Combat Discussion

Edit: Oh I took up the top post slot without a new compilation, but that's fine since last page was data gather and philosophy, and it's probably better not to repeat that. So if you're looking at this and want the "Latest Compilation" just go back to page 4. Also, this post is a response to @maouw 's on the previous page.

There are actually two ways around 'group skill-spam deletion' that I expect Ashes to flirt with, though, whether others like them or not is definitely going to be a big point of feedback contention.

(You may need some of my 'concept of what the likely augments are based on class names' from the 'Tanking' thread, somewhere around the middle of page 4, but probably not).

Based on what I expect from Augments, I'm highly suspicious that Ashes is going to have fewer direct damage abilities, but still have a lot of abilities overall. Also that the 'skill points method' of choosing those abilities will result in any given player not having too many damage ones. The Global CoolDown would be how 1v1 or even 2v1 would not result in the player dying instantly even if they have no mana (assuming Strafing Q/LMB).

Utility skills can be tuned to do much less damage, this doesn't prevent 'Javelin Tank pulling you into a 4v1 and you getting deleted', but there's some counterplay if you have to keep spending points in a skill to keep the damage 'relevant'. E.g. Ranger's 'Bow Combo' might do 40+STR/10 damage at level 1, but that won't keep up or become some 'relevant' number without skill points pumped in to make it something like 60+STR/5 at a higher level.

I'm expecting a lot of DoT, damage mitigation, and utility stuff, particularly damage mitigation buffs, to end up padding out the skill lists. The reasons for this belief have more to do with my expectation of how open world 'Raid Boss PvP' will be designed, but it's all speculation, so it would get its own thread, if my group decides that they care enough for me to try to suggest it.

Part of the reason the Compilation includes parts 1 and 2 is actually that I expect the number of abilities to be lower, and that people won't be happy without the Strafing Q/LMB for mobility. I also expect that they'll be really upset by 'seeing an enemy Javelin Tank hunting party coming for them' and not having a Brace to get a chance to negate the Javelin at the right timing.

I'll know when we see the Combat Revamp, there's a lot of little things in there about 'how mana costs scale if at all' and 'overall growth of the mana pool', but the 'standard' for games like this is pretty predictable if balance, even 3v3 balance, is their goal. It almost always converges (or the game sucks and dies).

I also have other expectations about group synergy in Sieges (similar to the concept of the Summoner party calling the WarBeast) that might make 'let's focus down their healer and delete 'em' sufficiently harder to actually do, that GvG would not consistently devolve into skill-spam death (Imagine if Tank's Shockwave or some separate skill temporarily created an impassable area of jagged earth on the ground in front of them, for example, as a solution to 'not wanting to buff the HP on everyone')

Even so, there are many players that will have 1v1 out in the open world, and it might be nice for those players to get as close to balance as possible.

If a person can attack another for their gathered items with minimal risk because their advantage is considerable in a 1v1 scenario, especially since main Archetype can't be changed, it will probably be less engaging than if the balance is close enough for the 'bad matchup' to prepare really specifically for their 'dominant opponent' and maybe surprise them.

If Clerics lose to Fighters as a generality, and one is known as a Cleric, gathering alone puts all the risk on you and very little on your attacker. The answer would be 'don't gather alone', but I feel like we should make the effort.

Though, I am interested in that, what is your planned personal solution to 'being hunted by your bad matchup while doing things'? I don't know if you're the sort of person who will ever travel out of a safe area alone.

Well, either way, @Tubes ' expressed desire was just that it feel engaging, not specifically 'be balanced', which is even easier, and 'relatively balanced' is pretty easy, so we're back to a discussion of how to achieve a skill ceiling.

I can 'guarantee' a skill ceiling of 17 decisions per minute with the current Compilation, with synergies from all obvious functional augments raising the awareness level (without relying on UI) to 24 decisions per minute on any classes other than Rogue or Bard assuming that Bards don't have really long animations for their buffs.

(If you care how I get to those numbers, it's a fighting game experience kind of thing, you have to be able to simulate matches in your head the way a chess player does, so we know this sort of data beforehand)

I think that going past 30 decisions per minute leads to decision fatigue very fast, but if players would want to have to make more than 30, there are ways to tweak the Compilation to get to it, even without knowing how many abilities they intend to add.

For now, don't worry about balance. I say this both out of 'my arrogance' and 'my faith'. Saying things like 'not balancing for 1v1' is 'insurance' most of the time. Devs still try, but when they realize that perfect balance can't be reached, they settle for 'balance soft-cap'.

Technically it's harder to balance for 3v3 without partially balancing for 1v1 precisely because it means whoever has the gap-closer or the faster engage wins by rapidly making it a 3v2, and 'making the cost of that high' still doesn't change the fact that it is so. That's saying 'we will make abilities where three people have to use up a whole person worth of resources on their side'.

I don't think we're likely to see that since it usually makes TTK extremely low.

As we see it now, the current abilities are designed with a lot of flux like what you mentioned, in mind. The Weapon Skills I'm familiar with are again, FFXI, so they're mostly damage, but about a third of them also have meaningful utility in the form of debuffs, often at the cost of damage dealt. We know that Jeff either played that game or was familiar (from some quotes about how mobs detect and so on), though I wouldn't necessarily make any inferences from that. Still, it would be a little odd to not have them, I see a lot of signs of it, in quotes.

So back to abilities, let's take the 'Jagged Earth' I mentioned, and assume it's an upgrade of Shockwave, and blocks all those pesky 'ray-casted' abilities like Prismatic Beam, Chain Lightning, Weapon throw, and Javelin, for whatever duration.

It can be used as a knockback+knockdown, but the ground is impassable to the user too, let's say, so you need a ranged attacker or a flanker to capitalize easily, otherwise you're just buying yourself time to use buffs.

It can be used without even hitting the opponent, just to prevent them from moving to an objective for a while, or to block a group of mages from beaming you or your group into ashes, but you don't get the damage.

It can be used to isolate one member of a group from others by blocking off the others a little, if the enemy Rogue slipped behind defenders and was assuming they would be saved by the main group, now they can't get immediate help and they can't easily run straight toward their comrades either.

On the 'potential augments' side, a Tank/Cleric wants to hit with this ability every time (assuming it has an On-Hit heal to the user) and hit the maximum number of people. A Tank/Mage (assuming Meteoric Impact to make the Jagged Earth area/cone even bigger) might moreso use it to block things, and a Tank/Tank might not bother to augment this skill for PvP at all and focus on a PvE style augment, while just using their other skills to deal with the above situation as suits them.

The counterplays and decisions made would get pretty hectic, yes, but probably not overwhelming.

@Grihm - that would be a difficult 'sell' for two reasons. Firstly, For Honor is basically a fighting game, with hitstop, frame data, everything. And has maybe too much of what we fighting gamers call 'footsies'. Very slight adjustments to range to make your opponents miss so you can punish them while they are animation locked in the recovery, or overcommit with a longer range attack that you then move into range and block at the last minute and counterattack because it has 'frame disadvantage' when blocked.

I can add 'more footsies' to the compilation, but I've avoided it since this started from 'people who wanted Action style combat to be faster' and 'people who don't want it to be like a fighting game' so there would be a schism there, and one would need a lot more people of that opinion to share it, in this thread, before I'd consider it accurate to do so. But you are +1 to it.

@Dygz - Any specific reasons? The actual request when the video was first linked, was to please complain about Paragon (or at least the Feng Mao video) as much as possible.

@maouw - Got it. I'm used to 3 decision options since that's where most games, fighting games or otherwise, tend to converge in their moment-to-moment combat. I expect fighters to get a big leaping bypass and an AoE slam-knockback, and for Blink to bypass this ability if it were added. Personally I also automatically think of the wall as destructible but this is a lot harder to code without massive testing in terms of interactions in an MMO of this size. That said, my other ideas would still require it (the 'Special Ability for 8-Tank Party in Siege would be, you guessed it - Rumble Wall - where they all use Jagged Earth at once to put up an entire wall, and that one be destructible for sure)

I'm familiar with the destructible version from Paladins (a Tank Champion 'Inara' has this sort of thing) but in Paladins you normally only have to worry about max 3-4 of this wall being in play.

Anyways here's the current idea in simulant form, since the Compilation doesn't really show the dynamic between my thinking and the original posters' goals.

1. A player sees an opponent coming and is wary of them, watching them carefully, possibly with weapon drawn, just in the open world. In the current implementation in the game their options are all ability based, and dodge, and rely on the player having abilities to do something here (Clerics don't currently get anything, for example). Strafing Q/LMB adds an on-reaction option to most attacks with longer animations, and Brace adds an option against shorter animation CC. The moment you see the opponent's name color change, you are reacting with one of these two, regardless of your class.

2. We assume the player chose Brace or was too slow on the Strafe Hit, takes damage, and the enemy is right next to them, assuming a Fighter's Leap. Now, Dodge is still available, another Strafe is available (but chaseable by the Fighter's W+Q/LMB, I've used this example before probably earlier in the thread, so spoilers).The Fighter has to turn to get this done, though, and after a short recovery, you could Strafe again (you'd probably still get clipped by their attack). Since weapon being drawn is required for this, Mages would be unable to recover mana, but they also have a better Strafe due to the wand option. The Fighter decides if to go for another Gap Closer with CC because their target is a 'Strafe Spammer', times the attack, and gets the CC, or assumes they're being baited into using such an attack and wasting mana on someone who is about to Brace.

3. The Fighter retains advantage due to never being in range to get hit by the Strafes (in my mind they take about 3/4 of a second to fully animate, but move your 'hurtbox' out of the way of most linear attacks by 1/4 of a second in, but this is all 'frame data' level specificity which only matters in precise terms if you can't imagine it, I don't know if you play them and need any context. Anyway, the target is lower on health no matter what, and if they keep 'spamming' Strafe and the Fighter keeps managing Chase Q/LMB, they keep taking more damage over all. Every second or so of the Fighter doing this successfully, the target loses 7% health and has to start thinking about what to do about this. Are they stalling for a nearby ally? Trying to get to a terrain position?

4. Eventually the target sets up a situation or range where they get to have a sure shot at some ability they want to use. Shockwave? Castigation? some Frost bind thing? If they pull this off because the Fighter has overcommitted to expecting that they will keep strafing, things shifted and the Fighter now has to care. This is the reason that all forms of Q were possibly to take small amounts of stamina, so that a player would eventually tire out of just Strafe and Chase, be unable to Brace (or dodge?) for a moment, and be at the mercy of their opponent's toolset. There's a pressure to come up with something that will help you regain Stamina, using an ability, before that happens, but in a GvG, maybe the weighting of that decision is different.

5. The Fighter could see them doing this, decide to spend a Mana Potion and try to perfectly use their other Gap Closer, or buff up and then use a big one, since if the target strafing, even in Action Mode, Fighter still can see where the target is likely to end up. In Tab Target mode, even easier, because they don't care about any 'Action Mode enabled CCs', only about getting closer. So they use more abilities, knowing that because the target's intent is to stretch out the battle, they should prioritize stamina. The target could notice and react to this and try to heal, but the Fighter has the advantage. On offense, they have more time to think, to make the call, and they're not reacting to anything. The Target, if they just 'spam Strafe', can't 'stop to use their potion' (assuming this is a thing) until their next one ends, putting them in perfect position for the Fighter's Somersault Strike or whatever.

It goes on and on. I figured this sort of thing would be the maximum most people would accept in an MMO without the big schism between the Action Combat supporters and the Timing Combat supporters (people who want Tab Target but don't want Timing to be the difficulty, I am not convinced want difficulty, or if they do, it's a dangerous type that leads to decision fatigue). It also doesn't innately lead to 'fighting game' play as most of us understand it (that could devolve fast into Spear users always winning in 'footsies' and people already are pulling toward spears in PvP).

So far, the Compilation has no specific complaints, but as always, please correct me. Even the beginnings of a consensus on a system probably would help the Devs immensely at this stage. Nothing worse than 'having to come up with your own design spec' with no idea of the client's goals.

Even if the current direction of their revamp doesn't match this at all, they will at least be able to know what complaints they may get.

I'd discuss more Paragon related stuff, specifically what happens when you're not playing melee , but...

The map they are on was their new map, designed for 'verticality' and 'opportunity', which ended up being code for 'one person always has advantage and the best course of action for the other is to run' which leads to a lot of that chase and half-finished battles.

It lost a lot of the effectiveness of the first map, where that was much harder to do, you couldn't be sure if your opponent had a buff that would make the fight more even, and more battles were about positioning in the much wider lanes. Without changing basically any characters, just the map tweak and 'the way buffs work and where they spawned', the game did, successfully shift toward a more MOBA feeling.

Whether or not that was good depends on if you started Paragon because you like MOBAs and wanted to play the same thing in 3D, or if you got into it because a 3D MOBA feels different enough to enjoy playing it. Ashes is sure to face this problem no matter which direction it takes, which is also why I hope they can commit to one relatively early. Nothing worse than having the rug pulled out from under you and a game you love getting revamped, but at least in this case, those of us who see things changed away from what we want, can just unsub.

I liked it more when Health and Regen were better and timing/positioning were how you built up advantage, and damage classes still did well because your healing couldn't outpace their damage once their cooldowns were back up.

The Compilation isn't actually based on that though, since this isn't built for me.

There's no point in even giving timestamps for the battles in that match since they don't really feel anything like 'battles' (see Spoiler text) in the context we're discussing. If you feel like giving an opinion on that, it might help potential Rangers add to the current discussion, though.

Ok, thanks a lot, truly.

I've played Neverwinter, I have enough experience with it, on multiple classes, and with friends, to adjust and discuss it.

You probably don't need to check much more on Paragon. It really is what you see, for that character in particular. It's completely unsuitable for an MMORPG which is sort of why I chose it. I needed a video where everyone could say 'this is wrong, I want this to be different'.

As for Neverwinter otherwise, it brings up something that I may need to clarify with posters quite often, please feel free to join me in seeking this same clarification, so the Devs can get more direct feedback. Either way...

As a Rogue in NWO, I have action abilities, but I have something akin to Tab Target, in that, my reticle is 'sticky'. The same thing happens in BDO and one or two other games. Once I have 'hitscanned' my reticle over a target in action mode, I no longer always have to line up the shot for throwing daggers, for example.

I don't think most people would complain about this other than in large scale PvP, but there might be some who dislike it. You can see what I'm talking about at the 6:20 mark of that video if you check it in slow motion, assuming you're not aware already. The player slowly moves the reticle toward the next enemy, but the thrown daggers still hit the first.

There's also the aforementioned 'really wide swing arc for melee'.

A game's pacing is very seldom decided by how the targeting works, it's decided by how the reticle works vs how evasion works. Ashes already has some 'your target is not in your attack cone/line of sight' limitations on even tab targeted abilities, so I'd quite frankly say that we can outright ignore tab target vs action combat given the skills we know of, hence the Compilation's state.

The other thing you will see in Neverwinter Combat is that 'need to be able to move a certain distance sideways suddenly'. The flaw I've often met is that since you do not attack during this, there's a bunch of balance issues, hence 'Strafing Q'.

Otherwise though, it's what we've already discussed, so I hope I can consider it fair to say that you support the current Compilation, and hopefully I can consider it 'successful' in terms of the usefulness of showing the Paragon Video.

As always, please correct me.

Unfortunately most games with 'good combat' devolve into 'balance issues' because of an essayworth of tiny things.

I spend a massive amount of time studying these tiny things, hence all the stuff you have to read (sorry!).

I would be surprised if it were not that order in terms of difficulty to bring HP down to 0 once you start to hit them. Mages just have so much upfront damage, that you need to be able to burst them down or keep them from casting more. That's the experience so far from Alpha tests, even before any revamp.

Floaty combat seems to generally refer to 'I can move from side to side in unrealistic ways while swinging my weapon at full strength, and not reacting in any way to my opponent's attacks'. Slow animations don't help. If you have low 'recovery time' on your slashes, for example, it makes it worse.

I find the more useful terms are "High Impact" and "Low Impact", because you can combine those with "High Recovery" and "Low Recovery" to get feedback.

NWO is generally Low Impact Low Recovery, which is fast, but the low recovery is what helps to cause the imbalances and feeling of skills being like that.

Tera is sort of in the middle, by class, but is normally "High Impact Low Recovery" which is generally built for games with big enemies who have huge sweeping attacks and characters have lots of iFrames. Basically meant to give some skill illusion, and feel really good.

Ashes right now is High Impact High Recovery but this doesn't work as well with its limited movement. Split Body generally changes a game to Low Impact Low Recovery because if it changes it to Low Impact High Recovery everyone almost universally hates it and wonders what the Devs were smoking.

Do you have any specific input regarding the page 4 Compilation?

@Cold 0ne FTB - not much of the changes are actually in yet. In my last attempt I was able to understand what they meant by rotational speed though, if you hold Q, you can adjust your character's facing between swings. It doesn't feel meaningful to me yet.

@Dygz - I would actually argue that Ashes is already almost entirely Action Combat (main exception being Fireball), which is why it works. Example, if I use Castigate but my opponent is either too far away or too much out of a frontal cone (I feel like I saw this message and I don't unlock attack skills other than Castigate in tests), the ability doesn't fire.

(Strafing Q refers to a spinning sideways attack+evade using D+Q or A+Q, as opposed to 'walking sideways slowly while swinging')

I will have to poke more at the various 'Action Combat only!' feedback people, but if they will accept 'tab target but abilities miss or don't fire if you are out of their cone', 'sticky reticles', ground telegraphs on things like a Fighter's potential leaping closer, and Strafing Q (fixed distance type), I think there's no current arguments at all.

Except Animation Cancels and moves with lots of iFrames, but I believe those have already been disqualified by Word Of Steven.

If the community can agree that 'sticky reticle' could replace most Tab Targeted linear skills, as of now, there might, in fact, be a way to move further away from Tab Target other than for healing and 'buffs you want to cast on allies around you while swinging at target in front'.

One option would be to have your Tab Target be 'the target that your sticky reticle snaps to', and hitting tab while over a target would cause that one to be targeted (for when you're trying to pick one person out of a group but only get your reticle over them for a moment).