How would you create a deep and engaging combat system

I would personally love to have an ability kit for each archtype that allows me to be creative. I would also want it to be deep enough so I feel that I have not mastered my class after a short time. I want to feel that for each 10 hours I put into my class, im always improving and perfecting my ability to manage my toolkit. For me, It should be very hard to maximize your archtypes abilities. Mastery over your class should be something you work towards and become proud of, not something that should be achived after reading an optimal rotation guide and practicing for 2 hours.

Obviously, all content should not require you to be a master or very proficient in your class. But the option to actually dig deeper into your rotation and toolkit, practice your class and use this knowledge and experience to tackle an exceptionally hard challenge is very important to me.

One way to do this would be for AoC to design a deep ability system that works for casual players but shines when you put some dedication into it.

Your characters different abilities, when combined with other abilities you choose could creates new and interesting effects. For example, your "Cone of air that usually slows people" now knocks people down when used on an icy surface you created. Or that rainfall ability that usually only heals people become a cloud of steam when calling down a firestorm on it, protecting you and your party from projectiles.

By designing our toolkits in a deep way, by letting our normal abilities form something unique and interesting when tied togheter, we get a combat system that is much more than simple cookie-cutter rotations. A toolkit consiting of 10 abilities could be used in hundreds of ways instead of 1 single optimal way.

I am very interested how you would make the combat in AoC deep, interesting, unique and engaging? Maybe someone will be able to help enchance IS:s current plans for AoC combat!

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mcstackerson

noaani wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

More then just wow developers have said this and as I said, it's not hard to see why the industry went in this direction.

In the wildstar video, I'm pretty sure every skill you saw the player use was aimed. Most skills were aimed in Wildstar.

Ok, even if action combat games tend to do those things, I don't think any of that is necessary and some of those aren't unique to action combat. I also don't think making the game tab suddenly means you wont have any of those. From the beginning, they have always said they wanted combat to be more mobile and the initial pax/Alpha 0 tab combat was this way.

My point is, if those are things you don't like, you should argue against those things. As you said, those aren't necessarily parts of action combat. It's miss-guided to argue against action combat because you think it will prevent those things from becoming aspects of combat. All of those were already part of the combat system before the action side was ever introduced.

I also don't find collision an issue and for me, it enhances the combat experience. Yes, collision makes it harder to zerg content down with a high number of players. It forces you to be more coordinated. Combine this with the fact that it's silly that 40+ people can stand in the same space, I think it makes the game better.

How does being able to move through other players and enemies make the pve content more compelling? I feel the opposite.

I still don't think you are getting the point. Honestly, you don't seem to be even close to getting it.

I am not complaining about anything - I am stating an observation.

PvE content in games with an action combat focus is not compelling, yet games without action combat have compelling PvE, and larger numbers.

This means that there must be a business reason to put compelling PvE in to games where it is possible to put it in, yet games with action combat do not have it. The only logical conclusion is that action games can not sustain compelling PvE content.

As I've said, this is still a theory, though it is unlikely to be one either you or I could prove or disprove (not sure about you, but I don't have the resources to make an MMO to prove a theory).

Again, I am not complaining about anything, nor am I asking any game developer to do anythign different. I am absolutely sure that most game develoeprs are doing the absolute best they are able to do for their games - which does nothing other than further add to the theory that games without compelling PvE content simply can't sustain compelling PvE content.

But again, that's fine. Players that want compelling PvE content (the majority of the MMO audience, according to subscription numbers) have other games to play that have that compelling PvE content. People that are more interested in an action combat system also have that option. Again, this all seems perfectly fine to me.

In terms of Ashes, I am not saying they should do anything different. In fact, other than their stance on combat trackers, I have not said that I think they should do anything different, on any specific topic. I actually like the way Intrepid are doing their combat system (or at least the theory behind it).

As such, I have nothing to argue. All I have to put across is the observation that games with action combat do not have compelling PvE content, and that I can see a link there.

While I started this out in terms of large scale raiding, this applies to all levels of PvE. The video you posted from Wildstar is not compelling PvE content, even if it is 40 players (though I assume it is a lower end encounter - or at least, I hope it is).

In terms of collision being an issue in raiding - when you have a 40 player raid (as Ashes will), it is fairly normal for around half of them to be melee based in one way or another. Obviously, most mobs will not be able to sustain 20 players around them in melee range, let alone the fact that mobs in actual compelling PvE content do things like have short range directional AoE's that see most players wanting to stay within a smaller area around the mob - usually either directly behind or to the side. Not only does adding player collision means you can't have that mechanic in PvE content which will slightly lower how compelling you can make it, it will also mean you can't have that many melee characters in a raid. A melee character in a raid that can't reach their target is literally less useful than an empty raid slot - an empty raid slot will do the same amount of damage, but won't eat up heals.

While not having this one thing on one encounter may not seem like much, when you combine that with other things that other aspects of action combat mean you can't have (if your tank keeps moving the mob, you can't have AoE's that force casters to stay at max spell range, nor can you have rogues that backstab) means that there are more and more things stripped away from what is possible to add to PvE encounters. And again, that isn't all that much in the scale of one encounter, but when you talk about several hundred PvE encounters over several years of content cycles, those things that action combat take away from PvE really do add up in a way where there is significantly less variety in what is possible in PvE content.

My point has always been that it doesn't have to be that way and I don't think you should assume it will be that way because of action combat. You seem to ignore the fact that there has also been plenty of tab games that didn't have compelling pve content.

If you want compelling pve content, you need to ask for that. Just because there is tab, doesn't mean the pve content will magically be compelling.

Does every tab game have compelling pve content?

You are looking for correlation in the wrong places. Developers don't start making a game, implement an action system, and then decide that they aren't going to have "compelling" pve content because they have an action system. The decision for the kind of content developers want in a game is one of the first things they decide. You usually don't just start blindly making a game and make such large decisions as you go based off what you designing.

As i have said in the past, this is another one of those things where you keep looking at old games and cherry-picking new games them compare it to. You would have a better hypothesis if we had new MMOs coming out and you could see this trend where every tab game had better pve content then their action counterparts.

I also disagree that pve content in action games isn't compelling. Before this, we were talking about the big ol 40 man raid but outside of that, there are plenty of examples of good pve content in action games.

Wildstar is probably the best example of a game that proves your hypothesis wrong. It was an action game with a end-game focus of high-end pve content. It can also be proven wrong when someone else makes a game with action combat and "compelling" pve content. Ashes will prove your hypothesis wrong with their hybrid system unless you can point and say that the only thing making their pve content compelling is the tab aspects of combat.

Hell, I could make a proof of concept. A 40 man module that has everyone fight a boss with different mechanics but something tells me it's not enough and for you to be happy, I'd have to make a full MMO game.

In ashes, 3/8ths of the classes are melee base. When we raided the dragon in A1, i'm not sure if we had a full 40 but we had a decent number of people and i don't remember collision coming close to being an issue. As with everything else, mechanics can be modified if necessary. As i said, i don't think stacking is an interesting mechanic and find it silly having 40 people stand in one small area. That isn't compelling to me and if anything breaks immersion. It's not challenging or deep, it's just an action that some fights have had us do in the past. On top of that, you can still have similar mechanics that force everyone to group up in a system that has collision.

You need to explain why you can't have any of those things because you most definitely can with collision in an action system and still have all those things you claim we can't have. What about an action system makes it so you can't have aoes that mage needs to stand out of if the tank needs to move the mob. I also don't know why rogues can't re-position in an action system? We have games that prove you are wrong on this. There are fights with these kinds of mechanics in action games so i'm not sure why you don't think they are possible.

Even if you lost things, which you don't unless you think stacking on one person is important, you also gain things with a collision system. Just like how you had mechanics that played off the fact you didn't have collision, you can make mechanics that use it.

Ventharien

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I would argue that tab target combat relies just as heavily on positioning as action combat does. In a tab target system you can't rely purely on reactionary movement to keep you safe. Dodge back and forth all you like and you'll still get hit. The way you avoid getting hit is by playing in and out of range and using line-of-sight.

That's the key here. When you limit a player's ability to dodge attacks, the player has to think a lot more and plan ahead, rather than relying on reflexes to win. Comparing action combat to tab target combat in terms of difficulty is like comparing StarCraft 2 to Chess.

I would agree with you that action combat requires more MECHANICAL skill than tab target, but there is more to skill than raw mechanics.

And yes there is a big difference between good and bad WoW players. You only have to look at boss rankings and logs to see it. Players with the same item level gear can have vastly different performance based on their skill.

It uses it, what with hazards, boss placement, player placement, and aoe graphics, but the speed at which this occurs isn't comparable at all. And i'd disagree, when you limit player movement and reaction, you then need to give them more time, and flashier cues.

I'd agree on the additional skill necessary being mechanical in nature. But from what i've seen, tab requires no skill that action does not also require.

And oh yes, i agree there is a large gap between good and bad players, but that wasn't your original statement, it was the best and the rest of us. Theres a massive gap even between average players and bad players, but between them and the top players less so. Which makes sense. As you go up the ladder, levels of performance difference dip more and more.

Songcaller

In terms of FPS, Action Combat is much smoother and looks much better at high FPS. Tab-Target can seem stilted and slowed in high FPS. Though high FPS doesn't always translate to better ping and it is ping which is the ultimate factor in response times. Equally, mouse responsiveness can determine the reaction times, though too much responsiveness can see you miss targets in action combat. The beauty of tab combat is you can also select targets through mouse-clicks, which, so far as I have seen, can't often be done in action combat.

There are skills involved in both higher FPS fighting (Not necessarily in Action Combat for an MMO but first First Person Shooters) and in terms of mouse responsiveness. There are also skills required for action combat and tab-combat. When one has used a system for actual years (WoW is an example) then those who have used it the longest will often be at the top end of the scale in terms of efficiency. This negates the whole concept of class skills and is a basic indication of the underlying systems. Not necessarily an in-depth view whether action combat or tab-combat is better.

I have enjoyed both tab-combat games and action combat games across the years. I also did play Wild Star but the telegraphic aspects of Wild Star made it confusing at times in PvP.

Selo

Jesforart wrote: »

• Has there every been any good Tab-Targetting gameplay for PvP

DaoC, which is considered the best PvP mmorpg ever, is tab target

George_Black

Selo wrote: »

Jesforart wrote: »

• Has there every been any good Tab-Targetting gameplay for PvP

DaoC, which is considered the best PvP mmorpg ever, is tab target

My fav mmorpg, that nobody has ever managed to reach, was tab combat, but hey, it was the best game because of 1000 reasons, NOT just because of it's combat type.
This is 2020 and combat designs have progressed. Get out of your comfort zone, and dont use such weak arguements.

Noaani

mcstackerson wrote: »

Does every tab game have compelling pve content?

The tab target game with the least compelling content that I have seen (WoW), is on par with how compelling the most compelling PvE content in an action combat MMO is (ESO).

You are looking for correlation in the wrong places. Developers don't start making a game, implement an action system, and then decide that they aren't going to have "compelling" pve content because they have an action system. The decision for the kind of content developers want in a game is one of the first things they decide. You usually don't just start blindly making a game and make such large decisions as you go based off what you designing.

While this is true, you have to remember that MMO's are a living thing.

Players in almost all MMO's without compelling PvE content have complained about it (thinking specifically of GW2, BDO and Archeage here).

of these games, two have outright refused to add it, to the detriment of the game. The other one did implement it, but to the detriment of it's action combat.

I'm not going to use a newly released game with action combat and no compelling PvE as proof of this - because that means nothing. A game that has been out for many years though, and had many years of the same complaints from players - that means a lot.

As i have said in the past, this is another one of those things where you keep looking at old games and cherry-picking new games them compare it to. You would have a better hypothesis if we had new MMOs coming out and you could see this trend where every tab game had better pve content then their action counterparts.

What was the last full tab target western AAA MMO to be released?

Honestly, I can't even remember. Developers moved over to almost exclusivelt releasing either action combat or mostly action combat MMO's almost a decade ago, and are only just now starting to look back at heading back a little more towards tab target MMO's.

To be clear, I am not complaining about this (or anything here), action combat was only really possible from around 2008 onwards, it is only natural that game developers would spend some time working with it and on it to see what it can and can not do.

I also disagree that pve content in action games isn't compelling. Before this, we were talking about the big ol 40 man raid but outside of that, there are plenty of examples of good pve content in action games.

I have yet to see this.

I have seen some compelling story writing in some action games, I have seen some less-than-great attempts at NPC AI in some action games, but I have not seen or heard of actual PvE content that was compelling enough for me to actually want to play any given game. Honestly, if a game has compelling PvE content, I don't really care what the combat system is - I'll work with what ever I need to work with if the content is good enough.

Wildstar is probably the best example of a game that proves your hypothesis wrong. It was an action game with a end-game focus of high-end pve content. It can also be proven wrong when someone else makes a game with action combat and "compelling" pve content. Ashes will prove your hypothesis wrong with their hybrid system unless you can point and say that the only thing making their pve content compelling is the tab aspects of combat.

When Wildstar first game out, some of the people I was raiding with at the time went over to try it out. They participated in the first few raids and said that the bosses the game had were less fun to take on than the trash mobs in the game we were playing.

The encounter in the video you linked seems to prove them right - that is not an example of compelling content, action or tab combat.

However, it is my understanding that in Wildstar, you had the ability to select either free aiming or aiming on your target - and this could apply to all abilities. When you combine the ability to do this, with the lack of collision and the almost complete absense of motion in combat in that game, and the question does need to be asked - is it really action combat?

If the need to aim an ability is all that makes action combat what it is, then almost all MMO's ever have been action combat at least to a degree. Even EQ2 back in 2004 had a few abilities that needed to be aimed in this manner.

If all action combat in Ashes turns out to be is AoE's that need to be aimed and nothing more, I don't think many of the action combat proponents on these forums would stick around long (and again, I am not asking for this - even if it is a possibility).

Just because a games developer calls it an action combat game, that doesn't always mean it is. Now, as I said previously, the video you linked is the only time I have seen combat in Wildstar for myself, and so it all I have to go on. However, it seems to mesh perfectly with the notion of lacklustre content that I have been told about, and seems to be even less of an action combat game than ESO.

If this is actually the best game out there to use to attempt to disprove my theory, I think it actually proves it.

Hell, I could make a proof of concept. A 40 man module that has everyone fight a boss with different mechanics but something tells me it's not enough and for you to be happy, I'd have to make a full MMO game.

This would be perfectly fine - for one encounter.

There are several things like this that can be done to work around the limitations that action combat place on PvE content, but as I said, this isn't about being able to produce one compelling encounter, this is about being able to produce compelling content for several years worth of content cycles.

If every raid in a game were 40 people taking on 40 targets, then there is no need to work together, there is no teamwork. It may as well be 40 people all soloing in the same room, not communicating with each other.

The only difference between any two raid guilds is their ability to work together. If you remove the need for raids to work together in order to be successful, what is the point of raiding?

Now again, this would be fine on occasion as an encounter leading up to an actual boss fight, but it is not a boss fight in itself. It could be used as a means of throwing something slightly different at a raid, but it is not a notion on which to build a games raid content on.

In ashes, 3/8ths of the classes are melee base. When we raided the dragon in A1, i'm not sure if we had a full 40 but we had a decent number of people and i don't remember collision coming close to being an issue. As with everything else, mechanics can be modified if necessary. As i said, i don't think stacking is an interesting mechanic and find it silly having 40 people stand in one small area. That isn't compelling to me and if anything breaks immersion. It's not challenging or deep, it's just an action that some fights have had us do in the past. On top of that, you can still have similar mechanics that force everyone to group up in a system that has collision.

How many melee classes there are is of no consequence in this discussion - raids do not strive to take one of each class. With 40 players and 8 classes, no raid worth it's gear will be taking 5 tanks, as an example (actually, a raid that takes 5 tanks would be worth it's gear, but that gear wouldn't be very good).

Melee DPS (including tanks) usually makes up around 45% of a raid. In Ashes (and any MMO with 40 person raid content and collision), that will probably have to be limited to 25%. While this is not a huge thing in and of itself, it does alter the dynamic of raids and raid guilds, and it means some mechanics that a game could otherwise use would be less effective. Basically, it is a whole lot of unintended (and probably unanticipated) consequences from collision.

Now, to be clear once again, I am not saying I don't think Ashes should have player collision - it absolutely should. However, there is no denying that this will have consequences in raiding - which is my point.

As to stacking not being a compelling mechanic - I would suggest that no single mechanic is compelling by itself. The compelling aspect of an encounter comes in how different mechanics are combined with each other in new and unique ways. The more mechanics you are unable to use due to the combat system, the fewer combinations of mechanics you have available to you - thus the less compelling your PvE content will be.

As to immersion - if that is something a player considers key, they shouldn't be raiding. It is immersion breaking to be successfully fighting something toe to toe that is big enough to destroy a city and swollow it's inhabitants in one go. If this is something a player can overlook, stacking should be as well.

What about an action system makes it so you can't have aoes that mage needs to stand out of if the tank needs to move the mob. I also don't know why rogues can't re-position in an action system?

This isn't even about the content - this is about a game system where one player playing their class the way it is supposed to be played is preventing another player playing their class the way it is supposed to be played.

A rogue should never need to reposition because the tank decided to move the mob for no reason - the point of the tank is to hold the mob still so everyone else can beat it up. If the tank can't hold it still, why even have a tank?

If a mage can hold a mob still long enough for the rest of the group to kill it before that mage dies, they are every bit as useful at being a tank as an actual tank that does the same. If the tank is constantly moving the mob around, then the tank is worse.

That kind of movement is fine to keep people happy in solo PvE or PvP content - for some reason people seem to think that combat is more impactful if you are forcing the target to move around. In group play though, the target needs to be held in place. This is not something I particularly understand, but since I do understand that it is how many people think, it's fine - in solo situations.

If the target is constantly moving, then the players in the group or raid have to be constantly moving. Much like your 40 target idea above, this is fine on occasion. However, this can not be used as a basis on which to build all raid content - or in the case of this it would be all group and raid content.

What absolutely will happen in Ashes is that raids will require tanks to be a class that is able to hold a mob dead still. If you come in to a raid as a tank and are moving the mob all over the place, you straight up won't be asked to come back at all - let alone as the tank.

The skill set that players wanting to PvP as a tank and raid as a tank are not mutually compatible. Ashes will get around this just fine by allowing players to take up a completely different skill set for PvE content - but obviously other games that don't have this flexibility built in will have some serious issues in this regard.

Even if you lost things, which you don't unless you think stacking on one person is important, you also gain things with a collision system. Just like how you had mechanics that played off the fact you didn't have collision, you can make mechanics that use it.

I actually thought this was the case too, for a while.

But then I remembered a few encounters I have played that essentially added collision for those few specific encounters - which means that the game itself having collision isn't allowing anything to be added to a raid that couldn't already be added.

TheLegend27

George Black wrote: »

You might like playing a Sorcerer(Mage+Bard) but it will be way worse than Archmage(Mage+Mage).
You might like playing a Spellsword (Fighter+Mage) but it will be far worse than a Battlemage (Mage+Fighter).

Why do you believe that Archmage > Sorcerer & Battlemage > Spellsword?. Is there some sort of benchmark you've found?

George_Black

TheLegend27 wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

You might like playing a Sorcerer(Mage+Bard) but it will be way worse than Archmage(Mage+Mage).
You might like playing a Spellsword (Fighter+Mage) but it will be far worse than a Battlemage (Mage+Fighter).

Why do you believe that Archmage > Sorcerer & Battlemage > Spellsword?. Is there some sort of benchmark you've found?

Games with loose class systems, "play as you want", end up being hard forced into extremelly narrow meta. That is the point I made in that post. Nobody has tested classes yet.

I make a case for 15 solid classes with real identity, animations and functions, as oppossed to the 64 combinations of the 8x8.

Cold 0ne FTB

From what the devs have said I think both the action combat camp and the tap targeting community will get a pretty decent chunk of abilities that cater to their play styles, I don't think we will end up with a system that fails to target one camp. I don't think it has been addressed, this is my primary concern with any new game and my apologies if somebody has brought this forward in the discussion. However the critical flaw in ESO combat is the % buffs granted by the Champion Point leveling system and the stacking of multiple instances of the same HOTs/certain buffs. These flaws have cultivated a game state in which performance is an absolute dumpster fire and players frequently experience crashes and massive spikes of lag in trials (raids) and PvP. These issues are as a result of a lack of foresight during the creation of these mechanics and stem from the fundamental design of hots in particular.

I know the specific mechanics are still in development but I feel like whatever the combat ends up being the dreaded speghatti code, created from multiple overlapping pathces is a bigger concern than a game that swings too far into a tap targetting or an action combat system.

George_Black

@Cold 0ne FTB
Eso is a co-op skyrim cash grab.

AoC is a product of personal love for mmorpgs. Whatever the combat result ends up being (here's to hoping full 100% action in the end), it will be a properly finished work.

Songcaller

George Black wrote: »

@Cold 0ne FTB
Eso is a co-op skyrim cash grab.

AoC is a product of personal love for mmorpgs. Whatever the combat result ends up being (here's to hoping full 100% action in the end), it will be a properly finished work.

Ashes doesn't need to be 100% Action Combat but it does need to be less stiff/clunky. It shows the same flaws of all Unreal Engine 4 games. I'm not sure how to iron out the issues because the combat in Apocalypse had the same issues and it was 100% Active Combat.

If they manage to add Active Blocks (Was on Tab previously) it won't be on Tab in the future unless Tab-Targeting is removed. It would be nice to back the Lineage 2 style MMO with BDO/WoW fluid combat but without the gross BDO Skill Flares which consume the screen. We haven't seen all the classes yet so it is difficult to critique the overall combat. We are yet to see The Hybrid System in full swing too which makes it difficult to critique the overall combat. While I have no preferences in terms of tab-targeting or action combat, I will choose the hybrid style which best enables me to play my chosen class. So much polish is required but core concepts come first.

Edit: The floaty style also needs adapting, so too does the weapon impacts. Will be interesting to see if Legendries look like a feather upon impact.

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