Suggestion: Extended Combo System

[Reldhir]

Howdy all,

So... i was thinking about the combo system and how i think i could be improved, but first let me briefly describe why i think it needs to be improved.

Fluidity of combat
The combo system feels "kinda off" currently. Monsters move in somewhat unpredictable ways at the best of times, so positioning yourself for a combo can be quite difficult.

Also, flexibility in combat feels strained as it sometimes feels as though you are forced to use combos inorder to unleash your most powerful skills. Sometimes you want to use you're most powerful attacks but can't reach them via combos simply because a positioning strategy (Ifrit) or erratic movement of the mobs (moogles) prevents you from doing so.

Now i know you are not actually "forced" to use combos but idealy you want to get the most out of youre skills so combos are "potentially" a more efficient use of tp/mp, but only when you can manage to get them off.

Also, i realise the behaviour of mobs preventing use of the combo system could just be a strategy developers deploy to increase difficulty. But i ask, why add a system into the game that you plan on breaking with adjustments to enemy ai? Especially when this system seems to be the central concept surrounding combat now.

Yes, the combo system is what seems to be the central concept combat is based around.


Brief? haha yeah i know :P

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Now for the fun part, The Extended Combo System.

Currently our combo system works like 2 or 3 small trees (saplings really), you have 2 or 3 starting skills and they sometimes branch off to another skill. Heres the thing, none of the individual trees are related in anyway. You cant have skills from 'tree 1' branching into skills from 'tree 2', 'tree' 2 to 'tree 3',"tree 3 to 1 and so on.

So my suggestion is, why not interlace these trees, or better yet, rip them out and replace them with something more akin to a web or lattice? We can connect these individual combo trees by forming connections via combos between them.

I know, I know, "You plan on fixing the combo system... by adding more combos...?" sounds absurd yes? But hear me out first. haha

It's quite simple really, by having multiple routes you can take to reach your more powerful skills you instantly become more flexible in combat as you are not restricted to the same starting position everytime you want to use the skill.

As an example, take the Lancer's Chaos Thrust. Currently, there the only way to reach this via combo is through Vorpal Thrust, the requirement is that you must use this skill from behind the target, and land it sucessfully. Now you may be in a solo situation where movement behind the target is very difficult, thus preventing you from accessing this combo tree. Now, in the case of the Lancer, there are only 2 major combo trees, True Thrust combo and Vorpal Thrust combo. By taking out the ability to trigger Vorpal Thrusts combo, the game effectively halves the number of skills the Lancer has, in turn reducing it's flexibility in combat.

However, if we introduced a network/lattice-like system, Chaos Thrust in the 'Vorpal thrust combo tree' can be utilised via a combo link from the 'True thrust combo tree' thus enabling the use of latter skills in the 'Vorpal Thrust tree' without having to activate Vorpal Thrust.

Now, im not saying let every skill be tied together in every which way imaginable, but there must be some sort of link between trees, there must be multiple routes that can be taken to acheive the end goal.

Also, why not have combos that stack upon the same skill? (using lancers as example again) True Thrust, True Thrust, Ring of Talons? it could add more variety in play style and a new flavour to combat.

And again, I know there are much more simpler ways around these problems than changing the combo system, but this is just one way i think would work, and a much more fufilling and fun way at that. (FUN being the keyword here )

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Very quickly, I know some people will say we will be too powerful, or you only want to change this to become more powerful. Yes its true i want to be more powerful, but you can always counterbalance this by adding or removing effects when skills are comboed in "cross-tree" so to speak. (personally i think the cooldown timers on skills manage this quite well already) Remember my objective with this idea is to make battles more fluid and random and just generally more fun, if we become more powerful through it then awesome for us haha.

Also, instead of just giving us combos as we learn the skill, maybe we could gain these combos through quests? perhaps grand company combo manuals or something, even an ancient "mastery of the way of the combo" book lol, could be dropped from NMs or something. Perhaps even a combination of the above haha.

But anywho theres probably more to be said on the topic, but its very early morning for me so im still a bit slow at the moment haha, so we'll leave it at that for now.

Please feel free to comment, suggest, whatever, both positive and negative welcome. (Though hopefully more or the former hehe)

[cha0sking]

The combo system has no issues, for example, in a battle to activate a combo you have to link your motions in a fluid manner, the pugilist for example, would hit facing the enemy to dizzy, ten to the side to blind, the to the back to knockout. face->side->back, very logical. If the monster is too strong then the combo should have difficulty continuing, as the mob is resisting its effect and moving to cancel.

[Signy]

There you have....

[Enfarious]

I have to agree, mostly while solo they're a pain sometimes and I have WSs that simply don't get used.

I'd be far more interested in seeing party strategies in combos, a lancers true thrust could open the way for the side attacks from any other job which in turn could open the way for any other jobs rear attacks, Or a gla could "fast blade" and someone could follow w/ a side/read attack.
Perhaps these could cause the same effect as in a solo combo, just more potent in some way, or maybe they cause additional effects: confusion(the mob attacks friend/foe randomly for 15secs), off-balance(lowers def/eva), ..., . Add in some resistance down effects that only activate when using a team combo and not when solo'd to give us a reason to try to coordinate our attacks instead of the current "yeah I'm in a party, but I'm really just doing my thing over here, the other party members actions mean squat to me" battle mechanics.

You lose nothing in solo play, can still pt w/o using team based strategies, but if you choose to incorporate team strategies there's added benefits; A reward for working well w/ others if you will.

[Reldhir]

The combo system has no issues, for example, in a battle to activate a combo you have to link your motions in a fluid manner, the pugilist for example, would hit facing the enemy to dizzy, ten to the side to blind, the to the back to knockout. face->side->back, very logical. If the monster is too strong then the combo should have difficulty continuing, as the mob is resisting its effect and moving to cancel.

For a second there i thought you were talking about movement skills, like being able to dash to their left/right or maybe mages can teleport behind them haha (That could work too mind you, but i dunno how the games engine would cope with that much "action" oriented combat haha )

But yeah i get what you mean, if they streamline the requirements for pulling off the combos a little better might help to make it feel a lot more fluid, just the way im suggesting lets you figure out how to make the most efficient path yourself. Plus you get to mix it up a little bit for some little bit of individuality if thats your thing.

I have to agree, mostly while solo they're a pain sometimes and I have WSs that simply don't get used.

I'd be far more interested in seeing party strategies in combos, a lancers true thrust could open the way for the side attacks from any other job which in turn could open the way for any other jobs rear attacks, Or a gla could "fast blade" and someone could follow w/ a side/read attack.
Perhaps these could cause the same effect as in a solo combo, just more potent in some way, or maybe they cause additional effects: confusion(the mob attacks friend/foe randomly for 15secs), off-balance(lowers def/eva), ..., . Add in some resistance down effects that only activate when using a team combo and not when solo'd to give us a reason to try to coordinate our attacks instead of the current "yeah I'm in a party, but I'm really just doing my thing over here, the other party members actions mean squat to me" battle mechanics.

You lose nothing in solo play, can still pt w/o using team based strategies, but if you choose to incorporate team strategies there's added benefits; A reward for working well w/ others if you will.

Cool idea, but I think what youre after is more along the lines of maybe battle regimines? (did i spell that correctly?) SE took those out of the game and are currently working to reimplement it, dunno when though

Sorry if i misunderstood the post

[Aldarin]

Actually, The multiple combo trees seem to be set up that way on purpose. Take LNC, the combos from the front end up stunning the mob, which is very useful while soloing. The other combo Back-->Side--> Any is a lower accuracy/high damage combo, for when playing solely as a DD. Also, you can pull of the rear combo when soloing, as I think almost every martial class has a stun (bind in ARC case), allowing the movement to the correct point.

For example, build up 2500tp on LNC,
True Thrust --> Heavy Thrust --> move behind mob -->
Vorpal Thrust --> Side mob (should still be stunned) --> Impulse Drive --> Chaos Thrust.
Then pull off a True Thrust --> Leg Sweep --> Doomspike to stun the mob again while waiting for heavy thrust.

[Enfarious]

Cool idea, but I think what youre after is more along the lines of maybe battle regimines? (did i spell that correctly?) SE took those out of the game and are currently working to reimplement it, dunno when though

You didn't misunderstand, and I know they took them out, I remember how well they didn't work at all during beta and release, right up to when they said "We're going to rethink battle regimens", I think all of us at the time had the impression that we'd get something equivalent back, but that was not at all the case. Instead they gave us a very useful tool for soloing, and one that works in a party but in a party it kills the idea of DDs working together. Well beyond just "hey you stand over there and I'll stand here and we can mash combo's to see who hits harder" which isn't working together in a meaningful way.

I do like the combo system and would hate to see it go away, but I'd like to see it be diversified to allow for multi-person combos, not the sublimely broken regimens where you had to stop doing everything and queue actions then wait on everyone else to queue some actions and then wait some more til someone closed it out then wait some more while your actions went off. If by some miracle noone died, your target didn't wander off, and the queue executed properly it was ... well it was sad.
Not meaning to rant about a system that's no longer present sorry.
I can't remember how many "fix battle regimens before release" threads there were during beta but it was ALOT.

[Enfarious]

Actually, The multiple combo trees seem to be set up that way on purpose. Take LNC, the combos from the front end up stunning the mob, which is very useful while soloing. The other combo Back-->Side--> Any is a lower accuracy/high damage combo, for when playing solely as a DD. Also, you can pull of the rear combo when soloing, as I think almost every martial class has a stun (bind in ARC case), allowing the movement to the correct point.

For example, build up 2500tp on LNC,
True Thrust --> Heavy Thrust --> move behind mob -->
Vorpal Thrust --> Side mob (should still be stunned) --> Impulse Drive --> Chaos Thrust.
Then pull off a True Thrust --> Leg Sweep --> Doomspike to stun the mob again while waiting for heavy thrust.

That example does work, I use it whenever I can partly cause it's fun, and partly because it keeps me from taking dmg for a fair bit of time.
But most jobs, not all of them, don't have abilities that can bind/stun from the front, and I don't know how many times you've tried to slide around to the side of a mob before it turns to face you and get in that "from the side bind", but it's certainly far from guaranteed.
It's not to say that all of the combos aren't useful in some way or at some times, since at the very least combos that originate from the side or back are very useful in "boss" fights.
Maybe I'm just missing working together with people to achieve weaponskill(skillchain) effects that are greater than I could on my own. Or allowing someone else to expose an enemies weakest point that I might add the tip of my spear to the soft tissue that's there ...