Hello guys,
I have played some hundred hours in MO and now maybe 12 hours in the MO2 tests, I know these numbers are rookie numbers to most, but nonetheless, I would like to share my thoughts on the combat system in MO2 and possible way of expansion into normie market without losing the autists.
I really enjoy the new feeling of the game overall, the graphics have a similar vibe, but UE 4 does bring it up to the current year. The crafting system is really nicely thought out and the areas which were great in MO are still great here.
BUT! Melee combat in MO was a chore and here we have sequel of this tragedy and I don't get why would you do that, why? Why make it clunky, slow and unresponsive? To maintain high autism ratio in the player base? Maybe. Maybe you want to explain it to average player with legendary "get gud", Maybe the normies are less loyal fanbase. Damn, I don't know...
Anyway,
I am a needy c*nt when it comes to melee combat systems in games. I have some experience in medieval combat from HEMA training (mostly daggers and longswords of traditional Italian school). I think a good combat system is supposed to be fun, balanced, responsive, fair and important but usually not considered, it needs to look great when watching a fight from the side.
Right now the melee combat system is not terrible, the mechanics are clear and well explained and animations are nice, but the queues, the responsiveness, the flow and how it looks from the side, are actually pretty bad. I have a couple of ideas that in a package could resolve some of the shortcomings, but individually implemented could lead to some balance issues, because they usually make something easier and you wouldn't want to make defense easier than offense.
Offense
Combinations:
To improve the flow of the swings and thrusts I advise extending each of the attack animations to visualize the readiness for the next attack. Right now, when you make a slashing attack to a direction the animation ends and comes back to the original state in which you experience a short pause in which you cannot make another swing. I suppose that is in place to stop attack spamming without letting the defender react and to reduce the need to animate transitions from one swing to another (pay them and get it done, duh). Instead of that pause, you can just have the attack animation slow down at the final portion of the motion at which moment it would be in fact ready for another strike.
Example:
You make a swing right to left, you charge the swing for more power and let go to execute, the swing slashes and slows down at the overextension, during the overextension you should be able to initiate three out of four directional attacks without additional time punishment, swing to the left, thrust and overhead, the time punishment would be present for the repeated right to left swing because you would need to pull the overextension back. This will create flow of complex attacks that are interconnected, thus, responsive, better looking, and clear.
Attack cones:
Currently the attack cones are very small, you need to be aiming pretty much directly at enemy to hit him with whatever swing you make. This makes not much sense when you use directional movements with a mouse to do anything within the combat system. I advise enlarging the cones for the top/left/right swing attacks to make the attacks more expectable. This will cause imbalance (the offense is going to be much easier), but we will balance this out in the next change on the defense side.
Defense
Duel, the mental dance:
As mentioned before, currently the attacking is difficult to land, especially in quick succession. This is balanced by how f**ed the defense is with the directional blocking system and as with landing blows, it is difficult to block them, especially in quick succession in PVP, where the queues are not so clear. This causes plenty of misses and duelists running around like spastics just to get in and out of connecting the hits or to check what attack is currently charged. Instead *I HOPE*, you would prefer to have them engage in attack/block/step, to let them do that, there needs to be a certain streamlining of actions and effects. In a hardcore game???? yes, dude, chill, let me explain.
Fuken autoblock son:
Sounds casual as hell bro, I know, but in a game like Mortal where everything is so complex, the learning curve is steep, stats get built slowly and you have wieners and bewbs flopping around to distract you from the path of greatness so there needs to be some *BONK* no horny from uber hardcore! That BONK is the game automatically receiving the nearest charging of an attack and blocking in that direction with the click of the right mouse button. If your opponent faints and changes direction you would re-click the RMB to update the direction. This is a simplification to balance easier landing of hits.
Some other tweaks of this system can be:
When having the wrong block direction on and getting hit, you still receive small defense bonus mitigating 20% of the damage to reward well-timed block even if not perfect.
When hitting someone who is blocking correctly with a fully charged attack you get staggered, which returns you to the default stance and causes half a sec of inability to attack (just like the one currently between swings).
Having fully charged attacks causes 100% of damage and very short stagger (effectively interrupts charging their attack), having it charged halfway 50% and minimal is 25% but it is a very quick attack. So you might be able to get 2 free swings at the dude, but if he chooses to charge the attack instead, he can potentially cause twice the damage and a staggering effect.
Some tweaks to the current system for cheap results:
A bindable key for each block direction, it will be up to player of how they want to use it, on mouse with extra buttons or on keyboard.
When holding RMB and blocking you can change the direction of the block by moving mouse in the different direction without letting go of the button, along this feature I recommend reducing the sensitivity of the mouse when the RMB is pressed. Should be totally easy in coding or blueprinting it in UE4.
Bindable dodge or double tap A, S, or D dodge, without front to ensure dodges being a defensive feature.
I have played some hundred hours in MO and now maybe 12 hours in the MO2 tests, I know these numbers are rookie numbers to most, but nonetheless, I would like to share my thoughts on the combat system in MO2 and possible way of expansion into normie market without losing the autists.
I really enjoy the new feeling of the game overall, the graphics have a similar vibe, but UE 4 does bring it up to the current year. The crafting system is really nicely thought out and the areas which were great in MO are still great here.
BUT! Melee combat in MO was a chore and here we have sequel of this tragedy and I don't get why would you do that, why? Why make it clunky, slow and unresponsive? To maintain high autism ratio in the player base? Maybe. Maybe you want to explain it to average player with legendary "get gud", Maybe the normies are less loyal fanbase. Damn, I don't know...
Anyway,
I am a needy c*nt when it comes to melee combat systems in games. I have some experience in medieval combat from HEMA training (mostly daggers and longswords of traditional Italian school). I think a good combat system is supposed to be fun, balanced, responsive, fair and important but usually not considered, it needs to look great when watching a fight from the side.
Right now the melee combat system is not terrible, the mechanics are clear and well explained and animations are nice, but the queues, the responsiveness, the flow and how it looks from the side, are actually pretty bad. I have a couple of ideas that in a package could resolve some of the shortcomings, but individually implemented could lead to some balance issues, because they usually make something easier and you wouldn't want to make defense easier than offense.
Offense
Combinations:
To improve the flow of the swings and thrusts I advise extending each of the attack animations to visualize the readiness for the next attack. Right now, when you make a slashing attack to a direction the animation ends and comes back to the original state in which you experience a short pause in which you cannot make another swing. I suppose that is in place to stop attack spamming without letting the defender react and to reduce the need to animate transitions from one swing to another (pay them and get it done, duh). Instead of that pause, you can just have the attack animation slow down at the final portion of the motion at which moment it would be in fact ready for another strike.
Example:
You make a swing right to left, you charge the swing for more power and let go to execute, the swing slashes and slows down at the overextension, during the overextension you should be able to initiate three out of four directional attacks without additional time punishment, swing to the left, thrust and overhead, the time punishment would be present for the repeated right to left swing because you would need to pull the overextension back. This will create flow of complex attacks that are interconnected, thus, responsive, better looking, and clear.
Attack cones:
Currently the attack cones are very small, you need to be aiming pretty much directly at enemy to hit him with whatever swing you make. This makes not much sense when you use directional movements with a mouse to do anything within the combat system. I advise enlarging the cones for the top/left/right swing attacks to make the attacks more expectable. This will cause imbalance (the offense is going to be much easier), but we will balance this out in the next change on the defense side.
Defense
Duel, the mental dance:
As mentioned before, currently the attacking is difficult to land, especially in quick succession. This is balanced by how f**ed the defense is with the directional blocking system and as with landing blows, it is difficult to block them, especially in quick succession in PVP, where the queues are not so clear. This causes plenty of misses and duelists running around like spastics just to get in and out of connecting the hits or to check what attack is currently charged. Instead *I HOPE*, you would prefer to have them engage in attack/block/step, to let them do that, there needs to be a certain streamlining of actions and effects. In a hardcore game???? yes, dude, chill, let me explain.
Fuken autoblock son:
Sounds casual as hell bro, I know, but in a game like Mortal where everything is so complex, the learning curve is steep, stats get built slowly and you have wieners and bewbs flopping around to distract you from the path of greatness so there needs to be some *BONK* no horny from uber hardcore! That BONK is the game automatically receiving the nearest charging of an attack and blocking in that direction with the click of the right mouse button. If your opponent faints and changes direction you would re-click the RMB to update the direction. This is a simplification to balance easier landing of hits.
Some other tweaks of this system can be:
When having the wrong block direction on and getting hit, you still receive small defense bonus mitigating 20% of the damage to reward well-timed block even if not perfect.
When hitting someone who is blocking correctly with a fully charged attack you get staggered, which returns you to the default stance and causes half a sec of inability to attack (just like the one currently between swings).
Having fully charged attacks causes 100% of damage and very short stagger (effectively interrupts charging their attack), having it charged halfway 50% and minimal is 25% but it is a very quick attack. So you might be able to get 2 free swings at the dude, but if he chooses to charge the attack instead, he can potentially cause twice the damage and a staggering effect.
Some tweaks to the current system for cheap results:
A bindable key for each block direction, it will be up to player of how they want to use it, on mouse with extra buttons or on keyboard.
When holding RMB and blocking you can change the direction of the block by moving mouse in the different direction without letting go of the button, along this feature I recommend reducing the sensitivity of the mouse when the RMB is pressed. Should be totally easy in coding or blueprinting it in UE4.
Bindable dodge or double tap A, S, or D dodge, without front to ensure dodges being a defensive feature.
