Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

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Sarryn
Posts: 563
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 7:30 pm

Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Sarryn » Tue Jan 26, 2021 2:56 pm

I think there should always be options for well rounded defensive weapons. Of the normal variety. Not everyone likes grouping. Not everyone likes the easy kills of following someone and mopping up lopsided solo people. Some of us like myself like challenges. Thus I tend to often lean towards decently rounded defensive weapons. Because I’m usually either alone or outnumbered. It sounds like a lot of the normal weapons used for that are taking a hit in defense.

There should always be avenues for different styles of players. If you’ve played for a long time like myself. You sometimes like the challenges of not doing the whole group and smash smaller numbers for the easy tps/gear/qps bs. Not everyone has the best gear or the most bonused char at there disposal. So in a roundabout way that’s all I’m getting at. Downing defense on weapons isn’t always the best.

Like for instance pine javelins. Very well rounded imo. You don’t have a good high defense attack weapon in the dagger class. This is a nice alternative to daggers and the low defense. I’m not really referring to someone in a full rate kit dirks dodge setup on a perfect statted bonused char. As stated not everyone is elite and rolls around in or with these options.

I think pine javelins, fencing blades, staffs, spears, should all be defensive in nature. Just for a realism standpoint they stick out as a more defensive option. But there’s variety in each of those mostly already. Like pine and barbed. Ruby and emmie fencings. Different staffs with well rounded qualities. Spears likewise. The thing is if you make them either just completely slanted to one thing they become useless.

Weapons should have a well rounded nature to them. They should be able to have good defense then average bash, and ob, and damage. To slant them towards just one thing will remove variety in the game. There should be well rounded normal options for each class. Like the silver plated, the brass hilted, the pine javelin, the emmie/ruby fencings, the bone club, the bladed staff, the red stone/cc, the bt/mahog etc. These are all pretty well rounded weapons.

They might be able to use some tweaks. But if there skewed to much in one direction without having a rounded balanced nature they become useless. And that’s not good. Granted most people don’t use a lot of these weapons anymore anyways. With the craftable rares and regular rares being so prevalent to longer termed players. It’s still nice to throw on one of the above weapons and be well rounded and slightly competitive with it.

Atkins
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:55 pm

Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Atkins » Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:05 pm

Not sure I agree with the premises behind these upcoming changes. The goal behind them is 'balance', which to me means you can play different types of characters without resorting to... shall we say... stuff that doesn't make for fun pk. I'm not sure how these changes move towards that tbh.

Aureus
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Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Aureus » Tue Jan 26, 2021 8:01 pm

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback so far, some interesting points in here. Without responding to everything individually (though I am reading it all), we're making a few tweaks to our approach based on feedback so far:

Updates:
  • We're pulling back on the damage increase we were considering across abs and combo weapons, and we're going to start more conservatively. We will be adding a smaller amount of damage selectively rather than across the board.
  • After some discussion we recalibrated base bash chance around a 19 str trolloc non-master instead of a mounted human. We're tweaking down the baseline bash chance we're targeting as a consequence (ie, it's no longer 25%), since trollocs don't bash as well as mounted humans even with str teas, which we'd already accounted for in setting the original target. The net impact is an overall buff to bash rate vs the v1 numbers we were considering, but still down from live values today. We're using a trolloc baseline since trollocs are generally more likely to be fighting dodgers than a mounted human, and we want to make sure this feels good. Mounted humans will obviously bash better, but trolloc dodgers have a number of other advantages (added db from being on foot, notice, smells), so we are okay with that and are going to try to balance around trolloc bash.
Comments around the viability of weapon classes in solo play came up a few times, so I'll just say that while we're aiming for more distinct weapon class identities, we're not trying to push it to such an extreme that they aren't usable solo or require a group to use a particular weapon class.

RE: parry and hit chance rates impacting total damage output, it's a correct callout and the good news is we're already looking at hit rates as well as bash landing rates when examining the total output of different weapons.

There are a lot of variables at play, so I won't pretend we're going to get it 100% right (or that it is 100% right today), but hopefully sharing our group's high level thinking is helpful.

Naerin
Posts: 310
Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 12:29 pm

Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Naerin » Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:05 pm

I'm not really active anymore, so I won't comment on weapon balance as it stands right now. I'm happy to hear of the overall direction but also conscious of the fact that this isn't the first time we've tried this, and we seem to go back and forth on where we want numbers to be. It wasn't exactly an accident that 4 abs weapons from 4 different classes ended up at 6d6 and 18 pounds, for instance.

My one ask: as you balance, can you try to assign certain weapons to be at certain tiers within their weapon class and keep them at that tier, regardless of how the class as a whole changes? If my polka-dotted axe has the best damage, I'd like it to be the best damage within the axe class - regardless of how the axe class moves - and for that to be true whether I come back in 6 months, a year, whatever. Way too many weapons changes have radically shifted what weapons 'mean' and it takes a while to re-adjust when there isn't really a need to make it extra difficult.

Detritus
Posts: 282
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Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Detritus » Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:13 pm

Random rambling thoughts on current "balancing", weapons and things for other people to think about in their napkin math and anecdotal evidences.

Currently weapon diversification is ok apart from some combo weapons being too easy. Diversification INSIDE weapon classes is not much but could be adressed with few damage dice roll tweaks.(more lower dice for more consistancy or less bigger dice for higher range for example) There's not massive broad spectrum changes required just for the sake of change.

Current warrior changes are a rediculous massive change that should have lasted days if that before being tweaked down(which would have been super easy to do). Small changes and tweaks can have impacts. You could add a 0.5(or other easily adjustable number) multiplier to warriors attack % for example to make it go off less often rather than having scrapped it.
Weapons with attack work extremely well on masters with garanteed master damage each hit, more hits is better and there's large volume of masters now.

Reduce parry contribution to bash from 1% per 4 parry to 1% per 5 parry.(at the least)
Basic parry trinkets contribute 5-7%ish bash. (28 parry mantle/bronzebelt/2x torc/2xjade/2xsungwood, minus few negative % abs)
Any old random 1handed weapon you can throw a shield on with it for 17%ish extra bash chance.(even in full abs with shield parry praced you'll get 65ish more parry when throw a shield on with it)
2handed parry weapons need to be very careful of how much they take away from player choices of pracs (not such an issue now that clan pracs gone). There's no reason for example to use any 6d6 combat weapon other than darkened steel trident if you have access to it.

Current chains fad for warrior trollocs skews perception of dodge, binnol is a good average all around weapon. But it's just that, average. Binnol performance vs dodge is a bad benchmark when could be a mallet with 12%ish higher landing or e-axe with 10%ish. (numbers not exact, you get the concept)

The flail class is left a bit random since chains and whips were amalgamated in together into flails. High obs whips all have extremely low damage(and damage range) while being light. Chains have binnol and scourge(scourge weight got upped for a 1handed bash option). Both "good" primary weapon options but heavy for a secondary weapon(which multihit often is)
Dark barbed flail is an excellent all around weapon middle ground weapon, the only good flail. The highest easy access damage weapon, but bad bash(yet still close to capped vs abs/combo). Every single leveling person should have one of these to hit trees with(zero pracs required).

Currently since prac resets are super easy now there's no reason to use parts of class; if you prac axes for example you should be using pair of axes, e-axe, dark grim, wicked axe OR you should be pracing a different weapon class. There's no reason to be axes other than for the damage output.

Long blades is a more interesting trade off, hook swords extremely good all around, then 18lb c-sword/g-sword vs 16lb jagged with slightly more damage and obs. If there was active dodgers regularly jagged would not see use but vs abs or combo everywhere it's capped bash so it's greater obs/damage gets use.(an active choice by users reflecting that opponents are)

Javelins are extremely narrow scope of average everything that could use some dice tweaks. Low obs also makes extra dumb feeling when super long travel time throw misses.

Short blades could do with some other options, a high range 3d8, or a 5d4.

Throwing has quite good balance of accessability vs performance.

Lances and spears should have weapon pracs giving higher charge landing %, the damage on the classes is already heavily tax balanced around the extra dice mounted. Taxed heavily again after that for terrain landing % making the weapon classes super niche and frustrating instead of a counter to stab.(who can stab mount away in counter also)

Staves have quite good range inside the class being a blunt lower damage but multiple play styles available inside the class.

Medium blades lack a middle ground option(which isnt terrible with how easy prac resets), they're a higher damage option to 1handed staves, a light weapon with parry or silver plated/heron to bash with.

Fencing blades are high obs attack weapons (that can disarm) with sabres and tulwar randomly thrown in without redeeming qualities.


Rares already have very little impact on top end dodge no?

+1db - Dragon belt
+3db - surcoat (you could add something between red robe and this, half cape showed up in caem tailor few times)
+1db - lace shirt
+1db - onyx shield? (wouldnt really call that rare tho)

other rares are a few pb unless I'm forgetting something major.(not unlikely)

Pure gear balancing -5 base obs at level 30 would have broad spectrum impact(5% less bash vs top end dodge for example) without skewing things massively.
You still need to fix the warrior firetruck up independant of game balance.

Fuujin
Posts: 390
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Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Fuujin » Wed Jan 27, 2021 12:06 am

Naerin wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:05 pm
I'm not really active anymore, so I won't comment on weapon balance as it stands right now. I'm happy to hear of the overall direction but also conscious of the fact that this isn't the first time we've tried this, and we seem to go back and forth on where we want numbers to be. It wasn't exactly an accident that 4 abs weapons from 4 different classes ended up at 6d6 and 18 pounds, for instance.

My one ask: as you balance, can you try to assign certain weapons to be at certain tiers within their weapon class and keep them at that tier, regardless of how the class as a whole changes? If my polka-dotted axe has the best damage, I'd like it to be the best damage within the axe class - regardless of how the axe class moves - and for that to be true whether I come back in 6 months, a year, whatever. Way too many weapons changes have radically shifted what weapons 'mean' and it takes a while to re-adjust when there isn't really a need to make it extra difficult.
So much this tbh. I had never been so disheartened as the time that I had 3 of my characters wielding the best in class defensive medium blade and they were all switched to some mid tier long blade. It completely fucked up my set up, made the efforts I had gone to obtain them worthless, and to top it off they weren't even valuable enough to trade back into med blades again. It felt like one big ass slap in the face and while I get there's a whole 'play at your own risk' and 'changes can happen' kinda thing here it still is unnecessarily harsh to the playerbase to screw us over like that.

That said, this seems like a big project and I'm honestly looking forward to it. I -hope- that this, after all the testing and tweaking, will finally settle equipment in a balanced way so that we don't need major changes going forward. In the past, especially before weapon stats were released, it really felt like changes to weapons were made on a whim. The rhymes and reasons for why an axe used to be the best bashing one and is now the best damage one so-on-and-so-forth were not made available to us and honestly made little sense. I hope that comes to end an after this is all said and done and that a player can confidently know that the best bashing axe is the best bashing axes regardless of the technical stats on it. I hope that when the dust settles that things will all be on a decent track and it only becomes a matter of adjusting points here and there instead of a total revamp of the system.

Lastly, I appreciate all the work imms do and look forward to seeing the results of all your hard work

Monsoon
Posts: 105
Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 7:56 pm

Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Monsoon » Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:31 am

im curious to see how the changes feel before making a call on anything but my only hesitation right off that bat would be the combination of downing OB and upping PB so that even if you landed your 25% bash you just get double parried. Its already so frustrating to land bashes and land no hits on it.

arston
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Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by arston » Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:43 pm

I like the concept of differentiating the weapons. Its just so easy to go overboard on anything. I think if the right balance was found then it would very much help the game, but it would be near impossible to anticipate all the effects that changes make until people play with them for a couple weeks. I wouldnt mind seeing a few options "tested out" for a month or so each, similar to how the warrior changes were made and the results were not what was expected, but we learned what kind of an impact that change would make. Perhaps if Imms had several things they wanted to try out and see what the outcomes were, then we could play them for 3 or 4 weeks each and get a better idea of how they work so that the Imms can find the right balance using tested data. It might make things a bit more chaotic for a little while but then find a better balance in the long run.

Callesa
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Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Callesa » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:47 pm

I've just returned after a break. I like these ideas, even though I can add my two cents only to some points.

I like the idea of improving dodge. But there should surely be differences between the rares and non rares. I may have a nice set rarely, but I want those with one to profit from it. Otherwise, I agree with others that there is no point.

Within the weapons, I would like to see a bit more useful weapons for low str. Because right now, I struggle even in PvE. A few weapons not top, but well rounded for an everyday adventurer would be nice.

Diversification sounds fun in theory, but I am not sure how it will fare in the real game, it's possible it will lead to fewer weapons actually being popular, and more of them considered useless.

Taziar
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Re: Discussion Topic: Upcoming Weapon Changes

Post by Taziar » Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:48 am

Multi-hit Weapons

With the addition of increased damage to humanoid mobs from warriors the multi-hit weapons have seen increased use. Considering since they are now field mendable with oilstones consider moving whips and chains back to their own classes again? Balancing the class(es) can then also take into account practice restrictions then, instead of just giving warriors every option under the sun.

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