Overarching balance changes

[Akalukz]

we can agree to disagree I guess. I firmly believe you should make the game fun / enjoyable / equal for all players. There are no in game tutorials / help files / how to's on addons to the best of my knowledge, maybe there is something, if there is, it is not easily found.

I totally understand that the server is a free development project. I enjoy playing, I am not evening saying I need these things for me, which you maybe under the impression of. I have a long list of addons that i use, and personally don't mind using them.


A hardened attitude towards change does not bode well for the future. Just because You or I maybe adept at configuring addons / searching for good addons / etc does not mean that the majority of players are. I believe a very small percentage of players actually even come to forums, let alone search out addons etc. In the 2 years this game has been running how many new addons have been created? How many active addon author's are there.... surely nothing compared to other games such as WoW.

[th3gatekeeper]

@Penril
- actually a lot of players (actually new ones) do not even know about addons like enemy and buffhead that makes it a lot of easier to guard/spot guard or other deadly buffs/debuffs etc.
- I wouldnt name it "for noobs" for gods sake when some1 havent played this game its hard for him to know what addons do what and what addons are actually very helpful

This exactly. I didnt use either of these until probably 6-8 weeks through playing and had my first lvl 40 RR character before I started messing with addons. I see people all the time that dont use these things.

I think the difference is in perspective. I look at the REAL world and how 80% of the time (or more) tanks are not guarding, DPS classes are trying to nuke a guarded target, a majority of the time even when allies have guard on them, they will move out of range and it wont be on them.

You, Penril, seem to be thinking in the "ideal" or YOUR perspective, which is someone who is a long time player. So I think we are both right frankly. You are right, its not hard to do those things, but its also not intuitive for new players or casual players to think its REQUIRED to have an addon or heck, that it even CAN do those things. Even if you make a thread about this called "Buffhead for Dummies" people arent going to intuitively think "man I wish I could tell when someone is guarding, oh! I know buffhead does this" If someone isnt using buffhead to tell you this its probably because they dont know what buffhead even does....

Again, we can talk about gamer "theory" all we want, but the problem remains that the majority of the player base, doesnt use guard, doesnt always 6 man every SC, doesnt have a guild of 100+ that constantly do RvR. The majority of the population (from my experience) is that people get on with a couple buddies, do some trio Qs or more with friends in SCs, get a small group to join a Warband and play the game. Then you see things constantly where people dont use guard, run outside of range, FF otherrs with guard etc.

The solution shouldnt be (as someone pointed out) that an addon is mandatory, this is just poor IMO. Not just that, but why is the "solution" to have guard (the most powerful thing in the game IMO) to just be another buff with zero visual tells? We have visual tells for SO many other less important things that players learn to react to... Why is guard, just a "buff" it should be more.

It should be an animation/visual tell. It also should be more intuitive and able to be used well with the BASIC game as much as possible. In a perfeft world, where everyone was a "LIVE" player, sure... everyone knows about buffhead and the 27 other addons that feel "required" to play this game. That doesnt mean thats how it SHOULD be and if this game wants to grow, it should be looking to attract NEW players and not just the "Live Guys" to re-live their glory days....

[peterthepan3]

People not using the server's official forums to seek out help in one of 6/7 languages is their own problem. I'll make a quick video later on today (if the server is up) showing people how to use enemy and buffhead to make guarding easier/more noticeable.

[Stmichael1989]

Im still not sure if people here are just trolling so much or if they really think this mitigation ideas should happen...

there were some sentences where I was just wtf?
...

I think we do not need armor/mitigation changes in full scale or any other balance change in common to be all classes wide. I would rather see it to be more class specific or even spec based. (like grp cleanse tactic that would also reduce the armor thus not nerfing dps wp/doks survivability etc.)

You fail to grasp the intent of the proposed changes. You're looking at that as a single change within the current system. It's meant to be a shift in the foundation of the game, upon which many more changes with consistent design logic can be built.

Ultimately, if you try to balance the game by tweaking individual abilities like cleanse or guard first, you are making things much harder on yourself. I'm an engineer by profession, and when we set out to design something - a building, a power plant, a car, whatever - we start at the broadest level and work inward. In the case of RoR, we have some of that groundwork already laid out. There are 4 archetypes, and 3 races per side. That's a good start. Next level inward is designing the interactions between the archetypes. That part is not well defined, and so it needs definition. Once it's clear, then we move inward to individual classes and their interactions with the new system. Last step is to do the same with individual specs.

If the armor/resist caps were changed and left at that, they would be wonky and not accomplish what they set out to do. Tanks currently have too much toughness and other such survivability for ranged casters to be any sort of real threat to them. That would need to change, as the intent is for magic damage to be a legitimate threat to a tank where currently there is none. In a balanced game, you can't have one class that by design no one should be attacking because it's futile. Doubly so if that class has things like guard, challenge, roots, snares, knockbacks, interrupts, cooldown debuffs, AoE stat buffs/debuffs, etc etc.

[grumcajs]

@Stmichael1989

your proposed changes would require to completely rework certain abilities, classes, and playstyle as whole.

You talk about tank being too tough to kill for dps classes. Thats because when they spec to full turtle to be invincible that means they pose no threat to anything in terms of dmg. They bring support as a support class should. Same as healers. Do you think heal spec healers are threat in terms of dps to anyone?

Why do you think tanks being made that tough in WAR? I have yet to see a game where tank archetype would be so tough to bring down like they are in WAR. On the same note I have yet to see a game where tank archetype would be built to be that "support driven" like in WAR. They are always on the front - that means everyone can target them, at siege they usually operate the ram thus being always first to hit, can form a tank wall to hold enemies, they provide guard to allies... when u are focused by enemies and also take unmitigated guard dmg thats pretty huge ammount of punishment and for that you need to be tough like a brick.

As I said - it would require complete overhaul of the game (btw do not know if GW would approve, or if they even care or whatever) or this game would turn to rdps artilery battles where no1 would dare to cross the no mans land.

And why do you think magic rdps are counter to tanks? Magic rdps are usually just able to face lower mitigation level via resitances. I have never seen (have been playing like several months from start with few breaks) magic classes to be meant to be tanks bane. They can hit them harder than physical dps but thats it (unless we are talking about dps tanks).

I still have a feeling people would like to balance this game for smallscale but completely forget the part this game was always about a large scale. You cannot nerf a tank toughness to work better in a smallscale and expect it to have no impact on a large scale.

And about these minor tweaks I would rather see - thats mostly cuz classes are ok, archetypes are ok. Just some classes and abilities would require a small tweak here and there instead of blanket nerf/buff or even to destroy the whole game concept and just make a new one that might work better.

Just my pov.

[Valfaros]

Not sure who is saying what here, but surely people can't believe the best answer is to go to an outside source to play the game. That means there is something inherently wrong with the game and it should be rectified inside the game, why limit the usefullness of buffhead to only those that use addons / outside / 3rd party software. Why not make it an equal playing field by fixing it in game. Same with GES addon or anything else that shows distance to guarded player. These would be a benefit to all in the game.

Do you know how many addons people use for a raid in World of Warcraft? Deadly Boss for example is simply mandatory. Yet no one thinks there is something inherently wrong with that. Same thing with a bazillion games out there where people use mods and addons.

You want an equal playing field? You can do it yourself. Learn to read buffs/debuffs. Or just install and configure Buffhead. Simple as that.

Do i really need to make a thread teaching people how to install/configure Buffhead or other addons? **** it, i'll do it this weekend, with screenshots and everything. A "Buffhead for Dummies".

Actually there are a lot of people who dislikes to use addons those people just don't don't raid at all or are getting forced by others to get certain addons and if you come with games well how about Gw2 where you can't use any addons at all.
Why:
Well one of the reasons was that it creates a imbalance between people who use it and people who don't and this example of how to tell guard "well only with a addon" is a perfect example of it. If you want a game which is competitive and fair you need to give everyone the same standarts. Clearly you can argument with well then just get the addon doh. Okay well then you get buffhead, then you need purge, then you should use enemy and the list could go on and on as long as there are addon creaters you need a new addon every few weeks (well here probabbly not the case anymore) if there are any new advantages to it. People want the same standarts for everyone and atleast crucial things like guard one of the strongest things ingame should be supported by it.

I use buffhead myself and it certainly isn't perfect it just shows you if the target currently is buffed with guard. Doesn't give you any information if the target is in guard range which tank has guarded if there are 3 Kotbs you just don't ....ing know which tank you have to kb (one of the only counters to guard) to get the dd unguarded.
Adding visual effects is always better a lot of things ad something visual I don't know if you can't programm it so that the guard animation is permanent (at best instead of just greenish class specific) but if you can't do it well than you just can't nobody will blame you for that. If you think well sounds good we don't have time for this know, well then okay guys no problem do it later but store it somewhere on your shelf maybe things chance and you find an other way to balance things out or a perhaps a even better solution to these boring pug vs premade matches.

Same goes not only to guard assist should also be implemented in the game an assist which every player can set on an enemy and every player can target the called enemy by hotkey. Also important if you want to reduce the advantages voice com gives over pugs.

You can see that there are many complains about pugs vs premades it ruins the experience of the game for many while only a few get people have fun in matches where one side gets compleatly dominated and slashed. Is this is the master plan I don't think so but it could be an good idea to first implement an working assist and tell for guard which everyone sees. This solution will certainly be good and helps everyone while certain balance chances could get things worse. There are many other things that are more important than this (rvr experience) but I still like the idea of a better given game experience. If you look at pugs there aren't many which assist and many who don't guard and if they guard they stand out of range. I think making things clearer and visable will help players to play better together and bring certain structures in these unstructured matches.

I don't understand that you think no we don't do it because there is an outside addon to it. Devs always implement certain addons into their game to make the overall experience for all players better. I think there shouldn't be an exeption here.

However if you do an guide on the most crucial addons that will be good too but keep also in mind that very few read the forum that is in every game the case people want to play not to read. Look at the polls how many paricipate what 200 or something out of how many 2000 maybe or more.

[Penril]

Spoiler:

Actually there are a lot of people who dislikes to use addons those people just don't don't raid at all or are getting forced by others to get certain addons and if you come with games well how about Gw2 where you can't use any addons at all.
Why:
Well one of the reasons was that it creates a imbalance between people who use it and people who don't and this example of how to tell guard "well only with a addon" is a perfect example of it. If you want a game which is competitive and fair you need to give everyone the same standarts. Clearly you can argument with well then just get the addon doh. Okay well then you get buffhead, then you need purge, then you should use enemy and the list could go on and on as long as there are addon creaters you need a new addon every few weeks (well here probabbly not the case anymore) if there are any new advantages to it. People want the same standarts for everyone and atleast crucial things like guard one of the strongest things ingame should be supported by it.

Pretty sure WoW is way more popular and succesful than GW2. So yeah: there is no inherent flaw by having a game that can be improved with addons.

Spoiler:

I use buffhead myself and it certainly isn't perfect it just shows you if the target currently is buffed with guard. Doesn't give you any information if the target is in guard range which tank has guarded if there are 3 Kotbs you just don't ....ing know which tank you have to kb (one of the only counters to guard) to get the dd unguarded.
Adding visual effects is always better a lot of things ad something visual I don't know if you can't programm it so that the guard animation is permanent (at best instead of just greenish class specific) but if you can't do it well than you just can't nobody will blame you for that. If you think well sounds good we don't have time for this know, well then okay guys no problem do it later but store it somewhere on your shelf maybe things chance and you find an other way to balance things out or a perhaps a even better solution to these boring pug vs premade matches.

You realize it is the same thing for premades, right? Premades can't tell who is guarding who on the other side (assuming they have more than one tank of the same archetype). Nor can they tell if those tanks are in guard range (well, they can by looking at the fight and don't require the game yelling at them THIS GUY IS OUT OF GUARD RANGE FOCUS HIM).

Spoiler:

Same goes not only to guard assist should also be implemented in the game an assist which every player can set on an enemy and every player can target the called enemy by hotkey. Also important if you want to reduce the advantages voice com gives over pugs.

Assist was implemented on live. Fun thing is Pugs never used it (I saw a lot of SCs were MA was never claimed). Don't know why you think it would be different here, but if you insist: try SwiftAssist addon!

Spoiler:

You can see that there are many complains about pugs vs premades it ruins the experience of the game for many while only a few get people have fun in matches where one side gets compleatly dominated and slashed. Is this is the master plan I don't think so but it could be an good idea to first implement an working assist and tell for guard which everyone sees. This solution will certainly be good and helps everyone while certain balance chances could get things worse. There are many other things that are more important than this (rvr experience) but I still like the idea of a better given game experience. If you look at pugs there aren't many which assist and many who don't guard and if they guard they stand out of range. I think making things clearer and visable will help players to play better together and bring certain structures in these unstructured matches.
I don't understand that you think no we don't do it because there is an outside addon to it. Devs always implement certain addons into their game to make the overall experience for all players better. I think there shouldn't be an exeption here.

You know what: go for it. Let's make it so everyone knows who is guarded/in guard range. Just don't complain when premades have an even easier time stomping pugs (who do you think will benefit the most from such a change? the premades will immediately know who to focus and, having Voicecomm, will have a much easier time switching/focusing the correct targets).

Spoiler:

However if you do an guide on the most crucial addons that will be good too but keep also in mind that very few read the forum that is in every game the case people want to play not to read. Look at the polls how many paricipate what 200 or something out of how many 2000 maybe or more.

I will just quote Peter.

People not using the server's official forums to seek out help in one of 6/7 languages is their own problem.

[Valfaros]

To be honest I didn't really like it how assist was implemented on live either. Still used it but always thought it's not that good.
To the others things I think there should be first a working UI for crucial things of the game mechanics before we discuss balance on abilitys. If premades get more out of it so be it but atleast the standarts are on the same level. If people don't assist when you put a cross on the target then it's their fault if they use different things to assist (addons makros ..) it's not. I think we just won't get on the same page here mainly because I know so many people who just say they don't want all these addons but that doesn't matter we just discuss and we don't have to get on the same page.

Also for solo quers there should be an option to change classes. Don't know if that is possible but matches where you join and there is zero heal could get less awful when some players can change to heal or guard.

[Stmichael1989]

Grumcajs:

You and I are not on the same page. As best I can understand your stance, tanks are balanced around being very difficult to kill (read: impossible with competent healing) because they do very little damage. That argument may hold water if their only function was to be an armored spearhead that made it easier for melee DPS to properly engage in RvR. That, however, is not the case. With very little exception, tanks provide some of the best general utility in the game. The list of goodies they have ranges from permanent snares (some of them AoE), to knockbacks, roots, AoE buffs and debuffs, interrupts, damage reduction, and so on.

In a balanced game, the trade off for a tank having comparatively low damage is the utility they provide, NOT being invincible vs all potential attackers. Good design principles dictate that EVERY class, tanks and healers included, have things they're good at as well as things they are vulnerable to. Low damage is not a vulnerability, it's something they lack. Just like a lot of DPS classes not being able to heal themselves. That isn't a vulnerability, it's something they don't have. Yet a lot of DPS classes are very vulnerable to particular types of damage.

To use an analogy of TF2, tanks are (or at least should be) Heavies. They have a lot of health, which makes them good against classes like pyro, scout, soldier, etc. But they're also slow, so they're vulnerable to getting headshotted by snipers and backstabbed by spies.

To translate that into what RoR should be, tanks are good against melee DPS. They stop them cold. In order for your melee DPS to do its job, which is kill the enemy ranged DPS, your ranged DPS needs to kill their tanks, which they specialize in and do pretty well at. That is a balanced system. Each archetype has a target and someone who is targeting them. You are also encouraged to have a generally even distribution of classes, as too much of one class is punished by not having enough of another, which results in your opponents exploiting your weakness.

As it is, there is no such punishment for being overloaded on one class - tanks. The more you have, the less damage your opponents can do to your side, which lets what DPS classes you do have pick them apart without fear.

[Penril]

To be honest I didn't really like it how assist was implemented on live either. Still used it but always thought it's not that good.
To the others things I think there should be first a working UI for crucial things of the game mechanics before we discuss balance on abilitys. If premades get more out of it so be it but atleast the standarts are on the same level. If people don't assist when you put a cross on the target then it's their fault if they use different things to assist (addons makros ..) it's not. I think we just won't get on the same page here mainly because I know so many people who just say they don't want all these addons but that doesn't matter we just discuss and we don't have to get on the same page.

Also for solo quers there should be an option to change classes. Don't know if that is possible but matches where you join and there is zero heal could get less awful when some players can change to heal or guard.

Why implement something that's not really needed AND will benefit premades way more than Pugs? That makes absolutely zero sense.