Whats going on with PvP? Is the main focus only to work on PvE?

[MrDDT]

Let me start off by saying there is a lot of good info here and ideas. Many I've already said long before.

You could take this into more complex concepts like;
a) counter attacks - waiting for the enemy to swing, make them miss, than capitalize on hitting them in the opening. This could be some kind of overswing, a way AAA studios do this is by having the starting slow swing/rear up animation, than a fast attack animation with a slow recovery back to stationary giving the clear visual cue to the player 1) hes attacking and 2) this is the opening to hit him after

We had this already in charged attacks with parry. No one uses it. The reason why is because it's highly ping focused and in like a lot of games, you are better off getting a hit in for sure than trying to parry for a chance to get it right.
This works well in games like Mount and Blade. Where you can control the ping a lot better, they are more focused on combat.

b) hit recovery - if you hit someone with a heavy full power hit, it should have some kind of effect (fast hits dont apply) this could be a hit recovery, this could be causing them to lose their charged up hit, could even be a stamina hit

I like this idea. However, I think removing the charged attacks are going to be happening, so what this could be is simply a delay/stun (very very short) in when they can attack again.

c) parry - avoid damage while opening up the ability to deal damage, this could be a stun, this could be a hit recovery action, this could be stamina hit

Great job on getting him to see this, I've said this a while back. Really good to see it put into place.

d) block - avoid damage, take stamina damage, more complex could be parry blocks or shield bashes that smack the weapon hand out of the way opening up the ability to deal damage

I would love to see some shields put into game. I'm not sure he can do it without an artist but yes to this. Please yes. Really going to be needed when archery comes out soon too.

e) lunge attack - stamina used to do a forward leaping/lunge attack. This could be under dodge skill and would be great for polearms and getting in quickly to capitalize on a opening to deal damage

Would love to see this for all attacks, but could really make group combat with a back line having more ranged but slower attacks with a polearm/archery. Lunges would really add skill to all types of combat here.

1.1) Multiple attacks - if all they are doing is spamming the same single attack with the same timing than players can easily exploit this like your walking back combat you want to avoid. By making the attacks different, with different responses required to each attack, you remove the ability for players to use the same trick verse every attack since it won't work for every attack. Some basic attack types to choose from that would work are:
a) power lunge attack - rear up slowly to show its going to leap forward and lunge forward, this needs to be locked in the direction that the lunge attack starts at so that the player can side step or side dodge in order to avoid the lunge. There also needs to be some kind of slow overswing/recovery to default that opens up the ability for the player to hit them at least once while they are locked in that direction.
b) quick attack - this could be what the default attack is "currently" on servers and not what was tested on last test. What I mean by this is that you can "see" the start of the swing happen with enough time to parry and if you make them miss, the overswing/recovery to default speed is long enough to hit them, this is what the goal should be; I'm not suggesting leaving old bugged code or "putting it back", I'm just saying it needs to be recoded to work like this. Lunge attack would prevent the ability for someone to walk back in a line.
c) swipe attack - like lunge attack it would give a "different' rearing/wind up animation than do a sweeping attack around the front half of the creature so if someone side steps or side dodges to avoid a lunge attack, they would still get hit with the sweeping wide swing attack
1.2) With these 3x attacks you would have different attacks and different responses to each, lunge you would need to side step or side dodge, swipe you would have to roll backwards or dodge backwards or walk back instead of to the side, quick attack you would need to parry or block or avoid.
2)creatures need to be alive, feel pain, when you hit them there needs to be a reaction (you already have a hit recovery action in game)
3)creatures need counter play, this means you need the ability hit put them into hit recovery, or wound them, or stun them with a heavy blow, all the above player suggestions need to effect these animals.
4) counter attack, if a creature lunges at you and you smack them with a heavy attack before they hit you in the lunge animation, than you should heavily damage them and stun them, possibly forcing them to lay down unable to combat till the stun animation is over.

Loving all of this. You can even add more to the list.

Adding wounding, broken bones or bleeding mechanics would also be good, you could have bats/maces do more limb braking damage and have things like knives do bleeding damage and axes do half wounding half bleeding... LOTS of options here.

I love these ideas, but before you can put too much of it in, you also need a way to fix them. How you going to fix bleeding or a broken bone? We need that stuff put in before you make it in.