Version 1.10.7 - Balance update (In progress) - Page 5

sathius · 02-02-2014, 10:27 PM

Its great to see that you are looking for our input on the game. And there are many great suggestions above although this i don't see the point of balancing classes if you cant sort out this pay to win theme in the game. This means lucky boxes giving people a direct advantage over other players. Along with this dragon amulets, i mean people pay large amounts of money to have a massive advantage in the form of these rings and amulets and if this is not removed or at least taken in to consideration when creating changes we will still have classes such as marks and hunters having an unbalanced advantage over others.

Zina Pallas · 02-02-2014, 11:24 PM

TL;DR

My list:
- darkness duration must be shorter (20sec at lvl5)
- MoD duration should be shorter
- roar should have smaller duration (or longer cd)
- howl's range should be removed
- remove or nerf fulmi
- make UM 100%
- locks should have much more damage, DoT dmg calculation should depend on intelligence (suggested many times)
- Mindsquasher needs some nerf, this is a good suggestion
- paladin's aid should give a bit more hp (350-450 or something)
- wm knight self-heal should be replaced with something more useful

_Kharbon_ · 02-03-2014, 12:20 AM

Following up from my previous suggestion list, I would like to add something about the WM powers.
I think its fairly safe to assume, that WM was implemented in a rush, and the spells were just "cooked up" from what came to mind. There were changes, and even they weren't entirely successful. I would like to suggest the following:

1. War council.
Well. this is a great idea with excellent potential, but at the moment it's absolutely useless. Two main reasons for this:
a) it's a separate chat, doesn't show in the general chat, such as clan or party chats do. Associating another shortcut to write to this tab (maybe ",") would make it great to use
b) on Haven there's Commerce and Realm chat available everywhere. Why would anyone bother using WM chat then? If those two were switched off in WZ, WM chat would be used much more. Combining with suggestion a) would make this spell very useful and "warmasterworthy"

2. Warmaster blod.
Health bonus is always welcome. Maybe it could be positioned a bit lower, because I can imagine some classes having issues with discipline points to reach it.

3. Warmaster's might
I would leave this. It gives slight bonuse in dmg/castspeed/constitution... but its not too powerful. At least on warlocks and hunters.

4. Specific spells:
Warrior

Beacon: I'd leave this as it is. Not powerfull, but still used. 2k hp is useful. It's maybe a bit too much for knights, but that wouldn't be the issue, if my previous spell suggestions were implemented
Heroic shout: tbh, I never saw this used. I'd consider replacing this with something else.
Paladins aid should be instant, maybe slightly amplified too.
I'm not sure about the self-heal spell. Someone else should comment on this

Mage

Portals are good. I would only adjust the offensive ones to target between the two bridges of each realm (eg. one between pb and pb2; second between pn and pn2 for ignis). The defensive portals should have three locations, central save, castle, and the further fort. Alternatively, gate.
Mass pricking ivy. Although I saw this used few times, I don't like it. Warlock has better meele-defense spells (time master, mind push), mana cost is too high and duration too short. I'd replace this with a entirely different spell.
Divine protection. I'm not sure about this spell, someone else should comment on this.

Archers

Fire arrow. Although the idea was good, it's bugged severely. Either it should be fixed, and slightly amplified in range, or replaced.
Killer instinct. Well, I genuinely don't know why this was introduced, but I guess it was just to fill a gap where a WM spell should be. IMHO it's the worst WM spell there is. Replace it with something nice. I'd suggest a group range buff requiring allies around the caster (similar to head of the pack, only increasing range instead dmg). Of course, only if foresight (and/or parabolic) were nerfed, as I suggest in my previous post in this thread.
Head of the pack is a nice spell. because of its position in the tree, and ally requirement, I'd give it a slightly higher bonus. Maybe together with raising the ally requirement to three.
HotW. I don't know, why this spell isn't used more, but it's very useful. Adjusting for Haven, I'd consider decreasing the ally requirement to three, maybe while decreasing the speed bonus slightly.

NGD stated, that the current wm spells would get power levels, same as other spells (1-5), and would be scaled accordingly. I would leave them, asl they are now, that is not requiring any power points investing.
Of course, some of them need to be adjusted/replaced according to suggestions.

I know, that some argue that WM spell tree is a potential pp sink, balancing out the power points acquired between lv 50-60. However, I'm not so sure. There are many other issues with that, such as different subclasses requiring different numbers of spells, etc. For example, mages have just enough pp to get all the spells they need for balanced setup, while archers don't know on what other spell they could use them up.. (just my oppinion, no need to flame :P).
Point is, that I'd leave the WM tree independent on power points, and rather fix the number of pp obtained at different levels. EG. while mages get 5 more power points for reaching lv50, from that stage they only get 2 power points per level..

Regards.

schachteana · 02-03-2014, 01:02 AM

hello again, the registration for this forum seems to be disabled, which is why a clan friend of mine asked me to write the following for him -

OimDerGott:

"Back to the roots - the skill system and its balance is great - but was designed for level 50.

So decrease the amount of disciplin points back to the amount of level 50, but keep the maximum amount of power points for level 60 as it is. It's great not to have the possibility of skilling almost all the good spells and to make a difficult decision at the trainer. The whole Warmaster skill tree should be unlocked for all Warmasters - but he has to spend power points for each spell he wants to train.

Some spells do need a rework, the most important are already listed. Replace some "dead" spells like "Camouflage Corpse".

Decrease all durations of all stunning effects.

Resist rate does need a pitch down.

Level 60 and no chance of obtaining a boss drop from the warzone bosses? Really?

Armor system ...

Boss weapons / jewelry ..."

Kyrottimus · 02-03-2014, 03:14 AM

Give Knights some kind of minor self-speed boost of like +15% for 15 seconds (but they cannot randomly block while it is activated, and casting precise block will cancel it).

Change precise block animation to be locked (so user cannot leave attack mode to make it appear as though they are just standing there)

Reduce Berserk's damage % from +50% to +35% but make it an activatable buff like offensive stance.

Reduce Fulminating's damage % from +50% to +35% but increase duration to 10 seconds.

Make barb buffs like TFB and Berserk instant-cast.

Reduce duration OR increase cooldown of darkness.

Reduce duration of all slow debuffs except those already less than 10 seconds.

Decrease UM's % to resist CC by 15% per level but increase duration to 15 seconds.

Make mindsquasher work 100% of the time (if not resisted) but increase cooldown dramatically (higher-level reduces the cooldown but at level 5 make it no less than 60 seconds).

Reduce the hp/mp penalty to just above old levels on recharged arrows but also reduce the damage % to a max of +30% at level 5.

Take a serious look at the cooldowns on lock's large array of cc's (both single target and area) as well as DOT spells. Concern here is the ability to continually chain them. I do think some of them are in need of a slight increase of cooldown.

leafdale · 02-03-2014, 06:18 AM

dear NGD, thx for keeping us informed !

here is my general opinion on balance. I feel the greatest effect on total player population, the greatest variable is adjustment in individual realm numbers of logged-in players. I propose the evidence of this to be the insignificant effect on total player numbers, of the large number of fine-tuning adjustments in combat powers made in the past. So my 2 points are :-

1) Overall combat powers and so on are acceptable and do not need much adjustment. Adjusting them did not historically significantly affect total numbers of players logged-in.

2) The greatest and higher priority is to introduce greater balance in realm numbers and player skills. Some real-time mechanism should be used to bring realm numbers of logged in players into closer alignment, perhaps allowing for a maximum variation of 20% at any time. This mechanism would need :-
a) real time check of logged in numbers
b) auto-booting of any player who is dormant for a set amount of time and
c) some form of team shuffle or way for players of different skills to be shuffled amongst realms.

The evidence in support of 2) promoting total numbers of players is the large amount of unhappiness very evident in player chat when persistence in imbalance of logged in players for each realm occurs. What happens is that newer players log out and never come back, and the game acquires a negative reputation for being buy-to-win.

kowocki · 02-03-2014, 08:00 AM

What i have noticed as a clan member responsible for helping new players is:

lvl 30 yay a war quest->after fights why i cant kill anything and instantly die?

lvl 40 after questing and some boring grind-> another war quest->result look above

the problem is that when i played as a newbie a lvl cap was 50 and as lvl 30 I had some chance at war, when lvl 40 a really good fun started (with addiction to this game).

now if you are not a lvl 50 there is no fun for you from war zone (yes if you are experienced player you can perform well at lower lvls but we are talking about the new players, the future of this game)

as NGD need to have income and i bet most come from exp scrolls and lucky boxes then here is my proposal:

adjust the exp curve so only by questing you get lvl 45 then some grind lvl 50 but if you want lvl 60 then loong grind

reasons for this:

i believe really few ppl if any buy boxes below lvl 50 (Boise once made nice thread about lvl locking different types of boxes and few other good changes)

as the grind from 50 to 60 will be longer NGD wont loose its income from exp scrolls

the game cream is pvp and rvr as be honest pve is well a bit outdated (?), so its best interest to make ppl get to lvl 50 and fight effectivelly ASAP.

At lvl 50 you got only 1 tier lower weapons and armor that are good for war, have enough power and discipline points to have spell setup good enough to be effective at war, and most important thing: YOU CAN DO WAR AND HAVE FUN FROM IT and when its calm then grind (not like now grind grind grind and how long till i will be able to do anything at fort?)

alternative solution is the seperate warzone for low lvls, current island is greate idea, that zone is awesome (i made a toon just to visit it) but its lvl lock is in my opinion a bit wrong, it should be lvls 30-45 at best, so after questing low lvls can have their own playground, learn on their own war setups, combos, tricks, spell chains etc. and most importantly HAVE FUN

Before responding bear in mind we are talking about newbies not experienced veterans who make 10th toon cause boredoom.

Zina Pallas · 02-03-2014, 12:15 PM

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