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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.
Balancing ranged vs melee
Boneshatter
Member
MMOs have historically had a tough time balancing ranged and melee dps because of the inherent advantages that ranged have. They can attack sooner, have better target uptime, have to move less, can spread out to minimize directionals, and even use the environment to make themselves difficult to attack.
I thought it would be a fun discussion to hear what some of you would like to see in Ashes in an effort to keep both dps types viable and desirable. These are some of the things I've seen games do to varying degrees of success:
-making melee much tankier than ranged through better armor, better defensive cooldowns, or more health
-making melee so mobile that uptime is rarely interrupted
-giving melee some decent ranged attacks to use when they can't be on target
-giving melee DOT effects to counter the lost uptime
-making melee damage profiles very bursty to lessen the loss from movement
-making melee just do more damage assuming some of the damage will be lost from movement
-giving melee strong party buffs (not likely with a bard class around)
-giving melee a number of status ailments like slows, stuns, etc
-making ranged so immobile that when they do have to move it hurts them a lot
So, what types of things have have y'all seen that did or didn't work? What would you do?
I thought it would be a fun discussion to hear what some of you would like to see in Ashes in an effort to keep both dps types viable and desirable. These are some of the things I've seen games do to varying degrees of success:
-making melee much tankier than ranged through better armor, better defensive cooldowns, or more health
-making melee so mobile that uptime is rarely interrupted
-giving melee some decent ranged attacks to use when they can't be on target
-giving melee DOT effects to counter the lost uptime
-making melee damage profiles very bursty to lessen the loss from movement
-making melee just do more damage assuming some of the damage will be lost from movement
-giving melee strong party buffs (not likely with a bard class around)
-giving melee a number of status ailments like slows, stuns, etc
-making ranged so immobile that when they do have to move it hurts them a lot
So, what types of things have have y'all seen that did or didn't work? What would you do?
2
Comments
Dungeons with a ton of corners and things to hide behind would prevent ranged classes from dominating there, while open spaces outside of dungeons would benefit them.
For pve bosses you could make it that the tank needsto generate a solid 3-4 second threat lead beforw anyone can attack, wouldnt help to much withtrash packs though
Dps in what? AoE grinding? Raiding? PvPing? Farming singletarget specific mob (for a quest, its drops or other reasons) ?
Since raiding happens in the open world and pvp can happen any time, each archeyupe brings some function to the adventure, as well as a unique playstyle.
You may play a ranger, that perhaps had good dps but gets owned by most archetypes in pvp. The fighter in your party will even the scales if conflict breaks out as you raid or grind xp. The fighter perhaps has lower dps.
Understand the scope of the game, see the big picture and then try to put the pieces together. And then, whatever seems unbalanced, should be addressed.
But having as a starting point the DPS, in this case melee vs ranged, who solve any relevant problem.
For me every archetype should be fun to play and have some competitive edge in PvX.
Balancing the DPS means nothing in AoC. It means something in wow, eso, ff14 and other heavily instanced mmos.
Its a very general question and not exclusive to any particular content.
I think one balance issue (I don't know how this works by the way) is how they are going to limit roll dodge. I've seen in the streams there doesn't seem to be a resource for it? Is it done on a specific number you can do or something?
If it's not I can imagine range just rolling away from engagements.
Its my understanding that there is a stamina-type resource used for dodge rolls, active blocking, and likely a few other things. It just hasn't been implemented yet.
That might be a way to balance them- give melee faster stamina regen or a larger pool.
I dont know if you played L2, in which there were castle sieges, but just like in reality, there are stages of war/battle and strategies.
Rightly so archers should be strong on the walls, just like fighters should be strong indoors and narrow places (CC lockdowns) and rightly so tanks must initiate every change on the battlefield.
I want to see situational buffs to archetypes, like fighters and archers having a sparta-kick ability to throw people of the walls and into the chaos of battle.
All right! Your vote is that melee (particularly fighters) should have ample crowd control. Now the discussion is getting somewhere. Thank you.
The devs need to use their imagination and produce unique playstyles for the 8 archetypes. They then need to go beyond the limits of imagination and add meaningful flavour to the class combos.
Look at ESO, a heavily dps centered pve game, (with turtle/burst pvp rotations; but that's another story). They all feel THE SAME.
Look at BDO. It feels like taken but with different animations. You don't feel the difference playing them classes. Dash dash dash, dmg dmg, ultra defence frame, repeat repeat
With the help of imagination and dev skill, classes should bring unique situational abilities to the table. Since the world is both pvp and pve at the same time, there is no need to waste time balancing the numbers. They should balance the enjoyment between the classes.
They should introduce gameplay features (like knocking people off siege walls), and the simple knowledge of "my class is going to SHINE when this situation arises" will make people pick the class they like, not just the class with the best DPS. Because again, dps doesn't matter if your party combo can't withstand a surprise pvp encounter.
And that is why I am a massive supporter of active skills (not talking about action combat) as opposed to passives and stat trees for both the class and the weapons. Actions will always be fun, if the devs provide the gameplay opportunities (kick someone off a wall), as opposed to balancing the numbers of unseen stats/passives, which is impossible.
now melees are op and ranged sucks. how do you balance ranged then?
The reason that melee should deal more *and* be tankier is because of how group to large pvp works, the more ranged enemies there are, the less likely melee will be able to close the gap before being mowed down by all of the ranged attacks. You also need them to have tools to stay inside of the enemy group longer than a few seconds so that they can actually be disruptive. Normally this means you will add in CC tools, but I think raw damage and high defense can preform the same goals of pressuring the enemy without creating a CC chain meta.
You get provided with your general class flavor and then it’s up to you to make it work how you want to.
We’ve seen gap closers/space makers on all the classes so far (if you include the clerics root), and an ability to swap weapons whenever.
I personally view it as your class kit may make you better suited for a particular range, but your weapon and armor choices will really decide how you end up performing at whatever distance.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see tanks and fighters regularly having bows as a second weapon so when the ranger flips away they can keep up damage on them. Same with boss movement.
A bad fighter will just keep running around it trying to get in melee range to use an ability, while a good one will switch to their bow while they chase after it until their leap comes back up.
In most other games I’ve played if the mage isn’t able to keep space on a melee they are more likely to die, but in this game the mage can just switch to their long sword, start slicing you and pop some point blank spells. I see the inverse happening a lot too. Melee can’t get to the range and they just keep kiting taking no damage, but if that melee can switch to their bow and keep the damage up until their gap closer comes back up for the big damage it could have a different outcome.
I said these are some things I have seen games try. I never said Ashes should do any of them.
In the reveal video, some spells were able to slightly curve around obstacles including rocks/trees however hard LOSing (line of sighting) will not from what i watched anyway
-Better access to CC including hard CCs
-More gap closers/speed buffs, maybe some attacks that are gap closers or have incorporated movement
-More durability, whether that be higher base stats or from defensives skills
Becomes too braindead though, atleast keep it skill dependent to keep on top of ranged classes
I thought about this when I watched it, I hope there is some LOS, don't think it would be very balanced if range can just spam attacks even if you're behind cover. But don't think it will work like that will it?
If they get their attack off when you're in the open and then move round cover I'm alright with the skill hitting you.
I would like that.
In the reveal video like i wrote, it curved when it was a slight LOS
When Steve moved his character to the point where he couldn’t see the enemy it didn’t work
And had to move away from the rock
So yes, safe to there will be LOS
Reckful the line of site God
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