Weapon Based Cooperative Synergies and Meters

So, I always am the first to admit that a large part of why I was so interested in Ashes is that I saw a lot of parallels to my favorite game, with the addition of elements from what I understood to be among the best PvP MMOs of the same era. Sounds like a perfect situation, right?

But recently there's less information, and while we know that there will be some weapon skill style things, we still haven't seen any sign of the 'Weapon Focus' meter or anything similar. I always talk about how 'Tactical Point' Gauge is one of the best and most important systems in all MMO design for group play, particularly for PvE, to keep things actually... not stale, but I don't know if we're gonna get it anymore, and I want to talk about it because I don't know if anyone other than old FFXI-heads even like the concept.

So let's talk Skillchains, but more importantly, what leads up to Skillchains... TP Management.

I'll give a really basic scenario of a single fight against a relatively normal mob at FFXI endgame, 'first pull' in an area. Just one enemy. No one has any 'TP Gauge' yet.

Our Bard chooses buffs before we begin based on enemy type, as is normal, but the question for the buffs is also 'what do we need for building TP?'

This is because Skillchains are around 30% of the damage in a fight, if not more. Our Paladin can't afford to wear both Accuracy boosting gear and Defense boosting gear at the same time, so we get a 'default to Defense' and let the Bard boost Accuracy, probably for everyone.

The main thing to consider though, is that the Bard is watching the TP gauges of everyone else, and in fact trying to hit themselves, since they are Skillchain Opener for the Paladin.

The DDs (let's assume Thief and Dark Knight) are just hitting as much as they can, but we might not have had a good reason to have ANYONE get any Attack buff song. The Paladin will hold hate better if the Dark Knight isn't pumping out a lot of damage per swing at this point.

As soon as those two get close to the required value for their Weapon Skills, the Bard changes one song (probably the Haste song) to Attack Up, to maximize the damage from those Weapon Skills. The Dark Knight stands opposite the Paladin, then unleashes, which will almost always get hate instantly. The Thief uses Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, from behind the Paladin, and closes the Skillchain for massive damage and drops all the hate on the Paladin. There's no need to change the song back to Accuracy now, though.

Depending on WHAT the skillchain was and how much health the enemy has, and what type of enemy it is, the rhythm changes now. The Bard has gone back to striking. The Paladin probably took some time (most likely having more TP than the Bard due to the Bard performing the song/buff) to apply buffs and maybe heal the Dark Knight if they did get hit during that short period that they had hate. The Bard 'needs' to get enough TP to open the next Skillchain which the Paladin will close and hopefully this will be enough to finish the fight.

By contrast, other games to me are so... bland in terms of their interconnection, both between players, and between the players and the enemy. You kinda just point your skills at the target and hope nothing weird happens. There's no 'dynamic thing you're adapting to within your own group'.

I haven't touched on things like 'using the Magic Burst effect from the Skillchain to break through the elemental/status resistance of a mob so that you can apply a status that it won't normally be affected by', or 'setting up other abilities so that you can quickly be ready to Skillchain with a second person due to a multi-attack effect or spell (for example the Dark Knight using Absorb TP at the right time to drain some from the enemy in order to skillchain with the Paladin themselves because the Bard had to deal with something else).

But now I think it's implied we aren't even going to get 'Weapon Based Abilities' of an 'Active' kind, far less something as complex as "Skillchains" or a gauge that has to build up to use effects. Sure, I could wave around a big 'flag' going 'Hey Intrepid this was great do this too!' but even assuming it COULD fit the game... it would gain no traction if it turns out that I (and my friends) are the only ones who even like this sort of thing.

So, for my data... is this interesting to you at all? I'm not trying to say 'this is way better than any other game's system' or anything like that, I probably just haven't PLAYED anything else dynamic enough other than like, Onigiri... but recent discussions about things like group synergy and particularly 'Class/Weapon combinations' got me thinking about it again. I don't think I'll feel much of anything toward what main weapon I'm using if all I can do with my weapon skill tree is 'raise accuracy, raise attack, or activate the same debuff on the enemy that every other user of the weapon has'.

That's about enough of that. Yay, nay, tl;dr, anything helps. Grati.

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Arya_Yeshe

@Azherae since yesterday I am trying to come with synergy ideas, but I would like simple stuff that can be understood just by looking what is going on the battlefield... things that feel organic

For example:

What if your party as 100 archers and everybody shoots arrows at the target?
Don't you think this could become some kind of synergy?

Or let's imagine you are in a party of 100 people and everybody uses their shields... would it be another kind of synergy?

And spell casters would have synergy too

What if the synergy system was about tradicional organic synergy among the party members?

syn·er·gy
/ˈsinərjē/

noun
the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects

So in a system how I proposing here wouldn't be tightly locked based on points, focus, progression bars or anything.

It would be a system which you can look around and see what people are doing and then you would tag along with them

The system would have on a score based on heatmaps for registering what is happening right now

The people who are casting buffs and finishers would have to look around (or use Teamspeak, Discord) and tag along and influence the synergy. Inteligent players will influence the synergy based on this heatmap, but the heatmap itself would be based collective actions

Maybe having the heatmap on the target works best than having the party heatmap, or maybe the target should have a tiny heatmap and the party should have it's own heatmap

Party synergy heatmap:
So, if a party had it's own heatmap and the spell casters start to use skills as meditation for regaining mana, then they regen mana faster with their collective effort.

If the entire party starts healing, this would have a score in the heatmap and the party would pretty much be a field hospital for a few seconds, granting synergy there.

Target synergy heatmap:
Multiple players, from multiple parts, plus random solo players, could attack the same target and all of them will be using some kind of fire damage, that should be an extreme synergy and completely set ablaze the target

OMG MY IDEA IS ACTUALLY GOOD

So my idea of synergy system, as far as I can tell, was never done before... it just popped in my mind and I typed it.

This could be influenced by AoC's amazing weather and seasonal system granting a small influence in the heatmaps off the bat.

Heatmaps synergy:

will feel organic
makes sense because it brings a feeling of being realistic without being punishing
it is simpler for the players
doesn't require using voice coms so passers by will participate in the synergy
if people mess up and use the wrong skills they will not ruin the synergy, the synergy will just be less effective
it is fun since you can see the effects on the targets after looking around and figuring out what people are actually doing
people won't get mad at each other
it's casuals friendly
it's hardcore friendly
works on the party for buffs, heals, defensive, passive skills or actions
works on the targets for all kinds of effects
works in PvE and PvP

Since yesterday I was thinking "I think Azherae deserves a good idea in his topic" and I put an effort in this lol
Here it is, my idea

EDIT: the party and target heatmaps are hidden, that is system stuff and stays under the hood

Azherae

Nova_terra wrote: »

maouw wrote: »

I agree that [Skill A] procs [Skill B] with no other conditions is short sighted. Your description of basic rotations with no adaptability is basically the combat of Xenoblade Chronicles' interclass combos - which I found wanting. I'm hungry for something with more depth
And yes, a TP meter makes it really easy to read your teammates' intentions, in a way that's hard to beat.
Building up TP adds a longterm undercurrent to each fight.

I'm only hesitant about another meter simply because it breaks the venir, so would prefer to find a different way to get the same depth without exposing too much of what's under the hood. However, I recognize this is not a justified position.

30% advantage for group play is about the limit of what I think is fair vs solo play, if we are to avoid coercing grouping up in the game. I think that needs more data though.

I think it's safe to assume we all agree we are hoping/looking for that depth, however I agree with maouw that I don't want a FF style meter (obviously) and think there could be validity in using some form of UI design to maybe "show" synergy like skills on your bar "show" that something proc'd but also maybe find some stylistic way to highlight those types of synergies between two players.

For instance, my friend has a knockdown ability that adds a huge "armor shred" effect of somesort and if I am spec'd in a way that takes advantage of these affects it lets me know "Hey your buddy did the thing" which then means I might make meaningful choices to switch up my rotation to front load damage because my friend enabled me to skip my class build-up and go right into the "Burst". Even something like "my skills being proc'd by someone elses effect flash blue or something" so when there is a synergistic ability used my skill highlights in blue to let me know that X player is initiating this combo type play.

I think it comes down to in some form encouraging play like that, I personally don't think Ashes will truly push into the FFXI realm of that depth of synergy (again based on your statements/previous posts highlighting this since I do not have experience with the game). However, Ashes I think has the opportunity with dynamic class kit building to make it so me and my buddies can form a hyper synergistic kits to highlight each others styles (if we can pick a choose what we can run in a certain class to the extent I am understanding) which will scratch that itch for me at least.

My problem with this is that building high synergy builds WITHOUT the Meter means you have less synergy with others unless they change their builds, to some extent. And Re-spec won't be that easy, so it's hard to say.

I would think that was 'worse' than 'being able to coordinate with others in dynamic ways'.

For this month's Q&A I WOULD ask if they had ditched the Weapon Focus meter in design yet or not, but I still have no indication that they are far enough into combat/Archetype/Weapon design that it's even worth asking this question yet.

I don't necessarily have any OTHER questions though, so might as well. I could also 'guess at something Cleric related'.

Definitely glad that you can clearly say 'no, I don't want the Meter', but any additional information as to why from either you or @maouw would be helpful, since if the reason is 'likely to be common', I'll have a better idea of what to expect.

Arya_Yeshe

Example, 10 players using maces against an armored target... well, that armor should become a smashed can.. that would be synergy

Nowdays with the synergy systems we have in the market it's just a bonus in the end if everybody connects correctly, nowadays synergy systems feel like combo finishers when everybody does things correctly

Azherae

maouw wrote: »

I agree that [Skill A] procs [Skill B] with no other conditions is short sighted. Your description of basic rotations with no adaptability is basically the combat of Xenoblade Chronicles' interclass combos - which I found wanting. I'm hungry for something with more depth
And yes, a TP meter makes it really easy to read your teammates' intentions, in a way that's hard to beat.
Building up TP adds a longterm undercurrent to each fight.

I'm only hesitant about another meter simply because it breaks the venir, so would prefer to find a different way to get the same depth without exposing too much of what's under the hood. However, I recognize this is not a justified position.

30% advantage for group play is about the limit of what I think is fair vs solo play, if we are to avoid coercing grouping up in the game. I think that needs more data though.

More random stuff since you asked for other effects the TP Gauge has (not all are Synergy related):

1. Limiting CC without making it too hard to actually do it.
Having some CC skills like stuns and knockdowns be based on the Gauge means you make a real tradeoff, and you have to consider flow again. This is true for abilities in general, ofc, and I do think it should be just some of them, but for Tab Target players, as example, being able to 'soft guarantee' a CC because you need meter instead of a skillshot could make auto-spam of CC less effective, while still having the moment of 'deciding if you should CC or go for bigger damage/synergy'.

2. PvP 'Surprise' situations and so on
FFXI actually DOES have two PvP modes and it enhances those too, it's quite difficult to Skillchain on other players obviously, but more importantly, it changes combat a LOT. If you can't just 'bob and weave until your cooldowns are ready' for everything, and some of your damage is locked behind actually engaging opponents, things shift. I really was imagining things like 'deciding if to use your TP Attack on the Castle Gate or saving it up to quickly hit someone who jumps you because you're just standing there attacking a gate'.

3. PvP 'No Surprise' situations and so on
The reverse of the above, could happen in Ashes. You can definitely build TP on just weak mobs around, but in many situations this would change the threat 'type' of open world PvP more toward fairness. If I am exploring a dungeon with one friend and we are just about able to handle the mobs there, a random solo player can definitely try to kill us both with some big attack when they see us use long CD abilities on a mob. But if they needed to build their own TP for a chunk of their damage on us, and the mobs are a real threat to them, we're 'safer'. They have much more trouble beating mobs while explicitly NOT using their TP, or may not be able to do it at all. At minimum, if they build it when closer to us, we notice someone fighting instead of just sneaking up.

Ashes could also 'force fairer fights' by zeroing the Gauge when you flag up. That's not 'fair' to Corrupt players, but a lot of stuff already isn't 'fair' to them so it wouldn't be that strange.

Note again that this is all still my 'dream' but it's also true to say that we haven't had a 'we aren't using this gauge anymore' announcement yet either, so I'm 'stuck hoping'.

Another thing this CAN help with if one factors it (or completely ruin if you don't factor it) is evasive builds. They can 'be made squishier' if gauge is a meaningful part of damage, and building the gauge in ways other than just actually hitting physically is also important.

Now I wanna go play FFXI again... guess I'll just do that.

Arya_Yeshe

Complementing the heatmap synergy system as I introduced in there, there could be for parties only a window showing their potential synergy as a group

It would be a preloaded heatmap showing everything combined including: maces, spears, arrows, fire, ice, healing, speed, etc.

So this window would show what they can achieve, this would also help the party to check it out if they have the right balance for their party because sometimes there's something missing or sometimes they want to specialize their party for something

This could help a lot in those instanced dungeons btw, but also having it's uses everywhere

Let's say a party is pretty poor in CC skills, then in the party heatmap it would show as ligh blue/cold... but they have a ton of stuff fire based then in the heatmap the fire stuff would be very red

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Complementing the heatmap synergy system as I introduced in there, there could be for parties only a window showing their potential synergy as a group

It would be a preloaded heatmap showing everything combined including: maces, spears, arrows, fire, ice, healing, speed, etc.

So this window would show what they can achieve, this would also help the party to check it out if they have the right balance for their party because sometimes there's something missing or sometimes they want to specialize their party for something

This could help a lot in those instanced dungeons btw, but also having it's uses everywhere

Let's say a party is pretty poor in CC skills, then in the party heatmap it would show as ligh blue/cold... but they have a ton of stuff fire based then in the heatmap the fire stuff would be very red

Wow. I REALLY would not expect people to think THIS was less complex/annoying than 'hit this thing 8 times and then do this thing after that thing'.

The TP gauge 'causes all this' automatically as soon as you know your teammate's build, so I'd actually think the heatmap would make things harder and less approachable, not more acceptable?

You really think it would work? Obviously I like complex things so I don't really know how to judge that at all.

Intrepid also wishes for every Archetype to have a role in a group, so that would also be a factor for it, it would help to realize 'oh we need a Fighter but THIS Fighter doesn't make our heatmap look right, they would need to respec or maybe we'll have to pass on having them join us'.

Arya_Yeshe

@Azherae yes I believe it is simpler, because there is nothing on screen!
No bars, no points, no nothing

The heatmaps are hidden, if people are casting lightning spells, then people have to look around and if they are interested in dealing even more lightning damage, then they will add anything lightning based:

lightning scrolls
lightning spells
equip weapons that deal lightning damage
buffers should cast their buffs for lightning

That is synergy, otherwise it's just another system that is in fact a combo finisher system

Did you miss the detailed post I posted here with the pictures?

If there's lots of people shooting arrows, then arrow stuff should bring more damage or be harder to dodge

if its on PvP then the people who are being attacked:

cast lightning resist
use consumables
use buffs

Nowadays in all MMOs when there's a big fight we can barely tell what is going on, but if we use what is going on around us as a guid for attack and defense then it makes sense

Arya_Yeshe

If everybody is healing then there's healing synergy in the heatmap, after a fight people could heal much faster altogether, they could cast all regen spells, all one time healing spells, do healing buffs

Each class has their role and they can visually see what will the synergy and particpate in it

Nova_terra

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

@Azherae yes I believe it is simpler, because there is nothing on screen!
No bars, no points, no nothing

The heatmaps are hidden, if people are casting lightning spells, then people have to look around and if they are interested in dealing even more lightning damage, then they will add anything lightning based:
lightning scrolls

lightning spells

equip weapons that deal lightning damage

buffers should cast their buffs for lightning

That is synergy, otherwise it's just another system that is in fact a combo finisher system

Did you miss the detailed post I posted here with the pictures?

If there's lots of people shooting arrows, then arrow stuff should bring more damage or be harder to dodge

Oh, HIDDEN ones, you're going into what I consider super hardcore realm now.

Is the problem actually 'things on screen'?

A related question for @Nova_terra now that you made me think of it.

I expect that at the attack rate Ashes uses for weapons right now, we would get something equally 'straining', here's why:

The flow will be super simplistic if it is just 'after every third attack with my greatsword, this thing procs and you can chain off it'. Might still be that way, but IF it wasn't, then I would next expect 'Ok, the third hit of your combo builds one stack of X, when you get to 3 stacks of X something flashes and your allies know that it is time to do Y'.

You're still hitting the thing 9 times, but now they can't coordinate until you've actually done it, and probably they don't see your stacks (or if they do, it's no longer different than watching the Gauge). Would this count as preferable over the Meter, though?

I think very abstractly, so these are all the 'same thing' to me. I believe you were implying that you wouldn't want the complexity level in the first place though, so I would figure this sort of thing counts? It's not just the meter itself, it's 'synergy complexity on that level'?

EDIT: You answered my question while I was typing it, partially.

Azherae

Nova_terra wrote: »

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't it just be one more bar under the HP and MP bars?

Interestingly, FFXI did not start with the meter being visible to other players, you had to use a macro to tell them that you were nearly ready, or 'learn the rhythm of your teammates and feel out when they were close, and rely on them to tell you if they were ahead or behind'.

Anyways, 'snarky pushback' aside.

Again the only reason I'm thinking on this is... they clearly STARTED from the concept of these at some point, and they're a good path to synergies, whether they're applied as '3 stacks of X!' or 'Here's a Gauge!'

I think that balance wise, the Gauge would win out on the technical level in almost all design discussions for many reasons, so that's why my mind is at 'We're either getting Weapon Focus Gauge or we're getting simplistic Synergies'.

Arya_Yeshe

Yes, the heatmap would be hidden... but you can still see all the people running around you and casting Flamestrikes right?

So it's organic based on what's going on, the stuff that goes on will score the heatmap

in fact, people don't even have to know there are heatmaps, it's not their problem

Their problem is knowing that a synergy will happen when they are doing the same thing, if they achieve a synergy maybe they could have a message on screen or an icon describing the achieved synergy

Yeap, just an icon when they achieve a synergy would suffice, when the synergy is off then the icon disapears

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Yes, the heatmap would be hidden... but you can still see all the people running around you and casting Flamestrikes right?

So it's organic based on what's going on, the stuff that goes on will score the heatmap

in fact, people don't even have to know there are heatmaps, it's not their problem

Their problem is knowing that a synergy will happen when they are doing the same thing, if they achieve a synergy maybe they could have a message on screen or an icon describing the achieved synergy

Yeap, just an icon when they achieve a synergy would suffice, when the synergy is off then the icon disapears

Doesn't this cause the issue of 'groups that know it' having annoyances to 'players that don't understand any of it' though?

Or are you not really trying to avoid that?

I personally don't like Synergies that are based on 'everyone doing the same type of thing' for balance reasons, I feel that's a dark path to go down, honestly, because people will 'look for a group that does a thing that an enemy/boss is weak to' instead of leveraging their specific build skills together.

But I suppose that IS more simplistic and simplicity is 'good?'

Arya_Yeshe

It is simpler and organic, it feels real compared to stuff based on gauges

The synergy I proposed can become bigger if people are doing things of the same nature, people from different classes can do things of the same nature, being buffs, active or passive skills, items, consumables or spells

If some people aren't doing things of the same nature then the synergy will be slower, that's all
This is better than "everybody has to do everything correctly" thing

It could have a very slow synergy for healing, but a really fast synergy for poison attacks
Heatmaps can offer concurrent synergies based on players necessities

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

It is simpler and organic, it feels real compared to stuff based on gauges

The synergy I proposed can become bigger if people are doing things of the same nature, people from different classes can do things of the same nature, being buffs, active or passive skills, items, consumables or spells

If some people aren't doing things of the same nature then the synergy will be slower, that's all
This is better than "everybody has to do everything correctly" thing

It could have a very slow synergy for healing, but a really fast synergy for poison attacks
Heatmaps can offer concurrent synergies based on players necessities

Well, I wouldn't like it personally, but if that's what the general populace would enjoy the most, then... I guess?

Things being intuitive IS very important for their enjoyment, and since any concerns I have about balance would just be speculation, I can't say anything particularly negative to/about it, so sure.

I do feel like it would just lead to 'parties being formed out of a bunch of players with Darkness skills' though.

Really push to the Edge. The Darkest Edge.

Nova_terra

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't it just be one more bar under the HP and MP bars?

Interestingly, FFXI did not start with the meter being visible to other players, you had to use a macro to tell them that you were nearly ready, or 'learn the rhythm of your teammates and feel out when they were close, and rely on them to tell you if they were ahead or behind'.

Anyways, 'snarky pushback' aside.

Again the only reason I'm thinking on this is... they clearly STARTED from the concept of these at some point, and they're a good path to synergies, whether they're applied as '3 stacks of X!' or 'Here's a Gauge!'

I think that balance wise, the Gauge would win out on the technical level in almost all design discussions for many reasons, so that's why my mind is at 'We're either getting Weapon Focus Gauge or we're getting simplistic Synergies'.

Not sure if I am misunderstanding you, but I hope I didn't come off as snarky.

I will say, I am detecting in myself some bias against the meter most likely because I wasn't steeped in experience in that game, and I do 100% agree from an under the hood design standpoint it's literally just an additional HP/MP bar which would make it easy.

I think I'd be pretty open to many many different ways to handle/approach this from Intrepid as the rest of the game promises to be very interesting and I might find after some playing in A2/B1&2/Launch that I actually really like a gauge/meter (if something of this design makes it to launch based on weapon focus but I believe my hesitations were all aesthetic as I think it could add depth to play but this would be a feel thing once we get our hands on it.

I will note that a lot of that branching decision making seems to stem from the fact that in FFXI most content is low movement/low mechanical effort, where I can see a simpler system working if we are getting mechanical things complicating fights such as player movement/abilities in PvP and bosses having mechanics to do (Ice Dragon fight from A1 preview as an example).

Azherae

Nova_terra wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't it just be one more bar under the HP and MP bars?

Interestingly, FFXI did not start with the meter being visible to other players, you had to use a macro to tell them that you were nearly ready, or 'learn the rhythm of your teammates and feel out when they were close, and rely on them to tell you if they were ahead or behind'.

Anyways, 'snarky pushback' aside.

Again the only reason I'm thinking on this is... they clearly STARTED from the concept of these at some point, and they're a good path to synergies, whether they're applied as '3 stacks of X!' or 'Here's a Gauge!'

I think that balance wise, the Gauge would win out on the technical level in almost all design discussions for many reasons, so that's why my mind is at 'We're either getting Weapon Focus Gauge or we're getting simplistic Synergies'.

Not sure if I am misunderstanding you, but I hope I didn't come off as snarky.

I will say, I am detecting in myself some bias against the meter most likely because I wasn't steeped in experience in that game, and I do 100% agree from an under the hood design standpoint it's literally just an additional HP/MP bar which would make it easy.

I think I'd be pretty open to many many different ways to handle/approach this from Intrepid as the rest of the game promises to be very interesting and I might find after some playing in A2/B1&2/Launch that I actually really like a gauge/meter (if something of this design makes it to launch based on weapon focus but I believe my hesitations were all aesthetic as I think it could add depth to play but this would be a feel thing once we get our hands on it.

I will note that a lot of that branching decision making seems to stem from the fact that in FFXI most content is low movement/low mechanical effort, where I can see a simpler system working if we are getting mechanical things complicating fights such as player movement/abilities in PvP and bosses having mechanics to do (Ice Dragon fight from A1 preview as an example).

I meant myself being snarky, not you, lol.

It's actually really useful that you brought up the A1 Ice Dragon because my group did go to fight the open world one in one of the tests (just four of us at the time) and it was... frankly... boring? But we didn't get it that low.

The reason it is 'boring' is because the difficulty of it amounts to the WoW meme 'don't stand in the fire'. WE as a group didn't get to 'do anything together' because obviously, all that Weapon Proc stuff isn't in yet. But I really can't think of any that actually would make it better.

Steven tends to use examples for this which I consider very 'obvious' but also very suspicious. Bleed, for example, depends on if it is percentage or not, especially if they are high-scaling enemy health to make up for the fact that they aren't downscaling damage.

CC stuff would either be a constant lockdown on bosses or LOSE effectiveness as the bosses built resistance.

Extra Damage is nice, after all that's a large part of what I'm talking about here, but if it is consistent enough, then you're 'asking for high mechanical skill and coordination'. Which is fine, but feels like it would be MORE 'gatekeeping' than TP synergies would, both because people would 'demand you have certain weapons' MORE often, and because of the timing requirements.

It won't bother us, but somewhere deep down I think I was expecting the Weapon Focus Gauge because I see it as the EASIEST to understand way to deliver some of the higher level Synergies to players with less mechanical skill, while still giving other players more stuff to THINK about. The only reason I am doubting it will happen is Steven saying that they don't want Skills based on Weapons, and at that point what would the Gauge even be for? But Procs are still kinda 'skills based on weapons' so who knows...

A related question to you, that will require some speculation. You would probably play Halberd Cleric or Greatsword Mage, is it? Or was that just a random example in that thread. If so... what would you want those to 'do', relative to 'Weapon Proc' or 'Weapon Skill'?

Nova_terra

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't it just be one more bar under the HP and MP bars?

Interestingly, FFXI did not start with the meter being visible to other players, you had to use a macro to tell them that you were nearly ready, or 'learn the rhythm of your teammates and feel out when they were close, and rely on them to tell you if they were ahead or behind'.

Anyways, 'snarky pushback' aside.

Again the only reason I'm thinking on this is... they clearly STARTED from the concept of these at some point, and they're a good path to synergies, whether they're applied as '3 stacks of X!' or 'Here's a Gauge!'

I think that balance wise, the Gauge would win out on the technical level in almost all design discussions for many reasons, so that's why my mind is at 'We're either getting Weapon Focus Gauge or we're getting simplistic Synergies'.

Not sure if I am misunderstanding you, but I hope I didn't come off as snarky.

I will say, I am detecting in myself some bias against the meter most likely because I wasn't steeped in experience in that game, and I do 100% agree from an under the hood design standpoint it's literally just an additional HP/MP bar which would make it easy.

I think I'd be pretty open to many many different ways to handle/approach this from Intrepid as the rest of the game promises to be very interesting and I might find after some playing in A2/B1&2/Launch that I actually really like a gauge/meter (if something of this design makes it to launch based on weapon focus but I believe my hesitations were all aesthetic as I think it could add depth to play but this would be a feel thing once we get our hands on it.

I will note that a lot of that branching decision making seems to stem from the fact that in FFXI most content is low movement/low mechanical effort, where I can see a simpler system working if we are getting mechanical things complicating fights such as player movement/abilities in PvP and bosses having mechanics to do (Ice Dragon fight from A1 preview as an example).

I meant myself being snarky, not you, lol.

It's actually really useful that you brought up the A1 Ice Dragon because my group did go to fight the open world one in one of the tests (just four of us at the time) and it was... frankly... boring? But we didn't get it that low.

The reason it is 'boring' is because the difficulty of it amounts to the WoW meme 'don't stand in the fire'. WE as a group didn't get to 'do anything together' because obviously, all that Weapon Proc stuff isn't in yet. But I really can't think of any that actually would make it better.

Steven tends to use examples for this which I consider very 'obvious' but also very suspicious. Bleed, for example, depends on if it is percentage or not, especially if they are high-scaling enemy health to make up for the fact that they aren't downscaling damage.

CC stuff would either be a constant lockdown on bosses or LOSE effectiveness as the bosses built resistance.

Extra Damage is nice, after all that's a large part of what I'm talking about here, but if it is consistent enough, then you're 'asking for high mechanical skill and coordination'. Which is fine, but feels like it would be MORE 'gatekeeping' than TP synergies would, both because people would 'demand you have certain weapons' MORE often, and because of the timing requirements.

It won't bother us, but somewhere deep down I think I was expecting the Weapon Focus Gauge because I see it as the EASIEST to understand way to deliver some of the higher level Synergies to players with less mechanical skill, while still giving other players more stuff to THINK about. The only reason I am doubting it will happen is Steven saying that they don't want Skills based on Weapons, and at that point what would the Gauge even be for? But Procs are still kinda 'skills based on weapons' so who knows...

A related question to you, that will require some speculation. You would probably play Halberd Cleric or Greatsword Mage, is it? Or was that just a random example in that thread. If so... what would you want those to 'do', relative to 'Weapon Proc' or 'Weapon Skill'?

Those were two ideas I had that seemed pretty interesting to me in the other thread, and just shooting from the hip. I think it could be interesting if weapons had a suite (3-5 or whatever) of active skills (lets say in this speculative discussion there are 3 that are all tied to the same cooldown and I will use Greatsword because why not). Again disregard math/damage whatever and look more at the macro aspect of what I think could lead to "synergy between players/classes".

Greatsword:
1. AOE Cleave KD (tight AOE 2m let's say)
2. Speed buff (5 seconds of 150% speed)
3. Armor Shred - Applies 5 stacks of "shred" which reduces mitigation by 15% for the next 5 attacks (lose a stack on damage)

You could use any of these and all 3 would immediately go on a 30/45/1min cooldown. But because I am mage these skills would synergize with my own kit (lets use Prismatic beam from the mage A1 kit). In that I could stack shred and then channel beam to maximize damage because that's the "tool" for the job but you have to decide if that is what you want. If you then take this and apply it to all of the weapons it starts opening conversations for who is doing what/what is the optimal move or what does the party need etc. Since you could even say "Ahh Cleric Javelin is a very strong single target spell, let me Shred armor then you cast that because we need to down this person/mob ASAP" or "We might need cleave as there are 10 mobs on our tank and he is hurting, lets knockdown and have X/Y weapon skill from this other person work to heal the hurt Paladin or whatever".

While I guess in a sense I should probably expect these type abilities just from the classes in general, this to me seems to provide some level of personalization to weapon skills since they go hand in hand with your own class kit and if you have a group of 8 trying to plan moves like this it opens a lot of room for decision trees that could intensify fights like the dragon fight with "don't stand in fire" mechanics + these type of things.

I should also highlight that At it's root TP type abilities where it is just a big x6 blast is also perfectly viable and probably way easier than what I just described since the weapon list is rather large and it could be a scale issue and like I said previously I am sure whatever route Intrepid take as long as it is a few steps over "braindead" mechanics I will probably be ok with it.

Azherae

Nova_terra wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Nova_terra wrote: »

@Azherae

My specific hold up on the meter is as simple as the aesthetics of a meter on the UI doesn't fit the Ashes aesthetic in my opinion but does very much fit Final Fantasy. I am extremely open to just having a very visible "skill/skills" that would be a visual que that the ability is happening and having "under the hood" the same thing happen as FFXI. Do I expect them to go this route fully? No, however I think something akin to an "Ultimate" in the same sense that the TP skills work isn't a terrible Idea but if it boils down to what most MMOs do it ends up being very lackluster. I will use SWTOR as an example again. All melee DPS basically had (everyone in 30m gets a 15% damage increase for 30 seconds). There is no "interactivity" it is just a case of are you smart enough to not pop them at the same time and do you know the phases well enough to maximize damage. In both cases there is no decision tree or "depth" to using this properly so the mechanic fell flat.

As I said previously I think the carrot to be chased rests in rewarding the synergy or choices in making synergies without making it inaccessible to the masses. I know we don't specifically agree but having some low to the ground small rewards like stacking bleeds or armor shredding is the right move especially since we are looking at FFXI against a L2esque game which is apples and oranges in my opinion.

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't it just be one more bar under the HP and MP bars?

Interestingly, FFXI did not start with the meter being visible to other players, you had to use a macro to tell them that you were nearly ready, or 'learn the rhythm of your teammates and feel out when they were close, and rely on them to tell you if they were ahead or behind'.

Anyways, 'snarky pushback' aside.

Again the only reason I'm thinking on this is... they clearly STARTED from the concept of these at some point, and they're a good path to synergies, whether they're applied as '3 stacks of X!' or 'Here's a Gauge!'

I think that balance wise, the Gauge would win out on the technical level in almost all design discussions for many reasons, so that's why my mind is at 'We're either getting Weapon Focus Gauge or we're getting simplistic Synergies'.

Not sure if I am misunderstanding you, but I hope I didn't come off as snarky.

I will say, I am detecting in myself some bias against the meter most likely because I wasn't steeped in experience in that game, and I do 100% agree from an under the hood design standpoint it's literally just an additional HP/MP bar which would make it easy.

I think I'd be pretty open to many many different ways to handle/approach this from Intrepid as the rest of the game promises to be very interesting and I might find after some playing in A2/B1&2/Launch that I actually really like a gauge/meter (if something of this design makes it to launch based on weapon focus but I believe my hesitations were all aesthetic as I think it could add depth to play but this would be a feel thing once we get our hands on it.

I will note that a lot of that branching decision making seems to stem from the fact that in FFXI most content is low movement/low mechanical effort, where I can see a simpler system working if we are getting mechanical things complicating fights such as player movement/abilities in PvP and bosses having mechanics to do (Ice Dragon fight from A1 preview as an example).

I meant myself being snarky, not you, lol.

It's actually really useful that you brought up the A1 Ice Dragon because my group did go to fight the open world one in one of the tests (just four of us at the time) and it was... frankly... boring? But we didn't get it that low.

The reason it is 'boring' is because the difficulty of it amounts to the WoW meme 'don't stand in the fire'. WE as a group didn't get to 'do anything together' because obviously, all that Weapon Proc stuff isn't in yet. But I really can't think of any that actually would make it better.

Steven tends to use examples for this which I consider very 'obvious' but also very suspicious. Bleed, for example, depends on if it is percentage or not, especially if they are high-scaling enemy health to make up for the fact that they aren't downscaling damage.

CC stuff would either be a constant lockdown on bosses or LOSE effectiveness as the bosses built resistance.

Extra Damage is nice, after all that's a large part of what I'm talking about here, but if it is consistent enough, then you're 'asking for high mechanical skill and coordination'. Which is fine, but feels like it would be MORE 'gatekeeping' than TP synergies would, both because people would 'demand you have certain weapons' MORE often, and because of the timing requirements.

It won't bother us, but somewhere deep down I think I was expecting the Weapon Focus Gauge because I see it as the EASIEST to understand way to deliver some of the higher level Synergies to players with less mechanical skill, while still giving other players more stuff to THINK about. The only reason I am doubting it will happen is Steven saying that they don't want Skills based on Weapons, and at that point what would the Gauge even be for? But Procs are still kinda 'skills based on weapons' so who knows...

A related question to you, that will require some speculation. You would probably play Halberd Cleric or Greatsword Mage, is it? Or was that just a random example in that thread. If so... what would you want those to 'do', relative to 'Weapon Proc' or 'Weapon Skill'?

Those were two ideas I had that seemed pretty interesting to me in the other thread, and just shooting from the hip. I think it could be interesting if weapons had a suite (3-5 or whatever) of active skills (lets say in this speculative discussion there are 3 that are all tied to the same cooldown and I will use Greatsword because why not). Again disregard math/damage whatever and look more at the macro aspect of what I think could lead to "synergy between players/classes".

Greatsword:
1. AOE Cleave KD (tight AOE 2m let's say)
2. Speed buff (5 seconds of 150% speed)
3. Armor Shred - Applies 5 stacks of "shred" which reduces mitigation by 15% for the next 5 attacks (lose a stack on damage)

You could use any of these and all 3 would immediately go on a 30/45/1min cooldown. But because I am mage these skills would synergize with my own kit (lets use Prismatic beam from the mage A1 kit). In that I could stack shred and then channel beam to maximize damage because that's the "tool" for the job but you have to decide if that is what you want. If you then take this and apply it to all of the weapons it starts opening conversations for who is doing what/what is the optimal move or what does the party need etc. Since you could even say "Ahh Cleric Javelin is a very strong single target spell, let me Shred armor then you cast that because we need to down this person/mob ASAP" or "We might need cleave as there are 10 mobs on our tank and he is hurting, lets knockdown and have X/Y weapon skill from this other person work to heal the hurt Paladin or whatever".

While I guess in a sense I should probably expect these type abilities just from the classes in general, this to me seems to provide some level of personalization to weapon skills since they go hand in hand with your own class kit and if you have a group of 8 trying to plan moves like this it opens a lot of room for decision trees that could intensify fights like the dragon fight with "don't stand in fire" mechanics + these type of things.

I should also highlight that At it's root TP type abilities where it is just a big x6 blast is also perfectly viable and probably way easier than what I just described since the weapon list is rather large and it could be a scale issue and like I said previously I am sure whatever route Intrepid take as long as it is a few steps over "braindead" mechanics I will probably be ok with it.

Thank you, that clarifies a lot to me, and I can see it all. I think the intention is to have those as 'procs' which will require more mechanical skill. I'm fine with that too.

I feel like the 'rhythm' aspect of it is lessened for the Support players considerably if things are just 'on a cooldown', but lots of games use 'when you hit with this, reduce your cooldown on this other thing'. I don't much like that (again, because it is not visible, like, your teammates don't know how well you are doing status wise if the attack has to actually hit, because they can't easily tell if you missed a few attacks in a row), but it would still definitely be 'enough', perhaps without being whatever is considered 'too much'.

EDIT: @maouw I guess that reminds me of another useful aspect of it. The TP Gauge is also a quick-reference to the current accuracy of your team. If you notice someone's TP isn't rising but they're still swinging, you know that they are not hitting, and as a Support you can react accordingly. You could also just 'try to watch the chat log' but I know people for whom this is somewhat stressful to do while juggling all the other things that Support has to do.

So you can add that to the list. Being able to know 'oh hey my DD needs Accuracy Buff for this enemy for whatever reason' by just 'glancing at a number/meter'.

Ludullu

L2 had a "triggers" tab when looking at your partymates' buffs. What if you could link your skills in the game's chat, so when you joined a group you'd go "hey, here're my trigger (proc) abilities, those who have reacting ones - keep tabs on my buffs". And archetypes would have reactive abilities that either hit the target mob and make the procced player autoreact, or an ability that targets the procced player to let them do a big hit. And depending on the reactive player's build, you'd have different results.

This seems quite easy mechanically, easy to explain on the spot in a pug, all while having a big potential for different effects. Especially if you have abilities that proc off each other.

Then add to this the basic "proc debuffs that show up on the mob's status effects" and you have yourself a variety of things that require player's attention and reaction speed (if the effects are short enough).

Procs could also have stages (indicated by a number on the buff icon), which would have different effects or dmg values. This would give more depth/variety for the static groups to utilize.

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