Poise - Parry break

[Nefnate]

I thought about this too, where the bar becomes visible only when your poise is reduced below 100%, so if a visible bar necessary to make it feel like a manageable system, absolutely.

I also tried working in a passive recovery mechanic into the idea but realised it needed to be an instant recovery mechanic as without it you get stun locked/parry disabled and this ends up feeling worse. You can also look at the 3 second recovery mechanic as taking a step back to regain your composure in a fight. This would be an instantaneous recovery not some gradual process.

Also I'm not sure if you've got this around the wrong way, but blocks would obviously need to be more punishing than parries in the context of how blocks work in game.

I disagree with fully losing the ability to parry/block, this is too punishing. We need to allow the player to still play, thus the [Parry] => [Block] mechanic.



I hadn't fully considered how shields would come into the mix. Initially I did include poise damage reduction dependent on [Parry] = 50% reduced, [Block] = 25% and [Equipment] = 10%. Perhaps this could be the benefit of a shield in the natural form of more frequent equipment hits.

You misinterpreted some of what I said. I said no more parries at full loss of poise, not no more ability to right click, so blocking would still work.

I understand how blocking would technically be worse in terms of poise due to taking the full brunt of the attack, unlike parries which are supposed to be a deflection or redirection - but for the sake of game balance, I think it makes more sense for parries to take the most poise. I think this because:

• Blocking, AFAIK, is no where near as effective as a parry in terms of damage reduction, even with a shield.
• Parrying is the issue at hand, near infinite loops of perfect defence.
• This way, if a players wants to trade HP for some extra poise, they could, by intentionally blocking instead of parrying.
  • They would still lose some poise.
  • It is also less punishing for failing a parry in terms of poise (the trade off is of course - you lose HP from the attack hitting you.)

I don't think people, with my version of a gradual recovery, should get locked into a stun / incapable state. Any sort of stun in a game like this feels horrible:

• In my mind, there is no stun or stagger for 0 poise, only the loss of ability to parry (a successful parry would still work as a Block).
  • A visual que to show the opponent that you ran out of Poise would be good, though.
• They would be able to see their poise low, and have to go aggressive, blocking less and attacking more (allowing their poise to regain, due to it recovering while not blocking).
• A good fighter will know they have to balance offence and defence, otherwise they get stuck with blocks.
• The punishment of only being able to block is enough, IMO.

Poise Damage on hit is fine, so long as it isn't too strong. You can't enable a spam meta, so mid and light weapons would have to barely chip the poise bar. Heavy weapons would make a lot more sense here, throwing the opponent off and making them only able to block instead of parry. It would also need to NOT interupt regeneration - though it could slow it down.

 

[Kelzyr]

Also the jumping & stam penalty starts too late. With heavy armor training at starts at ~16kg. So no reason as a foot fighter to wear anything lighter...

If you're an oghmir its something like 18-19kg too, kinda nutty. It definitely needs to be lower, maybe 9-10kg at max armor, and the implementation of the speed past 5-6kg.

Yep this would be a huge buff to dex mage survivability as they would be the fastest with the fastest stam regen....but you have to keep in mind dex mages have the lowest stam, and a good longbow shot to the head (while your sitting still casting) can do nearly 1/3 of their hp.

Maybe it would be too OP, but might as well try it before EA IMO, no harm in it being OP for a week or two.

 

[AssassinOTL]

I don't see the reason to give essentially a "Stun" to the already most popular role in the game, it would be a nightmare and a disaster imo. It sounds good, it really does, but is def something you'd want to add to a single player game, it's much easier to just trade than ask for a system that we know will be abused in every capacity given the chance, I mean there's a reason not even magic has some feature like this.

And compounding the fact that the only defense a mage has is a shield against a FF you make another issue where someone who literally cant attack you now cant defend against you. Bad idea, and worst implementation. i love the idea because i'm from a Souls game background and i think it would be a good idea but to balance it you'd have to add things like a riposte system where Mages can use a magic attack to retort or you break the already 1 sided misbalance against a defenseless class, 0/10

i get a lot of thought was put into this but you literally would have to implement 3 other systems just to try to balance around this one idea and the implementation would be a nightmare of trying to balance the mass of stuns you'd see in group fights, it wouldn't be skill based anymore it'd just be stun lock meta no matter how many systems you try to implement to get it on a CD for someone, in a group fight you coordinate and can get around it with numbers

 

[Woody]

I don't see the reason to give essentially a "Stun" to the already most popular role in the game, it would be a nightmare and a disaster imo. It sounds good, it really does, but is def something you'd want to add to a single player game, it's much easier to just trade than ask for a system that we know will be abused in every capacity given the chance, I mean there's a reason not even magic has some feature like this.

It's not a stun. The player would still be able to move and parry just not for the first .5s (500ms) of the initial effect. I don't see it being abused in this way because it would occur naturally as part of combat. It's also very controllable so long as you balance your playstyle. You get full recovery up to your stamina % after the stagger too.

And compounding the fact that the only defense a mage has is a shield against a FF you make another issue where someone who literally cant attack you now cant defend against you. Bad idea, and worst implementation. i love the idea because i'm from a Souls game background and i think it would be a good idea but to balance it you'd have to add things like a riposte system where Mages can use a magic attack to retort or you break the already 1 sided misbalance against a defenseless class, 0/10

Magic as a class isn't finished. We have ecumenical and spiritism, with ecumenical being a basic/entry level caster school. Besides, most min-maxed mages that swap to a shield or sword to parry, while rocking low strength are already going to be getting chip damage [Block] through their parries especially against a min maxed foot fighter.

i get a lot of thought was put into this but you literally would have to implement 3 other systems just to try to balance around this one idea and the implementation would be a nightmare of trying to balance the mass of stuns you'd see in group fights, it wouldn't be skill based anymore it'd just be stun lock meta no matter how many systems you try to implement to get it on a CD for someone, in a group fight you coordinate and can get around it with numbers

There's no stun lock effect. You can still move and parry (apart for a brief .5s) which allows for the visual cues both in 1st and 3rd person (other players) that the stagger has occurred. Furthermore, this is why you get a full guaranteed recovery up to your current stamina %. You would also be immune to further poise damage for the full 3 seconds after the stagger (e.g. before it recovers to your stam %) as recovery doesn't kick in until after the effect drops.

 

[Woody]

Edited OP to add:

To reward parrying and to give shields some value through their higher frequency of equipment hits, poise damage reduction could also be included based on the following:

[Parry] = 50%
[Block] = 25%
[Equipment] = 50%
[Handle]/[Arm] = 50%

This gives the potential for 100% poise-dmg reduction as it is possible to parry a handle/arm hit etc. This rewards you for parrying properly + penalises the enemy for hitting you with their handle/arm.