Does anyone else HATE the proposed card system??

Each skill, such as blades, has a skill tree. Eventually, you will learn all the blade skills. So if you focus on blades only, you will get all the skills quicker than someone who splits his XP 50/50 between blades and magic. Eventually both guys will master both. As long as there is no hard level cap, your one toon will be able to learn everything.

For this reason, having a Secret World deck load out makes the most sense to avoid veteran players being uber god like.

What was hinted at is that unlike Secret World, loading out your deck doesn't mean you get to use any of those skills at any time during the fight. You'll have a portion of your deck available "each turn" so to speak. So lets say your big self heal is avaiable for use, do you use it now, or wait until later when it could be more effective? But if you wait later, it may not be available.

I see the combat system as more like Magic: The Gathering. Before you play, you build your deck with the cards you want. That's the strategic aspect. Once you play, you're at the mercy of what cards you draw and have in your hand at that moment. That's the tactical aspect of it. It makes playing the same deck more exciting because each fight is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, dead monster.

 

Not having played card based games, this concept is foreign to me, but as I've mentioned, at this point in time, I'll reserve judgement until I see more of what Lord British has in mind.

 

what marthos discribed better than I is what I ment to say. I like the idea of having a list of learned skills then they randomly show up. how often and which depends on how you build your deck.

 

Based on the interview with Markee (love your work Markee BTW even though you may have caused me to break a few keywords back in the day I believe Marthos has accurately described the system they plan on implementing which I absolutely LOVE! It makes every PvP encounter different and allows for me to refine, refine, and refine my strategy some more.

 

Keyboards*

 

My problem with the system RG describes is that it means there are going to be cookie cutter builds for different locations/monsters and the uniqueness of a player is going to go out the window.

I don't want to see situations where other players are asking why someones not using so and so skills because they are more superior, therefore you cant group with them.

 

I'm not sure I follow your cookie cutter comparison. Based on the number of different skills in a game from Richard combined with some kind of 'card stacking implementation' which will present the skills available for use during battle I believe there are almost infinite combinations of characters to create. Also, to your point of cookie cutter builds for different locations/monsters I think the interview with Richard about maximum human ability being 100 is a great tell that the battles will be more like they were in UO than your typical MMO in that 10 level 1s can kill a level 10. What I mean by this is that power and level are not the basis of a game that Richard develops but gameplay, interaction, and cooperation is the focus. I can imagine a standard party would require you to assemble a team of a few fully stacked warriors, maybe some archer/light mages, and some full mages for the big spells. This is just a basic example but I don't think you have to worry about the number of available paths in this game

 

I have to agree. A good warrior should be able to react to the unexpected, and innovate.

 

This is an old post. We have learned more about the combat system since I wrote this. I'd like to know more, but I no longer have the same concerns I originally had.

 

I trust R.G. and i looking for great cambat system. We need good PvP.

 

Hmmm I agree it is based off a card based system, just not magic which is more luck related then other games. It is more based off of Dominion, and if you haven't looked into that game you should it's pretty cool. By setting how you use your deck you can buy new skills as you and such...I think there is a real potential for it to work to be really quite tactical and strategic at the same time.

 

What if instead of choosing a specific combat skill like archery, swords, magery; the game increases your general combat skill.

This is pure speculation but if it's the case you could switch to any class without the hassle of grinding.

I would be willing to give it a chance. If my guess is even close. This might allow for a bag of tricks.

 

As I wrote in another thread, what I heard so far, sounds pretty similar to the combat/skill system of The Secret World, which I think is pretty good and works well. I cannot find a good description right now, only found this article about it: http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/the-secret-world%E2%80%99s-skill-system-is-even-better-than-i-thought/

 

@Acrylic I imagine there will be something similar to stat modifyers for your skills - so being particularly strong gives you a little skill boost with using melee weapons and a particular boost with a halberd or a war hammer, or even better, makes it possible for you to learn different techniques/moves based on how strong you would realistically have to be to pull them off. Same for dex which would likely combine with a stat like str to make even more techniques/moves available with different weapons.

That said I hope we can come up with something a little more interesting than the standard str/dex/int system. I guess it is standard for a reason though...

 

I hope it is simplified compared to UO. I would rather GM general skills on a skill tree and then be able to swap out the smaller branches. That way if the developers decide to "ruin" a skill; I'm not stuck with it. I think it would eliminate a lot of forum wars.

For instance:

I spend 5 months leveling up my Herding skill only to find out that it has no GM purpose. Meanwhile, players with GM Animal Husbandry are flying around on Red Dragons killing everything in sight. Okay wow, I spend 5 months leveling up Animal Husbandry to find out that outraged players have convinced the developers to render it useless. Oh no, I foolishly unlocked my Herding skill and let it drain away and now the Herding skill allows players to control 3 uber powerful red dragons.

This is an extreme hypothetical version of the nonsense that went on in UO but not too far off.

A base GM skill should have allowed me to exchange these two skills.

Owain has a rank as a fighter pilot. If he changes jobs they are not going to strip him of that rank.

 

Speaking of Dominion, here is a link to a free online version (which can be played against the computer if you want): http://play.goko.com/Dominion/gameClient.html

I suppose that selecting skills ahead of time is not all that different than memming spells, or deciding which weapons to carry.

As always, looking forward to more details.

 

You should of course be able to use all the skills you learned. It opens up for a more skillbased game with many more variables just like the 64 spells we used in UO.

 

Well, if I'm right about my thinking (this being something like in TSW), you could unlock every skill over time (or advance in them), but you only choose a set (which works well together) of them which can be active/usable at a given time. And you could save them as a kind of "deck" in combination with maybe armor and weapons, and you could switch between this "decks".

 

The Secret World system was well envisioned, but it fell victim to something I suspect is already looming for SotA, which is pigeonholing. I found, when I played SW, that while I *could* design any bar and rotation I wanted, there was a short list of "most efficient"/"most powerful" builds, and deviation from that group resulted in an inferior character. After I'd bought out the entire wheel, all the auxiliary weapon wheels as they came out, and gotten my raid gear, I found that any attempt to break the expectations of the devs resulted in a non-functional skillset, sometimes so bad that I had trouble surviving the playtest, mostly just leaving me going back to my standard spec.

What I'd really like to see in SotA is a system that lets me, nay REWARDS me for thinking outside the box, without going so far that someone can find a God spec way way outside the box and stomp us all with it. The more ways there are to solve the puzzle, the more solutions will be found, and that process leads to a diverse and interesting player base. When a game's Dev's decide what the method should be before they design the puzzle, and limit the skill use to fit that vision, it results in a lot of players unhappily doing the zombie shuffle forwards into boredom, and the stage right after that is a sudden MASSIVE decline in subscriptions. SWTOR anyone? (remember how they promised that Jedi and Sith skill trees would be different, with the mirrored classes not having identical playstyles? And then suddenly release day came, and they barely even had different skins for the attacks?)

 

I think some differences that SotA is talking about will be key. In TSW, you still have a fixed ability bar and a rotation. With SotA's proposed "card game" type system, where different abilities are available throughout the fight, you have a lot more variety in how the fight plays out. In TSW, most DPS builds are Builder x5 Consumer x2 repeat until boss dies. In a SotA system, you wouldn't be able to guarantee that ANY consumer would be available when you needed it, so you need to load out your deck with other options to keep you going. Ultimately, there are going to be builds that work better than others. Seriously thought into your build should reward you better than grabbing 20 random skills.

Also, I think what TSW really needs to do in the next region is to start really changing up the variety of boss fights. Imagine how different the "most powerful" builds will be if there are certain bosses that only take damage from Chain attacks, cleanses 1 weakness per second off themselves, and do not trigger the afflicted state until 5 different afflictions are on them. Just those three boss buffs would make everyone in TSW change out their builds to adapt to this creature. I think that is what is most important in any game, forcing the player to adapt to the creature he is fighting. How you kill a ghoul should be much different than how you go about killing a dragon.

I think SotA's inherent randomness factor is a good start to avoiding cookie cutter designs, but ultimately, making each creature truly unique is the key. If every creature is the same hit point piñata with a different skin, then cookie cutter builds will exist. Will there be a god spec to kill ghouls? Most likely. But let's hope that spec makes you a dragon's dinner.