The real punishment for dying in game is dying in game. In PVP, you may pull your bracelet for convenient travel, that’s fine. PVP is about tactics and taking advantage of those marginal benefits, so it’s understandable that you want to use whatever the game allows in any ways that they can benefit you. That is not how everyone plays or wishes to play. I have never pulled my bracelet - it is not something I would ever want to do - I have done entire playthroughs on a permadeath basis (and I know I am not the only one). For some people, dying to get rid of some status effect or whatever is just a shortcut to what they want, for others dying represents the end of the game.
Sorcery is optional not mandatory. This is a game based on Conan, famed for, among other things, his hatred and distrust of sorcerors and sorcery. Recall body is not just something everybody uses.
I think you have misinterpreted what Dennis meant (though I could be wrong) - you seem to be viewing it through the lens of ‘getting poorer’ meaning losing your stuff. I think the metaphor was more about the balance in combat - once someone starts losing a bit, this suggestion would continue to punish them, making it less likely that they can get back to parity.
This, as I understand it, is the key point of the thread - PVP needs a rebalance in this area, which is what your suggestion (and CodeMage’s modification) is intended to address. The argument being made is not that this result is not needed - the result is indeed needed, and I think all (or most) are acknowledging it - the debate is over the method to get there. As I said before, I like the idea of the speed penalty approach, but I think it is likely to be highly damaging to singleplayer, and I don’t think the resulting combat experience will be as good as you think in PVP either. I think at best it will just incentivise group attacks or pure ambush, because the most important thing becomes getting that intital advantage in your favour. Once you’ve got the advantage it will then become much easier to steamroll them. That doesn’t seem like it would be very satisfying. Surely the best PVP is back and forth, with skill being the deciding factor? Would PVP really be good if every fight starts ‘grease orb, fire orb, now that you’re down to slower speed the fight can start’? (Or whatever equivalent tactic - orbs is just off the top of my head, but whatever hard surprise strike would be appropriate to get the intended result.) (These are genuine questions - you know I don’t know about PVP - it just seems to me this is the logical way such a system would wind up.)
Imagine getting stun-locked and then never having a chance to heal because you can’t get any distance between you and the multiple npcs attacking. Imagine having to waste 10 minutes running back across the map to get your stuff. Imagine losing followers because they are so much weaker now and you wreren’t there to fight for them. Sound like fun gameplay? We can all come up with such scenarios. Again - no one (including Dennis) is arguing that ‘PVP doesn’t need a way to reduce this pursuit problem’ - the argument is that it would be good to do it in a way that doesn’t wreck the game for others (and preferably doesn’t result in PVP being equally bad just for a new reason).
Well in case you haven’t seen of my solution to weapon balance yet…each weapon type should have a weapon they are strong against and one they are weak against with padding and deductions accordingly on their attacks. By spreading it out, you get a situation where there is no over all meta but dependent on what your opponent has. It forces people to explore weapon types more than watch their favorite content provider feed them the best meta.
This is awesome news! Some of us have noticed you lurking occasionally, but seeing you follow a discussion actively is such an encouraging thing. Thank you!
I don’t think @den meant it as a metaphor for the state of your character in long term, but rather the situation in the fight. It’s a way of describing a positive feedback loop without using jargon
And both he and @DanQuixote are absolutely right. The health-based slow-down idea does introduce a positive feedback loop: the more you get damaged, the more likely you are to get damaged because your speed gets reduced.
That said, I don’t think that necessarily disqualifies that idea, and this is why:
Yes! That makes it even more exciting, with a special emphasis on the word “skillfully”. So something you need to know how to pull off. Not necessarily super difficult, but definitely not an easy-to-execute get-out-of-jail kind of move.
What comes to mind as an analogy is the tech move in Super Smash Bros. You need a certain level of familiarity and practice to execute it, and even then you can’t just spam it in every situation, because it has a certain cooldown.
Of course, this is where I draw a blank, because I actually suck at PVP, so I can’t think of a concrete idea to propose, but maybe someone more experienced can?
But it isn’t really. I understand that there are people who voluntarily impose handicaps on their own play style – for RP, for a challenge, or for any other personal reason – but I don’t think the game design should automatically be hobbled by those. Sometimes it makes sense, other times it doesn’t.
And the fact is that outside those voluntary handicaps, dying really isn’t a punishment at all on its own. It only turns into a punishment if you compound it by having “valuable” stuff on you and losing it by either getting looted or having your corpse decay. But death on its own has been trivialized, especially with the addition of the corpse summoning.
All that said, I understand and agree that @biggcane55’s idea isn’t the Only Right Way, but the reason I like it is because it has potential to make both PVE and PVP more skill-based and varied and tactical and fun. Again, it’s not the only way to add those aspects to the game, but it certainly looks promising. All it needs is a skilled counter.
Yes Taking into account and rebalancing in both directions is much more appealing. A ‘slowdown’ with the addition of an appropriate way to potentially recover (and, for PVP in particular, maybe reverse the momentum of the fight) turns it into something that could potentially be balanced to avoid harming other ways of playing.
One thought with regards to the ‘skillfully’ element - this would also need to be something that can reasonably be learned in game. It couldn’t be something that is only known to the most experienced players or inveterate forum dwellers (such as, say, bread being made in the furnace…) - that would just cause imbalance and frustration. First thought was that it could be taught via the journey system - though I wonder how suitable that would be for something that requires you to get into a slowed and sub-50% hp situation before you can even try it. It feels more like the sort of thing that needs a ‘here’s what the controls are - you can try it if/when you wind up in that situation’ approach (almost like tutorial or onscreen manual/tips), which really doesn’t fit with the general CE approach.
Not an easy one to solve. But I do think it’s heading in a good direction.
I’m only going to throw this in so that there is some context. Feel free to ask me anything or dispute.
The thing about PVP is that playstyles are limited to knowledge and skill, especially in terms of success. Not one or the other or anything in between. You might get the odd RPer that does something different, but they tend to be already VERY skilful at combat, they’re just bored or annoyed.
I will absolutely destroy someone who doesn’t use what is available in the game. I have and everyone does if they know or do what is needed.
This is meta. If you know how powerful something is, you absolutely use it to the nth degree. So summoning corpse is required in many ways for success. Ya, it didn’t always exist and it HAS caused balancing and fairness issues, but it is there and with the way things are it only punctuated its need.
Once my clan knew of the benefits of summoning corpse, we used the shit out of it. We evaded, removed alt possibilities, caused disruption, confusion and often had success in combat, battles and raids, because of it. We even had the group protect as we pulled bracelet. A system in place that ensured us retaining what we’d accomplished.
As much as I’d love to think that the sandbox nature of the game allows for flexibility in negating parts of the game, or employing them for an outcome, PVP in particular is hardlocked into those metas and knowledge. That is due to nerfs, buffs and changes, some even PVE in nature.
Oh, I absolutely agree that in PVP it is likely necessary to use all options available to you. Very much the same idea I was expressing about bracelet removal - in PVP even those little incremental time-savers, such as travelling by dying and then summoning your body, can add up to make a meaningful difference. However, BiggCane’s comment was talking about body recall in the context of ‘outside of PVP’ - and in that context, I stand by my assertion that sorcery is not and should never be mandatory.
In the end, this is one of the key differences between PVP and other game modes - in PVP you have to take every possible step that you can, and game elements are evaluated in terms of their efficiency and utility. But in a sandbox game, those same elements are not mandatory for other game modes. Certainly there is a lot of content that is navigated in the same way, but even then the evaluation process may be different - outside of PVP, evaluation may be based on more ephemeral factors, but it’s an equally valid approach in my view - after all, many of us bought the game without any wish to be locked into the strictures that come with PVP, just as many others bought the game precisely because they did/do want the competiton and risk that PVP adds. It’s all about where we prioritise within the overall experience
No i know he meant the person losing gets punished. Which is what happens in combat. Giving thebone losing ways to never lose is easy button gameplay. Which imo makes Conan a building simulator.
Ok, cool, you got that. Sorry, I wasn’t sure.
However, I do think you are still oversimplifying - it’s not just that the person who loses has lost, it’s that as soon as you get a bit behind that makes you slower, which makes you get further behind and all the advantage goes to whoever strikes the first blow. I still don’t believe that would lead to satisfying PVP combat, but I’m certain it would lead to unsatisfying PVE combat.
It is not about ‘givng the one losing ways to never lose’ - that is glib and dismissive. No one is asking for ways to ‘never lose’, and nor is that what Dennis was suggesting. But gameplay that turns a single error, or simply a sneak attack, into a slippery slope is just making it ‘easy mode’ for the attacker. That too is not good gameplay.
It was @Barnes a couple years ago that created a topic about the “cunning” of this game. In pvp “cunning” is definitely the winner, not valor, neither bravery! You don’t need to be a skilled warrior, just a skilled thief with a good plan.
If Dennis really wants “help” we can provide, not with words but with actions. If they can afford a server on each console, strictly for veteran players with the settings they wish to test, i believe we are all here to join and give feedback.
I don’t know if i’ll enjoy the fear in these lands again and i am not 100% sure that i miss it, but i know for sure that the way things are, i will never feel fear in this game because there’s nothing to frighten me anymore, except when i recreate character and i know what to avoid.
2 facts that literally changed the game since the beginning are…
No metal progression is needed , you can have a legendary weapon, or tool really early in the game.
No opponent can catch you, because you can lvl up very fast to lvl 15 and quick footed is making you a ghost.
Lag is the greatest opponent this game has, like my friend @LostBrythunian says and i totally agree with him.
No you’re not brother, you’re definitely not alone!
But here’s the thing, in this game removing your bracelet makes things only easier and there’s no real penalty for it. About an hour ago i asked LostBrythunian if he has blood in his Rp garden base, he didn’t remember, i noticed the fluid press and removed my bracelet to gain some human flesh from my own corpse, so problem solved.
The game however does not became poorer for what is worth, but it can definitely be better!
That’s the real meta.
Not just how to game the system, but also how to operate within the realities of the game.
Official servers have limitations. With those in mind, both offensive and defensive strategems can be prepared.
Also, all enemies are human, and humans have limitations the characters don’t. That’s one reason off lining is a very real issue.
Even without bugs and performance issues (which are the realities of play) the raid window can also be a combat multiplier.
Beyound that, for those who are spiteful against those who are very invested, there is the psychological aspect of the game. Sometimes terrorizing and frustrating the enemy is more impactful than wiping them.
Of course, playing the mean and dirty game is not unique to this game nor new.
Competitive Voldo players know this well.
you do understand y suggestion is gradual to 30%. And the numbers can be tweaked. @CodeMage has a 50% suggestion before you lose any speed. Again, why is the winning side punished by the easy escape. What is the prize for being in the advantage. 1Hp left is the same as 700hp as far as the losing sides avaliable mechanics go.
The only other mecjanic i have tried modwise to do is change the durability loss of armor. make tier and typ of weapon do varying dura loss to armor. stone daggers 1 dmg to dura of enemy up to 100 dura loss for legendary hammers. the aggressor needs moren rewaed for making contact than the hope of player not bailing. At least a few good hits makes your armor closer to breaking andncosts upkeep.
I do indeed understand that. But it really isn’t about what the exact numbers are, it is about the cascading effect of such a system. If the numbers were to be adjusted to so low that it makes almost no difference at all, it would still be an effect that progressively increases the disadvantage of the person that started off losing the fight. And the only way to counter that effect would be to make the incremental disadvantage so small that it has no impact at all (and would therefore solve nothing).
Again you are misrepresenting what is being argued. I’ll say it again - no one is suggesting that the problem doesn’t need to be solved. The problem does need to be solved. The dispute is that this suggestion is a good way to solve the problem. Stopping the easy escape is something everyone is agreeing needs solving. Making combat worse is not the answer.
This idea will not result in good PVP fights. It will result in a meta based around instantly knocking your opponent to 50%hp with an initial ambush attack, so that they start at a disadvantage. It will also result in fights where whoever gets the first damage in will now almost inevitably win, as their opponent is progressively less and less able to fight back, with every disadvantage they suffer being compounded. This sounds to me like a poor PVP experience for both combatants - very much reminiscent of the old ‘cat and mount’ meta that PVPers complained about so bitterly for so long, because there was no way to fight back once they got the initial knockdown.
This seems like a neat idea, one that punishes in a balanced way without causing the cascade problem (and it has the added advantage that it can be sacled separately for PVP and PVE content because player weapons and npc weapons are not exactly the same). Unfortunately, I doubt it actually solves the easy escape problem - as you say, it just means that the attacker at least achieved something. Better this than the speed penalty option, but I think it would still need more than this on its own to solve the core problem.
Perhaps something like your durability suggestion, plus some of Den’s ‘active slowing’ suggestions (bolas, oil, throwing axes etc) could achieve an appropriate balance? If the argument is that Den’s suggestions are likely too unreliable in use to solve the problem on their own, might they work as a partial solution alongside another ‘punisher’ such as your durability suggestion?
More weapons to valance??? Do you trust the devs to get it right. Adding more ingrediants to mediocre stew does not make it better. It is just more stuff. Make the range weapons easier to throw, they become meta. Keep the horrible long range targeting (due to ping and lag) and they are useless like now.
Like I said spear is the main weapon for most people and other weapons are considered like a sidearm for when they get in deep shit.
But you also have Agility players who still actively use Katana, claws etc, not to mention there is always 1 dedicated archer on someones team.
On a different note I will just say this @den, no matter what new feature or design you or others come up with it will never even come close to competing with the spear on a competitive level and I don’t think anything will ever make up for the loss of the spear so for one last time I will just simply beg you to just listen to me and the other pvp purists when we ask you to just give us the benefit of the doubt that we know what we’re talking about and just revert the animation speed.
If there are any changes that the development team feel are necessary for spear maybe ask for feedback on the proposed changes before implementing to get a feel on how the proposed changes affect the PvP community.
This game is truly one of a kind and I don’t feel like giving up on it just yet so please give us this one chance.
I’d like to give a suggestion for this btw since I notice outside of good movement and timing with spear there’s nothing to counter being outnumbered in PvP situations, there’s a thing in another game I played for a few years called acm and you build acm by landing hits on your opponent and for each +1 acm you gain your damage is increased with a max acm of +9.
This could potentially be a way for solos or lesser number teams to clutch up against bigger squads by just being patient and building acm to take on the team. I’ll leave an image of how it’s explained fully on the other game here if people are curious on this concept but it seems like a good idea to skillfully be able to combat bigger groups if you are solo etc
There is almost no situation in where they are going to revert the 15 frame change to the spear heavy attack. It was making the attack quicker than the light attack. The only way they are going to change this is if they change the speed of the spear light attack, and the light and heavy attacks of every other weapon. In which case it will be like it is now, but faster.
Since 2018, you were intended to use combos in all forms of combat, not just PVE. Any changes to the combat system are going to be with that in mind. The reason we cannot use combos well is because people can just dash or roll away. That is going to be where their focus is going to be.
If you want to have some input, that is where your focus is going to have to be.
I’ll go a bit into detail to what I think should happen.
First thing is first is Fleet Footed. Let’s give a reminder of what it does:
As you can see, spending 15pts in agility is a no brainer. The amount of benefit gained is just too much to pass up. Its not even uncommon for people to go full 20 agility for the extra boosts the attribute gives.
So that is a perk that needs to be reworked at the very least.
Next look is the default server settings. Now this next part we can change ourselves on our own servers and singleplayer/coop. However the game is NOT balanced around -OUR- settings. Its balanced around default. The two major settings I want to talk about are these:
Those are the default. When they were first introduced they were 0.100000 each which made combat very arcadey. I’m going to explain what they do for those reading who have no clue what the hell we’re talking about here.
StaminaOnConsumeRegenPause is the time in seconds it takes for stamina to start replenishing once its used by an action. This can be an attack, a sprint, a dodge, a climb tick, or a fast swim (like running in water).
StaminaOnExhaustionRegenPause is the time in seconds it takes for stamina to start replenishing once it drops to 0 or less. Stamina actually goes to -50 (it never displays less than 0) and is why you can use an action that takes more stamina than you have left.
When these two values are the same (as they have been since Age of War), the second setting is effectively not used. The second setting when set higher provides a sort of penalty for using too much stamina. Its was added so that private servers could have exhaustion penalties of their own.
However I believe exhaustion should return. Including the indication (grey screen effect and sound effects) to show you are exhausted.
I believe the first value of StaminaOnConsumeRegenPause should be set to something a little higher than 1 second, but no higher than 1.5 seconds. Around 1.2 to 1.5 would work. I’ve tested 1.5 quite extensively and it doesn’t slow down combat all that much (adding literally half a second inbetween spurts of attacks). But it does give that extra half a second (30 frames, and for reference spear heavy was increased by 18 frames) where if someone attacks or dodges or uses stamina in anyway that they have to wait before a tick of stamina comes back. It gives the player a bit of consequence for each action they make, but if they play their cards right they can mitigate that.
Going above 1.5 seconds makes combat feel a bit sluggish and has negative consequences in PVE. At around 1.7ish you start having to limit your attacks so you can distance yourself enough to just be able to continue fighting. Remember many NPCs and bosses have far more health than a player and so require multiple rounds of attacks. It also locks down PVP a bit too far in the fact that those using heavier weapons get penalized in a manner that makes them unusable. 1.5 hits that sweet spot instead.
The next one, StaminaOnExhaustionRegenPause should be set at no less than double the first setting. So if the first one is around 1.5 than this should be set to 3 seconds. If its 1 second than this should be 2 seconds minimum. I prefer around 3-4 seconds for PVE servers and about 3.5 to 5 seconds for PVP. I don’t recommend going higher than 5 seconds as it can cause some really hard encounters in PVE.
I know many people do not like the idea of this being set to 3 or higher. I’ve had many discussions in the last year or so, and the consensus among those that oppose that is that it is a death sentence if you run out of stamina in PVP. My argument is that provides a sufficient penalty to not managing one’s stamina. Stamina is a resource to be managed.
Current settings do NOT make it a resource that takes active management. Instead you can use 5 stamina remaining as you would if you were at half. There’s no penalty for doing so. At any point do you get a second or two of respite, you are basically back to full and normal.
And this brings me to Dodging. Its too easy to do. We get ~6 in a row regardless of how much stamina we have. Dodging isn’t a percentage of stamina, though maximum stamina plays a role in the cost, so it feels like it is. For example if you have light encumbrance and light armor, and dodge, you will get 6 dodges at 100 stamina (costs 114, but you can dip below 0, but cannot dodge at below 0), and the same at 130 stamina (costs ~144, but again can drop below 0, just not below -50).
Instead of using a formula based on max stamina. I would use a set value that is altered by your encumbrance and armor type. This way you need more Grit or more stamina gear to get more dodges. I would consider making this 35 or 40. Maybe a tad lower accounting for modifiers from encumbrance and armor.
I’ve even considered moving the +1pt of stamina per agility to grit so that it is a total of +4pts per point of grit in order to not need a full grit investment for most builds.
And then finally, the hardest part to fix is the weapon animations. I would make it so that the first light attack on every weapon is a gap closing attack. This light and fast attack would do low damage (and depending it may even do less damage than the weapon’s listed damage for balance reasons, if needed) and no status alignment. Its literally there for when your opponent is just out of range but too close for a sprint attack.
Second attack (heavy or light) would do as it normally does. Third attack would be boosted quite a bit over what it does now. Rewarding the player who can connect with it by exploiting the enemy’s resource management. And then the fourth attack would do significantly more damage. Rewarding the player who goes for the risky attack (as we know, there is a significant delay after finishing any combo) with a nice chonky hit if they can pull it off.
But for this to really work well, and to ensure there is more weapon types being used, they will need to look at the combos we have and their animations and adjust their speed and area they hit to accommodate this. Right now there is a really heavy focus on the look of the attack and not the effectiveness.
Its for this reason that we have the metas we do. People look for the attacks that are able to be used whenever they want them (that’s the first attack) and the one that has the best chance of connecting (prior to the changes to its speed, this was the spear due to its reach, or the dagger/katana due to the angle they hit). So what needs to be done is every weapon’s animation needs to be compared to the other and ensure that the damage done (accounting for armor pen as well) and the ease of the attack be compared and adjusted to make every weapon viable as one another in every step.
I would also like to say disable target lock on players. But I don’t have any experience using a controller in PVP. I don’t think I could learn anything from that against Keyboard using players. So this might be a PC only suggestion unless a console user can chime in and say it wouldn’t have too much of an effective for them.
