This combat system is totally killing it for me...

I've been keeping an eye on not only SotA, but on this forum section, as well. I never played UO. I didn't even know about it... -sheltered child- But my fiance DID. He played UO for 8 YEARS! I'd listen to all the cool stories about the people he met, the stuff he did, the stuff he had, the pets, his classes, fights, houses, etc. It made my head spin. I was so bummed out I missed on something so cool...
I've had this MMO craving for years, trying to find the right flavor to fill it. I've tried a handful of free MMO's and the only one I stuck around on for a while was Fiesta. I liked the art, I liked the customization, but there was way too much grinding and leveling up gear was, irl, too expensive. I played Adventure Quest Worlds, but the combat is so boring. I love the devs, I love the story, and the work they put into it, but it's 2D, and only one button is needed for everything. Then I found Final Fantasy XIV, A Realm Reborn.
Holy Bajeezus, it was such a LET DOWN! Yoshi-P seriously needs to be booted off of there because I went from "I'm going to play this game forever" to "I have to get away from this steaming pile of" in just 3-4 months. I played on PS3, one of my fav points about it, and the combat... was so much fun... <3 But the story... The remade dungeons... The BS they tried to pull with level caps... You could literally win the game in just a few weeks if you worked really hard. Since they started putting limitations on what dungeons you could go in to per week, and what items you could grind per week, there was basically no reason to get on but once a week to do those things, and then go play something else. There was a lot of things I loved about FFXIV ARR, but there was a lot I couldn't live with. I won't pay a monthly fee for a game and it's developers to tell me how to play. Tell me how often I should play. Limit me.
"You don't like it? Fine. Shove off." No. That isn't going to work. I've come to realize, through players on FFXIV, that people who are push-overs (Mind you, not people who just want to give something a chance) will say "Oh, well, it's how it is. I like it here a lot, so I'm willing to put up with some stuff here and there."
You're wrong; shut up. Being in an MMO market, for these games to last LONG TERM, you need to have all of your customers on board! We are not just gamers; we are not just being entertained. We are customers, paying for a service. I don't want to put money down to try out a combat system I'm pretty sure I won't like. I want, with all my heart and soul, for this to literally be the spiritual re-incarnation of Ultima Online; the game that I heard epic quests of yore about and got excited. I'm in my twenties, and I get excited when he tells me about how he would stroll through town with his five dragons... How he rode his pure bred Nightmare with a black cloak, terrifying the masses... How he spent hours wandering around, just for fun, and finding shops along some abandoned road. I can't even search up his character like you used to be able to. :< At least, like he told me you used to be able to.
This is your chance, guys... Devs... Lords, whatever you want to be called. You have this glorious opportunity, as I see it, to bring back the dead. Not only do you have a huge fan base that loved Ultima Online, but you have the residual fan-base... The friends, family, children, grandchildren that never got to experience that, and then you have a whole new world of people who have no idea this ever existed and might like it. You can be 'innovative', but should you? It probably seems over-done, that it out-lived what it was, but that was because you were around it so long. It became normal for you. Everything now-a-days is just rip-offs of the hotbar thingy-wing. I honestly like that system, but if you want to be different? Truly different? Innovative? Bring back what no one uses anymore. If other games have that card-games-on-motorcycles thing, then it's not being innovative. It's less popular than the hotbar thing, but it's not new. It's not innovative. It's not yours...
It's not a sink or swim deal; You're Lord-effin'-British. You know what your people like. You know what they want; You've known for years. I see you trying to make Shroud of the Avatar, not Ultima Online: Shroud of the Avatar. Even if you don't have the rights to legally call it Ultima Online SotA, why can't it be that? I don't know if you do or not, don't chew me out, please... But anyway, you had something truly great. You had something no one else had. As far as I know, all the praise WoW gets for being the "first this" and the "best that" should go to UO. I want the chance to live that in a new, flourishing world. Updated graphics, updated engines; And I'm not saying do everything the same. I love the idea of talking to NPCs. You could even implement a system to port any character from UO to SotA. Then my fiance can show me that character of his (After I redo the appearance for him xD), and the items he had... Then he can give me his Nightmare and I can be ever so happy. :'3
I know I could just go play the original Ultima Online but I'm spoiled wih the 3D graphics, okay!? I have such high hopes for this. This combat system is literally killing it for me... If it doesn't change, yeah, whatever, you lose out on my money. "You don't like it? Don't play," right? I think you'd catch a lot more excited people if they weren't so wait-and-see about the system. You have a lot of 'maybe's, a handful of 'yes's, and a bunch of borderline 'no's based on this decision alone. That's not even a threat; that's just marketing logic. I'm trying to look at this from a starry-eyed dreamer and a pencil-skirt business executive perspective, rather than one of "It might be fun, it might not be." Seeing both sides doesn't always mean I have to see the sides everyone else sees. xD
I guess I've been going on too long about this. I'm sorry if I got too personal, but I'm just so yearning for this sugary MMO craving to be filled so that I can eat up half of my life and not even care. I want to play so much Shroud of the Avatar that I have to go to the effin' denists'. xD As a single fan, I guess?, I feel like what I'm saying could just easily be brushed aside, but I really hope someone hears me... Think of me like a ten year old writing a letter to Jesus on Christmas that says "Happy Birthday"; I don't know if it'll get heard, but I know what I'm saying is important.
So there. I think I've said all I can say.
...
I don't know how to end it now. xD
-bails-

 

This was a really really hard post to read, I have no idea what your actual problem is with the combat, the combat in early alpha, on a buggy un-optomised game, a combat that is still in its infancy. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, the combat is so clunky and I don't really do much because of it, but this post is just a load of babbling it seems. Make a coherent post because combat is important to this game, but remember we're another 6 months minimum from release.

 

TLDR;

However - this seems to be a thing - every release a new poster comes on all anxious about the game sucking but obviously a fan.

I salute thee and entreat thee to stay !

 

Don't you think that's scary? I find that a very scary thought. In 6 months this game needs to be ready and I still can't really test any skills, combat, levelling...
I know this is pre-alfa but, unless they have quite a few things up their sleeve, all they appear to focus on is graphics.

 

No, combat is way better now than from just one release ago. There's also the beginnings of housing permissions, there are player islands, there's a ton of improvements, rolling out of the way when fighting, etc.

6 months ago was R1. 6 months from now we can hit Beta and then continue to work on the game as we play persistently.

Besides, don't you want your SWAG at some point and start building a persistent world, regardless of where it is ? It will never be "finished".

 

The combat system hasn't been implemented yet. It's just skill mashing so far.

 

I'm looking forward to PSO2... a game with a large budget, I think is going to be the only way to satisfy my desire of a game with depth enough to "waste half my life and not even care".

 

The title is about one thing, the poll about something completely different and the body of the post about something else.

And just to comment - the current combat system is a placeholder for the actual combat. And feel free to hate it with great coherence when it comes out and come up with suggestions when it arrives. Preferably a little easier to read than this post though - it's confusing.

 

You have got to be kidding me.
There is absolutely nothing in the patch notes regarding combat, other than sfx. How can you possibly claim it's way better when nothing has changed?

 

Paragraphs are helpful for large blocks of text.

In short, the combat system has a long way to go.

 

I'm sorry in advance for your disappointment.

 

My fear is that PvP in SotA will be an after thought. Focus seem to be on houses.

 

Kind of, I mean 6 months minimum would put it at a christmas release, its probably more like 8 months+ and they do seem to be making progress each month even if its not combat related. I personally would wait another year if it meant we got a decent game.

 

i can only say,this game is nothing like Ultima. I played Ultima for almost 10 years,starting in approx.1998--This game will never be even close to as great a game. many of us old player were hoping for a new and up dated game along the same lines as Ultima.

In short play the game if you can for what it is , As for myself, i have tryed to stay open minded from R1 to date and im still on the fence rather it will be worth playing at all .

 

the game that I heard epic quests of yore about and got excited. I'm in my twenties, and I get excited when he tells me about how he would stroll through town with his five dragons... How he rode his pure bred Nightmare with a black cloak, terrifying the masses... How he spent hours wandering around, just for fun


***********
I think it was a post from the heart. I read every word and welcome to you. I do agree I don't want all the limits or restrictions games try to oppose on you either. When you talked about your fiance walking into town with his 5 dragons I was right there with your thinking. It is too easy to get off track for what we want this game to be. Well don't worry about combat yet or get discouraged hang in there and give feedback as the game forms. You have great thoughts on what this game should be it's just so early in the combat. *****cheers****

 

Which Ultima? The original series in its heyday (say, U4 through U7), or UO?

My observation is that Portalarium could have easily pulled of a SotA that was one or the other (a U4-U7 type game, or a UO type game); but they're being really ambitious and trying to have it be a combination of *both.* I think the biggest risk to the SotA development is that it is simply trying to do to much.

 

On what basis can you possibly make that statement?

Did you see any of those Ultimas you played at the same stage of development? What do you think Ultima 4 or Ultima VII looked like at the same stage of development that SotA is at now?

I played "Ultima" since 1980, i.e. before there was even "Ultima" (aka Akalabeth).

 

Hi SamHunny. Welcome to the forums. I apologize if I'm taking your quote out of context, but I had a hard time finding specifics about what you dislike about combat system. I'm not entirely sure if you're specifically talking about PVP or PVE, or both. You mentioned a lot of anecdotal experiences about aspects of other games you like and dislike. The combat system in SotA is incomplete as its not yet fully implemented. Also, DarkStarr's PVP post prefaces the discussion with the comment that it is all "current thinking." I take this to mean that nothing is set in stone, which in my opinion is a good thing since it likely means the devteam will continue to hammer out the details with us as their sounding board, until we all strike a balance of what works best and still aligns with their vision.

I'd say keep an eye out on the forums for an update from the devteam on the combat system. I am almost certain I read recently that there will be some initial flavor of the combat system in R9 or R10, but unfortunately I don't remember where I read it, so I don't have a link for you.

 

They have to make huge steps if they plan to release by end of the year, But we don't know what they are holding back from us the testers, I want this game to succeed and hope they have a lot more up their sleeves, Though I am not worried cause I have wasted more money on rubbish games many times over, So far its been fun and I have enjoyed just being a play tester even if the finished product is pants. There's a lot to worry about, but this Pre Alpha, Gamers don't get access to games as a norm which can be in this type of clunky state, So op have faith and just play release 7 and enjoy it, and wait for the surprises!, Latest surprise was the backtracking on the 3d map which looks loads better and I think they did state they were keeping the flat version?, So they are listening to our comments and concerns m8.

 

this.

I'm not 100% sure whats going on with this post...