Mob/Boss Combat Interaction (plus a compromise for hybrid combat)

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

As noted, I'm constantly surprised by focus groups.

But I wasn't trying to get you to change anything, only to figure out if you were doing what you intended, and to clarify to anyone else so that they can give any opinion on it. I was able to let go of most of my preconception, but I figured there might be a chance you'd go 'wait that doesn't sound right'.

If that's not your reaction, then onward. Next. 'How are we going to do it?'

Because it can't be just magical, remember. Staff wielding Tank or Fighter has to be 20% stronger than 2H Axe also. And Dual Wielding Dagger players have to be 32% stronger. Also, it can't generally be through 'advantages given to Ability Damage' since the idea is that the opponent will block some portion of ability damage in skilled battle. But then again, like I said, always surprised, so...

If the boost comes from Ability Damage primarily, Staff must be around 33% stronger than 2H Axe, and Dual Wielded Daggers have to be 50% stronger. The reason in question must be applicable to all classes, and if you've got one off the top of your head, the next question would be 'why wouldn't most Tanks Dual Wield Daggers and just use their other mitigation along with their 32-50% damage bonus?'

I should probably mention that I suspect the reason that Intrepid has not tried any Active Blocking is because the effort of 'making sure the above works' is much less appealing than just 'not adding Active Block'. I say this to remind that the more complex the solution gets, the less likely it is to be considered.

Also, while my friend group normally just 'trusts me with design and balance consideration for games we build/want to play', note that if I explicitly 'go against what I would do', they may give separate (and possibly uncharitable) opinions on your solutions/answers. I just don't want any confusion regarding 'me supporting your line of thinking but people associated with me giving counter/negative opinions'. I will be ignoring all their posts unless you or someone else quotes them

We have not received permission from Dygz to share the quoted post.

Not sure what this one means. Is it 'an endorsement of the concept? A fan of Staves perhaps?

Is it 'joining in on the question'?

Is it agreeing that this is why the Alpha doesn't contain Active Blocking?

Is it in some way a reaction to the complex solution bit?

Please give us your feedback by checking one or several of the boxes above.

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

No objections, not much need. This is FFXI's system exactly. There are multiple classes that can use a large number of the game's weapons, in that one.

Noting for anyone who cares, the meta never actually allowed for this outside of 2-3 instances. In that game's case it was that you didn't have as much accuracy and sometimes not as much Attack, so you could at least use them 'for fun' in certain situations if you weren't suffering for Accuracy.

And people still didn't do it, because it's suboptimal and the number crunchers will tell you so within 4 days of gameplay.

In any case, one can just grab that data almost directly from that game, so it's possible to proceed. The only difference is the gap in power and that 'Dual Wielding Tank' thing.

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

I can just pull in some stuff. But just to be clear, you implied that there was some concern about 'what people do when they believe they are doing less damage', right?

Should I be giving the data based on 'factoring for the additional damage needed to balance them relative to their active block potential', or not?

e.g. should Staff have the same AD as 2H Axe but higher SPD such that it makes up the 20% difference, for this?

Or do you want the numbers 'before that balancing'?

We have not received permission from CROW3 to share the quoted post.

Could be. This is an FFXI thing too (and I think I've said before that we know that Jeff Bard is at least familiar with that game).

Paladins do exactly this, there. Paladin/Ninja can Dual Wield and in that case actually get Ninja ability for an 'evasion' skill/spell outright, as well as bonuses to Dual Wielding. Paladin/Red Mage is more likely to be used where heavy magical mitigation is required and wields a staff related to this purpose and Magic Defense Bonuses (Paladin might have been updated to have these innately by now though), and Paladin/Warrior is most often shield and sword using abilities to cycle and maximize mitigation conditions and have extra threat generation with innate "Double Attack chance".

It's probably wrong to assume that Ashes Secondary Archetypes will be as effective or powerful as FFXI's Subjobs, or at least, everyone's been speaking really conservatively about it for some reason that I can't quite sync to, but even with relatively modest augment options, the things you mentioned are pretty likely, and I don't mean 'my speculations' at that point. One could do 'far less' than what I expect and still get those builds.

I keep expecting Ashes builds to be incredibly freeform, which is why there was any disagreement between Cypher and I in the first place.

Ok, here's the precursor data...

Every 60 delay for a melee weapon is equal to 1 real time second, and it is determined by the weapon used (except for Hand to Hand). For example, a 450 delay Great Katana (such as the festive Wooden Katana), takes 450 / 60 = 7.5 seconds between attack round. A faster weapon, such as the 280 delay Lotus Katana, then takes 280 / 60 = ~4.7 seconds between attack round. (game's pretty slow in some ways, because TT, timer starts counting again from the first frame of the swing).

And here's the data from the literal 'original midgame' weapons, Mythril. Given as equivalents, some aren't exact, for example the first 1H Mace is actually a 'Maul' style hammer, but this probably isn't relevant.

1H Sword: AD 21 Delay 231 DPS 5.45
2H Sword: AD 46 Delay 444 DPS 6.22
1H Mace: AD 22 Delay 324 DPS 4.07 (Restricted to Healers, not even Paladins, more of a Hammer)
1H Mace: AD 20 Delay 300 DPS 4
2H Scythe: AD 64 Delay 528 DPS 7.27 (slightly higher level than the rest, the equiv level one has DPS 6.62)
1H Baselard (standard dagger): AD 13 Delay 185 DPS 4.19
1H Kukri (different dagger): AD 14 Delay 200 DPS 4.2
2H Halberd: AD 42 Delay 396 DPS 6.36 (this isn't actually Mythril for some reason but it's the same level as the rest)
1H Axe: AD 29 Delay 276 DPS 6.30
2H Axe: AD 52 Delay 504 DPS 6.19
2H Staff: AD 29 Delay 378 DPS 4.60 (this is 3 levels lower than the rest. If we go 3 levels up we get AD 37 Delay 402 DPS 5.52, happens because... well, you don't make Staves out of Mythril)

Many of these are restricted to only a few classes in the game, so some DPS discrepancies exist because either 'those classes are meant to do less of their damage via physical things' or 'they have other ways to increase the damage.

And to add to your balance considerations, let's make some assumptions about Weapon Skills/Weapon Perks. (these have nothing to do with FFXI and are related to the following:

Players can spec into weapon abilities on their combat skill tree, based on their preferred weapon classes (weapon types/weapon groups) and the grade of the weapon.[5][3][2][1]
The more skill points that are allocated to the combat skill tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity. This in turn unlocks various proc effects on weapon use that can offer synergy with other active skills.[3][1] This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.

It doesn't matter if this is 'your third or 4th attack in the Combo has this effect' or 'at least one of your Activated Weapon Skills has this effect'. The need to balance this is the same. But for the sake of 'not having to correct anyone who doesn't read it fully' I'm going to say the 'attack number' every time and describe an animation. These would also be applied to humanoid mobs.

1H Sword Standing - Third combo strike, Diagonal rising slash, extra damage
1H Sword Lunging - Third combo strike, low spin, deflects or parries some incoming melee damage from front
2H Sword Standing - Third combo strike, overhead slash, lowers enemy defense for a few seconds
2H Sword Lunging - Fourth combo strike, strong thrust, extra piercing damage
1H Mace Standing - Fourth combo strike, downswing at head, lowers enemy accuracy for few seconds
1H Mace Lunging - Third combo strike, overhead smash, lowers enemy attack for a few seconds
2H Mace Standing - Third combo strike, wide arc swing, additional damage and block penetration damage
2H Mace Lunging - Third combo strike, big spin smash, staggers enemy for 0.3 seconds
1H Dagger Standing - Fourth combo strike, X slash, bleed
1H Dagger Lunging - Fourth combo strike, lateral slash, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Spear Standing -Third Combo strike, Slight backstep stab, extra damage
2H Spear Lunging - Third Combo strike, Rushing stab, lowers cooldown of skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Halberd Standing - Third combo strike, wide swing, does slashing damage, does extra damage
2H Halberd Lunging - Third combo strike, Rushing stab, lowers enemy evasion for a few seconds
1H Axe Standing - Third combo strike, Diagonal descending slash, bleed
1H Axe Lunging - Third combo strike, Leaping diagonal downslash, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit
2H Axe Standing - Third combo strike, Wide backstep swing slash, extra damage
2H Axe Lunging - Third combo strike, vertical whirling 'golf swing' double slash, staggers for 0.3 seconds
2H Staff Standing - Third combo strike, a swing at the knee, lowers enemy evasion for a few seconds
2H Staff Lunging - Third combo strike, a long wide swing, lowers cooldown of all skills by 0.3s on hit

Shuffle these however suits you, @Cypher , but the main reasons for them being as they are...

1H Swords for dueling, 2H swords for damage, 1H Maces for protection, 2H Maces for overwhelm (could be Hammers), 1H Daggers for Bleed effects and sustain, Spears for positioning and sustain, Halberds for area control, 1H Axes for bleed and 'berserkers', 2H Axes for overwhelm but with slashing damage, 2H Staves for higher guaranteed damage of spells, and sustain (basically to reward the 'standard' mage build that wants to do 'standard' mage melee).

The stagger timings are based on part of 'the whiteboard', (20 frames, about the recovery of the hit itself) and the cooldown lowering is based on the idea that you can only do one full combo about every 1.5-2s so for your longest skills you could get about 3s CD reduction total if you just landed this combo every time somehow. They're all on the 'lunge' to make it harder to land them, and are treated as 'working' even if blocked.

I'll leave any Dual Wield considerations to you.

We have not received permission from Ugoogee to share the quoted post.

I don't find the new video that helpful or meaningful, even if viewed by less familiar people, partially because we're 'so far past all of it'. It might help someone who understands none of this, but I don't see anything in it that would help us, or Intrepid, improve anything (assuming they were listening to feedback thus far).

The thing is, they've never explicitly said 'we're going to make Action-like Combat', they've said 'we're going to make Action style skills, and you can do a few of those, and we'll give you an Action Targeting Reticle', so at the moment, regardless of anything, there's no guarantee (even based on the floated design spec) that 'melee Action Combat', even the most basic form, will be a thing that they consider. The section on enemy design is also kind of 'flat', again, if it's meant to be 'helpful'.

In other (unfortunate?) news, I've had reason to run data analysis on the original Combat Discussion thread and one other, and have explicitly found 'those people who want to be able to block with Dual Daggers'.

Since my design stance is in fact 'never take anything from players unnecessarily' and my group is kind of upset that I'm supporting a model they oppose, that no one else is showing support for at the moment, I'm requesting that anyone who agrees with Cypher explicitly that only certain weapons should be able to block or even that the block mitigation should be particularly different/large, say so, otherwise it's technically like 7 to 1 against in this discussion.

I'm still not going to shift, for now, because there's other useful things to discuss without touching that 'part of the whiteboard'.

For now, I'm going to move to 'single small enemies that Ashes already has'. Assume Sword and Shield Tank vs any 'Charger' enemy.

The Charger has a Pounce. Doesn't matter if this is from a Lunge attack style or 'because they have the equivalent of Onslaught'. It knocks down. The Tank can't use offensive abilities or Brace properly when knocked down, only activate defensive abilities and hold Block (Brace, in this case, being 'what prevents them from getting a Bleed status).

If blocked, this staggers them back a tiny bit instead, does some damage, but that's all.

Levels of player engagement added:
A Ranger or Mage player has to adjust their aim slightly, at minimum. The Tank has to see this move and block it or dodge it depending on their group. If fighting for long enough, the group is slowly pushed backwards even if they do block it. A group of these enemies becomes much more dangerous and hard to find timing to do damage (to me this is the most important difference compared where we are now as of Alpha-1) because even though the Pounce is triggered by some AI decision and isn't necessarily very common at close range, 'close range' keeps changing slightly.

If the Tank loses hate or they were fighting two, and didn't have as much hate on another (forcing them to focus on this) and the Ranger or Mage have projectile damage, they have to worry about the movements of the two enemies resulting in them 'hitting the wrong one' and buliding it up. If that one then 'lands a Pounce on the Tank ' and does enough damage to switch attention to someone else, that someone else is now the next Pounce target and they have to be ready. The Tank has to get that Charger back on themselves or the group can decide to burst that one down if it was the main one that had been low on Health, allowing them] to focus on building hate on the higher HP one. A pretty standard thing for a 'good player' to do, but still a learnable skill/way of thinking that allows a player to improve.

The Cleric now has to think about how to deal with the enemies other than just 'rapid healing' if they have options. Just healing might not be enough and the second Charger might end up on them if a Pounce lands. Applying anything to the Charger to help avoid the Pounce landing while the Tank still has hate might be better even in the mid-term, and even against a single Charger if the group is 'pushing their limits' a bit. Being able to see the knockdown, know that there's a chance of Bleed stacks, and responding to that while hate is still focused, also good.

Fighter and Rogue at least need to reposition a little, and if 2x Charger can 'react to the Tank losing control of the lower HP one' by increasing their output for the burst-down. They were probably going to do this anyway, but they at least have to consider 'what is my most efficient option for movement, to do damage to this enemy who is now near someone else' (assume the Ranger or Mage accidentally built up too much hate using crits, after all, if you're not riding just a tick or two below the Tank's hate line, you aren't doing Max DPS, right?)

[Insert another 3 pages of more specific effects on design here]

This is achieved by adding 'a Pounce' (which might already exist), a slight telegraph of that Pounce, and a Knockdown. I think it requires nothing else, and it doesn't have to touch on any debates or AC vs TT, Split Body vs Root, or blocking mitigation values (it does touch on 'what you can do while knocked down' and 'Block' vs 'Brace' effects on CC).

See @Ugoogee ? This is why we leave the game design stuff to Azherae, she thinks about it all the time. Research, number crunching, system building, she nerds about it so much she has more exp than the rest of the group combined. So we just kind of send her ahead to game forums.
It also helps that she is more tolerant than me. I would just outright people when their systems are needlessly restrictive or only fun in their own mind. Engaging with others long enough to find out why they want what they want is best left to the patient people.

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

She meant that she specifically asked us a while back not to say things in this thread.

I'm definitely not into the possibility that you have this extremely freeform game that claims to allow you to pick any weapon, and then set up a system by which one specific weapon combination is better than another - a Tank with Shield is, by your definition, going to be markedly better than anything else for the majority of fights because of the higher block rate than equipping 2H sword, and therefore builds will gravitate towards that. Even if you "don't take away the option" explicitly like you said, by making a specific weapon noticeably worse in a specific way, you will just bend the meta toward that, just like it happens in FFXI. You end up killing the intended freedom of the weapons system by introducing that tiering. Just let people block.

I get it. I do. "We're not aiming for 1v1 balance." But that's not how metas work. This was never about "1v1" or even "8v8". This is about "specific weapons are the objectively superior choice". Players optimize. I'm a Dual Dagger Bard by nature. You're saying I can't block, but you're really not giving me anything else to work with. I thought things were maybe going to turn out okay when @Azherae explained the whole "for this to be balanced, you have to balance the weapon's 'damage output (DPS)' vs 'damage taken (how long I can survive to put out my DPS)'. The second you added that second variable to weapons (by saying blocking is better on some than on others), you made it so that, against a given enemy (any enemy, you choose), I have less time to kill said enemy on Dagger than I do on 1H Sword. Because I'm going to die in 30 seconds instead of 45, because I. Can't. Block. If you're not giving me a ton more damage so that I can kill that same enemy in those 30 seconds you let me have... Why am I supposed to choose Dagger again? Because I love it and want to be objectively inferior? No. I'm going to pick sword, and hate it, because I can do the same damage for 50% longer. Because anything with 750 HP, I can only kill on sword. Because by the time I've done 500 damage on Dagger? I'll DIE.

You say you're not taking anything away from people. You're taking Dagger away from me . For what? Because it "doesn't make sense"? So... "but realism tho"?

There's a thousand better ways to make weapons distinct. Dagger gets a chance of bleed (great for "piercing" high defense enemies). Staff gets a little knockback (range-oriented players can keep a bit of distance, or even control positioning over time). Shield raises Defense Stat, because it doesn't have a basic attack at all. Now I can live twice as long but do half the damage. 2.0 * 0.5 = 1. But it's spectacular for a Tank in a group. It's balanced . Nothing's "automatic forced optimal weapon choice". You choose the weapon that does the thing you want, and they're all both important and situational. What you use comes down to who you are, and what you're up against.

I want choice, and your system limits it. Not because I can't pick up a dagger, but because you made sure I have no reason to. Not even 'flavor'.

Whatever, we have one day before next Livestream. If I rather let my team lead design a game than y'all, then I just have to hope Intrepid is on her side and not yours. Won't matter anyway, I'm used to takes like yours

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

Yes, unfortunately inexperience is the graveyard of good intentions, since it can breed such a perspective all too easily. They're not even, or not supposed to be even when balanced .

For example, a Halberd and a Dagger are supposed to be massively different even in a balanced system. The attack damage per swing, the range (they are both melee, but one is longer and yes that should matter in a good game), the attack cone/area, the weaponskills, and last but not least, the attack delay. I come from ffxi, where I sub Dancer every time I can get away with it (love that job) and changing my weapon means I need to slightly readjust how I weave my Dancer job skills inbetween attacks (don't wanna reduce my dps if it can be helped). Even if you're not a Dancer, understanding the rhythm of combat, enmity gain, tp gain etc is a big deal.

Even among different Bows, I will bet you that you can make them feel different in more than just flavor if you give them different attack rates and damage, even if their dps is exactly the same. It has a direct impact on how much time you need for your attack before you need to return to kiting, for example.

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

I want to bonk people with the Staff, I don't understand how it would be ranged or why it needs to be ranged when it is melee right now in Ashes anyway. At that point, wouldn't it just be an impractical looking Wand, anyway?

We have not received permission from Cypher to share the quoted post.

Ok, let's take this the other way then, and not discuss anything that involves the specifics of blocking values or which classes can block. It's not necessary. We've mostly been discussing things like general mechanics and party play, so we can just 'assume everything discussed is relative to a class that can block' and you can work out anything for 'those who can't' on your side later. I'll switch back to 'opposing that line' since obviously, my group's unhappy about it.

Most of our original model didn't have much to do with blocking values anyway. Brace was intended to stop certain CC and problematic effects that would, in themselves, lower your defense, or offense ability, and the reward for doing that correctly was either 'preventing being in danger after the ability' or 'continuing with good attack power' or what have you.

This also allows it to be put on AoE or conal attacks, since the Tank, who is most likely to successfully Brace or be cleansed of any such effects, then has hate and the others don't matter as much.

After observing more of the enemy types that actually strafe and try to move away, I can see how certain mobs with ranged attacks having a Strafe ability consistently, could be good almost as a basic thing, but I would avoid making too many that do this 'consistently'. Probable simplistic AI would be 'strafes to get chances to apply a negative status'.

This should play in well with player movement and timing. If the player wants to catch up to the enemy, they have to advance, but in so doing, they open a window of susceptibility to the use of the negative Status on them. If they don't, because they brace, or because they don't care about the negative Status and/or can fight well from range, or even 'are willing to use a Gap closer' to swiftly do so, that's a reward for their play choice. The target may still go for the negative Status at close range, but if it's strong, and the mob sorta depends on it to not just get flattened easily, the player might be able to get some real damage in quickly before becoming subject to the status.

This gives us an enemy who isn't doing 'useless things', chances are you will at least experience what they are capable of, but you can also outplay this enemy, and different Archetypes have different strengths against them. Spiders are the best example option for this, or at least 'whatever variant doesn't default to leaping at you'.

Mages ignore their slows and poisons and go for big damage. Rangers match them with debuffs and damage. Rogues and Fighters get in close quickly and shred them. Clerics weave in and out of range and cleanse themselves more easily than other classes. Tanks rush at them or pull them in, Summoners have all sorts of 'I don't care' responses to this, and Bards probably can just 'cancel the negatives with their own buffs', possibly while still debuffing, becoming similar to Rangers. All of these things apply in parties bigger than 2, for a while, as well.