Seemingly Untapped Game Design Resource - Carbine's "Wildstar"

ArchivedUser

I've completed watching a few videos concerning this game, and I'm surprised that there's been no comparisons to Wildstar especially in regards to the apparent mechanics of the combat system (dodging, both directional damage and tab-targeting).

While Wildstar's story setting and aesthetics aren't similar, lessons can be learned from asking Carbine what has worked out and what hasn't as far as it comes to 40-player raids (Carbine eventually scaled them down to 20-player raids), housing (that has become a very popular aspect of the game), and combat both inside and outside of instances. 

P.S. Many of Wildstar's original development team originally worked for Blizzard in creating the original ("vanilla") version of the World of Warcraft MMORPG. 

P.S.S. A recommendation I might make separate from the above regarding raids is 10-player instances as a tier between 5-player instances and 20-player/40-player instances, considering how great of an increase in group organization is required by the larger instances.

ArchivedUser

I'm all about discussing nuances from other games as possible additions.  Unfortunately Wildstar is on my short list of unplayed MMO's.  I am sure they are tapping their resources when it comes to connections to various studios.

I think speculating on combat at this point is kind of moot, considering that they even stated that it has barely even begun to be constructed.  Once more core mechanics have been developed I am sure we will probably see more on combat.

ArchivedUser

It's just that going by what has been said in the videos, they plan on having a similar system. Learning as much as they can from other games, especially other MMOs, will reduce the chance of needing to rework the system after they'd spent so much time making it, if it turns out to not work out well for them/players.

ArchivedUser

I quite like Wildstar's hybrid system of tab targeting with elements of AOE aiming and dodging combined with the telegraph system. It really fits the Wildstar universe.

However, I wouldn't want to see the beautiful aesthetic of Ashes being flooded with telegraphs on the floor, so I think they could have other ways to allow players to dodge or defend (maybe like in vanilla Tera where you could guess the type of attack coming after reading the number of stomps and tail movements but I agree with posters in other threads that there should also be random attacks from monsters that don't always fit with a timer / "signal" system because then combat gets stale after a while)

ArchivedUser

Well, in Wildstar at least there is always the option to disable telegraphs, for those who want to be immersed in the environment more. I think the telegraphs there are mainly to avoid player frustration (did my attack hit? did I miss?) and to clearly mark where enemies have made a space dangerous for the character to be. 

Personally, I'm not much one for unavoidable/random damage in MMOs, since it becomes more about how to absorb the hits than being skillful with dodging.

ArchivedUser

I believe a better comparison for the Ashes combat as described by the dev team would be Guild Wars 2.

I'm pretty sure they said in one of the live streams that they weren't goint to have Wildstar style telegraphs on the ground.

ArchivedUser

Wildstsr telegraphs wouldn't be fitting for the environment anyway - it works for wild star. We'll probably learn more about the combat system over the next few months - I don't think it's at a point yet where it's easy to discuss. All we know is that it's a hybrid system. I can't wait to learn though and then master it aha