"In Combat" delay

Markune

Is it just me or does the "In Combat" status seem to drag on for an unnecessary amount of time after you exit combat? I can see a slight delay prior to being able to take additional actions, but it seems to be somewhere around 7 seconds of standing around. Relative to other issues it's a small thing, but it sure would make resource gathering a little more enjoyable.

Atama

Yeah it does. It's not nearly as bad as some other MMOs I play, like Star Trek Online, where it can take 15 seconds or more for combat to drop off, but it's long enough to be annoying.

captivated

Hey friends,
I think you should change that "in combat modus" in that way, that you are only in combat if atleast 1 mob has you in its aggro table... It is kinda annoying when your out there to gather some herbs, and after every mobb you kill you have to wait like 5 seconds before you can start gathering. Or atleast you should be able to pick your flowers even in the "combat stance/mode" aslong as no mob has you in its aggro table.

cherrio you german ashes shill

LieutenantToast

Merged together a few threads here on the "in combat" status duration! keep chattin'!

Doomcrow

10 sec. to get out of combat is way to long

MrPockets

Generally, I agree. but to add another perspective...

WHY does it feel bad?
- I would say mostly because we can't gather while in combat. If we were allowed to gather while in combat (and damage just interrupts you), I think it becomes much less of a problem.

I'm guessing the longer combat status is probably more so there for PvP stuff.

SoggyBandaid

I mentioned something similar in a gathering thread, but I think that regardless of out of combat timer length gathering should be available in combat (even PVP). I personally would like the option to stick to my gathering guns even when being attacked. If I'm willing to risk dying for my mats, I should be rewarded with an opportunity to gather them.

trickeyone

Yeah, agreed. Seems like the delay is longer than it needs to be. I get having the delay but it should only be a few seconds, maybe.

Markune

A "Three count" seems like it would be balanced well in my opinion. I don't have a problem with interaction limitations while "in combat", but extending that limitation beyond actual combat for the duration it is currently set at feels almost punitive.

Eltharius the Prime

Greetings! I wanted to create a discussion based on entering and exiting combat, specifically what I have experienced in the Alpha One. To start, entering combat is relatively simple and quite straightforward. The fights themselves arent perfect, but this is an Alpha One and nothing is expected to be perfect. Fighting NPC's, right now, seems rather lackluster as the movement of your character is nullified when you are attacking, leaving you with the decision to stop attacking in general to move, or stay and take DMG while dishing out your attacks. Personally, I think having the ability to attack and move would make combat much more interesting, as it compliments the characters choice to manipulate battles in a strategical fashion. Much like ESO you could say, but where ESO has power attacks to regain stamina/mana, AoC does not, which is something I quite appreciate from AoC. Adding movement to the fight would create fluidity during combat that I think most players would enjoy across the class spectrum, as well as let the team at Intrepid create fight designs based on moving your characters.

For the last part of this discussion, I wish to talk about leaving/exiting combat. A major complaint of mine during this Alpha One test is how long it takes for your character to final decide 'Ok, the monster is dead... But is it!!!' When obviously it is dead XD! A reason this is such a pain is that the characters regeneration of health and mana does not take affect until you 'leave combat', even though you arent in combat. In many other MMO's, or even RPG's such as Dragon Age for example, sometimes you cannot properly activate objects are enter your regen state until all the bad guys are dead. When they are, it usually takes 1-3 seconds for the character in game to realize that. From what I have counted, it takes approximately 10-15 seconds in AoC Alpha One for a character to leave combat, which ultimately has you waiting a good overall 25-30 seconds to get yourself fully healed and ready for the next few fights before doing so again. I think having a responsive combat awareness system for our characters will be something that will only aid the fluidity of combat. The passive regen is actually quite decent and affective, it is just getting to that stage to get yourself healed before the next enemy suddenly takes your by surprise, or even a player. This also affects gathering professions such as mining, herb gathering, fishing, etc. You cannot activate these profession nodes until you leave combat, even though you clearly arent. Next thing you know, another player comes in and swoops it out from beneath you. Again, I think the solution is quite easy to see, and I have full faith and confidence that the team at Intrepid will look into this to create a fair and reasonable decision for the design moving forward!

Any thoughts considering this discussion will only help the devs as well, so please let them hear your voice! For Verra!

-Eltharius

FollyStormborn

I'd just like to say I came to comment on this. Above poster covered what I was going to say and more, but there was one additional comment I wanted to put in. I really don't think whether you're 'in combat' or not should affect whether you can harvest a node - at least standard nodes. Having to wait 5 seconds after killing a mob farming was just plain annoying when I was out resource gathering. If it instantly released combat when the mob was dead, that would be different, but as it is, it got in my way and literally just had me standing there for many many minutes over the course of a few hours of farming.

In addition to this, it's worth mentioning it gives priority to anyone trying to grief someone farming. Rather than having to attack a player that just cleared the mobs off a node, they can just grab the node while the other person is waiting for combat flag to clear and force the person who did the work to flag to protect what they cleared.

MrPockets

Eltharius the Prime wrote: »

which ultimately has you waiting a good overall 25-30 seconds to get yourself fully healed and ready for the next few fights before doing so again. I think having a responsive combat awareness system for our characters will be something that will only aid the fluidity of combat. The passive regen is actually quite decent and affective, it is just getting to that stage to get yourself healed before the next enemy suddenly takes your by surprise, or even a player.

I think the time between combat encounters is more of a design decision. The less down time for a single player, the less they are encouraged to group up and make friends. There is probably a sweet spot somewhere, because we also don't want healers/buffers to feel so necessary that people just multibox (*cough* Lineage 2 *cough*)

As for the gathering issue, I think a lot of people are voicing their concerns about having to wait for combat to end, myself included. =]

FollyStormborn

MrPockets wrote: »

I think the time between combat encounters is more of a design decision. The less down time for a single player, the less they are encouraged to group up and make friends. There is probably a sweet spot somewhere, because we also don't want healers/buffers to feel so necessary that people just multibox (*cough* Lineage 2 *cough*)

As for the gathering issue, I think a lot of people are voicing their concerns about having to wait for combat to end, myself included. =]

I think there are better ways to encourage group farming than not providing passive regen quickly. Making the exp splitting beneficial to grouping would be one way I can think of immediately. I don't think lack of healing is the reason people would decide to group up - I'd personally just farm something lower level probably - because the xp advantage of being able to farm an extra monster level higher does not outweigh the splitting of the experience in most cases.

MrPockets

I agree, there are most likely better ways. I'm just pointing out that the down time between fights CAN be part of the design. Is it good design? I don't know, probably depends on what they are going for.

On another note: there are also other elements involved in this. Managing health/mana is an element of gameplay. By designing the combat in a way that doesn't automatically give players full health at the start of a fight it allows people to make builds or play in ways to improve their sustain.

Is that gameplay style for everyone? probably not, but it is also not automatically bad combat design.

Hillefuego

Forced downtime by combat state is a time gate and very toxic design wise. Imo combat state should drop after 5-8 seconds of no skill interaction between players or in PVE at the moment that every mob you're in combat with is dead.

Combat state should be a 'state', not a system that restricts or forces some type of gameplay.

Samcro101

If your a tank those 10 seconds of waiting for combat to drop are the worst. If you do not have self healing the OOC regen is huge,

Markune

It would seem there are two issues in question here.

First: "In Combat" duration after exiting combat is significantly longer than it needs to be. Possible exceptions made for PvP?

Second: "In Combat" duration effecting resource gathering should either be reduced significantly to enhance the player experience and reduce "wasted time", or removed completely. If removed completely the question would be whether to allow resource gathering to be interrupted by a combat hit or allow gathering to continue with a type of "Player beware" understanding. If you die while picking flowers.....jokes on you.

I think this sums up the options and positions of most players. The question remains what will become of the mechanic as we move through Alpha and into Beta testing. Do we have any feedback from the Dev team?

Kreed

Out of combat should happen when combat ends... there should be no delay.

palabana

Way too long for sure. We also shouldn't be forced into combat mode just because a mob is targeting or chasing us. Cancelling gathering, mining and harvesting when their attack lands us, sure. Disabling sprint on aggro though? That's too much. We're not even aggroing them, they're the ones targeting and then chasing us.

Lloyd

Yeah, I think being able to collect gatherables in combat should just be a thing. Not sure if there should be any penalty to being "in combat" except movement speed slow perhaps.

luthien1984

Has anyone else found certain map points where it takes even longer than normal for combat status to expire?

Kraghus

As far as gathering goes, I believe that we should be able to gather while in combat. The player should have that choice, and be able to gather at their own discretion. Not allowing them to do so is sort of "coddling" to a certain extent. Also, it is annoying to have to wait for whatever timer is going after combat ends to "officially" be out of combat before you can gather the node you're after.

And speaking of the "timer," combat should end when what you're in combat with dies. I don't know why there is currently a buffer, or if it's intentional or not, but it feels bad. It is disruptive to the flow of gameplay, and does not yield a smooth experience.