Addressing Auto Attacks

Steven has made it clear that Ashes won't have an Auto Attack as seen in other mmorpgs. Instead, you will need to press a button each time to swing your weapon. Now, some people have pointed out that doing this means you will likely be spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue and is generally annoying to do.

Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again.

A system like this would be easier on the fingers and would open up opportunities for the attack sequence to be balanced around the other skills, depending on how it's implemented of course.

What do you all think? Would you be happy with a system like this or would you prefer how the weapon attacks are currently designed?

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Leiloni

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Steven has made it clear that Ashes won't have an Auto Attack as seen in other mmorpgs. Instead, you will need to press a button each time to swing your weapon. Now, some people have pointed out that doing this means you will likely be spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue and is generally annoying to do.

Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again.

A system like this would be easier on the fingers and would open up opportunities for the attack sequence to be balanced around the other skills, depending on how it's implemented of course.

What do you all think? Would you be happy with a system like this or would you prefer how the weapon attacks are currently designed?

I think we should wait until the system comes out. A lot of games you barely use your basic/auto attack at all. Both tab target and action games even. If the combat is designed well, you won't need it. TERA had a basic attack that functioned exactly in this manner and it was almost never used by many classes. You had enough other abilities that you never ran out, and it wasn't a game where you needed to "weave" for DPS. SWTOR auto attack I don't even use on any of my classes - if I run out of skills to use there's always one spammable low or no resource ability for classes to use. Just two examples. I know some games use them, but people need to think outside their little 2 game bubbles.

I'd say before people get worried, see how the combat works once it's in a more complete state. If the idea is to create a basic attack instead of an auto attack, I have to imagine they're creating a system where you don't need an auto attack and the basic attack will be little needed.

Virtek wrote: »

I would be open to that idea, as long as we can cancel out of the animation when using a skill or jumping.
It would alleviate quite a bit of constant clicking to swing a weapon.

While it may not "feel" that bad to continue clicking for every single attack, Carpal Tunnel is a real thing. Preventing it is much better than recovering if it becomes an issue.
Especially taking into account the long period of time where you shouldn't/can't use a mouse during recovery. I haven't experienced that...and I would thoroughly enjoy keeping it that way, lol.

While I don't think this game will have such spammy combat, nor do I think we'll need to be spamming any sort of basic or auto attack, I did want to requote this one. If the combat did somehow become so spammy as to risk causing hand pain I'd quit in a millisecond and never look back. I had no hand pain at all until Black Desert came along - and I only played Witch, so not even the spammiest of classes - and got tendonitis in both hands and after nearly a year still dealing with it and unable to fix it on my own, eventually went to a doctor who sent me to an occupational therapist. It's still something I need to manage today so it is no joke. I really hope the devs take this sort of thing into account when designing combat.

Dygz

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Steven has made it clear that Ashes won't have an Auto Attack as seen in other mmorpgs. Instead, you will need to press a button each time to swing your weapon. Now, some people have pointed out that doing this means you will likely be spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue and is generally annoying to do.

Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again.

What do you all think? Would you be happy with a system like this or would you prefer how the weapon attacks are currently designed?

Advanced weapons have up to 5 Weapon Abilities on them. And completing the chain with the correct timing unleashes an Ultimate Weapon Ability.
So...it is unlikely that people will just be spamming the 1st Weapon Ability in the chain.
So far, we've only seen the bare bones of basic combat.

I click the abilities on my hotbar instead of using numbers. I must have built up those muscles in the last 23 years because I don't get muscle fatigues from that.

Sathrago

Dygz wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Steven has made it clear that Ashes won't have an Auto Attack as seen in other mmorpgs. Instead, you will need to press a button each time to swing your weapon. Now, some people have pointed out that doing this means you will likely be spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue and is generally annoying to do.

Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again.

What do you all think? Would you be happy with a system like this or would you prefer how the weapon attacks are currently designed?

Advanced weapons have up to 5 Weapon Abilities on them. And completing the chain with the correct timing unleashes an Ultimate Weapon Ability.
So...it is unlikely that people will just be spamming the 1st Weapon Ability in the chain.
So far, we've only seen the bare bones of basic combat.

I click the abilities on my hotbar instead of using numbers. I must have built up those muscles in the last 23 years because I don't get muscle fatigues from that.

can you clarify what you are even talking about here?

voidshadow

I feel like it would depend on how the combat system is fleshed out. And how classes work. Personally, I'm intrigued by the click to auto mechanic if it can blend with combat gameplay appropriately.

Dygz

Sathrago wrote: »

can you clarify what you are even talking about here?

I guess you'll have to ask specific questions about what needs clarification.

sarkado

Having watched a lot of current game play videos, I think many have already stated that the auto attack a good in between filler for you skills. However, I've spent many long nights mindlessly farming mobs for mats in other games to appreciate the ability to Right Click the skill to switch to continuous auto-attack. I think this system could work, buy making the attacks a little bit slower than if one was to spam / cast skills between. I feel that would be a decent balance.

Damokles

Yes, I would be happy with a Guild Wars 2 system.

Nagash

I mean as a summoner I never really "attack" anyway

McShave

What if the weapon attack was like a channeled ability. Click the button once and the player will do a series of weapon attacks like a chained attack that can be stopped anytime by pressing the ability again or casting another ability.

Atama

It’s rare for MMORPGs to have auto-attacks anymore. It’s not necessary and a relic of an older time. I don’t want or expect one in AoC.

Vhaeyne

@Sathrago because @Dygz could not be bothered to site his sources. This is what I found on the wiki related to what he was saying:

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Weapon_use_combo_system

Seems legit. It is funny because I have also heard the DEVs say something to the effect of "We don't want set skill rotations, we would rather have you react and use the right skill for that moment". While the system described in the wiki doesn't guarantee that we will have skill rotations, it looks like it is heavily leaning towards skill rotations. I don't see how you have a system where you are building up to use your big spender move, not be a rotation. Especially in PvE. It is all gonna be about what combination of moves gets you to use that ultimate ability the most often. At least that is what I am seeing here.

Atama

LotRO had a system of chains and counters, at least playing a Guardian (tank) class. Many skills unlocked certain other skills, or augmented them when done in order. In addition, there were enemy skills you could mitigate or prevent with the proper skill; interrupt, taunt, stun, etc. It never felt like a rotation, it felt like combat, where you actively block your enemy while building up your own attack. It was active, strategic, and player skill was heavily involved, which is saying a lot for a tag-target game.

I hope Ashes implements at least part of that.

Anonymous332

" Instead, how would you feel about a weapon attack chain instead of single attacks? So you press the "attack" button and it does 3 attacks in sequence then stops until you press the button again. "

The issue with having 3 attacks in a row by clicking once, is the unintuitive nature of it assuming there is animation lock to some degree. This forces you to stay at one place for too long expeccialy regarding PvP and it slows you down. Fluid movement is crucial. 1 attack per click gives way more room for personal control over your character.

Regarding muscle fatigue i think its best to explore a button on ur keyboard that will reduce it dramaticly or one that doesnt give you fatigue at all, and get used to that particular button. Arguing that you didnt have to do that in other games is a bad argument because Ashes is another game.

Conclusion: Forced combos are very unintuitive and takes control from the player

(This post is mainly regarding Melee)

consultant

Well as far as muscle fatigue kind of a non issue as far as game is concerned people should take breaks like lets say every 2 or 3 hours to avoid that. Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.

But willing to adress annoying which is mental but wantt to deal with game mechinics first.

First let me talk about the suggestion that was made and say it is as you put it chained single attacks.
Lets go with 3 and lets say that takes 3 seconds.

Could work really well If casting or using another ability depending on ability interupts sequence. In League of legends you can be right in the middle of a swing and as long as it has not hit yet then it will be interupted by movement. This is important cause since a sequence takes more time then you are commited to three seconds if there was no way to interupt it. Not sure if the Engine is set up to work that way. So yes it could be done that way. If not then it should be able to be interupted between animations 1 and 2 and animations 2 and 3 so if each single attack is one second ounce you push the button you will have committed one second to that attack. May sound redundant but important in PvP could be dead in three seconds.

As Far as being annoyyed and pushing same button all the time......well let me telll what this basic attacks that can be spammed are..... So if you look it in terms of a rotation cycle all this a spammable abilities or ability that maybe have a global cooldown but not an actual cooldwon are..... ( Guessing you play a healer) so this woulld be in terms of healing the low mana cost decent heal that you spam when all other abilities off cool down.

Now let me say what it is not, which is a button that you have to push every second or 3 seconds.
This spammable abilities (basic attacks) serve as sort of a fill in abilities. Could actually have more than one basic attack just different types.

Want to get to annoying part but still have to say a few more things cover. Want to go over WoW class specs.

Fire mage (Not sure how things are now days but here we go any ways.) This spec had two spammable abilities or abilities that you could cast a lot and but eventually run out of mana. These abilities were scorch and fireball but in order to make it really simple we are just going go with fireball. Now if you played a fire mage in WoW you pushed that one button fire ball button a lot time after time after time.......but
In this particular case you were looking and hoping for fire balls to crit twice in a row to get a free pyroblast
do not want to into all the game mechanics but you were waiting for crits so that you could start a sequence of events (abilities) that could end up with casting three huge fire balls in a row. Actually quite bit more than what I said but point is you were kind of on the edge of youre seat waiting to start that sequence plus ther was more one than sequence so there was a bit of strategy. (Procs done correctly)

Now in this example there is lot of repetition but not boring and annoying because of the way procs worked with abilities. I mean you were basicall spamming that fire ball button all day. So just because you have a basic ability to spam does not mean it has to be annoying. It was fun.

Protection Pally[/ i]Next class spec I want to talk about is Protection Pally. This class also had a fill in spammable ability but not used very often because it was just a fill in when all the other cool downs were down. That ability was flash of light wiht is low level heal in case of tank but if you are waiting for cool downs to come back up cause you burned right through then just cast few flash of lights to do some self healing and help healer out and then some of your cool downs come up, But all in all guessing only used about 7 10 times per minute so not very often.

In this example we have a class with quite a number of abilities that have low cool downs (3.5 to 15 seconds I beleive) so most of the time you were busy pushing those buttons and using flash of light as a fill in ability so as not to waste time. So even though you did have a spammable ability you just did not use it all the time.

Now lets get to the annoying part.......in personal opinion that is.

Frost mage In WoW Warlords of Draneor time periond after prune and revamp...what happened was you were basically casting Frostbolt forever...just like Firemages. But in this particular case most of time you were casting frostbolt waiting for a Proc brainfreeze. So it frostbolt and then push brain freeze button and that was about all you did. In this particular case there were not any abilities that did damage that were on low cool down to compliment frost bolt so all you did is push two buttons forever frost bolt and the proc it gave. Now yes there were other abilites but their cooldowns were so high that they could hardly be considered part of rotation. Now there was something called icicles but at that time well it was broken and do not wnat to talk but thatcause did not add anything to the game play.

Now in this example the spam ability frost bolt was pushed upwards of 30 times in one minute just cause the wait for other abilities ot come of cooldown was so high. So yes if you are going to press one button over 50 percent of time with very little strategy just a proc (which comes out to no more when this light comes on push this button) then it can be very annoying. So it was just press this button and sometimes you will have to push another button afterwards. It got so annoying that I just stopped playing it all tother.

Ok now now lets put all together. Just because you have an ability that can be spammed does not mean you will be spamming it all the time because you may be hitting other buttons that are more effective than that spam ability especially true of classes that have several abilities with low cool downs. Another thing to consider is you may have to spam an ability all the time, basically most of what you, but that does not mean it has to be boring. For example In another post I talked about a spell Chromatic Orb if the was worked into lets say a mages basic attack if they have one then it would not be boring at all because well that spell if iIremember correctly has over 10 procs but only asked for 8. Another thing basics attacks can do is put things like debuffs on targets. In Leauge of Legends they have auto attacks and in some Champions there is some strategy to it.

So it all comes down to gamesdesign as game designers Ashes of Creation should take note of how many times a player has to push a certain button in one minute. and if he does have to push a certain button a lot. Is fun and interesting? If not it is the opposite which dull and boring and a design failure.

Lastly of Course there abilities with higher cool downs than a minute so you have to look at which buttons and how many times are players pushing those buttons in five minutes. But well already made really long post so will just skip over those game mechanics

Sholer

" spamming a single button a lot during gameplay which can cause muscle fatigue "

LOL

I'm ok with the 'click-to-attack' thing

Atama

When I played a Rogue in WoW I spammed the same button a lot. A LOT. I really did get fatigue.

So when that happened I swapped to a different finger. It wasn't that hard.

consultant

But now that we concluded that these basics attacks are not auto attacks as it says in the title of this post but spammable abilities.....

Want to add that this basic attacks ( not auto attacks) can actual do a lot of very interesting things. In League of Legends (which uses auto attacks) there is a champion called riven. And sometimes think after you use an actual ability with a cool down. Her next three basic attacks also makes her dash a little bit forward very useful since she is melee champ so can do damage while enemy is trying to get away. I recommended that Ashes of Creation study that game from the design point of view this is one of the aspects that I think thay should look at.

Now in LoL there are only 4 abilities and on auto attack so this kind of forces them to get creative
with auto attacks and they also have nice passive abilities. Think this would also apply to Ashes of Creation cause we are going have a low number of abilities.

Really with a little creativity and innovation basic attacks that can be spammed can be interesting and fun.
Another thing that could be done is how you push the basic attack buttons Is it a double tap tripple tap or have to keep it held down like a charge ability or certtain type of timing like hitting it imediatly after using an ability.

Matter of fact it can be one of the things that get changed from archetype to archetype have different strategies and passive effects so if they really wanted too we could have 64 different types of basic attacks some of which would be similar like archetypes in one class like tank archetype might have defensive passive ability associated with basic attacks .

Here some simple things LoL does every third attack this happens, crit, heal, becoms area of effect,....sometimes it is every four attacks. I just recently got a crit item on Sion and well when that champion crits seeing as he is so big he just kicks enemies. So his basic attack have a different animation when it crits think this is pretty cool. Mention this in another post previously just LoL was already doing it.

Actually this would be a design mistake in Ashes of Creation cause just gets repetative after a while cause you crit all the time but gave instrucrtions on how to do it using a special effects crit table.

But if toons are only criting lets say 10 percent max percentage in order to make it feel special then could just make it so.

Really there are all kinds of spells and effects that could be related to basic attacks. So they do not have to be boring they are just boring in most MMOs hopefully it will be different in Ashes of Creation..

Leiloni

consultant wrote: »

Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.

Pushing one button is definitely more physically demanding than pressing 10 buttons. Pressing 10 different buttons uses different fingers, muscles, and tendons, and spreads the work out more, thus reducing strain on each individual finger. Pressing one button repetitively, stresses that one finger over and over as well as the muscles and tendons used to move that finger. They're called Repetitive Stress Injuries, or sometimes Overuse Injuries (both incredibly apt names) and things like Carpal Tunnel and Tendonitis fall under this umbrella. That is exactly the sort of behavior that causes those injuries, not just on the computer even but also doing other activities.

daveywavey

Leiloni wrote: »

but also doing other activities.

Hey, that wrist "injury" was totally legit! I wasn't doing anything.... Why are you looking at me, huh? Huh? HUH?!

consultant

Leiloni wrote: »

consultant wrote: »

Plus pushing ten different buttons not different than than pushing one button or playing on Atarti 2600 with joystick that only has one button is not more physcical demanding that playing wiht 12 button mouse on computer actually find more button to push more challenging.

Pushing one button is definitely more physically demanding than pressing 10 buttons. Pressing 10 different buttons uses different fingers, muscles, and tendons, and spreads the work out more, thus reducing strain on each individual finger. Pressing one button repetitively, stresses that one finger over and over as well as the muscles and tendons used to move that finger. They're called Repetitive Stress Injuries, or sometimes Overuse Injuries (both incredibly apt names) and things like Carpal Tunnel and Tendonitis fall under this umbrella. That is exactly the sort of behavior that causes those injuries, not just on the computer even but also doing other activities.

Well just speaking from personal experience but that could differ from person to person. some people maybe more prone to it so yes it can be an issue. Maybe more people coudl chime in on the topic

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