How good is the combat now?

[Roy]

I played this game a long while ago and melee combat was just terrible.
You dealt like 2 damage on a guy with 200 health and nearly all the swings and stabs would miss.

Is the melee combat improved by now? I want to play the game but it's pretty unenjoyable when combat is nearly impossible.

[ScareCrow]

Damage dealing is depending on youre skills, but you can rack up heavy damage on someone from what i have encountered just using a practice sword... so yeah melee is working ;) even a sling is racking up pretty decent damage when you have good skills and atributes. the bow is op though lol youll discover that when my arrows hit you ;)

[Forseti]

It does take practice and some weapons are OP (but good admins ban them until they are fixed). I know guys (I'm not one of them) that can run around with a Bow and nail you while on the move. And some of the combos can be tricky to pull off but really from what I've played it just takes getting used to everything. Also it can help if you change some of the keys (such as inverted attack) That helps for me. Combat isn't easy and some of the weapons don't have the best hit box but over all it is a good start to a work in progress.

Also because of weapon hit boxes it may not be the combat that is the issue but the weapons themselves.

[---]

Other way around now - things hit hard (2h) and land where they land. One slip can cost you are duel.

[Dealman]

In my opinion, the combat in this game is by far its biggest weakness. Its mechanics are terrible and it's horribly unbalanced.

They seem to be focusing mainly on harvesting and crafting as of now, which I think is a good thingl, combat isn't that necessary at this state of the game I'd say.

That said, you can go from being useless with a sword to hitting like 10 times a second with a sword. It's pretty darn horrible.

[Necrozis]

combat is great... armor is unbalanced though. Needs to be a rework of the values so that only a piercing weapon can get though plate etc. And as far as going from useless to hitting say 1x a second 10x is just exagerating uh.. thats realistic. when you start to do something you suck at it then you get better though practice

[abu the monkey]

guys, as this discussion started - it would be great if u will share ur experience in lif combat. what weapons are op, weak, weapon-armor builds and other.

[Hakenkreuz]

Hi,

From my experiences its just very hard to tell how to hit with the "blade" of the weapon. Hit boxes seem way off even when testing on a stationary opponent with various weapons. It kind of seems as if the damage tracers are not synced with the animations.

Atm I don't care about balance if it is impossible to be consistent with anything other than a sword.

Juss my 2 cents.

[---]

Nah, from my experience swords are the easiest class to whoop knaves with, you can score a hit at a point blank range (and turn it into a combo), you can whip someone's head while rotating away from the opponent etc etc. Hitboxes are fine since that patch two month ago, just takes some practice.

[Sistermatic™]

I solo'ed a Wolf last night with a primitive axe and I'm a hopeless case with 10 left handed thumbs so something must work. :)

(Mind you, blacksmith is now dressed in "Wolf That Failed" garb so was all good.)

[Dealman]

Originally posted by abu the monkey:

guys, as this discussion started - it would be great if u will share ur experience in lif combat. what weapons are op, weak, weapon-armor builds and other.

Shields

For starters practicing with shields need to get fixed. Currently it seems like the Primitive Shield has a messed up hitbox - in order for us to train shield at all, we first had to relog - both of us.

After that, I had to aim my shield a little bit downwards, and my friend had to hit me towards my thighs, using the thrust attack.

This was literally the only way we could practice with the Primitive Shield, once we got the Kite Shield it was considerably easier.

Ranged Weaponry

Currently it seems as if bows(and crossbows?) can shoot through walls, we haven't quite tested this thoroughly yet - but we've seen it happen with palisades and shortbows.

Slings are far too strong for such a primitive weapon, if you have a high throwable skill and a sling of quality 90+ and ammo with quality 90+ - you'll still do a good 20-30 damage per hit on half-plate armour.

Since it says on the website that this game has a focus on "realism", slings should do very little damage - if any at all.

Been dealing 55-60 damage with a Quality 94 Sling using Quality 90 ammo on unarmoured targets. Quality affects sling damage far too much.

Melee

Hit detection for melee has to be tweaked, there are times where melee works fairly well and there are times where melee doesn't work at all. No matter how close or how far away you get.

Another thing is that you can almost double your damage output if you spin your camera around very fast as you're striking as this will give you a massive speed bonus. Star Wars Jedi Academy has the exact same issue - this has to be fixed.

Plate Armour

In my experience, it feels as if using plate armour is entirely useless. You lose a lot of mobility and barely gain any melee defense. People still do a lot of damage to me despite having good quality half-plate (Q80+) with one-handed weapons.

Yet again, this falls into whether you want general balance or realism. Realistically, one-handed weapons such as the Scimitar and Longsword should not do any damage with slash attacks - only thrust attacks.

If a mix of both, reduce damage taken whilst in plate armour.

Summary

All in all, combat can be satisfying. But in my honest opinion, each and every aspect of combat has to be re-tweaked and polished. I still stand by my statement that combat is currently the weakest part of the game.

I would use games like Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Mount & Blade and Chivalry as inspirations. Possibly War of the Roses for inspiration regarding ranged weaponry.

Note: This is my own feedback - based on my own and my sparring friend's opinion.

Edit: Oh, and the Healing skill could use some fixing as well. To heal a friend I need to click that ability several times before it starts healing. No idea what causes this issue.

[Artilies]

Going have to agree with Dealman combat can be satisfying, but overall the weakest part of the game. There are damage bugs and it is very difficult to train other people up especially the shield, combat overall feels wonky.

[heinric]

Originally posted by abu the monkey:

guys, as this discussion started - it would be great if u will share ur experience in lif combat. what weapons are op, weak, weapon-armor builds and other.

well the hitboxes could use a little bit more work and so could the registry atm its pretty good as for weapons being op i dont think weapons are op buuuut the armor is very near broken unless modded. plate barely protects against slashing which it should negate completly i would say some 1 handed weapons need to be buffed a weapon should 1 shot a naked player but at this point armor sucks bad unless its modded. so yeah there are some weapons that are better than others but mainly because they are bad and have low damage like the nordic sword and the armor is just plain bad since it drains stamina and slows you like no tomorrow regardless of the type of armor you use