MMO RPGs Combat styles

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,

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Comments

Wandering Mist

I'm fine with a slightly slower pace of combat as long as there is choice and decisions for the player to make, which right now there isn't. Looking at the Cleric as an example, one of my main criticisms of the Cleric skills is that they do too much in a single button press. If you can heal and dps at the same time with a single button press, you remove any choice from the player. You don't even need to think about the healing because the game does it all for you.

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.

Dygz

A key aspect of RPG combat is synergizing your own abilities with the abilities your teammates are using. EQ2 used Heroic Opportunities as a mechanic to facilitate that: If the Priest uses an ability that starts a combat chain, the other members of the group have time to also trigger abilities associated with that chain, thereby resulting in extra damage.
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.

raylegh

For me the best combat systems are from Archeage, Blade&Soul and Black Desert. Anything other than taking these as an example, could be a mistake.

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.

Dygz

I haven't actually played Blade & Soul or BDO, but the videos I just watched makes the combat seem more like single-player combat. I'm seeing one player mow down a group of opponents in 15 seconds, where, really it should at best, take a group of players that long. But, maybe, those vids are of a high level, mowing down low level mobs.

Merek

xManager wrote: »

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.

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.

Gubiak

Terra was close to entirely revolutionizing combat in mmo's and I was a big fan. Blade and Soul combat was fast and satisfying. Allowing for flashy moves in PvE and forcing players to get in the headspace of their opponents to pull off proper combos with no interruptions. C9 pvp Was fast, satisfying and meaty. You felt every hit from hitstuns and juggles while allowing for mindgames around recovery. I don't expect AoC to be mindblowing. I want it to be good and satisfying (I might be asking for a lot but I am expecting to spend a long time in this game

Khronus

@Tacualeon I'll attempt to respond to your rambling. I'm happy that you understand the tactical aspect of pvp. you sound like a formidable opponent on the battlefield (albeit I'm not sure I would have much of an issue beating you

).

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.

Sathrago

Khronus wrote: »

@Tacualeon I'll attempt to respond to your rambling. I'm happy that you understand the tactical aspect of pvp. you sound like a formidable opponent on the battlefield (albeit I'm not sure I would have much of an issue beating you ).

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.

Blackhearted

I saw a video of elyons closed beta review and Im expecting ashes to have similarities. They have actiontab combat and skills on hotbar.

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.

Dygz

I dunno... I have strong suspicion that the devs are not going to go with making tab-target abilities significantly less powerful than action abilities, in general. There should be a tab-target ability that does similar damage for those players who prefer tab-target combat over action combat, so...
I expect the Mage primary archetype will not have an ability that does crit damage if hit from behind, but...

We shall see.

RocketFarmer

I think the classic role choices (tank, DPS, healer) sort of limit your options on combat. You have to fit those roles into whatever you design. That likely means the design can’t really be realistic and may not be optimal as far as the coolness factor.

Tacualeon

Khronus wrote: »

@Tacualeon I'll attempt to respond to your rambling. I'm happy that you understand the tactical aspect of pvp. you sound like a formidable opponent on the battlefield (albeit I'm not sure I would have much of an issue beating you ).

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.

What you call rambling, I call constructing an argument.
I hope someday I can earn a living as a combat designer

If you want more of my time and thought process, and me to explain tactic and how that translate to quality combat and a better experience, then you better

I'm not so desperated to be heard than I'm willing to give thought and time for free and on demand.
If everyone is free to do with their time what they want, then rarely an opinion about something specific will be equal.
You would be learning from me: what I have dedicated time to, what I have read about and how I have filtered that information through thought and judgment, while I would get nothing in exchange from you. All I have learned in this exchange is your perspective and things you don't like saying is either too silly or too realistic for an arbitrary reasons.

Khronus wrote: »

you sound like a formidable opponent on the battlefield (albeit I'm not sure I would have much of an issue beating you ).

I blushed a little.
Confidents opponents are the best opponents. I'll be a gentleman in victory. Most of the times

maouw

Dygz wrote: »

I dunno... I have strong suspicion that the devs are not going to go with making tab-target abilities significantly less powerful than action abilities, in general. There should be a tab-target ability that does similar damage for those players who prefer tab-target combat over action combat, so...
I expect the Mage primary archetype will not have an ability that does crit damage if hit from behind, but...

We shall see.

I remember someone suggesting that tab-target skills slow you down/lock you in place for a bit, so the tradeoff being:
Tab targetter: easy to target enemies, but they are also easier to hit
Action Combatter: harder to hit enemies, but they are also harder to hit

That way you won't have to give anyone less/more damage (?)

Though honestly, if class A is easier to play than class B, I'd prefer if B has advantage

On second thoughts, I don't want to breach this topic.

Vazari

I really loved the combat as a baseline and do love that the autos actually feel engaging but the current implementation is kind of wonky. I agree that being animation locked doesn't feel great but I also don't agree that we should be able to do backflips while in full combo(like wow). I would love to see a system that rewards good positioning while not feeling clunky to play.

Some ideas that I had are as follows:
1. To make each weapon class to have some type of combo that you can move while doing but also has some type of finisher that you can use while under some small animation lock. Giving you a small amount of bonus damage for completing a combo at the cost of a small loss of mobility. Kind of like a spear thrust and the end of the combo or a big two handed cleave for a battle axe.
2. Secondly the dodge roll in it's current state feels terrible and useless. I would love to see where the dodge roll can interrupt casts or attacks in order to give you a way for skilled players to take advantage of it. I wouldn't mind if the cooldown was increased but it doesn't feel good to use at all in the current state of the game.
3. Finally there should be a way to hold down the auto if it is going to be a large part of the game for sure as button spamming doesn't feel very good to play. Abilities are great but definitely would love a larger amount of them but I assume that is just because it is alpha and we don't have weapon skills or anything like that.

Yuyukoyay

I like animation lock to some degree. Since it leaves weaknesses in classes. Like in Pokemon when you use solar beam without an item. Since it's such a powerful attack it takes 2 turns to use it. Usually one shots when it hits. What builds in ashes has the potential of imitating is to be able to eliminate animation lock for a few skills as part of a build. That or just reduce it so the window of weakness is lower.

Combat being slow is actually good since it gives you time to think. If combat is too fast then it sometimes makes it less fun because you play an MMO to relax and think a little. Not to time your button presses milliseconds apart from each other at mach speed. Combat that is too fast also has the problem that you tend to spam the same skills a lot more when you don't have a plan yet. Making it kind of boring since you are doing less with each button press. It's just more fun when each button press has the potential to change the outcome of a battle. The faster the combat the less likely this is to achieve.

It's similar to the reason why Warcraft 3 units have hundreds to thousands of points of health. Even though units in Warcraft 2 only had double digit and very few triple digits. Warcraft 2 units have the tendency to die immediately. Warcraft 3 units took a lot longer to die cuz health was high and damage was low. So micro was what made Warcraft 3 the better game. Since the game gave you time to make decisions that could win you the entire battle.

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