/forceATK toggle (not toggle PvP....). Mechanics needed.

In todays Dev Update, I was surprised to see Jeff Bard unaware of Stevens degisn regarding /forceATK.
However, these are the risks involved with transparency during development, some people might misunderstand or bad mouth the developers. And for that I congratulate Intrepid Studios for their courage and confidence.

The full action/tab/flagging/Corruption mechanics are still not in place obviously and that is why Jeff and Steven were not eye to eye on the combat toggle and what it means. It isn't necessary coding at this point in development. That's my guess.

Why is this toggle, as Steven wants it, important for Ashes of Creation. I wanna break down my views on attacking mechanics so bear with me for a few posts.

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George_Black

There was a very long thread, that started some time ago. That thread was about the option to appear as combatant (purple name) without having to hit another player.
I didn't like that proposal because I believe it weakens a lot of open world PvP features.
What I want to discuss in this topic has nothing to do with that, so if you want to discuss optional flagging here is the link https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/46883/combatant-opt-in/p1

I want to discuss how IS could make improvements to L2s combat mechanics and what the /forceATK toggle should achieve. It should:

not be exploitable
fit in with the green/purple/red player states
work with modern action combat/aiming
be easily understood by new players

This is important for such an ambitious game and I think it is worth the coding. I'm sure that the people working in IS know what needs to be done and how it should be done when the time comes, but hey, that's what we are here for at this early stage, to give our 2cents.

George_Black

In L2, an old but beautiful tab target mmo, let's say you played a mage and you had an ability called Fireball.
If you clicked on a player and used the Fireball key, you would receive a system message saying "Incorrect target".
The way to hurt a player would be to hold down the CTRL key anytime you wanted to cast an ability to hurt a target player. That game came out in 2003 and the combat and movement was slower that what we have today. Over the years L2 improved it's /forceATK method to the point that you could do exactly what you wanted to the targets you wanted without spreading your hand like a spider web over your keyboard.
If you /forceATK a player who didn't fight back and eventually killed them, you gained corruption.
If the player fought back, you didn't have to use the /forceATK methods, you could normally atk any purple or red player.

but that was nearly 20 years ago, and now we have action combat and better means to design games.
So let's see how /forceATK can be implemented succesfully in our tab+action combat that also has Non Combatant (green), Combatant (purple), Corrupted (red) players out in the beautiful open world without boring FACTION PvP.
Yes, I always hated being told who to kill and who not to kill in games like ESO. And that's why I chose L2 instead of w0w back in the day.

George_Black

Active combat involves crosshairs and aiming when it comes to landing an attack on an enemy. There are also cone attacks and AoE attacks (ground, proximity, instant).
So how can IS implement a /forceATK toggle that works in this game?
Let's examine some scenarios and see how it can be tricky, but will eventually will work fine.

You see a group of players nearby and one of them player, xXx talks trash to you. You use /forceATK toggle so that your abilities can damage players. You strike a hit and your name becomes purple, xXx fights back and you are both purple. But what about the other players nearby that are Non Combatant? Will they get hit by your action combat abilities, or your AoE abilities? Will they possibly die as non combatants, getting you or xXx corrupted?

Another scenario is that you see xXx in a group of players and you want to PK. How do you avoid hitting the other non combatant players if you are using action combat abilities? How do you kill only xXx.

What about normal attacks? Do they affect non combatant players that happen to jump in front of you when you just action-combat fight a mob?

Here are some implementations that I hope will work and also maintain Stevens vision for action/reaction and risk.

Firstly, there shouldn't be a toggle /combatantON that turns you purple without landing a hit. Steven explained 1 reason in the Dev update. I linked the relevant thread on the posts above if people are interested in talking about that. I think that the simplest way to flag should be to either target or aim a player, cold down CTRL or any key IS will use and just use the normal ATK with the left click. There you go, you lowered a bit of your enemies HP down and now you are purple.
There should be a key that turns your hotbar outline(quickbar, access bar, whatever you call it) purple. Now all your abilities will 'read' nearby players state. Any combatant that doesn't belong to your group or even guild will be damaged by your action combat or aoe abilities. (you may dislike some people from your own node, I see no reason why Intrepid should include them in the group/friend/guild categories).
There could also be a key that turns your hotbar outline red. Guess what? That means that you want to PK xXx. None of your abilities will work. You have to move your mouse over your victims character, click on them so that they are your tab target. Now all your abilities, action, tab, aoe will damage xXx only. Obviously if you are using action combat abilities you have to have xXx in your crosshairs or rectangle. Any nearby combatant players will also be affected by your action or cone or aoe abilities. If xXx strikes back, then normal combatant conditions apply and the condition of having xXx as your tab target is overridden and your hotbar outline may as well return to purple.

I have extremely limited coding experience since the beginning of last year and I sure am naive to think that simple if {
}
then {
}
loops and methods is all that's required. For me, the future as a developer seemed grim so I quit after only a year. I admire those who can actually create games, even if I don't like the design. It's my choice to play or leave at that point. It takes a lot of dedication and patience. Not every moment is enjoyable and creative.
But for those that may be sceptical of these /forceATK toggles I say this. If the code is there it can work. And when it comes to achieving Ashes ambitious goals, I believe time spend on writing that code and revisiting it during bug encounters, is worth the effort, as opposed to designing things like opt in combatant toggle, that offer nothing to the overall open world combat vision.

George_Black

Some people have mentioned many times the exploits of open world PvP and flagging regarding AoE mechanics.
What if you and your friends are using AoE abilities to take down many mobs and while you do that, a player comes in and flags on one of you and then your AoE abilities damage him? Now you are all unwillingly purple, free for the kill and in a dire state since you are dealing with all those mobs.
Well.. what if, based on the above post, your hotbar outline is 'green'? That means that all your abilities affect just mobs.

Caeryl

George Black wrote: »

Some people have mentioned many times the exploits of open world PvP and flagging regarding AoE mechanics.
What if you and your friends are using AoE abilities to take down many mobs and while you do that, a player comes in and flags on one of you and then your AoE abilities damage him? Now you are all unwillingly purple, free for the kill and in a dire state since you are dealing with all those mobs.
Well.. what if, based on the above post, your hotbar outline is 'green'? That means that all your abilities affect just mobs.

If you and your friends all see this person come up and hit you, then you should all beat that player into the dirt and wait for the Combatant status to fall away, since it’s a timed state.

Doesn’t seem like much of an issue to be honest.

Leiloni

George Black wrote: »

Some people have mentioned many times the exploits of open world PvP and flagging regarding AoE mechanics.
What if you and your friends are using AoE abilities to take down many mobs and while you do that, a player comes in and flags on one of you and then your AoE abilities damage him? Now you are all unwillingly purple, free for the kill and in a dire state since you are dealing with all those mobs.
Well.. what if, based on the above post, your hotbar outline is 'green'? That means that all your abilities affect just mobs.

Ok so in this scenario the only way for you to "accidentally" become purple is if you choose to flag for PvP. Most of the time you can't hit someone at all unless you first turn on your combatant flag. It's always an opt-in to go purple. If this other player has already flagged as you said, and you choose to attack back, then all parties are purple and none of you gains corruption. It's just an all-consensual PvP fight. But if you're green and choosing not to fight (your PvP toggle is OFF), then even if you use AoE abilities, your abilities won't hit the other player at all.

The only other scenario is if the enemy player that jumps in on you is already red, and your team of greens hits him. You'd still be green even after attacking a red player. Unclear if you're green after killing them - I think the answer is Yes but Steven hasn't clarified that.

As for your other posts, my understanding of Steven's comments today were that he's already decided to have a toggle, albeit in a much easier fashion than you described (just a simple keybind to toggle it on or off). Here's the process overall as I understood it.

1. You start out green/Non-combatant, unable to hit any other players at all.
2. You hit Ctrl+F, or whatever keybind they set for it, and flag yourself as capable of hitting other players. This is a very common idea other games have already done. You are still green, however since you haven't yet hit anyone.
3. Someone comes along and you attack them and now you are purple. You are officially a combatant.
4. After you kill them, one of two things happens.
a) If the enemy player was also purple/combatant (i.e. if they hit you at all during the fight, they will be purple), then you can go on with your business because it was a consensual fight. You will remain purple for a set amount of time after PvP combat ends before going back to green (if you leave your PvP flag on, then you're back at step 2. If you turn it off, you're at step 1).
b) If they were a Non-Combatant/green (player who did not attack back), then you gain Corruption and you are now Red/Corrupted.

George_Black

Caeryl wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

Some people have mentioned many times the exploits of open world PvP and flagging regarding AoE mechanics.
What if you and your friends are using AoE abilities to take down many mobs and while you do that, a player comes in and flags on one of you and then your AoE abilities damage him? Now you are all unwillingly purple, free for the kill and in a dire state since you are dealing with all those mobs.
Well.. what if, based on the above post, your hotbar outline is 'green'? That means that all your abilities affect just mobs.

If you and your friends all see this person come up and hit you, then you should all beat that player into the dirt and wait for the Combatant status to fall away, since it’s a timed state.

Doesn’t seem like much of an issue to be honest.

This happens when there is a large group hidding around the corner waiting to kill your little group and use your spot. Also I have 0 worries about it. The devs will failproof it. Others still might be worried if they are not up to date.

George_Black

Leiloni the toggle cant be as simple in this game.

If there is a group of non combatants and you want to PK only one of them, how would the simple toggle do that?

Leiloni

What I found a bit confusing briefly after today is the penalties for player death in regards to PvP flag status. This is also why I don't think they're ever going to allow people to be purple a) without hitting another player and b) for long periods of time. So whatever they're discussing in that other thread is a moot point.

Flagging for PvP - aka turning on your Ctrl+F PvP toggle - still only means you're green, not purple, which took a minute for me to realize. The "benefits" of dying while purple are that you only suffer half the penalties of a green player. However you will not be realizing these benefits often.

I had previously been under the impression that merely flagging for PvP would make you purple all the time and you'd always suffer half the penalties of a green player even while out PvPing, and that this was the incentive to flag for PvP. But now I realize this is not the case, at all.

You are only purple for a few minutes at a time while participating in a PvP fight, so those halved death penalties serve only to incentivize people to fight back for that brief fight. This may have been obvious to others, but it just hit me just now - most of the time everyone will be green suffering normal death penalties outside of consensual PvP deaths.

But also in terms of that thread and the context of today's PvP toggle discussion - being permanently purple is not how the combatant status works, and would also be a massive exploit of the death penalty system. Allowing players to permanently suffer half the death penalties of everyone else is laughable to even consider.

Leiloni

George Black wrote: »

Leiloni the toggle cant be as simple in this game.

If there is a group of non combatants and you want to PK only one of them, how would the simple toggle do that?

Then only attack one of them lol. It's not hard to turn your PVP Flag on, and kill just the one guy. Remember you can choose how much of your skillbar to slot with action abilities and how many with tab - and also remember action isn't all massive AoEs. Action also means other types of abilities. So you can choose a few tab abilities on your bar, and a few non-AoE action abilities. As Steven always says, it's about player agency.

Or if you want to be an AoE only killing machine, then maybe don't attack a group when you only want to kill one. Risk vs reward - choose your path and live with the consequences. Here, though they're not forcing you to go purple, they're just going about their business.

Tyrantor

Quite frankly I think Jeff's absolute shock over Steven's response has to do with the fact this game is going to be rampant with non-combatant deaths and corrupt players since the hunting grounds are going to have contested EXP/Resource points of interest. The game is designed around group play and the current TTK is way too short to consider players will have any real option to fight back under CC and duress from attackers. Even on the most simple math schedule of a group of 8 players attacking another group of 8 players if they all "force attack" or "toggle player attack" buttons and hit the same guy (high priority/soft target) it's extremely probable they will kill that person in under 3-8 seconds +/- based on the quoted TTK divided by 8 not factoring in health, levels, equipment, builds etc.

Sure the system works someone gets corruption when that guy dies but if he didn't want to go down as non-combatant and lose more items, suffer more penalty too bad for him if he didn't attack FIRST.

PvP in the hunting grounds is essentially "who has the balls to attack first" per Steven's Benefit/Downside. "You did damage" and "Now people can attack you".

This essentially sounds like groups are going to stare each other down like some wild west movie and see who makes the first move. Issue with this is who makes the first move in a western usually wins. Here it will likely mean first move = corruption.

It's possible they could adjust the TTK or that CC is going to be max duration of 1 second or that everyone's always going to be ready to push their pvp button when other players roll on screen or that we're all just a bunch of button mashers and we'll never focus fire people because corruption.

The WHOLE point in my thread was that corruption is acting against it's intended purpose of limiting griefing and PKing when mutual players, groups or parties engage in pvp in the hunting grounds in the event someone can be killed BEFORE attacking back. Guild wars, node sieges, caravan raiding are all going to feed from hunting ground pvp to a large extent. As it currently stands the lack of manual combatant toggle seems flat out "wait what....." as Jeff would say. Either corruption is in the game to limit PVP or it's in the game to limit corruption - based on Steven's answer today it's flat out in the game to stop people from engaging in combat outside of objective based play and that essentially ALL hunting ground pvp will likely be the result of gankers looking to gank because they were going to do it anyway.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

The WHOLE point in my thread was that corruption is acting against it's intended purpose of limiting griefing and PKing when mutual players, groups or parties engage in pvp in the hunting grounds in the event someone can be killed BEFORE attacking back.

If players flag as combatant when attempting to attack a player that has already attacked them - whether either attack was successful or not - then this "issue" is completely solved.

The only other situation where this could come in to play is if a large enough group of players are able to co-ordernate a strong enough attack with a good enough surprise to kill a player in less than a second. If players specifically go out to do this, and they are successful, then more power to them.

The argument that "but the player being attacked didn't want that" is a pointless argument in a game with open PvP, as that same argument could then simply be applied to all PvP.

Leiloni

Tyrantor wrote: »

The game is designed around group play and the current TTK is way too short to consider players will have any real option to fight back under CC and duress from attackers.

The current TTK is only known by players currently under NDA so all we know is the intended TTK is a big longer, so they'll likely balance around that in testing.

Tyrantor wrote: »

Even on the most simple math schedule of a group of 8 players attacking another group of 8 players if they all "force attack" or "toggle player attack" buttons and hit the same guy (high priority/soft target) it's extremely probable they will kill that person in under 3-8 seconds +/- based on the quoted TTK divided by 8 not factoring in health, levels, equipment, builds etc.

Sure the system works someone gets corruption when that guy dies but if he didn't want to go down as non-combatant and lose more items, suffer more penalty too bad for him if he didn't attack FIRST.

Again this is what testing is for but my impression of the intended design is you're not going to kill a guy before he can even get one attack in. If he's already turned his PvP toggle on, he only needs to hit you once to be turned purple. If you 8v1 a guy in 3 seconds or less, then realistically he hasn't had a chance to opt-in to that fight and that's working as intended.

Tyrantor wrote: »

It's possible they could adjust the TTK or that CC is going to be max duration of 1 second or that everyone's always going to be ready to push their pvp button when other players roll on screen

I think with the type of PvP toggle Steven talked about today you won't have to mash a PvP button when other players roll on screen. You will permanently be toggled to allow your attacks to hit other players. The only thing that turns you from green to purple is actually hitting a player, but you would always be capable of hitting them regardless. So if a few people run up to you, all you do is hit back, no toggle mashing needed. Just a totally normal fight.

Tyrantor wrote: »

The WHOLE point in my thread was that corruption is acting against it's intended purpose of limiting griefing and PKing when mutual players, groups or parties engage in pvp in the hunting grounds in the event someone can be killed BEFORE attacking back. Guild wars, node sieges, caravan raiding are all going to feed from hunting ground pvp to a large extent. As it currently stands the lack of manual combatant toggle seems flat out "wait what....." as Jeff would say. Either corruption is in the game to limit PVP or it's in the game to limit corruption - based on Steven's answer today it's flat out in the game to stop people from engaging in combat outside of objective based play and that essentially ALL hunting ground pvp will likely be the result of gankers looking to gank because they were going to do it anyway.

I get where you're coming from but think of it this way - if you're zerging people down, they don't have time to react and they don't have time to decide they even want to fight you. The entire point of the combatant system, and indeed the entire point of the intended longer TTK, is to allow time for decision-making and counter-play. I understand the viewpoint that focus fire is skilled PvP, and in organized PvP it is - but if some dude is hanging around an area with friends killing mobs, seemingly minding his own business - he's not choosing to PvP you just because he's there.

Focus your efforts on ensuring TTK is properly balanced, but the corruption system seems fine as is. Ensuring a proper TTK is how you can ensure that a group that actually wants to 8v8 you can choose to do so. And realistically, it shouldn't take much for a person to be able to get one skill off before death.

Also however, read my reply about the death penalty. That's a massive reason why you can't have people be permanently flagged purple.

FliP

Regarding the /forceAtk to hit 1 player, but not AoE others.

Normally, once you Ctrl+F to enable PK and hit a target, you will become a Combatant (purple). To prevent of accidently hitting other players, once you engaged in combat with 1 target, you could Ctrl+F again to turn /forceAtk off.

Of course, you will still be purple as you are still in combat with another player, but you won't start any other "in combat" states with other players.

Sathrago

Though not exactly a toggle of sorts... I would like to see an option for blacklisting players you dont like so you never have to toggle against them, you just start attacking freely. It would actually be safer for you since your attacks would only hit the blacklisted players if you can keep your toggle off.

FliP

Not so safe because the blacklisted player can annoy you even more by constantly running into your attacks while grinding until you're perma red.

Sathrago

FliP wrote: »

Not so safe because the blacklisted player can annoy you even more by constantly running into your attacks while grinding until you're perma red.

Then you just take him off the black list if you cant handle it. Not to mention that is assuming he is kamakazing himself into my aoes.

Tyrantor

Leiloni wrote: »

I get where you're coming from but think of it this way - if you're zerging people down, they don't have time to react and they don't have time to decide they even want to fight you.

Focus your efforts on ensuring TTK is properly balanced, but the corruption system seems fine as is. Ensuring a proper TTK is how you can ensure that a group that actually wants to 8v8 you can choose to do so. And realistically, it shouldn't take much for a person to be able to get one skill off before death.

Who said anything about zerging someone down? My example was two groups of 8vs8 - the first group to initiate the attack on one person in the other group (mage, priest, bard etc). A melee player may not make it to the other team to attack between CC(stuns, snares, knockdowns) vs ranged players in the opposing group.

Think about this. Say your guild is currently farming an exp/resource area with lets say 24 people and a few other groups come in the area and want those spots they roll in and attack your guild and take the spots... your guild says "Lets take that back" and then a back and forth ensues for several hours as the groups fight over a contested spot of play. It's going to be fairly obvious when you see the other group after that first fight that PvP is about to happen now instead of 8 players with focus fire maybe you have 10, 14, 20 etc all attacking 1 person before they can fight back just adjusting the TTK is going to have a limit to stay within their PvE and PvP expectations.

FuryBladeborne

Tyrantor wrote: »

This essentially sounds like groups are going to stare each other down like some wild west movie and see who makes the first move. Issue with this is who makes the first move in a western usually wins. Here it will likely mean first move = corruption.

I agree. Groups will be staring each other down. In the case of a coordinated strike on a called target such as you described, yes first move will = corruption; and, that corruption will be an accepted cost for a first kill to weaken the enemy group instead of doing something else. Such as, attacking several of the players to get a reciprocated fight going and then coordinating a called target without gaining corruption.

Tyrantor wrote: »

It's possible they could adjust the TTK or that CC is going to be max duration of 1 second or that everyone's always going to be ready to push their pvp button when other players roll on screen or that we're all just a bunch of button mashers and we'll never focus fire people because corruption.

Intended time to kill has been given as 30-60 seconds in a 1v1 situation. Since you are using group examples, we have yet to see how much impact heals and buffs are going to have in keeping people alive against focus fire. In that vein, we do know that mages will be able to put party members into a safe space using the spell Safe Space where the member cannot attack or be attacked for a period of time. We also know that tanks will be able to use the ability Cover to absorb 50% of damage at a targeted player; although, we don't know how fast the tank can apply cover to a player.

I don't think that we can assume focus fire cannot be dealt with in reasonable situations yet.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mage
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Tank

Tyrantor wrote: »

The WHOLE point in my thread was that corruption is acting against it's intended purpose of limiting griefing and PKing when mutual players, groups or parties engage in pvp in the hunting grounds in the event someone can be killed BEFORE attacking back. Guild wars, node sieges, caravan raiding are all going to feed from hunting ground pvp to a large extent.

How is corruption working against the purpose of limiting griefing and PKing? Are you saying that griefing and PKing will be increased over all rather than decreased as a result of corruption? It sounds more like your trying to say that the corruption system is intended to limit PKing and griefing but also limits consensual group PvP that is supposed to be allowed.

If that is what you mean, that is correct. My impression is that that the problem of PKing and griefing is a serious problem that harms the longevity of the game and player population while the challenge for groups of consensual PvPers working around the corruption system is not as major of an issue. Essentially, the possible difficulties of working around the corruption system are greatly outweighed by the benefits of having the corruption system.

Guild wars, node sieges, and caravan raiding all exist outside of the corruption system and don't interact with open world PvP or corruption. I don't see how those systems are going to feed from open world PvP; or, even where you were going with that.

Tyrantor wrote: »

...Either corruption is in the game to limit PVP or it's in the game to limit corruption - based on Steven's answer today it's flat out in the game to stop people from engaging in combat outside of objective based play and that essentially ALL hunting ground pvp will likely be the result of gankers looking to gank because they were going to do it anyway.

"Either corruption is in the game to limit PVP or it's in the game to limit corruption" Corruption is in the game to limit corruption? I can't even decide what you mean, but I think I already answered it above anyway.

Steven's answer was that corruption is a deterrent. A deterrent does not automatically stop anything. Players still have the agency to choose whether to accept corruption and how to manage it if they need to kill a player that will not fight back.

"...ALL hunting ground pvp will likely be the result of gankers looking to gank". That may be your opinion, but the game is being designed for group PvP in the open world over objectives and POI's such as World Bosses, open world dungeons, resources, etc. All of these things have value, are limited, and not everyone can have them. If multiple groups are shooting at the same world boss, then not everyone is walking away with the full rewards. People are intended to fight over these. From what has been described, this basic corruption system has been used successfully in other games that focused on open world PvP. Personally, I wouldn't just assume such PvP won't happen in Ashes.

Atama

I can envision a situation where in the hunting grounds, you have two groups staring each other down, and warily gathering resources while each waits for the other side to strike. Then suddenly a third group shows up, slightly larger than either of the first two groups, and just attacks like a pack of berserkers. The first two groups fight back, temporarily allying with each other, and fight them off. Then once the fight is over, they have to decide if they want to finish each other off or if they want to now work together.

That's the kind of awesome stuff you can get out of a game like Ashes.

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