Changelog 23rd May, 2016

[RyanMakara]

Not sure what server you played on Torq but I stopped playing when they raised the level cap to 100. DDOW had server first world boss and had it on farm ever since. Our entire guild was in world boss equipment long before there was ever such a thing as level 100

And you continue to mention the annihilator system but you leave out the fact that there was a working contribution system and the ability to masterloot taking out several layers of rng. Where you seem to be adding several layers beyond anything mythic ever had.

So whats the complaint? OP or unobtainable? Mythics "contribution system" still had you at the mercy of RNG entirely and also didnt exist in the capacity of bonus roll modifiers at launch.

I didnt say anything about anything being OP or not so dont push that **** on me. Cant we have a normal conversation with out getting so defensive? You did the same thing to me when i asked about the Chosen boots.

Im not out to get you Torq. I think the Set is pretty damn good and would just like the opportunity to actually have a chance at EARNING them. You cant earn something thats hidden behind a 110% luck based system

Again, I would like to point out we are still working on contribution and zone lock rewards. I'm sure the more possible keep takes become, and the more we increase actual reward based on numbers present and effort spent, the attainability of this set will become a non-issue.

[Vigfuss]

I think that as long as there is no TB, then Armour stacking will not be as big of a problem as it was on live. At this point Crit is the thing to keep an eye on, without TB it can get out of hand very early on.

[Zanilos]

Torque, I really think you're just missing my point. I apologize if I come across crass or offensive. It is not my intent.

Where on Earth does this escalate to? You are offering this gear to players now while we are at rr40. Well ok, but what comes next? It can't be worse gear to grind for or no one will grind it. What happens to PvE now? This set obliterates that PvE stuff before its even ready. That onslaught ring comes from city sieges btw not a dungeon. Pretty sure it was from auctioneers??? Then moved to stage 1 purple bags.

That gear you SS totals at: WS 54, BAL, 102, Crit 5% (including dodgy ring), Range Power 88.

New sets totals at: WS 37, BAL 117, Crit 3%, Range Power, 36, Wounds, 24, Ini, 24, Disrupt 2%, Dodge, 2%, Parry 2%, 4 AP/S, Dodge Strike through 3%.

If you drop the 5 piece bonus, you will drop the dodge disrupt and 3% crit, find yourself that ring. Then its a 1 % crit loss and gain the wounds bal and ws.

My concerns are what is next? What happens when we cap up to 80? Will this still be bis? Will we see Glyph? What about the other PvE content? Especially now you don't need LV weapons, or DP gear.

As for drop rates. It doesn't seem like any guilds are really pushing RvR at the moment. Maybe a few kills from roamers but not for zone locks. When/if they get moving, we will see more zone locks.

[Azarael]

Yeah, and?

I follow what you say but we came back to the very same thing as always, do you think that classes that are very near almost always critting are not balanced around that fact?

My point is that the concept of critical damage is not something that's massively different from simply modifying damage output %. Therefore, we should avoid the way the balance changes between tiers because of crit stacking by replacing critical hit mods with damage output mods, if necessary. This is what the Slayer/Choppa mechanic does and why it's a very appropriate mechanic, unlike the BW/Sorc version.

And do I think classes that crit a lot are balanced around that fact, insofar as the term can be applied to this game? Well no, not really, because the game's unbalanced. I don't think that tactics which activate on crit are necessarily balanced around the fact either.I think the RDPS archetypes alone prove that relying on crit as a scaler was a stupid solution. Tactics that scale critical damage also become more and more unbalanced the further crit is stacked - the 10% def / 10% attack baseline that Annaise quoted in another post is violated by a critical damage tactic, which at a theoretical 100% crit is worth 33% extra DPS, and even at 50% crit is 17% dps - 70% better than the baseline.

As I've previously stated, I'd rather gut the power creep entirely and work with a baseline of stats and sideways progression within tiers, with the difference between tiers resolved by a damage dealt/received mod. Such a thing, properly controlled, also allows grind to continue past 80/100. I see no reason why the game state should change dramatically between early T4 and end T4.

[Shadowgurke]

As I've previously stated, I'd rather gut the power creep entirely and work with a baseline of stats and sideways progression within tiers, with the difference between tiers resolved by a damage dealt/received mod. Such a thing, properly controlled, also allows grind to continue past 80/100. I see no reason why the game state should change dramatically between early T4 and end T4.

This seems a bit theoretical. Are you saying that the goal is for theoretical RR80 gear to be equally strong as RR40 Annihilator but with different stats? Or is the goal just that the damage at RR80 vs RR80 is going to be the same as RR40 vs RR40 because of additional offense and additional defense are always balanced?

[Azarael]

If it seems theoretical it's because it is. What I'm saying just represents my thoughts on the issue of power creep and does not represent RoR direction.

I believe gear progression is about two things:

- Unlocking additional options
- Granting advantage over players who lack the gear

Currently, we handle this through power creep, which distorts the game by increasing the extremes of power and defense. I'm saying that it would be far better to handle this through assigning sets a tier and using the relative tier values to modify the damage dealt and received by a player towards other players. Doing it this way cuts the power creep right out of the game, allowing more and more gear to be released of higher tiers - as much as is desired - because the underlying game state isn't changing - only relative perforamnce. It also leaves options for controlling the crush factor against lower geared players, as the option exists to restrict the tier check such that two players can never be considered more than X tiers apart.

Unlocking additional options does not require power creep, so can still be done in this manner.

Doing this preserves the game state at high levels of gear and thus makes the game easier to balance (because two players in OMFGRoflDivineSuperSet perform much the same against one another as two players in Annihilator, with the difference being in available options), while still allowing higher gear to beat out lower gear. For any game that seeks to be balanced, I think it is an absolute requirement that its upgrade system does not modify the basic game state for two players of equal power.

[Shadowgurke]

Currently, we handle this through power creep, which distorts the game by increasing the extremes of power and defense.

I agree with that assessment in general. WoW or Diablo prove this more than enough. However, not all powercreep is created equal. In the mentioned games, a new tier in D3 adds ~400% multiplicators in damage and resistance. In WoW, a new tier adds roughly 50% dps output. However, these games are supposed to provide infinite progression. My latest information is that you still plan on capping at RR80 with a potential to increase RR but only rewarding players with cosmetics, titles, glowing auras etc. So that means we have a finite number of sets or "power tiers" that need to be balanced accordingly. The question how much stronger Sov should be compared to Annihilator is subjective, but that is basically the only decision you have to make. From there on you can linearly add power upgrades through the other sets.

This has 2 disadvantages
1) Offense stacking. With the Str-softcap being somewhat easy to achieve, upgrades will only provide more Crit and stronger procs. The good news is that Warhammer does not have Critdamage modifiers apart from tactics, meaning that the damage scales somewhat linearly and not exponentially. The damage stacking can be solved by creating defensive procs, armor values being higher and defensive stats on gear (note: This system is prone to Magic damage)

2) Balancing. Unless you want to carbon copy live sovereign sets, this means that the gear sets have to be tested out first. Torqs jewelry set being the prime example of that: There is a set that wasn't there before, getting the stats just right is incredibly hard. Maybe the stats are balanced, maybe they aren't. That is not so much the question as it is prove that this is a process rather than something you can just decide for yourself.

Assuming I understand your system correctly, your gear would look like this.

Annihilator:
50 Mainstat
50 Defstat
5% Crit
T1 1x power multiplier

ZomfgDivinePowerset
50 Mainstat
20 Randomstat
30 otherstat
5% Crit
T7 . Receive 20% less damage and deal 20% more damage to players per tier they are lower than you, with a cap of 60%

This does indeed make balancing stats really easy. You just input the desired power difference and voila. However, this does somewhat limit the "wow factor" of new gear. It's a slightly contradicting but players love better stats on their gear. But they don't like the powercreep that comes from it. Getting a piece that has more strength feels awesome. Seing more and higher crits is the motivation to keep the hamster running. While I don't think your idea is bad by any stretch of the imagination, I want you to know that you are playing with some concepts that are considered the holy grail of RPGs/MMOs.

Also, you still have to balance procs. Unless you plan on making procs very bad and hardly useful.

I am not sure if I read this correctly but you talked about further upgrades after Sovereign using the same system. Initially I liked the idea of limitless progression, but this makes it incredibly hard and frustrating to catch up for newer players or twinks. Even if progressing to a new tier takes half a year, it means that at the end of the day new players will always have to face a power multiplier. Unless you plan on resetting the latest tier over and over again.

There is a third way of doing upgrades I found when playing and old warcraft 3 custom map. Efficiency. Basically you started with items that would increase health and some armor for tanks, damage and attackspeed for dps and mana + healing power for healers. later tiers would leave tanks with similar or less health but more armor (mitigation) and regeneration. DPS would have procs that would outdps raw damage if used correctly. This enhanced the gameplay a lot. And healers would focus on mana regeneration. Essentially the general power level stayed similar, but the players were able to survive longer fights, create higher burst damage by coordinating procs and debuffs over sustained dps while still being able to be killed by Tier 1 mobs if they didn't pay attention. While I don't immediately see how much of this can be implemented in War, it's still an idea you could consider

[Azarael]

This does indeed make balancing stats really easy. You just input the desired power difference and voila. However, this does somewhat limit the "wow factor" of new gear. It's a slightly contradicting but players love better stats on their gear. But they don't like the powercreep that comes from it. Getting a piece that has more strength feels awesome. Seing more and higher crits is the motivation to keep the hamster running. While I don't think your idea is bad by any stretch of the imagination, I want you to know that you are playing with some concepts that are considered the holy grail of RPGs/MMOs.

That I understand. Some problems require sacrifices, and something like this would be one such sacrifice. I guess it depends on what people really want - game balance (not item balance), or seeing +79 Str vs +56 Str? I don't believe balancing the game will be possible (or easy) without some means of keeping state consistent and cutting down the extremes.

I'd also love it if people actually played for enjoying the gameplay, rather than to see higher damage numbers. There's no reason this can't be linked in though - you would get higher damage against players with lesser equipment, and mobs could easily be factored into this. The practical effect's the same, imo.

Also, you still have to balance procs. Unless you plan on making procs very bad and hardly useful.

Of course. That's why I refer to sideways progression - procs and effects represent that idea.

I am not sure if I read this correctly but you talked about further upgrades after Sovereign using the same system. Initially I liked the idea of limitless progression, but this makes it incredibly hard and frustrating to catch up for newer players or twinks. Even if progressing to a new tier takes half a year, it means that at the end of the day new players will always have to face a power multiplier. Unless you plan on resetting the latest tier over and over again.

All MMOs have this kind of problem to some degree, I believe. The entire game design is based around partially or mostly substituting individual skill out for gear. As long as that's the case, there will always be a major uphill battle for newer players.

There is a third way of doing upgrades I found when playing and old warcraft 3 custom map. Efficiency. Basically you started with items that would increase health and some armor for tanks, damage and attackspeed for dps and mana + healing power for healers. later tiers would leave tanks with similar or less health but more armor (mitigation) and regeneration. DPS would have procs that would outdps raw damage if used correctly. This enhanced the gameplay a lot. And healers would focus on mana regeneration. Essentially the general power level stayed similar, but the players were able to survive longer fights, create higher burst damage by coordinating procs and debuffs over sustained dps while still being able to be killed by Tier 1 mobs if they didn't pay attention. While I don't immediately see how much of this can be implemented in War, it's still an idea you could consider

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, isn't this a form of sideways progression? You're expanding the gameplay, while keeping the general power level intact.

[Dresden]

I spend 10g on 2 hellcannons, i used them, i caused little damage and i caused it slowly, i stopped using them.

This is a report, this is not a comment or a complaint.

[Shadowgurke]

That I understand. Some problems require sacrifices, and something like this would be one such sacrifice. I guess it depends on what people really want - game balance (not item balance), or seeing +79 Str vs +56 Str? I don't believe balancing the game will be possible (or easy) without some means of keeping state consistent.

It might be worthwhile to use the best of both worlds and offer slightly higher stats in conjunction with a tier multiplier. Although I guess that somewhat diminishes the upside of having a modifier

Also, you still have to balance procs. Unless you plan on making procs very bad and hardly useful.

Of course. That's why I refer to sideways progression - procs and effects represent that idea.

Sideway progression is meant to mean different procs but equal in terms of power. Different options instead of better options

There is a third way of doing upgrades I found when playing and old warcraft 3 custom map. Efficiency. [...]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, isn't this a form of sideways progression? You're expanding the gameplay, while keeping the general power level intact.

Yes and no. In the context of Warhammer it would mean that a level 1 player could realistically kill a level 50 player if he outplays him, the high level player makes a mistake or multiple level 1 players take on a level 50 player. Power creep is much harder to compensate for because you deal less damage, your enemy has more mitigation and more health. Efficiency would leave his general health equal or even lower while raising his mitigation only. That would be better if played correctly (with healers. Abusing his sustain etc.) but would end up worse or useless if he does not play to his strengths. Or for a dps player his dps would be similar to the dps of a ungeared player. EG a proc on the weapon instead of 10% crit damage. Sustained they give the same dps. However, if the dps player would time his damage increasing cooldowns into the proc debuff he would achieve higher dps. Skill over gear, essentially.

The reason why I would not refer to this as sidegrades is because this system would make players stronger, overall. It would just require a little bit more thought/coordination than flat out making damage from ungeared players laughable while simultaneously oneshotting them.

Anyways, thank you for your time. I am heading to bed now