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R12 Mastering the Glyph System and Defeating Challenge Dungeon Solo

Discussion in 'Release 12 Feedback' started by Sunswords, Nov 24, 2014.

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  1. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

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    Only thing I don't understand is how you Divided and Concurred them they all are tooo close together and hunt in packs ??? If you don't want to tell the workd your secret can you PM me pleassseee :)
     
  2. Isaiah

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    I don't think he found a bug. I think if you can stack 3 or more fireballs in one stack it should reduce the focus cost. Otherwise mages won't last long in dungeons.

    If you're worried about PvP... I think it would be a bit stressful to keep stacking or using this method to fight other players. I may be wrong.

    I'm thinking that deck mechanics will become easier as the developers mature the features of this game. I'm picturing that one day we will have some way to have a shortcut to combine combos etc. Also it would be nice to be able to move our glyphs to an empty slot after we stack them as part of our preparation.
     
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  3. Isaiah

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    I edited my first post. I've played with this system extensively and I'm seeing that with some minor tweaks in the deck system I think it may just work great.


    You were really on to something @Sunswords

    I was frustrated at first but for some reason I obsessed on this. I'm hopeful that future releases more and more people will do this especially if we get some short cuts to help. I still think the community will need a tutorial or something as to how to optimize a deck at various stages of character advancement. However the potential is there for this to work especially if the game evolves to better allow for this to become less stressful.
     
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  4. Isaiah

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    OH another thing...

    I've been using the fireball and the death blast spells the most. With the current R12 deck system it is not useful for me to cast a level 5 firearrow+deathray combo spell. Once I cast that combination i have 10 glyphs (fire arrow, and death ray spells) that populate my toolbar. So I've been keeping firearrow+deathray stacked up level 5 and NEVER use it because by stacking 10 glyphs in one slot it frees up my other slots to recuperate faster from casting a fireball or the death explosion thingy.

    Either way this is another good argument for adding stacking shortcuts for the deck system.
     
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  5. Weins201

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    This is Defiantly a Bug it isn't intended to be able to STACK 5 in one glyph and hold it till you want to release it :-( You can also create blank locked glyphs using a Empty Locked Consumable
     
  6. Isaiah

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    No that's not a bug. You can stack any number of glyphs on top of the same type of glyph that is part of the design of the system.


    However here's my simplified wish list from the devs:

    1. an auto stack short cut

    a single button shortcut would be nice.
     
  7. Toadster

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    I lost my marbles a long time ago.... can I have some of your blue ones?

    But, too the point... That is a very interesting strategy, but that takes a lot of concentration to keep your glyphs from falling apart. constantly stacking, refresh, stack some more, shoot some, stack refresh..... on and on. I would go insane.

    The only enhancement I would like to see so far, is once it is stacked, it stays stacked.. It can still go away, but when it comes back the stack comes back so I have a chance to add more and use it when I need it.
     
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  8. Isaiah

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    what about using the mind lock to lock them permanently? until you use it or you change decks or something.
     
  9. Xi_

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    this is a very difficult thing to occomplish during pvp, I've been trying .... just to slow to put together, anything more than a double or maybe triple stack and thats it, your dead.
     
  10. Isaiah

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    yeah you need to be able to run. We need an auto stack in the worst way. So hitting the del key or F2 or anything like that. It should be a feature of the deck mechanic that everybody can use if they want. Just stack all like glyphs.
     
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  11. Xi_

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    could even be a glyph maybe that you can add to your deck
     
  12. tekkamansoul

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    Excellent discussion guys. I can see two major problems so far: One, the deck shuffle isn't controllable, nor do you get to see when your glyphs are Reshuffled. This can and will cause a cognitive dissonance between deck building and the draw rate for your skills. I feel like this is the primary reason players have to minmax within the system at this point.

    The other issue is stacking and drawing. Stacking should be automatic. Discarding slugs should be automatic or removed. Anything to prevent the excessive hotbar staring ATM.

    Why can't glyphs automatically stack? Why can't we just doubletap a numbered glyph that is part of a combo to activate the combo?

    Dragging and dropping is clunky as hell no matter what. Nobody wants that style of interface for combat.
     
  13. Sunswords

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    I'd like to call it a feature instead :p

    It is afterall the design of the game / current mechanics!

    Once you activate the circle, you have a narrow window of time to run to the left of the room and behind one of the statues. The Lich Lords aggro on line of sight (they have to face you) - they don't group on you from far away. However if there is a Lich who walks nearby while you are in battle behind the statue, they will aggro and join the fight. :)

    Good luck!
     
  14. Isaiah

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    I thought about that too but I don't like the idea of adding glyphs to my deck to manage glyphs in my deck. However if they build it that way I won't holler at them.

    I'm thinking from the consumer perspective (players), not as a designer. As a consumer I would want the combat system to have a built in feature to help manage itself. If the point of creating an auto stack to simplify stacking and micromanaging glyphs, then it seems it would be nice to have a built in feature to just hit the del key to execute the autostack rather than create a glyph for it.

    My reasoning is that if the system itself in its current state is a little too stressful, then the system itself should be updated rather than adding another skill. In other words if you didn't have that skill you would be forced to micromanage the system. Why not just make the system better so we don't have to micromanage. That's my thought.
     
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  15. Xi_

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    agreed
     
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  16. Sunswords

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    My suggestions to the Devs:

    General Mechanics

    1. Deck Size

    Deck size should be a function of how large your hand is and not your level; the more slots you have, the more cards you are required to fill into your deck. I do not suggest any "reward" to be tied into this skill as more slots is already a reward on its own. I.E., better probability ratios are not needed as a carrot for higher investment in this skill. I propose the following:

    Based on Rank of Glyph Hand Size:

    Rank / Slots / Deck Size / Average Probability*
    ... 0 ... / .. 4 .. / ..... 12 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........
    ... 1 ... / .. 5 .. / ..... 15 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........
    ... 2 ... / .. 6 .. / ..... 18 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........
    ... 3 ... / .. 7 .. / ..... 21 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........
    ... 4 ... / .. 8 .. / ..... 24 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........
    ... 5 ... / .. 9 .. / ..... 27 ..... / .......... 33.3% ........

    *Average probability of a full hand carrying one of each skill - deck comprised of 3 card stacks. <I need to check my math and logic here, it seems correct to me>

    As from above, the overall distribution is more even and does not penalise lower level characters / confer advantage to higher level characters. It also allows for players to customise whether they like a large range of skills, or a smaller but more focused deck. Both ends of the deck cap will be evenly balanced.

    2. Glyph Stacking

    Glyph stacking, in my honest opinion, should be removed. I've previously reviewed that combo-ing the same stack gives an unfair focus bonus. In light of the discovery in this thread, there is even more of a compulsion/reason to remove it - otherwise we can "game" the Glyph system by hoarding cards in our hands; we are now able to control what is in the undrawn pool of cards.

    User Interface and Management

    Before coming to my suggestions, I'd like to recap that there are two challenges facing Glyph users right now (I loosely label this in my own understanding :p):

    Processing of Information - how much time the user needs to understand what's in their hand and decide what to do with it. This is all user brain power here, some people are faster, some are not so fast.

    Because the hot bar is filled up at random, a lot of attention is devoted to understanding where new skills are put in the hand, and therefore constantly eat up our limited attention span throughout the course of a single battle. While I think that this is quite innovative and excellent for brain training - it can be tedious for many and could do with some streamlining. However, improvement to this system also means that if the original intention was to simulate muscle memory under duress - we will diverge from that intent.

    Utilising of Information - how much time the user needs to carry out an action (Use Skill, Combo Glyph, Discard Glyph). This is how fast the user can mouse click / drag or keyboard input to carry out the desired action.

    The system now rewards combos and makes "stacking" of Glyphs a desirable outcome. However, the keyboard shortcut (press R, followed by 2 consecutive slot numbers) and the mouse click and drag are inefficient and tiring after a short while. This is actually quite hilarious in a way: in spite of us having cramped wrists and fingers, we will still persist in such a painful activity because the benefit of combo-ing is great (it's like how some of us stuff our faces with delicious unhealthy foods even though we know it's bad for us). There are several ways around this to make it less painful and self-destructive ;)

    1. Auto-sort Hand

    Allow users to preset a rule on their hand to auto-sort cards according to:
    • Function: specified cards in deck have higher priority and move towards number 1 (left of keyboard) AND/OR number 0 (right of keyboard)
    • School: specified school of skill have higher priority and so forth
    • Alphabetical: by name of skill and so forth
    Some others on the forum have had pretty good ideas about Deck sorting, I'll find the links and post it here later.

    2. Auto-upgrade Hand Key (not needed if you remove stacking similar Glyphs altogether)

    Allow users to upgrade their hand of similar cards (leftwards) on key-press, this will incredibly simplify the combo-ing process for stacking glyphs. I'm not a proponent for similar glyphs to automatically stack upon entering your hand as that would be too overpowered.

    ------------------

    That's all my suggestions for now ;)
     
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  17. ThurisazSheol

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    quick question on your second to last screenshot.

    bottom right side showing level and exp. did you figure a way to get that ingame or was that photoshop?

    i think having a toolbar like that, toggled off by default, would be AWESOME.
     
  18. Sunswords

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    Good question, that was in-game. I was actually trying to hide my mouse cursor by dragging it to the bottom right, I believe it was hovering over the golden exp bar and thus created a pop-up. :)
     
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  19. ThurisazSheol

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    Thanks Sunswords - hope you don't mind i mentioned you here, and stole your screenshot for the idea. :) that accident was inspirational.
     
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  20. smack

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    Interesting suggestion on making deck size a function of hand size to ensure equal probabilities with increasing ranks. And I don't know if I'd remove stacking altogether. I like what it can provide and yield another layer to glyph management. Perhaps some tweaking but not sure it warrants complete removal.

    Somehow I think the devs want more chaos, less order with this system. But -- I think your breakdown of the usability is spot on. It's also why they have the Focus skills to dial those two factors up or down as you see fit. I don't think those are enough and have called for exactly the same suggestions you've made, among others. I think we've been focusing on deck management but we need to also address hotbar management. We currently spend 99% of our time there during combat and that's not a good thing.
     
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