Return of Reckoning

Hi everyone,

Today we’d like to give you an early heads-up on our ongoing and latest work to balance items within the game.


The Challenge:

Because RoR is a project that many devs have contributed to over many years, a number of items in the game were built at different points, with different rule-sets, throughout the project’s history. This has resulted in some items having many more stat points than they should, and others having far less than they should.

Additionally, the weight of certain stats was historically calculated with different values. To help address this, late last year the team had a series of meetings to determine new weights for each stat point, which better reflect their actual value.


The Solution:

To unify and fix these issues, this year the team will be updating item values throughout the game to balance the stat weighting and update to the new values.

Summed up, this means:

• Items which have historically been too weak (like the Genesis Shard) are going to be getting buffed later this year.
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• Items which are too strong for their level will see nerfs or adjustments to better balance them.
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• These changes will also add values for Procs and set bonuses, meaning that the bonus values on a number of item sets will also be changing. This will eventually include the Triumphant and Victorious sets, and due to the high War Crest cost associated with the ring in these sets, we’ll share additional information once we determine what these adjustments will be.

For now, we’d like to let everyone know that balance changes are coming, with the first set of these arriving in our early April patch. Weapons will be first up on the list, with adjustments arriving to Subjugator, Fortress, Sentinel, Glory/Tyranny, Reverance/Anathema, Bloodlord, and many more.

For Weapons, Procs (the extra trait or effect) historically did not count as having any value or weight in item calculation. This was a bit strange, as having extra damage, absorbs, etc is most certainly valuable for players, so many weapons with Procs will still retain those, but will see their stats reduced to balance this added benefit. Across the board, mid to end-game Weapon stats will generally be going down.


How we Calculate Stats:

Next, let’s dive a little into how the new system works. Most readers probably won’t care much past this point, but for anyone curious about how we’re arriving at the new numbers per item, we’d like to share how we get there.

• First, we calculate the amount of stats based on the Item Level of a specific item. Historically, these were all over the place, with random, made-up item levels being used and stats that often didn’t match at all. As part of these updates, item levels will change to become accurate to the stat values on a piece of gear.
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• Second, we add in Item Rarity. This one’s also simple: the higher the rarity of the item, the more of a bump it gets to the overall stats.
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• Finally, if you’re a lower level player, we factor in a Scaling System that makes the cost of certain stats a bit cheaper. This is because at lower levels, the value of certain stats are different than for a level 40 character. For example, 10 Strength increases a player’s damage proportionally more at level 10 than it does at level 40, which is not the case for Melee Crit. The result is that you will see higher values of stats such as Crit, Parry etc on lower level items.

If you’re interested in seeing the new math and the values we’re using going forward, you can have a look at this new Wiki Page which contains all the reasoning and the values associated for stats going forward.


More news to come!

That’s all for this initial look and heads-up, but as we expect this item rebalancing to make some adjustments to many items in the game this year, we wanted to give an early heads-up that it was coming. In the meantime, if you have questions or thoughts, we welcome those here on the thread. Thanks for reading!

If item stats are going be squished because procs are now a factor, is there at least a way possible for us have another version of the item to keep the stats? I know this happened with darkpromise weapons a few patches ago because the numbers were really high, is this similar or more drastic than that? For example, some weapon procs on the end game weapons are mediocre.

The Fortress weapons cost a lot but have lackluster procs, most people don't pick that weapon over another because of the 5% chance to do 300 dmg. Maybe some do but if the overall stats will be lowered to make room for that proc, can we have at least two versions with or without the proc and can exchange it?

My last question is, are the weapons keeping everything they currently have or are they being redone completely? As you said, some items have random stats for classes that doesn't really make sense with.

interesting, this will either go really well or really poorly.

hopefully not too many nerfs to pvp weapons (many anathema weapons for example could use a buff as they see almost no play besides the shield for snb tanks) while items like bloodlord weapons get nerfed. pve items should never be bis in a pvp centric game.

buffs to sent weapons would be nice too. while some sent weapons are decent for very specific class/builds (like the reactionary proc 2h for BG/SM or movespeed proc 2h for knight/chosen/ib) most of the other weapons are bad due to lacking crit chance or having weak procs.

as far as sets and bonuses.. many warlord and invader sets need a thorough re-itemization and set bonus changes. if you are going to consider nerfing vic/tri, please reduce the cost (of the ring, at least) substantially to compensate.

you should look at darkpromise and onslaught too. they are mathematically bis (proven via calculations) over, or combined with, sov/warlord/tri/vic on some builds currently. imo this goes against the vertical progression of the game when you are finding items which are 10-20 item levels lower than sov/warlord more valuable than the highest tier items in the game. the LV secret boss wounds ring should be on the chopping block too.

Have no idea why change things that is working normally , and why such changes are priority.

Let me guess, now DP will be better then Sov?