Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Have not seen high end of that mmo, i was going to play it with some friends but then i got shafted and bought the expansion and it wasn't the actual game since i wasn't fully paying attention. In my mind set i got robbed.
Having a bar before you can use a skill on almost skill is the same as GCD, slight can be slightly more dynamic if there is different timing per skill. Things will be easier to see once more on the combat comes out and people can play it tbh @JamesSunderland is right. In the end it doesn't really matter since ashes is hybrid when you can use both action and tab and see how it feels we will have a better sense for the game we will actually be playing is like. Then we can judge who can use action / tab and what kind of content players are capable of doing and how well. Rather then just saying action can't do high end raid content without actually playing the game which honestly makes no sense. Prob just arguing about it since i think its wack but time will tell and then we can come back to this in the future in 2077.
If you want to bug me about questions feel free to ask me though trying to avoid ultra long post now with less arguing for the moment lol.
But, I guess, for people who love to repeat dungeons and raids ad nauseum…
We need to test - same as Corruption.
But, a PvPer is not going to convince a PvEr that PvE is boring. And a PvEr is not going to convince a PvPer that PvE is better.
So, yeah, people will have to test the Ashes implementation before they say, “OK. Well, that’s better than I was expecting it be.”
50 pages of debate about what a person prefers is not going to change minds.
I have a childhood friend who doesn’t like chocolate. Doesn’t matter how much I explain why I like chocolate or that chocolate is way better than coffee.
She’s not going to suddenly agree that chocolate better.
Aren't we all sinners?
Testing might open minds a bit.
I use to think that xD
Aren't we all sinners?
Unlike a number of games that have basically a ticking clock to visually represent the GCD, EQ2 just kind of... doesn't. It assumes players playing the game are smart enough to not need that kind of assistance.
An example of the GCD in the video above would be at about 12:35. The player casts Deadly Shot, and has Caltrops queued up (just) before the GCD is up. If you look at the poisons on the hotbars to the right of the main hotbar, you will see that when the player casts an ability, some of them grey out indicating that they can not be used - which in this case is for both the casting time of an ability as well as the GCD.
So, if you find where those abilities are used, and you watch the ability cast bar, the time from when the bar from casting Deadly Shot disappears until the point where the cast bar for Caltrops appears, that is the games GCD.
Incidentally, that GCD can be shortened from that duration via spec and gear, though that particular class (Assassin) probably has no real need to do so.
If you have any other questions as to what is going on in that specific video, feel free to ask. I am not overly familiar with the UI mod being used, but anything else is fairly straight forward from my perspective. What you are looking at has nothing at all to do with GCD. That is the cast time.
I don't know how many times I have said to you that looking at a video of a game isn't going to give you any idea at all what is going on in that game. if you don't know the combat system in question, all you are doing is guessing (which is all you have ever done in relation to tab target games.)
Also, your comment that DDO is hardcore made me laugh. Since it is one of the most casual, easy MMO's of the mid 2000's, calling it hardcore really is amusing. I *assume* you said that in jest.
That said, the fact that you called it DnD online makes me think you didn't actually play it much - if at all, as literally everyone that has ever played it abbreviates it to DDO.
If you are waiting 1.5 seconds before using a skill it works the same way as GCD its just slightly more dynamic if there is different times like some skills could be 1.2 seconds.
But humor me how is it different if you are both waiting.
Don't start arguing me with another game that is like 20 years old please look at what your saying it brings nothing to the conversation. You are literarily just talking crap for no reason.
Global cool down is when you use a skill and all skills / some skills go on cooldown at the same time. Cooldown is when you use a skill and you need to wait 15 seconds before you can use it again. In can have cases of both at the same time. Other method is when you use a skill everything has a cast time on it, which is just another take on globla cooldown that makes things a bit more dynamic. Generally mmorpgs have had gcd but some also use having cast time on all skills as another method City of heroes did that as well. It allows skills to not be all used at the same time for balance reasons as animation is just flare and doesn't effect combat. It also makes it so flow isn't needed or mostly removed between animations giving the character a chance to reset back to its general defeat position.
Ie GCD you might have to wait 1.5 seconds.
Skills You have to wait 1-3 seconds per skill use.
Both cause players to be waiting on a move, though non gcd will feel a bit better, but overall the discussion was feeling fluid and you still get the same stepping pauses akin to turn based that doesn't make fluid combat and why i compared it to bdo with how things chain together and the need to feel fluid else the combat would feel bad.
Is this explanation good for all those in the argument? Or is there some miss communication between the parties?
GCD is on all abilities.
I think cast time is different, but to someone who wants fast combat speed, they all may be equally frustrating.
This is one thing I will always applaud WoW for. The battle.net store, the launcher, and just getting into the game in general. Is WAY easier for WoW than I have ever seen it with a different MMO. I will also say that FFXIV is the absolute worst at it. All the mog station Crystia bs is annoying for no reason.
I do hope ashes is nice and simple and straight forward for all of the outside game stuff.
I tried to get a refund and i was 100% confused on their store and how they do things its a freaking mess. Battle.net has been doing it for ages so for them they had more experience on that side.
I don't remember other korean tab games, but I have a feeling that they might not have gcd at all (or at least only a few do), due to the games being made for korea and ping is not really a problem there so you don't need to worry about attack feedback. Which is also the reason for BDO being so damn fast.
You are missing the point i made earlier about fluid being the inbetween of those motions, how do skills connect together. Example when you do one skill in bdo, it flows good with another move almost feeling seamless, into being able to cancel that with a movement skill. The whole motion of your animation is important as you need to aim and move to hit your target it is all part of it. Everything together and then you can mention how things are fluid and work together. Again GCD or having a spell cast on your every skill is stuttering combat, you don't need to aim the skill you just hug the enemy and it goes off. It isn't the same as for example a dark knight using their dash skill where they deal dmg to enemies close to them, with you needing to move towards your target and when you deal dmg when you are in range as hit boxes are a thing.
...and back to this again.
Yes, you can seamlessly chain your skills together, but during that time you don't have control over your character. Rather, its controlled by the ability you cast. So because of this design issue there is this thing called "animation cancelling" or "weaving", which can intentionally or accidentally appear in the game. I honestly don't want to deal with this mechanic at all, it's just dumb (ESO is the prime example).
Being able to constantly move my character around in combat (except when casting, but in some games you can do both at the same time) is something I don't want to give up, and it's another reason why I dislike action-combat.
Edit: And it's also why someone would think tab-targeting is more fluid.
Well i speak for the action side when I say cancelling is exactly what we want. And yes movement abilities should control your character in some form. If you do a leap into a jump attack forward you shouldn't allt he sudden have 0 gravity and player can free move your character however they want including backwards, that would just be floaty. Its not a design issue, else being able to stop casting in tab target would be a design issue as well. You simply are able to use a dodge skill and stop your animation or attack so you can move out of the way of an attack. Being able to have a chance to react is important then being stuck in animation the whole time. One example would be during the spin attack being able to use your dodge skill before you do the upper cut if someone got out and tried to do some range dps on you.
Having movement during attacks is fine, same with some attacks that have movement set animations on them, its simply about having the right balance so you have more variety in the game to pull from and can balance out abilities differently while adding other effects to them.
If combat is fluid and god it shouldn't matter if an ability effects some of your movement, you the the direction fo your skill and you hit what you need to hit. Doesn't mean everything is use skill and you can only move forward in a straight line with every move that would feel clunky and not fluid. Having one skill that does do it could be a stronger move and feel a lot more impactful if you want it being more of a skill shot move.
And as I've said before, there's animation cancelation in tab games too (at the very least in L2). It feels more clunky mainly because the whole combat is planted (in the case of L2) so you can't do a movement cancel because the system itself isn't about movement. But even in that EQ2 assassin gameplay, to me, the combat looked fluid because you had skills flowing one to another w/o any real pauses and the character was constantly moving so it wasn't stationary combat (though to me even L2's combat can look fluid, but you'll disagree with that completely so whatever
Again, as I already said, perceived fluidity will always remain subjective, especially when it comes to discussions between people who haven't extensively played games from both sides of the discussion. And as others have said, you can't always just look at the video yelling "you see! you see! it looks like shit!", because most videos do not relate the feeling of gameplay and we base our subjective opinions about said gameplay by playing it. Though, obviously, these days most people just watch Asmon's reaction to some new mmo and base their entire attitude towards that game purely off of his words (that he himself bases purely on videos instead of gameplay). I personally dislike this trend, but what can you do.
Movement abilities sure, that's also a thing in tab-target games. Using a charge will animation-lock you. But when I played BDO, and now when I watch gameplay, it looks like majority of abilities lock you in place in some way.
Having to burn dodge to cancel my animation shouldn't be a thing. Also actually HAVING to cancel animation (as in necessary to perform better), be it for more damage (ESO), or simply to gain control of your character also shouldn't be a thing.
I agree it can be useful in certain situations, and I'm all for having some sort of a way to stop your character from performing certain actions. I'd just do it differently, maybe by pressing the ability once again to cancel it, rather than burning dodge (idk just an idea I'm throwing out there). Also it should be limited to only certain skills like charge, for example.
With action-combat and animation-canceling in PvP situations, it just means you are primarily relying on great reactions, you need to spam many buttons (high APM gameplay). Rather than primarily relying on strategy, positioning, decision making (whether or not to cast certain ability, etc.).
Again, if I wanted to play this type of PvP, I'd play MOBAs, not MMORPGs.
Yet it does matter very much if my movement is constantly impacted by abilities.
I feel no matter how many times i explain this the points are getting skimmed over. Im going to explain this as technical as I can.
Tab (Im relating this to normal tab target games that work in this way generally which includes everquest.)
1. Skill use (response of use important)
2. Check for skill cast time.
3. Player controlled movement based on WASD
4. Detect if enemy is within range, if so skill is used on target
5. Targets defense (defense and evasion calculated to reduce or negate dmg) other effects happens as well that can proc with target.
6. Cooldown (global or cooldown skill)
7. Repeat from step one
Action
1. Skill use. (response of use important)
2. Character moves based on the animation of skill (fluidly important for player controls)
3. Does player use any animation cancels if so stop skill and use the new skill or dodge (response of use important and fluidity between skill use to cancel)
4. No animation cancels are used players skill is fully used in the motion. (fluidly important for player controls)
5. Check for amount of recovery time, if follow skill is used reduce recovery time (fluidly important for player controls even more important here as the two skills need to flow together and not feel like two separate actions)
6.Repeat at step 1
(ignoring the hit part on this as it just gets to large and that isn't needed for the point)
So above I mention the parts where response of use is important so when you use a skill que or not it responds quickly and does what you need it to do.
In the following with action though there are a lot more steps where fluidly becomes important when you are talking about use of skills and dodges. In tab your response on skill use is important but is not effecting the overall fluidity of the combat as you are simply telling your character what to do rather than dealing and controlling the animation with action combat. With that use of control is when a flag is actually raised about how fluid does this feel.
A GCD on the other hand is triggered after a spell is cast, and is the time before you can cast a other spell. The purpose of this is so that players with high ping have a buffer in which they can have a spell queued up without it negatively impacting their in game performance.
A game with a GCD of 0.5 seconds (standard in the early to mid 2000's) means a player with a ping of 500 is at no material disadvantage in PvE to a player with a ping of 20. As long as the server recieves the data as to what ability the player wants to use next before that GCD buffer is up, it will go off at the same time regardless.
This is why GCD times got shorter in the late 2000's and early 2010's - connection speeds got faster so there wasnt the need for a 0.5 second GCD any more. As an aside, I have literally never seen a GCD longer than 0.5 seconds - your comment on them being g 1.5 second is once again leads me to question if you have any experience at all with tab target games
That said, if you have actually played as many MMO's as you claim, and if you knew even 5% of what you claim, you would know this actual basic information.
Do you have any other action games that you consider as fluid as BDO? Cause I feel like BDO's directionally designed combat just completely fucked up game attitude for a lot of people (mainly you). I'm not saying that it's not fluid, but whatever fluidity it does have is definitely boosted by its design and if that kind of design is your preference - you gonna love it even more. And it's super obvious by now that it very much is your preference.
Typical of your bias showing bringing up things that don't don't change anything .5 or one second it doesn't matter my point still remains on staggered combat without a need for flow between skills as it pauses. You are bringing up numbers that don't mean anything to a conversation with exact timing to the rough number i through out. Cast time isn't limited to just mages
You are also making me seriously doubt if you even know what you are talking about with the game anymore. Your mind set is I need to defend everquest 2 no matter what , this is the only good combat system, this is what i played for years kind of head cannon. Cast tiem is not limited to spells, you clearly have a cast time for skills as well that can can move while you are doing it. I don't use the cast time as in im only talking about spells, you have cast time in relation to move your moves, which to me is the same as GCD as they both function is pretty much the same way. You have a gap where you can't do anything constantly most of the time.
So I'm going to take it by this point you are trying to spin a false narrative that only spell casters have cast times and have to stand still. Because you desperately want to prove your point. If you wait between skills and need to wait between GCD it is the same thing you both wait between skills. Seriously why are you arguing on this if you played the game for years and did 400 dungeons this should be basic knowledge for you...And don't come at me with some skills don't have a bar on it, I've already mentioned in points a few skills do that but that is not the majority.