This card system is for the birds

Still happy with the card system here. Its a bit wonky at times, yes. But its the most flexible system yet for MMO skill building. Gotta love the flexibility to build decks of your choosing, lock skills or not, and prioritize certain random skills over others. Truly no character will have the exact cookie cutter builds in the game.

 

While I appreciate your appreciation for the system, that last sentence begs contradiction. Someone will climb to or near the top of the PvP ranks, and post their build. Someone will triumph over all the PvE content, and post their deck sequence.

These posts will be reposted across the internet, and mundane players, eager for an easy way to excel, will copy it verbatem. Voila! Exact cookie cutter builds. This system is NOT proof against them, and in fact lacks a fair amount of variability that I have seen in other games design systems. I think cookie cutter builds will be out with the first official release.

 

this system is ridiculous..

start a fight with 3 heals 2slugs and a healing potion, when all you wanna do is hit them with a fireball or some other damaging skill.. how does this make you think?
your only option is to auto attack or be a coward and run to wait for a spell or ability to damage them. and by the time it does come up.. your going to need to heal yourself, and at that point.. your damage spell comes and you cant get a heal.. its so retarded..

yes you can lock your deck.. but.. you get penalized .. spells and abilities cost more .. you have to pump point after point into focus making your toon weaker with less ability .. pump skill points into focus for more focus and a bigger locked deck.. so yea.. locking your deck isnt worth it.. too may points are wasted when you are locking the deck.. so.. now you are forced to play the good ol' random card system.. blah.. this is by far the worst idea I have ever seen.. "no offense, I am happy you tried something new but, its horrible.. you tried it.. it failed.. move on"

im going to hit you with my fire spell and hurt you bad.... oh nm.. ill run and hide till these heal spells go away and my deck lets me hurt you.

thumbs down on the deck system.. sorry fellas.. its horrible..

 

I also don't like the fact that currently you have to have a different build depending on whether you pve or pvp, a build that works in pvp should work in pve and vise versa.

 

you don't "have" to have anything...and I happen to enjoy having several decks available based on what I'm up against. Love the strategy part about this (equivalent to having my 5 sets of hotkeys in LOTRO for different situations).

 

I wasn't talking about different decks I was talking about different character builds.

 

Randomizing skills is just slightly better than playing whac-a-mole at Chuck E. Cheese. For me, it's not entertaining to click on random keys and after only a few minutes it becomes incredibly monotonous. Instead of giving us a combat system that immerses the player into the life or death struggle that's going on, it diverts your attention to what appears to be a hotbar turned slot machine. As soon as combat starts and the randomizing of skills begins - you're immediately reminded that you're no longer in New Britannia.. you're instead playing a minigame inside a game.

They say that some of the reasons they developed card combat was to prevent cheating and add "chaos" as a factor so that a higher level player wouldn't always defeat a lower level. On paper, that sounds like a great idea. In reality, they may have solved those problems but it was at the sacrifice of consistency, immersion and fun. Should your crafting recipes be randomized while you're at the crafting station to prevent people from using macros and crafting too quickly? Should your house location be randomized when you log in to keep things fair to players who didn't get a good location to live? Maybe they could randomize experience points before a battle so that opponents who normally would be of a lesser level may be a much higher level when you duel them.

We all wanted an innovative and fun combat system for SotA - but it wasn't in the cards.

 

The fact that the card system stimulates discussion is what makes it promising. What other MMO have we seen lately that has more than a 'ho hum' or 'yawn' or 'more of the same' response from gamers? Name MMOs that launched in the last two years with a unique combat system that pushed the envelope not just with new skills but how you really get to combine and personalize those skills. Then we can compare those to the discussion here and see if different is truly bad.

 

I wish there was a way to thumbs up a post so forcefully that the poster temporarily deified.

People keep saying that you can do whatever you want, but they ignore the fact that doing whatever you want generally involves dieing in pain and disgrace.

The complaints aren't that you cannot spend the talent points the way you want, it's that most of the options fail catastrophically.

Right now the PvE and PvP tactics and builds are already diverging, right now is the time to try to heal that breach. It's a BAD THING which has destroyed more MMO's than I can count. It is in NO WAY beneficial or good to have the mechanics of PvP and PvE diverge more and more over time, that breaks it into two vaguely related games, which will breed two divergent and mutually hostile player populations, which will be impossible to satisfy at the same time. After that, the death spiral is pretty fast.

Fix it now, LB, or this game won't make it three months past launch. These problems are multiplying rapidly and there's no solution or innovation in sight.

 

While I agree with the spirit/theory of what you're saying, I see some, but not a disheartening amount of difference between PvE and PvP tactics and builds. Perhaps that is just my playstyle, and another player would have a wide divergence between tactics and builds in PvE vs. PVP. But I don't see it creating "two vaguely related games". Worst case, you have one (or more) build for PvE, and another (or more) for PvP. That to me is flexibility and variety, not disaster.

 

its my understanding that once the game goes live respecing won't be nearly as easy. As it is, unless you have a lot of levels pvp builds get crushed by mobs and pve builds get crushed in pvp regardless, I tried it both ways so make no mistake, its there and its an issue.

 

You misunderstand. I am not speaking of the current state breaking the game, I am speaking of a process that begins here and develops over time. This process is based on continued divergence.

 

Exactly, you think the way I do.. The rotating deck system is complete and utter trash. It's basically just a hotbar of random spells you can spam over and over which takes away from you paying attention to what is going on in the game because you're constantly just looking at your spell bar... There should be multiple bars "f1 f2 f3" style that you can cycle through with set spells/attacks on it like other games.

I like to be able to plan my attacks on people, if I have a guild full of great pvpers and we plan to raid another group, I want to be able to put together a strategy, not just run up on them and everyone spam random **** at each other. Please fix this terrible issue, so unbalanced. Why would you punish people "50% more focus" just because they want to use a locked deck? If anything reward them, especially with more bars to put spells on.

The only people that think this system is a great addition would be what we call "Trammies" in the UO world that don't know much at all about PvP.\

Again, WAY TO MUCH FOCUS IS PUT INTO WATCHING WHAT SPELLS ARE COMING AND GOING ON YOUR BAR THAN FOCUSING ON WHAT MATTERS ESPECIALLY IN PvP, THE PEOPLE THAT LIKE THIS SYSTEM ARE THOSE THAT YOU ALWAYS HEAR SAYING "I PLAY FOR FUN"..

Also, yes I have tried both systems both in pvp and pvm for a good amount of time.

 

Sooo, the folks who don't PvP should bow down to those that do? Non-PvPers should just get it thru their thick heads that this game is a PvP game and not one for PvE'ers? If, and I say IF, they keep the combat bar the way it is now, how about suggestions (in a calm collected voice that includes reasons it will work) that could make it work instead of just posting "throw it away, get rid of it, it sucks, it bites"?

Yeap, there are folks here that PvP alot and have made suggestions on what might fix or enhance their play. Good, well thought out suggestions. More suggestions, real suggestions are what is needed. This is supposed to be a game for all of us. If PvPers aren't happy, I'm not happy. If PvE'ers aren't happy, I'm not happy.

Besides, we haven't seen what type of changes have been made. I doubt there are changes to the existing combat model, but maybe something else so it's not quite so cumbersome might have changed. Skills are supposed to be fleshed out more, maybe enough to show there actually is a light at the end of the PvP tunnel. We don't know yet.

Screamin' and hollerin' here ain't gonna get changes done, it ain't gonna make folks who don't PvP jump to your aide, it ain't gonna make the devs listen or take you seriously. I haven't PvPed in years, but am looking forward to trying it again this release. Decided it's too large a part of the overall game to ignore any longer....(and an archer was underpowered and they said they are gonna show archers some love, so maybe I'll have a chance). I've been a PvE'er for years......but I want to do some PvP in THIS game, with THESE people....I want it to work too.

And Yeah, I play for fun.

 

I really wasn't going to post on this topic since I have limited experience with this game but today after days figuring out this game I came across something that frustrate me to no end. I kept getting my defensive ability and slugs instead of my offensive stuff. I was fighting Kobold fighters that I had been killing without a problem when 2 fights in a row I was killed because the system decided to give me nothing but auto attacks, my light spell and and deflect. The only thinking involved in any fights now are done when you build your deck everything else is just reactionary. I don't think the devs tried to put themselves in the shoes of their characters then they came up with this system. If I am going into a fight and the first thought my character thinks when facing his impending doom at the hands of some nasty is "Hey I could really use a light!", then this system is in trouble. The only way I can see you fix this was to have 3 different categories as your hand. You have offensive, defensive and consumable and you will always have a card available from each category.


Right now combat feels like this

 

I think the above is a big part of the problem. There is so much prep involved that it makes me not want to play at all. If I have mastered a set of skills they should be available to me. People have different views on what requires more or less skill. As it is now I am playing a FPS style game with turn based combat drowning in a card game. None of this is fun for me.

During the kickstarter campaign I saw the very very early combat prototypes and I thought it looked so fun, it brought me back to U7 and UUW. I watched every video, participated in the google hang outs with dippy bird. I cheered along with everyone else and invested more in this games development than I spend on games in 3 years to help make sure the goals were reached. I heard RG talk about trying to remove as much UI as possible to really help you get immersed into the game.

Somewhere shortly after that this card system came into play. How and when I do not know, I feel like it was a bait and switch. "Look at this fun game you can play, SURPRISE its digital Magic The Gathering." I am in no way free from the UI. In fact to play I have to completely focus on it. I have no control over my character in combat. It attacks at random and my ability to use the skills I have mastered also come up basically randomly. Before every combat situation I have to consider if my DECK is stacked properly. Not if I have the proper equipment but if I have arranged my set of skills properly. Not only that I am unable to use some of the skills I have mastered at all unless I have added them to one of my decks before hand.

My complaint about the deck system is really secondary though. As I have said elsewhere and will continue to say until something changes or I am brow beat into accepting non fun combat is I want BASIC attacks to not be auto.

I want to be able to hold a bow, hide behind a tree, release the arrow at the perfect moment and plunge an arrow into my foes skull. I want to be able to swing my sword, shoot my fireball, heal, eat and drink in real time.

Can we please have full control over basic attacks with any special bonus attacks/buffs/debuffs etc being the card system?

 

Deck system is great! The option to use a locked deck is there so i do not understand why people keep asking to do away with one of the features that really sets this game apart from others. If you don't like random draw.. lock your glyphs. >.> never get the glyph you want? put 5 of it in and less of other types (max glyph count at 25). Hate slugs? put points in focus tree and don't use plate. I PVE and i PVP and use the same random deck with 3 locked glyphs for both.

 

As a premise, I will say again that am in favour of the deck/glyph system. While it's clunky and unrewarding in its current pre-alpha state, I think they can make it work.

I enjoyed Ultima Underworld and its active combat/spell system (the latter being quite original)... but Ultima VII honestly had a boring, horrible combat. It felt like they put together a basic combat system in a couple minutes, just because they needed to.
Of course everything else was so great that combat became really a minor, forgettable drawback.

I'd like that. Not sure how practical it would be to implement in the current framework and I don't really see that happening, but if that happened I'd be happy with it.

 

I am not opposed to the deck system as a premise. But absolutely hate the restriction it combined with auto combat places on me in it's current iteration..

 

I think this pretty much expresses what a lot of people feel about it. The problem isn't that they are trying something new, it's that how it is implemented isn't actually more engaging than a regular hotbar.


It's just extremely obvious ingame right now how the glyph system affects gameplay. Enemies are so unrelenting in beating you into a pulp that the only characters that work well with the deck system are ones that are so heavily armed and armored that they can just stand there, take the beatings, auto-attack for reliable baseline damage and then just throw in some glyphs to win more. If you play a character who needs to remain constantly mobile to avoid attacks, relies on active abilities for defense and would rely primarily on abilities over auto attacks to dish out damage the glyph system is a total blight on your ability to enjoy the game.

I mean, I get wanting to do a combat system like a TCG, but your opponent doesn't hit you with a stick at the magic table while you shuffle cards or organize your hand.