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Something that has been bothering me for a long time now is the realism in combat in today's MMORPGs. Or, lack there of.
 
Now, I'll be the first to admit that it's a game, and we are dealing with a fantasy-based game world (in most cases). To a certain extent, you can't expect too much realism. Right? So, why am I all up in arms about combat realism in these games then? It's because even in a high fantasy game, you come to expect that there are some form of physics and laws of nature that pertain to the given fantasy world that the game exist in.
 
This past weekend, I ran in to a situation involving the lack of combat realism that really pissed me off. I have been playing Warhammer Online recently with some friends. ?
I decided early on that I loved the look of the orcs, and I chose to play a black orc. Now for those of you that don't know the Warhammer universe, a black orc is a massive orc that wears huge plate armor and wields massive weapons. For the most part, they are huge brutes that should be able to unleash devestating punishment against anybody that faces them. In other words, they are big ugly menacing tanks.
 
So, here I am level 14 black orc with armor on that looks like he is wearing a small car, and wielding a two handed axe the size of small tree. In the distance I see a elf wearing a robe and carrying a staff. Should be easy enough right?
 
I step up to the pompus elf and begin swinging away. The elf waves at me, and just stands there. I am throwing everything in my arsenal at this guy, and he just stands there mocking me with emotes.
 
Long story short, I did absolutely nothing to the robe wearing pansy elf. Instead, he killed me with dots all the while emoting at me mocking my every attempt to damage him.
 
Needless to say, I uninstalled that pile of shit game. Now, the point of this story is that game designers are clearly morons if they believe that a massive orc that can carry the weight of a small car as armor and wielding a two handed axe the size of a small tree can do no damage at all to a robe wearing caster. This is simply unacceptable game design. Even if the caster had magical spell-based armor, he still should have taken some damage by my attacks. In the very least, getting hit by the size of my weapon should have tossed this elf on his ass.
 
This is a clear case of game designers getting so caught up in statistical combat that they completely forget the realism. Yes. Stats should matter, but they should NOT override some base realism. There should be hard caps to stats based on different factors.
 
Should robe wearers be able to have the armor class and defense of a plate wearing character? No. Never. Not in a million years. Should a robe wearing characters be able to dodge attacks? Yes, but that should be considered in to their casting as well. A person that is scrambling to avoid attacks clearly does not have the concentration necessary to cast spells easily.
 
Weigh in below, and give me your opinion on combat realism in MMORPGs.
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