Active block is one of the most surprising and awesome things I saw from them. I like how it still seems to rely on your stats as well. Makes me excited to pvp and can't wait to see more of it and the features in the game related to combat
More learning curves the better, I want to be able to take on 4 people at once do to skill and have some highlight moments
PagemasterMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
"Ashes has Active block" "you're making things up"
I'm not making anything up, I saw it with my two eyes. Steven even said there's Active blocking, how am I making this up? You even just said, there's Active blocking. What?
And force isn't my concept it's your concept from your own words.
You think Active blocking is linked to the fighter class. Right after you said I'm "assuming it's linked to weapons"
The fighter archetype encompasses 1/8 of the classes.
Do the math.
I dont know what you're on about, you just contradicted yourself multiple times.
Conversation is done.
I like how quickly the greatsword swings, as it makes the button to damage time shorter. I do think there may need to be a greater cooldown between each swing. A lot of the appeal of the 2 handed weapons is that slow big numbers feel really good. It also makes it less likely for them to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
Keeping the melee unrooted to the ground with combat was a great change. People may complain of how its floaty compare to single player games, but nothing is more annoying than an animation lock on a melee class.
I enjoyed the increased customization that I saw with the floating text. I don't know if this would be possible in UE5, but I think it would be awesome if you could generate in game custom combat idle poses/emotes that you can save client side. It would be fun if I could change the way my pc held the 2h sword, even if all the swings are the same animation.
Love the direction you guys are going with the combat!
I think the speeds of the weapons are appropriate, I would not want to see them slowed down - but I think the great sword doesn’t necessarily need to be the slowest weapon. Maybe a 2h hammer or great axe could be a bit slower..
Overall hypetrain
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'm not making anything up, I saw it with my two eyes. Steven even said there's Active blocking, how am I making this up? You even just said, there's Active blocking. What?
And force isn't my concept it's your concept from your own words.
I'm just going to leave you to your own delusions after this.
You are the one tat has the concept that active Block is "forced" on anyone.
Do a search for the word "force" to see who used that term first.
"Forced" is a concept you made up in your own head.
You think Active blocking is linked to the fighter class. Right after you said I'm "assuming it's linked to weapons"
The fighter archetype encompasses 1/8 of the classes.
Do the math.
All we know right now is that Fighter has active Block. That other Archetypes have active Block is soething you are making up in your head and acting like it's reality.
1/8 of the Primary Archetypes having active Block is not "forcing" anything.
Loved the showcase! Without playing myself, it looked like the weight of weapon attacks was done correctly. It seems satisfying to play, intuitive & great animations.
I wish we could play or learn more about the specific controls. I hope we don’t need to spam the auto attack in any way. GW2 has a great action mode, but requires users to spam the basic attack (not fun, easy to forget). Results in large DPS loss and feels bad.
Tab target games like WoW/FF14 have an auto attack that… is auto. It feels much better to me! I enjoy hitting abilities, aiming shots, etc - but not spamming the same basic ability X10000.
Please allow all skills to be rebound to any keys/numbers! Please no spamming of basic attacks!
Likes:
Love the direction the combat is going in; it looks fluid and fun. I believe the movement speed curve correlated to attacks given different weapon weights is the right choice to help demonstrate impact.
Dislikes:
I think the colored streaks following a weapon's movement need to be turned down. Possibly just tuning the opacity.
Other:
Was there mention of being able to adjust colored borders around the floating text? Especially while playing in certain biomes, I could see a situation where adding a black or white border around the text would be helpful.
Others have already covered a lot of ground, but one thing I will add is around how combat feels with impefect latency.
I cannot stress this enough:
Make sure your combat still feels good at medium (100ms) or higher (200ms) latency
If you look at games like Guild Wars 2 as an example, their combat still feels decent even if you are playing at 200ms. Granted, it does feel a tad more sluggish but it's still fairly nice.
If you compare that to say, New World, at the same latency it feels absolutely horrendous and unplayable.
On the basis that there will be NA, EU and OCX servers, that would get most players under 100ms but you will likely still see a large amount over this, so I think it's important. It also buys you a little more room for the game to still feel playable under heavy load.
Why am I mentioning this on a post about attack animations?
Because this is one of the key opportunities to either get it right, or obscenely wrong. How you animate, and how you trigger those animations, is an important part of how your combat feels. If those animations are reliant or triggered by server-side prompts it will make the game feel very gross. You'll even start to notice it at 50ms and higher.
What's your advice?
Test the game and animations with artificially high latency. Does it still feel decent at 100ms? Or does it feel broken and gross?
I've re watched a couple times now. Overall love the direction.
The only nitpicks I have are:
1) the colour effects are too bright imo. I think reducing 30-50% would make it feel more like an impact and less like a "Pow" from the old batman shows.
2) daggers are too fast. Pretty easy to adjust though
Personal feedback: we have been showcased combat with some melee weapons. I would want a more slower, heavier and more impactful movement for the greatsword cause it's a double handed greatsword and it's meant to be heavier and slower than other weapons. Also I personally felt like when the greatsword hit its target it hits thin air... With that I mean I would like something that makes me feel that I hit something and I don't just swing a greatsword like a stick in the air.
The combat update looked really good and fluid, I'm excited for Alpha 2 and ready to get my hands on the game to help test it out further! I would like to see some of the combat in a PVP scenario next stream if possible, for example, someone with the great sword fighting someone with the daggers so we can see how the weighted difference of the weapons translates to a PVP scenario. Overall, I'm excited to see future iterations and the medium weapon and ranged weapon combat in future live streams. Thank you for taking our feedback and making the game better!
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Idhalar AlBaieshMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
- I'd say you are in the right track now. It looks fluid, impactful and fun, the improvements are clear and impressive.
-In my opinion for basic attacks to look and feel good they need to have a "weight" that represent the weapon well, flow seamlessly and transition in a natural way from one to another and into the skills. As far as I know this can only be made the hard way: Well animated directional attacks with transitions from every step of the combo. This is exactly the way you are going, so I'm ecstatic about it.
Bdo did this very well, specially in pre-awakening weapons when the game released.
(Not basic attack related, but the wind up for the hammer skill works beautifully with the huge greatsword and the way that the small elementals explode when killed was epic)
-I think choosing those two weapons was a great way to show the full range of the free movement/rooted animation equation. I think you have achieved a good balance.
-Another important point is that the hit boxes of the weapons and the animation should be accurate.
-About the daggers: The attack speed is perfect. Knives are FAST in real life, so fast that it's terrifying. I'd go even further in the attack speed with some skills or short duration buffs.
The mobility seems perfect for the weapon too. Add some dodges and mobility skills and it's looking great.
If I had to say something negative the guard stance looks a little goofy
-About the greatsword: Love the massive fantasy greatsword idea. It looks very nice, with weighted and deliberate movements, small wind up followed by powerful and fast strike.
The mobility looks well balanced too, some weird gliding sideways movements sometimes but I'm sure it will be much better with more time to polish it.
An even heavier two handed blunt weapon like a tetsubo or a war hammer could be amazing too, maybe with a little bit of that godly push back effect you showed with the golems attached.
Thanks for your amazing work!
Only in silence the word, Only in dark the light, Only in dying life.
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ogreMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I’m getting some GW2 vibes from this which is awesome as that game has a great hybrid system. Active blocking is amazing. Hopefully there will be some viable options for lower-intensity tab target oriented combat rather as well since many players just wanna chill and not worry about their dps or efficiency too much. I do really like that the hybrid type systems reward players for engaging more in the combat while also allowing people to totally slack off and do just ok, it’s really nice for casual players and provides a nice depth for those wanting more.
Looking forward to seeing how the combat system and ui will deal with the number of available skills for each class. Overall great progress has been shown in the past ~6 months.
I prefer it if every player could be equipped with only two types of weapons, both melee and non-melee. I like limitations with variety.
It also looks like a diablo game from a third person ground view.
I personally found them to be a bit way too fast, disconnected and jerky. I like the direction the combat is going towards, but the animations were not there yet. I feel a slower paced, a lot more fluid (especially in transitions), snappier and more tactical combat would be benefiting from exploring. All while remaining in the hybrid style (it would benefit both action and targetted). Also, for attack animations, I find that Shadiversity's #medievalcombatreference on YouTube is really a good reference, which I use a lot in my drawings for poses. Also, I seem to have noticed masic movement and jumping was lacking in momentum, so that's another thing to explore. I really appreciate the community engagement and I know I can be nitpicky, but thank you for your feedback!
Ps. Oh I just had an idea! Maybe having normal and heavy attacks mapped to like LMB:Normal and LMB(hold):Heavy, while RMB is active block or active parry or something. There could be a universal ability for stance/style changes for different flavours of attacks (I love systems design I can't help myself)
The basic melee weapon combat preview was great! The development is most definitely headed in the right direction.
I loved that the player can still move around while attacking. Freedom of movement is really important to a combat system that utilizes the Action style. It's also very important that melee attacks/skills feel and sound impactful. Making a weapon feel like it has real weight and impact is a challenge, and I think audio design is very important for this. An example of great audio design would be the War Hammer in New World. You can really hear the clanging and echo of the metal impacting its target. If New World did anything right, it's the audio design.
In my opinion, the only item that needs improvement from the preview is the choppiness of the attack animation. It looks like there are several character frames missing from the overall animation and does not look fluid right now. As a side note, cape physics could also use some love by adding additional "joints" so they can flex without looking like a folding piece of paper.
You guys are doing an absolutely fantastic job. Keep up the great work. Can't wait to see the next update!
The combat animations and effects looked very nice! Great job!
I also liked very much these golems and specially those rolling little ones.
It was funny and entertaining to see how all the golems' body parts flew when Steven beat them with a two-handed sword. I am very interested to see where AoC's combat is developing!
What I am concerned about is that the solo combat is going to be AoE based like in many other games (GW2 and specially BDO). I know that the video's combat was just a show and many things will change in combat development but I want to let you know what is worrying me.
When I'm playing MMORPGs I want to feel little bit danger when fighting with mobs. I should always calculate how many mobs I can take at once and when to look some assistance from other players. I liked this aspect in Vanilla Wow back in the days. Also Valheim did this very well even though it is not a MMORPG.
Next time when you are showing some new combat content I would like to see more weapons in action. I would like to see how axes and hammers differ in combat from swords and daggers. Also I would like to see how two-handed and one-handed weapons differ and what weapons you can use with shield.
What aspects of basic melee weapon attacks are important to you?
I personally like if basic melee is impactful and not something you do because you've exhausted literally all other options. Bashing your opponent with your big sword should be an important source of damage, not just skills. If all I'm doing is doinking the enemy with a magical hammer that appears out of nowhere, why am I even wielding a sword? However, I'm more accepting of staff/wand auto attacks being less impactful, since a wizard is there to cast spells.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
If weapons don't have any weapon specific active skills, then I'd like to see more diversity in the basic attack chain. While I don't like the idea of an extremely long auto attack chain, I'd like to see some branching options that the player can choose from. For example, maybe the great sword could have a different finisher depending if the player is moving forward, backward or sideways with different onhit effects, speed and damage. Maybe even charged attacks, like a big axe combo finisher that can be reacted to but deals big damage and sends people flying!
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Closest I can think of is Guild Wars 2, but basic attacks in that game had issues with weightlessness, and you didn't really pay attention to the part of the chain you were on. In vast majority of the cases it was just the downtime button or the non committal poke you gave to gauge an opponent. It was still better than just having one effectless auto attack!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
The impacts looked satisfying where it'll feel good to just hit something in the game. I'm super happy about the balancing between swings slowing you down and the weapon weight class. On the minus side, the animations looked a bit off at some points, like with that one great sword attack with the big backswing there could have been more emphasis on the swing itself.
Free word
I'd like you to reconsider the stance of having no weapon specific skills, since some things just make more sense with certain weapons. A huge leaping strike that leaves a crater? Probably not one for the daggers.
Additionally, I'm a bit worried for the weapon skill trees, since there doesn't seem to be much design space left without active skills. At least the skill tree could be used to unlock additional combo chain options?
Finally I'd like to advocate against important fight deciding RNG procs being associated with the auto attack combos. For example, I don't like to idea of having to farm my second attack in my combo chain for a 40% proc to trigger a bleed that I need to go into my burst. Since auto attack combos already require the player to spend uninterrupted time left clicking without using other active skills, the reward shouldn't be just a chance at the result. RNG here would just be a source of extra frustration.
I don't want to be repetitive, so to give a short thing I think most people won't think about.
I think this would specifically be good for mass pvp
I think something that would be cool if possible to add extra depth; The aoe the basic attacks will have depending on the weapon type and what other factors you could add to that for a little bit of depth.
You already have great swords swinging wider and reaching farther with basic attacks than daggers. To go further you could add things like Decay of Damage through each target hit. To elaborate, If I have a single swing from right to left, and the great sword hits multiple targets, the first person I hit will take the most damage, and the person farthest to the left at the tail end of the swing will take a little less damage. if you swung over head straight in front you you, the person closest takes the most, and the back takes the least.
This will make understanding the direction of your swing combo and positioning slightly more important in offensive and defensive play in pvp and pve, raising the skill gap slightly, as well as adding a little bit of realism. You could even apply this to other areas like ranged, with a piercing arrow ability decaying with each target it hits.
I understand this isn't the easiest thing to program and by no means a priority. It would be a cool little combat detail though.
Otherwise I like the direction you all are taking so far with the combat. Looks a lot better than what I played in a1. Hope y'all have a great day whenever you read this!
I love the overall direction and am so inspired by the level of work being put into this project, this update felt like a huge step forward! I think hybrid combat is absolutely the way to go; tab only is dated and boring and slow and you just sit there cycling between 4 buttons and tab without even having to look at the screen; action only can get too chaotic and floaty and doesn't always feel good. I absolutely agree with sticking it out with hybrid and using all the levers to tweak split body movement/agency/weight as mentioned on stream. The philosophy behind this combat design sounds correct to me and makes me feel confident.
Some quick notes and thoughts although I'm very satisfied based on what was shown:
I actually might like the great sword to feel even *heavier* than was shown, it felt kinda fast for me although I recognize I might be in the minority and the point made during the livestream about needing it to be livable for PVP and not too slow is well taken. The daggers for me need an extra animation or an extra attack mixed in that basic attack cycle to make it look and feel more interesting - something in the middle like a stab to the neck or some vital point, the two slashes with that X pattern attack didn't give me the dagger fantasy of really nimbly stabbing and slicing to pieces how I would want with daggers.
I'm not a melee weapon user so my feedback won't be as valuable as others >.<
After looking back on placeholder/ older iterations of combat I can see huge progress. Body movement looks more natural and animations are smoother. It still needs work and many folks have already provided good advice.
After several watches I noticed the swap from action to tab - very smooth! I honestly didn't notice it for ages! You're definitely going in the right direction.
A lot of great feedback here so thankyou for creating these threads
For future combat presentations could you please use an armour/skin set that does not have a cloak. This would help us have a better look at the full body ^^
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ghostxxMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Melee looks fantastic compared to alpha 1 so please, keep down this path.
Regarding 2h animations...it kind of bothered me seeing a greatsword being swung around while walking circles around your enemy. it's not very practical and make it seem kind of floaty. Would you consider changing this casual stroll to a sidestep mid-combo side hop?
Being able to cleave AOE hits is great but as I'm sure others have stated, it leaves me wondering if all combat is just going to be 1) round a bunch of mobs 2) AOE AOE AOE 3) profit 4) repeat
Is there discussions on the ability to have single target vs aoe combos? Maybe a stance switch or something along those lines.
Will there be animation cancelling (with ability CD) to make telegraphed attacks something to strategize with?
Hello
First et me answer to Stevena QUestion he asked on stream:
Is the direction and the improvment you have seen here on the Stream the right direction?
Answer: Yes, definetly great improvment
Now to the Feedback, and im well aware its work in progress so some points may alredy be in development or discharged allredy.
I Like that the Melee Character doesnt return after every attack to the default battle stance befor starting the next attack, that also the ending of the previous attack does matter to where the weapon is and goes fluid over into the next attack.
But it seems to me that there is still the timeline of selecting a attack/skill that leads to a delay then the attack then a delay befor the next attack even on chain attacks. geeting these delays out would be sweet.
Impact doesnt seem to occure the combat seems to be between bodys of ghosts so that attacks goe thru like it would go thu nothing but air. haveing something that accts as a real body would be nice, so that if a swordswing may be fast at start but if it hits it gelling slown down a bit and deals lower dmg on the next target it hits on its path, or if the eney blocks the attack it also stops the sword movement and so the attacker can not chain or even getting a tiny stunn effect on him.
markings on the ground are great but they vanish to fast and doesnt semm to have a pysical effect, would be nice to have them with a small area effect if moved over so that they lead to a stomble in the movement with a tiny chace that it stops a attack from executing or that the accuracy drops, or that a dodge or evade attempt fails or a tiny root applys, movement speed getting reduced. so that these also have a effect on them which could be used in a tactical way. the spining attack that did a lot of dust could act as remover of those markings on the ground and the dust itself emmitting a debuff like blinding or recucing accuracy since sand in the eyes hurts.
the boulderattack of the enemy might have a push back or knock back attached to it if not evaded or blocked, if blocked then maybe the pushback still applys to it.
for the daggers or so a tab target attack that throws shurikens migth work so if you running away and use that skill/attack on a tabbed target behind you, then the character does trun its upper body an toss them horizonly backwords. but if standing infron of the target faceing it then it throws vertical. and also the movement and direction of the target from the body of the attacker may increase or decrease the accuracy of the attack. cuase standing face to face without movement brings the maximum accuracy but ruinning away or sideways will be less accurate and if thrown horizontly the chance to miss is bigger and so if it misses the shuriken migth fly pass the target to its left or right.
on character itself i dislike the instand turn of a character like standing on a spot and twirl like a bayblade. so that rurning on the sopt is still possible but much slower cuas ethe feet needs to move as well and that turns in movement are much faster however the faster the run the wider the turn.
For environment. looks lovely
only the ground of the baddle seen seems not to mach the environment the stones are redish sandstones however the ground is a brownish sand that ether the stones or the sand doesnt fit in coloration to the environment. a little contrast is fine, but the diffrence in the scene seems to me to much to look naturaly.
Ligth it seems there is yet no day and nigth cycle or sunmovement, it still looks like it doesnt have any shadowmovements. hope that will change soon, knowing from other games that the sadowmovement could cause laags due to so much data that needs to be prozessed. not that in the end you have a great game without a moveing sun cuase it would drop the framerate to much.
But i guess a lot of wether is still in development cuse also the ship has it sails full blown up but moveing clockwise around the island, so it seems that it is yet not moved by wind itself rather just a artifical movement for showcaseing alone. wonder how this part will develop, if traverse the sea also matter the direction of the wind so that some routes may be unsaileble some times or even windstops happens that impact the gameplay.
a tiny question at the end: Does the character hight impact the characters movement speed? or does big chars have legmovement in slowmotion, while small chars running like the roadrunner from disney?
Overall I like the Direction the combat is going.
Like others have mentioned weightness of different weapons will be key.
Something interesting maybe to see is making a Jumping -> Basic attack animation or Dodge -> Basic attack
Like a jumping slash or a rolling slash. I could seeing this be really cool for tagging monsters or pvping.
Cant wait to see the progress and how the basic attack weaves into combat skills going into alpha 2
The lastest showcase looks really good, very fast and fluid. The graphics are excellent, and i understand the hype!
However... This game was initially down as Tab. Then it moved to Hybrid. Now it looks like it's full action combat.
Players need to know what direction you're going with this - is it full A/C or will there be Tab - and if so what will that look like? It's hard to see how Tab is going to fit into what we've just seen, and this represents a massive shift from what the game start/was sold as. If your aim is still hybrid, the next video should look to showcase how tab will function in line with the video we have just seen.
I agree with others that the yellow streak on the greatsword hit was too bright and could use turning down - also can that color change like if you take a stance or charge a skill or use an augment from your secondary class maybe the sword is imbued with a different color for the duration?
Comments
Ashes has active Block.
Wait for the devs to provide more info rather than making stuff up and then acting as if it's reality.
More learning curves the better, I want to be able to take on 4 people at once do to skill and have some highlight moments
I'm not making anything up, I saw it with my two eyes. Steven even said there's Active blocking, how am I making this up? You even just said, there's Active blocking. What?
And force isn't my concept it's your concept from your own words.
You think Active blocking is linked to the fighter class. Right after you said I'm "assuming it's linked to weapons"
The fighter archetype encompasses 1/8 of the classes.
Do the math.
I dont know what you're on about, you just contradicted yourself multiple times.
Conversation is done.
I like how quickly the greatsword swings, as it makes the button to damage time shorter. I do think there may need to be a greater cooldown between each swing. A lot of the appeal of the 2 handed weapons is that slow big numbers feel really good. It also makes it less likely for them to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
Keeping the melee unrooted to the ground with combat was a great change. People may complain of how its floaty compare to single player games, but nothing is more annoying than an animation lock on a melee class.
I enjoyed the increased customization that I saw with the floating text. I don't know if this would be possible in UE5, but I think it would be awesome if you could generate in game custom combat idle poses/emotes that you can save client side. It would be fun if I could change the way my pc held the 2h sword, even if all the swings are the same animation.
I think the speeds of the weapons are appropriate, I would not want to see them slowed down - but I think the great sword doesn’t necessarily need to be the slowest weapon. Maybe a 2h hammer or great axe could be a bit slower..
Overall hypetrain
You are the one tat has the concept that active Block is "forced" on anyone.
Do a search for the word "force" to see who used that term first.
"Forced" is a concept you made up in your own head.
All we know right now is that Fighter has active Block. That other Archetypes have active Block is soething you are making up in your head and acting like it's reality.
1/8 of the Primary Archetypes having active Block is not "forcing" anything.
I didn't contradict myself, you just continue to make stuff up and delude yourself.
But, yeah, this conversation is done. That much is true.
I wish we could play or learn more about the specific controls. I hope we don’t need to spam the auto attack in any way. GW2 has a great action mode, but requires users to spam the basic attack (not fun, easy to forget). Results in large DPS loss and feels bad.
Tab target games like WoW/FF14 have an auto attack that… is auto. It feels much better to me! I enjoy hitting abilities, aiming shots, etc - but not spamming the same basic ability X10000.
Please allow all skills to be rebound to any keys/numbers! Please no spamming of basic attacks!
Love the direction the combat is going in; it looks fluid and fun. I believe the movement speed curve correlated to attacks given different weapon weights is the right choice to help demonstrate impact.
Dislikes:
I think the colored streaks following a weapon's movement need to be turned down. Possibly just tuning the opacity.
Other:
Was there mention of being able to adjust colored borders around the floating text? Especially while playing in certain biomes, I could see a situation where adding a black or white border around the text would be helpful.
I cannot stress this enough:
Make sure your combat still feels good at medium (100ms) or higher (200ms) latency
If you look at games like Guild Wars 2 as an example, their combat still feels decent even if you are playing at 200ms. Granted, it does feel a tad more sluggish but it's still fairly nice.
If you compare that to say, New World, at the same latency it feels absolutely horrendous and unplayable.
On the basis that there will be NA, EU and OCX servers, that would get most players under 100ms but you will likely still see a large amount over this, so I think it's important. It also buys you a little more room for the game to still feel playable under heavy load.
Why am I mentioning this on a post about attack animations?
Because this is one of the key opportunities to either get it right, or obscenely wrong. How you animate, and how you trigger those animations, is an important part of how your combat feels. If those animations are reliant or triggered by server-side prompts it will make the game feel very gross. You'll even start to notice it at 50ms and higher.
What's your advice?
Test the game and animations with artificially high latency. Does it still feel decent at 100ms? Or does it feel broken and gross?
My $0.35
The only nitpicks I have are:
1) the colour effects are too bright imo. I think reducing 30-50% would make it feel more like an impact and less like a "Pow" from the old batman shows.
2) daggers are too fast. Pretty easy to adjust though
- I'd say you are in the right track now. It looks fluid, impactful and fun, the improvements are clear and impressive.
-In my opinion for basic attacks to look and feel good they need to have a "weight" that represent the weapon well, flow seamlessly and transition in a natural way from one to another and into the skills. As far as I know this can only be made the hard way: Well animated directional attacks with transitions from every step of the combo. This is exactly the way you are going, so I'm ecstatic about it.
Bdo did this very well, specially in pre-awakening weapons when the game released.
(Not basic attack related, but the wind up for the hammer skill works beautifully with the huge greatsword and the way that the small elementals explode when killed was epic)
-I think choosing those two weapons was a great way to show the full range of the free movement/rooted animation equation. I think you have achieved a good balance.
-Another important point is that the hit boxes of the weapons and the animation should be accurate.
-About the daggers: The attack speed is perfect. Knives are FAST in real life, so fast that it's terrifying. I'd go even further in the attack speed with some skills or short duration buffs.
The mobility seems perfect for the weapon too. Add some dodges and mobility skills and it's looking great.
If I had to say something negative the guard stance looks a little goofy
-About the greatsword: Love the massive fantasy greatsword idea. It looks very nice, with weighted and deliberate movements, small wind up followed by powerful and fast strike.
The mobility looks well balanced too, some weird gliding sideways movements sometimes but I'm sure it will be much better with more time to polish it.
An even heavier two handed blunt weapon like a tetsubo or a war hammer could be amazing too, maybe with a little bit of that godly push back effect you showed with the golems attached.
Thanks for your amazing work!
Looking forward to seeing how the combat system and ui will deal with the number of available skills for each class. Overall great progress has been shown in the past ~6 months.
Got me so excited for A2 testing :DD, cant waittttttt.
It also looks like a diablo game from a third person ground view.
Ps. Oh I just had an idea! Maybe having normal and heavy attacks mapped to like LMB:Normal and LMB(hold):Heavy, while RMB is active block or active parry or something. There could be a universal ability for stance/style changes for different flavours of attacks (I love systems design I can't help myself)
I loved that the player can still move around while attacking. Freedom of movement is really important to a combat system that utilizes the Action style. It's also very important that melee attacks/skills feel and sound impactful. Making a weapon feel like it has real weight and impact is a challenge, and I think audio design is very important for this. An example of great audio design would be the War Hammer in New World. You can really hear the clanging and echo of the metal impacting its target. If New World did anything right, it's the audio design.
In my opinion, the only item that needs improvement from the preview is the choppiness of the attack animation. It looks like there are several character frames missing from the overall animation and does not look fluid right now. As a side note, cape physics could also use some love by adding additional "joints" so they can flex without looking like a folding piece of paper.
You guys are doing an absolutely fantastic job. Keep up the great work. Can't wait to see the next update!
I also liked very much these golems and specially those rolling little ones.
It was funny and entertaining to see how all the golems' body parts flew when Steven beat them with a two-handed sword. I am very interested to see where AoC's combat is developing!
What I am concerned about is that the solo combat is going to be AoE based like in many other games (GW2 and specially BDO). I know that the video's combat was just a show and many things will change in combat development but I want to let you know what is worrying me.
When I'm playing MMORPGs I want to feel little bit danger when fighting with mobs. I should always calculate how many mobs I can take at once and when to look some assistance from other players. I liked this aspect in Vanilla Wow back in the days. Also Valheim did this very well even though it is not a MMORPG.
Next time when you are showing some new combat content I would like to see more weapons in action. I would like to see how axes and hammers differ in combat from swords and daggers. Also I would like to see how two-handed and one-handed weapons differ and what weapons you can use with shield.
I personally like if basic melee is impactful and not something you do because you've exhausted literally all other options. Bashing your opponent with your big sword should be an important source of damage, not just skills. If all I'm doing is doinking the enemy with a magical hammer that appears out of nowhere, why am I even wielding a sword? However, I'm more accepting of staff/wand auto attacks being less impactful, since a wizard is there to cast spells.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
If weapons don't have any weapon specific active skills, then I'd like to see more diversity in the basic attack chain. While I don't like the idea of an extremely long auto attack chain, I'd like to see some branching options that the player can choose from. For example, maybe the great sword could have a different finisher depending if the player is moving forward, backward or sideways with different onhit effects, speed and damage. Maybe even charged attacks, like a big axe combo finisher that can be reacted to but deals big damage and sends people flying!
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Closest I can think of is Guild Wars 2, but basic attacks in that game had issues with weightlessness, and you didn't really pay attention to the part of the chain you were on. In vast majority of the cases it was just the downtime button or the non committal poke you gave to gauge an opponent. It was still better than just having one effectless auto attack!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
The impacts looked satisfying where it'll feel good to just hit something in the game. I'm super happy about the balancing between swings slowing you down and the weapon weight class. On the minus side, the animations looked a bit off at some points, like with that one great sword attack with the big backswing there could have been more emphasis on the swing itself.
Free word
I'd like you to reconsider the stance of having no weapon specific skills, since some things just make more sense with certain weapons. A huge leaping strike that leaves a crater? Probably not one for the daggers.
Additionally, I'm a bit worried for the weapon skill trees, since there doesn't seem to be much design space left without active skills. At least the skill tree could be used to unlock additional combo chain options?
Finally I'd like to advocate against important fight deciding RNG procs being associated with the auto attack combos. For example, I don't like to idea of having to farm my second attack in my combo chain for a 40% proc to trigger a bleed that I need to go into my burst. Since auto attack combos already require the player to spend uninterrupted time left clicking without using other active skills, the reward shouldn't be just a chance at the result. RNG here would just be a source of extra frustration.
I think this would specifically be good for mass pvp
I think something that would be cool if possible to add extra depth; The aoe the basic attacks will have depending on the weapon type and what other factors you could add to that for a little bit of depth.
You already have great swords swinging wider and reaching farther with basic attacks than daggers. To go further you could add things like Decay of Damage through each target hit. To elaborate, If I have a single swing from right to left, and the great sword hits multiple targets, the first person I hit will take the most damage, and the person farthest to the left at the tail end of the swing will take a little less damage. if you swung over head straight in front you you, the person closest takes the most, and the back takes the least.
This will make understanding the direction of your swing combo and positioning slightly more important in offensive and defensive play in pvp and pve, raising the skill gap slightly, as well as adding a little bit of realism. You could even apply this to other areas like ranged, with a piercing arrow ability decaying with each target it hits.
I understand this isn't the easiest thing to program and by no means a priority. It would be a cool little combat detail though.
Otherwise I like the direction you all are taking so far with the combat. Looks a lot better than what I played in a1. Hope y'all have a great day whenever you read this!
Some quick notes and thoughts although I'm very satisfied based on what was shown:
I actually might like the great sword to feel even *heavier* than was shown, it felt kinda fast for me although I recognize I might be in the minority and the point made during the livestream about needing it to be livable for PVP and not too slow is well taken. The daggers for me need an extra animation or an extra attack mixed in that basic attack cycle to make it look and feel more interesting - something in the middle like a stab to the neck or some vital point, the two slashes with that X pattern attack didn't give me the dagger fantasy of really nimbly stabbing and slicing to pieces how I would want with daggers.
After looking back on placeholder/ older iterations of combat I can see huge progress. Body movement looks more natural and animations are smoother. It still needs work and many folks have already provided good advice.
After several watches I noticed the swap from action to tab - very smooth! I honestly didn't notice it for ages! You're definitely going in the right direction.
A lot of great feedback here so thankyou for creating these threads
For future combat presentations could you please use an armour/skin set that does not have a cloak. This would help us have a better look at the full body ^^
Regarding 2h animations...it kind of bothered me seeing a greatsword being swung around while walking circles around your enemy. it's not very practical and make it seem kind of floaty. Would you consider changing this casual stroll to a sidestep mid-combo side hop?
Being able to cleave AOE hits is great but as I'm sure others have stated, it leaves me wondering if all combat is just going to be 1) round a bunch of mobs 2) AOE AOE AOE 3) profit 4) repeat
Is there discussions on the ability to have single target vs aoe combos? Maybe a stance switch or something along those lines.
Will there be animation cancelling (with ability CD) to make telegraphed attacks something to strategize with?
First et me answer to Stevena QUestion he asked on stream:
Is the direction and the improvment you have seen here on the Stream the right direction?
Answer: Yes, definetly great improvment
Now to the Feedback, and im well aware its work in progress so some points may alredy be in development or discharged allredy.
I Like that the Melee Character doesnt return after every attack to the default battle stance befor starting the next attack, that also the ending of the previous attack does matter to where the weapon is and goes fluid over into the next attack.
But it seems to me that there is still the timeline of selecting a attack/skill that leads to a delay then the attack then a delay befor the next attack even on chain attacks. geeting these delays out would be sweet.
Impact doesnt seem to occure the combat seems to be between bodys of ghosts so that attacks goe thru like it would go thu nothing but air. haveing something that accts as a real body would be nice, so that if a swordswing may be fast at start but if it hits it gelling slown down a bit and deals lower dmg on the next target it hits on its path, or if the eney blocks the attack it also stops the sword movement and so the attacker can not chain or even getting a tiny stunn effect on him.
markings on the ground are great but they vanish to fast and doesnt semm to have a pysical effect, would be nice to have them with a small area effect if moved over so that they lead to a stomble in the movement with a tiny chace that it stops a attack from executing or that the accuracy drops, or that a dodge or evade attempt fails or a tiny root applys, movement speed getting reduced. so that these also have a effect on them which could be used in a tactical way. the spining attack that did a lot of dust could act as remover of those markings on the ground and the dust itself emmitting a debuff like blinding or recucing accuracy since sand in the eyes hurts.
the boulderattack of the enemy might have a push back or knock back attached to it if not evaded or blocked, if blocked then maybe the pushback still applys to it.
for the daggers or so a tab target attack that throws shurikens migth work so if you running away and use that skill/attack on a tabbed target behind you, then the character does trun its upper body an toss them horizonly backwords. but if standing infron of the target faceing it then it throws vertical. and also the movement and direction of the target from the body of the attacker may increase or decrease the accuracy of the attack. cuase standing face to face without movement brings the maximum accuracy but ruinning away or sideways will be less accurate and if thrown horizontly the chance to miss is bigger and so if it misses the shuriken migth fly pass the target to its left or right.
on character itself i dislike the instand turn of a character like standing on a spot and twirl like a bayblade. so that rurning on the sopt is still possible but much slower cuas ethe feet needs to move as well and that turns in movement are much faster however the faster the run the wider the turn.
For environment. looks lovely
only the ground of the baddle seen seems not to mach the environment the stones are redish sandstones however the ground is a brownish sand that ether the stones or the sand doesnt fit in coloration to the environment. a little contrast is fine, but the diffrence in the scene seems to me to much to look naturaly.
Ligth it seems there is yet no day and nigth cycle or sunmovement, it still looks like it doesnt have any shadowmovements. hope that will change soon, knowing from other games that the sadowmovement could cause laags due to so much data that needs to be prozessed. not that in the end you have a great game without a moveing sun cuase it would drop the framerate to much.
But i guess a lot of wether is still in development cuse also the ship has it sails full blown up but moveing clockwise around the island, so it seems that it is yet not moved by wind itself rather just a artifical movement for showcaseing alone. wonder how this part will develop, if traverse the sea also matter the direction of the wind so that some routes may be unsaileble some times or even windstops happens that impact the gameplay.
a tiny question at the end: Does the character hight impact the characters movement speed? or does big chars have legmovement in slowmotion, while small chars running like the roadrunner from disney?
Regards and great job sofar
Asraiel
Like others have mentioned weightness of different weapons will be key.
Something interesting maybe to see is making a Jumping -> Basic attack animation or Dodge -> Basic attack
Like a jumping slash or a rolling slash. I could seeing this be really cool for tagging monsters or pvping.
Cant wait to see the progress and how the basic attack weaves into combat skills going into alpha 2
However... This game was initially down as Tab. Then it moved to Hybrid. Now it looks like it's full action combat.
Players need to know what direction you're going with this - is it full A/C or will there be Tab - and if so what will that look like? It's hard to see how Tab is going to fit into what we've just seen, and this represents a massive shift from what the game start/was sold as. If your aim is still hybrid, the next video should look to showcase how tab will function in line with the video we have just seen.
Keep up the good work!
I agree with others that the yellow streak on the greatsword hit was too bright and could use turning down - also can that color change like if you take a stance or charge a skill or use an augment from your secondary class maybe the sword is imbued with a different color for the duration?