Wizard Feedback

[Cherek]

Petros: Yes that is where I got my information from too... how long have you been AoB? Maybe there was a note about it and I missed it.

Well, even if the update process is going slow, say that! Say something. Atleast you could say which guilds are being worked on? Which are not? Etc... something? No news is.. eh still news. Actually it is. If we know there isnt much to expect in the nearby future, we know that atleast. But even if it is moving very slow... as long as its moving at all, its positive. "MM recode, 35% done", if just a little work is made in a couple of months you can atleast say 40% done.... anything is encouraging, even a small improvement. Or be as detailed as you like.

As for balance... without having any numbers at all, my _feel_ is that the game is less balanced now then it has been in the past. I might be completely mistaken of course, its just the feel. Alot due to the fact that the recodes have lasted many years and the updated guilds have been released now and then, leaving others behind.

SS, rangers, Pots, AA all seem to be lacking "power" very badly for instance, and most of those guilds are half-dead and has been a long time. Or is the reason for them being so low on members something else? Whats your theory Petros?

MM are insanely powerful and can do as they wish with any other guild basically... and they are only an occupational guild. Pots are a similar guild RP-wise, but it takes up occupational and layman, and from what I have seen they are lightyears from MM in terms of power. Isnt that odd? I know none have been recoded yet, but it has always been "common knowledge" MM is better than everyone else so its no wonder it makes us mortals wonder what the big plan for balance is?

DAs and knights are both recoded. But if we compare them face to face we notice that DAs get lower fighting skills than knights, they get fewer choice of weapons, and two special attacks each. Knights get higher fighting skills, more choices of weapons, two offensive specials, one pvp special, one team control special and one healing special.

Just by looking at that makes me really wonder about balance... are they really balanced versus eachothers? Or should knights be more powerful since DAs are two guilds? Or..?

Lots of things like this "appear" strange... maybe it is balanced in numbers, I dont know, but for everyone to be happier I think it would be better if wizards (the AoB) in this particular case was more open with these things. I dont think it hurts... I mean most games even post numbers so everyone can see the balance. Now I dont think we should post numbers, but some more info for everyone about how balance is supposed to work here I think would be for the best.

With luck it could put an end to alot of the conspiracy theories about biased wizards, and maybe even some of the "my guild is underpowered" complaints. Sure you can dismiss it as just complaints, but look at successful games known for their balance and you'll see very little complaints too.

I always played alot of Warcraft 3, and I rarely here anyone complain about the balance. No race is really weaker than another, no tactics is "perfect", everything has a counter. Now, they have a team of hired people to fix these things of course, we dont, but I am just saying if alot of people complain there usually is something to it. Hearing no complaints must be the best reward any wizard / game designer could ever get, and something to aim for?

Anyway, total hijack of the thread. Sorry... feel free to move the last few posts to a new thread.

[Laurel]

AA seriously needs to get a special that hurts more than Donk.

I have seen statistics that show AA is quite fine with dmg compared to other fighter guilds ... player-made.

[petros]

Petros: Yes that is where I got my information from too... how long have you been AoB? Maybe there was a note about it and I missed it.

I appreciate the request for more information from players. That means that players actually care about the game, and there's nothing more important to the survival of the game than people who are interested in the progress of it.

Genesis has a long way to go in terms of entering the new social networking era. Part of the problem is that information is stored in all different places. There's no central place that one can get all the information. There's no easily searchable place that has a live chronicle (like a wiki) of all the things that continually change. What you're left with is very old information (often incorrect) in help files, but updated elsewhere.

For example, this announcement of the new AoB was made by Gorboth, and is archived in our forum's common board category:
http://www.genesismud.org/forums/viewto ... f=27&t=477

As for balance issues between guilds, I won't go into the specific balance details of each and every guild in the game, but I will assert that guilds that have had their recodes are balanced very well against each other. Let's just take two examples: Knight vs DA, and AA.

Knight vs DA
In your note, you complain about DA not having as many cool abilities as Knights. Yet in the same vein, Knights can complain about the same thing about DA. The true test of balance is to pit a Knight against a DA with similar equipment and similar stats and see how they perform against each other - and see who wins in 1000 battles. If they are balanced, then each will win about 50% of the time (which they do) In my opinion, most people care about how much damage they can deal, not how much they can take. This is because of the solo nature of our player community. That's why you see people flocking to guilds like the BDA, because of all the recoded guilds, none deal more solo damage than BDA. But then if BDA deals as much damage as it does, then how would you balance Knights against them? Well, all the other things that Knights have. Knights have plenty of roleplaying abilities. But ask a Knight to grow solo the way that BDA does, and they'll find themselves always behind. Why would you play a Knight over a BDA? If you enjoy roleplaying and being a good counter to the BDA. Why would you play a BDA over a knight? If you care about power, power, and more power.

Army of Angmar
Lots of people complain about how crappy AA is, and how they don't do any damage. The funny thing is that in reality, the AA actually has the second highest solo damage potential in the game. In fact, AA also has the ability to be flexible in their battle tactics, something that most older guilds don't have. So why the perception issue? Well, first, AA was too powerful when it was introduced. It has some special abilities that were not being utilized to its maximum potential and the power of the guild was amped up to account for the lack of use. But for someone who knew how to use the ability, the ability easily surpassed what was acceptable under balance. With this imbalance, I have personally seen very good AA person take down some players (including spellcasters like MM) many stat levels above them when skills are properly utilized. When AA's power was adjusted to match the expected balance requirements, many members were quite upset. Once you have tasted the drug of dominating anything, it's hard to get off it. Ever since then, members of that guild have chosen to believe that it was nerfed beyond usage rather than trying to learn how to use the strengths of the guild. Players have mentioned that AA layman is good, but AA occ is bad. But in the code, the occ guild is simply twice as powerful as the layman. Quite literally, all the numbers are simply doubled. That, to me, is the biggest indication that there's a perception (and propaganda) problem.

My point in sharing this information isn't to disparage players in any way. My point is that balance in Genesis is a complicated thing. A lot of "balance" simply is a matter of information imbalance. Some players have more information than others. They can play with greater efficiency because they have better items, they have better tactics, better scripts, etc. Players believe that they are more powerful than they really are, often misled by things like mortal level titles. (A champion can actually be weaker than a hero, depending on stats are distributed). Sometimes, plain chance just plays against someone. A myth who goes up against a hero has a chance of getting killed, even if it's a miniscule six-sigma chance. But if it happens to the myth, the automatic assumption is that the game is unbalanced.

Lastly, I want to clarify what I mean by our game being more balanced given the above information. Our game today is more balanced with regard to the eventual state of a large player community that has people who are interested in various play styles. If the only goal of players in Genesis is to go to T-Trolls and Qualinesti Elves and Mithas Trolls, then yes, there are certain guilds that will be perfect for it. Everything else will seem like a distant second.

[Amberlee]

Youre funny sometimes Petros

In actual game terms.. lets say both have a gigantic steel broadsword, dragonscale, blackened steel greaves and skull helmet..

A BDA/Blademaster will always loose a battle 1v1 vs a knight/blademaster of even size.(and by even size i mean equal physical stats, cause lets face it.. mentals dont mean anything here)

One easy explanation for this... kheroism

Sure you can say "its balanced.. cause its on a one hour timer"

No it isnt really balanced.. How often do you in reality end up in a PvP battle in genesis?
If you are very aggressive maybe 4-5 times pr day... And thats an activity that even stretches Freya's aggressiveness nowdays :p

And how many hours pr day does the average genesis addict play?
I am guessing about 5-6 hours... This means that you basically have kheroism up every time you engage in PvP.. and thus you massacre your oponent every time.(assuming the gear and size is equal)


And as for AA..
DPS wise they are a joke.
it's been a long time since i considered lone angmars a threat.. Even if they are much bigger.
Sure they can tank rather good, but thats about it.


On the other side i understand perfectly that you might have problems addressing the balance issue..
Balance is a delicate thing.. and VERY hard to achieve..
But dont hold on to the illusion that the recoded guilds are actually balanced.. They are not.
Balance isnt an opinion.. Balance is a constant.. its either there or its not.


And then there is the issue with people saying that the MM are overpowered.. extremely unbalanced.
I actually dont see the problem with that..
There is also something else then balance to consider..
Work needed to achive the power.. Time spent preparing.. Actual restrictions put on the guild.. All those sort of things..
If anyone could go become a nazgul, i would say hell yeah.. nerf NOW please!!!
But the fact is.. everyone cant.. There are very few of them.. and how often do you see them?

My character is elf race(drow), frequently travels to Middle Earth and Ithillien, and i am a bit of a smartass to just about everyone :p
And i have never really felt threatened by any of them, and those that has been killed by them has usually done something incredibly stupid.

To quote Spiderman.. "With great power comes great responsibility"
This is also a factor that should be considered.

[Cherek]

Petros: Thanks for taking the time to explain.

About AA I always thought they have a special attack that has a big "randomness" to it making it seem like AA suck when you smash ten times and is unlucky to hit many "bad hits" in a row... thats my theory on that. Just guessing of course. But any creative player could test this, like Laurel says he has. I suggested Alorrana simply test how quick she takes down some NPC (or player), and then see if another guild do it better or worse. Then the same test with how much damage you take. Do it atleast 10 times to get a _somewhat_ reliable number. I suggest that to anyone who feels things are imbalanced... do your own research.

Now knights and AA. Have your made tests in teams too? Can two DAs beat two knights with rescue? My guess it will end up 10 wins for knights after 10 tests... and solo... with kheroism like Amberlee said I think it will end up 10-0 knights as well, or you are saying even with kheroism its 50-50?

[Cherek]

Amberlee: So how come the Pots get no power for the same RP-life as MMs one might wonder? Should not all RP-heavy guilds get "great" power? But I dont agree with the whole "With great power comes great responsibility"-thing anyway. Never did, never will. I know that is how it is supposed to be, but the big flaw to me is that once you go through the tough application process etc, then you become better than anyone else on both grinding and PVP. I dont think such a set up will ever end well. Makes the rest of the players feel weak, and everyone wants to have a chance of being a winner. Having one or a few guilds more powerful will cause trouble, and always has as far as I have seen. But who said MM must have a hard application process? They could decide to be "open for anyone" if they wanted, and still have the same powers? Or should wizards decide about applications and what is good RP or not? If its not good enough, powers nerfed?

And the other way around, any guild could have that? If Calians decide to make their guild as hard to get into and as RP-ish as the MM, and advancement comes with tasks (often deadly!) they should be rewarded with skills far above superior guru, and atleast 5 powerful special attacks, far surpassing any other fighter guild? Just because they RP and have a "hard" time raising in rank?

And who said RPing your way up in rank is _harder_ than grinding your way up? I think that depends on who you ask.

No I dont buy that at all, alla guilds should to be be balanced, meaning all guilds should be able to counter all guilds, or a group of guilds, etc.

Your Warcraft 3 opponent raises hundreds of skeletons with his necromancer and your poor footmen die quickly. Next time you better make some priests to counter that, and it works. Then I decide to attack with my flying gryphons, but oh crap, my opponent had spiders who could catch flying creatures, etc, etc

In Genesis, MM come at you with black breath, and you die, whops. You forget the counter. Next time you bring your anti-black-breath potion which protects you, you stab him with your sword, but the MM turns invisble and escapes, but you have gnomish-invis-goggles and follow, etc etc.

Thats balance to me.

In Warcraft 3 our "balance" would work like this:

I ordered my game on the internet, downloaded it and started playing. I can play the usual four races.

Another guy traveled to china and back, went through a thunderstorm barefoot, and returned with his copy of the game. He now gets access to the Super-elves, which is 400% more powerful than the other races. He wins every game he plays. Since he earned it by going to China.

I mean he earned it...

I rather play the current Warcraft 3 where everyone are equal than the one where you can go to China to get a super-race to play.

[Wolverine]

I was Angmar for a long time and can't say that I ever did that much damage, I tanked well but I didnt do much damage at all.

So I guess that the goblin race isnt the most optimal race to do the most damage as an Angmar... I believe that human or dwarves might
do the most damage output as one.

W

[OgreToyBoy]

Gnome power!!!

[petros]

Petros: Thanks for taking the time to explain.

About AA I always thought they have a special attack that has a big "randomness" to it making it seem like AA suck when you smash ten times and is unlucky to hit many "bad hits" in a row... thats my theory on that. Just guessing of course. But any creative player could test this, like Laurel says he has. I suggested Alorrana simply test how quick she takes down some NPC (or player), and then see if another guild do it better or worse. Then the same test with how much damage you take. Do it atleast 10 times to get a _somewhat_ reliable number. I suggest that to anyone who feels things are imbalanced... do your own research.

Now knights and AA. Have your made tests in teams too? Can two DAs beat two knights with rescue? My guess it will end up 10 wins for knights after 10 tests... and solo... with kheroism like Amberlee said I think it will end up 10-0 knights as well, or you are saying even with kheroism its 50-50?

About the "bad hits", many guilds faced this with the recoded specials. Upon investigation, a lot of the guilds were actually hitting for sizeable damage, but the messages were not reflective of the actual damage done. One issue with this in AA was actually fixed a while back.

I won't get into specific details about abilities (and I really don't even like people calling out other guild abilities - it really is not fair to guilds). Your basic question about rescue is essentially asking whether a two-person BDA team can beat a two-person Knight team when they are only able to use half their total HP pool because of rescue. The answer, of course, is that given this strawman situation, then the only way for the BDA team to win is to double the damage that the Knights do. Of course, that's not going to be possible, so in this strawman situation, then absolutely the Knights will win. But that assumes a lot about the rescue ability. Those assumptions aren't all correct

As for the use of all abilities in testing solo BDA vs solo Knight, we deal in ideal scenarios of maximum utility of all abilities. And yes, it does come out to 50-50.

[OgreToyBoy]

I know ogres have yet to recieve a recode but they are already pretty much up to date if I understood things correctly.
Now all you who complain your specials should try ogres, as an ogre you will get a lot of 'bad' hits and those hits
deal no damage. Of course we got other super abilities which I wont reveal here but you know