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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.
Combat feels too static
Snekkers
Member, Alpha Two
I saw many people complaining that combat is too stiff and that its outdated. But almost nobody can pin point a real reason why they think that way. That being said, in my opinion its caused by how static combat is. When the tank grabs agro, then all any player has to do is just spam thier rotation without even using brain. Last boss of the dungeon had only one special attack and tank could just stand in it without tanking any damage, not mentioning that it didnt pose a real threat to DPS, maybe except fighter.
I think a solution would be to add to bosses, elites by maybe even normal mobs, another ability that would target DPS and/or healer, so they have something to do except spamming thier rotations.
Another thing is to add more reactive gameplay, one example would be this good timing on active block so your really need to think about what you doing, and your actions are based on the encounter not just one combo over and over
I think a solution would be to add to bosses, elites by maybe even normal mobs, another ability that would target DPS and/or healer, so they have something to do except spamming thier rotations.
Another thing is to add more reactive gameplay, one example would be this good timing on active block so your really need to think about what you doing, and your actions are based on the encounter not just one combo over and over
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Comments
Didnt play it to say if its possible or not, but for sure there isnt any reason to move and attack as it is right now.
For a level 15 dungeon.. in alpha I think it's pretty good. As the development continues you'd like to see things added.
It also doesn't help that we have the most basic of basic attack systems as filler and we do not unique combinations that we can utilize LMB into.
I would say that they should expand their basic attack system.
This is actually based on a potential misunderstanding of what 'static' means to quite a few people like that. I can obviously only speak for my own group, but the key is that 'static' has nothing to do with whether or not you can move during animations/recovery, and everything to do with 'how much reason you have to move as quickly as you can as soon as that animation ends'.
TL is extremely active from that perspective, it's night and day to Ashes. Ashes has the FFXI problem where you CAN move while swinging, but there is seldom a reason to, and the game is unlikely to be designed where you have a reason to (or you'd get an advantage by just moving at all times).
Such a game needs to have the 'periods where you cannot move' in order to make the 'periods where you can move' a meaningful part/choice in combat, so to me (and in this case I can extend beyond my group and say to a LOT of other people) TL is not static, Ashes is, because you CAN move in Ashes, but it doesn't matter too much if you do.
Yes, there were a few backdashes from the ranged characters, but that's literally the same as moving to the side against those storm mobs in the tank showcase that did a 5-directional (I think it was 5) lightning strike.
I'm just way too skeptic when it comes to TL right now. We've barely seen anything on the game, while we've seen a ton of stuff on Ashes and some have even played a version of it. And my distrust towards NCsoft is just not letting me believe that they can make a truly good game. As much as I loved L2, it had an insane amount of flaws.
Then allow me to clarify further given the topic of the thread and it is not a derail.
If I can stand still for 3-4 second hitting a boss, but I also know that if I stand still even ONE second longer, I am in considerably more danger than I would have been if I disengaged at the right time (whether that danger actually happens or not), I am actively planning, thinking, my mind is calculating 'what to do if I see the startup of a move I need to dodge away from' and the next steps, and at the same time 'what to do if I see a different move, how greedy I can be', etc.
Movement is easy. Constantly moving is almost effortless, moving with intent is difficult. MOBA players live or die based on exactly this concept.
So let's ignore TL and think in terms of Ashes and how it 'could be'. The bigger lightning ability from the bosses we saw. This move was unreactable from my perspective, but it also didn't hurt a lot. This means that I am not planning around it. It isn't 'something to CC' except randomly when I happen to be doing that anyway. It isn't something to avoid, because it's too fast to be allowed to be strong enough that I have to care.
Therefore the 'correct action' for this AoE lightning blast is to 'keep hitting the mob and stand in it and expect the healer to solve the problem' or 'pop a defensive ability when your health starts to dip from it'.
Also, I think you should absolutely not fault yourself for not having faith in TL's combat. The only reason I have any is because I do deep analysis on it, and I know that NCSoft would be utterly insane to have both BNS (from their side) and BDO (as competition) and build anything meaningfully less than those.
I'm the one making the 'unfounded' guess here based on my instincts, and in a few months I will lament and admit my error if things fall as you see them.
But another way you can view it is this. Ignore TL too. Just imagine what I would make. You know what I care about, I've explained enough stuff, sometimes directly to you. Just assume I could snap my fingers and Cardinal be a playable MMO.
It would have rooted motion, you would stand there trying to deal with stuff until the key moments, and the people I'm talking about would definitely not call it 'static'. Whereas they would call Ashes 'static' because you 'might as well' not dodge the lightning.
If that Lightning could really hurt seriously, then Fighter doing their Pirouette Slash would be in real danger, even considering their likely higher HP. But unlike TL where you could explicitly counter that by movement, CC, or defensive mechanic, after seeing it start up, and you would take big damage only if you 'committed to something without accounting for that move', in Ashes, Pirouette Slash would just make you get seriously hurt.
I could maybe let pvp be on the faster side, because I'm used to super fast speeds of cast/atk in L2's max lvls (and the purely response-and-prediction-based gameplay of it, rather than truly reactionary one), but for a good pve you definitely gotta have better design than what we saw.
The 'problem' (from my extremely biased perspective) is that if you make a game and give people the 'I don't want to be rooted, I don't want to be locked into animations' then you have to make the reaction window smaller or they will always manage.
The entire way that 'root motion' games work, is that by your OWN actions and commitments and decisions, you are 'shortening your own ability to react to something'. Your teammates then have more useful decisions to make.
Monster Hunter. When my Greatsword user goes for the final strike of TrueCharged Slash, if I see the monster move, I heal. It's not her 'fault' that she 'didn't notice the monster attacking and get out of the way'. She no longer CAN.
The group synchronizes so that either 'our Lancer is going to parry and protect her at the last moment if the monster recovers too fast' or I'm going to heal or counterstagger it.
The 'free movement' type game just allows other players to auto-blame the other person for 'not getting out of the way' instead of coordinating more, which is why I'm so disappointed in it. If I as healer am supposed to 'expect people to evade attacks', then now I'm the one who has to 'react perfectly every time someone else doesn't'.
Etc etc. The core of Ashes' gameplay is not based on this, which is fine. And that's as far as I'm willing to derail, since I started just as the explanation of 'why some people don't consider rooted motion or standing still for a while to be static whereas free motion in Ashes can be considered that'.
And I think that's part of the reason why WoW and FF14 are so popular. Though WoW's mechanics becoming more and more chaotic and pushing people to move constantly (if what I remember of them is correct) seems to feed that exact toxicity you mentioned in relation to free movement games.
For all its super basic pve, L2's parties always felt like small families within the larger "town" of a guild. And then this comradery allowed for better relations during pvp, where you had to constantly move and reposition. I think this is why I'm fine with pve being on the slower and more reactable side, while pvp could be way faster.
for sure, if they add more abilties that party needs to care about in later stages then im good with that
im not sure about that, i mean, passive tree will add on-hit effects on player basic attacks and then you will use those effects in your combo, but true, as it is right now the only combo we saw was shield bash into shout
Thats what i mean to a degree, yea, you can move, but why? Just stay in one place and pump damage cuz there is no threat to you anyways
i dont like rooted motion, but i think making playing with reaction time might be one of the factors of adjusting difficulty of the boss/dungeon
I am, because once someone blows all of their CDs all they are going to have is a boring LMB filler.
Lets see what happens when the mobs do more than spam lightning at people.
it funny cause he kept looseing agro in the tank showcase pretty much every time he looses agro was because he wasnt using he skills :P lol
oh, i missunderstood, i though you want to expand basic attack system for players, if you meant for mobs then i 100% agree
They cant make the animations too slow either because its gonna take longer time from input>hit which is gonna bother a lot of people. The only way to go if they decrease the speed of big weapons in particular is to buff the damage because people will miss more (timing, wind-up animations and all that) expeccialy in PvP. Not gonna lie i wouldnt mind that because BIG crit numbers :drool: Again that is subjective. A lot of people dont look too much on numbers/details and want attacks to be fast/instant when pressing button just watching the HP bar of enemy drop. What matters at the end of the day is subjective. If everyone loved the same combat design everyone would be playing the same mmorpg.