Thoughts on Combat | Forums

[Honor_is_D-EA-D]

I couldn't put this game down. The biggest issue I had, is the Alpha was not a long enough window!

Combat works great, I think the only things I would play around with and change are maybe the timing in between when a person taps a different guard direction and when it takes effect. Seems like I have quite a bit of time from when I would tell the game to change guard and when it actually changed, we are talking less than a second probably but the delay was noticeable.

Ladders need some work, I would be climbing ladders and someone...even my team members would just get on the ladder and it would send me plummeting to my death. Me and a friend would seemingly get to a ladder at the same time and we would lock up and our characters would bounce around. This happened once climbing up and we never recovered and had to exit the match, the second time we had the same thing happen at the top of a ladder and eventually he fell to his death and I regained control of my Hero.

When fighting multiple opponents, it seems like the game randomly selected who to lock onto and not who was the closest opponent or who I was looking at. I wouldn't even be looking at a player and I would hit the lockon button and it would spin me away from the guy I was looking at and fighting. I know I am not the only one that experienced this because the players I was fighting in a 2v2 situation would do the same thing. a 2v1 is hard enough when you dont have the lockon system turning your back to your opponents.

The dodge seemed very slow and small to me. There seemed to be a lag after you dodge where no other actions could be taken for about a second afterwards. I would try dodging away and then rolling as an escape maneuver but it turned into a dodge...opponent closes gap to attack while I am waiting for the roll action to begin, roll, opponent is not much further out then when I started the escape sequence and I would quickly get a sword or axe to my back for my efforts.

You could leave this game just the way it is and I would still love it, I fully expect to play this game for pretty much all of 2017. But these things I found were raising my frustration level and I would like to see them more reactive to make the game play more seamless and less waiting for attack sequences to finish before I can begin my next move whether it be fleeing like a coward or a full on bull rush to hack my opponent to pieces.

Great game, I hope I get into Beta as well!!

[Raddoz]

I think that the combat needs a few little tweaks for it to be a lot more balanced. Especially when someone activates revenge, the best action to counter an enemy in a revenge state is just to run away and wait for the revenge state to be over. We could counter players doing this by giving a speed bonus to the chaser, when an enemy is exposing it's back to the attacker and running away, the attacker would get a slight speed bonus (just like in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare) so he could catch up to him and the coward would get what was coming to him.

I also had some problems whilst fighting Berserkers. I never did that much research on the Berserker, but I mained Orochi throughout most of the alpha and whenever I tried to fight against some player that had some knowledge about the Berserker, I was absolutely annihilated. I couldn't deflect most of Berserker's attacks as an Orochi (might've been one of his "special moves") and I was also being spammed by the Feint attack and I usually had no chance against experienced Berserkers.

Adding some sort of "cooldown" to the special moves that every character has, would make the combat a lot more diverce. I've had many opponents just spamming the same ability one after another, and also spamming guardbreak. Cooldowns on the abilities and guardbreaks would be a FANTASTIC amendment.

Regardless of all the things mentioned above, I absolutely loved the Alpha and already looking forward to the Beta testing!

[MercenaryJames]

My overall experience with the Alpha was more than I could have hoped for. I loved the customization and the combat was deep, fluid, and oh so satisfying.

-I did experience some bugs, such as in a party, if any player was in the customization menu they won't follow the Party Leader in Matchmaking and end up in Matchmaking limbo. Only solution we found was to relaunch the game and not start Matchmaking until everyone was in the "Play" Menu.
-Also experienced some bugs with Ladders, where two of my teammates were glued to the ladder after attempting to climb at the same time, unable to get off.
-Bug where I was able to kill a player with the falling attack, by locking on to him as I fell instead of the foe I threw down. Kind of an awkward scenario seeing someone drop dead from nothing.

I primarily played the Warden, which I loved despite his slow speed. The versatility of the combat system ensures there are multiple ways to handle any situation given the right timing and skill. I enjoyed many duels and Brawls, and playing Dominion with a party of four was amazing to say the least. Fighting a tough battle with a formidable and skilled player was both rewarding and terrifying. That said, I will give my personal thoughts on the Assassin classes, or the Orochi and Berserker.

My real concern is the Deflect ability they both share. I feel that it is disconnected from the combat system in that there is no real way to counter a deflection+follow up. Essentially very skilled players can kill enemies solely with the deflect. Because there is no way to avoid a deflection aside from a degree of luck, and keeping your attacks varied, it feels broken, as it creates a cheese way to defeat enemies with fairly little effort.

Where as every other move set in the game has a means of countering, such as unblockables still being parried, or countering a guardbreak, once the deflect is executed the person being deflected is basically powerless to do anything and essentially just wait for what may come.

I guess what I find discomforting is that while Parrying requires pretty good timing to execute, the deflect can be done simply by rotating directions and waiting for a connection. And with the Berserker, you can potentially go perfect in Duels simply by Deflecting+Guardbreak+Heavy strike+Repeat. During the deflect you cannot counter the Guardbreak that follows, and are again at the mercy of the attacker. It creates a scenario where you simply cannot attack when it comes to a skilled player. Any move you make is easily turned into a deflection combo.

To put a point, I feel there should be slight tweaks made to the Deflect. I'm still trying to consider what changes would be sufficient without making the skill useless, as it is very useful for the class. Again, overall I thought the game was amazing, and I'm insanely anxious for the Beta and release. Couldn't be more excited!