The major problems with the combat system.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Poor game design, Oct 23, 2017.

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  1. Ristra

    Ristra Avatar

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    Ultima VI it could hurt to level to quickly. Those shrines loaded with demons, err gargoyles, or the patch of mages, fighters, and archers would be nasty.
     
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  2. Hornpipe

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    I think that statement is partialy untrue. Theoricaly, you are right, as long as you get a linear bonus in each skill while investing more and more experience to learn the next level. That's what I do, too. In practice, something seems to be missing in your reasoning (I say it seems because it's hard to get an objective point of view on this).

    First, as you said it yourself :
    To me, leveling 90 skills to get the proper attunement and the innates, clearly, isn't specialization. But ok, why not ?

    Secondly, I see a problem with SotA currently : you can cumulate many defensive skills while every attack skill only deal a limited amount of damages. For exemple, look at the video below. I use almost every "healing over time" skills I have (I don't have any of those above the level 70) with defensive skills (I don't have any of those above 85) and death shield to mitigate damages. My attunements are "not so high". Also, my armor is not a bone armor or anything, just supple leather with a simple tiara (without possible MW on it) on the head. Oh, and without food.

    With my usual deck, a specialized one using only Tactics, Ranged and Light armor skills, I would have to methodicaly stay out of range of the most part of my enemies or I would be dead in 10 seconds. Here, I barely felt the need to withdraw... And to be honest, using Elysian Illumination on top of Soothing Rain looks totaly weird. Using Death shield with Healing Grace is strange too. One shouldn't wonder why some can solo a dragon with the system as it is now.


    At last, but not least, training every single skills to the 100th level would take 137 000 000 experience points while training ONLY TWO ranged skills to the 150th level would take more than twice as much.


    In my opinion, using two active skills with the same effect (healing over time/healing/damage avoidance/dodge) should be very exceptional. Using two skills from opposite schools should have a down side, too. It would make this game easier to balance, and the specialization would have a better place.
    For now, specialization is for players who are not afraid with difficulty. And the most silly thing is that the current system favors the more casual players who can be very competitive if they invest fewer experience in the right skills, but this is of little interest to most people because a casual player does not have time to do that.
    Of course, I could have missed something in my own reasoning, but, well, if everything was fine, I don't think that PvP would be an interesting thing for only some few players like it is now.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2017
  3. Stundorn

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    Isnt this the perfect example!
    Why does someone who is a blade fighter learn 90 Skills of magic, although he never use them?
    If one is a roleplayer who like to immerse and play his character, how can he justify to do so?
    And how long and what is neccessary to do so?
    They killed hundreds of bosses while switchmodes.
    Is that the game we are going to play, if we want also RPvP?
     
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  4. Sara Dreygon

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  5. Stundorn

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    @Sara Dreygon
    You are using magic - passive!!!

    How did you level your magic skills, in a basement versus a Dummy?

    Great game!

    You are roleplaying a fighter who trained all magic in his basement to withstand the Mages, but then only use or benefit from passive use?
    Odd

    People should stop arguing and defending this anti Roleplay skillsystem and instead state that they dont care that much for RP, but very much for the option to level all and have just one class or the multiclass thing.
    It would be more believable and absolutely a viable opinion instead of dilute what Roleplay is.

    A Roleplay Character is what he is, if he is a generalist he should be able to to all, but nothing good.
    If he is a specialist he can do sone things very good, but others not.

    If they dont balance the System, they renounce a bigger playerbase.

    Some people dont see it, because they cannot imagine to play less ir how this feels. They just lost oversight, because they figured things out way before persistence and then min max like Ravicus already said.

    It's just frightening.
    Most people i know who would like to participate and RP are locked out by Design.
    That some arent willing to sacrifice some power and support changes to get a bigger playerbase and balance things so that casual can also fully partake and be as strong as someone who puts 10.000 hours in it, is hard to understand for me.
    They insist on this system, because they like it, but they cannot see that they do this at cost of others anf at cost of more players and participants.

    I bet in the past a lot of people left because if this, because of pvp like it is and because of limitless and advocate grind playstyles.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2017
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  6. Hornpipe

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    Everyone can have a different point of view @Stundorn
    For exemple, when you say :
    I can't agree with you. Those who play more should be able to have a slight advantage. Probably not decisive, but something which can act like an incentive nonetheless. That's part of the balance. The learning curve/soft caps are rather good to do that. Problem is that people who get time can learn every skill to GM and make, I think, decisive combinations. In addition to being a problem for roleplay, it is a problem for Portalarium, which must balance things with characters much stronger than others, rather than with a controlled progression.
     
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  7. Halvard

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  8. Stundorn

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    @Hornpipe the 100000 hrs thing was about one pick only one class /role and levels ist other do 5 or whatever and need but also have the time to do so.
    But this shouldnt grant them more strength. It should only be an option and it should only give you more options to build decks /classes but only for situational things.

    Swapping a class and gear in combat should have negative effects so that it is not beneficial for example.
     
  9. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I'm a wizard lol. I have only a little attunement for heals, the rest is pumped into Air. There is nothing I can not handle with my build. I do however for fun have a rouge type build with dual daggers and poison which I just started working on but rarely ever play.

    I don't use pots myself with the exception of the rouge build. I use to carry imbued focus for emergencies however I have not had to use them in a long time. What makes the difference for me is my armor and how I play my build.
    I for one have fully buffed over 170int and 1100+ mana pool to boot. This is what keeps me alive. Sure if I am in a pvp and get jumped by mr invisible back stab I could die if I am not aware. however If I know someone is there then usually if I am able to defend they drop pretty fast or they run. That said I don't walk around in PVP but I do play in PVP zones. being in a large guild and united with other guilds I don't usually worry about the odd ganker simply because pkiller will be listed and have a hard life for random killing our members. KOS lists are grate unless your on the other end of them. That one time kill they get is not worth it imo for what they get for the rest of the game :)

    As for PVE not much I can't do as a mage short of soloing a dragon... Maybe one day after I mage out my health pool and work out a strategy :)
     
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  10. StrangerDiamond

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    Sounds about normal for that build :) I guess it gets complex for the devs to coin every sub-build that is common so that it makes sense, but as I've said its kinda where the game leads you from the get go.

    Of course the simple builds like "I want to be a air/fire/water/earth/life'or'death mage" should be covered IMO, you can expect the majority of the population to make these kind of choices, especially the casual player with limited gameplay.

    We must not lose sight of both perspectives, balancing the game from only the upper end was never a good strategy, fun factor suffers from it.
     
  11. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    Agree totally. I am also exploring plate for soloing some bosses as we know a mage can't handle everything :) But that is the beauty of the system. you can group up with others and play as you wish pure mage or adapt to get what you want through solo at a trade off of having to learn to tank and spank in plate.

    I do think they will continue to add to each tree further spells and options which based on how XP works will drive most to specialize.
     
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  12. StrangerDiamond

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    Good point ! Balance from both ends, as we would expect here, scaling scenes with player/group works very well for the single/friends modes :)
     
  13. StrangerDiamond

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    Indeed, we'll always come back to the fact that most of the confusion comes from the very indolent hybridization of game modes. What is a nice feature in single/friends modes might unbalance the MMO part to unforeseen degrees. We tried to suggest for a long time on here that this balancing act be done sooner than later and definitely up there on the priority list with performance improvement.

    We have yet to see one dev commenting on this huge problem that seems to want to split the dev efforts into distinct teams, which the community seems to abhor.
     
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