DeathMatch - a hidden gem of the mod community.

[Gi-Go]

As you all may know, dst pvp is infamously horrendous. The game is simply not build for player to player combat.
Player's attack speed is too fast - making kiting horrible.
Every hit causes stun - making tanking horrible.
You can't attack and move at the same time - making chasing horrible.
And players have equal default speed - making escaping also horrible.

The only way to make the fights bearable is to have a support tool that either increases your speed, has more range or straight up just stuns your enemy, and neither feel fair.
Well, i can go on and on about all the unfair items, unfair perks, cheating mods, massive advantage of joining earlier, and hundreds other problems, but you probably get the picture, hence why you stay away from pvp. 

Despite it's massive issues, I've always found pvp to be charming in it's own way, and I've spent a decent portion of my games in pvp worlds, and since the classic pvp is rather frustrating at times - naturally, I tried all the pvp mods I could find.
Hunger games - a heavily moded battle royale event, that is only available few times a week on one specific server.
Warsack - an attempt to make a dst moba, that bit more than it could chew and got abandoned.
And of course, a bunch of other random pvp rebalance mods.
They all share the same core problem as default pvp however - combat just sucks.

But, there exist one very fun, but rather obscure mod that proved it:  Dst pvp CAN be great.

Introducing DeathMatch: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3216477405
created by @Electroely deathmatch is a mod I've never heard of, untill a random guy invited me to play on his server. And I instantly feel in love with the gameplay.

The premise is extremely simple: battle royale on a small arena using (rebalanced) iconic forge weapons.

Usual pvp servers are never about combat, but rather about managing time, and trying to horde as much combat themed crap as you can, before your opponent does, and then throwing it all at other players in hopes of stunlocking them to death. So, kinda like what you do outside of pvp too.
Deathmatch however, feels like a proper fighting game, everything in it is focused entirely on combat. Instead of collecting overpowered items your enemies don't have, everyone on deathmatch is equal, and the thing you rely on to win - is predicting your opponent, aiming your attacks, and dodging your enemies. Most weapons have negative frames - a little time period before and/or after using weapon's special move, that leaves you vulnerable. Understanding these frames, knowing how weapons interact, and timing your choices accordingly is what makes you winner here.
However, learning most of these is relatively fast and simple, especially if you've played forge or reforged, as the game only has 2 classes, with 4 weapons each (+1), and the character choice is purely cosmetic. Simplicity is definitely a plus!
Another fantastic mechanic DeathMatch has is random buffs, usually located at the center of arena. These range from giving you armor, damage, speed, healing, resetting cooldowns, or even giving you a powerful one use range weapon.
Not only is this a healthy amount of rng, but it also encourages aggressive playstyle, as fighting for these buffs will usually result in your victory over that one coward hiding in a corner during whole match (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).
High risk - high reward.

And if it's the variety you want, dm players are given combat skill tree, with 3 branches to choose from. Cooldown, damage, and a sub-class option that focuses on the 9th weapon.

You can probably tell this already, but I am passionate about this project and wish more people could play it. Advertisement is very important, and if at least one future fan of deathmatch will read this, I didn't write this post in vain. However, it would be unfair not to mention the flaws of dm as well. Despite being a masterpiece, Deathmatch suffers from 1 core problem of pvp or dst in general, even more so than the classic - ping advantage. While it is definitely possible to outplay even admins by simply being a better player, if a stronger player has a great ping - you're out of luck. Also, playing with high ping will not give you the satisfaction of a fast paced combat you'd experience with less lag, and nothing is more frustrating than failing to do something you want simply due to lag.
And while not to the same extent as in classic pvp, loosing in deathmatch can feel very frustrating, and I had friends unfortunately give up on the mod, before having a chance ro learnin the basics.

Lastly, the mage class was introduced years later, and is not as perfectly crafted, and all around balanced as the warrior. Some moves feel too powerful, while others extremely underwhelming. Some times you feel unstoppable, and others you wonder why this garbage class even exists. I'm still unsure how I feel about this one, is he overpowered? Is he underpowered? No clue. 

 

Anyways, DeathMatch is my favorite fan made dst event and I really wish it would get recognition it deserves, which is why I choose to share my feeling about it with you all. Even if you think pvp is not your cup of tea, give this mod a try! Invite a few friends or strangers and have some fun ducking it out!
Mod link is above, you can learn more about this event in the description, or when creating a world (top right corner question mark is a guide, I wish I'd notice it before learning 95% of the game on my own). Thanks to @Electroely for all the time and effort he put into making this mod, I am having a blast with it! And thank you for reading. 

TLDR: noone wants to play a pvp mod with me (because I kick ass), so I'm trying to get fresh meat.

Edited April 25 by Gi-Go

[grm9]

9 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Lastly, the mage class was introduced years later

the mod got released less than a month ago tho?

[Gi-Go]

1 minute ago, grm9 said:

the mod got released less than a month ago tho?

Yes, but I played beta 5 or 4 years ago 

[goatt]

5 hours ago, Gi-Go said:

Player's attack speed is too fast - making kiting horrible.

I think kiting is impossible because of stun lock.

If you remove stun lock between players, there can be a lot of possibilities.

 

Maybe slow the player walking speed by when being attacked, so that:

1. two players can attack each other freely and continuously, instead of allowing the first attacker to forever stunlock the other player.

2. allow player to move freely and escape instead of being stunned forever.

3. allow space for introducing new strategic items with stunlock ability with reasonable downsides.

 

In all the real time strategic game that I know of, attack and stun are always 2 separate things. Stuns always are a special ability, rather than free side effect of regular attacks. And pure right click attacks don't have any special effect by default. DST pvp is weird and not working, I think because of this.

[Gi-Go]

9 minutes ago, goatt said:

I think kiting is impossible because of stun lock.

Kiting players is possible. In dst most creatures including auto attacking players use their attack the instance your hitbox gets in range.  In other words, moving the tiniest bit will immediately get you outside of range, and doing a counter attack fast enough will stun your enemy letting you kite with zero damage. 

It's not viable however because if youre enemy is an actual threat he won't attack you with simple melee. 

13 minutes ago, goatt said:

If you remove stun lock between players, there can be a lot of possibilities.

Not really. Hunger games don't have stuns and the fights are even worse. All you can do is tank each other untill your hp gets low and you sceddadle. At least with stuns you can kite, or semi-lock your target in place for a moment to send few hits in and hopefully kill the guy. 

And I also tried pvp rebalance mods that slow down players when they are hit. Now underdogs can't even fight back their only option is to face tank and guess what? Whoever has better gear wins with no skill involved. 

19 minutes ago, goatt said:

In all the real time strategic game that I know of, attack and stun are always 2 separate things. Stuns always are a special ability, rather than free side effect of regular attacks. And pure right click attacks don't have any special effect by default. DST pvp is weird and not working, I think because of this.

You should try deathmatch that's really what the topic is. DST PvP outside of it has no hope, all the rebalance mods will fail always. Core issues can't be changed. 

[goatt]

37 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Kiting players is possible. In dst most creatures including auto attacking players use their attack the instance your hitbox gets in range.  In other words, moving the tiniest bit will immediately get you outside of range, and doing a counter attack fast enough will stun your enemy letting you kite with zero damage. 

It's not viable however because if youre enemy is an actual threat he won't attack you with simple melee. 

That's theoretically true. But not if there is lag. You lose all of freedom when you have lag, instead of losing efficiency. 

 

37 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

50 minutes ago, goatt said:

If you remove stun lock between players, there can be a lot of possibilities.

Not really. Hunger games don't have stuns and the fights are even worse. All you can do is tank each other untill your hp gets low and you sceddadle. At least with stuns you can kite, or semi-lock your target in place for a moment to send few hits in and hopefully kill the guy. 

And I also tried pvp rebalance mods that slow down players when they are hit. Now underdogs can't even fight back their only option is to face tank and guess what? Whoever has better gear wins with no skill involved. 

You missed my point. The possibilities I mentioned was exactly to change the problems you pointed out, but not with the solutions you had played with before.

Separating stun from attack, and players can specialize in stun. This means the person with worse gears but stun ability can escape the situation despite not capable of straight confrontation. This is called kiting. Kiting means the strong players are disabled (slowed, stunned, blinded, etc) from landing his strong attacks because they can't touch enemies, this gives the weak man room for creative strategies. This is common in every rts game, I believe.

By default, the strong man in DST has both strong attacks and stuns, and that's not normal among rts.

Edited April 26 by goatt

[Gi-Go]

Thanks for moving my post here, klei, to a channel I never even knew existed. I'm sure dm will get recognition now. 

[zaptrap]

deathmatch does separate basic attacks, which dont stun, from special abilities, some of which do stun. Strangely though, the mage class only has one attack that can stun (i think). The mage does have a slowdown area effect ability, but it’s underpowered currently

[Gi-Go]

1 hour ago, zaptrap said:

The mage does have a slowdown area effect ability, but it’s underpowered currently

It's not. It gives you, and your teammates a 50% extra defense when in the zone, and this includes golems.