Other Styles of combat.

[Diaxxie]

effort post inc:

...

I'm not saying help the newbies or make Eco-lords able to fight... I'm saying that a lot of people won't like dancing based off what information I got so far but like the heat of the front lines. The idea was to give front-liners other roles. A sniper is not a front-liner. A Medic isn't really a fighter, they're behind cover, sure it's a role, but it's not addressing what I believe to be the main problem. It's for people who WANT to fight in peoples faces and give them an alternative other than the zippy dancing. I've been trying to explain this multiple times.

Also, it makes a lot of since to put stuff in to test before release so there is no bad introduction later, after all, this alpha is for testing purposes. I understand putting in something new will take time to balance and see what may need to be done, but the point of the thread is to brainstorm ideas, so there's a more sound idea to potentially present into the game while it's in testing, not be gunho into putting something completely thought up on a whim into it and 'see how it goes'. A lot of people are going to want to fight, but once they realize that being a front-liner is mostly dancing or utilizing cover (which isn't done 90% of the time) they'll go to something they don't like and eventually gravitate away anyway and player retention is lost. This is why so many fighting games have different styles in all fields.. Maybe not as high skill level, but people have different mindsets of fighting. I'm not saying make something cheesy... Im saying give it more variety. Make it to where they still have to practice with it and get better with it..

I'm not saying that "Oh this is the best thing to add, add it."... Expand on it, think it out, see if there's anything else that can be thought up of.

For all I know all of you are probably just telling me that nothing else needs to be added and everythings perfect. I just feel like it's not. I'm not going to be fighting either way.

 

[MarlboroRed]

I can see your point. Many times in FOM we would utilize our non directs and have an advantage by doing so.

 

[Banjo]

Sad to see people talking past each other and devolve into nonsense postulates. Possibly even sadder that I expected more from an open forum to the internet.

Seems like what you are searching for Diaxxie is already a part of the continuous dev efforts of adding more tools(read weapons) to the game to mix up playstyles. (As I read it you are not advocating drastic changes to the current gameplay)

I think there is a lot of validity in the statement that new players probably don't simply dislike the combat because it is bad. It's likely a combination of factors that the player expresses as being because of the combat. In reality, part of it is probably from misunderstanding lack of motivation to push through the learning curve and being matched with experienced and insensitive players rather than players of understanding and equally skilled players.

This does not mean that the combat is perfect, and people should stop being so defensive and instead engage in a productive discussion of the mechanics, even when exploring paths that might seem or actually be unfruitful.

 

[RyulongDrago]

All right, so I'm going to necro this thread as I'm one of the people who thinks original fom combat kinda sucks. To explain why it sucks, I'm going to talk about a different game first, as FoM combat sucked for the same reason vanilla Star Wars: Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy combat sucked (and I played that game competitively for a time). You see a Star Wars game with lightsabers, remember all the cool duels in the movies and get all excited. But then you watch the bunny hopping nonsense that gets done in JKA and realize that the Star Wars game has little in common with the cool Star Wars duels. The duels in movies were cool and dramatic, with epic feints and parries, combatants moved about the battlefield and tried to use it to their advantage etc. etc. Meanwhile in JKA you jump around erratically in red stance trying not to get hit as with a fairly simple technique it can be pretty much guaranteed to get a one touch of death kill. Looks and feels absolutely nothing like in the movies, despite first appearances.
Of course mods then appeared for JKA and my jaw dropped after I witnessed some of the truly genius combat systems implemented in those. It is absolutely possible to have cool, cinematic duels if that's what you are after. Vanilla devs apparently just didn't want those, or didn't know they could do it.

Getting back to FoM, the problem then isn't that "fombat" or "dancing" as you call it isn't a balanced combat system or even that the combat system isn't fun. It makes sense to me why a lot of things are the way they are (longer time to kill to curb ganking etc.). The problem is that I have ingrained in me a different expectation of how combat should look and feel in a sci-fi MMO shooter with a persistent world. Perhaps more Mass Effect and less Unreal Tournament. The dancing feels ridiculous and out of place to me in a game with an immersive world with more things happening than just the combat itself. If you added vehicles, and vehicle combat would've been Mario Kart in a cyberpunk setting, it would also feel very strange regardless of how good or fun Mario Kart gameplay is.

As a result, I've always tried to avoid combat as best I can and leave the clowning to others. But a lot of people want to shoot, so it's easy to see for me why people uncomfortable with the way things are would just leave.
Ideally your game would be able to accommodate more playstyles...but there are a lot of factors involved. For example, I remember many FoM maps were essentially small rooms and corridors and combat as a result very short-ranged, which is where erratic movement is most effective. It also seemed to me it was much easier to close the distance than to create it. But I think I should keep the discussion about these details for a later time.

 

[Banjo]

All right, so I'm going to necro this thread as I'm one of the people who thinks original fom combat kinda sucks. To explain why it sucks, I'm going to talk about a different game first, as FoM combat sucked for the same reason vanilla Star Wars: Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy combat sucked (and I played that game competitively for a time). You see a Star Wars game with lightsabers, remember all the cool duels in the movies and get all excited. But then you watch the bunny hopping nonsense that gets done in JKA and realize that the Star Wars game has little in common with the cool Star Wars duels. The duels in movies were cool and dramatic, with epic feints and parries, combatants moved about the battlefield and tried to use it to their advantage etc. etc. Meanwhile in JKA you jump around erratically in red stance trying not to get hit as with a fairly simple technique it can be pretty much guaranteed to get a one touch of death kill. Looks and feels absolutely nothing like in the movies, despite first appearances.
Of course mods then appeared for JKA and my jaw dropped after I witnessed some of the truly genius combat systems implemented in those. It is absolutely possible to have cool, cinematic duels if that's what you are after. Vanilla devs apparently just didn't want those, or didn't know they could do it.

Getting back to FoM, the problem then isn't that "fombat" or "dancing" as you call it isn't a balanced combat system or even that the combat system isn't fun. It makes sense to me why a lot of things are the way they are (longer time to kill to curb ganking etc.). The problem is that I have ingrained in me a different expectation of how combat should look and feel in a sci-fi MMO shooter with a persistent world. Perhaps more Mass Effect and less Unreal Tournament. The dancing feels ridiculous and out of place to me in a game with an immersive world with more things happening than just the combat itself. If you added vehicles, and vehicle combat would've been Mario Kart in a cyberpunk setting, it would also feel very strange regardless of how good or fun Mario Kart gameplay is.

As a result, I've always tried to avoid combat as best I can and leave the clowning to others. But a lot of people want to shoot, so it's easy to see for me why people uncomfortable with the way things are would just leave.
Ideally your game would be able to accommodate more playstyles...but there are a lot of factors involved. For example, I remember many FoM maps were essentially small rooms and corridors and combat as a result very short-ranged, which is where erratic movement is most effective. It also seemed to me it was much easier to close the distance than to create it. But I think I should keep the discussion about these details for a later time.

Dancing is a side effect of having a high TTK and fast movement speed.
Lowering TTK is not feasible as discussed.
You could lower movement speed while shooting or unholstered, but then the game will devolve into cover warfare that will be super stale.

Not sure if you are suggesting altering the combat system completely like in your example about the starwars game, or if you simply wish for more styles of combat (any specific style?).

MR have improved on the variety of combat over FOM. The maps offer different environments some with greater distance and open space while others are more classical with corridors and rooms. Weapon options have also been expanded with range being a bigger factor along with special weapons like grenade launchers and flamethrowers.

 

[HBnY]

Mass Effect esque combat means cover to cover combat? I dont think that would work in an open world MMO sandbox game for the simple fact that you cant get 100+ people to take cover thats just not possible.

 

[RyulongDrago]

Dancing is a side effect of having a high TTK and fast movement speed.
Lowering TTK is not feasible as discussed.
You could lower movement speed while shooting or unholstered, but then the game will devolve into cover warfare that will be super stale.

It's also due to the fact you can shoot and be accurate while moving. I don't know, I think cover warfare has its merits. It's the intuitive thing that comes to mind whenever guns are involved in any serious setting. Well, modern guns. If you lower movement speed and make the guns wildly inaccurate we can have line warfare, but that's a bit weird, as well.
Dancing is more a thing for over-the-top action, but there is no precedent for such to be in FoM in my opinion. Rest of the game isn't really the over the top kind of deal. We play as ordinary citizens, not chosen one badass heroes that dual wield two miniguns, right?

Not sure if you are suggesting altering the combat system completely like in your example about the starwars game, or if you simply wish for more styles of combat (any specific style?).

MR have improved on the variety of combat over FOM. The maps offer different environments some with greater distance and open space while others are more classical with corridors and rooms. Weapon options have also been expanded with range being a bigger factor along with special weapons like grenade launchers and flamethrowers.

I understand that the combat system of FoM was what it was and people are used to it. So yes, I wish game would allow for more styles of combat, specifically a bit more slowed down cover warfare style. Cover warfare doesn't mean just staying put in cover and shooting though; one still has to move forward and there already are tools to flush people out of cover like grenades that I reckon get a bit underused in a "dancing" meta.

Aforementioned Mass Effect or Planetside 2 are an example of games that have shades of both. There's usually a rushdown class like Assault/Vanguard that has short-to-mid range weapons such as SMGs or shotguns and tools to close the distance with enemies such as fast movement, jetpacks, dashes etc. The opposite of those are extreme range classes with sniper rifles that have tools to create distance from their enemies like cloaking. Finally, you can go with a standard "Soldier" class with an assault rifle or maybe a light machine gun that favors more cover-to-cover gameplay as a sort of middle of the road between the two earlier examples.

Both these games have dedicated classes though, which MR doesn't have and likely wouldn't fit. Perhaps we could go with a "the weapon you pick up decides your class" approach?

Mass Effect esque combat means cover to cover combat? I dont think that would work in an open world MMO sandbox game for the simple fact that you cant get 100+ people to take cover thats just not possible.

I'm not even sure if 100+ people usually engage in a battle at once. Planetside 2 would usually have about 150 players in a battle and that's a game with combined arms warfare.

 

[Chip Lawrie]

'Fombat' in MR is distinct from that of FoM. While the dancing still exists and will probably continue to exist because of TTK there are a lot more options in MR than there were in FoM. Partly this is due to map design, there's more space in most of our maps and a lot more verticality so tactics by necessity are different, there are also (in my not great at combat opinion) a lot more options for players to use in combat. Range is certainly a bigger change from FoM with more use of DMRs and marksman's rifles planned.

Dancing is more a thing for over-the-top action, but there is no precedent for such to be in FoM in my opinion. Rest of the game isn't really the over the top kind of deal. We play as ordinary citizens, not chosen one badass heroes that dual wield two miniguns, right?

Mankind Reborn is semi-cyberpunk at its core. Cyberpunk action is over the top, style over substance, its chrome and katanas rather than camo and combined-arms. While the characters players play in MR are not badass heroes by default, they have the ability through action, style, reputation and force of will to become badass heroes (if they as players have the capability).

grenades that I reckon get a bit underused in a "dancing" meta.

Grenades were underused in FoM because they didn't work properly. Grenades have been used to moderate effect in MR combats during testing.

Both these games have dedicated classes though, which MR doesn't have and likely wouldn't fit. Perhaps we could go with a "the weapon you pick up decides your class" approach?

While faction's act as soft classes (granting access or locking certain features) hard classes (fighter, wizard, merchant etc) aren't in the plans for MR. In combat in MR at this point in time, the weapon you use should be deciding your combat style/actions. The man with the DMR or grenade launcher shouldn't really be in the general fomdance, while the man with the smg shouldn't be trying to snipe from cover, these weapons as implemented in MR at this point in time have combat roles in which they excel and in which they fail. Smart combatants are probably going to attempt to use their weapons in roles that their weapons excel at.

I'm not even sure if 100+ people usually engage in a battle at once. Planetside 2 would usually have about 150 players in a battle and that's a game with combined arms warfare.

During testing, we've had 60+ combatants. Planetside 2 when the servers were full would have roughly 2000 combatants per continent the reason you didn't see all of them was because of:
a) How widely spread they were - MR has less areas of conflict than Planetside, even when we fully implement all of our levels we'll likely still have fewer territories for conflict than the 3 continents of a Planetside server.
b) How Planetside handled player streaming - a system we're not copying.

 

[HBnY]

Planetside 2 is not an MMO, its a tactical shooter set on a static map where if you die you respawn with your gears intact and ready for a fight in like 10 seconds. That wont work with an MMO where you farm or buy all your gears and if you die in 3 shots, youll lose all those stuff that you probably spend money that you grind for hours to make or buy. Your gears need to mean something, you die you dont just respawn with all your gears intact and ready to fight again, you need to farm everything all over. Gears need to mean something cause if the difference between using a gear makes you die in 4 shot while not using a gear makes you die in 3 shot, then everybody would not use a single piece of armor. Also, Mass Effect is a single player game so I dont even want to use it as a comparison from the start.

 

[Fowl]

It's also due to the fact you can shoot and be accurate while moving. I don't know, I think cover warfare has its merits. It's the intuitive thing that comes to mind whenever guns are involved in any serious setting. Well, modern guns. If you lower movement speed and make the guns wildly inaccurate we can have line warfare, but that's a bit weird, as well.
Dancing is more a thing for over-the-top action, but there is no precedent for such to be in FoM in my opinion. Rest of the game isn't really the over the top kind of deal. We play as ordinary citizens, not chosen one badass heroes that dual wield two miniguns, right?


I understand that the combat system of FoM was what it was and people are used to it. So yes, I wish game would allow for more styles of combat, specifically a bit more slowed down cover warfare style. Cover warfare doesn't mean just staying put in cover and shooting though; one still has to move forward and there already are tools to flush people out of cover like grenades that I reckon get a bit underused in a "dancing" meta.

Aforementioned Mass Effect or Planetside 2 are an example of games that have shades of both. There's usually a rushdown class like Assault/Vanguard that has short-to-mid range weapons such as SMGs or shotguns and tools to close the distance with enemies such as fast movement, jetpacks, dashes etc. The opposite of those are extreme range classes with sniper rifles that have tools to create distance from their enemies like cloaking. Finally, you can go with a standard "Soldier" class with an assault rifle or maybe a light machine gun that favors more cover-to-cover gameplay as a sort of middle of the road between the two earlier examples.

Both these games have dedicated classes though, which MR doesn't have and likely wouldn't fit. Perhaps we could go with a "the weapon you pick up decides your class" approach?

I'm not even sure if 100+ people usually engage in a battle at once. Planetside 2 would usually have about 150 players in a battle and that's a game with combined arms warfare.

I'm not sure if you played the last playtest, but cover is a lot more prevalent than you think. There's a video on the discord of xCali, a cellmate of mine who's known for being 'cracked' at fighting and he gets absolutely lit up by riflefire because he rushes in to facehug duel while the enemy utilizes cover. As for grenades, our cell leader Ktwist loves to use grenades and has a few videos of them in use, they definitely put in work. That whole facehug dancing dueling thing still exists but only in smaller maps. I think Bio has done a decent job at implementing new maps that change the way we fight

 

[RyulongDrago]

Mankind Reborn is semi-cyberpunk at its core. Cyberpunk action is over the top, style over substance, its chrome and katanas rather than camo and combined-arms. While the characters players play in MR are not badass heroes by default, they have the ability through action, style, reputation and force of will to become badass heroes (if they as players have the capability).

It may due to the fact it's only semi-cyberpunk and not fully cyberpunk that I get the weird impressions. I get much more cyberpunk vibes from the story and world than the action. However...

'Fombat' in MR is distinct from that of FoM. While the dancing still exists and will probably continue to exist because of TTK there are a lot more options in MR than there were in FoM. Partly this is due to map design, there's more space in most of our maps and a lot more verticality so tactics by necessity are different, there are also (in my not great at combat opinion) a lot more options for players to use in combat. Range is certainly a bigger change from FoM with more use of DMRs and marksman's rifles planned.

Grenades were underused in FoM because they didn't work properly. Grenades have been used to moderate effect in MR combats during testing.

While faction's act as soft classes (granting access or locking certain features) hard classes (fighter, wizard, merchant etc) aren't in the plans for MR. In combat in MR at this point in time, the weapon you use should be deciding your combat style/actions. The man with the DMR or grenade launcher shouldn't really be in the general fomdance, while the man with the smg shouldn't be trying to snipe from cover, these weapons as implemented in MR at this point in time have combat roles in which they excel and in which they fail. Smart combatants are probably going to attempt to use their weapons in roles that their weapons excel at.

I'm not sure if you played the last playtest, but cover is a lot more prevalent than you think. There's a video on the discord of xCali, a cellmate of mine who's known for being 'cracked' at fighting and he gets absolutely lit up by riflefire because he rushes in to facehug duel while the enemy utilizes cover. As for grenades, our cell leader Ktwist loves to use grenades and has a few videos of them in use, they definitely put in work. That whole facehug dancing dueling thing still exists but only in smaller maps. I think Bio has done a decent job at implementing new maps that change the way we fight

I haven't played MR yet, and apparently there have been a lot of significant and good sounding changes made to the game. Sounds to me like I should really get a taste of MR first before talking about this any further.

Do you happen to know if the game runs on Linux (Wine at least)?

During testing, we've had 60+ combatants. Planetside 2 when the servers were full would have roughly 2000 combatants per continent the reason you didn't see all of them was because of:
a) How widely spread they were - MR has less areas of conflict than Planetside, even when we fully implement all of our levels we'll likely still have fewer territories for conflict than the 3 continents of a Planetside server.
b) How Planetside handled player streaming - a system we're not copying.

Ah, sure, the population on an entire PS2 continent would be larger, but as you said, the continents were huge and in any given moment you would fight a fairly low fraction of that population. That's where my 150 people figure comes from, it's roughly the number of players in a given area conflict, give or take 50 people.
Large numbers of people were kinda bad too by the way. The more people participate in a battle, the less IQ each individual person has, so in a large enough battle it would turn chaotic and everyone just blindly runs forward guns blazing. With more reasonable numbers though, there was plenty of cover around most places - or you could use your tanks as cover - so there wasn't really any "dancing" happening unless you were the mobile rushdown class where circling around your enemies was your MO.

Planetside 2 is not an MMO, its a tactical shooter set on a static map where if you die you respawn with your gears intact and ready for a fight in like 10 seconds. That wont work with an MMO where you farm or buy all your gears and if you die in 3 shots, youll lose all those stuff that you probably spend money that you grind for hours to make or buy. Your gears need to mean something, you die you dont just respawn with all your gears intact and ready to fight again, you need to farm everything all over. Gears need to mean something cause if the difference between using a gear makes you die in 4 shot while not using a gear makes you die in 3 shot, then everybody would not use a single piece of armor. Also, Mass Effect is a single player game so I dont even want to use it as a comparison from the start.

Planetside 2's scale definitely reaches MMO territory for me. It just isn't a MMORPG. Neither was the original FoM. The games are sure different, but I picked PS2 and Mass Effect as examples of games enabling multiple playstyles through using a class system.
And to be completely pedantic, Mass Effect 3 has a mutiplayer mode. It's not PvP, but that isn't the point either.

 

[TeaPaine]

For someone jumping in at this relatively late stage, are the builds anything like the FoM builds? Ie. Speed, Regen, Tank

 

[Fowl]

For someone jumping in at this relatively late stage, are the builds anything like the FoM builds? Ie. Speed, Regen, Tank

There exists drugs and food than give you more movement speed, give more health regen, and can give you ballistic/energy protection. However it feels balanced enough that none of them are super apparent and/or stand out from the rest.

The TTK is lower than it was in FoM, as meds don't heal as much like they used to, thus there aren't any true tanking builds. The consensus is that if 2-3 people are focusing fire on you, you're going down in seconds, no matter how tanky you are. I've messed around with some of the heavier armors mixed with physical/energy resistance consumes as well as the Shield amp, and I can get pretty beefy but I still go down if i'm focused by 2 or more people.

The regen build used to be pretty good, popping consumes that gave health regen and using the highest tier of meds as well as utilizing the Res amp, however Bio nerfed the HP regen on both consumes and meds by a decent amount in order to get the TTK down to where it feels right. Doesn't feel worth to continue to use up passive buffs for the almost insignificant HP regen food and drugs give. You get only 3 passive effect buffs, usually its a food, a drug, and your medkit. You can't even use health injectors if you're buffs are filled.

I've yet to see many people experiment with speed builds but its simply too squishy. SMGs are actually decently meta right now, and they absolutely tear through squishies. Most people I know fight with at least 1 consume that increases their resistances, and not having that coupled with basically wearing plastic leads to a very low kill time on you.

 

[Hepopotan]

For someone jumping in at this relatively late stage, are the builds anything like the FoM builds? Ie. Speed, Regen, Tank

the tank build trumps all from the end of the last play test is what i experienced when all the items were available for free testing. its just a very expensive build to run if you were funding it yourself