Bolster tweaking

[Sulorie]

Possible issue with someone using extreme -xp to significantly outpace their battle rank, but don't think that would be widespread.

Farming high rr before t4 is smoothing out the progression in early t4, so it is valuable to do so. Nevertheless it is not needed to be able to spend all renown points, the cap at your character rank is fine, as any point spend is already worth more due to bolster.
If anything could be done to help new players, it would be about the sudden bolster loss at 31, this could be tweaked. But even this isn't in dire need, as there are several options to obtain gear without being forced to to fight rr80s singlehandedly.

[balvor877]

I think another thing that would help low level scale besides bolster is allowing mastery and renown points to be spent based on RR instead of battle rank. It's silly that you can be 10+ RR higher than your career level and still not benefit from that until level 40.

Possible issue with someone using extreme -xp to significantly outpace their battle rank, but don't think that would be widespread.

At the moment you can spend all your renown points once you hit lvl 36. This makes the lvl 36+ players even more powerful because at this points some of them are already rr45 and can get e.g. +crit IV. That's one of the main reasons the high magus/engi players do such insane amount of damage then. They are running around with 20+ chance to crit.

Overall the high level players have too many advantages with more tactic slots, more mastery points, more renown abilities, better sets, more abilities in comparisson to the first 10-15 levels in that tier.

[Sulorie]

At the moment you can spend all your renown points once you hit lvl 36. This makes the lvl 36+ players even more powerful because at this points some of them are already rr45 and can get e.g. +crit IV. That's one of the main reasons the high magus/engi players do such insane amount of damage then. They are running around with 20+ chance to crit.

Overall the high level players have too many advantages with more tactic slots, more mastery points, more renown abilities, better sets, more abilities in comparisson to the first 10-15 levels in that tier.

Then they would have 5% more crit chance only compared to a rank 30 player, which isn't boosting damage like you trying to sell here.
Most classes still have rather high ctbc values in that bracket, so your own crit chance as attacker is important, like for all dps but not by all means.
Their main stats/wounds are lower as well, as they have basically lost all bolster. Swapping in some tome jewel set pieces is a bonus but it doesn't turn you into a god.
You have 1 tactic slot less as a lvl 24, while all tactics of that lvl24 are much higher in value.
The disparities come from people not using appropriate gear and empty talisman slots, which results in low bolster.
Add inexperience seen in wrong target priority, positioning and movement in general and you will have a bad time against anyone. At this point it's not even a matter of rank, anyone more experienced and better geared for their rank can farm you.
Compared to the r35 sets, the r29 are BiS for most classes, as they have useful procs.
Therefore for most classes you have a peak in their power curve around lvl30 in midtier sc.

[balvor877]

At the moment you can spend all your renown points once you hit lvl 36. This makes the lvl 36+ players even more powerful because at this points some of them are already rr45 and can get e.g. +crit IV. That's one of the main reasons the high magus/engi players do such insane amount of damage then. They are running around with 20+ chance to crit.

Overall the high level players have too many advantages with more tactic slots, more mastery points, more renown abilities, better sets, more abilities in comparisson to the first 10-15 levels in that tier.

Then they would have 5% more crit chance only compared to a rank 30 player, which isn't boosting damage like you trying to sell here.
Most classes still have rather high ctbc values in that bracket, so your own crit chance as attacker is important, like for all dps but not by all means.
Their main stats/wounds are lower as well, as they have basically lost all bolster. Swapping in some tome jewel set pieces is a bonus but it doesn't turn you into a god.
You have 1 tactic slot less as a lvl 24, while all tactics of that lvl24 are much higher in value.
The disparities come from people not using appropriate gear and empty talisman slots, which results in low bolster.
Add inexperience seen in wrong target priority, positioning and movement in general and you will have a bad time against anyone. At this point it's not even a matter of rank, anyone more experienced and better geared for their rank can farm you.
Compared to the r35 sets, the r29 are BiS for most classes, as they have useful procs.
Therefore for most classes you have a peak in their power curve around lvl30 in midtier sc.

5% compared to a rank 30 player with the same set yeah but like 20% more than a fresh level 16 entering the tier. The top damage numbers I have posted in here in the beginning are all from high level players with probably high crit. You wont do 500k damage as a sub 20, never.

I agree with you that there is a sweet spot around lvl 30 in tier 3 SCs. At this point you already have the first 5 piece set (which is very powerful) and still have pretty good bolstering. Some classes are even too powerful at this point. A WP/Dok with level 29, full set and armor talis you cant kill in melee. There is just no chance.

Regarding survivability the peak is around 28-32, regarding damage output the peak is around 37-39.

Regarding god like: The r39 tanks are incredible tough (especially knights/chosens with their auras). You need half an army to bring one down and when they have some heal they just wont die. That is close to god like. Regarding damage the AOE gods are magus, aoe SW and slayer and single target it is sorc and SH. The sorcs around lvl 32 and later lvl 39 will blow you up in one rotation. That's only a few seconds. Ive seen it over and over again. The aoe gods will dish out 400-550k damage. Also insane but at least you can spread out and heal that. Those are very close to god like.

Id say you are starting rather weak with level 16 the first few levels, then grow stronger and stronger up to around level 32, the next few levels you are losing power and with 36 up to 39 you are gaining power again.

The problem with the first 5-10 levels is that you just dont do enough damage to kill the high levels. No matter how good your talis, potions and gear is because the high levels have that talis, potions and gear as well and a lot more block, crit, etc.

Therefore a group with a lot of lvl 16-24 are almost garanteed to lose against a group of lvl 30+.

Post screenshots to prove me wrong.

[Sulorie]

Can't be bothered to edit out names, because takes too much time just to prove a point.
You can do it on any level, on any class.
For the most part it is solo queue but in any case a group can cover weaknesses.
Especially on melee chars, where guard is very valuable.
Having not many chars in the new 16-39 bracket, most were leveled, when 30 was max rank but it didn't felt any different tbh.
Do you need sub 20 healer screenshots outhealing higher ranks too?

https://imgur.com/0LXn60H
https://imgur.com/szqzhB4
https://imgur.com/fCodQs3
https://imgur.com/YelixeZ
https://imgur.com/AdOgbPn
https://imgur.com/aM91qoo
https://imgur.com/WkAQVuk
https://imgur.com/Z6cPL72
https://imgur.com/25hc8pW
https://imgur.com/Rh5ti3t
https://imgur.com/Mw5m5VD
https://imgur.com/LFnt8YL

[balvor877]

Can't be bothered to edit out names, because takes too much time just to prove a point.
You can do it on any level, on any class.
For the most part it is solo queue but in any case a group can cover weaknesses.
Especially on melee chars, where guard is very valuable.
Having not many chars in the new 16-39 bracket, most were leveled, when 30 was max rank but it didn't felt any different tbh.
Do you need sub 20 healer screenshots outhealing higher ranks too?

https://imgur.com/0LXn60H
https://imgur.com/szqzhB4
https://imgur.com/fCodQs3
https://imgur.com/YelixeZ
https://imgur.com/AdOgbPn
https://imgur.com/aM91qoo
https://imgur.com/WkAQVuk
https://imgur.com/Z6cPL72
https://imgur.com/25hc8pW
https://imgur.com/Rh5ti3t
https://imgur.com/Mw5m5VD
https://imgur.com/LFnt8YL

Well I hoped for a prove with screenshots but your screenshots prove nothing.

It seems to me that you had several advantages in that rounds that made you look good. I mean yeah, I could also do some screenshots with any twinked class vs bad enemies where I did good. That's happening when Im maxed out and the own team and enemies are rather bad.

As soon there are high level maxed out players in the scenario everything changes. Why? Because when they are on your side they are getting the kills and doing the main damage, thus your damage and kills drop. When they are on the enemy side then you are getting killed or CCed or blocked/disruped/mitigated more often, thus your damage and kills also drop hard.

What Im trying to say is that there were no good high level players on that screenshots. That's the main reason you did good. Others are that you are ranged and Sorcs/BWs have high crit/critdamage by design. You can see that the other sub 20 did not do good at all.

This is how the chart board looks when there are good high level players around:
https://ibb.co/hy5VQ3R
https://ibb.co/4JLGX0h
https://ibb.co/S7NxMHJ

Suddenly the lows are not so good anymore...

The highs are the drivers in these SCs - under the assumption that they are good of course. Period.

[Sulorie]

Suddenly the lows are not so good anymore...

The highs are the drivers in these SCs - under the assumption that they are good of course. Period.

I almost hoped you come with screenshots like that. SW aoe dot spam pumps up the numbers, others, 10 ranks lower did no worse, just with less fluff dmg. Enemy team had even more kills, so if the SW would be godlike at that rank, the enemy would be camped at spawn.
Several highranks in sc, some are at bottom, some at top. Rank alone can't be the driving factor in this case.
Like I wrote before, it doesn't matter what rank or archetype. It's not once in a blue moon, those results are regularly. When the enemy team has a premade, ofc your team needs one as well to compete.

The very fact, that higher rank can score lower, blows your whole argument, that lowranks are on a disadvantage because of their ranks. The driving factor is game knowledge, which already includes gearing up.
The team with more experienced players wins, as those players tend to optimize their char for any given rank.
The case of having equally skilled players on both sides, where ultimately class setup and gear matters, is very anecdotally, as this is indeed happening once in a blue moon.

[balvor877]

I don't want to comment on everything Sulorie but you are wrong in most points.

It is a no-brainer that high level characters with more abilities, morals, tactics, etc. are more powerful than low level characters. Trying to argue that away is just plain stupid. Taking the average random PUG scenario the chances to win decrease the more low levels you have on your side. Doesn't mean you cant still win but it's going to be an uphill battle. Also, maxed out highs have a much bigger impact on the outcome than maxed out lows - as you could see on my screenshots. That is the current situation.

The whole point of this thread is to discuss the bolster mechanic and maybe do some tweaking. I pointed out that the entry level is a bit weak and the end level is a bit too strong. Lets talk about solutions.

One tweak already happend: You cant spend all your realm points with r36 anymore. That's a good step for balancing t3 SCs, a bad for orvr players though.

[balvor877]

And lets not forget the orvr bolster issue. The bolster drop around level 32 from level 48 to level 40. It would be more important to find a solution for that one than for the t3 SCs.

[Sulorie]

It is a no-brainer that high level characters with more abilities, morals, tactics, etc. are more powerful than low level characters.

This is only true, if that high level character is well geared and equally experienced. You have no power just because of your rank and available tactics and skills, as picking the right tactics and spec is based on knowledge as well.

If both sides have equally good or bad players, only then the higher ranks have higher chance to win. This is hardly happening in the first place and then it is fully ok in a progression based game. This is no Guild Wars.