To the Action Combat Fans

Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 15:56:32

@Mag7spy would you consider it more skillful if tab abilities didn't curve and instead required 1-2° precision of where your character was facing, but the character would also very slowly turn towards the target if it was laterally moving? And projectile itself could hit anywhere within a 5° angle of its direction, but not outside of that.

So smth like this. 77b2c5mlujlq.png

In order to even activate a tab skill your character gotta be facing your target directly. Then at the moment of use of the ability, there's a 5° angle within which the target could move and still get hit. But if the target moves outside of those 5° - they avoid the attack.

The speed of turning would have to depend on basic speed of movement across all archetypes and races. If a character moves at the speed of, say, 60° a second (at the longest possible range of ranged attacks and abilities), I'd say that character turn speed should be ~20° a second. In other words, 1/3 of the lateral movement speed.

This way the tab targeting still helps people aim at their targets, but the attacks themselves work way closer to action abilities than the usual tab ones (no hardcore 90° turns of flying projectiles). If the target is barely moving to the side, ranged abilities will still be tracking them fairly well, but if the target is at top speeds or is way closer to the attacker - the attacker would have to manually adjust their character's direction in order to even be able to use a tab ability.

This would also boost melee fighting, cause you can just dance around your stationary target and they'd have hard time hitting you, which would make them move more and with more thought. Obviously melee tab abilities (if there even are any) would have a bit wider activation angle, though that could be tested.

@Azherae @Noaani I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on a system like this too. I'm obviously super biased cause I'm used to this, so hearing opinions of less-action-combat-inclined people would be good.

Post by Aerlana on 2022-10-14 16:00:52

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Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 16:11:33

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Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 16:16:47

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I should've stated it more explicitly but the system would rotate you automatically, but it would do so in a way that any target that's moving at a high speed or is just way closer to you and moves around you would just outpace that autorotation.

This would apply to fast moving mobs too, so it would even influence the pve difficulty.

And as I see it, your camera could still be facing away from your target and your character could be moving backwards away from your target, but if the target is just running after you in a straight line - you'll be able to shoot out tab abilities at them. But if the target is moving in a zig zag pattern or is just doing a half-circle arc instead of a direct line towards you - you won't do shit.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 16:22:49

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Post by DarkTides on 2022-10-14 16:43:14

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Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 16:55:27

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Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 17:46:35

@Mag7spy would you consider it more skillful if tab abilities didn't curve and instead required 1-2° precision of where your character was facing, but the character would also very slowly turn towards the target if it was laterally moving? And projectile itself could hit anywhere within a 5° angle of its direction, but not outside of that.

So smth like this. 77b2c5mlujlq.png

In order to even activate a tab skill your character gotta be facing your target directly. Then at the moment of use of the ability, there's a 5° angle within which the target could move and still get hit. But if the target moves outside of those 5° - they avoid the attack.

The speed of turning would have to depend on basic speed of movement across all archetypes and races. If a character moves at the speed of, say, 60° a second (at the longest possible range of ranged attacks and abilities), I'd say that character turn speed should be ~20° a second. In other words, 1/3 of the lateral movement speed.

This way the tab targeting still helps people aim at their targets, but the attacks themselves work way closer to action abilities than the usual tab ones (no hardcore 90° turns of flying projectiles). If the target is barely moving to the side, ranged abilities will still be tracking them fairly well, but if the target is at top speeds or is way closer to the attacker - the attacker would have to manually adjust their character's direction in order to even be able to use a tab ability.

This would also boost melee fighting, cause you can just dance around your stationary target and they'd have hard time hitting you, which would make them move more and with more thought. Obviously melee tab abilities (if there even are any) would have a bit wider activation angle, though that could be tested.

@Azherae @Noaani I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on a system like this too. I'm obviously super biased cause I'm used to this, so hearing opinions of less-action-combat-inclined people would be good.

I'm not a good person to ask if you're looking for 'less action combat inclined'.

I'm in Aerlana's camp, I don't care about any of this, I don't even 'believe in it'. It doesn't matter to me, which was the point I was making to Mag to begin with. I enjoy both combat styles if they are done correctly and push my limits or allow for proper expression.

Therefore I don't usually think about 'fixing' something that most games already do quite well, to 'improve' things for a few diehards. Particularly since in my personal experience the diehards are not great at games, they just 'choose games that are hard to be good at or introduce more randomness' so they can feel superior to others.

There's entire threads in Elite Dangerous from someone 'top in PvP' crying about how their opponents 'use weapons that don't take real skill' because they use one of the other options for targeting. That person, however, just doesn't want to 'waste' defensive equipment slots on things that counter those options. I mention this because 'gimballing' weapons is SIMILAR to what you mention.

tl;dr if the game suited it, it'd be fine. To me, everything about these games has to be designed on a very granular level. But I am a firm believer that a SINGLE average-strength ability out of HUNDREDS being ONE frame too fast can ruin a game.

Post by Noaani on 2022-10-14 17:59:39

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Post by Noaani on 2022-10-14 18:10:10

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Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 18:36:25

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Yeah, I forgot to mention that projectiles would probably have to be on the speedier side in this kind of system.

And as for forcing the attack, I feel like that side would just be covered by the action side of combat. I tried to add mechanical skill to the tab combat, while still keeping it purely tab, all while trying to keep the dodge mechanics intact. Projectile's angle could be widened a bit to let it hit moving targets a bit more often, though that's obviously a testable thing.

Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 18:48:20

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Yeah, I forgot to mention that projectiles would probably have to be on the speedier side in this kind of system.

And as for forcing the attack, I feel like that side would just be covered by the action side of combat. I tried to add mechanical skill to the tab combat, while still keeping it purely tab, all while trying to keep the dodge mechanics intact. Projectile's angle could be widened a bit to let it hit moving targets a bit more often, though that's obviously a testable thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW0cNNffuzE


If you watch this briefly, look for the SMALLER circle target reticles.

Then, notice that sometimes the player does not fire despite those reticles being on target. Not often, but it happens. The reason for this is that the projectile speed of the bullets combined with THEIR ship's trajectory means that many of the bullets would still miss, even though their weapon is 'gimballed'.

"Turret" weapons work the same relative to smaller enemy movements, particularly on faster ships, but can autofire in all directions, which matches the concept of 'you don't have to be facing the target at all, but their dodging still works'.

The 'Long Range' mod would improve projectile speed, making it more likely that the guns will hit the target, but the 'arc of the gimballing' or 'speed of turret target resolution' might still not be enough, depending on the weapon (bigger single shot cannons sometimes have this issue, similar to a 'more powerful skill').

Post by Asgerr on 2022-10-14 19:06:16

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Post by Depraved on 2022-10-14 19:11:09

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Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 19:12:32

Then, notice that sometimes the player does not fire despite those reticles being on target. Not often, but it happens. The reason for this is that the projectile speed of the bullets combined with THEIR ship's trajectory means that many of the bullets would still miss, even though their weapon is 'gimballed'.
Do they not shoot because the ammo is limited? Or is there some other effect that makes not shooting in those situations more beneficial in the long run?

Cause I'm trying to apply this info in the context of leading shots in smth like Ashes and I find it hard to see how it applies.

Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 19:20:21

Then, notice that sometimes the player does not fire despite those reticles being on target. Not often, but it happens. The reason for this is that the projectile speed of the bullets combined with THEIR ship's trajectory means that many of the bullets would still miss, even though their weapon is 'gimballed'.
Do they not shoot because the ammo is limited? Or is there some other effect that makes not shooting in those situations more beneficial in the long run?

Cause I'm trying to apply this info in the context of leading shots in smth like Ashes and I find it hard to see how it applies.

Limited ammo.

For a skill, in a Fantasy game, the Skill would still fire off with all the associated costs, but miss, or go on cooldown, yes.

Or in Ashes, even just 'Bow Durability depletion' might matter.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 19:27:45

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Post by Noaani on 2022-10-14 19:31:23

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Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 19:31:32

Limited ammo.

For a skill, in a Fantasy game, the Skill would still fire off with all the associated costs, but miss, or go on cooldown, yes.

Or in Ashes, even just 'Bow Durability depletion' might matter.
Would you then prefer Ashes to have the ability to make leading shots even in hard lock tab mode? And what kind of range could it lead?

Cause I just doublechecked how hard lock attacks worked in the archer demo and that shit turned you 180 on a dime. I didn't notice that before, but imo that's bad design and I hope it's just placeholder. But even if it is, that seems to be an indicator of design direction. In other words, the system might already be what I'm suggesting, that is "your character turns to look directly at their target to shoot". Except while I suggest that autoturning is slow, currently it's instant.

4:36 and onward you can see the character do a 180 as soon as Steven tries to use quickshot
https://youtu.be/0257a-goFwE?t=276

In other words, this is already the L2 way, but worse :D

edit: he turned himself, it wasn't an autoturn, my mistake. But the turn being instant is still bad design imo.

Post by Noaani on 2022-10-14 19:40:06

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Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 19:46:24

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Post by Ludullu on 2022-10-14 19:49:00

I've paid more attention to the video and realized that I was completely off base on all my assumptions :D L2 bias shows itself once again. The whole hard lock tab system is literally what I described. The character is looking directly at the target as long as the target is at the front. So any ability use will just go towards it.

I'm used to character's direction mattering because L2's combat was fully rooted and turn rate of the character was quite low. But I then remembered my dancing around a target in WoW and realized that L2's system was an outlier in that regard. Full tab usually just has your character's vision centered on the target, while you move laterally around them, instead of running determining your direction.

And now I understand why WoW's combat felt so damn floaty to me. Yall can disregard my suggestion completely, cause it got nothing to do with how most tab games work :D I'm too much of a boomer in that regard.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 19:57:27

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Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 20:09:37

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Physical skills are muscle-memory based and can be autopiloted, though, that's why this comes up.

I've zoned out playing footsies in SFV with other PLAYERS. Not 'weak' players, either, it's just a thing the mind learns how to do. I've had other top players 'fight me effectively while chatting with friends and occasionally looking away from the screen'.

These things are not hard enough for someone like Noaani, so from THAT side it is 'you're taking complexity and difficulty out of the game and replacing it with something I don't need to consciously think about, to do'.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 21:07:28

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Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 21:15:38

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I am not talking about people far below.

I keep meaning to ask you if the only game you played at this level is Soul Calibur, but I wonder if you'll answer.

The reason I'm asking is that I normally assume fighting game players play multiple games, so I talk to you as if you've played certain others at similar levels to what I've seen from your Soul Calibur play, when you might not have done that and therefore have different expectations.

I am ENTIRELY confident that Noaani would body BOTH of us in most fighting games if so chosen to, and would find it easy to do.

(you don't need to counter that point to defend your honor because no one other than me cares, and I've watched your matches so I am pretty confident in it).

At some point I've seen some indication that Noaani was a top PvP player in ArcheAge, as mentioned. Noaani's high skill is not in question here, if we are not challenging that claim. It can be treated as a fact.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 21:27:14

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Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 21:28:48

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Post by Mag7spy on 2022-10-14 21:31:42

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Post by Azherae on 2022-10-14 21:51:13

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I don't need to see people's content to trust their words, I feel no need to do this.

If Noaani is lying about this, I assume someone will make it clear eventually. And even if so, it doesn't matter because a 'hypothetical Noaani' must exist.

I also don't assume that high level PvE players are bad at PvP, I automatically assume the OPPOSITE.

I will remind you that making that top 10 claim for Soul Calibur around me is not meaningful, I know all of the timing and information surrounding that. But now that I know that the only game you play seriously is SC, I can stop making certain appeals to experiences I thought you would have had.

I now understand that Noaani probably shouldn't make certain comparisons when talking with you either. This is my fault for making assumptions about your experiences and trying to reframe things Noaani says when you quote them, to 'Fighting Game Experience'.

I will stop making references to such games when addressing you on these matters. I'd prefer not to take this any further as I think it might be too difficult to avoid somehow offending you or making you feel defensive.

But I stand by my claim. I know your skill level in SC. I know what thought processes SC does not teach. I know that your 'top 10 player' status lasted for like ... six days I think, if that? I can go ask.

Let's not make this about you trying to prove your ability, I am the only one who cares and I am unlikely to ever change my mind. There's no reason for me to expect that a person who is most likely telling the truth about being top tier will not win against someone who I have explicitly seen play, given basic effort.

You can continue to believe that sort of thing if you want, I'm just saying it won't ever convince ME, and that's okay.