If the game were nerfed ...

[Drazson]

I am really curious how ogres went through balancing process

Indeed, they are impressively worse than most other options.

[Kvator]

I am really curious how ogres went through balancing process

Indeed, they are impressively worse than most other options.

If standard (bugged) calculation was applied (like for every other guild) they should be much worse.

[Drazson]

If standard (bugged) calculation was applied (like for every other guild) they should be much worse.

Wait the %bug applies to how much you can wear helms and how much you are heard in adjacent rooms when you walk by? That's what I was talking about at least.

[Zugzug]

I am really curious how ogres went through balancing process

Indeed, they are impressively worse than most other options.

If standard (bugged) calculation was applied (like for every other guild) they should be much worse.

Any player who went from BDA (an "apex fighter" guild as Arman likes to phrase it) to ogres will tell you that in terms of killing, you will be able to do a lot more as an ogre.

[Kvator]

Any player who went from BDA (an "apex fighter" guild as Arman likes to phrase it) to ogres will tell you that in terms of killing, you will be able to do a lot more as an ogre.

You are prolly exaggerating a bit here - but I don't think that AoD is bad or anything - and if this 'nerf' is applied in full (37%) they will become new kings of the mud (outdamaging everyone pretty hard) - that's why I am curious how they make it through the balancing process.

[Val]

As a caster I must admit I just don't get it.
Well, lets say now a fighter deals more or less 2/3 damage from specials and 1/3 from white hits. If his specials will be nerfed he still stays with quite decent damage from white hits plus what is left from specials. A caster does 100% damage with spells and nothing from white hits. If his specials (spells) will be nerfed to 1/3 it means he stays with 1/3 total damage. What kind of balance would it be? I do not suppose casters should be the weakest guilds damage-wise, should they?
Val

[Zugzug]

Any player who went from BDA (an "apex fighter" guild as Arman likes to phrase it) to ogres will tell you that in terms of killing, you will be able to do a lot more as an ogre.

You are prolly exaggerating a bit here - but I don't think that AoD is bad or anything - and if this 'nerf' is applied in full (37%) they will become new kings of the mud (outdamaging everyone pretty hard) - that's why I am curious how they make it through the balancing process.

I have no idea why you think I am exaggerating. I don't think any arches of anything are bad - but for a long time everyone said "we don't do live testing because we have formulas that work". Turns out they were a *little bit* off.

If you will accuse me of twisting facts or exaggerating, please back up your words with coherent arguments.

[Amberlee]

As a caster I must admit I just don't get it.
Well, lets say now a fighter deals more or less 2/3 damage from specials and 1/3 from white hits. If his specials will be nerfed he still stays with quite decent damage from white hits plus what is left from specials. A caster does 100% damage with spells and nothing from white hits. If his specials (spells) will be nerfed to 1/3 it means he stays with 1/3 total damage. What kind of balance would it be? I do not suppose casters should be the weakest guilds damage-wise, should they?
Val

Correct
Melees are already up there in strength with casters, but with this there would be no point in being caster unless the casters were re-balanced separately.
If that criteria is met I am all for the nerf actually.

[gorboth]

I am really curious how ogres went through balancing process

Indeed, they are impressively worse than most other options.

Just so. I am not the sort of wizard who enjoys coding combat mechanics or thinking about combat mechanics very much. However, when I must, I think about them extremely carefully and take a lot of time to get them precisely how I want them to be. This was true with the way the npcs, for example, choose (or opt not to) assist one another in the orc temple near Sparkle. I fine tuned that process with vast amounts of trial and error to get it to feel a certain way that I thought would be fun and interesting.

I did the same with ogres, because ogres are such a vastly different type of guild when it comes to combat. The parameters for considering white-damage combat was so strange given their strength, potential sup-guru skill in 2-handed combat and club, and ability to double-wield one-handed weapons that have the max allowed damage in the game ... well, it took a very very special approach. The approach was that I wanted them to have one of the worst specials in the game, in a lot of ways, because they had the best "white-damage" in the game. So, the ogre special was hand-crafted to do a ton of damage, horribly slowly, and missing a lot. The result has been almost universally hated by players in the guild - to my deep and abiding satisfaction.

This guild was one of the very last to be created before we introduced the global balance initiative in 2009. Because I had just gotten the guild exactly where I wanted it, I decided that it should not get a balance recode - it was already absolutely perfect for how I wanted it to work. That belief lasted 9 more years until we discovered this bug that has called into question the results of our efforts since 2009.

I still believe the Ogres are balanced perfectly against the field of other guilds. However, if we were to change (nerf, boost, whatever) the way all specials that have received a recode to the new global standard, the ogres would suddenly be incorrect in (almost certainly) a big way. So, for me, the ogre balance was a great thing while it lasted. I would rather close the ogres than allow them to be better than other guilds at combat. And, I do not plan to close the ogres! So, last week I asked Carnak to see what he could do to recode the ogre special attack. He's done this on a test server that we can play around with, and we have the ability now to experiment with that and see how it goes. The change is not yet implemented in Genesis-actual, but will be in the not-too-distant future.

My goal is to have ogres feel exactly as they always have vs. other guilds. In other words - really fun advantages in some ways, really dreadful drawbacks in others.

G.

[gorboth]

Gorboth, while I understand change is rapid and needed in order to still have a good game and prepare for the waves of newsters, please remember that you asked for opinions - not for opinions that you could shoot down just to support your argument - when I read into Dhez' note - I think Dhez presents a very good point.

Dhez, I hope the way I responded to your post didn't make you feel like I was shooting down anything you said to support my argument. I was trying to respond respectfully about how we have to be very careful with this, even though it might feel bad to have that type of care take a certain type of time. So, if Hektor is right, and my response felt like a rebuff, please accept my very sincere apology. This is a delicate topic, and I really do value honest and forthright input, whatever it may be.

G.