A few issues with combat

[Kaios]

Regarding the combat mechanics, there are a few things that I currently dislike. Actually more than a few but for the sake of attempting to improve what we have rather than think of and suggest something entirely new I will list what I feel is working rather poorly at the moment.

1. Uppercut is currently too powerful of a punch. Using it in conjunction with flex allows for greater damage over the course of a fight than you might apply with any other punch or melee attack depending on how good your opponent is at keeping their openings down. It feels extremely dumb to me that a majority of the damage in a fight is being applied by a 0 ip punch with 30 cd which also opens a high amount of yellow opening causing most to provide further ip to their opponent through the use of zig zag if they don’t also have regain composure on or some other yellow reduction defense instead.

The powerfulness of uppercut is further increased by a lack of variety in strong punches. Most unarmed attacks used are chosen because they have low to zero ip cost, a short cooldown, and provide a decent amount of opening to your opponent. These are predominantly flex, uppercut, and knock its teeth out. Occasionally you will also see regular Punch used but mostly by players utilizing B12 and raven’s bite. You can also use it with full circle which makes for a more ideal method of chipping away at your opponent’s hp still with no ip cost, hitting at medium levels of yellow opening and also providing green opening to eventually land a sting can eat away at hp rather quickly.

The rest of the unarmed attacks aren’t really worth their cost in ip or cooldown to make them worth using over the reliable three. Allowing for such easy methods of low hp chipping hits greatly reduces the available opportunities in combat for both high stat players and low stat players alike, though obviously this impacts lower stat players more.

But yeah, uppercut, high damage, low cooldown, opens a colour that is often lowered by +2 giving ip move while it costs no ip itself.

2. Parry. I probably don’t need to go in to much detail about parry because I think many players are already aware of how overpowered this maneuver can be. In previous worlds I do not recall unarmed attacks ever being affected by parry and yet now every single punch along with the melee attacks used on a parry player are providing blue opening in return. I don’t think that is how it’s supposed to be.

3. Agility? Maybe? I know it’s “capped at 20%” or something whatever the hell that means but something about agility and cooldowns in combat does not feel right. I find that it has become so incredibly difficult to ever find an opportunity to take a nice, meaty chunk out of your opponent. What I mean by that is, whenever I’m trying to make use of opp knocks in 1v1 it feels like a fruitless endeavour. There are very few times when my opp knock cooldown manages to beat the cooldown of whatever attack was used last by my opponent and vice versa for them against me, we always seem to lower the opening raised by opp knock if not once then twice before the other person manages to get their big hit in.

I guess what I’m saying my problem with that is to me it seems like there is a lack of punishment for making mistakes or using the high cooldown moves when you shouldn’t be. If a player doesn’t have to rely on getting any bigger hits in at all and can simply chip away at your hp with low cost/low effort attacks then they have no reason to take any risk in the fight and the lower stat player has no recourse available.
-

I’m not certain what it is but it feels like there is a piece of the puzzle missing. I enjoyed combat a lot more when dealing a significant amount of damage was something based not only on a player’s stats but also their skills, now it comes across more like a button mashing mess and less of a game in tactics and strategy.

Some steps that I think would be best to take at this time would be to focus on balancing the current set of moves to make many of them more useful than they presently are so that there might actually be some variety between decks and to improve the current set of weapons for example boar spear to make them more viable in both pve and pvp. Figure out this whack ass penetration disparity between the boar spear and the swords and the b12 because some shit is going on there too so much so that even armor class is creating an incredibly large gap between players before taking stats in to account.

Eventually adding in some new moves and weapons might be nice but first what we have is in dire need of attention.

[terechgracz]

It feels extremely dumb to me that a majority of the damage in a fight is being applied by a 0 ip punch with 30 cd.

Doesn't feel dumb at all. In other mmo games basic attacks costing 0 mana/energy/stamina deal most damage too.


Actually the most annoying thing in current combat is that it is just stat based. Agility is only for cooldown, str only for damage, con only for tanking. If we had moves that used str/agi/con/stealth for calculating weights we could have much more varied combat. Adding move or two which aren't affected by cooldown and attack weights will make combat more skillfull, by making weaklings prone to use them.
So currently everyone just goes max every combat stat and thats all. I would like people going ultra agi/str because there are nice attacks scaling with it, or con because there could be ie. restorations scaling with it. It would bring more variety but also harder balancing, but there could be added just move at time. Probably adding new move every patch or two will make PvP more interesting because then everyone would need to rethink their decks constantly and you'll see more and more varied decks after some time.

But another problem comes in, if we add new moves, there is need for learning them fast. I suggest making UI for buying skills for your 'kills', so you kill 1 bat, you gain 1 bat point, then you can buy move that costs 1 bat point and x amount of experience. There also would be dismishing returns for gaining kill points. And experience cost giving more use to questing which will be needed after there's hunger removed from game .

3. Agility? Maybe? I know it’s “capped at 20%” or something whatever the hell that means but something about agility and cooldowns in combat does not feel right. I find that it has become so incredibly difficult to ever find an opportunity to take a nice, meaty chunk out of your opponent. What I mean by that is, whenever I’m trying to make use of opp knocks in 1v1 it feels like a fruitless endeavour. There are very few times when my opp knock cooldown manages to beat the cooldown of whatever attack was used last by my opponent and vice versa for them against me, we always seem to lower the opening raised by opp knock if not once then twice before the other person manages to get their big hit in.

The problem are global cooldowns, on top of them there should be applied another cooldown just for skill used, allowing devs to decide which combat move can be spammed, making balancing easier.

Overall, the biggest issue of combat is it doesn't evolve constanly, just changes abruptly from time to time.

[Kaios]

Doesn't feel dumb at all. In other mmo games basic attacks costing 0 mana/energy/stamina deal most damage too.

Yes but in most other mmo games you don't have a risk of losing your character and village that you put a lot of effort and time in to.

Actually the most annoying thing in current combat is that it is just stat based. Agility is only for cooldown, str only for damage, con only for tanking. If we had moves that used str/agi/con/stealth for calculating weights we could have much more varied combat. Adding move or two which aren't affected by cooldown and attack weights will make combat more skillfull, by making weaklings prone to use them.
So currently everyone just goes max every combat stat and thats all. I would like people going ultra agi/str because there are nice attacks scaling with it, or con because there could be ie. restorations scaling with it. It would bring more variety but also harder balancing, but there could be added just move at time. Probably adding new move every patch or two will make PvP more interesting because then everyone would need to rethink their decks constantly and you'll see more and more varied decks after some time.

Sounds kind of interesting although I do see some issues in adding new moves frequently. I'd rather get a good baseline going before we even consider new stuff, and even then the new stuff should only be implemented in a way that it's attempting to resolve an existing issue rather than simply something that sounds cool to try. I agree with you though, this iteration of combat feels extremely stat based to me, as well, I very much dislike that players are using alts in spars to fuel combat meditation or bloodlust making it that much worse.

But another problem comes in, if we add new moves, there is need for learning them fast. I suggest making UI for buying skills for your 'kills', so you kill 1 bat, you gain 1 bat point, then you can buy move that costs 1 bat point and x amount of experience. There also would be dismishing returns for gaining kill points. And experience cost giving more use to questing which will be needed after there's hunger removed from game .

I don't think we have to learn them fast necessarily, most moves aren't much more useful when you put more than 1 point in to them. Something I feel like doesn't have much weight in this combat system are the points themselves, there are a few moves in which adding more points is crucial because it affects the cooldown and they are moves that rely on having a fast cooldown such as opening reduction moves but otherwise I don't think very many players add more than 1 point in to cleave or sting for example unless they have a few extra to spare.

The problem are global cooldowns, on top of them there should be applied another cooldown just for skill used, allowing devs to decide which combat move can be spammed, making balancing easier.

I'm confused what you mean by applying another cooldown

Overall, the biggest issue of combat is it doesn't evolve constanly, just changes abruptly from time to time.

I agree, not enough variation and too many players running the same type of decks or same few opening moves really exasperates the issue.

[Ozzy123]

Can clearly tell that you haven't had any pvp fight in last 3 years, you're wrong at almost every single point

1. Uppercut isn't overpowered at all, it doesn't hit for yellow so it requires atleast 1 other move to even do any damage. Noone uses uppercut in PVP because it's way worse than kito/flex/cleave.

2. Parry isn't overpowered at all, using sword makes you deal basically no damage with cleave or any other moves, it's only good for being a support.

3.

I guess what I’m saying my problem with that is to me it seems like there is a lack of punishment for making mistakes or using the high cooldown moves when you shouldn’t be.

What the fuck? xD If someone lands a cleave on you and you survive it you can literally oppknock him twice and then cleave, basically oneshotting him. There is a severe punishment for using a high cd move with bad timing.


Stop writing ideas about combat if you have no idea about combat and your only enemy was a fox or a badger. You are making devs confused and they might fuck something up because of that.

[Kaios]

>cries about not being able to compete in the game
>combat is fine guys

great input

[Ozzy123]

>cries about not being able to compete in the game
>combat is fine guys

great input

You mean my thread about questing being too op? How is that related to you being wrong about combat?

[Kaios]

You mean my thread about questing being too op? How is that related to you being wrong about combat?

It took a bit to find all these quotes and there's only about a thousand more echoing a similar sentiment, probably even some from yourself recently that I missed. The fact that you acknowledge the flex/kito/cleave meta but don't see an issue with it speaks volumes about your perspective on combat.

I don't know how you can think there isn't something wrong with parry, unless you are saying I am incorrect about the unarmed attacks not receiving blue opening when used against a parry player in the past. How, for example, would it be viable to use a move like feigned dodge against someone using parry? In case you aren't aware since you've probably never used it before, feigned dodge is a move that reduces green opening by attacking the opponent with it instead of being applied directly like quick dodge. Of course, the point is that nobody uses that crap because it's totally useless like a majority of the moves.

It is a problem of current design of the combat system that combat system practically boils down to a stat check. It would be good if there would be a chance for lower stats characters to bring down high stats characters, therefore, you could participate in combat even when you have life outside of the game. I could see that more complexity being added to the combat system could solve this problem, one of good things in this combat system in this regard is combat meditation with what it is possible to bring down higher stat characters.

Bring back advantage, make haven great again

I kinda did like how if you were winning a fight, it tipped the scale in your favor. Not sure how that would play out in the current system though, IIRC doing any damage back in legacy gave you advantage so idk what that would look like now, quick barrage 5 times for full advantage?

It is a problem of current design of the combat system that combat system practically boils down to a stat check. It would be good if there would be a chance for lower stats characters to bring down high stats characters, therefore, you could participate in combat even when you have life outside of the game. I could see that more complexity being added to the combat system could solve this problem, one of good things in this combat system in this regard is combat meditation with what it is possible to bring down higher stat characters.

i think anyone that pvps in this game would agree with you, only problem is how do you balance it to the point where people cant just run around with 1ua 10 attribute fighters and competing against people with 1k stats. more skill based moves would be nice (evil eye at the exact same time as the enemies move to double their cooldown etc etc) would add some skill to this game rather than kito flex kito flex kito flex.

i think anyone that pvps in this game would agree with you, only problem is how do you balance it to the point where people cant just run around with 1ua 10 attribute fighters and competing against people with 1k stats.

I think adjusting how the delta is calculated would be a big change that could be looked at. It should be possible for 4-6 lesser statted characters to take down a higher one, but not at the difference you mention here, and that could be one of a few possible changes to see that this isn't abused.

more skill based moves would be nice (evil eye at the exact same time as the enemies move to double their cooldown etc etc) would add some skill to this game rather than kito flex kito flex kito flex.

Even not being involved in PvP I'd like to see this. Hunting is exciting for the first few weeks until you get to the point it's just spamming the same thing over and over again just like in WoW.

My thought would be to bring back the moves that gave advantage but leave out the damage gives you advantage thing. In legacy i fought a guy with like double my UA and agi in a basement for an extended period of time without moving cause i spammed seize the day and he didnt try to push the advantage back from it. Pretty sure if i fought 1v1 without moving now against someone with higher stats than me i'd probably just get my shit pushed in with no recourse because this system really lacks any complexity.

I loved the number of weird things you could do in legacy. NPNG was my (everyone's?) favourite, probably, although people caught on to that one at some point.
Also, seize the day had a beautiful graphic
Combat is really boring now, as someone who doesn't fight in a group. I get that group combat requires skill in a different way, though

There should be extra dimensions next to the attack/defence shit to play around in combat rather than just spam flex/kitos and cleave. I would also like that you cannot see the opponent's maneuver like you can now, that alone would make combat way trickier with combat med...

I mean you played with us Ozzy for a short amount of time. You know that we all suck in quality and stat grind. Cause we cant be bothered with it. This game is only about numbers if you have a really high numbers advantage. 8vs7 means nothing when a few nolifers are in the 7 group that basically have nearly 200+ more ua than our guys and better q.

This game is all about zerg in numbers, so they will always win. The combat system is so basic that even if you have higher stats (and combat knowledge/skills), they just need to have more people and you lose. There is no skill necessary, only numbers.

Ever since hafen came out with no movement combat and hardly any scope for combat skill, which made stats matter so much, this has been an issue for fighters I think.
Don't bandaid it by fiddling with quests or even removing them - my opinion is that the issue is unbounded stat growth, and there need to be sensible stat caps.

Also a lot of pvpers are UA heavy because it has more flexible openers and maneuvers. This influences what suggestions people get and combat metas in general for hunting.

More PVP events with a broken combat system favoring zerging and no-lifing, on a pve crafting game with permadeath
hmmk

The only way you're going to get more PVP in the game is to lower the time it takes to be viable in PVP. Coincidentally a lot of changes that would solve this would also help with player retention.

Game is soo boring right now. World is full of big PvE villages and there is next to no benefit to having good PvP characters. Being strong or weak doesnt really translate into any kind of value. If anything people wasting time raising combat stats will just fall behind in the PvE grind. The meteor thing is clearly a popular event and successful implementation therefore it makes total sense to add more things like it.

Now, I've always been amazed to see people seeking the same thing in HnH. The permadeath and pvp is what drew me to this game at first. But seeing it requires WEEKS of playing to get something going if you're not experienced/in a big group/nolifing, I never quite understood why people would play this game for the PVP.
The combat system is awfull, probably the worst of any game I've ever played. Good luck trying to figure it out on your own.
To make it worse, people are botting and get 10 times more than you'll ever get without too much hassle and a lot of "fixes" make the game harder for casuals/non botter.
Seing all that I'm pretty damn sure there is no way most of the HnH population can compete VS people who are looking forward raiding.

I think animals should not be able to kill KO'ed players.

My reasoning is formed by these three facts of HH currently:

• A character's progression can represent multiple months of work.
• Death is permanent.
• The combat system does not allow for enough skill expression in PVE. You either have the stats to fight it or you don't.

I suspect that the percent of players that quit after the loss of a major character is quite high. Increasing the chance of this death is not something I would consider a good idea.

[terechgracz]

The problem are global cooldowns, on top of them there should be applied another cooldown just for skill used, allowing devs to decide which combat move can be spammed, making balancing easier.

I'm confused what you mean by applying another cooldown

Ie. you'd have your base cooldown X which is based on agility weight, cleave could have then 30 cooldown, punch 10 cooldown. After landing cleave you'd have cooldown on cleave equal 30 but you won't be able to use anything before your global cooldown X expires, after X expires you can throw punches, but throwing punches applying same effect on punch. It's system used in most games which allows for more exciting combos, very close to how Udyr in league of legends works.

[wonder-ass]

mc hybrid is prob strongest in 1v1 parry cutblade uppercut deck but in group fight you are fucking useless.

group fight domination > kito flex cleave
1v1 domination > uppercut deck
mc > supp
ua >damage dealer

i can run up to people with 20 blue and bring em up to like 40 at which they can be opk cleaved for big damage. idk if i had big str/mc and a decent cutblade i could be a very spooky person in a fight.

p.s. haven combat was never made for 1v1s idk why you try to balance the game around 1v1s.

[MagicManICT]

Ie. you'd have your base cooldown X which is based on agility weight, cleave could have then 30 cooldown, punch 10 cooldown.

so basically a WoW style system where you have basic attacks and abilities that work on the global cooldown, but a few special attacks--be it damage, opening, etc--that have their own cooldown, some of which can actually increase or decrease (or even remove for the next action in a couple of cases iirc) the global cooldown.