Dev Question: Renaming "Vulnerable"

[Citan]

As you may know, monsters can sometimes "go vulnerable". The word "vulnerable" flashes over their head along with an icon and a particle. For the next few seconds, the monster is "vulnerable" and there are abilities and mods that do extra things to vulnerable targets.

When I'm looking at what changes are needed to combat, this mechanism stands out as being especially hard to figure out. It's actually super simple -- it's either on or off -- but players don't figure it out, sometimes even after playing for many hours.

We can add pop-up hints and stuff, but I think part of the problem is the name "vulnerable". It's very generic. "Vulnerable" can mean lots of things, such as being weak to a specific damage type. Players see "Vulnerable" over the monsters' head and go "huh, that's good... I guess." They see that abilities do extra damage "to vulnerable targets" but that doesn't really click with the word "Vulnerable" over monsters' heads.

So I'm thinking of renaming it to something else. Right now I like "Off-Guard". You'll see "Off-Guard" pop up over monsters, and you'll see some abilities do more damage to Off-Guard targets, and I think that'll be a little easier to figure out. But before I go changing the text in a thousand places I figured I'd see if you have other suggestions!

[ProfessorCat]

I think it's fine as vulnerable. Changing the name, without changing the mechanic, wont show any difference to people "figuring it out"

I'm reminded of a post you had last year about most players don't use all 12 of their primary/secondary bars. I liken the use of vulnerable to advanced gameplay, similar to using all 12 combat skills.

As much as PG is gear driven, it's really the skill of the player, knowing the limitations of what can be done with what you have, and of course efficiency of using those tools.

I'm currently dabbling in Staff, which obviously uses a lot of vulnerable triggers, and pairs nicely with cosmic strike from Druid for big damage. Balancing all the knowledge of game mechanics, and brain effort to get through battles is really on the player. I tend to prefer builds that are very engaging, and exploit the "natural combos" that exist, to really make your style pop.

Maybe a suggestion to help newer players out would be to make the icon for a combat skill that has a bonus to vulnerable flash when it's a good time to use it.

[Gervase]

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/vulnerable

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/riposte?s=t

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/counter%20attack?s=t

Not meant as a sarcastic, or condescending reply to this question. But I think if you really wanted to re-name it, I'd go through these three links and then test the word in sentences. Using in-game names of abilities, mobs, etc. Like..

"I was playing Project: Gorgon today and you know the Tigers, right? One of them became susceptible when I was fighting a few and I used cosmic strike on it for a lot of damage. It was pretty awesome!"

May sound silly - but not only should the player be able to understand the mechanic slash feature, but it should also make sense when speaking about it. Vulnerable by all means works perfectly when writing or speaking to another person - but by all means, I wouldn't be opposed to it changing.

[Crissa]

It worked okay when I was just fighting skeletons, but I found as I had more abilities I often didn't have one to take advantage of the vulnerability at the right time.

Weirdly, that means that I pretty much ignore it when I was a newbie I always save a good ol' kick to shove it down them, but now I don't because saving the ability means losing my more optimum attack sequence. (Maybe the timeouts on the sequence bonuses could be a little longer?)

I'd suggest making the frame of linked abilities flash when vulnerable comes up. I had to experiment a little to make it work.

[Daguin]

I think that it is already clear what the mechanic does, and when it is active. The only complaint I have heard from others in the past is that it is too time-consuming to even pay attention to which monsters are vulnerable to what type of attack, and then gear up to kill only that specific type of monster, when most players only focus on gearing up for two primary skills anyway and lay waste to everything regardless of vulnerability.

[Madmatx]

The Elves out there might like the term "exposed" :o

[mrwarp]

I'd suggest making the frame of linked abilities flash when vulnerable comes up. I had to experiment a little to make it work.

I would have to agree with this suggestion. Lighting up the borders of active skills when they have benefit from a target being vulnerable would be a perfect visual cue. More people will learn faster from this method. For those that don't like it a simple on/off switch/command can be inserted (default to on). I think this will be much more effective than renaming the state.

Also, this same method could be applied to skill combos...like for sword and unarmed. Maybe use a different color flash to note combo progression over vulnerable.

[ShieldBreaker]

Maybe this idea is too work intensive. But if there was a quest where you have to defeat a magic training dummy, and the only thing that works on it is the damage that results from the bonus to attack when vulnerable damage. So the dummy cycles from vulnerable to normal, and when normal is immune to all damage. When vulnerable only hit with the bonus damage.

Kind of thinking maybe something Hogan could have setup, he explains a little about vulnerable state and rewards for defeating the dummy which was created to teach staff fighters to work on triggering vulnerable state and taking advantage of it.

[Greyfyn]

You used the simplest term in asking us this question--"weak." Whether players would connect that word with the skills that work best when it shows up is another issue. In the first days of playing Gorgon, I'm pretty sure someone pointed out that I had a sword skill that worked best on vulnerable targets or I wouldn't have noticed right away with so many other things to learn starting out.

Weak is probably the best answer, but it's linguistically not very exciting.

Maybe "easy," "open," "frail," or "soft" could work. Very short words that are more common could breach linguistic barriers, since English isn't always the primary language for players.

A couple other more distinctive words could be along the lines of "wimpy," "jinxed," "worried," or "spooked."

The flashing sword as an icon never seemed to fit with vulnerable. However, the word you use and the symbol shown need to match! Maybe a picture of a ghost with the word "spooked."

I'm still thinking and will add additional brainstorming if something good comes up.

[drivendawn]

Maybe say something like "Enemy Weakened" or "Enemy Defenseless".

[ShieldBreaker]

How about "Intimidated", it explains why the are in a state that they can be taken advantage of and moves it away from confusing it with being weak to certain damage types. Only problem is that it might remind people of the D&D skill too much.

[Tagamogi]

Maybe a suggestion to help newer players out would be to make the icon for a combat skill that has a bonus to vulnerable flash when it's a good time to use it.

This sounds like a great idea to me, too. I like the name "vulnerable" just fine, and I think the new UI makes it pretty clear that this vulnerable state is linked to abilities that damage vulnerable targets.

One thing I am still totally unclear on: How long does the vulnerable state actually last? Only as long as the icon is above the mob's head or for some period of time after that or until the mob is damaged or what? My problem is that I'm not good at processing fast flashing icons or numbers, so I tend to become aware of the vulnerable popup some time after it happened and then I'm never sure whether the mob is still going to be vulnerable when my ability comes off its cooldown in yet another couple seconds. So, having a flashing/changing icon similar to the combat refresh would help me too.

[Niph]

I think the name "Vulnerable" is fine, and so is "Off-guard". This change can happen any time before release I guess, if ever.

Adding some clue to icons for abilities that can affect vulnerable target is a good idea, unfortunately it's probably hard to implement when fighting several targets because only some of them would be affected.

If you plan to add to the interface a list of mobs that have you on aggro (with for instance some way to select them), then you could display vulnerable targets with a special tag and put the same tag on corresponding abilities.

[Erthiel]

What causes the Vulnerable state? The only thing it means is that abilities marked with the same give more dmg and nothing else right? I have been playing for couple years and have seen it many times, and I know there are some abilities which deal more dmg. But not once have I used any of them specifically or focused on what it actually does :D

[Tagamogi]

If you plan to add to the interface a list of mobs that have you on aggro (with for instance some way to select them), then you could display vulnerable targets with a special tag and put the same tag on corresponding abilities.

I was playing around with the idea of having vulnerable mobs change colors, similar to the way that stunned ghosts turn white. However, that would probably look too weird.

I noticed last night that I have a tail ring that gives me "-5% vulnerability to psychic", so since "vulnerable" is used two different ways in the game it may be worth changing one naming convention or the other. I don't think the name is the main source of confusion here, though.

[jacksin125]

I found vulnerable really easy to understand the first time I saw a skill that had + dmg to vulnerable targets (At least for me, it did click). However, I almost never take advantage of that because there are very few abilities that guaranteed make a target vulnerable, and I'm not willing to save my one `or two + dmg when vulnerable abilities for those few times when it seems to randomly happen.

The term "Vulnerable" fits pretty much perfectly. However, I feel the resistances like what Tagamogi described should be renamed to "weakness", because he is right about it being confusing, and I'm pretty sure most games that don't say "+5% resistance to fire" would instead say "-5% weakness to fire"

[Murk]

My two pennies worth is that the term vulnerable is alright.

The problem is noticing these effects, I think. When a mob goes vulnerable, it actually looks like it's angry to me to be honest, and I can't really tell the vulnerability stops, so I don't particularity make use of it so much.

This is off topic, but it took me at least 6+ weeks to work out what rage was all about and how it worked, again I sort of didn't notice this but kept getting rage..beat. I then proceeded to tell 4 - 5 other people about this important aspect because they didn't notice either, which is a shame, because I think it's a good mechanic and one I like.

The addition of a monster status icon *may* help with these things. The rage bar is there to see already, but most newer players are too busy with other things to worry about it. I found many a player that doesn't realize you get cursed by boss rage attacks.

The other thing to note is that it's hard to see how much of an affect using these things are. It takes a lot of working out; and perhaps that's part of the fun. Should one be de-raging or waiting for vulnerable mobs, or both, or stunning them or what not instead.

[Karamasha]

The only thing unclear to me was what's causing vulnerability in the first place.

[sokercap]

Vulnerable is clear enough, I don't think there are any other words that effectively mean the same without being a mouthful. The flashing icon was never really clear enough during combat for me to pay much attention too, I'm usually looking at health/armor, skill bar. Watching for a completely random icon to popup on the actual enemy model as well will never be a mechanic I want to build around.

The mechanics of vulnerable is the main reason I completely ignore it. A completely uncontrollable rng that only is in effect for a few seconds? Yea I'm not going to waste gear mods or a skill slot just for that. Pure rng battle mechanics are simply not fun. Most of the skills I've tried have a pretty fixed rotation, in between cooldowns, heals, debuffs etc, if vulnerable pops I would not be able to do anything with it anyways. And I'm not going to sit there only hitting one skill button because I want to save the one that takes advantage of vulnerable just on the off chance it pops.

The simplest way to make it a more interesting mechanic I think would be to have more skills able to trigger it, and make it last longer. Then you could have a rotation which reliably triggers it and have other skills to exploit it, as well as it basically being a debuff that someone with the correct skills could use to help out their group. If it's rng it needs to be able to be triggered often enough to reliably know it will proc enough to use it (like crit in other games), otherwise there isn't any point in wasting rotation slots on a low proc chance.

[Corinthia]

Many of these comments already offer better suggestions than I could add. I do agree that "vulnerable" or "off-guard" sound equally good to me. Maybe some tweak to the graphic alert would help.

I happen to like the mechanic. No combat skills here above 40, partly because I like to keep trying out new skills and pairings. However, no matter which skill sets I'm using, I always keep the "extra damage to vulnerable" at the same location on my quick bars so I can hit it quickly when the opening arises. It really shortens the fight for me.

[Celler]

The word vulnerable describes the state of the critter not whats put it in that state its vulnerable yes but why? Is it afraid? Is it weakened, Is it ill? Is it surprised? Is it preoccupied.

I prefer like shieldbreaker posted intimidated

Therefore because the critter is intimidated it has a weakness or vulnerability.

To be off guard to me means to be taken by surprise, this game has no stealth.
I also assume if attacking 3 mobs 1 can suddenly have the current vulnerable state if that's so why would it be off guard whilst fighting for its life.
Also is an issue with stuns you ain't more off guard than when your on a 10 second stun.
That would perhaps work stun it to cause trigger then hit it whilst stunned.

I never use this feature anyways, I'm normally too busy hitting anything and everything to kill things or heal myself to be paying attention enough to hitting certain things at the right moment, chances are if it hits worth a damn its on cooldown anyways.

[Tagamogi]

To me, "intimidated" is the word that works least. If a Gaz-Urak just decided to devour my little noob elf who shouldn't even be in the zone yet, it's probably not going to feel particularly intimidated all of a sudden. On the other hand, it might become off guard (or distracted or vulnerable or something like that) if it's too busy drooling over its coming dinner to pay attention to the fight, or its shoelace just became untied, or it suddenly realized it's forgotten its mom's birthday or something like that.

(Well, ok, Gaz-Urak are probably not that into shoes or shoelaces, but I basically think of the vulnerable state as the monster doing something that suddenly leaves it open to an attack of opportunity.)



This is off topic, but it took me at least 6+ weeks to work out what rage was all about and how it worked, again I sort of didn't notice this but kept getting rage..beat. I then proceeded to tell 4 - 5 other people about this important aspect because they didn't notice either, which is a shame, because I think it's a good mechanic and one I like.

The other thing to note is that it's hard to see how much of an affect using these things are. It takes a lot of working out; and perhaps that's part of the fun. Should one be de-raging or waiting for vulnerable mobs, or both, or stunning them or what not instead.
Rage is another mechanic I mostly tend to ignore. I have a tendency to pick up fire effects on my gear, so generally I figure that the mob is going to become mad faster than I can reduce its rage anyway, and it's easier to just dps it down... Ignoring rage has generally not been a problem for me except with ogres and possibly Lomax.

[Celler]

You know Tagamogi what you say makes a lot of sense really.

For a player moving up the lvls in a zone of suitable lvl content it simply does not work well.

[Khaylara]

Idk, "vulnerable" seems fine to me, I didn't have any issue as a newb associating it with the skills descriptions. I would add more ways to trigger vulnerability though

[Throwback]

I'd like one of 2 things:

1. Increased control over vulnerability. This could be paired with increased item affix interaction with vulnerability.

2. Clarification to the player that vulnerability is random, and have the skills designed to take advantage of that. If you know for sure it's random, you can do a little bit of maths/learn your rotation and determine if it's worth keeping a particular skill off cd to take advantage of vulnerability. It could actually be a legitimate way to make rotations a little more interesting, particularly if there are some mobs that go vulnerable more often.

So then you could have multiple 'states' for fighting monsters: 1. Rage state 2: Vulnerability state 3: Range 4: Health. 5. Armor. That gives a lot of variables for making combat interesting.

[ProfessorCat]

Sorry I'm late to follow up on some of the points in this thread, but I wanted to answer a couple questions about what "triggers" vulnerable, and how long it lasts.

There's definitely a randomness to when a mob will go vulnerable on it's own. It can happen BEFORE any damage is dealt, but you at least need to have the attention of the mob. IE, you're luring it away, but it's targeted on you, it can go vulnerable before you use any skills on it.

To rely on the random chance of a target going vulnerable, you might finish the entire battle before it happens. It seems to happen more frequently in bigger groups, which leads me to believe each player in combat with the mob increases the chance for it to go vulnerable.

Once the target is vulnerable, it seems to stay that way for about 4 seconds. If you are Johnny on the spot, and anticipating the target going vulnerable, you can get off 3 skills with a small amount of time to spare, but I have never been able to get the 4th hit off while the target remains vulnerable.

the staff skill has two mod slots (offhand, and ring mods) that give a % chance for ALL staff skills to trigger the target's vulnerability. At level 70 each of these mods give 5% chance, for a total of 10%.

There is also an extremely rare mod for the staff skill Phoenix strike that appears on mainhand weapons that reads "Phoenix Strike deals +10% damage and triggers the target's Vulnerability" I have been lucky enough to have found this mod, and I use it along with the other staff mods for vulnerability in a straight vulnerability damage build.

There is also a psychology skill I've witnessed that seems to trigger the target's vulnerability every time. Maybe someone else can give their insight on what skill that is.


The best part about vulnerable builds and skills are that the more people in your group running a vulnerable build, the more powerful everyone in the group becomes. It's a form of a group buff, and it also adds another dimension to combat, and in my opinion, makes it much more engaging. Me and Auth play together with a similar build, and often while on skype. Announcing when you're going to make the target vulnerable gives you a HUGE combat advantage.

[ShubiMaja]

Vulnerable is clear enough ... Watching for a completely random icon to popup ... will never be a mechanic I want to build around.

The mechanics of vulnerable is the main reason I completely ignore it. A completely uncontrollable rng that only is in effect for a few seconds? Yea I'm not going to waste gear mods or a skill slot just for that.
... The simplest way to make it a more interesting mechanic I think would be to have more skills able to trigger it, and make it last longer. ...

Before I begin, I'd like to say this reply is based on 2 observations based on my own personal experiences. If you've observed something different, please correct me.

1. None of the skills that I had that did extra damage to vulnerable targets ever did enough extra damage with any level of frequency to allow me to notice it.

2. I did not notice any of my regular skills doing significantly more damage to vulnerable targets

I don't think the name is why people ignore the Vulnerable mechanic.

I believe that many players -- even experienced ones -- would have difficulty explaining how or why vulnerability happens. And even among those who are able to deal with the randomness, I think there are fewer still who have the reflexes and state of mind to respond to this mechanic in the short time period during which it occurs. And among those that have the reflexes and state of mind, I believe that fewer still would agree that the investment in focus and preparation is worth it.

This issue can be broken into 2 parts:

1. Mechanic is difficult to predict

I suppose that the premise of the Vulnerable mechanic being random is that nobody is perfect, and if you are lucky you can kill anything at the right moment when it loses its concentration. If this is the premise, then I agree that the skill should continue to be hard to predict. From what I understand a target's vulnerability can be affected by psychology. So this further strengthens this premise.

2. Benefits are difficult to perceive

This situation is actually similar to the one in which people were not eating. Even though eating was a great mechanic that added benefit, people didn't pay attention to it because it didn't really impact them. I think the mechanic should either change to not depend on a specific reaction to randomness, and/or the benefit of this reaction should be greatly increased.

Suggestion

I think that the idea for a mechanic which allows one to turn the tide of battle based on luck is a good one. But I don't think it should be limited to a specific kind of skill that does extra damage to vulnerable targets.

Instead, I think that a vulnerable target should truly be vulnerable and have their defense and/or dodge lowered during this period of time. This would turn the vulnerable state into a truly exciting one that players strategize around. For example, players might save their high damage, low cool-down spell for the moment when a creature becomes vulnerable. Entire raids may even be planned around this: "Everyone save your high output skills for the moment the boss becomes vulnerable"

In this manner the mechanic would become beneficial to the point where many people mention it in casual pre-battle talks

If there is a concern that this kind of mechanic would become too overpowered, than vulnerability can become specific. For example, an animal might become vulnerable to fire damage for a moment in time. In a case like that, maybe the exact vulnerability type would only be visible to those with high enough anatomy of that specific species.

Those skills that previously did extra damage to vulnerable targets, can continue to do so of course. However, increasing the damage output of these skills would definitely raise awareness of this mechanic. (assuming they are not overpowered already -- I just personally haven't noticed any truly high damage output due to vulnerability)

[ShubiMaja]

Rage is another mechanic I mostly tend to ignore. ... Ignoring rage has generally not been a problem for me except with ogres and possibly Lomax.

I feel like if Rage was more dangerous than it is now, people would pay more attention to it and actually care about it.

[ProfessorCat]

Great partial quote from sokercap.

The name isn't why people ignore the Vulnerable mechanic.



I partially agree with what you've said. My experience was leveling a skill I had no levels in (staff) around being a vulnerable build. I was able to experience combat with no bonus at all, and at the end, where I have a lot of control over the target going vulnerable.

At lower levels, i would find myself holding off on using cosmic strike (epic attack with double damage against vulnerable) and sometimes would complete an entire battle before ever getting to use it. Or even worse, the target goes vulnerable when a normal attack will kill them. This led me to use it when it was useful, to start the cooldown game, and then often found opportunities I didn't have it up when the target ended up going vulnerable. To this effect, it really is a lack luster mechanic against trash mobs.

Where it shines, however, is in boss battles. Especially early on. In a longer battle (and as I said before, vulnerable tends to proc more in a group) you are going to see the target vulnerable. In these instances, it is absolutely worth it to triage your attacks, and hold off for a couple big hits. Most of the skills that give a bonus to vulnerable, deal double damage.

Another GREAT time to use a vulnerable attack is when you accidentally draw a couple mobs at once, or even a whole room. It probably wont be the mob you're focused on, but I promise one of those guys are going vulnerable before the battle is done. With 3 or 4 seconds of vulnerable, you will have time to switch targets, and either hit for double damage, or outright kill something that was hitting away at you.

Now throw in a little control, or predictability to the build. The staff mods that give a % chance to trigger target's vulnerability. At this point, now you can start holding off attacks with certainty of big hits.

Lastly, the mod for phoenix strike, which ensures a vulnerable hit. With this certainty, you can plan your attacks. I have an organic combo I developed that hits with a crossbow to add 40% damage to epic attacks(and deals 750 damage). Hit with phoenix strike (3.2k damage) which triggers vulnerability, and sets up the following 3 hits:
Strategic thrust (while vulnerable, does 2.5k damage) - 10 second cd
Head cracker (stuns if vulnerable, hits for 1k damage) - 13 second cd
Cosmic strike (with epic bonus damage, and vulnerable, hits for 5k damage) - 40 second cd.
That's almost 12k damage, and I've only used 4 skills on my main bar, and 1 on my sidebar.

I should add these skills are fully modded at level 70. (although I'm still missing a mod for headcracker, and cosmic strikel)

Throw out phoenix strike, and I will most likely hit another vulnerable target, and I'm still doing 9k damage on an organic combo, that otherwise would do 4.5k damage.

For anyone hesitant to use the mental fortitude to keep track of vulnerable, I ask you this. Are you keeping track of target's rage meters? I gaurentee your build has 1 or 2 rage reducers. I liken this mechanic to an advanced form of combat. If I swap the order of strategic thrust, and headcracker, I also stun the target before they can rage hit, and then completely dump their rage bar before they can hit me again, because of mods for cosmic strike that reduce rage.

As with almost any build on this game, it really does not shine until you figure out the organic combinations that are best for your strategy. And then, of course, Mods for the skills you use.

[rainanoelle]

I don't think there is anything wrong with "Vulnerable." I noticed it when I first started, without understanding the mechanics, but as soon as I got a skill that used it it became clear. I use it fairly regularly (staff). I have to say if you were going to rename it the only thing I could see that seems to work is "Distracted" or the like. I agree with a prevous poster that the exclamation point seems like the mob is more angry instead of more vulnerable, but I'm not certain what would actually be better.

I like ProfessorCat's playing strategies. I haven't started using the rage info to my advantage fully yet but plan on working it in more soon. That is what makes this game great...the amazing number of options out there to allow you to adjust your play style!

[Dibbuk]

If you want to find a suitable replacement to "vulnerable", how about "unaware" or "confused"? "Fey Panther is unaware" or "Gigaspider is confused".

Just my 2 councils worth.

[Crissa]

The 'Fey Panther is unaware' reminds me of how confusing these messages are when there's multiple of some mob in combat x-x

[Kedoch]

I think it's fine as vulnerable. Changing the name, without changing the mechanic, wont show any difference to people "figuring it out"

I'm reminded of a post you had last year about most players don't use all 12 of their primary/secondary bars. I liken the use of vulnerable to advanced gameplay, similar to using all 12 combat skills.


This, and as some others have said. If vulnerable initially confused me, it was only until I had a skill that took advantage of it (woot tooltips!).

Renaming vulnerability or rage to anything else would have ultimately not have impacted my learning of these features. Vulnerability seems to be descriptive of the generic process of finding an opening and exploiting it.

As ProfessorCat mentioned all the way back on page 1, this is perhaps the first "Advanced" combat feature players encounter. For that reason, it may warrant a training golem (as recommended previously) to better introduce the topic. However, it is fairly straight forward, and part of the fun of P:G, exploring and figuring stuff out.

Given all of that, I still don't focus on exploiting vulnerability on a fight-to-fight basis, it just isn't as efficient to withhold an ability waiting for the vulnerability state to trigger. It would be nice if there was more of a visual indication as to the duration of the vulnerable state, and if abilities were highlighted that take advantage of the vulnerability state. I'd rather see an iteration on the system than spending time to change the countless bits of text that refer to the system as vulnerability. For now, I keep this in the back of my mind and when I can easily exploit vulnerability (usually when going against 2-3 mobs) I do so. (Knife/Archer for reference).

Similarly, I'm only just now being pushed more heavily to improve my combat play by managing rage (I've been able to mostly ignore it without much consequence, bears and others are less forgiving though). This feels like a natural progression. Additionally I've noticed basic/epic/unique on my abilities and suspect there is another layer I've yet to delve into, but I look forward to it.

[Prios]

"Overextended" would work, except that wouldn't apply to cases where the enemy is running away. (Presumably in these cases a moment of Vulnerability comes from tripping or simply focusing too much on escape at the expense of self-defense.)

I'll go against the grain here and say that I think I would have realized the significance of "vulnerable" targets much faster if the term had been "off-guard." Saying an ability hits harder against "vulnerable" enemies made it sound to me like there's enemies that are inherently susceptible to that skill or something. "Off-guard" is a lot more accurate and specific.

[Grious]

Sorry if this is a bit of a thread necro but I'd like to offer insight from my personal experience. Vulnerable seems to be a good enough name for it, but if it needs to be changed I could see "Open" "Off-Guard" "Compromised" "Exposed" working as a replacement. I feel the problem with the mechanic is the icon and a lack of indication of user interaction. When I first started playing and noticed the rage bar I thought the vulnerability icon and following red fart cloud was it getting ready for it's rage attack. After eventually figuring it out I wasn't sure I was doing the mechanic correctly, the icon would appear and I would hit the skill that had the bonus to vulnerability and then that was it. I wasn't sure if I miss the mark or if it evaded the attack or what because the icon would just stay there for a few more seconds. Maybe changing the icon to something closer to showing that the monsters defense is compromised. As an example the vulnerability could be a cracked shield and when you hit it with your vulnerability attack it could change to a broken or shatter shield icon. So when people use it the icon change will inform them if they've successfully performed the mechanic.

Edit: Actually if you were interested in changing the mechanic a bit you could go between a 'compromised' and 'exposed' state. For example , an enemy goes 'vulnerable/compromised' a player has 4 seconds or how ever long it lasts to use an attack that leaves the enemy with an 'exposed' debuff for 5 or w/e seconds. Exposed enemies take +25% damage from all sources for the duration of the debuff or whatever you end up picking. Exposure could mean a variety of things, maybe enemy specific,

[alleryn]

Personally i don't see a real problem with the name (i confess i haven't read the whole thread) but an indicator that you've exposed the vulnerability (or whatever its called) would be nice.

If you check your info messages chat tab (i'm not sure if this is a default tab) you can probably figure out when it goes off though.

[TimeBomb]

The name also seems fine to me. I've seen "vulnerable" used for similar purposes in various other games.

What I do think is unintuitive is that I almost never notice when a mob is vulnerable. Most of the time when I see a vulnerable mob, it's a mob I'm passing by, not fighting. I either don't notice vulnerable mobs I'm fighting, or they don't become vulnerable often.

I've seen MMO ability systems in the past that, upon a certain "proc", or trigger, that enables a certain ability, that newly enabled ability will appear vibrantly on the screen next to the skill bar. While that exact interaction may not be appropriate here, what I do think would be great is:

Whenever the enemy you're targeting is vulnerable, all of your abilities that interact with (e.g. deal extra damage) vulnerable enemies are somehow visually emphasized. Maybe the icon starts flickering or flashing a certain color, something like that. That'd be a huge help. Some sort of "use me! use me!" button.

Update the tooltip somehow when targeting (or maybe just near?) a vulnerable mob too, just in case I'm looking at that or I'm curious about why my ability is flickering.

If you're not already, show the extra damage (or total damage if the increased amount is shown as one number) as it appears over the mob I'm fighting in a visually unique way, so I know that is extra damage I've dealt because the enemy is vulnerable. Similar to how critical damage looks different from non-critical damage in a lot of games.

If you want to make it extra obvious that a mob is vulnerable, you can visually change the mob model itself, e.g. change its color or make it flicker red or something like that. Or change the color of its health bar. Or anything. I just don't notice the vulnerable icon all that much. Maybe part of the problem is that I'm blind or something?

Anyhow, even just some these systems would help. Even if people aren't exactly certain what is happening at first, drilling into people's heads that "vulnerable = use these abilities = you dealt more dmg" will help them figure it out more quickly than they do now.

[Leodane]

I don't pay attention to "Vulnerable." I don't typically use abilities which rely on the vulnerable state to be effective, as it is random. There are so many great abilities in the skill sets I play, I don't bother wasting one of my precious slots on an ability which relies on a random status to make it effective. I run bard49/psych47 at the moment, for reference. Others have said - it's not really worth holding back on using an ability until a monster is vulnerable, when I could just slot in a different, interesting ability I don't have to wait to use. The full utility of a Vulnerable-status-dependent(VSD) ability does not exceed the utility of a different, non-VSD ability, so I just ignore them. The reward of using a VSD ability to it's fullest isn't on par with the investment of holding back a VSD ability for the opportunity - fights last about the same amount of time with or without them, so why would I increase my micromanagement load? Caveat - I play caster-y types, so this opinion might be different with other skill sets.

Tangentially, I don't know if others play this way, but I am rarely looking at the monsters I am fighting while I am fighting them. They are in my periphery. I'm looking at my HP, armor, and 18 combat buttons, planning my rotations, heals, patches, CC's, etc. Having the "Vulnerable" indicator be on the button of the abilities affected might be more useful that having it on the monster (or both!) When fighting 2-3 goblins or 5-6 bear groupies in a pile, who the heck knows which one is vulnerable? It's just a huge pile of models. However, if any ability buttons which have vulnerable applications started flashing when my target was vulnerable, I could process the information a bit better.

[snowe]

We can add pop-up hints and stuff, but I think part of the problem is the name "vulnerable". It's very generic. "Vulnerable" can mean lots of things, such as being weak to a specific damage type. Players see "Vulnerable" over the monsters' head and go "huh, that's good... I guess." They see that abilities do extra damage "to vulnerable targets" but that doesn't really click with the word "Vulnerable" over monsters' heads.

So I'm thinking of renaming it to something else. Right now I like "Off-Guard". You'll see "Off-Guard" pop up over monsters, and you'll see some abilities do more damage to Off-Guard targets, and I think that'll be a little easier to figure out. But before I go changing the text in a thousand places I figured I'd see if you have other suggestions!
The word 'vulnerable' is fairly straight-forward...

I can honestly say I've never bothered to react to it, however. While I've put effort into figuring out which abilities are core, nice and epic attacks and when to use them after what combination of skills and or events... 'vulnerable' is sort of a threshold for me where it becomes too much to juggle and simply isn't fun, so I largely ignore it.

If your response to this is "working as intended", I guess I can respect that.

If, however, you'd like to correct the GUI from obscuring some of the fun in your game without dumbing down mechanics, please consider having abilities that function differently in temporary situations highlighted somehow when the situation is satisfied. In other words, if I have an ability that does something special when a creature is vulnerable, then the icon for that ability would pulse, flash, sparkle or otherwise draw my attention when a targeted mob is vulnerable. Similarly, an effect that augments 'nice' abilities for N seconds might cause 'nice' abilities to similarly advertise their momentary advantage...

A similar effect could be used for negatively impacted abilities as well. For instance, if a creature were burning from a certain spell, perhaps they would be more resistant to a particular Ice Magic spell... that spell could be clouded, or pulse a different color than an advantages ability, etc. This could even be used to disadvantage (balance) certain skill pairings if desired.

This sort of indicator wouldn't simplify or dumb down the underlying mechanics of situational interaction, it would just remove the GUI form getting in the way. It also would make complex combination effects (where, perhaps, two abilities from different skill lines would make a creature more vulnerable to an ability from a third skill line) more apparent and enjoyable, further promoting pairing or grouping.

I dunno... I just don't think the issue is the word you've chosen.

[preechr]

The word is fine, though "Triggered" would be funny for about 25 minutes

The issue I have is when it procs... I'm about 27/30 staff unarmed, so not a terribly fast killer, fighting stuff in Eltibule and if Vulnerable goes off its usually near the end of the fight... Funny thing is, I usually start a fight by lighting the mob on fire, which would logically seem to place anybody in a vulnerable state

It would be nice to know what causes the state to proc, as I do actually keep an eye on what skills do extra damage because of it because without that extra damage they are usually fairly weak with long CDs, so kind of a waste to have on my bar

[Rhawkas]

I think something that'd help (especially me) would be some kind of visual indicator that the enemy is vulnerable. Maybe a icon below their health bar or a broken shield floating above their head (kind of like the blue crown indicating targets that will give hunting quests) for the duration of the vulnerability.

If players figuring it out remains an issue, maybe work it into the tutorial on the starter island?

[alleryn]

Well there is an icon floating above their head. But maybe not a great indicator like some have said.

[Taledar]

I think vulnerable is fine but if considering a change defenseless might work too. In the description it could list damage against an any enemy that is defending the attack versus one that is defenseless.

As others have mentioned I think it would be useful to have some sort of indicator for abilities that have this type of damage.

[Prios]

It would be sorta neat if hitting a Vulnerable enemy with an appropriate skill popped up some "Vulnerability Exploited!" text or even caused the screen to shake a tiny bit (monkey's paw curls).