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
Everything that can happen in an MMORPG can happen in an AC or FPS game.
You just don't like it.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Just because something can happen in an FPS does not mean it can happen in an RPG.
And you are right. I don't like that.
There are MMOFPS and MMO Action Combat games.
I am fine if you don't like it. I just don't like you saying the systems are incompatible. There are a ton of examples of successful games that blend these systems.
Ashes is a trend setter. I want to support them continuing that trend.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Battles are at 3:00, 5:35, 6:55, 10:31, 11:20 (tower objective group battle), 13:25 (another), 17:00, etc
I do see lots of potential here for killers to roam free while being hard corrupted making the gameplay even more harder and challenging. Hardcore pvp is in this game, if you are Red. Darkfall talking.
I can kill anyone, anyone is at my mercy, anyone can kill me. This is the pvp law in this game as I understood it, very sandbox mmorpg like darkfall or mortal online.
I do hear that corruption will put you at such a disadvantage, ability-wise that you will eventually lose, well ... I am keen to see that stuff.
Probably a good synergy if it works out.
You missed the point though how is that exactly making the action-based combat any more interesting? How will this game be attractive to any kinds of these action type players was my point. Will tab targeting not just be the main thing so action-based combat will be left in dust... cause lets be frank if I can save 1 sec to target you with tab target than action based I'd be tab target all the way for pvp.
It looks to me like they just half-heartedly have put it into place to make sure We get a bit out of it, though it looks more like a bait then actually something to be there to keep us in the long run.
Not talking about meaningful pvp here, but meaningfull skill in battle.
What I meaning to say is that Action-based combat will always be second in this case and it will turn me off from playing this kind of game.
Risk versus reward is higher? I like that so far. I hope they expand more on it.
If that is the case where is the fun in that? I have been playing pvp games for the sole reason of pvp, no need to conquer if I can get the thrill of battle and prove my skill.
All the hope is there mate! Lets see what goes, me and the boyz would love it.
Oh... I'm not sure I like that combat
That looks like there's 0 skill involved except strafing and mindless slashing... but I think it has more to do with the lack of skill variety?
On the other hand, that character is quite rudimentary, I chose Feng Mao on purpose to 'get the maximum number of complaints', so to speak.
Or rather, to see what people don't complain about. I'll gather up the data (probably in the Combat Discussion thread) once enough people give input, I guess.
And Ashes is an MMORPG.
Not an MMOFPS and not an MMO Action combat game.
We are just going around in circles here:
You don't like it > The Devs want to try it > I think it's good for the genre > You don't like it...
I would be excited as hell to play a game like Smite with some character customization and persistence.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I don't agree that what the devs are trying is to be like an FPS.
And, I said, that may be a matter of using different labels for the same concept.
I am fine with what the devs are trying for Ashes combat. I don't consider that to be FPS combat.
What I don't like and what I don't agree with is that MMORPG combat should be like MMOFPS combat.
The closer we get to FPS combat the farther away we get from RPG combat.
I also don't agree that action combat is inherently the same as FPS combat.
APOC combat felt like action combat to me, not FPS combat.
"As far as combat goes there will be cooldowns. That is something that will exist. There's not gonna be a lot of standing around and casting something. We're not gonna root people very much. It's gonna be a very mobile kind of game. It's going to be fairly fast-paced. We don't want it to be quite at the frenetic level. You know we wanted to have it feel fast enough that it's fun but not so fast I can't control it. We also don't want it to be really slow and ponderous either."
---Jeffrey
I consider FPS combat to be too frenetic for an RPG.
"Obviously, as I've said in the past, action combat and tab are two very different tempos.
And, if we had to go through and re-work combat not to be hybrid, I would lean more in favor of tab targeting with high mobility and a lot of template type attacks to represent that more skill-oriented combat. But, I think that through testing, in Alpha and Beta, but especially Alphas, that we will be able to fine-tune this so that it sits comfortably, between the two different types of speeds, essentially."
---Steven
I prefer action combat over tab-target. FPS is too frenetic for an RPG.
For me, those are 3 different tempos and I don't like FPS tempo in RPGs.
You seem to consider action and FPS to be the same thing.
I have not heard Steven ever mention trying FPS style combat.
I indicated early on that I am fine with APOC combat. I consider that to be action combat rather than FPS combat. If you consider APOC combat to be FPS combat, then we don't really have a disagreement in concept, we mostly have a disagreement in labels.
Personally, that would be great as I really enjoyed BnS combat ^^
How do you think AC moves are going to work with ranged weapons? If you can aim with the Z-axis than the game can be played with third-person or first-person shooter style controls.
If you can't aim with the Z-axis it is like Smite or Wildstar. This is acceptable to me as well. I just want to be able to choose riskier skills that are more rewarding.
The game is already like this with you use the Action Combat Mode.
In this case FPS and TPS controls are a subset of action controls. Not the same thing, but a subset.
"Too Frenetic" is up for the DEVs to decide. Some shooter games play slower than others. It all depends on Cool-downs and attack speeds.
You are right we may be arguing about nomenclature here. I hope I have clarified things a bit.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
They talk of wanting a hybrid style or to allow players to choose between action or tab targeting. There’s a ton of work to make that happen smoothly.
I think the class roles kind of force you away from FPS style of play and more toward the traditional style. Tanks standing around getting pounded. DPS firing into the same melee, not to mention AOEs. Healers healing up the tank halfway across the room.
Comparison that a lot working on AoC have experience in would be Planetside 2. You stand toe to toe, which you can do in the heavy armor, and you better have an engineer or three right next to you or you will die really fast. Cover plays a huge part, and shooting into friendlies is going to wreck your side. Most fantasy MMO RPG gamers will view that as foreign as they want to only hit the bad guys and have everyone win as one big happy team. It’s going back to D&D turn style play in that respect, especially if the balance is at the group level rather than individual characters. Planetside 2 you step in to friendly fire don’t expect any sympathy.
I think the intensity of an FPS style of play would be interesting for an MMO RPG, especially 500 vs 500 battles. Some might find it too intense.
RPG elements can be added to any game developers wish to add them to. Look at Warcraft 3 - that is essentially a RTS game with RPG elements - and most RTS games since then have incorporated some form of RPG elements in.
Even Civilization 6's recent DLC that added heroes to the game can be looked at as being RPG elements.
Or you can look at games like Destiny and Destiny 2. These games are online FPS games, yet the characters have stats, classes and progression just like an MMO. The game has a persistent world, it has quests, dungeons, raids and PvP events.
It is, for all intents and purposes, an MMO that has first person combat.
Now, if you said that you don't like FPS games, and so wouldn't play an MMORPG with FPS combat, that would be fine. I don't think anyone would argue.
However, you didn't say that, you said that RPG's SHOULDN'T use FPS combat, which is just wrong. An MMO can use what ever combat system the developer wants to use. If they want to use a tab target system, they can make an RPG that does this. If they want to use action combat, go for it. FPS is fine as well, someone could even attempt to make an RPG that uses RTS combat, or an RPG driving MMO if they wanted to - why not?
The other thing you say is that FPS games are too fast paced for RPG games, and that doesn't allow players to synergize abilities which you claim is key to RPG's. I have two specific points to make to this.
The first is that you are not really someone that is in any position to talk about playing with others in MMO's. It is very clear you have little to no actual experience in this in actual real MMORPG's that are not designed for actual children (saying Wizard101 is a family game is like being the creepy guy in the overcoat all by himself at the back of the theatre when the latest Disney animated movie is showing - claiming it's "a family movie").
Most RPG games don't have synergies between players that need coordination to the point where words need to be shared, let alone to where a faster paced combat system in an MMORPG would have an impact. Honestly, all this is doing is highlighting how narrow a view you have of what an RPG game can be, and that is sad.
Second, FPS games do not need to be fast paced. Look at Fallout 3, NV and 4, or either Half-Life game. They are decidedly slow games, yet are well loved FPS games by most fans of the genre. There is nothing saying a developer making a MMORPG with FPS combat needs to make it twitch based like the current crop of FPS games are.
I responded: "RPGs should not have FPS style combat. I wouldn't categorize APOC as FPS style combat though."
And then, in your reply to me, you only quoted "RPGs should not have FPS style combat..." removing a key qualifier in my post.
In a post shortly thereafter, I included a section at the end that said: "But, again, I don't categorize APOC combat as FPS moves. So, that really could just be 'semantics'. If the concept is APOC moves but is labeled FPS moves...sure, I'm OK with that."
And then you argued with the first half of that post as if I never said the second half of the post.
Or would you prefer to write up a definition of that so that this doesn't devolve further? It'd really help the whole discussion if we had better defined terms. This quabbling is wasting a lot of keystrokes.
Won't someone please think of the keyboards?
Edit: There's a 'definition' in this thread but it's basically false, as Vhaeyne pointed out. FPS are increasingly about team strategy, Objective based games with this team comp concept (Valorant, Overwatch, Paladins, Team Fortress) have been more popular lately. So I'm asking which side of Dygz' definition these are excluded from. Are these 'not FPS', or are they 'not good in an RPG'?
Neverwinter Online is an MMORPG with action combat.
I prefer Neverwinter Online action combat over WoW and EQ/EQ combat and other tab target games.
APOC combat was fine. That was action combat.
I didn't say that FPSs don't have team strategy. When asked about that I said the type of strategies on FPS teams is significantly different than the type of strategies in RPG groups. An FPS is like a relay race, while an RPG is more like a basketball team. Both take team coordination but that team coordination is significantly different.
It's gamers that try to play RPGs like an FPS that results in speed runs and the reliance on DPS meters. And people thinking that MMORPGs should be designed with e-sports in mind.
Steven typically muddles game terminology. He is typically inconsistent with term usage.
Just as I don't recall Neverwinter Online using the terminology FPS style combat, I don't recall Steven ever using the term FPS style combat in reference to APOC or Ashes.
So, here, even when I conceded pretty much immediately that this could just be semantics - you want to continue to argue over the semantics.
I haven't heard Steven refer to APOC or Ashes combat as FPS style. I don't consider it to be FPS style and I think the dev goal is for combat to focus on RPG ability synergy in away that FPS combat doesn't really.
And, if the goal were for Ashes to have FPS style combat, I think the genre announced would be MMOFPS rather than MMORPG.
If we agree that we like the APOC gameplay for the action combat in Ashes, there's not much point in continuing to belabor the labels. Which, again, I pretty much conceded immediately.
I genuinely do not understand the 'relay race' vs 'basketball team' analogy. For reference in case it helps, I have played Overwatch a little, Paladins a lot, Team Fortress never (but I can ask a teammate instead of badgering you about the specifics of your explanation) and Valorant never.
I think of APOC as an action combat Battle Royale; not an FPS style game.
And I think the APOC combat was fine. Even as a carebear, I enjoyed playing.
I think Ashes is currently a bit too fast, but is overall pretty good for an Alpha One Preview.
So, while I like action combat around the tempo of Neverwinter Online and I like the free aim for abilities and the dodge/roll/block mechanics, I consider the combat in Wildstar to be too much like an FPS...especially in tempo.
An FPS typically has way fewer abilities than an RPG. And you aren't necessarily trying to synergize your abilities with the specific abilities of your partners. Often in an RPG, I'm hoping to stack certain types of damage in a way that typically does not happen in an FPS.
For me, a major negative hit on RPG gameplay in MMORPGs is FPS gamers trying to play MMORPGs like they are an FPS...which is where you get the speed runs and reliance on DPS meters. Rush in and destroy stuff as if it's an FPS - preferably with the one most uber and time-efficient build. Especially, in Overwatch, if I recall correctly, you are constantly racing against a clock. Matches last 15-25 minutes. And it seems to me that you're pretty much running the entire time. It's why some FPS e-sports aficionados hope that MMORPGs can also become e-sports.
So, to me, an FPS is more like the coordination of a relay race while an RPG is more like the coordination of a basketball game. In a basketball game you can take some breathers to reassess who is where on the court and even take a timeout to confer about a change in tactics.
For me, the tempo of APOC is action combat; not FPS frenetic.
And, I was able to play APOC with plenty of room for breathers and still make it into the top 4 or top 3 fairly consistently because the objectives are very different.
So...if someone says they want an MMORPG to play like an FPS or an MMOFPS, I will always push back against that. I have feelings about that. And I'm going to say something.
But, I also conceded pretty much immediately that if what's really being advocated is APOC action combat I don't consider APOC to be FPS style combat - I consider that to be action combat in a Battle Royale.
Free aim and faster than tab target, but not as frenetic as an FPS.
As Talents said, Steven leans towards tab (heck he clicks abilities + has the reaction time of a 90 y.o old guy) and you must know many people are like that in the MMORPG genre. Despite his personal preference/bias, he took a great risk and launched APOC to test action combat (among many other things). I believe that's commendable.
They certainly got lots of data and feedback from the latest tests. Combat was mentioned quite often soo I think it's safe to say that they are aware of the problems it has atm and will improve on those bits. It is a long process but with each iteration we should be able to see improvements.
I mean, they're actively making notable changes to combat and did so as early as last week
I'll probably stop engaging you about it or 'complaining', not because I am disregarding your perception, it's hard to put into words, but maybe I can summarize it as:
"To you, if Paladins had a few more abilities, it might count as Action Combat in the same way as APOC."
Whereas I'm not sure Overwatch could get to that point.
Given our communication styles it'll be hard to 'meet in the middle' so I yield my 'half of the court' to you.
I still want everyone's opinion on the video I linked, but as that's something for the other thread, I'm out, of this one.
mhm.. that's what I said?
Ish?
I was more addressing the "Combat is not the focus atm" part of your statement to clarify that it definitely is. Yes, they're testing network problems but they are actively focused on combat as well.
I expect Paladins will have a bunch more abilities and a ton of augments and the game needs to be at a tempo that allows players time to pay attention to the various possibilities their teammates might choose to use and adapt accordingly - rather than just try to speed run for the best DPS.
If the Paladin uses free aim, dodge/roll/parry/block and has a tempo between tab target and frenetic FPS, I would consider that action combat.
I think I would say that what is in right now counts as Action Combat. I didn't really notice a difference between what was in APOC and what is in the Alpha One Preview - other than no super-jumps.
I think the objectives and maps of Overwatch are different enough that it doesn't really matter that character abilities are systematically different. Overwatch is not an RPG and it's not really trying to be. It's an FPS and does that well.
I think the compromise is that we both think the Action Combat of APOC should work fine for Ashes?
What other meeting in the middle are you seeking?
Ha. Well, now I'll have to take a look at the video!!
LMAO