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Misses, resists and other combat RNG
Spif
Member, Alpha Two
What are people's thought on the topic of RNG in combat?
1) My impression is that there will be no RNG misses or resists of damaging attacks. Same goes for effects from attacks like DoTs, CC or debuffs. If someone sends it your way, and you don't have a specific effect that keeps from landing, it's going to stick. You may be able to reduce the damage with resists/armor stats, but it won't just be completely nullified. I bring that up because after the mage preview I've been seeing a lot of comparisons to systems where you just stack resists to a specific element to not get hit by it.
2) RNG blocks, dodges or parries. My understanding is that the default level of evade/block/parry will be 0%. I don't think we've seen anything official related to this from the Devs other than active block showcased in the tank preview. There are a lot of options .Tank and rogue are the most likely classes to have something like this. Either as a passive X% chance to block/evade damage, or as an active buff that gives an X% chance. But since all classes could have rogue/tank/other
#1: IMO for a modern MMO, RNG missing/resists are not needed. It's just too huge of a benefit for an attack to completely miss, especially in a cooldown based system.
For #2, I'm also not a fan of anything passive. But a moderate-to-long-cooldown RNG-based defensive buff would be ok (Ex: gain 30% evade chance for the next 5 seconds). Even better would be a cooldown based buff that negates the next attack against you. I'm more interested in having active block or iframes incorporated into the dodge roll
1) My impression is that there will be no RNG misses or resists of damaging attacks. Same goes for effects from attacks like DoTs, CC or debuffs. If someone sends it your way, and you don't have a specific effect that keeps from landing, it's going to stick. You may be able to reduce the damage with resists/armor stats, but it won't just be completely nullified. I bring that up because after the mage preview I've been seeing a lot of comparisons to systems where you just stack resists to a specific element to not get hit by it.
2) RNG blocks, dodges or parries. My understanding is that the default level of evade/block/parry will be 0%. I don't think we've seen anything official related to this from the Devs other than active block showcased in the tank preview. There are a lot of options .Tank and rogue are the most likely classes to have something like this. Either as a passive X% chance to block/evade damage, or as an active buff that gives an X% chance. But since all classes could have rogue/tank/other
#1: IMO for a modern MMO, RNG missing/resists are not needed. It's just too huge of a benefit for an attack to completely miss, especially in a cooldown based system.
For #2, I'm also not a fan of anything passive. But a moderate-to-long-cooldown RNG-based defensive buff would be ok (Ex: gain 30% evade chance for the next 5 seconds). Even better would be a cooldown based buff that negates the next attack against you. I'm more interested in having active block or iframes incorporated into the dodge roll
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Comments
Stuff like that. And the same applies to physical interactions as well. Perfect blocks and dodges should still be in the game, but they gotta be real tight, so that they're a real skill check (well, of course as long as the ping is accounted for).
I can manage when it's not binary, i.e. Random chance for shorter duration CC instead of CC misses, or random chance to deal lower damage (I'm more ok with it for crits and damage in longer TTK games).
But that's just a matter of 'coinflips and dicerolls' vs 'statistics'. The sweet spot in an MMO is probably the point where the 'streak of bad' is enough of an outlier that it won't usually ruin a gameplan, but I find this to be harder to reach in PvP situations.
In a game with large fights and many players there should be ways to control the effects of cc on you and the chance. Normally I'll say it needs to be balanced for it so that you can have less cc around but make the current cc more reliable over rng.
But I'm unsure the correct decision until i see more of the game and how their goals will work out.
Maybe a mix of some non rng cc and some cc that is rng.
Having a log of the rolls the combat system takes, along with a list of modifiers (basically the same info you have in tabletop D&D), then all is well.
Going to attack someone and missing can be frustrating. Seeing that you rolled a 1 vs their roll of 100 though, that makes it a little easier to digest.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of using a RNG is people often (or should I say 'usually') misunderstanding statistics. This leads to complaining and whining which is unpleasant. But there are lots of unpleasant reactions from the player base and it is unrealistic to expect that not to happen.
So use the RNGs but, as Noaani just said, let the systems behind it be fairly open.
I sort of agree with this, but most games do this as a matter of course.
An example is that as your character progresses, their chance to hit would go up. New abilities and gear would just naturally increase it. As your chance to hit goes up, your reliance on RNG naturally goes down.
Mana consuming abilities be they AOE's or singularly targeted probably should NOT miss or have an RNG component in their damage or debuff effects as the expenditure of limited resources should give reliability for the user and the nature of such abilities many complex effects can not be averaged out easily.
I can think of reasons to add RNG to this, but I would like to play an MMO where damage is the result of a mathematical calculation, no matter how complex or simple it may be, no need for a damage range (RNG) there.
Exactly, a natural progression of skill. As you become more adept with swordplay and combat you should have more control and less randomness.
It also provides a feel of increasing power and gives players another goal to strive for.
To me, games do an ok job of this naturally, as outlined above.
The thing to remember, at least imo, is that the adverse of this also applies. As your opponents get better, that RNG creeps back in.
This is where opposed rolls in MMOs come in. My chance to hit rolled against your chance to dodge, block or avoid.
Sure, I've put all that time and effort in to increasing my chance to hit, but you have put that same amount of time in to increasing your chance to prevent me from hitting.
What I will say is that games with this mechanic do also need non-RNG components to the system.
In most games, this is things like added damage in the case of the attacker, and mitigation in the case of the defender.
Quite a few interesting opinions on the topic can be found there, as well!
I don't think missing should be more prevalent for longer ranged attacks just so that retreating can be more successful. If the attacks are numerous enough that it rapidly averages out, this in essence becomes:
Ranged attacks do less damage the further away you are from your target, due to misses. And I don't like that at all. It means ranged will always have to try to be as close as possible to deal full damage.
I mean, this is a bad take.
In the 1°) point, what gives you the impression that "There will be no RNG misses or resists of damaging attacks. Same goes for effects from attacks like DoTs, CC or debuffs." and your understanding that "the default level of evade/block/parry will be 0%."?
My Expectations, impression and understanding is the complete opposite of yours because things present in Alpha 1:
Physical Disable Modifier
Physical Disable Defense
Physical Accuracy
Physical Evasion Bonus
Physical Block Chance
Magical Disable Chance
Magical Accuracy
Magical Block Chance
All of those Stats were derived from from Base Stats. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Stats
Also, the main games Ashes gets inspirations from (Lineage 2 and ArcheAge) and such RNG variables inside their combat.
As for what are my thoughts on the topic of RNG in combat,
i believe RNG is essential for having a combat system with depth in terms of unpredictability and adaptability skill, those aspects certainly provides me with extra enjoyment.
RNGless combat feels way less entertaining for me due to how much more predictable it often is, it feels limited, static and souless for me.
I Believe RNG in Ashes will have an extra importance to keep Tab Target Skills in check other than small i-frames defensive options. Being able to evade/block/parry otherwise unavoidable(by simple movement) Tab Target Skills and the possible Debuffs/CCs attached to them (Which would be an insane advantage over Action skills even tho we know most CC is expected to be house in Action skills).
Aren't we all sinners?
Without a range drop off the ranged attacker will always attack at maximum range instead. Most ranged attackers will be trying to avoid melee attacks from their targets aka kiting, so they already have an incentive to maintain distance from the target no matter what their damage output is. By varying damage output an actual risk-reward tradeoff is created for both the sides.
It may come as a surprise to you but them exists an entire genre of games which involve shooting other players which would let us test your theory, invariably the farther away the other players are in these games the harder it is to shoot them.
Ultimately just making an assumption that balance will be bad. I haven't spoken at all about what the maximum range or damage of an arrow should be.
Again, your just making unfounded assumption at best and bad faith arguments at worst. Maximum range is not a fixed immovable value, nor is an arrows base damage value. Both could go up such that DPS could be nearly any value. I'm simply asserting that a downward sloping curve on a range/DPS plot is what is needed to provide a good counter play for and against the Ranger.
The fact that miss chance currently exists at all ranges, and which is presumably a flat chance is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I'm calling for because that is a flat DPS/range curve. Miss chances should be near zero at close range and with the max range just being the point when miss chance has reach sufficiently close to 100% that their is no more point in firing.
BtW, 300m was range for mass area bombardment by archers firing in arcs, ranges to shoot man size targets were far less, though obviously Fantasy settings and Elves claim to fame is inhuman accuracy which is why you want a Dex stat or something similar to be used in the range-increment calculation so you can build a character for accuracy.