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
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.