Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
Current Compilation/MVP
1. Directional control over the Q/LMB attack, specifically being able to 'slide attack' left or right with a fixed animation and distance, two separate strikes as the character spins, with no way for both attacks to hit a character except if they chose the same direction at the same time (also probably a S+Q/LMB that doesn't move your character forward).
Reasoning: Allows for mobility but not as much issues with ping or lag. The attacker can evade frontal abilities with good timing. The defender has enough time to turn to use their own W+Q/LMB 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.
2. A "Brace" function that locks you for a moment, probably not cancelable, but can be held, and slowly drains a little stamina. This Brace would block some portion of damage from the front and reduce chance of CC, attacking players could add the ability to overwhelm this CC reduction to their attacks.
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 a long-cast high damage ability that isn't a CC. 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.
3. A tiny stamina cost for Q/LMB attack and larger Stamina costs for abilities to make the decision of if to keep doing Q/LMB between other skills, a meaningful one, with Stamina regen over time, set to be very slightly less than what you use up 'spamming Q/LMB'
Reasoning: Some players and classes will spec into strengthening Q/LMB and movement, others can ignore Q altogether, or just use it opportunistically when they are using abilities that also have very low stamina costs.
4. A modified form of gated strings, possibly as part of weapon skill trees, or just default, so that the combo attack changes in ways other than 'following the standing Q/LMB with a directional Q/LMB or ability)
Reasoning: Dynamic flow, ability to have specific abilities with wider attack arcs and 'hitboxes', to differentiate weapons and offer a way to increase damage for heavy weapon users without necessarily just relying on stats applied to the weapon.
There's been no direct complaints about this one so far, I think? Please complain if you have complaints, philosophical or otherwise.
I might do an explanation later about the many potential pitfalls of split body movement during attacks (not saying it can't work).
The stamina bar i had in mind would only apply to personal sprint and dodge mechanics. Not for abilities.
Sprint has an effect icon that appears beneath the Health and Mana bars.
Having an additional resource like stamina is only worthwhile if you have multiple actions bound to it. If sprinting if the only action that uses stamina then you might as well just have a duration and cooldown instead which is easier to implement and less cluttered on the UI.
Alternatively you could go with the GW2 approach of giving the player 2 dodges on a shared cooldown.
However, if you have lots of different actions that use stamina (e.g. blocking, dodging and sprinting) then it would be worth having stamina. I'm in danger of sounding like a broken record here but what I like about Dark Souls combat is that stamina is used for both offence and defence. Your weapon attacks, sprinting, dodging and blocking all use stamina, which plays into the combat very well. Stamina management is very important and it's very easy for new players to use all their stamina on a flurry of attacks and then have no stamina left for dodging afterwards.
Unless you are fighting really weak enemies that die in 2 hits, you need to save a bit of stamina for dodging. If you use all your stamina attacking and don't kill your opponent, chances are they will just turn around and smack you for half your health while you try to regen your stamina.
Edit: before the change, mana based classes could sprint and dodge without penalties, melee classes were gimped by sprint and dodge. Luckily in Ashes all classes use Mana.
The MVP currently 'doesn't care' much if Sprint or Dodge or 'get up from prone' or whatever else, use the same stamina as weapon abilities. Due to this, it would mainly be a question of 'which one of these things, when overused, should prevent the player from being able to Brace for CC reduction?'
I've also reviewed the other Combat related posts for today, but they seem to be addressing different things, or minutiae of expectations, but @Neurath would have to clarify, there, given their higher activity in those threads.
So let me know if you need/want me to 'pull' anything from those discussions that I may have overlooked.
The question wasn't if BDO was made with immersion or player health in mind but rather if it failed due to action combat, which it didn't. I can't stand the game myself but it isn't a failure due to the combat system, which according to some, any game that has used said system has failed...
Aiming to avoid derailing this thread. Don't really want to derail it with a discussion about whether or not BDO is successful either.
But there was no big post today in here because of the above.
If there is any chance that simply jumping can help to avoid an ability, or worse, somehow avoid melee under certain conditions (all you Star Wars watchers know what I'm talking about, I see you Obi Wan), then there might be a good reason to put a limit on 'spamming jump', even if jumping locks the player out from doing anything else.
Pros: Limits players who just jackrabbit during PvP for no reason, and also allows more flexibility in balancing mechanics and jumping itself, in combat.
Possible Side-Effects: Open world activities that rely on jumping are currently rare and there's no specific reason they would increase a lot, it might even make 'rogue infiltrations' and similar more interesting.
Cons: Might give some players the impression that because it uses stamina, it should be usable to dodge certain attack types other than things like the Elder Dragon's shockwaves.
As is, I don't think jumping is significant enough to warrant Stamina.
That shit was so bad noone wanted to play it and had to force themsevles to play it for the rewards.
Spammy fortnite combat like that has no place in an mmorpg.
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
So @HellzBlessing, I have a question. Is it important for you, that a less skilled player has lower accuracy with their melee attacks and skills, assuming that they are not just spamming the button?
If the player is 'trying to spin the camera to keep track of the other player, using their skills at the right time, but isn't good enough at moving the camera reticle', do you specifically want that player to be less accurate for most of their attacks?
It's interesting b/c for the exact reasons you want action combat I want Tab b/c the lag that'll very likely happen during these massive fights means I'll feel far less in control than if the inevitable server fires where mitigated a bit w/ Tab targeting and a reasonable GCD
The only reason to make jumping use stamina is if jumping can be used to dodge attacks that cannot be dodged or blocked normally. Fighting games utilise jumping in combat with cyclical balance. You duck high attacks, block mid-level attacks and jump over low attacks. This deepens the combat system because you have to choose whether to duck, block or jump based on what attack you think your opponent is going to do.
That's not how things work in most mmorpgs though, so integrating jumping into combat or tying it to stamina is pointless.
Everyone I game with that saw it. But even outside my circle just go to YouTube and search “apoc aoc” and peruse the comments on the videos that pop up; very well received.
As for your opinion on what belongs in am mmorpg, we’ll it’s just that, an opinion; but I’d take apoc style fps combat over tab target any day of the week, and the mmorpgs that have had it have been more fun than those that didn’t IMO.
Posters who disagree over the combat, I ask for your time, to define your terms.
"Spammy" - This is reasonable description of the two top videos you can find of people playing on YouTube.
"Excited comments on YouTube" - These are mostly not visible in easily searched videos, there are either no comments, or comments of a specific type, but at least one currently easily searched video has some. But if you turned Ashes into a side on, 2D fighting game whenever two players entered a 'dueling ring', there would be a lot of fighting game players who would make comments exactly like the ones I can find. Excited, yes. Also 'definitely not in an argument with anyone who thinks that this is ridiculous'. For contrast, you could go view the video from Kira instead (Kira generally shows nearly no gameplay, but that's not the point)
Coming from the design side, all the things I've previously discussed, and in the Pitfalls thread, are shadowed in Apoc. These aren't usually bad things, but I'm concerned if Action Combat players are devoted to them specifically.
1. Melee aren't actually using 'skill' in terms of accuracy, they have such big hitboxes that it just looks that way. The skill is apparently in 'getting close to someone running away/jumping around'.
2. Ranged play is definitely an FPS with bows and similar so immediately all the way to the other side.
3. Movement speed as a generality doesn't match the current Ashes flow and the MMO's speed probably can't be changed to match this too much, for latency reasons.
4. Time to kill is laughable, and true healing plays very little role. (It would be easy for a sniper on a hill with a Cleric behind them to dominate, for example, they would be too advantaged against a melee by range, even with the 'double jump flight' and too advantaged against another ranged by just being healed rapidly).
Each side wants things that can mostly be pieced together if they give any ground. So .here's a link to something both sides can complain about.
Battles are at 3:00, 5:35, 6:55, 10:31, 11:20 (tower objective group battle), 13:25 (another), 17:00, etc
Please don't complain about how 'these players suck' (firstly, they don't, relatively), and even if they did, average players need love too.
For those who don't watch the video, the context is Paragon, an Epic Games 3D MOBA. Low mobility relatively, higher Time To Kill, Healing abilities, and the ability to build your character statistically as you level as with all MOBAs (was slightly different for a while in the past, but moved more toward 'normal' in this video).
It is also a relatively clear outcome for 'objective based PvP' design. My group's played this game extensively, so if you're not sure if you should hate something, based on how it looks, I can probably clarify.
What do you hate about this, relative to 'this being what you get in Ashes'?
Based purely on the video and having never played the game myself, the combat looks very slow and boring, there looked to be a lot of running towards the enemy and a lot of spamming in slow motion (single skill on a cooldown).
There doesn't appear to be much skill or thought involved in the positioning as I only saw 1 character who had mobility and everybody else had to just walk forward at the same speed as the enemy
There doesn't seem to be much thought involved in the abilities used since there are so few abilities.
For me, only watching the video, there doesn't seem to be enough complexity in the PvP combat for there to be much more to complain about.
Like I said on the other thread, it looks like mindless slashing with strafing only being used to move out of the way of incoming projectiles. Skills are very lacklustre, overreliance on autoattacks.
Tactically, there's no coordination - just whoever has more manpower in the skirmish wins, no real synergy between players except in numbers.
Jumping seems mostly useless except to preserve momentum when looking backwards. You can make this more interesting by having skills that slow/lock in place, but can be used while jumping to preserve momentum while using the skill --> if jumping preserves a player's trajectory, this makes calculation of hitboxes really easy on the server (coz player cannot interrupt trajectory... unless they use another skill that does so, in which case you no longer need to calculate that hitbox) and then jumping becomes a really useful mechanic.
Being able to move without penalty while casting ult is fun for the player, but seems unfair to the opponent unless they have other skills to help them counter/get out of danger - in which case you get more of an interaction on both sides.
There's a slow-start movement to the player's footsteps, but it would be cooler if the momentum from dashing rolled off, instead of abruptly returning to standard movement speed cap on the other end of the dash. Mixing both slow-start movement (inertia/momentum) with sudden changes to linear movement feels bad (i.e. would much prefer impulse forces for sudden changes in momentum).
Also insta-cast dash seems unfair, but if mages have it too, I guess it's ok - makes them both feel like the same skill though.
Ranged characters have a windup animation, but you have no idea where they're aiming or how to dodge unless you have an active dodge/block and you simply time it with the animation.
There seems to be no way to interrupt other players, or force other players to disengage except by being a threatening presence. No stand-off trying to bait out other player's abilities to open oportunities to strike.
To expand more on why healing looks ineffective: it seems that each player's kit is able to dismantle a foe from 100% --> 0% within 10 seconds(?). This means there's no safety-zone in your hp bar (for example, in LoL if you're on 70% hp, that's usually safe enough that the average opponent cannot just all-in on you because they would only get you down to about 20% hp before they are spent and you get away/counter.) When you add a safety threshold of hp, healers become really important for keeping you topped up and above the threshold. Opponents have to whittle each other down slowly before they go in for a kill. Which begs a question: if you have 30 skills in an MMORPG, do you ever reach a point where your main power-spike is "spent"?
I feel like his weapon swings are HEAVY WEAPON swings, and that should impact his movement ability. if it were tiny slashes, the movement would be ok, but it just looks wrong with such large 2H swings yet he can move around willy nilly.
There seem to be no openings against this character. It just looks like you have to be ranged and nuke him (or hit him harder), then kill him as he runs away. He also seems mostly helpless against ranged characters, except his dash, at which point the ranged character becomes helpless.
Stat investment seems like an interesting way to introduce alternative tactics, but if you can respec too easily it might devolve into a meaningless game of trying to guess what your opponent respecced into to counter it. I have a feeling this is also responsible for players speccing into "solo carry" type of builds - rather than speccing towards teamwork (maybe also because there seems to be no way to do teamwork apart from damage)
The ability to tank for your teammates doesn't seem to be a thing. (damage is king, nothing else matters)
(does he need to hold down the Left Mouse Button or does he have to keep clicking it?)
The damage orb indicator thing at the center of the screen is really useful for indicating where damage is coming from, but would feel more natural coming from the edge of the screen, I think.
extra irrelevant to this thread: The game looks like it's set up so that all lanes are equal - it's actually more fun/interesting when there are priority lanes over others with higher importance for control. But that's MOBA specific.
for @maouw
1. You prefer a TTK that allows you to react and probably a GCD where you don't just have to retreat because your opponent will have their abilities up to finish you off before you have a chance to counter.
2. You would prefer if strafing and melee were more impactful, or that there were more abilities overall (please clarify if, in a game like Ashes with mana costs on abilities, if you'd prefer the 'Strafing Melee' or similar from the Compilation, or a larger number of movement+damage abilities that cost mana)
3. Preference for player synergy rather than outmaneuvering as the solution to being approached by superior numbers.
4. Possibly ground position lock on 'Ultimate' type abilities.
5. You would prefer that the solution to melee vs ranged not devolve into 'can the melee get into range?'
6. You'd prefer that re-spec is rarer.
7. You want some specific way to tank for teammates even in an actiony setting.
I won't waste your time addressing whether or not your conclusions about the gameplay are correct, you can let me know if you really care about that for some reason.
for @Littlekenny21
1. You would prefer more mobility
2. You would prefer more positioning stuff
3. You would want more abilities.
I think I noted, but, I'm paying just as much attention to what people don't complain about, as to what they do, but I can't summarize that, because it primes other responders in a way that isn't as useful as any 'priming' from the above.
Thanks for the data.
There's no update to the compilation today, since the overall TTK discussion doesn't have enough input yet. For those who don't have time to watch the video, though, here's a question.
"Would you prefer that TTK is naturally lower even without the enemy evading, or should TTK on an afk player be short, with only active abilities and evasion/low accuracy on the part of the attacker, actually extending this to be longer?"
Basically 'how fast do you want to be able to delete someone who isn't good at PvP?'
Pretty much!
Although I still very much enjoy outmaneurvering - I think it's a great expression of skill, and I didn't really think of it as being at odds with team synergy. But you're right, I would prefer if team synergy allows you to take risks you normally wouldn't take on your own ability.
I feel that team synergy plays towards building a tighter community of interwoven dependency - which is what an MMO can do that other genres can't.
Also, I'm curious - because I've only seen this 1 clip - what have I misunderstood about the game from your experience?
There are more CC (usually on other characters), specific traits you can give your hero, similar to augments but usually for your basic attack... and a few 'abilities that are not specific to the hero/champion but only synergize well with certain ones'.
Most of the characters in the game are not actually very auto-attack heavy in combat, but you use it a lot while killing minions, as with all MOBA.
Finally, all this results in there being at least some tactics to skirmishes, involving stuns to stop retreats, places where an enemy must stand their ground, and even one healer having an Ultimate that lets them fly from wherever they are to one target ally, heal them, and then join whatever fight they got into.
This game was unfortunately rebalanced repeatedly to change it from being more interesting and dynamic, to 'more like a standard MOBA and therefore appealing'. It ... mostly didn't work.
Also, if you don't mind, I still need the answer to the TTK question. You're definitely on the 'longer' side, but specifics, if you have them, would help. I'm a fighting game/FFXI player, and I know that both those are pretty niche now, but I'll throw mine in for once, for comparison.
I prefer if the standard melee takes 6-7% of their opponent's health in one swing, in the 'mirror match', and 14-21% with most abilities. Rogues get 30-35% on their first backstab or whatever. This gives 7 seconds before your health is at 50%, or your opponent can drop you to just 25% if they use all their skills at once, hit with all of them, and you use no mitigation or counterattack.
Mages would be squishier but probably escape from the 4th or 5th ability and start fighting back pretty hard without necessarily getting hit by more melee swings for a bit.
On average, an afk player would fall in 12 seconds, a player who reacts, about 27, and a duel where both players know what's going on and have potions and pre-battle buffs might go up to 45 seconds.
Or a game with a combat system that 1% will be wastly better than the other 99% becouse they have better hand/eye coordination and can spam jump and left mousebutton faster than others? (AC)
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
I think those are stretched numbers, and I also don't think it's a healthy way to frame the conversation.
Since Ashes will be hybrid, and since AC is more demanding (some disagree, but regardless) you can balance the top of AC to have smaller margins of advantage over easier playstyles - that goes for TT playstyles that require lots of coordinated multitasking too coz those can be difficult.
@Azherae
Yeah what you described is pretty much what I'd be comfortable with for small duels.
But if we're talking MMO, I'm not so sure. Especially if Ashes is aiming for ~20+ active skills on your keybindings and they want to balance around 8v8 - I can't imagine even 10 of those abilities doing ~15% of your health each (and with 8 people that's avg 1200% of your average HP bar in potential damage output). In an 8v8 that brings the TTK down really low - it means we need a whole lot of abilities for mitigation/shielding/countering to bring the TTK back up to something reasonable.
Two things stick out in my mind about this:
The other solution is to tune down basic attacks and skills even further (or pump the HP bar) but then we're entering tank meta and tank meta is the boringest.