Tactics vs. Strategy

The combat system, as currently implemented and as far as I can reasonably ascertain, is too tactical (real time) and not nearly as strategic (preparation based) as it should be.

When I first started playing the glyph system it was fun. But it became apparent that active defenses that allowed players to BLOCK and defeat tactical aggression (like having someone use the same attack or spell on you several times) was greatly needed.

So far, we've seen more ways to "resist" certain attacks, for example in R9 you could max out a few of the skill trees to make yourself less likely to be rooted or stunned. But what we still didn't have was the tactical (real time) ability to counter a root or stun outright. There was always a random chance, and it mostly worked "ok" from a percentage standpoint but not so much from a practical standpoint.

In other words, if you were min/maxing that was fine and the resistances worked as intended for competitive play. But if you were not min/maxing then you were not going to be competitive. I.E. the system wasn't really designed for 1 point of root and stun resistance to mean much of anything when you're being rooted and stunned continuously.

This is why BLOCKING and COUNTERING in real time is so important. It allows players to KNOW that they can perform an action that will allow them to temporarily stop worrying about a single tactic. This prevents "best builds" because the foundational baseline of combat (and magic) allows players to BLOCK and COUNTER whatever is thrown at them on a tactical level.

This is also where we get into the Chess discussion. The game of Chess being equally balanced from a tactical standpoint. No piece is more powerful than the other, each player gets one turn, etc..

But that's just one problem with combat, the other major problem is that the combat system has almost no consideration to strategy. To highlight this, I'm going to tell a story about one of my R9 combat adventures.

During R9 I ran into a guy that was very good at the current system. He was wearing full plate and carried a two handed lich axe. When I fought him, I barely did any damage even when he had his back turned to me. I tried several builds against him using several different weapons and soon discovered that most of what I was trying was pointless.

The "best build" he was using was probably one of a handful of "best builds" that were possible in R9. But what was so frustrating to me was that so many weapons and armor combinations were utterly useless. This is a strategic problem with combat. Even though I now could identify the three kinds of "best builds" I might see in combat, the only thing I could do to prepare for those builds was to BE ONE OF THOSE BUILDS.

The person I was fighting against eventually told me "my only weakness is fire." So if I was not shooting fireballs and using a fire elemental against him I was basically out of luck. Yes, I know this is pre-alpha, but as the current system scales to include more resistances and more skills and spells, I can't imagine it being somehow more strategic.

What players will have to do is hurl themselves at each other using their preferred "best builds" and only after combat has begun will they say "Gee, I guess they're using that Fire Build. Darn, I'm going to lose." This is where true STRATEGY should be trumping over TACTICS.

I'm going to use magic as an example here, but the same logic applies to combat skills as well. As a mage, a pure caster, I shouldn't be walking into a fight just planning on using my "favorite best build" tactics. At least, not if I want to win very much. I'm a glass cannon! Instead, I should be able to cast detection spells on another player to determine what kind of a build I'm fighting against. I should also be able to cast (or use items) that will make it more likely for me to be successful against the build they're playing.

The classic example of this is how a traditional D&D mage works. Because you only have a limited number of spells per day that you can cast in D&D, you have to be very STRATEGIC. A D&D mage will need to prepare spells for the next day, and that often means thinking about things like "Gee, I'm going into a dungeon called the pit of fire. Maybe I should prepare a spell that makes me immune to fire for a limited time?"

You'll notice I used the word "immune". Yes I understand the balance implications to this. But that's what preparation is for. You don't prepare to be burned by fire 25% of the time. That's crazy. You prepare to NOT GET BURNED. And while I'm not advocating a system where every player has immunity to everything, I'm saying that much like traditional D&D had a limited number of spells that could be performed during a single day, SOTA needs the same level of POWER and LIMITS that strategically allows for players to out think their opponents and create more meaningful combat situations.

It's also worth noting that I used a "pure caster" as my example because this is an archetype that is supposed to be more strategic while being almost entirely non-tactical. I don't have a problem with mages being tactical, but currently there's no such thing as a strategic play-style (for a mage, a swordsman, a healer, whatever your personal preference is).

To recap, the tactical elements of combat are broken, and the strategic elements of combat are under valued and less effective than they should be.

In closing, I hope I've started what will be a constructive discussion about the tactical and the strategic functionality of the combat system.

Please put your thoughts below.

 

Imho there has to be blocks/counter attacks and you should be able to cast them quicker than your opponent. And those should be successful 90+% of times, otherwise they are useless.

Some sort of immunity (time-limited agains one tree of magic) would be nice...perhaps it would cost you some focus to resist the magic, but it would not harm you). This is needed especially against fire (damage over time) and air (stuns) magic at this time, but it might be needed against other trees over time as well. I think that some immunity spell would be good for life magic (protects you against the type of damage you have received last/first before/after you casted the spell sort of thing).

Purify should imho not only remove magic DOTs, but other DOTs as well and maybe even remove 50% of damage you have received in the last 5 seconds or so... Also some healing spell to negate critical hits would be nice to have, Life magic is quite good at the moment but still far from useful in some situations (Healing touch and purify should work on team mates, we are still missing spells that heal over time). And there is still no real counterattack against bludgeons with those stuns and critical hits (except maybe a lot of air magic and stuns).

 

@Net

Although we're still in pre-alpha and the combat system hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. I don't believe that just filling out all the skill trees will solve either of the two problems I addressed in the OP. I think that the way the skill trees have been designed, we're essentially just whacking each other with DPS and cool downs. The lack of blocking and countering combined with the lack of meaningful strategic elements makes the combat system a very one dimensional beast.

Let's take the Purify example you gave as exhibit A. That's a very reactive spell and it's really very useless even if we make it 100% more effective and allow it to work on all DOT's.

Why? Because if all other things are equal and you stop to casting your attacks at me so you can use Purify...I'm able to get in more attacks during that time period. In the current system (and presumably the way it's designed even as more skills are added) it's all about who can do the most damage in the fastest amount of time. Anything that slows that down (like casting a non-offensive spell like purify) is negligent to success.

Where that might not be the case (currently) is with the healing spells, as they return health faster than some of the attack spells. But I would argue that healing should not work like that. Healing should be more sophisticated than just returning hit points at a faster rate than you normally would see. Ideally, healing would remove effects like "broken legs" and would not have anything to do with "hit points" as that's all about damage and cooldowns and as stated earlier is a very one dimensional type of system.

Note I'm not even bringing up the roleplaying aspects of combat here (which are almost non-existent), I'm only talking about balance and how the game works tactically and strategically. But it's worth mentioning that from a roleplaying standpoint, there's a certain amount of logical balance you get when you're approaching combat with that in mind.

 

Since Chris said blocks are coming, does that render your entire post kind of mute? Could you frame it again assuming blocks are in and then tell us your opinions of tactics vs strategy?

 

Combat isn't even that tactical, as it is, if you want to go beyond creating the starting deck and into the actual action of the combat. True tactics involves making choices that have advantages and disadvantages, and making these choices smartly. So you make your starting deck, and that's a tactical choice. But once you go into combat, what tactics are there?

As some critics of the combat system have pointed out, a lot of time combat just involves clicking through the cards that come up. If you're a fighter and slugs come up, you just click to dispose of the slugs. A lot of the choices don't feel that meaningful, as of yet.

Some things involve choices. If you want to drink a potion, currently you have to find an escape from melee. (Though some people seem against that). If your reagents are limited, you at least might choose to cast fire arrow instead of fireball. But simply waiting for a cooldown isn't going to be a big deal. There needs to be a lot more choices, and a lot more trade-offs.

 

Cool, but then they should change shield skills from simply giving you bonus defense %s to actually helping in blocking maneuvers.

 

It would be quite nice, though not required for a decent game nor PvE/PvP gameplay. Don't get Captain Jack wrong, it would enrich both and the game, but there are bigger treasures to be saught at the moment. Captain Jack wants a damn ship people.

 

Nice feedback. My thoughts:
1-. I think strategy is a bit overpowered (sorry for the gramatical error ) at this point. In almost all scenarios one can predict the result of a fight before it starts.
2-. Tactics are a bit underpowered at this point. The outcome of a fight should be more varied between locations. Do you fight the same way on the forest, on the beach or on the arena?.
3-. The system actually is not broken. You can find counters to almost all types of builds. Did you tried team battles?.
4-. I agree on the necessity of more varied and powerful counters to enhance tactics. Glyph examples:
- Magic shield: Protects you from all damage from the next spell directed to you.
- Magic protection: Protects you from all negative effects and damage from the next spell directed to you.
- Magic reflection: Reflect magic damage from the next spell directed to you to the caster.
- Ethereal form: You enter on ethereal form for x seconds, you cant attack or be attacked and receive increased damage form magical sources.
- Ethereal binding: You and your target enter into a ethereal form for x seconds, both take increased magical damage.
- Timed Silence: You get silenced by x amount of time (you cant cast while silenced, but can activate artifacts).
- One time silence: The target is cursed, his next spell will be interrupted.


Ill maybe add more thoughts later.

 

Get ye some doubloons. ;>

 

Not really, it works like that 80% of time, but sometimes it comes down to focus management. In some scenarios (though rather rare, I have to say), it was better to spend focus on healing yourself and let your opponent to run out of it, because healing allowed you to keep like 50% focus once your opponent reached zero... and then attack. So I think that making healing better in other cases would help to bring in the strategy of focus management. Will you 'conserve' focus defending yourself or will you try to attack more powerfully than your opponent? Of course blocks and other things would help with making other strategies viable as well.

 

redfish, I think when we talk about tactics we're talking about the click by click decisions during combat. Clicking on one card versus another, that's a tactic.

When we're talking about strategy, we're talking about "wearing all plate, using a longsword, and having resistance from roots and stuns". Neither are very compelling right now in the current build, but more importantly they don't appear to be going in a direction where from R8 to R9 to R10 they're getting more compelling.

 

Yea of course :> I'm just saying what you are, tactics aren't that much more compelling now than strategy is.

----> Need to make combat meaningful play.

 

Again, I'm not sure we're using tactics and strategy correctly here.

As for the system not being broken. A counter is not a build. A counter is a tactic. There's a huge difference between the two.

 

Strategy is about selecting resources and deploying them. It involves large choices. Tactics is about actions taken with what you then have deployed.

In that context, and thinking about SOTA combat, strategy may be about skill selection and deck building, and tactics about how those are then used in a battle.

 

That is how i understand it.

 

Firstly I know its very early and I am certain that the combat will be much more balanced as time goes on. Also I want to add that I really like the deck building system and think that this allows players to think about develop complex and varied builds.

However, I do feel that combat is way to much of basically standing around playing whack-a-mole the glyphs that pop up and discarding the junk, its not really skillful enough and requires you to look at your bar too often instead of at game-play.

I want the fighting to require more actual player skill, the ability to block and counter with shields and weaponry would be good. Also some sort of targeting system that allowed you to lock onto opponents and circle them for back stabs etc. Also the ability to roll or dodge. I understand there are limitations to this type of thing with lag, but currently I really think there is just too much of glyph bar management and not something that actually feels like combat.

Perhaps its mainly a UI issue? If the skills popped up in a way that allowed me to remain focused on combat, and also came up in a more context sensitive manner then perhaps it would feel better.

So kind of like the analogy RG originally used about fencing where things you have trained in sometimes come to mind in the heat of combat;

For example, you might see an opponents guard drop after an attack and because you have trained in a riposte skill you have a time window in which to execute your move. It could be displayed on or around your opponent subtly in some way so that you could remain focused on them. The number of picks of this skill could still determine the chance of you thinking of this move at the correct time and there would be some skill to you actually hitting the move in the time window. It would also be a lot more context sensitive so the moves popped up appropriately rather than completely at random.

Someone begins casting a fire spell, you character has a chance of thinking about casting his ice shield counter etc. again this chance of thinking of it could be dependent on the number of skill picks in your deck as it currently is.

 

Yes. But don't limit strategy to only deck building and skill selection. Strategy can involve so much more than just that, especially if the only way to apply your strategy is via a tactical system (as it current works now).

Just so I'm clear. If you're extra strategic and build your deck and skills in a particular way, who cares if the only way you can use it is tactically? That's what this combat system does, it limits every conflict to be a tactical battle between players. For players that want to use stealth or ranged attacks, it's going to be very difficult to balance this in a meaningful way.

Archery is a very good example of this. When you choose to use a bow and wear leather armor, you're making a strategic choice. And tactically you should be on high ground, far away from your opponent. But if you're not tactically in this type of a position, you should get OWNED. The same thing goes for being a magic user wearing cloth. If you're able to cast your spells and have initiative, you should be feared. But if you're trying to go toe to toe with anyone hitting you with even a butter knife, you could be a dead man. I'm speaking in generalities here but it's important to realize that currently the system makes everyone choose between standing toe to toe or skipping around rooting people so you can spam ranged attacks. This is a byproduct of creating a system based entirely on damage versus cool downs.

 

These are really good ideas. I really like the way you're making skills more like active defenses that work in certain situations. So you might have an ice shield skill that has a chance to activate (if you click on it maybe?) whenever someone casts fireballs at you. That's REALLY good!

Maybe your skill bar should be broken up into OFFENSIVE and DEFENSIVE glyphs too. This would add more importance to deck building so players could choose (strategically) to be more or less defensive.

 

I like a great deal that has been said here, particularly that from Baron Fondorlatos. My issue with the current system is the same, that strategy is almost inconsequential. (which of course renders much of the tactics worthless) To my point, in R9 I had a pounder build and every combat had only 1 of 2 options, 1) I destroy my opponent losing perhaps 10% of my HP - or - 2) I am destroyed by my opponent and only cause him to lose 10% of his HP. There were only one or two "good" fights for me during the entire testing. This tells me what was happening is when I won, I was fighting someone who had not properly min/maxed their skills, and when I lost I was fighting someone who used the appropriate counter build and I had no chance.

But I abhor having only a few possible builds and everything else is useless. I want to see people who fight with daggers in heavy armor or try casting spells in plate. I'm not saying everything has to be equally viable, but wouldn't it be nice if it was at least remotely possible?

As for solutions to this, while some great ones have been suggested, I am not in favor of merely jacking the tactics and hoping it all works out in the end. I want an RPG, and RPGs are strategic. If I wanted a twitch gaming tactical combat sim, there are some awesome FPS out there. I want a sandbox MMO. As it is I, and frankly a few of my guildies whom I really enjoy gaming with, simply refuse to do PvP. We are too old (and working on antiquated systems) for running in circles blasting off fire spells in that oh so familiar twitch style. Real strategic builds could solve this, as the OP suggests. I hope we are empowered to be able to construct such builds in the upcoming releases and certainly before the game goes live.

 

I loved your entire post, but I wanted to call this quote out specifically so I could add on to it.

I think the idea that I can take a short sword or a dagger to the back of ANY player and have to swing 5 to 10 times before you start to notice any real damage to them is a big deal. I'm not even talking about guys in full plate (who during R9 were often min/maxed so a dagger or short sword would take perhaps 25 swings to really do damage to them).

It seems like we're making it devilishly difficult to balance a system where a dagger only really makes sense to use while wearing leather, but doesn't really do enough damage to keep up with a heavy weapon being used by someone that has on platemail. It's not intuitive if we're only looking at it from a damage, speed of weapon, armor reduction stand point. (I know there are other factors and we haven't fleshed out the system entirely, but these are the major factors of importance)

It seems easier to me to just say that a Dagger can kill you the same as a Giant Lich Axe so who really cares about damage multipliers. This would be a radical change from where we are now, so I don't expect the developers to jump to make this change. But it seems like we need to work on bridging the gap in an alternative way that what we've seen so far.

I like the glyph system concept and I think it can work (I want it to work).