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
I agree, GW2 minimising the amount of RnG makes for great PvP
They are an ok place to start, but there is a need for systems to be fleshed out more from what they are in such games in order to make them compelling MMO's.
Not going to lie, this is the first time I have heard the terms "GW2" and "great PvP" in the same sentence, without also containing the words "If", "you", "want", "don't", "do", "what" and "does".
You clearly didn't read my previous post. It's long, so I don't specifically blame you.
However, it addresses these points, and I consider it worth the 5 or 6 minutes it would take to read.
Thanks for the response. My point was mostly that:
1. Action combat stun has about the same amount of utility as RNG stun because of the inherent design flaw in stun.
2. They both are about the same odds to hit on average in the end and you could in fact have rng on the skill shot and itd still be a part of the meta due to the nature of hard cc and class design.
No I am not particularly worried about skillshots having a skill gap. I personally don't care (especially if you let my summons do a weaker version in tab target if we are passing hard cc around.)
My point was that I agreed with your perspective in a world where hard cc 'must' exist and Intrepid should probably follow your advice because its the least dumb option, but it's not going to have a huge difference in the games design, just your fun (which is important.)
Dreoh went: 'fighting games perfected pvp and dobt have rng'
You went: 'name a game with combat that doesn't rng like that'
Dreoh: 'points to GW2'
Me: 'Points to Absolver'
The point is in Absolver 'your build matters'. You said 'they want static characters with known abilities' you don't know peoples builds ahead of time in Absolver. If you meant regarding the player themselves, yeah most mmos do try to get their build to a static knowable set of abilities and style.
Also you sucking at the game didn't mean there is rng in the combat. I have also been playing since 2017 and can say with confidence as a fighting game player, you are just wrong. It is unpopular because its hard and fighting games are niche. Not because the design is bad.
Forgive me for stopping my read here if you address this point further down simply let me know and I will read the rest.
RNG: Random Number Generator. The game decides for you whether your answer is correct.
This is a seperate concept from.
Random Chance: There was a chance of something working but it didn't for various reasons. The machine isn't required to be involved here.
Games that lean into action combat use Random chance via class design and situational spacing relative to those tools. Rock Paper Scissors.
I can agree with you that something needs to happen to prevent stale rotations however you are setting up a false premise from the very beginning of this post. It's an option between two design sets. RNG mechanics are not the one and only way.
Now I personally think Steven just wants people to be happy and have fun. I think he didn't actually have an opinion one way or the other and your proposed 'rng only' focused design wouldn't go against his intent. But neither would RPS. If he didn't want the RPS crowd to play hybrid combat wouldn't have even come up after all as action combat tilts towards that direction.
I think I fully understand now.
I agree that it is the least dumb option.
This is why I won't shut up about Wildstar whenever I get the chance, and right now is no exception. Instead of just flat having hard CC they took the time to make sure that every CC had a corresponding "Mini-game" like mechanic to keep the game moving and fun.
I don't mind being CCed as much if there is something I can actively do to improve my situation.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Mortal Kombat 11 has 37k reviews, Tekken 7 has 38k reviews, Street Fighter V has almost 20k reviews.
Sure, if you want to call it a fighting game, it is still the fighting game with the fewest reviews. You can call fighting games niche if you want, but that isn't why Absolver has so few reviews.
Truthfully, the game can be summed up with one specific quote from a review of the game not long after release.
"The most difficult combo is in the menus."
As a game, it isn't worth talking about - let alone trying to use as an example that other games should follow.
This is only compounded by you not having followed the discussion overly well, and thinking that a game that is trying to be an ARPG, a fighting game and a trading card game without the trading, all while trying to be both single and multiplayer at the same time, is worth bringing up in a discussion.
Maybe dont bring up this question if you don't want it brought in to the conversion yourself mate. Who is having trouble following the conversation? That's the only reason it came up.
I have no problem with you bringing up a fighting game - if you bought up a fighting game.
You didn't.
Tekken is a fighting game.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game.
Street Fighter is a fighting game.
Absolver is not.
From the publishers own website. So again, I have no problem with you giving an example of a fighting game where players create their build and select their gear. I do have a problem with you claiming a game is a thing that the publisher itself doesn't in order to try and prove a point that you can not otherwise make.
Man your being as definitionalist as Dygz now. And therefore there is no value in continuing to try and talk with you on this specific subject other than to tell the audience to read Azherae's post above if they feel at all confused about Absolver by this weird off topic squabble.
Did you miss quote me in that? I am confused.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
In the context of the discussion, we were talking about fighting games. Games where you enter a ring and fight against a single opponent, three times.
When asked for a game from this genre that had a specific feature, you decided to throw in a game from a different genre. Sure, they both contain fighting, but the game you suggested is an action RPG with quests and a somewhat open world.
It is an entirely different genre. It is not what was asked for, and yet you attempted to pass it off as such.
It is fairly standard internet protocol when this happens to ridicule the other debater, claim they are being impossible due to wanting to stick to the original parameters, and say they are impossible to discuss things with. That is the stock standard way to get out of the particular corner you have painted yourself in to here.
Yeah my bad mate. Sorry about that.
You never brought up your definition of fighting game before this point. It fits my definition and can be played via your rule set.
You don't get to have your own definition.
That is like saying you have your own definition of MMORPG, and Diablo 3 fits in with it.
Now by 'standard internet protocol' I am just going to quote my own post more relevant to the conversation.
Most fighting games that offers "customization" are shun upon by the community and not played much.
Smash Bros for example, has customization in it but the competitive scene gets rid of it
Street Fighter X Tekken died pretty fast and was criticized a lot for it's gem customization system
MvC4... I know it died fast aswell for multiple issues, but I don't remember it having a customization setting other than the stone you could chose which was more close to an assist sytem than a real customization ?
Soul calibur tournaments all ban any character customization, same with Tekken
There are even some publisher outfit / colors that can be banned because they affect gameplay in some way (special color from guilty gear xrd or blazblue for example)
edit : although I'm not entirely sure I understand why people bring this genre into this topic
It got brought up because Dreoh pointed out that pvp as a concept was perfected by fighting games. If you want a game with serious combat there are lessons to be learned from the genre. Fighting games like GGXrd, Soul Calibur, Injustice all have systems for 'more casual play.'
People who dislike 'hard core balanced combat' tent to be closer to the audience of those who play the gear systems in those fighting games. Those who play tournament level obviously want skill to matter mostand therefore shun systems like that.
An mmo with a gear system and high skill ceiling balanced combat require you pay attention to fighting game lessons more. Lower ones less so.
People who want skill shots are closer to this crowd even if they aren't quite fighting game players. There is overlap in player communities hence why games invest in those casual gear systems to begin with.
RPS vs RNG. I think both can exist in tandem but it'd be unwise not to listen to lessons learned in fighting game design if you want a high skill combat system with nuance and.skill mattering.
However, you are making it sound like RNG is all about randomness.
It is not.
If I have a nuke that deals 500 - 550 damage, the random aspect of that is 50. The ability and my gear make up 500.
In terms of a CC's chance to hit, the effect of the RNG in that would likely be even less than that 10%. Most MMO's with PvP have a RPS based system. This is nothing at all to do with action combat games. It may not be the only way, but I have yet to see a combat system that would be acceptable in an MMORPG that both avoids rotations and has no RNG.
In fact, the game that has the least reliance on rotations of all that I have played also has the most randomness in it's combat.
Not only have I not seen a combat system that doesn't have random elements get away from there being a theoretical best rotation, but I can't even see how that is possible. While it may well be that you don't know what classes you will come up against in an open world MMO, if there is no randomness, you will very quickly fall in to using the same rotation - or at the very least you will have a combat opener you always use, a few combos to use during combat, and perhaps a closer or two if your build has such things. Basically, while you may not fall in to an exact rotation, without randomization you will fall in to a few basic combos.
Add in randomness to the game in a decent way, and you can't just mindlessly bash out combos. If you are in a fight with someone and you have a combo you like using that debuffs your target for cold damage, and then you follow that with a massive cold nuke with a long cooldown. if you have an effect that has a chance to lower the cooldown of an ability at random and your nuke triggers it and so is available without the debuff being up - you'd be stupid to not use it.
Expand that out to every ability, with any of them having a chance to reset their cooldown, and all of a sudden you simply can't just run the same rotation, or the same combos. You have to always evaluate what you have available and what is coming up to be available soon, and make a decision on every ability on the fly.
If you take any one game that has rotations (other than rotations used to build combat resources - a mechanic I despise) and add in a simple RNG chance of cooldown reset, and you instantly kill any possibility of rotations being effective.
That is just one RNG element - but that is the power that randomness can have in a game, and why the idea that it shouldn't be in an MMO just doesn't hold.
PvPers who play MMORPGs typically get pissed off by RPS because they say it's not fair for 1v1 combat, so they start whining for class nerfs.
By high skill, I assume you mean high player twitch skills - but that is unlikely to be an RPG because in an RPG, the character skills are intended to trump player twitch skills. Player skill in an RPG is mostly about building your character; not player twitch skills.
ARPGS attempt to add in player twitch skills as a feature, but if player twitch skills are the priority over character skills and there is no RNG...that's not really an RPG.
Ashes aims to have both Tab Target and Action combat, so it is a great idea to take a look at combat from a variety of games that include combat; not just RPGs. But, Ashes combat still needs some RNG because it is an RPG.
Which is why Jeff stated that there will always be RNG in Ashes combat but the RNG can be significantly mitigated with Action Combat skills...if they can get hybrid combat to work.
Quite frankly.... You don't get to decide the definition of fighting games 'yourself' guv. For Honor won a peoples choice award for best fighting game of the year. Absolver was nominated for two fighting game awards one of them in the same year as For Honor's victory.
And even if I humor your false positives.
Absolver has a mode where you can do exactly that. Are you one of those people who consider Smash Bros to not be a fighting game?
The point of mentioning any of this, is RPS is sufficient, RNG is not required.
You have repeatably ignored examples via your personal definitions. If the game is going to have action combat, it makes sense to take lessons from action games. Just because your definition of what an mmorpg 'must' include RNG doesn't mean 'it's the only definition that works.' Your failure of imagination is no reason to dismiss those who can. It's how masterpieces get made.
To be honest, fighting games have an history of being particularly bad at introducing mechanics for casual play. The companies always try to promote their next fighting game by saying "yeah, this time, truly, anybody can play the game and everyone will start at the same level and casual will have all their chances against more hardcore gamers". Who believes that ? They always fail with these mechanics that are often just bad at high level and really don't help lower level player beat higher level ones.... because that's how competitive games works. If you are better, you should win more (note the more, not necessary all the time). If not, the game isn't competitive (which if fine aswell, not all games need to be competitive).
Fighting games that are able to grasp the attention of casual audience do it by being fun to play and fun to watch at lower level. But they always fail at teaching people what the games are about truly, most of the time because people don't really want to learn anyway.
Now, about RNG, here is what I think.
Randomness is and will always be part of games, it's even part of real life sports. There is always a bit of luck to everything.
Now there is acceptable RNG and less accepetable ones in a PvP environnement.
In competitive fighting games for example, even if they try to minimize the randomness, there are characters that are based around some randomness (Faust/Zappa/Kliff from Guilty Gear series, The Hero in Smash Bros, Shingo in King of Fighters, Dan in Street Fighter 5, Dummy chars in SoulCalibur/Tekken,...) and people still play them in highly competitive tournament, the characters aren't weak or overpowered just because of their randomness.
In a lot of FPS you have some randomness in the spray patterns of some of your weapons, some games more than others... you can control it a bit, but it's still random
In RTS you also have randomness in the way some units will move in a terrain when multiple units are being moved. You can prevent it, but sometimes shit happens.
For MMOs, I can think of some RNG that don't bother me, like RNG on defensive mechanics such as dodging or blocking (yeah the tank blocked your stun, well maybe next time try to land it from the back on chose a better target). And also some RNG that I don't like, for example, in Dark Age of Camelot, you have 5% chance for any spells to be resisted in PvP, which is ok when doing masse aoe spells since you know some of your targets will resist and you can account for it, but is infuriating on single target spells where you can have 3 resists back to back when trying to finish off your target.
So having my long cooldown last resort crowd control that would change the outcome of my fight being "resisted" just BECAUSE, will anger me a bit
Having it blocked because I threw it on a target that had a reasonable chance of blocking it, well, it sux, but it won't bother me, even if I'll die because of it
It's fine if Ashes wants to be Tab Target with the associated RNG stats.
If Ashes went 'hardcore skill heavy competitive' for PvP, it would be likely be less popular.
But the main thing those Action games don't have, is the persistent world and other things to do.
If you took For Honor or Absolver and added Artisan Skills, Freeholds, Nodes, Taverns, Raid PvE (oh wait they already sorta have this one), then more people would play them because those people would have other things to do and could move to something else every time they are frustrated by the combat.
Why do we know this? BDO and GW2. BDO is somehow popular despite having only just added sorta-raid PvE. A massive amount of BDO players never even fight. As in literally 'don't level up even to the level where PvP turns on, and can faceroll the story by making a lot of money, buying overpowered gear off the Market, and bursting down enemies from horseback in a style where the horse does all the attacking.
GW2 has been clearly explained by Dreoh multiple times.
As for the point that fighting games have RNG characters, those are almost always 'crit designed'. The ability never fails. It has a baseline effectiveness and sometimes does more than you were relying on it for. Even Faust's craziness is 'I will use this ability that will almost certainly help me in this position where I am safe to do so'. You choose to use it, sometimes it 'crits'. Also, you can't argue 'well some fighting games have some characters that have RNG' as if this means 'all fighting games have RNG, it's just part of gaming'. Designers choose whether or not to make it part of gaming.
This thread is about 'the success of CC being based on RNG'.
It's not necessary (or even friendly, to casual players) to make abilities RNG in a game that adds 'Action Combat' and has specifically already implied that Hard CC will be skillshots.
Intrepid has a relatively clearly provided design vision involving Action Combat, Skillshots, and specific rewards for those skillshots. If you want them to take out the Action Combat, fine. People who are supportive of it will keep trying to suggest ways to make sure it is good, and Definitionalists will argue 'if you made it that way then it wouldn't be an RPG'.
I personally don't care if Ashes 'is an RPG' or not. If removing RNG based CC makes a game 'not an RPG', then so be it. If removing RNG makes a game 'not an RPG' I'll let the makers of the Legend of Zelda know, and we can move on to 'whatever people want to call Ashes based on that'.
MMO Open World Action Combat Simulator? I'll take it. Whatever.
Rip out the Hybrid Combat and go back to Tab Target with RNG? I'll take that too.
Labels are a convenient thing humans use to gather people into their tribes during disagreements and minimize critical thinking. An obvious tactic to use when you already have authority/power over something... or think you do.
Making CC's be a guaranteed hit and giving players a way to break CC's, kind of like WOW's pvp trinket will make the pvp gameplay much more fun. There is already a lot of reactive gameplay around target switching, crits, etc..
Arena Esports in mmorgps, especially WOW play a lot around trading CC's and Cooldowns in order to open up a kill window on an opponent and CC's play a huge part in that. Personally I think they should not be RNG.
pls make it not rng
And Steven cares.
Lots of people signed up for Ashes because it's an RPG rather than an action combat simulator.
And lots of people signed up for Ashes because it offered Hybrid Combat and got their attention using an Action Combat Battle Royale style game. What's your point?
Notice, though, that Ashes does not bill itself as an Massively Multiplayer Hybrid Combat Game.
APOC had RNG.