I’m not going to address this entire post. On your fencing comment though, please be aware that fencing and being stabbed in the chest with a rapier are very different. I also doubt that you do not flinch when an opponent properly thrusts into your, with the intent to kill.
Even if a guy just punched you you’d flinch.
Exactly, you do not flinch and disorient with little jabs here and there that are meant as a distraction either, you flinch if the opponent properly thrust in to you, and that in the NW game would be equated in to an Ability attack or a Heavy attack. Not a light or medium one.
It is why I think if we are to have more staggering (than from abilities) it would be ok with Heavy attacks that are not blocked only.
Here is also an interesting game in development commented on by a RL Sword and Rapier expert.
Sword Expert reacts to Game - Youtube
It is important to Understand that in RL combat, both opponents take damage quite often at the same time, so to say, “everyone mashing buttons causing damage two ways” is a bad thing is actually inaccurate. In Real Combat you both take and give Damage, and the one that manages to give more in a shorter time usually wins.
So right now, NW combat is actually closer to reality, than with Stagger mechanics.
I agree with all that NW combat can improve and be smoothened and a bit more tactical, but please no stagger mechanics.
Not at all. You wouldn’t swing blindy with no regard for your own safety IRL. Good sword plays in HEMA often always revolve around controlling your opponents weapon, not trading with them. In a real fight not only do people flinch, people space and try to strike without being struck at the same time. Lots of hema fights end with hitting exposed wrists with the end of your weapon for example, while your body is out of reach for their weapon.
This is all simulated very well with hitstun, much moreso than mashing buttons on the enemy. Even a “light” rapier thrust would cause you to atleast flinch if you just take it without bracing(grit) or blocking it with something. It’s light in comparison to heavy attacks, but it’s still a strike meant to maim/kill. Not “distract”. There’s already grit attacks to simulate pushing through it with an attack of your own, blocking to avoid damage entirely, and dodging to avoid damage and reposition at the same time.
No sword fight would come down to slashing wildly at your opponent like current NW.
Check this out: Akademia Szermierzy - Fior di Battaglia (medieval longsword techniques) - YouTube
Any HEMA tournament works just as well. Ideally you dont want to get slapped around. Unless you’re in full plate. Str heavy armor grit builds emulate that.
Staging would only bring back a series of obnoxious knock backs. The new combat system is significantly better. If you can’t catch your opponent, run great axe with bloodlust.
I reply to you with this reply which applies.
I agree, all said and done, this is a Game and not RL, it can take some inspiration from RL to make it relevant to the players but there are also limits to how far the realism can go.
Stagger is not Fun.
Your points are valid in the context of people saying “bring back the old system no adjustment.” But I offer an alternative opinion. Although I would personally love a Dark Souls-style combat, there are other alternatives that I would readily accept. It doesn’t have to be the type of stagger where you are stunned for half a second like in Dark Souls or in old New World videos. There are many, many ways to implement a stagger system.
For example: Some games have a stagger system where a hit doesn’t affect your movement, but it just cancels the opponent’s attack animation. Then they have mechanics that allow a player to have enough time to retaliate after blocking an attack and a mechanic to break blocks. It’s not a crazy combat system but it works even in large scale 50v50 battles.
Having a proper combat system is not “too much skill-based requirement”. It’s the bare minimum. This is not an excuse for the combat system to stay as shallow as it is right now. The most popular game right now is League of Legends which is pretty difficult and takes thousands of hours to even get comfortable with. CSGO is the most popular shooter despite being the most difficult. Hell, Fortnite is pretty difficult. All of those are multiplayer games that thrive even more than New World.
You know what’s worse than a niche game, a game that dies out because it is too shallow and starts bleeding out players. As it is now, the only people this game will retain in the future are starved WoW fans.
I agree, most of us want the old stagger system back as a starting point, not the ending point.
The old system wasn’t perfect, although a lot of the issues were more related to weapon balance than the system itself. For example, the hatchet was so powerful because, if I remember correctly, it didn’t have the combo system for its light attacks and so could just constantly swing. Sure a knowledgeable player could break out, but a new player was in trouble.
But there are plenty of changes that could be made to the system to make it better, but we need that system (or something similar) back first.
pvp in wow is an incomprehensible mess where you are reacting to things that you basically cant see
look at the UI of real wow PVPers they need all sorts of special menus to monitor the enemy’s abilities
combat with stagger has a high amount of visual clarity, vs the current system where two players mash against each other and you attempt to react to any cooldowns that get used
as opposed to respecting all attacks
Enemies stagger you. You take inevitable damage in this game that you can and should avoid and that’s also a problem in pve. You should not go out venturing and know that one way or another you will take damage. Aren’t we pushing for no “damage” type of model? Stagger helps in many many Pve situations also.
Yes, grinding was so much more fun back then… It compensated the weak questing very much optimizing your combat style!
+1
Combat feels light and floaty now. People can literally run from you FOREVER with no ability to catch up or slow them down significantly. And the second they get away theyre back to full health.
Well, I play Wow Mainly for the PvP open world, and BG. Made Rank 14 in vanilla under the original Honor system too. They reintroduced it in Classic, but Classic was not true Vanilla either.
In any case, I never needed addons, over time you got to know intuitively the timing of other classes, recognized the animations knew what they were preparing and knew how to interrupt them and deal with each class. I played Survival hunter.
It is all about Spacial awareness when solo and knowledge of one’s class abilities strengths and weaknesses versus the other classes. It is about teamwork synergy and planning when in group.
So basically I disagree with your statement here because my experience was different.
WoW became a CC spam Fest combined with Focus. Plus well, WoW is a PVE game with PvP, its focus and main attraction is Content Consumption and Perpetual Progression from levels with questing and then from Gear with Raiding, rinse repeat expansion after expansion.
After a while it became really old for me as it is so shallow in terms of gameplay. It works for kids I reckon. WoW unfortunately also brought out negative aspect in people. Guilds denigrated one another, players were very toxic too, clearing content became like a Prestige thing… I came back to Wow with Classic after 8 years of absence, and quit it in disgust…GDKP was the epitome of that negative way of playing in Classic, but I digress (different topic)
Suffice it to say that New World is like a breath of fresh air for me.
Yup we spoke of this a couple of pages back. This is exactly what I think would happen with Stagger and what some of you wish for in reality.
A way to ensnare people and kill, capture mechanics. All the rest of explanations about the supposed pleasurable tactical aspects is just an excuse.
Thanks for being honest here 
Fortunately this is not EVE online.
Combat just became a spam fest. No more timing, no more positionning, it’s a slap battle with some dodging. With the scaling being very weak, you just got stomp by levels.
I miss the timing, positionning, and actual mind game.
Bring stagger back AGS ! It was far better than what we have now. Just fix the hatchet problem and we are good to go
They fixed the hatchet problem before they even removed stagger.
You could always just dodge or block, people just weren’t aware and were spamming LMB.
Then in the SAME PATCH they removed stagger they introduced combos, which would have made the stagger-combat even BETTER, and then they TURNED OFF STAGGER FOR PLAYERS. What an absolute mistake.
They implemented combos because when internally testing the build they realized that the lack of stagger ruined the flow of combat along with a slew of other things like lunge and tracking which ruins the spear and autorun which ruins anything that doesn’t have a long lunge.
I personally think combos would have actually made stagger worse if it was on every hit since the attack speed of weapons had a general increase. The delay between one combo and the next would have had a chance to turn things around but you would just use a skill to keep the attack chain up.
there is quite literally zero skill or tactics involved in the game as is currently. heavy armor, use big weapon, spam lmb, basically nothing you can do to stop them.
the entire meta of this game right now is every wears heavy armor and zergs, thats optimal strategy, and it works, you cant stop it.
the combat has been reduced to trading hits and just dps racing, if you try to use lighter armor and play more tactically with dodges and what not, you will just lose because you ultimately lose the dps race.
It’s not an all or nothing situation. Stagger does not have to be as was in Alpha. Even just adding elements of it can make a huge difference.
Heavy atks - stagger
Some skills - stagger
Successful Block of Stagger attacks causes counter-stagger (or perhaps this would be a passive in SnS or inherent on Shield but a passive with certain weapons?)
This provides a new element to combat while also avoids the stun-lock phobia from spam stagger. All the above need to be timed well to accomplish rather than spam left click, which also means all the above can be successfully avoided quite reasonably.
This should also apply to mobs who seem to still use the old stagger mechanic.
Stagger has to be on light attacks or it defeats the purpose of stagger. The primary purposes of stagger are to reward proper timing and punish reckless attacks. You can’t do either with heavy attacks. Likewise with skills.
The stagger system worked because you primarily attacked with light and heavy attacks. Skill cooldowns were higher and you couldn’t just swap weapons to get a new set of abilities to use.
Yes there are tweaks to the system that could/should be made, but taking stagger off light attacks is the same as we have now: a system where timing is much less important and attacks feel weightless.