[Megathread] Secret World Legends

[procne]

I really can't see what's so exciting in this video. I will ignore clunky animations.
500 skills, so what? You would get the same effect if you combined skills of all classes in WoW, and then pick from those.
Unique builds? It's obvious that a month or 2 after release you will have a set of cookie cutter builds for certain purposes. They won't be able to balance them all. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if those synergies defined a "class". Master of stuns, master long range combat, master of curses, master of healing and so on...
In the end there will be a list of builds to use on specific bosses / instances / quests or whatever. And suddenly you will notice that you have 5-10 "classes" left. Players will visit pages about builds and spec this and that for particular situation. Probably all in the same way, at the same time.

I haven't seen anything revolutionary in combat in this video. You select monster and start using skills from your action bar. Some skills have synergies with each other, just like most skills and talents in one spec in WoW have.

[bcbully]

I really can't see what's so exciting in this video. I will ignore clunky animations.
500 skills, so what? You would get the same effect if you combined skills of all classes in WoW, and then pick from those.

This might be the quote of the year. You can't in WoW or any other class based game. Clunky? The game runs smooth as silk with 50+ people on the screen. It is optimized very well even in beta.

Unique builds? It's obvious that a month or 2 after release you will have a set of cookie cutter builds for certain purposes. They won't be able to balance them all. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if those synergies defined a "class". Master of stuns, master long range combat, master of curses, master of healing and so on

No that's not really how it works. The abilities are situational. Do you want an AoE, single target, channeled, or cone attack stun. Do you want that stun to be melee, mid range, ranged or magical. Theeen do you want your build to focus on weakens, hinders, affliction, burst, crit, or armor pen. After you do that you then select your 7 passives from any weapon type you like. Oh there is the general section that does not require weapons.

In the end there will be a list of builds to use on specific bosses / instances / quests or whatever. And suddenly you will notice that you have 5-10 "classes" left. Players will visit pages about builds and spec this and that for particular situation. Probably all in the same way, at the same time.

No not really. There a hundreds of ways to skin a cat in this game. Sure if you have no clue you could look up a guide and copy a build. It wont be "better," it might work if you play it right though.

I haven't seen anything revolutionary in combat in this video. You select monster and start using skills from your action bar. Some skills have synergies with each other, just like most skills and talents in one spec in WoW have.

kinda. Except that each attack has different sub types and states. You might have 30 different abilities that do something different on a weekend target. 6 of those may be burst attacks 6 strike attacks and so on. Then you have another 30 abilities that do something to an impaired target. So on and so on.

Staggering Customization. You wont know what a guy has unless you ask.

[procne]

We shall see. I still stand by the opinion that few months after release there will be only a couple of builds used. And most people will spec into same things for particular situation. Time will tell

And with "clunky" I meant unnatural, stiff, unrealistic.

[Sj]

We shall see. I still stand by the opinion that few months after release there will be only a couple of builds used. And most people will spec into same things for particular situation. Time will tell

When you've had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with the game, you'll see that it's not necessarily an exact build that will become cookie cutter, but a certain kind of build that is optimal. It's not so much about the specific abilities, but the way the different states and attack types interact with each other. The ability system is incredibly deep and robust. Sure, there are going to be "cookie cutter" builds, but there going to be a metric shit-ton of them.

I can see why people would be less than optimistic about the balance and diversity of the builds, but fact of the matter is the game is tuned so tightly and the abilities are so well-balanced that it's not an issue in PvE or PvP. Plus you have to change your deck often enough to where you're not running around as "Assault Rifle/Shotgun" class. I run with Hammers and Blades most of the time, and I'm constantly changing my abilities in and out to meet the needs of plenty of situations. If there is one promise Funcom has kept about this game, it's that the game truly is classless.

Oh, there's also the fact that having the "right" build doesn't necessarily mean the content gets easier.

And with "clunky" I meant unnatural, stiff, unrealistic.

I agree with stiff, but not unnatural or unrealistic. The animations look more realistic than most other MMOs, imo. The devs have said a lot of the animations aren't final. They also said we won't see huge sweeping changes to them though.



The game does still feel sloppy and unfinished in a lot of areas, and my major concern (besides polish) is that the game starts out painfully slow. It takes a while for those yea/nay players who aren't going to give it more than a handful of hours.

[procne]

Well, it's hard for me to imagine they could really balance those abilities so that there may be dozens of equally viable builds. And no, having encounters require this specific one out of 500 abilities to beat, does not count (I'm not saying that's what they did btw).

I doubt you can easily pinpoint such cookie cutter builds during beta, when community is small, game is unfinished and abilities change. This is something we may see few months after release. Especially if some tough encounters become available, which require some min-maxing. My guess is that at some point you will enter dungeon and you will see all people with the same, or almost the same, builds. Designed specifically for this encounter. And those who won't have those builds will be new players, or people who didn't bother research builds. And they will be frowned upon.

But that's only my guess. Maybe Funcom guys really managed to perfectly design and balance those abilities. Maybe. It would be trully revolutionary if they did. But I still doubt that. Time will tell.

[Sj]

Well closed beta's been going on for like, forever now. Don't see everyone running around with the same builds yet. Honestly, most of the builders, consumers, and modifiers are pretty much the same ability regardless of weapon. They just have different names and secondary effects. I'm not saying it was a cut and paste job, but they really did balance just about everything very very well. You won't find better balanced PvP anywhere else, I'll tell you that much. Skill and comfort with certain weapons has a big impact on effectiveness as well. The only problem is that it takes quite a while to get into the outer ring, and you get punished for experimenting with builds too early by the slow acquisition of AP/SP in Kingsmouth.

This is definitely one of those games where if you're unsure about it, wait for a free trial or something.


Edit: Totalbiscuit is livestreaming the game now. Too bad he's a tool and makes the game look terrible by acting like a retard.

[bcbully]

It's hard for a lot of people to understand. If someone made the "Build you should use guide" it would read like this,

"For this encounter you should use PBAoE and it helps to have a cleanse."

There are idk 30 different PBAoE attacks and 20 different types of cleanses. It won't read Use A,B,C,D,E... etc. There are to many ways to skin a cat in this game. There is no one build that's "best"

[procne]

It's hard for a lot of people to understand. If someone made the "Build you should use guide" it would read like this,

"For this encounter you should use PBAoE and it helps to have a cleanse."

There are idk 30 different PBAoE attacks and 20 different types of cleanses. It won't read Use A,B,C,D,E... etc. There are to many ways to skin a cat in this game. There is no one build that's "best"

Now, this sounds like a lot of homogenization.
So I took a glance at some skills, and indeed, some skills are exactly the same. And most are not even skills, but passive talents. Like bolstered mind and keen senses both increase willpower by 15%. Or The business in ranged section has same effect as smash in melee section and hand of charge in magic section - 45 damage + weapon resource. Some "skills" are simply bonuses to specific skills like Extra bullet improves Safety Off.

At this point I imagine most of the skills come in 3 versions for each "tree". Again, the effect seems similar to as if someone took all WoW's spells, talents and glyphs and just let players choose freely from them. Although I imagine that WoW would have much more of these - 10 classes, each with 3 specs. In fact even 1 class could have comparable amount of these.

Before it turns into fight. I'm not saying TSW will be a bad game, and I'm not trying to bash it. I'm just saying it doesn't seem so revolutionary to me, and it won't be much different than other MMOs.

[bcbully]

Now, this sounds like a lot of homogenization.
So I took a glance at some skills, and indeed, some skills are exactly the same. And most are not even skills, but passive talents. Like bolstered mind and keen senses both increase willpower by 15%. Or The business in ranged section has same effect as smash in melee section and hand of charge in magic section - 45 damage + weapon resource. Some "skills" are simply bonuses to specific skills like Extra bullet improves Safety Off.

At this point I imagine most of the skills come in 3 versions for each "tree". Again, the effect seems similar to as if someone took all WoW's spells, talents and glyphs and just let players choose freely from them. Although I imagine that WoW would have much more of these - 10 classes, each with 3 specs. In fact even 1 class could have comparable amount of these.

Before it turns into fight. I'm not saying TSW will be a bad game, and I'm not trying to bash it. I'm just saying it doesn't seem so revolutionary to me, and it won't be much different than other MMOs.

It's ok. We a having a theory crafting discussion. I just feel you have over simplified things, a lot. Your telling half the story or less. Using your example from another game Bolstered Mind, Keen senses my both add 15% but they would be triggered differently in TSW.

Your second example is just that, they are both builders 1 is range 1 is melee. There are a lot of different types of abilities range, mid range, melee, magic, Each one of those base category are then broken down into single target, multi target, cone, PBAoE, GTAoE and so on. Further more each ability has sub types and states.

I don't think you can call them same. It's like your saying slam is the same as steady shot, because they both do damage.

[Osskssa]

Says the guy playing SWTOR, Nice try.

Awwww truth hurts....

[Sj]

Now, this sounds like a lot of homogenization.
So I took a glance at some skills, and indeed, some skills are exactly the same. And most are not even skills, but passive talents. Like bolstered mind and keen senses both increase willpower by 15%. Or The business in ranged section has same effect as smash in melee section and hand of charge in magic section - 45 damage + weapon resource. Some "skills" are simply bonuses to specific skills like Extra bullet improves Safety Off.

At this point I imagine most of the skills come in 3 versions for each "tree". Again, the effect seems similar to as if someone took all WoW's spells, talents and glyphs and just let players choose freely from them. Although I imagine that WoW would have much more of these - 10 classes, each with 3 specs. In fact even 1 class could have comparable amount of these.

Before it turns into fight. I'm not saying TSW will be a bad game, and I'm not trying to bash it. I'm just saying it doesn't seem so revolutionary to me, and it won't be much different than other MMOs.

Well it's not revolutionary in the sense of exciting new abilities, but it is in a very small club of games that allow you to make the choice to play how you want at any given time. It's refreshing to not have to roll an army of alts to fulfill a role I feel like playing, but the limits of almost all active abilities being restricted by weapon is kind of a bummer. There are a few miscellaneous ability cells that don't seem to require weapons to cast, but they're locked on beta so their impact on hybridization is unclear.

I think you're right to say it's not revolutionary (because it's not) but it is a great variation on character development. Sure, there's limited hybridization (same sort of attacks with different types and effects), but if it wasn't like that, there would be a lot of balancing issues. But the attacks are different enough, and there are enough unique abilities in each tree that it feels deep and interesting.

Anybody who approaches this game with the thought that it is some sort of shining beacon of innovation and revolutionary change in MMOs is delusional and is going to be severely disappointed. But that falls into the cycle of MMO gamers approaching anything that isn't WoW with unrealistic expectations. I'm just glad it hasn't gripped most of TSW's community and media outlets.


I've got a couple of connections that I may be able to worm a couple of weekend beta keys from. I'll let you know if anybody wants to test it out.

---------- Post added 2012-05-25 at 07:58 AM ----------

Delayed til July 3rd for polish and sorts. Good news actually.

[Nieta]

Only about a month till release guys, this will be good. Illuminati will rule, just like in the real world trolololo

[SirRobin]

Meh... I did a pre-order for Secret World out of boredom. After TOR's failure to impress and D3 being underwhelming, I've ended up prepurchasing GW2 and preordering TSW. Hopefully one of them will actually keep me entertained for at least a couple of months.

[Deleted]

Meh... I did a pre-order for Secret World out of boredom. After TOR's failure to impress and D3 being underwhelming, I've ended up prepurchasing GW2 and preordering TSW. Hopefully one of them will actually keep me entertained for at least a couple of months.

You know what else you can do? Not preorder and wait till it's released to see the reaction it gets.

[SirRobin]

You know what else you can do? Not preorder and wait till it's released to see the reaction it gets.

Yeah, its a weakness I have. When I'm really bored really late at night, while other people are buying stuff off infomercials, I buy video games. If none out even meet that threshold? I do the pre thing. Worst comes to worst, I get entertained for a couple of weeks whenever it shows up.

[Repefe]

Meh... I did a pre-order for Secret World out of boredom. After TOR's failure to impress and D3 being underwhelming, I've ended up prepurchasing GW2 and preordering TSW. Hopefully one of them will actually keep me entertained for at least a couple of months.

Story of my gaming 2012

[Revocation]

Just got a text from the Illuminati video page with a link for the next part of the pre-launch experience. Although the link seems to be 404'd currently for me, I'd suggest to those who solved the Community Unlockable video puzzle to check out your e-mails or phones for a message from your faction.

EDIT: Well it appears to be a link and without too many spoilers, a code to go along with the link. The puzzle has been going on for a few stages now and most people are stuck on the same part. :P

[Sj]

Rumor has it the latest beta build had a lot of combat improvements, including double-tapping to roll in combat. Can't confirm though.

[Deleted]

Rumor has it the latest beta build had a lot of combat improvements, including double-tapping to roll in combat. Can't confirm though.

Well, release date is getting closer... I dont think they can afford clunky combat at this point of the tests. People have started to learn from previous game releases and wont buy a game that seem to be likely to be released in more beta state than finished state.
Does the game has beta weekend every weekend now?

[ara]

Love the setting of this game, but I don't see this game surviving as a p2p game.