Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
I can roll with the 10 slot hotbar that AoC is going to have, and that GW2 does have, as long as there is a big emphasis on combos and/or strings (generally engaging mechanics that make up most of your attack patterns between powerful hotbar abilities).
Including having a block (if using something that can block) that isn’t a skill on my hotbar, but instead just an inherent ability I have on RMB or something.
I also want to be able to cast my abilities freely, without a target. It’s also very easy to forget, heck I almost did while writing this, that we’re confirmed to have some lock-on and some skill shot projectiles and other abilities of both “action” and “tab” categories. Again, as long as those are balanced and make sense, and as long as my previous are implemented I’ll be quite happy and I imagine Dreoh would be on board with that as well.
First of all i want to support the idea that Cicaeda bring about the moving turret feeling on free combat system. Definitely free movement is more visually interesting, but in an RPG where you are going to spend hours, you don't only need good visuals in the system, you need Depth and make movement a strategic decision so you don't get bored of it as it involves thinking.
In the other hand, everyone want the combat to feel fun but i was reflecting on what are the things that make a combat fun, i found 3 aspects/adjectives, that affect the feeling of a combat. Depending on how you will describe the combat on this aspect will define a type of Combat or another. So what I am trying to do is describe what I define as a fun combat related to this aspect.
1. Rewarding. There are player that found rewarding the big damage abilities of attacks that can kill 30 mobs with 2 hits but for me I found boring that type of combat in the RPG. I personally found very rewarding that a game rewards my skill and my thinking in the combat, specifically making a combat based on risk-gain decision when attacking and having a slow fight path with lower enemies but more difficult rather than 30 mobs that auto target you with a specific amount of prefix damaged. So in this regard a I will prefer the Root Motion style of combat that make for a more strategic Risk-reward type of combat. I do Kick boxing, and one of the biggest thinking process that goes into attacking or defending movements against your opponent is that each time you preplan and launch a movement, there is an amount of second that you will need to gain back your balance and position to lunch the next plan movement. Unless you are a Taichi master who sense the enemy balance with out thinking, you need to Root itself for launching attacks. I am explaining this because I feel more connected with a Root motion attack than with a free movement attack system, and there fore find it more rewarding.
On the other hand for the combat to feel good n PvE, I also need the mobs to have an exact system here, and I understand that for an MMO that want to have a strategic combat can be a real pain of IA design for mobs. But for me if a combat has a lot of depth and is a very good combat design, but then the Mobs are not up to the task, all goes down to nothing and can be frustrating.
2. Visually appealing. Impactful, animations weight and pacing, good and nice effect are all part of giving the combat a final touch. For me is an important aspect of the combat but is no what defines the most fun of it. I understand that for a Non strategic combat, a Hotbar type of game, this is the key part of the combat to be up to the task.
3. Challenging. For me the second most important part of a combat, make it challenging. A lot of RPG fail to make the combat challenging and in most of the cases you can always just run away from the combat very easily and have always a feeling of being save. As a lover of Dayz, the feeling that running from a combat is also a Hard decision, making every encounter a decision making process, is the way to go for me. Giving to the combat a good amount of challenging feeling is also a big part of not getting bored in combat.
In any case, i think Intrepid should not lead wich direction they take based on the feeling from these 2 system in such an early stage. In these case is about picturing the feeling in a more polish state.
It's on by default because most players don't seek gameplay so hardcore or really need to pay a lot of attention in a MMORPG I guess, at least not at the beginning, in my experience and as I know most MMORPG players are just chilling out and doing some dungeons or world bosses or RPing or having some shit talking(just those social thing you know) while playing the game and having fun, so few seek gameplay that can be consider hard.
I don't know what Acc vs Eva mean so I can't answer this.
Turn autotarget off because it good for advanced player using offensive skill has mobility and can use with/with out target to chasing or repositioning, and also if you fight a opponent able to stealth a lot and you good at guessing the timing and the position that the opponent might strike you from, you can just throw skill at that place if the opponent is there it will get hitted, I play a mesmer in GW2 so I usually use projectile skill to do this, this need you really aiming and this work better without autotargeting, or your projectile skill can pierce the whole way through energies you can turn off autotarget to have better aiming.
Basically only advanced players turn autotargeting off and use this as a advantage in pvp and wvw and Ashes before NDA lifted looks very similar to GW2, that's why I always think GW2 is good enough base to build from, about 80% fights and opponents you meet in GW2 pvp and wvw are more like you are learning your opponents and try to find their weakness and strike it, and last 20% you will just be one shotted by a real good or outnumbered ganking or because your opponent get a really lucky full crit combo on you and if you using a very aggressive build.
But what ashes have right now just so similar to GW2.
And what game do you play?
True, but that's because it is early and games of all genres tend to look 'generic' and 'do the basics' early. Also, Siege isn't really a good focus since its like, something that happens once a week at best (if you try to attend every Node Siege and so on). It's large and complex, so even in the video you showed, the player basically never needed to melee, and few others did either.
Basically, since this is a question of 'what is good for melee', it's less relevant. Things would be different once we got Fighter class, Weapon Skills, and a general balance pass on damage to account for the addition of those things.
That video might as well have been called "Mage Wars" for the most part.
True, I just can't find melee dueling footage, and when I followed some streams watching two tanks with melee weapon fighting each other looks similar to GW2 to me so I just jump in to conclusion and think it just similar to GW2.
I guess it will not change much when fighter comes out, no matter what they do to balance the essence is same, and what we heard from Steven and what we see in wiki and what we see in game for now are examples, at combat aspect Ashes is more like will be a traditional MMORPG to me, and I'm ok with it, to me it's the hype make this situation I don't know how to describe(sorry English is not my native language).
So If you guys have any idea can improve the game please just post it, and try to be specific like a designer.
I usually just DM to Steven on discord, and hope he have time to read.
I definitely don't think that Ashes has to be like a traditional MMORPG in most ways. The framework and Steven's creative vision allow for a lot of things, many of which you can just 'work backward from things he said' to know how to make them work. Ashes is born from a Tabletop GM's mind.
But the combat is the hard part because it seems less likely that he has 'a very specific vision of MMO combat'. The sort of person that thinks about that in detail (people like myself, or their Lead Combat Designer) is probably trying moreso to 'figure out what people would enjoy' than 'right, let's build this exact thing, and the players will like it!'
Steven probably has similar feelings. "I just want people to enjoy the combat relative to the game's flow".
So if most people want a more traditional MMORPG, that's likely to happen if the innovative stuff gets in the way of it, or upsets those people. The real question is how much innovative stuff you can get into the combat system before people start complaining that it's either too hard, not intuitive, or not enjoyable for them for some other reason.
They can definitely push the limits a bit.
As for 'posting ideas and being specific'... I am way way (possibly way too far) already on that path...
Would you like to give your feedback on some combo systems?
You haven't played it but have such a hard opinion on it?
The game is free, give it a try for yourself and make your own opinions based on experience.
This goes for anyone with an opinion they hold just from "watching videos" towards any subject.
I specifically said I haven't played it to avoid dealing with that specific comment, I can make out what combat I dislike just by looking at it, it looks dull and boring no need to try it. And that's just ignorant to assume that you can't have a strong or right opinion unless you have tried something yourself.
Actually, it's ignorant of you to assume you know how anything is just through secondhand experience.
Imagine thinking you know how skiing feels just watching videos of people skiing.
It's literally free to play. You can form your own opinion, but you actively are refusing to because you have an obvious bias and don't want/care to find yourself wrong if you do actually end up enjoying it.
If you end up not enjoying it, that's fine too, at least then your opinion on it could be respected.
But seriously, it’s totally possible to imagine what you’ll think of something before trying it and be right. Keeping to the subject of gaming instead of your skiing idea, I thought FF14 also looked terribly boring and sure enough it was after trying it too. Same goes for movies that you think will be bad or any activity you think you won’t like (because maybe you know yourself well enough to know what you will or won’t like). That’s not to say you can’t be pleasantly surprised by something you thought you wouldn’t like, but it’s an exception not the rule.
(Disclaimer: Did not play alpha)
Being able to move around freely while attacking feels too floaty for my tastes. In ESO you can freely move around and I dislike the way combat feels there. Even from an observer perspective the combat just doesn't look that appealing. Black Desert locks you in but incorporates that into its combat by making the various strafing movements their own animations/attacks. Someone here also mentioned dark souls. Dark Souls melee combat is probably too restrictive or niche for an MMO but I would love it.
I believe toning down the amount of forced movement with the root attacks will go a long way to giving back more of a feeling of control. It doesn't feel too bad to lock down and commit to an attack but it feels pretty bad to be lunged forward with just your basic auto attacks.
Maybe even still allowing free movement but slowing it down while in the middle of an attack. Kind've like what I think they did with some mage abilities. I just strongly dislike moving around an enemy at full speed while swinging a sword or greatsword. Feels too arcadey. But that's just me.
When it comes to Melee Weapon Attacks with Root Motion Combat, the player should be able to change directions on a pivot between each attack of the combo while still being committed to a forward trajectory. A better reference for my thoughts is Naraka Bladepoint, a new Melee Weapon Combat focused battle royale game that implements Root Motion Combat that looks and feels deliberate with attacks while still allowing player freedom of movement while attacking.
Times from 1:10-1:19 is what I'm describing for the look and feel of Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat:
Notice how the player made a U-Turn with their character simply by attacking with the same sword combo and changing the camera position. The character model's torso and legs look consistent with the attacks while still allowing the player to change directions mid swings. However I do know that changing directions with your mouse while attacking with a Melee Weapon is conflicting with my previous post, I still think the video reference I provided helped to explain my thoughts and Intrepid still may be able to implement this way of Melee Weapon Combat well into the game.
Also I think characters lunging too far during Melee Weapon Attacks is what turned players off from the current Root Motion Combat so I think toning that down a bit (while still having different distances depending on the weapon) may help with future comparisons during testing.
@Azherae You seem to have a solid understanding on different combat systems so please let me know if I explained my thoughts properly on Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat and what are your thoughts about this post?
Thanks to this being brought up, both now and a few days ago, I was alerted to the fact that I should look over Naraka's gameplay.
I wanted to use it as an example of exactly what we've been talking about, so I'm glad that you've done so (I've been overdoing it a bit lately).
It's a much clearer comparison to most of what Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse was like, so it's generally a better comparison.
If you're concerned about the way you presented your thoughts, it was entirely clear to me, but maybe only because I agree with it so much. I don't think anyone at Intrepid will have any difficulty understanding any aspects of your feedback.
I still haven't had time to get a proper in-depth look at Naraka, from the perspective of 'figuring out all the things that would map well to an MMO that chose to use similar timings and ranges', so if you have either played the game or watched a lot of it, my question is how you feel about the differences between weapons.
This video's really great for showing everything though, perfect length too.
The issue I see is that I haven't seen a lot of 'side attacks' in Naraka, mostly just forward attacks and sideways evades. This works for 1v1 games without a lot of 'magic', but not for Ashes. This is probably not an issue in feedback terms, since, again, no one has actually argued overall that 'only forward' should be a thing, but...
Just noting it because if it turns out that Naraka only has 'forward' style attacks, and one says 'Look to this' as a generality, the community has already (probably rightly) said a big 'no' to the way it works. Again, I didn't watch enough to be sure, but, best not to risk a more negative reaction than necessary, especially since one seems to need to watch enough to be sure, bringing us back to Dreoh's point of 'you watched X amount and decided you didn't like it'.
Whether or not it's valid to do that can also depend heavily on what one watches...
The sword looks fast and agile without it looking too sporadic, uncontrollable and overwhelming for the player and opponents.
The great sword has a nice wind up animation that is long enough to know a weighty quick strike is coming while also not leaving the character too vulnerable to enemy attacks, and shows their control of the weapon at the end of its swing with a smooth and slight pause from the character stabilizing their footing.
The spear shows elegant changes in tempo switching from rapid thrusts at one opponent to flowing sweeps at 3 others nearby. The character can also twirl their spear while walking forward and the player can move left or right during the attack
I think what also sells the weight and power of these weapons is their stagger system. From my limited understanding most MMOs don't have a stagger system, especially PVP focused ones, but providing some type of visual feedback like character model flinching/twitching would come a long way.
As for gameplay feel of Naraka Bladepoint I'm not too sure because it can range from linking combos in Street Fighter or button sequences like Tekken.
A very debatable suggestion I might add to complement Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat is to have players and small to medium sized enemies have their position displaced slightly whenever they are hit by Weapon Attacks. I feel like this would allow visual feedback without removing a players control from being staggered. I know this would create many possible issues like Tanking or it could possibly create depth to the role but like I said, a very debatable suggestion...
When I run the 'numbers' this doesn't work for Ashes, because in games like Naraka, part of the reason for combos and the combo system has to do with the way a body 'realistically' can achieve certain strikes.
So let's just assume that regular melee in Ashes shouldn't have stagger/hitstop. This isn't entirely unrealistic beyond 'fantasy world levels of combatant'. You don't always lose your balance when someone hits you with the equivalent of a quick punch, which 'normal swing of a big axe' probably is, to the adventurers of Verra.
I think that no matter how much effort they put into the Hybrid Combat, affording the balance nightmare that stagger would cause, is too much. Just the animation tricks and hit-sparks on the attacker side will probably be enough.
Thanks for the data, I haven't actually seen any Greatsword videos yet, just the little bit from the video you had in your post.
I also just realized that I didn't note why 'sidestep' and 'side-strike' are different and usually need to be different. Sidestep feels natural when it is fast, cancelable, and short distance. In most games, a wide sweeping attack still hits you. Ashes is probably going to have a lot of those.
Side-strike is slower, moves further, and the opponent's goal is to hit you at the end, not at the beginning. The character can spend more time getting fairly far out of the way, or using it to cut off opponent movement. It is a better dodge while still feeling 'realistic'.
Basically, sidesteps make people want cancels and iFrames because they feel like they should have them. Side-strikes at least can be understood as 'this is meant to move far and that's how you dodge', while leaving the 'slight adjustments' part. Also makes people spam less.
New games live or die by how easily they communicate to players what works and why, and sometimes that means 'discouraging them from spamming something because they think it should work if they do'. Naraka does this well for what it is, but the properties of things in Naraka wouldn't be the same in Ashes, so some aspects of it would need to just not be added, even if they would definitely look cooler.
You’re right, though I’m just saying it should be among the other good examples of action combat, definitely not used as the only reference. There may be some good things to take away from the gameplay.
Without sounding too linear on my advocacy towards Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat (pun intended) I'll add another video reference showing side ways attacks with a sword from the Musa class in BDO starting at timestamp 0:54
LOUD INTRO WARNING!!!
Definitely correct, which is part of the problem with this whole flow.
BDO feels good (in certain encounters and in PvP) but is catered toward 'mowing down useless enemies in PvE' so it looks terrible.
Other games feel terrible but make it look like your movement and decisions are mattering when they don't, so they look great.
There's too much nuance to this, and so many different things that people value that aren't connected to each other but feel like they are.
But that's another good reason not to look to BDO too hard either. Everything in that video scares you quite rightly because everything you said about it is true. But notice what most of your points were about. Mob behaviour, not specifically anything else (I can't say why slicing left and right would be fun or not, for any given person, but the sad part is that it's pretty similar in total anyway).
Edit: It's probably not a derail to ask this, so... what do you want from mobs?
Having better player and Ai interactions during combat is a separate discussion but my posts were to showcase references on how Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat can be implemented to make players feel dynamic, deliberate, weighty, and powerful with their attacks without movement being too restrictive.
If I were to discuss my thoughts on player and Ai interactions during the Melee Weapon Free Motion Combat (Also called Split Body Animation Combat) that Intrepid showcased for alpha testing, best example would be of Steven fighting the crab with this mode of combat during the recent Development Update video on Youtube. He simply ran around the crab while auto attacking when it was within striking distance. The crab reacts to Steven doing this by rotating itself in place while playing an attack animation and occasionally walks to Steven whenever he is out of attack range. Numbers start to float nearby indicating damage is being dealt and the occasional Evaded text floats out to show that an attack missed. Pretty much the same scenario with the Lvl 13 Hand of Destruction monster except now it shoots tracking projectiles in place while rotating to match Steven's position and there are purple zones on the ground to indicate Steven needs to move from the area or be damaged. Steven dodge rolls into the monster trying to avoid another incoming attack and to also gap close to damage it. Steven leaves the area to avoid dying and the monster stays at its current location. Combat seems to be a bit more about gear statistics rather than player positioning and execution in this scenario. Hypothetically if your gear says you have a 95% chance to dodge then why press a button to dodge and move out of the way of attacks AOEs?
If the game had Melee Weapon Root Motion Combat with Ai to complement the dynamics between it and the player: Steven would start attacking the crab, committing to its current position, land a few hits causing damage numbers to float by and the crab would react by actively dodging out of the next incoming attack, repositioning itself, causing Steven's combo to miss its final attack animation. The crab immediately starts playing a pouncing animation to visually telegraph it will counter attack with a lunge at Steven's current position. Does Steven react in time? No, he gets hit by a flying crab to the face causing damage numbers to float. Yes, he has several options:
A-Time another attack that causes him to lunge in a chosen direction to dodge the crab's attack and possibly counter hit while doing so
B-Missing the final attack animation causes his character to be in too much end lag which requires him to press the dodge key to cancel the animation and reposition to a safer location
C-The end lag from missing isn't too significant and he can simply move his character to a safer position if timed correctly
D-Block the incoming attack if the end lag from missing isn't too punishing
These scenarios would change and or repeat until one of them is dead. Of course the crab would have more to its move list than dodging then lunge attack but it was a scenario I wanted to provide to explain thoroughly without dragging my post too long
Combos, stagger? Isn't a stagger essentially a stun? I think most people want that in an ability, like "head bop" deals 100 damage and staggers the target for X seconds. Combos, why does the game have to arbitrarily decide you did these 3 attacks in a row, this is a combo, you now get this extra damage or extra effect.
The combo is when I'm a mage, and I cast fire resistance reduction on you, and then I cast fireball on you. I looked at the skills available to me and I choose a finite amount of them to place on my bar. I chose skills that synergize with each other, "combo" if you will. I choose my own combos. Maybe I choose Ice comet, 100 damage and applies slow and follow it up with long cast time magma strike because I know the target is slowed and can't get to me. Combo'd.
The same people that hate "rotations" seem to love combo systems in games, which are essentially exactly the same thing. Except in the combo system the game pigeon holes you and arbitrarily decides this is a combo, you must do this to be optimal. The alternative though allows the player to decide and create their own combos and builds. Player agency. I think that's what most people want.
This comes from a poor implementation or a poor understanding of combos, or from exposure to only specific combo systems.
It does not have to work like that. Most of the time it does not. Optimal comes in only very seldom, and even then the situationality of it varies by enemy, teammates, available resources, health, positioning, etc.
So to someone like me, the thing you call 'combos' are short and much less interesting than my normal experience. I understand that your experience may differ.
I also agree that it's likely that at least 50% of people won't want fighting game mechanics in an MMO. But it is not necessary to 'prevent them from existing for the other 50%'.
So far, I haven't seen any indication that it is 'most people'.
Hybrid Combat is Intrepid currently standing against that method. They believe it can be done. Lots of people originally told them 'just go back to Tab Target, this won't work'. A number of people still say that. But instead they choose to gather feedback, gather data, iterate, and try.
And that's what we're doing. Gather feedback, gather data, and try. The forums are quite familiar with discussing the way various combat systems work, we even delayed a bit because we were waiting for a revamp of Combat from Intrepid to talk about instead of speculating.
I'm not sure we'd even be able to agree on whether we got it, but we got something, so we're giving feedback now.
So here's an example of 'a combo' and 'agency', for 'a Tank'.
A decision about if to use Javelin or Weapon Throw or Bulwark depending on the opponent, both their Archetypes and their playstyle/build.
You don't try to nab a Rogue with Javelin in this situation unless that Rogue didn't build for Evasion.
You don't use Bulwark on a Cleric that has just put down Hallowed Ground on their position to protect themselves if you don't need to, you use Javelin.
You don't use Javelin on a Cleric that put Hallowed Ground down on your position expecting/predicting Javelin, you use Bulwark.
You don't use either on a Bard that has some ability that weakens everyone in close range to them, or on a Fighter who has some powerful close range attack you are worried about. You Weapon Throw at them. In the Fighter's case you force them to use an ability to come to you and then maybe activate a defensive ability.
Then you're back to 'which of my movements should I use?' The advancing Fighter, maybe you can side-step their gap closer, then do your own quick standing attack when they advance, then another defensive ability. Or maybe their health is lower and you can make them worry by following your quick standing attack with another in the basic attack combo, preparing for one of your bigger combo finishers with more range and bigger damage so that they have to dodge and get out of range, but oops, you never used Javelin, since they came to you...
I don't know if you consider this level of play 'normal', 'fighting game mechanics', or 'not combos'. I just know that this is what I would prefer to play, if I were a Tank.
I'm fine with light/auto attacking having a combo effect, as in if you land 3 hits in a row it applies some kind of effect. What I don't want to see is abilities getting combo chains because that just takes away build diversity for no reason. I can create my own "combos" with the abilities I can choose from. Or I can be a bad player and pick an assortment of abilities that have absolutely no synergy. Or I can be a prodigy that picks an assortment of abilities that seemingly have no synergy or at least not the optimal synergy, but make it work spectacularly for specific use/combat situation cases. (Without being penalized because I'm not picking the games arbitrarily chosen "combos")
The game should have a dodge. It already does. There could maybe be more to it. We don't even know how prevalent light/auto attacking is really going to be. I think we have at least 10 abilities on our bar? That should be enough to where something is always off cooldown. But we don't know how long cooldowns will end up being, or how hard resource(mana) management will be. We do know the ttk is supposed to be 30 seconds to a minute.
But I, and I think many people, are not looking to play Chivalry. We want abilities and generally free movement (with some exceptions), and some blocking and dodging. But not infinite dodging with 5 different variations of dodges, rooted forward motion, left click spam combos.