Melee Combat Feedback

Magic Man

it was great to see the improvements Intrepid has made. Although not very different from the old melee combat gameplay-wise (still spammy and lacking depth), in terms of animation, it was a huge update. I personally preferred the 2018 melee combat in which we weren't rooted and moved forward each time we attacked. However, @Steven Sharif said that this melee combat will better integrate into the hybrid system and i trust him (hopefully all the more reason to not 'scrap' action combat - which oddly was mentioned more than once in the last few months).

I believe the melee combat would improve drastically by just fixing one thing: blocking.

- Blocking: I think it was a great idea to add blocking to APOC which hopefully will be in the MMO as well one way or the other. However, currently it is pretty much useless as it isn't responsive and activates with a delay (not dynamic enough). Having a responsive blocking would make melee combat much more skill based and more fun in general - so people wouldn't win a melee fight by merely spamming left click but they'd have to know when to block.

lixado1

Games like Blade and Soul make blocking/combat really good, by using a "counter play method" meaning everything has a counter play.
If enemy attacks a block he should get punished for it(CCed) or the User of the block should get rewarded by blocking for example gain an iframe for X seconds. This makes a player be able to counter play someone spamming buttons by punishing him, but blocking should also have counter play.
If you block and your enemy DOES NOT attack the block, that means he played well and should get rewarded, this can be done by either CCing the blocker after blocking if blocking doesnt succeed.
Here both parties have counter play and its a way to make skill matter.
Sidenote: X(dodge that is in game) is completly useless at the moment, they should make it an iframe for X seconds and not spammable so Y seconds cooldown.

Rem_

I feel like having smoother less spammy and rooted attack animations could be good. Slowing down the attacks just a little on some weapons and possibly changing up the tracer effect from orange to something more faint like a light white or something.

I don't feel it's good when I attack and I'm forced to move forwards. You always have to move with your mouse instead of being able to strafe around someone easily.

I DON'T mind being animation locked but I'd like the animations to look nice and feel more impactful. Maybe different weapon hit sounds or a small pause or delay when you hit someone like in bdo or something to simulate the force of contact. dunno just some random thoughts to add to the thread

ilisfet

So, I think there's a bit of a mismatch in what the devs are perceiving versus what the players are, going by some comments from when Steven streamed a bit.

When asked about letting block/roll cancel attacking, he said they didn't really need to since attacks are fast enough you don't need to wait.

Players generally feel attacks are slow and lock you in too long.

Both of these are correct, when you pay attention to every attack in a chain. The first few strikes are snappy and over as soon as they begin, like Steven said, but because the timing to string attacks is either strict or unintuitive, most players spam LMB and reach the chain finisher. ...Here lies the problem. You can see it especially in two-handed weapons like the greatsword, maul, and war axe, that the chain finisher is this floaty feeling jump attack with a long ass recovery. And you're rooted for the entire recovery.

I'd say the floaty feeling comes down to a bit of desync on the hit with the animation and the unnatural timings of the jump. If it's a jumping attack, you'd expect to behave like how a normal jump works, but instead this jump shoots off with too little anticipation to a shorter than standard peak with longer than expected hang time into a downward slash with recovery longer than it has any right to be. The jump behaves completely differently to the one we do by pressing [space] and it feels wrong.


In regards to hit impact, what APOC is missing most is animations on the target -- pain, twitch, or hitstun animations. The attack animations in isolation look satisfying and feel punchy, but the target doesn't react when hit, which ultimately makes it all fall flat. There is a visual and audio effect for hits, which Intrepid should keep and iterate on, but it's not enough to really convey the oomph in a blow. If there was an unrealistic, hyperbolic blood spurt accompanied by the torso jerking to one side every time a blow connected, you'd feel your attacks connecting far more. ...Whether it's a blood spurt is up to Intrepid, but you get the idea.

The animation is simple, layered on top of other animations, and doesn't stun the player in any way.