Combat changes in 1.16 impressions and sugestions

[Laskuna]

My 1.16 impressions and sugestions:
Swords attacks now slower, but have same damage, so we have effective less DPS. Drifters spawn faster than we can killing them, its annoying.
Slower attacks shoud do more damage. The best if you add alternative attacks, normal and powerfull ( normal like a in 1.15, and super attacks like a in 1.16 but with more dmg and knockback.)

Bow its now super effective. But melee? 1 vs 1 fight its ok, but vs more enemies take soo long time now. Best way to fight its now hold ground with shield and just tank them, praying to shiled lucky block damage.
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Sword no more can be used as tool, its annoying. Force player to jiggle inventory. Please restore swords previous utility as universal tool ( as scisors and axe ).  

We dont get more inventory space but now need carry one more must have item - shield, or maybe 3: shield, bow, arrows its now essentials. Maybe you can add extra slots in inventory HUD. Now we have extra slot for lantern. Maybe we can get 2 extra slots. Something like a weapons sets in Diablo2, with options to fast swiching between them. For egsample:  1 set lantern + sword, 2nd sword + shield; or: 1st lantern + shield, 2nd bow + arrows. 
This extra items maybe can be visualised as 3d models on character when not in havnd already: shield on back, bow over body, sword in scabbard on the belt... 
Maybe holding X button can swich actual item to "weapon set" for more quality of life and smooth gameplay. Some animation of taking sword from scabbard + fancy sound?
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Knockback need more balancing. For example sawblade locust use saw, so he shouldnt  knockback at all. Locust jump attack can have big knockback.

Stone throwning drifters knockback sometimes too strong. Maybe some drifters should carry some junk / scrappmetal to throw; stones should knockback only a little, and this junk more?
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Will be awesome if some day, we can controll attacks by mouse (mouse gestures). Hold button and sword swinging to slash. Move mouse top, hold a bit, and move down to power attack. Click + W to thrust. 

[Domkrats]

46 minutes ago, Laskuna said:

Swords attacks now slower, but have same damage, so we have effective less DPS. Drifters spawn faster than we can killing them, its annoying.
Slower attacks shoud do more damage. The best if you add alternative attacks, normal and powerfull ( normal like a in 1.15, and super attacks like a in 1.16 but with more dmg and knockback.)

Haven't tried latest attack changes, but i didn't feel attack was too fast before. So not clear why speed should be lowered.

47 minutes ago, Laskuna said:

Best way to fight its now hold ground with shield and just tank them, praying to shiled lucky block damage.

I like having shield while holding shift so taking loot from drifters still keep me protected. But yea...Now  fighting without shield seems very inneffective as drifters near rifts can really spawn at quite fast rate. I like having shields now however.

1 hour ago, Laskuna said:

Sword no more can be used as tool, its annoying. Force player to jiggle inventory.

This one got me too at first, but i'm fine with not having light all the time possible. Place lantern or torches, fight your fight, pick it up and move on. Not so much of a problem. Having more inventory is not necessary. It would feel strange to have lantern attached to body, helmet or shield.  

1 hour ago, Laskuna said:

Knockback need more balancing. For example sawblade locust use saw, so he shouldnt  knockback at all. Locust jump attack can have big knockback.

Stone throwning drifters knockback sometimes too strong. Maybe some drifters should carry some junk / scrappmetal to throw; stones should knockback only a little, and this junk more?

Only struggle with knockback i feel is really about rocks being thrown at me while i jump or stand on ladders. It can launch you in nearest cave easily.  But i guess it's normal that having rock thrown at you at those moments could dissorient you for a while.

1 hour ago, Laskuna said:

Will be awesome if some day, we can controll attacks by mouse (mouse gestures). Hold button and sword swinging to slash. Move mouse top, hold a bit, and move down to power attack. Click + W to thrust. 

No. This isn't VR game. Would want to thing about my mouse gestures during combat so much.  However simple attack and charged attack could be a thing.

[Irulana]

For me biggest problem is now fighting nightmare drifters and other high level ones. Shield seems not be working fine with them. Sword is slow, until you kill one few more appears, and they are not easy to fight in big groups. And and I don't know why they make you flight in the air o.O. I have lots of fun while exploring caves, now it's not fun anymore

[Muru]

My biggest issue with the combat update is the shields and sword changes. Why does it need to be RNG? It just seems dumb you can automatically win a pvp match because you got lucky and the other guy didn't. At least at a certain point with throwing weapons it's basically guaranteed to hit.

For me, I'm just always gonna use ranged weapons because melees are awful now. Swords pre-1.16 used to attack once every 0.5s, and now they attack once every second. They're obsolete now, just use spears because they have more range and the same exact attack speed.

I tested it in creative. At most you'll do 8.4 damage with a recurve bow and steel arrows. After the changes, you can fully charge up in around 0.5s. This is 16.8 DPS for the bow. Now look at a steel sword, which is the highest DPS melee weapon in the game. 4.3 flat DPS would need blackguard to have a full 390% increase in melee damage to even match hunter.

And as a side note, with plate armor, It takes about 1.4s to fully charge with bow. Which means 8.4/1.4 = 6DPS. So still higher than a sword. But then again, no ranged fighter uses plate armor because of how slow it is.

As well as the attack speed being slower, this makes missed hits more punishing, which encourages a faster walkspeed (which hunter gets) and lighter armor to evade attacks. Overall, I think hunter has been buffed an absurd amount and blackguards are now left to suffer because of their largely inferior attack power.

Ranged PVP is the meta now. Drop your swords.

[Gowthok]

The drifter throw is way too overpowered and needs to be able to be toggled off.  Early game, there is no way to even fight the drifters while being pelted from all directions.  It makes more sense to have a special drifter that's a rare spawn or one of the deeper ones that can throw rocks to combat better geared players.

[Hal13]

From the combat changes I know of I can tell already, 1.16+ I'll only play with mobs not attacking at all and keep staying offline to avoid those annoying pvp enthusiasts...

Edited January 11, 2022 by Hal13

[Herbetussy]

Along with the swords being extremely slow now, the new animation makes immersive first person perspective miss half of your sword hits. Overall, with what everyone has said in this thread, melee combat is worse off after this update.

[Domkrats]

1 hour ago, Herbetussy said:

Along with the swords being extremely slow now, the new animation makes immersive first person perspective miss half of your sword hits. Overall, with what everyone has said in this thread, melee combat is worse off after this update.

Tyron already commented on attack speed in this post: 

 

So everything will be fine with other things as well.

[Troy]

Unpopular opinion maybe, but I actually like the slower attack speed. The slower, weightier swing feels more satisfying. It feels like I'm actually hacking with a sword now rather than flailing around with a weightless toy. I'd rather see slightly more damage per swing than more swings per second.

[Philtre]

I preferred the original fast, less weighty swing, personally. It felt more fluid and immediate. I don't have a problem with the longblade feeling like a bigger version of the knife.

[Domkrats]

This weekend played VS and tested combat, which i didn't do before my previous reply in this post. So now i can share more fact-based impressions about it.

1) Combat now feels much much better! Every hit now has weight to it. Together with shield you can really feel protected from direct attacks and rocks. Seems slower only when you compare it first to previos attack. Also it seems too slow if you have no shield. With shield you have enough time to wind up, also rocks ricochet from shield also damagind drifters.

So i agree to this opinion:

On 1/12/2022 at 6:22 PM, Troy said:

Unpopular opinion maybe, but I actually like the slower attack speed. The slower, weightier swing feels more satisfying. It feels like I'm actually hacking with a sword now rather than flailing around with a weightless toy. I'd rather see slightly more damage per swing than more swings per second.

2) It is clear that now metal armor has more reason to be in game even with their debuffs as any other armor just don't feel enough anymore. Went spelunking with a friend yesterday.  Sure. It is more harder for new players, but fits very well for more exerienced players. Maybe for new players some stick shield (Maybe something similar to panning tool or that funny door which falls out of hinges could be used as simple shield  )  could be funny and nice till you get to make a saw because dealing with rock throwing drifters till then is very sad sight to see.  

3) Knockback you make helps to keep drifter away from you till you wind up for next hit, so that compensates itself. But knockback from other mobs sometimes is too big.
I once did remove my armor to run faster and met one wolf on my path. He threw me away and i was so dissoriented i could not put my armor up so quick, So i died from his next attacks which threw me away again. Sure i panicked and i could be dead whether he threw me away or not, but it did not feel too logical for a wolf attack.

More regarding knockback.... we went down to large open area with lava, but couldn't find courrage to get down as one such knockback could throw us in lava with no way to save yourself or our stuff. So that's an issue now. (Now when i think about it, i could probably put down my bags and chest (carry cappacity mod) thus risk to go down wouldn't be so big. And after lighting area up we could explore it rather safe. So i wouldn't say it's was horrible thing - just another thing which makes you plan your actions more. ).

These were my haotic new impressions about new combat. Although i am sorry to see new players dying, i love these changes as somewhat experienced player. For multiplayer server these changes maybe could even be a good thing, bringing players more together and making them cooperate more to survive.

In owerall i keep my opinion the same about this update - great changes for challenge loving players but harder for new and impatient players.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Domkrats

[Streetwind]

1 hour ago, Domkrats said:

3) Knockback you make helps to keep drifter away from you till you wind up for next hit, so that compensates itself. But knockback from other mobs sometimes is too big.
I once did remove my armor to run faster and met one wolf on my path. He threw me away and i was so dissoriented i could not put my armor up so quick, So i died from his next attacks which threw me away again. Sure i panicked and i could be dead whether he threw me away or not, but it did not feel too logical for a wolf attack.

Just to point this out, this isn't really new in 1.16. Wolves could already punt the player respectable distances even in prior versions. To do this they need to land their special attack (the leap/pounce), which they only use while chasing. Normal melee attacks from wolves do not have anywhere near that amount of knockback.

But even more than that, the ground below you matters. These knockbacks have a lot of horizontal force but very little vertical force. So even the powerful special attack knockbacks (from leaping wolves or charging rams) don't usually punt you that far because you very quickly hit the ground again and stop. But if one of those hits you while you are jumping (to try and evade, for instance), or pushes you down a slope? Then you might well fly five blocks or more.

 

Additionally, I recommend everyone to check out 1.16.1, which has both increased swing speed and increased base damage on the sword, compared to 1.16.0. That has significantly increased the sword's DPS, which as I gather was one of the main complaints.

[Omega Haxors]

On 1/11/2022 at 12:03 PM, Maid said:

Ranged PVP is the meta now. Drop your swords.

Until you realize that even the basic armor will turn arrows into paperweights. All arrows are T0 regardless of what they're made of so armor is especially effective against them.

[DrEngine]

I totally agree: the changes in 1.16 (even in 1.16.1 +25% longblade speed/...) makes sword combat unusable. When using any axe the result is tha same. 

And problem with inventory capacity. Shield, spear, etc etc... very bad...

[Laskuna]

Sword in 1.16.1 its ok for me. As a hunter need now 3 hits to kill surface drifters instead of 4 by axe. 
But cant breake ladders or cut trees by sword - this its a bigger problem for me now.