The best way to test combat.

@Chris
@DarkStarr
@RichardGarriott

Here's how I would test combat.

I'd create an arena that allows players to walk into a controlled environment. The moment a player walked in they would get skills, spells, weapons, armor, whatever given to them. Sometimes everyone would be the same level. Other times everyone would be different levels. Sometimes everyone would have the same weapons, other times it would be totally almost absurdly unbalanced.

Sometimes it would be PVE, sometimes it would be PVP. You just never would know. It would have all kinds of possibilities. Sometimes it would be 1 v 1 and other times it would be team based.

Then I'd say "fight". Then I'd solicit feedback using just very small amounts of text (maybe like 144 characters ala Twitter). Those that provide good feedback on the battle get gold or experience or something. Just something to keep people coming back.

Then wash, rinse, repeat. Analyze the data and come up with new challenges that would try to figure out stuff you wanted to know. All the "what if people were required to use reagents?!" and "what if they could just block fire spells?"

In my mind, this is the only way to tell what's OP and what's not. What's fun and what's not.

This takes out all the grinding, all the exploits, all the "I have to go build up my skills so I can compete" nonsense out of the equation.

Please let's do this.

 

not really .
you do need time and build up your skills to know how to use the tools to the best of your abilities .
how els woud you know how to use the skills you have .
wat is the max range of my weapon/spell ?
how long is delay on my skills , howmuch time does it take to cast my spell .
you cant just dump a bunch of gear on someone and yell fight.
you woud need players in those matches who know all the gear/weapons/spells like the back of thyr hand for this to work .

smal example :
wen i switch from sword/shield to a polearm it took me atleast 10-15 deaths before i was abel to use it desentlie .
whith sword/shield i was abel to kill 3 wolfs at the same time , whith my polearm i died 4 times before i was abel to kill 1 wolf ( and yes i did respec all the points in the right tree ) .
and dont even get my startid on how long it took wen i tried out magic .

you need an adjustmant period each time you switch playstile to become good at it .

 

What my proposal covers is not happening now. Fair fights with players from multiple backgrounds. The feedback is very siloed.

 

Th

they are happening, just not as often as everyday. Amongst the pvpers its mostly magic being tested becauseeveryone wants to be good at pvp, amongst the pve engagments im not as certain, but i suspect people are most going hybrid melee/magic.

I think the scenario arena is a good idea if people were allowed to set their own scenarios or choose one created by a dev. A useful tool.

It would potentially draw away from live field testing tho

 

I would be for it, if tweaked a bit.
I would prefer some sort of "mission briefing" with some basic info beforehand, maybe a selection of multiple missions to choose from (with even a random option for those who like surprises).
Just dumping stuff on people and yelling fight only works for people who're already familiar with all the skills, and can recognize most glyphs on sight. Noobs like me will just die quickly while trying to see what all our glyphs do.

Example briefing:
PvE challenge
You are dressed in light armor, and have maxed-out light armor skills.
You have no other skills beside light armor, and can not attack.
Every 2 seconds a new wolf will spawn near you.
Try to survive as long as possible.

I Wouldn't mind doing some targetted testing, but I'd like some info in advance of what I would be getting into.

 

I think there is a combat scrum already.

 

I like the idea of some focused testing. At some point in the game design, I know there had to be some runs of something like this. As a game designer (P&P, not computer) I know you can pick any number at random for damage a sword does, then you can make a guess at what a pole arm does and start running some preliminary tests to see if the numbers make sense. The more details you add, like armor, range effect, level, magic etc, the more complex the system gets. When the system is as complex as SotA is now, it takes tens of thousands of tests to see the patterns.

As for reward, I would say nothing. When you enter the arena area you should be leveled to some point, then allowed to spec your skills and pick your equipment from a selection. Each test allows for level change and respecing. The reward is the chance to play with all the gear, builds and strategies you want.

This removes the concept of "I need time to figure out how to best use my ..." Because, everyone is in the same virtual boat. The data may show that you got owned instantly because you couldn't use the glyphs you had. Fine. That is valuable data too. But after a few matches, you learn what each of them does. Then the data becomes even more useful. Need more data from people fighting water mage/dagger vs. chain mail/sharp stick, just increase the instances of that and look for the results.

If I understand correctly, the OP isn't about what is good for us testers, it's what would produce quality data the fastest for the dev team. I like the idea.

 

I'm guessing what you suggest probably won't add any more information than what can be obtained from the mass data......there simply wouldn't be enough doing it when compared to all the variables to make it credible. If you know the mechanics and maths you can make the adjustments for various scenarios based on mass data without the need for such processes. There is after-all silly amounts of data out there already.

I would say that the combat scrum is more of the place for new ideas, direct feedback, bugs as well as imbalances that are not necessarily picked up in mass data.

 

Based on levels and siloed thinking.

We need DESPERATELY to break out of that. We need to stop testing a broken system and baseline the core. We have to stop listening to feedback from people that are adverse to changes that level the playing field by weakening the importance of grinding and insider knowledge. We have to make the combat system more intuitive and competitive for players that have no other barrier to excel other than a lack of time.

 

From what I've seen of the scrum, we are getting very little value from that feedback. We are tweaking a bad system and not creating a good core combat system. I think the main reason for this is two fold.

1. We have a small group of people that care too much about very small details. They can't see the big picture beyond their own personal biases.
2. They have poor conceptual thinking skills. So solutions to complex problems are often beyond their abilities.

This type of feedback essentially devolves into "I don't like it" or "awesome!". Neither of which is very meaningfull. Occasionally the feedback is more analytical, but unfortunately focuses on immaterial subject matter, like "x spell should do more damage". Who cares if the core system is bad?

The scrum is a wasted opportunity because of the small biased sample size, and the tainted testing environment. For example, if you have people that have a huge statistical advantage over other players because of level and gear, they can hide behind that and use that to give support to their feedback while discrediting any other feedback that comes from another source. "You don't play enough to know what you're talking about" is a no win challenge. If someone "plays enough" and does well in the current system, then the player can simply use that as evidence that everyone should just "play more" and then they too will see the benefits. This ignores the possibility that the combat system sucks and instead places the "problem" on anyone that does play the game "the right way". It's like telling a poor person that they need to make more money before they can have an opinion on the economy.

This has been going on for a long time and part of the reason the combat system is so bad is because that feedback is almost worthless.

@Chris - same gear, same level, you can't balance combat without baselining the core system. You can't get the feedback you need to create a baseline if two or three people get to be the authority on combat because they kill the most npc's or understand "the math" the best.

The fact that we still have a system built entirely on DPS blows my mind. It is my belief that if everyone were the same level with the same gear, it would become obvious that latency and build type were the deciding factors of success for PvP, and player skill really didn't matter at all. That is a fact I believe players in the scrum do not understand or are blatantly ignoring for personal gain. I challenge you to consider some form of the OP proposal for the good of the game.

 

I think that good progress has come out of the scrum already. Moving Death Touch to tier 2 in the Death tree was a result of the scrum. Skills like Dodge and Block were adjusted to increase defense for next 3 hits instead of 1. Fiery Decay, was nerfed down as result of the scrum. Ignite weapon was also tamed down as a result of the scrum. The way armor works was re-worked thanks to the combat scrum. Armor set bonuses is another result of the combat scrum. You say the combat scrum has been a wasted opportunity. I think they are owed more credit than you give them. Don't get me wrong. .I'm for anything that improves the combat system. I think it's great that you feel so strongly about wanting to improve it. I do not agree that the scrums have been a wasted opportunity however.

 

It is all window dressing. None of it matters. There is and always will be a BEST way to build and play because the whole system is DPS. All those things you mentioned are just moving numbers around to change how players acesss DPS. The core system hasn't changed at all.

The scrum is full of good people that overall have good intentions. But it is not translating into meaningful results for the reasons I listed above.

 

Do you have an example of a combat system where DPS does not matter?

 

He will suggest Street Fighter or Paper, Scissors, Rock.

 

I don't think being disrespectful is a good way of achieving something. I'm not fond of the current combat system either but that's because i think there are more interesting options. Just because you don't like the approach the Scrum and (mostly) Chris are taking to develop the combat system doesn't mean you should bathmouth them because not liking something doesn't mean it's broken or unfixable.

Current base system works. Why? Because it's just a modification of the standard model of combat implemented in almost every mmo around... most current systems are based on DPS and they work just fine. WoW has a system purely based on DPS and interruptions and it has (had? long time without playing it so i don't know) one of the best PVP experience. We do even have the second, but system is too distracting for the average player to pay attention to his environment and time those right, and that's not DPS' fault. They're working on it, and there are changes to prove it, positive changes that improved the current concept. To me that means the Combat Scrum is giving valuable feedback, Even when that make the system develop in a direction you don't want. As a personal opinion i should say that for what i've been reading from the people i know are members of the Scrum, i consider them to be people able to understand and gather feedback from third persons (and i also think they do).

A system not so much DPS involved can be done, but i don't think this is the way of promoting it. If you talked about "changing" instead of "fixing" maybe your voice will reach more people, and piss off less people.

 

Most ( not all though ^^) in the scrum spend a lot of time and their knowledge of fighting to help making the combat balanced and meaningful. I'm happy they spend this time for all players and Devs and don't make suggestions for combat just to push their personal wishes!

 

I disagree with the premise presented in this thread. We need to move forward on combat and not introduce an artificial combat arena which would take up even more developer time. I feel comfortable relying on the feedback of the combat scrum because the members I know are experienced, competent, fair and incorporate feedback from other players (also low-level ones) who are not in the scrum.

Besides technical competence, the most important characteristic of a feedback group is social competence.

I have seen posts by some people complaining that they were not invited to join the combat scrum. Most were people who express their opinions on a regular basis uncompromisingly and arrogantly in very strong, sarcastic and even insulting language, prophesizing doom if the Devs don't do everything they want. If I were a Dev I would not want to work with such contentious people. Aside from the fact that it would be an unpleasant experience, too much time would be wasted in endless arguments, and those people would never be happy anyway unless they had complete control over what the combat mechanics are. It is important for the Devs to have a small group of competent and constructive people to work with.

 

Interesting.

 

Interesting.

 

Interesting.

Because I have higher standards than DPS WOW combat. You can technically play tennis using a basketball, but that doesn't make the tennis very good.