Please SotA incorporate more roles than the standard trinity

First let me say that you are most likely right in that this game has a classless system and will most likely not have specific roles. I see it sticking to the holy trinity just because most games don't bother with other roles.

Other than that though I have no idea where you get your ideas from. A classless system has nothing to do with what roles the game requires. Players do NOT make the roles, the developers do. This is not a hard concept to grasp.

The tank role will not be created because players choose to grab a shield, a taunt ability, and a defend ability. The tank role is created because the dev made the mob hard enough to kill everyone in the group if there is not a player who can withstand the mob's attacks. This is simple game design.

But again, you are most likely right. Which is a shame because this game will not be for me. And it will be passing on an opportunity to increase it's value.

 

If I sounded like I thought you said it couldn't be done I apologize because that was not my intent.

I understand that needing very specific abilities to fight specific mobs can hamstring grouping which is why those type of mobs should only be left to raiding and maaaaybe some bosses. Having 20+ players in the group has got to at least produce ONE player who can slow. I'm speaking of more rounded roles as opposed to very specific ones.

Hey, they are making the big bucks right? What's a lil more work on their plate lol. I really like the crafter idea. Taking a crafter down into a dungeon to craft on a magical crafting station while the rest of the group defends them from waves of mobs sounds fun to me. These are the roles I'd like to see created.

 

Exactly, what's the point of having a classless system if all the skill trees are very similar?? Of course they can, and will, add in more skills in time but what I worry about most is that THIS is how they have initially designed their skill tree. They chose the system to have very similar trees. Instead of having so many different schools of magic that have summon abilities, why not just have a summoning tree that contains all the summons? Right now if someone wants to be a pure summoner they really can't, or they are going to be very gimped, because they will have to spend SO many points in a bunch of other trees just to get summoning abilities. Not only are they going to be light on summon abilities they are going to have all these other abilities they don't need and/or want but have just because they had to spend points to climb the ladder and get the summons.

Again, what I worry about is that the skill trees already have a certain direction an example being a handful of trees each having summoning abilities. IMO the wiser direction would be to have just one tree with summons but for them to get to that they'd have to remove skills, move them around, and replace them. Which is harder than just having them do that from the beginning.

 

I like the idea of someone being ABLE to spec summoner, but I also know what kind of madness that can unleash, it should be expensive, and somewhat limited. Imagine the power of someone who PvPs by hiding behind cover and sending a crowd of summons in to fight for him. Replacing each one as it falls, exposing themselves to little or no risk while their full DPS potential is unleashed via their pets.

Such a build, if possible, should be very expensive, allowing the opposition to gain enough strength to fight such a team of summons. I would rather that summons where a low tier ability on each tree that had EXCESSIVE talent point costs. Only want one? Fine, you pay the price with your tree. Want them all? Fine as well, be a summoner, but it's gonna take some intense investment.

 

Crowd Controller - Deck:
5x confusion
2x dash
2x death touch
5x gust
2x healing ray
4x healing touch
5x root

I call this deck "PvP Utility" myself. It's in game and available now. Try it out it's great! This can also be modified and you can have things like pull, push, leg sweep, crushing blow, knockback, knockdown, body slam, disabling shot, or blinding shot... I just elect to go pure mage.

Pulling - since mobs already have paths and can be trained we do this already when fighting in groups. I would follow Bambino and he would gather spiders at the right moment when they were on their sync path that he could train a large group of 5-15 around a rock bend and between two trees where I would drop ring of fire and fireball and he would do the same and we would enjoy roasted spider legs for dinner. Thanks Bambino, without you I'd never have made level 50... I would have been 48 for life... now I'm 50 4 LyfE!!!

Support - I have this too! This is great to deal damage, crowd control, and heal when needed. It's the all around best support deck I've found for a mage! Deck:
5x root
5x healing ray
5x fire arrow
5x death ray
1 locked rez
3x ice fist
2x healing touch


I think everything you want is in game already... come check it out!

 

Blocks and Counters. Until they're in the game, combat is horrible.

 

Those weren't on the list

They're coming I would say interruption is a counter... it's in game already...
I would say healing is naturally a counter to all combat... it's in the game already...
I would say removal of debuffs is a counter... douse/purify are in game...

If you're suggesting counterstrikes then I do that already... when I see a long cast timer glyph over someone's head I strike them and then cast a short cast spell. Naturally a person is usually expecting a moment for their longer casting spells and when I interrupt them I almost always can get a fire arrow off... sometimes even a fiery decay. It's not a "skill" but it takes skill. I would like dodge to be more intune with melee abilities though... right now it's a worthless spell to me... I want to be able to dodge stuns with it and it doesn't do that. I'm so tired of being stunlocked... there's nothing I can do as a mage to live through a stunlock... I just sit there and die... I do smash buttons and scream in my soul while praying to the gods of death that the other guy suddenly trips on a pebble and dies so I can laugh at him while he lays dead in front of me ... but it hasn't happened yet.

 

I really wish that more roles were incorporated in this game. I know its all about the immortal all powerful avatar, but that will lead to a majority of "favorite build of the month". I really wish actually more RP in the game personally. Violation, if you had more time to do some RP scenarios in game I would do more of your events. I just don't like out of character nuances and other things that would take me out of character. I would love to have some RP wars with meaning, instead of just random melee for no reason.

 

We don't have enough people for the two RP wars I had planned. It was a war of the two ruined castles... the citizens that took them over were going to war for power over vengeance and it would be a 4 hour event where totall KDR was the deciding factor but the entire time you had to use slow walk and couldn't cast sprint or dash or any of that... it was going to be cool but... yeah.

Also, I don't do a lot of RP PVP right now because no one else is besides you. I will do anything I can to help you with that if you want because I think it's needed. I'll even let you take over vengeance in a roleplay for some event if you set it up. You can evict me out of my downtown village lot or something and behead me or something... would be cool.

 

Violation +1*10 for the cool response. I now its tough right now with limited people, but I am always looking for more meaning to the game. You know me and how I have posted before so you know I am old school and like my immersion and if you have people in your guild willing to play along and actually have RP battles that would be awesome. To do this though takes for thought and discussions about how it goes down. The battle winners are never planned, but the battles are made to be equal. I would love an inspect inventory skill or option to be able to make sure tournaments and rp can be done in a fair and equal action. (EX. how many potions, how many reagents, how many can trips, so and so forth)

 

I agree 100%... I think we need inventory inspection... I don't see why we can't have it. I want inspect avatar too to see armor and stats...

@Chris how hard would this be? I'm guessing it will be in release 22 with ... fishing... and all that other stuff ??

 

50! That explains how you can so easily kick my butt when I try to sneak up on you and set you on fire.

 

This might change when they make skills a lot harder to acquire. Skills trainers for certain stuff will be scattered around the world and be somewhat difficult to obtain/switch. Right now is the simple version. I think you will have to pick a route and stick with it in the future.

 

Please SotA do not incorporate roles.

 

Im all for the classless system but i would like to see if someone wanted to say only certify in a number of schools/trees the ability to put more than the normal points into, getting obviously some form of advantage for those skills in that tree, Maybe a form of multiplier that effects duration/cost/damage etc. Thus you could make a healing class for yourself or archer or.....,highly proficient in those fields but limited in everything else. That then is still a classless system but more specific in its role.

 

The only roles SotA should have is role-playing roles Meta-gaming roles shouldn't be treated as serious categories, or catered to as expectations.

 

its one thing to inspect inventory, its another to inspect stats, though i would be all for some sort of skill sets such as anatomy, evaluation(int) and so on.

 

I was hoping for more of a card-deck mechanic - as opposed to a system where abilities are shuffled around like cards but still use a action point system... It's frustrating.

 

I know these skills exist in game. That's not my point. I'm just hoping there becomes a NEED to use these skills in a huge variety of scenarios. Because too many times these skills exist in a game but the game doesn't really require you to use them.

I've played too many MMOs where there are 5-6 players in group where 1 is a tank, 1 is a healer, and the remaining 3-4 are dps and that is all they do...DPS. DPS is a dime a dozen. DPS is ONLY either physical or magical damage and ONLY either short-ranged or long-ranged combat. I'd prefer to have the group split into roles where 1 is a tank, 1 is a healer, 1 is a puller, 1 is a CC, 1 is a support, 1 is a utility, etc. Tank and healer are the primary roles and all these other roles can be considered the secondary roles. I don't see why people are so against these secondary roles or are saying no?? It can only add value and replay value to the game.

Of course you don't make it to where if you don't have one of these roles you can not function as a group or be successful. They just help to make things more interesting or be more fun or go smoother or go faster or what-not. Plus, just like how the tank and healer roles usually have multiple classes to fulfill those roles, so do the dps. In games that utilize roles like these there are usually 2-3 classes EACH that can perform roles such as pulling or CC. With SotA's classless system it would be easy to create these builds and nobody would have to be locked down into picking a specific class.

All I'm saying is that I prefer my combat to be tactical with some strategy and lots of options and in most MMOs combat is not like this. EQ 1 was as well as VG. EQ2 and WoW was not like this. If SotA utilizes these situations then that would be awesome!! And I hope they do. If not though, then I don't believe the combat will grab a hold of me and keep me reeled in.

 

ESPECIALLY with crowd control abilities, this creates a dangerous dichotomy between PvE and PvP mechanics.

If monsters are placed in group content that requires crowd control, then SERIOUS crowd control becomes needed. Crowd control that can immobilize, silence, stun, or totally incapacitate a target for long periods of time (like, 30-40 seconds). If the mobs don't need to be locked down that heavily, then the crowd control itself becomes unnecessary. So to create this trend, the devs must include BIG SCARY monsters, monsters that cannot be simply added onto a tank's shield, cannot be quickly assassinated by a dps, and do something bad enough that they cannot be allowed to run loose.

Meanwhile, in PvP, those same abilities can be used to instantly disable a character, which necessitates a host of new abilities. And here, the problem multiplies. Each ability that enters PvP must be balanced, and frequently things like the ability to temporarily put your opponent into time stasis, or turn her into a frog, or lock out his ability to cast spells, are profoundly imbalancing to combat. Typically, game designers put in things like diminishing returns on crowd control, or "CC escape" buttons. But then THESE have to be balanced allowing the CC to matter (if players are not affected by CC, then it's useless, which gimps CC builds, if they are affected too heavily, CC builds rule PvP) but not dominate, and then we go back to PvE, where crowd control escape buttons allow players to suddenly defeat MOB mechanics that they were not intended to.

Now, I've seen games balance this over and over, the "WoW way", and personally I'm as tired of that as many people say they are of the hotbar/cooldown combat model.

What I would LIKE to see is a world in which CC and related powers are balanced against this problem BEFORE introduction, so that the rebounding systems feedback loop does not spiral out of control.

To this end, I propose the following, intended to keep CC from becoming so powerful that it causes these problems:

Absolutely no hard stuns. No matter what. In the REAL world, if something stuns you so badly that you cannot move or act, you are dead anyways. The idea of having a group of people who can stun you for six seconds, beat on you, then you get up and resume function, and then they stun you again for another four seconds, and then you recover and escape, is ludicrous. If you were so superior that you could withstand 11 seconds of sustained beatdown, how could they stun you? If they were evenly matched and using deadly force, how could you survive being stunned twice and beaten savagely? How could this unlikely scenario be a commonplace event?

No total immobilizations. Something that could completely pin you in place, your own abilities notwithstanding, is inherantly broken. It contains an infinity, and infinities are to be avoided. In this case, the infinity is hidden, but becomes visible when you express the CC as a slow. It slows you by an infinite degree. The real problem here is with multiple application. When two or more players, with two or more sources of total immobilization, begin trading off, they can keep you stuck in place for hours. More than long enough for underpowered long range strikes to whittle you down. Now, a slow, even a 99% slow, is still effective at keeping someone out of a fight in the short term, but it is by its very nature incomplete, and can be overcome. Perhaps I will use a dash ability that speeds me back up? Perhaps I will use a dodge roll to get a few extra feet and break line of sight so the next volley of slows cannot hit me. At least I can react. With 100% stop, there is no reacting, only waiting to see the rest of the opponent's guaranteed win combo.

Most or all CC broken by damage. When people propose CC effects, most often the idea is "something that keeps you from focusing on the fight or acting normally for a few crucial seconds". This sounds great, and I'm all for it. But nothing refocuses your attention on the here and now like an arrow sticking out of your leg. The instinct for self preservation and the effects of pain are profound, and should break most or all CC that blocks actions. This prevents PvP gangs from having one person CC while the others beat you to death.

In all cases balance. It should not be possible for CC to so overpower a fight that those with it win and those without it lose. It should always be an option, a tactic, one that helps but no certain guarantees. When a level 10 character encounters a level 90 character, no CC should exist that allows the level 10 to overpower the level 90. Two 50s should find each other's CC powers roughly comparable, such that it isn't so much who has CC but who has the overall better build. When large PvP battles happen, it shouldn't be a matter of "Everyone pop your CC on one each of them and then we'll dogpile one at a time!", but instead each person using their own tactics, which may or may not include CC, combining with allies and competing with enemies, in a puzzle that is also a battle.

With all four of those effects being maintained, a CC based character cannot simply be CC, or they are helpless alone. But they do suddenly have room for dps, self heal, durability, mobility, and stealth, since the CC powers aren't enough to be called overwhelming, and thus giving a CC character other abilities isn't OP.