Combat Discussion

I'm the worst person to ask if that way of doing things is too specific, because I've already done it. I do it for the tabletop game I design, and I've already done it for the Ashes Augment system, just as you have. To me, it just 'happens in my head' on its own.

Since you already did it too, I believe you can see what I meant about the number of skills that can exist for a class. Just multiply by two, your lists of Archetype Mechanics, and that's approximately the number of unique skills an archetype has.

Good news though, is that you don't actually need to push the skills back to their minimalistic versions for the pre-augment abilities. The ones that look like you need to do this, are usually for Fighter and Ranger, but each of these classes has an Augment (based on their class names set) that can just cover all those spaces while still being an ability, and an automatic slot augment for the Archetype when they use the corresponding ability.

Either way, @maouw , my point is that you and I are seeing the same fractal, so we won't really be able to judge if what we're seeing is too specific or complex until someone else tells us, and I'm sure we could just trade examples all day until we've 'designed all the Archetypes'.

The thing is, that might not get us to the number of skills that @Littlekenny21 was discussing, you and I end up at the same numbers, if we are specifically not counting the 'stand there and buff self/group for Utility' skills.

The question is going to be about the 'padding' skills, where the skills are similar, and only get 'flavor' across the Archetypes, but the 'simple abilities are also fine' is the vote so far, and I think that is what you're saying you're okay with too.

Edit: Oh hey new top of page already. Here's the Current Compilation.

1. Sideways and forward animations for the Q/LMB to add variety and evasion ability, along with chase options, while either neutral Q/LMB or S+Q/LMB prevents any forward movement while attacking.
2. A Brace option that reduces damage and blocks CC unless the enemy has 'Overwhelm' on their ability. Some stamina cost here.
3. Possibly a small stamina cost for some versions of those directional Q abilities so we can have movement but not eternally.
4. Gated strings with different attack animations (we already have a combo attack like this, but some posters have asked for more variety)
5. Limitations on the usability of certain skills when the enemy is out of its attack cone, regardless of your Tab Target.
6. 'Sticky reticle' behaviour to enhance targeting, possibly assisting with the Tab Targeting itself, but not requiring it, to make the transitions between Tab and Action easier
7. Ability to dodge twice before Dodge Cooldown fully triggers (Dodge retains a stamina cost). E.g. Dodge once and it 'recharges your first dodge' but you have another you can always use. Dodge twice and now you can't dodge again until recharged.
8. Some telegraphs of the attack vector or cone of abilities (especially those that can be varied through augments)
9. A stamina cost tied to jumping (perhaps only when weapons drawn). Note, not universal, this has a dissenter in this thread, and others that don't want it without some equivalent of #1.


This thread seems to have become long enough (and the Compilation detailed enough) that it may lose some of its tendency to attract feedback.

I was hoping that last week's build would have some Combat Revamp or Split Body stuff in it so that we could focus feedback on that, and this thread could basically be replaced with the currently-shorter Split Body Pitfalls one (with transfer of the Compilation itself). But I don't want to push things like that without others having reference to the actual feeling of the changes, and I don't know if those will be in this week's spot test either. So if this thread winds down (not saying it has to), that's probably why.

Agreed. I was only counting things in the [Climax/Transition/End] category at the time I was discussing with Littlekenny21 though, because that's where the general perception of 'dynamism' comes from, as I understand it for most people.

So my previous statements should be taken to mean only 'attack' skills. I can see how to get up to 8 on non-Mages (mages being easier because people will accept 'each element' as separate) without too much overlap, but it starts to overlap a lot at 12 or more.

The test case I'm using, for reference, is 'making more than 12 Fighter abilities that don't overlap with each other, obvious Weapon skills, or known Tank abilities'. Fighter is my default test case since balance is going to involve a lot of their stuff. Gotta make them properly appealing or the game will just be 'Tank + Healer + Ranged DPS'.

@maouw Let me know what you come up with on that front and possibly someone who wants to play that class, or Littlekenny21/Cypher (whether or not they are interested in Fighter specifically, they have related input here) can say what gameplay they expect to emerge. I won't bother listing mine, like I said, I hit the wall on Fighter pretty fast with that limitation.

From today's spot test I've confirmed that you get an 'Outside Ability Arc' message when trying to use certain attack skills, but at the moment it's a full 90 degree cone (45 degrees to either side of the character's front body line).

I can't say I specifically expect, or don't expect, a change, here, but it's probably worth discussion since it's a really direct measurement of what people consider to be 'the correct requirement of skill for this type of game'.

For Action Combat fans, If you have tab targeted an opponent and want to hit them with Javelin or Castigate, what's the widest angle from body-line that you'll accept before you feel like 'player skill is being downplayed'? If you haven't tab targeted them, what's the requirement, how far off your reticle can a person be and still get hit?

Well, the request was a matter of how much time the Devs spend on each. They've got quite a while before Alpha-2, and 5 weeks until Alpha-1, and we don't know the status of their current build for the Combat Revamp.

For reticle stickiness considerations, I posted a different thread that is related to philosophy that might matter to what this Compilation suggests.

Anyway, I would do this/have been doing this by thinking specifically about 'what should a class be able to do without any reliance on its primary weapon?'. Even if it implies that they have some secondary weapon(s) that are only used for that ability, e.g. Tank's Javelin and... let's guess Hatchet or something for Weapon Throw.

That's how I can get up to 8 on Fighter, and then I add two 'variations' to get to 10, two more 'pushing it a bit' variations to get to 12, and then... nothing. Everything else is a copy, a Weapon ability or a weaker version of something they have already.

This isn't entirely bad, to have one or two duplicates each, because of something else. If Augments work the way I think (every skill can have a specific augment) then sometimes you want to have both the 'Shockwave causes a Dust Cloud' and 'Shockwave ignores some enemy defense' as a Tank, and this is moreso 'making Nightshields likely to be similar to each other' than it is 'making Nightshield itself the cookie-cutter/meta Tank.

That's more an Intrepid philosophy thing, so if the posters who want to have more abilities overall, think that it sounds like a good idea, then duplicates are great, especially on things that don't have CC. Or, if a move does have CC, maybe give it a lower cost non-CC version for PvE or 'in those situations where you only want the Augment from your secondary'. Probably not a problem that needs to be tackled unless they don't want this.

Dygz implied a while back that reticle stickiness should maybe be affected by character's stats. Having thought on this, a question popped up. Does a Rogue get 'less stickiness' on any reticle that passes over them? This would diminish the need to make them quite as flashy/speed demons and therefore FotM, but thinking of it from my programming perspective, it's not necessarily too difficult (the client already has data on what it's targeting, with the main issue here being 'did the Rogue use an evasion up ability in that moment' latency issues.)

Similarly, accuracy up abilities and 'baked-in high accuracy' abilities could have stickier reticles overall. Would this work for Action Combat players, or would the constantly shifting effect be moreso annoying for muscle memory? And if it wouldn't work and the stickiness should be purely based on the ability being used, how (if at all) should players be rewarded for trying to build more evasion in some form?

Quicknote from today's siege testing.

Without Brace, group fights with multiple tanks turn into 'footsies', even at defensive positions, with each group carefully wiggling back and forth to see who can grab who with Javelin the easiest.

No obvious counterplays exist at this time.

Note that on a personal level, this isn't a complaint, if anything, the opposite. Since my team are fighting game players and find this quite easy to do, it let us dominate a lot, in situations that I feel should otherwise have been more balanced. The opponent groups had much more potential damage output, but couldn't get the positioning right.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, just reporting stuff for people who aren't part of Alpha testing.

Right now, the focus isn't on combat balance, so please bear that in mind relative to my answer.

1. Only Tanks have this ability, which actually makes it even more 'footsies', but explaining why is... about as difficult as explaining that concept in fighting games.
2. It appears to affect everyone equally and basically no matter what they are doing (which is the thing that I figure might matter in balance).

It's reasonable that there is a benefit to having a well balanced group, obviously, so please consider that I'm not really talking about 'my group being well put together'. It's specifically a type of skill that some previous posters in this particular thread were concerned about, appearing in the game. I am letting them know that at the moment, the result is as predicted. Whether it is good or bad is up to your perception of what the game should be.

My mention of 'how it affects me and my group' is for disclosure so that others can judge my intention in saying it, as they see fit.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Combat#Animation_cancelling as you know.

@Cold 0ne FTB
What do you mean by 'locking system'? Is this supposed to be a sticky reticle or 'tab target' on someone you've targeted for a heal once?

And of course, any explanation you have as to how exactly animation canceling raises the skill ceiling or adds depth, is appreciated. You can be as technical as you like, I play characters like Seth in Under Night, so I think I can probably get the gist of whatever you mention without necessarily playing the game you use for your example.

I'm not sure why one would want considerably more mechanical challenge though, unless it is adding some element of vulnerability during the execution that is meant to create decision structures.

I don't want to start the usual 'fighting game' side of this debate here too, so instead, tell me which of these three things you're talking about (so that other posters can understand what you care about). You don't need to understand what any of the 'moves' in question are, they're just button presses.

Rhythm:
My base combo for Seth when done at minimum range is a rhythm game. I make no decisions. I just press 5C, 5C cancel 214C, jump C cancel 214A, 5 frames pause, 214B, 2 frames pause, B, and then whatever ender is appropriate. This doesn't require me to understand anything more than the equivalent of playing a piano sheet music piece. I practice it for an hour or so and after 12-20 hours I can do it without thinking about it.

Recognition:
My base combo doesn't work when it's not minimum range. At a certain range I have to do 5C, 2C cancel instead of 5C 5C, and the timing on the jump C is different. If the opponent is in a certain state, the 5 frame pause becomes a 7 frame pause because the jump C caused my character to go higher in the air and will take longer to land before the 214B. This requires practice of a different kind, but I still have to practice this separately. Another 12-20 hours for perfection, after that, the work is 'recognizing the range at which I started' and 'hit confirming the first 5C without mashing'.

Control:
Assuming that I used either of the above, the choice of which ender to use to lock down the opponent depends on where they are on the screen and which of the two I did. If I did the close range version I have to finish with an orb to lock down if they're midscreen, but with another 214A to get under them and corner them if we were close. If I was using the longer range one I have to use one of two meter-requiring options based on where I want them to land and the character so that I can pressure safely. Neither of these cancels takes more than 4 hours to perfect, and it isn't really recognition because I did that at the start.

Momentum Variation:
Different game, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, Jam Kuradoberi, use a flying kick and 'Roman Cancel' to maintain the momentum while canceling the attack itself, at varying points in the attack, in order to make the opponent face an almost unreactable situation or force them to react with a risky attack, while masking pretty much everything about my own movement except against someone who has seen it about 40-50 times before.

So, while I play what I think is considered the highest skill ceiling character in one game (might be second highest) and a highly variable one in another, none of what is related to 'skill ceiling' is related to animation cancels other than 'practice doing this precise hand movement', or 'forcing my opponent to practice a specific form of defense dozens of times'.

So I need to know which of those four things, if any, you consider to be the 'skill' part, and if none of the above, any equivalent example would help, since I feel like the Compilation is not achieving whatever you want, but there may be a way to get it without Intrepid changing their stance on Animation cancels.

Most fighting games, especially the older, 'nostalgic' ones, barely have any of this at all, and the skill is heavily skewed toward positioning.

Without going too much into theory, long difficult combos that a player has to practice, serve one specific purpose in such games (not all of them, some of them are just 'rhythm game combo meters')

"I am going to demonstrate to you how large a mistake you just made, you have given me such a large opening that I can use my most devastating practiced skill."

The amount of practice required is a psychological trick. It's there only to make it so that new players can't randomly just 'hit one button and do huge damage', because if you give them that, they don't understand, they just try to hit it all the time, get lucky, and don't learn anything (not to mention annoying their opponents terribly).

Getting hit by one of these is supposed to be a way that your opponent tells you 'I have been waiting for this moment, I have trained to destroy you utterly when you make that mistake', which is a pretty good 'don't do that again'. The purpose of the mechanical complexity, of the 'skill ceiling', is to limit less practiced players from being able to tear apart lower level opponents. The designers just don't always say this because people like the illusion of being considerably better than others overall because they can press buttons in sequence. And this is coming from someone who does practice combos and cancels a lot.

As a result of the misconception, it doesn't work all that well, people just think that the game is about max damage, practice the combos repeatedly, never learn certain skills, and find themselves unable to ever actually use the combos against a more skilled player.

As far as we know right now, the designers don't seem to want Ashes to turn into that, which may be one of the reasons why Animation Canceling is limited.

In short, what you're talking about is based on a limited understanding of an illusion, and your perspective that I'm overcomplicating it, is unfortunately possibly the exact reason why Intrepid seems to have taken a stance against it.

(I'm amazed that you argue in this thread for Animation Canceling but seem to argue against Action Combat benefits in the other... how does the cognitive dissonance not hurt your head?)

I think you misunderstood me, and since the word from the Devs is just 'no', then I have no reason to engage on the matter if you don't need any help relative to getting whatever it is that you want.

If you 'just want animation canceling' then the answer given to you by Intrepid at this time, is 'no'.

If you 'just want it to be more challenging', mechanically or otherwise, there will be arguments (not from me, I won't bother you more) as to why Animation Cancelling isn't the way to do that. It's been studied.

I hope that whatever it is that you get from this, you find a way to present your feedback to get an answer other than 'no'. Good luck.

For other posters who are not familiar.

https://youtu.be/x9PqSAFgYFk

I hate to dismiss the opinions of others outright, so I link it. I have no commentary, if watching the video results in the perception that more skill is used, and that nothing I said is relevant, then all is well.

Here's the reference to the things I was asking about, as well (these aren't the combo I was referring to, mine is different due to having different goals - I don't like to place the orb so low - and I haven't put in enough hours of practice for the fastfall cancel)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=36CFt1rMjsQ

If you happen to have any inclination or opinion about any of my 'red herrings', that's useful too, so please add them.

I still don't like bringing fighting game stuff into this discussion, the resultant interaction above is the one I normally expect, so you don't need to join in with the scolding, if you hold similar opinions to the previous poster.

Well I'll see if I can 'weave' the lighter topic between the heavier one.

My intention with engaging @Cold 0ne FTB was 'how to get similar effects if the devs don't want animation cancels'. So it brings us to 'how do I get player agency of the same type as @arsnn described without actually being able to cancel animations?'

Taking the example from my team, who were defenders in Siege. We're extremely used to this sort of teamwork and generally 'analyze what games will let us do', really fast. This allowed us to mostly execute a pretty obvious First Order Optimal strategy in PvP siege, the aforementioned 'footsies'. Note that this DOES rely on not being terribly outnumbered (exact details in spoiler)

As mentioned, there was quite a bit of 'footsies' in the positioning. Our tank stood at the front, with my tab target set to her, and me close by. Our mage stayed relatively far behind, with her reticle on me. Our other cleric was up on a ballista. This is 'middle courtyard, with two other unrelated people next to us.

Enemy group's formation was not as tight, they were trying to do the same thing, but obviously less coordinated, though I can't say how much (we don't use teamspeak of any kind for Ashes yet, it's not necessary).

The simple key is to make the opponent overcommit, while 'not dying' and 'making them miss'. If they pull the tank, our mage instantly casts Meteor on their position and our Ballista Cleric fires (she doesn't fire when we are in 'footsie range', she fires only when the teams are drifting farther away from each other, to cause scattering on their end and disrupt their formation for any combos they have.).

The moment the enemy tank comes forward to try to pull me, I heal myself rapidly (might still die), dodge backward as soon as I can manage after the heal, and if it worked, chances are now that my tank can pull someone from their side, forward, preferably not their tank. Then Hallowed Ground the spot of my own tank. If they pull my tank, I just Hallowed Ground and instantly heal her (and hope she gets Ultimate Defense up in time).

There's no need to burst down the person that our tank pulls, in the case where I get pulled, the enemy is disorganized and if my AoE (around myself) heal is up, I just hit that, no targeting required.

With the current combat build, this works almost stupidly well, because even if the enemy follows the exact same strategy, we just end up dancing around because neither group wants to pull first, and they definitely don't want to risk getting out of position. This causes cooldowns to come back up and further discourage it, or buys time for reinforcements to move into position on either side.

Adding more classes and players doesn't make this 'more of a mess' innately, it makes it more tactical, but with one flaw. The Dodge cooldown. Without the side-strafe and with Dodge on only a single cooldown, I feel it's limited. Enemy mages did kill me with Prismatic Beam by focusing entirely on making sure I died, and then died themselves to the counterplay from our mage (this usually caused the enemy to lose completely and this might have happened even without the Ballista Cleric because she'd have been playing Ranger or similar, but Ballistae are big AoE damage).

The enemy could also beat the strategy with a completely perfect coordinated charge of all forces because of the inability to just get out of the way, but right now, Dodge keeps you pointed at your tab target. In my 'hopeful' implementation of Fighter, this is countered by adding a Fighter to our side with AoE surrounding knockback to counter any charge, but still fair because the Fighter can't jump into the enemy group and do this move without taking lots of damage.

So I can definitely already see how balance can be done and how adding more classes and more characters to the mix does not have to immediately devolve into chaos, but we're missing a lot of pieces currently to discourage people from just 'throwing all their abilities at a space and making sure one person dies'. That's what the first two parts of the Compilation were meant to address, based on both 'what the original posters of this thread said', and what I understand of design.

Without all classes having some 'predictable mobility options', specifically 2 more than current (it breaks as soon as you add 3 because you've already covered the sideways movement axis) whichever class lacks them will just be the one that gets focused down and the Optimal Strategy will become really dominant really fast. You won't get to 'know what the optimal strategy of the enemy group is based on who you see' and adapt. It will just be 'send a team that counters the FOOS and hope you guess their location right', then optimizations on which classes will let people beat the dragons (hint, the Ice Dragon does not deal well with parties where there is a semicircle of alternating Mages and Clerics, you only need one tank).

In short, right now, we can get there, but if our opponents had been more focused on timing to 'instantly delete' any given person, yes, it is basically a deathball, and the winning force just 'gets their cooldowns back in time to do it again'. Animation cancels in themselves would make this a nightmare, but what I described is the 'Recognition' type of interaction. The group (and there are ways to make this doable by a single character) recognizes a scenario, and rapidly just executes a group synergy combo with skilled timing to punish the enemy's mistake in the scenario.

Alternately if you had 'momentum cancels' you could extend the range of certain attacks suddenly to take the opponent off guard. If you had 'rhythm' based behaviour you could get extra damage that would allow one person with higher built up skill to overpower a less skilled group or a worse matchup, e.g. killing the Cleric faster because her class doesn't have a way to survive a fully executed combo from a Tank because I can't heal fast enough, but if the enemy 'drops the combo' I survive and only skilled enough players who can do the combos can actually kill me that way, others have to rely on something else.

I'm having flashbacks to Paragon (that game changed a lot during many iterations and some balance passes were entirely deathball oriented which is where I have a lot of this experience from). But those flashbacks are also 'good' in that I know exactly how Paragon eventually 'fixed' the Deathball meta while still leaving it as a viable 'sometimes tactic'.

That's another lonnnnnngggg design story so I''ll hold off on it to get experiences from others on this topic progression instead.

Nothing specifically new from this week's Siege test in terms of observations, but I'll report anyway.

There were less players, and a stronger 'understanding that you can and should just charge in if you have the advantage in numbers'. My group didn't join Siege from a high enough level Node to get the new, better gear (we should have fixed this between sieges but figured we didn't have time), and so the TTK on us was much lower.

I got to see some 1v1 between two properly geared people and it looked fine in all cases. TTK wise (it's still just 'standing there swinging at each other' for now)

Overall I didn't feel any less effective except that the aforementioned tactic doesn't work as well when the enemy force can actually burst you down, and one of our Tanks wasn't around today (she was the one from last week that could set it up consistently). Our Mage wasn't present as often in 'formation' either.

Someone helpfully came and beat me up with 20 seconds left on the clock, solo, and I got a good idea of single person TTK, which was also fine (11 seconds), accounting for what might have been less optimal armor vs their weapon.

I didn't notice any changes to combat this time around other than a targeting bug that got fixed. Dragon fight made me still really want either double Dodge or Strafing Q. Honestly, both, Elder Dragon of Forest (the poison one, which you can see in the video, not sure if the name is different now) is very maneuvering-heavy, even moreso than that original video showed, and might have one new mechanic.