Combat/Skills/Spells video chat!

I can't agree more with this sentiment, Sara Dreygon. What a disappointment to come to the forums today, excited to read what people have addressed in this post to Chris in answer to his request for questions about combat, spells, and skills. It seems like some of the back and forth off topic discussion could either be in private messages or on an appropriate thread. How disrespectful to Chris and the rest of us who are here to actually read and post questions about skills, combat, and spells.

 

those skills in swords i would like to have elsewhere, since right now my skills are not going up as often based on my current build/exp level, and there are those swords skills ill never use, that barely deteriorate, I want all those swords skilled lost so i can put them elsewhere! Everytime i see it even though its turned off/down i hate them! i would rather have Those skill gains somewhere else in something i actually use. I dont use swords so i dont need those skills.[/QUOTE]

agree with you here. Ignoring my sword trees so I can build up my spear/shield/bow Avatar. Maybe Portalarium can give (optional) starting templates for swordsmen, pike men , archers and let players choose which template to start with. That or completely freeform - either way it's completely voluntary.

 

i don't know about you, but i've been using it to drone myself to sleep at night. works wonders with all this banter back and forth.

question:
with a tie to combat, gear. when will we get armored kilts?

 

Hey, Chris. I have a question that I think could really help shape and guide the discussion here on the forums:

What kind of game balance does Portalarium want? When a character is newly made, how weak should they be? How fast should they grow? When a character reaches 'full development' whether that be the soft level cap, the average player power levels, the point of diminishing returns, or whatnot... how strong should that character BE?

Do you guys want us to stride the world like demi-gods when we are fully built, or do you want avatars to still be skulking along behind terrain features for fear of pulling too many mobs? Do you want a 'black knight' character to march into a small town and butcher the NPC guards as fast as they spawn, or do you want those guards to always be stronger than any character can become?

Where is the point of balance that Portalarium is seeking?

 

Yeah, levels do matter completely in PvP (and probably everything else...)

[Baron Drocis Fondorlatos, this is a great question and point that I ran head to head with last night during duels with Boradic Boneslasher.
He was using level 60-70 skills and I was using level 30-50 skills.
He kicked my arse in every single duel.
We were killing each other for body parts to decorate with, but in the process we noticed the damage numbers that our skills were doing.

What stood out during this fun dueling was how little damage my skills did. As Boradic pointed out, hitting him bare handed was doing more damage than a 50 point fire arrow or death touch. And immolation did zero damage.


Watch the vid of our combat, I include showing the combat log at around 8 mins in and skill trees at about 10:15 into the vid.

 

The killing of people over and over hopefully will be fixed as it is an exploit of sorts.

 

Holy big bug, batman!
How the hell does that get past QA? smh.

 

How does it get past all the forum experts?

 

Question: As Browncoat Jayson brought up Words of Power will there be spoken words of power as they are used?

Question: Someone was complaining about Archery yesterday. Could you please explain what will happen and improve for archery in the upcoming releases.

 

Will you eventually need more than 10 in a skill to progress further in a tree?
Example: 80 camouflage to unlock silent movement. System was built more this way earlier so I have been assuming it's coming back before release ( so we better can test builds before it goes live )

 

@Chris

Why does my level 50 fire arrow crit for 4 damage?
It just seems like a level 50 dot (damage over time) spell should do more than that per tick? Or no?
I know that's showing a tick of it, but can you explain the scale for ticks of damage on dots (damage over time skills)?
Thanks!


Compare this with my level 6 Searing Ray spell that hit for 23 damage. Searing Ray was hitting for more than my death ray, fireball, and a host of other skills that are all much higher level!

 

I know I'm late for the party but I hoüe @Chris has still some time to answer my questions

1. Why are there different kinds of XP gain between crafting and combat? What is the reason behind it?
2. What the disadvantages for using locked glyphs? Higher focus cost or longer cooldown?
3. Will the drawspeed for random glyph be raised, at least to the medium speed from the skill which doesn't exist anymore?
   
4. Are staff and wand considered as weapons and which skill tree do they belong too?
5. Is the skill mirrorimage finished? Will it only hit with weapon or will it really act as mirror and use the skills I use during combat?
6. What does the skill Combat training of taming skill do?
7. Should the training of passive skills not be reduced to 2 ways per skill, so you don't have skills that skill with hit, cast of related skill and getting hit?
8. Is the numbers of slugs still tied to adv level? What else is still tied to adv level?
9. Due to the possibility to combine locked and random glyph, will there be a change in the number off skills you need for the random slots? At the moment I still need all glyphs to avoid slug if I have only one random slot. Even the locked glyphs are not counting although they are used.
10. Is the combat focus regen really 0? Is it a bug that you regain focus during combat or that you only drain focus when summon anything?
11. Do the summoned creatures get better when training the summoning skill?
    
12. What are the plans for the starting XP pool when creating a char in the final game?
13. The the gain with each skill level is still linear, is there a plan to change it so you gain more till level 10 and the difference between level 80 and 100 is not the 20% like it is now?
14. Is there a decay also for crafting skills?
15. Is there any plan to prevent players from learning all skills on level 40 and higher or make it at least harder? The current decay only punishs specialists.
16. What are the plans for reskilling? Is there really a good way on a used based system?
17. What is the longterm motivation for leveling and combat? There is a time when the used based system + decay is only a fight against windmills. I don't want to end as Don Quijote.
18. What are the plans for EP2 regarding skills and combat? With the current decay system we will never see harder mobs, because there is a limit what we can learn due to decay.

 

Why exactly you want to avoid that dedicated players become truly exceptional by raising a lot of skills at level 100+, if they have the time and drive to do so?

 

Whiskiz, it's not the R22 hangout that this is for. The R22 hangout is Thursday. This thread is about Chris' hangout today for spells, skills, and combat. Just in case anyone's confused and goes to the wrong place at the wrong time... The things being asked here are for today's (Tuesday's) hangout with Chris, not for the R22 Dev Hangout on Thursday.

I am happy that Chris invited us to ask questions and will talk with us today about combat, skills, and spells.
I am also happy that I could link video of gameplay and images to show some confusion that not only I have, but many players have, and that the data in the images and video shows. Namely, that some skills of a higher level do considerably less damage than skills of much lower levels. That's a fact.That's not me misunderstanding. I already stated and said I know fire arrow TICKS and can thus, obviously, do more than Searing Ray. I asked if the tick for fire arrow was as intended in terms of how big the tick is... and then I asked about Searing Rays damage at level 6 compared to skills much higher level than it.

You can read the combat log in the images and watch the scrolling combat text to see what I mean and also see the skill trees for the skill levels in the video I linked.
That's hard data, game data... with facts of how the game works. I know that one tick of fire arrow will be less than Searing Ray,but overall my point was that a level 6 Searing Ray does 10 times more damage than skills 7 more more times higher level than it and that was and is confusing to me and other players.

You can see the damage numbers for a level 38 Fireball hitting for 5, and level 41 Death Touch hitting for 18 in the image of the combat log right here on this thread in my QUESTION about combat numbers. Fireball and Death touch do not have damage over time (dot) effects, so they simply do a much lower amount of damage than a level 6 Searing Ray, which is a legitimate thing to point out in a thread by Chris about questions about combat,skills, and spells.

So the straight up questions that I posed are legit, and not, as you say, me playing poorly or not understanding or wasting the dev's time (in this case, Chris, since it's his hangout today), but rather direct, relevant, and factual data with earnest questions.
I'm not the only one who is curious about them, many people notice Searing Ray is overpowered right now. I'm also not the only one who knows that skill balancing is an ongoing part of game development, and will be addressed and the skills will be tweaked and changed, because the skills are not completely balanced and fine, as Chris and DarkStarr have acknowledged and stated to us many times.


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Forum Rules are good.

 

Are there any plans to provide bonuses to players that specialize in certain trees or in certain roles?

Example: a deck that contains only fire spells or a player that focuses on filling a "tank" or other role in a group.

As it stands now everyone is pretty much a hybrid as there is no incentive to be a specialist.

 

Completely agree with this statement and I would add it to my questions if you didn't ask it.

 

Okay...

• What kind of skills are in mind for the subterfuge tree?
• What are your plans to address pure archery concerns? Is it by intent that Archers must take up magic skills for viability?
• Is there ANY chance taming will be changed to address the EXTREME costs of the skill? Maybe using a tamer collar as a tool with durability instead of a consumable?
• Should we expect music based skills to come online?
• What are the thought for NON magic based healing skills? Bandages etc al?
• Is there any chance for some sort of optional aiming reticule for archers to allow us to have more control over combat in the same way melee does? By aiming our character and weapon instead of arbitrary tab targetting....
• Do you feel that the recent healing nerf performed its intended function? At the moment, the changes to healing have severely hurt group and party efforts.
• Free attack swing? Do you think the charge up timers are reasonable? It currently seems like a huge amount of time put into the weapon charge.
• Any chance we will get better indicators than some random "charge up bar" for free attacks?
• What about trade skills - this is still a skill, when we will start seeing real craftable clothing coming online? When will we be able to CRAFT what we can currently only buy with gold for clothing?
• When can we craft crossbows?
• Will the next armor refactor include certain elements providing damage reduction for certain damage types? Damage types were discussed intently a few months ago.
• ARCHERY!, ARCHERY!, TELL ME ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO WITH ARCHERY! *Has a seizure* (Seriously, there's quite a few serious concerns about this skill line right now)

 

Please answer this one @Chris it is a great idea even if the bonus is minor. Hybrids are boring me

 

sry if this has been asked.

how can a pet be viable for a mage when it drains all focus... also... with a 1 hour cool down how is it expected to level summon so the skill to lessen focus drain can begin to be worked on?

thanks

 

I prefer a hybrid. But to each their own. I do not want to be limited by anything, but I do not see a problem with a *very small* bonus to reward those that stick to a specialization.

Oh yeah, a question. Are you having a good day Chris?