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#2240 - 10/15/08 09:48 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Onslaught]
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Kim
enthusiast
Registered: 10/11/07
Posts: 204
Loc: Europe
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"First, you can't have balance at all when said 60 fighter gets to 60 in 1/10th the playing time another guild does. That's your first problem. Forget him swaggering ona bout 'being able to hit me' you can't be hit because you have gotten so much exp so ridiculouslly fast that your dodge and wield are so ridiculously high that yeah, normal guilds can't compete with that."
First of all, if you knew anything, you would know I have made points about XP gain here for a long time (There was general agreement with my points about XP gain beeing silly high for several guilds. What was done? You guessed it. XP gain was increased...). Second, what is a normal guild? Currently, there are some (several) guilds that get ridicolous XP, and some that get very little. As pointed out, there are ways to balance them, and of course they require a pwipe. But it has been stated a pwipe wont happen. When pointing out that then a new player can't catch up with the old ones etc, the answer was along the lines of "So level up and kill them". I am sadly not joking.
And yes, Gilgamesh exposes the attitude that is the biggest problem. "Don't nerf guild X, make guild Y stronger". If you aren't bright enough to see the huge logical flaw in that reasoning then yes have no business discussing balance.
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#2241 - 10/16/08 09:13 AM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Kim]
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Cerberus
addict
Registered: 11/28/07
Posts: 608
Loc: Arlee, MT, USA
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The amount of time and effort required for even basic changes to be implemented is astronomical. That being said, I've been working on a comprehensive vision of Darke's gods, races, and guilds in order to do a complete overhaul for nearly a year now and am no closer to making any changes than when I began. What's more is every change made (combat in particular) requires testing that is nearly impossible to do without the help of players. I've had a change to combat experience gain due to haste effects available for testing and can't find -any- players willing to login to the test site and so much as make sure it doesn't error out. (To be fair, Kim usually doesn't have a problem with doing testing.) I've spent about 3 hours testing it and haven't found anything, so should I just put it in? (sidenote: I'll probably just put this in and let it ride until I get feedback)
I believe that Darke should be an easy game to get in to and a difficult one to succeed in. It sounds to me like most people would agree that this should be the case but differ on what level 'get in to' means.
Darke was created as an open-ended persistent game. It was in fact designed to be able to handle the inevitability of 300%+ wield characters. In fact, in the combat code are comments from Drizzt and Diewarzau referencing 500% wield as the upper limit of what was thought to be feasible for normal player limits regardless of time. We've largely removed the skills, spells, and abilities that were designed to make this possible on old Darke and replaced it with levels, but that's another story entirely.
The reason we solicit advice/ideas/feedback/input from players is that the player base is larger than the administrative base. So while those of us who do work on Darke have a clear idea of what we'd like to see, we're aware that our ideas are not the only ones and they may in fact not even be the best in terms of enjoyability (anyone remember the fatigue movement on the world map? Wasn't fun, but it was an admin idea that we all thought was doable). Posting ideas is therefore an excellent way to keep Darke alive and vibrant.
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#2242 - 10/16/08 10:22 AM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Cerberus]
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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Kim you make very good points. It wasn't just the July change that put us here, it's a wide combination of changes over many years. Take the increased cap on weapons for example. That also has a huge effect on the exp you earn.
At any rate, it's been posted and said on Darke by Cerberus now that he's thinking and going to try to implement this nerf/combat exp nerf without p-wipe. As I tried to talk about I'm grossly against it for oh so many reasons, jut like I didn't approve of increasing the stuff to begin with.
That being said, he's asked I post a variety of ideas to address the goal he's trying to accomplish without having the negative effect of "f'ing" over the player base that they may be maybe slightly considered if good.
So I'm going to spend a day or 2 with valens and post a bunch of these ideas to achieve what his desired effect is. Please be patient.
Lastly in regards to how long changes take and they require all kinds of planning and etc. No offense but if asked too I could map out an entire balance schematic and implment it in a surprisingly short period of time. None ofthe changes we'll even suggest are all that complicated, the only complicated part is getting people to agree on an overall philosophy. The "plan" is what takes the longest, the implementation is actually surprisingly easy.
Anyway I'll post again in a couple days on this combat exp issue.
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#2243 - 10/16/08 10:25 AM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Onslaught]
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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PS you can't get testers cuz probably no one wants to help you nerf their own combat exp 
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#2244 - 10/19/08 02:31 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Onslaught]
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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As promised here are some various alternative solutions to whatever it is you're trying to accomplish with the exp change. These solutions can accomplish your goals WITHOUT screwing over 60% of your player base which imho should be avoided at all cost, we can't afford to lose what little p-base we have left in the name of 'balance'.
I spoke with you briefly about the goal of your change, and whaty ou wanted to accomplish. And some options I'll give you here can have various other effects but short and long term they tend to have much smaller side effects. Also my alternatives do not in any way indicate what I view is the perfect solution to darke it's just a few random thoughts I came up with in a very short period of time to accomplish what you want without negative side effects.
Your goal: To help out the non-haste guilds in regards to their exp intake as a result of the exp change. To bring them somewhat up to par with other guilds.
Factors to consider:
1: How do we do this without giving any unfair advantages to already existing high characters?
2: Is our goal to actually increase the actual C levels of non-haste guilds, or simply to give a benefit to what their existing C levels translate to in a gameplay environment?
3: If 2 = give a benefit, to what extent? Is it a pvp-benefit we wish to give to help them remotely compete in a small way, or is it a dev-point benefit, or a wield benefit or etc?
4: Before deiciding on the best solution, you have to determine if the C levels and speed of which those non-haste guilds are leveling is at your target goal, or how far away is it?
Solutions:
Instead of reducing exp or changing the way hasted combat gives exp which as you've already said has many negative side effects here are some options:
1: Give a X% exp bonus to any "hit" performed without haste on a character (You also need to determine if this bonus should apply to single wield only or if dual should be considered - provided both without haste of any kind including fighter innate haste)
Example: If each tick of combat exp an enchanter, or elementalist or etc earned was given a 50% exp modification that would be pretty significant. This theoretically should not make them earn more than say an arch mage with haste, as they get double hits. It would be closer than you think though given the use of Fatigue Points and hasters having to sit on ahealing rune while a non-haster would keep fighting.
***Other results of this. Combat levels for non hasted guilds would rise slightly, the time spent per level would be reduced. This would give a small bonus to those guild's overall levels which applies to spell resistance and distance magic *but very minimal*
What this would NOT do is change the PVP dynamic (if that is your goal). Sure the average enchatner/elem etc might have slightly more wield, they still will have huge disadvantage of 50% combt dev points per level, as well as 1 APR - chance to crit per level. Lower wield + fewer attacks - vastly disproportionate PVP. Perhaps in addition to this 50% bonus, a small critical bonus escalation (randomLY) on non-hasted hits might occur? This should not be a large bonus as it could have big effects, but just another way to make fighting a bit more interesting.
******************************
If your goal is to NOT increase the actual levels, because perhaps philosophically we like enchanters elems etc having lower C levels (and maybe rightly so) but what they can DO with them needs to be modified? If this is the case the solution is simple
Take the non-haste guilds and boost their DEV-Level % ratio slightly. Combat exp change is nothing more than adding Devs and a few hit points to players. So instead of 50% Devs per combat level, make them 75%, this gives them more wield-per-level, but since they are neither a hasted guild, nor a spellup-boosted combat guild this has virtually no impact other than raising their wield at any given level, which is the same as boosting their combat exp without giving them extra hit points.
*The 50% dev or 75% dev etc concepts were put in place as a way to balance combat in relation to a pure combat guild to a pure magic, or semi etc being at 75's, the problem is, the haste and spellup/skill bonus spells and abilities already accmoplish this pretty much without having to have those few non-haste guilds at 50%. (thieves elems enchanters). Make sense?
Again I've just barely hit the tip of the iceberg here and obviously any change is going to have many other subtle effects, but this is a place to start. At least these changes don't slap your lower players in the face and say yeah, we know you were hoping to build this character up but now you gotta spend 4x longer doing it than the guy next to you that happens to be killing you spent.
If this is confusing or difficult to understand talk to me in game (hannibal/onslaught/dorne/edge) Again these solutions aren't perfect, to me the only true way to fix darke is a huge balance project with an inevitable p-wipe and a very large philosophical game design change, but in lieu of that let's make intelligent changes that don't drive off the player bse
In summary. Yes I've ignored the whole point you may be thinking of if you think "there is too much combat exp being earned in general" That issue can easily be addressed to AFTER these other changes by making a very simple change in the formula which translates wield - to crits
It's an array/formula that says at 200 wield you tend to send this crit table to a b c d x % of time etc, that can always be fundamentally changed with minimal effort. So in effect we CAN "bring everyone up to a high level" and at the same time, adjust what that high level means in regards to game play and PVP. easy eh?
Onslaught
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#2245 - 10/19/08 07:24 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Onslaught]
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Cerberus
addict
Registered: 11/28/07
Posts: 608
Loc: Arlee, MT, USA
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You are mistaken.
Stated goal: To close the gap in rates of experience gain re: haste.
IE: The rate of leveling for haste vs non-haste is wildly disproportionate, so much so that someone with haste can earn experience 4 times faster than the same character not using haste. The suggestion dealing with this:Give a X% exp bonus to any "hit" performed without haste on a character
To briefly address the crit table reached via wc and wield, in the most recent combat changes these were modified. No comments have been made, so perhaps the changes weren't relevant to average game play.
Thank you for the thoughts and efforts behind the recommendations. I appreciate it and am pleased that while our assessments differ, the solutions are similar.
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#2246 - 10/19/08 08:19 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Cerberus]
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Onslaught
stranger
Registered: 09/10/08
Posts: 21
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These are completely totally NOT the same changesresults
your change (without a pwipe) grandfather's in an entire pbase of people who earned exp at 4x higher rates than they should have, while mine doesn't effect the p-base at all except the exp that non-hasted guilds earn in the future.
If yer goal is to also lower the overall exp, again if yer not going to do the p-wipe, you can achieve the same effect of "lowering overall exp" without actually lowering overall exp which I explained previously.
I'm not sure if you aren't understanding my post or if you're of a philosophical view that approves of grandfathering exp?
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#2266 - 11/03/08 07:21 PM
Re: Balance - gameplay in general - lack of depth
[Re: Kim]
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Byakko
stranger
Registered: 06/05/08
Posts: 13
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Stunning is still largely the determining factor in pvp. Even if stuns only last one or two rounds, the ease with which they can be inflicted ensures the non-stun-resistant person has little hope, especially if they happen to randomly be the second person to swing in combat.
Darke's combat was originally designed to allow defensive skill use while stunned. Darke's training system was also originally designed to allow combat guilds to train defensive skills up without significant impact to their wield. Yes, times have changed, however stun needs to reexamined in light of its ability to completely determine combats, where previously it was just a neat aspect of a fight.
While stun does play a valuable role in combat (such as preventing easy escape from a well-deserved fight), the non-stun resistant character should at least be able to get some swings in on occasion, not be in permanent stun lock if second in the combat order.
It would actually be fairly easy to make stun not take effect until the following round. This would be fairer and more in line with the idea of simultaneous attacks upon each other. In addition (or alternatively), stun could be made to wear off immediately before a character attacks, so they can at least get to attack once before being re-stunned.
No. Autocrits are completely unnecessary as is. Weapons are far stronger than armour as is. If you can crit through the best armour, with enchanter shields, and elemental aegis with no effort (which, BTW, you can), that is somehow a sign that autocrits are pretty damn redundant.
And I find the idea that "everyone should have a chance!!!" absurd and stupid. No. Not everyone should have a chance. That isn't balance, it is more like the opposite. Random chaos. Balance is when roughly equal levels have a roughly equal chance of winning, if they know how to utilize their guilds equally well.
Improving the upper level game might be one thing, but I already stated the one thing that unbalances the mud the most, resist stun. What good are improvements if you are stunned from round 1 until death? And no, alabasters don't help. You get unstunned.. and then immediatly stunned again. At best, you may be able to run away thanks to one.
By the way, this huge problem of unbalanced xp gain and improper leveling rates wouldn't exist if buffers were used. Yes, in a perfect world, all xp could be perfectly balanced and they'd be unnecessary... but as should be evident, that's not darke's current reality. The sooner buffers are re-added, the faster Darke will be on its way towards recovery.
(If you want to make low levels go faster, adjust drain rates or level requirements. If you want certain guilds to have a leveling advantage, give them a slight drain rate bonus.)
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