06/04/2020 - Feedback Request - Creature Balance

[Xsyon]

I would like feedback on all creatures if possible. Are specific creatures too hard, too easy or just right? What variables do you think need adjustment?

Here are some of my goals:

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- Small creatures should be easy to kill, even for low skilled new players.

- The toughest small creatures (adult, high power) may be a challenge for a newbie or medium skilled player but still easy for a high skilled veteran player.

- Large regular creatures should be difficult but manageable to kill solo by a high skilled veteran player. Full legendary adult bears may require two or more tough players to kill.

- Mutants of all ages should be a challenge and require a group of medium skilled players. Young mutants would be as strong as an adult bear with at least medium combat power.

- Old age and legendary mutants should be difficult and require a group of veteran players to kill.

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- All creatures that you attack should fight back. (If not let me know what specific creature did not attack back).

- As creatures take damage there is a chance they will run. There is a greater chance for small and weak creatures to do so.

- You should be able to turn and sprint away from a creature easily.

- It should be difficult or impossible to simply turn and run away at your normal pace.

- It should be impossible to simply back up to avoid attacks.

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Variables need to be adjusted for all of this. Please provide feedback on creatures that seem too easy or difficult based on these goals.

Here are variables I can easily adjust:

- Creature hit points
- Creature base damage
- Creature attack ranges
- Creature attack rates (time between attacks)
- Creature rotation speed during combat
- Creature movement speed (walk, run, max speed)
- Creature healing rate
- Creature attack and defense variables based on age and power. Basically the difference between a new born and an adult or a creature with no combat power vs a legendary combat power creature.
- Creature aggro and reactions. Do any creature reactions seem off?

- Player weapons base damage
- Player weapon ranges
- Player weapon speeds (delay between attacks)
- Duration of stun effects

Please let me know if a specific creature seems too easy or too difficult based on my general goals or if you think any of the variables need adjustment for a specific creature or weapon type.

General feedback (For example: Bears are too strong) is fine. The more specific the feedback, the easier it will be for me to adjust the variables (For example: young raccoons should do 10 damage and have 40 life).

It may take a few rounds of adjusting variables but with the current system all of this is very easy to adjust.

Please stick to just creature feedback in this thread. I will start another for PvP and combat actions like dodge and parry.

Thanks!

[MrDDT]

Most currently do not fight back.

Turn rate on most mobs are pretty good.

Range on some mobs are pretty good some are too far. (Getting hit by 15m from a bear)

Damage from players (at least at max skill / weapons) is very high. I would rather attack faster than have high numbers per attack. This allows for better skilling too and more fun in combat.
Killing a bear in 3 to 4 hits. (8seconds) Not fun. (This is max skill). Killing a bear in 12 hits (8 seconds) is more fun.

You lowered the charge up power (from 180% to 100%), I would like to see charge up take longer. Like 2x longer, but give 180% again. This will allow for people to do better hit and run tactics but take longer to kill than a DPSer who can stay on target attacking fast.
Currently attacking fast is about 4x to 8x faster than charge up, almost no reason to use charge up attacks.

Parry stun seems a good timer. I have 100 parry and it works just fine.

Dodge seems fine to me also. I have 92 dodge and I can spin behind mobs based on current rotation.

I would like to see the attack range on player weapons to be a little be longer. Maybe 25%. Likely picks/shovels do not need this adjusted as much, but very hard to hit stuff with blades and axes. (no one uses clubs really)

I would like to see mutants higher HP keep their damage like it is (much lower than before) but maybe 3x or 4x the HP they have now. The reason is to allow fights last longer and less resting needed but increases the fun. So they wont be much harder and more newer players can be in the "group" fighting them.
One big problem we had before was the 1 hit kills on newer players that would go hunting. They get hit for 35 to 70 damage, and be instant dead. No way to get away. If you lower the damage they do per attack but increase the HP. It makes it so groups can hunt without newer people being sent home in 1 hit.

[Whorlok]

good suggestions from MrDDT

[Whorlok]

Let players level faster life points in the initial period up to a certain point?

[thurgond]

Fought mostly with Ravelli (armed and blades skill in 90's) and some with Lil (moderate pick skills around 50). Dodge skill started at 5 and went no higher than 10.

You are missing on some of your goals.

Small creatures, even rats and marmots are not fighting back or are not attacking until being hit 2-3 times by which time they are dead. My dodge started off at 5 and I was still able to get behind most creatures, specially on level paved surfaces.

Was jumped from behind by large bears (no time to con them) several times when I couldn't sprint. Did not take damage but had screens of missed attacks at 5-6 m ranges. This is with 100 run skill an between 40-50% encumbrance.

Low level mutants were not difficult to kill except when they joined a fight already in progress. E.g. a 122 hp 40% hornback marmot was easier than a 122 hp green (60%) coyote.

Old habits die hard and at times I backed up and charged my attack. This didn't totally avoid attacks, but was able to trade one fully charged attack for a smaller return attack. As DDT said, charging attacks doesn't pay in the current system, excepting the first player attack. My best success came from putting a blade in both hands and right/left clicking as fast as I could. At least with high skilled blade attacks there doesn't seem to be any delay.

Turning on creatures may be a little slow, specially for smaller creatures. It is still better than the old system where a large bear could instantly spin to attack the nearest character.

[Xsyon]

I've updated the Test Server with a few changes to check:

1) Creature reactions when attacked adjusted. Basically non-aggressive creatures were too wimpy and running away / losing aggro too easily when losing a lot of health the first time they get hit. I lowered the chance of creatures running away when in combat. Let me know how it seems now.

2) Player weapon ranges increased by 25%

3) Blocking for some building parts adjusted. If you see a creature going through the wall (on the Test Server)

Comments / Questions:

1) Weapon damage: Before I adjust player weapon damage or creature hp, I have a question. How is weapon damage for PvP? I'd like to make sure weapon damage is balanced first for PvP, then I can adjust creature hp and armor to achieve the desired results.

2) Charged attacks: The main problem is that almost all new players don't use charged attacks. This has been making creatures seem especially difficult to kill for newbies. I was considering removing charged attacks entirely because of this, but it would mess up parrying.

If I set up charged attacks to increase damage as before, I'm stuck with the same problem as before: Creatures will be balanced based on players using charged attacks always. New players won't use charged attacks and will find combat too hard.

Maybe I need to do something to make the charging up more obvious to new players, but I'm not sure what.

Can any of you recommend another similar game that used charged attacks? If I could see what other survival games do in this case I could better adjust things to match what new players have come to expect.

3) About running away from a bear and not getting hit, I'll check the speeds in that type of case. You may be faster than a bear even with encumbrance.

4) About creature attack ranges, I'll look into those and adjust them a bit. Right now they scale linearly with creature size so the ranges for large creatures may end up being too much.

Thanks!

[MrDDT]

1) Weapon damage: Before I adjust player weapon damage or creature hp, I have a question. How is weapon damage for PvP? I'd like to make sure weapon damage is balanced first for PvP, then I can adjust creature hp and armor to achieve the desired results.

2) Charged attacks: The main problem is that almost all new players don't use charged attacks. This has been making creatures seem especially difficult to kill for newbies. I was considering removing charged attacks entirely because of this, but it would mess up parrying.

If I set up charged attacks to increase damage as before, I'm stuck with the same problem as before: Creatures will be balanced based on players using charged attacks always. New players won't use charged attacks and will find combat too hard.

Maybe I need to do something to make the charging up more obvious to new players, but I'm not sure what.



1)
PVP damage looks pretty good.
Currently, new players (35 to 70 HP no armor) will die to vets (Players with 100 skill and 100 STR) in 1 to 3 hits though. I do not see any way around this as such is the way of skill based games.

2)
I agree new players will not understand to use charged attacks. However, you can either remove them fully for the game or balance them so they are useful in some way. Currently, they serve no one. My suggestion is if you do want to balance them, you need to increase the timer on them and the % of power. Really the timer increase can be pretty great because if you using charged attacks, you are likely really running around. This would be if you are swooping in for a hit and leaving.

Balancing creatures on charged attacks would be fine IF you base it on longer charge up timers. So currently it takes about 2 seconds to charge up to 100% damage. If you made that 4 seconds for 180% damage you are effectively nerfing charge up DPS by 20%. However I can see it being useful. There are times where doing 2x damage is helpful even though it takes 4 seconds to charge up.
I expect most people will use the faster DPS system of fast attacking.
This will not effect "backing" up and attacking. It will effect parry charge to full hit, parry again. Which it should.

This will also make it so the need for new players to charge up attacks are not needed. They will do more DPS if they can attack faster, however, if they do want to get a good jump start on the fight they can charge up their first attack. Or if working in a group they can do swoop in attacks with fully charged.

[Xsyon]

Ok, how about if I reduce base weapon damage a bit (so that newbies can take 2-4 hits for example instead of 1-3)? Then I can increase the charged attack power to 150% or so and I will increase the time to charge the attack as suggested. I think 180% is still too much of a difference.

Then I can balance creatures based on on those attack values.

Also are there any survival / sandbox games that I could check out that have charged attacks? I took a look at a few games last night but seemed like combat was just click, click, click, no charge, special attacks or defensive moves at all. (unless I was missing something). Honestly I think Xsyon's combat system is better than the games I took at look at. I couldn't tell how much damage I was doing or how strong my opponent was. Kind of frustrating to see when those games are hugely popular and Xsyon is not. lol

[MrDDT]

Ok, how about if I reduce base weapon damage a bit (so that newbies can take 2-4 hits for example instead of 1-3)? Then I can increase the charged attack power to 150% or so and I will increase the time to charge the attack as suggested. I think 180% is still too much of a difference.

Then I can balance creatures based on on those attack values.

Also are there any survival / sandbox games that I could check out that have charged attacks? I took a look at a few games last night but seemed like combat was just click, click, click, no charge, special attacks or defensive moves at all. (unless I was missing something). Honestly I think Xsyon's combat system is better than the games I took at look at. I couldn't tell how much damage I was doing or how strong my opponent was. Kind of frustrating to see when those games are hugely popular and Xsyon is not. lol

Sounds good.

Mount and Blade is a lot like this combat. However, I've never been a fan of Xsyon's directional attacking. It seemed like a good idea on paper, but because of ping and server delays. It's just not possible in MMOs. This is why I believe small server games (like mount and blade) can do it but not MMOs.

I think it would be much better to focus on special attacks (like other mmos) you can do. Thrusts, Power attacks, Stuns, Trips, Snares etc.

[inhabit]

agree with DDT
'Range on some mobs are pretty good some are too far. (Getting hit by 15m from a bear)' the range player can hit vs bears distance seems extreme.
Also mobs are hit and miss when they want to attack, sometimes never sometimes have a little nap during fight.
Also hit register sounds from player seem half time register half time mobs loses health but no sound.
Similar to akaRothy post on steam video, but not when mob stuck n rock out in open

[Whorlok]

Ok, how about if I reduce base weapon damage a bit (so that newbies can take 2-4 hits for example instead of 1-3)? Then I can increase the charged attack power to 150% or so and I will increase the time to charge the attack as suggested. I think 180% is still too much of a difference.

Then I can balance creatures based on on those attack values.

Also are there any survival / sandbox games that I could check out that have charged attacks? I took a look at a few games last night but seemed like combat was just click, click, click, no charge, special attacks or defensive moves at all. (unless I was missing something). Honestly I think Xsyon's combat system is better than the games I took at look at. I couldn't tell how much damage I was doing or how strong my opponent was. Kind of frustrating to see when those games are hugely popular and Xsyon is not. lol

sounds good

[chojinuk]

Sorry to barge in on this I have Feedback about Creatures buts it not about combat.

Since the new Patch Animals are getting through walls.

In my building, its been animal proof for 3 years until now with no changes except the patch

Ive heard reports from other players re animals getting through walls again.

[Xsyon]

Sorry to barge in on this I have Feedback about Creatures buts it not about combat.
No problem, this thread is for any creature feedback.


Since the new Patch Animals are getting through walls.
Please give me a location and the type of wall / building part creature can go through. Some parts needed expanded blocking boxes.

You can also check on the Test Server as many parts that needed to be fixed have already been fixed there.

Thanks!

[chojinuk]

Personally Ive always liked charged attacks and the multi targets.
But not directional hits, that part is next to useless
(my original post i forgot about that)

Players need to be made aware of the system, I dont know of a mechanic to do that.

Maybe Mouse Over ToolTips in the short term.

Like when you hover the mouse over the Combat SKills window (the list that shows pick shovel skill etc)
Maybe have a tooltip appear with text that just Overviews how combat works, reminding players How to charge attacks.

Or when you enter Combat Mode have message BRIEFLY appear in the middle of the screen saying "Charged Attacks Available" or something.

And when you are holding a charged Attack wating to strike, have another screen message saying something like "Weapon Charged" But in Bigger letters then the usual msgs you get for say Cooking food.

[chojinuk]

No problem, this thread is for any creature feedback.


Please give me a location and the type of wall / building part creature can go through. Some parts needed expanded blocking boxes.

You can also check on the Test Server as many parts that needed to be fixed have already been fixed there.

Thanks!

Tribe - New Obsidian (both servers)

PVP

z622 x916.09 z901.42
the mason door here, and the mason walls lowered into the ground
jus around it (on the inside)

PVE

z622 x858.06 z923.46
the diagonal sunken mason walls (both)
a mutant marmit simply walked over them a few times.

[chojinuk]

Personally Ive always liked charged attacks, directional hits and the multi targets.

Players need to be made aware of the system, I dont know of a mechanic to do that.

Maybe Mouse Over ToolTips in the short term.

Like when you hover the mouse over the Combat SKills window (the list that shows pick shovel skill etc)
Maybe have a tooltip appear with text that just Overviews how combat works, reminding players How to charge attacks.

Or when you enter Combat Mode have message BRIEFLY appear in the middle of the screen saying "Charged Attacks Available" or something.

And when you are holding a charged Attack wating to strike, have another screen message saying something like "Weapon Charged" But in Bigger letters then the usual msgs you get for say Cooking food.

actually, maybe attach the Weapon Charged text directly just above the Green Swing Power bar that fills up when you are charging.
When its Full, the display Weapon Charge right above that bar. (make the charge bar bigger)

[Xsyon]

Tribe - New Obsidian (both servers)
PVP
the mason door here, and the mason walls lowered into the ground
jus around it (on the inside)

PVE
the diagonal sunken mason walls (both)
a mutant marmit simply walked over them a few times.

For the Mason Door or PvP, do you mean the Scrapper Fortress Gate?

Regarding the sunken walls, I set up the code to deliberately ignore blocking from walls so far sunken into the ground. I could adjust that, but eventually I would unblock walls like that again as I improve path-finding through buildings.

In the old system, walls were basically infinite in height (which was not how I intended them to be, but that's how it ended up being coded for simplicity back then).

[chojinuk]

Thank you!

yes i meant the scrapper fortress gate

[Bejaymac]

Crossing Sector Boundary, the amount of lag being generated crossing the boundary seems to vary, some can freeze the game for a couple of seconds, while others barely register. I'm wondering if this is related to a bottleneck I found back when you first started testing taming, going near any tribe with a large number of animals would initially lag like crazy. Then your ping would return to normal, but none of the animals were there, and you couldn't interact with anything, even took twenty minutes to have a chat with Michael as the system was struggling that bad. The bottleneck then was the client was writing everything into the client log, now running in windowed mode and opening the client log eased the bottleneck, but you had to do that several times to clear it completely, only then would all of the animals show up, and you could finally interact with objects.


Swimming animals can't attack you, spent several minutes toying with a shadow bear in the lake, they need to be lured back to land before they will attack.

Some animals appear to be missing their attack animation, that shadow bear just stood there looking at me, while I was taking damage from it.

Encountered quite a few animals that just stood in the one spot, they go through their idle animations but don't move from that spot. Those that are likely to agro will go after you when you get too close, the rest wont even move when you hit them, if you ignore them then they will still be in that spot when you pass that area several hours later.

Animals ignoring you when on buildings is a seriously bad idea, you've just made animal material farming much safer. You can attack them through a wall without having to worry about them attacking you back, same goes for floors. Build a big cage, floor the entire thing, lure a pile of animals into the cage, and calmly wander around inside the cage killing the animals, not one of them will fight back.

Thanks to those "glitched" Super Revs I haven't backed up while rev bashing for a couple of years, they are just too fast for it to work, so I've been going sideways and looping around them. Using that same method on animals now means the animals will run around in a large loop trying to attack me, going to get dizzy doing this for too long, but it means I can kill them without them doing much damage to me.

[MrDDT]

Swimming animals attack you less, but they sure can attack you.

[Static]

I think most creatures are running from ddt due to the "fight or flight" mechanic since hes 350+hps he could be causing these creatures to auto run due to flight over fight.

I say this since my main character has alot of hps and they run from him, while my wifes character only has 80hps and they dont seem to run as much from her.

So this makes me think that balancing every creature in the game to someone who has 350hp will make it so that lower level players will never see creatures run from them under any situation if its balanced to only run if someone has hundreds of hps.

With that being said, I don't think ANY creature should have under 50hp, being able to 1hit any creature should not be the goal.

[Static]

I think weapon damage is fine where its at and would be a mistake to change before or instead of balancing creatures.

Creature balancing is one thing, but to try and change weapon balance THAN change creature balance is going to make the issue more complex than it needs to be by making two variables instead of one.

If theres only one variable to work with, we can more easily find that sweet spot that feels balanaced, than once all the creatures are balanaced, we could think about raising or lowering the player damage in response to make them stronger or weaker as needed to the balanaced creatures.

"If I set up charged attacks to increase damage as before, I'm stuck with the same problem as before: Creatures will be balanced based on players using charged attacks always. New players won't use charged attacks and will find combat too hard.

Maybe I need to do something to make the charging up more obvious to new players, but I'm not sure what.

Can any of you recommend another similar game that used charged attacks? If I could see what other survival games do in this case I could better adjust things to match what new players have come to expect."

Why not make power attacks instead of charged attacks?

Thats how "other games" do it, you have a quick attack (that we already have) and we have a slower more powerful attack thats generally your power attack.

You can even look at real life to see the same thing, in the UFC for example with people really fighting each other there is a huge difference between say a haymaker and a jab, the jab is quick, accurate and to the point, while the haymaker is long, looping and takes more time to hit the spot but if it does it would knock you out in a way the jab never had a chance to do.

So my suggestion here is to make a swing that is half speed, but +50% dmg, I think twice damage would be too much and would make people only use power attacks in the hope of getting a hit.

I agree, charged attack is only ever going to be either "too weak to ever use" or "too powerful and thus everything need to be balanced off charged attacks"

I think the entire game should phase away from loading bars or charged bars. If you want a attack to be slower or take more time, just make the animation slower and change the values, instead of us watching a loading bar that honestly is really unfun, loading bars suck for combat.

[Static]

I agree that new players don't really have a mechanic to learn the combat system.

This brings me back to the suggestion of NPC's in the game to cover stuff like this, you could have someone duel a NPC as one of the quests like what happens in "kingdom come deliverance" in your home city before it gets raided/burned down there is a fenced off area where you duel the blade master who gives you the basics of combat.

Basically what he does is he allows you to attack him, only letting you pass to the next part if you correctly hit him with the right action that hes asking for.

With this you would request a player use's every directional hit, showing off the combat of the game early to new players, instead of sending them off to have their first combat experience be with a creature.

I really think founders isle should be a real city with npc's that show you how to do each craft/skill, not a baron dead town that people get lost in.

[Static]

For the Mason Door or PvP, do you mean the Scrapper Fortress Gate?

Regarding the sunken walls, I set up the code to deliberately ignore blocking from walls so far sunken into the ground. I could adjust that, but eventually I would unblock walls like that again as I improve path-finding through buildings.

In the old system, walls were basically infinite in height (which was not how I intended them to be, but that's how it ended up being coded for simplicity back then).

I think restoring old code only to bring it back to the way it is now isn't a great idea.

I think the only reason why this seems weird to a player is being so used to it being that way for the past decade, this change needs to happen and makes sense, something sunken into the ground should not prevent passing above ground, I agree with this change and don't think it should be reversed to have infinity height.

[Static]

I think the fight or flight mechanic should be tied better to who they are fighting, I also think it should be balanced off who is being expected to fight that creature.

For example if a 50hp rabbit is fighting a 50hp player the rabbit should be as mean as if a 200hp player was fighting a 200hp deer.

Meaning that when a 200hp deer hits a 200hp player it should be taking the same PERCENTAGE of hps roughly as the 50hp rabbit attacking the 50hp player.

These are not accurate numbers but give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

To say this another way with inaccurate numbers, if a deer does roughly 20-30hps dmg at 200hp than the rabbit should perhaps do 5-7.5 damage at 50hps since thats the same 10-15% of the total hps.

This scaling would make sense upwards to a point, since a 450hp bear could possibly do 45-65 dmg and that seems pretty balanced to me so I think balancing them like this so that your trying to match who is attacking them would be the best way to universally balance all the "basic creatures". Armor ratios would reduce this damage even more to the point where I feel that bears wouldn't do that much damage to people who have proper armor.

I don't think we should make endgame creatures easier (bears to mutants) to better cater to new weak players, this ruins endgame hunting for players who actually need that challenge to stay interested in the game. I think even a basic bear should be outside of a new players hunting ability for a while unless they out number it and take it down like a mutant boss creature.

Now the mutant creatures are a whole different bag of wurms, cuz they are supposed to be legendary creatures, boss creatures, that you need multiple people to fight, so I don't think balancing them off the expected players hp being the same as the creature who is going to fight them is a good idea for the mutants, since all mutant creatures have more hps than even ddt, sark or myself, so the damage would have to be rebalanced for those ones, possibly only being 5-7.5-10% instead of 10-15%

There needs to be a concreted plan on balancing, not just randomly changing things to peoples opinion as they give their opinion, cuz every player is going to have a different opinion due to their level of strength/damage and max hps, this means if you balance it to one players suggestion it may not be balanced to other players.. so there needs to be a universal plan on how to balance this instead of just changing things randomly, thats what my suggestion here is attempting to do.

[Static]

Fought a "adult veteran labrador dog" and I two hit it, it didn't feel right.

Also it seems like after you kill a creature, the hp bar is gone from the top of the screen under its name so I actually have no idea how much hps this dog had.

[MrDDT]

I think most creatures are running from ddt due to the "fight or flight" mechanic since hes 350+hps he could be causing these creatures to auto run due to flight over fight.

I say this since my main character has alot of hps and they run from him, while my wifes character only has 80hps and they dont seem to run as much from her.

So this makes me think that balancing every creature in the game to someone who has 350hp will make it so that lower level players will never see creatures run from them under any situation if its balanced to only run if someone has hundreds of hps.

With that being said, I don't think ANY creature should have under 50hp, being able to 1hit any creature should not be the goal.

Totally disagree with a lot of this post.

1) I'm not doing the testing with 350+ HP toon. Also did it with more than 1 toon.
2) I think some animals for sure should be killed in 1 hit, not only that I think they should be killed in 1 hit from a new player with low skills.
You have to remember not every char will have 80+STR, or using high QL weapons. Using a 25QL weapon makes for attacks very weak. Having 50HP can kill a LOT of new players, as many start out with only 30 to 40HP.

I see no reason a baby hamster should have 50HP or more.



Creature balancing is one thing, but to try and change weapon balance THAN change creature balance is going to make the issue more complex than it needs to be by making two variables instead of one.

Weapon damage was already changed in the patch. Thus it's not like it is balanced. Yes I see no reason why you can't change more than 1 thing to balance the whole.





Why not make power attacks instead of charged attacks?

Thats how "other games" do it, you have a quick attack (that we already have) and we have a slower more powerful attack thats generally your power attack.

I agree with this.
I think it's easier for people to understand as most games already use a system like this. I also think it would make combat seem more active.



I think the entire game should phase away from loading bars or charged bars. If you want a attack to be slower or take more time, just make the animation slower and change the values, instead of us watching a loading bar that honestly is really unfun, loading bars suck for combat.

I agree with this.

[Static]

I'd rather see a rat with low damage and 50hp than a rat with decent damage that you can 1 hit.

How does a player learn anything from 1 hitting a rat or hamster? Spoiler; they don't.

You need low end creatures (rats, hamsters, rabbits) to be as strong to new players as a deer or bear is to endgame players.

This means 1hits just isn't a good idea, theres no combat to be had if you just run up and 1hit.

If a new player with a 25q shovel is doing around 10 dmg per hit with low skill than I really don't think 50hp's is too much.

But that does bring up a interesting subject; it shouldn't be balanced only by hps, it should also be balanced verse the expected skill level of the play who should be fighting it.

As in, the hamster should prob be balanced the weakest, while a rat a lil stronger, maybe a squirrel being a lil stronger than that and a rabbit a lil stronger than that. So you could aim the hamster and rat at brand new players with 25q weapon and 5 skill, while you could argue that a rabbit for example could be more balanced towards 25 skill and 40q weapon just to throw out some random numbers.

I totally understand not everybody is going to have endgame equipment or their skills maxed, but no creatures should be balanced for that anyways aside of mutants and bears imo, those are the only creatures that should be balanced for people like you me and sark... everything else should be balanced for who is expected to fight that creature, meaning rat would be lowest skill and weapon, while bear or mutants would be expecting you have the highest end equipment.

[Static]

Instead of going case by case and saying "I personally feel this is too strong or too weak in compairson to my character" I am trying to get to a core root way of sorting out the balance so its balanced to EVERYBODY not just the people who fought that particular creature and gave a opinion, cuz those opinions will differ depending on the stats of your character.

Thats why I'm saying there needs to be a standard here and attempting to come up with one.

[Static]

Lets be honest here, if you and me and both 1hit a 50hp rat or hamster, how is this a problem?

I mean you think people should be able to 1hit a hamster or rat, but the reality is we can both do it even with my suggestion.

The only people who wouldn't be able to 1hit them is NEW players and thats a GOOD THING, cuz they would need to fight it in combat instead of just walking up and getting a effortless kill that will teach them nothing and make them disappointed in combat.

[Static]

Was weapon damage ACTUALLY changed?

Or are you talking about reduced additional damage due to lack of 180% charged hit?

Cuz those are two VERY different things.

I'd say we do MORE damage now than we did before cuz theres no charge bar, meaning you can get 2-3 hits off in the same time as it took you to do a charged attack. Even 2 attacks in the same time as 1 charged attack is 150% dmg, pretty dang close to 1 charged attack.

What I'm saying here is, unless I'm wrong, the base weapon damage and the entire calculation for it has not changed at all aside of removing 180% dmg from charged, lowering to 100% and adding 75% dmg to fastest hit... this is not changing weapon values or damage at all, its ONLY added damage to fast attacks from 1% to 75% and charged from 180% to 100% and I AGREE with these changes and jordi's reasoning, most new players die to hamsters or simple creatures due to 1% dmg with fastest attack no charge, by changing things so it does 75% dmg its solving this problem of new players dying to anything cuz they cant figure combat out, I get its not a YOU problem, but it IS a wide spread problem that this addresses and fixes.

Again, two hits at 75% is faster than 1 charged hit, so I don't see how we're doing any less DPS, just less charged hit that is honestly really slow.

The game shouldn't be balanced over single hits, it should be balanced for dps, the amount of time it takes you to produce that damage, not flat simple numbers of a single hit cuz a shovel will win every single time that way, where as a knife is faster or a axe is faster, the dsp of them should all be around the same imo, NOT the single hits of them.

[MrDDT]

I'd rather see a rat with low damage and 50hp than a rat with decent damage that you can 1 hit.

How does a player learn anything from 1 hitting a rat or hamster? Spoiler; they don't.

You need low end creatures (rats, hamsters, rabbits) to be as strong to new players as a deer or bear is to endgame players.

This means 1hits just isn't a good idea, theres no combat to be had if you just run up and 1hit.

If a new player with a 25q shovel is doing around 10 dmg per hit with low skill than I really don't think 50hp's is too much.

But that does bring up a interesting subject; it shouldn't be balanced only by hps, it should also be balanced verse the expected skill level of the play who should be fighting it.

As in, the hamster should prob be balanced the weakest, while a rat a lil stronger, maybe a squirrel being a lil stronger than that and a rabbit a lil stronger than that. So you could aim the hamster and rat at brand new players with 25q weapon and 5 skill, while you could argue that a rabbit for example could be more balanced towards 25 skill and 40q weapon just to throw out some random numbers.

I totally understand not everybody is going to have endgame equipment or their skills maxed, but no creatures should be balanced for that anyways aside of mutants and bears imo, those are the only creatures that should be balanced for people like you me and sark... everything else should be balanced for who is expected to fight that creature, meaning rat would be lowest skill and weapon, while bear or mutants would be expecting you have the highest end equipment.

You saying about "low end creatures" being strong to new players, goes against what Xsyon has outlined in this post. I would suggest read the top post by Xsyon then make suggestions to make it line up to what he wants.

There is nothing wrong with a few being 1 hit, then making it harder as they go up. Hamsters should have no issues being 1 hit as babies. Remember babies have like 1/8th the HP as an adult. So if you make baby hamsters have 50HP, you would currently (I know this can be balanced) be making daddy hamsters with 200HP. Which is 2x more than 90% of the players.

Also do not forget that players want to start off easy, to learn the game. They also would like to be able to get resources.
Players start with Q25 weapons however, when they goto craft a weapon they are much lower QL starting.

You are also listing the highest damage weapon in the game a shovel. Most players do not start or have a shovel starting out.

Don't forget that Xsyon stated himself he also wants some animals (Mutants) to be a group combat. So even you or Sark should not be soloing Legendary Mutants.

I agree with you on the last part, that you need to balance those things based on VETs with high/perfect skill, with highQL armor/weapons.

Sadly I doubt this will happen as I could solo Legendary Shadowbears before the patch. Now I can solo them without even getting 1/2 HP with non max weapons and naked.




Instead of going case by case and saying "I personally feel this is too strong or too weak in compairson to my character" I am trying to get to a core root way of sorting out the balance so its balanced to EVERYBODY not just the people who fought that particular creature and gave a opinion, cuz those opinions will differ depending on the stats of your character.

Thats why I'm saying there needs to be a standard here and attempting to come up with one.


Lets be honest here, if you and me and both 1hit a 50hp rat or hamster, how is this a problem?

I mean you think people should be able to 1hit a hamster or rat, but the reality is we can both do it even with my suggestion.

The only people who wouldn't be able to 1hit them is NEW players and thats a GOOD THING, cuz they would need to fight it in combat instead of just walking up and getting a effortless kill that will teach them nothing and make them disappointed in combat.


Lets be honest here, if you and me and both 1hit a 50hp rat or hamster, how is this a problem?

I mean you think people should be able to 1hit a hamster or rat, but the reality is we can both do it even with my suggestion.

The only people who wouldn't be able to 1hit them is NEW players and thats a GOOD THING, cuz they would need to fight it in combat instead of just walking up and getting a effortless kill that will teach them nothing and make them disappointed in combat.



I know you might think I look at it based on my toon. I look at the whole picture. As I stated here before and currently in view of a new player.
He already set the standard. He said what he wants.



-------------------------------------------------

- Small creatures should be easy to kill, even for low skilled new players.

- The toughest small creatures (adult, high power) may be a challenge for a newbie or medium skilled player but still easy for a high skilled veteran player.

- Large regular creatures should be difficult but manageable to kill solo by a high skilled veteran player. Full legendary adult bears may require two or more tough players to kill.

- Mutants of all ages should be a challenge and require a group of medium skilled players. Young mutants would be as strong as an adult bear with at least medium combat power.

- Old age and legendary mutants should be difficult and require a group of veteran players to kill.

-------------------------------------------------

I am talking about a new player, and I stated as much.

Again there are good reasons why a new player should be able to 1 shot some (very few) mobs. Resources and Learning the game. You don't want a baby rabbit taking 5 hits to kill, not even for a new player.
They end up having to chase it down, or whatever. It also makes no sense.
There is nothing saying that a normal rabbit can't be 2 hits. But give something to a new player to be able to kill. Remember some of them have a hard time figuring out how to even use combat mode to start with.

@Static I would look closely at what Xsyon is saying and balance it for that. He has given a clear outline. I believe this outline is good.





Sadly I also believe we will not see "Legendary Mutants" likely so hard that they take a group of vets to kill. I just don't see that. I mean based on the current combat, you would need to make them 5k+ HP to do this.

Another factor Xsyon has to balance is that Old Age/Legendary Mutants can't do too great amount of damage without increasing armor defense. Because players are limited to a set amount of HP. It's pretty close to 375HP.

[Static]

"You saying about "low end creatures" being strong to new players,"

Thats not what I'm saying AT ALL.

I'm saying that a low end creature should be as strong TO THE NEW PLAYER as a endgame creature would be to a endgame player.

I really dislike how your twisting what I'm saying around and its getting to the point where I'm not sure if I'm going to respond to you anymore cuz its like your only typing to get yourself heard cuz your not responding to anything I'm saying, in fact, your trying to stawman what I'm saying into something else so it better supports your point of view.

With respect; my messages are here for jordi, so if you can't take the time to actually read them and respond on subject, than please do not respond to them off subject derailing what I'm saying so I'm forced to repeat myself and correct you.

[MrDDT]

"You saying about "low end creatures" being strong to new players,"

Thats not what I'm saying AT ALL.

I'm saying that a low end creature should be as strong TO THE NEW PLAYER as a endgame creature would be to a endgame player.

I really dislike how your twisting what I'm saying around and its getting to the point where I'm not sure if I'm going to respond to you anymore cuz its like your only typing to get yourself heard cuz your not responding to anything I'm saying, in fact, your trying to stawman what I'm saying into something else so it better supports your point of view.

With respect; my messages are here for jordi, so if you can't take the time to actually read them and respond on subject, than please do not respond to them off subject derailing what I'm saying so I'm forced to repeat myself and correct you.

Um, I quoted you bro. I'm not twisting it.

Also Xsyon himself is the one that said how strong animals should be to a new player. These are not opinions of mine. He is literally saying they should be easy for a new player.

You literally said they should be strong to a new player.

[Static]

5 hits from a new player is something "easy to kill" in my books, we obviously disagree on alot of core issues here.

I don't see how a new player gains ANY combat experience by 1hitting something.

I think people who have hundreds of hps should be able to 1hit some low end stuff, but making nearly everything 1hitable is going to ruin endgame content.

There needs to be balance that is based upon WHO IS FIGHTING THEM, not random numbers or your opinion.

[Static]

"You literally said they should be strong to a new player."

No I never did, I said it should be AS STRONG to a new player as a endgame is to endgame player.

Like this is why your pissing me off cuz your taking my words and twisting it around.

200hp creature vs a 200 hp player should be as strong as a 50 hp creature vs a 50hp player, how dense are you that you think that is me saying that low end creatures "need to be strong"? Your twisting my words and honestly its not helpful, its derailing what I'm saying PURELY cuz you cant understand or follow or you disagree?

I don't care if you can't follow what I'm saying man, stop twisting my words.

[MrDDT]

5 hits from a new player is something "easy to kill" in my books, we obviously disagree on alot of core issues here.

I don't see how a new player gains ANY combat experience by 1hitting something.

I think people who have hundreds of hps should be able to 1hit some low end stuff, but making nearly everything 1hitable is going to ruin endgame content.

There needs to be balance that is based upon WHO IS FIGHTING THEM, not random numbers or your opinion.


"You literally said they should be strong to a new player."

No I never did, I said it should be AS STRONG to a new player as a endgame is to endgame player.

Like this is why your pissing me off cuz your taking my words and twisting it around.

200hp creature vs a 200 hp player should be as strong as a 50 hp creature vs a 50hp player, how dense are you that you think that is me saying that low end creatures "need to be strong"? Your twisting my words and honestly its not helpful, its derailing what I'm saying PURELY cuz you cant understand or follow or you disagree?

I don't care if you can't follow what I'm saying man, stop twisting my words.

I think I get what you saying now.

You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that deer and bear are very easy to a vet like you. Thus you want rabbits and other small game to be equal to in difficulty to them as a deer or bear would be to you?


FYI
I kill deer and bears in 1 hit to 3 hits.

[Xsyon]

The Test Server is up with some changes. I haven't tested everything myself so I hope these changes are functioning as intended.

Please focus the feedback here on balancing what's currently in game based on my initial post. I will start a new thread for further future combat improvements and suggestions.

Most important: If the current player damage, swing power, etc. work well for PvP, we can start to adjust creature damage and hp. I would primarily like to know if all player variables look good now.

Note: If you are commenting on what's on the live servers, please check the Test Server and compare. I've now patched a considerable number of minor changes.

Note: Currently Pets and Stables are turned on but I am not ready yet for feedback on those. I will post another thread for feedback on those when I am ready.

Here are some changes and comments on the feedback so far.

Changes:

1) Creatures going through walls. This has been adjusted.

- Some of these were low walls that should allow passage now. Those are ok.

- Location reported by tig313 and Fortress Gate reported by chojinuk should be ok on the Test Server now. I've been adjusting the blocking bounds on many parts including pillars and gates. If there are any other locations where you see creatures go through a wall, please post the coordinates and type of part.

2) Attack aggro has been adjusted. Creatures should attack back more and flee less.

3) Weapon ranges slightly adjusted. (This was already done a few days ago but not sure if I mentioned it)

4) Base weapon damage has been reduced by 20%

5) Swing power charge time doubled.

6) Swing power charger max power increased to 150%

7) Displayed percentage on armor reduction / defense messages corrected.

8) Doubled up river drink sound fixed (assuming this was with a female toon?)

Comments:

1) Sector boundary crossing lag. This is inevitable with all the stuff that loads up. If it's at most a couple of seconds, it's fine.

2) Creatures don't attack while swimming. They should attack less or try to avoid you but I believe they should still attack back (on the Test Server with my changes at least). I will look into it.

3) Missing attack animations: I will look into this. It might be interrupted by another animation. Are you using parry or just straight attacking?

4) Animals in one spot. Please check the Test Server and if you see any of these, please give me a location to check.

5) Problems with blocking creatures attacking you on buildings. I will adjust this so that if they are stuck within your range they will be able to attack.

6) Spinning to avoid attacks. Is this too easy? I can adjust the spin rate on creatures or the damage reduction based on the direction of their attack when it lands.

7) Ranges: I haven't been able to reproduce any distant (12 m or so) attacks that land. I will try to reproduce this tomorrow with the help of Guides. If none of us can reproduce this and you players still can (on the Test Server) I will try to set up a time to test with some of you directly.

8) Glitched super revenants were mentioned. Are there any that still behave glitched?

9) Suggestion: Power attacks instead of charged attacks: I don't see a big difference in end result although it may be more obvious to new players. Both end up with slower but more powerful attacks. Is the suggestion to have a separate icon for a power attack with a time delay? (Kind of like attacks in Warcraft or games like that?)

10) Suggestion: Remove charged / loading bars: I could optionally turn off the bar for players that find it distracting. Right now removing charged attacks entirely is too big of a task but I could replace charged attacks with a special attack in a later patch (after Pets are out). I want to balance what we currently have so that I can patch Pets and Stables next.

11) Suggestion: Fight or flight based on power of enemy. It works a bit like that (based on the damage done in one hit) but yes, I can further improve this. I'll put it on my suggestion list for now.

12) Making end game creatures easier? I am definitely not doing this.

I am following the goals stated in my initial post and listening to feedback on the current difficulty or ease to make adjustments to achieve those goals. Players are testing different situations and I am balancing for a wide range of toons with different powers.

13) I removed the hp bar on dead creatures. I don't like it there. At some point I have to make some changes to please myself too. lol

Thanks!

[MrDDT]

Mutants are still way to easy.

Test Server Lady vs Mutant Deer
349 HP - Ancient Veteran Bluetip Horned Deer Buck
160 HP - Lady - 100QL leather armor, 45QL blade, 80QL Founder's weapon. 100~ skills. Moderate stats. (60 to 110)

https://youtu.be/HNvZQ0oC0wI

Range looks good. I didnt see any range over 4m hitting me.
Spin speed on them mobs are pretty good. HP on lower tier animals and damage looks pretty good.

I think for mutants if you want them to be group combat for vets, you need to ramp up their HP by a lot. 10 to 20x more.
The damage they do looks great. It's not too much to 1 shot people. Their attack speed is good. Not slow enough that you can get in and out too easy, but not fast enough they put out too much damage per second.

Fight or flight seems to be pretty good vs Lady (Mid Tier Vet). I've not testing on a newer toon.



9) Suggestion: Power attacks instead of charged attacks: I don't see a big difference in end result although it may be more obvious to new players. Both end up with slower but more powerful attacks. Is the suggestion to have a separate icon for a power attack with a time delay? (Kind of like attacks in Warcraft or games like that?)

This would be where power attacks use like extra energy, and have a cool down. So you don't use them every attack like you would (did) charged attacks.

[Static]

I think I get what you saying now.

You believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that deer and bear are very easy to a vet like you. Thus you want rabbits and other small game to be equal to in difficulty to them as a deer or bear would be to you?


FYI
I kill deer and bears in 1 hit to 3 hits.

More or less, yes, but I don't think 1-3 hits should be the aim of any balance. I think 5 or more gives enough time for combat to actually happen.

A rat should be as easy to a new player as a bear or deer is to a endgame player, yes, a bear or deer is not something too hard to a endgame player with 200-300+ hps but it also doesn't die instantly, thats the whole point, things that die instantly offer no fight, no experience for combat, no challenge, its boring.

If a 450hp bear dies in 3 hits thats 150dmg per hit, imo thats a bit unreasonable imo.

[Static]

"9) Suggestion: Power attacks instead of charged attacks: I don't see a big difference in end result although it may be more obvious to new players. Both end up with slower but more powerful attacks. Is the suggestion to have a separate icon for a power attack with a time delay? (Kind of like attacks in Warcraft or games like that?)"

For sure the big thing is making it more user friends, easier on new players, so people just do it instead of having to learn it.

It could just be automatic, cuz I really don't think making a icon or turning the game into wow is a good idea.

I think a good solution may be to make it so that if you hold your attack up "like a charged attack would have been" that it "automatically" uses a power attack when you release the swing. This way if you just click on it, it does a fast attack, where as if you hold it up like a charged attack, it would release and use a power attack instead but without the loading bar.

This way if you quickly hit the button, its a quick hit, if you hold onto it, its a power hit.

[MrDDT]

"9) Suggestion: Power attacks instead of charged attacks: I don't see a big difference in end result although it may be more obvious to new players. Both end up with slower but more powerful attacks. Is the suggestion to have a separate icon for a power attack with a time delay? (Kind of like attacks in Warcraft or games like that?)"

For sure the big thing is making it more user friends, easier on new players, so people just do it instead of having to learn it.

It could just be automatic, cuz I really don't think making a icon or turning the game into wow is a good idea.

I think a good solution may be to make it so that if you hold your attack up "like a charged attack would have been" that it "automatically" uses a power attack when you release the swing. This way if you just click on it, it does a fast attack, where as if you hold it up like a charged attack, it would release and use a power attack instead but without the loading bar.

This way if you quickly hit the button, its a quick hit, if you hold onto it, its a power hit.

I think without the loading bar this would not be able to be known to players without some other form of info.
Essentially this way you would have exactly like charged attacks however no loading bar. Which I do not thing is useful and new players would have even harder time learning it.

I think it's better to have it as a special attack where you have a hot key for it. You can even have special skills unlock as you gain levels in the skills. Then you click the hotkey, it does an attack at 150%, then has a cool down of say 5 to 8s (or more whatever is balancing). So they use their normal attacks most of the time, but once in a while they use a special attack of more power. With the cost being extra energy.

[Static]

"10) Suggestion: Remove charged / loading bars: I could optionally turn off the bar for players that find it distracting. Right now removing charged attacks entirely is too big of a task but I could replace charged attacks with a special attack in a later patch (after Pets are out). I want to balance what we currently have so that I can patch Pets and Stables next."

I think removing loading bars, without changing the mechanic wouldn't be a great choice since people wouldn't be able to see the level of charge or loading they have in the bar.


"11) Suggestion: Fight or flight based on power of enemy. It works a bit like that (based on the damage done in one hit) but yes, I can further improve this. I'll put it on my suggestion list for now."

For sure, a rabbit or lower running from someone 200hps would be understandable, but they should be aggressive verse lower hp players that are more of a fair fight, this way new players are not running out of energy trying to run down a kill they can't catch.


12) Making end game creatures easier? I am definitely not doing this.

I am following the goals stated in my initial post and listening to feedback on the current difficulty or ease to make adjustments to achieve those goals. Players are testing different situations and I am balancing for a wide range of toons with different powers.

For sure I don't think endgame should be made easier. I think balance should be for solo fights for all the basic creatures up to and including bears.

I'm not saying make endgame stuff weaker, I'm saying make the weaker stuff slightly tanker instead of making them stronger.

This means that I think low end creatures should be able to survive multiple hits, so that new players actually have the ability to fight something before it dies. Low end creatures should take around as many hits for a new player, with low skill and 25q weapon as a high end player fighting a higher end creature, this means the RATIOS.

So for example, if I'm fighting a bear, I hit the bear and the bear hits me..... It should be around the same percentage of damage taken from my hp as if a new player is fighting a rat or hamster and they should be doing roughly the same percentage of dmg to the rat/hamster as I am to a bear.

This would be a true balance, new players fighting the lowest creatures being the same percentage ratios as the best players with the best gear fighting the highest end creatures (a regular bear since we're talking purely basics and not mutants at this point)

Now mutants is a whole other bag of worms cuz your saying you want them balanced to take multiple people.... but all of them? Like I fought a mutant squirrel today and it only had 160hps, so if your goal was to turn this mutant hornback squirrel into a monster boss, its totally not that... but I'm not totally sure it should be either, I mean, anything smaller than a marmot shouldn't be a "need multiple people as a raid boss" kind of strong imo... but if that is the goal to have even say mutant horned rats to need multiple characters to kill than there needs to be HUGE changes in all mutant ratios.

Really what we should be doing here is seperating what you think should be solo and what you think shouldn't be solo, than figuring out who you think should be fighting those creatures, than balance them based upon who should be fighting them. For sure needs to be a process if we're going to balance all the creatures, otherwise your asking people to hunt down and fight creatures at random and give a opinion based off their stats instead of the stats of who is supposed to be fighting that creature.


13) I removed the hp bar on dead creatures. I don't like it there. At some point I have to make some changes to please myself too. lol

Is the future intention to get rid of the hp bar completely or move it somewhere else?

Could we instead just display their hp number on their hp bar thats above the creature as you fight it?

We wouldn't need the top hp bar at the top of the screen at all if it was just displayed in the creatures hp bar above the creature.

[Static]

I think without the loading bar this would not be able to be known to players without some other form of info.
Essentially this way you would have exactly like charged attacks however no loading bar. Which I do not thing is useful and new players would have even harder time learning it.

I think it's better to have it as a special attack where you have a hot key for it. You can even have special skills unlock as you gain levels in the skills. Then you click the hotkey, it does an attack at 150%, then has a cool down of say 5 to 8s (or more whatever is balancing). So they use their normal attacks most of the time, but once in a while they use a special attack of more power. With the cost being extra energy.

I disagree massively that we should have a 2nd attack that does the "exact same thing" but with additional damage.

If there is a 2nd attack it needs to be different, not just additional damage.

This is why I keep saying power attack, slow swing, haymaker kinda descriptions, I think the swing speed should be reduced by 50% in exchange for the double damage at 150%.

If you have a skill key you just press for the same attack than its not really changing anything aside of giving you more damage and making combat unpredictable... Thats why gangar is banned in gen 1-2 pokemon competitions, you can't react or predict what its going to do in pvp so its not very balanced, thus its added to ban list for alot of competitions, it was on ban list for pokemmo for the longest time till they released later gens *PURELY* due to not being able to properly react to it.

The reasoning is; if you have no idea what is possible, you cannot make a educated choice of what your supposed to do, the logic is exactly the same for a swing that looks like the same swing as a normal one but does double damage, I think its a horrid idea.

If you want more damage there needs to be a risk to equal the reward, that risk is a 50% slower attack for a 100% stronger attack, this seems pretty balanced since its slower so you may miss it, but its stronger so if you do hit your rewarded.

I think having fast attacks and charged attack being the same swing is insanely unbalanced since the DPS ratios are massively different.

"flat damage" should not be the goal, but rather damage per second or dsp ratios, I don't think we should be making the game based on "burst damage" where you unload your attacks quickly and they die, it should be more interactive combat where its back n forth like dark souls.

I'd love some dark souls combat, thats why I suggested the parry change, thats why I think the fast attack change is awesome, these are massive steps in the right direction, but charged attack? This needs to be changed into a slow speed power attack to make sense with the new FASTER PACE style of combat.

Combat is fun, we shouldn't be trying to finish it as fast as possible, so balancing things to die quickly is removing a fun part of the game and making the game less fun by reducing the amount of time it takes to fight someone, your in combat less, you get less adrenaline from combat, some folks really really like that feeling of a fight where they out played a player or a creature perfectly, so there needs to be mechanics in place to actually make the player interact in the fight, reacting to their enemies actions, this is what makes combat fun, not two things hammering at each other till one falls, its all about reactions, thinking, interactions so thats the direction my suggestions are heading, to try and make the game more interactive, reactive, so it actually feels like your fighting something alive or thinking instead of something spamming one attack while you spam your one attack till one of you falls.

Like this game has multi-direction twitch combat, its way more complex combat than other games, yet, its really multiple swing animations doing the exact same attack.....

Maybe we're thinking about this too hard, maybe every directional swing should be its own attack type with its own dmg and swing speeds? You could do the haymaker this way as a stronger slower power attack, while something like your under attack could be your faster straight attack, this is the way kingdom come deliverance does it, they have almost the exact same multidirectional, but each directional is a different attack type depending on how you use it.

[Static]

I'd rather see lost souls combat or kingdom come SKILL BASED combat instead of WoW skill spam combat.

I will legit stop playing if we turn this into WoW instead of something skill based.

[Static]

In lost souls theres a basic skeleton near the start that if your a new player, is a decent fight till you get stronger, it can take a couple hits, deals decent dmg to you and despite the skeleton being low skill, its a decent fight for a new player that doesn't have much user skill.

However later in the game, that skeletons attacks are easily dodged and your so strong you can prob 1hit him at this point.

Thats the kind of balance we need, people need to grow their skills up by fighting something that is equal to where they should be at that point in time, thats the whole concept of balance lol.

[Static]

So lets start going through this.

If hamster is balanced for a player with 25q weapon, 50hp, 5/5 skill for armed/weapon, with 50 str, than we know our "base starting point"

If bear is balanced for a player with 100q weapon, 250+hps, 90/90+ skill for armed/weapon, with 100+ str, than we know our "base ending point"

So this gives us our base starting and ending point for all the solo creatures to be balanced from. From here we just need to create the balance points of what each creature should be fighting player wise, than go from there.

Mutants is another bag of worms entirely, I'm personally on the fence if a mutant horned squirrel should legitimately be a boss or not... but if you DO want to make it a boss, I would think we would need some changes of small mutant creatures in order to turn them into a boss:
1) slower attacks
2) way more hps
3) larger creature size

Right now, mutant small creatures attack too fast to be able to reasonably react to them, plus they have such low hps that anyone who can solo a regular bear can solo mutant small creatures nps... so if the goal is to make it so they cant solo them and require multiple people, than they need to increase massively in hps and I would think creature size as well so that multiple players could hit it without hitting each other.

[Xsyon]

Mutants are still way to easy.

Yup, I haven't adjusted creature stats yet. Now that the player basics seem good I will adjust creature and will post when the Test Server is up with the changes.

Thanks!

[MrDDT]

I'd rather see lost souls combat or kingdom come SKILL BASED combat instead of WoW skill spam combat.

I will legit stop playing if we turn this into WoW instead of something skill based.

I don't know either of those games. But if they are single player or server based (Like 64 man server or 10 man servers etc), you can have more skill based combat in them because you log onto a server near you.
This game has 2 servers. That means anyone outside of the US is screwed, also anyone at the far ends away from Dallas, TX is going be at a disadvantage.

That's the issue I have with directional attacks in Xsyon. Ping and server speed. You can't tell someone is swinging high, then you have little to no time to react because of ping. I have a pretty good ping, many others dont. Most MMO's have this issue.

[Static]

I don't know either of those games. But if they are single player or server based (Like 64 man server or 10 man servers etc), you can have more skill based combat in them because you log onto a server near you.
This game has 2 servers. That means anyone outside of the US is screwed, also anyone at the far ends away from Dallas, TX is going be at a disadvantage.

That's the issue I have with directional attacks in Xsyon. Ping and server speed. You can't tell someone is swinging high, then you have little to no time to react because of ping. I have a pretty good ping, many others dont. Most MMO's have this issue.

I guess your not aware, but the changes to creature migration addressed some core issues that where lagging the server and creature desync issues that prevented ranged combat for example.

Jordi says the new migration patch has mostly fixed or eliminated this problem, try it for yourself, everything is much more reactive, accurate and snappy when it comes to player interactions with other players or creatures.

[Xsyon]

Guys, please save the special attack and future combat suggestions for another thread. I'm going to keep the charged attack at the moment. I'm open to further adjusting the speed and damage of it but based on the feedback it sounds to me like it's fine for now.

Note to Static: Is your feedback based on the current Test Server build? When you say:


This is why I keep saying power attack, slow swing, haymaker kinda descriptions, I think the swing speed should be reduced by 50% in exchange for the double damage at 150%.

That's pretty much what the charged attack is on the Test Server right now. If I removed the loading bar (hypothetically) it would be exactly what you are saying, a slow special attack doing more damage.

For now though, I am going to adjust creature variables next and will post when the next build is ready.

Thanks!

[Static]

Guys, please save the special attack and future combat suggestions for another thread. I'm going to keep the charged attack at the moment. I'm open to further adjusting the speed and damage of it but based on the feedback it sounds to me like it's fine for now.

Note to Static: Is your feedback based on the current Test Server build? When you say:



That's pretty much what the charged attack is on the Test Server right now. If I removed the loading bar (hypothetically) it would be exactly what you are saying, a slow special attack doing more damage.

For now though, I am going to adjust creature variables next and will post when the next build is ready.

Thanks!

I think theres some confusion here.

Its not the loading time that needs to be slower, its the actual swing animation.

So after you release the attack, the time it takes to complete the attack should be slower for the larger power attacks so it takes longer to complete the attack, not load the charge bar.

After you release the attack, there is no difference between the speed of the swing, it looks like a regular fast attack "to me" AFTER you release the swing.

So when you do fastest no charge attack, the start to finish is the same as AFTER you've released a charged attack (after you'e already waited for the loading bar)

[Static]

If you have already made the swing slower AFTER release of charged attack and it seems to be the same speed than maybe it should be half speed of a fast attack?

Yes I am currently logged into test server too.

[Static]

So I found a "legendary" rooster that I named fred.

Hes got 16hps. If hes legendary, or even adult, I feel this is way too low.

ddt thinks 50hps is too much for the lowest hp, however, this is max hps being multiple times lower than what a decent baseline would be.

Adult legendary cock should for sure have a few hps.

I think the rat, hamster and chicken should all be balanced the same as your "newbie creature trio"

Max them at 40hps (so its not 50 to keep ddt happy) fully grown with 5dmg fully grown, this makes younger ones quite a bit weaker, but with new combat this should be something everybody can kill.

[Static]

Do you have a full creature list? That would be helpful so we could figure out the tiers of what should be stronger than what, than we can attach character stats to what characters we think should be fighting each one of those creatures in that tier, than balance those creatures off who should be fighting them.

[Static]

Found a ancient vetteren ringtail doe and its got 126hps (seems low for a "boss" but acceptable for a solo)

99.92 threat, he comes at me, however, does not attack.

I swung on him and when I noticed how much dmg I did I swiched to my 2ndary axe and tried that, still too much so I took my weapons off and started hitting him with fists.

I prob hit him 20 times and he never attacked me, hes sitting in front of me right now recovering cuz I'm typing this.

Attempted to back up, he follows me, hes obviously agro'd on me however not attacking.

[Static]

Ran after a "ancient greater coyote" and since I was starving to death, it attacked me and killed me.

So agro seemed to work good on him, he was able to attack.

These names are rather confusing tho since ancient greater coyote makes me think this is a older near max level coyote, yet this one only had 149hps, 8.73 dmg to my front, 13.10 dmg to back as I tried to run away, so it feels more like a teenager or half way through its life of what I would expect a coyote to actually be.

A max coyote I feel is pretty balanced in that 200-260hp 20-25 dmg range, so if this is supposed to be a half life teen ager than coyotes seem balanced, but the names are confusing.

[Static]

There seems to be some sort of glitch that prevents me from selecting what tribe to respawn at after I die as well, guess not super important but there was 2 options of spawn and I couldnt click on either.

[MrDDT]

Guys, please save the special attack and future combat suggestions for another thread. I'm going to keep the charged attack at the moment. I'm open to further adjusting the speed and damage of it but based on the feedback it sounds to me like it's fine for now.

Note to Static: Is your feedback based on the current Test Server build? When you say:



That's pretty much what the charged attack is on the Test Server right now. If I removed the loading bar (hypothetically) it would be exactly what you are saying, a slow special attack doing more damage.

For now though, I am going to adjust creature variables next and will post when the next build is ready.

Thanks!


Question. I saw the increased damage on charged attacks. What is your view on how often this should be used, and it's strength compared to fast attacking?

Currently, I see this charged attack being used very little. Why? Because it's DPS is lower than fast attacking. I do see cases for when it would be used, that is first attack, and players doing swoop attacks. Swoop attacks are where they rush in, hit it and rush out. This is when others are the main threat but that threat is bouncing around.

My opinion is that this damage can be increased a bit more. If you want it to be more of an even option between fast attacking and charged attacking.





There seems to be some sort of glitch that prevents me from selecting what tribe to respawn at after I die as well, guess not super important but there was 2 options of spawn and I couldnt click on either.

Same issue. I can not select which tribe to spawn at and I have to just wait for the timer. Can't even pick home.

[thurgond]

Tested today with a character that has basically starter combat skills.

With a running skill of 36 could not dodge most attacks so the easy spin around a critter seems mostly based on running skill rather than dodge skill. All characters started at 5 dodge but others had 60-100 running.

Fought a cat and 2 dogs in water. They did not hit back in the water, but did attach successfully after backing out of the water.

Was able to leave combat with a pit bull and run up a ramp. Did get hit a couple times then a couple misses in disengaging. The 1st time the dog camped the bottom of the ramp and the 2nd time it ran off. Guess this is part of the random response.

I like the new buttons for quarteriing dead critters. This would be a nice addition to the interface for interacting with other objects like bins and gates.

Fought an 0.8 power chicken. Almost one hit it. Saw some rookie small critters with 2 and 3 hp. I feel that the hp of small critters be boosted, probably back to about 75% of their old level. With damage in the 1-2 range, they are not a great danger to even a 40 hp new character. By taking more swings it would give a greater skill gain for new players.

[Static]

Tested today with a character that has basically starter combat skills.

With a running skill of 36 could not dodge most attacks so the easy spin around a critter seems mostly based on running skill rather than dodge skill. All characters started at 5 dodge but others had 60-100 running.

Fought a cat and 2 dogs in water. They did not hit back in the water, but did attach successfully after backing out of the water.

Was able to leave combat with a pit bull and run up a ramp. Did get hit a couple times then a couple misses in disengaging. The 1st time the dog camped the bottom of the ramp and the 2nd time it ran off. Guess this is part of the random response.

I like the new buttons for quarteriing dead critters. This would be a nice addition to the interface for interacting with other objects like bins and gates.

Fought an 0.8 power chicken. Almost one hit it. Saw some rookie small critters with 2 and 3 hp. I feel that the hp of small critters be boosted, probably back to about 75% of their old level. With damage in the 1-2 range, they are not a great danger to even a 40 hp new character. By taking more swings it would give a greater skill gain for new players.

Yes I agree, things are much too easy to kill, something in the 30-50 range for most of the low end critters would mean people have something to practice combat on while being a low end newbie.

1-5 dmg seems fine too, you want them to be low dmg but being able to take a couple hits.

I think "everything" is "way" too easy to kill now.... while its nice to see small creatures/baby creatures, them having 2-5hp and being 1hit defeats the whole point of combat, to fight something, by making it just a 1hitable resource.

Its no longer combat at that point, its just a moving loot box that all you gotta do is walk up and 1hit... it feels bad.

Even being able to 3 hit deer or coyotes feels bad. If you want them to be easier than they used to be, you can reduce the damage ratios of them while keeping the health and armor ratios up.

[Bejaymac]

Only reason I mentioned the Super Revs was to show they forced me to change my combat style, so far I haven't encountered any glitched revs, and so far I've found one Lesser Rev with all the rest being Rookies, and they basically ignore me unless I get right in their face.

Some smaller animals have problems tracking me when they go agro on me, lumps and bumps in the terrain seem to cause them to lose me.

Seen quite a few animals trying to deal with steep slopes, they get so far up after several minutes then give up, walk back down, turn around at the bottom and try to climb it again.

I think the animal "size" is all over the place atm, ran into a male black bear cub, thing was almost as big as the full grown female used to be.

Was doing a spot of experimenting in my tribe yesterday, I let my mule deer kill me over and over, was looking to see if I could still "Grow" their HP, that's when I noticed I was gaining dodge from just standing there, the simple fact it take so long to kill my nekid ass means I can get quite a bit of dodge for each death.

[Xsyon]

Question. I saw the increased damage on charged attacks. What is your view on how often this should be used, and it's strength compared to fast attacking?

I honestly don't have a strong opinion about it. I was ready to remove charged attacks entirely and simplify melee combat to match what is done in Rust and similar games.

My overall goals are:

1) Make sure combat is simple, intuitive and easy enough for new players - so it should be close enough to standards set in other survival / sandbox games.

2) Add complexity for more active and seasoned players. This I am doing my best based entirely on feedback with things like Dodge, Parry and the current charged attacks.

What I don't want is the system to rely entirely on charged attacks as before.

[Xsyon]

Some smaller animals have problems tracking me when they go agro on me, lumps and bumps in the terrain seem to cause them to lose me.
I will have to try to see this for myself, but it sounds correct. Creatures should be affected by slopes and then lose aggro as they get out of range.


I think the animal "size" is all over the place atm, ran into a male black bear cub, thing was almost as big as the full grown female used to be.
I will check animal scales. I haven't adjusted those at all with these patches but I think many grow too big.


I noticed I was gaining dodge from just standing there
I've fixed the Dodge skill gain but haven't patched it yet. I'll patch it by tomorrow.

Thanks!

[Xsyon]

Note to everyone:

I am going to close the current threads and start two new threads, one for combat actions and another for creatures focusing on stat balance.

I'll do that later today.

Thanks for all the feedback!

[MrDDT]

I honestly don't have a strong opinion about it. I was ready to remove charged attacks entirely and simplify melee combat to match what is done in Rust and similar games.

I'm all for removing charged attacks, however, PVP attacking and Parry. Will be the only loss here (but not really due to ping) as the short attacking speed will not be able to be parried by skill. It will be just straight up luck.




My overall goals are:

1) Make sure combat is simple, intuitive and easy enough for new players - so it should be close enough to standards set in other survival / sandbox games.

2) Add complexity for more active and seasoned players. This I am doing my best based entirely on feedback with things like Dodge, Parry and the current charged attacks.

What I don't want is the system to rely entirely on charged attacks as before.

I'm very excited to see all the work you have done so far with dodge and parry. I think the next real steps are special attacks, ranged combat, and group/team healing/buff options.
I'm not sure how hard any of those are to code, but I think you have the core to most of it.
Like healing, it can't be too hard to change the code from food (or skill) effecting another player as you bandage them. It's the same function as "Heath Gain %" food.
This would allow for better group teaming on harder mutants. Teams are a lot of fun which also create activity.