[Gear] State Stabilization

[Jaycub]

What does this mean for changes already made, and currently planned changes?

There will be quite a lot of loose ends seeing as some changes were presumably made with future changes in mind.

Spoiler:

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[Azarael]

It doesn't matter either way. If we accept that imbalance is a necessity, any complaints about the present state have no basis, because future states will also be imbalanced and thus be no better (and most likely significantly WORSE). Classes that got the short end of the stick as a result of any changes we made on RoR thus have no right to complain, because the shafted and overpowered classes will change with every content update anyway.

[Glorian]

@Aza:

If I understand your post right a vertical progression (Higher gear = better gear) is the option to hold players.
Also at the same time it will lead to a constant class imbalance at different gear lvls.

So perfect balance will not be possible.
Ok, but you don't stop class balancing completely. Or do you?

[Azarael]

I'm not willing to perform any kind of balance if I'm going to have to repeatedly tweak lots of variables just to keep things stable because people want and need their extra stats and customisation. I've no interest in that at all.

[zumos2]

I believe it is not progression directly that keeps the game going, great part of it is rewarding players for their actions. Without any progression, those rewards become meaningless and that content will most likely be played less and less. This is the most true for dungeons/raids. WAR however is a pvp focused MMORPG and pvp does have another aspect that can drive people, which is competition. Whether that is on a 6v6 level, 24v24 level or realm level, pride is something that also has the opportunity to drive the game. Unfortunately Warhammer doesn’t have things like scoreboards/ranks of shooters/mobas. And for warband and realm scale this forms even more of a challenge. The RvR system, even in its final state has been built around resetting after an x amount of time.

The question becomes whether there is a way in which we can turn this game into a game driven by competition (again on every scale people like to play) and not solely based on progression (via rewarding). I believe a brainstorm on ideas how to achieve this could possibly lead to a solution. Think of what we can do with the RvR system, what we can do with scenarios, maybe redesigning the RR system. In the end we can decide whether it is worth changing so much of the game for that.

If in the end it is decided to go down the path of basically just implementing all sets like they were on live it would still be good to balance for the highest level of gear. This can be done by waiting until a sufficient amount of players have reached that gear level or with an internal group of testers who can test the best gear on the dev server. Also if we go down the vertical progression path, it would be beneficial to the project to stretch the time of this vertical progression as much as possible.

[Glorian]

I'm not willing to perform any kind of balance if I'm going to have to repeatedly tweak lots of variables just to keep things stable because people want and need their extra stats and customisation. I've no interest in that at all.

True.
But, for example m2 dok cleanse everything is a thing for balancing. If I'm sovereign, merc or anni gear doesn't change this.
There can be no perfect balance at all times. But a tightening of the different careers can be achieved.
Imo of course.

[Miszczu5647]

I have to say that I am sad when reading what Azareal wrote. This thread in fact touch most important thing that is: Why people playing this game? And how to make it enjoyable to all.
Pvp experience, Warhammer lore, playing with friends and I am sure much more. All reasons mixed in every of us. From this point of view I can agree that it is impossible to balance all those things.

But... Balance forum is THE BEST thing happens to this game ever. Seriously. THE BEST. Like Glorian said there are lots of things to balance outside gear. We can not let it to be wasted.

[Danielle]

I'm not willing to perform any kind of balance if I'm going to have to repeatedly tweak lots of variables just to keep things stable because people want and need their extra stats and customisation. I've no interest in that at all.

I think a quantitatively perfectly balanced game is an unrealistic dream anyway. The claim that new gear will introduce a myriad of new variables that will make perfect balance nearly impossible is completely true. However, as mentioned by others that doesn't mean the balancing effort should be given up on completely. While MMO players like having gear to work towards that gives them an advantage, I would hazard a guess that there is broad community consensus that the final stage of gear differences in AoR was absolutely game breaking and was one of the reasons for the game's death. That is why multiple people including myself are suggesting to have vertical progression, but to slow it down to a large extent. Every new set will be an improvement, but only a slight improvement. I still work towards +24 stat talismans even though they only give me a +1 stat difference. I am not saying the set improvements should be that drastically small; but Azarael and the developer team with what help the community can offer can figure out what the maximum difference should be between the 'basic set' (annihilator) and the top set (sovereign/tyrant). The progression between them can then be always a percentage of this maximum difference.

Yes, the game won't be perfectly balanced regardless of the balancing efforts, but it will be better balanced and hopefully more fun to play. What we need to work on is balancing the game in a qualitative way. No matter how hardcore you are it's never fun to find out your class is useless when you reach the endgame. Every class should be able to fill it's role in a reasonably coordinated 6-man or a warband. The dev team has already made some progress on these matters with changing AoE skills. It sure is more fun to play a marauder or a WL in large scale than it ever used to be and it doesn't mean classes like Choppa or Sorcere have become irrelevant. Great job!? Yeah, I think so.

So, forget about balancing to make the game perfectly balanced for some e-sport competition or whatever. Balance to make the game more fun. A better balanced game is a more enjoyable game. Why should we give up on making the game more fun, when it can be done even under changing gear conditions?

[sanii]

I'm not willing to perform any kind of balance if I'm going to have to repeatedly tweak lots of variables just to keep things stable because people want and need their extra stats and customisation. I've no interest in that at all.

Why not just make a decision to never increase the maximum possible stat budget for dynamic variable's and relations like crit and initiative , armor and weapon skill. Alternatively you can try finding out what that ideal value of those stat's should be and then root your balance goals with those numbers in mind. That would still allow you room for liberal allocation towards the more linear scaling stat's (example: str. and toughness whose relation is easy to predict) in any future set .
The above also makes it that the constant value effects that are armor debuff's and initiative debuffs ( arguably the ones most affected) do not need constant re balancing and your consistent involvement. And i am sure we can find some sensible solution to stat buff's (% based , ilvl based etc.)

The answer to the proc issue you gave yourself :

I don't like the mechanics of the major procs that were changed in this patch, and would much prefer them to be rooted in the user's original DPS / attack power somehow, such that any of the major group procs deals x% of the damage of the strike that triggered it. However, that's a more major change, as it would prevent fast weapons and dual wield from being abused, as well as neutralizing the offense of low attack characters.

It might make the game more bland in regard's to how extreme you were able to stack some of the more broken stat's , but i'd rather take bland and boring set increases then the horrible balance state on live.

Through your efforts you managed to turn AM/Shaman mechanic into something engaging and interesting and rewarding to play around.
You turned the most usless 2 classes in the game Engi/Magus into something that can actually be taken as a threat.
You took effort's in turning DoK/WP into the melee healer they were originally planned as while being hamstrung without client access.
Most of your changes have been well thought out , albeit some required revision's and scratching , the effort you put up is already significantly more then anyone expected.
That is why it is sad to see that you want to cease with balancing effort's as there are still issues that transcend gear/scaling.

[Noiree]

I'm not willing to perform any kind of balance if I'm going to have to repeatedly tweak lots of variables just to keep things stable because people want and need their extra stats and customisation. I've no interest in that at all.

May I offer a completely different approach? Partially vertical, almost no variables to twitch around and might solve the bolstering problem, too.
Haven't mentioned the idea as it wasn't wished for in this thread. But if you like to hear, I'll write it down. If not, just delete my post.