Let's settle this once and for all. Card combat, Good or Bad

Since that's what RG says he does. Yes. I do.

 

Freeman do you want a typical hotbar combat system a la every WoW clone?

I'm legitimately curious what it is you want.

 

Unless you want to jump on it, I think I will start a brainstorming thread on this idea. Has some merit and isn't very different than what is already in place. So no major rework and it's not asking to scrap the entire thing.

See what I can put on paper first then I will get it posted.

 

More like everquest clone (Although the combat bar was verticle on the sides, it was still a combat bar)

Freeman has suggested various totally different systems... including a detailed write up of a completely non-traditional system. Although I found some issues with it as well. Namely the unpredictable nature of it would have been in the hands of our opponents instead of ourselves.

 

If I wasn't at work, I would. If you get it started, I'll definitely chime in and work on some things simultaneously. I think that it could change the system enough to be fun for all playstyles while making deck combat a cool feature rather than the backbone of it. It makes it accessible to all players while making card combat a skill and playstyle of its own with tis own benefits.

 

Great video, Freeman. And all this time I thought you were screaming and pulling your hair out in your posts. You're not as raging as I once thought.

You touched on how card combat is inconsistent with the rest of SotA which has always been my main complaint. Everything in New Britannia is immersive - and then you're dealt cards for combat. Maybe if the rest of the game was similar: the player is dealt directional cards when they wanted to travel the overland map; dealt crafting cards while making something; dealt randomized things to say when you're chatting with npcs.. then at least I could say that this game is a card driven experience and I could swallow the bitter pill of card combat.

I thought SotA was supposed to be an immersive role playing game where your actions were controlled by the player. In combat, however, your actions are controlled by the game. I want to play the game.. not have the game play me.

 

I wouldnt' mind chiming in, link that thread here?

 

Thinking about it, the only sort of "class" I could see a deck system working for is if they added Berserker abilities. Imagine a Warrior losing his mind like the Hulk or something, and you have a random draw of abilities to choose from, but not a set bar like normal. But this game doesn't have classes, so that point is moot.

But yeah, still don't like the deck system. It just doesn't fit in with the rest of the game, and I'd be much happier to see it go.

 

I'm going to take that you asked as a win for my video. Previously, it was always an accusation that's the system I wanted.

Your question seems simple, but it really is very layered and requires a lot more time than I have right at this moment. I will answer it, completely, as soon as I can.

Well thanks for answering for me, but no... not an EQ2 clone. I mention it a lot because it's a working example of how you can have the same combat premise with out deck combat, and I think that is a very important point. No one is asking them to 'throw out all the recipes'. Just the one that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the meal, and we can achieve the same results with a different tool.

Where you get the vertical bar idea, I don't know.

The other part, Mishri, you got right. It is something where you as a player have control over what's happening to you, and can exhert influence on what's happening to your opponent. It adds another layer to the standard combat motif and twists how we think about making attacks by having warm ups, instead off cool downs. The system he's talking about, I presented Dec 5, 2013 and you can read it here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BhytTI04wYzm7JU1vjC7KF6HEHkzuX284euezk1-SuI/edit?usp=sharing

I actually had help from one of the devs there. In truth, it's not even 100% what I would want if time and money weren't an option, but it did re-use much of what they already had at the time and followed what we understood to be Chris Spears requirements while adding some of my own.

More later...

Enjoy!

 

I think Mishri wasn't stating you wanted an EQ clone but rather that instead of WoW clones, MMOs with traditional combat bars are Everquest clones.

 

I see people complaining about the normal style of MMO play, with hot bars and what not as boring. But I would argue that it's not the hot bars that are boring, but that abilities have been watered down so much in modern MMOs that there's nothing interesting about using them anymore. They're all rather vanilla and un-inspired.

Imagine you were a Necromancer, and in order to summon your undead pet, you needed to collect parts from corpses of monsters you fight to summon it. Imagine that depending on what parts you collect, determine the strength an abilities of your pet. For instance, if you take the bones from strong orc warriors and use them in the summoning, you get a tanky pet. If you take the bones from mobs that cast a lot of spells, you get a spell casting pet. Or if you mix a bit of both, you get a hybrid.

Imagine if the same principal applied to a summoner. Depending on what stones he uses to summon it, determine it's strength and abilities.

Imagine abilities that get stronger with the lower HP you have. So perhaps someone else buffs you with high armor, so you can get to a low health, but keep it within a threshold to maximize your dps. Perhaps pair it with some self healing abilities in case you fall to low?

The problem is not that games these days use static hot bars. The problem is that abilities are boring as hell in most MMOs now. They've lost their role playing spirit, honestly, and have become to much "game." Press 1 to do 1000 damage. Nothing interesting happens, no consequence, just casts and does 1000 damage. That is so vanilla and boring that it hurts.

 

I'm pretty sure they don't see it as a loss. When you make statements like that, its only to make YOU feel better.

 

That.... Makes much more sense. My bad on that one.

 

It's sad how the only response to not liking this is "you want a WOW clone and WOW SUCKS". I want to play with a monitor does that mean I want a Pong clone because it used a screen?

Even if the interface is similar the games can and should be completely different. It's funny how everyone calls darksiders a Zelda clone, does that make it a bad game? Hell no it's awesome. It has a great story, completely different setting, it might use similar styles but it's its own game. If something is an RPG does that make it a Baldur's gate clone? Baldur's gate was a great game but Mass Effect and Skyrim though both RPGs are completely different games.

I have about about 100 PS3 and PS4 games, they ALL (bar 1) use the same controller with the same 18 buttons and sticks, most of them use it in approximately the same way. Does that make them all clones? Are ratchet and clank, COD, Mass Effect, Skyrim, the stick of truth, infamous and need for speed all the same game/clones just because they use the same 18 buttons? In similar games if the buttons are set up in odd ways which don't feel right then the first thing I do is look to see if I can change them back to a control scheme which feels more natural

For PC games, should wsad be thrown out just because those keys have been used to move players around before? Anyone tried going back to one of the old school games which DOESN'T use wasd? Did you think "wow how amazing and innovative, they don't use WASD like everything else" or was your first thought "God damit, these controls are so unintuitive and awkward" or even just *sigh*? Maybe they should make the movement keys TALB, that would be innovative, it would be new and fresh, no one has done it before. It would also be unimaginativly STUPID.

The best test for a game is do I NEED a tutorial to learn every little thing about it? Sure most games have one and it starts with "push right analog stick up to look up...." But if I look through my shelf of games I can pick up MOST of them, sit down as start playing from wherever I was 6 months ago fairly fast. I may need to glance at the button layout to work out the very specifics of the game (like the power wheel for Mass Effect) but right trigger to shoot, x to jump or use, left analog stick to move and right to control camera. Pretty much how it is in all games (especially if I have a choice)

Seriously the best games are the ones where I am annoyed at the tutorial because I have already worked out how to do the next 6 steps and I want to get into the game. THAT shows the devs were thinking not about how to screw with the player but how to make the game interface intuitive between the player and the story the dev wants to tell or the challenge the dev wants to make

 

WASD should be thrown out. ESDF heathen! There's some rage. RAWR!

 

Ok that change may make sense but TALB just because it's new? (I was more comparing it to using the arrow keys in Jedi knight, GRRRRR how did I ever play that bloody game)

Seriously if this was a car they were making instead of a game then the designers would be charged with gross negligence and manslaughter at the least because it would get people killed. Why is it when car companies talk about innovation they are NOT talking about the control scheme? Because it would be bloody stupid to randomise the controls, people need to stay focused on what is happening outside the car, not by trying to guess what there right peddle will do next. Now sure no one will die because of this system outside of the game but it is the same concept. You should be removing barriers between the player and the experience, not creating more.

 

RAWR keys won't work so well, just sayin.

 

"MY RIGHT IS ALSO MY LEFT!"

 

I don't hate World of Warcraft. It really is the best MMO game I've played. I have problems with it though and one of those problems is the static hotbar combat system. The other is the grinding required to advance rather than following an actual journey. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was amazing for providing a journey but alas when the new content ended I gave up because killing X monsters to get to level Y and to get gear Z isn't that fun when the combat isn't interesting. Considering how 95% of the enemies I faced could easily be killed by my auto-attacks, it became tedious.

 

Did you like UO's combat?