I was thinking of using other games to compare to AO so I had a basis for what to expect from the implementation of some suggestions, and one thing that stood out to me is how static AO’s movement is.
Not only does the majority of the distance you travel originate from dashes and high jumps, which are inherently snappy movements, but also, the game forces you to be static during the execution of every move (windup + endlag).
Is this a thing that some of you consciously notice and are bothered by, or do you think it plays into the ‘vibe’ of AO as a sequel to WoM and AA? Would you miss it if it were replaced by more dynamic movements?
There’s also one feature I noticed that is weird among other armor stats: Dexterity (attack speed) has a double benefit to the player in the form of both decreased vulnerability (from shorter windup and endlag) and higher offense (faster damage opportunity and higher total DPS) in combat.
Pierce and Resistance require windups and endlags to realize their full potential. This creates a conflict between Dexterity and Pierce & Resistance builds because they go directly against each other: investing in one decreases the potential of the other, thus making them incompatible.
I’m constantly reminded of this when I get an armor piece that gives Resistance (which Vetex has been adding more of) while a Dexterity build is my preference, and it’s even worse when I’m given one that has both Dexterity and Res or Pierce, because I know it’s never reaching its full potential.
Going back to how movement works, its high acceleration also decreases the impact that the player feels when they get caught by a strong attack, because when you’re dashing back and forth all the time, you can’t really notice any interruptions to your movement if you suffer one, except for magic synergies.
Last time I dueled with someone, for example, I didn’t even notice that I was on the brink of death because I wasn’t looking at the HP bar, and that’s concerning because it means the game didn’t give me enough reason to fear I was suffering a lot of damage. This breaks the immersion a little bit for me.
Gliding around or falling and then getting stopped mid-motion by a heavy attack feels much more impactful, gives you an actual sense of threat because it forces you into vulnerability, and reminds you that blocking and parrying is critical, but since in AO the player is always snapping back and forth, any attack that could do that (besides grabs and magic synergies) just feels like another high damage number next to your character.
What do you think of this? Do you enjoy playing more when you have high dexterity or agility? Did the change to make the self-explosion spell not static make it more fun or usable to you? Would you like to see higher acceleration movements (like boat sailing) implemented in combat?
Here are some changes you could think about:
-
Remove Dexterity entirely and automatically add it as the player levels up, capping at a high number (like 300) at max lvl (I think the removal of Agility was well-received, so this shouldn’t be too extreme)
-
Add more dynamic movements to AO (like the recent self-explosion change)
-
Add a ‘roll’ move in the ctrl key, which gives the player a dash shorter than the regular one but that also fully inherits velocity at a lower deceleration (letting you travel around with more control but interrupting upon damage at a certain % of HP) (this would also mean that the sprint key goes to shift and flaunting goes to another one)
