For Those Who Want Active Blocking...

Are you for, or against, 'blockstun'?

I realized that my opinions about active blocking in an MMO are based around the concept that there would be blockstun on it. But this would mean that a blocking player could either be stunlocked or forced to take damage.

However, active blocking in a PvP situation tends to get very weird when there is no blockstun, and it would probably look both confusing and terrible, because flicker-block is functionally a type of animation cancel even if you can't start blocking while doing something else. If you only need to be blocking on the frames where the game could register a hit, you can flicker it.

If you only need to be blocking on ONE of the frames where the game could register a hit, you could plink-block even if blocking itself has a recovery time.

But we saw the game being quite fast in the basic melee weapon attack thing. I don't know if Intrepid will let you block basic attacks, but that's just a random thing thrown in.

If you are in support of Active Block, do you want 'blockstun', 'long recovery from block animations', or 'flicker-block'? Please add any opinions on whether or not most characters should be able to move while in block stance.

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Ace1234

@Spif
I know they are leaning away from animation cancel style, but it can be one of the healthiest things you can add to combat.

One main reason that different combat systems get boring is when it is much safer to wait for the opponent to move, react and punish their choice- compared to being encouraged to initiate combat.

This can be caused by relying too much on offensive options that are telegraphed- which lets the opponent choose and time their punishes much easier. Having the ability to cancel different moves into different aggressive options allows for the ability to make your offensive options more ambiguous and mix up your timing, which promotes good pacing in combat, and adds to the depth.

It would encourage good pacing by making potentially making it tougher to react to the timing, which puts more emphasis on prediction and adaptation, which rewards being proactive instead of reactive. It adds to depth by having to deal with the ambiguity by making good decisions to counter potential options.

You might say that it can cause issues of people never wanting to commit to an option making it even more campy, or you might say the lack of commitment eliminates risk and decreases depth. These would both be untrue because of the following reasons:

Even amongst full animation canceling freedom,
having faster pacing where different offensive tools are unreactable, rewards commitment to your moves over non-commital animation cancel spamming- simply because when you can reach the opponent in time, it is better to be the one hitting the opponent than doing the one doing nothing (because they canceled out of it), and they don't have time to counter on reaction in that scenario.

The built-in strengths and weakness of each move gives inherent risk to deciding to commit to a given move in a given situation, based on the opponents move they decide to counter with.

So overall you still would have to manage the risk/reward of each move, but have more control over how you do that by having more freedom to manipulate your distance and timing at any given moment, which adds depth and promotes good pacing.

Sapiverenus

Spam Shift key. Increase 'Effort'. Last 1 second.

Hit by stun --> reduced by amount of Effort that is stored. Stun consumes Effort given certain threshold.

Camera is cursor locked. Shield blocks in a wide cone, more coverage on side of shield. Wide cone moves slightly to the direction that one is blocking. Size of shield affects this. Size of character also has an impact since cone starts on edge of character.

No block-stun but enemies have 'inertia' to their hits so there is some effect like block-stun but that is CC from their attack (no CC or negligable from weaker attacks/ stronger tank). Timing window is based on whether Shield-user is recovering from the previous hit still and how far along they are (more easily 'pushed over', 'knocked back', and damaged the further from 100% ready to block they are). Chance to block lower when further from 100% ready to block.

Hold Mouse button Shield is on. Blocking. Hold Shift to use Effort on next clicked move such as Block or on Block if already Blocking: after .2 seconds.
Block stays up for .166 seconds after letting go of said Mouse button.
Efforts are used up by blocking but is more like a value that is consumed differently by different attacks; over a certain value the Effort is consumed. Based on physicality of the hit (inertia, knock-back). Effort consumed partway through its effective enhancement to blocking (UI changes, but that Enhanced Blocking meter is still being consumed).

Max 2 Efforts 'stored'. Max 3 additional Efforts per second, updated 'window' every .166 seconds.

Use of Effort accrues Exhaustion. Relates to Stamina. More of a 1 - 5 minute cycle, 7 or 8 minute cycle for high Stamina Tanks. tanks = stamina.
Recovery is constant rate. Rate Ramps up over 2.5 seconds of not using or generating Effort if high Stam; 11 seconds if low Stam. 30% Recovery while using and generating Effort

Have movement stay going for .2 after holding Movement Button for over .25 seconds. Tap opposite direction to cancel.
Movement is Inertia based. Attributes and various physical parameters apply.

Effort increases movement speed but doesn't consume it, instead movement slows max Effort generation per second to 2. Hold Shift while moving to consume an Effort every .3 seconds for increased speed for .9 second. Hold Shift while standing still with an effort built up to Move Quickly once you start moving.

Takes .2 seconds for Hold Shift to begin taking effect on moves and movement.

That's my pitch.

maouw

Ace1234 wrote: »

@Spif
I know they are leaning away from animation cancel style, but it can be one of the healthiest things you can add to combat.

...

Yeah, for this reason I'm not truly expecting "flicker-block" in Ashes, but I do like the idea.
Animation cancelling mechanics would make the skill ceiling/learning curve higher/steeper for those who are unfamiliar - which is good, but many people have expressed that they don't want to deal with animation cancelling (usually people who want a slower pace of combat). So I don't think it's a hill to die on.

LordPax

I think the issue here, and something I stated earlier, is that dungeons and raids are not going to be teams of 5 or 10 vs 1 big boss. We're talking 40+ people. If ONE tank can 'active' block versus a monster big enough to require dozens of players, then how does that transfer to PvP? As well, how does a tank hold aggro versus a big boss when theyre large enough to hit multiple players with every attack?

The big holes that people poke in active blocking is its just not good in group PvE. Sure, action combat RPG with small engagements, its fine. This is not the case for AoC. Too much emphasis and importance on a single class(and single weapon type: shield)

Songcaller

I prefer block with focused stances. It means you can have 33% block on three sides (not rear) 66% on one side and 33% on another or 99% block in one direction.

The system above only works with directional attacks because you would have 0% block behind and anywhere else you remove the block to mitigate frontal attacks. It's excellent in pve and pvp. We don't have directional attacks in Ashes though so we are left with the crapper styles of blocking.

Ace1234

@LordPax
Its just about designing around the mechanic and tuning it to give the desired experience. Really the only question that needs to be asked is whether you want to have more active skill-based mechanics or not, then you design around that. There is no reason "a huge shield in pvp" or "a sweeping motion that can hit everyone" should be an inherent issue unless they just don't design and tune around it.

Plenty of ways to deal with these kinds if designs. If you want balance and aggression, provide players with offensive tools that can deal with big shields. If you want to change the required amount of people/classes for dealing with different tools, then split up that counterplay between different classes/multiple players or concentrate them into a single class/player. If you want it to be several tanks required for a big boss, make several tanks neccessary to block that sweeping motion to protect players behind them- or if you want one tank to be effective then empower that active block to de-activate the boss hitbox so the sweeping motion doesn't hurt the players once its been blocked.

You just have to broaden your outlook when designing then look for more specific solutions from there- instead of first looking at surface level issue and having that pigeon hole your design- because this limited perspective may lead to you thinking that making the game more fun would result in it "not working".

Azherae

Neurath wrote: »

I prefer block with focused stances. It means you can have 33% block on three sides (not rear) 66% on one side and 33% on another or 99% block in one direction.

The system above only works with directional attacks because you would have 0% block behind and anywhere else you remove the block to mitigate frontal attacks. It's excellent in pve and pvp. We don't have directional attacks in Ashes though so we are left with the crapper styles of blocking.

Age of Conan style then?

Considering the speed of Ashes' attacks, what if they were actually directional, at least conal?

Most games with this type of combat can, and do, manage conal shielding, and you could then control the cone. The issue being that most methods for controlling cones makes one of the two 'animation canceled' blocking options more popular.

But not 'necessary'. So you could get that and still have blockstun if you want that as part of the focused stances?

Caeryl

LordPax wrote: »

I think the issue here, and something I stated earlier, is that dungeons and raids are not going to be teams of 5 or 10 vs 1 big boss. We're talking 40+ people. If ONE tank can 'active' block versus a monster big enough to require dozens of players, then how does that transfer to PvP? As well, how does a tank hold aggro versus a big boss when theyre large enough to hit multiple players with every attack?

The big holes that people poke in active blocking is its just not good in group PvE. Sure, action combat RPG with small engagements, its fine. This is not the case for AoC. Too much emphasis and importance on a single class(and single weapon type: shield)

This is an odd sort of concern and I don’t see where you’re making those assumptions

1) Bosses will require a large group due to having exponentially more health than any player character, and significantly more damage options (from minor DoTs to debuffs to one-shots)

2) We already know “one” tank can survive a single boss’s attacks for a good long while due to having, again, 40+ other players helping them outlast it with healing, buffs, and mitigation in addition to their own

3) Ashes is balancing for group play, not solo 1v1s. A tank’s role is to survive upfront burst, so it’s working as intended when they can survive upfront burst from other players, and not just a boss monster. Sustained damage and resource drain is how you beat a tank, not just Big Number.

4) How does this place emphasis on a particular weapon? Active shielding, as far as it’s being discussed here, is an action anyone can take using any weapon that costs a resource. Obviously a full shield would be most optimal in mitigation values and efficiency, but you can block attacks with magic wards and swords to a lesser degree as well

Azherae

maouw wrote: »

Ace1234 wrote: »

@Spif
I know they are leaning away from animation cancel style, but it can be one of the healthiest things you can add to combat.

...

Yeah, for this reason I'm not truly expecting "flicker-block" in Ashes, but I do like the idea.
Animation cancelling mechanics would make the skill ceiling/learning curve higher/steeper for those who are unfamiliar - which is good, but many people have expressed that they don't want to deal with animation cancelling (usually people who want a slower pace of combat). So I don't think it's a hill to die on.

The problem with this is 'the way netcode works' in general.

For flicker-blocking to not be POSSIBLE, then blocking itself must have a cooldown or a 'duration while you are in block stance' of at least 6 frames for most players in the same region to not experience it in a way that works like a flicker block, in the netcode models standardly available (Ashes may have something different, but netcode models don't have a 'perfect form', just different forms with competing priorities).

Without going too deeply into it, the general outcome of 'a block minimum duration of less than 6 frames' is:

"Player A enters block, data is sent to server, then to player B to show that Player A has entered block, with about 64ms (4 frames) between them." - Player B's client might instantly show the block, but if the data is even slightly delayed, on Player A's side, they have stopped blocking and are now moving (probably movement startup will matter here, but it depends on what movement skills are available, and the last thing we saw was a 5 Frame startup full movement dash from Fighter)

This would mean that it was POSSIBLE in a specific situation for you to be 'looking at your opponent blocking' and that opponent (on their client) already BE BEHIND YOU (this would be simple to balance out, I'm just making the point generally).

This is a massive oversimplification of course, but the reason I give this one, is because MMOs have not traditionally been able to use the non-simplified versions of this netcode due to the number of players involved. I believe you're familiar ENOUGH with this for me to not need to explain 'why even a breakthrough to make a multi-entity game able to use the complex version would present a different problem', but I'm not sure, so let me know (~shakes fist at BDO Red Battlefield~).

tl;dr - This type of Animation Cancel is MORESO about 'taking advantage of ping/stutter' than 'demonstrating meaningful skill' because the effect on the opponent varies by that more than by combat ability/awareness.

maouw

Oh I see - the concern isn't about resolving a successful block, but abusing attack animations that are shorter than the latency between entities, with the animation cancel from flicker-blocking creating a shortcut into those animations.

Is that right?

I believe you're familiar ENOUGH with this for me to not need to explain 'why even a breakthrough to make a multi-entity game able to use the complex version would present a different problem', but I'm not sure, so let me know (~shakes fist at BDO Red Battlefield~).

No, I'm not fully following - but I'll take a guess: I assume "the complex version" is referring to rollback netcode? Which would cause huge rubberbanding with multiple entities?

Falkath

Active blocking is actually really bad for hybrid combat, not fun for tanks and really annoying for healers. The system archeage has in place with % of block, parry, evasion that can be boosted with class-skills like "increase the block rate by 75% for 6 seconds but slows player by 25%" and still allows the player to use his other skills as his block buff is active is a lot more fun to play. Works for every class, like any archer that evades an attack could have a passive bonus evasion for 5 seconds ect..

Azherae

maouw wrote: »

Oh I see - the concern isn't about resolving a successful block, but abusing attack animations that are shorter than the latency between entities, with the animation cancel from flicker-blocking creating a shortcut into those animations.

Is that right?

I believe you're familiar ENOUGH with this for me to not need to explain 'why even a breakthrough to make a multi-entity game able to use the complex version would present a different problem', but I'm not sure, so let me know (~shakes fist at BDO Red Battlefield~).

No, I'm not fully following - but I'll take a guess: I assume "the complex version" is referring to rollback netcode? Which would cause huge rubberbanding with multiple entities?

There are different forms of rollback netcode, but the explicit part I'm referring to is not the 'rollback' portion.

Most netcode has a formula for 'which frames to drop and cut short' based on specific interactions within the game. In games where only 'position' and 'bullet tracing' is important, for example, it doesn't have to do as much, it just has to figure out if you actually got hit or not.

In BDO, which I think you may have experienced, it cuts certain frames but also doesn't allow drift or free movement of specific types, in order to make it easier to know which frames to drop. This is easy in 1v1 because it can look at the STATES of two players and under a specific set of states, it knows "this many frames can be dropped without anyone suffering an unfair disadvantage".

The more players and interactions between those players you add, the less possible this is, even for just observers because of how packets are sent, synchronizations are timed, etc. You're usually 'working out which side to err on'.

This doesn't quite reach the level of 'rollback netcode' unless you actually have a structure for implementing the rollback, which then becomes a 'synchronization' question across multiple interacting entities. So yes, you understand the concern.

Without a specific type of slowdown, flicker block COULD be used to hide things like the Fighter Dash animation that we saw in the Basic Melee weapon video. Note I'm NOT saying that this is guaranteed to happen or hard to fix, just asking if people would prefer "a game where blocking has a duration or cooldown" over 'A game where a player could sometimes cause your client to show them blocking when they actually dashed' or 'a game where a player dashes but will be counted as blocking during that dash animation'.

Caeryl

Falkath wrote: »

Active blocking is actually really bad for hybrid combat, not fun for tanks and really annoying for healers. The system archeage has in place with % of block, parry, evasion that can be boosted with class-skills like "increase the block rate by 75% for 6 seconds but slows player by 25%" and still allows the player to use his other skills as his block buff is active is a lot more fun to play. Works for every class, like any archer that evades an attack could have a passive bonus evasion for 5 seconds ect..

So make it a generic buff with no skill expression, yeah that’s sounds super fun(/s). How is that more engaging than needing to find the rhythm within a fight to intelligently drop block for casting your skills?

I hate tanking in games where all I do is hit my AoE taunt and then afk after activating my buffs. Active block means tanks are required to be engaged and aware over everything going on, to pay attention to animations and learn what needs to be blocked vs what damage they can eat safely by watching the boss instead of literally everything else in the fight.

Mitigation as a stat, fine. Block as a stat? Stupid and dull

Azherae

Well, the Ranger stream has made me understand a LOT more things about the way certain things have been implemented so far.

Blocking relative to Tab Target ranged attacks does, in fact, make this much more interesting and important, since blocking arrows is the place where it matters the most.

Given the speed of what we saw, being able to move quickly after blocking might be very important for some classes.

Similarly but kind of unrelated, the speed of the Fighter's dash makes so much more sense now. It would be one of the main ways to close in and/or dodge on reaction vs a Tab Target shot. This, however, does bring up one more question about blocking. Directionality is expected, but can we rotate block direction quickly, and what happens when things like Air Strike hit 'perfectly' while you are blocking (where that means 'clips into a hurtbox from behind').

hleV

I'd prefer a simple "hold to block/parry" mechanic (like New World's) where you aim at the direction of the attack, though it should have a separate blocking bar, and work only against specific type of attacks (melee, mostly).

Some weapons should be better at blocking than others, shield obviously being the best. Blocking should be important for melee players that are at the frontlines taking the most damage. In the case of shield, it could partially work against some direct magical attacks like shooting fire.

Depleting the opponent's blocking bar would stagger them, and, this is important, the attack that depletes the blocking bar deals full damage: e.g. a way higher level mob using some heavy attack should be able to completely deplete a low level player's blocking bar in that one strike, therefore dealing full damage + stagger, so blocking is useless in that scenario.

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