Active blocking? Sure, but not like that

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.

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Comments

Mag7spy

Blocking 100% needs a resource tied to it, I'd recommend stamia best way to do things, no need to try and make a new system suddenly.

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.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

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?

Most of the time I promote restrictive gameplay that is directly linked to already existing designs, so that the design becomes deeper instead of broader and shallower.

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.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

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?

Most of the time I promote restrictive gameplay that is directly linked to already existing designs, so that the design becomes deeper instead of broader and shallower.

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.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

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.

You know my experience is super limited. Are there games that have in-depth player to player (or even pve) interactions with the stamina system? Obviously outside of the obvious "they're about to hit you so you spend stamina to block or dodge".

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.

Azherae

The general experience I have is that games use Stamina for the movement abiities of physical classes (and the base universal class movement abilities) and Mana/something else for the rest (with usually a longer cooldown on Mage teleports). This allows a tighter balance of mobility options, while allowing some extra flexibility to Mage kiting (your physical opponents will run out of stamina before you will, but don't need to figure out how to make a Mana build, and so on.

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).

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

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).

Would %-based usage of mana for movement/blocking lead to that homogenization or would it be the same as stamina, except with the ability of others to limit your movement/blocking?

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?

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

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).

Would %-based usage of mana for movement/blocking lead to that homogenization or would it be the same as stamina, except with the ability of others to limit your movement/blocking?

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.

Azherae

To actually answer the specifics properly:

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.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

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.

So I think my line of thinking falls under this even if Ashes has both. I want people to be able to influence other people's gameplay. And people seem to hate that quite a lot. In other words, I'm way too niche to succeed with my designs

PapaWhiskey

Hello all! I hope everyone is doing well.

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.
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.

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.
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!

Solvryn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw33dzhz21c

Fav system to date.

Taaku

It's hard to design a new blocking system for a mostly tab target type of MMO that actually feels / looks good.
To me I would like to see something like: You equip a shield, you always block x amount of dmg incoming while shield equipped. Unless... using active skills. possibly for a short duration after activating a skill.
So thus you always get to block / mitagate dmg if you are just standing there auto attacking. But as soon as you start using skills to do more dmg / gain more aggro, that's when you lose the blocking benefit of your shield. Again for a short duration... makes you think more when you should use your skills to grow more aggro or just add to yer teams dmg.

Edit: Shields could have variance in them as to if they block more physical dmg or more elemental dmg. Give more varity in shields and this system could also extend to any other class that uses a shield. (I.E. cleric. As a cleric should I heal my team more, or am i getting attacked right now and it's better to just block dmg?) More reactive gameplay.

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