Mestro, I think that your examples give a dead wrong impression. You are depicting the situation of a mob boss hunt once the minions have been avoided or killed, and a safe place to charge the boss has been found. Then, indeed, a fairly small team may do all of the job, and it will last depending on ele/melee damage in relation to the boss' HP. Btw., first of all, you have to find the boss, to single it out, and to secure the fighting ground.
Yet again, the ele has not only to cast, but, especially in small teams, also has to care for refill off the healer. The healer has to care for both tank and ele, with some priority to the tank's HP. The tank, namely in small teams, has sometimes to put on amps and care that healer and nuker stay in effect.
Some of this may be done with an alt, yet it means that you have to concentrate a lot, suffer no PW, and make no mistakes. It clearly means more than just spamming unless you have a pod of many alts and refer to illicit control tactics. And by the way, I saw not so small teams failing on bosses, which did not contain alts. Clearly, when concentrating on boss hunting with experienced players, it will be easier, and close to routine after some time. But for not so few, boss hunting, namely the biggest ones, remains a rare and often unique experience and an adventure.
Complaining about Sap Crystal need for enhanced fight/magic/heal is self-contradictory. Getting the crystals is part of the game, and there are several ways to achieve it. It is a good thing not to get everything for free (it is a different discussion whether faction points over NH are well balanced of not).
I do not say that Ryzom's combat system is the best possible. Yet it offers a fairly good compromise between versatility and fair chances under situation of different network latency and processor speed/RAM eqipment. The very versatile and fast schemes to change actions, gear, and weapons I saw in other games frequently gave advantages to the fastest connection and the strongest computer, which is some pay2win scheme in the end. Frequently, they allow widespread macro usage and build best practices widely published in the game and gamer forums making the game even more repetitive than Ryzom fighting.
Changing the fighting system requires thorough testing and often rebalancing. Not that it would not be interesting to have DoT working in a way that it may be called useable, range weapons useful out of PvP etc., there would a lot be left to desire. Yet I recall with annoyance of the constant changing and nerfing of magic and fight actions in an other game, where every trick giving some PvP fighters undue advantage, was immediately countered by changes of the combat system. That made the game a nuisance in PvE, which in turn led to introduction of PvE only actions, which were overpowered and made the game more boring instead of better.
And no, I do not think that there is one "entire problem with Ryzom development" other than that a fairly small and underfunded crew of developers has kept alive a game which was started by a much larger crew. That necessarily implies that they are parts remaining incomplete, abandoned, or finished in an abortive way. With some millions and flocks of developers this could be fixed easier. Hopefully, the forge will allow to go some steps into
that direction, too. But personally, I would rather advise to new content like missions, regions etc. instead of touching the combat system.
Yet again, the ele has not only to cast, but, especially in small teams, also has to care for refill off the healer. The healer has to care for both tank and ele, with some priority to the tank's HP. The tank, namely in small teams, has sometimes to put on amps and care that healer and nuker stay in effect.
Some of this may be done with an alt, yet it means that you have to concentrate a lot, suffer no PW, and make no mistakes. It clearly means more than just spamming unless you have a pod of many alts and refer to illicit control tactics. And by the way, I saw not so small teams failing on bosses, which did not contain alts. Clearly, when concentrating on boss hunting with experienced players, it will be easier, and close to routine after some time. But for not so few, boss hunting, namely the biggest ones, remains a rare and often unique experience and an adventure.
Complaining about Sap Crystal need for enhanced fight/magic/heal is self-contradictory. Getting the crystals is part of the game, and there are several ways to achieve it. It is a good thing not to get everything for free (it is a different discussion whether faction points over NH are well balanced of not).
I do not say that Ryzom's combat system is the best possible. Yet it offers a fairly good compromise between versatility and fair chances under situation of different network latency and processor speed/RAM eqipment. The very versatile and fast schemes to change actions, gear, and weapons I saw in other games frequently gave advantages to the fastest connection and the strongest computer, which is some pay2win scheme in the end. Frequently, they allow widespread macro usage and build best practices widely published in the game and gamer forums making the game even more repetitive than Ryzom fighting.
Changing the fighting system requires thorough testing and often rebalancing. Not that it would not be interesting to have DoT working in a way that it may be called useable, range weapons useful out of PvP etc., there would a lot be left to desire. Yet I recall with annoyance of the constant changing and nerfing of magic and fight actions in an other game, where every trick giving some PvP fighters undue advantage, was immediately countered by changes of the combat system. That made the game a nuisance in PvE, which in turn led to introduction of PvE only actions, which were overpowered and made the game more boring instead of better.
And no, I do not think that there is one "entire problem with Ryzom development" other than that a fairly small and underfunded crew of developers has kept alive a game which was started by a much larger crew. That necessarily implies that they are parts remaining incomplete, abandoned, or finished in an abortive way. With some millions and flocks of developers this could be fixed easier. Hopefully, the forge will allow to go some steps into
that direction, too. But personally, I would rather advise to new content like missions, regions etc. instead of touching the combat system.
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