COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Combat and PvP

Hello. It's me.

Combat in CoE is still a mystery, with only a few small clips being shown that don't really reveal much. PvP is imperative to the greater success of CoE, and I'd like to discuss how i think it can be made glorious.

Point 1: Do not have the camera "lock on". A locked camera dumbs down combat by removing the need to aim the swing of your sword, and by limiting dodges to the press of a button rather than the players movement - It limits PvP to a 2D plane. Have the camera free, as it is when roaming the wild.

Point 2: Your sword should swing where you aim. If I'm looking up and left click, I should swing up in the air. If I look down and left click, I should swing into the ground. This will be crucial when the Kypiq rise up and stab at our shins.

Point 3: Do not have locked attack animations. When I left click, I should swing my sword infront of me. Nothing more, nothing less. It should not lock the full character into an animation, but only the character's upper body, leaving the movement of the character in the player's control. Attacking with heavy weapons should slow movement during the attack.

Point 4: Hitboxes must be true to the character and weapon model. If I swing my sword and it doesn't visually connect with their model, it should not deal damage. Players should be able to duck under attacks and move in and out of the enemies reach. The Kypiq need not duck.

Point 5: Attacks should not be instant. If I left click I should not instantly swing my sword, but instead I bring my arm back then swing forwards. The time taken to bring the arm back should be proportional to the weight of the weapon. This can be the visual que needed to parry or dodge the attack.

I hope SbS considers these points when developing the combat mechanics. I really am not keen on the idea of CoE with "For Honor" combat or similar.

Anyway thanks for reading. What's your thoughts?

Edit: Having thought it through and reading Jouten's responses, I realise I have basically just described mount and blade's combat. Though it would be cool to see in CoE, I doubt it would work out. 😘


Speak softly and carry a big stick.

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1/10/2019 10:40:28 PM #61

@Marovec : I doubt anyone could put it any more eloquent then that.


1/10/2019 10:58:13 PM #62

Posted By Watru at 12:37 AM - Thu Jan 10 2019

Am all aboard OP hope for this to, if the combat is not skilled based free form combat this game will not be fun.

Any lock on\ auto targeting or any other such mechanic is a deal breker for me.

High pace skill based none gear dependent meaningful PvP combat or dont bother. And lets not forget the directional attacks, ohe please god dont forget the directional attacks.

And reading Snips reply am not so sure. I mean soft locks and full body animations, we will be locked into animation swings. How will parry's and ripostes work @Snipehunter

And if it is a soft lock and you have to deal with it locking on wrong mob switch lock with more mobs in front of you. What happen to the skill based directional combat you talked about?

I am confused what position your taking here!

As at one point you say someone's post is spot on who say's the exact opposite of the above?!?

Snipe clarified that the combat would not be free for all twitchy combat but indeed combat in which you character would need to learn and posses skills in order to succeed.

The problem is the word "Skill"

Half the people in the thread are using this as a Persons individual hand eye coordination.

And the other half of the thread are describing "Skill" as the stuff you character will learn at university etc....

"I am very much anti twitch based hand eye coordination skill"

And I am all for the "Your character needs to learn skill in the game so he can excel in combat"


1/10/2019 11:13:26 PM #63

Posted By Marovec at 11:29 AM - Thu Jan 10 2019

@muleface

  • Well, happy day, player skill IS the deciding factor in fight! So, evidently we are all happy, right?

As Snipe has just said, it is quite possible for a farmer to beat a knight with sufficient player skill.

That generally means that a farmer vs. a knight in-game has about as much chance as a farmer vs. a knight in real life:

(Think people are talking this out of context ^^^^)

All other things being equal, with a lot of {{{{skill}}} to properly place attacks, avoid being struck, and maintain the initiative in the positional aspect of combat, the farmer can win with nearly any equipment.

(I read this farmer has INGAME SKILL not inherit hand eye coordination skill)

But the right {{{equipment,}}} along with {{{actual training,}}} will still make that task {{{easier for the farmer,}}} or if the skill and eq is on the knight, make the farmer's job more difficult in that fight.

So when I read what snipehunters says I understand it as:

A farmer doesn't have a chance unless he has ((( Alot of skill to properly place attacks ))) In this case he can win with any equipment!!!

But More likely he needs: the right {{{equipment,}}} along with {{{actual training.


1/10/2019 11:35:14 PM #64

Posted By Sulfurblade at 6:13 PM - Thu Jan 10 2019

Posted By Marovec at 11:29 AM - Thu Jan 10 2019

@muleface

  • Well, happy day, player skill IS the deciding factor in fight! So, evidently we are all happy, right?

As Snipe has just said, it is quite possible for a farmer to beat a knight with sufficient player skill.

That generally means that a farmer vs. a knight in-game has about as much chance as a farmer vs. a knight in real life:

(Think people are talking this out of context ^^^^)

All other things being equal, with a lot of {{{{skill}}} to properly place attacks, avoid being struck, and maintain the initiative in the positional aspect of combat, the farmer can win with nearly any equipment.

(I read this farmer has INGAME SKILL not inherit hand eye coordination skill)

But the right {{{equipment,}}} along with {{{actual training,}}} will still make that task {{{easier for the farmer,}}} or if the skill and eq is on the knight, make the farmer's job more difficult in that fight.

So when I read what snipehunters says I understand it as:

A farmer doesn't have a chance unless he has ((( Alot of skill to properly place attacks ))) In this case he can win with any equipment!!!

But More likely he needs: the right {{{equipment,}}} along with {{{actual training.

From Snipe:

"All other things being equal, with a lot of skill to properly place attacks, avoid being struck, and maintain the initiative in the positional aspect of combat, the farmer can win with nearly any equipment."

I don't know how he can make it any clearer. This, plain as day, says player skill plays a factor and could potentially allow a "farmer" to overcome a "knight".

If people can't see that, they are doing some mental gymnastics to avoid doing so.


Imgur

1/11/2019 12:06:16 AM #65

Posted By Marovec at 7:29 PM - Thu Jan 10 2019

4) "imagine, if you can, that this where a thread about business mechanics in CoE. I'd be advocating for there to be no "business" stat that you have to level up to make better deals with other players. It should be done through the players own abilities as an entrepreneur. And if there where a "business" stat, it shouldn't have decisive bearing on the players ability to conduct business!"

  • I can't imagine an more irrelevant example. I might as well say, "Let's imagine this is a thread about personal motivation, and I want there to be a 'personal motivation stat'..." What are you talking about?

I'm talking about how "personal motivation" can't be made into a stat to transfer to the OPC, just like "business" can't and "player skill" can't. If SbS find a way, they may well be the first to create truly intelligent AI.

It seems like you didn't actually read my post, and just simply focused on that one part of it because you didn't like it.

I read your post, and replied to a part of it I "didn't like". You have been creating straw man arguments based on your false presumptions.

Posted By Gromschlog at 7:02 PM - Thu Jan 10 2019

OPCs and NPCs need to be viable fighters or the game will be completely ridiculous for combat. Most players will be online some hours per day, mostly less than 25% online time... so you want everyone to be useless for 75% of the time? Whats the point? How do you think your settlement will be defended if you are offline?

I didn't say that OPCs and NPCs should be useless. I am merely saying that the character won't be as strong in combat as when the player is logged in, due to the players brain. They won't be as savvy in business, and they won't have the drive to go adventure... "personal motivation" if you will.

I can guess at how a settlement will be defended when you are offline, but I think it shouldn't be through buffing the OPC.


Speak softly and carry a big stick.

1/11/2019 1:07:25 PM #66

Posted By Themata at 07:25 AM - Thu Jan 10 2019

People keep mentioning Mount and Blade, and to me this is actually the ideal we need to aim for. Not just because of how the combat itself plays out mechanically, but because of the fact that stats do affect your character. Try archery with no archery skill, and you can't aim as well. Try fight with a sword you haven't trained in, you do less damage, if you are strong enough to use it in the first place. This meeting in the middle is what we should aim for, not try to push so far to the extreme of one or the other.

I agree, MnB did a good job merging player skill and character skill together. That, and the momentum modifier, makes MnB combat much more...(What’s the new trend? Verisimilitude? Sure.) verisimilitude-y than games like Chivalry.

(Though to be fair, you only play as trained soldiers in Chivalry, but you get my point.)

Honestly, because of those systems, the ai in MnB isn’t bad either. Sometimes the pathfinding is weird but each npc’s individual combat ability has a large range, from easy to very challenging, depending on certain situations. That sounds like the perfect system for OPCs.


1/11/2019 7:18:30 PM #67

I love chiv but the combat feels a tad slow and there is no fluidity to the combat. Dont get me wrong its a good game but I think it could have been done better.

When I say its a tad slow the combat is too predictable once you get it down and you might lose a few fights but for the most part you can block anything and everything with any class in the game.

In CoE having seen the updated combat gif I hope the combat should be roughly 15-20% faster then has been shown. At max Tier 3 levels in your prime you should have the strength, speed, agility, and defense to take on 3 Tier 1's or 2 Tier 2's with the odds in your favor. Where depending on player skill 2 Tier 2 still pose a threat just as 3 Tier 1's could pose a threat. Where your gear, stats, training, and player skill only adds to your success with gear balancing weakness with strength while subtracting from performance for survivability.

And when I say Chiv is not fluid it really comes down to the animations and how attacks are structured in general. Such as if you press W. W+A, or W+D, and a mouse click should all have various attacks attatch to them along with if your mouse is looking up, down, or center should deliver various combinations which are intuitive and fluid to perform.

Such as if you are running towards someone just pressing w and lick your left mouse you would expect to stab. If you were running towards an opponent and press W+A+left click you would expect to attack right to left. Or vice versa with W+D+left click being a left to right attack. Or if you press A+left click you would expect a right to left slash. A+W+left click could strafe and turn left. The only difference in all examples being the angle you are looking. Which would be a normal slash if center, downward slash or upward slash if looking down or up.

But likewise any backward movement could just as easily be turned into a fluid system of defending yourself. You would expect if you are backing off you would natrually defend an incoming blow.

So S+Left click would block a straight incoming blow. Likewise looking up or down could just as easily block a straight on blow coming from above or someone laying on the ground. With S+A or D blocking blows coming from the left or right if the direction of incoming blows matters. Or if you strafe and press S you could back off and pivot left or right to help block incoming combatants about to hit you. Also depending on if you look center, up or down having a direction.

You could even have the system change your direction of an attack before or during an attack or defense move. You would instantly lose the charge and continue to hold the attack again. But it could provide feints or stunts.

When you look at weapons there are very slight difference between how the attacks are delivered with most being relatively similar. Sure some are completely different but for the most part just about all fit into the system above. You could have styles just as easily fit into the system above with more flavor and fluidity added in.

I would really like to see an attack or defense animation tool if attacks have physics in any capacity. A tool which lets you choose where you want the pose to start, other markers in the middle you want the attack to stream towards and the ending point of the attack. With a training dummy to test the power of the strikes based on physics then baked into a move you could use once approved.

Stances could just as easily accent your style with more offense or defense capability or specific moves you have adapted to your style. It could also have all sorts of variations between full defense or full offensive styles. Which would change any moves you have and auto swap in attacks or defensive moves to fit the styles you know.

I also think combat should involve attack charging. Charging should not take more that 1-2 seconds. Where you can hold it and get light to a heavy attack. at will upon realease. Having a system where there is a difference between strikes that could overpower or knock someone off guard.

Locomotion and ragdoll physics should be present in a decent combat system too. The first type of locomotion is when you stop moving. Your speed and weight should make you take longer to stop. The second type should be by how much stamina or health you have. There should be a noticable loss of reactivity to controls the more exausted you are for moving or fighting. Both health and stamina should add up to 100% with each being 50% of full conciousness or control over your character. The third type should be if you get struck with concussive force that would disorient, daze, stun, or cripple another player. If you are struck in the limbs, torso, or head should distrupt either your movement, attack/block, bodily function, or your ability to control yourself depending where you hit for a short while depending on the force or damage suffered which would take extending amounts of time to wear off. The fourth type could be through consumable based effects such as drugs, poisons, food, alcohol, ect which distory your senses, view, or control based on the amount consumed.

Each state listed above should have a small degree of character control loss which grows as each type layers on until you go from complete control on up to slower reactions, slower combat, loss of specific body functions, stumbling, exaustion, dazed, stunned, or crippling attacks which might take time to heal or the necessity of medical treatment.

I think that any wound should heal eventually based on its severity. I also think that if you are struck, lascerated, or stabbed it should create 3 bruises, cuts, and stab wound in the form of scabs, scars, or bruises. They could be like a temporary visual tatoo that fades over time. If you keep getting hit there the tatoo could grow and upen up a visual target for people to hit. The larger the wound, bruise, or scar becomes could represent how much longer it will take to heal as well a nagging injury that will eventually fully heal.

I believe there should be an emotional system too. A small spectrum with fear, happiness, anger, sadness, or any number of emotions and multiple emotional states at the same time similar to the skill chart on souls with the center being calm. It could also effect interactions with players or npcs which could trigger their emotional state(s) by the emotions you display.

Such as if you find something expensive you would get happier, sad if someone you know or love dies, if someone does something against you like theft, destruction, etc.

Emotions could be tied to an adrenaline system which works off of your full emotional state. It could also effect how your body performs. If you are happy and feeling good and healthy you can fight with more ferocity, or in fear. Adrenaline should also be effected by whats going on around you. If good things are happening, people are fighting and killing or dying. Leaders, POI's, objectives, jobs, etc.

Adrenaline should also be effected by other tasks as well like gathering, processing, crafting too. If you are doing good you will be in a better mood or continued failure might make you angry which could effect your output in a number of ways.

Morale should be the total number of a groups adrenaline. No matter what you are doing. Efficiency in whatever you are doing wether its picking crops, mining stone, sawing lumber, crafting weapons, adventuring, fighting, ect should reward efficiency with good morale or bad based on how efficient your group is as a whole.

Emotions, adrenaline, and morale should also wane based on the total amount of each emotion based on the total amounts. It should be broken into the total count for each emotion as well as an amplifier to that emotion as your body seeks to find a complete calm balance again.

I also think adrenaline should effect your ability to defend yourself in the territories you have lawful influence in or at the least any land you own. Essentially it would give you boost of energy through adrenaline to positive emotions when fighting on the lawful side in defense of your lands.

If you are fighting for your land, city, county, duchy, and kingdom scaled by if you are fighting on your home parcel you would get the strongest boost of adrenaline, less if you are fighting in your home city, defending your county or duchy from forein invaders in your territory. Or in your kingdom vs another kingdom you would get the least adrenaline providing none of the other factors are in play.

The further you go outside your territory the less of a boost you would get and the other people you encountered would start to gain defense adrenaline in their favors until you are outside your kingdom. or you and another person are out of the kingdom in which neither weould get any bonus.

I think OPC scripts should allow us to setup a combo along with stances, styles, and attack charge. So that if you do encounter someone your combo could be more similar to what you would do along if you wanted you opc to use heavy or quick attacks or anything in between. Even switch up stances if they face specific threat types (light, med, heavy armor or pri/sec weapon setups) with like 3+ profiles.

I also think that formations in pvp should play an important role. If your commander sets a formation it should attempt to bring you back into formation. It would pull you towards the formation at which at any time you could break formation at will. So anyone wishing to get back into formation can or if you are in the middle of fighting you can continue to fight seamlessly.

So that if you have a bard or bards in your company you can still get their song bonuses but also so that you could potentially have songs associated to specific formations themselves with tempos dictating the pace of march, charges, retreats, or any number of things that are highly audible in the proximity of the bard(s).

The one thing I am excited to see more of in CoE is mounted combat. The jousting demo really showed a lot of promise to me and I really want to see how far SBS takes it.

Beyond that what I really want to see is a siege weaponry demonstration or DJ. There is a lot of things you can do with siege weapons or also exotic siege weapons along with research I really would like to hear more about.

Along with traps or things like pouring tons of flamible sustances or traps in general along with how they can be done through research as it could also really change things.

Also I would like to hear more about defense mechanics for things like spiked logs, pits, pikes, anti sapping tech, boiling oil, how well arrow slits function, gates, horns, bells, gongs ect.

Or how tunneling works to see how sapping a town could work or how long it takes depending on the minerals.

Or last but not least how fire scales in different situations and how long it takes to spread. I know fire was a part of improbable SpatialOS and havent heard anything about fire since then. I would like to see different objects lit on fire some just a single object, multiple flamible objects, a forrest fire from start to finish, a city fire, Fire in a rain storm and what happens. I would hope that fire could grow in its size the longer it comes in contact with a flamible object until it spreads to something else close by. Or that if there was a fire burning a wooden object that it could change to a charred object or incinerated entirely out of existence unless it is put out before then.

All of this combined with the gifts each tribe has, their heights, weights, reach, armor, weapons, ect would make for an interesting complex system. Just my pvp daydream...


If you have items or assets you no longer have use for feel free to send them my way.

1/11/2019 9:29:13 PM #68

Ok. Heres how combat will work. You can use a basic attack in 3 directions. Stab slash diagnal left slash from right. There will be some skill you can learn but can be blocked mid same as stab. You can block in 3 directions. Left right and middle, all special attacks can be blocked middle. There is overhead strike, double slash and multiple moves that can overpower blocks. If you block an attack at the right direction right before it connects you will parry which will let your next attact strike faster than it would normally as long as it is used 1.5 seconds after parry. This reposte does 20 percent more damage and can be the first strike of a combo attack. Striking and running will consume some stamina, and losing health and stamina without being properly nourished will cause hp and I stam to gain grey bar which will keep your hp and stam from being full until you sleep or eat. You can't sleep if you are too hungry. Certain foods will make you fatter which come in 7 types. Skelital, slim, thin, normal, stout, fat, and obese. Each has buff except normal, stout has -5 agility +5 str.


The nicest pig in the world and a little cute.

1/11/2019 9:34:16 PM #69

Also you will hold the mouse button to charge attacks which fully charged does more damage if not charged. They do this so chasing and combat is more skill based. Timing is important for combat


The nicest pig in the world and a little cute.

1/12/2019 12:18:35 AM #70

Posted By Thecutepig at 1:29 PM - Fri Jan 11 2019

Ok. Heres how combat will work. You can use a basic attack in 3 directions. Stab slash diagnal left slash from right. There will be some skill you can learn but can be blocked mid same as stab. You can block in 3 directions. Left right and middle, all special attacks can be blocked middle. There is overhead strike, double slash and multiple moves that can overpower blocks. If you block an attack at the right direction right before it connects you will parry which will let your next attact strike faster than it would normally as long as it is used 1.5 seconds after parry. This reposte does 20 percent more damage and can be the first strike of a combo attack. Striking and running will consume some stamina, and losing health and stamina without being properly nourished will cause hp and I stam to gain grey bar which will keep your hp and stam from being full until you sleep or eat. You can't sleep if you are too hungry. Certain foods will make you fatter which come in 7 types. Skelital, slim, thin, normal, stout, fat, and obese. Each has buff except normal, stout has -5 agility +5 str.

this sounds terrible??? so how do players stats and learned abilitys play into this??? And how would you know this info???


1/12/2019 2:06:23 AM #71

Posted By Sulfurblade at 6:18 PM - Fri Jan 11 2019

Posted By Thecutepig at 1:29 PM - Fri Jan 11 2019

Ok. Heres how combat will work. You can use a basic attack in 3 directions. Stab slash diagnal left slash from right. There will be some skill you can learn but can be blocked mid same as stab. You can block in 3 directions. Left right and middle, all special attacks can be blocked middle. There is overhead strike, double slash and multiple moves that can overpower blocks. If you block an attack at the right direction right before it connects you will parry which will let your next attact strike faster than it would normally as long as it is used 1.5 seconds after parry. This reposte does 20 percent more damage and can be the first strike of a combo attack. Striking and running will consume some stamina, and losing health and stamina without being properly nourished will cause hp and I stam to gain grey bar which will keep your hp and stam from being full until you sleep or eat. You can't sleep if you are too hungry. Certain foods will make you fatter which come in 7 types. Skelital, slim, thin, normal, stout, fat, and obese. Each has buff except normal, stout has -5 agility +5 str.

this sounds terrible??? so how do players stats and learned abilitys play into this??? And how would you know this info???

They don't know.


1/12/2019 12:39:11 PM #72

Posted By Sulfurblade at 12:18 AM - Sat Jan 12 2019

Posted By Thecutepig at 1:29 PM - Fri Jan 11 2019

Ok. Heres how combat will work. You can use a basic attack in 3 directions. Stab slash diagnal left slash from right. There will be some skill you can learn but can be blocked mid same as stab. You can block in 3 directions. Left right and middle, all special attacks can be blocked middle. There is overhead strike, double slash and multiple moves that can overpower blocks. If you block an attack at the right direction right before it connects you will parry which will let your next attact strike faster than it would normally as long as it is used 1.5 seconds after parry. This reposte does 20 percent more damage and can be the first strike of a combo attack. Striking and running will consume some stamina, and losing health and stamina without being properly nourished will cause hp and I stam to gain grey bar which will keep your hp and stam from being full until you sleep or eat. You can't sleep if you are too hungry. Certain foods will make you fatter which come in 7 types. Skelital, slim, thin, normal, stout, fat, and obese. Each has buff except normal, stout has -5 agility +5 str.

this sounds terrible??? so how do players stats and learned abilitys play into this??? And how would you know this info???

They're making shit up


Coming Soon(tm)

1/12/2019 4:10:50 PM #73

No. Its true. Those 2 are just scared because their gear crutching wont work


The nicest pig in the world and a little cute.

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