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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
not necessarily. it depends how you design and code the combat...
That's why I said fundamentally, dudeanator.
ok define combat depth T_T or what elements make combat deep. tip: they have nothing to do with the game being action or tab
Man I had a whole thing written in my phone.
Try Archer! You’ll experience the bloom on the reticle and the arrow physics. Also, combos are very important.
That’d actually help me in our conversation once you get a feel for it. Mage is another one too.
I don’t like how sloppy Ranger looks, it’s bothersome. But TERAs archer is a decent compromise.
And the reason I prefer they have more concise wording is because they can accurately set expectations and not mislead people.
I set this entire thread up and it demonstrates that by my very intent and design.
“Combat depth has nothing to do with combat systems.” Is just what you effectively said.
When we start out with jargon like combat “depth”, instead of how the games coded in 3D space it already doesn’t give me the confidence that you’re able to have the discussion.
Aiming adds more mechanics to the game and opens the game up to more interact points of data. It also allows the devs to create new skills they otherwise can’t in a tab target system.
What I think you’re trying to get it and this is a stretch that tab has more complex forms of data, which isn’t true.
At this point I'm sure we won't get anywhere. You just want shooter mechanics in Ashes and I just want some action abilities that can be blocked. Our interests cross paths, but you're just much more of stickler for semantics of said mechanics and for very particular features that I have no interest in.
We'll see what Intrepid decide to do with their rangers. Initial plan was always to fall back on full tab, if hybrid doesn't work out, so I wouldn't be surprised that they change course down the line if they hear a ton of negative feedback about the action part of the game.
Well, I at least hope they will, because otherwise we'd be looking at yet another 5 years of "subjects to change" and "we're still deciding what to do".
I don’t think any tab version of this game will be superior to what they started in Apoc. Apoc is one of the things that gave me confidence that they’d make great combat.
I don’t see that same level of combat in the tab system.
You’re being a bit hyperbolic with shooter mechanics, as the games I’ve posted above and shooters aren’t the same.
Im a stickler for concise wording because that’s the best way to temper reasonable expectations.
You only value the shootery mechanic of the action combat. You still haven't directly said if you consider free-aim melee to be action combat, which is why I assume that you don't.
And I don't remember if I've posted the wiki link before, but Intrepid will also not have headshots, so even the base level of "skillshots" is way lower than majority of other action combat (i.e. shooters) games. And I HIGHLY doubt we'll ever get headshots, even if I would prefer to have them because I want an mmo that respects verticality in its combat (preferably 3 sections of it).
Free-aim with a melee weapon? Am I throwing it?
New World has action melee, thought I don’t like the auto-snapping. Gives players a false impression they’re good.
Conq Blade is all action melee.
Darkfall, Darkfall Unholy Wars is action combat, all of it.
Valheim is action.
Souls games are action.
I’ve known Intrepid will not have head shots and they will be normalized. I would like them to succeed in their hybrid combat but I have my doubts when all we have is some basic tab game.
A basic tab game would not let you do any attack w/o a tab target present. I've played that kind of game for 12 years so I would know.
This is why I say that Ashes is a good hybrid, while you say that it's not even a hybrid game, because you're used to (or at least want) shooter mechanics.
Side by side, Ashes has GW2 combat, which is tab enhanced.
I’ve played the spectrum since the early 00s.
You keep saying “shooter” mechanics, Conquerors Blades combat system wouldn’t make a shooter. Neither would Darkfall, TERA, Valheim.
Is half of the mage's skills' ability to be set off w/o a target not action combat?
Is you shooting an arrow w/o a target not action combat?
What exactly am I missing here? What would constitute "not a tab enhanced" game to you? Literally a game that is fully action combat? A game that has no tab at all?
(it is also, now that I have played it, too fast for an MMO, as Dygz pointed out, my original opinion on that was based on previous AC games which were slower).
Everything else is clearly a semantics discussion waiting to happen.
Is it hybrid though? Or are you making a joke there? Cause I don't think I've tried shooting the weapons w/o a target so I don't know
Apparently a lot, those arrows are clearly coded with a targeting system. You can see it in the “action” toggle where the reticle isn’t on a mob and he still hits it.
That’d be a miss in action combat.
As for the "reticle not on the target but can still hit", I already said this before. Their hitboxes definitely require more work and I definitely expect them to work more on them. Released action combat games would obviously have better hitboxes because they are released and finished.
Here's an example from the video. Anywhere closer towards the mob and the reticle "caught" the target. Literally fixable by making better hitboxes.
And as I've also already said before, we haven't seen a freeflying arrow being "caught" be a target that runs into it. I do hope they show that, but I feel like that'll have to be an A2 player tested thing, rather than a showcase one.
But the ability to let out arrows w/o a target already makes this system at least partially "action". And you know what "partially action" means - that's it's a hybrid! Omg who woulda sunken.
I am being serious, yes, about that part. I do have opinions on this, but I don't think they apply to Ashes and based on your conversation with Solvryn I could not possibly add anything of worth to any discussion with them.
The thing that makes AC6 hybrid combat is simple enough though.
Your lock on guarantees only that your weapon shot will attempt to hit the spot the target is moving to, at the moment you fire the weapon. Changes in their vector in response to 'seeing the shot' for slow attacks or 'misdirection' for faster ones, will cause you to miss. You can then factor for this in various ways, most of which are easier if you do not use the 'Target Lock' option for the camera.
Same for things like the Elite Dangerous Plasma Accelerator. It shows you a target point where you should point the thing 'if your opponent actually kept going in that direction' but it's often wrong because your opponent is maneuvering, so you use it + your expectation or knowledge of how you expect their trajectory to change while the shot is moving.
So you can 'select your target' and that gives you an idea or indicator 'how to keep your focus on that target'. And then you do the sub-action of leading the shot yourself as necessary. Ashes currently hasn't shown many abilities where this is the case, the projectile 'finds the target for you' if they change direction, which makes sense because Ashes has not shown any conserved velocity and uses Split Body movement without any recovery frames.
The issue is technically that AC6 is too fast for most people to even lead shots despite having velocities on movement, so you probably indeed have no reason to fire your weapons without a lock on. I don't do it often either and I actually use weapons that benefit from it.
I think it's fair to call something 'tab enhanced' if just 'having the target' guarantees the effectiveness of the projectile due to the projectile 'homing in'. This is separate from, say 'Aim Assisted' where the reticle sticks to the enemy and the character fires the projectile at the sticky reticle (AC6 with target lock on), and also different from the aforementioned Elite where the indicator tells you where to put a predictive shot to hit your 'Tab Target' (AC6 with Target Lock off using things like Laser Rifle).
Whatever Steven means by 'Hybrid Combat' though, is what they should use. If 'Hybrid' means 'Tab Enhanced', then let the sandals be thrown with their autocorrecting trajectories.
I just rewatched (yet again) the action part of the ranger showcase and there's a moment where the reticle is way far from the target, but because Steven tabbed to the next victim the character auto-aimed correctly.
So I do think that at least the arrows don't follow the targets and it's just the tabbed character can just auto-aim precisely. But I guess the only way to test this would be pvp, cause arrow speed is too damn high for mobs to just dodge it.
its reticle bloom they’d need to adjust first and that won’t matter if it’s a targeting system, instead of a projectile with a forgiving soft lock (like TERA).
Which is why I told you this conversation would be much easier if you played TERA a little more.
I hope they show more projectile mechanics and collision, but right now I have doubts. Probably more so than others because I don’t want a tab based game.
Auto-target, because an algorithm guides the projectile.
If it was auto-aim it’d be more similar to an aim assist which helps you screen center.
I'm jk, but the point is the same. It's not the projectile that magically turns mid-air, it's the character that turn his body to aim at the target.
And in the context of "you can shoot arrows whenever you want", I'd imagine that arrows count as separate projectiles and can be "caught" by moving targets. But I'm 90% sure we will not see this interaction until A2.
RPGs are still RPGs with 100% player workload. That’s not relevant to a combat system. Most MMORPGs enthusiasts like myself understand this.
Tab targeting causing toons to turn on the z axis is not at all surprising, it’s normal.
I too watched it again, can confirm even with the reticle it’s a targeted system.
Could you point out the moment that leads you to believe this?
The Ranger has had projectile based abilities, this wasn’t an argument.
But a projectile guided by an algorithm is a targeting system.
Aim aided by an algorithm is an aiming system.
Facing your target in a targeting system is standard.
Reduced bloom and soft lock will be the closest we ever get to a balanced hybrid.
Ok, reduced bloom. To me this is the same as proper hitboxes, but I get your stickler point. On this we agree, I expect/want weaker bloom as well.
I don’t like aiming without target system simply because I think action combat is not that complete like tab combat to put in mmorpgs, and it simply way harder to make good gameplay and agency for ranged archetypes. And according to wiki that action combat is far less dependent on RNG. If Intrepid still think it's a good idea. I don’t even know how to balance the risk vs reward between tab mode and action mode to make the combat feels good for both side of players in small scale fights and large scale fights.
Still the hybrid combat Intrepid presented no matter what it should be called, I like it. The targeting system in action mode seems solved situations like when healer need to cast single target healing ability on someone was covered in a large group of people. It also looks like AC6's target system(I don’t know what you call it, I simply call it target system), different in detail but what Intrepid presented is good enough for me.
To me now so called action combat lack too much to replicate the fun part about what human body able to do in reality into a virtual game, and doesn’t always feel having control to my character like my body in reality. Especially when playing a mmorpg like AoC as a ranger.
For example I able to run forwards and shoot arrows backwards at the same time. It’s easy to replicate and balance in tab combat and feel good. In my experience it’s not easy to replicate in action combat but still doable however the experience the feeling and respond is not good as tab combat. Because in reality the bow hand does the aiming about 80~90% then eyes, and action combat doesn’t offer the agency for me to able to control my character like how I control and use my body.
A further example in reality I can shoot turning arrows to hit target behind object. It’s easy to replicate in tab combat and using RNG to easily to represent the shot hit or miss. I don’t think it’s easy or even I doubt it’s able to replicate this in action combat that need aiming.
Two things I can see it is tab. They also said it’s tab.
Back to sleep.
If you want just an action system and not a hybrid system - just say so. But you keep saying that you dislike their hybrid system, yet you can't explain how/why/what you dislike and how it could be made better. That is bad feedback.