Combat Style needs to go

Because the only people who thrive in the world of combat style are people who are excellent at making scripts in CMUD/ZMUD/Mudlet/etc to manage combat style automatically. The rest of us just suffer in mediocrity or make mages.

What if you could type a command (or, situationally, use a skill) to shift into a different style, i.e. type "style def/off/bal". So that means there'd be no requirement to change weapons, instead try to fight defensively with a claymore if you want to. Naturally, different weapon combinations would work better with different styles, so the optimal thing would be to still do that, but this provides a fallback plan for those times where you end up getting dirt kicked for 5 rounds or whatever. there could be a new auto to change style when you change weapon but that also lags you for changing it (but not if you didnt change it). The mind games of fighting while dual wielding in a defensive style, able to barrage out of it immediately into offensive and swiftly hobble afterward might also generate interesting tension, as opposed to (as you pointed out) just macro'ing that. Going full offensive with a polearm as a pally might be fun to play too. Maybe a bard could "taunt" somebody into fighting in offensive style against their will, maybe berserk woudl mean being offensive since the character became angry. BTW, I'm not suggesting that's the solution, its just a "what if" that supplements the current system without removing it.

So I'm a heavy scripter (who also sucks at pvp). I've also tried to help multiple people level the playing field on the combat triangles.

There are three main differences between all the stuff I do in CMUD and a newbie with aliases.

1) Variables
2) Auto knowledge of inferiority / superiority via MDSP
2) Awareness

Running both triangles takes a ton of variables and logic to juggle well. You can get close-ish with aliases if you do a bunch of them. But then you have to remember a lot of alias commands and you need to fix them every time you get a new weapon. And a new player needs to know to do this and have the skills to keep it up and put up with that maintenance burden. Then the player has to read his prompt or watch the opponent weapons to command the right alias. In CMUD, I don't have to do that. MDSP tells me I'm inferior as long as I can see. So I can have a script "ad" to just switch me from inferior style to superior.

I think you could level the playing field a massive amount with the following steps (which may be super hard to code, I don't know).


Add 4 new equipment slots (named however).
Back loop, main belt loop, off hand belt loop, shield loop.
These slots can only hold weapons. Back loop only 2 hander, belt loops only 1 handers.

Add commands switch styles based on what you have in the loops. Make it smart enough to handle things like counterbalance.
Offenseive
Defensive
Two-handed

Add a command to automatically switch to automatically switch to advange.

Now you can easily run the style triangle. You can easily switch which weapons you are using to do it. If you want to try the type triangle too you research what your opponent fights with and change the weapons in your slots accordingly. If you get disarmed and sacced you can throw a new weapon in that slot.

Add more instruction on this system and how to do aliases to the mud school.

You could also build off any of this as devs see fit. I do like Dav's idea of adding more interaction with skills messing with opponents ability to run the triangles. Or you could let the swap commands work with a 1 round lag or something.

Those are just my thoughts on how to streamline this without needing scripting knowledge if you leave it as is.


As for whether to get rid of it...
I think the core problem is this user story:
I read the help file on my new ability uncanny attack
It told me to switch into weapon type advantage and use my ability
I did that and immediately got ruined

The triangles are coupled into too many things IMO.
It's tied into defenses for the auto-damage exchange and the usage of skills. It should only be tied into one of those two things. Not both.
I find a gate to skills more interesting (if investing in the refinement of these skills). But a modifier on auto-damage is fine too.
But both makes a very complex and knowledge dependent trade space that is both hard for players to understand and hard for devs to balance.

Meant to say
"Or you could let the swap commands work with a 1 round lag while blind or something." Not just lag (bc then scripting would still be superior).

Never made or used a script. Macros is all I use mixed with old fashioned typing it out.

I'm using the term script in a general sense not an exact program specific definition. The vast majority of what I do are macros too. Far stronger than an alias but far less than automation.

I voted yes but with the disclaimer that the classes I lean heavily into playing get completely hosed by combat style. I kind of like Dav's idea of paper, rock, scissors. I also think the current system can be salvaged if weapon swapping in combat gave you a 1.5 round lag instead of just a brief cooldown period.

I'm sure I can come up with other reasons why to keep it, but here's one off the top of my head. Two handed against dual wield. If there is only weapon advantage in play, then why would you go down a defense and damage by using only one weapon? There has to be an advantage of going two hander over dual wield. If not, then when exactly is there an advantageous time to go with a two-hander?

The only people, with the exception of xenywr it seems, who want the style (rock paper scissors) or those scripting to auto change to a different weapon or style. Combat style was one of the worst things implemented. Over half of the player base play mage types so they don't have to deal with it. That should tell you something. A mechanic discluding people from playing a class they may have otherwise enjoyed.

I don't script or use triggers at all for weapon swaps.

On hardulf/hirendan/Skeggi/aelaldric I used macros or aliases. F6 defensive style F7 dual wield F8 two handed. Super easy to swap fast.

On Xhao I used aliases for monk stances. tt = tiger, cc = crane, etc

On heinrildt I just cursed a two handed spear and said YOLO

If you don't want to worry about the combat stuff you could always make a mage with weapon ward or something.

What are the reasons people want to get rid of combat styles? All I see is "I think the people winning are using scripts for weapon swaps".
First I don't think there's many, if any, that use scripts for that.(I could be naive) And two, scripts don't equal wins.

So you're saying we should buff rogues or remove counterbalance because combat style concentration matters a LOT for dealing with that. And you're saying rangers don't deserve to have double disarm to create an opening for their bow moves. Is that what I'm hearing from this not well thought out idea?

First of all a disclaimer that I was already drinking for an hour before I opened this thread again, and I may not be thinking as clearly as I usually do, BUT, Xenyar, I think the concern was that combat style management + weapon style management at the same time is overwhelming. Whereas, if all that defensive style meant was 12% less damage taken/dealt for defensive, and similarily 6% more damage taken/dealt for offensive, these two players would deal the exact same damage to each other. whether in the same style or opposite. it'd just be balanced, and from there it would come down to what you preferred (a big dick fight or a longer grinding one), and then you throw in weapon advantages and whether you could get the hobble off for a dodge/AC Penalty (assuming that stayed on combat style matchup)

Then for the two-handed vs dual wield part of that entire system, we shouldn't have anything capable of outdamaging dual wield on a defenseless combat dummy, but the two handed weapons should obviously have better parry chance against dual wielded weapons, after you gave up a whole defense for them, and as far as I know we do already have that parry bonus and also a damroll bonus. So its nice, but we could check whether maybe dual wield needs a hitroll penalty to be correctly balanced against the two handed damroll bonus actually.

I pretty much ignore weapon style matchup if I'm playing warrior/berserker/ranger. Combat style is waaaaay more important.

If I know the other guy is going to likely use a specific weapon type (like if I know they are going to use a spear to try to prevent my dodge) then I will set up my macros so I'm using something either equal or advantageous to what I 'think' they will be using, but I don't sweat it if I'm wrong. If we have been skirmishing and I know what weapons they have then all adjust but again, I won't really sweat it if I'm weapon matchup inferior if I'm able to keep combat style superiority.

Some thoughts and opinions as a long-time player and developer:

The idea of combat style as a game of rock/paper/scissors impacting melee combat feels good. Breaking out a big ass maul to overhead crush an enemy without a shield or weapon big enough to block it feels good. The same is true of pressing an advantage by barraging the shield of an opponent who is already on the defensive. I don't think gutting/cutting the mechanic that feels this good is the right move.

With that said, I can't help but notice that the scenarios I just mentioned are ways the player is actively pressing an advantage. We should probably audit all the ways that combat style affects things before we consider any serious changes, but I think that change might be warranted for some hidden/passive aspects of this. Say, hypothetically, that combat style advantage gives you a +10% chance to land one of your attacks (it doesn't, I just picked an arbitrary thing as a theoretical example). It may be better to have this chance start at 1 or 2% and increase for each round the advantage is continuously maintained up to the maximum. This makes it less punishing for guessing incorrectly while skirmishing or being a bit slower than an opponent, but still hurts you if try to just ignore the mechanic. This maintains the feel of the mechanic with active skills and somewhat minimizes it on the passive end.

Hobble skill exacerbates any perceived problems with combat style by punishing the combat style "loser" even more. We have some updates for the hobble skill already on the docket for this next patch.

Having both combat style and weapon matchup to worry about does increase the complexity. It might be too much but, then again, maybe it isn't. If we were going to phase out one or the other, I'd lean towards trivializing the weapon matchup.

Our whole system of vuln weapons and bows in general complicate things.

I don't think our top PKers use triggers/scripts for switching weapons. At most, they are using macros or aliases and everybody has access to these, even on the webclient. There's too many nuances to just have a script make the decision for you. I would guess that players that try to script this are actually losing fights if they try to rely on it. A flat 1 round or 1.5 round lag on any active weapon switch in combat (already suggested) evens the field here by providing the opponent a chance to flee and get their shit together if their opponent is over-relying on switching weapons to win.

Interesting suggestions for tweaking things on the passive end while keeping the combat system, Olyn. That might be something to dig into more.

Kalist is 100% correct with figuring out your opponents weapon selection in the first skirmish or two. Once you learn that you adjust your macros to manage swaps more effectively.

Dav's suggestion of it just being something you toggle between with various degrees of buffs and debuffs depending on style, seems infinitely better than keeping it.

So you're saying we should buff rogues or remove counterbalance because combat style concentration matters a LOT for dealing with that. And you're saying rangers don't deserve to have double disarm to create an opening for their bow moves. Is that what I'm hearing from this not well thought out idea?

Rangers suck and need something better than double disarm, but that's discussion for a different topic thread imo.
Thieves pk capabilities are mid, and honestly, any change regarding combat style would only serve to benefit them long-term.

Olyn, there was some player (mummy maybe) who was running near perfect pk records with scripting.

Stiehl, I know I've been semi-afk for almost 2 years now, but I don't think I slept through that. I would need to see the receipts to believe it.

Oh, I wasn't suggesting at all remove it. I was just saying, I did't see there'd be a huge problem with choosing to manually enter a style. I think when someone is the Forsaken of Legion and has equipped the blood-filled voulge, the killing intent is cartoonishly obvious there. That character is on a homicidal rampage, and it makes sense for them to just go on full offense. You'd expect wild blows that are heavy enough to actually pummel a defensive style opponent. How that would work mechanically would just be some sort of Legion cabal power (demon form?) that increases the offense style damage dealt I had suggested by another 6%. We can keep things nice and easy!

So Oyln and Kalist have basically reinforced what I already believe. I'm going to take on too many topics in one post but alas, I'm me (sorry).

Without a severe overhaul that is impossible to do all at once (can't strip w/o replacement, the real question is not "should we get rid of combat styles?". The question is "how influential should combat style advantage be?"

It currently has a huge impact. It's arguably the dominant factor in combat. It has:

Natural "combat bonuses" including diminishing dodge, especially against dexterous characters
(Aside, I have always disliked how obfuscated this is... just tell us the numbers)

Concentrate

Powerful skill dependencies (overhead crush, barrage, hobble sideswipe)

Warlord forms dependency

It's fine for one class to care more about something than another but when it's RPS if you're equally skilled then it's luck. If one class ruins you when they get advantage in a disproportionate way then it devolves. Other classes abilities become not worth using if it sacrifices your ability to stay out of disadvantage.

So then we get to the double triangles. AKA "rogue classes suck".

Weapon type has tied to it:

Natural "combat bonuses" including diminishing parry.

Less powerful skill dependencies (uncanny attack, clobber, sidestep)

The issue with double triangles is that it creates a 9 box grid of states. It's really hard to get double advantage. So inherently, weapon type advantage would have to be equal to combat style advantage to push an advantage disadvantage trade. And it just isn't. Even if the type advantage skills were as good as the style skills (they aren't), there is still all the extra stuff style advantage has tied to it that type advantage doesn't.

Fighter types are the kings of auto damage. More attacks, more AC, more defenses, more hit points. As long as style advantage so heavily influences auto damage you can't trade advantages and advantage based skills in near equal fashion. It's impossible.

This is why an elite PKer like Kalist can honestly state he can largely ignore weapon type. He can. The triangles aren't equal and rogue classes can't punish him for ignoring it. (I actually kind of wonder if this didn't just happen because thieves and shadows can't get into warlords. It's the melee balance playground so maybe style has been built up and type hasn't?)

So in the current state, why even have two triangles? Just can weapon type like Olyn says. Tie the type skills to style and then they can be independently balanced instead of going head to head with the style skills.

Now, on Olyn's proposal to add more lag to switching weapons:

There are two things I don't like about the lag proposal
1) this will really just drive people to flee and switch weapons out of combat. I already dislike how flee centric and tracking centric combat is. It's thematically terrible, cumbersome, and leads to long fights. It would be great if there could actually be an unbroken 6-10 round exchange where players tactically exchange skills and the cat and mouse game begins at big and nasty wounds
2) It further consumes time doing actions that are general instead of class specific. You've got all these classes and skills and your just washing them out and making classes play more general. It's weird to me that martial combat uses its time to general flee / murder and weapon switch 5x more than class skills.

Adding lag to switching is treating a symptom to me. The cause is that combat advantage has outsized importance. The question is how important do you want it to be? If you reign it in appropriately you won't feel the need to add lag.

I think you could re-baseline combat pretty easily then take your time doing whatever with skills.

1) ditch weapon type completely, tie those skills to combat ad
2) remove everything about combat advantage that influences defenses
3) add a punishment to fleeing like God (dnd) intended by making quick volley a core mechanic regardless of weapon. Opponent gets a free swing when you flee
4) give skirmish classes an ability to negate the above core mechanic

Points 3 and 4 are basically the tried and true DnD mechanic. Give fleeing a penalty and let skirmish classes tumble to avoid that penalty. This encourages staying in combat.

Ok, I'm done. Hope somebody reads it and it at least provoked some thoughts. Cheers mates.

@Dav - I think manually entering a level of aggressiveness could be a great replacement for getting rid of weapon type and striping auto damage and defense modification from style. It would be very clean.

Combat style controls skill usage and efficacy. Set aggressiveness controls auto damage / defenses mods. Some weapon types are better or worse at aggressiveness settings. Here's the table.

Actually I think a lot of this headache would go away if hobble simply went off weapon advantage, here are some reasons why I think it could work better like that:

(I) disarm (and berserker rake) require a weapon advantage, so we already teach that is important to maintain. (a corollary, this is better for dex warriors who already need the weapon advantage to disarm even more so than a high strength warrior does)
(II) losing parry with disarm is comparable to losing dodge chance with hobble, so its a similar 'existential threat', i.e. it does not make weapon advantage really much more "critical" while consolidating worry for everyone else into watching that one prompt for a scary red colour that appears to need addressing ASAP before both your defenses get dismantled
(III) warriors have a load of favored weapons, and the entire resist and vuln system also leans much more into worrying about main hand weapon than combat style (like the dwarf axe favored weapon providing an advantage over water cubes). so it would make more sense if they actually thought about and then used these favored weapons instead of it just a "whatever works" system of weapon agnostic combat style (mainly the hobbles)
(IV) we also do other interesting weapon-based stuff like attacks are always wild on every parry that was failed because of weapon advantage, spears having an impact on dodge, so there's more example of just caring more about what weapon you use than your combat style
(V) it is obviously easier to attack (and defend) since you only need to switch one weapon instead of potentially two weapons
(VI) currently, it seems like warriors can get out of situations where you were kicking their ass by just double grip/hobble, and that actually seems cheesy. that does absolutely nothing if hobble wasnt combat style
(VII) Also, mages already weapon ward to opt out. but we dont want weapon ward to also screw combat styles, and that fixes this inconsistency

If you think about the impact of that on the actual flow of combat, it is possible the warrior would initially go with dirt (no pre-requisite) or disarm/hobble (req. weapon adv.) or the composite combat style skills, or if theyre feeling OP they could even just bash you. but I think because of the amount of importance this change puts onto weapon advantage, then it seems generally makes sense for that guy to prioritize the weapon advantage first, then go for a combat style once they have you trapped in the fight and want the concentrate damage, extra attacks when you flee, etc. of course the fight unfolds and you have to adjust to missed dirts, disepnsing a nice RNG ass whupping and bash becoming rational due to being ahead a lot.

The issue with that is I'm not sure what we would do with monks. Like, I guess they could just always be vuln to hobble when a style isnt 'activated', but then also make monk style activation cause immunity (which would also strip hobble), so it isnt very worrying for them. overall, I got a feeling this hobble off weapon type would be better for the game across quite a few dimensions though.

please no changes, just get better at the game or be happy with your own mediocrity.

In response to OP and the original argument:

Having enough experience with using combat styles and fighting some of the most nimble players, I really dare you to go make a script that automatically switches your combat style with whatever trigger/action. Not only you will be underwhelmed realizing you are still garbo but it's also a deathwish.

I once explained how I used mine on Szrevan.

aliases; du = dual wield, wm = shield, two = 2hander
1 = wield blade, 2 = wield shaft, 3 = wield segment

it's not hard to do something like "1, enter, du, enter, 0 (hobble for me), enter" takes me less than a second to write all this and it gives me complete control over when and what, so I can bait and time my swaps which are CRUCIAL.

If I'd meet someone who uses triggers for switching, I'd abuse the fuck out of that completely castrating them.

That sounds very similar to any FPS twerpalina, very easy to use and popular for weapon changes. of course the other thing any FPS has is dead air while your toon is swapping its weapon

The day I accept my mediocrity you can just start calling me Bozaru.

Why even post about pk, your greatest achievement is running in circles laughing saying you can't even catch me. You have 0 intention of ever fighting someone you know u can lose to. Just make a thief and give yourself hell stream. Being an immortal with all the perks and insider knowledge you ahve gained after 3 decades isn't enough?

This talk of adjusting your macros and aliases after you learn the opponents weapons is kind of in line with Phostan's original post though isn't it? It's something vets can do and those less comfortable can't. If that's part of elite combat that's being kept why not lean on and do something official like the weapon slots I suggested originally? It would streamline and make it more accessible for all and tell players "you should do this".

Twerp, I remember you posting your aliases way back. I was curious then and I still am now, how does this with without variables for the type switch alias? To my knowledge the built in game aliases cannot do references.
You cannot do
Alias du wield main | dual off
Alias seg Alias main flail | Alias off whip

my favorite phostan quote

Phostan -- 05/30/2022 12:09 AM
I'm pretty sure you were about ready to cry at your keyboard from the hard trolling
funniest shit I'd done in a long time. I was vibing hard on the mounting frustration.
Pretty much popped half-mast from the trolling, your mom woulda been so wet if she'd seen me in action.

RIP this thread, its been a blast.

Scrynor, i use JMC variables that i set usually before each fight.

I had few aliases more:

pri sword = sets mainhand variable to sword
sec dagger = sets secondary weapon to dagger
two axe = sets twohander to axe

shaft mace = sets shaft weapon to mace to be used when i press 2 {wield $shaft}
and so on

#alias du {rem shield;dual $sec}
#alias wm {rem $sec;wear shield}
#alias two {grip $two}

#alias 1 {wield $blade}
#alias 2 {wield $shaft}
#alias 3 {wield $seg}


You don't really need it, but i liked to organize my weapons before each fight properly w/o having to remake all the aliases.

You can accomplish exactly the same scenario with simple ingame aliases
just replace $blade $two $pri etc. variables in aliases with weapon keywords.

Just means you have to write alias 2 wield mace or alias 2 wield axe
instead of shaft axe or shaft mace

The only cheese I had was that I had my alias q overwritten each time I swapped stance to adjust for overhead, barrage, sideswipe. Just to save buttonspace :P

#alias wm {rem $sec;wear shield;#alias q sideswipe}

as one of the examples.


Also, the most important thing for combat swapping (at least back then, idk what new delay changes exist) was the timing e.g. the main reason actions/triggers would not work optimally. You really want to sometimes delay or doubleswitch style to bait and fake opponent into using a skill in disadvantage especially when fighting warrior vs warrior. You fight someone enough you can anticipate when they swap, so you pre-swap before them or delay your own swap for when they are about to hit their combat style skill and absolutely dumpster people.

Do not change combat styles for this is one of the only ways for undergeared people to actually outplay overgeared opponents (in fights where styles actually matter at least)

Thanks for the detailed reply! Very insightful for the uninitiated on fighter class vs fighter class. And always interesting to see how similar or differentother people's setups are to my own.

Reading yours (and mine) I still can't help but think how much simpler it all gets if there are official weapon slots in your equipment load out with swap commands. Basically like a barbarian in d4 without the auto draw on skill use.

the result we dont want is you guys end upusing macros as a workaround for not being able to handle it, e.g. type Q to use <combat skill> and dont think about what to use. thats not a good result. definitely not something to ban people for but the game just shouldnt be that hard that its better to just "q" everything

With the use of MSDP mappers, tick triggers, triggers for 1000 million things that people post here and countless of other advanced mudlet scripts, having re-bindable skill key is the least of my concerns imo.

I don't play this game anymore because it has turned into who can code their mapper and triggers betters instead of playing the raw game.

Speaking as somebody who has played this game for many years on and off and who can barely create a macro never mind any sort of script. I'd like to claim now that in every moment in the game that I have sucked and generally been awful (99%) of the time, I'm claiming now that it is actually not my fault and instead will believe that every opponent I am up against is a scripting master and I don't stand a chance so ITS NOT ME.

This does make me feel a bit better so thanks.

This thread needs Burzuk to come in and drop some knowledge

"Half the people are complaining, half of them like it, seems balanced to me!"

rhovhard - your gag ability goes in next patch so lets start out by just acknowledge that. You have good ideas, and are worth listening to. Maybe I dont like the initial pitch but I think you recognize where the work needs to be done. I would rather hear what YOU have to say honestly.

I was thinking an idea worth a shot at, is perhaps hobble and concentrate could change to defensive skills instead of shredding your opponents armor and dodge skill. Numerically you'd have the same outcome, either you tank better or deal more damage, so who cares, but a longer fight will give the player more chances to win because of skill instead of winning because of burst. That is also easier to understand, it means you would go for combat style advantage to improve defense, or weapon advantage for more offense. I like that two-handed helps parry vs dual wield. and they could be trivially also made easier to shield block if they arent already so. BTW I am not suggesting to just rip up every warrior skill in the game, keep some offence, but this thread might just be saying its due to put warriors in their proper place (tanky).

"I was thinking an idea worth a shot at, is perhaps hobble and concentrate could change to defensive skills instead"

You could have both with an ease, simply make hobble reduce % of dex which means less hitroll and less dodge.

Davairus - I am beyond flattered. Thank you. I haven't gotten a single PK since I came back but this makes my day! :)

I understood the combat/weapon styles was Burzuk's baby, so I would actually like to hear what he would say about the recent complaints. Maybe with the extent of scripting or other modifications (e.g., reduced cooldown for switching weapons), the combat system would not have passed play testing. Maybe he still thinks it's the best solution or he can propose patches that avoid problems that came up in development.

I voted to change the system. I can share my issues but I dont know the best solution. My core problem is that the best weapon/style combo is absolute and dominant, which kills the rock/paper/scissors mystique. Absolute meaning its known from the prompt before any blows are exchanged which switches are needed to win the matchup without any risk. Dominant means that outdamaging and out-skilling the weaker position seems guaranteed. If either of those points caused risks that could balance the decision to switch, it would feel more like boulder/parchment/shears and less like finding that 10mm socket.

With every other match up, optimizing for one threat diverts resources from another. Wearing saves reduces damage output. There's an optimal middle ground for each opponent that's not trivial (for me) to predict.

Uncategorized list of ways to address the above:

1. Split damage and skill dominance by having the optimal weapon/style match up cause the most damage but open up skill vulnerabilities, or vice-versa. If I'm in dominant style, I'm easier to hobble and clobber or my skills are less effective.

2. Split weapon and combat style matchup by having players choose dominance in one or the other to exploit.

3. Keep everything the same but dial down the effectiveness. If the gains were reduced, any existing risks for switching constantly would be more pronounced.

4. Force people to commit more. I chose rock and you chose paper, now I'm stuck fleeing or needing to compensate for the poor matchup until adrenaline wears off, or something. NOW what are you going to choose next time? This ranges from choosing a style at creation to a 2 tick cooldown for fully transitioning into a new style.

It's also possible to use carrots. I'll stay in a poor matchup if there's a cool skill I can only use when I've remained in one style for sufficiently long. I can always switch right away to avoid being pummeled, but I can stay the course if my damage will increase.

5. Add a new element that balances the above. (Meta: some muds balance by nerfing, some by making new, more powerful options. I strongly prefer the former for reasons.) I can imagine combat height- "You hold your weapon high." "You fight low to the ground." options that could balance by adding decisions and risk.

6. Add a random or "undisciplined" style option that adds risk to choosing any one style. Through deliberate obfuscation or feral instinct, the fighting style rapidly changes or somehow breaks the unspoken agreed-upon boundaries between the different formal styles of combat.

Alright, I'll get in on some of this action!

Starting really broad, you can't change combat style or combat style advantage without fundamentally changing the game. And, as mentioned earlier, it's hard to change something that feels good. Whether you're a fighter class or not, outsmarting your opponent with a combat style swap feels good. Double grip-overhead smash feels good. Removing your shield and wielding a two-hander to cause your opponent to miss their barrage feels good. Your brain gets a dopamine rush as the tide of the battle turns briefly in your favor, and repeated anticipations like this can really get into the head of your opponent.

That said, I think the easiest way to change combat style advantage without fundamentally changing an enjoyable aspect of the game is what Dav brought up recently, which is to make combat style advantage something more defensive. We already have something like that existing in monks with block, and I think overall that ability has gone over well (no bias here :P). Furthermore, it would reinforce the notion that combat skills like overhead smash, barrage, and sideswipe aim to improve offense in what is an inherently defensive maneuver (maybe less so with sideswipe). As mentioned before, this reduces burst that warriors put out, makes things feel less dependent on RNG, and gives outclassed opponents at least a sliver of a chance to keep the fight going without having to resort to instantly turning and running after two rounds going poorly.

Now, since warriors would be the most impacted by this change, how would making combat style advantage more defensive affect combat against their counter classes? In my experience, this is shaman, invoker, and berserker (when all things are equal with respect to gear and player skill). I think, in general, this would hurt their ability to fight these classes even more. A more defensive warrior can't burst down a shaman or invoker as fast, which just gives the shaman more time to heal or land debuffs, and it gives the invoker more time to shred you with spells. And berserkers get such a massive boost to hit/dam when they rage, I don't think the defensive buff that warriors would get from combat style advantage would help them much. So, in the end, this change would absolutely nerf warriors and make them easier to deal with from other classes.

Finally, as a side note, I just want to say that I like the idea of not having to weapon swap to change your combat style with commands like aggressive/defensive/balanced, mostly from a flavor standpoint. When I imagine my fighter class, I'm not imagining them quickly cycling through weapons at blazing speed to try to get an advantage over their opponent. I usually see them mastering one or two weapons at most, and sticking with their trusty 'favored' weapon over everything else. Pulling back to a system like agg/def/bal may force warriors to actually stick to their favored weapons (as I think Dav mentioned earlier as well), and forego weapon style advantage in exchange for better hit/dam. This would also promote more unconventional warriors being rolled so that people could get access to new and interesting weapons. However, moving to an a/d/b system would be one of those monumental shifts in the combat system that I mentioned earlier. Could you really say that a warrior can't shift in and out of a combat style with dirt in their eyes now that they don't have to swap weapons? Can you overhead smash if you've got a shield in your hand? How many rare slots did you just open up in each fighter's inventory, thereby granting greater access for more people to powerful weapons? I think these are things that could be addressed and balanced with time, but that would be a huge effort.

I think removing the styles would just make flee/murder much, much easier. Probably not a good thing.

This kind of feels like a "qwerty" vs numpad players debate.

I definitely think, finding a solution for murder flees would be a better option than changing combat styles.

actually there are existing solutions for murder/flee, starting with just sitting yourself in a no-exit (hard counter), the next thing is just fleeing from their murder and stand on the spot spamming murder <blah> so that you hit first when they walk in to try to catch up to you. the moving player is always lagged and will always get hit first. you can also dirt kick (which means they cannot murder you) although if I recall correctly we removed that being blocked by blurry vision, so we nerfed that one on request that we do. Also you can hobble them so they cant flee easily, and if they do collapse on fleeing then you can just walk in and murder. finally the easiest tool against murder/flee is to just sit at your cabal guardian or some other aggro mob. guild sit so that they have to aggro a mob. From there we start getting into classes, like for example the invoker ice shielld is basically a thorns for murder damage, meaning if you are trying to flee/murder an invoker you are going to eat a ton of damage anyway, and that isnt a flee/murder problem, that is a gear (hp, AC and damroll) problem

P.S. An easy to generate idea in light of what I already posted is to simply give players a chance to perform a retaliating strike if they are murdered while having a weapon advantage. If you can see them of course. Another way to go wih that would be that if you have combat style superiority, you can attempt an evade when you are murdered (even if you dont have dodge). Or hell, why not both?

weapon adv:
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
Your whip MUTILATES Bob! <-- you perform the second attack instead of Bob
etc

combat style:
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
You evade Bob's second attack.

both (better damage?):
You yell 'Help I am being attacked by Bob the Warrior!'
Bob's slash MANGLES you!
You evade Bob's second attack and strike back.
Your whip DISMEMBERS Bob!

all murder-only, unavailable with weapon ward type shit. to introduce it with less initial potency, that could also just be an update to riposte, berserker lash (needs a whip), fencing (needs a sword), and so on.