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Combat and animations
ExtraThicc
Member
Hello everyone!
As I saw in previous posts, many people already pointed out the over the top animations this game has, sadly I have to agree on that point. From the limited footage we have now, it looks very anime-ish and reminds me a lot of FFXIV, which is a good game, don't get me wrong, but the very slow combat and over the top animations turn a lot of players off. There are two things WoW always did good even during it's darkest times: raiding and the combat in general, it just feels so fluid, responsive and fast in this game (even after the GCD changes and all the other nonsense they did), you really feel like your character is responding to your actions immediately. From what I saw until now, Ashes doesn't seem to have that. Maybe I'm wrong but whenever you watch Steven play, it just looks like he is casting two spells that both have a 3 second animation, is oom afterwards and just stand there watching his group kill the mobs. The latter is more of a ressource issue and might be fixed later for the sake of good combat feeling (vanilla WoW also had this cast two times and be oom until you regged enough mana for one spell policy, which wasn't fun at all).
What do you guys think? I would MUCH rather take a good feeling combat flow than super long winded animations.
As I saw in previous posts, many people already pointed out the over the top animations this game has, sadly I have to agree on that point. From the limited footage we have now, it looks very anime-ish and reminds me a lot of FFXIV, which is a good game, don't get me wrong, but the very slow combat and over the top animations turn a lot of players off. There are two things WoW always did good even during it's darkest times: raiding and the combat in general, it just feels so fluid, responsive and fast in this game (even after the GCD changes and all the other nonsense they did), you really feel like your character is responding to your actions immediately. From what I saw until now, Ashes doesn't seem to have that. Maybe I'm wrong but whenever you watch Steven play, it just looks like he is casting two spells that both have a 3 second animation, is oom afterwards and just stand there watching his group kill the mobs. The latter is more of a ressource issue and might be fixed later for the sake of good combat feeling (vanilla WoW also had this cast two times and be oom until you regged enough mana for one spell policy, which wasn't fun at all).
What do you guys think? I would MUCH rather take a good feeling combat flow than super long winded animations.
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Comments
As for resource management, I suspect it will depend on your playstyle and the situation. If you want to throw a couple big, very impactful spells out and be OOM the rest of the fight, that's probably fine and fits with the traditional role of a caster in group RPGs but I'm sure there will also be smaller spells you can contribute with more consistently.
WoW has 0 down-time by design, so that it can retain as many attention deficit players as possible. I don't know if Ashes will copy that same design philosophy, but I am hoping it won't or for at least a compromise.
Something I very much dislike about modern WoW is the forced button-mashing, where everything has been nerfed so hard that you now have to constantly be pressing 'something' at all times or you fall behind. Sometimes it feels more like I am playing Dance Dance Revolution and less an MMORPG. While in old Everquest it was much the opposite, where you spent most of your time OOM (meditating to get mana back) but it was a lot more fun for me and my friends, because the skill didn't come from just memorising a rotation, but rather from knowing when to use what spell and when not to.
One could channel his focus like in Dragon ball z and release an ability
Instant casts with a weapon and small uses of mana
The more mana use the more powerful an ability becomes
Manabars could be filled with channeling. Evocation in WoW for example
Yes I'm talking about animation canceling. I dont want people hitting me with a sword uppercut and all I see on my end is the wind up but register the damage anyways.
Just an example.
You will have the option to scale down animations and the effects. So if you don't like it, just turn it down.
As for your next point, I agree. So many of the abilities in the game root you in place. I made a detailed post about it here:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45454/combat-skill-animations-july-dev-update
When it comes to animation you always have to look at both sides, keeping it looking epic, and allowing for long animations may look cool but it gives other players a longer period of time to counter them. This will create a style of combat in which the risk in pvp players falls upon the player that is going offensively. Players are most vulnerable mid animation, especially in an animation that they can't cancel or stop. A really good example of this is Dizzy Swing in ESO, for those of you that don't know this ability it is a standard offensive spamable ability with a channel duration of 0.9 seconds. What you will see really good players do when playing against somebody using this ability is they will wait to see the animation and will stun the player channeling. This creates an opportunity for them to counter and to go all in offensively. What is interesting about this kind of combat as it creates almost a wave or sinusoidal curve to combat. One player will go really hard, using CC immunity and their ultimate to put a lot of pressure on the other player while the other attempts to survive it. It creates a very fast paced combat system that can still have channeled abilities but it doesn't pigeon hold people into not using either instant cast abilities or channeled abilities.
Knowing that the devs aren't really committed to balancing 1v1 combat but they are committed to a risk vs reward style combat makes me wonder if they would consider doing a hybrid like ESO. Put greater wait on the skills that channel but if animations are too long it gives the defensive player to great of an opportunity to counter. Realistically a player only needs maybe a second to react to another player and the really good players won't even need that. They will know the enemy well enough to be able to predict what they will do.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
It just looks strange and doesn't make any sense from a combat perspective.
Anyone doing constant 360° Spins would be dizzy in a couple of min.
Another thing i absolutely detest in AoC is the Target circle under the monster / player.
A Glowing Spinning circle that takes the same space as ground target ability's.
During the streams when the mages did the big meteor, i could barley see the difference between the meteor circle and the target circle when they attacked the big creature.
The current Target Circle is either so small compared to the monster that you cant see it or too big that it overlaps with ground target spells.
In addition it really takes away attention best laid on the bosses / Players.
For me, if i see something moving i look at it.
Thats great for scouting but terrible in most fights as my attention is constantly drawn to the dam targeting circle rather then the enemy itself.
Please Dev's, at least give us the option of a different target select.
Personally im a big fan of exclamation marks [ ]. They are static yet easy to see even in a mass of body's who you target.
No need for animations.
I get it you got a really good animator and i love most of the animations in-game but there is a thing of being too flashy.
Sometimes I think we will have a niche game with so many issues half the player base will leave and only the life subs will remain.
It is not in the slightest an action befitting of a mage.
I can't find much else though, does anyone have a link to any combat footage?
Sure there are problems but we don't even have Alpha 1 yet. So 1 - 2years is a lot of time to fix things.
Its all about feedback.
If enough people say that the Targeting Circle on the ground is bad an needs to change to [ ] Exclamation marks or a simple arrow above the target then i believe they will change it.
Personally i will play the game no matter the target circle but i will be vocal about it until the Dev team at least provides the option to change it.
Also AoC has so many system that already sound really really nice.
As someone said. "AoC has taken the best systems from different MMOs and put them together"
All the core systems i have heard about are well tougtht of so all that is left is the polishing and bug fixing.
More like 2.5 to 3 years.
However, some skills or classes I like a little more flare, for example maybe the bard is flashier in their moves.If I'm going to be stuck watching the same animations for countless hours I won't want them to be too bland and boring like "swing sword. swing sword. swing sword 2 times. put up shield" and that's it, but I also wouldn't want them to be too flashy that it gives me a headache and makes me want to take a break.
2.Two handed combat should be slower to make one really feel the impact.
3. Most spells should have cast time