What Light Armor combat should look like

I'm unhappy with the state of Light Armor combat.

I'm fighting in PvE, and I'm standing in place all the time. When I level up high enough, I'll be fighting five or more skeletons who are surrounding me, and they'll be hitting me, and because of my strong passive innates, I can just stand there and let them hit me without worrying. I'll go away for coffee for a few minutes and, during that time, my character stands there passively doing the dodging for me — or, at least, an equivalent of dodging, since actually dodging an attack and avoiding damage are different things in the game. When I return to my screen, my character will still be at full health, because I didn't have to do anything.



Even my active Light Armor skills keep me standing in the same place. I'll do Evasion, and, afterwards, I'm still standing in the same spot from which I started. Tumble wasn't a perfect skill, and replaced with Evasion for some good reasons, but removing Tumble has also removed some of the tactics from Light Armor combat, as well as the movement.

All in all, this is how Heavy Armor combat should feel. A plate armor wearer should be able to stand in one place as long as he's willing to have his armor absorb the damage. Though even Heavy Armor doesn't exactly work how it should; you can train passives that prevent your armor from taking any damage at all, which can be seen in this screenshot of Themo Lock idling —



The screenshot was used with permission from Themo Lock. I aggro'd as many wolves as possible onto him and they all just gathered around him to gnaw at him like a chew toy, continually missing, or hitting for 0 points of damage. Occasionally, they hit for up to 4 points of damage, but the health is quickly regenerated. This isn't how Heavy Armor combat should work.

And it definitely isn't how Light Armor combat work ! So, with that in mind, I felt it was about time to write a post about it.

To start out —

PASSIVE EVASION IS BAD FOR LONG-TERM GAMEPLAY.

In the current state of the game, combat is more fun in the beginning, when you start out fresh and at first level, because you actually have a challenge against the most common opponents. The more you level up, and the more your character passively does the work for you, the less fun combat becomes. Of course, you could always challenge yourself and try to seek out higher-level enemies, or greater groups of enemies. However, while challenging yourself should always be a goal when you level up, forcing the players to constantly seek higher and higher level enemies to fight is bad for the game in several ways.

- It obsoletes more and more of the content for the player as he levels up. Skill progression is good, but its bad to have a situation where 90% of the game has become boring simply because you've progressed. On the other hand, its good for all content in game to feel like its re-playable, and fun to re-play.

- It makes the game grindy, and encourages macro'ing. Just because a lot of the game content becomes boring as you level doesn't mean everyone will stop playing that content and move on. They'll just grind that content for skill gain and loot, farming the monsters over and over. In the screenshot I took of Themo Lock, he was actually there increasing his passive skills.

- At worse, it encourages level-gated areas in the game, and segregation of low and high level players. When they're not out grinding, high level characters will be seeking scenes tailored to their level. Of course, lower-level opponents and higher-level opponents make sense. Its good to have dragons (high-level) and wolves (low-level). Scenes that are more difficult to fight also make sense; for example, a scene with a skeleton army guarding a fortress, versus a small band of skeletons. But steep passive progression encourages entire scenes to be level gated by creating high and low level versions of the same content. Higher level characters will want to go to the higher level scenes when they want a challenge or XP; they'll go to the lower level scene when they want skill gain or loot. On the one hand, they'll go to scenes that low-level characters won't even enter, and on the other, they'll be effortlessly stealing kills from low-level characters.

- At best, it encourages low-level characters to piggy back on high-level characters without effort. On the other hand, a low-level character can still join a party with a high-level character and use him to effortlessly earn XP. While its good to have players help others and ease certain parts of the gameplay, the way this would work in practice is hugely imbalanced.

- It makes PvP competitiveness more difficult. While I don't agree with the argument that its possible for a low-level character to defeat a higher-level character, I still think there's a good argument that the curve should be flattened a bit.

- It erases the difference between different forms of armor and different playstyles. This is more to the central point of the post, although the other points are also important as well. If you can level up in any type of armor and your passive evasion increases to the point where its easy to avoid hits from certain enemies at high level, no matter what type of armor, then all playstyles become very similar at the high end. You can be a Heavy Armor fighter, bash enemies and avoid attacks. You can be a Light Armor fighter, bash enemies and avoid attacks. You can be mage, send out spell damage, and avoid attacks. You can be an armor, send out arrows, and avoid attacks. This is what the game should try to avoid -- it makes game choices feel cosmetic rather than purposeful.

With this last point in mind —

LIGHT ARMOR AND HEAVY ARMOR SHOULD PLAY COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY.

By this, I don't mean simply different forms of passive innates, such as damage deflection versus damage avoidance or damage deflection versus damage avoidance. Nor do I mean different form of attack skills, such as body slams versus increase in attack speeds. The thought behind those are a good start, but the experience of playing both skillsets are similar. The skillsets game-wise are different ways of managing DPS. The GAMEPLAY, however, feels almost exactly the same.

Instead, the gameplay should feel different for both :
- LIGHT ARMOR should rely mostly on ACTIVE SKILLS by the player, done in the heat of combat, acting and re-acting to the opponent, rather than passive skills trained beforehand. To the extent that there are passive skills, they should increase the effectiveness of the active skills.
- HEAVY ARMOR should rely mostly on PASSIVE SKILLS by the player, trained beforehand, rather than active and re-active combat. To the extent that there are active skills, they should increase the effectiveness of the passive skills.

WHY THINGS RIGHT NOW ARE INSUFFICIENT.

Right now, Light Armor skills boost movement and attack speed and some do active damage avoidance. Acrobatics gives passive resistance, though, which ends up removing the player's need to rely on active skills.

Heavy Armor skills are focused on deflection, absorbance, strength, stun and knockdown resistance. But its primary active defense skills, feel functionally like duplicates of the active defense skills in the Light Armor skillset, even if they're somewhat different.

WHY TUMBLE WAS SO GREAT.

So, I've talked about Tumble a lot on the forums before, and don't want to be repetitive on the subject, but there's a reason I liked it. That said, there were some good reasons to replace Tumble with Evasion and I understand them. It only moved in one direction, like Chris said in the hangout, while combat rolls could move in both directions. However, I was disappointed when he said that Evasion was the same as Tumble, just without the animation of the avatar moving. Movement is an important part of active defense.

Moving away from an opponent in the game gives you a defensive advantage. That space between you and your opponent gives you a second to put up a defense glyph without worrying about being hit. The great dilemma in active combat is that you have to constantly manage your defense and offense. If you're engaged in an opponent and you use a defense glyph, you're forefeiting an attack in the same period. At the same time, your opponent can still attack you. Even though you're putting up a defense, you can still be attacked, while you could be attacking. However, if you're a second away from the enemy, you can put up a defense without worrying about being attacked.

But, on the other hand, actually moving in the game also leaves you open to attack. What Tumble did was give you defensive cover while you moved, which didn't always spare you from an attack. However, then, you were moved away, and could put up a second defense glyph, free from an attack.

Tumble gave a Light Armor player a tactical advantage that Evasion doesn't, and also required you to be re-active and think out your moves. It allowed me to level up in earlier builds, without relying on Heal spells or healing potions. Occasionally, I did have to run away. But it was a great tool for light armor combat, as I described in my Light Armor tactical guide. But it wasn't just me -- I've talked to a lot of other players who've said the same thing and said it made Light Armor combat more effective. I've also talked to others who've told me that they don't like that it's gone.

Don't listen to people who say Tumble was useless or Evasion is just as good! It's not true!

However —

THE WAYS TUMBLE FAILED.

That said, you could say there were several weaknesses with Tumble.

- It felt redundant with combat rolls, which moved you in any direction you wanted. Combat rolls didn't give you the extra evasion from damage avoidance, but they were better in other ways. You need to be able to choose your roll direction in fights with multiple opponents.

- It was a bit cumbersome to use in PvP, where players were more reactive than a PvE opponent. The main benefit of Tumble in PvE was in using two defensive glyphs at once. The fact that you could rely on certain opponents being slow in PvE helped. So, in PvP, it might be easier to move away than use Tumble.

- What's happening in combat isn't always very obvious, meaning the advantages of Tumble weren't always intuitive. As described above, using Tumble advantageously relied on the intuition that it mattered whether you used an attack or defensive glyph. But when you deflect, you don't actually see yourself deflecting a blow. When you dodge, you don't see yourself actually dodging a blow. The fact that you were gaining something by moving away (and being protected while moving away) wasn't obvious.

- The passive defenses you gain as you level up, and from Dexerity, and from Acrobatics, outweigh a reliance on active defenses, especially when you're competing against low level opponents. Once you level up in the game, you can, as I said, stand in a group of skeletons and let them hit you over and over again, and you didn't even have to worry about it. You might even use passive defenses once in a while, but the planning involved in Tumble becomes more cumbersome than is necessary.

TYING COMBAT ROLLS TO LIGHT ARMOR SKILLS.

Combat rolls should be tied to Light Armor skills. First off, Swiftness and Dexterity should increase the quickness and speed of combat rolls. However, Light Armor passives should also make combat rolls work more like Tumble did. Combat rolls should have some base damage avoidance, and have this increased by the Acrobatics passive.

So, for example, ACROBATICS: +4 Damage Avoidance to combat rolls (Increases with higher skill).

Also, encumbrance and heavy armor should - 1. slow down combat rolls, - 2. decrease their damage avoidance, and - 3. cause Focus drain when attempting a roll. This would subtract the advantages of combat rolls while encumbered or wearing heavy armor, as well as add a disadvantage (Focus drain).

REMOVING RELIANCE ON PASSIVE SKILLS.

Currently, Acrobatics Acrobatics gives a +x amount to Damage Resistance. This should be done away with.

At best, it should be +x to Damage Resistance while moving. What does an Acrobatics skill help when you're STAYING STILL? Acrobatics is all about movement. The Stillness buff should cancel out Acrobatics, and, so, Acrobatics innates should only kick in when the player starts to move.

At best, as I said, because I'd like to see Acrobatics give bonuses to Damage Avoidance in combat rolls, to make them more like Tumble, and get Light Armor players to rely on combat rolls more. But I don't think it hurts, either, to give Damage Resistance bonuses to a player while moving. As long as the Light Armor player is staying on his feet to be defensive.

It does also create an interesting tactical dilemma for a Light Armor + Ranged skillset. Because Ranged gets benefits from Stillness, while Acrobatics would give bonuses to movement. So someone completely relying on his Ranged, and no hand-to-hand weapon, would have to carefully manage movement vs. stillness to win his battles. As it should be. Archers shouldn't be unnaturally powerful. There are currently some problems with Archery, but they lie in other areas IMO.

MAKING TUMBLE "TUMBLE" AGAIN.

By this, I don't mean making it work just like a combat roll, but in a random direction. What I mean, is that I think it could be more than just an "Evasion" skill; more than just a better version of Dodge. Right now its not absolutely clear to the beginner user what makes the Dodge Modifier different than Damage Avoidance.

For starters, it could work just like Evasion, but it would have extra uses. For example,
- Using Tumble in the middle of a combat roll would do an extra tumble in the middle of the roll, extending its distance.
- Using Tumble while falling or right before falling, would help mitigate fall damage, by doing a roll as you fell, as long as its effects were still active.
- Using Tumble before a knockback/knockdown could help brace you and reduce its effect.

But finally, cool skillweaving/combos.
Magic: Tumble + Gust, etc.
Melee: Tumble + Sprint, Tumble + Whirling Blades, Tumble + Spinning Attack, etc.

You can't do any of those combos with "Evasion." Evasion is boring and vague and doesn't bring up any interesting ideas. "Tumble" would roll you in place, as it did in earlier builds of R25, have the advantages of Evasion, and have extra uses, either in special contexts, or in combos.

ACTIVE KNOCKDOWN AND KNOCKBACK RESISTANCE.

Heavy Armor has a good passive for stun, knockdown, and knockback resistance, Hard Headed, and also an active skill for recovering from knockdown effects, Knight's Grace. I don't have a problem with that. However, just look at the Thief-Acrobat class in D&D you see a lot of skills like Balance, Steady Stance, Kick Up, etc. Acrobats are good at balancing themselves and keeping themselves from being knocked down. With Heavy Armor, you can and should rely on passives, of course. With Light Armor, you should rely on actives to be kept from being knocked down.

Like suggested above, Tumble could help. Knockdown resistance could also be given to Defensive Stance in the Tactics tree — which makes sense. It would also add more to making combat feel fun than having it just be a long cooldown passive defense modifier. And while it does have a long cooldown, it won't undo the advantages of Heavy Armor for knockdown resistance, as it has a cost in your deck, and a cost to train. Some Light Armor passive could also increase the effectiveness of active knockdown prevention. Or, there could always be some other active skill, with a shorter cooldown. To be helpful, it would probably need to have a second function, in case there weren't any knockdowns coming.

LIGHT ARMOR SKILLWEAVING.

While there was announcement that the focus for skillweaving would move to Magic and Ranged, I don't see it going away completely for melee, and I hope it doesn't. There are some melee combos currently in the game that I don't expect to be removed.

Yes, its harder to use combos in melee with the new WASD system of free attack. But, if Light Armor combat relies on moving around -- using things like combat rolls -- then that movement buys you the time to prepare these combos. So Light Armor, quick active movement, combat rolls, and combos all go together. Yes, combos do give a type of advantage to rotating deck users. But, this is offset by the problems of using combos with WASD; combos to be used effectively will need to be prepared ahead of time, so they can be used at the last minute. Combos will need to be prepared moves.

Roguish combat relies tactical planning and reflexes, anyway. My current skillset as a Light Armor user is more than can fit on my combat bar anyway, as it is, and I have to use some rotating slots just to fit in the skills I want to use. I have to juggle Light Armor + Blades + Shield + Tactics + Subterfuge. These don't fit in the 10 skill slots. Plus, I fit in Gust, just to give me quick escape, and Flame Fist just so I can use itwith combos. I want to be able to pull out Smoldering Shiv and Flaming Bash from my bag of tricks. As a roguish player, I'm a jack-of-all-trades, and that makes me depend on rotating slots to use all my skills. Ultimately, for a roguish skillset to be used most effectively, you'll need rotating slots, anyway.

When combat is so fast, I can't rely on my skills, I go back to free attack. But the rotating slots let me pull out those tricks from my bag. This is the life of being a rogue.

- TUMBLE COMBOS. Like I mentioned, Tumble is a good source of combos for skillweaving, and Evasion, as a kind of vague skill, doesn't match it.
- SHIELD COMBOS. Like I suggested in this thread on Shield skills, there are skills missing from the Shield tree that can be achieved through combos, like binding, punching, and takedowns.
- CONSUMABLE COMBOS. Whether caltrops, explosion potions, or anything else, combining these or using them with magic could be deadly.
- SUBTERFUGE + LIGHT ARMOR COMBOS. Synergy between subterfuge and light armor would make them fit well together.

SKILLWEAVING VS. COMBOS.

As suggested with the combination of Tumble with rolls, it might be possible to make combos of skills trigger when you use them in succession, rather than by combining them before hand. While its not possible to do this with a lot of magic skills, which need to be combined beforehand — ie combining different elements together to produce something different -— it might make sense with melee skills.

ACTIVE BLOCKING.

As I've suggested in other threads, it would be a big benefit to the way combat feels if, when you had a shield, could switch handedness, and turn your free attack into a free block. With dual-wielding, that would also allow you to turn your free attack into a free block, by parrying. Another interesting consequence of this is it would allow you to do fire damage with a torch in your second hand, if wielding a torch.

In free block, the game could also require you to "charge up" your shield for an effective block, to avoid some of the passive defense that we see elsewhere in the game.

Some passive defensive advantages would still exist when using a shield in any case, but they would be lesser than what they are now. The way to use your shield to its fullest advantage would be through free blocking or using your shield skills. The passive defenses while in free block could also be greater than in free attack.

REDUCING THE ACTIVENESS OF HEAVY ARMOR ACTIVE SKILLS.

So, as I suggested above, I think Acrobatics should be modified so as to reduce the passiveness of Light Armor passives. In return, the activeness of heavy armor actives should be reduced.

Right now, as it stands, in the Heavy Armor tree Glancing Blow (first-tier) does Damage Avoidance for a few seconds. Go over to the Light Armor skill tree, and you see Evasion (second-tier) increases Damage Avoidance for a few seconds. How are these different? Why is it easier to get a Damage Avoidance skill as a Heavy Armor user than as a Light Armor user, where you have to go down to a second skill tier?

Absorbs Impact makes more sense, because you know it requires your armor to eat up the damage. If I'm not mistaken, any Heavy Armor user will eat up more damage regardless, because of the way armor works, but still... Heavy Armor shouldn't be better at active skills than Light Armor; it should rely on passive skills. So, IMO, this is something that has to be rethought.

If Glancing Blow remains, it's bonus should be much lower than Evasion/Tumble, and should depend on the Deflection passive, or some other passive, to boost it up. Or, otherwise, force some armor absorption (less than the -100% from Absorbs Impact), which could only be mitigated by a Passive.

EVEN HEAVY ARMOR PASSIVES SHOULDN'T BE WITHOUT A COST.

Even though Heavy Armor should rely on the passive benefits of wearing heavy armor, making the player invulnerable to enemies low-level enough doesn't lead to good long-term gameplay. The passive skills should still lead to the armor absorbing damage.

In so much as Heavy Armor relies on active skills, the best purpose of active skills should be to save your armor, by limiting the amount of damage it absorbs. Absorbs Impact does make sense as a Heavy Armor skill, and, on its own, I wouldn't complain about it. But, still, it makes more sense for that to be a passive skill.

The active skills would be like Deflection, which is currently a passive skill, and, as described, is meant to deflect a percent of the damage received. It still shouldn't nullify all damage, though, making you invulnerable to any enemy. Passively, you should be able to increase your ability to absorb damage into the armor. Actively, you should be able to mitigate the amount of damage that has to be absorbed.

Those changes would make Heavy Armor make sense, along with the above described changes that would make Light Armor make sense. Both would prevent the high-level evasion passives that make the combat boring.

ARCHERY AND MAGERY.

I'm sure a lot of players who read this might wonder how these changes would benefit archers and mages, who routinely play with Light Armor. Making defenses active, and making Stillness cancel out the Acrobatics skill seems like it would make the game more difficult for them.

Still, I think the solution for archers and mages has to be found in other places. Just from an intuitive point of view, it doesn't make sense for someone standing still to make use of the Light Armor skills, anyway. Archery done while moving should, if possible, require high skill level... under normal circumstances, archery should require tactical position, or stealth, to do sniping. Archery as sniping should be the easiest, most safest course. I'm skeptical of the whole viability of a "pure archer" and even myself get annoyed with elf archers and skeleton archers that just run around and never tire or stop and pull out a dagger. Chasing around elf archers and skeleton archers in PvE feels like a Benny Hill skit. I'm sure it feels the same way for some in PvP, both for the archers and the people defending against them. Constantly moving around as an archer can't be fun. I don't see a reason to butter up that type of mechanic; running around in circles isn't fun for anyone. I don't say that out of disregard for people who want to play pure archers. I just think that its a problematic game mechanic. I want them to put more focus on making deck swapping better.

Yet, expert archers could always still have a high-tier passive which would make Stillness kick in sooner, and extend the Stillness buff they have so it keeps even while they're moving. So, for the sake of discussion, let's call it "Steady Hands."

So, for example, STEADY HANDS: Stillness buff lasts 0.5 seconds after moving and kicks in 0.5 seconds sooner while still.

Leveling that up could increase it that to 1 seconds, to 1.5 seconds, etc. It could either be in the Ranged skilltree or the Focus skilltree.

When the cover system comes in, Subterfuge stealth could also be modified to take better advantage of both cover and shadow (especially at night), giving players who use those skills a tactical advantage. The way I imagine Subterfuge stealth to work is, instead of making the player invisible — like with an invisibility spell — it would blend the player into his environment (translucency), the more he's under cover or shadow. Moving in broad daylight would make him fully visible, but would still silence movement (mute the sounds of his footsteps).

Other types of mechanics outside of Light Armor could help pure mages. My suggestion for magic, as many on the forums probably well know, is to tie low-tier spells to reagents. The mage would then lower his dependency on reagents with a staff for a particular school of magic, which would lower reagent use for that one school by lowering fizzle rate. So a Fire Mage could pick up a Fire Staff, which would attune him to Fire magic and lower his fizzle rate in that school. A sword-wielder using Fire magic, though, would have to use reagents or put up with fizzling. While that does very little to help by itself, it does give pure mages an advantage in using magic over mêlée users. It would prevent mêlée users from overpowering themselves vs. pure mages by adding magic to the mix. If those spells were tied to reagents, it also would give room for their effectiveness to be increased.

My ongoing point here is just that there are more intuitive ways to help out archers and mages than putting a particular focus for them on Light Armor skills. Why is a "pure mage" learning Light Armor skills, anyway? Light Armor is a fighter skill, a mêlée skill. Light Armor isn't "Robes", its Light Armor, with emphasis on Armor. A "pure mage" would want to avoid learning Light Armor skills in the first place and try to gain defenses through magic. Put focus on that. Defensive magic. Benefits to casting for pure mages, like casting through a staff. A "pure archer" would want to increase his archery skills, not his armor skills. Or subterfuge skills. Put focus on that.

Don't make Light Armor defenses passive to avoid dealing with those other issues.

Still, both archers and mages could still learn Light Armor skills and put them to use. Both could take advantage of active defenses, even if they don't use it while they're attacking. There are times that both might want to avoid damage, rather than dish it out.

Also, at the same time, I think some of my suggestions also can help build up archer and mage skillsets, if not in a direct way.

First of all, the more players rely on active defense, the more actively dodging or countering attacks becomes a normal part of combat, which removes some concerns about damage from arrows and other ranged attacks. A free block mode would be a good counter against an archer, even if it gave a disability in attacking. Free block could also be good for staves, which mages would use. But, in any rate, active dodging or active blocking would be a tool to avoid high damage from archers.

LOOK AT WITCHER 3 COMBAT.

While combat in Witcher 3 isn't perfect, there are a lot of things that are fun about it. First, active dodge rolls matter, and they're key to getting out of the way, avoiding damage and winning a fight. Fighting against someone actively using a shield is tricky business and you have to try to get behind them to do damage; this gives tactics to shield combat. Parrying is fun; you could choose to hold your sword out in a guard position, to parry incoming moves. Being hit by an arrow hurts, and hitting with an arrow requires skill.

The bad thing about it is, especially with a lot of system lag, and your witcher automatically jumping towards a target with an attack, its easy to feel out of control with all the jumping around. But those aspects of Witcher 3 combat are easy to avoid.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER.

Some people here might agree and others might disagree with these suggestions. Personally, I think this direction would make combat so much better, and gameplay so much better.

It would avoid the grindiness of having passive evasion and defensive invulnerability as you level up. It would make combat feel more engaging. It would make the Heavy and Light Armor skillsets feel different as far as the gameplay goes. It points in a different direction for solutions to archery and magery.

 

First let me say that I have NOT read that hugh "wall'o'text" - beyond the first page.

But, looking at your pics, you've picked the lowest of the low to prove your point ( IE plain Tier 1 Skels and Tier 1 Wolves).

Go to a Tier 5 and then tell me you just "stand there" and they miss much....
I'd love to see that.

 

Yea, that doesn't contradict any of the points I'm making. Its something I specifically address; read the wall of text, or whatever you want to call it. You shouldn't be able to stand around passively and be invulnerable to 1 tier monsters just because you've gained skills.

 

The stand around and be invuln is solely tied to adventurer level currently...

Having said that, I do agree with most of the WoT. Really need to revamp light armor and combat design in general.

 

Hah, I agree with Frost here. Look at the screenshot. "Grey Wolf" is a skull 1 mob as you said, "Large Grey Wolf" is a Skull 2 mob. Correct me if Im wrong, but I thaught themo was level 100?

In what MMO can a level 100 player stand still surrounded by level 5-15 (effective) mobs and actually take damage from them that hurts? Ummm, I cant think of any...

If your going to test something, have the test even close to real. A level 100 player vs level 5 mobs... pro.

 

I would agree with you, but only to a certain point.
If my defensive skills and armor are high enough, then the lowest of the low mobs just can't hit me much (Plate/Leather or even Cloth).
I'd still like for you to test your theory on higher tier mobs and then see if they hit you more often........ (Hint: They will!)

 

Never said they didn't FrostII. The point of the post is that the defensive skills should be re-oriented to active skills, not passive skills. You'd still be able to avoid damage from low-tier monsters, just not by sitting there. If you have heavy armor on, you should be able to sit there and absorb damage, of course, to the cost of your armor durability. But light armor should require... doing something, at least.

Also, the 90% of the game shouldn't be boring just because you're high level. The more that is the case, the more you can also make the game so low level characters can have fun fighting harder monsters, too.

 

Actually, come to think of it, one of Richard's last games, Tabula Rasa, my Engineer could pull an entire base of bane in a zone 20 levels lower then me and they did 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.


Even though I may agree with some of your post, I guess I just hate VERY BIASED input while testing. A better and more productive test would be do find say melee players spread 10 levels apart, and have them swing 1000 times on a level 100(with healers obviously keeping said player up). Like a 60 70 80 90, and parse out what the miss rates are for level ranges, and then determine whats fair from that point as melee. 100 vs 15... Thats just not a test, thats common sense.

 

@Zephyrstorm,

Well yea, what you're describing isn't good for the game But my post isn't really about balancing numbers, but how combat in general should work. @FrostII, you should read the whole thing before critiquing ;>

 

As far as just standing in one spot in combat I have just one thing to say..

Move first.. block second. A reality I've yet to see properly employed in any combat system. Standing around in one spot and letting things hit you is nothing short of lunacy.

 

The normal strategy of a pure mage is to stay out of battle. Cloth armor does not help much with survival. As the game is laid out currently, a pure mage build is a monk.

I have 95 acrobatics on my mage and he still has to kite. I hope there will be some valid shields and ranged attacks to help to be a pure mage rather than a monk/tank mage

 

I'll read it when you condense it... 'Till then, I stand by my comments.

 

I did read it all! here's a general impression about each point.

I agree with all the points mentioned, and i feel the same way about almost every innate in the game. They are just "increases", and since not having them makes you less capable, you need to have them. If they're mandatory, it's not the same as if nobody has them in the first place? No wonder why Blizzard removed passive skills from the talent trees a long time ago.

Frostll has a point regarding evasion and the level of the monsters; let's remember that miss chance increases as the level difference does... nonetheless it's still the same. Evade less or Evade more... it's still passive Evasion.

I'm not so with you on this one. The fun is in the active skills, the game should promote to have more active skills! Currently both armor trees have actives and innates... and i agree with you that the defensive mechanics are played the same way. But i don't want to see heavy armor relying mostly on passives. I'd like for both trees to have active skills; light armor having mainly skills to be used in the moment, granting advantage over your enemies if used right (dodge + reposition, dodge + disorient etc) While heavy armor may rely mostly on actives that increases defense but consume focus.

As can be deducted from the previous paragraphs, agreed.

I think it failed more than anything else, mostly because the distance travelled wasn't enough to compensate the small CD... i preferred the latter implementation of Dodge because it doesn't have CD at all and i can run further than Tumble. But personal experience aside, I wish it worked more in the way you described in the "was so great" part.

+1. Roll as just "movement" is ineffective against almost every mob. They should do something (maybe they do?).

I agree as well. But i'm more in the lines of removing innates that just increases stuff you already have (like this one).

I like the suggestions here. I'd go in the lines of something even more different for the base glyph that movement + damage avoidance. Maybe automatically moving when you're first hit?

Nice! active uses are always welcome.

I see what you did there i'd love to see more combos, not only restricted to magic. The ones you suggest are pretty cool.

I like the sequential implementation more than the one we have now. It seems more "natural", even when talking about magic... there are some combos that radically changes one of the involved skills, but you can solve that by changing the way the second skill works. For example, to pull out Sacrifice you use healing ray over a mate, and if you use death ray after that it increases the healed amount while damaging yourself (just noticed how useless is this combo now that atunement is in lol).

Love it! i remember looking at your blocking post and thinking "man that looks cumbersome" but the concept is great.

Here i disagree. Heavy armor is better at damage avoidance because damage avoidance stat is related to how blows just slide over your armor. You can achieve that with positioning, but it will be always easier with a heavy armor (which is inclined to do so). I'd like to see Heavy armor depending on active skills as well, but i'd like to see them play different than the ones in light armor. For example, Tumble gives you damage avoidance as long as you don't stop moving, and Glancing blow gives you serious damage avoidance increase but everytime you're hit your character stops and perform a little animation.

Kind of agree, but see previous paragraph... also, remove innates!

I like what you say here... only disagree with the "nobody likes to run in circles" part. Probably i'm odd, but that's what made me enjoy the build i've been playing since i backed the game (ranged with wind magic). It's matter of keeping your distance, slow or stun your enemy then do a couple of shoots. Nonetheless i like everything you said, and i think it can benefit my playstyle. (don't like to see more innates, though).

I've played TW3 and the combat is fun, but i don't see it as an example of what we have here... mostly because they're two different kinds of combat.

To sum it up, i mostly agree with everything you said, but i'd stress more the removing of innate skills. I'd like to see innate benefits reduced and directly linked to the amount of skill points distributed on the skill tree. That encourages players to raise active skills, and also encourages active skills to be different, so they can be combined and used effectively in combat (nobody likes raising a skill he's not going to use)

Thank you for the wonderful post! let's hope for more changes along the suggested lines.

 

The way I understand it, the game is currently designed for PvE combat to work differently from PvP combat. So as an example.. as a high-level player, you could walk up to a dozen low-level wolves, and they couldn't hurt you. (like you see in the picture of Themo). Then you could step back, and watch just one of those wolves kill a low level player. So something that can't even hurt you, can kill someone else. Intuitively, you would think hmm, you should be able to kill this player even easier than that wolf did! But in the current system, that would be very wrong. PvP combat works differently than PvE, and for me, that ruins the ability to enjoy this game. Because it's not intuitive. The goal of the game should be to make players and NPC's difficult to distinguish. Fighting one should feel the same as fighting the other. So if we're leveling the playing field for all players no matter their experience, then the same must be done vs. NPC's.

I like what redfish and KuBaTRiZeS have to say about innates and agree on those points. ;-D

 

Dark Souls has IMO one of the best systems ever for doing light vs. heavy armor in a game.

Basically in their system the heavier the armor is the more it reduces the amount of damage you will take when you get hit (pretty standard), but it also has an encumbrance rating that slows down the speed of your dodge-rolls. A really heavily armored character that tries to roll out of the way basically just sort of flops on his back to the side, then gets up a few seconds later. (What people in Darksouls call a fatty-roll) At the same time heavy armor gives you a stat called "Poise", which is your resistance to being knocked around.

That duality basically means that heavily armored characters in dark souls are bad at avoiding hits alltogether, because trying to dodge with a heavy armor character can mean you're on the ground for so long that your enemies followup attack connects, but you are much better at blocking incoming hits, because the extra armor can reduce that amount of damage you take through the block to virtually zero, and the high poise means that even blows from massive enemies are unlikely to throw you to the ground if you block them and take their impact.


Of course that exact system wouldn't work for an MMO that has to contend with much more latency, but I think the general premise is sound:

Both heavy and light armor have an active defense function, one in the shape of moving out of the way of attacks, the other in the shape of blocking attacks.

Guildwars 2 does dodging in a pretty sensible way for an MMO, by simply treating the second or so that you're tumbling around as invulnerability, so the game doesn't have to worry about the exact location of blades and spells, if you hit dodge when they would have otherwise connected the game simply says you dodged it. Getting a little speed boost out of it helps with avoiding ongoing AoEs and other danger areas on top of that.

I think Champions Online does a pretty good job with their blocking system, by basically just giving you the ability to hold down a button that puts you in block mode, where you move slow, can't attack, but mitigate easily 90% of the incoming damage. The system there only has one problem, which is that blocking in Champions doesn't stop you from regaining health. I think you shouldn't be able to block your way back to full health, since that encourages just perma-blocking to reset the fight if you ever get low. Instead the game should make sure that when you block you don't die quickly, but you die eventually, so that there is a good incentive to get out of blocking and back into the fight, it just lets you mitigate huge blows by getting your guard up, or bunker up long enough for your friends to save you.


Another thing about dodging: I think Witcher 3 does dodging extremely well, because it doesn't just give you the "dodge roll" function, but also an even cooler function called footwork, which is much faster, much shorter range, and can be chained together with attacks, letting you dance out of the path of an incoming blade by a hair's width and instantly be in position for a punishing counterblow. It also looks a lot more realistic than someone tumbling around on the ground in places where even just your regular footing would be unsure.

 

***Psst **** You could just point out the recent video Themo posted of a run in the hilt to see the difference and compare it to the above shown picture Noticed that his health went down fairly nicely in some spots doing something similar in Hilt compared to the picture

 

The kobolds in Hilt are pretty easy though. It must be further into the complex.

Though its worth noting, although I've found with higher tier enemies where big group fights might be difficult, with a lot of enemies, one-on-one fights might be still easy. In those fights, even if I take hits, they might be nothing to worry about, since the amount of damage I'll be dealing will be higher. It also doesn't hurt that Healing Touch is so easy to use. And of course, there are still some monsters in the game that I'd still have difficulty taking on one-on-one. But the bigger point is about why defense is so passive.

 

Although using the paragon Themo who is level 1 billion probably isn't helping your case, you do have a point. A player using light armor should fundamentally, in my opinion need to actually avoid taking hits in order to survive.

 

Exactly. The advantage of light armour is that it allows the wearer to move freely and thus avoid damage. Not to sid down and take 0 or little damage as it is at the moment.

 

@Jordizzle,

When there are no wipes, eventually most players here will be at Themo Lock's level. Which is why its relevant looking even at Themo Lock. But I was looking at my own game experience, too, so.