Counters

This is what I'd like to see. More of this....

Skill or Spell --------------------> Counter

Dodge----------------------------->Root
Parry------------------------------>Feint
Searing Ray---------------------->Reflect Ray
Death Ray------------------------>Reflect Ray
Block------------------------------>Trip, Knockdown
Root------------------------------->Tumble
EarthQuake---------------------->Levitation

Etc...

 

The problem with counters is that you end up with the next stone,paper,scissor (lizzard,spock) combat system.

 

@Atogrim, what is the fundamental problem with a stone,paper,scissor combat system?

 

It's boring.
It enforces specific skill sets.
It's easy to exploit it done wrong.

 

You need counters for the counters, then it's not actually rock, paper, scissors, it's more like rock, paper, scissors, anti rock, anti, paper, anti scissors.

All systems can be done wrong. But I don't think this is at all boring. I think we have enough skills and spells to make this very fun.

If we just look at one example:

Dodge could be countered by Root. So if you're rooted you would no longer get your dodge bonus. But then tumble, which is in the same skill tree as dodge, would break root! It would act as the counter to the counter. But now you need a counter to tumble! But you don't need a counter to tumble because it doesn't do any damage and it doesn't prevent any damage (not really). So to me that's a nice close loop system that would be fun.

I would just want to find ways to apply that all over the skill and spell trees.

 

Sounds reasonable.
Would have to test it of course.

 

How about a channelled ability that deals damage until broken (two possible versions)

1. breaks if gets close
2. breaks if gets far away

That would be a ability with easy counters that would influence your choices

 

counters doesn't = paper, rock scissors. counters equals having to watch what your opponent is doing and react accordingly, rather than just mashing the same buttons over and over.

 

The best way to achieve functional counters is to make them work in an effect basis, not skill by skill. Doing the latter can be a hell of balance, while if you put skills on groups and make some groups to act as counters of the others you can make it work with just some effort. If i'm not mistaken, what resemble counters the most in game (dodge, parry and block) are designed more or less following this train of thought.

The problem is that

Current system is not suitable for watching what's your opponent is doing and react accordingly. Combat developing efforts should focus on removing excessive attention and establishing some kind of combat flow.

 

Been saying it since first combat release... we're getting WoW and not Ultima...

 

There are some pockets of room for "combat flow" in the current system, but they're rare. The problem is that latency makes people swing at air in pvp. People want to be able to move around, and that's another thing that makes balancing hard. If we could get everyone to just stand still and be rooted in combat it would be so much easier to balance this game. But unfortunately the average person doesn't want that, they would rather have an unbalanced game and "feel like" they have control and lag isn't really a problem, even though it most certainly is.

But back to your combat flow...yeah, we could make a system that recognizes the flow of combat, but it would require turn based elements to achieve, and again the people that want to move around all herky jerky are not going to like that at all.

 

But Baron... the devs firmly beleive that you cannot make a better server algorythm for server/client authentication.

I doubt we will ever see such a complex counter system because a completely contrary system (predictive) has been used to ease the lag from Unity aka "the precious"...

 

A combat system with movement and a flow is perfectly attainable and i'd say that latency problems are solvable in the long run, so...


I like to move around while i combat (being an archer i cannot afford to stay still) and i'd enjoy combat even more if it has a flow with different choices that i should follow. Ultima had that. WoW had that. combat flow it's a must, and a combat flow with counters and counters to counters is even better.

 

As an archer you could afford to stand still if arrows did a lot more damage. But that's the point of a counter system. You counter bow shots with what? Currently only the ability to take the damage. (or dodge or block periodically)

And that's the problem, Kuba. You can't have both. You can't have a system where 100's of people may be moving around using today's technology and also have lag play a fair role in the outcome of success. But because people like to move so much, they'd find not moving unacceptable and they convince themselves that the game is more fair than it really is. They sacrifice fairness and balance for movement.

That's the reality.

 

Exactly my point... roleplayers lose yet again

 

Sadly that kind of network management and technical stuff is not on my field of expertise so i'm afraid i can't argument further, mostly because i can't delve into the real issue that is how to counter the lag issues (pun intended ) with actual tech. But what really is whitin my experience is playing lots of online games where the impact of lag is lessened... and they allow you to move and their combat system has a flow. So i ask myself "Why?" then try to look at it from a field i understand a bit better.


(i've been dying to use that)

Let's look at it this way. from my personal experience, the more twitchy a real time combat system is, the better, so i'd like to move around while performing awesome stuff and countering others awesomeness. But of course, the less laggy the combat is, the better, so it's best to generate the less amount of traffic to minimize the impact of lag. So we're facing two desirable qualities that are complementary, so it's true that we can't have both... but only if we desire an arbitrary level of precision for both qualities simultaneously! We're facing an uncertainty principle, it's just that the complementary qualities belongs to a game.

The way i see it, we can have both, and we just need to settle the slider somewhere between incredibly interactive and incredibly laggy and plainly boring but smooth data transfer, and do that according to what we want combat to have. We already got movement, now i'd like to see progress towards combat flow between skills, and counters as part of that, while minimizing the amount of lag generated by those. Of course we'll have more lag that if combat was just a standing still competition where the only thing that matters is the skills you choose... but it is certainly worth it. The point that i'm trying to make is that, as almost everything in this game, this is not about forgetting about something (movement, in this case) because of the "many bad things it implies" but to make a comparison between the good things it gives, and the people who enjoys that. Then, once we have that, we should aim towards a compromise solution that gives good things while lessening the impact of the bad things.

Talking about movement... the way SotA handles movement is one of the decisions i like the most, referring to giving players a penalty for attacking while moving. I mentioned before that i need to stay in constant move because the class i'm playing, but even so i manage to put distance between my enemy so then i can stand still and release two or three attacks before he catches me, so i have a choice! i can move and take less damage, or i can stay still and be more efficent on my skill use. This Stop and Go is one of the things that works towards combat flow and, the way i see it, it tries to reduce the amount of data sent to the server by making combat a bit more realistic (to properly shoot my bow i should stand still), so how can that not be elegant?

So it's reality that a game with movement is hard to balance conceptually and technically, but it's also reality that it's a required sacrifice because people want that, and because it adds good traits to tha game that from the point of view of the Devs (and almost every game publisher) justifies the bad things.

Damn in the end i rambled a lot... i hope i just got almost everything right and making a real point against the real issue instead of missing it completely. So sorry for the wall of text, let's see if it gives some insight about my way of looking at this.

 

if you have a counter to everything that completely negates the rffect of what it counters, then you're a big step closer to playing cards.

Tic tac toe has a counter to everything too.

Now if you have a counter to things that dont entirely stop the progress of a fight, THEN you have what sota is already doing.

They arent making ultima or WoW. They are making sota.

 

I've never played ultima or WoW, ever. So maybe you're right, I have no idea how those games work, other than they were not what I wanted to play.

Look, all I'm saying is that if someone casts Searing Ray at you, there should be a counter to that. You shouldn't be forced to take direct damage no matter what you do. And if there's a counter to that, there should be a counter to the counter. That way no one person can create a build that will always work in every situation. That way, the combat system will require a bit of actual skill to be good at it.

 

You should play Ultima.

 

Yeah I like the Ping-Pong type of battling you're describing. Makes everything more strategic and interactive.