Mounted Combat 2.0: A Tale of Problems & Solutions

[Sapience]

"A few months back, a small group of us started to meet and discuss what we would like to build for Mounted Combat 2.0. We started by looking at your feedback from the first implementation of the feature that went live with Riders of Rohan. By far, the biggest complaint was that people were having trouble with the War-Steed movement."

Read the full developer's diary.

[Fredelas]

I really like the fact that the maneuverability traits previously in the yellow trait line will be built-in to every war-steed. This lets me spend my trait points on more interesting things. Because let's face it, when a trait feels mandatory, there's no real decision involved, and it's not very fun.

I hope Turbine keeps these same concepts in mind when working on the race, virtue, and class traits revamp in Helm's Deep.

[Ukhidden]

Still the biggest problem isn't solved at all. Lag.

It's impossible to enjoy mounted combat with the choppy movements and sudden teleportations. Having 130ms ping couldn't possibly be the primary issue to the 2 second delays (if you calculate it, it's over 10 times as much). Feeling like you're having no control at all in tight places makes you just want to go back to the regular steeds to never return to using war-steeds again.

[Lenton]

I'm really sad that burglars lost their one ranged skill. No more starting out from ranged with a light bleed.


Really, why do burglars have to be melee only? I want a few ranged attacks. Even champions get a bow.

[Crell_1]

Almost every class had a handful of skills tuned up to deal more damage, in particular the Runekeeper and Burglar who were simply not up to snuff with some of their skill damage.

The DPS while frustrating, didn't really matter if it wasn't a smooth gameplay feel. Unlike my champ and runekeeper, my Burg had significant FPS issues when using specific skills. I hope that some of the MC client-side engine performance was optimized as well.

I hope Turbine keeps these same concepts in mind when working on the race, virtue, and class traits revamp in Helm's Deep.

I am concerned that I may lose my class identity as a result of these changes, especially as simplification was mentioned as an initial goal. I hope that we maintain a solid class identity and a reasonable level of complexity that keeps the game enjoyable and distinct on each different class.

[CaptainSnark]

I'd be a lot more excited about these updates if I knew that you guys were also prioritizing some of the lag issues with mounted combat. As it is, it's nearly unplayable for me because of hitching/freezing up/major FPS drops.

[DanteIL]

Very interesting Developer Diary. I am cautiously optimistic that the Burglar MC, in particular, will be improved. A new trick sounds promising.

Are these changes coming with Update 11, then? (sorry, if I missed that). And relatedly, when the level cap goes to 95 with the next expansion, will we get a Warsteed level raise as well?

[Brodrick]

Please fix the lag/rubberbanding.....that is much more pressing....

[Fredelas]

I agree with the other posters who are concerned about client-server issues in terms of movement.

Even with a consistent < 50ms latency and 0% packet loss, my light war-steed frequently lurches around. Even though I have my horse set to always gallop, its speed will fluctuate between 1 and 15 meters per second unpredictably.

It certainly doesn't handle like I'd expect for a descendant of the Mearas.

[ShireDweller]

Putting the yellow line movement traits into the base skill set of the horses is a great idea, I look forward to seeing what my warsteeds are like with the points spent on other skills now.

[Khiris-Alder]

I'm really sad that burglars lost their one ranged skill. No more starting out from ranged with a light bleed.


Really, why do burglars have to be melee only? I want a few ranged attacks. Even champions get a bow.

I agree: I am sick in advance every time I must play my burglar on its war steed; this is a corvee and it will be worst without ranged skills.
The biggest issues with mounted combat are lags and rubberbanging as said above :/

[Krysstofur]

1)Not quite specific to the warsteeds, but more their use.
Given that mounted combat steeds handle like bathtubs with an outboard motor in water, less pokey, sticking out things around (what seems to be every opening in Rohan) the openings in travel paths would be a real boon. Also, why is every street in SB lined with protrusions and posts? I feel like Rohan's architecture doesn't really reflect (plan for) horse use when it is so easy to snag one's horse every 3-4 feet. Why all the stone walls?

2)My Heavy is so big that I cannot ride up to something and pick it up or use it often, especially mailboxes. "too far away" Increase what the game considers close enough please.

[SavinDwarf]

"A few months back, a small group of us started to meet and discuss what we would like to build for Mounted Combat 2.0. We started by looking at your feedback from the first implementation of the feature that went live with Riders of Rohan. By far, the biggest complaint was that people were having trouble with the War-Steed movement."

Read the full developer's diary.

One minor thing that would be a big help doesn't need any technology at all. What would be great is Turbine could describe the role that they see for each class in a mounted environment. As you said, you are working towards a new definition of the roles, but if we don't know your definition we all argue of the features and 90% will be because we are not on the same page.

Mounted combat by its nature must be different from on foot combat, so classes will not have identical roles to the ones they are used to on foot.

Many of us might be a lot happier if we just knew what we are meant to be doing. [I know a lot will say it doesn't make any difference, but I think the speed and dynamics make it very different. For example, making something run away in a dynamic mounted battle is very different from normal combat where I tend to know which direction they will run.]

There are nine classes, so we might have nine classes of mounted or... perhaps less if we just merge some.

There are three classes of Mount (heavy Cavalry, Cavalry and Light Cavalry). I put my Ranger on a light mount because I guess I saw a mounted ranger as a mounted archer and for that we need speed not armor and strength. ....

Savin

[Namesse]

I'm actually ok with the dps of my medium steed burg, when she actually gets a hit in after wheeling around the target and getting back into melee range; is the dps increase to account for the "down time" between hits? My heavy steed guardian, that is painful, low dps and slow combat speed.

[Whart]

This sounds like some needed improvements. However, I've never been able to do much MC at all because it literally makes me ill. If it didn't freeze and shoot forward and freeze and shoot forward and fling itself all over the screen maybe I could handle it a little better (although the constant circular motion required still probably would be hard to deal with). So probably no matter what they do to the skills and traits and whatever, I'm going to fight on foot while my friends fight on horseback.

[bastiat1]

Yet again Turbine devotes developer resources to fixing that which isn't broken while ignoring that which is. Mounted Combat will always suck until you develop the tech to eliminate the max to zero speed jerking.

[toadriver]

Problem #1 .... Problem #2 ... clueless

The only problem is the rubber-banding! ... the ru-b-b-erb-a-n-d-ing!
How could that not have been understood by the team that discussed it?

Here's some real feedback: for me, the rubberbanding was initially not so horrible.
With update 9, it became horrible.

[Darlgon]

Interesting blog, and once again, falls under the, when it goes live, we will see how it really shakes out..Sounds pretty cheery. Sadly, Turbine always sounds quite chipper and then I end up with stuff broke because they were forgotton. (See wardens post RoI and the lack of AGI tanking gear, not to mention the rubberbanding others have mentioned.)

Just a side comment, the blog says absolutely NOTHING about redoing all the bridles, and their legacies. (Much less resetting their points so we can redo based on our new traitlines.) Hopefully, they were not forgotten with three days til release.

OH, and is a fix in place yet, so when I get dismounted and remount I go back into the stance I was in, instead of having to click out of Red Dawm? I just gave up and set everything to run Red Dawn. After all, my LM on his light steed gets tons more aggro than my Warden on his Med steed.

[Belnavar]

I agree with people complaining about the lag/rubberbanding, but I don't see this as an either/or scenario. I doubt the design devs were thinking "so we fix two major aspects of the design of mounted combat or we fix the performance issues ... let's toss a coin for it."

The lag issue is likely far more complex and a harder thing to resolve, considering it likely would require a change in server architecture. Different people are in charge of this side of things.

It's like those people who complain about new content being made "instead" of bugs being fixed. Things do not work like that in the game development world. New stuff and fixing old stuff happen together. Notice all the bug fixes in every single update we get, big or small.

Personally I welcome these MC changes. Simultaneously I would love to see the performance issues addressed where possible, as this is certainly something that takes away from the experience.

-Bel

[Grhysli]

One of my main complaints about War Steed movement is that unlike standard mounts that can be controlled while in the air during a jump to change direction this cannot be done with a war Steed.

Only after all 4 hooves make contact with the ground can direction be changed.

Please just change the directional control to be the same as a standard mount and that would help tons!

A second thing I have noticed as far as rubber banding.
Jumping over low stone walls etc. almost always results in being pulled back to a spot just before where you jumped.
Even if you have traveled a good distance away, suddenly you are back to a spot prior to jumping the obstacle.

While rebuilding Hytbold the phasing showed that some of the low walls lining paths are actually quite a bit higher than what is shown graphically. I think this may be the problem with jumping obstacles.....the War Steeds simply don't jump high enough to clear the obstacle and are thus pulled (rubber banded) back.

Change the height that War Steeds can jump and also change the walls/obstacles so they are short and can be cleared.

[Fortinobrand]

One of my main complaints about War Steed movement is that unlike standard mounts that can be controlled while in the air during a jump to change direction this cannot be done with a war Steed.

Only after all 4 hooves make contact with the ground can direction be changed.

Please just change the directional control to be the same as a standard mount and that would help tons!

Disagree. Horses are bound by the laws of physics, and it would be nice to go back and correct the jumping of the original horses.

[suprra]

A second thing I have noticed as far as rubber banding.
Jumping over low stone walls etc. almost always results in being pulled back to a spot just before where you jumped.
Even if you have traveled a good distance away, suddenly you are back to a spot prior to jumping the obstacle.

While rebuilding Hytbold the phasing showed that some of the low walls lining paths are actually quite a bit higher than what is shown graphically. I think this may be the problem with jumping obstacles.....the War Steeds simply don't jump high enough to clear the obstacle and are thus pulled (rubber banded) back.

Change the height that War Steeds can jump and also change the walls/obstacles so they are short and can be cleared.

I rarely rubber band, the only time I do is as mentioned, when jumping walls or obstacles so now I tend to jump again after I've cleared the obstacle so that I don't get yanked back heh. MC, occasionally if there are alot of loremasters or classes with fancy lightning tricks that tends to make my frames tank but I find that wherever a large group is and all letting off skill effects similar to the lightning stuff.

Lotro is really hard on some computers tho so some may frame tank alot earlier than others.

Glad to see the turn rate and agility etc built in, that's awesome

[Kerin_Eldar]

What astonishes and even appalls me is that the two major criticisms that Diary identifies came as a surprise to anyone involved in designing MC 1.0.

These aren't obscure points that only came up once the thing went live, they're not even the same as the +Radiance debacle which, though with hindsight should have been predictable I'll give Turbine the benefit of the doubt.

Both 'wasting' points to turn an oil tanker into a battleship and the near total lack of any 'connection' between most classes and their mounted counterpart should have been totally, patently obvious to those who designed them, it's amazing these seem to come as sort of 'road to Damascus' experiences only now.

[BelamanthDE]

Yet again Turbine devotes developer resources to fixing that which isn't broken while ignoring that which is. Mounted Combat will always suck until you develop the tech to eliminate the max to zero speed jerking.

I am pretty sure the devs working on skills are not the same guys working on systems tech. So, while the skills guys bring a much appreciated update to MC, who says the systems guys are not also working on something to fix the rubberbanding? Turbine has a history of not always saying what they are currently working on at this level of detail.

[0Pinger]

Almost every class had a handful of skills tuned up to deal more damage, in particular the Runekeeper and Burglar who were simply not up to snuff with some of their skill damage

What? have your devs actually played the RK in MC. I consider my RK one of the better mounted single target killers. I can dismount just about anything at will and do a lot of damage on top of that.

Now wish I had tried the Bullroarer as I only tried the launcher to make sure it worked

Intimidate was used for classes trying to maximize positional damage or squishier classes that may need to escape from combat.

Intimidate isn't used as it bugs and forces the target to run away off the map and out of the said mobs patrol area so it resets, eg someone Intimidates Bugud and good bye all the work killing the adds as it runs off over one of the rivers which trigger the reset. Have you Read the bug reports about it.

This is going to be a meh update going that little info