Current Endgame situation & my personal proposals

[Waug]

This is my initial analysis & proposal, I need few more days to conclude it & make my personal final proposal with supportive facts with docs if necessary.

First off, the first phase, the dodge nerf gone pretty smooth and has been done nicely, now tactics should work properly mostly for example when you hit repulse you don't have to leave it to luck now, that WOW I GOT LUCKY and opponent got repulsed back, it's just a small example and for those players thinks that game got ruined due to low dodge, then let me remind you that PvP was way much balanced back those old days WITH LESS DODGE COMPARED TO NOW (overall)

Now for 2nd phase, the main concern is 1,2 hit kills, or simply say few hit kills [this is just because armor is not scaled with damage properly and need some tweaking] is the main concern along with few class specific tweaks are needed to make the situation much better.

Here's the proposals -

1> Current endgame sets should provide +20% (of total health) more health. [not more, then it would actually break things more than make, it's not enough read below)

2> 2h special elites eg. Arzac blaster should make set with DEREX for speed boost ONLY just like the speed bonus we get from 4 piece DEREX set. Then those 3 piece Derex/intex/strex should make set with Warband ring but this time differently -
Warband + Derex 3 piece set - + 30 armor
Warband + intex set 3 piece set - + 50 armor
Warband + Strex set 3 piece set - + 70 armor
If this is not possible then derex/intex/strex set bonus should get such bonus variations & warband would provide +30 armor to all.

3> The global damage output in PvP should be further lowered from -12% to -22% applicable for L75 to L80.

4> 2H weapons eg Blaster's damage should be nerfed by 5% [has added high damage] that's because I already proposed global damage output reduction and health increase.

5> Bird's evasion skill cooldown should be lowered to 22sec nearly same as focus skill as this is worthless if we don't get all buff ready to use again together :)

6> Free respec for some time so that everyone can experiment on their builds just like it happened during prev. balance trial :p

As said earlier this is my rough analysis & proposal [food for thought] I need more trials to get to my personal final proposal, then I may add more points and/or modify current stats after better calculation.

[Buchmeister]

I gotta say, I loved endgame pvp during bsm. It's so unbalanced now.

[tasakli]

Wasn't it you who wanted to nerf dodge? Now you want to nerf damage + boost defence? Whats the point?

[Waug]

Wasn't it you who wanted to nerf dodge? Now you want to nerf damage + boost defence? Whats the point?

First off, it's ongoing, it's not like already done nor I'm calling for rollback also I kept saying after dodge nerf there will be needing few tweaks also cinco himself mentioned that there will be several bendings.

but MOST IMPORTANT if you've read that nerf dodge thread, you would notice that I talked about adding armor as compensation, although there has been taken some measures. One question, do you even endgame pvp?

P.S. oh I can't stop saying, dodge and damage aren't opposite stats the way you've mentioned just like armor and damage are, and I won't explain it more just go back and read that thread again carefully :)

[Befs]

Can't comment on your proposal since I no longer play endgame, but I'd like to thank you for your persistence in pushing for a more balanced and fun game.

[SillyJuan]

I feel like blaster shouldn't get the speed boost, it's damage already makes overpowered enough. The health part I do agree. But this update was meant to make us play the game is was supposed to be played . FFAs do feel more fun now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mennddoza]

Respecs for free pleeeaase

[Priorema]

Respecs for free pleeeaase

I asked Cinco in game to let respec for gold, he said it needs lot of coding and he maybe will give it some time into it

[Waug]

I feel like blaster shouldn't get the speed boost, it's damage already makes overpowered enough. The health part I do agree. But this update was meant to make us play the game is was supposed to be played . FFAs do feel more fun now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Speed can't be balanced with high damage, I'm not actually in favour of any speed boost in the first place. It's also true that blaster is fragile having the highest damage but when again global dmg nerf further with health boost and slight dmg nerf from blaster would definitely compensate all that.

Ffa for now, but we can't ignore 2 hit even 1h sometime should be improved.

[Cinco]

Good proposal. Might make sense to do some of this in a couple of steps. I'll look at the sets' health contribution and shaving off a bit of the endgame arenas' damage.

Also, I think it's totally fair to remove the cost from Respec. I'll see what I can do about this for the next update as well.

[Reunegade]

Good proposal. Might make sense to do some of this in a couple of steps. I'll look at the sets' health contribution and shaving off a bit of the endgame arenas' damage.

Also, I think it's totally fair to remove the cost from Respec. I'll see what I can do about this for the next update as well.
While we're on this topic, can you make elixir 'kits' purchasable for gold like in AL? It would create a nice gold sink to combat the insane inflation that has been going on.

[Waug]

While we're on this topic, can you make elixir 'kits' purchasable for gold like in AL? It would create a nice gold sink to combat the insane inflation that has been going on.

That would be good, I've one really BROADER suggestion, although it's not right thread to talk all this or it has been suggested or not -

They can make a plat kit, purchasable from vendor eg 10plat kit purchasable 10 plats then these kits can be traded/stashed/auction now at any time if we try to equip (for better solution otherwise they'll have to add use button) the kit will be vanished and 10plats will be added in our current plat numbers. I'm thrilled that would do the rest to make pl fully Free to play for those who don't wanna use real life money and would provide better chance to get resources on pl by spending real life money.

[Ruby!!!]

Also, I think it's totally fair to remove the cost from Respec. I'll see what I can do about this for the next update as well.

Last thing I did before update: buy platinum without discount for a ring that is useless now
First thing I did after update: respec

I should work on my patience... Oo

My stupidity side - free respecs would be great ty!

[Ruby!!!]

*) Str attribute points giving nearly as much hit % as dex, which really shouldn't be because it would render hit % nerfing useless mostly.

Ikr!
My bear with minimum dex to equip rest str came out of the update with abysmal low hit%

So I switched around to minimum str rest dex and it was just like 1 % more ...

My solution was to get 3 pc for all toons but I'd love to try some more builds with free respec

[Buchmeister]

I'll see what I can do about this for the next update as well.

Ooh the next update? I'm tingling with excitement...

[Burningdex]

wait, Cinco, are respecs free permanently?

[bglir]

Is there any solution to this age old Problem with Latency? the update is good and very strong nuke, but Non Green Ping Players like me can't survive using Pure int, and being Pally with weak damage can't even make a kill, is there any lag compensation in place? (lag compensation intends to do is to reduce the discrepancy in the time of response to offer smoother gameplay) to help players like me in PvP? 100% of players with Green Ping will never experience and understand how is it felt like for us to accurately attack and kite Properly, that's why most company have this server station according to zone, i hope Cinco could assist NON SERVER HOST COUNTRY Players in better balance the situation. High Damage equal crazy nuke resulting NoN Green Ping Players dies before 3rd spell Press, even we keep very very good distance, but it still hit us across from very far distance.

[iceQueen69]

I think the most recent damage nerf/hp increase helped towards balancing classes in a 1v1 setting, but in ctf mages are tanky enough to constaintly chain rev. Fights seem almost never ending. Can anything be done here?

edit: like make res start on cd when you respawn mb?

[KingFu]

I think the most recent damage nerf/hp increase helped towards balancing classes in a 1v1 setting, but in ctf mages are tanky enough to constaintly chain rev. Fights seem almost never ending. Can anything be done here?

edit: like make res start on cd when you respawn mb?

Agree 100%. Individually mages don't seem too ridiculous, but in numbers it becomes overwhelming. Armor and especially dodge should be lowered in favor of a minor damage boost. A buffed int mage shouldn't have 625-655 armor and 30 dodge. Either heal or health pools should also be re-worked since heal only replenishes a small fraction of your health pool now. I'd say add a noticeable heal boost to Intex wand set so it doesn't mess with lower levels since their health pools didn't change, or just lower health/mana pools a tad in general.

The two big skills that need reworking with mage are mana shield and res. Mana shield should have its armor buff stripped, since +40 at rank 9 almost acts as a second BoV. Also, perhaps I'm asking for a bit much here, but MS should also get an absorption cap. That way shield can be broken by any class, and in the event of blast missing/being dodges it isn't game over. The absorption cap would basically limit MS to only absorb a set number of damage before popping. So it would last either the 12 seconds, or until x amount of damage is absorbed. The damage value would increase the higher the skill is ranked. As for res, I agree that it needs to have a change to its cooldown. 6.5 seconds is way too fast, and I've never seen a game allow mages to use their revive skill so frequently. I think the cd should be at least twice that, and as you said should start its cd once a mage is revived. CtF has basically become whoever can spam res more. I think other classes could use a few tweaks such as str bear becoming more tanky (not dodgy), but mage is easily the one that requires the most work right now. Int mage basically plays like a pally right now.

One big issue I have though is hit, especially for anything below endgame. I think the attributes were perfectly balanced before with how they gave hit as a base stat. Now, it's way too low. My level 55 enchanted staff mage has 83 hit%! What was the point in lowering dodge if at many levels a lower hit is going to give the same result or skills missing due to luck? It's counter intuitive. Meanwhile, my 80 mage has a staggering 210+ hit%, which is laughably high. Hit should be high enough to where I can confidently land a majority of my skills, but low enough to where skills like hell scream and blind shot can actually have an impact. Between my 55 and my 80, they're at two different ends of the spectrum and neither seems practical. For this I'd say un-nerf hit and change the attribute values back so that each class (mainly anything int) actually has a chance to land their skills. It was way better previously. If there's really a need to add some sort of containment to hit though, implement a hit cap. I know 100 is technically the "cap," but I mean put in a hard cap that hit can't rise past. 100 for bears, 125 for mages, 150 for birds, or something to that extent. I think there would be better solutions such as tinkering with the stats and coming up with appropriate values that would scale properly across different levels based on stat investment and removing hit boosts from gear entirely, but I think a hit cap would be a much quicker fix. At the very least I think hit should revert back to the way it was before though.

Also, Derex set should have a blaster added. Or the level 80 ESB should have its stats tweaked and given a set bonus with derex.

[Burningdex]

in response to myst^.

thanks for taking us low levels into account (<50). But i think, if hit% is going to be tweaked again, modify it across the level brackets, and not just one blanket change (in pvp atleast) so that pallies or str birds still get to the hit cap at most levels (im aware focus exists) under 50.

besides that, im in complete agreement ^^

ps- sorry if that made no sense, its about 11pm here.

[Waug]

First off, thanks for implementing :) this made endgame already much smoother.



+ New super-Elite sets give more Armor depending upon class.


It's not clear to me where & how much armor has been added, although it seems like in the wrong place. Because I proposed -



2> 2h special elites eg. Arzac blaster should make set with DEREX for speed boost ONLY just like the speed bonus we get from 4 piece DEREX set. Then those 3 piece Derex/intex/strex should make set with Warband ring but this time differently -
Warband + Derex 3 piece set - + 30 armor
Warband + intex set 3 piece set - + 50 armor
Warband + Strex set 3 piece set - + 70 armor
If this is not possible then derex/intex/strex set bonus should get such bonus variations & warband would provide +30 armor to all.

More armor to 3piece Intex set and even more armor to Srex 3 piece sets because 3 pc STR and INT sets are not still viable and need more boosting BUT it was not for 4pc sets int set already have much armor, need slight nerf in it TBH. Although I'll still advocate for str set getting bit more armor to actually be able to tank.

TOP OF THAT.
*) 2h weapons don't make set, eg arzac blaster doesn't make set with derex so it does not get the added health boost that 4 piece sets are getting. It should make set or simply provide the boost.


I think the most recent damage nerf/hp increase helped towards balancing classes in a 1v1 setting, but in ctf mages are tanky enough to constaintly chain rev. Fights seem almost never ending. Can anything be done here?

edit: like make res start on cd when you respawn mb?
There are some holes, and those holes should be filled, it's not suppose to work for 1-1 only. As I mentioned above, at current situation mages have high armor and should be lowered for sure. I'll use points, not to make it lengthy -

1) At current situation INTEX 4 piece set armor is high and should be lowered [ I'd say -30 to -40 from total ]
2) Intex armor provide 25% hit for example, what's the point of such hit on INT set, Should be nerf more than half from every piece so that total hi% should not be more than 150 even bit less which is more than 200 if I'm not wrong. Same goes for STR set but nerf should be low here because then their viability would be a bigger question for now.
3) After nerfing HIt, dodge, hp regen etc it's time for Mana, without touching low level, it should be again nerfed from ALL endgame special elites.


Agree 100%. Individually mages don't seem too ridiculous, but in numbers it becomes overwhelming. Armor and especially dodge should be lowered in favor of a minor damage boost. A buffed int mage shouldn't have 625-655 armor and 30 dodge. Either heal or health pools should also be re-worked since heal only replenishes a small fraction of your health pool now. I'd say add a noticeable heal boost to Intex wand set so it doesn't mess with lower levels since their health pools didn't change, or just lower health/mana pools a tad in general.

Although intex piece have more dodge than magor after overall dodge nerfing from stats and has more armor & dodge should be lowered, it should NOT be the case that heal should actually replenishes a small fraction, the health pool itself bigger now, having such high heal actually create superiority from other classes. Adding further damage is not fair either because at luckiest point drain already has the highest damage than anything else at average it's still quite high.


The two big skills that need reworking with mage are mana shield and res. Mana shield should have its armor buff stripped, since +40 at rank 9 almost acts as a second BoV. Also, perhaps I'm asking for a bit much here, but MS should also get an absorption cap. That way shield can be broken by any class, and in the event of blast missing/being dodges it isn't game over. The absorption cap would basically limit MS to only absorb a set number of damage before popping. So it would last either the 12 seconds, or until x amount of damage is absorbed. The damage value would increase the higher the skill is ranked. As for res, I agree that it needs to have a change to its cooldown. 6.5 seconds is way too fast, and I've never seen a game allow mages to use their revive skill so frequently. I think the cd should be at least twice that, and as you said should start its cd once a mage is revived. CtF has basically become whoever can spam res more. I think other classes could use a few tweaks such as str bear becoming more tanky (not dodgy), but mage is easily the one that requires the most work right now. Int mage basically plays like a pally right now.

The suggestion looking good but then I don't think they would like to work on such basic thing and alter that, rather as I suggested above mana should be nerfed from all endgame set because other classes don't get the benefit of high mana at all, but mage do exploit it all. Nerfing mana should solve the issue to a great extent with other issues. IKR with that lowered ms some mages exploiting tree, hide till ms again and on 3vs3 it would be another pain, I didn't suggest to lower ms cooldown ;)


One big issue I have though is hit, especially for anything below endgame. I think the attributes were perfectly balanced before with how they gave hit as a base stat. Now, it's way too low. My level 55 enchanted staff mage has 83 hit%! What was the point in lowering dodge if at many levels a lower hit is going to give the same result or skills missing due to luck? It's counter intuitive. Meanwhile, my 80 mage has a staggering 210+ hit%, which is laughably high. Hit should be high enough to where I can confidently land a majority of my skills, but low enough to where skills like hell scream and blind shot can actually have an impact. Between my 55 and my 80, they're at two different ends of the spectrum and neither seems practical. For this I'd say un-nerf hit and change the attribute values back so that each class (mainly anything int) actually has a chance to land their skills. It was way better previously. If there's really a need to add some sort of containment to hit though, implement a hit cap. I know 100 is technically the "cap," but I mean put in a hard cap that hit can't rise past. 100 for bears, 125 for mages, 150 for birds, or something to that extent. I think there would be better solutions such as tinkering with the stats and coming up with appropriate values that would scale properly across different levels based on stat investment and removing hit boosts from gear entirely, but I think a hit cap would be a much quicker fix. At the very least I think hit should revert back to the way it was before though.

As I said early endgame int & str sets have high hit% added in it, which shouldn't be the case, but it's true that all attribute points (str-dex-int) giving close result at hit % which should not be either. For endgame nerfing hit from endgame pieces can do the trick FOR NOW and for lower level, the result should be as earlier that's true.

[KingFu]

Although intex piece have more dodge than magor after overall dodge nerfing from stats and has more armor & dodge should be lowered, it should NOT be the case that heal should actually replenishes a small fraction, the health pool itself bigger now, having such high heal actually create superiority from other classes. Adding further damage is not fair either because at luckiest point drain already has the highest damage than anything else at average it's still quite high.

I don't think heal replenishing more than a small fraction would create an imbalance since there's a trade-off. That's exactly what heal did before the health pools were increased, and how heal has acted since the start of the game. Reverting it back should work fine alongside other changes. If I only said heal should get a boost then I'd agree with you, it would make mage ridiculous. But intex needs a drop in armor and dodge, health/mana pools could use readjusting, and some other tweaks should be made such as str bear getting some of its tanky-ness back. As it stands, intex mage plays way more like a savage pally than anything else. It needs to shed its bulkiness and reclaim its role as support with heal and damage output/AoE.


The suggestion looking good but then I don't think they would like to work on such basic thing and alter that, rather as I suggested above mana should be nerfed from all endgame set because other classes don't get the benefit of high mana at all, but mage do exploit it all. Nerfing mana should solve the issue to a great extent with other issues. IKR with that lowered ms some mages exploiting tree, hide till ms again and on 3vs3 it would be another pain, I didn't suggest to lower ms cooldown ;)

I agree, probably wishful thinking on my part that effort of that size would be put into one skill. I think both mana and health shields are just generally too high right now combined with endgame set stats. An intex mage fully buffed with MS sits at 30 dodge, ~665 armor, ~950 health, ~1,480 mana, which is egregious. I definitely think MS needs its armor buffed stripped at the very least. I'd be in support of really any change made to it though, including a shorter duration.

[Priorema]

I don't think heal replenishing more than a small fraction would create an imbalance since there's a trade-off. That's exactly what heal did before the health pools were increased, and how heal has acted since the start of the game. Reverting it back should work fine alongside other changes. If I only said heal should get a boost then I'd agree with you, it would make mage ridiculous. But intex needs a drop in armor and dodge, health/mana pools could use readjusting, and some other tweaks should be made such as str bear getting some of its tanky-ness back. As it stands, intex mage plays way more like a savage pally than anything else. It needs to shed its bulkiness and reclaim its role as support with heal and damage output/AoE.



I agree, probably wishful thinking on my part that effort of that size would be put into one skill. I think both mana and health shields are just generally too high right now combined with endgame set stats. An intex mage fully buffed with MS sits at 30 dodge, ~665 armor, ~950 health, ~1,480 mana, which is egregious. I definitely think MS needs its armor buffed stripped at the very least. I'd be in support of really any change made to it though, including a shorter duration.

If you are talking about nerfing ms for a whole Pl levels mages, then I must dosagree with you, I (for example) barely stand an angel bird (using my ms) even if he wastes his blast before I do ms, I still have small chance to win, since at 66, you need a to make a decent build, where not all skills can be maxed to be good at pvp. But if you are talking only bout endgame, then I can't tell anything here :D since my main is 66

[KingFu]

As for hit, looking at it the new stat ratio is 10dex/20int/33str = 1hit%, so super cut and dry numbers. Fiddling around with numbers, I think those values should be changed to 8dex/14int/40str = 1hit% to raise the base stat distribution. In turn, remove hit boosts that are granted from the helm/armor/shield/wep, but keep in the hit boosts added from rings and faces. Base hit should also be bolstered from 65% to 70% to help lower levels a bit. Also, str may seem low, but no one ever uses pure str, so dex compensates for it.

Here's a few random numbers from chars with the adjusted 8/14/40 numbers and no hit boost from set items:

80 pure int mage with intex and 3pc ring: ~133 hit% (128% with staff)
80 pure dex bird with derex talon/3pc: ~167 hit% (~160% if it had a bow)
80 min str rest dex bear with strax 1H/3pc: ~122 hit%

All these values are just way more practical. All numbers should be within 3 points of what would be exact, since it varies slightly on a few factors like faces.

As for other levels, which is a big reason why I think these values should be altered:
56 pure int charmin mage: 96 hit%
56 min str rest dex sm bear: 94 hit%
56 Pure dex obe xbow bird: 113 hit%

All of these numbers are without a ring or hit face, so you could achieve 4-8% more hit with a 3pc and a face. All these numbers look pretty spot on with what they should.

I first tried different numbers, but lower levels go shafted by quite a bit, so I changed the numbers to better fit and also figured the base hit% should be made 70 to help balance it.

Here are stats (no ring) for level 30s:
Pure int BF mage: 83hit%
Pure dex shivering xbow bird: 91 hit%
Iceberg min str bear: 79 hit%

Also keep in mind no one ever PvPs with straight FN sets.

These numbers are still a little low, but again could get boosted by about 4-8% with a ring/face combo. One method to help lower levels would be to only remove hit% boost from items that create a set. Non-set items are virtually useless to anything above level 50, and any once-useful non-set items like BT now only give a minute hit% boost (BT gives 1% a piece now). Or simply remove the stat from all items level 50+, whichever is easier to implement. It'd help lower levels still achieve a reasonable hit without impacting higher levels.

To reiterate, the stat=1 hit% ratios should be changed to 8dex/14int/40str = 1hit% from their current stats. All helm/wep/armor/shield items (potentially only ones that make a set/level 50+) should lose any hit% contribution they might give. Rings and faces should retain their hit boost. Lastly, the base hit% should be raised from 65% to 70. I think that'd almost entirely solve hit% issues across the board with only a few quick fixes.

[Burningdex]

What he said ^

[Cinco]

To reiterate, the stat=1 hit% ratios should be changed to 8dex/14int/40str = 1hit% from their current stats. All helm/wep/armor/shield items (potentially only ones that make a set/level 50+) should lose any hit% contribution they might give. Rings and faces should retain their hit boost. Lastly, the base hit% should be raised from 65% to 70. I think that'd almost entirely solve hit% issues across the board with only a few quick fixes.

I like this. Will see what I can do for next update. Thanks.

[Waug]

I like this. Will see what I can do for next update. Thanks.

Hit debuff doesn't seems to work as intended, my blind at 9 (60%) should debuff opponent's ~130 hit% to significantly less than 100 and should have the effects accordingly but I didn't notice any such.

You really need to tone down (4 piece wand set) mages, they all ruling everything else on arena, mana is really high, armor is pretty high.

Also please make it clear that, we gonna have crafted 2h weapons or not eg Derex blaster, then we can actually have an clear picture about the situation.

P.S. : I just did a little bit PvP with my bear and found, hellscream (60% hit debuff) is working and making opponent miss.

[ozuce]

I suggest not rushing everyone and get better...love u bye

[Waug]

I suggest not rushing everyone and get better...love u bye

I suggest u to stay away from my thread IF you don't have anything valuable to add in this topic :)