Melee Combat Feedback Post 7/30 Livestream

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I don't disagree with you on that at all. We're probably on the same page. The problem would be that it's obviously not a simple thing. Even if every player you know would prefer Free motion Tab Target, the moment Intrepid changes it to that, the forum will be inundated with people who want the opposite. That's unfortunately how online feedback during game development works.

People who think they are already getting what they want, settle in and say less, come around less, pay less attention. People who think they are losing what they want, suddenly become active. There were very few people arguing for rooted motion before. Nearly unanimously against it in my last data scrape. Now the WASD crowd are coming out of the woodwork, because their expectations are being challenged.

I do not envy Intrepid's Lead Combat Designer, whoever that is. But in the end, my point is, Intrepid 'promised' (I know Steven has outlined the fallback) Action Combat, and so, they have to work within what they noted.

This can be done, but getting players to specify what they want without threatening to take it away can sometimes be really difficult.

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Well, on that, we are on opposite sides, I guess, but I posted earlier in the thread with my problems on that.

It's not that I mind free flow combat, it's that I can simulate too easily all the problems it brings to the rest of the game experience and I hate all of those way more than I hate rooted motion. That is, in fact, the entire reason why I interpreted the posts in the old Combat Discussion to be 'wanting the WASD form'. The other things those people wanted, don't work in Free Motion 'Action Combat'.

That was a long time ago though, I'd feel sort of odd bumping that thread again now, even though this is the change that was supposed to trigger that action. Point is, back then the thread was heavily skewed toward Action Combat supporters that were trying to push against 'just Tab Target' because... the Tab Target supporters probably didn't feel like they had to worry.

I'll keep trying to get people to see beyond their initials, even if it doesn't turn out too helpful due to the way feedback works, it's good practice...

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Won't this lead to people choosing smaller weapons for most PvP and switching to large ones for PvE?

If even the average 1/4 of players choose Ranger and Mage, with the intention of kiting, there are going to be significant shifts to balance and dynamics. I mean, that could be fine with everyone too, I don't have a direct concern there, except that maybe everything will devolve into archery contests...

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Yes, but the thing is... balance is hard. Balance is super super hard. And players are optimizers. So it's not usually useful to say 'just do whatever works', 'give us creativity', or 'build variety is good'.

If I were optimizing, I would immediately without question switch to a sword for PvE if they were the way you described.

I've seen this exact thing play out in multiple MMOs before, and the balance passes sometimes took literally years to fine tune enough for the metas to even stabilize, so I'm concerned.

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Ah. I often make too many assumptions about what other players consider important. It didn't even occur to me that 'I don't mind which weapon I have to use in what situation' could be a generally accepted feeling for players, given Ashes' other systems, but yeah, I can see it.

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What skill advantage do you mean? Are you expecting to be able to dodge NPC attacks in PvE using the movement?

I'm a summoner. Summons by nature must behave like mobs. They must autoattack.

I would like for people to be able to dodge my summons attacks sometimes based on a technical combat decision. I perceive wasd type root attacks allow for this.

I perceive the proposed combat change would either result in the attacks would be almost always dodgeable as you circle around the summon outside its cone, or never dodgeable due to the cone being necessarily wider to make summons not completely useless (thus defeating the intended 'agency the change desires to make.)

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Got it.

I am not sure if I expect circle strafing to make a real difference in melee aside from being annoying. It might be more correct to say that I hope it does not, because I don't want people picking Summoner just to get the 'my damage source acts like an NPC' so you can just circle it' problem...

This is one of my largest 'complaints' about the idea. I didn't think about how many players want to 'just be able to move even though it doesn't do anything' though, which was silly of me, given how many games are exactly like this.

If people need to be able to circle around (even with little usefulness) for the combat to feel good to them, and those people are in the majority, then so be it. At that point my complaints turn entirely to 'the effect this will have on the level of coolness of PvE' but I have other games I can play for difficult/engaging PvE experience.