Combat system / newbie feedback about it

also, i'm still waiting for these examples you have listed... so far you have just showed some videos with combat where you stand (and sometimes jump) in place and run through a few buttons on your hotbar until the mob is dead.. which one of those is examples of tactical combat, or interesting mechanics, or complex system?

 

Hey! You cant ask things like that! Thats why you keep getting suspended. Silly troll.

Clearly by tactics he means making sure ya leveled up his fire magic so high that other fire mages cant touch you. TACTICS!

 

What like sneak attack, guess what we got there here too. I played warhammer, destruction side. It was not fun having brightwizards aoe you through the floor of a keep, horrible. I did however like that tanks had a guard ability, and it reduced the damage on a person and gave the tank half the agro.

OK, go watch the videos of archer being up high to take out the mage room in the rise. Or people kiting mobs around something while the mobs burn from fire. See examples, example are great, because its not just hot air, its something you can prove.

please explain how jumping an attack, getting behind the enemy, and hitting them in the back for a crit bonus is not tactical? W/e man, done with this convo, you are not going to understand what a tactic is, and I dont got the time to teach you.

 

Archers can kite! Sneak attack hits in the back! Fire burns! So complex!

....so nothing different than any other game has as a very basic mechanic? We are supposed to celebrate mediocrity?

We can agree to disagree here, that's fine

 

Thanks for the examples

Lets actually look at them


Cover / Height - broken and realistically, will never be fixed. Meaning you cannot effectively use them in combat.

Trip, bodyslam, lightning, chain lightning, discharge, etc etc - how many can reliably CC to perform some planned combo? Half the time they don't even work. By design.

Blinking a melee - Why even bother? Cast a shield / fort / dodge while you were eating a sandwich 2 minutes ago and you'll still have a decent chance of avoiding most of his damage

Knowing your opponent - If anything this games system makes it impossible since if you have not met them before, they could be virtually anything.

Not to mention they can switch decks at any time.



I could go over every skill in the game but why bother?

Most of these are examples of tactics that work well in other games. With our combat system their value is minimalized.


Micromanaging your interface is paramount here.

Fort after crit is a great example.

Why is it even necessary to cast this repeatedly for passive avoidance?

It should be a single cast either after a crit for the buff, or a single cast for a large avoidance boost when you are taking / about to take heavy damage.

This way you would use it strategically. Not repeatedly like some mindless zombie.

 

I like it! Standing in one place helps to increase my immersion because i dont move in real life too. Also, this gives me more time to do other things beside boss fights like checking out the Addon Store. You should buy a Viking Short Sword and try the Combat System again, you will see that this helps alot with complexity. You cant do that in other games. Thats why i love SotA so much ... it is unique!

 

"But the main problem, from a casual player perspective, is that the game just can't be played by casual players (except if you've got a massive amount of disposable income to spend on the game via RMT)"

The entire game can be played by just paying $40 for the game with the exception of two things - decorating a house (unless the casual player gets lucky in the lotto) and decorating your own scene. While cool, neither of those are requirements for the game. A new player who logs into the game thinking that they'll immediately start designing a town would be disappointed, but I don't think SotA is advertising itself as the next evolution of Sim City or something. You get the MMO experience for $40, and the town building stuff keeps the money coming into the game so that the casual players don't need to pay a monthly sub.

 

oh ya for sure, SOTA has the best combat system I have ever played in my many years in MMO's.

 

if everyone ignored that certain person then he would be obsolete. I did because my replies are not in line and I get moderated and he gets a pass.

 

There is a lot of "reverse psychology" going on right now to draw out negative attacks on the game. When you see an overtly positive message, chances are they are trying to derail. Moderators cant do much about it (and I dont think they are even seeing it). This has happened a few times in this thread alone. You are 100% right, just ignore, but Im amazed at how many people are getting caught in it.

 

That game was great for pve but terrible pvp and that was what is what aimed at. The sieges and such were a joke, just swarming, no real tactics, and thr control of them just switched every 30 minutes or so..Open world pvp was better but you just got steam rolled by massive zergs but i did enjoy the pve side of things...

SotA's combat/deck system for me is the gem of the game to me and i have played most mmo's in my time. They still need to work on the actual AI and such to make combat much better and the skill tree needs lots work ....and balancing...but the deck system is one of my favourite parts.

 

I really like the deck system but I suspect that comes from my love of CCG's. Building decks is great fun.

The combat itself is if anything to fast. It's basically use your defensive cards of choice then spam DPS. I haven't fought the boss mobs yet but so far at level 75 I can't remember a time where I have had to change tactics apart from death not working on undead but even then, that's a deck change rather than a gameplay combat one. It's a glyph spam fest really with no tactics beyond changing some glyphs around.

The game also needs some combat feedback in a visual way. If you turn the numbers off you wouldn't know if you were hitting each other as there is barely any animation to tell you that you have. It all feels floaty with no impact.

I guess the deck system is where all the design went though and don't expect much change in the actual combat itself.

 

and that's totally ok!

 

I completely agree with this.
I remember going through three phases with the combat bar.

1. phase : Everything locked - didn't have too many skills and at first this is easier to comprehend
2. phase : Started to leave a limited number of spots unlocked and filling glyphs in the deck - this was fun but to avoid slugs many cards was in rotation and the drawing proved random.
3. phase : Realizing that you can assign certain glyphs to certain slots, made a much more usefull combat bar. This trick eluded me untill I saw a video someone drawing specific glyphs in mostly the same slot over and over.

I have given feedback in the recent survey that they better describe the possibilities of the drawing system during the introduction of it in the game.

 

Playing as an archer, I find the combat system can be pretty fast and fun. I use height, LOS, and cover all the time to great advantage allowing me to solo the Mage and Lich rooms in The Rise. I also use Fleet Flute and sprint to constantly get behind targets for more crit chance. This often leads killing enemies in 1 or 2 shots. Disabling auto attacks makes it a lot more fun.

There are things that I don't like such as damage range. I had a 5 stack Aim Shot hit for 68 while a single stack hit for 608. I rely on burst damage and that can make it hard sometimes. Having the elevation advantage makes that less of an issue, two shotting mages way more frequently.

 

I haven't seen any real suggestions, just complaints that it's like every other game. Is this whole thread because skills do not specifically counter other skills? Because that just gets us back to where you need to learn everything and can't effectively plan a deck.

One thing I want to see is improved generic AI, so enemies act more realistically. Wolves will attack as packs, flanking you and using hit and run tactics. Bandits might send a runner off toward their camp to call for reinforcements. That's not even counting "boss" type mobs getting a plethora of combat moves that do have counters (beyond jump every x seconds).

 

I don't know it at all... I just disagree... I've played with an unlocked deck since I started and it's worked good. I just recently started using 1/2 locked and 1/2 unlocked.. and am very happy with the results and don't feel penalized at all.

 

I have to say the few minutes ive played sota in the last 9 months i really enjoyed the combat system. Back when the initial changes were made i cant stress how excited i was and everything has just been superb since then. I get the feeling they are focusing on polishing everything up for release! Combat is very balanced too! Melee, Ranged( both magic and bow) are very balanced. It is tough to choose what fighting skill to go with because they are all so closely aligned in damage/defence etc. Kudos to SOTA for creating such a great experience i truly feel like the millions in backing money has been put to great use and i dont understand how anyone can say anything negative about this game! Release cant come soon enough... Persistence has nothing on it!

 

Rather than just say "there are no tactics" as I did, thought I would expand.

Comparing to a near 20 year MMO here as you've got to compare it to something.

I'm in a dungeon.

Exploring:

1. I can cast Invisibility.
2. I remember this dungeon has lots of undead. I can cast Invis vs Undead.
3. I can sneak and hide.
4. If there is a wandering mob, I can bind my sight to it and let it scout for me as it wanders.

Found some guys:

My exploring found 3 bad guys, lower level than me but will give xp. 3 at once will kill me, none of this just burning guys down fast. They haven't noticed me yet. Options depending on class I could:

1. Just run in and die.
2. Cast a spell on the mobs that makes them less aggressive, thus allowing me to pull one.
3. Root one, as the other two come for me, root another leaving me with one. Debuff them to help the fight. Manage root during fight if it breaks.
4. Pull mobs, as they get near me feign death. If it fools them, as they wander back, try to game them to get one.
5. Calm them to make them less aggressive, choose one I want as a pet. Possess it, buff it, make it attack one of the others and CC the other one with a mesmerise type spell.
6. Send my pet into the group and then try to keep it healed through the fight while I cast a damage shield on it. Or don't draw any agro myself and chain cast my pet so the new one is about to be summoned as I release the nearly dead one, sending in the new one to get agro. Or root one, move my pet back root another, move it back so it is then just fighting one.

Just some of the options.

The problem with SOTA combat is that although you have some of those options above (although fairly basic), there is no need to use them. 3, 4 even 5 or more mobs that are yellow to me or designed for my adventure level? I cast my defensive buffs and run in and burn them down, that's it. The combat is clearly designed to be quick, no mucking around and that's fine, but that means there is no nuance or tactical thinking involved outside of the boss mobs but even then, it seems to be all about your deck.

I guess that sounds like a lot of criticism but it's not really, Port are just going with a faster, flowing, mowing down mobs fast way. It does make the combat terribly one dimensional though and watching some of the top AL guys on stream, things don't seem to change.

 

That sounds fun, very Deus Ex.

I suppose it doesn't matter what your power is (until you are super high level and you can destroy anything,) that experience could be had if they had better stealth mechanics, and .... ah, what's the word, Warren Spector is famous for it... ah, emergent play!

Root, at least my root, would never last long enough for me to keep 2 mobs under control while killing the third if they are yellow for me. Maybe others could do it but it's going to have to work for lower level adventurers as well for that tactic to work. But it's a pretty close possibility, some tweaking and it could happen.

And lucky for you and me (I'd like to be a legit rogue at some point) they know stealth mechanics need to be addressed, and from what I'm seeing of progress, that means it'll happen. Not today. Not sure if it'll happen before release, I'm betting no, but 2018? I'd bet yes.

So in that regards it might not hurt to make a big suggestions post right now on all the stealth mechanics you would like to see, plus the way specific skills could add to that fun. If you do a search through the forums and find others suggestions and link to them, you could do an aggregating post, which will help previous suggestions not fall through the cracks and make for an easy document for them to come back to.

As an example that I hope is helpful for them, here's how I did it with vendors, giving credit to the places I found the ideas. They've been slowly knocking them down, I line them out as it happens.