S2 Games présente sur ses forums les modifications qui seront apportées à Savage 2 : A Tortured Soul par la prochaine mise à jour du jeu. Le gros de cette update concerne la modification des combats au corps à corps, mais pas uniquement. Prenez donc le temps de lire la suite de la nouvelle pour voir tous les points corrigés par cette rustine. Sortie prévue lundi prochain.

Just dropping an update on the test patch/new melee system. I'm sure you all want to know when you'll get it - well, at the earliest it'll be friday, but realistically we may be looking at monday of next week. We ran into some last minute issues with the Community & Clan pannel which has set us back slightly.

I wanted to take this opportunity to give some more information on the melee system, and a more thorough explanation. So here it is, from the top - there are several new items added to the list below, so be sure to read it all:

General melee system changelist:

- Interrupt is being removed
- Block is going to have a stamina cost associated with it (probably stamina per second as well as an initial cost to prevent spam)
- Quick attack stamina costs are such that, if you are running (not sprinting) and spam quick attack flurries, your character should always hit maximum stamina just before starting the next flurry. The end result of this is that quick attacking while sprinting is going to impact your stamina more than just sprinting - but quick attacking by itself virtually has no stamina cost.
- Block will now block melee special abilities, such as acid spray and critical strike.
- You will no longer take damage when you are blocked by an enemy player
- Strafe speed set to 0.92 (increased from 0.86). NOTE: This change may be reverted, it depends how well dodge works in its new implementation (listed below)
- When stunned via a block, your will have your movement speed reduced to 80% (increased from 65%). Note that the stun time of being blocked is now unit-specific. A scout's stun time on being blocked is shorter than a legionnaire's, for example. The stun time per unit is roughly equal to the full attack time of one melee attack (how long it takes to perform the attack then return to idle - note, this value is longer than how long it takes to perform an attack then start a second attack).
- Note that jump attack remains unchanged (will still break through blocks)
- Unit attack speeds and roles are receiving some tweaks to promote variation. For example, the savage attacks slightly slower, the legionnaire is attacking 50% slower, and the scout is attacking 35% faster (a net gain of 23% when you include the flurry pause time, for the scout). Note that all this is subject to change, it's just the values we have down so far. We've modified damage to keep the DPS the same on most units - although some have received slight increases or decreases in DPS.
- Dodge will have a cool down (we're thinking 1.5-2 seconds, we'll modify it as needed). Dodge movement speed has been increased by 50% and the duration/length of the dodge has been shortened slightly (about 23%).

We've made two other global changes which I think deserve special mention. Note that these are both experimental and will probably receive tweaking and/or removal if they do not work as intended:

* When attacking an enemy structure, your movement speed will be reduced slightly (probably about 30%). Note that due to the changes of stamina costs, you will maintain high stamina, and the speed debuff will be short enough that if a defender comes to attack you, you will very quickly have full speed, stamina, and be combat-ready without much of a disadvantage. This makes attacking both easier and harder in that it's easier for defenders to catch up to you, but easier for you to fight them if you are the attacker.
* Minimap changes: Enemies will now only show up on the minimap if they are revealed by an electric eye or bat, or if they are within vision radius of one of your structures (so they show up on the minimap if they are in your base). This allows players to be naturally "sneaky" without the stealth skill - hiding behind rocks or cliffs waiting for enemies to pass etc.

Now, in preliminary testing of this melee system we've found that it's very important that it feel fluid, smooth, and RESPONSIVE. To this end, we've also made the following changes:

* Removed the freeze or immobilize time at the end of melee attack chains.
* Removed stamina exhausted penalties. When low on stamina characters will no longer be slowed down or attack at a reduced speed. The punishment for being low on stamina is that you cannot block for long and you will be unable to sprint or dodge, which are very important components of this melee system

* Decreased the duration (aka "cast time") on several skills and spells. This allows you to block or attack faster after executing the skill or spell.

* In the current retail build, the melee attacks of our units have an "attack time" and a "chain time." The attack time is the total length of the attack, you cannot perform other actions until the attack time has expired. The chain time is a number that is LOWER than the attack time, and after the chain time has expired you can perform the next attack in your melee chain. This is why you're able to perform your second melee attack faster than you can, for example, do a dodge or use a special ability. We're making it so that the following will be usable after the CHAIN time rather than having to wait for the attack time to finish:
o Dodges
o Melee special abilities (such as acid spray and critical strike)
o Jump attacks

The end result should be that players feel like they can use their special abilities (or dodges or jump attack) sooner than they currently can, if only slightly. We feel that one of the most annoying parts of our current melee system is when you're spamming the button to do a certain attack and it takes too long to execute. This should make things feel more fluid and responsive.

* We're adding a bindable button that acts as a "dodge modifier." The button will be bound to right-click by default. The dodge modifier key will be a key that, when pressed, will cause your character to either charge or dodge in your current direction. So, for example, if you are holding "A" to strafe left and you hit right click, you will perform a dodge in that direction. Note that the reverse is true, you can hold right click then press W,A,S or D to charge (if pressing W) or dodge in that direction.