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
So did your eyes glaze over the part where I talked about animation locks, missed damage, and button spam?
Capturing those elements would attract a huge crowd of people who play BDO, and managing to add systems that add elements of the Heal/Tank/DPS systems with proper raiding/dungeons would give many BDO players things that they have quietly wanted.
But yeah, commenting to say that not everyone feels like OP, but I can understand that the speed of that combat is not for everyone, and can feel stressing at times.
I agree. At the end of the day the game, for me, is more than just combat and if they pivoted to tab target only I'd still give it a shot. I love FFXIV despite the combat.
I think you're still missing the point.
You haven't given a reason why any of those things are bad, to the other side.
Action Combat players not only like all those things, they see those things as explicitly the point.
Animation locking has been addressed in a way that surpasses nearly every MMO out there and has gone straight up to the quality tier of MOBA combat.
You're not going to convince anyone, possibly not even other Tab Target enjoyers, because some of them don't mind particular subsections of those things either. You're just going to get the 'this game isn't for you' response.
Just because a game uses tab doesn't mean it will bring whatever combat elements from a previous tab game that you enjoyed. Only thing tab effects is if you have to aim. If you don't like to aim, then cool but don't assume the inclusion of tab means that other aspects of combat would change because of it. The pax demo was tab and there weren't rotations. It was a lot of auto attack spam.
There is nothing on a tab ability you couldn't add to a free aim ability. In a system that uses free aim, you are just layering aiming on top which can further be augmented with things like hit scan, projectile speed, and size.
I run into a lot in these conversations where people are asking for tab but when asked, they are more against other elements of combat that the have experience in action games. If there is another aspect of combat you are looking for then please argue for that.
So when I say you don't understand how the game doesn't feels flawed I'm an emotionally charged jerk, but when I bring up my points and you disagree it's just fine?
Can it not be as simple as I don't like missed damage? You said yourself that there is no difference? Are we playing an RPG or a shooter? We cannot dismiss the way it feels to play, because that is the part that actually matters.
No, I'm saying that even in that post you were unnecessarily rude. "Did your eyes glaze over". You make it hard for anyone to even begin to see your point of view. The only people who may agree already think the way you do, and even then some may be put off by your attitude. I'm just trying to help you out. You dont need to immediately jump to the defensive. It took me a long time to figure that out.
I'm not trying to dismiss what you are saying, i've just seen you mention other things beside the aiming aspect which has nothing to do with this conversation. If you don't like aiming than cool.
If you look at rpgs outside of the MMO space, you will see a lot that you systems where you have to aim. I don't think the presence of aiming turns the game into COD.
"Yes, this is approximately the level of argument/debate that the majority of Tab Target supporters have brought" I'm giving the same energy that's being given. And I'll be honest, I stopped considering feelings about 10 minutes ago when you started being passive aggressive. I can play the who cares game too, I'm good at it. And I'm 20 times more petty than you I promise.
I'm sorry if you thought I was passive aggressive, that was never my intention, but I will look back and see where I went wrong. I see this conversation isn't going anywhere, but maybe think on it for a bit. You'll probably have an easier time getting people to listen to you.
Also, where did I say anything that came off as being petty? I feel like I've done nothing but show respect toward your opinion.
And on top of that pixel hunting you have detargetting abilities that make you be constantly aware of your target. AND there's self-targeted buffs that you should use fairly often, so you have to target yourself and then quickly retarget the enemy you wanna kill.
And all of that is during a super fast-paced pvp where one crit could bring you down to 20-30% hp, so it's not like there's a ton of leisure time between retargetting.
tl;dr even tab games can require more aiming precision than action ones.
I have higher hopes for the action parts of AoC's to-be combat systems than previous MMOs, since the devs specifically made a point about being good about direction-tracking during combat. Traditionally? This has NOT been a strong suite for action-based combat systems in games. NWO and Lost Ark were both fairly bad at it; If you didn't time re-directing your toon after an attack just right, the abilities would typically keep you moving in the same direction. The WASD direction-facing mention today is an excellent upgrade.
Also, action-based skills typically move you around. I don't like it when my character moves from the spot I've decided they need to be in. I put them *there*, for a reason. Certain boss/environmental effects can move me - that's to be expected. But if I don't *intend* for my own abilities to move me? They just shouldn't.
Hitting a single, specific target can definitely be a problem with action-based systems. I imagine boss/group encounters have to be dumbed-down a bit in action-based MMO's, because you can't (or at least shouldn't) include mechanics that are reliant upon only hitting a single target, in battles/scenarios wherein there are multiple enemies.
The controls are another issue. NWO was super-odd in that they offered console-access - meaning that you could use controllers. But if you played it through a PC? They specifically didn't allow controller support. NWO and BDO were highly-reliant upon mouse-fired actions, and I'm NOT a fan of mouse-based combat.
What makes you think this?
Did I miss a part where Steven said this? I thought he stated up-front they are still going for hybrid.
There's tab based hybrid and action-based hybrid, they even got active blocking now on their weapons, seems a lot more like action to me, which I like.
This is why tab target games have defensive ability's that you have to time with incoming burst, and I would definitely argue that its a thousand times cooler to press a defensive CD like shield wall than to simply move to the right and wiff an entire ability. And ask yourself which is more interactive? In one scenario your opponent feels like they just wasted their time even trying to hit you, whereas in another you can say "oh nice I burned his CD, now I feel like I've progressed to winning this fight." Dodging is uninteractive, people become theoretically unkillable if they play right, it becomes un fun.
Dodging is more interactive.
Theoretically unkillable enemies playing to their skills is closer to my definition of 'extremely fun'.
You can have both, defensives and the ability to dodge.
Defensives have cooldowns, usually long ones which means there is nothing you can do when they aren't available. You have to just stand there with your shield in your hand as you get blasted in the face. In an action system, you usually have a defensive option available, wether it's a block or dodge.
I also disagree that it's better sense you just press a button and you are taking less damage. I find it more tactile to hold a block button to mitigate damage.
Pressing buttons is not interactive... By being able to react to your surroundings is. Just because you can dodge a fireball doesn't make you unkillable. In most games you are punished for dodging or blocking as it uses up your stamina, so you have to make wise decisions in your gameplay. "opponent feels like they just wasted their time even trying to hit you" Again, this is a PvP game, why would i just let my opponent hit me for? If you ever fought someone in real life, you would just let them hit you? No, it would be the opposite and you would make quick strategic decisions to not let them come close to hitting you. You are actually forced to think when making decisions in your gameplay vs just button mashing. Tab targeting is outdated and i'm happy Intrepid is not implementing that at all by the looks of today's dev update.
"by the looks of today's dev update"
> use it and don't come back! They've tons of feedback from Alpha 1, eventually you have to let them go in a direction and nothing they showed me today made me feel like it was bad.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Combat_targeting
Hybrid combat refers to the choice between tab targeted and action targeted combat in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.[2][3]
Q: Are you still considering whether the combined action/tab targeting combat will be replaced by either tab only or action only?
A: No, I think that we will find a healthy medium between the two. I think that really what it comes down to is the definition of action; and I think that there is a varying degree of opinions on what action targeting means so to speak. But as I've clearly defined in the past, and as you can research in on the Wiki, our opinion on- at least my opinion on- action combat is I think well represented in the way we want to hybridize that combat in Ashes of Creation; and I think that there is going to be a good balance between those two and it should be a seamless transition between the two as well. And you know we're going to be fleshing that out further as we move forward.[4] – Steven Sharif
This statement is actually false, stats matter as much as they make them matter in combat and you can already see it matters in their combat (block amount dictated by stats on your gear is clearly hinted and shown)
.Pressing one button is also false, depending on how the game is created people will have reason to press multiple buttons and use their abilities. Being able to have dodge allows you to dodge some moves yourself and with movement being a thing it gives more input for the player to use. With tab target cycling skills on cooldown without doing much movement is pretty much akin to spamming one your buttons with global cooldowns.