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
Yeah I love a fluid and responsive combat system-
To me the fluid and fast pacing is very imortant for rewarding decision making, option management, quick thinking, while also being more engaging overall.
I like the responsiveness since its very important to having a sense of freedom, control, and rewarding reactions
Sounds like you like ESO for the same reasons Mag likes BDO- the fluid responsive combat. Is there a reason your prefer ESO over something like BDOs combat?
Ya if they have half that feeling this mmorpg will have the best combat by far.
Nobody mentioned that yet- love the idea though. It definitely adds another element thats important for giving defensive playstyles options, as well as being a good way to help balance different kind of attacks by giving you another option to deal with situations that your weapon won't be as effective as the opponents'- but in a more engaging way than just making it a stat.
except the monsters actually try to hit you, there's no "elemental" stuff, it's just you and a weapon trying to kill a monster, your character doesn't have monster-level strength (just superhuman), and there is no superspeed (lots of inertia).
I haven't played monster hunter to be transparent. If I were a modder I'd buy and mod the shit out of it though.
Also monsters are a great idea for Ashes. Who doesn't love Dinos?
Some may hate it but the Earth used to be owned by other creatures LOL
pre WoW we had things like roaming high level mobs/Patrolling mobs mobs running away when low which could get help from nearby or mobs shouting for help which cause other mobs in the vacinity to agro too.
This is what made PvE interesting for me but since WoW came and company simiflying/casualising there games all these things got lost and thats why i turned to open world PvP game because the players actions now add this to the game since PvE does not.
I cant play completly PvE games these days cause there to easy if it doesnt have open world pvp to keep things spicy i just cant do it
Funny moment i had in Everquest was when i handed in to many gnoll teeth in which lowered my Qeynos corrupted guard faction to low that they were KOS to me was a highlight of that game funny enough had to sneak around the city advoiding corrupted guards when i needed to visit qeynos :P necro had some funny interaction too where rangers and druid aligned NPC would kill you on sight too and vice versa
Yea for sure-
I like a lot of aspects to Monster Hunter combat.
- one thing I dont really like much in a combat system is when too much of your/the enemy's options are telegraphed. If everything is reactable or easily predictable it kind of takes away from the decision making and counter-play aspects. This is because you automatically can just react and input the right options based on what the enemy does- rather than having to strategically plan ahead of time for what they could potentially do, then choose how you want to counter that, and adapt as needed. If the combat allows for that unpredictability, you can still require that element of spacing and timing that the reactions test, but with the added elements of testing your ability to manage your options, weigh risk/rewards, and make good decisions. If everything is reaction based it also creates a waiting game rather than allowing for more proactive approaches, which isn't as engaging as it could be.
That said, it is very nice to have those reactionary elements sprinkled in to complement the combat, it can definitely add more depth and variation to gameplay. Monster Hunter goes all in with this to really emphasize how important timing is in combat.
I also really like when the mechanics allow for varied ways of beating the enemies, while still keeping your full kit relevant and not limiting you to specific moves and strategies to beat them.
This can happen when they design enemies to make certain skills irrelevant. An example of this is when an enemy can attack very fast while also not getting staggered by anything, which makes almost impossible to use your slower stronger attacks, due to being too slow to make contact without being interupted, and not being able to use your weaker attacks to stagger them and lead into those stronger attacks-
Cool enemy designs account for this by doing things like adding a "break" mechanic, where if you hit them enough with those weaker moves, you can put them in a vulnerable state to use the stronger moves in your kit that you otherwise wouldn't be able to use, which is pretty satisfying.
Its really cool when the enemy design lets you affect the mechanics themselves depending on how you choose to fight it, it rewards creativity, adds extra strategy and immersion, and adds variety to the gameplay. Monster Hunter does a good job at this with being able to cut off limbs, which can mess with the enemy's attacks and behaviors. This is also awesome when they use this mechanic to create conditions in the fight to get certain rewards. This adds that extra risk/reward of going using certain strategies during battle to get better loot drops. This can add ways of getting different loot drops than other people, but tying it into their skill and performance, and giving them specific methods of getting the rewards that they want- while getting rid of that rng aspect of having varied rewards.
How can you recommend something without playing it as knowing it is good....There will be elements in AOC. Why are your takes so extremely very freaking terribly bad.
Yea I really like that, the idea if puting more of an emphasis on your pre-battle stategies, and setting yourself up for success by strategically puting yourself in advantageous situations ahead of time- based on the behaviors and interactions that happen outside of combat. Thats definitely a very cool aspect to have that plays into a good combat system. It seems like Ashes will definitely have some elements like that.
I wouldn't consider BDO to be fluid. Last time i played BDO you're rooted while casting spells. ESO is very free in it's combat. You can jump, roll dodge, run while casting spells. It's very fast paced.
one other thing i miss from Everquets was mobs had no leash line so if you have to run well ur literaly running for you life searching for a guard or a zoneline, not walking back 10meters to have the mob reset for you to try again
Makes you second guess urself in close fights do i run now and give me more chance of getting to a guard or zone line or do i push it to the last few % of HP and either just die or just win
Ah okay, makes sense
Yes I love the option to have free action during all of your abilities- for me there is nothing wrong with having a limited amount of specific abilities that root you in place as a way of creating a diversity in risk/reward mechanics, as long as they give the player the option to replace those tools with ones that give you that total freedom and control, with less reward of course. I think that maximizes the gameplay variety while still having the freedom and fluidity aspects.
To me pacing is a big part of fluidity as well, there isn't much point in having freedom of control if you can't really use that to your advantage because everything is slow, reactable, predictable, and the movement doesn't actually avoid the attacks effectively.
From what you are saying it ESO combat sounds pretty fun in that regard.
Yea that sounds hilarious lol- I hope they incoporate something like that in Ashes- it would be very interesting to manipulate the enemies behaviors to your advantage, to see how different enemies can interact with each other, and to put other players in funny situations by doing that.
was always hilarious when somone would shout train you know to get away from the entrance and all paths leading deeper asap cause ur bout to have like 50 bout run past u chasing somone and ur fighting a mob in there agro range as they go by there gonna jump on you to help there friend lol man those were the days
Lol, I miss when games had fun stuff in them even when people complained.
BDO has a high learning curve.
ESO to me was so slow it put me to sleep tbh.
That's FFXIV for me.
Never got to try that one, i would have though if they actually let me buy it and only didn't rob me for the expansion without a game to plays x.x. Few friends played it but didn't last long.
I don't want to presume, but based on everything you & I have talked about, I'd put $10 on you hating the 'feel' of combat. I mean 2.5s global cooldown. That kind of says everything.
"Its really cool when the enemy design lets you affect the mechanics themselves depending on how you choose to fight it"
This should be based around monster AI and user inputs rather than overpowering the monster though. Point of a giant monster is that IT'S the overpowering one.
It's not executed well because the monster's fight way too simplistically and don't adapt/ react to the player enough. There's no nuance.
@Mag7spy
I looked through a lot of gameplay lol. I don't need to play a game to know something about it and notice things I like and don't like about it.
When you see people break the game and the monsters just not even aim for your character because you're not standing in one spot the entire time it's pretty damn clear dude.
When they stand around and do nothing for extended periods of time very often; it's pretty clear dude.
When they fly up, hover. . . flame breath. . . aiming below their feet when you're about 30 yards away and have been standing there the whole time waiting for the thing to stop throwing up. . . it's just BAD AI. BAD COMBAT PROGRAMMING. Huge flaws.
After comparing different games in the series it's pretty clear.
If I can't learn from experience and see what's going on and learn about the features/mechanics by looking and studying, and listening to a player talk about it, then there just isn't much info on it ---> but you assume I'm not smart enough to figure shit out I guess.
NO nobody will play a game and give it a chance when it has obvious flaws that are deal-breaking and to insist otherwise is just maniacal. Get real. I don't owe shit.
Not paying Time or $$$ and getting all I want from researching it lol
I Agree 100%-
The depth and variety in combat is about utilizing the full combat system as a whole. This tends to be undermined in the general approach to boss mechanic design. Generally they design it as a way to attempt to add "variety" by pigeon holeing you into using specific tools in your arsenal that the monster is weak too, which removes the fun of using your entire kit cohesively- instead of, perhaps, thinking of different strategies that could be used by the kit as a whole, and giving variety by allowing for those different overall strategies to be effective and letting the player choose themselves how they want to approach the fight this time.
For the same reason I don't like everything being a simple telegraph and a simple response in combat, I don't like the idea of just simply being able to change the boss mechanics during battle to dumb them down at-will, to make them simple to defeat. It kind of goes hand-in-hand that if a player's kit shouldn't be limited down to a simple method of beating a boss, then neither should the monster's mechanics be dumbed down to having a simple weakness to exploit to beat the boss- Its neccessary to avoid taking this approach in order to maintain the depth of the combat system.
If you are empowered during battle to change the boss mechanics to make them less effective it will reduce the depth of the combat- but for the same reason that killing a boss is a reward for performing well, situationally it can be okay to reduce the depth of combat, as long as it is a situational reward after utilizing the full combat system and your full kit available to you in order to make the boss susceptible to that kind of effect (similar to the "break" mechanic example I gave).
Being able to affect and exploit their mechanics can just be a different situational tool in your full kit available to you, this can add variety in the amount of "win-conditions" you have available to you- but the player should still be "required" to be situational challenged into using more complex approaches before being rewarded with said win-conditions (such as the tool of "changing their mechanics to create an exploitable weakness") as a reward layered underneath that combat performance. In other words- make sure the player is situationally challenged in all aspects of combat, and as a reward for that you can situationally dumb down that challenge to specific aspects- as a way to add elements to that overall experience, rather than detract elements from it.
So I think enemy design should be more focused on utilizing the totality of the combat system as a whole, by asking more about how you can maintain the need during combat for the player to use all of their options, while adding additional options to the player that are enemy-specific, in order to maintain or even increase the depth of the combat. Then, look at how you can go about doing that by giving different mechanics and behaviors to the enemy A.I. as you mentioned, which will give the player a reason to use each of those combat options- instead of limiting it to specific strategies that are required to exploit the enemy.
Based on the amount of situations the player is put into- The enemy design should always prompt the player to ask "Which approach do I want to use" instead of "what approaches do I have to use" in order to win against this enemy.
So the skill floor affects the fluidity of the combat in BDO? Im assuming this is done by having an execution barrier of some kind that requires input mastery to add that fluidity to your gameplay mechanics- is this the case for BDO?
I don't think that would bother me as much as other people. I have a preference on what I like (and wanting the combat in games to progress rather than regress) . But if im playing with friends it is fine. I've played TAB mmorpgs since the beginning, i just wouldn't have been as serious in Final fantasy compared to other mmorpgs. I would have took it as something to do and past time until the mmorpgs or games i want come out.
There is a big difference between watching and knowing how a game feels in your hands.
Knowing what skills to use and when to use them. Spamming attacks is only going to mess up your movement and feel clunky. (akin to a fighting game if you were mashing hard with maxi). Knowing how to cancel some of your moves, and using the correct movement skills to flow your moves together and control your characters direction properly. That would just be the basics.
Monster Hunter has different mechanics for different monsters. My issue was with how the difficulty was scaled down to let people win.
If you happen to not know the rigid AI you may suffer. If you knew it, you could easily exploit it. That seems to be the case.
Adding element effects seems arbitrary as well. They do something but I don't see why that wouldn't have more of a niche and be part of special Prep rather than as a flat upgrade to a weapon.
Like. . . 'consumable' weapons for elemental damage. Setup of some sort like electric discharge being more 1-use grenade, effective on the neck and just a short stun to set up something in-combat.
If that's already in the game then good. But it shouldn't be on a sword or whatever.
Random crazy weapons might seem fun for a while but more realistic constraints still allow for and lend themself to nuanced variation that can have a big impact when fractions of a second and how you approach a problem matters.
There's no problem in constraining player choice lol. If something is flying around and you can't melee it you need to use a ranged weapon.
Bringing big burdensome armor and weapons then dying from lack of mobility is a natural constraint.
Sticking weapons in the ground to use later on in the fight is setup though.
Literal sized hitboxes on things would allow for "Real Combat" and I'd mod it if I were a modder.
So if I modded Monster Hunter World or something it would be to make everything accurate af with a lot of fantastical stuff removed and Realistic Options added focusing on some literal LITERAL accurate way of moving and doing damage.
With a bit of liberal conjecture of human athletic peak, but otherwise quite 'physics based'.
And some additional world building eco stuff I guess; I don't know enough about it teh game to speak on that end.
@Mag7spy
It seems you mean subjective enjoyment of it. Or you think I have not paid much effort when researching.
The game could feel pretty good but I want something else.
Inputs and results on-screen are what they are; and I have experience with comparable games.
I like controllers and the sense of physicality in combat but think it could be better; dumb AI has always been a big gripe of mine and many others.
Too much bold lol
too much
use more examples pls. less exposition. well first and last paragraph are the same.
it might be ironic it might not be