06/04/2020 - Feedback Request - Creature Balance

[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.