[Feedback Request] Basic Range Weapon Attack Update and Ranger Demo Discussed in Sept. Livestream

Ace1234

Its tough to give feedback on the direction taken, without having more info on how the rest of the combat system interacts with the ranged basic attacks.

With the info that the ranged attacks are projectile based, I am going to assume that even though the attacks can lock on to a target, you can still evade them, and position yourself behind obstacles to block the projectiles. If that is the case then I really like those aspects, as from the defensive perspective, those things can be used to reward your positioning, decision making, timing, and team coordination to protect yourself, evade attacks, and close the gap toward the ranged-attack user. I hope that this is true so that there is a heavy emphasis on skill, rather than everything being completely automated, even specifically for the ranged attacks.

If this is the case, then at that point the whole "tab vs action" disagreement would be more about 'which' skills are being tested rather than 'whether or not' the ranged combat will be skill-based. In that case, I think that the hybrid combat for the ranged attacks could be leveraged to create a dynamic experience, because it would allow for either an emphasis on specific skillsets during the tab portions, or more of a combination of skill-checks during the raw action portions (through the additional requirement of aim skill).

There is pretty much 2 routes you can go.

1. You could try to make both tab and action relevant and balanced in all situations, by increasing the reward of the action to compensate for the added risk- in order to give both types of players there own preferred way of playing and have it be viable at all times

Or,
2. You could make tab and action useful in different situations and serve different purposes. This could create a more dynamic experience where the player has to adapt how they play to maximize performance. Not all players would enjoy being forced to play a different way, but a lot of other players would enjoy that type of experience and it would encourage people to get better and try new styles, which is part of the fun of playing to begin with.


Generally people favor one vs the other because they are better at it, so they want to essentially handicap the other players that are good at something else, so that they can compete. If you design around these types of players, then you have to worsen the experience for the other player who wants the same thing (to be able to excel at what they are good at using their skillset they are better with). Neither is neccessarily better than the other, but the problem is that there will always be someone who is worse, because thats a game of skill is all about- so if you design around the worst player, then there will never really be any kind of truly skill-based gameplay and it will be boring. It is better to design around better players and require a higher variety of skills and deeper level of specific skills, and expecting the worse players to learn and get better to be able to compete with the better players, to allow the potential for all to have fun within this process.


That being said, I think that it would be best to create a dynamic experience, that has both a variety of skill-checks in some situations, and a deeper more specific skill-check in others. By leveraging the hybrid combat to make both tab and action situationally useful and serve their own distinct purposeses, I think this would allow for that more dynamic experience, which will be more fun by allowing players of all skills to grow, adapt, and compete and avoid thing getting too stale as they fall back into their old habits and "preffered ways of playing".


It seems like this might be the direction Ashes might be going based on the basic ranged attack livestream, where the hybrid system will allow for both tab and action to be relevant in different situations, based on some of the comments that were made. Again, it is hard to tell for sure, but if this is the case then I think the direction is great.


One concept I wanted to touch on is that combat is all about defense and offense, and the player's skill to excel in these areas. Some ways that players can express skill over another is the management of their options, their positioning, timing, etc.- and thus these players should be more efficient/effective at defending/attacking when more skillfull in these areas. Since risk/reward is a part of managing your combat options, there should be a way for better players to take fewer risks and get better reward than less skilled players during combat. One way of doing this is to have the lower risk/lower reward tools lead into or create opportunities for the use of the high risk/higher reward tools. Basic attacks are a great example of what could be the lower risk/lower reward tools during combat, so I think that would be a good direction to take the basic attacks, with how they interact with the other combat abilities by leading into the riskier stronger ones.


Some other core ideas I think are important to consider with the basic ranged attacks and how they interact with the other tools are:

1. the balance of defense and offense- both combatants should have a way of relatively safely poking at the enemy, (but that also could become risky when used too predictably)
2. agency- the more freedom the better. I love that we saw you have the ability to move and jump while shooting. i hope that this freedom is meaningful and makes an impact in combat if used correctly, instead of just being a visual thing.
3. good combat pacing- the basic attack should play a role in the overall combat in terms of promoting good combat pacing where the players are encouraged for being proactive, and rewarded for making plays toward eventually besting the enemy- rather than being overly campy/passive to the extent where its always more optimal to wait for the enemy to engage rather than you making the first move.
4. the balance of different ranges of weapons- the basic ranged attacks should be balanced relative to the other basic attacks available to other weapons. This could be through ensuring the shorter ranged tools have opportunities to avoid and protect themselves while simultaneously closing the gap, and allowing the longer ranged tools to have opportunities to capitalize until the enemy gets too close.

Overall loved the livestream and am super excited with everything so far. The graphics/environments looked amazing and so did the enemies (I do hope they fine tune the enemy AI to be fairly smart and challenging). Can't wait for the next stream, and thanks for reading my feedback!

Lust69

Personally I find the combat animations lacklustre I’ve always been a big fan of bdo combat animations but I think somewhere in between bdo and aoc’s current animations would be right or at least if keeping the current main attacks the same make the skills more flashy. The jumping over and shooting three arrow skill is a nice idea but it’s not flashy enough for me I feel it needs to be more exciting.

I couldn’t quite make out one part of the sword melee video is there an option to change the colour of animations and also the size of them similar to bdo. If not this is a good idea because one person could have it like it is as default and the next change it to red and bigger flashy animations.

Never the less it’s starting to look nice but I won’t be excited about a skill until there more bang for your buck.

Again the basic shooting arrows is nice but I’d get bored of this animation pretty fast I’m just imagining grinding for three hours would I really enjoy watching the basic animation over and over again.

I hope someone can see my point of view, I’ve been binge watching aoc content and it’s very impressive and I love what the team are doing they must be very passionate and their doing a great job.

PhoenixProject

i more or less agree with what other people have commented,i would like to add though that i really like realism in games.What i mean by realism is not that i like them to feel like real life but rather be realistic in the context of the world they are set into. With that in mind i know you said that ammunition creates a lot of problems and i agree but i would like it if there was an in game "reason/explanation" as to why we have infinite arrows.For example you can add an enchantment crafters make in very early levels that you can attach to your quiver and make it have infinite arrows or maybe any non-common quiver has already this property or you learn a spell at very early levels that makes you have infinite arrows,just any kind of in-game explanation as to why we have infinite arrows, i dont like plot holes it kind of breaks immersion for me, what do you guys think? i wish you all the best

MacAttacks

Watching the Ranger video i'm pleased to see the direction AoC is heading, i'm not overly fussed about tab targeting or action combat. To me the visual and sound design feedback from the the weapons and spell animations are more important. That being said i would love to see more visual feedback from the bow especially on the flightpaths of the arrows or visual effects connect to the arrow to give the bow/arrow a more impactful presence, maybe even add a visual effect like arrows sticking out of the bodies of NPC within their hitbox that fade away.
Also it should be clear in the visual difference between a short bow and longbow. Longbows should be almost as tall as the person using it, where the short bow is of course shorter, this includes how the bow is stowed away, so a long bow could be stowed on the side of the body / over the shoulder and the short bow on the back.

staron82

The gameplay looks super fun, but I really hope that quivers (cosmetic) will be added for more immersion.