Underwhelming hand to hand combat

@yawnymoose

Combat was a little more polished when the game first came out. A lot more actually. Meelee combat, the ways weapons worked, the way things interacted with each other. Honestly if you go with the game from launch to now, its 2 completely different games with how much its changed.

So how did we go from that style of combat to this?

Rare has been trying for the past year and half to fix "double gunning." The term is used in tandem for the exploit of someone using the 2 gun load out to fire both guns almost instantaneously.

This mechanic was made popular by the streamer "He who whines when he can't use exploits to win" Summit1G. During the time that Summit picked up the game and started streaming, the game gained a huge popularity boost in the gaming community. It was the number 1 popular streamed game at the time. This popularity was helpful and hurtful at the same time.

Summit used the double gun exploit almost exclusively because he is bad at the game. Everyone who watches his videos then started to play like he did and now we have a influx of new players using an exploit. So now, something that was always there but never used, is now made to be the main meta of combat. Rare didn't like this and neither did the player base.

Rare loves the ideal of "Tools not Rules". So they wanted to try and find a work around to the double gun exploit. However, with every fix they kind broke the game more and more and more.

Rare has a habit of trying to implement work arounds to known player grievances.

The implementation of the "teammate revive" in the next update was because of players complaining about the blunderbuss causing 1 shot KO's. Most companies when dealing with an issue will just nerf something into the ground while over buffing something else. Rare is trying to keep double gun load outs in the game for the players that want to use the load out but this has lead the game to have some huge instabilities with combat. The road to hell is paved with good intentions so to speak. Their hearts are in the right place but sometimes you have to make the hard decisions to make sure everything works, they have failed to do this.

If you can find a video of the game from back around the time it launched and watch the way combat was conducted, you'll see that it was night and day.

Other issue is that Rare is making competitive combat changes to the game but they don't have a good source of information to work with. Most companies will use the information from their high level players for combat balances, but Rare seems to be listening to someone else, who I have no idea but someone.

Again, they love the game and their community. The whole heart in the right place, road to hell paved with good intentions, yada yada.

Thats my 2 cents on it though. Hope that helps.

@xultanis-dragon Thanks, that was very informative. I hope Rare will come to grips with the combat system, and make it a more fun, challenging and involving gaming experience. Right now, it feels like something you'd find in a low budget indie title on Steam.

It is pretty basic. They've been tinkering with it since launch and sadly it is no better now than on day 1.

But every game has it's weak points.

@galactic-geek wow, I thanks for the thorough reply! It seems like I've underestimated the combat system a bit, but still.. The techniques you informed me of here seems VERY convoluted, unless there's a players manual I'm not aware of they didn't teach that stuff in kindergarten 😁

@galactic-geek

The current combat is a seriously watered down version of the launch mechanics. Its pretty much garbage in my opinion. It keeps getting worse with every update. All because they want to try and keep double gun load outs.

The skill involved in the launch combat was significantly higher than now. It was possible to take on full crews easily with the cutlass which is now completely impossible against good crews or even freaking sword monkey's.

@Dashing-Jack434 @YawnyMoose

The key difference between the changes was how much skill sword combat required before vs now.

Current combat - If you catch someone with the sword, they can still move around, eat food, shoot you, and worst part attack you back with the sword. So if you catch them and you are hitting them with the sword they can just sword attack you while you are attacking them. If you have lower health or the game for some reason doesn't catch the hit registration then the enemy wins the exchange even though you started with the advantage.

Old combat - If you missed your swing, you had a received a penalty that would keep you from continuously swinging yours sword. If you caught someone with the sword they were stunned. If you caught them in the back it was a FULL stun. Lots of players didn't know that there was a difference. How did the stun work though? When a player got stunned by a sword they couldn't move away but they could still turn around. They couldn't attack you, eat anything, or even shoot you. They could switch weapons or items SLOWLY, and if they switched to the sword in time they could bring up the block.

Now both players have their sword out and its an "En garde" moment. Which would turn into a full on sword fight. Not like the current stuff that is just monkey's flailing around with their swords.

Next is what happens if you got cornered in the new combat. Easy, you just died. Nothing you could do.

What happens if you got cornered in the old combat? If you were cornered by multiple enemies with swords, you could block their attacks, after blocking their attacks they would get knocked back which you could now counter attack. When you counter attack you are hitting them and they are stunned which means they can't hit you back. If you press your advantage because most players when being attacked with the sword will just mash the attack button, so after your 3 hit combo, just block again and then kill them after the combo.

In the new combat everyone just hits you through your attack. No one even bothers trying to block anymore.

Seriously look for old videos around launch and check out how different sword combat was to now.

Sorry @Galactic-Geek I know you want players to know about the good stuff, but there really isn't. Almost every change they made to combat has just been a work around for double gunning. Thats it and it still doesn't work. Now they implemented teammate revives which is going to be the worst thing ever. They really want to push this game to be an esports game.

One of the good changes - can't continue your swing by hitting objects. This is a good mechanic. However now when you hit an enemy player the game doesn't recognize it. It didn't used to do that. So one fix equals something else is broken.

EoR - Hip fire nerf. That was a good one, but even when POINT BLANK you can't hit someone with the eye of reach which means quick scoping is now a meta. One fix, one break.

Its honestly just bad. I'm wondering if asked Rare would release a classic version of the game for players to play to test out how different the game was back then. Honestly I miss the old game A LOT.

@galactic-geek said in Underwhelming hand to hand combat:

@xultanis-dragon In the old combat, if you got cornered, you could still sword dodge through your opponent - aside from right after the Anniversary update for a few months where they broke it and later fixed it, I've been stabbing others in the back since Day 1.

Generally speaking, though, you can't please everyone. I'm sorry to see that you appear to be 1 of them...

Eh, I never liked the changes they did with combat from day one. Honestly they should just make sword mandatory already. Having 2 gun load outs isn't really a viable reason to keep messing with combat.

You call it a drastic measure to fix a minor problem but its not a drastic change, this part we will probably never agree with. You like the double gun load outs. I would too if they weren't so gung-ho about not fixing the issue but unfortunately the problem that they have been trying to fix has been going on for 2 years and with every change they ruin combat even more.

It would have just been better for the them to make sword mandatory instead of putting the player base through 2 years of hell.

After all these replies from you guys that clearly know a lot about this game that I don't, I must say; the combat system still feels horrible lol and I think it sucks to be honest.

@yawnymoose said in Underwhelming hand to hand combat:

First of all; I really love Sea of Thieves. Me and my SO have been playing, and it feels like we're on holiday together! Truly, what we need right now; so I'd like to give sincere thanks to the dev team and everyone involved. It's an amazing world you've built.

That being said. What's up with the combat design? It feels like an afterthought. Compared to the finesse of sailing, or the intense experience of sea combat, swinging your sword is seriously underwhelming.

How do you feel about it? Is
the combat system considered to be a finished and complete part of the game; or are there plans for improvement? We feel like Sea of Thieves could seriously benefit from having more exciting hand to hand combat. Pressing R until the skeleton breaks got old very fast.

It wasn't always like this, Close Quarters Combat (CQC for short) used to be very well thought out, with lots of hidden mechanics you could only learn through experimentation and experience, but perfunctory changes and tweaks just gradually turned it into what it is now.

It's a feature that has been pruned and trimmed to a hollow shell of its former self... I mean it still works, but, it was better before all these perfunctory changes, tbvh. : /

Another point I'd like to add, and I'm sure I'm not the first or last to say this; WHY THE HECK AREN'T THERE MORE ENEMY TYPES? Skeleton with sword, skeleton with explosive barrel, skeleton with hat, skeleton with black bones, skeleton with glowing mushrooms...

Come on!