1vs1: TTK too long?

[Rhias]

Hey,
as you might know I'm roaming frequently solo around and I experienced a lot of 1 vs 1 fights that basically lasted forever (nobody was able to kill the other person, and somebody disangaged the fight after 10+ minutes of fighting).

IMHO this is mainly due the great working parry system, which leads to very few hits that go through the block.
In group fights that's not much of an issue, because several people can attack the same person, and the person can't parry everyone.

What do you think? Does it take too long to kill people in 1 vs 1?

Two examples of recent long fights:

 

[Solairerection]

I think the time to kill is too long. I would like to see some penalties for spamming parries or mis-parries in the form of stamina taken increases with each parry (to combat spamming parries to keep up infinite parry window) aswell as a stamina regen penalty for a missed parry, as there is a penalty for missing swings. I don't like having a timer for missing parries due to the ping disparicies, but something has to be done to quicken up the gameplay and to punish bad play such as spamming parries.

I think this will help making feinting more viable. I'm not a huge fan of hiding animations but it's a valid tactic to get around a block. Maybe have a system where you quickly change from one direction to other via feinting, with a cost of stamina, in the hopes of fooling your opponent.

 

[Kelzyr]

I don't think decreasing TTK because 1v1s are a parry fest is the answer. So many games have TTK so low that you hardly have time to have a good back and forth. Not to mention it would make greater numbers mean even more.

I think there has to be better answers to the 1v1 parry problem than simply decreasing TTK...like a kick/block break that has been talked about for a while. Or even forcing a block choice for an appropriate period of time to allow a feint to actually work.

(If by making some of the changes I listed means it decreases TTK then I guess I agree, you just have to be very clear as to what you mean by TTK. SV could get the wrong idea, as I may have, and think this means people want to see HP get lower, or weapons do more dmg.)

 

[Tzone]

I dont even understand why people say there is a parry fest or even talking about parry spams. Already a lot of ways to get around parries even as a FF in 1v1s

Higherbut not too high TTK is good for forcing people to play better in order to get kills. Instead of getting lucky once or twice.

 

[Teknique]

I think most high tier players at the moment feel that the combat is fine.

You can instantly identify who is good or not in the current system. This wasn't the case in MO 1

 

[Rhias]

I don't think decreasing TTK because 1v1s are a parry fest is the answer. So many games have TTK so low that you hardly have time to have a good back and forth. Not to mention it would make greater numbers mean even more.

I think there has to be better answers to the 1v1 parry problem than simply decreasing TTK...like a kick/block break that has been talked about for a while. Or even forcing a block choice for an appropriate period of time to allow a feint to actually work.

(If by making some of the changes I listed means it decreases TTK then I guess I agree, you just have to be very clear as to what you mean by TTK. SV could get the wrong idea, as I may have, and think this means people want to see HP get lower, or weapons do more dmg.)

I think the TTK in group fights is fine. I listed on purpose no "solution" since I'm myself not sure what kind of solution I would like to have. But just increasing damage/ reducing life is clearly not what I'd like to see.

 

[Rhias]

I think most high tier players at the moment feel that the combat is fine.

You can instantly identify who is good or not in the current system. This wasn't the case in MO 1

Somehow it's easier to get a decent level in blocking that it is in hiding the animations.

I guess in noob vs noob (with frequent parry misses) the TTK is pretty low. Then people get better in parrying and the TTK increases a lot. And then in the end with people learning to hide the animation the TTK reduces again.

However, I got the feeling that quite a lot of people (including myself) are stuck in the middle and are unable to decently hide their animation, resulting in really long, "never ending" fights.

 

[AssassinOTL]

Yeah i think the TTK is fine now, and a kick/stun will only make the High skilled fighter more mad than anything. maybe a small window on the parry like the first .3 seconds of the parry to cause a Riposte would be a better idea and easier to balance than just giving a Veela a kick to chase down a foot fighter and lock them into a stickyback that will make a group of thursars just delete them. The kick is not an answer. plus i dont see the reason to add an entire system when 2 of the same role meet each other and are evenly matched. that just means the game is balanced and in a group setting you just call in a person to help offset the balance.

to retort to the random forum poster that will say "well it needs to be balanced around 1v1s feeling good" well i'd say i've been screaming that for Mages for 6 months and nothing has been done... have a good day

 

[Bloodterst]

Most of the solutions are basically just mo1 with extra steps. If u increase speed of other crap its really just back to the same old. It really is a pickle to solve cuz of the ping differences.
Less reaction time = ping comes in to play

A bunch of sluggish punishments might just make melee feel even more clunky and unsatisfying.
Also solutions that might make sense to fix the 1v1 could have massive cheese in bigger fights..

Cant block after missing? = punishing smaller weapons which allready kinda suck..
Parry reduced buff? wtf is this even ment to do? prevent getting spammed to death?
Not being able to feint mid swing? This was pretty nice in mo1 not sure why its not in mo2.


If melee becomes that way we might see newer ppl just turning to ranged/pets cuz of how unrewarding melee will feel to them.
Last stresstest i saw a group of 4 dudes in bakti evolve. They tried to kill ppl with melee for 2 days and then they realised that bows and magic was unblockable. I never saw them use melee again after that.

I do like that ppl try to brainstorm things that could work.

 

[Bogler]

Anyone who says they enjoy spinning to get the upperhand on players is delusional and purely wants to be able to take advantage of their practice fighting with it. Nobody looks at spin fighting and says, "Wow!! Fun and interactive lets play!!" Look at chivalry, mordhau . They all took steps to change the spinning on those games and they are arguably the pinnacle of medieval melee games. I don't know what the solution is to make combat both skill based and enjoyable but i'd wager a parry knock would be a decent step in the right direction.

 

[AssassinOTL]

If melee becomes that way we might see newer ppl just turning to ranged/pets cuz of how unrewarding melee will feel to them.
Last stresstest i saw a group of 4 dudes in bakti evolve. They tried to kill ppl with melee for 2 days and then they realised that bows and magic was unblockable. I never saw them use melee again after that.

the use of "evolve" here makes me happy this is my favorite Forum post of all time

 

[Tzone]

Anyone who says they enjoy spinning to get the upperhand on players is delusional and purely wants to be able to take advantage of their practice fighting with it. Nobody looks at spin fighting and says, "Wow!! Fun and interactive lets play!!" Look at chivalry, mordhau . They all took steps to change the spinning on those games and they are arguably the pinnacle of medieval melee games. I don't know what the solution is to make combat both skill based and enjoyable but i'd wager a parry knock would be a decent step in the right direction.

Spinning isnt happening at advanced level. If you are getting 360'd its because they are messing with you.
With out morphs which people are probably calling spins in bad faith because a player might turn fast for less then 90 degrees. The game will just be standing infront of each other pressing two buttons and maybe a easy 1 button special skill like kick to defeat parries. Sounds boring, I cant do morphs well but I enjoy fighting against good morph users and even the few people joking around with a spin because its more of a challenge then easy trading of parries.

 

[Bogler]

Spinning isnt happening at advanced level. If you are getting 360'd its because they are messing with you.
With out morphs which people are probably calling spins in bad faith because a player might turn fast for less then 90 degrees. The game will just be standing infront of each other pressing two buttons and maybe a easy 1 button special skill like kick to defeat parries. Sounds boring, I cant do morphs well but I enjoy fighting against good morph users and even the few people joking around with a spin because its more of a challenge then easy trading of parries.

I've seen enough videos and participated in enough fights to know how horrendous the combat system currently is with parries over and over and spinning being the only viable way to land a hit against semi-decent players. It's bad game design simply put, anyone who is arguing that it's fine and promotes skillful play is selfishly promoting their practiced skill so they don't have to master a new design.

Like I said I don't have the answer to what is the right steps towards making the combat fun and skill based. Back steps? Parry breaks? Un-blockable attack types with high penalties for missing? I'm throwing simple ideas out that all would be immensely better than keeping this spinning combat for both enjoyability and immersion.

 

[tntdogs]

People thinking 10 minutes is fine lol,
the TTK is obviously too high

 

[PoisonArrows]

I've made a post about this, but basically I believe that there isn't enough reward to the aggressive player, the defensive player can hit you as you come in, retreat backwards to create distance when you try to engage and hit you again. I use these strategies in my fights and they work especially well with a Pole Arm weapon or Spear. This has been my answer to parrying in general to get fights over with or in my favor. But things become a battle of attrition once I go aggressive it is much harder to finish off a skilled opponent. Seems to be you go in and try to trick enemy to hit them or abuse animations. There isn't really a option besides that. Waiting on Special Attacks to give more feedback, as they may make finishing a opponent or landing hits easier, but I would like defensive/aggressive play to have some changes. I would enjoy Spears to have defensive special attacks, as well as some aggressive specials. I enjoy that battles take a long time, I think it should take a long time. But you should be able to style on a opponent with different attacks, rather then being so easily predictable other then abusing animations.

 

[Evelyn]

Try being a mage and count how many seconds it takes a thursar to kill you if they ever reach you. This thread is a case of footiebrain.

 

[Bogler]

Try being a mage and count how many seconds it takes a thursar to kill you if they ever reach you. This thread is a case of footiebrain.

You serious right now? This has nothing to do with mages this is all about warriors vs warriors. So yes it is footiebrain we're talking about the balance between fighting in melee on foot... ?????????

 

[Woody]

Everyone knows this is an issue because there is no natural way to break through a parry of a perfectly capable defensive player. Suggested solutions usually boils down to some kind of kick/parry break effect. Heck I've recently suggested a Poise-like system to address this.

Furthermore, there's a consistent argument among the community that the game shouldn't be trying to make combat changes targeting 1v1s. The problem with this argument is that 1v1 combat is still a very likely occurrence, even outside of duels. If this part of the game feels bad, then it should definitely be addressed.

At the end of the day, the devs need to consider how far they're willing to go to address this problem. They have mentioned parry breaks/special attacks but I'm hesitant to believe this is a good idea given how hard it is to sync such animated "moves" across the range of pings we have now. It's a miracle they've managed to pull off the combat we have today as it is.

 

[Najwalaylah]

Does it take too long to kill people in 1 vs 1?

I keep seeing killing happen, in video and on-stream. I've seen some of it speeded up, and edited for style and effect and to cut it a bit shorter. I can't judge by those altered examples.

I've heard @Speznat say that something 1v1was taking forever after it seemed to me to have only been ~three minutes, maybe less. Not saying I timed him nor that I am certain that he has the attention span of a goldfish; just trying not to let that affect my judgment,

Those fights mentioned immediately above were by prepared players in full armour. My MO1 experiences and observations showed me lots of quick deaths when one player was doing something with a character who could never be very gast, or nover be very good at combat, and one other person killed it. That would be a memory to not let cloud your thinking on this.

...10+ minutes of fighting...

Ten minutes; that's about how long it should take at the most, not the TTQ (Time To Quit)-- unless there's a lot of chasing for the sake of just running someone off. This answer is based on nothing but my memory of all games previous and my sense of proportion. I haven't read any of the other opinions in this thread, and of course consideration of those may change my opinion later.

IMHO this is mainly due the great working parry system, which leads to very few hits that go through the block.
In group fights that's not much of an issue, because several people can attack the same person, and the person can't parry everyone.

This sounds reasonable and would explain a lot.
But if you wanted to change it for the sake of faster 1v1 fights to the death, would you change the parry system only for 1v1 fights, or what? Or how? As you say, it's working great. If it's not broken, would you want SV to try to fix it?

 

[Evelyn]

You serious right now? This has nothing to do with mages this is all about warriors vs warriors. So yes it is footiebrain we're talking about the balance between fighting in melee on foot... ?????????

Think ahead a bit and realize that speeding up the ttk affects more than just melee footies.