Combat in Respawn was not like other MMORPGs. I had designed it that way deliberately, with considerable pride.
No standing still and trading hits while cooldown timers ticked. No tab-targeting, no auto-attacks, no rotation of abilities executed with mechanical patience while your character did the actual work. I had wanted players to feel like they were actually fighting, not managing a spreadsheet with a fantasy skin over it. Real-time physics, real collision detection, every hit determined by angle and force and weapon stats rather than a dice roll happening invisibly behind the interface.
I had called it "the most physically honest combat system in the MMORPG genre" in the pitch deck. I had been very proud of that sentence.
I had never been in a real fight before. I want to be clear
