Mega post: Let's fix combat

[Halbertz]

Not that I hoped Jorb would ever read this, but the forum is dead, so I brought you some of my schizophasia:

Let's formulate the problems that currently exist in the combat system:

1) Fighting is uncomfortable. In all senses. Haven in my opinion has the WORST targeted combat.
2)The current balance is heavily tied to MOVEMENT SPEED. Any means of transportation (ships, sleds, skis) spoil the balance and cause unnecessary frustration.
3) For a game with 15 years of development history, the game has very little variety of weapons and moves. The meta cuts the list down to everyone wearing the same thing and pressing the same buttons.

Now that we have problems in front of our eyes, let's try to come up with solutions. Let's start with the quality of life changes:
Feel thirsty skill. The vanilla client must have customizable auto-drinking.
Rampage skill. Auto aggression of everyone on the screen. When learning a rage, a toggle skill is added to the character. While the skill is on, the character automatically initiates combat with all players appearing on the screen (who are not members of the same group/village (should be customizable)).
Next target skill. Selects the nearest target. Subsequent presses scroll targets within a radius of half the screen.
Next target (range) skill. Analogue of Next target, but works on targets that are from half the screen away to the loading radius. Will be used by archers.
Switch target skill. Switches target to closest to your mouse cursor.
FOF highlight. Game should have option to draw circles around players (according to colour in kins) AND PARTY MEMBERS.

Well, we have several new skills, there will be more. So game requires some UI changes:
Skill bar made by people, not aliens from the tau ceti constellation. 10 skillbars, 1-4(5,6) skill bars (switchable) on screen. Drag and drop to put skills on bar, shift drag/or lock button to prevent the consequences of missclicks, fully bindible. Your combat and non combat bar should be the same bar, current system is responsible for hundreds of murdered newcomers.
New party HUD. Right now we have very limited information (their hats, thanks jorb) about party members. Something minimalistic like WoW's Grid will be great to have, because we don't need that much information. Health (toggle percentage/numbers), status (alive, ko, dead), direction, distance and special effects (MR, starving idk).

Feel free to add something else.

Let's move to point number two. In this shitpost, I will not invent a bicycle, a new (stolen from other games) mechanics. The current system has the right to live, it is enough to remove from it the very reasons for unnecessary frustration. This suggests some solutions:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=72523
It is also worth coming up about something with what is said in the second paragraph here:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=71916&p=901875#p901875
In the current (based on the same speed of movement of characters) system, there is no place for third-party means of acceleration in battle.

Is there a solution? I'm not entirely sure, but you can only find out by starting to solve the problem (instead of ignoring it). I propose to start by adding inertia and turning speed to all vehicles. And also remove speed difference on ships, as Trollex suggested. After these changes are put on a test live server, we can see if this was enough to reduce the desire of testers players to use ships and sleds to cheese in battle. Skis should be removed completely, or made so that at the initiation of combat, the character is forcibly jumped out of them.

And finally the last part. Warning! If before that I described serious problems, and offered a solution, then here will be my fantasies. Developers are free to do what they want, but nothing stops me from fantasizing about new content, right? If you don't give a shit about what I saw in my dream, don't read any further, don't open this spoiler I double dare you.

Weapon durability. Weapons will now have durability. Durability will be spent ONLY on the use of unique weapon skills. Higher quality weapons will have more durability.
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New weapons:
Le club. One handed. Early game weapon, no metals to craft. Low damage, low arp.
Flanged mace. One handed, heavy hitter. Steel sword analogue, but slower with greater arp. (causes new wounds, which are easier to treat).
Flail. One handed. Flanged mace analogue but a bit slower with greater reach. (causes new wounds, which are easier to treat).
Polehammer. Two handed. B12 analogue, but slower with better arp. (causes new wounds, which are easier to treat).
Dagger. One handed. Close reach. Low damage, low arp. Hits from behind triples arp.
Winged spear. Two handed. Better boar spear, without ability to throw it. Less damage than B12, but a bit more reach.
Buckler. Same durability as wooden shield. Lower armor bonus.
Kite shield. More durability, more armor. That thing that everyone asked for.
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Weapon arts. All weapons and shields have new unique skill. Use spends a certain amount of weapon durability (can be made to be reduced by a stat like Lore). When dual wielding, only right-hand weapon skills are available. I don't want to steal borrow more images, so text only:
--Pickaxe. Slimekiller. Sting analogue, no initiative cost. Deals x100 damage to slimes, deals x0.2 damage to anything else.
--Woodsman's Axe. Woodkin eraser. Allows you to instantly kill driad or treant.
--Bronze sword. Double sting. Two fast stings, each do 70% of sting openings and 60% of damage. 3 initiative cost.
--Fyrdsman's Sword. Thunder strike. Reverse analogue of Storm of the swords. Deals 150%, 145%, 140%, 135% and 130% Weapon damage to five opponents starting from target. Attacks blue and yellow. Opens 30% blue. 4 initiative cost. Requires to be Steal Thunder your last move against the target.
--Hirdsman's sword. Fatal slash. Weapon damage * 140%. Hits in blue and yellow. Opens 25% yellow. 3 initiative cost.
--Boar spear. Hurricane throw. You imminently throw your boar spear in the enemy. This throw will count as a melee strike against the opponent. Spear will be destroyed. Weapon change cooldown will be 50% shorter. Deals 220% of Weapon damage in green. Do not increase any openings.
--Battleaxe of the Twelfth Bay. Round swing. Attacks up 8 enemies around you. Target will always get hit. 100% weapon damage in green. Opens 20% green. 2 initiative cost. 3 rounds cd (you should do any 3 moves before you could use this move again).
--Cutblade. Overhead strike. Heavy Quickbarrage. Weapon damage*75%. Opens 20% red. If your opponent has more than 25% of red, give you 2 initiative. 1 initiative cost. 1 round cd. Couldn't be used right after Quick Barrage.
--Le club (new weapon). Smash. Punch analogue, but uses weapon damage instead.
--Flanged mace (new weapon). Crumble. Weapon damage * 100%. Hits in green and blue. Opens 15% red and green. 2 initiative cost. If opponent doesn't wear any helmet deals 200% damage instead.
--Flail (new weapon). Hail. 3 fast hits. Each deals 40% weapon damage in yellow and opens 10% yellow. 3 initiative cost. Requires Haymaker to be used on your opponent last round.
--Polehammer (new weapon). Batter. The Oof. Deals Weapon damage * 175% in blue and red. Opens 25% blue. 6+1 initiative cost.
--Dagger (new weapon). Backstab. Deals Weapon damage * 50% (150% if hitting enemy back) in red. Opens 10% green. 3+2 initiative cost.
--Winged spear (new weapon). Call down the Thunder. Deals Weapon damage * 140% in blue and green. Opens 25% yellow. 4+2 initiative cost.
--Buckler (new shield). Parry strike. Don't do anything but have long (like Cleave) cd. After use, you will immediately counter attack first opponent who hit you. Counter attack depends on weapon: sword/spear/dagger - sting, axe - cleave, other shield - shield strike. Skill will have 5/5 cards and zero cost (durability and initiative).
--Wooden Shield. Shield strike. Do not deal any damage. Opens 15% red, blue, green and yellow. 1 initiative cost. Close range (1).
--Kite shield (new shield). Shield up. Regain 35% of everything. 1 initiative cost.
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Dual Wield. When wielding 1h weapons in both hands: 20% of left hand weapon damage will be added to calculations. Attacks will deal 30% more openings. Receive 50% more openings on self. Dual wielding shields increase armor of both shields by 200%.
--Archer Stance. Idk something to make archery less cancer, haven't come up with specifics yet, maybe I'll add later.
Bards. Every second your party member plays musical instrument in close range around you, you restore 1% of all openings. Different instruments stack with each other (20% additional restoration from additional instrument, up to 2% openings per second).
I'v got something askers? about horse combat, but already forget about it. Perhaps I'll return to this post later.

[ZamAlex]

Bards. Every second your party member plays musical instrument in close range around you, you restore 1% of all openings. Different instruments stack with each other (20% additional restoration from additional instrument, up to 2% openings per second).

Great post!

[DDDsDD999]

Nah lets just rework combat again

[Nightdawg]

Nah let's give quest givers chat bubbles

[bumfrog]

+1

At the very least, everything before the hidden text should be added in one form or another. Then again these are bandaid fixes for the combat/targeting being ass garbage to from the ground up

[Sevenless]

Seems more like fixing the vanilla client than it is combat mechanics itself. Not bad, just a thought.

[joojoo1975]

not going to lie, I miss the old combat system.

W3 i saw the most combat(but even that doesn't compare to most of you pros)

Love getting UA up there and then stealing an opponent's coins until my battle advantage was maxx. Back then, imho, the combat styles(UA, ranged, Melee) was supposed to compliment each other.

But I am old and senile. So my memory is foggy at best

[donatas081294]

Well let's discuss what kind of combat we want vs what kind of combat devs want.

Is it turn based (like old runescape, you attack, enemy attacks and then you attack and repeat the combat process)
card based (set up a deck of card and watch the fight play out, of course each card/combat move will have a cooldown and effect)
Or live combat (move around, mash combat keys and well not stand in 1 place)

Because right now the game is kinda trying to be all of them, which I think why it kinda falls flat and nor devs or players are satisfied with it.
It's okay to be unique, I am not against it, but it's only fine when it does work because right now it's kinda meh, okay cool.
I think dev should pick 1 combat style and stick with it, sure there will be limitations, but that's the whole point, update it and upgrade it, don't try to chase them all.

[dafels]

Combat conversations :pogChamp: