Afraid that the combat system might get ditched

All sounds good, but the potion part. Drinking a potion got interupted too easy. By long range magic in my case. At least I think it was. I dont recall.

It would be nice if we could get some distance and drink a potion. If only melee could interupt a potion maybe that would be fair.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

Yep, mainly for hand-to-hand and also knockdowns. Or, at least make ranged attacks more avoidable through maneuvering, using things as shields, and hiding. I tried to hide behind trees and it didn't seem to help; the ranged attack went through the tree. Other times, going behind a tree blocked me from making a ranged attack myself, so I'm not sure how the mechanics behind this work.

 

PVP and PVE are quite different. PVE opponents tend not to move around much, have a very limited range of attack modes (usually one), are very predictable, and if non-ranged are vulnerable to players who jump on top of a handy rock or other object.
On the other hand they don't run away, usually have friends who will come to their aid and don't suffer from the slug problem.
The current system works with PVE due to enemy predictability, single attack modes and lack of mobility.

The system is more of a challenge with PVP because locating and clicking on the right glyphs is a distraction when you are trying to follow your enemy's actions.

Sooner or later PVP players are going to start using Voice Attack or touch screen monitors to solve this problem, and then those who don't do that will be at a serious disadvantage.

 

I think this is one of the best comments here Every different combat skill should have it's "style of area" that it rules in, because this is reflected as truth in our real world. Real world is not the same as our fictional world where all things are possible, yet I do believe that some things of the real world help our gaming world to seem more believable.

"Why Not Have the Fire Spells Give Off Smoke Effects?"
Or for that matter some less smokey for the Ice Spells. If a player were using Fire Spells in an enclosed area, "the place should fill with smoke you can't see very well through" or for that matter air to breath in I'm not saying that we should hinder certain skills, yet if they are kept powerful, "then they should have powerful consequence".

"Drinking & fighting just don't mix and combos should be vulnerable to fail"
Here again, realism seems a better answer, just as this picture above demonstrates, you need to step away from battle to get a good swig in.

I'm also think that combo's should have a better chance dealing more damage, as well as having a greater chance of failure and being more vulnerable when it dose fail.

Real world systems are always very susceptible to the monkey wrench of things not going as planned and that is why most Kung Fu and Karate Kata becomes abandon in the fighting arenas and is reduced to hopping like a rabbit. This is why drinking and the art of the combo should both be highly interruptible. Yet this points to the main reason that I agree with and totally love our card combat system, because it accurately depicts the chaotic as well as the orderly world, where you can't always count on things going as planned.

"It's All in The Cards"
Many of the best fighters of real world combat die all the time. Not because they were not any good at what they were doing, but because of the natural chaotic random events that define what combat is in all of it's forms.
~Time Lord~

 

CHAOS in combat? Really? Is there more chaos in combat or is there more skill? Let's take the UFC, apart from possible fixed matches (or at least bad judges), the people who fight on that level will not lose to a guy who has only trained 3 months. Why? Because their skill plays a huge role.

Here's when luck comes in. The quick one hit KO, or one bad move then you get submitted. Otherwise luck doesn't come into play much at all, otherwise these guys wouldn't need to practice and stay sharp. When Anderson Sylva was a few years younger, he was clearly the most dominant fighter in the world in his weight class. He wasn't winning by luck. He was flat out awesome. It was his athleticism, timing, and skill. He could dodge and counter strike people better than anybody I've ever seen. He was great at Jujitsu as well. He's pushing 40 now, and he's had so much rigorous training for so many years I think his body is a bit worn out now. Keep in mind the guy had to train for 5, 5 minute round fights every time when most fights are 3, 5 minute rounds because he was always defending his title (for years).


MMA is a sport though. How about real combat? well we don't have many people with swords and maces running around, but we still do have soldiers. Is there a difference between a fully trained marine and some kid with an automatic weapon? If chaos reigns supreme on the battle field then more of our soldiers would have been killed in the recent wars. In fact how could a small team of highly trained people managed to get inside Osama Bin Laden's heavily guarded lair if combat were chaotic, and completely subject to chance?

The truth is, there is more skill to combat than there is luck.

************************

This isn't anything against the SotA combat system, because in R8 I found that the system was not based too much on luck, because I always seemed to have the glyph I needed at the right time. The deck system might have a little bit more luck than real life, but there are no flash KOs in SotA either.

So for those who are asking for realism, then you need to accept the instant one hit kill too, because sometimes you make the wrong move and somebody will put a sword through your kidney basically killing you before you hit the ground, and that can be based on luck. You can't fight well after somebody puts a sword through a major organ.

 

Chaos and the skill to face it. Of course it exists and is ccrucial. And your examples are bad this time Isaiah. You cant compare the actual USA army to any other one in the world. And the UFC, well, they fight into an arena precisely to reduce chaos . Why they dont fight on a jungle?.

EDIT: abbreviation correction

 

Sure you can. I just did compare the two. In fact I compared one of our soldiers to a kid who has no training but had an assault riffle. High tech communications equipment and battle plans aside. One on one the trained adult soldier has the advantage over an untrained boy with a firearm period. So you're right there is no comparison, because the trained adult soldier has the clear advantage.

If combat were pure chance, and chaos, then it would be a coin toss between the trained soldier and the kid with the gun. Does that make any sense? Do you want me to explain Anderson Sylva too?

EDIT: And the abbreviation is USA too.

 

There is a ton of chaos in combat.

Many people don't take into account just how crazy it gets. If you think about all the little factors that happen during a battle a lot comes down to luck.

Explosions/fire cause adverse reactions in anyone.

Someone dying, adverse conditions.

What training allows is a fall back for all the chaos around you. By no means does it allow you to ignore it, but it does give you a bit of a crutch and hopefully enough to let you come out on top. Only in video games/competitions is combat orderly.

 

thats not chaos Rune, thats variables you haven't entered in your libs yet

Chaos is firstly a force of nature... the idea in SotA is allowing people to "channel" that force... if the unpredictable is directed by chance and not skill, you're going to lose alot of users. And if skill is only about picking the right equipment and affinity and choise its basically time you spend calculating or training... equivalent of a grind, but disguised in a socially appreciable format.

What people love so much about UO... I probably need to say it again "what was planned for UO" or the UO that never was.

As Lord Darkstarr put it, free market in a video game is a TRAP. People will hoard and not listen to your advice, and they will hoard knowledge too so then not everyone has a fair shot.

In UO you had to improvise, you had to observe, things weren't all on a wiki at first, and although that seems out of reach to create again, I assure you its not.

The problem here is EA's model for social games, which they suck at but Portalarium might be a little too good at ; its being applied with a blind faith I've rarely seen. I can see why its not going to work, because its an art, making this kind of game.

You can't train enough for the "responsibility" that comes to you when you start a project like this. In this sense I say give them some slack... how can you do two things at once ?

 

I think the reason you didn't see a lot of wiki's back when UO started was that it wasn't a big thing back then....the internet was "newish" we had just moved on from BBS's. There wasn't the structure you see now.

It's hard to simulate chaos in a game...you basically have to put the player off his normal play style to make it feel uncomfortable. Look at skyrim...you get hit and your vision blurs or you stomble back moving the viewing window off to the side...which causes the user to have to adjust to something that is not just do this, and this to get 25 damage. That was just an easy example of trying to simulate a chaotic instance where things don't go your way.

 

Yea I'm sure you have tons of good ideas about it too...

We had wikis back then... and a big book we bought with the game to explain everything hehe, that was a cool book.

It's just that most people would love the game so much they would on purpose not check or use those kind of game altering techniques. Of course the pvp folks used it more because at one point you had to be competitive but thats besides the point.

Point is, if the practitioner of chaos can't predict a bit the future, trends, or moments to summon his chaos magic, then he would fail.

We're still talking roleplaying game right ?

 

We are

Well, you can sort of predict your precentages with the deck system....that why you load your deck out....5 sets of 4 cards for a 20 card deck would pretty much make your hand pretty predictable....of course you could do different amounts of cards to change that precentage.

Today's kids don't like surprises....heh getting my son to play a game instead of watching a youtube video about the game is fun. That's why I try and get him to play board games with me...gets him thinking outside the box.

 

"Too Much Experience to Totally Agree"
We do differ here in opinion. The burglary style break in of anyone's secret lair can barely be an example of this. Yet neither the pilot or soldiers of that "very expensive" downed helicopter during that "raid" were less skilled leading to those losses.
The names on the walls of all the worlds soldier's monuments are not full of the names of fools or less talented combatants. "They all trained hard and wanted to make it out alive while accomplishing their mission". Yet fate and luck have always something to say within their stories and the 26,000 US casualties and 22,000 casualties of Japan at Iwo Jima were no fools to combat within that battle. The MMA or any "ring contest" is not the same as it was during the first Olympics of hand fighting, where broken fingers, wrists, elbows, feet and other body parts were broken and mangled without weapons. And yes a 12 year old boy's bullet and stealth is just as deadly as anyone when it hits anyone.

I was one of the 3 sargents that first began training the "entire" US Army at the Fort Irwin national training center for those wars of less casualties where technology and bombardment was always the key that broke the enemy long before our well trained troops encountered them. I lived in the open California Desert for years preparing our troops for such combat and so I can say with some certainty the "yes, chaos, luck and fate have allot to do with living through any battle, with any amount of people involved in it". One of my good friends of earlier days from that, had 3 arrow wounds from his encounters in Vietnam which barely had missed his vital areas of life. I'm an old man now and any young fighter would still have one "wing ding" of a time to try and put me down, yet if the chances of fate, luck and chaos were with me, "I could get lucky and survive the encounter, but maybe not". There at the National Training Center I can say I had my OK days, my good days, my great days and "my just bad luck days" all rolled into one of many days and nights in years of constant battle... and I, for one, hope our SotA will be no different of a very challenging experience to enjoy with you all

"Agreements in Realism"
I do agree that for realism there needs to be a chance of a one hit kill and I also agree that there needs to be a better amount of skill vs luck in combat outcome, yet that also, luck can also trump skill. So in the current SotA card combat, we have a choice or choices we can make because those skills "opportunity" present themselves and opportunity has always dictated employment in skill or plan in our real world.

I'm a great fan of fighting and those that do fight in all it's forms. I study the fighters to their very inner spirit and the harmonies within them and there are reasons some people are not as good at some things as others seem to be. Yet there are always examples and a good example of how skill is dominating our card system is in our 2 releases R8 & R9 in our truly great champion "Espada!" If luck dominated our card combat system, then "all our great fighters would not be so great".

"Exclusive Caverns Interview With Our Current Champion!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://thecaverns.net/Podcasts/echoes-cavern-8-22-14/ <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Hit the Link !
I invite you all to visit the link above for an exclusive and in depth interview with our current champion. Here within the interview anyone can see the heart and mind that has proven time "and again", just how deep our card combat can be. Please remember that he and the other champions had "the same exact amount of skill points as all of we did", yet came to an outcome far superior than most of us could reach.

I do hope everyone who has interest in whether or not, our this or that, of our card combat does give it a listen and come away with some helpful tips or talking points for us all to enjoy and learn more from...
~Time Lord~

 

The Wisdom of The Time Lord. Very well spoken my friend.

 

did he really put an exclamation mark in his name, funny...

I think chaos and magic shouldn't just be powers as we mentioned earlier... fire magic might work better when closer to certain ores and in certain environements, chaos magic might work good under one moon, but wrong under the other depending on if the character chose a balanced build or a sharper riskier build.

Clicking the skill is already a dice roll for its effectiveness, added within the timeframe of a combat its already alot of "luck" factor. I don't see how adding another luck factor is going to enhance the fun of a "power" styled combat.
I won't speak about UO cause some people I know deserve a break from my cornucopia of glory but UO was simple and interesting and limited the luck factor to one layer. And when we watched mages duel, we understood why one had failed and the other won. There wasn't that hidden poker hand...

As others have said I can see how it could work, but then it would have to be tied to something that cannot be calculated, it needs to be detached from gameplay ? I understand you guys exitation... I hate to be party pooper but we've been there, done that...

 

And yet... in real life, a boxer does not forget how to jab, a soldier does not forget how to pull the trigger, and a UFC fighter does not forget how to do a basic takedown.

Are you really suggesting that real life combat is so chaotic that people simply forget how to do the most basic of things that they have trained many years on perfecting?

Because thats exactly how ridiculous SotA's combat system is right now.

A mage studies and learns to cast fireball... even studies so hard that he has a full 5 skill points in it.... but he cannot actually cast it when he wants to.. only when the game tells him that he can.

This is exactly the same as a boxer not being allowed to jab whenever he wants in a boxing match, or a soldier not being allowed to pull the trigger of his rifle when he wants to shoot.

NOT realistic at all, in fact very far away from realistic.

 

Its not about memory, its about reflex -- and being able to adapt your reflexes to the situation at hand.

Sometimes in life we'll feel our reflexes feel deadened -- other times they feel sharper. If we wake up in the morning and are groggy, we might find our reflexes deadened and not do our work very well. Once we take a shower, have our breakfast and coffee, etc., we may feel sharper and be better able to "catch our punches."

That's what the card system emulates -- not memory.

 

And again... you are really suggesting that a boxer would ever not be able to throw a jab during a fight, no matter how tired or 'groggy' he is?

Sorry, but no. With the deck system, you can know a skill or ability and not actually be able to cast it until the game decides for you. That is not at all realistic and is not an emulation of memory or reflexes or anything else based in reality.

 

His reaction time could be slower, and he could fail to think of the punch that would be effective, instead giving a more poorly effective punch.

 

that would be fine, if that was the system in place. but its not.

A system where your skills were limited effectiveness based on certain circumstances... that could be interesting.

Unfortunately, that is not what SotA's combat system is. SotA's combat system dictates to you when you can use your skill at all, not how effective it is when you use it.

So the system we have right now emulates a trained fighter being unable to even throw a jab when he wants to.