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Originally posted by SWG System designer in charge of combat
Intro and notes:

First, PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE THREAD. There is some information at the top that will hopefully explain the overall direction I’d like to take all combat professions in. These changes are paramount to understanding which issues I’ve called out and haven’t called out.

Although the problems are labeled #1, #2, etc, they are not in order of priority. It’s just a random order I made up based on how I wrote the document.

If you are a ranged profession, please read the proposed melee changes. Same for meleers. There’s information contained that pertains to both types of combat.

General Combat Stuff:

Combat Combo Proposal:

One of the ideas that has been floating around here for the past month or so is the idea of a combo system for combat actions.

As you hit a target, I would like to see a system of damage/move efficacy "step-up" for each subsequent successful hit. A miss will remove the "step-up" values.

This will encourage people to vary their attacks and improve the effectiveness of each subsequent move. The number of combo hits allowed will be a value that will scale as you improve in combat ability. A newbie marksman might get a maximum combo size of 2, while a master rifleman might be able to string together 8 attacks.

In addition to these combo moves, I would like to add a few new "generic" combat moves. These would be used for all weapons and would directly interact with the combo system. One of these moves could interrupt/clear a the combo counter, while another could actually steal a portion of the combo counter. I think this would add a nice level of depth to this system, and make it more interesting for PVP.

Melee Defense Proposal:

We removed knockdown as a "tank" ability. I stand by our decision to do this. However, I think adding this type of gameplay back into the system is valuable.

What I propose is the addition of a "defensive bonus" move. This would last for a variable amount of time (increasing as you reach higher skill levels). The bonus would protect you from a significant number of hits for the duration of the ability.

It is in a sense a tank ability that protects the defender instead of negating the attacker. That will make it much simpler to balance.

Combat Speed Change Proposal:

So it appears that we have a problem at higher levels. The skill mods, combined with sliceability of all of our weapons results in all weapons (At higher levels), hitting our speed cap. This means that the fastest any weapon will ever be is 1 second, and it dimishes the differences between all of our weapons and skill trees.

My proposal is that we implement a variable speed cap based off of the weapon. So pistoleers and 1hswords would use a .5 second speed cap, while riflemen/pikemen would have a 3 second minimum speed.

The end result is that weapon/class differentiation would increase, which would allow me to enhance the functionality of each class. I could raise the damage on carbines/rifles because I would be guaranteed that they wouldn’t be fired as quickly as pistols. The DPS problems in pistoleer could be minimized by increasing the speed mods, as they would have more total effect on the firing speed.

Active Defense Modifiers:

Across the board we have seen complaints that the defense modifiers (counterattack, dodge and block) do not work properly at higher levels. This is true as the mods and rolls for those abilities do not scale properly compared to the toHit rolls they are being used against.

This is a known issue and we are in the process of improving all of these. However, we are modifying these numbers slowly so we avoid major disruptions to the combat system.

Melee Out of Range issue:

This is caused by the object on your client being drawn in a different location that it exists on the server.

The proposal to fix this is to increase the melee range of all weapons to a value that is closer to the margin of error between the client/server. This will make combat look a little funny as you’ll be able to hit a target further away, but I think this is an appropriate tradeoff.


Melee Damage Output:
I believe that melee damage is too low across the board. I will be investigating move abilities and look into bringing all melee class damage up to a more appropriate level.

Lack of melee weapons:

I think that we’re lacking melee weapons across the board. We added weapon certifications late in the beta cycle and didn’t add any extra weapons to our classes. The end result is that there’s limited choice, and not a whole lot of visually interesting choices for higher level weapons.

Of course, this doesn’t just affect melee. I think we could use more ranged weapons as well, and even more vibroknucklers with varying effects for Teras Kasi. I’ll see what I can get added for these classes.

All Professions:

We don’t hate any of you. I apologize for the lack of constant feedback. All combat professions will get some TLC in the future.

Ranged Class Specific Stuff:

Pistoleers:

I’m not going to go into the pistol changes as they have been addressed in the other post. Regardless, some of the general fixes detailed above should help pistoleers.

Carbineers:

Problem #1:

HAM costs are too high for carbine special moves. This is actually a problem with the carbine weapons.

Solution #1:

Once we implement the speed limiters for all classes, I would like to reduce the HAM costs. This could be done by modifying new weapons, the actual move data, or a combination. I’m not sure which is the best approach, but I’m leaning towards modification of the moves as it will be less disruptive for existing weapons.

Problem #2:

Legshot 2 is viewed as being identical to Legshot 3.

Solution #2:

Legshot 3 is actually a cone attack. It does 2.5X damage as opposed to 2.0X damage, and should hit targets in the cone instead of a single target. There is potentially a bug in the cone calculations that is preventing this from happening. I will investigate.

Problem #3:

Carbines seem to lack class definition.

Solution #3:
I’d like to see carbines as halfway between the slow speed/high damage of riflemen and lower damage/higher speed of pistoleers. They should have a wider variety of area/high rate of fire attacks, but less "finesse" attacks. Attacks like scattershot will be improved to the point that they are viable alternatives to the focused attacks such as bodyShot.

Riflemen:
Problem #1:

Development Hates Riflemen.


Solution #1:

We don’t hate you.

Problem #2:

Take Cover is not particularly effective given it’s penalties. It immobilizes you (at lower levels) and doesn’t give adequate protection.

Solution #2:

I’m going to try to improve the protection values of take cover. I’d like to see these protection values scale from their current value to a much higher protection level at higher levels. Sure you lock yourself to crawling/prone, but I think it should give a much more significant level of protection.


This will also enhance the "anti-sniper" moves of riflemen. If cover is more useful, more players will use it. If more players use cover, the anti-cover moves become more useful.

Problem #3:

Rifleman accuracy is lacking against moving targets.

Solution #3:

Along with the take cover defensive bonuses, I think it’s appropriate to add a large(ish) attack bonus to go with take cover. This will further enhance the "purpose" of rifleman. I’ll also investigate the toHit bonuses for all rifleman skills.

Problem #4:

Rifleman damage output is too low given the delays involved.

Solution #4:
Once we add the speed cap, I will investigate improving damage output. The combo system I have proposed will nicely fit into the rifleman attack paradigm.

Problem #5:

Rifles too difficult to craft (T21)

Solution #5:

I’ll raise this issue with the crafting designers and see if we can come to a reasonable solution for this problem.

Melee Classes:

All meleers - Please read the section at the top of this document. If you do not, you will look at these lists and say "THESE ARE SHORTER THAN THE RANGED SOLUTIONS! THE DEVS HATE US!". This is not the case. The reason these are shorter is that the problems with melee are more fundamental and global than ranged classes.

All melee professions would stand to have a new melee baseline defined, with new combo abilities, defensive bonuses, and potentially a range increase. Once we get this baseline defined, we can start addressing specific move/weapon problems.

Teras Kasi:

Problem #1:

Meditation line is not very useful.

Solution #1:

We are revisiting the functionality of the meditation line. Power boost has been fixed (the duration/effect were broken), and the rest of the moves will be revisited to make sure that the line is actually a useful addition to the tree.

Problem #2:

Unarmed Combo’s aren’t very useful.

Solution #2:
These moves will be improved in a manner similar to the carbineers scattershot moves. I’d like to see these moves be a viable alternative to localized damaging moves, even with the random hit locations.




Fencer:


Problem #1:

Fencer lacks class definition and useful abilities.

Solution #1:

I see Fencer as the pistoleer of the melee classes (The good parts of pistoleer). This class will benefit significantly from the global damage/HAM cost revamp as well as the defensive bonuses for meleers. Unfortunately I cannot give specifics to the changes as they will all be derived from the new melee combat baseline defined by the global changes.


Swordsman


Problem #1:

Empty Finesse box

Solution #1:

I’ll figure out what was supposed to go there and fix it. I apologize for the oversight.

Problem #2:

HAM costs too high

Solution #2:

This should be corrected with the general HAM cost pass.


Pikemen:

Problem #1:

No clear class definition and underpowered abilities.

Solution #1:

Similar to the fencer, I see the pikemen as the brother class to riflemen. They should do very high damage but at the trade off of lower speed. I don’t think I want to make range a defining characteristic, as the range limitations cause playability issues for all melee classes. Fixing it for pikemen will leave the other classes with the same problems.

Problem #2:
Negative to hits at close range for some weapons.

Solution #2:

I don’t like the negative ranges in the slightest bit. I’ll see what I can get changed from the weapon crafting side to negate these modifiers. It will probably be on new weapons only L



Specialty Classes:

Commandos:

I’d rather not go through specific complaints about commando, but instead cover my view of the class, and potential changes.

I’m happy with the damage abilities of commandos. That being said, I am going to recategorize commando weapons to qualify as ranged weapons. This means that they won’t get a damage bonus against other ranged attacks, and all ranged defense modifiers will apply.

The other potential changes for commando revolve around the dot effect for flamethrowers (it might be too powerful), and maybe making the lefthand fire weapons more usable against larger targets as opposed to hitting everyone equally.

That said, I will argue that commando’s damage capabilities are reasonable, but they should come at a tradeoff. I might remove all defensive bonuses from the heavy weapons line to give commandos more of a weak spot, and might even add in some flame defense modifiers for other classes.


Bounty Hunters:

Problem #1:

Investigation line is too difficult to progress.

Solution #1:

I’m inclined to agree. I’ll double check the numbers and see if I can lower the xp requirements/raise the xp from the missions.

Problem #2:

Eyeshot. Everyone is worried it’s too powerful.

Solution #2:

The best solution I’ve seen for this problem is to split eyeshot into 2 separate commands. The original eyeshot would move into master, and a new different mindshot command would replace the existing newbie one. This would maintain the power of the original move and grant a new secondary move.

Problem #3:
No bounty hunter weapons except for the LLC.

Solution #3:

As stated above, I’d like to add more weapons. This includes bounty hunter specialty weapons. These would be variants on existing pistols/carbines, potentially with custom weapon specific abilities.

Problem #4:

Bounty Hunter power curve ends before easier master classes. They aren’t as powerful as a pistoleer/carbineer/etc.

Solution #4:

I’m not 100% convinced that bounty hunter should be more powerful than a pistoleer in all situations. That being said, I think they need some more class specific functionality and abilities as opposed to borrowing existing moves/mods from pistoleer/carbineer. I’ll investigate this and see what I can come up with to improve the class.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SWG Dev
I’m not 100% convinced that bounty hunter should be more powerful than a pistoleer in all situations. That being said, I think they need some more class specific functionality and abilities as opposed to borrowing existing moves/mods from pistoleer/carbineer. I’ll investigate this and see what I can come up with to improve the class.

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Originally posted by EverythingXen
Meditation 2 is fixed? Haven't noticed. Oh well. I'll try it out and see what happens (especially when I get meditation 4 to heal wounds rapidly... no more doctors for healing ever. Just for buffs.).

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Originally posted by EverythingXen
.... .... why??

I can drop stormies, pet or otherwise, without missing a beat.

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Originally posted by Ekim
I guess I just need to get my skills up a little, and wish for better luck.

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Originally posted by Ekim
I don't think skills are really a deciding factor in PvP. I think a cool head on your shoulders and some tactics will previal most of the times. Yes, one shot kills do win every time, but with some experience, you can actually avoid being cannon fodder.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ekim
Who else had their overt status reverted on them? Happened to me twice already!

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