Exasperated with Combat

stratigus, but right now you are defending a medicine you didn't taste for yourself, yet. I think people who find the current system tiresome don't feel that way because they immediately reject something just because it's being "new and innovative". Being innovative isn't a virtue in itself, it must prove its worth. If we had a real choice (when locking glyphs wouldn't come with a focus penalty) then I think 80% would just lock them.

 

I still enjoy the card/deck system and like that I can change up my decks (will be interesting to see how much re-training costs, etc).

So, I can go easy, Dallas-mode and walk around in full plate or I can go cloth, magic, swords and have more of a challenge. Nice to choose.

 

Also the stun annimation was fun, it cracked me up because I was stunning a lot with my build and also knocking them on their butts, woo hoo fun, fun, fun.

 

thanks again, as i said in the other thread, i feel pretty silly having trained my eyes to ignore youtube videos on various websites...

 

as a programmer and former game developer, i have to say, that sounds like the coolest combat system ive heard of yet. right off the bat im not crazy fond of not having keystrokes to actions memerized, resulting in a lot of looking at an area of the screen that takes me off focus from my opponent. hopefully ill have enough time this evening to really try it out (just got the tour guide quest done, woo!).

 

All we need are the right tools to get out of the mold.

Honestly, if you're going solo into the middle of a large mob of creatures, it doesn't matter if you're quick or you have fireballs, you should get slaughtered without proper armor.

Out of combat things like sneaking, diversions, and hiding need to matter more, for people who want more roguish characters. They can sneak around enemies, lure them into corners, and backstab them.

For mages, its either going to be some type of protection spells, invisibility spells, or high level combos that have a large AoE.

Otherwise, its party play.

(Shields, different acrobatics/tumbling skills etc, should be more useful than they are now too, of course)

 

Did I mention I hate it when people put out percentages to give their argument more merit? It would have been fine if you said that if you had no focus penalty you would just lock them, but you made it sound like the majority shares your views, which I don't think you know for fact.

Also, nit related to the last post, there are people who hated it before trying it because they wanted their combat system in....

 

I lock my glyphs. I don't care if it takes more focus. I like predictability, so I make the sacrifice. I will likely try the unlocked way to see, but yeah.

 

yah so i played a bunch, and was experimenting with the sword n board you start with (found it easy to kill things, killed wolves no problem, almost killed a bear right off the bat).

then i switched it up to my original PK's setup from UO - single hand axes. while i enjoyed the deck system, i do think dual wielding is gonna need a lot of attention - it was extremely hard. I tried like 20 diff slightly tweaked specs but mainly wanted light armor, dual wield axes, and tactics skills like dodge. i played with cards refreshing fast, and cards drawing fast, and lots of extra slots vs not many, and pretty much all permutations of this. i got my butt kicked by everything except rabbits and chickens.

however, i thought the system seemed cool, and i thought the skills and possible combinations sound interesting. a dual wield light armor setup is going to need a lot of balancing and feature enhancement. i could almost just barely kill a wolf, but he would always win with like 2% health. hopefully a nice stealther skill line will come into play with good assassin skills.

im totally willing to ride out the alpha with the deck system and see how it evolves. i just regret not having enough time to play with it more this release phase. i enjoyed it, cheers to those who developed the system.

 

I found combat to be much easier once I bought some Augmented Leather armor pieces ...

 

The previous two releases I had my reservation regarding the deck system. I could not make a balance deck. It felt broken.

When they started us out this release with level building in mind, I became even more frustrated. I was now struggling against creatures I had no problem with before, dying almost instantly.

However, after making my way to the newbie area, I began to figure the system out. Slowly I was able design a deck that fit my style. There was a huge learning curve and some balance issues yet somehow, in the process I made it to level 41.

I am not ready to give up on the system.

 

Thanks a lot for this post.

I had a very busy weekend and, despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to spend any time testing SotA. Before going to bed tonight, I decided I would give the tour quest a shot on the off chance that I could finish it before I had to go to sleep. With your instructions, I was able to get through those areas without too much trouble and now I'm very glad that I took the time to do it. Thanks again!

 

Glad to be of service.

 

Ravensmoor is easiest, you just enter another Dungeon (like sewers) and travel underground through hidden passages

 

Good point, I forgot about this. The Blackblade Pass.

I always get lost down there.

 

The biggest issue here was them basically asking us to go to higher level areas like Obsidian Keep to complete the Tour Quest, but only starting us at level 1. I mean in any MMO/Fantasy RPG if you run to an area a few levels higher than you you're gonna get wrecked.

Though I figured that Red Sashes might be a nice start but I ended up getting fragged by the spiders outside Owls Nest. Yeesh.

On one hand, I don't want to see giant borders saying what level an area is for, but on the other I'd like to know if I'm just going to get insta-gibbed by enemies. Hmm.

Having the Tour Guide mention which areas are better for "newbies" may have been nice.

 

At this stage in development (not at launch) having the tour guide say something like "When you get to the Obsidian Keep, don't forget to look for alternate entrances!" Or whatever.

I personally loved how they did the Obsidian Keep. I was helping my kids get into there and the devs had already changed the tour guide location, so at first I had my kids march into the keep and they got ripped to shreds. That's when I knew there had to be another way because no one was going to solo that through the front door without some serious leveling.

 

I agree whole heartedly with the OP. Many of us have fought and pleaded against card combat but the devs seem hell bent on continuing with it. It's the only thing about this game's development that I have a problem with - and it's a big, big problem.

They had an opportunity to make a truly innovative and fun combat system. It looks like that opportunity wasn't in the cards.

 

I see what you did there. If only we had all skills available then we could of avoided the cards.