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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 and Class feedback
Solvryn
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
With the direction of the classes starting to take shape, I think there is a level of importance to see how the class kits are going to act across this hybrid system.
Tab abilities and action abilities are coded and calculate differently across 3d space. While it is nice to see what the mostly tab portion of the game is going to look like, I have a hard time seeing the vision for the action portion. It seems like the action portion of what is supposed to look like either doesn't exist or may become secondary.
If anyone has ever played GW2 they would know that its tab game with a reticle toggle added later to mimic the “feel” of action combat. It’s still tab with the illusion of a hybrid system.
If I were to take the Cleric showcase now and do a side by side comparison to action games such as TERA, Darkfall, Darkfall Unholy Wars, Conq Blade, Valheim and look at the abilities and see if they behave and interact in the same way I can easily say those abilities don’t really behave nor are they coded the same way as the abilities in the titles I’ve listed.
It would be really grand to see the comparisons and the breakdowns in a livestream to see how one ability changes in the hybrid system. The real guts, gears, and ratios of the abilities, the calculations and science behind it would make for a really cool livestream.
Tab abilities and action abilities are coded and calculate differently across 3d space. While it is nice to see what the mostly tab portion of the game is going to look like, I have a hard time seeing the vision for the action portion. It seems like the action portion of what is supposed to look like either doesn't exist or may become secondary.
If anyone has ever played GW2 they would know that its tab game with a reticle toggle added later to mimic the “feel” of action combat. It’s still tab with the illusion of a hybrid system.
If I were to take the Cleric showcase now and do a side by side comparison to action games such as TERA, Darkfall, Darkfall Unholy Wars, Conq Blade, Valheim and look at the abilities and see if they behave and interact in the same way I can easily say those abilities don’t really behave nor are they coded the same way as the abilities in the titles I’ve listed.
It would be really grand to see the comparisons and the breakdowns in a livestream to see how one ability changes in the hybrid system. The real guts, gears, and ratios of the abilities, the calculations and science behind it would make for a really cool livestream.
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Comments
Edit: I was wrong on the bold point. There are cone abilities and such. That's the kind of stuff I want to see more of.
GW2 is still one of my favorite MMO's for combat, but the action portion of its hybrid system is about as substantial as a Mesmer clone, and AoC, so far, looks the same. I really liked TERA's combat too, but it was the literal only good thing about that game.
- Irrelevant side note: Mesmer is my favorite class of any game and I hope one of the classes in AoC will play like it.
What really is, is tab-target at it's core, but with more emphasis on targeted abilities, skillshots, and the free aiming mode, which will allow you to just point at stuff you want to damage or heal, rather than pressing tab and cycling between targets.
With that being said, I do agree we need to see more of how "action" camera will work, especially with healers. I am interested to see how they will manage targeting allies in the action camera mode, especially with abilities that can be cast both on enemies and allies. It could be that it's not really ready yet, and that it doesn't work.
I feel like you weren't around for the bigger discussions but overall it's not that those things are different.
It's that if the reticle does not NEED to be aimed there's balance issues for some.
We're probably past the point of coding where it matters to the thing you said.
Cause iirc BDO's bows have soft tab, right? So would that mean that BDO is barely even an action game? My mind just doesn't seem to work in a way where it sees the difference between an action ability in a tab game and a whole game full of action abilities that seemingly function in the same way, yet people complain that those abilities are not "action" or that they don't contribute towards the game being a hybrid.
Would a high-skill reticle-based ranged-weapon-only heal be considered a proper "action" ability then? Cause ironically enough even NW had fucking tab targeting for their healing (unless they added a ranged reticle heal after the release).
Not my place to say because I don't know what Solvryn is talking about. This is not to say 'Solvryn is just talking random shit', I don't know their development/study experience.
Projectile velocity and raycasts are the main things that matter, but in UE5 I would expect a tab target projectile to work the same as it has in L2 or older games like that where it just corrects its vector on every 'tick' with a reverse 'raycast' from the tab target instead of needing to check 'what else it could have hit' for sanity.
That's one meaningful difference between them. An aimed reticle ability that is not 'reverse raycast' at the point of you launching the attack misses more when you are out of sync and would only have clipped the edge of the target, but that's just changing the curvature constraint on the projectile.
So it's like... the best way to explain it would be that This is kinda a 'toggle' or should be in most modern games. This is why I still expect TL to be mostly an Action game now that Amazon has demanded they fix it. They're tweaking a variable and MAYBE a calculation path. You can literally 'turn Action Combat on and off' depending on how you built it (I have no idea how Ashes built it) these days.
If you want to get the real feeling go buy Predecessor instead assuming you even can from where you live. I THINK you can still get it on Steam. SMITE is not quite as helpful but should also work.
Either way, it's not really something a less technical person will notice or understand in general even with the explanation. You can just trust that Solvryn does understand this and there's a specific thing being looked for that you'd have to be taught how to look for.
Remind me, you're the one who doesn't accept gifted things on Steam, right?
Cause I'd just have someone send it...
I'd consider it an investment in Ashes if the person I count on for PvP incentive/flow feedback has that game to play.
I feel like you missed the point of the offer...
Neither I nor the person who sent the game gift would ever intend or expect to play with NiKr unless requested. For all I know the offer alone is 'uncomfortable'.
If you love MOBAs I'm sure you already know what OP is talking about.
It's hard to have this conversation at a level where everyone can participate and understand.
Tab is the absence of aiming and requires different calculations.
The shapes Clerics use, do not require aiming. They require positing, orientation, or placement - but not aiming.
I'm interested in the behavior of an object (a variable with art attached to it) moving across 3d space, especially how it'll behave from a tab system and an aimed system.
i was joking...i would have declined to receive a game as a gift T_T
Yeah but in general you should assume I can do anything I want anywhere in the world when it comes to tech things in this because reasons.
Yes, legal reasons.
well, the ground targetted aoe and the cone that requires positioning and orientation are elements of action combat. i know what you mean though, you could just look at the ground and still hit your target, but you can do a lot of this in pure action combat games...purely aiming is more of a shooter thing...
I feel like this is just another example of semantic discussions and the lack of concrete definitions for the bigger mmo community. To me, "action" always meant "doesn't require a target to cast". But from all the discussions I've seen, for A LOT of people it's usually "I want to shoot a "gun" in an mmo".
its a mix of both
Asymmetrical games, tab, and action require positioning, orientation, and placement and the first two required them way before action ever game to be.
There is in fact a very specific reason for that that is completely valid to an MMO. People who are more into shooters (at the level of discussing them non-casually) would be able to explain this better with correct terms but basically...
Line-of-Sight 'ducking'.
Cover shooters as a game type involve a lot of situations where both characters are in cover, and both looking for a moment to shoot the other. Particularly seen in 3rd person games where the camera can be above the character's head (like most MMOs).
When the opponent is entirely 'in cover' they are untargetable outright. When they poke out to check, they expect to be able to get back into cover before you can either react to their appearance or fire your shot, or some combination of these that leads to the bullet speed being relevant.
If they fire preemptively, you are aware of it. Depending on their weapon, you now know their rhythm. If they don't, two things are usually the possibilities.
I don't know if you play enough shooters that I don't need to explain these in detail so here's basics just in case. Either they are exposed and aiming in order to get a perfect high reaction shot on you that only 'a fakeout' would dodge, or they are aiming to do the same thing you are, aim at the spot they expect you to be and fire.
In that small case where the only option for even landing your shot is the tiniest sliver of a sightline and maybe 10f of time where you could even be hit in some games, projectile travel speed matters. Any game where the calculation of if it should hit was done at the moment of firing, would result in the person who successfully did a fakeout still getting hit, basically ruining the game.
There are definitely similar scenarios in MMOs, the aforementioned Predecessor is not that far from them combat-wise, and 'tab targeted' abilities have a massive effect on Tanking for Carries (basically the people who are playing the game as a shooter, in Predecessor specifically).
Even if you can shoot straight through friendlies (not always possible) you still can't SEE (your reticle lock is usually blocked) so it's possible for a highly coordinated movement between Tank and Carry to result in a situation where the opponent attempts to hit the Carry who pokes out from behind the Tank and as a result misses BOTH of them, similar to the wall thing.
If you care about this type of gameplay (skill level irrelevant) then you'll care a lot about Action vs Tab Targeting. If you don't care about this type of gameplay/twitch skill, then it will be hard to see any issue. That's probably the best way to determine if a game is 'True Action Combat' or not for most people (i.e. you might manage to not annoy both sides, except you-know-who).
"Can I use the Tank as an actual wall to do this technique and the result be that neither I nor the Tank gets hit?"
The type of 'Action Combat' that certain other people find acceptable, you can still do it, but you'll hit the Tank instead due to the 'reticle bloom'. Any situation where 'pressing the button for the attack in the 4-16 frame window where the 'Carry' stuck their head out but your projectile should not reach them in time, but you hit them anyway' is 'Lock Target' or 'Tab Target'. Because 'soft lock' doesn't actually manage this, you theoretically 'should' lose your lock on the 'Carry' the moment they get behind the 'Tank' again, and end up retargeted on the Tank, and therefore so should your ability.
Because of some specifics of how MOST of BDO abilities work, this is the case there and therefore it is actually a Soft Lock Action Combat game with large reticle bloom.
they are still elements of non targetted combat, arent they?
As a Tank, I definitely want this. Hell, I want even tab abilities to have this, so that even if the enemy is still targeting my mate behind me, if I'm between the two - any projectile flying towards my mate hits me instead.
And I'm sure that it's waaaay more difficult than what I'm imagining, but I feel like this could be achieved through the "same" animation-based combat as L2 had. Add to that a check of "did you have a hard or a soft tab at the start of the animation" and you have yourself a situation that you described.
Iirc in the archer showcase the "bloom" was quite big, so even when Steven went past the soft locked target with his reticle, he could still hit it. I'd prefer if the "bloom" was controlled more by the size of the projectile than just by system-determined difficulty. Arrows and basic magic wand attacks would be "railgunned", while fireballs and iceshards (and the like) would obviously have a fairly big hit diameter.
Would smth like that work in general? And does it seem like smth that could work in Ashes?
Again, I don't actually know exactly what Solvryn is talking about so it might be better to ask in that direction. I have no reason to believe that L2 didn't do this back then. To me personally this is 90s tech, and the Tab Target was an intentional choice to equalize ping and lower the skill ceiling.
I also don't know what the difference is perceived to be, between 'traveling based on initial target with curvature restraint' (which is also old but might not have been easy to optimize before certain breakthroughs, and results in hitting the Tank as you consider) and 'whatever it is Solvryn means'.
I haven't ever implemented anything where there was a meaningful difference, in a specifically 3D game with any form of progressive projectile. Basically 'my expectation is that L2 was coded the way I know how to code it and I don't know what difference in coding Solvryn refers to that isn't what you're talking about'.
So probably yes, you are already used to this from Lineage 2 and that's the reason you don't grasp it either.
Well I'm trying to use the jargon in a way that still invites people into the conversation but really it's unhelpful because it still doesn't convey the science and math behind the system.
I am definitely not interested in the semantic circus that takes part on these forums. Which is why I'm trying to explain how things behave the best I can on this thread.
You soft lock on enemies based on where your reticle is. You can miss if your opponent is strafing and you don’t manually adjust the reticle to lead them. Stuff like missiles would seek out targets but explode after a period of time. You could fire weapons without a lock.
I may be misremembering but I don’t think anything was hitscan it was all projectile based.
There is also a hard lock that focuses your camera on the target in the one coming out soon.
You could still cycle through enemies in a tab kind of way.
Very different games but I feel like it’s relevant in an action vs tab discussion.
This is some gameplay discussing the lock on in the game a bit. There’s a lot of nuance he doesn’t talk about in this section of the video like being able to soft lock missiles and such on multiple targets, but it was the most to the point section in the video.
Armored Core games are entirely projectile based, yes, but the specifics of how exactly to 'make sure your shots hit despite your FCS lock not being enough' differs from game to game. In most of them the answer is just 'you're too far away and your opponent is too fast so you're out of luck', though.
EDIT: Just realized this might have seemed like 'talking to you' when it's moreso just 'adding data for any unfamiliar'.
You’re good. The AC games go deep deep deep into all the different ways things affect your core in the end so I didn’t want to get too lost in the sauce.
I definitely don’t think it would be good to go 1:1 with how AC does it. Some hitscan makes a lot more sense in an MMO environment than it does in AC world. Especially when looking at healing abilities.
The more I think about it though the more I love the idea of the multi target stuff they do. Imagine if while you were charging your chain heal you were able to soft lock who you wanted it to spread to, or even the mages arcane missiles being able to be spread out across multiple enemies. Would be neat.
In an RPG, the character's abilities are supposed to take precedence over player skills - especially player "twitch/dex" skills.
FPS, the focus is player v player.
RPG, the focus is character v character.
Which is why Steven has said that while he's hoping for hybrid - if he had to choose Tab or Action, he would choose Tab.
Hopefully, Steven will be able to implement a hybrid that feels good.