Dragonarmy revisited

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Arman
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Arman » 15 Aug 2017 15:12

Zugzug wrote:
Arman wrote:I'll have a think about it Nils.

What I might start off doing is implementing the changes to the RDA and see if their quality of life improves to the point where they met my intention with the re-balancing... that they are comparable with the knights and BDA. If I find their quality of life makes them equally attractive a guild as BDA then I may not need to make further changes that impacts slash.

Intimidate will still go. So whatever way you look at it, there will be some element of a nerf.

As for getting rid of dragons, sure I could do that. But then they wouldn't be the dragonarmies. If i was to go down that path now of creating the guild from scratch, HOW I'd do that is make the entire guild layman, and you'd need to sign up as a free mercenary. But that isn't going to happen :)
I like that plan! Especially the part that makes RDA a viable choice for peeps :)

Speaking of intimidate and dragonfear - am I correct in understanding that no matter how many generals/high officers/officers we may assemble at the moment, the dragonfear from our dragons is not the same as dragonfear from genpop npc dragons? I.e. doesn't ever freeze things anymore? That sounds like a cheap trick, kind of like introduction of intimidate ;)
Pretty sure it doesn't stack like the good old days. The old dragon fear that you remember Zugzug wouldn't get through balance these days.

Manglor
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Manglor » 19 Aug 2017 04:04

Speaking as a long-time Dragonarmy member over the decades, my only main concern now is the loss of scaling if Arman moves more caid to dragons. As it stands, slash is better with bigger stats and better weapons (as it should be.) If slash is nerfed and more of the caid moved to the dragons' attacks, what chance of scaling said damage will there be? If baseline slash is 100 damage, but because the player is a beast with top notch gear, he can do 150 damage with slash, are there any guarantees that dragon attacks will be as rewarding?

Scaling is incredibly important as a reward to the hard work and effort put in by those who have achieved some size. Are there measures in place to ensure that we won't lose this?

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Arman
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Arman » 19 Aug 2017 11:15

Manglor wrote:Speaking as a long-time Dragonarmy member over the decades, my only main concern now is the loss of scaling if Arman moves more caid to dragons. As it stands, slash is better with bigger stats and better weapons (as it should be.) If slash is nerfed and more of the caid moved to the dragons' attacks, what chance of scaling said damage will there be? If baseline slash is 100 damage, but because the player is a beast with top notch gear, he can do 150 damage with slash, are there any guarantees that dragon attacks will be as rewarding?

Scaling is incredibly important as a reward to the hard work and effort put in by those who have achieved some size. Are there measures in place to ensure that we won't lose this?
There is an assumption that there is no scaling based on the gear you have for attacks like glads charge and dragon attacks. That assumption is completely wrong. Its hard to test for dragon attacks as a mortal because the aid is currently so weak, but it does CURRENTLY scale with gear. This has been the case since warrior guilds were moved over to a standardised special attack system like a decade ago?

Hypothetically, if half your aid was with your dragon and half with slash, damage output would be the same (not taking into account armour or damage type resistances). If anything, the dragon attack would probably do more damage due to most creatures not having resistances to fire or lightning, while they are likely to have some level of armour that negates slashing damage.

Anyway scaling is not an issue you need to worry about.

Manglor
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Manglor » 19 Aug 2017 12:29

Arman wrote:
Manglor wrote:Speaking as a long-time Dragonarmy member over the decades, my only main concern now is the loss of scaling if Arman moves more caid to dragons. As it stands, slash is better with bigger stats and better weapons (as it should be.) If slash is nerfed and more of the caid moved to the dragons' attacks, what chance of scaling said damage will there be? If baseline slash is 100 damage, but because the player is a beast with top notch gear, he can do 150 damage with slash, are there any guarantees that dragon attacks will be as rewarding?

Scaling is incredibly important as a reward to the hard work and effort put in by those who have achieved some size. Are there measures in place to ensure that we won't lose this?
There is an assumption that there is no scaling based on the gear you have for attacks like glads charge and dragon attacks. That assumption is completely wrong. Its hard to test for dragon attacks as a mortal because the aid is currently so weak, but it does CURRENTLY scale with gear. This has been the case since warrior guilds were moved over to a standardised special attack system like a decade ago?

Hypothetically, if half your aid was with your dragon and half with slash, damage output would be the same (not taking into account armour or damage type resistances). If anything, the dragon attack would probably do more damage due to most creatures not having resistances to fire or lightning, while they are likely to have some level of armour that negates slashing damage.

Anyway scaling is not an issue you need to worry about.
Then I'm pretty excited about seeing what the changes will bring. :)

Amberlee
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Amberlee » 19 Aug 2017 17:20

Arman wrote: Hypothetically, if half your aid was with your dragon and half with slash, damage output would be the same (not taking into account armour or damage type resistances). If anything, the dragon attack would probably do more damage due to most creatures not having resistances to fire or lightning, while they are likely to have some level of armour that negates slashing damage.

Anyway scaling is not an issue you need to worry about.

Good to hear about scaling.
But.. That was never the real issue.
The real issue is that dragons would be unavailable in most of the games content.
Which in reality removes 50% of the aid then(assuming dragons can't be used inside)
However if you come up with a solution for that.. Then it's all good and a very nice change.
The views posted by me on this forum is not the views of the character Amberlee in-game.
If you ask for my opinion here, you will get MY opinion, not that of my character.

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Cherek
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Cherek » 20 Aug 2017 06:21

Amberlee wrote: Good to hear about scaling.
But.. That was never the real issue.
The real issue is that dragons would be unavailable in most of the games content.
Which in reality removes 50% of the aid then(assuming dragons can't be used inside)
However if you come up with a solution for that.. Then it's all good and a very nice change.
Well, thats easy. How about really really small dragons, that can fit indoors?! Yeah! Solved!

Seriously though, indoor vs outdoor IS a big thing. I remember that from the old days as a knight, when it was OCC+LAY and you could only charge outdoors which basically meant you had no layman power special attack when fighting indoors. Clearly a pretty big drawback. No idea if the charge special made up for that by being twice as good outdoors, as normal layman guild attacks? They were probably changed for a reason though, since knights today seem to be able to charge in most indoor locations, and can have laymans, so obviously less of a concern now. But it used to be a pretty big thing.

Anyway, let's do a balance example. If we just for the sake of it assume 50% of Genesis combat takes place indoors, and 50% outdoors. If one guild does 100 damage both indoors and outdoors, then a guild that does 0 damage indoors would have to do 200 damage outdoor to make up for it. Right?

But what if that guild then decided to only fight outdoors, since they are twice as good as any other guild outside, how does that affect balance? Yes, you have 50% less grinding areas to fight in, but since you make twice the damage, you should theoretically end up with the same XP, since you can clean those areas twice as quick. While, the 100 damage guild can kill anywhere, but does it at half your speed.

And how about PVP. The 100 damage guild always wins indoors, and the 200 damage guild always wins outdoors. And since half the game in this example is indoors, and half the game is outdoors, we've got perfect balance.

This is all theoretically of course, obviously there are a lot more variables in the real game, but yeah, obviously it adds another layer of complexity to balance abilities that only work in certain areas or situations. If all guilds did 100 damage, of the same type, everywhere, the game would be much more balanced. Probably a lot less varied too of course. Genesis has always been a game where we're provided a lot of unique and very different guild experiences, sometimes at the cost of balance.

That said, I don't see why you couldn't balance indoors vs outdoor power in a guild. As long as you give enough benefit outdoors to make up for the lack of power indoors, it should theoretically end up being balanced.

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Kas
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Kas » 20 Aug 2017 10:33

Cherek wrote:
Amberlee wrote: Good to hear about scaling.
But.. That was never the real issue.
The real issue is that dragons would be unavailable in most of the games content.
Which in reality removes 50% of the aid then(assuming dragons can't be used inside)
However if you come up with a solution for that.. Then it's all good and a very nice change.
Well, thats easy. How about really really small dragons, that can fit indoors?! Yeah! Solved!

Seriously though, indoor vs outdoor IS a big thing. I remember that from the old days as a knight, when it was OCC+LAY and you could only charge outdoors which basically meant you had no layman power special attack when fighting indoors. Clearly a pretty big drawback. No idea if the charge special made up for that by being twice as good outdoors, as normal layman guild attacks? They were probably changed for a reason though, since knights today seem to be able to charge in most indoor locations, and can have laymans, so obviously less of a concern now. But it used to be a pretty big thing.

Anyway, let's do a balance example. If we just for the sake of it assume 50% of Genesis combat takes place indoors, and 50% outdoors. If one guild does 100 damage both indoors and outdoors, then a guild that does 0 damage indoors would have to do 200 damage outdoor to make up for it. Right?

But what if that guild then decided to only fight outdoors, since they are twice as good as any other guild outside, how does that affect balance? Yes, you have 50% less grinding areas to fight in, but since you make twice the damage, you should theoretically end up with the same XP, since you can clean those areas twice as quick. While, the 100 damage guild can kill anywhere, but does it at half your speed.

And how about PVP. The 100 damage guild always wins indoors, and the 200 damage guild always wins outdoors. And since half the game in this example is indoors, and half the game is outdoors, we've got perfect balance.

This is all theoretically of course, obviously there are a lot more variables in the real game, but yeah, obviously it adds another layer of complexity to balance abilities that only work in certain areas or situations. If all guilds did 100 damage, of the same type, everywhere, the game would be much more balanced. Probably a lot less varied too of course. Genesis has always been a game where we're provided a lot of unique and very different guild experiences, sometimes at the cost of balance.

That said, I don't see why you couldn't balance indoors vs outdoor power in a guild. As long as you give enough benefit outdoors to make up for the lack of power indoors, it should theoretically end up being balanced.
Not necessarily. If for example most of the major grinders are indoors, such a powerdistribution will always put such a guild at a disadvantage in growth because most of the time, the potential is not fully realized.

A good analogy would be something like: Bda is particulary good at killing on wednesdays, but at disadvantage the rest of the week.

It has to do with how the game distributes dungeons/grinders/point of interests, which are not equally balanced (indoors vs outdoors). The guild can do nothing to mitigate this.

This model only works if the distribution is equal and sufficient content. Killing twice as fast in the open yelds twice the speed of incoming xp, while dealing with half the speed indoors. The net income should be the same. Currently, they will always suffer a net loss of income xp/hour because most of the worthwhile areas are indoors. Therefore, killing speed is irrelevant in outdoor areas because limitation in number of areas, and npc repop/spawntimers.

Dudes, its really not rocketscience.


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mallor
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by mallor » 20 Aug 2017 10:50

Cherek wrote:
Amberlee wrote: Good to hear about scaling.
But.. That was never the real issue.
The real issue is that dragons would be unavailable in most of the games content.
Which in reality removes 50% of the aid then(assuming dragons can't be used inside)
However if you come up with a solution for that.. Then it's all good and a very nice change.
Well, thats easy. How about really really small dragons, that can fit indoors?! Yeah! Solved!

Seriously though, indoor vs outdoor IS a big thing. I remember that from the old days as a knight, when it was OCC+LAY and you could only charge outdoors which basically meant you had no layman power special attack when fighting indoors. Clearly a pretty big drawback. No idea if the charge special made up for that by being twice as good outdoors, as normal layman guild attacks? They were probably changed for a reason though, since knights today seem to be able to charge in most indoor locations, and can have laymans, so obviously less of a concern now. But it used to be a pretty big thing.

Anyway, let's do a balance example. If we just for the sake of it assume 50% of Genesis combat takes place indoors, and 50% outdoors. If one guild does 100 damage both indoors and outdoors, then a guild that does 0 damage indoors would have to do 200 damage outdoor to make up for it. Right?

But what if that guild then decided to only fight outdoors, since they are twice as good as any other guild outside, how does that affect balance? Yes, you have 50% less grinding areas to fight in, but since you make twice the damage, you should theoretically end up with the same XP, since you can clean those areas twice as quick. While, the 100 damage guild can kill anywhere, but does it at half your speed.

And how about PVP. The 100 damage guild always wins indoors, and the 200 damage guild always wins outdoors. And since half the game in this example is indoors, and half the game is outdoors, we've got perfect balance.

This is all theoretically of course, obviously there are a lot more variables in the real game, but yeah, obviously it adds another layer of complexity to balance abilities that only work in certain areas or situations. If all guilds did 100 damage, of the same type, everywhere, the game would be much more balanced. Probably a lot less varied too of course. Genesis has always been a game where we're provided a lot of unique and very different guild experiences, sometimes at the cost of balance.

That said, I don't see why you couldn't balance indoors vs outdoor power in a guild. As long as you give enough benefit outdoors to make up for the lack of power indoors, it should theoretically end up being balanced.
Hence what Nils said about taking caid away from dragons. Either you sacrifice some of the lore accuracy, or you drag yourself into ridiculous considerations, as stated above, also annoying players in process and not achieving a real balance. Keeping things simple is the best way to achieve a real balance.

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Arman
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by Arman » 20 Aug 2017 15:38

Lots of guilds get disadvantages in the name of thematic and roleplay. How many grinding areas do the knights miss out on for alignment restrictions? Or inability to optimise to the best combat race? Or the Union and alcohol consumption?

Anyway. Dragons are part of the dragonarmy damage mix. The guild theme revolves around it, and that isn't going to change. Considering it isn't public knowledge what the current combat aid ratios are, and I don't plan on detailing it or the extent of the changes beyond the vague references I've already provided, you are just going to have to roll with them.

During balance review the AoB team may give some concession to dragon attack damage being outdoor only, but i wouldn't bank on it. Then again they might.

As I have already said - RDA will loose their bleed and autoimpale (to a large degree). Their impale direct damage attack and dragon attack damage will both noticeably increase.

I will implement their changes first so the BDA can contrast and compare. I'll get rid of BDA intimidate and put that aid into their dragon attacks. I'll leave the slash attack alone and see how the changes fare.

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nils
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Re: Dragonarmy revisited

Post by nils » 20 Aug 2017 16:15

Arman wrote: I will implement their changes first so the BDA can contrast and compare. I'll get rid of BDA intimidate and put that aid into their dragon attacks. I'll leave the slash attack alone and see how the changes fare.
Suggestion then, how about, in all fairness, you wait to remove intimidate/dishearten until move behind and rescue are considered part of caid OR give us the possibility to rotate tanks.

It's very powerful after all, and one might consider dishearten our equivalent (REALLY POOR substitute), seeing as Calians and Knights do not suffer loss of combat aid for having said abilities.

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