Changes to the combat system

[chilko]

Hello everyone,

After a long time we finally had resources to address one of the most important issues in the combat system.

As you may know, in Regnum (as in most MMO games with simulation based movement) the client moves and he server just makes the appropriate corrections.

This implies that your position on your client is not necessary the same as the position perceived by other users.

We have tried different approaches to this such as client side prediction or lag compensation among others, the last iteration that its currently available offers higher fidelity (this means more network information) depending on priority (selected character has higher priority and then it goes from nearest to farthest character)

Although this new positioning system is a lot better than the ones we used before, melee classes are still having trouble nailing hits on their targets, why?

Well, it has to do with the fact that users see their opponents in the past (because of normal network lag) AND their actions are decided on the server. The server checks if it the user is in range or not, and users may think that they are on range but they are actually not in range (they are just seeing their future position in the server and the past position of their opponents).
After this, the server sends the attack result and the attack animation starts in the user client. This means that the whole action is held back artificially until the attack animation is complete desynchronizing everything.

We have now implemented a system in certain ways, reflects the movement system:

• If you start moving when you press a key, you should be able to start attacking when your client thinks that you are in range.
• Then, the server will validate and (by the time the attack animation is almost over) you will have the result of the attack (in much better synch).

This is the same solution used in most MMOs out there.

Now that all classes are more responsive we had to fix the following for balance reasons:

• We fixed a bug in which ranged classes didn’t have to wait until the end of the round of their weapon (depending on weapon’s speed) to launch a power (Some archers have been using this bug in order to do a power and a normal hit in the same round).
• Ranged classes will have to stay still during an attack if the user moves the attack will be canceled
• Weapon speed for ranged classes is 100% faster to make game-play more dynamic (not having to stay still for a long time).
• If a power has casting time the casting will start immediately regardless of weapon speed
• Weapon speed for warriors is 100% faster only for powers (the ones with casting time 0)
• Some Powers that should not be affected by the weapon speed (such as some buffs) will Cast immediately.
• Base attack damage for ranged classes will be reduced to maintain the same Damage per second ratio (the amount of this reduction has not been decided yet).
• Health and Maná regeneration speeds will be increased in all classes while resting and out of combat mode.
• A global cooldown has been added for all powers to balance between fast and slow weapons. This cool down may be different per class and will allow us to add faster weapons in the future (such as dual wielding).

We know that we were trying not to make big adjustments like this, but this is the only way to re-balance base characteristics of melee and ranged classes one and for all. This change is also VERY important in order to provide better synchronicity that (along with the new animations) will provide for a more realistic and immersive experience.

We will soon upload this changes on Amun to try them out… please remember it is still work in progress,

Best regards,

Chilko