Skeletons double life?

Well its possible to fight higher level monsters if you're patient and fight defensively. Lets hope combat is more like that as time goes on, and not expect the combat mechanics to be centered around grinding.

 

I just wanted to throw in there that I'm not "against" respawning mobs. All I'm saying is that a skeleton may have 350hp and award 400exp but there are wolves that have 500hp and also award 400exp (just throwing numbers). That being said if the skeleton respawns for a second round you're already gaining less exp per time invested, and even a greater gap if it comes back a third.

Regardless of Min-Max which was not my true intent, I personally feel that combating skeletons has a largely defeating feeling when it comes back to life and you realize you spent that time fighting for no reward. I'd even venture to say that most people would "feel" more accomplished if you took the exp down a little bit if it was awarded for each successful attempt of slaying the beast. After all we are getting rewarded for winning the fight, not sucking their essence from their dead body, right?

~Wodin

 

If you gained exp on every kill, it would also be uncertain to the player whether the skeleton would re-animate, which would make it also good for that reason. The fact that you don't get exp is a tell that the skeleton won't re-animate, and its sort of artificial.

So, I'm not against it, either :> There are plenty of arguments for it.

I would add in though that I've benefited from the fact that the skeletons collapse before rising again... generally when fighting groups of skeletons, so I don't fight two at a time, and I can draw one from the other while one is on the ground.. the pause does help. I also use the pause for healing, and putting up defensive glyphs.

 

Developers seem focused on the long game, and for the long game, there is only grind...

The design decision to make even the weakest enemies have enough hitpoints to withstand 5-10 hits from high level characters is the fundamental flaw here in my opinion. That choice has driven most of the numbers in the combat system, and it currently seems to exist because the devs don't have the time or resources to have evolve combat beyond Ultima V...

 

The problem isn't that you do a lot of damage by hitting, which I think is fine. It shouldn't take that many hits with a sword to kill someone. The problem is that if you have heavy defensive passives, they can barely hurt you. I can now stand around in some scenes and have skeletons hit me over and over without worrying about dying.

I think the passive defenses need to be toned down. I think light armor combat should be mainly active defense skills and things like rolls. And heavy armor, its fine if you stand there, but your armor would absorb the damage and you'd have to repair it. So you'd want to avoid hits if you didn't want to pay for repair costs.

IMO, having fun combat rather than grinding is good for the long game. If low level mobs become easy when you level up, over time, 90% of the game suddenly becomes boring. If they're still able to kill you when you're high level, that 90% stays fun. Grinding is boring, IMO.

EDIT : I misread part of your post. I can kill low level mobs in 1 hit often if I do a critical. Sometimes two. I don't think that's a problem.

 

Would be nice if skeletons didn't just drop dead, then stand up again. Make them lose a limb at x% HP, then another at the next.. at 0% they stand there, tumbling, then you see the limb coming back and reattaching to the body and the fight continues.


Right now they fall down and "look dead" and as a ranged character you can't see if the corpse "shimmers green" unless you go in range.

Also make consequent reincarnations have lesser HP. Their limbs might be stuck back on, but the structural integrity will be damaged.

The final killing blow should send the head flying and the skeleton crumbling, leaving a pile of bones.

In such a scenario, fighting them would be fun, because you had a sense of achievement.

 

Active defenses would be nice, but even a little lag and that is right out, considering that the devs have already resorted to bribing us to stand still during combat, I doubt that fun active combats are in the cards.

Fun combat doesn't make long games. Shadows of Mordor has some of the most fun combat I've played in years, but I played it for 3 weeks and finished it, no matter how fun the combat is, once the content is expended that's all she wrote for some players. Forcing the player to grind endlessly? That's how you retain players, give them a little taste from time to time to hook them and BAM they're still paying their subscription fee 4 years later.

 

@Burzmali,

I've played a lot of MMOs with grinding and eventually get bored of playing. Free-to-play; I'd never pay subscription for a grinding game. I think a lot of people are like me, too.

I'd think that fun combat + rewards from playing (ie use loot for social purposes, whether vending/selling, decoration, roleplaying, etc) would be the ideal, because it would be the best of both worlds to keep people playing.

Btw, I still to this day play DOS RPGs in the 90s that aren't story based in my spare time, like Darklands. I also play a rogue-like RPG, UnReal World. Once in a while I play Wizard's Crown.

 

The problem is that you can't satisfy all the players with any particular type of combat. A large group of the folks in these parts love that old school feel of impaling a wolf in the same spot 50 times while it gnaws your ankle 60 times because it is predictable, you can do it 100 times and the 100th time will have the same outcome as the 1st within acceptable margins. "Fun" combat to them is combat they fight on paper maximizing DPS inflicted vs. DPS sustained to ensure that have at least a known percent chance of winning. "Fun" combat to me is combat I engage in that requires I take some novel action to win and that the threat of failure exists. These two goals are mutually exclusive, hence both of us can not be satisfied by the same system. Rezzing enemies are okay for the former as they can enter the "chance of rezzing" into the formula and crank out an answer, but to me, repeating the same combat 3 or more times isn't fun because I simply repeat the same action over and over, no novelty, no fun.

I'm more of a single player RPG fan, which this game was billed as once upon a time, but slow combat and endless grinding has disappeared from the single player space over the last decade.

Edit: On the topic of Darklands (which has no rezzing enemy silliness, btw), SOTA could stand to steal and implement each and every random encounter from it, not to mention a far bit else as well.

 

@Burzmali,

I think the fun combat you describe is what a lot of backers want, so hopefully Portalarium is listening. The same logic can apply to other game mechanics: I don't think most backers want hand-holding.

 

It's two worlds, many folks are working determinedly to turn SOTA into a medieval EVE with global marketplaces and guilds with intricate alliances and world dominating superpowers. Anything that isn't MMO-centric is anathema to this goal. Those of us that cling to the vestiges of a satisfying single player experience are stuck asking what logic there is in making insignificant combats take up to 10 minutes a piece. My only hope is that the game contains an area where players don't need to be hooked into the status quo to have a decent time, or at least to make a stand in Serenity valley.

 

That doesn't really make any sense. I can do the math for you, but it's poor reasoning.

The skeletons already have exp appropriate HPs. If you double their hps, they become a poor use of your in-game time (as they are now). Basically, you include the flawed assumption that skeletons must somehow have twice the hp / unit of exp as a "typical" mob, in one form or another. I don't think that makes any sense.

 

I'm one of those people you describe.

I think that sounds wonderful. I don't see it happening here though, so I think you're safe.

 

My suggestion is to have the undead reanimate with less total health each successive time, and divide the total XP given by the creature among each death, proportionate to the creatures starting health each time it reanimates.

 

If I'm reading this right it's what I've been trying to say. Basically make the juice worth the squeeze.

 

I think you underestimate what EVE-type players can achieve given long enough

As to skellies, degrade them on rezzing, allow a curb-stomp and/or force an item or skill to be used to keep them down. Current mechanic is bullocks that was eliminated from mainstream RPGs in the 80s.

 

There's an excellent discussion about risk vs reward to do with undead going on here.

 

I'd like to be able to make a silver great axe so that when I kill it the first time, it will turn to dust, or I can knock it's head out of the park, so that the dam thing will not get back up ggrrrr

 

Did anyone see the r24 postmortem?

They are planning to change this behavior by allowing the Mages & Liches to resurrect their fallen companions, so if you don't take them out first, those skeletons will for ever be coming back to life...

 

Good catch. Which leads me to conclude that if you do take the mages and liches out, the footmen and archers will never rise again!!!