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.
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.
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
No, it's not a fighting game and I never said it was.
I was arguing about PvP and using the genre that is PvP entirely throughout as precedence.
The genre might be different and have different gameplay and mechanics yes, but the standards of what's fair and balanced in PvP across any genre doesn't change. It's a bit disingenuous for you to say my comment holds no weight here.
Funny you say that, because there are plenty of fighting games that do that.
I know you tried to get me in a "gotcha" argument, but you actually further prove my point.
Smash bros, Rivals of Aether, Street Fighter x Tekken, Marvel vs. Capcom 4 as just a few examples all have some kind of optional-or-not equipment/stat choice system.
In every single one of those, they are NEVER used in serious competitive play or are disliked by the majority of the community.
Many games with these systems being forced will enact a "standard" set that everyone is required to choose in competitive play.
Now as to how this relates to RPG PvP?
Obviously stats and equipment are a major focus of RPG's, so you can't just ignore an entire part of a game for the sake of standardized PvP in a game like Ashes. (Though some games like GW2 have standardized PvP sets and stats for the standardized PvP mode, because they understand what makes balanced/fair and competitive PvP)
The way you solve this is by not having RNG as a factor. It's as simple as that. This has been rehashed in many other combat-related threads, but accuracy, evasion and spell full-resistance stats should not be a thing if you want competitively viable, fair and balanced pvp. Your win should be determined by your actions and reactions, not by the roll of a die or many dice over the course of a battle.
Instead of these flat-out anti-competitive RNG stats, you should add more utility to the player to be able to react to abilities and damage.
Instead of "Thats a strong ability, it should have a chance to miss"
It should be "That's a strong ability, the opponent should be able to react"
or
"That's a strong ability, it should have some kind of heavy cost that the enemy can exploit"
To argue that RNG is necessary is to argue for complacency and laziness in combat design.
Unless you just want RNG for fun the way casual Smash players play with items, then ignore all of my comments on this matter. But then it's not a competitively viable or fair/balanced PvP system anymore.
Absolver
Yeah, that's the direction I would lean to as well. There are tradeoffs with a spec and gear. For instance, investing in 'to hit' instead of 'dmg per hit' so I would hit more often, but for less. Or 'dmg per hit' instead of 'to hit' so I have a higher % chance to miss, but my hits do more dmg. Or a balance between the two. Or I invest in both, but I then don't spend the points in another part of the tree to get "BF DPS ability."
This is very much how builds in Path of Exile are managed (let's set the META part of that game aside for the sale of this discussion).
If it's a fighting game first and foremost, with RPG elements, those RPG elements are going to take a backseat to the PvP combat.
To say otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.
I know you have some kind of hard-on for the traditional/nostalgic mechanics of RPGs @Dygz based on your stances in every other thread, but that doesn't change the reality of the argument.
If you want more immersive/fun PvP and aren't worried about how competitively fair/balanced it is, then yes, RNG is perfectly fine. No different to playing Smash with items casually, or Street Fighter x Tekken with gems casually.
The "This isn't a Fighting Game" is a strawman argument to completely circumvent the points I brought up.
Because if you're going to severely limit RNG, you're probably going to make a game that is a different genre than RPG.
Which is why, in Ashes, the devs have made it clear that they are balancing for 8v8 with rock/paper/scissors. It's also why Steven has said that if it's a choice between Tab Target and Action Combat, he's going to go with Tab Target.
You know how you avoid this whole scenario of having to have to focus on building around an obviously broken mechanic?
Don't implement the mechanic.
Now players can focus on more engaging parts of combat instead of getting that "necessary" stat.
It's like how everyone in Monster Hunter just stacks Attack+ gear and gems because it's outright just the best stat and all the Element+ gear and gems are never used because they are all inferior to just raw attack damage.
Monster Hunter could easily solve that issue the same way. By removing the Attack+ bonus stat and balancing the rest of the game to accommodate it.
Now people can be more creative in their builds instead of always building the obviously optimal stat.
Yes I'm aware you think RNG is synonymous with RPG.
It's outright ridiculous and damaging/limiting to the genre.
RNG is a fundamental aspect of RPGs, so no...RNG is not at all damaging to the RPG genre (nor to MMORPGs).
A traditional aspect yes, but saying fundamental is laughable.
You can have stats (which are a fundamental backbone of RPGs), and stat-based combat with or without RNG.
I'm sorry, I have no idea what this is an analogy for or even what you're trying to say here lol
My assumption was you would name a few games, and then I would ask what their community thought of those systems- to which you would have to answer with the above.
But hey, we're there now. So cool.
People in those games dont like it. They want static characters with known abilities and known combat.
That is because fighting games cater to a specific game desire.
MMO's cater to a different game desire. You ask the MMO population in general if they want to get rid of gear and builds, and you'll just be laughed at.
If you want a game without RNG, where everything is known, you have both fighting games and FPS games.
If you want a game where build matters, where there is more to combat than you would ever be able to factor in before hand, then MMO's are your jam.
It made me feel that just a “luck” stat doesn’t bother me as much for some reason. Have it effect all the things they want to have RNG in, crit, disable, disable resist, accuracy, evasion at different rates. Don’t ever tell us how much it effects each specific stat.
Except.... Absolver exists. They have gear. The gear fine tunes their play style. Absolver isn't the same if you take away the gear because you no longer gave the same fine tuning. There isn't rng in Absolver.
I'm not arguing that equipment and stuff shouldn't exist or that someone can't have higher stats than another person, as that is a part of RPG's yes. That's a different argument than the one I was making though, and I don't think some people are properly separating the arguments.
You can have mostly fair/balanced pvp with stats.
It's when some of those stats are RNG stats that it becomes unfair/uncompetitive PvP.
GW2 is a good example of an RPG game with (mostly) RNG-less PvP. It has a Structured PvP mode and a WvW, gear-based PvP mode.
Structured PvP aside, WvW mode is exactly what you're describing. Your gear matters, but even if you're weaker, you can tell that you're weaker based on the damage being done. You don't get RNG-fucked by their higher dodge chance or your lower accuracy chance where otherwise you played beautifully.
When @CROW3 was saying "Different genre, context changed and matters", he was being disingenuous because he was missing the point of the argument. The argument is "What makes a fair/balanced PvP" and RNG as I have described many times goes directly against that argument.
You can have stats and stat-based combat. You don't need to mix in RNG beyond a very minor amount.
Have someone with better gear just be stronger, no need to make them more lucky. That's where the "context change" comes in to play.
We should know what the RNG is affecting.
Now... it may be that my Evasion is going to be covered just by Dex instead of broken down into sub-stats... but, I should still know that my Crits will be governed by Strength while my Accuracy is governed by Dexterity.
And RNG will still be a factor in all of that. Because RPGs are about the characters more than they are about the players.
Absolver is an ARPG.
Also, it does have RNG. Not as much as an MMORPG, but it has some.
That's just what's on the wiki, which may be out of sync (especially since Jeff's departure), but that's what they have documented, so let's take it at face value. It sounds like this basically aligns to what I mentioned earlier.
I don't think there's anything disingenuous in my point. I wasn't implying that your perspective held no weight, only that the context for pvp in an MMORPG is different than pvp in the fighting game you mentioned, or say an FPS. And frankly that's accurate. If a player expects the same pvp standards in an MMORPG arena as in an FPS, they need to adjust their expectations to take some level of RNG into account. That said, I think the RNG % can be quite low say 1-3%, not significant, but present.
Also, PvP isn't a game genre it's an element of any given game in any given genre.
(though I would make the distinction between an mmoRPG and an mmoFPS)
Ah, I guess that would include something like Destiny?
But, if we're in a discussion about PvP combat mechanics in an "MMO" it's important to know what type of "MMO" it is.
Saying it has rng because it has loot drops is incredibly disingenuous when the question was regarding battle mechanics. It has no rng battle mechanics. Also 'ARPG'? How is this any different from an mmo? Pvp, pve, dungeons, gear, abilities...
Absolver is an Online Melee Action game.
The developer describes it as "a combat game that's about making friends".
If you look up Absolver on Twitter - it bills itself as an Online Melee Action game.
It does not say Absolver is an RPG. Because the game is primarily about combat and making friends.
It might have some RPG elements, but it is not an RPG.
Just as American football is not soccer.
I hope I am reading this right.
You are concerned that if the good "Hard CCs" are limited to skill shots. Only highly skilled players will benefit from them? It also seems like you are worried that skill shots will increase the skill gap between skilled and unskilled players more. This would limit unskilled players to only being able to use "Soft CCs".
You also gave some plausible examples of how skill shots may influence the balance of the game relating to class and roles. To me, that is all very speculative at this point and not very helpful when it comes to the design goals around CCs in PvP. It could be a case of every class has access to a form of any CC and no class is better at resisting CC. I just don't know how relevant those examples would be as the game develops. I like talking about these things, but I want to stay on the main topic of CC as it relates to RNG in this tread if I can.
Without knowing how the hit boxes or meta will be. I think the idea that skill shots being higher risk moves with higher rewards as a design philosophy is something I like. Yes, I understand that it alienates unskilled players. Part of the beauty and curse of open world PvP is that there is no ELO matching. This means that if someone recognizes that, they are not going to be the guy that lands his big aimed stun often. Maybe he is the guy who throws out a tab-targeted slow (Soft CC) to help his more skilled ally. There is nothing wrong with players recognizing where their skill level is and playing to it. No one started pro. The hope would be that over time, a player grows and learns to incorporate more attempts at hard aimed CC in their play style.
I don't know specifically what Intrepid means by "Hard CC" and "Soft CC". My guess is long duration less forgiving CCs (Stun, Sleep) vs short duration CCs where you can still do some things(slow, silence). If this is the case, both are valuable.
I also hope I did not miss the point of your post with all of this.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
There are other RNG elements to the game than just loot - or at least, there was in 2017 when I played it for about two days (the game is actual shit).
However, lets ignore that for a second, and discuss the validity of even bringing this game in to the discussion.
First, the way Absolver keeps people in the game is by making specific loot so rare, that you literally play the game for months without a single upgrade, even when you know there are a dozen or more items that you would want. Rather than allowing players any hand in creating items, they put it on a 100% RNG system.
While you may well think that this doesn't mean anything in this discussion, you would be wrong in that. You do not look at a game system in isolation, you look at it in the context of the game.
If Absolver had a loot system where you could make your own items, the average length of time a player would be in the game until they were "finished" with it would be measures in days, rather than months (or, in the case of some unfortunate people, a few years).
Having a game with low RNG in combat and low RNG in gear means the game has no personality (to be fair, the game has no personality with it's low in combat RNG - removing it from loot would just strip away the last remains).
All we need to do is look at the steam reviews. While I am not a fan of actually listening to peoples opinions on games, it is worth looking at the number of people that have left reviews - as that tells us more than what the reviews themselves ever could.
Absolver was released in 2017, the same year as Divinity 2, Resident Evil 7, Horizon Zero Dawn, Middle Earth; Shadow of Mordor and For Honor (there were also some fairly big releases that year, but lets not get too involved).
Absolver has 9.6k reviews. Over four years, that is less than an average of 7 people per day. Even if the reviews are all fantastic, that is a fairly low number.
Divinity 2 has 110k, Horizon Zero Dawn has 42k, Resident Evil 7 has 33k, Middle Earth; Shadow of Mordor has 43k - even For Honor, a game largely panned at the time as being fairly shit, has almost 60k reviews.
The reason I am bringing these numbers up is because if you are going to point to a game and say "Ashes could do things like this", then that game should at least be somewhat popular. It's easy to find examples of what ever you want to show - if you don't limit it to games that are actually enjoyed by people.
An ARPG is all about the combat system - this is because there is literally nothing else. If the games combat is good, the game will be popular - look no further than Path of Exile for this. It is complex, and it has elements of RNG in the combat, and it has 160k reviews on steam (though it has been out a little while longer than Absolver - though the number still works out to about 55 reviews a day for 8 solid years).
What this means is that if you are going to point to a game that is not popular, and then say that a game should take that games key mechanic and implement it in another game, then you really should re-evaluate your position in the online debate at hand.
I mean, the fact that you can only really cite a single game that is four years old and not overly popular as something to look at and say "do combat without RNG" should really tell you something - let alone tell the rest of us something.
That is the wrong question to ask. If Intrepid want fair, they need look no further than chess. Fair and balanced is understood well enough, and is not Intrepids goal with Ashes (they have told us as much, remember?).
Rather, the question that should be asked is, "what is it players find engaging in MMORPG's"
For almost all MMO players, the answer to that is threefold in terms of what pertains to our discussion.
The first is worthwhile character progression without introducing power creep.
The second is having multiple and varied viable build options, each with specific strengths and weaknesses.
The third is to avoid a combat situation where mindless ability rotations are all that is needed.
Now, you may look at this and think to yourself that there is no RNG at all in any of that, and you are right.
However, if you consider what is needed to make these things happen, you will see how RNG is kind of needed.
Lets look at the third of the above first, as the first two go hand in hand and need to be considered together.
If players want to not be in a game where rotations are king, literally the only way to get there is for things to be different from time to time. The only way for this to happen is for things to involve RNG. Some RNG can be good (a percent chance that any skill will have it's cooldown halved, for example), and some RNG can be bad (a chance that a spell doesn't land).
The thing with this though, is that what is good and what is bad is flipped for your target. To them, you having a spell cooldown cut in half is bad, and you having a spell resisted is good.
Also, the entire argument of "it's frustrating" is kind of pointless. Games are supposed to be frustrating at times, that is what makes them fun when we win.
Now on to the other two points
In order to have actual character progression, there needs to be things to progress. Lets say that I want there to be 1,000 progression points from when I roll my character, all the way up to being the best that is possible in the game.
We can't just have that as 1,000 opportunities to grab a generic "more damage", as that would be the definition of power creep. Rather, we need to break that progression down in to many different things. We want progression of "more damage", but we also want "more survivability" in there as well.
So now, in order to hit our 1,000 progression points, we only need to give the player 500 "more damage", and 500 "more survivability". However, even this is still too many, we want to take that down to no more than 50 "more damage", so that we don't have power creep.
This means we need to add in more different things for players to progress. We can break "more damage" down in to "more DoT damage" and more "AoE damage", and that "more survivability" in to "more HP" and maybe "more armor", perhaps even "more resists".
The thing is, the more of these things we can get in to the game, the more actual progression we can offer our players without power creep ever setting in. Also, the more of these things we have, the more we can create classes and builds to focus on any one of them.
If "more survivability" was where developers left things, then that isn't something to build a character around. If that "more survivability" was broken up in to "more HP", "more armor", "more block", "more resists" and "more avoidance", then all of a sudden you have the basis for not just a tank class, but several distinct tank classes.
Same with damage. If it were just "more damage", then that isn't really interesting. On the other hand, if it is "more fire damage", more backstab damage", "more bow damage", then you already have three different damage class bases right there - break each of them down further, and you have multiple unique fully fledged DPS classes.
If we just have CC's that only hit, then we don't have a means to build a class around them. If we add in some interest to CC mechanics, then we can build an entire class around dealing out CC, and an entire class around preventing/removing CC.
In order for this to work though, there needs to be multiple different systems related to CC. A stat to increase/decrease CC duration is one such system, but so to is a stat for resisting them outright.
---
So basically, what this whole debate comes down to is some people feeling occasionally frustrated that a CC doesn't land on a target - vs allowing the game to break free from rotations (requires in combat RNG), and also allow multiple builds/classes based on dealing out and defending against CC (requires multiple systems related to CC's).
When this is put in perspective, the argument seems silly to me.
Challenging and more involved.
-RNG = Build the OP/meta class with a +skill or template. Farm your opponent because they have no defence to your 100% hit rate. Then all it comes down to is who clicked first and/or who has a greater latency.
Not challenging and less involved.
This started by a discussion of 'if there are fighting games that allow you to make your own build'. The answer was yes.
Absolver's combat does not contain RNG mechanics beyond the standard Rock Paper Scissors moment-to-moment interactions that have been brought up other times. It is a fighting game. A large part of why it is not popular is that it is an extremely complicated fighting game made by an indie studio, and offers little else.
The gear in Absolver serves the exact same purpose as gear or choices in a MOBA or similar. MOBAs thrive on builds, and do not need RNG. You can argue that 'therefore if you don't have enough RNG you have made a MOBA', but there is no good argument why a persistent world MMO that incorporates Action Combat should not be more like a MOBA when that Action Combat is in play.
In fact, if this is not Intrepid's intention, they probably should let Action Combat hopefuls know that as soon as possible, because that's what most of them seem to be expecting.
"Your build is about making your personal playstyle stronger."
Easy. RNG not required.
So let's establish some things before any random nonsense about Absolver comes up, as it probably is not clear to non-fans of it.
1. It is a fighting game first. Without question. You get some stats and levels, but their influence on your primary combat ability is probably less than 30%. Same variance as fighting games in general.
2. The gear serves only the purpose of shifting around your performance. The higher skill 'boxers' in Absolver wear no gear because wearing gear makes them slower and their style works based on speed. Most of the gear is practically cosmetic (in that the difference between Uncommon and Super Rare is small, and it is for min-maxing), so you care very little whether you get 'Rare' gear quickly.
3. There is no need for RNG outside of that which is emergent from the players' decisions, because ... it's a fighting game, that's how those work 99% of the time.
Some people want their own physical skill to matter, some people want their skill at building their character to matter and explicitly don't want to need as much physical skill.
But 'wanting physical skill to matter' does not invalidate skill at making builds, effects of gear, or cause repetitive rotations to happen. And since Intrepid has, for the time being, offered Action Combat, this is good, because it means that they can provide what they offered with minimum or nearly no RNG, for those who prefer that.