@Azherae I know players who plan on playing heavy weapon fighters and they would prefer tab targeting with free motion. There will be all types of players who prefer different things but my goal will always be to steer these conversations into what path I think will keep the game alive for as long as possible. I may not always be right but I try to apply as much logic as I can. I firmly believe that more freedom will keep players engaged and playing. A lot can be done to dust off this system but Intrepid has the knowledge to figure it out. Not being able to run through enemy players is a massive bonus for free motion combat. I used to hate when rogues would run through me as a hunter in wow. Free motion in AoC looks loads more fun with just that implemented.
I feel weird saying it but someone mentioned sound playing a big role in the weight of an attack and I didn't agree at first. When I thought about it, hitting a headshot in Rust was overwhelmingly entertaining. the crunch of a critical hit makes a big difference than just a floating number. That number lighting up and having a special effect for a crit or hitting a weak point also makes a huge difference.
I don't disagree with you on that at all. We're probably on the same page. The problem would be that it's obviously not a simple thing. Even if every player you know would prefer Free motion Tab Target, the moment Intrepid changes it to that, the forum will be inundated with people who want the opposite. That's unfortunately how online feedback during game development works.
People who think they are already getting what they want, settle in and say less, come around less, pay less attention. People who think they are losing what they want, suddenly become active. There were very few people arguing for rooted motion before. Nearly unanimously against it in my last data scrape. Now the WASD crowd are coming out of the woodwork, because their expectations are being challenged.
I do not envy Intrepid's Lead Combat Designer, whoever that is. But in the end, my point is, Intrepid 'promised' (I know Steven has outlined the fallback) Action Combat, and so, they have to work within what they noted.
This can be done, but getting players to specify what they want without threatening to take it away can sometimes be really difficult.
@Azherae I agree. Makes sense that players log in to the forums less when things are going their way. It makes it a little more difficult to get feedback from the whole community. The decision to put a toggle button in for the combat change is genius and will bring a ton of on the spot feedback. It's like every month I see Steven make a change that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I want to drive down to San Diego and buy this dude lunch. haha.
At the end of the day, no matter how shitty the rooted system may be for me, I am invested at this point.
@Azherae I agree. Makes sense that players log in to the forums less when things are going their way. It makes it a little more difficult to get feedback from the whole community. The decision to put a toggle button in for the combat change is genius and will bring a ton of on the spot feedback. It's like every month I see Steven make a change that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I want to drive down to San Diego and buy this dude lunch. haha.
At the end of the day, no matter how shitty the rooted system may be for me, I am invested at this point.
Well, on that, we are on opposite sides, I guess, but I posted earlier in the thread with my problems on that.
It's not that I mind free flow combat, it's that I can simulate too easily all the problems it brings to the rest of the game experience and I hate all of those way more than I hate rooted motion. That is, in fact, the entire reason why I interpreted the posts in the old Combat Discussion to be 'wanting the WASD form'. The other things those people wanted, don't work in Free Motion 'Action Combat'.
That was a long time ago though, I'd feel sort of odd bumping that thread again now, even though this is the change that was supposed to trigger that action. Point is, back then the thread was heavily skewed toward Action Combat supporters that were trying to push against 'just Tab Target' because... the Tab Target supporters probably didn't feel like they had to worry.
I'll keep trying to get people to see beyond their initials, even if it doesn't turn out too helpful due to the way feedback works, it's good practice...
I like that you can move while attacking, ofc, but moving while hitting should be done with small to medium weapons. Larger weapons, like a big two-handed axe should have more recovery frames and lock you in place for a fraction of time at least, during the attack
Theres nothing cool about swinging a massive hammer while your feet move nonstop, walking like you have a straight sword in your hand, it feels and looks weird, everyone can notice.
We have to adapt movement to every kind of weapon, of course trying to achieve fluidity, timings, pros and cons to each.
I like that you can move while attacking, ofc, but moving while hitting should be done with small to medium weapons. Larger weapons, like a big two-handed axe should have more recovery frames and lock you in place for a fraction of time at least, during the attack
Theres nothing cool about swinging a massive hammer while your feet move nonstop, walking like you have a straight sword in your hand, it feels and looks weird, everyone can notice.
We have to adapt movement to every kind of weapon, of course trying to achieve fluidity, timings, pros and cons to each.
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
If even the average 1/4 of players choose Ranger and Mage, with the intention of kiting, there are going to be significant shifts to balance and dynamics. I mean, that could be fine with everyone too, I don't have a direct concern there, except that maybe everything will devolve into archery contests...
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
Not at all, the balance comes from heavy weapons doing A LOT of damage, having better hitboxes, damage reduction on swing, AOE every 3rd hit. Whatever they want to do to balance it.
Light and faster weapons of course they'll have their pros as you say. It's everything about build variety and making creativity viable for players.
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
Not at all, the balance comes from heavy weapons doing A LOT of damage, having better hitboxes, damage reduction on swing, AOE every 3rd hit. Whatever they want to do to balance it.
Light and faster weapons of course they'll have their pros as you say. It's everything about build variety and making creativity viable for players.
Yes, but the thing is... balance is hard. Balance is super super hard. And players are optimizers. So it's not usually useful to say 'just do whatever works', 'give us creativity', or 'build variety is good'.
If I were optimizing, I would immediately without question switch to a sword for PvE if they were the way you described.
I've seen this exact thing play out in multiple MMOs before, and the balance passes sometimes took literally years to fine tune enough for the metas to even stabilize, so I'm concerned.
I haven't tested the updated melee motions. From previous Alpha testing I experienced one change I'd like to see is the quantity of auto attacks needed to kill basic mobs at or below your character level.
I'd prefer abilities to be doing the bulk of damage for most classes in combat over auto attack damage. We are all low level with few abilities so it makes sense early on but it would be nice to minimize the auto attack spam.
The melee attack animation speed could be tuned down quite a bit. It may be a stylistic preference but they seem frenetic. Part of the floatiness feel of combat is due to how fast the animations are and how spammable the auto attacks are performed. Slowing them down a bit and having each one do more damage would help give them more weight and ground them. It could also indirectly improve the audio experience during group battles.
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
Not at all, the balance comes from heavy weapons doing A LOT of damage, having better hitboxes, damage reduction on swing, AOE every 3rd hit. Whatever they want to do to balance it.
Light and faster weapons of course they'll have their pros as you say. It's everything about build variety and making creativity viable for players.
Yes, but the thing is... balance is hard. Balance is super super hard. And players are optimizers. So it's not usually useful to say 'just do whatever works', 'give us creativity', or 'build variety is good'.
If I were optimizing, I would immediately without question switch to a sword for PvE if they were the way you described.
I've seen this exact thing play out in multiple MMOs before, and the balance passes sometimes took literally years to fine tune enough for the metas to even stabilize, so I'm concerned.
Yes, balancing this kind of game is very hard, and I want a balanced game too, but sometimes too much balance derives to no fun allowed, and the game becomes bland and meaningless, that's what worries me. Ive seen a lot of games that for the sake of perfect balance they become anti-fun and way worse than how they started.
Some weapons will be better at PvE and some better at PvP, that's true, but I think that's not an issue since people can specialize in whatever they want in this PvX game. Or even have equipment for both modes.
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
Not at all, the balance comes from heavy weapons doing A LOT of damage, having better hitboxes, damage reduction on swing, AOE every 3rd hit. Whatever they want to do to balance it.
Light and faster weapons of course they'll have their pros as you say. It's everything about build variety and making creativity viable for players.
Yes, but the thing is... balance is hard. Balance is super super hard. And players are optimizers. So it's not usually useful to say 'just do whatever works', 'give us creativity', or 'build variety is good'.
If I were optimizing, I would immediately without question switch to a sword for PvE if they were the way you described.
I've seen this exact thing play out in multiple MMOs before, and the balance passes sometimes took literally years to fine tune enough for the metas to even stabilize, so I'm concerned.
Yes, balancing this kind of game is very hard, and I want a balanced game too, but sometimes too much balance derives to no fun allowed, and the game becomes bland and meaningless, that's what worries me. Ive seen a lot of games that for the sake of perfect balance they become anti-fun and way worse than how they started.
Some weapons will be better at PvE and some better at PvP, that's true, but I think that's not an issue since people can specialize in whatever they want in this PvX game. Or even have equipment for both modes.
Ah. I often make too many assumptions about what other players consider important. It didn't even occur to me that 'I don't mind which weapon I have to use in what situation' could be a generally accepted feeling for players, given Ashes' other systems, but yeah, I can see it.
Hello, I didn't see a Dev focused discussion on steven's request for feedback from the latest stream regarding combat so I'm posting my thoughts here. If there is a more pertinent thread, please direct me to it!
TLDR points:
1) Find a middle ground.
2) Shorten frames of rooting and make characters move just a hair, not huge lunging steps per swing - a character should be able to maintain position without constantly needing to back up again or reposition constantly.
3) At the same time, attack and timing should have impact and consequence. Even a split second root can increase the skill ceiling for pvp and pve immensely.
4) Complete removal still feels and looks awful. I don't even need to play it since I played Apoc. It reminds me of a Korean MMO and is very off-putting (for me, personally).
More background:
I believe that there is an achievable middle ground between the two options that were shown in the stream. I know that many out there hate being rooted at all. I believe that a very brief root brings impact and consequence to both pve and pvp. The 2nd approach which Steven said was more Apoc style is very off-putting to me. The feel I got from it instantly turned me off. Please please don't go in this direction.
If they want the skills to feel impactful but not root too heavily, I recommend they look at footage of FFXI circa 2008. Characters could move and the auto-attacks were not "rooted" so much but the weapon skills and spells themselves needed to complete their animation before you could move.
The community rationalized that magic requires concentration and if it wasn't an instant spell, it would root you. If it was instant cast or near instant (.5sec or so) you could still move and pull off a cast. Magic could be interrupted between 20% and 80% but not before or after except by special interrupts and crits.
Melee skills were more direction oriented (turn away from mob and shield bash missed) but skills could be interrupted by hard hits and other skills. Your regular hits could be interrupted just like your skills but it LOOKED heavy, it FELT heavy. It's all in the legs. Legs gotta bend and lung with the strikes. Hips gotta turn, not just the torso. Torso gotta bend with the weight and style of the weapon. You can't run forward and lung simultaneously so even if it doesn't root you entirely it SHOULD slow you down through each animation.
My other thought is that the movement foward with the attacks in the video seemed extreme. Even in real life you can swing a sword without moving several feet foward per swing. Just look at japanese kenjutsu. In fact, you can do it without moving from your position at all, you just move your feet.
If you dialed it back so the rooting and steps forward were slight, it would potentially shorten the frames of "rooting" while allowing a tank to stay still without constantly needing to reposition. You still get a brief moment where mistakes can be punished but it becomes faster and more fluid.
I'm in the camp of free motion 100%. The auto forward movement feels sticky and gummy. The player collision will make it to where the meta isn't to free motion through opponents bodies, which is good.
I think it currently could use a lot of work to make it look and feel more natural, like slowing the swing frequency of that particular sword down some. There's several different tweaks that can be tried, like slowing movement speed while swinging, or making only the last swing in the auto attack sequence slow movement but do more damage. Or making it to where it doesn't slow movement speed but you can't sprint while doing it, allowing players being melee'd on to sprint out of it themselves.
How prevalent are auto attacks even going to be in the game? I'd like to know that. Aren't we all going to have a bar full of abilities? Gap closers, gap openers, all kinds of different small damage, medium damage, and large damage abilities that all have their own animations and weightyness.
I think most everything should be animation cancellable. But not ESO style. The damage that an ability does should occur after the animation is done, not before. Or you get ESO animation cancel nonsense.
pjrydeckerMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Having played both Alpha and Apoc even though the Apoc melee was more "floaty" I would take that over the animation locking we have at the mo. In Apoc skill and movement were important. In the Alpha, you have to just stand in front of the enemy and the one with the biggest stick wins, skill makes a lot less difference. From the video it looks like we are moving back to the movement. I would have to just not play a melee character if things stayed as they are. Not a massive problem as I like ranged characters but I do like to have the option of getting up close and personal and not having to give up any skill advantage I might have (obviously only over NPC's all actual players will have a skill advantage over me but I can live with that lol)
Having played both Alpha and Apoc even though the Apoc melee was more "floaty" I would take that over the animation locking we have at the mo. In Apoc skill and movement were important. In the Alpha, you have to just stand in front of the enemy and the one with the biggest stick wins, skill makes a lot less difference. From the video it looks like we are moving back to the movement. I would have to just not play a melee character if things stayed as they are. Not a massive problem as I like ranged characters but I do like to have the option of getting up close and personal and not having to give up any skill advantage I might have (obviously only over NPC's all actual players will have a skill advantage over me but I can live with that lol)
What skill advantage do you mean? Are you expecting to be able to dodge NPC attacks in PvE using the movement?
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2021
I would actually prefer to keep the weighty “rooted” combat style for melee, but tweaked. The basic attacks should have multidirectional movement, instead of ALWAYS forward. If you hit A or D while attacking you should do a sidestep and slash. If you’re backing up while attacking you should do an upward swing. Only force the character to move *forward* during an attack if either pressing no other directional keys or if pressing W.
In addition to the attack/movement differing based on your input, I would also prefer to not move so comically far. I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
Most the of the time you aren't moving as you are just spamming your melee attack into something so i'm not sure why you would think this.
I'm pretty sure the animation used to be shorter and was changed. I remember it being hell in pvp as you would attack, stop, run up to your opponent, attack again and repeat. Wand users didn't have this issue so they got to kite you for days.
It feels like people think the game is an action game but it isn't. Mobs function the same as a tab system. This isn't action combat where it's a combination of dodging and attacking. All you do is attack. Combat is just attack and use abilities.
I'd like to incorporate root motion in melee combat but I don't think every auto attack needs to have it as it greatly limits what you do during a fight.
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CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
Most the of the time you aren't moving as you are just spamming your melee attack into something so i'm not sure why you would think this.
I'm pretty sure the animation used to be shorter and was changed. I remember it being hell in pvp as you would attack, stop, run up to your opponent, attack again and repeat. Wand users didn't have this issue so they got to kite you for days.
It feels like people think the game is an action game but it isn't. Mobs function the same as a tab system. This isn't action combat where it's a combination of dodging and attacking. All you do is attack. Combat is just attack and use abilities.
I'd like to incorporate root motion in melee combat but I don't think every auto attack needs to have it as it greatly limits what you do during a fight.
I’m well aware the game at its core is tab, regardless of how they sugarcoat it by calling it hybrid. I’m aware the mobs behave exactly like tab target mobs. I advocate for the game to move away from that. Part of the process is making the player move like an action game not a tab game. This recent change is leaning more towards tab, I’m wanting it changed back but tweaked to feel a lot better, read what I said about the tweaks that would feel better.
I don’t just walk up to a mob or other player and just stand still and press the attack key. But a system that facilitates and even encourages that is not good.
It could work if mobs didn’t attack like a tab target mob. Being able to dodge their strikes would make a big difference. If a swordsman begins a swing but you move to the side, out of the arc, it shouldn’t hit you. Right now it does, because you were in range and the computer says whether you got hit or evaded. Don’t want that.
I'm a summoner. Summons by nature must behave like mobs. They must autoattack.
I would like for people to be able to dodge my summons attacks sometimes based on a technical combat decision. I perceive wasd type root attacks allow for this.
I perceive the proposed combat change would either result in the attacks would be almost always dodgeable as you circle around the summon outside its cone, or never dodgeable due to the cone being necessarily wider to make summons not completely useless (thus defeating the intended 'agency the change desires to make.)
Small print leads to large risks.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
Most the of the time you aren't moving as you are just spamming your melee attack into something so i'm not sure why you would think this.
I'm pretty sure the animation used to be shorter and was changed. I remember it being hell in pvp as you would attack, stop, run up to your opponent, attack again and repeat. Wand users didn't have this issue so they got to kite you for days.
It feels like people think the game is an action game but it isn't. Mobs function the same as a tab system. This isn't action combat where it's a combination of dodging and attacking. All you do is attack. Combat is just attack and use abilities.
I'd like to incorporate root motion in melee combat but I don't think every auto attack needs to have it as it greatly limits what you do during a fight.
I don’t just walk up to a mob or other player and just stand still and press the attack key. But a system that facilitates and even encourages that is not good.
It could work if mobs didn’t attack like a tab target mob. Being able to dodge their strikes would make a big difference. If a swordsman begins a swing but you move to the side, out of the arc, it shouldn’t hit you. Right now it does, because you were in range and the computer says whether you got hit or evaded. Don’t want that.
But that is how it currently plays.
If people want a combat rework and mobs to function different then we need to talk about that. Requesting one change with the assumption that other large changes will be made is silly.
Can't you have mobs with dodgeable attacks and at the same time have a mostly free motion system? What is the fixation on melee attacks that root you in glue and make you go forward? Why cant I just press W if I want to go forward while attacking?
What am I missing, what is the key selling point of this root animation system that attracts people to it? Because it feels like absolute dog to me, but I must be missing something.
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CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
Most the of the time you aren't moving as you are just spamming your melee attack into something so i'm not sure why you would think this.
I'm pretty sure the animation used to be shorter and was changed. I remember it being hell in pvp as you would attack, stop, run up to your opponent, attack again and repeat. Wand users didn't have this issue so they got to kite you for days.
It feels like people think the game is an action game but it isn't. Mobs function the same as a tab system. This isn't action combat where it's a combination of dodging and attacking. All you do is attack. Combat is just attack and use abilities.
I'd like to incorporate root motion in melee combat but I don't think every auto attack needs to have it as it greatly limits what you do during a fight.
I don’t just walk up to a mob or other player and just stand still and press the attack key. But a system that facilitates and even encourages that is not good.
It could work if mobs didn’t attack like a tab target mob. Being able to dodge their strikes would make a big difference. If a swordsman begins a swing but you move to the side, out of the arc, it shouldn’t hit you. Right now it does, because you were in range and the computer says whether you got hit or evaded. Don’t want that.
But that is how it currently plays.
If people want a combat rework and mobs to function different then we need to talk about that. Requesting one change with the assumption that other large changes will be made is silly.
That IS what I’ve been talking about. This is an isolated suggestion, but I’ve been vocal on these forums about what I want from the combat system as a whole. But since this was the most recent, actually noticeable and tangible change I had to speak on it specifically.
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CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Can't you have mobs with dodgeable attacks and at the same time have a mostly free motion system? What is the fixation on melee attacks that root you in glue and make you go forward? Why cant I just press W if I want to go forward while attacking?
What am I missing, what is the key selling point of this root animation system that attracts people to it? Because it feels like absolute dog to me, but I must be missing something.
In its current form it does indeed feel like “dog” as you put it. We agree. But rather than use another system that feels bad as well, completely weightless, I propose we instead change the previous to be better. You wouldn’t have a problem if the rooting was short and sweet. It wouldn’t even feel like being rooted, it would feel like you just swung a sword. Right now you do this ridiculous lunge forward that takes a long time and moves a long distance, that’s the issue.
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pjrydeckerMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Having played both Alpha and Apoc even though the Apoc melee was more "floaty" I would take that over the animation locking we have at the mo. In Apoc skill and movement were important. In the Alpha, you have to just stand in front of the enemy and the one with the biggest stick wins, skill makes a lot less difference. From the video it looks like we are moving back to the movement. I would have to just not play a melee character if things stayed as they are. Not a massive problem as I like ranged characters but I do like to have the option of getting up close and personal and not having to give up any skill advantage I might have (obviously only over NPC's all actual players will have a skill advantage over me but I can live with that lol)
What skill advantage do you mean? Are you expecting to be able to dodge NPC attacks in PvE using the movement?
Erm, no, it's a joke hence the lol. But this game is going to be an open-world PVP free for all with some action and some tab targeting Sooooo if you can not circle strafe in melee for example as you are locked into forward motion with every attack it will end up being who has the best stats, gear, etc who wins every time regardless of skill. As I am a competent player as opposed to a great player I did not want to make out I expected to have a significant advantage over other players if the skill advantage became important so I made the npc joke. sorry if it caused any confusion.
Yeah Cypher I'd like to see it all tested. Everything from completely free movement, to slowed movement while swinging, to momentary roots while swinging, and many more things I'm sure. My hope is that Ashes can come up with it's own unique system that pairs well with the features of the game.
I think there's a lot of ways to add weightyness and they should all be tried out and tested. Still for the life of me cant figure who or why anyone would like this lunge auto move forward stuff.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
In New World...
I primarily fight with a Spear.
I frequently feel like I've moved forward while in combat - specifically because I am executing lunges.
I also sometimes feel like I'm animation locked.
I think this feels better in New World than it does in Ashes because my targets are also moving and dodging and lunging rather than just standing in one spot, so if I lunge past, it feels more organic... like I miscalculated.
In Ashes, it just feels like I did something I absolutely would not have done.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Having played both Alpha and Apoc even though the Apoc melee was more "floaty" I would take that over the animation locking we have at the mo. In Apoc skill and movement were important. In the Alpha, you have to just stand in front of the enemy and the one with the biggest stick wins, skill makes a lot less difference. From the video it looks like we are moving back to the movement. I would have to just not play a melee character if things stayed as they are. Not a massive problem as I like ranged characters but I do like to have the option of getting up close and personal and not having to give up any skill advantage I might have (obviously only over NPC's all actual players will have a skill advantage over me but I can live with that lol)
What skill advantage do you mean? Are you expecting to be able to dodge NPC attacks in PvE using the movement?
Erm, no, it's a joke hence the lol. But this game is going to be an open-world PVP free for all with some action and some tab targeting Sooooo if you can not circle strafe in melee for example as you are locked into forward motion with every attack it will end up being who has the best stats, gear, etc who wins every time regardless of skill. As I am a competent player as opposed to a great player I did not want to make out I expected to have a significant advantage over other players if the skill advantage became important so I made the npc joke. sorry if it caused any confusion.
Got it.
I am not sure if I expect circle strafing to make a real difference in melee aside from being annoying. It might be more correct to say that I hope it does not, because I don't want people picking Summoner just to get the 'my damage source acts like an NPC' so you can just circle it' problem...
This is one of my largest 'complaints' about the idea. I didn't think about how many players want to 'just be able to move even though it doesn't do anything' though, which was silly of me, given how many games are exactly like this.
If people need to be able to circle around (even with little usefulness) for the combat to feel good to them, and those people are in the majority, then so be it. At that point my complaints turn entirely to 'the effect this will have on the level of coolness of PvE' but I have other games I can play for difficult/engaging PvE experience.
I'm a game developer who specializes in combat animation.
Root animation is the way to go, but Intrepid is making a lot of mistakes to make it feel bad.
First of all, and most importantly, attack direction should be determined by WASD input, not by mouse rotation. Players feel more free when they can attack in 8 directions instead of straight forward. In my opinion, this is a no-brainer.
Secondly, at no time should you be locked into and fully committed to one attack direction. You need to be able to change your attack trajectory between every sword swing. Your first attack should not determine the direction of all your subsequent combo attacks. Depending upon your WASD input, your character should pivot and change rotation between attacks. This allows for much greater freedom of movement.
Lastly, melee attack animations absolutely need to be cancelable. Sprinting/Dashing, rolling, jumping, and casting abilities should all interrupt root motion attacks. You need to be able to make sudden changes in movement to feel like you have control over your character. This is also contingent upon Intrepid setting up better dashing and dodging animation and keybinds, which currently leave much to be desired. Animation canceling is a trade-off between realism, but it's a pivotal choice for combat games in order to make them both feel good and be competitive.
It all comes down to allowing the player more control over their character's trajectory to make sudden changes in movement, and I hope Intrepid realizes this before defaulting to lazy strafing combat where your character is basically just a slow moving turret waving a sword around.
100% agree with this. Instead of removing the root animations design they just need to improve upon it. The best combat in games i've played have been rooting combat. Hopefully they realize this and take notes from DS and BDO. People dont like it currently because its implemented poorly
I'm a game developer who specializes in combat animation.
Root animation is the way to go, but Intrepid is making a lot of mistakes to make it feel bad.
First of all, and most importantly, attack direction should be determined by WASD input, not by mouse rotation. Players feel more free when they can attack in 8 directions instead of straight forward. In my opinion, this is a no-brainer.
Secondly, at no time should you be locked into and fully committed to one attack direction. You need to be able to change your attack trajectory between every sword swing. Your first attack should not determine the direction of all your subsequent combo attacks. Depending upon your WASD input, your character should pivot and change rotation between attacks. This allows for much greater freedom of movement.
Lastly, melee attack animations absolutely need to be cancelable. Sprinting/Dashing, rolling, jumping, and casting abilities should all interrupt root motion attacks. You need to be able to make sudden changes in movement to feel like you have control over your character. This is also contingent upon Intrepid setting up better dashing and dodging animation and keybinds, which currently leave much to be desired. Animation canceling is a trade-off between realism, but it's a pivotal choice for combat games in order to make them both feel good and be competitive.
It all comes down to allowing the player more control over their character's trajectory to make sudden changes in movement, and I hope Intrepid realizes this before defaulting to lazy strafing combat where your character is basically just a slow moving turret waving a sword around.
100% agree with this. Instead of removing the root animations design they just need to improve upon it. The best combat in games i've played have been rooting combat. Hopefully they realize this and take notes from DS and BDO. People dont like it currently because its implemented poorly
Doesn't this make your character is basically just a sliding dash turret waving a sword around like BDO?
And I'm so curious that how you guys fight bosses or pvp with camera control like lock on target most of time? If so I have to say that is just a tab targeting in action game.
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I don't disagree with you on that at all. We're probably on the same page. The problem would be that it's obviously not a simple thing. Even if every player you know would prefer Free motion Tab Target, the moment Intrepid changes it to that, the forum will be inundated with people who want the opposite. That's unfortunately how online feedback during game development works.
People who think they are already getting what they want, settle in and say less, come around less, pay less attention. People who think they are losing what they want, suddenly become active. There were very few people arguing for rooted motion before. Nearly unanimously against it in my last data scrape. Now the WASD crowd are coming out of the woodwork, because their expectations are being challenged.
I do not envy Intrepid's Lead Combat Designer, whoever that is. But in the end, my point is, Intrepid 'promised' (I know Steven has outlined the fallback) Action Combat, and so, they have to work within what they noted.
This can be done, but getting players to specify what they want without threatening to take it away can sometimes be really difficult.
At the end of the day, no matter how shitty the rooted system may be for me, I am invested at this point.
Well, on that, we are on opposite sides, I guess, but I posted earlier in the thread with my problems on that.
It's not that I mind free flow combat, it's that I can simulate too easily all the problems it brings to the rest of the game experience and I hate all of those way more than I hate rooted motion. That is, in fact, the entire reason why I interpreted the posts in the old Combat Discussion to be 'wanting the WASD form'. The other things those people wanted, don't work in Free Motion 'Action Combat'.
That was a long time ago though, I'd feel sort of odd bumping that thread again now, even though this is the change that was supposed to trigger that action. Point is, back then the thread was heavily skewed toward Action Combat supporters that were trying to push against 'just Tab Target' because... the Tab Target supporters probably didn't feel like they had to worry.
I'll keep trying to get people to see beyond their initials, even if it doesn't turn out too helpful due to the way feedback works, it's good practice...
Theres nothing cool about swinging a massive hammer while your feet move nonstop, walking like you have a straight sword in your hand, it feels and looks weird, everyone can notice.
We have to adapt movement to every kind of weapon, of course trying to achieve fluidity, timings, pros and cons to each.
Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?
If even the average 1/4 of players choose Ranger and Mage, with the intention of kiting, there are going to be significant shifts to balance and dynamics. I mean, that could be fine with everyone too, I don't have a direct concern there, except that maybe everything will devolve into archery contests...
Not at all, the balance comes from heavy weapons doing A LOT of damage, having better hitboxes, damage reduction on swing, AOE every 3rd hit. Whatever they want to do to balance it.
Light and faster weapons of course they'll have their pros as you say. It's everything about build variety and making creativity viable for players.
Yes, but the thing is... balance is hard. Balance is super super hard. And players are optimizers. So it's not usually useful to say 'just do whatever works', 'give us creativity', or 'build variety is good'.
If I were optimizing, I would immediately without question switch to a sword for PvE if they were the way you described.
I've seen this exact thing play out in multiple MMOs before, and the balance passes sometimes took literally years to fine tune enough for the metas to even stabilize, so I'm concerned.
I'd prefer abilities to be doing the bulk of damage for most classes in combat over auto attack damage. We are all low level with few abilities so it makes sense early on but it would be nice to minimize the auto attack spam.
The melee attack animation speed could be tuned down quite a bit. It may be a stylistic preference but they seem frenetic. Part of the floatiness feel of combat is due to how fast the animations are and how spammable the auto attacks are performed. Slowing them down a bit and having each one do more damage would help give them more weight and ground them. It could also indirectly improve the audio experience during group battles.
Yes, balancing this kind of game is very hard, and I want a balanced game too, but sometimes too much balance derives to no fun allowed, and the game becomes bland and meaningless, that's what worries me. Ive seen a lot of games that for the sake of perfect balance they become anti-fun and way worse than how they started.
Some weapons will be better at PvE and some better at PvP, that's true, but I think that's not an issue since people can specialize in whatever they want in this PvX game. Or even have equipment for both modes.
Ah. I often make too many assumptions about what other players consider important. It didn't even occur to me that 'I don't mind which weapon I have to use in what situation' could be a generally accepted feeling for players, given Ashes' other systems, but yeah, I can see it.
TLDR points:
1) Find a middle ground.
2) Shorten frames of rooting and make characters move just a hair, not huge lunging steps per swing - a character should be able to maintain position without constantly needing to back up again or reposition constantly.
3) At the same time, attack and timing should have impact and consequence. Even a split second root can increase the skill ceiling for pvp and pve immensely.
4) Complete removal still feels and looks awful. I don't even need to play it since I played Apoc. It reminds me of a Korean MMO and is very off-putting (for me, personally).
More background:
I believe that there is an achievable middle ground between the two options that were shown in the stream. I know that many out there hate being rooted at all. I believe that a very brief root brings impact and consequence to both pve and pvp. The 2nd approach which Steven said was more Apoc style is very off-putting to me. The feel I got from it instantly turned me off. Please please don't go in this direction.
If they want the skills to feel impactful but not root too heavily, I recommend they look at footage of FFXI circa 2008. Characters could move and the auto-attacks were not "rooted" so much but the weapon skills and spells themselves needed to complete their animation before you could move.
The community rationalized that magic requires concentration and if it wasn't an instant spell, it would root you. If it was instant cast or near instant (.5sec or so) you could still move and pull off a cast. Magic could be interrupted between 20% and 80% but not before or after except by special interrupts and crits.
Melee skills were more direction oriented (turn away from mob and shield bash missed) but skills could be interrupted by hard hits and other skills. Your regular hits could be interrupted just like your skills but it LOOKED heavy, it FELT heavy. It's all in the legs. Legs gotta bend and lung with the strikes. Hips gotta turn, not just the torso. Torso gotta bend with the weight and style of the weapon. You can't run forward and lung simultaneously so even if it doesn't root you entirely it SHOULD slow you down through each animation.
My other thought is that the movement foward with the attacks in the video seemed extreme. Even in real life you can swing a sword without moving several feet foward per swing. Just look at japanese kenjutsu. In fact, you can do it without moving from your position at all, you just move your feet.
If you dialed it back so the rooting and steps forward were slight, it would potentially shorten the frames of "rooting" while allowing a tank to stay still without constantly needing to reposition. You still get a brief moment where mistakes can be punished but it becomes faster and more fluid.
I think it currently could use a lot of work to make it look and feel more natural, like slowing the swing frequency of that particular sword down some. There's several different tweaks that can be tried, like slowing movement speed while swinging, or making only the last swing in the auto attack sequence slow movement but do more damage. Or making it to where it doesn't slow movement speed but you can't sprint while doing it, allowing players being melee'd on to sprint out of it themselves.
How prevalent are auto attacks even going to be in the game? I'd like to know that. Aren't we all going to have a bar full of abilities? Gap closers, gap openers, all kinds of different small damage, medium damage, and large damage abilities that all have their own animations and weightyness.
I think most everything should be animation cancellable. But not ESO style. The damage that an ability does should occur after the animation is done, not before. Or you get ESO animation cancel nonsense.
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What skill advantage do you mean? Are you expecting to be able to dodge NPC attacks in PvE using the movement?
In addition to the attack/movement differing based on your input, I would also prefer to not move so comically far. I think that’s the primary reason people are complaining right now. If it was a STEP forward, or to the side, rather than a lunge I think people would feel a lot better, myself included.
This would solve the issue of feeling like you’re not in control of your character because the movements would be small and the animations would be much shorter.
I'm pretty sure the animation used to be shorter and was changed. I remember it being hell in pvp as you would attack, stop, run up to your opponent, attack again and repeat. Wand users didn't have this issue so they got to kite you for days.
It feels like people think the game is an action game but it isn't. Mobs function the same as a tab system. This isn't action combat where it's a combination of dodging and attacking. All you do is attack. Combat is just attack and use abilities.
I'd like to incorporate root motion in melee combat but I don't think every auto attack needs to have it as it greatly limits what you do during a fight.
I’m well aware the game at its core is tab, regardless of how they sugarcoat it by calling it hybrid. I’m aware the mobs behave exactly like tab target mobs. I advocate for the game to move away from that. Part of the process is making the player move like an action game not a tab game. This recent change is leaning more towards tab, I’m wanting it changed back but tweaked to feel a lot better, read what I said about the tweaks that would feel better.
I don’t just walk up to a mob or other player and just stand still and press the attack key. But a system that facilitates and even encourages that is not good.
It could work if mobs didn’t attack like a tab target mob. Being able to dodge their strikes would make a big difference. If a swordsman begins a swing but you move to the side, out of the arc, it shouldn’t hit you. Right now it does, because you were in range and the computer says whether you got hit or evaded. Don’t want that.
I would like for people to be able to dodge my summons attacks sometimes based on a technical combat decision. I perceive wasd type root attacks allow for this.
I perceive the proposed combat change would either result in the attacks would be almost always dodgeable as you circle around the summon outside its cone, or never dodgeable due to the cone being necessarily wider to make summons not completely useless (thus defeating the intended 'agency the change desires to make.)
But that is how it currently plays.
If people want a combat rework and mobs to function different then we need to talk about that. Requesting one change with the assumption that other large changes will be made is silly.
What am I missing, what is the key selling point of this root animation system that attracts people to it? Because it feels like absolute dog to me, but I must be missing something.
That IS what I’ve been talking about. This is an isolated suggestion, but I’ve been vocal on these forums about what I want from the combat system as a whole. But since this was the most recent, actually noticeable and tangible change I had to speak on it specifically.
In its current form it does indeed feel like “dog” as you put it. We agree. But rather than use another system that feels bad as well, completely weightless, I propose we instead change the previous to be better. You wouldn’t have a problem if the rooting was short and sweet. It wouldn’t even feel like being rooted, it would feel like you just swung a sword. Right now you do this ridiculous lunge forward that takes a long time and moves a long distance, that’s the issue.
Erm, no, it's a joke hence the lol. But this game is going to be an open-world PVP free for all with some action and some tab targeting Sooooo if you can not circle strafe in melee for example as you are locked into forward motion with every attack it will end up being who has the best stats, gear, etc who wins every time regardless of skill. As I am a competent player as opposed to a great player I did not want to make out I expected to have a significant advantage over other players if the skill advantage became important so I made the npc joke. sorry if it caused any confusion.
I think there's a lot of ways to add weightyness and they should all be tried out and tested. Still for the life of me cant figure who or why anyone would like this lunge auto move forward stuff.
I primarily fight with a Spear.
I frequently feel like I've moved forward while in combat - specifically because I am executing lunges.
I also sometimes feel like I'm animation locked.
I think this feels better in New World than it does in Ashes because my targets are also moving and dodging and lunging rather than just standing in one spot, so if I lunge past, it feels more organic... like I miscalculated.
In Ashes, it just feels like I did something I absolutely would not have done.
Got it.
I am not sure if I expect circle strafing to make a real difference in melee aside from being annoying. It might be more correct to say that I hope it does not, because I don't want people picking Summoner just to get the 'my damage source acts like an NPC' so you can just circle it' problem...
This is one of my largest 'complaints' about the idea. I didn't think about how many players want to 'just be able to move even though it doesn't do anything' though, which was silly of me, given how many games are exactly like this.
If people need to be able to circle around (even with little usefulness) for the combat to feel good to them, and those people are in the majority, then so be it. At that point my complaints turn entirely to 'the effect this will have on the level of coolness of PvE' but I have other games I can play for difficult/engaging PvE experience.
100% agree with this. Instead of removing the root animations design they just need to improve upon it. The best combat in games i've played have been rooting combat. Hopefully they realize this and take notes from DS and BDO. People dont like it currently because its implemented poorly
Doesn't this make your character is basically just a sliding dash turret waving a sword around like BDO?
And I'm so curious that how you guys fight bosses or pvp with camera control like lock on target most of time? If so I have to say that is just a tab targeting in action game.
↓Good youtube channel to learn things about creating games.↓
Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1DvRY5PyHHt3KN9ghunuw