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.
Comments
I believe Ashes' community needs all kinds of players for the benefit of Intrepid having a good idea of how things they do will be perceived by a person with their goalset and mental profile.
Fortunately, Mag7's indicates a high level of Faith and devotion of specific types to causes he believes in, so it seems unlikely there will be any 'loss' there. No matter what Intrepid does (from the point of development we've seen so far) it is likely to just be accepted as 'what was required all along'.
I take this as a really positive sign for the game, that 'those who don't wish to understand all the underlying parts' may also have a fairly strong stance of faith in Intrepid and a good resistance to any 'doubt' based on the current state of development.
If anything, it should be a good buffer against any rough times ahead for Intrepid, as long as we, as a community, don't try to tear that down. So that's my request, I guess. Mag will keep the faith if we don't try to tear it down. As those in my local gaming circle joke:
"Frame Data is a social construct anyway."
I've already read the post these are long winded answers that will fall apart based on game balance. He is effectively saying dodging should be the same speed as base movement and i completely disagree. There are a large amount of ways to balance a game devs will choose to do. Dodging having movement that can create distance does not mean other skills will not be able to catch movement when timed correctly while having your dodge intact as well.
I see theory craft without thinking of the whole picture at the end of the day while trying to mislead with "frame data" which has nothing to do with the conversation about speed and distance and catching someone. Distance and space on catching people have literarily nothing to do with frame data.
1. Player uses dodge skill
2. Player reacts with charge skill and still has dodge skill intact keeping up with the player and hitting them with a charge.
Which makes the whole point mute about a person having a dodge on a decent cooldown that isn't spammable. (ie chaning a basic dodge every 2 seconds or instantly one after another).
If we are talking about good experience a experience where you are removed of movement does not sound like a good one to me. "Dodge creates movement make it base movement." "Skill creates movement reduce the movement" "Too many skills have movement remove the movement". These are the types of things I see based on this, effectively you would remove movement from the game to stop players from using movement in combat for this "retreating" term. You balance gameplay with the correct movement all around which means you create distance with dodges, teleports and skills in a balanced way.
Movement created by a dodge, is nothing compared to movement that can be also created by skills depending on how they design the game and skills. So trying to say movement on skills is bad isn't a strong point to me on creating a "fun" experience"
Again, frame data is pointless we are talking about distance on skills and being able to out speed people with infinite retreating. This is referenced in the original post and the video was brought up as reference where there was a no CD dodge...
no one is talking about animation cancelling @Azherae is misdirection the conversation at hand. The conversation was the concern a dodge can be used as the best movement and all players have to use it to move around else you can't catch them. My point is you should have your own dodge plus skills of movement on your class which means you should be able to catch them without being forced to use dodge.
This also depends on your class... A cleric shouldn't be zooming around able to catch anyone and stay alive while healing everyone easily.
Good, now we're back to something we can discuss.
I'm a cleric that is going to be aiming to do that.
If you have less movement skills than me (because I will gladly 'waste' some movement skills that should otherwise do damage on just getting away long enough to heal or reach my allies), then you can't catch me and I don't have to fight you.
If we both only have the dodge, then you will not catch me.
If I, the cleric, don't GET the dodge but you get the dodge and the movement attack skill, what will happen is that you use the movement attack and then back off, then if I attack you, you'll dodge.
If you whiff your movement attack, I'll attack you and then dodge away. You know what happens here. I KNOW you know what happens here, because it's the reason your leaping slash gets whiff punished 3 out of 4 times here:
Case in point above.
Maybe if other posters use your own direct experience to make their point, you'll get it.
Imagine that, but without being able to run. That's what we're talking about
Imagine if the best counterplay to your opponent blocking would be to activate your own block. That's extraordinarily bad gameplay design if that's the case, and yet that's exactly what happens when dodges create distance. Frame data = animation time. Animation time = dodge time. Dodge time relative to dodge distance is important.
You say "frame data has nothing to do with speed and distance" and yet speed is defined as the rate at which an object covers a given distance in a particular period of time. Mathematically, it is represented as speed (s) = distance (d) / time (t). Frame data is the time in this equation. So you are objectively incorrect every time you say frame data is irrelevant or misleading in this conversation. You are the only one saying that. Movement is perfectly fine. But a dodge should not be a movement skill. A dodge CAN move the player, but it should not be able to create distance.
Think of a dodge as a protected form of movement. Let's say your base run speed was 1 meter per second, dodges lasted 1 second and traveled 1 meter over the duration, and you want to travel 1 meter in a certain direction. You have to make the decision to move that meter unprotected by running, or dodge to where you want to go and expend resource in exchange for a brief moment of safety. But if you're expending a resource, it needs to be punishable if you use it incorrectly. If dodging creates distance on top of i-framing, you heavily reduce the ability to punish a poorly used dodge because the counterplay options are limited to gap closers and ranged abilities. Which again reinforces my point that DODGING will become the ideal response to your opponent's dodge.
If you pick more skills that heal or whatever and other person picks more movement that person is going to have an edge on you in movement, it's as simple as that and exactly how it should be. You give some tools to have an advantage in other cases. This is a mmo based around group play not a 1v1 game or a fighting game. There are a lot of other circumstances that are going to be at play, like slows for example.
No on one is misrepresenting you, to me you are misrepresenting gameplay and simplifying it down to amplify gameplay issues. Players will have movmenets cc, group, etc to deal with more rat type classes/specs. As with any game they all exist it does nto make it broken nor does it make the game not fun. This isn't a medieval game where you are standing still with minimal movement, nor does dodging in any game be the sole purpose of an issue as the game needs to be looked at as a WHOLE.
Talking about math and frame date is irrelevant to the conversation you are typing more information creating a larger post that is not important to the matter at hand. Speed and distance are all the matters right now in the current discussion and that will be balanced based on gameplay simply. If you try to overcomplicate the discussion i will again say that does not matter with the current context.
Yes dodge may or may not be protected but it should create distance between you and what you are fighting based on balance. That is a non-issue there are tons of way to balance it than create a dodge that hardly moves and doesn't feel good.
Just because you dodge doesn't mean you get away in a mmorpg or are in a perfect position to punish someone....There are many effects int he mmorpg genre and dodge having movement is again not going to be the sole reason why a game can have a run meta. Nor should you expect all classes to be built the same some may have much betters' ways at escaping but be decimated when you catch them.
Frame data = animation time. Animation time = dodge time. Dodge time relative to dodge distance is important.
You say "frame data has nothing to do with speed and distance" and yet speed is defined as the rate at which an object covers a given distance in a particular period of time. Mathematically, it is represented as speed (s) = distance (d) / time (t). Frame data is the time in this equation. So you are objectively incorrect every time you say frame data is irrelevant or misleading in this conversation.
Also your points regarding what is 'fun' and what 'feels good' are entirely subjective and your opinions. There is no right or wrong there.
Again, frame data doesn't matter, you can sugar coat it as much as you want these terms are more so for certain circumstances in relation to more precise timing and has nothing to do with the current topic.
Talking about the speed of character and overall flow of combat and design reasons. We are not talking about frame perfect dodge or any of that none sense as you point is worried that people can spam dodge as movement and never be caught in retreating.
So what we are talking about is simply movement of characters, talking about frame data muddies the water and doesn't bring anything to the current conversation.
Now if you want to change the topic to about iframes, exact distances on movements and how one can react and counter, be my guess but there is not enough gameplay to dissect this kind of "Frama data" information and there for no point talking about it right now.
So again, effective trying to say we are talking about frame data is a disservice since we aren't at the point of being nit picky and seeing final combat in the game. We are talking about movement skills and balance with being able or unable to catch other players. So again there is nothing wrong with Dodges giving more speed than base speed or creating some distance based on how the game is balanced.
Effectively what you are saying is a class like a wizard for example dodge should simply be based on movement speed rather than a full teleport that can create distance. So when the melee gets in their face, they get smacked and lose the fight since they are weak in close range and have no kite potential. Or are you going to say tis ok if a wizard can teleport to create distance now which goes against you being strongly against dodges being at base movement speed?
Time = animation time
Animation time = frame data
You keep talking about speed and distance but completely ignore the time aspect of it. You are objectively incorrect.
And, I can talk about what I want. The issue I bring up is going to have a tangible affect on gameplay even when taking into account the inherent imbalances in combat that you keep mentioning. Just because you are incapable of understanding that does not mean the issue does not exist.
Maybe so, but please bear in mind that if Mag is incapable of understanding it, Mag cannot come to any conclusion OTHER than that 'the issue does not exist'.
This is the general endpoint of these types of conversation.
I'm not even suggesting that you stop, but please bear it in mind, it is possible to go in circles with this poster for multiple pages in this way.
Usually when Mag is the only person opposing your perspective, it's best to leave it be and wait for others.
Most of the 'locals' are sufficiently used to this person that you do not need to expect any derails.
I think what happened is that most people just agree with you and don't have anything to say, but I'll see about it from my end.
For clarity my team is 100% supportive of your perspective here, but feels that we need to wait to see what was up with that Fighter Dash a bit more before making any suggestions or giving general feedback.
Other showcases have implied that this game might be moving more to High Mobility, but there could also be mana costs and cooldowns that have been hidden from us in showcases because they are not tuned and they are not yet taking feedback on it.
I understand things completely fine there you keep talking about frame data (which is irrelevant atm) then actually addressing the points with the topic at hand. As stated in my point in order for you to talk about frame data which means nothing atm.
You blatantly ignored what I said though and brushed it off as "long winded". Its not a balance topic its a gameplay topic. Please stop talking about balance nobody is talking about balance. Balance has nothing to do with the specific experience in question.
He is not saying dodge cant create distance, he is saying it shouldn't be the best method of creating distance compared to the other movement options. There is a difference between burst movement and movement over time as well. A dodge can be the quickest form of movement within a small area, but be beaten by sprint over long distances. This is determined by frame data. You are not going to convince anyone frame data isnt relevant so please stop saying that. Frame data is so basic and core to how combat mechanics work that its absolutely rediculous to imply otherwise. I understand why you "think" its irrelevant, but that is because you are failing to grasp that we are not talking about just the overall combat balance, and you think that the overall balance would make the roll frame data irrelevant, but thats not what we are talking about so that is an incorrect conclusion to make. This is an issue specific to the experience of pursuing/retreating rolls as the optimal way of traversing over a period of time, when other gap closers/retreating skills are not available. It doesn't matter whether there is counterplay or if its balanced, or if its only a limited amount of uses, or any of that bullocks. Completely irrelevant to what he is specifically talking about.
Balance is not the topic. You are stuck on that and its leading you down a slippery slope. Nobody is speculating on combat balance when discussing Blindside's point about rolls. There is no theory craft about the combat balance because thats not what we are discussing. Nobody is misleading about frame data, you are misunderstanding what the true topic is and how frame data is relevant to the topic. We are solely discussing the interaction of pursuing rolls vs retreating rolls as an optimal traversal method in specific situations, and the gameplay experience associated with that. That is it. Nothing else. Do you know what determines whether rolls can be an optimal form of traversal in specific situations? You guessed it- frame data.
Irrelevant to the topic. He is not talking about how spammable it is. He is talking about the experience when an aggressive player has to pursue a retreating player with rolls, even if it happens one time the entire match, and combat is perfectly balanced with 2 pro players using counterplay to outsmart each other- the point stands, that this is an analysis on the gameplay experience within a specific interaction of the dodge mechanic between an aggressive and passive player.
Please direct your attention to what we are actually discussing so we can have the intended discussion Blindside was trying to have.
I personally agree with OP's concern to some degree. However, I also think some of the concerns would become so obvious during the Alpha that people will make it very clear to Intrepid very quickly if it is concerning in the way OP finds to be troublesome.
A lot of the discussion here seems to be in a PvP context. As someone who plays melee characters when I cannot play summoner I can see why you might have focused on this angle. But as someone who will play summoner if they do not screw up summoner let me add a missing piece.
No matter how you slice it in games with unlimited dodge, and dodge as a movement tool, mobs end up being super easy. Heck even bosses can become trivial. Even if you DO tie it to a stamina resource. If this weren't true something like Bloodhound's Step wouldn't be considered strong or even op depending on what patch you want to discuss.
Now take it from a puppet character's point of view. Summons tend to have the same capacity as a mob and as a result they are generally slower movement speed wise. Even if this is improved there is alway some delay positioning wise in a summons ability to pursue a target. Now give everyone a universal far moving dodge. Even if it doesn't have iframes or damage reduction, there is very little the summon or the summoner can do about someone spamming a free faster than movement speed dodge. This makes it easy for melee classes to easily close in on the summoner itself ignoring half the summoners class kit in the proccess and possibly either right up in the summoners face with little recourse. Or worse the melee opponent constantly running away from the summon avoiding all consequences for otherwise harssing and pressure the summoners positional spacing, never allowing the summoner to get a good ability off.
Even if you feel such a thing isn't a problem in a solo game or one with mainly 1-3 v 1-3 pvp like Elden Ring, a game with a class like Summoner with PvP at it's core is going to need a lot more limitations on the universal dodge mechanic if they want any chance for the summons and mobs to actually matter in PvP and PvEvP combat.
What's worse though, is the summoner is given tools to solve this otherwise poor design paradigm if they 'try to make a clearly flawed class viable given their universal mechanics'. They could make the summoner just as crunchy as the fighter, maybe give them some decent cc to make it so that they are always in a position to force the opponent to have to deal with the summon and the summoner if the melee opponent wants to close in on them. Trust me. You don't want that. The game will become straight up 3d pokemon but with fantasy mobs and I know how much that would torture certain people. There are many other 'solutions' but all of them generally lead to the summoner becoming op.
I leave any arguments with Mag to Azherae, but I was asked to note my perspective here, since the thread is thoroughly lacking in other points of discourse.
I would like to add onto something that another person said about dodging as a movement tool making defense to strong, though. In my experience with other games that have some similar form of universal mechanics in a PvP setting, it is more so that it makes people with good gap closing too STICKY and therefore OFFENSE is the bigger problem. It does cause the 'people running away from you ez pz' problem as well, yes, but explosive classes like Rogue types or Bruiser types end up becoming unbearable because they can get in for free and keep sticking to you with their gap closer, where as in a game with more limited dodge the gap closing would have to be used for engagement or you would have to have more skillfully gotten up into their grill. It's just braindead hackery that leads to a lack of nuance both offensively and defensively.
Over all though I hope for the sake of Summoner being a good class they get the balance right. I prefer damage reduction rather than iframes personally but either way I certainly hope there is a lot of thought given on the speed of movement of the dodge.
Thanks for talking about the topic at hand, and for bringing this up, its an interesting point. Might as well tag @Azherae @Blindside to try to get the actual intended convo going. (It probably already started and ended by the time I typed this). I explain my stance on the topic at the end.
Im gonna take this opportunity to talk about this example for those who might be interested in the difference causes/effects and balancing aspects relating to this topic, and try to frame these moving parts into a cohesive big picture for the topic. I just want to set up a quick foundation before talking about the experience you brought up though-
Premise-
Just because the distance that interactions occur at, is limited to short ranged interactions, doesn't necessarily mean there is an imbalance between offense/defense though- because if offense/defense are balanced then you should have the means to both protect yourself and safely apply offensive pressure to the opponens defense regardless of the range the interactions take place.
Basically for offense/defense to be balanced then offensive/defensive options should be forced to interact with each other- if offense does't really have to account for defense, or defense is unthreatened by offense then it is imbalanced- this generally means that there should be options to both efficiently defend yourself and pressure the opponents defenses with an attack
Now, offense/defense mechanics could exist and be unbalanced for specific classes, but that is more of a class balance issue than an overall defense/offense balance issue- for example you could have block and dodge which both function in a balanced way, but have specific classes that utilize them based on a preferred range, so if that range control is unbalanced then the lack of offense/defense will reflect that, even if they work fine in a vacuum. This is proven by thinking about a duel between 2 long ranged classes, where they both are poking each other with arrows but blocking/dodging each others arrows as well for an equal fight utilizing both offense/defense styles in a balanced manner, but the class balancing might be off when you put that class up against a close range fighter.
That said, whenever there are both long ranged/short ranged classes, they both need to have opportunities to play at their preferred range in an equal way in order to have balanced offensive/defensive interactions based on their class designs. The moment one class is unable to do that, is the moment offense/defense becomes unbalanced in that matchup. So, since there are close range classes in the game we can never have permanent long range distance control in a matchup against that class, or it would be horribly unbalanced through overpowered kiting/hit and run strategies.
I say that to make this point-
It is good for both long range and short range classes to experience being at their preffered range and their weak range during a fight. If it is skewed toward one or the other too heavily it will be bad for gameplay and balancing. Think of a balanced ranged based system like an "accordian" instrument (one player at each end, with the distance control in-between them)- if their prefferred ranges are different then it should be designed to fluctuate back and forth evenly and rhythmically, or have the potential to maintain the same range if their preferred ranges are the same. Granted, perfect balance between classes is not necessarily the goal, which is why I said "not too heavily" skewed, because it should still be reasonable and feasible to beat an opponent even if you are at a disadvantage based on the matchup.
How this related to your experience (justvine)-
This type of experience is kind of a complicated thing to break down mechanically but (assuming rolls are equalized for both combatants in the game you are referencing) basically this is less about rolls being a thing, and was more caused by the overall "conglomerate" combination of "distance closing options" outweighing the overall conglomerate combination of "distance creating options", to a degree that might be slightly too much (based on my preface about class balancing). Essentially the gap-closing abilities were probably overtuned, relative to the distance-creating abilities, so the rolls just let you maintain that distance for longer, which exacerbated that close range meta to create that "sticky" feeling, and making the longer ranged classes feel "defenseless", when the defensive aspects were most likely fine when used by close ranged characters, unless they were tuned badly as well. Since distance control is part of certain classes defensive kit, this means that the defense/offense balance itself could have been fine in a vacuum, but that specific long ranged class was just not balanced properly within the offense/defense system, which was less about rolls and more about the "conglomerate" distance control balancing aspect, which was heavily skewed toward close range classes.
However:
#1. We do not know how the gap closing/distance creating skills currently work relative to each other (how that accordian is gonna work)
#2. The majority of the "conglomerate" distance-controlling experience/gameplay is usually through permanent universal skills (like rolls) rather than temporary cooldown based skills-
These 2 factors are the basis for the concern of a mishandled rolling mechanic in couple ways
Based on factor #1- there are 2 possible scenarios
A- If the class skills are unequalized in their distance control (the accordian can move when skills are used by both combatants)
B- If the class skills are equalized in their distance control (accordian doesn't move when skills are used by both combatants)
Scenario 1: "class specifc skills" are un-equalized (in their distance control), "universal movement options" are equalized (in their distance control)
- Lets say rolling is equalized since rolling would most likely be available a lot more frequently than skills, then this relates to factor #2 of concern- because (too the point of Blindside's original comment) it might not be good to have equalized rolling for distance control (accordian doesn't move when rolls are used by both combatants), based on the gameplay implications of pursuing dodges/retreating dodges being meta for maintaining distance, while also (too my concern) having to wait for your cooldowns in order to activate "the real game" of "moving that accordian" for distance control. [For those familiar with fighting games, equalized movement will maintain your advantage/disadvantage states for longer periods if time, and diminish the importance of the neutral game, and my preference is neutral game, so I prefer that the skills you have access to the majority of the time are unequalized (rolls in this case)]
-But if rolls are equalized then this implies that there will be unequalized distance control when class specific skills are used (accordian does move when skills are used by both combatants), in order to allow for that "accordian effect" at a "conglomerate" larger scale of combat- with all forms of movement combined (even if certain individual skills don't contribute to that effect, such as rolling in this case). If this is not the case then we are back to square 1 with retreating/kiting/hit and run meta
So, if we get news that skills are unequalized, then its likely that this is the approach being taken with the dodges.
Scenario 2: "class specific skills" are equalized (in their distance control), "universal movement options" are un-equalized (in their distance control)
-Lets say the class specific skills are going to be equalized (the accordian does not move when skills are used by combatants)- since skills are temporary and not always available, the factor #2 of concern is not nearly as bad, because you can still engage to a maximum capacity with the combat system even when skills are on cooldown.
-If this is the case with the class skills then this implies rolls would then be unequalized (the accordian does move when rolls are used by both combatants) in order to allow for that "accordian effect" at a "conglomerate" larger scale of combat- with all forms of movement combined (even if certain individual skills don't contribute to that effect, such as class specific movement skills in this case). If this is not the case then we are back to square 1 with retreating/kiting/hit and run meta
Conclusion:
Based on these scenarios you can probably gather why there is a concern about equalized rolls instead of doing something like I mentioned at the beginning of the thread involving diminishing returns on roll effectiveness, to allow for unequalized rolling due to losing effectiveness when used as the primary form of distance control in a retreating manner- if your movement skills are on cooldown.
This would really only solve mostly my concerns on this topic and not fully address Blindside's concern at its core, but it would help mitigate that "bad experience" in that regard. I haven't made up my mind on what I think about his stance and the best path to take yet, so I haven't fully accounted for that specific interaction with this suggestion.
Regarding the original point about roll being the most effective form of traversal in certain situations- and why it is potentially bad-
My hesitancy to agree is that I understand the desire to not want to feel "forced" to close distance using a defensive option- but at the same time the alternative in my mind is absolutely not "a non-defensive" option such as walk/sprint being more optimal. If anything it would have to be a defensive+offensive option. I view the viability of a movement-based defensive option as an opportunity more than a limitation. It allows you to be defensive while on the move, which enhances agency, because I believe that free movement being viable while using different offensive/defensive options is a good thing and adds depth. Its really not much different than "running forward then timing active block" in the context of the point I am making- other than you are more vulnerable doing the latter (unless there is reactable endlag on a roll, which should be ignored for the point im making). You have to keep in mind that offense is an automatic denial of space from the character all the way to the end of the hitbox. Why should there not be "an automatic closer of space" in this regard? Why must it have an added risk to it that a defensively used hitbox does not have in terms of controling that space? I don't think it neccessarily should. This deepens the interplay between offense/defense through empowering movement and spacing in both an aggressive/passive manner emphasizing that tug of war aspect, rather than leaning toward the passive end of things that a "walk forward and time block" tends to encourage. The harder it is to close distance while using defense, the less quantity of fun interactions between offense/defense there will be and the less viable shorter ranged weapons/skills/classes will be.
I can link a few clips of me fighting outnumbered in Guild Wars 2 PvP. Can you tell me what you think about the style of kiting shown? If you are not familiar with the skills, GW2 dodges can't be used to create meaningful distance as they travel slightly further (less than 10%) than a player could run in the same amount of time. Yet, there are plenty of movement abilities, teleports, and movement buffs/impairing effects granted to every class. I think this system has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. And, gear is equalized so winning comes down to execution and knowledge of the game.
https://www.twitch.tv/blindside_tv/clip/ResourcefulGoodBatRlyTho-E0r3CXUhxdPu361b?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time
https://www.twitch.tv/blindside_tv/clip/ScaryTrustworthyApeCoolCat-G_1exvQAluKfSp-c?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time
https://www.twitch.tv/blindside_tv/clip/StupidReliablePelicanCeilingCat-Jiv2u4kJLAYMKNvk?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time
Since Guild Wars 2 has a hybrid tab/action style combat that Ashes is trying to do, I'm curious what you think about the clips above. This is a game with equalized dodge rolls (no diminishing returns) where distance control is possible on every class against multiple opponents at the same time when played well. It's also very balanced as any class can beat any class in 1v1 or 1vX as long as you play better than your opponent(s).
what about wide sings? you dodge the first frames, but you are still next to the other guy and you still get hit by the last frame. nice
what about aoeing on top of yourself? now even if the other guy dodges he is still inside the aoe. nice another scenario where doing is useless.
ranged vs ranged? np just aoe the other guy. his dodge wont save him lol.
also remember this isn't a pure action game, its tab targetted with some action combat mechanics. short dodges r more for fighting games, where you can counter right away, or soul like combat, although long dodges can help here to avoid aoe.
yeah dodges shouldn't move you a ridiculously far distance, but they should move you far enough to be useful and actually dodge the attack. the real issue is people escaping and resetting the fight, not necessarily by dodging, like mages using polymorph in wow and leaving, then healing, etc. or rogues being rogues.
all we gotta do is let intrepid know that mechanics that completely allow you to escape (or mount and escape) are unfun and make pvp not engaging and remove the risk. they will figure out what to do, you know, since they are game devs and all that, and they also have all the information about the game, such as combat and other systems, that we dont.
Im just going to state again saying dodge should be same as base movement speed means dodge instance does not create space, he has said this multiple times through the post.
@Ace1234 again saying dodges same distance as running and a running player can walk to them as they dodge. That means no distance is created from dodge. Unsure why you are defending him actually saying that in your post it is exactly why he couldn't respond to my points....
If it doen't have iframe that feels like a potential red flag only because you also say barely takes you out of melee range. What melee range are we talking about? What is considered to be the melee range in AoC 2 feet, 15 feet?
If we are considering basic attack range skills and such will most likely hit you and dodge is pretty much a wasted input that does nothing in the game. If we are basing things off the range of skills and you can get a good amount of distance you could say (barely out of melee range) but you are still getting good distance and movement which is more than base speed.
Again dodge should create distance and have speed.
What is the combat Rythm like, what is the distance on attacks and skills, the speed at which you use abilities there are a lot of answer that are needed to be understood before one can judge the strength and distance of a dodge as per class.
I believe that their intentions for I-frames were related to the fact that they have skills that are ground-target and Tab Target in ways that might otherwise feel unbalanced.
By adding a few movements with some iFrames (for example, the startup of a Fighter's leaping gap closer) they could deal with some of the more annoying and obvious ranged character counterplays without needing to weaken ranged skills.
I'd definitely prefer if the DODGE had none, but due to the way gap closers and certain very committed abilities work, I'd prefer for them to have some. If you 'use your Grand Crash' just to iFrame an attack I think it's fine. I'd particularly WANT Fighters to be able to do this, like if they get surrounded and body-blocked in, somehow, and want to get OUT of that space instead of using Whirlwind.
Which fits perfectly with Blindside's concern.
For me, iFrames at the startup of big committed gap-closers are fine. For Rangers I'd be fine with some being on the startup of a big back-moving attack as long as that attack has a high mana cost and cooldown and so on.
For various reasons as a Cleric I would also take 'iFrames that don't move me' on the startup of AoE heal, because it helps to even out TTK and prevent 'group healing' from being something that has to always be perfectly planned in a clash so that it 'can't be sniped'.
Generally I support having a bit of them on anything that a solo player has to set up so much that it is obvious they're going to do it, but I don't believe in having those related to movement, so the OP point still stands. Being able to stun/kill people out of 'things they have to put effort into telegraphing' just feels bad because players just stop using them as they get better, or those moves are made even MORE powerful.
I'd rather they just have the few iFrames.
I think there could be more done with universal defensives that don’t involve an I-frame.
But it also involves offensive skills not being generic either.