Extra Foggy War

Ok, so one of the phrases I noticed being bandied about was this concept of "fog of war", "uncertainty in combat", etc. All seeming to suggest that we shouldn't know EXACTLY what is going on with say, our opponent's HP totals. Or the size of enemy hits.

I'm actually tolerant of this idea, I like a little uncertainty. I do, however think that the current system goes a bit too far. Here's what *I* noticed while fighting.

I have no idea if I'm hitting the mob. I don't know if I'm chipping away at it with tiny little hits, or if it's on it's last legs. I DO know if the mob is killing me, but the range on some of the hits was so big that I could lose almost a third of my life in one blow.

Now, in a REAL fight, when your sword hits the opponent, you FEEL it in your arm, and see it, and most opponents react in some way, even if it's just a skeleton recovering it's balance after the force of your blow. Most opponents bleed from each wound created, and you can, at a glance, guestimate how many times they have been stabbed, and how big the wounds are. You cannot know how DEEP, you cannot know how durable that enemy is, but SOME idea exists.

I found no indicator that I could use while fighting. I would like to suggest that something be there. It doesn't have to be a precise HP bar over their heads, but since the graphics engine simply cannot be asked to show every tiny detail on which a real swordsman or archer or mage would be making combat decisions, replacing the missing details with some other way of conveying what should be readily available information would be nice.

If a mage casts a fireball at a giant, and blows off half the giant's face, cripples an arm, and exposes lung, when the giant turns and bellows and charges, the mage will feel confident that one more fireball will disable or kill the giant. If, on the other hand, the giant shows NO reaction other than the turn-bellow-charge... Is he 90% dead? 10%? 1%? Spell or fire immune? It's hard to make intelligent tactical decisions with no tactical intelligence.

 

I thought the Fog of War was only on the overland map to hide areas you have not explored yet.

 

At the moment the only indicator we have is the "dot" next to the name of our opponent .. Green, Yellow, Red = Alive, Hurt, About to die

I'm not a fan

I would like an "enemy stumble" after a critical hit, an "audio/visual cue" to convey that my attacks are effective ... ideally I would like the posture of the opponent to change and parallel the Green, Yellow, Red concept.

If we can not have animations, or audio/visual clues, I would prefer to have HP bar over our enemies.

My biggest concern is that - at the moment - combat feels like a guessing game and the only "cue" I have is my own health bar - when I see that a creature has hit me hard - my instinct is to flee because I can't gauge if I am causing comparable damage to the creature

A stumble after a critical hit, "smack" sound after a successful connect, "swoosh" for miss etc etc ... and a "thump" after a successful block with a shield

This would go a long way in concert with the "green dot" system

edit-
This is what the dots mean from Darkstarr
Dot next to the name indicates health. Green = full health, yellow = half, red = almost dead

 

Issues mentioned here is exactly the reason combat should be one of the first things fleshed out before fluff things and benefactor items. Now you have a system where the whole playerbase is experiencing something that seems very sketchy.

It seems like too much is up in the air. For such a critical system i cant understand why its so all over the place it soubds like a lack of direction and uncertainty will kill a mmo

 

We know that this is the first pass at combat. The colored dots are most likely a quickly added way to give an indication of the opponent's hit points, and all we have is auto-swinging so far. Animations are not done, sounds are not done, damage adjustments are not done, so we're just seeing the bare bones and some scaffolding around them. I'm not very concerned that the dots will be the final and only indication of our opponents' health. They won't.

 

I agree but throwing things out there never hurts

 

All of the points you make are valid. Combat requires a system with depth if it is to succeed. Hopefully, the combat system will be priority 1 from this point on.

 

Well... I would not go that far.

Personally, I expect the story to be Priority #1. Combat can be #2 though, because I'm magnanimous like that.

 

Sorry, friend, I believe it will still be housing focused. Everything else will continue to take a backseat and the game will suffer for it.

You, my friend are the embodiment magnanimous-ness.
But story, would that it weren't, will not be set before housing , story will be slipped in and with the quest/type-talk system may be not user friendly in the least .
And combat will be, it seems, the last thing with the least amount of effort put into it.

 

Alright now, Bill, that's a BIT harsh. I'm sure the Portalarium staff is aware that sucky combat will bore people, bored players will move on, and ignoring combat will ultimately achieve two previously unattainable goals :uniting PvE and PvP fans under a single banner, and crashing SotA.

I put these thoughts out specifically to be picked at, knowing full well that this is the very first pass, I'm just remarking on what I think is the biggest apparent flaw.

Honestly, the fact that I CAN autoattack a wolf to death makes me happy, that's a lot of progress over the last version! Regardless of the PvP settings, how the Skill Tile system works, or what individual skill levels and gear do, though, I figured I'd make this point early, so that it gets considered and integrated.

 

You are right, Malak. I don't mean to be overly harsh, but combat is my only real intrest here...or in any game.
So it hits me kind of hard that things are seemingly the way they seem.

I do like the Fog of War idea for the same reason as you, the added tension and mystery. That could in no way detract from the game as I see it.
I do like auto attacking, clicking to hit every time just wears you out and is un-nessesary, not to mention a lot of us aren't young anymore and the old hands get crimped up a bit...but on the bright side it can make you feel more immersed when you are feeling the actual pain, discomfort and agony of combat.

*I hate crafting and never volintarily do it (though I did suffer through making a flying carpet for my gnome priest in WoW, I'm very proud of that, because for me it was a Herculian feat), so my wife made me a sword last weekend. With it I ended up with a nice collection of those bad-ass skull swords from the bandits and a few war hammers. So the looting & gear pick-ups were good (very UOish).

Enemy health regestration was totally bad, I never even noticed the colored dots.
Maybe it would be hard to make the enemies physically show dammage, but a health bar over them or something would be good and is not an immersion breaker in any way.
And you are right that in a real fight of any kind, you can assess your opponent's condition by looking at them, even in a pillow fight or a splash fight in the pool you can tell if somone's getting tired, and that's when no actual harm has been done.

We don't want SoTA to crash...but...

The unification of PvEers and PvPers...to quote Lyndon, the Scoundrel from Diablo 3.
"They will run when they see us!"

 

Yeah I'm with the bandwagon here about needing an indicator of some kind. I think the more blood = the more damage you did. A glancing hit just leaves a tasteful red sliver but a strong blow with an axe will make the enemy stumble back some and have a large splatter of blood. Maybe even "bloodied" textures.