How to balance tab vs action abilities

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

And this is fine. You just aren't having the same discussion in the first place.

There are definitely Action Combat players who definitely only care about the Free Aim and Free Movement and don't specifically desire 'mechanics that become possible and emergent from that system'.

I will be disappointed if this is what Ashes is, but not much (I will worry WAY more about the balance).

I agree with you though, again.

"5 Layered Mechanics" vs "3 Layered Mechanics + 2 mental slots for aiming and dodging" is fine.

There's one problem here, which I would NEED you to play Monster Hunter to 'get' fully maybe.

It's not 2 mental slots for aiming and dodging. It's 'however many slots it takes to track everyone else's moving and whether or not their abilities hit'.

Which increases exponentially as you add more players. However if things are as simple as 'hit dodge button, achieve dodge' even in Action mode, then it's fine.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

Again, I agree, but again, we are not having the same conversation.

You cannot have a preset callout in the games I play because so much other stuff would have been happening already, that adapting to that mechanic would never be a situation of 'ok guys here's our pre-set response'.

I agree that for many encounters, being able to have such a pre-set response would be a good thing for the game. However for top level content, I would expect and hope that anyone who asks 'ok so what do I do when $Mechanic' happens gets one of the following responses depending on the 'toxicity' of their group.

1. Laughter from all involved at the mere notion that there could be a single response.
2. A full halt called to the raid planning to explain the 17 different situations.
3. A situation where they are given a preset, and everyone else is assigned extra work to deal with the fact that the newbie is learning the mechanics and they have to be taken care of for a bit.

To me though the idea of a 'preset response' to any mechanic for a top end encounter is so laughable as to be BDO tier.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

Maybe this is where the misunderstanding stems from. I'm talking about peak pve content (I think Noaani is usually talking about this too). The content that Steven promised "only <10% of people on the server" would be able to do. And, imo, that content requires that kind of complexity and difficulty to be fun for the people who want that content, as Noaani has said muuultiple times (and now Azherae said the same thing).

As for why so much dodging or why the boss gotta be different or why hit particular parts - imo, all those things represent what action combat provides that is different from tab. You can hit different parts of a mob because you have precision aiming in action. You can do precise well-timed dodges in action. And you can track/predict location/movement of a small boss in action, while in tab you're just targeting it.

So my question is, if you're not utilizing the specific features of your combat system in your best quality top lvl content - why da fuck are you using that particular system?

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

There's a limit on how much stuff can be verbally said in a timely matter in a group of 40 people, w/o everyone shouting over everyone else. And, again my personal preference, you can't split your whole raid into 5 8-men voice rooms because the raid should require pure synergistic work from all 40 people. And in order to do that w/o everyone yelling at everyone and making calls - you need to have each player aware of their surroundings as much as possible. And tab camera/system allows that, while action restricts it.

Obviously you can just have bosses/raids that don't require that level of involvement, and Ashes should obviously have those bosses too, but when talking about top lvl content - I expect it to be on the level of complexity that I've described. And I'd assume Noaani would have an even higher expectation from it.

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I'm sorry, I mean no disrespect when I say that I no longer follow what you are talking about, and since I don't think we have been talking about the same things for multiple posts now, I think my involvement here is no longer useful to you.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

I think you concentrated too much on the toxic part of that comment. Azherae was talking about the complexity of the encounter. And the complexity was so damn high that explaining it completely could be laughable. If there's 6-7 things that have to be tracked at the same time and those 6-7 things come from a pool of potential 20 things and the can have random triggers and order - you ain't explaining an encounter to a person. At best, you could explain what the things themselves are and what you need to do when they happen, but that still doesn't magically solve the issue of having to track several of such things at the same time, while doing your perfect rotation, while being prepared to switch up your actions because another group of 6-7 things could happen in the very next moment.

And then you scale this up to the size of a full raid and the question from some dude in the middle of the raid of "what do I do here" would definitely get a few laughs from the regulars. Because the chances are, if someone's gotta ask that in that kind of raid - you've wiped already.

And in all the cases of all the players knowing what needs to be done in certain moments, we come back to the issue of "not everything in the raid can be called out, so you need to know your own amount of info to properly react to your surroundings". And in action games that amount is lower than in tab games, which directly influences the design of the encounter itself.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

Why not?

This is the single core question that you need to think about for us to have this conversation.

Why isn't it just going to be just 'chaotic random stuff happening'?

PvP is often random stuff happening. Monster Hunter is random stuff happening. Elite Dangerous is random stuff happening. And FFXI and EQ2, my 'Tab Target MMO' and Noaani's 'Tab Target MMO' are largely 'random stuff happening'.

So what we're telling you is 'top end raids' in SOME games are 'random stuff happening' and 'raids that are random stuff happening' get kind of insane in Action Combat.

https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Jormungand

I'm not explaining it in detail immediately, but I am glad to if you are seriously asking.

EDIT: To be clear, the complexity of that encounter is NOT VISIBLE from just the page. It is also a relatively lower requirement encounter for the game, midlevel at best I'd say. I chose the thing that will give me EXACTLY 6 things that almost EVERYONE and every class in the group will be tracking.

Each player may track a slightly different 6 things, but this is the one that comes to mind where 'everyone must track about 6 things'.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

You are wrong. See above link. I can just say that this time. Sorry. You're wrong. Period.

I will need to check something about the year relative to some level cap raises, but for now, let's assume it's the right thing.

Please note that if you intend to ASSERT things based on what you see there, as someone who has NOT fought it, to someone who HAS fought it, I'm not continuing the conversation. Do me at least the courtesy of not ASSERTING things you don't understand and forcing me to spend 18 posts clarifying your misconceptions, cause I ain't doing it today.

EDIT: Verified from date and watching of video that this is in fact 'representative of the thing I am talking about' level Jormy.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

See you just did it again. You don't know how this game works at all. But I'll humor you this time. Tell me Jormy's pattern from that page.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

And that is exactly why I said that you need to have a relatively smaller and nimbler bosses in action games. Exactly in order to utilize all those tools. Otherwise it's pointless. Having a huge stationary boss that you just unload onto is not difficult imo. Yes, there'd be hazards and some aoes to step out of, but that's literally the same as tab combat, so why not just have it as tab.

And this is why I separated the boss encounters the way that I did. And why I hope that Intrepid can find a way to combine both of those sides into a single encounter and then make several different encounter with that combination.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

And I was a guild leader of roughly 120 people during a siege, so I know how it is to control a crowd of big sizes during sieges. It's way easier than controlling 40 people during a super hardcore pve encounter cause there's more things to look out for. In pvp you're just looking at your enemy and maybe dodge some attacks while trying to achieve some bigger goal. In top lvl pve, from what I understand, you have a very specific role that can have several sub-roles that might need to synergize with people with other roles - all while tracking several mechanics.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

I mean, I think the main point was "tab can do things that action can't and vice versa". Noaani was basing his take on the fact that action games haven't even tried to put out a pve encounter that's as difficult and complex as smth from EQ2. And it seems that Azherae agrees with that take, and from what I've seen Azherae has played more action mmos than Noaani (at the very least BDO).

But the take itself could be dismissed somewhat just because we should be thinking in terms of "what the best hybrid encounter we can come up with". I think we've established enough proof for either side supporting their good qualities, so now we gotta figure out how to merge those in such a way that doesn't just tell players to pick a single side.

Alternatively we can just wait till Intrepid releases a super complex raid and then criticize it

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

I can't give such an example because I haven't played hardcore pve games. My opinion is based purely on what I've seen in ff14 videos and what I've heard from pvers. And I then try to design an encounter in my mind that I would deem interesting. I don't even know if it would be interesting to the true pvers, but I try to go for good complexity within that encounter, mainly because that seems to be what pvers like.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

So you are disengaging on this point? I am glad to.

The fact remains that Jormungand has no pattern that you can just react to. You get some control, but the individual actions of the Dragon are mostly chaos. And that fact does not care how you feel about it nor whether or not you believe it.

However because I am a toxic petty person I offer to everyone on this forum who needs to make this argument the ability to just 'Summon the Ice Dragon'.

If you need to make the point, mention Jormungand and call me.

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

I was not saying it would be impossible in an Action System. I was only offering what Mag asked for.

I personally believe that you must get up to 10-11 things to mentally track at once before I PERSONALLY start to drop things in Action Combat, but I am aware that for others it is lower. That fact is not relevant because even if I am consistently able to do what others cannot, it would just imply that I was in the 10% or so of players Ashes expected to be able to compete in Raid content.

I believe that in an Action Combat system, 50% of 16-person groups could defeat a slightly toned down Jormungand. If you are willing to engage in good faith (imo you sometimes are, sometimes not, or sometimes you don't keep the same conversation target in mind that your 'opponent' does), I will explain this fight in more detail and why it may be difficult for some.

If your wish is to continue believing that you are right, I will not. I also am not accepting your usual 'one liner encouragement to continue', though, so if you actually care, you might need to 'convince' me somehow. This is by no means a request.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

I didn't address that because it's just an opinion. I personally like tab more. I like the feeling of control that more information gives me. I like piano playing on my keyboard and having utility skills that I can only use in particular situations. Action combat seems super dull to me because it's just dodging and spinning your camera around. Yes, it obviously takes skill, but I'm not interested in acquiring that skill because it doesn't arise any emotions in me. You disagree with me on this and that is completely fine, opinion is just that - an opinion.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

The only same thing I was talking about is standing in front of a huge unmoving dude and laying into him. As I've said multiple times, action combat can't do spatial awareness as well as tab can. You are literally limited in your pov, so you can't react to something that's happening behind you, while you're fully engaged with smth in front of you. In tab you can.

Same goes for action. You can have directional or super precise attacks, while in tab there'd be no difference.

Both sides have things that the other side can't do, so hybrid should combine both of them and find the perfect middle ground.

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

And that's exactly what I'm saying. We'll have a hybrid game so we should be thinking about hybrid gameplay, while also providing both sides with their own style of combat sometimes.

Ideally Intrepid would have some peak action encounters, some peak tab ones and at the very top of complexity and difficulty it'd be hybrid, with both combat styles pushing players to the limit and requiring near-impossible amount of concentration and game knowledge/skill.

Azherae wrote: »

I believe that in an Action Combat system, 50% of 16-person groups could defeat a slightly toned down Jormungand. If you are willing to engage in good faith (imo you sometimes are, sometimes not, or sometimes you don't keep the same conversation target in mind that your 'opponent' does), I will explain this fight in more detail and why it may be difficult for some.

I'd be very interested to learn about the fight, purely because it'd let me understand the pve pov better. I've got a ton of assumptions of my own, but I feel like some of them might be off base because I haven't really experienced any good mmo pve.