|
Post by Kaybrie on Aug 7, 2015 22:01:57 GMT -5
I really wanted to avoid posting in here, but here I go...
During our last cultist run I counted and only crit 6 times during the run. (I blew through 230 bullets to put that number into perspective) And this felt entirely normal, given the amount of discussion floating around these past couple weeks regarding how overwhelmingly powerful rifles are. Me expecting to crit 1-3 times during an encounter isn't a reality, with luck, I might crit twice during an encounter, but that is easily balanced out by the number of encounters I go through, where I just don't crit at all. Even with all this, who's to say that my crit isn't being poured into an enemy with only 20 hit points left?
Crits have a great deal of shock value (Even more when they happen back to back, which does happen.) but they really aren't as common as people think. When they do happen it's game-changing, on a rifle especially since your sinking all your damage into that one shot, it DOES make a massive difference when that miracle crit happens. Otherwise though, my damage isn't really that great. I'll often miss, have entire damage lines negated, sometimes I get lucky and a high damage hit will go through an enemies low armor roll and I'll score a 30 damage hit. For the most part, my gameplay and damage aren't really any different then any other person who specs into damage (And make no mistake, Zesiro is using a level 30 Rifle, a 33 skill with every ability to help her do damage that she can get.)
As things stand, I believe the balance is fine, the math adds up, in terms of performance everyone's on reasonably even footing. As well as I personally do not want to make knee-jerk gut feeling comments about what is or isn't in need of buffs or nerfs. I am much more in favor of staff being free from sifting through many of these perceived advantages/deficiencies and be able to focus on storytelling/releasing area's for us (and them) to enjoy.
|
|
|
Post by tildryn on Aug 7, 2015 22:15:08 GMT -5
I really wanted to avoid posting in here, but here I go... During our last cultist run I counted and only crit 6 times during the run. (I blew through 230 bullets to put that number into perspective) And this felt entirely normal, given the amount of discussion floating around these past couple weeks regarding how overwhelmingly powerful rifles are. Me expecting to crit 1-3 times during an encounter isn't a reality, with luck, I might crit twice during an encounter, but that is easily balanced out by the number of encounters I go through, where I just don't crit at all. Even with all this, who's to say that my crit isn't being poured into an enemy with only 20 hit points left? Crits have a great deal of shock value (Even more when they happen back to back, which does happen.) but they really aren't as common as people think. When they do happen it's game-changing, on a rifle especially since your sinking all your damage into that one shot, it DOES make a massive difference when that miracle crit happens. Otherwise though, my damage isn't really that great. I'll often miss, have entire damage lines negated, sometimes I get lucky and a high damage hit will go through an enemies low armor roll and I'll score a 30 damage hit. For the most part, my gameplay and damage aren't really any different then any other person who specs into damage (And make no mistake, Zesiro is using a level 30 Rifle, a 33 skill with every ability to help her do damage that she can get.) As things stand, I believe the balance is fine, the math adds up, in terms of performance everyone's on reasonably even footing. As well as I personally do not want to make knee-jerk gut feeling comments about what is or isn't in need of buffs or nerfs. I am much more in favor of staff being free from sifting through many of these perceived advantages/deficiencies and be able to focus on storytelling/releasing area's for us (and them) to enjoy. Fortunately, math doesn't require belief.
|
|
|
Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 7, 2015 22:21:14 GMT -5
Math is great for telling you what the ratio of damage between two weapon loadouts against targets with particular stats is but it's not so good at telling you what it should be. Productive balance talk focuses on the latter and it's something I'm actually very interested in hearing from players.
|
|
|
Post by Sobriquet on Aug 7, 2015 22:32:47 GMT -5
I'm a fan of differentiation rather than balancing everything to be carbon copies of each other. I like the idea of situational superiority, and in the context of melee, I've voiced off in favor of the concept of dual being good against light and two hander good against heavy. In the context of ranged, at least with weapons like hunting rifles, my opinion has been that it should offer higher DPR than melee builds at distance but heavily drop in up close confrontations. At the current moment, I think it offers lower DPR than melee builds and even lower when the distance is closed in. I'm not really sure where all the other weapons should fit in that, and if smaller guns like revolvers were capable of close ranged combat, then there'd be little to stop someone from just switching gun load out to meet every situation unless guns were further differentiated in skills in the form of Rifles vs. Handguns or something, which may very well be overkill.
|
|
|
Post by Kaybrie on Aug 7, 2015 22:35:43 GMT -5
Math is great for telling you what the ratio of damage between two weapon loadouts against targets with particular stats is but it's not so good at telling you what it should be. Productive balance talk focuses on the latter and it's something I'm actually very interested in hearing from players. My post did sort of glaze over the fact that some positive changes have come from some conversations. (Bringing attention to excessive ranged AB.) Which wasn't intended. I do think though that the game is in a good place where it is now.
|
|
|
Post by kingofaquilonia on Aug 7, 2015 23:37:47 GMT -5
The AB buff really helped dual wielders, gun users are absolutely shredding in the damage department, I feel like two handed folks could use a lil love somewhere somehow. Maybe a touch of AB but honestly against all targets I feel like my damage is lower in comparison to dual wielders and gunners against ALL targets as a two hander.. Sashana and Claire could prolly shred 2 or 3 targets before Axel kills one. .... Though I just realized this is the gun thread.... oops
|
|
|
Post by Rekov on Aug 8, 2015 9:22:17 GMT -5
My post did sort of glaze over the fact that some positive changes have come from some conversations. (Bringing attention to excessive ranged AB.) Which wasn't intended. I do think though that the game is in a good place where it is now. Out of curiosity, is there an equivalent level melee character that Zesiro could go toe to toe with, or even pose a remote threat to, if it came to PvP? I could be entirely wrong here, because you could probably do some clutch stuff with smoke grenades for HiPS, but other than with stealth, all a melee character has to do is stand on you and then you can't hit them with your rifle. Maybe that isn't a problem at all, though. It just seems odd to me from a role playing perspective that, as was mentioned earlier in this thread, PCs don't take guns seriously as a threat, and seem to be mostly justified in this.
|
|
|
Post by drunkensolamnic on Aug 8, 2015 9:39:21 GMT -5
Out of curiosity.. at which point did any weapon really get taken seriously or not seriously by a PC? I haven't seen enough PvP posturing on this server to see anyone be flippant about a possible death?
|
|
|
Post by kingofaquilonia on Aug 8, 2015 11:55:54 GMT -5
If you think about the cultist dungeon there are only about 4-5 big fights, where those crits you sink likely around 6 as you claim, are pretty much game changing. Not to mention those 6 crits are more damage than Axel will do in an entire dungeon even with power attack and charge attacks.
|
|
|
Post by Kaybrie on Aug 8, 2015 14:46:16 GMT -5
If you think about the cultist dungeon there are only about 4-5 big fights, where those crits you sink likely around 6 as you claim, are pretty much game changing. Not to mention those 6 crits are more damage than Axel will do in an entire dungeon even with power attack and charge attacks. 700 damage over 230 rounds is 3 damage per round. Probably not, Zesiro chugs as many potions as most equivalent level melee characters do running the entire cultist dungeon just killing a couple spiders by herself.
|
|
|
Post by kingofaquilonia on Aug 8, 2015 21:35:04 GMT -5
Zesiro could easily destroy Axel in a fight if it came to it. He has to get to her... then once he does... she throws down a smoke grenade... gets some distance and starts shooting again.... rinse and repeat until she gets one crit and wins.
I love the big crits gunners are getting don't get me wrong, I just wanna see two handers get some love now too. People WAY overrate power attack and the like.
|
|
|
Post by Kaybrie on Aug 8, 2015 23:39:21 GMT -5
Zesiro could easily destroy Axel in a fight if it came to it. He has to get to her... then once he does... she throws down a smoke grenade... gets some distance and starts shooting again.... rinse and repeat until she gets one crit and wins. I love the big crits gunners are getting don't get me wrong, I just wanna see two handers get some love now too. People WAY overrate power attack and the like. This is truly spoken as someone who has never played a gunner/had to rely on smoke grenades for any semblance of 'kiting'. I'll gladly put my money where my mouth is though, meet you at the flagpole after school! (When we're both next online)
|
|
|
Post by nippon on Aug 8, 2015 23:41:43 GMT -5
Bruce will be taking bets. Pool split evenly amongst those who chip in.
|
|
|
Post by kingofaquilonia on Aug 9, 2015 0:03:44 GMT -5
I've used smokes plenty!
|
|
|
Post by electrohydra on Aug 9, 2015 0:39:36 GMT -5
Zesiro could easily destroy Axel in a fight if it came to it. He has to get to her... then once he does... she throws down a smoke grenade... gets some distance and starts shooting again.... rinse and repeat until she gets one crit and wins. I love the big crits gunners are getting don't get me wrong, I just wanna see two handers get some love now too. People WAY overrate power attack and the like. I assume Axel invested a bit into hit points, therefore Zes can't actually take him from 100 to 0 in one shot. Zes would kite with smoke grenades, but Axel would just chug a potion everytime he's hit or two to negate the hits. Since smoke grenades are heavier then potion, Zes would likely run out of smokes before Axel runs out of potions. Axel wins. (Yeah, the real moral of this story is, PvP right now is / would be all about consumables, not whatever weapon you're using)
|
|