Combat Discussion

My guildmate from Gray Sentinels and I were having a discussion on combat system as a reply to a reddit post Steven had replied on. Was wondering what the general community wants from Ashes of Creation combat?

Here is our conversation:
"ESO combat is atrocious to me. It's slow, they made auto attacks basically a DoT but you have to click for each tick for miniscule amounts of damage and all the combat really revolves around is keeping buffs up and stacking every aoe field in one location like volley and caltrops and whatever class buff or aoe you have.
Some classes like templar only push one button throughout the entire game with aedric jabs even. It's horrible.

If they wanted to make the combat interesting they should have made light attacks cost a ton of stamina but also hit 500% more. Then you give the players a choice between waiting for a skill cd to pop or mauling someone in the face but having to wait a little to use the next skill because you need to recuperate some stamina first. Right now you're piddling away at an enemy because you have nothing better to do. Or have to weave that crap in your rotation because the devs felt they needed to add an auto attack system in a game that didn't need one.

Similarly, WoW combat also bores me right now because it's just rubbing your spreadsheet against another spreadsheet and the bigger number wins.
If raid fights or pvp didn't shit out mechanics at you like advertisements in a superbowl you could automate the entire combat system there
(of course I understand that different people like different things wink )"

"Okay, I agree with those niche points. Like, I would like ESO combat but have like a global cooldown for auto attacks. So move, hit, move, hit. Feels good. The DoTs and whoever can supply the most AoE feels bad.

Something like auto, ability, auto, or auto, move, auto feels good to me.

WoW is exactly that. Who has best gear?"

"
FFXIV feels a lot like WoW but slowed down. (depending on class of course)
I never had a moment where I felt like YEAH that was amazing, look at me.
Plus the almost total lack of channeled abilities you can cast while moving. Everything interrupted me there as a caster"

"I like FFXIV combat, if it was user input for autos and a bit faster."

"GW2 while the game has many things I gripe about at least has the basic movement (overworld, mounts, jumping, the feeling) right and the combat feels so fluid.
There's never a point where I feel annoyed at the combat there with the dodging, the movement, the condition cleansing, skill shots, targeted, automatic auto attacks when you are in range, meaningful combat decisions that don't revolve around having to smash lmb between every skill press.

The most annoying parts about GW2's combat are the stacking of players in one area so the boss doesn't move in old content and you can burst them down. Luckily they designed encounters around that mentality so players can't or shouldn't do that anymore.
The other gripe was CC'ing a boss during vanilla so you could burst them down. But they reworked the entire system to instead offer bonus damage if you achieve mechanical perfection WHICH IS SO MUCH BETTER"

"Yeah, one thing I think about is league of legends combat. And that might be weird to say for an MOBA combat to influence an MMO combat system, but it takes skill and the reactiveness is really important considering the best part about league is completely outplaying your opponents in a team fight."

"Yeah, I also love games where you can physically block by holding a button.
It feels amazing when you perfectly counter reactively
Games that just give you a 2 second buff or w/e that gives you "block" are boring frowning
That's why BDO combat is so good too, grabbing + blocking + dashing + cc...
Reactive combat is where it's at"

TL;DR:
We want combat that is:
- reactive
- meaningful
- allows for movement when it makes sense, and lock down when it makes sense. I.e. prismatic beam should be strong, but your character can't move, but for a ranger to use an auto, then a dash/quick arrow ability, then auto, feels good.
- interactive: meaning user input or at least being able to play around auto spacing like gw2. Blocks are meaningful and reactive feels interactive.
- outplay potential. Stat checking is not fun.

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Comments

Dygz

I mean, it's Alpha One Preview, so....
I wonder if the Action Combat will be implemented with the Weapon Abilities.
Especially since the Action Combat tested with APOC all came from weapons.

Do we know which of the Archetype abilities are supposed to be Action?

Cypher

@Dygz Somehow I don’t think weapon abilities are going to be anything more than just *more* things to slap onto your hot bar like we already have now. But of course, we shall see. Luckily, as you said, we’re in Alpha One so there’s so much time to adjust and change things.
Edit: Also worth pointing out, the skills in Apoc, while different for each weapon, still operated essentially the same way we have now, albeit none of them locked on which is at least a step up. Hot bar should be reserved for special skills and long cooldown skills, while everything else can be done with L and R mouse buttons and a few combos.

I don’t know, but I would guess they’re considering everything that doesn’t require being in-range and locked-on to be “action”.

Dygz

I think it's going to be different than hotbar, but...we shall see.

Cypher

I hope you’re right.

Azherae

I'm not sure how I offended you @Cypher, but I'll try to disengage on that front.

I'm seriously asking because I don't know what you actually want, and while that would be clarified by finding all your posts, which I'm willing to do, there are indeed some limitations on time for reading forum posts specifically.

Videos, however, I can do. For those who are not aware, Vindictus PvP plays like slower less flashy BDO, and Vindictus PvE, I can't judge, because it looks like watered down Monster Hunter, from the 40 minutes I've seen.

So, for disclosure, other posters, I may not be able to engage or make updates relative to Cypher's points due to time.

Maezriel

I was talking it over w/ some others on the Discord and honestly w/ what the game wants to do w/ massive 250v250, if not 500v500, battles Tab w/ a very reasonable GCD would be the best way to go just from a server/lag standpoint.

You don't have to be an FPS god to know when the server screwed up one of your abilities/shots and lost you a fight and it's always frustrating as hell to dip behind some cover but still "get hit" b/c your opponent's client is a hair slower than yours.

I just really don't see the downsides of a Tab combat system outweighing the downsides of an Action one and IMO it's best to prepare have a system that can run somewhat smoothly during lag spikes than one that'll completely shit itself.

Trax

Cypher wrote: »

That’s why I suggested Trax check out Vindictus, because depending on which class you’re playing, you might have more or less speed, more or less dodging, more or less raw damage, more or less skillful aim (worth noting that aim is typically not required on melee classes in most games, which many tab targeters seem to always forget) and because in my opinion it’s the game with the best action combat.

I checked out Vindictus; don't really care for the aesthetic style, but the combat itself looked fun, though maybe a little rigid for me. While you were playing that game I was playing Darkfall: Unholy Wars; check out the combat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saWLHdR17sA - I suspect you'll approve. It's a lot closer to what we saw in APOC (which I think a lot of people were thrilled for) than what we've seen in our Alpha 1 demos. I like both gameplay styles, but I certainly prefer the APOC style, and would like to see a system that incorporates both successfully. I do worry about hybridization making a mush pile of a system that doesn't neither well and is not fun. Tera had a hybrid system that was like, action-combat lite, and it was okay. I'd rather AoC went on the other side of the pendulum.

But, the one thing about DFUW combat that the combat was so high skill cap that it made it inaccessible to more players than you want in a siege warfare game with a crafting based economy. I think it's important for AoC to land on a system where players have access to less high-skill demand classes if they choose, and conversely players that are playing full action mode are rewarded with higher output. I certainly worry about UE's ability to handle a game like that though, so I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'll certainly end up playing almost no matter what the combat system looks like; the only question is will I only play it when the wife and kids are playing too, or will I play it in my alone time as well.

arsnn

Maezriel wrote: »

Honestly?

I just want Intrepid to tell us what they want out of the combat. I even made it my comment for the Q&A

You can see from the reactions to the class previews that what people had in their head and what the devs produced where two very different things and even though Steven has said a lot about wanting a polished combat system I don't actually know much about what that means for him.

As it is in the testing it seems to be going through a bit of an identity crises and it doesn't feel like there's a clear direction for it.

Steven made 1 comment about this topic months ago.
He said their current vision for Ashes combat is,
"similar skill synergy and pace of combat of ArcheAge
Mobility of GW2
Visual and sound cues of BDO."
For me that sounds actually good.

Their current iteration does not resemble those ideas at all, but what they are gonna test in the next iteration seems to be a step towards it.
Steven in context of the next test phases: "The first testing we will do with combat will increase rotational speeds when root motion attacks occur, Allow Dodge to cancel animation, when holding WASD allow your combo attacks to be split body not locking character in place."

The lack of direction is due to the fact that they simply have not touched combat yet. Which is equally concerning imo.

dewan58

All I can really say is I hope they stay as far away from ESO-esque comment as possible. I enjoy all over aspects of ESO but it's combat is awful.

I will agree that out of everything you mentioned, GW2 does have the best combat. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to it.

Songcaller

arsnn wrote: »

The lack of direction is due to the fact that they simply have not touched combat yet. Which is equally concerning imo.

They had even worse combat originally with quick time events. They have revamped combat through Apoc, revamped combat through the MMO and will revamp the combat again. I'm not a fan of action combat in MMORPGs. I do want fluid combat though. I would love for combo synergies and non static skills. There is not an overwhelming number of players which prefer Action Combat. There are a vocal few who want Action Combat. We saw that in the Combat Dev Thread.

Dygz

I wouldn't say combat was revamped with APOC.
APOC just focused on the action portion of hybrid combat. It wasn't a revamp of tab-target combat.

Songcaller

It was a revamp of the combat iteration because it was Action Combat whereas the previous iteration wasn't Action Combat. The issue remains that both Action Combat and Tab Combat need to be merged into a smoother form. Apoc was limitless in terms of ranged abilities and enabled one shots in some circumstances. I really don't want the same Action Combat as Apoc in the MMO.

dewan58

Neurath wrote: »

It was a revamp of the combat iteration because it was Action Combat whereas the previous iteration wasn't Action Combat. The issue remains that both Action Combat and Tab Combat need to be merged into a smoother form. Apoc was limitless in terms of ranged abilities and enabled one shots in some circumstances. I really don't want the same Action Combat as Apoc in the MMO.

I recall them specifically saying though leading up to APOC that it would be a testing ground for strictly the action combat portion of the game and that the MMORPG would combine the tab target and action combat.
APOC was never suppose to be representative of how the MMORPG would be.

I don't think we have really seen any sort of revamp of the combat, they mostly been focused on getting various abilities and animations into the game. For roughly a year now they said a combat revamp was in the pipeline leading up to Alpha 1.

Songcaller

Yeah, I've been giving a lot of feedback to get the combat revamp on the go. I'm not criticising the progress, I just don't want full action combat. I never backed the game for Full Action Combat. The game was Hybrid Combat when I backed the game. In fact, the game has been Hybrid Combat since we all backed the game. I won't mind so much if we do go full Tab but I had hoped for Hybrid Combat to stop the staleness. I know Apoc was never meant to translate into the MMO but at least we learnt about Action Healing because Action Healing can be a real pain.

Dygz

Neurath wrote: »

It was a revamp of the combat iteration because it was Action Combat whereas the previous iteration wasn't Action Combat. The issue remains that both Action Combat and Tab Combat need to be merged into a smoother form. Apoc was limitless in terms of ranged abilities and enabled one shots in some circumstances. I really don't want the same Action Combat as Apoc in the MMO.

That is not a revamp.
And, it's going to take way longer to convince the devs to give up their hybrid vision.

Songcaller

If that's not a revamp then we won't see Action Combat in the Combat Revamp, merely a better iteration of Hybrid Combat. I do want the Hybrid Combat to stay so I have no issues if the Combat Revamp makes the Hybrid Combat better.

Maezriel

Dygz wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

It was a revamp of the combat iteration because it was Action Combat whereas the previous iteration wasn't Action Combat. The issue remains that both Action Combat and Tab Combat need to be merged into a smoother form. Apoc was limitless in terms of ranged abilities and enabled one shots in some circumstances. I really don't want the same Action Combat as Apoc in the MMO.

That is not a revamp.
And, it's going to take way longer to convince the devs to give up their hybrid vision.

Steven has already outright said if they feel they can't nail hybrid then they'll rip it out and go full Tab. It really comes down to what timeline they've set to make that decision.

Dygz

I don't disagree with that.

Vhaeyne

Dygz wrote: »

Wildstar was...too frenetic for an RPG.

Too frenetic for your taste maybe... I loved the pace of Wildstars combat.

https://youtu.be/MzkWyhzwO1Q?t=25

Trax

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Wildstar was...too frenetic for an RPG.

Too frenetic for your taste maybe... I loved the pace of Wildstars combat.

https://youtu.be/MzkWyhzwO1Q?t=25

I agree, Wildstar was fantastic!

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