Importance of Combat Feel

I am wondering what direction the development team sees combat feel in Ashes of Creation going towards but in playstyle and overall feel of combat.

What I mean by the "Feel" of combat is whether it is floaty, non impactful like for example ESO or has more weight, and feel like Black Desert Online. For me personally, the feel of Combat is one of the most important aspects of an MMO both in longevity and its overall engagement. I fear that in introducing a lot of systems and mechanics, somehow I am missing the discussion on how combat will feel overall. Has there been any official in depth discussion on this topic?

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AidanKD

The initial combat parses leant more towards having some weight in combat. With the split of upper/lower body animation - i.e. before, animations locked your legs - but they did a 2nd parse where you are able to move while using animations. Slightly more floaty but still *some* weight I believe.

That said, we haven't had a combat update since Alpha 1, so 8 months on and we are desperate for a combat update so hard to get a definitive answer at this state until we hear more from Intrepid.

Please... just a taste, a MORSEL of an update on combat

Azherae

If by official you mean 'the development team or community team has directly engaged the Community on the matter', then no, nothing so far. There was supposed to be some testing and iteration in Alpha-1 but I believe that got pushed to the end and then partially cut.

Alternately, there is already a main system that wasn't implemented yet, so they didn't need feedback on what we saw then. Community discussion on the matter seems to have drifted in the direction of 'wanting it to feel like Neverwinter Online', but the current decision regarding split body animations as outlined by @AidanKD above is relatively incompatible with this without some potentially interesting changes, leaving it open again.

tl;dr I don't think we know at all what the intention or expectation of Combat is, without lots of extrapolation and guessing.

EDIT: Forgot to, as always, mention that anyone who doesn't feel that 'Neverwinter Online' (or TERA-lite) was the conclusion/compromise we came to back then in that discussion and the followups, should let me know so I stop claiming this.

Nightwish

Azherae wrote: »

If by official you mean 'the development team or community team has directly engaged the Community on the matter', then no, nothing so far. There was supposed to be some testing and iteration in Alpha-1 but I believe that got pushed to the end and then partially cut.

I am genuinely surprised that for a game that is trying to revolutionize many aspects of the traditional mmorpg gameplay hasn't been more engaged in how they want to tackle one of THE most important aspects of the game itself, which is the combat.

If I would create an imaginary line of combat feel from games like GW2/ESO, floaty non impactful combat, being on one end and games like Black Desert/For Honor having more complex, directional and impactful combat being on the other end I hope and pray AoC Combat is much closer to the end of the spectrum towards For Honor/Black Desert. Otherwise, no matter how complex the rest of the game systems are, it would be a no go for me personally.

Azherae

Nightwish wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If by official you mean 'the development team or community team has directly engaged the Community on the matter', then no, nothing so far. There was supposed to be some testing and iteration in Alpha-1 but I believe that got pushed to the end and then partially cut.

I am genuinely surprised that for a game that is trying to revolutionize many aspects of the traditional mmorpg gameplay hasn't been more engaged in how they want to tackle one of THE most important aspects of the game itself, which is the combat.

If I would create an imaginary line of combat feel from games like GW2/ESO, floaty non impactful combat, being on one end and games like Black Desert/For Honor having more complex, directional and impactful combat being on the other end I hope and pray AoC Combat is much closer to the end of the spectrum towards For Honor/Black Desert. Otherwise, no matter how complex the rest of the game systems are, it would be a no go for me personally.

At the time of Alpha-1, the main goals of their technical test were to make sure that other things were working.

There may be another reason though. Like you, many of us have strong opinions about how Combat should be implemented and there was already incredibly extensive discussion leading up to the Alpha-1 in three specific threads, which were prominent at the time.

I don't know if Intrepid based, changed, or even considered anything based on those threads, but overall, the forum posters at the time were already heavily and consistently engaged in discussions of combat mechanics they would like to see and potential outcomes, so there would probably have been no need for any explicit requests for information or opinions, at least not on the forums, at that time.

superhero6785

I know some people like a "competitive" feel where every keystroke is immediately responsive, but that does give you a "floaty" feel. Personally, I like a weighty feel more like Red Dead Redemption 2. Where when you press a direction your character has inertia and has to lean into a run or stop moving forward before darting backwards.

Sylvanar

I havent played any MMO except WoW where the combat feel is average at best...you can see the character move independent of their feet, as in floaty.

Then I saw combat in New World videos before the games release and it had me very excited to try out the game. It was for multiple reasons - my growing dislike for how WoW evolved after WOTLK, time sink till AoC release and most notably the combat feel of NW. But the game released and unanimous criticism of it stayed my hand as I dont want to engage an MMO where you play it for couple of weeks and be done with everything it has to offer...has more single player feel than MMO which are suppose to last for quite sometime.

Anyway, personally I would prefer that movements have some weight to them and dont look disjointed with the environment cuz at the end of the day when in the game, these movements are what we will be looking at all the time.

Currently when I look at AoC videos, most of the movement feel floaty...it has improved a lot from what I saw in 2020, so I have hope that things will improve further in this regard.

Azherae

Sylvanar wrote: »

I havent played any MMO except WoW where the combat feel is average at best...you can see the character move independent of their feet, as in floaty.

Then I saw combat in New World videos before the games release and it had me very excited to try out the game. It was for multiple reasons - my growing dislike for how WoW evolved after WOTLK, time sink till AoC release and most notably the combat feel of NW. But the game released and unanimous criticism of it stayed my hand as I dont want to engage an MMO where you play it for couple of weeks and be done with everything it has to offer...has more single player feel than MMO which are suppose to last for quite sometime.

Anyway, personally I would prefer that movements have some weight to them and dont look disjointed with the environment cuz at the end of the day when in the game, these movements are what we will be looking at all the time.

As of the end of Alpha-1, Steven has said that they are definitely going with the 'floatier' Split Body option. I can't really reference where the feedback for this came from, as it was part of the Alpha-1 forums and I don't think those threads are all available for view, even with the NDA rescinded, but it was definitely 'close enough to call' in terms of preferences between player types, so I don't think that we'll be getting what you are interested in, even if you give feedback on it, it will probably repeat the same approximate ratio of players who want Split Body vs Weighty/Rooted motions.

superhero6785

I think split-body and "floaty" are two separate issues. One addresses the ability to move in one direction while attacking in another (run sideways and attack forward) and adding "weight" to movement is about inertia. Split body or not, if I can run full speed to the left and immediately turn around and run full speed to the right, that feels floaty. If my character has to slow down, come to a stop, then reverse course, that feels like it has "weight" to the movement.

Same goes for combat. If I'm able to take a swing with my 2h sword and immediately jump backwards during the animation, that feels floaty. If my swing has inertia that impacts my ability to move, that gives it weight. Now I'm not calling for "animation locking" where once you start an animation you can't move, but what I would like to see is if I'm swinging my sword and halfway through the swing I press D to move backwards - I want to feel like the inertia of my swing is affecting my movement in a more realistic way.

Azherae

superhero6785 wrote: »

I think split-body and "floaty" are two separate issues. One addresses the ability to move in one direction while attacking in another (run sideways and attack forward) and adding "weight" to movement is about inertia. Split body or not, if I can run full speed to the left and immediately turn around and run full speed to the right, that feels floaty. If my character has to slow down, come to a stop, then reverse course, that feels like it has "weight" to the movement.

Same goes for combat. If I'm able to take a swing with my 2h sword and immediately jump backwards during the animation, that feels floaty. If my swing has inertia that impacts my ability to move, that gives it weight. Now I'm not calling for "animation locking" where once you start an animation you can't move, but what I would like to see is if I'm swinging my sword and halfway through the swing I press D to move backwards - I want to feel like the inertia of my swing is affecting my movement in a more realistic way.

Oh, that one is something I'm almost completely sure you're not going to get. According to the data I have, many more people were opposed to this one either directly or indirectly. It would also almost certainly lead to a bunch of special ultra-high skill techniques in combat that would be almost entirely execution-based.

That said, I could get behind having some 'Sliding Strike Dash Cancels' on Weapon Skills and that cool 'rear attack flicker' you could do at the end of Alpha-1 with Spear, so bring it on, I say.

George_Black

It has been talked about. For me the best combat feel was found in Tera online:

Impactful not floatty
Felt mobile, not restrictive
Nice animations
Not over the top flashing colour effects

Good distribution among the classes with dmg skills debuffs CCs, their own unique disengage or gap closing mechanics. Fair distribution of blocking, self healing, dodging capabilities based on the class theme.

Eso is a glitchy mess, where only a handful of skills are BiS, and all the players play the same way. ZOS sells new gear sets every 3 months which do 50% of the gameplay passively and players gear up the FOTM.

BDO feels like tekken and has too much flashy colours, even on physical classes like my Warrior.

Vaknar

Well, I can answer some of this for you

The design team wants our combat to feel weighty and impactful. Like @George_Black said, nice animations are also a main focus for combat.

There's a balance between restrictive and agile that was being played around with during the Alpha One playtest that we got some good feedback on.

We will have to wait to see what the design and engineering teams have been working on most recently, but I know that they can't wait for feedback on it once they show it off

I'd love to hear more about your favorite combat experiences in other games, what you liked about combat in Alpha One from what you saw or experienced, and more on what is most important to you with combat in RPGs and MMORPGs

George_Black

Vaknar wrote: »

Well, I can answer some of this for you

The design team wants our combat to feel weighty and impactful. Like @George_Black said, nice animations are also a main focus for combat.

There's a balance between restrictive and agile that was being played around with during the Alpha One playtest that we got some good feedback on.

We will have to wait to see what the design and engineering teams have been working on most recently, but I know that they can't wait for feedback on it once they show it off

I'd love to hear more about your favorite combat experiences in other games, what you liked about combat in Alpha One from what you saw or experienced, and more on what is most important to you with combat in RPGs and MMORPGs

Vaknar if you can go and download tera online and play the warrior class, the slayer class and the archer class to get a sense of a solid combat gameplay. The rest of the game aint much anymore and its free to play. Bare with the outdated graphics.

I think if you can give some direct feedback based on what you see there you might be able to provide focused solutions to the dev team.

It has not gone unnoticed by our community here, that the two samples given so far in the previous testing periods are either extremelly restrictive or totally floatty.

CROW3

I thought about you @George_Black when I read this: https://www.pcgamer.com/long-running-mmo-tera-is-closing-in-june/

George_Black

CROW3 wrote: »

I thought about you @George_Black when I read this: https://www.pcgamer.com/long-running-mmo-tera-is-closing-in-june/

Right decision. I hope they can create a better game. Their combat mechanics were top, the best I have seen.

George_Black

I have to say that I played Tera only for a year because I didnt care for their limited guild gameplay goals, the p2w cosmetic trading or the appearance mess that their skins caused. One of their battlegrounds was a kids playground, with modern bright colours.

But to this day, after all the mmos I have played I am amazed that nobody can surpass Teras combat mechanic design.

Azherae

Vaknar wrote: »

Well, I can answer some of this for you

The design team wants our combat to feel weighty and impactful. Like @George_Black said, nice animations are also a main focus for combat.

There's a balance between restrictive and agile that was being played around with during the Alpha One playtest that we got some good feedback on.

We will have to wait to see what the design and engineering teams have been working on most recently, but I know that they can't wait for feedback on it once they show it off

I'd love to hear more about your favorite combat experiences in other games, what you liked about combat in Alpha One from what you saw or experienced, and more on what is most important to you with combat in RPGs and MMORPGs

I feel like the last big topic covered everything extensively, with quite a large amount of data from different camps, to the point where I personally feel like it tapered off because there was nothing much left to say until the revamp. But obviously, I was viewing that through my own lens.

I didn't count the change we got at the end of Alpha-1 as a revamp, and my group and I are in the group that hated that change anyway, so we just counted it as 'either likely to make the combat boring, too technical (for others), or outright terrible (for us)' if kept.

I'm not sure if you're not familiar with that thread, or really just want another big repetition of it, but I, for one, will go through that entire thing again if I have to, if we're having another one of those. I just don't see the point of doing so when we haven't seen anything since Alpha-1, not even a single instance of Steven using a weapon other than Wand in video demonstrations, that I can remember. That seemed like the sort of thing that was an explicit decision, but if it isn't, by all means please let the Sandal Lord know that seeing him demonstrate literally any other weapon in any upcoming video for the next LiveStream would help MY faith a lot at least.

Anyways I really don't 'want' to go through another Combat Discussion without new info, but if it would actually somehow help in any way, you have my Axe.

PeteNasty

I think, personally, that weight of combat is not only important for your character, but the effect on enemies. One thing that repels my friends and me from most MMORPGs is that attacks, for the most part, don't feel impactful. I realize combat is no easy feat for an MMO developer, but it seems like most attacks, if not all, have no effect on some enemies. What I mean by that is, in my experience, there is no way to stagger enemies, or knock them off balance, or do a nice little chunk of damage. This is an unfair comparison, but for example in the Souls games/Elden ring and so on, there are mechanics in the game to do just such a thing and it feels great. You can stack bleed and fill up and enemies "bleed bar" for a large burst of damage, or hit them with enough large attacks with a blunt weapon to stagger them a bit and then capitalize with some quick, high(er) damage attacks. Like I said, its an unfair comparison. But It would be great if Ashes could break the cycle of these massive boss fights where everyone is just "waterfalling" their ability bar repeatedly, and the boss, or even just elite style enemy just sits there and takes it to the face.

Maybe I am a part of the minority but I can speak for my friends and myself that some kind of mechanic similar to the ones I stated previously were considered for the game. I think it has a massive impact on the amount of fun to be had on debatably the most important mechanic in the game for player retainability.

Edit: This could have already been touched on by a dev, but I missed it if it was.

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