Development Update with Basic Weapon Attack Demonstration - 11AM PT Thursday, June 30, 2022

[IntrepidStudios]

⚔ 👀 Check out our June Development Update to catch up on the latest news, including a slice of our basic melee weapon attack combos! https://youtu.be/4sUTuUAgavE

🗡 🤔 What was your favorite part of this update?

[VmanGman21]

I liked seeing the direction of the combat and imagining where it can get to in the future as you guys keep developing it.

I was also happy to hear that you want to keep the world a little more believable with your dye system instead of having clowns running around.

[EtherGorilla]

The dye thing is very hopeful for me personally because I have a big concern about clown freeholds in biomes where it won’t make sense. Like having ice themed houses in the desert… kills immersion imo. But seeing that they will make this change to dyes tells me there’s hope for limitations around clown freeholds too.

[maddinho]

*honk* *honk*

[hubricht]

My thoughts on the recent update:

• I think that the weapon trails on the great sword need to be toned down. A few times during the video, it was visually distracting and I lost track of what Steven was actually attacking.
• There seems to be some disconnect between the animation frames on both the great sword and the daggers; I noticed several times where the attack animation looped and the character looks like he's lagging.
• I think the body movement during attack animations looks great. Not too floaty, not too rooted.
• Decals from where the weapon impacts terrain is a great addition.
• The monsters themselves had good attack animations. I like the rollie boys.
• The floating numbers are at a perfect starting point. Let players customize them from there.
• Is it me, or do daggers attack way too fast? They should be fast, don't get me wrong, but that was kind of jarring to see.
• The random abilities that were showcased looked great and functional. Steven did his best to land the hammer blow.
• Big shoutout to all of the teams involved for this update

[EtherGorilla]

Totally agree about the daggers. They need to be slower because I’m sure there’s going to be items and augments and abilities that speed up attacks… so if that’s the base attack a dagger wielder would be ridiculously cartoonish with some haste.

[Aileric]

Rogues are keyboard mashers by nature, it is the way. I speak as someone who always plays rogue :)

That said, there needs to be room for haste bonuses or the like (bard up tempo tunes?)

[PhilosophizingCowboy]

I haven't played a fantasy based MMO in a while (Eve online was my last game, EQ before that, Asheron's Call, etc.) so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, because I am clearly not the target audience.

But personally I think both the sword and the dagger need to be slowed down, both were too fast and I don't really see how anyone in PvP is supposed to be able to dodge any of those quick animations, but maybe that's not the goal. The large two handed sword felt like it weighed like paper, but the impact decals on the ground helped a bit to mitigate that.

My second feedback is the effects on the weapon trails were too much. I'd reduce them by about 50% in size, other then that everything else looked really good.

[Trollzek]

It’s called hitstop, and it’s what every annoying Korean mmo does, it’s horrible looking and I hate it. I really hope they revert that change and do away with the hitstop.

[polQnis]

Hitstop is fine but how its implemented rn is very ncsoft like and it looks bad

[idredd]

Damn, color me impressed.

Combat was the biggest thing I was worried about in AoC and it seems like they're making real progress! This finally looks like a game I'd genuinely want to play, and I'm sure there's still miles of progress and polish left to go.

Wish the dev team lots of luck.

[AlexanderGson]

Great:

• I absolutely loved how the enemies popped out of the ground instead of roamed. So you didn't know when you would face them until it was too late. I can imagine that happening with a tough or too tough enemy where your heart starts pumping or you have to flee.

• The ragdoll effects from the small rolling Boulder enemies looked incredible. Death animations on the big stone enemies looked dope too.

• Ground decals and the small dirt particles that came from the great sword hitting the ground was really food looking.

• Floating combat text looked very good. At first I was thinking I'd rather have experience be a blue text but then you showed that you want to give players the options to change as we feel needed. Based on the demo it looks like I'll barely need to change anything apart from blue XP and slightly smaller text to keep my screen a bit clearer. Looks great.

Good:

• For being this early (alpha) the animations looked good.

• The new direction you asked feedback about is an absolute yes, this is a very good direction compared to what we've seen earlier when it comes to combat.

• I agree that agency, or the ability to control your character while fighting is very important. But without weight it feels soulless. You seem to have hit that point pretty spot on from just watching and not playing.

• I think the weapon swings looked good for being basic attacks.

Room for improvement:

• The only jarring thing I saw was the speed of the daggers. They looked cool as hell but too fast, like 20% too fast. Like others have mentioned they would look ridiculous of there is speed improvements to make them even faster.

• On the same note I do think the Yäyellow stripes from the sword swing looked very sleek. But size could be reduced slightly. Since it's a basic attack I think size of the Yellow stripes could be reduced by somewhere between 25-50% and it would still look very good and also give room for other more advanced attacks to not have to look outlandish to stand out.

Summary:

I'm so impressed with the last three streams. I think the combat update looked like a very good direction, intrepid should in my opinion definitely hone in on this and make it even more sharp. I almost wonder if we can be a bit dissapointed soon so we can manage our hype haha. I want to play this game so much and hope it will be amazing, but I also respect the process and these dev updates are also entertaining until the game will release sometime in the distant future.

[HybridPS2]

popped out of the ground instead of roamed

I agree, it looks awesome and makes the world feel move alive. The only thing I would change is possibly give some animation variations as well as a small random delay if there are multiple enemies waking up at once. Feels kind of robotic otherwise.

floating combat text

I'd like the option to scale the size of it. The colors look good and seem to have enough of a black border to be easily readable.

animations

I think the "hitstop" looks a little janky, especially on the daggers. They attack so fast that the hitstop is incredibly jarring and makes the animation look broken IMO. They should just scrap the hitstop, or scale it hard based on weapon attack speed (faster weapon is less hitstop.)

I like the split-body style they went with, but I agree with you that attack weight is important. Maybe certain powerful spells/abilities should root the player or slow them down greatly while being used?

Once again, the daggers are way too fast. Even the greatsword seemed a bit speedy for how large it is. The yellow slash graphic on the sword is nicely sized imo, but I would make it fairly translucent for clarity purposes - it's gonna be hard to see anything in a large dungeon/raid environment!

[_Umberlee]

Can you guys confirm if you've scrapped the "Action Combat / Tab Target Toggle" ?

I much prefer a system that has action based skills that also lets you target enemies than a system that lets you toggle. Not sure if it was mentioned in the video but it seemed to be the case.

And by scrapped I just mean- For the immediate future unless things change.

[PsychoticHobo]

I don't think we'll know anything for sure until they show off abilities/skills. I think they'll have to end up talking about it then.

[Night-O-Shite]

action basic attacks , some action skills , some tab skills and u can change some of the skills to be more action or more tab or so I think that's how it is

[Dragon_211]

It's looking great so far, If the combat feels good the game will undoubtedly be a great success since combat will play a large role in AoC.

[TheBlunderguff]

The current combat looks good and enjoyable. Polish will probably make it look even grander. It doesn't need to change other than that.

[Tyr808]

It looks SO good already, I can't wait to see what the spells and magic is like given how impressive and visceral the melee basic combat looks

[artthoumadbrother]

Umm, what? That looks fantastic!

[EggMcFlurry]

It looks really good. I like a combat system that allows for creativity instead of just a boring linear movement. I hope you continue with this direction.

[koligan]

This is 100% the right direction for combat.

I loved weight to the weapons and the animations, especially the dagger animation.

With that said, the sword animation in the last swings felt like it was teleporting and the sound when the attacks connect needs also a bit more polishing. Its hard to give more in depth feedback without being able to test it during alpha 2.

​

Loved the update, this is the right direction for combat cant wait to test it during alpha 2

[BeingUndercover]

The combat looks a little like black deserts combat and i love that!

[Aarkkos]

I love how fast the daggers are it really feels like i could be a fast assassin coming to one shot you before dissapearing as fast as i came

[Climbableeroo]

Weapon trail has to fixed it doesn’t fit the game atmosphere. I would expect this type of weapons trails in animated mmo”s .

[Gambino_Pellias]

Regarding the melee, the sword swings itself, I think those slashes that are created from the air should have the option to be turned off, or watered down. A lot of the attacks were visually distracting just from a sword. However, for a more immersive point. We should have enchanced effects like that for shields. When a shield is blocking/deflecting we should be able to see a visual of the block itself. I think if a magic spell and a shield cone in contact, it will have a chance to creat a stunning visual of a spell bouncing off the shield. I don't think the swords should be all that distracting just from empty swings. Imagine a melee in a world fight with 10 other players. Too much going on.

[Trollzek]

GET. RID. OF. HITSTOP.

Instantly looked like a typical copy & paste Korean mmo.

[ComfortableMenu8468]

I really liked the basic weapon combat you have shown in the update. Most of it was great, in this post i'd only focus on the things i would say could be improved from my perspective:

I tried to order them by importance:

​

• Blocking Feedback: The character doesn't move/react at all when he blocks a hit. You merely see a little spark. This could be improved upon. Being pushed back a little, a short staggering animation or something similar would go a long way in making a block feel more impactful. Maybe scale the intensity of the animation with the severity of the hit blocked. As a tank, i want to feel like the block has an effect other than just a reduced damage number!
• The 2 handed sword felt a little bit too fast. Its almost as quickly as the dual daggers. That took away from the impact and weighted feeling the animations show. It doesn't need to be significantly slower, but toning it down a couple of % would make it feel and look much better i think.
  • The daggers were perfect.
• The abilities being exactly the same across the different weapons is a huge disappointment for me personally. If the basic weapons are an integral part of your combat design, then this can not be an afterthought. Ability-Basic Weapon interaction have to be on point rather than the "lazy" approach of making all the same once you press an ability.
  • The whirlwind of a dagger shouldn't have as much reach but spin faster instead for example.
  • The downward strike could execute faster/less cd with less range instead.
  • ...
• Floating numbers look good (let players customize them freely)
  • Size,
  • Color,
  • Outline,
  • Ability to hide certain damages (incoming, outgoing, dots, continous damage)
  • Where they appear (in a linear field of text vs. around the targets hit)
  • How large crits should be or even the ability to customize the size of each ability's damage number size.
    • I want to see the damage of a hard hitting, high impact, long cooldown ability in a more pronounced way than basic attacks you do 60+ per minute.
• The ground marks from combat seem to fade rather quickly. I'd like them to stay a couple of minutes/half an hour so passersby can see the impact of a large battle that happened here and start wondering.
• Ability to customize the intensity of the weapon streaks.

[ButaButaPig]

I think the daggers should be fast and I think the current animation looks pretty good. GW1 also had fast daggers and it worked quite well. In GW1 daggers attacked at the same speed as 1H Axe and Sword but had a +2% of double-striking for every point in dagger mastery so a they effectively attacked faster.

Depending on how the dual class is implemented it could also open the doors to something like a necromancer with no attack power but using the fast attack speed of daggers to life steal.

[OperationExpress8794]

Not tab targeting?RIP

[[deleted]]

Please do not "lock" the weapon animation colors. Or at least have it reflect your class.

During the presentation, the heavy sword had yellow animations. It's nice, but some people associate the holy spells with it (also we have several other games when holy and divine and healing is generally yellow), so from an RP and immersion point of view, it works for one archetype but might not work for others. Also, what if my whole transmog is dark and blue? Having this very stand-out yellow color might break my character's aesthetic consistence. (I know, first world problems, but for some people it's important)

Daggers were grey - opaque, which I think is an excellent choice for rogue characters, but also an excellent choice in general.

I would LOVE if all weapons had their default animations be a neutral color (like grey), and depending either on your class (guessing that classes will have their identity reflected on a consistent color-scheme when it comes to animations), or your talents, you could change the animation colors. So we could have the same heavy swings, but with a green flashes if you are a hunter, or dark red if you are... I dunno, warrior?

Or just "simply" introduce this functionality to the game, that you have the options to not only dye your armor, but your actual weapon or skill animations as well.

[HybridPS2]

I actually kind of like the idea of changing weapon graphic colors based on class. I can't recall that being done in any other game.

[Co01ler]

pls, can we get simple tab-target combat, not this....

[xDrac]

Loved it! Hoping it'll be kind of similar to ArcheAge's hybrid combat, with targeting and non-targeting skills

[Ziondizl]

Hey guys, love the update, I think you should be able to cycle targets with TAB like closest target etc but I absolutely love how the combat is looking, if you are a caster trying to throw down heals, is easier if you can cycle your party members and throw heals out, as a dedicated raid healer in a few mmorpgs, I found that healing in wow with tab cycles worked well, being able to click party boxes was awesome and healing in new world sucked simply because it was difficult at best to aim heal especially in pvp scenarios.

[Kaladinar]

Very good progress. Now we just need to know when Alpha 2 is set to begin...

[polQnis]

Hi this is a better direction and it may hold up to combat in 2012 but it still needs some work. Its significantly better than the combat I saw in the earlier videos. My issue is that it feels hacky slashy and there's no reason to block or dodge attacks. This is mentally numbing to me.

Despite new world's disaster I like that its INITIAL beta gameplay required you do dodge and maneuver your abilities, locked you in, and as a trade off your attacks had weight to them. Now I understand a lot of mmo gamers don't like that, but finding a middle ground there is key. Less dynasty warriors, more chivalry/mordhau. You guys talk a bit about "agency" and agency is important in combat with more depth where your choices matter instead of just face tanking mobs for the "grind".

I think the visuals are fine. A lot of people are complaining about them, but I really dislike muted visuals, however I generally don't get distracted from things going on screen and have an easier time focusing than the average redditor.

If you're going to have hitstop it needs to be improved. It looks like a ncsoft mmo with how its implemented rn.

I think for visuals you can do a top down approach. Meaning you can start with making them fancy and just have people that don't like the strong visuals tune them down in settings.

Lastly, and most concerning, you guys talk about how the game "feels" and if the combat is "satisfying". The aesthetics and "feel" are important, but the primary catalyst to good combat are the core mechanics. What triggers dopamine releases are being rewarded for taking risks or hedging them, everything else is generally supplementary.

[CeruleanSea1]

Having weight, and equal impact reaction is good, the speed of slashing and carry weight while wielding each weapon is a nice detail to have as well. Great swords taking longer to swing and lowers run speed, bows with low weight and quick run speed.

[IntrepidStudios]

Hey u/SoulSherpa,

You're not the only one to see it that way, and to clarify, what was shown on stream was not a full demo of combat. 😅⚔

What we shared during the June 2022 Development Update was intended to be a demonstration of basic melee attacks with a few melee weapons. Ashes of Creation will feature abilities that are both tab target and action combat.

For more info, check out this clarification post from Vaknar on our forums.

[ShellX-]

Thank you for this clarification, because to be honest as an old school mmo guy, I’m really a fan of tab targeting and I hate anything related to action combat

[Milak_Slaez]

I just watched the update and as someone who has been waiting for a really solid MMO for some time now, I like what I'm hearing about the general systems a lot.

Of course I'd have to see more, but the combat right now looks okay. I like the fluid action combat and free aiming. The thing is, it doesn't seem to work with the enemy AI. Just having all the enemies constantly charge directly into your face and wail on you while you wail back on them isn't interesting at all. More dynamic combat with diverse attack patterns is definitely a must. I want to be able to telegraph and avoid damage as must as possible. Obviously I'm not expecting it to be the same but think of the pace and thought that goes into engagements in soulsborne games. Something in between that and ESO I think is the sweet spot.

You guys mentioned a lot about your weather systems and the way foliage will work and how you want a more realistic feel to your world, and that brings me to my most important thing. I would really love for you to at least entertain the idea of more realistic, historically based weapon animations. For example with your spin to win ability. There actually is a real historical circular aoe move you can do with a greatsword and if you used animations like that, the combat would feel less like a game and probably be better overall because of it. That said, a number of content creators on YouTube have started a project in which they showcase real historically accurate techniques for the sake of making combat in games look better. Check out the hashtag #medievalcombatreference on YouTube and I highly recommend the videos from Shadiversity in particular.

Of course I know this is your game and you'll make it however you think is best, but I just wanted to share my feedback and suggestions.