Goblin Squad Member
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Calling someone a hater because he is worried that he may not be able to fully play a game he has invested money and interest in because of a physical disability he has no control over is probably not the best idea.
But yeah there are ways of control other then keyboard on the PC ( assuming this game is a PC game as i am still to see a confirmation of this ( LOL PS4 exclusive! no not really )) also as Keovar also noted that while combat may be hectic it may not be actually spammy in a sense that would effect your hands the ways you think it does. The combat test will show.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An extremely interesting blog. Combat is the sauce for a nice MMO dish. I am overall in favour of everything you posted, granularity is interesting, the keyword system is inspired and I like the concepts of strategy.
I do have a couple of quick questions though.
a) Given the six-second rounds and the predictable nature of no miss/no crit, how long do you envisage a standard combat actually taking? Whilst obviously no-one is a huge fan of being blicked, similarly fights averaging longer than 2 minutes can quickly become tedious. Do you have any ball-park figures on this?
b) I'm Australian, and as such typically have to play with a latency in the 200ms+ range. Given the focus on timing, how do you see someone on a distant connection faring?
c) As a prospective Rogue, how does backstabbing fit into this?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Relatively unskilled characters will not beat relatively well equipped high skilled characters in fights. But they should be able to try to run away without always being killed no matter what. And a low skill character and a medium skill character working together should be a good match for a high skilled well equipped character; not a 50/50 fight, but a high enough chance of victory that the high skilled character has to consider death a reasonable potential.
We want a flatter power curve than most of the theme park games. But not a flat one. The case we're trying to avoid is high skill character one-shotting every low-skill character it fights, and low-skill characters being totally unable to do any (meaningful) damage to a high-skill, well equipped character.
I like the blog. Not too sure about the tier system. The power curve would flatten without it, so as to Ryan's statement... They must be on the right track.
My definitive comment on the blog: I want to hit a mage square in the eye with my arrow. A blinding critical for ranged weapons?
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Calling someone a hater because he is worried that he may not be able to fully play a game he has invested money and interest in because of a physical disability he has no control over is probably not the best idea.
I've seen enough of his other posts to have noticed the pattern; it's not just this issue. Even if it was, declaring the game unplayable and asking for a refund isn't worry, it's melodrama.
I have Multiple Sclerosis, which causes mobility, sensation, and vision issues (among other things). Look at the example of Optic Neuritis on Wikipedia, and consider that mine is somewhat worse and affects both eyes.
I live with disability in just about everything I do, so I'm not insensitive to the trouble it can cause. Sure, I'm worried that the UI might be too cluttered for me to use or fonts too small for me to read, but I advocate for things that would help: UI editing and more accessibility-minded configuration settings. I hope I'll be able to adventure without my vision getting in the way too much, but if I can't keep up with combat, I guess I'll put more focus on crafting. That's making the best of what I have, instead of using my condition as an excuse to fling things at GW.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They are scalar, and granular, so I would not expect a big leap between 99 and 101, but instead a very gradual improvement. I suspect the 'tier' system is just an artificial reference.Actually, I think the tiers will be a rather large leap due to the 3d200 system. In tier one you use the lowest result, tier 2 the middle, and tier three the highest.
Imbaticus is right. Jumping from lowest to middle to highest die is a huge leap and the 3d200 statement made me very sceptical to the "flat power curve" working well. But i'm sure GW has good number crunchers and will see the results.
The issue here is the very skewed probablitiy distributions for the low and high dice.
anydice.com will show you the probability distributions if you type "output=1@3d200" (highest), "output=2@3d200" (middle) etc.
The middle d200 is nicely distributed around 100.5,
The lowest d200 has an avereage or 50.5, but a median value around 40, meaning you are 50% likely to get a result below 40 (but occasionally you can get results very high above 40).
The highest has correspondingly a 50% chance of rolling above 160.
Even if the distance between the averages is 100, the average distance between T1 and T3 is actually 150.5 and the median distance around 158.5, due to the skewed probability distributions.
A T1 armor gives +50 defense to match the average of the T1 roll, but the chances of beating that 50 is only 42%.
IMO there are better ways to get your point across then the method they always choose which is adversarial. Actually I've noticed that Ryan doesn't respond well to requests that start out as attacks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Valandur: True, but unfortunately it's one of the ways to get a reaction from the devs as they can't address everything that is brought up in the forums. For example I've tried to stay non-hostile about the issues I've had with past information in the blogs but I've apparently lack the genius needed to attract any attention form the devs so none of them were addressed. So while being aggressive about one's issues gets mostly a negative response, at least it gets a response and it's easier then to have an outstanding quality of posting. I've seen that on many many different forums before and it's unlikely to change.
@Papaver, your right, I've seen that, and have had it happen to me as well. But when someone brings up something to me by posting it in an assaulting format, although I may forgive the person, it usually fixes my position negatively on the issue they brought up.
So, even though I have carpal tunnel, I guess I've just figured out ways to work around the problem so it rarely bothers me, they are over 13 years of age (I hope) and can live in the bed they've made.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They are scalar, and granular, so I would not expect a big leap between 99 and 101, but instead a very gradual improvement. I suspect the 'tier' system is just an artificial reference.Actually, I think the tiers will be a rather large leap due to the 3d200 system. In tier one you use the lowest result, tier 2 the middle, and tier three the highest.Imbaticus is right. Jumping from lowest to middle to highest die is a huge leap and the 3d200 statement made me very sceptical to the "flat power curve" working well. But i'm sure GW has good number crunchers and will see the results.
The issue here is the very skewed probablitiy distributions for the low and high dice.
anydice.com will show you the probability distributions if you type "output=1@3d200" (highest), "output=2@3d200" (middle) etc.
The middle d200 is nicely distributed around 100.5,
The lowest d200 has an avereage or 50.5, but a median value around 40, meaning you are 50% likely to get a result below 40 (but occasionally you can get results very high above 40).
The highest has correspondingly a 50% chance of rolling above 160.
Even if the distance between the averages is 100, the average distance between T1 and T3 is actually 150.5 and the median distance around 158.5, due to the skewed probability distributions.A T1 armor gives +50 defense to match the average of the T1 roll, but the chances of beating that 50 is only 42%.
Every roll is only itself. Each of the three d200 rolls can provide any number in that 200 range. The tiers do provide greater likelyhood for low/medium/high values yes, but the low/medium/high values can as easily all be under 50 or over 150.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Calling someone a hater because he is worried that he may not be able to fully play a game he has invested money and interest in because of a physical disability he has no control over is probably not the best idea.
Summersnow has been complaining about many aspects of the game for months, and this isn't the first time they had asked for a refund or threatened to withdraw funding in the fulfillment system.
Calling Summersnow a hater wasn't about disability, but about a pattern of posts about the game. I'm not trying to single him/her out, many people agree with him/her. But he/she has a history of calling anyone who doesn't agree that the game is going in the wrong direction a "fanboi." That kind of history seems to promote the label "hater".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every roll is only itself. Each of the three d200 rolls can provide any number in that 200 range. The tiers do provide greater likelyhood for low/medium/high values yes, but the low/medium/high values can as easily all be under 50 or over 150.
But that is the point: That greater tiers maybe provide a greater improvements then they should numbers wise. Not that they make very low rolls impossible.
The issue is that the medians are very far apart and that this in theory makes a flat power curve not so flat anymore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But he/she has a history of calling anyone who doesn't agree that the game is going in the wrong direction a "fanboi." That kind of history seems to promote the label "hater".
If the appropriate action toward someone who puts labels on others it to put a label on him/her then I will disagree with you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know most of us who play pathfinder hate 4E, but think about how powerful elven accuracy is in a 4E game if you use in conjunction with a daily power. The 3d200 is much more powerful than that and it applies to EVERY ROLL. Yes, it is possible to roll a 180, 185, and 190 and still have a spectacular hit at Tier 1. But is going to be a very rare exception. The medians will make the three tiers rise sharply, but the power curve can still be relatively flat based on what percentage of damage gets through on the grazing blows that do hit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But he/she has a history of calling anyone who doesn't agree that the game is going in the wrong direction a "fanboi." That kind of history seems to promote the label "hater".If the appropriate action toward someone who puts labels on others it to put a label on him/her then I will disagree with you.
I'm not saying it's appropriate. I was just offering an explanation based on post history.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have to manage and time your strikes. You have to move to take advantage of openings, and keep track on whether your target has used his AoO for the round or not. Slow refelxes and a laggy machine will impact this.
Granted there aren't any active defenses, so at least that's not a worry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I htought we weren't going to have twitch combat though, was my only negative thought from reading the blog. Those with better reflexes and better machines will have an edge.
We may yet, I don't know. There are few sports I know that can be so 'twitch' as fencing, yet the model proposed seems very remniscent of fencing to me.
I htought we weren't going to have twitch combat though, was my only negative thought from reading the blog. Those with better reflexes and better machines will have an edge.
I don't see what they are describing as twitchy though. With each round being broken down into 6 second turns, and with different actions requiring varied lengths of time to complete, it's more a matter of how economically a player can organize their attacks so they utilize their Sta. in the most efficient manner possible within the round. To me that's the opposite of twitchy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have to manage and time your strikes. You have to move to take advantage of openings, and keep track on whether your target has used his AoO for the round or not. Slow refelxes and a laggy machine will impact this.
Granted there aren't any active defenses, so at least that's not a worry.
I remember Ryan mentioning that it would be a good idea to ensure you have a GOOD graphics card... so there's probably something to say for how efficient your actions are [edit: REPRESENTED on your computer I mean] within those 6 seconds? Again iirc, Anduis mentioned having a "good machine" is another help in any/most (can't remember exactly what he said) mmorpg combats? Maybe GW can do some graphics card promotion come the time? ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why is gambling a gamble?...
Let's look at the numbers. This is assuming all rolls are uniform from 1 to 200.
The odds...
It isn't over time. Any one instance can defy the odds and give an improbable result. But a chart of all results over 50,000 instances will yield the same curve when plotted. For game balance you can't be focused on the fact that someone can win an ungodly payout if they bet big and win on 00. You need to be thinking about the casino makes money every night because of the 53% loss rate when betting red or black.
Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Block assigned to a key players can press.I can see how it could be useful, and how it could work, but I still hope we won't see it. Something so twitchy would kill those of us with no measurable hand-eye coordination, and those with poor pings.
I'm fairly sure I was pipe dreaming there <g> I don't see that happening TBH.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The odds on three rolls being under 50 are 1/64 or ~1.6%
Similarly for three rolls all above 1/64.
The odds on having only one roll out of the three under 50 is ~42%
The odds on having only two of the rolls under 50 is ~14%
So the odds of a:
T1 rolling 50 or under ~42%
T2 rolling 50 or under ~14%
T3 rolling 50 or under ~1.6%That's also assuming I remember my stats correctly.
small error:
42% is the odds of only T1 rolling under (and T2 over). The total chance of T1 rolling under is (42+14+1.6) = 58%Does it matter?
That seems to depend on damage multipliers and crit/injury severities. Reading the blog again I see that consistently "missing by 10" might not reduce your damage output by all that much (but may severely reduce your 'crit' rate).
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Goblin Squad Member
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It isn't over time. Any one instance can defy the odds and give an improbable result. But a chart of all results over 50,000 instances will yield the same curve when plotted. For game balance you can't be focused on the fact that someone can win an ungodly payout if they bet big and win on 00. You need to be thinking about the casino makes money every night because of the 53% loss rate when betting red or black.Why is gambling a gamble?...
Let's look at the numbers. This is assuming all rolls are uniform from 1 to 200.
The odds...
Shared reality continually happens once.
So my take-away so far is that when it comes to melee similarly advanced characters within range will find advantage primarily in the rythmn of attack. The question of melee range is yet unaddressed. I have trouble accepting that two lines of characters ten meters distant will be able to strike one another by waving their swords across the room so we should presume that positioning and facing will factor.
That gives us maneuvers, the effect of pole arms, and ranged.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh I agree they shouldnt dumb down the game for bad equipment, just throwing in my 2 cp.
Same here.
Can't find where it was mentioned, but in those 6 seconds the average actions taken was 3/4 expected. So if it is between 2 seconds for 3 actions or 1.5 seconds for 4 actions average - assuming I am not making that up, how does that compare to other games? It seems ok, though again depends on as another poster mentioned, if combat lasts longer than 2 minutes (assume a 1v1 slugging it out) it can becomes tedious clicking for over that period of time I think the point was being made, as well as potentially:
Average *clicks* per combat 3 per 6 seconds = 1 click per 2 seconds so 120 seconds = 60 *clicks*. So I wonder what the general lowest and average combat durations will be and mostly below 60 clicks in total?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wouldn‘t combat manuvers fall under feats that you can train? For example, there could be a fighterish feat call trip 1, which gives an attack (assigned to one of the 1-6 number keys) that deals halfish damage and has a secondary effect that may knock the target prone, which would give a penalty to attack, defense, move, etc until some stamina is spent to stand up. It would look for the trip keyword on your equiped weapon, and has a greater chance to knock the target over if the target has the opportunity debuff. Then you could have trip 2 that requires a greater stamina cost to stand up, trip 3 which stuns target in addition to knocking prone, so on and so forth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I am carrying around a large hunk of metal and wood in one hand and a length of heavy steel in the other I'm going to eventually grow weary.
If two minutes is defined as 'too long' then should our pool of available stamina shrink over time, such that at the two minute mark they have no remaining stamina for an attack?
Should athletic feats modify stamina decay, so that the more 'fit' character would gain increasing advantage over that two minutes?
Relatively unskilled characters will not beat relatively well equipped high skilled characters in fights. But they should be able to try to run away without always being killed no matter what. And a low skill character and a medium skill character working together should be a good match for a high skilled well equipped character; not a 50/50 fight, but a high enough chance of victory that the high skilled character has to consider death a reasonable potential.
We want a flatter power curve than most of the theme park games. But not a flat one. The case we're trying to avoid is high skill character one-shotting every low-skill character it fights, and low-skill characters being totally unable to do any (meaningful) damage to a high-skill, well equipped character.
Let me start by saying I understand why you would go this route.
However, I feel I should point out that predictability equals boredom in PvP.In your possible future setup it becomes a game of simple numbers. For instance: I see two characters walking on the road, no way I am going to chance mugging them because they are two. Fair chance of reprisal and since they always do damage, even more chance that I will not be the victorious one. (Even with high gear). I would potentially lose more than I could gain if I went full gear. In lower gear, no use in bothering for the above mentioned reason.
Now if we did have critical and miss chances, anything could happen. Yes, the risk to the gear would still be there, but as a higher level character, killing the low level one first before they knew what hit them and then hitting the other one would give me a better chance.
However, the higher level passerby would still have a chance against me.
You try to make combat fair and non-frustrating. That is not what combat is :)
Just my two cents.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I am carrying around a large hunk of metal and wood in one hand and a length of heavy steel in the other I'm going to eventually grow weary.
If two minutes is defined as 'too long' then should our pool of available stamina shrink over time, such that at the two minute mark they have no remaining stamina for an attack?
Should athletic feats modify stamina decay, so that the more 'fit' character would gain increasing advantage over that two minutes?
That's interesting. I know "injuries" (from the crit table) will play a part in setting up the attrition side to combat; a much needed breath of fresh air. So meddling with the stamina pool might just depend on how successful that is at wearing characters down? The appropriate "walking wounded" animation would be nice to see, I think eg aim at the hobbling halfling or the "arrow in the eye elf"? :)
As for 2 minutes it was put to question that it was too long, but nonetheless a useful yardstick for discussion especially as a way to measure/compare "twitchy" (or carpel-tunnel even).
@Rah: Ok, but does it not become more convoluted the more egs you use eg 2 jump 3 or 3 jump 5?? I think overall flatter power-curve allows other variables to be significant, eg Ryan mentioned a host of such previously:
Skill Level Combat another discussion
And Lee Hammock mentioning he does not want the poor wizard preparing to turn up to a battle for 20mins then becoming 1-shotted in a few seconds.
I think these add some good contexts to the flatter level curve. I sure hope they are realised from design to implementation to fun.
And one more point, your Stand and Deliver mechanism is useless in this setup. I lose all element of surprise, which would be even more valuable in your currently desired path.
Why go to the trouble of Stand and Deliver someone so they can say no and fight back on equal footing?
I would try to kill a solo adventurer before SAD-ing him this way.
And no way I would ever offer it to two characters.
Again, just spouting perceived consequences. I may have missed something but this is how it looks to me now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I should point out that predictability equals boredom in PvP.
I don't believe the game is designed around individual PvP matches being where all the "fun" is. It's a game largely about Territorial Control. The PvP will be "fun" because it matters.
You try to make combat fair and non-frustrating. That is not what combat is :)
Actually, I think this design will result in combat that is much more realistic because it removes the situation where a level 25 character can take on a literally infinite number of level 1 characters. Mike Tyson would probably get his butt kicked if he were swarmed by a random sample of 5 male college students.
I should point out that predictability equals boredom in PvP.I don't believe the game is designed around individual PvP matches being where all the "fun" is. It's a game largely about Territorial Control. The PvP will be "fun" because it matters.
You try to make combat fair and non-frustrating. That is not what combat is :)Actually, I think this design will result in combat that is much more realistic because it removes the situation where a level 25 character can take on a literally infinite number of level 1 characters. Mike Tyson would probably get his butt kicked if he were swarmed by a random sample of 5 male college students.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is the threat of brigands not a big part of the game as well?
Realism is fine up to a degree. If I wanted a real fight, I would go spar :)
In this game I would like to be able to achieve power. Make me work for it, sure, but I would like to see a pay-off.
If we all become bland copies of each other, well, it loses some appeal to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm just not currently comfortable with a new wizard robe giving a significant benefit vs. getting smacked with heavy sharp things.@Decius,
I'm fairly certain the item itself is of a particular tier. What you're describing sounds like it will be expressed via combinations of keywords.
I'm not following you. T1, T2, and T3 Wizard Robes all have the same Base Defense. Wizard Robes are not likely to have the keywords that grant increased Physical Resistance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You try to make combat fair and non-frustrating. That is not what combat is :)Actually, I think this design will result in combat that is much more realistic because it removes the situation where a level 25 character can take on a literally infinite number of level 1 characters. Mike Tyson would probably get his butt kicked if he were swarmed by a random sample of 5 male college students.
I just got a vision of a crapload of lv 1ish characters swarming a high level character, bellowing “For the Swarm!“
However, this does mean that you will almost always have to team up to take down the harder challenges. Just because you‘re a max level whatever dosen‘t mean you can take on that goblin warcamp by yourself.
@Rah, that‘s why you get buddies. The lone bandit is probably the either dead or poor bandit. However, get a couple friends and you will be able to give the highest level players a reason to deliver and not fight. Additionally, a successful SAD means you don‘t lose any heath or use any consumables, allowing you to get more stuff before running back to town with your loot. Gotta remember that a low level character will still be able to damage you, so a few fights could leave you limping, while five SADs will leave you with the potential for more SADs, and less bounties on your head.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... Mike Tyson would probably get his butt kicked if he were swarmed by a random sample of 5 male college students.
Hrm. Today maybe. Not in his prime. !0 of them with pool cues? Okay, sure.
I won a $100 bet when he beat Ali. Accepted a night at the bar since we were both in college and dirt poor.|
Goblin Squad Member
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I will be a bit more comfortable with combat when we learn a bit more about what other modifiers there will be on armour classes, (Dodge, shield, parry etc.) and a concrete definition on how critical hits are gonna work.
This is just a base system guys, no need to worry too much yet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I am carrying around a large hunk of metal and wood in one hand and a length of heavy steel in the other I'm going to eventually grow weary.
If two minutes is defined as 'too long' then should our pool of available stamina shrink over time, such that at the two minute mark they have no remaining stamina for an attack?
Should athletic feats modify stamina decay, so that the more 'fit' character would gain increasing advantage over that two minutes?
Interesting possibility.....even throwing in adrenaline.
In many long fights in books and movies two opponents are so evenly matched the fight goes on for a long while and both tire out.....begging a moment's rest. It does make sense for the stamina pool to shrink over time as the fight draws on. It might be for longer than a two minute period, as most fights will likely not go near that long, but it would be really awesome to see two exhausted fighters in the Pitfighter Arena evenly matched, both struggling to get a decent swing in, hoping against hope for the lucky strike against the other. That'd be fun to watch.