03/24/2020 - Feedback Request - Creatures & Combat

[Xsyon]

Important Note 03/25: Revenants can be ignored at the moment as I need to update some data files for them to work properly. I'll remove this note when they are ready to be tested.

The Test Server is ready for testing the first of many upcoming patches. The focus right now is creature AI, synchronization and combat. Other upcoming changes such as the pets and mounts system are currently switched off as they will be tested once the following is satisfactory.

I greatly appreciate it if you could test and provide feedback on the following:

1) Synchronization and Optimization

- Are other player movements better synchronized for you than on the Main Servers? This can best be gauged by players that have two accounts logged in at the same time.

- Are creature and other player movements smoother and with less sliding than on the Main Servers?

- Are creature animations smoother without the jerkiness that is currently on the Main Servers?

- Do you still experience any unusual lag in actions (such as dragging items in your inventory)? If so, can you reproduce the conditions?


2) Creature AI

The system that processes creatures on the server side has been completely rewritten and is much faster now. If needed it should be able to handle a lot more active creatures at a faster rate. It also allows features such as migration to run on a regular basis and not only during maintenance times.

Here are some things that I'd like checked:

- Display: Creatures should display their age and power groups in their name / title bar. This should help players gauge what they are up against.

- Path-finding: Creatures should follow more direct and proper paths around obstacles such as trees, boulders and buildings when chasing you or wandering around.

- Path-finding barriers: Creatures should never go through walls now. If you can get a creature to go through a wall someone, please let me know the location and exact circumstances.

- Blocked players: Players on boulders and building parts are now considered blocked. Creatures will ignore blocked players. Creatures with aggro in attack mode should run away from blocked players.

- Aggro: Creatures attack now based on an aggro system. Aggressive creatures naturally build aggro towards nearby players and will attack when aggro reaches 100. All creatures can randomly increase or decrease aggro towards nearby targets.

Attacking a creature should produce an instant aggro of 100 causing it to attack. Creatures will attack the nearby target with the highest aggro (modified by distance to the target).

Creatures may run away during combat if their life is low and they are non aggressive. More powerful creatures will only rarely run away.

- Slopes and height: Slopes should affect creature speed. Creatures now have a proper height position and will not be able to attack players that are high above or below them. Players should also not be able to attack creatures with too much of a height distance.

- Ageing and reset: I've run a script that resets the ages of all current creatures so that there is a better distribution of young, old, weak and legendary strong animals. Creatures will also age and gain power at a slower rate. (At this point almost all creatures were old and high powered, leaving no easy creatures for new players to hunt)

- Old age: Creatures may now die of old age. Creatures dying of old age will produce materials of less quality and power than if you hunted them. (You may not notice this right away)

- Migration: Migration runs every game day now and not during maintenance. This should keep a good balance of creatures in every region with more small critters near the lake and more mutants and tough creatures on the fringes of the world. Right now creatures that migrate are being teleported to their new 'home' region. This currently includes creatures trapped on tribe land. Once creatures are well distributed I will switch on a system that migrates creatures more slowly and they will move to their new homes instead of being ported.

- Avoiding hits: On the current Main Server builds players can walk backwards to avoid being hit by creatures causing them to swing and miss. This was never intentional and should not happen with the current Test Server build. If it can still be done, please let me know!

- Selection: You can click to select creatures (and objects) while moving.

- Creature variables: This is the important stuff that I can easily adjust.

Small critters should be easy enough for a low skilled new player to kill. The toughest bears should be a challenge for a high skilled veteran. Mutants should require several players to take down.

These require the most feedback and balancing. Variables that can be adjusted are: life (hp), damage, attack speed, movement speed, aggression, healing rate and the increase of attack and defense as creatures age and gain power.

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?

I have a few additional changes to wrap up and I will post about those later in an edit to this post.

3) Combat

The combat code has been optimized and partially simplified. Here are some changes:

- Base weapon damage, including quality and duration modifiers should display on your weapon's tool tip.

- Non charged attacks hit at 75% base damage. Fully charged attacks hit at 100% base damage. I may remove swing power and charged attacks entirely. See my comments below.

- Skill directly increases damage up to 3+ times base damage. (Previously skill worked against the opponents base defense rating in a less straightforward manner)

4) Comments on Charged Attacks

- Charged attacks are problematic. I've run tests and have noticed that most players (new players especially) simply click and release to attack. With the current system on the Main Servers that results in attacks doing minimal damage (3.5 times less than players that do charge attacks). This gives an impression that creatures are much harder to kill and that the system is 'broken'.

Charged attacks also imbalance weapons if a player always charges and holds an attack as attacks like this will always do maximum damage without the speed of a weapon mattering much.

Because of this I am considering several options:

- Reduced effect of charged attacks. That's what is switched on right now.

- Allowing for charged attacks that release automatically when fully charged. No holding attacks.

- Removing charged attacks entirely.

- Removing charged attacks on the Peace Server but keeping them on the War Server.

- Entirely simplifying the system. No charged attacks, no manual parrying. The goal would be to replicate combat in many other similar games as that is what most newcomers seem to expect. With this option I could keep a more complex system on the War Server if there is demand for it.


5) Comments on Trapped Creatures

I know several of you have enjoyed trapping creatures in zoos. It's gotten to be quite overboard honestly and really messed with the current systems. With Pets coming in, trapped creatures won't be an option. Creatures will teleport to their home location after a while if trapped and their home location will be moved automatically if it ends up on tribe land.

Players will still be able to create visible zoos but they will be more controlled and display only tamed Pets.

6) What's next

When all of the above is tested and satisfactory there are a few additional changes I wish to make to creatures and melee combat:

- Hiding skill reduces the range that creatures can detect you.

- Add critical strike, base damage and parrying bonuses (maybe others) for Artisan and Master weapons.

- Add a stun delay effect for successful parries.

Please feel free to provide feedback on the above and any other issues related to creatures and combat in this current build. Once this is tested, balanced and problems are fixed I will patch this build to the Main Servers and we will proceed to a final testing session for Pets.

Thanks!

[Static]

Okay heres my feedback:

2) the good: animals seem WAY more smooth and migration patches seem great.

the bad: the intention of trying to remove counter play by forcing a animal to attack in order to cause them to miss and thus give you a chance to counter attack... like on dark souls for example... hasn't worked in my opinion, here is why:
So I'm in a extreme danger zone and I'm low energy, low food, low drink. I see a hunchback yote. My lucky day. I run towards him thinking this is my chance to both test combat and get a death port home.. but no. Instead the yote came at me, than seemed to hover near me up in my face REALLY close to me but instead of swing'n to attack, he just moved from side to side slightly keeping the same distance from me without attacking, than ran away from me. Now this this weird cuz I have 65% weight on me so I'm moving backwards extremely slow yet cuz I'm moving back and hes looking for a instant hit, hes not triggering a attack and im not being hit. This could be HEAVILY abused since you could in theory use "walk" mode to stay out of the animals range while still easily hitting it.

I really feel this is a step in the wrong direction for combat. While animals are extremely more smooth (hats off to you there) they react better and jump around less, less choppy and look properly/smooth moving... but the moment it gets to you and does that no attack thing than runs, it ruins it. I'll elaborate more about this below.

Edit~~~~

So theres a bear moonwalking in front of me right now, walking in spot without moving.... than he charged me, I didnt move so he just stood in front of my face at 99 aggro, not attacking or doing anything. So I back up and he follows me. No point in time does he attack me or attempt attack. At this point I figure "hitting him will cause 100 agro" so I hit him with shovel while walking backwars and he didnt do anything so I stopped for a sec and he insta smacked me for big dmg, I kept walking back (65%weight so very slowly) and I could hit him with my shovel WHILE moving backwards and he was unable to hit me and was not swing'n at me. This was a PLATEBACK bear. This is not right. I donno who is advising you on pve but your effectively making the ai so easy even a 70hp crafter pver can fight a plateback bear and prob win if they didnt fuck around like I did, this isn't right, you should need to be a strong combat player to take high end animals.

[Static]

3)
So combat. I love combat. So I agree with you that the swing bar prevents alot of possible counter play by making full power charge a requirement since a fast hit does zero dmg, as in, you can't let someone miss their power swing than get them with fast hits before they charge up the next cuz you would need to charge up too after you parry or block the hit, theres no way to parry or block than hit the enemy faster than they can charge up another hit and get you. I think having fast hits 75% power and charged hit 100% power is a step in the right direction, this means noobs will do dmg with regular hits and opens up the ability to parry or block a charged hit and than counter attack after.

In my opinion baiting the animal into swing'n at you and missing is the whole concept of dark souls. You either dodge their or block or parry and than punish them in the opening after if you do it properly. Again kingdom come deliverance is another game where you can parry or block and if you do it at the right time you can punish them in the opening after. This really needs to be added to the game or rather more embraced, nobody uses parry since its easier to just tank the shot and return a charged shot.. this means lower hp players have a much much harder time "out skilling" a higher hp guy by parrying and blocking their hits to win, since if they tried to parry than hit they would just be opening themselves up for a power hit, so parry is basically taking a free hit, with no opening after or benefit to use it.. there needs to be a benefit to use it.

Even skyrim has shields, the ability to block and parry needs to be in this game before we talk about any "balance" of combat, since trying to balance it with only half the features will be impossible.

I really like the multi-directional twitch style combat, reminds me of a ultra low graphics version of kingdom come deliverance.. but the problem is that theres no reward system for parrying or shield blocking the right direction correctly.

Some solutions:
a)
add stun to parry and block, give it a percentage of x time based upon the percentage of the parry or shield location, so when you get the parry or block exactly on the sweet spot you'll get the whole time and the biggest dmg reduction, where as if you get it close enough to block or parry but nowhere near the sweet spot you'll do the lowest amount of time and the lowest dmg reduction. This would add a HEAVY counter play mechanic to the game, if someone with 333hps like sark attacks a much weaker person but they are able to properly parry him, it would give them the 1 sec they need to get away if they got a perfect parry, or maybe they would get a free hit after the parrys or blocks.

I think the person attacking should also lose energy based upon how well the block or parry was, nothing for the bottom 50%, where as a sliding scale above 50% close to the sweet spot. This would punish people for spam attacking if they are getting repeatedly parry'd, this would make defensive gameplay a option to fight off a stronger opponent, where as right now the game is basically "Battle of the hps" where you need to grind hps higher than the enemy cuz theres no way to out skill or heavily counter play them to make up for him having twice your hps.

I think having parrys or blocks if they are done in the top percentage say 80%+ to sweet spot, near largest dmg reduction, they should also do heavy durability damage to the attackers weapon. This means that if someone is repeatedly attacking someone and they are repeatedly parrying and blocking, that the attackers weapon should brake, leaving him exposed for spam attacking instead of counter playing.

b)
more movement options. Games like dark souls have the ability to roll or dash to the side, why can't we add some ability to use stamina in order to side step or side jump in a faster way in order to dodge someone charge attacking you? At the moment you can only slowly move back, slowly move to the sides, or sprint forward, so this heavily benefits the attacker since they can go full speed and you can't unless your running away from them. This also HEAVILY effects creature combat since you have no ability to fight any animals aside of slowly walking backwards and attacking them as they charge you, this offers very little ability to counter play through actions, that needs to be there for any combat game.

c)
counter-play matters. Noobs hate dying to something they had no ability to counter. Two hp bars bashing each other till one dies isn't fun gameplay cuz its about who has ground more hps, not often who is the most skilled in combat.

Think dark souls. If you where to model after ANY game, think dark souls. Why? Cuz they have shit figured out, yes its unforgiving, yes early game your taking huge dmg, yes early game you do no damage, but EVERY last single creature has some ability to counter play them, or rather, some kind of opening so you can create a opening that you than use to attack. This is the difference between a seasoned vet starting dark souls and a noob starting dark souls, the seasoned vet won't have a problem with most of the starting monsters and will be able to easily farm them since they already know their attacks, their openings and how to play around the enemy... where as a new player may not understand where that opening is and have a hard time till they do find out where that opening is.

What I'm trying to get at here is that being attacked with zero ability to counter play it isn't fun, its like "oh I've been hit at the exact moment I realized I was even under attack"

The solution to this is for there to be a wind up, something you can see them do before the physical attack actually happens, this currently happens in the game and gives you just enough time to bait the attack out, than go back into range to hit with your own attack, this is EXACTLY like dark souls and any combat player should be perfectly okay with this, the only difference is your walking straight back with no ability to dodge any other direction, so thats extremely limiting.

Ideally a animal should be able to swing, player should have enough time to SEE AND REACT and if they properly parry or block they should get some kind of reward through a hit recovery animation that gives you enough time to hit them at least once. This gives you the ability to fight something that is 1) faster than you 2) stronger than you and be able to be highly skilled instead of only having to exclusively grind to get the hps to fight things, you could use your skill in combat to fight.

I feel the same way about player attacks, so making all the attacks instant with no wind up creates a problem there since now axes and shovels for example are massively stronger since they dont need full swing power to produce the dmg dmg, this means more hits in less time, more total dps for the shovel by making it attack like this, with less time to counter play inbetween hits. This also makes the knives extremely unbalanced since again they attack extremely fast without the need for a power charge. So all swing times need to be looked at.

On the subject of swing times, the shovel swing for example seems to be "smooth and steady" as in the shovel moves just as fast at the start of the swing as the end and even the middle... this is odd and makes hitting things and reading counter attacks less "user friendly". Ideally there would be a slower wind up or starting swing speed to let you know the hit is coming so you can block, parry or get out of the way, but the swing after that should be faster through the middle, with the same slower end swing "if" you miss, if you don't miss the shovel should stop there and reset your attack to zero so you can swing again. This would make it so if you swing, someone could see the swing coming and counter play it, and if they miss, there is a opening for someone to counter attack them. Again think dark souls, you can often see the attack coming before it actually comes, but when int does come, its fast and sharp. So with a shovel could have a slower arm raise into start of swing than fast swing into tail of slow miss or reset if you hit.

Removing or even ignoring parrying and shields while trying to focus on combat is really not gona work, cuz most of the problem with combat is based around the fact you don't have counter play options so it just becomes two hp bars reducing each other and whoever has the most wins in most cases.. where as pvp should be about skill... there is no skill pvp in xsyon cuz theres no way to prevent a attack aside of moving, but since you have no movement dodges or skills or way to avoid anything side to side or backwards as fast as someone can sprint at you, there isn't the ability to out skill. Theres no way to stun or counter attack with block or parry so it just becomes down to two things; who has more hps or who runs out of energy first... where it should be more about who is better at combat, who has better reaction time, better judgement on choices in combat ect instead of purely whos been playing or grinding longer with no ability to counterplay.

[Static]

Dodging skill was removed.

Why not add it back?

This could effect energy cost and distance traveled with side-dashes or side rolls or some sort of dodge relocation to get you out of the way so that combat actually has a way to move out of the way of a attack to the side.

[Static]

More testing from me and dusto

So tahoe has rev problem.

So we fought them.... dusto got rekt, multiple times, he got his pants stolen and shoes too.

So the problem I found while fighting the revs is that while fighting the smaller one with less range, I was able to slowly walk backwards by putting myself into walk mode and than the rev would stay at a safe distance and I could just repeatedly hit him with my shovel as I walked slowly backwards.

Now the larger rev was a bit different since it was max highet player model and thus longest range..... than dusto died and gave it his knife, extending range even more.

Now the problem with the larger rev highlights the issues with these changes imo. When the rev would "attack" there would be a few different problems:
a)
It would be seemingly a instant attack, no attack animation, no wind up, no ability to counter play, you could do a "predictive" parry after you attack cuz you "know" its gona be there, but the rev doesn't appear to actually be attacking you.

When watching him fight the rev, seemingly he would attack and parry with obvious action, and the rev would seemingly just keep running after him and you could hear the parry and hit's but you wouldnt see the rev swing.

This is really bad for noobs since they will have no idea how they are being killed, they will just be taking damage from something next to them, it will look broken since there is no wind up, no attack, no follow through after, no attack animation.

b)
phantom hits. Now when I tried to fight the exact same rev, I used a fishing rod and was able to use slow walking and the rev would stay at a safe distance while I repeatedly whipped it with my fishing rod, the asme thing that happend with the bear and the coyote previously.

Now where things change is when I equipped my shovel and tried to do the same thing. Seemingly this rev has as much range with a knife as I do with my shovel, so when I tried the standard "walk backwards, bait attack" didnt work cuz theres no attack animation, so if I tried to pause for a sec to get in range to attack, I would physically be out of range, yet cuz "at one point in time" I WAS in range, this means the rev's phantom attack would hit me despite me being out of range, cuz I was at one point previously in range.

It feels really really bad.

Some good news:
When I was fighting dusto it did seem "way" more accurate and there was less of a synch issue however the problem is kings beach (the first thing all noobs see) is taken over by babycakes afk tribe that causes many issues 1) creates revs that players try to talk to and often die to thinking its a player 2) its a unused afk tribe that causes the "noob area" to have extra loading and extra lagg 3) the area has so many trees and objects packed tightly together that it can cause heavy issues to people with weaker machines.

Kings beach needs to be cleaned up so it looks better, is easier on the frames and isn't spawning revs. Why babycake deserves to own so many tribes full of players who dont even play anymore is beyond me, if she can't handle this many tribes than maybe she should give them up since I know for a fact 99% of the players in her max size tribes don't even play anymore... so why is it being allowed to ruin noobs experience by making kings beach and their first "player interactions" being with a zombie whos gona steal their gear and they cant fight to get it back?

[Static]

I do like being able to see damage on the weapons, that is a welcome update

[Xsyon]

Important Note: Revenants are not ready for testing yet. I need to update some data for them to work correctly. I updated the main post with this note as well.

The Test Server has been updated to fix the following:

- You should not be able to walk backwards to avoid attacks. Creatures should keep up with you and you should have to turn and run (or sprint) to get away. (Walking backwards to avoid attacks is NOT an intended feature - it was a bug caused by code I changed a few days ago - that's why we need testing like this! Thanks ;-)).

- Aggressive creatures should automatically aggro and attack if you get too close (instead of coming towards you and watching you)

- Situations where creatures appear walking in place should not happen now. If they do, please try to reproduce the circumstances.

Comments:

- Dodging was removed because it seemed that nobody liked or wanted it. I may add it back. First I want to make sure everything that is in place is working well and no long 'broken'.

- I've never played Dark Souls. I'll be honest, it's very unlikely that I can code a system that resembles that of a multi-million dollar budget game series like that. My goal right now is to make sure combat is simple and satisfying, clear for new players and does not feel 'broken' or 'too hard'. Then I will do my best to add to it for PvP combat.

- Once all that's listed on my main post is considered working well without bugs I will add parrying and we'll test that. I'm not going to add shields or fancy moves with this first upcoming patch but they can come in subsequent patches. One step at a time.

- Regarding revenants on King's Beach: Revenants in easy zones on abandoned tribes near the lake should die permanently when killed. Is that not happening? Do they continue to re-spawn? Or is the tribe not completely abandoned? I will take a look at that situation.

I appreciate all the feedback. Thanks!

[Static]

"- You should not be able to walk backwards to avoid attacks. Creatures should keep up with you and you should have to turn and run (or sprint) to get away. (Walking backwards to avoid attacks is NOT an intended feature - it was a bug caused by code I changed a few days ago - that's why we need testing like this! Thanks ;-))."

So how are you intending for a player to actually fight a animal if they can't turn towards them and the only option is to turn away and run? This is not good combat if thats the intention.

In dark souls, if you walk around a unit to the side and odds are the unit will attack you if its within their range, the miss opens up a opportunity for you to hit them if they miss.

This is 100% doable without being a multi-million dollar budget gaming company, your halfway there already in current state (not test server) the animals come at you, attempt attack and if they have stamina they will hit you, if they dont have stamina you can dodge the attack and use the opening to counter attack them with your own attack.. this is GOOD combat gameplay, removing this "counter play" style gameplay turns this into a fight where you need more hps than the enemy to win cuz the enemy is auto hitting you and instant hitting you with no ability to counter it... its really bad for both new and old players, the animal changes in combat are a step in the wrong direction.

I could have legitimately killed a hunchback yote by just walking back with 65% carry weight, I hit him prob half dozen or more times while he was unable to hit me as long as I was going backwards, even if it was extremely slow. The animal is "waiting" to be in instant hit range before swing'n, this gives zero counter play ability and zero ability to react to the attack coming, it just "instant hits" than you see the animal have its "after attack" animation, as in, the animation seems to be cut in half, the starting half of the animation is missing now and the animals instantly hit you without any swing or wind up to let you know its coming ~ this is bad combat that is even worse for noobs cuz you have no idea why your taking damage and you cant see it coming to react to it, you just take dmg instantly.

"- Aggressive creatures should automatically aggro and attack if you get too close (instead of coming towards you and watching you)"

They DO do this! I like the new aggro system, it works well.


"- Situations where creatures appear walking in place should not happen now. If they do, please try to reproduce the circumstances."

It seemed to be that the bear was doing this while its agro level was rising, it was "standing" in spot with agro going up, than it ran at me, during this time he was "running" in spot. If you've changed something since I posted I can try it again I guess.

Comments:

"- Dodging was removed because it seemed that nobody liked or wanted it. I may add it back. First I want to make sure everything that is in place is working well and no long 'broken'."

If you change animals so they run full blast at you, than instant hit you with zero ability to counter play them, than you'll have made the combat MORE 'broken" than it was previously. The way you COULD make this change work is making it so animals have a much slower time turning around in combat and add some sort of side dodge step so you could side-step the animal your fighting and hit them in a spot that isn't the front of their face where they'll instantly hit you for dmg magically without swing'n at you.

"- I've never played Dark Souls. I'll be honest, it's very unlikely that I can code a system that resembles that of a multi-million dollar budget game series like that. My goal right now is to make sure combat is simple and satisfying, clear for new players and does not feel 'broken' or 'too hard'. Then I will do my best to add to it for PvP combat."

Nobody is asking you to be a multi-million dollar gaming studio and add that level of detail, shadows and graphics that comes with that.... however ... taking a page from their book of combat is 100% something that could be done. Currently (without this test patch) animals already react like in dark souls, they walk at you, swing attack, leaving opening for counter attack, animals are NOT the problem.

The problem is that the PLAYER doesn't have the correct tools in order to properly fight verse these animals in combat. This means you have no ability to dodge to the side, or dash to the side in order to avoid a attack.

The animals also have unlimited turning speed and will "always" be pointed at you, if this was changed so that rotation speed was lowered so you had a better chance to get to the side or behind them than you would have the ability to counter play, if the animal swings and misses the same time you side step you could hit them in the side while avoiding their attack, this would be great combat gameplay.

Right now there is no ability to actually fight the animals if they just charge at you and automatically hit you and you just take dmg till you die.. this sucks for both old and new players cuz nobody see's the attack coming and theres no way to avoid it, this isn't combat, this is bashing stats up verse each other and whoever has more will win... so all mutants become unkillable at this point than without abusing range, bears and yotes too, this isn't good.

I mean the whole point is you want real combat, someone to fight the animal in a field right? This won't do that. This will cause people to possibly fight it, than rest up at a rock with fire repeatedly inbetween cuz they won't have the hp to exchange hits with a animal, nobody has 1k hps or even over 400hps. Even sark with 333hps would get rekt by most mutants including squirrels and marmots, despite being one of the strongest people in the game and spending a ton of time investing to get to that point he still wouldnt be able to solo combat due to the skill level not being there, it just being stat bashing up verse each other, this isnt fun gameplay to have no ability to "out play" or "use skill" verse the enemy, if its purely just trading hits, you'll lose every time and that isn't fun gameplay knowing you can never win cuz theres no ability to out play the animal.

"- Once all that's listed on my main post is considered working well without bugs I will add parrying and we'll test that. I'm not going to add shields or fancy moves with this first upcoming patch but they can come in subsequent patches. One step at a time."

I'm not talking about "fancy moves" I'm talking about something thats pretty simple, the way parrying works atm depending on how close you are in the directional and location of blocking the hit, if you parry it properly you'll get rewarded with a damage reduction percentage that reduces the amount of damage the enemy does to you. I'm suggesting simple attach a hit recovery delay to the attacker if your able to properly hit this correct parry spot to reduce dmg by a decent amount. I'm not talking about a minor parry where its the wrong direction and just barely activates parry, I'm talking about for when you get it in the sweet spot and reduce dmg.

Shields could be the same thing, you reduce dmg near the edge of the shield, while blocking with the middle would give you a stun/hit recovery on the enemy.

Basically just code it so that if the defender properly parrys the enemy hit, that the enemy "reaction" is if they just got hit with a regular attack, this would give a "hit recovery" action and would open up a change to hit them back. Meaning in theory you could parry or block a attack and if you did it perfectly at the right spot you would cause the enemy to "hit recovery" as if they had been hit with a attack, giving you the chance to land a hit.

"- Regarding revenants on King's Beach: Revenants in easy zones on abandoned tribes near the lake should die permanently when killed. Is that not happening? Do they continue to re-spawn? Or is the tribe not completely abandoned? I will take a look at that situation."

On pve its a problem, the high object tahoe tribe, mixed with the mass objects/trees of kings beach can heavily hit a new players frames, mix this with a rev farm and its a bad combination, the area needs to be cleaned up to be better for lower power computers/laptops. My laptop that my wife plays on laggs so bad it almost seems like its freezing when you cross over from founders to kings beach... this doesn't happen anywhere else or near our tribe, or even going past large tribes like elite. So no idea what exactly the issue is but it must have something to do with the amount of objects loaded in that area, mix a rev farm with that and its a bad combo.

[Static]

Heres another good example; dauntless.

The "creature" your fighting is massively stronger than you. But since you have the ability to dodge their attacks, you can prevent yourself from being hit.

At the same time, if the creature finishes its attack, it leaves a opening for you to attack them, than get out before you take more damage.

This is great combat, its a pretty popular game with a large population and aside of the "graphics" aspect the only real difference is that xsyon is missing dodge on players and counter play features by having attack animations that leave a opening for attack at some point if the right conditions are met.. I would say xsyon's combat is more complex than dauntless, by far with the directional twitch combat... so if you added some kind of side roll or side dodge WITH some sort of counter play with creatures than you would effectively have a better combat game than dauntless.

I want to also echo some good news cuz there is honestly some great things done here as well.

The way the animals are moving around is way more smooth, they look awesome and proper now, no lagg jumping or studdering.

sync between players feels more fluid now.

sync between player and objects feels more fluid/responsive.

sync between what a player is swing'n at and what they hit is more responsive.

Lots of good things here in the reduction of delay and sync between player, server and other players.

Having the weapon dmg displayed is a awesome update.

Having names for the animals your looking at so you can know how strong the bones are is also a really great and welcomed idea. Previously you could only click on their name and look at their hp and know if they are maxed by knowing if their hp is maxed. This helps remove that by knowing the names or being able to look it up on the wiki of what a max one is called for easier visual of knowing what your up verse, without having to hover your mouse over their hp, this is great.

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Another example: skyrim

You raise your shield, blocks the attack, the attack bounces off and causes a hit recovery motion on the enemy, this opens up a chance for you to hit them with your own attack.

Theres at least 3 games with examples of being able to force a miss or turn a attack into a non-hit that then opens up a chance for yourself to than attack in the opening.

This is the basics of melee combat and currently animals act like this.. however in this new patch they do not and its disappointing to see that your trying to remove the ability to see a attack coming or counter play attacks in favor of instant attacks that cant be avoided or dodged unless your doing a predictive parry right after you hit cuz you know your gona get instant hit after... this kind of combat does not inspire joy that you need to be predictive to something you cant see coming.