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Dodge Roll vs Quick Step and Dash
Halae
Member
Something I've seen in discussions, both in the Ashes community and elsewhere, is the topic of the dodge animation. A lot of people appear to have an opinion on it, and I felt that it might warrant its own topic of discussion as a result. Note, this is NOT a discussion about invulnerability frames. This is JUST about animations.
For my part, I can see arguments for both sides. I've heard arguments that quick steps and dashes feel like they should be shorter range maneuvers, and thus shouldn't have the same kind of maneuverability as a dodge roll, and therefore fit a faster pace of combat. Some people also seem to feel that longer range dashes shouldn't be possible in heavier armor. By contrast, dodge roll detractors appear to feel that it makes characters look incompetent as their character's feet leaving the ground and eyes losing sight of the enemy is a cardinal sin in a fight, making an otherwise competent character look stupid by doing a rookie mistake to reposition in a fight and avoid attacks; however I've seen arguments that the flow of the movement is often flowing and sensible for a heavy impact and weighty feel. The implication these sides usually carry is that dashes and quick steps make a character a character look more competent but more unreal, while a dodge roll makes a character look less competent but more grounded and hefty.
What's your opinion on this debate? And, more importantly, based on what you've seen of the combat Ashes of Creation is going to have, what kind of dodge and combat mobility animation do you think it should have?
For my part, I can see arguments for both sides. I've heard arguments that quick steps and dashes feel like they should be shorter range maneuvers, and thus shouldn't have the same kind of maneuverability as a dodge roll, and therefore fit a faster pace of combat. Some people also seem to feel that longer range dashes shouldn't be possible in heavier armor. By contrast, dodge roll detractors appear to feel that it makes characters look incompetent as their character's feet leaving the ground and eyes losing sight of the enemy is a cardinal sin in a fight, making an otherwise competent character look stupid by doing a rookie mistake to reposition in a fight and avoid attacks; however I've seen arguments that the flow of the movement is often flowing and sensible for a heavy impact and weighty feel. The implication these sides usually carry is that dashes and quick steps make a character a character look more competent but more unreal, while a dodge roll makes a character look less competent but more grounded and hefty.
What's your opinion on this debate? And, more importantly, based on what you've seen of the combat Ashes of Creation is going to have, what kind of dodge and combat mobility animation do you think it should have?
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In a world where one is fighting huge dragons and such, dodge rolling makes a lot of sense because those sorts of things often attack with weight and force and your primary option for survival is to get out of the way so if Ashes must choose one, knowing that 'big AoE' PvE will likely be 'most focused/interesting' relative to that enemy type, I say 'rolls'. Sidesteps and hops are separate because they can't send you forward, and for some things, it's balanced.
If you're in PvP and are a very martial class, you are probably blocking or using a special ability dash, and even if you did roll, if it had no iFrames, you would only use it when you expected the same sort of big attack, or if you wanted to cover a lot of distance, which is what rolls are for.
Magic dashes feel fine cause they're magic. Short sidesteps are fine because they are realistic. Big rolls should only go forward and to the sides and would have to be very precisely timed if you wanted to avoid any attacks with them.
I could maybe see a rogue or a ranger doing a backflip or some shit, but I'd have to see the animation for it first. We've already seen the ranger doing some air pirouettes, so backflips wouldn't stand out as much, but it should still fit the overall movement style.
I prefer active blocks, parries and richotettes for heavier armoured toons.
I think dodge rolls are better for repositions and not necessarily for damage reduction. I would expect jumps, blocks and dodges to be required. I'm just not convinced all three should be blanketed across all classes.
Some classes should have better dodges, like rangers and rogues for example.
It also depends on the design for it, you could have different animations and have them move the same distance rough but I wouldn't recommend that. Based on the class and what it does there should be different dodges.
Example
Like warrior might have the roll or something and can move in any distance and the same amount. But Ranger can't forward dash, but their back dash is a bit longer and their side dashes are longer as well.
Universal basic mechanics are universally spread out for a reason. While I do quite like Neurath's parry/block mechanic idea, getting rid of mobility for it would likely cripple the ability to operate of a class that took that as an option, making it a universally worse choice in many fights than a much more mobile summoner, making it a balancing nightmare. Your suggestion of giving this kind of unique mechanic to every class is doable when you've only got like three classes as if it's Dragon Age or something, but every time you add a class to the game the balancing load for this kind of system becomes exponentially worse, and at eight archetypes Ashes is well beyond the breaking point for that kind of thing.
As far as animations go, it is simply a animation it shouldn't really make a difference between a roll or cartwheel as they can also control the values and speeds and distance.
I agree with ith you but I can see why they put it there since most abilities track their target. What would be the point in dodging if range abilities can curve and track toward you?
Because in many games, there's a limit to how far those abilities 'curve'.
There's a cone, even if you're tabbed, for some games, and you could just roll out of that range and the ability would not hit you anymore. You could roll behind cover. You could roll behind your tank. All these things should still work just fine even if there are literal homing arrows.
Usually, rolling is faster than running or walking, and costs stamina to do, in my experience.
Not to mention seeing wizards doing dodge rolls just makes no sense whatsoever.
This just sounds like an excuse because you don't like rolling or dodging. The simple fact is that if I dodge out of the way and the ability curve is the problem. I wouldn't mind not having any damage reduction if abilities didn't curve. We will also have to see how the tracking will work in real combat and against other players. I know we saw a little bit of it in the range video but that was against mobs. I want to see what it will look like against other players in Alpha 2. If I'm playing against another player and I dodge or roll around a tree or rock and it curves with me, that really feels bad. It feels worse than those complaining about no-tab targeting and pro-tracking of targets. People shouldn't have to spec into evasion in order just to avoid the in-game aim assist. That would be a waste of skill points.
The GW2 dodge roll was ok - similar to the evasive rolls/maneuvers in NWO.
If rolling / quicksteps are damage mitigation in addition to movements, I think we’d need to make it clear & intuitive as to exactly what type of damage they can evade and when. I’m mostly concerned about PvP, particularly with the hybrid targeting system.
Definitely. But you don't need any iframes to dodge-roll...
- out of range (or out of the tracking cone, i.e. too far left or right)
- behind a rock
- behind your tank
and have the arrow miss you.
Dodging like that that should definitely be made to work.
Like Azherae was saying, the point of dodging is to make one of those things happen, and have the arrow hit something other than you. You don't need iframes for that. Just don't let arrows do u-turns.
I'm not sure if you mean me personally or not, so I'm going to assume you don't mean me and answer this relative to Intrepid design as I experienced it.
Enemies don't seem to have 'projectile attacks' as often, and they can't 'know you're going to dodge' the way a player can, so they fire off their abilities without 'aiming'. This also means they use a few more 'ground lines' and so on.
Those abilities would then be blocked by terrain if you rolled, and whether or not they hit you anyway if you didn't get behind something would be up to the ability and their design style. Ground Lines and other things like that, the roll does the job by getting out of the way, and the damage reduction is the reward for 'doing the right thing but not quickly enough'.
I am not entirely sure but I THINK, counterintuitive as it is, that this is actually the OPPOSITE of how it works.
When you're smaller, you roll both less far, AND less quickly (by a tiny bit). Rolling in Armor, if one rolls correctly and your armor doesn't suck, is basically the same, the realistic thing might be to have it take more STAMINA to roll in heavy armor, but rolls are one of the 'movement types' that are least affected by this.
I'll absolutely accept correction from someone with more experience on this than me.
but wouldn't this just incentivize players to fight close to or behind cover? I guess I would be fine with it if specing into evasion is also applied to rolls and dodge. If specing into evasion gave a small multiplier(.25), which is applied when a charter rolled or dodged but on the flip side the higher you spec into evasion the longer your roll/dodge gets. This way rolling/dodging becomes effective but not abusive. So a fighter who is up against a ranger can save their rolls or doge to counter abilities like snipe or use it to dive behind cover before a crit hit. Keeping the nature of an iFrame but capping how often it can be used and making it something that someone actually has to spec into taking their ability to spec into other stuff. If you play Destiny 2 you have a rough idea of what I'm talking about. Except in Destiny 2 the more you spec into dodge the lower your CD gets.
If there’s a skill, maybe it adds 1 more roll before cooldown. Or a reduction to stamina cost, benefit to roll speed, etc. Nothing too OP, but enough to justify the skill point.
Yes, but it will still have to be effective at evading attacks. Otherwise, there will be no point in investing the skill point when you can just spec into defense and roll for the movement.
Skill points adding to range, and then adding in iframes, sounds viable. Make it an investment.
EDIT: Slight clarity. I'm agreeing, not arguing.
100%. Since abilities soft lock on you, it does become an investment one has to make. Which should drastically change up playstyle depending on which way plays spec their skill points.
I suppose one counter argument could be, why not travel as a group yourself? And the answer is its impossible to always be buddied up if you think about it logically. I enjoyed eso dodges since all classes had access and it burned stamina so sure if you wanted to spam it go ahead but it wasn't gonna protect you from aoes or CC. I believe dodges should cost mana in ashes and everyone should be able to do it.
I think you mean hard lock in this case. A 'soft lock' just means I'm in your target reticle. A roll mechanic is fundamentally meant to avoid soft lock attacks. A 'hard lock' attack means I'm your target (as in the tab target sense of target) and if I roll away we're talking about homing and 'to hit' statistics.
Just want to make sure we're all using the same language.
So you want soft-lock to also require iFrames to avoid?
Iframes, blocking, movement (Id expect some skills will miss not everything is going to work like a very fast arrow), using obstacles.
It shouldn't work any differently between hitting a target in those mode and how things normally should be working anyway. If it is projectile base it could be less accurate based on th =e range and easier to dodge roll out of it physically for both action and tab. ie* Curving strength - Distance = curve amount
yes. I mixed it up
Ok, this is interesting. Because as someone who will be playing on the action side of the combat I don't want to get 360 no scope by someone using tab. In terms of at least requiring a tab user to face their character toward the target. A target within a 180-degree view of you can be targeted but not targets behind you unless you turn your character. I think that would be fair given someone in action can't target and sometimes even see what's going on behind them.