Deck Combat, Single Player and Magic: My Reactions

So after the initial frustration of getting kicked out to the start screen after a minute or two of playing, over and over last night, I was finally able to play this morning.

Deck combat felt different than I expected. My biggest concern, going in, was that I wouldn't be able to track the changing glyphs and follow what's going on in the world. I'm not much of multi-tasker. As it turns out, that wasn't as much of a problem as I expected. I kept my hand size to 5 and was able to follow the combat and the bar without too much trouble. Don't get me wrong. The deck DOES detract from the combat itself. It just doesn't do so to the level I expected. So bravo there.

I like that the deck lets you access many spells and abilities with only 5 slots. That's neat. Instead of trying to narrow my hotbar down to the most useful spells and then accessing others through the menu, like in many other modern rpgs (say... Elder Scrolls), I can have access to a plethora of abilities through the hotbar, just not all at once. It's kinda neat.

That being said, I'm very concerned with the direction combat is taking in regards to the single player experience and magic. I KNOW that is not the focus as of yet, but I don't think these things should take a backseat, nor do I think they can simply be "tweaked later, once PvP is balanced." We need to look at all the factors throughout the process.

I understand from what I've read that magic is holding up in PvP. I found that it does well in open areas against one or two weak opponents in single player. The key here is in order to be a classic mage, you need a big arena where you can run around like hyper-active 5 year old.

I don't find that very comforting. My idea of an adventuring wizard is not sonic the hedge hog with lightning bolts. And, since a great deal of combat for single player is likely going to take place in cramped dungeons and caves, this is NOT a viable playstyle. If an archetype absolutely requires constantly running away and sniping, it will fall down on it's face in a dungeon.

In a similar vein, I find that Root is absolutely required to be effective with magic. Without it, I die. Every time. That's not a good thing; especially in a combat system with a random element.

Another issue I'm running into is the sheer number of spells it takes to kill a creature. To kill something weak, like a Cave Wrasse or a Wolf, requires 4-5 castings. Killing a skeleton is closer to 8 castings. This not only creates tedium as each combat drags on, it invalidates pure magic users in the long term for single player. If one skeleton uses up 70% of my focus and requires me to cast 7-8 spells, it turns into a boring grind-fest, where I whittle one to death, sheathe my weapon and run away, recharge my focus, rinse and repeat. It is the perfect recipe for boring.

But not JUST boring. Downright painful if you consider reagents. I realize that SoTA will have it's own reagent system, but it's a safe bet it will be similar to the old Ultima system. I've pulled some out for comparison. It's rough, but I'm just throwing it out there to give a clearer picture of the problem.

VAS FLAM (Fire Blast) = Fire Arrow
Reagents: Sulfurous Ash, Black Pearl

ORT GRAV (Lightning) = Lightning
Reagents: Black Pearl, Sulfurous Ash, Mandrake Root

AN POR (Paralyze) = Root
Reagents: Spider’s Silk, Nightshade

MANI (Heal) = Heal
Reagents: Ginseng, Garlic, Spider’s Silk

VAS FLAM HUR (Explosion) = Fireball
Reagents: Mandrake Root, Sulfurous Ash, Black
Pearl, Blood Moss

Now using that as a base. Imagine fighting one skeleton. You cast: Root, Fire Arrow, Lightning, Heal, Fireball, Fire Arrow, Root, Lightning, Fire Arrow. That seems to be about what it took (give or take).

You just used:
6 Sulfurous Ash
6 Black Pearl
3 Mandrake Root
1 Blood Moss
2 Spider Silk
1 Nightshade
1 Garlic
1 Ginseng

That's 21 reagents to kill one measly skeleton: twenty-one! Even with different reagents, the results are likely to be similar, this is just to drive home the point.

My last concern is fizzling. It's NOT fun. It does nothing to increase the fun of the game when your character, wearing all cloth, except for leather boots (a pretty common material for footwear), fizzles the spell that would have saved his life. It's frustrating and un-fun. I think fizzle should solely be a product of wearing incorrect armor or removed altogether and replaced with increased focus cost for wearing heavier armor. Fizzle sucks.

I get that we've got a ways to go. I know it's unfinished and not yet balanced, but these are the kind of things that I feel the dev team needs to focus on going forward, because we're currently heading for a system that may be balanced for PvP, but is seriously un-fun for single player, quest-driven combat.

When responding, please realize I'm generally very supportive of Portalarium. I trust them to listen and make the right choices going forward, but these are, from my perspective, very serious issues that, if not properly addressed, could hurt the game.

 

You are right. It is not balanced yet, but it will Get better. You Will see.

 

I totally agree.

Personally, I abandoned the use of spells altogether on my tank character, and went with a full cloth outfit for my mage to avoid the fizzle effect.

The effect is simply too *hard* : As in, the spell simply doesn't work at all when the fizzle occurs, and there is no soft middle result.

I like the thought regards having it taking more focus. Some other possibilities: Perhaps if the spell did less damage (or did less healing, or a smaller buff), or cost a larger amount of reagents.

*Anything* other than simply failing outright.

 

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I think you gave very constructive feedback. Thank you so much for doing that. I'm sure your comments will help greatly since they were so constructive with examples. I do look forward to what will be done after all our comments (the good and the not so good). I do love the direction so far. I'm going to run around with my little fire elemental a bit today, hope he doesn't kill his master .........what oh, what..... $%^&#*@*^% I thought I was the master little fire elemental lol

 

Great post Docdoom77. I don't use root myself as a pure mage as I think Lightning is a decent enough stun for my needs. Once reagents are added, I hope the spells will be much more powerful. And yes, focus/mana is a huge issue for me when needing to cast that many spells. You cannot run away to get mana back because the battle ends and you have to start all over again. I noticed this with the Satyrs on the wall...They had huge amount of HP or a high resistance to magic not sure which...but beating them was just kind of luck. It meant that my spells must have hit harder that time or they didn't hit me as hard

Hopefully there will also be companions to help mages. I need some tank type companion to keep the battle off of me long enough for my spells to do my bidding

 

Fizzle felt a bit too harsh. With full plate and having only one spell, Self heal, it felt the spell fizzled atleast 3 Times of 4. Couldnt even remotely rely on it to work. Either lower the fizzle chance or make it consume more focus as proposed.
I understand I should not be throwing spells in full plate as good as a trained mage in cloth, but right now it feels too punishing.

 

Yeah, I don't know how married to the idea they are. I would greatly prefer increased focus cost for wearing heavy armor (it could get pretty harsh to avoid spell spamming in armor). Fizzle is just plain not fun. It's a minor annoyance when you're clearly winning and a it can kill you due to random chance when you're barely pulling through. I truly hope it's a mechanic they move away from.

 

In the interest of putting more of my thoughts and suggestions in one place, I'm going to reiterate something I said in another thread.

One problem of balancing toolbar vs. deck combat is that locked toolbars have not incentive to spend points on additional copies of skills, where as deck combat users will need to many copies of important spells, leaving locked users able to really load up on passive skills.

My suggestion is that multiple copies of skills reduce the cooldown by some percentage per copy in locked mode as an incentive to buy multiple copies. Balancing this will require some thought and fine-tuning, as we don't want cooldowns to get too fast, but we want the advantage of multiple copies to be good enough to encourage locked toolbar users to spend their points that way. I think it's the perfect solution to that particular problem.

 

Good feedback, but poor conclusions.

Fizzle, Reagents...they're about balance. If you can't take off your leather boots so you can have more fun, who's problem is that?

I think you have some valid points, but overall I cringe when I hear people complaining about the amount of reagents and fizzle rates. Those things are there for an important reason.

 

Maybe it could "backfire" instead of fizzle, blowing your arm off, in which case I will be there to collect the arm.....muhhahahahaha.

 

There is backfire too. The devs have done a good job trying to make it difficult to be an unstoppable tank mage.

Where the reagents become VERY important is that they will help balance out the naked mage. During R8 I just ran around naked because armor was virtually pointless and reagents were not required. We don't want that at launch.

 

In R8 you must died a lot if you didn't use root going against warriors, lightning just wasn't a reliable enough stun to get warriors off your back in PVP and even some of the PVE stuff.

Hopefully but it seems the plan now it spells will just be weaker without them, but balance is coming. Just like docdoom77 I'm worried about the amounts required, in PVP with a bow I went though 300+ arrows in 1 hour, and spells will probably require multiple reagents.

Beating them solo as a mage with DOT's (Fire eley and Staff/wand or bow) and root was actually pretty easy, same with the Lich, which I couldn't beat solo in R7.

Agreed, I think the PVE aspects of this game are going to be primarily Team or NPC Companions required. Can't wait to meet the NPC companions, I hope they have tons of personality.

 

Actually I didn't die alot. I did well in the small amount of PvP I did...very small only fought like 2 people 1 mage and 1 melee and won against both of them. Not as much due to lightning as it was due to kiting skills and the ability to use spells while running and casting lightning.

 

I did a lot of PVP in R8 (500+ mixed matches) and mages just could not survive the onslaught of 2-handed weapons without root (and lots of distance)...The Satyrs were using 2 handers, so they eat up mages without root...I'm sure root won't be 'required' in the future, with new skills coming in.

 

I'm not really a PvPer but it was fun to experience. I may do it in game if it stays fair and doesn't turn into a 10 against 1 fest like in most games hehe...I acutally enjoy the challenge when it's fair. Ya, I learned how to kill the Satyrs on the wall and in the open. The trick is to clear out the surrounding area of wolves and then kite them from the other side. It's true alot of times it came down to luck of crits and dot damage, but I did get better at killing them. I really think once we see combos mages will do more damage and not be forced to use a root spell. My playstyle is Nuke-em and move on haha...But with more than 1 mob to deal with you have to learn how to kite. Roots in most games are generally weak...so I don't design my playstyle around that option.

 

Because of a bug lightning was triggering at 100%. Then they patched it. Before it was a fun spell for the caster, but not as much fun for the stunned.

 

They are indeed about balance, however are they the *best* most game-friendly way to achieve said balance ?

Speaking only on fizzle (since reagents are not in the game as yet), there are plenty of other avenues to achieve the same balance without using a hard "You fail to cast that spell" approach.

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Personally, I'm fine with a heavy armor fighter being perfectly capable of firing off a fireball with 100% efficacy, but draining all their focus in the process.

 

Yeah, I'm not fine with that. What you create is a character build that rewards players for using a single fireball as a first attack no matter what armor they're wearing. If someone is going to use magic and plate armor, it shouldn't ever have 100% efficiency, let alone become a preferred way to play the game.

The whole reason to have fizzle is to make it more unknown what will happen. Don't want fizzle, don't like the unknown? Well that's fine then use magic and armor together.

 

I was under the impression that melee skills also required focus to use. Was I misinformed in that regards ?

Draining your focus right off the bat is probably not the best choice if one wants to use it for other skills later on.

 

No you're correct about that. But unlike magic, combat skills don't fizzle due to armor.