Originally posted by Scalpless

Originally posted by gestalt11

No its not necessary, but its effective especially when you get a chain of syngeries going which is typically the optimal in effectiveness.  Its not truly necessary for 80% of normal world content.

The issue is not the you HAVE to do it.  The issue is that its always effective.  Doing the same sequence over and over should get you killed eventually.   Like the game should actively try to kill you if it figures out you keeping doing the same thing over and over.  If for no other reason than simply to preserve fun.  That way sound backwards because its kind of a sadistic thing to say, but its true because unpredictability is a major aspect of fun.

And yes this is true of almost every MMORPG currently its just that since TSW encourages such freeform building and essentially creating your class (which is a good thing IMO) its more apparent in  a sort of ironic way.

One of TSW's problems is that it can be compared to Guild Wars 1. Unfortunately for TSW, GW1 has superior combat and deck customization for a few reasons, some of which you already mentioned:

1) Less synergy. Synergy is great, but having to do X in order to trigger Y that willl cause Z and let you trigger SSS leads to 1234 rotations. A 1234 rotation might as well be a single skill. GW1 avoided this by making most combos only require two skills, although it did have some problems with excesive synergy, too.

2) Enemies' actions triggering skills. "If your target is moving, it's knocked down." "If your target is casting a spell, that spell is interrupted and target starts bleeding." Skills like this make combat more fun by letting you interact with your opponent on another level.

3) Situational skills. "Attack 50% faster, but receive twice as much damage." "Interrupt target's action, but give him 5 energy." Skills like this make combat smarter and more rewarding.

4) Strategic skills. "Place a Ward at your current location that lasts 20 seconds. Enemies move 50% slower in this Ward." Skills like this let you affect the battlefield in a lasting way and force your opponents to rethink their strategy.

I haven't unlocked the entire skill wheel yet, but at least my character doesn't seem to have any abilities of this kind. All of my abilities do damage, cause Conditions, buff me, give me Resources or benefit from Resources/Conditions in some way. They're boring. When I see another ability that does +25% damage if its target is Hindered, I don't get excited about unlocking it.

The aux weapons and wheel seem to be where TSW is doing these sorts of things -- the new weapons come with all sorts of special abilities, and it looks like the whip is the latest addition (Issue 6):

"The vicious Whip can be used for great area damage, but also for buffing your team or sneaky crowd control. Use the Whip to encourage your team mates to run faster or snare tricky opponents and pull them towards you."

This nice thing about the wheel model is that the wheels can be expanded with lots of new abilities and weapons.  And given that the wheels are simply the pools of abilities, the progression is more horizontal.

Originally posted by rojo6934
when i play TSW i really dont care about the skill builds. I get the active skills that i like and add the passives that directly impact my active ones. I just hope that theres no cookie cutter flavor of the month builds in order to join groups because that would suck... i play what i want not what others need.

Many leet nightmare groups will try to force you into a cookie cutter, but there are also groups that tackle the nightmares without all the critiera, and experiment with builds.

Originally posted by rojo6934
when i play TSW i really dont care about the skill builds. I get the active skills that i like and add the passives that directly impact my active ones. I just hope that theres no cookie cutter flavor of the month builds in order to join groups because that would suck... i play what i want not what others need.

I am terribly sorry, but you won't find a group. The elitist will let you play the way you like - in Kingsmouth, not in his NM group :(

Originally posted by Bjelar

Originally posted by rojo6934
when i play TSW i really dont care about the skill builds. I get the active skills that i like and add the passives that directly impact my active ones. I just hope that theres no cookie cutter flavor of the month builds in order to join groups because that would suck... i play what i want not what others need.

I am terribly sorry, but you won't find a group. The elitist will let you play the way you like - in Kingsmouth, not in his NM group :(

Ignore the elitists and find one of the other groups doing nightmares:

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=62768

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

TSW addesses this to some degree with nightmare mobs but in this case since its a 50% solution its no real solution.  To kill nightmare mobs you must adjust your rote actions, your rote pre-planned build.  But the gameplay itself is still just as rote.  Once you have determined an appropriate build its business as usual.  Thus you cannot use the same skill build on all  content so the game is not completely rote.  You must occasionally say "Hold on what is this mob types syngery profile?".  But the answer is select build XYX then hit 1 2 3 1 2 3 5 1 2 3 during combat and you just run around and do the same standard MMO tactics you always do while in that area.  You may have 5 sets of rote actions but it still all rote actions. 

I still disagree that you need to do rote actions with a particular mob -- simply because someone has determined build X works in this case doesn't mean it's the only answer to that scenario.  I regularly use all 7 of my abilities in combat, so I'm still puzzled why so many of these examples show only 3-4 selections in these rote rotations.  And given the number of possible builds (77,258,540,228,633,700,000,000 in TSW -- see: http://karl3d.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/tsw-builds-final/), I think that perhaps it's lack of player imagination (coupled with narrow-minded leet nightmare group demands) rather than some shortcoming of the ability wheel system.  

That said, cookie-cutter rotations are a disease of most MMOs, and if TSW has been infected with it (I don't think that it has), it is in good company.

No its not necessary, but its effective especially when you get a chain of syngeries going which is typically the optimal in effectiveness.  Its not truly necessary for 80% of normal world content.

The issue is not the you HAVE to do it.  The issue is that its always effective.  Doing the same sequence over and over should get you killed eventually.   Like the game should actively try to kill you if it figures out you keeping doing the same thing over and over.  If for no other reason than simply to preserve fun.  That way sound backwards because its kind of a sadistic thing to say, but its true because unpredictability is a major aspect of fun.

And yes this is true of almost every MMORPG currently its just that since TSW encourages such freeform building and essentially creating your class (which is a good thing IMO) its more apparent in  a sort of ironic way.

Hmm, I'm not sure I want a game that simply changes the rules to make itself harder.  I see where you are coming from, though.  Not knowing exactly what to expect everytime you encounter a mob would make for a challenging game for sure.

But I would think that most mobs are going to have cultural/biological aspects to them that keep them fighting using a particular style and using similar abilities, magic and weapons.  There's lots of room for variation with the bosses and elite mobs, of course, who are more likely to switch up their tactics.  Giving a boss completely different abilities every time or switching out the boss each time would be challenge to program, but more again, you also have to think about the game from a lore aspect; I don't know that I'd want a completely random set of traits each time.  

Now I could see bosses using very different TACTICS every time, intelligently switching up their abilities to match the challenge of the party.  Not blindly attacking the tank every time, when it's obvious the dps'ers are causing the worst damage.  Or intelligently targeting healers.  That's something I could get on board with.

Yes  I understand and my statement wasn't mean to be a good design or implementation so much as to make a point.  I don't know that the best way to get a decent effect of this in the context of a single shared static world.  It may not really even be practical.   But you get the main overarching point.

Originally posted by Bjelar

Originally posted by rojo6934
when i play TSW i really dont care about the skill builds. I get the active skills that i like and add the passives that directly impact my active ones. I just hope that theres no cookie cutter flavor of the month builds in order to join groups because that would suck... i play what i want not what others need.

 

I am terribly sorry, but you won't find a group. The elitist will let you play the way you like - in Kingsmouth, not in his NM group :(

Actually i run with a cabal that encourages changing builds up and finding new things. and we have cleared every nightmare run in the game with Master Planner aswell.

The only requirement we have is to be on vent and listen to us on Boss Mechanics. In terms of build we will tell you how well its doing and maybe give ways to improve it. however cookie cutter isnt how we do things.

This isnt a advertisement so i wont give out our cabal name unless absolutely nessessary.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by gestalt11

TSW addesses this to some degree with nightmare mobs but in this case since its a 50% solution its no real solution.  To kill nightmare mobs you must adjust your rote actions, your rote pre-planned build.  But the gameplay itself is still just as rote.  Once you have determined an appropriate build its business as usual.  Thus you cannot use the same skill build on all  content so the game is not completely rote.  You must occasionally say "Hold on what is this mob types syngery profile?".  But the answer is select build XYX then hit 1 2 3 1 2 3 5 1 2 3 during combat and you just run around and do the same standard MMO tactics you always do while in that area.  You may have 5 sets of rote actions but it still all rote actions. 

I still disagree that you need to do rote actions with a particular mob -- simply because someone has determined build X works in this case doesn't mean it's the only answer to that scenario.  I regularly use all 7 of my abilities in combat, so I'm still puzzled why so many of these examples show only 3-4 selections in these rote rotations.  And given the number of possible builds (77,258,540,228,633,700,000,000 in TSW -- see: http://karl3d.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/tsw-builds-final/), I think that perhaps it's lack of player imagination (coupled with narrow-minded leet nightmare group demands) rather than some shortcoming of the ability wheel system.  

That said, cookie-cutter rotations are a disease of most MMOs, and if TSW has been infected with it (I don't think that it has), it is in good company.

No its not necessary, but its effective especially when you get a chain of syngeries going which is typically the optimal in effectiveness.  Its not truly necessary for 80% of normal world content.

The issue is not the you HAVE to do it.  The issue is that its always effective.  Doing the same sequence over and over should get you killed eventually.   Like the game should actively try to kill you if it figures out you keeping doing the same thing over and over.  If for no other reason than simply to preserve fun.  That way sound backwards because its kind of a sadistic thing to say, but its true because unpredictability is a major aspect of fun.

And yes this is true of almost every MMORPG currently its just that since TSW encourages such freeform building and essentially creating your class (which is a good thing IMO) its more apparent in  a sort of ironic way.

Hmm, I'm not sure I want a game that simply changes the rules to make itself harder.  I see where you are coming from, though.  Not knowing exactly what to expect everytime you encounter a mob would make for a challenging game for sure.

But I would think that most mobs are going to have cultural/biological aspects to them that keep them fighting using a particular style and using similar abilities, magic and weapons.  There's lots of room for variation with the bosses and elite mobs, of course, who are more likely to switch up their tactics.  Giving a boss completely different abilities every time or switching out the boss each time would be challenge to program, but more again, you also have to think about the game from a lore aspect; I don't know that I'd want a completely random set of traits each time.  

Now I could see bosses using very different TACTICS every time, intelligently switching up their abilities to match the challenge of the party.  Not blindly attacking the tank every time, when it's obvious the dps'ers are causing the worst damage.  Or intelligently targeting healers.  That's something I could get on board with.

Yes  I understand and my statement wasn't mean to be a good design or implementation so much as to make a point.  I don't know that the best way to get a decent effect of this in the context of a single shared static world.  It may not really even be practical.   But you get the main overarching point.

I do, and it's something I wish more games would take to heart.  The more the game can remove mindless repetition in any form, the better; that said, it can't be so difficult that it pisses enough people off that not enough people are playing your game.  

I do like the idea of boss/elite "intelligent strategy" that can size up a party, make some decisions about the weak points of the group, and use abilities effectively to make it hard on the team.  Different party mixes, of course, call for the boss to do something different -- this way, not so easy to just post a YouTube for everyone to copy.  Find ways to counter Google!  This, by the way, might also allow for some non-trinity mixes in the party as well -- bring in the special teams.  :)

I remember when we first ran the slaver series of dungeons in the original AD&D campaigns, and everyone was amazed that the monsters were acting intelligently and using real tactics.  One of the most fun at tabletop we ever had.

What holds TSW back is it's terrible preformance. No one is going to try for end game if they are running at 30 FPS in a backyard, with a 3570k and a GTX670 or better. Even with those specs, the graphics look terrible in DX11 to put that much strain on a new PC.

This is classic Funcom, bad coding. I dealt with this in AO, years ago. An amazing game but FML, even after playing for 4 years and upgrading 10X past the recommended specs, I still ran at 10-30 fps...

Smoothness is required for an MMO, gameplay will be ignored if this is not put forth first.

Originally posted by Bjelar

Originally posted by rojo6934
when i play TSW i really dont care about the skill builds. I get the active skills that i like and add the passives that directly impact my active ones. I just hope that theres no cookie cutter flavor of the month builds in order to join groups because that would suck... i play what i want not what others need.

 

I am terribly sorry, but you won't find a group. The elitist will let you play the way you like - in Kingsmouth, not in his NM group :(

Not true, especially if you're a healer or tank build. If that NM group really needs a tank they'll take you.  As long as you're doing your tanking job correctly I don't think they will care what your build is.  Same with a healer.  My tank is Chaos/Fist with Chainsaw and tanks just fine.

You people seem to use the term elitist too much here.

Its not just about the builds. You also need to have experience with the dungeon.

I looked for/ founded learning groups for The ankh.

I spent about 20 hours of wiping learning the dungeon mechanics in The ankh over the course of 5 days. 

I suffered (although strengly enough thats fun for me) and i learned how to do it to the point where i almost dont make mistakes in that dungeon anymore.

Now when i look for a group or for members i look for pll who are past the same point as i am.

If you arent experienced with a dungeon u make a learning group.

Thats not elitism thats common sense.

Wow make the game dumber.  Look  if you get stuck there is always google.  If your really stuck there is a site unfair.com that has a walkthough guide for every quest. 

Honestly the one thing I liked about the game is it made you think. 

Originally posted by ashleymorrow

I wish they had a "dumb mode"

No this is whats bad about MMORPGS these days they are too dumbed down..