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Overview of Ashes of Creation’s combat systems, giving direct feedback to Intrepid Studios on how to make combat good. Surma focuses on the four areas of combat that need to be properly balanced: Damage, Tanking, Healing, and Utility for both PvE and PvP.
Why Ashes Will Succeed. Ashes Needs These Combat Changes. Genuinely The Most Exciting MMORPG. Alpha 1. Alpha One. Alpha 2. Alpha Two. Tank Class Abilities and Skills. Damage Class. Mage Class. Bard Class. Archetype. Augment System. Ashes. Ashes of Creation. AOC. Node System. New MMO. New MMORPG.
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very well put
I feel like you could probably do a independent videos on each of the 4 areas of combat since there is a lot more to say on this subject. Overall, some good points made in this video. We will see what things are like when we get into Alpha 2. It feels like a lot of things you said should be the basics to any "trinity" type combat system, but it feels like a lot of mmo developers don't understand.
i dont really agree that ranged needs longer cast times. while i think they can be a great tradeoff for high-impact skills, theyre not a necessity in the slightest… i am personally a fan of more slower paced tactical/strategic gameplay, but having the entirety of ranged players locked into long animations can lead to combat feeling very bogged down… some games rectify this by adding some sort of cancel such as a dash. personally, im not a fan of having everything cancel into each other as i believe animations are there for a reason, but having a cancel thats intended (such as a dash that requires resource) is a great way to make long cast times not as punishing.
honestly ive never been a fan of the tank healer dps triangle. the majority of players dont enjoy tanking or healing, which leads to skewed queue times for the majority of players. healers also tend to require less mechanical skill while simultaneously being required for group content. having almost infinite access to healing also makes chip damage trivial and eventually forces pvp into a burst meta. low time to kill is never fun for the receiving player. nobody likes getting bursted before they can even react. so for being such a minority in the community, healers always have a tendency to warp metas around them which is why im not a fan of them. (this is coming from a support main in the games i play lol) i do think support specs should be viable as there is a niche for them, but the majority of games have no clue how to make "support/healers" enjoyable. i will give examples.
fun:
-mercy from overwatch. has a 2 second dash, allowing for unprecedented mobility from a class that is typically viewed as "easy". can outplay enemies thanks to her mobility.
moira from overwatch. can only gain healing resource if she damages an enemy. her healing actually requires aim rather than being targeted/pbaoe/teamwide. this punishes her for wasting healing and rewards her for good aim and managing her healing resource.
-nami from lol. has a skill that bounces between players for a max of 3 times, healing allies and damaging enemies. is punished for healing a single target due to high mana cost, but is rewarded for engaging with the enemy, which is required to have her skill bounce 3 times.
-soraka from lol. her ultimate is a teamwide heal. heals more the lower hp someone is. is balanced by healing less the more hp someone has, punishing her is she only uses it to top her teammates off. also has a long cd, requiring strategic timing.
-yuumi from lol. her heal costs a high percentage of her mana pool. topping allies off will bleed her dry of mana. to refund mana, she must engage with the enemy and attack them.
as you can see, many of those examples require the support to interact with enemies. that is because combat interaction is the crux of pvp. if there were no incentive for yuumi to attack, she would be unkillable as she can just remain untargetable, constantly topping her ally off. if mercy didnt have her dash, she would be a sitting duck. i could give a few more examples, but i think ive given enough.
unfun:
-healers in ffxiv. have a homogenized 2 button dps rotation. ogcd skills are very comparable to each other. deciding to play which job boils down to which skill effects you like more rather than which gameplay pattern is more enjoyable.
-mercy from overwatch. her ultimate grants her even more safety, allowing healing from the skybox in the map for a duration. she is nigh unkillable during it. (it is fun to fly around, but without any threat of danger, it doesnt feel impactful.)
-soraka from lol. she has a single target, targeted heal on a very short cd. the only tradeoff is it costs a miniscule amount of health to cast. makes trading with her and her ally useless as she can just heal up the damage. forces the enemy to assassinate her or her ally as quick as possible.
with the soraka example, you can see how playing against her would promote metas with high frontloaded damage. it doesnt matter how much damage an ally takes, because damage can always be healed up. (i could also go into how unfun pve raiding actually is due to its predictable/scripted nature, but thats a comment for another video :p). this is why the "vulnerable" debuff exists in xiv. its why grievous wounds exists in lol. because left unchecked, sustain will make interacting with the enemy not only trivial, but potentially punishing.
shielding is more proactive than healing over time, which is much more reactive. its much more punishing to mistime a shield as health cannot simply be restored with a shield. shields also make the enemy ask questions such as "should i bait out their shield? is it more beneficial to pop their shield now? should i wait until after it expires?" its a lot healthier than seeing no point in even interacting with an enemy if they can just potentially heal up all the damage.
this is why i dont like "dedicated healers" because games never seem to make them enjoyable, they promote burst metas, and punish dps players with longer queue times. wow this was a lot more longwinded than i anticipated XD
I mean yes, butttttt good coding does not work like: by just saying/writing mages have to be superior to melee and vice versa. You actually have to have a very good knowledge in game coding and what is behind it. It is not very easy to find a good talented coder who does it because he loves it. Most coders nowadays just do it because they get paid well, that is about it.
So I would say all will depend from the talent that Intrepid will find, and not from comments that gamers write. Yes this is helpfull for a non gamer to understand what needs to be done, but at the end of the day it will be good or bad code. And then tons of testing/polishing.
You can write and wish for anything you want, but if the studio will not find good talent and skill. Your wishes will be just wishes…
Same goes for Company CEO's. They can have all the money in the world, but if there will be no skill/talent that money will not do anything. It will be a shitty product in the end.
GOOD GAME = GOOD SKILLED TALENT (people with experience in that field). (I will not ignore money, of course you will need money to support the talent) But we are talking about a good game here, not money.
I disagree on the tying burst vs dot vs channel to specific archetypes.
For me there needs to be damage vs heal vs anti-heal vs anti-damage (thats a quad and not a trinity).
At the end of the day, all that matters is personal cost/damage/s vs costs/heal/s vs cost/damage-mitigation/s cost/heal-mitigation/s which each unique build will be a mixture of.
Big damage should equated to a channel (with the ability to forfeit that channel and lose any damage or automated miss and waste 'your own time' through over reach at the wrong time).
If you dont want to take the risk involved with that reward, or eliminate that risk with prior tactical skill based actions (movement/environment/cc), then dont use a high risk/reward skill.
Granted having mutiple skills with varying damage would be problematic, unless you charge up skills as part of that channel and have variable skill damage vs channel time.
You say ranged should be forced to move, but that is the purpose of push/pull/charge/escape & speed/slow movement skills or their opposing counter skills.
Movement tactics is not weapon tactics IMO.
This should also be a build choice, on wether you wish to focus on weapons skills or movement skills.
Tanks for instance are then forced with a dilemna of controlling the battelfield or mitigating incoming damage and forces a variety of build types.
Fighters are left with the dilemna of charging down foes, or maximising on the spot damage.
Each of which would be situational, depending on, collective group skills, environment and adversary.
Basically what I am saying is, pidgeon holing is bad, if its not via a distributed archetype system, thats directly countered with opposing duality.
I dont think what you are representing can be described as directly opposing skills, and even if you do consider them as opposing, they become very problematic when considered such.
You will never be able to balance it in any meaningful way, if you dont seperate/isolate movement/positioning from damage/heal.
The main problem I see in this assessment is using 5v5 design philosophy to balance a way bigger number of participants. You have to draw from RTS game, not mobas.
Tanks have pretty much always failed to be tanks in war due to the simple fact that the enemy is realistically just as smart as the tank. Taunts in their current iteration have NEVER worked on players. Soaking damage doesn't work because of the sheer number of hits they are taking (unless invulnerable and that is IMHO always bad). Tab targeting means there will be homing ranged abilities. Imaging soaking hundreds of projectiles homing in on you. How do you "tank" in an RTS. You body block. That means AoC tanks have to create obstacles to prevent LoS. Overwatch shields have the right idea. The idea of a control tank only works in small scale fights. When you have huge numbers it is always better to stack attacks than to "try something fancy". Fishing pudge style only really works in a stand off or an ambush.
Healing (pocket healing in particular) does not work in large scale either. Take note, you are healing against the damage an army can dish out. Realistically healers in wars are used to treat "incapacitated" combatants. Those are the ones that run back to safety. GW2 did something new with "healers" (didn't have a trinity) in that their purpose was to rez. In starcraft, the thor could be healed because of its insanely huge hp. It didn't go down too fast. Notice that it took an army to keep a thor alive though.
People will always eventually go for the most efficient way to fight. In zerg warfare that is the joust. 2 blobs dealing damage as they pass each other. AoC can't go "this is how we want you to fight". They have to look at how people CURRENTLY fight and then go "how do we place our mark on this".
Ok, so what DOES happen in zerg fights?
– jousts (melee)
– chokes (ranged)
– zoning (ranged)
What happens in small scale?
– sustained duels
– ambushes
Everything you can do in zerg warfare can be done in small scale, but not everything in small scale can be done in zerg warfare.
PvE has to be balance around how PvP is fought. PvE can't be tank and spank because PvP will most certainly be mobile fighting.
Here are some mechanics I've seen to "front load" damage. Allods Online allowed some spells to be "pre cast" and held in the hand waiting to be throne. Imagine reloading a gun as the cast time then firing as using the spell. You can channel to ready 3 instant spells. This can be done with melee. You buff up as much you can during your down time, then unleash when an opening presents itself.
Ranged doesn't have to be back loaded. It can be chip damage. Why? Because chip damage x 50 is a LOT.
Take note this is just a death match. There are no objectives at play other than kill the other guys. The key takeaway from all this is "numbers take away roles". You can't tank hundreds of damage sources. You can't heal hundreds of damage. You can only chip away at each other until 1 army is eradicated. Balance around that idea.
Short and sweet. Genius videos!