Combat Status Update - July 2013

Hey everyone!


I’m back with another update on what is going behind the scenes here with the Combat Team. This will include updates on things that were discussed in our last update as well address some of the latest hot topics from beta!




Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor Update (ETA – CBT4)
In the last update I brought up the issue that there is only an 8% difference in mitigation between Light and Heavy Armor at level 50. The scope of these changes is very far reaching, and we didn’t want to just slap it into CBT3 without giving our internal crew ample time to test and experience the ramifications.


We are now several weeks into the development cycle for CBT4 and we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes to make this update and it is feeling really good. I am pleased to say there will be big (GOOD) changes coming in CBT4!  Here is a taste of what you will be seeing:



The mitigation values of your average geared player should be around:

    Light Armor: 15% (this is right around where it already is)
    Medium Armor: 30% (this is a noticeable increase)
    Heavy Armor: 50% (this is a very noticeable increase)


Armor Graduation:
We removed the idea of Armor Graduation from the game. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this system, it involved having certain classes get access to better armor at around level 35. For example, a Stalker would have started the game in Light Armor, but at level 35 they would have graduated and received access to Medium Armor. Likewise for the Warrior, who would start in Medium and graduate to Heavy.
Now, your class will start with the armor type they would have eventually graduated to, which should lead to things such as Warriors feeling more ‘tanky’ at the start of the game instead of waiting all the way until level 35 to gain this feel.

Armor Distribution:

    Spellslinger – Light Armor
    Esper – Light Armor
    Stalker – Medium Armor
    Redacted #1 – Medium Armor (wow, almost gave away the new classes when doing this chart)
    Redacted #2 – Heavy Armor
    Warrior – Heavy Armor


Player DPS:
By introducing such a large change in mitigation values for the Medium and Heavy Armor types, we also introduced new imbalances for Light Armor classes. To account for this, have modified the rate at which classes gain Assault Power. If you are a Light Armor class, you will notice that your Assault Power will rise much faster than your Medium and Heavy Armor counterparts.



    Spellslinger – High Assault Power
    Esper – High Assault Power
    Stalker – Medium Assault Power
    Redacted #1 – Medium Assault Power
    Redacted #2- Low Assault Power
    Warrior – Low Assault Power


Some classes will also be getting stances that will allow them to trade Armor for Assault Power, or vice versa. This will allow certain classes, such as the Stalker, to adapt their statistics to fit a variety of situations, while retaining the overall balance of the game.







Ability System Update (ETA – CBT4 and CBT5)


Ability Purchasing

    We are nixing the idea of ability points.  Abilities will only cost cash now. (CBT5)
    We will be unlocking multiple abilities at certain levels. (CBT4)


Ability Slots (CBT 4)

    We’ve updated the Ability Deck to allow for 8 Class abilities.
    We will be updating the unlocking of these slots to better coincide with other game systems:
        Level 1: Ability Slots I and II
        Level 2: Ability Slot III
        Level 4: Ability Slot IV
        Level 6: Ability Slot V
        Level 9: Ability Slot VI
        Level 15: Ability Slot VII
        Level 31: Ability Slot VIII


Ability Tiering (CBT5)
We will be introducing a new system called ability tiering at level 10. The goal of this system is to provide players with more choices on how they can customize their class and play style. In this case the player will be able to use Tier points to upgrade specific abilities to be more powerful.


Since we are still in the design/iterate phase on this system, we will not go into more specifics. As we solidify this system, we’ll release more information. You can expect to get your hands on it as early as CBT5!


Milestone System Update (ETA – CBT5)



Here is a recap of what we thought of the system back in May:



Quote

    There are a couple of flaws with the first phase of this system.

        No player choice beyond chipping your gear.
        The Major Milestone (event based procs) portion of this system was not easily expandable.
        At higher levels with proper gear and chipping, players would have been able to have more than 24 event based procs on themselves at all times.
            This is a lot for some players to process and react to.
            This also means that we cannot make them as impactful, which means they are less meaningful.
        Poor messaging with the procs. Players had little to no idea when procs fired, making them feel less impactful.
        These aren’t all the flaws with the current system, but as you can see there is definitely room to improve upon. We are currently working on our second iteration of this system, and it has already spawned a second system that helps us put back in player choice and character customization.




Since that update we’ve been hard at work on revamping the system, but there is a catch! We wanted to take some extra time to make sure we get this right, so we will all have to live with the current state of the Milestone System through CBT4, but expect to see an updated Milestone System and the new (tentatively named) Implant System in CBT5 !







Sense of Hitting Update (This will have ETA’s on a per item basis)
Many of you have commented about the lack of a “sense of hitting” in our Combat and you are right. Here is how we are going to address it!




Animation System Bugs (CBT4)
Recently we introduced new aiming animations that fit much better with our Freeform targeting. You’ve probably experienced this system if you play an Esper/Spellslinger, or you like to strafe a you’re your character will face and fire abilities in the direction your targeting decals are aimed, instead awkwardly looking one direction while your abilities fire another direction. Unfortunately, this system is overriding ALL of our wound animations.


No wound animations = lack of sense of hitting! :(


We’ve been able to address this issue internally and you’ll be back to seeing those wound animations in CBT4!



Critical Hit Wounds Bug (CBT4 and CBT5)
The critical hit trigger in our animation and visual hookup system was not working properly. This means that not only did it not play the “Critical Wound” animation; it just didn’t play any animation. We have fixed the bug, but unfortunately we have to go through and make sure all of our abilities (for players and creatures) are set up to use this trigger properly. We’ve already started tackling this issue, but there are a lot of spells out there, so it’ll take us a few milestones to ensure we get them all!




Animation Priority and Layered Wound Animations (CBT5)
We also set the animation priority on Player Ability and Creature Telegraph casts to be very high. This means if a Player is casting a spell and a creature is casting a telegraph, they will not play their wound animation. Since players and creatures are doing both rather frequently, you are rarely ever seeing the wound animation.


To solve this, we are going to be implementing a new animation system that allows us to layer wound animations into the cast animations. This means that even if a creature is casting a telegraph, if you hit them they will react to the force of your hit, while still maintaining the cast animation.




Creature Difficulty Update (This will have ETA’s on a per item basis)
Creature Difficulty has been a heated topic on the forums during the current and previous beta cycles and I just wanted to reassure everyone that we are listening to ALL of the feedback. I believe you will appreciate some of the changes we have done, or are currently working on, regardless of which side of the difficulty fence you are currently on.


Below you will find a list of the things we have already completed and/or are currently working on.


(Patched to CBT2)

    Deflect chance on basic creatures (i.e. non-boss mobs) was too high. We significantly decreased deflect chances on most basic creatures.
    We removed a creature’s chance to deflect completely when you interrupt a creature’s telegraph and open up a Moment of Opportunity (health bar goes purple and it takes increased damage).


(Things included in CBT3)
To get a little technical for a minute, our AI "packages" (the scripts each creature uses to know when to attack, when to telegraph, etc.) are numbering in the hundreds, right now, which prevents us from doing any sort of across-the-board balancing. We have already done a massive amount of work over the last few months to reduce this down to 3 easy to maintain packages and it will be going up in CBT3. Once this is up it will be MUCH MUCH easier for us to quickly tweak and tune how often creatures use telegraphs, etc.



To simplify: This is one of the first steps in allowing us to address the “White Damage vs Telegraph Damage” many of you discuss.


(ETA – CBT4)

    The Moment of Opportunity on creatures is now 5s, increased from 3s.
    When a creature is in the Moment of Opportunity state, incoming damage is now 150%, increased from 125%.
    Standard Superior creatures should no longer have Interrupt Armor.
    Standard Prime creatures should now have a single unit of Interrupt Armor, decreased from 2 units.




Button Fatigue Update (Earliest ETA – CBT5)
Button Fatigue and spamming the #1 ability has been a hot topic for a while. I think we are all on the same page that it’s not as fun as it could be and hurts our fingers after a while.  (I played an Esper in CBT2, so I speak from experience!)

We’ve even seen some of you go so far as to create their own work arounds (https://forums.wilds...ing-1-solution/)

Here are our current plans to tackle this problem:


Class Design:
Our class design needs to continue evolving. We have a good foundation with the classes right now, but we aren’t done. Going forward, we are going to reduce the reliance on spamming the #1 key. We want each button press to feel impactful and deliberate. We do not want you to mindlessly press the #1 key over and over.


To do this we will be looking at each class individually and updating the abilities and resource mechanic. In the end, our goal will be to have a steady pace of button presses, instead of the button mashing frenzy that sometimes occurs with the #1 key.

Press-and-Hold Functionality:
In rare cases where we DO want a player to cast an ability over and over, we will create a new ability type. This new ability type would continue casting the same spell over and over for as long as you hold down the button.


If we are successful in achieving what we spoke about in our Class Design section, this technology may end up not being necessary.




Thank You For Your Feedback!
Soooo, there is your taste of some of the things the Combat Team is working on! I hope this post was informative and gives you some insight as to where we are taking WildStar’s Combat based on your feedback.


Please keep the feedback coming; both positive and negative. Feedback is how we continue to iterate and evolve the game to be better for everyone!