Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
To all the other stuff you pointed out in that post i can just say: you are not wrong... my point is just a complete different one.
In the end i'm just stepping away from the topic.
Now I'm not against the idea of a quick Time Event in combat necessarily but more specifically the slidebar. If the QuickTime notifier were visual based on actual combat movement or colors or sound effects then they wouldn't be nearly as distracting as a Slidebar, because the thing telling me to activate the quick time is already what I'm looking at.
Personally I think the idea of having some sort of combat mechanic to increase your healing, damage, or tanking output based on personal skill level is a great idea so long as the skill cap isn't so high that it alienates the least skilled among us.
Good luck to you guys I can't wait to see how the combat system evolves going forward!
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I agree it requires too much focus during combat on the bar instead of the action or scenery and is more of a distraction than a necessary implementation.
Please for the love of all the gods, make sure the skill buttons can be remapped. with utilization of the full number bar for skills, it requires a player to remove their fingers from the movement keys to press them (unless you have a customizable mouse with enough keys for remapping all of them... and even that makes it less than efficient)
I think that the "slowness" of combat that people are frequently commenting about is intentional, due to the necessity of moving your hand to reach the hotkeys necessary to perform the skills. A truly innovative game interface will be the one that does not compromise the player's ability to trigger skills without having to remove their hand from either movement or mouse to press them. Which in my opinion will require a redesign of the "controller" used (e.g. replace the KB and mouse with something more efficient for gaming). As it is, I think the interface leans strongly to console gaming controllers, and I will most likely look into using my controller when I get my first chance to play AoC.
You have a vid of the QTE in Bless Online combat?
The complaints about BO combat don't seem to be about QTE.
(This one below doesn't seem to have Ashes-like QTE)
And Bless it was scrapped for combat eventually
but has been "reimplimented" as a taming bar.
Again, the complaints I see about the BO combat do not mention a QTE bar. All kinds of other stuff people hate about the combat - pretty much everyone agrees BO combat sucked.
But, I haven't been following the game, so I don't really know.
That being said --
None of the mechanics in Ashes are brand new - what's new is how the mechanics are being implemented (according to the game design).
2012 development, many things got changed/altered since then. Unlikely to see footage of it due to NDA, Internal testing.
I'm not seeing any connection between the "rebuilt" combat due to complaints and a QTE bar in BO.
Thanks for the links and images, though.
So, for me, Ashes QTE bar during combat is new and refreshing
I really look forward how will 64 classes will work and remain useful. EQ 2 had trouble with 24 classes (at release),
I am rooting for Intrepid and back them up with my money. So i have faith in them
This is like critiquing pancake batter for not being fluffy and thinking that the baker will never know that the batter isn't fluffy if you don't tell them.
Or, closer to home, like thinking the devs will only know that the current face of the Mage is ugly if we provide that feedback.
There is a reason that the devs keep saying "This is pre-alpha."
So GG poorly constructed anology right there.
Ultimately feedback is important, and even themselves have said this.
And what I've seen from the PAX(which Steven said that is 1/5 out of end-game PVP), I'm not very okay with the style. It looks slow, especially Archer.
You say early, I hear foundation. Providing feedback as early as possible, to help shape the direction in which they are going. (Add a little spice to the recipe, because at the "batter" stage, adding and changing up some ingredients is still possible, when it becomes a pancake, it's already too late, and you can just add topping.)
Your like a dog with a bone lighten up a bit the DEVS have years of experience, they will work it out. Give it time.
I specifically said it's like tasting pancake batter and saying the baker won't know that the baker won't know that the pancake batter isn't fluffy if you don't tell them.
Especially, layman taster giving that feedback to a professional baker.
Pancake batter isn't supposed to be fluffy. A professional baker will know that the pancake batter is not fluffy because it is not the end product. They know that it will change significantly before the end, they are simply letting you get an early taste.
Even more true if they tell you the batter right now only has 20% of the ingredients in the recipe and you're like, "Oh, they will only know that those pancakes don't taste fluffy and needs salt if we tell them."
It's not a poor analogy, you just altered the analogy I gave into something different to try to fit your narrative.
Feedback can be important. I didn't say feedback wasn't important.
What you said is, "They only know what changes to make if you provide feedback though."
And that is simply patently absurd. As absurd as thinking that a professional baker won't know that pancake batter isn't fluffy unless you tell them, simply because they let you taste the batter rather than asking you to critique the end product.
But, thinking that the devs will only know that the current face of the Mage is ugly if we tell them is absurd. The devs don't care that the Mage's face looks ugly right now.
They know it needs to be changed and they not only plan to change it later, they plan to give players the ability to change the face. Right now the face is just a placeholder while the demo other aspects of the game.
Thinking, "They will only know to change the face if we tell them," is absurd.
I played the demo Monday. During my 3rd play through of the PvP demo, while we were waiting for the gate to rise so we could enter the arena, the Mage used Blink to teleport to the other side of the gate and began destroying pylons.
I let Steven know when I spoke with him in case they didn't know - since I didn't know if that was the first time a Mage ever tried that or if it was a known bug. Steven said, yeah, they already knew about it.
The pylons and points all reset when the gates did rise to let everyone else in, so it's very likely that they knew the Mage could Blink past the gate before they arrived at PAX - they just made sure it wouldn't unfairly affect the final outcome.
Is the combat in Ashes slow? That's going to be subjective.
Jeff Bard wants the speed of combat to be faster than WoW and slower than BDO. I think it feels like that already. The devs will continue to tweak - it's nowhere near a final pass.
What the devs really wanted from PAX regarding combat was for people to get a feel of what they mean by a hybrid of tab target and action combat. And for people to get a taste of weapon combos and the QTE and building focus and using the Ultimate. Thinking they wouldn't know to change the UI for the QTE without feedback from PAX would simply be a mistake. The UI is just a placeholder. The mechanics are the preliminary draft.
Give all the feedback you want.
But, it's absurd to critique a pre-alpha as if it's the finished product simply because you get an early taste - and absurd to think that the devs won't know what needs to be changed if they don't get feedback.
You give the feedback to make sure they know what you think needs to be added or changed - not because the only way for them to know is if you tell them.
I'm not sure if anyone is taking that stance but the point is made.
Let's get back to the issue at hand though. Didn't someone say that IS were planning to change the bar to a circle? It still seems like a lackluster alteration to the QTE bar if that's the case.
What do people think of Proxy's idea about color particles for spells and the like?
If they assumed everything is fine, they would release the game at the end of the month.
They have told you it's pre-alpha because they know everything is not fine.
They have specifically said that things will change.
They don't expect everyone to love the new combat system - especially not in it's unfinished early state.
They don't expect everyone will love the final version of the combat system.
It's like construction workers letting you look at your unfinished house and you thinking that they won't know to add a roof and drywall if you don't tell them simply because they let you view the house before it's finished.
You know how my grandma knew if I like her cooking? I either devoured everything on on my plate and went for seconds or I didn't finish eating something after tasting it.
You know how the Ashes devs know to continue as planned with the QTE and their vision of combat?
The lines to play the demos remained long all 4 days of PAX - with many people standing in the lines multiple times to play again. Several people playing the PvP demo 12+ and 20+ times.
I was only there Monday. I hate PvP combat and I played the PvP demo 5+ times because it was pretty fun. Clunky, but fun. Needs a lot of work, but fun.
And I would have played it more, but I preferred to stand near demo GMs and talk to the devs over wasting time just standing in line for an hour.
People are generally OK with the QTE, they don't particularly like the UI for the QTE.
Most of the critiques about the QTE were about the placement on the screen.
You seem obsessed with the QTE for whatever reason. I guess you hate it.
But, it's in to stay for the forseeable future - regardless of how much you gripe because the feedback on the combat system has been overwhelmingly positive.
"Tweak it, but keep going in the current direction."
It's like Fevir said - the combat might feel "meh" at the moment, but it's pre-alpha.
I look at Pantheon combat and have no interest in touching that game. Before i saw the combat, I was somewhat intrigued. The moment I saw the combat, I was all, "Hell, no!!"
So, again, give all the feedback you want. That is perfectly fine and to be expected
I don't think anyone is saying don't critique and don't provide negative feedback.
But, thinking that the only way the devs will know to make changes to a pre-alpha is if we tell them what changes need to be made is about as absurd as one could get.
Pre-alpha inherently means that the devs will be changing the mechanics and features - many times before alpha, many times during alpha and many times during beta - even without player feedback.
The Ashes devs will also make some changes based on player feedback - mostly starting from Alpha 0.