Hey guys -

Combat 3.0 is plugged into DRT, and here is the information Dartenian has provided for it:

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Combos are gone. Long live combos!

The current system of combos is gone. Players will no longer maintain or improve their balance by doing attacks in the "right" order, nor will doing things in the "wrong" order reduce balance, since there is no right or wrong order now. Instead, balance in combat is determined primarily by which attack is used and how quickly the player moves on to the next attack. Let me clarify:


Currently in Test:

Each attack type will have a basic balance modifier -- this may be a penalty, a bonus, or nothing at all. ATTACK itself will be completely average in every way.
Each attack type also has an optimal roundtime. While players can and will be able to reduce their roundtimes as they gain skill and increase stats, attacking faster than the optimal roundtime increases the chances of losing balance. To maintain or build balance, players will need to deliberately do so by either slowing down a little and/or choosing more balance-friendly attacks (or via special abilities, spells, etc)
Defensive modifications for attacks no longer last until the next attack (the infamous forgotten Lunge o' Doom). They are on a timer based on the optimal roundtime of the attack used. Once that timer expires, the player will default back to their last defensive stance (currently dodge or parry, soon to include block).

Basically, to gain balance, a player will want to identify the more balance friendly attacks and/or pace themselves a bit. Once they get their balance where they want it, they can either maintain it by alternating well-paced balance-building attacks and rapid hard-hitting attacks, or even just unleash a flurry of harder-hitting, less balance friendly attacks at high speed in order to take advantage of their good balance while they have it. In any case, slowing down will almost always assist balance.


Coming soon to Test

New HELP options for all attack verbs that will display general hints as to which attacks are best or worst for balance, specific damage types, defenses, and so on. Currently in Dev but in need of tweaking.
Many attack verbs will have special features. For example, Feint will apply a short debuff to the opponent's parry skill, while Sweep will be a bit harder to evade than normal and have a chance to hit a flanking target as well.
The ability to support "Easter Egg" combos is built into the system. This means we can add specific combat combos that do something a little "extra" when used in a certain order and/or in certain conditions.



On the Defensive

Currently in Test:

Evasion is no longer the primary defense upon which all the others are dependent. All three defenses are treated equally, and no one depends on the others.
Each of the three active defenses will have their own pros and cons.

Evasion -- Good against almost all attack types, generally most vulnerable to hindrance and situational modifiers.
Parry -- Best at melee, especially with multiple enemies. Vulnerable to ranged attacks.
Shield -- Best against ranged attacks, but not quite as good against flanking attacks and especially rear attacks.
Armor Protection -- Always there, least affected by situation, but overall least effective of the skill-based defenses to compensate.

All else being equal, it no longer matters if players stance for 100/80/0 or 60/60/60 or any other combination of 180+%. It is no longer a situation where one defense (evasion) should always be 100% for best results. The only thing that will create a difference is different skill ranks.
Parry is no longer as dependent on weapon skill. It still takes the skill into account, but not nearly to the same degree.
Defenses are more fluid. If one or more defenses are completely bypassed, the remaining defense(s) will attempt to compensate. It will not be as good as having a full 180% defense stance, but it will be far better than being caught flatfooted with only one defense in a 2-3 defense system.
Armor hindrance is no longer something that can be permanently minimized by achieving X ranks. To keep penalties to evasion at a minimum, the player will need to keep their armor skill reasonably in line with their evasion. It does not have to be perfectly even, but it should be close. The less hindering the armor type, the more leeway there is in this, meaning players who wish to have very good evasion skills and don't want to push armor skills hard should consider the lighter armors.
Shields no longer penalize evasion at all.
Multi Opponent has been replaced by Defending for the purpose of determining any penalties to defenses incurred by being outnumbered or outflanked. Defending vs multiple enemies is now a full skill-based contest (tactics vs defending with stat modifiers) as opposed to the old level vs skill system, and as such should scale much better.
The new multi system is designed so that two "at level" enemies should be reasonably safe to fight, but a third should start tipping the scales. Anything past three will quickly escalate the penalties.
All defensive skills will have a minimum value determined by the Defending skill. This will help mitigate backtraining issues, among other things.



Coming soon to Test

Shield hindrance will be applied to both the shield itself and to weapons when a player attempts to use the shield with any weapon that requires two hands. Some thrusting pole arms will have reduced hindrance when used in this way since they are designed to be used with shields.
Armor protection calculations will be brought more in line with offenses, making armor skill much more meaningful in combat.
Shields will see some modifications to how the "low to good protection" factors work.



On the Offensive

Currently in Test:

Tactics is now available as a Lore skill. It will be used for certain attacks (see next note) as well as to help determine - along with weapon skill - the effectiveness of certain special features of attacks like the parry debuff from Feint. In addition, it will be used to determine the threat imposed when teaming up against an enemy (ie the multi opponent penalty)
Tactics has acquired several attacks from Brawling -- shove, grapple, circle, bob, weave, and tackle -- and hopefully will see a few more. These attacks are generally going to be non-damaging tactical maneuvers or holds.
Brawling will keep the damage-dealing unarmed attacks, and several of these will see some improvement overall (current) and some new features (coming soon).
Weapons suited for balance will be more focused on agility, and will generally be a little more likely to hit and better for defending. Weapons suited for strength will be more focused on strength, and will generally do more damage and (coming soon) be more likely to stun or impose other temporary hindrances.
Partially implimented: two new skills -- melee mastery and missile mastery. These work much like Defending in that they will establish a baseline competency in weapons, as well as be used in some special maneuvers and attack features.


Coming soon to test

Chance of default stun reduced, but certain attacks and weapon types will include increased chance to stun to make stunning more of a tactical decision with trade-offs.
Chance of temporary minor bleeders being inflicted, especially by specific attacks/weapons.
Special considerations for pole range weapons to make it more possible to maintain pole range.
Weapon appraisals that include which attack verbs suit that weapon the best.



On the Retreat

Coming very soon to test

Retreat will be treated like other combat verbs in that it will have a fatigue cost and offensive/defensive penalties. Also like other combat verbs, retreat will have a timer that will track how quickly the retreat is being used, and adjust penalties accordingly (spamming retreat will not be a good idea...)
Successful retreats will reset critter advancement to the new range so that they don't instantly pop right back to the range the player just retreated from. This will help make retreat spamming less necessary in multi situations.
Flee will be updated with the intent of making it the go-to verb for escaping combat altogether, with retreat aimed more at engagement management within a battlefield.



Other stuff coming soon

Much more customization to combat messaging to filter out undesired messaging to aid in group combat or invasions.
And much much more...

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"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.

A lot of neat stuff in there. Can't wait to try it out and see how it all fits together.

-Evran

Waiting for Results..............................................................................................................

What everyone else said.. awesome stuff, can't wait!

-Dek

"That's what she said."
No..
"...That's what Leilond said."

Heyo!

In my last post, I promised more detailed information on defenses. A few people have indicated that they are defending in Test better than they do in the live game, in some cases substantially better. As I said in my previous post, this is not at all unexpected. Defenses in the live game are very heavily penalized, and generally do not scale well against offensive skill, with the gap growing as the skills involved grow.

My goal with this rewrite is to try to bring offense and defense closer together, so that 300 offense vs 300 defense is a solid fight...which is decidedly not the case now in the live instances. Many players are forced to underhunt as a result of the defense penalties, or heavily compensate with top of the line gear and various bonuses, but I am not sure people really realize just how often this is the case, or to what degree this is true.

Sometime over the next week, hopefully as early as this coming weekend, I am going to add some additional information to the combat messaging that will tell you roughly how your skills compare to your opponents. It won't be an exact thing, but it will let you know if you are roughly even, slightly under/over hunting, or seriously over/under hunting. That should help folks get a better idea whether or not the new Combat system is working as intended or not.

In addition, sometime very soon -- very possibly within the next 48 hours -- I'll be adding some additional HELP information to all the basic attacks. Specifically, each attack verb (slice, thrust, jab, etc) will provide a basic summary of the pros and cons of that attack. Here is an example from our Dev instance, with the understanding that it is a work-in-progress and very subject to change.

>lunge help full

Lunge launches an attack against an enemy.

LUNGE Attack enemy already engaged, or default to new.
LUNGE <enemy> Attack inidcated enemy.

LUNGE HELP Basic HELP
LUNGE HELP FULL Expanded HELP
LUNGE LIST This will list other valid combat options

* Detailed Information *
Lunge is a direct damage maneuver.
Lunge tends to be a very fatiguing maneuver.
Lunge tends to be very unbalancing when executed normally, slightly worse when used too quickly.
Lunge is a very slow maneuver by itself, but the weapon and wielder will heavily influence speed.
Lunge is more accurate than most maneuvers, and is best suited for puncture weapons and least suited for slice weapons.
Lunge is best suited to parry defenses and least suited to both evasion and shield defenses.


Note that information on special tactical effects like parry debuff from Feint will not show up in this new help system until said features are released.

At some point in the near future I will also be updating Appraise to allow players to gain insight as to which attack types work best with a given weapon.


- GM Dartenian

Though my soul may set in darkness it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night! - Sarah Williams

>>Some folks find they are defending better, substantially better. This is expected, and is probably not an issue...

I can lie down and dodge 4 elder armadillos at melee range all day :)

~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

<<A few people have indicated that they are defending in Test better than they do in the live game, in some cases substantially better. As I said in my previous post, this is not at all unexpected.>>

I had a feeling that was the case to some degree, but I didn't realize just how huge of a difference it would make. Good to know things are on the right track though; will creature appraisals be recalibrated to better reflect the updated difficulties? Part of the reason I thought things might be off was seeing a "quite difficult" opponent bumble around helplessly trying to hit me. And I think we're going to need some tougher creatures for some of the folks out there if we've been under-hunting by as much as it now appears :P

Oh, on a related note, is Stamina supposed to be as awesome as it looks like it is? I had stanced all my defenses to 0 and removed all my armor (plus I was laying down after the first grazing hit sent me flying), and it still took Worrclan a rather long time of wailing on me to finally break my chest enough to kill me. His attacks weren't doing much damage, but I'm not sure if it's because I have 75 stamina or because the fluid defenses thing was making me not really use zero ranks of everything when I thought I was. I didn't remove my shield or parry stick, so the items were there if I was actually trying to use them.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

So we should be seeing longer aim times and longer RT for firing a bow, crossbow, sling and throing something? Snap shots included? Can you compare changes to mellee weaopns to missle weapons in reguard to roundtimes please?

______
Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Transcendent Barbarian of M'Riss

> How do you even go about doing that, though? I guess in the new system you'll be able to go with a parry/shield stance to gain armor experience without also gaining evasion, but in general the very act of training armor skills awards evasion experience.


I doubt we'll see longer roundtimes for missiles (although I'm not going to rule it out until I get into missiles more), and we may very well see some shorter load times on some missiles. Aim times will probably not change, but I do intend to add more benefit for taking the time to aim. Snapshots will remain snapshots, but expect that aimed shots will be substantially better overall, definitely moreso than they are now. As I noted in a previous post on experience, I will also be switching xp awards to an xp-over-time model, and this will include aim time for the appropriate ranged weapons, so taking the time to aim will no longer potentially reduce xp gain over time. When all is said and done, the intent is that snapshot be a viable option for when that shot simply must be done now, but in general taking the time to aim should be as good as or better on all levels except speed.


- GM Dartenian

Though my soul may set in darkness it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night! - Sarah Williams

First, we have the weapon-based roundtime we are all familiar with. It uses the weight and balance of the weapon to determine a roundtime, and it uses strength and agility to reduce it -- strength for the weight, agility for the balance. Nothing has changed here yet, except that I raised the roundtime cap GM Ssra put in from 6 seconds to 9 seconds (or was it 8? Anyway, I raised it!) in order to allow for a bit more roundtime differentiation at lower levels. A person using a dagger shouldn't be getting almost the same roundtime as someone using a giant mattock.

I really love this scheme of basing it off of the weapon's stats(weight/balance) rather than basing it off of the weapon class(LE, ME, HE, etc.). This accompanied with weapon feats based on the weapon class has the potential to make some really sweet customization :) My only concern is for the Light Edge weapons that weigh a lot, such as my Dao at 31 stones :/

There is also an attack style roundtime. This is NOT new, but somewhere along the line it was rendered almost irrelevant among all the other combat updates over the years. It still showed up in a few places, primarily among attacks that did not require weapons, but otherwise ended up being lost in the shuffle for the most part. This style-based roundtime has been restored, and is the primary reason you are seeing increased roundtimes across the board.

This sounds awesome!

The style based roundtime is also now being used to determine the minimum roundtime cap. An attack with a longer base roundtime will also have a longer minimum. This will generally range between 1-3 seconds, before anyone panics.

Also sweet. Please to be having 1 sec minimum RT on DRAW and 2 sec minimum RT on SLICE for lighter(~30 stones and under) weapons?

Light weapons need to have some reason to be desirable too!).

<3

In any case, the roundtimes and balance mods are two of the updates most likely to be tweaked over the coming month, so don't panic quite yet. Just be aware that some roundtimes are likely to end up a bit higher, although for the most part this will be style-based.

Thank you for the incredible clarification Dart :)

~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

okay, the "attacks" <jab, lunge, attack, slice> verbs are now working, but not messaging within the attack itself:


The bristle-backed peccary closes to melee range on you!
>
* As if fumbling muscle flab were natural, a bristle-backed peccary slices wide at you. You dodge.
[You're solidly balanced and in better position.]
>
* Moving in like a timid schoolboy, a bristle-backed peccary lowers its head, tilts it to one side, and slashes its curved tusks at you. You dodge.
[You're solidly balanced and in good position.]

>
* Apparently without direction or thought, a bristle-backed peccary lowers its head, tilts it to one side, and slashes its curved tusks at you. You dodge.
[You're solidly balanced and in strong position.]
>att
< Tentatively and at a severe disadvantage, you a midnight black scimitar at a bristle-backed peccary. A bristle-backed peccary fails to evade, taking the full blow. The scimitar lands a good strike that barely pierces the skin to nick the chest.

>jab
< Ineptly and losing ground quickly, you a midnight black scimitar at a bristle-backed peccary. A bristle-backed peccary attempts to dodge, stepping partly into the blow. The scimitar lands a solid hit that barely pierces the skin to nick the chest.
[You're nimbly balanced and in dominating position.]
[Roundtime 2 sec.]
>feint
< In a weak and directionless display of aggression and at a severe disadvantage, you a midnight black scimitar at a bristle-backed peccary. A bristle-backed peccary fails to evade, avoiding only some of the blow. The scimitar lands a brushing strike to the peccary's right hand.
[You're solidly balanced and in strong position.]
[Roundtime 2 sec.]

>lunge
< Moving in like a timid schoolboy and at a severe disadvantage, you a midnight black scimitar at a bristle-backed peccary. A bristle-backed peccary fails to evade, only partially avoiding the impact. The scimitar lands a good strike that shreds away skin and exposes the muscles of the abdomen.
[You're somewhat off balance and in strong position.]
[Roundtime 5 sec.]

>slice
< Tentatively and at a severe disadvantage, you a midnight black scimitar at a bristle-backed peccary. A bristle-backed peccary attempts to evade, only partially avoiding the impact. The scimitar lands a good strike that barely pierces the skin to nick the chest.
[You're nimbly balanced and in superior position.]
[Roundtime 3 sec.]
>




[You're solidly balanced and in strong position.]
[Roundtime 3 sec.]

>

Explore the Final Frontier - the unknown calls

>Is evasion supposed to be that much more powerful than the other defenses?

I was seeing something very similiar dancing with 4 swamp trolls.. with evasion 100% and any combination of the other two, I was completely fine, the second evasion wasn't 100% I got throw left and right.. and with the knockback being out of whack I was on the ground every two seconds and couldn't even stand.. until I put evasion back to 100% then I was fine again, even sitting down.

-Dek

"That's what she said."
No..
"...That's what Leilond said."

I really do not see how you can talk about slowing down combat when you do not slow down missle combat. Melee will take longer,but missle will stay the same? If snap shots have a HUGE penalty to the point of mostly missing, then I can see how this would be fair.

______
Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Transcendent Barbarian of M'Riss