I don't like action combat, and it could very potentially stop me from playing

BDO is not designed for proper fights they are pretty much a mess i use to farm those bosses as well. They aren't fun or engaging and everything in the game is giant aoe. And bdo devs are lazy with content. You could designed something with bdo that can kind of work but it would still feel scuffed.

EQ and L2 aren't action combat in any form there aren't examples of it as far as I've seen. Using a skill that gives evasion to dodge is not action combat its just a skill you use. Having to dodge and aim your attacks is a lot more engaging you can see in the video i posted of EQ 2 raid combat vrs neverwinter online which is full action base.

My point about swtor is it has faked or semi components of action gameplay. Where other older games like L2, shadowbane, EQ do not. Though it has a few skills here or there is still fully tab target. The point is showing the direction the genre is evolving towards and that is hybrid. With action style gameplay fully able to do raids just as effectively as tab target.

I remember in bdo when they added the stronger version of kutum and everyone just sat until it died to ge the reward because the fight was honestly terrible in a tiny area with one shot aoes. Was 100% terrible and no one wanted to lose like 1 bill silver off gems being destroyed.

Mag7spy wrote: »

vs neverwinter online which is full action base.

I sure hope that video is not the best example of action combat raid pve, cause ooh boy did that not impress me at all. Nor did it show the limits of action combat. The fight literally consisted of "move out of the aoe, use aoes against some slowish mobs and then stand in one fucking place and unload your 3 (maybe 6-9?) skills onto a huge unmoving target.

When Noaani says "action combat can't do what Tab can", I think he means the limits of the system in each given fight (or at least top ones). I did not see any "limits" being pushed in that NWO fight. @Dygz iirc you've played a fair bit of it, do you remember any hardcore raids from it? Maybe not that you've participated, but at least heard about? Cause I sure as hell hope that was not one of them. I'm an omega pve casual (considering L2's pve), but that shit did not look all that taxing. Even the BDO pvp vid I posted seemed waaaay more difficult.

Obviously I'm missing some gameplay mechanics and knowledge to truly perceive the difficulty of that fight, but the famous "action combat requires you to, like, constantly move and be alert and shit" seemed definitely absent in that video. Or was at least really subdued.

Mag7spy wrote: »

Everquest style of combat won't seel AoC

I have no idea what you intended that sentence to mean.

Mag7spy wrote: »

If on the last steam the devs showed something akin to the gameplay in EQ 2 clicking 10 abilities in a rotation over what they actually showed with the more action based attacks. Do you you think people would have said that it was the right direction or be as excited?

Depends on what they showed.
We're confident that the devs can nail Tab Target combat. Showcasing some Action Combat Active skills first provides us with more confidence that they are on a better path towards improving the Action Combat that was implemented in Alpha 1.
I would be excited to see Fighter Active Skills like Hammer Strike. I dunno that that wasn't a Tab Target Active Skill. Same with Whirlwind.
I would not have been as excited to see an update to the same Cleric and Tank Active Skills that were available in Alpha 1.

NiKr wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

vs neverwinter online which is full action base.

I sure hope that video is not the best example of action combat raid pve, cause ooh boy did that not impress me at all. Nor did it show the limits of action combat. The fight literally consisted of "move out of the aoe, use aoes against some slowish mobs and then stand in one fucking place and unload your 3 (maybe 6-9?) skills onto a huge unmoving target.

When Noaani says "action combat can't do what Tab can", I think he means the limits of the system in each given fight (or at least top ones). I did not see any "limits" being pushed in that NWO fight. @Dygz iirc you've played a fair bit of it, do you remember any hardcore raids from it? Maybe not that you've participated, but at least heard about? Cause I sure as hell hope that was not one of them. I'm an omega pve casual (considering L2's pve), but that shit did not look all that taxing. Even the BDO pvp vid I posted seemed waaaay more difficult.

Obviously I'm missing some gameplay mechanics and knowledge to truly perceive the difficulty of that fight, but the famous "action combat requires you to, like, constantly move and be alert and shit" seemed definitely absent in that video. Or was at least really subdued.

Nope, that's about it.

They're really the same, which is honestly a pretty big positive for the rest of us.

I'm sure Mag has played some specific games that aren't, but none of the ones mentioned so far are much different in my book.

The hard part of Action Combat (relative to Tab) is always 'getting back into position to start striking again' or 'making sure your aim is correct when the enemy moves. Any Tab game that also requires this is basically the same thing.

You can ignore any responses about Kutum too. The amount of Mobility and positioning required to fight it depends entirely on the class being played. The one I mentioned just has a huge shield so you have to reposition less often, which I think is the standard expectation everyone should have of the 'big shield tank' class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKeXoCE8Oe4

NiKr wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

vs neverwinter online which is full action base.

I sure hope that video is not the best example of action combat raid pve, cause ooh boy did that not impress me at all. Nor did it show the limits of action combat. The fight literally consisted of "move out of the aoe, use aoes against some slowish mobs and then stand in one fucking place and unload your 3 (maybe 6-9?) skills onto a huge unmoving target.

When Noaani says "action combat can't do what Tab can", I think he means the limits of the system in each given fight (or at least top ones). I did not see any "limits" being pushed in that NWO fight. @Dygz iirc you've played a fair bit of it, do you remember any hardcore raids from it? Maybe not that you've participated, but at least heard about? Cause I sure as hell hope that was not one of them. I'm an omega pve casual (considering L2's pve), but that shit did not look all that taxing. Even the BDO pvp vid I posted seemed waaaay more difficult.

Obviously I'm missing some gameplay mechanics and knowledge to truly perceive the difficulty of that fight, but the famous "action combat requires you to, like, constantly move and be alert and shit" seemed definitely absent in that video. Or was at least really subdued.

I'd say the everquest raid is even less impress as it just seems like everyone is standings still pressing buttons. Either way a quick glance of people doing it that know how to do it doesn't let you catch or understand all the mechanics.

Aoes alone would mean you would have to be alert to them if its a big enough threat where your healers can't out heal the dmg being taken. Again point of action combat sin't to be sonic, its about the control of your character between movement and attack. The difference being very clear between the two videos with eq2 being very static.

If you would like to see all the functions of the raid though you can see in this video.

Dygz wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Everquest style of combat won't seel AoC

I have no idea what you intended that sentence to mean.

Mag7spy wrote: »

If on the last steam the devs showed something akin to the gameplay in EQ 2 clicking 10 abilities in a rotation over what they actually showed with the more action based attacks. Do you you think people would have said that it was the right direction or be as excited?

Depends on what they showed.
We're confident that the devs can nail Tab Target combat. Showcasing some Action Combat Active skills first provides us with more confidence that they are on a better path towards improving the Action Combat that was implemented in Alpha 1.
I would be excited to see Fighter Active Skills like Hammer Strike. I dunno that that wasn't a Tab Target Active Skill. Same with Whirlwind.
I would not have been as excited to see an update to the same Cleric and Tank Active Skills that were available in Alpha 1.

I meant sell*

NiKr wrote: »

@Dygz iirc you've played a fair bit of it, do you remember any hardcore raids from it? Maybe not that you've participated, but at least heard about? Cause I sure as hell hope that was not one of them. I'm an omega pve casual (considering L2's pve), but that shit did not look all that taxing. Even the BDO pvp vid I posted seemed waaaay more difficult.

Obviously I'm missing some gameplay mechanics and knowledge to truly perceive the difficulty of that fight, but the famous "action combat requires you to, like, constantly move and be alert and shit" seemed definitely absent in that video. Or was at least really subdued.

Haha!
I didn't even look at the clip that Mag7spy shared.
In dunegons, I do like the added thrill of seeing a telegraph attack from periferal vision and proactively choosing to Roll/Dodge out of the way or actively Block the attack. Rather than simply letting my character stats resolve that contention.
But, for Hybrid combat -- I dunno how many of my characters' abilities will be Tab Target v Action Combat.
The ratios might different greatly on different characters.

The EQ2 vid is sped up too fast to for me to see if I would feel like current combat seems to slow and laborious compared to NWO.

I just don't understand the debate about which is (objectively) better when we can choose whichever we like in Ashes.

Mag7spy wrote: »

Everquest style of combat won't sell AoC

The Tab Target abilities of Ashes are not going to be "EQ style" in any case.
Keep in mind that Steven said that if they couldn't get the Action Combat to feel right, Ashes would just be Tab Target.
So...again...Steven doesn't quite agree with you on that.
I'm glad that they seem to have a better grasp on Action Combat now.

Dygz wrote: »

I just don't understand the debate about which is (objectively) better when we can choose whichever we like in Ashes.

I feel like many of us (maybe it was just me?) got caught up in explaining to Mag that Action Combat elements tend to get stripped away in large battles, bringing it 'back to Tab', but didn't actually understand that Mag thinks that Tab games don't require things like 'facing the enemy and making sure you face them for abilities' or 'spacing abilities that hit a certain distance in front of you' or 'dodging out of attacks that strike as lines rather than just being swung at your character's general location'.

Since so few of us seem to have seriously played such games, it appears that we all just play "Action Combat" and since Mag also basically agreed that 'removing some of the requirements' (which are pretty minimal, but not the ones Mag perceived to be present in the games being discussed) is fine for large scale PvE, I think there is actually... no real debate?

SWTOR is apparently just a game where you can use most of your abilities without even looking at your enemies and never need to reposition to avoid attacks I guess?

I'm unfamiliar, so I can't say.

(I mostly meant between Noaani and Mag7spy - especially since neither of them will convince the other... and we'll be able to choose what we like in Ashes. Noaani can focus on Tab Target abilities. Mg7spy can focus on Action Combat abilities.)

I'm going to go above and beyond right now, since the only eq i played was EQ1. Going to install eq 2 and test some things out.

Mag7spy wrote: »

I'd say the everquest raid is even less impress as it just seems like everyone is standings still pressing buttons. Either way a quick glance of people doing it that know how to do it doesn't let you catch or understand all the mechanics.

From what it looked like, that seems like a semi-abuse tactic where a part of the raid can stand in one particular place to minimize received dmg. We'd need Noaani to explain that particular raid for us.

Mag7spy wrote: »

Aoes alone would mean you would have to be alert to them if its a big enough threat where your healers can't out heal the dmg being taken. Again point of action combat sin't to be sonic, its about the control of your character between movement and attack. The difference being very clear between the two videos with eq2 being very static.

Here's a boss from 2006. Super simplistic mechanics-wise. Super fast, super big aoes, super random aggro, super fast regen (iirc), fear/dot/stun as skills (iirc) and a shitton of lava that supposedly damages you (I tried looking at the hp values when the dude had the debuff, but couldn't see it going down, maybe it's more of an accumulative debuff, I don't remember rn).

Due to how fast the boss is and how big his aoes are, you gotta be constantly on the move. Melee classes do more damage from behind so they, ideally, want to always be in the back of the boss (helps with survival too). And running around in lava is dangerous, while the non-lava spots are super thin and very spotty. The max limit of people is 200, dunno whether they had the full stack there, but I'd assume they did, cause it takes a ton of dmg to bring this fucker down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS3yWUfLZ00

To me, this kind of fight looks more difficult than that NWO one. Like I said, I'm sure I'm missing a ton of context for it, but the hecticness of L2's fight seems higher. And all that is in a game with a click-to-move system and a much more tab targety combat than it later became.

And exactly due to this hecticness, when I imagine an action combat peak design pve - I imagine a fight where you're at your physical limit of reactions and movement. Because why the hell would you have pure action combat, when you can "just stand around" in tab just fine. And I'm pretty sure this is Noaani's point. Why use action combat, with big pve in mind, when your encounter design will be literally the same as the one from a tab game. Either design it in a way that pushes action combat to its limit, or just have tab. And in quite a lot of cases that "tab" is already hybridy, because afaik quite a lot of tab games have action skills. And imo the potential depth of interactions and utility abilities is much higher in a tab game, where you don't need to push reflexive mechanics onto people.

Dygz wrote: »

I just don't understand the debate about which is (objectively) better when we can choose whichever we like in Ashes.

Eh, it's just the classic pointless bickering of headstrong people who can't, for the life of them, see eye to eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vIBijzg4w

Mag7spy wrote: »

I'm going to go above and beyond right now, since the only eq i played was EQ1. Going to install eq 2 and test some things out.

Mag7spy wrote: »

I'm going to go above and beyond right now, since the only eq i played was EQ1. Going to install eq 2 and test some things out.

I'm fairly sure you'd need more than just a quick test to really get into the real depth of the game. And that's probably the case with most deep games. You'd need to get a proper feel of your class/character and then put it to the test against a proper difficult enemy.

In L2 that enemy would be a counterclass in pvp, while in EQ2, I'd assume, it's some hardish raid.

NiKr wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

I'm going to go above and beyond right now, since the only eq i played was EQ1. Going to install eq 2 and test some things out.

I'm fairly sure you'd need more than just a quick test to really get into the real depth of the game. And that's probably the case with most deep games. You'd need to get a proper feel of your class/character and then put it to the test against a proper difficult enemy.

In L2 that enemy would be a counterclass in pvp, while in EQ2, I'd assume, it's some hardish raid.

It could still be a valid test.

For example, if someone told you that in Ashes, the Cleric Skill 'Castigation' could be applied to your Tab Target, and you assumed that meant 'it will hit the enemy at any range and behind you' because that's what you thought 'Tab Target' meant, it would take very little time to boot up Alpha-1, attempt to hit something with the skill, realize that it told you 'Target not in Range' and go:

"Oh this is an Action Combat skill, it just lets me use Tab to decide which target within range it is trying to go for."

Not going to say what content is more difficult or not, golden age of mmorpgs was during tab target era I'd expect better designed mechanics to be honest. Its something that has kind of fallen off overtime, my point is is possible with action combat, as long as the design is good and well thought out. I just can't agree when someone says action combat can't do what tab target does and its impossible for them to have large raid content. That train of thinking doesn't make sense to me. Action, tab, hybrid can all do large scale raids as long as you have good designs and the gameplay works with it. Action combat of course taking more work to create that kind of experience as there is more things to consider.

And ya the raid looks legit for those times, and with current technology I hope ashes has similar epic fights as well.

Otr wrote: »

I see some mention queues. Do tab targeting people expect skills to be queued? Is that a must?
20 years ago and maybe even now, the ping between clients and server makes skill cool-down necessary. And because cool-down queuing is possible. But not a must.

Regarding if a spell hits the selected target or not, depends how developers want the spell to work. If you can select the target, you have tab targeting. If the caracter will dodge, roll or evade somehow by his own fast reaction, and devs make the spell to be evade-able then that is action. Ping time can still ruin the feeling and make you take damage despite you being on your computer in a different place.

I hope players in my party will not evade my healing spells when they jump arround each other... because I expect to see a list with their healthbar in top right corner, select the one with the least health and trigger the healing. Not to look arround for a selection marker above his heas to find which of the 20 people arround me is the guy. Especially when I am also jumping arround evading hits.
Healing spells should find their targets like instant homing missiles.

Area healing should also take into account how combat is. A small circle arround healer or even placeable on a group of players might miss them if they blink everywhere like in the last stream.
Else, zergs should stay near the party leader where the area healing is

If the healing will heal everybody in a line, I tab target somebody or with high accuracy point toward him, the others better line up, and between me and my target. Because beyond him, the healing spell might not work. Just saying.

Healing should be 100% tab target. This gets into actual points and strength of the system. There should be no reason why you need to look for your target, you should be able to heal who you want and not all heals should be aoe so it can be better balanced.