This has already been discussed at length the day they did the sneak peak stream (which is the video I am guessing you are talking about, which was the devs themselves playing, not 'players who are not satisfied').

The simple answer is that this demo is not meant to showcase combat. It was meant to mainly show character movement and just give a little insight into progress they have made in various areas. Yes, including combat, but it wasn't 'hey everyone here is our combat and parkour in release state'.

I get where you are coming from, if the combat stayed the same all the way up to release I would lose interest also, but you have to realise how much work is still yet to be done on literally every aspect of the game.

Well I definitely agree with you there mate, like I said, if it doesn't smooth out I will be sadface right along side you. Just important not to think it will be dodgy based on early versions. Everything starts out ugly in game dev :)

Think your being a little critical. Not even alpha yet, but if your talking about the video from the speed run, the combat was short and hard to say much about it period. From what I saw pretty good for something this early in development.

Pvp will be my first, second and third priority in this game, but i can tell you that whether or not i'm "satisfied" by the pvp in this game will have nothing to do with anything you said.

Posted By Malitias at 4:57 PM - Wed Mar 15 2017

There are no interactions between the combatans except for dealing damage. The attacks are extremely fast with no telegraphing. This eliminates the possibility for reaction based countermeasures, which is one of the most important thing for a healthy skill-based combat flow.

Telegraphing is not a requirement for healthy skill-based combat flow. Split-animation, lack of animation locked combat and retaining freedom of movement during action are all things that help combat flow.

Telegraphing is one of those things which would be nice to have, if done right, but more often has to be so exaggerated and over-done to be usable with internet latency that it diminishes the quality of combat. It works in games like M&B because the only thing going on in M&B is combat in an isolated system.

Posted By Malitias at 4:57 PM - Wed Mar 15 2017

In real-life-

Let me stop you right there on this one.

Realism does not necessarily mean fun. Making things more like real life often takes away from game play, and should never be the basis of why something should be in a video game.

Posted By Malitias at 4:57 PM - Wed Mar 15 2017

Take a look at Dark Souls, Chivalry or even Mount and Blade

All games whose combat begins and ends in a fixed set of spatial parameters and do not need to process things like open worlds, full loot, or any of the complexity CoE will have.

Posted By Malitias at 4:57 PM - Wed Mar 15 2017

The other thing is.. it looks bad

A hollow and shallow argument.

Animations overlapping or being sped up to accommodate good, fluid motion is a necessary and worthy sacrifice. I wouldn't be thrilled if CoE released tomorrow with the combat we saw, but it wouldn't be because the animations weren't pretty enough. It will be far more important that CoE's combat develops how it feels more than how it looks.

TL;DR

-How things look isn't as important as how they feel

-Realism =/= good, enjoyable game play

-Telegraphing is not a requirement for good pvp

Posted By Malitias at 01:16 AM - Thu Mar 16 2017

I really just wanted to point out how important this aspect of the game is. There's of course still alot to be done, but combat really needs to be a priority.

First of, you compare Chronicle of Elyria's combat system to that of full released games. We're talking about Chronicles of Elyria, the game that got funded for less than 10 months ago, in that time they have done a lot of things, not to mention this game isn't even in beta yet, and you're asking for fine polished combat?

• When Mount and Blade reached it's beta in 2004 it would still take them 4!!! years before releasing the game in 2008. And you're asking CoE to do all that in less than 10 months? And that's when Mount and Blade even had a beta to present.

• Then you compare it to another game, Chivalry, who wasn't even build up from the ground, but was a mod for Half life 2, which was then made into its own (kinda like dayz) The whole point of Chivalry is about combat, the kickstarter even states: "The goal was simple: Create the best melee combat game" That's the only thing they needed to do, and therefore also the only thing they focused on.

((I couldn't find when Dark souls was put into development, but it started out as Project Dark, and was later turned into dark souls etc.))

Which leads me to my point:

• Combat is not the turning point for CoE, it's not like other mmos where the whole game itself is build up around the combat mechanics, where if you kill a monster you're awarded with better gear, you need to kill stuff to get better, raise in the hierarchy so to speak.

• CoE is doing something completely new, they're doing so much with new systems and things:

• The gossip mechanic (for social players, gossip will have the potential to play a large part in the dance of dynasties)

• Survival (We don't know yet how much food you'll need to survive out there, but this system is also one that needs to be developed)

• Crafting ( Won't be something a mercenary can just pick up like that and forge the best swords available, and it's not just gonna be click and wait either like in WoW or other games.)

Each system is gonna be equally fun and entertaining, Soulbound studio is opening up the playstyles to be other than just the "hack and slash" so you could potentially never touch a sword in your lifetime, it won't force you to do it like other games will.

First time they showed off a combat demo, then they showed off exploration (And parkour, I mean imagine the amount of work they managed to do in so little time) I'm honestly surprised that they've gotten this far.

• So I hope this gives an indication that this game is build for multiple people, with multiple playstyles. (not to mention all of the other amazing features that I do hope you'll read a bit about).

But most importantly:

1. the Elyria-Mud and KoE (kingdoms of Elyria) will be out before combat. Do you use combat in these? no, these will somewhat mechanic heavy as far as I've gathered, so they're more likely going to focus on the things that are closer to actually being tested, combat is something for maybe alpha or beta, it can wait and isn't really a priority as far as I can see.

2. This is not how the combat will look at its final version, to give you an indication, this is World of Warcrafts "earlier" screenshots:

I mean we've not even reached alpha or early alpha yet, and I can't stress this enough, CoE is not a just a bland combat game, there's so much more to it.

Yet another person who doesn't do his research before spouting yet more doomsday predictions. If you did your research you would have easily found out that the devs already determined the combat system currently wasn't working as desired BEFORE pax and already planned on doing a complete rework. Please do your research before spreading more negativity in the community.

Posted By Malitias at 12:32 PM - Thu Mar 16 2017

Wow.. that's alot of feedback basically saying "don't criticise it until it's done". I think the whole point of showing these early stages is so we can do exactly that. Give feedback, suggestions, etc.

There's absolutely no need for that. If we only give our feedback when the whole thing is done, it will probably be too late to change anything so fundamental. ESPECIALLY with a crowdfunded game, that doesn't have that sort of back-up budget to support that kind of change.

Don't take it personally mate, honestly its just that this conversation has been flogged to death. People are a bit short with you because they have had to write these answers in like 17 other threads, and everyone is all very aware that the combat needs work, and it is very well established that the combat WILL get work. So you are right, and it is okay to question and constructively criticise, but yeah. We all know, the devs know, rest easy.

The problem is 90% of the people that give feedback and criticism don't say anything constructive and mainly point out the obvious. It's like some of you don't think the devs have ever played a video game before. Comments like "its too floaty". If you look at other alpha games it's the same thing. There's always a loud group of people saying "this game looks like shit" even though it's pre alpha.

And like I've said before, this is the PRECISE reason devs don't like showing early gameplay footage, and to be honest I probably would avoid it entirely if I were SbS till the game was close to alpha. It's bad PR for no reason other than other people's loud ignorance.

Kinda hard to be critical of some thing that is a place holder, its one thing to have a constructive discussion about potential combat mechanics but to point out the faults in a place holder animation seems redundant.

Most games generally update their animations throughout beta anyhow so what you see now is irrelevant.