Seems legit. It is funny because I have also heard the DEVs say something to the effect of "We don't want set skill rotations, we would rather have you react and use the right skill for that moment". While the system described in the wiki doesn't guarantee that we will have skill rotations, it looks like it is heavily leaning towards skill rotations. I don't see how you have a system where you are building up to use your big spender move, not be a rotation. Especially in PvE. It is all gonna be about what combination of moves gets you to use that ultimate ability the most often. At least that is what I am seeing here.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
LotRO had a system of chains and counters, at least playing a Guardian (tank) class. Many skills unlocked certain other skills, or augmented them when done in order. In addition, there were enemy skills you could mitigate or prevent with the proper skill; interrupt, taunt, stun, etc. It never felt like a rotation, it felt like combat, where you actively block your enemy while building up your own attack. It was active, strategic, and player skill was heavily involved, which is saying a lot for a tag-target game.
" Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again. "
The issue with having 3 attacks in a row by clicking once, is the unintuitive nature of it assuming there is animation lock to some degree. This forces you to stay at one place for too long expeccialy regarding PvP and it slows you down. Fluid movement is crucial. 1 attack per click gives way more room for personal control over your character.
Regarding muscle fatigue i think its best to explore a button on ur keyboard that will reduce it dramaticly or one that doesnt give you fatigue at all, and get used to that particular button. Arguing that you didnt have to do that in other games is a bad argument because Ashes is another game.
Conclusion: Forced combos are very unintuitive and takes control from the player
Well as far as muscle fatigue kind of a non issue as far as game is concerned people should take breaks like lets say every 2 or 3 hours to avoid that. Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.
But willing to adress annoying which is mental but wantt to deal with game mechinics first.
First let me talk about the suggestion that was made and say it is as you put it chained single attacks.
Lets go with 3 and lets say that takes 3 seconds.
Could work really well If casting or using another ability depending on ability interupts sequence. In League of legends you can be right in the middle of a swing and as long as it has not hit yet then it will be interupted by movement. This is important cause since a sequence takes more time then you are commited to three seconds if there was no way to interupt it. Not sure if the Engine is set up to work that way. So yes it could be done that way. If not then it should be able to be interupted between animations 1 and 2 and animations 2 and 3 so if each single attack is one second ounce you push the button you will have committed one second to that attack. May sound redundant but important in PvP could be dead in three seconds.
As Far as being annoyyed and pushing same button all the time......well let me telll what this basic attacks that can be spammed are..... So if you look it in terms of a rotation cycle all this a spammable abilities or ability that maybe have a global cooldown but not an actual cooldwon are..... ( Guessing you play a healer) so this woulld be in terms of healing the low mana cost decent heal that you spam when all other abilities off cool down.
Now let me say what it is not, which is a button that you have to push every second or 3 seconds.
This spammable abilities (basic attacks) serve as sort of a fill in abilities. Could actually have more than one basic attack just different types.
Want to get to annoying part but still have to say a few more things cover. Want to go over WoW class specs.
Fire mage (Not sure how things are now days but here we go any ways.) This spec had two spammable abilities or abilities that you could cast a lot and but eventually run out of mana. These abilities were scorch and fireball but in order to make it really simple we are just going go with fireball. Now if you played a fire mage in WoW you pushed that one button fire ball button a lot time after time after time.......but
In this particular case you were looking and hoping for fire balls to crit twice in a row to get a free pyroblast
do not want to into all the game mechanics but you were waiting for crits so that you could start a sequence of events (abilities) that could end up with casting three huge fire balls in a row. Actually quite bit more than what I said but point is you were kind of on the edge of youre seat waiting to start that sequence plus ther was more one than sequence so there was a bit of strategy. (Procs done correctly)
Now in this example there is lot of repetition but not boring and annoying because of the way procs worked with abilities. I mean you were basicall spamming that fire ball button all day. So just because you have a basic ability to spam does not mean it has to be annoying. It was fun.
Protection Pally[/ i]Next class spec I want to talk about is Protection Pally. This class also had a fill in spammable ability but not used very often because it was just a fill in when all the other cool downs were down. That ability was flash of light wiht is low level heal in case of tank but if you are waiting for cool downs to come back up cause you burned right through then just cast few flash of lights to do some self healing and help healer out and then some of your cool downs come up, But all in all guessing only used about 7 10 times per minute so not very often.
In this example we have a class with quite a number of abilities that have low cool downs (3.5 to 15 seconds I beleive) so most of the time you were busy pushing those buttons and using flash of light as a fill in ability so as not to waste time. So even though you did have a spammable ability you just did not use it all the time.
Now lets get to the annoying part.......in personal opinion that is.
Frost mage In WoW Warlords of Draneor time periond after prune and revamp...what happened was you were basically casting Frostbolt forever...just like Firemages. But in this particular case most of time you were casting frostbolt waiting for a Proc brainfreeze. So it frostbolt and then push brain freeze button and that was about all you did. In this particular case there were not any abilities that did damage that were on low cool down to compliment frost bolt so all you did is push two buttons forever frost bolt and the proc it gave. Now yes there were other abilites but their cooldowns were so high that they could hardly be considered part of rotation. Now there was something called icicles but at that time well it was broken and do not wnat to talk but thatcause did not add anything to the game play.
Now in this example the spam ability frost bolt was pushed upwards of 30 times in one minute just cause the wait for other abilities ot come of cooldown was so high. So yes if you are going to press one button over 50 percent of time with very little strategy just a proc (which comes out to no more when this light comes on push this button) then it can be very annoying. So it was just press this button and sometimes you will have to push another button afterwards. It got so annoying that I just stopped playing it all tother.
Ok now now lets put all together. Just because you have an ability that can be spammed does not mean you will be spamming it all the time because you may be hitting other buttons that are more effective than that spam ability especially true of classes that have several abilities with low cool downs. Another thing to consider is you may have to spam an ability all the time, basically most of what you, but that does not mean it has to be boring. For example In another post I talked about a spell Chromatic Orb if the was worked into lets say a mages basic attack if they have one then it would not be boring at all because well that spell if iIremember correctly has over 10 procs but only asked for 8. Another thing basics attacks can do is put things like debuffs on targets. In Leauge of Legends they have auto attacks and in some Champions there is some strategy to it.
So it all comes down to gamesdesign as game designers Ashes of Creation should take note of how many times a player has to push a certain button in one minute. and if he does have to push a certain button a lot. Is fun and interesting? If not it is the opposite which dull and boring and a design failure.
Lastly of Course there abilities with higher cool downs than a minute so you have to look at which buttons and how many times are players pushing those buttons in five minutes. But well already made really long post so will just skip over those game mechanics
But now that we concluded that these basics attacks are not auto attacks as it says in the title of this post but spammable abilities.....
Want to add that this basic attacks ( not auto attacks) can actual do a lot of very interesting things. In League of Legends (which uses auto attacks) there is a champion called riven. And sometimes think after you use an actual ability with a cool down. Her next three basic attacks also makes her dash a little bit forward very useful since she is melee champ so can do damage while enemy is trying to get away. I recommended that Ashes of Creation study that game from the design point of view this is one of the aspects that I think thay should look at.
Now in LoL there are only 4 abilities and on auto attack so this kind of forces them to get creative
with auto attacks and they also have nice passive abilities. Think this would also apply to Ashes of Creation cause we are going have a low number of abilities.
Really with a little creativity and innovation basic attacks that can be spammed can be interesting and fun.
Another thing that could be done is how you push the basic attack buttons Is it a double tap tripple tap or have to keep it held down like a charge ability or certtain type of timing like hitting it imediatly after using an ability.
Matter of fact it can be one of the things that get changed from archetype to archetype have different strategies and passive effects so if they really wanted too we could have 64 different types of basic attacks some of which would be similar like archetypes in one class like tank archetype might have defensive passive ability associated with basic attacks .
Here some simple things LoL does every third attack this happens, crit, heal, becoms area of effect,....sometimes it is every four attacks. I just recently got a crit item on Sion and well when that champion crits seeing as he is so big he just kicks enemies. So his basic attack have a different animation when it crits think this is pretty cool. Mention this in another post previously just LoL was already doing it.
Actually this would be a design mistake in Ashes of Creation cause just gets repetative after a while cause you crit all the time but gave instrucrtions on how to do it using a special effects crit table.
But if toons are only criting lets say 10 percent max percentage in order to make it feel special then could just make it so.
Really there are all kinds of spells and effects that could be related to basic attacks. So they do not have to be boring they are just boring in most MMOs hopefully it will be different in Ashes of Creation..
Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.
Pushing one button is definitely more physically demanding than pressing 10 buttons. Pressing 10 different buttons uses different fingers, muscles, and tendons, and spreads the work out more, thus reducing strain on each individual finger. Pressing one button repetitively, stresses that one finger over and over as well as the muscles and tendons used to move that finger. They're called Repetitive Stress Injuries, or sometimes Overuse Injuries (both incredibly apt names) and things like Carpal Tunnel and Tendonitis fall under this umbrella. That is exactly the sort of behavior that causes those injuries, not just on the computer even but also doing other activities.
Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.
Pushing one button is definitely more physically demanding than pressing 10 buttons. Pressing 10 different buttons uses different fingers, muscles, and tendons, and spreads the work out more, thus reducing strain on each individual finger. Pressing one button repetitively, stresses that one finger over and over as well as the muscles and tendons used to move that finger. They're called Repetitive Stress Injuries, or sometimes Overuse Injuries (both incredibly apt names) and things like Carpal Tunnel and Tendonitis fall under this umbrella. That is exactly the sort of behavior that causes those injuries, not just on the computer even but also doing other activities.
Well just speaking from personal experience but that could differ from person to person. some people maybe more prone to it so yes it can be an issue. Maybe more people coudl chime in on the topic
Steven has made it clear that Ashes won't have an Auto Attack as seen in other mmorpgs. Instead, you will need to press a button each time to swing your weapon. Now, some people have pointed out that doing this means you will likely be spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue and is generally annoying to do.
I actually wouldn't mind this. As long as the main combat loop isn't grindy I don't feel pressing buttons would cause muscle fatigue or being annoying.
so geussing you counting base abilities like summoner spells and wards and abilities that a few items have which come out to 2 summoner spells choice of type fo ward and six possible item abilities
Just base line abilities but yes you are correct more abilites than 4
Comments
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Weapon_use_combo_system
Seems legit. It is funny because I have also heard the DEVs say something to the effect of "We don't want set skill rotations, we would rather have you react and use the right skill for that moment". While the system described in the wiki doesn't guarantee that we will have skill rotations, it looks like it is heavily leaning towards skill rotations. I don't see how you have a system where you are building up to use your big spender move, not be a rotation. Especially in PvE. It is all gonna be about what combination of moves gets you to use that ultimate ability the most often. At least that is what I am seeing here.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I hope Ashes implements at least part of that.
The issue with having 3 attacks in a row by clicking once, is the unintuitive nature of it assuming there is animation lock to some degree. This forces you to stay at one place for too long expeccialy regarding PvP and it slows you down. Fluid movement is crucial. 1 attack per click gives way more room for personal control over your character.
Regarding muscle fatigue i think its best to explore a button on ur keyboard that will reduce it dramaticly or one that doesnt give you fatigue at all, and get used to that particular button. Arguing that you didnt have to do that in other games is a bad argument because Ashes is another game.
Conclusion: Forced combos are very unintuitive and takes control from the player
(This post is mainly regarding Melee)
But willing to adress annoying which is mental but wantt to deal with game mechinics first.
First let me talk about the suggestion that was made and say it is as you put it chained single attacks.
Lets go with 3 and lets say that takes 3 seconds.
Could work really well If casting or using another ability depending on ability interupts sequence. In League of legends you can be right in the middle of a swing and as long as it has not hit yet then it will be interupted by movement. This is important cause since a sequence takes more time then you are commited to three seconds if there was no way to interupt it. Not sure if the Engine is set up to work that way. So yes it could be done that way. If not then it should be able to be interupted between animations 1 and 2 and animations 2 and 3 so if each single attack is one second ounce you push the button you will have committed one second to that attack. May sound redundant but important in PvP could be dead in three seconds.
As Far as being annoyyed and pushing same button all the time......well let me telll what this basic attacks that can be spammed are..... So if you look it in terms of a rotation cycle all this a spammable abilities or ability that maybe have a global cooldown but not an actual cooldwon are..... ( Guessing you play a healer) so this woulld be in terms of healing the low mana cost decent heal that you spam when all other abilities off cool down.
Now let me say what it is not, which is a button that you have to push every second or 3 seconds.
This spammable abilities (basic attacks) serve as sort of a fill in abilities. Could actually have more than one basic attack just different types.
Want to get to annoying part but still have to say a few more things cover. Want to go over WoW class specs.
Fire mage (Not sure how things are now days but here we go any ways.) This spec had two spammable abilities or abilities that you could cast a lot and but eventually run out of mana. These abilities were scorch and fireball but in order to make it really simple we are just going go with fireball. Now if you played a fire mage in WoW you pushed that one button fire ball button a lot time after time after time.......but
In this particular case you were looking and hoping for fire balls to crit twice in a row to get a free pyroblast
do not want to into all the game mechanics but you were waiting for crits so that you could start a sequence of events (abilities) that could end up with casting three huge fire balls in a row. Actually quite bit more than what I said but point is you were kind of on the edge of youre seat waiting to start that sequence plus ther was more one than sequence so there was a bit of strategy. (Procs done correctly)
Now in this example there is lot of repetition but not boring and annoying because of the way procs worked with abilities. I mean you were basicall spamming that fire ball button all day. So just because you have a basic ability to spam does not mean it has to be annoying. It was fun.
Protection Pally[/ i]Next class spec I want to talk about is Protection Pally. This class also had a fill in spammable ability but not used very often because it was just a fill in when all the other cool downs were down. That ability was flash of light wiht is low level heal in case of tank but if you are waiting for cool downs to come back up cause you burned right through then just cast few flash of lights to do some self healing and help healer out and then some of your cool downs come up, But all in all guessing only used about 7 10 times per minute so not very often.
In this example we have a class with quite a number of abilities that have low cool downs (3.5 to 15 seconds I beleive) so most of the time you were busy pushing those buttons and using flash of light as a fill in ability so as not to waste time. So even though you did have a spammable ability you just did not use it all the time.
Now lets get to the annoying part.......in personal opinion that is.
Frost mage In WoW Warlords of Draneor time periond after prune and revamp...what happened was you were basically casting Frostbolt forever...just like Firemages. But in this particular case most of time you were casting frostbolt waiting for a Proc brainfreeze. So it frostbolt and then push brain freeze button and that was about all you did. In this particular case there were not any abilities that did damage that were on low cool down to compliment frost bolt so all you did is push two buttons forever frost bolt and the proc it gave. Now yes there were other abilites but their cooldowns were so high that they could hardly be considered part of rotation. Now there was something called icicles but at that time well it was broken and do not wnat to talk but thatcause did not add anything to the game play.
Now in this example the spam ability frost bolt was pushed upwards of 30 times in one minute just cause the wait for other abilities ot come of cooldown was so high. So yes if you are going to press one button over 50 percent of time with very little strategy just a proc (which comes out to no more when this light comes on push this button) then it can be very annoying. So it was just press this button and sometimes you will have to push another button afterwards. It got so annoying that I just stopped playing it all tother.
Ok now now lets put all together. Just because you have an ability that can be spammed does not mean you will be spamming it all the time because you may be hitting other buttons that are more effective than that spam ability especially true of classes that have several abilities with low cool downs. Another thing to consider is you may have to spam an ability all the time, basically most of what you, but that does not mean it has to be boring. For example In another post I talked about a spell Chromatic Orb if the was worked into lets say a mages basic attack if they have one then it would not be boring at all because well that spell if iIremember correctly has over 10 procs but only asked for 8. Another thing basics attacks can do is put things like debuffs on targets. In Leauge of Legends they have auto attacks and in some Champions there is some strategy to it.
So it all comes down to gamesdesign as game designers Ashes of Creation should take note of how many times a player has to push a certain button in one minute. and if he does have to push a certain button a lot. Is fun and interesting? If not it is the opposite which dull and boring and a design failure.
Lastly of Course there abilities with higher cool downs than a minute so you have to look at which buttons and how many times are players pushing those buttons in five minutes. But well already made really long post so will just skip over those game mechanics
LOL
I'm ok with the 'click-to-attack' thing
So when that happened I swapped to a different finger. It wasn't that hard.
Want to add that this basic attacks ( not auto attacks) can actual do a lot of very interesting things. In League of Legends (which uses auto attacks) there is a champion called riven. And sometimes think after you use an actual ability with a cool down. Her next three basic attacks also makes her dash a little bit forward very useful since she is melee champ so can do damage while enemy is trying to get away. I recommended that Ashes of Creation study that game from the design point of view this is one of the aspects that I think thay should look at.
Now in LoL there are only 4 abilities and on auto attack so this kind of forces them to get creative
with auto attacks and they also have nice passive abilities. Think this would also apply to Ashes of Creation cause we are going have a low number of abilities.
Really with a little creativity and innovation basic attacks that can be spammed can be interesting and fun.
Another thing that could be done is how you push the basic attack buttons Is it a double tap tripple tap or have to keep it held down like a charge ability or certtain type of timing like hitting it imediatly after using an ability.
Matter of fact it can be one of the things that get changed from archetype to archetype have different strategies and passive effects so if they really wanted too we could have 64 different types of basic attacks some of which would be similar like archetypes in one class like tank archetype might have defensive passive ability associated with basic attacks .
Here some simple things LoL does every third attack this happens, crit, heal, becoms area of effect,....sometimes it is every four attacks. I just recently got a crit item on Sion and well when that champion crits seeing as he is so big he just kicks enemies. So his basic attack have a different animation when it crits think this is pretty cool. Mention this in another post previously just LoL was already doing it.
Actually this would be a design mistake in Ashes of Creation cause just gets repetative after a while cause you crit all the time but gave instrucrtions on how to do it using a special effects crit table.
But if toons are only criting lets say 10 percent max percentage in order to make it feel special then could just make it so.
Really there are all kinds of spells and effects that could be related to basic attacks. So they do not have to be boring they are just boring in most MMOs hopefully it will be different in Ashes of Creation..
Pushing one button is definitely more physically demanding than pressing 10 buttons. Pressing 10 different buttons uses different fingers, muscles, and tendons, and spreads the work out more, thus reducing strain on each individual finger. Pressing one button repetitively, stresses that one finger over and over as well as the muscles and tendons used to move that finger. They're called Repetitive Stress Injuries, or sometimes Overuse Injuries (both incredibly apt names) and things like Carpal Tunnel and Tendonitis fall under this umbrella. That is exactly the sort of behavior that causes those injuries, not just on the computer even but also doing other activities.
Hey, that wrist "injury" was totally legit! I wasn't doing anything.... Why are you looking at me, huh? Huh? HUH?!
Well just speaking from personal experience but that could differ from person to person. some people maybe more prone to it so yes it can be an issue. Maybe more people coudl chime in on the topic
It pains me not correct you about this game
I actually wouldn't mind this. As long as the main combat loop isn't grindy I don't feel pressing buttons would cause muscle fatigue or being annoying.
so geussing you counting base abilities like summoner spells and wards and abilities that a few items have which come out to 2 summoner spells choice of type fo ward and six possible item abilities
Just base line abilities but yes you are correct more abilites than 4