MO2 combat design philosophy (Styg, pets, tower shields,greater walkers, etc.)

Sabottage

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Mar 4, 2023
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The combat design in mortal is a little wierd sometimes. What i mean with this is:

Players have directional combat where mechanical skill and reflexes are key to winning a fight. But thursars have Styganthrope allowing them to pasiveley regen hp without skill and any decision making.

Players have to aim their spells, with different timing and mechanics for different magic schools requiring skill and knowledge. But pets have an auto atack torpedo mode with no skill or heavy decision making involeved.

Players have to learn animations in order to be effective at parrying others. But tower shields exist and remove any skill involved in the defencive gameplay for melees.
(This is just an example)

Some things in mortal are extreamly skill and decision making dependent while others are just passive but extreamly strong, to, i would say, a game breaking point. My problem is not with the idea that the thursar should be the strongest melee fighter, or that pets should be able to have and inpact on pvp or that shields should provide a defencive bonus.

The problem is how these features are designed. Decision making and skill should always be the most important priorities when designing any combat related mechanic. What i mean with this is, make players press a button if they want an efect. For each reaction there should be an action. Give players strength through active decision making not passive buffs or past choices. The beuty of mortal is being able to activley engage in a fight and take decisions that will make you win or loose. If the enemy has a buff so strong that any decision you can take is irelevant the game becomes rock paper cisors. It turns inot Albion Onlie. The skill and outplay potential fades away. Combat becomes static and predictable.

Bandages, Ogh pipes, casting spels, parry, melee atack, running away, standing still to regain stam, drinking a pot, shooring a bow, riding four speed. All of these actions require a player input and these are the actions that make the game fun and intresting. Styg, pet auto atack, necro walker for ever agro are not dependent on active decision maing and are not fun, exept by the fact that they are strong and win fights against decision dependent skills.

I am not asking to delet pets or delet thursars. They are suposed to be strong in their specific areas. just make them decision making dependent. make players have to press buttons. For the future melee combat skill or any old mechanic that needs balancing.

Star Vault should adopt a combat desing philosophy: All instance of damage or healing are related to one instance of player input. (Static spells like static charge or star fall would not fall into this idea)

Give us strength through action!

Sabotage
 
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Speznat

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Awesome idea I guess player skill should mater more than passive skill. but I love passive skill but i see the point. and it makes sense. Good idea man. if its for me they could remove all bandages and pipes. but just my opinion xD
 

Sabottage

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Mar 4, 2023
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Awesome idea I guess player skill should mater more than passive skill. but I love passive skill but i see the point. and it makes sense. Good idea man. if its for me they could remove all bandages and pipes. but just my opinion xD
Im not syaing to remove passive skills. They just need to be action dependent. The same way an oghmir has to press a button to smoke its pipe. Make the thursar have to act some how to ativate its styg. Make styg a passive life steal. We can sit in here for days and talk how every thing should or should not be implemented.

But if Star Vault just asks:

Is the ogh pipe instance of heal related to a player input insatance?

Yes.

Are the pet auto atack torpedo mode instances of damage related to multiple instances of inputs (decision making)?

No.

In the first case you might need balance. change the numbers if it is too strong or too weak. In the second case we need a redesign. The concept is broken.

Why were tower shiled so over powerd? The passive defance was so big and strong that undermined any decision making and outplay potentiak from the enemy. Tower shields got thankfully nerfed to the ground. For broken things like tower shields there are two ways to fix them. Redesign or nerf them to the ground.
 
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Rahz

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Jul 19, 2022
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Hit the nail on the head.
Yeah pets and walkers dont tie into the existing combat system at all. Really just changing the beastmastery to beast-transformation and then have the pet-mages fight you as a bear would go a long way. With the directional combat and parrying, theyre finally playing Mortal Online 2 and not a point and click adventure.
For necro pets, i think they should just be on a decaying timer for a start and the explosion stuff should really be changed into an AoE poison cloud just because of how AoEs in Mortal work. Its too strong right now.
I agree with the styg. stuff. i think turning it into lifesteal like suggested would be a good fix. Now you have to hit ppl to heal and it would make the life-leech skill not useless anymore.
Tower Shields have been a problem for a long time. it should grind down your stamina to not block and get equipment hits on your shield. Or maybe make the push skill useful by making it counter blocking a little ( short stun +stamina drain when you blocked a push, higher stam drain for tower shields )
then we`ll just have to fix blink charges so the lighter weapon variants in each weapon class get some love.
And i also again have to suggest removing HoT effects from food. You can spam it too much and it makes healing much too common during combat.
 
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Sabottage

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Mar 4, 2023
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Yeah man, giving players choices and rewarding them for active and smart use of skills/clades/mechanics is the best combat design we could ever ask for.
 
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