Combat System: At what point is it ever worth defending?

[slipper]

Of course defending is worth it, it works in my sparring matches after we've stacked 40 coins on each other.

[Kaios]

what about the experienced fighters, do you all have a strategy or do you just punch and see who blows first?

The strategy right now is get a B12, if you don't have a B12 you're already dealing less damage than your opponent since a sword at low openings will deal maybe 5-10 damage whereas the B12 is dealing 20 and up (of course that is based on having quite low strength, it will only get higher with more).

From what I've seen and based on my experiences so far, a lot of people tend to just stack IP and stay defensive until they have an opportunity to use opp knock in combination with combat med for a quick raise of the highest opening and then what follows after is usually a one hit.

[Granger]

From what I've seen and based on my experiences so far, a lot of people tend to just stack IP and stay defensive until they have an opportunity to use opp knock in combination with combat med for a quick raise of the highest opening and then what follows after is usually a one hit.

Dosn't sound like a fun combat system at all.

[Fratari]

In my opinion, this is the worst iteration of the combat system I've seen. I like a couple of the ideas behind it, but it needs a big rebalance.

[joojoo1975]

Kaios or anyone else who has info

how many people out there do you know with either pure mc or ua builds?

[Kaios]

I'll answer your question with a question: Why bother raising melee combat when you can do the same damage with 1 mc as you can do with 500?

The buff to shield up is nice but still not worth it enough to raise mc over ua, to arms is worthless and the red opening added through parry is negligible. Combat med and oak stance are both better choices than any of the mc weighted maneuvers unless you're restricted to using only a sword and shield I suppose. You're using entirely unarmed moves to build your opponents openings and opp knock is unarmed weight as well.

People do raise mc up to a point but you're way better off with more unarmed at the moment.

[stickman]

people will raise your openings with attacks like punch etc... normally they will not raise your openings with their damage dealing ability due to long cooldowns and also the first hit would deal no damage because you dont have any openings yet.

So here is a more realistic combat scenario with punch and artful evasion at 5 points

#1 Punch gets you 20% off balance... deals 0 damage
#2 Punch gets you to 36% off balance (deminishing returns remember its 20% of the 80% u have left!)... take maybe 2 damage
#3 Punch gets you to 49% off balance... maybe does 7 damage

At this point your attacker might try using chop it will be very low damage though. Likely they will not and will either opportunity knocks you at this point or they will punch u again.... if they using combat med you need to watch how charged it so so that they cannot opp knocks and hit you immediatley. if you are punching them while they are gearing up for a combat med/opp knocks u will charge their combat med to full and they can hit you 2 times in a row without an opportunity to defend.

at this point you as the defender might use something like artful evasion, Feigned Dodge or if they only using green against u dash. Artful evasion with 5 points in it would remove 52% of the green. So that would bring it back down to 24%. with feigned dodge you could remove 22.5% of 49% so down to 38% and your opponent would gain 22% off balance... Dash would remove it completely of course.

thats a more realistic thing... Full melee wont work because some of the skills you need use unarmed weight... if you attack someone with 1 unarmed skill the delta will be maxed in your opponents favor and you will be sorry if they are using combat med and every attack you do against them that uses unarmed fills their combat med to 100%... they will be attacking lightning fast against you

[gigafunk]

I am a mmo veteran. I'm 36, played the full gambit of consoles from nes on. I have played uo, swg, wow,daoc...etc etc.
In fact, this game is as close I have found to a modern game with uo feel.

I have this same question. With 88 mc and 75 UA , I do better fighting boar and deer spamming chop with a shield than Trying any sort of using moves with purpose. I barely killed a moose and near the end started taking major damage. I suspect my openings were building up, but it wasn't until the moose took 500 DMG, so I kept spamming. Had I started defending, I would have dropped. Maybe this is why I should have defended earlier, butnit just seems opening build way faster thanbi can drop them.

If I try a deer with using proper moves and not spamming, I get tore up.


My opinions are
maybe 4 different kinds of openings are too many to balance all in one go. Maybe too many in general.
The system takes a lot of trial and error and error is very expensive. Not sure if that's good or bad.
My final opinion is this system in bad. I like wounds and long term damage, but the system is currently terrible. Beyond balance issues. I understand whatever combat needs to fit with the world and game. And I think its better than the old system, but not sure...that was so bad, and so is this.

I could get people to play if the combat was any good. But its not, so I can't. Maybe this game isn't for those types of players, but I think any game attempting real economy and feel need those types of players to drive demand for goods. If there is no niche for every type of player, then the game will always only be a half economy game. Its all about supply side players. No love for for demand side players.

Maybe I haven't figured out the combat. I have no clue why I would use more than one of any move in my deck for instance,is it a hang on from the last system?so that's possible, but dont tell me, this thread is not a place for my education

Maybe the system works for pvp, but it seems(or I seem) to fail at pve.

And to think that this was a major revision meaning its probably here to stay is sad for me, cause I can't even hope something better comes along. I'll play alone while my friends make fun of me and the games stupid combat system until I get bored and my place becomes nice loot down the road for some scavenger.

For the record, I couldnt make a better system, its just sad to see a great "game" hobbled by terrible combat.

[shubla]

Fighting against in combat is pretty much useless.
Best way to avoid getting rekt is to use alts for everything and design your place with proper claiming and walls.

[Thedrah]

i'm not a pvper but i think the multi colored attacks are best. they should theoretically do the most damage. like sting, raven's bite, or cleave with proper defenses down

i imagine chop/sideswipe/raven's bite while using b12 with death or glory would be the most adrenaline rush fight :3
or quick barrage(or take aim)/left hook/cleave with oak stance would be fun. only need ua as i don't believe skill affects damage

switching maneuvers is fun too, ebb and flow pattern, but seems boring some and the norm
almost wish we had the ability to switch the 10moves on demand hehe