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
Seems very likely that Evasion will be tacked on to Rogue Active Skills similar to how Heals are tacked on to some Cleric damage Active Skills.
Sounds like that might be a player tactic rather than a Rogue skill.
Rogue class skills associated with flanking usually adds to damage - like, extra damage from Stealth/Invis/Flanking/Backstab.
Hmmn. I dunno. That sounds like choosing to "stand in the fire" to me.
But, it's really going to depend on the individual player.
Numbers people will probably focus on the meta numbers rather than on the thematic.
Thematic people will choose whether the character is more of an Evasion Rogue or a Bleed Rogue or a Shadow Magic Rogue, etc.
With regard to Active Block in Action MMORPGs, I tend to think of Rogues using Dodge/Roll to get away from ground telegraphs in place of a different class that would use Active Block. Of course, stabbing a lot is a great tactic, but seems like there are still times when leaping away from mob ultimate attacks is better than trying to soak/Evade the attack.
I think even I tend to focus on Crit gear over Evasion gear in the previous MMORPGs I've played. But, in Ashes, I would probably have Evasion Passive Skills as well as Crit Passive Skills. And there would probably be times when I Active Dodge/Roll - especially with certain types of telegraphs - because that's part of the thematic role.
I expect Daggers will be adding Bleeds and Crits.
As noted, I'm constantly surprised by focus groups.
But I wasn't trying to get you to change anything, only to figure out if you were doing what you intended, and to clarify to anyone else so that they can give any opinion on it. I was able to let go of most of my preconception, but I figured there might be a chance you'd go 'wait that doesn't sound right'.
If that's not your reaction, then onward. Next. 'How are we going to do it?'
Because it can't be just magical, remember. Staff wielding Tank or Fighter has to be 20% stronger than 2H Axe also. And Dual Wielding Dagger players have to be 32% stronger. Also, it can't generally be through 'advantages given to Ability Damage' since the idea is that the opponent will block some portion of ability damage in skilled battle. But then again, like I said, always surprised, so...
If the boost comes from Ability Damage primarily, Staff must be around 33% stronger than 2H Axe, and Dual Wielded Daggers have to be 50% stronger. The reason in question must be applicable to all classes, and if you've got one off the top of your head, the next question would be 'why wouldn't most Tanks Dual Wield Daggers and just use their other mitigation along with their 32-50% damage bonus?'
I should probably mention that I suspect the reason that Intrepid has not tried any Active Blocking is because the effort of 'making sure the above works' is much less appealing than just 'not adding Active Block'. I say this to remind that the more complex the solution gets, the less likely it is to be considered.
Also, while my friend group normally just 'trusts me with design and balance consideration for games we build/want to play', note that if I explicitly 'go against what I would do', they may give separate (and possibly uncharitable) opinions on your solutions/answers. I just don't want any confusion regarding 'me supporting your line of thinking but people associated with me giving counter/negative opinions'. I will be ignoring all their posts unless you or someone else quotes them
Not sure what this one means. Is it 'an endorsement of the concept? A fan of Staves perhaps?
Is it 'joining in on the question'?
Is it agreeing that this is why the Alpha doesn't contain Active Blocking?
Is it in some way a reaction to the complex solution bit?
Please give us your feedback by checking one or several of the boxes above.
Also..."why wouldn't most Tanks Dual Wield Daggers and just use their other mitigation along with their 32-50% damage bonus?" is an excellent point.
There are two ways I can see that the above statement can be made real:
1- Each weapon’s damage remains the same no matter what class you are, then it would somehow have to be the abilities are less effective or perhaps don’t really compliment your class abilities as much.
OR
2- Each weapons’s damage is different depending on your class, such as a wand doing 10-20% more damage if you’re a mage.
The first gets very difficult to plan right now because we’ve only seen level 1-15 skills and only on 3 classes.
The second option, however, I think is already bad from the start, because if you clearly see that you do less damage on certain weapons you likely won’t be using them.
So let’s take option 1. Let’s assume for a moment that when Steven said “but not as effectively” he wasn’t meaning a large and incredibly impactful amount. Perhaps he meant just slightly less effective just because a mage for example won’t necessarily have the skills to compliment a Sword and Board play style but still totally doable.
I think I’m correct here. If this wasn’t Steven’s intent, why even bother allowing all classes to use all weapons?
Based on this (probably correct) assumption, we can balance the entire weapons list based on some core stats such as attack damage, attack speed, critical chance, etc. We need to figure out the list of stats we want to use, based on what we know/assume will be there.
Im thinking:
AD (Attack Damage)
M.AD (Magic Attack Damage)
SPD (Attack Speed)
Crit Dmg (Critical Damage)
Crit % (Critical Chance)
I’m sure there will be others but they would be inconsequential to the overall list. We can surmise that a Two-Handed Sword will have higher AD and lower SPD compared to a One-Handed Sword for example.
If we’re good with all of this so far, we can start making our hypothetical list of weapons with hypothetical stats so we can “balance” them against each other. If not, submit any changes or additions to what I’ve posted here.
No objections, not much need. This is FFXI's system exactly. There are multiple classes that can use a large number of the game's weapons, in that one.
Noting for anyone who cares, the meta never actually allowed for this outside of 2-3 instances. In that game's case it was that you didn't have as much accuracy and sometimes not as much Attack, so you could at least use them 'for fun' in certain situations if you weren't suffering for Accuracy.
And people still didn't do it, because it's suboptimal and the number crunchers will tell you so within 4 days of gameplay.
In any case, one can just grab that data almost directly from that game, so it's possible to proceed. The only difference is the gap in power and that 'Dual Wielding Tank' thing.
Never played that one. But it shouldn’t be too difficult to fabricate a list of weapon stats that could work. I’m not sure when I can commit to that so if someone wants to beat me to it and I can just help adjust it if needed, great.
The answer to the question of why wouldn’t the tank just use dual swords: Not having a shield means they don’t have active block and they don’t have any of the skills that come with having a shield equipped. And that’s fine if they don’t care to play defensively (for themselves or their allies).
I can just pull in some stuff. But just to be clear, you implied that there was some concern about 'what people do when they believe they are doing less damage', right?
Should I be giving the data based on 'factoring for the additional damage needed to balance them relative to their active block potential', or not?
e.g. should Staff have the same AD as 2H Axe but higher SPD such that it makes up the 20% difference, for this?
Or do you want the numbers 'before that balancing'?
I know the plan has modified augments, but not that significant.
Could be. This is an FFXI thing too (and I think I've said before that we know that Jeff Bard is at least familiar with that game).
Paladins do exactly this, there. Paladin/Ninja can Dual Wield and in that case actually get Ninja ability for an 'evasion' skill/spell outright, as well as bonuses to Dual Wielding. Paladin/Red Mage is more likely to be used where heavy magical mitigation is required and wields a staff related to this purpose and Magic Defense Bonuses (Paladin might have been updated to have these innately by now though), and Paladin/Warrior is most often shield and sword using abilities to cycle and maximize mitigation conditions and have extra threat generation with innate "Double Attack chance".
It's probably wrong to assume that Ashes Secondary Archetypes will be as effective or powerful as FFXI's Subjobs, or at least, everyone's been speaking really conservatively about it for some reason that I can't quite sync to, but even with relatively modest augment options, the things you mentioned are pretty likely, and I don't mean 'my speculations' at that point. One could do 'far less' than what I expect and still get those builds.
I keep expecting Ashes builds to be incredibly freeform, which is why there was any disagreement between Cypher and I in the first place.
Fully agreed. Since this is alpha 1, I don't expect combat to be good but it certainly could be better. How do you engage in combat with the mobs and players is a huge part of an MMO - this is especially true for an open world PvX game like Ashes. I hope we will see improvements on that front in the next tests.
Better to just throw down a list of each weapon with some values that make sense, before we start tweaking them for “what if this” or “what about that”.
Also, staff would have M.AD and AD, assuming you can smack someone with it. If you can do that, the AD value wouldn’t be very high, as the intended use of the weapon is Magic not melee. If you can’t smack someone with the staff, it only uses M.AD. The reason we have both is so players can equip armors and/or enchantments and such that protect against AD or M.AD very well or both but not as well. But let’s not get into armor in depth.
So back to your question, I can’t really answer where the staff should go compared to the two-handed axe just yet but the staff is probably the strongest or second strongest M.AD weapon and should be balanced accordingly. I’d imagine for raw damage the 2H axe may have the highest AD but let’s see where the cards fall once we have a list.
I would start with the magic weapons since there are fewer and then go on to the others. My guess is lower SPD than wands and other Magic weapons, and each magic weapon has a stat or stats that it’s highest in. Wands would be highest SPD, orbs would be Crit favoring the crit chance, scepter would be crit favoring crit damage (maybe have decent AD also), staff is highest M.AD. In my opinion that is. Just so we know where those are in reference to each other.
Every 60 delay for a melee weapon is equal to 1 real time second, and it is determined by the weapon used (except for Hand to Hand). For example, a 450 delay Great Katana (such as the festive Wooden Katana), takes 450 / 60 = 7.5 seconds between attack round. A faster weapon, such as the 280 delay Lotus Katana, then takes 280 / 60 = ~4.7 seconds between attack round. (game's pretty slow in some ways, because TT, timer starts counting again from the first frame of the swing).
And here's the data from the literal 'original midgame' weapons, Mythril. Given as equivalents, some aren't exact, for example the first 1H Mace is actually a 'Maul' style hammer, but this probably isn't relevant.
1H Sword: AD 21 Delay 231 DPS 5.45
2H Sword: AD 46 Delay 444 DPS 6.22
1H Mace: AD 22 Delay 324 DPS 4.07 (Restricted to Healers, not even Paladins, more of a Hammer)
1H Mace: AD 20 Delay 300 DPS 4
2H Scythe: AD 64 Delay 528 DPS 7.27 (slightly higher level than the rest, the equiv level one has DPS 6.62)
1H Baselard (standard dagger): AD 13 Delay 185 DPS 4.19
1H Kukri (different dagger): AD 14 Delay 200 DPS 4.2
2H Halberd: AD 42 Delay 396 DPS 6.36 (this isn't actually Mythril for some reason but it's the same level as the rest)
1H Axe: AD 29 Delay 276 DPS 6.30
2H Axe: AD 52 Delay 504 DPS 6.19
2H Staff: AD 29 Delay 378 DPS 4.60 (this is 3 levels lower than the rest. If we go 3 levels up we get AD 37 Delay 402 DPS 5.52, happens because... well, you don't make Staves out of Mythril)
Many of these are restricted to only a few classes in the game, so some DPS discrepancies exist because either 'those classes are meant to do less of their damage via physical things' or 'they have other ways to increase the damage.
Players can spec into weapon abilities on their combat skill tree, based on their preferred weapon classes (weapon types/weapon groups) and the grade of the weapon.[5][3][2][1]
The more skill points that are allocated to the combat skill tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity. This in turn unlocks various proc effects on weapon use that can offer synergy with other active skills.[3][1] This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.
It doesn't matter if this is 'your third or 4th attack in the Combo has this effect' or 'at least one of your Activated Weapon Skills has this effect'. The need to balance this is the same. But for the sake of 'not having to correct anyone who doesn't read it fully' I'm going to say the 'attack number' every time and describe an animation. These would also be applied to humanoid mobs.
1H Sword Standing - Third combo strike, Diagonal rising slash, extra damage
1H Sword Lunging - Third combo strike, low spin, deflects or parries some incoming melee damage from front
2H Sword Standing - Third combo strike, overhead slash, lowers enemy defense for a few seconds
2H Sword Lunging - Fourth combo strike, strong thrust, extra piercing damage
1H Mace Standing - Fourth combo strike, downswing at head, lowers enemy accuracy for few seconds
1H Mace Lunging - Third combo strike, overhead smash, lowers enemy attack for a few seconds
2H Mace Standing - Third combo strike, wide arc swing, additional damage and block penetration damage
2H Mace Lunging - Third combo strike, big spin smash, staggers enemy for 0.3 seconds
1H Dagger Standing - Fourth combo strike, X slash, bleed
1H Dagger Lunging - Fourth combo strike, lateral slash, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Spear Standing -Third Combo strike, Slight backstep stab, extra damage
2H Spear Lunging - Third Combo strike, Rushing stab, lowers cooldown of skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Halberd Standing - Third combo strike, wide swing, does slashing damage, does extra damage
2H Halberd Lunging - Third combo strike, Rushing stab, lowers enemy evasion for a few seconds
1H Axe Standing - Third combo strike, Diagonal descending slash, bleed
1H Axe Lunging - Third combo strike, Leaping diagonal downslash, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Axe Standing - Third combo strike, Wide backstep swing slash, extra damage
2H Axe Lunging - Third combo strike, vertical whirling 'golf swing' double slash, staggers for 0.3 seconds
2H Staff Standing - Third combo strike, a swing at the knee, lowers enemy evasion for a few seconds
2H Staff Lunging - Third combo strike, a long wide swing, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit
Shuffle these however suits you, @Cypher, but the main reasons for them being as they are...
1H Swords for dueling, 2H swords for damage, 1H Maces for protection, 2H Maces for overwhelm (could be Hammers), 1H Daggers for Bleed effects and sustain, Spears for positioning and sustain, Halberds for area control, 1H Axes for bleed and 'berserkers', 2H Axes for overwhelm but with slashing damage, 2H Staves for higher guaranteed damage of spells, and sustain (basically to reward the 'standard' mage build that wants to do 'standard' mage melee).
The stagger timings are based on part of 'the whiteboard', (20 frames, about the recovery of the hit itself) and the cooldown lowering is based on the idea that you can only do one full combo about every 1.5-2s so for your longest skills you could get about 3s CD reduction total if you just landed this combo every time somehow. They're all on the 'lunge' to make it harder to land them, and are treated as 'working' even if blocked.
I'll leave any Dual Wield considerations to you.
PERSONAL RANT: It irritates me when people shut down certain ideas for game mechanics/features and say something like "You cant do this in an MMORPG because your idea is from a different genre (like Fighting Games)". Just because there isn't a certain mechanic or feature implemented in your past experience of a genre does not mean it can't be done well in future games of the same genre. Instead of saying "We can't do this" whenever a new idea is presented, we should be asking "How can we do this?". Someone woke up and said "What if we combined Soccer with jumping-rocket-propelled-cars?" That goofy idea turned out to be a great game called Rocket League. Intrepid is willing to innovate and improve the MMORPG genre with their Node System, Massive Siege Events and Hybrid Combat, just to name a few. In order to innovate and improve we have to be open to ideas from games that were willing to do the same in AND out of the genre to create something greater than before. I don't want Ashes of Creation to be just a good MMORPG, I want it to be a GREAT GAME.
I don't find the new video that helpful or meaningful, even if viewed by less familiar people, partially because we're 'so far past all of it'. It might help someone who understands none of this, but I don't see anything in it that would help us, or Intrepid, improve anything (assuming they were listening to feedback thus far).
The thing is, they've never explicitly said 'we're going to make Action-like Combat', they've said 'we're going to make Action style skills, and you can do a few of those, and we'll give you an Action Targeting Reticle', so at the moment, regardless of anything, there's no guarantee (even based on the floated design spec) that 'melee Action Combat', even the most basic form, will be a thing that they consider. The section on enemy design is also kind of 'flat', again, if it's meant to be 'helpful'.
In other (unfortunate?) news, I've had reason to run data analysis on the original Combat Discussion thread and one other, and have explicitly found 'those people who want to be able to block with Dual Daggers'.
Since my design stance is in fact 'never take anything from players unnecessarily' and my group is kind of upset that I'm supporting a model they oppose, that no one else is showing support for at the moment, I'm requesting that anyone who agrees with Cypher explicitly that only certain weapons should be able to block or even that the block mitigation should be particularly different/large, say so, otherwise it's technically like 7 to 1 against in this discussion.
I'm still not going to shift, for now, because there's other useful things to discuss without touching that 'part of the whiteboard'.
For now, I'm going to move to 'single small enemies that Ashes already has'. Assume Sword and Shield Tank vs any 'Charger' enemy.
The Charger has a Pounce. Doesn't matter if this is from a Lunge attack style or 'because they have the equivalent of Onslaught'. It knocks down. The Tank can't use offensive abilities or Brace properly when knocked down, only activate defensive abilities and hold Block (Brace, in this case, being 'what prevents them from getting a Bleed status).
If blocked, this staggers them back a tiny bit instead, does some damage, but that's all.
Levels of player engagement added:
A Ranger or Mage player has to adjust their aim slightly, at minimum. The Tank has to see this move and block it or dodge it depending on their group. If fighting for long enough, the group is slowly pushed backwards even if they do block it. A group of these enemies becomes much more dangerous and hard to find timing to do damage (to me this is the most important difference compared where we are now as of Alpha-1) because even though the Pounce is triggered by some AI decision and isn't necessarily very common at close range, 'close range' keeps changing slightly.
If the Tank loses hate or they were fighting two, and didn't have as much hate on another (forcing them to focus on this) and the Ranger or Mage have projectile damage, they have to worry about the movements of the two enemies resulting in them 'hitting the wrong one' and buliding it up. If that one then 'lands a Pounce on the Tank' and does enough damage to switch attention to someone else, that someone else is now the next Pounce target and they have to be ready. The Tank has to get that Charger back on themselves or the group can decide to burst that one down if it was the main one that had been low on Health, allowing them] to focus on building hate on the higher HP one. A pretty standard thing for a 'good player' to do, but still a learnable skill/way of thinking that allows a player to improve.
The Cleric now has to think about how to deal with the enemies other than just 'rapid healing' if they have options. Just healing might not be enough and the second Charger might end up on them if a Pounce lands. Applying anything to the Charger to help avoid the Pounce landing while the Tank still has hate might be better even in the mid-term, and even against a single Charger if the group is 'pushing their limits' a bit. Being able to see the knockdown, know that there's a chance of Bleed stacks, and responding to that while hate is still focused, also good.
Fighter and Rogue at least need to reposition a little, and if 2x Charger can 'react to the Tank losing control of the lower HP one' by increasing their output for the burst-down. They were probably going to do this anyway, but they at least have to consider 'what is my most efficient option for movement, to do damage to this enemy who is now near someone else' (assume the Ranger or Mage accidentally built up too much hate using crits, after all, if you're not riding just a tick or two below the Tank's hate line, you aren't doing Max DPS, right?)
[Insert another 3 pages of more specific effects on design here]
This is achieved by adding 'a Pounce' (which might already exist), a slight telegraph of that Pounce, and a Knockdown. I think it requires nothing else, and it doesn't have to touch on any debates or AC vs TT, Split Body vs Root, or blocking mitigation values (it does touch on 'what you can do while knocked down' and 'Block' vs 'Brace' effects on CC).
Also I'm a bit biased towards my own blocking mechanics/systems even though it's not perfect either...
It also helps that she is more tolerant than me. I would just outright people when their systems are needlessly restrictive or only fun in their own mind. Engaging with others long enough to find out why they want what they want is best left to the patient people.
Made some progress on my basic weapon stat list but it’s not ready yet. Still busy with other things, hence why I haven’t even looked on here in a few days.
However, I realized while making it that the whole thing seems rather arbitrary as it’s just a matter of saying “weapon A should be faster but weaker than weapon B” and I don’t really know how that’s helping us with the previous issue that was proposed.
I realized after going back to the previous page and finding the source of this current adventure, that I somehow misunderstood or just didn't fully read the post introducing the concept of putting staves and 2H axes on a perfectly even playing field. We cannot put every weapon on a perfectly even playing field or else the weapons just become flavors rather than weapons. Staves should always beat 2H axes at range, and 2H axes should always beat staves within melee distance. You're trying to come at this from a 1v1 perspective AND a perspective that giving the already-ranged weapon 20% higher damage than an axe just to protect from damage when the fact that the staff IS ranged IS the protection from damage.
As I've stated, classes and weapons will not be balanced for 1v1, it just can't happen or else the game is either stale or you've essentially said the range on the staff isn't taken into account. If that matchup happened, it would be up to the 2H axe player to close the distance, and up to the staff user to maintain distance. Axe is stronger, but can't hit you if you're not nearby, there's your balance.
So while I'm going to keep my stat list project handy, I find that it won't be important to this discussion as I'm not going to find a way to make the staff and 2H user kill eachother at the same rate. Making the staff 20% stronger than the 2H axe just because we're running these numbers based on two characters standing still at close range is not how we're gonna do this. Lol.
She meant that she specifically asked us a while back not to say things in this thread.
I'm definitely not into the possibility that you have this extremely freeform game that claims to allow you to pick any weapon, and then set up a system by which one specific weapon combination is better than another - a Tank with Shield is, by your definition, going to be markedly better than anything else for the majority of fights because of the higher block rate than equipping 2H sword, and therefore builds will gravitate towards that. Even if you "don't take away the option" explicitly like you said, by making a specific weapon noticeably worse in a specific way, you will just bend the meta toward that, just like it happens in FFXI. You end up killing the intended freedom of the weapons system by introducing that tiering. Just let people block.
You say you're not taking anything away from people. You're taking Dagger away from me. For what? Because it "doesn't make sense"? So... "but realism tho"?
There's a thousand better ways to make weapons distinct. Dagger gets a chance of bleed (great for "piercing" high defense enemies). Staff gets a little knockback (range-oriented players can keep a bit of distance, or even control positioning over time). Shield raises Defense Stat, because it doesn't have a basic attack at all. Now I can live twice as long but do half the damage. 2.0 * 0.5 = 1. But it's spectacular for a Tank in a group. It's balanced. Nothing's "automatic forced optimal weapon choice". You choose the weapon that does the thing you want, and they're all both important and situational. What you use comes down to who you are, and what you're up against.
I want choice, and your system limits it. Not because I can't pick up a dagger, but because you made sure I have no reason to. Not even 'flavor'.
If you want your Bard to block, grab a Shield.
That's the way it should be.
Yes, unfortunately inexperience is the graveyard of good intentions, since it can breed such a perspective all too easily. They're not even, or not supposed to be even when balanced.
For example, a Halberd and a Dagger are supposed to be massively different even in a balanced system. The attack damage per swing, the range (they are both melee, but one is longer and yes that should matter in a good game), the attack cone/area, the weaponskills, and last but not least, the attack delay. I come from ffxi, where I sub Dancer every time I can get away with it (love that job) and changing my weapon means I need to slightly readjust how I weave my Dancer job skills inbetween attacks (don't wanna reduce my dps if it can be helped). Even if you're not a Dancer, understanding the rhythm of combat, enmity gain, tp gain etc is a big deal.
Even among different Bows, I will bet you that you can make them feel different in more than just flavor if you give them different attack rates and damage, even if their dps is exactly the same. It has a direct impact on how much time you need for your attack before you need to return to kiting, for example.
I want to bonk people with the Staff, I don't understand how it would be ranged or why it needs to be ranged when it is melee right now in Ashes anyway. At that point, wouldn't it just be an impractical looking Wand, anyway?
I would expect mage/fighter hybrids might like a Staff for both melee and magical ranged damage.
We'll have to see what abilities will be available for Staff Weapon Skills.
Ok, let's take this the other way then, and not discuss anything that involves the specifics of blocking values or which classes can block. It's not necessary. We've mostly been discussing things like general mechanics and party play, so we can just 'assume everything discussed is relative to a class that can block' and you can work out anything for 'those who can't' on your side later. I'll switch back to 'opposing that line' since obviously, my group's unhappy about it.
Most of our original model didn't have much to do with blocking values anyway. Brace was intended to stop certain CC and problematic effects that would, in themselves, lower your defense, or offense ability, and the reward for doing that correctly was either 'preventing being in danger after the ability' or 'continuing with good attack power' or what have you.
This also allows it to be put on AoE or conal attacks, since the Tank, who is most likely to successfully Brace or be cleansed of any such effects, then has hate and the others don't matter as much.
After observing more of the enemy types that actually strafe and try to move away, I can see how certain mobs with ranged attacks having a Strafe ability consistently, could be good almost as a basic thing, but I would avoid making too many that do this 'consistently'. Probable simplistic AI would be 'strafes to get chances to apply a negative status'.
This should play in well with player movement and timing. If the player wants to catch up to the enemy, they have to advance, but in so doing, they open a window of susceptibility to the use of the negative Status on them. If they don't, because they brace, or because they don't care about the negative Status and/or can fight well from range, or even 'are willing to use a Gap closer' to swiftly do so, that's a reward for their play choice. The target may still go for the negative Status at close range, but if it's strong, and the mob sorta depends on it to not just get flattened easily, the player might be able to get some real damage in quickly before becoming subject to the status.
This gives us an enemy who isn't doing 'useless things', chances are you will at least experience what they are capable of, but you can also outplay this enemy, and different Archetypes have different strengths against them. Spiders are the best example option for this, or at least 'whatever variant doesn't default to leaping at you'.
Mages ignore their slows and poisons and go for big damage. Rangers match them with debuffs and damage. Rogues and Fighters get in close quickly and shred them. Clerics weave in and out of range and cleanse themselves more easily than other classes. Tanks rush at them or pull them in, Summoners have all sorts of 'I don't care' responses to this, and Bards probably can just 'cancel the negatives with their own buffs', possibly while still debuffing, becoming similar to Rangers. All of these things apply in parties bigger than 2, for a while, as well.
Changes nothing. As I said in my previous quote " if you count your non-vocal group, I will count mine as well". Because trying to discredit me or say my desires for the game are unpopular by saying "I know a lot of people who disagree with you" isn't gonna fly because I also have a group of my own who agree with my stances and designs, they just won't bother with forums.
That is not at all what I've said. Shields should be better at blocking than a 2H sword, yes. No, players will not forego the use of a 2H weapon in favor of a shield simply because of higher blocking because, if you've read anything I've said previously, there is a damage tradeoff as well as weapon speeds, weapon abilities, etc to take into account. The 2H sword will have higher damage than the 1H weapon that shield user is holding and have it's own weapon skills. No, I will not just "let people block". Pick the appropriate weapon if you want to block, or pick something else if you don't care about blocks and want max damage output.
Stop being lazy and think critically.
Wow it's almost like none of you read.
1- You aren't going to die because you can't block. You can move, you can dodge, you can use evasion skills (blink, dash, or any other skill that allows for a large movement). If your intent is to stand still and soak up damage then sure you should take a shield. You either choose blocking for your primary means of survival or you accept the risk/reward of higher damage but needing to use the rest of your toolkit (class or weapon specific) for evasion.
2- This isn't an argument as much as an observation, but you are aware you could use a shield and a dagger together too right? Since your argument is you want to have the same amount of blocking as the sword user but you prefer bleeds, piercing, speed, etc over raw damage. And if you'd rather have dual daggers, a much cooler choice in my opinion, then equip some evasion to your hot bar and quit whining. By your own admission you'll have more than enough damage from bleeds, piercing and speed to compensate for this 1H sword you're going up against which is slower, doesn't have the bleeds or pierce but the shield will soak up a little more damage. Balanced by your own argument.
3- Not taking anything away from you, you aren't limited at all. In your world no one would ever bother taking a shield if everyone can just block. You'd have to make the stats of the shield completely insane to justify taking it in your offhand when you could have your dual daggers and still be able to block. And then, we'd have the meta be "shields make you never die, everyone make sure you have a shield" and your argument has been spun around on you. There is a shield in this game and it needs to be viable. If everyone can pretend they have a shield, the shield itself needs to be much much better than just giving you a block mechanic. You sound like someone who just wants to have your cake AND eat it too.
Literally never have argued that Halberds (or any long weapon) and a dagger aren't supposed to be massively different. My quote was calling back to a previous part of discussion between myself and Azherae where a very ham fisted balancing solution was suggested to put 2H and staff in a balanced state. My response, if you didn't read it, was that those weapons cannot be balanced in the way that was suggested but instead are in general balanced by nature.
I've said in this very thread I believe the staff should have both mAD and AD (to be able to both use ranged magc and to "bonk" people up close if desired). I think being able to use it as a hybrid is cool. I wouldn't mind it not having that ability, but I don't mind it having it either and have suggested it.
My interpretation of a staff is a powerful ranged magical weapon. If you want to instead have it be either a non magical melee weapon or a hybrid (magical melee weapon) then I'm totally on board with that. But it doesn't change my argument that melee wins up close and magic wins at range, I don't think this is some unheard of concept.
Makes sense. This would certainly qualify as a way to improve mob/boss interaction.