What do you refuse to get better at doing in combat?

Naoko

I refuse to stop picking classes people tell me are deeply flawed. Lots of people told me Fire Lord was bad but I love it from an RP, flavor, and gameplay standpoint. LASERBEAMS!

I'm garbage at going on the defensive. My version of defense is to do everything I need to in order to leave the room. I never shield spam, or curseward spam, or swap to a defensive set of priorities, or just break a leg for hinder. Most of the fights I win are because my friends and I have charted the fastest possible kill together and it overwhelmed someone.

Learning to play adaptively. If I'm caught off guard I end up sitting there listening to my system tell me I'm dying while panicking instead of just doing something/anything.

Multi-person charts. I'm super interested in group combat and super bad at plotting out kills for it.

Actually fighting. Sometimes I do way too much theory and not nearly enough application because I weirdly always feel like I'm at some sort of imaginary disadvantage.

Listening to logs. Boooooooooring.

Accipiter

Doing anything besides sniping.

Numira

the number of answers I can write for this is ridiculous, so I think I will just leave it at "ditto Archaeon"

but also any 1v1 is the worst and I avoid it, and continue to suck as a consequence 

Torrent

Switching to Mudlet... I know I should but its to difficult to set up especially when you are terrible at coding and don't know what in the world your doing.

Vender

tracking my own limbs

Israyhl

Automating my offense. I dabbled in it early on with Bard due to issues with song bal/balance crossover and afflictions, but when you hit a single button that always follows the same route or some variation thereof without the ability to adapt on the fly it just rubs me the wrong way.

Making actual improvements to my system after I lose to avoid the same death later. I intend to do it, but rarely follow through. 

Torinn

Be a master coder.  Code it to adapt for you. 

Ainly

Atalkez said:

Adopt a win at all costs mentality. I often lose fights because I overextend myself or don’t go defensive enough.

LOL

Ainly

I still manual. I don't AK. I don't aff track. I highlight target affs and track everything mentally. Every attack I send is its own key or alias. It's more fun for me that way.

Ainly

Farrah said:

Mercer said:

I have been told over and over that my biggest problem as a combatant, which keeps me from winning fights against basically anyone with half a clue what they are doing, is my inability to code curing profiles for every single class and swap them out on the fly.

In other words... I need to learn every classes kill paths on my own, even though I don't play them, learn to code far better than I currently do, then reinvent the wheel and come up with my own specialized curing system which I will somehow need to be able to switch during combat at milasecond speeds. Not that any of that effort will matter, as the only people who seem to WANT to fight me are people with thousands of dollars worth of arties who only want to duel.

I had a hard enough time learning my own class, and cobbling together a system for it with minimal coding skills. I think Achaean combat was designed with a very different and very specific type of player in mind.

The need for any prio swaps at all is actually highly exaggerated. You definitely do not need different prios for every single class. A few aliases to change a few prios will handle practically everything. But depending on who you are actually fighting, I mean, I could probably beat the vast majority of the game without touching prios even once. That's just because you can win by killing them faster than they kill you, and you can go defensive in ways unrelated to prios (running, shielding, tumbling). You definitely want your default prios to not suck. Some prios will easily get you killed. But you don't need to be constantly changing them usually. It's something people often say is the way to do better when it's usually not.

Ya you don't have to code prio swaps. Learn what is important to swap for the class you're fighting against and have aliases ready for it. Typically you just need to swap at the right time, not some static prio curing list.

Jakiro

It's prio switching for me too. The only upside is that I've never found not learning how to do it to be super game-changing. I suspect that even if I do learn it, I'll still die to the same stuff cause it's most often just me not watching out for things I'm supposed to that kills me. Which is also another thing I can never seem to get myself to learn how to do 

Armali

On the fly prio switching mid fight is super super overrated except for psions. You can get away with 'touch shield' or 'run away' in 95% of the cases where it might be relevant.

Archaeon

Armali said:

On the fly prio switching mid fight is super super overrated except for psions. You can get away with 'touch shield' or 'run away' in 95% of the cases where it might be relevant.

I absolutely disagree

Namino

I'm with @Archaeon I see a night and day difference when I finally figure out the prio swaps to use mid fight against most momentum classes. You can get by with shield touches (though not always, a lot of classes hold momentum just fine through a shield loop if they don't bounce) but the longer you can go without having to do it, the longer you can maintain your own offense.

On the other side, I struggle a lot less killing people with static prios than those with dynamic ones. 

Cooper

Armali said:

On the fly prio switching mid fight is super super overrated except for psions. You can get away with 'touch shield' or 'run away' in 95% of the cases where it might be relevant.

You are right that you can get away with touch shield or run away.

Smart priority switches (especially the auto ones that adjust according to opponent class & current afflictions) give you an advantage. They let you get in a couple extra attacks instead of shielding or running away.

This can be important because a lot of people start to neglect defense when they are close to locking an opponent. If your priority switch gives you 2 more attacks before having to go defensive, that is a lot more pressure on your opponent, and they'll probably get locked or have to play catch up.

It turns into a mind game after that with some of the top people. Farrah fights Seragorn, she almost locks him but a prio switch makes her have to lock a different way. The next time that priority switch doesn't happen, making her second lock attempt bad too. During that extra time, Seragorn has prepped her and she dies now.

Or just mash buttons like I do and hope it turns out okay (it doesn't).

Antonius

Even shielding can be more effective when combined with priority switches. You've just put yourself off equilibrium for several seconds by shielding, and are therefore unable to stand/fly/run/attack, so you don't need to also be curing the affliction that stops those things (paralysis).

That isn't to say that Farrah's and Armali's point is wrong. The number of situations where priority swaps are the only way to prevent being killed is vastly overstated.

Rangor

I refuse to update my old customized AK to the new and shiny and improved one.

Gilliam

I need to stop crutching on waterlord. Been leaning on it so long that I no longer think I'm threatening in lesser. It's just so good tho!

Also I got no aff tracking outside if highlights. Psion might finally push me to make some tho, as it can feel kind of unwieldy.

I could probably stand to chill the hell out with my curing swaps and whatnot. There is the one end of the spectrum where people keep things simple and change whats needed. Then there is the other end where you have fluidly swapping priorities. And then theres me a few miles past that, down a rabbit hole I have no use for. All the work maybe makes one or two scenarios better than simpler swaps. Could really spend that time fighting instead. 

Micaelis

I refuse to tumble even when I absolutely should tumble. 

I lay on the ground in defiance of your impending deathblow and I spit on your boots. 

Cooper

Yup. If you have to tumble or leave the room you lost the fight IMO. Old school mentality that doesn't really work out well today.

Vakvyr

Cooper said:

Yup. If you have to tumble or leave the room you lost the fight IMO. Old school mentality that doesn't really work out well today.

It's irritating how many times I've been told the only way to not die is to leave. Shield/rebounding have been effectively nerfed into the ground by classes getting raze and raze equivalent buffs that allow them to keep their offense going with little setback. If my only defensive option is to just leave altogether, there's a problem. That said, I consider having to tumble okay. It's the running five rooms or changing area/continent stuff that bothers me.

It's a design philosophy you can see in almost every new class/rework: offense > defense. I disagree with it personally, but that's me. Some people might like the race to kill.

Archaeon

that's absolutely untrue, and that's the reason why most great fighters play prep classes. 

Vakvyr

Archaeon said:

that's absolutely untrue, and that's the reason why most great fighters play prep classes. 

??? What I said applies to both momentum and prep kill paths. The point is that there are some kill paths where no amount of defense will let you live. Not every class has these kills. Some of these kills have always existed. There are just more of them now.

There are more: "This person has me prepped. If I walk into their room I die. So I guess I'll just fuck off until whatever resets."

Namino

Eh. I wouldn't say it's completely untrue. It depends on class. Some classes have reasonable in room hinders (clumsy para) to buy back momentum but other classes simply have little choice but to leave. Combining the rng room hinders with a doctrine that frequently says to leave the room to survive feels like the single sloppiest part of Achaean combat in an otherwise hypertuned system.

I feel like it would fit with the Achaean combat philosophy much better if room hinders were 0% effective unless a certain aff was on your target depending on your class and then they're 100% effective, allowing prio swapping counterplay. Like if dizzy is your hinder aff and you see them eat gseal instead of blood root, you can determine they're trying to bail and counterplay it. Rewards people actually reacting in combat and making adjustments rather than getting screwed (either party) by rngeesus.

Makarios

Namino said:

Eh. I wouldn't say it's completely untrue. It depends on class. Some classes have reasonable in room hinders (clumsy para) to buy back momentum but other classes simply have little choice but to leave. Combining the rng room hinders with a doctrine that frequently says to leave the room to survive feels like the single sloppiest part of Achaean combat in an otherwise hypertuned system.

I feel like it would fit with the Achaean combat philosophy much better if room hinders were 0% effective unless a certain aff was on your target depending on your class and then they're 100% effective, allowing prio swapping counterplay. Like if dizzy is your hinder aff and you see them eat gseal instead of blood root, you can determine they're trying to bail and counterplay it. Rewards people actually reacting in combat and making adjustments rather than getting screwed (either party) by rngeesus.

This is an idea I've toyed around with several times in the past, and its a really nice one until you introduce teams into the equation. Then you have a scenario where multiple room hinders come into play and you can only swap to cure one of them, but then you still have to factor how heavy teams are on paralysis at which point you're looking at multiple 100% room hinders stacked under the concrete hinder of paralysis. Even if we made all room hinders cured by the same aff (a bit tricky given the differing playstyles of the various classes with access to those room hinders) its still often going to come down to paralysis or room hinder, which is not a fun place to be in in a team.

If you solve the problem, let me know! I'll give you credit in the post.

Vakvyr

I'd nerf paralysis. It is the cornerstone of Achaea combat. Consider how many classes' offense require paralysis/x affliction combo in almost every round.

Iirc another IRE game has done this and I know how not fond of copying the other games developers are, but maybe do partial paralysis. Instead of 100% hindrance there's a 75% chance instead. So it's still incredibly important to cure it but you're (possibly) not completely shut down if you take a second to cure something else. This has implications for locking and other aspects of combat but that just further proves my point about how the game is basically balanced around paralysis for better or worse.

Regarding stacking hinders: at a certain point isn't it acceptable to be locked down? 3/4+ people come in with the mind to keep you in the room, you probably should have to pull some bullshit to get out.

Namino

Hey Mak:

What if there could only be a single room hinder active at a time, and someone laying down Piety where Distortion already exists makes Piety fail, or transitioning into bear stance in a room with a hinder already active just doesn't have the hinder component. That way the only aff you need to cure is the one relating to the 'primacy' room hinder, and raid groups need to decide what hinder is most effective for their composition (ie, which hinder has the aff they most likely can keep on their targets).

There could also be new uncommon skills for new classes where they can nuke a room hinder with a delay (like behead but for the hinder in the room) allowing hinder swaps as part of the 'rush' strategy. Move into the room with your opponent, someone manages to dunk their hinder and you throw up your own as part of dislodging their group.

Just spitballing.

Makarios

Vakvyr said:

I'd nerf paralysis. It is the cornerstone of Achaea combat. Consider how many classes' offense require paralysis/x affliction combo in almost every round.

Iirc another IRE game has done this and I know how not fond of copying the other games developers are, but maybe do partial paralysis. Instead of 100% hindrance there's a 75% chance instead. So it's still incredibly important to cure it but you're (possibly) not completely shut down if you take a second to cure something else. This has implications for locking and other aspects of combat but that just further proves my point about how the game is basically balanced around paralysis for better or worse.

Regarding stacking hinders: at a certain point isn't it acceptable to be locked down? 3/4+ people come in with the mind to keep you in the room, you probably should have to pull some bullshit to get out.

So, this one comes up a lot. I will say I have no issue copying other games if I think the idea is good or works well. That said, I am not a fan of the paralysis change the other games made, mostly for Achaea contextual reasons: I think it tends to work fine in those games.

I don't object to automation in combat - its not something I personally would choose to do if given the option, but my view is people should play Achaea the way which is most fun for them. That said, I do object to changes which raise the barrier for manual players while not impacting automation: which devaluing paralysis does do. The assumption of paralysis being a necessary prio 1 outside of edge cases which you know in advance it will be swapped for is so hugely important for most manual players, particularly the ones without huge numbers of hours of experience or very quick reflexes (the human kind).

So there probably is a better way to handle paralysis than we do at the moment, but I feel it is very easy to go too far in the other direction - because we have a huge number of assumptions built up around the role of paralysis in the current meta, some big and some small, some mechanics relevant and some player relevant.

Archaeon

Vakvyr said:

Archaeon said:

that's absolutely untrue, and that's the reason why most great fighters play prep classes. 

??? What I said applies to both momentum and prep kill paths. The point is that there are some kill paths where no amount of defense will let you live. Not every class has these kills. Some of these kills have always existed. There are just more of them now.

There are more: "This person has me prepped. If I walk into their room I die. So I guess I'll just fuck off until whatever resets."

There is only one class that this applies to, and even that is avoidable (so I've been told).  Every classes kill path can be avoided with defensive play, and prep classes shine in this aspect because you can shield/move/etc while still maintaining your limb damage on your target. So I'm saying no, it's not a 'race for the kill' but rather, people tend to die because they're not playing defensively when they should.  

Atalkez

Vakvyr said:

Archaeon said:

that's absolutely untrue, and that's the reason why most great fighters play prep classes. 

??? What I said applies to both momentum and prep kill paths. The point is that there are some kill paths where no amount of defense will let you live. Not every class has these kills. Some of these kills have always existed. There are just more of them now.

There are more: "This person has me prepped. If I walk into their room I die. So I guess I'll just fuck off until whatever resets."

I’m not sure where this is coming from. Every single class kill can be defensively mitigated. There is no one thing fits all, it’s entirely dependent on the class you’re fighting. However, there are counters to counters you take, and so in a perfect scenario you may die to the fork due to curing choices, but that’s intended counterplay otherwise no one would ever die.