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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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"

[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.