Regarding combat and "animation rooting"

Hello!

First off the mandatory i'm super hyped for the game and it's looking amazing Intrepid - A lot of very cool systems that i'm keen on and design philosophy, though I try to stay light on the content to not spoil myself too much.

One thing I believe I noticed (but hard to tell without playing myself) is the game seems to do what I previously experienced in Aion and RIFT - namely special animations that lock your character in place until completed. This really screws with the fluidity of combat (to the point that Rangers in Aion had a trick, "jumpshot" where you timed your ability to the apex of your jump to skip the animation).

If this is the case please consider making it so you can move while finishing spell animations - NOT to be confused with cast times. Cast times are fine, but "instant" spells still rooting you for 0.5-1 seconds because of an animation feels terrible to play.

To offer an example, World of Warcraft has done a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong, but not a single mmo that i've played has come close to the fluidity of WoW combat.

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Azherae

At the moment, what you might be seeing is a known (and intended to be fixed, possibly this week, according to something mentioned by the Creative Director in World Chat during the last tests) issue with melee attacks.

Many of the current 'instant cast' spells will let you move while you are doing them, so the development team at least has their eye on 'which of these should lock you in place and which should not'.

PigyPoggo

Azherae wrote: »

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Awesome thank you for the clarification.

Goatrek

tbh they have heard tons of people offer this feedback already and they have wow to look at themselves, If they cant compete with a 2004 game and deliver an experience as fluent and responsive it either comes down to incompetence or a very deliberate design decision to prioritize cool animation chains over fluidity and player agency.

Azherae

Goatrek wrote: »

tbh they have heard tons of people offer this feedback already and they have wow to look at themselves, If they cant compete with a 2004 game and deliver an experience as fluent and responsive it either comes down to incompetence or a very deliberate design decision to prioritize cool animation chains over fluidity and player agency.

There's a little more nuance to this depending on some stuff with movement speed and latency, but we're quite a way out from getting full data on that, so I expect we'll be checking that for a long time.

Anyways, my point is that what they might be prioritizing is a form of 'enforced fairness' that has to do with internet speeds, 'rollback', and ping, rather than 'player agency' as a whole.

Even the simplest search for 'WoW PvP lag' will bury you in examples of why 'fluent and responsive' is subjective.

Disclaimer for any incoming raw takes: My internet is literally top-end by requirement, and I probably live at minimal distance to my likely server locations, if Ashes balances combat poorly for more distant players, I won't be the one losing out. Just a pre-empt for all the people whose general arguments amount to 'shut up you're just whining about a fake problem'. You know who you are.

Khronus

@PigyPoggo What you are seeing in videos is very much a real thing and I too hope they work at changing the current design. Melee characters are locked into place during your basic attacks and you are unable to use abilities while using basic attacks. In order to use basic attacks you either have to hold Q or left click depending on your style of combat you are in. You hit Z to go into action combat locking your screen to mouse movement and using left click for hits.

They recently made it so you didn't have to CLICK q or left click and opted for holding it down. Being that you are unable to use abilities, your rotation is engage the boss with either the charge or grapple, then hold down Q, release Q, use ability, hold Q, release Q, use ability. It's 100% awful to describe it best. Only the craziest of people would actually enjoy this style of rotation. It feels odd on your fingers and just doesn't sit well with me.

The worst part is, everytime you hold your Q/LC you are locked into a forward moving animation that often times means you keep attacking even after the mob is dead or you find yourself playing a mini game of "turn your dude so the mob is directly in front of you, otherwise you slide to the side of it".

The fix is very simple. Remove the forced movement and have an auto attack queue up for X amount of time after each ability is used. Or just realize the current method is bad and add an auto attack into the game. Wow is shit but the combat is extremely entertaining. Couple that with characters having an actual body that you can't go through....and it's already better than wow.

Goatrek

cool looking auto attacks with each weapon and awesome abilities is certainly all I need and would want from an MMO, thats for sure.

Anonymous332

Goatrek wrote: »

cool looking auto attacks with each weapon and awesome abilities is certainly all I need and would want from an MMO, thats for sure.

Agree. A lot of people in this community have fake expectations regarding action combat. It just feels and look better with diverse auto attack animations for diffrent weapons/class. Its been working for the vast majority of the mmorpg community since day 1.

Im honestly gonna say it, most of the people who believe action combat with its repetitive animations is better for their ideal game have no idea what they are talking about. Look at Tera = dead game. GW2 has auto attacks with elements of action combat which works superb. The skillceiling might be arguably higher with action combat, but it really depends on the game and is that really worth the feels and visuals of combat?

PigyPoggo

Izil wrote: »

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This is needlessly dismissive and antagonistic of any other narrative than your own. Saying its fake because you don't share the opinion, really?

To give you my perspective, aesthetics is quite literally at the bottom of the totem pole for me.
I care about system functionality, class depth, an intricate world, enjoyable combat, all of these things and if the trade off was I'd play a gray blob then I'd be perfectly happy.

I've played mmos since the early 2000s, I've played wow for 17 years, I still couldn't tell you what the two handed swing animation is like for humans because I've never bothered to look at it, it doesn't interest me. What interests me is using that weapon being a smooth and fluid experience.

From what I gather from the responses so far there is cause for concern but its also (at least in part) recognized as bugs by the development team.

I just wished to make my opinions heard, because it's the singular most important question as far as I'm concerned, I cannot play a game where input isn't a smooth experience.

Dygz

Neverwinter Online seems to be faring OK.

Conrad

Dygz wrote: »

Neverwinter Online seems to be faring OK.

Almost dead but not cus of combat but due to design decisions.
So many bad ones you would cringe. Like hell, even standardising to 5e was just plain stupid / ******ed, everything just to please WotC. 5e is shit for mmos and pc games. Its a dumbed down system for narrative not for gameplay.

CROW3

Conrad wrote: »

5e is shit for mmos and pc games. Its a dumbed down system for narrative not for gameplay.

That's ok - I felt the same way about 3rd Edition.

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