Comments on: And suddenly … combat!

By: Coreus

Coreus — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:30:57 +0000

Playing a Sith Assassin this would irritate the crap out of me. Outside of the stealth mechanic that class just feels underpowered and severely squishy.

Thank christ for Force Vanish*.

*I can’t remember the actual name of ability, but it’s like Vanish but with THE FORCE.

By: Tuonq

Tuonq — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:22:33 +0000

The thing I hate is when shadowmeld/displacer beast/vanish does not clear the aggro. If it does problem is solved as you can re-setup the fight as you please.

By: ZombiePirate

ZombiePirate — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:59:38 +0000

Worst TOR moment for me was on my Bounty Hunter on Voss. A part of your story quest has you deal with the sudden arrival of several strong mobs as well as some annoying trash. I need to plan my attack and take things out in order. I don’t think on the first try I managed to kill anything before my companion and I bought the farm.

By: Mika Hirvonen (@Hirvox)

Mika Hirvonen (@Hirvox) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:29:40 +0000

Guild Wars 2 adds an extra touch to make sure those suddenly-hostile mobs will get the jump on you; They’ll get a second or two of immortality before they start attacking, so any traps you might have set will fizzle. It’s not a big deal, because my necromancer can set the traps while on the move. Having to resummon all of my pets after zone changes is annoying, though.

By: ChainmailDress

ChainmailDress — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:54:14 +0000

I hated the “suddenly combat” moments in SWTOR. Having a play style mastered for open PVE combat, and then suddenly being a complete disadvantage didn’t make it interesting to me, it just made it frustrating.

By: smakendahed

smakendahed — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:35:34 +0000

Definitely noticed it a lot in SWTOR and a lot of Bioware’s other games as well. I remember hating playing a Wizard in BG2 for that reason and it was worse in NWN2 where, after a cinematic, your dress-wearing ass was left hanging at the front and you had to scramble to get back behind the meatshields.

SWTOR Rant: I actually found SWTOR a little frustrating in that my Inquisitor seemed an imbecile that always did wrong (having an ancestor ghost looming about saying as much didn’t help).

By: Bristal

Bristal — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:14:53 +0000

Personally, I really like it. I have a ranged class with few instant abilities and sudden combat requires making use of some of your other skills like slows, self-heals, and run-away! It may slow down your standard farming routine, but I find it refreshingly engaging every now and then, like the red crane dailies.

I also really like the non-lethal combat.

Sometimes I think players find solo combat too hard or tedious if they can’t kill 4 mobs at once and end with 94% health. Getting beat up a bit makes you concentrate harder, and use your consumables.

That said, I hate the WoW Shield Wall dailies in the mine. A bit too much going on in there for me.

By: Redbeard

Redbeard — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 16:46:05 +0000

I think it fits in with the story, and the acknowledgment that a potential opponent will want to get as much advantage as possible. If you’ve not done the Smuggler story, there’s a whole planet’s worth of this in Belsavis. It gets so annoying to your character that at one point during a cutscene he/she says “Why can’t things go easy, just once!”

On the flip side of it, that makes some fights harder than others based on your class. Bouris Ulgo isn’t much of a problem on my Smuggler, but on my Commando he was. But I’m fine with that, because it means that the different classes actually matter.

In WoW, it used to be the case that a mini end boss was tough as hell (Drakon in The Ghostlands, for example), but the revamped Old World eliminated much of that. Now, I could show up and take on any mini-end boss with any class and more or less just roll over them, taken-by-surprise or not.

By: zubonganai

zubonganai — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 14:38:32 +0000

I had to give up sniping in Borderlands 2 for similar reasons. At least they also gave the sniper class a melee talent tree and a move to back out of a combat zone.

By: Kadomi (@Kadomi)

Kadomi (@Kadomi) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 14:19:20 +0000

The Red Crane dailies are my least favorite August Celestial dailies, for the clunky combat with the Challengers, e.g.

I prefer planning my attacks carefully. The only point where I found surprise attacks somewhat exciting were…probably the surprise worms jumping from mounds on the way to Hodir in Ulduar. They made that trash passage somewhat brutal at times, but also hilarious when with guildies.