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
Majority of people who have answered the questions and polls both official and unofficial want action combat. We want attack strings, we want combos, we want skill to matter. The style of combat they seem to be leaning towards is not fun.
There can absolutely still be tab target with weaker skills and single button presses for players who want that. But, since intrepid is going for a mix, where you pick a set of “tab” and a set of “action abilities up to a 75/25 split, the “action” abilities need to be action based, and a player should have basic attack combos and strings that lead to more powerful basic (non hotbar) attacks.
Hopefully as intrepid grows (dozens upon dozens more devs to hire before they’re fully staffed) they bring on some people who can steer the combat in the right direction because right now it feels totally lost. And that’s sad.
Even though Intrepid says they want a Hybrid the combat seems to favor Tab and Steven has even said if they can't get Hybrid to work they'll just rip it out and swap to Tab. It's this weird indecisiveness that seems to be the heart of the problem.
@Trax - Thank you. The reason the MVP is laid out as it is now is simply that if we are getting tab-targeted combat even as part of the system, the obvious way to resolve the 'skill' question is to make timing the skill focus, rather than 'ability to aim with a mouse and keyboard'. As of now, I believe it has been specifically said that hard CCs and certain special high damage attacks will be Action targeting only with minimal exceptions, but I'll recheck the Livestreams for the exact quote sometime between now and tomorrow.
@Cypher - Please bear in mind that there is a specific factor that can cause that in game design. When a developer promises 'A', those who like 'A' feel protected and don't always voice their opinions due to feeling that they don't have to. I am not aiming to say you are wrong in any way about the stats or polls they have, just that the responses to things are dampened when invested parties feel 'secure in the promises given'. That is, it's easy to just 'ignore all the people who want heavy action combat' if you disagree with this, when the developer has promised you that there will be tab combat for you. Similarly, someone could ignore your assertion that 'combat doesn't feel good' because they see no need to argue with you in that case.
For the sake of the discussion I request that those who read this and disagree with Cypher, actually voice it, with reasons, so that both sides can be presented and I can compile anything that people can agree on.
Agreeing is hard because people come from different games and have vastly different concepts of what combat should feel like for many reasons, but we can still strive to find something we all can enjoy at least somewhat, hopefully something that is flexible enough that by weapon or class choice, everyone actually gets what they want.
So @Cypher @ThexBlackxKnight, I'm specifically asking, if you can look past the personal die-hard wish for Action Combat (or answer my questions directly from my previous post), what is your objection to either the current MVP, or at minimum, the idea that skill with 'timing' can substitute for skill with 'aim'.
Is anything less than 'fast paced action combat with skillshots' unacceptable in your view? (in which case I will disengage and not bother you directly for feedback on the current 'tab target based compilation')
I am not sure if their hybrid combat is actually going to work out or not , seems like they trying to juggle a lot with that. I just want polished combat whatever direction they go in , it will make or break this game.
Yeah everything else about the game looks great but it seems they’re lacking the necessary devs to work on the combat.
1- when I kickstarted this game (yep) I, like many others, was lured in by the promise of a hybrid combat system that would appeal to tab and action players alike. What I did not sign up for (and drop hundreds of dollars on) was a tab target game that claims it’s a hybrid just because you can A- move while attacking, B- dodge roll, or C- have a reticle on screen.
These factors do not make an action combat system. Case in point, guild wars 2 has all of these factors, but (regardless of what the fan boys will say) it’s a tab target game. In the action camera mode, my abilities still lock onto enemies and are then guaranteed to hit. The only thing you don’t lock on with is an AOE. Even if I don’t physically have to press the tab key, the game is inherently a tab target game. It’s just pressing tab for me when I play in action camera mode. Combat consists of spamming whatever is off cooldown between 1-5 on my keyboard. Dull, boring, no skill. This is not exclusive to GW2, this is tab target in a nutshell.
2- the way you say “fast paced action combat with skill shots” sounds like you think we’re call of duty kiddies that can’t sit still. I am indeed advocating for skill based combat yes, but does every single ability have to require pinpoint aim? No of course not. Instead, do I want to auto target enemies or have them auto target me for the server to dice roll for damage? No, a million times no. Do I want the characters to move at the speed of light with mere milliseconds to react or else one mistake gets you killed? No, of course not.
That’s why I suggested Trax check out Vindictus, because depending on which class you’re playing, you might have more or less speed, more or less dodging, more or less raw damage, more or less skillful aim (worth noting that aim is typically not required on melee classes in most games, which many tab targeters seem to always forget) and because in my opinion it’s the game with the best action combat.
3- I’ve shared various thoughts on action combat several times, so if you crave more then I’ll let you do the work and go look up my posts. Pretty sure you can browse someone’s posts through their profile, if not then oh well.
I wonder if the Action Combat will be implemented with the Weapon Abilities.
Especially since the Action Combat tested with APOC all came from weapons.
Do we know which of the Archetype abilities are supposed to be Action?
Edit: Also worth pointing out, the skills in Apoc, while different for each weapon, still operated essentially the same way we have now, albeit none of them locked on which is at least a step up. Hot bar should be reserved for special skills and long cooldown skills, while everything else can be done with L and R mouse buttons and a few combos.
I don’t know, but I would guess they’re considering everything that doesn’t require being in-range and locked-on to be “action”.
I'm seriously asking because I don't know what you actually want, and while that would be clarified by finding all your posts, which I'm willing to do, there are indeed some limitations on time for reading forum posts specifically.
Videos, however, I can do. For those who are not aware, Vindictus PvP plays like slower less flashy BDO, and Vindictus PvE, I can't judge, because it looks like watered down Monster Hunter, from the 40 minutes I've seen.
So, for disclosure, other posters, I may not be able to engage or make updates relative to Cypher's points due to time.
You don't have to be an FPS god to know when the server screwed up one of your abilities/shots and lost you a fight and it's always frustrating as hell to dip behind some cover but still "get hit" b/c your opponent's client is a hair slower than yours.
I just really don't see the downsides of a Tab combat system outweighing the downsides of an Action one and IMO it's best to prepare have a system that can run somewhat smoothly during lag spikes than one that'll completely shit itself.
I checked out Vindictus; don't really care for the aesthetic style, but the combat itself looked fun, though maybe a little rigid for me. While you were playing that game I was playing Darkfall: Unholy Wars; check out the combat:
But, the one thing about DFUW combat that the combat was so high skill cap that it made it inaccessible to more players than you want in a siege warfare game with a crafting based economy. I think it's important for AoC to land on a system where players have access to less high-skill demand classes if they choose, and conversely players that are playing full action mode are rewarded with higher output. I certainly worry about UE's ability to handle a game like that though, so I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'll certainly end up playing almost no matter what the combat system looks like; the only question is will I only play it when the wife and kids are playing too, or will I play it in my alone time as well.
Steven made 1 comment about this topic months ago.
He said their current vision for Ashes combat is,
"similar skill synergy and pace of combat of ArcheAge
Mobility of GW2
Visual and sound cues of BDO."
For me that sounds actually good.
Their current iteration does not resemble those ideas at all, but what they are gonna test in the next iteration seems to be a step towards it.
Steven in context of the next test phases: "The first testing we will do with combat will increase rotational speeds when root motion attacks occur, Allow Dodge to cancel animation, when holding WASD allow your combo attacks to be split body not locking character in place."
The lack of direction is due to the fact that they simply have not touched combat yet. Which is equally concerning imo.
I will agree that out of everything you mentioned, GW2 does have the best combat. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to it.
They had even worse combat originally with quick time events. They have revamped combat through Apoc, revamped combat through the MMO and will revamp the combat again. I'm not a fan of action combat in MMORPGs. I do want fluid combat though. I would love for combo synergies and non static skills. There is not an overwhelming number of players which prefer Action Combat. There are a vocal few who want Action Combat. We saw that in the Combat Dev Thread.
APOC just focused on the action portion of hybrid combat. It wasn't a revamp of tab-target combat.
I recall them specifically saying though leading up to APOC that it would be a testing ground for strictly the action combat portion of the game and that the MMORPG would combine the tab target and action combat.
APOC was never suppose to be representative of how the MMORPG would be.
I don't think we have really seen any sort of revamp of the combat, they mostly been focused on getting various abilities and animations into the game. For roughly a year now they said a combat revamp was in the pipeline leading up to Alpha 1.
And, it's going to take way longer to convince the devs to give up their hybrid vision.
Steven has already outright said if they feel they can't nail hybrid then they'll rip it out and go full Tab. It really comes down to what timeline they've set to make that decision.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I agree, Wildstar was fantastic!