Q) How do you feel about the Fighter Archetype Preview?
A) It looks great. Love the non-target attacks and being able to turn the skills before they go off. Didn't see it in the vid but i would love to be able to move a bit as well, with a heavy movement speed penalty of course.
Q) What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
A) The mobility and cleaves of well placed abilities.
Q) Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
A) Having a "burn" effect on the weapon tree. Hopefully it scales with the weapon damage/physical power so you won't have to spec magic damage to make it a reasonable damage source.
Q) What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
A) Love the synergistic aspects of the skills/weapon skills. Would like to see the jump arch from the leap ability be a arch, and not a arch and then at the very last moment of the skill a hard drop.
Q) Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
A) Said it in question 3 as well, but having a "burn" effect in the weapon tree be scaling off of a magical stat instead of a physical one. My concern is it'll just function as a primer and not as a ok-ish dot. Speccing into magic damage to make the magical/elemental damage aspect of the attack viable is bad.
I'd also love to see a clearer "you've just completed a full weapon attack combo". Either through a sfx ping of sorts or a obvious vfx. Perhaps the same goes for a proc going off from the attacks.
Misc comments:
- Would love to see very faint hp bars on mobs you've hit/clipped to see what hp they're at, besides just your tab target.
Love the slash vfx on skill 3 to show who got struck.
I would like there to be more ways to proc wounds and bleed to make a bloodletter build. combining that with sustain would make a great vampiric character
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angelicshiyaMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My one comment that I think you should implement for the fighter(not playing one btw) is a size increase or tempoary size increase. While he is in his "God" mode, with the immune to CC, for as long as he continues to stay in that mode with his continuous attacks, his character is enlarged by 20% and he looks like an unstoppable onslaught force that is large and in charge!
I have a lot of concerns about localized PvP when I see this. If you pick Dreadnought, who exactly can stop you from mowing someone gathering resources down unless they are also a Dreadnought? The ability set on Fighter, added to other heavy movement classes, looks like it would make it nearly impossible for you to run away as a noncombatant even without CC hitting you, as the tab target chasers make it very difficult to do so. The ability to essentially airdash at will to a tab target, or leap and *then* airdash and *then* do another chasing ability allows you to far outstrip even someone that's actively aware of your position and trying to disengage.
And then for PvP in corruption or a consensual setting, who can stop the lockdown from Dreadnought? You stack this CC on top of Tank CC and the opponent character can't do anything...unless they are also Dreadnought and have the CC reduction, leading to 1v1 PvP being focused on dreadnought. I really dislike the kind of combat dynamics that this creates for the small scale, even if it washes out for PvE or large scale PvP.
Apart from that, the large amount of drops from basically every mob feels very silly, like they're all piñatas spewing out loot. This detracts from immersion significantly and it doesn't feel good to get such a high drop rate in a game that aims to be grounded like Ashes. If the economy of the game requires this kind of thing, it seems to me like the economy needs help.
Finally, I want to end with props to the audio design which is doing great, I love the goblin and wolf sound effects, and overall once again the animations look fantastic. On the art front, you all are doing amazing. I just hope that the gameplay design can match it in time.
Grilled cheese always tastes better when you eat it together!
Everything looks real fun but I’d like there to be options for larger, heavier feeling weapons. That great sword was kinda small for my taste. I thought it was a one handed sword at first. The design was cool but if it was bigger it would be cooler.
Overall I loved the showcase, but here a few points of feedback:
- The wispy color indicating loot quality on bodies is cool, but I think it's kind of anti-climactic to see blue and just get blue glint. Maybe it could only show the color of the best non-glint loot?
- The Ren'kai in that armor looked kind of pudgy rather than muscular
- Cataclysm's vfx looks cool, but it might be a little bit too much. There's this odd feeling when using epic-looking abilities a lot where although they are flashy they become mundane due to repetition. IMO Lost Ark suffers from this a lot, where class abilities look super cool at first, but the spectacle gets old and then actively annoying after a while.
- There was a moment when Steven seemed to try to jump over a tree root, but his character climbed instead. This could be a frustrating thing in a PvP environment, where your character is unexpectedly rooted while they climb.
There are three classes I'm interested in playing and this was third on my list. From the stand point of a player who would want to play the class I think you all have something that could be really good here. But... well let's get to the but last as is appropriate.
Biggest Point of Praise:
1. Holy carp those effects look cool af. You really outdid yourself. The effects look rad. The combat animations look amazing too.
2. You really sold the hit on this feeling like a high fantasy class using magic to be a melee specialist without breaking the 'melee specialist' part.
3. The weapons and armor look great.
4. Renkaiiiiiiii. (Plz give us red and blue oni colors the green looks way more generic than your initial options.)
5. The roar was a brilliant addition. I want that to have a higher threat generation value so fighter can play a role in taking control of adds.
7. Great sound design. THUNK.
8. The weapon specialty system is going to be a really big deal for me. It offers so much complexity to the combat system. I hope combat is more than just me spamming my abilities in rotation and it sounds like you all are with me on that. I just worry about how much difficulty that might cause your combat to balance.
But.... Well I list more indepth criticism below. But I will say that overall this seems like a good enjoyable direction. It just also looks really easy to make too powerful OR too underpowered. I'm specifically really concerned about how far all these mobility actions let you go across the board and I feel like it'll be hard to tweak downward when testing because players want to feel as much power and 'agency' as possible. That's why it's easier to make them 'undertuned' for testing than it is to make them 'overtuned'. I also feel like your enemy ai for PvE is going to have a lot of issues with all the mobility but none of this is fighter specific. It just 'really shows' in the fighters kit.
Biggest Point of Criticism:
1. The fighter seems to be really reliant on hitting their enemy to keep going. This is a good thing for RPS balance, but I fear what this might mean about the game balance. It might mean that this obviously outclassing all in 1v1 class is going to be faced with people 'meta' avoiding the fighter by putting on a ton of evasion gear. That being an option is a good thing but I fear how hard you might cap evasion in the future per level as a result of wanting the fighter to feel really effect in the long term. So 'be careful with that'. It could make the whole game feel like a slog if you don't give the fighter agency in this.
2. With this much mobility I was noting that the mobs feel really complacent and stagnant. This wouldn't be a worry in a game like BDO. But in a game with a summoner player class I do in fact worry about what this means for summoner's summons. This will really make or break a lot of your combat design for my most desired class to play, summoner. With this much mobility in player classes and PvP being so important, I worry how much summons will just get utterly demolished by all of this, and how vulnerable/underpowered the summoner will be as a result of you just 'easily getting around the summon' or ignoring them in your risk calculation in combat.
3. Sooooooo. I'm a fighting gamer. All of this looks great to me. Animation cancels, i-frame manipulation, combo theory, high twitch timing, there is a lot of gap closing and maneuverability. But I do wonder just how much a fighter is gonna be able to actually need to worry about distance. Right now it doesn't look very skill full in the part where skill should matter most (correctly using different distance options in combat at the right timing to gain positional advantage) where as the part that should involve the least amount of skill to make things less frustrating for people (the damage output and combo theory) seems to be wildly more skill based than I could have possibly imagined. As a fighting game player I'm not worried about it, but people are kidding themselves if they think they are going to do well with this system if they don't like or do poorly in fighting games. You even made fighter the fighting game character Sol Badguy for the most part. Haha. It'd be in the games best interest to flip where the difficulty/skill is in combat for the sake of long term retention even if you want the game to be harder than most.
4. I feel like the risk vs reward is really off with the stance change. I love the system and it definitely pushes this class to 2nd instead of 3rd choice for me. I think you need way more risk between stance changes. The fighter feels like it has every tool imaginable which honestly, feels more like summoner style design than it is fighter.
WARRIOR CLASS:
- Sounds were great. The war cry could be a bit longer and the animation so it would not be so short and it would feel like fighter is really yelling. The sound for it was good
Rupture - I like the effect, the amount of blood is a bit excessive. Less blood, but a bit longer animation time. It ended too soon.
Blitz - So if ranger is attacking from a cliff from safety the fighter just jumps and zap he is in melee. So positioning for ranged attackers does not mean anything. I would like it to be so that the max height of the charge would be like two times the height of the character so he is "jumping" and not magically beaming through the air. Could it be possible that the charge knocks the target on their back or knees and it takes a second or two for them to get up.
It would have been nice if more weapon types would have been shown. This is the fighter class so it can use all weapons. Dual wield(daggers/swords/axes/maces, sword&shield, bow and the skill trees for them. If they are not ready you could have at least shared thoughts about them.
ENVIRONMENT:
Area looked good and the feeling was good and tempting to go there.
The basic mobs coming to attack in masses is a good thing. It would be best that basic mobs would have some special attacks also so that you cant let your guard down even with basic mobs. So combat with wandering mobs would be still good and sort of challenging even when you have levels.
The amount of special effects was too much for my taste in group fight and this was only with four characters. I do understand that people want skills to be flashy and great and all that, but less is more in my opinion. In that fight when everyone was doing their aoe attacks you could not see where the mobs were and where was everything.
So when thinking about massive battles or just 10 characters fighting the amount of effects is going to be too much. I dont want this game to be like those asian style mmo games where all effects are so big and they conceal everything.
It is a fine balance. When playing the mage it feels good when everything is burning and/or covered in sheets of ice or in mesmerizing lightning, but those are good in a single player game where there is not possibly hundreds of other players all using massive aoe effects...
Could the fighter effects be more like real combat and the impact of a skill have shockwaves, but not with all the colors.
So i leave it to you to decide what is good. I trust In you to make it good.
GENERAL FEEDBACK:
When giving these archetype previews it would be nice that you would open the plans for the weapon types planned that class uses. Meaning that skills usually require specific weapon type to work so there are certain types that is designed as default for the class. For example now with the fighter it was only with two handed sword, but if you do not want to show it you could at least open and tell us about the different weapon types that work with the skills and how the archetype changes with dual wield, sword&shield.
With the ranger you could have opened up and told us about melee situations. Does hunter have skills to engage only in melee and with what weapon types.
Massive thanks to the team for this game. It is looking good and cant wait to get the chance to test it. I am joining in beta 1 so this alpha two is not for me
I have a lot of concerns about localized PvP when I see this. If you pick Dreadnought, who exactly can stop you from mowing someone gathering resources down unless they are also a Dreadnought? The ability set on Fighter, added to other heavy movement classes, looks like it would make it nearly impossible for you to run away as a noncombatant even without CC hitting you, as the tab target chasers make it very difficult to do so. The ability to essentially airdash at will to a tab target, or leap and *then* airdash and *then* do another chasing ability allows you to far outstrip even someone that's actively aware of your position and trying to disengage.
And then for PvP in corruption or a consensual setting, who can stop the lockdown from Dreadnought? You stack this CC on top of Tank CC and the opponent character can't do anything...unless they are also Dreadnought and have the CC reduction, leading to 1v1 PvP being focused on dreadnought. I really dislike the kind of combat dynamics that this creates for the small scale, even if it washes out for PvE or large scale PvP.
Apart from that, the large amount of drops from basically every mob feels very silly, like they're all piñatas spewing out loot. This detracts from immersion significantly and it doesn't feel good to get such a high drop rate in a game that aims to be grounded like Ashes. If the economy of the game requires this kind of thing, it seems to me like the economy needs help.
Finally, I want to end with props to the audio design which is doing great, I love the goblin and wolf sound effects, and overall once again the animations look fantastic. On the art front, you all are doing amazing. I just hope that the gameplay design can match it in time.
Expanding here then:
From our position outside it looks like you've painted yourselves into a corner again, Intrepid. With the range available on these gap closers and movespeed increases, are we just not getting any Mobility augments after all?
Our Paladin cares about the 'ability to escape' part of this for semi-obvious reasons. In any tactical situation, a person under pressure needs to reach him unless we're going 'anime airdasher' gameplay. But that's possible, since it could move us closer to ArcheAge.
But then, the abilities are slow, and Tab target... which means... Evasion Stat is going to matter. And now we've got a Fighter who is 'counting on their backline targets having low enough evasion to actually be hit'.
It feels like you designed things somewhere between WoW and a MOBA, but want to keep all the d20 style elements. I'd say 'don't do that', but if you think you can make that be fun, keep going I guess. BDO style play is actually incompatible with what you've otherwise said though. Like, you can break down the numbers as to why, it's raw statistics at that point.
For context, I generally play Fighter or another equivalent hard-hitting melee-focused archetype in most games, so I have a lot of personal investment in this one. Based on what I saw in the showcase, I'm cautiously optimistic about Fighter in Ashes, but have some reservations.
Overall, the ability I liked the look of the most was the heavy overhead attack that launched a grounded projectile (I think this was an optional upgrade of Maim?). This looks fun to use, and seemed like it would give the class some ranged punish options.
The Combat Momentum meter is also something I like the idea of, but I would prefer to have more options for spending this meter on abilities, which I think would create interesting tradeoffs (is it worth sacrificing some of your attack buffs for a movement ability, for instance?)
I have a few different comparisons I want to make to melee archetypes I enjoy in other games, to highlight what I think works well about the current design of AoC Fighter's, and where I see gaps in its ability set.
1) Monster Hunter Greatsword
I love Monster Hunter's Greatsword. The heavy, highly-committed slashes are satisfying to land, and being able to build up towards a Truecharge Slash with repeated attacks feels like a reward for thorough understanding of the gaps in a monster's moveset.
A few AoC Fighter abilities seem to be similar - big overhead slashes with a windup and high damage - but I'd optimally like the option of holding a button to charge these attacks longer, for a bigger ultimate payoff. I think this would allow for more of the high risk/high reward playstyle I enjoy.
In general I have apprehensions about the high movement speed and quick cooldown of abilities in current AoC combat, when compared to games with the deliberate and committed movement of something like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls.
2) FFXI's Dark Knight
In FFXI, Dark Knight isn't a pure melee class (it has a focus on debuffing, and has some secondary elemental magic), but I think it's still close enough to be a valid point of comparison.
The class has a focus on both draining HP from enemies, and spending your own HP to enhance its damage output, making for an interesting back-and-forth where you can half-kill yourself dealing spike damage, then time your drain ability to recover. This allows for a sort of "Berserker" playstyle that I also really enjoy.
AoC's Fighter has Blood Fusion, which I like mechanically and in terms of flavor, but I don't see any equivalent of the interplay between spending and recovering HP being possible with the current ability set.
Alternatively, something similar could be achieved through adding more ways to spend Combat Momentum.
3) DNF Duel Inquisitor
Is a fighting game too different from an MMO for this to be a useful comparison? I'm not sure, let me know in the replies !
In DNF Duel, Inquisitor fights with an impractically large axe which has a high range but a somewhat slow moveset. Being effective with the character is therefore all about knowing your ranges. Using dashes, jumps, and other movement options to get into the right positions to launch your attacks is important, as is preventing the enemy from getting into ranges where the slow startups of your moves will leave you unable to effectively counter them.
I like games where your positioning is a large factor, and where it's possible to bait out attacks and whiff punish opponents. This sometimes relies on being able to rapidly move short distances (with a dash or dodge roll move).
While AoC Fighter has Lunging Assault, which is somewhat similar, this currently has a built-in followup attack, making it predictable, and limiting the ways in which it could be used to either evade or whiff-punish. I would optimally like to see a way to spend meter for a shorter dash with a controllable direction, without a built-in followup attack.
Other Thoughts
I have very mixed opinions about this, because while I have a generally positive opinion of the Fighter moveset itself, it's underscored some of my concerns about the extremely high mobility/low commitment attack style in Ashes' combat at the moment.
Without going into any specifics, my biggest take on the fighter showcase is that you managed to make the Fighter a fun, engaging class with a decent skill ceiling. I might even want to play it, and I almost never play fighter because they strike me as a little boring.
I'll get into more specifics later, but I really liked a lot of the animations and the roar, and the skills in general. It seems to be a very well-rounded class, with perhaps some needed adjustments
Oh and I love the direction of the weapon tree abilities and the different options there. Keep fleshing that out for sure!
How do you feel about the Fighter Archetype Preview?
The best showcase yet. The game looks absolutely beautiful, the Ren'Kai looks awesome, and the armour and weapon is super cool! I'm loving the Fighter Toolkit, I very much look forward to trying it out in A2!
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
The fact that all the different skills work so fluidly and look so easy to use. There's no horrible locked-in-animation nonsense and there is sufficient player agency in actually using the skills and abilities of the Fighter!
I absolutely cannot wait to use Blood Fusion and Exert in my Fighter Gameplay, I'm sure that those abilities alone have great potential to turn the tide of battle!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
Being able to traverse rough terrain with certain abilities is something I'm really looking forward to trying out and testing also, I just hope that it won't be the case of a Fighter being able to Cross-Map someone. What I am most excited for is using the Exert ('God Mode') ability and mastering the use of it - however, this is also where most of my feedback lies...
It would be really amazing to have more dramatic, exaggerated, immersive audible and visual cues with the Fighter using Exert. I can imagine the Fighter having a different, more bone-chilling scream whilst having a violent red shimmer move across the armour when using Exert.
Are there similar Archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Can't think of any.
What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
As mentioned before, I think they're great. Not sure how they could be improved besides what I've already stated.
Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
The trees for the skills and weapons and such need a bit more of a graphical overhaul.
I know it's not the same genre of game at all, but maybe having trees more graphically intensive like that of the National Focus Trees in Hearts of Iron IV would be much better. When hovering over something, it would be great if the tooltip had some of the more important terminology highlighted in certain colours, just to help read the actual tooltip and to help make internalised references.
Thank you Intrepid for another unreal preview, absolutely out of the park with the quality!
The Combat Momentum meter is also something I like the idea of, but I would prefer to have more options for spending this meter on abilities, which I think would create interesting tradeoffs (is it worth sacrificing some of your attack buffs for a movement ability, for instance?)
Oh wow I think you accidentally solved my issue with the stance change problem. Stance change costing you meaningful amounts of momentum meter along with the cool down fixes a lot of my potential hesitations with it. Would be even cooler if you could spend it all on an high stakes version of the stances with a big weakness but a big reward to encourage more creative uses and instances of the meter rather than just 'always saving up to go for Exert/execute.' It's really the lack of a defining trade off that I felt the stance system was missing and the lack of combat momentum uses can definitely be 'solved at the same time by fixing that'.
The Combat Momentum meter is also something I like the idea of, but I would prefer to have more options for spending this meter on abilities, which I think would create interesting tradeoffs (is it worth sacrificing some of your attack buffs for a movement ability, for instance?)
Oh wow I think you accidentally solved my issue with the stance change problem. Stance change costing you meaningful amounts of momentum meter along with the cool down fixes a lot of my potential hesitations with it. Would be even cooler if you could spend it all on an high stakes version of the stances with a big weakness but a big reward to encourage more creative uses and instances of the meter rather than just 'always saving up to go for Exert/execute.' It's really the lack of a defining trade off that I felt the stance system was missing and the lack of combat momentum uses can definitely be 'solved at the same time by fixing that'.
Yeah I thought the stance change while keeping the momentum was a bit odd myself. I fully expected it to go down to zero or at least half or something.
1. The fighter seems to be really reliant on hitting their enemy to keep going. This is a good thing for RPS balance, but I fear what this might mean about the game balance. It might mean that this obviously outclassing all in 1v1 class is going to be faced with people 'meta' avoiding the fighter by putting on a ton of evasion gear.
I'll go further. If you are thinking about 'making the base stats of Archetypes matter a lot to their evasion ability', plzdonot. But if you don't, then what? Since so many things are built into either Primary Archetype or Passives, it feels like you'll be constantly fighting with the battle balance as players find new and amazing ways to make what currently looks good, feel bad.
2. With this much mobility I was noting that the mobs feel really complacent and stagnant. This wouldn't be a worry in a game like BDO. But in a game with a summoner player class I do in fact worry about what this means for summoner's summons.
I've got no 'buffer' here. Adding a Summoner to this design type is either the most gutsy thing I've ever seen any developer attempt, seriously... or a colossal mistake. Who is supposed to have any fun like that, as the summoner?
Like, there should absolutely be ways to bypass a Summoner's summons to attack them if you want to. But you should at least have to take a few hits, even as a Fighter. Unless you're making something closer to that Gravity Gauntlets class from Skyforge or something?
To be clear here, the issue isn't about 'can you gap close on the summoner', it's about whether or not the Summon can find or catch up with the Fighter. This probably applies to all characters to some extent, but part of the 'class fantasy' of Summoner is explicitly to 'be able to send forward a different entity to engage first if needed'.
3. Sooooooo. I'm a fighting gamer. All of this looks great to me. Animation cancels, i-frame manipulation, combo theory, high twitch timing, there is a lot of gap closing and maneuverability. But I do wonder just how much a fighter is gonna be able to actually need to worry about distance. Right now it doesn't look very skill full in the part where skill should matter most (correctly using different distance options in combat at the right timing to gain positional advantage) where as the part that should involve the least amount of skill to make things less frustrating for people (the damage output and combo theory) seems to be wildly more skill based than I could have possibly imagined. As a fighting game player I'm not worried about it, but people are kidding themselves if they think they are going to do well with this system if they don't like or do poorly in fighting games. You even made fighter the fighting game character Sol Badguy for the most part. Haha. It'd be in the games best interest to flip where the difficulty/skill is in combat for the sake of long term retention even if you want the game to be harder than most.
Yeah, this part is all just 'our preference', and even fighting games lately have been moving away from that. If anyone ever needed a clear explanation of why I like TL combat and MOBAs more than Ashes, though, it'd be this.
There's a set of people who likes to feel cool by constantly hitting the next button and playing Rock Paper Scissors with long periods of hoping your opponent messes up, inbetween (I mention this so it's clear that this isn't a matter of having the cooldowns turned down).
We are just not that set of people, and we have far too much exposure to the hell of waiting for someone to figure out how to balance the first game type to reward positional skill at all. If they don't, your Anti-Cheat designer's going to have their hands more than full.
4. I feel like the risk vs reward is really off with the stance change. I love the system and it definitely pushes this class to 2nd instead of 3rd choice for me. I think you need way more risk between stance changes. The fighter feels like it has every tool imaginable which honestly, feels more like summoner style design than it is fighter.
A general issue with MMOs honestly. People often talk about how class homogenization and all that is a problem, but it's moreso that there's a reason why all these technical 'good feeling' games only have a few abilities.
You can have a lot of abilities (or augmentable abilities on low cooldowns), and a lot of complex positioning, or a few abilities and a lot of understanding of timing and counterplay... but 'not both'.
In order to have even a chance of 'stopping' six fighters from crashing your backline, the range gap between the two fighting forces will have to be even bigger. This is the thing I feared when I saw the range on the Ranger and Wands. Because of COURSE the Fighter gap closers have to be 'I just left Core but I'm just gonna jump straight to inner mid tower' tier.
Just in case I don't get to it later, it's not 'the gap closer distance' that's really bugging me here, it's that in order to stop or prep for this properly (I can understand why you might not want people to be ABLE to stop it, but then, multiple fighters...) you have to be able to reach them.
1) Monster Hunter GreatswordA few AoC Fighter abilities seem to be similar - big overhead slashes with a windup and high damage - but I'd optimally like the option of holding a button to charge these attacks longer, for a bigger ultimate payoff. I think this would allow for more of the high risk/high reward playstyle I enjoy.
In general I have apprehensions about the high movement speed and quick cooldown of abilities in current AoC combat, when compared to games with the deliberate and committed movement of something like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls.
While some of this may seem like a misjudgement based on the cooldowns being set low, it's actually probably an entirely different misjudgement, if one at all.
This is related to how 'powerful and impactful' it seems the team thinks they should make abilities to have them 'feel good'. Right now, it looks like your Fighter overdoes everything, and therefore when you start balancing it either it will lose a lot of these feelings anyway (because for some of us, fun is actually pretty precise and granular, tiny differences in frames make huge differences, right?), or it will just have to get more CC resistance.
The overall design still seems to be very much in the MMO camp of 'RNG CC' instead of something like Predecessor's 'Tenacity'. So, when a Fighter soars into the air to reach a backline target... and that target attempts their high-speed CC skill or even Snipe... what happens exactly?
The class has a focus on both draining HP from enemies, and spending your own HP to enhance its damage output, making for an interesting back-and-forth where you can half-kill yourself dealing spike damage, then time your drain ability to recover. This allows for a sort of "Berserker" playstyle that I also really enjoy.
AoC's Fighter has Blood Fusion, which I like mechanically and in terms of flavor, but I don't see any equivalent of the interplay between spending and recovering HP being possible with the current ability set.
Probably fine overall, your 'Lifesteal' and 'Heal on Hit' is partially going to come down to number tuning, but then we're back to positioning stuff.
In similar games, the Fighter can 'know that they are out of position and therefore their lifesteal will not be enough'. In MMOs, sort of, but we're back to the problem of the absurd ranges on everything. You need to be able to know 'this person is too far away to kill me in the time it takes me to pull this off'.
As of now, this seems to border on never really being true. The number of places in just that area alone where I believe you could 'see no one', and then have a Fighter land on your head a second later', is at least 14.
They don't even let me do this much on Kunoichi in BDO, and she's actually squishy.
While AoC Fighter has Lunging Assault, which is somewhat similar, this currently has a built-in followup attack, making it predictable, and limiting the ways in which it could be used to either evade or whiff-punish. I would optimally like to see a way to spend meter for a shorter dash with a controllable direction, without a built-in followup attack.
But of course, be careful here because currently, the design has the 'hole' of almost definitely creating the PvP and PvE fighter problem, unless of course your mobs are Nargacuga tier, in which case, please bring it on, Intrepid.
I would like to say that I liked all the animations except the Whirlwind I think more can be done there. The combat looks fast enough and also smooth.I personally think that if you do showcase on a class should be shown in both PVE and PVP scene (both like arena and big PVP event as killing multiple monsters or doing a boss fight) but that would take a lot more than 1h and 30 min. I`m just worried about performance since I do have very good PC with Intel i9 and Nvidia 4080 Ti but I`m concern because I do have 49" G95T DQHD 240Hz Curved Odyssey Gaming Monitor and would like to play the game at 5120x1440 if thats it`s actually possible in Ashes. I`m curious what FPS I`m going to get, is there any plans for some testing on this kind of game set ups or similar?
correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that Steven was leveling faster than he should have. At the start of the video, he was around halfway through level 15 and by the end of the video he was like 1/7 past level 17. Could you please clarify my misconception? I thought it would take longer to level up.
The way the Greatsword is held and the movements in combat feel strange to me. I do like the leap targeting feature on hills. I am curious about how Blitz works when the enemy is not on the edge of a cliff.
The skill tree UI could use a revamp. The visual effects are either overpowering or lacking. I haven't seen many buffs or defense skills yet (Mage, Cleric, Fighter).
If the game aims for esports, the different colored icons for abilities such as healing, damage-dealing, and elite skills should be more distinct.
The ability speed seems fine for the fighter class, but it needs adjustment for other classes like mages. I suggest adding levels to the adrenaline bar like in Guild Wars 2.
The mobs don't seem to fit well with this combat system, they feel more suited for the old system.
I think Blitz should be made free to use without target restrictions.
Maim should either be usable while moving or allow some small movement while using it to prevent static gameplay.
Autoattacks should have varying stages to make it more attractive, similar to Guild Wars 2.
Also the autattacks are looking clunky at the moment.
Debuffs and status effects should be more/better visible.
Also the Cataclysm skill seems to be static in one position, which is not ideal.
I appreciate instant cast abilities like Blood Fusion.
I would like to see more hybrid abilities like Leap Strike in the game to make the game more skill-based.
In general, I prefer fewer skills with detailed visual effects that clearly indicate the type of attack (to counter/avoid/dodge) it.
The fighter class seems the most promising so far, but Ashes of Creation still has a lot of work to do to reach the level of other top MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert Online in terms of ´the combat system.
All in all, it is definitely okay for an Alpha 2 state.
The visual effects are very nice as always, but in the end for me it comes down to the combat system, which still needs a lot of work.
1.How do you feel about the Fighter Archetype Preview?
Quite possibly your best showcase of archetype so far. So much so that I am considering maining fighter.
2.What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
a)Lots of gap closers that let you go in and out of combat. Who says that Leap can't be used as an escape?
b)How switching weapons mid chain can affect your gameplay.
3.Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
Warriors being mobile as agile archetypes. Heavy armor users shouldn't be as fast medium and light armor players.
Something not related to just fighters-Not enough diversity in speed when it comes to weapon speed. Two handed hammers shouldn't be as fast as swords.
4.Are there similar Archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
The only reason I haven't picked warrior in wow when I was first starting out is that you had to make macros in order to effectively utilize stances.
Don't make the same mistake with forms.
5. Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
Blitz - Not fond of its ability to traverse high altitude areas. You are shooting yourself in a leg if you dont let players to use environment as an advantage. Besides, fighter already has 2 gap closers. 3 is too much.
Maim - Love that fighter has at least one ranged attack with melee weapon. I wonder if you can build a character solely based on that skill.
Roar - AMAZING! an actual audible roar. Reminds of Baldurs Gate 3 rage.
Catalysm - TOO much visual clutter. Spikes are not necessary. Maybe differently elevated cracks on the ground would do better.
Rupture - Too large of an effect on character. Visually and mechanically is good. Audio is top notch.
Here is an idea-Make it leave a trail of blood so you can follow the player raptured player during chaotic battles. Maybe even have an augment in which if you walk on that trail, your movement speed increases.
Leap Strike - Useful ability, but again, too much visual clutter on impact.
Cleave and Whirlwind abilities are fine imo
Crippling blow-Simple and effective. Love it.
Lethal blow-Mechanically good. Visually its underwhelming.
Other abilities are fine
Basic attack sword animations are good. Improvement from previous iteration.
THINGS UNRELATED TO FIGHTER.
I gotta say few good words about:
1. Distance fog-Reducing saturation did wonders. Different colors for a different seasons and biomes pls. For example, golden hues for an autumn forest.
2. Armor-JOUSTING HELM! YES! BRAVO! You don't need to reinvent the wheel with helms.
FromSoftware has historically accurate helmets, Baldurs Gate 3 too.
Close helmets, Sallet, Sugarloaf helmets, Cervelliere, Spangenhelm, Nasal helmet, Bascinet, Barbute- I WANT THEM ALL!
3. Sound effects-Unbelievable. What some screams, cackles and lines does to a scene. I love it. Don't know if everyone else will do too.
4. Destructible assets-I hope that applies to larger structures too.
5. ICE effect on mage- Perfect! Love that you lowered saturation of the ice, now add slight crystal transparency to ice cycles that form on the ground!
IDEA:
If sound designers are up to it, they can add client side plate armor clacking as you walk, if you have 3 or more metal made armor pieces. Like this...
so here am i once again with my feed back video on the stuff that i find could need improving. as usual i repeat my self a lot. but honestly speaking, its better than before but as i will mention in the video, is that movements in combat defi need to be fixed before alpha 2 launch, trust me you wont regret it. regarding the root in place with some abilites, its possible steven was in action based system which did that. so possible i was wrong and that u can use them while moving
btw i like to mention i dont post these video to promote my youtube channel whatsoever, its simply the only i have found that i can put a file video in here, since the initial file video doesnt work.
The fighter looks really fun and seems to encompass all the feelings of what a battle scarred warrior should be. Just keep pumping out those action-combat based abilities because that's what I've been dreaming of in an MMO. Being able to leap in and start swinging my weapon without even having to tab target the enemy feels so much better. I love that you can use the charge and leap for traversal. Traversal abilities are really fun when done right, so maybe give Leap Strike a little more verticality.
Leap Strike animation needs to be toned down. Looks awesome, but in a battleground setting it's going to be way too much flare.
Cataclysm also has this issue, maybe have the yellow glow not as bright. The Stalagmites are okay, maybe shorten them just a tad.
A nice feature would to have 3 separate graphics settings for animations depending on whether you are solo, in a party, or in a raid. Have graphics options for each of these situations that change automatically when you enter/exit a party/raid and can be tuned to the player's desires. This way you can keep those cool animations, but allow the hard core players that want max fps or less visuals to tune it to their preference.
Overall I think the fighter is at a very interesting point but there are some points I want to raise, these are purely personal.
Blitz: When using this ability after a jump it became vertically scaling whereas normal standing it was on the ground. Are there plans to have this baked into functionality or is that just how it came out?
Rupture: Cool ability, I like the wound mechanic that I will talk on later. Animation seemed a little to much on the bleeding for a DoT though.
Wounds: What is the fighters utility? Fighting. This makes warrior seem like a legitimate threat in battle that cannot be ignored, and I love it. And props to the consideration to have wounds affect damage mitigation as well. Would like to see its counter play potential.
Stances: Love the take on stances, reminds me of old SWTOR warrior stances. I would like to ask maybe have Form of Celerity offer reduced cooldown for gap closers in addition to its movement speed? Nothing to broken, but have the form feel like you are truly going fast. Love form of ferocity though, and what attack speed does for the fighter.
Exert: I like the concept of the major DPS cooldown not giving a flat DPS increase, and while this is probably going to change since it is not even Alpha 2, but can Exert be placed on the top of the tree and not form of ferocity? If Exert is bringing every form into play, it makes sense to have all your skills build up to the Master Form that is exert.
Weapon skills Love the path of weapon skills, and the choice in deciding if a passive/proc/or ability enhance is the way the player wants to go. Makes me wonder how a dagger based fighter might enhance their crit rate my doing their attack change to do a Lethal Blow for mega damage whereas a 2h fighter would get attack speed for more wounds.
Momentum: I love the mechanic of momentum. But I am wondering if the Form of Ferocity should be baked into the momentum mechanic and have fighter animations deliberately slow in exchange, where a fighter starts slow but after the opening they become a scary fast attacker. Have ferocity instead rely on wounds to increase their throughput.
Animations can and will change over the Alpha and Beta courses, so let me say conceptually, I love what the developers have brought to the table. A fighter/warrior should be a master of combat and the warrior brought wounds and momentum as their key mechanics. The longer a fighter is in a battle the scarier it will be and the wounds mechanic ensures any tank or healer that doesn't properly address a fighter coming for them will be killed. The fighter/warrior concept for me has always been a slow moving master of combat who WILL mess you up if they can get their hands on you, and the concept has been nailed.
Edited in later:
Adding this on later after some of my thoughts have time to ferment after a day. The mobility now worries me somewhat and while it can be addressed it is still present now. I was initially very interested in the vertical mobility of the ranger with their abilities and thought cool, and the fighter having three mobility skills is very nice since they can reach a ranger who dashed up a cliff... But now there is a dangerous situation where fighters have the capability of diving straight into a team with no issue. How will a summoner or bard deal with a fighter who just jumped up their cliff with blitz and the ranged advantage they had is gone? How will the cleric get the fighter who slowed them and is rapidly stacking anti-heal wounds off of them with a meager stun? How is the tank going to enforce a front line when the fighter has three separate mobility spells to keep getting away? Mage blink didn't seem to deal with the same verticality ranger and fighter can address.
I do like the aspect of air mobility being in the game when the environments are built with verticality in mind. However it must be utilizable by every class and have a counter for every class or it will become very unbalanced. The game is going for rock/paper/scissors approach to class v class, but the imbalance of two classes having near flight mobility vs classes without seems too unfair. I can't tell how to fix this situation, maybe give every class mobility upwards or remove it from the game, but right now it seems very troubling to fight.
I'm not much of a fighter guy, so I'll keep this relatively short and leave the more detailed feedback to the fighter mains.
Overall the stream looked great. The combat and encounters are looking more and more complete (it felt like y'all were a typical adventuring party going through a real dungeon!), the environments look awesome as always, and even the UI seems pretty solid. I've just got one concern about the Fighter design.
Fighter seems to have a lot of good PvP tools (3 dashes, a snare, a stunbreak/cc immunity), but not a lot of mechanics to make it interesting in PvE. At the beginning of the showcase, when they first explained Momentum, I was hoping that it would be used for more abilities, to make the rotations more complex. But in PvE, it looks like it will only be used for a couple of situational abilities and the passive attack speed,
because mobility and CC-reduction are much less useful in PvE (and Fighter already has two other dashes).
I just wish there were two or three more abilities that used Momentum, or otherwise introduced more decision-making into the PvE gameplay for Fighter. During the Cleric showcase, I remember thinking they had so many different abilities and somehow they all felt useful for different things... Fighter not so much. (Ranger was in between, btw.)
Overall this showcase was great. Loved seeing all the progress you've made!
Fighter Archetype
Loved the abilities, very thematic for a "barbarian" and a tool in the kit for every situation.
I'll put this at the top of my list as I find this to be my biggest concern: Why does a fighter need mana? I really think that each class needs its own resource that their abilities use, mana being isolated to spell casters. Steven running out of mana on a fighter and not being able to use abilities on anything is a little silly. And while sure you can give him the spell to return mana to him, that doesn't even make sense thematically.
I like the momentum mechanic and stances in general. I think the stances should have both inherent benefits and drawbacks to them, which I do not see any drawback currently. I would also like something visual about your character to show what stance you are in, whether that be a faint aura, an actual idle stance, and/or change in how your basic attacks swing.
I like the exert ability, a good layer of complexity between trading momentum passive increases for immediate burst damage.
You've done a good job tuning the animations and sound FX to make you feel like you are impacting the target. I will say that sometimes it almost feels like your swings are so fast that your weapon "teleports" from start of the swing to the end, perhaps that could be tuned a bit?
I especially love how you can smoothly stop one move and move into another one, like when you went from whirlwind to the Maim. Have to be careful here though as we don't want full animation canceling where it looks clunky or requires attack weaving like ESO.
Good mix of mobility tools with the blitz and leap. The Lunging Assault was a little lackluster in distance and seemed expensive. I do also worry with all of these movement abilities on top of bleeds stacking based on movement... how would one even get a way from a fighter?
I think dodging needs to be in all class toolkits as it's a crucial part of action combat. Perhaps a talent for fighter where dodging turns into something like Lunging Assult where you can add an attack at the end of the dodge. I also think you should be able to block with any weapon, just not as effectively as a shield.
While I like the idea of Shaken, it seems naming it like "Off Balance" or "Staggered" may make more sense?
Cataclysm is a cool big burst, but the ground effect seemed more like a hammer crater rather than a frontal sword smash. This is likely a remnant of it's previous animation where it was a giant magical hammer causing the impact. I think the animation should be updated to match the weapon in use. Also, I think it would be cool if this was a charged ability, that had varying levels of range/destruction based on how long you hold it.
I love the idea of rupture and "wound" stacks. I think the FX for bleeding were a bit excessive and the noise might get a bit annoying so maybe dial that back a bit.
The shout is SO COOL.
How do a lot of these skills fit thematically with other weapons? A bleed ability doesn't make a ton of sense for a mace/maul/hammer (internal bleeding maybe...). Or a bow? Or a staff? Or a dagger?
Is the bloodthirsty raging barbarian style the only one you are trying to achieve with fighter? When I think of fighter, there are several different versions I think of. One being this type of barbaric smash-it covered in blood fighter. Another being a more dexterous battle-maneuver type fighter which you don't really see in this toolkit. Perhaps these different styles need to be separated out in the skill tree and should be exclusive to a build.
Weapon Tree
In general, not a huge fan of how this is implemented. That being said, I do really want weapon trees to exist and to feel good. Here are some thoughts:
I think these trees need to be made more unique to the weapon type in question. Sword are good at bleeding and speed. Axes are good at bleeding and critical hits. Maces/hammer are good at breaking through armor and staggering enemies.
I do not think you should be able to change the number of moves in a combo, I think that should be set and different between weapon types.
I also think things like "Burning Blade" don't really fit in the weapon tree itself, unless augmented with the mage archetype (that would be cool if your archetype augmented weapon trees).
My other concern is that weapons don't seem very modular and I'm not sure what the plan is for that. It seems when building this class kit you specifically focused around a great sword, so all abilities one might associate with a great sword seem to be in the class kit, not the weapon kit. I think both ESO and GW2 have decent systems of modular weapons and/or weapon skill trees that give you unique abilities for each weapon.
I think the current system is way too complex and too number crunchy. Stats are cool but this seems like too much customization in my opinion.
Environment and Art
Game is beautiful. Consider any criticism below as nitpicks
Renkai look really cool, love the character model and the mohawk. Armor looks awesome on the Renkai. Goblin models and sound effects were great.
The cape physics are generally good, but there are times when it looked like it was stuttering. I also noted some stuttering in the clerics orbiting balls on occasion.
Love the destroyable tents! Would love to see more of this kind of thing (BDO did well on this).
Perhaps improvements on how water interacts with the character model. For example, make water part as it flows around you when standing still.
The grave for the ending of the mini quest was oddly placed and I feel would be easily missed.
The Fighter's skills and mechanics look solid. Some of the upgrades look interesting. Such as a final blow at the end of whirlwind, that could be useful in raids.
The rage/momentum mechanic looks good.
The orc looks like an orc in a good way.
If this video is any indication, it looks like AoC is coming along very nicely.
Comments
A) It looks great. Love the non-target attacks and being able to turn the skills before they go off. Didn't see it in the vid but i would love to be able to move a bit as well, with a heavy movement speed penalty of course.
Q) What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
A) The mobility and cleaves of well placed abilities.
Q) Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
A) Having a "burn" effect on the weapon tree. Hopefully it scales with the weapon damage/physical power so you won't have to spec magic damage to make it a reasonable damage source.
Q) What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
A) Love the synergistic aspects of the skills/weapon skills. Would like to see the jump arch from the leap ability be a arch, and not a arch and then at the very last moment of the skill a hard drop.
Q) Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
A) Said it in question 3 as well, but having a "burn" effect in the weapon tree be scaling off of a magical stat instead of a physical one. My concern is it'll just function as a primer and not as a ok-ish dot. Speccing into magic damage to make the magical/elemental damage aspect of the attack viable is bad.
I'd also love to see a clearer "you've just completed a full weapon attack combo". Either through a sfx ping of sorts or a obvious vfx. Perhaps the same goes for a proc going off from the attacks.
Misc comments:
- Would love to see very faint hp bars on mobs you've hit/clipped to see what hp they're at, besides just your tab target.
Love the slash vfx on skill 3 to show who got struck.
And then for PvP in corruption or a consensual setting, who can stop the lockdown from Dreadnought? You stack this CC on top of Tank CC and the opponent character can't do anything...unless they are also Dreadnought and have the CC reduction, leading to 1v1 PvP being focused on dreadnought. I really dislike the kind of combat dynamics that this creates for the small scale, even if it washes out for PvE or large scale PvP.
Apart from that, the large amount of drops from basically every mob feels very silly, like they're all piñatas spewing out loot. This detracts from immersion significantly and it doesn't feel good to get such a high drop rate in a game that aims to be grounded like Ashes. If the economy of the game requires this kind of thing, it seems to me like the economy needs help.
Finally, I want to end with props to the audio design which is doing great, I love the goblin and wolf sound effects, and overall once again the animations look fantastic. On the art front, you all are doing amazing. I just hope that the gameplay design can match it in time.
- The wispy color indicating loot quality on bodies is cool, but I think it's kind of anti-climactic to see blue and just get blue glint. Maybe it could only show the color of the best non-glint loot?
- The Ren'kai in that armor looked kind of pudgy rather than muscular
- Cataclysm's vfx looks cool, but it might be a little bit too much. There's this odd feeling when using epic-looking abilities a lot where although they are flashy they become mundane due to repetition. IMO Lost Ark suffers from this a lot, where class abilities look super cool at first, but the spectacle gets old and then actively annoying after a while.
- There was a moment when Steven seemed to try to jump over a tree root, but his character climbed instead. This could be a frustrating thing in a PvP environment, where your character is unexpectedly rooted while they climb.
Biggest Point of Praise:
1. Holy carp those effects look cool af. You really outdid yourself. The effects look rad. The combat animations look amazing too.
2. You really sold the hit on this feeling like a high fantasy class using magic to be a melee specialist without breaking the 'melee specialist' part.
3. The weapons and armor look great.
4. Renkaiiiiiiii. (Plz give us red and blue oni colors the green looks way more generic than your initial options.)
5. The roar was a brilliant addition. I want that to have a higher threat generation value so fighter can play a role in taking control of adds.
7. Great sound design. THUNK.
8. The weapon specialty system is going to be a really big deal for me. It offers so much complexity to the combat system. I hope combat is more than just me spamming my abilities in rotation and it sounds like you all are with me on that. I just worry about how much difficulty that might cause your combat to balance.
But.... Well I list more indepth criticism below. But I will say that overall this seems like a good enjoyable direction. It just also looks really easy to make too powerful OR too underpowered. I'm specifically really concerned about how far all these mobility actions let you go across the board and I feel like it'll be hard to tweak downward when testing because players want to feel as much power and 'agency' as possible. That's why it's easier to make them 'undertuned' for testing than it is to make them 'overtuned'. I also feel like your enemy ai for PvE is going to have a lot of issues with all the mobility but none of this is fighter specific. It just 'really shows' in the fighters kit.
Biggest Point of Criticism:
1. The fighter seems to be really reliant on hitting their enemy to keep going. This is a good thing for RPS balance, but I fear what this might mean about the game balance. It might mean that this obviously outclassing all in 1v1 class is going to be faced with people 'meta' avoiding the fighter by putting on a ton of evasion gear. That being an option is a good thing but I fear how hard you might cap evasion in the future per level as a result of wanting the fighter to feel really effect in the long term. So 'be careful with that'. It could make the whole game feel like a slog if you don't give the fighter agency in this.
2. With this much mobility I was noting that the mobs feel really complacent and stagnant. This wouldn't be a worry in a game like BDO. But in a game with a summoner player class I do in fact worry about what this means for summoner's summons. This will really make or break a lot of your combat design for my most desired class to play, summoner. With this much mobility in player classes and PvP being so important, I worry how much summons will just get utterly demolished by all of this, and how vulnerable/underpowered the summoner will be as a result of you just 'easily getting around the summon' or ignoring them in your risk calculation in combat.
3. Sooooooo. I'm a fighting gamer. All of this looks great to me. Animation cancels, i-frame manipulation, combo theory, high twitch timing, there is a lot of gap closing and maneuverability. But I do wonder just how much a fighter is gonna be able to actually need to worry about distance. Right now it doesn't look very skill full in the part where skill should matter most (correctly using different distance options in combat at the right timing to gain positional advantage) where as the part that should involve the least amount of skill to make things less frustrating for people (the damage output and combo theory) seems to be wildly more skill based than I could have possibly imagined. As a fighting game player I'm not worried about it, but people are kidding themselves if they think they are going to do well with this system if they don't like or do poorly in fighting games. You even made fighter the fighting game character Sol Badguy for the most part. Haha. It'd be in the games best interest to flip where the difficulty/skill is in combat for the sake of long term retention even if you want the game to be harder than most.
4. I feel like the risk vs reward is really off with the stance change. I love the system and it definitely pushes this class to 2nd instead of 3rd choice for me. I think you need way more risk between stance changes. The fighter feels like it has every tool imaginable which honestly, feels more like summoner style design than it is fighter.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
- Sounds were great. The war cry could be a bit longer and the animation so it would not be so short and it would feel like fighter is really yelling. The sound for it was good
Rupture - I like the effect, the amount of blood is a bit excessive. Less blood, but a bit longer animation time. It ended too soon.
Blitz - So if ranger is attacking from a cliff from safety the fighter just jumps and zap he is in melee. So positioning for ranged attackers does not mean anything. I would like it to be so that the max height of the charge would be like two times the height of the character so he is "jumping" and not magically beaming through the air. Could it be possible that the charge knocks the target on their back or knees and it takes a second or two for them to get up.
It would have been nice if more weapon types would have been shown. This is the fighter class so it can use all weapons. Dual wield(daggers/swords/axes/maces, sword&shield, bow and the skill trees for them. If they are not ready you could have at least shared thoughts about them.
ENVIRONMENT:
Area looked good and the feeling was good and tempting to go there.
The basic mobs coming to attack in masses is a good thing. It would be best that basic mobs would have some special attacks also so that you cant let your guard down even with basic mobs. So combat with wandering mobs would be still good and sort of challenging even when you have levels.
The amount of special effects was too much for my taste in group fight and this was only with four characters. I do understand that people want skills to be flashy and great and all that, but less is more in my opinion. In that fight when everyone was doing their aoe attacks you could not see where the mobs were and where was everything.
So when thinking about massive battles or just 10 characters fighting the amount of effects is going to be too much. I dont want this game to be like those asian style mmo games where all effects are so big and they conceal everything.
It is a fine balance. When playing the mage it feels good when everything is burning and/or covered in sheets of ice or in mesmerizing lightning, but those are good in a single player game where there is not possibly hundreds of other players all using massive aoe effects...
Could the fighter effects be more like real combat and the impact of a skill have shockwaves, but not with all the colors.
So i leave it to you to decide what is good. I trust In you to make it good.
GENERAL FEEDBACK:
When giving these archetype previews it would be nice that you would open the plans for the weapon types planned that class uses. Meaning that skills usually require specific weapon type to work so there are certain types that is designed as default for the class. For example now with the fighter it was only with two handed sword, but if you do not want to show it you could at least open and tell us about the different weapon types that work with the skills and how the archetype changes with dual wield, sword&shield.
With the ranger you could have opened up and told us about melee situations. Does hunter have skills to engage only in melee and with what weapon types.
Massive thanks to the team for this game. It is looking good and cant wait to get the chance to test it. I am joining in beta 1 so this alpha two is not for me
Expanding here then:
From our position outside it looks like you've painted yourselves into a corner again, Intrepid. With the range available on these gap closers and movespeed increases, are we just not getting any Mobility augments after all?
Our Paladin cares about the 'ability to escape' part of this for semi-obvious reasons. In any tactical situation, a person under pressure needs to reach him unless we're going 'anime airdasher' gameplay. But that's possible, since it could move us closer to ArcheAge.
But then, the abilities are slow, and Tab target... which means... Evasion Stat is going to matter. And now we've got a Fighter who is 'counting on their backline targets having low enough evasion to actually be hit'.
It feels like you designed things somewhere between WoW and a MOBA, but want to keep all the d20 style elements. I'd say 'don't do that', but if you think you can make that be fun, keep going I guess. BDO style play is actually incompatible with what you've otherwise said though. Like, you can break down the numbers as to why, it's raw statistics at that point.
Overall, the ability I liked the look of the most was the heavy overhead attack that launched a grounded projectile (I think this was an optional upgrade of Maim?). This looks fun to use, and seemed like it would give the class some ranged punish options.
The Combat Momentum meter is also something I like the idea of, but I would prefer to have more options for spending this meter on abilities, which I think would create interesting tradeoffs (is it worth sacrificing some of your attack buffs for a movement ability, for instance?)
I have a few different comparisons I want to make to melee archetypes I enjoy in other games, to highlight what I think works well about the current design of AoC Fighter's, and where I see gaps in its ability set.
1) Monster Hunter Greatsword
I love Monster Hunter's Greatsword. The heavy, highly-committed slashes are satisfying to land, and being able to build up towards a Truecharge Slash with repeated attacks feels like a reward for thorough understanding of the gaps in a monster's moveset.
A few AoC Fighter abilities seem to be similar - big overhead slashes with a windup and high damage - but I'd optimally like the option of holding a button to charge these attacks longer, for a bigger ultimate payoff. I think this would allow for more of the high risk/high reward playstyle I enjoy.
In general I have apprehensions about the high movement speed and quick cooldown of abilities in current AoC combat, when compared to games with the deliberate and committed movement of something like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls.
2) FFXI's Dark Knight
In FFXI, Dark Knight isn't a pure melee class (it has a focus on debuffing, and has some secondary elemental magic), but I think it's still close enough to be a valid point of comparison.
The class has a focus on both draining HP from enemies, and spending your own HP to enhance its damage output, making for an interesting back-and-forth where you can half-kill yourself dealing spike damage, then time your drain ability to recover. This allows for a sort of "Berserker" playstyle that I also really enjoy.
AoC's Fighter has Blood Fusion, which I like mechanically and in terms of flavor, but I don't see any equivalent of the interplay between spending and recovering HP being possible with the current ability set.
Alternatively, something similar could be achieved through adding more ways to spend Combat Momentum.
3) DNF Duel Inquisitor
Is a fighting game too different from an MMO for this to be a useful comparison? I'm not sure, let me know in the replies
In DNF Duel, Inquisitor fights with an impractically large axe which has a high range but a somewhat slow moveset. Being effective with the character is therefore all about knowing your ranges. Using dashes, jumps, and other movement options to get into the right positions to launch your attacks is important, as is preventing the enemy from getting into ranges where the slow startups of your moves will leave you unable to effectively counter them.
I like games where your positioning is a large factor, and where it's possible to bait out attacks and whiff punish opponents. This sometimes relies on being able to rapidly move short distances (with a dash or dodge roll move).
While AoC Fighter has Lunging Assault, which is somewhat similar, this currently has a built-in followup attack, making it predictable, and limiting the ways in which it could be used to either evade or whiff-punish. I would optimally like to see a way to spend meter for a shorter dash with a controllable direction, without a built-in followup attack.
Other Thoughts
I have very mixed opinions about this, because while I have a generally positive opinion of the Fighter moveset itself, it's underscored some of my concerns about the extremely high mobility/low commitment attack style in Ashes' combat at the moment.
I'll get into more specifics later, but I really liked a lot of the animations and the roar, and the skills in general. It seems to be a very well-rounded class, with perhaps some needed adjustments
Oh and I love the direction of the weapon tree abilities and the different options there. Keep fleshing that out for sure!
The best showcase yet. The game looks absolutely beautiful, the Ren'Kai looks awesome, and the armour and weapon is super cool! I'm loving the Fighter Toolkit, I very much look forward to trying it out in A2!
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
The fact that all the different skills work so fluidly and look so easy to use. There's no horrible locked-in-animation nonsense and there is sufficient player agency in actually using the skills and abilities of the Fighter!
I absolutely cannot wait to use Blood Fusion and Exert in my Fighter Gameplay, I'm sure that those abilities alone have great potential to turn the tide of battle!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
Being able to traverse rough terrain with certain abilities is something I'm really looking forward to trying out and testing also, I just hope that it won't be the case of a Fighter being able to Cross-Map someone. What I am most excited for is using the Exert ('God Mode') ability and mastering the use of it - however, this is also where most of my feedback lies...
It would be really amazing to have more dramatic, exaggerated, immersive audible and visual cues with the Fighter using Exert. I can imagine the Fighter having a different, more bone-chilling scream whilst having a violent red shimmer move across the armour when using Exert.
Are there similar Archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Can't think of any.
What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
As mentioned before, I think they're great. Not sure how they could be improved besides what I've already stated.
Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
The trees for the skills and weapons and such need a bit more of a graphical overhaul.
I know it's not the same genre of game at all, but maybe having trees more graphically intensive like that of the National Focus Trees in Hearts of Iron IV would be much better. When hovering over something, it would be great if the tooltip had some of the more important terminology highlighted in certain colours, just to help read the actual tooltip and to help make internalised references.
Thank you Intrepid for another unreal preview, absolutely out of the park with the quality!
Oh wow I think you accidentally solved my issue with the stance change problem. Stance change costing you meaningful amounts of momentum meter along with the cool down fixes a lot of my potential hesitations with it. Would be even cooler if you could spend it all on an high stakes version of the stances with a big weakness but a big reward to encourage more creative uses and instances of the meter rather than just 'always saving up to go for Exert/execute.' It's really the lack of a defining trade off that I felt the stance system was missing and the lack of combat momentum uses can definitely be 'solved at the same time by fixing that'.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Yeah I thought the stance change while keeping the momentum was a bit odd myself. I fully expected it to go down to zero or at least half or something.
I'll go further. If you are thinking about 'making the base stats of Archetypes matter a lot to their evasion ability', plzdonot. But if you don't, then what? Since so many things are built into either Primary Archetype or Passives, it feels like you'll be constantly fighting with the battle balance as players find new and amazing ways to make what currently looks good, feel bad.
I've got no 'buffer' here. Adding a Summoner to this design type is either the most gutsy thing I've ever seen any developer attempt, seriously... or a colossal mistake. Who is supposed to have any fun like that, as the summoner?
Like, there should absolutely be ways to bypass a Summoner's summons to attack them if you want to. But you should at least have to take a few hits, even as a Fighter. Unless you're making something closer to that Gravity Gauntlets class from Skyforge or something?
To be clear here, the issue isn't about 'can you gap close on the summoner', it's about whether or not the Summon can find or catch up with the Fighter. This probably applies to all characters to some extent, but part of the 'class fantasy' of Summoner is explicitly to 'be able to send forward a different entity to engage first if needed'.
I fear the power creep.
Yeah, this part is all just 'our preference', and even fighting games lately have been moving away from that. If anyone ever needed a clear explanation of why I like TL combat and MOBAs more than Ashes, though, it'd be this.
There's a set of people who likes to feel cool by constantly hitting the next button and playing Rock Paper Scissors with long periods of hoping your opponent messes up, inbetween (I mention this so it's clear that this isn't a matter of having the cooldowns turned down).
We are just not that set of people, and we have far too much exposure to the hell of waiting for someone to figure out how to balance the first game type to reward positional skill at all. If they don't, your Anti-Cheat designer's going to have their hands more than full.
A general issue with MMOs honestly. People often talk about how class homogenization and all that is a problem, but it's moreso that there's a reason why all these technical 'good feeling' games only have a few abilities.
You can have a lot of abilities (or augmentable abilities on low cooldowns), and a lot of complex positioning, or a few abilities and a lot of understanding of timing and counterplay... but 'not both'.
In order to have even a chance of 'stopping' six fighters from crashing your backline, the range gap between the two fighting forces will have to be even bigger. This is the thing I feared when I saw the range on the Ranger and Wands. Because of COURSE the Fighter gap closers have to be 'I just left Core but I'm just gonna jump straight to inner mid tower' tier.
Just in case I don't get to it later, it's not 'the gap closer distance' that's really bugging me here, it's that in order to stop or prep for this properly (I can understand why you might not want people to be ABLE to stop it, but then, multiple fighters...) you have to be able to reach them.
While some of this may seem like a misjudgement based on the cooldowns being set low, it's actually probably an entirely different misjudgement, if one at all.
This is related to how 'powerful and impactful' it seems the team thinks they should make abilities to have them 'feel good'. Right now, it looks like your Fighter overdoes everything, and therefore when you start balancing it either it will lose a lot of these feelings anyway (because for some of us, fun is actually pretty precise and granular, tiny differences in frames make huge differences, right?), or it will just have to get more CC resistance.
The overall design still seems to be very much in the MMO camp of 'RNG CC' instead of something like Predecessor's 'Tenacity'. So, when a Fighter soars into the air to reach a backline target... and that target attempts their high-speed CC skill or even Snipe... what happens exactly?
Probably fine overall, your 'Lifesteal' and 'Heal on Hit' is partially going to come down to number tuning, but then we're back to positioning stuff.
In similar games, the Fighter can 'know that they are out of position and therefore their lifesteal will not be enough'. In MMOs, sort of, but we're back to the problem of the absurd ranges on everything. You need to be able to know 'this person is too far away to kill me in the time it takes me to pull this off'.
As of now, this seems to border on never really being true. The number of places in just that area alone where I believe you could 'see no one', and then have a Fighter land on your head a second later', is at least 14.
They don't even let me do this much on Kunoichi in BDO, and she's actually squishy.
But of course, be careful here because currently, the design has the 'hole' of almost definitely creating the PvP and PvE fighter problem, unless of course your mobs are Nargacuga tier, in which case, please bring it on, Intrepid.
The skill tree UI could use a revamp. The visual effects are either overpowering or lacking. I haven't seen many buffs or defense skills yet (Mage, Cleric, Fighter).
If the game aims for esports, the different colored icons for abilities such as healing, damage-dealing, and elite skills should be more distinct.
The ability speed seems fine for the fighter class, but it needs adjustment for other classes like mages. I suggest adding levels to the adrenaline bar like in Guild Wars 2.
The mobs don't seem to fit well with this combat system, they feel more suited for the old system.
I think Blitz should be made free to use without target restrictions.
Maim should either be usable while moving or allow some small movement while using it to prevent static gameplay.
Autoattacks should have varying stages to make it more attractive, similar to Guild Wars 2.
Also the autattacks are looking clunky at the moment.
Debuffs and status effects should be more/better visible.
Also the Cataclysm skill seems to be static in one position, which is not ideal.
I appreciate instant cast abilities like Blood Fusion.
I would like to see more hybrid abilities like Leap Strike in the game to make the game more skill-based.
In general, I prefer fewer skills with detailed visual effects that clearly indicate the type of attack (to counter/avoid/dodge) it.
The fighter class seems the most promising so far, but Ashes of Creation still has a lot of work to do to reach the level of other top MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert Online in terms of ´the combat system.
All in all, it is definitely okay for an Alpha 2 state.
The visual effects are very nice as always, but in the end for me it comes down to the combat system, which still needs a lot of work.
Quite possibly your best showcase of archetype so far. So much so that I am considering maining fighter.
2.What excites you about playing and interacting with the Fighter Archetype?
a)Lots of gap closers that let you go in and out of combat. Who says that Leap can't be used as an escape?
b)How switching weapons mid chain can affect your gameplay.
3.Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Fighter Archetype Preview?
Warriors being mobile as agile archetypes. Heavy armor users shouldn't be as fast medium and light armor players.
Something not related to just fighters-Not enough diversity in speed when it comes to weapon speed. Two handed hammers shouldn't be as fast as swords.
4.Are there similar Archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
What are your thoughts on the Fighter's abilities, mechanics, and combos?
The only reason I haven't picked warrior in wow when I was first starting out is that you had to make macros in order to effectively utilize stances.
Don't make the same mistake with forms.
5. Do you have opinions on the great sword animations, Fighter VFX, and unlockable procs? If so, please share them!
Blitz - Not fond of its ability to traverse high altitude areas. You are shooting yourself in a leg if you dont let players to use environment as an advantage. Besides, fighter already has 2 gap closers. 3 is too much.
Maim - Love that fighter has at least one ranged attack with melee weapon. I wonder if you can build a character solely based on that skill.
Roar - AMAZING! an actual audible roar. Reminds of Baldurs Gate 3 rage.
Catalysm - TOO much visual clutter. Spikes are not necessary. Maybe differently elevated cracks on the ground would do better.
Rupture - Too large of an effect on character. Visually and mechanically is good. Audio is top notch.
Here is an idea-Make it leave a trail of blood so you can follow the player raptured player during chaotic battles. Maybe even have an augment in which if you walk on that trail, your movement speed increases.
Leap Strike - Useful ability, but again, too much visual clutter on impact.
Cleave and Whirlwind abilities are fine imo
Crippling blow-Simple and effective. Love it.
Lethal blow-Mechanically good. Visually its underwhelming.
Other abilities are fine
Basic attack sword animations are good. Improvement from previous iteration.
THINGS UNRELATED TO FIGHTER.
I gotta say few good words about:
1. Distance fog-Reducing saturation did wonders. Different colors for a different seasons and biomes pls. For example, golden hues for an autumn forest.
2. Armor-JOUSTING HELM! YES! BRAVO! You don't need to reinvent the wheel with helms.
FromSoftware has historically accurate helmets, Baldurs Gate 3 too.
Close helmets, Sallet, Sugarloaf helmets, Cervelliere, Spangenhelm, Nasal helmet, Bascinet, Barbute- I WANT THEM ALL!
3. Sound effects-Unbelievable. What some screams, cackles and lines does to a scene. I love it. Don't know if everyone else will do too.
4. Destructible assets-I hope that applies to larger structures too.
5. ICE effect on mage- Perfect! Love that you lowered saturation of the ice, now add slight crystal transparency to ice cycles that form on the ground!
IDEA:
If sound designers are up to it, they can add client side plate armor clacking as you walk, if you have 3 or more metal made armor pieces. Like this...
btw i like to mention i dont post these video to promote my youtube channel whatsoever, its simply the only i have found that i can put a file video in here, since the initial file video doesnt work.
Video feed-back:
will elaborate later on,
I am with this, but only for races that are physically bigger.
Leap Strike animation needs to be toned down. Looks awesome, but in a battleground setting it's going to be way too much flare.
Cataclysm also has this issue, maybe have the yellow glow not as bright. The Stalagmites are okay, maybe shorten them just a tad.
A nice feature would to have 3 separate graphics settings for animations depending on whether you are solo, in a party, or in a raid. Have graphics options for each of these situations that change automatically when you enter/exit a party/raid and can be tuned to the player's desires. This way you can keep those cool animations, but allow the hard core players that want max fps or less visuals to tune it to their preference.
Animations can and will change over the Alpha and Beta courses, so let me say conceptually, I love what the developers have brought to the table. A fighter/warrior should be a master of combat and the warrior brought wounds and momentum as their key mechanics. The longer a fighter is in a battle the scarier it will be and the wounds mechanic ensures any tank or healer that doesn't properly address a fighter coming for them will be killed. The fighter/warrior concept for me has always been a slow moving master of combat who WILL mess you up if they can get their hands on you, and the concept has been nailed.
Edited in later:
Adding this on later after some of my thoughts have time to ferment after a day. The mobility now worries me somewhat and while it can be addressed it is still present now. I was initially very interested in the vertical mobility of the ranger with their abilities and thought cool, and the fighter having three mobility skills is very nice since they can reach a ranger who dashed up a cliff... But now there is a dangerous situation where fighters have the capability of diving straight into a team with no issue. How will a summoner or bard deal with a fighter who just jumped up their cliff with blitz and the ranged advantage they had is gone? How will the cleric get the fighter who slowed them and is rapidly stacking anti-heal wounds off of them with a meager stun? How is the tank going to enforce a front line when the fighter has three separate mobility spells to keep getting away? Mage blink didn't seem to deal with the same verticality ranger and fighter can address.
I do like the aspect of air mobility being in the game when the environments are built with verticality in mind. However it must be utilizable by every class and have a counter for every class or it will become very unbalanced. The game is going for rock/paper/scissors approach to class v class, but the imbalance of two classes having near flight mobility vs classes without seems too unfair. I can't tell how to fix this situation, maybe give every class mobility upwards or remove it from the game, but right now it seems very troubling to fight.
Edit: Typo fixes and added on last 2 paragraphs.
Overall the stream looked great. The combat and encounters are looking more and more complete (it felt like y'all were a typical adventuring party going through a real dungeon!), the environments look awesome as always, and even the UI seems pretty solid. I've just got one concern about the Fighter design.
Fighter seems to have a lot of good PvP tools (3 dashes, a snare, a stunbreak/cc immunity), but not a lot of mechanics to make it interesting in PvE. At the beginning of the showcase, when they first explained Momentum, I was hoping that it would be used for more abilities, to make the rotations more complex. But in PvE, it looks like it will only be used for a couple of situational abilities and the passive attack speed,
because mobility and CC-reduction are much less useful in PvE (and Fighter already has two other dashes).
I just wish there were two or three more abilities that used Momentum, or otherwise introduced more decision-making into the PvE gameplay for Fighter. During the Cleric showcase, I remember thinking they had so many different abilities and somehow they all felt useful for different things... Fighter not so much. (Ranger was in between, btw.)
Keep borrowing from Smite, Lol and Dota 2.
The Fighter's skills and mechanics look solid. Some of the upgrades look interesting. Such as a final blow at the end of whirlwind, that could be useful in raids.
The rage/momentum mechanic looks good.
The orc looks like an orc in a good way.
If this video is any indication, it looks like AoC is coming along very nicely.