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Active blocking? Sure, but not like that
Garrtok
Member
Hi,
in MMOs Iam always playing tank and I was really looking forward to the stream. I have to admit I was really disappointed about what I saw.
It's nice that they try to implement active blocking, but that addempt felt just not finished, or at least not in state that they should show it.
Active blocking must not be just pressing one button and done. That's boring, no fun at all and also not complex. In reality besides a stream you would never stop blocking, except for getting aggro.
For active blocking you need a stamina bar, or something that states how many blocks you can still do.
Then you could implement abilities that restore "blocks/stamina", that leads to some incentive to attack as a tank and manage your resources.
You could add passive skills to increase your available blocks permanently, temporal buffs, regaining on conditions like if someone crits on you etc.
You would have to think about, when you stop blocking and being more active in the fight to regain your defensive abilities. You have to think about a balance between your stamina/blocks and mana.
Mana should not be used as a block ressource!
That would make the tank gameplay so much more fun, skilled and tactical.
In addition I would suggest a "perfect block". If you do it with the right timing you get some buff on damage for your next attack, or some defensive buff, for the next incoming attack. That would reward more skilled people, be more hybrid oriented and not just the next tab targeting combat system.
I strongly disagree with the current approach and hope that intrepid won't implement such a boring blocking mechanic.
in MMOs Iam always playing tank and I was really looking forward to the stream. I have to admit I was really disappointed about what I saw.
It's nice that they try to implement active blocking, but that addempt felt just not finished, or at least not in state that they should show it.
Active blocking must not be just pressing one button and done. That's boring, no fun at all and also not complex. In reality besides a stream you would never stop blocking, except for getting aggro.
For active blocking you need a stamina bar, or something that states how many blocks you can still do.
Then you could implement abilities that restore "blocks/stamina", that leads to some incentive to attack as a tank and manage your resources.
You could add passive skills to increase your available blocks permanently, temporal buffs, regaining on conditions like if someone crits on you etc.
You would have to think about, when you stop blocking and being more active in the fight to regain your defensive abilities. You have to think about a balance between your stamina/blocks and mana.
Mana should not be used as a block ressource!
That would make the tank gameplay so much more fun, skilled and tactical.
In addition I would suggest a "perfect block". If you do it with the right timing you get some buff on damage for your next attack, or some defensive buff, for the next incoming attack. That would reward more skilled people, be more hybrid oriented and not just the next tab targeting combat system.
I strongly disagree with the current approach and hope that intrepid won't implement such a boring blocking mechanic.
10
Comments
They should've obviously decided this fucking years ago during the designing stage and we should've already been giving feedback on the minute details, but it is what it is.
I would personally prefer a mana-based system because it would make mana-based gameplay deeper and related to all archetypes.
In what way? THe classes are already all linked via mana and if all classes got stamina for sprint and block all classes will all be linked by stamina. THe difference between stamina and mana is that you have your resources to attack (Mana) and you have your resources for defence (stamina). The ramifications are much better with diversified resource pools.
I would prefer stamina so that the damage inflicted and thus blocked takes a proportional amount of the resource away. You would probably want to apply a long cd on stamina regen or allow for a debuff to be applied when stamina is full drained, like a MS decrease.
Holding down block and strafing around is as boring as passive mitigation if not more, active blocking has to be more fast paced and interactive.
The best example of good active blocking was Tera's Lancer, because of the audio and visual effects it felt super satisfying and impactful. In terms of gameplay it was very fast paced and had integration with offense with a counter mechanic.
I understand that a lot of people seem to hate when the opponent can influence their gameplay, but isn't that the fucking point of a good pvp game? Play and counterplay? To me a stamina or "every class with their own resource" system seems anti-pvp. I'm sure it's amazing in pve because it lets the player come up with proper rotations and resource management, but I want more interactions rather than one-sided gameplay.
And if every class had a counterplay to every other class' resource or just additional abilities for stamina gameplay - that would increase ability bloat (especially so in the case of the former).
Though I guess Intrepid could only give mana play to a specific archetype or two and then stamina play to another set of archetypes and maybe even special resource counterplay to yet another set of archetypes. Which would push people to have the "one of each" party setup. I'd be fine with that design, but I don't think we've heard any indication of this direction in the development.
Thus, I debunk your philosophy of "better pvp with all eggs in one basket"
It's the same principle in both cases. You think your destination might have enemies? Prepare for it instead of wasting your resources beforehand.
Could be an inspiration for Intrepid when they design their own system.
Easily explained by "essence gives you power". Everyone uses essence and essence is used in different ways. You have a hugeass plate armor and want to run? Use essence to boost your muscles.
You're wearing a super light armor and already have a dexterous build? You obviously use less essence and can run for way longer.
You're a fucking mage who've barely even walked in their whole life? Use essence to run, but you obviously use more than a ranger (maybe similar to a plate tank rate).
Same can apply to strength usages. It's a magic world where everyone uses the world's magic. You can come up with whatever you want in-lore. Obviously you (and a lot of people) dislike the mechanic itself, but it's not like it couldn't be implemented while still being logical in-game.
tank/tank (guardian) just a stamina pool 100%
tank/mage (spellshield) stamina pool and mana pool 50% 50%
tank/summoner (keeper) stamina pool mana pool but 30% each and rest to pet
use stamina for skills eg.
active block evade etc
use mana for magical skills eg.
mage shield or aegis etc
and depending on class, gear and stats effect the drain and recovery of the pools.
to me give a extra level of uniqueness to the classes.
and on active blocking maybe have an effect when using it eg.
With the guardian the active block protects you and team from physical damage better where is a spellshield
uses it it may protect you from magical attacks and lastly maybe if a paladin uses active shild it gives the effect of aegis at the same time.
When you are blocking, you can't do anything else and i see that as a trade off.
Yes, if a tank can spend 90% of a fight blocking then that's an issue but it's an issue with it being too easy for them hold aggro, not with active block. Just like how passive defenses don't allow tanks to do their roll by standing there, active block shouldn't enable them to perform their roll by holding down one button.
To argue your reasoning.
No, sometimes you need to lose regardless of mechanics, because sometimes you lost before the fight started and you just hadn't realized, you need to always be able to outplay your opponent but sometimes that outplay needs to be something greater than merely being able to manage your mana better.
Arguing specifically for a mana system over stamina is more difficult, however I am unsure how mana blocking is going to allow for high end PVE? As far as I am aware the damage a raid boss can deal is significant and the tank needs to mitigate that so they would active block. Either you have mana drain be applied as the damage is mitigated so higher damage drains more mana per block or you allow for flat mana drain while active blocking. The 1st solution means that the mana drain will always be either too high to block raid boss damage or too low to run out of mana in PVP either route spelling trouble for blocking in PVP. The 2nd route means that everyone will just hold block while aggroed until tank gets it back and then the tank will just hold block after casting their threat generating abilities.
Right now without any resource management the gameplay loop with be generate aggro -> block -> loop.
There is no doubt the active block mechanic will need a resource drain.
Regardless to be honest as a community we should probably just go ahead and push IS towards active blocking requiring a resource. As it is right now the gameplay loop is nearly unavoidable unless IS tunes active blocking perfectly and on a per archetype basis or make its mitigation like 10%.
The weapon passives could have branches and augments that relate to mana. Shield blocking could have a branch of "make a perfect block and lose less mana per dmg point" or a "holding the block decreases mana/point values with each second". The first would be for those with good reactions, while the second could work perfectly for more casual people, but they'd obviously have to sacrifice ability usage while holding the block.
An augment could provide a mana stealing passive on blocking magic attacks, but lesser dmg mitigation of anything physical. And I'm sure there's a ton of other such mechanics possible.
It's just that I want this kind of gameplay to be linked to other archetypes, rather than being purely single player centric. But like I said, if Intrepid can design a stamina or a special resource system that has counterplay across different archetypes - I'd be fine with that.
Yep.
Even when they start experimenting with resources, wont the gameplay still be aggro -> block -> loop?
You are using one word to describe every other ability the tank has.
Right now the tank uses his slash ability to generate aggro. What I like is more like Aegis where the tank actually has a reason to know where their team is and appropriately position and a reason to not block like having a resource drain.
Right now the loop is aggro -> block -> loop, im not super worried because things like Aegis are in the right direction and we are still early on
every class gets 100 stamina that regens 5 stamina a second (Regen can be increased via passives so you can make some classes block more often than others so tanks might get a passive to double it for example)
1h+shield - Consumes 10 stamina every .5 seconds, when you block u get 10 stacks buff that decays 1 stack every .5 seconds each stack reduces dmg you take by 10% so at the start of the block you take no dmg for .5 seconds and then 10% more dmg every .5 seconds of holding it so u get rewards for just tapping it on big hits to mitigate the dmg rather than holding it down for flat 50% dmg.
non shield parry, same as the shield one but stacks drop off twice as fast, some classes could have passive that give them a dmg bonus on parry aswell that stacks for short duration.
I would like to see somthing like that that is more interactive/reactive not a oshit im taking to much dmg im gonna hold block to try and buy time for a healer to save me.
Would need a high initial cost to block otherwise tapping the block would be common. So like 20 stamina just to cast
But you can sprint in heavy armour, you can roll, star jump and get up if you fall. Knights were very nimble and hence they were very lethal. You could pin a knight down in mud but otherwise the knight could take on multiple people.
Nothing is lost if you have two resource banks - one for sprint/block and another for general use. However, the gameplay will be stunted and very restrictive if we only have one resource. Half the time you promote restrictive ideas and I'm not sure why?
i went with longer recharge kinda thing but thats just example u cant realy guess value and thing without being in game, it easy enough to tweak values though so easy to nerf/buff
Things are mroe fun when you are dealing with resource management, adds a bit more push and pull and strategic thinking in combat depending on the depth of all systems working together.
Also is lame when someone can block 24/7 or almost all the time and stop all damage and turtle hard. Should have a long time to regain and be a lot more strategic than spamming active block imo.
I also don't want Intrepid to keep balancing several resource pools, one of which might even be completely separated from anything else in the game. Like I keep saying, I want people to influence each other. Keeping systems restricted allows for better balancing for those influences. And it allows to not have 50 abilities that account for any potential interactions with resources.
I know that most people don't want other players to influence their gameplay. I just disagree with that. Simple as that.
Siding with Neurath here, very precisely in fact.
I don't want every class having their own special resource. I don't want this for every Archetype. I was surprised that Tanks even had one until I grasped the gameplay type that might be the aim.
But Stamina + Mana as two different things is not restrictive in a way that I perceive helps gameplay. All classes can active block, sprint, etc. All should probably have a reason, at some point, to do so. Therefore having both will only create depth, and in fact, not having it has a chance to reduce it.
That's just my experience, and therefore my feedback.
I'd imagine there might be at least a few or just those that have this kind of mechanic functionally. And I want that kind of depth in Ashes. It could come in the form of "some of your abilities also influence stamina" or it could come in the form of "you have some abilities that influence stamina". The former would probably lead to some balancing issues and the latter would lead to ability bloat.
And I say bloat because I also want deeper mana gameplay, so having both "mana" and "stamina" abilities would increase the 30-50 ability goal by quite a bit. One could say "well you'll have a choice between the two, so it's risk/reward" and, while that is true, everyone will also have both resources at all times, so by limiting yourself to interactions with just one of those resources - you're removing a part of gameplay from the game. This is why I think this design would also be restrictive.
And if you decide to have some minor interactions for both resources - your ability pool is super shallow, while also requiring you to switch between action bars because you simply can't fit it all on one.
I could see the addition of a stamina-like mechanic later on through some in-lore finding of a new type of energy. This would allow Intrepid to add newer abilities, add a whole new system to the game with its own depth and maybe counterbalance some issues that came up during the mana-based era.
But in the end, as I've said before in other threads, I'd be totally fine if Intrepid is already planning to have deep interactions for both stamina and mana. Except the sheer fact of them not even fucking knowing whether they want stamina or not leads me to believe that it would be super shallow.
For various reasons, stamina is then used for Blocking too, because otherwise I am happy to tank with my large MP pool while another Cleric uses theirs to heal me, in any game that has build freedom enough for lines to be blurred somewhat.
A recent comment from a Dev in the latest showcase has made me think that they actually do intend to accept group flexibility, and therefore must now 'worry' about players choosing multiple of one Archetype, hence the note about that.
There are other approaches, obviously, I just don't personally like them. Having at least two levers for balance of such things is optimal for me, trying to balance things with just one leads to homogenization and issues that can be hard to foresee due to competing goals. Separating the resources should be done to avoid competing goals, and no more, which is why I don't think we need even more (Conviction and Courage have a 'different purpose' for example, they represent the 'time-gated ability', i.e. they're a TP gauge).
We know that Ashes will at least somewhat rely on basic attacks, so it's not like any class will suddenly become absolutely useless w/o mana. And with a proper passives design you could have different balancing for different classes. From "physical classes have lowered rate of mana use below a certain threshold" to "magic classes getting mana regen boosts from movement when below a certain threshold" and anything in-between and outside of those designs.
Is that something that other games have tried and you disliked it or maybe they failed due to it? Cause you mentioned the basic uses of stamina but didn't note any interactions outside of that. Is it just another case of me preferring some dumb mechanic that's just not feasible in game design or is it smth that hasn't been tried before?
Moreso, it's much harder to achieve the same thing.
I'm moreso complaining because explicitly refusing to have just ONE more resource is a flawed concept. There are so many balance issues that come up from what players will think of, that you don't, as a designer, that it's ridiculous.
You're just risking a borderline unfixable meta for no reason. Now, before, I would have gone 'Maybe Intrepid will prove me wrong, maybe they have a good plan for how this will work'.
I hope even they can consider it fair that my perspective has changed to 'they don't really have a clear idea what they are doing with it either'. I wouldn't want to risk leaving mana-only balance to people who are already working this hard but have the issues they've implied they have.
Game design is always hard because 'disproving' that an idea will work requires such exhaustive testing. You're 'testing until someone breaks it', but sometimes it takes years to break it, but you find yourself at the point where it's unfixable without breaking everything else.
This is why we end up with conventions. It's fine if you devote a lot of time on a new game, from the very beginning, to 'ok, how can I really break down this convention', but I don't have a lot of faith in 'starting midway', from anyone.
Games with stamina but no mana lead to the 'problem' where enemies are slow. If you're expected to use your stamina to react, but also to attack, you spend a lot of time on the defensive and the enemies must generally be slower to account for this.
Games with Mana but no Stamina tend to need to limit mana builds or create certain tradeoffs AGAINST mana which are not only unrealistic but often unfun, and people just minmax the hell out of them anyway. It's literally 'the mage class also has the most mobility/defenses'. These games are uncommon for most people to know about because they are almost laughably bad and people ignore them.
Percentage based blocking is fun for the OTHER dumb reason that min-maxers like me 'love'.
If you put Mana Transfer and Mana Regeneration in the same game and then make my mana usage for blocking percentage based, I will laugh all the way to the bank.
EDIT: I'm not actually objecting to this, Intrepid, I would be honored to be my group's tank/offtank as a Shadow Disciple in Ashes.
For me, active blocking is a good mechanic to have in our toolkit to mitigate damage. I am glad the Devs were able to introduce it in-game (code) and preview it. As with many if not all things AOC, it is a work in progress and I am all for it, either by Mana or Stamina. But it intriges me to see it be managed as mana based. All class abilities (could/should) have a common resource, aka Mana = Chi = Energy.
At this point there are a lot of unknowns for example how offensive and/or defensive passives will work.
I do agree that there needs to be a trade off while holding the active block (draining resource and/or ...).
If it was for me, I would even test the ability to have:
- A time-based usage. Players can hold active block for X amount of seconds. After X amount of time, the active block will drop (Player will need to re-activate). This can incentivize players to react accordingly also creates a risk vs reward. Basically players will be trading off the full damage loss from their HP to a % loss of HP/MP for survivability.
- A 1-2 second CD. No more active block for 1 or 2 seconds. Players can dodge or cast another ability.
- Drain/Regen mechanics. The resource should drain while holding active block. If a block occurs, gain X% of the resource back. Let me point of that this hypothetical mechanic is not intented to be sustainable.
As others have mentioned, while you hold active block, you cannot do anything else. If you want to be a Meat-tank, active block and take the hit, or move from the enemy telegraph ability by dodging or moving away.Attributes from the Character's Race/Religion/Tattoos/Archtypes, etc. should influence these passives.
Also, Why active block when you can dodge? When to dodge vs when to active block? Both are needed to manage most gameplay scenarios, specially when you have aggro. If implemented, It will be interesting to see how the dodge ability buffs player's defenses, allowing avoidance to total/partial damage taken.
Dodging to acquire defense buff for a period of time seems like a viable strategy to mitigate damage. Tanks could dodge backward to > Shield Asault or use other abilities (snare). Making the encounter more engaging.
If your strategy at some dire point is to defend youself to avoid death, at least have a mechanic to regain a bit more resource to hold on, while others try to kill the NPC or wait for a healer to spot heal you. The purpose of the active block is to increase survivability...
This could/should work in PVE, but in PVP is another thing itself, active block alone should not give the upper hand, but it is a trade off players could/should have. Specially if they dont want to engage. Who will die first, the defensive player or the attacker at some point? But Im not getting into the PVP rabbit hole for now. It is a discussion for another day. There are tons of mechanics that still need to be considered and showcased to see how they will perform (shields, armor, other stats, buffs, pots, elixirs, etc..)
I am happy to see they have another Archtype up and running. Cant wait to see more!