A review of the new combat 'system'

First - the good - enemy AI does appear to be behaving far better than previously, they now actually commit to a target rather than continuously changing their mind (and, also break aggro and change targets when you actively attempt to make them do so). I even saw a new attack animation out of rocknoses that I don’t think I’ve ever seen - presumably because previously they were so focused on changing targets that they rarely actually attacked at all. This is a big improvement.

Second - the bad - sadly that appears to be the only improvement to combat, unless the intention was to make it so easy that I was able to destroy a King Shaleback without having my hand on the keyboard - victory with mouse only (admittedly dodge is bound to a thumb button, so I did have that option) - I was hit once in the entire fight, despite not moving except the occasional roll.

Stamina management is meaningless under the new system - because you will always be free to move only a moment after reaching exhaustion (so you are never actually penalised for not managing stamina properly), and the bar refills fully in under a second, so just the briefest pause is all it takes to be completely fresh. I can’t believe you’ve got me to the point of making a standard PVP argument - where is the skill?

As a result of these changes, there is no longer any meaningful reason to wear any armour other than heavy - stamina regen is just as fast (oh OK, Firespark proved that light regens stamina two thirtieths of a second faster than heavy - which seems more like a joke than a difference…), climbing is the same whatever your armour, only the dodge speed remains as any sort of difference - and you’ve extended the ‘invulnerability’ period on dodges, so the value of a faster dodge is even less than before.

Shields quite honestly feel completely pointless - even if you fix the fact that they don’t prevent damage currently (I am aware that’s a known issue), they still no longer serve any apparent purpose except to reduce your damage output. The only real purpose they appeared to serve before was to either help shed aggro (which rarely worked, and now appears irrelevant since the enemy AI is behaving better and therefore sheds aggro more reasonably) or to take a moment to regen stamina (which required at least a small amount of skill/timing since you had to time blocking and not blocking). They are no longer relevant for either role, and in fact are a quicker way to drain your stamina than just continuing to move around (after all, with the near instant stamina regen when not blocking, you’ll be able to roll again in less than a second anyway).

Frankly, this whole patch appears poorly thought out and poorly executed - ‘fixed bugs’ are already being reported as not fixed, glowing goop (which you only fixed a couple of weeks ago) is once again nuclear (suggesting this patch has been built on the wrong version of the game code). And to top it all off, the testlive client has crashed twice in the past hour - suggesting it isn’t even stable. I’m done with testing for today - I may give it another go in future, but, honestly, I see little point right now - past experience suggests that you will push this patch live without fixing any of these issues and despite near total opposition from the player base. I have been a vocal supporter of Funcom, but right now my faith is at an all time low.

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Not any more as of 2.2 this will change

Some how a Sony DEV is inside FUncom and is repeating history.
This downward spiral has happened before.

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Jones, this is what he’s talking about. Dan was doing his testing on the 2.2 test client. The new patch to balance combat is balancing it by forcing us to choose to A) die faster or B) All wear the same thing.

That’s the problem–The new “fixes” are either breaking more things or managing to invalidate nearly 70% of the armor in the game.

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It sounds like they’ve basically made combat stupidly easy. I have a hard time believing this was the intent, but as DQ pointed out, if past is any guide what’s on testlive will get pushed to production with minimal to no changes.

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Question… Ps4 is abit far behind.

How is Snow Zone? On patch we have on ps4. (at lv40)
Undead (at my damage setting) take full combo +1-2 hits (with my gear) and have 0 stun. So you’ll never be able to knock them…(which makes King Scourge dungeon a super pain)

Sabercats… high stun resist, and they takes 8+ heavy combos… And hit like trucks… Crazy miss balance.

Light armor in both instance (before lv60) is pointless. Medium works and heavy is abit op.

Any of this any different on PC?

This is pretty much the broken stage of PVE for long time now as you move north for awhile now. =/

Before this patch, snow on PC was pretty similar - when I jump on to testlive a bit later today, I’ll check it out and add another reply :slight_smile:

At a guess (without having tested the region specifically yet) - stamina changes will probably make it slightly easier, but I suspect shield changes will make it significantly harder - that was one of the few regions where I’ve always tended to rely more on a shield than elsewhere (because cats…).

I won’t be able to get a perfect idea right now, because currently there’s a known bug in testlive that shields not only pass through stamina loss when struck, but also pass through all the damage as well - so whatever I do it’s likely to be just an estimate…

I know you console folks are stuck in this situation, having to rely on what you hear secondhand - if there’s anything you (or other console users) specifically want to have tested, let me know, I’m happy to add it to the list :slight_smile:

(edited for incoherent writing because I’m still only half awake :wink: )

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Right - I’ve now been up to the snow, at level 40 with appropriate gear (light non-epic armour, Cimmerian Axe Steel shield) - took a level 0 thrall (Tarman) equipped with heavy vit armour (non-epic Yamatai Warlord), steel mace and some gruel. (on default settings)

It went about how I would expect - we did make it all the way through the Black Keep (by the short route - for once I remembered where to go :wink: ) starting at the Bridge, killed the Kinscourge and made it back out. I got through about a dozen Aloe potions and Tarman did most of the work. There was no way I could test a full heavy combo on anything - I had to hit and roll, hit and roll - but with the incredibly fast stamina regen, that didn’t feel particularly difficult, just time consuming (and like I was definitely the sidekick and he (at level 0) was the mighty warrior…). Nearly died a few times (but heavier armour would certainly have helped - I kinda misread the question and thought you were asking about light armour specifically, rather than dismissing it :wink: ). The shield, as expected, felt like a hindrance rather than a help.

After making it out of there and back across the bridge I then teleported us to just north of the Mounds so we could face the sabretooths between there and the Outcast Camp - that was probably worse than usual (shield being pretty useless is a bit of a problem, though the same hit and roll option worked a bit) - I got through about another dozen aloe potions, nearly died multiple times, Tarman (by now approaching level 10) also nearly died, but he was able to defeat all of the cats while I moved around spending most of the fight healing (again, the near limitless stamina provided by the fast regen of the new system helped quite a bit).

Overall, I’d say it’s probably about the same up there - I wouldn’t normally go to the snow much before level 60 (and levelling is so fast since Siptah released, that I’m hitting 40 before I’ve got the first shack finished…). Both Tarman and I survived - but it did take me a lot of Aloe potions (more than I could ever have carried) (and a bunch of wraps and food) - and he was definitely the hero while I was pretty much a bystander watching most of the fights (well, dodging, moving and healing myself while trying to contribute, but it didn’t feel like I contributed anything meaningful).

There’s also the added fun that every time Tarman took a lot of damage in a fight, I had to stand around for several minutes to wait for him to heal (because the healing arrows have been nerfed through the floor, and there is no longer any meaningful way to accelerate thrall healing other than give them the best food you can and wait (technically you can also feed them potions, but it heals a tiny proportion of what they need so winds up as a huge waste of resources for little actual time gained))., but that’s not new to testlive, that’s another part of the Siptah healing changes.

All in all, I don’t think the new combat changes make a great deal of difference to things up there - it’s tough up north, but I’d expect that at level 40 with level 40 gear - I don’t think it’s practical for me up there at that level on default settings, but I wouldn’t really expect it to be, so not sure much changed.

Side note - by the end of Black Keep and short run up to the Outcast camp, my light armour was shredded but just about holding together and I’d got through far more healing than I would ever have actually had with me in the game. (Tarman’s mace was also on the verge of breaking - but that’s already been acknowledged as a bug.)

I don’t know if that helps or not, but maybe it gives you a bit more of a picture? (Let me know if you want anything clarified, or something else tested :slight_smile: )

The biggest problem I have with the new Stamina is how you can move at full speed and dodge the moment stamina starts to regen above zero. Like the OP said, it makes stamina management pointless. This will have massive PVP ramifications as managing your stamina better than your opponent was an important skill to practice.

Also, it does seem like there isn’t enough difference among the three armor types. The penalty for heavy just doesn’t seem like it’s heavy enough to make medium and light more attractive under any circumstances. I don’t mind medium and light being nearly identical, but heavy should be markedly different when it comes to stamina regen IMHO.

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I actually really like the stamina regen idea with different types of armour but yeah I agree the difference is very very minimal on the official setting. But the idea behind it is good cos players have wanted some differences between the armours for quite some time now =D Should be something that is easy to change too since we have the INI settings (YUSS! This is also so good!) so they can just tweak them for officials, wouldn’t even require reworking any code :smiley:

Haha yes that is closer to what I meant!
Sorry a lil tired atm, been out all day xD

But I still think it is a good change just needs to be tweaked a little more cos it could make even a slight change to the armour types :smiley:

In saying that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything cos Funcom seems to have a thing with either the change being so minimal it’s pointless or making it so massive that heavy armour will become the useless type :sweat_smile:

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I did come up with one scenario where light armour is still better than heavy - picking up baby animals. It pretty much has to be done before fighting the adults or they vanish, and that is not going to be a good time to suddenly be over-encumbered - imagine fighting mama sabretooth or the Mufasa lion at the top of the Crowngrove without being able to roll (or run) and with stamina being drained every time it hits a shield - I think I’d rather be in light armour there and have a better chance of being able to carry the weight and still move. But other than that, I’m having trouble coming up with a reason to wear anything but heavy…

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Hmmm that does make sense but on the other hand…

You fight the mummas!? I send my thrall in then run in there like here kitty kitty, spam pickup baby to shove it in my obviously oversized pockets, then leg it/slow walk out :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: Often leaving my thrall behind like good luck byyyeee :joy: You may die rando thrall I don’t care about but it is a sacrifice I’m willing to make :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Usually if I have a follower with me, they seem to start the fight early and scare the babies away. Plus, a lot of enemies seem to focus on targeting me even if I’m not the one attacking them (they obviously think I’m tasty - though maybe not as tasty as my horse :wink: ). (Actually this is something that does seem to be much better in the testlive version - enemies are picking targets and sticking to it more, rather than constantly changing their minds, but they’re also more willing to change targets to whoever is actually attacking them - a definite improvement).

I did have a hilarious encumbered roll/slow walk experience on Siptah after picking up a baby Crested Lacerta - made it back to the water edge only to discover it was really shallow (bit of an oversight :slight_smile: ) then had to walk and roll my way for what felt like ten minutes with an adult constantly just behind me, just missing every time I rolled or changed direction. Constant feel of hot breath right behind me but never quite getting hit, sort of like the slowest chase in history :smiley:

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May I ask were you on test live as I am finding that there is no roll any longer ( as it was stated in testlive notes) once you are encumbered which would have made that trip well a lot less fun or possible with a monster behind you.

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No, that was on live branch :slight_smile:

Yep, that’s pretty much what I meant a couple of posts higher up about light armour maybe being better for picking up baby animals. I’m pretty sure under the new system getting over-encumbered picking up baby animals at the wrong moment may prove fatal :wink:

Edit: I have found one situation on testlive where you can roll when over-encumbered - if you have the 50 encumbrance perk - otherwise my findings on the rolls are much like yours.

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Ive been wearing Royal armor the entire time.
I do use heavy for the hot/frozen areas.

The way I read it is less stamina drain the lighter your armor. I have no complaints about that.

2.1 gave us (A) die faster, so they were already half way there.

This is not the final version of CE, its a new game every few months. This is not what we signed up for.
New content YES, a new game to learn every few months… Its SWG all over again.
When most of the player base is gone, they will figure it out.
Like Pat Benatar said: A little to little, a little to late

Actually, I miss SWG. Never once visited the forums or the wiki, just explored and learned through trying and dying.

Good times.

Regards

jim

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i think a lot of the changes we are seeing are because there are quite a few new faces on the team or team members in new roles and they are doing their part to try to make the game as fun as possible… i understand the frustration with learning the way changes are handled but in a lot of ways i enjoy the game even more after i figure these changes out… many of them are things that honestly should have been here from the beginning, hopefully we keep getting better things and they listen when we say things aren’t… like they seem to have with the karmic effect

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Players showed other players who to do things.
We trained each other, we taught each other languages.

Could you imagine if the different races in CE could not talk to each other, until they learned the others speak.
We learned everything inside of SWG from other players.

No one even talks to each other in CE

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Server I play on people talk to each other a lot, and usually they ask questions in game vs going to the wiki, because there are many players who will answer if they know.

We had someone on the server when anyone asked a question they would respond with “Check the Wiki or Youtube” but that player has since quit it seems.

But besides that one player, if someone ask something they usually get the answer from someone.