If it wasn’t obvious enough, I am heavily against this change if it goes through, and yes, I’ve seen the replies about how it’ll make PVP more intuitive through “slower, digestible movement” and how it would make exploration and doing ANYTHING more tedious due to the core movement changes being more ground-based (which means dark sea islands, bounty hunting, climbing stepstones/othrys, and most bosses become more of a pain in the ass), but I’ve yet to see any point about this.
The message was from March 7th in vetcord (unsure abt patreon chat cuz im poor) and for all we know, the reception could’ve been positive or negative, but if Vet doesn’t answer here, I’ll assume not a lot really cared. From the 2+ years in this community, Vetex REALLY likes to add more and more ambitious features to the roster of every upcoming update, most get added, and some don’t (kingdom alignment). Quite frankly, if I wanted more Elden Ring-esque combat, I would play the actual game instead of a game that claims to inspire from it, but is instead focusing on two aspects of gameplay with barely any cohesion last minute (putting grounded combat with aoe attacks doesn’t sound fun). If this change ONLY affected PVP, I wouldn’t have strong opinions, but this change would affect the ENTIRE GAME. Point is, Vetex might bite off a little more than he can chew with this change and the update in general, as he still has to finish more islands, start the extra chapter after skyhall, and maybe even the fleet system idk, this update is NOT coming out in june if that’s the case which really sucks.
Now imagine this group of people who don’t stay in touch with the forums, vetcord, or any AO-related community. They play for a bit, learn some of the basic mechanics, then leave. Fast-forward to the new update, if this change goes through, they play it, realize their movement is revamped and struggle to make progress. Most continue playing while some complain or quit (every time an update drops comes many low-effort posts about trivial game additions, imagine the amount of posts about this if it goes through). If I’m the dev, why would I want a change like this ward away a small, but considerable portion of the playerbase, when I can keep adding features like spirit weapons, new weapon skills, and a PVP toggle that’ll make everyone happy? I don’t want an update of this scale be flopped by changes like this (nimbus release bruh that was the worst update imo if ykwim)
Let’s not even get started on the possible lore implications, amount of balancing required, and all the stuff required to go right to not compromise the perception of this update. (i still remember how the community wanted monthly updates and look how that turned out 
)