Combat - The last bastion of Arm's Hack & Slash legacy.

[Dresan]

Combat, supported by combat skills,  are from a roleplaying and in-game activity stand point  extremely important to this game. Almost in the same way gladiators were important in roman times. Some people can lose even themselves in logging in, just to get better at combat even though there is no really benefit to doing so other than being the 'best'.

Unfortunately, combat skills can get so high it is borderline broken with very very few non-magick or even magickal things being able to threaten you.

Years ago, there was much more balance to combat. You could be good at combat, but you sucked at almost everything else that was useful including, riding, climbing, stealth and poison. Poisons that threatened a high level warrior, along with just about everyone else was easily bought at a Allanak story ever reboot. However, these soft balancing points have been mostly negated thanks to tweaks and changes to the gamed.

Again combat is very important in this game, it generates a lot of amazing content, and should actually be given some more depth that it has but that can't be done when its current so imbalanced compared to everything else.  If you look at stealth characters or crafters, just about anyone that isn't a warrior/heavy class they always have weaknesses and vulnerabilities no matter how many days played.

What I want to propose is a simple change to solve this:
1. If health, stamina or stun go under 50 percent of their total there is a cost of 10 percent loss of their current combat skills/offense/defense ability.
2. If health, stamina or stun go under 20 percent of their total, then it would be a 20 percent loss of current combat skills/offense/defense ability.
3. If under 50 percent of health, stamina or stun, you don't learn combat skills at all.

This would be an cumulative effect so if both your stamina and health are under 50 percent of total, then its a 20 percent loss. It would be 30 percent loss if its all three and 60 percent total if its all three and under 20 percent. This clearly has less effect to younger character with less offense and defense or combat skills as well as characters with non-combat focus. Yes it would make warrior classes more susceptible to backstab and archery, bringing them in line with just about ever other class, but they would still have the best chance to survive those events by just running the heck away. Additionally this change would strengthen other elements of the game including the need for camps and healing.

Its hard to recommend any quality of life ideas for combat when its so imbalanced. Additionally, many of the changes to control combat are literally centered around keeping people from getting good easily, which just makes the gaming experience feel bad.  For example, needing to be in a clan to train combat effectively or needing to find people way better than you (as if we still had 70 people logging in regularly). This is not the way to balance this aspect of the game.

[Riev]

I don't know about the numbers, I'm no game designer.

However, I do agree that there is something to be looked at when a person on the edge of death (1 hp) has exactly the same amount of efficacy in a group as someone at full health (100 hp).

I would not want to tie it into skill gain specifically, but more combat efficacy in some way. If you're half dead, you're not swinging as hard etc etc. Unfortunately, this would serve to re-unbalance high strength characters who only needed that one shot to land, and now you're fighting at half power.

An interesting idea though to make combat more complex. Beat someone down to the point that at 25% health they're not really a threat anymore ... so you can feel okay about disengaging. If they run, they're running slower. Try to hide? Not as effective. etc etc.

[mansa]

I think it would punish weak / less skilled characters more than anything else.  It feels similar to the old "blood loss" code from 20 years ago, where you would continue to be harmed when you were already hurt.

The game combat already is too quick (imo).

Personally, I would want something else - additional combat skills or new techniques, rather than lowering the proficiency of characters. 

[Dresan]

I think it would punish weak / less skilled characters more than anything else.  It feels similar to the old "blood loss" code from 20 years ago, where you would continue to be harmed when you were already hurt.

The game combat already is too quick (imo).

Personally, I would want something else - additional combat skills or new techniques, rather than lowering the proficiency of characters. 

Two things.

1. This would have much less effect on lower skilled people because its a percentage of what you have. Either way fighting when you are really hurt is bad, this is a known rule, just that now it would be enforced. The numbers can be played with a little but the overall idea works. Maybe there could be minimum so it has no effect on new characters or merchant classes but overall because its percentage based it already geared to be less impactful.

2. I too want to see new combat techniques and have some ideas I would like to recommend, but its difficult to do so because combat as is really overpowered in its current form. Even magick has its weaknesses powerful spells have visible effect and mages not walking around full preped all the time or how if you catch a stealthy class out of stealth they are vulnerable.


Combat in general always felt too fast to me, the problem here is people mistake fighting for killing. Alot of people feel bash and 'kill <person>' should be assassination techniques. I think assassination/ambush technique could potentially looked at and modified but at the end of the day no one should be immortal.

[Agent_137]

Unfortunately, combat skills can get so high it is borderline broken with very very few non-magick or even magickal things being able to threaten you.

If we put subguild mages to the side, then I disagree with the premise here.

There are still mega fauna that best maxed PCs.  And groups. And many spells.    Yeah stealth and poison are no longer big threats, but to say a mundane max combat pc is unbeatable is far from accurate.

Mage subs are the problem. Now that there will be less, let's see how it goes.

[Dresan]

There are still mega fauna that best maxed PCs.  And groups. And many spells.    Yeah stealth and poison are no longer big threats, but to say a mundane max combat pc is unbeatable is far from accurate.

Mage subs are the problem. Now that there will be less, let's see how it goes.

While I agree mage subs have been a problem I think they have been problematic for a host of additional reasons.

Focusing on combat alone, if the reason they aren't OP is because of some critter in the middle of nowhere or magick which should be rare, and groups of people which are harder to encounter with a smaller player-base then I think all the more reason they the class should be brought inline with the mortality risks of other classes.

Again even stealth characters are weak outside of stealth, mages are weak when not spelled up(which should be visible if they are) and everything under mixed classes can die with just a strong gust of wind. If heavy combat classes had notable weaknesses, it would be easier to balance them out in other regards such as skill gains or giving them cool additions to their techniques.

[dumbstruck]

I like the proposed changes to combat and HP, but only if they also apply to critters/npcs, because I know it's largely a RNG game but I swear it feels like NPC animals and the like once they get to critical/near death, they get a resurgence or something. It's messed me up more than once. And we already see disparities causing big lethality with stuff like how npcs can charge in and reel lock you quicker than you can even respond to seeing something enter the room.