Balance Update: official thread (stage 1)

[chilko]

hello everyone,

We have been working on some balance aspects. Here is a list of stuff that may or may not be in Amun yet but is part of what we are planning for the following updates.

Please try to be as constructive as possible.

Network code / positioning system

New network code should provides a smoother experience and adds a lag compensation technique to minimize phantom swings, although you will experience hits from opponents being far away from you this is not because of an extra range (range has actually been reduced a little) but the result of the lag compensation. (THIS IS ON AMUN NOW)

Map

• Move the Trelleborg Save and fix the mountain to Algaros so both forts are not so easy Accesible
• Move the Wall 2 Castle teleport in alsius so it is not so easy for the enemy to go to the Castle after taking Trelleborg.
• New teleport in Alsius to travel faster to Syrtis Castle Area

Equipment:

• RVR quest added to get Amulets and Rings that are only available in the opponent realm.
• Tunics will offer more protection
• A bug will be corrected in the armor/tunic protection system that is hindering the performance of certain armors against some damage types
• Armor performance increase in general for all classes.

Combat System:

• Crowd controls of the same type will no longer be able to be stacked to minimize frustration of being rooted for long periods of time.
• A short immunity to crowd control of the same type will be added after the effect to provide some chance of counter action.
• Global cooldown on mages will be augmented from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
• A feature will be removed that generated more evasions as the range of the attack was bigger

PVE:

• Fix in the evasion/resistance system for normal and challenging creatures

Powers:

• Arcane Devotion nerf
• Sultar’s Terror Splash Damage Nerf

Stuff that we will look into in the near future:

• Pets
• Summons
• Confuse
• Camouflage
• And many more

[Knekelvoeste]

hmmkay...

+1 for the evade/resist for mobs

[Freduardo]

About the announcement: Nice, Chilko. We like being kept somewhat in the loop. So big thanks.

About the contents of the announcement: Looking good at first glance.

[Pnarpa]

I would've rather seen a cap on cast speed, now the player with better items still has an advantage.

I can't really judge since we can't test it yet and because I play a warlock I am of course biased, but we'll see.

[_Enio_]

We need a thread to discuss the changes.

Is it intended that my range 43,7 normal hit range gets cut down by 7 to 36,4? Its scaling reduction. range 23,3 -> 19,9 range 28,9->24,4 range 34,5 -> 28,6.

Its only for normal hits, i can shoot range 0 spells but normals wont come out.

[Mattdoesrock]

Originally Posted by chilko

• Move the Trelleborg Save and fix the mountain to Algaros so both forts are not so easy Accesible
• Move the Wall 2 Castle teleport in alsius so it is not so easy for the enemy to go to the Castle after taking Trelleborg.
• New teleport in Alsius to travel faster to Syrtis Castle Area

That all sounds good so far, in theory. I'll reserve judgement until I see it.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]RVR quest added to get Amulets and Rings that are only available in the opponent realm.

YES!! THANKYOU! We have been waiting for something like this for... Ever. Thankyou!!

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]Tunics will offer more protection [*]A bug will be corrected in the armor/tunic protection system that is hindering the performance of certain armors against some damage types

Good fix.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]Armor performance increase in general for all classes.

Good stuff.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]Crowd controls of the same type will no longer be able to be stacked to minimize frustration of being rooted for long periods of time.

EXCELLENT. Good bye Terror stacking! God I hate that.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]A short immunity to crowd control of the same type will be added after the effect to provide some chance of counter action.

Interesting. How long will this immunity be for?

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]Global cooldown on mages will be augmented from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.

Good for Warlocks... Bad for Conjurers. PLease don't berf Conjurers by accident while balancing Warlocks.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]A feature will be removed that generated more evasions as the range of the attack was bigger

Another great change. Very frustrating playing a Marks when you try to use your range advantage, but have it all evaded.

Originally Posted by chilko

[*]Fix in the evasion/resistance system for normal and challenging creatures

Nothing to say but: Excellent.

Originally Posted by chilko

Arcane Devotion nerf

What about the players that don't have uber Cast Speed gear? This will affect them 10x more.

Also conjurers, like they need less Cast Speed! The cast time put on heals etc. was already stupid enough.

Originally Posted by chilko

Sultar’s Terror Splash Damage Nerf

Another good change.

Originally Posted by chilko

Stuff that we will look into in the near future:[*]Pets[*]Summons [*]Confuse [*]Camouflage[*]And many more

I hope these changes are included in the same balance update.

[Lord_Latem]

Originally Posted by _Enio_

We need a thread to discuss the changes.

Is it intended that my range 43,7 normal hit range gets cut down by 7 to 36,4? Its scaling reduction. range 23,3 -> 19,9 range 28,9->24,4 range 34,5 -> 28,6.

Its only for normal hits, i can shoot range 0 spells but normals wont come out.

I am not certain about this and the whole concept of scaling. Because of issues associated with a lack of mana on most occasions, I rely on normals. Will this force me to get closer to warriors to make a normal hit? Let's discuss...

[_Arwen_]

I love most of the changes and think they will really help solve some of the issues that face the game today, however that being said I'm concerned about 2 in particular.

First, Devotion nerf, I'll agree with pretty much everyone else that this won't solve the underlying problem of gear being OP. I support a CS cap like the rest of the people here.

Second, as others have said GCD change is good to balance warlocks however will kill support conjurers. I would propose that the GCD of 1.5 seconds is only applied after using an offensive spell. An offensive spell would be any spell that is cast on an enemy, for example Beetle swarm is considered offensive, but Heal is not. Tremor is offensive, but Mass Dispel is not. SM buffs such as projection or fire magnification are offensive. For all non-offensive skills (heals, buffs, dispels you'd keep the 1s GCD).

Other than that I'm excited for the update.

[ieti]

Any change to mage will affect Conjurers. After GCD changes most conjurers have put Arcane Devotion so their play will be fluent and fun again. So we lost in common around 3 points. If we need to level Insightfull now to cope with nerfed Devotion duration for example this will hurt even more support conjurer setups.

I still wonder why prebuff with regenerate spells was removed? Why heal spells cost in mana was raised? Why cast times of heals was increased?

All this changes hurt alot this class and made it less and less appealing and hard to play. Pre 1.0 it was possible to play conjurer only with fast staff. It was fast fun an a pleasure to play support conjurer.

Now my biggest nightmare is to loose Arcane Devotion because of some reason - it cools down or some damn warrior Mind Squash me even i have only devotion as buff. Play becomes unplesant, sluggish and it is really not fun to support and try to heal self with that slow spells.

Please if you plan something for warlocks think about conjurers - supportive spells have to be improved not hindered more. In every game i saw support healers have fast and powerfull supportive spells.

Please NGD think for conjurers...

[KryHavoK]

Originally Posted by _Enio_

Is it intended that my range 43,7 normal hit range gets cut down by 7 to 36,4? Its scaling reduction. range 23,3 -> 19,9 range 28,9->24,4 range 34,5 -> 28,6.

Its only for normal hits, i can shoot range 0 spells but normals wont come out.

OK, this just makes me sad.
When I was on Amun I almost had myself convinced I was imagining the loss of range.
I'm still hoping this is either a bug in the Amun code or NGD will see this and say "oops, that's not what we meant to do". Because I really don't want to believe that the Developers read those threads about Marksmen and thought, "Hey we know how to help, we'll nerf Marksmen's range"

Enio-
By the way, how were you measuring the ranges?