Balanacing an un-balanced combat system

~nods~ Focus tree! Increase the time glyps remain in your deck and decrease the time required to replace them, together with a bigger hand. The beauty of such a system is that you are the one to decide how you want it to play out, you just got to design it according to your preferences!

These 'leet monsters' can not even remotely touch you, if you build for it. You might want to spend only five minutes against another player and actually try the system.
Amusingly enough, you can stand next to a slime, chat on IRC and just wait for the slime to drop. Won't even have to hit a single button or anything, or risk loosing a hitpoint. Just got to design your equipment and skills accordingly. I managed to be semi AFK between 3 Elf Fighters and 2 Elf Archers in the end and these are far more powerful than a slime.

Oh lord, how I wish they would! Having to spend five minutes to read through the tool tips and skills in order to progress would totally remind me of the old days and maybe filter the... well... hand me a spoon, or better yet feed me-kind of persons
But ok, ok, I know it won't happen

There's randomness in most every MMORPG combat, it's just that it is less visual there. You may score 10-15 hitpoints on your spell/hit. So, according to your arguing, nobody could ever hope to win any battle in any MMORPG, other by pure luck, since you could theoretically, keep hitting 10's, while your evil opponent keeps hitting 15's. You'd be left without chance. The 'law of large numbers' is of opposite opinion. And yes, the ability to replicate your task prooves your skill. You see pokerplayers rely drastically on luck. Even the best ones loose or win a match. Yet the good ones end up with millions of cash ~gained~ per year. Can you guess why? No, they are not the constantly lucky ones

That said, I hope they'd consider adding Lord Beaumaris great suggestion of having one focus skill influence contextual draws and to rework the 'combo' mechanism, so that 'Dallas players get a fair chance again'.
Is the system perfect? By no means!
Is it good enough for an alpha concept study? I'd say deffinitly.
Is everybody going to like it? Definitly not.
Does everybody have to like it? As long as there's a fair 'Dallas'-locks skills alternative, no. When there's freedom of choice, both kind of players can select what they like best, so why bother?

 

In the case of the combat system, I've done some PvE and PvP and, for me at least, the system itself is not the problem but the controls are.

First my biggest issue is with the fact that I need to use my mouse and keyboard to manoeuvre properly while at the same time trying to either type a number or click on a glyph to get the attack to occur. I can either run/chase or attack but cannot do both at the same time. Scenario goes something like this, "chase target, catch up to target, look at glyphs, locate appropriate glyph, move mouse to glyph to select attack, target turns and gets out of range because my mouse is busy trying to click on glyph... restart chase."

My second issue is that looking to the bar to see what glyphs are available, takes away from me looking at what takes place on screen.

I do not know what the best solution is but these are the items I would focus on fixing. Maybe by making the keyboard manoeuvring more responsive so that turning could be handled properly from the 'Q' and 'E' keys instead of the right mouse button? This would free up the mouse for other things.

As to the random play style that they've incorporated, I do not have an issue with this. I find that the strategy is at the start and in how you set up your deck for play. The randomness of it all is the same for everyone so that evens the playing field and by dropping cards into random slots there is less of a chance of the system being abused by external programs and programmable tools. This means that people will be fighting people and not pre-programmed software or hardware controls. We just need a better way of seeing the glyphs on screen so that it doesn't distract from the combat taking place.

 

This hasn't happened to me, but if it does you can use the tab key. I can't remember if there was a specific one for last target. Was that F1? Maybe F1 is the right key actually. Tab I think scrolls through the closest opponents. Either one would work I guess if you were right next to the guy.

 

Do you mind the figure (50%), or the penelty as such? The figure is still subject to change, as much as everything else, given that the concrete numbers are part of the balancing process.
The penelty as such on the other hand... you claim that 'randomness' drags your abilities down as much as being distracted. On the other hand, you say that a 'locked deck' is not as much an advantage that a slight penelty would equal out it's use versus a 'random deck' fighter. You've got to decide. Is the locked system easier to use or not? If it is, a penelty is ok. If it's not, then your complaint suddenly went mute

 

50% does indeed seem quite steep to me and I don't think you could call that a 'slight' penalty. That seems as if the locked skill bar is not an option that they want you to use, so it really isn't an alternative. If they have to penalize locked bars in order to make it fair for people who use the random location of skills system, then to me that really highlights the shortcomings of the random location system.

I'm all for trying to have a good in-depth system that fits the needs/wants of 'most' people. My contention isn't difficulty, I don't mind difficult at all, my contention is that the current system is difficult in an unnecessary and unskilled way that really takes a LOT of control away from the player AND forces your point of focus to be on something other than the action at hand. If the new system is so great, why do they have to penalize the traditional method?
If the new system is so great, why to we not transpose that to cooking, crafting, songwriting, taming, and everything else?

 

Here's their example of freedom of choice, you can either ride this bicycle, or you can drive this sports car that doesn't go over 3 mph. Nice choice.

 

I would say that the cooldown and inability to combo are already drawback enough.

With combos and no cooldown, deck glyphs are superior, but less reliable. Locked glyphs are inferior, but reliable. The focus penalty is unnecessary if deck combat is all that is supposed to be.

 

Your example there doesn't really translate to this system, in your example the dice roll is about how much damage your spell hits for . . . .I have no problem with that, the part I don't like is that in this system, the dice roll is about whether or not my skill is even available to me to use. That's ridiculous from my point of view.

Poker players don't 'rely drastically' on luck, ask anyone in the World Series of Poker if the 'rely' on luck, or 'rely' on their knowledge and skill of being in similar situations and knowing what the best mathematical chance for the outcome that they desire is and then they act accordingly based upon that experience. The actions/reactions of their opponent(s), chip stack size, bet size, player's position in the hand etc etc. A 'skilled' poker player takes each and all of these factors into consideration on each and every different hand. Luck is involved, but the player has many controllable options. How come we don't see any World Series of Slots? Because no one is going to pony up $10K to enter a contest with 8 thousand people that is relying on luck.

I think what you meant to say is the more accurate statement that 'gamblers' rely on luck. You might hit the jackpot on the slots, but any idiot could have done that, all it required was to pull the arm.

 

Because the leveling system is not in place and could easily impose balance in places that are not obvious to everyone.

 

I think you just reiterated Logains point with this. That's exactly what I understood when he said, "...Yet the good ones end up with millions of cash ~gained~ per year. Can you guess why? No, they are not the constantly lucky ones "

Point being that even though the system is random, there is still skill involved. Knowing your deck, the amount of slugs you are penalized with, the drop rate, which glyphs are likely to drop next and how to combine them is a matter of,"...knowledge and skill of being in similar situations and knowing what the best mathematical chance for the outcome that they desire is...". I think that is what Logain what trying to say as well. Nice to see you both are starting to agree.

 

Or... Maybe the devs just want to ensure people are primarily using the random drop so that they can test this out and balance it properly before going back and re-adjusting the locked glyph penalties. Who knows.. Why are we arguing about a pre-alpha setting that's easily modified?

 

Seems to me that some are interested in debating balance on systems that won't be in place in a release or two.

 

For the same reason people argued about PvP for 7 releases before it was put in the game. Discussing and arguing Shroud of the Avatar is what we do here.

 

I personally don't think that is the direction that I want to see the character skill aspect of combat go . . . at the expense of the quality of in depth combat situations that we hope to participate in. It would be real interesting to see how 'fun' and 'effective' such a system would be in some of the epic hour long battles some of us have participated in, in other games.

I can see where this is interesting to a lot of people by allowing them to work on their strategy in the privacy of their own homes, since most of the strategy will be primarily around deck building, but in my mind and a lot of other people's minds, this is a step backwards in extensive depth combat. Most of us who have spent the majority of all of our online gaming experience heavily involved in pvp, are way past those rudimentary pre-combat strategies. We accomplished the same thing in other games by: making sure we had the reagent supply on hand, making sure we were equipped with our gear, making sure we had our potions and bandages stocked, making sure our group had all the needed roles and they knew what to do.

This system doesn't add any new strategy opportunities that any of a number of other games have done, it just does it in a different way. It simply forces the people who normally don't strategize in combat situations (because they are on their miner trying to get that rare ore etc), to have to do so, at the expense of any reasonable forms of quality individual skillful play by not allowing players to use their skills in a consistent, ever dependable, without playing whack a mole, without forcing me to watch the skill bar, kind of way.

You can continue to dress it up and use any analogies that you want to, but the facts as they currently are being implemented, and as are currently being voiced by a large number of potential paying customers state the truth of the matter as seen by the group that keeps voicing their concern. How many people are you willing to turn away from the game? 10%? 30%? 50%?

With just a little bit of quality input from the people in the know, this game could have both. But the direction that they seem to be headed seems bent on ensuring that the 'hardcore' pvp crowd, finds little to nothing to draw them here. Many, many have stated vehemently over and over that they are disappointed in moving more deeply into this randomness direction. If you are 'happy' with fewer supporting customers in this game, then you are welcome to that opinion, but just be man enough to stand up and say that, don't couch it in this nonsense that this system is skillful, when so many people who actually play pvp chars keep telling you that it doesn't appeal to them mainly because it takes their own skill mostly out of their control.

It is disappointing to see so many, so willing to give up one for the other, when this game could have and should have both. Just because it is only with penalizing the people who are best at it, removing most , if not all, in-action skilled strategical responses, that makes them think they will be able to compete. If you want to compete in the pvp combat world, live in it 95% of the time, and after a while, you will. If you don't want hardcore pvp players in this game because the 10% of the time you might actually stray into a pvp zone you don't want to be humiliated, then whatever dude, you have to work out your own problems, but it is a pretty petty reason to be purposefully non-inclusive.

I've still yet to have anyone respond as to why this system would not also be good for the crafting system, or the farming system, or cooking system, does no one want to also talk about how great that is? Or is everyone worried that they won't be a 'leet' crafter if everyone else can randomly craft as good as they do?

LOL @ the hypocrisy

That's my opinion, now and always is the time to voice it, and I don't care if you don't like it. That's your right, stand up and voice yours as well.

 

Well that was certainly a long opinion but that's fine. I got the gist of it, "You don't like the system." I'll shorten mine as well, "I do."

Not sure where you get all your facts and figures about percentages and majorities from but we can overlook that since it's not really that important to the topic at hand.

As for comparing combat to crafting, when the ore jumps up and tries to bite me, we can talk about implementing a system like this, for now let not compare apples to oranges, it just sounds odd every time I read that argument.

So... Are there any valid points in that last post that could be helpful? Let's see... You wrote

1- It's not the way PvPers like yourself would like to have their combat system.
2- You say it removes consistency and dependability.
3- I assume " people in the know " are people that share your opinion, and if the devs would listen to the opinions of "people in the know" then we could have a better system.

That pretty much sums up the useful part of that post.

As to you being disappointed in many, laughing at supposed hypocrisy, telling people their reasons are petty or telling people to deal with their own problems, this part could have been left out as it adds nothing constructive to the conversation but it does make you look bad for saying these things. You may want to leave out these types of comments in the future.

The three points you mentioned that I highlighted do make sense though and those are the areas you should focus on instead as these are constructive points. I'm not sure I would word it the same way but if done a little more diplomatically, it could offer some good insight and feedback.





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wouldn't you think that would be something the devs would be interested in knowing? I get my figures from forum research, I wonder if the devs also look into that, or are they too busy being enthralled by their creation that they have forgotten about us?

Of course it sounds odd to you, now correlate that same odd feeling to how I feel about the combat system. What does the ore jumping up to bite you have to do with anything. Is the whole reason they are making combat this way because the big bad pvp'ers keep 'biting' you and that makes you sad?

If they were indeed going to make crafting based upon a similar random system, to make it 'interesting', what would 'your' response be? And it is not comparing apples to oranges, the whole reason the combat system was to be this way is to make it 'interesting', as was said straight from the dev's mouths. How could that not correlate to crafting in the same way? You evidently don't want to think about that, because it would impact you in a negative way. Why is the combat system the only part of the game that needs such drastic 'interesting' measures?

That may be true, but how many times do you have to say something, yell something etc, to get someone to pay attention. Evidently a lot. I have consistently stayed true to the 3 main contentions that I have and many others share:

A) Randomness of skill availability = Bad
B) Randomness of skill location in reference to keybinds or the skill bar = Bad
C) Having to watch the skill bar more than the battle = Bad

Sometimes you have to cut to the chase and put things in a way that people understand, If you take the time to read 'all' my posts, you will find that i've said it diplomatically, and I've said it harshly, and some even in betweeen. Unlike Portalarium, i'm trying to reach a broad audience and I understand that not everyone thinks/speaks the same. What dismays you about my delivery, is not the same reaction from everyone. Evidently, not everyone is as 'sophisticated' as you are.



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I was the bludgeon guy in full plate, and im telling you from experience, archers are OP'd, as well as "Fire Mages" (ones that cast fire ele!) I would fizzle most of my spells most of the time, i couldnt run as fast as them to catch up to them and lay a smack down, if i did drop one or the other it was definitely "Luck"! Which sucked since i could hardly cast roots to stop you from running! Keep in mind as a heavy armored blunt weapons fighter, for us to survive as long as we did before we were dropped, we had to put a hell of alot skills in all the innate abilities! Lowering any chance of us getting higher skill in fighting with those blunt weapons, with those innate abilitites it gave us one or two spells that fizzled most of the time! So where the mages and archers put most of thier skills in thier particular attacks, ours had to go into, fire resistance, shock resistance,more health, damage more str etc...
We shouldnt have to waste so many skill pts scattered throughout the all the skills, instead of focusing on one area like the Mages and Archers. I am talking from experience, and i spent most of my time on the beach fighting you all! (testing all this out) I still had fun, but it is way one sided in those particular aspects!

 

I didn't PvP much in R9, but when I did I was the same build. I killed an archer one on one, once or twice, but I had mostly epic plate and a litch's axe.

Also my weapon was two handed. I don't know if they gave us enough skill points to use shields and a single handed weapon. A shield might really help against archers. Although single handed weapons have a short reach. Who knows?

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Jackrabbit I disagree with your opinion in this thread too, but you are entitled to it.

Just don't try to make it out like everyone hates the combat system. Most of the people who actually spent the time to test it all weekend long the last two releases seem to like it.

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You have any facts to back up that 'most' of the people?

Do you just ignore all the posters who had negative reactions to it?

I never said everyone hates it, I said a large quantity of pvp'ers are definitely not tickled pink over it. Why does everyone who likes it want to make it out like no one hates it?

Why is it that most of the people who 'like' it, are admittedly not hardcore pvp'ers?

Would you like the same system if it was implemented into crafting? yes or no?