Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
This is the kind of combat I expect to see from a modern mmorpg, full action, manual aiming/evading.
rpgmaniac
Member
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RbZ4kHYzmBo
The PVP on this game feels really amazing, I always thought when I used to play this game on the past that this combat on an OW-PVP MMORPG would make for amazing & unforgettable battles full of adrenaline & excitement, a veteran on this game can distinguish the skill of a player just from fighting with him for a few seconds, & this is the point for me on a combat system in order to feel good, to be able to tell a good from a bad or a very skilled player when you watch him fight for a bit, a combat system on a PVP-focused game must offer to players the chance to shine & show their skills & what they could really do with their character, what I'm talking about is things like to outplay your opponent & manage to win although you are with less than 5% of your total health for the full duration of a fight & you were able to do that because you perfectly evade/block/parry all his attacks & kept your distance from him leaving him no choice to fight back because you were simple a much better & more skilled player than him.
Now can you do something like that on a game with tab-target combat where attacks & skills automatically hit a target & can't be evaded? the answer is obvious, no, it's impossible to offer this kind of PVP experience on a game that has a tab-target combat system, it's for that reason players who experience real action combat most of the times never go back to play a tab-target game ever again, after saying all that I feel the need to give a friendly advice to devs & Steven himself:
"If you stick with tab-target combat you will automatically exclude a major portion of PVP players that have quit playing tab-target mmorpg for a long time now & don't expect them to make an exception for your game because for all of them it's all about how the combat feels & if the combat doesn't feel right they won't touch a game ever, so if you really want your game to be successful & attract the vast majority of the PVP crowd out there you need to scrap entirely the outdated tab-target combat system from your game & start working on a modern full action combat system where we must manually aim all our attacks & all attacks can be evaded"
The PVP on this game feels really amazing, I always thought when I used to play this game on the past that this combat on an OW-PVP MMORPG would make for amazing & unforgettable battles full of adrenaline & excitement, a veteran on this game can distinguish the skill of a player just from fighting with him for a few seconds, & this is the point for me on a combat system in order to feel good, to be able to tell a good from a bad or a very skilled player when you watch him fight for a bit, a combat system on a PVP-focused game must offer to players the chance to shine & show their skills & what they could really do with their character, what I'm talking about is things like to outplay your opponent & manage to win although you are with less than 5% of your total health for the full duration of a fight & you were able to do that because you perfectly evade/block/parry all his attacks & kept your distance from him leaving him no choice to fight back because you were simple a much better & more skilled player than him.
Now can you do something like that on a game with tab-target combat where attacks & skills automatically hit a target & can't be evaded? the answer is obvious, no, it's impossible to offer this kind of PVP experience on a game that has a tab-target combat system, it's for that reason players who experience real action combat most of the times never go back to play a tab-target game ever again, after saying all that I feel the need to give a friendly advice to devs & Steven himself:
"If you stick with tab-target combat you will automatically exclude a major portion of PVP players that have quit playing tab-target mmorpg for a long time now & don't expect them to make an exception for your game because for all of them it's all about how the combat feels & if the combat doesn't feel right they won't touch a game ever, so if you really want your game to be successful & attract the vast majority of the PVP crowd out there you need to scrap entirely the outdated tab-target combat system from your game & start working on a modern full action combat system where we must manually aim all our attacks & all attacks can be evaded"
5
Comments
Great video choice though.
For those who prefer to play it 'in-thread'.
I want to play a fun game
The publisher of this game is one of the worst probably the worst that currently exist, I'm talking for real scumbags, & btw this game as everyone can tell is not an mmorpg it's an mmo game where you fight in 15vs15 siege battles while controlling other units as well aside from your char, but although I am mainly an mmorpg player it was a really nice alternative since the fights was really fun.
This is a common problem for me as well. I don't necessarily think it would be a good idea for Ashes to target the same playertype that plays this game, I really don't know if the population would be enough.
But I do know that there are a LOT of games with good combat out there that 'just need a decent MMO built around them' to be quite engaging.
Give me tab target, 30 hotbar skills, and meaningful gear progression.
I personally hate having that much skills on my hotbar and I want skill to matter outside of just having better gear.
I mean, no one said anything about skill not being a factor. but it shouldnt be the only deciding factor, or do you want me to show you what I used to do in Wotlk on my warlock? Where I would duel fully geared players in a pretty pink statless dress and destroy them because I knew how to play my character.
My post above never mentioned skill because skill is something that should never be considered not apart of the equation. Not to mention, that video just showed a dude backpedaling and spamming abilities with a huge reticle at near point-blank. It didnt seem really skill-based at all.
While not the only way to introduce skill to a game, the more abilities you have, the more skill it takes to be good at a game.
To me, a game with 6 abilities but where you need to aim and evade uses less actual player skill than a game with 30 abilities but where you dont need to aim and evading is a function of gear.
I'm sure you think differently, and that's fine. You prefer to think that aiming a reticle at another player is "skill".
Agree to disagree, but I actually like the direction Ashes is going with their hybrid combat. Just some things I personally hope to be implemented, such as being able to block/dodge shots even when they're locked on to you with tab target.
I liked the video you posted.
Players should be flexible and adapt and enjoy different kind of games.
i wouldn't call it "shit". I would call it a different style of action fps pvp that is made simple so that the basic skills such as timing, skills, and dodges are the prominent component of combat. Which just does not translate well into an mmorpg in my opinion.
Those melee just whiffing everything. The melee is bad or the players are bad, can't tell; animation is kind of clunky and limited while mobility is exaggerated.
Lacks proper tuning. Animation/ Moveset execution and possible premises somewhat off and probably needs additional moves/ contextual 'state driven' moves; even after tuning.
I get that you're using it as an example and probably don't expect AoC combat to copy that exactly, but holy hell does that game look bad.
After reading the comments I'm thinking people don't realize that aiming and dodging are indeed skills that require refinement.
Seems many don't understand what skill bloat is either.
But you can have incredibly in-depth, challenging, and high skill-ceiling based combat without requiring aiming. Block skills with a limited duration that are required to be pressed at the right time, combos based on status effects, footsies based on skill ranges, status immunities and immunity breakers, etc.
For a great example of a game type that has in-depth combat but doesn't require aiming, look at literally any 2D fighting game - if you can't admit that those take skill, there's really nothing more we can talk about. You can also look at WoW's Arena Championship - yes, eSports based on tab-target combat. Would love to see you guys try to play there and quickly understand how skill-based tab-target can be.
So I've pretty much definitively proven that you don't need aiming to have skill-based combat. This leaves your last argument that you prefer the challenge of aiming to the types of skills I'm talking about. But guess what - in case you didn't notice, most of the new MMORPGs that have come out with action combat aren't doing well at all. And the focus for MMOs that are in development and have a chance of succeeding is far more towards tab-target, old-school MMOs that bring back the glory days of strategy, holy trinity, community interdependence, while leveraging some of the more modern conveniences.
The reality is that most MMORPG players don't like the challenge of aiming - the community comes from a legacy of the D&D crowd, which is all about strategy and has no twitch skills whatsoever. The desire for aiming comes from a minority of folks who play primarily FPS, but those aren't the dedicated MMO gamers. If you want to build something that will last and will have a strong community, action combat isn't it. If you want to please the Fortnite crowd until the next great fad comes along, then by all means action away...
idk why you're trashing on aiming and action combat so hard, your whole post sounds unnecessarily passive aggressive, if done well action combat and aiming isnt bad. Your comments seem all over the place though, why bring up 2d games when the whole topic is about MMOs, it sounds like you're trying to describe fighting games in the second paragraph and then you go on to talk about WoW. We're not playing mortal kombat, tekken or street fighter so idk what you're trying to prove by bringing up the skill needed to be good in those kind of games when MMORPG's play much differently. I think it'd be great if you could name some MMORPG's that you think have a good combat system and why, and others that are bad. Idk maybe i just didn't understand your post but i can at least tell you dont like action combat.
AoC is experimenting with both tab target and action combat and trying to find the right balance, it was shown in the basic ranged attack showcase video that intrepid put out recently that right now they have the ability to switch between tab target and action combat on the fly and action combat gives you a reticle that allows you to soft lock onto targets. While I doubt a feature like that would be implemented on release it shows that they're trying to find the right balance between tab target and action combat as they do want a hybrid combat system. Also if I remember correctly the video showcasing ranger attacks, one of the guys mentioned that some abilities would be able to be aimed after charging and then shot in whatever direction you please but I tried skimming through a bit but couldn't find it.
Personally I liked how BDO plays, as it also has a reticle with a soft lock feature, and as I played ranger there I get the feeling that AoC ranger gameplay probably would feel a bit similar. My biggest reason for enjoying action combat, especially in BDO is the ability to make on the fly decisions and cancel abilities to go right into a different ability if need be or just to increase dps. A popular BDO content creator who no longer makes BDO content unfortunately was BladeBoques who described BDO combat as operating at the speed of thought, the way I interpret that is only you could slow yourself down. This makes maining a class much more enjoyable as the skill ceiling isn't based on skill rotations, timing or having the better gear, but by investing hours and hours into your class and constantly fighting others and doing raids to really limit test yourself. I think limit testing in an action combat game is much more rewarding than in tab target.'
Also I should probably mention that while i enjoy action combat more-so than tab target, I don't think aiming takes skill at all in games like BDO at least, and maybe even AoC as they both implement a sort of soft lock feature. We're not trying to get headshots in CSGO, we're shooting arrows in a fantasy game. pinpoint accuracy has no place in MMORPGs IMO.
I hope interesting lock and aim abilities, sometimes both on one ability such as a version of Quick Shot that Locks on and homes-in if the First or first Two Action-AIm hit their target; or abilities starting lock/tab then winding up Aim or charging up into an Aimed Shot; or abilities where an Aim ability, maybe a version of Snipe/ Charged Shot, ghosts through enemies bodyblocking when tabbed/locked-on to someone. . .
I can see homing projectiles with a limited arc being used to get around people, objects, whatever as well. Some more homing/hard-arcing than other. . .
Perhaps a lot of that is in the realm of Augments.
It's really clear what you want - projectiles with set trajectories once they leave your hand, allowing opponents to adjust their positioning in response.
The skill expressed here being: spatial awareness - more specifically, understanding where/how your opponent moves.
I'd love the game to have this kind of playstyle, but with more high fantasy skills and less reliance on basic attacks - but that's going beyond the scope of conversation at this point.
Action Combat mode could have been like this, but with auto-acquired targets closest to the reticle when using Tab skills.
On the flip side, in Tab Target mode, I imagined Action Combat skills to just fire in the direction of the selected target.
This would let you have homing skills, and evadeable skills for both combat modes, no matter what ratio of 75:25 skill build you choose.
Action is superior for PvP, however.
Defense in general has long been something I have considered to be one of the hardest aspects for Intrepid to get right in a hybrid system. You are putting a player ability up against a skill/RNG roll.
About the best I can think of is that the higher the discrepancy between one player or mobs accuracy stat and their targets dodge/roll stat, the further away you need to dodge for it to miss, and/or the earlier you need to get your block up in order to successfully block it. This gives both players a reason to increase their stats (key in an MMO), but means the player with more dodge/block skill is in a position to not increase that stat as high, rely on their skill as a player a little.more, and focus their gear selection in other areas.
To see how its work, we must wait for future testing (massive PvP and more). That's gonna show us what we need know and decide if it's ouer game or not.
This is how i know you are naïve not understanding how many people want action in their mmorpg. Regardless of the depth of new world, and the bad progression mechanics in lost ark and lack of content.
Those games were running with 1 mill concurrent players. When a better game pops up that number is going to be far higher because there is a want for it, and not old feeling games that will refuse to evolve.
I guess you are a Pantheon sub though
I consider Action Combat in an RPG to include active Block, Dodge, Roll.
I haven't seen much of that in the Ashes combat demos.
In the melee video there were short blinks and blocks. In the ranged video we e had rolls.
I think that's enough evidence for it.
The PvP skill ceiling comparison between WoW and GW2 or ESO, for example, is not even on the same planet. WoW PvP is infinitely more complex - having to understand GCD’s, CD sync, DR timers and how those effect team play coordination - among many other aspects - truly makes victory in high level play feel like an accomplishment, RBG’s and high 3’s arena play (2500++ mmr) provide a level of adrenaline, and require reflex, coordination and general quick thinking that I have never even come close to replicating in GW2 or ESO PVP.
In addition to that, you have to be intimately familiar with those same aspects of not just your own class, but every single class in the game to be truly successful in high rated PvP. Maybe that sounds nightmarish to some, but I loved it.
I have never played FF, BDO, or NW so I do not know anything about those games, was just never interested. Maybe I am missing something there.
In any case, that is just my opinion. Not looking to argue about it, everyone has their preferences. I am just glad AoC will provide the choice for both playstyles.