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
One thing I didn't like about ESO was how weapons gave you the skills, I do prefer class only skills But I'm not sure how you're going to deal with Any Non-Ranger Class using bows. I'll leave that up to your design teams and leave feedback when appropriate.
Tab-target(TT) abilities generally have less risk than Action based or Action combat(AC) skills. In most RPG systems it is considered important to do everything you can to make sure that your attacks land on their targets as much as possible. Otherwise you are wasting opportunity's that could be used to deal damage. TT systems will generally have a internal check that involves a random number generator to simulate a miss chance. With AC systems this simulation is not needed because the player is manually taking the action of aiming into their own hands.
If there is a situation where a TT skill is both easier to hit with, and consistently deals more damage than a AC skill of similar functionality. My incentive to use the AC skill over the TT skin in this situation would be very low. Otherwise I am just handicapping myself.
TT is extremely reliable. In some MMORPGs miss chance is not even a thing that gets considered due to the way gear works at max level. If it is possible for a players accuracy to be so high in AOC that they never have to worry about trade offs in their character build or putting stats to improve accuracy on their gear. The high accuracy available when using TT skills would really devalue AC skills.
If AC skills have a 100% ignore accuracy checks and hits are based on collisions between the players hitbox and the spells hit box than AC skills would have an appeal based on the sizes of the hit boxes involved. Again it is a case by case situation for choosing skills.
Balance in MMORPGs is a holy grail that I don't think has ever been truly found. Some have come close, but I don't think anyone has ever said that a MMORPG has perfect balance. Since AOC will not revolve around skill rotations and will let us choose what skills are best to use at what time. It is important that both AC and TT skills are functional and appealing, but their has to be some sort of trade off. There has to be a incentive to use a more risky move.
Not having skill rotations is great for Ashes because it will allow the game designers to look at what skills are being used and what skills are being ignored. They can then apply buffs or nerfs as needed to keep the AC and TT skills comparable. I would really like to see a system where I have to put a lot of thought into picking between AC and TT.
I would like to be in a situation where I want to pick mostly AC skills, but their is enough reward to make me take the risk for using them.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
ALSO i hope the ''dodge roll'' wont be a BIG THING i saw Steven doing it in the last Monthly Update Video and i just hope not everybody is dodge rolling around the whole fight like in Witcher 3 combat or smth like that. meh.
BUT i think Hybrid Combat is good if you have to aim with some High Dmg Spells or Aoe Spells.
Thank you AoC team im very excited!
(sorry for my bad english)
A) Have a combat option in a user menu that can be toggled on/off that will tell your camera to focus on whoever your targeting by clicking on them, that means that your camera moves when the target moves, not the other way around.
Action is fine though and since you're planning to have a server in Australia I won't be upset if I have to aim every now and then.
Formerly T-Elf
Personally, I think ESO failed when it comes to action combat. For some reason playing ESO, the combat is the one thing that bores me. The same goes for BDO.
>I plan to play rogue, from other games this class generally requires high mobility.
Majority action based skills?
>Yes
Majority tab-based skills?
>No
An even mix of both?
>Potentially
Why?
>Imo action-based combat does, in some cases, add an extra level of mechanical skill. I find it more fun to play with this play style. I find tab targeting clunky even in larger games like WoW. It makes the most sense, to me, to "point" an ability and have it hit rather than locking onto the target.
Most likely I will be going majority tab target skills because that's what i'm mostly playing right now in other games. But who knows.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
But as everything doesn't have to be my way, i'm ok this hybrid combat, since there will be someone happy either way(Or not, if some declare war to the other side).
My big worry is not being able to toggle which version I'm using on the fly. Unless I'm mistaken, it will require an augment to make it go from the normal version to the alternate targeting version, which means I have to access a build NPC or being a safe-to-respec zone.
Though if targeting is an issue, tab may ultimately be the way to go. I plan to make the shortest Nikua that the character creator will allow, so I can use my allies as cover, or be tougher to spot and hit behind low cover and obstacles. If I suffer a reach disadvantage for it, so be it, I don't think I'll be playing a melee primary anyway.
edit: I would prefer also less skills to use from a big pool, so I have to choose which skills I pick for my build. I'm not talking about 4 skills like a Moba, but the number GW2 has it's perfect imo, even wanting a few less skills too.
Overall I do prefer action combat though.
I'd hope for AOC to have a similar skill trigger system to BDO.
You could either place them traditionally in the hotbar, or trigger them by using combinations of W/A/S/D/LMB/RMB/Q/E/R/F/C/Shift/Ctrl.
This allowed for higher combat fluidity and integrated directional skills seamlessly.
It also allowed for the same key to trigger different skills, as part of different combinations - something that can't be achieved by simply assigning single keystrokes.
It set a new bar for action combat in my eyes, increasing the skillcap even further, without affecting more casual players, since the hotbar remained as a way to trigger skills. I would love to see a similar system in AOC.
In my opinion, GW2's combat is the first step. But it's not the last.
There are many other more fun and better hybrid combats, which some consider to be action. But it's not. It's hybrid!
The target system of Neverwinter (a western MMORPG) is very good. Again, I'm talking about the target system, not the combat system! Neverwinter's target system is very dynamic, practical and combines well with a hybrid system. Like GW2 and most tab-targeting MMORPGs, a red circle is below the target. This circle, as is known, indicates that such a target is the target. And this circle appears automatically on the target that is directly in front of the player. This does not happen in GW2. In GW2, you need to hit the skill button to target. Thus, Neverwinter's target system ends up working very well for hybrid combat.
Another MMORPG (which has not yet been officially released) is Elyon. And Elyon adopted a hybrid combat system. The target system is very similar, but it seems to be even more fluid, dynamic and fun.
Anyway... As much as many action combat lovers appreciate hit boxes, I don't think this will work in AoC, mainly because there will be target skills. No hit box. The target in front of you is the target and it's over.
The dodging system can work similar to GW2, only better. An active dodge or roll dodge can also decrease damage to target abilities. The moment you dodge, you don't take damage. But... you can include a passive dodge in this system. "When you press dodge button and roll dodge to the side, you have a 15% chance of not taking any damage from that target ability."
What I hate is having to press a button (Tab) to set or switch targets. This could be dynamic, as I said above, even with the target skills.
About healing and other beneficial skills, and if I'm going to use the mouse to heal, to choose the target of healing in the group UI, I'm a fan of mouseover. That is, I don't need to click on the target or click on the name in the group window, I just need to mouseover it and press the skill button.
I have a lot more to say. But that's it for now. Thank you.
Edit... AoC AC system needs to look likes:
* ESO and Neverwinter TARGET system.
* Dragon Nest and Vindictus COMBAT system.
TT = “Something that you MUST have a target for”
AC = “Anything that can be utilized through placement of the player, such as a reticle, a ground template or a directional placement”
(source:
According to Steven’s definition an ability like “Blizzard or Cone of Cold” from WoW is AC. This is something that I disagree with, because AC isn’t JUST about targeting an ability, but the gameplay that is created by doing so (aiming, dodging, juking, etc). TT and AC have different skill requirements as well, TT has high decision-making skill requirement, as it requires the user to be cognoscente of their and their target’s abilities and use the right abilities at the right time to overcome the challenge. That is also present to AC (perhaps to a lesser extent) but AC also has a very high mechanical skill requirement, not only do you need to know that the enemy has a stun with X cooldown, but also quickly react to it and dodge it. In order to achieve that AC games have A LOT of movement, which brings me to my next point.
A combat system and class design are very much intertwined, one informs the other. Games with AC come with very high mobility baked in to the classes, in fact most of your damaging abilities come with some sort of movement for the character. TT games don’t have nearly as much movement. This is important because the two styles of combat are conflicting and make for an unfitting and unfun experience when combined.
From the class preview videos that you have posted so far, most of the abilities seem to be slow casts, that root you in place with very limited mobility. At the same time Steven has said that AC abilities will come with higher throughput and hard CC as they have inherently higher risk and therefore higher reward. That’s great on paper but in reality we end up with a game where players that like TT are essentially sitting ducks while casting their 2+ seconds cast time abilities making for extremely easy targets, which means that a large portion of the risk of missing an AC ability is gone but the reward is still there. On the other hand, players that like AC will seemingly not have as much movement – which is what makes AC fun in my opinion – and they will not be able to dodge all of the target locked abilities making that aspect of AC obsolete. That will result in non-satisfied players in both sides – not to mention the hell that will be balancing.
I believe that you should pick either one of the combat styles and focus on that one and only that one. Judging from the direction of your class design I would think TT since everything seems to be rather slow paced.
As an AC fan, I will say that I would rather play a game with AoC’s systems and good TT combat, than a game with AoC’s systems and mediocre or outright boring AC – especially if I’m forced to do at least 25% TT. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
There are many ways that TT could be balanced with AC.
TT could generally be lower DPS than AC, and both would have good movement, However, TT could also have some abilities that are slow cast while rooted in place that can be spammed or chained to together to approximately equal AC DPS. This would mean that TT could become an easy target for AC shots, but do about equal damage. i.e. TT auto hits, and AC practically auto hits them since they stand still, damage about equal to one another.
TT and AC could have flat out different playstyles where TT is just a generally slower movement and posisibly slower skill activation play while AC could have more skills to increase movement, more evasion skills, more instant skills, etc.; but, both output about equal damage if AC lands all or close to all shots. So, playing TT gives auto hit skills but also makes the player easy to hit with AC skills. This makes the difference between AC and TT: auto hit your targets and be pretty much auto hit by both TT and AC; or, play fast with a lot of movement but have the additional challenge of aiming to hit your target.
TT and AC could have identical descriptions and damage listed in abilities. However, TT could have an automatic percent chance to miss(separate from any armor or other character bonuses such as dodge stat if it exists) while AC does not have this chance. Then, AC is rewarded for being more accurate than TT RNG and the best selection would be based on player aiming skill vs. the RNG chance to hit on TT skills. An option to select the chance to hit could be based on the average hit rate of players using the same skill in AC version and then increasing that hit rate by enough to be challenging for AC players to beat.
I'm sure there are more options, I only listed what I could think of that does not require a large DPS difference between AC and TT.