Combat Beta Review 2

[Artorius]

Also, I hope stamina drain from keeping shield raised are slow, otherwise it could stop us from doing a lot of great formations.

Sorry, it seems we can't edit our post in this section.

[Shinzon]

In the combat beta the charged attack did the same damage as a quick click, the charge allowed you to time your attacks, the stamina drain was low enough to allow you to hold it for quite a long time, but not regenerate your stamina. As for the naked problem, typically once naked, you weren't able to compete with the fully armored players, they could always out damage you no matter what. In any scenario no armor < armor.

[zpullin]

A sword to the head of a naked guy should = instadeath

[Sojourner]

It depends-if the attacker's strength is like--2-there oughtn't be a hold lot of danger. But maybe he could light your balls on fire.

[Krogan]

might as well just call this MO review, I've failed to find anything but a combat system myself.

[Shinzon]

Houses, Banking, Gathering, Magic, Mounted Combat, Cities, Skill System, the actual game world; were all missing. To say no progress was made is to be unfair; to say the game is complete would be false. It's just not as black and white as we would like things to be.

[Grudge_Bringer]

Watched my friend PvP last night.

I hope they make Shields and parrying worth doing.

So far you might as well dish out an attack instead of blocking half damage, and losing your opportunity to attack.

Shields=pvp newbstamp ...too slow, cant see anything and you can't kill anyone with a 1hander

2 handed weapons are the love all solution.

[Gobwar]

Yes, Grudge. This will most likely change soon. It has been under discussion since block beta forums came.

[Grudge_Bringer]

What about being able to advance/run at a ranged-combatant with your shield raised. Or at least placing it at the front of your body.

Has this been discussed?

Currently it looks like you have to advance on an archer with your shield down as you move so slow in combat stance, the archer will kite you.

You can either run at the archer and take 1 arrow or advance shield raised and take 6+arrows.

Makes Shields almost useless against range, which realistically are what shields are best at.

MO looks great btw.

[Gobwar]

Originally Posted by Grudge_Bringer

What about being able to advance/run at a ranged-combatant with your shield raised. Or at least placing it at the front of your body.

Has this been discussed?

Currently it looks like you have to advance on an archer with your shield down as you move so slow in combat stance, the archer will kite you.

You can either run at the archer and take 1 arrow or advance shield raised and take 6+arrows.

Makes Shields almost useless against range, which realistically are what shields are best at.

MO looks great btw.

Shields are best against archers, archers can't kite them you just have to run and block at the right time to avoid the arrow but currently archery is bit broken because it takes so much stamina and time to get one arrow off and the dmg is so low. But hopefully changing =)

I really agree MO is great, the combat will be something to be called as "feature" itself as it is something new and amazing when they just balance things up and do some tweaking

[MrMutant]

TONS of AoC players are flocking to this game lol i joined in with em. I absolutely love the combat system in AoC, even though its extremely difficult to be proficient at it pays off once youve mastered the javelineer class or heavy i expect the same with this, getting good at combat and eventually having a good kd ratio and tons of head bashing and loot

[Gobwar]

Yeah, true MrMutant, MO combat is a trademark for that kind of games.

I really hope that Henrik has good plans for the combat, as I think that the combat needs a lot of tweaking and changing, the worst thing is the glitchy movement and too small hit boxes.

But truly it will become awesome if devs give the combat a view and start doing stuff.

[MrMutant]

They should add a combat tutorial in the beginning of the game so new guys dont run out and get owned(unless there is one, havent even started yet but had frustration in AoC). Plus practicing with wooden swords with a trainer or other player to help with techniques but i dont think it should increase stats or anything because this can be easily abused.

[Gobwar]

There is a guide in the forums and main site, and you can see them in game too, the keys are described.

[Shinzon]

There is no real way to "Guide" new players around combat, except to tell them that "This is block, this is strafe, this is attack; now go have fun". Any PvP worthy experience will always come from fighting other players. You can't really learn how to fight against the computer.

This is the case in AoChiv as well; it's easy to understand what each attack does, and how to block; but to actually use it all in battle relies heavily on experience. No amount of forum tutorials will ever really factor every single variable in.

[Neon Dagorlas]

this...sounds...awesome! HOLY MOLY i want to play mo soooo badly!!!

[Crux69]

Too bad servers are broken until 2010 (please a dev correct me if I'm wrong) but this is what I've gathered through second hand reports in IRC. On that note, it would be really helpful to have a server status page on the main site with some sort of description of what issues there are and what the ETA is etc...Just sayin.

[Numz]

Originally Posted by Crux69

Too bad servers are broken until 2010 (please a dev correct me if I'm wrong) but this is what I've gathered through second hand reports in IRC. On that note, it would be really helpful to have a server status page on the main site with some sort of description of what issues there are and what the ETA is etc...Just sayin.

they ran away with our money!

[Crux69]

Originally Posted by Numz

they ran away with our money!

They took er jeewwwbbbbzzz

[Nimble]

I am definitely getting this game

[silverus13]

I wana play to

[Kiev]

Originally Posted by silverus13

I wana play to

that review is ancient, the game is nothing like it was now :0

[Yoh]

To start off my rant/ review, I just want to point out that before having a good play/work of MO, I was quite excited about the prospect.

It sounded like a good idea, and that Starvault had a good head on them.


After playing it, I did a heel face turn. Now I can't support MO in good conscious, because it sucks ass in almost every conceivable way.
While Starvault are honest, and seem the have a good idea going, their implementation and execution of said idea is horrendous.
I would guess it's because of poor leadership, or just plain lack of experience.

I know, because as an artist, when I'm not sure about what to do next and how to get something done, I piss away enormous amounts of time, and get very little result to show for it.

I can't help but see the same thing here.


Now this is where I become a ruthless, pragmatic cunt.

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

Ending Notes
In conclusion from what has been seen in Beta Starvault has defiantly hit the mark with everything they wanted to achieve and promised to the general community. The level of thought taken can be seen in everything you do. Bugs that were posted by the testers were always quickly found and eradicated at alarming speed, which sometimes put up the question if the guys at Starvault even sleep. Games that were mentioned in discussions during beta testing were nearly always single player, or small multiplayer games, and it was very easy to start criticizing Mortal Online for being worse than Crysis, Oblivion, Mount and Blade, Age of Chivalry or any other game, but the fact that this is an MMO must always be remembered, because when contrasting to other MMO's, you quickly realize that Mortal Online is on the bleeding edge. The response from the developers both during testing and the forums makes it clear that this is simply not just a game, but their game, their dream project, something done with love and care. I am sure there are many of us amongst us with such aspirations. Mortal Online stands as a beacon to not just MMO Buffs but other startup developers, and as such it's not a question if Mortal Online becomes successful, but how much of a success it will be. Time will tell.

Even thou this was months ago, I can't help but feel this closing statement was a crock of shit.
You hit your mark? You hit your mark!?
Unless you mark was the fucking floor, you didn't hit a god damn thing.

While I admit, on paper, MO sounds fantastic.
In practice thou, it's fairly diabolical.

I'm just going to go over what Matt said, and what the reality is.
(as far a I can tell)


Character Creation

Character creation is ho hum.
It's not bad, but not great either.
You generally just lack customization options, so every character ends up looking pretty much the same.

Ascetically, the models look weird. Short, and stumpy, with zero creative flair or sex appeal. Like bland, tasteless cardboard.
They also have exactly the same body, regardless what race you are.

The races are of coarse, a joke. You have half a dozen humans, with ever so slightly different skin and ears. Whipdi do da day, no one cares.
You would have been better off with just one or two races, and spending your valuable time elsewhere, such as combat.

So unless your goal was to waste time, you get a C-.


Environment

Now, the environment is actually quite nice really.
Pretty much the only thing I can think of that Starvault got right...... and yet so wrong at the same time.

What do I mean by that?

True, the world is vast and very pretty. A tad bland for my tastes, but it's got nice scale, and has good ambiance, so it's fairly decent all round.


So what's my problem? Two fold.
One, is vacant. You can literally walk for an hour and not see a single mob.
That's pretty bad, but I can give you some slack on that one.

Second, this being my main beef. It was an almost complete waste of time. It's clear that an inordinate amount of time was spend making it look so pretty, and that's time they could have been much more wisely spent on far more important tasks, such as making an actually functioning combat system.

Instead, they pissed away their time, and now have stuff all to show for it, except for a reasonably nice looking, and almost completely empty world.

I hope you feel good about that one.
I'm not sure if it was poor leadership, or just over estimating how much time you had, but in hind sight, it was clearly a bad decision.

(you should have made only one piece of the world at a time, and made sure to fill it with fully functioning NPC's and mobs, content, etc.
And when you had more time, expand the world, one piece at a time.)

The waterfall approach fails on so my levels, this is one of them.
I recommend scrum. It's a little more fluid.
You get a B+.


Moving on.



Combat

Oh god this is going to be painful.
Well, Matt was right about one thing, combat is diffidently no where near being ready for commercial quality.
Wasn't when he said it, still isn't now.

However first I'll amend something Matt said.

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

Testers that logged in for the first time or relatively new were absolutely slaughtered by the more experienced ones, though some adapted very quickly and became proficient after a single fight.

This is only complete bullshit.
The reason newbies get slaughtered is A: Because combat is so ass-backward, it's going to take a damn long time just to figure out how to hit something, let alone kill a moving, sentinel target.
And B: Because you start with literally nothing. You have absolutely no way to defend yourself, and have no access to any weapons except a mini axe that's used only for gathering.

They expect you to craft your own weapon first, which is very time consuming and confusing to a newbie.

Given sufficient equipment, this may be true, but skill has little to do with it as it stands.


As far as I can tell, still no prediction system. In fact, I can't see any noticeable changes made over they last several months.

As a result, every attack you make takes several, up to 10 seconds before you get any feedback to weather or not you hit your target.
You click your left mouse key to attack, it takes about 3 seconds before you even attack due to horrendous response time (same thing for blocking, making completely useless).
The animation doesn't always play either, or sometimes gets stuck.

And a few seconds after you attack, if you hit, you'll get a lackluster response. Now repeat a dozen times, and that's basically your lot.


One of the colossal problems of combat is the completely batshit bonkers hitbox system. Whoever though that it was a good idea should be fucking fired.
Instead of attacking the model of whatever critter your attacking, you have to aim for an invisible, and quite small 'hitbox', that is usually above or inside your intended target.

So you end up attacking air for the most part.

Their is no word better to describe this as 'pathetic'.


Between these two, not counting lag, combat is excruciatingly painful.
Easily MO's weakest link.

F-.



Crafting

Gee, what do you know, another game mechanic that doesn't work straight. Who would have guessed?

While the current system is still, and as far as I can tell, always will be, a place holder, there are still some pretty gargantuan flaws here.
From what I can tell, yes there is quite a selection of different parts.
But the barrier to entry is fairly steep, so unless you commit yourself (which your practically forced to if you want any gear at all), your probably not going to see just how many possible combinations of armor and weapons there are, which is meant to be a main selling point for MO.


As it stands, you make weapons and armor at a table, after collecting the correct amount of crafting items. Normally this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the grotesque inventory system, on top of the down right painful gathering system.

For example, when you get a new item in you inventory, (which is happening all the time if you killing stuff as they always have several items on them) the items don't auto-stack. So you end up filling you inventory with several copies of the exactly same item that do stack.

Well this is lazy, but by itself it's not that bad.

Compound this with the fact that unless you click very, very slowly, and drag each item stack, one at a painful time, the game won't recognize the fact that your trying to sort you inventory.
So half the time, the items just don't go where you want them to go.

Learn how to do this, your going to spend a lot of time pissing away here.

Also, items for some strange reason is measured in hundreds, rather then singles or even tens. So you will be literally be getting hundreds of bones from damn near every monster you slay.
.
.
.
That's just weird


As for gathering..... agh. First you have to equip you appropriate gathering skill, which you have to go through about 4 different windows just to find.
Then slowly drag it onto you movable skill bar like passing an egg with you buttchecks.

Once you've got it on your skillbar, you can start pulling teeth, I mean gather. Equip you mini axe that you start with, similar process here.
Draw your weapon, walk up to a gathering point (rock or tree), and activate you skill via keystrock.

If you lucky, you will get an item. By lucky, I mean about 25% of the time, your going to get something. Always the same item mind you.
And every two second, presuming you mashing the key to death, you might get an item.

Now collect about 500 pieces of either wood or stone, and you may begin to start crafting a starter weapon.
While you get more as your skill level goes up, in the beginning you will likely piss away a few hours of you life mashing keys.

And that's pretty much the extent of gathering. Dry, uninteresting, and excruciatingly repetitive.

And here I though EVE had the worse implementation of a gathering system I'd ever seen. I guess I was wrong on that one.

F+. Purely for the fact gathering points are not hard to come by.


Armor and Combat

To be frank, I don't have a lot to say on this. Never really got off the ground as far a gathering/crafting went.
So I don't know how much more effective you are in armor.

And to be honest, I don't really care. It's just too god damn painful to make yourself. You'd probably be better of killing someone else, however you can, and steal their gear.

Not really worth the time commitment.




Overall, I give MO a D-.
It has promise, and sounds really good on paper, but as it stands, it's more trouble then it's worth. Starvault should be paying people to play it, it's that bad. All work, no play.

You have to have fun within the first 5mins of gaming, and no less then the first 5 hours. MO fails across the board on this point.


If Starvault can get their ass in gear, and work on the main pitfalls of MO, such as combat and crafting, it just might work.
But as it stands, it DOA. Dead on arrival.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Starvault has pull the lead out if they want their product to even survive the first couple of months of release.

I really, really want it to work, but I just don't see that happening unless something drastic changes.


~Yoh

[isardor]

Originally Posted by Disappointed

And suddenly, sex-deprived nerds all over the world stood and proudly proclaimed to the masses: "TITS!"

I don't think so, they can't see themselfs ^^

[isardor]

Hmm OK, Can't edit....
About the tits, why do they all look like having selicone implants?
When I look apon a nature folk like the Veela... It's not very realistic.

[Shinzon]

The review was written in the closed combat beta, and not with any systems we have in place. Also it's a review written by me, if you please you can direct attacks at me, which I will argue up to a point; unless I see something is the base of your argument. I will not write a complete review again until Starvault proclaims that the "Beta" stage is clear.

[Lachrymose]

the guy who wrote this review is an idiot.







;p

[Meos]

Im happy i will never have to share a server with you Yoh. You see, i hate purple pixies with giant boobs, pole dancing between phallus like spires that are some queer excuse of a city.

[Reinholt]

Originally Posted by Meos

purple pixies with giant boobs, pole dancing between phallus like spires that are some queer excuse of a city.

Sounds good. Where is this city located?