Combat is off to a great start - Here are some suggestions to improve parry gridlock in a 1v1.

[Olympeus]

This post will be for suggestions to improve the parry gridlock that can occur in 1v1 fights.

All of these suggestions are intended to work within the framework of the existing MO2 combat system, which means a single global server with normalized ping (100 ms) for all players.

Before we get started I think it's important to note a few things:

• Mortal Online 2 combat is still in it's infancy, which means there are very few tools available to the players, which means there is a very low skill cap, which means if the ping normalization is working as intended then fights SHOULD devolve into stalemates between equally skilled players. And fights between unequally skilled players SHOULD be slow and take a while to resolve.
• If player latency is not deciding fights, then GOOD JOB Star Vault. No one should be surprised that their "skill" isn't deciding a fight when there are literally only two moves available (attack & parry). It's like saying Albert Einstein should be able to beat a 5 year old in Tic-Tac-Toe because Einstein is smarter. Tic-Tac-Toe is a low skill game when played with optimal strategy, neither player will lose.
• As the MO2 combat system deepens there will be plenty of ways to introduce skillful play that don't involve giving MO1 ping advantages, regional servers, or attempting to clone combat systems from lobby-based combat games.

Ways to reduce parry gridlock in 1v1 combat situations:

With Mechanical Inputs:

• After a successful parry your next attack cannot be parried, only blocked
• After multiple successful parries (up to "x" number) your next attack cannot be parried, only blocked and bonus damage is added.
• Implement a secondary weapon attack, which if successful, leaves your opponent vulnerable for a small window (2 sec) to an attack that cannot be parried, only blocked. As a trade-off initiating this attack could leave you vulnerable to a weapon attack yourself (i.e. no animation cancelling)
• Implement a shove and/or kick that functions like the secondary weapon attack described above.

With Equipment:

• Implement "rock-paper-scissors" rules for weapons. Some weapons can never be parried (only blocked) by other weapons. Example: Slashing cannot parry Blunt, Blunt cannot parry Thrusting, Thrusting cannot parry Slashing.
• Successive parries of the same weapon have reduced effectiveness. Example: 100%, 95%, 90%...0%. Quick and less powerful weapon attacks could quickly diminish your opponents ability to parry. Slow and powerful weapon attacks would continue to chip away and deal damage. This would reset if you parry a different weapon (or opponent) so this would really be a special case of 1v1 "combat fatigue".
• Successive parries have reduced effectiveness but parry also regains effectiveness on a short cooldown. Example: After initiating combat, each parry has 5% reduced effectiveness but your parries will also regain 5% effectiveness every 15 seconds. This is another way of introducing "combat fatigue" that isn't specific to 1v1 scenarios.
• We should note here that Star Vault have mentioned adding "special" attacks. The possibilities for these are endless and could include attacks which can't be parried.

With Character Builds:

• Strength attribute (str) gives a % chance to deal damage through a parry. Could be restricted to certain weapons.
• Dexterity attribute (dex) gives a % chance to deal damage through a parry. Could be restricted to certain weapons.
• Adjust the Blocking Primary Skill. There are a ton of ways to make parrying part of a character's build to require point investment and scale effectiveness. Some examples:
  • Example 1: Rework the skill to give 0-100% chance to parry instead or in addition to knockdown resistance.
  • Example 2: Rework the skill to give 0-x% reduced block damage and unlock the ability to parry after 70 points invested.
  • Example 3: Make blocking a secondary skill and then make parry a primary skill underneath with 0-100% chance to parry, or 0-45% reduced stam drain, etc.
• Relative size (height) affects the ability to parry. Example, a size differential greater than x% means the smaller player cannot parry only block. This would need to be counterbalanced with boons for the smaller players (i.e. better stamina or increased move speed)
• Relative weight affects the ability to parry. Similar implementation as described above.

 

[MeduliKaren]

no

 

[ElPerro]

TLDR - Remove Parrying

 

[[AF]Tyrone]

no

Is that the way to behave when you're tryin to stealth and everyone knows who you are? Try to be a little bit nicer if you don't want to get trolled back.

Any changes that speed up this terrible combat system is good. Remove parries. Remove 360 blocking. It doesn't matter. Just do something to nerf this parry gameplay.

 

[MeduliKaren]

Is that the way to behave when you're tryin to stealth and everyone knows who you are? Try to be a little bit nicer if you don't want to get trolled back.

Any changes that speed up this terrible combat system is good. Remove parries. Remove 360 blocking. It doesn't matter. Just do something to nerf this parry gameplay.

who are you?

 

[Tzone]

360 blocking is weird but IDK if removing it would make things better or just change the game to yolo running behind people.

They should move servers to east coast NA since most players are NA and its would naturally even out the ping for most players. Only Aussies would not be saved but it wouldnt be worse. Most of EU will already need their lat to be raised artificially so they wouldn't even notice the difference while most of NA will see a lat drop of 30-90.

I just want to stay away from RPS balancing. Especially when we will be stuck on one of the those. So far the game seems like as long as you can parry the hits then its about can you out stam or abuse animation to trick the player in blocking wrong. I'm definitely not the best or even a good player in melee, so my opinion is only a opinion on this. I have no solutions nor want to try to tell how to change combat, just what I like or dislike about this game and games in general.

Dex should increase weak spot chance a lot more then it does now. Like every point over 100 adds a percent or something. Weak spot should be head or back. I would hope that they can determine that your back got hit. It might have to be a location and direction based system instead of actually tracking that your back got hit.

STR hitting a lil through Block might be ok, I think this already happens at lower block levels. just no one has low block levels. Or at least make blocking higher STR cost more stamina. Turn it into a Stamina fight of attrition.

 

[Olympeus]

I'm definitely not the best or even a good player in melee, so my opinion is only a opinion on this.

Same .

I just want to stay away from RPS balancing.

Are you against Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) balancing in general or just my suggestion for the weapons?

• If you were talking about my suggestion for weapons I don't disagree with you. It would be a terrible idea as a stand alone implementation, but I envision it more as a first "tier" of balancing that can be built upon with additional systems to offer more counter-strategies and depth.
• If you were referring to RPS balancing in general I can only say that this type of balancing has been present in all of the best games I've played over my lifetime. These are games that existed before, during, and after the advent of "e-sports" and had to be finely balanced for competitive multiplayer. There also include plenty of PvE (single player) games that were looking to add depth, complexity, and different levels of strategy for the player.

Here is an article on the topic of RPS balance that you may find interesting, and a forum post that talks about using RPS as a foundational (i.e. first "tier") of balancing that can be build upon.

Cheers,
Olympeus

 

[Olympeus]

Just do something to nerf this parry gameplay.

Yeah I agree. And I think those changes will be coming from Star Vault.

I also hope there will be many ways for Star Vault to add depth and complexity to the combat while trying to maintain ping parity between players (i.e. neutralizing the effect of ping on combat to the best extent possible). I think my suggestions will maintain ping parity

I know you indicated you were open to anything, but in the off-chance Star Vault were to solicit your opinion, do you think any of my suggestions would work better than others, or do you have any preference between them?

 

[Neftan]

This post will be for suggestions to improve the parry gridlock that can occur in 1v1 fights.

All of these suggestions are intended to work within the framework of the existing MO2 combat system, which means a single global server with normalized ping (100 ms) for all players.

Before we get started I think it's important to note a few things:

• Mortal Online 2 combat is still in it's infancy, which means there are very few tools available to the players, which means there is a very low skill cap, which means if the ping normalization is working as intended then fights SHOULD devolve into stalemates between equally skilled players. And fights between unequally skilled players SHOULD be slow and take a while to resolve.
• If player latency is not deciding fights, then GOOD JOB Star Vault. No one should be surprised that their "skill" isn't deciding a fight when there are literally only two moves available (attack & parry). It's like saying Albert Einstein should be able to beat a 5 year old in Tic-Tac-Toe because Einstein is smarter. Tic-Tac-Toe is a low skill game when played with optimal strategy, neither player will lose.
• As the MO2 combat system deepens there will be plenty of ways to introduce skillful play that don't involve giving MO1 ping advantages, regional servers, or attempting to clone combat systems from lobby-based combat games.

Ways to reduce parry gridlock in 1v1 combat situations:

With Mechanical Inputs:

• After a successful parry your next attack cannot be parried, only blocked
• After multiple successful parries (up to "x" number) your next attack cannot be parried, only blocked and bonus damage is added.
• Implement a secondary weapon attack, which if successful, leaves your opponent vulnerable for a small window (2 sec) to an attack that cannot be parried, only blocked. As a trade-off initiating this attack could leave you vulnerable to a weapon attack yourself (i.e. no animation cancelling)
• Implement a shove and/or kick that functions like the secondary weapon attack described above.

With Equipment:

• Implement "rock-paper-scissors" rules for weapons. Some weapons can never be parried (only blocked) by other weapons. Example: Slashing cannot parry Blunt, Blunt cannot parry Thrusting, Thrusting cannot parry Slashing.
• Successive parries of the same weapon have reduced effectiveness. Example: 100%, 95%, 90%...0%. Quick and less powerful weapon attacks could quickly diminish your opponents ability to parry. Slow and powerful weapon attacks would continue to chip away and deal damage. This would reset if you parry a different weapon (or opponent) so this would really be a special case of 1v1 "combat fatigue".
• Successive parries have reduced effectiveness but parry also regains effectiveness on a short cooldown. Example: After initiating combat, each parry has 5% reduced effectiveness but your parries will also regain 5% effectiveness every 15 seconds. This is another way of introducing "combat fatigue" that isn't specific to 1v1 scenarios.
• We should note here that Star Vault have mentioned adding "special" attacks. The possibilities for these are endless and could include attacks which can't be parried.

With Character Builds:

• Strength attribute (str) gives a % chance to deal damage through a parry. Could be restricted to certain weapons.
• Dexterity attribute (dex) gives a % chance to deal damage through a parry. Could be restricted to certain weapons.
• Adjust the Blocking Primary Skill. There are a ton of ways to make parrying part of a character's build to require point investment and scale effectiveness. Some examples:
  • Example 1: Rework the skill to give 0-100% chance to parry instead or in addition to knockdown resistance.
  • Example 2: Rework the skill to give 0-x% reduced block damage and unlock the ability to parry after 70 points invested.
  • Example 3: Make blocking a secondary skill and then make parry a primary skill underneath with 0-100% chance to parry, or 0-45% reduced stam drain, etc.
• Relative size (height) affects the ability to parry. Example, a size differential greater than x% means the smaller player cannot parry only block. This would need to be counterbalanced with boons for the smaller players (i.e. better stamina or increased move speed)
• Relative weight affects the ability to parry. Similar implementation as described above.

I really appreciate this post. You put it together beautifully - you are articulate, well meaning, provide a clear perspective (it is easy to see where you are coming from and why), you formatted it nicely, and your suggestions are meaningful while not being aggressive (they make sense - even if they don't subjectively belong in MO2).

I don't have the capacity right now to say I agree or disagree one way or the other on your suggestions. However your logic in the beginning where you break down the combat in it's infancy is definitely spot on, or at least I agree with that part.

Thank you for posting! I hope you are able to have some good conversation from this, and that people take the time to see your effort and maturity. May the devs be watching too!

Don't let people who aren't at this level of competency / clarity get you down - someone can disagree and do so properly. People saying 'no' or otherwise being derogatory can be ignored.

 

[Weathermore]

Way too overly complex. Just add block/parry endurance meter.