PvP plans for February event and the future - 1/26/06 (by
Crowley)
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to give our dedicated PvP players a heads-up on the changes
we’ve planned for February to start to address PvP balance issues.
Based on what we've seen on the boards, there are a few balance issues with
PvP combat, which I spelled out in my earlier "Looking for PvP Feedback"
post. The first issue we plan to address is the difficulty that melees have
a difficult time hitting mages with Melee D tinked wands. This does not mean
that it's the most important issue, but it was the issue we were most
readily able to work on.
What we're planning to do for February is to introduce a quest that allows
PK players only (not NPKs or PKLs) to acquire an object that provides a
temporary 10% increase to their weapon's Attack Mod. This increase will be
stackable with Heartseeker and existing Attack Mod cantrips. This is similar
in mechanics to the way the Rage of Grael gems worked -- you will be able to
temporarily boost your chances to hit an opponent in melee combat. The
dungeon where you can acquire these items will have multiple entry points
and multiple spots to collect the items, to help alleviate camping concerns.
The items will be on a timer, so you won't be able to stockpile huge amounts
quickly. This new enchantment will not be usable on Weeping Weapons, for
reasons explained below.
Please keep in mind that this is simply the first and simplest step we could
take towards addressing your balance concerns. This is by no means the end
of our plans to help PvP players. We still intend to take more steps to make
fights shorter and more exciting and to make melee players more competitive.
Our current plans are to find ways to make loot weapons viable in PvP
combat, rather than tweaking the balance on Weeping Weapons. Addressing loot
weapons seems like a richer and more complete fix than fixing one class of
weapons. I won't go into specifics on our solutions to those issues, but you
can expect to see some more specific information on those ideas in the
coming weeks. We will most definitely address damage balance with whatever
fix we do. I know a lot of people would prefer that we work on damage first,
but again, a properly constructed balance solution is more complex than this
relatively simple Attack Mod bonus.
We also know that PvP players want something to fight over. There are a few
ideas on the board for that, as well, but our primary concern is to address
balance. This doesn’t mean that we’re not going to touch the "what to fight
over" issue until after we've worked on balance – but I wanted to give you
some idea of where our priorities lie.
Please let us know what you think, and you can rest assured that we'll keep
coming back here for consultation, especially on the more complex balance
issues.
Thanks,
DaveJ/Crowley
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Detailed Combat Feedback - 1/26/06 (by
Crowley)
Hey all,
You've given us a lot of really good feedback over the past couple of weeks
-- and before that too, of course, but the targeted feedback of the past few
weeks has been incredibly helpful to us. Now we want to turn around and ask
all of you some pointed questions to make sure we understand, and also to
see how you might feel about some solutions.
I know we've talked about some of these things before in other threads. But
we want to make sure we get this right. Anyway, sometimes asking about the
same things in different ways helps open up new ideas for solutions.
We can break up most of the feedback about PK in general into two
categories:
* PvP combat is too tedious and slow, and
* PvP players need better reasons to fight and something to fight over.
This thread is going to concentrate on the first point. The second point is
also important, and we'll be asking for directed feedback on that a bit
later. But this thread is all about improving the feel of PvP combat.
In order to help organize things, I'm going to number the statements or
questions we're seeking feedback on with the label {FP#} (for Feedback
Point). That way you can refer to specific points better. Of course, any and
all feedback you give us is really helpful, so feel free to talk about more
than just things mentioned here. Please do keep this thread to combat
feedback, though.
The underlying problem that we're looking at in this thread is: PvP fights
take too long. There are many reasons for this.
{FP#1} Did we miss anything major in the following list?
YOU CAN'T LAND ENOUGH HITS ON YOUR OPPONENT
* Non-melee hits can be physically dodged.
---- {FP#2} Because of various animation issues with spell-casting, this
seems to be mostly a problem for missile combat. Is magic combat okay in
this area until and unless the animation issues are fixed?
* Once you physically connect, the combat system tests attack skill vs.
defense skill. It's too easy for your opponent to have a very high defense
skill and thus avoid getting hit. This is especially an issue when attacking
a mage with a meleeD tinkered wand.
---- {FP#3} Is it a more general problem when attacking melee and missile
opponents?
---- {FP#4} Do skill buffs, imbued armor, or rare gems make this problem
much worse, or would those things be okay if we solved the meleeD wand
issue?
---- {FP#5} Is there also a problem with missile defense?
WHEN YOU LAND HITS, YOU DON'T DO ENOUGH DAMAGE TO MAKE AN IMPACT
* Players have an awful lot of health these days, so normal damage often
doesn't make much of an impact.
* Players are usually protected by a high level of armor, which reduces
non-magic damage considerably.
* Players are often protected by a high level of protection spells and
wards, which reduces all damage considerably.
* Melee and missile weapons do relatively small amounts of damage per hit
compared to magic. In order to make a real impact on your opponent with
melee or missile weapons, you have to rely on critical hits.
---- {FP#6} Do mages also need to rely on crits?
WHEN YOU DO DAMAGE, IT'S TOO EASY FOR YOUR OPPONENT TO HEAL THAT DAMAGE
* Players can heal much of their damage very quickly with spells, potions,
or kits.
Now, assuming that we haven't missed anything too major, let's look at some
potential solutions. Keep in mind that nothing here constitutes a promise or
plan of action yet. And while we'll only mention things that we think we can
do, there may be unforeseen problems that end up ruling out some of these
ideas. Finally, if one of these ideas looks like a winner, we may still need
to work out a lot of details: How does it affect PKL and/or NPK? How do you
get the effect – is it global or do you do a quest or get an imbue or what?
Also note that many of these ideas came directly from your previous
feedback, so a lot of this should look familiar. :>
YOU CAN'T LAND ENOUGH HITS ON YOUR OPPONENT
* For missile weapons in particular: The PvP-oriented missile weapons had
their maximum missile velocity increased up some time ago. In other words,
they fire faster arrows. We can speed up other missile weapons – namely loot
weapons – by the same amount. Unfortunately, because of the physics of the
AC1 world it's going to be very difficult to speed up missile velocity any
more than this. We've been playing with it internally: when you speed up the
launchers more, you suddenly can't hit anything at all.
---- {FP#7} Did this help? Did it help enough? Is it worthwhile adding a way
to speed up missiles fired from loot bows?
* Also for missile weapons: {FP#8} We may be able to play around with the
radius of the hit area. In other words, instead of the attack hitting if the
arrow hits your target directly, the attack would hit if the arrow came
within 3 feet of your target.
* And finally for missile weapons: {FP#9} We may be able to let you turn on
and off the behavior that causes missile weapons to try to 'lead' their
target during combat.
* We could add ways to increase attack skill without increasing defense
skill. The attack mod spell we've been talking about in February is an
example of this. Other examples:
---- {FP#10} We could add Level 8 Heartseeker but not Level 8 Defender.
---- {FP#11} We could cause attack mods to be twice as effective when used
against another player.
---- {FP#12} We could add an effect – like an imbue or the Aegis effect –
that increases the attack mod of a weapon vs. other players by a large
amount. This amount could be fixed or could vary based on a skill.
* Alternatively, we could reduce defense mods:
---- {FP#13} We could just say that all defense mods on weapons are only 1/4
as effective when used against another player.
---- {FP#14} We could add an effect – like an imbue or the Aegis effect –
that decreases the defense mod of your opponent's weapon by a large amount.
This amount could be fixed or could vary based on a skill.
---- {FP#15} Our general feeling is that increasing attack powers is better
than nerfing defense. But what do you think?
WHEN YOU LAND HITS, YOU DON'T DO ENOUGH DAMAGE TO MAKE AN IMPACT
* {FP#16} We'd really rather not directly decrease the health of players. We
think that increasing damage is probably better than a direct nerf to
health. What do you think?
* {FP#17} We could decrease the effectiveness of armor and/or protections
(life spells and wards) across the board in PvP combat. For instance, we
could say that in PvP combat, all armor is automatically reduced by 1/2.
This could affect real armor, or only AL-raising spells, or both. (It could
not affect just tinkers, though. We don't track what AL comes from tinkers
and what was there to begin with.) Similarly with protections and wards.
* {FP#18} Alternatively, we could cap the effect of armor and/or
protections. For instance, we could say that in PvP combat, armor will only
ever reduce damage by 90%, no matter how much armor you have. Similarly, we
could cap protections at a 90% reduction. Other numbers might be more
appropriate here, of course – I pulled those out of thin air.
* {FP#19} Or we could improve armor rending and resistance rending effects
for PvP combat only in order to better cut through armor and protections.
For instance, AR currently maxes out ignoring 60% of armor. Perhaps for PvP
combat that could become 90% of armor.
* {FP#20} Because PvP combat often relies on critical hits, we could
increase the base crit rate for all weapons when used against another
player. Or we could increase the effectiveness of Critical Strike and/or
Crippling Blow in PvP combat only.
* {FP#21} We could simply raise the damage on weapons in PvP combat. We
could do this through a human slayer effect or other special PK-only damage
bonuses for loot weapons, or by raising the damage on PvP-oriented weapons.
* {FP#22} We could add new "PvP cocktail" effects that give loot weapons a
mix of useful PK qualities. For instance, imagine an effect that makes a
loot weapon: shield hollow, ignore 25% of other amor, critical 25% of the
time, and do an extra 50% damage against other players.
WHEN YOU DO DAMAGE, IT’S TOO EASY FOR YOUR OPPONENT TO HEAL THAT DAMAGE
* {FP#23} We could cause all healing methods to be less effective when
involved in PvP combat. Or we could put PK timers on all healing methods. My
feeling, however, is that increasing damage is better than nerfing all
healing methods. What do you think?
Okay... that should be enough feedback to keep us busy for a few days. :>
Let's get to it!
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Re: Detailed Combat Feedback - 1/30/06 (by
Crowley)
There is some great feedback in this thread! Thanks, everyone!
Let me answer some questions that you all came up with, and ask some more of
my own. I'm going to take the feedback more or less in point order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
----{FP#8}hit radius
>>would this be about the same as a war spell? more? less?
It depends on which war magic projectile you are comparing to. After
playing with it internally, I'd suggest a missile hit radius of about 3
feet, which is a bit larger than most war magic projectiles. For an arrow,
it sounds big and unrealistic, but in fact it seems to play out pretty well.
Of course, we'd want you guys to tell us how well it actually worked in the
field.
Also on hit radius:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paraduck
Would this affect PvM as well?
It wouldn't have to, but it would be a good bit easier if it did. The
effect is fairly subtle in PvE, so I'm not much concerned about imbalances
there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paraduck
* And finally for missile weapons: {FP#9} We may be able to let you turn
on and off the behavior that causes missile weapons to try to 'lead'
their target during combat.
This would be interesting. It would allow for different pathing options,
similar to bolts/arcs. Could this be set as a hotkey so it can be used
in combat?
Actually, yes. I think that is one of the strength's of this change. It
could be a character option for all players, so you could map the option to
a key and use the key during combat to switch from leading to non-leading in
the same way that mages switch between bolts and arcs at will.
Incidentally, I think this might be a good approach for faster missile
velocity also. Allow all characters the option to fire normal, more arcing
arrows from any bow, or the option to switch the faster, flatter missiles.
And again, this could be done during combat with a key press.
The next question I have: would an option for faster missiles and an option
for different leading behavior that could both be toggled independently in
combat make missiles too hard to dodge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paraduck
---- {FP#10} We could add Level 8 Heartseeker but not Level 8 Defender.
This would be a start, but what about debuffs?
I'm not sure I understand the aim of the question. Are you saying that
Level 8 Heartseeker wouldn't be much good if the Level 8 Turn Blade also
existed?
Also on Heartseeker 8:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silva_TFK
Er afaik Bows dont have an attack mod, that was cleared up 5 years ago
if I recall
Yes, I know. :> If this idea went anywhere we'd have to flesh it out, and
that includes something for the missile users. At this point, this was just
an example.
For the record, I'm not really fond of this idea myself. For one thing, it
increases the melee's reliance on magic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paraduck
---- {FP#13} We could just say that all defense mods on weapons are only
1/4 as effective when used against another player.
Why not just add an effective cap?
That's another option. We could either cap defemse mods directly, at say
20% or what have you, or cap effective defense skill at 600 or 800 or
something. (Again, I am pulling these numbers out of thin air at this
point.) But as I mention about armor caps below, I think this may be too
heavy-handed, especially if we can come up with an easier, more flexible
solution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
* {FP#17}
>>everyone needs wards then?
That's a good point. I've been assuming that most people have whatever
wards they can find, and I've been told that finding wards is no longer the
huge problem it once was. So you can tell me how accurate that assumption
is: Are most people pretty well-warded out these days? Or would something
like this cause a big problem as it forced more people into a mode they'd
rather avoid?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
* {FP#18}
>>interesting. would the cap be above or below sevens? sevens and
minors? sevens and majors? aegis?
Hmmm. I was thinking more in terms of, say, a cap of 1250 on effective
armor. How you get to that cap -- base AL, tinkering, armor 7, banes,
cantrips, etc. -- is your choice, but any effective AL over 1250 is wasted.
That's actually about a 95% reduction in damage due to armor, by the way.
The more I think about this idea, though, the less I like it. It's pretty
heavy-handed, and it would actually be a lot easier to, say, ramp up the
effects of AR weapons for PvP combat only.
On that topic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angier
I think increasing the effectiveness of AR imbues could be the one key
that solves most of these problems. And it wouldn't be unbalancing for
PvE because most creatures have far less armor than players and a
resitance rending weapon would still do better on almost anything
without debuffs.
We have the ability to increase the effectiveness of AR only when used
against another player. We could also allow any PK wielding an AR to get
that extra benefit against creatures, buit I'd be worried about two things:
1) People going PKL just to get the benefit (which we could avoid, but it
would be odd), and 2) NPK players feeling that they *must* go red to get the
benefit. Overall, I think it would be safer to limit the extra benefit to
PvP combat only.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
* {FP#19}
>>can mages get something similar to ingnore Protections? a spirit
rending? as I said in fp#6 crits are a bad way to run mage fights.
How about in increase in Resistance Rending effects when used against
another player? RR caps out at about the level of 6 vuln right now, but we
could adjust that for PKs so that it's more effective -- like a level 7 or
higher -- when used against another player.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
* {FP#22}
>>interesting idea. would there be lots of cocktails to choose from?
We have some ideas for at least a couple. Let's talk about this more when
we talk more about loot weapons in general.
Also on the cocktails idea:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heideggar
*W/ Eyes shut and Fingers crossed*
*clicks the heals of his red sollerets 3 times*
you say, "there's no place like ownage"
you say, "there's no place like ownage"
you say, "there's no place like ownage"
*squeemishly opens his left eye to see if things have changed*
Does that mean you like it or you hate it? :>
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cezium
This doesn't relate to a numbered point but what if melee chargeup
changed.
Hmmm. That's an interesting idea. I have no idea how technically feasible
it is, however, and I'm worried about some of the side effects. I'll ask an
engineer to take a look at it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by E-t-G
I did a search for "Barriers" & "Mansion" & neither returned anything in
your little essay.
Housing barriers are more of a 'something to fight over' topic. As I
mentioned in the beginning, we'll be talking about those in a different
thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thadda Al-Munik
As a final note, I think you should be able to do a quest where you can
do it only once, and choose which weapon you want to be un-enchantable.
This one time choice would also let the weapon be bonded to that person
once completed. And for a loot weapon's magic to be viable, let it be
that the item magic contained within can be used on the weapon even
though it is unenchantable. Everyone can cast item magic these days,
therefore the item magic on weapons has dimmed in value. This would
allow what is on a weapon to matter more than just the damage variance.
It's funny you should mention this. I was thinking about the same thing
yesterday: some sort of quest to render a loot weapon unenchantable. I
wasn't sure how useful it would be to the PvP community, though. The spells
on the weapon itself would still work, and since you can find loot with
level 7s now it might actually be viable. I just wasn't sure how popular it
would be. What do you guys think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madgic
If were talking Pink, then there are alot of changes that need
implimentying, the most important of which is MeleeD/MissileD/MagicD.
Thank you. Madgic. I was wondering if this discussion applied to PKL any
differently than to PK. Our main focus right now is to improve PK in
particular, but I think that most of the changes will actually help both.
Now, a number of people mentioned that they couldn't judge some of these
ideas well until they knew what was happening with loot weapons. So I want
to talk about that in more depth next. That's going to be a separate post,
though, since these posts are getting a bit long to read. I should have that
up in the next day or two.
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Re: Detailed Combat Feedback - 1/30/06 (by
Crowley)
So before I solicit more feedback, I'd just like to tell everyone that,
while I am the one posting these solicitations for feedback, the PvP
research and work that we're doing is a whole team effort. I am not
single-handedly steering this effort. I have taken the role of the board
poster guy because we've found that a single poster helps to organize our
efforts on this very large and complex task. Just look at me as the Voice of
Sauron (for those of you who've seen the Extended Edition of RotK) .
So with that said, let's talk about loot weapons!
Our goal with this is to open up new choices for PvP combat by making loot
weapons as attractive as PvP-oriented quest weapons against other players.
{FP#24} In general, we'd like to meet this goal without adding too many new
imbues that use the "gather lots of salvage and then take your (at best) 1
in 3 chances" mechanic. Instead, we'd rather use less tedious mechanics like
quests and simple interactions. The feeling we get is that you guys would
rather be out fighting than gathering salvage. Is that a good assumption?
I should also mention this: the numbers in this post I am not pulling out of
thin air. These numbers are based on comparing weapons -- especially in
terms of critical hits -- on our internal charts. Now, charts will get us in
the ballpark, but charts are never as good as seeing these changes in play.
If we go with any of the changes mentioned here We'll probably end up
tweaking these values after you guys have had a chance to play with them and
give feedback. We're also probably going to give the quest weapons
themselves a small damage boost -- say, 10% -- so keep that in mind as well.
Okay! Let's start off by taking a look at some of the special qualities that
make quest weapons effective in PvP, qualities that can't be found on loot
weapons right now.
Weeping Weapons:
- Unenchantable
- Shield Hollow
- Human Slayer
Phantom Weapons:
- Unenchantable
- Ignores armor
Hollow Weapons:
- Unenchantable
- Life Hollow
- Item Hollow
In addition, there are some qualities that can already be put on loot
weapons that aren't really useful right now, but might be if they were
stronger:
- Armor Rending
- Resistance Rending
- Critical Strike/Crippling Blow
So what can we pull out of this?
{FP#25} The quest weapons are all unenchantable. Would it be useful to add a
way to make a loot weapons unenchantable? This has come up in this thread
already. Think of this as a repeatable quest you can do to make a weapon
unenchantable -- like the Dark Idol quest for bows, not like an imbue or a
tinker. The weapon would still get the benefit of any spells that were put
on it by the treasure generator, but it couldn't be buffed or debuffed by
any player, gems, etc. Would there need to be a drawback, like a penalty to
the defense modifier or some other stat, or would being unbuffable be
drawback enough?
{FP#26} Weeping and Phantom weapons both ignore shields. This is convenient
from a balancing viewpoint because it's otherwise pretty difficult to
balance a weapon for use against both melees and archers/mages. So perhaps
adding a way to make a loot weapon shield hollow when used in PvP combat
might also be very useful. What do you think? Maybe a repeatable quest that
renders a weapon shield hollow but also reduces all of it's defense
modifiers by some amount. Would that be a useful tradeoff, or would that be
too much?
{FP#27} Phantom weapons, AR weapons, and to some extent Hollow weapons
ignore some or all of the target's armor. This is useful since player armor
is pretty high these days. Loot weapons already have an option to ignore
some armor through the AR imbue, but it just isn't good enough for PvP. How
about if we boost the maximum effect of AR for PvP combat only, so that when
you attack another player, your AR effect can ignore up to 70-75% of your
target's armor (instead of 60% as it is now)? An extra 10-15% AR doesn't
look like much, but it would raise the crit damage of an imbued AR weapon
about 10-20% above current Weeping weapon damage.
{FP#28} Alternatively, we could add a new effect that did the same thing,
but didn't require the salvaging and imbuing process. Consider a repeatable
quest that let you make a weapon "PK AR". This would count as an imbue (so
you can't have a CS/PKAR weapon) but wouldn't use salvage and wouldn't have
any chance of failure.
You might ask, why not just give all existing loot weapons a small human
slayer mod, or add a small AR effect when used in PvP combat? (In fact, I
think ChildoftheKoRn asked about the AR in this very thread.) The problem is
strictly one of balancing: we need to be able to control exactly how much
slayer mode or AR each kind of weapon got, or some would end up way, way
better than others. That means figuring out how much AR a CS sword gets vs.
a CS dagger vs. an RR bow vs. a ... It's much easier to balance these things
if we are only dealing with one variable -- that is, just AR weapons or just
PKAR weapons -- and not throwing the other imbues into the mix.
{FP#29} Here's a general question for you: Is improving existing imbues so
that they are useful in PvP a good route to take? Or would it be better to
add a new effect that did the same thing for PvP only, but could be gotten
through a quest instead of through the process of salvaging and imbuing?
We could go into details about ways to make RR and CS strong enough to be
useful as well, but for now let's just sum up the basic ideas. Our thoughts
right now for loot involve the following:
{FP#30} Adding a couple of effects that can be applied to any loot weapon,
like the ones we mention above:
- making the weapon unenchantable
- making the weapon shield hollow
Are there any other cool effects that would fit well in this category?
{FP#31} Plus intensifying some imbue-like effects -- either making the
existing imbues better for PvP, or providing effects that take the place of
an imbue but don't require the whole salvage and imbue thing. Effects like:
- ignore a lot of armor (like 75% AR)
- cut through a lot of resistances (like level 8 or 9 RR)
- crit way more often or for more (like 75% CS)
{FP#32} Plus, maybe one new imbue-like effect -- again probably done through
a quest, but which didn't allow further imbues on top of it:
- add a human slayer property
{FP#33} If we did all of these things, do you think it would improve PvP
combat? Or are we trying to do too much too fast? Or are we just way off
base?
...
{FP#34} Incidentally, does anyone use CB weapons in PvP right now? They
don't critical any less frequently than a Weeping weapon, and with the big
critical damage I'd think they'd be pretty good. But you, the players, are
the experts -- you tell us!
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Weekly Update - 1/30/06 (by
Frelorn)
Hello there everyone. I hope we all had a great weekend of playing
Asheron's Call, I know I did. Let’s get right into this weeks update.
This is the week in the development process that we use for final
implementation and testing of the upcoming event. This is when we go through
all the new content and features to make sure everything is working the way
we want it to. We then fix anything that might not be right and adjust
anything that might need to be changed up based on testing.
One thing we are really excited about that is going into the February event
is a new Title Management Tab. This tab will allow players to choose from
any title they have earned after the February event, as the title they want
displayed to others. If on any given day you want to display your
Queenslayer title, you can. If later that day, you decide you want to
display your Paragon of Death title, you can. At any time you will be able
to change your display title to any one of the titles your character has
earned in Dereth.
This is just one of the new things going into the February event A
Change in Tactics. The various fansites have also received the
monthly teaser images a bit early this month, so make sure to check them all
out. We will be posting a few of our own as we get closer to the event,
which is tentatively scheduled for February 15th. The date is as always
subject to change is something major comes up.
Last but certainly not least we want to express our thanks to the PvP
community for their continued feedback on our
Detailed Combat Feedback thread. The more information we can gather on
these issues which are most important to you, the better. Please, feel free
to continue to give us your feedback on things that matter most to you.
That’s about it for now. Everyone have a great day. See you in Dereth!
Edit: Due to an error on my part I need to clarify some information
about the Title Management Panel. When you log in for the first time after
the February event goes live, you will have the title your character
currently has in the Title Management Panel. Any other titles that you would
like to add to that panel, must be added after the February event has gone
live. As much as we would have liked to, we have no way of tracking what
titles you have had in the past. We wish we could have done this, but
unfortunately it was not ppossible.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
Re: Detailed Combat Feedback - 2/2/06 (by
Crowley)
First, to answer a couple of specific comments:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angier
People don't use CB because despite a heavy reliance on crits, it does
take normal hits as well to win a fight.
Thanks, Angier. We knew we were missing part of the equation there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heideggar
Crowley, you talked about speed of projectiles getting to point where,
when increased beyond a certain speed, they don't hit much. Is this
still true when hit radius is increased?
Yes. Increasing missile velocity beyond a certain point causes the
missiles to nosedive into the dirt a few feet from the archer. Presumably
this is some weird side effect of the physics code, but after setting an
engineer on it for several hours to no good effect, we're just not willing
to spend more time there for an uncertain benefit.
...
Now, let's talk big picture. A number of you guys have cautioned us not to
bite off more than we can chew, or alternatively just to get the simple
fixes in and working and fiddle with the complicated new ideas later. And
honestly, we think you're right. The more the team talks about this, the
more we agree that getting the simpler, less risky stuff out the door first
is a good approach here. Now there's some great stuff in this thread that we
will continue talking about, but this way we can also start thinking about
the 'something to fight over' question in more detail.
So here's the rough plan for improving PvP combat in March. Please
understand that this can still change -- nothing here should be interpreted
as a promise.
1) We add options for missile combat to make it slightly harder to dodge
arrows: the option to turn on/off faster projectiles and the option to turn
on/off 'leading' the target. We drop the larger strike radius idea until we
see how everything else plays out, because of the three that is potentially
the most unbalancing.
2) We improve the damage on existing PvP-oriented weapons a bit, including
Weepings, Phantoms, and Deadly Hollows. This way, even if we utterly fail
with loot weapons, we've still done something concrete to help PvP fights
not drag on so long.
3) We improve existing imbued loot weapons when they are used in PvP. And
yes, we intend these to be a bit better than the quest weapons in order to
justify the extra effort of finding the right weapon, gathering salvage,
imbuing, etc. By improving existing imbues, you can hopefully use the same
weapons to hunt and PK with -- which avoids having a lot of new weapons to
lug around. I don't know if we'll be able to make all the imbues PvP-worthy
on the first go-round -- we are still working with the numbers -- but once
we get the numbers pegged down this is actually a pretty simple change.
As I said, there's been a lot of really great ideas in this thread beyond
these few simple things, and we're not going to forget those. These three
things together are not going to "fix" PvP. But I think it is important to
start with something manageable and concrete, and go from there. And with
your copious help, I think we're making a good start.
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Re: Detailed Combat Feedback - 2/2/06 (by
Crowley)
Quote:
Originally Posted by immortalbob
Increasing the damage on pvp oriented weapons is a great idea, and is
long overdue. But....what really wins the fight for a melee is getting
crits. A mage will outheal my normal swings all day long, its the crits
that turn the tide. I would suggest a slight increase in the crit rate
of these weapons.
We are keeping an eye on critical damage as well. Increasing the damage
on these weapons also increases the damage on the critical hits pretty well,
so we don't want to bump the crit rate until we see what effect that has.
But we will continue to watch this – and listen to what you think when you
see these changes in action!
__________________
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)
Weekly Update - 2/6/06 (by
Frelorn)
Hello there everyone. I hope we all had a great weekend.
This week in Asheron’s Call we are busy getting the February event ready to
go. That means fixing any issues that may pop up while we are testing things
out. In case you missed this information in the last update, the February
event, A Change in Tactics, is scheduled to go live on February 15th.
We are also working on things for the March event. Getting the writing done,
as well as checking the mechanics of the things we want to do.
I would like to also take this opportunity to announce that on February
15th, we will also be making the upgrade to the Darktide Hardware. We
figured since the worlds were going to be down anyway, that this would be
the best time to do this rather than having to bring Darktide down on
another day. When this process is being worked on Darktide will have a bit
of extra downtime so that we can make sure everything is done right. The
normal event day downtime is scheduled from 9am EST – 3pm EST. In order to
make sure all is well with the upgrade, Darktide will be down until 5pm EST
on that day. We do not foresee any issues with the upgrade, but we want the
extra time to make sure.
That’s about it for this week. We will have the February Letter to the
Players for you on Friday of this week, as well as a couple more teaser
images to go along with it. Everyone have a great week!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc