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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.
Comments
The person I was quoting tried to compare the difficulty of hitting someone with an arrow and hitting someone with an aoe. Which is why I referenced the launcher.
Both actions are "shots", both require skill. But one is a huge damn aoe that damages people in a radius, while arrow is a point.
You know why they were doing it? Because you chose to completely ignore the other part of the word you had the issue with. "Skillshot" has two parts to it. And seemingly quite a few people don't care about how the "shot" is done, but they definitely care about the lvl of "skill" that's required to constitute an action as a "skillshot".
And I've played Valheim and am now playing Palia (also has free-aim bows). I can lead a target just fine and manage to kill several moving (in different direction) targets within seconds. That doesn't prevent me from acknowledging that hitting someone with a delayed-effect aoe still requires skill and could potentially require even more skill than hitting someone with a super fast arrow/projectile.
Is this not "action" to you?
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx8kioFy97k3florueRIumuB6d4mrE9s5X?si=w3svwowMwm8VJPt6
Yes, they didn't show off arrow drop physics (if there will be any), but the game is in alpha so obviously not everything will be showable.
No, it’s a small piece. There is a lot more to action than that.
There’s no measure of precision in that video at all, every attack hit when with the reticle being off the target.
If it was action there would be a lot more dexterity required.
Less targeting, more aiming.
Here’s some Archery, with mounted combat. In Conq Blade.
https://youtube.com/shorts/bmaBbkcW9Pk?si=Pgm44LO_MPLGvVFy
Here’s some Archery in Valheim.
Here’s some Darkfall Archery.
And
Here’s the Apoc video.
Now you have some juxtaposition.
Yes, I know bows shoot projectiles. Awesome.
Out of all of those videos the only semi-good one is the first one, but even that has the MC of the video just shooting into a crowd or in general direction of fairly slowly moving dudes. There were a few moments where he lead a target and got them, and if I'm not blind that game has a "skill effect applies at the end of the animation" design, which is why sometimes it felt as if he was aiming only at the very last second of the shot. But yes, that's a nice archery video.
Every other video is of someone shooting big targets, that, in Darkfall's case, either have a ton of ping or a HUGE margin of error (read hitbox) on them (hit at 2:10 is hilarious).
And Apoc video barely has any archery in it, on top of Intrepid saying "apoc existed for us to test Action combat backend and we realized that mmo wouldn't be able to support it well enough".
But again, how is "shooting a projectile" pertains to me asking "do you consider melee to be action combat"?
Poison shot in New world can be aimed at the ground and completes the same task as the Ground AoE, so the projectile is just the proverbial spoon, whether the spoon is there or not it doesn't matter. What matters is the end result. What if I had to throw the Ground AoE like a trap, is that a skill shot? How wide is the projectile allowed to be before it no longer becomes a skill shot? My point is that anything that is not a Tab Target auto lock can be phrased as a Skill Shot. No ones interested in figuring out or learning where your personal rules begin and end.
What exactly is the proposition instead of skill shot? Is there an alternative or are we just being arbitrary?
Now that this thread started, I considered it a composed word, something which is a shot and has a skill associated with it. It could be the character skill too, if it leads to head shot critical hits decided by the game.
I prefer staying close to commonly used terminology.
I would also prefer "tank" to not be a class name in AoC and Steven to stop using the word PvX because it's confuses me. First I thought he wants to attract both PvP and PvE players, now I think he actually wants to drive them away.
As a debate is interesting to see how you can morph commonly accepted terms to cover other things better described by other words. Humans (probably animals too) want to be as clear as possible when they transmit a message. Not Steven.
I pulled some videos off of YouTube to for you to have juxtaposition.
I’ll call a spade a spade, when a game is tab, I call it tab. When a game is tab enhanced I’ll call it tab enhanced. When a game is truly hybrid I’ll call it hybrid.
Then I have succeeded.
And the only juxtaposition between those videos and AoC's ranger showcase is that the "hitbox" in AoC is a bit wider. Though that Darkfall moment that I pointed out was reaaaal fucking close to AoC's soft-lock limit (though again, I do think it was just ping).
Ok, then have there ever been a hybrid? Could you juxtapose that instead?
And if there haven't been, then what would you even consider a hybrid? Cause at this point I'm positive that you don't consider free-aim melee to be action combat.
On a separate note now.
@Azherae I wanted to get your take on a limited range for tab targeting. Is that a thing in other games? Is it (could it be) a good thing for Ashes? L2 let you target anyone who was within the drawing distance (mb even outside it, I forget) and just had a limit on written targeting (as in, if you wrote /target X, there'd be a limit on how far X could be standing away from you).
I was thinking about letting ranged action hits/abilities fly beyond the tabbing range and still have effect. Unless I missed smth this would raise the value of action combat w/o making tabbing worse. The limit on tab's range could be somewhere around 1.5 the range of the longest-reaching ability.
The most obvious benefit of limitless tabbing is obviously "I tab him from 10 miles away and I know for sure that I can move around and always see him", but imo that's a bad design that gives a bit too much benefit to the tabbing system.
What are your (and/or your group's) thoughts on this?
Well explained.
With that in mind, I couldn't care less about having to aim abilities in a MMORPG game.
I'm fine with having some skillshots, that I have to aim (2-3 in my whole kit of 15-20 abilities), and I'm fine with having to place certain abilities.
However, I couldn't care less about having to constantly aim my basic attacks and abilities. If I wanted that sort of gameplay experience, I'd just play games that aren't MMORPGs.
Now when it comes to hybrid style of combat, what you're really getting is tab-target at its core, that allows you to aim and place certain abilities. You could aim more stuff in the "action" camera, like the basic attacks and some abilities (because you could just freely aim and freely use the ability, without having to actually target something).
If you expect to have to aim in 3D, where the vertical plain especially matters (the difference of aiming close to targets feet, or head), then I'm sorry, this is just the wrong genre for that. There's always going to be a lock system, where if you aim close enough, you'll hit the target, and that's how it should be.
Now whether they have used the word skillshot wrong, I couldn't care less. I know the OP probably thinks it implies they don't know what they're talking about, and fears that we won't get many actual skillshots (the aimed abilities in this case).
I think it would be much more helpful and productive if everyone just said what they wanted to say, and get to the main point, rather than dancing around it, arguing semantics, and arguing about definitions for 5 pages.
Personally don't like I need aiming like FPS/TPS in a mmorpg. If I want that kind of skill celling and gameplay I will just play that knid of games such as Apex or Splatoon instead of playing mmorpgs.
And with that said, that's what actually is with some of the posters here, right? Not wanting to call tab enhanced, tab enhanced because they don't want action combat.
and I have no problem treating them exactly how I see them for it.
It's a lot easier to respect the people who outwardly say they don't want a hybrid and want pure tab then people who try to hide their intentions.
GTAoE and a tab enhanced are incredibly apt.
No need to mislead people.
You see, if people would just say THIS shit. We'd get somewhere.
Tab as a combat system has nothing to offer anymore when you're a mastery chaser.
BDO limits similarly, Elite has other systems, Onigiri limits, NeverWinter never makes it matter, other MMOs I've played, generally didn't matter, or I don't remember because once you're used to a limit existing, you don't think about it.
Beyond that, I generally play Action type games, that's the issue with asking me, and why I answered with the link. I believe therefore is that 'it's the same' in my experience, draw distance is tab-target distance, but ability ranges are shorter than that, as listed.
And again, if there are no hybrid mmos out there - tell us what you envision them to be. How, in your opinion, should Intrepid combine shooter mechanics with a tab system.
p.s. yes, I would prefer a full tab, simply because I believe it's easier to build a deeper combat system with that, instead of trying to push shooter mechanics into said system.
But yeah, I get you and thx for the context.
It’s your preference, I’m not going to on rag you for things that bring you joy, but with a little bit of cheerio training and aimlabs, you too can do well in action games.
Perfect time to tell you that the closest thing to a hybrid in my opinion is TERA simply because I’ve sat down and compared a lot of mechanics on my spare time. No, I don’t actually think a true hybrid exists on any scale. When we actually study mechanics of varies titles across the genre.
TERA wasn’t complete free aim, it has mouse over abilities that had were attached to a targeting system and I think it had GTAoEs.
That’s why I wasn’t ragging on GTAoEs level of difficulty to pull off.
And I don’t believe tab has more combat depth than action, because there’s less mechanically in tab. But if it brings you joy, great.
I tried TERA. I did not grab me, but I'll probably try it again later on just to get a better feel for it. I also tried it w/o ground indicators for enemy abilities, so it was needlessly more difficult than it should've been
And if you say that TERA was close to a hybrid, but wasn't also a complete free aim game, then do you have any ideas that might be useful to Intrepid for trying to make a proper hybrid system?
Or do you just want them to not call their abilities skillshots and that's the entirety of your feedback?
nah train sc1 splitting. so much better for aim, precision and hand-eye coordination xd
mechanical skill has nothing to do with combat depth. strategy does. look at chess and go, they are more complex and deep than any action combat game you've ever played and they require 0 mechanical skill
Chess is wholly deterministic without any form of output randomness. Action combat games are way more deterministic then tab games ever will be and can be without output randomness.
I don't think you know what strategy is in actuality.
pokemon and final fantasy (single playe rgames) have more strategy (specially ff tactics) than action mmorpg xD at least b4 u become ultra strong
tactics can make a combat system deep...so can execution skills
Output Randomness doesn't give depth to a combat system, it detracts from it. Determinism is why Chess is a high tier strategy game, because it limits your choices...
Action will always be more deterministic than a tab game, thus will always require more strategy and tactics.
The only thing anyone can say about action is that a highly deterministic game is boring to them.
also not all tab games rely on randomness when it comes to combat. randomness isnt a requirement. and u can have randomness in action combat. it all depends how you make the game.
you can remove all randomness from strategy and have more depth than an action game without randomness.
You made a comparison to chess - chess is deterministic. Action combat is fundamentally more deterministic than tab combat.
Action combat will be fundamentally more strategical and tactical than tab combat.
That does not mean it will be fun, however.