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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.
Combat system / Slidebar High skill Ceiling discussion
ArchivedUser
Guest
The slidebar system needs to stay, and Im here to tell you why.
But first, I need to qualify where Im approaching this mechanic from: Games that support highly micro-intensive combat.
It is important for games to find a balance between accessibility, and room for competitive growth. In other words, games need to be approachable by casual players, but have systems that allow for competitive players to develop themselves, the meta-game, and push the limits of heroes/champions/classes. I will site several games that have found this balance: World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Counter Strike, and Dota 2 (though, dota is less accessible than the rest).
Whether its a castbar on a target and your target's target, or the exact pathing and rotation of smoke grenades, these games have 1 very important element in common: mechanical transparency. What is mechanical transparency? Ill define it as such: Providing players with the tools needed to understand the exact technicalities of gameplay, both in and outside of combat. Lets briefly talk about some examples of this, and how these examples have helped.
In world of warcraft, tooltips and castbars dynamically change to inform players of exactly what is happening onscreen and ingame. For example, say a stock mage with no gear has a spell called frostbolt, this spell (again, without gear/buffs/etc.) Takes 1.5 seconds to cast according to the tooltip. Equipping a piece of gear that (for the sake of simplicity) lowers the cast time of frostbolt by 0.5 seconds, would then change the tooltip to read "1.0 second cast time." Coupling itself with the tooltip, is a cast bar that accurately measures the cast time of frost bolt (and even with addons, accounts for player latency). This level of detail gives the player the clearest degree of understanding about his or her spells, allowing for the perfection of dps rotations, control rotations, and counterplayer: including interrupt timings, etc. Wow's very complex metagame is the result of such complexities, which are the result of mechanical transparency on wows part.
Counter Strike gives players the ability to track the exact pathing of grenades and bullets, which has lead to players developing very creative smoke/flash/frag throws, and has lead to the best players mastering the bullet spread of automatic rifles/submachine guns - leading to consistently controlled sprays. I understand that some of this terminology is unfamiliar to those who are not counter strike players, so I will provide a quick video demonstrating what Im talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zUYPOWGAYM This degree of mastery is FAR more accessible to players when mechanical transparency is provided, which, in this case, is the ability to follow grenade pathing with tracing lines.
The slidebar combo system is brilliant. It is a very new and refreshing replacement to the typical auto attack system most mmo's use (wow, archeage, etc). It adds a degree of combat MICRO to a situation where most mmos go... ah whatever, lets just give each class a stock amount of dps that requires you to rightclick a target once, and afk. BUT Most IMPORTANTLY, is its gateway to mechanical transparency.
Does it need polishing? Definitely. Does it need a visual upgrade? Definitely. Should it be movable around the screen? Of course, and I would assume it already is. Does it need to be replaced with some color changing mechanic? (See Deathproxy's new video criticizing this system) Hell no.
When you water down mechanically intensive gameplay, to color indicators, or sound Queues, you remove the chance for that mechanic to be truly mastered. Lets look at games that chose to go down the route of not providing players with mechanical transparency. Archeage: Did you know that archeage has a DR system? Probably not if you werent highly invested into the games combat. Archeage's DR system, or diminishing return system, halved (i think?) the duration of control on a player, if they were hit with a control of the same type, multiple times in a row. When did this DR reset? When did it refresh? Did it refresh if new control was used? Why wasnt there simply a buff to indicate this DR? Blade and Soul: A competitive (kappa) fighting game, where you would assume mechanical skill would be praised and encouraged... Yet.... The game only had buffs to cover roughly 20% of the actual afflictions, hitboxes were unclear, cast bars only existed for some skills with cast times, and others were left up to players to record/publish. Skill interactions were vague, and often incorrect, and worst of all, the development team never seemed to acknowledge these issues.
The slidebar needs to stay. The worlds most successful games, that ARE accessible and casual friendly, also SUPPORT competitive play (pve, pvp, etc.) through mechanical transparency. The slidebar is the gateway into the realm of such transparency, by allowing players who want to completely master combat, flesh out the meta game, develop new techniques, to understand what is happening on a technical level. AGAIN - I am not advocating that it is a perfect system, it needs improvement. But comparing this degree of transparency to resident evil 5 cutscenes (deathproxy) is foolish, and doesnt actually delve into what makes games successful on a technical level.
Hate me or like me, I would love to continue this discussion, but try to keep the discussion on topic.
-Endah (twitch.tv/endahlol)
But first, I need to qualify where Im approaching this mechanic from: Games that support highly micro-intensive combat.
It is important for games to find a balance between accessibility, and room for competitive growth. In other words, games need to be approachable by casual players, but have systems that allow for competitive players to develop themselves, the meta-game, and push the limits of heroes/champions/classes. I will site several games that have found this balance: World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Counter Strike, and Dota 2 (though, dota is less accessible than the rest).
Whether its a castbar on a target and your target's target, or the exact pathing and rotation of smoke grenades, these games have 1 very important element in common: mechanical transparency. What is mechanical transparency? Ill define it as such: Providing players with the tools needed to understand the exact technicalities of gameplay, both in and outside of combat. Lets briefly talk about some examples of this, and how these examples have helped.
--------- Brief analysis of Mechanical Transparency in other successful games
In world of warcraft, tooltips and castbars dynamically change to inform players of exactly what is happening onscreen and ingame. For example, say a stock mage with no gear has a spell called frostbolt, this spell (again, without gear/buffs/etc.) Takes 1.5 seconds to cast according to the tooltip. Equipping a piece of gear that (for the sake of simplicity) lowers the cast time of frostbolt by 0.5 seconds, would then change the tooltip to read "1.0 second cast time." Coupling itself with the tooltip, is a cast bar that accurately measures the cast time of frost bolt (and even with addons, accounts for player latency). This level of detail gives the player the clearest degree of understanding about his or her spells, allowing for the perfection of dps rotations, control rotations, and counterplayer: including interrupt timings, etc. Wow's very complex metagame is the result of such complexities, which are the result of mechanical transparency on wows part.
Counter Strike gives players the ability to track the exact pathing of grenades and bullets, which has lead to players developing very creative smoke/flash/frag throws, and has lead to the best players mastering the bullet spread of automatic rifles/submachine guns - leading to consistently controlled sprays. I understand that some of this terminology is unfamiliar to those who are not counter strike players, so I will provide a quick video demonstrating what Im talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zUYPOWGAYM This degree of mastery is FAR more accessible to players when mechanical transparency is provided, which, in this case, is the ability to follow grenade pathing with tracing lines.
--------- The Link to ASHES OF CREATION
The slidebar combo system is brilliant. It is a very new and refreshing replacement to the typical auto attack system most mmo's use (wow, archeage, etc). It adds a degree of combat MICRO to a situation where most mmos go... ah whatever, lets just give each class a stock amount of dps that requires you to rightclick a target once, and afk. BUT Most IMPORTANTLY, is its gateway to mechanical transparency.
Does it need polishing? Definitely. Does it need a visual upgrade? Definitely. Should it be movable around the screen? Of course, and I would assume it already is. Does it need to be replaced with some color changing mechanic? (See Deathproxy's new video criticizing this system) Hell no.
When you water down mechanically intensive gameplay, to color indicators, or sound Queues, you remove the chance for that mechanic to be truly mastered. Lets look at games that chose to go down the route of not providing players with mechanical transparency. Archeage: Did you know that archeage has a DR system? Probably not if you werent highly invested into the games combat. Archeage's DR system, or diminishing return system, halved (i think?) the duration of control on a player, if they were hit with a control of the same type, multiple times in a row. When did this DR reset? When did it refresh? Did it refresh if new control was used? Why wasnt there simply a buff to indicate this DR? Blade and Soul: A competitive (kappa) fighting game, where you would assume mechanical skill would be praised and encouraged... Yet.... The game only had buffs to cover roughly 20% of the actual afflictions, hitboxes were unclear, cast bars only existed for some skills with cast times, and others were left up to players to record/publish. Skill interactions were vague, and often incorrect, and worst of all, the development team never seemed to acknowledge these issues.
--------- Conclusion
The slidebar needs to stay. The worlds most successful games, that ARE accessible and casual friendly, also SUPPORT competitive play (pve, pvp, etc.) through mechanical transparency. The slidebar is the gateway into the realm of such transparency, by allowing players who want to completely master combat, flesh out the meta game, develop new techniques, to understand what is happening on a technical level. AGAIN - I am not advocating that it is a perfect system, it needs improvement. But comparing this degree of transparency to resident evil 5 cutscenes (deathproxy) is foolish, and doesnt actually delve into what makes games successful on a technical level.
Hate me or like me, I would love to continue this discussion, but try to keep the discussion on topic.
-Endah (twitch.tv/endahlol)
0
Comments
I currently don't like it but i'm getting used to it. I can appreciate how it punishes you for spamming your buttons and encourages you to take your time but i don't like how part of my attention always has to be on it. I think i would rather it not be random so i could learn the timing or they change the visual queue. I like proxies idea of making the visual queue part of the attack animation.
If youre simply pveing, sure, you dont need to stare at your cast bars in world of warcraft...
However, in arena, as a caster AND someone attacking/controlling a caster, youre always paying attention to cast bars. For example, as a rogue, mage, or anyone else with an interrupt, youre constantly paying attention to enemy cast bars - specifically how long/their fake casting patterns.
AS a caster yourself, youre paying attention to the interrupt patterns of enemies, so youre also always paying attention to your casts. That AND, compensating for latency takes adjusting to every match.
But, the way it's displayed and presented could have a lot to do with how it's accepted. And even what kind of gameplay might surround it.
I'd like to see it lean more toward a thing that has some skill or choice to it, where as when you start, it's a very small area (and maybe it's even sliding) in order to hit. The longer you stay in combat without using it, the bigger or slower it gets, making it kore of a sure thing you will hit it.
It's still very disconnected from combat, and feels more like BDO fishing
Combat bar location: I personally would like to have it be raised more into the center of the screen, You will be looking at that bar A LOT and with it being higher up one would have better combat awareness.
Combat bar appearance: When it comes to the look I personally would like it to become a bar that fills up and shows the optimal fill area withing the cast/combo vs a slider that goes accros. I feel a filling bar would be better over the slider as you have a constant growth that is easier for the eye to track and will be more visible in high combat situations.
Intrepid is on the right track, how much they accomplished in 90days for Pax-West is amazing, can't wait for whats to come.
Not a secondary contrived minigame that is totally disconnected from the ingame world.
In principal I have no objection to skillshot system that cant be scripted or macroed. Even one where the rewards ramp up over time. But an abstract meter shoved on screen which forced you to look at anything but the players you have to react to and the world positioning you have to pay attention to... is not the way to do it...and for blatant and obvious reasons IMHO.
In Age of Conan, they had an interesting combo based combat system where using certain skills in succession gave bonuses like more damage, etc. Over time it become almost a need to use combos to kill anything effectively, or kill anything at all.
This combat system could make the combat portion of the game only fun for people who like random, reflex based mechanics. I would want to play a game and focus on the environmental or AI mechanics, rather than on timing a button press on my skill bar.
I don't like the current way it works, but it is still like 20% of what it'll be? So who knows maybe the devs have something really amazing up their sleeves.
So gameplay wise, as long as the bar is moveable I can live with it.
I do not think tho, hitting a rng based moving bar at the right time is skill full. It reminds me too much of twitch combat and while I won't deny that high reaction, high bpm is skill full, right now, from what I have seen, I don't think the bar is and it doesn't fit in at all.
Regarding the 'rpg' element, I dont really know how to respond to that. Most players playing mmos arent playing to literally role play, so youre among a smaller audience. But as I said in the original post, the mechanic needs to stay, the way its handled can change. Maybe they can make it more RP friendly?
Right now, all I saw is basic tank and spank, avoid stuff, and use cooldowns when it does high damage things.
I would love more interaction. For example, the creature turns and does a breath, it happens so fast, moving isn't really an option (I know it is, but bare with me) one of the players sees this, and can erect a wall, or the player himself can.
Interaction with its skills that don't involve pressing a CD to reduce damage, or walking out of the way. Using the enviornment to your advantage. Have spells that effect it, like earth spikes. Forcing a monster to change a path. Anything more than what we got really.
Wheres the connection between random based keystrokes, mechanical transparency and a charging UI bar that doesnt exist with visual feedback?
The mechanic appears at a completely random time if you have a charging bar as well as visual feedback. Theres no transparency one could learn from.
Also theres a huge diffrence between watching what the enemy is doing and watching what you are doing while already knowing what you do.
There are better ways of doing this, like the 'Heroic Opportunity" in EQ2, or the combo system in Age of Conan or the ultimate skill in Elder Scrolls Online. I hope that the developers look at these ideas and make something along these lines that would develop 'focus' to execute the heavy attack they intend to create and not force a game mechanic that is already causing debate. Even 'Death's Proxy" on youtube has noted that at PAX players are not impressed by this game mechanic. I know its early days and there's plenty of development still to happen with the game, just offering positive input.
Making an assessment on a video of other people playing a gain the first time trying to figure it out and then a judgment on that seems meh.
Was thinking on a good example of this.
In the game fire happens under your feet. Do you stop and think I need to move. Look at the keyboard push W and walk forward. Then look back at the screen.
Some do. Most of us see we are standing in fire and unconsciously move whatever direction is best to fix it and we do this while watching the action and seeing what else is going on.
I think the bar will be just 1 more thing that will separate those who work and apply themselves and those who just want to smash buttons.
Lets see...
@mycroft I didnt say it was the pinnacle of mechanical skill. I specifically said this was the GATEWAY to mechanical transparency in aoc. If the fan base wants to do away with this before giving it a chance, do you think that intrepid is going to be amped up to create more systems that promote micro?
@thoric "even death proxy" I dont even know how to address this. Because he makes youtube videos suddenly his opinion on a meta game is good? Moving on
@Uao In most mmos that have you paying attention to a lot of variables in combat, you are constantly glancing at yourself. I dont intend to promote literally drooling at your keyboard staring at the slidebar, AND ive said it could use improvements. Read bloodprophets response. Eventually as a rogue in wow, I can stepkick mass dispels without literally staring at my focus cast bar and reading aloud "mass dispel." I see a fast cast in my peripheral from (again, peripheral) a priest colored class, and can execute step kick.
Im not sure why you guys think this slidebar is going to consume 500% of your attention. Its a mechanical idea that you can react to without actually looking directly at it.
But again, I understand if youre very casual / roleplayer. I specified in my first post:
ut first, I need to qualify where Im approaching this mechanic from: Games that support highly micro-intensive combat
yes you look at your own skill bar/health bar from time to time, but you can decide on your own when to look. I look at these things like once every 20-40 seconds as example. This mechanic requires me to look after every skill that supports it and depending on which position the sweet spot might appear kinda forces me to keep looking on it with at least one eye. This easily consumes ~30% of my attention if you want to speak with numbers.
Ofc its easy to react to an fast appearing cast bar within an expected spot.
But this mechanic is diffrent,
1. you cant just learn it by muscle reflex cuz it has a random timing,
2. you need to pay attention much more often because theres no real cooldown,
3. this mechanic is very prone to latency issues and hacking,
4. you need to pay attention right away after using each skill and (most people will need to/its just natural to look at moving objects, especialy if they require your reaction at some point) keep up that attention until its time to push the button.
You may master this mechanic and spend just a tiny amount of attention to perform it successfully, but you cant tell me that this isnt going to be exhausting if you want to play multiple hours at high performance.
This leads to the question if its worth the effort e.g. if its fun?
It does hide the slow gameplay that comes with the small amount of 'meaningful skills', but in a cheap and questionable way, which for me isnt fun at all.
I dont need to be an casual player to dislike poor game design choices.
Even if the design in question increases difficulty.
I also dont need to jump off of a skyscraper myself to figure out that it would be a bad idea. Which is basicaly Bloodprophets philosophy.
However, there is a way to bypass my concerns nr 1, 4 and reduce 2, 3!
Remove the moving bar completly and replace it with a fast popup symbol/actual ingame animation that appears just when you would normaly need to push the combo button. (If you click the combo button too early the symbol wont even appear.)
That way you can learn to notice the fast appearance via peripheral vision in a way the human eye is used to, which leads to possible muscle memory and you can spend the remaining time with playing the game without bothering for too long at a time.
It also ~halfes the amount of times you need to pay attention and its easier to fix latency issues by including your actual ping into the display timeframe.
@mycroft I think were on the same side, maybe the bar is a bit too simple in nature. But again, even if its rough around the edges, I want the idea to stay - so that more may follow in the future. You feel me?
@Uao Now thats a solid start to an idea. One thing I think many people dont understand is, the slidebar wont be up ever 2 seconds like you and a few others have suggested. To my UNDERSTANDING, the slidebar ONLY applies to the weapon skill - which is the replacement to the standard auto attack. So... You will be using the weapon skill as a focus/mana building filler between normal spells and skills. WHICH MEANS, you wont be using it THAT much. Sure, its a filler skill so it will be the most frequently used, but I think some people think that the slidebar applies to every spell?
Anyway, the button pop up is a neat idea - but Im afraid about the vague nature of something like that. Say we switch to the pop up... How long does it last EXACTLY, down to the tenths of a second. Does the weapon tooltip specify that duration? Thats why i favor the bar a bit, because its a lot more visually (and immediatly) precise. But I think they could make the button pop up work if they were very transparent.
The amount of times this skill will be used is yet to be seen and will change alot until release. With just 12 skills aviable, its easy to imagine that its gonna be pretty frequent.
Its way more likely to see a tooltip with some exact numbers through the pop up system, because they'd just need to write 'lasts 0.2 sec' instead of 'the bar is red for 0.2sec' that doesnt sound like a proper tooltip, they wouldnt even mention it in that case.
Id prefer to apply a function based on your particular reaction speed however:
a click thats faster than 0,18sec gives more benefits than a click at 0,2 or 0,25 etc.
based on https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics
they shouldnt go below 0.16 sec but thats a balancing issue alphas/betas can solve.
I think we agree on making it clear how mechanics work, but I don't think we agree on this being an interesting mechanic.
I am not fond of single player UI elements in multiplayer game especially with PVP elements.
I am not opposed to the precision combo system as such, however the UI approach is not encouraging. there is no counter play or group focused feedback on a UI element. It is a juxtaposed distraction point in its current UI form.
And even with full UI customization what if a player prefers no UI elements at all.
I personally despise screen clutter and run minimal UI assets as possible.
My hope if the precision system is the direction being proposed that the UI element is scrapped in favor of in game animations, models and visual audio effects.
Make the weapon glint, glow and woosh, give the character a presence, an aura, a stature.
Basically incorporate the (action QTE bar) into the the player character.
Let me see the opponent and know when to counter his/her optimal attach chain.
I also have latency concerns with the system, but as an Australian playing with 250 avg ping, its not something i haven't dealt with the like before.
What ever neat minigame the developers come up with, it would instantly become main objective of the combat because there isnt much to do otherwise as @mycroft pointed out already.
It also makes iframe and dodging mechanics close to impossible since theres not enough space for extra skills. This makes pve as well as pvp content way less challenging by nature. And there isnt much one could do to still provide interesting combat, unless they surprisingly come up with mindblowing never seen mechanics that do not require additional buttons.
Ofc the list of things that arn't possible with a limit of 12 skills is kinda endless..
After doing some number crunshing and overthinking on my own, i think players should have about twice the amount of skills of what the devs envisioned (~24).
Key part is to have exactly 50% of potential class skills aviable and a good balancing between skills within a class.
My personal preferance would be even more skills like ~50 but thats just my subjective opinion which doesnt really matter at that scale.
I already wrote a 'little' explanation about the importance of a higher aviable skill number in this thread https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/35609/how-many-skills-will-be-useable-in-a-fight/p1
dunno if anyone has time/interest to read all of it.
Dunno if you changed your mind any after playing for days.
I kinda like focusing on the bar for precision timing.
I think we need additional methods of accruing focus besides that one weapon key - but, in real life, I'm probably going to be distracted from surroundings as I try to focus on precision tasks. And then widen my attention when I'm using different skills.
I think I'd like to use focus more often - for Ranger, instead of having a cool down on my Ultimate and on Sniper's Eye, I'd like to have the option for either once focus is full.
Or even have it such that they alternate: first time focus is full, I use the Ultimate, second time focus is full, I use Sniper's Eye.
Plenty of time to tweak.
And speaking of mechanical transparency, there's a report on reddit that the weapon skill had a hidden cooldown, such that after missing a combo you couldn't immediately use the skill again despite the UI showing it as available. I don't know if this was intentional, but it certainly contributed to how slow things looked. Assuming this is intentional, I'd have to say my opinion changes from "bad because one button combat is boring, also QTEs" to "bad because there are repeated lengths of time with nothing to do, also QTEs."
@mycroft
@Whocando
Interesting ideas. I think youre right mycroft, we do agree. I also like whocandos idea of being able to see your enemies combo timing, and frankly that hadnt occurred to be despite discussing enemy/focus cast bars.
I think a weapon glimmer may be the smoothest way to handle this, with a detailed description as to how it works. For your example, your sword glistens for 0.3 seconds during its initial swing, and if timed correctly, glistens again for the next swing, etc. You would also be able to see this on your opponent.
The age of conan system would not work here @Galadourn
The reason that was so amazing was honestly the infinite ways you could bypass the system. AoC combat was so difficult to master because of combo molding and animation canceling within the system. I doubt THIS aoc would implement a system like that and allow for that much canceling/molding, so it would turn out really slow... as the original AoC had sort of intended.