Weapon Attack with Directional Keys or Free Movement Attacks?

I don't believe free movement can be balanced to feel good in Ashes. Until I see the indicator that this is untrue, I will support option 1.

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While playing in a previous test, I saw, in that 'block text' that comes up when Steven (or some GM) talks to explain things to everyone, or to Asmongold stream (which was possibly the trigger this time) that they intend to test the 'Split Body' animation in an upcoming test.

The words I remember seeing were 'maybe next week'. This was during the last test.

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It can be true hybrid without being terrible though. It just isn't yet. I don't understand why the Split Body is a step one option, but maybe we'll know when we see it, what makes them confident (or experimental)

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Would people actually even like that? That's a timing/beatstream challenge moreso than anything else.

I legitimately have too much of a bias to even understand what other players want out of combat systems without clarification half the time, so I'm seriously asking.

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Bear with me because there's a part of this I don't always understand either.

Games like Ashes work in two ways in my experience. Either the animations have a meaning and you have to wait for one to finish before doing the next (and sometimes inputting the command for the next), or you can just press stuff while the animations for other stuff is happening and either the animation is canceled, or the game queues up the next thing to happen.

Age of Conan is 'queued up but no animation cancel', so the combos in that game are 'press this sequence of buttons correctly and then wait for everything to happen', or 'don't press them all, so you can start pressing something else instead once the current animation finishes'.

Sorry for derailing but to me, the combo systems of MK and SF are actually so different from even each other that they go beyond any differences I expect in the way people normally mean when they are talking about Ashes (since I figure you just meant them as general examples of the idea in your mind of how fighting games work).

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Oh ok. I obviously still don't know if people would like that, but I think I understand the videos I watched, a little better now.

I wouldn't care one way or the other. To me, combo systems are just something my hands learn to do automatically while I play the tactical part of the game.

I see MMOs differently than 'Action Combat' fans because I see them as tactical trigger and response games with some ability for planning. The physical aspects of them can be a little challenging, but they're never even a little close to fighters, for me, some aspects in the most frenetic of them can be annoying (because the games are laggy and the requirements push on human reaction time constantly), but the problem is never 'can I physically do what is required', it's 'did the game let me see what was required, in time'.

I like Tab Target better because it is easier for others, and does the same thing, the part of 'Action Combat' that people talk about is something that one has to be able to do in most fighters so consistently that it doesn't feel like anything to me.

If others are happier with a system like this though, I'm not going to complain, obviously.

The issue would then become, 'which of the eight combo systems' (unless you meant the specific Age of Conan one, but even if you did, I bet people would have strong opinions anyway).

I only hate one of the eight so all's good for me, bring it on.