Card combat post-R18

Understanding that this is just part of what is probably intended to be more changes to the combat system to deal with what the developers stated was disappointing combat, do you like the direction they are going in? Is Card Combat viable? Or is this must more evidence that it will never work?

 

Every statistician worth her/his money is going to tell you that a significant poll requires a high enough number of participants (greater than 1000 is a good rule of thumb in this case) and an even, balanced average of voters. What you are doing is like having a poll to increase taxes on everybody who has more than 30k annual income and spend the money on social care by asking 50 random people in a favela.

 

More would be better Logain. But it does give the people who are here a chance to clearly state their opinions. There's something to be said for the fact that the numbers keep coming back the same way. Are any of the vocal dissenters switching sides? Did this make a dent in that?

It's not 100% scientific for sure, but that doesn't mean theirs no information to be gleaned from these polls.

 

The animations are working better, but so long as the core of the combat remains random it will remain broken and unfun for me.

 

Your right. The animations are most definitely better in this release. It was significantly more responsive than previous releases; nothing to do with the card system.

 

This doesn't purport to be a scientific poll, but it's a data point that is worth noting so long as its limitations are borne in mind. I suggested to the developers that they create one that was mandatory at login, but I'm getting the feeling that this isn't a topic they want to promote so it's not likely to happen. You would think, given how often the topic arises on the forums, there would be interest in knowing the real numbers across their current base of financial backers.

 

I would love to see an official dev poll on card combat. I doubt that will ever happen though.

 

I'd like to see it too, but I doubt it'll happen. I think a lot of the initial backers have already bailed anyway.

 

*cough*
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-combat-good-or-bad.24390/page-15#post-370956

 

Looking forward to that poll. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

Yes they hope to add a poll in. It shouldn't be difficult to add at all.

 

Wow! I hadn't seen that post. Thanks, Spoon! I'm sorry I didn't give them more credit for having interest in this kind of data. More power to them, I'm impressed.

The numbers in this poll appear to support card combat, which surprised me. That's why an in-game poll is such a good idea, it's really hard to gauge anything based on forum discussion.

 

I wouldn't hold your breath. Many things have been said, proposed, and promised, that have since been ignored for months. I give the in-game poll my stamp of UNLIKELY to happen, and even more UNLIKELY to be effective if it did happen.

Let's be real, the forums have been up in arms about combat, PvP, and PK issues for months. Threads have been moderated, locked to never be reopened, and removed entirely. Attrition will set in and those with strong opinions will tire of restarting the discussion, or they will be (and have been) forcely removed from the discussion. The way combat and response to feedback has been addressed is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on the guy who just had his arm severed.

The issue of the deck system is just one of multiple issues I have with combat. Random decks encourage button mashing, and category based ability stacking only facilitates and highlights this issue by making it possible to specify abilities as being similar-enough. Level, and tree, based combat progression is boring and overdone. Focus cost for locked decks is too high. Inability to create combos with the keyboard. Ranged spell targeting is broken. Combat feels slow / linear. Combat animation and effects are boring to look at. Where is Chris' mega combat and PvP post? On top of this it's beyond me why Port invites their most loyal flag bearers to help with combat testing. Talk about preaching to the choir.

So, yes this is just more evidence that card* combat will never work. Oh well, at least we have housing, crafting, and gustball.

* Redacted

 

You can reduce the chance of randomness in the card system ... But it forces you to build hybrid templates and to reduce the number of skills you could choose (to limit the randomness).

On the whole, if all archetypes were viable then card combat would be more than viable.

It COULD be fun.

But it will most likely fall flat on it's face.

I voted undecided.

 

But even reduced randomness is still randomness. Being "drawn" abilities is what I have a problem with. I wanted a role playing game where I can choose what abilities I use, not a card game. That's what bothers me.

 

Oh I agree whole entirely! Technically they covered you by providing a locked glyph system. They just punish you twice over for choosing the locked glyph system.

All I'm saying is there needs to be benefits (not as extreme as they currently are) and drawbacks to both play styles. Balance would occur within the context of the card system. To this end, this means that a character who specs entirely combat SHOULD be just as viable as a hybrid as well as someone who specs entirely magic.

In my humble opinion should all types be viable, as well as pros and cons be weighed for locked glyph and non locked glyph ... It could be worth while.

I'm not max level ... but my hybrid with a two handed weapon crushes the dps, sustainability and tankiness of my dual wielding short sword build. Then again stealth doesn't seem to work?

 

The problem with having two combat systems is that eventually people will migrate to just one of them. It's kind of like specs in an MMO. It starts out with everyone making their own thing, but quickly a few "choice" specs show up and if you don't run them, you won't be accepted into groups or raids.

Add the fact that now they'll have to balance two combat systems. Not just the combat systems, but balancing the mobs in the world against both combat systems. That is a logistical nightmare.

 

Yay someone who understands my thinking. Well said! Systemic thinking for the win!

 

I have spoken before about this process, it's not inevitable. "Choice" specs are a symptom of small imbalances, and by monitoring WHAT skills are being used, and how, and more importantly what skills are not being used, the devs in a finished game can make TINY adjustments to bring balance, so that more spec diversity occurs. It's just that most of the time in today's gaming industry they don't. Most dev teams seem to pay attention only to what the top hundred PvP players are using in highly specialized, streamlined builds and try to adjust to that.

In this respect, I liken them to horse breeders. If the ONLY thing that horse breeders paid attention to was the Triple Crown, horses around the world would start changing. Breeds that served as workhorses on farms, trick ponies, rugged mountain breeds, and various interesting regional varieties would die out, and we'd be left with nothing but carbon copy horses, a pseudo-Arabian offshoot, which can do one thing really really well. Eventually they'd all naturally pull to the left when running (or more realistically they'd pull a Derrick Zoolander and only be able to TURN left). But the race track is NOT all there is in the existence of horses. Features of size, height, diet, endurance, strength to mass to agility ratios, stride... and many other features, too many to mention really, come in to play in each role that horses fill in our society, and let's not forget WILD horses. Horse breeders typically specialize, but each specializes differently, and most maintain more than one type of horse stock on their property, even if only they understand the differences. Character builds should be the same way, and game balance should work like the system of genetics/natural selection/physics that rules over horses in the real world. Everything has a purpose, and while not every purpose serves a given role, there IS a role that finds that purpose viable and desirable. This is why I don't like having the mechanics of PvP and PvE differ. Not even by one piece of gear that reads "0.1% more stun chance against players". There is already enough going on in balance just to handle the crafters and gatherers vs the PvPers vs the PvE dungeon crawlers vs the team players without having one of them have a totally different mechanic influencing how talents work in their area. I want the devs to achieve balance across all specs, so that 'total skill points invested' becomes a usable standard of judging effective power without having to worry about which talent they have, which skill tree they use, etc.

I do agree wholeheartedly about balancing the two systems, I support the idea of the two systems coming together into a hybrid form which is why I voted that I "liked the direction things are moving". We have more control now. I have one button that will reliably do some single target ranged blast, one button that will reliably do an aoe spread, one button that is dedicated to self heal for emergency survivial... but this is very vague and unsatisfying compared to having a locked bar. Sadly, in order to use the current locked bar system I have to spend more talent points to build this same approach mechanically, I give up large amounts of diversity in what I can do (not enough card slots), I pay higher focus costs (and I am already specced to get the focus cost reduction in my "random" build), I lose out on stacking and combo bonuses... so the current locked UI is incapable of delivering a satisfying experience for other reasons.

Note that this poll does NOT support card combat. It CANNOT. The top option is "I like the direction". That isn't approval, it's encouragement to keep trying. I am a staunch opponent of having any randomness in our UI, I want the interface between my brain and my character's digital body to be as clean as possible, I'm already miffed about the lack of peripheral vision from my flat monitor, the lack of directional sound and smell, the poor relay my hands make on the keyboard... adding in a feature that actually forces me to pull back out of the problems the character is facing and re-evaluate the UI, then adapt to what IT is doing so that I can send the correct signals to my character infuriates me. R18 is better. It's like having the gorilla sitting on my head shift his weight, now I can breath a little easier. The gorilla is still there though.

 

What's funny is even with a "I like the direction it's going" option, which is vague and faith-based at its core, it's still only up 50/30, with others still undecided if R18 did anything at all for combat lol.