How did you make your deck system fun?

I've seen lots of posts hating on the deck system and also posts that love the deck system. So I'd like to ask all of those who had fun with the deck system to post what you did to make it fun. (With all the skills to added and balancing, its not like you're going to be giving away any trade secrets here).

Here is what I did:

1. Invested enough points in light armor (my starter gear) to eliminate any slugs. Slugs aren't fun.
2. I took my initial 20 cards and decided to make a "jack of all trades" type deck. I dedicated 5 cards to heals, 5 cards to ranged attacks, 5 cards to melee attacks, and 5 utility/crowd control type cards.
3. Initially, I selected just 4 skills with 5 copies of each skill to fill my criteria above
4. I increased the hand size to 8
5. I then would press "Z" and watch the cards fill up the quickslot bars to get an idea of how it would play out.

I found that most of the time, with only 4 skills and 8 slots, I didn't have to wait long at all to get either my self-heal, ranged attack, melee attack, or root. This gave me options in PvP at any range. However, I recognized that my options were very limited by stacking so many copies of the skills (that's the tradeoff to reduce randomness). This is by no means some uber-pvp deck, I killed a bunch and died a bunch, but I never felt like I was waiting around for a skill to be dealt in order to do something, and I barely felt the sting of randomness.

In keeping with the 5 heal / 5 ranged / 5 melee /5 utility I found myself adding in different ranged attacks but still sticking to a total of only 5 ranged skills (2 fireballs, 3 fire arrows). Same thing for the melee and utility. I still had the same ability to do something at all ranges/situations without waiting on a card, even though I might not have a specific card open at that time.

My only complaint is that the addition of the skill cooldown (I know there was one in R8 but you just couldn't see it) felt like it slowed down combat. I confess that may be entirely psychological, but it just felt slower.

So, if anyone else enjoyed combat, what did you do with the deck? And if you didn't enjoy the deck system, I encourage you to try to copy my setup or someone else's. There are so many possibilities out there, there might be one that changes your mind.

 

Hi Marthos.. i hate this deck-system (are we playing a Pokemon card game?), but if you want the Heal Card... just FIX IT on the first SLOT.

(i hope that in future we can play using brain and not using RANDOM skills... OMG)

 

Well, I think the point of the deck system is that you need to think about not only what glyph skills you take, but how you are going to use what is available to, in a sence, create your own luck. Marthos here achieved this by keeping his deck slim and only having a small hand. I'll be posting more details later, but I had a fairly successful all heavy melee character.

 

This comment is typical of what we've heard on our forums even before the card system came out for hands on use. Most of these feelings come from UO where we became very use to feeling empowered and chatting while stomping a monsters head in not having to worry with cards or too many glyphs.
Here with the card system, we have no time to type chat and if your character is standing still, then it's going to take allot of damage as a result. The SotA combat system is only just beginning and we will see an abundance of changes from here to 5 years down the time road. Complaining won't change the glyph system here, but complaining can have it's influence if it's presented with an idea everyone wants to hear and see implemented.

My fun cards were 5 Discharge (electric shock with max enhancement), 5 Puncture (pole arms, with max defense protection), 5 healing touch (with max healing effects) and 5 earth fists (with max earth innate buffs) the rest was entered into focus.
I used a 5 card all draw with no fixed cards. This made me extremely lucky at times, yet also was a very safe character to play most anywhere for survivability, but also was fun because I had no worries of Reg Hunting because it was/is a totally reg-less deck build.

It wasn't going to win any PvP but it was my most fun build of card skills because I used no armor which meant no slugs, the cards popped up and down like popcorn for variety, no monster could take me alone and I did survive a respectable amount of time on the PvP Brave Coast unless I was faced with one of our PvP great fighters (of which the field of great fighters is growing yet Espada Rules ! and I'm a very Big Fan of watching his fights!

For me it's not about winning or loosing, it's looking good and having fun in doing so. Our combat system will evolve and I'll be adapting along with it. My R8 fun deck build did take on more enhancements in R9 which only deepened my fun with it.
I am looking forward to what enhancement I can add to my fun deck next time, or maybe I'll just totally change it all back up again because some other skills become more fun
Using a brain and then transferring that brain plan into physical reality most times has unexpected consequences which the plan then had to adapt and consider just as a poker game is, where the brain can make all the right choices, but still loose because luck wasn't in the cards.

What makes Roulette a game is that it has allot of random chance...
~Time Lord~

 

Okay, so I have the time to post now, and I have to lead this by saying that I only had about 4 hours to play for R9, and of that time little of it was doing PVP, and my pvp time was spent in the team arena getting 5v1 regularly.

That leaves pve. I had a character with a great ax ( two handed, really the only moderate way to do damage) and full plate armor.

I am having a hard time remembering exactly all my spells, but I had 4 skills in bludgeoning attacks ( and I think the damage modifiers maxed), 20 in focus to give me the highest amount of focus, most cards and to keep the cards cycling at all times.

I preferred to use the death spells to steal my health, the death spells were maxed out.

I remember having the earth spell passive skills maxed out as well ( added damage resistance and avoidance)

I had 20 glyphs and 8 in hand. I'd say 6 melee, 5 for death spells, 5 or 6 passive skills (strength, reflect damage, that sort of thing) and some other ones I cannot remember.

I did have slugs ( because the skill isn't available to block it out ) but it was rarely more than half my deck, and I always seemed to have options to make an attack.

 

All decks should provide fun and be competitive.

But what is the direction we are heading


1. Balanced System? - no matter what deck you create they are all equal competitive.
The decision during battle matter most.

2. Rock Paper Sissor System?
The decision prior battle matter more then during battle.

3. Domination Decks? - a handful decks will dominate combat over the mass of deck.

I would prefer option 1.

I feel we are heading option 2 having to watch out not ending 3.


But at the end if fun is the result bring on whatever.

 

How did I make the deck system fun? I "let go".

Only takes 5-10 minutes to unlearn everything you knew about combat and immerse yourself in the new system. While I still have reservations about its current implementation, I thoroughly enjoyed the chaos and learned how to control it. I'm hoping for more enhancements, especially the ability to equip multiple decks simultaneously + split hot bar for each equipped deck, for example.

 

I switched to a locked deck.

 

Good comment about using the flexibility of the deck system (along with choices for using focus and armor types) to 'create your own luck.'

 

FIRE!

Death aaand...FIRE!

 

The only thing that would make this Deck system fun to me would be to receive a card in the mail with a refund check for my pledge. Yes, I hate it that much.