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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Combat Discussion
Lloyd
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
My guildmate from Gray Sentinels and I were having a discussion on combat system as a reply to a reddit post Steven had replied on. Was wondering what the general community wants from Ashes of Creation combat?
Here is our conversation:
"ESO combat is atrocious to me. It's slow, they made auto attacks basically a DoT but you have to click for each tick for miniscule amounts of damage and all the combat really revolves around is keeping buffs up and stacking every aoe field in one location like volley and caltrops and whatever class buff or aoe you have.
Some classes like templar only push one button throughout the entire game with aedric jabs even. It's horrible.
If they wanted to make the combat interesting they should have made light attacks cost a ton of stamina but also hit 500% more. Then you give the players a choice between waiting for a skill cd to pop or mauling someone in the face but having to wait a little to use the next skill because you need to recuperate some stamina first. Right now you're piddling away at an enemy because you have nothing better to do. Or have to weave that crap in your rotation because the devs felt they needed to add an auto attack system in a game that didn't need one.
Similarly, WoW combat also bores me right now because it's just rubbing your spreadsheet against another spreadsheet and the bigger number wins.
If raid fights or pvp didn't shit out mechanics at you like advertisements in a superbowl you could automate the entire combat system there
(of course I understand that different people like different things wink )"
"Okay, I agree with those niche points. Like, I would like ESO combat but have like a global cooldown for auto attacks. So move, hit, move, hit. Feels good. The DoTs and whoever can supply the most AoE feels bad.
Something like auto, ability, auto, or auto, move, auto feels good to me.
WoW is exactly that. Who has best gear?"
"
FFXIV feels a lot like WoW but slowed down. (depending on class of course)
I never had a moment where I felt like YEAH that was amazing, look at me.
Plus the almost total lack of channeled abilities you can cast while moving. Everything interrupted me there as a caster"
"I like FFXIV combat, if it was user input for autos and a bit faster."
"GW2 while the game has many things I gripe about at least has the basic movement (overworld, mounts, jumping, the feeling) right and the combat feels so fluid.
There's never a point where I feel annoyed at the combat there with the dodging, the movement, the condition cleansing, skill shots, targeted, automatic auto attacks when you are in range, meaningful combat decisions that don't revolve around having to smash lmb between every skill press.
The most annoying parts about GW2's combat are the stacking of players in one area so the boss doesn't move in old content and you can burst them down. Luckily they designed encounters around that mentality so players can't or shouldn't do that anymore.
The other gripe was CC'ing a boss during vanilla so you could burst them down. But they reworked the entire system to instead offer bonus damage if you achieve mechanical perfection WHICH IS SO MUCH BETTER"
"Yeah, one thing I think about is league of legends combat. And that might be weird to say for an MOBA combat to influence an MMO combat system, but it takes skill and the reactiveness is really important considering the best part about league is completely outplaying your opponents in a team fight."
"Yeah, I also love games where you can physically block by holding a button.
It feels amazing when you perfectly counter reactively
Games that just give you a 2 second buff or w/e that gives you "block" are boring frowning
That's why BDO combat is so good too, grabbing + blocking + dashing + cc...
Reactive combat is where it's at"
TL;DR:
We want combat that is:
- reactive
- meaningful
- allows for movement when it makes sense, and lock down when it makes sense. I.e. prismatic beam should be strong, but your character can't move, but for a ranger to use an auto, then a dash/quick arrow ability, then auto, feels good.
- interactive: meaning user input or at least being able to play around auto spacing like gw2. Blocks are meaningful and reactive feels interactive.
- outplay potential. Stat checking is not fun.
Here is our conversation:
"ESO combat is atrocious to me. It's slow, they made auto attacks basically a DoT but you have to click for each tick for miniscule amounts of damage and all the combat really revolves around is keeping buffs up and stacking every aoe field in one location like volley and caltrops and whatever class buff or aoe you have.
Some classes like templar only push one button throughout the entire game with aedric jabs even. It's horrible.
If they wanted to make the combat interesting they should have made light attacks cost a ton of stamina but also hit 500% more. Then you give the players a choice between waiting for a skill cd to pop or mauling someone in the face but having to wait a little to use the next skill because you need to recuperate some stamina first. Right now you're piddling away at an enemy because you have nothing better to do. Or have to weave that crap in your rotation because the devs felt they needed to add an auto attack system in a game that didn't need one.
Similarly, WoW combat also bores me right now because it's just rubbing your spreadsheet against another spreadsheet and the bigger number wins.
If raid fights or pvp didn't shit out mechanics at you like advertisements in a superbowl you could automate the entire combat system there
(of course I understand that different people like different things wink )"
"Okay, I agree with those niche points. Like, I would like ESO combat but have like a global cooldown for auto attacks. So move, hit, move, hit. Feels good. The DoTs and whoever can supply the most AoE feels bad.
Something like auto, ability, auto, or auto, move, auto feels good to me.
WoW is exactly that. Who has best gear?"
"
FFXIV feels a lot like WoW but slowed down. (depending on class of course)
I never had a moment where I felt like YEAH that was amazing, look at me.
Plus the almost total lack of channeled abilities you can cast while moving. Everything interrupted me there as a caster"
"I like FFXIV combat, if it was user input for autos and a bit faster."
"GW2 while the game has many things I gripe about at least has the basic movement (overworld, mounts, jumping, the feeling) right and the combat feels so fluid.
There's never a point where I feel annoyed at the combat there with the dodging, the movement, the condition cleansing, skill shots, targeted, automatic auto attacks when you are in range, meaningful combat decisions that don't revolve around having to smash lmb between every skill press.
The most annoying parts about GW2's combat are the stacking of players in one area so the boss doesn't move in old content and you can burst them down. Luckily they designed encounters around that mentality so players can't or shouldn't do that anymore.
The other gripe was CC'ing a boss during vanilla so you could burst them down. But they reworked the entire system to instead offer bonus damage if you achieve mechanical perfection WHICH IS SO MUCH BETTER"
"Yeah, one thing I think about is league of legends combat. And that might be weird to say for an MOBA combat to influence an MMO combat system, but it takes skill and the reactiveness is really important considering the best part about league is completely outplaying your opponents in a team fight."
"Yeah, I also love games where you can physically block by holding a button.
It feels amazing when you perfectly counter reactively
Games that just give you a 2 second buff or w/e that gives you "block" are boring frowning
That's why BDO combat is so good too, grabbing + blocking + dashing + cc...
Reactive combat is where it's at"
TL;DR:
We want combat that is:
- reactive
- meaningful
- allows for movement when it makes sense, and lock down when it makes sense. I.e. prismatic beam should be strong, but your character can't move, but for a ranger to use an auto, then a dash/quick arrow ability, then auto, feels good.
- interactive: meaning user input or at least being able to play around auto spacing like gw2. Blocks are meaningful and reactive feels interactive.
- outplay potential. Stat checking is not fun.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Current Member of the Gray Sentinels.
11
Comments
Example of some good AA combat:
I wonder if it would hold up if those weren't in the game?
Well mounts and gliders will be very similar to how they were in ArcheAge. We know that mounts in Ashes will have abilities and be summonable in combat just like in ArcheAge, and we also know that gliding mounts in Ashes will act similarly to gliders in ArcheAge.
I have never played ArchAge but it looks engaging. Speed is subjective to the information you can process, I like this video but I don't know what is happening. I want mobility without being a dash fest.
Light attacks should serve a purpose, not be glitchy for animation cancelling.
In Tera the warrior light attacks returned mp and the third contineus hit had a 60% chance to stagger the enemy briefly, iirc.
Bdo combat looks good, but feels like a quick slideslow of still animations. Too many flashy effects as well.
- Blocking by holding a button
- Grabbing
Both reward clever manipulation of your character and prediction of incoming projectiles and melee attacks.
You could even add a damage increase to attacks from behind while an enemy is blocking because you'd obviously be unable to defend yourself from behind or move quickly from a guarded position.
The grabbing is both a deterrant and a reward for a good execution that allows the person that landed their attack to punish mistakes that their opponent made.
I agree that the overall combat in BDO can quickly devolve in animation splashes and glitchy teleportation like movement across the field.
It's incredibly important that when you die or an enemy pops up or moves you understand how that happened and why to allow you to formulate a counter plan. Or at least allow you to equip yourself with different skills and tools to counteract those in the future once you've learned why you died.
In BDO (especially at max graphical settings) you can often die in a firework of particle effects while your opponent teleports and blinks across the screen. The ArchAge clip above shows someone using the in game mechanics of their mount charge and vertical movement of their glider to engage and avoid / reposition. Both mechanics are available to everyone so they can be understood and practiced by everyone.
Auto attacks are boring.
On a melee character they are either a major component of your dps profile (like rogues that rely on them to stack their poisons or demon hunters that rely on them to generate rage or completely unimportant like on feral druids that rely more on their actual skills. Situations like this lead to pvp / pve fights where the first two classes could potentially lose to better designed classes because their enemy moves around a lot which leadds them to lack uptime.
Similarly mage classes usually lack an auto attack and have all that damage added to their actual skills which just feels so much more impactful. They are already balanced around having to stutterstep their casts when their concentration breaks on moving.
Any time the devs feel like combat is boring if players don't have a button to press ALL THE TIME (light attacks in ESO or at-will powers in Neverwinter) the game devolves into this smash all your skills on cd and tape down your mouse button. Games that allow you more freedom by having no auto attack or force you to constantly smash lmb allow for far greater movement and decision making because you're not constantly in fear of losing uptime.
Maybe its just my ADHD brain where I get serotonin from constantly doing something but I absolutely hate down times, and if i have downtime im using it to reposition/manage my cool downs.
The one thing I absolutely hate is this spammable rotation in MMOs until the enemy is dead.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Current Member of the Gray Sentinels.
Like warriors in WoW -> Press five buttons so you get enough rage so you can press Rampage -> repeat
Like rogues -> Press 3 buttons so you can build 5 combo points so you can press a finisher -> Repeat
Like shamans -> Press five buttons so you can build 5 maelstrom so you can press a cast ability -> Repeat
Like demon hunters -> Press five buttons or wait so you get enough rage so you can press a consumer -> etc
Like fire mages and ice mages and every other class -> Press a few buttons so you get stacks of some stupid resource that you can then consume to deal more damage and repeat ad nauseum
WHILE STANDING STILL AROUND A PUNCHING BAG THAT OCCASIONALLY SHITS OUT A VOID ZONE.
Even though the flavor and the range of some kits is different, the gameplay is basically the same.
BDO for all its faults has bursty classes, has ranged classes, has tanky classes, has brawlers, supporters, assassins and they all play differently. I understand perfectly that their combat system might not perfectly translate to a game that actually aims to have PvE content like dungeons and raids and that some classes in BDO are better suited to grinding at high end spots or mass pvp but they at least feel different and distinct from each other.
MMORPGs where every class just feels like a theme pasted on a spreadsheet shouldn't exist.
I hated that AA pvp video... wiping out your 6m wingspan kite mid fall drpbombing your enemy only to be flung 40 ahead from where you instantly pull your zebra mount out of a pocket going full charge back is just dumb in my opinion... that looked fortnite to me...
maybe I'm old, but I was hoping the combat in this game would "feel real", be meaningful. I hope it doesn't devolve into diablo/path of exile one GigaChad smashing dozens of enemies in 3 buttons and four seconds...
I like fluidity in combat but also do understand the rigidity of some... sure rogues and fighters dance around... but tanks should be bullwarks on which enemies founder (for example a self buff small imobile zone that enhances defence). And for the love of all that's holy give casters some spells they can do on the move. I'm not saying insta cast but for example channeled, or which would be amazing extend the casting time if moving(example - 3s cast... 1s standing... had to move for 3 seconds 3x casting time... stopped and finished in 1 more second) gl programming that
I would much rather have those loops than just: "Hey just press any button at any time". I like that there are buff windows where your CDs align and you get to do a big burst of damage. Managing dots and buffs etc.
But there is certainly a way to make that engaging by having an action combat style.
I never really liked the combat in BDO. It never felt like it belonged in an MMO. It was essentially a Dynasty Warriors fused with a Tekken combo system.
Something like TERA with some of the burst windows and rotations of FFXIV and the fluidity and responsiveness without too much flash like in WoW, would likely be the best feeling combat for my preference.
A rotational loop doesn't have to be bad as long as the combat is engaging.
I don't mind cooldowns, I don't mind animations, what I don't like is feeling locked in or like I can't actually do anything. I don't like combat that forces an outcome.
I agree with TLDR section.
I also think you guys have as bit of a poor understanding of ESO combat. Your friend's suggestion to make light attacks cost stamina also doesn't really make sense. Especially since half the DPS don't use stamina as a primary resource. LAs
for some DPS are even used as a primary source of resource return. So adding a cost doesn't really make sense for the game.
I do agree there is an abundance of aoe dots in PvE but personally I don't mind that. There already are dots in ashes. Maximizing dot up time probably will be a thing.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
The most important thing for me is a responsive combat system. Sacrificing any form of realism for the sake of being able to quickly respond with split-second decisions is 100% worth it.
I don't think this game is even going to have auto attacks so less to worry about there.
U.S. East
Some ideas that I had are as follows:
1. To make each weapon class to have some type of combo that you can move while doing but also has some type of finisher that you can use while under some small animation lock. Giving you a small amount of bonus damage for completing a combo at the cost of a small loss of mobility. Kind of like a spear thrust and the end of the combo or a big two handed cleave for a battle axe.
2. Secondly the dodge roll in it's current state feels terrible and useless. I would love to see where the dodge roll can interrupt casts or attacks in order to give you a way for skilled players to take advantage of it. I wouldn't mind if the cooldown was increased but it doesn't feel good to use at all in the current state of the game.
3. Finally there should be a way to hold down the auto if it is going to be a large part of the game for sure as button spamming doesn't feel very good to play. Abilities are great but definitely would love a larger amount of them but I assume that is just because it is alpha and we don't have weapon skills or anything like that.
Any poster above that feels I have misunderstood or misrepresented their wish in this compilation, please make a note of it so I can correct it if I continue to do this.
Combat Core:
Step 1: Make two (or three) versions of the Q attack, one like the one we have now (which can be split into one like the current that doesn't move you forward, just Q, and one that moves you forward, W+Q), and another that is the 'sideways' version of the attack, that slides slightly to either side while attacking.
Reasoning: Allows for mobility but not as much issues with ping or lag. The attacker can evade frontal abilities with good timing, do damage while circling an enemy, etc. The defender has enough time to turn to use their own Q to chase, guess the 'same side', or use an ability, while knowing relatively quickly what the position of the opponent will be, based on the movement distance.
Step 2: Give a 'Brace' option that blocks the CC effects of physical, and beam/conal magical attacks and possibly some percentage of the damage from frontal attacks of all kinds. The attacker can then spec into 'Overwhelm' on abilities to get a chance of applying the CC or some additional portion of damage anyway. Player cannot attack or move, outside of ability usage, while Braced.
Reasoning: As Ashes is balanced around small group combat anyway, and a bracing player can be outmaneuvered (especially if it takes a while to cancel out of it), the player can 'decide to brace' when they know a very obvious CC is coming, but the enemy gets to feint and be mobile, or use an ability that isn't a CC but has a longer cast which they normally wouldn't 'get away with'. Monsters and bosses can then be given some amount of natural Overwhelm on various abilities, putting the 'random factor' of CC resists and so on, on the side of the attacker spec.
Step 3: Give the Q attack a tiny stamina cost, one that is tuned to be only a very tiny amount lower than the natural regeneration of stamina over time (this value should not be changeable by any gear). Abilities have larger stamina costs (even if they cost Mana). The result would be that large abilities, Brace, and similar, use up stamina until you drop to a threshold where you can't use these if you keep doing them and spamming Q also, but if you simply stop using your Q attack, it regenerates quite quickly and you can just use abilities again.
Reasoning: Some players and classes will spec into strengthening Q and movement, others can ignore Q altogether, or just use it opportunistically when they are using abilities that also have very low stamina costs, e.g. a mage whose AoE kills a whole group of mobs and the one in front of them has only a sliver, just hit it with a wand blast.
This is currently the absolute simplest distillation I can manage for all the above points. This is not intended to be 'interesting', it is not 'clearly balanced'. This is intended as a concept of 'minimum viable function' that players that have posted so far in the thread might be able to agree on, that could be implemented without nightmarish problems from the dev side.
So yes, previous posters, please shred this for whatever in it has misrepresented anything you said.
New posters, there's not a lot of point in addressing this specific post, better to just give your ideas instead (or disagree with the specifics from the previous posters) and I'll probably get around to doing an expanded version tomorrow to make all the inevitable corrections.
And Ashes is not a pure action combat game, rather, it's hybrid tab-target and action combat, so...unlikely it can be as actiony as that ArcheAge video.
A good point for the previous posters and new posters to consider here. Wands are ranged but it's not likely to be the same as the bow and how the bow works in general.
Due to the relatively lower number of posts and lack of Corrections, I won't update anything, and this quoted post does not specifically note any desired way for ranged normal attacks to work, so I don't have an update for today.
See you tomorrow.
However, if we're all honest, tab-target is the downfall of the MMO market. Those that grow up with MMO's are accustomed to its underwhelming feedback but to the average gamer, most MMO's are just special effect sensory overloads that rely far too heavily on character numbers compared to player skill. But again, threads like these are all for naught as I doubt they're interested in actually implementing a genre changing combat system, their Hybrid "Not ESO's Stealth Tab-Target" Combat system is what they'll stick with.
Much of what the current posters for today, are mentioning, rely on concepts that are often more directly decided by skills and skill timings instead of auto-attacks or defenses, or diminish what we currently know the system to be, but that isn't to say it can't change, only to clarify that any change from the current model that I have experienced, to what is mentioned, would be somewhat more drastic.
Therefore I have questions for the posters since my last compilation/MVP, rather than additions or corrections, today.
1. If you could not change the main design direction away from tab target other than use of the Action Camera, is the current MVP in my last post acceptable to you, if not, what should be changed or discussed (with the posters above it)?
2. Would high mobility skills with cooldowns, which specifically gave armor or increases to evasion stat when a tab targeted ability is used, be acceptable, or is the specific goal to enforce a skill floor on other players or classes? (for example, FPS level accuracy being required in order to play Ranger effectively at all)?
3. Is there any consideration currently being given to the issue of ping/'netcode' that occurs when an MMO relies on action target style abilities, or is the goal to simply have the most action-flow possible experience between two players with good ping to the server, and to exclude players who choose to play on the same server as friends but with high ping? (please treat the latter part of this question as non accusatory, moreso what tradeoff you personally would make as a developer of an MMO)
Tomorrow's update to the Minimum Viable Product post will depend mainly on any answers to questions #1 and #2, Question #3 is a primarily philosophical one, even if solutions are given for the issue presented, those would not be within the scope of changing the MVP unless they were really obvious or easy to change. Netcode is hard. UE4 netcode...
See you tomorrow.
I feel like it was the half/half tab/action style.
I just want Intrepid to tell us what they want out of the combat. I even made it my comment for the Q&A
You can see from the reactions to the class previews that what people had in their head and what the devs produced where two very different things and even though Steven has said a lot about wanting a polished combat system I don't actually know much about what that means for him.
As it is in the testing it seems to be going through a bit of an identity crises and it doesn't feel like there's a clear direction for it.