A new name for our combat system

You may not understand entirely at first, but as I mentioned, once you try it, it becomes obvious.

New comers won't understand exactly what SPO, FPO, or MPO means in SotA at first either, but once they try it, they'll understand that, too.

 

If the description is more consistent with the story and is more immersive to the player..that's a good thing.

 

Players don't necessarily need to understand the underlying mechanics of the combat system if it's presented in a way that makes sense within the context of the game. Card combat "works" but just doesn't sit right with me because it's too blunt and to the point about the underlying programming and not about the actual devices being presented in the game.

 

Unless you're Prince, you probably don't want to name a feature with a picture, and whether a publisher cares to do or not, he or she can't hope to control the behavior of his or her audience. Branding is critically important to the success of a business. Marketing 101. They have to give the feature a name--lest their customers give it their own unofficial name that rather misses the mark--so it might as well be a good one.

I do agree that videos are good for their intended use, though you've got to be careful there, too. I'm one of those customers who, generally, would much prefer to get information by reading rather than watching a video. I like videos to see how to do things if the processes being shown are difficult to explain verbally, but people tend to abuse that qualifier by outright ignoring that qualifier in certain cases. Then you end up with videos of someone just reading a script, and it's not possible to speak as fast as a person can read. The consequence of this is that those videos, even if they're helpful, waste my time. It bugs me to no end when I search for something and all I can find on the topic are YouTube videos. This happens often with product reviews in particular.

 

That's fine if the brand chosen makes sense and accurately describes what is being branded. I tend to get annoyed with marketing fluff, but as you may have noticed, I'm a bit of a crusty curmudgeon.

 

No worries. I think it's just a perspective difference. The "card combat" name doesn't hurt anyone who already knows how the system works, and since all of us do, it can be tough to get past that perspective.

 

I like the term "Rune based combat" or Glyphs. Glyphs is perhaps better since Runes already has a meaning as the New Britannian alphabet, and the combat icons are not these, but "Glyph based combat" does not immediately make me think of tablets or squares or tiles or whatnot.

Card-based combat has the advantage of making sense to players who play deck-building games and collectible card games (does this hint that we will find unique 'cards' out in the world that we can collect?)

However, I think using something more in tune with the atmosphere of the game would be beneficial.

 

Randomly Produced Glyphs

 

Way back in July of 2013, Portalarium was calling the system Runes.
It's the people here on the forums that called them cards. Mostly, people who were trying to bash the system without really ever having seen them.

So, just return to calling it a rune system.

 

Royal (Random) Rune System

 

I'm just a simple Brit .

How about just calling it a "combat system".

 

I agree with Rampage's opening post: Move away from the use of the word 'cards' to something more immersive related to the game world. A Rune Combat System.

 

Calling your set of skills a "deck" isnt new, its pretty much the new style of highlighting customisation and a game without classes