The Combat System....

Not necessarily exactly like God of War. I am just saying, when I play God of War, I feel like I am in complete control of the outcome of a combat situation based on how I move my character, maneuver it, direct my attacks and utilize my defences. I am watching my character, not timing my hotkey bar....

I could use Call of Duty as another example, totally different than God of War, but still, you are in control of the outcome of the combat... You can outsmart your opponent, be better positioned, you have to actively target them.. You can duck, use a knife attack at close range... Not auto targeted and watching hotkeys..

I guess I enjoy the RPG aspect of the game... but I play games for the combat solely.. especially vs other players but also vs the environment....

Maybe that's a better way of articulating how the combat feels in SotA... Very slow, boring, disengaged...

They could just use some inspiration from those games maybe... To make it more engaging and dynamic... Focused on the character and directing your attacks and maneuvers... I find that too often 'battles' take too long and it's slow and agonizing....

 

There is a post on why MMORPG combat is "bad" in general.. a lot of it has to do with timing.. and there are significant issues with online FPS's as well that are frustrating. Namely lag resulting in you dying or not getting a kill you should have. Which is why I stopped playing them, too frustrating.

 

GoW is a mindless button smasher with push the buttons we show you on the screen? I'm not talking about the Single Player Cut Scenes where you finish off the end boss in stylish fashion (although that would be a cool way to take out some mob bosses in PvE)... I'm talking about GoW Ascensions Multiplayer combat... and just using it as an example of a PvP experience where you feel engaged and in control of the combat and outcome....

I would guess you have never played God of War Ascensions multiplayer. The PvP in GoW Ascension is not even remotely close to button smashing. It is the exact opposite...... It takes a ton of skill to play GoW Ascensions Multiplayer Arena....

This glyph system is so ridiculously boring and lacking in any sort of skill at all... It is mundain, slow, disengaging... You don't even need to direct an attack?! It's as mindless as it gets.... If I'm standing beside the person, it's a a random chance if I hit them? For real? A random chance? That is not engaging at all....

GoW Ascension Combat, Call of Duty Combat. Those are games where there is not much "random dice roll" chance of you hitting them or auto targeting... I'm watching the action in those games, not a hotbar full of keys to hit based on timing with the person auto targeted standing still......




You mentioned "To attempt to compare the combat system in SoTA to GoW just shows what insane lengths you will go to in order to say you don't like the combat system."

You're right. I don't like the disengaging and boring "combat" system.... It's horrendous and dull. I will not play this game if this is the combat system being used. It's that bad. It doesn't have to be GoW Ascension. It doesn't have to be CoD obviously... but please, make it engaging and make it take some tactics and ability. Make it based on actually controlling your character and directing things... NOT Hotbars and Hotkeys...

 

Two things to consider:

1. AI is boring. No matter what they do with cards or locked hotbars or whatever, combat as a whole has to change. The skills are boring. The mobs' AI is boring. Combat, at its core, is atrocious. For 2016, it's unacceptable how terrible it is. Optimists will scream that it's gonna' get worked on, pessimists will disagree. I'm waiting to see, personally, but it has to be noted, especially since it's a year from launch.

2. Combat gear is especially imbalanced. That will change combat speeds and TTK and such. Again, that's something they will be working on balancing up until and (hopefully) after launch and beyond.

That said, the card system is likely not conducive to making those elements much better. Any system requires attention to be drawn away from combat means that you cannot have the action dynamic. If I can't watch the fight, I can't counter the fight: positioning out of a "power attack" mechanic; watching for subtle clues of the incoming ability I need to counter or block; chase mechanics where ranged and melee maneuver effectively, and so on. It isn't just making the card system work for the sake of working, but also work in a real time environment. Online gameplay means lag will happen, but that hasn't stopped innovative online gaming for the last twenty or so years.

 

Skills should be specialised so that no one WANTS to use the same skill in all situations, such that when your attacked by a group in tight courters you want to use x spell and when your fighting a fast moving single opponent you want to use y. The best way to make combat more than a 1,2,3,4 repeat isn't to make the whole thing random, but rather to make skills so specialised that 1,2,3 gets you killed.

I would rather see a combat system adapted from D&D even if this has disadvantages I don't like such as friendly fire which prevent you from casting that fire ball in this situation because it will mean your allies are caught in the blast or the enemy can out run it ect. THAT is how to make combat interesting, not by taking control away from the player and taking focus away from the action to watching a hot bar. I want to play a GAME, not Microsoft Word or whack-a-mole

 

well put!

 

Good point but the new D&D ruleset sucks now too though; it seems like they pretty much started dumbing it down after 3E. Would still be better than this combat system though!

 

I've given combat in the game another go- reassessed it with a long, hard, honest look- because I do enjoy the "housing" aspects of this game so much. I love being able to place things where I want them, to collect trophies, to arrange and rearrange and set suitable lighting and all the rest- and no other pc game around allows this level of immersion in the "homey" aspects of a roleplaying setting.

Kudos on that aspect of Shroud aside, the combat system sucks. It isn't just bad- it is dreadful in every single way I can think of. I realize the game isn't finished, that the budget it limited, and that combat isn't all there is.

That said, there is no reason that the fighting aspect of the game should be worse than the combat system found back in the mid 1990s. It isn't a matter of technological prowess or the "looks" of combat. It's the basic concepts that are horribly flawed, and the AI which is about as bad/repetitive and dull as I've seen anywhere.

Here are the points which I feel need addressing the most.

The Deck idea. Somewhere, somehow, someone decided it would be a great idea to take the idea of card combat, which I suppose originated with the paper Magic system, and bring it to a modern PC RPG. The trouble with this entire concept is that paper card combat SIMULATES "realty" in an extremely abstract way- a MUCH MORE abstract way than a PC game today can model it!

Think about that for a moment.

Instead of allowing the monsters in the game to "fight" by jumping around and defending themselves, and "using weapons" or "spells"- it's done via card draws.

The frankly horrific nature of this idea is pretty obvious. WHY do this? That is the question.

The concept forces the player out of dealing with the monsters he is looking at, and makes him look at the cards he is being dealt. The reason for the cards in an actual card game is because THERE AREN'T ANY MONSTERS- the cards are modeling the idea and you use your imagination for the rest. In the PC game there ARE MONSTERS to look at. The system destroys it's own best feature.

*sigh* Enough said on this subject. I despise this.

You can turn off the Deck. When you do this, as far as I can tell when playing, you get about as boring and meaningless combat system as I have played in years. How is it I still remember and LOVE the elegant, simple UO way of combat, and I am bored silly by combat in Shroud? It is uninspired, slow, unimaginative yet manages to be clumsy and inelegant, even though there isn't much to it.

I love games where you go out and work your character up. I have no problem with killing rats/skeletons/bandits in the old hoary prescribed fashion- as long as there is intelligent AI and an interesting system behind the fighting that makes you think and respond to the enemy. I feel like, even without the deck, the interface is my enemy- not the mindless sprites in front of me have no spirit, offer no challenge, and all act alike.

The fact that the world is "open" so you can move around at your own pace is fantastic. But, for this to work, there needs to be intelligent, clever AI and monster "personalities". Wolves can't act like other animals. Each creature type needs to be unique, if you are going to have an "open" style world. I think the combat uses the deck system to hide the fact that there is so little here. No depth, poor AI, awful mechanics.

Somehow, the game's makers have made the mistake of removing the soul of combat from the creatures one is fighting into the UI itself. This is a dreadful thing to do, and is exactly the opposite of what all good game design tries to do. You want the MONSTERS to be BELIEVABLE and the COMBAT SYSTEM to be INVISIBLE- not visa-versa.

This is just a death knell for a PC RPG game with combat in 2015, with all the games that have come before. I find myself become bored and quitting, even when I am trying very hard to retain interest. You can't stick animated monsters into a game, yet run the game like some sort of static tactical card game. Interaction with the monsters in combat is as important as interaction with the stuff in your "house". The fact that the housing is so cool only underlines the awfulness that the combat system and creatures are.

This is my favorite gaming genre. I SHOULD be able to maintain interest. I love RPGs. I gamed with Gary Gygax, for goodness sakes. I've DMed pen and paper since '77 and have worked as a conceptual design artist for games for over 20 years.

I honestly don't think it's me being cranky here. I can't play the combat portion of this game, which pretty much mucks up being able to buy stuff for my house. I guess I could play as a crafter-housing player, maybe, once the crafting portion is further along.

But damn, I think the combat portions of the game are unplayable, for me, anyways.

I can't be alone in thinking this. The whole system needs rethinking, with more emphasis on doing what a modern computer does best, and less on abstracting those features for no good reason.

 

You aren't, not by a damn long shot. As "quiet" as the critics are of the system, there are many, many more that gave up on this fight months ago. The majority is in a similar boat, by far.

 

You played D&D with Gary Gygax? That's pretty cool man! Also, I agree with everything you wrote; excellent post.

 

Yeah, Gygax and I communicated over the years, and I got to introduce him to Neverwinter Nights, which, I still think, got about as close to a pen & paper experience with it's Game Master concept and world building ability as any PC game ever has. I never got to find out what he thought about it though.

I do feel bad about my comments, because obviously, a lot of people are working hard on the game. However, I believe it's better to honestly express my opinion than just blindly nod support for features that seem very bad.

I've come to enjoy the "walking map" idea...it grows on you the more you use it, but it's a compromise that I think actually works. (It saves tons of traveling in game resources the team can spend elsewhere rather than designing all the in-between areas, but, it's functional and doesn't hurt my experience).

It looks like the crafting part of the game will be fine, and once you can actively gather tons of materials, it will give traveling/exploring more purpose.

Housing, as I mentioned earlier, is great all around, and pretty similar to the fond memories many of us have of UO.

But, combat- the whole package- really makes me throw up my hands and wonder what the blazes the designers were thinking.

 

R18 has some combat updates that will help you out with this

 

I guess I'll throw in my two cents.

I also don't care much for the combat in it's current form, or the deck system. A deck system would be fine in a game that wasn't pretty much half MMO. But when you're playing with other people, random abilities popping in and out become a hindrance to group play. It needs to be tossed.

If I were to choose a system to replace it with, I'd honestly go with something like EverQuest had in it's prime. It's combat was slow, but each class had an array of abilities that had varying uses. For instance, a Magician could summon pets, summon armor for people if they died and lost their armor, summon weapons. Necromancers could snare and then envelop their target in DoTs to slowly kill them while kiting them down. They could also charm undead and other undead related spells. Enchanters could mesmerize mobs, meaning that if there was a group, the enchanter could mesmerize all but one, and have the tank pull that one. They could also increase your mana pool, haste you and slow the mobs. Monks could pull a mob to the group, feign death, and transfer aggro to the tank.

Each class also complimented and each other. One example as a Magician was that I could summon armor and weapons and give it to the Necromancer's pet to make it a lot stronger.

WoW's combat was kind of a watered down version of EQ's combat. EQ had a lot more utility, summons, and diversity in how you could approach a mob in my opinion. I will say that EQ had poor combat if you were a melee character, though, so don't copy that part.

Something will have to give eventually, though. Combat in it's current form is kind of bare bones and boring.