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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Auto Attacks
Lachesis
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
My biggest problem with combat currently is that melee auto attacks make you take large steps forward and I can easily see that causing major problems for lots of people. I think it would be much better if we were just forced to stay stationary instead of being forced to move
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Comments
Enemy : Gibbering Maw
Issue is as my character moves forward with Q (basic attack) the animation takes so long compared to the Maw that as we push into each other my attacks become canceled and can only hit, if I by chance finish my combo.
The final animation locks me in place from doing a smash attack then I land a hit other ones you just see nothing happening and your attacks are quickly canceled
Possible solutions may include toning down how much your character lunges forward with slower weapons and maybe reduces how hard enemies push into you.
The melee attack animation locks your whole body. I get that locking you into an animation makes combat feel more heavy and impactful, but I personally believe locking the legs as part of that animation is detrimental to the game. Perhaps being able to strafe while attacking but at a slower speed than walking might work. Also the whole lunging your character forward when you melee attack is awful.
The lines at the corner of your screen while sprinting. I like that the FOV zooms out while sprinting, and I think that makes sprinting feel fast, but the lines are an unnecessary addition to that.
This one is the most important feedback, please allow sprinting while in combat. I am not a fan at all of not being able to sprint until your character sheathes his weapon because he is out of combat.
The action combat crosshair mode needs some tuning. I like the idea of the action combat mode but I think either one of two things needs to be added to it... either the radius around the crosshair where it registers as being pointed at an enemy needs to be increased... or you need to be able to still cast tab target spells when the crosshair isn't registering any enemies. I assume the former is more viable since using tab abilities with no targeted enemy defeats the purpose. I just find about 70% of the time I'm using the crosshair, it doesn't register that I'm looking at an enemy. obviously this is pre-alpha, but I'm just pointing that out.
As someone who loves to play melee and intends to main a tank the whole lunge on auto attack does not feel good and as a tank I do not constantly want to be repositioning because and animation locks me in to lunging forward.
Agree the forward momentum on melee feels bad, iirc it was said on a livestream a while back that there is a change coming to melee attacks sometime in the future, so you will be able to atleast strafe. Imo the forward momentum should be completely removed and you should be able to move to any direction at the same speed as a mage shooting a wand.
+ I should be able to use abilities if i'm holding down left mouse, used to be able to do this a few patches ago and it felt ALOT better than the current hold mouse for a sec, let go, press ability, start holding mouse down again, let go, press ability - repeat. (This also makes hitting enemies with abilities a pain)
++ i'd like to see actual projectiles in action mode instead of this weird auto homing mouseover with a crosshair type of deal. Like wand shooting in the direction you are aiming and not automatically hitting the target after you mouseover and hold down left click. Also abilities like mage fireball, tank charge, cleric javelin and judgement should go in a straight line to where you are aiming.
+++ Weapon combo should not reset if you use an ability while holding down left click, only if you let go. I think this would be more interesting and useful to bait abilities/cc breaks if later hits did more dmg.
++++ Please have a charge bar for bows so i can hold left click for big dmg or let go earler for more sustain dps
+++++ Need nameplates (healthbar) to show above player/mob under name and guild + options
Show Player Nameplates (all players except yourself)
Show Enemy Player Nameplates
Show Enemy NPC Nameplates
Show Party Nameplates
Show Raid Nameplates
Also show mana of targeted player under hp bar in top middle and target of target
I experimented with a lot of the weapons, animations look good, and cleave arc when melee, felt decent, even though some of the animations suggested wider arcs.
Disliked the forward movement when performing the attack animations, especially if you were attacking more than one target at a time, often caused you need to reposition, so you hit all of them, could see it could cause issues for tanking enemies in place, in some situations.
Wand/Tome felt good, with slow player controlled movement available during the animations, you could still position yourself where you wanted.
For example: When using "W + Q (or click)" It would use the forward momentum animation. Where as only using "Q" would cause a standard no directional movement attack animation. Then new animations could be added for "A + Q" "D + Q" "S + Q" adding sideways and backwards attack animation.
Not only would this add a wider and more controlled range of movement, but it will feel more like the basics of usual action games, as well as being more realistic after all, people do have fight walking backwards sometimes. Such is seen in many of movies when one is losing ground against another. In realistic circumstances anyway, I would only step forward in an attack when I saw a way through to the attackers defense, others wise I would stay out of range of their blade so I would not be hit. That would likely need a lot of movement just like you typically see in a boxing ring today.
Please try this Intrepid! Thank you!
Other than that, the recent changes you made on the auto attack were good and a step in the right direction.
I agree with every word you said. However the best scenario to me would be to use the mechanic of the #1 MMORPG. If a system works and most people are happy with it, why try to re-invent and have to spend many hours adjusting it? I personally do not like the current lunge forward at all with the Q attack. Not a bit. But any suggestion to improve on the system if it's going to stay is worth entertaining. Ideally scrapping the entire lunge would be best if it can be done without damaging other areas of the game. I didn't get enough time in the game this weekend to fully understand all aspects of the combat system but noticing that lunge right at the beginning was an instant turn off for me.
When using melee weapon your character moves closer and closer to target NPC but when you are too close your opponent isn't inside the arc of your skill (although target is in front of you) making you need to step back a little to cast the skill. I noticed this mostly with the Cleric skills. Also moves you past your target making you adjust your position.
Using wand and spellbook i can move backwards while using the weapon attack but not when using melee weapon. If i use melee weapon i have to decide if i want to escape or fight. I can't move backwards while attacking as it moves me forward and defeats the purpose.
As i see it ranged weapons seem to have a clear advantage. I would assume all weapons need the same mechanic in order to be balanced.
Loved the animations for halberd and spear weapon attacks.
However, I think removing it while the player stands still is needed. Currently there are issues of moving past the target just from AA, resulting in queued skills becoming unusable/missed. Additionally while attacking larger mobs like the Dragons, melee often found themselves auto attacking into bad AOE on the ground.
Having to stop attacking so your character doesn't suicide itself into fire is a real feelsbadman.
as an alternative example
have fast light attack (combo initiate), medium arc/cleave attack and heavy kitting slow attack....no movement but a definite stance shift. This will also give a better pvp experience as countering a combo hit for damage mitigation now becomes more engaging....Also allow more augmentation possibilities...
As it currently is in Aplha the walk forward animation Q attack is ass. I will probably not play/use melee weapons as a result if it persists
However it is infidelity better that the Quick time hit (q) event they were proposing a while back that was thankfully scrapped.
Digression. the Auto/Basic attack system needs attention I would like to be able toggle (Auto) Sometimes i just want to mope around doing menial tasks in the world without having to fully commit to my keybinds...
The forced movement animation lock has to go...It's not fun and does not create the illusion of"weight" but a frustration and hindrance.
After you got CDs on your spells The Q spell feels extrem cluncy and static with the warrior and Abolutly not good.
if the mob steps a bit aside you auto run past him and need to realocate yourself what always has Delays in it because you first need to finish the attack animation.you should be able to move your char as you want with WASD and mouse while attacking with the Q spell
The mage on the other hand can run completle Free around.sideways back and forward. this feels so super great and makes much more fun.
This system with the static animation will be a problem for melees in PVP too. if you are close to the mage and finally caught him he can just sidestep your Q spells (if they will be cast endgame i dont know) and you will walk past him need to turn yourself (because the melee char automaticle moved forward while attacking ....) and try to catch up to the mage who is running backwards whiile casting/spamming Q.
the system should be the same for all classes otherwhise people will not play class xy because they just feel completly static while others are total free.
But as soon as you are fighting more than 1 mob, the auto attacks feel pretty bad, and like you have no control.
Luckily, I think this has a pretty simple fix: Don't make the auto attacks move your character. Just make it so that you move more slowly while auto attacking, but you are still able to move freely.
TLDR: Learn from the 3rd person MOBA called Smite - the melee auto attacks in that game feel pretty good, but could still be improved on.
I know a lot of people dont like guild wars 2, but this is regarding fluid melee combat + movement and you cant deny gw2 succeeds with that.
GW2 also delivers the quality of melee with their diverse animations very well. No offense, but in Ashes the weapon animations tend to be very repetitive after a whilewith the same patern over and over, but im no gamedev and this is probably because of GW2s auto attack animations vs AoC action combat input.
Honestly there are auto attacks in every mainstream MMORPG and the majority wouldnt mind auto attacks at all with new animations to spice up the melee - it would help tremendously visually aswel. PS: Not a fan of the weapon effects; golden particles/dust in melee, looks like fairy dust or your waving a firework sparkler lol.
Disliked the forward movement when performing the attack animations, especially if you were attacking more than one target at a time, often caused you need to reposition, so you hit all of them, could see it could cause issues for tanking enemies in place, in some situations.
Wand/Tome felt good, with slow player controlled movement available during the animations, you could still position yourself where you wanted.
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I agree 100% In combat it feels like I am being shoved forward , it is just kind of weird. If I press the S key a lot I can kind of stand where I want. But I was thinking that is an odd work around. I also dislike that I can't do other things like chop a tree till several seconds after the combat is over.
In either case I think we all agree that abilities outside of casting should not root the player.
Personally I prefer having a lot of abilities and just have the filler attack (autoattack) go automatically so I can focus on managing important abilities (like CC's in PVP). I understand this isn't optimal for Ashes with the amount of abilities and would probably go for a GW2 like version where auto attacks are filler attacks with some sort of utility (bleeds or other debuffs on succession attacks). To not make the auto attacks feel lackluster, you also make them so that they set up for bonusses from comboing into other abilities. For example, three auto attacks add poison stacks and X amount of stacks makes another ability stun. Or auto attacks expose armor and after a certain amount you can apply a bleed. This would make auto attacks feel like a filler and more like an integral part of the class. Another example (I like thinking about this) would be for mages where a certain amount of wand attacks make a target combustable, and a lightning attack would cause an explosion around the target etc. You can even make it part of the skill system where you can choose which effect is applied to you auto attack.
1. Initiate automatically when an attack is initiated
2. Each click should be 1 attack with no movement associated with the attack.
Animations are way too fast to really be appreciated. It'd feel much better if my mace had some weight to it and did more damage per swing instead of the anime-esque thousand swings a second crap.
Lunging forward (and preventing all other motion) is objectively terrible. Anyone defending it is wrong. There's a reason everyone loves wands right now. It's because it's the only weapon that feels good to use in combat.
It was like this a couple months ago, the player feedback was that it was WAY too much clicking, since the animations were so fast. People's fingers/wrists were not having a good time. =]
Yeah I agree on that, I found that I was trying to do that while playing using the auto attack.