The major problems with the combat system.

I dont even wear custom armor any more. I have a full suit of elven chain from the addon store that I use now. When I switched from +11/+13 chain, I hardly felt a difference and Im farming the 1000-1800 hit point 5+ skull humanoid cultist type mobs (3 at a time most the time).

My 2H sword is like +11, my necklace and ring may be like +7. Thats it.

 

I'm saying a number of things.

1. The game has fizzle on armor for a reason.
2. The fact that a lot of power gamers wear armor and cast spells is really more of a design problem than it is "my" problem. The developers continue to raise fizzle rates on heavy armor (plus 4% in this release!).
3. The idea that "real mages" don't wear armor is not one that I made up, it's one that exists from the same place that "mages" came from, traditional fantasy myths. Because I'm a roleplayer, I value these traditions greatly. I'm saying "real mages" a bit tongue in cheek, but I do feel that the overall goal of our game should be to support traditional fantasy expectations as much as possible. To do that, we shouldn't want players running around in plate or chain chest pieces, but if they choose to do that, there should be a significant sacrifice.

 

Now in SOTA i'm not a PvPer, but i am a gamer and (like a fair few other players i know of) played Eve for a very long time, where PvP is unavoidable. So my comments are not specific, but more my thoughts the combat systems and PVP in MMOs.

NOTE these are my opinions, so there is no real right or wrong here. Your opinions my differ from mine, and that is OK.

1) Power can not ALL come from PLAYER SKILL. If they do that, what is the point in progression? may as well just turn the game in an FPS. At which point i leave.
2) I believe player base is far too low to say to with any certainty that a specific build has or does not have a counter build. For any old Eve player out there, the mechanics for "pipe bombing" where in the game for years before someone worked out to use those mechanics together in a certain way to achieve what pipe bombing achieved.
3) I don't like skill caps, all that does in reduce choice. I like I COULD do everything but the deck system balances this by forcing me to pick a SUBSET of what i could do for a given situation. You try playing with a unlocked deck and every skill and see how far you get.
4) Designing and testing different builds, is for me a fun part of the game. Why would you want to take that away from people?
5) Wanting to role play a certain type of character is YOUR choice, you should understand that in doing this you are effectively playing the game on hard mode. It will mean by limiting yourself as such you will have situations where flight, rather than fight is your only real option. Balance should be a very complicated game of rock, paper, scissors. If i only ever pick rock, i know i have run from paper.
6) Balance is a direction, not a goal. The only way true balance exists is if you remove next to all differences between builds and make the combat system very simple. Not a game i would want to play.
7) Don't like RNG, go play Chess or Go.
8) If you can't beat someone, go find some friends and make it an unfair fight, this is an MMO after all. Fair fights are for tournaments/duels, not for open world and wars etc. There is as much gaming and fun for some people in the logistics and organisation of setting up an unfair fight as there is in a "fair" duel for others.
9) Not liking some areas of the game is OK. As long as someone else playing the game likes those areas. I played Eve for over a decade and there is game mechanics and systems i never even tried. This does not mean they needed to be balanced or removed, as other people where having fun using those mechanics and systems. A good sandbox should have SOMETHING for everyone. In fact if you like everything the sandbox is probably too small and your player base will not be very diverse.
10) Don't cramp other peoples play styles because it is not your preferred play style. Kind of relates to 9.

Just my thoughts

Regards
Spung

 

No need to be harsh with me. I can live with the things as they are know. I'm just pointing out things that can be a problem. Obviously, you are right, training fire fist is not a problem in itself (not for me obviously). The problem is that the game is balanced with resistances in mind. Then, the one who don't want to use magic HAS to train fire fist to level 20 and one passive to level 40 before getting the fire resistance skill, to be competitive. It can be an issue for the ones who don't want to use spells at all, those who don't care about magic. With the trees as they are, everyone is pushed toward wizardry. As simple as that. It's even worth with attunement.

 

This is a fantasy roleplaying game, is it not?

It's my choice to roleplay in an FPS, and it would be understandable that the game did not support roleplaying and I might not be very satisfied. This is different though, having the expectation that a wizard does not wear plate armor and have all the combat tree GM'd, doesn't seem that unreasonable.

This goes both ways. Unfortunately there are mutliple playstyles that in the extreme can not exist with other play styles. What I would like to see is a middle ground that leans towards the idea that we are indeed playing a fantasy roleplaying game. That means in effect that one player can not have every skill there is and be "the best" at it no matter how much time they spend killing the same thing over and over again.

 

they should rework all the magic trees and all the other trees for that matter, it's called balancing.

I don't know why you're so against people not wanting to train everything? Does it matter to you what my opinion is? I'm completely fine with you wanting to level everything... couldn't care less tbh

 

That's already the case, actualy. When you compare two players with the same play time, the specialized one is better in the specialized tree than the one who has 120 GM. That said, all stackable bonus, passive skills and attunement tend to compensate that gap.

 

I understand that the power curve is very helpful here. But having all of the skill tree's GM'd (or at least the magic ones) is much better than having half of them GM'd.

It's a lot to ask someone to grind out 100's of GM's just so they can have a viable defense against magic. Especially when they may not have a desire to know ANY magic.

 

I do see the heavy armour mage as an oddity myself. Even ignoring this being a fantasy norm to not allow this, High DPS/utility and high defense does make it a go to build. Can't talk too much myself about this as i have only ever used light armour. Maybe there needs to be another penalty beyond the fizzle chance to help make heavy armour be not as good for mages.

Perhaps each % of fizzle, not only causes the fizzle % but removes that percentage of damage/time etc (whichever stat makes most sense for the spell) from the magic glyph.
This way they are giving up some DPS/utility (beyond having to spam a glyph because it may fizzle) for the extra protection.

Spungwa

 

Of course.
A T1 resistance spell for and in each tree would be ok for me.
I dont for example want to use fire, but i sure want ir need to be max. possible resistant to it for pvp.
But skilling all the skills is not only because of RP causes unlikely, because i am just dont like DoTs for example or drains or the typical Necro Mechanik to get stronger the nearer to death.
Other may dont like kiting or tanking or whatever.

 

I'm agree with Mac about the mindset of "I can't kill anything above my level", those are wrong, but let me say why I think numbers means something.

As we all know, higher level means more xp used so; more hp, more focus, higher resistances, more dmg... etc. Why we care about level our characters in games? think about it. We like increase our power, we like level up and we like to deal more damage to our enemies. So at the end that 5-10% more dmg vs your opponent is something worth to mention in any pvp encounter.

You need to learn how to play, but we should not try to hide something so obvious. Levels means something, its not decisive but worth to consider.

 

It is a Heavy Armor Skill and a real mage acts from range and has Slow, Root, Blink etc. to avoid it in first place. It is like if i say my warrior cant do **** against gust or why cant i counter disabling shot.
Sounds like you just want to stay still and throw your powerfull magic around you without any possibility to touch you, thats not how it works.

 

I disagree across the board. Engineering of this game is a scale. Buffs right now are pretty balanced (contrary to what some think). If they removed how buffs work now, they would just compensate something else, make mobs attacks weaker. Its an endless vicious cycle. The dev's chose to go this route and I am fine with it and altering it would just create new issues on the flip side and cause the next group of people to complain about that method. Just leave it be, its how they engineered the game and now its pretty baked in and while they have time to fix bugs in it, they surly dont have the time and money to reinvent it. We may not like it, but its pretty much "live with it" system at this point.

 

So i dont like leveling.
I would like to distribute a fix of points into whats available and wont need and progression in power, but more likely in knowledge, wisdom, tactics, strategics... whatever.

Thing is, it's limitless...
Thing is i need to play as a tank, firemage, Necromancer, Earthmage etc... for 500hrs or 200 or 800 i dont know.
Only to become viable and survivable or competetive in pvp?

It's like max all classes to get allowed to join the Arena in a themepark game with classes.

It's another endless discussion.

One thing what i dont get is.
The people who like it and pvp seem to dont care for new and more pvpers in general, they seem to prefer to keep this system, although it means less participants. Cool, so the Pvp Scenes what are pvp scenes because of lore and about RP then will never see any roleplayer
Cool.

All these discussions just let me facepalm anf say have fun beeing all and min.maxing all and what not, but to just sacrifice some power and dont care for the players who cannot or will not grind 9 trees endlessly to be competetive in pvp.
Yeah then have fun running roleplaygames further as this attitude and lack of empathy for RP and such like 8t ever was.
Nothing new, they all develop that crap, maybe sells better and is more for people who dont care for real RPG.
But the saddest point of it is not the people who just dont see it or just dont want to see it, the saddest point is that Richard Garriott, the "Roleplayer" he is
- is he? - dies not develop a Roleplaygame, but also caters only to min maxing powergamers, like they all do, no matter who is it who develops online games.

So about the Heavy Armor Mage.
Who is it on the Picture, seems rather unknown and not very famous.
Anyone who beats Ganfalf or Raistlin or Fizban or Dumbledore or Papa Smurf in heavy armor?
No! Ok then go away with this crap of an Archetype.
A Mage who need to wear heavy armor is a poor mage, really, his magic need to be very weak, because he cannot protect him proper with his magic arts or abilities.
It can be balanced and it can be limited and still beeing fun, and it would encourage a lot of players to compete.

But ok, some wont sacrifice some power and the limitless system and setting as it is now to get more opponents, more of a challenge and more pvp in general?

Have fun playing within yourself.
We grant you the scenes and the pvp for you alone.

After discussion like these i renounce pvp more and more and dont even try it to get involved, because of it's requirements what dont fit for Casuals, Roleplayers and people who just dont like to play specific styles like Tank, Necro, DoT'er, Kiter, Glascannon, Melee or Ranged.

Have Fun, i just wont ever play things like Fire dot or Necro style just to become competetive.
I also dont have to skill mechanic if i'm the assault or medic type of player in FPS Games.

 

You're making assumptions about my playing style, which is not in question. For whatever reasons, people seem to want to focus on me the person and not how the game works. Please stop doing that.

Trip works against everyone, because there's no counter. Even Chris agreed with this in his reply.

 

Chris does not play the Game, he doesnt count. This skill dont need any counter. Chris needs to implement just this stupid CC-Resi thats broken since R3 and you will have have the trip problem again.

 

I completely disagree. Allowing players to perform Trip once is not a good design. There should be a viable counter.

 

The deck system needs to have a limit on schools or spells. This way you get more diversity. Levelling everything should be allowed.

Also having skills above 100 should be way more benefical than it currently is.

I agree SotA is a one class game right now.
OVERALL the balance and most schools are whack. Like having a mesmerize in Sun magic and a heal that does aoe damage makes zero sense unless it is intended that they dont want specialization. Tbh with the way magic works now in PVE an UO like magic system would have been way more player friendly.

 

Well, you can lay there and just take it or you can do something about it. Anyway, what prevents them from tripping you in the first place is dodge.

 

If you dodge it successfully. Again, not really a counter.

Counters work like Opportunity Strike. If you dodge, they counter with Opportunity Strike doing massive amounts of damage to them.

Counters don't work like this. If you dodge, Opportunity Strike might hit them for massive amounts of damage but only if the RNG works in your favor and only if they don't have tons of dex, and only if the sun and the moon are in alignment.


So if I were creating a good counter to Trip, I might suggest something like this. If you Trip, I can counter with Opportunity Strike doing massive amounts of damage to you. It probably gives Opportunity Strike more use than it deserves, and ideally I'd prefer there being a completely new skill that countered Trip so as to spread player decks out more. But it would be an actual counter. It would also make you think twice about Tripping someone over and over again.