Phasing Out Combat Training & Combat Veteran

[Davion Fuxa]

There is some discussing going on about the aforementioned talents from the categories in the thread title. However, I'll note that this topic is moreso about just remapping the effects governed by many of the talents from these two categories into the characters stats.

I'm also separating this thread as this corresponds less to boosting the Constitution Stat.

Simply put, the talents in these two categories refers to the following:

Quick Recovery
Fast Metabolism
Spell Shield
Unending Frenzy

Armor Training
Combat Accuracy
Weapons Mastery
Daggers Mastery
Exotic Mastery
Thick Skin

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Here's a sort of general idea of what I sort of suggest could be done to phase out the above talents and incorporate the effects into talents:

Weapon Accuracy:

Two Handed Weapons - Weapon Accuracy is fully derived from Strength.

Shields - Weapon Accuracy is fully derived from Strength.

One Handed Weapons (Non Daggers) - If Dualwielding, Accuracy is based off Dexterity, but otherwise it is based off Strength.

Daggers - Weapon Accuracy is (usually) fully derived from Dexterity. The exception to this rule are Rogues and Shadowblades who invest a point in Lethality, they can use Cunning if it is higher then their Dexterity value.

Bows & Slings - Weapon Accuracy is fully derived from Dexterity.

Staves - Weapon Accuracy is fully derived from Magic.

Mindstars - Weapon Accuracy is fully derived from Willpower.

Weapon Damage: - Just increase damage values given from weapons as already defined on weapons.

Armor Training: - Equipment Restrictions such as who can wear Heavy or Massive Armor or equip Shields can be tossed. If the player has the stats to equip it, then they can.
- Reduction in Chance to be Critically hit is fully derived from Dexterity.
- Armor Hardiness is fully derived from Dexterity.
*Note, Critical Reduction and Armor Hardiness could be remapped to Constitution if desired

Thick Skin: - Constitution governs the amount of All Resistance a player gets.

Increased Spell Save:- Constitution could result in players get a boost in Spell Saves in Addition to Physical Save.

Health/Stamina Regeneration Speed: - Constitution could govern how much Health and Stamina your character regenerates per turn.

Unending Frenzy: - Remove effect, maybe throw it elsewhere (like somewhere in Technique/Bloodthirst).

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So a big part of this is why, and I'm sure there will be even more discussion in this thread as to why. The main reasoning I can give is that Combat Training and Combat Veteran's Talents feature many inherent problems. Weapon Mastery, Dagger Mastery, and Exotic Mastery aren't liked by some players due to them restricting weapon choice - why bother using a Trident when Weapon Mastery has been invested in. Thick Skin encourages players just to hoard equipment that increases the Constitution Stat, just so the player can temporarily inflate the value enough to invest in Thick Skin. Etc, Etc.

Removing the talents removes a lot of these problems while not really taking away from character building - since all of that will simply be regulated by the stats instead. Stats will also play a much bigger roll in character design, as right now they don't feel like they play a big enough roll.

[Red]

I like all of these suggestions. However, a few thoughts on the matter.

Will this seriously affect any build? You chose very appropiate stats, but that just means that you'll get the bonuses at a smaller amount every level instead of big jumps every four levels or so.

A related matter, this is power creep. By folding these skills into stats outright, with the stats you chose, this basically means a well built weapon using class will have freed up anywhere from ten to fifteen generic points. It'll affect some classes more than others, but every class that uses these will suddenly become a lot more powerful. Though I've heard warriors are needing buffs, so hey, maybe this is exactly what they need.

Finally, I dislike the thought of outright removing two categories from the game. I would support folding the skills into stats, assuming it was well balanced, but I think that instead of removing the trees, new skills should be made.

I actually already had a suggestion on a different thread about Unending Frenzy, so here's one idea for Combat Veteran:

The only thing that seems useless is the fourth skill, Unending Frenzy. "On killing an enemy" skills are some of the worst in the game by and large, since most of the real tough foes, bosses, rares, etc., do not summon allies. It'd only be useful against Necromancer and Summoner rares, really. Not to mention it only gives 20 stamina with five skill points in it (at mastery level 1, so most classes with it will probably have more like 25) which is only about enough to use one good skill. It might work better as an active skill that works sorta like a Heroism Infusion, giving you bonus combat stats and giving you a large negative HP buffer.

[Doctornull]

Some very good ideas here.

My suggestions on Accuracy:
- Use the maximum of Str or Dex, or max(Dex, Str*0.6) to reward Str+Dex builds.
- Allow that list to be augmented by a callback so talents can add stuff ("use Cunning for Accuracy when that's better" or whatever).
- I don't really like using Magic for both Accuracy and damage on Staves.


Regarding Weapon Mastery, the system in place now allows multiple overlapping (non-stacking) mastery talents. What I do in Nulltweaks is splinter mastery into 3 groups: non-exotic everything, knives + whips, and axes/maces/swords + tridents.

I like the effect that this division has over weapons choices: you can either focus on one subset of weapons (e.g. knives & whips), or you can gain a broader but lower mastery over more types of weapons.

How to make that even more interesting?

Perhaps Combat Styles. Gain a Mastery bonus over some set of "style weapons", plus some kind of a perk (e.g. cause bleeding on crit, or try to Disarm every so often when your foe misses, or regain Stamina every time you apply the Counterattack status, or whatever).

New styles will overlap (not stack) with current styles, so there's a lot of potentially interesting choices to be created in this space.

So while I agree that the current Mastery talents are boring, the system underneath the talents is actually pretty good, and can be used in ways that are much more interesting.


Regarding Unending Frenzy, perhaps combine it with Daunting Presence in the Conditioning tree. It still won't be very good, but the flavor text fits, and it might be worth sustaining if you're so Stamina-hungry that you're going for Adrenaline Surge.

[Davion Fuxa]

Will this seriously affect any build? You chose very appropiate stats, but that just means that you'll get the bonuses at a smaller amount every level instead of big jumps every four levels or so.

The point of phasing the talents into the stats is that we can do so without really affecting anything. Yes it will affect how strong players are in the early game but intrinsically players will still play the builds pretty much the same - and we can discuss improving player starts elsewhere as necessary.

I would support folding the skills into stats, assuming it was well balanced, but I think that instead of removing the trees, new skills should be made.

I'm sure Darkgod is always open up to the suggestion of new categories or talents. However, I think it is fine to remove the talents and categories regardless of whether replacements are thought up or not.

- Use the maximum of Str or Dex, or max(Dex, Str*0.6) to reward Str+Dex builds.

So long as it is simply to understand, I'm ultimately fine with whatever formula. The key thing is that new players know what specific stat is important to do what.

- I don't really like using Magic for both Accuracy and damage on Staves.

Willpower could perhaps be used for Accuracy.

Regarding Weapon Mastery, the system in place now allows multiple overlapping (non-stacking) mastery talents. What I do in Nulltweaks is splinter mastery into 3 groups: non-exotic everything, knives + whips, and axes/maces/swords + tridents.

I like the effect that this division has over weapons choices: you can either focus on one subset of weapons (e.g. knives & whips), or you can gain a broader but lower mastery over more types of weapons.

One problem with the current system or your system is that of the 'no-brainer' choice. A Berserker is obviously going to use Two Handed Weapons from start to finish in his run. A Rogue will traditionally use Knives (And or Whips with your Nulltweaks) and won't bother using other weapons.

Instead of presenting weapon specialization talents, I'd personally think it would be better just to leave the field open and let players use whatever they think is best best on the weapons themselves based on what their other talents do.

[Doctornull]

So long as it is simply to understand, I'm ultimately fine with whatever formula. The key thing is that new players know what specific stat is important to do what.

Agree, and I'd say the object inspection tooltip ought to display what stat is being used for Accuracy.

One problem with the current system or your system is that of the 'no-brainer' choice. A Berserker is obviously going to use Two Handed Weapons from start to finish in his run. A Rogue will traditionally use Knives (And or Whips with your Nulltweaks) and won't bother using other weapons.

Instead of presenting weapon specialization talents, I'd personally think it would be better just to leave the field open and let players use whatever they think is best best on the weapons themselves based on what their other talents do.

That's not necessarily true in my system (Nulltweaks).

It's a fine strategy to go for Greatweapon Berserker, but if you want a Mastery bonus on your Flexible Combat, you'll think about going for Weapons Mastery instead. Lower mainhand damage, but higher Flexible Combat damage. It's a trade-off.

The Rogue might prefer Daggers+Slings (Weapons Master) over Daggers+Whips (Agile Mastery). Either way you'll get a totally viable character, but it is a choice, and the choice does matter.

[grayswandir]

Just wanted to mention that the system will also support partial masteries - so dagger mastery could count as half as strong sling mastery, or whatever weird combination.

[HousePet]

I don't like the idea of folding this stuff into stats. It is unnecessary power creep.

These suggested changes would result in fighters getting an effective 20+ extra talent points, with nothing to spend them in since Combat Technique is the only generic Technique category.

It also doesn't solve the issue of this stuff being boring.

Let's just make some interesting and meaningful choices instead, that is what this game is about.

[Red]

Perhaps there could be a way to distribute the skills among the stats so that way, to achieve the same results you get now, you need different stat distribution. Admittedly, I don't know how that could be done, but it would make stat growth more than all three in one stat or two and one for most classes.

As it stands, for most classes there's just a few important stats and the rest can go to hell for all you care.

[Faeryan]

What I'd like to see is a special talent to further specialize in a weapon. For example Berserkers could choose to gain bonuses for just Greatmaul or something.
This wouldn't change the current weapons mastery, just add in a new talent for those interested in specialization. Could possibly be available as class tree.

[Red]

I would support that suggestion, Faeryan, if the weapons were more differntiated. I know that maces/mauls, axes, and swords have different levels of damage and armor piercing, but I can't for the life of me tell you which is which exactly because good egoes matter a lot more than those numbers, especially once you get artifact gear. (Random or yellow.)

The only good use I could see out of this would be either if you had something in the item vault (so you know your final weapon will be a sword or a greatmaul or what have you) or if it was a really high level skill, where you have a good chance of having found a murderous voratun murderaxe of murdering everything and know that you'll want to specialize in axes. Though the only skill that's appropiately high level would be a prodigy, and that... Hm...

You know, a weapon specilization prodigy might work.

[jenx]

I don't like the idea of folding this stuff into stats. It is unnecessary power creep.

These suggested changes would result in fighters getting an effective 20+ extra talent points, with nothing to spend them in since Combat Technique is the only generic Technique category.

It also doesn't solve the issue of this stuff being boring.

Let's just make some interesting and meaningful choices instead, that is what this game is about.

I agree with HousePet

[Fhtagn]

For what it's worth, I agree with HousePet and Jenx.

[supermini]

So a big part of this is why, and I'm sure there will be even more discussion in this thread as to why. The main reasoning I can give is that Combat Training and Combat Veteran's Talents feature many inherent problems. Weapon Mastery, Dagger Mastery, and Exotic Mastery aren't liked by some players due to them restricting weapon choice - why bother using a Trident when Weapon Mastery has been invested in. Thick Skin encourages players just to hoard equipment that increases the Constitution Stat, just so the player can temporarily inflate the value enough to invest in Thick Skin. Etc, Etc.

I'm not sure I follow. If you had every weapon that drops be usable and every class being able to use any combination of weapons that is available that would make for less variety, not more.

A choice between weapon/dagger/mindstar/staff/trident is one of the least restrictive systems you can have. You're not specializing in bastard swords or great maces, several classes have multiple weapon combination options (arcane blades can go 2h staff/weapon, 1h/dagger/1h staff + shield/dagger, cursed can combine 1h weapons with daggers, shield or mindstars or go 2h, etc.) You have to make your build choice in advance, however, and not just change your mind every time something shiny drops from a monster. If you can't let your shiny cool sword fall to waste, there's the item vault. I fail to see how this is restrictive.

Why bother with a trident? Because it's cool. I've done runs where I went with Legacy of the Naloren, not because it's any way optimal or easy to pull off, but because it's cool and it's a novelty. If anything, it's the exotic weapons category and whips in particular that need the most work, but that's for another topic.

I don't see how the con for thick skin, or using stat items to qualify for stuff in general, even ends up in the same discussion. Your solution to tie thick skin to actual constitution turns constitution into a must have stat. And where does it cut off? You can't have a cap on stats the way that you have with generic skills, so I could have 150 constitution (like I had on a sun paladin, mostly for a giggle), and how much resist all should that give me? You haven't fixed the problem, you just created different ones.

Removing the talents removes a lot of these problems while not really taking away from character building - since all of that will simply be regulated by the stats instead.

You end up with every melee character having additional 20 generic points (if you also took out thick skin).

You end up having to redo all artifacts and all egos in the game to reflect this.

You replace easily quantifiable armor training into stat distribution which is much harder to figure out and much harder to work with - right now as a melee character you can raise str and that gives you more damage, more phys power and allows you to level armor training, so just the one stat has both offensive and defensive functions. This way you have to level dex first because being in melee without armor hardiness hurts like hell, and in the end rogues end up having more of it than sun paladins. It just doesn't make any sense.

Stats will also play a much bigger roll in character design, as right now they don't feel like they play a big enough roll.

Stats already (both directly and by way of physical power, accuracy bonuses, crit chance) influence damage. I would start here: http://te4.org/wiki/Combat_Damage

Beyond that, they do play a large role in character design. For melee characters dex makes for a better defensive stat because it allows you to shrug off crits, cunning is a better offensive/utility stat (in terms of utility, it helps with various skills like track and piercing sight). Con is a bit of a bad stat to level, but in general the demise of con as a result of heroism infusions and +hp egos has made for a better game because bigger hp padding makes for less one turn kills and makes it easier to play builds with lower life ratings. I'm not opposed to buffing it in some other way, or having classes that depend on it more for skills.

[Lyoncet]

I agree that there are problems in what you've outlined, especially Combat Veteran. But I disagree on why these are problematic, and therefore what to do about it. There's been a lot of talk of sweeping changes with enormous (slash nightmarish) balance implications. Along with balance considerations, we're also talking about changing some pretty core elements of a pretty well-established game in a pretty big way. I'm more of the opinion that the problems don't require the level of rewrite advocated here, with changes to not only talents but stats as well.

As I see it, there are two very different problems here. Combat Veteran is a problem because it's not very good. You don't need to rebuild the stat system to change that. Left as-is, they'll just continue to have minimal impact on the game and we'll get along just fine playing as if they're not there. Or possibly just pumping the spell save. Or in another case, they can be made not bad. Especially in a game with this much history behind it, I think that's a much better approach.

Combat Training has a few problems associated with it, not all of which everyone agrees on. Some people want to get rid of them because they're seen as a point tax (particularly Thick Skin). Others dislike the hoarding behavior that the current system encourages. Most of us agree that weapon specialization talents are problematic. But again, I don't think any of those are best solved by rolling the effects entirely into primary stats. Maybe by end-game we all have maxed Thick Skin and weapon talents, but this isn't an MMO – we can't just skip to endgame and ignore the leveling process. IMO, it's a completely valid (and engaging and worthwhile) question to ask the player on level up if they want to take a few % resist all, or deal more damage, or get more accuracy, or invest in Antimagic, or more class-specific general talents, etc. etc. Is the game made any better by introducing huge power creep by refunding all those points and baking the benefits into stats? I don't think so. Yes, it changes some things that some people see as problems, but I don't think it makes the game better.


TL;DR – For what it's worth, I agree with HousePet and Jenx and Fhtagn and supermini.

[Davion Fuxa]

Sometimes Weapon Specialization systems work, but other times they don't really add any meaningful decision making. If investing in Combat Training is your only choice for investing your Generic points into - you don't have a meaningful choice for investing your Generic Points.

In Tales of Maj'Eyal, you are pretty well forced to invest in a Weapon Mastery (including Staves, Mindstars, and Exotic if you try and hold out for them) on Melee Focused characters, or you otherwise heavily handicap your character's damage output. You don't have any real competing choice to invest your Generic Points in over Weapon Talents because nothing comes close to matching them in scale of importance. IE, you are restricted to having to invest in Weapon Mastery on your Bulwark starting out as you would never invest in Conditioning or Survival because they are completely subpar in comparison.

There is also the problem that certain classes like Marauders or Temporal Wardens aren't really playing as intended due to having to invest in two separate Weapon Mastery types and Exotic Weapons being pointless to use because players will never realistically use them because they don't really come into use until later in the game - though I'll give Nulltweaks a nod as a general direction that could be used to fix that specific problem.

Eliminating Weapon Masteries means that meaningful decision making can be made elsewhere - your Bulwark can meaningfully look into investing in Conditioning or Survival, your Marauder can use the One Handed Weapon or Dagger unless he finds Two really powerful Daggers that would tilt his interest into using them, unless your Arcane Blade invests in specific weapon techniques he can use whatever suits the players fancy.

I don't see how the con for thick skin, or using stat items to qualify for stuff in general, even ends up in the same discussion. Your solution to tie thick skin to actual constitution turns constitution into a must have stat. And where does it cut off? You can't have a cap on stats the way that you have with generic skills, so I could have 150 constitution (like I had on a sun paladin, mostly for a giggle), and how much resist all should that give me? You haven't fixed the problem, you just created different ones.

If the value is something like 0.1 All Resistance per stat, then with 150 Constitution you could have at most 15% All Resistance. The Value could be altered as desired. Regardless, if we can make +Stat gear more important, to the point that people might actual consider wearing it FOR the +Stat, then that's an improvement, since no one wears gear for +Stat outside of leveling.

You end up with every melee character having additional 20 generic points (if you also took out thick skin).

Solution 1 - Remove some Generic Points from leveling up.
Solution 2 - Add more Generic Talents to Invest in
Solution 3 - Do Nothing, players can look into Escort Rewards

And personally unless someone has a good idea for some new Generic Talents, I'm perfectly happy with Solution 3 - though I'd advocate Solution 1

You end up having to redo all artifacts and all egos in the game to reflect this.

I don't see this as a bad thing, as eventually all the artifacts and egos will need to have a quality pass done to them at some point.

Additionally, +Stat needs to be elevated a bit in importance is right now it's pretty useless to have on equipment you intend to use to fight with.

You replace easily quantifiable armor training into stat distribution which is much harder to figure out and much harder to work with - right now as a melee character you can raise str and that gives you more damage, more phys power and allows you to level armor training, so just the one stat has both offensive and defensive functions. This way you have to level dex first because being in melee without armor hardiness hurts like hell, and in the end rogues end up having more of it than sun paladins. It just doesn't make any sense.

Heavier Armor naturally has higher Armor Hardiness and Armor in comparison to Lighter Armor before stats are even considered in reducing damage. Comparing a Rogue to a Bulwark, the Bulwark can also invest in Dexterity for greater defense so he should end up having insane defensive abilities.

However, in regards to the Rogue and Sun Paladin....

A nimble fighter in light armor should be able to make better use of his lighter armor to protect himself then a clumsy fighter should be able to protect himself in heavy armor. The nimble fighter can better move around in his armor to make blows glance off him where a clumsy fighter will likely end up taking the full brunt of attacks blow after blow.

That actually makes perfect sense - not to mention it literally lines up with countless (if not the majority) of other games in how Armor ratings work.

Stats already (both directly and by way of physical power, accuracy bonuses, crit chance) influence damage. I would start here: http://te4.org/wiki/Combat_Damage

Beyond that, they do play a large role in character design. For melee characters dex makes for a better defensive stat because it allows you to shrug off crits, cunning is a better offensive/utility stat (in terms of utility, it helps with various skills like track and piercing sight). Con is a bit of a bad stat to level, but in general the demise of con as a result of heroism infusions and +hp egos has made for a better game because bigger hp padding makes for less one turn kills and makes it easier to play builds with lower life ratings. I'm not opposed to buffing it in some other way, or having classes that depend on it more for skills.

And yet, do they help that much? How many times have you passed over using a +Stat gear because increasing ones Stats is pretty useless. Outside of leveling up, +Stat equipment is barely worth giving the time of day too.