The Ghost of Christmas Future, II

[Oddity]

Also, the change with flex to use one advantage every time was and is extremely annoying. I hope they figure out better methods to deal with an advantage/attack bar type implementation other than making you decide between losing one to gain the other.

Agreed

Hey jorb, are you willing to put h&h2 on steam? you could sell it to have some in coming and some advertisement

...and some obligation to appease customers crying over the fact they lost their characters (and in the case of bug/lag deaths they may even have a point, having paid for the game).

It would be a disaster.

[Bob_the_Cat]

incomprehensible combat system

Whatever are you talking about? You must be thinking of another game.

The real problem with combat in this game is that you can't properly practice it unless you live in a village (an advanced village too, really - noob villagers don't care about training combat skills).

I'm in no way a #proskillzm8 pvper, but just having duels with my 2 friends that started with me I've beat pretty much every guy whos ever attacked me with EQUAL stats (the only ones that won had cheap advantages, like my move bars not being set because I died the day before and hadnt re made them yet lol...). Morale of my story, is that although training combat isnt really easy on ants, you in no way need to be in a big village to be descent. And you don't need to worry about being better than a village guy because he can probobly take you out in 1 punch anyway and skill wont matter.

And you also need to keep in mind, that non big village people have an equally hard time learning combat, making it a lot more fair. Knowing when to change stances and stuff already probobly means you know more than they do.

[VDZ]

just having duels with my 2 friends

And that's the problem. You need people to duel with. In a game where everybody you don't know outside the game is likely to kill you, you really need to have the luck to know people interested in dueling. I've played with a noob village for a long time, but nobody in there ever dueled. I've been a hermit ever since, and there's pretty much no way to practice combat without getting myself killed. (I suppose I *could* attack helpless newbies for practice, but there really should be other ways.)

[borka]

In all worlds i got lots invitations to spar - even by fresher chars i met when i travelled that just had bought brawling.

[WaitingforHaven2]

In all worlds i got lots invitations to spar - even by fresher chars i met when i travelled that just had bought brawling.

That's your playstyle maybe. Going out and talking to every person you meet in the forest. Not everyone is like that and I rather share the experience of VDZ. It was generally difficult to find someone to spar (women in particular seem to be incredibly averse to the combat system). But even if you had some people who would train together it felt pretty pointless. After all, sparring can only get you so far. The 'professional' pvpers would have way more experience than you in an actual fight. They would know special tricks, their clients would give them a huge edge and they would gank you in larger numbers anyway.

So sparring was fun but felt pretty pointless nonetheless. Making everything super secure and hiding behind your walls is more reliable than combat training. Also, fighting animals doesn't even come close to fighting players.

[loftar]

The real problem with combat in this game is that you can't properly practice it unless you live in a village

I can't really see what the alternative would be, though, even in the best conceivable universe. Clearly, if you want to practice combat you need to do so against other humans, and that would seem to be true in any game.

(an advanced village too, really - noob villagers don't care about training combat skills).

That sounds to me as if they simply have their priorities wrong, though.

[Projeear]

The real problem with combat in this game is that you can't properly practice it unless you live in a village

I can't really see what the alternative would be, though, even in the best conceivable universe.

Imaginary fighting, with comical getting knocked out by the dummy.

[jordancoles]

The real problem with combat in this game is that you can't properly practice it unless you live in a village

[VDZ]

The real problem with combat in this game is that you can't properly practice it unless you live in a village

I can't really see what the alternative would be, though, even in the best conceivable universe. Clearly, if you want to practice combat you need to do so against other humans, and that would seem to be true in any game.

How about AI enemies (such as animals) that fight back without killing you when you inevitably lose? Ants don't really fight back (you don't need more than jump and slide/oak stance to be invincible against them even at low UA), but if you try to attack a fox you get your ass kicked quick and lose your character unless you're lucky - not exactly a method you want to repeat until you get it right. This means every move other than Jump and Slide (if Oak Stance hasn't been learned yet) is completely useless unless either you're suicidal or have people to spar with.

(an advanced village too, really - noob villagers don't care about training combat skills).

That sounds to me as if they simply have their priorities wrong, though.

Not at all. Non-ranged combat is not necessary for hunting, and any player attacking someone from a noob village is likely so much superior in stats that attempting to fight back is entirely futile. As such, there is no pressing need for people in a noob village to learn how combat works.

[bitza]

That's your playstyle maybe. Going out and talking to every person you meet in the forest. Not everyone is like that and I rather share the experience of VDZ. It was generally difficult to find someone to spar (women in particular seem to be incredibly averse to the combat system). But even if you had some people who would train together it felt pretty pointless. After all, sparring can only get you so far. The 'professional' pvpers would have way more experience than you in an actual fight. They would know special tricks, their clients would give them a huge edge and they would gank you in larger numbers anyway.

So sparring was fun but felt pretty pointless nonetheless. Making everything super secure and hiding behind your walls is more reliable than combat training. Also, fighting animals doesn't even come close to fighting players.

it's true that sparring is not a substitute for live combat. the trickiest part of combat is mastery over your emotions - actual combat (as opposed to sparring, summoning, or noob stomping) is a nerve-wracking adrenaline ride, because the ante is high and you're putting a character's life on the line. i've never experienced anything like it in a video game before and it's one of the things that makes h&h such an amazing game.

to those people who would want to learn to actually defend themselves, i would recommend to set up realistic combat situation with your friends, as opposed to jump-punching each other to see who runs out of hp first. in an actual fight, people don't stand still and wait for 6 initiative for a vstrike. make combat scenarios you might actually find in the game, such as - being out boating and you run into a hostile player on the river. pressing grapes at your winepress and a guy with a rbow shows up right outside your wall. foraging in a swamp and you ran out of stamina - what do you do now? these are the things you should be practicing once you reach the stage of knowing what the moves and maneuevers actually do.

as for those "professional" pvp gankers, half the time when you meet a dhelmer out foraging, they're just a 100 ua alt dressed up to look scary.