Starr Long Discusses Chaotic Aspects of SOTA Combat

I love the change. They have taken the skill out of it. That makes an average player like myself much better and/or worse *G*

So, I have spells memorized but only components for one. So, what then....fizzle

 

Most things in an RPGs are randomized. It could be combat, crafting or even dialogue. Its called skill checks and dice rolls. Just saying.

I think the argument of "fighting the UI" has a lot more weight than this being a way for unskilled players to win. I would not want to play poker with a champion poker player, and I would have a lot less say in that outcoming without stacking my deck. Skill still exists in these systems.

 

I like that these elements are being brought into the game, with some caveats.

Pre-planned decks that I need to build up prior to combat? Sounds interesting, as I need to plan against my opponent.
Limited set of skills I can bring into combat? Makes how those decks are stacked even more critical.
Second chance aspect in combat? This is great, makes a fight that much more rewarding.
Random skill use during combat? Uhm, how random is random?

There lies the rub, really. Loss of control, player agency, etc. But really, how random is random?

Does the randomization take into account:
- player skill level: sure, you want david to beat goliath every now and then -- just simply not every time, right?
- situational awareness: if a player is badly wounded, the only thing he'll be focusing on is getting healed at the cost of trying to fight back...in most situations anyways.
- player's oft-used skills, their "gotos", their "1234"s: without allowing these to be hotbared permanently, will the randomization look at player metrics over time to make it a personalized per-player randomization?
- opponent awareness: players learn how to fight certain types of monsters and will indeed use these oft-used skills per-opponent, so will the randomization take this into account?

Chaos in combat sounds great, but if it is completely chaotic and completely random where the player has no sense of being in control, I can see that being a complete turn off for certain types of players.

Chaos needs to be balanced with Order, and I can see tweaks being made to the pure randomness of this so that it is more intelligent in how it deals, taking into account various factors outlined above -- if only to give the illusion or perception of being in control. Dice rolls, coin flips -- surely those have never been done in RPGs. Players like being in control, even if they never knew the underlying system was completely random.

 

But if you wanted TO BE a champion poker player, you would play poker as much as you could and learn as much about the game and how to play as you could, and refine your skills and play other quality players until one day you 'could' sit down at the table with the champ and play and actually expect to win. And when you did win, it would actually be an accomplishment.

In your scenario, there are no poker champions, there is no poker (which uses player skill), there's just bingo disguised as poker.

Yep, that's really pushing the limits of discovery and creativity to the max. Just what I want from a 'ground-breaking' game, to be a bingo winner.

 

Excellent illustration of how this sort of thing happens all the time in games. How do you feel when you can only carry two guns in a FPS? Sometimes you don't have what you want. You have rocket shells but only a rifle. You save your mana and pay health but then of course you only get mana potions in the loot. Frustrating, but not a game-breaker. It's just happening at a different point (in the combat UI) than in other games (what drops from kills, for instance). I would argue that your decisions will be LESS random than in many other games.

Here's what I like about this: They are going very in-depth in their thinking about combat, probably giving it more attention than most other games because they are getting into every aspect of it. They are analyzing it and thinking critically about all the repercussions made by their decisions. Combat is not an afterthought or an assumption for the SotA dev team, and for that reason we should be thankful. I am also encouraged by the thought that these folks like to play games too, and plan to play THIS game personally.

 

Why can't I use any of these I want???? I own them all, I know how to use them all, I should be able to pull any one of them out at any time and let my own skill with them decide the day!!

What do you mean, I can't carry them all at the same time?

THAT'S MADNESS

 

Its also interesting how pros complain that new and untraditional systems suck instead of learning how to best use the system to their advantage and then beat everyone else.



A card based system is also not less "realistic" then the tried and true MMO combat gold standard...
Just consider cards that pop up as a chance to execute a manoeuvre: Nobody just "forgets" his healing spell but maybe its just a really bad idea to raise ones arms up to call the powers of healing right now as your enemy is currently ready to disembowel you if you drop your guard.

 

But Poker still involves random cards: just like the SOTA system. There is no reason you cannot practice your combinations of stacking your skills and using the system: just like sitting down and playing a lot of poker to sit with that poker champion. By your Poker comment I can only assume that you do apply skills to games of chance, and that kind of degrades your argument.

All this system does is require you learn different skills to get good. Yes there is chance involved, and it is different that games you played, but that does not make the system a failure or some sort of PVP champion repellent.

 

I would be interested in ideas that didn't reduce player control of their skills.....i've made it pretty clear that the only problems I have with this is the randomness and loss of player control. I will indeed excel no matter what 'system' is in place, because that's who I am, the cream always rises to the top. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that this is quality pvp, because it isn't.

 

I consider "quality" PVP the people involved and not the mechanics. For quality PVP, all we need is big blocks of text as I think these forums illustrate.

However, we are each entitled to our opinions.

 

I Would Understand If This Card System Was Limited To Special Combos And Bonuses. That Would Add An Element Of Chance And Strategy. ...But To Have Your Very Skills Locked Away Until The Game Decides You Can Use Them? I Just Don't See How That Would Be Very Enjoyable. I Hope I'm Wrong.

 

Poker doesn't allow you to stack your decks before hand. You ask any serious card players and poker has always be considered a game of skill way more than of chance. There are plenty of games that are truly chance, but poker isn't one of them. So no, I don't apply my skills to games of chance and if you lack the understanding of the skill involved in poker as well as the skill involved in pvp then your argument is pointless. It would be more helpful if you used some analogies that you had actually been successful at in life, not just the ones where you never competed at a higher level.

I have no problem learning different skills and getting good, I can do that in my sleep, what I have a problem with is . . I want to use skill 'x' for this situation, but the limited foresight of the planners never thought anyone would want to do that, so that option just isn't available, because out of your skills that you already learned, we only feel that these certain ones are the ones that should be available to you at this moment.

And as far as the 'planning your battles ahead of time', yeah, ok, lets check back in a few months and let me know how that's working out for you.

 

Quality pvp is not just the people involved, but the system in place as well. These big blocks of text would be meaningless if every time you pushed a key, you didn't get the letter that was assigned to that key last time. How good wild ru pfi thwl? iruth ryar kaeo a otu tu ywanr po inhwmre?

really?

 

My point was that Poker works in a similiar fashion to what is suggested for SOTA. Add to that you can stack your deck which further eliminates the chance portion.

Also I understand the chance vs skill agrument with Poker, but legally Poker is a game of chance. I have found people normally over-rationalize their "skill" in something they are good at, but luck is involved in everything we do. Being good or talented at something just reduces its impact, and I think this system will be the same way.

Edit: Not trying to dismiss the skill involved in Poker playing, but wanting to give chance its credit as well. As both exist in poker, so shall it be in SOTA.

 

Except... it isn't. You most certainly can lunge forward, and probably get hit, or you may just shock the guy and they don't do anything because they weren't expecting you to be stupid.

My point with the simulation they're trying to recreate is that they're trying to simulate something that's going to happen without one line of code. I, as a human, will miss opportunities, forget to cast my defensive spells before time, not move fast enough to make things work how I want. Nothing more needs to be done beyond have the player be a human. If that's the thing they're trying to simulate, then they can stop. Job done. People, not machines, will play the game.

 

I think it would work out fine if I have a bag of words (which I filled it with) to select from then I had a bunch of these get dealt while I am typing. I would be able to discard and draw to construct arguments. As long as everyone else worked by the same set of rules and this was a game it would work perfectly fine, and may even make the process of responding to some arguments more enjoyable. Most spelling checking and text completion software do this already and I would be willing to bet most conversations on these forums by cellphone users were generated that way or at least in a similar manner.

BTW, I think FireLotus may have altered your last sentence. I think you meant shddedidhas and not inhwmre.

 

I will keep an open mind about this chaotic skill selection for combat until I have tried it in alpha/beta, but I'm definitely not for it at the moment.

When it comes to playing games, I don't have the luxury of time to keep trying things over and over again until the game randomly gives me the skills I need. I like dependability when I build a character, not chaos. But that is just my personal taste.

As much as they want to avoid it being labeled a "card system", it certainly sounds like it to me.

 

I've always thought poker as a game of chance and skill. What really makes this variation interesting is that you and your opponent can stack that deck that gets dealt to them. In some ways you're in control of your fate, even if you leave it to chance. I think Starr's comment bears repeating:

"...and it also introduces the concept of a second chance in combat where you may think all hope is lost and that one all powerful spell that you need shows up. And so we think that in multiplayer it's going to be especially exciting. And PvP where a lot of PvP in most games devolves into "I'm just going to dominate." Like one player will get the upper hand and just dominate and there's no hope that you'll ever come back. Whereas in a system where things are a little bit more randomized there's always that chance that you may come back from what seems like defeat. And so we think it makes it a little more exciting but it is very different and will take a lot of getting used to..."

I think the 'second chance' aspect of this is really neat. Sure, it should not give everyone a winning advantage all the time despite their lack of skills, knowledge of the game, how they strategized prior to combat, etc. But every now and then, sure. Sometimes, you just get lucky. Most people aren't going to enter a fight without at least feeling they have an advantage, being in control of their fate. Likewise, most players who would never have entered it to begin with just might anyways if there is that second chance aspect.

One would expect their skill to be the driving force of determining the outcome. However, I like that luck and chance plays some factor as well. Perhaps for some folks, they favor the former over the latter. There's gotta be some balance between the two and that's what I see being tweaked.

 

Your definition of skill is what you are pushing to the max. For you, skill seems to be coming up with exactly the right combinations for an encounter and being able to press the buttons faster than the other guy. The goal is mechanical exactitude, and when I win it's because I basically typed faster and more accurately than the other guy, or at least faster and more accurately than I need to do for our skill differential. The only way I win against a player with more power is that he made a typo (he should have q'd when he w'd), or doesn't know how to use his power. I think that what most traditional PvPers claim as skill is a pretty uninteresting form of skill.

Skill can be more creative and dynamic than this. Basically knowing how to make the most of a any situation you're dealt. Like the cooking shows where there are 10 random ingredients and there's a competition to see who can make the best meal. A kid who has never cooked is still not going to be able to defeat a chef. But one chef may beat another becuase he's more creative even though he knows fewer recipes and cant chop vegetables as fast.

I totally understand your desire to be in control of every detail in PvP. To me that's not going to be what the fun of SoTA is about. Being presented with new challenges, unexpected problems, unexpected saves - twists, turns. Always adds an interesting element to me. If I lose a few items in the process, so what. I don't need to feed my ego, I just want to have fun in the experience of it.

 

Citation please. I haven't read anything anywhere yet that states that is their intent or goal.