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Post by Lugwy on Dec 11, 2016 23:47:41 GMT -5
As I (slowly) approach the halfway point of game content, and received sneak peeks of what PvE content is like past that point, I'm starting to notice a trend that, honestly, concerns me. To start, Armor and physical damage scaling begins to suffer an imbalance as characters start approaching the 40-50 combat level mark. At this point, at-level content has enough Armor to reliably shrug off all but the hardest hits or elemental damage, and their physical attacks deal enough damage to challenge even the most heavily armoured players. Players, in turn, are encouraged to maximize their own Armor and damage values, or resort to consistent Armor-ignoring elemental damage, in order to meet the content on an even footing. It's telling that a number of the higher-leveled players that reach their 40-50s and are still active in the server are specialised in heavier armour, and the Two-Handed skill tree and elemental damage is extremely popular among the damage dealers. High enemy damage output makes high Armor and high HP the most reliable way to survive, and enemy Armor levels require characters to be able to consistently deal a high level of physical damage or have consistent elemental damage options on hand, leaving many other playing styles by the wayside as they fall behind and become less capable of dealing with one or the other. For an example: Show of hands if you have seen someone use a regular frag or pellet grenade past the Factory. Furthermore, this is only referring to regular mob content at the 40-65 level range where the highest leveled players are at the moment. The problem will only get worse as players near the endgame levels, where I can reasonably predict that survival at PvE content in that range will be reminiscent of D&D's starting levels where both you and the enemy are a bad roll or two away from death in regular encounters, even if you are min-maxing. Is there a way to fix it? I honestly don't know what would really work to deal with this, if it can be handled at all and keep players satisfied. One possibility could be to severely reduce or eliminate passive damage and Armor scaling on items and mobs, with abilities or item mods/material carrying the lion's share of any bonuses in those areas. To-hit rates, number of attacks, and Dodge would still scale as normal, but general damage and Armor values without any extenuating circumstances (e.g. material, abilities) would be similar between level 1 and level 100, and the abilities can be adjusted to account for the overall lower damage/Armor values. This would also provide greater value per point and encourages players to experiment more and give more variety in later-end builds. My suggestion above is influenced by my perceptive that the most enjoyable part of Engines is the lower levels, despite the ability constraints and prevalence of dark, dank, and indoor dungeons. The reason is because the damage and Armor scaling is low enough that it promotes a variety of playing styles and a player has many avenues to approach mob encounters from, encouraging creativity. Dodge tanking? Sure. Throw pellet grenades en masse to deal with a swarm of rats? Alright. Whip out two daggers and stab at leisure? Why not? In the early game, types of damage and damage mitigation remain comparable with each other in different scenarios. One could be worse than another if you run the numbers through a spreadsheet, but overall a player should not be unduly punished in later content for having an unusual build. The lower damage scaling also gives players more room to recover when something goes sideways--say, the tank drops--because they have the HP and damage mitigation available to withstand their share of rounds minus the tank. Compare this to current later level content, where when the tank drops, the rest of the party usually follows in short order because the sheer level of incoming damage exceeds most non-tanks' mitigation capabilities. If you glazed over all that text, long story short: Physical damage and Armor of both players and mobs scales too much in later levels, forcing players to rely on heavier armour to deal with the former and high-damaging weapons or elemental damage to deal with the latter, and shuts out many other combat styles. Suggesting removing passive damage/Armor scaling on equipment and mob stats before abilities come into play to even the field and give more variety. I would also appreciate observations and comments from players who are in that level range at the moment, as they're the ones that experience it on a regular basis.  |
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Dec 12, 2016 9:14:01 GMT -5
On the topic of Frag Grenades.... I use them religiously in Wyler to clear lunatic waves. I found pellet grenades to be reliable ways applying fire damage via pyro 1 more accurately than with incendiary grenades because if I toss them behind the enemies, even on a miss the enemy bodies will block the pellets and make them less likely to hurt my allies. I will admit that base grenades become notably less useful in higher levels, but with modifications via feats they can retain a lot of it. I'm put in mind of how useful cold-bombs can be in the desert, but how cold-frags would have better performance due to the smaller blast radius.
As for the damage vs armor bit... I mentioned this to PE in discord, due to concerns that once the block rebalance comes in, there's going to be issues with damage exceeding armor by leaps and bounds when fewer of the blows are successfully stopped by block. My own thought is to compensate that loss armor scaling may need to be increased for PCs. I wouldn't change the base values, but rather increase the scaling perhaps by giving everyone a flat +1DR per 10 or 20 levels of armor skill. It could make the difference. The other thought I had is that perhaps the types of feats generic dungeon mobs get should be curtailed. Chained Strikes is a good example, its "okay" vs a monster that's going to absorb all but 5 dmg per swing, but for a PC to be on the receiving end... well more than 15 damage inevitably gets through cause the mobs are swinging at +12-14 ab vs an dodge of 12-18. On the flip side I seem to consistently be swinging against dodge values of 18+, and even light armor targets can fully negate my non-crit non-ability swings (see Tribal Elves).
HP is definitely the god stat for level ups, but those of us who take the other stats do get well compensated to bring other things to the table. I getting EXTREMELY certain that 5hp =/= 5stam =/= 5 toxicity. I don't have a solution on this one other than to perhaps change the values on level up so that you're choosing between 5hp, 7 stamina, or 9 toxicity.
As far as dealing damage to mobs later on. What I've found since I devoted my character more towards monster hunting is that using the vulnerabilities of a spawn against it is vital. The difference of beating on a wyvern with my titanium edged sword as opposed to my silver sword is pronounced. I will say the difference wasn't immediately apparent, but the performance difference I'm noticing is significant even on creatures I dont have bestiaries for (though this does mean I have a period of trial and error).
It would be interesting to see a wounding-base build come into play that is using daggers or a hand-gun vs these higher armored monsters now that the wounding damage is magical and can be more easily tracked.
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Dec 12, 2016 12:04:41 GMT -5
The issue with wounding is that you need to break DR after dodge, so while daggers could be great it is often impossible to have any blows that connect of value within the first critical round after breaking stealth. Lightly armored opponents can be countered by using flanking and attacking from stealth to lower their defensive skill, but a heavily armored opponent shrugs off effectively all the damage from daggers, which is part of Lugwy's mention of the shift towards heavy weapons. A single shot with a jezael, hunting rifle, or claymore deals more wounding damage over the course of a trip than daggers by a fair margin, simply for their ability to deal the damage over armor required to proc bleed in the very narrow window of breaking stealth.
It is effectively an elemental damage that lacks the benefit of applying on a negated hit, which weakens bleed greatly. Spear is actually probably the best, being the only weapon with a wounding damage passive mod, but, again, is a 2-handed weapon.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Dec 12, 2016 12:18:32 GMT -5
So what if bleed ignored DR for PCs the way it seems to ignore DR when NPCs do it to us?
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Dec 12, 2016 12:23:32 GMT -5
The bleed damage ignores DR, yes. However, my point is that the initial attack that initiates the bleed damage needs to overcome the opponent's DR and deal physical damage before the wounding effect is applied from stealth or most other sources. So a dagger trying to deal a sneak attack is like 14 max damage VS armor 50+, to try to get a single wounding DoT on the target of perhaps 20 damage over a few rounds, and without smoke-spamming, you only have that single chance per combat.
I might have misunderstood, if you were suggesting that bleed damage should be applied on a successful hit instead of after both a successful hit and overcoming armor.
Basically wounding damage is weird, in that sneak-attacks and bloody murder gets *applied* on the attack which must deal damage (initiating attack), and then the target takes a save-less damage-over-time until the wounding pool is depleted (magical pool damage).
Fail the first part, and the second part never comes to pass. Exceptions: The TWF passives might apply on conditional success (hitting with 2 other attacks), and the Barbed Tip spear mod applies wounding damage if the armor roll is low regardless of value.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Dec 12, 2016 14:42:36 GMT -5
Couple comments I think are relevant here.
1. If you scale damage/armor/minarmor/hp up or down by the same portion then balance is roughly unaffected. The only one of these things that can't be changed on the fly (ie. by modifying item stats) for PCs is hit points. We also can't adjust the damage dice on items as levels go up but that's not hugely important if you run the numbers. The choice of scaling by level mainly affects the balance between high and low level PCs, but it also affects how easy it is to make content targeted at a specific level. Can't have a set of dungeons 50-60, 60-70, 70-80, etc. if PCs at 50 can deal with all three because level scaling got tuned down.
2. Armor is mainly balanced around taking attacks from PCs and weapons are mainly balanced around damaging PCs. Right now a lot of static creatures have armor more specialized towards heavy than PCs, in the sense that they have 10 dodge and more armor/minarmor. This makes perfect sense for something like a giant troll that is easy to hit and hard to hurt, but it's also not quite optimal for PCs whose weapons perform optimally against other PCs with medium armor. That's because being specialized against medium armor means being at your best against creatures with 20 dodge which generally don't stand 15 feet tall. I've known about this for a while, which is why Wyler/Atlantis/Pyramid all have high dodge enemies. One alternative I've been considering is to make large, fleshy creatures have low armor/minarmor but higher HP (or some kind of post-effects DI which would prevent these from being too good against elemental damage). This would put them in an armor category where dual wield (and to a lesser extent one-handed) has the advantage.
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Post by Lugwy on Dec 13, 2016 1:00:37 GMT -5
On the topic of Frag Grenades.... I use them religiously in Wyler to clear lunatic waves. I found pellet grenades to be reliable ways applying fire damage via pyro 1 more accurately than with incendiary grenades because if I toss them behind the enemies, even on a miss the enemy bodies will block the pellets and make them less likely to hurt my allies. I will admit that base grenades become notably less useful in higher levels, but with modifications via feats they can retain a lot of it. I'm put in mind of how useful cold-bombs can be in the desert, but how cold-frags would have better performance due to the smaller blast radius. I am aware that frag and pellet grenades become useful when you apply their elemental versions, which was why I specified "regular" when I made my statement that they are rarely used past the Factory. Your example tells me that later on using regular frags and pellets falls out of favour for their elemental versions because elemental damage does not care about Armor, and so there is no worry about Armor negating grenade damage. What does that say to a demolitionist who wants to use base grenades, relying on Explosive Damage (and maybe Suicide Bomber) to push their payload? Are they required to spend ability points in the elemental trees, or switch their grenade of choice to the more expensive elemental ones, to remain relevant in later-end content? There is supposed to be a gap between "suboptimal" and "unviable" so that players who fall in the former and are objectively weaker at their role than the optimal build can still handle at-level content given proper preparation on their part, but all the commentary I am hearing from players, both those who play in mid-level content and beyond, and those who have fallen off the rails, tell me a message that being suboptimal is equivalent to being non-viable as far as PvE balance is concerned, and this is not a problem that will solve itself with more levels. I really hope to be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if I am right. As for the damage vs armor bit... I mentioned this to PE in discord, due to concerns that once the block rebalance comes in, there's going to be issues with damage exceeding armor by leaps and bounds when fewer of the blows are successfully stopped by block. My own thought is to compensate that loss armor scaling may need to be increased for PCs. I wouldn't change the base values, but rather increase the scaling perhaps by giving everyone a flat +1DR per 10 or 20 levels of armor skill. It could make the difference. The other thought I had is that perhaps the types of feats generic dungeon mobs get should be curtailed. Chained Strikes is a good example, its "okay" vs a monster that's going to absorb all but 5 dmg per swing, but for a PC to be on the receiving end... well more than 15 damage inevitably gets through cause the mobs are swinging at +12-14 ab vs an dodge of 12-18. On the flip side I seem to consistently be swinging against dodge values of 18+, and even light armor targets can fully negate my non-crit non-ability swings (see Tribal Elves). Increased DR scaling is useful for people who rely on DR to mitigate damage. What of people with lower DR because they wear lighter, and/or do not rely on DR to survive? For them, they will still lag behind the heavier PCs, whose increased DR capability will encourage mobs to inflict more damage in order to provide a challenge to those PCs, and then you will be back to square one. Inflating numbers doesn't help much after a certain point. HP is definitely the god stat for level ups, but those of us who take the other stats do get well compensated to bring other things to the table. I getting EXTREMELY certain that 5hp =/= 5stam =/= 5 toxicity. I don't have a solution on this one other than to perhaps change the values on level up so that you're choosing between 5hp, 7 stamina, or 9 toxicity. HP is only a "god stat" because later content eventually deals so much damage that having a sack of HP becomes a necessity, like the way the Dungeons and Dragons Online MMO pushes players to invest heavily in HP, CON, and Fortification no matter the class because double digit level content starts doing enough damage to paste anything not durable enough in short order. (Even writing that brings back memories of players with less than 400 HP and/or 100% fortification being booted from groups or dying repeatedly in the then-end-game content of level 20. Level 30 content is just more insane.) In Engines, I know a player who has not invested in HP at all who has commented that the damage output of later-end content would mean a one-shot if the mobs targeted the player. Is it the fault of the player for not investing in HP in a game that promotes variety in builds, or is it the fault of the mob content for necessitating investment in HP? As far as dealing damage to mobs later on. What I've found since I devoted my character more towards monster hunting is that using the vulnerabilities of a spawn against it is vital. The difference of beating on a wyvern with my titanium edged sword as opposed to my silver sword is pronounced. I will say the difference wasn't immediately apparent, but the performance difference I'm noticing is significant even on creatures I dont have bestiaries for (though this does mean I have a period of trial and error). I acknowledge that exploiting a monster's weaknesses becomes crucial to fighting them later on, and I am fine with that, as that's an intended part of gaming content and provides a bit of strategy in routine monster hunting. However, would a silver dagger pierce a monster's hide just as reliably as a silver sword? Or would the person wielding that dagger be required to take up something else in order to not feel like they are hitting the monster with a foam noodle? Couple comments I think are relevant here. 1. If you scale damage/armor/minarmor/hp up or down by the same portion then balance is roughly unaffected. The only one of these things that can't be changed on the fly (ie. by modifying item stats) for PCs is hit points. We also can't adjust the damage dice on items as levels go up but that's not hugely important if you run the numbers. The choice of scaling by level mainly affects the balance between high and low level PCs, but it also affects how easy it is to make content targeted at a specific level. Can't have a set of dungeons 50-60, 60-70, 70-80, etc. if PCs at 50 can deal with all three because level scaling got tuned down. I agree that if it was a blanket scaling reduction, we would be back where we started, albeit with lower numbers. It was why I said nothing about HP, and said that other factors, such as to-hit rate and Dodge, would keep going up, and abilities could be adjusted minimally, if at all. It seems to me that excessive damage and Armor is overkill on the factors already implemented that curb players trying to powerlevel in higher-level content, such as the EXP penalty and greater to-hit/Dodge/HP/ability advantage that higher level mobs have, and it has the additional issue of creating undue difficulty for players at the level that the zone is tuned for. It's possible that this may be a side effect of overbuffing the mobs to get players more likely to report on them, and players choosing to power through it anyway. 2. Armor is mainly balanced around taking attacks from PCs and weapons are mainly balanced around damaging PCs. Right now a lot of static creatures have armor more specialized towards heavy than PCs, in the sense that they have 10 dodge and more armor/minarmor. This makes perfect sense for something like a giant troll that is easy to hit and hard to hurt, but it's also not quite optimal for PCs whose weapons perform optimally against other PCs with medium armor. That's because being specialized against medium armor means being at your best against creatures with 20 dodge which generally don't stand 15 feet tall. I've known about this for a while, which is why Wyler/Atlantis/Pyramid all have high dodge enemies. One alternative I've been considering is to make large, fleshy creatures have low armor/minarmor but higher HP (or some kind of post-effects DI which would prevent these from being too good against elemental damage). This would put them in an armor category where dual wield (and to a lesser extent one-handed) has the advantage. While I was away, I was also thinking of this, though the issue of static mobs being tuned towards Heavy armour clarified a lot of issues. Personally, I think it may be better to represent large and beefy mobs that aren't armoured by overtuning the HP and/or implementing Damage Immunity percentages and leave Armor for mobs that actually have some form of armour, as players tend to feel more satisfaction when they can actually inflict positive damage numbers since it gives the impression of progress rather than repeatedly going up against a brick wall. It helps them feel like they're contributing something even though the time to kill the mob may be the same over the long term. The only issue I can really see with this is unrealistic HP scaling, but mostly-naked elves having the Dodge of light armour and the Armor rating of plate is already stretching suspension of disbelief to begin with. Thanks for everyone's feedback, though! |
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