Post:Kodius - Combat 3.0 Guru - 08/08/2012 - 19:05

Re: Kodius - Combat 3.0 Guru · on 08/08/2012 07:05 PM CDT	2354
Sure thing. First, most of the original concepts outlined by GM Dartenian are alive and well. Specifically with regards to defenses being distinct and evasion no longer being king. Each defense was rewritten and rebalanced to make sense. With his ground work, combat is now a lot cleaner and fun to work with. These concepts are going to experience rigorous testing over the next month and change. There may be sweeping changes if they don't feel right, better options present themselves, or folks flat out don't like it. Our goal is to make the game more fun and interactive, as the current combat model has grown stale and repetitive for most everyone. Down with 1-hit kills. Up with folks actually being able to train combats past circle 150! All changes apply to PvE and PvP. CRITICALS - Open-rolls are gone. Criticals only occur in the to-hit mechanics. Damage is NOT amplified if you "Roll a 20". A critical hit is unlikely to ever cause a 1-hit death, because 1-hit deaths are pretty much going to be impossible due to the damage changes mentioned later. TO HIT - The defender generates a DEFENSE score and the attacker generates an OFFENSE score. The ratio of these two determines your to-hit chance. There is always a chance to hit and always a chance to miss. Yes, this means that an absolute horde of low circle players can take down a war mammoth, or a circle 150th barbarian provided they do nothing to escape, subdue the attackers, kill the attackers or heal themselves. It also means you might occasionally stumble and miss. DAMAGE - Damage is no longer multiplied by great amounts when you hit really really well. This is part of what made open-rolls and crits so deadly before. All forms of damage now exhibit diminishing returns. VITALITY - Vitality now reduces body-damage. All players and critters also have a vitality bonus from circle 1. This is like a free +100 hit points to buffer new players, and allow older players to soak a few more hits before taking a dirt nap. Stamina is still as potent as ever. At 100% vitality you'll take practically no body damage from an attack. Once your vitality drops below 50% though, then the hits begin to take a more physical toll. Players will be getting hit more in combat, so it makes sense for them to take less body damage. I fully expect some sort of poor-man's vitality healer will appear to assist folks with healing up, and of course this will tie into craftable food and alchemical mixes VERY nicely. ARMOR - Armor acting like a defense is being evaluated. What I'd like to do is.... keep Absorb removing a % of the incoming damage, and Protection will act as a skill modifier to determine what of the remaining damage gets through. So if 100 points of damage get through the absorb, Protection + ArmorSkill vs EnemySkill will be the "general" contest. This should help make armor ranks up to 1500 actually useful. SHIELD - Shield size now determines how effective you are at defending a given attack. Small shields excel at melee combat, and tower shields excel at ranged combat. Appraise will likely be updated to reflect this, and new shield types may be introduced (magical ones) that excel at all ranges. Similarly I need to add BLOCK back in as a valid defense style with the appropriate shield bonus. The first defense stat will be a flat % chance to give a critical bonus to DEFENSE score. The second defense stat will act as a modifier to the skill contest. Defending against flanking/rear facing enemies will be much harder. Using a 2-handed weapon with a shield is still more difficult. EXPERIENCE - Will be adjusted so you can train better than you can now. I say better because many of you are just completely unable to train certain weapon types effectively. RANGED - Now using melee calculations with a few things specific to bows (aim time). Previously they had their own set of mechanics. Bow size will correlate to force of impact and have a higher chance to stun/knockdown than most slicing/stabbing weapons. This should help delay advancing enemies a little. More to come on ranged in general, but my hope is to keep it extremely effective against a single target that is advancing on you while still keeping you relatively safe (but not as safe as chain-retreating). After using a ranged attack you will be unable to leave the room for 10 seconds (we'll play with the timer I am sure). This is to prevent drive-by shootings. If you want to attack, be prepared to face a counter-attack. This is a placeholder until engagement mechanics can be more thoroughly rewritten. RETREAT - Retreat will impose a small - but stacking - offensive and stamina-regen penalty to the person retreating. This means you can retreat as much as you want to GET AWAY, but using it as a crutch for staying out of reach and killing enemies with impunity is reduced. I may make HangBack add a flat % penalty to advance times on the archer, in exchange for stamina or some other penalty. Note - The penalty will last only a few seconds, but resets with each retreat. I can envision fights where the archer retreats so much that he has no chance of hitting the attacker, and the attacker cannot ever get to melee. This is where debuffs, snares, immobilizers and other ways of rooting an enemy come in handy. Or just start pull out your own bow and start lighting them up. FLEE - No changes here. It is the recommended way for exiting a bad situation. STUNS and DEBUFFs - We are working on a way to add a cooldown to these effects. Now that folks will be getting hit more chain-stuns could become an issue if we didn't tweak this a bit. FORCE of IMPACT - I want to keep this, make it visible on the appraisal of weapons, and allow it to be the primary stat for determining stuns/knockdowns in addition to the type of attack style used. This may not make the initial release. CRITTERS - Critters can now go above circle 200, and teach to the very end. Our goal is to - for the most part - not require anyone to go DOWN on the critter ladder. STYLES - Using the same style over and over will incur a penalty. This is to prevent JAB x10, ATTACK x5, repeat becoming the new norm. I'd also like to add some more feedback to players about how effective their attack strategy is. STEALTH - I think there are plans to make hiding give a defense penalty. Beyond that I don't have many plans yet. Feel free to discuss what you'd like to see done here. BACKSTAB/SNIPE - These will remain effective and bonused versus other attacks, however you are unlikely to snipe someone in half due to the vitality and damage changes. These will have a better-than-normal chance to hit, and a lower-than-normal chance to miss. I think that covers the bulk of it. Please wish us luck with testing, and PLEASE count to 10 before posting concerns. I'll add updates here as they become available.
This message was originally posted in Combat - Weapons and Armor \ General Discussions, by DR-KODIUS on the play.net forums.