Melee system changes

Blloodsport Foehammer · 11-20-2003

From the dev corner:

Quote:

EverQuest Chat on November 24th at 6:00pm - 7:00pm pacific time. Melee System Enhancements!
*We will provide a link to the chat on the front page of EverQuestlive.com on the 24th.*

You've been asking for them and now we're ready to discuss them. We're taking a big departure from what many of you are used to when it comes to combat. With that in mind, here is a brief summary of these exciting enhancements to better help you target your questions to us during the live chat. Don't worry if you miss the chat, we'll post the logs on EverQuestLive.com

Increase the contributions melee classes provide in a group setting
Address the current deficit between the pure melee classes and other classes
Add more depth and potential for skilled play to melee combat
Provide a system that encourages attentiveness and decision-making skills, without focusing heavily on twitch gameplay

Take advantage of an opponent's weakness. See an opening, strike home for the kill!

Monks, Rogues and Warriors will gain the ability to recognize certain weaknesses in an opponent's defense. These "Openings" will be a variety of types and can occur based on several different situations during combat. Be quick though, an opening will not present itself for long. Strike quick with a new combat skill once your character recognizes an opening. These new combat skills are being designed just for this combat system revision. Using and maintaining these skills expends the character's Endurance (a new statistic, calculated from the character's basic stats).

Here's a combat example:

A warrior is serving as the tank for his group, standing in front of a goblin. While battling the goblin, the warrior makes an exceptional parry and is presented with an opening. An indicator appears with the "opening icon" and the word "Parry" next to it (this information also appears in the chat window).

Now is his opportunity to strike back after the exceptional parry! Only certain combat skills can be used to react to a parry opening. Other types of openings will allow the use of other skills. Some skills may be usable in response to more than one type of opening. Also, your position in relation to the target can change the effectiveness of certain skills.

In this case, our warrior knows that he can use one of three combat skills, each having some merit. One might stun the target, one might increase the hate generated by the warrior for a few rounds, and one might make it easier for everyone to hit the NPC.

In this case, our warrior elects to try to stun the goblin. He presses the appropriate button and luck smiles upon him as he successfully executes the strike, leaving the goblin standing dumbly for a combat round.

Increasing Your Endurance and Learning New Skills

Increase Endurance by increasing attributes or by acquiring special items that directly increase your Endurance pool
Find tomes or instructions manuals and take them to specific trainers to learn new skills
Choose your skills from skill categories (such as Tactical) containing skills focused to a purpose
Most openings are available only to a single character, but some are available to all nearby characters
Disciplines will be transferred to this new system
Existing Discipline timers will be reviewed, and several will probably be set to their own timer
Disciplines will require an Endurance cost
Hybrids will receive a limited Endurance pool for their disciplines
There will be other changes as well. Keep your eyes on the Test server and our update messages for more details as we move forward.

This new system is much more flexible than the existing disciplines. It will be relatively easy to add new combat skills, as well as new skills that are not limited to openings. This system creates the possibility for tremendous enhancement in the future, allowing groups a large number of options when it comes to melee combat.

Talk to you in the Live Chat!

Alan

What are some of people initial thoughts on this? Do you think it might actually be a step in the right direction, or just another bandaid?

Kein Bojangles · 11-20-2003

It will probably end up overpowering, and the knights will bitch. It's an endless loop.

Mukaz · 11-20-2003

Only after its patched in with 3 days testing, breaks Ele/PoT encounters and gets "retuned" 4 times requiring daily patches for 2 weeks.

zarkarin · 11-20-2003

the concept sounds very well thought out and quite appropiate for the design direction SOE has taken since the release of LDON.

Now warriors will actually have to pay attention to the screen instead of hitting attack and playing xbox while exping.

11-20-2003

sure, they add these interesting things after I sell all my warrior gear and decide to play an sk.. never fails.

11-20-2003

Quote:

Only after its patched in with 3 days testing, breaks Ele/PoT encounters and gets "retuned" 4 times requiring daily patches for 2 weeks.

Yea, lots of server resets means lots of raid targets up!!

Kara Bish · 11-20-2003

Quote:

Now warriors will actually have to pay attention to the screen instead of hitting attack and playing xbox while exping.

You played with Beowuulf?

hehe

Laeyakk · 11-20-2003

It does something very interesting.

For the first time, a naked warrior will capabilities that a fully geared paladin doesn't have.

Right now, give a paladin enough gear, and they can do anything a warrior can do. But, a naked paladin can do things that a warrior can never do, no matter how much gear they have.

Both Monks and Rogues have some abilities that other classes don't have, but they are quite limited. Monks get instacast FD and a self miniLoH, and Rogues get SoS and Undead/Normal invis combo, and a qualitatively different level of lockpicking/trap removal. Compared to other classes, that doesn't make that long of a list.

With Endurance pools, and class-specific moves, it can add alot of content to the pure melee classes. Power upgrades via "spells" in each expansion gets added to the melee classes, and burst DPS vs long term DPS difference starts occurring.

The total content of these changes also matters alot. I mean, at the extreme:
Evasive and Defensive and Forditude reuse timers get decoupled. Each uses about 5 minutes of "typical" L 60 endurance-regen (ie, the rough equivilent of 2500 mana). You can only have 1 /disc active at any one time.
A "you are hit" opening for a +aggro endurance-costing move is added.
Warriors get a 2 hour reuse "refill endurance bar" hotkey ability, analagous to LoH or HT, self only.

Blloodsport Foehammer · 11-20-2003

The possibilities are deffinitely there. And SoE mentions that the system will be very flexible, so changes and additions can be made easily.

***Sanchek*** · 11-20-2003

It sounds neat and all, but I still haven't figured out how it'll solve any of the real balance problems.

You can't depend on any of it, unless the "openings" are very frequent. It's not going to help warriors with fast, on-demand agro generation. It's not likely to give monks a role other than rogue-lite. It's certainly not going to balance melee vs. casters on all of these fights where being in melee range to do our damage puts us at such a disadvantage.

The whole change reeks of them copying DAoC blindly, instead of really hashing out a way to balance things decently. Weak.

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11-20-2003	#2
Kein Bojangles Propagandistic Anarchist Joined: May 2002 Posts: 390 vCash: 1000	It will probably end up overpowering, and the knights will bitch. It's an endless loop.

11-20-2003	#3
Mukaz Master of Squirrels Joined: Jul 2002 Posts: 188 vCash: 1000	Only after its patched in with 3 days testing, breaks Ele/PoT encounters and gets "retuned" 4 times requiring daily patches for 2 weeks.

11-20-2003	#4
zarkarin Diabolical Neophyte Joined: May 2003 Posts: 277 vCash: 1000	the concept sounds very well thought out and quite appropiate for the design direction SOE has taken since the release of LDON. Now warriors will actually have to pay attention to the screen instead of hitting attack and playing xbox while exping.

11-20-2003	#5
Xanaron Guest Joined: Posts: n/a vCash:	sure, they add these interesting things after I sell all my warrior gear and decide to play an sk.. never fails.

11-20-2003	#8
Laeyakk Diabolical Neophyte Joined: Feb 2003 Posts: 229 vCash: 1000	It does something very interesting. For the first time, a naked warrior will capabilities that a fully geared paladin doesn't have. Right now, give a paladin enough gear, and they can do anything a warrior can do. But, a naked paladin can do things that a warrior can never do, no matter how much gear they have. Both Monks and Rogues have some abilities that other classes don't have, but they are quite limited. Monks get instacast FD and a self miniLoH, and Rogues get SoS and Undead/Normal invis combo, and a qualitatively different level of lockpicking/trap removal. Compared to other classes, that doesn't make that long of a list. With Endurance pools, and class-specific moves, it can add alot of content to the pure melee classes. Power upgrades via "spells" in each expansion gets added to the melee classes, and burst DPS vs long term DPS difference starts occurring. The total content of these changes also matters alot. I mean, at the extreme: Evasive and Defensive and Forditude reuse timers get decoupled. Each uses about 5 minutes of "typical" L 60 endurance-regen (ie, the rough equivilent of 2500 mana). You can only have 1 /disc active at any one time. A "you are hit" opening for a +aggro endurance-costing move is added. Warriors get a 2 hour reuse "refill endurance bar" hotkey ability, analagous to LoH or HT, self only.

11-20-2003	#9
Blloodsport Foehammer New user Joined: Aug 2004 Posts: 11 vCash: 1000	The possibilities are deffinitely there. And SoE mentions that the system will be very flexible, so changes and additions can be made easily.

11-20-2003	#10
*Sanchek* Administrator Joined: Jan 2001 Location: Atlanta Party: Independent Posts: 7,679 vCash: 900	It sounds neat and all, but I still haven't figured out how it'll solve any of the real balance problems. You can't depend on any of it, unless the "openings" are very frequent. It's not going to help warriors with fast, on-demand agro generation. It's not likely to give monks a role other than rogue-lite. It's certainly not going to balance melee vs. casters on all of these fights where being in melee range to do our damage puts us at such a disadvantage. The whole change reeks of them copying DAoC blindly, instead of really hashing out a way to balance things decently. Weak.

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