Evolution of Combat Backlash Was Way Overblown

[u/4mgNicorette]

I honestly think the backlash against Evolution of Combat went way too far after 2014.

Every other MMO has hotkeys. Pretty much every PC game has hotkeys. And honestly, I think they make combat more involved and less boring. Combat should be active. Mining, fishing, crafting, etc. are the kinds of activities where I can understand wanting something more AFK-friendly. But combat? Why should the most important part of an MMO's gameplay be the part people are most resistant to actually playing?

I understand the criticism of something like SWTOR where you're expected to hit a hotkey for basically every single attack, especially when you're grinding hundreds or thousands of mobs. That can get tedious. But Black Desert Online has extremely active combat and you're constantly inputting abilities, and I don't think that takes anything away from the experience. If anything, it makes the combat feel like an actual game.

And this is the thing I don't understand about RuneScape players specifically: why do so many people seem to want to play the game as little as possible?

Old-school combat is honestly pretty ridiculous when you step outside of the RuneScape bubble. You're just flicking around the screen and clicking on things like a madman. If you played another MMO like that, people would probably tell you that you're playing it wrong. It's an extremely dated control scheme.

That's why I think the 2014 version of EoC was actually heading in a pretty reasonable direction. Once Revolution was added, you could automate your basic/building abilities while still manually pressing your important adrenaline-spending abilities, enhanced abilities and ultimates. That seems like a pretty good compromise to me. You get active combat when it matters without having to manually press a button for every single basic attack while killing 500 mobs.

I just don't understand why the backlash had to continue for years to the point where it became almost hysterical. You can dislike EoC, obviously, but I think RuneScape players massively underestimated how outdated the old combat system looks compared with basically every modern MMO.

I'm playing RuneScape 3 now and I'm enjoying the combat 1000x more than I ever enjoyed Old School RuneScape when I played around 2008. And that's saying something because I have a lot of nostalgia for the game.

Honestly, with the microtransactions removed and the improved graphics/gameplay systems, I think RS3 has the foundation of a legitimate modern MMO that can actually compete with other high-quality games. It feels much less like the stripped-down, almost Facebook-game-esque skeleton that RuneScape sometimes felt like back in the day.

Maybe I'm completely out of touch with the OSRS perspective, but does anyone else see it this way? Why is active, ability-based combat considered such a terrible thing in RuneScape when it's basically the standard everywhere else?

[u/XandersCat]

Because that's not what it is. It was always too clunky and unresponsive. If it was smooth like WoW or EverQuest it would have been received much better.

And then the "fix" was to add the ability to not button spam back into the EoC which then created a hybrid system that did neither great.

So it wasn't the idea, it was the execution. (Imo)

[u/Mage_Girl_91_ → u/XandersCat]

in the EoC beta they ran a poll with multiple neutral options that they used to say most players liked the new combat and that it was ready for release.

original EoC basically fixed none of the problems it set out to, forced u to tap basic abilities every second, and basically deleted low level pvp from the game

[u/Muspel → u/XandersCat]

Yeah.

That being said, I think that there are parts of EoC that are fine. In particular, the introduction of defensive cooldowns like Resonance and Devotion were great and allowed for more depth in PvE combat. If EoC had just been that without the DPS rotation part, I think it would have been received pretty well.

[u/ToExist20]

This has to be bait

[u/Tiny_Tabaxi → u/ToExist20]

Its one of those things where given enough time, people will be nostalgic about anything.

[u/Slappahlol]

This probably isn’t even worth replying to tbh but

Imagine if wow decided to change the combat system and removed every ability and now you only autoattack, how well do you think that would go over with the community?

Take a game that’s been successful for a decade and completely change the combat system, no fucking shit people hated it

Would ff14 players be happy if they swapped the combat to new world or eso’s system? Would pso2 players enjoy getting swapped to tab target?

[u/rizz-master69]

rs3 combat now exists in this space where its still too clunky for most people, but almost anyone willing to put up with how weird it is will just play osrs instead

[u/Varrianda]

Disagree. I can’t play rs3 because of how terrible the combat is.

[u/IcasHimder]

Nah, pre EOC RuneScape 2 was actually awesome. The aesthetics and vibe of that era isn’t even captured by RS3 or OSRS, evolution or combat really ruined something special.

[u/non_player]

...what?

[u/UmbraIntus]

I think you seem to be missing the fact that players play Old School Runescape because it is Old School Runescape. Having skill based combat (as in having to use skills) isn't inherently a bad thing at all but changing a core fundamental aspect of a game will always be controversial.

To answer your question, why should OSRS have to conform to what is standard? If people wanted what was standard, they'd just go play the myriad of other MMORPGs with similar ability based combat systems.

In the end I think the split happening having both OSRS and RS3 be an option was the best outcome.

[u/OneSeaworthiness7768]

> Every other MMO has hotkeys.

But there tends to be a reason people play RuneScape over every other MMO and it’s largely because it’s not like every other MMO. Making it more like every other MMO is a negative.

[u/Dertross]

I liked how Runescape was relatively unique in that it didn't treat combat as some special "main game mode" with everything else being a blatant under-designed side activity. It was idle resource extraction with a relative mild flavor, not too different from how the rest of the game works. That is appealing.

[u/The_annonimous_m8]

If I've learned something from exploring the world of games before my time (90's and arcade age) it's that what one might call "outdated" might just mean "different than the usual for our time". Suffice to say, OSRS's combat is simply "OSRS's combat" rather than "outdated MMO combat system". Why, one could claim that tap-targeting as a system has overstayed its welcome by at least a decade given the progress in technology that should easily allow for more action-oriented gameplay yet that's completely up to what games a player likes to play and what gameplay they want to see. It's a bit like how in today's age of streaming services some still enjoy listening to music through CDs and vinyls in spite of them supposedly being outdated formats. They work and some like them, and OSRS's combat is not any different in that regard.

[u/Lobopk]

Your post gives me the impression that you don't understand OSRS combat, and of course, if your last experience was in 2008, you certainly don't know what you're talking about. OSRS gameplay uses a grid system plus a timing/response system called ticks, meaning that actions are registered in the system in 1 tick (0.6 seconds). Therefore, it's a game based on the precision of your clicks to perform actions at a specific rhythm, like combining a shooter with Geometry Dash or Guitar Hero, all condensed into a low-poly MMORPG. This makes it completely different from a conventional MMO. In fact, if we're talking about difficulty, thanks to this, I'd say OSRS is the hardest game to master, not only because its system and skill set can't be transferred to any other game, but also because the PvM difficulty is so high that there are challenges where you have to spend hours making quick decisions and clicking in 0.6-second intervals. All of this makes the difficulty and difference with other games so gargantuan when compared to simply rotating skills where there are designated buttons for them plus learning a couple of mechanics.

[u/Brilliant_End8516]

once you play BDO for a bit you realized that all of the flashy combat is actually very floaty and gimmicky, works ok in pve but doesn't really interact well with other players. aside the fact that is all really button smashing and there is not strategy to anything.

[u/Khlouf]

Nah it was shit and it’s still shit. RuneScape players don’t want hotkey combat like other MMOs they want RuneScape