Feedback Combat System Feedback

[Pika]

This is a thread to compile all player feedback on our new and improved combat system!

As we complete each scenario in What We Become: Survivor Stories, we'd appreciate it if participants could leave their feedback here. We can't promise we'll make every change requested, but we'll certainly take everything into account. Every bit of feedback matters!

Feedback from players who have not yet participated in a scenario is also accepted, but please keep in mind that it's one thing to read through a system and another to experience it yourself.

You can find the write-up for the combat system here.

Thank you in advance for helping us to further improve Gateway's combat system!

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[Mio Honda]

I enjoyed the system and the way it was handled however I feel like the AP system could use a little tweaking, I think that splitting it into movement points and actions might make it a little more fun. I can explain on my point here when obviously wanting to strike game balance is important, the way I would personally balance it is where actions don't require AP however to do more than one action your turn, unless specified as a free action you take a negative modifier for its chance to hit ect.

it means we have less turns where people only do one thing and its on to the next and also adds a risk factor into play since a crit failure would be more likely under said rolling rules. When it comes to movement specifying how many tiles someone can move based on traits is something that I think would work a lot better as to make the combat a bit more fluid.

those were my only real gripes with everything Extraction was fun, keep up the good work.

 

[AlexDE12]

System sucks balls.

JK, is a good system for what you guys intend to have: a tactical game where things are deadly but not overly punishing. Moment to moment combat was fine as the rules are fairly clear cut and simple when it comes to shooting or stabbing someone. Despite the initial roughness with the rules once you know the cost of the actions you'll take often it's a breeze, just a matter of keeping track of your AP.

It can be incredibly nasty but I personally think is in that nice sweetspot where is deadly enough where you don't want to do anything too risky, but forgiving enough where you won't die the moment someone so much but breaths the same air in a 6km radious (unlike other systems)

If anything I say there needs to be some QoL mods, one thing that would be incredibly useful is a messurement tape since tile counting by hand is a pain.

And as a personal, not sure if I love the AP system. Don't hate it, just not sure if I love it. I'm far more used to dedicated actions for different abilities.

 

[harperers]

This is a list of all the feedback i have:

First thing, there has to be a 100% rule against any player involved in the combat also being the DM for said combat. It slows down everything way too much.

secondly, the health system was not really used at all in the way it was described in the rules in the test, with wounds, aiming penalties, etc. AND what does armor actually do? What does armor-piercing do? what is the difference between ballistic and stab vests?

Thirdly, I think the damage guns do should be re-thought out entirely. right now lots of guns are pretty much identical, so my idea is that the damage a gun does should be based on how many times it can fire accurately in a single "action", and what caliber of gun it is. (think of a gun doing XdYY damage, with X being the number of burst shots and YY being the damage that caliber does)

fourth, It would be good if there were also more clarified rules on dialogue and emotes in turn based combat in rules, as lots of time can get wasted on people emoting/talking outside of their turn when it doesnt make much sense for them to do so. Even for OOC talking, it can make combat take much longer.

Fifth, having a way to do rolls in game would be great and make things roll much faster, or it can be a standard that DMs do all the rolling for players to make things faster. This could be expanded to just keeping track of alot of other stats with something like an in game character sheet that can be opened easily by both the player and DM.

sixth, the way that the "investigation" portions of this system works never ended up panning out for me honestly. Doing rolls for checks is a fine idea, but I the DM should never say out loud what the DC is. And another idea is that skill checks should just use in game skills rather then some out of character bonus you have to keep track of (i think +1 for every 2 points in a skill is reasonable).

Seventh, Why do we use the measuring stick when we could just use the "walk to" context command for mapping out tiles, and just counting diagonals as 1.5?

The final thing i have to say is that i think this system will work much better as is for just for PVP combat, as it puts both players on the same field with the same toolset, although that hasn't really seemed to be tested yet.

 

[Bill Chompski]

having just survived part 3 with the secret ending in which we killed a lot of shit and 3 PCs died, this is what's fresh on my mind

-a lot of PCs had to get tele'd or healed from falls. install guardrrails. alternatively, what if you gave all PCs in a "scene" godmode? they're not going to be able to abuse it much while they're under the watch of admin refs, so it might just serve as security. when the scene is done, godmode comes off and any wounds accumulated go on

-it was long. the system is simple and quick, which is great, but multiple player turns and descriptions can still draw a game out. i liked it, but i think that it would really benefit people if special sessions were given a time-frame; ie, "Chapter 3: Downfall will take 6-8 hours". I dont know how you guys would figure out how long a session, but I think it would be a fantastic bonus. I'm thinking of how one of the players just had to leave because it was too late for them.

-the combat itself is good. simple as said. it can be quick when everyone knows what they're doing, and the AP system gives some strategy. i like it, no complaints

-i appreciate admins keeping a track of our health and armor. also those ability tokens were an awesome touch.

-interiors need ambient lighting, as cool as the darkness is. maybe players should get light sources as apart of their kits? lanterns, flashlights, whatever, but something to deal with overly-oppressive darkness if it is encountered.

-monsters felt scary. i consistently wanted to run away, because the monsters were fucked, you absolutely did not want any of them to attack not even once. one attack destroyed my armor. one attack basically killed a player. monsters are good, i imagine the hordes of the upcoming lore will work too. i felt like a lot of boomers had Red Explosive Barrel Syndrome in that they killed a lot of other monsters, but hey, i get it, not every encounter is going to be a tactical masterpiece. but the ogre was a fun encounter, coming back around to the fact that we had to run from it as opposed to try to kill it. i think a lot of encounters will be very interesting if they have similar solutions, ie, not just rolling damage dice.

-fuck elevators

 

[Jeeze]

Here to write about the latest session #4, manhunt!Overall super fun and I felt like players had a lot of freedom with their characters.

Nothing to complain about on that front, but regarding technical issues, and more specifically the voice chat-
Please make it either mandatory to join it in order to get all the needed mechanical info(I wasted some time not knowing that the GM agreed on a ruling with a member in the voice chat), or type all the needed info ooc on the game server, so everyone can see it.As fun as voice chatting is,some people just simply can't join the call be it of timezone reasons or something else,and it sucks to not be informed of critical OOC information regarding your own character.
Besides that,I don't really have any other complaints!