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I thought TTK was mostly fine
Diamaht
Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha One
Like the title says. I noticed a lot of comments about this so I rewatched the initial engagement a few more times. I noticed a couple things:
1. A nine or ten person (hard to tell for sure) initial alpha strike killed one player and knocked another to about half. Thats about what you would want really, enough to gain an advantage and reward good coordination, but nowhere near enough to effectively end the fight.
2. About 60 seconds later, after being ambushed, alpha'd and out numbered, in a fight that was intentionally designed for them to lose, there was still about 3 or 4 defenders standing.
I mean, this doesn't seem all that bad. I'm seeing comments suggesting a minute or two per person for kills, I think that would be insane (in a bad way).
How long do you guys think it should take to kill a player? Im fine with what I saw today.
1. A nine or ten person (hard to tell for sure) initial alpha strike killed one player and knocked another to about half. Thats about what you would want really, enough to gain an advantage and reward good coordination, but nowhere near enough to effectively end the fight.
2. About 60 seconds later, after being ambushed, alpha'd and out numbered, in a fight that was intentionally designed for them to lose, there was still about 3 or 4 defenders standing.
I mean, this doesn't seem all that bad. I'm seeing comments suggesting a minute or two per person for kills, I think that would be insane (in a bad way).
How long do you guys think it should take to kill a player? Im fine with what I saw today.
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Comments
Without overinflating this post with details, I very strongly believe that the TTK shown today does not match what Ashes of Creation has claimed to be, or 'was trying to be'. There are other aspects of the mechanics that make it so, too.
I think the combat design doesn't mesh well with the TTK shown, and I think the TTK doesn't mesh well with the game as a whole. Therefore even if I was ok with a 15 second 'burst down' TTK (I am, at least 3 games I like, have this), it's how we get that TTK that matters to me.
Ashes should have a considerably longer TTK than what we saw today, for what it supposedly is. If that's changed since Tradd took over combat design, that's fine, but then I'll also expect more changes to other things as a result.
Do you like the style that leads to the TTK we saw, or is the question just about the TTK itself?
I'd need to see more balanced group numbers, though...
And 0 team comp as stated they were meant to lose.
And considering the caravan turned into a boat....
All that was missing was the rear facing rocket launchers.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
TTK seemed to take a reasonable amount of time for 4 v 1 or 5 v 1.
Instead of 5 v 1 basically being an insta kill.
It is relevant because less buffs, heals, protection, front line, etc.
Both amplify how fast people will end up dying. If you felt it was fine there it should be expected with better team comps it will actually be longer survival times.
Ie* if team didn't have a tank to redirect that 30% of dmg (or whatever the value is) plus extra heals.
I think it wasn't fine at all, really concerning implications, usually, we can use the WIP or its just an alpha card, but Steven specifically said they are looking for feedback because they are happy with the current TTK, so this is valid criticism,
if you analyze the showcase closely, the reason some players were still alive after 60 seconds is basically because they were either running, getting healed or weren't taking any hits,
Ignoring Steven's character, because he was lvl 25, everyone was set at lvl 15 and had around 1k HP, and you can see people hitting other players for 300 or 400 damage, that means you could kill someone with literally 3 to 4 hits, now imagine this
you farm for hours, and when you are returning to your node your screen instantly turns gray because you just got absolutely melted down by 2 rangers that were on stealth and they both critted you for 90% of your health and finished you off in less than 2 seconds, you didn't even had the time to know where they were, and I'm not talking about a group I'm talking about a duo of gankers,
in a game with severe death penalties, this is absolutely horrible, players need a high enough TTK so they can fight back, pot, run, make a decision to whether fight or not, imagine that in dungeons, caravans, open-world farming etc, 2 seconds and you are gone, no time to react, for skill play to matter, just instant death
look at this cleric dying in a 1v1 in literal 4~5 seconds vs a ranger with equal gear/level/stats
AoC is currently using the same TTK as Korean MMOs where there is a high incentive for P2W with players getting so much power that they can burst down someone in a few seconds giving them that hit of dopamine for being so OP, this is not good for an MMO with loot drop, XP debt, gear degradation
and I'm not even going to talk about how bad this gets in mass pvp where 5 mages will wipe out 20 players with meteors, and AoE spam will be meta, their original plan was for a base TTK of 30 to 60 seconds, it is currently no more than 5s and they apparently are happy with it, this really needs to be addressed bc it will make testing in A2 suck,
fast TTK is bad for casual players, for streamers, for farmers and carebears, and its bad for actual PvPers, for Guilds, bad for massive PvP, fast TTK really only benefits gankers that want to burst you down in a second and run away, that's it
On the video I'm seeing 9 people unload on two players and only one died. This is fine. You are saying the rest, being grossly outnumbered, didn't die because they fell back or got heals, still not seeing the issue. They then re-engaged and continued to fight a loosing battle for another full minute. A balanced engagement would have lasted a lot longer. Still sounds good.
We are not pay to win here so no reason to bring that in.
The spam example is fine too. If a dozen mages all hit me at the same time I should probably go down. In sieges you will have to opporate with aoe in mind, it will be a huge threat, as it should be.
Even the solo farming example is fine. If it took 9 to kill one and a half, the it'll take 6 to nuke you before you can do anything. Still good.
You are saying you don't want what was shown, but what DO you want (specifically)?
This
we currently have a 5-second TTK as I showed above, I've elaborated on all the reasons why that is bad, if you believe the current TTK is 30 to 60s and I'm wrong thats fine not going to argue about that, I showed you a gif as proof, and gave you dmg numbers to support its not,
if you don't believe its 30 to 60s but you are still happy with 5s then I'll simply disagree, due to the above mentioned reasons
Could be the Cleric is Paper to the attacker's Scissors in that clip.
I also don't know the Level gap or the Gear Scores.
I also don't know whether the Cleric could have min/maxed their Passive Skills to survive longer against that type of attack.
In A1 Sieges, my Cleric felt too vulnerable to the Tanks' Grapple - until I adjusted my Passive Skills to mitigate Crowd Control.
For all we know, that Cleric in the clip is specced vs Melee Physical attacks and is weak vs Range Magic attacks.
when you talk about wanting a 30 to 60 second TTK that should account for the good bad and ugly, 30s to 60s means 45s would be the average, that means if cleric is the paper for ranger he should have a TTK of lets say ~20 sec if we go for low ttk, maybe 15, but definetly not 4s...
plus that was just one example, there are plenty throughout the showcase that shows people with 1k HP being hit for 30% to 40% of their HP in a single hit, and in that showcase they Clearly were all using the same/similar gear and had the same level for testing purposes,
that combined with steven saying they opted for a faster TTK now indicates that they are going for this Korean'ish fast burst TTK, especially because he said they want feedback as they are in a position they are happy with
Still need to test it in Alpha 2 so we actually know what the specific parameters are.
Same/Similar gear isn't necessarily wise 1v1.
A person wearing vs Melee Physical Gear is unlikely to survive long vs Range Magical attacks.
So Mages just need to be wise enough to barrage Clerics wearing Melee Physical Gear with Ranged Magical attacks.
And, again, Passive Skills also matter significantly.
But, yeah, we also know that Steven's opponents were intended to die fairly quickly for the sake of this demo so the devs could showcase how looting Caravans works.
TTK will very likely continue to be adjusted as we provide feedback during A2 and the Betas.
To me this just seems like a bad showcase then. This comes back to bad messaging from Intrepid. Everyone was hyped for a pvp showcase, but this was just Caravan showcase 2, with some pvp in it.
This just creates a worse image for the pvp in the game. As Liniker pointed out, anyone looking at this would immediately think "oh shit, I'll get murdered instantly in this game huh". Which just drives even more people from the game than the design already does.
In an open world setting, where you can be flagged at any time and you actually have punishments for death (material loss, exp debt, gear degradation etc...), you need to have enough time so that even in a reasonably unbalanced scenario (1v4s, 2v5s, etc) you don't get deleted and have no opportunity to at least try and react. You might not have a chance to win the encounter, but at least you might be able to escape if you're clever enough. If all it takes in a 3v1 for you to die without a reaction is one guy with stuns and one of the dps skill rotation, than that feels incredibly bad when you're being punished for death. And all of this is when we are talking about even leveled players.
The situation is worse when we have level gaps. This game doesn't plan to be a fast leveling process, so we are going to see for maybe months players around lvl 30-40 fighting each other. And when TTK is low and you have a wide gap (around 10 lvls give or take) the feeling is even worse because you have players being one tapped. I'm not advocating for equalized power or anything, but when TTK is higher, even with a bigger level disparity you give the lower-level players more time and opportunity to outplay the higher-level opponents.
Low TTK is also a problem on group pvp. When ttk is low, all it takes is a few dps to focus on the same person and they get demolished. Depending on the scenario the healer doesn't even have time to react and their friend is already dead. Low TTK on group pvp destroys the tactics of party synergy and composition. Higher TTK on the other end, requires the groups to organize in order to win, employing smart crowd control, anti healing spells and target focus with the big damage skills in order to beat the opponent. With a high TTK, the chance for lower-leveled and/or smaller but better skilled/organized groups to beat higher-leveled/bigger groups is way higher.
Low TTK also is also really detrimental to class build composition. With a lower TTK all you need to kill someone is one stun and a high dps rotation. With a higher TTK you need to think about sustain, anti healing skills, a wide array of crowd control and gap closers/disengage. With a higher TTK damage over time builds become viable instead of burst being the only possible way to play the game.
I could go on and on about TTK in mmorpgs, but I think this covers the most important parts of it. Please, keep TTK high.
TTK that was shown in this showcase and in the ranger showcase is REALLY bad IMO
And I think it's a fair criticism. From what I've seen, most peoples concerns with TTK stems from the very real experiences of being 1 or 2 shot by a stealthed character, or burned down after being stun locked in 4 or 5 seconds. Personally I think the 30-60 second TTK previously stated is a bit too far for most modern players, as people quickly get frustrated with the lack of visible progress when 'big numbers no go boom' happens. But I feel at least a 20 second one is required for players to react, decide to fight or flee, or even run a little ways back to heals, or support. And this showcase definitely didn't reflect that.
And it was kinda rigged for the devs to win fairly easily.
So... yes. Probably would be better to also share a kinda more "realistic" PvP battle.
Maybe even something like a Siege. That way we can have 30+ minutes for players to die, make adjustments to their builds and return to battle.
Or even just simulating an ambush, just 1 or two players per side. Like a gatherer going to go grab some stuff being attacked by someone who wants said stuff.
I'm assuming you want to know if someone can stun lock you and kill you before you can react from invis or something. I don't think you are going to see that in any showcase since that doesn't really do much. And also than people will ask for every scenario of different thing which would just be a waste of time.
I'd say there is a high hance whoever ambushes will win based on the amount of tab targeting (lack of skill shots) and players being on the lower side of levels. You aren't going to have a fine tuned build (or even a decent one) for certain situations. As you level you will be cycling gear pretty quickly based ont he current levels they are showing.
Once we get int he realm of lvl 35+ it be a different story. People need to realize and stop thinking about end game on current / old mmorpgs and comparing unbalanced pvp to what they know or like about other mmorpgs.
Or they need to take the mmorpg they like (in its released state) and compare of the same levels and situations. If i get run up by 5 people in shadowbane and we are lvl 25 I'm dying in 5 seconds. If im playing swtor and i run up on someone and I have 5 people and they don't pop a op defensive buff in time they are dying in 5 seconds at lvl 25.
Fast in leveling?
I guess that one is an exception if 5 people of lower level are attacking one person. In all old and new mmorpgs I've played ttk would be stupid fast (exception of new world since that game was broken)
Well we can all go over the video and take parts out. You can go tot he point where it takes 5-6 people like 5-6 seconds to skill someone. There is no global CD (which is good) so people are throwing skill out faster plus if you had the time together its like 30-35 seconds if it was one on one. Which is fine to me being on the long side of things.
We don't need 60 seconds of fighting for one person, nor do we need people having access to 40 skills with 3-4 bars of abilities to facilitate that. Less skills and more quality of combat with the skills you use.
It's not about picking out moments. People had ~1.5k hp across different classes. General dmg was ~100-150 from basic dmg abilities and up to 400 from stuff like snipe. With fairly quick casts and no gcd that's ~10 hits to kill a dude, which is at most 20s, and that's w/o crits.
Some people were at 1k, so it's even faster to kill them. And this is w/o accounting for rps balancing, so rocks will be killing scissors EVEN FASTER.
So again, it's about the generalization of what we're seeing right now and what the plan is. And right now we see that dmg to hp ratio is way faster than 30-60s ttk, but the current pace is also supposedly the rough goal, so even when we do get buffs/healing/def - it will still be balanced around this speed, which is below what was promised before.
And people were interested in that previous promise, which is why people have complained that ttk is currently short.
I feel like things are being taken out of context, where is there a define quote and reasoning on the ttk is where they want it based on unbalanced gameplay. They most likely came to the conclusion from other testing and this point being taken out of context.
Faster than 60 seconds is good though, and i don't remember any promise made i remember this being WIP and things will change over the course of years of development. Imo their general direction is looking good based on many factors I'd expect down the line (mobility, more protection, balanced groups, etc).
Looking at the gameplay and trying to take a magnifying class to certain thing shown isn't the way to look at it. Other things need to be considered you aren't seeing and also I'd need to play it for myself to have a proper feel for things.
(And, it should probably be 60s balanced 1v1, right?)
So nah, I don't think either of those are out of context or don't match the current complains.
The magnifying glass is for the basis of the complaint, the words of "yeah, this is where we wanna be" is for the main body of the complaint.
But it's way under 60s even in 1v1. Especially in 1v1s, cause there's no real healing there (unless you're fighting a cleric).
So the currently planned ttk is still too fast.
I actually agree. I am surprised to see all the negative comments regarding TTK... I'll quote myself from the monthly feedback forum:
"Regarding TTK... - Personally, I am not as concerned as many others regarding the TTK, especially not if it is as stated that it is within the "faster but acceptable" reach. 6 rangers all using snipe at the same time on the same target - that has no protective buffs - seems like a reasonable kill to me considering that Steven was level 25 and that these rangers were set up in ideal cirumstance (aka, they were ambushing). After that, HP bars were moving much slower - and I imagine they will move even slower when bard with buffs arrive - as combat broke out. Steven's group had almost double the player count, yet I'd say that the other group stood their ground quite well (especially considering Steven's zerg had the jump on them). I am not sure if they had a proper target caller on their side - but it certainly felt more balanced than I personally expected."
I mean, the average hits that I saw were ranging from 10s to 80s (not counting level 25 Steven), and that seems perfectly reasonable for level 15 players, imo.