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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
BDO is the best one imo, I didn't play Elyon enough to get pass the p2w and bad aspects of it. New world is an example of things feeling clunky with over animation locks and no good movement. I didn't play tera enough just didn't really get it not hat for more then a hour as I was playing other games at that point.
The thing about BDO is you need to look past everything in the game and just look at the skills and flow of them. Ignore the effects, the aoe, etc. Break it down to how does it feel to use these skills together with being fluid and it gives you a better idea. Action mmorpg are still young, there will be issues that pop up and there will be a lot of strengths with it. The whole mmorpg genre has been kind of stalling and its true action hasn't been taking to its limits in PvE content I would say. NWO is the closest to that compared to other games (granted my lack of experience with tera). So as more games come out and show what they can do we wil get a better idea.
Action combat is 100% more difficult and requires much more work to get it right and feeling well. And that isn't enough to spend the time getting that well and working, you need to have all the other thigns that make a great mmorpg as well. Which BDO lacks a lot in that department and always will imo.
I guess that best question I can ask to be more fair is what makes EQ 2 fluid, what makes eq2 a potential benchmark on how to make a game fluid? As much as I've played tab games I have certain expectations from them that come with all games and if that is a expectation I don't see that as being something fluid I see it as more a necessity for that game. Example if ability que was considered making a game more fluid (very well could be) I don't see that as making the combat more fluid i just see that as a feature that is necessity so that came doesn't feel clunky. but because that doesn't feel clunky doesn't mean combat is not fluid as I explained on what makes something fluid between combat and tab lacks the in-betweens as they are GCD, skill cast time with EQ2 even more so.
Good post.
I'm ready to throw me weight into the ring at any dork slamming BDO improperly.....seems like the only fun thing to do, how did this thread even get so large christ boys...
When people say BDO is clunky as they haven't played for a large amount of time that is understandable. I should be a bit more fair if someone feels like that because for it to not feel clunky you can't button mash and you have to know what you are doing and how all your skills work to get to that skill ceiling. There are certain skills you don't use or lock as they are bad and useless, and some skills you don't just use randomly unless its for a reason if it makes you stand still. You want to use mainly mobile skills until you catch someone.
You could make a game that has the good elemtns of BDo combat without having the high skill level which would make it more accessible and fun for everyone to play. And you won't have as much of that clunky feeling as you start to play it as well. And hybrid should solve most those issues or bring it more towards that direction with how tab skills will work to begin with.
I don't remember that with GW2 even back in the early days they have limited abilities as well so it wouldn't make sense. I know some of your skills have cast times but that is fine in all mmorpgs (as long as its not on every single skill). Of course the point would be the same if mage classes had like 50% skill cast times, compared to a warrior class that has none. The warrior would just feel more fluid.
I have a good feeling about ashes combat, they know what they want to do, have a good sign on direction. Now its about just making all the content and testing it with all aspects of the hybrid system. Then they can start to polish after that and get some good animations in, effects and balance.
Just want their bench mark to be high on the standard and quality they are aiming for with combat.
So if you love BDO's animation cancelling so much, you might not really like AoC's combat, if they continue with this kind of pace of battle.
Spells and melee abilities all function exactly the same in terms of cast time, cooldown and GCD in a tab target game. While I may use the word "spell" or "ability", functionally, these are the same things from a mechanics perspective - at least in relation to this topic.
I'm not trying to say EQ2 is the greatest, all I am here doing is correcting your mistakes. If you stop making mistakes, I'd have nothing to say here.
The gameplay design/development isn't done and he said yes to animation cancelling in the QA. If they continue I'd expect it to be there for sure as well with a decent to high skill ceiling of combat, doesn't mean it needs to be like bdo's exact form though.
Ah, right, there's a difference in that aspect too
Nothing was said about animation canceling, so, at least right now, there's no change in their direction.
You are misinterpreting what he said because Steven answered in a way that could cause confusion.
See how he never mentions animation canceling or 'animation weaving' once, but he focuses on 'avoidable attacks' the entire time?
Here is the other main data point we have relative to IS's stance on animation canceling
Feel free to argue what the above quote means, but many people here have been under the impression for a long time that there is no animation canceling in Ashes due to the above quote.
Here is the actual page on the wiki if you want to take a look at all the evidence: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Animation_canceling
Sources:
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[2]
If he says yes he says yes you can't say he didn't hear the entire question else he could have corrected it and said no. If you are stopping a skill and using a dodge that is a animation cancel. So direction based on that answer is on point with situations you can react to, which sounds right in the direction of animation cancelling.
Else we are going to get into nuance which can be used for any post at this point and we can assume changes to anything. So it was a yes, it was also explained of multiple things you can do and react. To assume against it doesn't make sense, even more so as the game isn't finished so we don't know all the aspects of combat.
Even more so if its something that you can't control your movement.
Remember that is 5 years ago things can change based on their direction. I'm pretty confident you will see animation cancelling with dodge at least depending on how feedback goes. Remember they will have a different lead designer things can change.
At the moment we have contradicting information and the current info says other wise compared to the old info. But we will see as they show more combat and it gets tested.
Action combat isn't limited to camera direction, parts of it exist though very small in tab target mmorpgs as they become more modern. ITs just not as effective to attack on weird angles as you are trying to track and hit your target.
Hopefully this game won’t only rely on action-combat, otherwise a (huge) amount of his prospect players might just leave.
You could make the same argument for tab-targeting btw.
Besides BDO, ESO and I guess Lost Ark, I genuinely can't name you one successful action-combat MMORPG in 2022. ESO is well known for having a bad combat system. Lost Ark is a top-down game that, besides Raids and combat (in PvE), has nothing really going for it. PvP is so unfun to play due to combat mechanics. I've already expressed my thoughts on BDO's combat, and I probably wouldn't have an issue with that sort of combat in a single-player RPG. ESO is overall a great game if you ignore the bad combat. The other 2 are p2w grindfests.
That is really the big problem, only koreans are trying to do good action combat and they come with the traditional p2w shenanigans and/or lack of content.
The problem isnt the combat, its everything else.
Tera another example of this, it was great for the first couple of years, it lacked good content updates and started moving to the p2w/daily bs and timegates that all these korean games do, after that it survived exclusively because of its combat.
Not sure whats the state of Blade & Soul, but I bet most people are still playing for its combat aswell.
On the other hand, western developers dont understand action combat at all., but the games actually deliver in other aspects.
And it should be a caster class, because I don’t expect for example an healer to be more action-combat oriented.
Most efficient healing skills have always been : tab/click-targeting your allies, proceed to healing (single or aoe).