In Defense Of Tab-targeting: Mmo Devs Have Been Trying To Put Dodge...
Only difference is, we still need a new game to prove 'em wrong.
This is Terminally Online: PC Gamer's very own MMORPG column. Every other week, I'll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we've all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.
I think a lot about trends in MMOs. Probably because I'm being paid to do just that, but also because I think the trends are just plain interesting; we've had a golden age where everyone was trying to make an MMO, tectonic shifts in the kind of things players want to do, and ever-changing social dynamics that keep this aged genre vivid and interesting.
One design shift I will never understand, however, is the bizarre affliction that struck MMO designers in the latter half of that 2010s-2020s golden age: The sudden and irrational belief that tab-targeting MMOs (or hotbar MMOs, depending on your accent) are old news, and that every MMO had to have some sort of action combat system in it.
It's similar to the strange pall that swept over RPGs, where turn-based games were believed to be poor craft, even though these past few years have more than proven them wrong. The only real difference is we've not had our Baldur's Gate 3 or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to prove that conventional "wisdom" wrong just yet.
But first, as I always like to do, let me get some definitions going. Don't look at me like that. I know you love it.
When I say "tab-targeting", I'm using it as shorthand for games where you use the tab key to target stuff—but it also has a bunch of other connotations. Traditionally, tab-target MMOs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 have a whole bunch of other traits.
The main one is the hotbar: Instead of having a bunch of separate inputs—say, a light and a heavy attack—your character has an array of skills, spells, and abilities; Sometimes over 20 depending on your class/job, used for everything combat related. You assign these to keys, pick a target, and hit them in the right order.
Movement is typically deliberate. Enemies don't fire off rapid attacks you need to parry or evade—instead, they'll use telegraphed abilities you need to resolve like a puzzle. Difficulty is measured by how complicated these telegraphs are to process and avoid, from 'don't stand in the bad' to FF14's infamous Limit Cut.
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Source: PC Gamer
