Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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
Active dodging tied to resource costs solves that issue. It's a greater opportunity for skill expression having the chance to avoid heavy hits if you time it properly and manage your stamina effectively.
You can consider it funny if you like. It is, however, inherently true for tab target games.
I don't think that is going to change at this stage. Not sure that I want it to. Twitchy combat isn't generally what this style of game is about.
100% agree with you there. I don't see how a game could do block/dodge stats in combination with active blocking and dodging. What do you think about an overhaul of how these stats are used. Maybe a higher dodge rating equals less stamina used while dodging and a larger iframe window where your block stat will reduce the amount of stamina damage done while active blocking?
I would pass on all of that. That's action combat. The game will allow some control over placement and area of affect for abilities but it's an expansion of tab target combat.
I agree with you as i played rpg's in the past:). Yet, that doesn't mean they have to copy everything like in the past. For example Ball Lightning mage skill doesn't have "homing" follow target, and is just moving in the direction you shoot it. So since there is leeway in some parts, i was hoping that some ranged attacks from mobs would act similar. As someone mentioned " both players and mobs are in-game entities with the same rules", which is not exactly the same, as some of your character skills are not all homing projectiles. Also, just saying " This is pretty standard", or " go play wow or another tab game ", is not exactly the point i want to make here. Anyway, maybe i am just too sensitive when it comes to mechanics and things i want to see in 2024+, as i learned from the past.
Like what happens if a mob shoots an arrow towards you, and if you move to the left or right there is a chance that the homing will loose accuracy, and not hit you. Would this break the game if you potentially consider this approach?, is that bad?. Will it break the turnbase style? "you hit, i hit"?
ps: excuse my broken engrish
This topic would be a great question for the monthly q&a. Do Intrepid plan on adding ranged mobs that will have action abilities?
As pointed out above, this makes all defense action based, with stats as assistance.
It's an issue I've thought about for quite a while, and simply can't come up with an acceptable resolution to.
My hope (and assumption) is that Intrepid are better at this than me.
Steven also said that if the devs could not get hybrid combat working satisfactorily and he had to choose eaither tab-target or action combat, he would choose tab target. Same would be true with mobs, I think.
I'm not sure what you mean by mechnaics you want in 2024.
Regardless of year, RPGs should be more about the character's stats than about the player's personal attributes/skills.
Sure, Active Dodge and Active Block can be fun... but in an RPG characters stats and build should carry more weight.
In an RPG, my character's stats should be the primary factor in whether my character his hit and how much damage is dealt.
In a BR or Shooter, player skills for Active Dodge and Active Block should be the primary factor.
Auto-Lock is mostly irrelevant if you have specced for high mitigation from Ranged Damage.
I mean, "stat sticks" has worked for decades.
If Intrepid went for what you are saying, they can't really claim that people can opt for primarily action or primarily tab combat - people only have that option with offense.
Also, keep in mind, Steven has always said that if hybrid doesn't work, tab is the default.
They 'worked' when that was the only option, but it's an outdated system that isn't particularly engaging and it severely lacks in skill expression.
And you can easily create systems that have both active dodging and stat based defense. The presence of actively dodging some damage doesn't detract from methods of mitigating damage that does hit, which is all that armor should be for anyway.
The fact that 'evasion' could be a stat on armor that triggers even if you literally never move is absurd.
let's not forget it's all RNG as well
Exactly why tab such an unsatisfying combat system. Relying on luck to dodge is a terrible sort of design when we have options to add skill expression universally in a way that doesn't depend on RNG and still promotes spacing into particular defenses through gear.
It's all about balancing how frequently someone can use active defenses, and what determines the cost. Maybe it would be a cooldown, maybe stamina, maybe some other additional resource.
But some stat should never be a source of a full-on dodge or a 'crit defense'. It's cheap, skill-less, and combat is all the worse for making everything reliant on gear blocks over skill.
Saying your game is a hybrid of tab and action, but limiting defense to action only - that doesn't work. I feel the need to remind you again here that if hybrid doesn't work, action is not the default - tab is, because it works.
You can claim it's outdated all you like, but if there isn't a better system...
Action combat is not a better system for an MMORPG, because it reduces the value of gear based upgrades, which are kind of the focus most people have in MMORPG's - essentially action combat is anti-MMO.
I mean, it's not.
Evading an attack could mean something as simple as a sway to one direction. You don't need to move your feet in order to evade.
The notion that movement is required to evade is absurd.
As to the notion of RNG, people that blame it are just bad at what ever it is they are talking about. This is especially true in an MMORPG where RNG is actually not all that random - and in the context of an entire fight, only makes up 1 or 2%.
In what world is mitigation through armor not a defense in your mind? Or abilities that boost armor or spell resist? Have you told yourself that there can't be both built in mitigations and active defensive options for whatever reason?
I hope you realize you're just proving the point here for why stat stick defenses are an outdated relic. There's no true skill expression when your gear is doing 90% of the fighting for you, and it puts far too much reliance on Gear Number Big than actually keeping combat awareness of the game space.
An MMO that plays from the UI is a dull, hollow experience that honestly has no place in an MMO developed in 2024+.
I really dislike how loudly people talk who clearly have just never played a good tab target MMO. You need to make a little more of an honest effort to understand the full potential of the system before you dismiss it based on the downsides you've experienced.
Imo, there's actually way less skill expression in most action MMOs than in tab target. They always devolve into the same rotation optimisation brainrot, where the only thing resembling player interaction consists of dodge-rolling, and activating your parry and CC-break when appropriate, and everything else comes down to optimising the same rotation and procs that you use the same way in every fight. It's just button-mashing, and it gets in the way of class identity, regardless of whether you have fatigue to manage how often your class gets to button-mash.
Players in MMO action combat are way too focused on their own minigames than paying attention to what their opponents are doing and making active decisions on how to deal with the opponent's build, class, party composition, and decisions. Because they don't have enough tools in their skill bar to do anything differently about different builds in the first place.
With what you are saying, I can be using an action ability, put all my skill in to hitting you at long range, and then nope, your mitigation stat makes it a miss.
That isn't good. If your game is asking players to aim at each other, a hit should be a hit.
While it is true that I prefer tab target combat over action, I am absolutely looking at this from the perspective of both (I literally always look at things from as many reasonable perspectives as I am able to imagine).
All of this is besides the actual point - it is just you having your preference for action over tab. It doesn't actaully address the issue at hand - which is that there is no viable way to have both action and tab defense in a hybrid game like Ashes that isn't complete shit.
I totally agree that tab is outdated. However, it's also the best system for an MMORPG in which character progression exists. That is the point of an MMORPG (or just an RPG). You are supposed to improve your character - it isn't a test of your skills vs mine, it is a test of your character vs mine.
Action combat is the best option for if you don't want character progression, or want very little. That isn't really an MMORPG - which is why actin combat is basically just anti-MMO (edit to add; for clarification action combat is anti-MMORPG, not just MMO. Action combat is fine for an MMOFPS or similar).
You can claim this is outdated, but at the end of the day you seem to be saying here that you want a game with no character progression - which is not an RPG.
Seems you could use your own advice here, because not a single aspect of difficulty found in tab systems can't be replicated in action combat. And I have unfortunately played a chunk of tab MMOs, all of which ended up the same way: the fights in PvE are generally decided after one rotation of spells; you'll know if you can kill this monster or if it will kill you unless you get very lucky on crits or evasion rolls. There is no amount of skill that can change this, because those systems focus so much on gear score over anything else.
More than that, they'll rip out your immersion one menial ability a time until you have three bars of shit you'll cast once a minute if even that, to the point you're barely looking at what's going on in the game space.
If you want to talk about rotations, tab is far worse for mindless rotation spam. You play your keyboard with no concern for aim or location (as long as you're not standing in stupid) because you don't need to be aiming, you don't even have to have your target on your screen and everything still auto locks on them.
Are you really going to claim that's good design? Engaging at all? Immersive?
To add: What does too few abilities look like to you? Less than 30? Less than 20? It's also entirely irrelevant to the conversation about including an active dodging method which can absolutely exist alongside armor and resistances. Many RPGs work exactly like that
In theory this is true, in actual practice, it is not.
With action combat, you are limited in how you can design encounters, assuming you want encounters that players can beat. These limits are essentially removed with tab target combat.
I agree that bad tab is bad. If the term "rotation" is an actual valid concept in a tab target game, it is bad tab.
Your comments about location are also somewhat incorrect. Good tab target can make specific positioning as important as it is in action.
And yes, I do consider it good design that I can auto lock on my target and use the camera to look around. I consider that to be very good design indeed.
You've royally misunderstood what incorporating both would actually look like.
Evasion as a stat should not exist. RNG should never be the determining factor for entirely avoiding damage from an attack.
Mitigation is exactly that, mitigating damage from hits based on your resistances from armor, spells, or abilities to various damage types.
I don't particularly care if abilities will generally hone onto a target, but Misses should only ever be determined by an action taken by the player that visibly moves them. Gear shouldn't even be a factor on if something hits or not, only how much damage it does.
It should be extremely obvious when someone has dodged your skills, letting rng from gear do it doesn't give any information to players fighting each other. It's bad for clarity and bad for skill expression.
Just look at any Souls game. Elden Ring is an especially good example of an RPG that utilizes active defenses on top of gear based resistances
PvE in MMOs is about class optimisation and planning, not playing monster hunter. Because that's what makes character optimisation meaningful. It's incredibly engaging and immersive when I play DarkSwords and I can kill mobs 20 times my level because my class build and party composition are better than anyone else's. The game wouldn't be nearly as satisfying, if everyone else could bunnyhop around mobs to whittle them down, in spite of their inferior build path and strategy.
In a game where you have 40 skills, you don't spam mindless rotations, because you adjust your buffs and CC types and debuffs and damage sources and dispells to the actions and builds of your opponents. This applies more effectively in PVP, but in PvE you can still get a TON of variation out of mob strength and weaknesses (damage types, cast types, cc vulnerability or immunity), burst-versus-DPS, and mobility and range. These are all things that make battling different opponents on your way through the map very engaging to optimise. You can never get the same variety in a game where your actions are limited to 10 buttons.
I can't overstate how obvious it is that you've never played good tab target combat.
What you're describing is almost exclusive to games like WoW.
Any half-decent Tab-Target MMO with 3+ bars of abilities will have you constantly choose from 10+ valid options to identify the optimal choice for your next cast. That was the baseline in pretty much every combat situation I was ever in, in 5 years of Regnum Online.
Admittedly a PvP-centric game; you'll get slightly less constant challenge from tab-target PvE; but that's why Ashes is a PvX game, and it's an issue that's solved through challenging dungeon and boss design, not dodge-roll fighting game mechanics.
Overland farming optimisation is all about resource management anyway. Strafing an arrow won't make that process feel more rewarding; that's just pointless busywork for your fingers without any actual thought behind it.
Imagine, if you will, if that ability does more than just deal damage. Imagine it has a debuff or CC attached to it. If it hits, you suffer the debuff or CC. This makes action the only defense that matters.
Even if you remove that debuff or CC from the picture, you are still saying tab target defense should protect you from some of the damage, but action combat defense should protect you from all of it.
That isn't a hybrid combat system.
Edit to add; to take this one step further, what about tab target abilities that literally can't miss, that you can't get out of the way of?
If you are going to say that you should be able to use action combat to dodge them, then we are back to where we started at in that anyone that is constantly moving is effectively immune to ranged tab target attacks.
Again, that isn't a hybrid combat system.
It should indeed be extremely obvious when someone has dodged one of your attacks. This is usually accomplished by putting the word "dodged" or "blocked" or "parried" or "resisted" in the floating combat feedback in game, as well as in the combat log.
It is blatantly obvious.
That's because tab makes combat easier by leaps and bounds. The skill requirement is lowered and so only source of challenge that can be offered at that point is how tightly group have to stick to the fight formula.
This has gone wildly off topic regardless though, and doesn't change the fact that active defenses absolutely can (and should) exist alongside gear-based mitigation if the design going forward is generally going to be homing projectiles.