Biggest Caveat: I haven't really played the game much! hah. I am sure there will be veteran input, but I wanted to highlight this post by the member Yeff.
"This is what I've been trying to drive home. The combat, class, and skill depth are what make the core of a good game. These things are what make players continue to have fun and grind in the same zones over and over for hours. Look at how many times classic Everquest zones have been played on TLPs or p99 and people are still having a blast doing it, because the core class and skill variety is damn good. Now I think Embers, with it being 2023, and using a new engine could take melee combat to a much more in depth system than EQ and it already has in some ways. I'd like to see combat reactionals and combat chains in addition to the positional system. For example when you block, dodge, parry, riposte it opens a new skill or changes a current skill on your bar to a new one for a short time window. This would also take these defensive skills having much better and more obvious animations or at the least adding text over the players head when they perform these actions. For combat chains you have to use some skills in a certain order, that would ideally make them bloom into more damage or buffs/debuffs. Things like this just give more depth and decision making to combat imo."
Like I said, I don't know what's what when the game gets deeper, but I can see what is possible pretty well, without even changing the engine. Apologies if this is already in the game, but I am going to rattle off a few things and, of course, all chime in.
So, I see now that there is a positional system. I see that you can KIND OF dodge some stuff, but I haven't really worked on any extreme positional plays. I see the combat engine as dnd like, and that's totally great for me. There are skill cool downs, skill charges, and plenty of time to add many more outcomes. That is what I am going to focus on: adjustments and outcomes. An adjustment would be like a stance, which would toggle your whole outcome table. There is nothing stopping them from implementing combos in the current system, in my opinion. Anyway, here goes...
I believe that the ability to target body parts, governed by chance (like trying to head shot with a bow from a distance would be hard and could lead you to a big miss and aggro and start you off as disadvantaged,) would be a great fit within the current combat system. Even if there was only like HEAD BODY LEGS and they could all have their own effects, and of course, could be applied to the player as well. Those would branch out into windows like a missed head shot would give a larger opening (for balance sake) and could give an effect like... blind... daze... and interruption, etc. Body blows could be just solid hits and have chance effects like stuns (getting the wind knocked out of you,) and legs could be less damaging but more affecting of movement.
I believe combat reactionals can be added as parry, riposte etc within the current system as well. What I would do is make them a gamble, though. I feel that what feels like kind of dice roll combat is a welcome change because if you add in too much 'movement' and 'skill' you can effectively outplay every mob. So, a parry would be like, depending on your spec, say... 70% success and allow for a chain of certain things after, but if you fail the roll, you could get critted or stunned. A Riposte would be even lower chance, but again, something you set up and it is decided based on your skills what your success will be.
Stances or whatever you'd like to call them would just skew the outcomes, so it could make you deal less damage, take less damage, more crits, take more crits, etc, and then have skills that were tied to that. All of that seems not only possible but extremely easy to add, if it's not already in. Add in said debuffs as conditional possibilities and add in a few interrupts or at least hard hits you can do during the enemy's long wind up attacks, and that would be great, thoughtful combat without changing anything in the engine.
As I said, I don't see what is keeping the game from having those things... just all sorts of things like that, within the current engine, and it would be very easy to handle it code-wise ( tho I am not a coder) because it would be the same outcome based combat, except with a different table of possibilities.
Add in possible long term injuries, sicknesses etc haha and you have a crazy deep system that will immerse you even without a more advanced engine. Of course, maybe most of this stuff is already in and I'm just a nub who doesn't know anything. I have a feeling if some of it is in, that it's not all in, and that perhaps it's not seen how easily said things could be implemented without changing much at all in the base engine.
To summarize: I think it can be made interesting as is, without any more 'action,' and just more outcomes governed by what boils down to dice rolls and the combatant's imagination/ability to implement a long term strategy based on how the battle unfolds.
Thoughts?
"This is what I've been trying to drive home. The combat, class, and skill depth are what make the core of a good game. These things are what make players continue to have fun and grind in the same zones over and over for hours. Look at how many times classic Everquest zones have been played on TLPs or p99 and people are still having a blast doing it, because the core class and skill variety is damn good. Now I think Embers, with it being 2023, and using a new engine could take melee combat to a much more in depth system than EQ and it already has in some ways. I'd like to see combat reactionals and combat chains in addition to the positional system. For example when you block, dodge, parry, riposte it opens a new skill or changes a current skill on your bar to a new one for a short time window. This would also take these defensive skills having much better and more obvious animations or at the least adding text over the players head when they perform these actions. For combat chains you have to use some skills in a certain order, that would ideally make them bloom into more damage or buffs/debuffs. Things like this just give more depth and decision making to combat imo."
Like I said, I don't know what's what when the game gets deeper, but I can see what is possible pretty well, without even changing the engine. Apologies if this is already in the game, but I am going to rattle off a few things and, of course, all chime in.
So, I see now that there is a positional system. I see that you can KIND OF dodge some stuff, but I haven't really worked on any extreme positional plays. I see the combat engine as dnd like, and that's totally great for me. There are skill cool downs, skill charges, and plenty of time to add many more outcomes. That is what I am going to focus on: adjustments and outcomes. An adjustment would be like a stance, which would toggle your whole outcome table. There is nothing stopping them from implementing combos in the current system, in my opinion. Anyway, here goes...
I believe that the ability to target body parts, governed by chance (like trying to head shot with a bow from a distance would be hard and could lead you to a big miss and aggro and start you off as disadvantaged,) would be a great fit within the current combat system. Even if there was only like HEAD BODY LEGS and they could all have their own effects, and of course, could be applied to the player as well. Those would branch out into windows like a missed head shot would give a larger opening (for balance sake) and could give an effect like... blind... daze... and interruption, etc. Body blows could be just solid hits and have chance effects like stuns (getting the wind knocked out of you,) and legs could be less damaging but more affecting of movement.
I believe combat reactionals can be added as parry, riposte etc within the current system as well. What I would do is make them a gamble, though. I feel that what feels like kind of dice roll combat is a welcome change because if you add in too much 'movement' and 'skill' you can effectively outplay every mob. So, a parry would be like, depending on your spec, say... 70% success and allow for a chain of certain things after, but if you fail the roll, you could get critted or stunned. A Riposte would be even lower chance, but again, something you set up and it is decided based on your skills what your success will be.
Stances or whatever you'd like to call them would just skew the outcomes, so it could make you deal less damage, take less damage, more crits, take more crits, etc, and then have skills that were tied to that. All of that seems not only possible but extremely easy to add, if it's not already in. Add in said debuffs as conditional possibilities and add in a few interrupts or at least hard hits you can do during the enemy's long wind up attacks, and that would be great, thoughtful combat without changing anything in the engine.
As I said, I don't see what is keeping the game from having those things... just all sorts of things like that, within the current engine, and it would be very easy to handle it code-wise ( tho I am not a coder) because it would be the same outcome based combat, except with a different table of possibilities.
Add in possible long term injuries, sicknesses etc haha and you have a crazy deep system that will immerse you even without a more advanced engine. Of course, maybe most of this stuff is already in and I'm just a nub who doesn't know anything. I have a feeling if some of it is in, that it's not all in, and that perhaps it's not seen how easily said things could be implemented without changing much at all in the base engine.
To summarize: I think it can be made interesting as is, without any more 'action,' and just more outcomes governed by what boils down to dice rolls and the combatant's imagination/ability to implement a long term strategy based on how the battle unfolds.
Thoughts?