Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Being able to roll out of dodge when the enemy starts executing a large skill adds a lot to the combat system.
What will that mean in the future? Intrepid doesn't even know for sure yet.
I think it's valid feedback to say it feels to gamey to have a secondary mini-game as part of combat. But specific feedback on improvement I think is premature because "this isn't even it's final form!"
There is good feedback here on how to keep the precision bar, but better.
Lets say that the combat did not impress me much, but i did not expect that happen either at this point of development. Even that was just 20% of the final version, its good that people will give some feedback. Maybe someone has considerable suggestion or devs gets support for improvements they have already planned to implement.
Like many others i see that combo bar somehow problematic. Maybe it could be replaced totally with visual and/or sound effects, which players will notice without paying attention to specific combo bar. That way the focus stays at environment, monsters and other players.
hhhmmmmm!
EVERYONE here are fully aware it's pre-alpha, and that it will for sure be better later on, but it doesn't change the fact that we as players should voice our opinions on every tiny thing. No one here is hating on Interpid on anything, we are happy and excited that they as a company is actually talking to us, the players at such an early stage of the game.
So, stop entering defence mode over constructive feedback. We are all here because we love the idea behind Ashes, and we will do everything we can to make sure it becomes a great product, and providing feedback is our job as a community right now.
In Age of Conan, you could do combos by using different skills in succession, doing bonus damage for each combo completed. For a while it felt cool and something fresh in a MMO. But after killing the one millionth mob, it really started to get monotonous. And after some progression, if you didn't do combos, it was very difficult to kill effectively.
Ashes could end up being in a similar situation. At higher levels if you didn't train to hit the sweet spots constantly, you could not kill effectively. Making it like a fighting or reflex based action game.
I hope that the combat system will be changed during the alpha test to test different systems before deciding on one that people like 'normal' the long run'.
I dont mind the "bar" because im pretty decent gamer and pretty confident within an hour or 2 will be multitasking at the point of ignoring it(making it just a hassel)... I wish instead of getting rid of it they could turn it or make it into something challenging like the guy who created the post said something about a circle or visual/color cue ect ect
For example something on character glows yellowish, slowly changing to orange, and then when it glows red its time to click your spell.
This glow could be on character hands, above head, circle around characters feet, whatever really.
This could be in addition to precisoin bar, or instead of it.
My 2 cents.
What if if you could quickly double tap for a smaller amount of damage or completely fill the castbar for the combo?
We are in the part of game making where big step in multiple direction can be made, and critism should be focused more on is this cool but needs work, or do you hate this completely and you want it gone.
Its a good idea about the combo bar, but i dont think it would fit in combat that well I mean i get where your coming from trying to make a cool combat system, but tab targeting/action are used becasue they feel better and you are being your character in the fight instead of looking at a bar then walking into a wall. Maybe it can fit into Gathering/Fishing/Other Skills.
It's one of those things you see in mini games that's not particularly fun and i don't see why shoving it into the combat improves it.
If the sweet spot wasn't completely random but was fixed you could learn to get a feel for when to hit the attack again, giving you some sense of growth as a player. But i think i'd rather have skills boosting each other. Like for instance chop type skills gets boosted by slash type skills(cus of momentum... or something), or a lightening spell gets stronger after a water spell.
if however in principal the action bar* evolves into character animations, visual cues and audio feedback that you the player character and those around you can see and interpret then you have true dynamics that all players can appreciate.
So feed back like an auto attack or no attack would be cool (which you make just as such and is cool), as opposed to i wish this attacked worked a specific kind of way.
On to your most major gripe which is the timed action bar your gripe would at this stage best be met as either "I don't like timed actions at all" or "I like timed actions, though it needs abit of a scrub." Which is what you spend most of your time in the video, and which the bulk of this thread kind of refers to. You spend lots of your time in your video reference QTE's, you go into unit color changing in unity, and so on. A few time since then in several locations the dev's have said that is place holder, and they plan to add more to the mechanic later, but regardless of them saying this it's a place holder type of thing, and we are at the level of how things should be implemented, but what should or shouldn't be implemented.
This is why "pre-alpha" as a statement matters because it's to say what kind of development is being done.
For what it's worth i do think such a thing should be changed, and i've said my piece on how it should be changed, but i don't think now is the time for such a change, and with revent siting of the dev team members saying it's not the final state i'm pretty content on the matter.
The only thing i'm unsure on personally is if i'd want an auto attack or not. I think i lean toward not because it just makes animations clunch when you run them over with regular attack animations, and i think the builds they allow aren't cool or interactive. Any auto attack style of ability is something that would be cool, something to filler your time with so you don't get bored, but if you have a limited bar it would be cool if such an ability were a choice similar to wildstar.
Im kinda bored of past paced "singleplayer-mmos" like BDO, TESO or WoW.
The AoC Combat may look slow but it has the potential to shift away from the usual max-dps button mashing combat to a more team oriented strategic way of combat, where the right ability at the right time is what lets you succeed.
This would be a thousand times more rewarding than doing the same rotation over and over like trained livestock, to be an effictive member of the group.
This worries me. If the idea behind combat is one button (and it is one button, your other five skills are situational at best) with QTEs to eventually unlock a second button then something needs to change, because this is a bad idea to base your system on. It also makes it clear why they were so tight lipped about this third aspect, because if this had been known during the funding efforts then it would have hurt significantly.
By the way, in case it wasn't clear, my problem isn't with the bar. Changing the bar to a visual cue or something else will still be a QTE, and single button QTE combat isn't interesting. Give us some tough choices. Give us ways to differentiate builds. Give us a better measure of skill than "who's auto hot key script is better?"
1. Leads to balanced PvP and overall a more balanced game since there is less skill clutter
2. Classes become much more distinct, with less overlapping skills. PvE if designed good, will benefit from many distinct roles(healer, buffer, crowd control, debuffer, tank or DPS)
3. It's an easy to learn, hard to master combat, which separates good players from bad players. Focuses more on depth rather than complexity
I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, since it's a form of action combat - but I think new MMOs need to slowly move away from tab targeting and move towards action combat. For once, the biggest tab targeting MMO is still alive and well and most people prefer it, and the other reason being games like Destiny, Warhammer Vermintide, Division, Warframe - a lot gamers replaced MMOs with those(streamlined MMOs - all the instanced content and RPG, without the massive open world thing), which all offer more exciting combat. If new MMOs want to carve out a piece of the market, it has to be from them as well.