A News Interview With Our PvP Champions, Espada & DavenRock

" The Espada & DavenRock (MGT) "
"PvP Champion Fight News Interview"

Greetings New Britannia!,
Our Forums have become so large and full of information, that I decided to begin interviewing our Champion PvP Fighters for all those who may not have time to go fishing through all the PvP and Combat information that our SotA forms have.
Not everyone likes to PvP and many are hesitant to try our new SotA PvP within the Arena. So, I'd like to offer the general player a look inside the minds of our Champions and see that they are not the blood thirsty PvP types that many of us are use to seeing from other games. Our SotA Champions are just normal fun players and very nice people to get to know within our game.
There are so many aspects to PvP that can seem confusing to the more common Non-PvP players of all of us, that I kept the questions as easy and simple as possible for a more inviting look to the inner workings of our combat system. Both Espada and Davenrock (MGT) have proved themselves though our Arena Contests to be the top authorities in the field of SotA Style Combat, and wanted to invite everyone to come and check out for themselves how fun our combat system can be when facing a player opponent.

For all those who have never tried our SotA PvP, I asked these simple PvP questions to our Champions;

1) "Is there anything in general that you could say about skill building or skill trees?"

2) "What do you believe is the difference, if there is any difference between building a hunting character vs a War or Battle Character?"

3 "Do you see any possibilities of traveling tournament, such as we know from the movie named "A Knight's Tale"?

4) "Anything you would like to include in any such interview to be publicly known or questions you wish to comment on?"


Espada, (Our Ruling 1 on 1 Champion from R8) and his answers;

1) "Is there anything in general that you could say about skill building or skill trees?" (I will be honest, I had a bit of a hard time with this question... I tried my best to answer but if you feel it doesn't address the question properly, please feel free to discard it).

This is a very open-ended question. In a nut shell, besides being balanced, I believe skill building and skill trees should be meaningful. What I mean by that is, like in real life, there are steps that are necessary to acquire knowledge. Within the realm of knowledge in a specific field, there are matters that require greater training than others - those that we learn faster, tend to be more basic and usually become the foundation of more complex systems. At the same time, while experiencing such training, some of those elements are necessary to be known and understood in order for us to be able to attain or reach the next level. In other words, building upon already known concepts will allow one to reach and discover what is unknown, hence, creation takes place, or one has the ability to learn faster a matter that is already known, than the creator of such art, skill or concept. This would not be possible without knowing the basic concepts that allowed this new one to be a reality. All concepts of knowledge are a creation and a basic on their own. This is applicable to knowledge in general and in this specific case, skill trees related to combat. And as such, we have the skill tree systems we see today in games such as SotA. I do like the way trees are currently built (although, way more polish is required), but what I like most of the current system, is the critical variable where one makes the decision and grades skill importance and priority through a "glyph deck" to be used when engaged in combat. Such "natural" player skills selection by choice, which manipulates, to an extend, how often a skill appears during battle, is absolutely brilliant!

2) "What do you believe is the difference, if there is any difference between building a hunting character vs a War or Battle Character?"

When I think of hunting characters, I think of player vs environment only. The set of skills required for such role will likely be different than one that is aiming to fight other war/battle characters - combatants. Based on the knowledge of the environment, one will tend to select skills that will excel in that field, which may not be skills good enough to use in a player vs player combat, due to the potential randomness the latter one brings. War or battle Characters are built with the intention of dominating and controlling their foes until execution takes place, in a fashion where one knows that the other character is a human being with a brain. In other words, war or battle characters build around control and damage counters while hunting characters build around a known set of variables from previous encounters against the AI. Basically, encounters against the environment can be predicted more easily due to the nature of the artificial intelligence that drives the encounter as the opponent. Avatars, on the other hand, can evolve on the go and can make every fight different. This natural attribute of the player vs player combat, mixed with the randomness of the glyph system, can make a combat among battle characters very unpredictable. To me, it is that unpredictability (not necessarily speaking of the final score but also what goes on during the fight) is what makes each encounter exciting and enjoyable.

3) "Do you see any possibilities of traveling tournament, such as we know from the movie named "A Knight's Tale"?

They say our imagination is the limit, yet, it has no boundaries.
I am certain this would be possible with enough time and resources to develop it, yet, for Portalarium, both of these are very limited.. Who knows, perhaps it could be a feature for one of the latter episodes... It would definitely be interesting to see a system of such kind .


4) "Anything you would like to include in any such interview to be publicly known or questions you wish to comment on?"

I would like to extend an invitation to all of those who have not had the opportunity to try the combat in SotA, to give it a try during R9. One of the aspects I see being more relevant as the Glyph system is refined is the aspect of combat efficiency. This aspect is truly ruled by experience. In other words, in order to be successful against a good combatant, one has to adapt to the skills currently available almost instantly and at the same time be aware of what the opponent is doing or intending to do. The key is to be able to exploit both of these elements in a harmonious fashion. That, my friend, I find to be one of the necessary skills, as a player, to be successful, which also makes combat in SotA very dynamic. I believe a refined version of what we had in R8 will be a more fun and challenging system for everyone, both pros and casual combatants alike, than what we have as today's industry standard. This is mostly attributed to the random factor the glyph system offers, which is another variable that most players are not used to - specially when dealing with an on-the-go type of game rather than a turn-based one. This random factor is a great balancing tool, all on its own, and it will remove a lot of the constraints that most combat systems out there currently have due to their bound-key system.
One, as a combatant, is empowered to use an available skill now or wait, and conserve focus, if one believe it is not the best skill to use at that given moment. That decision alone might be the difference between victory and defeat, however, it will all be linked to one's adversary's choices as well. The pool for mistake for humans in this system is great, which will make the outcome of battles truly unpredictable. Yes, one can smash keys as much as possible and hope for the best result but beware, against a great opponent who knows how to time skills and conserve focus, this strategy is sure to fail.. Moreover, such pool of potential mistakes will be limited to the experience of the combatant, which will reflect, quite similarly, to what happens in real life - experience reigns (with a little bit of luck from the glyph system and personal talent!). It is truly a deeper system, in its own essence, than what we currently have available out there. It is, to me, a very welcome change and a great challenge to enjoy. If I am available to experience the game during R9, I really look forward to enjoying the combat system and the refinements currently in the works. I salute you all R8 great combatants! You all know who you are.. Keep it up because R9 is coming!

Enjoy and have fun! That's why we play games to begin with, right?
~Espada~


DavenRock (MGT); (Our Current 2nd place Champion) and his answers;

1)
Skill Building
Each player has a specific set of skills that they wish to adhere to and exhibit for their personal reasons, whether it may be to take out AI enemies in PvE, or to defeat another player in a PvP match. The skills a player decides to use should be beneficial towards their most desirable outcomes. One of the most important things about building skills is to concentrate on what type of skills are completely necessary for the growth of your character, while also focusing on what kind of strengths or weaknesses may come along in the future of the specific skill trees a player contributes to. Plan Ahead. There is also the option to switch between already built decks in the event of a surprise attack, which is very important as well.

Skill Trees
I had an amazing time testing the skill trees out and experimenting with PvP. From my personal experience with Release 8, I've found that it's not so much what trees you are utilizing, but how you can get the most bang out of each skill so that you are not wasting valuable points in a skill you are constantly avoiding. Basically, the skill trees allow a varying degree of freedom within each, allow me to elaborate, the Focus skill tree provides the player with more control over how fast or slow they want their decks to play, while providing a more customized stylization of skill sets to their players. At first I wasn't sure if I would like the system, but it works really well with the spells/skills they have in place and it feels very familiar.

At first I used the combat tree to no abandon, and quickly realized that surviving an onslaught of mages is hard to beat if you aren't magic oriented in some way or another. In each skill tree there are resistance skills that are quite valuable in stemming off certain types of attacks. I highly recommend focusing on resists and power attack builds, such as a high resist to fire and resist to stun effects, while resting on just a few attacks but powerful ones. Utilizing certain preferable combos is a great way to start out, however I am excited for Release 9 and seeing all the new skills being fleshed into the skill trees.

2) "What do you believe is the difference, if there is any difference between building a hunting character vs a War or Battle Character?"

This is a loaded question, because I am inclined to believe that I may be hunting down players as well .
There is definitely a difference, however it is not a huge one. I suppose it depends on what specifically you are wanting to hunt. There are powerful enemies in the world, and going up against one type might not be the best outfit for the next dungeon. With the system Shroud of the Avatar has in place, the player is able to perform crafting procedures like gathering, and refining, without having to split the skill points between combat/magic skills and crafting. Since crafting has it's own line, and combat has it's own line, the hunter class could technically blur the line, because not only are you a world famous Warrior from many battles, but you are a famous hunter as well who may lead a gathering expedition in the near future. Battle-ready players will be able to use their gathering skills without consequence to their War build.

Personally, If I were to make a hunter, I would concentrate on Archery and close combat skills, too much magic might scare them all away. Just joking, there are tons of magic skills that could be beneficial to a hunter such as the Root Spell which locks an enemy in place for a limited time. This would be drastically different from the skills exhibited from a pure Battle character. I imagine the purest battle-ready player to be utilizing a mixture of physical damage by weapon, and the most popular stun/and/damage type of spell.

3) "Do you see any possibilities of traveling tournament, such as we know from the movie named "A Knight's Tale"?

I actually recommended jousting events if we ever get to have mounts, however it would be great to hold events such as this to further the relationships we have all gained thus far, and continue to have fun in the process. We should be certain that there will be many player-ran events ranging from the usual to the absurd. It's going to be quite an excellent opportunity for everyone to get out and show off your new found skills and appearance.

4) "Anything you would like to include in any such interview to be publicly known or questions you wish to comment on?"

Hmm, I'll have to think on this one lol

~Davenrock (MGT)~

~TL~ As we can see from these simple questions, both of Our Champion Fighters have a very clear vision in mind when they enter our SotA Arena Combat, and are not so very different a player than that the rest of our community. "We are all here just to have some real fun and excitement from our game".
The ~Time Lord~ also participated within our Arena Combat and didn't last but 8 seconds, but it was allot of fun for everyone who came and saw all the fights
Yet, "as a matter of fact", most of our fights only lasted between 10 to 20 seconds, but some of the great fights only lasted 20 seconds to 1 minute of combat. So it really doesn't matter if you think you are any good at PvP or not, because it's all had in good fun!

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/bear-tavern-brawl-r9.13315/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Hit the link above! for The Bear Tavern Brawl!"
and learn first hand what our very fun combat system is all about Come join the fun! Come watch the fun! and come enjoy all the fun!

On a special note;
I was going to podcast this and other news about the fights, but I got very busy this week as one of my "Time Experiments" was just approved to be done here in Thailand.
Father Guido Sarducci here on our forums (an imitation and not the original Don Nevello) will be doing the podcast fight news from here on in, providing an inside look and important fight information on our Champions as well as that of our rising PvP Stars. So if you don't want to miss out on the who's who and what's what of our PvP Fighting Arena Combat News, it will be "soon" archived within the,
"Echoes from the Caverns"
https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-baldriths-echoes-from-the-caverns.9218/

~TL~ Fight Astrology;
I did get to have a look at the stars of our 2 Ruling Champions, and I don't give that type of personal information out, but I can tell you that... "It was no fluke that these 2 great fighters made it to the top!". So if you ever have the privilege of getting inside the Arena with either of these 2 Champions,
"You'd Better Be Ready for Some Serious Competition!"
That's all the Fight News for Now New Britannia,
Until Next ~Time~
~Time Lord~

 

You deserve all your likes Time Lord xD. Nice questions, interesting answers.

 

I Missed this one
Grats fellas.

 

Jolly Good Job ol Boy!!!

 

Thanks T/L