My review of the combat / changes so far.

[billbonty]

Combat has come a long way since the start of MO2's alpha... but we're not quite there yet.

Parrying: Not great. 5/10
Blocking is considered a parry for far too long. You can hold down block for a good 2 seconds and its still a parry. The fact that you can parry hits that are literally behind you is really ridiculous as well. This is causing fights to last way too long and is the biggest issue here.

Equipment hits: Good. 7/10
Bows should take WAY more damage from blocking an attack based on the amount of damage they defended against. I blocked a good 10 attacks and lost about 3 durability. My bow should be BROKEN at 5 hits max. Equipment hits also shouldn't be 0 damage when it lands against my sword or bow... Even a block causes SOME damage to me and that's when you're ready for the hit!

Attacks: Good. 7/10
The slower combat feels nice with my NA ping and doesn't feel very delayed. Really liking the changes that have been made so far that cater to players from around the world. I've had one encounter with someone that had no swinging animations... I'm not sure what is causing this, but it was concerning to witness.

Archery: Awesome. 9/10
When I take damage, I shouldn't be able to hold my string back. It should force you to release the arrow when you take damage. The difference from mo1 archery and mo2 archery is massive though and I'm loving it.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Melee sucks ass.

 

[ThaBadMan]

Imo theres a few small things to change to boost combat immensely.

Reduce block arcs so that you have to look at the incoming swing to parry, alittle to the side and around your back and its a blocked hit.
Reduce parry time with 1s timer or else its a blocked hit.
Equipment hits to reduce the dmg by 25% instead of 100%. This is a random chance which is opposite of skill.
Blocked hits reduce dmg by 60%. Takes skill but less than a timed parry.

This is a good starting point to see if TTK is decreased and skill ceiling increases. If this is not sufficient swing charge and swing speeds could get slightly faster.

 

[Svaar]

make a dynamic block. so that you can change the direction of the block while holding down the block key on the mouse. and not as now it is necessary to release the block key and receive damage

 

[MyrmexThraxvágr]

make a dynamic block. so that you can change the direction of the block while holding down the block key on the mouse. and not as now it is necessary to release the block key and receive damage

It is intended to work like that buddy, else parrying or blocking would be too easy.

 

[Putzin]

make a dynamic block. so that you can change the direction of the block while holding down the block key on the mouse. and not as now it is necessary to release the block key and receive damage

If they did this it lowers the skill on parrying/blocking further and also they would HAVE to icnrease stam drain on holding a block/parry instead of just upfront as you'd never be killed otherwise, there would be no window for it. Would require a lot more rebalancing. And we still dont have magic so fuck it

 

[Teknique]

Imo theres a few small things to change to boost combat immensely.

Reduce block arcs so that you have to look at the incoming swing to parry, alittle to the side and around your back and its a blocked hit.
Reduce parry time with 1s timer or else its a blocked hit.
Equipment hits to reduce the dmg by 25% instead of 100%. This is a random chance which is opposite of skill.
Blocked hits reduce dmg by 60%. Takes skill but less than a timed parry.

This is a good starting point to see if TTK is decreased and skill ceiling increases. If this is not sufficient swing charge and swing speeds could get slightly faster.

I don’t like this block trash that used to be in the game, but definitely the 10 patches of offensive nerfs needs a balance

 

[Handsome Young Man]

I don’t like this block trash that used to be in the game, but definitely the 10 patches of offensive nerfs needs a balance

The funny thing is, this video exampling Furry, is basically a lot of people in the game.

Now, bare with me.

I don't like Furry, but to observe his ability in dueling scenarios there is only a handful of people I know personally who could beat him (in a duel) in MO1. His group fighting ability is terrible.

Anyways, he lived (and still does) live close to the server, dumped an ungodly amount of time into the game, and has put in tremendous amounts of effort theory crafting builds, weapons, etc. in MO1 which will more than likely translate over to MO2.

Now with the skill floor raised so high, a lot of people can be just as defensive as him. It's really NOT that hard to not die / lose a duel, because you can just quite literally prolong it indefinitely.

This does matter in group fights because sometimes you have to 1v1, or finish someone; but now unless you guarantee multiple people on one target doing different swing directions (even then) if the player is just average at best can still live.

Combat is slow, and offense is non-existent. It's all about bait-and-switch and target switching at this point. Super unfun combat.

 

[Teknique]

The funny thing is, this video exampling Furry, is basically a lot of people in the game.

Now, bare with me.

I don't like Furry, but to observe his ability in dueling scenarios there is only a handful of people I know personally who could beat him (in a duel) in MO1. His group fighting ability is terrible.

Anyways, he lived (and still does) live close to the server, dumped an ungodly amount of time into the game, and has put in tremendous amounts of effort theory crafting builds, weapons, etc. in MO1 which will more than likely translate over to MO2.

Now with the skill floor raised so high, a lot of people can be just as defensive as him. It's really NOT that hard to not die / lose a duel, because you can just quite literally prolong it indefinitely.

This does matter in group fights because sometimes you have to 1v1, or finish someone; but now unless you guarantee multiple people on one target doing different swing directions (even then) if the player is just average at best can still live.

Combat is slow, and offense is non-existent. It's all about bait-and-switch and target switching at this point. Super unfun combat.

None of that really had anything to do with the block arcs, which I feel are shit when getting blocks while looking at opponents that are right infront of you.

You’ll get no argument from me however on aggression being inferior. While almost everyone is good at parrying someone who is flawless at parrying, and believe me I can tell the difference, is currently unkillable.

Defensive players have gotten everything they’ve wanted accel nerfs, movement speed nerfs, turn caps, stabs that you can’t jiggle. With absolutely no counter balance

It’s time for the pendulum to swing back towards being able to break an opponent. Never missing a parry is the only thing that matters in 1v1 now

 

[Handsome Young Man]

None of that really had anything to do with the block arcs, which I feel are shit when getting blocks while looking at opponents that are right infront of you.

You’ll get no argument from me however on aggression being inferior. While almost everyone is good at parrying someone who is flawless at parrying, and believe me I can tell the difference, is currently unkillable.

Defensive players have gotten everything they’ve wanted accel nerfs, movement speed nerfs, turn caps, stabs that you can’t jiggle. With absolutely no counter balance

It’s time for the pendulum to swing back towards being able to break an opponent. Never missing a parry is the only thing that matters in 1v1 now

I swear I saw in Discord somewhere at some point that Furry and TyGuy were labeled 'the best players' from Henrik or something, man that made me laugh.

On a serious note, I feel a lot of the feedback received is a lot of times what causes these kinds of changes. We get the swing-release turn cap removed, but now we have quick sand movement. People ask for faster combat, we get more steps in the attack flowchart as well as even slower combat.

 

[Teknique]

I swear I saw in Discord somewhere at some point that Furry and TyGuy were labeled 'the best players' from Henrik or something, man that made me laugh.

On a serious note, I feel a lot of the feedback received is a lot of times what causes these kinds of changes. We get the swing-release turn cap removed, but now we have quick sand movement. People ask for faster combat, we get more steps in the attack flowchart as well as even slower combat.

It seems like anything that did damage to a defensive player was marked for extermination when they gave feedback.

"stab accel is too hard to block (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"swing morph too hard to differentiate (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"spin glitches out animations AND IS LITERALLY UNBLOCKABLE (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"got hit from too far away"
"I swear I blocked that right swing, nerf accels more (even though I can block 95% of them)"

The problem is you can't really argue against it, either they'll say its desynced and looks ugly, or a new player will cry if they saw it.

I just don't know how nerfing every single form of aggression is going to work in the long run other than "Kick will fix it"

 

[ThaBadMan]

I don’t like this block trash that used to be in the game, but definitely the 10 patches of offensive nerfs needs a balance

Yes that was and is shit, but thats why we got ping normalization.
But that play there is the low ping advantage, they can parry anything a higher ping user throws at them no matter how fast.
The lower charge speed is also a failed attempt at curbing the massive advantage of low ping but it limits higher pingers more I feel since low pingers are not forced to play animation correctly like higher ping has to.

Luckily come release their dueling advantage will be gone for better group players. Group fighting will be miles ahead of MO if some adjustments in the right way happen.
Right now landing hits and blocking incoming ones are too easy to do so long you actually spent 5 min learning how to block all directions. That coupled with the low movement speed means positioning and superior footwork in both group fights and duels are way less of a factor than I would like as bare minimum.

 

[ElPerro]

It seems like anything that did damage to a defensive player was marked for extermination when they gave feedback.

"stab accel is too hard to block (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"swing morph too hard to differentiate (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"spin glitches out animations AND IS LITERALLY UNBLOCKABLE (even though I can block 95% of them)"
"got hit from too far away"
"I swear I blocked that right swing, nerf accels more (even though I can block 95% of them)"

The problem is you can't really argue against it, either they'll say its desynced and looks ugly, or a new player will cry if they saw it.

I just don't know how nerfing every single form of aggression is going to work in the long run other than "Kick will fix it"

Yeah it seems if you cant parry literally everything the game is broken... and now they got their wish. Also the main priority to Henrik is more the game looking good in videos instead of actual fun and engaging combat sadly.

What is worrysome is that we still dont know the mechanics of these "combat saving" kick or special attack and neither it is on the roadmap. If you ask Henrik he says they are still thinking about the details, so not even him knows how its gonna work. With like 1 month to release, its possible we are stuck with this shit combat for persistant and who knows when they gonna patch it.

 

[Eldrath]

Yeah it seems if you cant parry literally everything the game is broken... and now they got their wish. Also the main priority to Henrik is more the game looking good in videos instead of actual fun and engaging combat sadly.

What is worrysome is that we still dont know the mechanics of these "combat saving" kick or special attack and neither it is on the roadmap. If you ask Henrik he says they are still thinking about the details, so not even him knows how its gonna work. With like 1 month to release, its possible we are stuck with this shit combat for persistant and who knows when they gonna patch it.

Yeah this worries me a lot. Because the stated intent was that "combat" was supposed to be finished and not changed all the time. It is very far from finished because a whole playstyle (offensive) is not viable.

If it was the other way around I would actually be less worried, because it would not favour zergs so much. The current system does.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

We are doomed.

 

[Grudge Bringer]

Once you add offensive speacial moves, like a kick defense will be broken easier. Right now it's a perfect starting point for base combat.

 

[Grudge Bringer]

Yeah this worries me a lot. Because the stated intent was that "combat" was supposed to be finished and not changed all the time. It is very far from finished because a whole playstyle (offensive) is not viable.

If it was the other way around I would actually be less worried, because it would not favour zergs so much. The current system does.

It will change once kick and more offensive strike moves are added. Add cronite and Oghmiun weapons, racial perks and the combats gonna be insane. What we have right now is the bread and butter without the community min/max tweaking. It's a perfect base to grow from.

 

[AVEPRO]

make a dynamic block. so that you can change the direction of the block while holding down the block key on the mouse. and not as now it is necessary to release the block key and receive damage

the dynamic block is strongly ping-dependent it is not needed here it is not a slasher where there are regional servers.

 

[Eldrath]

It will change once kick and more offensive strike moves are added. Add cronite and Oghmiun weapons, racial perks and the combats gonna be insane. What we have right now is the bread and butter without the community min/max tweaking. It's a perfect base to grow from.

What I am saying is that is a shit base. Relying on gimmicks and high end gear to have offensive options is beyond stupid.

Offensive play should be viable at all gear levels.

The base should be that both aggressive and defensive plays are viable. That is currently not the case.

 

[Svaar]

the dynamic block is strongly ping-dependent it is not needed here it is not a slasher where there are regional servers.

I'm talking about a block and not a blow. what's the slasher about