Lack of danger in combat

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Candelori
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Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 5:29 pm

Lack of danger in combat

Post by Candelori »

I feel there is a lack of danger factor in combat at the moment. I currently have no compelling reason to leave stance offense, even completely unarmored. When I take a hit, the damage tends to be negligible and the wound will heal itself rather quickly. This may be because I am still fighting beginner enemies that could be intended to be relatively harmless, but if this is the case I do feel it may lull learning combatants into a sense of laziness about managing combat stats rather than teaching them early how to use the system in order to best avoid suffering the significant injuries that come from ignoring rules and technique.

I see the numeric difference my balance changes has upon my combat statistics, but I seem to get along well enough even at the lowest point of -25 balance. Perhaps balance should have more of an effect on combat numbers to make it a more vital resource to be managed more attentively.

I do enjoy the current form of combat and the mechanics involved. I just believe the lack of any real danger, even completely unarmored, makes it too easy to fall into the habit of simply staying in stance offense and attacking repeatedly, without any further thought or tactics involved.

To make the beginning enemies less of a threat while still maintaining a danger factor that teaches learning combatants to manage their combat stances and balance properly, I would suggest giving them more significantly damaging attacks but with high roundtime, so it is forgiving in the time it gives you to switch to stance defense in order to ward off the attack, but will still punish the player if they forego managing their stance completely and stay in stance offense the entire time, as taking a hit could do some serious damage. Easily avoidable once you get into the flow of properly-timed stance adjustment, but still potentially disastrous should you choose to throw caution to the wind. More difficult enemies later on could have faster attacks and require more than simply-timed stance switching to take on.
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Rias
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Re: Lack of danger in combat

Post by Rias »

Enemy damage and balance's effects on numbers are both things I'll be looking at soon. Expect many enemies to be picking up some kind of weapons in the near future, and natural attacks (claws, bites, etc.) to become more damaging.
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