Suggestion Pertaining To Combat

[beemerwt]

Combat is slow in this game to say the least. It has a bunch of issues when it comes to the incessant "red text" problem with "accelerators" and is basically slow enough to be a turn-based MMO. Additionally, all weapons swing at the same speed, so you best opt for the highest damage-dealing weapon, or one with the best enchantment. So here are some suggestions as to how this can be fixed.

First and foremost, allow us to see the Global Cooldown (GCD). This will let us know why we're not allowed to punch right after we use our sword's basic slash. It's very tedious to hit a key and it not do anything despite being completely up, especially when you aren't staring at your character to see the animation performed, and especially because the animations are sooooo slow.

Secondly, implement an attack speed variable. This could be as simple as a number that shows the amount of time, in seconds, between each attack. Make swords 1.5s, unarmed 1.0s, knives 1.25s, and staves 2.0s. This will give the game some more variance, and allow for equivalency between the weapons. Right now damage per second (DPS) is solely based on whichever weapon has the best stats because they can all swing at the same speed. For example, if I have a dagger that deals 7 damage, and a sword that deals 15 damage, then I would be dumb to use the dagger because the sword deals double it's damage and swings at the exact same speed. Then, if I found a staff that deals 20 damage, I should wear that because it deals 5 more damage than the sword and can be used at the same rate. The DPS in these scenarios differ only because of the damage on the weapon, not based on any attack speed. If this were to be implemented, ideally the weapons would be balanced in a way that a "same quality" dagger and sword would have the same amount of DPS, but different "base damage." This equates to a sword, having 1.5s attack speed, dealing 15 damage, and a dagger, having 1.25s attack speed, dealing 12.5 damage. Their respective DPS values would then both be 10.

Thirdly, speed up all animations with the exception of a few. When I say "with the exception of a few" I mean the animations that are based on cast-time can stay the same, because those are independent of the instant abilities' animations. I wear a knife/dagger, so I know what it means to have a slow animation. I don't even care that 90% of the Knife Fighting animations are the same exact animation, I only care that I am able to do them as fast as a dagger should be able to swing, not as if I'm wearing a heavy-ass mace. A dagger is meant to be light-weight and quick, but it takes a good second for me to swing the thing, just like everything else. If anything, this is why I care so much about an "attack speed" stat. If you don't plan on implementing an attack speed stat, then at the very least could you improve the animations on faster-swinging weapons? Punching seems fine, but it could be considered slow too. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just take a look at daggers again. A basic swing attack will take forever to perform.

Fourthly, less strict timer. I get that the devs are trying to stop hacking completely, but some things just need to be let go. At the very least you could compensate for double-ping? That would allow us to cast abilities within an error of margin double of it's current size (more info needed to definitively say this is the current case), reducing the amount of red text we see.

Fifthly, the distance red text shouldn't incur a full cooldown on the abilities, only a GCD. I understand if you want to incur a FULL cooldown on the ones who could potentially be using a speed hack, but sometimes the mobs move and it happens to everyone. If I use a SUPER POWERFUL ABILITY right as the mob moves, then it doesn't go off and gives me a "distance message," saying I'm "out of range by X meters," and it incurs a full cooldown. Why even use that ability?

Lastly, and least-ly, jumping could be improved greatly. I like to strafe jump a lot of the time, or just jump in general. If the aim is to keep jumping like the way it is, I can understand because we can walk up mountains; however, I personally prefer a more free-form jumping so I can jump while I walk around and jump while I fight mobs. This is more of a quality of life change, rather than a necessary one.

[Crissa]

Why would there need to be an attack speed?

Every special ability has a cool-down, including your Basic Attack. Different skills are available from different levels and have differing damage and complexity of supporting them. Some abilities have really slow cool-downs. Some are fast.

In Unarmed, if I wanted to be hitting faster, I would use Punch/Jab, as I can use these two almost as fast as I can push their buttons. If I want to hit harder, I use Kneekick and Bodyslam, but they're slow. If I'm using Punch-Jab, I can throw in one of these slower ones once in awhile, but then I have to not use Barrage or Mamba/Cobra. There's not enough power, time, or buttons to do them all. That's the point.

If the global cool down sped up for some players, they would get more advantage from refreshing abilities correspondingly, and just be better in a fight.

In the earlier UI, the Basic Attacks displayed our global cooldown. The new UI is a little more cloudy on cooldowns and active targeting.

[beemerwt]

Attack speed would be useful for a number of reasons. For one, there could be a slowing attack that the enemies do that would decrease your attack speed, or ice magic could decrease the enemy's attack speed. There could also be additional stats on items that allow for a faster attack speed. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

The current pace of combat is absolutely slow. I would implore you to equip a dagger and try knife fighting and you'll see why it's an issue. I also just looked up what you were talking about with the "cooldowns" and how, as unarmed, you can punch/jab and it will be as fast as you can. If you consider 2 seconds to be fast then why not just use a more powerful weapon, because all of the basic attacks for every single weapon is 2 seconds. Meaning you can be unarmed, but you are actually inhibiting yourself because you could be using a more powerful sword and basic attacking with it for higher damage. It actually says "10 slashing damage" with a cooldown of "2 seconds" on the wiki for swords, and "6 crushing damage" with a cooldown of "2 seconds" for unarmed. The same goes for knives, which have a "6 slashing damage" with a cooldown of "2 seconds."

This is why I would like to see an "attack speed" stat for weapons, that way we don't have to rely on "cooldowns," rather just a "global cooldown" that is affected by the attack speed. This would make it so you could do 12 damage with unarmed in 2 seconds, just like the sword can do 10 damage in 2 seconds (possibly changing the sword's basic attack to be an equivalent 12 damage in 2 seconds). Yes, that does mean we could use abilities faster depending on the weapon, but it's up to the developer to balance that. Right now, the "Fending Blade" ability on Knives deals 12 Piercing damage, reduces rage on the target by 50, and has a cooldown of 10 seconds, versus a sword that has 10 slashing damage, reduces rage on the target by 60, and has a cooldown of 7 seconds. In this case, sword is absolutely more powerful than knives--which kind of makes sense since in reality they are bigger--but that could all be balanced by allowing the user to use more abilities when using a knife by reducing the GCD on it.

I'm simply saying that the DPS on the weapons should be the same if they are the same quality (i.e. sword with no stat bonuses and dagger with no stat bonuses) because right now they aren't, and I think an "attack speed" stat would be really nice to have because it allows for some variance between weapons, rather than choosing a weapon solely based on it's damage.

[Crissa]

First off, we don't need different weapons to have different combat speeds to have effects that change your ability timers or cooldowns. Those are already in the game... Specifically there are a few NPC psychic tricks I can think up off the top of my head, plus at least one environmental effect.

Secondly, why do you keep saying combat is slow? For me combat is incredibly fast pace. I have buttons to push all the time. Have you considered why you don't? Are you running out of power? You want to be able to do more actions than NPCs? Why?

Weapons are keys for Abilities, they don't have intrinsic speeds and damages in Project Gorgon.

[Throwback]

I think for punch/jab, afaik they are 2 different skills so you can equip both of them if you want to be pressing a lot of buttons.

As for the weapon itemization, how far into the game are you? I'm level 15-20 on a few different weapons, and I find it very hard to determine what the best weapon is. Do I want knockback? More damage on one strong ability, or better damage on 3? Do I need aoe? Armor? A stronger refresh ability? It sounds to me that you aren't very far in.

For basic attacks, I think variation is good and it is the overall skill tree balance that matters. If my dagger does the best DPS but needs my target to be looking away from me and gives me no survivability or has very high power costs, I can deal with that. If my dagger does the best DPS in all conditions and has easily met power costs and some survival/utility skills, then we have a problem. More specifically to basic attacks, imo variation is good because that can also include different restoration effects, and can affect DPS internal balance (for example sustainability vs burst) as well as total DPS.

[Mikhaila]

I actually find combat to be quite fast, and not significantly slower as I leveled up.

[Aionlasting]

I agree the jumping is absolutely painful in this game and I have been playing it for several years. I thought that from the start. I also don't think it right we can run up nearly vertical mountains and slopes. I was told in a private message after a suggestion that this is not the long term intented behavior, that is, slopes will not all be traversable and there is an angle limit where players will no longer be able to continually run up.

I do agree that the combat can seem sluggish at times and it is frustrating to be penalized a full cooldown on an ability when a mob simply moved out of range. I think more variety and flavor in the form of weapon speeds etc... could help make combat feel more diverse instead of all of us being casters/mages in disguise.