Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
[*]What aspects of basic melee weapon attacks are important to you?
Meaningful decisions that effect combat rhythm.
If basic attacks have no risk then they are mandatory and feel meaningless. If decisions in attacks and directionality matter the rhythm of combat is impacted by players making decisions. If they don't combat gets restrictive, has a lower strategic skill ceiling, and feels monotonous.
Right now it looks like there are choices to be made.
[*]Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
Attacks 'weight' felt good but impact on hit felt a little lacking but not by much. Good sound design helps, vfxs help, but more importantly the inertial resistance when moving one direction or another is the big improvement here. I appreciate the effort you went to fine tuning the resistance in movement a lot. It looks like that took a lot of iteration.
With this current design, I think you could afford to have weapons linger on mobs/player a few frames on hit contact vs wiffing the move. It doesn't needs to be more than 2-5 frames depending on weapon class. I feel this would help the feeling of impact, and increase the risk vs reward in decision making without increasing the weight of attacks (which I think are already close to optimal and so messing with them further would probably not be good.)
[*]Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Neverwinter, Predecessor, Smite, Onigiri
To this day I still think Onigiri has some of the most finely tuned basic attacks and basic weapon combos relative to weapon variety on a hybrid combat game to date (they did great with ranged weapons as well!) Predecessor and Smite continues to have a good tactics to agency ratio.
All three of these have good decision ratios relative to speed of combat and player agency. Neverwinter is too flashy particle effect wise and a little too reliant on strafing, but other than that is a decent model.
[*]Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
Concerned? I'm only concerned about your ability to balance this relative to ranged weapons. I wish you luck in balancing that. I think you're going in a good direction and have made good progress and there are definitely ways to achieve it within your current approach I have seen in other games.
What am I looking forward too? I can see ways this will feel GREAT on a summoner class. So far beyond what I thought you may have originally intended for summoner that I'm waiting on the edge of my seat. With JUST this piece of information depending on how summoning goes this could be a life time mmo for me. I'm not even exaggerating.
I like that you added weight to attacks. The ability to have a chance if not most of the time be able to still react while not being totally locked into combat with a single target or location. Especially in pvp to be able to move through people while attacking is useful for survivability.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
I am interested to see how the difference in movement stacks versus a pure heavy armor heavy weapon dps class in a pure pvp situation. I think kiting needs to die.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
I think if you gave a fighter/rogue daggers with heavy armor and the same mobility as a normal rogue it will break the system. This will cause people to only meta and play certain dps classes. I'm interested to see how the classes abilities meld together with so many combinations and again worry about balancing and one class/combo outshining others.
However we felt that the swing animations were a bit flashy, daggers moved too fast and that it looked very odd with the hammer skill (which we assume is just a bug).
Ashes of Creation is utilizing a Hybrid Combat model. Basic weapon attacks, which we demoed on the livestream, lean on the action side. However, we also plan to have tab-targeting in Ashes of Creation and Tab-target abilities, as well as action combat abilities and targeting. We want a healthy medium between the two.
Another note: The abilities shown are also not associated with the basic weapon attacks, such as the whirlwind or big hammer, or dashing
We will have more examples of this in the coming months! ^_^
You can read more about Hybrid Combat here, on the wiki: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Combat_targeting
I only have a few pieces of critique based on what was shown.
Firstly, the mobs didn't really react to being attacked. Obviously they shouldn't be stunned or slowed from a regular basic attack, but their models should "flinch" when attacked IMO.
Secondly I know it was just a first pass but the animations between attacks seemed quite choppy. For example, the daggers shown here when Steven does the third attack in the combo where he does the kind of X shaped attack seemed to be laggy
Lastly, this is probably because Steven had God mode on, but I hope Ashes continues to stray away from Korean-esque mob grinder MMOs where you pull 20 mobs and kill them all in AoEs in a matter of seconds. I've always liked it when you're sitting at 50% hp and you're thinking to yourself "can I take on this 1 mob or will it kill me?". You don't have that feeling in the Korean MMOs where you just pull 20 mobs and kill them all.
Overall though, I like the direction the combat seems to be going in. I really liked the dash that Steven was using, looked fluid and fast. The hammer move also seemed great as it wasn't just a rectangular hitbox in front of the player, but the hitbox was situated where the hammers head was which was great. I was also fine with the general attack speed of the 2h sword and daggers (although I could see the daggers being very very slightly slowed down, like 5% slowed or something).
I've seen some people in this thread recommending making it so whenever you strike enemies with weapons there's a "paused" frame when the impact occurs which to them makes it feel more impactful, I personally despise this in other games so hopefully you stay away from it.
Looked floaty though, because the shadows were not connected to the body.
in general- it looks amazing , will wait for wizards etc .
Basic melee attacks should feel good with minimum work. If you're constantly using your basic attacks, any amount of work or effort they take is happening all the time. People felt this in Alpha 1 when you had to constantly press the same button to keep attacking. It a tiny bit of work, but was repeated thousands of times.
The only thing missing that ive seen is in-depth animations. Animations for getting hit in different ways, for attacking in different directions, getting staggered, etc.. I think animations are hugely important in selling the attacks.
Concerns:
It seemed like the basic attacks were all AOE based. AOE is fine but I think that too much AOE pulls you out of a fight. It makes you look at mobs as "the pack" rather than the specific monster. That, to me, is an area where you have to decide where you want the moment-to-moment gameplay of AOC to go. Do you want people to farm while engaged in one monster at a time, or do you want grinding to be focused around manipulating groups and spawn times?
I'm concerned about how this all connects into the "tab targeting" portion of the game. The combat showed in the video today was entirely action combat.
I have to admit I did enjoy combat in Alpha 1, but knew then that it was limited and fairly basic. With that said I felt I could see where it could go. Today, we got to see the progression of this combat and it was wonderful.
I would definitely like to see variations for all the weapons (basic moves, fighting style, etc) and from what was shown for the sword and daggers today is moving the right way in my book.
I think Elden Ring, to name a recent really well received game, did a great job of showing how different weapons (from polearms, to daggers, to hammers, to spears, etc) can have basic and heavy attacks as well as defensive blocking that vary nicely in animation depending on the weapon used.
I'm really looking forward to testing combat in Alpha 2. It is nice to see it on screen during the monthly livestream(s), but you will probably get the best feedback once we can experience it in person.
Keep up the great work!
Pacing of combat is huge for improving all the "impact" issues people have. Doing 5 attacks for 1k each will always feel more impactful than 50 attacks for 100. Ideally you would make some classes more slower paced but harder hits and some that are fast and loose. This way you can appeal to more people.
Also if you add any kind of stagger animation. Make sure you test it in a group or you will just make the issue worse. This is suppose to be a party based game so it could be not worth the trouble.
Free movement and a feeling of impact. I don't want to be excessively locked in an animation and I want to be able to react to things happening around me, it's awful having to "wait" for an attack to finish before I do something. I thinks it's a trade off with a sense that there actually is gravity on this world that we have to contend with, so I suppose there is a balance there with the two concepts appearing to counter each other at times. I liked that the two handed sword seemed more deliberate and daggers more free.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
Nope, I love the speed and the freedom that was on display. It looked like it had real weight behind it too. IMO there could be a risk of cheapening the abilities part of your class if too much is put into the basic attacks. Also letting the abilities take center stage most of the time makes sure the game doesn't fell like a click fest (I can always launch PoE to keep my right middle finger in shape).
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
To be honest no. The basic attacks are always just sort of there, the meat is always in the abilities. Having meaningful combat outside of the abilities will be new for me. From an action side GW2 did a nice job but it felt like I was just floating around the environment (which is a bad thing), gravity often did not exist. Other games just use basic attacks as this poke you do in between abilities so you almost forget they are there until you read a parser.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
Almost the same answer but I loved the movement and the impact your attacks seemed to have. The sword felt heavy and the daggers felt fast. The effect on the environment was also great (ie the sword scrapes on the ground). I'm sure it's basically just a dial that can be tuned up or down but the speed of the TH Sword looked good, I wouldn't make it any slower than that.
I would definitely prefer that the ground effects last a lot longer. It would be great to see the cumulative effects of the battle you are engaged in throughout, instead of disappearing right after the attack. Then have them slowly fade out after the battle ends (and even then have it take some time, seeing the aftermath would be great too.
It would also be cool to be able to see the effects of a battle that happened recently as you traverse the world. Both for immersion and for PvP you could know that others are nearby. PvP ambushers would need to avoid confrontations immediately prior to a caravans arrival or risk tipping them off.
Overall fantastic direction, well know more when we get our hands on it but this is definitely the way to go!
VFX: I'm sure the vfx would be fixed but generally non magic weapons or items could produce transparent but visible trails instead of glowy particles. Those could be for enchanted or magic related melee weapons. Just an idea though
WEIGHT AND SPEED: Though the initial windup for the great sword swing is great at conveying the weight of the weapon, the complete arc of the swing feels a little too fast and a little unnatural. Balancing the look and feel between overly weight and reasonably weighty weapons can sell the player the immersion of proparly wielding their weapon of choice and the combat experience in general. Same for the dagger swing speeds. A little too fast. But I'm guessing things can be hard especially considering there may be heavy and light swing mechanics involved. Animations can be great but weight plays a big part too. It's the secret sauce, the icing in the cake. The cherry on top, and everything that makes a complete piece.
Apart from those I'm really impressed and I'm sure the community is too. I trust you guys can be able to find a way around these problems and we believe in the team! Only been following you guys for a year and a half and I'm stunned by the progress. You got this guys🖤
I would really loved if there would be weapon mastery system for basic atacks.
Like ,, beginer " ,, novice" ,, advanced " ,, master" ,, grandmaster " - and with every level of master you add like 1 type of basic atack to combo:
beginer : 3 normal swings
novice : 3 normal swings + thrust
advanced : 3 normal swings + thrust + whirlwind
master: 3 normal swings + thrust + whirlwind + upercut
grandmaster: 3 normal swings + thrust + whirlwind + upercut + finished ( guillotine )
And with every level also you dmg will rise by small margin
That way you will have satisfaction from your character development
You mean lIke stone coming off them?
I'm really liking the way the weapons connect to enemies and you can feel the weight.
Are there any plans for range indicators for enemy attacks and aoe's?
I like that the current interation doesn't show a bunch of circles on the ground to play around like most current MMOs. It feels more natural to play around by judging just on what the attack animation looks like instead.
Are there also any plans for certain weapons to work better against specific enemies? For example, blunt/piercing/slash damage having different effects against those stone golems?
I think in terms of synergy it would be interesting to work with in party play and encourage more diverse team set ups.
First of all, incredible progress on that combat update, it is definitely going in the right direction and i'm glad you've choose to go for mainly action combat, which allows more fun and skilled fights.
It is great that you can move while attacking and that heavier weapons slow you down.
Fluidity of weapons animations are good, i think it would be great to have a " feedback " when you hit the ennemy (Both sound and visual )
The dashes looked and seemed to feel extremely good to use, good for fighters
The 3 hit string for basic attacks is a classic, good choice on that, It looked like you could choose to heavy hit on any part of the string, which is great also
Blocking and taking hits should have a visual feedback with the sound feedback (Character flashing in red for hit, yellow for block for exemple, or a vfx on border of the screen )
When it comes to blocking, i also would love to see a " perfect timing " block mechanic that reduce even more damage taken and stamina depletion (because you can't block forever right ? )
I'd like to see the animation trails change color / thickness with the weapon you use, for exemple an endgame red sword would do a far more impressive slash effect in red than a level 1 sword (Also it allows wands fight to look like firework battle like harry potter i think that is kinda cool )
Also i would love to see the " block animation " change according to the incoming strike, not just holding the same static stance
Sorry for any english mistakes.
Here's feedback
Good
Concerns
Hopes
Be confident! (not complacent but god you have earned a little confidence) Keep this direction going!
Love the hybrid of weighting and agency, love the realism of multi hit melee boxes. Love the enemies physical responding to your hits. Love the animation blending. Love the attention to decals/sound/UI.
A) The visual and audible feedback of the impact from the swing and hit.
Q) Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
A) The livestream showcased that the strikes of the 2-hander "feel" impactful and weighted.
The 2-hander sword animation and freeze-frame/hit-stun contributed positively to the weight in my opinion. The dust kicking up and marks being left from wide arcing swings looked great. It leaves the rough area where you were fighting a bit torn showing there was a fight. More of this please
I would enjoy more feedback on the body of the opponent when it's getting hit. Like a little flinch or small shake perhaps. More audible feedback on what type of material and/or metal being struck would be nice too.
Aside from attacking, the active blocking could use the same "flinch" and/or "small shake" to simulate "impact" on your character. Perhaps a clang of the blade/shield when its getting hit when blocking. Definitely a sfx should be played when going going from non-block to block stance. Like the ruffle/clang of your shield/armor/sword.
Q) Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
A) The current mix of "root" and movement freedom is great on the 2 hander. Very exited to see this "mix" principle on the rest of the weapon types.
Q) Steven: "Is the direction and the improvements that you've seen here, the right direction? Is that a positive growth from what you've seen last year vs to where you're seeing it now?"
A) Yes. A very positive growth vs last year. Even though this was mainly animations, and we've yet to see it fully fleshed out with additional vfx and sfx, i'm glad to see the weapons will be getting their own flavor this way.
Misc:
- Perhaps a difference in animations between swinging a sword and swinging a sword & board. A 1-hander should swing differently than a sword & board imo. A cool thing to do might be to include the shield in the attacking animation.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
- { I am coming at this from years of playing rogue / assassin classes for years and years}
- I didn't really like the way the daggers were being held, IMO they should both be pointed at the target like in WoW or pointed away like FF 14, Blade and Soul, and Albion online. The alternate grip just looks wonky. {UNLESS you can swap grips mid-fight to pull off different styles of combos that would be very cool and different}
- I think for the daggers the animations need a bit of cleaning up. Obviously this is not even beta.
- I think the blur could be turned down a bit and a bit of red or purple could be added to really make the melee swings pop {this could play into your Class Augment }
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?- I really like the way Assassin plays in Blade and Soul and the general auto basic melee in Black Desert Online.
- FF14 Ninja non Ability swings are barely even noticeable.
- Pre Cata Rogue Melee damage was a HUGE chunk of your dps and the melee swings weren't really anything fancy other than just swinging your swords like a ding dong or stabbing with the same silly cycle of kinda blah animations. {IMO the best dagger animation in WoW is Female Human Rogues; for daggers}
- Post Cata the basic Melee swings are basically not noticeable and feel very blah
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?Overall it's a great improvement to the tests we had.
The basic concept is right, free movement, dynamic combat, looking forward to see the other weapons and test it ingame .. some day.
A few points on the 2 weapons we saw:
The first two greatsword hits are too fast, not much, but it doesn't match the size of the weapon, the 3rd hit feels better, but the swing is here too quick too, doesn't feel like heavy hits.
The greatsword effects are good, animations are nice. It looks a lot more refined than the daggers.
What's nice is that the damage numbers match the hit/combo step, that's good that this is already considered.
The Daggers are way too fast. Attacks and effects made me already dizzy while watching the video, it's too much.
Animations for attack and movement suffer under the speed and look very choppy.
The hit impacts are also too flashy, especially for the daggers, less is more here I guess.
Greatsword 8/10
Daggers 3/10
Since basic attacks are going off permanently, the effects (visual and sound) shouldn't take to much attention from the player.
Otherwise it might become annoying after a short while, like with the daggers, especially as melee with multiple players on the screen.
It shouldn't become an effect overkill. (that's important for everything, not just basic attacks)
We know that from other games, where you have to hide other effects or players, to actually see something on the screen.
--
The intersting part will be how it plays together with the skills.
I think Guild Wars 2 is a good example for great melee combat with combined action mode and targeting.
Very mobile, challenging, punishing. Basic attacks have their use, but a lot depends on skills.
----
It's a bit off-topic I know - but since you showed the skills and were mentioning class kits.
I hope that it is planned that way, but since it hasn't been mentioned directly, I wanted to add it here.
The weapons should also support the skill effects (or the other way around).
That's a very complex point, especially with the way ashes is going.
e.g. the spin looks good with the greatsword, it is made for that weapon. But it is just wrong for the daggers.
The big hammer doesn't fit both.
The skills are based on the classes, but still should get a theme that matches the weapons used.
-two-handed animation looked like king Arthur from Smite.
-Daggers looked like Loki combat animation.
My comments:
Two-Handed Sword
- the ground impact have, it last longer, it disappeared too quickly. It would be cool if it lasted a while to see people come by and notice a battle happened here.
Daggers:
- Attack animation was too fast and hard to see and feel the impact
Recommendation:
-If this is the path Ashes is taking I highly advise looking at Smites combat mechanics if haven't done so already.
Freedom of move.
Fluidity, not too much distracting trailing or animations.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
Combat must not be brainless mob-pack bashing with a ton of notifications such as Asian MMOs *cough* Black Desert *cough*. Steven tech demo lets us think it’s the case. I personally think he was on God mode and/or high level.
There’ a bit too much heavy trailing animation when attacks with the 2-handed. I think it’s a bit distracting.
Daggers attacks are too quick
Attacks are too fast for a 2 Handed weapon.
On excitation side: Combat is fluid,
Pop-up numbers possible customizations Steven let’s us know such as colour, size, etc.
Ground effects when weapons hit it.
I am very excited that the combat is in the vein of Guild Wars 2 action combat. That is a very good style to work with IMO and has provided me, personally, with some of the most exciting and rewarding PvE and PvP combat I have ever experienced.
The whirls and dashes and slashes all looked like they would feel very immersive and satisfying, even in alpha state. A good mix of AOE and single target and cone of effect is critical tactically, and a cohesive set of skills/tools that gives players an array of options during combat is so important. In other games I have appreciated other combat concepts as well. Including, but not limited to basic melee, concepts like Point Blank AOE, Ground Target AOE and Target AOE have been amazing in giving players a creative opportunity in combat.
Don't shy away from exploring stuns and snares and roots as well. These have led to consternation in many games, but done with proper limitations, they can also make for extremely dramatic combat with tides being turned and offering key moments where heroic actions can emerge in the fray!
I am SO excited to see the continued development of AOC and I look forward to get hands on when A2 arrives!
As Demonstrated in the Live Stream, we were able to see the basic attack combo's for Great Sword and Daggers, Daggers are faster clearly, and i really love the idea that they are able to Spin and Move at the same time, however we'd expect that, with daggers, you'll be able to Spin and move a little bit faster, the animation fits perfectly for the great sword, but with daggers i hope you can improve the movement speed to give more personality to the class.
The second thing about that ultimate attack, that giant yellow sword, it honestly feels empty cause the range of the landing zone when it hits the ground, it seems too small, as shown, Steven kept missing, and failing to land it correctly, however if that's an ultimate special attack, just increase a little bit more of it's radius so at least, it can feel impactful and you are not wasting it for nothing, even better, why not make it like this if possible, if the ultimate attack lands on you directly at the center, it will give you it's maximum damage, or if it lands, and the monster is not located at the center, the monster or the enemy will still take damage but low damage due to the fact that he's not at the center, but he's far a bit by few centimeters from the center. hope that can be possible to corrected
Last but not least, the impact of attacks, still need a bit of improvement, when Steven hit those monsters, it feels like you are just hitting a rock, (well literally he was hitting rocks) but not much of visual effects. i guess this probably in your agenda, but i'd really love to see the effects and the reaction you'd get when you hit a monster become little bit impactful, and not just pale hack&Slash. (just a little bit of visual effects)
But one thing I really did not like was the yellow effects when swinging the sword, make it looks too fake imo. it will be better to get rid of them, it will make the fights feel much more real.
But good job intrepid! u are doing really good progress, im looking forward to the future.