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The Depth of Vanguard
Thillian
Member UncommonPosts: 3,156
Vanguard has much more deep system than the competition. Maybe it sounds like a phrase but it's true. I tried to summarize a bit all the different spheres where it's unique and deep. Deep in the terms of flexibility, hidden mechanics and space for improvment. We should praise the devs that took the risk and develop this game. It's always risky to release a game that has so many new features mixed up with old-school gameplay.
Mounts:
This game doesnt offer just one or two basic mounts with two different speed bonuses and a few appearances. It offers a whole range of different mounts and equippment for them (yes bardings, horseshoes, saddlebags...) Each mount has two statistics - stability and speed. Basic mount improves speed by 40%, the best ones even by 150%. Horseshoes vary from +3% to +50% bonus to speed. It all depends on how well the blacksmiths do his job in making those (crafting see later). Then you can increase stability that helps to not get dismounted when dealt damage. Best bardings provide huge stability, but there are also bardings that can improve your speed. This "detail" about equipping your mount is another way of customizing your character. In addition there are plenty of different mounts in game that has different visuals, flying mounts are ready and it's beatiful and great feeling to fly around on your own wyvern or gryf.
Stealth:
Normally stealth in most MMORPG's are just level versus level comparsion if player gets spotted or not. In vanguard you have hide, sneak and detection skills. As a player you actually have to train hide and sneak to be able to sneak effectively. Same goes if you want to spot hidden creatures around you need to have solid detection. This doesnt make the game complex and it adds some "realism" and another way of customizing character.
Combat Awaraness:
During combat, vanguard has a special weaknesses system that can tremendously change the fight if used effectively. Basically each class can open 2weaknesses (there are around 16 weaknesses like dazed, bleeding...) and explot 2 weaknesses. Those weaknesses have no stand-alone use. It looks like a debuff but it doesnt do anything. To use them some other class needs to exploit it with their special ability. To deal the most damage you have a skill called Combat Awaraness that can increase the damage from those weaknesses. It doesnt only offer more twist to the combat, but also a diversity in combining classes in groups. It's always good to group as a ranger with warrior for example because warrior can open bleeding weakness, and ranger can exploit it.
Awaraness, Wisdom:
Those two abilities are very special. Awaraness is another skill that can be trained and allows player to see other player's monster's buffs or debuffs. Wisdom on the other hand allows players to see what is your target's targetting. Very important in some cases, but you need solid wisdom to see it (it's probability).
Crafting:
Undoubtedly crafting is the most deep feature in Vanguard. It's a minigame by itself and crafting even a wooden board takes 1-2 minutes. But it allows fantastic customization and endless possibilities. You basically learn to craft only common items, like wooden club. The thing is you can collect varius dusts, and special reagants that you can add during the crafting process. Let's take an example of crafting a wooden club
First you need to harvest enough wood from the surrounding trees. Then go to rafining artificier table and craft wooden boards from wood. During that process you can add for example dust of strength to create wooden board of strength. It doesnt do anything yet. Then you need to do weigthened grip from the boards at finishing artificier table. Last step is to create the club from the weightened grip and the wooden boards. During the final process you can add resonating dusts to enhance it with another ability bonuses. Like resonating dust of health. So finally you make this club and it gets + strength + health. The damage and how much strength*/health it adds depends on how well you crafted the item.
There are 4 different grades in game (A,B,C,D) During the crafting minigame you can adjust the quality. This quality has huge impact on how good the final item is. If you made that club grade A you can have twice the DPS and twice str/health bonuses on it than if you made that club grade C for example. Apart from that there are around 25 different crafting skills. And you actually distribute points every level what you want to increase. Attributes like problem solving, scuplting, utilies, reasoning... All those matters a lot on what kind of crafter you are. Besides there are several crafter's builds and several techniques of crafting.
Finally, crafting covers all items in game (except alchemy), blacksmits can not only do weapons, armors, but also horsehoes, tools for crafting. Outfitterscan make sail for ships or saddlebags. Artificers can make furniture, build houses, ships...
In addition you can be a level 50 crafter which is a cap at the moment, and be only level 1 adventurer at the same time and level 1 harvester. Players traintheir crafting skill just by doing work orders. (Like being employed) The taskmaster who gives you work orders provides you with all the materials needed and pays you for the final product. So you basically can make some money only by doing work orders. Apparently crafting is a great way of how to make money in this game.
This is not all, there are 3 crafting styles. Each crafting style is binded to the continent. There are for example 3 different house designs, ships based on that continental crafting style. Houses built on Thaestra apart from the size looks different then those build on Kojan which has more Asian-Oriental design.Whereas Thaestra is more like a classic european medieval.
Class skill system:
The combat system is not really unique not deep by itself. The only thing worth mentioning is the great design of each class. I believe its the best whatt his combat system can offers. Lets look at disciple class that is part of the healer's subtype. It's the only healer I saw so far in a mmorpg that caneffectively heal without any mana. Disciple can be described as monk/cleric, he uses martial weapons or fights unarmed, and provides enough healing for the group. He has three heal abilities (one of them is passive!) that doesnt require mana. Passive healing ability is triggered by a combination of melee attacks. In order to trigger it he must do three attack in specific order within a short time limit. Then the healing spell is triggered and he heals his defensive target. Apart from that disciple acumulates Jin by attacking. One of the heals he has requires no mana, its instant and needs only Jin to spend. As you can see this is not a classic healer as we know. Disciple must fight in order to heal effectively and must accumulate jin. In addition disciple has great party recovery skills - ressurection, feign death, summon on short distance or he can create a special stone that allows others to ressurect him.
Sounds overpowered and too strong? Healer that can avoid any wipes with feign death then ressurect others, and even summon or let others to ressurect him if he accidently draws agro? Healer that can heal without spending mana..? Now the surprise. This class is least popular and very small percentage of people play him. Guess why. Because the other 14 classes are even more fun. Every class has its own passive combos, triggered abilities, etc.
Of course the game needs a bit more balance (a few classes are way too strong atm - bards) but it's just a matter of time.
Diplomacy:
This is another deep aspect of vanguard. It's for all those lore-maniacs and roleplayers. No other game offers so much lore-content as Vanguard. There are tons of texts full of dialogues you can read throught when you play with diplomacy which is a mini-game by itself as well. (Card-game minigame) Also each character has a couple of attributes for diplomacy usually based on the race. Some says it is grind, yes it is! But it's fun to do it for 30-40 minutes then go adventuring or crafting. Every activity is boring if you do it 5-6 hours in a row. But if you switch the activities every hour between diplomacy, crafting, adventuring it's fun! In addition diplomacy gives lots of special buffs (effective buffs) and I'm sure they will add new rewards for it.
Content:
No raids in game yet (very soon added) but still the game is packed with content. No matter how hardcore you are you won't run out of content that fast. I actually don't think there is anyone with max level in crafting, diplomacy and adventuring at the same time. The game offers HUGE world, around 70 dungeons, 17 races, 15 classes. Each race with its own capital town, set of diplomacy quests, starting zone etc. Races differ from each other by lots of special bonuses and one usually very strong ability with long cooldown. This game offers great feeling from achievments, its very rewarding. The feeling when you finish building your house or your ship and sail to next town is unique.
I am no way a fanboy. I bought this game 2 months after release, then left it for 3 months and return finally a few weeks ago. Left it mostly for the poor optimalization for my computer which has improved a lot.
Thanks for attention.
REALITY CHECK
Comments
I am sorry but my main is a disciple, and your accusation that disciples are overpowered are definitely wrong. The proof is in your article that any overpowered class couldn't be the least played class. And to tell the truth, it's underpowered instead of being overpowered. I'll tell you why.
1. A healer that can feign death? Do you know our feign death is the weakest feign death among all the classes that can feign death, we have the most cooldown(1 minute) compared to necro(12 seconds) and monks(2 seconds), and if you say the feign death can prevent a group wipe, which is definitely wrong, because when the feign death failed, we still got hit to death, and sometimes some mobs will camp our corpse too. If you really want someone to prevent group wipe, a monk or a rogue, with the summoned item that can resurrect healer would be a better choice.
2. Healers that can heal without mana? Well, if you are fighting those 2 dots or several levels below you, these heals are enough. Otherwise, those heals are too slow and don't heal enough to keep up the loss of hp. It's an issue of balance, simply because if the heals are too good, other healers would complain a lot, but currently it's only situational useful, and against some harder mobs, might be considered nearly useless.
3. Currently the bonds system, which takes the most of clicks among all the characters, the harmonious bonds isn't any better than other classes' buff with similiar effect, but bond is single-target only, short-duration, and need jins to maintain. Other classes don't suffer such pain to maintain those bonds. Grouping, the disciples don't have enough utilities like other healers, if you take a look at what other healers can offer, currently disciples offer the least utilities, which makes disciples not as wanted as other healers. Monks are in the same boat that don't give much utility among all the offensive fighters.
4. Soloing, while disciples are considered offensive, however, currently disciples aren't the most damaging classes. The reason is because of lacking of offensive stance, and we cannot use mana to dish out damages, while other healers can hit mobs faster with both offensive style and spells, we save more mana, but generally we don't solo any faster. And when grouping yes, the other healers might need to save those mana, and get into healing style, but no matter how good the damage of disciples is, we cannot compete with the true damage dealers, and the slightly higher damage-output doesn't make any sense compared to the buffs that offered to entire groups by other healers.
That's the reason that why disciples are least played.
Before the "crit adjustment" Disciples were pretty op'd. It was probably the fastest to 40 I had gone on any class. The reason its stated as to 40.. is because that's when the adjustment went in.
Of course if the other poster wrote from that point of view... Then Sigil still owned Vanguard... (as in.. its been a while). That was relatively not that long after launch when it was adjusted.
Anyway.. overall I agree with you.. underplayed and for the reasons you listed.
Sailormoontw, take a look at when he played the game, and then think about what your Disciple was capable of at that time.
You certainly put a lot of thought into that post, Thillian.
A lot of the things that give Vanguard depth could easily be adapted to other games, and I'm pretty sure they will be.
I'm sorry but the biggest problem with the game is the lack of depth of gameplay. It's the same old levelling treadmill with no improvement in the basic gameplay. You kill millions of things, you do some quest and all it's about is levelling and acquiring gear.
Diplomacy has absolutely no depth and little in the way of content, if there were a diplomatic facet of the game that would be depth but all they included was a new way to grind via a card game.
There is no meaningful economy so crafting goods also lacks depth.
Mcquaid used the term broad to describe the old Ultima online with it's inclusion of housing but said they lacked depth cause the housing was meaningless. The intention with Vanguard was to add depth, but that was there biggest failure.
I'll finish the rest of the title of the thread for you.
The Depth of Vanguard... is lacking and could be much better.
Diplo i agree completely, i may be wrong but it just seems to be pointless.
I myself am a 25 carpenter! the reason is to make money. so the whole "no economy" thing is abit of the mark friend. invest some time into it and you will find it's very profitable
I think VGs biggest failure was to try and be something else!
I know! I tried to say this. I tried to show an example of least popular class - disciple. He is fun to play he has all those nice abilities like feigh death, ressurection, summon, heals without mana etc. But still the rest of the classes are even more fun. Just a little demonstration of how the "worst" class in game looks like
REALITY CHECK
Vanguard Crafting is the same old crafting system you get from many of the older games. The ONLY exception is that they tried to throw some extra roadblocks, a.k.a. complications, before you produced the item. Sorry that is not depth. That is just inane design.
Somewhere along the drama that is Vanguard, FUN fell off the truck. The one area it excel at is its ability to piss off gamers. In that area, it truly shined.
sorry i have only played eq eq2 wow lotro and VG so i wouldnt know about the others crafting. and as you already know friend VG crafting has depth compared to all of those
but of course you were comparing it to other games werent you?
Well, he can't mean Eve, DDO, FFXI, AO or Neocron either.
Um... What else is there...
Now playing: City of Heroes/Villains, Age of Conan
Played: Eve, Hg:L, Vanguard, WoW, FFXI, Planetside, Neocron, Battlezone, EQII, AO, CoX, AA, DDO
I win at Vanguard.
Well, he can't mean Eve, DDO, FFXI, AO or Neocron either.
Um... What else is there...
Too bad you never play SWG .. and even EVE crafting whoop this game's crafting hard. At the end of the day, Vanguard is just a joke of an mmorpg. Badly implemented, badly rolled out and if I had to bankrolled this project, I would shoot it stillborn like MS did hahaha....
The only good thing VG did was it scared all the other developers into delaying their project so it won't end up like VG ... e.g. AoC, TR etc. On that front, cheers VG.
Well, he can't mean Eve, DDO, FFXI, AO or Neocron either.
Um... What else is there...
Too bad you never play SWG .. and even EVE crafting whoop this game's crafting hard. At the end of the day, Vanguard is just a joke of an mmorpg. Badly implemented, badly rolled out and if I had to bankrolled this project, I would shoot it stillborn like MS did hahaha....
The only good thing VG did was it scared all the other developers into delaying their project so it won't end up like VG ... e.g. AoC, TR etc. On that front, cheers VG.
Last posts from this guy are all from VG general discussion section all moaning about how bad vanguard is. But you don't really bring some arguments, all what you say is "VG is bad, it sucks, ugly graphics, i dont like it, worst game on earth.." Maybe you could explain why or give some detailed comparisons.
REALITY CHECK
I did actually play swg! sorry forgot to put that down. And crafting was ok there too but no better! so you have named eve so far and i can't comment on that sorry. Any others? or still just mindless rambling? and as for VG being a joke.
go away your boring!
I've given your post some thought. I've come up with several ways of responding. Some humorous, some serious, some questioning your parentage. None of them however would be able to match what I'm really thinking about the point you're trying to communicate. Therefor, I give up.
No matter how hard I try, there's simply no way I can match your wit. You, sir/ma'am, are a fine wine in this world of stale beer, and I tip my hat to your skillful rebuttal. Clearly I am in error, and I shall uninstall this foul, FOUL game as soon as I get home. Then I shall bathe at great length to wash away this foul.....
wash...
w - a - s - h.
To rinse yourself with soap and water.
s - o - a - p...
Never mind.
Now playing: City of Heroes/Villains, Age of Conan
Played: Eve, Hg:L, Vanguard, WoW, FFXI, Planetside, Neocron, Battlezone, EQII, AO, CoX, AA, DDO
I win at Vanguard.
Eve online crafting:
Mine veldspar
Insert blueprint in factory-slot
Press "make"
Wait
Done
Claiming the Eve "crafting" system is better than Vanguard's is like saying that watching TV is more enjoyable during a power outage.
Now playing: City of Heroes/Villains, Age of Conan
Played: Eve, Hg:L, Vanguard, WoW, FFXI, Planetside, Neocron, Battlezone, EQII, AO, CoX, AA, DDO
I win at Vanguard.
QFT...I can't see how Vanguard's crafting system has "depth." It just has more complications, not depth. Every item you make is a vanilla copy of everyone elses, a truly interesting and fun crafting system would allow you customize the things you make. The real fun of crafting is individualizing, which Vanguard doesn't let you do. EQ2 & WoW don't allow you to do this either but saying Vanguard has more depth then crafting systems from those games is plain wrong. They're all equally dull.
Its all in the eye of the beholder and how you approch the game. If you have a friend to play a monk+disciple duo you are up for a lot of fun (given you like matial arts). Doesnt matter that those two classes are considered as broken by a large part of the comminuty. As a leatherworker i recognize that the min/max players do roll disciples and monks again lately but with a different approch in stats build. You can build a beast diciple if you are willing to sacrify soloplay and a huge part of your healer abilities. Still a close combat char with some heals available. The time after APW will tell...
Crafting is a bit grindy tbh. WOs and a few quests are the only way to get exp. Still a doable crafting. I dont like that the upgrades and production manuals are rare drops. Crafted items are good and there is a lot of fluff to craft. Its "deep", because you have to care for tools and cloth to craft. Unfortunately we cant craft crafter cloth
It cant compete with the "stats based" crafting of SOR or with the grindless yet involving crafting of ATITD.
The worst part of vanguard is the unfinished part.
Honestly, the only thing I found to be different about the crafting was the complication thing, which is basically the same as in EQ2...and its only purpose is to try and keep people from macro'ing something boring.
I found nothing else really innovative, a few neat skills, but thats about it, and next to nothing for content.
The graphics rocked though. I think they should have made a much smaller world with more content, and added to the world itself through expansions. Just my two cents though.
Mounts...who cares, its just a prettier speed buff. Customizing mounts stats won't matter for crap until there is mounted combat. THEN mount customization will be cool. (other than just for looks.) Other than that its worthless fluff. just a money sink and quicker way to get around.
Crafting will be cool in a game when there's actual degradation of equiptment which will cause people to need to buy crafted items often. Until then, the only people who really need crafting much are the people who want to build ships or houses, who have lots of money.
Now..the shipbuilding and housebuilding stuff in VG I thought was an awesome idea. And um...the graphics were cool...damn...did I say that again?
I think VG will be a solid game in a year or so.
D.
I dont see how people are saying that the crafting is the same as eq2 and games alike? i mean in VG yes you make the basic items the same as anyone else but then of course you can add various upgrades to make your items different. Then you have a complete inventory and char sheet just for crafting. Theres a lot more to it than most people probably realise. and then of course you can build house, guild halls, canoes, you can even build a ship!
also in eq2 my 11 year old son is a great crafter. he just mashes buttons and makes an item. In vg you will fail if you do that, not just make a low quality item, you will make zilch!
come on lets just have fair comments from people who have actualy crafted a bit.
I didnt comment on other games i have not tried because thats unfair. But some of the comments i have read just seem like the person saying them has probably got to level 5 and then decided it's the same as any other game when it's clearly not!
I guess you don't understand the word depth then. Crafting in vanguard allows you to do any item you want. You want sword with dexterity and energy bonus? Ok get those dusts and craft it. You want high DPS ok do it on grade A which is very difficult unless the recipe is below your crafting level. The depth in it is in 20 different attributes just for crafting. That you actually choose which ones to increase and which ones to let stangate. Feature that allows you to level up your crafting without even going out from town just by doing work orders. The endless possiblities and flexibilty of the system makes it unique and deep.
And I didnt even mention complete crafting inventory with 20 items slots. YOu can wear special crafting tunic which gives you some bonuses to finesse for example or whatever. I believe you never played the game if you said what you said.
REALITY CHECK
Vanguard's combat is bland, boring and easy. Diplomacy is just pointless. Crafting had the most depth of the game, and was probably the best since SWG.. but don't make the mistake of saying you couldn't just spam buttons and succeed. Because you could, and I did a lot of it. In-game macros were enough to put the crafting in this game on "auto" so don't make it out to be something its not.
- Vanguard's combat:
- Diplomacy:
- Crafting:
Now playing: City of Heroes/Villains, Age of Conan
Played: Eve, Hg:L, Vanguard, WoW, FFXI, Planetside, Neocron, Battlezone, EQII, AO, CoX, AA, DDO
I win at Vanguard.
Diplomacy is pointless well .. its just another feature for those who likes to know more about the lore of the game and it's still a minigame that is entertaining for a while at least. Better than nothing that every other game offers.
You can't really spam buttons if you do white/yellow recipes. .. Well you can but you never finish an item better then Grade D.
Vanguard combat is easy? Blend and boring? ... what particular part of it? There are 6 different kinds of mobs (1dotted, 2dotted... 6dotted). The more dots the stronger the mob is. Generally 5 dotted are regular bosses in dungeons, 6-dotter are raid bosses. Soloing a 3dotted mob is possible, but not easy especially if you accidently pull two of them. That's almost a certain death because running out of combat is impossible in many cases. Lots of mobs can slow you/root you and will follow you for at least one minute. Soloing a 4dotted is basically impossible unless you want to spend 10 minutes kiting it all over the place.
But generally one mistake one bad pull is a wipe of party or death of individual. You can't just run away and when you die you lose I think 5% of XP off the next level.
Combat is boring? Which games offers 5-6 passive combos you have to explore, another 3-4 combos you have to observe from a special mobs, 5-6 after crit abilities for each class? Most classes have many ways how to defeat a mob, and based on the mob's defenses and resistances must choose the best one.
REALITY CHECK
The combat system is one of the better things about this game, and is better than most mmos. I personally, don't like it when someone refers to a game as "just button pushing", duh, keyboards have buttons, a game console has buttons. I guess, if you don't like button pushing, play a board game like monopoly, or better yet, play hide and seek! Don't get me wrong I'll be the first to play a game where virtual reality let's us run, and draw our own bow, or swing our sword, etc. But until then, we have to excerise our thumbs and fingers.
First on 'inc' I create a blood union with my defensive target's target (the mob)-this is a small d.o.t. without much hate, but it gives me a blood union of 2. Next I cast my short duration, small heal over time on my defensive target (the tank). With health spiking this buys me just enough time to throw out a spell which converts the mob's health and transfers it to the defensive target (the tank) - its a small transfer so it isn't giving the tank a big heal but it does gives me another blood union of 1. Now, I have a link of 3 in my blood union and can cast my large heal over time on the tank. Now the tank is being healed over 1k per tick (stance dependent - healing, offensive or neutral) - and I barely have any hate. Bam, now all i have to do is maintain thru the rest of the battle and dps.
this is strategy has to essentially be completed in the order I set out (not always) and within the first moments of the battle, or it won't work, if you hesitate, miss a casting time then the spike dmg will take down the tank, or you won't have a blood union of 3 to cast the big heal over time, or any number of other things that will end up a failure.
Or you could spam your fast heals as the quoted poster suggested and wipe your group. As it seems he may have done several times and is now bitter at the 'vanguard community' for kicking him out of their 'elitist' groups.
Oh I'm sorry....did i make a mistake by actually knowing how to play this game?