Combat Module B: Final odds-and-ends

[Davairus]

Since Burzuk has gone on a short stint of vacation it probably won't be possible for him to make his usual big post about the changes. So I figured I would stand in for him by answering a "barrage" of questions about the combat modules before you attack me with them.

Why the odds-and-ends, isn't this finished already?

As is easily testified, balance changes occur for two main reasons. The first reason is that we want to implement new things, but before we can, need to take care of obvious problems before they occur.

Example:
-haste, which if left in its present state along with all the new things like hobble (combat module A) and pincer attacks on fleeing hobblers (combat module B), would turn an advantage into something ridiculous.
-dirt, which we made into a skill that would allow you to make an opening for a combat skill instead (via preventing flees)

A second reason, and one which is most easily apparent here, is things that we deem are necessary after viewing the results of our changes in game and whether the battles are playing out to our expectations. Two issues we noticed this way for example:

* dirt spamming, which kept people stuck in a fight getting whittled down by weapon types/vulns/etc, i.e. not much skill beyond initiation needed
* concentration being rendered redundant by hobble (which was also comparitively gimp compared to dirt)
* reflex mode, riposte and overbear weren't terribly visible factors
* word of recall being a cop-out for people, instead of taking the flee penalties

So the new changes help hobble along, by allowing concentration attacks on hobbled fleers, and also hurt warrior's dirt a bit, which is really uber anyway with the locking of combat/weapon setup it causes. We've also made our riposte based on weapon types for reflex mode, you can have a pretty damn nice riposte if you secure a weapon advantage. This is a bit more the domain of dex fighters - who focus on weapon types to overcome high strength parries - than the high strength races that typically stay with their favored because of vulns. You can see that we're making dex-warriors take more finesse to play. Also, a couple size updates in thief skills help giants a long a little more, who have a lot of problems with their vuln (note that their favoured - mace - which they need to tank segment effigies, was obviously vulnerable to sidesteps prior to this change).

In short, the odds-and-ends are a bit of fine tuning, to make sure things are running smoothly before we feature lock them for a while.

Why did you do warriors first, isn't there 16 classes?

Let me give you some insight into how coding things goes:
* fix bugs
* add new stuff
* fix the obvious bugs in the new stuff
* fix the unobvious bugs caused in the old stuff, by the new stuff
* add new stuff

Obviously, when we do some work on classes, they do affect everything else. Combat Module A and B has affected every class. Its just not possible to do the whole damn thing at once with the schedules and the manpower we have available, so we started with the classes that obviously needed the most help at the time in high levels - warriors and berserkers were garbage before - and we'll be proceeding through the rest of the classes, possibly in a similar fashion. We have not forgotten about the rest of those classes. Tackling the fundamentals of combat - defences, weapons, etc - was a good place to begin changing things.

Is that it for warriors? No more stuff, ever?

There are still some very nice things planned for warriors (I can attest this easily, because I remember spending several weeks of coding them), but the specifics of those things is for the implementors at this point, and even the teaser is still restricted to people who have an Immortal. But you will see a Combat Module C eventually somewhere down the line. However, for now, we aren't doing any work on warriors, there are things which are clearly more important to get done. Some of those things are:

* mages (invokers are pretty high on the current "most garbage level 50 mortal" poll, and the reasons for that are obvious)
* rogues, which are currently pretty much warrior-bait
* clerics ("suffers" from similar problem to invoker, with cure being the other side of the afflictive damage coin)

What's next? When?

I'm not sure how much Burzuk wants to say on the subject but certainly there are plenty things planned, that will arrive in our usual sporadic manner (i.e. its done when we decide its done, and that will be after much deliberation, but when things finally do arrive, it will be a tsunami of change, sending some of you fleeing for the FL roller, others staring at their screen in dumb amazement at their death saying "WTF?", and more still crapping their pants in ecstasy). Personally I am hungry to get started on implementing the next batch of things, but we will still wait at least a few weeks to let the current changes settle.

I found a bug!

Write note to Immortal, or post it in the UPDATES thread in the appropriate location. It'll help me find it when I get time to fix the bug.

[jaran]

Fantastic changes so far, looking forward to see what comes next. Great work from the coders.

[Esivole]

nice so far, I like what I see.
out of curiosity, where do monks fit into that list?
as if it matters.

Thanks for all the time you put into this.

[The_Dark_Paladin]

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! go coders good job on making warriors even more better and now im off to start a human warrior named biagen.....yeah me a warrior ha thats funny

[Davairus]

[Kalist19]

Do you mean you are going to nerf mages or buff mages? Sorry I'm just slow..

[Davairus]