Lack of evolutions in gameplay

Suggestions
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#1

Hi,
I like OrbusVR, but I think it lacks an important aspect.
Unlocking new gameplay mechanics.
A key element of what makes an MMO fun to play, and not feeling boring, is the gameplay of your character.
As you progress, you unlock new skills, new mechanics, and you play your class differently.
At max level, there’s nothing more to unlock, but your stuff will change the way some skills works, and make your gameplay fresh and different again.
Nerfs and buffs can help with that too.

In OrbusVR, you got everything from the beggining, and there isn’t a lot for each class. It always plays the same, there’s isn’t really different builds to try, you’re always stuck with the same gameplay.
Only things that changes things a bit is the talents you can pick at certain levels, but that’s not really game changing mechanics, excepts for a few ones.

I think it would be nice to have more diversity in gameplay for each class, more spells, more skills… different things you could choose from.
(Also, having a class bag would be nice, like, instead of having all your totems/arrows/shields, in your bag, having them in another bag, that could be your spellbook for exemple.

I’ve a few ideas of things that could be done for a few class :
Warrior - Different weapons (spears, whips, dual swords, two-handed swords), different effects for the horn (taking aggro, defense buff, increased damage)

Scoundrell - Different weapons too (sniper, shotgun, guns, machineguns), adding more types of cards to your deck, and building your own deck with cards you unlocked, choosing to replace you deck with accessories (grenades, drones…)

Paladin - More skills (heal, absorbing half damages of the target to self, target take more damages, free target from debuffs…)

Runemage - More spells, different weapons (spellbooks - choose page to cast a spell with cooldwon, crystal ball - cast by making hand gestures while the ball fly in front of you)

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#2

Something to note is the introduction of artificing at the endgame. It isn’t the most complicated, but is definitely a gamechanger and requires you to become familiar with how to handle your class specifically and to stick to whatever rotation you end up using.

I do agree that I wish there were several more impactful or interesting choices for each class, as far as gameplay goes. To note, the only major ones I can think of are the Lend a Hand runemage talent, the Precision vs Rapidity selection on Rangers, and the addition of the fourth instrument on Bard.

That said, balancing a large number of choices will be hard. There will always, like in every other game, be a winning combination and a losing combination. So adding more choices or even changing the existing ones around doesn’t really do much.

Edit: to add to that, the last thing a Runemage needs is more spells. The Triplicity vs Contamination choice is kinda like picking a cd spell (except the cd is spells cast successfully), and the hand gestures would intefere with Lend a Hand :man_shrugging:

#3

Adding new spells would mess up everyone’s shortcuts (would change the spell recognition system)
Runemage is perfectly fine exactly where it is. Changing the core mechanics of the class would suck :confused:

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#4

God no cooldowns. Though new spells would be cool they are not exactly needed. A good example of a cooldown like spell is what Atropos mentioned. Triplicity has a 14 spell cooldown (Starting the revive for triplicity counts as spell 15) This allows for you to have a spell that needs to recharge so it can’t be spammed but also makes it so practicing can make that cooldown smaller. That would be how I would want cooldown spells to be added. It means that the practice put in does matter if you want to play optimal.

Though I agree with Sift here. The runemage is in a good place right now. I would like new spells to practice but its not really necessary.

#5

I haven’t reached max level yet, so never used artificing.

For balancing, I think Blizzard is quite good about it, it’s impossible to find perfect balance without making everything the same with different skins. They make some things more viable than others for a time, and then change it, so you need to try something different to stay viable (which changes your gameplay, and make it always fresh and interesting).

When I say more spell, it might be something else, but like other classes, with runemage, you mostly spam your rotation of the same 2 or 3 actions, there isn’t a lot of situational skills, so whatever happens you always do the same, and as you progress in the game, it still stays the same. And Runemage is in my opinion the class with the more options, in terms of things you can do.

I’ll develop the idea I had with the hand gestures, lend a hand wouldn’t interfere.
You would still have your hand to guide the spells, and the other to cast, but instead of drawing with a wand, there would be a circle with dots in the air, and you’d link the dots in a certain order or pattern to cast your skills. A bit like the magic seals in Castlevania : Dawn of Sorrow on DS.

Runemage could really use some rework, casting isn’t really reliable, runes aren’t always exactly the same on the stones and on the book, and you don’t know what your drawing is compared to, which doesn’t help. There’s also different tiers in some spells, that makes lesser versions useless, why not just making a single spell for each different effects, and replace patterns different versions with brand new spells instead ?

When I said cooldown, I was speaking for the new weapon, the spellbook, which would be a different way to cast spells and to play the class, not something to replace the actual gameplay with the wand, but another option.

Anyway, it was just a few ideas, on how to solve the real problem : the lack of progression and diversity of the gameplay. We’re always spamming the same actions, from when we start, it would be nice to unlock and learn new things as we level up. Making it real progression instead of just grinding for better loot and better stats.

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#6

One thing I’d suggest is if rare equipment altered skills in some way. Not necessarily making them more potent, but altering the way they work. Perhaps make the rare equipment drop from new rare “notorious monsters” that spawn in the overworld, akin to the trickster goblin. Would create a new gameplay element and a new sense a competition whoever could “claim” the nm when it pops

#7

No its actually very reliable… the word it seems you are looking for is easy.

No not really. Fire/Frost 1 is useful for pulling. Fire/Frost 2 is good for dps. The only one that is not very useful are the level 3 spells and even then the Frost 3 slow is useful.

No one would use it because unless the damage is utterly broken you will still do more dps with the regular mage. That and most of the high level mages who are really good see the allure of getting constantly better by improving their cast speed. If we had hard cooldowns it would be a method of sit and wait for the cooldown to finish. Bland concept for the mage when comparing it to what we have.

Sounds cool in theory but if I do more damage with the old style that is what I am sticking to.

Artificing does not change mage up too much because it is just simple spells to proc but to get your tiles off at all times you need a good rotation and good sets.

#8

Go on. Do say a bit more and give examples. Something along the lines of number changes on some talents correct. Though your last sentence I do not like too much.

This entails that these would be pvp mobs making it so you would NEED to do pvp if you want to have the best pve gear. If its not that then the first person who gets it would have a chance at getting a drop from what it seems.

Having them be pve and making it so they spawn for say 30-60 minutes would help in saying that the gear would be hard to get as everyone would be farming for it and it requires players to get online at specific times and rewarding that dedication with this gear.

One question though. What + level would this gear be and can you infuse the skill/talent component to another piece of gear. If you cannot infuse it then the gear unless it is better or equal to raid gear or the skill alterations change it in a way that massively increases damage for dps healing for tanks and healers.

#9

Once again, the “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” attitude is quite dabatable, personally, I don’t like it, but that’s not the point here, and Runemage isn’t the point either, the lack of progression and variety goes for every class.

Two options, either you wouldn’t be able to do it “the old way” because you’d have to unlock things as you level up, and change your rotation while progressing.
Either you could play “the old way” for a time, and then it would be nerfed, and another style would be buffed. There would be differents meta, allowing players to try things, and not always play the same forever.

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#10

Final fantasy xi did it really well. Have the nm only killable by the person/party who claims it. Make them either lottery pop (need to kill the mobs in the area to make it spawn) timed pop (spawns in this area every couple hours) or a forced pop (trade an item to make it pop, the pop item drops from various locations or certain mobs/dungeons etc) sometimes the camping or competition can lead to toxic elements (people fighting for the nm etc) which could be alleviated by a bounty/point type system but the competition makes it so much more fun, especially when you out pull someone, less so when you get out pulled.

#11

Someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience in the game shouldn’t be talking about what needs to be changed… especially runemage. That’s just my opinion. Runemage does not need to be changed. Changing it would ruin one of the only good VR mechanics that this game has.

#12

On the opposite, I’m talking about progression, I’m still leveling, so I know what I’m talking about.
I’ve tried each class, leveled a bit with em, and same thing happened, I got bored of each class gameplay, there’s nothing new as you level up, you don’t unlock new skills, it’s just grinding to increase stats (and sometime, a talent that alter gameplay in more or less significant ways), doing always the same things.
The real interesting things in OrbusVR are dungeons bosses (maybe raids too, haven’t tried yet), with specific mechanics, like any good MMO, the rest is just repetitive spam and grind.

I like the game, it has lots of potential, but leveling up just feels pointless and empty.
I’ve played many MMOs, many games in general, I’m just sharing a feedback to improve things by adding more skills and diversity in each class gameplays, and a real feeling of progression and evolution of gameplay as you level up.
The rest were just quick ideas on how to implement that, no need to focus on runemage that much.

Also, your last phrase says it all. OrbusVR is great, but it could use some improvement in terms of gameplay mechanics.

My main problem is, each class felt very limited in terms of gameplay, you don’t have much to do, runemage is the most diverse one, but even with that, when I saw all the spells, it still felt quite poor.

Also, just as an exemple, Lost Magic and Doodle Hex were two DS games that used pattern drawing to cast spells, both had a lot of different spells to cast and only in 2d.
There’s room for much more in OrbusVR, it just needs some improvement on the runes, and making a learning system that works.

#13

You could only possibly know about all the talents available on the talent tree if you actually reached level 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30. Which means that you are missing out on significant parts of most of the classes.

I would say that the talent tree does that

Since neither of those are VR games, they have nothing to do with VR mechanics (drawing something on a flat surface is different from drawing something mid-air).

The runes work perfectly fine. Not too sure what you mean when you say a “learning system that works”

#14

You can read talents and know what they does before actually unlocking them (and that’s a good thing to do, helps you planning for your future build)

Talents change gameplay in a very limited way.

Different yes, but very similar, it adds another dimension, so even more options, in terms of development, it’s almost the same (or can be, there’s always different ways to reach your objective), it’s image analyzing (draw a picture, compare to the possible expected options, and return the one fitting best), still different thing, but it’s similar to QR codes, flashcodes, or things like that.

No, runes doesn’t works perfectly fine, but that’s not what I said. I said “a LEARNING system that works”, something that actually explain to you how to draw the rune

#15

The closest thing that you are going to get to this is asking someone in game. Everyone draws their runes differently, so for example, a video explaining how to do it won’t help because it won’t include any shortcuts, and there will always be a way to draw it better compared to the original runes.

Yes, the runes do work perfectly fine

#16

The main thing I would like to see is more differentiation to play style by talents. Pretty much each class atm has only one or two talent choices, and for the ones with 2,one of them is the clear winner.

I totally understand going the simplified talent route that wow has done as well, where instead of having feat taxes that are mandatory to do your job, you have big sweeping choices. The problem here is that while we only have the few choices, they are all basically feat taxes.

I can think of maybe a total of 10 talents over the 8 classes that you have a real choice to make.

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#17

I think redoing the talents to maybe be direct-comparison utility or microadjustment would be better.

As examples:
Runemage:

  • 5% increase in slow effect on frost spells OR Decurse and Pushback fly 5% faster
  • 2% Increased Crit Chance on Perfect Cast fire spells OR 3% increased tick damage on Affliction
  • Polymorph lasts 10s longer OR you can poly 2 enemies at a time
  • Mage Shield has a splash effect (and/or is buffed to be worthwhile) OR fire spells have a small splash effect (damage only)

Paladin:

  • Periodically generate an extra charge from being attacked OR periodically generate an orb from attacking

I dunno. A thought at least

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#18

Make Lend a Hand a native part of the class :wink:

#19

I know some people that wouldn’t like that.

#20

If you want to min max correctly you choose lend a hand.