equipment changes

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Gretchen
Posts: 522
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:00 pm

equipment changes

Post by Gretchen » Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:07 am

this is not an attack on anyone btw just my thoughts


combo and dodge have been nerfed to hell and now we are nerfing down the one set that works .....

abs was in what i see as the sweet spot at like 84/85 % with the increased durability murgos abs was slightly to much but was rare so it was ok

the other two need increasing abs don't need downing its the one set up that's in a really nice place

dodge needs brining back up to 160/162 in a full kit (dismounted Gown cuffs dbelt))for everyone and getting rid of armor would help that a lot

combo needs the ftunic fixing so much people are wearing steel plates ...... that's not combo its abs....
so most people are not playing combo at all (its abs with pb 81%)

the game has been flooded with rare weps in a panic to keep people playing exacerbating the problem

and we have weapons like the red and gold spear that shoulbe looked at, should see how much weapons like that can bash full dodge because i did lol

this has been going on for years and years now with the equip changes and its not working at all

the balance of the game has been left in a really bad place for years now because things get changed then left that way while imms thinker with other stuff
Last edited by Gretchen on Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Gretchen
Posts: 522
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:00 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Gretchen » Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:43 am

need to be carfull with swapong arm from db to pb tho i think if thats the plan
as that would bring 2 handed staves up to the current 1 handed staves lvl pb wise for a lot less pracs
and 1 handed staves with str would be insane
once u start to push 200 pb things can get a bit nuts in small numbers pk get bashed and just parry the whole pat and players ect
then we got the increased bash % from more pb to
21 str trollocs with extra bash anyone?
could make arm self cast only i guess

Cera
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 20, 2022 11:19 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Cera » Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:49 am

Having played all forms in recent times (past 1 year), I sorta disagree. I do like largely where the balance stands - with a few minor tweaks, it could be really nice.

TL;DR
- Reducing survivability on abs is good.
- Improve basic dodge by +5 db to increase rogue performance
- Leave channies net unaffected by making armor self-cast and reduce to +5 db instead. Poor survivability + high dmg potential is good (Caveat: kin/dl not considered)
- Need to rethink what combo is meant to be. Combo used to be best of both worlds, now fails to do either.

---------

In the trifecta of survivability, damage potential, ease of equipping => ideal in my mind is to have each setup to do well in 2 out of these 3 areas.

Abs => most superior set-up at the moment
- Survivability 5/5 for all tiers
- Damage Potential 5/5 for heavy 2H weapon + bash
- Ease of Equipping 5/5 for both weapons (rare/non-rare) and armor (murgoz/basic)

Dodge => minor tweaks needed
- Survivability 2.5/5 dying in dodge is easy with higher ob + good rank/weapon dmg across the board.
- Damage Potential 3.5/5 for fblades/sblades attack setups. Add 2 for channie
- Ease of Equipping 2/5 since base item return was removed and smobs loads being relatively low.

Cera
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 20, 2022 11:19 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Cera » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:03 am

Gretchen wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:43 am
need to be carfull with swapong arm from db to pb tho i think if thats the plan
as that would bring 2 handed staves up to the current 1 handed staves lvl pb wise for a lot less pracs
and 1 handed staves with str would be insane
once u start to push 200 pb things can get a bit nuts in small numbers pk get bashed and just parry the whole pat and players ect
then we got the increased bash % from more pb to
21 str trollocs with extra bash anyone?
could make arm self cast only i guess
Switching Armor from DB to PB is a bad idea because you just shifted the balance problem into other areas:
- PB affects bash % so now you just buffed bash lol
- Then now you gotta buff dodge again to keep everything at the same relative level.
- Then because dodge is buffed, you gotta maybe look at channie damage and maybe adjust that too.
- In any case, most dodgers mostly optimize for DB so PB is irrelevant

A slightly less bad idea is to remove armor all together -> straight nerf to channie but at least you dont affect everyone else.
Last edited by Cera on Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Gretchen
Posts: 522
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:00 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Gretchen » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:07 am

yeh have to agree thats gona work better then switching to pb

Prykor
Posts: 180
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:56 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Prykor » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:10 am

My thoughts on this topic:

you can't split out db without looking at the OB of weapons as well.

The recent change that toned down offensive posture and gave all weapons +10 OB was very helpful for non-masters...and really shows how powerful masters are compared to non-masters.

Which then brings up warriors, and master warriors having an extra 10 OB on top of that. What a non-master ranger can bash, a master warrior with the same pracs/str/etc. will have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher bash% on that same DB. In the more exteme cases....say, a barbed trident, going from 16% to 28%. In less extreme cases, a DG axe going from 40% to 57%, or a mallet 60% to 69%.

As DB gets higher, it very quickly gets to rangers needing to zerk in order to have a chance to bash what a master warrior can at brave, with the same stats and pracs. This really makes the balance of dodge to down the toilet, as it is very oftenly overpowered against combo set ups, and then near useless against abs bashing weapons....and then you get gaiden/fades who have extra OB on top of that and will shred through any amount of DB.

I agree with the sentiment that armor needing a rework so it does something other than give a flat DB bonus, as the DB vs OB match up tends to make a fine line where you are either overpowered or useless, with not so much room in the middle -- and this is just looking at the 1v1 match up, when you throw in additional attackers splitting parry (though super high db max engage does help get around this to an extent) it gets kinda complex, though when you are in the situation where you can't bash them, going to most mobs won't help -- trees, and lower level support mobs won't be enough, and the mobs at the level of Commie and Kajin just absolutely wreck.

I feel that the relative power of standard abs was in a good place -- it almost needs to be the strongest as it is clearly the weakest when it comes to leveraging mob support. If the abser can't hit the other guy unbashed, the other guy can simply flee hit him to death, often getting 1-2 rounds before the mobs engage and the other guy needs to flee. In my humble opinion, the murgoz steel plated abs set should compare to a regular abs set in a similar way as a jcuff/d-belt/e-gown dodge set compares to an emme/kandori set or the use of an ornate chainmail shirt in combo. It should be notably stronger (and it is), though the difference in main eq that needs blacksmith attention regularly and wear down super quickly compared to trinkets that are both hard to find, but will last an extraordinary long time while retraining their combat useful stats is... at best, an interesting design choice for the sets to work differently, and at worst a poorly implemented thing that should probably be reworked somehow.

In comparison, combo vs non-master/remort rangers is in a pretty good place as well, though it turns into a 66% abs set against the master/remorts and makes things sort of lopsided. I feel that when you go to heavy combo (probably in the best place overall...at least before the abs nerfs, we shall see how things are now as it is no longer 82% abs), standard ftunic riv set combo (67% after the combo nerf), and supple/jerkin + dyed leathers "light" combo (44%-54% depending on eq used), though it tends towards light combo being by far the worst overall. Part of it is due to equipment being toned down, the other part being standard and light parrying most of the hits in the 1v1 match up, but taking a lot more damage while bashed.

Then you get to the true light combo set, the 31% abs parry set... which can get to 300 defense (compared to dodge's 270ish in most cases), but is much easier to bash. Only parry split means that this set is basically useless, dropping below 50% absorption makes the effective health math give drastically less hps while hit, but you aren't THAT much harder to bash (non-master/warrior/remort combo set ups will notice it, but it doesn't make the match 1-sided like dodge does) but you still don't have enough defense to buff multiple players unbashed (wimpy mood dodgers aside) and will go down about 1-bash longer than you would in full dodge.

And then there's dodge, which kind of has a razor thing area of balance, and a large gap op both sides where it goes from completely overwhelmingly strong to worthless quite quickly. The proliferation of rares (esp. abs rares) makes a huge impact, and a full dodge rare set moves that razor over a bit, but still will expect to get hit by fades/gaiden unzerk through their defense, and bashed very reliably all the same. The only saving grace is the 0 and 1 round bashes that tend to happen.... auto wimpy to save the day, though I would hardly say that those coded features are enough to even things out -- or perhaps that living on a knife-edge that requires a stellar link to be effective is just out of reach.


As far as thought in mechanics, I love what options there are in combo set ups, and how you can viably use as low as 90% prac dodge. It is very evident when you are above the defense threshold of the opponents weapon, and when you are in the "intended" place of mostly avoiding unbashed hits, but not all (~66%-80% avoidance). It is interesting to have the option to re-eq to change up your defenses for a rematch, and either get heavier (you were dodging all of the unbashed hits, but bashes really hurt) to close up the weakness while maintaining a sufficient level of defense, and how that changes against other player's set ups (combo Lblades or Fblades with their really high OB, but meh bash, and combo clubs with very low OB, but fantastic bash). It's a fun design space, though it all goes to crap when a fade or bonded warder walks up to you and ignores all your defense with fragging hits from a rare weapon... anyhow, I'll stop rambling for now.

Gretchen
Posts: 522
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:00 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Gretchen » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:18 am

nice post thanks

Harun
Posts: 168
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:45 pm

Re: equipment changes

Post by Harun » Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:59 am

Gretchen wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:07 am
the other two need increasing abs don't need downing its the one set up that's in a really nice place
Nerfing abs is a buff to the other setups. Taking more damage means that absers will be rolling fewer bashes and therefore doing less damage. It also means that mob support, particularly weaker mob support, is going to be more useful for dodge and combo again. Nerfing abs is easier than adjusting all mob support.

The main problem for dodge isn't really getting sat all the time, although it is frustrating. You can still play around bash timers. The main problem has been the unbashed broken parry, which makes dodge far more unpredictable - especially once you get low. I think abs weapons could probably lose 5-10 OB across the board now that postures have been nerfed, and still think that nerfing sitting parry from 3/4 to 1/2 would do wonders for balancing setups since OB could be lowered without the massive frustration of bashed hits getting parried.

Combo absorption should probably be slightly upped back to what it was a few years ago. Higher damage output on abs and lower absorption on combo is just super painful for the setup - but the nerfed abs might help with that too.
the game has been flooded with rare weps in a panic to keep people playing exacerbating the problem
Removing turn point loads on smobs and mobs should help with this, although it might take a while for tokens to work their way out of the system. The new token - potion exchange will probably be a useful sink.

faul
Posts: 75
Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2016 12:14 am

Re: equipment changes

Post by faul » Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:57 pm

ABS change is good. The part about ABS that is in a good place is the offensive output in that it shits damage. The survivability and sustain of abs felt way too high -- and I form this opinion after playing several different "types" of abs characters over the past few months -- troll warrior, troll hunter, human hunter, human warrior, and fade. Uniformly, the survivability felt high.

Dodge has felt fine to me in general, particularly on channelers. The biggest shortcoming I've noted on non-burst damage type characters (stabbers when you can't get a stab off or melee/bash dodgers) is the total inability to do any real damage to ABSers (who, as I noted above, dung damage). I think bringing absorption back down to earth will basically resolve that issue to some extent or another. Outside of when dodge was utterly broken like 20+ years ago, I don't think dodge was ever meant to feel easy or not-precarious to play.

Combo feels the worst of all three of these, but I've got mixed feelings about that. Combo used to be the best of both worlds but I think with lowering the absorption and doing away with postures, you could get away with compensating on slightly fewer DB/PB penalties in combo -- but nothing too drastic.

**

I think upping parry (via the armor weave or certain clans receiving parry split bonuses) would be an unmitigated disaster and there was very little anyone found entertaining about bashing people and watching them parry hits when parry set ups were a thing. I know opinion varies on that, but PONR weaves and high parry weapons being primarily channeler weapons kind of undermine any real argument for parrying bashed hits with any real level of consistency because it doesn't matter that "they're not hitting you" when they're bashed.

Would implore the staff to keep it simple when it comes to any tweaks to armor and remember that once you take away 19 dex channelers and possibly any equipment that gives channelers the equivalent of 19 dex db, all channelers have 18 dex and an existing db malus while weaving -- just cut armor's effect by 5 DB, up db on base dodge set by 5 db, and call it a day. Then maybe try lowering OB on certain weapons (read: long blades). Going the PB route to fix anything is just going to create more issues than it resolves.

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