Starr Long Discusses Chaotic Aspects of SOTA Combat

Now, IF the system lets you do all that mapping, and gives you the control you describe, and the rest of us can do our own mapping customizations, that would be awesome.

 

1. When we say "Old school concepts" they may be going back before UO, before MMO's and try to bring in the things I've described for several posts that exist in a D&D type of format into an MMO. They keep saying they want to finally do older thoughts right, and that just might mean a serious revamping of a combat system you were familiar with, not just "improved upon."
2. I have never seen a developer say that this combat system would be tied to UO in any way. You may have made that assumption, but that is what it is. I will admit I may be wrong on this one, but I have never seen anyone reference this, quote a dev or link a video with that.
3. I don't think the distinction is as cut and dry as you make it out to be. There could be a combination of the two. I think they will end up with a combination of the two eventually, but its not just "player based skill combat" vs. "random generated opportunity combat" as choices.

As to your last question, I want all types of players to play this game: people that love pvp, people that hate pvp, people that want to sit in their house and knit kilts all day. I think the more diverse a community the better the game and more it appeals to people. In terms of combat specifically, what I don't want is a WoW clone of interface buttons where classes take turns being overpowered based first on abilities and second on gear. That pattern repeated over and over again in WoW with every arena season and that is not balance.

 

The term 'old school' is a nearly meaningless buzzword. Depending on YOUR age, what technique or method is being referred to, and how long a history that thing has, 'old school' could refer to almost anything. There is always an older generation, with other techniques and ideas. Having the devs of this game say they want to do old school concepts means what THEY think it means, and promises nothing concrete to anyone.

@Trapper while I agree with your distaste of WoW's OP rotation, I would like to point out that that tragedy of a system was INTENTIONAL. When the new generation of devs took over WoW, one of the things they began doing was deliberately overpowering each class in sequence, so that with each patch a new group of players would have the experience of being hugely powerful, and all other groups would be nerfed. Prior to that dev team taking over, the goal was balance, and there was nothing like that rotation. This means that there is nothing to link the unpleasantness to the system except of course, the disrespectful hacks that were scripting it.

I completely agree on the gear issue, though I could honestly care less about the interface, having lots of buttons available never bothered me, though if I HAD to use ALL of them to be viable that might be taxing. My experience of WoW combat however was that with some work, I could get a very effective build that did not require all of that. I played regularly as both healer, tank, dps, solo, and PvP, and aside from tweaking my configurations when I swapped roles or characters, my UI was never that bad. I just took the time to know how to use it all.

 

In one of the videos they had it showed a toon attacking a skeleton and the lich king, and it looked like smack smack smack to me, i didnt see any pauses for cards to appear etc...

 

In that video he also said this was a very basic combat system just for the demo, and that it would be very different on release. They only had like two slashing motions if I recall.

 

that looked ok to me tho! maby he drew cards before he went in there and his chances were already in effect?

 

i mean he did take alot of hits from the skeletons in the dark before he realized they were coming after him then he laid waste to the lich king and his skeles, so he had to have had some protection up! lol lucky draw of the deck! I highly doubt any of us could take out that lich in 3 hits or less!

 

Thanks for The transcript Smack. I published it with a link back here and giving you credit...

heres my take on the whole thing:

Here’s my feelings. I can understand some people maybe not liking the proposed combat system. Different people like different things. However NO SKILL? Anyone that says that has never played Magic the Gathering or they made excuses of luck for poor play.

I’m using that as my example as there are a lot of “core” concepts between MTG and the proposed combat system. Its not a copy of MTG, its not stealing from it, but you have some similarities in the way it works. Your “slotting” your skills (Choosing your cards) to build your deck. You have different types (Attack, utility, defense… or in MTG, creatures, artifacts, spells, etc). In Magic you use mana from tapping lands, and in SotA you will have a focus pool. Both have a “limit” on how many duplicates you can have in your deck. Both have the potential for combo’s.

Ok now – that I have established there are a lot of core concepts between the two,I hope we can move on with that being a fact, so not arguable. With that fact established, how is there no skill? Ever follow National tournament play for MTG? Ever notice that there are certain players who are consistently the top players year after year? Because there IS skill that goes into the game. Here’s my story on that:

Once upon a time I had 5 or 6 friends with lots of cards and collections etc. I had since sold off my card collection (that’s a whole other story, but I owned every card ever made at one time in my life). They where wanting to get together and play weekly and I offered to host. They said “you have no cards”. I said “Ill buy a few packs”. I was laughed at and told that id never win. I proposed we would meet every Thursday and play for Ante. Id buy (don’t remember the exact number) 10 or so booster packs to make a deck and I would only change my deck using those cards and cards I won from ante. They took up the challenge.

Long story short a year later I had a good thousand or so cards, some of them quite valuable that my friends we’re kind enough to pass my way via ante because they felt the game had a large luck aspect to it. What it comes down to is there is a lot of skill. There is skill in how you build your decks so that your draws have the best chances of playing on each other, building on each other and working together. so that they are balanced not to pull to much of one thing or to much of another. That they are built with what opponents are using being kept in mind to counter (rock, paper, scissors if you will). There are mathematical probabilities at work that you can increase to our advantage based on what you choose to use.

Did I ALWAYS win? no, not at all. sometimes I lost because there IS a luck element. However there is MORE skill then luck, and you can win more consistently with skill then you will loose from luck (and sometime luck makes those wins epic matches). So those that say the proposed combat system has nothing to do with skill, honestly I have to say, you need to really give the system a chance and you will re-evaluate your opinion.

THAT said – I CAN understand some people not liking the proposed system. Because it IS a different form of PvP from LOTRO, or WoW and other MMO’s. It uses different skills. Those games use pre-defined buttons and dexterity. The skill involved in playing a game like Magic is mental. It is the skills used when playing games like chess. Strategy, math, and mental ability to memorize and adept to new situations on an ongoing basis. So Hack and Slashers are at a disadvantage..they will have to think. Im’ not sure how a RP fan base wouldn’t want that though…

Oh- lets not forget, it will almost certainly eliminate the ability for scripted combat actions! I wonder how many people complain about the system for that reason…….
Advantages to this system? Combat would be new and fresh each time you go into it. You can’t predict the outcome. You will see new combinations and ideas at play all the time. Sometimes people WILL get lucky and win, which opens the playing field a bit to other people to at least have a “chance”. this may help get people who would normally not be interested into PvP maybe more willing to try it and become engaged in it.

One thing I can see being a disadvantage is the complaint that your skills will be popping up and being replaced making it hard to determine what you want to use quickly enough to be effective. My proposal for this is a “heads up” sort of quick bar display. Something similar to the Palantair plugin for LOTRO but expanded upon. Instead of a “skill bar” somewhere along your screen, when you go into combat either around your character or your opponent quick bar boxes (or circles, or ovals) pop up in an oval pattern around you or the enemy. You can have a bunch running down the sides’s, across the bottom, and across the top.

The left side could be designated for one type of action (attacks), the right side another (defenses), the top another (heals, focus regeneration, buffs), and the bottom something else (utilities).

All these quick buttons do not need to be filled. If your current “hand” is all defense, then the attack icons would be grayed out (transparent), and you’d only have others displayed.
The advantage of this system is that you would have full visibility of the combat and screen and could still enjoy the graphics/action. More importantly you can react more quickly. If you know you need to do something defensive next, you can focus your attention to that area so as to not need to look at the rest. Or if you know your opponent is in a good position for you to make an attack you can focus on your attack options. This helps reduce the concern of your actions being those that change to fast by making it easier to narrow your choices based on situation.

If it is decided that there should be some skills that can be used all the time, you could have a normal/typical task bar for those skills that you could place where you want.
The other option would be to make it turn-based, but I think that would ignite hatred from to many people and I myself would not want to see turn-based combat. Not fitting for the type of game.

I think this entire combat system helps even the playing field, could bring people that have avoided PvP in the past into PvP, reduce scripting concerns, make it fresh and fun each time, put a fun spin on it and more. Makes it easier to add new skilsl and actions to the game, great chances for combo’s then ever. Its brilliant, I love it and have love it since it was talked about from the kickstarter on.

I don’t like everything the Dev’s are doing (for instance I am not a huge fan of skill “trees”. But i am very happy with where they are going with this system.. CARRY ON!!!

 

I have played MTG for a long time. I have not been able to invest in cards for a long time either and now pretty much just play the video game versions, but back in the day I played in several tournaments. There is an element of luck and randomness, but it is very similar to dice rolls in D&D. Skill comes in not only in how you time you moves and coordinate them with other cards in hand and play as well as how you build your deck. The reason most MTG players Name their decks because the there is a personal connection to the effort put into how the cards are stacked and pride in how they play out.

I can understand people thinking they are losing control. They would be after a fashion since they might not be able to do exactly what they want to do and when, but as others have said I think this lines up with opportunities given during combat. If you stack a deck in MTG right you rarely feel like the game is random. This is something different than the traditional competitive role player face in MMOs, so I am sure people will be upset until they play it and maybe after if they don't feel they will be good at it. However, its a game mechanic like any other and I personally like to have to learn a new game rather than fall into old habits.

 

Rather than a raw random effect, maybe a workflow like this:

1. Cast magic missile
2. Random chance that a negative condition fires and a 50% chance to correct it
3. Cast a corrective spell before a time period ends or suffer the random effect

 

Right, because for most players, it's up to us, the human, to make, or lose, those opportunities. Saying "Nah, it won't matter what you do for them, we'll just dole them out randomly" is not more control, but less. It's the game making, or breaking, opportunities for you the player.

Which is fine in a game like MtG, it's not based on a persistant character, and unless you're really into the hard core, old school, ante rules where you actually lose a card when playing, then there's no cost for not having things not go your way.

But that's not the case with a persistant character. Ignore the dozens of other narrative, and gameplay flaws with the plann. Ignore that MtG and Dominion are turn based, and that is a whole different animal. I think I have the concept that a lot of us are cringing at.

It feels like a "quick time event."

It feels like we just pick one of a number of options presnted to us (looks like 5 based on UI shots) and not really a full list of our character's abilities. So the game says "Press 1,2,3,4,5 to continue" . And they're just options that the game decides, with little input on our part once combat is under way.

Just like a game with a quick time event might give us a press x if we have a special move in our skill tree, this will pick from our reduced (note REDUCED) skill list, and say use one of these. In no way am I in control at that moment.

While there are some things outside the control of a fighter once combat initiates, no one who's been in a fight will ever say they have no input on what is going to happen next once the fight starts. A good fighter is several moves ahead, and is using techniques to set up the next few.

When having the full bredth of your skills available to you, you're creating openings, combo's, and situations that reflect your skill, as both a character and a player. This says "here's what's happening" and bases it only on what your favorite things to do are, but not based on things you've done in this combat to make them appear.

In a game like magic, where the combat is far more abstract, this is acceptable. In a game like this, where it's not, this isn't.

 

So guys really, if this game turns out to just be another wow clone as you so seem to wish it to be, could it possibly hold your interest more than a short period of time?

It doesn't really matter how good a story is, you need something to enter into the market at this point which is different. If not, then why wouldn't you just continue playing what you've already played, something out there well established that you already like?

Dont you want something unique? How can it be unique with a 1-10 nub bar just like every other game has? How can it be unique when I can just google before the game even launches which class I should play, which skills I need, and in what order to stick them on the 1-10 nub bar in order to win?

You all have not thought this through. A game like that, is actually more equaling than a game where only some of your playable skills/spells are presented to you in a slightly different way. I cant use the word random, because you'll be able to effect the presentation of those skills/spells.

 

I could be wrong, but I think that they literally had not begun to design the random card system at that point, that is one of the earliest gameplay vids produced.

 

I want it to be a WOWUORPGMMO! kill stuff gain skill get better find better things to kill better quests to do etc.. after at one time none of us could wirte let alone read and now were typing and spelling in the forum! we didnt just get born into all this we had to learn somewhere!

 

Thank you, for both proving my point and confirming my suspicions on the types of players who do not like the card system

 

Yeah im sorry were not magic the gathering players, so while you sat at tables and threw cards around we were actually fighting in a game not just imagining it, but im sure this type of card combat is perfect for you!:
right back at you, and i never denied thats what i wanted, i made it quite clear i didnt like Magic the Gathering though! And UO kept my attention since it first came out and i hated WoW just for the record and i also hated Rifts, But UO i always loved! even before trammel came along, it was more envolving of other players, more customizable than others and even though i was ganked over and over at the start it was my motivation to PK the PKr, im really hoping that this game can and will hold my interest as long as UO has, if not then there are other games out there i can always go to!

 

I expect the 'card system' will bring an additional challenge to combat encounters, and making it more difficult to master.

 

i think the whole card system is stupid, but thats my opinion and since people havent given me millions to make a good game ill just have to deal with it if i choose to play after all is said or done.

 

Too me it seems that noone wants to earn anything any more experience etc.. gimme gimme gimme is all you see anymore, when i was Pkd over and over i didnt look at it as a loss i looked at it as a lesson how to get better what to bring what not to bring, what armor was better, every death was a lesson, until one day they realized what monster they made! But they made me good at it, they made me into a Pk - Killer(ps. if you cant replace it dont bring with you) rule of thumb!

 

Don't jump into conclusions here. To some of us you not liking the card system sounds like YOU are not willing to learn something new ^^ Just chill and wait for some more information or try to explain how a card system could be fun for you. I think that would be the most interesting question which answer could actually be very helpful to the Devs...