Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Current PvP TTK design is bad for the game
Imnotkio
Member, Alpha Two
Issue
Having experienced PvP in-game for a few weeks now (1v1s, group vs group, raid vs raid), I can safely say the short TTK design is as bad as we feared.
Reasoning
Short TTK (even with equal gear) creates a very gank box environment in which whoever jumps first, unless there is a massive skill and/or gear disparity, wins. In the majority of fights, I have seen and experienced, whoever engages first wins. It is terrible being ganked with almost no chance of fighting back and winning, and taking death penalties like XP debt and material loss.
Additionally, a lot of the combat's complexity gets made irrelevant with the current short TTK. The game has a 4 attacks basic attack combos that add procs like wounds (anti-heal) and chill that further stack turn into freeze. It has soft and hard CCs like roots and stuns. The fighter has momentum that builds over time. We have damage over time, and debuffs that decrease damage mitigation. None of that matters in fights bigger than 1v1s because players die with 2~3 skills. While you are trying to stack wound debuffs on the target, reducing their armor, and doing proc combos, the enemy is just doing damage and is going to kill you before you can take advantage of any of those mechanics. You don't even have time to properly do 1 basic attack combo to add procs to the enemy, because it is more efficient to just use all your big damage skills and kill the enemy.
A shorter TTK design becomes even shorter when level and gear disparity are introduced. I have actually killed another player with only 4 basic attacks (no abilities used), and it wasn't even a big level difference. I was like 17 and he was 14 I think. The gear difference might have been bigger but even if the guy had all starter gear, he shouldn't have died with a simple 4 basic attack combo. Players starting late and players that don't keep up with the max power players will have a terrible experience if this is the design direction. Players won't be able to participate in content, they will be deleted and killed over and over in guild and node wars, and they have no chance of participating in anything pvp related. And with the current long leveling predicted, how long until new players can start participating in the content? a month? 2 months? can the new player even catch up?
Steven said in a recent interview that: "intrinsically those two philosophies are tied to one another. The shorter TTK and the how do you solve the Zerg problem.". While that is not entirely false, it is not true either. The reason smaller groups have a chance against Zergs on shorter TTK is that smaller groups have a chance to kill a big part of the Zerg by engaging first. But that is also true for the Zergs. If Zergs engage first, they win, regardless of the skill of the smallest group. In short TTK, smaller groups have a better chance against Zergs because of the initiation advantage, and not skill. In fact, short TTK requires less group coordination and skill, as the only thing groups need to do is focus damage (which is incredibly easy since we have marks on the target and target of defensive target key binds).
The good news is that you can also give small groups advantages against big groups with long TTK. The better news is the advantage of small groups over big groups in long TTK actually has to do with skill, team play, and coordination. Having to coordinate the use of all those complex mechanics that you already designed into the game (damage mitigation reduction, anti-healing, CCs, procs, and combos) to effectively eliminate your enemies is a huge advantage for small groups.
In long TTK, a small coordinated group can kill a target in 5~10 seconds, while a big uncoordinated group can kill the same target in a minute. That's a big skill gap, and in the time the Zerg killed one target, the small coordinated group killed 10~20 targets (the same goes for AoE scenarios). In short TTK, a small coordinated group can kill a target in 2 seconds and a big uncoordinated group can kill the same target in what? 5 seconds? the room for improvement is not there.
Longer TTK also gives players the chance to react and fight back against ganks, giving them a better chance of winning and not giving the players that feeling of unfairness in the encounter.
Finally, long TTK means players with power disparity can actually survive long enough to use CCs, apply procs, and participate in damage and healing dealt in PvP content. They won't of course be on parity with geared higher-level players, but they can contribute without being one-shotted.
Please, consider increasing the TTK back to at least the original design of 30s-1min.
TLDR: Long TTK is fairer in games with open-world PvP, more skillful, can make power disparity bearable in pvp, and can help small groups beat larger groups through skill and coordination.
Having experienced PvP in-game for a few weeks now (1v1s, group vs group, raid vs raid), I can safely say the short TTK design is as bad as we feared.
Reasoning
Short TTK (even with equal gear) creates a very gank box environment in which whoever jumps first, unless there is a massive skill and/or gear disparity, wins. In the majority of fights, I have seen and experienced, whoever engages first wins. It is terrible being ganked with almost no chance of fighting back and winning, and taking death penalties like XP debt and material loss.
Additionally, a lot of the combat's complexity gets made irrelevant with the current short TTK. The game has a 4 attacks basic attack combos that add procs like wounds (anti-heal) and chill that further stack turn into freeze. It has soft and hard CCs like roots and stuns. The fighter has momentum that builds over time. We have damage over time, and debuffs that decrease damage mitigation. None of that matters in fights bigger than 1v1s because players die with 2~3 skills. While you are trying to stack wound debuffs on the target, reducing their armor, and doing proc combos, the enemy is just doing damage and is going to kill you before you can take advantage of any of those mechanics. You don't even have time to properly do 1 basic attack combo to add procs to the enemy, because it is more efficient to just use all your big damage skills and kill the enemy.
A shorter TTK design becomes even shorter when level and gear disparity are introduced. I have actually killed another player with only 4 basic attacks (no abilities used), and it wasn't even a big level difference. I was like 17 and he was 14 I think. The gear difference might have been bigger but even if the guy had all starter gear, he shouldn't have died with a simple 4 basic attack combo. Players starting late and players that don't keep up with the max power players will have a terrible experience if this is the design direction. Players won't be able to participate in content, they will be deleted and killed over and over in guild and node wars, and they have no chance of participating in anything pvp related. And with the current long leveling predicted, how long until new players can start participating in the content? a month? 2 months? can the new player even catch up?
Steven said in a recent interview that: "intrinsically those two philosophies are tied to one another. The shorter TTK and the how do you solve the Zerg problem.". While that is not entirely false, it is not true either. The reason smaller groups have a chance against Zergs on shorter TTK is that smaller groups have a chance to kill a big part of the Zerg by engaging first. But that is also true for the Zergs. If Zergs engage first, they win, regardless of the skill of the smallest group. In short TTK, smaller groups have a better chance against Zergs because of the initiation advantage, and not skill. In fact, short TTK requires less group coordination and skill, as the only thing groups need to do is focus damage (which is incredibly easy since we have marks on the target and target of defensive target key binds).
The good news is that you can also give small groups advantages against big groups with long TTK. The better news is the advantage of small groups over big groups in long TTK actually has to do with skill, team play, and coordination. Having to coordinate the use of all those complex mechanics that you already designed into the game (damage mitigation reduction, anti-healing, CCs, procs, and combos) to effectively eliminate your enemies is a huge advantage for small groups.
In long TTK, a small coordinated group can kill a target in 5~10 seconds, while a big uncoordinated group can kill the same target in a minute. That's a big skill gap, and in the time the Zerg killed one target, the small coordinated group killed 10~20 targets (the same goes for AoE scenarios). In short TTK, a small coordinated group can kill a target in 2 seconds and a big uncoordinated group can kill the same target in what? 5 seconds? the room for improvement is not there.
Longer TTK also gives players the chance to react and fight back against ganks, giving them a better chance of winning and not giving the players that feeling of unfairness in the encounter.
Finally, long TTK means players with power disparity can actually survive long enough to use CCs, apply procs, and participate in damage and healing dealt in PvP content. They won't of course be on parity with geared higher-level players, but they can contribute without being one-shotted.
Please, consider increasing the TTK back to at least the original design of 30s-1min.
TLDR: Long TTK is fairer in games with open-world PvP, more skillful, can make power disparity bearable in pvp, and can help small groups beat larger groups through skill and coordination.
18
Comments
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
Hopefully, you are right. But it is important to notice this isn't a balance thing that will be fixed later. They have stated in the past that this short TTK is by design.
They have changed that design before though, and it is not something that affects core philosophies of the game so I'm confident that they can change it again.
PvE focused: WoW / FFXIV / Lineage II
Sandbox: Ultima Online / Darkfall / Mortal Online
Big Influence: SNES Fighting games / Starcraft / Diablo II / Smite
Anyway, the short of it, it's all a balance and I'm sure there will be tweaks.
That's why you have anti-healing mechanics (wounds), hard CCs (trips, incapacitate), and physical mitigation reduction (shaken) in the game. With proper coordination, stunning the targets and/or some of the supports, and stacking these debuffs, you can effectively eliminate a target that is receiving focused healing.
A large uncoordinated group that doesn't do this will suffer the "immortal people" issue, while skilled smaller groups can easily pick off enemies faster than the bigger uncoordinated group. It creates a bigger skill gap in group vs group fights.
This is no revolutionary design, it's been done in many games before and the foundation of it has already been implemented in ashes (the wounds, shaken, weakened, etc debuffs)
Also I would say that this game need a anti zerg system like Albion. If you are a group of 30+ people fighting a group of 8 people, the bigger group will have its damage reduced and will take more damage depending on the number of players they have more than the smaller group, but for sure It will work better as soon as TTK increases.
But its a healer war with this short TTK.
Longer TTK make players be able to express their own skills but for sure with that the healer cant be a boss, its just a balancement thing.
The people asking for higher ttk are literally just people misdirecting their frustrations for all the other reasons they died quickly.
The videos of mage burst on a ranger(squishiest class for sure) seems crazy except in 10 levels hp values go from about 1300 to 4400 but damage doesn't triple. No reason to balance around lvl 25 geared players beating on lvl 19s
And Im a cleric, I also think it's boring if it becomes a fight against my mana bar instead of my health bar. If you all think that's fun you are pve players who like pve'ing each other with minimal punishment for mistakes.
When things are settled in 8 or 9 globals with no healers involved TTK is excellent. Enough time to react and recover but not so long that mistakes don't have significance
PvE focused: WoW / FFXIV / Lineage II
Sandbox: Ultima Online / Darkfall / Mortal Online
Big Influence: SNES Fighting games / Starcraft / Diablo II / Smite
In terms of ttk, to me it doesn't matter how long it takes as long pvp is fun, engaging and every class feels important. Burst damage is a super fun mechanic as long as it doesn't surpass the ability of a very good player to escape a surprise gank from medium players.
Another point is that TTK should have a direct connection on how effective potions are. Right now I agree with this topic as this is not balanced, because we have a shorter TTK and very poor potions.
My suggestion then would be something like this: if potions remain as they are now TTK should be a little higher. But if they intend on including stronger potions in the game it's kind of fine the way it is right now
The devs seem to agree as well, as TTK will be tuned to be around 10 seconds to 30 seconds. Also, certain classes like the Ranger, WILL kill you in less than 10 seconds if they get the jump on you, it's just how the class is intended to be even going by the lore.
You haven't even played the game if this your take, and isn't what the OP is talking about.
Once again a mis-informed take.
We do have the data. It's broken.
WTF are you talking about?
I personally do like that attacking first gives you the most chances of success because that makes sense imo. Getting the element of surprise should be a huge bonus in an encounter as it now promotes different battlefield like strategies that don’t include just charging head on Leroy Jenkins style.
But also most importantly, small well coordinated groups that use the element of surprise can still win against overwhelming odds if they manage to set a good ambush.
That’s just my 2 cents!
Wound poisons need to reduce the targets healing in general not just on the player with the wound imo
Of course, it wasn't perfect. The healers and tanks are too gear-dependent and they were ineffective at their roles without their gear. to balance that though, no one had their weapon trees maxed out, so we were out of wounds and other debuffs that can make fights shorter. I think if you buff the natural ability of tanks and healers to perform their role (char power instead of gear power) and add more of the debuff abilities to counter these natural prowess, we could end with a really good combat balance where groups with coordination are way more effective at eliminating their targets than their large uncoordinated and unskilled counterparts.
The obvious problem then is gear scaling. This was partially fixed with the rarity scaling Nerf, but we still have an unbalance in the offensive/defensive stats ratio while increasing gear levels, and we have an issue where gear level scaling is too step compared to previous levels.
If gear scaling is properly balanced to make so PVP TTK remains close to the actual TTK of non-geared fights seen in this stress test, and nerf the gear scaling on level disparities so people in different tiers can participate in large-scale fights without being one-shotted, I can see this game being one of the best MMOs for the PVP crowd.
Long TTK also has to be accompanied by well thought out kits that require tactical and strategical acumen.
Ashes has a start on that, but if the combat structure remains as is, itll never reach its true potential. TERA and Predecessor are good examples of what the current kits could be used with and make a much more worthwhile combat experience.
???
1st this ungabunga player actually explained why long ttk is bad
Then you list tera as if it's a long ttk, when I could absolutely delete someone for going behind the pillar with no peels.
If you like long ttk go watch arena tourneys when every match dipped well into dampening (a mechanic created because of the harmful effects of increasing ttk by whiney players)
PvE focused: WoW / FFXIV / Lineage II
Sandbox: Ultima Online / Darkfall / Mortal Online
Big Influence: SNES Fighting games / Starcraft / Diablo II / Smite
Healing is a non-issue when the class kits are proper. TERA/Pred combat structure is way better suited for tactical and strategic gameplay Ashes is going for.
WoW arena isn't it.
And just like that, still nothing of value added to the conversation.
You made conflicting statements, wide swats at people who disagree with you(which id say is fine if you can put your money where your mouth it, but you cant).
Healing wasn't a problem in tera because TTK was short - exactly the argument I made. Wow is the best example because by far there is more data and footage for a an mmorpg with pvp. I actually don't like Wow pvp, but I've played in both good seasons and bad seasons where TTK fluctuated wildly depending on the expansion/patch.
Again if you can explain how TERA was a long TTK, given 1.) You could get globalled by lancer or warrior when arena was first added to the game and 2.) Whats the TTK when I literally hit someone with 60-70k HP for 120k with evasive smash?
Wallop used to hit for over half an HP bar.
In all of those cases the player deserved to get that kinda damage for losing position/errors/lack of situational awareness - but how in the world do you think TERA is a long TTK???? Is that something that happened after they added a bunch of silly space bar GG classes??? Because I played the game on Korean servers years before the game even launched in the US and played a bit after the wonderholme patch, and more importantly, when they added the equalized BG I leveled every single class through pvp. Dude you're just listing games you liked but have no idea why you liked them or why they worked so stop.
PvE focused: WoW / FFXIV / Lineage II
Sandbox: Ultima Online / Darkfall / Mortal Online
Big Influence: SNES Fighting games / Starcraft / Diablo II / Smite
Yes, TERA combat structure changed.