Combat system - deck based combat really bad idea

I understand the want to have FAST combat. It looks better, it's more exciting in the moment, and when you see it live it has an appeal that slower combat does not. I get that.

What I don't like sacrificing is competitiveness and story telling for speed.

The Dark Souls 2 Video is probably as fair and as good as fast combat can get, in my opinion. But I don't have the expectation that SOTA will deliver that type of combat in a game where 100 people may be on the same instance. To compensate for the technology that we have today, while putting competitiveness and story telling before speed, I think we need to search for a slower solution.

 

I think that can be easily solved. Such as with an implementation where entering combat slows movement down, I think that would be a natural part of combat anyway, since you are going to be very cautious and use time to evaluate the movement of your enemy. Slowing movement down some would also make a skill like dash more tactical and en element of possible surprise. This should also make it possible for you to talk to your enemy as well, and removes some twitch factor.

 

I'd like that a lot. Not quite slow motion, but a speed or two above that would be perfect. Because now instead of fast reflexes and muscle movement, the competition would be about setting up your combos and defending yourself from combos. I'd like that a lot!

You might even have skills that let you speed up your attacks (still very slow, but faster than average) so you're making your opponent think faster than they may be used to. I really like that.

 

Exactly. I am glad you like it. Let's get Portalarium to like it as well. Physics oriented, tense and immersive combat here we come!

 

I think that the choice to use a passive combat system for SotA was a bad choice in the first place. Combat is not passive. A passive combat system removes you from being the hero and puts you into the role of an observer who issues commands and waits until the "puppet" carries them out. Combat should be exciting, fast, deadly, active...

 

Yeah, but here's my problem with that. You take your average computer playing person and I'll bet I can "compete" in real life with them physically. I'm fairly quick, I've got average strength, I'm tall, I'm athletic. I'll be able to handle fast and active combat better than most.

But you funnel all that into muscle memorization of a few keys...that's boring to me. I'm not really wired for that. When I get in front of a computer it's a mental exercise for me. The fast twitch combat is really more physical than anything, and I'm just not very good at it. So to me, asking the game to be physical and fast paced is like asking people to get into a virtual reality chamber that only allows you to use whatever physical gifts you were blessed with in real life.

Take Richard Garriot for example. Here's a guy that was a fencer, used to perform boxing and kickboxing, has gone to space, is a world class adventure. He recently said that he's quote "not good at PVP". Why would we want the smartest and the bravest people in the real world to be less good at something in the virtual world. How are fast twitchy mechanics in any way rewarding what we should value the most? That's where I think the argument of twitch mechanics falls on its face.

 

I think the combat as it is, is great really. Only minus the points in my first post.
Personally I wouldn't like to always zoom into a slower combat mode.

 

Did you play Skyrim for example? Is this combat problematic for you?
It doesn't have to be ultra-fast, just active and exciting instead of passive and waiting for cooldowns and commands that are carried out.

 

So slow down to what? You sound like you want turn based combst. FF is over there...

You haven't used the deck system enough. You are not s passenger, its frsntic yet at same time slow and planned, snd most definitely doesnt rely on muscle memory which is why people whinge about randomisation.

Keep practicing the combat system is pretty sound

And one does not "perform" boxing/kickboxing, assuming a language barrier

 

I did play Skyrim (not online) and I don't really like the combat or the game overall. It's very pretty, but it's a dead world, and the combat seemed very hack and slash to me.

When we talk about ACTIVE, I need an active defense or it's not going to be fun for me. The internet doesn't make for a good competitive environment where people can react fast enough to BLOCK things...blocking needs to have some kind of active mechanism to it or it's just worthless code.

 

I've played it a lot.

I would prefer turn based to what we have but I think there's a non-turn based compromise that I would be happy with.

 

I honestly dont think you have. I cant see how you got those conclusions if you gave it a red hot crack.

I hated the combat system originally. I had a hissy fit and logged out. Calmed down and had another crack. Met some great players and spent next 16 hours straight fighting each other, testing and had a ball. So far the people i have seen hate the system didnt try it out or didnt take advice. I went out of my way for hemlock, he didnt even try, yet keeps popping up here dissing the system.

Ill say it again. Come to Brave Coast and play with the guys.

 

I've been there under a few different names. I've played with "the guys" and found that "the guys" are very good at min/maxing. I want the combat system to be about something other than a contest of DPS.

 

And you are offered help, then you dismiss the playstyle and reaffirm your position.

There is no point discussing or offering help to players like you.

Its an alpha, we are testing the limited mechanics. Perhaps you should do some testing as well, or just not login until launch. You wont get the hang of it unless you practice and take advice.

 

I felt like I found a balance with 2-4 locked essential spells / skills / buffs that I used, and had several skills rolling unlocked for combos.
I kept on buffing & healing myself with locked skills and let the offensive skills rotate for combos. This way it wasn't as distracting as having everything in random rotation.
Looking forward to having more skills implemented.

 

I'm not dismissing your contributions. You're doing a fine job min/maxing the combat system as it's designed. It's valuable to testing and it's valuable to the community as a whole. I personally appreciate your efforts.

What I'm saying is that the combat system as it's designed is poorly implemented and makes min/maxing a viable play style. It shouldn't be that way. This is a roleplaying game. To make a combat system that thinks NOTHING of roleplaying is very dismissive of the very reason the game was made - to roleplay.

So I understand that you're offering help. The reason I'm not taking that help is not because I think I'm better than you or that your offer is not sincere, it's because I'm a roleplayer and I don't enjoy min/maxing. That's the point. The combat system should allow me to roleplay before it allows you to min/max...because it's a roleplaying game it's not a min/max game.

 

@sn0tub - Just because someone doesn't like the system doesn't mean they havn't given it a fair try. I've been against the combat system since it came out but i've still tested it out and played with it each release. Many of us just simply don't like the core concept or mechanics of it, no matter how much we play it. I could just as easily say that most of the people who like the system only like it because they are twinked out using the most powerful current builds and winning a lot with it and not because they actually like the mechanics of the system. That would be an unfair generalization too though

@Baron Drocis and Lord Soliwolis - I like the way you are thinking towards more immersive combat, however going into slow motion would be very annoying

you could just as easily achieve slower and more meaningful combat through reduced speed of attacks, less spammable skills, context specific attacks, etc.
For example if you cut the swing speed in half and make each hit land a little harder, all of a sudden combat is slower, and a landed hit means much more, and a blocked or dodged hit means much more. Moving around behind someone and landing a backstab hit that can only be used in that position but does a ton of damage now has a lot of meaning if you can get it off.

Stuff like that is how they should have been thinking about combat from the start, in my opinion.

 

You could not do this because of Ping any delay would ruin all your parrys, This is why mmo combat is the way it is.

 

I agree, that's basically what I was saying in my posts above.

 

here's my honest opinion, i like the randomness only because it makes the combat a little more like a struggle as it should be, with that being said i would like to see the old school UO combat system brought in personally setting up hotkeys and no cool downs if someone blows all their focus that's their fault but not being able to heal when it is needed really sucks, i mean i've played with random and locked bars its just harsh, cause its more of a roll of dice on the cards you need for you to actually survive let alone kill someone, some of the fights were very long which i don't mind one bit, reminds me of the old school uo fights where you had to watch your mana in this case would be your focus which is great, i also noticed that spell casters are very weak combo's or not even as a hybrid you are limited to how much damage you can really do and like i said with the focus of spells costing so much its hard to survive and melee has a huge edge because most of the moves only cost like 2-5 focus if i'm not mistaken and if they have say for example a build with bludgin weapons and you stack 3-5 crushing blows thats a lot of damage and still a limited cost i think that should be increased focus cost for melee players, i encountered a 3v1 and had almost no shot at survival i mean re-guard less i might not survive either way but they all combo'd be at the same time i was darn near dead but again not being able to heal when you need it due to the randomizing of the deck system kinda sucks alot, so i would really appreciate if we could have the uo style of combat as far as setting your hotkeys with no cd's at all no global cd's no cd's period! its silly, if i wanna blow all my focus (which i wouldn't do unless i know ill kill the player or what not) but that would be up to me, but people are gonna gank players re-guard less if they wanna its just how open pvp is its a vicious circle, theres gonna be lots of malicious players running about once the game goes live and theres not much we can do about that, and if we can't do the uo combat style system melee needs a tremendous nerfing especially archer's anyone who doesn't wear plate doesn't stand much a chance because again like i said before you can't heal on the spot you have to either (a) use a skill to replace it with another and/or cast the spell but move to cancel it so you don't waste your focus then wait for the next one to pop up weather you have it set to fastest or not, its a grand idea but it just needs a lot of work and i dunno how it will work out period especially since casters spells are so very weak the only plus a caster may have is a wand which is ranged but also weak,or (b) wait for your bar to clear while running and running and running while you wait for the next set of skills to pop up its crazy but seriously think about that...little food for thought, but either way its only pre-alpha and i'm loving what you guys are doing thus far and i will play the game re-guard less what you decide to do, but it will hinder the fact of how much i will be solo pvping otherwise we are likely to see a lot of ganking combat due to this system, anyhow once i come back from vacation i'm going to upgrade to dev+ and maybe i can help with the combat system i'd be more then happy to honestly i don't even care if my name is put in credits or whatever i just wanna be a happy player/pvper, i mean, i'll be a happy player re-guard less, but i'd also like to see everyone as a whole happy about the combat system in general, as far as for pve its pretty simple cause you can likely kite most the stuff around in a party or even solo but yeah just a few idea's i thought id share ;]
-Fleshrenderer a.k.a Mighty Adrien Old Skool (Pacific) Shard UO, [TBH], [WHK], and the Infamous [FL] A.k.a Fallen Lord's one of the biggest PK guild's ever! ;D