Meaningful combat

The chat tonight addressed none of the issues in this thread or the difficult questions in the main thread for the combat hangout tonight. I have to say that I am a little frustrated in this. Anyone else out there feel similar or different?

-Chris answered me directly in another thread.
Thanks Chris.

 

I've always preferred a written interface, despite having most of my questions answered this time around. (purely by a timing co-incidence, I happened to be online when the question thread was posted).

However, I've gone back over the "weekly dev questions" thing they had many months ago, and the questions submitted there were not always answered either, despite being repeatedly asked, and voted (by likes) on by the community for popularity/ranking.

I think in this case, Chris just ran out of time, and he's only one guy. There is a trend though, and it's a little worrisome, to me. I'm happy for any information, but it could definitely be more efficient, I think.

 

The trend you mention really makes me think that this is it. This is what we have. My guild is a tad nervous, granted there are not many of us, we are a small group. But them nervous is not a good thing for me at least.

-Chris responded to a post I made on another thread. At least I can relax

 

Talk is cheap. The zones are friggin tiny. The overland travel is embarrassingly stupid to me and makes the portals even less important. Not alot of room to move and the mobs are only there to give mundane stuff to sell or to craft with, give adventure xp and degrade your equipment. A built in grind system. So far, what I've seen is: SPO is story and content, Multiplayer is pure grind and this is a very serious problem for this game. The build system being bland and 2 dimensional only makes it worse. Ignoring this or playing it off is not going to make this glaring issue go away.

As I said, I do get alot from the community also and I am an Rper. However, unlike most any other game, LotRO, EQ, WoW, etc. There is no real open world content to RP about. Sure I can RP about being a Knight or a Lord or a Soldier with a house to decorate but unless it involves the SPO, there is not much meat to sink my teeth in.

 

We're talking with the same definition of the term.

For mobs to NOT be nondescript, they'd need to be distinctively different from one another from a visual, dialogue and behavior standpoint. To expect developers to write and draw varied behaviors, dialogues and visuals for each bandit in a game of this scale is unreasonable; anything else would STILL fit as nondescript the moment you use a character more than once in your game.

Then there's the fact that Portalarium is specifically avoiding releasing story driven elements so you're obviously not going to get a memorable encounter anytime soon. There isn't even something to drive you long-term so if you're looking for a reason to grind, there just isn't one yet.

 

I would say it is reasonable to expect one bandit to act differently than another, and to look differently. These are trivial features to program.

It's simply the difference between loading a bandit with the same set of skills, or not, on spawn. Right now, every single bandit has Rend as a skill, and that's all you get from bandit's; Rend. What about a bandit with a slightly different skill loadout or deck? Selecting skills to put on the bandits hotbar/deck, from a range or pool of appropriate skills, is an extremely easy task in any programming language.
Similarly, appearance can also be made procedural, and/or slightly randomized, for each mob type with tinting, texture overlay selection, armor styles, and similar, at spawn time.
I mean, there are already a bunch of different NPC appearances, it's not that big of a deal. Many games already do this, so it's not a precedent feature.

They just need to do it.

 

Not true, there could be rare spawns or elite spawns of each variety. I.E. a percentage chance for a different version of a mundane spawn to spawn. There is a HUGE issue with small zones and lack of space also. In alot of areas, you can't even get around creatures. But fear not, you can just run through them until you are far enough away they run back to their starting point. In a word...LAME!

 

That has nothing to do as to whenever or not a character is a nondescript dude you click on.

Which would, in turn, make them mundane in their own way. Just existing less often and changing a few stats doesn't magically make the encounter more interesting.

You can say that combat is boring or that none of the encounters are engaging, sure! I'm down with that. Making a blanket statement that "they're just dudes you click on" and all I can say is "DUH!"

 

Just in abstract, meaningful combat for me,

-Different enemies present a different set of challenges. This I think they're already thinking about and are on the right track.

-Skill choices and tactical choices within combat should matter. By that I don't just mean against certain enemies like large monsters that have tells, or enemies with weaknesses and strengths, or enemies with unique aspects like satyrs with fauns. I mean even fighting one-on-one with a single bandit who just has a sword and shield, tactical choices should matter. In any generic combat situation, it should matter what skill I use --- whether I choose to attack, or defend, or dodge should make a difference -- whether I move in from behind or from in front should make a difference. If I attack when the other person is attacking, I should be more vulnerable, and if I attack when the other person is defending with a raised shield, he should be more safe. Etc. If someone is defending, and I come in from behind, he should be more vulnerable.

-Choices between weapons and skill-sets should matter. It should make a difference whether I use a sword or an axe, and whether I wear plate or leather. Wearing leather should require me to use more active moves like dodging, while plate should allow me to be more passive, though with a damage cost to my armor if I don't avoid hits. Weapon choices restrict what types of attacks I can do; the skill trees aren't just duplicates of each other. Weapon choices within a single tree also matter.

-Preparation should matter. Meaning it takes out the fun from combat if I always have a "free heal" with no cost, as a backup to save me, or can never run out of arrows. I know there are some issues with arrow/reg requirements in the game, but I think as a general point they should matter. How they should be handled as to deal with the issues is another discussion.

-Choices that are powerful have costs to using them. Both in terms of using skills, and in terms of gear having durability costs.

-Position should matter. Hopefully this will be the case when cover comes in; it will determine how well you block and how well you stealth, and how obstructed you are with ranged attacks. Being behind an enemy vs in front of them. Being on higher terrain vs. being on lower terrain. Etc.

-Dying and being injured should matter. Rather than just a temporary obstacle to you rez'ing, it should make a difference if you die in the game, because, otherwise, whether you lose a battle is of relatively little significance besides being annoying.

-It should feel as if your choices matter and you're engaged with your choices. Its one thing for all of the above to be present in the game, but if its too abstract, it won't feel like your character is engaged with the choices. If skills are too passive/innate, rather than active, it won't feel as if your character is engaged with in choices.

-Your enemies should react intelligently to you and other attackers, reacting tactically the same way you can attack, and not be able to be manipulated by simplistic AI.

-Your enemies should have a purpose in the game, and exist in the game with purpose, and attack you with purpose, and what they have on their bodies has purpose, and they're not just dummies standing around in scenes waiting to be farmed.

-PvP has a purpose in the game, is tied with role-playing, and isn't just "gamey" scenarios like capture the flag and duel tournaments.

 

And with all of that, they'll still be nondescript forgettable dudes to click on... I mean that's the entire reason why I commented in the first place; because expecting the combat and the characters to magically have meaning and be engaging by changing some numbers and a few skills around does NOTHING to change that fact... they'll just be procedurally generated instead.

As a matter of fact, as much of a fanatic I might be of procedural generated content, one of the main issues of using procedurally generated systems is that it's super easy to mess up and make it look even more generic.

If you just break mobs down to just "nondescript forgettable mobs to click on" (like Zassik Dreadmort initially stated) as an argument to how un-engaging the combat is, then you can argue that every-single-mob-in-any-game-that-is-used-more-than-once fits that description.

It's a poor statement to make and it leads nowhere!

 

But if they have different skills, how would combat be the same?

 

I just stopped trying because he doesn't understand.

 

Ahem not to rain on anyone's parade but if these combat graphics are basically it for episode one, there might not be any episode two just saying.

 

I think they'll get better, I really do. Leaving the PvE portion of the game in a state even close to what it is now just won't cut it and I'm sure portalarium knows that. Well, at least I really hope they know that.

I still have faith at this point.

 

Because, using Zassik Dreadmort's logic (see the quote bellow), they're still just dudes to kill by pushing buttons.

So explain to me how does a mob with a different set of skills suddenly make it more meaningful to you? Because, according to Zassik Dreadmort, that's the problem. They don't mean anything. I mean, I understand how it can shake things up in terms of gameplay but Zassik Dreadmort basically put Bandits, Elves, Wolves, Spiders, Bears, Skeletons, Slime, Golems and Ghosts in the same category and they all have different graphics, and skills...

To make them interesting and different from one mob to the next (and solve Zassik Dreadmort's problem), the mobs need to be more fleshed out in terms of writing; giving them more context... which is (again my point) unreasonable to expect this out of a developer making a game of this size.

If you still don't understand, I suggest you read (carefully) from the top. I ran out of ways to explain how stupid this all is.

I quote:

 

Interesting commentary. Condescending and sarcastic, but interesting.