Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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.
Comments
I wholeheartedly agree with all of this.
This to me seems like the option most people are calling for...
Might not be able to trust Twitter for this, though presumably the Community Team reads those anyway.
I appreciate you letting me know that. I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence. The people of Twitter are extremely soft and I would assume the masses who love the change have tried to bury my benign tweet. I know it’s just the reality of social media, but I kind of wish Intrepid wouldn’t engage so much with Twitter.
I agree that this is the best direction to implementing root motion combat. You also gave a great video example on another post of how this can done well on the PC platform with Genshin Impact
I'm not asking for AoC to play exactly like Genshin Impact but I think it's the best game to reference from if Intrepid Studios wants to improve their root motion combat and help make their MMO stand out from the others in its genre. Otherwise the free motion combat just makes it look like ESO's with a new coat of paint and a node system, which in my opinion doesn't seem too appealing to me
Also a personal request, have the game be fully controller supported. Although FF14, BDO and ESO have console releases, I believe simply having full controller support on a PC exclusive game can broaden your audience without having to go cross platform. If you guys decide to do this then there has to be a Ui that changes depending on what's inputted, but that's a discussion for another time...
Thank you guys for your receptive team and hard work! Can't wait to see the next updates!
Genshin impact is a PvE game, the combat style would be very bad for the kind of PvP game Ashes is, since it almost entirely utilizies locking on to enemies. If you took away locking onto enemies, you'd just get the current iteration of rooted combat in Ashes lmao.
I actually think it makes it look more like GW2 combat, which is extremely appealing to me, and many others.
EDIT: Also GW2 is extremely boring combat.
You know, I've never figured out (and obviously never asked, until now)...
What exactly is it you find boring about GW2 combat? Also, do you have a main class in BDO? That second one is curiosity. For the sake of argument let's say 'main class' is 'highest one past 56 that you'd take into PvP'.
Sure no problem, so I don’t like GW2s combat because of the following:
- it doesn’t feel like there’s any weight or physics
- It’s incredibly simple and repetitive (you press 1-5 for all attacks, and 6-0 for special abilities, usually buffs or some sort of CC but these aren’t your bread and butter, almost never needed).
- The game is tab. The devs themselves call it a hybrid, but yet even in the action camera mode the game locks on for you and a computer decides if you hit or miss, it’s tab with a dodge roll to escape AOE, that’s all.
I will add that I’ve tried 3 classes in that game including the main that I took all the way into end game which was Elementalist who has the most possible ability variation and I still found it to be very uninteresting.
As for your second question, my main in BDO was Valkyrie, which is weird for me because I usually choose a type of mage first. The Valkyrie felt like it had enough magical ability while being really cool and different though, so I enjoyed it a lot.
I see, cool. I have watched a lot of GW2 stuff and I feel like I understand. I honestly never bothered to play it partially because of the reasons you said.
I think I've never outright said it due to the role I was aiming for in the other thread, but I prefer Action Combat, I just never assume any MMO can actually deliver it and still be something most players will enjoy, because the difficulty of convincing a certain player type that it isn't too difficult is, in itself, too difficult.
All the pieces required for it are still in place, as of now, at least. From what I understand before, the gap between what you consider good combat and boring combat lies more in the targeting and combo systems, and dynamism of requirements in combat.
I was gonna say I was surprised you like BDO, but I don't think you've ever technically said that you liked actually playing BDO, just the combat system as a whole.
On the note of the other thread, I've really grown to appreciate the work you've put into gathering data for it. I can't recall if you've said what your favorite example(s) are for Action Combat? I'm curious too now.
But you're right, it's going to be a very tough task if not impossible to swing the system for AoC towards what we want. The polls have shown it's what most want, so we'll see.
BDO is a game I enjoy the combat for, definitely. I played for the first year (and once recently for a short period). After that first year, when I was somewhere around 58/59, and the honeymoon phase was over it hit me. Why am I playing this? Sure it's incredibly fun, mechanically. But there was no point to the game outside of extremely sweaty PvP that was a massive zerg fest and almost entirely gear score dependent.
I needed PvE content. I needed dungeons and raids. I needed a reason to go out and do a sea monster hunt. Those were fun, the only real PvE content in the game, but they were incredibly unrewarding and didn't make up for not having dungeons and raids.
It's hard to answer because the only Action Combat I actually like in that sense is the one my group built (basic MMO style Action Combat in the Godot game engine).
If I had to settle for one MMO option, it is actually also Neverwinter, since I think people would nearly unanimously (myself included) class Absolver as a fighting game. I've seen indications that I would have liked Blade and Soul, but never had time to get into it, so I'm not sure. Monster Hunter can be good too but it has too many iFrames and too much hitstop/knockdown scenarios for an MMO to be based off it, and the movement is also unsuitable (I play Insect Glaive in MHW).
I feel like I could enjoy BDO if TTK (from first hit) wasn't basically <10 seconds, but BDO is a bunch of iFrames too, and something about the targeting always feels wrong to me, even when I'm winning.
Haven't tried Neverwinter. I tried Blade and Soul briefly but couldn't get into it. Monster Hunter was cool but I only tried the beta or trial or something like that. Was a little slow for me but the rest was good, might have been just a bad class.
So about the TTK in BDO. That's an issue when you're at a massive gear score descrepancy, but honestly in the few fights I had in the open world I found it to be incredibly intense and very close with one memorable duel in particular that lasted like 1 or 2 full minutes.
Also, my guild would gather every Friday night in one of the town arenas, a different one each week, and we'd spar with each other. 1v1s, 2v2s, 4v4s, etc. We'd do some games with a balanced gear score, others where we'd have 1 full gear player versus 2 or 3 lesser geared players. Such a fun series of events.
Now sure, those are your opinions, but at least have consistency in your opinions or have them based in reality.
It sounds more like you just hate hotbar-based games than GW2 specifically.
Tried playing action mode on mage and played it like i was playing TAB, didn't even try to hover over enemies with the crosshair. Not having to aim your Fireball and Drain Essence felt weird with having so many AOEs you need to aim
Summary of Testing
1. Action mode should reward you for having good aim
2. Should not be able to use TAB to target enemies in Action Mode (Should target friendlies)
3. Add Focus target (TAB mode cycles targets like now, separate keybind for Focus Cycle like shift+tab) (Action Mode mouseover shows target like now, TAB cycles between frendlies and puts them on focus) + add Keybind for Cast on Focus Target
4. Should be able to use abilities anytime you want even without having a target
5. Projectiles should go where you are aiming and not auto home on target
Example
Cleric Divine Censure, Judgement, Mage Fireball, Tank Javelin, Weapon Toss + Projectile Weapon Attacks Should fire off to the location you are aiming at the end of the animation. (Mage Drain Essence plays good now but #2)
6. Should be able to press abilities if you are holding down LMB to weapon attack (letting go to press an ability works better in TAB but is clunky as hell in Action Mode)
7. Free Movement is the way to go, do not add gap closers or root motion to Weapon Attacks (These should be abilities)
8. PvP NEEDS to be turned on for future tests
9. Had an idea of adding cast bars to abilities that have a cast time and actually having to hold down the key to cast the ability, if let go the ability would cancel and not do dmg
10. Add Bows and Ranger
I expect that you'd find Monster Hunter slow. It is, by comparison and by nature. Lots of realistic (I say this while playing a weapon that lets you fly) movements and timings.
I didn't play BDO back in what I hear were the 'good old days'. These days, TTK is like that in the other sense. The community managers themselves personally respond to this on streams with 'don't get hit, bro' (still love 'em, it's the only answer they can give, shoutouts to Trent and Shirna).
This is interesting, you say you 'can turn off auto-targeting', so it is on by default? If a player just 'played normally', those shots would all 'automatically hit' or at least do so based on some Acc vs Eva thing? I don't want to assume you meant that, but if you did, why would one ever turn it off?
Oh boy, here we go.
- Obviously the entire thing is opinion
- I think you're taking your own confusion or misinterpretation and trying to spin it as me making a ridiculous argument. Yes it's true 1-5 are dependent on your weapon. It's also true 6-0 are your class skills. In no way at all does that change the fact that much of the combat involves pressing about 5 keys, as I said before. Idk if you find GW2 hard or something but it definitely doesn't have difficult "rotations".
- Definition of "hybrid": a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture. So I don't care what nonsense you try to tell yourself, but GW2 is not a "hybrid" just because you can replace your cursor with a reticle. There's a lot more to an action combat system than a reticle. Now even if I wanted to loosen up the definition for you, it's still overwhelmingly a tab target game. It would be like 95% tab and 5% action if it could somehow be measured. Also, projectile skills literally cannot be considered action-based in GW2 because they have to lock onto target. You either aim at nothing and fire at nothing, or you aim anywhere near an enemy and your skill locks on and cannot miss. Nothing action about it buster.
An astute observation. I absolutely hate hotbar-based games, but in case you didn't notice I was asked a question specifically regarding GW2 and why I don't like it.
Why so aggressive Dreoh? I thought we came to an understanding about this topic long ago.
GW2 is as many people frequently state, a casual leaning game, so keep that in mind.
There honestly is no real reason to turn off autotargeting other than wanting full control or full immersion. In PvP I personally have it turned off because I don't want the game to select my targets for me and begin auto-aiming at the wrong person, but that's entirely personal preference.
GW2 has no accuracy or evasion stat, which I absolutely prefer, since I abhor chance-based "hit or miss" mechanics like those. The only way to avoid a "tracking projectile" or beam is to hide behind terrain (since all projectiles and beams collide with terrain, barrier spells, etc.) use an ability that gives you i-frames, or to use your i-frame dodge roll with good timing.
There are also many utility moves that you can use to react to various abilities.
In PvP it's common sense to have at least one reflect/block/evasive ability and/or one cleanse ability
Tracking projectiles and beams are usually limited to the basic auto-attack or limited in other ways like cooldowns or not being damage focused because they are less skill based.
Now while GW2 is a casual leaning game, it's combat system was created with PvP as a main focus (they were trying to tap into the MLG market at the time) and all classes are balanced relatively well even with their entirely unique skillsets.
GW2 combat is very reactive compared to most other MMO's since each skill on your hotbar is entirely unique. There is a far less emphasis on rotations than most other MMO's.
You were asked about GW2, but you started making anti-hotbar arguments instead of GW2 specific arguments and framing them as GW2-specific arguments, which is why I countered with GW2 specific counter-arguments.
I see you did not watch the video I made that I linked where I visibly disprove this entire argument.
Then I have to agree with @Cypher personally in terms of definitions, though I absolutely see your point.
If you can tab target, would never have a reason not to, and once you get to 'sticky reticle' position, your opponent's only counters are delineation and iFrames, that means with what I know of the rest of GW2's battle system, it's definitely tab-target (only because you have no good reason to turn it off).
Similarly, players who play positioning-heavy action combat games (whether or not this style is suitable for MMOs is a different question) will find them uninteresting once 'positioning' is figured out. The difficulty of the latter for any specific person depends on a lot of things.
So, please consider that Cypher (and myself) may be so relatively good at a very specific thing, that GW2's combat feels understimulating.
I however, disagree with Cypher sometimes on the degree to which an MMO like Ashes should cater to people with that skillset/innate 'mental advantage'.
I don't even care about the root motion vs split body debate except that people keep saying they want Action Combat, and the reasons they gave in my data scrape were all 'it's more engaging' or oddly 'tab target takes less skill'.
If people want 'meaningfully greater skill' in their Action Combat (and aren't talking about only PvP), they can't also want the current implementation of split body attack style unless they don't want balance.
GW2 has balance. something that looks like Action Combat (but for some people, isn't), and less 'skill'.
If you're familiar with the old StarFox games (or if not, they're easy to find game footage of), they're one of the best ways I've ever found to put this in perspective. Not necessarily 'the correct' perspective, just mine, (and probably Cypher's)
Tab Target would be 'select an enemy on the screen and hold down the fire button, and your shots will move toward that target', and your opponent's shots do the same, and you keep barrel-rolling whenever something fires at you, to deflect the shots.
Hybrid will be 'you benefit from actually pointing the shots at the ship yourself in some way, but you don't have to'. Also, do a barrel roll!
Hybrid with Split Body adds the ability to move your ship! Now all those annoying enemies that would literally crash into you back when you couldn't move your ship at all, can be avoided! You can even move out of line of sight to make some shots fail their targeting. Keep rollin'...
A 'serious' StarFox player would laugh at all these and say 'no, make me target all my shots myself, and stop enemy shots from locking on to me, what even is this?' An 'opponent' of that player's perspective then says 'well if you can just move out of the way of enemy shots, they would have to shoot a lot more for it to be interesting'.
(Ground target stuff are Bombs in this analogy, so they're an interesting addition, but they don't affect any of the scenarios enough for me, the ability to move out of the AoE of the bomb does not make the rest of the game more interesting)
(I hope this is still making sense).
At some point people get hung up on the semantics of 'whether or not the game is more skilled or more interesting' based on this. It doesn't matter, they're different games at that point.
I oppose the people who want to be able to move the ship out of line of sight and call that skill, while changing nothing else about the game, while implying that they too, want 'serious StarFox'. Even if they are making a mistake. Explaining to them 'no, that's not serious StarFox, that's something else and not what was promised', and then showing them 'serious gameplay' is the inflection point.
If they go 'oh that's great more of that', then they really did want (in our analogy) Action Combat. If their response is 'oh, wait, no, that looks limiting, I'd have to do XYZ all the time' or 'that will just make the enemies shoot too much for me to play', they didn't.
What I really don't want is 'a Tab Target game where the enemies are designed as turrets (analogy)' that calls itself Action Combat because you can get out of their line of sight, and that's what GW2 seems to be (if no one turns off autotarget). Shots can't miss randomly, so do a barrel roll!
Take GW2 combat and just remove tracking projectiles, or severely limit them.
The thing is, it's only tracking projectiles that are "tab target" in GW2, and like I said, they are really only used in the auto-attack abilities and a few other skills, though it is true that most of the ranged non-tracking projectile abilities are ground-target. This is something that would be improved upon.
Melee abilities and everything else are frontal cone or other action-type mechanics. Because of this, I still consider it actual hybrid.
If melee attacks only hit the person you targetted and weren't all frontal-cone AoE, it would be Tab-Target like you said.
Then it sounds like we're all 'in agreement'. If it's not too out of line, therefore, I'll ask that you generally not push too hard on Cypher's reactions to GW2 combat and discussions thereof.
We don't actually know how many of the people who say they enjoy GW2 combat are also in the camp of 'people who believe it is mostly just a decent start', as opposed to 'don't make it more strict than this', so if your perspective is 'this is good but needs somewhat less tracking', you might not actually be in line with them, and rebuffing Cypher might lead to confusions or missed opportunities for discussion.
I feel like the best way to handle projectiles is simply 'reduce the damage by some percentage based on how far off the center of the cone you are when you use it'. This also is a situation where lag can be bad but not crippling. i.e. a player who has moved away from your perfectly lined up shot, on the server side, but you can't see that, still takes damage as long as they didn't actually get all the way out of your attack cone.
If they were closer to the edge and you see that your attack missed, it's far less annoying and moreso something you could 'recognize is because of server lag' instead of either 'I have to be perfect, but my ping makes that practically random' or 'Evasion chance makes the difference here so it is actually random'.
This could also fit Intrepid's stated model of 'making RNG matter much less in Action Combat mode'.
The Combat Discussion thread should probably swing back toward Sticky Reticle discussions, this conversation has reminded me of that good aspect of Neverwinter again.
Regarding locked movement vs free movement combat. I have no access to alpha and test it myself but i'm following the alpha closely through streamers.
I've seen many people talking about how free movement feels better and more fluid than locked movement while people that prefer locked movement simply say that free movement is ridiculous and trash talk the free movement first, and then give some arguments against it.
One aspect that many don't even think about is: what about melee vs ranged? Mage class had free movement before melee. If final desicion on the subject falls on locked movement, wouldn't melee be on disavantage to ranged classes?
Locked movement:
- it may impact positively on army formation
- realism
- requires the player's skill to position themselves
- weight on the combat
- elegance (imho, positioning skill is more elegant because require thinking before acting)
Free movement:
- requires the player's skill to be more agile and attack while circling the opponent (this is kind of silly but it's common on gaming)
- combat seems more fun (this may very well be more important than all the other factors)
- makes it easier to balance melee vs ranged auto attack combat trades
Suggestion:
- should include strong attack on left-click hold (like any other game, strong attack always lock movement and it's risk vs reward. Also makes great possibility to capitalize over the opponent on pvp, specially on 1v1's)
In my opinion, this is a real dilemma! I like both styles but i'm gonna go with free movement because it worked for me on the past (when i played archeage).
Thank you for your attention!
I could be very wrong about how most games implement this, but I feel the opposite.
I feel that ranged has the advantage more when I have no good lunges in Free Movement. And I don't necessarily mean 'I don't want ranged to escape', I mean 'fine I'll just use ranged attacks instead of bothering to chase you'.
I don't really feel like it makes it easier to balance, because right now, moving backward while using attacks drops your movement speed to what looks like 66-70% (I haven't bothered to do analysis on the recordings we did for precise numbers). Forward moving attacker would therefore catch up in 8 seconds max at the current ranges if no CC stops them, leaving the question to be 'how many gap closers does this class have'.
But I can't say it makes it harder either, it's just a question of what 'balanced' ends up looking like.
Additionally, everyone can use ranged weapons, so...
Is that with the fact that there is none of the effects to add that weightiness taken into account?
The sound fx, the slower animations, the particle effects and weapon trails, etc.
I'm asking genuinely, I don' mean for that to come off as antagonistic if it does.
Alright, well I certainly understand that viewpoint, as I do enjoy New World's combat for what it is.
I do personally enjoy more mobile combat systems more though, and this is one of those cases where I personally feel better gameplay combat should trump more immersive combat.
That's not to say mobile combat can't be immersive, I just think limiting gameplay for that immersive "weightiness" is why so many people are put off by New World's combat.
There's also a huge difference between weight in kinematics and weight in impact.
Animators often create weight in impact by stopping the animation at the specific impact point for a few frames, usually 3-5 depending on the speed of the game. Then shorten the recovery animation frames by the same 3-5.
When you miss, it plays out the other way. The point where it would have hit, plays faster, the end recovery is slower. It's a pretty trivial trick, but like many others in the industry, it works better than anything else, often by a fairly large margin. An easy test is to watch a game's combat videos with the sound muted. If you are a gamer generally you may still be able to 'hear' the impacts mentally if this is being done.
When your weapon hits multiple enemies in one swing, you still just stutter or stagger the frames on first impact, and the human eye can't follow it usually. People like me might notice, but I haven't met anyone who dislikes that either.
Without that part of the animation right now, weight of impact will feel weird, but if we're talking about weight in kinematics, the 'problem' @Teyloune is having is almost certainly related to the literal disjoint of upper and lower body.
Interestingly, New World (from what I've seen) seems to be inconsistent with the technique mentioned? How strange... probably just me.