@Cold 0ne FTB - not much of the changes are actually in yet. In my last attempt I was able to understand what they meant by rotational speed though, if you hold Q, you can adjust your character's facing between swings. It doesn't feel meaningful to me yet.
@Dygz - I would actually argue that Ashes is already almost entirely Action Combat (main exception being Fireball), which is why it works. Example, if I use Castigate but my opponent is either too far away or too much out of a frontal cone (I feel like I saw this message and I don't unlock attack skills other than Castigate in tests), the ability doesn't fire.
(Strafing Q refers to a spinning sideways attack+evade using D+Q or A+Q, as opposed to 'walking sideways slowly while swinging')
I will have to poke more at the various 'Action Combat only!' feedback people, but if they will accept 'tab target but abilities miss or don't fire if you are out of their cone', 'sticky reticles', ground telegraphs on things like a Fighter's potential leaping closer, and Strafing Q (fixed distance type), I think there's no current arguments at all.
Except Animation Cancels and moves with lots of iFrames, but I believe those have already been disqualified by Word Of Steven.
If the community can agree that 'sticky reticle' could replace most Tab Targeted linear skills, as of now, there might, in fact, be a way to move further away from Tab Target other than for healing and 'buffs you want to cast on allies around you while swinging at target in front'.
One option would be to have your Tab Target be 'the target that your sticky reticle snaps to', and hitting tab while over a target would cause that one to be targeted (for when you're trying to pick one person out of a group but only get your reticle over them for a moment).
Yea no real over the top changes yet. They are focusing on performance but I hope they have a build ready. The more I play the alpha the more combat feels like a pain point. Especially for those that only get to watch and not play.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
So dodge would have to physically avoid the attack? So you could still get hit mid dodge roll? Is that what you are asking for? I could get behind this too. Honestly have a second bar to actively perform combat activities like sprint, block and dodge would be good. KInda like ESO. Being able to break CC would also be really nice.
Well, I would like the ability to double dodge. I think dodge should increase evasion rate but not always be 100% effective at avoiding damage. Double dodge would be useful in PvE and PvP. For active block I would like to also see a block breaker ability yeah. It would also be nice if dodge means you take no damage but of course it would have to be tested.
Iframes won't work in an MMO. A game like dark souls manages it because the game is build differently. Instead, dodges and evasion should either give high dmg mitigation or something of sort.
As for whoever mentioned Tera. Tera has a shit combat. Feels like the attacks make no impact and combat feels like a snooze fest. NWO has its problems, but somehow, the combat feels impactful as melee. Barbarian legit feels like smashing and cleaving someone to bits at a rapid pace. Tera? I feel like my attacks are just dummy placeholders. I want to feel like a badass, or a big dick dps not some wimp flails around with 2 swords like an idiot.
Tbh, I have yet to see a game where dual wield animations are badass and not animesque with too much body motion.
Dragon Age Origins does dual wield animations and fatalities very well, but the auto attacks sadly suck.
Probably my most favourite animation is for Riposte skill ngl. Swat away with your left and then stab with your right over your left arm. Example here at 0.19 mark: https://youtu.be/V8mwg7G0t2c
These skills feel impactful and there is no stupid shit like anime moves. Sure, some attacks are not what you would see in martial arts, but they aren't unrealistic where you instantly know they are bull. Now if only we get regular attacks as impactful, as well I will be pretty happy. And hopefully daggers and 1h weapons won't share animations. Will be too easy to spot out
Iframes work in eso fine. Not really sure why they wouldn't. It's a selective I frame of course. AOEs still hit players that dodge roll but it still works. Immunity or mitigation doesn't matter to me. This mechanic just needs a mechanical function that isnt just a short propulsion in one direction.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
So dodge would have to physically avoid the attack? So you could still get hit mid dodge roll? Is that what you are asking for? I could get behind this too. Honestly have a second bar to actively perform combat activities like sprint, block and dodge would be good. KInda like ESO. Being able to break CC would also be really nice.
Well, I would like the ability to double dodge. I think dodge should increase evasion rate but not always be 100% effective at avoiding damage. Double dodge would be useful in PvE and PvP. For active block I would like to also see a block breaker ability yeah. It would also be nice if dodge means you take no damage but of course it would have to be tested.
Interesting. I like that too. Although going back to eso you can have some builds that can end up dodge rolling 8 times in a row and it can get a little tilting. Exponentially increasing costs on dodge rolling would be good for keeping this in check but it's something that should be considered.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
1. Sideways and forward animations for the Q/LMB to add variety and evasion ability, along with chase options, while either neutral Q/LMB or S+Q/LMB prevents any forward movement while attacking.
2. A Brace option that reduces damage and blocks CC unless the enemy has 'Overwhelm' on their ability. Some stamina cost here.
3. Possibly a small stamina cost for some versions of those directional Q abilities so we can have movement but not eternally.
4. Gated strings with different attack animations (we already have a combo attack like this, but some posters have asked for more variety)
5. Limitations on the usability of certain skills when the enemy is out of its attack cone, regardless of your Tab Target.
6. 'Sticky reticle' behaviour to enhance targeting, possibly assisting with the Tab Targeting itself, but not requiring it, to make the transitions between Tab and Action easier
7. Ability to dodge twice before Dodge Cooldown fully triggers (Dodge retains a stamina cost). E.g. Dodge once and it 'recharges your first dodge' but you have another you can always use. Dodge twice and now you can't dodge again until recharged.
8. Some telegraphs of the attack vector or cone of abilities (especially those that can be varied through augments)
9. A stamina cost tied to jumping (perhaps only when weapons drawn). Note, not universal, this has a dissenter in this thread, and others that don't want it without some equivalent of #1.
Unrelatedly, is it just me or does Q seem like an odd Keybind for this? Why is Interact, a thing one hits in non dangerous situations, on E, but attack on Q? I know other games do this and I've never understood it.
It's pretty irrelevant if they open up keybind edits soon, but it may be hard to get unbiased data this way...
Anyways, let me know how this one is. Reasonings aren't included today.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2021
I think attack might be on Q because you will type a Q way less often than an E.
Accidentally initiating an interact is not going to be as detrimental as accidentally initiating an attack.
Back in Vanilla EQ, it was A for Auto-Attack and it was not uncommon to have quest-givers kill you while you were trying to converse with them.
Thanks for the extremely detailed response and perspective. That's a lot of insight into both your stances and perceptions. Regardless of the 'actual way Paragon plays' it tells me the following:
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?'
(Started writing this on 3rd June and forgot about it, I intended to watch the video again but didn't. This doesn't consider later posts)
After seeing the response from maouw, I realised just how lacking mine was. This isn't gonna be anywhere near as good but hopefully you can pull some parts of my opinions out of here.
There are a lot of things I don't think are bad by themselves but when combined with other things they become bad so there will be things I wouldn't complain about in this game which I may complain about when combined with other things.
An example of this would be the invisibility. I have no problem with the invisibility I saw in this video because it wasn't combined with crowd control or burst damage which requires the defender to have to play significantly better than the attacker to survive. In general I don't like stealth but that is because most of the time it is combined with burst damage.
In general I prefer higher ttk (in an mmorpg, like 10 seconds if the target is afk or 30 seconds for a standard duel, and balanced in a way where a 50vs50 wouldn't be much less than that) as this allows more time for people to use their skill and makes the better players win more consistently. Also when I think of ttk, I don't like to include time where a player is unable to make actions due to CC in this.
I would prefer more mobility and positioning to matter as this adds an extra layer of skill (a kind of skill I enjoy) to the combat in the ability to react to enemies with movement instead of just skills. This doesn't mean I want things like flanking attacks increasing damage. Mobility also allows for better players to win more consistently. APOC was a good example of this as there were a very limited amount of abilities, but when you played with somebody good, the could win the game alone purely through their use of mobility.
I want more abilities than shown here and definitely more than 5 because I want to have to think which ability is most appropriate to the situation opposed to thinking when the best time to use my limited abilities is. I liked that there was no global cooldown on skills.
When I saw multiple players together, it looked like there was no teamwork or synergy between skills.
I prefer this kind of camera angle to a zoomed out on as this means you need more spatial awareness to know what's going on behind and to the sides instead of always seeing everything.
Before I do a full assessment of that @Littlekenny21, do you think you could also clarify some examples of 'which ability to use' in terms of importance? Should this be 'obvious but involve some prediction of the opponent' or 'not so obvious because it relies on your own plans'?
Here's an example, this does not use any abilities currently in the game, so just take these at face value, you don't need to look anything up.
Let's assume Fighter has 6 abilities:
1. A Leap that closes onto an opponent in front of them with an area knockdown, but the Fighter's recovery time is not much faster than the opponent's time to get back up. Mostly a gap closer.
2. A big hit that lowers the opponent's movement speed temporarily
3. An AoE weapon swing around themselves that has knockback and interrupts abilities.
4. A close range 'lifting slam' that powerbombs the opponent over their head and behind them. Similar to the leap, the Fighter doesn't recover much faster than the opponent
5. A Somersault Slam similar to their leap but which can be done backward, to get out of some attack ranges or get to someone who is behind them
6. A 'Berserk' ability that raises their attack at the cost of some HP.
I have purposely made all these abilities as different as I generally could, to make the point.
At any given point in the battle, for most players, it is 'obvious' which one of these to use. The situation is fairly reactive. use the Leap to chase, the Speed Break to prevent classes that benefit from running out of range, the AoE Swing when the opponent's position is unclear or there are multiple enemies, the Bodyslam for close range interrupt, the Somersault Slam either when the Leap is on cooldown and you need to close in, or you want to get over someone behind, and Berserk when you get a chance and don't think you will get hit soon.
It's definitely enough to be reactive, it's definitely enough to test your timing and thought processing, but even with higher mobility, it's not going to lead to 'planning ahead' a lot. You can 'read your opponent's next move' in the moment and possibly get some big advantages, though.
Is this ok, with 'utility skills and buffs' covering the 'planning ahead' part? Or did you mean something else when you were speaking about more ability options?
Thanks for the extremely detailed response and perspective. That's a lot of insight into both your stances and perceptions. Regardless of the 'actual way Paragon plays' it tells me the following:
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?'
(Started writing this on 3rd June and forgot about it, I intended to watch the video again but didn't. This doesn't consider later posts)
After seeing the response from maouw, I realised just how lacking mine was. This isn't gonna be anywhere near as good but hopefully you can pull some parts of my opinions out of here.
There are a lot of things I don't think are bad by themselves but when combined with other things they become bad so there will be things I wouldn't complain about in this game which I may complain about when combined with other things.
An example of this would be the invisibility. I have no problem with the invisibility I saw in this video because it wasn't combined with crowd control or burst damage which requires the defender to have to play significantly better than the attacker to survive. In general I don't like stealth but that is because most of the time it is combined with burst damage.
In general I prefer higher ttk (in an mmorpg, like 10 seconds if the target is afk or 30 seconds for a standard duel, and balanced in a way where a 50vs50 wouldn't be much less than that) as this allows more time for people to use their skill and makes the better players win more consistently. Also when I think of ttk, I don't like to include time where a player is unable to make actions due to CC in this.
I would prefer more mobility and positioning to matter as this adds an extra layer of skill (a kind of skill I enjoy) to the combat in the ability to react to enemies with movement instead of just skills. This doesn't mean I want things like flanking attacks increasing damage. Mobility also allows for better players to win more consistently. APOC was a good example of this as there were a very limited amount of abilities, but when you played with somebody good, the could win the game alone purely through their use of mobility.
I want more abilities than shown here and definitely more than 5 because I want to have to think which ability is most appropriate to the situation opposed to thinking when the best time to use my limited abilities is. I liked that there was no global cooldown on skills.
When I saw multiple players together, it looked like there was no teamwork or synergy between skills.
I prefer this kind of camera angle to a zoomed out on as this means you need more spatial awareness to know what's going on behind and to the sides instead of always seeing everything.
There are ten skill slots so there will be more than five slots. The game will also not feature true invisiblty rather rogues will get a cloak akin to predators from the movies. You can see their outline when they move and they will create a distortion. So counter play will exist.
Alot of the lack of synergy has to do with how this combat is only a placeholder. I imagine there will be more in the final iteration.
Your TTK is pretty on point for what Steven is going for. The alpha really isn't balanced well and there are some skills that are really ovetuned on the tank class. This gives an unfair representation of this aspect of combat.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
@Azherae
I would say more the 'not so obvious because it relies on your own plans' side.
I would prefer more similar abilities with more crossover in their uses than an obvious pick for a scenario, but I don't dislike 'obvious but involve some prediction of the opponent'.
I would prefer for the abilities to be split up to allow the player to make choices and combinations, like in addition to the leap with area knockdown, I would also like an option to just leap and just do the area knockdown but at a lessened effectiveness.
I just don't want to have a small amount of abilities where you can't outplay people or have a system where just ability 1 is adequate for any situation.
1. You would prefer that full invisibility not be combined with burst damage that makes the defender have to 'play catch-up'
2. You prefer a TTK of about 30 seconds in a duel, but are fine with being able to defeat an afk player in 10 seconds or so (implies evasion, defense or mobility to avoid damage can result in 66% less damage on both sides)
3. Would prefer more mobility and positioning to complement abilities, but don't need positioning damage to matter.
4. You prefer if spatial awareness is a relatively large part of gameplay
5. You would prefer to have more abilities that share some, but not all of their properties, in order to have more choice in your own plans.
@Cold 0ne FTB
I have no experience with a combat system of 10 skills so hopefully that's enough for me. I only have experience with 5 or 15+.
As long as the rogue can't nuke you down if it gets behind you, I'll probably be ok with that cloaking. My only worry is that it might be a little too hard to notice in the open world since you may be paying enough attention to notice player walking around but you're not going to be fully focused all the time.
1. You would prefer that full invisibility not be combined with burst damage that makes the defender have to 'play catch-up'
2. You prefer a TTK of about 30 seconds in a duel, but are fine with being able to defeat an afk player in 10 seconds or so (implies evasion, defense or mobility to avoid damage can result in 66% less damage on both sides)
3. Would prefer more mobility and positioning to complement abilities, but don't need positioning damage to matter.
4. You prefer if spatial awareness is a relatively large part of gameplay
5. You would prefer to have more abilities that share some, but not all of their properties, in order to have more choice in your own plans.
Got it, thank you. I have another thread somewhere within the first two pages (as of this posting) that goes into Rogue stuff, but there might be some clarification eventually required there, since I've been told that the wiki entry for Rogue may be inaccurate currently.
Balancing for more abilities overall has two issues. The first is that it's 'harder', the second is that it's homogenous/stale. As always, unrelated example.
I've dabbled in Trading Card Game design a while back, and found that depending on the structure of the game, there are only so many things a player can even be allowed to do, with a single card, and the game remain balanced. Sometimes new abilities just don't make sense at all.
One designs the obvious stuff first. Draw more cards. Assist in battles. Destroy/remove enemy monster/hero. Monster/hero stronger in battles.
What happens is that after about... 360-400 cards, either you've run out of things to put in that aren't copies of others, or your game gains complexity, new keywords, or 'prefab' archetypes.
So, would you be okay with it if your Weapon Skills made up a lot of this space? Basically, getting skills that probably don't give mobility, or at least, that focus in a specific way, instead of class abilities.
The reason this would be easier is simple, you probably have to specialize in a weapon, which allows another balance 'layer'. You can choose many abilities for your class, many augments, and they have to make sure that most or all of these are good synergy.
There's no need to promise or build for this when it comes to weapon skills. A 'Spear' fighter can be restricted to 'not have bleed, because it would make them overpowered to have bleed + whatever else spears have + Fighter abilities + one of 64 augments'.
The weapon skills might grant short CC, but probably not very much mobility, or maybe either/or for a given weapon. This is the easiest design path, and within the realm where I can still mostly simulate the whole fractal in my head, which usually means a full team can do it easily.
If your ability bar is generally padded out with weapon skills that are 'different ways to do damage with different debuffs' and 'either small CC or small mobility but not both', is this enough? Would you prefer that the team put more effort and time into unique class-specific abilities, or can they take this 'easy route' without compromising your probable enjoyment?
(example: 'Fan of Daggers' isn't a Rogue ability, it's a Dagger ability)
I have a hard time trying to write what I'm thinking so your more focused questions are really helpful.
More skills does make it harder to balance and the more skills added the more homogeneous they become by bleeding over into the identity of other classes.
I don't think I would like weapon skills which are the same for all classes unless there is a classless start.
I think I would prefer more time to be put into unique class-specific abilities but I think there should still be simple abilities present.
To me combat is the most important aspect of the game so I would like significant time to be put into it. I don't think many people would share my opinion but for me a bad combat systems is worse than a short story written by a 10 year old or no crafting or housing system. The game could have all the fancy well designed systems possible but if the combat is bad, I won't enjoy it.
I think class identity is important and the 8 classes should have there own themes and styles which then gain augments which move them towards the identity of another class.
I don't think all classes should have equal access to all types of abilities for example I think rogue should have more mobility skills than any other class and cleric should have more healing skills while tank has more damage mitigation+cc and mage has more AoE.
Also, kind of unrelated, I don't like what I've read about cleric so far. It seems they have many abilities which both damage and heal at the same time resulting in there being no pure healer class in the game.
It's easily possible to build Cleric as a pure healer as they are now within the Alpha. I don't mean design, I mean 'as you play'. The current system in the Alpha-1 may change, but right now, I can skip both the Judgement ability and Castigate (the whip) if I want to, while leveling.
I have 'reverse engineered' a lot of the probable augments based on the class names in another thread, as mentioned (somewhere on page 4 of tanking). In short, don't worry about Cleric too much, I'm on the 'I like to do damage too sometimes' side of that, but I can see how the other side will probably work, to the point where I'm worried for others who want to get that chance (my group will let me do whatever).
On to your precise opinions on the important thing: Combat
The 'max' for unique class abilities according to my calculation based on only what Ashes uses now (HP, Mana, Cooldowns), is 12 each (16 for Clerics, Mages, 14 for Bards).
Beyond that there will be some significant overlap. At 20, you'll have enough overlap for it to start affecting balance. I'll avoid writing another essayworth on that.
That said, the overall takeaway is that you'd prefer they spend more time trying to 'get to 12' than that they 'settle for 8-10 and switch to working on weapons'. So you're now 'king of the hill' in that regard, in that you now have the only specific opinion in the thread (I don't care either way, and my group's members aren't likely to either).
Since that opinion is about 'where resources should be spent', and not directly about balance, I'll only correct any misconceptions brought by others who have different opinions, to see if they end up agreeing with you. Other than that... you may need to defend your hill.
Request for other posters, if you disagree with that, better @ to summon Littlekenny21 when ya do.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If your ability bar is generally padded out with weapon skills that are 'different ways to do damage with different debuffs' and 'either small CC or small mobility but not both', is this enough? Would you prefer that the team put more effort and time into unique class-specific abilities, or can they take this 'easy route' without compromising your probable enjoyment?
(example: 'Fan of Daggers' isn't a Rogue ability, it's a Dagger ability)
Well, that specific example -Dagger ability- might already be a Weapon Ability.
In addition to the Weapon Ability skill tree, I'm currently wondering if the Passive Ability skill tree is where augments will go or if that some other skill tree.
Assuming that every ability is just held as the equivalent of (or directly as) JSON or YAML entry with the correct attributes set, and the modularity of attributes can be read by the underlying parser to convert (this is the way my team has recently built all these), it will just be a matter of which Augment is tied to the ability by the player in some UI. I can check what the performant options would be for this (the issue is moreso transmission of the data for the attacks of those around you, than anything on the client side, and you could load a player's schema easily before they are even doing anything)
The fact that one by necessity gets abilities before you get your secondary archetype would lean into this as well. I'd expect that it will be just one or two lines to indicate that the ability should occur a certain way. Of course, once it's loaded into server instance or shard memory, it's probably little more than a bitfield, which would accelerate performance enough to maintain the numbers of players they want to see.
Basically, it's easier to tie the Augment directly to the ability than to any Passives, which is why I expect we will be able to attach Augments to Abilities individually and not as a whole thing. Performance-wise it's almost exactly the same, so there's no reason to limit the player's agency and build choices except for balance, and I foresee no balance issues with Augments on Class abilities.
Possible Augments on Weapon Abilities, I haven't simulated, that could be an issue, and I can see it lessening build depth for a lot of classes, but only if Weapon abilities are augmented by Secondary Archetype. Augments from other sources would just be the same thing.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2021
There will not be augments on Weapon Abilities.
But, weapons have their own skill tree.
We will be assigning points to the Passive skill tree I just don't know if those will be what house the augments or if those are something else.
But, Passives are one of the three subsections of Skills, so...that is what makes it unlikely for Passives to be augments - because augments aren't skills.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Ashes Cleric will not be built as a Pure Healer because in D&D and Pathfinder, Clerics deal damage as well as heal. It's only in MMORPGs that Clerics being just focused on healing became a thing. And Steven wants to allow Clerics to do more than just stand in the back and heal.
Ok, I actually hadn't seen notes one way or the other on that, and didn't want to jump to any conclusions. I figured it was possible to go to a specific organization to get an Augment on your Weapon Ability.
Some sort of 'Lancer's Barracks' to get a small additional effect on your Spear Weapon Ability, for example.
News from other thread is that the 'jumping using stamina' debate has resurfaced, but we're past that, so anyone can go jump on there, either to clarify the situation relative to jumping, or join the debate.
So far, the consensus appears to be 'add stamina to jumping and make it the same as the one for rolling and sprinting', so I may end up adding that back to the Compilation after all if the schism is debated out.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
More skills does make it harder to balance and the more skills added the more homogeneous they become by bleeding over into the identity of other classes.
I think class identity is important and the 8 classes should have there own themes and styles which then gain augments which move them towards the identity of another class.
I don't think all classes should have equal access to all types of abilities for example I think rogue should have more mobility skills than any other class and cleric should have more healing skills while tank has more damage mitigation+cc and mage has more AoE.
Each of the Primary Archetypes has its own themes and styles - both for abilities and for augments.
Each race also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Each social org also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Each religion also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Nodes also provide augments, so it may be that each Node-Type also has its own themes and styles of augments.
By design, Ashes has quite a lot of horizontal progression.
We have very few examples of 'themes and styles of augments' from those, unfortunately, so it makes more sense to consider combat from the perspective of them being very similar to each other, simply because there are not sufficient balanced mechanics that can be put into what is currently known.
In general we have not received enough information, to the point where I know people that wouldn't want to join at the moment because they can't be assured of anything regarding even simple Class/Archetypal things that they are used to.
In some cases it is literally 'hey, tell me when you know for sure that the classes will be good'.
Broad statements are unfortunately where a lot of recent MMO projects have faltered. We have a lot of clear information on some very appealing things, but classes, balance, etc are not in that pile. So it isn't unreasonable to feel the need to say what one feels is important.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2021
Sounds to me like we don't have the same concept of themes and styles.
"So it isn't unreasonable to feel the need to say what one feels is important."
True. But, I don't know why you wrote that.
I believe that part of the reason we do not have enough information is that the Devs not only want to try new things or multiple things (they have said this directly, repeatedly) but also because they want exactly this type of feedback.
My hope is to give them something clear to work with, from all the people who feel strongly enough about it and have a clear idea of what they want. The faster they get into the 'iteration' stage, the better. Having to tear down the whole thing and start again, repeatedly, is, I feel, a 'dangerous' flow for a game that intends to drop NDA soon, even if they say that they are not expecting to have a full working combat until Alpha-2.
On the other hand, they also said that they were already partway through a combat revamp, which many people are inclined to wait for. I'm just arrogant enough to look at the systems they have, and what they said, and think 'there's no need to wait, and it's bad to wait, we should clarify as much as we can for them now'.
So, as a Cleric, I can say what I want to get personally, and what we seem to have, since the Compilation is fairly far along, and it affects me so little.
I like that Clerics only seem to be planned to have a few direct damage abilities so far, and the others are largely DoT. I personally enjoy solo as Cleric. It's never fast, it helps 'availability' and allows me to learn about enemies before joining a group to fight them, or even to lead the group to do so. Practicing healing on yourself is decent practice. I don't mind having to beat (in other games) or stab (hopefully in this game) things to death over long periods, but I don't like the feeling that Cleric should be anything other than the lowest overall DPS.
If you tell healers 'you have to backline', as far as I know, about half of players willing to play a healer bow out because it's often not fun for the majority of the content (leveling).
Ashes' design goals can basically only lead to 'specialization by target activity'. A Cleric build for Siege warfare isn't likely to be the same as a Cleric build for PvE, and not the same as a Cleric build for World Boss/Raid level content, and this is just based on your points in Cleric skilltree.
But this is fine, because you can just tell people upfront what you are. When people go 'we need a Cleric to run this dungeon', you can tell them 'well I'm a Castle/Node defense specialist, so this won't be as efficient'. When they need to down a Raid Boss and somehow you have to fill in for their regular group Cleric, people should be able to be aware that you 'are normally a Leveling specialist' and might not have built enough power into your heals to do that without some extra assistance/focus on their part.
I'm not actually ever sure why people 'want their Clerics to be just healers', maybe it's a holdover from all those games where they 'try to give everyone healing' and 'try to give Clerics enough damage to keep up with DD'. I know that can force people who really just want to heal, into having to learn more about damage. But that's not what I see now. I see 'pure healing being very acceptable' and a higher likelihood of pushback from people for 'healers that spend mana on other things'.
Those 'other things' are situational and can be mistimed, but the 'fallback' for a Cleric who doesn't understand a situation is 'just heal' and complaints should be minimal.
I'll be Cleric Tanking some World Bosses, of course. Our battles will be legendary.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My two cents on the stamina cost for dodge, jump, etc: Yes.
I think everything should cost stamina. Though, as someone suggested, having two pools to pull from would be good. Like any magic user pulling from mana for their abilities and pulling from stamina for non magical attacks, dodges, jumps and blocking. And a physical class such as a tank would have a larger stamina pool, to make up for either having no mana or having a much smaller mana pool, I’d be fine with either. (and as an added bonus: unlocking skills that increase stamina totals and stamina regen)
Added the 9th point, the jumping one, to the Compilation further up the page, based on the discussion.
Currently see no specific need to put Time To Kill stuff into the compilation, since it is already in Intrepid's plans and so far, no one has shown any concern about the 10s for afk, 30s for duel, parameters for TTK.
Most other threads currently active seem to be philosophical, but if I missed anything, please let me know, as always.
I like classes (archetypes) that distinguish their identity via unique basic mechanics (not just basic abilities) that no other archetype has access to, but supplemented with augmentations/abilities that are common to all classes. On top of this, these classes usually make a choice between 3 signature abilities related to these mechanics that defines the individual within their archetype.
A really good example of what I'm talking about is in Slay the Spire:
Ironclad (Warrior) - has unique abilities clustered around sacrificing HP, stacking strength or defense, self-inflicted ailments and spending more resources to hit harder
Silent (Rogue) - has unique abilities clustered around comboing low cost cards, stacking poison, drawing lots of cards, flurries of smaller attacks
etc.
Each class will try to build their deck around one of these mechanics, augmenting the basic mechanic using cards/abilities common to all classes e.g.:
All classes have options to remove cards from their deck mid-battle, but this is especially helpful to the self-inflicted ailment Ironclad because he can burn his ailments and trigger bonus effects from doing so.
All classes have options to increase card draw in their deck but this is especially useful for a Silent with lots of low-cost cards to play.
Finally I mentioned signature abilities that define the individual within their class. In Slay the Spire, examples would be:
Barricade for Ironclad - prevents your block from expiring, so this type of ironclad forgoes strength to focus on defense.
Grand Finale for Silent - deals massive damage to everyone but can only be played when you reach the exact bottom of your deck, so this type of Silent forgoes poison stacking and designs their deck for low card count with precision card draw
In Ashes, class active abilities are the only unique part of a class and therefore define the class, whereas Weapon Skills and Augments I see as common to all classes, supplementary to class abilities.
I would like to see unique mechanics that are core to the class's identity, and therefore abilities that interact with that mechanic.
I imagine some overlap between classes applying various types of debuffs. - e.g. rogue & ranger - poisons, summoner & fighter - bleeds etc.
Everything else is common between classes (augments curated to match the specific skill they augment)
Overall, I imagine each character will be able to invest in most of the mechanics available to their class, but not all. (To use my archetype mechanics example: A cleric can invest in skills related to Overhealing, a branch of the Divinity system, then choose between Ascending or Forbidden Magic).
Alternatively the class mechanics /are/ the augments, but then you're in a design pickle where you need to design your fully fleshed out mechanics and associated abilities for each augment, then strip away the mechanic, simplify/combine/refine working backwards until you get a minimalistic version of those skills for the base archetype pre-augment abilities.
Comments
Yea no real over the top changes yet. They are focusing on performance but I hope they have a build ready. The more I play the alpha the more combat feels like a pain point. Especially for those that only get to watch and not play.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Well, I would like the ability to double dodge. I think dodge should increase evasion rate but not always be 100% effective at avoiding damage. Double dodge would be useful in PvE and PvP. For active block I would like to also see a block breaker ability yeah. It would also be nice if dodge means you take no damage but of course it would have to be tested.
Iframes work in eso fine. Not really sure why they wouldn't. It's a selective I frame of course. AOEs still hit players that dodge roll but it still works. Immunity or mitigation doesn't matter to me. This mechanic just needs a mechanical function that isnt just a short propulsion in one direction.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Interesting. I like that too. Although going back to eso you can have some builds that can end up dodge rolling 8 times in a row and it can get a little tilting. Exponentially increasing costs on dodge rolling would be good for keeping this in check but it's something that should be considered.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
1. Sideways and forward animations for the Q/LMB to add variety and evasion ability, along with chase options, while either neutral Q/LMB or S+Q/LMB prevents any forward movement while attacking.
2. A Brace option that reduces damage and blocks CC unless the enemy has 'Overwhelm' on their ability. Some stamina cost here.
3. Possibly a small stamina cost for some versions of those directional Q abilities so we can have movement but not eternally.
4. Gated strings with different attack animations (we already have a combo attack like this, but some posters have asked for more variety)
5. Limitations on the usability of certain skills when the enemy is out of its attack cone, regardless of your Tab Target.
6. 'Sticky reticle' behaviour to enhance targeting, possibly assisting with the Tab Targeting itself, but not requiring it, to make the transitions between Tab and Action easier
7. Ability to dodge twice before Dodge Cooldown fully triggers (Dodge retains a stamina cost). E.g. Dodge once and it 'recharges your first dodge' but you have another you can always use. Dodge twice and now you can't dodge again until recharged.
8. Some telegraphs of the attack vector or cone of abilities (especially those that can be varied through augments)
9. A stamina cost tied to jumping (perhaps only when weapons drawn). Note, not universal, this has a dissenter in this thread, and others that don't want it without some equivalent of #1.
Unrelatedly, is it just me or does Q seem like an odd Keybind for this? Why is Interact, a thing one hits in non dangerous situations, on E, but attack on Q? I know other games do this and I've never understood it.
It's pretty irrelevant if they open up keybind edits soon, but it may be hard to get unbiased data this way...
Anyways, let me know how this one is. Reasonings aren't included today.
Accidentally initiating an interact is not going to be as detrimental as accidentally initiating an attack.
Back in Vanilla EQ, it was A for Auto-Attack and it was not uncommon to have quest-givers kill you while you were trying to converse with them.
(Started writing this on 3rd June and forgot about it, I intended to watch the video again but didn't. This doesn't consider later posts)
After seeing the response from maouw, I realised just how lacking mine was. This isn't gonna be anywhere near as good but hopefully you can pull some parts of my opinions out of here.
There are a lot of things I don't think are bad by themselves but when combined with other things they become bad so there will be things I wouldn't complain about in this game which I may complain about when combined with other things.
An example of this would be the invisibility. I have no problem with the invisibility I saw in this video because it wasn't combined with crowd control or burst damage which requires the defender to have to play significantly better than the attacker to survive. In general I don't like stealth but that is because most of the time it is combined with burst damage.
In general I prefer higher ttk (in an mmorpg, like 10 seconds if the target is afk or 30 seconds for a standard duel, and balanced in a way where a 50vs50 wouldn't be much less than that) as this allows more time for people to use their skill and makes the better players win more consistently. Also when I think of ttk, I don't like to include time where a player is unable to make actions due to CC in this.
I would prefer more mobility and positioning to matter as this adds an extra layer of skill (a kind of skill I enjoy) to the combat in the ability to react to enemies with movement instead of just skills. This doesn't mean I want things like flanking attacks increasing damage. Mobility also allows for better players to win more consistently. APOC was a good example of this as there were a very limited amount of abilities, but when you played with somebody good, the could win the game alone purely through their use of mobility.
I want more abilities than shown here and definitely more than 5 because I want to have to think which ability is most appropriate to the situation opposed to thinking when the best time to use my limited abilities is. I liked that there was no global cooldown on skills.
When I saw multiple players together, it looked like there was no teamwork or synergy between skills.
I prefer this kind of camera angle to a zoomed out on as this means you need more spatial awareness to know what's going on behind and to the sides instead of always seeing everything.
Here's an example, this does not use any abilities currently in the game, so just take these at face value, you don't need to look anything up.
Let's assume Fighter has 6 abilities:
1. A Leap that closes onto an opponent in front of them with an area knockdown, but the Fighter's recovery time is not much faster than the opponent's time to get back up. Mostly a gap closer.
2. A big hit that lowers the opponent's movement speed temporarily
3. An AoE weapon swing around themselves that has knockback and interrupts abilities.
4. A close range 'lifting slam' that powerbombs the opponent over their head and behind them. Similar to the leap, the Fighter doesn't recover much faster than the opponent
5. A Somersault Slam similar to their leap but which can be done backward, to get out of some attack ranges or get to someone who is behind them
6. A 'Berserk' ability that raises their attack at the cost of some HP.
I have purposely made all these abilities as different as I generally could, to make the point.
At any given point in the battle, for most players, it is 'obvious' which one of these to use. The situation is fairly reactive. use the Leap to chase, the Speed Break to prevent classes that benefit from running out of range, the AoE Swing when the opponent's position is unclear or there are multiple enemies, the Bodyslam for close range interrupt, the Somersault Slam either when the Leap is on cooldown and you need to close in, or you want to get over someone behind, and Berserk when you get a chance and don't think you will get hit soon.
It's definitely enough to be reactive, it's definitely enough to test your timing and thought processing, but even with higher mobility, it's not going to lead to 'planning ahead' a lot. You can 'read your opponent's next move' in the moment and possibly get some big advantages, though.
Is this ok, with 'utility skills and buffs' covering the 'planning ahead' part? Or did you mean something else when you were speaking about more ability options?
There are ten skill slots so there will be more than five slots. The game will also not feature true invisiblty rather rogues will get a cloak akin to predators from the movies. You can see their outline when they move and they will create a distortion. So counter play will exist.
Alot of the lack of synergy has to do with how this combat is only a placeholder. I imagine there will be more in the final iteration.
Your TTK is pretty on point for what Steven is going for. The alpha really isn't balanced well and there are some skills that are really ovetuned on the tank class. This gives an unfair representation of this aspect of combat.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
I would say more the 'not so obvious because it relies on your own plans' side.
I would prefer more similar abilities with more crossover in their uses than an obvious pick for a scenario, but I don't dislike 'obvious but involve some prediction of the opponent'.
I would prefer for the abilities to be split up to allow the player to make choices and combinations, like in addition to the leap with area knockdown, I would also like an option to just leap and just do the area knockdown but at a lessened effectiveness.
I just don't want to have a small amount of abilities where you can't outplay people or have a system where just ability 1 is adequate for any situation.
@Littlekenny21
1. You would prefer that full invisibility not be combined with burst damage that makes the defender have to 'play catch-up'
2. You prefer a TTK of about 30 seconds in a duel, but are fine with being able to defeat an afk player in 10 seconds or so (implies evasion, defense or mobility to avoid damage can result in 66% less damage on both sides)
3. Would prefer more mobility and positioning to complement abilities, but don't need positioning damage to matter.
4. You prefer if spatial awareness is a relatively large part of gameplay
5. You would prefer to have more abilities that share some, but not all of their properties, in order to have more choice in your own plans.
I have no experience with a combat system of 10 skills so hopefully that's enough for me. I only have experience with 5 or 15+.
As long as the rogue can't nuke you down if it gets behind you, I'll probably be ok with that cloaking. My only worry is that it might be a little too hard to notice in the open world since you may be paying enough attention to notice player walking around but you're not going to be fully focused all the time.
I think that sums my views up
Balancing for more abilities overall has two issues. The first is that it's 'harder', the second is that it's homogenous/stale. As always, unrelated example.
I've dabbled in Trading Card Game design a while back, and found that depending on the structure of the game, there are only so many things a player can even be allowed to do, with a single card, and the game remain balanced. Sometimes new abilities just don't make sense at all.
One designs the obvious stuff first. Draw more cards. Assist in battles. Destroy/remove enemy monster/hero. Monster/hero stronger in battles.
What happens is that after about... 360-400 cards, either you've run out of things to put in that aren't copies of others, or your game gains complexity, new keywords, or 'prefab' archetypes.
So, would you be okay with it if your Weapon Skills made up a lot of this space? Basically, getting skills that probably don't give mobility, or at least, that focus in a specific way, instead of class abilities.
The reason this would be easier is simple, you probably have to specialize in a weapon, which allows another balance 'layer'. You can choose many abilities for your class, many augments, and they have to make sure that most or all of these are good synergy.
There's no need to promise or build for this when it comes to weapon skills. A 'Spear' fighter can be restricted to 'not have bleed, because it would make them overpowered to have bleed + whatever else spears have + Fighter abilities + one of 64 augments'.
The weapon skills might grant short CC, but probably not very much mobility, or maybe either/or for a given weapon. This is the easiest design path, and within the realm where I can still mostly simulate the whole fractal in my head, which usually means a full team can do it easily.
Therefore, a question to all, not just @Littlekenny21 :
If your ability bar is generally padded out with weapon skills that are 'different ways to do damage with different debuffs' and 'either small CC or small mobility but not both', is this enough? Would you prefer that the team put more effort and time into unique class-specific abilities, or can they take this 'easy route' without compromising your probable enjoyment?
(example: 'Fan of Daggers' isn't a Rogue ability, it's a Dagger ability)
More skills does make it harder to balance and the more skills added the more homogeneous they become by bleeding over into the identity of other classes.
I don't think I would like weapon skills which are the same for all classes unless there is a classless start.
I think I would prefer more time to be put into unique class-specific abilities but I think there should still be simple abilities present.
To me combat is the most important aspect of the game so I would like significant time to be put into it. I don't think many people would share my opinion but for me a bad combat systems is worse than a short story written by a 10 year old or no crafting or housing system. The game could have all the fancy well designed systems possible but if the combat is bad, I won't enjoy it.
I think class identity is important and the 8 classes should have there own themes and styles which then gain augments which move them towards the identity of another class.
I don't think all classes should have equal access to all types of abilities for example I think rogue should have more mobility skills than any other class and cleric should have more healing skills while tank has more damage mitigation+cc and mage has more AoE.
Also, kind of unrelated, I don't like what I've read about cleric so far. It seems they have many abilities which both damage and heal at the same time resulting in there being no pure healer class in the game.
I have 'reverse engineered' a lot of the probable augments based on the class names in another thread, as mentioned (somewhere on page 4 of tanking). In short, don't worry about Cleric too much, I'm on the 'I like to do damage too sometimes' side of that, but I can see how the other side will probably work, to the point where I'm worried for others who want to get that chance (my group will let me do whatever).
On to your precise opinions on the important thing: Combat
The 'max' for unique class abilities according to my calculation based on only what Ashes uses now (HP, Mana, Cooldowns), is 12 each (16 for Clerics, Mages, 14 for Bards).
Beyond that there will be some significant overlap. At 20, you'll have enough overlap for it to start affecting balance. I'll avoid writing another essayworth on that.
That said, the overall takeaway is that you'd prefer they spend more time trying to 'get to 12' than that they 'settle for 8-10 and switch to working on weapons'. So you're now 'king of the hill' in that regard, in that you now have the only specific opinion in the thread (I don't care either way, and my group's members aren't likely to either).
Since that opinion is about 'where resources should be spent', and not directly about balance, I'll only correct any misconceptions brought by others who have different opinions, to see if they end up agreeing with you. Other than that... you may need to defend your hill.
Request for other posters, if you disagree with that, better @ to summon Littlekenny21 when ya do.
In addition to the Weapon Ability skill tree, I'm currently wondering if the Passive Ability skill tree is where augments will go or if that some other skill tree.
Assuming that every ability is just held as the equivalent of (or directly as) JSON or YAML entry with the correct attributes set, and the modularity of attributes can be read by the underlying parser to convert (this is the way my team has recently built all these), it will just be a matter of which Augment is tied to the ability by the player in some UI. I can check what the performant options would be for this (the issue is moreso transmission of the data for the attacks of those around you, than anything on the client side, and you could load a player's schema easily before they are even doing anything)
The fact that one by necessity gets abilities before you get your secondary archetype would lean into this as well. I'd expect that it will be just one or two lines to indicate that the ability should occur a certain way. Of course, once it's loaded into server instance or shard memory, it's probably little more than a bitfield, which would accelerate performance enough to maintain the numbers of players they want to see.
Basically, it's easier to tie the Augment directly to the ability than to any Passives, which is why I expect we will be able to attach Augments to Abilities individually and not as a whole thing. Performance-wise it's almost exactly the same, so there's no reason to limit the player's agency and build choices except for balance, and I foresee no balance issues with Augments on Class abilities.
Possible Augments on Weapon Abilities, I haven't simulated, that could be an issue, and I can see it lessening build depth for a lot of classes, but only if Weapon abilities are augmented by Secondary Archetype. Augments from other sources would just be the same thing.
But, weapons have their own skill tree.
We will be assigning points to the Passive skill tree I just don't know if those will be what house the augments or if those are something else.
But, Passives are one of the three subsections of Skills, so...that is what makes it unlikely for Passives to be augments - because augments aren't skills.
Some sort of 'Lancer's Barracks' to get a small additional effect on your Spear Weapon Ability, for example.
News from other thread
is that the 'jumping using stamina' debate has resurfaced, but we're past that, so anyone can go jump on there, either to clarify the situation relative to jumping, or join the debate.
So far, the consensus appears to be 'add stamina to jumping and make it the same as the one for rolling and sprinting', so I may end up adding that back to the Compilation after all if the schism is debated out.
Each race also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Each social org also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Each religion also has its own themes and styles of augments.
Nodes also provide augments, so it may be that each Node-Type also has its own themes and styles of augments.
By design, Ashes has quite a lot of horizontal progression.
In general we have not received enough information, to the point where I know people that wouldn't want to join at the moment because they can't be assured of anything regarding even simple Class/Archetypal things that they are used to.
In some cases it is literally 'hey, tell me when you know for sure that the classes will be good'.
Broad statements are unfortunately where a lot of recent MMO projects have faltered. We have a lot of clear information on some very appealing things, but classes, balance, etc are not in that pile. So it isn't unreasonable to feel the need to say what one feels is important.
"So it isn't unreasonable to feel the need to say what one feels is important."
True. But, I don't know why you wrote that.
Also I don't like the argument of DnD cleric since combat is so different and (in 5e) there are other classes with access to healing too.
My hope is to give them something clear to work with, from all the people who feel strongly enough about it and have a clear idea of what they want. The faster they get into the 'iteration' stage, the better. Having to tear down the whole thing and start again, repeatedly, is, I feel, a 'dangerous' flow for a game that intends to drop NDA soon, even if they say that they are not expecting to have a full working combat until Alpha-2.
On the other hand, they also said that they were already partway through a combat revamp, which many people are inclined to wait for. I'm just arrogant enough to look at the systems they have, and what they said, and think 'there's no need to wait, and it's bad to wait, we should clarify as much as we can for them now'.
So, as a Cleric, I can say what I want to get personally, and what we seem to have, since the Compilation is fairly far along, and it affects me so little.
I like that Clerics only seem to be planned to have a few direct damage abilities so far, and the others are largely DoT. I personally enjoy solo as Cleric. It's never fast, it helps 'availability' and allows me to learn about enemies before joining a group to fight them, or even to lead the group to do so. Practicing healing on yourself is decent practice. I don't mind having to beat (in other games) or stab (hopefully in this game) things to death over long periods, but I don't like the feeling that Cleric should be anything other than the lowest overall DPS.
If you tell healers 'you have to backline', as far as I know, about half of players willing to play a healer bow out because it's often not fun for the majority of the content (leveling).
Ashes' design goals can basically only lead to 'specialization by target activity'. A Cleric build for Siege warfare isn't likely to be the same as a Cleric build for PvE, and not the same as a Cleric build for World Boss/Raid level content, and this is just based on your points in Cleric skilltree.
But this is fine, because you can just tell people upfront what you are. When people go 'we need a Cleric to run this dungeon', you can tell them 'well I'm a Castle/Node defense specialist, so this won't be as efficient'. When they need to down a Raid Boss and somehow you have to fill in for their regular group Cleric, people should be able to be aware that you 'are normally a Leveling specialist' and might not have built enough power into your heals to do that without some extra assistance/focus on their part.
I'm not actually ever sure why people 'want their Clerics to be just healers', maybe it's a holdover from all those games where they 'try to give everyone healing' and 'try to give Clerics enough damage to keep up with DD'. I know that can force people who really just want to heal, into having to learn more about damage. But that's not what I see now. I see 'pure healing being very acceptable' and a higher likelihood of pushback from people for 'healers that spend mana on other things'.
Those 'other things' are situational and can be mistimed, but the 'fallback' for a Cleric who doesn't understand a situation is 'just heal' and complaints should be minimal.
I'll be Cleric Tanking some World Bosses, of course. Our battles will be legendary.
I think everything should cost stamina. Though, as someone suggested, having two pools to pull from would be good. Like any magic user pulling from mana for their abilities and pulling from stamina for non magical attacks, dodges, jumps and blocking. And a physical class such as a tank would have a larger stamina pool, to make up for either having no mana or having a much smaller mana pool, I’d be fine with either. (and as an added bonus: unlocking skills that increase stamina totals and stamina regen)
Currently see no specific need to put Time To Kill stuff into the compilation, since it is already in Intrepid's plans and so far, no one has shown any concern about the 10s for afk, 30s for duel, parameters for TTK.
Most other threads currently active seem to be philosophical, but if I missed anything, please let me know, as always.
A really good example of what I'm talking about is in Slay the Spire:
- Ironclad (Warrior) - has unique abilities clustered around sacrificing HP, stacking strength or defense, self-inflicted ailments and spending more resources to hit harder
- Silent (Rogue) - has unique abilities clustered around comboing low cost cards, stacking poison, drawing lots of cards, flurries of smaller attacks
- etc.
Each class will try to build their deck around one of these mechanics, augmenting the basic mechanic using cards/abilities common to all classes e.g.:All classes have options to remove cards from their deck mid-battle, but this is especially helpful to the self-inflicted ailment Ironclad because he can burn his ailments and trigger bonus effects from doing so.
All classes have options to increase card draw in their deck but this is especially useful for a Silent with lots of low-cost cards to play.
Finally I mentioned signature abilities that define the individual within their class. In Slay the Spire, examples would be:
Barricade for Ironclad - prevents your block from expiring, so this type of ironclad forgoes strength to focus on defense.
Grand Finale for Silent - deals massive damage to everyone but can only be played when you reach the exact bottom of your deck, so this type of Silent forgoes poison stacking and designs their deck for low card count with precision card draw
In Ashes, class active abilities are the only unique part of a class and therefore define the class, whereas Weapon Skills and Augments I see as common to all classes, supplementary to class abilities.
I would like to see unique mechanics that are core to the class's identity, and therefore abilities that interact with that mechanic.
Examples of archetype mechanics:
Tanks - Block/Guard/Reflect, Taunt/Hate/Challenge system, Push/Hold ground, Concentration/Meditation, Tolerance Buffer
Clerics - Overheal, Divinity system, Ascend, Forbidden Magic
Fighter - HP sacrifice, Wounding, Enrage, Parry/Counter, Stance
Summoner - Summon capacity, Life-link, Minion sacrifice/fusion, Sychnronization/Automation, Transform
Rogue - Backstab/Flank, Stealth, Shadows, Cripple/Blind/Subdue, throw/catch, Nimble action
Bard - select a Muse, Tempo, Incredible Luck, Charm/Flattery, Presence, Illusion, Chant
Ranger - Target/Hunt, Homing, Pierce/Bombard, Swift movement, Tangle, Aerial,
I imagine some overlap between classes applying various types of debuffs.
- e.g. rogue & ranger - poisons, summoner & fighter - bleeds etc.
Everything else is common between classes (augments curated to match the specific skill they augment)
Overall, I imagine each character will be able to invest in most of the mechanics available to their class, but not all. (To use my archetype mechanics example: A cleric can invest in skills related to Overhealing, a branch of the Divinity system, then choose between Ascending or Forbidden Magic).
Alternatively the class mechanics /are/ the augments, but then you're in a design pickle where you need to design your fully fleshed out mechanics and associated abilities for each augment, then strip away the mechanic, simplify/combine/refine working backwards until you get a minimalistic version of those skills for the base archetype pre-augment abilities.
Is this too specific?