After listening to our audience in the forums, we’re making our own fighting faster and more immersive than what we’ve shown in the past. This video is unpolished internal footage from one of our devs, showing three changes to our melee combat system: much faster combat, more dramatic reaction animations, and more visible FX. We’re also showing ten new powers in a new powerset.

This is what we call a developer video – the footage was prepared by one of our devs to share the current combination of animations, FX, and combat speed with the rest of the team. Everything you see is the current game version, shot inside the game, exactly as you would see it if you were playing alongside us. And of course, everything will still get more polishing. All of you, our community, have asked us to share this kind of in-progress video content, so you can enjoy the process of creating this game and give real feedback. We’ll be watching the forums for your thoughts.

In this video we’re showing a protracted fight with three evil Prometheans. The fight is somewhat longer than normal because we want to show off all ten powers in the powerset, but the battle is also more quick-paced, especially compared to MMOs developed more than ten years ago. There are a variety of new reaction animations in play for both sides of the fight. We’re also showing the new Roll Away power, which allows a melee fighter to roll out of melee range, recover, and buff his defense. This sort of thing gives a melee player more mobility in combat. A skilled player can even roll and use taunt to reposition his enemies during a fight, which can be a crucial advantage.

Our next big thing will be a Combat Beta; we did our first Combat Alpha in 2017. The Beta will be an invasion test in which a large group of heroes, hopefully organized into multiple teams, resists and pushes back against a large force of Nagdellians.

During the invasion, we plan for participants to be able to use previously-created characters, or to create new characters. We plan to show off six melee powersets which are either in development now or have been previously revealed. The six are:

Street Sweeper
Dual Swords
Martial Arts
Street Fighting
Fire Sword
Spear

There are also ranged damage, bugging/debuffing/healing powersets, and at least one control powerset scheduled for launch. Two of the melee sets, Martial Arts and Street Fighting, deliver unarmed combat powers. All of the powersets play differently, have unique appearances, and different animations and FX.

So please stay tuned and give us your feedback on the game. There is a lot more coming this year, and we want to hear from the community so we can deliver the best possible game.