Deck combat system - joke?

[Squarez]

How can i focus on combat if i'm always watch on bottom of my screeen?

[Puzzled]

It's an awful and awkward system, but the dev that created it wouldn't budge on it, so it's there to stay unfortunatley. :(

[KnotaiG]

Not only that but they "lock" combos behind the unlocked deck/card system and are balancing combat around combos so if you want to used a locked deck/card your a second class player.

Also kind of stupid for a random system cause if your a healer and need to cure/remove debuffs your kind of out of luck as your hoping that the ability comes up or your cool down is quick. This is a major thing for most boss fights in MMOs, which this game is becoming, so how will you be able to beat the boss when your healer isn't getting the spells he needs? Or if you have a enemy that changes resistance to types of magic, you can switch decks yes but it takes time and you have to have it ready then your jumping into menus while in a fight to switch decks and hope your skill is high enough. Why PvP is stupid with the way skills are right now. If someone attacks you with and tries to kite you if your not prepaired for it your dead before you could switch decks and your dead unless your build is perfect to counter what he is attacking you with. So your not going to win in most random PvP.

[Nasty Nate]

I also agree the deck system is entirely flawed and will most likely be the death of SotA. I have not been able to convince a single friend to play because of this tbh. I show them the combat and immediate disgust in the decking system. If they have any sense in their heads they would remove the skill based leveling (another deal breaker, sorry) and introduce a spellbook system with spell levels and a clear path of advancement. Otherwise this game will never balance out and most importantly core players will never touch this with a ten foot pole. Just some advice from someone who has been with the game since day 1 and who has had dozens of friends wretch in disgust at this games combat and magic system. Fix it guys...

[{SoR} Blackfire1]

I would have loved to see them take the deck system and change it into a sandbox make your own combat system. Think custom fighting combos with a magic spell maker.

[Sir Vodkanet]

make combat like UO. no decks. just skill.

[Lucas]

#1 reason I left. I have tried to return twice over the past year & just can't do it. Card combat is unbearable.

[KnotaiG]

I would like to know of one other Action based RPG that uses card combat. It doesn't work because combat people like relying on muscle memory for quick reaction to events. I don't want to be looking at what skills I have up or what skills I can make a combo with I want to play the game. Give me skills and make them stronger as time goes on or give me more powerful skills. I don't want to have to go ok I have these 2 skills for combo. Shoot I have to run out of the aoe of the Mob now run to a area so the mobs can group up so I can AOE them down again wait now that AOE I was going to use just went away and I couldn't use it. This does not work in a real time action combat system but would in a turned style based game.

[Lucas]

I just wanted to NOT look at the hot bar.

True story... During R-19 I almost managed to defeat the card system. Using a hybrid deck and some macroed hotkeys (which is now a ban-able offense), I was able to look at the action for part of one release. I remember a conversation between myself and 2 other guild mates I had shown the trick. "Wow, look at that!" they said. "Aimed shot actually curves around objects." Two people who had played for over 6 months that had not scene their own combat animations. Speaks volumes about the random deck system.

[KnotaiG]

Even if they have lore for it the lore breaks with the "locked" deck option or stacking to make a skill more powerful. How do those fit into lore? The combos that do more damage is what combat is going to be balanced around so if you play with a locked deck your not doing the amount of damage someone with a unlocked deck will. This has issues with combos and cooldowns. You can have a locked skill with 10 second cooldown but that same skill can be drawn via unlocked deck back to back and the only cooldown is the time it takes to get it again.

Card combat works in turn based games because you have X number of cards for your fight so you don't run out of cards most of the time. Here you can play a card and even if you only have 1 of them in your deck it can come up again. If you have 2-3 you can stack and get it again. And as Gunslinger said it doesn't make sense within the RPG setting to have random combat.

[Brass Knuckles]

Ive always thought the deck system was a terrible way to go, they wanted to add a mtg feel to combat and its miserable. The spell weaving idea is even worse though I like the concept but requires way to much time a stacking while staring at your bars-not cool.

They try and make combat alot of work and I dont play to work. I use a cpl slots of rotating deck this allows me to play and not rage hate the system. They have been mute on the card system since they created it, im guessing they dont realize how clunky it really is. Try and stack and spell weave in a pvp situation and consider the wasted cards u need in your deck just to combo.

[Flashman]

An absolutely awful system, but the guy behind has never taken criticism of it particularly well even though *so many people absolutely hate it*. You might think he could stop and consider, "Wow, if so many people are saying it, could it actually be true?" But, nah, he doesn't.

[Puzzled]

They've dropped to mostly negative today. I think they've ignored the problems like the combat system and other gameplay so long, it's too far gone now, there's no hope for Sota anymore.

[andreas.bertits]

Originally posted by Flashman:

An absolutely awful system, but the guy behind has never taken criticism of it particularly well even though *so many people absolutely hate it*. You might think he could stop and consider, "Wow, if so many people are saying it, could it actually be true?" But, nah, he doesn't.

Problem is, equally as many people are complaining about a traditional tab-targeting hotbar system like in WoW.
So what should they do?
Deliver something new people complain about or deliver something that has been done to death and people complain about it, too?

[Mykll]

Originally posted by andreas.bertits:

Problem is, equally as many people are complaining about a traditional tab-targeting hotbar system like in WoW.
So what should they do?
Deliver something new people complain about or deliver something that has been done to death and people complain about it, too?

If they really want a 10+ year plan for this game, with 5 Kickstarters (1 per episode right?) then maybe the system that is less frustrating for new people to pick up and willing to keep using. Improve the familiar instead of causing new frustration. You can make a very niche game if you want, and usually those are single player RPGs. But if you want this long 10+ year 5 KS plan, being too niche raises question if you will ever survive to see the end of that plan.

People complain about the tab targetting hotbar setup. How many hundreds of millions of players are playing online games around that, that are easy for new people to use (even if it takes a while to really master the actual skill usage)? And how many only thousands of people are playing an MMORPG with random skill cards popping up causing most people to stare more at their hotbar than the actual game play?

I'm no game designer, I have no single secret solution. Seems like there should have been a better middle solution between the old tried and true 10 hotbars all over your screen, to constantly watching a single hotbar and trying to combine and discard cards that pop up.

[Joe Zhudarak]

only newbies don´t like it!!