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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
Except AoC is not BDO or Vindictus. It has wide open maps with 250v250 player pvp. It has many ranged classes. In fact, it has 8 ranger classes which presumably specialize in bows, and many caster classes. His comment about hitting someone far away is more likely than not.
Action combat fits in two categories. A small-fight scenario system, or a Dynasty Warriors "We hit whole squads with all of our attacks" kind of system. Small-fight works for BDO and Vindictus, but not for a game with 250v250 like AoC. And it may be my personal opinion, but Dynasty Warriors combat is not fun nor rewarding, especially not in a pvp scenario.
It's also very disingenuous and a bad faith argument to dismiss his opinions by exaggerating them in such a way. Anyone can say "Phew right, just pointing your camera and mashing all your buttons while you and 30 other people do the same until the boss runs out of health is exhilarating" just as you did.
Skills that work better with action combat:
Skills I prefer for tab target:
For ranged weapons, I prefer a mixture of both: tab target to make short work of mundane enemies, and action combat for skills with bigger pay-offs.
just a little bit of TT for some quick needed spells/abilitys on allies able to die but love the action based combat
There is too much going on, in a chaotic environment to be able to visually identify a target or have the right camera view to aim at another player or point on the ground. When there are many skill effects, player movement, and things going on like. When one is in a position of battle field management, needing to see what all the enemy forces are doing and to coordinate with groups of players and maneuver in a fight, action combat becomes much too difficult to use effectively. Quality and well functioning tab targeting, with the ability to point at an area and have snap-to target lock, is far superior. There simply isn't enough time, in a busy multitask situation, to focus so much much on action skill shots. Only a small portion of the actual fight will be using your skills, PvP or PvE, positioning, communicating, navigating are all happening at the same time. And we need to be able to *target* players or an area for AoE skills, and then be able to press our skill buttons, while then not camera aiming at focusing on only this one player/mob/area.
For a game with very few players occupying a space, like MOBA or team PvP arena settings, action based skills and abilities can work very well. It "worked" in APOC, as you were only engaging 1-3 players at the same time. When there are hundreds of players in the same area, action combat systems become very unwieldy.
We need to be able to have a hot key where we can all target squad/raid marked target. Having to look through hundreds of players to identify one to target, is a mess, like a needle in a haystack and won't be very fun.
If I wanted to play a "aiming ability" skill mini game, to engage a target, there are plenty of twitchy "aiming ability" games that exist. It isn't fun, and it isn't really skilled. Skill is knowing when to use which ability. Skill is knowing what your opponent might do. Skill is countering the abilities your opponent uses. Skill is knowing the game mechanics. Skill is positioning. Skill -is not- pixel aiming a cursor better then someone else, which is very subject to server latency. Skill is having your target selected and managing your resources, layering your abilities.
I don't like locking certain skills or abilities to only one type of combat. action vs tab. Some people struggle with action combat, and it isn't really a test of skill or how good of a player they are, if they are best at the game or know it better. Losing because your hands aren't as coordinated, because your mouse didn't track as well as the other person, because you couldn't see the other player through graphics effects, this isn't fun. Skill isn't button mashing in an arcade mortal combat style fight. It's not as strategic. Action won't work with 500vs500. If Ashes is majority action combat, I'll have to skip out on PvP and fighting in the game as much as I'd like to and just be a roaming nomad exploring the lands.
I hope that while beeing in the action combat not beeing forced to switch into action for some spells. but just beeing able to hover a target and lockon it. then cast the spell.
In my oppinion the tab target combat is old and boring. make you feel like just pressing keys and click people.
Action on the other side is more agile and more dinamic. It gives you more freedom and is more enjoyable.
Aren't we all sinners?
But action definitely in pvp.
I prefer mechanical skill (eg aiming) being a factor in DPS output. So, for basic attacks and bread-and-butter DPS attacks, I will use almost exclusively hit-scan for maximum potential DPS. If tab ends up being better for raw DPS in practice, then I will switch to that, but I probably won't enjoy it as much as if combat rewarded precision.
Since CC abilities and certain other abilities are too important to whiff on, I will prefer to use tab for those. Exceptions to this would be if there's AoE CC abilities, like maybe a huge net for example with fast "bullet drop". If the net area of effect is large enough, and the opponent is close enough that I don't think I'll miss, then I'll use that action ability. I probably will stay away from CC hitscan abilities, because it will frustrate me if I don't hit it due to lag, or if I just mess up a crucial shot with a long cooldown.
I'd like to see abilities that reward not only good aim, but good decision making. Any abilities like walls, or a way to manipulate the environment, would be amazing. Being able to disrupt aim by cleverly placing obstacles would lead to interesting gameplay that rewards primarily smart decision making over raw mechanical skill.
Here's a hypothetical breakdown of ideal combat for me:
That's kind of the general flow of combat that I'd like to see. Combat that doesn't just focus on spamming either tab or action abilities for maximum dps, but instead rewards creative play and decision making, while still rewarding mechanical precision.
Tab targeting all the way for healing. I don't want to have to aim heals at highly mobile characters and waste half my mana by missing. If AoE's are ground target like GW2, I'd take some of those... but nothing I have to aim like a shooter game.
Action skills will probably fit movement skills. Don't want a runaway skill to require a target. Sometimes there isn't a target, it's a falling rock you want to teleport away from.
Not sure exactly how summoner will work, so no idea if I'll want tab or action targeting for those.
Thankfully it’s seemed like the devs are wise enough not to put any point and click cc in the game, and hopefully we’ll get an actual system to counter point and click burst zergs.
Because When you have action bar, with Spells/ability's that good looking view, and easy to balance, personally I dont like action combat base mmo but I dont have problem with that If ashes will develop that way, that's okay.
I can agree with that little tab target is a past and is boring but much more better then when you just left click all over time, like in ESO I much more prefer spaming frostbolt or sinister strike for a example.
I would like to see both system of course but you must do that carefully.
#Tab targeting forever
I will probably try to spec a character that balances a even number of action skills akin to tab targeting skills.
I categorize action based skills:
I categorize tab-targeting skills:
Thanks for reading.
Sure tab targeting is an old and trusted system that's usually preferred by more casual players, but I don't thing you can retain them for a very long time.
I hope your implementation of action combat won't be limited to few aoe skill and mele range auto attacks. A good variety of dodging and strafing mechanics to avoid stuns with a mix of skills that require good aiming and timing are necessary to have a decent skill cap in the game and maintain a healthy pvp player base.
I used to play Dragon Nest. Overall every aspect of that game was meh, but a perfect action combat system kept me playing for several years. You might want to check it out.
I'm beginning to think you haven't played BDO. It too is open world and thus "wide open maps", and has massive PvP battles. I can't recall the exact number from the top of my head but I want to say 100v100 for Node Wars. It's essentially a pure PvP game aside from mob grinding.
It has several ranged classes as well, which is really odd that you didn't know that and again makes me think you don't actually know the game.
Furthermore, like any MMO there are plenty of AOE abilities but also a ton of non-AOE abilities and fights that are 1v1 or in small handfuls of players (even in the large battles yes), so your "we hit whole squads with our attacks" comment is nonsense. The combat, even on a large scale, feels very intimate like you have to really know your opponents and be able to dance past their abilities and land your own. And sure sometimes, depending on the class, you are less intimate and more total destruction with AOE death, but even then you're not wiping entire squads by yourself
Oh yeah, and I was totally making an argument rather than heckling someone sarcastically and in good fun, don't you know? I always use obvious exaggerations and put a "lol" at the end of a serious argument. You got me there.
Only when action combat is rewarded via the tab targeting am I forced to take it with me.
I hope we stick with "easy to learn, hard to master" in tab targeting.
I also find it more difficult to balance skills that are made with the action combat system because there are more things to consider than with the tab targeting system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/lz2i3z/whats_your_preferred_type_of_combat/
But an hybrid combat can work, melees can have almost all attacks full action, like some ranged attacks can be action to
With a hybrid system like this the game feels essentially purely AC but also requires TT to prioritize targets, even if they are in groups, for interrupts or maintaining DoTs or debuffs, etc. I also feel that mixing AC and TT opens up players to experience gameplay with another layer of variety.
I wanted to weigh in on Ramirez's comment on pure AC and healing because I do disagree:
In Wildstar they had a "smart" healing system for their AC. One skill I recall read something like this,
Heals the 5 lowest health targets. Will always prioritize tanks.
This was a ground targeted ability that was a decently sized square. When cast in the tank/melee group, if it struck 1 tank and 6 melee, it would heal the tank and 4 melee even if a 5th melee had less HP than the tank. This isn't a mindless spam skill either. If there is an off-tank as well and it didn't need healing while the main tank and 4 melee really-really needed healing, if the healer struck the off-tank or the off-tank walked into the skill, one of those melee's that desperately needed the heal would not receive it. Hopefully that helps illustrate this concept.
Is this the best option out there? I don't know. It worked well and I also had lots of fun, so I believe that complete AC healing is viable. I'd still put my vote in for hybrid healing though.
I'm gonna play Cleric,
speccing it with majority action based skills.
Why? well,...
◘ TT for me is like having auto-pilot mode on, while in AC I take the wheel in my hands with the thrill of full control and a feeling of 'no risk, no fun'.
◘ a Healer in AC is dope for me to play, 'specially in PvP: aiming in the right direction - or even better having some non-automated lock-on spells, that make u focus on ur allies catching with it the one(or few) Player(s) in the mass, who's HP bar is dangerously low to safe them spot on, makes my fight experience go through the roof.
◘ I like the greater mobility that AC often provides; it breaks me free from certain skill rotations and let's me act more independent - in general, I am a rather 'jumpy' player: constant movement, dodges, i-frames, backsteps is what I need to have on my skill bar, otherwise my keyboard and mouse feel underused.
◘ plus, I see more skill based fights in AC then TT: the depths that it can add to a game is for me a major factor; ppl, who start to theorize around it, endless duel sessions, constant attempts to 'crack the code' - figuring out all the hidden cc's, anti-kd's, blockcancelings, correct positionings, distance measures etc. It can be a blast x)
So, my hopes are high
my expectations low,
I wish you guys the best and pls sweep me off my feet o/
Oh yes you absolutely can, take a look at gameplay of action mobas such as gigantic, paladins and overwatch to name a few. I think most of us just express what we want from the 75% part of the hybrid combat they are trying to make because we are the ones that are going to use it the most. We are not trying to make the game full action combat, even though personally i would absolutely love that 🤩😍