The game would be much better if ---

@KuBaTRiZeS

Right!

One of the design goals has been to make it so that a low-level player who had enough skill could defeat a high-level player. What about the possibility of low-level monsters defeating high-level players? It needs to be the same exact issue!

If you solve that, you don't need 30 varieties of wolves.

 

Yes, that is definitely part of the thrill during the early levels of playing.

I can still be swarmed by five wolves and die quite quickly, in say the Celestis Swamp, even though I can easily best them one-on-one.

Takes some effort to draw them away from each other without the entire pack attacking.

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Just waiting for a time when the devs need to start spawning herds of Trolls to keep things interesting.

 

Thinking an easy way of putting this kind of feeling in game may be a "swarming" buff into attackers; basic idea is that attack value of creatures increase proportionally to the amount of creatures of the same kind attacking the player. Getting technical the attack power granted by this buff for each member added could depend on the type of creature (wolves use to hunt in packs, crocodiles doesn't). It could even be applied to players, so Big monsters could be balanced taking in consideration the amount of players required to kill them.

I think this makes sense.

 

You don't even need a buff. The game has arc of attack in it now. Just add in flanking and backstab bonuses. Or they don't even have to be bonuses. If someone attacks from your flank, you only get 1/2 of your damage avoidance. If someone attacks from behind you get none of your damage avoidance.

A swarm becomes very deadly when you're getting damage from multiple sources and you're less likely to avoid it.

 

I think there are several issues involved, a few I mentioned already.

One is I think that too much of progression is in passives and innates. Active defense should matter more, plus I don't think innates even in active attack and defense and stats should overpower you. The advantage should be gradual. Winning just because you have numbers on a sheet isn't fun. Heavy armor of course should give you decent passives, but should have its tradeoffs. I don't think light armor skills should be all evasion passives.

Another issue is Heal is costless if you have it.

In addition to those, I think it would be nice to see monsters get more active skills that they actually have to use Focus on and which you can counter. So, for instance, if a wolf could bite you and cause DOT bleed damage, but this costs the wolf Focus, so you want to wear him down. Active defense skills also that you can counter.

Group behavior, whether you're talking pack behavior of wolves, or just elves grouping together, could also depend on whether you're in a party or alone, and whether you're a tough opponent or not. It should probably be also linked just to how badly you're beating the first opponent. If you're low-level and got one elf down to low health, he's going to call for allies.

 

I generally agree that the game would be more interesting if no encounter ever hit the point where it has zero difficulty. I'm thinking like Dark Souls or Risen here, where your character does get a fair bit more powerful, but never just hits the point where you can completely ignore easier enemies.

 

Amen. Solving those one way or another should be key while combat is developed.

 

Assuming more content (storyline, scenes, more PVE diversity, crafting, overland map improvements, etc.) is coming...I would limit my comments to these...

The game would be much better if:

1) Magic skills progression had multiple top tier skills to work towards, not just elementals. Not all mages want to play a 'pet class.' Top level magic skills are more diverse/creative in other MMOs.

2) Archery was more compelling. It makes sense to have a limit on ranged skills, but I still count gold per arrow in my head every time I fire an arrow, which somehow diminishes the fun factor for me. Archery is more fun in other MMOs.

3) Reagents were just a little easier to see. Maybe its just me, but I have trouble detecting some. I like the hunt/seek nature of finding reagents, but I don't have this trouble in other MMOs.

4) Introduce a gamma slider. The level of darkness at night remains just a little too dark for some, as measured by the ongoing comments on this in the forums.

5) Combat music.

 

Unfortunately I have to say the game would be much better if they had committed to either online MMO or single player completely in order to actually meet the goal of a great game. I'm not sure they can pull off a solid rpg world at the moment.

 

I think that it's just a matter of monster profile and database. Given the name of the monster, one can study its nature offline in the monster profile database. I ever played a game which we need to spend a lot of time offline to study the monsters in order to defeat them. By teaming up and a good study of the enemy we can defeat it very much tactically. In the game, each monster (usually high end monsters and bosses) has its unique way of fighting. In a fight, the monster's intention can somehow be predicted by the skilled players. For example, the monster may have 3 ways to instantly kill one to several players. Each time before the monster launch such a death blow, there's always a pattern displayed for the players to make a good guess of such a death blow and thus take corresponding measure tactically.

This however requires a rather slow combat system for the said tactics to be introduced. This may not be easy to be implemented correctly. The suggestion I can think of is a hybrid dual combat system where you hack'n slash at some circumstance but involve in slow tactical fights in some other. For example, when you are in a player team, you may kill a monster quick enough by hack'n slash. The soul of the dead monster however may actively look for vengeance that a group of undead souls is gathered. That is, after you hack'n slash kill a named monster, the next you will be fighting a group of them using the slow but tactical combat system. This may apply to PVP as well. For example when you are ganged by a group of players, you soul can seek vengeance under certain circumstance where you can drag one of the murderers in a slow combat where he needs to face you and a group of undead your soul has summoned.

In the above combat mechanics, you can kill a low level monster for it to lure you a group of undead giving you some hard time.

 

I think one thing which can tie up the 2 together is an in game partying system. You don't need to yell LFG in order to group at all. It is the game itself to group players together instead of individuals yelling LFG till he becomes despaired. In such a grouping system, all players within a sub-server should be able to flag themselves as available for grouping, or available for a certain kind of quests. When you acquired a quest, you can any time form a party by scanning through the near by players to see who is flagged as "available for grouping", then you can invite them to join. This way, people who actively looking for a group may go to a highly populated sub server, that is, West Britain and Luna Bank, where he can scan through all the possible players who are interested in joining a party for group hunting.

You can also nominate yourself as "available for grouping" while in the single player online mode. You will be decorating your house while waiting for a group of players inviting you to join a party hunting, or boss raiding or siege.

In game NPC quest givers can also play a role in grouping players. Say, in order to acquire a quest called HuntItemA for an important in game item, you need to first form a team of a tank, a bard, a rogue, a healer...etc. You will be able to continue the quest with a specified full team, and only so you have a chance to defeat the boss guarding the valuable quest item. So naturally, you talk to the quest giver first, then set up a party with this specific quest listed and invite those who flagged themselves as "available for grouping", or even flagged as "looking for a team for quest HuntItemA" to join. When your team is fully set up, you will be transferred to the zone/instance to continue your quest.

Alternatively, the NPC can even actively group players. For example, the game can compile a list of players who flagged themselves as "available for grouping", then this mechanism will select a tank, a healer, a rogue... etc. and send them a message saying "the god now provide you a chance to protect your country by joining a quest...", once you accept the team will be formed and transferred to the quest zone/instance.

You will be actively invited to join party fights in various ways and all the times instead of you yelling LFG helplessly.

 

Howdy folks,

Wow, to me, and I only speak for me, I don't really want to see the wolf (example) broken down into a larger number of prefixes so I can identify them (there's already numerous prefixes and yes, I know the same prefix is used for different level of wolves). I know, from experience, where I can go to kill a wolf when I'm looking for resources, a reasonable idea of where to go for the tougher wolf for the bigger XP I'm looking for, and where the hell to stay out of if I don't wanna die in just a couple of hits (and that's because I either died in a couple of hits, or drug one wolf to the area near the gate to see what would happen). I just don't like the idea of entering any area and seeing there is a whoopass wolf, and know that's above a kickass wolf, so I leave cause the last wolf I killed that took a bit of work was a elder wolf.

Folks say, well, we don't want folks to get confuse because they were able to kill two timber wolves in one area and now they've entered another area and a single timber wolf killed 'em. Doesn't confuse me....wolves in the second area must be stronger than in the first area. Guess I need to either gear up some, get more XP, move around more (I still see archers stand in one place firing away even while being physically attacked and I'm an archer), heal myself better, grab a friend, come up with a better plan or not go into that area quite yet.

I'm not trying to be a smartass here folks, but in many many threads, we talk about hand holding and how there should be a lack of that here in SotA. Put a marker of any sort of a quest provider or the area to fullfill a quest, mark a npc or monster to fullfill a quest and everyone gets up in arms about it, but add another prefix to a monster so you know if you can kill it, and some folks are all for it?? Don't think that marking the wolf with a prefix is so a player will know if it can kill them, deep down inside, in places we may not want to talk about, it's really so we know if we can kill it.

Haz Mac

 

I didnt know we wanted to get away from that. I kind of liked them. But sure... a mangy looking wolf or a muscular looking wolf could work

 

I for one have no problem with the current system. For as long as I can remember, playing Ultima (and many other games) the first mobs you encounter are "G-rated". Then as you move on, and garner more experience etc, you find some "PG" ones, then "M" moving on to "R" and at the end of the game you get to meet the "XXX" rated dude.

Now Shroud is not linear - you can go wherever you like. Didn't take me long to work out that there are areas where the mobs are definitely "M" or worse - OK, save those areas for later, or go with friends And just because you killed a wolf today, doesn't mean that you will always beat the same wolf - that's the unpredictability of combat, and I love it. Keeps you on edge. (Not to mention that the wolves in Deep Ravenswood now run in packs!!)

If you feel like some gratuitous slaughter you can always go back to North Valeway when you are level 70 and mindlessly kill everything in sight without blinking - but you probably won't because it's not a challenge any more. I am currently pushing the envelope, and invading Spectral Foothills - the rewards are high, as is the risk. Haven't faced the uberpowerful troll yet, but that might come later!

 

@Asclepius,

Yea, but I think that was a weak point in the Ultima series also. For example, in Ultima V you would still run into orcs all the time, but once you had magic axes for your whole party, they couldn't even touch you. You just threw your axes across the game screen. So. once you were super powerful, most combat in the game became tedious and something you wanted to avoid. I think its worse in Shroud just because leveling is so quick, designed to get you up to snuff without grinding, and you're expected to live in the game a long time even after the story is over. I don't think we should have to look for scenes where the wolves in the scene are a certain level, or climb up a monster ladder where we're constantly looking for trolls and dragons to have fun.

I think it would be better if combat moved in a direction where levels, equipment, etc. all mattered, but still required you to actively use them, and even low level monsters remained fun (if less difficult) at high level.

 

And dont forget wwe have 5 episodes of story also to play through. Hopefully we'll all have so much fun playing the game that the story will happens slowly also. Heres to fun **cheers**

 

That is making an assumption that the conditions prevailing in this pre-alpha testing phase will prevail in the released game. I have a feeling that XP gains are grossly inflated for us now, to help test the systems. We may find in the real game that it takes a really long time to become all-powerful. I wouldn't object to that at all.

 

Everyone loves to compare back to uo when something doesn't fit in the way they remember or wish it to. my response to this is yes we lvl faster now it will be much slower when the game goes live but imagine how whinny people would be if they spent x time to get to x lvl and had to do it all over again. when the game goes live guess what we can slow xp gains cause its final you will never lose it.

now with that aspect spoken for in uo unless you were a complete noob. within the first year of play you had elite gear lvled to max in whatever u were creating. (most took less than a year) yet we still played it year after year enjoying everything even though i cant remember a single place that i could not walk into and not survive. yes there were a few places u could get swarmed and it was risky but nothing in the game was unbeatable 1v1 heck most people could solo champ spawns within a year of playing and solo gauntlet as well including the boss.

People cheer we are not a hand holding game u have to work at quests to figure out the magic words to get the quest.(guess what i personally hate this never figure out the right word) yet as we all go around scene to scene we can tell very quickly by the xp of kills or rate of success on harvesting if we have harder mobs in this scene or not. i see no real reason to give them new names or colors. heck the star system over a scene seems more than good enough. this puts personal responsibility on the player. i do fine in 3 stars but 4 stars i have problems either risk it for greater reward or go slow on easier prey.

However as a final point and a parting word of thought.... i have seen many gripes and complaints on how far the game has come, where money was spent, how money was spent, what significant portion of the game said individual feels is missing. my reply to this is......... have you forgotten than even though we (as consumer's ) crowd funded this project to 7 mil do you not think that LB has contributed a lot of his own money onto this project out of his own pocket... They have some of the (what i personally would call) big time names on this project... do you think they are taking elite pay which they could earn at a major company to do the same thing... then add the big pink elephant to the room. we currently are only seeing half of what is being developed. we are not seeing the story line components they are guarded secrets. We wont see them till closer to release. if we even get to see it before release.

There has even been complaining about x or y system not in the game yet.... guess what some of those systems cant even be brought on line or even worked till optimization/baking is done. i will give two examples... (1) how can we flush pvp out when we haven't been able to flush the combat systems completely and still adding combat skills. (when a person in full plate wacks a mage face to face toe to toe and dies when the mage is wearing cloth) lets get the combat system fully functional and balanced then see what is lacking in pvp. (sorry i love pvp as well maybe not as much as some but its definitely something i look forward to) (2) item drop. i am extremely looking forward to this. would love to display things (like release hats) all over my house etc. however at this time when my daughter can no longer play this game on her computer anymore cause it takes her 10 mins to walk from the moon gate in owls head to the road (what is that like 10 ft) where at certain times of the day it can take me 30 mins to walk from lower owls head to upper owls head. Not to mention i don't go to ardious anymore why cause i will spend all day trying to cross the map. if we were to try to add item drop every where the scene would be unbearable to even the best computers.

Lets stop trying to put the cart in front of the horse.
lastly everyone remembers their version of uo they played as if it is the end all of what should be. offline vs online and even regards to which vs of either they played. so many peoples memories are of what they played and misinterpret what another says or thinks cause they relate to what they played. The common ground is the LB him self and the memories of the game titled ultima... comparing a developed game that has many years of upgrades to a first year game will leave anyone with want. we can always add more but if the foundation is weak we are dead in the water.

 

I think they mentioned that XP gain wouldn't be slow in final. Specifically because they didn't want to force grinding.

But its really not the only issue. I don't think it would be ideal if after a long time point players felt so all-powerful that the game became boring and it wasn't fun fighting normal monsters. It wasn't that great in the Ultimas either. And we're going to be in the game a long time. I think there are ways to tweak combat so fighting low-level monsters continues to be fun on high-level.

 

I would love to hear any theory's on how to make it fun fighting low lvl mobs redfish... I say this sincerly cause your correct it could help many games survive past there life spans if that could be true. the problem is when fighting mobs for fun or grind u want specific rewards from it gold loot xp in short you want a gain of some sort. low lvl mobs low lvl xp and when you need 3 million xp points to lvl next why kill something worth 10 xp... cant increase loot drop cause then you would speed up progression of new players to fast. the only normal viable way for a game to compete beyond its life span is regular updates of new material. (part of the downfall of uo and the continual popularity of wow)

one has to continually find risk and reward new things to do. you eat pizza every night for dinner eventually u go ugg again really