Dismiss Notice
This Section is READ ONLY - All Posts Are Archived

Combat

Discussion in 'Release 59 Feedback' started by Rook Strife, Nov 9, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    While it has been a few months since my last post on the matter,

    and a lot of great changes have been made to the game in general - Multi in towns, Fishing etc


    A recent livestream has inspired me to offer this friendly reminder that yes,

    the basic combat system is still broken as of R59.


    While I am sure the incoming changes will offer some improvement,

    there seems to be some disconnect as to what exactly is wrong with our current system and how to go about improving it.


    In previous posts I have tried to explain some of the details but this time I will try a more general approach.



    1. I am playing an archer

    Why is half my bar filled with heals, defensive stat boosts, shields, buffs, etc?

    I come across an opportunity to ambush an enemy downhill 40 feet away. Why would I need to stop and cast an encyclopedia of spells like dodge, fortify defense, a shield, some heals, stack/charge my damage skills +countless examples of combat destroying nonsense?

    It should be adjust my aim and BOOM SHOT.



    2. With features like ransoms, bounties, drinking a cup of coffee out of a sworn enemies skull,

    How many people are in a shardfall, obsidian trial or flagged for PVP?

    In my experiences elsewhere, people seem willing to pvp all day for... well nothing at all.


    3. Lots of cool new world bosses added, occasionally mysterious loot, yet

    How many people are out there killing them? Solo or in groups.

    The loots not the greatest, but there's still enough to be profitable and fighting bosses is fun.


    4. How many people in Novia or the planet Earth for that matter can tell you what all the stats do?

    Or which ones are working? Or can make a viable build without having first consulted a min/maxer or

    experimented in SPO?


    5. Mech Warrior was a great game and has been out for a long time.

    Yet how many Shroud style mmo's have tried to emulate it's heat system?

    The same can be said for Draw Poker.


    If you look at some of these issues, buffing the bludgeon tree or allowing avatars to wield a Trident, while certainly fearsome, is probably not going to do much to improve the overall state.


    Hopefully this has been more helpful in illustrating some of the issues relating to combat system instead of just listing things like

    1 glyph stacking and heat ruining combat
    2 chance based stuns / slows / cc's etc
    3 Damage mitigation mechanics
    4 Reactionary skill use
    5 Positioning, tactics and strategy
    6 Incomplete / Imbalanced skills and skill trees
    7 Oops supposed to be a general post
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2018
  2. jschoice

    jschoice Avatar

    Messages:
    312
    Likes Received:
    635
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Chicagoland aka the burbs
    I am confused with the why is your deck full of heals and dodges. The simple answer is because you set up your deck that way, unless you are still using the starter deck.. I have several decks and one has no healing at all. One of the cool things I like about the game is I can make and test a lot of deck builds or build one for specific purposes.
     
    Elwyn and Barugon like this.
  3. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    The simple fact is that it doesn't have to be. How you balance offense and defense is completely up to you.
    And you can! You just have to kill that enemy before it kills you. BTW, my best defensive skill is Disabling Shot.
     
  4. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    The simple answer is because they are necessary in this game.

    Higher tier mobs like elite archers/mages in the rise, control points, bosses, PVP, do 200-400 dmg a shot and you need adequate defense/heals unless you want to take all day killing them or have glyphs not available when you need them.


    So let's see what happens in that scenario.

    I hit him immediately with my rank 1 aimed shot and follow it up with a disabling shot as you suggest.

    He teleports on top of me and hits me with a stun.

    Since light armor has no stun breaks

    1) I am now stunned
    2) without any defensive buffs up
    3) and no heal over times.

    I will be surviving that encounter

    In spite of beginning with what should have been a decisive advantage.
     
  5. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Smelling salts. You can use it from your utility bar.
     
  6. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    Directly from the game

    Smelling Salts
    Consumable
    Removes confusion and mesmerize effects
    Cooldown: 30 seconds

    Problems that prop up with this one scenario alone

    1) Does not remove stun
    2) Even if it did it only removes 1 stun, takes time to cast and has a 30 second cooldown.
    3) A stun skill in this game can be spam cast 5 or 6x in succession with stacked glyph/heat. That means while I am removing a stun he is applying another.
    4) Each stun attack also does damage. (Bear in mind that in this case the damage is far greater since I have no defensive buffs to mitigate any of it or heal over times to regen.)
    5) The automatic stun resistance debuffs you get are practically worthless until you have 3 of them.
    6) A stun can last almost 10 seconds. At 20% resistance after the first stun, you can easily hit back to back stuns in which time you will be long dead.
    7) Requires carrying around consumables
    8) Requires a supposedly Out of Combat utility slot
     
  7. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Despite what the tooltip says, smelling salts do in fact remove stun.
     
  8. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    9a) Broken Tooltips missing important information
    9b) Exploitable combat bugs
     
  9. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Well, I guess there's just nothing for you to use then.
     
  10. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    Point is this scenario revealed a bunch of things wrong with combat

    Where are the stuns / interrupts / silences to prevent casting / etc? After that first aimed shot he could have teleported away 5 times and stealthed or a done a dozen other things I am helpless to prevent which turns my ambush into a joke.

    If I would have buffed before the fight or 30 seconds earlier while I was chopping down a tree or making a sandwich, there's a decent chance when he teleported over I would have dodged or mitigated a lot of his damage. What kind of combat does that make? It should be he teleports, THEN I cast a dodge or whatever.

    When you can cast something 6 times in a row, especially stuns / cc / teleports etc, a lot of the things that make for good combat are going to be trivialized or flat out ridiculous.

    How can you build a character when basic and important info like Can I remove a stun is missing?

    There are people out there with builds that expect Smelling salts is just a tooltip error. People who don't bother with it suspecting the skill is just bugged. People selling Smelling salts on their vendor. Who gets this particular surprise (in a long list of them) next release?

    These and a dozen more

    That is why I chose to make the OP generalized. We could be here for months going through all this nonsense.
     
  11. Jezebel Caerndow

    Jezebel Caerndow Avatar

    Messages:
    3,118
    Likes Received:
    7,912
    Trophy Points:
    153
    You can jump out of the stun. It sounds like what you want is to kill stuff without it ever hitting you back, that sounds like boring combat right there, no challenge, just hit attacks skills.
     
  12. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    Stuns
    1) Not possible or you would be long dead before the stun breaks for certain builds
    2) Not a reliable means of escaping stun for people that can.
    3) Stuns shouldn't even be broken by jumping. You don't take less damage from moving at fast speeds, etc etc. They didn't design the game in that way. It is out of place and belongs as a skill.


    I don't know what is giving you that impression about being hit or attack skills.
     
  13. Jezebel Caerndow

    Jezebel Caerndow Avatar

    Messages:
    3,118
    Likes Received:
    7,912
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Yes you can jump out of stuns.

    "I come across an opportunity to ambush an enemy downhill 40 feet away. Why would I need to stop and cast an encyclopedia of spells like dodge, fortify defense, a shield, some heals, stack/charge my damage skills +countless examples of combat destroying nonsense?

    It should be adjust my aim and BOOM SHOT."

    This statement you made here gives me the impression that you do not want to get hit, just spam attacks skills.
     
  14. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    That was not my intention.

    The scenario is referring to a lot of things but just to expand on a few


    1. Getting rid of the ridiculous pre-combat buff fest.

    Some battle preparation? Makes sense. Casting every spell known to man? Not so much


    2. Adding reliable burst damage.

    In that scenario, depending on your tactics, a buff you might expect to cast would be

    Precision Strike - your next attack is a guaranteed crit
    Cooldown - 1 minute (reduced with higher skill levels / specialization)

    A skill like this you could cast at the start of a fight if you think you can just burn him down or if you just want to start with some big DPS
    At the end of the fight to finish him off
    At a critical juncture, let's say he's low hp and about to cast a big heal

    Designing skills in this fashion would greatly improve combat.

    Buff and skill use based on the situation.


    3. Defence

    Defense values need to be completely reworked.

    As it stands now you can walk into a fight and take no damage. You can walk into that same fight, DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING, and be 2 shot.

    It's ridiculous. There is no control in the hands of the player.

    The system should be designed so that armor alone is doing the job of basic damage mitigation.


    4. Defensive skills should be situational and give you real time combat value.

    Example

    Fortify Defense - Reduce incoming damage by 50% for 5 seconds
    Cooldown - 2 minutes

    Escape - Immune to CC's for 3 seconds
    Cooldown - 1 minute
     
  15. Jezebel Caerndow

    Jezebel Caerndow Avatar

    Messages:
    3,118
    Likes Received:
    7,912
    Trophy Points:
    153
    A skill that generates a 100% crit would be OP, just do that and sneak attack someone. As for the buffs, many of them last long enough you really only need to cast them once per attenuation, and the others well, suck it up, its less then 5 seconds. The defenses seem fine to me, without them die, with them live. Defensive skills ARE situational, douse celestial blessing and purify for mages, def stance glancing blow fortify def for physical. Switch your shield according to what you are fighting.
     
  16. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    So when fighting a group of mages and physical (Fairly common), it is entirely reasonable to be casting 1) douse, 2) celestial blessing, 3) purify, 4) def stance, 5) glancing blow, 6) fort defense, 7) shield, 8-infinity) all your other buffs.

    And there's nothing wrong with buffing or combat in this game.



    I could get into some other issues you raised like GM'ing all skills, Attunements, Resistances.

    But what's the point. Spent enough time as it is
     
  17. Jezebel Caerndow

    Jezebel Caerndow Avatar

    Messages:
    3,118
    Likes Received:
    7,912
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Celestial blessing like 50 minutes, purify 30 minutes, shield spell 8 minutes, stat buff 1.5 hours. So hitting 4 buttons once every 30 minutes. Douse is like 5 minutes. The def stance glancing blow and fortify you do have to use more often, but really its 3 skills that take hardly any time at all to cast. This is too much?
     
    Barugon likes this.
  18. Jezebel Caerndow

    Jezebel Caerndow Avatar

    Messages:
    3,118
    Likes Received:
    7,912
    Trophy Points:
    153
    And by the way, I have seen people kill dragons buffless.
     
  19. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

    Messages:
    377
    Likes Received:
    735
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Superhumanly Farming
    While I'm sure we could discuss this for months,

    This thread has caused enough depletion in my gold and silver reserves as it is.

    Unless I read something on these forums that causes the sound of my palm hitting my forehead to break 80 decibels I will be refraining from any discussions of combat, questing or crafting.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.