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Combat Desire Compilation #2 - Throw Yours In
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
To be brief.
This topic is to absorb all the arguments about stuff that Intrepid did NOT ASK FOR FEEDBACK ON for the current stream data.
Obviously there is a topic for direct feedback for June Update, so if you only care about giving feedback that you know Intrepid will definitely listen to and be looking for, head there. This thread is almost certainly gonna be a lot of arguing and compiling of everything else.
Things the June Update Stream did not show:
1. Exact effect of blocking.
2. Specifics of procs on attacks
3. Spacing concepts
4. Weapon Skills and Weapon Skill Trees
5. Any weapons other than Greatsword and Dual Wield Daggers
6. Any information on how Tab Targeting would work
7. Any information on exactly the effect of a reticle on attack spacings (we just get hitboxes, which are difficult to deconstruct and subject to change anyway)
My opinions are not particularly important to this topic, I'll continue to just compile, but obviously I'll argue and correct misinterpretations as best I can, and I'm sure we can call in a lot of people who can correct whichever misinterpretations I have.
This topic is to absorb all the arguments about stuff that Intrepid did NOT ASK FOR FEEDBACK ON for the current stream data.
Obviously there is a topic for direct feedback for June Update, so if you only care about giving feedback that you know Intrepid will definitely listen to and be looking for, head there. This thread is almost certainly gonna be a lot of arguing and compiling of everything else.
Things the June Update Stream did not show:
1. Exact effect of blocking.
2. Specifics of procs on attacks
3. Spacing concepts
4. Weapon Skills and Weapon Skill Trees
5. Any weapons other than Greatsword and Dual Wield Daggers
6. Any information on how Tab Targeting would work
7. Any information on exactly the effect of a reticle on attack spacings (we just get hitboxes, which are difficult to deconstruct and subject to change anyway)
My opinions are not particularly important to this topic, I'll continue to just compile, but obviously I'll argue and correct misinterpretations as best I can, and I'm sure we can call in a lot of people who can correct whichever misinterpretations I have.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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This would also add a balance factor to heavy vs light weapons, light weaponry having shorter reach and therefore more susceptible to being pushed out of attack range by big swings, which would then have to be countered by awareness of this and expectation to use mobility, so any input on that (from anyone at all) will be compiled as well.
Though I'm sure there will be skill trees most likely.
Wasn't NW's stagger removed cause people complained about that type of thing? Or was it just "too hard" for people?
That was a good change when they removed stagger, it wasn't a fun mechanic imo and a lot of people i played with agreed. Why use any skills or anything when you can just spam click until you win with a fast weapon.
Right, but to consider something. Knockback that changes your spacing to an opponent without actually preventing or even interrupting your attack is not, strictly speaking 'stagger'.
Stagger afaik always refers to being interrupted and being unable to start a new animation or attack. In this case I'm talking about 'I as the Dagger Wielder am slammed away from you the Greatsword wielder just as my attack is starting'.
My attack continues, but if I was at close range I still hit, if I was too far out, now my attack whiffs, but at no point did my actual attack falter, my spacing changed.
Fast weapons stunlock people with stagger? Make the stagger have diminishing returns on such weapons.
Slow weapons feel "weak"? Make their stagger a fraction of a second longer, so that you have a "bigger dick" feeling when hitting someone, but your target could still dodge you if they're faster so you still need skill to use that "big dick".
I feel like the mobs need much more telegraphing on attacks. There were lots of dodging and blocking options, but monsters would throw out abilities with no room for counterplay. There's a million ways to do this, and you shouldn't have counterplay for every single attack, but the really big moves came out instantly and it seemed weird to me.
In a similar vein, the attacks didn't seem to affect the monsters. The big attacks didn't stagger them, and they didn't have any "reaction to hit" animations to sell the player's attacks. I think that stagger mechanics and enough reaction animations will help pull the game away from feeling like an AOE fest.
I expect these things to be in the game eventually, but might as well give feedback on it regardless.
Literally anything that you think of about combat that Intrepid did NOT ask for input on this time, is up for discussion in this one.
I think the reason why we don't have framestop on hits is simply because we also have cleaving, and you'd have to build a separate system to manage the two.
I personally prefer when even Action Games don't give you room for counterplay against the mobs basic swings, or it devolves into high mobility characters just never taking damage, but this might not be what you meant.
Don't look at them as 64 classes.
"We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... " - Jeffrey Bard
I don't think variants get as many skills as your core class. It's really just a subclass or a path you choose in your core class.
I wonder if it would be possible, or how useful it would be, if instead of always going the same direction, the damage done was floating away from the direction of the attacker. Enemy on your right hit you, damages goes left. Enemy hit you from the back, damage float up/front of your character. In the chaos of large fights, or against multiple opponents, it would help identify who's the heavy hitter. Kind of a blood splatter effect, but in red typeface.
Here’s my opinion based on what I observed…
First the 2H:
- The idle animation gave the weapon gravity, it looked like the weapon had weight to both hold and heft - which lent some immersion points
- The weapon swings seemed smooth and well-animated (especially given this is alpha) and again also seemed to telegraph the weight of the sword in the direction of the attack
- The cadence of the attacks seemed ok. I’d like to get a feel for several slower attack speeds - I think there’s a better balance by slowing the heavy 2hnders down, which relatively speeds the daggers up (aka the daggers don’t need to be faster)
- The cleave attacks looked powerful, and appropriate
- The overhead active block looked neat, but I didn’t see it actively block anything (someone chime in if you did). Is that a 50% mitigation to block with a 2H?
- I’m not a fan of the golden swooshes, and hope these get toned down, they don’t lend anything functional over time, and if every attack has golden swooshes, they lose all significance and may as well not be there. So save the CPU effects for more powerful abilities
- I’m super curious to see other 2H basic animations now - especially for staves and polearms which have entire different attack patterns, but still have weight
Daggers:
- the speed felt felt right
- The character’s animations seemed too engaged. The advantage to fighting with knives is their non-communal nature. A full lunge is just silly with a knife.
- The dual attacks are good, though I would add more asymmetrical attacks, even reversing the grip on one of the knives which is a common tactic when fighting with two shorter bladed weapons because it gives you more options faster
- I’m super interested in seeing if there’s a difference in how a warrior with daggers may fight versus a rogue with daggers
- Also my comment above on the silver swoops applies to daggers as well. The swoops take away from how cool the animations can be - and I’d rather focus on my character’s ability to fight than swoopy BDO flash bangs.
Overall, I’m happy with what I saw. I just want to see more. Specifically, how an active cast ability blends with the basic animations. Is there a target lock (aka Witcher 3 or AC) or just an action soft lock to deliver casted / ranged attacks?
I am surprised that they committed to a high speed medium mobility game with heavy skill targeting, but mainly because a lot of the prior feedback seemed to be against it.
I think that the speed of the attacks is not as important as the Time-To-Move after them, so it would be possible to slow the Greatsword, and my Greatsword user thinks so as well (she'll probably give feedback in main Feedback Thread).
My opinion on Daggers is in that thread too.
From eyeballing it, it seems that blocking is indeed a percentage mitigation, and I do not expect that to be changed, for various reasons relative to balance later.
It seems that the feedback has been much more targeted than usual in the main thread (perhaps a community demographic change?) so this one is probably thankfully much less necessary. Maybe we can pivot it to 'hey, show us this next!' or something... or maybe the news hasn't spread far/fast yet.
We saw the 360 spin attack, and it seems that the Greatsword has also retained some of its property from Alpha-1 of being able to hit behind the player a bit, with an animation improvement to telegraph that this can happen (for the third hit).
It has been implied (but not specifically stated) that basic attacks are intentionally more 'action-y', so skills might operate somewhat differently.
I have no idea if either of these points answers your question, but I mention them anyway.
I would really like to hear what is the feedback from players on visiblity depending on number of players in fight.
See, I thought this too, because obviously lots of people said this was a dispreference for them, but now that I've seen it, I can tell you that there will be minimal problems with visual clarity other than 'particle effects everywhere which is quite possibly intentional. And so far, the only thing that has made us go 'this isn't a fighting game' was an expectation about how something would be dialed down, but now it has been dialed up. I feel like we can no longer say 'this isn't a fighting game' in the way it is normally implied, and I say that as a person who plays 12 of them.
Since I think we can no longer go based on just Alpha-1, I'll add this wish to the data. I'm taking data from others who agree or disagree with this one too, though this is the sort of thing Intrepid is likely to make a whole separate thing on, so as the close of your own post indicates, let's get that input.
If we go back to point #1, and assume 'this is supposed to be a game with a skill floor similar to that of a MOBA or modern fighter', The last thing you conclude is unlikely. There would be no specific reason to force low cast times or high Area coverage. You would just be expected to 'predict and target' well enough. This is basically what I experienced in Alpha-1, and while we can't say 'that means we will get more of it', the direction change doesn't have to result in it.
The game might just have a higher skill ceiling in PvP outright. We saw from the Hammer skill that the AoE of that isn't particularly large, I feel like without predicting the enemy, it would be easy to miss with that, and that the enemy in question can probably just barely see it to dodge.
You can get some frame data in the usual way from the YouTube step-through of the 4K video. Others including myself have already done some of it. Make sure to adjust for the original framerate. Of course, the frame data is probably one of the things most subject to change, and we don't yet know if there will be 'Cast/Attack speed reduction' stuff, or how they will be handling it if there is any.
I dont know previous iteraction of combat systems or visual effects but I talk only on the base of last 2-3 streams on their channel.
I would like to INCREASE casting time and DECREASE movement speed as a base and then increase them if it will be necessary. I'm fully aware that the combat system wont be similar to MOBA and fighting game. These games have lower amount of players in combat ( fighting game) or lower amount of abilities(MOBA) not counting other differences. MMORPG has usually more players on the screen and more abilities so the visual clarity needs much more attention because it so hard to achive clarity with this amount of players and abilities.
I am not sure if I made my point clearly enough, actually.
I'm saying that they might be aiming for that without actually caring or minding too much. But that seems to be an afterthought currently so for anyone else who is giving data, please note the last paragraph in the above quote as the direct 'data prompt'.
My input, since it is not my prompt, is:
"I would not like either of those changes to be made, I like the speed where it is, and I do not currently feel a need for any changes based on concerns about visual clarity."
L2 went from super clarity to pretty much "I got no fucking clue what's going on here" within ~5 years. And quiiiite a lot of people disliked that. One of the reasons for that (aside from just new super-vfxy skills) was the atk/cast speed tie to the animation. Earlier version of the game had a fairly slow speed, so animations took longer and there wasn't just requirement to control skill cds (cause L2 didn't have a gcd and was animation-based instead), but judging by the speed of action in this stream (and even smth like basic wand attacks in alpha1), I think some cd control would be required to keep the mass pvp from becoming a mess.