Click here for Part 1.
Introduction
I have to say that The Matrix Online community is the best one I have worked with in all my time making Massively Multiplayer Online Games. I’ve been reading the comments everyone has been making on the forums and it seems you’re all as excited as we are. It’s not surprising that everyone has so many questions for us—this is a big revision and requires a lot of clarification. Your positive attitude is inspiring to me and the rest of the team, keep it up.
Items Post CR2.0
The biggest question I’ve seen is what do we plan to do with your hard-earned items? We’ve given it a lot of thought and have been refining our plans.
Locking Stats into the leveling process ensures that no one can ever raise all of their Stat scores to 30, so Stats are a “sacred cow” in CR2.0. Therefore, removing Stats from equipment is important to the new combat system balance. This vital mechanic preserves and protects all character choices you’ll have with this revision. Because everyone gains 1 Stat point per level, there is always a valuable reward when you increase your level that you can’t get anywhere else.
On launch day (makes me happy just saying it), you’ll see that all items that previously had Stat bonuses now have Influence bonuses. (Virtually all item bonuses are Influence related.) Even though items no longer change your Stats, the resulting values are roughly equal to what you’re currently used to.
You’ll also find that weapons have damage values that appear as DPS and a firing rate. The firing rate is based on the weapon type not individual weapons. For example, shotguns have a slower firing rate than rifles. However, all shotguns have the same firing rate.
And we aren’t increasing the decay rate on any items. Painless no, interesting yes (Huu-zah!).
Ability Codes Post CR2.0
Surprisingly, I haven’t seen anyone asking about Abilities and Ability Codes. The decisions regarding Abilities were more difficult than those about items. Simply put, we are refunding the Information values of all the Abilities on your characters and the cost of leveling them (if they are levelable).
I understand this is not an ideal choice for everyone, but it is the most logical and feasible. All Abilities with any combat value have been touched, so the odds are that a few players may no longer want a particular Ability for one reason or another. Refunding Information gives everyone a clean slate to make new choices.
Styles Expanded
In the previous journal I said that we had 8 Styles:
Basic
Self Defense
Advanced Melee
Aikido
Karate
Kung Fu
Advanced Weapon
Pistol
Rifle
SMG
Advanced Coding
Hacker
All Abilities are linked to Styles. Style switching is automatic—you don’t have to switch a Style before you can use an associated Ability, although you can if you wish. For example, using a Karate Ability causes you to auto-magically switch to the Karate Style. If you were to use a Rifle Ability in the next round, you would switch to the Rifle Style. All combat Abilities that aren’t associated with one of the advanced Discipline trees will switch you to the Self-Defense Style.
This has a few implications that I need to cover.
Self Defense is an everyman’s Style. It is used exclusively from levels 1 to10 for all combat Abilities and then as a fall back for levels 11 to 50. Self Defense values continue to advance all the way to level 50 but lack the punch that the advanced Styles have in specific areas. There may be additional Abilities for those wishing to specialize more in Self Defense but that’s not final at the moment.
We would have loved to create new animations for the Hacker Style, but we couldn’t fit that into the scope of the changes. However, the subject is not closed, and it is possible that we’ll update animations for the Hacker Style as time and resources allow.
As I mentioned in the previous journal, Styles largely define what your combat Attributes are and what your character is capable of doing in combat. Switching Styles causes Attributes defined by the Style to switch as well, so in certain situations it’s wise to alter the order you’re executing Abilities so that your enemies cannot exploit your weaknesses. This is especially true of Player vs. Player combat where being predictable is a weakness.
There isn’t a penalty to switching between melee and viral Styles. However, there is a one round penalty associated with drawing or stowing a weapon. So switching from a melee or viral Style to a weapon-based Style and visa versa does have a drawback: You effectively lose one round of DPS.
Abilities Expanded
All combat in The Matrix Online is now under a DPS (Damage Per Second) system, which means calculations are based on how much damage is caused in a single second. This might confuse some people but the methodology actually quite simple. We’ve looked at every conceivable attribute and property in combat and gave it a weight in DPS.
Example
How much damage is one second of being Rooted worth?
First we break the root attribute down the subjective values, which looks something like this:
- Root effects don’t shut down another player, but do limit damage cap Abilities if the character is melee based.
- Root effects make it easier for you or your group to escape.
- Root effects make it easier for you or your group to attack from range.
- Root effects can park multiple targets so that the group can focus on one target.
- A Root effect that can’t be broken by damage is more powerful than one that has a chance of breaking. A Root effect that has a chance of breaking with damage is more powerful than one that always breaks.
- Root effects can be countered by Antibiotics or some Patcher Abilities.
Then we give this a weight, say, .5 or half of a second of pure damage. Then when we build Abilities, 2 seconds of Root equals 1 second of damage. Taking #5 into account, some Abilities with Root effects may be weighted more or less than .5 DPS.
We also take other properties into account when building Abilities that are less subjective but important nonetheless.
- How much Inner Strength does the Ability cost to use?
- How long is the Range?
- How long is the Reuse timer?
- How long is the Activation timer?
All of these things are incorporated into Abilities based on their level. So as level increases, damage and other Ability properties also increase. As you can see, DPS is a common value that we can base pretty much everything on.
Don’t worry if this seems a bit complex; all the hard stuff is handled in the background so you don’t have to deal with any of it. The explanation above is meant to show you that all Abilities are treated equal within the new system and that we have taken a lot of steps to ensure that all Abilities are balanced. We also have “handles” built into the system that allow us to adjust Ability Attributes when something isn’t balanced correctly.
We’ve implemented Influences and Styles in a way that makes it easy for players to check the modified attributes on their Abilities using mouseover and definition text. In the text, you’ll see values listed like this:
Damage 440(560)
In this example, 440 is the base value and 560 is the value with all bonuses, such as additional damage from the Style and Influences, applied. So as you play around with Influences you can immediately check the impact of your changes to find what you like and don’t like.
I love this implementation for two reasons. First, micromanager-type players have more tweaking goodness at their fingertips than they have ever had before. Second, players who just want to play the game can ignore the detailed underpinnings and just play the game, building their characters as they see fit.
Combat Modes
There are three combat modes which we sometimes refer to as rings: Interlock, Melee Free Attack, and Ranged Free Attack. Picture Interlock as a center ring around which the other two rings are attached. Each ring has specific gameplay associated with it, but all three now share a common rate at which combat progresses.
Interlock
- One opponent versus another opponent only.
- Highest melee damage.
- Opponents locked in a localized area unless one Withdraws.
- Synchronized combat moves (Wire-fu combat).
- Ability usage accuracy-based.
- Ability usage initiative-based.
- Interlock-only Abilities available.
- Tactics choice affects results.
Melee Free-Attack
- Less melee damage than Interlock.
- Higher probability of generating combat states such as Staggered, Off Balance, and Dazed.
- Hit or miss accuracy based.
- Targets in Interlock combat may be attacked.
- No synchronized combat moves.
- Melee Free-Attack Abilities can be used to help allies.
- Players can move freely.
- Tactics choice affects results.
- Must be within 2 meters of target.
Ranged Free-Attack
- Ranged Free-Attack Abilities can be used.
- Ability use accuracy-based.
- Weapon use accuracy-based.
- Players can move freely.
- Longer Ability activation reuse times.
- Tactics choice affects results.
- Range based on weapon or Ability range.
Combat Miscellany
All attacks are considered directed and require an accuracy roll including things such as melee attacks, debuffs, and viral attacks. Your accuracy roll is compared to the appropriate Attribute to see if you succeed. For example, your Melee Free-Attack will succeed if your accuracy roll exceeds your target’s Defense score.
Your Style and Tactics choices modify your combat Attributes. Even more than before, The Matrix Online is about choice.
Bullet Time is not changed but the frequency is higher. You’ll also see the blurring dodge effect occur more often while you’re in Interlock combat.
We still have some more details to release and will get them out as we can. My hope is that both veteran and new players enjoy this period of discovery as you get your feet wet in the new combat and Ability system. I’m excited about how this will change gameplay and character growth and hope you all will be, too.
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