Is the pvp looking cookie cutter? ?

In my time playing and going to pvp tournaments I've noticed a few things. First it seems that at least 85% of the top pvp players have greatly similar decks. This may just be the flavor of the month about what skill are a bit out of balance right now. However I really don't want to see the pvp be roped off into having to have X skills to have a chance. Example blink is a amazing skill for mage to disengage. While heavy armor has body slam as a effective counter measure. Body slam may have a shorter range but the stun makes up for that. Now it seems to me that you MUST have one of these skills. The other gap closers don't seem to be of a reasonable range or in the case of sprint. Just don't get you into melee effectively. This is only a small example based on my experience. Please let me know you you feel the same in one aspect or another. I also ask if you feel differently to help me understand your views on the pvp as a whole right now.

 

~I'll Be Watching You Belgtor~!'
I will because I'm a fight gambler and looking forward to attending those fights on the sidelines.

Our PvP is just in it's infancy... some could say we're just coming out of our Alpha with all our current gaming mechanics. You are very right that with every new skill, then everyone will be searching for some sorts of balancing act and right now it's very cookie cutter. It's those players that will keep themselves current in battle stat and tech that will most probably become the greatest fighters as long as they have the finger dexterity and a good deck build plan.

I don't think we've seen everything yet by far, which keeps me among the faithful when it comes to PvP.
We truly haven't been actually fighting or having the ability to fight in our game for very many releases.
~Time Lord~

 

I feel you on that, I do realize that the pvp is still in its first steps of life. However I am all about pvp in my games. That's what got me into this great game. I saw a emerging level of player skill customization like no other in a long time. Which as I have been watching the matches and doing open world pvp I got a bit uneasy at just how many people seemed so similar.

Thanks for your input Time Lord

 

I think the currently level of PVP players is pretty low, but we will see that change come final wipe. They will still be balancing and adding skills AFTER final wipe until they get the balance they are looking for. PVP mostly happens at tournaments now, but form time to time you can find some PVP fun in Owls Head. I really believe that the PVP elements are getting there, just a few more months of tweeks and I believe it will be a great experience with diverse builds.

 

It's still very early in production so none of the skills have really been balanced that well.

Yes, with the current meta, it's currently very cookie-cutter.

Also note: you'll never find subterfuge characters winning in tournaments.

 

Doesn't any one find it odd that a subterfuge character would be lacking so heavily in a pvp fight. I do fully understand that subterfuge is the attack when unseen skill tree. Given that the subterfuge tree could get have a skill that allow a player to stealth and remove any targeting on him/her. This could be a skilled gained at level 100 of move silently. While this is only one possible solution for the large number of issues I personally have with the subterfuge skills. Possion weapon is another skill I think needs to be changed. I'll like to all thoughts on the subterfuge skill tree pro/cons people have.

 

So what's this cookie cutter skills u all mention? Any examples ?

 

~A Very Slippery Character~
Assassination Skills may be appropriate, yet how would we keep them away from becoming too powerful?
I know Chris and the gang have some special plans for this character or skill set, but nothing I've head of that would necessarily empower them except in the concepts of evading and being a slippery character.
~Time Lord~

 

The original post of being cookie cut was based around the time of the first post date. Which was a large number of people using air magic. While air is not the only skill tree seen in action it was used by every top tier pvper. For the reason of it was just to good not to use. High damage good cc with the best disengage in the game to boot. Air was monstrous pre nerf, while still a great choice today there is draw backs. Less over all damage higher fouce cost to really make you feel that your paying for that damage plus stun chance. So most everyone had similar air based builds.

 

~SOTA's Classlessness and Constant Forum Fires~
Yep... I totally agree "Everything must have an additive outside it's skill tree". That's one of the unique things I find throughout SOTA, is that one thing always leads to another skill set needed. Classlessness is one of the most posted about subjects within our forums and has been for years now. I don't think we will ever hear the end of it as new skills are added and then balanced against what things were before their advent.

I'm almost against balancing issues in this regard, because balancing takes so much of our developer's time and those balances once made are then bound to change as soon as another skill is again placed inside the whole of them. Within our PvP, many of our gamers invest great amounts of their playing time into learning their preferred skill sets, only to join the next wave of complainants that somehow they were robbed and in need to begin anew. People get set in their ways, I know I do. I still don't enjoy the newest changes within the targeting system.

In it's classlessness, SOTA makes it's own arguments for discussion all the time and is not likely to change because it will be "forever within development", meaning that it's evolution will never be anything complete. I do enjoy that about our game, it's an element that drives our forum's in being so active. We're always adding and balancing something and I think that will be having constant effects within our top tier of PvP competitors.

Within our PvE community, we see more numbers in groups uprising within our forums whenever they believe their chosen skill sets are effected by PvP balancing issues, which only feeds the fires within our forums higher. Then mixing the 2, PvP to PvE players becomes those ever lasting 20+ page discussions of who's being the most catered to. One always holding the other back, which each side taking turns taking the front, "I believe this is the biggest reason that our system has cookie cutter similarities because in every way, all our skill trees are in their early development". If we disregarded balancing issues, I believe that there may not be such a simple cookie cutter view to our PvP skills, yet would be greatly out of balance causing even more dissatisfaction with our PvP than there is. Our PvP is also suffering from purpose or more fun combat areas in challenges, yet with every added PvP area content added, there comes the forum's uproar that somehow it's taking away PvE content which has it's own just issues because of the confinement within the map.

For all the above issues, our development remains subject to the cookie cutter description, yet progress is being made, however slow it may seem to some. Another underlying issue that sews them all up together, is quality content. Quality doesn't always mean simplicity nor complexity yet both in unison striving towards the same goal. Much like Star Citizen, much of our content is so polished when it does come out for visual impact, our game can be seen by some as lacking in content.

A snake eating it's tail, our game will always be changing, yet slowly edging away from it's cookie cutter views from it's players, which for now may seem valid.
~Time Lord~

 

@Belgtor

A few thoughts...
1. The devs have said that Chain Lightning is "broken". Which means once it gets fixed we'll probably see less people using an Air build than we do right now. Currently you can spam chain lightning with very low focus and low cool down. It has too much range and it goes through walls. The only way to defend against it is to train in air magic, thus we have a lot more air magic builds. (and please people, don't nickle and dime on some other way that you defend against air magic)

2. Yes, stuns are a "problem" that must be overcome. There very few methods to do this, which is another reason why everyone's deck looks virtually the same.

3. The Subterfuge skill tree is underpowered because stealth is underpowered. This is done by design. The difference between having 1,000,000 in Move Silently (or Shadow Form) and having a 1 in those skills/spells is zero in pvp. The modifier really only counts towards PVE and the mobs ability to "detect" you. It looks and functions the same in PVP with the exception that if someone is trying to use a Reveal spell on you, having a higher skill level will help prevent the spell from working. However, as you have probably noticed, no one cares because if you know someone is there, you can see them anyway.

Unless of course stealth is bugged, which it currently is, because in some scenes you will become completely invisible while in others you will become semi-translucent. It's my belief that the spells and skills that allow you to stealth while standing still should be fully invisible and the ones allowing you to move and stay stealthed should make you semi-translucent. However the devs appear to have a very conservative approach to stealth, if you hear them talk about it you'll probably conclude (as I have) that stealthed players ruined their day in other games and now they're going to make anyone that wants to stealth jump through an enormous amount of hoops to have an advantage from it. I get the whole "not wanting to make stealth skills overpowered" concept, but this is ridiculous.

4. The fundamental "problem" with the combat system is that it's based almost entirely on DPS. The places where it's not based on DPS, like stuns and blink and skills like that, often have no counters or very ineffective counters. Take Blink for example. What's the counter to that? Well there is none, you can stun them before they blink, but that's not a counter it's an attack that prevents them from doing anything while they're stunned. Same thing with stuns, what's the counter? Well you can have a super high strength or use a shield but try telling a mage that he has to do that and watch him tell you that he's no longer a mage if that's the only counter.

So it's a combat system that's not balanced, bugged, has design gaps, and is abused by our small player base that likes to copy each other on whatever is "best" at the moment. That's what pvp is right now, and unfortunately that's what it will be for the foreseeable future. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn't understand this system very well. Maybe because they don't want to or maybe because they can't, but that's the truth of it.

I love this game, and the combat system really has great potential and is not entirely bad, it just needs a lot of love in the right places. The developers are very smart, but sometimes they listen to the wrong people (the ones that are abusing the game and enjoying it) and other times they seem to put all the emphasis on what allows for the must twitch gaming over what makes the system more balanced and fair.

As you've hinted to in some of your posts above, you don't find this level of flexibility and adaptation in other games. If the SOTA team cares too little about pvp, other games REALLY care too little about it. So I would say that no the combat system is far from cookie cutter, but PVP is still very raw dough being mixed in the bowl and it's unclear how that dough will end up on the baking sheet between now and launch of the game towards the end of the year. There's still time to make this the dynamic type of combat some people have asked for (including myself). We'll see what happens.

 

Not really. The whole point is to avoid confrontation and striking when the other isn't prepared and when you clearly have the advantage (which is never, with the current game's balance). You should always be at a disadvantage if you participate in any tournament style PvP or open PvP when the opponent is aware of your presence.

• Tripping someone gives the target a buff to resist further CC for a certain amount of time; a buff that you can on longer see to time your attacks; makes it awkward to use. It's actually not recommended to use this while playing in a group because it breaks more practical CCs (like stun).
• Engage Opponent currently has practically no purpose in this tree.
• Camouflage is pointless and more or less redundant with Silent Movement.
• Sap has no practical use.
• There's only a few scenes where Stealth actually works (most of them are in the Hidden Vale). There are tons of areas in Novia where Stealth doesn't seem to matter at all (West Perennial Trail, for example) regardless of the mob's level or your skill level.
• Distract finally works now but it doesn't matter because the mobs will spot you anyways. Never got to see what Distract does on a player.
• Pickpocket is PvP only.
• Sneak Attack will very often deal Zero damage.

What's wrong with Poison Weapon? It's the only working skill we have and it's stupid expensive to use.

What's really cool about Subterfuge, though, is that the tree works regardless of weapon.

 

One thing I'll point out here is that every player has that without being stealthed.

All you have to do is find someone that is already flagged pvp and you can walk right up to them and attack them without being flagged until after you've made your attack. This works better than the subterfuge skill tree as it doesn't matter if you're stealthed and you are invulnerable until you become flagged. So the subterfuge skill tree is extremely underpowered in our game as it's the second best option for doing what it's supposed to do, the first option requiring zero training and is available day one.

@Chris
@Berek

If there's going to be more combat balancing, this thread has some great feedback on where to start.

 

Yep. That's why I've completely given up on PvP.

 

I think its more that people have not tried other decks.

My build started out Blunt, Earth, heavy Armor and Life (aka, a group PvP build I had hoped focused on healing). This was by far a very rare build.

I got in this season at the beginning and this was my first experience with PvP (in Sota). I started out slow, I went like 1-3, then 2-2 and then 3-1 as the weeks went buy. I eventually dumped the earth in my deck and went mostly Blunt.

At this point Im 13-13 and ranked about 10th place. At one point I was bumped up to tier 1 but id not do so well (up against people that were just to high of level, but I did fine, lasted a good amount of time).

Last week I went 5-0 and won tier 2.

This last match was primarily blunt using my 2H hammer and TONS of stuns. I also pop 4 buffs before I start, one health, one int and two str all at lvl 70+ skill.

I dont consider myself a master at PvP and twich playing, maybe 20 years ago in UO and WoW, Im starting to get old and slow. To many happy years of drinking good Portland micro brews.

I think a lot of people went the chain lighting route at the beginning of the season because it was bugged with a 100% stun rate.

Try something different. When it comes down to it in league so far, the person with the highest level usually win even in their tiers (cough... Amera John, Pirate, Para).

you dont have to be the best, you probably never will unless you can get 55 GM skills. Just have fun. I feel like I could now go out in the open world with my build and do very well when it hopefully kicks up as people return to the game after persistence.

But in the virtue league competition, you can really cut your teeth in tier 2 and learn any build.


FYI: Mages are real easy for me, I have 90 now in the heavy armor skill "rush" (forgot its name) which I have 5 rotating in my deck and have one up almost at any time to make up ground on blink or archers that run. Not only does it stun, but it also hits harder then *any* of my blunt kills (even with 108 in blunt and 100 str with 60%+ str bonus). It will hit people for 80 and crits most the time at 150 hp.

FYI 2: I also think Im a good example of how hard work can pay off in the game. I work a normal job, have a family and cant play all that often, maybe 3 hour a day max if I try hard. I feel like I am pretty powerful as a char after 3 months.

 

On the comments about balance and such. I think they are actually amazingly balanced. With 3 months into chars now, people are starting to have epic battles, especially in tier one. Hard core 10 minute solo fights with pop corn damage poping up all over the place and people in the stands dying all over the place. I am very happy with the current state with th exception of a few bugs and such that are still out there that people can exploit (chain lightning and archers in general being over powered).

But again, it really comes down to the persons level.

 

~Stamina is a SOTA Missing Link~?'

Our Avatars never get tired... How much any could do without tiring to me would provide a more enhanced system. This also has links within the issue of how long any fighting PvP or PvE could be sustained. Currently I can kill things non-stop if it were not for Focus, yet focus power returns quite quickly.

The other link is a question of defensive skills and how long any battle may take. Currently our battles happen and end quite quickly in my view of things, yet stamina I do believe would be a needed statistical value within stretching out of any engagements.
~Time Lord~

 

Try not using spells.

 

The problem being they're doing the same things. That's why they're lasting so long.

It is very similar to UO:R PvP. buff/debuff type PvP, but it's usually damage/remove damage and heal in SotA. There's a bit more to it, but those long fights are people doing the same things to each other, for the most part.

 

It's not like we need a different resource... i've been suggesting changes to focus more or less since i backed (shameless plug) but nothing was said about it.

It doesn't matter if the discussion is about PVE or PVP, to me SotA combat is like a good idea that stop its development halfway, and was replaced with standard MMO content; It works, but it's the same thing with a different coat.

IMO We won't be able to have interesting PVP nor challenging PVE until Combat and Character Progression makes sense. I'm on the fence waiting to see how deep the combat balancing before persistence go to say my piece... but never waste an opportunity to make a shameless plug!