Combat is boring, a note to Henrik.

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Valoran

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Let's look at some examples of accessible games that have high skill caps and are played by enormous amounts of players of varying skill levels.

Fortnite.
Apex.
Mordhau.
Chivalry.
Mount and Blade.
Warzone.
Counter Strike.
Valorant.
PubG.

Now most of these are shooters that require excellent precision and predictability. So stop acting like there's some huge technological hurdle they have to overcome. Or that it needs to be watered down to be more "accessible". Or that because it's an MMO it has to be slow (your population is like less than 100 people logged in and it's slow and full of desync, what do you think is gonna happen at scale?).

This goes back to my argument of pick a lane, either be a competitive hardcore game or be a casual no skill game but pick a lane so that the hardcore players here can find something else or vice versa.

I also got news for you, having a shit combat system does not appeal to anyone and if you believe it somehow sets the game up to be more successful you're delusional because it's the opposite. Games live or die by their gameplay and in it's current state MO2 is dead on arrival.

Whoever is in charge has not planned a design that works at scale. This game has been designed to work with a specific population size and that alone is going to handicap this project.

A single world on a single server or server cluster DOES NOT SCALE.

Population of 100? Works fine.
Population of 20,000 at launch? Will break apart.

What could they have done to make this project work at scale?

Regional Server Clusters to reduce ping.
Map Regions that can spin up new instances of each region when there's population overflow. If the performance cap for a given area is 200 people then spin up a new instance when you go over that. Keep nodes would be on their own region.
(THIS TECH ALREADY EXISTS NATIVELY IN UNREAL).

Doing these things would of made room for this game to support a successful launch and handle a population if it ballooned. It also would of reduced perf costs and allowed for fast paced combat and lower pings.

I do not give a flying fuck about players who want to share a single world with everyone, it's a shit idea that doesn't scale. If you want some social experience go play second life.

In it's current state, in the way it's currently designed as soon as the population increases everything's going to break. It's not an opinion it's a technological fact, so put down your coolaid because it's not helping.
Late reply, but notice how every single game you listed uses low ping only regional servers where the average ping is probably <50? That's why it's different, and why what I said matters.
 

Darthus

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Late reply, but notice how every single game you listed uses low ping only regional servers where the average ping is probably <50? That's why it's different, and why what I said matters.

This is a great point. I was floored to find out I currently have a 254 ms ping from Taiwan. If you would have told me that I had a 50ms ping I would have believed you. There's definitely some small desync in terms of what I see during combat and my friend in California sees, but never in a way where it's like, "I should have hit you with that or I should have blocked that."

It all kinda depends on how important you feel it is to have every single person who plays the game in a single server/shared world on as equal footing as possible. I personally think what they've pulled off is amazing (and kind of unprecedented) given that goal.

Regional servers would definitely enable a faster paced more reaction based style of gameplay, but it not be the game SV wants to make.

Already, the fact that I can see ANYONE on this forum (or in Youtube videos or on Streams) and run into them in game (and often do) creates such a strong feeling of this being a living breathing world that I haven't experienced since the early days of MUDs.

I think MO1 players need to remember that the fact that there is directional, reaction based, collision-based melee combat in an MMO is something 99% of players will have never experienced. Yes, some will compare it to Mordhau etc, but most will realize this is something that has never (in their experience) been tried before. Think about when Planetside came out. Yes it was not as responsive as Call of Duty, but people were so excited about the potential of FPS gameplay writ-large in a massively multilayer game they were still amazed, and the proposed world depth and variety of activities for MO2 put Planetside's gameply to shame.
 
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Kaemik

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The depth precisely why I am here. We were playing Conqueror's Blade before and I actually enjoy that game quite a bit for its combat system. In terms of an arena combat game, it's one of the best I've ever played. But you step out into the open world and it feels dead. There is barely any depth to the game's economy and a lot of people straight ignore it. With people ignoring the economy there are fewer people going into the open world. With fewer people going into the open world there is less excitement on a day to day basis. If you miss the scheduled sieges it feels like the game is nothing but an arena combat game.

So essentially, being fully satisfied with the combat of the game i was playing, I found myself looking for a new game because "I want to play a real MMO with crafting and an economy."
 

you

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I think it's hard to theory craft this when the devs havn't even had the chance to release a finished stat system with all combat systems implemented yet.
Currently everybody is just running on hardcap from what i can tell, so the pace of the combats flow will definitely change when people start running their own builds.

The only thing that makes me raise question is, if they've added a form of delay for the server and game to stay in sync, how are they going to balance projectiles in the final build? Will we see all Europeans start a speedy projectile meta?
 

Rorry

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Since it is so easy to parry, my guess is that Europeans (and many Americans) will build melee/magic hybrids and if SV gives or frees up more points they will add archery.
 

sigrace

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I think MO1 players need to remember that the fact that there is directional, reaction based, collision-based melee combat in an MMO is something 99% of players will have never experienced. Yes, some will compare it to Mordhau etc, but most will realize this is something that has never (in their experience) been tried before. Think about when Planetside came out. Yes it was not as responsive as Call of Duty, but people were so excited about the potential of FPS gameplay writ-large in a massively multilayer game they were still amazed, and the proposed world depth and variety of activities for MO2 put Planetside's gameply to shame.

As a huge fan of Planetside 2 I agree with you. Love that game because it dared to be something no one else wanted to risk making. Not only that, the damn thing came back from the dead because there's still no real FPSMMO out there that's not a lobby shooter I know of. That said, if this game really gets it's core functions right I could easily see MO2 becoming my go to game. I'm hoping it's like EVE and PS2 had a fantasy/medieval themed baby.

More on topic. We don't currently have the depth we will hopefully have in terms of combat. The combat Alpha (beta?) is good way to test the basic functions of foot combat, but doesn't have the full arsenal we hope to have when the game goes persistent (namely mounts and magic). I'm also hoping they add something so I can't simply dance around someone with a bow at melee range. I've done that a few times and it feels cheap. Perhaps getting hit with melee = a chance misfire if the hit is hard enough.
 

Valoran

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Yes, it is so.

It looks like they have chosen to sacrifice the higher end of the ping spectrum due to the slow combat feedback, which is entirely within their right.

It is now much harder to parry counters from fast weapons as a high ping player, from another player with medium-high ping, parrying counters from low ping players works just fine though due to how the sync system works.
 

ElPerro

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Yes, it is so.

It looks like they have chosen to sacrifice the higher end of the ping spectrum due to the slow combat feedback, which entirely within their right.

It is now much harder to parry counters from fast weapons as a high ping player, from another player with medium-high ping, parrying counters from low ping players works just fine though due to how the sync system works.
We cant really know atm since the server is in a really bad state, with people teleporting and even eu players reporting hits going straight through blocks. But the change was very small and the actual delay before the swing was not changed. So it shouldnt be too harsh on high pingers. Gotta wait and see after they fix it.
 

Tergeo

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Handsome Young Man

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What a surprise, for a combat system that so many people painstakingly claim 'the majority' are for via polls or from anecdotal experiences - Henrik said himself that they are looking into the speed, have been increasing release speed (Even though from what I've seen was quite small) and even mentioned a new system incoming on test.


Opinions?
 
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Valoran

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What a surprise, for a combat system that so many people painstakingly claim 'the majority' are for via polls or from anecdotal experiences - Henrik said himself that they are looking into the speed, have been increasing release speed (Even though from what I've seen was quite small) and even mentioned a new system incoming on test.


Opinions?
The increase in release speed is in response to the loudest voices in the community asking for it, plain and simple.

I still think that the issue is the charge speed of normal swings. Normal swings are basically completely useless in a 1v1, as they will be parried 100% of the time due to the charge being so long, and you're essentially just giving a free riposte to your opponent.

The only way to solve this with current mechanics is to increase the charge speeds on all weapons, maintaining a maximum speed of course so things like flakestone don't become broken.

Decreasing the time between starting the charge and releasing the swing won't affect the ping normalization system, as that relies on the delay that occurs immediately after releasing the button, before the swing actually starts.

The decrease of the ping normalization time has indeed made it no longer fair for high ping players against medium-high ping players, however it only manifests itself as cutting off the beginning of a riposte animation from a fast weapon, giving you less time to react than before, and allowing some very fast weapon ripostes/counters to go through parries.

This issue is a pretty niche problem though, and it is still not impossible to parry counters from fast weapons, at least not for me with my connection. So it is now unfair, but still highly playable.

I would love to see charge speeds on normal swings increased though, leaving ripostes/counters alone, as they are already an instant charge.
 

RaptorBlackz

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It's fine that the developers are tweaking the variables on improving the combat, what i disliked however is going from 'I can block/exchange hits perfectly from all other players' to 'getting wombo combo'd from the same players the next day because i can't parry as the ripostes go through my blocks due to the increased speed/ping discrepancy' (Whether that was from the borked server, It was an annoyance regardless)

I even watched MO2 streamers getting hit through their blocks after the warp hotfix - Seeing them getting frustrated is how i felt the entire time through MO1 days and after playing with a fair(but-slow) combat experience i can say it was great to finally be on a even playing field. (There definitely was the issue of non-stop parrys but i felt there could've been more to work with such as perhaps reducing parry windows after an initial block)

Hopefully they can find a perfect balance of good combat/speed and fair-play for high-ping users as they Advertised on their website.

They could try to increase the weights on particular weapons/materials however that would only change the meta, atm anything under the weight of 1.4 - 1.6 seems to be a gamble.

Hopefully they pull something off that works out for everyone, But it's doubtful and i feel that we may get screwed over again.
 
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ElPerro

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The increase in release speed is in response to the loudest voices in the community asking for it, plain and simple.

I still think that the issue is the charge speed of normal swings. Normal swings are basically completely useless in a 1v1, as they will be parried 100% of the time due to the charge being so long, and you're essentially just giving a free riposte to your opponent.

The only way to solve this with current mechanics is to increase the charge speeds on all weapons, maintaining a maximum speed of course so things like flakestone don't become broken.

Decreasing the time between starting the charge and releasing the swing won't affect the ping normalization system, as that relies on the delay that occurs immediately after releasing the button, before the swing actually starts.

The decrease of the ping normalization time has indeed made it no longer fair for high ping players against medium-high ping players, however it only manifests itself as cutting off the beginning of a riposte animation from a fast weapon, giving you less time to react than before, and allowing some very fast weapon ripostes/counters to go through parries.

This issue is a pretty niche problem though, and it is still not impossible to parry counters from fast weapons, at least not for me with my connection. So it is now unfair, but still highly playable.

I would love to see charge speeds on normal swings increased though, leaving ripostes/counters alone, as they are already an instant charge.
Judging from the video Handsome Young Man posted, it seems the ping normalization delay wasnt touched? To me it looks like they only speed up the actual swing animation but the delay before the swing starts is the same.
 

Valoran

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Judging from the video Handsome Young Man posted, it seems the ping normalization delay wasnt touched? To me it looks like they only speed up the actual swing animation but the delay before the swing starts is the same.
It was changed.


Henrik said it was sped up by 33%, and it was only a few hundred milliseconds before so the increase was minor, but enough to cause slight issues on the higher end of the ping spectrum while also notably increasing the feeling of fluidity very slightly as well.

I think increasing the normalization time back up a small amount in attempt to avoid the issues I mentioned, whilst dramatically increasing normal swing charge speeds would make many people happy without compromising the playability for high ping people.
 

Handsome Young Man

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Might hate me for saying it, but I don't think SV should worry about balancing combat speeds around people with super high ping.

That just honestly makes it miserable for everyone else.

The only true reason I see people admiring the slow combat is because they feel empowered because the system now crutches their inability to react.

This isn't me saying MO1 was perfect, or that I agreed with everything it did. The speed of MO1, IMO, was the bare minimum speed of how a game like it should be. It used to be faster, but it got slowed down over time through numerous patches.

Compare 2011 to 2015 to 2019-2020. Speed has always been on a decline.

I get everyone keeps throwing out the term fair and unfair. Having 300+ ping isn't what I'd lump into a category of fair or unfair, it's more this is a technical limitation.

I never really cared for this combat in MO2. It felt defense heavy, and it went from defense heavy to super defense heavy with tuned down speeds i.e. combat was slowed.

There is a delay in swing releases, it's noticeable to lots of PvP vets, the movement speed is slower - when we have a world 6x times the size (and they were planning to go persistent without mounts, HAHAHAHAHA), parry arcs are fucking massive.. I could go on but I've just said so much on the combat throughout numerous places and threads I'm sure you could find my detailings that go way more in-depth as to why I disagree with it.

But, as an FYI, not myself or anyone I've seen previously who played MO1 is advocating for laggy, desynced bullshit. We're not wanting buggy, broken combat.

No one is advocating for that.

We just want it to be faster, and to allow better players to shine more and allow players who invest time to be able to show their time invested. We also need race speed caps / more combat changes in soon so we can test it sooner then later. Everyone running the same speed is shit, and it's been this way for far to long; let us taste the differences in races.

p.s. People who think Huergar's should run nearly the same speed as a Veela - you're crazy, cause I know you exist. There is difference in making a race combat viable, and making them meta.

I'll use an example to show what I mean.

In PvP, the absolute minimum someone could go for combat viability in MO1 was 235. How do I know this? Because I have played a 235 build along with friends, anything less is literally a gimp to your character. Huergar in my eyes should run whatever the MO2 equivalent is of MO1 230-235.

I also think if Huergar are going to be PvP viable in terms of speed, races typically that were faster - should remain faster and maybe then some. Oghmir were beefy fuckers, but they didn't have speed. Give them enough speed and people will default to them because of size (for multitude of reasons), HP, strength, etc.

Just give us our actual race attributes soon, SV, please.
 
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