DPS Wars

I'm positive that everything I described above can be done in this system if the developers have the will to do it.

 

I didn't play archeage. This is the feedback I gave the devs a little over one year ago, today.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ly-what-sota-combat-should-not-be-like.12554/

 

I remember that. I thought it was a rather unfair assessment of that game. You can have all those hotbars, but you can also play hotbar-less if you know what you're doing. Muscle memory and knowledge of your abilities means you don't have to have a hotbar dictating anything.

I would recommend trying ArcheAge before criticizing it. It's F2P, after all.

 

I understand, and I think ArcheAge has a lot of compelling gameplay elements, but the DPS based combat is not one of them.

As it stands, SOTA is more like ArcheAge combat than I want at the moment. It's not about muscle movement, it's about THINKING. It's about reacting to your opponents strategy and in turn winning because you are better mentally than they are. That's what SOTA (and Archeage and other MMO's) lack.

 

But it doesn't. Well, didn't - the weapons and gear made it extremely DPS. But ultimately, DPS is a thing; it's about mitigating it with strategy and tactics to make it more than just DPS, though. Whatever you want to call it - damage per second, hurts per tempo, boo-boos per timeframe - it eventually comes down to you needing to do more damage than the other guy. Unless you wanna' get a game that's ultimately about one-shot kills (Bushido Blade, anyone?), DPS is a necessity in these kinds of abstract combat systems, what with cooldowns and such.

The difference is, at least with ArcheAge, is that the tactical options immediately changed the fight from "DO AS MUCH DAMAGE POSSIBLE!!!!11!" to "Oh crap, wait up, gotta' take a step back on this one," while both sides were triggering counters and blocks and extremely short-lived buffs or debuffs to gain the advantage before setting off their chain of attacks. Add to that the gliders and ships and trade carts, and you had extremely dynamic open world combat.

I wouldn't watch a video of someone with a hundred hotbars. I had, I think, 3 hotbars all minimized, and that was mainly for some one-off things (dropping trade-packs, multiple mounts for when mine was killed in combat, ships as I was the captain of my crew and had several, plus numerous emotes for dancing on my opponents' corpses).

 

I highlighted the part that SOTA is missing. That's why we need blocks and counters.

 

I totally agree, which is why I said ArcheAge showed how it works, and works well. Maybe a little, hm, how should I say... simplified? It wasn't exactly like you had a ton of counters and blocks, but you didn't have a ton of skillsets or abilities, anyway, so it worked.

However, tactical skills and abilities require having unique skills that can be depended on. If you can't rely on having those counters and blocks available through the random availability of the current combat system, people will min-max to just go full on heal and DPS. Sure, if someone has no tactical counters or blocks, they may get some of their abilities blocked or countered, but they'll get through more often than not because the opponent simply won't be able to keep countering and blocking, and the amount of pure HoT/DoT and nukes will overpower that inability to reliably use tactical counters/blocks. That means we need a system that gives the players the ability to determine when they can and cannot use such counters, not RNG.

 

I think that you can depend on skills right now, there's just a cool down associated with them - and that's fine.

For example, if I had a counter or a block (if it existed) I could put it in slot 1 and put 5 cards in my deck so it would appear the maximum amount of times. When it becomes available, it shows up for a period of time. That means that if I don't have it available (in melee for example) then it's time to keep my distance and strafe my target until it IS available. That's good design.

But where this breaks down is that everything ranged is auto-targeted. Combat is complex and we could hash out the logic all day. The point is, it's doable if the will is there.

 

Well thanks, Baron

 

Amen Baron, preach on...I have to admit when I pledged to this project I was expecting some real innovation in combat design...so far not so much. I find it so hard to believe RG is spending so much time on aspects of the game like cooking and soooooo little time on combat...I am disappoint

I was so hoping they were going to try something different...maybe like this:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1733/rock_paper_scissors__a_method_for_.php

Combat can be fixed...