23 réponses à ce sujet

[Wavebend]

Realistically speaking. If you can't improve it (IMO it's already pretty good), then how would you make it different?

 

A few points that I've been thinking about a lot lately:

• Dodging mechanic. Should it be a thing? Is it good or bad? Are iFrames bad (analogous to press X to avoid damage)? Plus, too much mobility is harmful to the tactical positioning value of the gameplay. If you would implement a dodge, how would you do it? Teleport/Sideway jump/Evade/Sommersault/Etc.
• Basic attack chain. In its current state, no reason to commit to the full animation (just shift-cancel it). Also, committing isn't worthwhile if looking for extra damage. The current mechanic doesn't make any sense and needs to be reworked, but how?
• Soft-lock. You can't choose where to swing your sword or where to shoot your arrows because of the auto-targeting mechanism. What about being able to focus your attacks and feel in control?
• Mobility. Optimal in-place turning speed, running speed. start/stop acceleration. Strafing doesn't exist. If implemented, should it be a toggle and how should it affect overall mobility.
• Camera. Does it need to be reworked? E.g. Make the camera auto-center itself to the facing direction of the character? Does it need to be closer for more immersion?
• Poise System. Think Dark Souls. Your attacks hit the enemy, but the enemy doesn't react. Alpha gameplay demonstrated a basic poise system. Warriors originally had stagger on hit.
• Responsiveness/Snappiness. Are animations too slow? Should basic attack animations be faster/start faster? Also - Is too much real-time control bad because it devalues RPG elements?
• Taking on large numbers of enemies. Is there a way to effectively deal with this problem while soloing on a non-mage class / control class?
• Animation-lock. Should most abilities disable movement entirely like they do? Should basic attacks on warriors make you leap towards the enemies?
• Enemy AI. Should enemies be more aggressive? Have lower cooldown on their abilities? Should enemies be bigger (think of wave 3 kill event)? Any changes to wave composition, etc.
• Extra tweaking. Tweaking various world components, such as projectile speed, gravity, fall damage, hitboxes, etc. Make projectiles slower for easier dodging?

I have a few answers for most of these questions, but I'd like to know your thoughts!

[Wavebend]

reserved.

 

Temporarily reposting old strafe demo:

Spoiler

[JiaJM98]

Any change is good at this stage

 

Anything that makes MP prettier is even better

 

Anything that makes combat more exciting and various is even even better

[JiaJM98]

I would love to see more prettier attack animations, that's one thing.

 

And I like the idea of changing the basic attack chain.

 

Also it would be a great idea to buff up some of the unpopular abilities so we get a better variety in builds. 

[Wavebend]

I would love to see more prettier attack animations, that's one thing.

 

And I like the idea of changing the basic attack chain.

 

Also it would be a great idea to buff up some of the unpopular abilities so we get a better variety in builds. 

 

Prettier attack animations - there are lots of unused animations (and NPC animations), although it's not possible to create new ones atm as no one has decoded the format

 

changing basic attack chain - what about rewarding the player for committing to the full chain. Maybe make each subsequent basic attack a bit faster everytime you follow through, then the final attack in the chain would be a cool looking attack such as shadow strike or thousand cuts (depending on class)

 

buff some abilities - which ones

 

Any change is good at this stage

 

Anything that makes MP prettier is even better

 

Anything that makes combat more exciting and various is even even better

 

btw regardless of  whether I get good input in this thread I want to attempt something new. It probably will look really bad, but I have a few cool ideas in mind.

[SkillSpray]

Mages in general need buffs. Yes they have more crowd control, but unless you equip the pact belts, the damage is petty compared to warriors/rogues, and the pact belts are way too costly for the majority of players.

 

Even with the belt, the immunities in NM make a part of a mage's kit useless, dependin on enemy. Think necro trying to kill a saarebas (yes, ideally you would have someone else doing that, but with the current NM arena, it's not that easy to get agroup going). 

Another part is mage ability scaling. 200-300-400-500% weapon damage on a 89 base damage staff is less compared to 200% of a 330 base damage 2 hander. Mage abilities need to be a lot more impactful. Hardest hitting mage ability is Fade cloak if i'm not mistaken. 800% weapon damage. That crits for about 5k for me on a regular enemy, while even the damn shield bash on what's supposed to be a low damage/high survivability class hits about the same., maybe even more.

Side note: some abilities are utterly useless. Would love to see them rebalanced to make them viable and worth the spot on our action bar.

 

Another thing is, I'd preffer to fight fewer, but stronger enemies. Why? So the CC can have an actual value during the gameplay. E.g. Winter's grasp: sure, you froze an enemy. Out of 20. Have fun. The ability makes sense in SP, due to the player fighting 4-5 enemies at a time. Proper CC on an enemy can change the course of the fight, while in MP, the slot is wasted, as the ability is useless. Firestorm is on the other end of the spectrum: In SP, you need to gather focus to use it, which makes it balanced. In MP, feel free to spam it as much as you want, and keep the entire zone knocked down if you wish.

 

Difficulty wise, the difference is a game of numbers. HB was a step in the right direction, adding extra abilities to enemies making them more dangerous. That is proper difficulty scaling. Qunari as a faction was kind of the same, except the spearmen and the bullshit deaths from shield-bearers. The rogues with spell purge are very dangerous if not managed properly, which again, is proper difficulty scaling. Having 50 thousand of them in zone 4 is not. See above: less enemies, more hp (harder to kill), having abilities that requires an actual strategy to counter, and not just an arbitrary number of promotions before you stop getting 2 shotted.

 

As a side note, i'm still baffled as why the shield bearers have armor penetration. It would make sense for the stealth rogues, maybe archers to have armor penetration. The shield bearers should be the front line: hard to kill and annoying (they sure live up to the annoying requirement), while the archers/rogues should be the primary threat that needs to be dealt with.

 

A fix for dots ticking 50 times per second would be nice, but that's too much to ask.

 

As for actual combat mechanics. Strafe/dodge/etc would be nice, would add another layer of complexity to the game. Animations being sped up would also be nice, as trying to mighty blow a shield guy charging at you is a lottery if you notice it too late.

 

I realize this is more or less 12 months too late to rant, but still, that's my 0.02$.

[Kenny Bania]

Everything you posted would make for a much better experience. It's a shame you weren't a part of the team.

[Zorinho20_CRO]

It would be cool if Katari could be big as Qunari shock trooper.

Edit

Also as SS said game mechanic from HB on other difficulties.

[SkillSpray]

More rant:

 

Weapons could be changed a bit as well.

 

Think aoe daggers: Mostly used for the secondary effects, proccing on enemy kill, etc. Noone in their right mind would use the aoe daggers in mainhand having same level single target daggers. The animation chain for aoe daggers is epic. I forgot the name of the dagger from SP, aoe dagger that does flashing steel at the end of the chain. Having the numbers on them changed a bit would make for a better gameplay and more diversity. I can see them used on the SS, duelist maybe if they were worth using. I'd love to use the aoe daggers as my main weapon. I did that in my single player and i loved it, even though it was sub-par compared to usual daggers.

 

Two handers are in a weird spot as well. There is no benefit of using one over another besides axes/sword being aoe and mauls being single target. You pick whichever has the highest damage. Axes could sunder on hit automatically, greatswords could restore stamina on hit by default without having to use the passive, mauls could stagger on hit, maybe even knockdown. Getting hit with a hammer in your face is not to be taken lightly, while ingame, smacking an archer with a maul makes him run away and do a 360-noscope. Sure. Even the animation for the attack chain of the mauls shows that mauls smack enemies into the ground, they should stagger, the last attack in the chain should probably knock down.

 

Hakkons in general are an order of magnitude better than everything else. Unless you're doing a hipster build, hakkon is your weapon of choice. The 100% crit damage plus two extra effects is too powerful. The effects from the 1handed sword and the 2handed sword could be switched places(horn + blessed blades on 1hander, the others on 2hander).

 

Dodging: You had a suggestion of making the dodge on mages use the same animation as frost step, albeit on a much shorter distance. Warriors could use the combat roll, rogues evade. I fully support this. Iframes are kind of necessary imo, but that would need to have a cooldown. Same functionality as combat roll basically, without the resource cost.

 

Enemy AI: The way it works from what i saw is that melee enemies charge mindlessly a few at a time and get smacked. Repeat untill zone cleared. Ranged units find the first available LoS to the player on their pathing, stack there and keep shooting at you till you make them suffer a serious case of deadness.

They do not have a priority on what they shoot/attack. Would be nice to see different enemies focus on different tasks, e.g: the shield bearers focusing on controlling the melee damage dealers and protecting the enemy archers, archers focusing on the squishies, etc. I understand that this could be abused in numerous ways, such as breaking LoS, forcing the archers to run in front of their tanks and get rekt. Will take a lot of fine tuning, but this should also raise the complexity of the game and make MP require strategy.

Think qunari rogues: once a barrier is cast, they drop whatever they are doing, stealth and run towards the barrier guy, dispell, then go back to stabbing stuff. They're dangerous because they are smart. This proves that it could have been done if wanted.

Archers could probably scatter when someone approaches them, run under cover on low hp, etc. Enemy mages do not have crowd control in lower difficulties (besides despair demons. Kill them with fire. Literally.). Some utility could be added to them.

[HunterKipling]

Realistically speaking. If you can't improve it (IMO it's already pretty good), then how would you make it different?

 

A few points that I've been thinking about a lot lately:

...

I have a few answers for most of these questions, but I'd like to know your thoughts!

 

All of the above!

 

Luka throws mines instead of balloons.

 

Stairs! Those awful stairs mechanics. Watching oneself or an enemy fly off while delivering a cool looking blow (NOT!)

 

While I do like the game interface uncluttered, having a reticle to commit my attacks to might work.

 

Better yet, when you see the health bar above the centered/acquired enemy, have it hit that instead of an urn. Which, btw, has higher dexterity than any enemy minion.

 

It WOULD be nice if my hunter/archer would stop drawing his bow when I stopped, so I can get out of that on coming blow (that I saw coming from a mile away)

 

As you've so eloquently pointed out, these are mostly the reasons why arguments begin among new players and should have been addressed a long time ago.

[HunterKipling]

It would be cool if Katari could be big as Qunari shock trooper.

Edit

Also as SS said game mechanic from HB on other difficulties.

The Avvar could use changes as well.

[JiaJM98]

buff some abilities - which ones

Which ever that you have not used in the past 3 months...

 

Obvious examples being flash fire, mind blast, Flurry of storms, earthshaking strike, knock out powder etc etc...

[Minuos]

• Dodging mechanic. Dodging via strafe/backstep has always been a firm favourite, if only for believability. Rolling/diving around just seems so impractical. The ability to phase through enemies would be a game-changer, but shouldn't be particularly gamebreaking if dodging costs stamina.
• Basic attack chain. Stacking weapon-type effects seems like a good way to go with this. Increasing damage by a generous percentage for each attack would be incentive enough, but maybe something along the lines of 20% base stagger for 2h, up to 80% on the fourth attack, possibly with a chance of stun/knockdown on the last attack. Reduce those numbers for 1h and add stacking bleed/armor pen. Higher bleed/armor pen for DD rogues and much lower stagger chance, and possibly apply an increasing delay or chance of delay to staff attacks, much like the one used by the projectile of enemy saarebas. Every subsequent attack with a bow could increase attack/move speed, same with the fourth melee attack. Just thoughts.
• Soft-lock. The ability to use a lunging attack freely would be amazing. As it stands, it's locked to the current, in-range target, which is a lot like wasted potential. Maybe double-tap attack = lunge in the current/pressed direction?
• Camera. I'd actually prefer the opposite of immersive. Any chance the tactical camera angle can be toggle-able?
• Large numbers of enemies. A chance to use an AoE stagger (like Mindblast for mages/Block and Slash w/ Spinning Defense for warriors/DD rogues), something like 5% per enemy within 8 meters?
• Animations in general. Can anything be done about the speed of the standing back up animation? Being juggled between multiple shield enemies and the ground is one of the least fun pastimes the game has to offer.

Those are the main points that come to mind. Honestly, it's just nice to have someone still looking at the game with the objective of improvement.

[JiaJM98]

How about introducing Class specific equipments with impressive on hit weapon effects? 

 

E.g. Buffed up version of Blade of Tidarion for AW with higher base damage than normal staff. Possibly add on hit cast Spirit Blade

 

Chromatic greatsword for reaver with on hit heal 1% heal

 

The best defence for Lego with the effect of Superb Amulet of Aggression 

 

Encore staff for Bard with effect of Amulet of Renewal

 

etc

[sabreracer]

I'm surprised no-one mentioned a brief immunity from damage when standing up from a revive or drinking a health potion.

 

Nothing more fun than being revived and dying before you even finish standing up.

[Zorinho20_CRO]

I'm surprised no-one mentioned a brief immunity from damage when standing up from a revive or drinking a health potion.

 

Nothing more fun than being revived and dying before you even finish standing up.

4 seconds are for casuals.

[capn233]

Power damage should have had nothing to do with base weapon damage.

 

There should be a base dodge for every character if you are going to put in knockdown attacks or enemies that pop up directly below the player.

 

The basic attack chain should have just had incrementally increased damage as you move through the chain, so that if animation canceling or being interrupted by enemies ends up lowering total DPS.  If it was a varying bonus per weapon type, that might be cool as well (increasing stagger chance per hit, or last maul hit always knockdown, etc).

 

Mobility is largely ok.  It is unclear to me why there is walking speed at all in MP though, except as a means to make you press an extra button every once and a while, and to make the game slightly more irritating.

 

A non-control class vs many enemies just needs more DPS and some HoK.  If you are asking how to make it such that it isn't possible to solo, you just need to turn down, or turn off, one of those things.

[JiaJM98]

I know this is probably not practicable, but I hope we can get a much more extensive crafting system in MP and craft our own gears, just like in SP.

[VeryDark Omega]

Make it so shield guys aren't such a pain in the ass to deal with when playing alone! Fighting 5 as a SS is maddening

[coldwetn0se]

I'm surprised no-one mentioned a brief immunity from damage when standing up from a revive or drinking a health potion.
 
Nothing more fun than being revived and dying before you even finish standing up.

Crispy crackers, you betcha! So much this! Considering how difficult it is to maneuver away from the fray at times (Reaver aside), and when pugging, some lovely souls who do rez, unfortunately will attempt a rez when completely surrounded by some of the most dangerous enemy types. The mere fact that they will take the time to rez means I will never berate (i.e. grateful for the attempt ), but timing should probably be considered.

A slight delay on the enemies attacking after rez, would be magnificent!

[JiaJM98]

Make it so shield guys aren't such a pain in the ass to deal with when playing alone! Fighting 5 as a SS is maddening

Option 1: walk away (the ultimate solution to all problems lmao)

 

Option 2: use a well timed hidden blades and then throwing blade while the shield bearer is staggered 

[JiaJM98]

How about doubling the enemy spawn in MP, and quadruple the spawn in SP? 

[LearnedHand]

Just one request: make whirlwind uninterruptible. It's fine if mobs can block the damage but nothing sucks more than having it cancelled the moment you use it. Might as well boost the move speed while using it too. 

[VeryDark Omega]

Option 1: walk away (the ultimate solution to all problems lmao)

Option 2: use a well timed hidden blades and then throwing blade while the shield bearer is staggered

Oh I do use hidden blades to get them. It's just frustrating trying to when the stupid game suddenly decides that little dinosaur in the mix is a bigger threat than the shield guy, and targets it at the last moment, wasting hidden blades. I can deal with them, but the amount of time and frustration drives me mad