balance Update 2011 Stage 1 - Summary

[53453467734534]

@bois

I am not quite sure if your system just looks to use level 50 point allocations or if it caters for the increase of power points and discipline points and devised a sink for them.

The latter...
I quote myself:
"You would have to be a Warmaster.
You would have to skill the tree to 21 (instead of 19)
You have to invest Power points (1-5) to gain one of these WM-skills."

You have to invest discipline points to achieve Level 21
You have to invest power points (1-5) to skill Warmaster abilities.

The two problems i have with your system:
1.Warmasters don´t have to sacrifice points to use WM spells.
This will create a problem with balance, if you want to create strong WM spells/abilities
Quote myself:
"If you have to sacrifice enough discipline and power points,
it is justifiable in terms of balance that these WM skills can be strong.
You will gain strong and interesting spells (important because current ones are mostly not interesting) by becoming a Warmaster. But this shouldn´t kill overall gameplay and destroy the little bit of game balance we still have.

A Warmaster can have one (or two/ perhaps three) very strong spell/skill, that can change the outcome of a battle, but a normal player can have a more varied setup. Hey, a Warmaster can still play without these skills, but he has a choice (we have "reset_powers" ), that normal players don´t have."

And yes, strong spells are motivating, even if you have to sacrifice these points. Players invest time (and money) for a lot less.

2. Your system will take something away (the new points they get by leveling to level 60), people have already worked for. Humans are upset, if they feel robbed in some way.

[53453467734534]

@Seher

Tree hugging is the only option as long as there's burst of wind. With burst of wind any marks can easily start a chain, no matter if it lasts 11, 8 or 5 seconds. This CAN end in an interesting duel, but just when warlock CCs are faster AND burst of wind + the next CC, that's still very easy to cast for the marksman obviously, don't last too long.

In the past Warlocks were capable to fight a Marksman in the field.
I remember it clearly It was nearly an even matchup.

Single target CCs usually don't create important momentums in fort wars, can we agree on that?

I already have suggested a nerf : 25% (6 seconds) knockdown time reduction at max level 5, this is more than a small nerf. If we overdo it, there is no reason to invest 5 powerpoints, and if we don´t nerf AEs simultaneously, people will start to use AEs on single targets.
That´s odd. Besides, single target CCs can be used in this way. 1 barbarian attacks a team of 4, and knocks the other barbarian in the enemy team down to concentrate on his pals. If he has to use an AE this will probably not work (Deafening Roar will be negated if there is a conjurer nearby).
Ok, we could ask the question: Why should you be allowed to inflict serious damage if you (your team) are severely outnumbered. Of course you should be allowed. If the underdogs have no hope to win a fight (or kill someone), they will forsake and leave. This results in even less active warriors fighting for the underpopulated realm/army, which will widen the gap.

[Seher]

Originally Posted by 53453467734534

In the past Warlocks were capable to fight a Marksman in the field.
I remember it clearly It was nearly an even matchup.

True. Wasn't BoW range 30 or something like that? (Or even 25)

Originally Posted by 53453467734534

I already have suggested a nerf : 25% (6 seconds) knockdown time reduction at max level 5, this is more than a small nerf.

I think it's rather small. The game sped up by more than 25%.

Originally Posted by 53453467734534

If we overdo it, there is no reason to invest 5 powerpoints

That's why we need an update of the current spell system, it's just too restrictive. (Spells shouldn't have 5 levels if they don't come naturally)

Originally Posted by 53453467734534

and if we don´t nerf AEs simultaneously, people will start to use AEs on single targets.

Why not? Areas have a huge casting time, you'll notice it. :P

Anyway this whole discussion is kind of besides the point, it's impossible to predict all influences correctly on a that complicated matter. You'd have to test whether 2/4 second knock downs are enough to not frustrate outnumbered armies, if it is, everything is perfect, if it isn't, go back to 6 seconds.

[bois]

Originally Posted by 53453467734534

@bois

You would have to skill the tree to 21 (instead of 19)
You have to invest Power points (1-5) to gain one of these WM-skills."

You have to invest discipline points to achieve Level 21
You have to invest power points (1-5) to skill Warmaster abilities.

The two problems i have with your system:
1.Warmasters don´t have to sacrifice points to use WM spells.
This will create a problem with balance, if you want to create strong WM spells/abilities
Quote myself:
"If you have to sacrifice enough discipline and power points,
it is justifiable in terms of balance that these WM skills can be strong.
You will gain strong and interesting spells (important because current ones are mostly not interesting) by becoming a Warmaster. But this shouldn´t kill overall gameplay and destroy the little bit of game balance we still have.

A Warmaster can have one (or two/ perhaps three) very strong spell/skill, that can change the outcome of a battle, but a normal player can have a more varied setup. Hey, a Warmaster can still play without these skills, but he has a choice (we have "reset_powers" ), that normal players don´t have."

And yes, strong spells are motivating, even if you have to sacrifice these points. Players invest time (and money) for a lot less.

2. Your system will take something away (the new points they get by leveling to level 60), people have already worked for. Humans are upset, if they feel robbed in some way.

I am not going to comment in any great detail about your system at this time. I thought of it myself sometime ago. I abandoned the idea though.

Now, my issue is that you have to allocate extra power and discipline points at all. Those extra points broke gameplay. If you choose to not be warmaster, then you simply have access to too many points. It does not create more diversity, it actually makes less. With your system this still happens. This breaks the balance that was there at 50.
Look at my example of dispell. Why do you think this is even an issue now? It never was because the balance was good enough to make it tricky to skill.
To my mind it is going to be difficult to balance the lvl 60 WM versus the level 60 non warmaster.

My system does away with that concern altogether. Everyone has equal footing and equal challenge to skill their characters from level 50 to 60. The increase of health ,mana, hi tchance , resistance, etc. is enough. I did not check to see if your base attributes go up as well but if they did, that would be fine as well.

I am not concerned about players loss of discipline points and power points past level 50. The skill system should provide a challenge to develop skill setups and players must delicately balance their skills along with their equipment. Right now, the glut of points makes skilling all purpose catch-all builds too easy. This must be constricted. If they did this first , we could actually look at the CC problem with a more discerning eye. Don't think the point glut did not break CC balance too. It was probably one of the worst side effects.

Moving on, your system locks the progression system to 21 for now. This means that any further progression or addition of spells past one for each tree, will require a new tree or another level. This means the possibility of having to add more points to scale the game further. For now you are locked into 1 spell per tree .
My system does away with this constraint. NGD is now free to design as many spells as they can muster be it single target WM abilities or RvR type abilities.
The system is open ended and flexible and not locked to 6-7 spells. In effect it is a branch system without obvious branches. It also scales properly without breaking the level 50 layer system. Indeed you can now have the flexibility to balance that by itself and now balance WM abilities without having the added burden of point allocation considerations.

My system takes nothing away from players. On the contrary it gives players much more and over a longer time scale. It also keeps players interested all the way to 60. The current system , also yours, requires players to achieve 60 before they can access the system.

My system allows players to access the system as early as level 52. The investment pays out sooner. Instead of investing and gain a yield at end of term, my system starts paying early and keeps on giving gradually. So at level 52 for example, you have already earned coins and now you can invest in one warmaster spell. You have a choice of some spells at that level (balanced) and unlock one and equip it to your 'WM basic spell slot'. So you have access to 1 whereas you had to go to term with your system.

I digress slightly here>
My system allows players to buy as many spells as they can at a level but they can equip only the amount of slots they can unlock. While I think it would break gameplay to be able to unlock another slot using Ximerin, Another method of revenue collection is possible. Let us say 5 spells max are available at level 52 which you can purchase. NGD can set the free limit you can own at say 2. You must now purchase containers to hold the remaining 3. Mind you , only one is equipable so balance is not broken .

Getting back, At a higher level (NGD decides) , you can now pay wm coin to unlock another spells slot. Again, you are able to purchase. Then you unlock the 3rd slot. You can then fill it with purchased spells.
Keep in mind, in your system level 60 players could possibly skill 3-4 (did not check) WM spells anyway. Only at the end though.
My system gives the joy earlier and in increments.
It may be said that this will demotivate players to try to attain level 60 and thereby reduce revenues.
That could be true. Human nature is hard to calculate.
But, something else could happen. It could keep players interested, keep them wanting more, open more slots, have access to more spells. It would also keep the action up as level 45-60 would be on reasonably equal footing in RvR except health,mana, resist, Hit chance, basic damage etc. But isn't that enough?
The level 52 onwards can contribute to the RvR effort as well and may be encouraged to engage in wars. They are not dependant on level 60's. War goes on and are enjoyable with or without level 60 players.
At 60, something special happens. In addition to your 3 slots you can access one more. The special branch grouping. At this stage, you unlock the secret Realm/race/class spell set which fits to one socket. Highly powerful, high mana cost, high cooldown. Exclusive. You must be wearing at least 2 pieces (varies with class and costs) of the WM armour (available at 60) to be able to cast this special spell.

Now what is wrong with such a system? It resolves the points issue, simplifies balancing by partitioning the level groupings and adds diversity. It gives the devs unlimited potential to add spells without actually having to tinker with point allocation balance or having to scale spells. They can add spells one by one. They can add special slots. Conditional slots. Branch the spells. They have control of the WM system by:

A: Balancing the spells themselves
B: When and how new slots are opened. Costs of these slots.
C: How many slots are opened
D: Which spells can partner which spells in the slots. If you skill X WM spell , Spell Y is greyed out. You can use spell Z though.
E: Level cap certain spells.

It is a boon for players who now have flexibility once past level 52 and can have enhanced powers earlier. Their pay-off is constant and gradual with increasing potential the higher they go rather than lumpsum at the end. They have numerous opportunities (more than your system) and greater flexibility.

Once you poke more holes I will try to devise solutions.

Regards

[Gabburtjuh]

Originally Posted by bois

"All posts about removing points here"

I however have a question, how will the grinding be balanced out then? As some classes just need the extra points to grind at any decent rate at higher lvls.

[bois]

Originally Posted by Gabburtjuh

I however have a question, how will the grinding be balanced out then? As some classes just need the extra points to grind at any decent rate at higher lvls.

Which classes specifically are you concerned about? List them and maybe we can look at the bottlenecks.

[Gabburtjuh]

Especially mages, but knights to if they want to effectively grind without losing 80% of their support.

[Darcyeti]

I don't know but imo is every mage who has grinded up to lvl 50 "in the old days" with more XP needed a grinding setup which works very well for him.

Why should you need another setup with more points to spare?

[NSer]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I don't know but imo is every mage who has grinded up to lvl 50 "in the old days" with more XP needed a grinding setup which works very well for him.

Why should you need another setup with more points to spare?

Spells:mobs got more HP and more defence->u probably will need moar spells to kill 'em.->Moar mana consumption,etc.
Staff Mastery:with decent lvl50(old system),54 staff and 350 normals it's nearby imposible to me kill normal mob before he at least 3 times hits me without using spells.
So it's not about need moar points,it's about new 10 levels and higher lvl mobs.

[bois]

Barb, Marks look fine.

Knight also looks okay. I only say this because I grind one (95%) solo to 60. I used very few spells and actually ran out to swamps with 5 power points and several hundred discipline in cache. That was because when I grind I grind and could care less for gankers. It was efficient solo and used few spells. More points may speed up but less will certainly not hamper you.

Hunter I hardly play and so I cannot comment. I think NGD slowed them down on purpose.
I think they want to slow Marksman down too but it backfired.

Mages were slowed down on purpose. NGD said so. With that said, SM needs another look. I think there are several suggestions to fix the scaling of mage attack potential with level. Those suggestions fix problems that are outside the scope of my proposal and do exist whether you have extra points or not. To my mind it is better to fix the scaling of mages direct damage spells/ normal staff attacks than to shell out points and hurt everything else. I could be wrong though.

Sadly I only have a level 50 Warlock and 48 Conjurer so my tests may be not accurate. However, at 48, using mental, summon, 1 magnification (3) fire on SM and attack speed boost, mobs never manage to reach me (challenging). I must admit that I have no idea how this will scale past 50 as the spell damage is locked in. I have 3 spell lines maxed and a mix of 3 others. To my mind, for solo grinding, at 50 a conjurer's potential is pretty much at maximum. Extra points will not help that much. I can probably skill 4 trees maxed out and have all the potent spells I need. I see only 1 thing lacking. That is a mob specific debuff spell. With the fact that my HP and mana increases, there seems to be not too much issue (especially if scaling is done). 20 points more just gives you those just-in-case spells and armour boosters.

Warlock is equally challenged but then, it has much more attack potential than a conjurer. It also has nice debuffs. I think the biggest gripe may be that Soulkeeper does not drain mob health anymore. If it did there would be no more problems as you can generate a health> mana pump to keep things going. With it being a dot spell now, I don't see why they can't revert it. It is not going to speed things up dramatically anyway.

In groups I see no problem at all. Well the sharing of XP is still a problem but that has nothing to do with my proposal.