The way the deck system should work

Maybe the Navy Seal can't get to his grenades because he's busy trying to block knife attacks from someone standing right next to him.

Anyway, I don't think equipment should work like that. I'm not sure spells should either. In fact, I actually think that system should ONLY work for melee combat, when you're in combat with somebody. It's only the special attacks that I don't like the thought of being able to do them any time, but only every 5 seconds. I'm quite happy with someone outside combat being able to toss fireballs around at will, but when you're in combat, you can't do whatever you want to when you want to do it, because you can't guarantee that your hands will be free, and that the other person will obligingly stand back and let you.

If you can do an effective double-thrust, you can always do it. If you're good at parrying, you can always parry. Those are reflected in a higher offensive, and defensive, ability, which is why I prefer the traditional "click on the enemy and watch them fight" model. But the majority consider that to be 'boring', which is why I'm okay with a compromise - I wouldn't even mind "strong attacks but with reduced hit chance", or "defensive fighting with reduced hit chance", or "fast attacks but with reduced damage", type abilities.

But I really don't like the "special attacks with a cooldown" system, because to me, that turns it from an RPG into a skirmish game, and makes more depend on your skill than your character's, which is not what RPGs are supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about the decisions you make, and things like how you prepare the battlefield, how you take an advantageous position, etc, not how well you can time your mouse button clicks.

 

Could have so consumables was always available and no cooldown, but the price was that each time you used one it slowed your skill recovery for a while

 

If comparisons to real life dont matter then isnt gambling part of real life? I for one jave never liked gambling. First thing you said was correct its supposed to be fun. I fail to see randomness as fun all i see is frustration. Theres a certain satisfaction one gets when they get a sense of accomplishment by defeating something due to player choices being made correctly and thats exactly whats taken away with this system. I want to win because i played correctly not because i got a lucky card proc three times in a row with more randomness taking away player decision making your ability to have your choices affect the outcome go down and with it goes the feeling of accomsplishment and progression.

I dont see how anyone thinks someone wouldbe more effective with random skills than someone who got to choose them. It reminds me of a snes game ogre battle where your units fight automatically and how frustratig it was to see a unit get wiped out because they made a stupid decision that i could have prevented a wipe had i controlled them directly. Any time a player loses control he will always be less effective had he been able to make his own efficient decisions. What can happen will halpen so its only a matter of time until someone gets dealt bum cards sequentially and wipes because of it

Games should be strving to give ppl more control and decisions not less
While in real combat you cant always use an action when you want you still do have the opportunity to decide WHAT you want to do instead of it beig decided for you. It might not be the right decision but at least its still yours to make and you are reacting to someone else but its still your choice to make whereas this system takes the choice away from you and is in no way based on what your oponent is doing like it should be. Those are already in most other games and are called reactive abilities
Every other mmo has had to deal with these problems and between them there are good ideas. No need to reinvent the wheel just improve on it.

Wow didnt get so popular because they tried to re invent anything it was because they improved on what needed it. This is just a step too far forward and unnecesarily is trying to recreate something that doesnt need it. Sure it needs improvement but not a re invention


Saying i can lock a few skills doesnt make it any better unless i could lock at least 70% of them and im not sure but i think theyve stated there would be combos

 

Some people feel the complete opposite of you Squire, they think your skill and ability to push buttons with the right timing is what should make you win. I'm more interested in using superior tactics during a fight, using the right ability at the right time and making decisions about my abilities on the fly. And unlike many people on here I actually disliked combat in UO. I did a lot of pvp in WoW, warhammer online, and league of legends, counterstrike, so I enjoy going up against human opponents. I really don't know if I'll enjoy pvp with this system but I think I will. I think my planning and skills and being able to judge what to use when will give me an advantage over others who aren't able to figure out odds on the fly.

 

I believe they said at this time they allow you to lock 6 skills. In most games that is how many skills you normally use anyway, but Chris did say they would be willing to adjust the number you can lock based on feedback, so they might even make it so if you want to lock all your skills you can. The locked skills make it so you can't use them to make combos, they can have other negatives, higher focus cost, cooldowns depending on what it is to keep it balanced. so that is where the disadvantage is. It's unknown how many skills a typical player will be using. Even in the randomized version you'd want to keep it down to minimal number to be flexible yet reliable.

 

Maybee im just dense but i dont see where strategy comes into play more than luck.u mean say hold an ability till you need it instead of blowing it to get t to cycle a new one? Either way if you dont need it u may never be in the right situation to need it

 

Aside from strategy used when building the deck, selecting the right abilities and the right number of each there is what you mentioned. I can decide to use my fireball, or save it to hope for a combo, and combos can be built bigger and bigger, so I combine fireball 1 with my next one and it's a firestorm, then i can choose to save it, or use it, or wait, this ability will disappear if I don't use it eventually, so then I figure how many fireballs I have left and how many other skills are left to decide if I want to wait or use it because the odds aren't good I'll get something bigger, or I'll want to keep it based on how much focus I have remaining because maybe I have a lot of big high cost spells left in the deck so I don't want to make a big focus draining combo. There is a discard option mentioned, whether that means you get your next ability faster if you discard is unknown, but I would think that is how it should work, however, I can see some systems where they put junk filler in intended to be discarded so they can get their ultimate combo out. This all requires testing and balancing. I can turn firestorm into a bigger spell too, and maybe there are multiple options for combos, firestorm + an air spell might make a fire tornado or something. but will it drain your focus to a point where you can't use that heal spell and you haven't done anything for awhile waiting for this combo.

I'm sure as people play it they'll be able to get a feel for what is right to do given situations and it will become 2nd nature, especially the longer you play with the same deck. Just like in MTG before you go to a tournament you have to play your deck several times against friends so you know what works and if you should redraw your opening hand or not. So with this system you wont want to go into pvp without testing out what you built against some easier monsters or friends.

In magic my favorite events are sealed deck events, you get 6 packs of cards and have to build a deck using that. You can get nothing but garbage cards that don't work well together or you can get the best cards in the set. I have beaten many people with vastly worse cards than my opponents pulled, but they simply don't know how to build it so the cards work well together. I played in 2 events this past weekend and even though I got junk in both tournments I still placed 3rd and 4th and got prizes.

 

Nah, you're not dense. I have trouble seeing it too, but I'm anxious to see what they have and what changes I can recommend if any are needed. There is a certain amount of uncertainty in real combat as well. Outside influences, internal doubts, stuff like that. I think it was Eisenhower who said: Plans are nothing; planning is everything. Set up your deck well and you have a plan... Once you mix it up, the plan may very well go out the window.

One of the things I remember is that the spacebar was going to activate the hotbar item (or combo of items) but since that's now used for jumping (THANKS AGAIN FOR THE JUMPING!!!!) I wonder what they'll use now.... Keys seem to be mapped pretty well, although I'm planning on using my number pad if possible. Maybe 'enter' over there.

 

Yeah but if its random you might never get your combo builder or anything useful so by saving it and getting bad luck your dos goes down whereas the mobs stays the same so it soubds horribly inefficient. Does it have to cycle thru everything once befire it gives u a second of something u already had? If not then u could just get a lot of fireballs in a row and be gimped that way

 

Chris has mentioned both ways are possible depending on how random they want it, yes if it just goes right back in the deck I agree it would be way to random and then it is a random system. I would hope that they leave it at cycling through the deck, so you can get all of your abilities ran through before starting again. That leaves you able to predict what you could get and the odds you'll get it... so if you get your 3 fireballs right after another and have only 2 left in your deck with 27 skills in it, odds are you wont see them again and you'll know if you do get another fireball you wont be likely to combo it with another fireball.

Otherwise there is little prediction and only odds you can go off of is the number of each skill... making it more challenging to know what to do... more gambling, less informed decisions.

 

At some point itruns the risk of turing into too much of its own gambling stats minigame and would feel like less and less kinetic combat

 

Completely agree with this. The idea of cards moving out of the deck in order would be much worse than random. I want the tools and flexibility to adapt to situations, not run some kind of script. I don't need 10 options in front of me, and I don't want only 1. Even with "about 4", 4*4*4... adds up really fast.

 

You have zero adaptability if its random since you cant even plan one move ahead. Chess is the oldest game in the world for a reason. Its already enough not knowing what your enemy do and add on that u dont even know what you can do ts just too much chaos

 

I think that you DO know what you can do, the question is can you pull it off in the heat of combat. I'm not defending the random deck system as I haven't seen it yet, but I'm willing to give it a chance because I think it will simulate the chaos of combat and still allow you to have some control by locking certain skills in if you want. You should also have your basic auto attack with the weapon in hand as well. You won't be defenseless, but if you play your cards right (pun intended) you will be extremely effective.

Let's see what it looks like after r4.

 

Like i said it doesnt make much sense in reality or a game for someone to just forget all of a sudden how to parry. Watch an MMA fight they are constantly trying to pull off moves. Why? Because its hard wired to muscle memory.

Forgetting an ability just flat out doesnt happen with any amount of regularity irl and shouldnt in a game

 

It's not necessarily forgetting. Sometimes a person freezes up. Sometimes muscle memory is not fully developed. Sometimes you just get scared when it's life or death. Sometimes you just learned how to do something and you can't repeat is accurately 100% of the time. Sometimes the bad guy farts and you start laughing which blows you out of your zone. Sometimes you fart and you get all flustered out of shame. Sometimes things just don't go the way you want them too.

Combat is full of variables that you cannot control. If you were to ask an MMA fighter, you will most likely find that they blow their maneuvers all the time, but they recover due to strength of will and determination and carry on with the fight. A novice wouldn't even notice when they cheese up, but they do.

 

Chess isn't the oldest.. Senet is. Senet involves random chance.

You can stack your chances, the way they're describing this.

Nothing is certain in combat. Ever been in a close quarters fight?

Sent from my EVA Unit-01 using Tapatalk

 

Personally, I don't think it should be easy to pull out, open, and drink potions while someone is trying to hit you with a sword. Should require you to take a moment out of combat, or at least block the hits with a shield.

 

Parry and dodge aren't activated abilities according to our current skill lists that the dev's gave us. So you will still parry, dodge, and attack as normal. What you wont have access to is special moves. (Unless our list is partial, which I'm guessing it is partial, so unknown for certain, but i'd say activated dodge/parry unlikely based on other games these guys have made)

 

Giving us reliable access to things like parry and dodge would go a long was to smooth over concerns with the combat system. I simply want a few reliable and a few advanced offensive and defensive moves available. If they get get to this and remove the weird UI, things start getting a lot better.