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  1. #1

    Feedback Request: Combat

    Greetings Survivors!

    We are currently seeking feedback on the current combat system.

    Specific information we are looking are...

    - In your opinion on what you think is 'good' about the current combat system and what you think is 'bad'.

    - In your opinion what needs to be balanced?

    - What do you think could be improved, and why?

  2. #2
    I suck at this type of combat, thus I cannot really comment. One thing though: I can kill coyotes or small black bears by just spamming the right-click mouse button many times. I estimate that killing a young, small black bear takes about 2 or 3 minutes and about 100 or 200 mouseclicks. Killing that bear fills almost 20% of my xp bar, no idea whether that's because I get xp for the kill or whether it's xp for spamming the mouse button.

    And that could be a problem: getting xp for spamming a mouse button.

  3. #3
    I like the change so now you can swap to parry in the middle of holding a swing and letting go will go back to holding the swing. Some simple suggestions to help make combat more fluid and visceral:

    1. Allow user to hold parry first if they want to. Make it work the same as holding a melee swing that can be released into a parry, just reverse. This will allow more fluid swapping from swing to parry or parry to swing by holding and releasing buttons.
    2. From testing today, it seems that blocking is not possible with two melee weapons in hand. Currently, you can only parry with a melee weapon. This is a good thing. I hope this means that you can only block if you have bare hands or a blocking item (shield).
    3. Make sidestepping rotate the bottom and top of the character while the head remains facing the target.
    4. Move health bar just below the target (center screen down a little) which only displays on mouse over.
    5. "Combat camera". This really needs tweaking. When combat mode is toggled on the camera should be a close up third person so you cannot see behind you. This will also allow more combat immersion. The use will have a better perspective to see swing direction to parry successfully. Maybe tweak the POV angle to be wider in this mode.
    6. When you toggle combat mode on, the character should unsheathe the currently equipped weapons. The transition animation should take about 1.5-2seconds so you can't instantly have your weapons out. Same goes for sheathing on combat toggle off.
    7. (edit: I should test more and try to get use to the timing before making any conclusions about it) Really look into tweaking the timing of melee swing animations so you can actually parry a swing when you see which direction the opponent is loading up. When fighting a bear today, it was very difficult to parry the same direction. I could see which direction the bear was going to strike, but the animation speed of the claw swipe was much too fast to react to. This should also help the server hit prediction code if the swings are slowed down a bit. Slower doesn't always have to mean more boring.
    8. Not a crucial suggestion but it might be a nice addition: Add double tap movement keys to dash forward, sideways, and back to avoid swings. If this screws up hit prediction code on the server than forget it. I think most of us could live without it.
    9. Add some blood splat and better sound effects on successful hit. I've only fought a bear and deer today but the hit is just a thumping sound w/ no visual indication. The user really wants to hear that cool slash with a small blood spat or something to know you've landed a clean strike. Maybe some type of yelp if you are fighting a humanoid opponent.
    10. (goes with #9): The thumping sounds seems more appropriate for a successful block or glancing damage due to heavy armor. Successful parry should make a clinging sound of metal on metal.
    11. If there is a successful parry or block. There should be a very small cool-down on the opponents next attack, say 0.5sec so that the blocking/parrying opponent gets the edge to counter strike (reward for skill). In the future, the melee swing animation could match this cool-down by bouncing back from the parry or just stopping for a block.
    12. This is a big one. Allow the left and right swings to be rebound to different keys. Personally I would like to have a two-hander w/ melee swign bound to left mouse and block bound to right mouse. The issue is that most users want to have melee swing and parry available on keys which do not hinder/interrupt fingers needed for the movements keys. (i.e. middle, ring, and index finger of left hand always on WASD during combat while right hand index and middle are for melee swing and parry. Thumbs on both hands are still free to sprint, activate other skills on extra mouse buttons, etc...)

    One more suggestion: Ragdoll physics on death.

  4. #4
    Just a short little thing for now, more will come later I'm sure.

    Right now when you parry you block a % of the damage, which is fine, as long as you have something to parry with. I have been able to parry while unarmed and unarmored and negate all damage.

    For improvements I've had an idea rolling around for a while, I don't think anyone else has suggested it in the past so here it goes.

    Add in for locational hits damage to body parts which would reduce certain aspects of the character(If you hit someone in the legs and deal enough damage they should be slowed, if you hit them in the arm their damage/parry should go down for that arm, this last one is hard, I'd say if you hit them in the head add 25% to damage dealt.)

  5. #5
    As you add more combat abilities, has there been any thought as to how the number of key binds will be minimized to keep combat fluid? For example, I was hoping we could have the function of key binds changed depending on what mode you are in.

    Say you have an axe and knife in the left and right hand slots. You hit "c" to enter combat and those weapons unsheath with some animation transition taking 1-2 seconds. While in combat mode the camera zooms in tight so only the upper half of your character is visible. Scrolling the mouse wheel in combat mode now selects different weapons you have equipped on your inventory slots instead of zooming the camera in and out.

    This will work great once ranged weapons come into the game. It would be a nice feature if we could also bind a specific key to the back inventory slots and side slots. Some people like to press specific keys to unsheathe specific weapons as opposed to scrolling through all available weapons until you find the one you want. All weapon switching should have some delay so you can't instantly switch from ranged to melee.

    Also, the "1" key could be bound to scavenging while not in combat, but then bound to some special combat ability once in combat. Maybe the action slots swap to a different bar once you enter combat so you can visually see what "1" key is bound to in each mode.

    Edit:
    There needs to be some balance to shields once they come into the game to stop people from just turtling when they get low.

    Low quality shields should be breakable with high quality sharp weapons after 3-4 direct hits. Higher quality shields may break after 7-8 direct hits.

    Parrying is already balanced because it required timing and correct direction. I assume blocking will not require a direction but we will have to see how the blocking system is implemented.

  6. #6
    Well I believe I can take on MrDDT now! Can we add add combat text window?

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