Questions about static deck.

So, if I understood well, when you use a static deck..

You don't need Focus points, it would be a total waste.
You can't use combos.
There is no point expending more than 1 point in a single skill except on innate skills.

Is all that right?

 

As of right now, yes. Who knows what it will end up being?

I think that multiple copies of skills should be able to be dragged on top of each other in a fixed slot to reduce cool down (not enough to unbalance them, but enough to make multiple copies worthwhile in a locked deck).

 

Honestly I have no idea. I think there are some skills in focus that will lower the cost of your cards, but I'm not sure. This system is so complex I don't know if it is worth it to expend points or not in those focus skills or not. Is a 5% decrease in Focus worth the points you spent to get it? what about 25% decrease in focus cost... I have no idea if it is worth the skill points to buy those skills or not or if you should use the skill points on offensive skills???

So are you as confused as I am? Because, I don't know if adding those skills help, or at what point we reach diminishing returns, or what skills do what? I HAVE NO CLUE! If somebody has this system all figured out please enlighten us, because I'm totally at a loss. I really do not have the answers to this question because the system has so many variables and is so complex.

 

Honestly I have no idea if it is better to lock the cards or use a deck either? I'm completely at a loss. I think we need to wait until the next release to see if they make it more intuitive.

 

The way skill system works looks similar to Age of Conan tree system, hope we don't reach that level of "absurd" complexity in SotA.
Because, the way things are going, next step is DPS calculator..... exactly 100% what RG said SotA wouldn't be.

 

That would be logical if you use 2 or more points in a single skill you should get a focus bonus reducing that skill cool down.
That is exactly what I want to know .

 

If you're a mage and you want to throw a lot of fireballs, I'm sure a decrease in focus cost helps a lot. I don't find it that complicated. These things matter more with the higher level skills you want to use, and matter less with lower level skills.

 

Don't you think at this point we kind of need some kind of calculator? If we had unlimited skill points then we know we can just get everything, but with litmited skill points, we need to be able to calculate if spending two points on another increase in something that helps your glyphs cost 5% less.

I don't even know how much focus the cards cost anyway? if we were told that the cards cost 10points of focus + 50% because they are all locked, then -20% for buying the focus skill (and would the skill points used to get that focus skill be better spent elsewhere?)

If the card costs 10 points and you reduce the cost from 50% to 30% you save 2 focus points per card by reducing it by 20%. That doesn't sound like it is worth it? or is it? I don't know? It seems to me to spend like 10 points in focus just to reduce the cost of your card by 2points doesn't sound like a good use of skill points. Then again maybe it is.


***
Sorry, but I'm still confused Redfish.

 

I understand the frustration. The system that is in development (that is to say literally "unfinished") is not likely to be understood quickly. We have numerous people that spend 20, 30, 40, or even more hours a week looking into the math you're scratching the surface of. I trust that these folks are working towards a balanced solution, but it must be worked toward and iterated on.

(Disclaimer: I am not one of those people. I choose the life of a decorator over one of war.)

 

Ok, so no calculators pls, but , what about my question?
I mean, someone saying he has no idea how it works is not helping at all.
I don't want to uncover the math behind, just want to know if what I suppose is right or not.

 

I spent some time testing static decks only against the elves so I would have a constant to compare things too. First, you do need some points in Focus… if you want to switch decks then there’s one that reduces the focus penalty for switching for example.

5% of anything is pretty small… as an example is the 2% damage bonus for blade worth it? By itself no, but the cumulative effect makes it useful in the long run. So adding points to reduce the focus penalty for locked glyphs, points towards increasing your total focus, and points towards reducing overall focus costs for me allowed me to fight longer, and against more opponents at once.

Mind you this was just against elves but it gave me a stable constant to compare my deck changes to each time. Also without any real numbers I could only go by ‘feel’… and it felt like the more I boosted things that help focus, the longer and more often I could fight.

 

... oh i found the locked deck more fun as I was able to watch the combat and area around me more since I used 'fixed' slots my fingers were ready to hit without having to stare constantly at the combat bar to see what was there (in an unlocked deck). Also as I really suck at console games that rely on 'combos' to play, I found trying to remember what made up a combo and having to watch the bar for them a real pain. But that's just me... never could play those kind of games...

 

With no points in focus it decreases really fast , I had to rely on focus potions, going to test your findings right now .

 

So I went and tested again and took notes this time... here are my observations...

Testing parameters:
-All combats were tested against elves in the Hidden Vale: forest scene. This provided a constant enemy to compare to.

Focus skills used:
-Lvl 5 Mindfulness (-25% locked Glyph focus cost)
-Lvl 5 Heightened Awareness (+25% focus, +0.5% focus regen)
-Lvl 5 Quick Swapping (-100% Deck Swapping focus Cost)
-Lvl 5 Inner Calm (-10% all Glyph focus Cost)

Earth skills used: (once I discovered these I took a lot less damage overall it seemed.)
-Lvl 5 Attunement with Earth (+10 Strength, +5 Damage Resistance)
-Lvl 5 Sympathy of Stone (+5 Damage Resistance, +5 Damage Avoidance)

Tactics:
-Lvl 5 Healthy (+20 Health, +0.5% health regen)

Armor:
- Augmented Plate

Skills:
-I took all the primary combat skill for each weapon type (1 level) I was able to take 1 level in combat skill for ranged (6pts), blade (12pts), pole (4pts), shield (2 pts), and tactics (12 pts) and have 32pts left over for testing the innate skills as needed.
-Before each test I swapped out the innate abilities to use the ones for the specific deck.

Decks tested:
Bow Deck – (bows are still a work in progress in SotA but I wanted to try them anyways so I’d have a comparison for next time). At this time fairly useless. Could rarely do damage… enemy would return to spawn point if I kept moving out of his range causing them to re-heal while I was still shooting at them. The only good use was to lure a single enemy away from a group for a one on one fight. (This was where the reduced penalty for deck switching helped a lot.) One other flaw I found was that the skill glyphs could not be used at the same longer ranges as the basic attack. I had to move in closer to use them. Don’t know if this is by design, an oversight, or still a work in progress.

Sword and Shield – with the innate skills for both maxed I could fight with taking only a little damage (almost none) but the one handed swords didn’t do enough damage. This caused combat with some enemies to drag on and drain focus. Surprisingly I found this combo only slightly better than a bow… at least I could do some damage but the focus loss was really bad; had to rest after every combat. Found that the whirling blades attack against groups was mostly worthless… it drained your focus for very little in return. With this combo though if I ran low on focus I could just stand there and absorb hits and use only the default attack (ie not clicking on a glyph) and eventually kill a group (but this was long and not very fun.)

Two Handed Sword – very quick combats due to the amount of damage the two handed swords do. However, you will still drain focus but not as badly as Swd/Shld since the combats are quicker. Damage taken wasn’t too bad as the combats where quick and the enemy didn’t have time to do a lot. If I went from one-on-one to another one-on-one I had no problem though. But after a large group attack I generally had to back off to heal and regain focus. Group combats were sometimes a problem as I would take hits and had to watch focus.

Polearm and Shield – Took almost no damage (due to the innate pole skill that reduces it) but due to the low damage ability of the one handed weapons combat dragged. But this combo worked a bit better (than sword and shield) as I rarely took any damage and if I just used the puncture skill I used up no focus for some reason (flaw?) and seemed to kill them quicker than with a sword.

Two Handed Polearm – Using just the puncture skill combats were fairly quick. Generally took no damage due to all the resistance bonus like Pole/shield. Since the 2hnd wpns do more damage combat was generally over quickly and again no focus was lost as long as I just used the puncture skill.

Two Swords – about the same as sword and shield but looks cool. Saw no point though in using the offhand attack. It does not seem to do any extra damage, or give you a free swing… so I just stuck with using the standard sword glyphs.


I have not tested Blunt yet. I also want to try all of these against other monsters (kobolds, skeletons) and see what the differences are.

I did notice it seemed to take longer to kill the elven archers than the elven fighters.

 

I wonder after they release leveling up, and we have to choose which ability scores to apply ability scores to, will be be stuck between a rock and a hard place between choosing DEX and STR, or rasing INT?

Right now everybody starts with the same ability scores, mages and warriors have the same INT. See where I'm going with this? So with a locked deck a person will need more focus, and possibly have to spend more points in INT, taking away from STR and DEX. So really a person with a locked deck is going to end up with a major disadvantage no matter what way you look at it because other warriors will spend more points on STR and DEX making them more powerful fighters while the locked deck people will need more focus.

 

Locked decks have two big disadvantages. 1) they cost more focus 2) you can't do combos. So yes to offset this you'll need more focus ... spend more skill points on reducing focus costs or adding more focus through skills or stats. The advantages I see though so far is that I don't have to stare at the combat bar playing wack-a-glyph and i can have skills in more weapon types so i'm a little more flexible to the situation (since I only need 1 skill point because I don't need the extra glyphs). I think this last point is a good trade off. I would hate for them to add a bonus for spending more points on a skill to get both extra glyphs and some kind of attack bonus at the same time.

I'm happy using the locked decks so far though. I feel I can watch the combat better and focus on my enemies and surroundings better than with the wack-a-glyph system. I died way too often with that mode. I rarely die with the locked deck as I'm more aware.

I think you'll be able to focus on STR and DEX in the long run if you use skill points to gain the focus points you need somehow. there are already innate skills that help with this.

 

So here are some observations vs. Kobolds…
Kobolds: (Ferig’s Battle camp)
(I generally took more damage if the mage was still active. I tried to kill it first.)

2hd Polearm: about the same as before but I took more damage during group combat forcing me to use healing potions (even after the mage was dead.)

Pole/shield: still took no damage (except from kobold mage) but combat took forever only doing 1-3 pnts of damage. The puncture skill upped this slightly (and it still used no focus).

2nd Sword: about the same as before but took more damage. Seemed to use a bit more focus than before perhaps because the enemies take just a bit longer to kill?

Sword/shield: ran out of focus faster as it took longer to kill the kobolds. Pole/shield works better as it uses no focus (for now).

Bow: at Ferig’s Battle camp bows became useful… I could stand back and let the kobolds attack the guards and assist with the bow. However, once the guards were down I had to withdraw or use a different weapon (as expected.) The bows just don’t do enough initial damage to be a useful weapon except when you have a group to defend you. (I feel bows need a good crippling shot for a first strike, perhaps a skill that increases critical hit and damage on a first strike?)

 

I totally agree with you here. However, are you talking about PvP or PvE? I think any deck is fine for PvE. In PvP the minute changes make a huge difference. I'm thinking I might not participate in as much PvP as I thought in this game. If things continue as they are that is. Who knows maybe R10 will be more like R8, fun and enjoyable. If I had to vote on the game based on R9 I wouldn't give it a very high rating.

 

People seem to talk a lot about a full fixed or a full random deck but not much talk about a split, like having 2 or 3 key clutch skills fixed and randomly circulate the rest. Has anyone really experimented with this? (Aside from just having Healing Touch fixed)

 

... I was thinking and to expand on the thought above... if you spent more points on a skill, say Thrust, perhaps for locked decks these skills could do slightly more damage or have a better hit chance? (and i do mean slight... so that only a cumulative affect is noticeable) But for unlocked decks it just adds more cards? just a thought.