Skyforge Dev Diary Details Combat Systems

As 2014 closed, we saw a bit of Skyforge, but most of the information given out really just led to more questions. This was particularly noticeable when it came to combat. We saw a brief dungeon dive video and knew that tab targeting was an option in Skyforge, but we also heard that the Allods Team and Obsidian Entertainment were trying to make a more action based combat system.

Here we are two weeks into 2015 and we're starting to get a sense of what the teams had in mind and today's developer's diary video featuring Dmitry Borodin, Senior Game Designer, details not only how combat works, but how the team arrived at this system.

Skyforge's combat system was initially designed around traditional MMORPG controls (i.e. World of Warcraft type hotbars) with a few tweaks. After testing though, the team felt that this system really didn't perform in a way that the team liked. To plan out a new direction, the development teams looked towards games like Devil May Cry for a more action inspired system, complete with combos. This started to form the basis of Skyforge's combat system. Once mouse movement (you FPS and TPS players already know what that entails) became the focus, the rest of the combat system fell into place.

Positioning, evasion, and combos all play huge parts in combat. While a combo system for ranged classes didn't quite work, the developers gave these classes their own unique system of charging spells and attacks. In short, can you tab target and focus target? Sure. Do you NEED to? No. Be ready to use your dash and class specific evasion abilities as well. With groups of monsters of varying class compositions, the Skyforge team thinks you're going to need them.

Take a look at the video and let me know what you think. You can find more details on the official Skyforge page.

In the meantime, if you're looking at the scaled back UI and wondering if you can use a controller to play...the answer is yes.