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Combat and mechanics. Active vs passive combat
NelsonRebel
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
*EDIT added an ESO vid showcasing action combat that shows the action pace that I'm describing below*
So we all know that AoC will be a mix of Tab Targeting and active combat.
We won't be able to fully flesh and test those details until beta or later on in testing phase. However we do have some general knowledge on the design philosophy of Steven from this Q&A
https://youtu.be/Rjq0_rmgxPM
At the 54:01 mark the question comes up about active shield blocking and further goes into asking about active dodge rolling as well.
From what I understood (and please correct me if I'm wrong) it seems the games combat design is leaning more to static attack and defense where you just eat the damage instead of having a bit more active control with timed reactionary based combat. And only certain classes and skills will give you the ability to dodge or block.
I think this is taking away from a possible important aspect of combat, namely being the control and reaction based portion of implementing hybrid active/tab target combat.
Active block and dodge roll adds a level of gameplay that rewards every kind of player for paying attention in pvp and pve alike and also giving both melee and range, magic and warrior/rogue types of players using any type of weapon the capability of being a little bit more versatile and giving them more of an option rather than just being out of a resource to use a skill or waiting on a cooldown which doesnt feel engaging in most cases.
ESO in my opinion blended this pretty well with the exception of having block, roll dodge all cost one resource being stamina, which tilted the favor of the games pvp combat being imbalanced in favor of warrior stamina type characters since the mechanics also used exclusively stamina to break out of (break free) from Crowd Control abilities and stuns.
However I feel in AoC this could be a unique opportunity to blend the aspect perfectly by instead having block/roll dodge/CC breaks be tied instead to a universal global CD , say for example 3-6 seconds, after each sequential activation of a block/roll dodge/break free that would be further augmented by AoC's original design philosophy of using a specific skill to do so which would allow a bit more dynamic choice selection in your main class and sub archtype options as well as your prefered weapon types.
I feel this would greatly the enhance the combat immersion of being in control of our characters while adding an element of tactical skill gameplay in both pvp and pve with proper testing and design to ensure it doesn't favor one aspect of the games archtypes or styles too much.
I am welcome to any suggestions or reasons why anyone would think this would be a good or bad idea to implement in AoC.
The only reason I bring this up is because WoW's slow combat with overly long CDs is what pushed me to ESO and I enjoyed ESO's combat very much in this regard to being any class with a large degree of control.
Thanks for reading!
***Edit included eso vid for representation***
https://youtu.be/QtlvI2HC0zk
Here is an elder scrolls online video that gives you some physical representation of what I'm talking about. You can see how me and my opponents engage in almost a dance of reaction, timing, damage and smart CC timing with block and dodge rolling almost seamlessly in our attacks and defense in conjuction with active abilities
(Ignore the performance parts since that is not the focus but yes eso's perfomance is at its lowest)
So we all know that AoC will be a mix of Tab Targeting and active combat.
We won't be able to fully flesh and test those details until beta or later on in testing phase. However we do have some general knowledge on the design philosophy of Steven from this Q&A
https://youtu.be/Rjq0_rmgxPMAt the 54:01 mark the question comes up about active shield blocking and further goes into asking about active dodge rolling as well.
From what I understood (and please correct me if I'm wrong) it seems the games combat design is leaning more to static attack and defense where you just eat the damage instead of having a bit more active control with timed reactionary based combat. And only certain classes and skills will give you the ability to dodge or block.
I think this is taking away from a possible important aspect of combat, namely being the control and reaction based portion of implementing hybrid active/tab target combat.
Active block and dodge roll adds a level of gameplay that rewards every kind of player for paying attention in pvp and pve alike and also giving both melee and range, magic and warrior/rogue types of players using any type of weapon the capability of being a little bit more versatile and giving them more of an option rather than just being out of a resource to use a skill or waiting on a cooldown which doesnt feel engaging in most cases.
ESO in my opinion blended this pretty well with the exception of having block, roll dodge all cost one resource being stamina, which tilted the favor of the games pvp combat being imbalanced in favor of warrior stamina type characters since the mechanics also used exclusively stamina to break out of (break free) from Crowd Control abilities and stuns.
However I feel in AoC this could be a unique opportunity to blend the aspect perfectly by instead having block/roll dodge/CC breaks be tied instead to a universal global CD , say for example 3-6 seconds, after each sequential activation of a block/roll dodge/break free that would be further augmented by AoC's original design philosophy of using a specific skill to do so which would allow a bit more dynamic choice selection in your main class and sub archtype options as well as your prefered weapon types.
I feel this would greatly the enhance the combat immersion of being in control of our characters while adding an element of tactical skill gameplay in both pvp and pve with proper testing and design to ensure it doesn't favor one aspect of the games archtypes or styles too much.
I am welcome to any suggestions or reasons why anyone would think this would be a good or bad idea to implement in AoC.
The only reason I bring this up is because WoW's slow combat with overly long CDs is what pushed me to ESO and I enjoyed ESO's combat very much in this regard to being any class with a large degree of control.
Thanks for reading!
***Edit included eso vid for representation***
https://youtu.be/QtlvI2HC0zkHere is an elder scrolls online video that gives you some physical representation of what I'm talking about. You can see how me and my opponents engage in almost a dance of reaction, timing, damage and smart CC timing with block and dodge rolling almost seamlessly in our attacks and defense in conjuction with active abilities
(Ignore the performance parts since that is not the focus but yes eso's perfomance is at its lowest)
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Comments
If they want to also incorporate a system such as activating an ability increases automatic defense for people that want less of an action (or reactionary) based combat system, then that would be fine. However, ensuring that players can actively mitigate damage increases player engagement and the reward for skill based game play. I also think that such options would keep many players for longer.
This was my concern as well. Engaging combat is far more rewarding and interesting than passive combat that you dont really see or do.
I could probably get behind a system that passively dodged or mitigated damage universally that all classes could access. But I truly feel it would be far less immersive and fun to tie it to specific sets or skills. Since you would then be further limited by that choice if you wanted to use that type of combat but couldnt with your main class or archtype.
And yes actively rewarding players for smart and well timed gameplay is extremely good for players. It keeps us engaged to play get better and to keep going, whereas the passive way to eat the damage and how you win feels more akin to just accepting an ass kicking and hope you get the last "turn" in the attack phases.
Part of ESO's huge success on console was how engaging the active combat is and console players eat that up especially with a lore driven world with lots of people to interact with.
Action combat is more prone to exploiting which can lead to more dps.
Seeing people saying "looking for more, action combat specced only" would be really bad.
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I can understand those abilities but those seem more like standard buff/debuff skills that are present in any mmo with regularly casted abilities.
What means more to me is what can I actively do universally on any class/archtype that enhances my gameplay and rewards me for paying attention while also introducing a level of skillful timing and immersive realism of engaging players or bosses in the world.
Hence why I think active blocking and dodging with a global cooldown universally would not only be healthy, but far more engaging for hybrid tab/active combat.
Im not sure how requirements would incorporate into it.
The problems with ESO's iteration like I mentioned in my post is that it blatantly favored one resource type with block/roll dodge/break free.
My suggestion removes that bias and makes it a timing and skillful selection. And the cooldown on it prevents abuse.
Unless you see it differently in other games?
In the event AoC becomes what I believe it will (a massive success) It would only make it better by being meaningful and engaging with its combat.
Perhaps even different platform releases if the games success proves high in demand
I presume we'll have the choice of active skills to avoid/mitigate damage and passive, more traditional, stats that allow us to avoid/mitigate damage. As someone who enjoys playing tank, I would love to try such a blend of active and passive.
The idea of possibly having both an active block and dodge and a passive block and dodge intrigues me.
Good catch I missed that part during the video.
Yeah like I said I dont think it would be bad to have dodge/block tied to a passive uptime skill lasting for x amount of seconds. But I feel it would be less engaging than having the option to do active block/roll dodge on all characters in some form.
It feels really good in eso, but like I mentioned it really favored one part of the game with stamina since in order to engage in those things that became crucial, since CC break to not die is also tied to stamina.
But removing a resource tied to it and giving it a CD to not create twitchy gameplay gives the dynamic a tactical level to me without creating a bias for anything.
Just figured I'd throw it out there since its arguably eso's greatest strength in combat design.
I'm with you. I feel exactly the same about ESO combat flaws. Favors stamina builds and is kind of spazzy and twitchy.
Yup my sentiments exactly. Its not a bad concept, though it was just clearly biased in how they implemented it. But if you wanted to play pvp you basically had to invest in stamina no matter what type of character you were. Not equal or right.
I think getting rid of a resource tied to it (active dodge and block and cc break) and making it a conscious decision with CD will work with how AoC is being built with a hybrid system and having abilities augment/compliment this. Same with CC's nothing is more annoying than being perma cc'd and just watching your character die. CC break should be on the same CD
Many other mmorpg games have action based combat a thousand times better than ESOs.
Here is ESO in a nutshell:
a)
1.Defense rotation: walk around a tree, set up your buffs and heals
2.Use gap closer on a lone target, execute and go back to defence rotation.
b) Forget all about animations because of how poorly the global cooldown is designed. Enjoy glitch looking movements due to AC. Worst AC I have ever encountered in any game.
c) In eso there is no action/reaction. Just predetermined patterns, against any type of enemy. There are no tanks, fighters, nukers. It's all burst/turtle, for all classes.
d) Pros and cons of taking an action? No cons, just pros.
In other games if you are in the middle of performing an attack on an enemy, but you see (react) the enemy swing a deadly blow at you, you decide to cancel your attack and block, saving your HP.
In ESO? No worries. Your attack will register it's dmg while you blocked.
Again: active combat is great. Eso doesnt have active combat. Just routine combat.
Not to mention the crownstacking zergs.
Not to mention how every fighter class feels the same due to meta.
Not to mention dmg proc armors (100% passive combat)
Not to mention the cluster of addons telling players which button to press next.
You're getting into the knitty gritty of the eso combat of annoying gameplay.
But its impossible to say there is no reactive and proactive gameplay with setting up combos and cc's. Is it repetitive? Well sure any combat feels repetitive when the devs have butchered class identities and homogenized the classes so thoroughly. I mean the magic classes actually used to be able to viably use physical weapons in the past. Now its one of 2 staves lol..
Anyway..This thread was more of me talking about the active dodge roll and block aspects that I feel ESO did extremely well ensuring all classes had a feel of control and movement. Not that eso's was entirely good either since it was all stamina based hence my suggestions in the post.
But you focused a bit much on eso here rather than what the topic focused for. But yes I did enjoy the combat system in eso, its the only reason I played as long as I did. Until recently of course
I dont agree with animation cancelling either, but they are too far past to fix it since they built their whole game around the design at this point.
I Like active combat such as blocking and dodges. But what many people fail to realize is the lag compensation required to do such things. This is often seen in complaints about desync. There will always be a massive advantage to players with low ping. Lag compensation is designed to normalize that. If they avoid I frames blocks dodges and grabs the player won't see this desync as much. BDO is a prime example of lag compensation and desync. Also how it can be exploited through frame manipulation. BDO actually does lag compensation rather well IMO. Early pubG is a great example of lag compensation gone wrong.
That was stated, but they also said its subject to change if they feel, so I expect it will still be in future iterations of testing since it was still available not long ago for last testing phases.
But its a fair point for lag and dysyncs if that is what steven said.
I still feel its worth investing into seeing if they can optimize since it adds so much fluidity and character immersion and control.
At the end of the day people will still have bad lag and dysyncs if they have bad internet connection or ping. I dont know how much dodge roll and block would actually affect that tbh.
You want a big player base but the trade off is a larger deviation of latency. In this case it is unavoidable that one players actions will not match what they see on screen.
Games like for honor have no problems with this because they can match players close together.
At the end of the day if desync isn't managed properly you won't have a player base.
I'd probably rather have active block and dodge than not, as I really like bdo's combat for the most part. But totally understand the reasons they are avoiding it at this point. It is not an easy task to pull off with a diverse range of pings.
Yes, plenty of people say ESO has had and has some of the best combat when it works. Some people also say, however, that it's too intense. As someone here pointed out ahead of me there are performance problems with it. As a matter people actively talk about slowing down ESO and doing away with animation canceling. Many resist as it's become a core component of ESO and the Devs there balance around it.
It's not excessively terrible on performance in itself, as it's just one extra server input per user. ESO currently has four effects that can consecutively cascade three at a time. They are the abilities, basic weapon attacks, then block/roll evasive abilities.
AoC wants to deliver a good product, but I also think it can get away with two inputs. Especially if they use Cloud based solutions, the latency it causes should go away.
What a well designed, active response system can offer players is "competent" challenging engagements. Instead of fights where players just slowly watch themselves win or loose. It gives them surprises in themselves and their enemy. Monster Hunter is an example of a game where enemies are handicapped to make up for the players inability to respond. While everything in ESO PvE is prescripted the enemy actions can happen with less than a second telegraph. It can be abusive to new players, but very fun and expansive especially in Pvp. Despite what some people hear have speculated, in ESO players can't simply face tank with a defensive rotation. They have to move in and out of position, harass (lock-up) enemies with crowd controls, and properly manage resources.
I wouldn't want to set back development of AoC by building too complex of system, but if you run out of ideas for an archetype it's a whole different dimension of gameplay that can contribute to the variety of AoC.
A simpler concept of the dodge bar system could come from Naurto fighting games. Where they have X number of dodges. In their games they're called substitutions and you get three a fight. Off global, they can be hit any time. One cool thing AoC could do for a class is dodge or teleport tokens that replenish after you land certain abilities. On some classes they could simply replenish overtime.
Going back to the idea of it being universal. If it's introduced as an archetype everyone would have the ability to speck into it if they wanted to. Another thing is not all the dodges and blocks have to be the same. Some can look magical some physical. Definitely would be a cool concept to play around with.
ESOs running into this exact problem. But the lag and dysyncs arent tied to the block and dodge roll mechanics since they were all in the game well before we started to run into those issue that predominently started after zos started to mess with client calculations. I have many videos from that time that back up that as well.
But on the whole your premise is correct that they would have to work to optimize it.
I'm simply putting forth why they should as opposed to static eating damage or running away.
MMORPG.
Edit: Yes apparently they tested it and it turns out that it's not that few people used it, it's just that the people who did use it weren't good with it. But he talks for several minutes so I recommend watching the entire answer on the video:
He mentions dodge rolls as well in this clip and the answer basically is that he wants those types of mobility skills to be available as part of class skill sets in a way that makes sense for those classes. So you might have a Rogue or Ranger having a dodge roll but a Mage might have a teleport instead, Fighter we know has the Charge, etc.
Yes I'm aware. I stated this earlier in the original post as well.
My idea simply places it as a suggestion to keep it as an additional function with a global cooldown not tied to any resource.
This allows the same principle with their design philosophy but also allows an additional level of gameplay, immersive combat, and skillful control rather than a stiff combat design for the majority of just accepting being eaten up by damage with only a couple archtypes being able to do so or run away.
This is why I consider GW2 to be far superior to ESO in the hybrid combat/Action-combat genre. It's the same kind of fluid/mobile combat but it's cooldown-based instead of spammy resource-pool based. GW2 has a bad rep and is underrated because of the meme that it's a dead game (mostly due to their abhorrent marketing team) and for some reason people think it's a p2w game (it's actually one of the least p2w games I've ever seen) so nobody ever really uses it's combat as an example or comparison.
I personally consider GW2 combat the gold standard for MMO combat.
I completely agree that giving everyone a dodge-roll or equivalent (equivalent in this scenario being Mage having a teleport that moves the same distance as a dodge on the same cooldown) and balancing combat around that is highly beneficial to fluid gameplay as a whole.
When you base everything in combat around the concept of everyone having a dodge roll, everything is built to be more fluid and utilize more skill.
We've gone pretty in depth into this conversation and how there are inherent flaws with what we know of the current "hybrid" system AoC seems to be using in my GW2/Mobile combat thread.
In my thread we also ended up talking about how Steven and Intrepid seem to be trying to keep Tab-target and Action-combat separate but still call the combat system a "Hybrid" system. It really seems to me like if they continue down this path, combat is going to end up clunky and have some jarringness to it. I'll copy-paste one of my comments from that thread to better explain what I mean.
"With the confirmation of reticle-based skills, of which I'm assuming power shot will be because It's a bow skill and there's already plenty of footage of reticle-based bow combat, which I guess I'll actually rename as Shooter skills to better help us understand what I'm talking about, we go right back to the problem I was describing.
If you have shooter skills mixed in with traditional MMO skills then the camera-switching is something that's going to happen unless the auto-targeting for shooter skills exist. But then if auto-targeting for shooter skills exists, then why have split abilities (power shot and others like the shield ability)?
Do you see what I mean? Either they've found a way to blend them together smoothly in a way they haven't shown yet, or there's going to be an inherent clunkiness/jarringness to the combat in the final product."
In this thread I compared GW2 combat to making cheesecake, and what Intrepid seems to be doing to "Making cheese and then making cake, then placing the cheese on top of the cake and calling it cheesecake"
But all that said ... if tanking requires a lot of twitchy non traditional mmo moves or feels like an eastern mmo ... I’m out regardless ... just not my cup of tea ... i hope they can meld it all together to,hold both mindsets and keep us both playing though
Just think what dodge roll mechanic really boring(but, suppose, it's ok for certain genre, exp. action-rpg in Dark Soul style etc.).
And then you have a large amount of the population that finds slow-unmobile tab-target combat unfun and uninspiring which is a dealbreaker for them too. I happen to be in that group, though the other systems of the game are enough to make me consider still playing if the combat is bad.
That population might be larger than you think, as games change to fit new technology and the times. Older MMO's used tab-targeting because it was easier to handle, however we have the technology to create fluid and dynamic combat in the modern gaming era, and those kinds of games are popular for a reason. Hell, even WoW has converted to hybrid. Their classes have far less skills and are all now combo-based and some even have double-jumps and dashes and shit.
Which is why I've been promoting GW2 combat so much, it's a true hybrid system. You can play entirely tab-target, but all of the skills technically are also active-combat skills that you can cast even without a target if you wanted to, or even switch to action-camera and free-cast abilities. ESO is also a true hybrid system (because you can tab-target skills) but is definitely more action-based for sure.
But the combat they're promoting here creates that divide that you're talking about. They talk about having separate versions of abilities to cater to each side of the crowd, but aren't considering (as far as I'm aware) just making the abilities work both ways instead of splitting the functionality.
I will say that you calling active-combat "fortnite" is hyperbolic and maybe you played one game with twitchy action-game-like combat like maybe vindictus, warframe, or something.
Out of curiosity, have you tried ESO, GW2, Wildstar, Tera, or BDO? All of those are action-combat but none of them would I compare even a little bit to "fortnite shooter" combat.
That all being said, we don't know what the combat we're going to get in Alpha 1 is going to look like, so maybe they did make a decent system that flows together smoothly. My concerns are all based on the little information we have and the experiences I've had with other MMO's
Edit:
Can you explain why you feel dodging is "boring"? In my opinion any game where you have less options to deal with situations is less fun than a game with more options.
A game where you can dodge a bosses incoming attack is just inherently more fun than a game where you have no choice but to take it and hope your armor score is enough to let you survive.
And yea, ESO's dodging is ridiculous because you can spam it, which is again why I prefer GW2 because doges are cooldown-based instead of stamina-based. This means everyone has a limited-use way to react to abilities, and if they use them too hastily they get screwed or get put out of position.
I tank heavily in ESO as well with several vet trials being under my belt, and for healer and dps for the majority of content. I feel the complete opposite to you though, as the active combat felt truly engaging rather than just pressing a button that tanks for me for x amount of seconds.
The twitchy gameplay is something I mentioned above in the main post as well.
Hence my suggestion to keep it as an additional function that can correlate and supliment their design they are already working on with button abilities. I would like to see it as an option not as the only one to reward attentive players who are actively engaged in the content and want more immersive and control of their combat.
The last few testing cycles already had active block and roll dodge so it's definitely on the table at the very least. Again slow boring tab target is no fun for a large portion of players hence why eso was so popular on each platform.
ESO just made it too extreme in the other direction via mandatory heavy animation canceling to be competitive, used as a reference for boss mechanics, and heavily favored one side of the playerbase (being melee and stamina) because of the exclusivity of the resource to stamina and punishing magic players with no alternatives or making sure they could use magic for those functions too for cc break, roll dodge, block etc in an actual competitive and equal manner
You get exactly what I driving towards.
Yes spammy dodge roll created a lot of issues. Definitely feel there should be a Cooldown on it from an active perspective at the least to keep it from just being spammed.
But just eating the damage just feels utterly lame to me. Using standard buff and debuffs are fine and all, but like you said having an option to do something more..well active just makes more sense from both a gameplay and combat perspective imo at least.
That's because just eating damage IS lame. The only thing it has over active, skill-based combat is that it's satisfying to know you have the stats to be able to handle taking that damage, or stat-based evades are satisfying in the same way critical hits are satisfying. They are satisfying but not fun, whereas dodging a big attack correctly with the right timing is both satisfying AND fun
On top of that, just because a game is action-based doesn't mean you can't still have that stat-based "satisfaction". You can be a tank with a large armor value and also have the ability to dodge.
People in this thread arguing for tab-target static combat are essentially arguing that turn-based RPG's are more fun than action-adventure RPG's. It's obvious which one is more fun. Turn-based RPG's are great experiences don't get me wrong, but the combat isn't truly engaging. It's checkers vs. soccer, obviously playing soccer is more fun.
ding ding ding!
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Like I said earlier in the main post and in several of the other posts, I'm fine with skills that give "X" amount of mitigation or dodge chance or block "X" seconds, but having them as the ONLY option for only one or two archtypes would be very low on engaging combat and feel for everyone else.
The functionality of doing something that in your mind you would almost reactively do anyway (block or dodge) just feels RIGHT when you have the option to.
I think it would be a valuable and healthy addition to the system and mechanics here and that many players would love to have that fluid control and immersion. Combat is the one thing that even Steven said must feel good and that they must get right.
This is one of those areas where it can be a hit or miss, and adding it as an additional function for everyone with a cooldown for skillful reaction and timed gameplay and testing would be a smart move rather than stiff and static gameplay.
Because you can fix twitchy gameplay if your design accounts for it, but incorporating gameplay that your code and mechanics werent built to accomodate in the base game structure is almost impossible without conflicting code issues if the game is already launched
I added a video you may enjoy to showcase what I meant with active combat via dodge roll and block from eso and why I think those functions should be incorporated into Ashes