Changelog 23rd May, 2016

[grease]

i learned one thing while working as an activity director at a resort in Jamaica, if 120 guests came for a week 119 will say they had an awesome time...

there is ALWAYS one guest for some **** reason who just did not have a good time even though that same guest was smiling laughing /drunk the whole time...so yea

keep up the good work folks..get some rest too.

[Vayra]

Ooohhhh, those blue 39 items are pretty cool, and I'm assuming are supposed to drop from one of the lairs that currently don't drop any loot.

and on the topic of lairs, any plans to implement Xaphan the Pyro or Gholnaros the Deathless for those sexy weapons?

[Telen]

I wouldnt leave keep now those jewel pieces have been added. Way too op. Hope trivial blows is going to work soon with all this crit.

So where is the line drawn for OP items? Im totally against powercreep, Im the guy trying to stop you guys getting stuff, progression is great, OP items bad.

I have no problem with any of the stats on the items or the defensive set bonus. Its just TB was added for a reason. With the way certain burst classes work they benefit far more than others and it was one of the causes of the powercreep in live. Dot heavy classes, as they need dots and burst abilities to crit in conjunction only benefit in the same way with very high levels of crit that are unreachable, and classes that already have guaranteed crit abilities factored into their design dont get the same benefit. Healers also suffered with RP/Zealot getting more out of crit from healbless procs. BW/Sorc dont even need mentioning.

Im hopeful that by the time people get these sets that these issues will have been worked out in balancing. Its just the mess the game became and the bandaid of a mandatory renown tactic makes me nervous seeing crit on anything.

[Azarael]

Crit stacking in general needs to be stopped. The fair ways to do that are:

- Increase damage output directly with the % Damage Dealt stat instead of using crit, which has per-class career mechanic and tactic modifiers and also kicks tactics and abilities that listen for crit, further imbalancing them. The interaction of crit with +50% crit tactics and the BW/Sorc mechanic is such an obvious disbalancing factor that it's not even funny, and whoever failed to account for this should have their design credentials revoked completely.

- Simply replace crit with something else (lowering general power output) and deal with any excessive levels of defense in the wake of such a modification. Advantage here is that you can deal with excessive armor values at the same time.

I'll say it again - you cannot pile on modification after modification after modification and maintain extremes of minmaxing and still expect your system to remain balanced. It's hard enough to balance games in which the players have static or near-static power levels and minimal customisation, and sometimes one must accept that a certain element is not workable without screwing the entire system. For me, crit and armor stacking fall into this category. I wouldn't be opposed at all to just shifting down the power of sets to ensure the game state remains as close to the initial one as is feasible.

I guess at some point, you need to ask yourselves: what is the purpose of gear progression? If it serves to ensure that those who have better gear are more powerful than those who do not, then this can actually be done in a SAFE way that preserves game state. Look at StarCraft's upgrades - since they're just linear +1 attack / +1 defense for most units, and therefore negate each other, then combat between those units at 0/0 and at 3/3 is exactly the same. Thus, in a pinch you can simply use +Damage Dealt and -Damage Received on your sets to enforce disparity between players who are geared and players who are not, WITHOUT compromising the end game state (in that TTK between two Sovereign players is the same as TTK between two Annihilator players). You can even make this complex (such that you can never be classed as more than 2 tiers below someone in this way) to limit noob crushing. Then you can have sideways progression on future sets linked to that, so that the game expands at higher RR without ruining the base game elements.

[Abolition]

For me, crit and armor stacking fall into this category. I wouldn't be opposed at all to just shifting down the power of sets to ensure the game state remains as close to the initial one as is feasible.

I always thought that +5% crit at the lower levels was pretty high, considering that the Warlord/Sovereign maintained the same +5% crit chance on the set bonus (I think? It was so long ago).

Would it be worth looking into lowering the bonus crit on lower level sets and having it "scale" accordingly as we wear better gear?

Also, regarding armour stacking, could the armour value on the armour talismans be reduced without removing them completely?

[Azarael]

For me, crit and armor stacking fall into this category. I wouldn't be opposed at all to just shifting down the power of sets to ensure the game state remains as close to the initial one as is feasible.

I always thought that +5% crit at the lower levels was pretty high, considering that the Warlord/Sovereign maintained the same +5% crit chance on the set bonus (I think? It was so long ago).

Would it be worth looking into lowering the bonus crit on lower level sets and having it "scale" accordingly as we wear better gear?

Also, regarding armour stacking, could the armour value on the armour talismans be reduced without removing them completely?

Armour talisman stats can be changed, though armor in general is a more complex topic as the values from higher level pieces form part of the issue.

Frankly, I'd love to move away from the idea of reliance on crit for damage altogether. Crit as the main source of damage improvement is inherently unfair for the reasons I've outlined above.

[Zanilos]

@Torque, I'm not going to quote your post but there are simply a few things you are missing.

Power creep is going to happen. Right now it simply doesn't need to. Without extra RR for stacking some defense you are putting the upper scales of damage way above the levels of defence. This is a huge balance change. Not just a few gimicky items that you seem to assume everyone will have. You mention that items contain crit bonus and crit reduction. What happens when a level 32 enters tier4? Its bad enough with stalker and green rings but when you fight people with that set on top, the extremes only extend.

What was the result of WL burst damage on test server, which is already high enough, with that new set on? Versus someone with same gear but no ring set on? Please bear in mind that the items you have created are already better than the purple rings from city sieges. Can you even mitigate MP properly? I'm not big on the math

Why implement them now? With RvR the way it is. Yes I know its not finished and I accept that, but would you stick ToVL in with Tyrant gear, then say that none of the bosses work and we are working it out? Or even worse, Put forts in before figuring out how to instance them fairly?

Its about time that some of the real, hardcore, solid, 6 mans get these items to test with and a playground to test on. i.e CCM, Gankbus, Bailalaika, Red Guard.

[Azarael]

Its about time that some of the real, hardcore, solid, 6 mans get these items to test with and a playground to test on. i.e CCM, Gankbus, Bailalaika, Red Guard.

Agreed.

[thullonse]

with the ability to guard a player in a game you need a way of countering it and in this case you need to rely on crits and +crit dmg tactics since there arent that many abilities to improve your damage output drastically for a short amount of time. currently the only way to burst down people reliably in a 6v6 situation is to KD+punt away both tanks and isolate the dps or heal and hope for some lucky crits to score a kill. this game doesnt have any sort of hard cc that can be stacked so you have an extremely small window of kill oppurtunity. by removing crit and crit dmg the combat literally gets a snoozefest and will kill any 6mans in open rvr since they cant bring anyone in a zerg down.

crit in a game where healers and guard tanks are present is vital to the balance.

[Telen]

I always thought that +5% crit at the lower levels was pretty high, considering that the Warlord/Sovereign maintained the same +5% crit chance on the set bonus (I think? It was so long ago).

Low levels of crit dont really work like that. Its when its stacked. The higher crit the more effective more crit becomes.

Take this for instance.
Say a BW with everything factored in hits a target at 65% crit. tic of ignite, SB, BB, PS, Sear, Nova. Thats 7.5% for them all to crit.
Stack 10% more crit and that becomes 17.7%. More than doubling the chance of that max burst.

Or a Mdps hits 2 abilities and 2 aa at 35% crit. That 4% for that burst to crit.
Add 10% and thats 9% again over doubling the chance.

Then you have dot classes. At that higher 45% crit rate for 4 dot tics to crit and a cast and instant dd to all crit is just 0.7%. Which is why in lower tiers they have ok dmg where base is more of a factor.

Of course on live crit rates were much higher than this making burst rotations almost guaranteed to crit and leading to people having to spec TB.