Chris' R11 abbreviated brain dump!

Thanks for the stats.

I am glad it is known. Also magic became barely viable and fun at level 60... Though we really need smaller decks (25 cards max) with maybe option to decrease it to 20 when we spend points in the Focus tree. With 30 cards in a deck it sometimes takes ages to get glyph you need and such combat is over in very short time. Also every ability needs alternative so we can use 10 glyphs rather than 5 (For healing touch there is healing ray, for fire arrow there is death ray or flame fist, for root there is not anything, Gust is too close range and with lag you cannot cast it before you get hit and lightning is not working it does not stun as much as if it is performed by Lich). Summons are useless and attack their owner...not to mention decay and how expensive are. Really 60-100 gold spent per spell is too much, unless those spells are way more powerful.

Oh, no, I stopped levelling at level 60 and have missed TOP10

 

Net, I'll go back to a point I made in my earlier post in the thread and say that mages shouldn't need to cross trees to be able to fill a deck with cards, even with a 25 card deck. Right now it is necessary to cross trees for single target range damage, but a mage shouldn't have to. Instead the trees should be redesigned with enough damage spells (3 to 4 single target spells, an aoe or two, and the summons in a different vertical line). After all a fighter doesn't need to cross lines to be a capable fighter. They can pick a weapon and armour tree and be a formidable fighter. why shouldn't a mage be able to do the same thing?

 

I would second this. I'm one of the mages who only want to do ranged combat. I made it till level 29 but only because I was always part of a group. I wish I would get some deeper thoughts on magic, how it should work and were it should go. At the moment a mage is in a big disadvantage.

 

Thanks for allowing us to take a peek at the stats and thoughts Chris! I agree with fellow avatars here it's a relief to see combat is being looked at, but you haven't said anything about defensive skills... Is there any chance we get active counters?

Can't wait to see what changes you guys introduce in the combat; i think it has the potential to be awesome and revolutionary (deck system already is, and lots of detractors are changing their minds after trying it) but there are still some major weak points to be looked upon. Don't be afraid for being even more innovative!

 

I like the option to have combos but they way you have to execute them feels very clunky and I dunno but if I hear combo somthing quick comes to my mind somthing executed with speed and thats not the feeling I get when performing combos in Sota

 

Riya, I agree with you, I wish there was more concrete, deepere information on their thoughts of the role of magic in SotA, where they are taking it, and a timeline of implementation. I've found it hard trying to evaluate magic combat as I don't really know what their goals are for it. Like you, I keep thinking that ranged magic should be a viable combat style. But their decisions, the way magic skill trees are designed as hybrid trees, the exclusion of magic rewards in tier pledges, etc. give the perception that magic was meant to be a more of a support role for fighters than a stand alone combat style.

 

YES! definitely.

1. Latency -- that's just getting use to our environment. Players need to compensate for lag.

2. Ranged weapons and spells should indeed be able to kill monsters before reaching you. (Even players if the timing is right... PvPers should know when to run and heal when they get the feel they are in danger rather than keep approaching a mage or archer with an upper hand.)

3. Blocking attacks, and countering! This is a great point to ponder. I'm not a fan of overly fast twitch stuff so I was against it, but having seen the beginnings of SotA combat play out, the ability to use some skill and timing may be a great thing to add. It also may not entirely fast twitch considering the current pace of combat. It might be more of a learned timing thing. Maybe allowing a person to be able to block with a shield would be a good reason to have a shield and single weapon as well. The single weapon numbers are too low. In real life most swordsmen didn't run around with giant swords. Soldiers had a sword and a shield or a mace and a shield and so on.

There needs to be a trade off, and increasing the sheild's ability to just passively absorbe damage is too simple of a mechanic, adding a player timed block would likely be more fun and less of a drawback on two handed weapons. Blocking shouldn't be too easy.

So people who use magic should be able to trigger an elemental counter perhaps???
For mages there could be some kind of counter based on the element(s) used in the other person's spell. This might actually prove to be a powerful thing for mage vs mage (PvE & PvP). It might require a person to think fast, but it would make combat more interesting and fun. I can't figure out how anybody would be able to counter chaos. The best bet is neutralizing chaos with order???

 

If there is an elemental counter system for mages ... locking school specific skills would be a problem if a person needed to counter a fire arrow / death magic because noble skills do not combine. Having counters show up randomly in your Mage vs Mage deck might also be an issue because most of the time those skills would be useless. It might be worth testing though. Maybe a successful counter would be worth the use of skill slots??? Then again only high level mages would even bother wasting skill points on counters... as it should be anyway.

EDIT: This is all just hypothetical in response to Drocis' comment I quoted above.

 

Archers and Mages don't need to kill enemies before they get to them, they need to be able to keep them from getting to them before they are killed. It's not about doing so much damage and kill fast, which would make balance impossible, but having the proper tools to control a fight.

I see no reason there can't be a close combat magic or archery skill, like a crossbow. Again, it's not about surviving the hits, but skills to block, slow,dodge or stun/mez the opponent while DPSing them. Being able to put many points into a cheap short range high damage skill could be an incentive vs spending a lot of points on an expensive long range low to medium damage skill. This would also make medium armor much more viable as most comments here are about heavy armor for melee and cloth for casters. Being able to minimize or eliminate the casting penalties on medium armor without being forced into light armors could help close range fighting also.

It's all about options, no 1 best strategy or forcing mages to be range and melee to wear heavy armor. Few people have also commented about grouping builds and support roles. A mage/archer doesn't need much survivability if they have a regular tank they group with.

 

Well there is close combat magic already. You might notice on the list of most used skills ... the ones that are missing are the death touch, stone fist etc. (although fire fist made the list)

Truth is the magic fist spells are quite good!!! Okay now it's public. The word is out. Magic fist/touch spells are really powerful. They are the fastest spells you can cast and the fire fist has some range on it like a two handed weapon. I don't know if that range is intentional or not, but either way as I leveled as a mage I filled my deck with ONLY fist spells.

Check them out, they are great spells. I could PvE quite well. Also in this release I noticed about a 10 point increase in damage or more by stacking copies of the same fist spell on top of the other fist spells... that wasn't so with the ranged spells (yet).

So my findings as a caster ... I was more powerful stacking my deck with ONLY fist spells in this release. TRUE STORY.

EDIT: Keep in mind I had augmented leather on so I could just walk up and punch any monster |ANY monster| without being concerned that it was going to hurt me. Also death touch heals you. So the only thing I needed to do is let mana regenerate after I go on a killing spree. I never had to leave combat mode.

(although I got up to level 31 before I decided to switch my deck to bludgeons so I wasn't a low level mage doing this)

 

But every character should be able to solo whatever class. So mages will have some close in magic skills. Earthquake is a perfect example.

 

you can't compensate for lag. Especially when it's not a consistent entity, mine varies constantly.

The only way to properly compensate for lag is to only fight things you know you can kill fast, and that's not challenging. Many MMOs I've died quite a few times because of a lag spike when I was fighting a challenging enemy. Just can't be helped when you have a lazy good for nothing internet provider.

 

Is that a close-range magic skill or an any-range magic skill?

Mages do have some spells that function as protection spells:

Ring of fire
Shadow form
Fascinate
Stone wall
etc....

Moon magic will be very useful for mages when its in. I'd like for the devs to flesh out active protection spells. In another thread Drocis was suggesting circles of protection for mages.

I'm also eager to see what we get with enchanting, and what type of equipment will help mages. Also with alchemy, and potions for use in battle...

 

Really not sure, but when I used the earthquake it seemed like it radiated from me.

I was thinking of chaos magic and moon magic in concert.

 

LOL yes. Earthquake is the worst example of a close range spell. Maybe you were thinking of quivering palm?

... And it is clearly earth magic.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

Earthquake is a GRAET example of a close in defensive spell it hit EVERYTHING close to you and has chance to stun them for a little. That is exactly hat a mage needs when getting overwhelmed and needs a little more Defense. WTH is a Quivering plam, it isn't even a spell in this game.

Really you all need to wait till all the trees are filled up and some balancing is done.

This thread stated they WILL BE BALANCING, this is Alpha phase bah.

about to go on a rant.

Chris TY you information was AWSOME keep it up and do what you are doing leave the ranting to what it is and look for CONSTRUCTIVE points :-(

 

MORE AND MORE PVP PLZ !!!!!!!

 

As weins201 said. It is an excellent example of a close quarters spells. 4 dudes try to mug you and find themselves on their backsides stunned. Perfect defense spell with damage.

and yes, it is earth magic....and?

 

So when I get in a bar fight in sota I'm going to cast earthquake. Hopefully the others flagged for PvP don't mind falling on their butt across the room too. lol

 

Well there are other spells you could use that are not area effect spells. You must use wisdom and discretion unless you want to incite a riot. I was just giving an example.