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yet another tired rant about action vs tab vs hybrid insipred by random youtube vids....
Rookk
Member, Alpha Two
I recently watched a video talking about the combat in ashes and before i say anything else, i love ashes direction on most things and at least dont hate its direction its going with the action vs tab middle ground it seems to be choosing but i do have an idea of how to do it better that make the game feel less gamey and more immersive while also making it easier for people to get into all the while still holding the same if not more complexity.
Now as for my ideas, i think that going with passive block and passive evasion stats being the key major way for defending yourself for everyone aside from figher who is meant to be mobile meaning they should have either a passive to allow for active dodges at the cost of resources perhaps with a 2 second cooldown and minor i-frames where if you press space while moving in combat, you dodge in your current direction with that look being changed by your augments. beyond that i also feel that other classes also could have soft active dodges that give no i frames and are purely movement but at a high cost with a high cooldown like the mages teleport so if you dont trust your rng than you can avoid an attack
Beyond that i think that tanks could have a passive that allows them to use timed blocks as well as perhaps the general active blocks all classes get where in any class CAN active block but only tank primaries and secondaries can actually get timed blocks which make it so their block mitigation for the first second or maybe 2 seconds after they block have a drastically high block mit that stays at that flat value until the second or 2 is up where it returns to normal active block valuse with no benefits to that aside from more armor, health, and a shield perhaps allowing for moderately higher block mit on normal active blocking.
now as for the last and real contraverstial thing that ashes isnt doing rn and doesnt seem to plan on doing is that they are going with the camera lock system of games like GW2 where you click a button and your camera locks in place with your mouse and pressing it again lets your mouse move freely on the screen to select your abilites and use tab targeting. personally i feel ESO did it best with ability bars that i would say would be best limited to 6 abilites per bar AT MOST so that way you dont need to awkwardly click on your abilites but can press the number key quick and easily with than a key to swap bars. this also could even allow for ESO's style of ultimate ablities that could be used for stalemate breaks if that becomes an apparant issue just like how medics uber in TF2 was meant to break stalemates.
Really i feel if that last point can be covered by the devs and done well with maybe like 4 ability bars of 5 or 3 of 6 allowing still for either the 20 abilites they want or just 18, than i feel that ashes can finally nail hybrid combat and even do interesting things like eso but better where they could have it so you only need one weapon or set of weapons if your using 2 weapons like 2 daggers or something with not having any more than that will mean when you swap bars, all bars will us your only active weapons and this allowing you to also have multiple weapons equipped even if you can only get the benfits of one at a time which for those who play eso, you understand that the gear system also is pretty perfect even if ESO is horrible balanced because its balanced around solo play first and foremost. like with a gear system where you have set pieces of armor that have a very achievable max limit but NUMEROUS sets all being useful for different situations or builds making all gear you get useful for whatever its set bonus is.
Now as for my ideas, i think that going with passive block and passive evasion stats being the key major way for defending yourself for everyone aside from figher who is meant to be mobile meaning they should have either a passive to allow for active dodges at the cost of resources perhaps with a 2 second cooldown and minor i-frames where if you press space while moving in combat, you dodge in your current direction with that look being changed by your augments. beyond that i also feel that other classes also could have soft active dodges that give no i frames and are purely movement but at a high cost with a high cooldown like the mages teleport so if you dont trust your rng than you can avoid an attack
Beyond that i think that tanks could have a passive that allows them to use timed blocks as well as perhaps the general active blocks all classes get where in any class CAN active block but only tank primaries and secondaries can actually get timed blocks which make it so their block mitigation for the first second or maybe 2 seconds after they block have a drastically high block mit that stays at that flat value until the second or 2 is up where it returns to normal active block valuse with no benefits to that aside from more armor, health, and a shield perhaps allowing for moderately higher block mit on normal active blocking.
now as for the last and real contraverstial thing that ashes isnt doing rn and doesnt seem to plan on doing is that they are going with the camera lock system of games like GW2 where you click a button and your camera locks in place with your mouse and pressing it again lets your mouse move freely on the screen to select your abilites and use tab targeting. personally i feel ESO did it best with ability bars that i would say would be best limited to 6 abilites per bar AT MOST so that way you dont need to awkwardly click on your abilites but can press the number key quick and easily with than a key to swap bars. this also could even allow for ESO's style of ultimate ablities that could be used for stalemate breaks if that becomes an apparant issue just like how medics uber in TF2 was meant to break stalemates.
Really i feel if that last point can be covered by the devs and done well with maybe like 4 ability bars of 5 or 3 of 6 allowing still for either the 20 abilites they want or just 18, than i feel that ashes can finally nail hybrid combat and even do interesting things like eso but better where they could have it so you only need one weapon or set of weapons if your using 2 weapons like 2 daggers or something with not having any more than that will mean when you swap bars, all bars will us your only active weapons and this allowing you to also have multiple weapons equipped even if you can only get the benfits of one at a time which for those who play eso, you understand that the gear system also is pretty perfect even if ESO is horrible balanced because its balanced around solo play first and foremost. like with a gear system where you have set pieces of armor that have a very achievable max limit but NUMEROUS sets all being useful for different situations or builds making all gear you get useful for whatever its set bonus is.
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Comments
Complexity is good, if done right.
I think a good middle-ground for a hybrid is not to half ass the action portion and cater to mostly the tab portion. I’ve played tab, action, and hybrid; right now Ashes is in the tab territory when it comes to hybrid. In order to move it to the enter we need to not have a shit ton of output randomness and a bit more deterministic game-play.
I would prefer we do not have passive defensives; there are ways to achieve a middle ground that doesn’t involve a whole lot of RNG and probability and rewards the high skill player.
If they have perfect block and increased mitigation for imperfect blocks or bracing, that’s perfectly fine to me. There’s many creative ways Intrepid can go about it.
Are you talking about the action camera? Ashes does indeed have an “action” camera.
ESO isn’t really a true hybrid, certainly not a good one if anyone wants to consider it so. ESOs a great example of what MMOs should never do.
god looking at that, i am already so sorry for my run on sentances but the point is that my system i feel would hit that middle ground and especially with the bar swaps, it removes the need for the clunky cam that swaps between being a normal action cam and a tab cam to try to awkwardly hit a middle ground. the whole idea of that part is that you should be able to instantly active whatever ability you want without looking at the key or doing anything but simply moving your finger to the right number key (note that im not saying no cooldowns but that you shouldnt have to take your hands of the keyboard or mouse to reach the damn 7, 8, 9, and 0 keys with honestly the 6 key also is really to far to reach for a hybrid game hence why ESO is broken into 2 ability bars of 5 abilities on each with an ultimate linked to an entirely different key on the keyboard still within your left hand range.
oh i 100% agree hence if i remember right, i did or at least shoulda made clear that there was HEAVY air quotes on dodges getting I frames UNLESS they have a high cooldown hence why i stated in that later comment to the first commenter, that the rouges also should have a good movement passive since they need to be mobile and able to take risks when they go melee as rouges usually are more melee focused than ranged focus with a whole sperate ranger class making that an even clearer distinction with rouges would have a like maybe even 5 to 8 second cooldown on a i frame dodge that has high movement perhaps even ripping the animations from the dodge we saw stevens fighter using in the fighter showcase with the fighter getting a perhaps no cooldown but also no i frame dodge that would look like a classic dark souls roll with the idea being that even without i frames, they are able to be very mobile and can avoid aoes easy that way or get out of the range of a bosses single target if they have the missfortune of getting targeted likely by having been too agressive and having accidentally pulled the aggro from the tanks.
remember in show cases they use god mode.
Perfect block is a boon to those who understand map movement, positioning, control, geometry, and a bane to those who do not.
Not to mention, a team is only as strong as the weakest individual on it. True synergy is how you harmonize together not a mechanic given to you by the devs.
Map Movement, Map Control, Positioning, and Geometry, if you aren’t moving as a team you aren’t moving at all, you’re a cluster fuck at that point.
I think this also comes down to the above, honestly this whole conversation does. I still don’t see a reason for that in a hybrid, its fine for a tab game or tab enhanced game. Not a hybrid.
I don’t have this problem because I purchase the equipment to play the game I want to play. Cam swaps do suck, in the perfect world we’d be a pure hybrid instead of a split hybrid.
true but i dont see how that applise to what i said. XD i was talking about making it so the dodges fit the roles more, pun not intended with the idea being that a rouge shounldnt need mobility as much as a fighter since they arent going to be in the fact of the boss but instead looking to get behind them AND likely will play safer than a figther in terms of aggro only hitting for massive hits with team boosts and at best nomally keeping the same dmg numbers as fighters up with IF they need to avoid an attack because of bad positioning or poor aggression management from them or their tanks, they can have a quick safe i frame dodge with a LONG cooldown for an ability of its type that if used right could save them from their or their teams mistake. on the other hand i was saying that fighters should have HIGH mobility cause they will be in the face of the boss risking the aoes and still with the possible worry of poor agression management although again, aoes will be their major worry since most boss aoes are forward facing meaning they need quick and easy as well as cheep movement that allows them to speedily get out of aoes fast but so as to make it not spammy totally, it really shouldnt have i frames or AT MOST should have very very very very very very very little and precise i frames for the most skilled to allow that movement out of aoes or god fighters to in a way, face tank a boos through pure skill.
The thing about RNG stats is that they're more oriented toward randomness and not deterministic gameplay. Which takes the lowers skill ceiling and mastery the game can have.
I get your point, but also understand that I prefer a high skill ceiling. I get that some people would not be able to play it, but there are many of us in the Ashes community who would not have a problem with that level of gameplay.
thats the thing. like i said, eso IS NOT anywhere close to balanced how a real mmorpg would be seen as the massively multiplayer means ALL aspects are heavily based on multiplayer including even pvp with the thing that i will say once more is that the amount of shit that a support or even just a ranged dps needs to consider especially since bows should require arrows but be either more powerful than ranged magic or much faster and more consistant and easy to use. like the point im trying to make that its the base mechanics of the class also working together with your groups WILDLY different mechanics and roles they play with what you are advocating for is a singleplayer focused action combat game like BDO or ESO. like sure they are fun games but if thats what you want than you might just actually not be into mmorpgs but instead like i said at best, open world multiplayer rpgs or in reality, open world rpgs with multiplayer elements. its not a bad thing but its just best you understand that AoC seems to not be in your perfered genere of game and hence your comment to some degree is slightly missing the point because your talking about balancing the game around something entirely different. like its already too far down a real MMORPG route to really divert from that core unless you wanna wait for another 7 years to get back to the alpha stage because its base level is built around a massively multplayer online genre first and foremost with combat especially being designed for group combat and VERY specialized roels meant to play entirely different parts. like the idea i mentinoed about how i feel fighter and rouge should work would probably suit your action combat fancy but it wouldnt be a cakewalk since there would be a heavy emphasis on being very vulnerable and weak when it comes to taking dmg with a heavy need to monitor aggro as well as use your movement to avoid the aoes all together rather than avoid attacks with perhaps the dodges could have i frames in pvp so as to stop players from being to squishy in the face of other players not forced to attack the tanks OR they could steal an idea from that show i mentioned with tanks having a pvp focused taunt that doesnt necesarily force players to attack them by making it impossible to attack other players but just punishes any player who does try to attack your teammates with a massive dmg proc thats unavoidable if ya do with a REAAALLLLY long cooldown to match its long duration and make sure that the fight needs to drag out for a LONG while before you can recast it.
I’m not sure why you think advocating for a high skill ceiling is for single player mmorpgs, because it’s not true.
You work together whether it be tab or action, it doesn’t matter if it’s WoW or Darkfall. Your view on balance indicates to me you haven’t played that many action MMOs. I’ve played the spectrum.
We are talking about a hybrid in Ashes, so it needs to incorporate the best of both worlds. It needs to work like a hybrid.
no im saying a high skill ceiling on personal skill over teamwork, good gear and ability building, and strategy is what makes it a snigle player game. its the fact that YOU arent supposed to be the linchpin based 100% on massive levels of personal skill to be able to avoid attacks and pump out massive dmg but instead everyone is meant to work together in basically a dnd adventure since the mmorpg genre was based on dnd. theres a reason combat balanced around solo play makes a game no longer a mmorpg and its 100% that fact that if its difficulty is based on personal capability ENTIRELY like say bdo or eso than your gonna have a issue. thats the reason im trying to make clear the amount of shit that the supports will need to consider and why i will also point out that a good real mmorpg would have its bossses and even normal enemies all having unique mechanics that make it so even the dps and tanks need to be aware of the enmies they are going after lest they be wiped out by a mechanic they didnt know about. like dont get me wrong, i do ackowledge that some amount of action combat based skill is good for the melee fighters since that combat is basically entirely meant to be action orientated but thats the exception and even than like i have made clear, it shouldnt be the focus.
And what about games where you need top end gear, you need that personal skill, but you also need that teamwork and strategy?
Thanks @Noaani for completing my thoughts exactly.
ok i dont get what you mean there? your just asking the question that as best i can tell with how you worded it basically is just " and what about games that are in different genres to ashes? hmmm?" like my point was that in games that emphasis teamwork and strategy, those are SUPPOSED to be the key things and that gear and personal skill are more so after thoughts as the real challenge is working together as a team when one miss step can bring the whole team down. like you guys still have to explain why ashes is REALLY a open world single player rpg game with multiplayer elements or at best a open world multiplayer rpg instead of a mmorpg because its meant to be like those oldschool mmorpgs like old school WoW with a HEAVY focus on teamwork needing to be something you have to do basically anything.
my guy the reaspon is simple. high skill ceilings or rather high personal skill ceilings make it so teamwork becomes extermely difficult and most players will just need to rely on their own skill rather than the team. like for example, BDO and ESO both dont really have teammates you fight alongside and work with but rather its more like everyone is a walking god because the personal skill ceiling is to the max that EVERYONE needs to meet a certain dps level and EVERYONE needs to be a tank who can survive the bosses attacks and EVERYONE needs to also have a AT LEAST certain large amount of personal healing meaing more 'teammates' in those games is more so for extra dps and bodies to throw at the boss and not because you need to work as an actual team. a game with heavy restrictions that mean that strategy and teamwork is the true skill ceiling find that they can have everyone easily able to play without any issues of personal skill in terms of what i think your not getting being skill to do action tasks and just play the game at a very high level with instead, everyone hits that level easy but because everyones on that playing field, it means that those who actually know how to work as a team to get the most out of what their group can do will demolish other teams.
It isnt a different genre. It is literally this exact game.
Gear in Ashes is going to be important. If you want to survive long term in this game, you WILL need good gear.
You will also need friends that can work together.
For the record, WoW never required much in the way of teamwork in comparison to its peers.
ok i might have mispoken because what i was pointing out is that yes, max level gear should be required before trying the hardest content and should in general be something to strive for but vertical progression isnt the way to make getting that gear feal worth it long term and honestly just makes it feel annoying to keep going for higher level gear knowing there wont be a end point nor a real reason. basically on that front i was just vouching for horizontal progression where again, max level gear is important but it all has a cap with the real sticking point being that each gear set should provide a 'set bonus' for wearing the full set like in eso with its 5 to 1 piece sets requiring as the names sound anything from 5 pieces of that specific set to just 1 piece in the case of mythic items with the benefit of a system like this is it allows you to make A LOT of interesting and unique gear set effects as devs and as players, you get the freedom to build craft around what sets work together well and with what abilities and the possibilies would only go up as the number of high level nodes increases with the way i would imagine it would work in ashes is as metropalis nodes open up, certain unique crafting materials can drop in that zone allowing for the gathering of the necessary items for crafters to make that high level gear for players and with likely such a wide variety of bosses possible, if they made it so a big part in taking on certain bosses is having for example, the right dmg types or status effects or even just resitences to handle what it is they dish out, it could make virtually ALL sets useful as depending on the situation, one set or another will most certainly make the fight easier by a wide margin so the people who get the snowball going on exploring the whole world and gathering as much max level gear as possible will be the ones most well off to take on any challenge.
Your examples are BDO and ESO, have you played other games?
High skill ceiling does not equate to team-work being harder, that is objectively false. That speaks to those specific games designs.
High skill ceiling games and deterministic gameplay don't oppose each other, they complement each other. They raise the skill ceiling, otherwise known as mastery level.
Player inconsistency brings more deterministic gameplay, not less.
The only subjective thing here is fun.
If players reach that end point, they will stop playing (generally speaking), as progression is the point of an MMORPG to most players.
i have played MANY other general online games but i bring up those 2 primarily as the only 2 'mmorpgs' i have played for more than a few hours because they were the only ones i could at least find something to enjoy with my point is that for an *MMORPG* based on the fact that i at least run trials consistantly in eso and i can tell ya what i have seen that there is very mild ACTUAL mmorpg mechanics and mind you, i based what 'real mmorpg mechanics' are on the learning i have done about previously acclaimed mmorpgs that people actually enjoyed that i started doing when i first got really into ashes around like 2019. my ultimate point is that the amount of shit that players in mmorpgs need to deal with is more than enough that adding a very high techincal skill required level to properly play the game by its nature not only limits heavily how many people can play which hurts the general massively multiplayer aspect but also more importantly, it makes it so its all to easy to have teams wipe for no other reason than their teammates werent REALLY REALLLY REALLLY GOOD. if thats the case and everyone needs a high skill leveling and god tier build than you get and i will keep going back to it cause it is so clear, shit like the meta builds scene in eso where i shit you not, every other week its a new 'INVINCIBLE BUILD THAT WILL LET YOU *SOLO* ALL VETERAN DUNGEONS AND BASICALLY EVERYTHING UNDER TRIALS LEVEL WITH EVEN HALF A FUNCTIONING BRAIN CELL!' because people dont wanna waste time with others anymore and when they go into trials, not only want the best of the best cause wasting any time kills the short attention span of eso players used to just completeing shit on their own with their own skill and builds because its a solo focus'd game basically and it just kills the massively multiplayer aspect that is supposed to focus on EVERYTHING requiring teammates. a low skill ceiling for TECHNICAL SKILL also doesnt mean there will be no difficulty at all but just that the skill will be learning to buildcraft and work as a team as well as learning what yours and your allies abliites can do and where they can be applied. like in a real mmorpg what should set someone apart isnt how well they can do a rotation but rather how well their team works together with a team not even NEEDING to verbally communicate but just at a moments glance know what their other teammates can do and know what the best strategy to win will be.
there wont be. sure gear can be maxed out but as new dungeons drop and new set materials become avalible because of the node progression, it will just become the norm that you ACTUALLY always want to jump into any avalible content to make sure you get the sets from THAT dungeon before it becomes unavalible for possible months or years or at least extremely expensive to get and especailly if its made that corrupted players could theoretically die and have their loot become lost and despawn after they drop it on death than that would help keep the market and meta ever flowing. ya gotta consider this stuff all together and not just look at individual points but even than you missed the point of what makes everyone love the gear progression in eso. like there is a reason that game is one i will stand by having THE BEST gear system in all of the CURRENT market because flat out, its always enjoyable to get new gear and hell, its so damn expensive still to get the gold mats to actually make that gear max level and you need to pay a lot of gold to max out your bank space meaning you have to at least on that front, heavily involve yourself in the trading scene to do it.
last thing i will say to you seen as im done repeating myself is that in a game like for honor or dark tide or payday 2 or rust or name your fucking pick, sure, deterministic gameplay based on a high skill level required to play endgame is literally what makes the content for those games in the first place but the issue is that an mmorpg isnt about deterministic gameplay that always encourages solo play and an elitist mindset that make the playerbase smaller by telling even the average denominator to fuck off isnt good for an mmorpg as mmos are supposed to be about the adventure and the thrill of questing with your friends through massive sprawling worlds. if that doesnt tickle your fancy because you think that it'd be too slow or annoying to have to rely on other people beause they keep dragging you down with their base level low skill level fucking things up than maybe consider whether ashes is really the game for you. note that i wont respond unless i deem that future comments are actually new points and not just continuous misunderstandings and repeats.
It actually had one of the worst gear systems of any MMO when I played it.
Rather than simply adding better gear and harder content that you need that better gear for, they simply altered the balance of the games combat so that the stats and effects on the gear you had that were previously the best were all of a sudden not very good.
The need to spend gold on gear is not unique to ESO, your comments make me think you are only really comparing it to WoW.
That said, WoW's gearing system was better than ESO's, because Blizzard didn't need to rely on altering the games combat system every few months just to encourage players to go out and get some gear.
Why do you think Ashes isn't for me when we're in alpha? What's this gatekeeping mentality that you have?
I get the impression you've never chased mastery let alone been around communities formed around being the best possible player they can be, there are guilds in the mmorpg world that literally build their communities around parsing, vods, and gameplay improvement in order to achieve the top spots.
Ashes is already going to be a grind, anyone who are used to hand outs and easier games are going to have long adjustment period if they can at all, Ashes isn't like ESO where you run your trials everyweek and put the game down. Ashes will take much longer to progress and master over all.
I think you need to understand that ESO is not the best game to reference when talking about mmorpgs, there are plenty of others whom have a high skill ceiling, gear, build, and teamwork matter. If ESO and BDO are your only experiences in the genre, then you're incredibly inexperienced.
I get your points that you think that a high skill ceiling pushes people away, but it brings people together who want to do things at the highest level.
I like to do things at the highest level and there are communities for that.