How would you create a deep and engaging combat system

The holy grail of any game is to create a combat system like you describe. Many have tried, none have succeeded and very few have even come close.

Good topic. I hope it doesn't end up being a quotation war, with people trying to prove how much better their way of thinking is against others, but rather a collection of peoples visions.
A clear thread that devs might enjoy reading peoples ideas without having to skip pages upon pages of people socialmediaraging.

So let's see...

I love engaging combat and mastering ones class. Back in 2005 c3 L2 my Gladiator class was underperforming. However I spected towards health and dmg as opposed to atk speed and dmg and I did much better than any1 else on my server, due to hours of fighting every other class with the aim of becoming the best.

Combat is not everything in mmorpgs. For me open world encounters, systems, guild gameplay and rivalries, longevity of the journey to lv cap are more important than combat. However the year is 2020 and some minimum standards must be met. Classes, depending on their type, should have active:
Shield Block
Weapon Parry
Dodge Roll

This is action/reaction and judgment. Cooldowns, depending on the impact and effect of an ability, play an important role in avoiding stale, BiS cookie cutter playstyles.
Another thing I would wish AoC manages is to avoid the mess ESO did with animation cancelling. AC in eso takes 30mins of practice (supposedly that is skilled gameplay...), but a lifelong time of ugly looking, glitchy combat with characters performing seizure like actions.

In addition, I want to see many abilities accessible on the skillbar, not 6+6 like eso did (in order to cash in on consoles).

Depending on whether I face robe, leather or plate I want to utilize the skills that fit the pace of the combat. Not a boring rotation, one-size-fits-all, like in bdo and eso.

Undead Canuck

Bring on the walls of text!
Everyone be ready to prove that their ideas are the best and Intrepid had better change the whole game to implement them!

I am not a fan of too much weapon freedom, because that chips away at the identity of a class, rather than giving you the freedom to "play as you want".

These play as you want models end up forcing the players to slot BiS. If your class does not have a weapon restriction and can freely choose any weapon and abilities, then that class will slot BiS, meaning that all classes will look the same.

Two handed may have 5-6 abilities in it's toolkit. Guess what. People will only slot the 2 BiS. And if Sword Shield is better than Two handed, people will only slot Sword Shield abilities and forget about: two handed, polearm(spear), dual wield.

My favourite system is locked specilization. A warrior may start off by using:
two handed
sword shield
dual wield
polearm
but by lv 30 or so a warrior must choose if they want to spec towards:
dmg-> twohanded/dualwield
tankiness->sword shield
aoe gameplay->polearm etc etc. A warrior most definatly shouldn't use daggers and bows, just like a rogue shouldn't use sword and shield. If you want to use sword and shield, make a warrior or a tank. Not a rogue.
If you want to use a bow make a rogue, not a tank. Play as you want.
A battlemage should use physical weapons infused with magic abilities, but not use a staff/wand.

Again, some people find this oppressive because they want to "play as they want" but the reality is that if devs leave everything too loose then BiS and meta will be the real tyrant and you can say goodbye to play as you want and all combat will look the same, just like it happens in ESO. Every fighting is using the same main and secondary weapons-> two handed main, sword shield secondary.

Lastly, classes affect combat big time.
Before anyone wastes their time arguing about what a class means in AoC I will type this:
You have 64 potential themes. Your guilds will force you to play 15 of them only, if not less and that is because only 15 of them will perform at a viable level.

You might like playing a Sorcerer(Mage+Bard) but it will be way worse than Archmage(Mage+Mage).
You might like playing a Spellsword (Fighter+Mage) but it will be far worse than a Battlemage (Mage+Fighter).

I fear that the devs have wasted their time making augmented effects/animations for those 64 class abilities, when they could have make 7 more classes in addition to: Fighter, tank, rogue, ranger, mage, summoner, cleric, bard.
These 7 could be Necromancer + 6 more. This means that Necromancer +6 more get real skills, with distinct animations and effects and people have real chance to play as they want, with their favourite class.
Again, I'll play the typical warrior, I'll pick the best for brawling, so I am fine with any of the 8 names under the fighter class. Will you be??

George Black wrote: »

I love engaging combat and mastering ones class. Back in 2005 c3 L2 my Gladiator class was underperforming. However I spected towards health and dmg as opposed to atk speed and dmg and I did much better than any1 else on my server, due to hours of fighting every other class with the aim of becoming the best.

Combat is not everything in mmorpgs. For me open world encounters, systems, guild gameplay and rivalries, longevity of the journey to lv cap are more important than combat. However the year is 2020 and some minimum standards must be met. Classes, depending on their type, should have active:
Shield Block
Weapon Parry
Dodge Roll

This is action/reaction and judgment. Cooldowns, depending on the impact and effect of an ability, play an important role in avoiding stale, BiS cookie cutter playstyles.
Another thing I would wish AoC manages is to avoid the mess ESO did with animation cancelling. AC in eso takes 30mins of practice (supposedly that is skilled gameplay...), but a lifelong time of ugly looking, glitchy combat with characters performing seizure like actions.

In addition, I want to see many abilities accessible on the skillbar, not 6+6 like eso did (in order to cash in on consoles).

Depending on whether I face robe, leather or plate I want to utilize the skills that fit the pace of the combat. Not a boring rotation, one-size-fits-all, like in bdo and eso.

It's interesting to see you talking about shield blocking as it came up in the last dev livestream and we were just talking about it on the ashes Pathfinders podcast. The conclusion we came to is that it's incredibly hard to implement an active blocking system that feels responsive to use and isn't completely overpowered.

We also talked a bit about ESO in particular and one of the big complaints people have about the combat is the amount of stun-locking that occurs in PvP. Being stun-locked and killed 100-0 with no chance of fighting back is no fun at all.

And of course, as you noted, the illusion of choice is very prevalent in ESO too. Put too many gameplay options in the game and it becomes impossible to balance, meaning only a tiny handful of the options are actually viable to use.

Looking at the broader picture, one thing I think developers need to keep in mind is that combat is the exchange between 2 parties, so you need to consider both sides of the conflict. Ask any UFC fighter if they prefer fighting against a punch-bag or a real person. They will likely choose the real person every time. It's the same in video games. It's no fun fighting against either a mob or a player who can't fight back. This is the problem with games like BDO and TERA, which put a heavy emphasis on the combat systems the player uses, but doesn't give the player anything worthwhile to use them on.

For me, the best combat system is one that is not static - or at least isn't statis from the perspective of any individual player.

There are several things I would do to achieve this.

The first is to make spells/abilities able to be upgraded via the same paths items are upgraded. You start out with an absolute base level knowledge in a skill, and through player crafting or mob drops, you are able to acquire higher tiers of your abilities. These shouldn't be to easy to acquire that players can assume that they will get all of their abilities at the highest tier - or even at the second highest tier. There should also be an amount of randomness to which abilities a player is able to come across - so that players can't just upgrade their abilities in a specific order.

The second thing I would do is make it so that every class in the game has a buff that alters aspects of the spells and abilities of everyone in their group. It may be that your recast time is reduced on all AoE spells when a specific class is in your group, or that all fire damage abilities deal more damage, or that all DoT's gain an additional two ticks of damage. The key is that these things need to be strong enough to slightly alter the value of different abilities your class may have, yet not so strong that any one class becomes absolutely essential due to this buff alone. The other thing is that these buffs need to be varied, yet need to provide a benefit to every class.

I'm under no illusion that this is a tough thing to implement - but it is possible.

The third thing to have is a very comprehensive build tree for each class. This tree should offer the player a multitude of choices as to how to build their character.

Lastly, players in the game need to be able to take no less than 18 abilities for each build, but the class needs to have at least twice that number to select from.

When these things are all combined, you are left with one of two things.

The first thing you may be left with is a complete mess of a combat system that should be put to rest immediately. This is absolutely possible.

The second thing that you could end up with - if you have a development team that are worth their salt and actually care about the game - is a combat system where a change to the composition of your group will - in some small way - alter how you play your class, even with the same build. It is a system where there literally is no best build for any class - if someone were to ask that question, a knowledgeable player would have to respond by saying that it depends on what upgrades you have to which abilities, and it depends on what classes you find yourself with often. In a game like this, the best build for a specific player in one guild may be completely different to a player of the same class in a different guild - potentially to the point where they may not share even a single spell/ability.

I wouldn't even consider playing a game like this if I didn't think the development team were up to the task of implementing and maintaining it. But if a development team did pull this off, I think it would make for the best MMO combat any MMO has seen.

Also, none of the above has to be restricted to either tab target or action combat - the only thing I would say is that if the game is limiting itself to action, 12 abilities would be enough at a time, and if they wanted to be a hybrid, rather than offering up twice the number of spells/abilities as a player is able to select at any one time, it would be better to offer up 2.5 to 3 times as many.

George Black wrote: »

You have 64 potential themes. Your guilds will force you to play 15 of them only, if not less and that is because only 15 of them will perform at a viable level.

You are right here, but only for some guilds.

Low end/casual guilds really won't care. If you are happy playing a class, play it.

Top end guilds also don't care. They will care about your output, and if you are able to meet their output expectations with a class that isn't optimal, they won't care.

Then you have guilds in the middle - these are the ones that will sometimes (not always) require players to be specific classes or builds.

My time in Rift is possibly the best example I have to back this up. It is a game that has a fairly flexible class system - though not to the point Ashes will be. It also had freely available combat trackers, and that is actually important.

What my guild did in that game when we were looking at recruiting a new player was we would ask them what role they wanted to fill in the raid, tank, healer, caster DPS, melee DPS etc. We would also ask them if they wanted a secondary role (one that we would have them switch to on occasion, if the encounter called for it), but that is besides the point for now.

When they told us what role they wanted to fulfill, we would then hand them a set of gear to use for the first weeks raiding - they had to use this gear for that week, even if they had better.

In that week, we would look at what ever metrics we needed to in order to assess their performance - and we would compare it to the numbers produced by an existing guild member wearing the same gear. If the recruit was performing up to 80% as well as the existing member did in that same gear, then they were welcomed in to the guild (80% as effective is still better than most players are able to manage, but is also low enough that a good player in that game would be able to use almost any class to meet - it weeded out poor players, but specifically didn't impede class choice - other games may require this number be higher or lower to achieve the same effect).

At no point did we ask them what their actual build was, nor even what classes they were using. That is because we were recruiting experienced, adult players, and we expected them to know how to play their class before they got to the guild.

I've never been a part of a guild that tells players what class they need to play, nor what build. With the exception of games like WoW (where the developers tell you what you can and can not do with the classes - similar to how Apple tells you what you can and can not do with their products), the only time I have even seen it is in guilds either run by children, or specifically recruiting them. These guilds tend to be mid range - they want to be better than they are, but clearly don't have the experience in terms of gameplay or leadership to ever get better, and so they tend to remain in that awkward spot where they are not run like "casual" guilds, but they are not participating in content or PvP like top end guilds.

@Wandering Mist
I heard on the devs update that active shield block is hard to implement.
I dont understand why they said something like that.

Many mmorpgs have it, either as a basic movement function or a class ability.

Stun locking is indeed an issue however it doesnt bother me as much as brainless, non targeting, crown following AoE combat, seen predominatly in ESO.

Both issues, CC and aoe spam, can be addressed with proper cooldowns and mp costs.

unknown

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George Black wrote: »

I heard on the devs update that active shield block is hard to implement.
I dont understand why they said something like that.

I didn't see the livestream at all with this, but I have been saying for over a year now that active blocking is going to be a challenge in this game in a way where it works for both action and tab combat. Blocking has always been the biggest challenge I could see for the combat system in this game.

Again, I haven't seen it, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if this was why they are having issues.

Marzzo

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Bring on the walls of text!
Everyone be ready to prove that their ideas are the best and Intrepid had better change the whole game to implement them!

They will ignore what they dont like and use what they like. It is good for the game if the devs see different ideas.

Plateau

Ventharien

@Wandering Mist Man i have to start watching you guys on sundays hahah. I gotta disagree with the thought that it would be hard to implement. You used the example that some of the only games you could think of that used active blocking were fighters, and that this occurred at too fast a speed to react to other than guessing what your opponents next move was, which would bring ping issues in the equation. But that isn't really the case, since we've all been reacting to moves enemies make in group combat since forever. What's the difference between seeing a boss activate a big move, or seeing the telltale animation of a player move and activating an active mitigation ability, and pressing another button that activates an ability that has no cooldown, and most of the time some other restriction, resource usage, a small "cast" time, etc. Also yeah active blocking has been in a whole lot of games, some of which we would consider MMO's.

leonerdo wrote: »

And I want to press roughly 1 button per second in combat. Or more accurately, I want to do 1 action (which might require a multiple-button hotkey or whatever) per second. On average of course. The pacing can/should vary. For comparison, that means I want to press fewer buttons than I would in a fighting game or rhythm game, but enough that I am actively engaged. (Some MMOs like to start off way too slow, like the first 100 hours of FFXIV. Thankfully my friend got me to push though it to the better parts of the game. Blade and Soul, on the opposite side, was a bit too button-mashy.)

This is something that I personally think should be somewhat class dependant, but there should be options to suit most players.

In games that have auto-attacks, I've always liked the idea that players of classes that actually use auto-attack to generate significant amounts of damage should time their abilities to fall between auto-attack hits. Playing a class like this, the performance of the player is tied more to them not missing an ability between auto-attacks or not slowing down an auto attack due to an ability being mistimed.

Then the games itemization should allow players to pick slightly faster or slower weapons (0.7 seconds up to about 1.5 second, when things like haste are factored in), with slower weapons dealing more damage both with auto-attacks, but also with abilities. This is to compensate for them not hitting quite as often.

This allows players of classes based on this notion to essentially set their own pace in combat.

To me, rogue type classes should all be essentially based around this notion, making the class as much a rhythm based class as anything. This need to always have an ability firing every second or so also means that such classes are a little less reliant on using exactly the right ability, and more focusing on using "an" ability at exactly the right time.

Classes that either don't use auto-attacks (mages) or that have weapons that have 4 - 6 second long delays (tanks, fighters) are then either more reliant on using the right ability but still with some timing components (fighters), completely reliant on using the right ability, with timing essentially a non-issue (mages) or are reliant on timing, using the right ability as well as reaction play (tanks).

Basically, I appreciate a game that is able to set the pace of combat to be different between different classes, but also allows players playing classes where timing is key the ability to set the timing they need to play to.

This also generates a fairly massive difference in how different classes actually play - to the point some players will be really good at one, and not so good at the other.

Ventharien wrote: »

@Wandering Mist Man i have to start watching you guys on sundays hahah. I gotta disagree with the thought that it would be hard to implement. You used the example that some of the only games you could think of that used active blocking were fighters, and that this occurred at too fast a speed to react to other than guessing what your opponents next move was, which would bring ping issues in the equation. But that isn't really the case, since we've all been reacting to moves enemies make in group combat since forever. What's the difference between seeing a boss activate a big move, or seeing the telltale animation of a player move and activating an active mitigation ability, and pressing another button that activates an ability that has no cooldown, and most of the time some other restriction, resource usage, a small "cast" time, etc. Also yeah active blocking has been in a whole lot of games, some of which we would consider MMO's.

With regards to blocking in fighting games, it's not so much the ping that's the issue but the gameplay itself. Remember that fighting games like Street Fighter V are 1v1 matches in a 2D area. The way the combat is designed makes it very easy to balance blocking around, and the blocking adds a huge amount of depth to the system.

Ventharien

Wandering Mist wrote: »

With regards to blocking in fighting games, it's not so much the ping that's the issue but the gameplay itself. Remember that fighting games like Street Fighter V are 1v1 matches in a 2D area. The way the combat is designed makes it very easy to balance blocking around, and the blocking adds a huge amount of depth to the system.

Oh no, my bad if i was unclear. I was referring to Pacha and You talking about the ping of active blocking in an mmo environment, not ping in the fighting games. I find the blocking in fighting games much more (and i honestly can't think of a better phrasing for this) clicky, as in the blocking is embeded into the rest of their moves often repeatedly pressing the block button during an encounter. As opposed to the more prolonged hold blocking in a lot of rpgs, and the few MMO's it's made it to.