. and thinking it was mostly a tank. Hmmmm, then agin I don't remember seeing a healer so maybe not.

 

[VladG]

There are 2 main reasons in my opinion why most MMOs stick to this formula and why very few try (and mostly fail) to innovate:

1) Performance issues: Both hardware and connection related, in an action-oriented MMO based on hitbox and reflex combat ANY latency whatsoever would TOTALLY destroy the game. Any online FPS player can tell you that latency is your worst enemy, but online FPS games work because they have a very low number of players on a server (dozens at best compared to thousands in a MMO).
Servers that could host so many players and offer the extreme performance needed would be very expensive, and you would need to localize them heavily given that the average internet connection isn't that great.

Also on the performance issue, a hitbox/reflex game needs a much better engine (and so one that would be more resource-hungry) WoW is, even with the low-end, outdated graphics, quite resource hungry. A reflex/hitbox MMO that looks even halfway decent would require top-of-the-range rigs to run (as any performance drop would make the game unplayable) and so it would only cater to the rather few who can afford high-end PCs and very expensive internet connections.

2) WoW-ish "dice-roll" auto combat and progressive difficulty and content progression caters well for both casual and hardcore players. Casuals can enjoy the game at a fairly relaxed pace, without having their fingers dance on the keyboard like a spider on cocaine, while hardcore games still get a good challenge out of the high-tier raids and heroics. This is also down to good design, the combat alone may be quite unchallenging, but various fight mechanics still demand quick reflexes and good attention to compensate for the relaxed static combat.

A hitbox/reflex game would again alienate many of the more casual players interested more in socializing, exploring, questing, etc. And as a player who has spent some time in RP and social guilds, I can say there are more of those than there are hardcore raiders around.


Basically the reason a game like the one you'd like hasn't been made yet (or at least not a single half-decent one) is because it will most likely be a great financial flop, catering to a very restricted fan base. Unfortunately MMOs are expensive to make and to maintain and no developer can take major risks anymore.

Project Titan is coming though, and they claim it will be very different from WoW and cater to a different fan base. So who knows, you might just get your wish, and I can think of no company who has a better chance to pull it off than Blizzard.

 

[Ickorus]

Guild Wars 2 seems to be going for dynamic combat and it seems to be doing a good job of it so far.

 

[JediMB]

Actually Lag has nothing to do with the players computer, it is more to do with the players internet speed and the server's capabilities, having over a thousand people online on a single server (which you have to admit is TINY for an MMO) all doing the real time combat would put both massive strains on the server itself and on the players internet as the amount of data being sent and delivered is MUCH larger than the current systems used now.

I'll chime in with another important contributor:

Physics and physical distance.

Latency, the time it takes for any amount of data to move between the client and the host. To keep it simple: unless everyone in the world is guaranteed a fiber-optic Internet connection, there is going to be noticeable lag in any "active" combat system, and with so many players to take into account and compensate for the lag will be quite terrible unless the players are only allowed to play against people in their own or closely surrounding countries.

That said, if I've got my numbers right, there will only be about 0.13 seconds of latency if data is sent back and forth between a server and a client on opposite sides of the world... if they have an uninterrupted fiber-optic connection.

 

[Drizzitdude]

There are 2 main reasons in my opinion why most MMOs stick to this formula and why very few try (and mostly fail) to innovate:

1) Performance issues: Both hardware and connection related, in an action-oriented MMO based on hitbox and reflex combat ANY latency whatsoever would TOTALLY destroy the game. Any online FPS player can tell you that latency is your worst enemy, but online FPS games work because they have a very low number of players on a server (dozens at best compared to thousands in a MMO).
Servers that could host so many players and offer the extreme performance needed would be very expensive, and you would need to localize them heavily given that the average internet connection isn't that great.

Also on the performance issue, a hitbox/reflex game needs a much better engine (and so one that would be more resource-hungry) WoW is, even with the low-end, outdated graphics, quite resource hungry. A reflex/hitbox MMO that looks even halfway decent would require top-of-the-range rigs to run (as any performance drop would make the game unplayable) and so it would only cater to the rather few who can afford high-end PCs and very expensive internet connections.

2) WoW-ish "dice-roll" auto combat and progressive difficulty and content progression caters well for both casual and hardcore players. Casuals can enjoy the game at a fairly relaxed pace, without having their fingers dance on the keyboard like a spider on cocaine, while hardcore games still get a good challenge out of the high-tier raids and heroics. This is also down to good design, the combat alone may be quite unchallenging, but various fight mechanics still demand quick reflexes and good attention to compensate for the relaxed static combat.

A hitbox/reflex game would again alienate many of the more casual players interested more in socializing, exploring, questing, etc. And as a player who has spent some time in RP and social guilds, I can say there are more of those than there are hardcore raiders around.


Basically the reason a game like the one you'd like hasn't been made yet (or at least not a single half-decent one) is because it will most likely be a great financial flop, catering to a very restricted fan base. Unfortunately MMOs are expensive to make and to maintain and no developer can take major risks anymore.

Project Titan is coming though, and they claim it will be very different from WoW and cater to a different fan base. So who knows, you might just get your wish, and I can think of no company who has a better chance to pull it off than Blizzard.

But still thats not to say the that casual gamers and a more dynamic gameplay option aren't compaticle. Just imagine fables take on dynamic combat. Sure you could get through the entire area by being a total pro time your blocks, dodges, floruishes just right and just being a straight up badass but thats not to say a more casual gamer couldn't pick the game up and just button mash their way to victory or spend most of the time just exploring the envoroment/doing missions.

I think I ak going to try to make this happen once I finish taking my computer programming and graphic design courses. which will in about 4 years. and by then hopefully I could secure some funding and technology will have improved enough to make latency not such an issue.

I'll chime in with another important contributor:

Physics and physical distance.

Latency, the time it takes for any amount of data to move between the client and the host. To keep it simple: unless everyone in the world is guaranteed a fiber-optic Internet connection, there is going to be noticeable lag in any "active" combat system, and with so many players to take into account and compensate for the lag will be quite terrible unless the players are only allowed to play against people in their own or closely surrounding countries.

That said, if I've got my numbers right, there will only be about 0.13 seconds of latency if data is sent back and forth between a server and a client on opposite sides of the world... if they have an uninterrupted fiber-optic connection.

you heard the man. everyone, time to upgrade, like HARDCORE supercereal hard to pull off upgrade xD

 

[Hristo Filaretov]

Well, Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG (it hasn't been released yet and there is no official release date) and it has active, dynamic combat. There is no holy trinity, classes can fulfill all roles (damage, control, support) in their own unique way. Positioning, moving and dodging are key elements in combat. You should really check it out.

We discussed guild wars 2 and I (being aa fan of the first game) have to say I am looking forward to it. Where did you here I didn't have the holy trinity though? I though it might after looking at the 'guardian class. and thinking it was mostly a tank. Hmmmm, then agin I don't remember seeing a healer so maybe not.

Read these articles:
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-one/

And the Guardian is many things but not a tank. He has the second lowest base health value (after the elementalist). You see, all classes have different ways of taking damage. Warriors wear heavy armor and have the highest base health value, so they can, if needed take a few hits in order to save an ally or rally somebody. A Thief on the other hand must constantly move and dodge in order to survive, because he has weaker armor and less health than a warrior. But that doesn't mean the Thief is at disadvantage! Most of the Thief's skills help him move in and out of combat really fast!

If you would like to learn more, read the rest of the articles and be sure to visit guildwars2guru.com!

EDIT: Also, there are no dodge and block chances. You either dodge manually or take the hit. Same goes for the shield, though there are different skills to use, not just a regular "Block"

 

[vonknut]

Darkfall has all you need:

FPS style combat (Melee, archery, magic)
RPG (skills, attributes, gear, modifications, buffs)
Physics and physics altering spells, that can send friends and enemies flying
Offensive and defensice skills (blocks, fast get-a-ways, rooting etc).
Seamless world

The combat system is not as good as mount and blade, but its okay.
The lag is not really an issue, unless your in 100+ sieges / skirmishes.

Its good, its not perfect, but its good and fit your needs

 

[Kenko]

The problem with active combat in an mmo would be lag.

The auto attack with special abilites makes the game playable and enjoyable even with a full second of lag between your input and the games reaction, as the global cooldown on spells/abilites blocks your next action for 1,5sec anyway.

Could you imagine actually aiming at an enemy with a second delay?

In your fable example, your client would have to display something when you attack, so he would propably guess wether your strike hit a monster and make that monster recoil from damage. But if the server disagrees about whether you actually hit something, your client will update the monsters position later, resulting in a monster that teleports a few feet closer to you and may actually be already hitting you.

Worked just fine in Planetside with a few hiccups here and there.

 

[Sixcess]

Fallen Earth doesn't use auto attacks or tab targetting. There are combat skills that you can trigger to enhance your hits, and your character's skill level and the weapons you're using will affect things like damage done and how tight the crosshairs are, but the actual shooting is all down to your skill, FPS style.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 got ripped to SHREDS by PC gamers for doing away with/reducing the Stat-based combat in favor of more dynamic combat.

Why would the same not happen for MMO's? Companies don't want to take that risk because of how expensive MMOs are.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Actually Lag has nothing to do with the players computer, it is more to do with the players internet speed and the server's capabilities, having over a thousand people online on a single server (which you have to admit is TINY for an MMO) all doing the real time combat would put both massive strains on the server itself and on the players internet as the amount of data being sent and delivered is MUCH larger than the current systems used now.

I'll chime in with another important contributor:

Physics and physical distance.

Latency, the time it takes for any amount of data to move between the client and the host. To keep it simple: unless everyone in the world is guaranteed a fiber-optic Internet connection, there is going to be noticeable lag in any "active" combat system, and with so many players to take into account and compensate for the lag will be quite terrible unless the players are only allowed to play against people in their own or closely surrounding countries.

That said, if I've got my numbers right, there will only be about 0.13 seconds of latency if data is sent back and forth between a server and a client on opposite sides of the world... if they have an uninterrupted fiber-optic connection.

0.13 seconds is still 130 milliseconds. In terms of lag in a computer game, that's still pretty dramatic. FPS players already tend to complain when lag gets much over 40-50 ms... But then again, they're a little... obsessive sometimes.

Still, lag is the biggest hurdle, because the physics of it make life very challenging unless the server is physically close to the players, and the entire connection is stable and fast.

If that can't be guaranteed, then it requires very clever prediction systems on the server, and the more reliant on reflexes the game mechanics are, the more difficult it is to do prediction in a way that the players won't notice. And... The more players, the more demanding this is on the server too.
Roughly speaking, in a peer-to-peer game the load on everyone's network connection grows exponentially. (4 players is 4 times the load of 2 players, and 8 players is 16 times the load).
Fortunately, in a client-server model, the load for any given player is much more linear, so doubling the number of players on the server increases the required connection bandwidth for a single player by a lot less than the number of players involved.
However, the cost of this is that the server needs to have sufficient processing power and network bandwidth to handle all of the connected players... That's less bandwidth overall, but some serious
complications for the server.
Now, while I don't doubt this isn't an insurmountable problem, it is a very difficult one. It probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise that while MMORPG's like WOW have several hundred people on a server, games calling themselves 'mmofps' games frequently can't handle much more than 32-64 players on a server where actual combat is involved.

The lag problem however... Is constrained by physics. Even in ideal cases. Again, clever programming might mitigate against this, but the fact remains, the more active and reflex-oriented a game is, (or in other words, the more critical timing is to the game) the more difficult it is to make something that is playable in an mmo context.

Anyway, as an aside, I'm reminded of the matrix online... It's no longer going, and to my knowledge the game mechanics weren't much different to pretty much any other mmorpg, (and it supposedly wasn't very good), but according to interviews from way back when they made a big deal about the animation setup for hand-to-hand combat, and how characters actually blocked, countered, and reacted to eachother in a fight and had a huge variety of moves...
Granted, that's all just visual, and since I never played it I'm not sure how good it was in practice, but it seemed good on paper.

Of course, it's only an animation system. And... I looked up some videos on youtube... It's impressive in some regards, since characters hit and react fluidly, but at the same time it's just messed up enough to look like they're not quite hitting eachother.

This video is pretty long-winded, but when they start hitting eachother it shows quite well what they were aiming for, how it's better than some games, but still pretty disconnected.
Of course, this is an old game, and one discontinued almost 2 years ago now. (and again, the actual combat mechanics are much like every other MMO ever.)

(skip the first 2 minutes or so if you're just interested in the fighting animations)




Of course, the matrix online wasn't exactly a brilliant MMO at the best of times. Were it not for the license behind it It'd probably have failed a lot sooner than it did, and looking at it I'm not sure how much it really adds to this discussion.

 

[Drizzitdude]

Darkfall has all you need:

FPS style combat (Melee, archery, magic)
RPG (skills, attributes, gear, modifications, buffs)
Physics and physics altering spells, that can send friends and enemies flying
Offensive and defensice skills (blocks, fast get-a-ways, rooting etc).
Seamless world

The combat system is not as good as mount and blade, but its okay.
The lag is not really an issue, unless your in 100+ sieges / skirmishes.

Its good, its not perfect, but its good and fit your needs

I tried darkfall, i was okay considering it was an attempt at bassically multiplayer oblivion but after i got into my firt siege/raid I realized the game was really over complex having to use different wands/scrolls for spells and have like 1 million buffs to equip before going into the fray. Also there was still the issue of 'hits feeling like they carried no weight'

Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 got ripped to SHREDS by PC gamers for doing away with/reducing the Stat-based combat in favor of more dynamic combat.

Why would the same not happen for MMO's? Companies don't want to take that risk because of how expensive MMOs are.

Which is why you have to focus on both. Dragon age origins was GREAT because of its tactical gameplay and VERY rich story for every mission. they sacrificed that DA: 2 which is something you should never do. its like mass effect as well, I think that in the sequels the over combat was greatly improved but that rest of the design suffered for it. If its hard to make a game with good story and combat DEAL WITH IT. I am sure people would rather wait the extra year or to for a high quality product than get a half done game.

 

[Gleem]

But still thats not to say the that casual gamers and a more dynamic gameplay option aren't compaticle. Just imagine fables take on dynamic combat. Sure you could get through the entire area by being a total pro time your blocks, dodges, floruishes just right and just being a straight up badass but thats not to say a more casual gamer couldn't pick the game up and just button mash their way to victory or spend most of the time just exploring the envoroment/doing missions.

Oh.. oh you don't really play very many MMO games with real casual players, do you? I've talked to true casual players, the type that can't do more than 12k dps at level 85 fully geared. I.E. at least half of WoW. Several have stated that WoW is really the only game they can play because it's so tailored to their style of play. They say games like Fable are too hard. I remember watching my mom attempt Fable. It took her like 60 hours of gametime to actually beat it. These are the types of people that it takes them 5 seconds to realize they're even in fire, then another 5 to get out of it. In order to have an actual attempt at difficult/challenging fights.. like say, end-game content not dodging should pretty much kill you instantly. Now imagine attempting to do that with people that can't really dodge, and there goes several players.

Also, you want a physics engine, and you want the ability to have it where you swing your sword and it hits everything you swing at. Well, I hate to break this to you, but trying that means that either A. the swing was so shallow that it barely scratches them, or B. it hits the first target and then stops.. because that's called Newton's law.

There have been games that have tried elements of what you're suggesting, and they -don't- work. Why? It's -because- you're on that mass scale.

 

[Maze1125]

also I havent played City of Heroes/villains and no one I know plays it or talks about it so I don't have a solid opinion on it to work from.

That's exactly my point.
The reason you're only seeing MMORPGs with the standard fighting system is because you're only looking at the great big ones built to be WoW rip-offs in an attempt to grab some of their overwhelming pie.

Go out of your way to look at the lesser known ones, with settings other than simple fantasy, and you'll find plenty of different combat systems.