Balance Melee?

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
Lenefir
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Postby Lenefir » Sat Nov 08, 2003 9:44 am

If you seriously consider removing blur and nerf stone/scales more than some of my eq got nerfed, can I change the class of my enchanter, please?
"Being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you; and if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch [...]. When you do things right, people won't be sure you have done anything at all"
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Areandon
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Postby Areandon » Sat Nov 08, 2003 2:43 pm

I'm getting a bit scared by this discussion. I'm an enchanter and the class i play is defined by scales/blur. If warriors no longer need these spells, i can just as well stop playing that char. It's the only reason I get asked into zones.

Secondly a lot is said about enchanters being able to tank just as well as warriors with blur/scales. If you can tell me how to do that, I would be happy. I have all skills maxed, but I last just about 2 rounds in DS, especially after the eq changes. I can barely tank a lvl 30 mob, so I don't know where you get these ideas from. Of course I'm a newbie and I don't have all this l33t eq, maybe that is why.

What i would suggest here is changing blur/scale/stone to spells that enhance warrior skills, eg blur = dodge + 10%, stone stops 25% of damage, scale 50%, and displace does an additional 10%.

I do agree that hitters are somewhat useless. Rogues get by because they have other functions than to hit, but the rest is not really needed because of the awesome damage of area spells. In order to balance spells/hits i'd say downgrade areas and upgrade hitter damage.
Also I can imagine removing area spells from classes that don't really should have em, for instance enchanters.

I really like Thanuk's idea about the AI though. If warriors are completely dependant on casters it's only fair that it should be the other way around as well.
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Postby Jegzed » Sat Nov 08, 2003 3:41 pm

Re: Areandon

I was enchanter in soj2 and in soj3.. First one to level a drow enchanter to 50 in both incarnation, and first evilrace to ever get dragonscales.

I loved playing enchanter and keeping players protected when I played hardcore.

BUT

its obvious that enchanters are a MAJOR part of the balance problem.

We can live without scales, blur, stone.... Just increase effect of stumble/fumble and similar spells..
/Jegzed - Sorcere Master - Crimson Coalition
Wobb
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Postby Wobb » Sat Nov 08, 2003 3:46 pm

I agree with thanuk in his reply with strong emphasis on the cannot tank without spells part.

Also a note, stoneskin sucks. It needs to prevent damage better. The one thing missing (it seems) from all of this is the number of mobs a tank is tanking.

If a tank is only tanking one mob, then he shouldn't need dragonscales. Given all the skills parry, dodge, shieldblock, etc...by level 50 with great gear and stats, he should be able to hold his own spell-less with the average level 50 mob. this isn't to say he should be able to tank a demon, or a dragon without spells, but another humanoid, you bet.

then the real value of dragonscales comes in. Take manscorps, or second gatehouse, (or any other zone where more than 5 mobs are beating on you at once)....this is where dragonscales should be necessary. A tank, even a great one, will undoubtedly get hit more when being beat upon with 10 hands versus 2, and he will get hit harder.

something, if it doesn't already exist, needs to be added to the whole formula for warrior tanking 1 mob versus 5+.

I see enchanters replying to this thread in fear that they will become useless or "can i roll a different class". It's not a problem. You will always be needed. yes blur and stone/dscale may define your role, because that is how the game has defined tanking. Redefine tanking and you can redefine your role, perhaps allowing you to focus on other spells such as enchanting the mobs etc...

Wobb
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Postby Corth » Sat Nov 08, 2003 4:36 pm

Jegzed wrote:Its easy to balance the mud.

1) Remove all area spells from players.

2) Yank Invokers

3) Yank Enchanters

4) Yank Elementalists

5) Yank Illusionists

6) Bring back Sorcerers... Their role would be to globe, haste, and occasional bigbys, pwb's.

7) Remove stoneskin & dragonscales as concepts.

8) Make warrior SKILL-LEVEL in parry/block/dodge and AC reduce the damage taken.

9) Bring back monks :)


Heh.. then it REALLY would be torilmud.

Merge enchanters and invokers into sorcerors to lose some damage and protection while at the same time creating a well-rounded class. Take away displace from illusionists, and give rogues near-monk like hitting abilities. Sorcerors get stone at 4th circle so they have a protective advantage over elementalists while both classes remain relevant. Increase tanking skills to compensate for the loss of dragonscales and displace. Have cyric remove all those extra HP's he has been adding to mobs over the past year.

Net result: Warriors are no long dependent upon protective spells.. they become more than meat-shields. Invokers lose some damage but get some enchantments and protection... opposite for enchanters. Without invokers, area damage has decreased substantially. Increased rogue and ranger/dire damage makes up for some of this lost casting damage. Decreased difficulty of the mobs makes up for the rest of the lost damage. All casting classes involved remain relevant... melee classes get a nice upgrade. 4th Circle stone makes things easier on newbies.

That ought to solve most of our problems.

Only problem is shev will never admit that his experiment at the beginning of sojourn-2 didn't work. *Poke* Shev.

Corth
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

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Postby Yasden » Sat Nov 08, 2003 10:36 pm

So I guess no one liked any of my ideas at the beginning of the thread then...
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Postby Gyrx » Sat Nov 08, 2003 11:38 pm

Go 'Nuk, loved yer ideas man.

And, being a frequent large and small group zoner as an enchanter, an invoker, and a warrior i can say this:

Given the proper spells a caster can tank about 90% as good as a warrior. Those of you who say this is not true are obviously playing something other then torilmud.
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Postby Marforp » Sun Nov 09, 2003 12:14 am

Jegzed wrote:Its easy to balance the mud.

1) Remove all area spells from players.

2) Yank Invokers

3) Yank Enchanters

4) Yank Elementalists

5) Yank Illusionists

6) Bring back Sorcerers... Their role would be to globe, haste, and occasional bigbys, pwb's.

7) Remove stoneskin & dragonscales as concepts.

8) Make warrior SKILL-LEVEL in parry/block/dodge and AC reduce the damage taken.

9) Bring back monks :)


Bah! I know you know better Jegzed!!! A real sorc would never be caught dead casting bigbys. It's pris all the way!!!!

Marforp
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Postby Tanji Smanji » Sun Nov 09, 2003 1:58 am

Pris was for wussy group helpin sorcs. Bigby's was for badass damage dealin sorcs.
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some questions to think about

Postby irta » Sun Nov 09, 2003 2:58 am

1) Do you think that pets shouldn't lose any comparitive strength (keeping in mind that ele pets are usually stoned if stone is no longer around)

2) xp tables are now much easier for melee classes then for classes. If melee classes become "in balance" with casters then do you envision us going to a single xp table in the future?

3) don't see a shortage of melee classes being asked to zone (albeit not all classes evenly). How do you see the balancing of melee affecting the constitution of a group?

the Irta
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Postby Stamm » Sun Nov 09, 2003 4:01 am

In the United Kingdom the governement is using a significant amount of their parliamentary might to push through a bill banning fox hunting.

Now, while we might say over here that there are far more important things for them to be doing....

One of the major reasons against it is "But 1000's of people employed by the fox hunting community (dog handlers, etc etc) will lose their jobs. Now to me that is not a convincing arguement. Just because something is wrong the people benefiting from it being wrong complaining they will lose out of it..... Nah. Doesn't swing my opinion.
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Postby omrec » Sun Nov 09, 2003 8:00 am

I miss bigbys, but I miss swarm more. I was very sad when I found out that sorcs got split into two classes, I wouldn't mind them being put back together. But the vokers probably would mind..:P

Back when all we had was stone, we had to work damn hard to keep the tanks stoned, cause it dropped so fast. Now, with scales and blur, I just sit and prism for a while, checking scales only once in a while (except in a real zone, and then you still have to check). Getting rid of scales/blur/inferno all at once would sure even things out. Of course, some zones would become all-but-impossible, which might actually be fun.

But it'll never happen. Too many vokers that just want to do damage, not actually have to spell people up..:) Some vokers could make the switch, but a lot of them don't really know how to play a sorc (or they really don't want to) So think of some other fix.

Oh, and btw thanuk, the idea that a 50th level warrior should be able to tank non-spelled _better_ than someone whose skin is made of dragonscales (or stone), is ridiculous. They should be able to dodge damage a lot better, but if they get hit, it should HURT. The problem is in how long scales lasts, and how blur/displace keeps even casters from getting hit. Cut the number of hits that stone/scales/displace can take in half. Get rid of blur. Displace I'm not sure about, but maybe get rid of it too..:P Fast chipping scales/stone, up tanking skills, drop blur/displace. Would fix defense side. I would have to work harder during fights, but less hard before them...:)

As corth suggested in another thread, nerf spell damage accross the board, that fixes the offense side. Might have to drop mob hps or increase hitter damage though, if you do that.

-Om

Oh, and when you cut the number of "chips" that stone/scales can take, double their duration (time-wise)..:) Cause i'm lazy.
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Postby Delmair Aamoren » Sun Nov 09, 2003 8:44 pm

The idea of bringing sorcerers back as a blend of enchanters and invokers sounds good to me! As it is the biggest complaint of enchanters is that they have little or no offense and it's a bitch to level. invokers have precisely the opposite problem. A common ground would be beneficial to both, and also to the mud as a whole, as with a smaller player base we now have a class that can do one or the other as needed
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Postby Joth » Sun Nov 09, 2003 10:17 pm

Well Shevarash,

I am not sure 100% ALL THE MELEE classes are broken. But I know certain classes are sought after more then others, for zoning; and those classes that are not sought after for zoning, are the classes that need work.

I think, and this is just my opinion, the main focus should be a reason for a group of players wanting a certain class in their group for the benefit that they bring, and to create an ideal 15 person group of:

5 Melee: Warrior, Paladin/Anti, rogue, ranger/dire:
Depending on your need you could bring another warrior for tanking, or paladin for little less tanking but extra damage, or a rogue for more melee damage.

5 Healing: Cleric, Druid (!Evils), Shaman, Bard
Anyone one of these classes you could have a 2nd of in the group, most chose clerics or shaman, and then probably a bard.

5 Mages: Invokers, Elementalist, Illusionist, Enchanter, and Necro/Lich

In order for this to happen, every class should have a SOLID UNIQUE SKILLS, OR ABILITIES. The classes could even be tiered. This doesn’t mean that one classes is better then another just that when you are forming a group you look for these classes first.

Tier 1: Warrior, cleric – bread and butter of all the classes

Tier 2: Enchanter, Invoker

Tier 3: Shaman, Rogue, Bard, Illusionist, Elementalist, Paladins/Anti (Due to changes)

Tier 4: Druid, Necro

Tier 5: Rangers


Finally a number of people are talking about combining enchanter invoker to sorc. I see this is fine, but I think the elemenalist is the new incarnation of this.

Tiers 1-3 are fine; Tier 4 group could have a little more work done on them, in creating a solid niche. Finally Tier 5 needs to be re-looked at again and create a niche for this class.

The other thing is a class can be balance and still not get grouped. A good example is the ranger, skill wise they are balance, but not effectively grouped.

I don’t agree with majority of Thanuk post, because it would reduce the role of casters (mage types) in the group. Hell, he might even say that warriors or melee don’t tank well enough, so they don’t need healing J. What I do agree with is the comment of rogue/rangers, an invoker doing 500 point of damage to multi-mobs, and the rangers and rogues doing double that to a single target; in addition a warrior might actually do like 10% more damage to the mob, then an invoker, 1 handing, with riposte skill. Finally area makers might want to put in an extra 3 different shields, some that proc healing, some that do damage, some that do some debuffing.

Most people want to their class to do other skills/abilities to the point where they become better solo-ers, or high self-sufficient IE: Invokers wanting more utility, enchanters/clerics wanting more damage spells, warriors wanting to rely less on casters. Why do melee need haste items? I remember at the beginning of sojourn 3 main reason for this was to make SPELLS actually mean something and usefulness. So in my opinion I think haste items is a bad idea. I think it was smart to take away stone from the holy avenger. If this is what people want, they should be playing a single player computer games, or a game that is less social.

Also I think players need to look at the range of abilities and skills and spells.

Should warriors do more damage then paladins even though they can tank better?
Should a ranger tank just a well as warrior, or better then a paladin?
Should an enchanter do more damage then invoker or an Elementalist?
Should an invoker have more or equal utility spells then an elementalist or enchanter?


Personally, I just want to see the classes get grouped effectively, so that the admins of this game can focus on things like guildhall systems, economy system, and possibly inter-class relationship system. To be honest, and to give credit to the admins they are close; they just need to rework rangers mainly. Druids are fine, I just think they should have another type of healing spell like regeneration, and I tried to address Necro/lich thing but I am not sure what is going on with that.

As to rangers, I was going to create a thread specific to them. They would still dual, but they would probably gravitate to archery. With new abilities and skills like multi-shot, and procing arrows. I could see a ranger doing 0.9 or 0.8 of the damage of a rogue to a single target, but doing area damage of 0.3 or 0.25 of an invoker with certain skills. And with rogues doing twice to single target then invokers can.

It would be nice to see greater amount of different among the melee classes, where warriors are more shield/sword, anti/paladins 2handers, and rogue the dual wielders, then finally the rangers using bows. But again I will create a whole thread to address the issues with rangers.

Elementalists have too much, and I know others think the same thing. One of primary spells should be removed is power word blind; and another thing is interesting they have both feeble-mind and ice tongue? They shouldn’t have both at least take away feeble mind. Beyond that I am not sure, but if PWB was remove it would bring them inline with other mage types. And they still have embodiment, ward, haste, stone.
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Postby Sesexe » Mon Nov 10, 2003 4:23 am

...
Last edited by Sesexe on Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mishre
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Postby Mishre » Mon Nov 10, 2003 4:24 am

I agree.. all inbalances are due to Enchanters/Invokers... its a failed experiment.. bring back monks/sorc's.... oh.. and make it so barbarian/dwarf warriors can solo as well as trolls.. trolls are bastards.. or make all mobs now hit with fire damage... that'd be better.. also.. all characters named Mishri should have +1000 hps +45hit/dam -1000ac..

3nj0y.

:shock:
:twisted:
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Postby Sesexe » Mon Nov 10, 2003 5:03 am

...
Last edited by Sesexe on Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tuga
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Postby Tuga » Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:22 am

Hmmm Are we'll sugesting to get warriors out of the draw and putting enchanters in it? ;)

Can I change my Enchanter to a Warrior plz?

put it this way if we have an 8 and sundenly everyone asks for an 80 there isnt any balance in that! please ask for a 44!

Cheerz

Tuga the Sunless Troll
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Postby Elseenas » Mon Nov 10, 2003 9:01 am

Sesexe wrote:Over the years the Mage classes on this mud have evolved. The melee classes have not. THIS is why the melee classes suffer. It's their stagnation. They need to evolve as well.

Look beyond the end of your nose.


Well put, though I don't think evolving the melee classes is the cure-all, I do think that the best part of the best solution lies in that idea.
Lenefir
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Postby Lenefir » Mon Nov 10, 2003 11:03 am

I have nothing against melee players being more useful (as if they aren't now :P), tank better, do more damage and whatnot (I have a couple of low level melee characters myself :P), but what I fail to understand is how reducing effectivity/removing blur/displace/stone and/or scale is going to help melee players with this... As I see it, all you're going to achieve is a lot of people dying a lot more, but I suppose that is what some of you really want :P And it only addresses the defensive part. It won't help a single bit with your offensive ability.

And from my (perhaps limited experience) the tanking and solo ability for a spellcaster fully spelled up (with spells within their spell repertoire) really depends on spellcaster's ac and hp, the level and classes of the mob, and the number of mobs. One level 50 mob I can basically solo, if
1) I can flee (or retreat if I had a pet that could survive long enough) out to remem and the mob doesn't (global) track.
2) It doesn't crit or proc me every other round. Yes, scales (as far as I have understood) only prevent hits below a certain damage (usually meaning only crits get through) but it doesn't help me a freaking bit to be scaled if the mob hit right through it.

As a melee player, 1 shouldn't be of that much concern, and as for 2, your defensive skills should help you avoid many of the blows I get as a mage. If this is not the case, then perhaps you should tune your thoughts and ideas on how to enhance that? Though, once getting hit without scale/stone should to a certain degree hurt. And it certainly does for me. Why do you think most spellcasters prefer to wear hp? :P The only way I see a warrior being able to solo the same is if you do more damage each round than you take. Basically, your defensive skills would have to be sufficient enough to avoid many/most blows, and your offensive skills good enough to get through the mob's defenses.

In most cases where spellcasters have soloed what you couldn't do as melee, you have to remember that spellcasters don't tend to stand in the room getting pounced on all the time. We cast a spell or two or five, flee, heal up/respell before reentering, and only !pet or tracking mobs in a zone full of aggros could probably prevent that from happening. And in those zones, I would believe people rarely do stuff solo anyway.

When there are several assisting (level 50) mobs, I usually get smacked down faster than I can do damage to them, meaning, unless I have a pocket cleric or two, I might as well forget it before even considering it, and then it's not solo any longer.

Oh, and for instance, take a look at Crumar's log from Hulburg http://www.torilmud.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12468. He was only scaled, no vit, blur or displace. Now imagine, as some as you seems to be wanting, that to remove blur, and downgrade displace, stone and scale is the solution to balance melee. Do you think he would have survived as long as he did, or do you think he would he have died before the rest of the group entered? One thing is how well a mage can tank with vit, scale, blur, displace, but I'll bet you warriors can tank better, as they should, with the same spells. In my opinion you should try looking at your defensive (and offensive) skills and abilities instead of concentrating too much on defensive (and offensive) spells (not saying that some of spells may be out of whack compared to other stuff) and separate doing things solo as compared to doing things in a group. First when you have done that, -I- will listen (not necessarily agree) to you when you come and say that scale in it's current form is too good.

And as I said before, if you remove blur and downgrade/remove scale, you might as well remove the enchanter class and let me choose another one. All the other unique enchanter spells that might be used in a combat (necros have ray), collide with spells you hitters like to have, and the non-unique (as from the word) the other classes already have.

And someone smack me for even writing this when I know I'm going to get bashed *sigh* (Speaking of that, if I'm bashable and not shielded in the arena, a warrior will beat the crap out of an enchanter any day.)
"Being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you; and if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch [...]. When you do things right, people won't be sure you have done anything at all"

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Postby Joth » Mon Nov 10, 2003 1:10 pm

Another suggestion would be to downgrade mob hp by like 20-30% and reduce caster damage by the same amount. Net effect would be that melee classes hit and damage would go up, with out any eq change or rebalancing.

Now the tanking abilities: a possibility would be to reduce the effectiveness of spells. IE, a tank with full spells on them is 100% tanking effectiveness= 60% from spells, and 40% tank skills, lets just say; you could change he ratio to 40% spells and 60% skills.

Finally people are complaining about caster getting over 1k or close to a 1k hp. A way to reduce this is bring back mana. There would still be circle and a number of slots. But when you were mana eq instead of having say 6 slots of 7th circle you could get 7 or 8 slots depending on the points of extra mana.

So mana equipment would be the equilant to hit/damage, and both casters and melee have to choose how much of both they want.

One thing I fail to understand though is why people want stone potions, haste items and such. If you want to rely less on spells why have things items?
Last edited by Joth on Mon Nov 10, 2003 1:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Corth » Mon Nov 10, 2003 1:24 pm

Lenefir:

The point is to get rid of some of the extra protective spells in order to justify increasing tanking skills. There should be no net difference when all is said and done. I don't think people are advocating making the game harder... or for that matter, eassier. They're just suggesting we try to balance the power a bit.

While each class relies upon others to an extent, as it stands, the tanking classes are way too dependent now upon enchanters and illusionists. Likewise, the hitting classes cant get a group because the damage they do is inconsequential.

There are three ways to resolve that problem. First, you could simply increase the skills of the unbalanced classes, and then go add mobs and hitpoints to mobs in order to keep the mud from becoming too easy. Likewise, you could decrease the skills of the overpowered classes, and then find that many zones become too difficult to complete. The last option, which most people seem to be advocating, is to increase the skills of the underpowered classes, and at the same time, decrease that of the more powerful classes. I think its pretty obvious what the best choice is.

Corth
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth



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Postby Pheten » Mon Nov 10, 2003 2:18 pm

The hard part comes when said change is made making sure that everything is still balanced, while people argue that it is not balanced right now, and I agree, it isnt as bad as it could be. Wether you realize it or not balance is what makes a game fun, especially this one, make melee too strong and casters too weak and we have the same situation just reveresed (see old sorc and monk days) it's a touchy bit of work that the admins can't just slap together at the blink of an eye, but hopefully it's being looked into. =)

-phet
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Postby thanuk » Mon Nov 10, 2003 3:08 pm

omrec wrote:Oh, and btw thanuk, the idea that a 50th level warrior should be able to tank non-spelled _better_ than someone whose skin is made of dragonscales (or stone), is ridiculous.


No Omrec, the idea that one spell, be it dragonscales or stone, could be more effective at stopping melee damage then my entire arsenal of defensive abilities is the rediculous one. Unfortunately, it's also the one in effect right now.

Sesexe wrote:Over the years the Mage classes on this mud have evolved. The melee classes have not. THIS is why the melee classes suffer. It's their stagnation. They need to evolve as well.


What you fail to realize is that the mage classes have evolved by taking away from the melee classes. On toril, almost all the damage came from melee, as well as all the tanking ability, the ability to stop casting, and the ability to sneak/hide, ninjaing if you will. Since then, those skills have slowly been drawn over to the caster side (which needed to happen, since melee was overpowered on toril), but it went way too far, to the point where we are at the exact opposite end of the spectrum now on torilMUD or toril2 or whatever the fark u want to call it. We need to land somewhere in the middle.
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Postby Dizzin » Mon Nov 10, 2003 11:21 pm

I figure it's fairly simple. Remove all area spells except inferno, swarm, cloud, and possibly pris. Reduce magic damage across the board by 20%. Increase hit/dam about the same amount (what everyone thought this eq change was *supposed* to do). Reduce scale/stone/displace/blur effectiveness around 20%, increase tank skills(read: NOT warrior-classed mobs) to compensate.

Although, frankly, I'd much rather you just removed rangers and/or invokers. I think that would get rid of about 90% of the whining.
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Postby Thilindel » Mon Nov 10, 2003 11:36 pm

Dizzin wrote:Although, frankly, I'd much rather you just removed rangers and/or invokers. I think that would get rid of about 90% of the whining.


So what would you offer those who are playing them now??
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Postby Corth » Mon Nov 10, 2003 11:42 pm

Thilindel wrote:
Dizzin wrote:Although, frankly, I'd much rather you just removed rangers and/or invokers. I think that would get rid of about 90% of the whining.


So what would you offer those who are playing them now??


The opportunity to level up a real class!

*duck*
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth



Goddamned slippery mage.
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Postby Mishre » Mon Nov 10, 2003 11:55 pm

Sesexe wrote:
Mishre wrote:I agree.. all inbalances are due to Enchanters/Invokers... its a failed experiment.. bring back monks/sorc's.... oh.. and make it so barbarian/dwarf warriors can solo as well as trolls.. trolls are bastards.. or make all mobs now hit with fire damage... that'd be better.. also.. all characters named Mishri should have +1000 hps +45hit/dam -1000ac..


Over the years the Mage classes on this mud have evolved. The melee classes have not. THIS is why the melee classes suffer. It's their stagnation. They need to evolve as well.

Look beyond the end of your nose.


should i have started that off saying Im being sarcastic? i thought it was obvious i was... but i guess ppl think i actually think thats the way things should be :P well.. i don't really think we should get rid of any classes..
we are talking about fixing Melee here not what classes you'd like to see added/removed.. we mostly just need more melee damage and less spell damage.. but not so bad that rogues/rangers/dires can deal more damage than an invoker.. invokers should do the most damage.. but its out of whack right now.. melee fighters just need more damage.. and id like to see tanks being able to survive w/o spells for a few rounds in a big fight.. (in a small fight heals should be enough.. ofcourse it would be easier with displace/scales/blur)... so 99 dodge would be help quite a bit i think.. and i dunno whatelse.. to increase defense capabilities.. maybe just have parry/dodge/shieldblock hit slightly more often.. not too much more.. i don't want to be instopabable.. ;)
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Postby Tuga » Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:57 am

What about allowing only warriors/paladorks/antis go bellow the -100AC cap, increase their dodge skill to 99 at 50. This way they might still be able to tank better for 4-6 rounds in big fights and tank a mob to death that is bellow them in level without spells.

For this to happen ye'll have to review all the 'warrior only' eq and increase the AC on it.
We want warrior bellow -200AC :shock:

Leave the protective spells alone coz ye are all still gonna need them for big fights and for allowing mage types to live longer when switched to.

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Postby old depok » Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:34 pm

Tuga - What you, and many others, fail to realize is that as soon as you make tanks better you make rogues and rangers worse. Anything you do to help tanks you do to help mobs.
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Postby Tuga » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:58 pm

Hi old depok - I havent failed to realize that hitters in the current new system actually suck a bit.

I didnt even mention hitters in my post, but as many already have said on this thread, have 'em rangers,dire,rogues make about as much damage to a single mob as an invoker does.

So say that a 50 level warrior can tank a level 49 mob for say 20 rounds with their new set of defensive skills, now a ranger only can tank that same mob for 10 rounds, surely if they do twice as much damage, the mob is gonna die anywayz rite?

Also, we cant look at things as black/white as i put it above, coz the ranger can flee, heal him/her self a few and go back in ;) warriors wouldnt be able to do that.

I got a level 46 rogue with useless hit/dam after the changes and I still can kill(not tank)solo a level 40 warrior type mob. just by doing :apply poison:sneak:hide:backstab:escape:repeat:

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Postby othelil » Wed Nov 12, 2003 12:45 am

thanuk wrote:No Omrec, the idea that one spell, be it dragonscales or stone, could be more effective at stopping melee damage then my entire arsenal of defensive abilities is the rediculous one. Unfortunately, it's also the one in effect right now.


Actually, I'm really going to have to disagree with you there. It is not only a reasonable idea, it's the correct one. Let's quote the enchanter help file, shall we?

help enchanter wrote:Enchanters are spellcasters who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of great and powerful magic. . . . [E]nchanters have created some of the best protection spells in the world, to both keep themselves and their fellow classes free of harm.


What you're trying to convince me of is that a warrior's skills are a more formidable defense than the most powerful protective magic in the world. This logic is flawed for a wide variety of reasons.

First of all, magic is intended to be more powerful than what can normally be achieved without it. That's sort of the "point." To compensate, however, magic has many limitations that normal abilities do not. Aside from being forced to quest for these most powerful of protective spells, magic lasts for limited durations after which it must be renewed and casters must memorize their spells repeatedly to continue being able to provide their protection (among other limitations like the frailty of the caster).

"Normal" abilities have no such limitations. If normal abilities, which are in use 100% of the time and never "fall," were better than the best protective magics in the world, why would a spellcaster waste their life studying for these abilities? I certainly wouldn't. If the culmination of my life studies resulted in a spell that was so weak that the defense of a warrior was greater than it, why would I waste my time?

The point is, because magic has so many limitations and requirements on it, it is by nature intended to be more potent than what can normally be achieved. The argument works the same for rogue damage that was talked about earlier.

Thanuk wrote:A rogue should do a ton of damage. Melee cant area, so no single target spell should do more damage than a rogue can do in the casting time.


It is true that area damage is important, and it is true that melee damage should be important. But what you have to remember is that invokers can only cast so many spells before they must memorize them again. A rogue can consistently do damage until they die. Partially because of these restrictions, and partially because casters are supposed to be weak characters with magnificently powerful abilities, invokers should do more damage in all areas than a rogue.

If rogues could do more damage than an invoker in one round, you wouldn't need invokers for any zone that doesn't involve extremely large fights. Do you know what 12 (one enchanter, one cleric, one warrior, twelve rogues?) force missile spells per round for indefinite periods would do to any group of mobs, let alone single mob fights? Fighting dragons would be simply ridiculous.

Invoker spells are supposed to be hideously powerful because they only have so many, they're weak little buggers, they can't do anything else, etc etc etc. Casters in general, but especially invokers, have many restrictions placed on them to provide the power they have. If a rogue wanted to do invoker level damage, they should have been an invoker. Then they could lose the ability to sneak/hide, lose their defensive abilities (however worthless they are now is not the point), lose trip and other nice abilities, lower their hitpoints, and turn them in to one trick damage machines.

That's what an invoker is. They can do damage, and that's basically it. And in return, what do they get? Very low hitpoints, no defensive skills, and a bullseye on their head (if mobs were intelligent). Rogues can't expect to get nice skills and hp and do invoker level damage, single target or not. Casters will always specialize in area damage, but that does not negate the fact that invokers at least should still do more single target damage than any other class out there. Whether rogues should do more damage than constriction or such may be up in the air, but I still say no (9'th circle spell, still supposed to be very powerful, still have a max of 5 of them - gimme a break, do we understand what magic is supposed to be?).

And come on, seriously, what is this "warriors are completely reliant on casters" bit? DUH. And tell me how many invokers go out soloing? Maybe we should increase the damage of invoker spells so they aren't so reliant on tanks, clerics, and chanters (because they can destroy a dragon in one spell). The more focused classes (cleric, warrior, invoker, enchanter) are supposed to be essentially one trick ponies that rely on other classes to complement their abilities.

Less focused classes (elementalist, paladin, druid) give up potency in one particular area for a broader set of abilities. They're never supposed to be as good in any of their areas as the core classes, but their well roundedness makes them better soloers because they can do more without other classes to complement them. These are called tradeoffs. And by the way, the tradeoff for being a warrior is being an incredibly great meatshield and not so hot on the damage. It's the exact opposite of an invoker in case you hadn't noticed. You can't ask for the best defensive skills and some really nice damage.

What you can argue, and what I would support, is that warriors do not do well enough tanking _with spells_ compared to other classes. Let's face it, without spells it's no contest. You may feel a bit slighted in tanking, but take a mob your level and put it against a caster your level and you, both without spells. Guess who's going to die a whole lot faster? It's obvious you tank better, so your real complaint is you want to tank even better and somehow tank better with spells on than any other class with spells on.

I think this is reasonable. However, I do NOT think that you, without spells, should be able to tank better than a fully spelled up mage for a very small number of rounds. That is my opinion. That mage is under the effect of half a dozen of the most powerful spells available in this world, and having those spells available requires the assembly of half a dozen of the most powerful mages in the world. Those spells are his protection. If a warrior alone, unaided, has more protection than that the wizards might as well all quit now.

I DO agree that if you and the mage, both equally spelled up, tanked an identical mob you should do a much better job of it. That is where I think the changes need to happen. But asking to tank better than an enchanter can make someone tank is asking to have the advantages of an enchanter without the disadvantages. That enchanter gave up a lot to be able to confer that protection because conferring protection on people is just about all they can do. They don't have defensive skills or many hitpoints.

What you want is the hitpoints and the insane tanking ability (and much better damage, which I don't think I'll bother touching - just no). This shouldn't happen. But yes, please make warriors tank better than mages spelled. This just means their skills mean something. But do not remove the tradeoffs of picking your favored class, especially with the core classes. Each class needs their role, and if you pick a class that has no diversity then you need to know and appreciate your role. If you want more diversity, pick a different class.

(btw, I am all for a damage upgrade with rangers/rogues, but we need to remember their role is sustained damage and not higher quick damage than casters)


Ideas for making this happen.

Change dragonscale to a variable amount of damage absorbed instead of hits. In the same amount of time, mages take far more damage than tanks so a tank with dragonscales would fare far better than a mage. If you want to be cruel to mages, you could set it up so that the average length a dragonscales stays on a tank is what it is now, which means that a dscales on a mage would last a pitifully short amount of time.

Increase the ability of warriors to reduce and avoid damage without making it as insane as Thanuk wants. Warriors should be good at it (just not that good). Tied with the above dragonscales change, this will help immensely even in spelled situations

Alter displace to make a check against defensive skills. If the warrior makes his displaced image dodge an attack (which we assume this masterful tank could do), then his position has not become easier to pinpoint. In other words, only what would have been successful hits should chip at displace.

Blur needs some changes, but I don't have a great idea what. Really I think that if blur makes someone harder to hit then let's say a mage's "hittability" is 80 and it goes to 50, then a warrior's "hittability" if it is normally 40 should go to 10. Quantifying the defensive skill impact would be rough, but my thought is that it should be a linear improvement for any class so it makes everyone harder to hit by the same amount. Or you could use a percentage impact to avoid characters that should be impossible to hit.

There are some basic ideas for solving the problem.
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Postby Gura » Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:21 am

im gonna say a couple things here i guess. for one thanuk is right. we(warriors) need less dependency on spells for tanking. its sad how weak we are, even with troll regen, and frankly its disappointing. and well yea im gonna agree that something needs to be done. invokers need to lose most of their target spells or lose most of their areas to at least make melee count for something. as sslarris said, "the art of targetting is dead" and welp he's damn right. i swear the last time it mattered when 3 warriors all targetted the same mob was hrm...not this wipe.
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Postby Sesexe » Wed Nov 12, 2003 2:29 am

...
Last edited by Sesexe on Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby thanuk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:18 am

Othilel,

I have played a warrior here since sojourn 1. In that time, our role has gone from tanking to damage to tanking to damage to tanking to damage to tanking. So don't tell me what my role is, because you don't know it.


Otherwise, play a warrior. Go roll one. Play it up till level 50. Then go tank a hard zone. Then, when blur runs out and you die from 1 shot through your -100 ac, 99 defensive skills, and 1400 hps, explain to me that its okay, because a mage studied really hard how to figure out how to cast dragonscales, so something he can mem in 28 seconds should be more important than the skills and hps and armor that took you months to acquire.

Till then, blow it out your ass, because you have no right to even join this discussion. It's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about. Bad enough you make a fool of yourself, but you talk down to me like im some kind of idiot while doing so? I'd just erase that post if I were you, and save a little face.
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Postby Dlur » Wed Nov 12, 2003 4:50 am

My ideas:

1) Remove blur

2) Up tank skills by 20%

3) lower rogue/ranger hitroll requirements (modify thac0)

4) Lower displace's affect by 30%

5) Remove all but one area spell from all classes other than invokers. Let invokers keep incediary cloud and meteor swarm and loose all other area spells.

6) Make dragonscales 20% better on average but have it require a spell component, namely a dragon scale. Have the level of the dragon the scale was gotten from modify the strength of the spell such that a faerie dragon scale might only protect 20% of what current dscales does and a scale from tiamat would protect 200% better than what dscales currently does. Then you've actually got a reason to have dragons running around the realms everywhere, and you can put scales in chests at the end of zones in the treasure haul.

7) Make 2handed weapons do more damage since you loose defensive skills when wielding one. Since antis and paladins have less hps to start with this helps compensate for that by allowing them to do more damage while tanking comparable to a warrior. No 5d4 2h weapons.

8) Allow for a possible (although not consistant) extra attack for all hitter classes at around level 40 or so.

9) Lower stun rate of stunning spells by around 35% and increase stun rate of shieldpunch by around 40%

10) If you're going to balance melee, try to not downgrade melee equipment. Upgrade it instead on average. Melees are the only classes that truly depend on equipment. Casters could for all intents and purposes zone naked if dragonscaled all the time and didn't get area spelled.
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Postby Kaede » Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:27 am

I agree with a lot of people here. Definately though I think we should:

1. Downgrade high circle (7th) spell damage and protective spells (blur, scales, displace, etc) by 20%. Low level casters have it tough and their spells don't do too much so no need to downgrade.
2. Increase tank skills slightly, perhaps also more half-damage ratios.
3. Increase role of hitroll so that high hitrolls have much better chance of bypassing defense and landing. Since I think I heard somewhere that mobs don't really utilize hitroll, this would probably help player melee more instead of increasing mob melee. Might have to lower THAC0 cause its quite hard right now to get high hitrolls while maintaining respectable damrolls.
4. Upgrade melee eq!
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Postby irta » Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:51 am

Kaede wrote:Increase role of hitroll so that high hitrolls have much better chance of bypassing defense and landing. Since I think I heard somewhere that mobs don't really utilize hitroll, this would probably help player melee more instead of increasing mob melee. Might have to lower THAC0 cause its quite hard right now to get high hitrolls while maintaining respectable damrolls.


If melee classes are to be feared more then they are today then melee class NPCs need to be fearsome as well. I dislike it when PCs and NPCs have stuff and the mobs don't (i.e. inferno). None of this, give it to us and not the mobs junk.

I do understand that it's difficult to for example, upgrade tank's defensive abilities knowing that this in turn upgrades mob's defensive abilities, making the tank's ability to dish out damage even less. Or up the tank's damage and get hit harder in return. Some solutions would be to remove warrior classification from a lot of caster mobs or lower warrior level on mobs globally a few levels (save for a few nasty ones). Regardless, this is going to have a big effect on zones (second round of equip changes anyone?)

the Irta
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Postby Ambar » Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:59 am

irta wrote:
Kaede wrote:Increase role of hitroll so that high hitrolls have much better chance of bypassing defense and landing. Since I think I heard somewhere that mobs don't really utilize hitroll, this would probably help player melee more instead of increasing mob melee. Might have to lower THAC0 cause its quite hard right now to get high hitrolls while maintaining respectable damrolls.


If melee classes are to be feared more then they are today (and they are feared in cases, for example, djinni assassin in smoke invasion), then melee class NPCs need to be fearsome as well. I dislike it when PCs and NPCs have stuff and the mobs don't (i.e. inferno). None of this, give it to us and not the mobs junk.

the Irta


head hurts now thanks :)

the assassin you mention is an NPC melee class ... err ... did i read that statement wrong??

we are PC's
mobs are NPC's

Player Character
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Postby Orku » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:01 am

Heres my thoughts on it
Dires/Rangers with archery, have a roomshoot, only up to three arrows, have to be a command like afire room, for when areas are good in fights, sends one of your three arrows to a different mob in the room, or something like, Fire on primary target, fire secondary, and fire third, each reducing in damage, and chances to hit.

Rogues have them give the able to circle mobs tehy are not engaged in? don't know if they can do this now, never played a rogue, so if they can sorry i brought this up. Maybe let them attack two targets arround, also splitting up there hits, with one primary and then secondary like on archery, but keep it at two.

Thats my two cents, might be good or i just might be incredibly stupid, both are possible.
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Postby omrec » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:03 am

thanuk wrote:Otherwise, play a warrior. Go roll one. Play it up till level 50. Then go tank a hard zone. Then, when blur runs out and you die from 1 shot through your -100 ac, 99 defensive skills, and 1400 hps, explain to me that its okay, because a mage studied really hard how to figure out how to cast dragonscales, so something he can mem in 28 seconds should be more important than the skills and hps and armor that took you months to acquire.


Only takes 9 seconds to mem a dragonscales. 0 if our staves auto-mem it for us..:P I feel for you though, tanked several 8-10 mob fights in seelie the other night, and whenever my spells dropped, I'd get incap (thank goodness for death pact). With spells up, I got crit, but I could survive.

Ignoring the sexy/othelil sidespiel (Only minor side note, think about how much harder it is to level a mage. If they are only the equal of the melee classes, then make them easier to level, dammit), I think you're right about a lot of things Thanuk. I've played both mages and warriors here since the original Toril, so I know what you're talking about. Warriors are far too useless without spells, I agree.


We really should be focusing on two separate issues:

1) Fix defense (with respect to the balance between skills and spells needed to tank).

2) Fix offense (with respect to the balance between spell damage and melee damage).

Most of this is from other posts, just trying to consolidate it. I think the important thing to remember is that each class has a balance between defense and offense and utility. In fact, it is even more complicated than that, because there are different types of offense, and defense, and utility (area vs. target, combat utility, non-combat utility, etc). All of this has to be balanced so that each class at least feels mildly useful, but that is a separate issue.

1) Defense.
a) Remove blur. Throw it away. I hate the short duration, I hate having to cast it, get rid of it. Alternatively, remove displace, give blur to illusionists, give blur displace-like duration.
b) Change how scales/stone works. Increase duration, decrease chip amount. Or, change to a damage-taken base rather than a hit-taken base.
c) Increase the defensive abilities of all defensive skills. Make defense more useful than it is.
d) Make AC easier for warriors to get, harder for other classes to get. I think the eq changes helped in this regard, at least for my own sets of gear. But make it even more extreme.

2) Offense.
a) Reduce spell damage by 25%
b) Increate melee damage by 25%
c) Give rangers some extra skills. There was a good thread on the old board, someone dig it up and give it some thought. Related to this was the fact that missile shield is just so ranged damage doesn't work. Not like PCs use it. Make it less useful than it is.
d) Reduce thac0 for rangers/rogues/warriors.
e) Reduce the point cost (in the eq system) of damage from being 2 hit to being just 1 hit.
f) Replace some of the existing spells with spells that lower a mobs defensive ability. Like fumble/stumble/enervate. Make these useful in real battles (as in, hit more frequently, have significant effects). Basically, the equivalent of flux for MR, we need X for removing mob defense ability (which was increased when we increased our own defensive abilities)
g) Screw increasing the stun rate of shieldpunch, just make it always do a short duration stun (like charge does). Have a %chance to do a longer duration stun, or extra damage or something.


What else can we do to fix these issues? Is this a fair summary of what we should be doing? Doesn't anybody strongly disagree with this plan? At least as a starting point?

-Om
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Postby Vahok » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:04 am

I love my enchanters who can keep me alive. I love my fellow warriors who feel my pain when those spells drop.

I understand both sides of the coin in this thread. But casters don't understand the hopeless of a warriors situation. I mean, bear in mind, we do little damage, rely on one major skill (rescue), and are forced to wear fugly caster gear to remain "zonable" (ie. polkadot cloak). Oh yeah, and the fact our skills, experience, and eq mean shit when scales drop. Tanking in big fight today, I dropped mid round when scales dropped.

Mid round. I think that is awful for both sides of the coin. Enchanters can't do their main job (protecting people) and warriors are so lacking we get dropped in .05 seconds.

I honestly tried to think of a solution to make warriors happy and not piss off the enchanters at the same time. I think maybe the key is to make them less reliant on each other. More self protection spells for enchanters (major globe), a touch more effects type spells but shorter duration of stone/scales/blur whatever. At the same time, better tanking skills, increased melee for others because if you up a player defence, probably mobs will too. Rogues shouldn't have to worry about if a hitroll of 30 can hit a mob. Give enchanters a chance to hang in the fight on their own a bit more, and warriors a chance to live on their own. Downgrade the importance of rescue?

Shrug, just random thoughts...

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Postby Ensis » Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:05 am

100% what Nuk said.


Iyachtu wrote:I'm kind of fond of the D&D spell Improved Haste. It wouldn't significantly improve caster number of melee attacks, but would strengthen the damage of the real melees significantly.


No offense, but adding a new spell to fix melee would piss off most if not all non-casters.
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Postby Mishre » Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:14 am

Ensis wrote:100% what Nuk said.


Iyachtu wrote:I'm kind of fond of the D&D spell Improved Haste. It wouldn't significantly improve caster number of melee attacks, but would strengthen the damage of the real melees significantly.


No offense, but adding a new spell to fix melee would piss off most if not all non-casters.


yeah.. what about making a warrior/rogue only item that is haste.. that stacks with haste.. same amount of casting for chanters.. extra damage fer us.. oh well.. guess stacking spells isn't what ppl want either.. but thought id bring it up again anyway heh :P
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Some thoughts on gameplay and game balance

Postby Elseenas » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:57 am

Games. Games are not movies which you sit and watch, though those can be fun, games are about choices and decisions. Anytime a decision is forced which excludes a certain option, that option should not be in the game in the first place or should be modified to make it look attractive. Some examples of this comes from Age of Empires II: No one uses infantry, therefore infantry should not be considered as an option. They halved the time it took to train infantry, yet people still didn't use them.

A counterexample is the game Warrior Kings (which is, overall, mediocre but has some good design points to it). There are only (only) four basic groups which matter for most combat:

* Heavy Infantry
* Archers (Light infantry)
* Heavy Cavalry
* Horse Archers/Javeliners (light cavalry)

Heavy Infantry slaughter Heavy Cavalry, but get eaten alive by archers and horse archers. Archers dominate Horse Archers and Heavy Infantry, but are destroyed by Heavy Cavalry (who move too quickly for them to effectively kill). Heavy Cavalry decimate Archers, but are destroyed by horse archers and heavy infantry. Horse Archers can take out heavy cavalry (who they move faster than) and heavy infantry, but don't have enough range to really be a threat to actual archers.

When I am deciding to ride into battle, I have true options to choose from and I have to structure my group with the right mix of units. There are no weak units here--a group of Horse Archers and Archers will still be taken out by heavy cavalry, simply because the Horse Archers have to fall back in order to be effective and the Archers can't fall back fast enough to keep out of the Cavalry's way.

In Sojourn we currently have a situation where we have become less and less of a "game" in terms of your equipment decisions and choices about how you manage your class. Do you know of a single invoker that does anything other than "Specialization Invocation"? A Cleric that memorizes unholy word instead of fheal? We have also been decreasing the options with respect to what classes that are taken zoning: both damage and tanking ability are being supplanted by spells.

This has been a gradual process, but it has definitely been a process that has been going on for a long time.

What I propose is that we balance hitter classes (I'm not speaking to tanks at the moment, I am not qualified) in such a manner that it becomes a valid choice to take both nukers and hitters so that you wouldn't automatically choose one over the other when putting together your group.

There are two basic ways to do this:

1) Upgrade hitters/downgrade nukers in such a way that there is balance.
2) Evolve hitters so that they get some choices on their own or unique advantages to give them an edge.

(2) is infinitely more difficult and while I like it, we need to do (1) regardless of whether (2) ever happens.

So let's talk about this mathematically, since in the current situation this thing is just a static model. We'll ignore, for the moment, utility functions (such as gate and assassinate) and just focus on raw damage, where things should be balanced first.

Hitters:

X represents the amount of damage each one does per round (this is an average factoring in crits, vit strikes, misses, haste, and whatever else comes into play).

This is going to stay pretty much constant for a particular fight. m rogues do m * X damage per round (mean).

Nukers:

Y represents the amount of damage each one does per round to a single target. Over short fights, this should be an optimum level for them, over long fights this should go down dramatically as we factor in mem time.

Z represents the amount of damage each one does per round to every target in the room.

n nukers do n * Y damage per round (mean).

The goal? X = Y is both unreasonable and unbalanced, as the following two examples show:

Let's say that we have 1 mob in a short fight. 6 slots to put nukers and/or hitters, X = Y. Here it doesn't matter which we take--there's no advantage of one over the other. If its going to be a long fight, then the rogue has the advantage and, if mem times are short, this advantage is non-significant.

In a group fight, however, we will always take the invoker over the rogue if we expect to need area magic. So long as X = Y against a single mob for most fights, Z has to be incredibly low or the penalty for exit has to be high enough in long fights if you want hitters to ever be considered as an option.

Now let's say that X = 5, Y = 4, Z = 3.

We have 6 slots, and are looking at a fight with 5 300 point creatures.

* It will take 6 hitters 10 rounds to kill one creature, that's 50 rounds to kill all of the creatures.

* It will take 6 nukers, doing all area, 17 rounds to kill all of the creatures (if Z = 2 then its 25 rounds).

We have to drop it to 1/5th the damage per round before its equal, but we don't need it to be equal--balance only requires that there be compelling reasons to select Invokers over Rogues and rogues over invokers.

So if we are fighting a lot of small creatures its obvious that we want nukers. If we want there to be balance then the hitter [iabsolutely must[/i] average more damage than nukers can do sustained on a single target. The trick is making it so that if one of those mobs is bigger than the others we have a compelling reason to mix, and the fights should be mixed enough (enough groups of smaller ones and single larger ones) that it is ideal to take a mix of both into a zone.

The purpose of these illustrations is to illustrate exactly how far you really have to drop damage to make a difference and to bring up that we need to balance hitting with both group and single damage for nukers.

That we need to increase the amount of damage hitters do (without spells) and decreasing the amount nukers do is an obvious step, but there are two basic ways of going about it:

* Increasing the penalty for having to withdraw from combat so that we decrease Y and Z in long term fights. I recall that there used to be a 30 second penalty for meming--this kind of thing would reduce Y and Z in long term fights, but allow them to be equal or higher in the short term.

* Directly increasing the damage of hitters and lower it across the board for nukers (this is probably going to be necessary no matter what).
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Postby Elseenas » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:59 am

Mishre wrote:
Ensis wrote:100% what Nuk said.


Iyachtu wrote:I'm kind of fond of the D&D spell Improved Haste. It wouldn't significantly improve caster number of melee attacks, but would strengthen the damage of the real melees significantly.


No offense, but adding a new spell to fix melee would piss off most if not all non-casters.


yeah.. what about making a warrior/rogue only item that is haste.. that stacks with haste.. same amount of casting for chanters.. extra damage fer us.. oh well.. guess stacking spells isn't what ppl want either.. but thought id bring it up again anyway heh :P


We should probably have a goal to make hitters less eq dependent, not more, and making their hitting skill hinge around a particular item or ability which is tagged to a set of particular items is a Bad Idea™.
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Postby old depok » Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:52 pm

omrec wrote:
thanuk wrote:

1) Defense.
a) Remove blur. Throw it away. I hate the short duration, I hate having to cast it, get rid of it. Alternatively, remove displace, give blur to illusionists, give blur displace-like duration.
b) Change how scales/stone works. Increase duration, decrease chip amount. Or, change to a damage-taken base rather than a hit-taken base.
c) Increase the defensive abilities of all defensive skills. Make defense more useful than it is.
d) Make AC easier for warriors to get, harder for other classes to get. I think the eq changes helped in this regard, at least for my own sets of gear. But make it even more extreme.

2) Offense.
a) Reduce spell damage by 25%
b) Increate melee damage by 25%
c) Give rangers some extra skills. There was a good thread on the old board, someone dig it up and give it some thought. Related to this was the fact that missile shield is just so ranged damage doesn't work. Not like PCs use it. Make it less useful than it is.
d) Reduce thac0 for rangers/rogues/warriors.
e) Reduce the point cost (in the eq system) of damage from being 2 hit to being just 1 hit.
f) Replace some of the existing spells with spells that lower a mobs defensive ability. Like fumble/stumble/enervate. Make these useful in real battles (as in, hit more frequently, have significant effects). Basically, the equivalent of flux for MR, we need X for removing mob defense ability (which was increased when we increased our own defensive abilities)
g) Screw increasing the stun rate of shieldpunch, just make it always do a short duration stun (like charge does). Have a %chance to do a longer duration stun, or extra damage or something.


What else can we do to fix these issues? Is this a fair summary of what we should be doing? Doesn't anybody strongly disagree with this plan? At least as a starting point?

-Om


Nice summary.

Points of disagreement:

2 a. I think decreasing area spell damage is probably fine. Single target probably can be tweeked a little I am just leery of making exp any harder for casters.
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Postby Vassana » Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:02 pm

I'm not the most experienced player on the mud, so I wont comment too much on Warriors/Rangers/Rogues melee.

I would say that Thanuk seems to be a well versed warrior that has a good grasp on things - so I will differ to him. I understand his mom is very nice and the boys on the mud should just leave her alone.

In addition, I've found that AC is very important for Paladins to level up and is a goal of all paladins as they approach 2h mounted combat. As it is now I have no great hope of reaching -100ac when I get 2h mounted. Losing about AC25 total from my mid-level items.

So instead of complaining, I have a idea for mounted combat melee. When riding a big horse around in combat I get blocking code, but why not add AC to the rider? Either through the mounted code or give mounts slots for eq and let them pass the AC along to the rider. Mount eq could also have some extra saves vs dragons etc.

Vassana
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Postby thanuk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:16 pm

Vassana wrote:I would say that Thanuk seems to be a well versed warrior that has a good grasp on things - so I will differ to him. I understand his mom is very nice and the boys on the mud should just leave her alone.


LOLOLOL ur gonna get me in trouble at work:)
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Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'

You tell Mysrel 'comeon now we both know i would be the top'

Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'
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Postby thanuk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 3:52 pm

omrec wrote:We really should be focusing on two separate issues:

1) Fix defense (with respect to the balance between skills and spells needed to tank).

2) Fix offense (with respect to the balance between spell damage and melee damage).

Most of this is from other posts, just trying to consolidate it. I think the important thing to remember is that each class has a balance between defense and offense and utility. In fact, it is even more complicated than that, because there are different types of offense, and defense, and utility (area vs. target, combat utility, non-combat utility, etc). All of this has to be balanced so that each class at least feels mildly useful, but that is a separate issue.

1) Defense.
a) Remove blur. Throw it away. I hate the short duration, I hate having to cast it, get rid of it. Alternatively, remove displace, give blur to illusionists, give blur displace-like duration.
b) Change how scales/stone works. Increase duration, decrease chip amount. Or, change to a damage-taken base rather than a hit-taken base.
c) Increase the defensive abilities of all defensive skills. Make defense more useful than it is.
d) Make AC easier for warriors to get, harder for other classes to get. I think the eq changes helped in this regard, at least for my own sets of gear. But make it even more extreme.

2) Offense.
a) Reduce spell damage by 25%
b) Increate melee damage by 25%
c) Give rangers some extra skills. There was a good thread on the old board, someone dig it up and give it some thought. Related to this was the fact that missile shield is just so ranged damage doesn't work. Not like PCs use it. Make it less useful than it is.
d) Reduce thac0 for rangers/rogues/warriors.
e) Reduce the point cost (in the eq system) of damage from being 2 hit to being just 1 hit.
f) Replace some of the existing spells with spells that lower a mobs defensive ability. Like fumble/stumble/enervate. Make these useful in real battles (as in, hit more frequently, have significant effects). Basically, the equivalent of flux for MR, we need X for removing mob defense ability (which was increased when we increased our own defensive abilities)
g) Screw increasing the stun rate of shieldpunch, just make it always do a short duration stun (like charge does). Have a %chance to do a longer duration stun, or extra damage or something.

-Om


Finally, someone who understands what's going on. Many people seem confused about what im looking for. Somehow you got the impression that I want to without spells be able to walk into 2nd gatehouse in jot, type hitall, and have a bunch of dead giants on the ground and not a scratch on me. It's simply not the case. What I want is just not to die in the same fight the round after my dragonscales drop. I also want to do more damage than I do currently. Not much more, just more.

This doesn't need any huge sweeping changes, really. All you need to do is up the dice on our weapons and make it a little easier to get some damroll. Of course, the opposite just happened, but we still got a month to fix that. Rangers and rogues are gonna need some help codewise in the damage department, but warriors just need 1hand weapons that are better than 1d8 and 2hand weapons that are better than 8d4(5d4 has to be a mistake, so i'll wait for it to be fixed). Suggest making rogues need less hitroll to hit(which in turn gives them more opportunities to add damroll) and giving rangers a couple of skills that do decent damage, because kick just ain't cuttin it. Missile shield needs to be an 8th circle or better spell, and the duration needs to be about the same as stoneskin. They have archery, let them use it.

Downing some of the damage on mage spells would help too, again not a ton, just like a 10% reduction would level the playing field quite a bit. Now you're gonna tell me that I can rescue and tank, so I shouldn't be able to do damage as well. To which i reply, there are many caster classes that can summon tanks that can rescue, as pets. They can still do damage while their pets tank, so why can't i?

Defensively is where the problems lie. Sure enchanters are all about defense. That doesn't mean warriors have to sit around useless without them so the enchanters can feel needed. The effectiveness of protection spells needs to be lowered, and the effectiveness of defensive skills need to be raised. Cutting blur is a great idea, omrec, i like it. Let warrior skills pick up the slack for that. Then give enchanters an 8th circle spell that works like a single target ancestral shield, and protects the person its casted on from spell damage instead of melee damage. Enchanters are all about protection, yet they have no spells to protect anyone from magic beyond globe, is that really right? And at 8th circle, they won't be able to cast it on the whole group, so it doesn't take away from shaman's ancestral shield.

You really don't have to rewrite the whole mud from scratch to fix these problems. A little here and a little there adds up to balance. The last step, however, is to get you guys to stop FLAGGING EVERY FRIGGIN MOB AS A WARRIOR. Every highlevel zone is full of cleric warriors, mage warriors, and mage cleric warriors. Its absurd. If a mob's gonna be multiclassed between a mage and a warrior, then it should be one of the harder fights in the zone, not every idiot guard in the whole place. Warriorcleric and clericmage are reasonable, but warriormage has to be a harder flag to come by, or else melee will never be useful because every single mob in the game has maxed defensive skills.
Mysrel tells you 'have my babies'

You tell Mysrel 'u want me to be ur baby daddy?'

Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'

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Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'

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