Dear Combat Dev's - Please Read!

First off let me state for the record I am and always have been a Ultima fan since my Commodore 64 and played UO for no less than 7 years.

That being said, I know combat is in it's initial stages but something caught my eye on the recent demo. For some reason it reminded me very much of the movement and combat style I experienced in The Secret World. I am a kick starter pledged Eldermann and love everything I see about this game so far. I am trusting you guys on the whole mmo vs opo thing but I seriously implore you to take a couple hours and go play TSW. That game had all the makings of a great mmo. Awesome concept, sandbox style, skill based system, and yet something was seriously missing from their combat system as a whole. It was choppy, slow, bad animation, but in total it was lacking any type of excitement and completely ruined the game for me, the same thing happened with Ages of Conan. There is something missing and wrong with the combat models in those games and I am sure there are others. There was something fluid and simply addicting about UO's combat. World of Warcraft found a way to make combat smooth and fluid. Other games to do so were Vanguard Saga of Hero's and Rift was pretty decent. KotR was a bad game but the combat was fliud and had a certain fun appeal to it.I hope you understand what I am trying to say as I am having a hard time describing it, but if you are familiar with those games, it's easy to see what I mean. If the movement is slow and jerky it makes it impossible to play a kite class or anything that can't stand and bash.

Anyhow, I know you won't let us down, it is just something I hope you will look at when fine tuning movement and combat.

 

Couldn't agree more. Combat looked as if attacking a tree and attacking a critter was pretty much the same thing - chopping a lump of wood.

Compared to the combat in games like The Witcher, this is a huge leap backwards - or not. To be fair, it's early days yet

 

agreed, but it wasn't just the hacking, it was the movement speed of the character. one of the beautiful things about UO was the ability to kite very well. from what i saw that avatar wouldn't be able to run from a fruit fly the movement wasn't fluid, it looked forced.

 

I agree. I'm hoping that will get worked out with time though. I feel like a slow and choppy combat experience is not something these devs would go to on purpose. I get the feeling it was more of something cobbled together so they'd have something to demo to show of the dungeon and boss design.

 

In the chat we had with Stephen, he indicated that both the appearance of the characters and their movements are put together to basically work, and then there is a long period of making tweaks to smooth out the bumps. Probably right up until launch.

 

Probably even after launch, but we need to speak up here and let the devs know just how much we care about this. I agree completely with stvnkrs 10, fluidity is key in making combat exciting. Not only for kiting characters. ANY combat style will be more exciting if it is allowed to move, and if it moves quickly and fluidly, it lets the game devs program movement into the actual combat. Areas you must get out of or into, attacks that have specific range, dancing in to strike and then out before a retaliation. Whenever I've found a game that made me stand still to swing a sword, I started losing interest instantly. I myself am actually trained in combat, I have and can use a variety of weapons from my own hands and feet, through daggers and kukri, all the way up to great swords and nodachi. (It's a crowded apartment) One thing that every single fighting style emphasizes is footwork, moving and positioning for a strike. It's not just "step forward as you swing", opponents are constantly moving around each other, trying to force the other person into a bad posture, or line up a stronger attack.

A game that doesn't let me move around smoothly in combat isn't really simulating combat.

 

agreed Malak! There is still plenty of time, I just hope they design it right, that is why I spoke up now. If you build a bad foundation, it makes it difficult to redesign the house once it is half built.

 

As long as the combat isn't as difficult and twitch heavy as Witcher 2 I'm fine with fluid combat.

 

I think it's important to separate graphics from balance. I really don't care if this game is text based so long as it's designed with competitive balance in mind.

Sword motions and combat arcs might look better in this game or that game, but at the end of the day all that really matters is if the game plays well and two players of equal skill can have a fun challenging experience.

 

Fully agree. I think combat is going to be THE biggest issue. Expect to spend years designing and redesigning it.

that is why we should indeed get a update from Chris when he's ready so we can all state opinions so as to prepare assets accordingly.

If that means new animations, so be it.

 

I know nothing about programing and animation.
If making video animation is the same as game animation you might want to look up the youtube user - NMANewsDirect
New animation is coming out of there daily.

But yea maybe that should be a stretch goal.
I think getting a big name animator on the team would be great.

 

they could make the graphics look like UO for all I care, I have played no less than 15 mmo's since leaving UO that had wonderful graphics and sh11tty game play

 

In one hand, I think we're jumping the gun a little, try even admitted that it was basic and archaic. The combat system is still in its infancy and is being created for the most part.

In that other hand... I too wish for them to implement clean and successful combat mechanics, so no harm in warning them in advance! Devs, we are counting on you!

 

agreed Erth!