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Samool

Combat Overhaul Testing

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Hi, we'd like to invite you all onto the test server to check out the combat overhaul that has been in the works for a while now.

 

erjvTEv.png


With this combat update, the defensive and attack stances have been separated, special moves have been overhauled, and the visual feedback has been increased to a point where for most casual PvE combat, it should no longer be necessary to follow the combat log.


At the same time we did not want to overload the player with information, so certain less relevant information such as glances or parries will stay in the combat log (but you will be able to follow those easily by sound effects)

 

Auto fight has been reworked to fit the new combat mechanics, and it will now attempt to switch both the attack and defence stances when it makes sense to do so. However, it will be significantly slower than changing the stances yourself.

The AI of the creatures will also use the new auto fight mechanics, but the swiftness of their reactions to your stances will depend on their strength and skills.

 

Public testing access

Spoiler

 

To access the combat public testing on the test server, you need to use the “Choose Client” shortcut of the Wurm Online launcher, and select “Test Preview” (this is only available on the new UI) - if you don’t have that shortcut, you might have to reinstall the launcher and make sure you have the relevant checkboxes filled in the installation process.

 

Once you’re on the main test server (Oracle), there’s a GM board in the starting town, upon examining which you’ll get teleported to an area where creatures will be spawned (granted a GM or a developer is available, but we’ll spawn more of them around that place).

 

You can get equipment and skills by using the “Test” action on the ground. If you don’t see that action, make sure you have some (any) item activated.

 

 

Changelog

Spoiler

 

General combat changes:

  • Separated defensive stances from attack stances
  • Defending the direction a creature attacks is key to winning the fight
  • Defending any of the adjacent directions will defend against diagonal attacks (for example, defending either top or left to defend against an upper-left attack will be effective)

 

 

Visual changes:

  • Added in-world combat text that shows attacks that are being performed
  • Added optional screen shaking when being hit in combat (“Enable screen shaking” in Graphics tab)
  • Added a circular indicator on the top of the screen to show the direction of incoming hits
  • Added a new blood vignette effect on hits and as a general damage indicator
  • An approximate creature difficulty indicator has been added and will appear next to their in-world health bar. This is a relative indicator, compared to your strength, skills and equipment.
  • Creature status icons will show under their health bar, showing things like focus level, attack stance, defense stance, stun, bleeding
  • Added sounds for glance and stun (soon, work in progress)

 

Special moves rework:

  • All special moves are stronger and more useful
  • There is now a single set of special moves, instead of having different set per template kingdom
  • Slash moves will give the opponent a CR penalty for a short period
  • Crush moves will stun the opponent
  • Slash moves will cause bleeding, which deals more damage than normal, but it is applied over time as a bleed effect
  • All weapons have access to moves that drain opponent’s food and stamina
  • The client shows details of given special moves as a tooltip

 

 

 

 

Patch on 23.02.2021:

  • Added an option to disable in-world combat text
  • Blood damage overlay was significantly toned down, it should no longer appear with minor wounds
  • Cooldowns of special moves were significantly reduced
  • Special move cast timers were slightly reduced
  • Bleed effects were increased slightly, the lower tier ones have a reduced effectivity compared to the higher tier moves
  • Fixed autofight not using the defensive stances properly
  • Players can now land critical hits against creatures
  • Critical hits now deal 150% of original hit damage
  • Fixed an issue where special moves would show in the combat window despite not being able to use them
     

 

 


Things to look out for during testing

 

We’re looking forward to your feedback from testing the combat overhaul. Other than general feedback, this is what we’d like to hear more about:

  • Accuracy of the displayed creature difficulty - green should be easy, red skull should mean it’s not a fight you can win. When you find a case when it’s not at all accurate, please report it here with details of your skills, equipment and what the creature is. (also, the creature’s condition)

6nOW9UX.png

 

  • The effectiveness of using auto fight (compared to not using it)
  • Any other visual feedback that would be useful, or information that could still be moved out of the combat log into a better place
  • PvP related balance concerns

 

 

Please note that the details of this are still up to change and the general balance will definitely be tweaked.

 

See you on the test server!

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Pierce has some cool sounding specials, but the fact that there's no 1h pure piercing and all the slash+pierce weapons use slashing specials is kinda eh

Cooldowns seem absurdly long, up to 50 seconds, whereas before you're just capped by stamina

The mob seems to always try and attack where i'm blocking (or is it still just completely random?), making testing blocking the wrong place really hard to do

Difficulty thing for mob seems to always be a skull except for passive mobs, even when i set myself to 90 skills. Other players showed the skull too.

Special moves didn't seem very strong to me, compared to their timer length, a special was doing like 1/10 of a swing worth of damage, the 50s cooldown bleed did like 1.5 damage to a scorpion in total

Glance sound is very odd, thought i had like some website open in the background making that clicking sound

- CR should probably have an indicator like stun/bleed do, i didn't see one

Trying to swap stance and block direction at the same time bugs it out

Getting "you are still swapping stance" for like 10 seconds after swapping stances and trying to do specials

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6 hours ago, Samool said:

Separated defensive stances from attack stances

This alone has already made combat more engaging and I love it. Especially if I hotkeyed everything I needed for combat.

6 hours ago, Samool said:

Defending the direction a creature attacks is key to winning the fight

Would love to know if players are now penalized for not blocking in the correct directions or if combat is just easier if you do.

6 hours ago, Samool said:

Added optional screen shaking when being hit in combat (“Enable screen shaking” in Graphics tab)

Having the shake and blood splatter vary with the amount of damage taken would be nice. A little speck causing a hysterical amount of visual damage is off-putting and numbs you out, so you don't notice the big hits.

6 hours ago, Samool said:

Added a circular indicator on the top of the screen to show the direction of incoming hits

Would love a way to move this UI element around like everything else. Couldn't find a way to do so.

6 hours ago, Samool said:

Creature status icons will show under their health bar, showing things like focus level, attack stance, defense stance, stun, bleeding

I would love to see the defense stance take on the same form as the attack stance http://prntscr.com/zt5trc . As it is now it kinda feels like it's a buff or the enemy is in "defensive stance". It's only when the shield rotated to the side where I was attacking did I realize it was just the direction it was defending from. I think moving this up to the left of the sword and giving it a border and background would clear up any confusion. If the enemy is not blocking in any direction just put a red line across it. 

5 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

Glance sound is very odd

I second this. I feel like it needs more of a hit and then bounce off sound. Like the shield.

6 hours ago, Samool said:

Slash moves will cause bleeding, which deals more damage than normal, but it is applied over time as a bleed effect

I believe this is a typo for Pierce.

5 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

Cooldowns seem absurdly long, up to 50 seconds, whereas before you're just capped by stamina

I think I'm cool with the variable cooldowns that special moves have, but I don't think they should all share that cooldown. At the very least if I use a 50sec cooldown I should be able to use a 20sec cooldown move in 20 seconds and not have to wait the full 50 seconds. I think this would create a lot more engagement with special moves. EDIT: Used, Tattoo twice, a 30 second cooldown, but had to wait 40 seconds.

5 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

The mob seems to always try and attack where i'm blocking (or is it still just completely random?), making testing blocking the wrong place really hard to do

Seemed pretty random to me, but I'd love to see mobs actively attacking away from the direction I'm defending just as I am to them, so that I'm having to engage more on my defense. 

5 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

CR should probably have an indicator like stun/bleed do, i didn't see one

This also applies to players. We have no way of knowing if the debuff is applied to us until it wears off and we get "regains concentration". The attacker knows only when it applies, and the defender knows only when it ends.

 

 

 

-Have special move dialogue in the same place. 

Pierce: "caused X to start bleeding." in event log.
Slash: "X loses concentration." in combat log.
Crush: "X is stunned." in combat log.

 

-All specials apply guaranteed effects. There is no way to defend against them and stun is the only one that gives you a resistance buff. Seems broken and unintentional. ESPECIALLY for PvP. As for their damage.

Crush: Goes through all forms of damage negation (Blocking, Evading, Parrying, and Glancing)

Pierce: Gets negated.

Slash: Gets negated, but due to multi-attack moves you aren't likely to negate all of the hits which is probably fine. 

 

-Having the focus button and special move buttons only enable once you've been in combat long enough along with all their other checks would be great. Hate just spam clicking focus until it suddenly works. 

 

-Auto fight seemed to work fine. For those that aren't super invested in combat and being engaged with it I think will find it enjoyable. Could perhaps also make it work better, but at the cost of less exp. 

 

-I will say when autofight is enabled I think it'd be nice for the combat menu to still display my distance and height with the opponent so I can still adjust that. 

 

-I'd love to see the bleed debuff stack. Would be a good tool to counter armored enemies. As it is now it's just a bit of extra damage and can only be used in 1v1's. Stuns stack and it seems like the CR debuff stack.

 

-Crush appears to apply 2 damage rolls from any of its specials even though it's only one attack. http://prntscr.com/ztk4m2

Edited by Zuelatak
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There's not enough in the way of new tactical decisions and no sense of "style" to be gained from the new special moves. The split of offensive/defensive stances was a step in the right direction. However, the special moves are sorely lacking.

 

Combat is already split into 10 second intervals. Every special move should have a maximum cooldown of 10 seconds to allow one use per combat round. Some might even deserve cooldowns that are even lower. Additionally, the effects of the moves (outside of potent ones like stun) should last ~30 seconds to allow for combinations between special moves to optimize your fighting style. Think to turn-based tactic games like Disgaea or Final Fantasy genre, where you would do a form of armor break then attack the opponent. For example:

  • Start with a special move that reduces the target's defense. Then use a special move 10 seconds later that deals increased damage to swiftly slay them. Useful against weaker targets.
  • Start with a special move that reduces the target's CR. Then use a special move that drains their stamina. The stamina drain would hit more reliably against the reduced CR. Useful against tough opponents where you might not win by raw health, but removing their stamina might change the outcome.
  • Upon getting into a dangerous situation, use a special move to reduce the opponent movement speed and break combat.

Having 20-50 second cooldowns shared between all special moves means you'll very rarely get the chance to use them tactically. Their effect not lasting long enough also means that you cannot apply a combination of potent effects.

 

Additionally, this was the perfect opportunity to implement tools to mitigate the difference between priest and non-priests in combat. Instead, there is no sign of any moves which interrupt casting, hinder casting, or are limited to non-priests. As of right now only the stunning moves are potent to stop casting, but they are available to priests anyway and are useful beyond simple interrupts.

 

I'd like to see the special moves have shorter cooldowns, longer effects, and thought put into the way that they might combine to create interesting combat situations.

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7 hours ago, Sindusk said:

There's not enough in the way of new tactical decisions and no sense of "style" to be gained from the new special moves. The split of offensive/defensive stances was a step in the right direction. However, the special moves are sorely lacking.

 

Combat is already split into 10 second intervals. Every special move should have a maximum cooldown of 10 seconds to allow one use per combat round. Some might even deserve cooldowns that are even lower. Additionally, the effects of the moves (outside of potent ones like stun) should last ~30 seconds to allow for combinations between special moves to optimize your fighting style. Think to turn-based tactic games like Disgaea or Final Fantasy genre, where you would do a form of armor break then attack the opponent. For example:

  • Start with a special move that reduces the target's defense. Then use a special move 10 seconds later that deals increased damage to swiftly slay them. Useful against weaker targets.
  • Start with a special move that reduces the target's CR. Then use a special move that drains their stamina. The stamina drain would hit more reliably against the reduced CR. Useful against tough opponents where you might not win by raw health, but removing their stamina might change the outcome.
  • Upon getting into a dangerous situation, use a special move to reduce the opponent movement speed and break combat.

Having 20-50 second cooldowns shared between all special moves means you'll very rarely get the chance to use them tactically. Their effect not lasting long enough also means that you cannot apply a combination of potent effects.

 

Additionally, this was the perfect opportunity to implement tools to mitigate the difference between priest and non-priests in combat. Instead, there is no sign of any moves which interrupt casting, hinder casting, or are limited to non-priests. As of right now only the stunning moves are potent to stop casting, but they are available to priests anyway and are useful beyond simple interrupts.

 

I'd like to see the special moves have shorter cooldowns, longer effects, and thought put into the way that they might combine to create interesting combat situations.


Easy lazy fix: Don't let priests use special moves.

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6 minutes ago, RainRain said:


Easy lazy fix: Don't let priests use special moves.

My priest would not appreciate that lazy fix.

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In my opinion it would be nice to show the stances of your opponent in the fighting window with a tooltip explaining what they mean, they are fairly obvious but an explanation wouldn't be unwelcome.

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I dont mind the blood vignette as an optional effect but i dont want to play with this on my screen all day  https://prnt.sc/zzf1rd 100% health btw. i believe its a bit too much

other than that, im enjoying the changes so far

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1 hour ago, AlmostSolitude2 said:

I dont mind the blood vignette as an optional effect but i dont want to play with this on my screen all day  https://prnt.sc/zzf1rd 100% health btw. i believe its a bit too much

other than that, im enjoying the changes so far

 

Yeah, there's a known issue with the effect appearing on login even if you have no wounds, and going away if you are later injured and healed. Just letting you know we're aware of the bug!

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Just updating my test client to try out the changes.

Two things from reading the changes:

- do we really need the difficulty indicator? It diminishes the thrill to see beforehand if an opponent is defeatable or not.

- I hope the onscreen messages are possible to be opted out?

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I need a bit of help. when I launch wurm (WurmLauncher64.exe -test) It downloaded the packs and all that but my client is very old (4.1.132) don't see any of the new stuff

What am I doing wrong?

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You need to use the Wurm Online "[Choose client]" launcher and select Test preview version there

 

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Blood vignette effect seems to strong too early for me.

An idea: why don't you put out a ton of strong mob spawners (troll mounds etc) so we should not rely on GMs for testing material?

Edited by Jaz
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Maybe use mission ruler to make auto mob spawning. I went to test maybe 12 hours ago and almost all mobs where dead.

 

* Creature difficulty isn't working with weaponless fighting.

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archery getting any love with this update or is this just for melee action?

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  • Mobs are shown much more dangerous on the indicator than they actually are - I think that will need some toning down.
  • Blood vignette on the small wounds is quite annoying/disturbing, the effect is like my screen is dirty. In general please allow us to be able to choose to keep the old blood effect, I think many are like me who tend to not bother healing small wounds and the current way the screen stays blood-smeared for prolonged periods:

 

wpsFkTW.jpg

 

  • Special move cooldown is quite long, makes them almost indifferent in most PVE fights - stamina loss was restrictive enough I think
  • Did a short test on auto/manual fight, autofight is more viable, with a delay it follows the actions of the opponent (like changing defensive stance), manual fight is more productive still and that is good.
  • The top of the little shield on the opponent hover is showing the area they defend?
  • Can we get special moves for unarmed combat too? :)
  • A cooldown indicator (if it stays in the game :P) would be nice for he special moves among the status icons
  • Failed special moves trigger cooldown
  • Special move timers feel quite shorter than before, no chance to try to counter them in PVP
  • Pets look to be a bit more eager to join he fight - or is it just because test server's lower load?
  • Screen shaking effect is useful but not subtle enough - too big a bump which is disturbing if you get a bunch of hits in quick succession
  • The circle showing the direction I got wounds from is a nice addition
  • Autofight seems quite ineffective if more than one opponent is hitting you

 

Edited by Jaz
cleaning up a bit
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I've heard critical hits don't work with mobs. This makes rare weapons useless in PvE. Wait, wouldn't that mean demise spells don't actually do anything either? This is a good time to fix this if in fact rare weapon bonuses don't actually help in PvE.

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3 hours ago, Ogare said:

I've heard critical hits don't work with mobs. This makes rare weapons useless in PvE. Wait, wouldn't that mean demise spells don't actually do anything either? This is a good time to fix this if in fact rare weapon bonuses don't actually help in PvE.

the increased critical chance is basically nothing, the highest crit chance non-arti weapon is scythe at 1.6% chance, rarity takes it to 1.76%, rare weapons still use all the generic rare bonuses like increased imp speed, less damage taken, less ql lost repairing, all that stuff. all the bonuses make it need to be reimped about 1/3 as often as a normal weapon of the same type which i'd say is much more useful than a 0 - 0.16% crit chance based on weapon lol

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The only thing to add to what others have already said.

 

Neither the new blood vignette, or the old blood, effect is visible on the macOS client. I guess getting the new effect is locked behind the old legacy openGL.

Edited by Wulfmaer

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More visual feedback is good!

I dont like the direction of aiming mattering more. I think the game would be more fun and approachable if a lot of the obscure mechanics were simplified with as little change as possible while making the choices of what you bring to a fight and build your account more clear and interesting.

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