Let's TheoryRaid! #1(?) Jormungand vs Xeno'jiiva

So I'm obviously in a mood (as of this writing) and pretty tired of having entirely theoretical arguments. The other post at the moment is great for macro-concepts, but I'm going down to one. Reference videos!

Jormungand.

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

No need to watch the video, no need to even know what exactly I'm talking about. Just starting yet another 'data collection/argument' about expectations of raiding, doubling down on the prior question about MMO PvE experiences.

Xeno'jiiva

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5cgiVZ2rCs

Without experience with these games I doubt watching the videos will make sense, they're here for quick-reference on timestamps.

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

This is just about me updating my models of the mindsets behind people's stances in discussions, but I don't mind if this thread derails too. I'll even read Mag's stuff, if I must.

Why am I doing this now? OTHER than just being in 'a mood', it's because I prefer to have these sorts of conversations before Intrepid shows off new stuff, cause understanding people while they're responding to New Intrepid Information and everyone's opinions are stronger is frustrating.

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Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I expect that to be expected of me. That's the whole point of hybrid combat. If I can disregard action completely during top lvl content (both pve and pvp) - that ain't a fucking hybrid.

But again, this is purely in context of top lvl content. Anything else is free to sway to whichever side and to whatever degree.

PenguinPaladin

As for question number 1.

Tab target skills have range. If its flying id assume its out of range. If it isnt out of range, even then bosses can have times when they are invulnerable, so attacks used on them just waste your mana, and learning your windows of attack is something that should be known.

Question 2, action combat should have some ranged abilities to begin with, be it pool reticles or narrow lines or whatever. But just because something is far away isnt really akin to, "tab target can hit anything" now if it is so agile you feel you cant aim any action skills on it, having some tab target skills can still feel engaging. Like a ranger having a shot that cant miss, or a warrior having a charge that teliports them to target so they can attempt to lock it down more.

I really tried not to have to update this one..................

But i also think as the combat system is experienced people will stop thinking about if a skill is action or combat... its just a skill. This ones a cone, this one i just target the enemy. I dont play smite, and cognitivly acknowledge what form of attack im using. This i aim, this just happens around me, this heals him, its all just familiarity with your skills after some time.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I expect that to be expected of me. That's the whole point of hybrid combat. If I can disregard action completely during top lvl content (both pve and pvp) - that ain't a fucking hybrid.

But again, this is purely in context of top lvl content. Anything else is free to sway to whichever side and to whatever degree.

Thank you, I hope that by using these two very specific examples I can avoid getting into any unnecessary ruts with anyone.

Basically, if no one actually responds 'No, I don't want to have to aim even in this situation', then it will imply to me that no matter what other disagreements occur in other threads, most of it is probably just a lack of targeted references.

Azherae

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

As for question number 1.

Tab target skills have range. If its flying id assume its out of range. If it isnt out of range, even then bosses can have times when they are invulnerable, so attacks used on them just waste your mana, and learning your windows of attack is something that should be known.

Question 2, action combat should have some ranged abilities to begin with, be it pool reticles or narrow lines or whatever. But just because something is far away isnt really akin to, "tab target can hit anything" now if it is so agile you feel you cant aim any action skills on it, having some tab target skills can still feel engaging. Like a ranger having a shot that cant miss, or a warrior having a charge that teliports them to target so they can attempt to lock it down more.

I really tried not to have to update this one..................

But i also think as the combat system is experienced people will stop thinking about if a skill is action or combat... its just a skill. This ones a cone, this one i just target the enemy. I dont play smite, and cognitivly acknowledge what form of attack im using. This i aim, this just happens around me, this heals him, its all just familiarity with your skills after some time.

(if relevant, I'd prefer you not bother trying not to update your posts if I've in any way influenced you to shift that, I can probably much more easily update 'my side' expectations).

I see that you have the assumption that Tab Target skills have limited range, so I'll 'add that to my list'. This would also be my expectation, but some recent discussions have brought me to conclude that there are a few people who don't seem to expect that 'actually having to interact with the range' is particularly important to battles for Tab Target skills.

Azherae

Otr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

.

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

.

Airborne dragons should be invulnerable to player spells. No action mode is acceptable with player skills.
But using a heavy potion catapult... could be OK.

Still... why harm the inocent dragons?
Maybe we can be friends and ride them?

"You know, I'm something of a dragon myself..."

Anyway, I will take all responses seriously, I should clarify. This is not meant to imply that I think you are trolling (I do disagree with your perspective, so there's some bias there), just verifying that either this is your very real opinion, or at least, that if you are trolling, you are ready to double down.

Please forgive my bias.

CROW3

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

Since, I can support either…

Wow handled very similar mechanics in a number of bosses, and also was a very tab game. I’m thinking of the back of Deathwing fight or that bug boss from Pandaria. Totally fine with this.

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

This is exactly where a ‘lock target’ function would apply to a boss fight, you’d then rely on your stats to manage hits/misses instead of manually aiming. Totally fine with this.

OTHER than just being in 'a mood'

This cracked me up. 😉

Ugoogee

I'm comfortable to do whatever works best for my playstyle and or build. My playstyle is mainly up close and personal bonking things and I'll freely switch between Tab and Action if the build or situation calls for it.

Azherae

Ugoogee wrote: »

I'm comfortable to do whatever works best for my playstyle and or build. My playstyle is mainly up close and personal bonking things and I'll freely switch between Tab and Action if the build or situation calls for it.

From your side then...

Jormungand is surrounded by creatures that aggro to spellcasting. In this case let's assume Ability use would also trigger them to come for you. For half of them, the method of attack is 'casting spells', sometimes AoE, sometimes very powerful single target, sometimes debilitating status effects.

IF you were required to face Jormungand in Action Mode (because you chose Action Skills) to maximize DPS, and one of these was to aggro you when you used an ability, from behind, would you consider this to be a natural part of the encounter, or would you switch to using more Tab-Target abilities to prevent it?

Ugoogee

Yes, this would be a natural part of the encounter if my build were all Action Combat based. I would just try to be more mindful of how the enemies behave and adjust my playstyle around that information.

If I keep dying because of my build and or playstyle, I'll tweak my build to include more Tab Target abilities and also tweak my playstyle to fit that.

In Elden Ring I noticed that the Crucible Knight would do a specific lunge attack whenever I healed near him, essentially input/action reading me. I changed my strategy to run away outside the proximity that he would do that attack whenever I needed to heal. I also noticed that he increases his walking speed towards me whenever I healed outside that proximity. I've also died too many times with my 2H Great Sword build/playstyle against him and added a parry shield to help me win. I hope this last paragraph helped.

Ugoogee

Also, which group/category am I in so far? I hope it's "insufferable"

Azherae

Ugoogee wrote: »

Also, which group/category am I in so far? I hope it's "insufferable"

The category of people I still don't know the reaction time of >.>

Ugoogee

Lol what do you mean?! I guess to reference our previous discussions, I range around 235 ms on the Human Benchmark test and Captain Falcon's Forward Smash is "reactable" for me while his Falcon Punch is a move that only hits me whenever my horoscope feels like it should and a bird shits gold on a Thursday. I could shave off like 10 ms if I notice that an enemy/opponent tends to do certain attacks after doing a certain action, but I guess that falls more in the realm of "anticipation."

Azherae

CROW3 wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

Since, I can support either…

Wow handled very similar mechanics in a number of bosses, and also was a very tab game. I’m thinking of the back of Deathwing fight or that bug boss from Pandaria. Totally fine with this.

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

This is exactly where a ‘lock target’ function would apply to a boss fight, you’d then rely on your stats to manage hits/misses instead of manually aiming. Totally fine with this.

OTHER than just being in 'a mood'

This cracked me up. 😉

As a followup question then, what if anything would you expect to cause you to switch back out of Tab Target mode at that point?

Intrepid has implied that harder CC will generally be skillshot related, so that's an obvious point.

But what else makes you switch, again, assuming one of the dragons above and their size. And if you don't mind, if there is anything you expect to gain as a benefit from switching back to Action Combat mode other than 'just liking it', what is it?

(It's additionally helpful if you also address the same point I made to Ugoogee in the same flow, being in Tab Target would make adds easier to detect).

CROW3

Azherae wrote: »

As a followup question then, what if anything would you expect to cause you to switch back out of Tab Target mode at that point?

In the fight you outlined above, if we started as Action then went to a lock target (or tab) in flight phase then it could transition back to action when the dragon lands again.

Intrepid has implied that harder CC will generally be skillshot related, so that's an obvious point.

But what else makes you switch, again, assuming one of the dragons above and their size.

I’d see it as phase driven. Similar to the Malygos fight in Wrath (WoW). Where the fight is broken into three phases with different combat forms for each phase.

And if you don't mind, if there is anything you expect to gain as a benefit from switching back to Action Combat mode other than 'just liking it', what is it?

If the nominal combat system is action, then the only benefit to ‘switching back’ after the flight phase, is that we’re back to ‘normal’ combat in Ashes, which maximizes our known behaviors (and subsequent output).

Everything applies the same if the nominal system were tab, and the flight phase switched to action combat abilities.

Make sense?

(It's additionally helpful if you also address the same point I made to Ugoogee in the same flow, being in Tab Target would make adds easier to detect).

I’ll review this first and add another post.

Azherae

Otr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

.

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

.

Airborne dragons should be invulnerable to player spells. No action mode is acceptable with player skills.
But using a heavy potion catapult... could be OK.

Still... why harm the inocent dragons?
Maybe we can be friends and ride them?

"You know, I'm something of a dragon myself..."

Anyway, I will take all responses seriously, I should clarify. This is not meant to imply that I think you are trolling (I do disagree with your perspective, so there's some bias there), just verifying that either this is your very real opinion, or at least, that if you are trolling, you are ready to double down.

Please forgive my bias.

Interesting to see how a serious but maybe unusual post following a few funny ones is met with doubt.
I am so tired of human centric games where we are the good ones, always fighting against the evil, but in real life we destroy nature and exterminate species.

Beside that, the siege weapon to target the dragon, would obviously be a non tab targeting weapon so you might rightly expect me to favor to allow action style without it.

But my message to Intreprid Studio is that I prefer a consistent behavior over a mixed one.

My doubt had nothing to do with your dragon-affiliation and everything to do with basically going "Even Action skills should not be able to harm a flying Dragon".

I considered it a somewhat unique perspective on it and I generally find some of your off-the-cuff posts to be funny so I wasn't entirely sure. Data noted.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

Going to answer both of these, both because I have participated in raid content (as it is) in both action and tab games - and also because they both have the same answer in relation to Ashes.

In this game, these kind of mechanics are exactly what I would expect to see. There should be a need to switch between action and tab during raids.

To me, this is exactly the same reason as why I would be against an action combat only MMO creating raid content that prevents the tank from being able to dodge.

When you create raid content, the idea is that players need to master every aspect of their class to be successful. In an action game where tanks dodge, dodging is a skill that should be required in raid content.

With Ashes being a game where players will need to switch between action and tab, needing to switch between them should be both an expectation and requirement for basically all raid content (and for top end single group content).

Shoelid

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I suppose that if there was a mechanic where I was expected to hit the head, I would expect to have to switch to 'action mode' to accomplish that while it was airborne. That isn't my read on combat mechanics in Ashes, though. I don't expect a single target to have separate hitboxes that are only targetable through a manually-aimed skill.

I would not be ok with that in a boss that moves & behaves like Jormungand. Jormungand's behavior and animation is too erratic; just look at how its head swings back and forth with every attack. Hitting the head wouldn't be difficult, but frustrating.

I would be ok with that in a boss that moves and behaves like Xeno'jiiva. Xeno'jiiva has animations that are much more predictable. Its quick movements are telegraphed by a slow wind up. Hitting the head might be difficult at times, and you might have to wait for a good opportunity, but it won't be frustrating like with Jormungand.

Basically, If I need to briefly switch to an Action Camera, I expect the encounter to be designed for it.

Azherae

Shoelid wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I suppose that if there was a mechanic where I was expected to hit the head, I would expect to have to switch to 'action mode' to accomplish that while it was airborne. That isn't my read on combat mechanics in Ashes, though. I don't expect a single target to have separate hitboxes that are only targetable through a manually-aimed skill.

I would not be ok with that in a boss that moves & behaves like Jormungand. Jormungand's behavior and animation is too erratic; just look at how its head swings back and forth with every attack. Hitting the head wouldn't be difficult, but frustrating.

I would be ok with that in a boss that moves and behaves like Xeno'jiiva. Xeno'jiiva has animations that are much more predictable. Its quick movements are telegraphed by a slow wind up. Hitting the head might be difficult at times, and you might have to wait for a good opportunity, but it won't be frustrating like with Jormungand.

Basically, If I need to briefly switch to an Action Camera, I expect the encounter to be designed for it.

Where does this fit on that scale for you, then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8UlHdx1YlQ

Based on what you've said I would lean toward assuming that you think 'this encounter should not force me to hit the head', but I don't like assuming, so I ask.

FYI when Xeno'jiiva is airborne, I find it to be only slightly less erratic than the Ashes Dragon shown there, but I'm not 'saying that the dragon shown there is similar to high end raid content' either. (you can't see it because the player in the Xeno video is explicitly 'sustained DPS' and it wouldn't be their job to hit the head).

Azherae

Noaani wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

Going to answer both of these, both because I have participated in raid content (as it is) in both action and tab games - and also because they both have the same answer in relation to Ashes.

In this game, these kind of mechanics are exactly what I would expect to see. There should be a need to switch between action and tab during raids.

To me, this is exactly the same reason as why I would be against an action combat only MMO creating raid content that prevents the tank from being able to dodge.

When you create raid content, the idea is that players need to master every aspect of their class to be successful. In an action game where tanks dodge, dodging is a skill that should be required in raid content.

With Ashes being a game where players will need to switch between action and tab, needing to switch between them should be both an expectation and requirement for basically all raid content (and for top end single group content).

Any thought on 'Hybrid Design where only some tanks actually need to positionally dodge'?

Such as a design that results from/includes having defensive skills available to Tanks powerful enough to disincentivize actually moving out of the attacks (for whatever reason) but Action based offensive skills that benefit from 'not having to dodge'.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Any thought on 'Hybrid Design where only some tanks actually need to positionally dodge'?

Such as a design that results from/includes having defensive skills available to Tanks powerful enough to disincentivize actually moving out of the attacks (for whatever reason) but Action based offensive skills that benefit from 'not having to dodge'.

If you are suggesting a game where some tanks use dodge and others use other mechanics, all you are doing is segregating tanks in to those that can tank raids, and those that are not real tanks.

To me, if you have a class that you are considering to be a tank, that you are giving tank abilities to, that class should be able to tank any content in your game. Sure, it may require some specific conditions (like, perhaps, requiring specific healer classes or some such), but there should be a way. There will also always be a specific tank class that is best, but the others should all be capable on all content - and considered capable by players.

If there is a subset of tanks that need to dodge in order to tank, they will not be considered capable of tanking raid content.

This is something EQ2 did poorly. The game had 6 tank classes, yet 90%+ of the raiding I was involved with - whether I was running it or just participating - all used the same one tank class. Four of those 6 classes were not considered capable of tanking raid content at all.

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