Dev Diary: Combat Changes, or How I Became a Whirling Ball of Death

Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Merric in Turbine

FelbeastToday, in a joint effort between the Engineering and Systems Teams a new Developer Diary was released titled “SoM Combat Changes”.  Going into this I was hoping to mostly hear about how I was no longer going to have a wait time for my skills on my Champion… And what I got was an extremely involved look at the upcoming changes to combat.  I wasn’t sure that I understood them all at first glance; and I’m not even sure I do after a second read.  All I can say is that they seem to have put a lot of thought into making combat a lot more reactive to players instead of a little bit of a waiting game.  I know I for one have felt like both my Champion, Hunter, and even at times my Guardian have all been a matter of “sit back and wait” to the point where it’s hard to get in any kind of groove.

So what changes can we expect?  Well, first the speed and damage of weapons has been standardized in Mirkwood.  So that level 20 bow is now the same speed as a level 20 crossbow and so forth.  This also means that weapon speed has disappeared from the tooltips.  Turbine felt that weapon speed was too much of a determining factor for players when they were choosing a weapon, and they’d rather have the player focus on other stats instead.  I’m OK with this change and I think it makes sense.  I didn’t think that it was too complicated to figure out, but I agree that it kind of stinks to pass on a weapon that has better bonus stats because it’s a higher (or lower) speed than what they have now).

*  All weapon speeds have been normalized around the following categories of weapon, i.e. all weapons in each of these categories use the same speed rating:
o One-handed weapons (sword, axe, mace, hammer, dagger, club, spear and implements)
o Two-handed weapons (sword, axe, hammer, staff, club, halberd, rune-stone, and implements)
o Bows and Crossbows
o Javelins
* The “weapon speed” rating has been removed from item examination.
* Damage variance, or the range of damage per weapon, has also been standardized so that the high end of the damage range is consistent for a given category of weapon at a given weapon level. This reduced the high end of the damage range for some weapons and increased it for others. Almost all weapons will show a damage range change with this update.

Scuttledells So it sounds like the only difference is going to be the stats of items and possibly the low end damage.  The important thing will be to check your weapon for its damage range and possibly its stats.  This could mean a lot of people will be even more anxious to switch out their legendary weapons when Mirkwood arrives for something that not only has different legacies, but better base stats.  Although using their own example, does this mean Captains will still be upset when a Captain’s Dagger of the First Age drops?  I’m thinking… Probably.

There is also some discussion about how the combat system might have felt “laggy” compared to other games and what they’ve done to improve things.  From what we’re hearing with the lifting of the NDA, is that the changes are great and that combat is much more responsive which will be evident in tonight’s stress test.  However, the system is explained at some length as to how it worked previously and how it was revised for Mirkwood.  Some skills will now be “immediate” and will be labeled so in their tooltip, which will be great for me when I use Stomp; considering that most of the time that I use it now it is late because I’m already performing a skill and have another queued.

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6 Responses to “Dev Diary: Combat Changes, or How I Became a Whirling Ball of Death”

  1. Hatch

    18. Nov, 2009

    Thanks for the update Merric & the awesome blog & podcast, both you & Goldenstar are a real higlight of the lotro community.

    I like just about all of these changes, but removing of the speed & dps ratings of weapons kinda dumbs down part of the game & removes min-maxing when you build your character which I know some people quite enjoy.

    Have a great week.

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  2. Merric

    18. Nov, 2009

    Thanks Hatch! We appreciate the compliment. :)

    I agree. After reading a lot of the posts by theorycrafters (which this Diary brought out of the woodwork) this really will dumb it down some. I’m still torn on it because I personally don’t like the fact that speed was so important you threw everything else out, because I think things like stats should be important. But combined with this and the high end of damage being standard now too to balance things out… Well there goes quite a bit of variety.

    Granted, I still haven’t gotten to end game so I really haven’t focused on much of the number crunching in this game, but I am looking forward to it. But when decisions start being made for you, it does bring forth resentment. Hopefully there will still be a lot to hash out by the time I finally get a character to 65. :) Because there’s no way I’m getting to 60 before Dec 1st. ;)

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  3. Dev Diary: Character Panel Update (and a lot of other stuff) | A Casual Stroll to Mordor

    18. Nov, 2009

    [...] the release of yesterday’s Dev Diary, I have to say that the theorycrafter in me is really starting to get interested in the [...]

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  4. Pete S

    18. Nov, 2009

    I’m not really a numbers guy, but the “rp” in me feels kind of disappointed that a dagger will be the same speed as a longsword, and a crossbow will be as fast as a short bow.

    I had real lag issues during the preview last night, but overall I didn’t see anything in the new combat changes to get me very excited. I guess having Clobber be immediate means I need to learn to use it (and I never bothered before since invariably it’d hit too late) and that’s a good thing, but the combat didn’t “feel” or look as good to me. But then, I have no issues with the way combat is now. Again, not a numbers guy, so I suppose that’s why.

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  5. Merric

    18. Nov, 2009

    I have to say I’m with you Pete. I’ll be the first to admit if the weapon is better I’ll use it. But I don’t want my champ nor my captain using daggers. It just feels wrong.

    I didn’t see much lag myself, but it could have been I was just in “off” zones. As for the fighting, my Champ is 20 so I don’t know much about it :) but my Guardian did feel a little more responsive.

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  6. Goldenstar

    19. Nov, 2009

    I personally didn’t notice a difference in combat during the stress test. From what I read on the minstrel forums I probably will notice when in a more of a healing role. On stress testy night I was busy killing things for the skirmish prequest. But I can see it. I’ve been frustrated about heals I’ve called not making it due to doing some other action first. I can’t wait to try it!

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