Glyph/Deck Feedback

In the end it will be like every other MMO/computer RPG. People that enjoy tinkering and testing builds will do so for hours on end and post them to the internet. Everyone else will just copy those.

 

Very true
Sn0tub where are people getting these swords? Are they quest items ?

 

hahha one day in and you are giving up already?

yeah, I've actually cut way back on my play time for the past 3 releases for a few reasons. Partly because I don't want to get bored/tired of the game before it releases. Partly because there are so many other people out there testing by the time I find a bug I see it's been reported multiple times. I just play enough to give some feedback on features.

Where is the MGT guild at? They should be helping you out with this. Once all the skills are in I'm sure each release people will be posting their favorite deck/equipment combos, people already are starting too. I'd be surprised if one of the fan websites didn't add a section for the power gamers out there who just want the info on whats best.

I've been considering joining a guild now that pvp is online and there is group content to do for the 3 releases. Whichever guild manages to woo me will also need to take on my dad an bro, but we are all RF Lord level pledges, should be a win for most guilds...

 

Yes. At least for PvP.

 

I wasn't trying to say "the world is ending" as my only point...if you ignored the rest of what I said then sure. I was trying to make the point that of course there will be issues now, it isn't a black and white issue....just calm down and try your best and give feed back, reading your posts makes it sound(not saying this is how you feel) that you are over whelmed/panicking.

This is the most complex game you have ever played?

I'm not sure I see that to be honest. I have played A LOT of rpg's...and this is about average when it comes to complexity. The decks are a new thing, sure...but as they get more info into the game and whatnot I'm sure that will become easier. Just remember, what you are seeing now is a bare bones get the systems up without any user help.

Out of curiousity, what difficulty are you looking for? At the moment this is around the same difficulty as say Skyrim for instance, at least that's how I see it.

 

No offense. I don't block many people, but there are some that I've learned to glaze over their comments because I either think they might be trolling, or their posts aren't relevant. I've seen your posts in many of the other threads, and I've learned to stay clear of your comments because they are somewhat inflammatory. So I don't know your motivation, but that's my reason. Sorry. I mention this in case that isn't your intention.

 

So... finally tried combat for the first time last night, and I've decided to share my thoughts here.

For some perspective, I am not a UO pvp veteran. However, I am no stranger to online competitive games, having played counterstrike and streetfighter for many years.

My mmo and rpg experience is almost purely PvE up to this point.

Many of you will scoff, but this is important because my view may very well be similar to a large portion of SotA's userbase: inexperienced in the realm of mmo pvp, but willing to try it out.

So, what did I think?

Well, it was... ok. I didn't spend enough time on it to really figure everything out, of course, but first impressions are very important.

It felt extremely hectic, and not very tactical. I was essentially running around chasing people, waiting for buttons to pop up in my deck, and clicking whatever was available. Also, I had a very hard time keeping track of who i was fighting, especially when there were more than 3 or 4 people in the area.

Was it fun? Sure, I had fun. But it also got old very fast. I know that the systems will continue to evolve... but if this is truly indicative of the way pvp will be in the final game, I most likely will only dabble in it rarely. I am still excited to see the larger scale stuff, like castle seiges, that seems quite fun.

For one on one combat, though, I'll probably stick to streetfighter.

 

I wrote what I wrote...take it for what you will. I don't control how people feel.

 

So far, I have not enjoyed the deck system at all. Maybe its just bad luck, but when I go into combat stance when not in combat, I seem to get few slugs, and a decent mix of cards. In combat with a monster/npc, 50-75% slugs, almost every time. Yes, I've used skills to decrease slug chance. No, I'm not referencing locked skills. Yes, I know I can lock them (but then, its not really deck combat is it?).

So far, in R8 and R9, the deck combat has not been fun for me at all. Combat is not only "not fun", it is down right bad. Frustrating draw luck, poor, non-needed cards/choices. (Seems that the monsters/NPCs get to auto-attack without draws or slugs!) Having said that, I don't PVP. I'm exploration/story driven, and primarily PVE. I don't care for PVP, but I understand those that use it. I think I understand the deck system checks and balances in PVP, with locked skills costing more focus and reagents. But, I'd like to pose a thought.

Why not have deck combat limited to PVP? Or, alternately, don't have locked skills penalized with increased focus cost/reagent use if not in a PVP situation.

I believe that many dont' want this to be "like every other MMO" out there, including combat. STOR, WildStar, GW2, all tried different combat mechanics to differentiate them. But I like having skills that I see, consistently, with various cooldowns (individual, class/spell, global) while I plan my attacks with monsters/bosses/NPCs.

I'd really like an option for non-penalized locked action bars in non-PVP. Anyone else?

 

I'd like to see a lot more responses here from Avatars and I'd like to see some of the Dev's chime in that have been having a week prior to "Buff up" on the system and are doing a killing in the Arena.
Given a lot of you Avatars are excellent PvPers from R8 and from my watching I know I'm having a terrible time getting a handle on the system. I haven't given up on it yet... I'm here just trying to soak it all in to get some help on the system.

Maybe a idea would be that and I know this sounds LAME but have a cpl different PvP arenas one for the PvP Pro, and one PvP NO PRO
I know I know it sounds lame but look at it like Major League and Minor League

 

That's an excellent suggestion, because we are now getting much more people playing the test now than before because of Combat in general, becoming a part of the game build. I do suggest to everyone to come to see the Bear Tavern Brawl, because that is where you will be able to see the best players here, "using the exact same number of skill points that you are" yet doing amazing feats of combat with them!
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/bear-tavern-brawl-r9.13315/
Here's the link above

Each new release is very different than the one before it, with new things to find out about and combat is one of them. In the last release we saw just "whatever they could throw together" and in this release, we are seeing what has been being worked on, yet not any sort of final on any of it.
Come see for yourself, because it's great fun in even the watching of them!
"The Bear Tavern Brawl"
~Time Lord~

 

Good idea.
Of course I think the PvP part of the game to me is just extra.
My main focus is the story and the RPG part. Now if the PvP fits into that then great but I certainly wont be PvPing I dont think just for the sake of PvPing.

I have plenty of games where I can go to battle against my friends. Usually in the realm of military tactical games not so much this kind of game.

 

Actually UO did not originally have hot bars. That came years later. Melee did not have skills either. Damage was calculate by the number of skill points in skill lines such as sword, tactics, anatomy, plus your weapon damage modifier. Casters had spells that you used by using the combination of words such as "cor por" or a spell icon could be dragged from up spell book and placed anywhere on the screen. But most of us made macros that would basically be "say 'cor por" to cast spells. Think of how simple a system that was and how many years of fun we had.

Only when UO tried to stay competitive with other games did tHey switch to skills such has a concussive blow. Because it was full loot most weapons were basic weapons with the basic modifiers not many ran around with a vanquish weapon in PvP. The good PvPers would have bags in their bank or house that we could grab that would restock us when we died. I never was in a position where I didn't have items to replace what was lost. Those were the glory days!!

 

UO was simple, and it allowed you to build any character you wanted. It was fun as could be. Even when they first released the concussion blow, and the crushing blow, and stunning blow it was activated randomly. It wasn't a complex system. It was straight forward in a sense. You knew what skills actually do before you got them.

In UO if you got mace skill, you knew that you would have a better chance to hit with a mace the higher it went. You knew if you had tactics and anatomy you would do more damage with your weapon. You also knew in UO you swung your weapon at a particular speed and your dex makes you able to hit sooner in your swing.

This system is a far cry from that simplicity. It might sound good to not know exact DPS of weapons, but the skills in this game all sound good but you really don't know what the in the heck they do until you use them. You don't know what they will do until you are already out at the battle field, then you figure out OH that skill does this... ok that wasn't what I envisioned, lets go back to the drawing board. Even locking skills in you realize OH the cool down timer is slower for this skill than for that skill... I don't know why... maybe it is because of some other skill in the tree. IT is a heart attack trying to figure out what optimizes what. Should I lock in a skill, or should I not. IT's just to complicated. I do not like where this is headed.

Sure there will be people who are fine with it, but they might argue for it because they invested heavily in this game and they just assume other people will be playing it. So they are working very hard to become good at this system and they are glad it is hard so they can be the best. But when they reach level 50 or level 100, who's going to be PvPing against them??? Maybe nobody. It might just be a ghost town out there.

Fight the same ol people over and over again. Not to mention they want to have miserable death penalties. All your items get busted up or whatever. So if it isn't frustraiting enough, they have death penalties in store for us in the future, they have food we need to eat (OH and we will have to figure out the right diet)... SO food isn't going to be just like eat a couple fish steaks and your satisfied, no we will have to eat the right food for the style we are playing.... NO this is already too complicated and when I think about the future complications that will be added to this system... something has got to give, and I think it will be the players that give or PASS on this game.

 

I don't like this whole system that was introduced with MMORPGs. I simply despise the WoW combat. The button mashing, combat becoming more of a science than fun, the unrealistic behaviour of waiting for cooldowns etc. It's annoying and simply not fun. Having said that, I prefer the deck system simply because it is different and more fun than the horrible WoW combat.
But I think I would have prefered a much simpler and faster combat system, maybe something like in Skyrim or even Ultima Underworld. Why do we need so many skills? Just because it is common and MMORPG players expect it? The old Ultimas worked without this and were so much fun. Why not concentrate on just a few skills? And why concentrate so much on combat skills? Somewhere down the road RPGs changed more and more to combat games with dozens of combat skills.
I miss those times when RPGs were so much more than just combat...
Still I hope that we will at least not get a WoW like combat system.

 

Totally Agree L_Darkmoon no one wants to see a dumbed down combat system like cra* WoW
I played wow at first then it just went down the drain because of all the little 8 yr olds became lvl 70 in 2 days

 

The wow combat system in my opinion was one of the better things they had. What I didn't like about WoW was the level grind, and the endless tiers of gear. Also the exponentially more powerful levels were ridiculous. Once you are super powered there were even more superpowered bosses that could kill you in one hit, but then a new release comes out and you gain two or three levels and all the old content is underpowered.

Those are the things in wow I don't like, that I think are good in SotA. No level grind, ever increasing tiers of gear, and exponentially more powerful levels. I guess we can also add the fact that somebody could be a crafter by trade without having to be a combatant.

As far as combat goes I would rather see a simpler system of skills. If R10 doesn't get better then I would have to honestly say that the deck system was fun in R8, but the extra complexity that was added since, and is still yet to be added nullifies all that fun, and it would be better to revert to a more traditional system.

 

With a WoW like combat system we would get to a game that on the one hand does not want to be like WoW but uses many WoW elements and thus becoming more like WoW, which is paradox...

 

For all those people who think this system is great, have you even thought about what it will be like when we have another added level of complexity added when we have to assign our bonus ability scores? Should I get INT for more focus, should I get STR... I didn't have to respec that much in WOW.


I got to level 80 and I repeced only 2 times in World of Warcraft. I was a pure newbie beginner and the skills made sense and they functioned like I would expect them to. The skills were obvious as to what they are and do. It made sense to me and I picked the right skills. In SotA we will have to respec at least 20 or 30 times with this system.

So people are hard on WoW, me included, but WoW did some things right. There skills and combat system was intuitive and easy to figure out. SotA's combat system is NOT intuitive, and easy to figure out. Just sayin.

I agree we shouldn't take a lot of stuff from WOW because it was a miserable grindfest, but there are some things that were well thought out. So choose the good things and stay away from the bad things WoW did.

 

Well I got no problem with a complicated game. If its all too simple to understand it will get boring pretty quick I think.
I have no problem with it being a complex system as long as it makes sense.