Welcome to Project: Gorgon!


Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.

The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.



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  1.   This is the last staff post in this thread.   #1
    Administrator Citan's Avatar
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    Dev Question: Renaming "Vulnerable"

    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!

  2. #2
    Senior Member ProfessorCat's Avatar
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    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.

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    Junior Member Gervase's Avatar
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    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.

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    Senior Member Crissa's Avatar
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    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.

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    Senior Member Daguin's Avatar
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    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.

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    Member Madmatx's Avatar
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    The Elves out there might like the term "exposed"

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    Senior Member mrwarp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crissa View Post
    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.

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    Senior Member ShieldBreaker's Avatar
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    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.

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    Senior Member Greyfyn's Avatar
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    Expressing weakness as a concept

    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.

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    Senior Member drivendawn's Avatar
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    Maybe say something like "Enemy Weakened" or "Enemy Defenseless".



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