Balances, or whatever

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Thalric
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Balances, or whatever

Post by Thalric » 24 Mar 2021 17:06

Back when Carnak was announced as new AoB, I thought the plan was to make all stats count when using magic, and not be capped somewhere around supreme.

Then we (hopefully) all, got surprised when it was the entire state of all combat/damage that should be changed.
And I don't think I need to recap how that went, to begin with...

Supposedly, as I hear it told: All melee now makes more damage and we got more hitpoints.
If that is so, that sounds completely idiotic. We should be hurt more, but not so much more..?

I see a lot of guilds who love the new ways, since it has boosted their guilds in power. And then there are the opposite ones. Those who didn't really benefit.
What I hear the most is people saying that combat is now moronic, and wondering why it was all changed to begin with.

If we were all supposed to take more damage, why not just lower the general amount of hitpoints for all players? Wouldn't that have solved the problem, without changing everything?
If specials bore too much damage, why not just increase white hit damage with 5-10% until you were satisfied?

Was combat really so non-functioning before? Or was is too hard to choose the simple solution?
I don't get it. Not sure I will.

Drazson
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Drazson » 24 Mar 2021 18:29

It does sound like you probably won't.

Thalric
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Thalric » 24 Mar 2021 18:54

Drazson wrote:
24 Mar 2021 18:29
It does sound like you probably won't.
Thank you for your contribution to my note. I am sure everyone will find it very enlightening.

Kvator
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Kvator » 24 Mar 2021 20:16

Thalric wrote:
24 Mar 2021 17:06
Was combat really so non-functioning before? Or was is too hard to choose the simple solution?
I don't get it. Not sure I will.
Yup, for few guilds it was. Game is way more playable for kenders, rangers etc.
Game promote diversity as well now - currently the go-to team setup is tank/support/dps while previously it was dps/dps/dps which was pretty stupid.

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Arman
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Arman » 25 Mar 2021 07:42

Thalric wrote:
24 Mar 2021 18:54
Drazson wrote:
24 Mar 2021 18:29
It does sound like you probably won't.
Thank you for your contribution to my note. I am sure everyone will find it very enlightening.
To be fair, you probably won't. Not because you are incapable of understanding, but because for you to understand we'd have to give you too much game mechanic detail.

Having said that I'll try and explain.

Throwing out some theoretical combat aid numbers... the combat system was designed so that a player would get 100 combat aid in white damage (normal hits), up to 100 combat aid from their occupational guild through specials (defensive or offensive benefit) and 50 combat aid from their layman guild.

Now the formula for special _attacks_ (so, we are talking about one aspect of specials) was wrong. So 1 combat aid of white damage or 1 combat aid of a defensive special wasn't the same as 1 combat aid applied to special attacks. And the difference was more exponential than linear the more combat aid you had in special attacks.

So what this meant was those melee guilds more focused on offensive had more REAL combat aid than those that had more of a focus on defensive abilities. Those that had no special attacks being the most disadvantaged (in theory... not necessarily in practice due to other factors). And I think players realised there was something wrong... there was a clear power pecking order of melee guilds.

Then there was the issue with spellcasters. Because spellcasters don't do white damage while casting, their formula was 200 combat aid from their occupational specials plus 50 caid from their layman specials. Which, with the special attack bug, meant that their REAL combat aid due to the bug was magnitudes greater. This would likely have been picked up earlier if there hadn't been a hand break on the capping of magic guild damage in the way the magic system works... but it did mean that even weak offensive magic spells dealt a lot more damage than they were meant to until they hit that cap.

So we have known about this bug for a few years. That is public knowledge. The solution wasn't as simple as increasing white damage slightly, as ALL the formulas for combat aid balance are on the assumption that 1 caid of white damage = 1 caid of special damage = 1 caid of special defence.
Fundamentally, to be able to provide a fair guild balance experience, that assumption had to be made a reality.

Now to make that assumption a reality there needed to be more than just changes made to white damage. That is just ONE of the necessary changes. The scaling of defensive specials to stats was another. And the recode of the magic system to align with how the melee special system works is another. Those are the core ones that need to be fixed... but there are a handful of others on Carnak's to do list that he will roll out iteratively.

I hope that provides some clarity (although perhaps not complete understanding... I refer back to my opening statement). There is going to be a period of unbalance for some guilds until those core elements are rolled out, but the end result we feel will make the game a much better experience with all guild options being viable play styles.

Thalric
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Thalric » 25 Mar 2021 07:46

So for some time yet, we won't be seeing the final result?
Since it takes time to fix it all..?

Thank you for the explanation.

Kvator
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Kvator » 25 Mar 2021 14:54

Arman wrote:
25 Mar 2021 07:42
Throwing out some theoretical combat aid numbers... the combat system was designed so that a player would get 100 combat aid in white damage (normal hits), up to 100 combat aid from their occupational guild through specials (defensive or offensive benefit) and 50 combat aid from their layman guild.
Btw

if that's the case (100 CAID in total for occ guild) then how it's possible that for example Calia have both:
- best offensive special in the game (swarm)
- one of the best defensive abilities in the game (move behind)

(not mentioning their built-in evade thingy just for sake of being nice!)

:?: :?: :?:

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Arman
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Arman » 25 Mar 2021 15:07

Kvator wrote:
25 Mar 2021 14:54
if that's the case (100 CAID in total for occ guild)...
That's the core model. You can go over that 100 caid with equivalent negatives to balance it to 100 caid. For example, the Doomseekers branch of the Neidar can't wear most armours.. so have a big negative caid as they can't mitigate damage. Union and elven archers have disadvantages which give them benefits slightly over the 100 caid cap. And as stated previously, magic users who have the negative of no white damage can have their caid from their occupational guild essentially doubled.

Kvator
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Kvator » 25 Mar 2021 15:18

Arman wrote:
25 Mar 2021 15:07
Kvator wrote:
25 Mar 2021 14:54
if that's the case (100 CAID in total for occ guild)...
That's the core model. You can go over that 100 caid with equivalent negatives to balance it to 100 caid. For example, the Doomseekers branch of the Neidar can't wear most armours.. so have a big negative caid as they can't mitigate damage. Union and elven archers have disadvantages which give them benefits slightly over the 100 caid cap. And as stated previously, magic users who have the negative of no white damage can have their caid from their occupational guild essentially doubled.
So basically this whole CAID model is like RL-life accounting. With more creative approach a particular wizard can squeeze way more out of it for his beloved guild than the other (more 'idealistic') one while at the end of the day the numbers in 'balance calculation' will match just fine and the guilds will be considered balanced.

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Arman
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Re: Balances, or whatever

Post by Arman » 26 Mar 2021 01:16

Thalric wrote:
25 Mar 2021 07:46
So for some time yet, we won't be seeing the final result?
Since it takes time to fix it all..?

Thank you for the explanation.
The recode of the magic system was started a while back.. so i don't expect that to take long - depending on testing.

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