The major problems with the combat system.

I do of course, I also have 500 points in it for resist (500 in every school of magic at the minimum).

I never used any death in PvP and did fine. I dropped top end death mages in 10 seconds flat at times, they were easy to kill once the class was balanced.

 

I was only pointing out that you need the skills for resistances and the fact that I dont like the concept of having to train all.
The basic idea behind this im all for, being linited by your deck but its so full of flaws.
I cant see a solution except for hard caps but Im eager to see what they come up with. IF this is the final product I would be gravely dissapointed. that is all fimbul out.

 

I feel like the devs decided they didn't like classes, and then went completely the other way instead of something more in the middle. I prefer classless in the sense of "I'm not forced into/locked out of certain skills due to a choice I made before I even began playing." But to then not give any sort reason to specialize, we get stuck with the problem the OP brought up. Which I agree , is far from ideal. Personally, I would like to see a system where going too far up one skill tree begins locking you out of progressing too far up others. You can learn a little ranged and a little blades and a little magic, but if you decide you want to really learn a lot of blades, you're going to be pretty limited in magic and ranged. (And additionally, going too far up one magic skill tree starts to lock you out of the opposite school.)

But I expect that ship has sailed. And been plundered by corsairs. And scuttled in deep seas.

 

I can start collecting the mass of names that I know walk around with said 2-5 sets of gear, but the list would be too long man. They can also carry 1k stones. =/

 

sorry but, lmao - the way the game is going, is exactly the opposite. Since that is what is happening that is the problem. They are not going to fix it in any reasonable time frame and when the time comes when they try it will be way to late - - - - -

Anyhow the road is steep, covered with ice and we are moving over the precipice. . . .

A lot of players see it, a lot are trying to bring light to it - - - -

Decay does NOTHING like it was designed for - -
Exp was accumulated by some thru abused mechanics and is still to easy to just get more and more high level skills - -
Implemented systems are doing nothing but deterring mid level and new players - -
Equipment is a complete Joke (a few farm the valuable resources) and now is looking like WoW where each month will have to put new pixel crack out there to keep interest - -
Intuitive Crafting and creation of a player driven economy is nothing but a Grind for the Elites and Elite Guilds - -

But this is starting to be a triad and OT . . . .

Combat is broken because of previous errors and cannot be fixed on this path . . . .

 

You hit it perfectly here.

The simple fact is that you have to specialize to be really hard core in this game. For most of us like me who is almost lvl 100, I am what I consider specialized in Earth magic (1000) and somewhat less in blades (750), Bludge (700) and archer (~800). If I were to PvP again right now, I would go earth again due to attunment and probably wouldn't yet in the rest until I got more attunement. This is why when I was in my adv lvl 80's I kicked butt in PvP because I had everything in Earth (on the flip side, people knew I would be rolling in Earth and just loaded a class that beats it). But yes, there are people that who have 200+ GM's and lvl 120 that can specialize in many different things but again, they can only do so one at a time. The thought of a "battle mage" even now is silly. Yes, you can have a good char with it, but no, you are not going to have your best char with it. If you split to many things into your deck, its very hard to be hard core since you are not targeting specific equipment benefits. the best chars I have seen split only 2 primary class's (such as say Earth and bludge) that complement each other. But even then, I have to stack my gear for one primary. Defensive skills, shields and passives are a bit different. Generally you want to take every single one you can from any tree.

I think people just dont know this, even though they have played the game for several years.

 

The heat system is not practical for melee attacks, low tier heals, anything that needs lasting spam-power, or prolonged combat scenarios in general.

It is ideal for 1-off moves and defensive abilities

Also heat is def not ideal for avara

 

Balancing destroys games. Games are about evaluating options and selecting the ones that give you an advantage. Balancing is the first step towards issuing participation trophies.

The true problem this game has with combat in PVE and PVP, is Adventure Level is overpowered. Skills are nearly irrelevant compared to Adventure Level. Choices in building and choices in action should facilitate winning, but the adventure level can trump those as it is given too much weight in how much damage we deal or are dealt, wether we hit or miss.

 

Just a thought - while things need to be balanced, you also need to consider reward and incentive. People that play a lot need to be holding some power as a result of their efforts otherwise why are they going to keep playing? Reward is the reason we play video games - if someone likes the combat and plays the game for that, and their efforts suddenly become less rewarding, they're going to question how much time they spend playing the game.

There needs to be investment in order to acquire power. Charity power rewarded to people only playing two hours a week can't exist. People that have been playing two months, but only acquire 20 hours of in-game time can't have even relatively close to the same power (reward) of people that no-life the game.

There's a balancing act that needs to happen here. You need to cater to both play styles without discouraging either one. Or you need to establish the mindset with players as they arrive in the game that invested time is rewarded accordingly and set the expectation that you can't excel and be top tier of whatever your objective(s) in the game are without investing reasonable, but not overwhelming amounts of time.

What are those levels? What's reasonable? How much can we scale back or increase reward for each playstyle? By how much?

All hard questions to answer that literally every game struggles to keep answering throughout their lifecycle. I have no idea what the answers are for this game - but I do know one thing with certainty. Whatever those numbers are for SOTA, the ones they're using now simply don't work and aren't even close to where they need to be.

 

I have a question. I play more in a role playing capacity. I already know that my current build makes it almost impossible to PVP. I can "go down" the suggested builds many people already do, but I rather play a swashbuckling rogue.

So for hypothetical purposes with the current combat system in place,

If it is it possible, how can you create a character that must be both a duel sword wielder and wear leather armor (not one bit of heavy armor except maybe the Founder item Crown) and be able to survive in PVP?

 

That used to be the case in like R10 for PVP, and R30 something for PVE, but it's not that way now.

I often comment that the higher level you are the more power you have, but that's not direct power from adventure level, it's from the all the XP you have to put into a million skills. I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about here. Adventure level has very little impact on PVP or PVE, there are outliers, but it's far from what it was many moons ago.

 

I agree and disagree with parts of this.

Mostly being that thier needs to be far more attention to casual players over hard core players. Hard core players whom play 18 hours a day are a 1% kinda thing vs everyone else who has school or jobs and make up 99% of the player base. I think one of the main reasons SOTA is failing is that they seem far to focused on that 1% of players, making sure they are taken care of. When I have spend a year crafting and I am 5 years away at this speed from being where I have seen some hard core players get in the first 3 months after persistence.... there is an issue (yet, I am almost adv lvl 100 and 72 prod lvl). That means the 99% of players who are casual have no hope and give up (and they have in SOTA to the point of almost being a graveyard).

The *Fundemental* flaw our devs simply have not addressed yet.... FUNDAMENTAL: is crafting. Ive been playing for 2 years... they just... dont... get.... it. I simply do not have 1 hour to pull 300 buckets of water a day. I dont have another full 2 hours to turns my gold and silver ore into ingots. I dont have another 2 hours to go out mining and another hour to go out and farm hides. At most I have a few hours to get everything done and at this pace, it would take YEARS to be able to actually craft something worth crafting. They fundamentally do not "get" that. I want those 2 hours to be fun, not mindlessly smelting ore... simply put... is not fun.

 

Totally agree. Right now the scales are titled though.

It's easy for me to think about how best to balance this. You just look at the general population, and for the sake of argument let's say it looks something like this:

Level 1 to 50 = 500 people
Level 50 to 79 = 200 people
Level 80 to 90 = 100 people
Level 90 to 100 = 50 people
Level 100 to 105 = 25 people
level 106+ = 10 people

If I were in charge, I would just move those 10 outliers back into the curve. Or I'd develop a soft cap system that essentially gets us where we want to be by making decay totally bring these 10 people back down to earth. They'd still be higher than anyone else, but they wouldn't be millions and millions of XP higher. We don't have the time or money to support that here. Sorry power gamers.

 

You can survive in pvp using that build, but you also CURRENTLY need to have as much magical attunement as possible, which means you might only use dual blades and leather armor skills, but in the background you'll be a freakin archmage so you won't get clobbered by anything with magic. There are a lot of viable choices in using skills and spells, but not in building your character, to build your character you need to have everything, because if you don't someone else will and they'll totally destroy you. (despite what some people pretend on the forums)

 

Yeah, some even low-level general magical wards would be fantastic. I'd rather put all those XP into my bow.

 

That's why we need counters.

Opportunity Strike is an awesome, well designed, counter. It encourages smart game play.

Some guy puts all his XP into dodging, and gets the best gear in the world that makes him dodge even more? GREAT! You can't wait to slice him in two with Opportunity Strike! It's a wonderful counter to dodging. But it doesn't make dodging less viable, it just means there's a counter move, by design.

That's what we need more of. This system of attunement and resistance favors power gamers and removes actual skill from the game. It rewards people that have too much time on their hands. We need more counters.

 

This became very evident to me in one of the answers from the last Q&A.

Translation: For the most advanced character in the game, decay is only a very minor speed bump.

There needs to be a steeper curve where, as x goes to infinity, the top players eventually reach a point where progression becomes extremely difficult. Right now I feel like the curve slows down slightly, but then continues on forever, or to some far future point that is so far away so as to not be meaningful at all. No game should be designed around endless progression of the top 5%. Those players should certainly earn some advantages for the time they spend in game, but it isn't healthy for them to continue to extend the gap between themselves and everyone else.

 

No one is ignoring latency. We have it, we will have it, and it's something we would need to continue to design around.

The idea that we can't have skill based combat though is going too far. We already have some elements of it, we just need to apply more.

 

didnt read since page 1 , but a question comes to my mind.

what is max HP/ Focus and what is it based on?
I know all about Stats and Skills, something else like Adv Lvl.?

 

Yes, Adventure Level still impacts Health and Focus.