Starr Long Discusses Chaotic Aspects of SOTA Combat

This would be true except that in traditional systems people practice and practice to eliminate this element. And the best PvPers in this systems are like code, accurately responding at the perfect time in a mechanical way to the inputs received. For people who want to follow the same scripts over and over in battle after battle, just to win, sure that's a fair way to play.

For some though, there is more of developing the skill of creativity - here's a new scenario, what can I do with it? Can't do it the same way this time, so how am I going to do it now? Differing situations, creativity, dynamism of subtle variations is all quite interesting and fun to me. I do admit I'm not a hardcore "have to be #1 on the leaderboard" PvP-er. I will try to win, but still enjoy the subtle variations in scenarios that this system presents when I don't.

 

Then code a reasonable weight limit, and make me have to chose which I'll bring to battle. Thoughts require no weight. In fact the whole premise of learning new things is that we've gotten comfortable with the old things, and they're just second nature so that we have room to learn new things.

Think of it more like: I can't buy this sword, even though I have the money, the swords for sale, and I have space in my hands, and I called ahead to make sure I could buy the sword.... because it's Tuesday. And this Tuesday, you're not allowed to buy this sword. Only a shield, a Mt Dew and the ability to get out of dinner at the inlaws. Maybe Wednesday you can buy that sword. And is every Tuesday like this? No. In fact, you'll never know what day the sword is for sale until you go to the store.

See! It forces you to consider different shopping options! You never would have bought that shield if it wasn't for this! You know why? Because you didn't want the shield in the first place! You wanted a sword, so now the game has kept you from playing the way you want.

In fact, if that was a collection of wands, according to last comments, you could use them all when ever you want. And I'd bet you can switch them up when ever you want if you can find space in your inventory to carry them.

But suddenly you can't cast any spells even though you're an arch mage, and only remember your staff specials right now? Come on.

This isn't about living with limitations, I'm ALLLLLL for that. This is about being able to control my destiny within those limitations. This isn't that.

 

Which is why I spend one or two nights a week in my martial arts class. That said, I can minimize the element by getting better at playing (Which SHOULD be the outcome of practice), but you simply can't eliminate it. Humans are human. We screw up, we get distracted, we're flawed, no matter how much we practice, crunch the numbers, etc. Sometimes emotion or something else, just gets the better of us. No code is needed to exploit that.

 

If this is going to be the quality level of PvP in this game, then i'm sure us pvp'ers can also forget about actually having desirable quality reasons to even want to pvp also. But at least they announced it 'before' I bought those other 5 lots I was going to buy in the store, and definitely forget me upgrading my son's pledge to lord to match my own, and I've already told 3 of my friends and 2 of his to hold off on pledging, as it probably won't be worth it. And I'm just 'one' disgruntled customer . . . . . .

 

I agree, both with your complaints and with the team's desire to add in the reality of 'you can't be ready for everything at all times". I don't have the solution but I hope that the devs either have it, or figure it out.

Has anyone yet come along and said "I see what you're going for and here's a better way to do the same thing you want?" instead of just caterwalling "Doooom!!"? If so, please provide a link because I'd love to read alternative suggestions (and not just tweaks to their proposed system, I've read those)

 

My point is not that I'm arguing that the random factor in this system is a proxy for the human element. I think there are other random battle factors/story options that could be used to describe it. It's not about why the randomization exists that matters.
To me it's about different perspectives on play styles. I don't need to feel that I'm in control of every element in a scenario to have fun. I like subtle variations and challenges and then seeing what I can do with it. It's just different.

 

It may not be their intent, but it will indeed be their result.

 

As much as I hate doing this..

mmm quoting myself, so tasty.

Way back from June 24:

and then July 10:

The first time I heard about the random-UI combat system, I thought it was simply a misguided anti-botting measure. That's what I thought of with the 'machines playing the game' thing. Machines will play SotA combat, as described, VERY well. Humans will endure it, VERY badly.

In my opinion, Freeman is right, humans are imperfect enough. We don't need more chances to screw up, when we're supposed to be enjoying challenging and fun entertainment.

 

Sounds great looking forward to playing

 

This is only true in PvE. Not PvP. There's no sequence or combination to beat someone. (I guess there could be in some theoretical, terrible game, but I've never seen one.) You're playing against an intelligent player. Not a script. So a script won't beat one. That's why people enjoy PvP. Because you need to actually use all of your skills, including cc and defense, intelligently. You use fake attacks and misdirection. You cannot just face tank everything any hit a rotation.

I completely agree that what you're describing doesn't take a lot of skill. As would most PvPers. And that's why they don't see skill in PvE.

Obviously there's some skill to anything twitch. But it's not outthinking skill. It's more like jumping puzzles.

 

I don't think that's entirely fair. I'm not saying you don't have to use your skills intelligently, but it's about typing things at the right time and the right sequence, no matter what happens, not an entirely different scenario. Plus, PvE can also have a random element if it's programmed that way - although maybe not as sophisticated. Ultimately it all boils down to typing correctly. They did x, I do y (because y is most effective). The rules may be a long list, but it's still just learninig and doing them.

In this system, you are faced ultimately with subtle variations on the skills you can use/not use. Timing changes. You have to guess more what your opponent can/can't do. There are no repeatable battles. They are different scenarios. They did x, I can't do y, my choices are doing c, a or b. I may have to back away for a while - focus on something else.

It's not bad it's just different.

 

Please allow me to weigh in with a variety of thoughts:

First, combat is the most complex, testing required, must be just right, system of the game. So fear not, we plan to get it to you early, and work on it a lot, until its right. Interestingly, I think we have an exceptionally strong core of 3 main mechanics: Crafting, which is coming along especially nicely in my mind, and then the more conflict specific related areas of magic and combat skills. Our goal is to try and innovate beyond the traditional MMO style of short cut bar management, where all you do is min-max the DOT delivered and minimize the DOT received, with an appropriate stacking of repeated behaviors. I hope you think that is a good goal to shoot for.

We are attempting to address this by bringing actual skill into two parts of the combat process. First in load out, so that the details of load out for even two players with identical amounts of skill and available assets of materials/weapons/magic will vary significantly by what a player has gained experience with and how they prefer to approach a problem. Next by varying the availability of actions based on that loadout, we hope you cannot just "get into a groove" of button presses. Vjek points out an interesting (to me) point about bot worry, which others on the team may have a better response for. But this is exactly the type of response and concern we are looking for when exposing all y'all to our plans.

I would hope and ask that people who have concerns refrain from angry rampages, and instead give us some credit for trying to both present detail and listen here in these forums for appropriate concerns and ideas to help us make it better for all of us. As a project, we have goals and strategies to meet them. Goals are usually more "set" but still can change, but strategies to meet those goals will be changed if the implimentation does not meet the objective. So, try and pose your questions and comments accordingly.

I suspect few doubt we are trying to post all our ideas and completed work as fast as we have it, so you get the chance to weigh in early and often.

Keep in mind, we are doing it because we want to listen to your responses, so we can better make the game YOU want!

Your Servant,
Richard "Lord British" Garriott

 

I have made several suggestions:

1) Warm up of focus instead of cool downs for skills requiring players to wait to unleash attacks until they can string several together for combinations. Having getting hit reduce your focus, thus causing you to gamble with the results. Moving around causes focus to build up slower, so stay still and focus, or move arround taking longer, but less likely to get hit?

1b) create an anti-virtue fighting system with Agression, that lets you actually build up energy from other means.

2) Randomize 'opportunities' to appear, but allow all skills to be available always.

3) Have the randomness be skills available at a reduced cost, or power bonus, or both, but all skills are always available.

1 & 1b are my favorite. They have a classical feel to them, while incorporating a little bit of difference and getting away from 123 without concern for the battle at hand. You'll still have your favorite moves, but you might have to change up what those are depending on if you have an opponent who's fast or slow.

For example, a fast but weak opponent can keep you distracted, even though they're not doing a lot of damage. Just by keeping your focus down, you're not able to get anything special off on him, or his friends.

The problems with 2 & 3, is they essentially still leave the core 1234 mechanic intact. But there's no reason they couldn't be incorporated with 1/1b for extra layers.

What's nice about all these things, is they let me the player make the call, and don't try to do it for me by limiting what I can do. A Lord British game has always been about "what can't I do?" instead of "what will it let me do?"

So yes, some of us are trying. That's why I'm trying to knock this down now. I want to spend our time on something that isn't devicisve and has a chance of working and yet is STILL different. There are options, possibilities, but we ahve to let go of the bad idea first.

If we wait until it fails, they're only going to have time to roll it back to 1234.... I can live with that more than this... but I feel like we can do better.

EDIT: And of course our Lord ninja posts infront of me, making me feel like a total ungreatful tool.

 

This is my main concern as well. The idea Chris mentioned about having a radial menu near the target seemed like somewhat of a good idea, but obscuring the player's view doesn't sound so great.

I'm just not sure you can have a UI where the skill placements are constantly changing and keep it unobtrusive. You've got to look at it to know what skills are available, but you need to keep an eye on the action as well.

 

I hope that the system is more like not random, but if you are smart enough to figure out all the main details about each specific encounters details that you can come very close to knowing what to expect...

example being that after a full character is specialized, that once that is done, there would be maybe 2-3 randomizations left in the system to expect as far as <abilityslot> a) <show ability a> b) <show ability b>.
in addition there would be numerous other factors including Block, Parry, Disrupt, Dodge... etc which would effect the <next available> abilities.

So not that abilities would be randomized but there would be a number of factors which allow certain abities to be played, and those 'options' (option a, b, c etc) those AbilityKeySlot would remain constant. This would be beneficial to other controllers besides Keyboards although 1-0 would probably be default. Gamepad controllers using 1-6 type configurations.

edit:
Also, this is a good place to put a 'false positive' aspect so that if a character really thinks he is being repetitious pressing abilities, occasional the system will throw in a abilities which would cause a 'reset' of combinations and possibly other concepts like Stumble, Trip, Backfire, Backlash, Miss, Fail etc.

 

Maybe we just call them "Opportunities" instead of cards?

Those are some good suggestions, Freeman, thanks! I particularly value your opinion on these forums, and your response (as well as Vjek's), has given me pause about this feature. I don't understand all the technical issues that have been brought up, but I appreciate the insights shared here.

Some of the suggestions (not yours) that have been made feel to me like work-arounds to avoid using the system, but it's still nice to get all the ideas out there. I like #1. One of my favorite systems from AD&D is where repeated use of parry can improve your hit bonus in the final attack - the idea being that you are taking that time to maneuver and wait for the ideal time to strike. It encourages the player to fight smart instead of just exchanging blows tit-for-tat. Not exactly related, but I'd like to see a benefit to mixed offense and defense, rather than typing the character as tank or dps or whatever. Waiting for combos is a version of this that appeals strongly to me. I'm not sure how you could implement this without the flipside of adding some luck of the draw element.

Thanks for the feedback, Richard.

We all need to be careful not to use too much 'stick' on the devs haha, lest they come to dislike sharing. It can be rather like offering a cheeseburger to a bum who then goes on to complain that it's overcooked. Likewise, when people start hollering back and forth it makes it harder to find the real information, keep up with the thread, and continue constructively. I still haven't got through Starr's megapost! Most importantly, I think it can discourage others from chiming in with their possibly brilliant ideas - lots of times solutions, or AHA! moments come from unexpected places.

 

This is a good point: the creation of this system would seem to be in opposition to the idea of keeping the UI clean. Personally I'd love a system where I could completely hide my hotkeys (program them in a menu that remains offscreen), or just type to cast/act (prolly in the minority here), but that wouldn't work here.

One other thing - I think the 'enchantment' system has been largely ignored in this discussion, and it exists as a method to ensure you have at least one specific spell on hand at once. Can we dual-wield wands? Hope so! This is a nice partial solution for those who don't want to be at the mercy of the semi-random system. A great addition by the devs (thanks!).

 

Imagine instead that you get to bring one foil, but you can't pick which parry position you get to use. I think that's more accurate.

 

Oh Trevor... I pine for you... Bonus points to people who get that joke.

Need to finish that thought?

Anyway, yeah, a lot of what I hear is "lets fix this system" by "making it so that it exists, but we can just not use it with work arrounds." Usually by penalizing a player. One of my original concerns was what I called the logical cascade failure, and it's begun.

Originally usable items were supposed to go in the deck as well. That seems to have been walked back some. So now you can use them at will (as of this post).

Wihch means, if I can use a wand/potion I have in my pack, when ever I want.... why would I be a mage where I can't use a spell when ever I want? There really is no good answer for that except I don't have enough money to buy wands yet.

So, then the only real option is to open up spells just all the time. Which means only combat skills are using the system, which nerfs them horrendously, and honestly means why would I be a fighter? And you wouldn't... so.... this is the end result of just building work arrounds for the system.

I've also said, I'd love to see it as an 'in game mini game' where you play cards with someone using this combat system, and create it as this world's 'chess'. How knights practice for battles when they can't practice for battles. I think that would be interesitng. I think this would make a great card game, or arena dueling game. It just isn't a good fit for an open area RPG where combat is more fluid.

 

Yeah, I was going to bring this up as well. I know that wands or implements can be enchanted with multiple charges of a specific spell; what's to stop me from hot swapping wands instead of using my random skills?