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Weapon Attack with Directional Keys or Free Movement Attacks?
McShave
Member
At this point of development, Ashes basic weapon attacks can go 2 ways IMO. One option is to keep the current attack animations and then combine it with the use of directional keys (WASD) to move your character around the battlefield while attacking, much like BDO. The second option is to keep open movement and have the weapon attacks happen in whatever direction the character is facing, but maintain the ability to move the character in any direction while the attack animation is happening.
I think having the open movement makes sense for the type of game Intrepid is trying to make, but the jumpy combat with directional keys could work if they make the combat more focused on combos. What do you think about this, and is there another way to implement the basic weapon attacks?
I think having the open movement makes sense for the type of game Intrepid is trying to make, but the jumpy combat with directional keys could work if they make the combat more focused on combos. What do you think about this, and is there another way to implement the basic weapon attacks?
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While playing in a previous test, I saw, in that 'block text' that comes up when Steven (or some GM) talks to explain things to everyone, or to Asmongold stream (which was possibly the trigger this time) that they intend to test the 'Split Body' animation in an upcoming test.
The words I remember seeing were 'maybe next week'. This was during the last test.
Oh, something to look forward to. Thanks for the heads up 👍
If that is not possible, I would probably go with option 1, even though I prefer 2, just because I believe it would be a lot easier to fight in PvP that way and easier to balance since we’ll have template AoE attacks, targeted attacks, aimed ranged attacks, melee, etc.
I think it would be a mess if it wasn’t option 1 (the BDO style). Hopefully it gets put into the game soon because right now the basic attack is very lacking. Need light/heavy attack combos, directional attacks (not just lunge forward with every strike), dedicated block/other abilities on a mouse button, etc. Move some of the combat off the hotbar.
Melee weapons make you feel like you’re on rails. They’re clunky and you often miss because enemies don’t always stand still for you.
All weapons should work like wands.
And I personally think this: https://youtu.be/IPvJPkAatng?t=319 is bad, this technique may take some skill to really use it in real situations, but this looks ridiculous and feels like a bad design, If player really need addition gap closer, just make sprint works with all melee weapons to perform dash attacks as a gap closer, for example spear dash attack perform a pole vault towards opponent or direction player aiming to.
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I do feel like option 2 would lead to more possible mess, or bugs, the way that Intrepid seem to want to implement their spell and attack animations. When you have wild and over the top animations, it would be better to take away some player movement controls (rotation and movement changes) during them. And BDO's combat style does work really well, especially for small scale PvP. However, I'm not sure how this combat style will fit when there are 8 person cooperative dungeons with body-blocking, it could get annoying. Or large scale PvP like sieges with everybody trying to jump around. Definitely something to watch out for as we get further in development.
They should just copy the most popular and loved hybrid combat, being GW2 combat, and improve upon it to fit their style. GW2 has mobile melee and casting that feels perfectly satisfying and balanced enough that there is no clear "ranged/melee is overpowered" distinction.
They're trying to juggle two systems and unless they can hit the perfect sweet spot it's going to feel extremely jank. The currently proposed system isn't true hybrid, it's split-combat.
It can be true hybrid without being terrible though. It just isn't yet. I don't understand why the Split Body is a step one option, but maybe we'll know when we see it, what makes them confident (or experimental)
The primary basic attacks in their current state are trying to be to much in melee.
Forced lunges are not fun. Rapid continuous key input is not healthy. The basic attacks should be slower and more impactful to create the sense of "weight" everyone seems to think the current system is doing...
It is not.
If you want to generate a sense of impact you need to flow momentum with stance shifting not forced motion. There is currently no feeling of kinetic/potential energy just rapid inertia...this is not weight* or Impact*...just locked motion.
There is no counter pvp tells or engagement to mitigate combat actions.
right now is just a frustrating spammy wall humpathon....
GW2 combat is a better gauge of hybrid but the cursor free cam mode was an after thought implementation and nobody uses it....which tells you something.
We aren't expected to be just spamming basic attack interspersed with Active Skills.
Would people actually even like that? That's a timing/beatstream challenge moreso than anything else.
I legitimately have too much of a bias to even understand what other players want out of combat systems without clarification half the time, so I'm seriously asking.
There will be weapon combos but it's going to be something different than what was demoed in 2017.
We'll, combat has to be free flowing, where you are able to cast your important spells at any time. Haven't played this game, so I cannot compare. There is a combo system as in the 4th weapon attack does more damage, but i don't think I'd like a mortal combat or street fighter type combo system
Either make the rooted motion go in whatever direction you want (even just a more simplified version of bdo's directional melee) instead of just forward, or make it completely unrestricted like the games I mentioned above.
Bear with me because there's a part of this I don't always understand either.
Games like Ashes work in two ways in my experience. Either the animations have a meaning and you have to wait for one to finish before doing the next (and sometimes inputting the command for the next), or you can just press stuff while the animations for other stuff is happening and either the animation is canceled, or the game queues up the next thing to happen.
Age of Conan is 'queued up but no animation cancel', so the combos in that game are 'press this sequence of buttons correctly and then wait for everything to happen', or 'don't press them all, so you can start pressing something else instead once the current animation finishes'.
Sorry for derailing but to me, the combo systems of MK and SF are actually so different from even each other that they go beyond any differences I expect in the way people normally mean when they are talking about Ashes (since I figure you just meant them as general examples of the idea in your mind of how fighting games work).
Actually, you can cancel animations mid way, its the finishers that can't be cancelled. But usually you have invincibility as they play
Oh ok. I obviously still don't know if people would like that, but I think I understand the videos I watched, a little better now.
I wouldn't care one way or the other. To me, combo systems are just something my hands learn to do automatically while I play the tactical part of the game.
I see MMOs differently than 'Action Combat' fans because I see them as tactical trigger and response games with some ability for planning. The physical aspects of them can be a little challenging, but they're never even a little close to fighters, for me, some aspects in the most frenetic of them can be annoying (because the games are laggy and the requirements push on human reaction time constantly), but the problem is never 'can I physically do what is required', it's 'did the game let me see what was required, in time'.
I like Tab Target better because it is easier for others, and does the same thing, the part of 'Action Combat' that people talk about is something that one has to be able to do in most fighters so consistently that it doesn't feel like anything to me.
If others are happier with a system like this though, I'm not going to complain, obviously.
The issue would then become, 'which of the eight combo systems' (unless you meant the specific Age of Conan one, but even if you did, I bet people would have strong opinions anyway).
I only hate one of the eight so all's good for me, bring it on.