Current state of combat/archery and issues with them.

[Iniquity]

There are some major issues with the current combat and archery systems that I think really take away from the core of what Mortal Online was and what it could be. There are a handful of things but I want to mainly point out parrying and archery aiming in particular.

Parrying and skillful combat:

The current state of combat has become rather dull, everybody can parry almost everything and it takes a few minutes with the game to master the current parry system since timers seem so high. This leads to extended dull fights when at smaller scale, or ultimately your death at larger scale since you are not able to finish off another player before their group gets to you because they just parry indefinitely. Ultimately if you don't have magic or just more players on your side, expect a parry battle until someone's hand cramps first. There are many improvements that can be made but I think one of the easiest things would be to simply reduce the parry timer.

There should absolutely be unforgiving results when making mistakes in combat, which would lead to better fight outcomes and players who take the time to get good at combat can actually reflect their skill when participating in combat. Consider things like extended stam drain when making mistakes, reduced parry window, weapon weight being a factor in blocking, making the "balance" skill actually do something for combat itself like throwing you off balance somewhat when missing a parry return..

Another idea that comes to mind if player netsync is a huge issue is maybe speed increases for swings based on successful parrys? Example: If two players keep parrying each other, the swings should gradually keep getting faster until one player makes a mistake. Two players both good at parrying will ultimately end with someone making a mistake and taking the damage, (credit to Spart on this idea).

Archery:

My only opinion on archery right now is basically that it is so much easier than it was in Mortal 1. This is not a good thing IMO.. This has resulted in almost everybody using archery in some manner and it being way too easy to land arrows because of the crosshair aiming. Aiming with the arrowhead should be the only method for aiming, keeping "skill" a factor of archery. In addition to other attributes and skills effecting sway and arrow travel etc.

 

[Moforyguy]

I'd pay 50 dollars a month for this game to have Mordhau combat.

 

[Iniquity]

I'd pay 50 dollars a month for this game to have Mordhau combat.

I really think Mordhau combat is amazing, but I dont quite know if it would be effective in a game of this scale. That and "one shot kills" might not be a great thing lol. But many aspects of the combat are great. Its not horrible to take inspiration from other systems.

 

[StreamerLord]

Archery should have a wobble.

 

[bbihah]

Archery should have a wobble.

I mean, it will. The game still even has the primary skill related to reducing the wobble...

 

[Woody]

Re mordhau like combat, there's technical reasons this wouldn't be possible in a game of this scale and a reason why Mordhau even has server limits in the first place. MO has the goal of making fights possible with hundreds of people on screen, therefore the network traffic has to be kept in check and subsequently the complexity of combat. However, I do believe that there needs to be a slightly higher cost to stamina while parrying or at least holding parry. I'd recommend looking at this as to explaining the technical limitations and why they've implemented it in this way:

Developer update – Alpha combat and server structure - Mortal Online 2

Mortal Online 2 has a very advanced melee system especially for being an mmorpg. It’s unlike any other mmorpg combat system where you control every action in real time combat. This text will try to cover the system and details of the combat, where we stand today and what’s coming next until it’s...

www.mortalonline2.com

 

[nazgo]

I agree with the parry thing. Its ridiculous how long even inexperienced player can spam parries. The window for parry should be significantly smaller and the dmg through basic block should be higher.

about archery I have mixed feelings. Currently 9/10 players wear some proper bone tissue junk, then complain how archery is OP, and those people should not be listened. They choose their armor based on looks, not defence stats and use the cheapest available material to craft it. But I agree, I miss the light wobble and aiming with just arrowhead, it took some skill to get headshots and long range shots. There was a feeling of accomplishment in landing your every arrow in mo1. I just hope they dont lower the dmg potential of high end longbows, sure emalj bow maybe should not do as high dmg as it does, but you should be able to do really good dmg with bows made of good materials. Afterall, archery has 400 primary points and going balls deep with them all should count something, as you are sacrificing so much for it.

 

[Spart]

Diminishing returns on consecutive parries? either decrease the parry window or an increase in the time it takes to pull your block up?
maybe even gradually larger stam drain in parrying until you become more aggressive? Not all 3 ofc but a few ideas

 

[Moforyguy]

The combat as it is now is boring. Even if 100 people are fighting it just becomes whoever runs behind the people fighting and cherry picks and repeat. I hope one day a game can handle a good combat system. I don't know what it would take but if making the world map smaller would help, I'd say try that first.

 

[Wesley Snipes]

Parry windows are what they are because we're all playing on one server located in europe with wildly different pings. If they reduced the window, people from the west coast and oce/sea would probably never be able to parry against an eu player significantly, giving the EU a significant advantage. Every decision they've made so far has came from the fact they need combat to work across the board for everyone.

The best way to combat parry whoring is introducing a guard crush mechanic that is transparent.

Good players still beat bad players, they just don't absolutely annihilate them, but annihilating a player isn't a good way to retain a playerbase anyway.

 

[LivingshadeNL]

Also , if someone parrys in the wrong direction there should be a cooldown on parrying again. That will make it so feints actually do something, now if u feint and they fall for it they can change to the right direction in time , making feinting useless other than in stickybacking.

 

[Clarion]

I agree with the parry thing. Its ridiculous how long even inexperienced player can spam parries. The window for parry should be significantly smaller and the dmg through basic block should be higher.

about archery I have mixed feelings. Currently 9/10 players wear some proper bone tissue junk, then complain how archery is OP, and those people should not be listened. They choose their armor based on looks, not defence stats and use the cheapest available material to craft it. But I agree, I miss the light wobble and aiming with just arrowhead, it took some skill to get headshots and long range shots. There was a feeling of accomplishment in landing your every arrow in mo1. I just hope they dont lower the dmg potential of high end longbows, sure emalj bow maybe should not do as high dmg as it does, but you should be able to do really good dmg with bows made of good materials. Afterall, archery has 400 primary points and going balls deep with them all should count something, as you are sacrificing so much for it.

This is right

 

[ElPerro]

I agree with the parry thing. Its ridiculous how long even inexperienced player can spam parries. The window for parry should be significantly smaller and the dmg through basic block should be higher.

about archery I have mixed feelings. Currently 9/10 players wear some proper bone tissue junk, then complain how archery is OP, and those people should not be listened. They choose their armor based on looks, not defence stats and use the cheapest available material to craft it. But I agree, I miss the light wobble and aiming with just arrowhead, it took some skill to get headshots and long range shots. There was a feeling of accomplishment in landing your every arrow in mo1. I just hope they dont lower the dmg potential of high end longbows, sure emalj bow maybe should not do as high dmg as it does, but you should be able to do really good dmg with bows made of good materials. Afterall, archery has 400 primary points and going balls deep with them all should count something, as you are sacrificing so much for it.

I'd say the stam usage is a big factor as well, ppl can just chase you forever while shooting with no wobble for 60s. If those bows were made with dense crepite you could justify the damage, but with how easy it is to get crepite and emalj you cant. And with 100 skills you can be an effective archer btw

 

[LivingshadeNL]

I'd say the stam usage is a big factor as well, ppl can just chase you forever while shooting with no wobble for 60s. If those bows were made with dense crepite you could justify the damage, but with how easy it is to get crepite and emalj you cant. And with 100 skills you can be an effective archer btw

Yeah saying the damage is fine is also not right in my opinion. Literally 0 reason to play mage with these bows and stickybackingmechanics

 

[Melvinius]

The combat as it is now is boring. Even if 100 people are fighting it just becomes whoever runs behind the people fighting and cherry picks and repeat. I hope one day a game can handle a good combat system. I don't know what it would take but if making the world map smaller would help, I'd say try that first.

A smaller world map is not the solution. In MO2 you can walk for a couple hours and still run into people. If anything, too small already.

 

[Iniquity]

Also , if someone parrys in the wrong direction there should be a cooldown on parrying again. That will make it so feints actually do something, now if u feint and they fall for it they can change to the right direction in time , making feinting useless other than in stickybacking.

I really like this idea.

 

[LivingshadeNL]

I really like this idea.

the idea is not complete though, it could be abused if people keep holding their swings , so i think holding swing should also require more stam if they would ever change it to be this way.

 

[Woody]

the idea is not complete though, it could be abused if people keep holding their swings , so i think holding swing should also require more stam if they would ever change it to be this way.

Agreed, stam drain when holding a block (maybe half with a shield) and therefore rewarding blocking that is made just in time.

 

[nazgo]

I'd say the stam usage is a big factor as well, ppl can just chase you forever while shooting with no wobble for 60s. If those bows were made with dense crepite you could justify the damage, but with how easy it is to get crepite and emalj you cant. And with 100 skills you can be an effective archer btw

yea stam drain is a big problem with the current system. If your character has 110 str, you can draw 109 bow without using almost ANY stamina and hold it for as long as you want. If you draw 111 str bow, it takes a lifetime to draw and drains almost your entire stamina pool.

Thats not how the system should work. 109 str bow should drain significantly more stamina than 50 str bow, no matter how much str the player has. Then again if the player doesnt meet the str requirement of bow, they should be unable to draw the bow in the first place. This would require the rework of the entire bow system tho, as currently asymetrical bows for example, are ment to be over your max str (thats why they are called sniper bows).

Also skillwise, "Archery" should remain as it is, but the bows should hit the minimum dmg more often without the skill. Aiming techniques should reduce the stam drain more drastically, so they could increase the stam drain of bows significantly without nerfing proper archers. They should make bows wobble again and "controlled aiming" should reduce this wobbling.

This way majority of the players would be bad with bows, as nobody will invest in the archery skills.

Reworking of the systems is what we need, instead of immediately nerfing all dmg. Also, introduce fletchery, so people can invest in their arrows!

Yeah saying the damage is fine is also not right in my opinion. Literally 0 reason to play mage with these bows and stickybackingmechanics

The fact that magery is useless against archers is related to how badly mage related systems are implemented. Watch any long large scale pvp videos and 99% of the time mages are just standing behind the fight and acting as stationary lesser healing machines. This is fcked up and its mainly related to mana regen. If mages had more mana regen, they could more easily compete with archers. Or, if mages could move AND cast, they could more easily compete with archers. As of right now, mages are being punished with slow mana regen and unability to move, but they are rewarded with nothing. I do wish they had completely reworked ecumenical school...

against stickybacks, yea why would anyone invest 125 points in dex when you lose HP, Stamina, Psy, Int and mana, and gain what?, couple units of speed. Thats just bs.

running and gunning with bows can also be fixed easily. They can introduce wobbling and make running wobble the bows so much one cant aim properly. They can ban sprinting while drawing and holding a bow. There are many options to balance this easily.

for now, mages are only balanced for small scale close-quarter combat and preferably inside cities.


EDIT: also does mounted archery require archery? As right now it doesnt atleast show under archery D:

 

[Kebek]

Archery:

My only opinion on archery right now is basically that it is so much easier than it was in Mortal 1. This is not a good thing IMO.. This has resulted in almost everybody using archery in some manner and it being way too easy to land arrows because of the crosshair aiming.

Archery is the only form of non-magical mounted combat for the moment. That's why everyone has archery right now.