A discussion on combat

[Archiplex]

I know Jorb/Loft are working on a combat remake as-is (again), although I don't know the extent of it. I did, however, want to throw in my own 2 bits having now properly experienced the new combat system.

Firstly; I have to say I think it's an improvement on the old all-or-nothing system of starting off with no defenses, but it is still flawed. I like the idea of it being chip damage based, but I think it's far too hard to 'finish' someone unless you have others with you- I also adore that it means hunting now causes you to actually take wounds and for infinite hunting sprees to no longer be possible.

I'll summarize a few of my base complaints, and hopefully they'll be considered

Openings are cool, finishers are not.
I can't speak for PVP but from what others have said, chip damage seems to be a majority of what combat is, which makes for slow, slugfight-like combats with outstanding opportunities to escape. While a return to the "You make one mistake, you die" style of the past is not any good, something to allow a faster death if a creature does not defend themselves properly seems fitting.
Suggestion: Openers currently work off a % of the remaining defenses of a creature; which, frankly, I don't know if that makes sense. It means hitting 100% without abilities such as feigned dodge or opportunity knocks is rather difficult (read: nearly impossible). My suggestion would be to have openers have a minimum % reduction when adding opening to a creature, based off the difference in block/attack weight.
Example Applying a 20% opener when I'm at 100% should reduce me to 80%, simply speaking. Applying it again should reduce me to 64; this is how it works currently. However, if i'm at, say, 20% opening, the use of that opener will only reduce me to 16, a total % loss of 4. It's my belief that an opener should always, at minimum, reduce half of the opening value; meaning applying a 20% opener to someone who is currently at 20% opening would reduce them to 10 at the minimum (assuming atk/block weight are equal). Applying it again should reduce them to 0%.

This would keep the system of diminishing returns past 50%, but allow openers to still be effective past ~70% or so, and to allow people to reach 100% opening much easier and make way for powerful, single blows after a long combat- an OPENING for a final hit, so to speak.


The terminology is, frankly, confusing as hell.
Yes, yes, I'm sure jorb has a fond adoration for confusing terminology; but for a system so integral to the game I REALLY think it needs to be made simplified. I was teaching two of my friends the combat system (which is already convoluted as hell, mind you! But that part is fine), and the constant questions about "backhanded" or "dizzy" were numerous, and frankly, I don't think anyone who becomes experienced with the system bothers to remember the names. I refer to them by their colors/directions and nothing more. So, the terminology should be simplified to be color coded (and possible even remove the directional angle, and just make them colors.) HOWEVER, this ties in to another suggestion of mine:

Directions are meaningless, and wounds are generic
The only thing the various colors have, currently, is enabling other colors and knowing what skill combos with what other skills. I don't mind a system with multiple directions; but there should be a meaningful difference between them, which would also allow more room for new combat moves to be introduced. So, this is my biggest suggestion: Body-targeted directions.

Rather than blue, green, yellow and red; there should be 4 'zones': Head, Body, Legs and Arms. Attacks on each zone should have different effects (Heads have 1.5x block weight, but take 25% more damage; Body is .9x block weight, and takes full damage; Arms have normal block weight, but HHP wounds reduce strength/perception/agility, and legs have normal block weight, but attacks reduce agility and perhaps even force the enemy to move slower for a few seconds after taking damage). In addition to this; regionized wounds could be implemented that each, as the current system does, incurs differing penalties based off where the attack was landed. The opening system would otherwise function just as normal with these various body part directions (As a plus, as it's more understandable than the current color system, this would also fix problem 2)

This would mean some regional attacks would need rebalancing, and it also might introduce the idea of scrapping the direction-card system in favor of a 'color neutral' system, where you instead PICK what part of the body you intend to attack, but that's not really my primary suggestion here, and would blow the magnitude of the combat change out of the water. At the very least, having multiple attacks in different directions that all do more or less the same thing- but as they target different parts of the body, their effects would also be slightly different.


That is all.