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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.
AOC combat == skill
Voxtrium
Member, Alpha Two
Lets be honest, the worry about tab gameplay is that the combat will be rotation/positioning centric but not have a deeper skill ceiling that will allow players to feel like they are truly getting better as players outside of the games gear progression.
However we haven't seen the ability skill trees yet, nor the augments. Both of which Stephen has said will include abilities that are not allowed to be locked on using tab. Remember 25% action and 75% tab for your hotbar? Yes basic attacks will probably always use tab targeting in this game for PVP. In PVE we could definitely argue for some special cases where action targeting makes sense. (If I were them I'd release bosses with weak spots that cant be hit without using action targeting) That being said, abilities like spawning a wall, raining down a storm of arrows, other AOE centric abilities, will likely need to be placed by the player not locked n dropped. There are plenty of other possibilities as well, just give it a little thought.
At the end of the day ya if this game had no abilities and all you did was auto attack, its combat would be real lame, but this game is literally designing most of its gameplay around abilities, not basic attacks. (Think about augments and the number of ways to achieve them already announced to us)
What nobody is talking about is the good news regarding their verbiage when talking about synergy. Skill regarding tab targeting is the problem everyone worries about. However they have just told us that they are building these classes to synergize with themselves, and any developer with both sides of their brain thinking about how to synergize kits is going to synergize not just the individual players but teams of 8 (What they say they are balancing the game for). With that we also know synergy creates the true skill ceilings that provide that feeling of true improvement on the player side (think about mobas and why they are take so long to get good at).
So lets appreciate the extent of knowledge we don't have regarding development, and maybe take into account more of what they have said. These fear mongering post are weird. Maybe this one is too idk.
The combat in this game needs to function within the limits of our technology, funds of the company and all within a reasonable timeline so my argument really just boils down to, they talk the talk and so far walk the walk, so lets let them do continue doing that.
However we haven't seen the ability skill trees yet, nor the augments. Both of which Stephen has said will include abilities that are not allowed to be locked on using tab. Remember 25% action and 75% tab for your hotbar? Yes basic attacks will probably always use tab targeting in this game for PVP. In PVE we could definitely argue for some special cases where action targeting makes sense. (If I were them I'd release bosses with weak spots that cant be hit without using action targeting) That being said, abilities like spawning a wall, raining down a storm of arrows, other AOE centric abilities, will likely need to be placed by the player not locked n dropped. There are plenty of other possibilities as well, just give it a little thought.
At the end of the day ya if this game had no abilities and all you did was auto attack, its combat would be real lame, but this game is literally designing most of its gameplay around abilities, not basic attacks. (Think about augments and the number of ways to achieve them already announced to us)
What nobody is talking about is the good news regarding their verbiage when talking about synergy. Skill regarding tab targeting is the problem everyone worries about. However they have just told us that they are building these classes to synergize with themselves, and any developer with both sides of their brain thinking about how to synergize kits is going to synergize not just the individual players but teams of 8 (What they say they are balancing the game for). With that we also know synergy creates the true skill ceilings that provide that feeling of true improvement on the player side (think about mobas and why they are take so long to get good at).
So lets appreciate the extent of knowledge we don't have regarding development, and maybe take into account more of what they have said. These fear mongering post are weird. Maybe this one is too idk.
The combat in this game needs to function within the limits of our technology, funds of the company and all within a reasonable timeline so my argument really just boils down to, they talk the talk and so far walk the walk, so lets let them do continue doing that.
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Also the combat looks really fast paced. Quicker reactions will lead to better performance. We are no longer in the age of old school mmos (and I am ok with that).
I'm fine with the mix between tab and action, just hope there's going to be more action abilities than just the non-damage and AoE ones. Also fine with weak spots on enemies, as long as Intrepid can stop cheaters from abusing it. I do wonder how action abilities that will require you to aim will work out if you're in the tab targeting camera mode. Bringing me to my point below.
Switching camera modes every few seconds could be tedious though, assuming your screen isn't (always) centered on your main target when you're in the tab targeting camera mode.
IMO, this hybrid system needs to lean more towards one side or the other, because trying to make both reticle skill-shots and blind tab firing work together seems like it can only turn out a bit rocky. If you make any part of the ranged system require players to have a good reticle aiming ability to get the most out of their class, the vast majority of tab-centric players will be upset that they're not able to maximize the archetype's potential. If you allow tab players the same ability to output damage as those who choose the more challenging path of utilizing more skill-based abilities, you'll get many action players complaining that their effort isn't worth the trouble of occasionally missing shots or hitting the wrong target in a pack, and likely switching to tab for the majority of content, making much of the effort put into the "hybrid" system a waste of time.
I don't want to be a downer, I just have a hard time seeing how Intrepid can actually blend reticle skillshots into a largely tab based rotation without it feeling clunky and jarring. Considering that the "action mode" they showed off in the stream is essentially a soft lock plug-in for the tab system, I'd hesitate to even call an action-targeted ability a skill shot. You stick your cursor anywhere on (or seemingly near) the target and it hits them square in their hitbox. You might as well make the skill shots accessible from tab target mode with a stylized arrow ground decal that moves with your cursor similar to WoW's ranged skillshots that hit the nearest enemy who's hitbox falls on the decal boundary. Both require nothing more than vaguely hovering your cursor over the target, just with a different camera angle and visual aid. I've personally never taken issue with that approach to skillshots in the past.
Agreed. Here's to hoping they implement it without it being tedious.
I personally haven't played WoW, but the way you described it sounds like the way skillshots work in League of Legends. If that is the way you meant, I really like that idea actually.
This depends how they balance out systems, if it works one to one with 0 bonuses for extra effort then people will complain. This is why people are mentioning things early, as voicing increased difficulty and getting less is a issue in peoples eyes.
Ashes of creation combat should not be like top down league / dota style placing circles like you are playing a moba. That sounds terrible if they is what you were kind of suggesting. They just need a intuitive way for camera to be repositioned for action tyle skills or for them to be just used in front of you.
Right, but the opposite side of the coin is that if they don't work one to one with 0 bonuses, then the higher skill system, action, will have the bonuses. And as we've all seen from many forum threads and polls, the majority of the current fanbase either prefers tab-centric combat or is ambivalent. Even if those threads and polls are skewed, I'd say it's at least a 50/50 split. This would likely lead to those people, at least half if not the majority of people following the game, taking issue with the skill ceiling being unattainable unless you're interested in and capable of mastering reticle skill-shots. So you can't fully win either way if both tab and true reticle action combat coexist, whether they're separately damage balanced or not.
It's worked well enough in other MMOs, but I understand if your only experience with them is in a MOBA, and if having them in an MMO would feel out of place. That being said, how else do you imagine players casting ranged ground-targeted AOE abilities? If you want pure blind-firing with every ranged ground-targeted AOE ability casting directly in front of the player, with the player having to learn exactly what the range and boundaries of those attacks are by sight alone, I can potentially get behind that, but I don't think tab players would like it much, as you'd be essentially forcing them to play tab while using the center of their screen as a "reticle" for aiming their ranged ground-targeted AOEs. Either that, or you'd have to have this camera switch be implemented for every ground-targeted ranged AOE attack and enemy-targeted ranged skillshot attack. With this, you also have to consider that ground-targeted ranged AOEs usually have a decent casting distance, and from a near dead-on reticle camera view, your perspective of the terrain as you get further away from your character covers a broader measure of ground length per unit of pixels on the screen as you near the horizon, causing the use of the center of the screen as a reticle to make judging the distance of those attacks very difficult (and not in a fun way).
For enemy-targeted skillshots at least, I can sort of visualize what a smooth camera transition would look like, but it would have to be more up-close and centered right over the player's shoulder. A smooth, but relatively quick transition, with the camera's distance from the player being locked in while aiming, that then pans back to the previous camera distance just as quickly after the skillshot is taken. So you press the ability of the key, the camera pans in, you aim and click or press the ability key again, and the camera pans back out. I imagine this sort of distance while aiming:
They could also implement a custom skillshot camera setting, where you go into the menu, click a button to reset it, have the interface hide the menus, allow you to adjust your camera for where you'd want the reticle to pan to when you activate a skillshot (how high above, far back from, and horizontally offset from your shoulder), and then save it to your character. You could even have different camera setups saved for solo play vs larger content in case you wanted to be farther away to see more ground effects or a broader view of what's in front of you in dungeons or OWPvP.
Do we consider that 'enough skill'?
I don't consider this take valid relative to the conversations we're having, though.
By that reasoning, literally anything a game requires is skill.
I really doubt that's what's being discussed, and if it somehow is, it's so tautological as to not be worth engaging.
"AoC Combat is skilled because it has goals and you can achieve them."?
There's pros and cons for both of the camera modes, there does not need to be an extra incentive to use either.
If they can figure that out, sure. I don't really see it happening without either having to drag your aim to the target you wish to hit when switching from tab targeting camera mode to reticle camera mode yourself, or the game centering your camera and thus reticle on your target automatically when switching from tab targeting camera mode to reticle camera mode. Both options seem tedious.
I can only see this working if you already have your target centered on your screen in tab targeting camera mode, which certainly is not always the case.
If you were replying to the context of the walls of text, then I'll have to go read them, cause I kinda skipped them due to them being walls, and was just replying to your question in the context of the video you posted.
It was aimed vertically aligned with the target - combined with the fact that the ability does not require you to aim exactly on a target, only vertically aligned - so I would say yes.
L2 needed you to mouse click your targets because not only were there too many enemies on the screen to tab through them, but also because the "tab" function had a short range (far shorter than the ranged attacks one) so you had to have good "pixel hunting" skills.
Would that be considered "requiring skill" in the context of tab targeting? Cause to me it is, but I'm heavily biased towards that kind of mechanic.
I also meant to ask you, in the same vein, just how MUCH 'detarget your opponent's tab lock' was there in Lineage at the higher levels?
Because at the moment, this is the main thing I can see making this system enjoyable for me rather than just 'something okay that I have to engage with and hope it is balanced better than it looks'.
I thiiink that's it. So considering the average party setup, only the fighter classes didn't have shit like that. But they'd quite often wear light armor because it gave them more dmg, so even there they'd have a chance at detargeting. And on top of that, quite often you'd have a dark elf rogue character in your fighter party because he had good debuffs.
In other words you had a shitton and quite often low-mid skill players would get absolutely lost if they lost their target, so the feature itself was really effective.
Edit: Oh! Also, there was one rogue that was literally all about detargeting. He had a top lvl buff that had a high chance to detarget and he had the light armor, the rogue detargeting and retargeting abilities. These motherfuckers were insanely annoying (they also had a pretty long dash buff, so mobility was through the roof too). They were also fat as fuck so usually you'd try to leave them for the last victim, but them being rogues meant that they could one or two shot your healer, so you had to deal with them in other ways more often than not. They had very mid dmg for a rogue and abilities could miss quite often, so that was the tradeoff.
Thank you. This is what I think I want to see and would solve any concerns for me.
If 'Tab Detarget' is common, then I would think that the way the game is built now relative to Targeting is good. I feel you could make a real argument that 'you need skill to use Tab Target' if you're usually fighting GvG and often your opponent is forcing your target lock to drop, especially if it makes non-Action skills miss.
If most 'great mobility' moves other than like... Tank's rush, also Detarget, I will definitely be satisfied and I would then have to ask others why they weren't.
I still remember times when some cheeky rogues thought they'd fuck me over with their abilities (when I was playing an elemental mage), but I just stayed on top of my targeting and instead threw their target off with my aoe ability and they got fucking lost. Just stood there for around 2 seconds, which meant ~3-4 juicy atks from me. This is what happens to a mid skill player who thinks he's all that. And it was also an RPS balancer, because usually mages would lose if the rogue got into melee range.
The main issue I can see is that most of those detargeting methods came a bit later in L2's life, so there's a chance that Steven missed them and might not push for them in his design. I dearly hope that there's other devs that realize the importance of detargeting mechanics in a tab target pvp game. And if we don't see even a hint at that in Alpha2, I'm definitely gonna be yelling about it from the rooftops.
Would the camera centering on your mouse not just be... action mode? Cause that's basically what action mode is without the reticle. I think tab players prefer tab not only for auto-aimed basic abilities, but for the freedom of mouse movement independent of camera movement.
Agreed here, and I think 'Detarget' is the only way to achieve this and equalize the two 'skill types'.
One moves the camera, the other moves the cursor mostly the same way without moving the Camera.
Both 'Tab Lock' or 'soft lock' (but the first doesn't have to), both can be made to miss a single target skill by 'proper movement'.
Tab suffers a little more for 'not aiming'.
This wouldn't appease any people who don't believe in Evasion Stat, but maybe it would influence the perception of some others.
beyond tautological you have preferences, actors and character
make ashes ymmersive again MAYA
I'd love it if most people liked immersive games, but in my experience they don't. It's a bit sad, yes.
But Immersion normally requires friction/challenge in the interfaces and time requirements, so...
Action CC should be a big chunk of available CC in the game too (cone, zone, line, a wave, knock tied to something, whatever. Just look at Dota, LoL, et cetera; many can be both tab and action)
I don't want the game to look like Smite so low-powered abilities is my preference. A grittier 3D 'moba' to make the World the focus rather than flashy flashy arcade bullshit. I'd like to feel the weight of the world and the players rather than be One with the Arcade Wind.
I'd rather it not feel or play like a grittier 'Moba' even but half of people paying attention to the game seem pretty HYPED UP for one.
Weightier mechanics and less ZOOMER GAMING opens up room for long-term planning, logistics, strategy, and tactics that is mirrored in the efforts of trudging through the world and its combat rather than being Gods on some small Arcade Plane.
Of course arcade wind can be long-term and weighty. . . just make it a grindfest! LMAO. Please. Make it a WORLD not an ARCADE that you add arbitrary bullshit to hoping it adds weight and a sense of achievement lol. . .
@Azherae
Target dropping and redirection sounds great
no offense, but you sound like the guy that will spamming chat with aim bot adverts.
Action games don't have tons of reticle skill shots is the thing, you just use soft lock. IT doesn't mean there won't be some skill shots but that is not normally the majority of how combat is because that is going more towards what people start complaining about with it being a fps.
It is best to look at it like a dial with combat an extreme action game might have a lot of more pin point stuff depending on the type of game (not in all cases really though). But games that have lighter action elements normally have a soft lock or some sort of asset to help players as it isn't about aiming but more so the action.
This is what soft lock is suppose to provide where you look towards a general direction and your shorts will hit that target even if it a inch off your crosshair. You can be pretty generous with that element with soft target.
The crows complain about FPS in a mmorpg are most likely people that haven't played a action game before, and why they try to throw shade and use NW as an example. Best way is to just introduce a good system and they wont complain as they will get use to it with the game. And still be able to rely on tab target for skills and such.
Anyone complain about auto attacks being action is silly because you don't use auto attacks in a mmorpg except for really low levels. Im expecting ashes combat to not go 40 skills on a bar and overload but have things be a bit more meaningful and you may actually use your auto attack a bit more than past mmorpgs.
Long story short skill ceiling will be high in a good way. Though it won't be unobtainable in sense of needing to aim to be good
AoE attacks honestly just need to be action based, what is what they stem from to begin with. If it adds difficulty switching between sure, and that can be a skill cap for players. It should be more blind and you should have more a sense of your aoe from using the skill and experience.
You should nto get a big red circle telling you where your aoe is going to hit exactly, if you are selecting a area to aoe with your mouse it should just be a pointer and your aoe happens around that area if it need to be done in a point and lick way akin to mobas.
As much as I don't like it there most likely is a high chance that is how it is going to work though. Aoes are really annoying even more so ranged aoes I just feel they should be made more difficult by default. Worst thing you can do is have your game become a giant aoe fest.
You should be able to adjust your camera up and your crosshair so you have have a better wide view in front of you and have a easier time marking how your aoe would work (this would be more a action camera thing)
Ya i agree with the aiming thing, something that is required in action games and helps with the feel and flow of combat. Like the snipe skill for example it be cool if it zoomed in a bit.
When i play action mmorpgs i tend to zoom my camera out pretty far and raise it higher above the characters head, as field of view is always important in a mmorpg. Would be good to know how much we can customize the camera talking about it now tbh.
Yup that is what i expect, that is why it confused me when people say FPS. You don't need precise aim with soft lock targeting. You just have it generally near your target and have to do some wide tracking, or actually turn around and face your target if they get behind you.
No one is saying it needs to become a FPS. I don't even agree with the head shot thing cause i don't view that as being important for a fight. I'd rather have that focus go on the actual combat and fight then aiming at a head.