Tab targeting and action combat

Hey there.
I have a suggestion for the combat system.
You don't need to go for a complete hybrid combat system. Neither you need to go for one main type.

Make the system class specific.
For Example, let the warrior archetype be action combat meanwhile the clerics are tab targeting.
That can make classes feel really different in playstyle.

I know that can maybe be different in kind of balancing...
What do you guys think about that?

greetings
eric

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Comments

ShadonSol

That would force people who prefer a specific playstyle into playing a certain class, one that they might not even like that much. Interesting thought, but I think it'd cause more problems than it'd add to the game.

truenoir

You can't really make it class specific cause like shadonsol said then you limit people who want to play other classes but be able to utilize a non action combat system.

But even so trying to throw both systems into the game has some negatives. So I understand people commenting on action combat vs tab targeting.

In action combat your targeting is based on skill shots and aiming at targets. Dodging is skill based and monster interaction is completely different. Instead of monsters targeting you based on a tab target "follow you around like its sliding crossed a linear plane. They target your body but actions are not 100% never miss. This allows the system for "aiming" and "dodging" to be utilized. Currently the way action combat feels in Ashes is that when your playing action combat "dodge" can't really take place because when you side step monsters follow you and continue to attack side stepping with you. So the game doesn't really feel "great" for action combat feels like you might as well just play tab target so you never "miss" a target.

Allowing the use of tab targeting for monsters and pvp just means that you don't have to skill shot your always gonna hit a target unless we go around giving a "timing based dodge Invincibility frame" to all dodge actions.

I think the end of the day its gonna come down to just scrapping action combat and sticking to to tab targeting and just allowing certain skill shot skills to pull you into a 1 skill button moving radical like laying down a meteor blast or something. But the two systems don't work well in the same world without significant differences in monster combat.

I know the reason why tab target was favored as well its because it's much easier to code you don't need to program hit boxes and physics mechanics for every skill. You just need math skills for distance of monster, damage sounds and effects. Also don't have to worry about latency issues like you do with say how New World came out and ping over 200 can cause you to miss hitboxes. Can't miss with tab targeting unless the target is outside of the hitbox range in which the client will just say you aren't close enough. And enough players from world of warcraft and other games know tab target well. Action combat is just the new flavor that came with games like Tera Online and Archeage. The Action combat part of it really is only really good for the combat in pvp in here but even still why even bother if you can tab target and never miss a person because you've locked onto them. The only way to make someone favor switching to out of tab targeting is making tab target work from a "only when infront of the character" type of view.

Target character = when target is in front of player.
^ This would make it so during pvp tab target users can't lock onto someone using tab targeting and always hit targets.

Overall I think its gonna just come down to scrapping action combat since the game really is programmed for more the tab target play style and not attempting to do some hybrid system that obviously won't work. Only dodging you really need to do is dodging static effects from bosses when a boss targets the floor. There's currently no advantages to playing action combat other then causing yourself to be stressed and frustrated because its useless vs tab target style monsters.

Marcet

Honestly, I like the idea, but Im not any connoisseur on game balance and I can imagine some people would have strong disagreements with you.

truenoir

Marcet wrote: »

Honestly, I like the idea, but Im not any connoisseur on game balance and I can imagine some people would have strong disagreements with you.

People will always find some reason to complain at the end of the day. But its a hard sell currently to say its an action combat game but the game is setup to play out like tab target. If you go play tera then play ashes you would see what i mean and those feelings of the differences in how monsters react. I mean I find action combat a little more interesting at this stage but the draw is more "skill based over rotation based" cant really do a rotation in an action combat game where your more concerned about landing your skills in the hitbox window. Action combat is more like this:

Range player - Hitbox size / Positioning - Effects around monster - threat level- physics

https://youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZlbMxyy3E
^ This was actually a raid mode which was eventually removed from tera because it was really laggy with the client system they where using flash really has no place in a mmo client.

But in terms with action combat physics is a huge part of the game which is why the current system doesn't really match well with how mobs work. The physics of the weight of the mob its slam attack and the attack of when you swing your sword and how it effects the monster when you hit it don't exist in tab targeting. We know we will always hit x mob in tab target we cant miss cause we are locked in physics aren't even calculated just the number damage of the attack if its a crit and damage and sound.

CROW3

Creative approach, but I’m not a fan of siloing such a fundamental combat mechanic by class.

Noaani

I could see this being a function of secondary class, but not primary.

Cire89

Yes maybe as a aproach for secondary class. I understand the critics. Well for example i dont play eso anymore cause every class feels the same and i see the justification in the combat.

Magic Man

Well their approach is better. Some abilities are tab and some are action. You choose the ones you prefer and your choices will have pros and cons.

bigepeen

I want bards and clerics with full tab targeting, as they are primarily support characters. A lot of people want easy or less precision-demanding classes anyway, and a lot of healers don't think of themselves as precision aiming players, so I don't think there would be much resistance to this.

DPS classes could get full action combat with ranged DPS requiring actual aim and precision. I think part of New World's initial success is that the fps style aiming is very popular with a huge portion of the gaming audience. If New World were full tab targeting, the game probably would've been dead at launch.

Summoners could maybe be a hybrid. With summons being tab target, and everything else being action.

McShave

bigepeen wrote: »

I want bards and clerics with full tab targeting, as they are primarily support characters. A lot of people want easy or less precision-demanding classes anyway, and a lot of healers don't think of themselves as precision aiming players, so I don't think there would be much resistance to this.

DPS classes could get full action combat with ranged DPS requiring actual aim and precision. I think part of New World's initial success is that the fps style aiming is very popular with a huge portion of the gaming audience. If New World were full tab targeting, the game probably would've been dead at launch.

Summoners could maybe be a hybrid. With summons being tab target, and everything else being action.

Well, the great thing is you can customize how you play your class. You can choose to put your talent points into abilities that are more action-oriented instead of abilities that are more tab-oriented. It really is up to the player on how they want to play.

Intrepid has said that you wont be able to go 100% into action or tab, but that said a long time ago before we had/ have any sort of testing.

I don't think we'll get New World style combat, ranged attacks will be somewhat target based (attacks lock on to target near reticle on screen) and weapon attacks wont lock you into animations.

gaganu

I want bards and clerics with full tab targeting, as they are primarily support characters

me too, tab targeting is a proven mechanic over the years and is effective

SirChancelot

What would anyone think about it being tab Target for skills and action for Auto attacks and actively weaving the two?

McShave

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

What would anyone think about it being tab Target for skills and action for Auto attacks and actively weaving the two?

That is the idea, and Intrepid said that tab would be the default (i assume with the split body animation action-based attacks). But also what do you do for ranged weapon auto attacks? Also some abilities are "action" in the sense that they are skillshots and placeable aoes, but can be used while in tab target "mode".

I think there is some confusion in the community about action and tab target and it is entirely due to the swappable "modes". If Intrepid chose just one and moved on with it, everything would be a lot more clear.

Cire89

Well i hate combat with weaving-mechanic.

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

What would anyone think about it being tab Target for skills and action for Auto attacks and actively weaving the two?

Healing should be tab targeting. Love the mechanics from wow !
Couldnt be worse if there is something like healing the friendly target with the lowest hp automaticly

Rayteku

I personally would not want it to be class based. I played in Alpha 1 and even did some siege testing and it was a blast because I was using tab targeting, if I was using action combat I wouldn't have had any fun because my PC can not keep the frame rate stable. Tab Targeting is a lot easier on your PC for calculations so it's easier to keep the frame rate at a playable speed and you can actually play with a lower frame rate in tab target mode. Action mode worked well for me when I was alone with monsters but if another player showed up and starting fighting my FPS would hitch/stutter with faster movements.

I played all the classes but I loved melee combat with tab targeting because it still feels a lot more engaging without auto attack hitting the Q key for basic attack and dropping your abilities as you fight feels very action based still but without the performance hit.

My Specs for the Alpha 1 Test:
i5 3450
8GB DDR3 1600
Geforce GTX 970 4GB
Samsung 850 evo Sata SSD

TheDarkPaladin

truenoir wrote: »

You can't really make it class specific cause like shadonsol said then you limit people who want to play other classes but be able to utilize a non action combat system.

But even so trying to throw both systems into the game has some negatives. So I understand people commenting on action combat vs tab targeting.

In action combat your targeting is based on skill shots and aiming at targets. Dodging is skill based and monster interaction is completely different. Instead of monsters targeting you based on a tab target "follow you around like its sliding crossed a linear plane. They target your body but actions are not 100% never miss. This allows the system for "aiming" and "dodging" to be utilized. Currently the way action combat feels in Ashes is that when your playing action combat "dodge" can't really take place because when you side step monsters follow you and continue to attack side stepping with you. So the game doesn't really feel "great" for action combat feels like you might as well just play tab target so you never "miss" a target.

Allowing the use of tab targeting for monsters and pvp just means that you don't have to skill shot your always gonna hit a target unless we go around giving a "timing based dodge Invincibility frame" to all dodge actions.

I think the end of the day its gonna come down to just scrapping action combat and sticking to to tab targeting and just allowing certain skill shot skills to pull you into a 1 skill button moving radical like laying down a meteor blast or something. But the two systems don't work well in the same world without significant differences in monster combat.

I know the reason why tab target was favored as well its because it's much easier to code you don't need to program hit boxes and physics mechanics for every skill. You just need math skills for distance of monster, damage sounds and effects. Also don't have to worry about latency issues like you do with say how New World came out and ping over 200 can cause you to miss hitboxes. Can't miss with tab targeting unless the target is outside of the hitbox range in which the client will just say you aren't close enough. And enough players from world of warcraft and other games know tab target well. Action combat is just the new flavor that came with games like Tera Online and Archeage. The Action combat part of it really is only really good for the combat in pvp in here but even still why even bother if you can tab target and never miss a person because you've locked onto them. The only way to make someone favor switching to out of tab targeting is making tab target work from a "only when infront of the character" type of view.

Target character = when target is in front of player.
^ This would make it so during pvp tab target users can't lock onto someone using tab targeting and always hit targets.

Overall I think its gonna just come down to scrapping action combat since the game really is programmed for more the tab target play style and not attempting to do some hybrid system that obviously won't work. Only dodging you really need to do is dodging static effects from bosses when a boss targets the floor. There's currently no advantages to playing action combat other then causing yourself to be stressed and frustrated because its useless vs tab target style monsters.

why not just scrap tab targeting altogether in favour of action combat, it seems to be getting more and more popular nowadays tbh
there are games that pulled it of like swords of legends online, they made hybrid kinda work

TheDarkPaladin

gaganu wrote: »

I want bards and clerics with full tab targeting, as they are primarily support characters

me too, tab targeting is a proven mechanic over the years and is effective

and so is action combat, I don't get why it's always the tab target fans that want to phase out action combat but if the action combat fans acted the same way they would get spammed with angry reactions

Noaani

Zeyd Arthurn wrote: »

gaganu wrote: »

I want bards and clerics with full tab targeting, as they are primarily support characters

me too, tab targeting is a proven mechanic over the years and is effective

and so is action combat, I don't get why it's always the tab target fans that want to phase out action combat but if the action combat fans acted the same way they would get spammed with angry reactions

Ok, lets compare.

I'm going to use EverQuest as the tab target example. I could pick WoW, EQ2, or a dozen other games, but I am going for the original.

The game is full tab target, and has been out for about 23 years, and is still popular enough to get a full expansion every year (they are about to launch their 28th expansion).It also has a Metacritic score of 85/100.

Provide your counter-example of an action MMORPG that proves it can be a long lived combat type in this specific genre.

The absolute best you can do is pick Tera, but I am somewhat interested to see which game you pick here.

maouw

Can we not do the "My favourite MMO is better than your favourite MMO"?
It's going to be mostly opinions stated as facts and a whole bunch of ruffled feathers.

Look, here's a cute thing:

And to get back on topic, @Zeyd Arthurn Ashes was originally pitched with Tab Target only - and that's the original audience it drew, so in this specific case the option to try to integrate Action Combat is seen more like an extra feature that can be scrapped if it goes poorly. Although I also have a preference for Action, there are other good reasons why people prefer tab:

Older folk find it difficult to use a reticle, so they need controls that are less intense and familiar to what they've grown up with - these people are also the main demographic of Ashes' founding audience as I understand it.
Tab target allows computers (and related net code) to take shortcuts under the hood, instead of more expensive hitscanning. Ashes is really pushing the limits here using tab target, whereas hitscanning with 250v250 live clients just isn't feasible with current tech standards.

There are other reasons, but I think those two are the strongest.
The best we can do is provide what feedback we can so that Ashes has a really good chance at nailing Hybrid combat.

Songcaller

Everyone used spears at first, then everyone used wands, then everyone used great swords. There were some variations of course but the trends in A1 PvP were clear. In A1 we were limited to only the weapon moves being active combat - did the active combat crowd use it? No, they chose the tab target wand which was a guaranteed hit in PvP. I'm neither for Active Combat or Tab Target but I find trends to be fascinating.

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