Changes to the combat scene in the last year

Edric

Hello Imperian! I apologize if this post sounds whiny--it's totally not my intention! English isn't my first language and my word choice is not always as on-point as I'd like. 

I played very briefly (maybe for a month or two?) about a year ago, but got a bit discouraged by the dynamics of PvP combat and decided to stop playing. This game is really cool, though, and I'd like to come back. I just had a quick question or two about the PvP scene.

First of all, has newbie participation increased? I realize the irony here, considering that if noobs (like me!) keep getting discouraged and throwing the towel early, noob participation won't ever get better. Has it increased though? Are there new/clueless/derpy people involved in the PvP scene now, or is it mostly just the pros still? If PvP has a wider spectrum of players participating, maybe I can find a niche where I belong and even stand a chance (and not just be pro fodder again).

Thanks guys!

Iniar

@Edric
What discouraged you most about PvP before?

Edric

@Iniar

For pretty much the entire time I played, PvP consisted of the 5 super amazing artied-out pro PvP people from AM against their equivalents in Magick. They let me tag along, of course, but I contributed nothing to fights and died instantly. I get that dying has no penalty, but it was terribly boring to just be dead all the time.

That's why what interests me most is whether PvP has branched out somehow in this last year and whether more noobs participate, or if it's still 5v5 with the Faker and Messi and Daigo of Imperian. I don't mind losing, I guess I just want to play against similar people every now and then.

Alternatively, if there is an opportunity for spontaneous PvP against randos (and not the organized 5v5 around shardfalls or whatever) through some new mechanic, that would be cool too. 

Kryss

I wish I could tell you it was different from that now, but really, it isn't. Whilst the level of participation varies from event to event, circle to circle, you will in general see the same people fighting over and over, with group combat like that often being a race to dish out the most damage with the most people. I don't like group fights with more than three people a side a personally, with two being even better but those smaller skirmishes are far rarer. I don't really know why, but despite all the changes we've made to make combat easier to get involved in, people are getting involved less and less. For what it's worth, I'm always happy to try and setup small fights, duels or whatever else and to help you or -anyone- else out with anything combat related.

Edric

That's fine, perhaps I'm just approaching this the wrong way. Maybe all it takes is a few noobs to start dying a bunch to invite other noobs to give it a try. 

I have a few other questions, but I don't want to clutter the forums with new topics, so perhaps I can hijack my own thread here. Related to that last bit... I vaguely remember PK rules being kinda specific as to what circumstances were necessary to engage in combat. Is there something I could do, as a member of any of the factions here, that would encourage people to come fight me? Ideally something that wouldn't encourage the elite hit squad to instagib me, but I understand if there is little gray area. Basically open windows of opportunity for combat to occur is what I'm asking about. 

My other question is completely unrelated. Is the new default client adequate for playing competitively now? The email about it is what reminded me about the existence of IRE games in general and brought me back.

Iniar

(1) yes, just send out market tells or shouts asking for spars or duels around your might. Personally, I would advise against spars, duels are cheaper. I would be happy to log on to my magick alt to fight with you if I am not doing anything interesting with Iniar/real-life, just send me a PM when you're on.

(2) default client is competitive 1v1 but don't take it to a group fight.

Edric

@Iniar for (2), why? Is it too spammy and not capable of blocking (I'm sure that's not the right word) like other clients?

Also thanks for the quick replies, guys.

Iniar

When I ran with it into a melee of 5v5, it basically froze. It's not just the 'lag' or 'spam' it simply didn't respond to input until all the information came through. I still think it's nice though. Also, the word you're probably looking for is 'gagging'.

Khizan

Kryss said:

I don't really know why, but despite all the changes we've made to make combat easier to get involved in, people are getting involved less and less. 

People like you and Mathiaus play the cheesiest high-throughput pubstomper affliction classes in the game; this is a big part of why people get involved less in conflict with you and aren't willing to go fight against your random harassment attacks on Sevienn and such. Going out and getting stomped by that is no fun whatsoever. 

If you want people to go fight you more, try switching out of Wytch v1.4 for something that most people can actually put up a fight against.

EDIT: This isn't to say that I don't run around with my own ludicrous pubstomper, because I totally do; I just don't go around talking about how nobody will get into fights with it.

Kryss

I get the same response regardless of class and I'm not the only one, things have been going this way for a good while now. And insert some comment here about how people don't actually want to make an effort to cure better or learn new stuff, because believe it not, you can fight better against things like Diab, Wytch and Monk if you put in effort. That's not to say these (and other) classes are fine, but I was under the impression curing and combat awareness was just as much a part of the game as brute forcing every situation.

Iniar

@Edric

Ignoring what everyone else has said, dying instantly in groups is a symptom of

(a) not enough artifacts

(b) everyone leaning on the damage button

This hasn't improved with the current meta of more-damage-please.

Your options are

(a) arrive late to the party, every time, so you're not two-shotted

(b) leave the room with every escape skill at your disposal when you're under attack, if you're fortunate enough to get your responses in before you die

(c) always run starburst/redemption

(d) buy defensive artifacts

(e) get a tanky class - in AM, that's priest, templar. Your outrider is reasonable-y tanky but you'll still end up running a lot.

(f) re-focus your emphasis on solo combat

Hit up @Dreacor for tips on surviving as an Outrider.

Also, try and get up to level 90+, preferably, 95+.

Khizan

Kryss said:

I get the same response regardless of class

You only really ever play the FOTM affliction overload class, so that's not surprising.

That aside... yes. Curing and awareness is part of combat; that is undeniable; the problem is that beating somebody like a drum in ~20 seconds doesn't teach much of anything to people who aren't already very familiar with the combat system. And, realistically, what most of people are going to learn is that they don't have a feasible method of killing a good Wytch. It's possible to do better against them, yes, but most people just don't have the ability to push a successful offense through a Wytch's offense. That's not entirely a matter of skill, either; it is largely a matter of the rock/paper/scissors 1v1 class balance being slanted in favour of the Wytch, and you know that.

If you want people to fight you, you need to be worth fighting. Most people are willing to fight when they're not certain to win it, but few are willing to fight when they're certain to lose. You get way more 1v1/2v2/ fights when you show up with something that people think they have a chance of beating. 

Iniar

@Edric

A few more points:

- the learning process for combat is painful, expect to die a lot. As an example, the last 2-3 weeks I've been dying heaps to a whole bunch of randoms while re-writing a majority of my system. Yet in doing so, I've written a few new defensive techniques, including semi-beating a 33% uptime transfix, improving my ability to prevent paralysis and better handling versus monk - I wouldn't haven't gotten any of these if I hadn't fought (and lost) to these people. 

- have mental set points of importance - I use these all the time. While some players are really hard-up about winning (and winning is everything etc, etc), I really look for key points in a fight to take away and use as further improvement. For example, solo forcing an L3 axe highfavoured Templar into handsing consecutively as a zero damage-enhanced Runeguard is a point of importance with me. Regardless of the arguments around balance etc, to me, this point in the fight is important to me because if all things being equal I would have a much bigger probability of winning. Many fights I walk away from or just let people win because I have already reached that point - where demonstrably I have already bested my opponent, or reached a key point in the fight. Whether they run away for five minutes and return again to keep trying the same thing, it almost doesn't matter. I have achieved my goal.

Dicene

Khizan said:

Kryss said:

I get the same response regardless of class

You only really ever play the FOTM affliction overload class, so that's not surprising.

That aside... yes. Curing and awareness is part of combat; that is undeniable; the problem is that beating somebody like a drum in ~20 seconds doesn't teach much of anything to people who aren't already very familiar with the combat system. And, realistically, what most of people are going to learn is that they don't have a feasible method of killing a good Wytch. It's possible to do better against them, yes, but most people just don't have the ability to push a successful offense through a Wytch's offense. That's not entirely a matter of skill, either; it is largely a matter of the rock/paper/scissors 1v1 class balance being slanted in favour of the Wytch, and you know that.

If you want people to fight you, you need to be worth fighting. Most people are willing to fight when they're not certain to win it, but few are willing to fight when they're certain to lose. You get way more 1v1/2v2/ fights when you show up with something that people think they have a chance of beating. 

The vast majority of that response is equally applicable to FOTM turbo-axe-murder-knights that kill you in 3 combos. Just sayin.

Khizan

Yeah, of course it does.

Hell, I'm a turboswording murderdancer that kills people in one combo; I just don't roam around with my 500 damage doomcombo wondering why nobody wants to come get oneshot fight, because I know that I can't reasonably expect anybody to enjoy that.

Khizan

Iniar said:

- have mental set points of importance - I use these all the time. While some players are really hard-up about winning (and winning is everything etc, etc), I really look for key points in a fight to take away and use as further improvement. For example, solo forcing an L3 axe highfavoured Templar into handsing consecutively as a zero damage-enhanced Runeguard is a point of importance with me. Regardless of the arguments around balance etc, to me, this point in the fight is important to me because if all things being equal I would have a much bigger probability of winning. Many fights I walk away from or just let people win because I have already reached that point - where demonstrably I have already bested my opponent, or reached a key point in the fight. Whether they run away for five minutes and return again to keep trying the same thing, it almost doesn't matter. I have achieved my goal.

Along these lines, I recommend trying to look at group fights strategically. In a recent caravan battle against Iniar I had a personal kills-per-death rate of 0.5 and my side came out on the bottom of the killcount as well, 8 to 11. Those are terrible numbers and it was a crushing defeat... for Iniar's side.

That's because the fight wasn't about who got more kills; it was about whether or not magick would take the caravan and the caravan made it to safety. Low personal stats do not mean that your contribution was meaningless or unimportant.

Mereis

I think the damage meta has also made a lot of people blind to other kinds of kills, namely, timed instakills. I racked up a few Unleash Golgothas and Death Tarot kills because apparently people don't highlight those anymore (except @Septus, damn you!)

My kill:death ratio is something like 1:100 (?) because I'm wet paper. The air whoosh before a reave kills me. But, if I'm not lazy or manage to set things up properly, I can use a lot of escape skills to prevent quick death. So there are ways around dying too quickly. But even if you die within 2 seconds of an engagement, as long as you know what to do, you can still contribute. You can mash your own damage and if the rest of your group does the same, that can contribute. Etc. etc.

Dreacor

It's true that proper movements and escaping skills does matter. If you know that you're going to be first target in team combat, right when you encounter enemies, use escaping skills. That way your enemies try to hit you first, but can't find you in the room. That will buy time to your team members, even if it was a second, that could be decisive amount of time when it comes to end result.

As @Iniar said earlier, get in the room a bit later. Or if you use escaping skills, wait a bit outside of the room where the fight is, and then get in there and hit the announced target if there is one. Even if you raze once your enemy, you can give opportunity to your teams hard hitter to deal a lot of damage, instead that he's going to raze and deal less damage there.

Every person in team combat counts.

Also, if you ask people what you could have done better or what got you down, most of the people will answer to that. At least I like to fight against strong players, challenge my combat awareness and try to find a way to improve myself, so I answer if anyone asks me questions about our fights. That way I can help people to get better and face them and challenge myself once again.

Be curious, join in fights, spar or duel people and you'll get better.

Ultrix

Iniar said:

@Edric

Also, try and get up to level 90+, preferably, 95+.

We need another Land of Cairnae-fest again, or some similar power-leveling equivalent for those who want it. Bashing to level 100 to get max health/mana is, in the words of Khizan, "awful and unfun and horrible". 

Jules

If being truly "better" than your opponent (even if you don't actually win) is super important to you, there is a great chance that you are either going to be immensely frustrated or engage in a lot of self delusion.  Maybe both!  You are up against very smart people with just the right set of talents to excel at text pew pewing, many of whom been focused on text combat like lasers for many, many years.  But, I totally agree that you should be looking for things you can fix, and that can make many fights seem a lot more productive, especially if you can look at it almost exclusively from that point of view.  Sometimes, the takeaway really is "no way I can tank that" if you squish and they do lots of damage.

I would rather find ways to contribute to a team and take my lumps when I occasionally "1 v 1" people (mostly because I am fighting the sort of people I mentioned, but also because I really am not set up for 1 v 1 mechanically, I am set up for groups).  In a lot of ways, you have a better chance of learning this way.  You will be exposed to all sorts of abilities, sometimes used in conjuction, and you will usually have just a few key improvements and questions to take away from each fight.  Finally, you will be able to ask for advice from people who were there.  It's also good to think strategically about what constitutes a win for the team, as Khizan mentioned.   

If you're first target in a big group it's brutal.  When I was less tanky I would lose the group before they went in, or (less successfully in my case) try to leave a fight in progress.  You're soaking up some damage no matter what, which is probably helpful, but if you make them switch targets (and then back to you) I am guessing that might be better.  Lately, with totems and vortex, I've been seriously considering ditching my group again before they go in, and entering just a bit later.  Actually though, there is a really good chance of being vortexed OUT of the room during a group fight in progress, especially if there are multiple runelore users.  You really need double blocks (or something similar) on every exit, too (which you probably won't have the people for), because the totem person is very likely going to beat you at taking walls down vs. putting them back up.  The totem/vortex actually feels like it's most devastating in this situation (so is the throw person up in the air, pull back down into totem Danaeus thing, but that's probably even several shades harsher).  

Anyway, once you're in the room these days though, there's a good chance you are NOT leaving if you're primary target, even with flip boots, so I'd definitely go for the arrive late option.  The damage is certainly real, especially for primary target at the beginning of a fight.  But, so is wall of afflictions, which seems to happen more in single fights and small teams.  It happens FAST, much like the incredible damage, but feels even more frustrating because there will probably be no escaping for a breather like Mereis mentions with damage, and you are probably just going to be immobilized until your inevitable death.

Oystir

From my experience, as almost an exclusively newb fighter and somebody who is absolutely not privvy to the intricacies of most Imperian classes, there is a LOT of opportunity to jump in. If you are discouraged, check it, because of consequence free dying, the only thing that should discourage you is somebody saying you suck (and sometimes that person might be you, look into that).

Once you kiss away the idea that you will be a game-changing fighter, you just need to find your niche. I'm useless strategically, but I know how to entangle using my class and I know how to mash damage. Like has been said, just get out and go for it. The victories are in lasting one more round than last time, escaping and being chased around for 2 minutes to pull people off your team, even just being a bag of meat helps, even if you're a bag of meat that falls in one round - that's a round the rest of your team didn't tank, that's one more person for them to have to coordinate attacking, and trust me, every tiny bit of team fighting helps, especially when you have a good team, which every circle can provide you at this point.

Mostly, the PvP environment here -is- different. Compared to the other IRE games I've played, you really do have 'fighters' and 'non fighters', and there's little overlap and little opportunity for consequence-free involvement. I remember being so staunchly against doing anything in Aetolia because there was no certainty I'd die once and then be able to go back to playing a game, but people in Imperian are willing to let that happen. In fact, Imperian wipes that all out, takes away penalties for playing, and then lays out playing fields every several hours.

If you are interested in combat, Imperian is where to do it.

Edric

Oystir said:

From my experience, as almost an exclusively newb fighter and somebody who is absolutely not privvy to the intricacies of most Imperian classes, there is a LOT of opportunity to jump in. If you are discouraged, check it, because of consequence free dying, the only thing that should discourage you is somebody saying you suck (and sometimes that person might be you, look into that). 

That sounds great, honestly. Out of sheer curiosity, what circle gave you that impression? I played AM last year, and there was a big crowd that seemed interested in joining/learning. This time around I'm going to give Demonic a try, just to meet some new faces. Ideally there would be newish fighters on the other circles that I might be able to get into some scuffles with (like the bolded part suggests).

Jules

It really is (THE place to be in IRE if you are interested in learning combat).  I don't think any other game in IRE offers the chance to play with their awesome PvP system the way that Imperian does.  Period.  The other games are pretty much two completely separate games on a a single server - although of course the PvP game is always trying to invade the largely unwilling non-PvP side of the game.  And they're unwilling because they're not just going to "lose", they're going to be forced to go "grind" for the crime of being bads. 

Iniar

@Edric
One step at a time buddy. Good luck.

Khizan

Edric said:

This time around I'm going to give Demonic a try, just to meet some new faces. 

  This is a good idea, honestly. AM has a lot of relatively low-tier people to fight, so you should have better luck picking fights out in the real world. And as far as low/no artifact classes go, Summoner and Deathknight are absolute beasts.

Edric

Yeah. I suppose it if turns out to not be my cuppa tea, there's always Edric to go back to.

How easy is it to pick fights? Would people typically respond well to it? I don't mean going to a popular area and trapping/killing newbies that are just figuring the game out--I mean doing something to get the attention of... Perhaps other like-minded people? People that are bad at combat and want to get better, or something like that, but aren't total noobs. 

Would people pay any attention to that, or just send The Big Guy to collect my head?

Khizan

If I see a little guy out trying to start stuff, I usually try and send a little guy out to fight them. Failing that, I just ignore them unless they are being particularly obnoxious.

Maybe I'll start taking off all my artifacts and attacking them with a shortsword or something.

Iniar

@Dreacor, @Mereis, @Oystir... Who else. @Ario. There are a few who would be keen to have a fight, just ask around.

Ario

I'll put up a disclaimer on my fighting capabilities: I fight in stuff because it's fun and I'm a team player kinda guy. If you're looking for 'hey, I need advice on how to do this' don't come to me. :P I'd be glad to punch it out with people though.

I'm sorry @Dreacor for ignoring your requests to fight for the last few days been busy with guild stuff.

@iniar

Mereis

Same boat with @Ario! I just like watching things burn.

EDIT: And I haven't been around a lot, unfortunately. Busy season of the year has started again for me.

Rasca

I'm always happy to have no-arti duels with folks who ask. Imperian combat is fun and consequence free, so why not?