Exasperated with Combat

It seems like the SotA team decided to herd all the tour-people, of which I am one, into combat this release. I'm sure many players have been avoiding it. I know I have ever since its first two debut releases. I've mentioned many times how much I dislike the deck system, but I gave it yet another try in the interests of getting a hat.

My investment in that stupid hat dwindled rapidly.

I'm still feeling angry, frustrated and despondent about where combat has gone in this game. First, I tried the default deck. What the heck? It couldn't hurt to try it, right? Only it didn't fit my playstyle, and I wound up dying consistently. Then I tried recomposing my deck with more ranged magic glyphs. This only served to hasten my demise in combat. I tried shields. I tried passive abilities. I tried a lot of stuff. I surrender. Keep the damn hat.

I've been hoping for quite a while now that the Portalarium team would notice how very, very unhappy a lot of us are with this deck thing. That fact that it's "new" and "innovative" doesn't make it good or inclusive. Binding equipment to decks, managing slugs, fixing glyps, spending points on Focus... I loathe all of it, and find it to be the least fun thing I've experienced in some time.

Without combat, it's impossible for me to earn gold, buy property or do anything else that I enjoy in the game. Combat is literally the central, beating heart of any RPG, and I now feel like it's a very high and insurmountable wall surrounding the things I want to experience. I wanted to believe that Portalarium might roll back this monster before it goes too far, but I get the sense that ship has sailed.

This may be the last feedback I provide for some time. I need to consider whether it's time to sell my pledge, pay back the investors in my Holdfast (to the tune of hundreds of dollars) and just walk away.

 

I was able to get the hat without fighting.

Ravensmoore and the Obsidian Keep are the most difficult for that. In the case of Ravensmoore, you need to run straight through, go over the cliff and get inside the skull to find the tour guide. In the case of the Obsidian Keep, you need to go under the bridge to find a more inviting path.

Go back and get your hat. You'll be glad you did once they fix this combat system.

 

OK... i have to agree to some extent.
Combat is iterating and it has the potencial to be fun, but in it's current state is NOT.
If you want us to ''grind'' some levels while doing this hat thing why you put impo'ssible monsters everywhere? i cant even kill a Wolf so how do you expect me to do anything?.
i bough some gear with the gold you provide, no real big difference.
i can sustain just 2, maybe 3 hits before any mob kills me or i have to run, and get out of combat and WAIT to be able to try again... where do you think DOWNTIME is FUN?, this is an old concept of old games that needs to be gone from MMOS. i have no time to WAIT.
i completed the tour quest by the way, no real complains with the approaches you can have... Osidian keep i managed to fool everything just going to the river climbing to the gate, huging the Wall, then jumping from one side... nice touch to be able to do that by the way... but i rather would like to fight and not be destroyed by everything.
you can't cast anythig because you just drain your focus out with 4 clicks.... really... i don't understand this.
every single release this thing is becoming more and more punishing... more restrictive and SLOW combat.... i want to play the game, i want to fight, and i want to do things, but i CANT without boring and frustrating grinding and downtimes.

 

I had the same issue, but i figured out two thigns that helped immensely.

Movement is important. By constantly circling and duck-rolling away after strikes, im able to take MUCH less damage than if i were to stay near/in front of my target constantly.
The passive Stat glyphs increase your survivability substantially. I still died quite often until (as a melee, light armor guy) i put points into dexterity. I didnt notice exactly what dexterity changed, but i was hitting harder and mroe often while dodging mroe often as well.

Seems like they are trying to mix tab-combat with action-combat. Maybe to avoid the repetition of tab-fighting and ease up on the tedium of action-fighting. I love hyphens.


Hope this helps. ^^

Intelligence is ont he FOcus tree, and both strength and dexterity are on the tactics tree.

EDIT: I forgot to say but you probly already knew, you can switch to the standard hotbar playstyle if the deck system isnt to your liking.

I use the deck option because it seems to give me more options in combat

 

Start small with small creatures like deer. Then work your way up to wolves, then bears. Then go for skeletons, then kobolds, then elfs. As you level up you'll see it gets incrementally easier, pretty quickly. I found that splitting my skill points between ranged fire magic (fire arrow I think), ranged death magic (the spell that drains hit point from your target and gives them to you), plenty of focus worked well. Because I was using ranged attacks and running from my target, I didn't need a lot of skill points devoted to healing. I found the leveling up rewarding and fun. Although too quick actually.

 

At Obsidian Keep, I figured out how to climb the rocks (with a lot of jumping), came around the back where the two raised towers are, and a nice view, then went down into the keep from the back walls, avoiding all of the skeletons in the process.

 

First thing i would say is that I haven't used combat on any of my accounts to obtain the hat. The most difficult area was the Obsidian Keep but you can just run through everything, even easier is if you have a friend there you can /zone to.

In terms of combat itself, I have been in the past been a huge critic of the deck system. I am actually now starting to find it interesting, there are so many options and combination you can go with. Don't get me wrong, there are still areas for huge improvement such as the control system and how you manage combining glyphs etc. I was probably testing different deck setups with a friends for at least a couple of hours yesterday, I can honestly say I still haven't found that 'perfect' deck.

There is a lot more work to be done on combat such as how to integrate mages better, as it currently stands a mage will never ever beat say a guy with a mace. There is also issues over armer, I have tried to do damage to someone with plate and it's almost impossible. In all there is lots of work to do in balance etc.......that being said, its all good stuff.

 

Playing as a pure mage with this system is impossible. Either use reagents or dont as at 100 gold per piece and not really providing a major impact for my team with the spell effects/damage, i find my character to be more of a burden. You simply cannot effectively spend points on dexterity bonuses to survive more, focus and intelligence to maybe help casting efficacy and some melee skill to make you less crippled in combat. And using the classic locked bar dallas system...sure they allow you to use it but with major penalties with cool downs and increased mana consumption. Less worry about pretty greenhouses and more worry about the mechanics of the gameplay

 

in addition to taking time to level up, try forming a party. For the MMORPG option of gameplay, it seems like they will have many quests and activities that will require you to make friends and allies. Thats what online games are all about.

I agree that it is too difficult in R11 to get on as a pure mage, or any specialized character build, all alone, but think of how valuable a mage will be in party of melees.

 

I have discovered some areas in game that give more experience per kill and creatures are not so bad...(Dragon's Cave)...but I agree the regent spells don't seem to be worth the value of the regents and I find that the fire fist, ice fist, and death spells are the best spells to use. I heal myself quite a bit down the death tree so I may have to use those spells even tho it doesn't go with my original mage's plan.

I don't think we should be forced to keep adding more cards to our deck to avoid slugs...and slugs are bad they come up all the time even when you only have 1! I think you should be able to have a 10 glyph deck at any level without a penalty. I have done great with a 4-slot bar and have no issues with spells I want to cast coming up...but it gets harder as they force more glyphs. I would rather focus on adding Intelligence for more focus and then I found down the earth tree you can add some strength and hit points. Also, down the light armor tree you can add defense so I grabbed some of those so I could take hits.

The skeletons seem to be easy for low levels too...but only 53 xp. You can gather your gold that way for your house and lot and then move on to the Dragon's Cave for the xp gain. Watch out for the Kobalds in there because they are pretty tough haha...

 

I must admit the combat system has a ways to go. Magery /spell casting needs help. Melee is pretty fun though I still feel like I'm playing wack a mole some times. I do like the combos how3ver. They need to reduce the slug count by at least 1pre speck imop. I believe it's only really a first pass on combat though.

 

Very good point, it gets to the stage where you actually struggle to fill your deck because you want to focus on increasing passive skills. I have no problem with deck size increase as your levels do, however it should then become an option of how many cards you want in the deck with natural slugs scaling accordingly.

 

This is my first weekend in SotA and I must say I really like it. A group and I were able to die our way through the skeletons to reach the guide in Ravensmoor. I like it that the mobs are so tough - I like this feel of accomplishment when something is, well, accomplished Not that I especially like to kick the bucket, but I like it when a group works together to reach a goal.

But (there is always a but) planning on playing a healer, I feel that healing spells shouldn't depend on coincidence. I know that when I put a glyph more than once into my deck it gets drawn more often. Still, chances are that your groupmate, your whole group, will die because spells you need at this second are not there. And I know that I can lock basic spells also or lock all my glyphs, but especially in long, drawn out fights my focus will dwindle fast. Locking glyphs obviously come with a penalty, so its not really a choice either.

It's a really really bad feeling, when your groupmate/group dies because the right spell didn't show up in this second. I don't know I like SotA and will stick to it, but I don't think that I'll stick to being a healer, because healing is not fun with deck system (at least for me). The difficulty should come from executing the proper strategy, not waiting for a much needed glyph to appear.

Edit: to all who defend the random deck system, imagine there would be NO penalty in locking glyphs. How many of you would really stick to the random deck system?

 

I believe the best approach is to have a hybrid of 3-4 locked and the rest being random. There is no reason why you cant load you deck to have more 'healer' type spells, however it is important to think that the move that has been made over skills and combat tries to break the mould when it comes to what has become 'traditional' healers, tanks etc etc.

 

You can get to all the tour guides without any fighting at all.

Spoiler: ravensmoor

start by turning left run along the edge of the map, at the corner turn right, if you are running past wolfs and bears you are on the right path.
When you reach the cliff run along the cliff to the right until you see a birch tree, go zigzag down so you don't take fall damage (take an arrow or two), there will be a path, continue zigzag to the water (take a fireball or two), run along the water to the right, find entrance, right. in you go.
Back you need to reverse this, or zone out since the respawn spot will be the dungeon entrance

Spoiler: mystic swamp

you have to be on your toes for this one, so be ready for when the screen loads.
Go
20 degrees to your left, run like the wind doubleclick the guide before they start attacking,
if you fail run straight so that you bring all the skeletons with you as far away as possible from the guide, die , respawn, back two steps wait for the guide to respawn

Spoiler: obsidian keep

there is a backdoor
go under the bridge, follow the path until you reach a lake, follow the mini peninsula, say hi to the aquarabbit, start swimming towards the back of the castle, there is a small gate there
go in the gate, be careful run up the path to the left, at first opportunity run up the hill path to the right, follow the wall until the place where it is broken
catch your breath, in the middle of the courtyard there will be a cage with the guide in it, BUT to your left is a lich 1 skeleton mage and 2 skeleton archers,
so now the tricky part, back up a bit, get ready to run-run-run until right at the broken wall, juuuuuump as long and high to the right as you can, preferably onto the tables,
run for your life to doubleclick the tourguide
die with a smile on your lips

 

Not to disagree with your comments on Combat, but I purchased a house in Owls Head by doing the following;


Go to one of the Battle Camps. There, find the little weapons racks that appear. Loot the Snake Sword, hammers, daggers, from them. Ignore the bows, and the Longswords which are worth nothing. And take the armour, shields and bowls off the tables of the nearby npcs too. If it's not nailed down, it's YOURS! Wait a few minutes and they respawn. Grab them again. Repeat this until you get bored. You'll make a few thousand gold every half hour or so. Return to the city and sell them all to an NPC vendor. Buy a House Deed from the vendors in Owls Head. Place your house, and then sell the deed back again to keep some of the money you just spent.

Now you can arm yourself and go level up too. Although to do the tour guides, as I've mentioned elsewhere, you can just keep running past all the mobs and use terrain to sneak past them. I completed the Tour as a brand new character with the starting gear.

 

Except the game is supposed to also be SINGLE PLAYER ONLY

 

Not sure about PvP but I had a MUCH easier time defeating mobs as a mage vs. as a fighter.

 

@the OPer

You do know that w/ Locked deck you don't need any multiple card skills, so transfer those to skills that increase str, int, dex... or to increase your hand size...

If gold is a problem then you can do "travel" quest ask barkeep in Firelotus tavern in Owl's Head or you can steal all the weapons from any rack to up your own equipment or sell for gold... they respawn fairly quickly, take the arrows if you are archer...

While you're there buy some augmented leather armor if a warrior, at least the helm... There is an area just north of Bremear (the start) these are beginner areas, so the wolves, bears, skeletons are easier to fight, this area also has many gathering resources, so use your tools... They sell for a good amount... Keep them if you want to craft...

It gets easier as you level up... If you want to do the tour quest, just run by the mods or find the back door...

 

The tour quest is doable without fighting. It's when you want to fight that's the problem