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
Bad analogy because all religion is wrong and some politics are objectively wrong. Unrelated, I wish politics was like, “Should we repave roads or update the electric grid first”, and not “should poor people be allowed to eat”. That’d be nice.
Anyway this debate is getting old. Any way you cut it, action combat inherently demands more overall skill from players than tab simply due to requiring aim. Some people dislike that. They’re entitled to their opinion on whether they want high mechanical skill demands or low mechanical skill demands. The problem solving skill required remains mostly unchanged.
See... you went with the "None of them are right" part! So it was a good analogy!
Can you name some examples of failed Hybrid MMOs and why they failed?
Because the major 3 hybrid systems I can think of off the top of my head (GW2, ESO and Wildstar) only one has failed and it was definitely not because of it's combat.
Can they stay in tab mode? How can you be sure?
How do you propose a tab camera to let you fire arrows above the ground to hit someone who is jumping without being tab-targeted? Are they going to have to aim their camera reticle-less? Is clicking the ability going to put them temporarily into action camera to aim? Is that not going to be jarring if that's the case and unintuitive if not the case?
If you don't manually aim it then it's not Action combat right?
However, every complexity that you can implement in a TT scenario can be directly copied to an AC scenario in which case the simple fact that you have to hit/dodge hit boxes on top of whatever complexity the TT system offered instantly raises the skill ceiling of AC.
If you add hit boxes to chess, which is harder:
chess or chess with hitboxes?
AC already includes all the axes of a TT system, but it has an extra axis of skill level.
Is there anything unique to TT that AC can't do?
Target manipulation mechanics such as Party Target Assist, Untargeterability, Target Lock, Target Swap and Target Cancelation skills?
Aren't we all sinners?
These are definitely useful for threat/taunt systems - and that's definitely a weakness of AC.
but the others have AC equivalents.
None of those are combat mechanics...
How so? Never played TT games that had such skills?
They can be huge combat advantages in TT combat specially when non-target Skillshot, Cone and AoE skill options are limited.
Every single one of them provides insane PvE and PvP combat utility aswell as possible damage mitigation.
For example if you fight someones in AoC that prioritizes TT skills, those combat mechanic skills can temporarily negate up to 75% of that enemy skillset.
Aren't we all sinners?
They can be.
I've played tab games with abilities that drop you as the target of anyone affected by the ability. That straight up isn't an option in an action game.
I've also played games with forced target abilities, something else that isn't an option in action combat.
I've also seen abilities that require both an offensive and defensive target, something not easily done in an action game.
Quite honestly, people that think literally everything I a tab target game can just be translated to an action game can have looked that deep in to tab target games. While many abilities can (most, even), you don't need to look hard to find some that cant.
All you described in your post was how you lock your target or apply dodge to yourself, not any particular activity that would denote combat skill, like a rotation, or attack weaving, or cooldown tracking, or burst timing, or the skill to turtle then turn. Having good target focus is a skill, but the game auto tracking your preferred target rather than requiring you actually focus that target is not a sign of good target focus. A “ha you can’t hit me” button also does not sound like healthy gameplay, but I’ll assume it had an exceptionally long cooldown and didn’t allow you to hit back while it was active.
The targetting system is part of the combat system and there are tactics to it - so technically it is part of combat for TT.
Breaking your opponent's targetting is a defensive action, or forcing an opponent's targetting is control.
I do think AC adds much more depth to the system as a whole, but I also have to admit that TT allows deeper exploration of game mechanics because you don't have to worry about aiming or dodging.
No, thats not at all what i described! Your concept of "combat skill" seems a bit limited or maybe lacking when it comes to TT combat if you can't assimilate how target manipulation in TT works as a combat skill close to something like a limited "Silence" type of skill that disable certain enemy skills temporarily but non-target AoEs are still enabled against you so its not really an “ha you can’t hit me” button like small framed Blocks/Reflects/Counters which both AC and TT can have as combat skills.
Target Lock: your good old tanker taunt/threat to save your allies faces.
Target Swap: instantly switching your opponents target from you to whatever other avaliable target near
Target Cancelation: canceling your opponents target and forcing him to retake it.
Untargeterability skill: basically a mass target cancelation working as a short duration invunerability to Target required skills
Aren't we all sinners?
Oh, yeah I don't think you read what I said because your question already has the answer in the very post you replied to. Here's what I said, please re-read it for your answer:
But, once again from the top of your post. A tab player can stay in tab mode. This is common sense, especially because it's confirmed there is a button to switch between modes and if I recall we have seen footage of the SAME skills being used in tab cam AND action cam modes.
As for the point I just had to re-answer for you, as you can see I didn't say a tab player will be trying to shoot arrows to hit someone who is jumping around without being tab targeted. Because they most likely would not ever take that aimed ability. Instead, they probably would have a somewhat equivalent skill that is made to lock on. Very likely that the basic bow attack will lock to a target when in tab mode or free fire when in action mode. Then the skills you take will either work better in one mode or the other. This part is of course the speculation as we A: Have no real idea what the end goal is and B: The combat system is about to see a re-work and we have no information on that yet either.
Bottom line, it shouldn't be hard to imagine a system in which you can either play tab or action, and you'd choose your skills (as we already have been told to do) based on your play style and whichever method is your preference (up to 75%/25% split of course).
See the problem is I don't see how having two separate ability systems is healthy for a game.
In fact, if it turns out that the manually aimed skill is necessary for top tier dps then it essentially becomes mandatory to take it, and then you run into the scenario I described.
And if you're saying they can just take a similar tab-target ability, why then are we having two separate abilities that do the same thing? Why not make one ability that works with both targeting options? You do at least agree with this notion, but the majority of people in these debate threads are not calling for that kind of system. They want functionally different abilities that target differently.
It's pretty disingenuous of you to think otherwise and I get the feeling you are making excuses for failings of the proposed system because you want it to work.
You also say we've seen footage of the same skills being used in both modes, but we actually HAVEN'T seen any solely-free-aim abilities used in any footage yet. Absolutely NONE of the footage shows anyone shooting an arrow or fireball into the sky, or leading a shot or anything of the like. APOC does, but APOC was also just a testing ground for creating abilities and stuff for the dev team and is not AoC.
You're right, though I don't need to imagine it, GW2 ESO and Wildstar has/had that and do it very well.
I would hope the knowledge of when to press certain abilities. Would take precedence. I also hope we have to pick our skills. And have a limited amount of points.
The TT vs AC debate reminds me of the energizer bunny... it just keeps going on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
You're telling me we will have the ability to leap over castles? Obviously not everything is going into AoC
You're telling me we will have the ability to leap over castles? Obviously not everything is going into AoC[/quote]
Able to leap over castles in a single jump....faster than a speeding arrow.... stronger than an ox....
It's ...its.... SUPERMAN! (Insert Tulnar picture here)
Able to leap over castles in a single jump....faster than a speeding arrow.... stronger than an ox....
It's ...its.... SUPERMAN! (Insert Tulnar picture here)[/quote]
superMAN <---- emphasis on man.
not beast.
Just wait a little longer for the return of the Noble races from Sanctum.
We'll sort everything out, your kind just needs to sit still and stay out of the way.
Coz you obviously can't do anything, you've had centuries to do so.
I blame it on the lizards. They lay around all day on those hot rocks, just sleeping away.
And us catfolk have had to keep all those ratfolk and other vermin under control, so its not our fault.
(Cleans himself)