Combat/Overall feedback

[Kevin]

I want to start off by saying, conceptually Mortal Online is one of the greatest games ever, though that concept gets torn apart by poor implication of "content" and mechanics. Not sure about Starvaults goals with this game, do they want it to have competitive PVP? MO1 started out with lower TTK(Time to Kill) and faster movement making it more skilled than the current MO1 where the TTK is almost triple and requires whole stamina bars to kill someone. SV continues to make changes that impeded player skill and enabled less competent players who need to rely on gimmicks and odds. Handle hits used to do 0 and 1 damage, you didn't lose stamina for blocking, lighter armor was the meta, mounts got dice rolled from any damage, all of these things pushed for players to be good on foot and allowed fighting outnumbered solely based on group cohesion and player skill. Something that is lacking in current MO1 where the PVP consists of fighting out of player-made guard zones with broken and gimmicky pets. The TTK is enormous now making it very forgiving and allowing easy resets with heals and counter pressure. I understand this is not MO1 and it is a new game but I already see a trend of low skill PVP forming with SLOW combat that makes it feel like a turn-based game, not a combat MMO. I hope that SV can realize what is important in their game, which is the core gameplay and mechanics all the fluff comes after. It is confusing to me that we are in a combat alpha and there are posts about female physics instead of actual gameplay improvements on the core mechanics of the game. The functionality and use of these mechanics in PVP should be the only thing that matters. As it stands MO2 feels awful anyone who says differently is clouded by fanboy delusions or play the game to look at all the grass and foliage textures. I think anyone who was a relevant PVPer in MO can agree on these points and would hope for a game where player skill matters and zerg mechanics along with gimmicks are limited if at all.

1. Blocking is 360 degrees adds to my later point of combat being slow.
2. Movement slow and clunky feels floaty like life is feudal.
3. Swings getting canceled by people and objects, you try to sticky someone and your swings cancel because you are too close to the person.
4. Combat meta is blocked infinitely no need to play aggressively because you can't bypass blocks
5. No sprint break
6. Swing arcs of weapons need a lot of work, seems easiest hit people who are not on your screen
7. Latency handicap gives an advantage to EU players in an already slow game (Give us NA server and one EU server)
8. Overall PVP feels clunkier then pre-alpha MO1 and this seems to be a step back
9. Armor and textures are bulky and clearly not intended for first-person I concluded from the models clipping into camera

 

[HentaiKing]

Yea they need to make some fundamental changes to make the game playable for a lot of people. Its all basically parry baiting. Extremely low skill that only benefits EU players.

 

[mydadnvm]

i've watched a lot of vids, streams, interviews, and friends playing to see enough. the combat looks pretty terrible, i feel like for a combat alpha, the focus was not combat but instead other things lol. i could get past it, but if it turns into a EU advantage parry game it's not going to be worth playing. They need to just have an NA server. it makes sense to region lock players because of the huge differences when playing online games and ping.

 

[Legendary Man]

BOTTOM LINE WE NEED NA SERVERS FOR THIS GAME TO EVER BE FUN AND COMPETITIVE FOR AMERICANS! GREAT POST MAN I AGREE!

 

[Rhias]

I fully agree to points:
"
1. Blocking is 360 degrees adds to my later point of combat being slow.
3. Swings getting canceled by people and objects, you try to sticky someone and your swings cancel because you are too close to the person.
4. Combat meta is blocked infinitely no need to play aggressively because you can't bypass blocks
"
Currently it's parry Online.

But I don't get it why you think combat is "clunky". MO2 combat & animations are much more fluid compared to MO1.
And I strongly disagree that it's a step from MO1. I would even say it's a major improvement.
It takes some times to get used to the new combat system, but after playing some time I like it more.

 

[Kevin]

I fully agree to points:
"
1. Blocking is 360 degrees adds to my later point of combat being slow.
3. Swings getting canceled by people and objects, you try to sticky someone and your swings cancel because you are too close to the person.
4. Combat meta is blocked infinitely no need to play aggressively because you can't bypass blocks
"
Currently it's parry Online.

But I don't get it why you think combat is "clunky". MO2 combat & animations are much more fluid compared to MO1.
And I strongly disagree that it's a step from MO1. I would even say it's a major improvement.
It takes some times to get used to the new combat system, but after playing some time I like it more.

Those points you agreed with add to my point of combat feeling clunky

 

[Rhias]

Those points you agreed with add to my point of combat feeling clunky

You probably should google what the world clunky means.
People being fast and able to parry 100% of times is the exactly opposite of what clunky means.

 

[Kevin]

1. The combat is awkward in a few ways namely on the swing release and block being unresponsive,your screen being covered 30% by armor along with other details, swing arc canceling swings, inability to follow up swings because being locked into the swing not able to drag it.
2. Heavy I think this applies more in a physical sense but if I wanted to stretch it I could say the swings being directionally slowed after release preventing follow through is that
3. Outdated this system is loosely based of Mount and blade with the directional swings and instant parries. Unlike mount and blade there is no fients no frontal blocking cone, no locale servers for ping to be more normalized between the players of each server and no chambering. All these things complement the instant parry system allowing out playability and "Player Skill" to shine. This system was made 12 years ago not considering the testing phases, without the system being fully implemented it goes without saying it doesnt work well. Edit- Also want to add in MO2 you have to charge swings where M&B has no swing charge, complementing the instant parry system

 

[Steinerr]

I fully agree to points:
"
1. Blocking is 360 degrees adds to my later point of combat being slow.
3. Swings getting canceled by people and objects, you try to sticky someone and your swings cancel because you are too close to the person.
4. Combat meta is blocked infinitely no need to play aggressively because you can't bypass blocks
"
Currently it's parry Online.

But I don't get it why you think combat is "clunky". MO2 combat & animations are much more fluid compared to MO1.
And I strongly disagree that it's a step from MO1. I would even say it's a major improvement.
It takes some times to get used to the new combat system, but after playing some time I like it more.

I agree with Rhias 100%

 

[Teknique]

I want to start off by saying, conceptually Mortal Online is one of the greatest games ever, though that concept gets torn apart by poor implication of "content" and mechanics. Not sure about Starvaults goals with this game, do they want it to have competitive PVP? MO1 started out with lower TTK(Time to Kill) and faster movement making it more skilled than the current MO1 where the TTK is almost triple and requires whole stamina bars to kill someone. SV continues to make changes that impeded player skill and enabled less competent players who need to rely on gimmicks and odds. Handle hits used to do 0 and 1 damage, you didn't lose stamina for blocking, lighter armor was the meta, mounts got dice rolled from any damage, all of these things pushed for players to be good on foot and allowed fighting outnumbered solely based on group cohesion and player skill. Something that is lacking in current MO1 where the PVP consists of fighting out of player-made guard zones with broken and gimmicky pets. The TTK is enormous now making it very forgiving and allowing easy resets with heals and counter pressure. I understand this is not MO1 and it is a new game but I already see a trend of low skill PVP forming with SLOW combat that makes it feel like a turn-based game, not a combat MMO. I hope that SV can realize what is important in their game, which is the core gameplay and mechanics all the fluff comes after. It is confusing to me that we are in a combat alpha and there are posts about female physics instead of actual gameplay improvements on the core mechanics of the game. The functionality and use of these mechanics in PVP should be the only thing that matters. As it stands MO2 feels awful anyone who says differently is clouded by fanboy delusions or play the game to look at all the grass and foliage textures. I think anyone who was a relevant PVPer in MO can agree on these points and would hope for a game where player skill matters and zerg mechanics along with gimmicks are limited if at all.

1. Blocking is 360 degrees adds to my later point of combat being slow.
2. Movement slow and clunky feels floaty like life is feudal.
3. Swings getting canceled by people and objects, you try to sticky someone and your swings cancel because you are too close to the person.
4. Combat meta is blocked infinitely no need to play aggressively because you can't bypass blocks
5. No sprint break
6. Swing arcs of weapons need a lot of work, seems easiest hit people who are not on your screen
7. Latency handicap gives an advantage to EU players in an already slow game (Give us NA server and one EU server)
8. Overall PVP feels clunkier then pre-alpha MO1 and this seems to be a step back
9. Armor and textures are bulky and clearly not intended for first-person I concluded from the models clipping into camera

I agreed with you entirely at one point.

The enhanced difficulty to aim and the enhanced difficulty to inflict damage DOES make it more skill based. As well makes for some pretty epic duels.

Its cool some of the skill differences that exist. For example tyguy furry patwins are 9000 times better than me, and I am 9000 times better than you. And you're 9000 times better than some other kids. The scales are astonishing.

 

[WesleySnipes]

I think the TTK feels alright atm (there's no healing so we'll have to see what happens when that is thrown into the mix), but I'm curious to where you think the TTK should be. How many hits do you think it should take to kill an equally geared adversary? The skill ceiling is clearly visible, I don't have any trouble telling a bad player from a good player, or even two good players apart from each other. I definitely think handle blows need to be toned down.

The lack of an NA server when the population is (and probably will be on release) be north american makes me raise my eye brows.

 

[Legendary Man]

I agreed with you entirely at one point.

The enhanced difficulty to aim and the enhanced difficulty to inflict damage DOES make it more skill based. As well makes for some pretty epic duels.

Its cool some of the skill differences that exist. For example tyguy furry patwins are 9000 times better than me, and I am 9000 times better than you. And you're 9000 times better than some other kids. The scales are astonishing.

Interesting, the EU guys are considered "good" to you. NA servers pls

 

[Teknique]

Interesting, the EU guys are considered "good" to you. NA servers pls

Patwins is NA.

 

[Kevin]

You Americans are ABSOLUTELY useless without your OP PING crutch mate

Obvious troll, NA has never had a ping crutch "mate". Ping matters even more due to how slow the current combat is and the meta of blocking only. It speaks to how bad the majority of the EU players are after all the fights they would drop to NA players with 150ms ping if lucky on mo1. Go fight on mordhau/chiv/mount and blade with 150 ping vs 20 and it doesn't even speak to player skill due to massive advantage that ping gives. Average human reaction speed is .25 seconds for visual in addition to the 150 ms and adding the EU players ping to it lets say 40 ping, you have 430 ms delay for the average player. My reaction speed based on a test is .18 which is above average but the top reaction speeds are around .1 so even if you are a golden god you are still looking at 280 ms delay from visual inputs. Didn't really want to humor you by responding but figured putting these facts for others would be beneficial to educate this community.

 

[Kevin]

Also being good at the current state of game is like bragging about being in the Special Olympics, the combat is a shell of what it needs to be and the simplest version possible. It speaks to how desperate people in this community are for recognition after being dumpster for years in MO1.

 

[Livingshade]

Obvious troll, NA has never had a ping crutch "mate". Ping matters even more due to how slow the current combat is and the meta of blocking only. It speaks to how bad the majority of the EU players are after all the fights they would drop to NA players with 150ms ping if lucky on mo1. Go fight on mordhau/chiv/mount and blade with 150 ping vs 20 and it doesn't even speak to player skill due to massive advantage that ping gives. Average human reaction speed is .25 seconds for visual in addition to the 150 ms and adding the EU players ping to it lets say 40 ping, you have 430 ms delay for the average player. My reaction speed based on a test is .18 which is above average but the top reaction speeds are around .1 so even if you are a golden god you are still looking at 280 ms delay from visual inputs. Didn't really want to humor you by responding but figured putting these facts for others would be beneficial to educate this community.

what are you mumbling about IS NOT TROLLING DUDE. I play with so many NA on NA server in other game and the ONLY REASON they can win sometimes is because the ping was better. they were absolutely not good. the moment we went to EU server they could not even get a hit. is the same in MO americans with shit ping become shit at game

 

[Kevin]

what are you mumbling about IS NOT TROLLING DUDE. I play with so many NA on NA server in other game and the ONLY REASON they can win sometimes is because the ping was better. they were absolute dogshit. the moment we went to EU server they could not even get a hit. is the same in MO downie americans with shit ping become shit at game

I think you are agreeing with me that ping heavily influences the extent player skill has on the fights.

 

[Livingshade]

I think you are agreeing with me that ping heavily influences the extent player skill has on the fights.

is TRUE dude ping 100% matters but the NA people skill is so LOW that without PING they are absolutely dogshit in pvp but Australian people and Europeans in games can still play with bad ping and win. that is why I call U PING CRUTCHERS. because U CRUTCH on PING

 

[mydadnvm]

split the servers, then us americans can play without EU talking trash all day, using such a serious advantage and talk shit when we mention it. there's a reason almost every other game is region locked.

i'd also like to point out that people even complain about west coast vs east coast servers... i don't see how mortal online is the only exception forcing everyone from the globe to play on a central EU server giving EU players an advantage.

it's not just an advantage for pvp combat, simple things like desyncing when fighting mobs force you to parry at an unnatural time, or missing timing when you shouldn't.

i think with the launch from MO1, the multiple server issues had, splitting the pop between an NA and EU server would actually be beneficial from launch.

i just don't see a large amount of players looking at a niche game and willing to play with high ping. there's going to be a few that stick around, but the majority will find something else to play with less lag

 

[bbihah]

The main issue I find with the combat is it feels non-"complete". As in the interaction of someone attacking and someone defending does not feel like its planned out to go in a certain way other than attack, block/parry, counter, block and repeat until someone makes a mistake or gets tired. In the games current form, someone turtling could just block you until someones weapon breaks, once durability actually goes down to real levels.

Melee vs melee is very defensive lopsided, 360 block is actually good if there was a counter to blocking, since it circumvents high ping people(or difference between two people is more accurate I guess) from getting on your back even though on your end they are clearly in front of you. If you were infact behind them, don't swing the same way they last saw you swing and you would be getting a perfectly good hit. 90% of the time, you are clearly not behind them on anything but your end, the enemy is staring at you like you are a special kid and hence why they keep matching the block direction.
People with high ping, be it on purpose or just because of distance to the servers is a reality we are all even in MO2 are going to have to live with and as long as its always considered throughout balancing and adding features there are ways to make it less of an issue, like 360 blocking to prevent high ping difference from just being a straight up easy win as long as you play aggressive.

Which brings me to the main gripe I have with how it works right now.

Blocking(is how I will reference to it, even though its parrying you want to achieve) has no cooldown, there is no way of getting past a block other than some "clever" looking straight up and changing your swings around with weapons that have similar overhead and side swings and hoping they don't catch on before you swing at them. blocking/parrying needs to be handled more like how its handled in Mordhau and in turn the way swings work will have to change, too. My proposed change to speed up (or alter it anyway) the flow of combat would then be:

If you block in a direction, there should be a cooldown before you can block again. This cooldown needs to be (generally) longer than the time it takes to get a sort of swing out. Then one of the tricks to get past blocks will be to start a swing from a direction and try to get the defender to block/parry prematurely, which lets you switch direction and get a hit in. In turn I think the charge timer should be reduced, but the swing speed should be made slower. This will make blocking more reactionary than it is now as right now its very anticipatory and the defender gets way too much time to block in the right direction with how little risk hitting an early block carries. I've also noticed there is nothing preventing you from blocking when you have a swing charged at any point during the attack other than a brief moment when the swing is being delivered. The only thing making blocking even remotely harder is when you get parried and the counter coming at you will be faster, making it just slightly harder. But if you are not giving him any attacks to parry it is incredibly easy to block.

Counter playing when you missed a block would be entirely possible too, you'd find yourself missing your block, either by matching the right direction but pulling it off before he released the swing or getting the direction wrong, if you could "morph" the block into a charge and squeeze of at least a partly charged attack or a non charged attack you could end up trying to get a trade in if you can risk taking the hit in return. Another option is to run or in other ways get enough distance between you and your opponent or miss so he can not capitalize on the mistake and either get the correct block in or go on the offensive.

Things that would override the cooldown would be things like, successfully blocking or parrying an attack. This way if you are outnumbered you'd not get entirely screwed by the mechanic if they are swinging from different directions, but you are still committing with your blocks and if they are clever they can still wreck you by making it harder for you to keep a check on where both their attacks are coming from(like getting on each side) and feinting attacks or outright baiting swings that don't hit. The meta here is very long.



No its not perfect, im sure it might have actually been mentioned before in this thread or somewhere else. But this is one way to go about it that would add more depth to combat. the additions to shield and other additions and changes to other systems is clearly going to have an impact on a system like this and will have to see a lot of reiteration.


Other people got any ideas?