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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
That is more valid point with tab vrs action and how it will be balanced. If they stick to waht they are planning you can use 75% tab or action. but what is the effectiveness of those skills and balance between them. Can I use the tab skill in action combat and have soft lock target the enemy for me. This part is going to have to be tested but I'm confident they will pull it off.
This thread is a good illustration, where the extreme of either tab or action is bannermanned by a consistent few folks, and the silent majority is like 🤷♂️.
You agree that developers can create content that has too much going on for players.
If you do not have the basic grasp of logic to understand that these two facts combined make it necessary that action combat can not allow for as much to be happening in an encounter as tab target can allow for, then there is literally no point in getting in to specific examples.
You need to grasp the basic premise of what I am saying before specific examples are worth discussing.
You don't have the inherent cognitive prowess to grasp the very basics of this discussion - this much is clear.
As long as they make enough content, and it is varied enough that everyone can find their place
But this isn't really a question of who will play what on that level.
We're talking about Raiders. 95% of players are not raiders.
As an example, I 'know' (not like, super friendly personally or anything) about 50% of the upper echelon of players of Street Fighter V. I could give you their opinions on many many things in that game, what they would like fixed, what they would enjoy, what the majority wanted and liked (and got).
95% of 'people who have ever tried to play SFV for more than a week' not only 'don't want the same things as those people', they don't even know what they are.
At some point you have to give some credit to someone's experience, don't you? If the discussion right now is about 'what will Raids look like in Ashes', then you need to care about two types of people:
1. People who raid all the time because it's fun for them
2. People who would raid all the time if it was more fun for them
Noaani is almost certainly in group 1. I am sometimes 1 sometimes 2.
The 'consistent few' who argue are the ones who have reason to care.
Yes you do, just because don't' dodge as much doesn't mean you don't have action combat....You are still moving, using and aiming your skills, you are still doing action combat and not targeting and having the game play for you.
Who said those are the only encounters?
Just because it has the large variety of tab encounters doesn't mean it can't have other encounters that use more action elements of the system, creating even more variety.
Oh, now it is subjective? Thank you for finally coming to that realization. I have played BDO enough to realize which combat I prefer more, it doesn't mean its combat is terrible, but it's not great for what I'm looking for in an MMORPG.
My main point wasn't the objective reasoning why certain system is better than the other. Others have explained it and are still trying to do so, they have brought up many valid points that you've failed to address properly. Instead you just go out to argue, and it often looks like it's in bad faith.
I see that you are trying to use "logic and reason" to argue, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it simply doesn't apply to my argument, as I'm talking about how it feels to play, and I'm talking about my personal preferences. You can use all the logic and reason you want, and even if you are right, it simply wont change my preferences.
My main point is that I simply don't enjoy action-combat MMORPGs, especially in the long term, as much as tab-targeting MMORPGs. I have tried to think of, and list the reasons why that might be the case, and I have tried to present them.
Others have gone way more in depth on why tab-targeting might be superior in certain areas (mass PvP, raids, etc. - things the game will have). Noaani is totally right here, you have glossed over and ignored so many valid points and arguments, and instead chose to argue semantics.
And I'll repeat myself yet again, I'm a fan of the hybrid approach, even though I might prefer tab-targeting more. It has the potential to keep the game more interesting for longer, rather than being stuck with one or the other.
Lost Ark. But it's different as it's top-down, and hardly an MMO
Well, I don't want that. I want my Action Abilities to be important in more encounters. I don't want to have to respec to Tab abilities to be effective on hard encounters and I don't want to just be standing there using none of the strengths of my Action Abilities because they're borderline useless in easier Tab encounters.
If your response is 'well don't do that' then I as the "Action Combat Raider" now don't have a raiding scene. I would very much like one.
Because you can have more happening means you can have more levels of difficulty based on however they design it. How can you not see that? This is why I'd rather talk about actual mechanics in raids and what is involved it would actually bring some positive discussion back to this thread.
Why is there more happening...because more mechanics are involved in the game play. Which means more variety and again difficulty.
You are so stubborn trying to insult me while not understanding or even understanding action combat at this point.
I dont want you to be able to do everything easily. And you shouldnt either.
There needs to be so much variety that it takes different people to manage to do these things. To prevent a meta from forming, and make a living breathing world. I didnt see you driving the truck delivering my pizza. I didnt see you doing my accounting. I didnt see you landing on the moon, or in my physics class or at the gym. The game world, needs to make different roles valuble.
How did we even get here...?
I'm not talking about it being hard or easy. I'm talking about 'suboptimal' or 'unengaging'.
I don't even know where to start with this one.
I have mentioned many points to counter some of the things mentioned but it doesn't really matter unless you give a end game raid example as that is the core of the discussion. I'm guessing you are not reading my points about you don't need to dodge all over the place and tanks can hold aggro, BDO has large fight and people don't have clipping issues in those fights (we need an actual raid example to get into depth on this and I can bring more counter points), its subjective to think something playing action can't keep up with their surroundings and voice communication helps plenty in a raid.
Im arguing my points as you can't just say you disagree and say nothing else you aren't proving anything. But if you want to discard someone points because of bias not much I can do about that either. End of the day I'm not here saying action can never do tab target large scale content in a good meaningful way with mechanics. I actually believe in designers and able to create good content and its something that can be done well being fun and difficult if they so choose.
Moving exists in tab-targeting games, though tanks are often tasked with keeping the boss in one spot, aka not moving around. Using and "aiming" certain skills also exists in tab-target games, though you don't have to aim majority of your skills in the same way you do in action combat games.
The point here is, if you are going to remove certain key features of action-combat, why not just use tab-targeting instead. Tab-targeting, or in this case hybrid system, can accomplish those things you've listed, so there's no need for action combat.
I'm often left wondering this when reading through this thread.
Maybe… clearly there’s a poll waiting to provide data on that audience segment.
However, the general thread isn’t about raiding, it’s about the overall combat system. Let’s say that 5% of the overall player base on a server are raiders, are you suggesting that the vast majority of those 5% are in either the ‘it must be tab or I won’t play at all’ or the ‘it must be action or I won’t play’ camps?
I reserve the right to be totally wrong, when we have data - but I’d venture the majority of raiders want awesome raid content and the tab/action thing takes a serious backseat.
1. Key featured are not being removed, else please name them. Just because you don't dodge as much does not mean it is being removed.
2. Tab target combat at its core, target enemy, press skill and do piano playing. Action combat is a lot more invested and you have a lot more control of your character in a much more fun way why would a player want to use tab that likes and has the action element.
3. You are assuming a action player wants to be dodging everywhere and doing crazy things none stop like devil may cry. Why are we assuming what action players like, its clear they simply like the control of their character and not in a way that is tab target and feels clunky to them.
The point that was said action combat can't do what tab does. I said that is not true, you can control your character and do a large scale raid playing as action over tab with all the mechanic.
The actual next step of this if someone disagreed should be look at this raid from this game with these mechs and here is the reasons why I don't think it is possible.
But the main raider and the sometimes raider are in this thread saying "No they don't take a backseat for us".
One of whom claims to be in connection with a massive amount of other top-end raiders, and the other claims to represent 10 (up from 8) people.
It ain't backseat to me, this is the second most important aspect of the game, from my end. Everything else Ashes offers I can get better somewhere else.
EDIT: Realized it wasn't clear, because I didn't address your point. I obviously 'only' speak for 10 people right now.
"It must be built to reward Action style play or I won't play."
Should I call them all?
With stevens definition of action being aimed aoes, cones, and such. I forsee ashes combat to be akin to "smite action combat" with a tab targeting structure layered over the top of it.
And all the people arguing, make ashes my perfect action game, get tab out of here, its for boomers are just getting harder and harder to even have a conversation with
This is a actual point that hasn't been brought up, support skills shouldn't be be made to be more difficult just for action combat. Sure you can have some cool stuff that is action base for healing but you need to have a steady flow for your top end content that is more predictable. Single target taunt as well. You can have action elements for helping to retain aggro as well but you need the foundation without making things difficult for no reason.
I am an Action Cleric.
I want to play Action Cleric. I find Action to be more engaging for Support Role.
My Summoner and Bard are probably able to give their opinion. Feel free to 'claim we are the minority' but understand that there's no reason we assume that.
I played a healer in ESO where i ran around clapping my hands. My mana regen was so high i nerver stopped, full healing the whole party every 3 seconds..... i dislike action combat support.
And that is absolutely fine for you to dislike it, and I hope Intrepid makes it so that you don't have to do that. I also hope Intrepid does not make it significantly suboptimal for ME to do some equivalent of that. And if it is optimal for me to do it, it almost always has to be 'more rewarding' for the additional effort and risk I am taking, which in turn often makes NOT doing it suboptimal.
I don't want to take anything away from you playing careful Tab-Target backline when you feel like supporting.
I'm not arguing for how the encounters should be. All i'm doing is arguing against the idea that action encounters can't be as varied as tab ones, which noanni has claimed.
Surely you have played ONE of the more recent difficult group Action games enough to understand why one would claim that, though? I'm not even saying you have to agree, just give some example other than 'this can just be made easier' or something. Doesn't even have to be an MMO, since, after all, they usually aren't.
If we are talking 'mechanical variance that can't just be cheesed by a monolith of a single class avoiding a main mechanic', you absolutely will lose variance in terms of a raiding scene because raids are tuned to be hard and doing a raid suboptimally (more than 10% below tuning) is increasing your failure chance by a LOT.
"Can I hit the Dragon in the head with my Magic Hammer when the Dragon also requires me to dodge to reduce damage?" is the 'challenge' when using an Action Skill (let's assume the last stream showed an Action skill).
There are two ways in general to design this, either you NEED to hit the dragon in the head as part of the encounter or risk wiping, or if the skill was Tab, hitting the dragon in the head is either not possible, or not a thing that involves physically orienting your character correctly in the case where the dragon spins, moves, turns, for any reason.
If the Tank is keeping the dragon completely still, Action and Tab are almost the same now, right? Which means either Action gets a bonus to SOMETHING (Accuracy, effect, damage, whatever) becoming optimal, or it gets little or no bonus (Tab is now better for those few moments where the thing does spin).
Yes, you CAN make a bunch of varied encounters in Hybrid, but 'well in this one you need to hit the Dragon in the head and in this other one you don't NEED to hit it' does not cover 'variety' to me.
Yeah.... 'Tab target' on a summoner with two-three summons.... Nah. I'm sure it'll be better for some people, but the way I currently can perceive summoner working with the current combat direction, I'll definitely have more fun and just be over all more able to actively move and command my summons with action combat. Especially in situations where positioning matters a lot .
Then again I'm also the sort of person to never player with lock on in souls-like games. But I definitely wouldn't tell FromSoft to take away tab targeting from those games any more than I would from AoC.
I find action combat support as boring as tab targeted dps.... i like having to directly select, or aim my heals, i dont like hitting the heal button and poof, those who need healing have it. I think its very brain dead. Now, am i saying no action combat heals should exist? No. If someone wants to play a more melee focused support role and have a few auto targeted heals to nearby allies. Sure. Just balance the fact that one person is selecting optimal targets with the fact that one person is just pressing a button.
And the same can be said for action combat roles... its not that no tab target skills should exist. It all just needs to find a balance.
I honestly thing with a hybrid system, the devs can somewhat not care about how tab or action skills match up with every encounter. To each their own. Some players favoring one over the other will obviously favor fighting against certain things too.
Let me ask the obvious question then.
If I have a healing skill that requires me to dash perfectly up to the Tank and be literally right next to them, like 'I am practically using melee to heal my own tank', and be facing forward to do so, is it cool if it heals twice as much health as a backliner?
I'm doing something physically harder to TIME and SPACE correctly if the encounter is serious, and I must coordinate more effectively with not only the Tank but anyone else who might be about to throw off the spacing.
Bigger risk, bigger reward, right?
And all the others seems to just be saying "well, you can just forget about some mechanics during the raid and it'll be just fine" or "you could have some raids w/o said mechanics". Yes, you can do those things, but at that point it would stop being a top lvl encounter (from the raiders' pov) and w/o that you're not having a proper raiding scene.
And as Noaani pointed out, there haven't been proper action raids that would be as highly valued as some tab raids have been. And, imo, the two videos that were posted (wildstar and Tera) did not show me top lvl content, as I imagine it to be. Now, I don't know whether those videos showed best raids from those games or whether devs even tried making harder action encounters, but just looking at them - they didn't look any different from smth like a FF14 ultimate fight. Except the pace of everything going on felt even slower, while FF14 has the longest gcd in mmos (to my knowledge).
This fight, just by the looks of it, looks way more involved than either of the other two. It's quite possible that this is the case because it's just 8 people instead of 30-40, but if I wanted a proper top lvl raid - I'd want this kind of involvement at whatever the raid's size is (and afaik not even FF14 has that, but allegedly EQ2 does for 24 people)
edit: that ending should indicate how difficult the fight is for the players. They're almost crying because they managed to finish it. That's the kind of reaction I wanna have when I raid in Ashes
Sure? Within balance.
"Dash up perfectly" doesnt sound hard, if you dont have walking down i could try and look up a guide for you...
I dont know about twice as much, thats why im saying within balancing, but yes i would assume a very low range heal would heal a good amount compaired to a long range one.
And ill add to that, more goes into a character than the potency of a single skill... like stat scaling and all that, i wouldnt be suprised if a backliner who is fully spec'd just to heal, does more healing and a front liner who needs armor, hp specs to keep up with the tank and wants to heal.