Return of Reckoning

I think we need to adapt to this game design philosophy moving forward, cuz right now there are way too many boring classes.

The goal is to raise every class sense of agency by giving them two different kinds of "OP spells", ST Fun and Broken Synergy, and make both hard countered by something else. Cuz that is the key. If you simply throw in a bunch of broken spells, players will figure out the strongest or easiest to execute and fluctuate to that. Think about the old broken M4s. A group of 6 could ruin sieges by themselves simply by standing on the walls gaining morales, then jumping down and killing a WB worth of people on their own in 5 seconds.

"ST Fun" would be Mara Pulls, WH/WE quasi-infinite stealth and making the Sov Punt a base skill, or rDPS with a "get hit with 5k dmg from 110ft away" spell. Cuz right now what do we have besides Mara Pulls on Destro and Festering Arrows on Order (both nerfed btw) that make players giggle to themselves? Let players have fun. Are Mara pulls oppressive? Of course they are, but they are also fun, so instead of nerfing it why not just give both sides even more ways to oppress Single Targets? Just make them ONLY ST spells (oppressive AoE would fall on the next category) with hard counters and long CDs, then it becomes a tool for the solo players to have fun and a mini-game in WB engagements. Cuz what do you if your Order Leader keeps getting pulled or your Destro Leader keeps getting sniped down by the kite group that's following the WB you wanna kill? You Hold the Line and hope for RNG. There is no agency in that.

"Broken Synergy" would be new interactions that requires stacking the same classes that would set up the damage of a different class. Expand the usage of the different kinds of damage that the game has. This would create different kinds of functional WBs for both sides and, since the setup requires stacking debuffs, it will prevent the scenario of 6 man groups mowing down whole blobs cuz they farmed morales from a safe spot first. Imagine if only Maras had a short duration and stackable Spirit Resistance AoE Debuff and only Magus could do Spirit AoE Damage. Make it so you would need 4 Maras to stack enough debuffs that when the Magus dropped their stuff, it would feel how a M2 Drop feels right now. Then give only SMs a temporary and stackable Group Spirit Res Buff. "Oh X Guild is running their Mara/Magus WB today? Go log your SMs so he will be hard countered. We don't have enough SMs? Then we gotta find a way to jump his squishy Magus Line, that's the soft counter, or we just hit them with our Broken Synergy before they can do theirs". And you don't have to stick classes to only one role, Maras can be class that drops the damage if you have enough of another class that would set them up.

If done well then Broken Synergy would raise player agency for all classes, It would promote coordination, it would reward game knowledge, it would make stronger WBs able to take on bigger numbers more consistently which rewards skill and not just blobbing, and it would be fun cuz melting people gives us that dopamine rush we want. It also makes pugbands stronger if they happen upon one Broken Synergy by chance, instead of only being able to kill anything with bigger numbers or if they have a couple of geared DPS in them. That r26 Mara isn't useless now that he can stack some debuffs for the r24 Magus to do big boy dmg. Cuz right now the only thing we have is M2 Drops and Bellows Charges that make Warband feels strong, and those are fun, so we need more of that.

I agree with the general sentiment expressed in the OP, however for this to be done properly it might require too much work on the dev's part?

I agree with op. Feels a lot better to be bopped on when you can bop on someone else too.

As example back when squiggies were soo strong in melee, i had a blast playing one. Then one day i got battle for praag and ran into wh's with dragongun spec and a decent comp, and they completely countered me with high parry, ranged knockdown etc. It IS fun! Not to say wh with this spec is imba, but it sure did counter this meatball

I'm sure its gonna be a lot of work, just like any other route they take for reworking classes, but a base philosophy helps.

I don't think that the "nerf everything that is strong/fun" is the way. I prefer Dota's Icefrog way of balancing stuff, which is "make a bunch of OP stuff with hard counters".

I thought about this for a while now.

What if,

hear me out,

The end-mastery abilities are not M4 abilities but... just regualr abilities with longer cooldowns. 3-5 minutes.

Of course some of them would have to be buffed/nerfed accordingly, but i think we can all agree that if there's one major part of this game that is largely ignored by everybody, hardcore and casual alike, it's the 15 point morale ability.

This would be a massive twist in the meta and one that I honestly would enjoy seeing. Bring back the bombs. Just make them on a long cooldown.

zulnam wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2024 9:05 pm I thought about this for a while now.

What if,

hear me out,

The end-mastery abilities are not M4 abilities but... just regualr abilities with longer cooldowns. 3-5 minutes.

Of course some of them would have to be buffed/nerfed accordingly, but i think we can all agree that if there's one major part of this game that is largely ignored by everybody, hardcore and casual alike, it's the 21 point morale ability.

This would be a massive twist in the meta and one that I honestly would enjoy seeing. Bring back the bombs. Just make them on a long cooldown.

Ooo, i like that. Finally a reason to bring 2h slayer for the aoe healdebuff and it elevates many subpar rvr specs and careers into relevancy too. This sounds like a brilliant idea to be honest, havent heard this one before which gives it the shine of a novelty, but like it a lot!

Morales have already been nerfed into the ground. Making 15 spec abilities non-morale would be a death sentence. At that point just remove M4 abilities entirely.

Fey wrote: Wed Jul 10, 2024 1:13 am Morales have already been nerfed into the ground. Making 15 spec abilities non-morale would be a death sentence. At that point just remove M4 abilities entirely.

i agree with the first part of your post, but i fail to understand your conclusion.

Anything to save the server, because nerffing the classes are killing the fun.
#fixwhitelion

Although I agree that it's generally better to buff weaker classes to the level of stronger ones than nerf stronger ones to the level of weaker ones, I don't think this is the way to do it. It gives far too much power to hyper-optimised warbands who will, as always, find the meta setup. Pugs and more casual warbands will be eaten alive even more as class setup within a warband would be even more important than it is now. In a pug vs pug fight the one that just happens by luck to have the synergy to beat the other just turns it into a hopeless stomp. It feels like a very rock/paper/scissors kind of balance.