Combat defense

[Sarge]

Should defense not be a skill to improve and master seperate from unarmed and melee?

I ask this as I found, since I'm trying to become a melee specialist, when I got to a reasonable melee skill level, using "shield" as defensive skill was automatic and very effective. I wonder if those that specialise in unarmed had a similar experience with a particular defensive skill, "dodge" maybe?

To me, it might have been more interesting if I had to learn how to block with a shield, or whatever defensive skill I chose, effectively. That way, just upping my melee skill may have increased my chance to hit nicely, but I would still have had to work at defending myself from being hit so easily.

This may also go a long way towards making animals more challenging for a longer period of a player's development.

[Raephire]

UA is more a balanced fighting method. Equally skilled users doing full dodge with high UA can stand toe to toe with someone else with a shield doing full block.

I saw myself dodging X bears 99% of the time without setting myself to dodge, focusing more into combat med. In fact my previous incarnation never left combat meditation.

[theTrav]

combat needs a major overhaul, not just a few tweaks.

100% Dodge should only happen less than 10% of the time. Damage reduction / deflection/ rolling with blows should happen more often but still no more than 60% of all attacks.

sword and board users shouldn't be punished with reduced access to special attacks, fisticuffs should always be at a disadvantage to an armed opponent of equal training

[Axehilt]

I'm not saying combat is deep, but...

Unless you're landing every single hit and never getting hit (which happens), I find Bloodlust to be pretty valuable. Combat advantage seems to significantly swing the battle in my favor (increasing hit %, increasing dodge %.)

Basically:
1. Bloodlust
2. Get hit a few times to get combat advantage (even just a little)
3. Switch to Block rest of fight.

So it's still shallow, but it's less shallow than always choosing block.

[btaylor]

fisticuffs should always be at a disadvantage to an armed opponent of equal training

My rebuttal is martial arts.

[loftar]

combat needs a major overhaul, not just a few tweaks.

This. And combat will, indeed, be getting a major overhaul. Jorb and I are still in the process of developing a replacement for the current system, however.

[kimya]

with this major overhaul the odds of hitting should change... its not cool that two ppl with the same melee hit each other so often. it should rather be the other way round. as, obviously, you first try to not get hurt, rather than just try to hit the opponent no matter what costs...

[Potjeh]

Agreed.

Anyway, I don't think that splitting attack from defence makes any sense. You don't learn how to use a shield and how to use a sword separately, and then combine them afterwards. You train both at the same time so that your swings and blocks are coordinated. Same goes for unarmed.

[Cain]

with this major overhaul the odds of hitting should change... its not cool that two ppl with the same melee hit each other so often. it should rather be the other way round. as, obviously, you first try to not get hurt, rather than just try to hit the opponent no matter what costs...

This would ruin combat if the system was anything at all like it is now. The biggest problem I have with the combat system now is that one person with 200 melee would tear apart even 4 people with 100 melee. (ie one person with 2x melee skill could kill 10 people with x melee skill in a row if they fought one at a time) This is ridiculous, especially since it's been indicated that party dynamics and teamwork should play a greater role in combat. By making it easier to avoid damage, this gap would only become greater.

I think a better idea would be to make the chance to hit some magnitudes greater, and implement damage reduction which would be much more common than simple damage avoidance. This way many people would be able to hit and collectively kill an opponent with a significantly better combat level.

[loftar]

with this major overhaul the odds of hitting should change...

Actually, I hope that the remake of combat can eliminate the "oods" of hitting altogether. In other words, so that the attack and the maneuver used decide whether the attack succeeds in a completely deterministic manner, and that the fight consists not mainly in launching attacks, but mainly in trying to manipulate the fight to be able to use the attacks that will succeed, or outwitting the opponent in choosing attacks that he cannot block and such things. Mainly, we want to add more "state" to a fight that can be meaningfully manipulated by both players and thereby, hopefully, make the fights more interactive.

Though we've gotten a bit on the way, the details remain to be formulated.