Glorious Alpha Two Testers!

Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.

Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.

Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.

HP, MP

I want to talk about these landmark stats and how AoC could introduce one more.
The usual red HP and blue MP are in most games out there but we have been intruduce to concepts like energy, stamina, ki, chakra and such. Depending on the game there are different functions for them. 

Usually tanks and warriors have larger HP and mages have larger MP with which they have to protect their frail bodies.
Race also plays a minor role in such stats.

Eso is the mmorpg Ive been spending most of my time lately.
In eso there are about 100000000 stats that increase the damage output. Every 3 months players switch from Atk to Penetration to Damage Done to Max MP(because it gives dmg bonus too).
It's a gimmick that the publisher came up with to prolong the life of the game by telling players "through your Penetration gear away, go run the dungeons because Damage Done will be stronger for the next 3 months. That's just bad, unecessary stats.


Now I'd like to speak about the reactive aspect of Action combat and the green ST (stamina) in addition to HP, MP.

We use abilities to reduce the enemys HP. Our abilities cost stamina. 
In order to react to what the enemy is hiting us with, we should use ST.
Blocking.
Dodging.
Counter attacking.
Teleporting(maybe it should cost MP)
Gap closing/leaping away 

could be actions that consume ST.
The above actions have transformed mmorpgs over the past year. But they are also being abused and become annoying.

Ever fought a mage that teleports around?
A rogue that rolls around you like a shadow?
A tank hiding behind a shield all the time?
A warrior you cannot get away because he gap closes the distance you put between you NON STOP?


With the SOLID addition of ST:
If you are a tank you know that you only need enough stamina to Block let's say. You can focus on HP.
If you are a Mage you know that you could use a bit of Dodge. Invest just a bit.
If you are a warrior you know that you need to block, you need to counter attack, you need to gap close. You have to sacrifice HP for ST.
If you are a rogue. Oh boy better not get hit because AoC is a good game without passive evasion % stats and you actively have to dodge that sword before it splits you in 2. Invest in ST.

Stamina!
Your thoughts?

Comments

  • For classes that realistically would have to exert themselves physically, yes stamina should be a major stat but for mages...I dont think saying a few words and moving your hands is physically taxing on the body, use mp insead :3
  • I always thought that the stamina was worthless. I notice in your argument everytime the mage was mentioned you struggled with how to use ST for it.

    This is because the mage uses mana. Thus there is no need for stamina.

    You can call it stamina, but for tanks, routes, melee etc.. this should just simply be thier version of mana.

    If there is a ST stat it should only apply to running and be more or less the same for everyone.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited August 2018
    One of the biggest strengths of World of Warcraft, in my opinion, is how they gave unique resources to each class.  And the resources not only have different names and appearances but function differently.

    For example, a Rogue has abilities that build up “combo points” and powerful abilities that spend combo points called “finishers”.  Finishers will have different properties depending on how many combo points were spent in invoking them; one that does damage might deal more damage if you spent more points, another might give you a temporary buff that lasts longer based on how many points were spent.

    A Warrior has a resource called “Rage” that starts out at zero, and is gained by using certain abilities, dealing damage, or suffering damage.  Other abilities spend Rage (at a fixed rate per ability unlike a Rogue’s finishers).  Once out of combat, Rage slowly diminishes until gone so a Warrior feels pushed to avoid downtime.

    Most spellcasters use traditional Mana, which is a resource that (unlike Rage or combo points) starts out full and is spent with spells you cast.  You can regain Mana by drinking potions, using certain abilities, or just waiting.  So it works the opposite of a Warrior and encourages downtime.  And then each spellcasting class has some additional unique mechanics to go along with Mana.

    I won’t go into all the differences between every class but they’re significant and it’s something I think the game really got right.  I think it would be cool if AoC could do something similar, at least among the 8 archetypes, and give each one a different resource that provides a unique playstyle.  And then choosing a secondary class might mix different things in unique ways.  To me that’s more interesting than giving stamina to Tanks, Fighters, Rogues, and Rangers, then giving mana to Clerics, Bards, Wizards, and Summoners.
  • Side note: We also have focus which functions similar to rage in other games. We gain it when we are attacking and lose it when we aren't. Originally we saw it only being used for our Ultimate abilities but in the most recent pax, other abilities(mini ults) it as well. I just thought i was a interesting resource mechanic worth mentioning. It seems like a good way to balance some stronger abilities so they don't become part of a priority queue.
  • If they manage it like Zenimax did with ESO, quite frankly, I'll be gutted.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited August 2018
    Kratz said:
    If they manage it like Zenimax did with ESO, quite frankly, I'll be gutted.
    God no.
    I am talking about a different concept
  • Kratz said:
    If they manage it like Zenimax did with ESO, quite frankly, I'll be gutted.
    God no.
    I am talking about a different concept

    Yes, I understand that and I think @MckStackerson covered all I'd have to add on that front. It'll certainly be interesting to see how Intrepid deal with it because the ramifications would be huge.
  • Looking at a Tank’s abilities, it doesn’t look like your skills solely revolve around “swing with sword, block with shield”.  You can summon a magic bubble around yourself that protects you then explodes to damage nearby enemies.  You can summon a wall out of nowhere.  So I don’t think we have clear magic/non-magic classes, I’m guessing every class has a mix of magical and physical abilities.
  • Atama said:
    Looking at a Tank’s abilities, it doesn’t look like your skills solely revolve around “swing with sword, block with shield”.  You can summon a magic bubble around yourself that protects you then explodes to damage nearby enemies.  You can summon a wall out of nowhere.  So I don’t think we have clear magic/non-magic classes, I’m guessing every class has a mix of magical and physical abilities.
    In my favourity mmorpg tanks had magic abilities. Dark elf tanks and the human dark avengers had more aggresive magic.
    So my friend was using a magic sword on his dark elf to increase his M.atk making him better than others.

    These are the kinda stats I wanna see in AoC. Stats with which you can sacrifice sonething and change your whole ACTIVE COMBAT playstyle.
  •  I apologize to others who have maybe heard the name too many times or once knew the glorious days of its past and only now do they reminisce, but Star Wars Galaxies only comes to mind after reading your thread. Maybe someone else here can explain the pre-CU combat better than me,  but basically the same ideas presented here. 

    I was a master carbineer with some pistoleer and animal mount training. Almost master creature handler. The combat back then hit all the points you mentioned.  No loss of stamina when sprinting,  but all the skills that you learned after doing the action so many times granted you a more expert skill. Each skill that you gained used a certain amount of stamina or focus...from the mind pool. Carbineer was unique from others because your skills drew from your stamina and most races had more base stamina than mind, so you could punch out a quick burst of shots more so than others. 

    That's about all I have for now,  thanks. 
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited September 2018
    Perseus01 said:
     I apologize to others who have maybe heard the name too many times or once knew the glorious days of its past and only now do they reminisce, but Star Wars Galaxies only comes to mind after reading your thread. Maybe someone else here can explain the pre-CU combat better than me,  but basically the same ideas presented here. 

    I was a master carbineer with some pistoleer and animal mount training. Almost master creature handler. The combat back then hit all the points you mentioned.  No loss of stamina when sprinting,  but all the skills that you learned after doing the action so many times granted you a more expert skill. Each skill that you gained used a certain amount of stamina or focus...from the mind pool. Carbineer was unique from others because your skills drew from your stamina and most races had more base stamina than mind, so you could punch out a quick burst of shots more so than others. 

    That's about all I have for now,  thanks. 
    I’m pretty familiar with SWG combat pre-CU, I said it elsewhere but I was one of the hand-picked CU Alpha testers (which never happened, by the way, we sat in a forum for weeks waiting to test).  I was one of the main Teras Kasi community members back in the day.

    Anyway, the system was weird.  You had three pools of resources and 2 stats per pool.  The pools were Health, Action, and Mind (collectively called “HAM”).  And for each one you had one stat that governed how quickly a pool was depleted and how quickly it was regenerated.  So technically 9 stats; the size of each pool was a stat then 2 substats each.

    But it got weirder.  Your “HAM bars” doubled as both mana and hitpoints.  Let’s say you had a sword and it had attacks that used Health.  Your health went down when you spent it by attacking.  An enemy hitting you might also deplete Health.  In which case you were hurting yourself and simultaneously being hurt. Fighting was basically slowly committing suicide.  If any of your 3 pools got emptied you’d be defeated.

    And it got even weirder.  You had three pools but they were identical.  The only difference between them is that they were different colors (H=red, A=green, M=blue).  And different powers used up different pools, different attacks damaged different pools, certain professions buffed certain pools, and different pools were healed by different abilities and items.  But they were otherwise the same.

    ...I loved that game but the HAM system was very bland and homogeneous.  It was one of the weakest parts of the system.  The way you damaged yourself by using your abilities was annoying.  It was just badly executed.  The Combat Upgrade was going to redo the whole thing to be even more innovative and exciting, until they gave up and made it another EQ/WoW style game.  (*grumble*)
  • Whether ability use is limited by cooldowns or stamina (or some other resource) matters little to me.

    However, I fervently hope that stamina is not used to limit running. I very much disliked that feature in every game that included it.
Sign In or Register to comment.