Character Progression in this Game is Not Fun

[optimates]

First off - I am enjoying the game. I think it has some great potential and being a fan of the 40k Universe, I really want it to succeed. That being said, one of the biggest things that keeps me playing a game like this is character progression, and right now this game doesn't have it.

1: Character classes aren't different enough. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot that differentiates the two classes we have now. The specializations are meaningless, as its all tied to equipment. The assassin is just a squishier Inquisitor right now with skills tied to her armor that seem... not nearly as useful. It'd be nice if there was some sort of major class distinction that drastically affected the way the character plays. Otherwise, not much of a reason to roll alts. The skills tied to armor aren't enough.

2: Skills tied to weapons. Once you find a weapon combo that you like, that's pretty much it. There's no incentive to really mix it up. You'll be using those four same skills (or 8 if you're employing a weapon swap) through the rest of the game, with no ability to change them. Being able to upgrade skills in meaningful ways and affect the way they work, being able to look forward that, is a big drive for me to play. But pretty much from level 1 onward, it seems like you'll be stuck.

3: Skill trees are weak. There's a ton of skill trees. At first, its a little overwhelming and seems like it'll give a lot of great options. Then you realize they're all 1% increases to your abilities. It's not exciting to get a new skill point (which takes a lot of effort) only to get a 1% increase to critical hit. Spending skill points should be an exciting thing, with big affects to how your character plays. Instead, its just marginal increases, which are boring.

4: Equipment upgrades are boring. Like skills above, equipment upgrades are all tiny incremental upgrades to your stats. There's nothing fun or interesting from what I've seen of the drops so far. Nothing that might alter your build or provide a substantial difference to how you play. Getting a new relic sword that increases your damage by 5 and critical hits by .25% is underwhelming. Getting fancy new equipment is one of the biggest drives to keep playing, but its not really here.

The only other comment I'll make is that the cover system seems unworkable. Its clunky and annoying to use. There's so many enemies, they'll almost instantly gib your cover. Cover slows down the flow of combat and makes it unwieldly. And it introduces a huge balancing issue. I like to play melee characters. If the game is balanced around the use of cover, it makes melee second-rate (Melee on an Assassin already seems pretty painful). On the other hand, if you allow melee characters (or even ranged) to stack those incremental stat increases to ignore cover, that's what everyone will do because it'll be so much more powerful to just ignore the whole mechanic then try to work with it.

I'm sure all of this is subject to change and maybe some of its already in the works, but this game really does have some awesome potential and I wanted to give my feedback in the chance it might make it even better.

[AirsickHydra]

Just to throw in a little spice to the conversation, there is one very clear reason in the design that explains why there is not as much power creep as other ARPGs.

Because they are aiming to create a persistent world which is slowly added too with each season and each new patch of content. Meaning each time thereis more to do and more to see.

The problem with persistent games and power creep, is that it causes problems very quickly. You get stuck in a trap. Once you give a player a 10% increase to something, the only thing you can do after that is give them 15% then 20% then 50% then 100%. It's almost a downward spiral and ends up with a few key issues.

First of which is balance. Balancing games like MMO's that have a content drop every 6 months isn't "too bad" because ultimately each class has 1 particular build that will be used. Power creep makes it harder though if instead of 1 build, you have 50. This is why ARPG's don't "normally" do additive content. They use a season to give a couple more items and make you start the game again during a season. Just because power creep + variety is a nightmare to handle from a balance perspective.

The other issue is co-op and PvP. Both of these systems are adversely effected by power creep. Meaning players have a much wider variety in available damage and decreasing their chances dramatically of contributing equally to a mission. Instead you have the Booster / Carry scenario and ultimately it actually makes playing the game far less enjoyable, but of course players sometimes get lost as to what to do without their usual number chase.

What I think is the best option for the game (personally) is for the developers to focus on giving players more choice as they level, so as to avoid the limitations of creep. Giving different abilities that perhaps stun an enemy with a gun instead of slowing them etc etc. While it doesn't sound "as" motivating. It's typically more enjoable and results in far more rewarding theory craft and game mechanic exploration. One of the issues with power creep is that it's actually far less enjoyable to farm for. It results in those moments you spend 5 hours doing "just that little bit more" repeating something you ultimately don't want to do, just to get that predictable reward. It's something we are used to getting from games, but personally I don't think it's part of good game design, if anything I think it's lazy game design to rely on giving bigger numbers as a reason to level up.

Just some food for thought! Wanted to play a little devils advocate.

sidenote - i'm no expert and I base this on what little knowledge I have. Which isn't much.

[rasabt]

couldn't agree more with the OP and probably the same reason i never touched the game after buying it through their web-site way back.....
the whole "vision" for the game seems way of. the most important thing about games like these, especialy if you want to make some sort of long-running-persistant-world is the progression;
leveling needs to be fun, looting needs to be fun.
but somehow Neocore has created a twin-stick-shooterish game with some rpg-elements and even their current proposals for improvement do not change much in that regard.

a game like this doesn't work without "power creeping"....it's just boring.
"choice" doesn't change anything: if you do 12 missions, which are basicaly the same,playing the same, feeling the same, the only thing that will keep people entertained is what every other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ arpg or hack'n slay, even mmos, in the history of ever has done: gratification.

constantly finding new meaningfull loot (not just a 1-2 dps increase) and active/passive skill progression (not 2% more dps on your main attack)...and yes, you can do all that with 40K just aswell. claiming this game has to be lore-friendlyis absurd (which some did)...even Primarchs would struggle with the things you do here.

the first priority is not to create the first perfectly balanced pve/pvp-arpg, it has to be fun and addictive gameplay.

the grind isn't the problem, it's one of the core features all arpgs/hack'n slays share, but grind without gratification is a very very serious problem.

[optimates]

Początkowo opublikowane przez john.mediarummet:

We used to have cooldowns on grenades when swapping weapons but they removed that.
They should remove cooldown on swapping all together.
The cooldown when swapping is really not promoting a flexible and fun gamestyle but more a style where you build you character around a weapon type you don't need to switch, ever.

You touched on a lot of great points, but I really wanted to back you on this. The cooldown on abilities when you swap weapons is BRUTAL. I need an ability right now, not 203 seconds later. It's completely pointless in most situations to try and swap weapons, which means I just end up sticking to one weapon set for 95% of the mission. The whole swap mechanic would seem to encourage using multiple weapons, but the cooldown renders its usefulness to being inconsistent at best, useless at worse.

[optimates]

Początkowo opublikowane przez rasabt:

the grind isn't the problem, it's one of the core features all arpgs/hack'n slays share, but grind without gratification is a very very serious problem.

This sums it up really well. All of these games have grinds. The difference between a good game and a bad game is that the grind yields something special that keeps you going and keeps you playing. A 1% increase to DPS or 1% increase to critical strike, or switching from one weapon to another weapon with slightly different skills isn't going to make the grind worth it and palyers will lose interest.

[Brother PaciFist]

Początkowo opublikowane przez optimates:

Początkowo opublikowane przez rasabt:

the grind isn't the problem, it's one of the core features all arpgs/hack'n slays share, but grind without gratification is a very very serious problem.

This sums it up really well. All of these games have grinds. The difference between a good game and a bad game is that the grind yields something special that keeps you going and keeps you playing. A 1% increase to DPS or 1% increase to critical strike, or switching from one weapon to another weapon with slightly different skills isn't going to make the grind worth it and palyers will lose interest.

Exactly. E.G You invest 20 points into the hp and defense skill tree. You get like 15% more hp, 15% more suppression, 10% more armor, a little hp regeneration, that only works out of combat, so it is worthless, because you can wait all the time you want out of combat.The time needed to get the 20 skill points is exorbitant.

And you have the rating system that just makes all of your tinkering in the skill trees useless. If you get tougher or do more damage, you start a harder mission you will just make % less damage. All your work is in vain, the debuffs from the rating system are just too big to make any progression feel worthwhile. That was just my feeling. I do not say it is too hard. No difficulty is appreciated. If it is so easy that you can smash through the content without thinking it gets dull too. But i would appreciate the feeling that my choices matter somehow.

And the gameplay does not feel tactical at all. Tactic = a plan or procedure to achieve a desired result. My tactic in harder single player missions is engaging a monster pack, backpedal through secured level areas, shooting wile moving, throwing a grenade or two into the pack, killing them piece meal. That is repeated for every monster pack in the game. As melee the same, trying to get the attention, backpedal until only one or two monsters are following me, killing them. Rince repeat. That does not feel tactical for me. It just feels painfull and dumb.

[rasabt]

only Neocore could explain why they feel the need to reinvent the wheel...meanwhile people are playing Grim Dawn or PoE.
The sad part is that they got looting and leveling right in Van Helsing...wasn't amazing, but it was a good, solid series...hoping they would put that knowledge here was probably naiv.
But who knows, the game is in such a bare-bones state that there might be major changes to the item-system and skill/perk-system coming one day. After a ton of technical fixes, optimizations, bug-fixes....well might take a while.

[Brother PaciFist]

It is barebone, but could become something stellar. I only hope not only the opinion of some hardcore fans that find the game perfect in this state, are the only opinions that influence the developers. In the current state for me the game is just not fun to play over a longer time period. In very short bursts it is okay, but when the grinding sets in, i loose all interest in playing. Some people have jobs and family. I do not have the time to play a korean grinder.

Have a nice day.

[chonir01]

Read this thread with interest.

While I agree with some points (I feel that FATE gains are too low atm, having to run many many side missions to get one tarot missions is meh) the small gains from skill points is not an issue to me. The Devs have said that the account leveling is off atm (not WAI) and is to be addressed. In the live version from what I understand you'll have 50 skill points to play with .. while 1% here or 0.5% crit there does not seem much .. with 50 skill points i'm sure it will have more impact. Sure each individual gain is small .. but over all it should have some impact.

Personally I think its a way to try and minimize power creep, over all thats a smart move if they plan to add additional content and DLC in the future. Excessive power creep makes matchmaking systems a nightmare when the difference between a 50hour player and a 200hr player is orders of magnitude.

As for the issues with "4 skills never changing" ... well I'm waiting to see how that plays out. ATM we only have a few enemy factions in the game and they all basically have the same reactions to weapons. Either they are squishy (fodder) regen or are armored. The last two are the interesting ones. Regen mobs you want burst DPS to kill smoothly. Armored foes you want armor bypassing weapons. I would hope that as more factions are added they will display weaknesses to differing weapons or effects (Fire/cold/warp etc) This would make having different weapons sets in your storage and using different weapon sets on various missions against different factions a more optimal playstyle. Having a Warp-set for facing eldar? A posion-set for tau? etc etc .. just examples given but it would make weapon variation more important and weapon effects a factor is choosing which weapons to take on a mission.

This would eliminate the "4 skills" concern and promote players gaining different weapon sets for use. Would also make interesting group play if there were multiple factions on a single tile set, say for example an objective that requires players fight through an ongoing battle between two factions, different players in the group could take different weapon sets to deal with the threats involved.

Guess I'll wait and see how it develops, I have faith that the Devs have forseen this issue, its not exactly a new system after all, the same system at its core is used in Guild Wars 2 and the Devs there manage to promote the use of various weapon sets /shrug.

[jeoc42]

Początkowo opublikowane przez AirsickHydra:

The other issue is co-op and PvP. Both of these systems are adversely effected by power creep. Meaning players have a much wider variety in available damage and decreasing their chances dramatically of contributing equally to a mission. Instead you have the Booster / Carry scenario and ultimately it actually makes playing the game far less enjoyable, but of course players sometimes get lost as to what to do without their usual number chase.

Unfortunately, until the bug in account level is fixed, I am having to act as a booster to get people over various humps in the progression. 4 or 5 top tier missions and a tarot run tend to get them progressing again, but I cannot wait to see the progression issue fixed so that A: my r50 inquisitor is useful for something other than boosting or fate farming and B: people are getting reasonable progression without someone having to boost them.

[Randy Marsh]

+1 to this whole thread, i can't say any of this better myself

[Kay]

+1 I spent a load of time grinding Last stand in Dawn of war 2 just to unlock new gear/ new items/ armor and abilities because even though it was the same map/ missions again and again its the loot/abilities/armor changes that made the experience new everytime I played it.

For me, this whole thread rings true. The grinding system needs to feel satisfying, and right now I just don't see a big enough impact on the gameplay/missions to make it satisfying.

Like theres not much uniqueness to the gear which upsets me a little.

Like even in Dawn of war 2, you had the option for gear that was like

-100 Armor rating, for some insane boost to your dps.

You just were given that unique way to play the game that made it interesting.

[Diogenes]

Neocore are essentially copying the same skill system that Victor Vran used, that's all they are doing. Neocore have essentially copied, and repurposed a lot of different mechanics from a lot of different games into Martyr. I can see elements of Gears of War, Warcraft, Warframe, Victor Vran and Marvel Heroes Omega in Martyr already. The problem is that the mechanics that Neocore have copied and repurposed into this game, almost always suck.

Neocore don't help themselves either by not allowing players to choose skills that they want to use, when going with two pistols, or sword and pistol load outs etc. Neocore could add some variety in that area, by allowing us to choose the skills that we want to use.

I don't know why Neocore didn't go for an upgrade / unlock system, where by each weapon has it's own skill tree, where we could select how many points, for instance, to put into the tree, unlocking weapon skills as we go along, if you see what I mean.

[Einzbern]

I hope devs reading this thread.

[YeTT]

Początkowo opublikowane przez chonir01:

Read this thread with interest.



As for the issues with "4 skills never changing" ... well I'm waiting to see how that plays out. ATM we only have a few enemy factions in the game and they all basically have the same reactions to weapons. Either they are squishy (fodder) regen or are armored. The last two are the interesting ones. Regen mobs you want burst DPS to kill smoothly. Armored foes you want armor bypassing weapons. I would hope that as more factions are added they will display weaknesses to differing weapons or effects (Fire/cold/warp etc) This would make having different weapons sets in your storage and using different weapon sets on various missions against different factions a more optimal playstyle. Having a Warp-set for facing eldar? A posion-set for tau? etc etc .. just examples given but it would make weapon variation more important and weapon effects a factor is choosing which weapons to take on a mission.

This would eliminate the "4 skills" concern and promote players gaining different weapon sets for use. Would also make interesting group play if there were multiple factions on a single tile set, say for example an objective that requires players fight through an ongoing battle between two factions, different players in the group could take different weapon sets to deal with the threats involved.
.

sponsored by google translate))))))))

This does not eliminate the problem of 4 skills. For example, I do not like some skills on weapons and I would like to replace them / modify them. With the existing system, this is not possible. Yes, you do not understand the claims of some players. The main message in that as at level 1 of the character and at level 50, the gameplay is absolutely the same. Only the characteristics change. And you need to make the gameplay on the 1 and 50 levels cardinally different. As an example in Diablo 3, poe, grim dawn, titan quest and other similar games.

My opinion: you need to move away from the existing system of skills (more precisely, its similarity) and introduce a standard skill tree, and unique for each class. A weapon will perform the role of strengthening for some skills.
I like the game bored for 7 hours, although in other similar games I played enough time. I for these 7 hours have not seen absolutely no progress in changing the gameplay. Only the figures have changed.
I like to create a gameplay like that
15:00
https://youtu.be/wOLc4YxSI5Q?t=918

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvodIER7Tto

[Batailleuse]

Początkowo opublikowane przez chonir01:

while 1% here or 0.5% crit there does not seem much .. with 50 skill points i'm sure it will have more impact. Sure each individual gain is small .. but over all it should have some impact.

Actually it's just what the points gives until you reach "capstones" that actually buff you in significant ways.

Exemple, "+10% dmg for each dot on the target" ... Exitus has 2 dots skills that's 20% dmg, several weapon have at least 1 bleed that's near permanent 10%

Some other capstone have +2% increase melee dmg as long as there's less than 2sec between attacks and up to 40% ...

that's far from a 0.5% upgrade.

It's more about planning and managing your points rather than small upgrade.

for the assa you even get +30% dmg in suprise state... can go up to +50% dmg in suprise state with a few point well spent, or even 60% if you take the previous skill and monster that are surpised take 10% more dmg.

Początkowo opublikowane przez chonir01:

Either they are squishy (fodder) regen or are armored. The last two are the interesting ones. Regen mobs you want burst DPS to kill smoothly.

well agin it comes back to the skill points, needle sniper can prevent any health regen (and skill use), while only 3pts in "DOT" tree, make any burn effect completely prevent any health regen.

so basically if you use any heat weapon yuo can perma block health regen.

Plus i want to add that i reached Character lvl 50, and once you do, then you have access to the Perks and that alone are pretty big game changer.

for a few exemple on my assassin,

Killing elite or medium monster regenerate 50% max suppression
100% more health regen, but innoculator provide only 50% bonus
whenever you die, you resurect to fll life, KB ennemies (does not count as death for death counter)
killing an ennmy provide +25 health regen for 10 sec (do not stack, but actually become +50 if you took the +100% health regen)

Which suddenly make you able to switch completly to get only health regen on your gear, and dont give 2cent about supress, and you can regen insane amount if you plan accordingly in passives.

a few like:

+10 hp reg as long as you run,
+20 hp reg if you drop below 30% hp
bonus that gives you +20 hp reg stackable 3 times if a kill was supposed to kill you and is prevented.
+30hp reg while the innoculator is in CD

that's for the one i though about but ... you get the point, with everything combined your assa suddenly get over 500hp/sec and if you kill any medium you regen half your supress.




Point is there are a Looooootttt of super interesting skills as is, you just need enough points to get them and be smart about your build to make them synergize well together with the weapon(s) you use.