Combat/Skills/Spells video chat!

I would like to be able to tell when cooldown finishes without looking at the hotbar. Or alternatively, would like it so that if you are fighting and hit lets say 2 for next attack, and cooldown is in effect, that the skill at 2 will fire when cooldown completes.

 

@Chris

I am happy to hear you're going to be putting more effort into Magic, because of right now, I can't even bear to play my toon in a combat scenario. I play an Air mage - minus the pet, so my largest spell is Chain Lightning. The damage on this spell is really pathetic. I also read recently, that you're going to increase spell damage by 25% across the board. This is not even close to what I would be expecting in order for it to be competitive.

For example - my level 80 Chain Lightning can and does hit as low as 9 on a regular basis.. Your, across the board increase will make that into an 11... Whoop de doo.... Even at the high end of the scale it's a negligible increase. A 25% increase to this tree will not help whatsoever. When you're fighting someone or something with 400+ Health (which is lvl 60 equiv) those 11's will feel like a bad joke. Add some resistance protection to that and you may as well not go down the tree at all.

I just want to understand why you nerfed the ass off magic? Was it so overpowered that you had to cut the guts out of it? I certainly didn't think so. Sorry, I'm just totally frustrated that for 2 releases in a row it has been melee or nothing, and with only a small increase expected in the next release I don't know if I will risk trying to level it again.

On a side note - Why do all the magic trees (except life) have to end with a pet? Have we become some kind of petopia?

 

Question: I'd like to know if anything similar to a group combo has been tossed around?

A group combo would be allowing party members to combined cards in a shared group slot that appears when a party is formed. This would add some fun group play and allow experienced groups to specifically build individual decks that combo well with party members. Obviously consider making the combos stronger when preformed by a group. You already have a nice system in place and this seems like a solid way to expand it.

Link to general post about the idea

 

Chris,

1) Are there any plans to make spell schools feel really unique to each other? Chaos is a great example of a school that does feel unique, but most just seem to follow the exact same pattern - weak touch spell, range spell, some buffs, and capstone skill is summoning an elemental.

2) Is there any intention to reward players who forego the min/maxing and focus on one particular spell school? Particularly, would a pure Fire Mage get some sort of advantage for foregoing picking up a healing spell?

3) Weapons force me to pick one school at a time(I cant use mace skills wielding a sword). Would there ever be something implemented that does the same for magic? A Life Focus that I wear which improves Life spells but prevents me from using Death spells, for example? Likewise, will there be any incentive to go pure warrior and not have any magic spells equipped?

 

So my favorite part about sota combat was that it was always engaging... never any downtime. It's not like that anymore. What are the adjustments that are planned with the current system to solve that?

I feel like the benefits to stacking cards are completely gone... are they? What's the math that's in R22 for stacking a fire arrow 3 times? Does it increase damage? Does it reduce focus? Is the amount worthy of the time it takes to stack it and have three iterations in your deck reducing the ability to layer an additional different type of debuff/damage/dot on your target?

 

- Was the hotbar-combat system created with the single player mode in mind? A hotbar system isn't very exciting anymore - especially for a single player game. How do you plan to spice the combat up and make it more interesting for single player fans?

- When companions are introduced into the single player mode, how will the combat work with them? Will we be able to pause combat and take control of our companions like in other RPGs like Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age for example?

- Any chance of getting a spellbook-system, in which we have to collect our spells in a book and have to learn them according to the reagents we have? And only those spells learnt can be used?

 

Not sure if an edit to the original post would be read, so I am putting my additional thoughts in a new post.

To sum up, the issues I have with my mage are the following:

• The mage spells have been considerably weakened. Death magic was originally too strong (I didn't mind though since I was using it ), but now I don't notice it doing anything. I skilled up death ray only to have the combo Fiery Decay because I need an additional long-range spell to use. In R21 all my fire and death spells dealt only between 3-7 points of damage, whereas my untrained polearm (auto-attack) would hit for up to 20. In R22 the spells have become a little stronger, thank goodness, but nowhere near their original strength, even with extensive training. My fire arrow is now in the 70's, but my polearm still does the most damage.
• Mobs now run faster than I do. My tactic as a newbie mage in previous releases was to snipe and kite, keeping out of range of the low level skeletons and wolves. Now the only things I can outrun are things that can sling poison at me (spiders, slimes). This means that I am forced to fight at close quarters. Wearing cloth armor I don't have a chance to gradually take on stronger foes because in conjunction with the nerfed magic, they can always kill me more quickly than I can kill them. For this reason, I was never able to leave South Valeway in R21, even though I had a huge pool of experience from the previous release (I think I was level 61 back in R20). It was extremely frustrating not to be able to even enter my old haunts.
• I am forced to play a mixed build relying on melee weapon and plate armor. As described in my quoted post, I am finally making some headway in R22, but only due to the fact that I donned plate armor and started training my polearm skill. The initial ranged magic shots only serve to draw the mobs in close where I can finish them off with spells like stone fist, fire fist, death touch while pounding at them with my polearm auto-attack. Without plate armor and the polearm I wouldn't survive long enough.

 

• I've felt very penalized with hit chance depending on basic combat skills this release. That added to the enhanced miss chance from high dex on enemies (which i like) and the impossibility to get nowhere near the amount of dex the enemies have with current gear puts over us a double penalty when fighting monsters (not to mention hp and hp regeneration increase). What do the numbers say? What are the plans for the future regarding hit and miss?
• I like the changes done to Defensive skills, but i felt dissapointed when noticed that their effect was based solely on chance. Because of that, keeping it activated feels more like a duty than a reaction or an option. I'm not saying that that kind of implementation couldn't work; i'm sure it does from math point of view, but from player point of view they're usually perceived as useless when actually, they're not. Since the system can work either way... what's keeping SotA from having skills that always do something, hence allowing them to be used as reactions, and be 100% useful from the system and the player perspective?
• Why "maximum range" is so short? Can we expect range being incremented before launch?
• We're currently in a turning point for the combat system in which we're messing with the first iterations of the free attack which is mostly an aiming mechanic but we've been told that auto attack is going to stay which for now has been based on target. What are the planned changes to make both of them equally competitive?
• I'm also curious about how attack speed currently works, because i'm under the impression that free attack doesn't benefit from it. It is planned for attack speed to affect free attack and the rest of our abilities?

Thanks for doing this. Looking forward to hear juicy stuff

 

@Chris

Question:
For Alpha/Beta testing purposes can we move to a mechanism where a player can 'set' their skills? Templates are getting more complex and the whole grind/wipe scenario is getting frustrating. Allowing players to set skills would probably invoke more interest in the testing process and encourage players to test out builds that they would not normally look at.

 

@Chris

Can you talk about damage over time (dot) stacking and overwriting of skills by one caster on a mob and by more than one caster using the same skills vs the same mob? How does dot stacking work?

Thanks!

 

@Chris

• What is your approach to aggro mechanics? There are skill(s) to grab or remove aggro but how does the enemy compute that in the first place? Do enemies have different preferred targets? Do they always attack the closest player? Etc.

• Dual-wielding doesn't take advantage of Free Attack mode and, thus, feels un-intuitive. Are there any plans to change attack speed for dual-wielders using Free Attack mode? Do you have a different solution in mind?

• Are there any plans to avoid players from feeling like they need to get out of combat to heal quicker and avoid DoT damage before reaching another opponent? It seems like a lot of downtime (especially considering the cooldowns on your skill bar once you get back in combat mode) and it feels like the only solution is to run around with a healing spell (a spell that is currently over-used). If a player is in a PvP zone or dungeon crawling, I feel like they should be able to stay in combat mode throughout the entire activity... Other games don't have that problem because the transition from combat and out of combat is transparent (skills and interface don't change). It's even more apparent when you consider Free Attack mode.

 

How goes balancing the perceived relative values of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence for combat

 

@Chris

• What exactly do socketed gems do for a weapon? Is a Ruby supposed to add fire damage to the weapon attacks (auto/free attacks), or is it supposed to add a +fire damage modifier to the Fire tree magic spells?
• What will the other Weapon Cut gems do? I know you said don't ask about crafting stuff, but this sort of pertains to combat. I would guess that an Emerald (green gem) might be related to +Healing or +Life spells but this is only a guess based on the color match. So what other gems can we expect and what will be their intended benefits?

 

has there been any progress on fizzle and the idea that the more you fizzle the less likely you will fizzle again.

 

These first couple are sort of requests for improvements:

• Any chance we could get a 2nd combat hotbar option? I would like to have 1 bar for offensive skills/spells and 1 bar for healing/buffs/consumables. As it is now, even if you spec for 1 weapon, 1 armor class, and 1 magic tree... plus a couple slots for heals and/or consumables... it's becoming harder to fit in entire skill/spell trees without it being so random that you rarely get a chance to get a combo, let alone stack one spell for added effectiveness. I think if we could have at least 2 bars (even if limiting each to certain types of skills/spells), that would give us more options and let us stack/combo more.
  
• Why do active buff skills fade so quickly? It's annoying to have to cast a str/dex/int or defensive buff several times during one fight. Wouldn't it be better to have them last like 2 minutes minimum base... and then increase in length and effectiveness with skillups? Most challenging fights last more than 2 minutes so we would still have to use it situationally and not be a perma-buff.

I would like to know the math calculations on determining these stats and other pertinent info as follows:

1. Health - Strength increases health and obviously the "Healthy" skill is involved. What else is factored in to determine max health?
2. Health Regen - Is this solely based on your "Healthy" skill level or is anything else involved (Strength/Adventure Level/etc.)?
3. Focus & Focus Regen - Same questions as 1 & 2 respectively.
4. Combat Regens - What are the modifiers that affect health/focus regen in combat? I know having a pet out modifies focus regen... are there any others? Is there set modifier that just gets tacked onto the "out of combat" version for everyone as a base? Or is it unchanged unless you have a pet? Please elaborate on any/all things that affect combat regens.
5. Attack Skill - Based on Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence/Other? What is the calculation? Does this vary based on whether it is a melee, ranged, or magic attack and applied separately per attack type?

 

One last question:

• Heavy Armor vs. Light Armor - What determines which skill tree is in effect when we can mix/match pieces? Is it solely based on the chest piece? Or does each piece factor in individually and then weighed to assess which has more pieces?

It would seem that it only checks the chest piece because if wearing a plate chest piece and everything else cloth armor, I'm unable to skill up the "Swiftness" passive skill. Nor can I use any of the Light Armor skills like Camouflage. In fact, even if I take off JUST the Plate chest piece or strip completely naked, I can't skill it up nor use the Light Armor skills. They are grayed out until I equip a cloth chest piece.

Is this intended to be the determining factor?

 

I'd like to vote against this as it would put the nail in the coffin for decks... I like deck combat and I want to keep it. I have another idea that I think would be a nice hybrid for people but my answer is: if you want to swap combat bars just swap decks... it's the same thing!

 

This is why cooldowns need to go away.

 

i hope cooldowns go away as well at least in regards to its current implimentation, it rewards the slow and penalizes the quick, i know its meant to level the playing feield but its not.

 

Why we would ever want to remove cooldowns is beyond me. That would be the most spammiest combat I've ever seen.