Not much to disagree with there. I take your point that they’re both bad games but in very different ways. The most useful way to frame it is that MO1 wasn’t a bad game it was an unsuccessful game. That’s my point from earlier it is too simple to say game ded therefore combat bad.
mortal online (1) to go back to your point of accessibility is actually more accessible from a PvP perspective. It just failed miserably in production value and quality of life, but the combat itself really anyone could participate in. Mortal 1 for example had balance asymmetries that were beneficial to people with low mechanical skill or who are playing legit. Think all the same classes we have in mo2 MC/MA/MM/BM but that actually felt functional, then from a melee perspective it was mostly aim based, and footwork based. This allowed almost anyone even if they were 80 years old to be viable in someway in PvP.
Conclusion: too simplistic to say game died therefore combat was bad, the factors that lead to mos death are complicated and no one can truly say they know exactly what killed it. Arguably both mo1 and Mo2 are actually in the top tier of success for these kinds of mmos, while you can point to the couple behemoths in this genre the vast majority of games in the genre have terrible graphics terrible game play and terrible player counts and run for a couple of months only.
Random edit: mo2 also seems to age quicker or progress through its life cycle much faster than mo1. For example elementalism made mo1 bad at the end of its life but mo2 brought that trash in early. MO died at the conclusion of 3-4 server wars and 100s of just random unnamed wars. MO2 had a siege window that no one cared about then croaked
mo2 is dangerously close to good combat as it is. It only needs the introduction of some gap closers, debuffs like greivous wounds, some mild and short term slows, some quick double strike ability with 50% damage on the second hit, and some cleaves(multiple cleaves), and the ability for mages to cast with weapon out but blocking interrupts casting and the introduction of proper disengage mechanics and some sort of limited sustain option besides bandages/pots for footy kits.
Also the removal of the melee charge up feature and the removal of long cast times but a drastic reduction in mage damage and healing potential. 40% or so to start and test from there with new footy abilities and mage blocking. Also pve damage needs lowered by about 30% across the board to compensate. As well as rebalancing mana costs much lower.
So yea not that much.
Removing melee charge up kills spinning. even if you reduce footy base damage it kills spinning. Requires rebalancing all weapon damages tho.
Doing all of this would produce a magnificent combat flow. Damage would be lower for footys and mages but dps would be higher with no charge up and low cast times, gap closers would be expensive on stamina but footys would be able to stick to mages much better, the mage would be able to skill express through blocking . Spaming abilities and swings will stam you out quickly but you have windows of opportunities to pressure the mage and he must play defensively and then he will have opportunities to pressure you if you are not successful at getting through his blocks.
Ideally we create a meta where any footy can play very aggressively against a mage for a full stamina bar, but if he fails to kill that mage in the stamina bar his options will be limited and he will be in a rough spot unless he can find cover.
May also require rebalancing racial traits.
1VX which is a sore subject now would be much easier, cleaves would punish clumping heavily. mages would be punished for friendly fire more often with no cast times. they can no longer hold spells on you waiting for a perfect moment. And with grievous wounds and lower healing throughput from mages you can now pressure people through heals. enemy mages will be much more likely to heal you because they can no longer hold spells and they now cast quickly.
