06/11/2020 - Feedback Requests - Combat

[Static]

"I understand you would disagree. These are my opinions. I do not think you need every system in the game to be "NEW and INNOVATIVE"
Chat systems have been around for 20+ years. You don't need to make them new and innovative. Pick a good chat system and put it in place."

This whole comment is a strawman. "oh you use chat, why not use outdated mmo features nobody wants to use anymore?"

Like you see how many people where pissed off about when they found out elder scrolls online was just a wow clone with the type of combat your suggesting? If a HUGELY POPULAR FRANCHISE like the elder scrolls can piss off half their player base into not playing it due to that, than I don't think its a feature we should be adding to this game cuz nobody wants it in gaming today but you.

Its like saying "why don't we go back to turn based combat based off dice rolls".... cuz its boring combat we've long moved away from outside of boardgames.

The problem comes down to PING and CPU of the server. Both of which will be issues on this game. I do not see people playing Xsyon for the twitch based combat. They come here for the creative systems Xsyon has put in place. No need to make it very hard or near impossible for people to do combat. It's already pretty hard Xsyon is wanting to make it easier not harder to learn.

Another strawman. The ping/cpu is fine, jordi fixed the problems that caused desync of players/server/each other that prevented ranged combat by rewriting the creature migration, so this problem has been "fixed" and I've told you this twice already, making this the 3d time so you already know better.

You see MEEEEE playing xsyon for twitch combat, where have you even been? WE come up with some cool ideas and you come crawling back to derail everybody and change the direction of the game? I mean you've had 10 years to suggest things, maybe give some other people priority to try something else cuz obviously what you think hasn't helped the game in the past decade.

"They come here for the creative systems Xsyon has put in place." right alot of people want combat and raiding, two things that are in short supply in this game so I'm heavily advocating for ways to increase player interactions and give players areas to raid. One of those systems is the combat system, thats the directional twitch combat, its great and not many games have it, I donno why you don't think it is.

Who said anything about making it impossible to do combat? Stop strawmanning me, I never said this. By not having a bunch of keys to smash to give you increased damage, it doesn't make combat "impossible" your being dramatic and untruthful here.

[Xsyon]

Well, with conflicting feedback such as this I will wait for feedback from other players and possibly run a poll if necessary.

A few comments:

1) I can adjust parrying as suggested.

2) Most players coming to Xsyon are expecting combat like in other 'survival sandbox' games, like Rust, Ark, 7 Days To Die. From what I've seen in those games, melee combat is simply mouse clicking to attack without any special attacks or defenses. I haven't played any of these games in depth however. This simple type of combat seems to be the more current type of combat that players expect. If I am wrong, let me know what I am missing. If there are popular 'survival sandbox' games that employ different types of melee combat, please let me know.

3) I'm fine with WoW style combat. Two specific things I didn't like about WoW melee combat are the auto attacking regular attacks and that there are too many similar special hot key attacks. Similar combat with the manual normal attacks and a few special attacks would be nice in my opinion.

4) I am also fine with twitch style combat. However, there are some issues. As MrDDT said, because of various ping rates from players around the world, perfect synchronization is not possible. Synch is a lot better than before and that enables me to move forward with ranged combat. I will not be able to match the level of synchronization of solo games or games that run small local servers. As I don't personally play any combat focused games I'm not very familiar with them and this makes it difficult for me to code, though I try my best. I did play Mount and Blade a bit and that type of combat is very difficult for me to mimic, especially without a proper animator.

5) Question for Static: When you mention a Power Attack, how would that be triggered if not by a hot key (or clicking an icon)?
Would it require a specific combination of mouse actions or something else?

Thanks

[MrDDT]

1) I can adjust parrying as suggested.

Currently not noticing a change.
Also parry is random coming from animal attacks with no cues on which way its really coming. An animal attacking with its right paw and you parry left does not make it parry do 100% parry. So the cues the animal is attacking is total guesswork on parry defense.



[QUOTE=Xsyon;106031]
2) Most players coming to Xsyon are expecting combat like in other 'survival sandbox' games, like Rust, Ark, 7 Days To Die. From what I've seen in those games, melee combat is simply mouse clicking to attack without any special attacks or defenses. I haven't played any of these games in depth however. This simple type of combat seems to be the more current type of combat that players expect. If I am wrong, let me know what I am missing. If there are popular 'survival sandbox' games that employ different types of melee combat, please let me know.[.quote]

You're assessment of them is correct.

3) I'm fine with WoW style combat. Two specific things I didn't like about WoW melee combat are the auto attacking regular attacks and that there are too many similar special hot key attacks. Similar combat with the manual normal attacks and a few special attacks would be nice in my opinion.

Exactly how I feel.

4) I am also fine with twitch style combat. However, there are some issues. As MrDDT said, because of various ping rates from players around the world, perfect synchronization is not possible. Synch is a lot better than before and that enables me to move forward with ranged combat. I will not be able to match the level of synchronization of solo games or games that run small local servers. As I don't personally play any combat focused games I'm not very familiar with them and this makes it difficult for me to code, though I try my best. I did play Mount and Blade a bit and that type of combat is very difficult for me to mimic, especially without a proper animator.

Exactly.
You would also want to give the visual cues to players also of what is going on. So they can dodge or defend it. Like in Mount and Blade, you can do a counter parry block. You need to be in the right direction, you see to see they are going to parry your attack, and then you counter it. Not only does this take very fast pings to see because all of this is happening in 1s or less. You also need to be able to see by visual cues this is going on. If you make it just guess work, then all skillful play is lost.

[Static]

Modeling your melee combat after rust I think isn't very wise either since the game is a first person shooter, your supposed to have a gun, not melee weapons.

Melee weapons are a 2ndary thought in rust, again, its a first person shooter sandbox, not a melee sandbox like xsyon.

Again the most close game to compare would be mount n blade imo, while combat is currently coded to be as complex as kingdom come delverance with the multi directionals... Honestly if we can mix the multi directional with a dark souls style combat than we would have a extremely fun combat game to play.

[Static]

Why I keep bring'n up kingdom come delverance is cuz they do a really good job with following through with attacks.

Meaning your swings are not fast or instant, different attacks have different swing speeds. Like your sword jab is going to be alot faster than a swing'n hit from the side, but it also does alot less damage. This should more or less be the goal here, you have slower, more powerful attack that someone can move out of the way of more easily and than counter hit you more easily after with.

The speed of the attacks makes the combat work, since players are stuck with the follow through of their swing if they miss, plus the start of the swing gives away what direction the combat is coming from so you can parry from that direction.

[Xsyon]

Currently not noticing a change.

Yup, I haven't patched a change yet. I'll post when I have.

Also parry is random coming from animal attacks with no cues on which way its really coming. An animal attacking with its right paw and you parry left does not make it parry do 100% parry. So the cues the animal is attacking is total guesswork on parry defense.

Do you have any suggestions for visual clues? Slowing down the animations?

What do other games do? Are there any games that you know of with directional parry where you can gauge the direction of incoming attacks?

I guess in Mount & Blade you can gauge the attack direction because attacks are slower? Or synchronized better? (In fast combat even a 1/4 second delay is noticeable, I believe, 1/2 second for sure). Or are the animations more exaggerated?

Thanks

[MrDDT]

Do you have any suggestions for visual clues? Slowing down the animations?

What do other games do? Are there any games that you know of with directional parry where you can gauge the direction of incoming attacks?

I guess in Mount & Blade you can gauge the attack direction because attacks are slower? Or synchronized better? (In fast combat even a 1/4 second delay is noticeable, I believe, 1/2 second for sure). Or are the animations more exaggerated?

Games like Mount & Blade of course but this is not an MMO.
M&B is very fast action. With chamber blocks (where you block with the weapon mid swing sorta like a parry), parry, block, dodge. This is the closest game I can think of where it has combat as Static is talking about. I think this combat is very very good, high player skill evolved. Which is why it's one of the best melee combat systems.
Slowing down animations for Xsyon (because its an MMO) would be required as in M&B like you said even 1/4 second (250ms) is highly noticeable. Actions are taking place in 100ms to 200ms. You have to see someone is attacking, direction, and type of attack. Then think of which type of counter you can do, and have the time left to animate it. You kill other player/npcs in 1 to 6 hits.


Take this with a grain of salt. Another way is heavy visual cues like in Tera.
Here you have dodge by double tapping, or using a special key to trigger you to get out of the way extra fast, or just move if enough time. (Like Xsyon currently)
They also have skills that parry and shield blocks. If you watch a video on it, you can see the monsters are a lot more of a big battle type fight.
This would require a lot less PING issues as it's a lot more scripted in what monsters/animals are doing.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/323370/TERA/


There are other games, but these are the 2 basic systems in this type of combat. M&B is a standard on that type, and Tera for MMO's is another type.

[Static]

Like you have no hope in hell of ever competing with WoW so why even try?

Why not make something better instead of a WoW clone if you know theres no way you could compete with them?

Like you won't add NPC's, theres no quests, there no cities, there no world to explore or guilds to join or raids to join or any of the stuff that acutally makes WoW fun... but you think just adding WoW combat is going to let you compete with them? I heavily disagree.

[Static]

While I will do my best to improve combat, I don't intend to make Xsyon a combat focused game. It's meant to be sandbox adventure and creation game. It attracts survival sandbox players primarily, which I why I asked for feedback on what that crowd of players is accustomed to. Combat is just a part of the game.

I gotta address this again cuz its amazing to me how out of touch you are with what your player base wants on PvP and why they are quitting due to these features not being in place.

Combat is part of the game, yes, but on a PVP server it needs to be more than a back burned after thought, thats what adding skill spam is, a after thought, what someone too lazy to do it properly would do cuz its the easist thing to do, yet the most unfun thing to do. Your creating a easily coded combat system that everybody I know who has complained about combat would NOT enjoy.

I'll say that again, if you added WoW style combat to the game, it would NOT solve any of the peoples problems that I know of who have quit the game, they would still quit the game with WoW style combat since its not solving their "combat is broken" problem.

Again the reason "combat feels broken" is due to how the creatures and players interact with each other or even players vs players, not cuz of a "lack of spamable hotcue skills for extra damage"

Things like there only being one attack from the creature feels really really bad, focusing on spamable skills for a player BEFORE this would be foolish cuz you would be "solving" a non-problem in response to a real problem thats not being solved; how lifeless animals are to fight and how little options you have to actually fight them due to that.

Combat is boring cuz its repetative, you repeat the same actions till it dies.. thats why I've been trying to get you to understand that creatures need multiple different attacks in order to give some variarity so that your not always defending the same way or using the same action to avoid damage, there needs to be a change, so your forced to do something else, make the combat interactive instead of just a spamfest.

NOBODY wants to play spamfest combat when you just repeat the same thing, adding "hotcue skill spam" does NOT address this core issue.

[Static]

As I mentioned before, I personally enjoyed WoW combat with the reservations I already stated.

With respect; your opinion is rather moot since you haven't played any real combat games like dark souls, or kingdom come.

By your own admition you don't play combat games, I understand why your not trying to focus on combat when you don't play combat games... however alot of other people DO play combat games, so trying to turn this game into a "noncombat game" like most think WoW to be is a huge leap in the wrong direction.

WoW is about raiding, drops, big quests, dungeons, guilds ect.... non of this exists in xsyon.... The WoW "combat system" is just a way for people to experience raiding, item drops, big quest, dungeons, guilds ect, its not the main focus of the game, its not good combat, its just the type of combat they used to experience the OTHER GOOD PARTS OF THE GAME that DO NOT EXIST in xsyon.

So if your just gona clone WoW combat, your gona fail us cuz there won't be any of the rest of the fun stuff in WoW to use that combat on, so nobody is going to be able to ignore how bad the combat is due to enjoying the raiding, dungeon, item drops ect ect cuz there isn't any of that!

So thats why people are so focused on "broken combat" cuz theres nothing else to do in the game so it sticks out like a sore thumb, cuz theres nothing to make you forget about how bad it is by powering through a quest or a raid or a dungeon or grinding for item drops... again none of this exists in xsyon, so you won't be able to ignore and forget the bad skill spam combat when theres nothing to mask how bad it.