Can someone explain combat ?

[Reeyfer]

When thinking about it, I may find other raisons :
In other games, if you meet enemis and run away, the foes just take there bow or fireball ou rifle and shot you in the back.
And you cant reply cause you are facing the oposit direction.
Valid point of view ?
Could this be changed by improving bow power ? Or making bow snare foes ? ( could be usefull in PVE to, kitting mobs )
Or make that you cant "cast" "debufs" to targets not in front of you, and require to be still for a short time to do it ?

You basically hit the nail on the head here. Ranged attacks suck, so why not run away? Not only the power but the crazy aim time on moving targets. IRL running straight away from someone is a great way to get buttraped by a bow, IHL it's a great way to make it physically impossible to get shot by a bow Never understood really why it was that ranged was so bad for anything but sniping and killing bots.

On another note, they could also put in a weight system. Armor, weapons, everything in your inventory weighs you down, slows you (almost imperceptibly). If you want to chase down and kill people, you use light armor (and maybe weapons) and keep your inventory empty as you can, putting you at some disadvantage. If you want to run away from someone like this (if you're a crafter, or think they can still stomp you anyway) you have to ditch your gear to get the necessary speed.

Could possibly work to give ppl more of a reason to do 1v1 fight, instead of always just running away until they can gangbang their pursuer? Still I would like to see archery not quite so useless, especially against moving targets. It shouldn't even be too complicated really. Have normal movement penalty on aiming for most situations, then take whatever flag tells the sprite which direction to face, and if it's the same as that on the archer or opposite of it then have only a very very tiny movement penalty. And, honestly, reduce aiming times all around significantly. That would reduce a lot of the 'RUN AWAY!' combat I should think. Mebbe some archery moves too like 'arrow to the knee'

[cpt1silencer]

I sort of remember them nerfing bows along time ago, because it was the king of killing people. I've always used them anyways but I'm sure there was a time when the movement penalty either wasn't there or wasn't as bad, allowing for high level marksmen to quickly aim and snipe you mid stride.

[Patchouli_Knowledge]

I sort of remember them nerfing bows along time ago, because it was the king of killing people. I've always used them anyways but I'm sure there was a time when the movement penalty either wasn't there or wasn't as bad, allowing for high level marksmen to quickly aim and snipe you mid stride.

That was world 3 and that was when getting hit while moving renders your defensive weight to 0 instead of 25% today.

[NOOBY93]

I sort of remember them nerfing bows along time ago, because it was the king of killing people. I've always used them anyways but I'm sure there was a time when the movement penalty either wasn't there or wasn't as bad, allowing for high level marksmen to quickly aim and snipe you mid stride.

That was world 3 and that was when getting hit while moving renders your defensive weight to 0 instead of 25% today.

Except bows don't account the enemy's defense into the damage equation.

[Patchouli_Knowledge]

Bows are a seesaw due to how tiny the optimal sweet spot for bow vs armor is very small between 0% and 100% HP damage. The adjustment of damage on the ranger bow was minor but enough to turn it from intimidating to a glorified wooden bow.

[Reeyfer]

Hopefully they improve it in Hafen. I've always liked ranger characters in MMOs, even if bows are often really shit or at least niche weapons. Maybe add a metal arrow, and metal bodkin, with the bodkin being capable of good performance against armour if its metal and quality level is superior to that of the armour. Still though, removing or at least massively decreasing the movement penalty when the person is moving straight towards or away from you on average (when your avatars are facing in the same or opposite directions) seems to only make sense. It's not like it would make the bow totally op and turn Hafen into sniper city; if someone's 1v1 a bowman they'll just serpentine into range of them and beat them down. But it would make the bow a good support for melee/uc fighters once one side or the other breaks off and tries to flee, as the bowman would force the runner to add a bit of zigzag to his flight and potentially get caught by the melee/uc.

I get too that part of it is because archery is so much easier than melee/uc, but just them having such higher damage is enough to make up for that I would think. This is a pretty weird game where punching things is better than using a sword (or sometimes siege equipment in the case of walls) and highly trained archers have no place in combat (not sure if UC is still the unassailable beast and absolute necessity for combat that it was back when I played).

[PowPow]

Nobody can explain combat in HnH. Combat is the most confusing, most complicated and worst aspect of this game.

[TeckXKnight]

Nobody can explain combat in HnH. Combat is the most confusing, most complicated and worst aspect of this game.

Not really. There are 3 resources: Initiative, Combat Advantage, and Intensity. You use initiative to use combat actions, eg: Chop. You gain combat advantage every time you land a hit, you lose combat advantage every time your opponent hits you, and some combat moves add or remove combat advantage. Every action increases intensity and intensity increases the speed of actions for both you and your opponent.

You have 2 bars: Attack and Defense. You have to break your opponents Defense before you can hit them, otherwise every attack is a miss. The higher your attack bar the more defense you can break and the more damage you can deal. There are specific formulas but for the most part, the higher your relevant combat skill, ie: Unarmed Combat for punching, the more defense you can break per attack and the less Defense is broken when the enemy attacks you. Combat moves and maneuvers can restore Attack and Defense.

Better weapons generally deal more damage, better armor nullifies some damage, and specific moves and attacks will tell you what they do, ie: Dash gives you +1 Initiative and restores 6% of your total defense every time you use it. Combat maneuvers are passive defenses and bonuses that trigger every time you use an action.

Some stats effect combat such as Strength and Agility.

Being hit while moving and not engaged in combat with a target will reduce your defense bar substantially.

That's it, that's combat. There are fine details and nuances to it all but it's really just like 4 simple concepts bundled together and you can either tinker with it in-game or you can read about it on the wiki or in one of the many guides that are already on the forum.

[Flevalt]

Nobody can explain combat in HnH. Combat is the most confusing, most complicated and worst aspect of this game.

Not really. There are 3 resources: Initiative, Combat Advantage, and Intensity. You use initiative to use combat actions, eg: Chop. You gain combat advantage every time you land a hit, you lose combat advantage every time your opponent hits you, and some combat moves add or remove combat advantage. Every action increases intensity and intensity increases the speed of actions for both you and your opponent.

You have 2 bars: Attack and Defense. You have to break your opponents Defense before you can hit them, otherwise every attack is a miss. The higher your attack bar the more defense you can break and the more damage you can deal. There are specific formulas but for the most part, the higher your relevant combat skill, ie: Unarmed Combat for punching, the more defense you can break per attack and the less Defense is broken when the enemy attacks you. Combat moves and maneuvers can restore Attack and Defense.

Better weapons generally deal more damage, better armor nullifies some damage, and specific moves and attacks will tell you what they do, ie: Dash gives you +1 Initiative and restores 6% of your total defense every time you use it. Combat maneuvers are passive defenses and bonuses that trigger every time you use an action.

Some stats effect combat such as Strength and Agility.

Being hit while moving and not engaged in combat with a target will reduce your defense bar substantially.

That's it, that's combat. There are fine details and nuances to it all but it's really just like 4 simple concepts bundled together and you can either tinker with it in-game or you can read about it on the wiki or in one of the many guides that are already on the forum.

If static combat was the norm, you would have a point, but it's not. In every realistic situation it's always movement combat (combined with cheap tricks when possible).
The fact that it took you around 200 words just to explain the basic theory of how static combat works proves that he is right.

[Denkar]

The problem is that turning around with your character is instantaneous. So since you're able to move, hit/thunder, and instantly run away, why not do so? I think turning around should either take a tiny bit of time, or hits should slow you down (probably both you and the person you're hitting), or do at least something to force you to actually fight someone instead of hitting and running away.