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Victor

Steam Launch and combat

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On 6/15/2020 at 8:38 PM, atazs said:

Floating combat text for damage you deal (or didn't deal because of a miss) damage someone dealt to you (or you blocked), and a visible swing timer would be a good start

After this, the next step would be to make special moves viable attack moves against mobs, decrease their timer in pve, make them non interruptable, give them a higher chance of a hit and create a visible button. Perhaps tweak them a little. Keep skill requirements as it is but give more indication to people that they exist and can be unlocked as a form of "combat ability". 

To be honest, the whole fighting UI tab (the one where you can choose your fighting styles etc...) needs a massive rework, and needs to be more visible/noticable and more clear. It has remained the exact same since i started playing in 2010, and it's one of the most outdated mechanics/UI in the whole game. 

 

There. Would you mind replying to my posts that you acknowledged them, and give your thoughts about them? 

 

@Retrogarde You seemingly posted here asking for people to input their ideas, but then didn't bother to reply to anyone who gave them. 

Edited by atazs
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The biggest problem with Wurm combat (in PvE, at least) is that there's really no way to interact with the opponent. You walk up, target the creature, then stand there waiting for dicerolls to determine the outcome of the combat. The creature you're fighting wont be doing anything that will modify the outcome of the combat, nor can you make any action to swing it in your favor.

 

The key, however, is to keep it "viable" to simply allow the fight to play out as it usually does, while giving the player tools to actually benefit their combat. Some people actually prefer the laid back combat style that currently exists. Turning too far into a MMORPG style combat system would be detrimental to some players.

 

So the real answer is to simply add more options. Double down on special moves and make them actually impact NPC's in a way that matters. You can drain an NPC's stamina, food, and water... but none of that is really apparent in combat. You don't really know how, or even if, it's to your benefit. There's also no indication, through text or UI, when the target is out of food/water/stamina. All this combined creates a very low impact special move system. With more information, new tactics could arise which enable players to create interesting stories from combat.

 

Imagine a scenario where a player who is incapable of taking a troll head on wants to fight it. They engage the fight, then use special moves to drain the troll of all their food. They run to safety and begin healing. The troll is now hungry, so it begins hunting. It tracks down a nearby brown bear and begins to fight it, with the intent of killing the bear and eating it to replenish it's food. Note that this is a mechanic that already exists in the game. The player then assists the bear in killing the troll. The troll is slain, and the bear is now wounded from the troll. The player is then able to finish off the bear and has resulted in slaying a troll and brown bear without being capable of fighting either one in head on combat.

 

While I think everyone agrees that combat should be more visually appealing, the combat system is severely dated mechanically. I agree with most of the other comments here. The combat will be a major turn off for players approaching the game through Steam. It needs a facelift, but also a mechanical overhaul.

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Going with an idea like visual timers in combat to make it more interactive should get a visual of where the mob is blocking so you have to change stance and same with the player.

 

So during combat with a troll, if you aim for the head and the troll changes stance to block high, then you'll not really do any damage to him even if successfully hitting him until you change stance to where he's not blocking.  Then maybe 3 swings later the troll changes stance and an indicator would show this.  The same would work for the player also where you can see an indicator of where the troll is aiming so you can try to block.

 

If fighting in PvP you should be able to easily see direction of people trying to block or target so can try to counter.

 

Just an idea, haven't thought it through.

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Ways to improve combat without changing it:

- add better visual feedback on what's happening - as mentioned this could be floating damage numbers or a swing timer, but also improved animation timing, a better indicator on if you're standing above an enemy for example... was ever mentioned if the combat ui (that window where you can see special moves) will get reworked too? I think this would be great for making it feel better and more clear.
- improve how a target is shown, so it's easier to see what you are targetting in the world (maybe some form of outline? Could be useful for anything as you can also click on a tree for example to chop it)
- anything that makes the combat text log less necessary will make the combat feel more intuitive in my opinion


Slight changes:

- make special moves usable earlier - as has been pointed out in most (pve) fights they are useless as they will only come available once the enemy is dead or almost dead. I think this would help a great deal as it will feel more like you can actually do something in a fight

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The way I envision perfected Wurm Combat is actually by increasing the GUI and some updated decision-making during combat to make it more active. Many people now don't both using moves or shieldbashing. Some added mechanics or transparency on moves, shielding certain areas, etc. would liven it up a bit. Couple that with better animations that reflect different stances and attacks (similar to Kenshi only first person), and I think combat would be good for an expanded niche audience.

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A HUGE first and relatively easy step towards upgrading combat would be DPS numbers.  List DPS numbers on weapons, list armor defense values on armor, and at least give us the text version of DPS numbers in combat.  We don't need to see the numbers popping in the UI, but in the combat log would be nice.  You hit the Troll deadly hard in the right shoulder for 220 damage!  Pair this with enemy health bars or some such.  Maybe certain foods (if they already don't do this) allow for increasing your parry rate, or your hit rate, etc, with an actual number or number range attached that explains the increase or decrease.  These numbers could change depending on player Fighting skill, as well.  Attacks per second, damage per second, hit rate chance.  All of this data would improve the system as it currently is and make the reading-text combat system more enjoyable until more changes can be made.

Edited by Slickshot
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I guess one big thing is, combat with mobs is generally aim for the head. The deepest it really goes is hit them in the arm if they are a troll to remove the club usefulness.

 

Some solutions could be, in a game like Haven and Hearth

-> Mobs naturally faster than the player, when low on hp will run from the player in Haven and Hearth, (this could make it useful to cripple a hell horse/horse/unicorn/wolves/ect, in the act of a hunt, or use a bow and arrow to finish them.)

 

Another idea.

Add more meaning to hitting somewhere other than the head on monsters. Right now head = more DPS, and hitting them elsewhere doesn't give you any sort of advantage (other than hitting the club arm of a troll.) I guess if we gave mobs more abilities which could be reduced rate and effectiveness by wounding the part tied to it, so lets say with wolves they would leap and bite (wolves like to go for the neck), if you aim for their legs they no longer will do that wounding ability to your upper body and could only aim at your legs. Give goblins a kick that works like a shield bash, light damage but interrupts you.

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On 6/13/2020 at 10:25 PM, Victor said:

All abilities could cost some bit of Stamina, so players would have to manage their energy. Perhaps add in some stamina potions or something so resource management becomes a skill.

It’s called alcohol 

 

On 6/16/2020 at 6:58 AM, Haseroths said:

Unfortunately for this game however, most of the steam memberbase are people who play quick action combats/building games with medium to low effort, wurm is a very slow game and takes time. I'd honestly hope to be wrong but i dont see the steam release doing much for the game other than to create more haters. Hence why the OP was right when they said that the game would not suddenly appeal to more people than it does right now, almost anyone who has interest in these kinds of games has already found out about wurm, given it a try and left or stayed. And also to address something that i often see, "Wurm unlimited did relatively well on steam so why would WO not get the same" WU is designed in a way where players can modify their gameplay experience to make it less tedious and more engaging, WO does not have that especially considering the fact that RETRO confirmed the steam servers would be 1x which would be no different than what the other servers have (save for epic)

As someone who discovered this via steam, I heavily disagree. I wouldn’t have found Wurm Online without steam, and I certainly love it! I imagine loads of people are just discovering the game and sure, not everyone will like it but that’s with any game. Lots of others will like it and rave about it.

 

On 6/19/2020 at 7:56 AM, nicedreams said:

Going with an idea like visual timers in combat to make it more interactive should get a visual of where the mob is blocking so you have to change stance and same with the player.

This. While I am very happy with the laidback system, stances seem rather meaningless. “You try to move into [x] stand but [mob] blocks you.” And? I don’t see them blocking, how am I supposed to know where they’re blocking me?

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