How to make BDO's combat system viable?

There seem to be three main camps on how much hybridization Ashes should using when blending tab and action. Some people want tab enhanced like FFXIV or WoW, some people want something closer to Guild Wars 2's customizable system, and some people want BDO's precision action. Tab enhanced and Guild Wars 2's system are both hybrids and fit with Steven's goal of making a tab/action hybrid. However, BDO has zero tab targeting. Basic attacks are manually clicked, skills go a set distance and hit whatever happens to be there. This does not fit with the goal of creating a hybrid system.

So how can we make BDO's system more of a hybrid?

One suggestion is to have a separate entity follow the player. The player selects a target for the entity to focus on. The entity acts like an auto-attack or DOT against the selected target, and several skills make the entity use some ability while the player's basic attacks and primary skills are precision-based. Of course, there are problems with this idea. Summoners lose their identity if everyone already has a pet following them around. 500 vs. 500 player sieges become 250 vs. 250 player sieges with 500 extras following the players. Lore around the entities needs to be established. Pets? Tech? Familiars? Pieces of the player's soul? Not quite as important as the mechanical issues, but still a point to consider.

Regardless of the method, without some form of tab target system in place, it seems unlikely that BDO's combat style will ever be implemented in Ashes. What suggestions can give BDO's camp a stronger argument?

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Azherae

BDO has a sticky reticle for targeting most skills and the good sense to not make healing have to be targeted.

The last time we discussed this seriously (this might be bias since I was involved heavily and don't explicitly remember another discussion as detailed as that one since then), it was basically 'worked out' to some extent, but since then, we have received information that indicates that Intrepid wishes to go another way and at best it will be like GW2.

So, it seems that if they were paying attention at that time, so far we haven't seen any implementation of it.

That might mean that the arguments or concepts discussed were not strong enough to sway Steven's/the team's decisions, or it might mean that they just didn't have time to implement it and perceive that using the Split Body animation attack style will not interact badly with whatever perception they have of it.

I say all this simply to avoid massive repetition of 'how to make BDO's combat style work'. How to make it work is known (this is my arrogance, the last discussion isn't about whether it can be done, my certainty that it can be done comes from personal design experience), whether or not it is what people (including Steven) want, is less known.

EDIT: I realized I talked in circles around the actual question, so...

Moowell wrote: »

What suggestions can give BDO's camp a stronger argument?

Bearing in mind my bias due to involvement in this before, the 'answer' can be boiled down to:

"Don't aim for BDO or try to get it, aim for this."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0LTSgdtujY

mcstackerson

BDO has a target lock system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzsXpZ3n21g

From the people i have talked to, the big thing "tab" users don't seem to like about BDO is combat's speed and all the dodging around.

George_Black

My problem with bdos system is that abilities dont feel as such. They just feel like attacks, no different than Dark Souls, with a small cooldown.
Doesnt feel right with mmos.

Karthos

Doesn't the fact that BDO's combat exists and is praised by players mean that it's already "viable" ?

That being said, "viable" as in, "viable for AOC's hybrid system" there would need to be A LOT of work.

I don't see it working as long as IFrames are still used and this is probably the biggest barrier to adapting the BDO style combat into what they plan for AOC. BDO combat is just about spamming AOEs and maximizing the amount of time you are invulnerable to damage. Any "targeted attacks" do stick with the "aim assist" system, also seen above.

I can acknowledge that it's fun combat, but it doesn't fit in an MMO, as stated above. More attuned to a fighting game like Street Fighter, or maybe a MOBA. Intrepid would need to do some major overhauling to adapt this into any type of hybrid system, and it really wouldn't be worth their time when they are working on their own system already.

Atama

George_Black wrote: »

My problem with bdos system is that abilities dont feel as such. They just feel like attacks, no different than Dark Souls, with a small cooldown.
Doesnt feel right with mmos.

That tracks with what I remember of it. That, and memorizing combos like I was playing a Street Fighter combat game.

I get how that might appeal to some people, but it didn't feel right in an MMORPG. I personally didn't enjoy it at all. It was way too fiddly. At least it looked pretty.

bloodprophet

The combat system is why I skipped BDO. I don't want to play Street Fighter the MMO. Not a fan of big flashy face roll spammy combat systems. The videos I watched I get why some people like it but was defenitly

Samson1

I tried playing BDO once... I saw what the combat system was like and never played again.

tobi1577

While I believe BDO's combat to be the best combat from all the mmorpgs, it is almost antithetical to ashes.

BDO promises the player a single player experience in a world full of other players, and built a fantastic combat system towards that player promise. Every class can grind everywhere by themselves, the only required group play is in the large scale PvP node wars.

Ashes on the other hand promises the player a fundamentally multiplayer experience, with the best combat possible without detracting from the multiplayer component. Copy + pasting BDO's combat into ashes would do just that. Instead, ashes needs to find how to give the player the most freedom and skill expression capacity, all while not allowing them to do too much as to allow them to play the entire game solo.

ogre

Would love to see combat akin to BDO or GW2. I remember being blown away by the combat the first time I played BDO, although I haven’t really put too much time into the game at all it definitely left me impressed. The only thing better would be Monster Hunter-esque combat imo, but that will never happen. Regardless I’m fine with even plain old tab targeting as long as the combat has some depth to it and feels nice and crisp/responsive.

Podgnil

For me bdos combat is terrible, it's not rpg, it's epiliptic action, with facerolling. Gw2 much better, but I don't think thet every one should rolling around. Roll dodging should be ability for some rogue classes, some classes can have their own abilities to dodge. And some abilities to get aim, like a power shot thet hits all targets on the way. Because rolldodge kills part of classic rpg stats such agility for dodging, resist and etc.

daveywavey

I don't want the BDO combat system. I want the Ashes combat system. If I wanted the BDO combat system, I'd play BDO.

CROW3

Ugh…BDO

Atama

daveywavey wrote: »

I don't want the BDO combat system. I want the Ashes combat system. If I wanted the BDO combat system, I'd play BDO.

To play Devil's Advocate, I could see how someone might be attracted to an idea of BDO without P2W.

Personally, I find P2W to be the least of my issues with the game.

maouw

Atama wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

I don't want the BDO combat system. I want the Ashes combat system. If I wanted the BDO combat system, I'd play BDO.

To play Devil's Advocate, I could see how someone might be attracted to an idea of BDO without P2W.

Personally, I find P2W to be the least of my issues with the game.

^^^ pretty much my feelings.

I like BDO, for the combat especially, but as someone above mentioned - that sort of combat doesn't work very well beyond solo play (and I think has multiple issues when it comes to PvP?)

Azherae

maouw wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

I don't want the BDO combat system. I want the Ashes combat system. If I wanted the BDO combat system, I'd play BDO.

To play Devil's Advocate, I could see how someone might be attracted to an idea of BDO without P2W.

Personally, I find P2W to be the least of my issues with the game.

^^^ pretty much my feelings.

I like BDO, for the combat especially, but as someone above mentioned - that sort of combat doesn't work very well beyond solo play (and I think has multiple issues when it comes to PvP?)

Not that it matters to Ashes, but neither of those things is true unless you are saying 'replicate every aspect of BDO combat', and even then, you could 'divide their classes into two piles' and one pile would have no issues, the other would have all the issues.

maouw

If it is possible, I'd gladly welcome it!

Kiluvian

Azherae wrote: »

Bearing in mind my bias due to involvement in this before, the 'answer' can be boiled down to:

"Don't aim for BDO or try to get it, aim for this."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0LTSgdtujY

I'm a big fan of the feeling that Neverwinter gives, especially the Xanthalax video posted, it is a great example. My problem with Neverwinter is that there isn't enough skill and ability diversity with each class. I think that each class needs to have a lot of skills, some of which may be that class' bread and butter abilities that are used quite often with short cooldowns. However, the majority of abilities should be much more tactical in their value with longer cooldowns.

Neverwinter gives their classes those bread and butter abilities, but then they only have like one ultimate ability, it's lacking a huge suite of tactical abilities. That guy fighting Xanthalax got caught quite a few times and made several mistakes. Getting caught once should've been far more troublesome, or even cost him the fight in some cases, but he should've been able to avoid getting caught by using those tactical cooldowns. That boss also needs a little more variety in its attacks, it just repeated the same combos over and over, becoming very predictable. In a fight like that, there should be some tactical abilities thrown out by the boss as well, in which the player must counter with their own. Instead, the fight was a roundabout of the same repetitive combos from both the boss and the player. With more skill diversity on both sides, and strategic usage of the skills at key moments, that fight would've been much more interesting, and almost exactly what I'm, personally, looing for in a combat system.

BDO on the other hand is also somewhat decent, but I think the abilities are too flashy and too fast. There should definitely be quick and flashy abilities, just not every single one of them. The other issue with BDO is that the mob AI is absolutely horrible. I mean, if you engage more than one group of mobs, the other groups will patiently wait for you to finish off the other mobs so that you have a maximum amount of targets you're dealing with at any given time. When you're not fighting them, they sort of just stand around in neat formations waiting for someone to come by and engage them. It both looks stupid and feels stupid. Hell, Assassin's Creed has better combat than BDO, especially Assassin's Creed Valhalla. At least it's tactical.

The game should feel like Neverwinter and Dark Souls, and that's all I've got left to say about it.

Atama

I loved Neverwinter. Played the heck out of it. Got to end game, was running stuff in my guild having a great time. The combat is one of the best I’ve done in an MMORPG. A great mix of action and tab stuff, active healing, dodging and blocking, you name it.

But the game is absolutely pay to win. You have to plunk down lots of cash to really do end game stuff. That was the killer for me. I had to quit for my freaking bank account’s sake!

Such a shame too. I had so much fun for a while.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

I don't want the BDO combat system. I want the Ashes combat system. If I wanted the BDO combat system, I'd play BDO.

To play Devil's Advocate, I could see how someone might be attracted to an idea of BDO without P2W.

Personally, I find P2W to be the least of my issues with the game.

I feel the same.

Both about BDO and Archeage.

fabula

I think if most attacks are frontal cones/ground-placement and you have active dmg-mitigation skills with relative short cooldown, you have the ingredients to make a combat system that is fun to play. You would then need to tweak the cooldowns, BDO has too much movement in most of its skills but it ultimately ends up relying on i-frames therefore you have fights where everyone is moving all over the place not to dodge skills but to take advantage of the i-frames in the animations.

BDO never had any group content to deal with so its a poor candidate to pick from for anything other than solo play. For AOC we also want to have fun group combat in PVE and PVP. The best experience I had in group PVE was playing the lancer in TERA due to active block. Active block is something I very much want for AOC since not only is it fun in PVE, I think its a must have for group PVP.

In every single game with large scale PVP you always end up with two walls of ranged classes facing off while everyone else is fodder that dies in the middle. If you have active block that extends to party members in a cone behind you then your PVP would naturally center around formations. While this would make your initial engagement have tanks, meele, ranged and then healers last, I think the real win is after both sides engage since everyone that knows how to take advantage of their groups dmg-mitigation abilities will win over those that go free for all after the initial engagement.

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