Wicked Combat, a thought

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Had a thought today about Wicked’s combat. How similar it is to souls like from my perspective at least and what it could do to set itself apart and something I’ve always wanted from an action combat game that no studio has been able to delivery thus far…

Anyone remember the ESO High Isle trailer? For anyone who hasn’t seen it, take a peak below you wont be disappointed. You will however be extremely disappointed (or at least I was) looking up ESOs combat after watching the video. I still think about this trailer from time to time because if a studio could deliver the kind of combat shown it’d be amazing.

Elements as simple as, the blade isn’t the only dangerous part of a weapon, how gritty combat is, sweeping the feet, multiplayer save mechanics, spell parry, etc. I want to play this trailer, haha.

So how does this tie into Wicked? I’ve thought about it in numerous games after playing them… how could you even do combat like this in a game? There’s so many unique animations that would be required and how would you add the mechanics without trivializing the game if you can just sweep any enemies feet out from under them. So I don’t think runes are the complete answer to the equation, but I am a big fan of the stamina runes that were added this patch.

Any who, you’d want some sort of cooldown feature I’d imagine so the gameplay feels more cinematic and not spammy. And you’d need a large pool of animations so the interaction doesn’t become stale (like sekiro). Then it hit me. In combat timed or prompted interactions.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not want Wicked to play itself where even interactions like parry are just a response to a button on the screen or anything.

The idea was spurred on from an old FPS I played the demo of but never found a copy at my local gamestop. The game was Vanquish.

good ol ChatGPT helped me recall the title. It’s been so many… many years.

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I recall it feeling fun to play because it had cover mechanics and slide back when most FPS were just walking around and shooting. But it also had timed on screen mechanics which I thought really mixed it up.

The timed mechanics are what I want to discuss. I’m very adamant that I don’t want the game to play itself but I don’t think we can’t have a more gritty cinematic experience as well. Keep in mind I love to combo, so the builds I make in Wicked revolve around wanting to hit multiple buttons so that’s part of my bias on why this could work.

For example. The Gloam type fungus humanoids. In the attack string one mob type has a leap that is a KD. What if you could shrug that attack off shoving them down but still take damage without the CC? You’d be penalized for not dodging but also encourages players get into the fight. Making mistakes is human, making the combat look cool is Wicked. Would this make the game easier or more forgiving? Perhaps, but more on that later.

Likewise, when you swing a sword perhaps a large enemy (again looking at the Gloam) with no weapon in hand could grab your sword, take reduced damage, take no poise damage from the attack and again you use the interact to hilt bash or kick, etc regaining your lost poise damage.

Even a sword on sword interaction could have some kind of riposte or clash. @Chemile0n @Yoke88 @BlackWaterPirate (middle ground thought?)

I would not want these systems to be automatic. No different that the way we chop wood, each input has an output. That said maybe some passive charges of this mechanic could be tied to skill trees like heavy armor. Who knows.

In order to not make it a free “i fucked up, better hit the interaction button” mechanic I’m proposing tying it to focus “thresholds” perhaps. So for every 100 focus you have you gain stays as a charge to be used for this active interaction mechanic. Much like focus gain it would reward the players for active combat, but also give them a wide array of exciting mid combat animations to keep the games combat fresh and exciting. You may want to tank a hit to set up another attack, etc…

So how I see the mechanic possibly working.

You enter into combat no different that you are now. However as you accumulate focus, once you’ve reached 100 you’ll gain a charge regardless if the focus has been used or not. This isn’t a rune, but uses focus to gain charges. And since every build starts off with 100 focus no build would be excluded from this mechanic. Interaction frames would be added so that offensively and defensively there are opportunities to use sed charges. Because it’s tied to focus every build type could have access to the mechanic in some form and players could build into having more charges through focus. I think the visuals would really put Wicked over the top and as I’ve said I’ve always wanted to play a game that feels like the ESO trailer. In addition to additional animations for block and parry so they’re not the same one constantly and improved enemy dodges. Disarmed? punch the enemy, before picking up your weapon, etc.

Just a thought. not a very refined one but I’m open to chatting about it.

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I have recently started playing new characters in level 20+ areas with no armor, no broken weapons or rings, just dodges, timing, parrying and many deaths against all manners of foes. This has been a bittersweet experience, reminding me of what made me fall in love with this game. . It wasn’t the art style, the story or loot chase. It was the combat. Every mob still has a distinct moveset that can turn them into a miniboss when you take away the insane power arc of end game items and character optimization.

The foundation of NRFTW is solid and perhaps could be improve a little more by taking some ques from Lies of P and Ghost of Tsushima, but all of that is basically irrelevant in the current state of endgame. Sure a clash mechanic would be cool, but would it really change much? Would it really make me stay around for longer than I would without it? Would it bring in more players? I don’t think so.

We have to read between the lines, when the primary concern of the head director is selling more units, I think we’re barking up the wrong tree here.

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Oh absolutely. It was more, a now or never post. Not a ask that would prevent me from enjoying the game.

The combat as is, I feel is ok. Not balanced but ok and combined with the open world n story is what hooks me. The addition of parry as a universal mechanic alone gives the combat a more enjoyable flow compared to ER. I downloaded elder ring reforged (mod) just for perfect parry on 2H after playing the game vanilla.

Curious what the future holds for Wicked and the thought was more of a wish list topic and to see if anyone else thought the idea had some bite to it.

Like I said, I’ve just always wanted to play that trailer as a game and Wicked just felt like the closest experience I’ve had as a player.

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lets just wait for the realm tiers, shall we?
Maybe then we can have a fallout :slight_smile:

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yeah man, cool trailer… XD
but no… that prolly not gonna happen… LOL

for one is too slow, the slower it gets the easier it gets to spot the “flaws” games actively are trying to hide, or as some call it “game magic” is trying… this reminds me of GoT, and some folks calling it too loose, or floaty… but to be honest, if you have ever fought in real life, then you would know it is actually a very good game version of that…

we all can still dream tho :wink:

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Funny enough I’ve actually done a good bit of archery (very therapeutic) and a little bit of kendo growing up.

If you can believe it, it was horizontal training for ice hockey lmao. Of all things… “Mind of no mind”. I was a goalie and a head case, undoubtedly most likely still am.

Short version of a long story, friend of my father’s so the opportunity kinda fell on my lap.

I’ve never looked at games to be ultra realistic as fantasy can just be more fun to escape the bounds of reality for a change. A fantastic distraction, as any entertainment is really.

Along the same lines of, should bows be realistic or should they feel more Legolas. I’d say the ladder, just cause fun.

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The game i think you are looking for is Sifu, maybe you don’t know it because it is not a fantasy.
Sifu is similar to sekiro and has many of the features you mentioned but abandons the soulslike elements.

I don’t think Wicked can add mechanics like this, combat, and the enemies would have to be rethought in a big way to make room for your ideas.

But if they could do it i would like them to add a couple of counterattacks like juping sweeps or the “mikiri couter” like in sekiro.

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yeah, I’ve done some archery as well…
(kendo is not a martial art by the way, is a sport, not matter what other people tell you)

but is not about reality, is about the perception of reality… in fact I always roll my eyes when people mention “realism” when talking videogames… and that’s the issue regarding combat… there are only so many ways to convey weight in this media (w/ current tech LOL)… and also there is only so much computational power to emulate intense interaction… speed management is one way to manipulate perception… but then again, it also limits it…

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Yeah of course. It has rules, rules=sport. I’m always blown away at the concept of rules in combat. Look no further than the geneva convention. Talk about perpetuating the concept of poor people dying for the rich and powerful. Only rule that matters is what a person can and can’t do…

Anyways…

Me personally I’m not hung up on or seeking realistic combat if that’s what you got from the idea. Or perhaps I misunderstand your point.

I’m coming from as a kid playing games like Morrowind, etc and when that was the latest and greatest it was fun for a moment of time but I can’t be bothered to play any game these days that feels overly hack n slash. I’m not exclusively talking about time to kill but input and animation spamming.

I love variety in the animations, but in a meaningful way not just the same key input always being a different animation. Certainly there will be some of it and that’s also good for the game, you want players to know what their expected output will be given an input. What I’m getting at is that defined animations are good, and meaningful. But that I like a wide variety of defined animations to wash the eyes so to speak.

Similar to elements of a fighting game.

In addition, I think it’s good design to have a lot of soft counters in games while giving players tools to deal with these situations.

But again my bias is thra I like to hit multiple buttons without it being buttons mashing.

I enjoy being able to combo in Wicked and thought this could be a neat extension of that, it’s not make or break for me.

But anywho I’ll probably just keep waiting for “this” game to pop up at some point, maybe…

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I couldn’t be bothered to finish sekiro. I might give it a shot again at some point since I have it, but I got bored with it very, very quickly.

Parry into finisher over n over n over n over. Played up to the first boss or something and just moved on to something else.

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Sekiro introduces you to its mechanics step-by-step, but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone finding the combat system boring (and not “too hard”).

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The parry felt really intuitive, they did a good job with player camera perspective and animations. Victim of their own success.

Don’t remember when you get it but I was also underwhelmed by the offhand tools because the resource was so limited.

Talking about the step by step aspect. You get the hatchet and it’s immediately apparent it’s fantastic for breaking shield cucks just turtling and yet the resource to use the mechanic seemed extremely limiting.

Felt like ambiguous “difficulty” added that effectively just made the flow in combat feel worse if you didn’t have your tools.

But that was just my experience. I should probably revisit at some point.

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The problem is from what they have told us about their idea of realm tiers, the major issues that were introduced with hotfixes are not going be addressed at all.

People who ask for higher difficulty level are not asking for a simple beafing up of the mobs. You can add 4x the amount of HP to the mobs and if the straight swords and wands are going to microstagger them every hit and RoD allowed you to spam runes until the end of time, then what difference does that really make in terms of combat mechanics?

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oh no no, I didn’t mean it in any such “profound” LOL way, I care not for that… I strictly mean mechanically, it resembles very little from the martial art it originated from… so if you base your opinions on kendo when talking combat, it literally means nothing… (quick example, parring)… if helps you at all, think: fencing

anyways anyways… XD

I didn’t, as I’ve said, is not about realism, but the perception of it… people generally use the word in strange ways, as in: “should mimic real life to the T”, whereas in videogames it should be realistic in so far as being credible…
what I mean is, if is too slow it gives the impression of being choreographed… and even if you are not aiming for realism you surely are not looking for scripted fights (quick time events, otherwise know as glorified cutscenes) or are you? (similar to movies, when you perceive it being choreographed it looks lame)
“connecting attacks” on top of player agency is hard, specially while trying to convey impact… at least that is the vibe I’ve got from the trailer you shared… (maybe not what you have in mind at all, dunno)… but most games will keep a limited number of animations… there’s a reason most fighting games keep the camera mostly fixed too… keeping opponents mostly on the same “position” relative to each other… hitting multiple buttons without mashing them while keeping track of orthogonal movement, vector, terrain, multiple foes then gets exponentially hard not only logically (program) speaking but also on the player… XD

(one day maybe, I would love that level of detail you describe, even thought of trying to make it myself since no one seems inclined to… but on a 2nd thought, maybe is not that no one is trying… LOL)

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yeah but those are also just values that you can tweak and from what im thinking is that their initial version was the way THE DEVS THEMSELVES wanted to play the game. and it took a lot of refinement to get to that point where everybody involved, after hundreds of tweaks thought the game is at the perfect place to be. and then came the mob and after buying out themselves they kinda had to do their bidding.

So my guess or my hope is, that at least their hard mode is the way they intended the gameplay for themselves. if not. well, lets not think about that… sure, i’d be more happy about realm modifiers, that way we’d know for sure that we will get the gameplay we want, but having seen the initial gameplay i can at least be certain that they know what meaningful combat looks like…

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Sadly they have said nothing to indicate that they are willing to consider anything remote to what you and many others are hoping.

There is a large crowd that is entirely happy with the current state of the game. Mash button, create OP builds and blast through the content. And if they are the largest source of income for the devs, then that’s the audience they will cater to and there is nothing innately wrong with that, we will just have to leave a negative review and move on to the next game that is not trying to appease everyone.

I know everyone likes to gush over the artstyle of the game and it is very impressive but a game needs to be a game before the art starts to matter. The story? Lackluster so far and the combat? Well … let’s just leave it for now. Like I said, there is still a way to unearth the combat system that was once there by going into level 26 area with a naked level 1 character. I’m happy to do that for now for my combat fix.

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I base my opinions on combat on games when playing, & discussing games.

I don’t know that that concept is a bad thing for games. I’d draw more similarities to the flow of combat more that choreography. Take Monster Hunter for example…

When you’re timings are on point and skill selection the flow is beautiful and feels rewarding to play the game at that level, imo.

Another example would be fighting games. When someone reads their opponents like a book and dog walks them on a long string of attacks resulting in a KO.

Brother we’re talking about a mechanic that exists in a game from the early 2000s. Not rocket science.

For example the backstab skull icon. What is the difference between the idea I’m proposing and that? Only one I see is that I’m implying instead of needing to position your body behind the enemy to take advantage, there could also be mechanics in the game where you’d use this interaction system.

Idk if it would be best to use an icon like we have for backstab, but that’s the premise at least.

It would add variety as I see it, nothing more. Thomas has mentioned recently about making parry feel more enjoyable and while I for one hope we never have screen shake forced upon us, this kind of interaction I feel would make Wickeds combat more visually impressive while keeping combat fun with added variety.

That’s all I’m getting at, but yeah probably won’t be in this game if I was betting, but I can dream right XD

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Keep in mind that having only one character who has a limited number of actions available gives the possibility of making the enemies much more complex, this is one of the qualities of Sekiro.

I agree but if you replay it I advise you to convert all your money into this resource, especially in eraly game, probably this way you will not have any problems (even if the system remains flawed), the prices in Sekiro are low and when you find something from the merchant you can go back to him later to buy what you are interested in instead of trying to keep the money from before and risk losing it.

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Didn’t really have problems, just didn’t find it fun and I was already a bit bored with the continuous parry into finisher spam in the first area. But heard, I’ll keep that in mind.

Might be something to pick up depending on the time between Wicked patches and PoE2 leagues.

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We have to wait for the combat update at this point.

Knowing it’s coming I don’t think anyone can make points about Wickeds combat (or at least very little) knowing what we have is getting a major adjustment across the board. Or at least it seemed like it was presented that way… Which is not to say people shouldn’t have feedback but…

The thing to keep in mind with EA is that no matter what feedback we have it’s based on incomplete systems until 1.0

The degree to which Wickeds combat changes between then and now will tell the tale I think.