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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.
Tab vs Action for Ashes of Creation
Magic Man
Member
The 'tab vs action' discussion has been going on forever as both sides fail to convince one another that theirs' is the better option. Tab target has been a staple in most MMOs as it's traditional and very easy to implement while action requires more money, time and technology. Tab target is successful and does work however, there's a growing number of people - especially young people think it is outdated.The most popular games of our time are the ones with engaging combat as they have fun and engaging combat, which draws young people who make up the majority of gamers today. However, we all know that there is more to MMOs than just the combat; it is a living world, and as the MMORPG community is somewhat diverse, many have different reasons to why they play MMOs. 'combat makes or kills a game' is still relevant tho. Ashes want to achieve a hybrid combat, and despite the fact they claim the player choice will determine play-style, the game will supposedly feel more like one or the other. So I ask you; what kind of combat would you like to see in Ashes; more tab or action-oriented?
(Please note that this is part of a small survey I've been conducting and your answers will be of great help 🧝🏻♂️)
(Please note that this is part of a small survey I've been conducting and your answers will be of great help 🧝🏻♂️)
4
Comments
Downside to action targeting is it severely limits the balance tools and character skill progression. It removes your use of accuracy and evasive defenses and replaces them with pure player skill to anticipate and react to opponent's attacks and attempts to dodge.
I feel that, in a game like AoC, a hybrid system would very much be the best route. To be clear, I imagine "hybrid" games to be like The Secret War (before they fucked it up) and Wildstar, games that involve telegraphs which need to be dodged and tab to designate what target your character is actively (or should be actively) shooting. Other examples are Tabula Rasa, Star Wars Galaxies, and ESO.
That being said, many MMOs have attempted the hybrid systems, and have had varying degrees of success and failure. I don't believe that system itself is flawed so much as other massive game development elements that impacted the otherwise fun games.
I honestly don't see pure action targeting as something that has a place in a MMORPG. Planetside 1 and 2 had very different progression methods to a game like AoC, and the lack of balance control that action targeting would require would just hamper the potential of combat.
TL;DR: I'm in favor of hybrid systems, as long as they require sufficient focus to keep my attention on the game and not on Netflix.
Two other examples for why action combat isn't super great in an MMO, players will never be able to compete with AI speed and precision without RNGs helping to determine at least some of the factors.
I prefer action combat - as long as the kill time is not FPS fast.
I wouldn't call tab-target traditional - I would call it archaic. I also wouldn't want to go back to the blocky vanilla EQ graphics.
But, we don't really have to do a vs to convince other people, since Ashes combat is a hybrid.
I don't see why the game would feel more like one than the other since it's really up to player choice.
Tab targeting has always been finicky and in my experience unreliable. “Scroll through targets” it says, I press the button and it picks something outside my screen because it’s “next closest” even when I obviously am not interested in the mobs behind me.
I like systems that prioritize what I’m focusing on.
I very much disagree with the notion that tab targeting is easier than action combat or vice versa. It's apples and oranges, with each combat system requiring different kinds of skill. Action combat systems typically rely more on mechanical or micro skill, whereas tab targeting systems typically require greater knowledge and a strategic mindset. Yes this is a generalisation and depends hugely on how the combat system is implemented.
One of the reasons why I love League of Legends as a concept is that it has a healthy mix of characters that favour different skill sets. Some characters rely heavily on mechanical skill, whereas others rely more on game knowledge and strategy. For example, there's a character called Garen who has absolutely no skill shots at all. Mechanically he is one of the simplest characters in the game. However, his lack of "action combat" mechanics means that to play him well you need to know when to engage and when to back off. If you jump into a bad fight YOU WILL DIE.
On the other hand, a character like Zed is very mechanically challenging to play, but requires less game knowledge to play effectively. If Zed gets caught out of position or jumps into a bad fight, he can either outplay it or just jump away no problem at all.
Anyway, going back to Ashes, I think the idea is that each class will have access to both targeted abilities and skill shots, with the skill shots generally being stronger than the targeted abilities. We have been told for instance that hard-cc abilities will most likely be manually targeted only. As an ideal I think this is a good approach to take, but of course it will all depend on exactly how it will be balanced.
As for whether I prefer tab-targeting or action combat, I've experienced good and bad examples of both in various different games so it matters little to me as long as there is some depth to the combat, with choices that the player can make based on their prefered playstyle. Just because a game has action combat doesn't automatically make it more fun/interesting than tab-target combat.
I disagree with this. I don't think there is any kind of mechanics that requires knowledge or strategy that you couldn't replicate in a action system. On the other side, there is a limit on how mechanical a tab target game can be. League is a great example, there is nothing they can do with a point and click ability that they couldn't do with an aimed one but you can't create the same mechanical requirements an aimed ability has with a point and click one.
However action combat needs to have individual ability cooldowns.
Abilities should be cancelled in order to block, dodge or counter incoming attacks. Both the animation and the effect.
This will make combat reactive.
Normal attacks should not be weaved.
Normal attacks should have a function such as low regeneration of MP per hit.
Tera Online and GW2 are examples of good action combat. The combat was beautiful, reactive and full of impact.
Eso and bdo are bad examples of action combat in my personal experience.
Eso was full of non strategic rotations, no matter what type of enemy were you facing. One rotation to burst down an enemy and one rotation to keep your HP up. The builds that could do that effectivelly were a handful. No cooldowns, no feel of impact, glitched animations due to animation csnceling playstyle as if the game was a moba.
Abilities on bdo looked like burst photo mode.
Others might disagree.
@wanderingmist pls read carefully. I didn't say tab is easier than tab or vice versa - I merely pointed out the fact that tab is easier to implement and less costly. About league of legends, it can be considered a hybrid tho the game has so much more to offer than traditional tab target games when it comes to combat. Also there's the fact that it doesn't require aiming and not third person but I get what you mean. If Ashes has some similar features to League then all is good 🧝🏻♂️
Think of it like comparing Chess to Starcraft. In Chess you are limited in what you can do because you can only move 1 piece at a time, and there are restrictions on how much you can do with different pieces. By limiting the player in this way, the emphasis switches more to strategy than in a RTS like Starcraft. Yes there is a strategy element to Starcraft but often the strategic mistakes a player makes can be overcome with pure mechanical skill. If you choose a bad build order in Starcraft you can still win with high enough mechanical skill, whereas a single mistake in a chess opener can lose you the match outright.
Going back to tab-target vs action combat, allowing players to actively dodge incoming attacks in some way makes it easier for the player to make up for mistakes in their positioning or awareness, more so than if they couldn't actively dodge attacks. It is far easier to recover from mistakes in an action combat system compared to a tab-target system where attacks made against you are guaranteed to land.
Yes I did read your post, and my comment about difficulty was in response to some of the other replies on this thread, not your OP. As for your statement about ease of implementation, I would argue that while action combat is harder to initially implement, tab target systems are harder to balance in the long term.
I disagree with the comparison as target and aimed abilities are the same thing and not two completely different games. Yes, they are both strategy games but they are played in a very different manner. Abilities on the other hand aren't that different. The only difference between a point and click and a aimed ability is a point and click is garenteed to land on the target you click on.
Yes, in games like league, characters compensate for there ability being a garenteed hit, there abilities usually have a drawback, like range, which might forces them to use some kind of strategy but you can get the same strategies with a free aim kit. My argument is there is nothing that makes a point and click kit inherently require more strategy.
Do characters like zed or ahri require less of a strategy then annie? What about anivia? Is there no strategy to her kit? Which irelia required more strategy, new or old? A better comparison might be new and old aatrox.
Formerly T-Elf
OK, let's imagine you have 2 different fireball spells. One is tab targeted, the other is manually aimed. Both spells have identical costs, ranges, damages, etc.
The manually aimed fireball is harder to hit with because your opponent can dodge it. On the other hand the tab targeted fireball is harder to defend against because the only way to avoid it is to move out of range.
Successfully defending against the tab targeted fireball requires you to pick the right moment to fight, because as soon as you are in range of your opponent you can get hit.
By contrast, active dodging allows you more leeway since you can move into range of your opponent and still avoid getting hit.
Glad I'm not the only one
So how does the tab target one require more strategy? Yes, you have different options on the defensive side but i don't see how one is more strategic.
Range is a factor in both scenarios, i can stay out of range of both the targeted and the free aim spell but the free aim spell gives me an extra option, i can try to dodge it. Does this extra option mean there is less strategy?
You are also focusing on the defensive side of things for some reason. lets compare the offensive side. With the tab target, i just need to move into range and line of site and i hit them. With the aimed skill i have to do both those things but i also have to predict there movements as they can dodge. Once again, i don't see how the tab target spell requires more strategy.
Action combat allows for stat discrepancies to be overcome by player skill.
It's not so much that tab targeting has more strategy involved, but that it relies more on strategy than action combat does. You can of course employ the same amount of strategy in both systems, but if your strategy fails in action combat you can still win due to mechanical skill.
This is impossible to do in tab target combat and the result is that strategic mistakes are punished more in tab target than in action combat.
I used that last tactic with some success during the 2017 PAX West demo.
@kayra I'm not sure I follow what your concern is with player numbers since any game can be both niche and successful at the same time if there's enough of a market share to support it. Is your concern that MMOs may become extinct/neglected if the combat doesn't evolve, or that MMOs should be as successful as other games to be considered successful, or something else?
It doesn't have to boil down to A vs B, just find something that falls within your preference.
I just mentioned the numbers to point out the state of the genre for people who may not know or\and for people who wonder why the genre is like the way it is (as more players mean innovation, improvements = more fun while niche games = little or no innovation, improvements = less fun). I believe MMOs have great potential and it is wasted with mediocre games 🧝🏻♂️
You kind of are oversimplifying things. You can't necessarily rely on mechanics to win, it depends on the strategy.
For starters, tab targeting requires mechanics too, action combat just adds on top of those mechanics by requiring you to aim. Messing up your strategy in a tab target system is messing up mechanically and a person can win in a tab target system because they have better mechanics.
Yes, mechanics play a bigger role in a free aim system but I don't think it's correct to say a person will win because they have better mechanics. It depends on the strategy and how reliant it is on mechanics. Think league, there are characters like Garen that don't require a lot of mechanics to be successful and then there are characters like zed that do. A player playing zed could have better mechanics then someone playing garen but loses because zed is more mechanically demanding then garen and they aren't able to fully utilize his strategy because of that demand.
In ashes, we kind of had a good example of what could happen brought up in this thread. Nagash brought up that he would build his character/strategy around summons and AOEs. A strategy that doesn't require a lot of precise mechanical skill. He could go against someone who built a precise archer with small projectiles that require perfect aiming. Nagash doesn't necessarily need to have better mechanics to beat the archer. He doesn't need to be as precise with his aoes and summons, as the archer does with his arrows.
Yes, mechanics play a bigger role in a free aim system and they can make executing a strategy harder but I don't think that means better mechanics wins in a free aim system or that strategic mistakes are more punished in a tab target system because of how strategies vary. The only exception is probably a mirror match.
Seriously though I agree. Most people are comfortable and used to tab targeting from basically every other mmorpg out there and that's fine. To grow as an industry in the new generation your game cannot be only tab targeting. It's so slow and boring no matter what, to a huge number of people. Just seeing the game is tab targeting will make so many people just not touch it. The same can go with Action combat. A mix of the two is good, when grinding for a quest or needing say "100 Gryphon feathers" I wouldn't want to have that be super involved pvp wise. Although I'm sure you could just smack it a few times and defeat it.
I think the discussion is one that will always start problems, it's so much to do with preference and what the game designers have in mind. If the game is meant to be slow and sweet then action probably wouldn't be the best. The thing is though if you're trying to appeal to new people and "revive" the MMORPG genre you just cannot have only tab targeting. The younger audience will be bored within 5 minutes of playing seeing the system that's so many years old.
Some would like to argue they don't want to appeal to younger audiences and that's fine, but then there's no growth. You'll have the same small subset of playing playing niche MMORPG games until the genre dies. It's great to see ashes of creation doing Battle royale stuff, even though I'm not the biggest fan of them if you have any clue about gaming you'd know they're wildly huge success and growth in the past years. It's bringing new blood into the MMORPG genre, action combat is engaging and more enticing for newer players and can only help the game grow.
Personally I would rather only have action combat, but a mix of the both seems nice as well. I like the idea of having the option of say... having one spell or ability or something that is just locked on so I can have that safe damage even if I'm not feeling my best on that day. It's good to have them both, to satisfy both crowds. I don't think one is better than the other, I think they both have their purposes. I just think if you're trying to
"Revive" the MMORPG genre you'll definitely need to have amazing action combat, as that's what most younger new audiences will want to see.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this one; I find action combat exhausting and hard on the hands, whereas tab targeting no so much, and I do play a game to "relax". Perhaps that's why all the other MMORPG activities besides combat are so appealing.
Formerly T-Elf