[2023] Combat Beta Update #2 - Feedback Update

In it's current state, and after discussions with various players, we don't feel that it's ready to go live yet. This is perfectly okay though, as it's exactly why we're running the beta!

We're going to spend some time in the New Year looking at alternate/better ways of improving the auto-attack/basic attack functionality without necessarily just making all styles utilise what Necromancy has.

It's one of those features that Necromancy uses that doesn't necessarily translate as well to other styles based on how they currently function (vs something like the 'Hit chance -> Damage potential' system which translates very well).

It's hard to judge because the current abilities weren't designed around it -> if we move forward with it we'd need to rework a fair number of their basic abilities to be more unique as in a simplified view right now they're 'just' damage.

Now that we've got some feedback on the system we're happy to pull it back out (and if we want to move forward with it: iterate on it and improve melee's basics to be more interesting alongside basic attacks (and make basic attacks more interesting))

We don't want to just leave it in half-baked as it'll warp other feedback

EDIT: just seen Ryan responded -> apologies for spam

Since you mention 'a lot more stuff that needs to be done for beta to come to live game'...

What do you think should be included before changes come to the live game?

I ask as we feel that incremental changes to the live game will be better than doing nothing. As it can end up resulting in trying to find a 'perfect' state which can push things back further and further.

I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding.

A number of the Necromancy features that we mentioned exploring for the other styles are, at a foundation level:

• Hit chance -> Damage potential (no more missing, just reduced damage per hit)
• Modern critical strike system (% chance to critically strike and +% critical strike damage)
• Hit cap increased from 10,000/12,000/15,000 -> 30,000

Then when we get to more specific Necromancy style features, they are much more complex to implement into each style without overhauling them from the ground up:

• Modernised 'Basic Attack' (replacement for the hidden auto-attack)
• Cleaner visuals (hitsplats line up with hits and animations don't overlap)

The beta currently has the foundation changes for Melee, Ranged and Magic which are very impactful changes on their own but also set us up for the future. They do raise a number of issues to the surface that need to be addressed though which is what we're iterating on at the moment.

Redefining the identity of a style and updating the entire tool kit is a much larger project. Arguably even bigger than making a style from scratch as you have a lot of dependencies to be considerate of (ability upgrades from content, various array of buffs spread across 20+ years of content), and requires more than just designers/developers (artists and animators).

This is definitely something we want to look at but it's not what the focus is right now.

I hope that clears a few things up for you, but please ask additional questions if you have any!

If you enter 'Edit mode' from the menu, you can move it to a location that better suits you.

The changes mentioned in this post will be available in the next beta update which won't be until the new year.

A good amount of players mentioned that it was useful when you're using adrenaline consuming abilities (Thresholds, Ultimates and Special attacks) as they would always consume >=10% which meant that if you're over the threshold right now, they were used to be able to press it in advance (i.e it doesn't matter which order you press the buttons in).

Nope, that's what we're planning to do.

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. I was stating that the Equilibrium changes that are on the beta would be sheleved, and we will look to replace them with the alternate idea that Sponge has spoken about (Deadly).