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MMO RPGs Combat styles
xManager
Member
Hey all,
As we are watching the combat style is progressing in AoC, I wanted to get everyone's opinion on what do you think of it so far?
IMO, the combat still needs more life into it. I usually get bored with a game if the combat is mostly repetitive and deals slow animation strikes.
I personally love blade and soul type of combat. What's your favorite type of combat?
Thank you all,
As we are watching the combat style is progressing in AoC, I wanted to get everyone's opinion on what do you think of it so far?
IMO, the combat still needs more life into it. I usually get bored with a game if the combat is mostly repetitive and deals slow animation strikes.
I personally love blade and soul type of combat. What's your favorite type of combat?
Thank you all,
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Comments
KOA:Reckoning and Valheim are the speeds I prefer.
(I liked NWO speed, too)
Combat is not going to be as great as it could be unless they add bonus damage from the back for all classes.
@xManager I like what I am seeing so far. Doesn't seem to slow or too fast imo. What I am really hoping for is a smooth feel to the combat. I personally enjoyed the auto attack with abilities spun in on click that wow had. What we are seeing right now seems decent and will be tuned up as development goes on.
@Tacualeon I understand your viewpoint but think the opposite. Why even add back damage increases? If they add it for casters....now you're telling me I take additional damage because a fireball hit my back? That's silly.
Why do I need to take additional damage because a rogue is hitting me from behind? Because their skill in killing allows them to hit my weak points? Do I not have weak points in front? On the sides? come on.
No damage boosts for positioning would be ideal and easier to maintain for balancing purposes. This in turn let's the development team focusing heavily on better skills (which can then add bonus damage for positioning and also give this type of bonus to any class/skill).
Tactical combat, positioning and combat flow.
Just for the unaware.
Armor is thicker in the front. You can't see or get mentally prepared for taking an impacts from the back.
I don't mind it I just want to know why these magically ignorant grown adults are all of a sudden twirling around defying gravity to cast basic spells like "firebolt". Gif meh loar.
Look at it like this...
This is a lv10, non-secondary flavoured attack. And the character goes into extreme effort to throw a weak fireball.
It's like watching somebody making it a big deal to lift a screw-driver. What would they do if they were asked to lift a toolbox?
A simple fireball should have a simple hand motion. A comet call should have a more extreme animation.
I am very curious to see what they will do with sword swings on warriors.
I hope they dont fill every skill with particle effects and colours, smashed grounds and sonic waves.
Oh no I understand why it feels weird for people, I would just personally like to see a reason for this flamboyancy if its going to be how they do their magic on release.
I haven't played but I know they acknowledged the combat actions were a bit over the top and they were working on simplifying them. Hopefully once they have a more varied set of skills they can balance each based on how powerful they should be in game
Read the comic here!
Tactical combat? Avoid AOE, prepare for stealth rogues, kite melee, focus-fire healers, protect your own healers, and don't focus tanks. The combat is going to be as tactical as it has always been and players will still FAIL at these basic steps even thought they have played games for 20+ years. Terrible excuse I know....but accurate AF.
Armor is thicker in the front? Are we playing escape from tarkov now? It has to be realistic in Ashes of creation? Dudes over here shooting a fireball and other dude is summoning a water elemental while fighting a flaming dragon that creates illusions of itself but my armor has to be THIN in the back? Come on.
combat flow? With your idea, combat will flow worse. I will have all ranged characters stand further back than the healers and just focus-fire each enemy since their backs will HAVE to be turned. This would not be fun fighting in lines.
It just doesn't need to be in the game at all.
@LieutenantToast some feedback here for future purposes...
What if you do it into the sunset?
You sound like the guy who calls contesting objetives, griefing.
If I wanted a combat this basic I would play something aimed toward childs.
2 decisions at the time to handle.
Niche decision vs aoe
Niche decision vs melee.
Even more niche decision vs rogue.
Armor is thicker in the front.
Being at your enemy 6s is the strongest tactical position.
Your only fundaments is your perspective and that you don't what to think much about your surroundings.
I played chess much before I played Wow. Rogue was the class I picked first because I like tactic and strategy.
Some years later. I dueled another rogue outside of Black Temple. I remember his name because it was funny, his name was Conejito(Bunny), he was an undead rogue with both Illidan swords.
We dueled three times, and I won all three.
He then demanded to stand in front of each other and press all buttons until one of us died.
That moment made me think quite a lot. Conejito had a perspective.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
There's this weird mindset a lot of players have that combat in a game isn't interesting unless it's big, flashy and really fast paced. Now, if that were true, why are the Dark Souls games so popular? That are definitely NOT fast-paced. In fact, the combat animations are relatively slow and there's a decent amount of animation locking involved. Once you press the attack button your character is going to do that attack and there is nothing you can do to change it.
It works though because this slower pace and animation locking means the player's choices are more meaningful. If you make the wrong decision in a Dark Souls game, you'll probably lose half your health in a single attack.
Now I don't expect Ashes to go to such an extreme, but the point still stands. To make a combat system interesting you need to give the players choices and there needs to be consequences for poor decision-making.
I don't know that EQ2 had the best presentation of the concept, but we should have the time to notice that the Priest has used Divine Censure on a target and decide to focus on attacking that target so we can gain some Health from our attacks. If the Shadow Disciple has a Shadow augment on their Damnation, the Shadowblade should have time to notice Damnation has been cast and also attack that target with a Shadow augment, thereby stacking Shadow damage.
The Mage's Fireball casting animation doesn't particularly show extra effort, but it is exaggerated enough and should be slow enough that if I notice the Acolyte has triggered that animation for a Fireball with a Holy augment on it, I can choose to have my Soulbow follow up with a Holy-augmented Snare that adds Holy damage in addition to the Bleed.
I don't agree that the Cleric having healing and dps removes choice from the player. Rather, it accomplishes the dev's goal of bring the Cleric closer to what the class is in D&D and Pathfinder, where Clerics provide dps as well as healing, rather than ending up only focused on healing...which is what MMORPG groups typically demand in a manner that is different from other RPG groups.
It helps the Cleric feel like a classic RPG Cleric.
Big, Flashy and fast-paced is not weird, it's just a playstyle. It's a playstyle that comes from playing other video games, like first-person shooters and fighters. Gamers ramp up their twitch skills and then hit MMORPGs, like EQ and Pantheon, where there are several seconds of delay between hit. By comparison that feels like watching paint dry.
For me, NWO got the pace about right. Active enough to feel lively and slow enough to make some combat choices based on what I see others in my group are doing.
When I watch Pantheon combat, I'm always immediately turned-off by the combat because it feels sooooo suullllooooowwwww.
Dark Souls is popular because there are RPG players who like "slower" paced combat.
MMORPGs attract wide range of playstyles.
Animation-locking should not be what makes a character's combat choice meaningful. In an RPG, especially a multiplayer RPG, what should make a character's combat choice more meaningful is being able to adjust their ability choices to take best advantage of the other abilities that are in play on the battlefield.
The best speed is going to be subjective across thousands of players.
At the end of the day, it's mostly going to come down to what feels best according to the lead designer's philosophy/playstyle. Which is why Pantheon's combat speed is significantly slower than Ashes combat speed and WoW's combat speed is somewhere in the middle. There's nothing weird about any of those choices, it's just a matter of preference. Although, I personally believe that FPS speed is too fast for what an (group) RPG is supposed to be.
I think Steven's concepts of consequences for poor decision-making are focused on other areas of risk v reward than combat speed and animation-locking.
But I have to admit that responsiveness that wow had, felt good. Anyway I don't want to play a "wow like" combat in AoC. I think people want something more dynamic. We are in 2021 not 2003, it can't be that hard to get something according to our time.
Well, prepare to be bored, the game is tab-target, one of if not the most mundane forms of combat to have in a game.
Spinning in circles is outmaneuvering to you? I honestly don't see how this will add to the games fun. moving your character around is a thing regardless of bonus damage from behind. I don't want to get hit period so there will be times where I will get behind you or kite you only to charge back at you or harpoon you to where I want you.
You still haven't said anything about back damage being increased for casters. Do they just get excluded from this damage increase or do you really think my "thin" back armor (hahahahaha) is going to increase the amount of magical damage I take?
Basic combat mechanics like avoiding standing in fire, focus firing proper targets, identifying stealth players, and protecting healers is a niche decision to be made? I feel like your ENTIRE arguments revolves around 1v1ing a bunny (with two Illidan WAR GLAIVES.....not swords) and not team play.
I agree that it's silly for magic damage to suddenly deal more damage with back attacks, but I disagree that it's a bad idea.
What I propose is that your hit chance and crit chance gain a bonus if you hit the target from behind with any attack since they literally cant see it coming.
If they were to make it a flat 25% bonus to hit chance, and anything that spills over 100% hit chance gets converted into crit chance, I feel that would make it viable to build "chaser" characters which could add another unique element to the battlefield.
There is a psuedo damage increase from this but not a flat damage bonus. It provides the tactical positioning that @Tacualeon wants to see and adds a special new element to combat. Running away from someone becomes a real risk you have to weigh.
I feel like Dygz is right on the supposition that once u get used to fast combat its hard go back to something slower.
Even on occassion when theres nothing wrong with the slower pace from tactical pov.
That is why I would personally want to see BDO paced combat. I think theres a lot of wrong in bdos strategic play of rotating iframes, superarmor, frontal guard till one makes mistake and gets oneshot.
I would prefer tactical side to be somewhat similar to WoW WotLK era. Cds for ccs and protections.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
I expect the Mage primary archetype will not have an ability that does crit damage if hit from behind, but...
We shall see.