Feedback from combaring SotA PvP with other Combat System.

Hi all.

You can read the comparison or directly jump to the recommendations i have, the green written area.



I think i had a unique way of experiencing R9 SotA PvP because i basically had been playing Chivalry like a full hour before R9 started.

I hope you all know how it sometimes feels when you just played one game and then suddenly start a different game.
You are confronted harcore with the system differences of both games if you play them after another directly.


So this is my feedback.

Chivalry is the opposite of most MMO Style Games. You have "no combat UI "interface", a "clean screen".

You only play with the following buttons:

WASD for movement

Right Mouse Button - Parry,
Left Mouse Button - Attack 1
Mouse weel forward - Attack 2
Mouse weel backward - Attack 3

If you hold "Alt" all attacks you do with the mouse are done from left instead of right.

If you press L you can switch between 3d person to First person view.

The Skills are the Weapon you choose. The more Experience you have the more choices of weapon you get.

The Tactic:

Stamina Balance - Every Swing and Attack will cost you Stamina - parry also - if you run out of Stamina what can happen very fast you loose the ability to parry effective and even to attack - leading often to a fast death.
If you do not swing a attack or parry or hold your shield up protective all the time you slowly recover stamina .

Positioning and Timing matters alot - Most in Teamcombat. You need to think about what Attack you do.
You do not want to hurt your teammate , so you maybe decide to do a straigth or overhead swing instead of a sideswing.

Tactical choices:

You have to think about distance, position and what weapon your enemy is using.

-You have to study your enemy during fight - Is he aggressiv player? Ok let him swing himself until he runs out of stamina.
-Does the enemy expect me to be aggresiv or defensiv. If i have a shield they expect me mostly to play more defensive compared to a 2 handed sword player. - Maybe i suprise him and play opposite to my weapons choice.
-Should i just parry and wait for my teammate to attack from the side?
-Surpise him after doing many right hand attacks with a sudden left side attack?


This is 3rd person playstyle, more like Sota. ( The clean UI free screen , snif, that is what i call clean!)
And the players in this example play much better then the red. But also it was a bad idea from the other team to mainly have archers and light weapon fighters. A good mix is better.
To have Knights holding them back and archers assisting. And the archers did not do a good job at start. all missed.



This is a Tournament Example to get a impression of teamplay. Unfortunatly he plays in first person.




So lets take first of all a look at the Vision we have heard for Sota or Statements.
I know all is subject to change and i am not lawering anyone.

But all must agree that it was a vision to have a Clean and Ui free play experience for Sota as much as possible.
I did like that Vision.

Now compare Chivalry Screen with SotA Battle Screen.
Who is closer to that Vision.

Chivalry wins 100%.


That is the first what i had to experience logging into SotA PvP - it just smacks you into your face.


Second: Playability and comfort of playing.


I was instantly aware that i had a much more comftable playing experience with Chivalry compared to SotA.

Why?

1. Amount of Buttons i need to use to play in

Chivalry requires me after i have choosen my weapon only to use
WASD -Alt- 5 buttons and my mouse. -

Sota requires me to use WASD and also- Key 1234 - 8 buttons and the mouse.
If i go fully random - i will end up with a total of much more buttons.

Some are suggesting to be able to switch decks during battle - that mean additonal buttons.

2. Eye Focus

Chivalry -requires me to focus on the screen middle - well i have no Combat UI or Cooldowns or Slugs ,
nothing -

My Eyes are focused on what the enemy is doing, what my team is doing . If i choose overhead view i have a relaxed control .
I have to look at how much blood and wounds a enemy has to judge if he is low on Health.
You do not have to watch out on Stamina - the sound your avatar does - exhausted voices tells you all you need.


Eye Focuse SotA -

I had to concentrate and react much more in SotA. Why.
Sota required me to multitask more during game.

I had to focus on the screen bottom what i am clicking - the random Skills ones mostly.

At the same time ( if you played melee like i did) i had to try to stay close to my target who of course was running away if he was mage trying to root

You again had to look at bottom to judge if your skills are becoming usable reaching the correct distance.
Of course above that all i should also keep in mind what further is going on on the screen. My Team Healthbars, my own healthbar, the cast animations.


Positioning

That was the most smacking difference i had between both systems.

I realy did not care much about running into other players , or running through them in SotA.
It does not matter.

It matters like hell in Chivalry the positioning of your Avatar.



Conclusion - What recommendations can i give from a total different system.

I do not want Chivalry, but i want to give suggestions from it to think if SotA could benefit from them.


My suggestions:


1. Remove the Cooldown Timers end replace them with Exhaust System.

What would that mean - Every Skill is usable without cooldown, but you get exhausted if you constantly spam them , some after using them 5 times in a row, some already after using them 3 times in a row, depending on the skill type.

The Cooldown is the natural swing time, or cast time anyhow. So if you do a strong spell you see a longer casting animation compared to a Magic Arrow.
If you swing a double bladed weapon it should have a longer animation time.
That would replace the cooldown timer on the bottom. The animation times replace cooldowns.
Let a hard attack also be a slower animation compared to a dagger attack.

How exhausted you are is easy for you to find out with your ears!. You can hear your Avatar gasp for air, and doing exhaustd sounds more and more, at the end you can hear your heart beat and becoming very slow in movement and becoming inable to swing.

Advantage : You do not have to look down for Cooldown. You just need to listen to the sounds your avatar is doing - Your Ears takeover the job of your Eye in regards to that.



2. Remove the inabitliy to swing your weapon if you are not close enough to your target.

Let us swing without hitting if we are not close enough.

It is a unessesary babysit to show us that we cant use that skill because we are to far away.
But locking the melee skill is a uneedid way of forcing us to look down.

If i miss with my skill i will know anyhow i was not close enough. I can hear it! Or even see it if you intigrate a animation



3. Consider the option to use blood on the clothing of a Avatar instead of red health bars.
This frees the screen more and is more realistic for many.


4. The Swing Speed of Weapons is Ultrafast of course in SotA as it has no meaning, because a real parry does not exist like in Chivalry.

But would it not be nice to see a difference in reach of a weapon and speed.


5. Instead of a Slug showing up you have to click away - why not just increase the time no skill shows up . No slug at all.

This would mean less to click. If you have heavy armor just increase the time until a new skill shows up.

The less things to watch out on the bottom UI, the more focus on the mid screen.




6. Most important feedback i have comparing!

Walking backwords should be much slower compared to walking forward.
This would solve the hole melee vs. mage distance problem.

You cant root if you run away turned away from the enemy. But if you walk backwards it means also the melee fighter charging forward can stick to you.


It is just plain unrealistic that you can move backwords the same as forwards.

If i want to get distance as a mage i root , but need to turn around to move fast away. Or i keep casting but move back slowly.




Thats it!


Hope you liked it.
I am totaly aware i have no clue about the mechanics and programming behind it. So if it is total crap , i have no problem if you smack the reality in my face.

 

I like that. I am all for an active combat without auto-attacks and doing away with cooldowns and substituting them with exhaustion is interesting. And we would keep the deck system plus having an active combat with standard actions that you can use on purpose.

 

Those suggestions seem really sound. I especially like the idea of Exhaust vs Cooldown. I am curious, though, whether some of these might already be in the pipeline (i.e. weapon speed and reach).

 

Weapon speed and reach are in theory already implemented, altough they aren't much noticeable at the moment. Health bars and damage numbers have been stated multiple times to be temporal, for testing purposes, with a in-model visual indicator (i.e. blood or thorn clothes) being the ultimate goal (let's hope they don't ditch it... there are too many people who wants their numbers and bars...)

I agree that those are very good sugestions indeed.

 

I am not feeling it. I would rather have touch screen enabled controls if the default SotA controls won't be in the game.

 

EXCELLENT POST!

 

I played today again and i must correct myself about weapon Speeds. You definatly can see differences.

 

yeah chivalery , darksouals style combat would be the best, but i dont think the developers are good enough to make a combat system that well. chivalery had long time to improve there system since the halflife mod age of chivalery.

if they would do such a combat i would defenetly give some money for the development.

problem is lag , chaivalery have a lot of hitboxes, they would need to be removed in an mmo.
mmo need to be instance based (sota is)
instances have to have a cap of max 30-40 players
there need to be several server (europe, us)


as i would love it , it would be impossible, especially the blocking mechanics from chivalery that you have to aim woudnt work in an mmo i think.
but how it could be done is with directional blocking
q for left block
e for right block
and right mouse for mid block

so you dont have to aim your blocks , but still have to watch the animation if he do a mid (overhead steb) or left or rightswing to block it properly

this together with a reactional blocking system (that you cant hold a block , that a fixed time ,how long your avatar will be blocking get implemented for excemple 3/4 sec)

what i know age of conan combat system worked in an mmo and it was fun , but sota wont get a combat system near compared to this sadly (more like runst melee combat lol)