Class Warfare

[Urza285]

Class Warfare

Introduction:

At the first mention of Jagex overhauling combat with the Evolution of Combat players speculated a lot from the screenshots provided afterwards. When they first caught a glimpse of duel wielding their eyes lit up much the same as a child seeing all the possibilities for the presents under a Christmas tree. Jagex had a lot of potential in their big project and very much still do. I have found myself a big fan of the EOC despite so much angst the community has for it.

I understand that there are still many topics out there discussing concepts of turning the EOC around to a much more restricting concept. I would rather not try to band and manipulate the concept that is the EOC. What I would rather do is build on it with the inclusion of a few more concepts. My biggest aim in my EOC inclusions is to stay with Jagex aims to keep this game for every type of player - PVMer, PVPer, casual player, and yes, even the role player too.

I've watched the EOC grow and evolve to a high level of usability for the player base over the past several months. What I have seen attempted since the dawn of the projects release was to create pseudo classes at the core of its concept and allow players to have an immersive game play. The ideals Jagex had for the new combat system would allow players to play how they liked and keep that as their top priority. After time Jagex made efforts so that playersalso had to fall on certain abilities or face dire concequences.

 

Concept problems:

What I feel is lacking is the support for pseudo classes. There is no emphasis short of using a shield and shield abilities for tanks. Players who are tanking should act as tanks who should be able to mitigate damage, keep the bosses attention and hold out any longer than any other player on the team could. One pseudo class I enjoyed seeing evolve was the DPSer, in this case the duel wielder, who's job is to pump out as much damage as fast as possible. Lastly, but certainly not least is the 2Her who is much like a DPSer, but relies on a ginormous weapon to obliterate his opponent.

What's worried me the most is that jagex has so much potential with their buffs and the combat information interface. Ideally this interface should never be closed or hard to access. this problem seems to be a remnent of old runescape where we relied on quickly rumping to other windows. This is issue number one with me. I have a strong feeling that during the alpha test of runescapes upgraded interface this will be the first major change players will attempt to implement. From the combat interfaces release Jagex stance on this was that if you weren't experienced and knowledged enough you had something to fall back on. What I feel though is that there is more potential to store combat information and keep the player in-the-know about their buffs poping, dying or even if they have debuffs too.

 

Implementing the Combat Interface

Secondly, Segwaying from that is the amount of buff/debuff markers there are currently on the combat interface. reate a subsection for 'primary' buffs/debuffs and the rest below for minor ones which pop in certain combat situations. Ideal buffs that go in the primary buff bar might be your class buff, momentum and other buffs that are extremely long lasting. Thirdly, and this is a big one, jagex should implement their offensive, defensive and hybrid changes in the form of primary buffs. This also ties into my ideal use of pseudo classes.

New Concepts:

 

Docked Combat Interface:

The implementation of the combat interface should be largely implemented. Possible solutions would be to implement the window as being automatically docked. This window should be excluded from the main action bar, but an option to downsize it could be implemented for periods outside of combat.

Along side this idea I thought about global conditions such as the pervading darkness of Kril's lair. These conditions could be shown in a different buff/debuff section for "global buffs." Building on primary buff section I thought about intruducing combat stances in the form of buffs which would further solidify a players ability in their roll. Ideally the first stance buffs would require no adrenaline.

 

Primary Buff - Combat Stances:

The Idea of stances came to be from playing Final Fantasy X back in the hay day. Though the concept isn't old and does have a lot of potential use in runescape. The idea is that while players may be interested in playing any way they want they may also be hindered by this. Players may want to have a more solidified role and feel more benefits from having a stance typical of that role. My concepts incude increased benefits, but slight hinderences from picking a stance. I also included passive benefits with each stance to make them more appealing for times when their role is critical for success.

One issue that could be helped and resolved from this is that I feel that there aren't many distinguishing features between a 2Her (two hander) and DWer (duel wielder). I feel that the 2Her should have a stance buff that offers an increased critical chance. DWers on the other hand could be offered a stance buff that gives them a higher hit chance. After going to many kalphite king raids I found that players often still relied on duel wielding drygores and a tank. While the system got it mostly right I still felt like it wasn't enough justification to tote around a shield. I also felt that both styles of DPSing weren't distinguishing enough.

 

Comments, suggestions?