The combat system of the high fantasy/SF-MMO Skyforge is supposed to be something special, according to the developers of Team Allods.
In a video and a Dev-Blog, the minds behind the upcoming MMO Skyforge have now explained how they devised the combat system in a kind of trial-and-error system. The combat system constitutes 90% of a modern MMO. And if that is boring, you can forget everything else. It doesn’t matter what other features you have. Therefore, Team Allods has dedicated a team specifically for the combat system.
A dash of World of Warcraft, a pinch of Devil may Cry, a thimble full of Mortal Combat
In development, they initially relied on proven methods, using a classic MMORPG tab-targeting combat system. However, a simple “1,2,1,3,4” quickly became boring. Therefore, the Russian developers of Skyforge decided to move in a “more dynamic” direction from the classic tab system. They started with a combat system inspired by “World of Warcraft” and then drew inspiration from titles such as God of War, Devil may Cry, and Darksiders.
For the auto-attacks, they used alternating animations so that not every hit looks the same. The new auto-attack begins where the old one left off, creating a flow.
Once they reached this point, the transition to a “combo system” similar to that found in fighters (Mortal Combat, Tekken, Street Fighter) was easy. Heroes such as the Paladin could, for example, trigger a combo after three auto-attacks with a special attack that launches the opponent into the air.
Since such combos did not work at range, they decided to focus more on individual skills, such as chargeable shots and spells.
When designing the opponents, they oriented themselves on packs of enemies, where the individual mobs fulfill different functions. Players must respond to enemy skills; they can be dodged.
Combat Fatigue – the “WildStar” trap
Now they had strayed so far from the “classic MMO” that they took it a step further and shifted the focus from the keyboard to the mouse. They controlled the character through it as in a first-person shooter and moved most combat actions to the mouse buttons.
Now the developers realized that they had created a system that captivated the player, but was so intense that MMO players could not endure it for long. “Combat fatigue” set in (a problem that also plagued the SF-MMO WildStar). It emerged after 8-10 hours, which roughly corresponds to the time it takes a gamer to complete an action game.
What worked in a single-player game was hard to impose on MMO players, who played continuously and for significantly longer times. Therefore, they went back and implemented “facilitating features.” Such as targeting with the tab key and setting a focus target, allowing skills to count against that target.
Supporters play a strategically crucial role
And thus, they landed in an arcade-like action MMO and identified the next problem: “The healers.” In such a system, they had little place.
So they decided to remove a classic “healer class” from the game and instead develop supporter classes that would take on a strategically important role in every battle.
Healing will still be present in the game, but not tied to a “healer class.”
The first supporter class in the rather fairly complex class system will be the “Lightbinder“.
Will Skyforge also come to Xbox One and Playstation 4?
With so many arcade elements, a port to consoles seems likely, that has been declined so far, but a port could be well imagined for later. A controller will not be supported at the beginning of the PC version.
However, that is something that has been considered. An internal version of Skyforge exists that can be played with a controller.
