My displeasure about combat's related features in this game.

No dodge does not work like attunement. If dodge worked like attunement it would be a flat score that would lower the overall damage done by a sword. Dodge can actually be used against a number of magic spells in addition to attunement which provides magical resistance.

I think this is a horrible idea that does nothing to fix the actual problem.

Creating a new set of "resist skills" only creates more skills the average player will not have the ability to master while giving powergamers (such as yourself) the ability to master even more skills. That's the problem, that we have endless leveling but not endless content. Putting a few more skills out there for players is only going to make the top 1% of the population that much stronger.

But it's not a question of some players don't want to "do the work". It's a question of some players don't have the time or the want to abuse/exploit the system the way other players do. The idea that the only path to success is to grind out tons of levels is just really poor design.

At some point players should have to pick a lane. What are you? Are you a mage? Ok, great. What's that mean exactly? Oh you're wearing a chain chest piece and using a polearm? Well that's not really a mage, so why would the game support you having tons of defensive ability and offensive spell casting ability? It's just stupid the way this combat system rewards the very worst types of character builds at the expense of traditional fantasy roleplaying.

Everyone in this game is the same stupid character, Avatar. And until we get away from that as our core design, this combat system will continue to be unbalanced and moronic.

 

The more I think on this the more appreciation I have to all developers...not just those on the SOTA team. How does one even begin to balance things? Lets see we have pve/pvp/casual/hardcore/level/attunement not to mention melee/ranged/magic... I mean honestly - is it even possible? One thing we know as the Baron points out is we all have the same Avatar. We grow up different. One lady focuses on heals, another lady (?) focuses on blades... Ribald has forgotten more about Ranged combat than I will ever know and I am lucky to be using one of her bows (!)...but one day I'll put the bow down and pick up a couple of dual wands just because I want to....and I love the fact that I can AND I understand that it will absolutely impact my tactics on fights too!!

Very glad I am not in charge of trying to 'tweak' things to try and make everything equal.

 

The combat design has a fundamental flaw that I've been pointing out for the last 4 years. It's based almost entirely on DPS, and you gain power from simply "playing a lot".

If you really want to balance the game, you change those two things. Otherwise you get exactly what we have currently, a combat system where every time one thing is "balanced" it makes something else unbalanced.

 

I think anyone saying we are all the same, is completely nuts. When I am talking about certain people, I can say sara is a swordsman, andar is a healer, spinok is a archer, I am a death mage, stundorn is a water mage. We still all have strenghts and weaknesses that are different, we are not all the same, people made different choices for what they wanted to do.

Well ya, combat IS based on dps, what are you going to do stare a mob to death? ummm, part of combat is DPS.

 

i dont know what i am in the meanwhile - a viking wizard a seidman for sure, a pilgrim of the grey path, considering all and trying to stay in the middle of all things to get to the wisest point of view where everything is equal near or far away, nothing favoring and specialized in beeing low to midlevel and roleplaying

I "cannot" PvP in this game, wont fit for me, but this is more because i dont have the time for min maxing and also not the will to do that amoint of grind or lets say i would if it were easier to reach, but i'm still not having all my skills at 80. So as i said a year before dont count me in for PvP until significant changes or 2025 or so

But i'm done with this kind of arguing, I'm more on the side of Hornpipe or BDF here, but i dont follow the discussion seriously just fly over the postings.

To me as i said above SotA has turned to be a SP Lone Wolf MMORPG with the possibility to RP and socialize in MP.
I'm as a casual player who does not like grinding that much many things are completely out of scope so i become a danceparty MP and refuse anything competetive in this game.

I was allways someone who loved open PvP full loot games, hardcore PvP and such, but over the last decade all these games were so much about min maxing grind and need a huge time investement, that i allways loosed interest after some month - i do well or lets say i'm ok with my capabilities in Arena Style PvP Games like Shooters, MOBA's or even RTS like Atlas Reactor, Battletech, Blood Bowl...
and i was a decent CS 1.6 player back in the days, but todays Sandbox PvP games, last one i seriously played was Vanilla Darkfall online (Aventurine) was too much for me about Bloodwalls, Magic Missile Spamming on Yssam and such. I loved the thrill in some way, heck i love death decay , i love loosing levels if i'm dumb and i'm not that type of a tournament PvPer in MMORPGs. I fought Awfull Company/ Goon Squad

But times change, game designs change, i changed and my RL changed too in many ways good and bad and im just grewing older.

I love SotA for some things, i hate it for others, but my love is bigger and i adapted, make my compromises and dont let these things spoil the game for me.

I'm maybe going to make a 80ies build with no magic at all. Sword, Shield, Leather Viking Armor tactic defenses, maybe poisons/ potions.
I also tamed a arctic wolf an a polar bear and i immerse while fighting and make it my dutie to care for Ari thr white wolf and dont let him die. Sorta fun for me and immersive playstyle.
I also dislike it atm to have a buff deck and need to buff before, then switch to do some combat and then switch again to buff again and so on.
I better go lower areas and have only one deck, less skills and need not to allways switch over.
If i want to kill something hard, i go back to the buff deck strategy.
With 80ies build i mean all skills at 80 beside some innates i'm still working on.
I will do this further bringing more skills to 80 and then maybe i decide to "specialize" and go for my first GM. Will sure be related to RP then

I've made my peace with all that, i am more with the criticizers here, but i apreciate all the help from you and also others who have or had different opinion and share ther view and experience.
Was allways helpfull in some way, although i sometimes disagreed or still disagree

i'm also educating myself here in some way - The Grey Path is my Pilgrimage !!!

 

Personally, I find traditional stereotypical role play characters a little boring. especially at dinner parties. In this day and time I would rather meet a sun Mage from another planet who likes to throw knives and tune steam engines. but that's just me.

 

And what about having everything ? Stereotypes and sun mage throwing knives, without having to chose one or another if we want to have competitive activities ?

 

DAM DUDE, I want to meet that sun mage too, I really feel steam power still has a lot of potential in todays world.

 

How does having limits make things competitive? More then likely, you end up with a whole bunch of players using the same, what is determined to be the best, builds. Can you define how limits makes things competitive?

 

Well, if he wanted to branch out from sun Magery, throwing knives, and tuning steam engines I wouldn't hold it against him. After all he did come all the way to New Britania.

 

Ill barge in ...hope none minds.. its simple ..you have a sword , i have a sword we have same skills.... were on equal footing the only thing that will determine who the victor will be is how well you use those skills ...its no longer about who has more xp thus doing more damage but about which player is more knowledgable and more skilled.

I dont agree with limits but in PVP we either need some serious dmg mitigation ..like 100 max or , we need pvp gear with attributes that mitigate damage.

 

This is all based out of a game of buffs, where we are mitigating all damage. We dont choose some super powerful mitigation twards some type of damage, we mitigate all the damage or fail.

the name of the game is raise your avoidance, all attunements, and throw death shield on because frankly its "silly" not to have it. Then get pole arms and poison to bypass those things.

So then you fight using spells. if your resistances are high enough your already only hitting each other for up to a couple of hundred damage anyways.

Limits or restrictions are ideal to prevent the everything vs thing that counters everything.

I had a friend go to get pvp advice from somone who pvps alot. I never PvP and he told her everything i said he would tell her. Get death shield cuz its the best spell, Raise your avoidance, GM soothing rain and healing grace, and use polearms with festering death poison to counter avoidance and heals, which is what your enemy will also be using.

Theres pvpers who dont use these things i hear, but i dont know what they do. (and its probably rightly a well guarded secret if its super effective agaisnt the "standard" dull cookie cutter build above. At least i wouldnt tell everyone out loud right away >.>. yes i would. i cant keep a secret. But enough about me, back to the show!)

 

An idea that gives this Mage some empathy for the op is contemplating that it could be designed such that by learning say archery, I could become better able to dodge arrows.

 

Classically, thieves were the counter to mages. The thieves used stealth & sudden strikes to overpower their target without magic. Paladins would counter (evil) wizards/necromancers by invoking divine spells that would enhance their physical attacks & defenses (specially against the undead). Neither needed to become a quasi mage to do fullfill their roles well.

[Note: Clerics & paladins called upon deities/celestial beings to aid them. Very different from the way mages cast spells.]

The way I would see this as (possibly) being implemented in SOTA, without needlessly scrambling the current setup, is for NPC guilds to exist.

Say that my avatar is heavily into the Sun & Life tree, normally to get death resistance I would have to delve into Death. But if say a Paladin NPC guild existed then joining it would allow me to invoke anti-death wards & other protections. The requirement for that membership would be to have zero or minimal points in the Death tree plus a significant level of skill in the Life tree.

This way people would have a choice either way - delve into every tree they need to get the resistances or stick to a few trees of their choice then just join a NPC guild which will give them what they need

NPC guilds would be the mechanism to "enforce" a class but it would be a purely voluntary choice.

 

Just find an old NPC to throw wrenchs at you

 

heres a short post ...........

every spell should have a counter spell to defend against it (example; you cast Ice arrow at me, i have flame shield up, no damage from you! ) every spell should have a counter and defense. It seems most of the devs over looked this. So hopefully they will look again and fix it. Just try to list counters and defenses, its a semi short list.

 

No damage?
How can you really think this will help the game to be balanced?


Please guys, think about what you write before posting, this thread is really degenerating.

 

ya, Oh hes fire, drag shield of ice on bar. Oh hes ice drag immolation, oh hes air, drag shield of crystal, oh hes earth, drag shield of air. horrible idea being able to shut people right down.

 

I dont know at all why combat is bad, Imho combat in Sota is great.

 

so there should be no magical defense??????? Really!!! Just roll somone since you have all flame, eventhough im all ice, c'mon man lets be real. Your not going to know who your fighting until you start fighting! thats why we have so many decks we can build so we can change in battle as can the guy attacking you!