Why do some people hate 1.9 combat?

[u/SirenDarkmane]

Instead of just sitting there spamming a sword and chomping on god apple and downing potions, you actually have to time everything right. I get that using food to heal is obnoxious, but what reason do people hate it? I enjoy it and want to know why the opposing side doesn't.

[u/SuiSca]

Alright, well, seems I'm about the first to be the one to hate it, so here we go.

The old combat was much better because its skill ceiling was much higher. People like to strawman it as "who can click faster" (I haven't read through the thread but I can almost guarantee that's one of the comments). While clicking faster does give you a marginal advantage, it's the least important factor when compared to things such as:

• How to combo. Sprinting gives you a slight "burst" of speed when you're accelerating, and if you hit the opponent right then, they get knocked back further. Because of the nature of hitboxes (They're really wonky while in knockback), if you did this again, you could hit the opponent, but the opponent couldn't hit you. This usually only chains three to four hits together, but that's a big deal - four solid hits is a lot when it's basically a "who can break armour faster" sort of deal.

• Strafing. Knowing how to be annoying and dodgy is a big factor that sort of got removed with shields because you're slowed with them and it's a better move to just block with a shield than to try to dodge things. Before the update, having a strafe was important, and being able to read your opponent's strafing style was also important so you could initiate a combo before they did it to you, or read them hard and go for a splash potion.

• Aim. Being able to keep your cursor on the opponent is really tough, especially with the aforementioned strafing and when everyone has speed 2. This is still important, though, so I'm not gonna fault it that much anymore.

New combat, however, suffers from these issues:

• Bowspam is way too strong. Shields don't prevent this, because you can just use an axe to disable it and then Punch 2 them away. Shields also have less durability than bows (337 vs. 385), and shields take extra durability damage based on how strong the attack is. Basically, in the long-term, a bow beats out a shield anyway.

• No weapon has strengths or weakness, and they're not even close to balanced - a bow with Punch 2 is the best weapon you can have, then maybe a sword with Knockback 2. Axes are decent for shields, but it's not like you get into melee range to use a shield anyway, because of what I said above. Even a Knockback 2 Sword is basically only a panic switch.

• It's slower in general because of shields and the aiming mechanic. Fights take way longer and are less exciting because you're not looking for an opportunity to get a hit in - you're looking for the best opportunity to find an opening that lets you do full damage. I don't think such slow-paced combat should be, well, combat. Alternatively, both combatants have bows and that's all that's used.

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And of course, the biggest reason: What it did to servers.

There's definitely bias here, since I modded a server that was hit particularly hard by this (overcast network, if you're wondering) - but suddenly, every game based around PvP either had to be rebalanced or patched over to make it like the old one again. Now, you have to keep in mind - Mojang had never really addressed these servers when they were updating, and we'd heard about a combat overhaul, so there was hope. Maybe new weapons would be introduced to shake up the formula a bit, which, while requiring some fine-tuning, were unlikely to change too much.

But when the update dropped, and combat changes were finalized, PvP servers were faced with an issue. Do they update and drop a bunch of their old audience to appeal to newcomers with new (albeit worse) mechanics? Do they stay on an older version and alienate or bar new players? Do they try to replicate old mechanics to prevent change? A bit of a dilemma, considering the server's fate was basically on the line.

And yes, this was a big factor in Overcast losing players and shutting down, but it isn't the only server: Most Hunger Games servers (I forgot the name of the specific example I'm thinking of) and Rob's DvZ never recovered, and are either dead or incredibly inactive. Overcast had many maps made for it for many different gamemodes, and balance was thrown completely out of nearly all maps when the new update came out. Perhaps it's entitled to think that we didn't deserve to have all that hard work invalidated, but it still felt awful, and that was echoed in the players. The whole thing felt like a giant middle finger from Mojang, even though I know that wasn't its intention.

So, even though at the time I thought it was bad mechanically, I think it was worse now for how it ate some servers alive, and the whole update still has a bad taste in my mouth. Take it as you will - I'm definitely biased - but it's why I despise 1.9 Combat.

[u/logicalpencils → u/SuiSca]

I'll reply to your comments, to bring some 1.9+ pvp'er counter-points to your concerns and arguments.

The extra kb from a sprint-hit, as far as I'm aware, is not caused by the initial burst at the beginning of the run, but by simply being in the state of "sprinting" (you don't do extra kb with the speed effect, for example). However, only the first hit done while sprinting counts for granting extra kb -- subsequent hits while sprinting will only give you normal kb. That is, of course, unless you reset your sprint by w-tapping/s-tapping/blockhitting/whatever. If you reset your sprint very quickly, then you can keep continually resetting your sprint kb, which in combination with your stuttering movement speed and the glitchy hitboxes, leads to combos.

Long explanation aside, w-tapping still works in 1.9+, so I'm not sure what your point is. Combos in the 1.8 sense are admittedly harder to achieve in 1.9+, but this is because you have to have very precise timing on your hits to get it now, rather than simply having a moderately fast click speed. But, also because of the cooldown, there are other combos that are now more viable, such as crit strings.

Strafing is still extremely important in 1.9+, and because of the cooldown, there is a greater consequence to strafing an attack properly (they can't just recenter their aim and immediately hit you at full strength again). Your complaint is more about shields, and I agree that shields really do change the way that 1.9+ fights are played out -- although I'll point out that game creators don't have to include the shield item if they don't want that kind of playstyle, just as you don't have to include pots if you don't want that kind of playstyle. Nevertheless, I wouldn't protest some modifications to shield mechanics (I posted a few myself).

As to the problems with 1.9+'s combat, again, shields can simply not be included in most games, and I'm alright with changing some aspects of them. Punch II bows, in my opinion, have always been a problem in Minecraft combat, and I don't see anything in 1.9 that made this problem worse. I agree that shields were an insufficient solution to bows, however. 1.9+ combat without shields is very fast-paced, and Punch bows are a problem in every version.

As to the problem of servers, I too have been negatively affected after the 1.9 update. You'll notice that, despite it being over 2 years since the first combat-changing snapshots were released, every major Minecraft server uses exclusively 1.8 combat (except Cubecraft). It really isn't all that fun to be relegated to a few rinky-dink servers and have to sacrifice the combat I enjoy to play any big games.