Request: UO skilling

All this actually means, Ravicus, is that you may have voted five times that the deck system is great, does it not?

I have one account, because, why the hell would anyone need more?

Between the two of us, that appears to be 5 votes for the current deck system, and 1 against.

Yet the poll is approaching a 62% dislike for the card combat system.

It's ironic that it's me who is wishing that the fantasy world of Shroud of the Avatar was more immersive during combat.

 

I disagree with your educated opinion. I have no problems looking at the UI. I enjoy the game play. I dont think this game was intended to be a twitch game in the first place. It was intended to be o single player game with the ability to play with your friends online. I would be happy with turn based combat personally as I am not getting any younger. I also think that this game has a huge older player presence and although many are competitive, I don't think they are twitch ether.

 

Your twisting my words. You must be a politician. I told you that the poll is not accurate because I could vote in it 5 times. I don't even know what poll you are referring to. You seam hostile and act like you have an axe to grind against me for pointing out the reason I said what said. Relax dude. We can talk without all the backhanded remarks.

 

Well I'm a gamedev myself so it's nice to meet you I agree that the need to look away from the battle to look at the glyphs is a bad thing. I'm quite sure however, that even you see some potential in stacking and combos. The system is not the problem, the way we need to use it is, because it's distracting.

I was thinking about the possible ways to change it. So far the only thing that came to my mind is some keybinding that lets you auto stack and another one that lets you auto connect glyphs into combos. This way you would only take a peek at the bar now and then, deciding if it's a good moment to stack or if any combo just became available. Then you just press the key and the glyphs merge to the one that is the leftmost (so you already know what key to press to use the newly created stack/combo).

I know this solution is not at all perfect but I would like to encourage you to brainstorm about it

 

I think Otha has a point about the UI beeing distracting. Maybe it's not a problem to look at it, but dragging glyphs by hand to create stacks and combos does make you look away from the combat for quite a while. Also it generates some unpleasant things like miss-clicking the glyph and deselecting your current enemy, which wouldnt happen if you just used your keyboard.

 

Ya, I do understand the opinions. Its more of the tones of the statements that can raise hackles. I do use the drop and drag method and I can see the problems with that. But some of my friends are much more nimble than I and can use the R key and combine glyphs that way much faster than I can with the drop and drag. Did You by chance watch Violations Hangout from yesterday. They discussed a lot of combat suggestions.

 

I did not! Watching right now Also did not know anything about the R key - will need to look it up.

 

The first hour is about POT's so skip to about 1:15:00 or so. around there somewhere lol

 

Ravicus, if I sound hostile, it is because you continuously jump into various topics I post in, and claim that the polls showing 61-62% of players dislike the deck combat are not accurate, when, in fact, you admit to creating 5 accounts and skewing the polls the other direction, to make the combat system more popular than it actually is.

You specifically claimed in an earlier post that the polls are "not even close".

The facts actually are, you truthfully have no idea which way the poll is skewed, except that you voted 5 times in it to skew it towards a positive result.

It may be that dislike of the system is at 80%, for all the cheating being done in the vote.

So, please quit making claims you can't back up to sway people with false information designed to make the combat seem more popular than it is. Please. And I will try and be nicer to you. I am the first to acknowledge I can "sound" like an opinionated wiseguy at times.....uh....I guess I am!

I have no issues at all with stacking and combos. Many RPGS have had these features over the past decades. Thinking, planning, complexity in combat is good when it isn't abstracted to the point that is destroys the immersion of the gameworld- and when it doesn't require the player to "leave the world" during combat.

Most games- even the hard core RPGs, have "in" and "out" of the world features. I am all about "planning" how to react in combat when I'm not actually engaged in it. It's the way the deck functions during combat that is disastrously implemented.

The telling point is that almost all other games make sure that "out of world" strategy/planning happens when the combat isn't going down.

It's just basic, simple, sensible game design.

What could happen to improve the system, in my opinion, is to move the "random" element onto the screen in a more natural fashion. Let combat be detailed enough that what that skeleton is doing actually matter in a way that what a wolf does is different. Let luck work as it does in "real life"- not as some strategic destroying, arbitrary, abstract card game.

The toolbar could be brought onto the screen as well. Numbers appearing on your character's sword arm, shield, person or enemy could tell you when skills were available. It would allow you to keep the "planning" segment much like it is, before combat. These numbers could be fairly subtle and fade in and out quickly. You could see which combos were available when they flashed on screen. You would use 1-10 to fire off spells, combos and so on. Ranged things numbers would appear color coded on your enemy. Sword skills on your sword arm. Shield skills on your left arm, tumble based skills and buffs on your body, all in colors you selected yourself.

The beauty of this is that it would keep the basic system intact, (if it has to be kept intact). The changes are not so much to the guts of how combat functions, but rather the UI of how combat is presented during combat. Instead of being forced to look to the toolbar at critical moments blowing away immersion, you would react to the small numbered queues letting you know when you can do X skill.

The downside is it would require memorization not required in the more dumbed-down current system.

But, when I play a game like Archeage, I have all my combat spell macros memorized anyways, and never use the symbols....I just punch 2-3 or 7-8-9 anyways. Most efficient pvpers probably work this way.

The point of changes, if the basic system is kept, is to get rid of the need for "leaving" the game world to peruse the toolbar, which, destroys or works against the actual intent of the rest of this game.

 

Bwahahaha! You are a funny guy. I never once admitted to voting 5 times in a poll I said I could Vote five times in a pole. Reading comprehension for the win friend. Where have I jumped in all these various topics? Last I have known about forums is people can read and post. If I feel I have something to say I say it. I proved my point and you validated it. Polls on this forum are skewed. Who cares ether way. Again so you can read it legibly, PLEASE READ SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY! I did not vote five times. I said I could vote five times. I dont even know what poll you are referring to. Also I did not just create 5 accounts, I have 5 accounts.

 

Hi all.
About level versus skill system ? I come from UO too, so what to say ? Skill system is one of the best things in UO. (And scripting is the worst). That different branches of skill could be opened through level progression, why not ? But a very good thing would be that progression in a given branch should occur through practice only, rather than through expanse of points obtained by level progression.
And about card's combat, hum... that one cannot heal or cure when one wants, or use a spell or a special move at will, that totally kills the game, IMHO !
But there is another thing that makes UO be UO: fantasy. SotA dramatically lacks of fantasy... There is a lot of total non-sense in UO: like fishing shoes a 1/4 of the time when you're fishing, see what I mean... That is sometime boring, but always funny. From SotA, I cannot say "it is funny", or "I laughed a lot!". After being playing for 2 weeks, I reached lvl 21 as adventurer without having lived one only funny thing: all is incredibly serious ! Why ?
Last thing: for beginners, ingame help is always better than hints. I mean: to find a good road signalization, to find NPC that can help you to find a place, or to find maps, or to find in which kind of shop you could buy this or that... When you begin in Solace bridge, the way is very long till Owl's Head, where you can buy any maps. And after 2 weeks, I didn't yet manage to find where I could get an overworld's map. Same thing for housing : very difficult to find where you can buy lot deeds or houses, without having a look on forums or wikis...
For the other things: game is still under construction, has obvious qualities, and we can hope that it will improve with time ;-)

 

Set yourself free, only then you can see...

 

Welcome Esdejie!

 

The UO skill system just caused people to do things very repetitiously for skill points. It was about earning skill points by grinding ,more so than adventure, in some cases, at least at the lower skill levels. That SOTA requires one to go adventure, earn points over time, and then distribute them to our liking later is a major step forward IMHO.

 

I agree with your premise on this. One thing I could counter with is if they implemented the skill system with a ROT (rate over time) it would eliminate the grinding. In a sense levels are bad for RPG's and skills are good. I don't mind really either way but if there are no levels then everyone is closer to being equal. Only skills would need to be obtained. However since there is no discussion on the skill template vs the level template its kind of a moot point. I can live with this system but I would rather have a ROT skill based system instead.

 

oooo a new skill post! wait, no, same argument.

systems incomplete folks - they are WELL aware of this desire, and in some cases demand, for a skill system.

lets be patient and see if they deliver the goods. my usual argument that it could be a layer on top of what we currently have, still holds true - and i think they may be working on something fairly subtle for it. its tough this late in the game to have that layer added - usually it needs to be done early on, because ALL other systems kind of need to be integrated with it. but it is doable and it is a highly desired system.

my statement to the devs: if you implement this, i'll quit bugging you about kilts, that very same day.

KILTS! WE WANT KILTS!

 

I have to disagree with you. The repetition for skill points that you mention has nothing to do with anything because the difficulty can be set easier to avoid that, and other games like Darkfall have found ways to make you avoid macroing like for example you have to hit mobs in order to get skill gain. UO and Darkfall was about earning your build as you played it. SotA is just like any other game of the 10000 MMORPGS out there just to bring MORE of the SAME (that's what I call repetitive). Start like a warrior because its easier and end up a pure mage, it kills everything IMHO. I feel betrayed by the portrayal that this game gave me by saying Lord British is back, and forgot to mention to say that he was back at some other WoW-like game. I'm not the only one I'm sure, good luck trying to trick me again LB.

 

With you on this orcscout. The concepts in WoW were a step backward from UO in many important ways. Less immersion, more carrots on a stick leading you through set pieces, and much less freedom of choice and feelings of being in a living, breathing world. WoW destroyed the creative spark found in many MMO designs- it's lame, abstracted systems keep getting carried over from game to game, when in fact they are vastly inferior to how "worlds" used to be constructed.

Unfortunately, Shroud has continued in WoW's tradition of abstraction and limitation and control over the player character's footsteps as much as it has followed the more open and creative trailblazing ways of UO.

And, that is sad.

 

That's a bit too harsh. They tried something new with the glyph system, and everyone wants it to be normal combat like in every other mmo out there instead (yourself included if I remember correctly). As for getting skill points, it's much easier to change the way you earn experience and skillpoints than to change actual combat mechanics, so I wouldn't be so sure that the current skillpoint system will stay like this forever (however they will probably stick with the glyph combat. Lets hope that they will make it more enjoyable).

 

Something being "new" doesn't make it good. There are logical, valid points as to why combat systems in RPGs need to be as invisible as they possibly can be.

Good combat systems in roleplaying games don't call attention to themselves, and never pull you away from the immersion of being inside the world. That is because belief in the world is the point of the enterprise.

An rpg that purposely calls attention to a abstracted system of combat, at the expense of the visual realism of the physical combat itself , in my opinion as a conceptual game designer, is one that is poorly conceived. It's fine to include "combat planning" aspects that happen outside the gameworld beforehand, where you scheme how your character will proceed in combat and grow in power over time. It's quite another to find yourself forced into an abstracted card game when it comes time for your character to face something entirely unlike a card game- like a skeleton or lich or wyvern.

Dice and card based rpg's back in the pre-computer days were popular. But, the reason they were popular was because it was impossible to model realistic looking zombies and stuff on screen- impossible to show you wielding a blade. As computer processing becomes more powerful, there is less and less a need for compromise...and ultimately cards and dice are poor substitutes for apparent actual combat on screen.

Shroud also moves away from one-worldlike UO towards the more abstracted systems found in WoW when it starts putting players into the less realistic, "non-existant" instances. Instead of monsters being "real" and mattering like they did in games like UO or Neverwinter nights- monsters that could pursue you across maps and "matter" in a very real sense, the stuff found in Shroud can't follow you. They can't threaten you outside of the instance. They seem like abstract shadows of the beasties found in the older games, where what you did "mattered", because the world was real enough that creatures you pulled could endanger others, get the guard riled up in town, and so on. I miss this greatly. It's clearly a step down for anyone who actually played the past games.

So, I don't think I'm being harsh at all. I'm just experienced at the breadth of life an online roleplaying game can bring to a player.

I do realize that compromises have to be made in a 6 million dollar game. I can accept some of them- but not all of them, (for instance the abstracted combat), are necessary, because they are a result of poorly thought out concepts, rather than a lack of budget.