Rich Roleplaying versus All Roles

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Stundorn, Jul 18, 2018.

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  1. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    Actually, it's not a personal attack but please feel free to click the Report button if you disagree.
     
  2. redfish

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    Three types of games.

    1. STRICT. Games that have hard limits, that limit your roles strictly and arbitrarily.
    2. BALANCED. Games that are open-ended but give you sufficient trade-offs, so you can specialize more than one thing, but there's a trade-off to doing that that would encourage many people not to make that choice.
    3. LAX. Games that are open-ended but don't give you any real trade-offs or choices, so most everyone ends up playing the same way.

    I feel we should be aiming for #2, but SotA currently falls too much in #3.
     
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  3. Barugon

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    How so? What is the build that everyone is playing?
     
  4. redfish

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    I don't use torches, potions, food, because I have Light/Night Vision and Healing Touch and my natural regen is fast and its super easy. So are skills like Dash, so everyone stacks up speed buffs, so much that Chris needed to nerf them. People with weapons all use Ignite Weapon. Old players give advice to new players to level up Safe Fall to avoid, and why not, everyone can do it. Everyone buffs up Int/Str/Dex no matter how they play. There are a bunch of different balance problems where there aren't sufficient trade-offs or incentives and too much stuff that "everyone needs to have", making other stuff "pointless".
     
  5. Rowell

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    If everyone can get everything...how is that unbalanced?

    I mean, you can see imbalances between classes. But when any player can get any skill (or all skills) and level them as far as they want...how exactly is that imbalanced? Because you can always re-balance yourself.
     
  6. kaeshiva

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    I'm trying to word this as politely as I can.
    But this is just another example of a post by this author who wants Sota to be like "some other game" -

    Like most of the other posts, it portrays a limited understanding of the game, not only in available systems/mechanics but just basic stuff, like its genre. I do not mean this to be offensive or a personal attack, and I apologize if it comes off that way. I just mean that if you spend enough time in the game it becomes quickly evident that some of the stuff being asked for is either a) already in the game or b) is incompatible with things already in the game or against the core vision.

    In this case, its a). You can absolutely pick a character role and stick with it. 100% from start to finish. I know people who play pure healers - they don't fight unless they're in a group. I know people who play tanks. Who play mages of absolutely every flavor. I know a person who plays a sneaky-rogue type. I know another person who plays a sun priestess and only uses searing ray for offense. While sometimes people may change their minds and decide to redo their specializations, this is NOT quick or EASY - its extremely lossy to untrain it unless you use the coto-item, and even then you still have to grind that xp back into the new spec, redo your gear, redo your decks, and so on. You can't willy-nilly be lifespec at lunch and deathspec at dinner by pressing a button . While the specializations aren't all encompassing, they, along with your choice of weapon, define your character's capabilities and make the player's combat choices absolutely relevant.

    The beauty of Sota's skill system is you can make absolutely anything work. And you can stick with it. Even at high levels, you can make it work. Will some things be more effective than others? OF COURSE. That's why how you build your deck and what skills you decide to train is important. Some "roles" will have an easier time, some will have a harder time, but I don't think there's anything that's completely un-viable to play through the majority of the game content. Not every build is going to solo bosses, and not every build will excel in PvP - so presumably, you would pick your character "role" based on what sort of activities you enjoy.

    This freedom to build your character how you want is the main appeal of the game for me. Will you need to level some 'necessary' utility skills? Probably, although with the diminishing returns softcap in place, and the fact that all the skills are front-loaded (more benefit for less xp early on, ramping severely off post 80 and even more severely post 100, post 120) makes the entire design quite elegant.

    I do not want to play a game where I have to pick a class and if I decide later I want to do something else, my only choice is reroll. Especially with the pendulum swing balance changes we get every month. That being said, I've been running the same "role" for over a year now, despite the changes, the nerfs, etc. Do I change my deck depending on where I'm fighting? Absolutely - that's just smart tactics. But it doesn't change my character identity or my core build.
     
  7. kaeshiva

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    I do agree that there are far too many skills that feel "required" - you've mentioned a few, and the 10-button-hotbar-limit curtails some of this behavior where active skills are concerned, but there's dozens of passives that are useful to everyone. Honeslty that's the biggest off-putting thing for me trying to level an alt --- the "oh god, I have to level all this crap again" when really, I just want to go poke things with a stick. Still though, a lot of these are limited by certain equipment requirements - heavy or light armor, must be using melee or ranged weapon (or even a specific weapon), etc. Oddly though, there's no restrictions on magic to say "must be using a spellcasting implement" so we end up with everyone splashing a bit of this and that. Perhaps that would be the great equalizer.
     
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  8. Ravicus Domdred

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    because if you want to actually RP in a RPG game (Role Playing Game) then you play a character. You should not need to be everything to complete the content. If you can get high enough in your Character without compromising it to be effective in pvp and pve then it would be ok. But this is not possible for all players. You cannot play this game effectively as a pure death mage. You cannot harm undead, which much of the content is undead. Now if there where caps that forced people to rely on others to help them, forced them to make up parties for doing things then it would be ok. But there is no need for others, there is no need for dependency. It throws the classic Role play out the window. Some of us old school like that kind of thing. It creates stories, adventures, failures and heros. But now we are all hero's, if we grind, grind, grind, we can be the be all end all, no need for community except to dance party.
     
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  9. Barugon

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    I don't use torches but I do use potions and food.
    I use speed buffs in-town and on the over-world. I sometimes use potions of wolf speed when fighting higher level monsters, like trolls.
    Yes, Safe Fall is pretty nice to have. So are most of the other innates. I don't see any issue with this.
    You can only use one stat buff spell. To get more, you need to get it through equipment, which limits other bonuses. You can also use potions.
    Given everything above, how is it different than any other MMO? What other MMO is perfectly balanced and doesn't have skills and gear that most people desire? If they eliminated everything that people want to gain/achieve then who would play?
     
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  10. Ravicus Domdred

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    UO has gone for 20 years this way.
     
  11. Barugon

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    My personal opinion is that UO is crap compared to SotA.
     
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  12. Ravicus Domdred

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    thats not what you asked. And opinions are just that, opinions.
     
  13. kaeshiva

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    They really do need to do something about the undead-are-absolutely-everywhere issue. Mages in general, and death mages in particular, do experience far more gameplay limitations due to mob-resistance or immunity. If you use a weapon though, you can pretty much go anywhere and do whatever without having to worry about a significant drop in your effectiveness due to the above. Even still though, you -can- make death mage work, you just have to avoid certain zones, or on occasion, whack something with a stick. Is it as effective? No - but if character identity is more important to you than effectiveness, then you can make it work. I know someone who roleplays a druid and wont use metal armor/weapons of any type, and wont kill animals. Talk about limiting! Still though, if that's what they want to do the game doesn't stop you from doing it, but imposing any sort of limitations on yourself will slow down your progression in turn.
     
  14. Barugon

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    Everyone gravitated to the most effective builds in UO too.
     
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  15. Ravicus Domdred

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    I can see your point for pve, but not RP/PVP. I think this is the point that everyone is missing from stunburns and my pov. If they made a separate skill tree for pvp that was skill capped then it would work awesome. It would revert to that tree when you flagged.
     
  16. redfish

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    I'm not talking about any of that, just setting things up to have better trade-offs, and I wouldn't use most MMOs as an example.

    @kaeshiva, my view has always been that the problem is that they've tried on some things to take a carrots only and no sticks approach, and it doesn't work well for creating necessary balances and trade-offs.

    I would break down the three types of games like this,
    1. STRICT - Requires heavy sticks, no carrots.
    2. BALANCED - Requires some sticks, some carrots.
    3. LAX - Requires heavy carrots, no sticks.
     
  17. Ravicus Domdred

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    not necessarily. The people that did not care for RP just did cookie cutter/macro but there was many communities of RP, especially on Europa, where we did RP pvp and we made it work. I have suggested this to chris many times to have a guild system like UO where you could create a group of RP guilds who would rp war scenarios. We could have ROE and not be at war with the entire populace, so we could enact our battles without grief.
     
  18. Ataniiq

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    I feel like it's much too late to change the way it is..
     
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  19. DeadnGone

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    @Stundorn
    I can see somewhat where you are going and generally it's the same idea you've had, a game with some kind of hard caps/soft caps to restrict players from doing everything. I can understand that you feel this somehow betters the RP experience.

    However, there are many pen and paper RP games as well as video games, like Rolemaster, Gurps, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc that offer the abililty in character creation/advancement to choose from all sorts of skills to flesh out characters. They may have different ways to handle it, like total skill points available, skill caps, levels for points, etc. So, the idea of having games where you can choose any skills to make basically any kind of character you want is not a new concept, nor would it limit any "roleplay" on the side of the player. Even SotA has a HUGE experience wall post 110 and gets crazier the closer you get to 150 and insane afterwards.

    The problem with some of the argument is time it takes for players to even get these skills. For adventurer skills, because of the double exp events and place like Upper Tears to grind experience faster (though you still have to wait after you attenuate before you can gain more experience), people are gaining it faster. But it's not the norm. Usually takes quite a long time to develop these skills. Even players who have been playing for years and looking at the population as a whole, it is a small percentage of the population who are even natural Adventure Level 100 (no +adv lvl buffs/items) and it usually took them a while to get there, some quicker if they knew all the hotspots. As for crafting... wow... that takes FOREVER. Even if you were rich and had lots of disposable cash to throw at max'ing/rushing your producer levels and skills, looking at the game and its entire history... very few if any have done this. People who grind crafting xp usually get tired of it, even if they love crafting. Trying to gain in producer levels/skills can burn you out. Quite a lot of quit doing it or get bored and put it on hold for a while. The amount of actual quality crafters (skills 100+ though usually 120+ in primary gear masterwork/enhancement) are very low in numbers compared to the rest of the population. NOTE: To all crafters out there that may be considered non-top tier, my apologies for any offense, but this is in reference to talking about players being able to do and craft it all and there just isnt that many top-tiered players in crafting that can.

    So while theoretically it may be possible, in practice, not so much. Give more time and I can see more in 3-5 years having a lot more skills if they stick to the game but I would expect nothing less for such time put in. Im not saying I disagree, as it would be nice to see more reasons for extra characters, but then you wind up doing more or complimenting what you do on one character with stuff on another... so in the end it winds up being the same as being self sufficient. o_O

    The main problem I think is, this is how this game is setup. Its kind of how it was set in Ultima Online, where you can build your character however you want. So, that part aside... should we set caps? Sure, I'm all for it if they make what you're limited in, say you used your picks for archery and fire...
    make those skill trees far more robust to make up for it, both to keep things from being cookie cutter or flavor-of-the-month, as well as have continued options even down limited paths for your class. But as is, they can't just take away a little bit of that without changing things majorly.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2018
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  20. kaeshiva

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    @redfish

    I have no problem with your categorizations above, but I don't find Sota to be 'carrot heavy' at all. Perhaps when looking just at the skill system, but as a whole, I find a lot of the game has punishment mechanics that I simply find unnecessary - particularly a lot of the tedium time sinks / time wasters (water harvesting? refining bars? gathering times? road encounters? travel system limitations? crafting RNG) that add nothing rewarding to gameplay but simply require a player to go through unnecessary 'delays' or setbacks on a regular basis. There are also superfluous cash sinks that make many relate the game to a job, whereby one must grind money to pay for the various consumables/necessities/rent/etc. The death penalty, which honestly, isn't as big a deal anymore now that we have "xp bonanza" zones is another example of something that is in place merely to "punish" without actually achieving any sort of balance or purpose. That's a lot of sticks. The biggest stick, for me, is the extremely poor rewards for killing high/tier boss mobs, which unless you can steamroll them with zero risk, simply aren't worth the time. Most of the things that I find are "carrots" here are in spite of the game mechanics, rather than as a result of them. I appreciate your definition/opinion of what constitutes stick-and-carrot will differ. In terms of character-build freedom, yes, I'd say we're lax compared to most modern MMOs that pigeonhole players into classes, but that isn't the whole picture.
     
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