Accept Current Combat

[VDZ]

@ VDZ do you wanna login for 10 minutes and chase me

It's 7:30 AM and I still haven't slept so I'll have to pass for today. (Also, I have basically no experience being on the chasing side, only on the running side, so you'd probably get away even if the system were stacked against you.)

[MightySheep]

ITS A TRAP

[wolf1000wolf]

I'm just hoping the mentioned changes to hunting will make straight up fighting animals doable without ridiculous stats.

[SnuggleSnail]

It's 7:30 AM and I still haven't slept so I'll have to pass for today. (Also, I have basically no experience being on the chasing side, only on the running side, so you'd probably get away even if the system were stacked against you.)

it is very cringe that you have time to write a college length essay disagreeing with people who have infinitely more experience than you, but not the 5 minutes it would take to prove your point in practice

[DonVelD]

It's 7:30 AM and I still haven't slept so I'll have to pass for today. (Also, I have basically no experience being on the chasing side, only on the running side, so you'd probably get away even if the system were stacked against you.)

You should give it a try soon because it is genuinely insufferable seeing people complain about combat while they don't know how it is really. And also this:

it is very cringe that you have time to write a college length essay disagreeing with people who have infinitely more experience than you, but not the 5 minutes it would take to prove your point in practice

[VDZ]

Or do you just have the attention span of a goldfish and cant stand doing something for 20+ minutes?

How does carrying enough water to keep it up fix the problem that "PvP" in a ganking encounter consists of almost nothing but running for 20+ minutes straight?

This is not a "Problem". If I need to explain this then you need to go see a Psychiatrist.

Look, this is what I've been saying the entire time. I'm not complaining that it's unfair. I'm complaining that it's not fun. Let me quote my very first post from this thread:

That being said, I disagree with the core idea that combat should not get any radical changes. 'Run away/chase for fucking ages' is not a fun system so if there's a good way to fix that such a change would be welcome. But the devs have already spent tons of time trying all kinds of things for the combat system with mixed results, so I think their time is better spent on things that do clearly improve the game, leaving the current combat in its 'I guess it works, mostly' state with only minor tweaks when necessary.

I am okay with the balance/fairness in the current system, so as such I recommend against making risky changes to balance it out. However, I do find PvP encounters to be unfun. And how could it be fun? From the victim's perspective it's just a completely arbitrary challenge that takes fucking ages and has zero reward, only punishment for failing the challenge. If I'm nowhere near my base I'll put up a token resistance to check if the chasers are incompetent, but after that it's more 'fun' to just get KOed, hearth home, recraft my stuff and treat my wounds and then continue doing what I was planning to do, than it is to keep running for half an hour (and even then risk still getting punished), especially if it also requires sacrificing convenience in the 99% of the time you're not getting attacked.

Look, I understand this feature of the game isn't your idea of fun, but I iterate, it doesn't mean it's broken or needs to be changed.

If most players find a mechanic unfun, that does indicate it may be broken or needs to be changed. If I'm alone in thinking super-long chases are stupid, good! You just need to point that out. But if other people also agree that it's stupid that combat with major stat disparity only ends when one side gives up or runs out of water, then ideally that's something that should be addressed. But that must be done in a very careful way because each change has serious implications on people's experience.

Skill issue.

Being more skilled doesn't make the system more fun. I probably could get away if I carried a third waterskin and had the patience to run for half an hour. But I would still be spending ages just running and gaining nothing in return. There are games where movement is inherently fun, but Haven is not one of them.

It's 7:30 AM and I still haven't slept so I'll have to pass for today. (Also, I have basically no experience being on the chasing side, only on the running side, so you'd probably get away even if the system were stacked against you.)

it is very cringe that you have time to write a college length essay disagreeing with people who have infinitely more experience than you, but not the 5 minutes it would take to prove your point in practice

It would've taken a lot longer as I still had to set up my client and find the nearest Thingwall, and I also lacked bunny slippers (my base decayed while I was in my sleepwear so I wasn't wearing them). And again, all it would prove would be that I suck at chasing. Even if you made the most convincing escape possible, it could still be attributed to my incompetence in the attacking role. (And yes, I should've gone to sleep earlier.)

You should give it a try soon because it is genuinely insufferable seeing people complain about combat while they don't know how it is really.

I have played on the victim's side enough times to know what it's like. Whether or not it sucks even more for the attacker does not change the fact that it's unfun on the side of the defender.

[SnuggleSnail]

Even if you made the most convincing escape possible, it could still be attributed to my incompetence in the attacking role. (And yes, I should've gone to sleep earlier.)

Maybe if you recognize you're shit at something you shouldn't try to act like an authority figure on that something. I'm not sending Tiger Woods 3,000 word emails about how his opinions on golf are wrong.

[Sevenless]

If most players find a mechanic unfun, that does indicate it may be broken or needs to be changed.

I'm gonna put forward kind of a weird game design point on this: What purpose do PvPers serve to the rest of the playerbase? It's obvious that PvPers gain content from attacking non-PvPers (and from fighting between each other), but what is the rest of the playerbase gaining from PvP?

In haven's case, PvPers serve as the persistent threat that makes the world feel dangerous, and by extension "real". Long term, AI and hazards eventually either get beaten thoroughly or are impossible to beat in a way that feels "real". Trolls are an example of this. Some players cheese them into non-existence, the rest of the playerbase just considers that location lost until they can find a troll slayer. There's a fine balance to be maintained though between PvPers and non-PvPers in games that try to have diverse communities. Too many killers will kill out the normal playerbase, and eventually get bored without prey and quit. Not enough PvPers and they don't serve their purpose as a challenge to the non-PvPer playerbase.

Which is a really long winded way of saying: Only a small fraction of the playerbase needs to enjoy PvP to balance Haven's ecosystem. Since most of the PvP oriented players seem to be happy with the PvP system, I think we should respect their wishes. By haven's nature, many players who come into the game will never enjoy any form of PvP anyway.

(this goes both ways though, mechanics that non-PvP players like and PvPers dislike aren't necessarily bad. Fostering relationships between the two groups by creating inter-reliance helps the community be healthier as a whole since it ends up pushing for more PvPer vs PvPer combat when PvPers are encouraged to protect/depend on non-PvPers in some way)

[The_Lich_King]

As a way to balance all the new moves that would be added just use the elegant method of rotating cards like in any modern good online card game.

We had that when the card system was first introduced and it didn't play well. I didn't do much combat back then so someone else can probably explain better, but constantly having to track which cards were in your hand while also paying attention to everything else, while also having your controls change every time (because the cards were in different positions every time), was just too confusing and annoying.

Also, you say it like it's a small thing, but having the cards rotate instead of always just displaying the same 10 cards would be a significant combat system overhaul. You're actually proposing to greatly change current combat.

That being said, I disagree with the core idea that combat should not get any radical changes. 'Run away/chase for fucking ages' is not a fun system so if there's a good way to fix that such a change would be welcome. But the devs have already spent tons of time trying all kinds of things for the combat system with mixed results, so I think their time is better spent on things that do clearly improve the game, leaving the current combat in its 'I guess it works, mostly' state with only minor tweaks when necessary.

I did that during that time and keeping track of the cards was an issue but on a large list of them. Another one is that there were no openings so if you didn't have the card to stop the color defense being attacked you were hit with full damage which led to alot of easy instant deaths. It also made Agi absolutely god tier because it controlled how fast your attack CD was so if you had enough you could spam a basic attack to remove a card and then get in cleave before your opponent ever had a time to get that card back up, which obvz makes running away hard and makes it so fights can end in seconds.

[The_Lich_King]

It's 7:30 AM and I still haven't slept so I'll have to pass for today. (Also, I have basically no experience being on the chasing side, only on the running side, so you'd probably get away even if the system were stacked against you.)

it is very cringe that you have time to write a college length essay disagreeing with people who have infinitely more experience than you, but not the 5 minutes it would take to prove your point in practice

what the hell? "How dare you take the time to deal with assignments and further your education, instead of playing this video game to try and stroke some online egos."