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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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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
Games in the mid 2000's had no issue lowering the player count as the situation required. A game could have very easily had full action combat in 2008 with fully instanced content similar to DDO.
They didn't, because it actually isn't an inherent draw or better system. It has just been in vouge for the last few years, due to the massive popularity of first person shooters and Battle Royal games.
MMO's having action combat are very much just them trying to attract that playerbase - nothing more, nothing less. This isn't a bad thing, nor a good thing. It is just a thing.
Yeah, there are two types of AC. One where you aim to shoot (FPS) and one where you have soft target/conal damage. Collision has been around for a fair few years (Can't remember the first MMO to use Collision) but collision would dictate how effective projectiles would be in terms of AC. AC is a broad term for multiple iterations where as TT is a narrow spectrum.
Iterations of AC aren't identical. IS seem to think AoE Skills are AC. Terminologies are problematic. We've had AOE Skills in TT for decades. Again, conal attacks can be classed as 'AoE' which I believe makes the terminologies an issue. AoE is also an umbrella term. I do not see the restriction to be in terms of technology. Technology dictates how many players can interact in a given area, technology doesn't dictate how skills are handled. You would code the UI and the skills to either be AC or TT. I agree with Noanni in that modern AC has links to FPS. FPS has had the technology for decades.
An MMO could have transitioned into FPS styled AC much earlier but it wasn't desired. Most MMOs chose to copy WoW. If WoW wasn't created, then, the switch to AC would have come much sooner. I'm still not a fan of BDO styled AC. I prefer Shadow of Mordor styled AC.
AC is a fairly broad term, for sure, and is used to describe a general combat system that has evolved over a decade or so.
However, tab target is a term that is used to describe a combat system that has evolved over two and a half decades.
There is as much variation in tab target implementations as there is in action combat implementations.
In Tab Target you have hard target, singular target selection and active manoeuvres.
Thus, Tab Target is indeed limited in a narrow spectrum in terms of targeting.
Obviously, in terms of Conal Skills and AoE Skills both TT and AC have access.
You can have games with offensive and defensive targets - this in itself is a massive departure from games without it (you then have abilities that affect both your offensive and defensive target).
You can have enemies broken down in to groups, effectively giving you two types of AoE's, those that work normally, and those that attack all members of the target group.
Each of these things are just alterations on the targeting system of the game in question, and each has as deep an impact on the combat system as the various implementations of action combat have.
What I seem to have failed to get across is that not all AC has free aim like FPS, whereas, all TT have similar if not identical systems in play. Which is why I describe TT as being narrow. You can build an AC System with conal and AoEs alone (BDO). You can also build a TT with conal and AoEs alone. Technology doesn't dictate the design choices but the combat designers dictate which system will be used.
In terms of Hybrid Combat - you would focus on Conal and AoEs which would match TT and AC. You would then throw in some Free Aim like APOC for Projectiles for AC. You would still be limited in terms of hard targets for TT but the lines would be blurred. It is the fundamental basics to a Hybrid System and if IS consider Conal and AoEs as AC then TT and AC will be pretty balanced.
No, you got that across just fine.
What I am saying is that not all tab target games are hard target, nor are singular target. There are a multitude of mechanics in various games that make tab target combat systems as varied as action combat systems.
I do agree with you that, if the combat system is simple then it's much easier to focus one the boss mechanics. But I also think that, the better a person is in a curtain system (ac or tt) then that person can focus more on the boss mechanics.
From the beginning, one may need 90% focus on the combat system, but they better you get the less focus you need, and more focus can be directed to the boss mechanics. This is true for both ac and tt systems. Just because a person playes a TT game doesn't mean they can have 50% focus on the mechanics.
I my self remember when I started raiding in wow. I was awful because I was so focused on my rotation that I "forgot" the mechanics. But after playing it for hours i got my rotation down to reflex and could focus almost all my attention to the mechanics. This is true for TT and I also believe it is true for AC.
So I don't really agree with the AC = 90/10 and TT = 50/50.
Actually this is not true, or I wouldn't personally play a action combat game10+ years ago when average latency a player had was far to high for an action combat system, and that's is why tab-targeting was the way to go.
To day when players have more like 50ping or less, the delay of pressing your attack til it hit the target is so small that one doesn't really notice it.
For example, if you have a dodge mechanism like GW2, there is no meaning to have an evasion stat on a character. Because the capacity to evade hit will be tied to your own irl reflex. Same for targeted projectile shoot, the precision stat has no meaning if you need to target it manually.
And i prefer rpg game to any action game
And be cautious that any too much precise need of 3D collisions can easily turn ugly with big battle (or bad network) or open the game to aimbot and other stuff.
Now, even if Ashes doesn't go that route, I'll still give their game a shot whenever we get to Alpha 2. I hope they succeed and do amazing things...
But I'm also an alpha backer for Pantheon. That game will give me tab target with a limited action set. They are looking to be in Alpha sometime this year (just like Ashes).
I had 50ms ping to most MMO's servers in the mid to late 2000's. As did most of the gamers I knew.
Australians and some rural Americans were the main group of people that didn't at least have this as an option from around 2007 onwards.
I agree that it wasn't common with people that weren't gaming online, but it absolutely was an option for many people back then. That is why FPS games moved from a focus on LAN to online.
I do also agree that if I didn't have that kind of connection, I wouldn't even consider an action game (or an FPS game).
I think this MMO is supposed to be better than the other MMOs. That doesn't mean do everything different than other MMOs... it means do what is going to be the best game experience. That's going to be a combination of taking the best aspects from MMOs and doing things other MMOs do not do.
Yeah I guess it really depended on where the game had it's servers and where one lived.
I didn't get good internet untill the 2010s, but I also know that I was really late to get good internet aswell.
Preferences exist sure, but AC is the better option regardless.
Why? - Because then you're actually actively playing a game, otherwise its just WoW all over again where you literally AFK bosses just spamming your rotation. TT Is boring, lazy and inactive + it straight up takes less skill.
But for the first is more an encounter design (Molten Core even with AC will be boring spam fest).
And for current wow it's about class/spec design (after Legion extension classes/spec were prune to death, focused on damage rotation skills with barely 2 or 3 utility on the side specific to a class/spec), some general design self inflicted restriction for the sake of "accessibility" (only 2 tanks needed for raids, avoid at all cost possible that a classe become mandatory for an encounter), the complete disappearance of hybrid type of spec (because of cours everyone want only BIG numbers, at least in Bliz head), and at lot of underlining mechanism which have just disappears(some position stuff like a character can parry only front attack) or just be streamlined to a point they barely matter (aggro management).
I found wow current game play to be a bit bland too but it's have nothing to do with TT.
What i said was a simple example of why i find TT boring.
You see an enemy, you press tab, and your frost bolt magically gravitates towards the enemy. You spam that button over and over till they die, whether its a player or a mob doesn't matter. It's a lazy and inactive way of playing the game, the only 'active' gameplay is timing interrupts and cleanses.
All im saying is that TT is boring and pve wise catered to lazy gameplay where you just stand still and cast.
I mean literally, tanking is standing still next to your pulls.
As someone who absolutely prefers tab over action, I will happily say that I hate this kind of thing as well.
Thing is, what you are describing here isn't a natural result of tab targeting, it is a natural result of lazy development - and make no mistake, Blizzard is a lazy developer.
One thing I will say about action games - there has not yet been one that has been implemented as poorly as WoW is as a tab target game. Against trash mobs, I totally agree.
Where tab target shines though is against bosses.
Tab target games take the fact that the combat system doesn't use up all of your attention, and instead adds mechanics to encounters to take up the remainder of that attention.
This means that against trash, tab target can be viewed as boring - I totally agree there. However, against a boss encounter, tab target games take up just as much of your attention as action games do, just that a good portion of that attention is given to the encounter, not the combat system.
Since the combat system in both games is fairly static, this means that tab target games are able to provide players with more variation in combat, as the portion of each encounter that demands your attention can be vasdtly different for each encounter - making each one a unique experience. Action target games do this to a degree, but the more involved the combat system, the less room there is to add these mechanics to encounters.
Aiming doesn't have to be hard. it's another layer of depth that action can have that tab doesn't. You can have moments in the fight that don't require any attention to aim and other moments that require precession from your players.
Tab is just a combat system, not a skill system. As we always debate, you can have the same variety with free aim skills. Even if you assume that devs aim for some arbitrary mechanics difficulty and have some way of measuring it, doesn't change the fact that those skills can still be implemented in a free aim system.
The problem with it - from my perspective - is that if you add it to the game, you add it to every encounter.
A tab target system can have encounters where you need to aim (I've seen this implmented in a few ways - the most simple being that players are given encounter specific abilities that need to be used, and some games where they added in war machines), an action combat game can't really make encounters where you don't need to aim.
Again, this is why tab target allows for more variation in combat.
We agree that you can have everything in an action game that is in a tab game. Likewise, on the encounter level, you can have everything in a tab game that is in an action game - the difference is, you are stuck with aiming in every encounter in an action game, where as you only need to have it when you want it in a tab game, and can instead use that player attention quota on other things if you do not want aiming.
Developers do indeed have means of measuring encounter difficulty, and they do indeed often nail it. After the first few years in EQ2 where the develoeprs added content to the game that was too hard to be killed and then tuned it back, they then spent the next 5 or so years releasing yearly expansions, each with 30+ raid encounters, with each encounter falling exactly where it should in terms of progression, all with almost no need to retune encounters.
If they have no means of measuring difficulty as you suggest, that is some serious good luck.
Sure, some developers (Blizzard) don't pull this off, but those developers are actually pretty shit, and it shows in their games.
It is used in non-MMO games actually. Just look at Xenoblade Chronicles, a VERY popular game series for one example, and it's entirely tab target. Just look at any game that has a lock-on system for ranged attacks, though it's true even most of those locking on isn't necessary.
This guy gets it! To be fair we haven't seen any "real" action combat system in MMORPG except maybe Darkfall. Most of these systems are just some form of hybrids, which is fine. I think GW2 has one of the best combats for sure when it comes to MMORPGs. The biggest mistake I see people doing when looking at the combat of the game, they think speed=action combat, which isn't true at all. People rarely look at the fundamentals of the combat and then say if it's tab,hybrid or AC. In my mind the real AC would require aiming and proper hitboxes which most of these mmorpgs really lack. I personally want the real action combat mmorpg, but I do understand that it's probably never going to happen. Games like that would be extremely niche, and when it comes to AoC they are already going for the niche. So being niche on top of the niche wouldn't be smart at all. I hope they stop flipflopping around the idea of hybrid and just commit either into TAB or AC, I don't really care which one they pick honestly.
Also if I had to pick between Archeage(Tab targeting) vs BDO ("action combat") I would always pick Archeage. That combat is just so much more superior.
⇻ theNILV ⇺
Yeah a Darkfall action system would be very niche, as Darkfall itself always was. People could beat you in that game with movement alone, like they'd just be impossible to hit because they were so skilled at movement and juking. Kinda like your average FPS game. Darkfall was really fun in it's own right though.
I do enjoy combat in BDO too for different reasons, It's just not that great for PvP. Especially when numbers get bigger. But it's very flashy, impactful and the animations are 5/5 that's for sure. It really makes you feel like a main character in Anime.
Also I just pointed out Darkfall, because it really has the fundamentals of combat that I would require for the game to be real action combat in my mind. I would love this type of combat, but yeah won't see it happening. Actually New World is going to be pretty close when it comes to real action combat. They did make healing kinda tab targeting, but that's fine as long as the main combat stays the way it is.
⇻ theNILV ⇺
Implying that it's not doomed already, that's a good one
Which then begs the question, if you believe that, why are you here?
Well I do think the planet is doomed also, but here I am living my life. Would you tell me to kill myself in this situation or what?
Even if I'm thinking that the genre overall is doomed, there might be some glimmer of hope. And I like how this game sounds on paper. I just don't get excited for magical things that I can't see
A glimmer of hope would - by definition - mean it is not currently doomed.
Maybe pick words that mean what you are thinking.