a problem with auto attacks

None of the numbers are balanced, so dmg values are irrelevant. And the same goes for basic attacks vs abilities. We have no clue how strong any of those abilities will be at the end, so you might not be losing out on dps when you use them. We've also have seen any real proc abilities on weapons, which might add more interactions between abilities and basic attacks, so you'll feel like you HAVE to use abilities if you want to keep your dps up.

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Every day I pray for no god damn gcd

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Animation-locked combat works perfectly for both tab and action. Serves the same purpose as gcd, except w/o your wholeass skillbar constantly CDing when you use a single ability.

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Why though? If all abilities shoot out at the end of the animation (to help with the ping and to give the ability to cancel out or interrupt the cast), the melee ability wouldn't be any different. It would then just come down to the effect of the ability and your timing with it, and probably resource cost as well. You'd burst with your quick ones, but then use the bigger ones after a CC of some kind. Or you start off with the CC, then do your slow animations and then finish off with your fasts ones. All kinds of approaches for all kinds of encounters.

Add to that the variety that could come with different CD/animation (de)buffs and you have yourself a really deep combat system, rather than "I hit this, everything is on cd so I have time to reposition and hit this, rinse repeat".

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Wouldn't this be the same as any magic ability with the same animation? Isn't the whole point of action combat to be able to dodge shit by a hair's width? And melee abilities would probably have some type of cone effect to them, so it won't be the same as a magic projectile that has to hit precisely on the hitbox. Melee abilities will also have movement part to them, so you'll just have to predict which way your enemy might dodge, which will increase action combat's difficulty and skillcap, as action players seem to want.

And backwards dodge could cost a bit more stamina (or mana, or whichever resource) than a sidestep, so that people trying to avoid all attacks by just dashing back would run out of stamina faster. This would also counterbalance mages a bit, because most projectiles would probably get sidestepped rather than backstepped, so melees will have a bit of an easier time fighting mages.

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In what online games though? I'd assume stuff like MOBAs and fighting games rely the most on ping and neither of those have gcd afaik. With fighting games having their own approach to countering ping in the form of predictive inputs (or however they're called, the rollback(?) netcode thingy).

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If tab abilities can't be dodged through stats and action movement boosting those stats - Intrepid would've probably failed with their hybrid combat, because they game would just effectively be tab. And I think they discussed dodges and all that stuff either on the tank stream or somewhere around that.

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Yes, they're separated, but you can move and use your abilities. Just look at the melee showcase, they were moving forward and hitting or moving sideward and hitting. And if we can move while doing the cast, then you can gain on your opponent during the cast itself. And judging by the current design, we seem to be able to do that.

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Yeah, it'll obviously have to be a dodge mechanic rather than just stepping to the side. I should've been clearer about that.

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I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean here. Just as everyone on the map in a moba can be top lvl with best items in super late game, everyone in an mmo can be at the top of their progress as well. And the other way around, just as mmos have different buffs that boost your dps output shortly - the same is true for mobas. And both games rely on tight movement, timings, rotations of abilities and item uses - all of which rely on ping. And I'd even argue that mobas are way faster than most mmos, but they don't have gcd.

Is it about server locations? Character density? Netcode? Something else?

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Not having the cast wouldn't really solve this issue though. Different cast times on abilities would prevent permadodging from enemies. I'm not asking to make all melee abilities 3s+ cast.

But to me executing an attack in one place, then seeing my opponent move 10m but the attack still hitting is way worse than adjusting my attacks to their movement. The whole skillbar CDing is just the shitty cherry on top for me.

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean here. Just as everyone on the map in a moba can be top lvl with best items in super late game, everyone in an mmo can be at the top of their progress as well. And the other way around, just as mmos have different buffs that boost your dps output shortly - the same is true for mobas. And both games rely on tight movement, timings, rotations of abilities and item uses - all of which rely on ping. And I'd even argue that mobas are way faster than most mmos, but they don't have gcd.

Is it about server locations? Character density? Netcode? Something else?

It's a long explanation about how exactly those things stack and roll back with the ping.

The other stuff you said is still right, and it is unlikely that many modern games will be moving forward with any form of GCD, as there are multiple implementations of both netcode and animation structures that allow this to work fine.

KingDDD is also right, but I'm not really sure I understand the point/relevance of the facts they provided either.

I saw no indications that Ashes would need a GCD because Ashes combat is slower in terms of engage options than most, so far. Maybe it will be a blitz later, but I don't think so, it seemed fine to me. What might happen though, is that people who aren't used to it get frustrated because they thought they reacted to something faster than they actually did, a common thing in the genres you are referring to.

If the goal is to give players long windows for reacting to things and good movement, the ping will matter a lot more.

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Could those issues be addressed through gapclosers (though abilities and not innate movement mechanics)? If the melee is the initiator of the fight, they have the advantage of starting up close and having both movement and gapclosers on top of that. If the range is the initiator, they have the range advantage and the "they used their gapcalosers to just get to me" advantage.

After the initiation, it's just about dodging and overall movement of characters, which would stay true no matter the combat design. The only thing that would change is the general gameplay strategy, due to how the abilities work.

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I'd assume there's a limit on how much you can decrease your gcd, otherwise it would start bleeding abilities into other abilities. Couldn't animation design account for the same passives? Just put limits on how far you can take it and account for those limits during development and you won't have the silly animation.

L2's magic attacks looked even cooler at super high cast speeds. Hell, some people even sacrificed some dmg buffs in favor of cast speeds, just to have a cool-looking attack

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It's obviously more complicated that this, but I meant that melee initiation would start in melee range. Obviously if the fight starts at range with both sides ready to fight then melee is at a huge disadvantage, but I don't quite see how gcd would suddenly solve that unbalance. You'd still need to somehow close the gap and then somehow prevent the enemy from increasing the gap again through their own abilities.

If anything, an instant cast ability would allow that range player to instantly increase the gap, because the melee's abilities would be on gcd after using the gap closer. And if you give off-gcd mechanics to either the gap closer or some of the attacks - you're pretty much using what I'm suggesting except as a crutch for the system.

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I guess it's just my inexperience with gcd games, but I've never had issues as a melee in L2. It might've been due to its dmg/ping tracking, which might not work well with action combat, but still. There was still the "hit the target 10m away from you" moments if you start casting an ability on a moving target that keeps running, but I think Ashes could reduce that distance forgiveness due to its movement (because L2 was fully planted).

There was activation distance and a bigger effect distance. If between the activation of an ability and the end of its animation the target ran outside of the effect distance - it wouldn't be damaged. Here's an example of a dagger ability


Super short cast distance, but quite a big effect range. Ashes should definitely have a smaller one, but I think it would still work just fine. The action part would apply to this as well.

Dodges could even decrease the effective range if used during the ability's cast. And you could balance melee abilities on their effective range, with longer casts having a more lenient range.

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As of right now, they aren't.