AOC Combat - Rethinking Action and Tab Target

Hey guys! I am pretty new here but have been following Ashes for a while now! I love the direction and developmental pillars that Intrepid is taking! So much good and a lot to be excited about! I love the RP potential. I love the adventure and journey focus of the game (as opposed to just paying to get to "end-game." I am pumped about the sandbox foundation. It is a world I can just live in and make change in. (Basically it is SAO haha) One thing I think does need a slight course correction is combat.

Long story short... I made a youtube video about my thoughts and direction Intrepid should go with combat. It is my first time ever making a video or doing anything like this. I thought this might be a good forum to get some feedback on the video and get a discussion going (even though you guys don't know me as I've been a silent admirer up until now haha).

My video is called "Ashes Needs to Make These Combat Changes" on Youtube. If you have 8 minutes, check it out!

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Surma

The crux of the video is to make action combat more "action feeling" or really lean into tab target. From a combat perspective, think of Retail WOW (tab) or Spellbreak (Action).

maouw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLt6kAANZU

Hey nice video editing, that was really easy to follow - especially for your first video

1. Tab vs Action - everyone knows the action needs work. I like that you articulated that "action" from a user perspective means being able to miss/sidestep skillshots (though I don't think Ashes is going this route). But then using phrases like "true action" needs to be broken down (compare your 1b to your 1c - what are you trying to say?). Here on the forums we've previously discussed the need for sticky reticle to fix your complaints about "hovering the red reticle".
2. Spells/Abilities - A1 has skills representative of "the first 10 levels" of gameplay - not indicative of progression, so I assume it's more about number of skills - which therefore means you can expect at least double the skill tree size. Is this enough for you? I totally agree that classes shouldn't be all rounders.
3. Autos - it's A1, they just want to make sure the auto-attack system is working as a base system - I think you're over-analysing here. I disagree that slower autos add weight, I think that just adds clunkiness. IMO it has more to do with animation. I'd prefer a client-side hit-stop or similar on impact.
4. Resource systems - it's actually an intentional design decision to make all classes reliant on mana, see here

I really appreciated that you numbered everything. makes it easy to talk about!

Azherae

I think the video was very clear and explained everything about what you believe they should do and changes that should be made.

I know this because my data analytics can correctly get the sentiment of 90% of your video, and I personally had a constant 'no I don't like any of this', rather than my usual 'what does this person actually want here, are they aware that they're asking for conflicting things?'. Neither myself nor the system had any issues with conflicting desire points.

The only thing that they don't get the meaning/sentiment of is 'make me use my brain' at the end, since that's not only subjective, it's not defined from priors within the video, so you might want to make another video to expand on that at some point, I'd watch it.

Also I disagree with everything you said, but that's a very minor aside.

CROW3

Azherae wrote: »

Also I disagree with everything you said, but that's a very minor aside.

This made me belly laugh and underscores your intellectual honesty - which is why I like reading your thoughtful analyses (even if *I* completely disagree).

@Surma - great video and recommendations. I'm playing a really crappy game right now called 'Dungeons of Edarra, that while crappy, has a close representation of what I would want action combat to feel like in AoC.

Azherae

CROW3 wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Also I disagree with everything you said, but that's a very minor aside.

This made me belly laugh and underscores your intellectual honesty - which is why I like reading your thoughtful analyses (even if *I* completely disagree).

@Surma - great video and recommendations. I'm playing a really crappy game right now called 'Dungeons of Edarra, that while crappy, has a close representation of what I would want action combat to feel like in AoC.

I did watch more of that content btw, and yes, basically, that. Has everything, from the combat side.

It was kind of sad actually. So many games out there have good combat systems for MMO style play, but no MMO to back them up.

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