Our input value when embarking on this latest redesign was an ambition to remove the four colored dimensions of attacks and restorations, in favor of a simpler, one dimensional, system, as we felt it ugly that one explicitly needed to cover four completely orthogonal dimensions of openings with corresponding restorations in one's combat school. We have, however, in the new system, found ourselves unable to actually remove that problem, as all further structure we have been able to imagine -- structure we feel necessary to increase the depth of the system -- with any immediate ease, have essentially all taken that same form of new, orthogonal opening debuffs, such as "Dizzy", "Opportunity Knocks", and the like, again necessetating the corresponding defenses. While it may seem obvious now, this was not a consequence we had immediately forseen, and thus we feel that we may as well revert to the previous, somewhat functional system, while we reorient ourselves.
Positives
- We're keeping the new armor model, for now. We don't hate it, and it leaves room for further development in terms of armor repair.
- The system for more extended tooltip generation, which is one of the points we spent a fair bit of time on, is still there. We won't be using it immediately -- as the old system didn't -- but it's there for future purposes.
- The system for local cooldowns on attacks and moves is still there, we're relatively happy about it, and we may still use that in the future.
- We have a new vantage point from which to look at the combat system, and we've found one approach which didn't work.
All is fair in love and war, and shit happens sometimes. We're going to give the situation some pause and thought, and return to it when we feel we have new and better ideas. We may consider pushing future changes to separate Valhalla servers, but I also didn't hate running this as a test on the real server, as we did get good and immediate feedback from doing so.
Thus: We're, apart from the armor changes, reverting to the old combat system, and there'll be a normal patch on Wednesday.
Enjoy!