Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
That's because the engine is essentially the foundation of a game. Normally engine developers are good about updating the engine in ways that it doesn't break API references and such, but iirc Intrepid modified the Unreal Engine to better suit their needs, so they have to also re-modify the engine around the engine updates.
It's like being halfway through building a house and you have to tear up the foundation and fix something before replacing the foundation without tearing down the house you've built so far.
Aren't we all sinners?
You'd have to look at the BR combat - since it is all "action combat" - to get a feel for how much of the "action combat" is locked into a long animation.
The Tank vid has the Tank standing still to show off the animations - based on previous gameplay, I think at least 50% of those abilities are not movement locked.
I'm not sure, but I if I had to take a guess it would probably be that the intent behind the ability have not been thought through properly. The reason I say this is because either the animations does not convey what the ability does, the tooltip doesn't resemble what it describes or the whole thing is way over the top.
From what I know, the previous jump in engine version took them around one year to move from. Luckily, Unreal 5 is being designed with the core intent of allowing Unreal 4 projects to be ported, so hopefully it doesn't cause too much delay.
I know. I played in the BR. Those abilities were extremely placeholder. The skills we see in the showcase videos recently have some pretty long and drawn out animations that lock the character in place until they end.
It’s not very conducive to “action” combat when all of the skills do the opposite of allowing you to “act”. Im supposed to be able to have 75% of my equipped skills be action if I want, yet they all look and behave like tab skills.
Should be able to sling the mage fireball while on the move but if you watch that video there’s this whole rising into the air animation.
I think it is hard to tell if an ability locks the user in place based on the preview videos. Spells like fireball should be a casted spell. I think you should be able to cancel the cast when you move though. There are more spells like the lightning spell looked instant and might be something that you can do on the move.
I’d agree with you except you can watch the skills in action (pun intended) during the video on Intrepid’s YouTube channel, where from Steven’s perspective the devs fought a boss. Basic attacks seem to be about the only thing you can do while not locked in place.
Perhaps I’m spoiled by the combat of games like BDO or Vindictus. Or perhaps, with feedback, we can have a really nice and fluid combat system in this game.
I will have to watch it more closely. I think it will be hard to know for sure till at least after NDA is lifted.
However... I simply dont like the style they going with. It is way over the top and dont make a lot of sense.
A decent rule to adhere to is that the animations should be as long as the cast time of an ability.
So if an ability has no cast time. A long animation does one of two things.
One: Continue finishing the animation even though the player is already moving. If we take the slam for example. And let us assume, just for the sake of argument that it is an instant cast. You click, and immediately move afterwards. The animation still plays, but at what point should the damage be done? Instantly when you press the button? Or at the end? At the end would make it feel like there's a huge delay, which is not conductive of a game with action combat.
Two: Render the character immovable whilst the animation is being performed. Which, again, does not quite gel with an action based combat system.
Simplicity is more. Say I am casting a fireball for example, but character starts the animation, but for whatever reason I decide to cancel the cast, usually by moving.If the animations are complex, you get the same problem as described above. If the animation is simple. Like channelling magic in his hand as it turns into fire. But when I then move you can just make the fire fizzle out. Sure, it doesn't look as fancy, but it feels extremely responsive.
If you don't want simplicity and do enjoy flashy things. I would propose going for option One Where the damage is being done/projectile calculated the moment the cast time finishes. And I'll just strafe left or right as the animation finishes causing my fireball salto to have me move and change directions mid-air.
It's still early to dig into these aspects of combat but arguing about the artistic style misses the point.
Personally if I was the devs I would take advantage of the variety of classes and builds and address this like how they addressed tab targetting vs action combat. Make it so you can make a build primarily with one or the other but give access to both. The meta might lean one way or the other and that is fine but giving the option is the best solution.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
I agree with 99% of your posts but this one I just can't. The animations are definitely not in the right place and if a good chunk of the community is suggesting change, I think they should definitely consider it. Those cleric animations were god awful. Like....garbage. Yes, I know they are "placeholders' but holy hell don't show us that lol. Can you imagine 500v500 if that is what cleric animations will be? Can you imagine how terrible playing a caster will be if you have to stand still (or hover) while casting basic spells? I can only imagine how long summoners are going to STAND STILL while summoning the special raid summon. I have a group of bloodthirsty rogues already lined up to just murder people. Ranger is going to be OP if enemy casters are dancing around all day. The option to not play just shouldn't be a thing when everything can be fixed/fine tuned.
As far as the dude suggesting to terminate employees, that is WAY overboard. They need the opportunity to reflect on feedback and make adjustments. They have plenty of time and have the talent to do so.
100% agree. Interpid knows this and allowing us to see their alpha content is exactly what they want. They have a plan and that plan is to listen to feedback. The community needs to understand that once we deliver "constructive feedback", we need to sit back and let them reflect and make the changes THEY want to make.
I'm not sure if this has been said in this thread but they have mentioned that the hybrid system has not been implemented yet. This isn't the final combat system. Currently they are internally testing different systems and we will hopefully see some of it in the coming months.
Sure, we know this. I mean absolutely no disrespect and I thank you for your comment but “Nothing final” and “hybrid combat” and “combat system is about to be reworked” have been repeated ad nauseam throughout the forum.
But that doesn’t change the fact that these are the animations they feel comfortable showing off now. And aside from being over the top, especially for low level, they indicate a lack of movement with regards to skills. We need to stay vocal. I’m hoping the upcoming combat rework is fantastic and feels great and perhaps you only get rooted in place for an animation where it makes sense.
I’m going to stay vocal until we see it, and if it either still needs work or goes in the opposite direction from what most of us are wanting, I’ll stay vocal then as well.
They had stand-still casting and floating-casting in Guild Wars, and I never had any problem with it. If you can suspend your disbelief enough to accept that a person can use magic to raise an undead minion from a corpse, then you can suspend it enough to believe that this magic takes a lot of effort to use.
In Ashes, characters are just coming through the portal having had no access to magic for thousands of years. They probably shouldn't all be insta-casting meteor showers.
As for the Ranger vs Caster thing: If you're summoning the special raid summon, it's going to be a monster of a skill. It shouldn't be a quick-cast, and an enemy player absolutely should be targeting them, regardless of cast time.
If they even somewhat replicate in part Guild Wars 2 combat AoC would most likely become by far my favourite MMO. GW2 combat is just solid, fluid and ACTUALLY fun, unlike other MMO's.
I can't believe you'd make that argument about accepting silly animations just because there are fantasy elements in the game. Just because something is based in a fantasy setting does not mean it can do whatever it wants and still be believable, cuz fantasy lulz.
As long as something in a fantasy setting is explained and given reason to why it works like it does it can remain believable, thus allowing your brain to believe it could really exist and keeping the immersion intact.
I think the guild wars 2 combat should be what the *tab* combat should be like. Not at all how the action combat should be. Guild wars 2 was not action at all, you lock a target and you press your 1-5 keys. Sure you could move during most skills but compare GW2 to BDO or Vindictus (the two examples I will continue to use every time) and there’s a huge difference.
So to reiterate:
GW2 combat for the Tab-combat portion of the game.
BDO/Vindictus for the Action-combat portion.
Well GW2 combat is already hybrid combat since it's tab-target but also not really since you can do everything without having a tab target, if they actually make a whole separate system that would be very bad. Having two whole separate combat systems makes balance incredibly more difficult and also just feels jank as fuck
Have you played BDO? If you did you would realize what action combat is. Actual action combat is new to the MMO space relatively speaking and GW2 is not action or hybrid. It may have an “action cam” but you’re still actually tab targeting enemies and playing the boring and repetitive hot bar game. Just because you can move your camera without holding RMB does not make the system action combat.
I already mentioned the action cam:
And while the camera is similar to what you get with action combat, in the sense that you can simply move your camera without holding RMB, the actual combat still behaves like a tab target game. Wondering if you’ve perhaps played either of the games I was referring to previously?
BDO combat is ok, the combo system is a little bit too arcade style and complicated for my taste. But it isn't horrible. I never really got into Vindictus. I think I played for 5 min in beta or something and didn't like it.
One thing I'm definitely concerned about is the animations leading to animation cancelling gimmicks like seen in ESO and a handful of other games over the years.
The power of the Essence is so strong that it physically lifts the caster off the ground while casting certain skills. There you go. Explained it. I'm sure there are plenty other ways it could be explained. Do you like the animations now?