Am I the only one who doesn't want to play card game combat??

I don't think melee should be restricted by anything but the weapon you chose to use.

My huge concern is that the Single player games are being forgotten in this push for PVP. Whether you chose to be a mage or a fighter you should be able to play the game, start to finish by yourself without any interaction with any other player. This was a garentee when we pledged for this game and yet it seems to have been forgotten. Protections have been put in place for Melee characters in the form of soft breakage which was explained by Chris as being in place so that noone is ever left defenseless because there sword breaks in combat or breaks when they are far from a town to get it repaired yet no such protections have been announced for Mages (for example that running out of reagents would mean a spell was less powerful but would still be usable). Mages are triple hobbled, they don't wear armor so are completely reliant on there spells (as it should be) but are being told that those spells are limited firstly by mana (again quite normal), then by reagents and then on top of both of those that the spells they can cast probably aren't even available. In the case of a fighter you get a thrust or a hack as long as you are using a sword either will work, but for a mage if a fireball comes up and you only have the reagents for a ice ball means that you are completely hobbled

 

Well head on over to the new combat thread chris posted "combat and pvp update" and get some of your questions answered and contribute to the conversation. It is a great conversation and read away.

 

If reagents are such a restrictive factor why did I virtually never see a pure melee when playing UO, and while watching PVP videos everyone I watched everyone was casting? Also, we don't know what spells need what reagents, or even if some low Lvl spells might not need any at all (I'm a fan of base Lvl cantrips). And if you don't need a foci of some sort to cast, you have nothing to break making you ineffective, so reagent usage Lvls the field.

And if you haven't noticed, in the current combat when you use a melee skill it uses "mana" which should probably be thought of more as "energy". So melee has the same restriction there.

So far I've not seen anything about mages being restricted by armor types, but I can't say it's not true. It is common place, but it is becoming less common.

Now having access to every form of magical attack, defense, and utilitarian spell... Major plus... Melees are hobbled by limited selection of options available to them for use of their weapon of choice. I think melee is as it should be, but mages should have some similar restriction.

 

Man, I am really liking your posts. That would be a good idea for taking too many potions in a short period of time.

 

It would be a simple way to stop the 1231231235 style of combat as well. If you just spam attacks, each one becomes less effective as your opponent gets better at countering them.

 

Secondly was UO a single player focused game as well as a multiplayer one? remember this is meant to be single player as well as multiplayer. In fact its supposed to be set up so if we so desire we will NEVER see another player

thirdly apparently (from same post of Chris's) they have changed there mind so swords wont be usable anymore once soft broken so I suppose that is something. That said fighters still have the advantage of wearing heavy armor and being able to use there fists (which would be covered in gauntlets) even when there sword is gone, try that as a mage

 

You know what bugs me, no one has actually justified WHY this should be discouraged by anything other than improving other skills\spells to the point where people want to use them. In real battle does someone come along and tell the solders that they have used there gun to much and they should do more hand to hand or they should make swords and use them?

Make the spells desirable and people will use them, what is being talked about currently is just lazy design

 

I loved that concept, but wasn't able to devote any time to play it to determine if concept translated well to practice. I think that might be an interesting concept to explore some variations on that theme, keeping the game the "spiritual successor to Ultima" but trying something new and potentially interesting/fun at the same time.

 

Two reasons, one in game and one out of game.

In game, as a real/simulationist bit... it's not even believable. If you want to see what it looks like to spam an attack...



In real life if you spam an attack, the opponent will start to figure it out and it'll stop working pretty quick. So, while no one comes along and says "Ok, done with guns, time for swords now", the opponent does eventually figure out "Hey, all this guy does is thrust. If I just step aside I can stab him in the face."

But I get your analogy, because that's exactly what I feel like the deck system does. It tells me I'm not playing the game right, and rather than reward me for playing the game in a more engaging way, they're going to take control over how I fight away from me and hand me back my skills at random, if I've written them down on a list ahead of time before I knew what I was fighting. That's not a game I can sell to my friends.

In terms of the fun factor of the game... because spamming attacks doesn't engage the player. They zone out and don't feel connected to what's happening. They drum their finger on the top of the keys until the other thing dies, then move forward and dot he same thing again.

So now we have a player that's not engaged doing the same thing over and over for hours at a time. In the early days of WoW, that was cool. Now, it's old hat, and WoW probably does it better. You have to distinguish yourself in other ways... I think SotA could do that... but it could also be a game that hits the first point as well, and makes it believable. As I've said, a spam counter where the oponent starts to catch on, or using warm ups instead of cool downs (save your focus for one big attack, or blow it all on lots of rapid quick attacks) would give a new dynamic to combat without alienating the way people are used to playing. And unlike card systems which seem to be flavor of the month right now (and won't always be) it would be something genuinely new.

 

I'm not saying that spamming should win, quite the opposite, it should make you predictable and get you killed but that's about better programming the AI (PVP that should be obvious) but the way to fix this is making other skills just as powerful and making the AI take advantage of predictability. This makes far more sense than an arbitrary game fix. For example what makes more sense

Player A keeps throwing nothing but fire bolts, so monster casts fire shield, runs up and hits them on the head

OR

Player B keep throwing fire bolts so the game says "no more fire bolts for you till you cast 30 levitate pebble spells"

Which is the better game?

If we are talking PVP it should be at the same time easier and slightly harder, if you keep doing nothing but the same thing a human will predict it pretty fast but to stop it do as Chris suggests and make all the spells have there own advantages and disadvantages, so I am encourage to keep changing things up as the other player adapts.

THATS a good game

 

This makes sense on paper, but look at it logically. For this to work every skill should have a rock/paper/scissors equivalent to every other skill. Not just magic skills, but melee skills also. Otherwise if you end up in a fight and your opponent (mob or pc) is using a skill you don't have a counter to, you die every time. Yes, you could go learn new skills and come back, but if your chosen skill tree doesn't have either a strong enough counter or enough mitigating counters to be effective you are forced to build your character outside of your theme to go any further.

The idea would be awesome, but the skill trees would be huge, and there would be a large amount of skills that are just "elemental" reworkings of each other instead of unique skills. And personally it should be more like "rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock" but that increases the repetition of like skills in each tree.

It's a hard spot to be in for developers wanting to keep skills unique, keep players engaged, give all types of players equal (but different) options, and have to balance it all in with the limits of tech... They can do much more than they use to, but they will never be able to do everything they/we want because it keeps growing and getting more complex.

 

Not necessarily, they just need to have advantages and disadvantages, like increased casting time and Chris has already said that's what they are doing

 

You mean like bashing, cutting, piercing damage/resistances? Or fast low damage, slow high damage weapons? Ranged vs melee weapons? Throwing vs bows? Or Armor damage vs body damage? Or magical bonuses vs curses?

It's old news.

 

It is best when whatever career path you choose the end result of your skills is sort of a level ground, with no one combination of skills dominating the rest.

However this does not mean that some people will choose better skills that work synergisticly, and other people might pick skills that dilute a character's full potential.

So just because they are making it a level playing field, I'm sure there will be some characters that are better than others. Also keep in mind that the people who have good strategic skills may be better in combat situations than less strategic minded people.

(Also the more strategic minded person is likely to have more synergistic skills. Some people may appear to be head and shoulders above the norm, and that's not an error on the part of the dev staff. It just means having a classless system puts the planning of the character on the player.)

I'm sure there will be some people who complain that certain characters are too powerful yadda yadda yadda. The devs are developing a fair system, but if some people are better than others... rather if some players create weaker characters then that's on them. However if you don't PvP then creating a character that is versatile, and just for fun is going to be fine. No need to maximize a character for PvE purposes. It's in PvP where deficiencies are felt.

 

No, I mean people accept a specific spell countering another specific spell (I'm not talking interrupting or resisting a spell, I'm talk after the spell is cast) to negate the damage, and other spells partially negating damage. Chris just talked about it in his new thread. I'm saying it needs to carry over to melee also.

You start adding counters, deflections, absorption and transfers of damage to an opponent for every skill for every other skill (each having the one they best counter, deflect, etc...) the numbers get exponentially huge.

 

I thought this wasn't going to be "twitch" style combat? If we are going this way though, how about something more like Gothic 3-style combat? Much simpler to implement, and also very fun and challenging.

 

Not seeing it, have a link?

 

From the topic "Combat and PVP team update"

That is one spell being able to "counteract a large part of the damage", if one tree of skills has that kind of ability, so should the others... Maybe not to every other skill, but like rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock each has its strengths and weaknesses in other skills.

 

So you mean like some armor is better at resisting bashing, others slashing and some piercing?

When you're talking about melee it's pretty much built into the equipment. The skills then let you use it. With magic, the player is the equipment, so it has to be more spelled out (pun totally intended).

 

No more so than it is now.
If anything you'll just have to pay more attention and think more.