L2 did have real PvE, it had really hard PvE you could never solo and you pretty much always needed the trinity group to tackle and for the legendary bosses around the world you needed 6+ 9 man trinity parties.
The game was released in 2003, what did you want back then??
Noaani wants EVERQUEST!
Nah, what I want is a game where there will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content... It doesn't mean that there won't be content available for the larger percentages as well... There should be a tiered level of content that players can constantly strive to accomplish.
I agree with wanting raiding to be difficult, even though your idea of difficulty leans more towards completion rates rather than content or game systems. I'd still like to have an example of a raid in any MMO you consider to be "endgame" content, you clearly have a specific few in mind.
The reason I use completion rates is because it is the most appropriate objective metric to use. Difficulty is absolutely subjective, but completion rates are absolutely objective.
Also, completion rate is the oy indication Intrepid have given for how hard they want Ashes raid content to be (single digit completion rate), so... it kind of seems the most appropriate thing to use.
And yes, there are a number of raid encounters that stand out to me from games I have played. The only example I will ever give here (simply because there is *some* information on it, even though it is probably only about 25% complete) is EQ2's four rune Theer (note, not 1, 2 or 3 rune).
There is a video of this on YouTube, posted years after the encounter was obsolete. It doesnt give any real insight in to what is going on, however, and in fact most of what is happening is not even on screen. It is happening behind the player recording.
This is why I dont tend to give examples of encounters - if you look up anything from EQ2, the information you will find out about it will be incomplete (and often purposefully incorrect), thus giving you only a partial idea of what the encounter is, yet you will feel as if you have a more complete picture tha you actually do.
People just didnt share information about top end raiding in EQ2 - which is where most of the top end raiding I have done happened.
I personally don't play Power Fantasy games, so I wouldn't really understand. If Ashes turns out to be one, then I won't play. And to expand on that, since it might help you understand what 'RP' means too...
If a group of players has to adapt, together, to an encounter, they experience 'role playing' subconsciously even if they don't talk about it, because the human brain must simulate what the other party members are going to do, in order to be successful. If they simulate incorrectly, usually one of two things happens.
A. They argue about it and the group breaks up.
B. They discuss it (roleplaying, whether in character or not) and update their subconscious understanding of each other.
This is why you'll never find ME on the side of things like 'MOBAs are not MMOs'. I personally consider MOBAs to be PvP RPGs. The lack of persistence is what separates them from what Ashes is, not the Roleplaying part.
So yeah, for future reference, if I talk about 'speed of a game' vs 'RP' it's 'the ability to simulate the actions of others and the time to discuss it if your simulations are wrong'. Some people don't 'RP' by that definition even in MOBAs and that's fine. I just don't see the point of making a game for them.
With this definition, isn't pretty much anything multiplayer an RPG? In CSGO people need to make calls about their movements and their enemies (and very commonly argue about it and break up.) Is CSGO an MMO RPG? Also your definition of role playing seems very subjective to you and I think 99% of the people who RP would disagree with the definition. I think what you're describing is cooperation.
In any case about the actual topic:
I don't see Ashes action combat making "top tier" pve much harder to develop compared to strictly tab targetting. The main differences are that without tab targetting you can expect less dps from the players and with player collision players can't stack up in tiny areas to avoid mechanics. Additionally, since Intrepid is planning on not allowing add-ons, the fights don't need overly complex dances while juggling multiple raid wiping mechanics to provide a challenge.
Here's a general recipe you can theorycraft with:
Take a medium difficulty WoW raid boss.
Lower the boss hp to compensate for less dps.
Decrease the aoe sizes slightly.
If some mechanic needs stacking, give players more space.
Nerf some of the mechanics that 100% require an add-on.
Boom you have an encounter that works with action combat. The difficulty comes from there being no add-on to give you exact information about everything constantly and having to coordinate group movement while considering collision.
Open world bosses should be much simpler due to most of the difficulty coming from PvP while also trying to not die to the boss. The alpha 1 ice dragon is a good example with the attacks being wide but relatively simple.
Anyway the territory is pretty uncharted with few good examples. One thing to study would be the 20 man raid in TERA, which is one option how Ashes action combat could look:
Similar design could be easily scaled to 50+ players.
Thank god someone did it for me. There is a reason why there are good designers and bad designers.
If think you action combat can't work in a mmorpg from a gameplay perspective are 100% wrong and you are not a designer so it makes sense.
If you think action combat can't work in a mmorpg because of technology and have certain points and examples for that, it would be a much more fair criticism.
The real difference between action combat and tab target, is that action combat can be scaled to be infinitely more difficult or just as easy as tab target. If the boss and adds don't move that much it doesn't matter it would still be action combat as long as your skills work in that fashion. It doesn't need to be as flashy or as crazy.
That being said there are some challenges if you need to target a ally to heal or buff, if you need to be able to taunt very certain mobs and tab target makes that easier it is 100% fine. One of the main issues with action combat is aoes on attacks get out of hand and I feel that is a big issue. I understand its there to make it easier to hit your target and not impossible but there should be ways to design and not rely heavy on aoes. If its cause a targets base speed is to fast, have their speed in combat lowered if they are being hit, etc.
I'll just say this one more time, if you think action can't work in a mmorpg from a gameplay point, you are wrong sorry. Just leave it to the designers and they can make it happen, its better to voice certain issues you have that might be a problem, or solutions you think could make things betters.
But outside of that L2 really didn't have much of PvE. You just stood in one place and unloaded onto the boss/mob. There weren't any complex mechanics or intricate combat designs for mobs. Pretty much all bosses were just thiccque dmg piñatas.
.......
It still needed trinity parties, you didn't need to shout about how lame enemies were god damn dude! You know as well as I do their are people with monocles in this forum sipping on their cups of tea, stroking their moustaches and defining what a true intellectual PvE experience is.
There are indeed some jerk people on this forum.
To be fair, if we are talking about PvE that PvE players from other games are going to come to Ashes from, then yeah, people that play PvE primarily probably have a better idea what PvE actually is.
As an example, people have - both on these forums as well as in some games I have played (Archeage, to be specific) tried to claim that playing a games market is a form of PvP. Buying, selling, undercutting others, it's all against other players, and so to them this is PvP.
If I am saying that what some people are calling good PvE is not infact good PvE, that is kind of like someone that is a PvP player telling someone that thinks playing the market in a game is not actually good PvP. That person may well then reply with "and who do you think you are to define what good PvP is?", and they would have about as good of a point here as you have.
Lately I've been seeing this sentiment that action combat doesn't suit PVE and I heavily disagree. Neverwinter and especially "Dragons Dogma online" xombat worked extremely well with pve. This isn't a post saying Ashes should lean for Action combat only, I'm just making the statement that Action combat can work well in PVE.
I mean, the existence of the entire From Software catalogue is evidence that action combat is fine for PvE. The difference is how it scales with group content.
I see Action Combat as a system that makes movement and aim impactful. How do you make a boss encounter for 10+ people in a trinity-based system that rewards high level movement and aim for everybody involved? What if there are 40 people involved, or even 200? What if you have tab players in the mix who have a different set of tools than the action players? Point is, Action Combat as you showed wouldn't work in Ashes of Creation.
Action combat can work well in PvE, sure. I have my ideas on how to make it work in a full raid setting, too. However, it's well beyond the scope of what Ashes of Creation is trying to do.
Um. Who said that action combat "can't work" in an MMORPG.
ANd what does "can't work" mean?
Meaning can't work as effective and better than Tab target.
I like the hybrid system concept. Its really the only option for best of both worlds. And the hot swap idea they had in alpha 1 was okay. I like action combat as a front line and tab as a back line. I think its worth them doing the work to make a hybrid system
And i mainly played the cleric in alpha 1, and activly swapped from action to tab often... is good to have both. Imo
About the action-moba-MMORPG debate.. I have a few examples of MMORPG games where combat works well. Albion Online has MOBA style combat and can handle massive zergs as well. TERA has (or had) a good action combat system but that was the only thing they did right imo. Lost Ark has this some kind action system which includes some MOBA elements.. I guess. MOBAs are typically isometric games so I am not sure how much from there can be taken for Ashes, but perhaps some skillshot ideas.
I do not personally have a strong opinion what kind of combat Ashes should have but I guess it is more about the execution and how fluid and impactful the combat will be. I think some kind of mix of tab and action would be great, if implemented well. I would personally like to see some skillshots at least.
About the action-moba-MMORPG debate.. I have a few examples of MMORPG games where combat works well. Albion Online has MOBA style combat and can handle massive zergs as well. TERA has (or had) a good action combat system but that was the only thing they did right imo. Lost Ark has this some kind action system which includes some MOBA elements.. I guess. MOBAs are typically isometric games so I am not sure how much from there can be taken for Ashes, but perhaps some skillshot ideas.
Well... thankfully, Ashes will not have combat that looks like Albion Online.
Albion Online feels like a Social Media RPG. It's kind of a little bit better in some ways than playing D&D via Fantasy Grounds. Although, I still need to see how "classes" feel.
So far, the combat does not feel like "Action Combat".
About the action-moba-MMORPG debate.. I have a few examples of MMORPG games where combat works well. Albion Online has MOBA style combat and can handle massive zergs as well. TERA has (or had) a good action combat system but that was the only thing they did right imo. Lost Ark has this some kind action system which includes some MOBA elements.. I guess. MOBAs are typically isometric games so I am not sure how much from there can be taken for Ashes, but perhaps some skillshot ideas.
Well... thankfully, Ashes will not have combat that looks like Albion Online.
Albion Online feels like a Social Media RPG. It's kind of a little bit better in some ways than playing D&D via Fantasy Grounds. Although, I still need to see how "classes" feel.
So far, the combat does not feel like "Action Combat".
Albion's combat ain't bad and it suits well for that game. Obviously fixed isometric camera and Moba style combat would not suit for Ashes. Albion is anyways a proof that MMORPG and MOBA can be combined and even quite succesfully. Additionally, RIOT Games is currently developing MMORPG and I am going to be surprised if the combat ain't Moba-styled. Moreover, Corepunk's top down camera and moba looking combat is some kind of combination as well. Then there is under development MMORPG called Fractured which is an isometric game and has some ARPG and Moba elements. Therefore, it looks like that there is this certain direction where MMOs are evolving. I am not saying it is the only one though.. It is of course understandable that gaming companies are trying to mix different kinds of genres and themes and that way develop something fresh.
Anyway, it is interesting to see how the next version of combat looks like and plays out in Ashes. I would also like to see how all the classes functions and hopefully more will be implemented and shared in the near future.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2022
It's fine to try to mix genres. And, sure, combat can work great for the genre or mix of genres the devs are trying for. As long as it's clear that it's a mix.
If someone wants to make an MMORPG/MOBA mix, that's great. But, Steven is not hoping to do that.
Um. Who said that action combat "can't work" in an MMORPG.
ANd what does "can't work" mean?
Meaning can't work as effective and better than Tab target.
I like the hybrid system concept. Its really the only option for best of both worlds. And the hot swap idea they had in alpha 1 was okay. I like action combat as a front line and tab as a back line. I think its worth them doing the work to make a hybrid system
And i mainly played the cleric in alpha 1, and activly swapped from action to tab often... is good to have both. Imo
I think this is the best way to do it, and just add heavy targeting so if people want to stay in action combat they can do so.
Um. Who said that action combat "can't work" in an MMORPG.
ANd what does "can't work" mean?
Meaning can't work as effective and better than Tab target.
This is such a bad and stubborn answer...
This answer is the truth, and it is a very good answer. Any point on tab target as far as combat difference is fully sums up to clicking or tabbing a target and pressing a skill. And the reason why when it comes to tab vrs action combat people can't make proper strong examples why tab is better.
I really dislike tab target. I think a good way to do it is to have auto-target attacks which hit whoever you click on, and then aoe/skillshot skills that have to be aimed. Each class would have to juggle every skill type.
I really dislike tab target. I think a good way to do it is to have auto-target attacks which hit whoever you click on, and then aoe/skillshot skills that have to be aimed. Each class would have to juggle every skill type.
And that's the kind of hybrid that Intrepid's trying to do
I really dislike tab target. I think a good way to do it is to have auto-target attacks which hit whoever you click on, and then aoe/skillshot skills that have to be aimed. Each class would have to juggle every skill type.
And that's the kind of hybrid that Intrepid's trying to do
That's great to hear. All of these tab-target Andies are making me question common sense for no reason.
That's great to hear. All of these tab-target Andies are making me question common sense no reason.
I meaaaaaan, if Intrepid's plan to develop a good hybrid doesn't work out, they'll go full tab. And I'm the andiest andy on this forum when it comes to tab (as long as there's no fucking gcd).
So far I got the impression that they are going for a "guild wars 2 style" system (+ you can actually switch to aiming with crosshair, which could work very well if you're playing on a controller, or a ranged character), with which I'm perfectly fine. I like gw2's targeting, it feels like it adds depth to the game (more creative abilities/fights).
The plain and simple tab targeting system (for example WoW's) just feels outdated.
Comments
The reason I use completion rates is because it is the most appropriate objective metric to use. Difficulty is absolutely subjective, but completion rates are absolutely objective.
Also, completion rate is the oy indication Intrepid have given for how hard they want Ashes raid content to be (single digit completion rate), so... it kind of seems the most appropriate thing to use.
And yes, there are a number of raid encounters that stand out to me from games I have played. The only example I will ever give here (simply because there is *some* information on it, even though it is probably only about 25% complete) is EQ2's four rune Theer (note, not 1, 2 or 3 rune).
There is a video of this on YouTube, posted years after the encounter was obsolete. It doesnt give any real insight in to what is going on, however, and in fact most of what is happening is not even on screen. It is happening behind the player recording.
This is why I dont tend to give examples of encounters - if you look up anything from EQ2, the information you will find out about it will be incomplete (and often purposefully incorrect), thus giving you only a partial idea of what the encounter is, yet you will feel as if you have a more complete picture tha you actually do.
People just didnt share information about top end raiding in EQ2 - which is where most of the top end raiding I have done happened.
Thank god someone did it for me. There is a reason why there are good designers and bad designers.
If think you action combat can't work in a mmorpg from a gameplay perspective are 100% wrong and you are not a designer so it makes sense.
If you think action combat can't work in a mmorpg because of technology and have certain points and examples for that, it would be a much more fair criticism.
The real difference between action combat and tab target, is that action combat can be scaled to be infinitely more difficult or just as easy as tab target. If the boss and adds don't move that much it doesn't matter it would still be action combat as long as your skills work in that fashion. It doesn't need to be as flashy or as crazy.
That being said there are some challenges if you need to target a ally to heal or buff, if you need to be able to taunt very certain mobs and tab target makes that easier it is 100% fine. One of the main issues with action combat is aoes on attacks get out of hand and I feel that is a big issue. I understand its there to make it easier to hit your target and not impossible but there should be ways to design and not rely heavy on aoes. If its cause a targets base speed is to fast, have their speed in combat lowered if they are being hit, etc.
I'll just say this one more time, if you think action can't work in a mmorpg from a gameplay point, you are wrong sorry. Just leave it to the designers and they can make it happen, its better to voice certain issues you have that might be a problem, or solutions you think could make things betters.
ANd what does "can't work" mean?
To be fair, if we are talking about PvE that PvE players from other games are going to come to Ashes from, then yeah, people that play PvE primarily probably have a better idea what PvE actually is.
As an example, people have - both on these forums as well as in some games I have played (Archeage, to be specific) tried to claim that playing a games market is a form of PvP. Buying, selling, undercutting others, it's all against other players, and so to them this is PvP.
If I am saying that what some people are calling good PvE is not infact good PvE, that is kind of like someone that is a PvP player telling someone that thinks playing the market in a game is not actually good PvP. That person may well then reply with "and who do you think you are to define what good PvP is?", and they would have about as good of a point here as you have.
I mean, the existence of the entire From Software catalogue is evidence that action combat is fine for PvE. The difference is how it scales with group content.
I see Action Combat as a system that makes movement and aim impactful. How do you make a boss encounter for 10+ people in a trinity-based system that rewards high level movement and aim for everybody involved? What if there are 40 people involved, or even 200? What if you have tab players in the mix who have a different set of tools than the action players? Point is, Action Combat as you showed wouldn't work in Ashes of Creation.
Action combat can work well in PvE, sure. I have my ideas on how to make it work in a full raid setting, too. However, it's well beyond the scope of what Ashes of Creation is trying to do.
Meaning can't work as effective and better than Tab target.
I like the hybrid system concept. Its really the only option for best of both worlds. And the hot swap idea they had in alpha 1 was okay. I like action combat as a front line and tab as a back line. I think its worth them doing the work to make a hybrid system
And i mainly played the cleric in alpha 1, and activly swapped from action to tab often... is good to have both. Imo
I do not personally have a strong opinion what kind of combat Ashes should have but I guess it is more about the execution and how fluid and impactful the combat will be. I think some kind of mix of tab and action would be great, if implemented well. I would personally like to see some skillshots at least.
This is such a bad and stubborn answer...
Albion Online feels like a Social Media RPG. It's kind of a little bit better in some ways than playing D&D via Fantasy Grounds. Although, I still need to see how "classes" feel.
So far, the combat does not feel like "Action Combat".
Albion's combat ain't bad and it suits well for that game. Obviously fixed isometric camera and Moba style combat would not suit for Ashes. Albion is anyways a proof that MMORPG and MOBA can be combined and even quite succesfully. Additionally, RIOT Games is currently developing MMORPG and I am going to be surprised if the combat ain't Moba-styled. Moreover, Corepunk's top down camera and moba looking combat is some kind of combination as well. Then there is under development MMORPG called Fractured which is an isometric game and has some ARPG and Moba elements. Therefore, it looks like that there is this certain direction where MMOs are evolving. I am not saying it is the only one though.. It is of course understandable that gaming companies are trying to mix different kinds of genres and themes and that way develop something fresh.
Anyway, it is interesting to see how the next version of combat looks like and plays out in Ashes. I would also like to see how all the classes functions and hopefully more will be implemented and shared in the near future.
If someone wants to make an MMORPG/MOBA mix, that's great. But, Steven is not hoping to do that.
I think this is the best way to do it, and just add heavy targeting so if people want to stay in action combat they can do so.
This answer is the truth, and it is a very good answer. Any point on tab target as far as combat difference is fully sums up to clicking or tabbing a target and pressing a skill. And the reason why when it comes to tab vrs action combat people can't make proper strong examples why tab is better.
That's great to hear. All of these tab-target Andies are making me question common sense for no reason.
Action and a 40 man can be better than tab most of the time, it requires a lot more creativity, ingenuity, and innovation.
Ashes will be a pure hybrid, I won’t bank on what’s been said so far. They won’t do a tab centric game.
The plain and simple tab targeting system (for example WoW's) just feels outdated.