Combat Thoughts Circa R9

Obviously the combat system is not complete. Personally, I wanna give a big hats off to whoever did the work just filling out all the skill names and descriptors in the trees, even on skills we cannot use yet. Also, I noticed the way crafting moves SO much more quickly and smoothly, and I appreciate that.

That being said, I do have some thoughts on the way combat is shaping up:

First and foremost, defensive ability glyphs get a massive thumbs down.
This is in part because of the global cooldown on glyph use (why oh WHY would I burn a GCD on reducing the damage from your next hit when I could use it to deal damage back, or heal myself??) but also, along the same reasoning, because they cost focus, cost card space in the deck, and even just require a button click. Now, if Riposte caused me to have a powerful attack readied to go off the next time I was attacked, especially if it included a parry AND an attack, that would be worth it. But as is, defensive stance, deflect, parry... essentially every defensive ability I've used has been a waste of space. Something else could do the job of surviving and winning that fight better.

Second, armor... like, it would be nice to HAVE some.
I've built myself a shiled ASAP every single release since crafting came out, and it's nice to have it, but it's almost more for emotional support. I don't see my character taking that much less damage, or really protecting itself better with a shield than, say, with a pole arm... or empty hands, for that matter. I still don't see an easy option to forge, find, or most importantly wear heavy plate, though I know that some of the castles have had armor bits in them, I want to mess around with the defensive options in the game and find out what can be done.

Third, customization of tactics.
Yes, yes YES! I know that the game is far from finished, but I'm seeing a definite trend towards every single school of magick starting with a zotch bolt, gaining the exact same damage and effect bonuses from it's passives, and getting a ranged, then an AOE damage... aside from graphics used, there seems very little difference between most schools of magic from the standpoint of methodology. I would want to see an air mage fight differently than a water mage, than an earth mage, especially than a death mage or a sun mage.

Same with weapons, I mean, it's cool that I can have a character who is massively built up with blades who cannot then pick up a hammer and use it the same way. That's nice, but I want more. I saw a move recently in another game where I was thrusting with a hammer, it looked SO stupid, and I thought it was a massive weakness that it doesn't matter what weapon I have, the character in THAT game will still do an overhand thrust with it. I think the underlying FUNCTION of the weapons, armor, and magick schools should be wildly different. One type of mage should stand high on the hill yelling and hurling death, another should favor kiting you with slows and roots, a third should be ok coming in real close because his magick is short ranged but offers protection of sorts, another builds up a massive charge and then discharges all at once... Just as with weapons.

As a last point, GEAR
I already touched on gear earlier, in that it would be nice to even have some things in game. I think, however, that as an issue of customization, SotA stands to have some of it's strongest points in making the gear ANYTHING but generic. We should see the most comprehensive, customizable, and thought provoking gear system on the interwebs here, we really should. I can get a standard issue sword and board mentality from any game I want, and I'll be bored with it. I can get a game where rogues wear "leather" and mages wear "cloth", etc... and again, I'll be bored with it.

Just as with housing, and skill build, I should get to say what KIND of sword I wield, does it have a pommel spike? Wide or short hilt? Hand and a half grip? What kind of cloth armor? Big poofy sleeves? Extra pockets for faster casting? What kind of shield? How about shield spikes, or edges? How about spiked shoulders on plate armor? What about, for every single move that can be done with any melee weapon or armor type, there is an item customization that works with that move? Thrust? That favors a certain type of sword. Double thrust benefits from sword modifications that allow for quick withdrawal from a wound! Body Slam? How about a ridge of shoulder spikes? Use your halberd to trip a lot? There's a way of lengthening the back hook to give bonuses there!

Each of these gear mods could have downsides, things like increased cost, or slower attack speed, or lowered crit chance, maybe even in extreme cases you could say that equipment mod A prevents you using ability glyph X even as it provides a bonus to glyph Y, whereas mod B gives a bonus to X but makes Y nearly useless. Such that you will see X based builds that have mod B, Y based builds that have mod A, and hybrid builds that have neither mod but use move X and move Y together.

Our characters should be utterly and totally customizable, to the point that even in the vast population of players we will have SOME builds that are damn near unique, so that each time I meet new people, I cannot just size up their opening moves or displayed gear and instantly know what they'll be throwing at me, or at the monsters we fight together.

 

I'm new here and will be playing as much R10 as possible, that said I hope that classless system leads to very unique builds. I have played more MMO than I care to admit, my favorite has been SWG and the sandbox/ creative feel. The system there was fairly open and you still had FOTM builds, but you also had so so many diverse builds.

How does the charactor control "feel"? After playing wow for so long I often go back to the SWGemu and cringe at the choppy movement my toon has. My only other concern (aside from balance) is the random cards and that I will be locking my toolbar. I know it's still super early in the game dev but awesome post.

 

Just go in with an open mind and give it a long go - the character animation is not the smooth at the moment - but its good for me - the issue more so, since it is early is optimization ... as for the combat - like I said give it some time and be adventurous and try everything ... its pretty easy to end up with something "traditional" and at the same time expirement ... the big thing with the system is choice

 

That is valuable feedback Malak, thanks. There is alot i wnt to comment, but i think the gear approach is very interesting. My thoughts about what you brought on table:

1-. There is a need for visual feedback about weapon characteristics and stats. until now we know by our experience that the lich lord axe is slightly better than kobold hammer. But if an avatar come to you with an unknown bludgeon weapon? Maybe we should be able to know, at a certain, the characteristics of that weapon by looking at it: Shape? We get what kind of weapon it is, Size? A bigger bludgeon would mean more damage, length? Maybe associated with critical damage, Spikes? More equipment damage. You get the idea.

2-. Visible gear modification could affect the effect of certain glyphs. That would be nice.