I tried searching the forum, but the only topic related to ticks I did not have permission to view. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3896/what-is-the-duration-of-a-quot-tick-quot
So, the question is this - will ticks be a thing in this game or will buffs/debuffs have set durations?
I see pros and cons to ticks.
A con might be that for an ability that last 3 ticks it could last anywhere from 12-18 seconds which is a large gap in effectiveness.
A pro is that for more skilled players they could time their abilities with the ticks to get more out of them and could also use ticks to predict things like possible occurrences of charm breaking.
Have they made it clear on if ticks will be in the game or if it will use set durations on spells like we've seen in other MMORPGs?
Yes, you can see them in the streams. I know there have been discussions that mention them that arent in restricted areas of the forum.
It seems like it's easier for server side calcs to manage dots in ticks, at least they use a "server tick system" on FFXIV too.
As long as you can see your own damage, I don't really care about the way the server calculate dots. For buffs and debuffs I'm a bit more concerned since short duration ones will be a bit roundable in effectiveness with a tick system.
Something to keep in mind too is that the "Tick" mechanic can be the natural limiter on how many special abilities you can use in a given time while also giving you that amount of time to decide what to do. This will really slow down the game compared to many of the current twitch based games. This could also be interesting for the crafting mini games.
For example you charge attack a mob. This is your action that initiates combat but is also the only special ability you can use in the first 6 seconds of combat. Your charge attack only takes 1 second of the 6 seconds so you auto attack for 5 out of the 6 seconds. During that 6 seconds you can click an ability to queue it up for the next tick. The system will complete the final auto attack initiated in the first tick then trigger the queued ability in the first available weapon delay in the second tick.
I could see queuing up up to three abilities but more than that might be silly.
For a caster I could see them auto attack with a wand, gather energy or gather mana as their auto action. Attacking with a wand is pretty straight forward, you do damage but you do not charge spell power or regenerate mana. Gather energy could be drawing extra energy from your environment (maybe utilizing colored mana if that becomes a thing again) that adds an effect to the next spell you cast, gathering energy requires you to stand still though so it can be dangerous. Regenerate mana is similar to gathering energy in that you must stand still but instead you are trying to regenerate your mana pool.
Based on which caster you are and the encounter you are facing which of the three caster auto actions you use will be different.
For physical damage characters stances could be used to change the nature of your auto action similar to casters.
Saturday morning spit balling. I'm not in Pre-Alpha so I have no idea if something similar is already in and no idea if the system would only require a UI change or a core code change to implement it.