Slight concern on combat
Drokk
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
So the information we have is rather vague. It's a combination of tab target and action combat. Supposedly players can opt for 75% of one, 25% of the other or some mixture in between. The 'problem' I see is the way in which some abilities evolve as you invest more points in them. Essentially that putting skill points into certain abilities turns them from tab target to action. So let's say I'm someone who wants to slant much more towards tab target, but also invest heavily into fewer abilities rather than having a larger pool of abilities without much investment. Well, that seems to be at odds in how abilities change.
Of course maybe not all abilities evolve in that way. Maybe some go the other way (action to tab the deeper you invest in them), maybe there's other ways in which to enhance them besides that one facet. I'm sure the devs have put way more thought into this than I have, but I get a little concerned at the hint that skills inherently change in this manner, as it limits how you can set up your preferred combat style and still spend skill points into the abilities you want.
Or I'm being needlessly concerned and misinterpreting what I've heard.
Of course maybe not all abilities evolve in that way. Maybe some go the other way (action to tab the deeper you invest in them), maybe there's other ways in which to enhance them besides that one facet. I'm sure the devs have put way more thought into this than I have, but I get a little concerned at the hint that skills inherently change in this manner, as it limits how you can set up your preferred combat style and still spend skill points into the abilities you want.
Or I'm being needlessly concerned and misinterpreting what I've heard.
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I can't remember which streams/interviews/Q&A's specifically, but I remember hearing kind of conflicting info on the matter of skills evolving from tab to action or vice versa. Yes it has been mentioned, but it's also been said that they don't want players to invest in learning a certain skill and then the whole mechanic of how it's used/how it functions gets turned on it's head unwillingly, so I think at this point it's just too early to tell if that will be a hindrance for you or anyone trying to construct a build that fits your playstyle preferences. Certainly the betas will be a good time to figure that stuff out whether you're playing or just watching content, keep an eye out then and report your feedback!
Will one skill be both action and tab or perhaps 50% action and 50% tab.
I wouldn't take those percentages so literally, they are rough goals. they could consider the number of skills you have, or may be weighted based on how frequent skills are used (some are spammed vs others have cooldowns, high resource costs, etc.), so that you are using one style vs the other X% of the time. the 25-75% that Steven has said is just to give us fans an idea of what we can expect in terms of the hybrid combat and its customizability, not be a hardfast rule.
Imagine your sword attack can only hit one target, optionally allowing you to "tab" or "action" target, either case, you only hit a single target.
Now, you invest points into your swing attack. This upgrade allows you to hit 3 targets in an arc. You now have an option to "tab", and hope there are 3 in your arc. Or, you can "action", giving you freedom to choose your arc, giving you the freedom of targets. Hence, tab/action. There is even a selector switch for you; the x key.
Most AoEs will be "action", since you have to target an area, and not a tab-able target (huge swings, breath weapons, meteors, etc). Things like; Chain Lightning, will most likely be "tab" target and hop accordingly.
Hard CCs will probably be "tab" targets, except for AoEs.
Tab targeting, allows for a trackable hit (auto hit).
Action targeting, allows misses to occur, so they are compensated with more damage.
As you can see, some abilities are going to require one, or the either, and not be optional, artificially adding to the 20% divide. So, you are not being forced into a style, it all by mechanic.
Considering how some people may not want to use specific abilities as action combat, I think having an option to instead upgrade it and have the players get a choice of upgrading it with it being nerfed but still keeping it's tab targeting or have much better damage or duration or w/e but change to action combat.
I'm expecting the combat in Alpha 1 and 2 to feel pretty clunky and unbalanced but by the time it reaches Beta 2 it should be pretty close to the finished product with most likely just needing balance changes or minor ability changes.
But this is all based on a lot of lack of info.
No. You get; up to 30 hot keys. Hot keys are not just for skills and abilities. You can put a potion or a mount into those hot keys.
People keep thinking; because there are X number hot keys, those are the number of skills, this is not true. Hot keys are designed for easy access to any and ALL abilities the player can perform, up to X number of hot keys.
So, your hot bar may only have 5 abilities, your class can perform, and the rest (25) for junk emotes.
This is a feature in all MMORPGs.
Sorry to cut apart your post, but I think this is the most important thing to remember right now.
We've really seen so little on combat that it is hard to draw conclusions.
I think most will agree that combat is possibly the most important area to get right. Everyone, at some stage, will participate in combat. If it is not right then that will seriously impact the game's success chance.
I do think we need to temper concerns for now though. It's best to wait until we have actually seen the combat at a well worked stage.
Sometimes I think that the more people scrutinise a part of the game without enough knowledge then the more those concerns can stay.
Probably best to stay open on combat for now. Worry when we can, or need to.
To the other person above...30 is just a number. Numbers change. The point is that you can either opt for a wide, shallow pool of abilities or a very deep but narrow pool. Lots of abilities with little investment or fewer abilities with a lot of investment. Or somewhere in between. The number of skills players will use depends on how they spend those skill points.