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    Cadence of the game

    From the perspective of a mobile gamer, I feel Eternium inches close to tedium especially at the high end mobile play. Absolutely love the unique gesture based game control; however, such a control scheme more easily lend itself to a more leisurely paced game. Watching any videos of mobile high trial pushing, one sees frenetic finger swipes and blinding explosions that makes it hard to make out what's going on. The major advantage of the more common virtual gamepad based button control scheme is the unobstructed view of the battlefield (around the center of the screen), and the quicker reaction times of tapping vs drawing.

    I think it's high time that we all recognize the deficiencies of the gesture based control scheme and not pretend they don't exist.

    With its limitations in mind, I don't think Eternium should try to match the "cadence" of gamepad control scheme mobile ARPGs (such as the forth coming Diablo Immortal).

    I define cadence as how busy the game gets. How much the game demands from the user input perspective.

    The major advantage of the gesture based control scheme is that it intuitively incorporate aiming into the gameplay. It can offer greater strategic depth in a more natural/smoother way. In fact the control is more embed in the game itself. In no small way enhances the overall immersive feel of the game. Whereas button based control scheme feels more forced, a case where the human adapts to the instrument vs the other way around.

    So in short, let's keep what is unique about Eternium, the gesture based control scheme. This ultimately makes it a potentially better game than anything button based.

    But let's also tailor the gameplay to suit the uniquely immersive control scheme.

    In a long winded way, I'm saying the cadence of the game is too high for high end mobile play. Or in Adrian (Developer) 's words, how to remove tedium where it makes sense.

    I see two fundamental ways to address this issue. Jose Sarmento might chime in and feel I'm describing a non existent issue. But this suggestion is partially based on one of his posts: the idea the game needs +12Dex modifier to play.

    Method 1 (Jose's offhand remark)
    Slow the game down significantly but cutting the attacks per second in half. More specifically change the attack speed formula from 6x (blah blah) to 3x(blah blah). This is a very elegant solution. Stats that used to produce 10 attacks per second now does 5, 8->4, 6->3 etc. As normal attack speeds slow down, alacrity triggers will drop, lengthening the effective skill CDs. Now skill spamming will be far less prominent. Giving mobile users time to think/plan instead of reactively drawing symbols because "I can't let the skill goto waste and not in CD". This also means skills like BR doesn't have to be 5 sec duration anymore. The buffs can last longer because the number of casts will drop. Again slowing the overall cadence of the game.

    Method 2 (Perhaps the Developer's aimed solution)
    Greater automation so tedious tasks/user inputs can be reduced. I was on this path before. Suggested a skill autocast scheme where two quick successive draws of the symbol skill symbol will put it into autocast mode. Auto potion/apple usage based on pre-determined HP % (slider bar to control to each player's own taste). Simpler normal attack switching based on preset %. Any of several other enhancements that will generally make the mobile gamer's live better. Red (Developer) has talked about more proc based damage/gear. That in itself is a small way to address the cadence issue as more the damage can come from non user input needed sources. That's why I feel this is perhaps the developer preferred way of dealing with this issue. Generally speaking, giving player the optional trade off of less precise control for more leisurely game pace. This approach can keep the current cadence of the game while giving relief to the tired/raw fingers of the mobile players. I shudder to think how my finger will hold up (I play with one finger basically) during the next ANB.

    There is no wrong answer on how to go about addressing this issue. But address it please, as a plead from the mobile playerbase. We are all competitive. With PC players stomping all over mobile players in an originally mobile only game is semi disheartening.

    Comments away.
    GAQO KITO REZO 1934

    #2
    You're on a roll. I wholeheartedly agree it is a "problem" (wherein the quotes imply it's not like it "kills" the game -> we still can have fun). And, like you, I can't very well point a solution. The AS scaledown might help, but it would potentially disrupt the class balance (by skewing how much damage is dealt via attacks / how much is from skills / how much of that is boosted via Alacrity / etc.). So it's far from a win-win option.

    We agree on some automation possibilities - the potions and apples autotrigger could retain their strategic interest (how to set the thresholds) while freeing up real-time "IRQs". The attack speed switching I would address it differently, by dispensing the need to interleave the two attacks in any situation. We all moan about how AL AS buff presently doesn't affect AB AS, but consider - how much simpler it would be if you could just do 100% AL for the mob phase, 100% AB vs boss (or something closer to that). Similarly, balancing the Frenzy damage output vs. Rending Slash might allow for the optimal point to be constant RS vs. 2+ targets, constant Frenzy vs. single target == problem solved.

    I should mention also that I am totally not fond of the virtual joystick schemes; for all its faults, I find this gestures scheme much less prone to misclicking, and you gain considerably in terms of view area (until they clutter it with town portal buttons and the like, at least )

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      #3
      Originally posted by Jose Sarmento View Post

      We agree on some automation possibilities - the potions and apples autotrigger could retain their strategic interest (how to set the thresholds) while freeing up real-time "IRQs". The attack speed switching I would address it differently, by dispensing the need to interleave the two attacks in any situation. We all moan about how AL AS buff presently doesn't affect AB AS, but consider - how much simpler it would be if you could just do 100% AL for the mob phase, 100% AB vs boss (or something closer to that). Similarly, balancing the Frenzy damage output vs. Rending Slash might allow for the optimal point to be constant RS vs. 2+ targets, constant Frenzy vs. single target == problem solved.
      I'm in the same boat about this. But it's always hard to "take away" something even when only a subset of playerbase (PC) can really take advantage. So I had a suggestion to have normal attacks "ramp up" its effects the long you stay in that attack, essentially increasing the "cost" of attack switching (you will give up some of those built up advantages when switching).

      Anyway I definitely feel like you do that each skill should have a specific role they perform. Boss/single, small mob, large mob etc.

      Btw the event took all my time so just now getting back to this. Oh yea one more vote for separate LB. Mobile just can't compete. If the devs can cheat detect by looking for damage spikes, surely they can also track/detect skill input spike. If someone goes over 3 skill inputs per second just once, brand them PC for the event purpose. Simply put, the phone users can't get that much input over time. There is no need to distinguish the player's platform etc. Look at how they are using the platform. That's the meat of the matter.
      GAQO KITO REZO 1934

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        #4
        I like your ideas hope some change will be implemented, probably started playing this game way too late to
        matter or catch up though which is usually the problem with mobile games if you don’t start early and know everything. Wonder if DI in years to come will learn from the many good aspects of this game, the f2p is really nice and not very limiting

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Arionthe View Post
          Btw the event took all my time so just now getting back to this. Oh yea one more vote for separate LB. Mobile just can't compete. If the devs can cheat detect by looking for damage spikes, surely they can also track/detect skill input spike. If someone goes over 3 skill inputs per second just once, brand them PC for the event purpose. Simply put, the phone users can't get that much input over time. There is no need to distinguish the player's platform etc. Look at how they are using the platform. That's the meat of the matter.
          Interesting thought. Though I still can't very well grasp why it's so hard to reliably distinguish PC from (emulator or mobile). An emulator offers nowhere near the same gameplay capability of the PC, even if one automates the gestures via AutoHotKey or similar.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Arionthe View Post
            Greater automation so tedious tasks/user inputs can be reduced. I was on this path before.
            I can confirm that we are at the stage of internally discussing introducing some form of limited automation, aimed specifically at reducing the tedious part for mobile gamers. Obviously, every player regardless of platform would benefit of any system we design, but our hope is that it specifically alleviates precisely the concern you highlighted. Please keep in mind that this is only at the concept stage right now, not an imminent feature.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Red (Developer) View Post

              I can confirm that we are at the stage of internally discussing introducing some form of limited automation, aimed specifically at reducing the tedious part for mobile gamers. Obviously, every player regardless of platform would benefit of any system we design, but our hope is that it specifically alleviates precisely the concern you highlighted. Please keep in mind that this is only at the concept stage right now, not an imminent feature.
              this is great news. We are all eager to hear more about it when it comes closer to fruition. Now let us know if it will be helpful for the mobile players to present the current “pain points” so the system can target them. Btw glad to see you make an appearance after a long absence. And great work on the crafting system. It’s more comprehensive than I had expected. Clap clap

              GAQO KITO REZO 1934

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