Uh maybe. To be frank I’m hesitant to know what feedback to give of the combat system at present.
Fuck this got long, sorry. I don’t feel like you can discussed ranged combat in earnest without discussing the games combat as a whole.
This is opinion, nothing more but after 500 hours pre-breach I feel confident in saying ranged combat doesn’t work in Wicked at current build. It trivializes the few mechanics we have when it’s working and feels unusable when not supported by end game gear affixes and uniques.
I got in trouble for asking why would Moon make bow pure focus again; only to revert weeks later and yet here we are. I promise @thomas… I’m not trying to come off as a complete prick when I say this… but if you’re listening… As a consumer the current combat is giving me Star Citizen vibes. Lofty goals without a clear direction and possibly without the current capability to execute sed lofty goals. To put in another’s words because I lack the clarity to express exactly what I think in few words, I’m reminded of Michelangelo.
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start me work. It’s already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Thomas communicates often but it hasn’t left me with a picture of what’s coming. Now my personal difficulty is in trusting others, so my opinion on the game, likewise carries this jaded point of view. HOWEVER! This is not to say I have lost my faith in what Moon is capable of…
(also yes this is relevant to the ranged discussion, yes it’s going to be a long post, grab a cold drink and the pipe)
The world that Moon has created is bar non the best one I’ve ever explored. It’s so interconnected, resources are abundant and you can clearly see that so much thought and effort was put into it’s creation. This isn’t glazing, I just call it like I see it, and when credit is due I find it easy to praise the work that’s been done. It’s absolutely brilliant, and there’s so much more to come! Something I don’t believe the fast travel community appreciates but I digress.
That said, what doesn’t feel (again my emotions and opinions only…) like it has the same care and attention is the games combat. Recent interviews have reinforced this opinion, specifically the interview with DarthMicrotransactionT where Thomas spoke about playing games with his son, the genre that inspired him, and what where he felt Wicked could fill a void caused by lack of creativity and/or a willingness to try something different.. to buck the status quo. I very much believe Moon is willing to take risks and explore what could be but I don’t that any of us even know what that greener pasture looks like at this point.
While I agree with him entirely that the only avenues for consumers have been much of the same for far too long. No different than trying to see a movie these days looking at what’s available and going… oh… really milking that IP for all it’s worth huh, or Oh..another deathstar! oh boy!.. lets face it the market for entertainment on all sides has been treated with the same safe and boring approach to the point of being stale and boring. Once you’re aware of the mouse trap, it’s time for a better contraption.
Wicked feels like it is being built for people who want something different, and something that consumers who are used to the same BS year after year wont be able to ignore because of how engaging it will be on release (I hope).
At current build I don’t feel the same level of understanding regarding combat from Wicked’s combat as I see in the world design. Even with the animations regarding weapons it feels less like a well crafted system and more like Thomas walking us through his tool shead and showing off all these wonderful assets… like oh! hey look at this! I just thought this was cool so I made it, etc. It feels like we’re throwing darts at the board to see what sticks in regards to combat. This emotional response for me it felt was doubled down on with the changes to bow about to be reverted.
It feels like Thomas and company saw the blatant mockery ranged weapons made of Wicked’s combat and said how do we fix this? Idk we have lots more work to do but we can cut off their resources for now and see what happens. It didn’t feel like a “welcome to testing” response but rather cutting off a playstyle below the knee because they needed significantly more time to hash out the full scope of the issue. Forcing it to be gear reliant meaning it wouldn’t be the first build you play. Letting people get to know Wicked better before using health for focus and just obliterating any and all challenge to the player.
Which is not to say that melee skills don’t have their fair share of hilariously overturned runes. Wicked can be trivialized in many forms, but we also have a fraction of the game and systems that haven’t been fleshed out so I can’t argue it’s not to be expected at this point either. And so all that said, grievances aside… I hope that what Moon is doing is chiseling away as we speak. But items like the games new camera give me pause as to what we’re doing here.
Thomas has talked up the combat update and skill tree so I don’t know that we can give any truly meaningful feedback until those systems are revealed.
IMO we can only discuss wish list items at this stage.
That said… this is my take on the current builds combat and how ranged could fit in…
This is an oversimplification but I will stand my ground that the games combat is a stones throw from Elden Ring set in the world Moon has created instead of the lands between. So what separates it?
Flasks or lack thereof, combat sustain, and access to more “weapon arts” aka runes.
Moon wants to give the player a reason to explore the world beyond the enemies alone with removing flasks from the equation. The meal system is much more meaningful than a trivial vial that fills up every rest. Flasks also impact mana, or in Wicked Focus. But focus isn’t mana and I feel Moon has made that abundantly clear. The combat system without talismans enables the player to heal and gain focus. An improvement on FromSoftwares platform IMO. The current weapon system rewards players for fighting without restricting build diversity because the talismans of ER are baked into the combat system of Wicked AND expanded on with ARPG gear that allows players to have even greater freedoms in playstyle. Last but definitely not least is parry being a core mechanic and not locked behind individual weapons like in ER. It can not be overstated how impactful this change alone is for me. I’ve played though ER and ever souls game that FromSoftware has released but every time I finish one I’m left feeling like I just had the same experience as before in a slightly different setting. I’m not eager to do it all over again, and stop playing as soon as I’m done experimenting with any new weapons and gear combinations that tickle my fancy.
Part of why I believe the ranged combat isn’t fleshed out in Wicked is because it was never addressed in the souls games either and the starting point for Wicked is very.. very souls. In the souls games ranged weapons were made realistic in the sense they’re no good in a face to face fight. ER gave significantly more fantasy to the weapon than ever before with unique weapon arts; however outside of starting a fight they felt bad to play IMO. I believe players want that Legolas inspired buffoonery that is more accompanied with ARPGs.
Trouble is we’re not playing a screen clear ARPG and if the combat is to be meaningful, the enemies have to get much stronger and less… stupid. There’s a lot of idle time on enemies and they don’t dodge attacks for the most part. We got the first taste of more aggressive and more mobile enemies in breach so it’s quite possible we’re just scratching the surface here. That said… knockdown shot still does just that and with enough damage investment you just delete, delete, delete, without much of any precision from the player. And at that point the game just plays like a “slow” screen clear game.
But time to kill is another issue in Wicked. When it’s too high you feel dog piled and when it’s too low the games combat feels trivial. I think part of the solution could rest in having a diverse group of enemies in encounters so that yes there will be strong mobs with some form of intelligence to give the player a good fight there are also just trash mobs to be shot down and cut through. Not to mention more single combat with enemies that pose an honest threat to the player.
I think the last thing we want in Wicked is the “holy trinity” of archetypes to enable a dps to brain off and run the highest damage cycle of abilities with a tank pulling agro and a support sustaining the team in multiplayer realms. Sure playing as a team should be rewarding but we have to enable that without dulling the combat beyond ranged players only concern being don’t sit in the AOE on the floor.
I wish for all combat in Wicked to
- incorporate the importance of positioning
- have access to mobility, cause fun
- have options unique to each roll/archtype that make the gameplay feel unique for each weapon type
- give us lots of tools in combat and the world and limit hard counters in favor of numerous soft counters that encourage the players to use the tools at our disposal
- keep parry as a universal mechanic, I love it
- I want the battle to feel more like choreography when possible. Monster Hunter would be an example of this, there is a great flow to the fights when you know then enemy.
All that word vomit aside, this is a post added to recently in favor of charges as a mechanic we could explore. Though being to provide ranged players access to their kit at all times, while limiting their resources as well.
TLDR
I’m most interested in a ranged/melee hybrid in Wicked. I want ranged weapons to be meaningful and fun without trivializing the combat and we all need to wait for the combat update
To reply the threads points.
- I like the idea of the the arrow shot and charged shot having more of an identity than they do now.
- I like the idea of “perfect shots” over and effective zone. Allowing players to be rewarded for executing good spacing and timing for a more powerful attack.
- I don’t like the idea of a special parry as cool as it would be to snatch an arrow from the air and fire it back. Same with magic, unless it was to be adapted to melee combat as well. Something that powerful shouldn’t be a ranged exclusive and I like the idea of ranged/melee combat over pure ranged anyhow but that’s my bias talking
- Yes to enemy behavior, they just take arrows like a champ and fall over without much recourse. But again time to kill would need to be reviewed and is why I’m in favor of more 1on1 fights in Wicked or rather getting to 1on1 fights. Say you shoot down the trash mobs and have to rely on melee + ranged for the stronger enemies in the group as they will shrug off many ranged attacks.
What’s not said in this thread or my word vomit is how impactful gear can be to both melee and ranged playstyles and I hope for the affix and ring pool to be increased to perhaps specialize in a meaningful way to a particular playstyle. I’m not referencing only ranged vs melee here but in general how players are going about combat in Wicked. How are they generating focus, stamina, sustain, etc and giving players a wide range of options to build to which the impact can be felt in the games combat.
If you made it here, cheers. It was annoying even for me to reread back to myself.