Does anyone else HATE the proposed card system??

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Owain, Mar 14, 2013.

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Like or Hate combat-card system

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  1. jonathancw

    jonathancw Avatar

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    I really hope Richard reconsiders this type of combat... This Is not my cup of tea..
     
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  2. marthos

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    For over a year, I have played The Secret World, which has a simliar "deck" system. The game has over 500 skills, and you're only able to "equip" 16 of them at any given time (8 are active skills you have to click, 8 are passive skills). The Secret World does a good job (not perfect) of making most of those skills desirable in some situations, and not desirable in other situations. For example, I run a completely different set of 16 skills when I want to tank, another 16 when I want to heal, another 16 when I want to focus on AOE damage, another 16 when I want to be in a support role, etc. Many of the skills involve putting a damage-over-time effect on enemies, or stunning them, or slowing them down...but some monsters are immune to those effects, or get a big buff when they have a DoT on them. So my "main" dps build might have lots of DoTs, but when I'm fighting enemy X, I have to swap those effects out or I get killed. I never feel like that I've wasted time learning skills, it's best in that game to be well-rounded and able to adapt to different situations.

    The big difference is that Secret World has skill rotations because your skills are always available, whereas the proposed SotA system will have more randomness thrown in. But if you want to get a general feel for how a deck system works in an MMO, give Secret World a try for a little bit (PM me if you want and I can get you a 3-day trial, or you can find the game for $20-30 on Amazon, Steam etc. No monthly fee either). Coming from that background of having experienced a deck system in and MMOPRG, I am not worried about what SotA has proposed.

    I can already see that when I want to tank in SotA, I'll probably be running heavy armor, with a polearm, and maybe some Life magic for self heals. But if I feel like being ranged DPS, I will go Light Armor, Dark Magic, and Bow skills. And there are a lot of support builds out there. Magic, however, seems a little bit too heavy handed on summoning creatures, as it seems every school's capstone is "summon something." Hopefully the magic schools will differentiate themselves more as the alpha/betas get underway.
     
  3. Ara

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    I prefer to cast the spell i have choosen and not the spell the computer decided i should cast.

    Not being in control of your own skills 100% disqualifies this card system of randomness.

    It will remove PvP flow and playerskills needed. And how fun is it to sit and look at cards instead of having your focus on your opponent?
     
  4. Myth2

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    Fighting the UI, and not needing skill to win are the two biggest problems with the card system imo. Hopefully these are overcome in the final iteration of combat.
     
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  5. Asclepius

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    I'm the first to admit I don't know much about programming; if I'm talking through my hat please excuse me.
    A few thoughts based on observation and guesswork:
    I've played a few games where combat was totally player-controlled. Include Ultima 9, Fallout, Oblivion, Skyrim. The common factor: all single player offline games. The game has to react to my play style; whatever I want to do is fine, and my reflexes may be slower than some of the "young guns". That I assume takes lots of processing power; not to worry, there is only one instance of battle happening in the world, the system can cope well.
    In SoTA, there may be (conservatively) 20,000 logged on simultaneously; if 5% of them are having a fight that's 1000 separate battles that some computer has to deal with.
    I ask myself - which is easier - the incredibly detailed analysis of 1,000 players' input, or running a preprogrammed "battle script"? I think the answer is obvious. This may be the reason why combat in UO is essentially computer controlled, and we may end up with some type of "battle script" in SoTA.
    It does sound like Richard Garriott and the developers are trying to make it more interesting and unique. As someone has alluded to, it may be similar to a deck of Magic cards - you go away and work on a set of skills that you would like to use. When in combat, it all just happens. If it's not working for you, or if you are facing a different scenario, pull out a different deck. (I like Owain's analogy about the jet fighter pilot changing load).
    It seems that many of us, myself included, would love to retain the totally player-controlled combat scenario - I suspect that the processing power just won't be there. I reailse that it is still very much a work in progress, but if any of the developers wish to confirm or refute my amazing analysis :rolleyes: I'd be grateful.
     
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  6. Luitpold

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    Have they ever said anything about how the servers will work?
     
  7. Alrick

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    I thought i started this thread. thats weird.
     
  8. Gasket

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    So we no longer rely on skill, its all about which random cards we get?

    Didnt realise I had pledged to fund hearthstone....

    I'm disgusted.
     
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  9. Isaiah

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    There will be one master game server at Portalarium. So there will be one world with everybody playing on the same server. However each instance that we play in is hosted in a type of peer to peer connection between other players.

    So if we enter PvP one person will host the session and the others will communicate with the host. So we are all run a client and a server portion.

    There will likely be a failover list in case something happens with the first host it can transfer control to the second or third host on the list. That's just speculation though.

    Also they said the number of players we can see in one of these instances is measured in the dozens. (Probably up to 20 to 50 players in any given instance or dynamic shard)
     
  10. Alrick

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    Have any developers commented on this? It seems that it weighs heavily on everyone's mind.
     
  11. smack

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    Yes, some developers have but I believe those are ongoing discussions in the Dev+ forums.

    There are some publicly available comments from them, most notably this one.
     
  12. Kirthag

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    ... sounds like Ultima Forever, where you have to choose your gear before entering a dungeon ...
    not ammused
     
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  13. Sean

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    I dont play dice or go fish specifically because i dont feel a game based purely on chance is fun at all... i choose to play games that involve practice and homing your skills... thus when im in a combat situation i feel it inappropriate to hafto fight based on whatever randomly pops up for me to use...
     
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  14. monxter

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    I'm willing to give the proposed system a chance. However the combat system is not based purely on chance, altough there are some elements to it that may require you to go with the flow. It seems we do have "locked" skills if we want to. Our pre-planning of the skill builds will be in a big role regarding the variety of skills and frequency we'll be able to do some things. I have to say skill combinations seem fun for a change. If it's not fun then I'll be begging for a "traditional"approach as well. First, I want to see where this is going.
     
  15. Freeman

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    It's not based purely on skill either. I can take the losses when I screw up. I'll get frustrated and sick of the losses from dumb luck quickly.

    How many will there be? More than zero... and that's too many for me.
     
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  16. Lord Baldrith

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    We haven't tried the system yet. I'm excited to see how it works. I'm just waiting before I judge it as not fun.
     
  17. Sean

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    Im definatly gonna give it a try im just skeptical lol this way is not somthing im used to, wayyyy scary!!! Hehe
     
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  18. Orladin

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    Has anyone else considered that raw stats themselves will help to balance this out as well. I highly doubt you'll be able to max out every raw stat in game. Melee chars will mostly rely on Str and Dex above all. The same with magic users and the stats that they need to invest in heavily.
    Not to mention armor. I know this game's not UO but back in the day protection was Plate and Dragonscale>Chain>Ring>Bone>Studded>Leather>Clothing
    The further up you went the more protection each piece gave you. You also got a slight dex penalty per piece. You sacrificed dex in order to have more protection. But wearing that full suit of plate was far more effective for a tank style fighter than wearing a full suit of leather. That guy in lets say an exceptional suit of full plate was going to absorb a lot more damage than that guy with an exceptional suit of full leather. If lets say they had the same base stats and armed with the same weapons plateman is going to swing his longsword slower than leatherman. But he's going to be able to stand there toe to toe much longer than leatherman.
    Now having that much str and dex invested in those characters to have them keep up that swing speed comes at the cost of INT and ultimately mana. Now if they wanna start lobbing fireballs they may pull one or 2 out before their mana reserves are depleted.
    If Magicman were to be brought in he wouldn't be swinging his sword fast at all. But he's going to outshine both leatherman and plateman in the fireball department.
    It'd be silly if lets say they all 3 went into a cave to hunt down reedbooG the orc. Magicman say's okay guys I'm decking out all my skills to charge in and start swinging my sword. You guys stand back and launch those fireballs K?
    The way the "card" system comes into play it kinda reminds me of guild wars 1. You set up your character for a certain role or whatever to match the circumstances with skill slots. You could actually throw together an Elementalist build you could tank with via certain spells centered around defense.
    The system will even itself out I'm sure.
     
  19. Floors

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    I sure hope so.

    *taps 2 mana*

    Puts out Tarmogoyf.
     
  20. rune_74

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    This whole thread is a jump to conclusions and panic thread. Not shocking and expected.

    I think the devs should carry forward and design what they were initially envisioning. Lets see it working before we all become chicken littles.
     
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