(poll) Combat Deck System [UNOFFICIAL]

Either way it seems like a reasonable next step toward perfect.

Where do you stand on having an auto stack shortcut key?

 

A better step towards perfect would be to gut the entire deck system and start over.

 

I want to see how this card system works when it's all working properly!!

I think calls for doing away with it are entirely premature.

(btw - I have yet to hear any of those who advocate trashing the card system offer anything better as a replacement.)


I suggested a position dependent system instead of the deck just a second ago. Check my thread.

>I've offered several suggestions as well, in this thread even.
(sorry about the cut and paste but my "quote" button doesn't seem to be working)

 

Please don't take this as an attack because it is only a request for clarification...

I read this and thought "he is entitled to his opinion and he is not the only one that has said this'

I read this and said... "so what is his opinion again?"

 

Something more visceral, like the way it's done in the Gothic games (I hear ESO uses something similar, but haven't played it). If not that, then something closer to what UO has (fully customizable actions, spells and skills each with their own discrete timers - hotbars available but not required), something more like what Baldur's gate had or Pillars of Eternity is supposed to have (real time/tactical hybrid), something closer to what the original Ultima III-V games had (tactical turn based, or at least a time-limited turn based system since it is multiplayer - this is similar to mmo strategy games - ), take your pick. Almost anything would be better than the current random deck system and static hotbar/cooldown system we have now IMHO.

 

Despite your effort to confuse the issue, the result of you cris-crossing those unrelated concepts is the same. A man in a third world country, starving to death, getting nothing but junk mail (because all he did was wait for someone else to improve matters) would starve to death with a gut full of soggy paper. No nutritional value, no caloric value, not to a human being.

Now, if he was really smart, and ordered a neo-appendix from BioTechnica, he might be able to live on all that paper, but we aren't talking about people who are smart and try to improve the situation, are we? No, we are talking about people who not only don't do anything positive, but actually criticize others for trying to do something positive.

 

Back to this...

What if people didn't have to worry about combos, and didn't have to worry about stacking too?

1. they could remove the combining of combos, and 2. they could add an auto stack shortcut key.

Then we are done with both problems, and the deck system just facilitates combat without getting in our way?


***Welcome to the community too ***

 

sorry, i said email. no paper either.

 

Great job obscuring the topic!

 

Get assemulated on our yellow Borg submarine.

 

Ok, I'll take another stab at this.

Apparently, the developers have recognized that there is no “one approach fits all” combat UI interaction, and offer three, on-the-fly switchable approaches. I find this commendable, very novel and, for the most part, engaging. However, I think we can agree that none of the three offerings adequately address the needs of gameplay situations requiring intense, muscle memory interaction.
In an effort to refine, I suggested some changes in my earlier post that tried to tweak the status quo. Now, I’ll suggest a few further additions building thereon. So, maybe we try:

a) Deck Approach 1: Fully random populating with stacking that requires intensive mini-game attention. This deck addresses situations such as solo pve grinding and possibly ranged stationary dps or healing group pve and pvp situations. Stacking could be for burst, e.g., boosted damage for each card added to a stack with some extra bonus for a 5 stack. In sum, refine by dropping combo’g, remove focus advantages, and adjust stacking to motivate for skill and RNG draw governed burst.

b) Deck Approach 2: Fully fixed, muscle memory tuned deck but with enhancements to support combo’g and possibly additions that invoke RNG. What could those be? As is, a fixed deck without more services muscle memory adequately, but provides little fun in terms of combo’g burst and RNG (luck). Maybe enhancements for burst fun and without RNG could come from three card fixed positions and wherein activating the first two (two damage cycles) enables activation of the third (a combo card). Here, the deck could involve all 3 (two child cards and the combo) placed in a fixed location. Alternatively, the combo could drop in, over the first position and remain till activated. This could be expanded to include party card plays and events too (e.g., receive a heal that enables “3”). Anyway, stepping beyond such combo’g, developers might provide further expected enhancements to this deck approach such as RNG procs and player-mob positioning (side or back) to enable activation of yet other fixed deck cards or card overlays.

c) Split Deck Approach 3: This hybrid, as I described in my previous reply, would use combo’g by dragging or pressing the card position of the random deck then pressing the muscle memorized partner within the fixed deck.

The only thing then needed would be to balance the potential dps and burst output of each deck to make them amenable to everyone, and with only the particular situation and player role driving deck selection and switching.

 

Ttennebj,

the only thing i see wrong with your suggestion just then was the lack of risk for reward. meaning, as there are three systems in place, figure out which one is the most difficult to play, and give a touch more reward in damage output, healing, etc. not much but a boost nonetheless. then the middle only gives the boost at half-that of the first. then the easiest to play doesn't give the boost at all.

that way there'd be people who are more hardcore playing the more difficult approach to get the more drastic reward, and those like myself who don't and can't play the more active decks, are still happy. (i have a medical issue in my mouse hand, fine motor control is being lost over time)

 

I was imagining a combat UI that adapts to service varying levels of muscle memory and UI eye attention, all while intentionally avoiding risk-reward deck factors.

Fully random Deck 1 offers mini-game fun to enhance normally boring combat situations such as repetitive, solo pve where simplistic mob AI and lack of required player movement often occurs. Deck 1 requires eyes on the UI, which is very annoying in other situations. Fixed deck 2 allows for muscle memory and eyes off the UI. This supports situations where full attention on a boss or a pvp opponent is needed. As is, at least for me, Deck 2 is quite boring for solo pve. Hybrid deck 3 delivers a middle ground. All players should be able to freely choose there between and on the fly to suit their current role, situation and personal preferences -- all without being punished for their selection. Such punishment would occur if one deck greatly outperforms another.


That is, I would hope that all deck approaches when used optimally yield very similar dps and burst characteristics. If so, deck switching and selections operate to enhance game play, interest and engagement without penalty. Doing otherwise, that is, providing deck risk-rewards advantages will cause serious complaints. For example, favoring deck 1 will cause pvp'rs to cry foul. With a deck 2 favor, pve'rs will cry foul. And many of us are both pvp'rs and pve'rs so we will cry foul with any favoring deck use rewards.

I really like the framework set out by the devs in their three deck approach. Now, if devs can deliver a few enhancements thereto, especially those to the current, antiquated fixed deck, I will be quite satisfied.

 

Well let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. The deck system is good in its simplest form. When they first showed us the deck system in R8 there really wasn't much negative feedback. The majority of the player feedback from those who actually used it was positive.

So what is wrong at the moment might simply be that it is visible to us.

What do i mean by visible? I'll answer that with another question. Magicians... Why do people like magicians when we all know that they aren't really doing magic? They create the illusion they really doing magic though.

The combat system doesn't need to be fun, but if we are bothered with the mechanism rather than the fight then it is nothing but a mechanical device.

However the best things in a fantasy game is the art of creating the feeling the world is alive and that our avatar is really us there. Maybe that's what people are talking about when they say words like immersion. They don't care that thier mind is imagining something or thay it is being tricked to believe it is real.

Same with the dual scale map. People were fully immersed in old-school Ultima games when there were far less graphics and things moved MUCH slower paced. Where is that sweetspot between reality and illusion that allows people to be happy with the illusion rather than what is really happening?

Then again my grandfather hates magicians and always tells us "they aren't really doing magic. It is a fake trick."... Honestly he is a grumpy old man, and obviously he thinks he is so smart that he needs to warn us about those magician charlatans... There's always a critic in the group. LoL

 

There is nothing wrong with critical analyses, as long as (like you said) you are not "throwing out the baby with the bathwater", right?

 

Ok, I totally support your right to hold this view, EXCEPT that opening comment about a lack of negative feedback.

There are people who were early pledge supporters who left these forums over that combat system, and to this day, any informal poll gets around 40% downvotes on that system. There was negative feedback from day one, and there still is today.

Just sayin.

 

not unless your people have strange rules regarding babies.

 

Don't revise history. After R8 people weren't complaining so bad, just like 2 people that I can remember that had a big issue with it otherwise naysayers were rather silent because there really wasn't anything to complain about. Neither of the naysayers I mentioned brought up any problems from the R8 combat system but rather used old arguments that I myself mostly brought to the community months earlier.

R9 we saw some setbacks. Things also have evolved since then. I was talking about after seeing the basic combat system in R8 when they first revealed it. You can make all kinds of claims to the contrary but I remember that time specifically because I was such a big opponent of the deck system before R8, and I said things like mark my words this is going to fail miserably etc etc. So you can disagree but you would be revising history.

 

what's this talk about polls?

Tradition skill tree vs Deck system
* 1. I like the concept of the deck system and want to see it threw. 134 vote(s) 57.3%
2. I like traditional skill trees /w skill point and static buttons 100 vote(s) 42.7%


This is the poll in this same thread (today). I'm just trying to keep it real. I have said in this thread that even I am not fully in support of its current state due to stacking and combos.

At some point when this combat system is meeting its full potential it seems reasonable there will be even greater support. Although now that I posted this I'm sure people will say that NONE of the polls really count etc etc. Be that as it may this current state of the poll is what happens with every poll regarding combat every time they create a new thread like this. I really am just trying to keep it honest here. I'm not skewing the numbers or arguing one way or another.

 

tells me having both systems is a very smart move by Dev...