Yes, there is a combat balance issue

[Battury]

And it desperately needs to be addressed, as it is probably the single biggest thing holding the game back from being more popular.

Once you get past the prologue, the game's difficulty is all over the place. Enemies will regularly one-shot you, but need three to four hits from you to kill. Enemies that need to hit you two or three times to kill you are often clumped in groups. If you ever run out of stamina, you're pretty much dead. Leveling your Endurance to get more health does not feel impactful.

At level 15, with 9 points in Endurance, wearing full heavy armor, I am still getting one-shot by a Highwayman with a bow. And of course, they clump those enemies in groups of three or four, often with multiple men with bows standing behind men rushing you in melee combat.

In an early dungeon full of low level enemies, there are two or three enemies that will one-shot you and take almost no damage when you hit them. There is no indication this is an unwinnable fight other than when you die over and over to them.

One time I exited a dungeon and was immediately attacked by like, six wyrdspawn all at once. I was level 14 maybe, and had never encountered a wyrdspawn before that moment.

The game telegraphs enemies that are astronomically too high level above you, but does not telegraph enemies that are just, like, very high above you. Like, I had a significantly easier time taking down the Ogres that have red skulls on the HUD than I did those Lost Knights in that dungeon. I spent half an hour cheesing them at least. With the Ogres, I just had to pop a couple potions and try once or twice to beat them.

The combat philosophy thus far seems to be to make everything a glass canon. You, enemies, everyone. Except when they decide to make something a stone canon and it hits extremely hard and has extremely high health.

Now I want to include some praise for the devs and how they've handled combat as well. Combat has improved SO MUCH since the early days of the game. I mean it FEELS really, really good now. Parrying feels great, landing hits feels great, all of it. The only reason I'm giving constructive criticism here is because all the constructive criticism in the early days of the early access got us those phenomenal changes. It is my hope that if enough people all come out and say "Hey, guys, there really is a problem here," they'll apply the same effort to fixing it as they did the early combat issues.

Anyway, I'm still playing the game and still loving the game, but it would be nice to have to save scum less because a random enemy somewhere decided it was going to be a boss in disguise.

[Bandy]

Publicado originalmente por Abyss Cat:

Combat balance still needs a lot of improvement, at this point it almost feels like a Soulslike.

I know you post this for effect rather than a direct comparison, but Dark Souls is a very well balanced and complex game (if not obvious) so in that respect, DS has no comparison here.

Just saying to avoid confusing the issue, the game is in early access and devs know balance is a priority. People need to read what EA means before buying and participating.

[chacolil]

I for one disagree with your criticism. I feel like the combat being hard is what has made me like the game, since it makes it different to skyrim which is the other game like this that I have played. I understand you might want to go in guns blazing into a group of 4 bandits, but I think its reasonable to be able to simply think out your strategy.
I like the fact that you have to use more than just your sword to beat a group. For my part, I always start off stealth killing one enemy with a bow, then as the rest come, usually a group of 3 survivors, Ill cast the crow spell that keeps one entertained, then that leaves two soldiers. Ill charge my heavy, and as the soldier closes in, he will probably die in 1 hit, and then just parry the next guy and kill him before the crow dissipates. This allows me to fight melee with 2 enemies at once, and take on a group of around 4 with melee, ranged and magic at the same time.
To me, that is good as a combat option. Your suggestion would make the game boring for me. If you can tank hits, then its a matter of simply leveling up your heavy armor and soon enough youll be indestructible, simply charging at a group of mobs and mowing them down. Id prefer the current way of doing things. Having the danger of getting killed immediately makes it more important to dodge, weave and parry. Perhaps they could reach a middle ground where the mobs dont 1 hit you but instead 2, hits? And scale it up as the game progresses so that the leveled up armor doesnt makes you invincible? That would be a good solution, but just straight out tanking hits would be boring.

[Bandy]

Publicado originalmente por chacolil:

I for one disagree with your criticism. I feel like the combat being hard is what has made me like the game...

Did you play <before> the last update?
The game needs rebalance, no doubt, and devs have posted that 'opinion'.

But do devs have 'opinions' wrt their own game? Not so much...

[BigDaddyBulgyWulgy420]

honestly after thoroughly playing all playstyles - massive skill issue

[Abyss Cat]

Publicado originalmente por Bandy:

Publicado originalmente por Abyss Cat:

Combat balance still needs a lot of improvement, at this point it almost feels like a Soulslike.

I know you post this for effect rather than a direct comparison, but Dark Souls is a very well balanced and complex game (if not obvious) so in that respect, DS has no comparison here.

Just saying to avoid confusing the issue, the game is in early access and devs know balance is a priority. People need to read what EA means before buying and participating.

Yeah, I agree with you, this comparison was just for exaggeration. Right now Fall of Avalon's combat is not only difficult, but also unfair, which isn't the case of Dark Souls.

I understand perfectly that the game is in EA, that's why I've written this comment, not to complain, but to give my feedback to the devs.

[CornBreadtm]

I played a mage on the hard difficulty. Was pretty much one shot by everything lol.

When I beat an important named knight and got his unique heavy armor and mace at the end of act 1. I put it on to try it out and see how a build with only end and int does.

You still take some damage but its so minuscule that I could fight the hardest enemies in act 1 (the bandits and knights on the mountain) and take several hit before having to heal which was easy since I had so much int and points the end tree to elevate the draw backs that I could easily play a full "paladin". Can't attack, but can heal off any damage.

This isn't actually a good thing because I simply means that full mages suck. You need to play full mage in robes with my build cause you don't have any damage. So you either get one shot and can kill or don't get one shot and can't kill. I would need tons of levels to make up the difference.

Act 2 is just act 1 on steroids. All of the levels you got in act 1 feel meaningless cause its right back to level 1 tiers of damage vs your enemies.

Also my full mage build involves summoning a lot of skeletons and detonating them for damage. Nothing else really does as much consistent damage and the deaths of summons give back MP. Just tossing out a fire ball doesn't give back MP. Meaning you're pigeon holed into a specific optimal build since enemies are so tanky and will beat you down without a distraction and high damage. Which the summon + detonation covers for both. I can also summon soldiers, but their AIs are so broken that it isn't worth it. And I can't summon wolves because I played a female.

All that being said, the game is fun. Had a blast. Stopped at the start of act 2 when I got to town had a few "not in EA build" quests. Gonna wait till act 2 is finished to go back in.

I honestly have no clue how someone plays this game as a rogue with daggers. Seems like masochist type behavior.

[Sgt.JESUS]

Well combat being hard is great, comparing it to a soulslike is even better in my book, mages being one shotted in hard difficulty because they wear cloth is great too, dont know whats the issue here, areas with stronger enemies are great too, level scaling sucks and we know that from bandits wearing daedric armor in Oblivion, so its better to have min/max level areas or like Gothic where everything is mixed up and you gotta watch out for those random monsters.

There should be at least a visual cue, if you are searching for that bounty you know the name and description of the bandit bastard among the weaker bandits, and that existed early EA, i remember dying to that bandit atop the first wall a lot because i was underleveled.

[CornBreadtm]

Publicado originalmente por Sgt.JESUS:

Well combat being hard is great, comparing it to a soulslike is even better in my book, mages being one shotted in hard difficulty because they wear cloth is great too, dont know whats the issue here, areas with stronger enemies are great too, level scaling sucks and we know that from bandits wearing daedric armor in Oblivion, so its better to have min/max level areas or like Gothic where everything is mixed up and you gotta watch out for those random monsters.

There should be at least a visual cue, if you are searching for that bounty you know the name and description of the bandit bastard among the weaker bandits, and that existed early EA, i remember dying to that bandit atop the first wall a lot because i was underleveled.

I think the problem for the majority is: Mages and light armor people get one shot, heavy armor people get like 10+ shot. The disadvantage to wearing heavy armor isn't impactful since the DPS options for mages and light armor people is low.

Basically you're sacrificing survivability for flavor.

Wearing heavy armor with a sword and shield is simply the best option if you going by BiS numbers.

Mages can barely use magic as a viable DPS option in cloth, so losing that in heavy doesn't matter since it wasn't viable. Dex boys in leather do the same damage with a bow in light as heavy. It's the stamina cost that changes. If you can't kill anyway, then being able to survive the return fire out ways the other option.

Basically the EA combat isn't balanced and people have started to notice.

Logically speaking, people want to be able to do enough damage as a full mage to win the fights without dying, chugging potions and leaving the majority of enemies alive while being out of MP.

Same applies for rangers in leather, Don't want to be dying, out of arrows or leaving targets alive while hitting your shots.

Barbarians with twohanded and medium, don't want to be oneshot, be killing quickly with their melee and not be rotating out of combat do to low stamina.

Heavy armor knights shouldn't be taking much damage, should be chugging minimal potions and be rotating out of combat for stamina. They do this.

Only the heavy armor is working as intended currently. The rest of the options don't do enough damage to make their load outs viable.

[Kalarak]

I've been playing essentially a light armored dex/str build and I'm doing alright, but I will say that almost every enemy one or two shots me. I'm playing on the survival difficulty and it does make combat fun and engaging to have to consistently dodge and parry perfectly but I could understand some people not wanting the game to be so extremely difficult. My experience so far is that it's on par with Soulslike games in terms of difficulty.

[SLANK]

Publicado originalmente por CornBreadtm:

Publicado originalmente por Sgt.JESUS:

Well combat being hard is great, comparing it to a soulslike is even better in my book, mages being one shotted in hard difficulty because they wear cloth is great too, dont know whats the issue here, areas with stronger enemies are great too, level scaling sucks and we know that from bandits wearing daedric armor in Oblivion, so its better to have min/max level areas or like Gothic where everything is mixed up and you gotta watch out for those random monsters.

There should be at least a visual cue, if you are searching for that bounty you know the name and description of the bandit bastard among the weaker bandits, and that existed early EA, i remember dying to that bandit atop the first wall a lot because i was underleveled.

I think the problem for the majority is: Mages and light armor people get one shot, heavy armor people get like 10+ shot. The disadvantage to wearing heavy armor isn't impactful since the DPS options for mages and light armor people is low.

Basically you're sacrificing survivability for flavor.

Wearing heavy armor with a sword and shield is simply the best option if you going by BiS numbers.

Mages can barely use magic as a viable DPS option in cloth, so losing that in heavy doesn't matter since it wasn't viable. Dex boys in leather do the same damage with a bow in light as heavy. It's the stamina cost that changes. If you can't kill anyway, then being able to survive the return fire out ways the other option.

Basically the EA combat isn't balanced and people have started to notice.

Logically speaking, people want to be able to do enough damage as a full mage to win the fights without dying, chugging potions and leaving the majority of enemies alive while being out of MP.

Same applies for rangers in leather, Don't want to be dying, out of arrows or leaving targets alive while hitting your shots.

Barbarians with twohanded and medium, don't want to be oneshot, be killing quickly with their melee and not be rotating out of combat do to low stamina.

Heavy armor knights shouldn't be taking much damage, should be chugging minimal potions and be rotating out of combat for stamina. They do this.

Only the heavy armor is working as intended currently. The rest of the options don't do enough damage to make their load outs viable.

10+ shot in heavy armor? What set are you wearing? Because I'm in full heavy armor and I'm still getting one shot by EVERYTHING.

[Spook Rooster]

bumping this for visibility. if this ever reaches 1.0, the combat balance really needs to be addressed.

[KleverKilvanya]

So far with just 4 hours or so of experience I can say that magic is full on ass so far, nothing I have does meaningful damage without full dumping my mana into single enemies, melee can do damage but without actual armor it dies just as fast as mage, meanwhile crappy short bow casually one shot literally everything I've run into so far with wooden arrows.

The starting tools for various playstyles needs to be looked at because as it stands most people are going to try out what they get and realize that the memetic stealth archer build is head and shoulders above the other two options.

Granted this may change later on but so far with what I have found and tried I cannot see transitioning into melee or mage without significant buffs being available before I started sinking levels into supporting stealth archery.

[Razzen]

Don't worry, one day I'm sure we'll get a 1st person RPG that has impactful and dangerous magic.... one day...

[PainKiller]

Publicado originalmente por Razzen:

Don't worry, one day I'm sure we'll get a 1st person RPG that has impactful and dangerous magic.... one day...

so true,. but atlest melee and bows works great

[Spook Rooster]

i was using magic and it was definitely better than trying to melee anything and just getting killed from 8 meters away by a dude with a mace. only problems are...yeah, dumping all my mana into single enemies was an issue for sure. there was also a lost knight in the first proper story dungeon that would have been impossible if not for the fact he got stuck at the front gate in the entry hall of the crypt. the necromancer at the end, however...forget about it. chases you out with dashing undead and then heals to full. can't deal any meaningful damage to him.

if there's truly a major update in a couple days, hopefully it is massively improved. if not, 1.0 is looking pretty hopeless.