Combat Balancing Changes

  • @bran-the-ent said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @MikeTheMutinous Thank you for these changes. Swordplay is so much more satisfying now and effective. It definitely feels more fluid and I am better able to deal with skellies with guns because I'm not slowed down, can swipe one and move to the next... keeping them on their heels. It also makes my lunge variations (standing leap, reverse, twisting side...) feel better as I don't feel like I'm losing speed coming out of them to do more slashing. It's just awesome!

    It's also so much easier to snipe while on a moving ship. Awesome!

    The gun delay after sprinting hasn't bothered me because I tend to stop sprinting and just run to raise my weapon anyway. So, it works for me.

    I haven't had the opportunity experience the weapon changes in PvP yet, but I look forward to it.

    I do agree the swordplay is beyond easy now, forts can be done solo with ease as the skeles are trivial at best now.

    As far as pvp goes, nothing is more funny to watch then sword dudes just swinging away at you as you drop anchor and blunder/pistol them.

  • @straptt I didn't say "beyond easy," I said satisfying and effective. I was solo'ing forts "with ease" before the update. Now, it doesn't feel like I've got someone holding me back as I try to advance... which just feels better.

    As for PvP, it's been a long time since I've allowed someone on board, let alone anchor me - so I can't speak to that.

  • @bran-the-ent said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @straptt I didn't say "beyond easy," I said satisfying and effective. I was solo'ing forts "with ease" before the update. Now, it doesn't feel like I've got someone holding me back as I try to advance... which just feels better.

    As for PvP, it's been a long time since I've allowed someone on board, let alone anchor me - so I can't speak to that.

    Call it what you want, swordplay can be done blindfolded now...which I am OK with. Gives everyone a chance to get the kill or do the fort. I died a couple times last night to sword bros that i would not have before, it made the fight a bit more challenging which is something i enjoyed.

  • @bran-the-ent I had a brig after me last night, and I got to play the PvP the way I always imagined it should be done. Use a gun for distance damage, but up close take them down with sword. I faced three pirates, one was using EoR/Flintlock, another was using Blunderbuss/sword and the last using EoR/Sword. I was using my flint lock and sword, figuring it was close quarters combat. I mostly used the sword, but I would charge in, swing three times, then pull back. In doing so the blunderbuss was doing minimal damage. The EoR pirate was not trying to aim, so his shots never hit. Not sure why they insisted on using their guns as much as they did. I did use my flint lock twice. Both times were at a small distance, and both times it was effective. But for the most part I was able to kill them all multiple times with just my cutlass. So nice to have the PvP actually last more than a few seconds and be able to use sound tactics and strategy to defeat yer enemies.

  • @straptt Done blindfolded except in the instance where you said it was ineffective against you. Okay.

    It still requires skill. I wouldn't say it's "beyond easy"... in fact, according to your anchor story, it clearly isn't.

  • @nofears-fun Yeah, it's nice to have the sword be a viable weapon in PvP now.

  • @bran-the-ent said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @straptt Done blindfolded except in the instance where you said it was ineffective against you. Okay.

    It still requires skill. I wouldn't say it's "beyond easy"... in fact, according to your anchor story, it clearly isn't.

    I mean we were on a sloop, I came up the ladder, he started to chop. You can do that blindfolded. I am not hating, just saying the sword is a great weapon for beginners and experts now. I was able to drop anchor and kill one of them, when I died my buddy was already on the ladder so they sank either way. Again not hating, just saying the sword makes it easy for people of all levels to get a kill now.

  • @bran-the-ent It's also nice to actually be able to force the combat to last longer. Allowing you time to adjust tactics as you go along. I have little doubt that I will have times where I am not as successful as last night. But the changes mean you actually have to think.

  • The not being able to aim after sprint makes combat feel clunky and the sword not slowing you down after missing needs to go in my opinion. You guys are definitely trying to lower skill gap between players by making the sword easier to use and the not being able to aim after sprint making any fast movements not as effective to make up for slower peoples reaction speeds way to cater to casuals Rare good job rename your game to Sea of Casuals

  • @straptt Well, that isn't what you said the first time.

    As far as pvp goes, nothing is more funny to watch then sword dudes just swinging away at you as you drop anchor and blunder/pistol them.

    Says something completely different from what you're saying now.

    But, back to the topic at hand...

  • @muffinstuffingu I actually like both of these things.

  • @bran-the-ent said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @straptt Well, that isn't what you said the first time.

    As far as pvp goes, nothing is more funny to watch then sword dudes just swinging away at you as you drop anchor and blunder/pistol them.

    Says something completely different from what you're saying now.

    But, back to the topic at hand...

    Those are two different situations, I am not sure what you are arguing about. The sword is easy to use now and anyone at any skill level can get a kill. If on a sloop the sword bros can get an even better chance at a kill, on a brig or gal its harder as the space is larger for us to run around on and its comical to watch them chop at air. Every situation will be different, all I was saying is that i agree with you...the sword is "satisfying and effective" for players of all levels now.

  • As a former double-gunner (pause to allow boos from the crowd :P ) I can appreciate the need to change mechanics to make all weapons viable in different scenarios. However, as much as double-gunning was referred to as an "exploit" there was a penalty for not landing those shots. If you missed one or both shots, you were penalized with a 3 - 4 second reload time, during which time you were defenseless. Not to mention that you would need to find more ammo if those were your last two shots. So while double gunning may have been OP, there was a penalty for missing your shot. With the buff to the sword, there is no penalty for missing. You can walk and hack and swipe to your hearts content. Sure, if you miss entirely, you have a brief stutter before swinging your sword again, but nothing like the 3 -4 second penalty for missing a shot with a gun. I think the sword play still needs some rework to make it balanced, which seems to be the ultimate goal for all weapons.

    Also as much as my double-gunning-loving-self hates to admit it, it really doesn't make sense that you can hip-fire a sniper with any degree of accuracy. However, with that being said, it's a silly argument to say that anything in this game should be removed if it's "silly" when compared to reality. If that's the case, we shouldn't be able to eat bananas to save ourselves from drowning, we shouldn't have giant faceless tentacles sticking up out of the water attacking boats, we shouldn't have animated skeletons or ships populated by them, we shouldn't have cannonballs that drop anchors, raise sails, etc. So the "but that's not realistic" argument is really invalid if you think about it. :P

  • @vorondil1 it still is

  • @closinghare208 I have no idea what you're replying to me about. Could you use quote instead of reply?

  • @mortarchelle
    There is a penalty for missing with the sword.
    No longer a movement, but in the timing of the next swing.

    @mac0637 said:

    Sword timing is: 1.58 Seconds in-between swings (if you miss)
    Under 1 Second in-between swings if they hit

    Perhaps it needs to be adjusted to be longer, not sure.

  • Initial impressions are very positive. The sword feels great with the extra speed, especially against skeletons! The delays for switching weapons don't feel too disruptive either. And the decreased damage and hip-fire spread for the Eye of Reach is a welcome change.

    Good work, Rare!

    The only issue I've encountered so far is sometimes after sprinting, I will try to aim/scope but after the "bring up weapon" animation plays, I'm still holding down the trigger, but the aim/scope won't come up. I have to release then hold the trigger again.

  • Rare sees the cockroach in the kitchen (double-gunning/hotswapping) and blows the house up to get rid of the roach.

    To apply the same logic to fixing the ghost meg spawns... Rare should have upped it's spawn rate to 100%, then start tweaking it down slowly until it felt right.

    Why go to one extreme with weapons, and then do the other part in the correct direction?

    Combat feels atrocious now... hopeful for tweaks in the opposite direction. lol... watching people charge you swinging like they are blind hoping for a win is silly. This literally has taken skill out of the equation.

    EDIT: It took 26 pirate kills from me before I died once last night to another player... I am not whining as a person that is losing fights

  • @fluidsc
    I agree. Now we Will Have to wait weeks or months for a Tweak again in the right direction to correct the obnoxious animation lock on the Guns. Its crazy to me How This update is so obvious to being nothing but a skill sinker for the entire combat mechanic. Making Gun mechanics wonky , unresponsive and slowing down the entire combat.

    I guess they want 50 year olds who spends 2 hrs a month on the game to start beating people who spend 50hrs in 2 weeks. What can you do, i guess in a sense , either the ”casual” leave the game Cause the skill ceiling in combat was present. Or the hardcore crowd leaves Cause the skill ceiling got deleted. I just hope rare realizes This Will make one of the Two crowds to eventually leave the game for good if changes like This comes from nowhere in the future. Changes like these dont Bring both crowds to an agreement. Rather makes the two sides even more appearent and obvious.

  • @MiketheMutinous I was once a supporter of this sword buff in the pioneer build but after seeing it in the retail build I think it’s way to overpowered and makes the combat less skill based and more spammy. This sword change really makes the other moves worthless because lunging takes to long and does less damage than the 3 hit combo, also it’s hard to to do the block jump because of how fast everything is, quite frankly combat is now really tedious because everyone is just spamming the sword which is leading an increase to spawn camping and no skill for sword play because everyone is just using one move. It’s basically coming down to whoever gets the first hit wins.

  • As someone who loves PvP, I really don't think the combat changes were the right combat changes. (Removing the double gun instakill was right all the way though)

    At the moment, I'm really confused as to how to approach fighting. It could be that it's new and I'm just not used to it, and it is partially due to that, but nothing feels right anymore.

    I believe that close combat (any time you're on an enemy ship) really doesn't allow for good use of guns anymore, which is really not good for the blunderbuss as it is a close combat weapon. The blunderbuss was normally a weapon that you had to chase someone down for to land a good shot, but after sprinting now you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can shoot the blunderbuss allowing for the person you're trying to kill to sprint away. You can still put some damage in them, but not enough for the blunderbuss to be chosen over the other guns. It is good for defense, especially for protecting your ladders and such, but awful for offense as closing the gap on someone and then pulling out your gun fast enough to land an effective shot is not reliable.

    For the sniper, what I understand moving the damage down from a small bit was to remove the ability to do the sniper sword combo, which was arguably the second most powerful weapon combination right under double gunning. However, effective use of the sniper sword combo heavily relied on the Eye of Reach's hipfire. You would have shoot and if you hit them immediately switch to the sword and throw out one slash and they'd die. Now the sword requires two slashes after landing the shot, which you now have to look down the scope and aim for. This is good change but it's not perfect. The Eye of Reach has no place in close combat anymore (as snipers generally are), but there really aren't that many uses for the sniper in PvP anymore. Most combat is face to face.

    I can't quite put a finger on how I feel about the pistol yet. I believe it feels under-powered but at the same time the best choice for a gun.

    The sword is overpowered now. Fighting with a sword now involves nothing but following someone at full walk speed and just swinging your sword. There is no penalty for missing a sword swing and if you get hit once your going to get overwhelmed. The only counter play I can think of is to maybe use a blunderbuss and shoot it when they get to you, but that is if they don't get to you first and start swinging and jumping. (which they totally will) Sword dashing would probably work but you lose a lot of speed charging one up, unless you block and then charge a sword dash which lets you keep all movement speed. I don't believe it is intended but that alone is really powerful. Missing one though is still fatal though.

    If I had to suggest changes, I'd say:

    Revert sword to its original state - the massive nerf to all guns was itself a massive buff to swords.

    Restore Eye of Reach's damage - the small decrease removes the ability to do the sniper sword combo, but the highly inaccurate hipfire already nerfed the combo. Scoping near an enemy is very risky, as your FOV and speed are significantly reduced, you'd have to snipe someone from a distance and then close the gap and throw in a sword slash, all while the enemy time to eat a banana while you come at them.

    Reduce the spread on the Blunderbuss - Having to follow someone and then slow down to pull out your gun and then shoot wouldn't feel and be as weak as it is now.

    Rework the pistol - Assuming a player's health is 100, decrease the damage to 40, reduce the time it takes to reload. The inaccuracy of the sniper hipfire makes it more of a ranged only weapon, and the blunderbuss will only ever be a close range weapon. This would allow for the pistol to be in the middle, decent close range and decent at a distance. An effective yet not overpowered combo would be landing two shots with the pistol and then throwing in a sword slash.

    Pistol and Eye of Reach knock players off of ladders - The blunderbuss shouldn't be the only weapon that can effectively protect a ladder. If you get the damage in, you can kill someone on the ladder, but it would in most cases require the work of two people to completely prevent someone from getting on board. Pistol and Eye of Reach doing no knockback otherwise is okay though. There is no risk in attempting to board a ship that is directly behind you following you; so it should at least still be a little tricky to do. It's way easier now and very rewarding now that only one thing weapon can knock you off the ladder.

    I really love the combat in this game, and I want to continue to love it. However, as I've said above, it just doesn't feel right anymore. I hope you continue to experiment with combat changes, it really should be a priority to perfect it before Arena releases.

  • @nofears-fun said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @bran-the-ent It's also nice to actually be able to force the combat to last longer. Allowing you time to adjust tactics as you go along.

    I like the longer fights idea but I want a massive nerf. Nerf damage outputs and change ammo capacitys All around.

    Just make combat last longer by nerfing everything in pvp including the sword less damage output = longer fights with many different outcomes. However I dont know if changing pvp damage effects pve damage and I'd kinda like a slight increase to damage from guns in pve.

  • @harmonic-evil said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @fluidsc
    I agree. Now we Will Have to wait weeks or months for a Tweak again in the right direction to correct the obnoxious animation lock on the Guns. Its crazy to me How This update is so obvious to being nothing but a skill sinker for the entire combat mechanic. Making Gun mechanics wonky , unresponsive and slowing down the entire combat.

    I guess they want 50 year olds who spends 2 hrs a month on the game to start beating people who spend 50hrs in 2 weeks. What can you do, i guess in a sense , either the ”casual” leave the game Cause the skill ceiling in combat was present. Or the hardcore crowd leaves Cause the skill ceiling got deleted. I just hope rare realizes This Will make one of the Two crowds to eventually leave the game for good if changes like This comes from nowhere in the future. Changes like these dont Bring both crowds to an agreement. Rather makes the two sides even more appearent and obvious.

    I am totally fine with the delay-to-fire on a weapon swap or a reload. No issue with that at all. That is basically STANDARD in games today because it proved to be problematic in so many other games before now. That is not the change I am talking about... but every other change to combat besides that are just awful.

  • I like the gun changes for the most part. I'm not sold on the changes to the sword. Against skeletons it feels great, but when encountering other players it seems like its just a spam fest now. You don't have time to charge up for the sword lunge very often because they are able to run at you and start swinging.

    I'll give it time, since its unlikely we will see another patch until March anyways, to see if I adjust and it gets any better.

  • As said, the ranged weapons rework are mostly fine (you could adjust the "after sprint animation" but thats nearly all), but the sword now is just awfull. There's no longer a "swordman", experience means nothing, and now is not a question of whos the best with the sword but who hits first, just like this.

    There should be drawbacks, maybe not after missing a slash (because before one could evade that completely), but the stunlock after blocking only for the attacker (because the improved speed) and the knockback for the defender should be fine TO START.

  • Since the patch i got problems with the shortkeys now. If i'm pressing '3' for a banana for example i take out the sword over and over again... same with the bucket and other things.

  • [Mod edit]

  • @insani7y88 said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    Since the patch i got problems with the shortkeys now. If i'm pressing '3' for a banana for example i take out the sword over and over again... same with the bucket and other things.

    I've found that the hotkeys are hit or miss in general, even before this update. A lot of times you press the button and nothing happens. In fact a lot of the UI is not as responsive as it should be.

    I'm not sure if this issue also impacts console players or not.

  • Cutlass is completely broken now. If you miss an attack with sword you should be punished. Incredibly stupid that players that looked like bots before this patch due to them randomly swinging their sword now just spam left click as fast as possible. I don’t know what you consider fluid but mashing left click and holding W doesn’t seem very fluid to me. It’s not like I can block their attacks either because block only works 30% of the time. Makes it very difficult to kill even the most inexperienced players. Honestly wouldn’t mind this update being completely removed, double gunning was getting easy to counter with good sword play.

  • @muffinstuffingu said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    The not being able to aim after sprint makes combat feel clunky and the sword not slowing you down after missing needs to go in my opinion. You guys are definitely trying to lower skill gap between players by making the sword easier to use and the not being able to aim after sprint making any fast movements not as effective to make up for slower peoples reaction speeds way to cater to casuals Rare good job rename your game to Sea of Casuals

    Completely agree, the changes were only for a certain group of people. I can people look how many post are about people proud they were able to kill one or two people finally. It's more than likely cause the other players have been waiting forever after sprinting for their weapon to actually even work. In absolutely no universe should you be terrible enough to let one player wreck your crew with the ridiculous animation timer going on.

  • @mc-leggers said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    @muffinstuffingu said in Combat Balancing Changes:

    The not being able to aim after sprint makes combat feel clunky and the sword not slowing you down after missing needs to go in my opinion. You guys are definitely trying to lower skill gap between players by making the sword easier to use and the not being able to aim after sprint making any fast movements not as effective to make up for slower peoples reaction speeds way to cater to casuals Rare good job rename your game to Sea of Casuals

    Completely agree, the changes were only for a certain group of people. I can people look how many post are about people proud they were able to kill one or two people finally. It's more than likely cause the other players have been waiting forever after sprinting for their weapon to actually even work. In absolutely no universe should you be terrible enough to let one player wreck your crew with the ridiculous animation timer going on.

    Yes, The new combat feels like im being punished for not being bad and bad players are being rewarded. It makes combat very slow boring no really intense moments or fast paced action it feels like im playing in slowmo with a luck based system and no skill when I'm vs more than one player.Combat on ships are just spam sword mindlessly (not really) but this is meta sword play now spam attack when he gets knocked back jump over guard keep spamming. Is he a place where you cant jump? Spam sword attack you can move better when attacking......so guess what? Keep spamming until you can get him into a spot where his guard is turned maybe throw in a side step to do this but probably not needed sword dashing is alot more risky as the can get to you fast and have more reach if you miss and yea like you said about not aiming after sprint impossible to let one person wreak your crew anymore this punishes faster more mobile players and rewards bad players the can't aim and move giving the advantages to the stationary person. this slows gameplay down and makes it very unrewarding

    When you keep boiling a game to its basics eventually that's all thats left

  • @bran-the-ent i mean u should not can jump over a block and hit someone from above. U cant win agains an adhs kid anymore, because they just spam rt or left mouse all the time and jump around like annoying fleas. It is not how it suppose to be, i think the block should be better when rear want that the players use more sword than u shlud not can bring a player to be stuck in place than it would be ok. But i still dont like it that they removed hipfire i used it since the beginning of the game, they should bring it back it feels not right for now.

  • @insani7y88 than put it at the settings on new buttons

  • @trichommaster I’ve been playing since the last open beta and the hipfire issue has been a long-standing complaint. It’s good that they finally fixed it. At close ranges, the blunderbuss and pistol both only require a tap to aim down the sights. If you were good at hipfiring, then just tap the aim button and fire. If you’ve got an EoR at close range... we’ll, that was a mistake.

    I think that the issue is more with blocking than with the other aspects of swordplay. You could jump over a block before this update. The change should be that you have the ability to move the mouse/controller stick up and block a downward blow from above.

  • gun changes are great, except for the slight delay when coming out of sprint, that needs to go. The other is the sword change. This change to the sword has just reduced the skill gap a ton, now, anyone can just spam it at full speed ahead, its dumb. There needs to be a penalty to the sword when you miss a swipe as it was before. The speed at which you move while swiping also needs to be toned down. There was nothing wrong with the sword play in my opinion before this change took place.

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