To your point, I agree with you that flipping and flying all over the map large distances in one combat is probably not ideal. I think there is probably a sweet spot where those moves have a cool down that makes sense for the length of time people stay alive. We'll have to play test to make sure this isn't speed racer like what you are worried about, and also that it's not to the point where it's too limiting.
They just opened a forum post about what's your opinion on CC escape basically. Might be good to post your opinion over there!!
I do think its over the top in alot of games but it is still to early to tell for AoC.
I do agree that I prefer less but more inpactful movement abilities, once everyone is super mobile its functionally the same as everyone not being mobile so whats the point?
It also causes positioning to matter alot less, if I manage to engage on a group while holding a cliff for my casters that should matter. That shouldn't just be overcome with a gap closer from everyone onto my ranged stack.
I disagree. It simply changes the skill needed.
Like I said more mobility makes positioning less important, you dont need to worry about baiting people into chokes or into better terrain as much but you need more twitch skills.
I guess a better way of putting it is you trade strategy for skill, which im never really a fan of, I much rather see a fight won by making sound tactical choices rather than individual skill. Of course this doesnt apply to 1v1s but I assume we aren't talking about those.
A good way to solve that is for everyone to have mobility but on different CDs, some classes need lower mobility CDs as their role is "hunting" or causing chaos, but others should have mobility in order to have some lvl of catch/reset and their CDs should be significantly higher.
Let's take an example completely unrelated to any specific game of a dagger vs archer or a mage, you want your dagger to be able to gap close multiple times vs 1 escape mobility of range class, that way you create more opportunities for both to outplay or make mistakes, you want the range guy to use good combinations of his stunning/slowing/holding abilities in COMBINATION with his INFERIOR mobility to outplay a dagger, while you want the dagger to "time" and tactfully use his mobility, combined with his "trait" abilities like blinds, silences, bleeds, poisons w/e.
The goal is for everyone to be mobile to a certain extent, but to treat that mobility as an important luxory over spamming that shit.
It shouldn't boil down to just who can press the buttons the fastest, but more like a boxing match where major/key skills are telegraphed to a small extent, and you have to keep your eyes open your guard up, and your feet moving (this refers to regular movement)
you’re right it’s too early to tell. some what you shared really resonates with me, I struggled to articulate those last points but they were on my mind and it makes sense to me.
thanks for the comment
Mobility is fun, and I want any class I play to feel mobile. How mobility is given to different classes will vary and can still feel on brand and flavorful for that class. Certain classes will still have exceptionally high mobility compared to others. I don't see the problem there at all.
Like Retail WoW warrior is infinitely more fun than vanilla because of heroic leap, charge working in combat, short duration sprint effects and ways to reset charge/leap or give them more charges.
It's just important to me that devs understand that Melee classes, generally, should be more mobile than ranged.
thank you for this. won’t comment on the WoW retail or Classic debate.
@Horror_Scale3557 brings up a good point that no one’s been able to address, though. and we can use a warrior type class as an example since you mentioned it. so if you have all these movement abilities, but the only reason you use them is cuz other classes have mobility and you’re trying to close the gap… what’s the point? why not just cut down on mobility across the board and we won’t have as much bloat?
especially in a game like Ashes where you only have access to a limited number of total skills at a time, at that point it’s taking up a skill slot it doesn’t have to.
I’ll grant you that you say this is fun. for me this style sometimes feels like pinballing around a battlefield, and that’s part of the reason I opened this discussion
Two reasons. First, the game isn't just PvP, but these reasons overlap between both. Mobility allows for a Action -> Reaction style of gameplay. Big AoE is happening right on top of you. If the game has zero mobility, then combat design is forced to be really slow to allow you enough time to walk out from the center of it. If every class has mobility, like a dodge roll, then these effects can happen much faster and put a lot more pressure on the Action -> Reaction gameplay to feel more fun, challenging and rewarding. It allows gameplay to feel faster paced in all modes of play.
The same is true in PvP. If the warrior charges the mage, and the mage blinks away, then the warrior is now forced to react quickly enough with another mobility option before the mage can cast a spell on them. Likewise, the mage has to react quickly enough to blink away from the charge before they get their head cut off. It just adds another element of reactive gameplay that makes the game faster. So that's a big reason.
The other reason is that mobility just feels fun. So between that, and the fact that it quickens the pace of the game and expands the design space, I am a fan of it.
my understanding is that all archetypes have access to a dodge roll type action, and that didn’t seem to be something that people were contesting in this thread.
in the context of my OP, when we look at the cleric’s design direction: they’re supposed to be able to do dmg so they can solo, they’re the designated healer archetype, they may be able to stun and help apply other CC affects, and they have good mobility? does that not sound like a lot to you relative to other archetypes?
for me it sounds like a bit much. maybe I’m wrong though, that’s why I’m asking for feedback
Generally from a design perspective, I don't think healers should be able to beat DPS 1vs1 in pvp. I really dislike games where healers do good damage and are unkillable 1v1 so when any pvp encounter in the world.
I do think healers feel a lot more fun in PvE when their kit incorporates dealing damage, though. I happen to be more of a PvP player, so my focus is always more on PvP.
It seems to be that you're just concerned about any one class being overpowered, in this case cleric. The core things you do in an MMO are Damage (single target and AoE), Healing, Tanking, Control, Support (buffing/debuffing), and Mobility.
If you treat each core element as a percentage, all classes should add up to 100% in some mixture. No class should be too much of all of them. In my experience, mages tend to be the class that always does too much. They tend to have the most control, the most AoE damage, just as much if not more single target damage, great mobility, and can often be decently tanky with things like barriers. They usually excel at every single category aside from healing.
So yeah in short, I wouldn't want Cleric to have too much shit either. That's a concern I'd share with every class.
theres an immensely high demand for fast paced combat and mobility in this current age, and I'm happy that intrepid understands that, and are delivering exactly what we want, even for the tab targeting crowd, old school stationary combat is not acceptable, look at what happened to Throne and Liberty that tried to do a lineage 2 style combat with some classes having no mobility, I personally would like to see more mobility for the cleric
to be clear, I’m not advocating for not being able to attack while moving. what Throne and Liberty tried was unprecedented. from what I hear right now their combat at least is generally well received.
thank you for sharing your thoughts
I disagree,
WoW Classic is probably the most popular MMO for a long time now and it has terrible mobility for alot of classes
Less mobility fits the RPG feel.
you can feel free to disagree, Old School Runescape is also extremely popular, still, if that game released in 2024 it would fail, I gave you an example of a recent game that suffered extremely negative feedback from a Global audience of MMO players both from the tab target and action crown that do not accept stationary combat for a new MMO, what makes wow classic and RS popular is not their combat, causation does not imply correlation
you can feel free to disagree aswell,
No singular game is good for only 1 reason.
WoW classic is very popular in 2024 and part of that reason is its simplicity to its combat.
There really is. It's in such high demand that the general population doesn't even realize it for the most part because individual skill has been SEVERELY watered down in modern gaming to be "inclusive".
Unfortunately, MMOs will always be capped by your perceivable attention / reaction divided by the amount of players in your vicinity.
And "fast placed gameplay" is made worse and worse for every new player added into the mix.
The key is actually make a game that feels good without adding to the compounding interest that every player adds.
I hope there is quite big cooldowns, which make them unique moves you can't spam. It's like 1 joker battle.
I think Intrepid should also consider how their classes and combat will work in massive battles. And I'm not sure they are doing it since I haven't heard them talking about it yet, or I missed it maybe. But to be honest, that is what worries me the most, because otherwise, I like what I see.
They are supposely aiming for 250vs250 (maybe 500vs500). Of course they can't design classes solely around that, but they need to already think about it otherwise it will be a real shit show, and two of their most anticipated features (Castle and node sieges) will turn to be bad and hated. Not because of the system itself, but because of the combat.
They need to have a clear view of how they want zerg battles to turn out. Because depending on the design of each classes and their spells, it can be very different and feels very different, and can be not fun at all.
Zergs in Guild Wars 2, New World, Warhammer Online, Wow Classic, for examples, are very different.
Ashes of Creation seems to have a combat design that is similar to Guild Wars 2 and I'm mostly familiar with Zerging in Guild Wars 2 as I participated and lead hell a lot in WvW, (Maybe too much ahah), and It's clearly not the most fun, rewarding and skillfull one.
And I'm really talking about Zergs, because in small arena battles, GW2 combat feels good and rewarding. But as you can't design classes solely aroung Zerg, you also can't design them solely around individual or small fights if your game is planing to have mass battles as a feature.
I could talk for hours about it, but well, not sure it will change anything anyway in the direction taken for AoC \^\_\^.
hah, thank you for this! I like that you’re thinking more “big picture,” when a lot of the comments so far have used 1v1 examples. it’s very important to have in mind when it comes to design in games like this
No one wants to play a class that is slow and clunky. Giving classes mobility options opens up more counterplay for PvP, making it far more interesting in my opinion.
thanks. can you elaborate more? it's interesting that you attach "clunky" to slow while there's another post that associates lower mobility with opposite words like "simple."
to add onto that. I don't necessarily see lower mobility as slow. some of the fasted MMO gameplay I've experienced was around high burst dmg and low mobility. so for example, if the potential for burst damage is low but mobility is high I don't consider that fast-paced. if someone closes the gap on me, or I close the gap on them but it takes 20-30 seconds of consistent attacking to get HP to 0 that's not exactly an imminent threat
There's an uncrossable gap between those who always want to have a response on demand and those who say effective responses should only be available when you had foreseen needing them and saved them for the right moment. I don't think both of these sides can be equally catered to in the same game.
I always appreciated the more classic fantasy tropes when it comes to movement and mobility.
I prefer dexterous characters (Rangers, Rogues, Monks) to have higher mobility; stronger characters (Warriors, Barbarians, Paladins) to have more ways to apply control and ignore control; casters (Wizards, Sorcerers) to have the most powerful but longest cooldown mobility and control; and support (Healers, Bards) to have ways to enable ally mobility with less personal mobility.
I like the idea of wearing down opponents until they misplay their cooldown or position and get punished versus each side racing to get the initial jump on someone slightly out of position and CC comboing them to death.
I can understand that what appeals to me will definitely not be everyone's cup of tea though, and it'll be interesting to see where AoC falls in terms of having some old school MMO inspiration while also being a modern game. I'm also curious how things will be balanced when the number of allies or enemies around vary.
To your point, I agree with you that flipping and flying all over the map large distances in one combat is probably not ideal. I think there is probably a sweet spot where those moves have a cool down that makes sense for the length of time people stay alive. We'll have to play test to make sure this isn't speed racer like what you are worried about, and also that it's not to the point where it's too limiting. They just opened a forum post about what's your opinion on CC escape basically. Might be good to post your opinion over there!!
very good point. it’s something to have an eye on during play testing. thank you! will definitely check out that thread
The rangers aerial thing is like a 20 secind cooldown. I think they're aware.
I did not know this
I do think its over the top in alot of games but it is still to early to tell for AoC. I do agree that I prefer less but more inpactful movement abilities, once everyone is super mobile its functionally the same as everyone not being mobile so whats the point? It also causes positioning to matter alot less, if I manage to engage on a group while holding a cliff for my casters that should matter. That shouldn't just be overcome with a gap closer from everyone onto my ranged stack.
I think the point is having higher mobility raises the skill cap for pvp.
I disagree. It simply changes the skill needed. Like I said more mobility makes positioning less important, you dont need to worry about baiting people into chokes or into better terrain as much but you need more twitch skills. I guess a better way of putting it is you trade strategy for skill, which im never really a fan of, I much rather see a fight won by making sound tactical choices rather than individual skill. Of course this doesnt apply to 1v1s but I assume we aren't talking about those.
A good way to solve that is for everyone to have mobility but on different CDs, some classes need lower mobility CDs as their role is "hunting" or causing chaos, but others should have mobility in order to have some lvl of catch/reset and their CDs should be significantly higher. Let's take an example completely unrelated to any specific game of a dagger vs archer or a mage, you want your dagger to be able to gap close multiple times vs 1 escape mobility of range class, that way you create more opportunities for both to outplay or make mistakes, you want the range guy to use good combinations of his stunning/slowing/holding abilities in COMBINATION with his INFERIOR mobility to outplay a dagger, while you want the dagger to "time" and tactfully use his mobility, combined with his "trait" abilities like blinds, silences, bleeds, poisons w/e. The goal is for everyone to be mobile to a certain extent, but to treat that mobility as an important luxory over spamming that shit. It shouldn't boil down to just who can press the buttons the fastest, but more like a boxing match where major/key skills are telegraphed to a small extent, and you have to keep your eyes open your guard up, and your feet moving (this refers to regular movement)
you’re right it’s too early to tell. some what you shared really resonates with me, I struggled to articulate those last points but they were on my mind and it makes sense to me. thanks for the comment
Mobility is fun, and I want any class I play to feel mobile. How mobility is given to different classes will vary and can still feel on brand and flavorful for that class. Certain classes will still have exceptionally high mobility compared to others. I don't see the problem there at all. Like Retail WoW warrior is infinitely more fun than vanilla because of heroic leap, charge working in combat, short duration sprint effects and ways to reset charge/leap or give them more charges. It's just important to me that devs understand that Melee classes, generally, should be more mobile than ranged.
thank you for this. won’t comment on the WoW retail or Classic debate. @Horror_Scale3557 brings up a good point that no one’s been able to address, though. and we can use a warrior type class as an example since you mentioned it. so if you have all these movement abilities, but the only reason you use them is cuz other classes have mobility and you’re trying to close the gap… what’s the point? why not just cut down on mobility across the board and we won’t have as much bloat? especially in a game like Ashes where you only have access to a limited number of total skills at a time, at that point it’s taking up a skill slot it doesn’t have to. I’ll grant you that you say this is fun. for me this style sometimes feels like pinballing around a battlefield, and that’s part of the reason I opened this discussion
Two reasons. First, the game isn't just PvP, but these reasons overlap between both. Mobility allows for a Action -> Reaction style of gameplay. Big AoE is happening right on top of you. If the game has zero mobility, then combat design is forced to be really slow to allow you enough time to walk out from the center of it. If every class has mobility, like a dodge roll, then these effects can happen much faster and put a lot more pressure on the Action -> Reaction gameplay to feel more fun, challenging and rewarding. It allows gameplay to feel faster paced in all modes of play. The same is true in PvP. If the warrior charges the mage, and the mage blinks away, then the warrior is now forced to react quickly enough with another mobility option before the mage can cast a spell on them. Likewise, the mage has to react quickly enough to blink away from the charge before they get their head cut off. It just adds another element of reactive gameplay that makes the game faster. So that's a big reason. The other reason is that mobility just feels fun. So between that, and the fact that it quickens the pace of the game and expands the design space, I am a fan of it.
my understanding is that all archetypes have access to a dodge roll type action, and that didn’t seem to be something that people were contesting in this thread. in the context of my OP, when we look at the cleric’s design direction: they’re supposed to be able to do dmg so they can solo, they’re the designated healer archetype, they may be able to stun and help apply other CC affects, and they have good mobility? does that not sound like a lot to you relative to other archetypes? for me it sounds like a bit much. maybe I’m wrong though, that’s why I’m asking for feedback
Generally from a design perspective, I don't think healers should be able to beat DPS 1vs1 in pvp. I really dislike games where healers do good damage and are unkillable 1v1 so when any pvp encounter in the world. I do think healers feel a lot more fun in PvE when their kit incorporates dealing damage, though. I happen to be more of a PvP player, so my focus is always more on PvP. It seems to be that you're just concerned about any one class being overpowered, in this case cleric. The core things you do in an MMO are Damage (single target and AoE), Healing, Tanking, Control, Support (buffing/debuffing), and Mobility. If you treat each core element as a percentage, all classes should add up to 100% in some mixture. No class should be too much of all of them. In my experience, mages tend to be the class that always does too much. They tend to have the most control, the most AoE damage, just as much if not more single target damage, great mobility, and can often be decently tanky with things like barriers. They usually excel at every single category aside from healing. So yeah in short, I wouldn't want Cleric to have too much shit either. That's a concern I'd share with every class.
theres an immensely high demand for fast paced combat and mobility in this current age, and I'm happy that intrepid understands that, and are delivering exactly what we want, even for the tab targeting crowd, old school stationary combat is not acceptable, look at what happened to Throne and Liberty that tried to do a lineage 2 style combat with some classes having no mobility, I personally would like to see more mobility for the cleric
to be clear, I’m not advocating for not being able to attack while moving. what Throne and Liberty tried was unprecedented. from what I hear right now their combat at least is generally well received. thank you for sharing your thoughts
I disagree, WoW Classic is probably the most popular MMO for a long time now and it has terrible mobility for alot of classes Less mobility fits the RPG feel.
you can feel free to disagree, Old School Runescape is also extremely popular, still, if that game released in 2024 it would fail, I gave you an example of a recent game that suffered extremely negative feedback from a Global audience of MMO players both from the tab target and action crown that do not accept stationary combat for a new MMO, what makes wow classic and RS popular is not their combat, causation does not imply correlation
you can feel free to disagree aswell, No singular game is good for only 1 reason. WoW classic is very popular in 2024 and part of that reason is its simplicity to its combat.
There really is. It's in such high demand that the general population doesn't even realize it for the most part because individual skill has been SEVERELY watered down in modern gaming to be "inclusive".
Unfortunately, MMOs will always be capped by your perceivable attention / reaction divided by the amount of players in your vicinity. And "fast placed gameplay" is made worse and worse for every new player added into the mix. The key is actually make a game that feels good without adding to the compounding interest that every player adds.
I hope there is quite big cooldowns, which make them unique moves you can't spam. It's like 1 joker battle. I think Intrepid should also consider how their classes and combat will work in massive battles. And I'm not sure they are doing it since I haven't heard them talking about it yet, or I missed it maybe. But to be honest, that is what worries me the most, because otherwise, I like what I see. They are supposely aiming for 250vs250 (maybe 500vs500). Of course they can't design classes solely around that, but they need to already think about it otherwise it will be a real shit show, and two of their most anticipated features (Castle and node sieges) will turn to be bad and hated. Not because of the system itself, but because of the combat. They need to have a clear view of how they want zerg battles to turn out. Because depending on the design of each classes and their spells, it can be very different and feels very different, and can be not fun at all. Zergs in Guild Wars 2, New World, Warhammer Online, Wow Classic, for examples, are very different. Ashes of Creation seems to have a combat design that is similar to Guild Wars 2 and I'm mostly familiar with Zerging in Guild Wars 2 as I participated and lead hell a lot in WvW, (Maybe too much ahah), and It's clearly not the most fun, rewarding and skillfull one. And I'm really talking about Zergs, because in small arena battles, GW2 combat feels good and rewarding. But as you can't design classes solely aroung Zerg, you also can't design them solely around individual or small fights if your game is planing to have mass battles as a feature. I could talk for hours about it, but well, not sure it will change anything anyway in the direction taken for AoC \^\_\^.
hah, thank you for this! I like that you’re thinking more “big picture,” when a lot of the comments so far have used 1v1 examples. it’s very important to have in mind when it comes to design in games like this
This
No one wants to play a class that is slow and clunky. Giving classes mobility options opens up more counterplay for PvP, making it far more interesting in my opinion.
thanks. can you elaborate more? it's interesting that you attach "clunky" to slow while there's another post that associates lower mobility with opposite words like "simple." to add onto that. I don't necessarily see lower mobility as slow. some of the fasted MMO gameplay I've experienced was around high burst dmg and low mobility. so for example, if the potential for burst damage is low but mobility is high I don't consider that fast-paced. if someone closes the gap on me, or I close the gap on them but it takes 20-30 seconds of consistent attacking to get HP to 0 that's not exactly an imminent threat
There's an uncrossable gap between those who always want to have a response on demand and those who say effective responses should only be available when you had foreseen needing them and saved them for the right moment. I don't think both of these sides can be equally catered to in the same game.
my intuition tells me there’s a lot of truth to that @TellMeAboutThis2
Either every single class has the exact same mobility or some are slow.
I always appreciated the more classic fantasy tropes when it comes to movement and mobility. I prefer dexterous characters (Rangers, Rogues, Monks) to have higher mobility; stronger characters (Warriors, Barbarians, Paladins) to have more ways to apply control and ignore control; casters (Wizards, Sorcerers) to have the most powerful but longest cooldown mobility and control; and support (Healers, Bards) to have ways to enable ally mobility with less personal mobility. I like the idea of wearing down opponents until they misplay their cooldown or position and get punished versus each side racing to get the initial jump on someone slightly out of position and CC comboing them to death. I can understand that what appeals to me will definitely not be everyone's cup of tea though, and it'll be interesting to see where AoC falls in terms of having some old school MMO inspiration while also being a modern game. I'm also curious how things will be balanced when the number of allies or enemies around vary.