2013-03-14 Content Update (115695)

[Swede]

Here's my point: Do you have an end game toon of each class? I know you have a mage and warrior so you may have a rogue as well. Take some time over the next 3 days and play each until you get a combined 1000 kills and deaths on each toon then look at your kdr on each. I will almost guarantee you that the kdr on your warrior will be a lot better than ur rogue and ur rogues will be better than ur mages. You'll be the same pvper, with the same knowledge of the game but the difference is the class ur playing.

Your KDR might be different and that makes total sense. Now if you had a leaderboard for damage done though, your Sorcerer should be way ahead of the other two classes, barring your play style and build not putting you in any area of effect situations.

Here's the thing, at their core, Mages are the AOE kings, so they will never do as much damage 1v1 as a Rogue. All their AOE abilities damage takes in to account that they can hit 3-10 targets, so per target the damage is much lower. That can't change, we can't give their Fireball the same damage per target at Aimed Shot for Rogues, or they would be broken.

Because we wanted the Rogues to have the highest single target damage, Mages single target abilities can be upgraded to have AOE and crowd control effects instead, but not as high damage as Rogue single target abilities.

AL PvP is not balanced for 1v1 and never will be, because it would take too much of the class flavor out of the game.

In 5v5 PvP (and to a large degree, PvE), this is how we see the classes:

Warrior - The tank, front line of the fight. The first to go in and bait out powerful abilities and cooldowns of the enemy team. The flag runner and the one to prevent the enemies from getting to the back line team members (this part is where the Warrior kind of fails currently in PvP, since Taunt doesn't work on players).

Sorcerer - The artillery, second line of the battle, able to sustain damage over the entire enemy team for an extended period of time, and selectively crowd control enemies that try to break through or are the chosen target of the team.

Rogue - The assassin, last to enter the fight. Sneaks in late in the fight and starts to pick off single high value targets, i.e other Rogues, Sorcerers, flag runners

So yeah, Rogues being powerful in 1v1 is no accident. Warriors also have a slight advantage in 1v1 simply because they are so beefy that it's hard to kill them by yourself before they are able to whittle you down.

A flaw currently is that we don't have leaderboards for things such as total damage output in PvP (which I'm convinced a good Sorcerer would lead), so we're pushing everyone to focus on KDR which automatically means Rogues (killsteal...securers, hey it's their job) and Warriors (don't die as much) will feel like they're doing better in PvP than Sorcerers.

[hippl]

Your KDR might be different and that makes total sense. Now if you had a leaderboard for damage done though, your Sorcerer should be way ahead of the other two classes, barring your play style and build not putting you in any area of effect situations.

Here's the thing, at their core, Mages are the AOE kings, so they will never do as much damage 1v1 as a Rogue. All their AOE abilities damage takes in to account that they can hit 3-10 targets, so per target the damage is much lower. That can't change, we can't give their Fireball the same damage per target at Aimed Shot for Rogues, or they would be broken.

Because we wanted the Rogues to have the highest single target damage, Mages single target abilities can be upgraded to have AOE and crowd control effects instead, but not as high damage as Rogue single target abilities.

AL PvP is not balanced for 1v1 and never will be, because it would take too much of the class flavor out of the game.

In 5v5 PvP (and to a large degree, PvE), this is how we see the classes:

Warrior - The tank, front line of the fight. The first to go in and bait out powerful abilities and cooldowns of the enemy team. The flag runner and the one to prevent the enemies from getting to the back line team members (this part is where the Warrior kind of fails currently in PvP, since Taunt doesn't work on players).

Sorcerer - The artillery, second line of the battle, able to sustain damage over the entire enemy team for an extended period of time, and selectively crowd control enemies that try to break through or are the chosen target of the team.

Rogue - The assassin, last to enter the fight. Sneaks in late in the fight and starts to pick off single high value targets, i.e other Rogues, Sorcerers, flag runners

So yeah, Rogues being powerful in 1v1 is no accident. Warriors also have a slight advantage in 1v1 simply because they are so beefy that it's hard to kill them by yourself before they are able to whittle you down.

A flaw currently is that we don't have leaderboards for things such as total damage output in PvP (which I'm convinced a good Sorcerer would lead), so we're pushing everyone to focus on KDR which automatically means Rogues (killsteal...securers, hey it's their job) and Warriors (don't die as much) will feel like they're doing better in PvP than Sorcerers.

All it means is one: everyone should switch to warrior.

When you enter game with mages and rogues on one side versus warriors on other side - gf. All this kdr staff and leaderboard in ctf games where only team victory should matter, why?

[hippl]

so we're pushing everyone to focus on KDR which automatically means Rogues (killsteal...securers, hey it's their job)

That also push warriors to stick together with another warriors! Why would they need rogues? To steal their kills?

[tooclose101]

Your KDR might be different and that makes total sense. Now if you had a leaderboard for damage done though, your Sorcerer should be way ahead of the other two classes, barring your play style and build not putting you in any area of effect situations.

Here's the thing, at their core, Mages are the AOE kings, so they will never do as much damage 1v1 as a Rogue. All their AOE abilities damage takes in to account that they can hit 3-10 targets, so per target the damage is much lower. That can't change, we can't give their Fireball the same damage per target at Aimed Shot for Rogues, or they would be broken.

Because we wanted the Rogues to have the highest single target damage, Mages single target abilities can be upgraded to have AOE and crowd control effects instead, but not as high damage as Rogue single target abilities.

AL PvP is not balanced for 1v1 and never will be, because it would take too much of the class flavor out of the game.

In 5v5 PvP (and to a large degree, PvE), this is how we see the classes:

Warrior - The tank, front line of the fight. The first to go in and bait out powerful abilities and cooldowns of the enemy team. The flag runner and the one to prevent the enemies from getting to the back line team members (this part is where the Warrior kind of fails currently in PvP, since Taunt doesn't work on players).

Sorcerer - The artillery, second line of the battle, able to sustain damage over the entire enemy team for an extended period of time, and selectively crowd control enemies that try to break through or are the chosen target of the team.

Rogue - The assassin, last to enter the fight. Sneaks in late in the fight and starts to pick off single high value targets, i.e other Rogues, Sorcerers, flag runners

So yeah, Rogues being powerful in 1v1 is no accident. Warriors also have a slight advantage in 1v1 simply because they are so beefy that it's hard to kill them by yourself before they are able to whittle you down.

A flaw currently is that we don't have leaderboards for things such as total damage output in PvP (which I'm convinced a good Sorcerer would lead), so we're pushing everyone to focus on KDR which automatically means Rogues (killsteal...securers, hey it's their job) and Warriors (don't die as much) will feel like they're doing better in PvP than Sorcerers.

I understand your points and the philosophy that your development team has taken. However, I fail to see the incentive of someone playing a Sorcerer in its current state. It isn't much fun in a group setting when Rogues are constantly kill stealing everything and Warriros on the other team are perma-shielding/healing their entire squad.

Also, based on your design philosophy I don't understand why Warriors do as much damage as they do. The windmill bug was awful and honestly broke pvp, then you removed it and basically neutered Warriors, then after only one day you released an update with new game changing abilities (Feeble) to Warriors and increased their damage. How did this fit into your design philosophy?

I think the core issue here is that most Sorcerers feel like they are getting the short end of the stick. I hope in future updates we can get some new abilities/buff/debuffs that will incentivize Sorcerer play, because I am tired of entering pvp games that consist of mostly Warriors that end very quickly due to frustration.

[Swede]

The only damage we increased was their single target ability because it for some reason did less damage per target than all their AOE damage. They still have the lowest damage output per ability of the classes. Feeble didn't increase their damage, it decreased other players damage, allowing Warriors to tank better.

And again, I'm not saying we're done, that's it, PvP is perfectly balanced. There will be many more updates.

[Syylent]

I understand your points and the philosophy that your development team has taken. However, I fail to see the incentive of someone playing a Sorcerer in its current state. It isn't much fun in a group setting when Rogues are constantly kill stealing everything and Warriros on the other team are perma-shielding/healing their entire squad.

Also, based on your design philosophy I don't understand why Warriors do as much damage as they do. The windmill bug was awful and honestly broke pvp, then you removed it and basically neutered Warriors, then after only one day you released an update with new game changing abilities (Feeble) to Warriors and increased their damage. How did this fit into your design philosophy?

I think the core issue here is that most Sorcerers feel like they are getting the short end of the stick. I hope in future updates we can get some new abilities/buff/debuffs that will incentivize Sorcerer play, because I am tired of entering pvp games that consist of mostly Warriors that end very quickly due to frustration.

I believe they decreased warriors damage and then increased it. Sans the AT, warrior damage is down overall. You are correct the bug was awful. I was on both ends of it.

Every class feels like they are getting the short end of the stick. If you asked warriors after the nerf patch.. their stick had a point on it.

The really sad thing about pvp... most don't stay around. A person dies attacking 3 people and logs because they can't beat 3 people. SO now you have 5 on 4....so on and so forth.

[tooclose101]

The only damage we increased was their single target ability because it for some reason did less damage per target than all their AOE damage. They still have the lowest damage output per ability of the classes. Feeble didn't increase their damage, it decreased other players damage, allowing Warriors to tank better.

And again, I'm not saying we're done, that's it, PvP is perfectly balanced. There will be many more updates.

Thanks for your commitment to improving the experience of all your customers. I hope that you can draw from some of the more creative suggestions from the Sorcerers on this forum. I for one would rather see some creativity to balance issues rather than general damage/hp increases.

I look forward to future updates and hope to see some Sorcerer love so we can all stop whining. ;-)

[tooclose101]

I believe they decreased warriors damage and then increased it. Sans the AT, warrior damage is down overall. You are correct the bug was awful. I was on both ends of it.

Every class feels like they are getting the short end of the stick. If you asked warriors after the nerf patch.. their stick had a point on it.

The really sad thing about pvp... most don't stay around. A person dies attacking 3 people and logs because they can't beat 3 people. SO now you have 5 on 4....so on and so forth.

I agree that every class has felt slighted at times, but I think most would agree that Rogues/Warriors get their concerns addressed more quickly (up to this point at least). Case in point, the lead time on buffing Warriors back up a bit was 1 day.

I also agree about the pvp team imbalance. I think most people want more of a deathmatch or 1v1 gameplay mode as opposed to this quasi-team oriented ctf that really has no incentive to win as a team. I'm sure this will also be addressed in future updates.

I have full confidence in STS and believe they have put out a great product, and I hope my posts aren't coming off as whiny.

[warbluefish]

Your KDR might be different and that makes total sense. Now if you had a leaderboard for damage done though, your Sorcerer should be way ahead of the other two classes, barring your play style and build not putting you in any area of effect situations.

Here's the thing, at their core, Mages are the AOE kings, so they will never do as much damage 1v1 as a Rogue. All their AOE abilities damage takes in to account that they can hit 3-10 targets, so per target the damage is much lower. That can't change, we can't give their Fireball the same damage per target at Aimed Shot for Rogues, or they would be broken.

Because we wanted the Rogues to have the highest single target damage, Mages single target abilities can be upgraded to have AOE and crowd control effects instead, but not as high damage as Rogue single target abilities.

AL PvP is not balanced for 1v1 and never will be, because it would take too much of the class flavor out of the game.

In 5v5 PvP (and to a large degree, PvE), this is how we see the classes:

Warrior - The tank, front line of the fight. The first to go in and bait out powerful abilities and cooldowns of the enemy team. The flag runner and the one to prevent the enemies from getting to the back line team members (this part is where the Warrior kind of fails currently in PvP, since Taunt doesn't work on players).

Sorcerer - The artillery, second line of the battle, able to sustain damage over the entire enemy team for an extended period of time, and selectively crowd control enemies that try to break through or are the chosen target of the team.

Rogue - The assassin, last to enter the fight. Sneaks in late in the fight and starts to pick off single high value targets, i.e other Rogues, Sorcerers, flag runners

So yeah, Rogues being powerful in 1v1 is no accident. Warriors also have a slight advantage in 1v1 simply because they are so beefy that it's hard to kill them by yourself before they are able to whittle you down.

A flaw currently is that we don't have leaderboards for things such as total damage output in PvP (which I'm convinced a good Sorcerer would lead), so we're pushing everyone to focus on KDR which automatically means Rogues (killsteal...securers, hey it's their job) and Warriors (don't die as much) will feel like they're doing better in PvP than Sorcerers.

Then why u put up a leader board for kills and flags? is it racism to mages? lol.

[Swede]

Then why u put up a leader board for kills and flags? is it racism to mages? lol.

Yes, down with those blue bastards!

No, as the Lead Designer and the person that essentially came up with that little blue nugget, if anything our game should be skewed towards Sorcerers being the most powerful, right? I try to keep personal opinions out of balancing though.

The simple answer to the leader board problem is we don't have the technology to make a good leader board for Sorcerer style PvP, right now.

tooclose101, yeah Sorcerers will have some quality of life changes coming to them sooner or later, it's just a matter of time. Sorcerers have some abilities now that I feel are a bit odd and poorly implemented so they might have 1 or 2 abilities change significantly (like Vengeful Blood did).

[warbluefish]

The only damage we increased was their single target ability because it for some reason did less damage per target than all their AOE damage. They still have the lowest damage output per ability of the classes. Feeble didn't increase their damage, it decreased other players damage, allowing Warriors to tank better.

And again, I'm not saying we're done, that's it, PvP is perfectly balanced. There will be many more updates.

After u increase warriors dmg. it would b no harm to increase mages armor and health a bit. wouldnt it? as after the 2 seconds invounable. mages r dead meat. as we only want a little more survivability. im really ok with our attacking skills.

[octavos]

yes, down with those blue bastards!

lmfao. yay for changes (sooner or later)...Im a mage, and i will not tolerate "your evil threats"

[tooclose101]

Yes, down with those blue bastards!

No, as the Lead Designer and the person that essentially came up with that little blue nugget, if anything our game should be skewed towards Sorcerers being the most powerful, right? I try to keep personal opinions out of balancing though.

The simple answer to the leader board problem is we don't have the technology to make a good leader board for Sorcerer style PvP, right now.

tooclose101, yeah Sorcerers will have some quality of life changes coming to them sooner or later, it's just a matter of time. Sorcerers have some abilities now that I feel are a bit odd and poorly implemented so they might have 1 or 2 abilities change significantly (like Vengeful Blood did).

Sounds like you have some great stuff in the pipeline. Personally I would rather see skill changes implemented before any leaderboard additions.The vast majority of players don't have the time or interest in attaining leaderboard status, but I like where your head is at.

[thekdub]

With the current implementation, nearly all pvp matches I enter, never even finish. The team with the most warriors will pound the other team, and then begin going into the spawn rooms and killing them 5 vs 1 or 5 vs 2. Then the other team leaves, and the game times out. Even if the spawns were protected, people are not going to continue to play a match that is unbalanced, and that should not be decided by which team has the best/most warriors. Since I can't form my own team to play, I'm left to join a game, see the other side is loaded with warriors, quit out, and try to rejoin a new game. It can take a long time to find a game with 2 sides of somewhat equal class distribution.

I understand that you want each class to play a role and have it's own strengths and weaknesses. But understand that at endgame, all there is to do is farm, pvp, and compete on leaderboards. Mages are somewhat useful in elite runs for their stun, freeze, and mana heal, but are certainly not required to have in a party to do well. In pvp, mages are expected to stun and mana heal while getting the occasional kill, and maybe capture a flag once in a blue moon. All the while rogues and warriors rack up the kills and flag captures. These inadequacies also influence how poorly we compete on the leaderboards. I'm sorry, but that is not a fun game to play. I'm certainly not going to spend money on it.

[Darko]

Ive played five warriors vs five mages, and mages won by stunning us to death...they all had pets that helped each other.. in ctf this is huge, youll beat a team of warriors with all ribbits, but lose of one has mal, one has rip, one has kettle etc....think about ur team and not yourself and youll prosper. ..use a healing pet like loki to help ur team out.. most people go all offensive than conplain when they die, lol. I fought jexetta yesterday...she's a rouge, she speced xompletely different. Im a warrior with over 207 dps, 4100 health, used ripmaw and after ten mins, we stopped...nobody couls kill each other. ...that's class balance in my opinion, maybe too balanced...a lot od these fights 1 vs 1 don't ever end lol I think these adjustments shoukd be made...warrior still needs more damage output, , rouges need less health packs or lower percentage on health, mages need feeble, a sprint glide skill the only reason warriors run through teama is people dont know how to fight them.....whirlwind is easiest skill to avoid...what I see from newer plauers is rushing in like ur a tank.. your gonna die lol duh, warrior vs warrior is still a no go, sam can you pkease try this, i can only kill guys running around with trollbanes 1 vs 1. Ctf wise I think its. Perfect.......anyway to have a ctf room with these stats, and a 2 vs 1 room with different damage etc...make everyone happy...alao just a suggestion since nobody uses sone pets, put some dope passive skills on pets on next cap, like flounder, etc... so all pets are involved....achievement dor new pets pretty please

[Limsi]

Ive played five warriors vs five mages, and mages won by stunning us to death...they all had pets that helped each other.. in ctf this is huge, youll beat a team of warriors with all ribbits, but lose of one has mal, one has rip, one has kettle etc....think about ur team and not yourself and youll prosper. ..use a healing pet like loki to help ur team out.. most people go all offensive than conplain when they die, lol. I fought jexetta yesterday...she's a rouge, she speced xompletely different. Im a warrior with over 207 dps, 4100 health, used ripmaw and after ten mins, we stopped...nobody couls kill each other. ...that's class balance in my opinion, maybe too balanced...a lot od these fights 1 vs 1 don't ever end lol I think these adjustments shoukd be made...warrior still needs more damage output, , rouges need less health packs or lower percentage on health, mages need feeble, a sprint glide skill the only reason warriors run through teama is people dont know how to fight them.....whirlwind is easiest skill to avoid...what I see from newer plauers is rushing in like ur a tank.. your gonna die lol duh, warrior vs warrior is still a no go, sam can you pkease try this, i can only kill guys running around with trollbanes 1 vs 1. Ctf wise I think its. Perfect.......anyway to have a ctf room with these stats, and a 2 vs 1 room with different damage etc...make everyone happy...alao just a suggestion since nobody uses sone pets, put some dope passive skills on pets on next cap, like flounder, etc... so all pets are involved....achievement dor new pets pretty please

Wow, why would rogues need their hp lowered when we're already squishy?

[Darko]

Cause a good rouge knows how to manage health packs. Jexetta and vyrdiana are two excellent examples of that. .. they can beat all classes, and against warrior our damage output is still to low where a rouge can do multiple health. .in one fight they gor up to six on the floor and everytine they are low, bam full life. ..if you look at it, with the percentage of life you get, you end up with more health than a warrior. . That shouldn't be the case

[thekdub]

Darko, would you mind naming the warriors and mages involved in the game you spoke of above?

[kingtidus]

Warriors doesnt need the top gears anymore.no need for you to buy those because even if i remove my mythic helm, still have the same damage .Rely on the hitters on your party when doing an elite run.Warriors can save millions of gold now. venge plus mill taunt combo wll inly give you mana while taking too much punishment from the mobs.I prefer to ugrade the damage and the duration of mill.mana pots are cheaper than hp pots aNd you can survive without mana right?. in pvp , 1v1 vs rogue is easier.try using chest splitter and skyward .splitter with feeble prevents them from doing crits.

[yuriramos]

Darko, would you mind naming the warriors and mages involved in the game you spoke of above?

i also find it hard to believe that 5 warriors who can alternately cast multiple shields and die. Stunned to death? I think darko skipped the patch that nerffed stun locks.lol