RNG is not needed in a game like AoC in which there will be plenty of real content.

ArchivedUser

Welp I had to open a topic as to why RNGA is hated when it comes to gear/materials.

Most mmorpgs out there have End Game which is basically repetition of meaningless content. That is why they have RNG when it comes to valuable gear.

AoC should do away with RNG since there will be plenty of actually meaningful gameplay and experiences in this Open World.

People dont mind putting the effort in gathering/farming materials and parts to craft:
Weapons
Armor
Gloves
Boots
Helmet
Jewelry
by traveling the map to get what they need.
And this gear will be selected and suit their playstyle for another 15 levels. Then they are free to focus on the various activities the game offers whether it is social stuff, domination or even character strengthening.

People dont mind putting effort in making their gear Mastered by adding selected special attributes on these parts. They will devote some time and get it done.

When it comes to enchanting I hate games in which obtaining a sword is easy to do but then you have to enchant it to +16 to be competitive, breaking 20 in the process.
I'd have have spend time crafting my sword which is valuable.
+6 max enchanting
+3 safe enchanting
A player with +0 gear player should have a chance against a +6 gear player.
Why bother with +6 then?
Because a skilled player can out the +6 gear to good use. Plus market value.
Enchants should be rare drops but no necessary.

A bit off topic now.
I dislike RNG in combat and I hope I can pursuade the community to call from removal of Critical Hits and replace them with a mechanism that gives some playstyles their unique flavour and superior feel for combat.

Imagine that you 1v1 with a player. This player can be your friend or someone in the community that you have respect for and they have respect for you.
You are both skilled and on equal strength. And you happen to play classes that Critical % is part of your main Stats. Now...

You are having an amazing 1v1 but one of you happens to deal a lot more hits that are critical dmg.
Isn't it awkward?
-gf dude (you got lucky...)
-gf mate.
No matter how many times you have nice 1v1 battles with friends, luck will be on the back of your minds.

That is why I believe Critical rate should be replaced with a fresh and exciting stat or mechanism.

ArchivedUser

Replace critical strike with something like amplified damage.  Damage that increases by % values according to the amp damage stat.  But it isn't a direct increase in raw initial damage.  It should work like a combo and get stronger over time.  The higher the amp damage, the higher potential dps output by combo-ing can be achieved. 

Like an idea of press the advantage, where you strike and doing so creates weakness and allows you to do more damage than you normally would on your next hit and so forth - giving you an edge in damage on an endless assault that amps up the longer you attack. 

But should you need to swap to defensive or healing, or even cease your attacks you lose you damage edge and you have to build it up again.

C-c-c-c-combo breaker - think of the casters streaming a competition casting some kind of E-sport - that's definitely a strategic gem.

ArchivedUser

@Khelos

Gotta appreciate open minded ppl. Keep them coming

ArchivedUser

Pretty sure Ashes already has ramped-up damage in Weapon Combos via Ultimates.
Crit strike is something else. RPGs have always had crits, so I see no reason to remove that.
But, that seems to be a different concept than RNG for gear.

Focus on crits is a combat style.

ArchivedUser

Critical strike doesn't really make sense from a strategic standpoint.  Statistically you can count on it, but strategically you can't play around it.  That's why any game with crits is harder to strategize then those that don't.  The consequence of which is that it's harder to cast because you can't tell what someones strategy is in real time if it shifts simply because they got crit or didn't and have to change up, rather then putting one fighting style up against another to see which can exploit the weaknesses of the other in a fair fight.  Removing crit will also ease the ability to balance among classes as crit values have different values for different classes.  Damage amplification is much more streamline and strategic, plus it's never been done before in the right way.  You could build PvE encounters around strategy rather than strict dps checks, where you literally have to attack the right stuff in the right way to output the right dps.  It's a good choice to make.  Being the first to really get combat right would be huge for the game.

ArchivedUser

I love critical strikes, dont take away my crits...

ArchivedUser

Khelos said:

Critical strike doesn't really make sense from a strategic standpoint.  Statistically you can count on it, but strategically you can't play around it.  That's why any game with crits is harder to strategize then those that don't.  The consequence of which is that it's harder to cast because you can't tell what someones strategy is in real time if it shifts simply because they got crit or didn't and have to change up, rather then putting one fighting style up against another to see which can exploit the weaknesses of the other in a fair fight.  Removing crit will also ease the ability to balance among classes as crit values have different values for different classes.  Damage amplification is much more streamline and strategic, plus it's never been done before in the right way.  You could build PvE encounters around strategy rather than strict dps checks, where you literally have to attack the right stuff in the right way to output the right dps.  It's a good choice to make.  Being the first to really get combat right would be huge for the game.

It may be "harder" to strategize around crits, but it's not difficult to strategize crits.
If you stack your crit boosts you can be sure they will be...critical... for your battles and do a significant amount of damage when the crits hit. So, as long as you don't need them in the first 15 or 30 seconds of combat, you should be good to go.

You seem to be more focused on the tactics used in individual battles while I focus more on the strategy of character build... and trust that I've built my character to take decent advantage of crits. I typically snare and kite for evasion along with a bit of self-healing, thereby, surviving long enough for my crits to do the damage I expect.
Should be quite useful vs opponents focused on action combat... especially if I'm relying on tab-target damage for my crits.

Which is another reason why I don't enjoy direct PvP combat.
Easier to anticipate the tactics of mobs and NPCs and devise strategies against their typical tactics as opposed to the improvisation of player tactics.

ArchivedUser

Dygz said:

It may be "harder" to strategize around crits, but it's not difficult to strategize crits.
If you stack your crit boosts you can be sure they will be...critical... for your battles and do a significant amount of damage when the crits hit. So, as long as you don't need them in the first 15 or 30 seconds of combat, you should be good to go.

You seem to be more focused on the tactics used in individual battles while I focus more on the strategy of character build... and trust that I've built my character to take decent advantage of crits. I typically snare and kite for evasion along with a bit of self-healing, thereby, surviving long enough for my crits to do the damage I expect.
Should be quite useful vs opponents focused on action combat... especially if I'm relying on tab-target damage for my crits.

Which is another reason why I don't enjoy direct PvP combat.
Easier to anticipate the tactics of mobs and NPCs and devise strategies against their typical tactics as opposed to the improvisation of player tactics.

You're quite right that direct PvP combat is less easy to anticipate, mostly because it is volatile in scale, you don't know what to expect from damage output.  Every class with damage amplification could be anticipated and countered.

Imagine a warrior swinging slower while sacrificing speed for defense, and a rogue attacking faster for more damage less defense.  The reason this matchup is balanced because of amp damage is the warrior and rogue can't crit, but would 0 each-other out should they keep attacking, as the amp damage would ramp up faster for the rogue and equate the damage reduction the warrior has.  This would take things like stuns, gaps making / closing and various other abilities into strategy.  It would be much more apparent when it's a good idea to attack, defend, heal. 

You wouldn't have people building the most tanky highest dps class and just 40% of everyone is that, because a tanky slow attacker would suck against solo pve speed (the glory of vanilla wow).  You give people crit and people become glass cannons, incapable of strategy, only kamikaze.  And the ability to balance a glass cannon atmosphere is near impossible.  It's a common wall developers back themselves into.

The start of wow vanilla was great because a naked rogue could beat a fully geared x, or a really good anything could beat another person of even better gear - but once they came out with T2.5 / T3 It was ridiculous, the crit scaling and raw power broke the game.  One dot from a T3 warlock kills a rogue who just sits there looking dumb.

ArchivedUser

Nah.

I like critical strike for those who specialise on hitting pressure points rather than brute force.

I like the crit% as chance is just as important to model as predictability.

Predictability = Boring.

Predictability means you can have anything you want.

And nobody should get everything they want.

And yes I agree RNG has been deliberately broken on many games to ensure you spend most of your time in the cash shop.

First they make obtaining goods easy.

Then they ramp up the grind to condition you to persist.

Then they replace grind with ever more RNG as they introduce the cash shop option as they know it is the easier path to take.

Then they apply RNG to the cash shop too.

In the end you have become conditioned into an addiction, where you willingly just pay money to win, with next to zero chance of desired assets being rewarded.

Where a drop rate of 1/100 is actually 1/10000+ because they never log and reset the seed key per player.

ArchivedUser

Khelos said:

Dygz said:

It may be "harder" to strategize around crits, but it's not difficult to strategize crits.
If you stack your crit boosts you can be sure they will be...critical... for your battles and do a significant amount of damage when the crits hit. So, as long as you don't need them in the first 15 or 30 seconds of combat, you should be good to go.

You seem to be more focused on the tactics used in individual battles while I focus more on the strategy of character build... and trust that I've built my character to take decent advantage of crits. I typically snare and kite for evasion along with a bit of self-healing, thereby, surviving long enough for my crits to do the damage I expect.
Should be quite useful vs opponents focused on action combat... especially if I'm relying on tab-target damage for my crits.

Which is another reason why I don't enjoy direct PvP combat.
Easier to anticipate the tactics of mobs and NPCs and devise strategies against their typical tactics as opposed to the improvisation of player tactics.

You're quite right that direct PvP combat is less easy to anticipate, mostly because it is volatile in scale, you don't know what to expect from damage output.  Every class with damage amplification could be anticipated and countered.
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You wouldn't have people building the most tanky highest dps class and just 40% of everyone is that, because a tanky slow attacker would suck against solo pve speed (the glory of vanilla wow).  You give people crit and people become glass cannons, incapable of strategy, only kamikaze.  And the ability to balance a glass cannon atmosphere is near impossible.  It's a common wall developers back themselves into.

Hmmmn
PvP combat is very low in my hierarchy of interests, so I don't really know about PvP tactics.
My TheoryForge podcast co-hosts talked me into playing the new WoW expansion... I'm having the opposite experience with crits in PvE. Just as a I feel like I'm getting in the groove, the battle is over and I'm left thinking, "You're dead already????!!!"
I don't feel like a glass cannon at all.

Also, I don't understand why focusing on crits would inherently make a character have weak damage mitigation.
And, again, I don't kamikaze.... I snare and kite. More than one way to skin a cat.