So I’ve been trying out the new combat system on testlive and compared to live its amazing! The combos are nice and for the most part fluid with each other and each weapon feels unique. There’s always room for improvement though so I figured I’d make a thread about it, so post any suggestions or feedback about combat you have below.
My suggestions:
Air attacks! (I made another thread about this but I figured I’d include it here as well). Air attacks would be really cool and could make for interesting situations and could elevate the skill ceiling of the game. With double jump being a perk currently it only makes sense to have the ability to use your weapon while in the air too IMO. Plus the cool factor alone would make it great, taking down a large animal by thrusting a spear into its head from above!
Adjust the combo timer/system so its possible to continue a combo after a quick dodge. Dodging is VERY important in combat and is probably what you will do most of the time in long and challenging fights, but right now as soon as you dodge you break your combo and have to start over from the first swing in the chain. This isn’t terrible in itself but on some weapons the later attacks in the chain better fit the situation or apply certain effects that greatly help you win fights (like dagger bleed stacking). I’m really loving the spear currently and I’ll use it as an example. Spear light attacks go Left and Right pole strikes > Mid range front sweep > longer range full sweep. The 2 later attacks are very good in dealing with groups of mobs but sometimes depending on what you’re fighting you’ll be hard-pressed to get to those attacks do to either constant staggering or dodging. If you could land the first couple hits and then when you’re required to dodge away then come back with the later hits I think it would improve gameplay.
The developers want to prevent ‘combo loading’, which is preparing your combo before actually striking. Imagine wasting the first attack of the sword heavy combo, then attacking your enemy with only the 2nd attack in the combo onwards. I don’t feel that’s a persuasive limitation, but they have mentioned this as a concern of theirs.
The timer can’t be so long as to allow you to regenerate stamina before your combo expires. The combo expiry time is probably bound to the same time as it takes to begin regenerating stamina.
If not, then I’d also like to see it increased a few more half-seconds.
I think the combo timer is fine how it is. Depending on the fight, I do not want to activate the fourth move, the “finisher.” The finisher has a hold that lasts a couple of seconds after it executes. This leaves you exposed. I like being able to easily go 1-2, 1-2 and only continuing on to 3-4 when I feel confident that I will not be left vulnerable. Extending the timer would make it harder to keep a steady pace of light attacks since the timer would not reset quickly enough.
I agree the timer shouldn’t be long enough to start stamina regen. I don’t think combo loading would be good either. I’m mostly suggesting it be like the way it is now just after a dodge you can continue the combo.
Idk exact values but say dodge takes 0.5 seconds. If you made the time between triggering the next chain attack in a combo to 1 second you could dodge with enough time left (the other .5 sec) to hit the next attack in the chain. Though with the different armor types affecting how dodge works that could be challenging, maybe impossible. The only other thing I could suggest is to make different attacks on different buttons, so if I wanted to do the sweep I could just use a different button, but that also might not work.
True you have a point, being able to execute the quick attacks without committing to the heavier ones later in the chain is a good way to go about combat, only downside is like I stated like with spear the last 2 light attacks are much better dealing with groups than the first 2. Maybe a different button for more than just light and heavy? Not sure how it would work with controllers though.
They need to make weapon swapping much faster and give us the ability to suddenly surprise an opponent with a different weapon’s attack. Otherwise combat gets pretty stale with sticking to one weapon at a time with no real way to mix things up. You could put a cool-down on switching weapons so people couldn’t swap for every other attack, but still retain the threat of suddenly mixing things up when they haven’t done it in awhile.
Do you know if you jump on a climbers head he will lose his grip and fall? Also do you know if you jump from high enough on someone in an elevator he will fall down off it? I find these hilarious to pull off on people
I disagree. Dodge is a combo break and an emergency escape/surprise covered advancement.
Fast weapon swaps are unrealistic and potentially killing variety. Sooner or later there would be the best combo to pull with a certain set of weapons. Lets keep to weapons having pros and cons.
You know what would make alot of these issues resolved however? More attack types:
Sprinting charge - a single attack good, far reaching and fast with high recovery time. Press right mouse button while sprinting.
Power attack - press and hold left and right mouse buttons at once. Weapon slowly goes into ready stance to burst forward when the keys are released. Knocks opponents down.
Shield bash - press left mouse button while blocking to hit your opponent with a shield - effect identical to a kick.
These could allow some weapons to become viable (especially the ones missing any decent opener like a mace or two handed sword).
For sprinting charge absolutely not, who remember the first month when spear charge attack could be used to jump/fly over mountains and the only solutions the devs found was to eliminate the charge attack? Let’s not do it again.
As for the power attack, meh, could be a thing, but again people with macro softwares/gaming equip(keyboards mouses) will always get an edge over the ones who cannot get that hardware…
They’ve mentioned adding hyper-armor, aka interrupt immunity, to all heavy attacks. While this band aids the problems of long opener wind ups, I don’t think it’s a good longer term solution.
Maybe changing the thinking of light/ heavy attacks to horizontal/vertical attacks. Spears are like this, and there is already a trend towards it with most attacks. A horizontal or sweeping attack would be best against multiple enemies, or to force a single enemy back. It would lack gap-closing ability in general. Vertical attacks are best for a single target, and getting your blade those last couple of feet to meet their meat.
Most specific, for two-handed swords 1st and 2nd heavy attacks need either sped up or replaced. Like, if 1st was a uppercut slice and 2nd was a thrust. I think that would fit better than 'large telegraphed overhead swing" followed by “a nother swing, I guess” before getting to what you actually wanted to do. The light attacks just need to be a bit more snappy.
Numbers wide, I think strength scaling needs looked at. It’s currently a percent bonus (I assume accuracy is too, as such the same issue applies) so high strength benefits more from a better weapon than it does from a worse one. It sounds intuitive, but makes the power gap even bigger. On Test Live with hard steel AND high strength, I cut through NPCs in a single combo, regardless of which weapon used. You end up doing more damage thanks to your strength bonus than the weapon. However, when using a low tier weapon, like say iron or steel, the bonus is much much smaller. If they want the curve to flatten, damage bonuses need to be additive instead of multiplicative.
Hyper armor on heavy attacks will make a comeback of old fighting system. Everyone will simply just trade blows and hitting first to interrupt opponent will no longer be a thing.
Adding hyper armor to blows that need it (as with hammer heavy attacks currently) is a different story.
I answered similar post about strength scaling %. If you make it a number instead of % then with more strength faster weapons will become more prominent, killing variety. We need to bring tiers closer together. And with best weapon and 40 str currently on testlive you kill human fighter_III npcs with a single hit.
The pike charge was a sustained heavy attack that also suffered from not draining stamina (along with the exploit you mentioned… though since climbing this particular exploit is a bit less relevant). Normally, sprinting would drain stamina but pike charging no stamina drain and sprinting speeds. Jousting was king then.
Because of how combat now works, that would not be an issue. It would be an animation move with fixed duration like all other attacks. This could be a high damage closer. I think that was what @Solgam was getting at.
Here’s a major combat feature missing from the current Testlive build: fighting while moving sideways or backwards.
I can personally think of a few reasons why they were taken out, but what could be the official conclusion behind removing such options from fighting?
On an additional note, always having to move forward while striking seems very antithetical to tactical combat. Could there not be a button to press to “stand your ground” and strike without shifting your position?
From what I know of medieval combat, you are always stepping with each strike. There are strikes you can make while moving backwards, but the strength of a strike lies in how you leverage your mass to add momentum to your strike. You don’t stand still and swing — that would be a very weak attack, and only utilize your arm and possibly your torso. A full strike will use your arms, torso, pelvis, and legs. Imagine you’re a coil, or a whip, and the tip of the whip is your blade, axe, or mace. Now imagine that the whip is only a quarter as long — that would be the strength of just using your arms and torso to attack.
Likewise, side-attacks are also very ineffective. You’re not pushing your force towards (against) your opponent, and so your whole body movement, and the force that it takes to move your entire mass, isn’t contributing to your strike. A side-attack is just as weak as a standing attack.
Attacks are just that — attacks. They are aggressive, forwards-moving, and devoted to injury.
It makes me really happy to see the attacks work in the way they do right now, in-game. It helps prevent exploiting the AI, and it also looks great from a historical combat perspective.
On Testlive, as is, I have experienced and read about players simply walking away from combatants trying to execute combos. You do not even have to dodge if you know a weapon’s combos and where they put you after a strike. Attacking is too closely tied to movement in combat at present.
I am not against the current combat, but there are holes that need to be addressed, namely allowing for players to separate movement from attacking, i.e. adding the ability to “stand your ground” and swing or strike without moving forward.
If anything, I’d say the attacks need more movement, then. If a player can just put their weapons down and walk away from my attacks, then my attacks would really need to have more movement to them.
I’ve also experienced players walking away from my combos (as well as myself walking away from others’). It’s a weird feeling when you realize just how anchored and sluggish some of these attacks make you. And hell, it’s frustrating trying to chase another player down with a melee weapon, only for them to pull away whenever you attempt an attack.
I would suggest a sort of ‘zip’ movement that these attacks do to move closer to their opponents. A quick, forward dash at the start of an attack. Either that, or give us a ‘sprint attack’ — a tackle, to stun or cripple our opponents.
I would also suggest a knockdown that is triggered whenever a player is attacked with no weapon wielded. This would prevent players putting their weapons down to ‘walk-dodge’ while in a fight.
They need to expand the move-set to include at least one tracking attack that forces a well-timed dodge, as well as jumping attacks and rolling attacks.
There needs to be some sort of clear priority system (jumping attacks beat tracking attacks, rolling attacks beat jumping attacks, etc) and there needs to be some formula to how trades work between various weapons.
There also needs to be a good way to feint in this game. For example, I’d like a way to do the sword charge (first heavy attack) and have a way to cancel it midway & perform a totally different action. Maybe something like [sword charge - cancel], [roll towards opponent], [instant jumping attack]. You could make it cost an appropriate amount of stamina so that people can’t just spam feints, but always have that tool as a possible threat your opponent needs to be wary of.
I know I hope for way too much, but this game will die if all we get is the current sluggish tech demo they’ve made so far.
Don’t get me wrong, Joel & the PVP team have demonstrated they know how to move in the right direction. But it’s just a start in the right direction. 1 light combo chain & 1 heavy combo chain are nowhere near enough options for competitive combat. The hitboxes & movement need a huge amount of polish and adjustment.
Finally, I don’t think the company they hire to test the initial PVP should have as much influence as it does before actual players get a crack at it. The weapon-swapping getting slowed down to what it currently is, for example, was a result of their feedback. That was before we even got a chance to try it on testlive. We should be getting a shot at testing it as well, especially since I have my doubts that everyone on the initial test team is as capable at PVP as hardcore players.
Jousting was king then.