[Gear] State Stabilization

[Stilton]

The graph won me over.
Honestly, 9 pages after that initial post and my attention span couldn't handle much more anyway - but one of the most immediate replies said, which i was thinking as i read:

If crit stacking (as a stat example) is a problem for balacing inparticular, soft/hard cap it..
...With a very low cap if need be. (As someone who doesn't play mdps much yet.. i'm not bothered by this yet - But same to any other stats.)


Also, the above post about gear improvemements exponentially 'falling off' as they progress would be a good ethos for set balancing...

Infact, if it wasn't a major pain in the arse i'd suggest toning back all stats on all gear through the game to the point where gear gives a negligable power boost overall compared to the inherant stats that come from levelling your class.. but it might make the game very 'bland' and is probably too much work to consider anyway, just to see if its worth it...

So.. Pass xD

[Koha]

The current situation is not "stabilized", and I hope that it is not considered as a reference : I mean level 40RR40+ with Annihilator is not "balanced" for every classes.

The current state is not really mdps friendly :
- Low crit chances (tanks, and rdps all have 15 to 20% crit tactics, even doks and WP)
- Low mitigations
- already high damages from rdps (aka 4K undefendable fireballs amongst many others)

Still, having some kind of limitation to power gap between tier sets would be a good thing, and I would be pleased to see what you're suggesting live. I just hope you guys won't lose your mind on such an ambitious project that will raise so many headaches and whining.

[Bozzax]

Perfect and easy, huh? You're forgetting that even with state stabilization, stat, ability, tactic, morale and renown customisation still exist. That is already very difficult to balance - bring state shifting because of gear into it and you're screwed. If Warhammer really were brought down in part by its balance issues, I would have thought that people would be determined to make whatever sacrifices necessary to ensure that the next iteration were balanced.

The other point about this is that any system that has progression but does not implement a stabilization mechanism is limited. You will lose the balance as you progress because some variables are changing and others are not, or the interaction between two variables that are changing is not linear. The most obvious examples are constant-damage effects versus HP pool size, constant effects versus scaling effects and armor versus Weapon Skill.

Some have suggested minimizing the difference between armor sets to counteract this, and as I've said before, this is a bad solution. Firstly, it ruins some of the feeling of progression that people get - while you might be able to see a concrete +x bonus to your stats from the new set, the absolute difference is reduced, and thus the "feel" you get from using the set. Secondly, the point at which you screw the game balance royally still exists, and thus there's a limit to how many sets you can make available and how much vertical progression you can offer before having to rebalance. Both of these issues do not exist when using relative tiering.

Finally, I should add that this isn't necessarily about the proposal passing. If you want to push up to Sovereign level, even the old level, and try to balance from that, fine, but you should understand that this would mean a) a balance forum lock for a significant period of time and b) rebalancing all of the factors that were ruined by the state progression that I've mentioned above. I'd be willing to bet that more elements of the game would need to be changed than if we used the present state, and that the result would be rather close to what we're currently dealing with. Think it's worth it? I don't.

Was Warhammer really brought down in part by its balance issues?

This is a new one for me. A handfull of classes were a waste of time in WAR but a part from that WAR offered the best most balanced colourful team experience I've encountered in any MMO (or MUD), small scale and/or in RvR. This even with retard 1.4 patch that destroyed the game and broken LOTD gear that pushed % increasers off the charts. To this day I can't give you one game that has done it better (read did it in a more fun way).

Maybe you are right though and ROR really needs relative tiering to succeed. It just isn't as obvious to me especially with the current player base playing with almost 0 progression. Maybe I'm not sold on gear grinds being the answer to keep players playing.

How you decide to move on and do stuff is really up to you regardless I'm glad you try make it better.

[blaqwar]

Also, the above post about gear improvemements exponentially 'falling off' as they progress would be a good ethos for set balancing...

Infact, if it wasn't a major pain in the arse i'd suggest toning back all stats on all gear through the game to the point where gear gives a negligable power boost overall compared to the inherant stats that come from levelling your class.. but it might make the game very 'bland' and is probably too much work to consider anyway, just to see if its worth it...

So.. Pass xD

You are debunking yourself by correctly pointing out that a game with minimal progression in power (if the increase tapers off towards the top) or a game where the increases in power within tiers are absolutely minimal would be bland and uninteresting as an RPG. Which WAR is, unfortunately, so if gear didn't reward the players for their time it would be much less interesting after reaching level 40. It's essentially breaking the very core concept of an MMORPG.

I think it's worth reminding people that the basics of every MMORPG are time investment in relation to character advancement (essentially the gear treadmill) no matter how well it's masked. That is the pull of playing an MMORPG. The fact that you invest your time into the game and you get proportionate rewards that make your character stronger. If the rewards are weak and unsatisfactory for the time invested people will find the game "grindy", uninteresting and go play something else. If, as a simple-minded remedy to that, you make the rewards easily achievable and weak people will find the game to be bland and shallow, it won't offer a time sink or a challenge to anyone but the most casual of players. The balance between the two along with all the distractions made to mask the grind is what makes the MMORPGs attractive.

As much as we all love the IP and the feel of the game, the large scale combat or the PvP mechanics, none of those would be able to save the game if the core relation of investment vs reward is screwed up. Just think about what's the main drawback people are citing right now as to why the game is boring? Extremely limited and stunted character advancement. I don't understand how people think that stunting gear advancement would have any other effect.

[Tesq]

Spoiler:

Also, the above post about gear improvemements exponentially 'falling off' as they progress would be a good ethos for set balancing...

Infact, if it wasn't a major pain in the arse i'd suggest toning back all stats on all gear through the game to the point where gear gives a negligable power boost overall compared to the inherant stats that come from levelling your class.. but it might make the game very 'bland' and is probably too much work to consider anyway, just to see if its worth it...

So.. Pass xD

You are debunking yourself by correctly pointing out that a game with minimal progression in power (if the increase tapers off towards the top) or a game where the increases in power within tiers are absolutely minimal would be bland and uninteresting as an RPG. Which WAR is, unfortunately, so if gear didn't reward the players for their time it would be much less interesting after reaching level 40. It's essentially breaking the very core concept of an MMORPG.

I think it's worth reminding people that the basics of every MMORPG are time investment in relation to character advancement (essentially the gear treadmill) no matter how well it's masked. That is the pull of playing an MMORPG. The fact that you invest your time into the game and you get proportionate rewards that make your character stronger. If the rewards are weak and unsatisfactory for the time invested people will find the game "grindy", uninteresting and go play something else. If, as a simple-minded remedy to that, you make the rewards easily achievable and weak people will find the game to be bland and shallow, it won't offer a time sink or a challenge to anyone but the most casual of players. The balance between the two along with all the distractions made to mask the grind is what makes the MMORPGs attractive.

As much as we all love the IP and the feel of the game, the large scale combat or the PvP mechanics, none of those would be able to save the game if the core relation of investment vs reward is screwed up. Just think about what's the main drawback people are citing right now as to why the game is boring? Extremely limited and stunted character advancement. I don't understand how people think that stunting gear advancement would have any other effect.

easy said, you keep raise the level and the game remain with perfect same balance then you could just had to not increase level at all. You either do not if the game is balanced or you keep do that if the game is unbalanced and stuff. Or third option you keep the game balanced but time after time you do some changes that shift the meta for make things interesting and variable.

-changes in game meta like league of legend are very bad for someone that level up a class in war and saw it change
-balanced game mean is meaningless provide new gear as you loose the feeling of progression because the things remain the same + you have to grind the itiems again
- give more itiemization option of the same level -> improve variety and no more cap increase help ppl that cannot dedicate more than "x" times to play the game.

so in the chance you want go past sov (bad idea) then you need a kind of this rewamp; in the other way you just need to balance anni to sov road.

I had to spoiler this because I have reached a point where I can't really understand what you post. I politely ask you to spend more time working on your posts (at least, those made in the Balance discussion forum), improving your english. Also, you dont have to quote someone in order to reply/try to debunk him; all this does is create walls of text - Penril.

[porkstar]

Spoiler:

In simple terms, if a guy in Anni can dish out 300 DPS (or HPS or any other combat performance metric) to another guy in Anni and the abilities and scaling secondary stats (crit, parry, crit damage) are balanced according to that - which is what the community and the devs are doing in the balance forums - then this balance will be broken if a guy in Sov can dish out a 1000 DPS to another guy in Sov. Which means that all the balancing being done right now is pointless since it would have to be redone for every new tier of gear. This is what Azarael means when he says that the fate of the balance forums hinges on solving this issue.

I would like to understand the goal of the OP more clearly and it seems that you do understand it. So the goal of the OP would be accomplished if (the following numbers are extremely arbitrary but is this correct conceptually?) ; ANN vs ANN = 300 DPS and 150 Mitigate. SOV vs SOV = 300 DPS and 150 Mitigate.

For different gear tiers +1 and +2 I will arbitrarily pick out that +1 means +25% (probably different) - SOV (+2) vs ANN (+0) = 450 DPS and 150 Mitigated. ANN (+0) vs SOV (+2) = 300 DPS and 225 Mitigated?

Is this a correct understanding of the goal? So in the above case, the things that would make the above impossible unless controlled are(among other things): Armor stacking, crit stacking, min/max customization, abilities that scale vs abilities that don't etc etc. At least some of those issues are related to power increases of gear.

[Stilton]

You are debunking yourself ... the basics of every MMORPG are ... (essentially the gear treadmill) no matter how well it's masked.
...
As much as we all love the IP and the feel of the game, the large scale combat or the PvP mechanics, none of those would be able to save the game if the core relation of investment vs reward is screwed up.

Firstly, if i say 'You / You're' I'm not directing it at you blaq.. I'm using it as a general 'example person'

Here's the thing, i agree with you in that, the power-gap provided by gear is part of 'what makes an mmo an mmo'; whilst at the same time, i don't believe its a positive element of what defines 'mmo gameplay' and it's something (thankfully from OP) that these devs are trying to avoid in order to push a more competitive gameplay / higher skill ceiling...


..But without basically removing stats off the gear, i cant see a clever way to 'balance' it...

If you have stats and tali slots on gear, you've either got to take away peoples freedom to min/max their gains, most people will happily admit they will push any advantage they get -- so that involves lots of hard/soft caps and then you're basically pushing everyone into the builds that the devs feel is balanced...



Another way i strong disagree is the opinion that people ONLY play war for the sweet sweet purple numbas / gear progression. I dont say that with any negative connotation.. I myself am too a powergamer when the mood suits me.

But some people may play for those reasons alone (perhaps the majority?), but i'd argue some people might like the social aspect of the game, some people might primarily be drawn by artstyle / IP alone as you alluded to, others it's the concept of large scale pvp 'organisation' ... Some people might like the dressing up of their characters...
..Some people might like the pve dungeon gameplay.


To tar everyone with one brush and say 'this is what people play war' is, in my opinion an overly simplistic viewpoint bordering on naive, and when you use that as a starting point to discount my opinion.. its hard to take you seriously.

If you're only playing to climb the gear ladder, you obviously dont find the core gameplay fun enough on its own, in which case.. That's is your problem... That is where the focus of your concern should be imo, not:
'Please add more shiny things to distract me from the fact that the core gameplay is broken / boring'



But, ok, let's say they did nerf the stats and suddenly the gear progression made almost no difference to overall character performance... You feel nobody would play anymore, i feel like those people are going to hit the cap and stop playing instantly anyway...


..Wouldn't it also immediately make the game more skill based / balanced by levelling the playing field.
Maybe even more fun on some level? because it would be more competitive?


..But you're either going to have a game where gear-gap provides a power bonus... and the game is less competitive as a result...
You know the game... it's going to allow a rr80 marauder to faceroll a party of 6 wearing greens who just turned up in 40.

It's going to be an mmo...


Or, you going to have a game where it's balanced, like what's being 'asked for' in the original topic.. But then it's not going to be as much of an mmo?
Because that power-gap is to me, what makes an mmo?



I hope i didn't come across as a **** in any of that post... I just read your reply and it seemed to state the fact of 'WHY PEOPLE PLAY' and.. i can tell you this, it's not why i play.. so your 'theory' doesn't hold up against my first test case (myself)

[Hastykrasty]

1- The imbalance grows with gear level, and that's a fact, so everybody agree with OP (more or less).

2- Yeah, that should be addressed. But i can't see how.
Since the higher tier sets are not available, how could any solution found be actually implemented (state stabilization, caps for certain stats, reduction between sets, etc.)?
Even if we would chose to wait for sov set and all, permanently blocking the balance forum is not a great idea. The same problems that exist now will probably be amplified in sov gear, and maybe others will be mitigated, since the interaction of all the game variables is unknown, we can only guess. Maybe open only some topics on the balance forum after a review from the GMs, and still address some major problems, ofcourse the minor balancing topics will be paused.

3-Well, if we disregard the implementation (and that's a huge IF), I think that even a state stabilization between sets as proposed by the OP will work (hypoteticaly). Mybe is not appreciated, but it has a solid logic:
- It doesn't ruin the game for the new players
- It still gives some advantages to the high-end players
- It limits the variability of some variables, allowing an easier balancing of the classes, gear will always be a variable, but with less weight.

Then a question: Is it implementable?
I mean, not by code, but will "the developement of the whole balance around a given metric" be enough to handle all the possible imbalanced situations? Would not it create new imbalances? but then we enter in the implementation...

Concluding, the choices are two:
a) We wait till the sov comes out and balance around it.
b) Decide a global metric (gear tiers difference as proposed by OP) around wich we balance the PvP game.

[areanda]

Example 1: Critical Hit Rate

remove crit stacking from the rr merchant and let em try something diff.

Example 2: Armor Stacking

remove the armor buff from magus/engi since they can use armor pot same as anyone else.

Example 3: Constant Value Effects

ur alr on the right track by the sorc/Bw buffs of frozen touch and such. see how this develops over time.

Example 4: Bottom-End Creep

why not use 1 whole T4 zone like all dwarf zones for rr rank 40 till 55 and elfs 55 till 65 and empire 65 till 80. and switch this cycle around. so everyone gets to see all zones. for example all of T4 lower levels is locked but also the higher 1 then switch those automatic.

other examples i have no answer on but these are my answers so far.

[Azarael]

Spoiler:

In simple terms, if a guy in Anni can dish out 300 DPS (or HPS or any other combat performance metric) to another guy in Anni and the abilities and scaling secondary stats (crit, parry, crit damage) are balanced according to that - which is what the community and the devs are doing in the balance forums - then this balance will be broken if a guy in Sov can dish out a 1000 DPS to another guy in Sov. Which means that all the balancing being done right now is pointless since it would have to be redone for every new tier of gear. This is what Azarael means when he says that the fate of the balance forums hinges on solving this issue.

I would like to understand the goal of the OP more clearly and it seems that you do understand it. So the goal of the OP would be accomplished if (the following numbers are extremely arbitrary but is this correct conceptually?) ; ANN vs ANN = 300 DPS and 150 Mitigate. SOV vs SOV = 300 DPS and 150 Mitigate.

For different gear tiers +1 and +2 I will arbitrarily pick out that +1 means +25% (probably different) - SOV (+2) vs ANN (+0) = 450 DPS and 150 Mitigated. ANN (+0) vs SOV (+2) = 300 DPS and 225 Mitigated?

Is this a correct understanding of the goal? So in the above case, the things that would make the above impossible unless controlled are(among other things): Armor stacking, crit stacking, min/max customization, abilities that scale vs abilities that don't etc etc. At least some of those issues are related to power increases of gear.

Yes.