Balance Update 2011 - Stage 1 - Initial Discussion

[chilko]

Balance Update: Crowd Controls

Crowd control skills are an important part of combat strategy both for PVP and RVR. Even though all clases have different variations of CC skills, some of their possible combinations generate a great deal of frustrations for Regnum players.

Among the different kinds of CCs, we believe that "knock down" is the most powerful. Not Only these skills leave the target without movement, attacking and casting, but also vulnerable to damage.

For this new balance iteration we will try not to modify a great deal of skills but to adjust a small set of them so we can observe the results in real gameplay conditions. By doing this, the analysis period should be shorter (less modified variables to take into account) and corrections that may arise should be easier to implement.

In this stage we will focus only on CC Skills with a single target.

Considering the above, and after studying both the game and the requests on the fórum, these are the proposed changes to be included in the future version.

Please read all the changes for all the classes before stating an opinion as all of the decisions are intertwined.


Class: Warrior (Barbs & Knights)

The damage that Barbarians can do is high. We don’t believe that the issue is with the damage but with the fact that they have 2 Knocks (feint and kick). The ability to combine both skills creates the opportunity for a barbarían, to eliminate its opponent without a chance to get up.

Both of these skills are part of the “Tactics” discipline, and we don’t want to affect the Knight with this change so we will do the following modification:

• Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”
• Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”
• Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

We’ll have to do minor adjustments to the mana consumption and/or duration of these skills because of the change of place in the discipline. Although Barbarians will lose one of their CC skills, they will earn a slow skill that will allow them to reach their enemies.

 
Clase: Archer (Hunters and Marksmen)

The tactical situation between Archers and Warriors should play around the difference of range. In normal conditions a warrior that reaches melee range should have a positional advantage.
Because of the different CCs and “counter damage” available in the “Tricks” discipline This theoretical situation does not happen as often as we would like.
The following changes will be introduced with the intention of revert this. siguientes cambios serán introducidos con la intención de revertir la situación mencionada.

• Ambush: The range of this spell will be reduced to melee range. This will allow archers to have a CC suited for melee classes (so to gain range for a brief period of time) but not against other ranged classes.
• Stunning Fist: the effect “Cannot attack” will be replaced either by “Stun” or “cannot cast” (please let us know what you think)

Class: Mages (Warlocks y Conjurer)

Based on the previous explanations we propose the following changes:

• Will Domain: this skill is going to be replaced by "Mummify".
• Mummify: transforms the objective into a mummy showering its movements. Reduces movement speed and attack speed.

Subclass: Masksman

We have read many posts about this subclass being OP. We think that this issue is much more related o CCs than damage. Marksmen have a great amount and diversity of long range control skills that allows them to “keep range” all the time.
The combination of said CCs give them an edge against melee classes that need to reach them in order to fight.

This subclass has two CC skills that include damage, Winter Stroke and Burst of wind (cannot be stopped by “divine intervention” hurting team-play)
Also, after the last balance update mana regeneration was increased and it may be too high for this class (both for PVP and RVR)

• Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.
• Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

We wanted to have an initial discussion about these changes before we upload to Amun. Please try to explain yourselves and maintain a constructive thread.

[HidraA]

Originally Posted by chilko

• Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”
• Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”
• Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

Best decission ever.

Subclass: Masksman
We have read many posts about this subclass being OP. We think that this issue is much more related o CCs than damage.

Agree with this too.

Burst of wind (cannot be stopped by “divine intervention” hurting team-play)

This will give lots of advantage to warlocks.Results are predictive.Revers..lots of marks complain by meteor spam from warlock side.
But i a gree with change because tired of warlocks complaint about Birst of Wind.

Also, after the last balance update mana regeneration was increased and it may be too high for this class (both for PVP and RVR)

I remeber days when all ppl complaint about lack of mana ..are wee going to the begin?But ok lets give a try.Lack of conj in game due of hard grinding will advantage ppl that complaint about OP of marks.

[theotherhiveking]

im kind of worried about hunters, as they relied a lot on ambush. But i dont know if you have anything more planed for them, so..

I like the initiative, CC made the game extremely frustrating.

[Mattdoesrock]

First of all, wow. Wow wow wow wow. I wasn't expecting this.

On paper, these all sound like good ideas. I look forward to testing! The CC changes to Marks sound fine to me - but the change to Ambush will hurt Hunters much more, which is not needed.


On another note, I hope that in the later stages of balance you will take a good look at Knight speed. With the removal of Spring (and soon the implecation of another slow) Knights have many mobility problems. May I suggest removing the speed penalty on Defensive Support or giving them back spring.


Also, please, do something about the saves.

[-Logan-]

I'm going to talk specifically about the knockdowns right now.

Call me crazy (My main class is a barbarian), but I don't think that barbarians should have any knockdowns whatsoever. Debuffs, yes, moving Intimidate was an alright choice, but I still can't make a definite assumption on that now either.

I say this because I believe that in the case of barbarians, their role is damage, not paralyzing the enemy and at the same time dealing lethal damage. Having just one knockdown doesn't change the fact that a barbarian can still easily kill a mage. This is a RvR game, not a PvP game, so by all means, if you want knockdown on a target, then it's my belief that one of the other 5 classes can do it for you and you can move on from there. Again, this isn't a solo game.

Ambush, I'm not sure what to say. With the way positioning is I feel that this isn't going to be a good change either. If you were so fixed on nerfing it, then you could at least made it half range or something lower, but not melee. So now we have 3 melee knockdowns and once again we're killing diversity among skills.

I absolutely do not agree with changing Will Domain either.

All in all, I'm still rather disappointed with how you've addressed the changes to knockdowns. In my honest opinion, you haven't even really scraped the subject. Personally, I believe that all knockdowns should be max 4 seconds. You're supposed to just knock down your enemy, not mark their grave. I feel too many people have become used to the concept of knockdowns having long durations, oh well. I'll say it again, it's a RvR game, when you have big battles going on, which is what the game SUPPOSEDLY revolves around, you don't need long durations on powerful CC spells like knockdowns, because most people have them. Thus, when so many people have knockdowns, the long durations begin to become unnecessary and over the top.

Look at it this way, the same way Army of One and Unstoppable Madness were changed in order to reflect large battles, so should knockdowns be changed.

Feint needs to be scrapped completely. Knights don't need 2 knockdowns just as much as barbarians don't.

[theotherhiveking]

Originally Posted by Mattdoesrock

On another note, I hope that in the later stages of balance you will take a good look at Knight speed. With the removal of Spring (and soon the implecation of another slow) Knights have many mobility problems. May I suggest removing the speed penalty on Defensive Support or giving them back spring.

Dunno about this, now all the insane ambush ambush ambush ambush ambush ambush ambush combos will not happen anymore, mind control wont stop you anymore: in any case knights gained mobility.

Imho the most obvious problem is the knock duration.

A knockdown is:
-Immobilize
-Cannot Attack
-Dizzy
-Interrupt Casting

You know, not all knockdowns need to be the same duration, feint should be the longest, and kick should do a bit more damage and last the least, ambush and mind domain should be somewhere in the middle and have their ranges reduced a bit.

Something like this
Kick 4 seconds
Ambush and mind domain 6 seconds and a bit less range.
Feint 8 seconds.

[Miraculix]

I like the change to warriors, barbs with 2 knocks was too much.

Ambush melee range: Terrible idea, I can't see how this will possibly work. If a warrior is rushing towards an archer he is spamming kick, and the archer spams ambush. It will simply become a contest of who gets his spell cast first (or not resisted from the pointless random passive resist rate). Right now kick is instant, ambush is 1s cast time. Even if ambush becomes instant however, it's only luck that says who knocks who, and if the barbarian wins this luck contest, they kill you and its over. I don't see what the potential benefit of this idea is, I see only problems. To be honest I think ambush is fine as it is, if your analysis says otherwise I can only suggest that the range reduction from 25 to melee is too much, perhaps consider range 15 instead.

Stun fist: Again, I don't see what was wrong with it. I'd prefer if it stayed as a "cannot attack" spell. I especially don't understand the option to make it a "stun" spell, there is a range 25 stun spell available already, and I'd say that one is fine as it is too.

Will Domain: Warlocks especially depend a lot on successful spells (no resists) so it's a particularly useful "opener" for a fight, to make sure they don't get these pointless passive random resists. They already have access to a very powerful slow spell (Slow). Giving them a second, and in combination with Pricking Ivy really seems too much to me. I'd leave that spell as it is as well in terms of what the effect is. Maybe it is being cast a bit too fast however, I would suggest increasing the cast time a bit, to make it an effective 1 second cast when using Arcane Devotion (so 2 seconds as "base" cast time).

Marksmen changes: The change to BoW is good, but the arguments about what you think is "wrong" with the class seem badly informed. The main problem with marksmen from my gameplay experience is their access to great defense (Strategic Position, great range) and an excessive amount of control spells. I would suggest completely removing Strategic Position (or changing it completely and keep the name or whatever), remove damage from Winter Stroke as well, and increase the cooldown of Winter Stroke to 60 seconds or more. Perhaps a change to the passive range boost should be considered as well.

[Kitsuni]

Originally Posted by chilko

Balance Update: Crowd Controls
The damage that Barbarians can do is high. We don’t believe that the issue is with the damage but with the fact that they have 2 Knocks (feint and kick). The ability to combine both skills creates the opportunity for a barbarían, to eliminate its opponent without a chance to get up.

• Feint: moved to the “vanguard” -knight only- discipline to replace “intimidate”
• Intimidate: moved to the “Tactics” discipline instead of “Kick”
• Kick: Moved to the 1st place of the discipline in place of feint

We’ll have to do minor adjustments to the mana consumption and/or duration of these skills because of the change of place in the discipline. Although Barbarians will lose one of their CC skills, they will earn a slow skill that will allow them to reach their enemies.

This is a little incorrect. Barbarians have alot more than two knocks, they simply have two knocks "in the same tree". They can slow opponents by 33% (Slashing dicipline, very common) and knock enemies in an area down for a duration (Typhoon, Rage of the earth). You speak as if they didn't already possess these powers, when they did.

Removing Feint from the Barbarian is a good choice; however it will only discourage Spear users even more, creating more Slashing and Blunt Barbarians and the knock-down that you left for them in Tactics (Kick) will still bypass DI and thus will be of absolutely no help to Conjurors, the number one Barbarians attacks. A Conjuror can die from a single attack from a Barbarian with Fulminating, so even one knock-down skill is too much.

Originally Posted by chilko

• Ambush: The range of this spell will be reduced to melee range. This will allow archers to have a CC suited for melee classes (so to gain range for a brief period of time) but not against other ranged classes.
• Stunning Fist: the effect “Cannot attack” will be replaced either by “Stun” or “cannot cast” (please let us know what you think)

Be extremely careful with this. You may help PvP balance, but it could be harmful to war balance. In fights, archers tend to be the sole protectors of mages. In an ideal world, there would be enough mages that they could dispel each other, cast DI, etc. But in reality having more than one mage or two mages (if even that many) on Horus is rare. Without Ambush in its current state, archers that are attempting to cover their mages with CC effects will be unable to stop warriors from attacking the mage without first running up to the warrior and then casting Ambush, losing critical time in which the mage can die in 1-2 hits (see above).

While it is true that mages suffer a great deal from enemy archers, saying that warriors suffer from enemy archers is a bit unrealistic. Knights may never catch an archer but to say that a Barbarian cannot win this battle is completely wrong. A Barbarian who knows what he is doing will never lose a battle against an archer, even a Marksman, and many players would argue that the Barbarian class is currently the OP one. This change to Ambush is really just unneccessary in my eyes, and will only harm balance more than help it, but as I have stated it is the support role that archers can fulfill with their CC spells that I am the most worried about.

Originally Posted by chilko

Class: Mages (Warlocks y Conjurer)

• Will Domain: this skill is going to be replaced by "Mummify".
• Mummify: transforms the objective into a mummy showering its movements. Reduces movement speed and attack speed.

Again, I believe that these are useless changes. Will domain is a low-range, no-damage skill. It was only a threat in the rarest of situations, and because of the presence of UM on Barbarians, it was not affecting them too much since 20-25 meters (30 for Warlock due to Meteor) is very easy to cover in the 10sec duration with Spring. This change may leave Warlocks too vulnerable in realistic combat situations, and they are already extremely vulnerable if they get even one resist, or mess up the timing of their CC spells by even a second.

Originally Posted by chilko

We have read many posts about this subclass being OP. We think that this issue is much more related o CCs than damage. Marksmen have a great amount and diversity of long range control skills that allows them to “keep range” all the time.
The combination of said CCs give them an edge against melee classes that need to reach them in order to fight.

This subclass has two CC skills that include damage, Winter Stroke and Burst of wind (cannot be stopped by “divine intervention” hurting team-play)
Also, after the last balance update mana regeneration was increased and it may be too high for this class (both for PVP and RVR)

• Burst of Wind: damage will be removed.
• Mana regen: slightly reduced during combat (we’ll add feedback on GUI while “in combat” status)

The Marksman is affected by the same problems as the Warlock. Players like to whine about them being OP, but unless you know what you are doing, it is very easy to mess up the timing and tactics and die. Several spells on the Marksman and Hunter are not currently working well (such as Son of the wind), often leaving CC chains as the only option to not get slaughtered in war. While I agree that Marksman have some balance issues, all these changes will really do is protect DI'ed mages at 50 meters while doing absolutely nothing about freeze spam, Confuse, Caltrops/Lightning arrow and at the same time the Marksman's damage remains too dependant on items, making some of them eextremely weak and others extremely strong.

My recommendation would be to first take a look at the range of Burst of wind (50+ with full passives and buffs), rather than the damage and to consider changing it to a slow spell so the Marksman can slow enemies charging at him, combined with a change to Winter stroke and other freeze spells to remove the current freeze spam from the game, or at least provide some way to counter it.

Anyway, I don't play the game very much anymore, so I don't honestly care what happens.

[HidraA]

Originally Posted by Miraculix

Marksmen changes: The change to BoW is good, but the arguments about what you think is "wrong" with the class seem badly informed. The main problem with marksmen from my gameplay experience is their access to great defense (Strategic Position, great range) and an excessive amount of control spells. I would suggest completely removing Strategic Position (or changing it completely and keep the name or whatever), remove damage from Winter Stroke as well, and increase the cooldown of Winter Stroke to 60 seconds or more. Perhaps a change to the passive range boost should be considered as well.

Ok ..i am agree about defence and about range or CC...but if you remove Strategic Position ?

Wtf a second hunter?

Make all marks spells 1500 seconds CD sounds good to ya?...and spamm 800 dmg ensnare with SS+CB once at 5 seconds ?

Seems ppl want to complete nerf to dead class marksman now.....

Allrady told in other thread..ppl want to boost they main class,,they will not be fair in any kind of balance...for me the results of this "Balance" are sample a big mess at end....

I bet 50k xime ...at the end of this balance one class will die and other OP will born....

[terekon]

I will save my opinion for the changes specifically until after I have been able to try them out on amun.

I will say that I am happy to see NGD asking the community directly for input on changes. Hopefully this will help lead to better overall implementation.