Armour Balancing
Thu, 12/09/2010 - 16:29
Armour Balancing
As of now, the armour types have no correlation.
It's a very strong source for imbalance if you have four damage types and only use one at a time.
My main idea is this:
Make Normal damage and Piercing damage opposites, so that they don't appear on the same armour together.
Make Elemental damage and Shadow damage opposites, so that they don't appear on the same armour together, either.
Give a maximum number for armour required in any tier to reduce that damage to negligible amount (maybe 75% reduction or more?), then make that the highest armour amount you can attain.
4 and 5 star armour might contain high bonuses to two types of damage so you can get high resistance to two types of damage.
Now, the second part of this idea:
Remove Vitapods from play. Since they've been beefed up, it's made the balance patches pointless, because all you did was double monster damage, then player health and then player armour. The only thing you need to double is weapon damage and we're back to how the game was before.
Instead, add three kinds of armour to replace it:
- Ability armour: These are armours that offer up passive abilities, to either damage, attack speed or charge speed. Maybe other things too, later on.
But generally suffers from having lower health and armour bonuses. - Defense armour: Armour that has high resistances to damage and status. These have no abilities and low health bonuses.
- Health armour: As the name implies, it offers up large health bonuses, but not really much else.
Now with these changes, players really have to choose what armour to use.
- Do they get the highest defence, but run the risk of being wiped out by other damage types?
- Do they get more health and some defence against a few types, to get overall survivability at the cost of being extremely vulnerable if there are no health pickups?
- Or do they get the armour that will turn them into glass cannons?
Obviously people are going to have a preference, some might choose to mix them up and get a little bit of all three.
The point is that people who choose to min-max won't be unstoppable fortresses of destruction, because there's always going to be wildcards in a Dungeon Crawler.
I have other threads that you can actively not read too:
Ideas on changing item functions
Fri, 12/10/2010 - 06:36
#2
I do agree
I do agree that most armor lack some kind of a wow-factor to it. Defense values seem very worthless, because loosing 2 or 3 health bars more below Emberlight just isn't such a difference. Heck, even 5 more isn't always a big loss for some trade-offs. With the last I mean something like e.g. Drake Scale Armor. I think the attack speed bonus given is worth a lot more than the extra armor bonus 4* equipment can give you. Lasting only 1 hit longer is not worth loosing all that attack speed to me.
I'm not sure however that the changes you propose are ideal though. Just to throw this in, personally I would rather see normal&piercing opposed to elemental&shadow. The first are the "normal" damage types, the latter are rather "magical" in my opinion.
For the armor matter, I think in the current state it is hard to reduce the damage output by monsters enough to make it worthwhile. As said before, the problem is that you're faced with too many types of damage during a run through a gate. Armor got changed recently towards only offering 1 or 2 types of defense only. I can see where it comes from, but the desired effect isn't there I believe. Mixing is no good at all, because your overall defense rating will be incredibly low versus all damage types. Focusing on 1 or 2 types of defense only works slightly for the chosen damage types, but leaves you up for 100% damage for all those depths which don't add up with the type of defense you picked. I think we should go back to the previous system, where you could focus your armor on 1 or 2 types and still get some damage reduction against the other types of damage.
I do have to note, my major personal experience here is towards Emberlight and deeper. I can't speak for higher to the surface.
Armor health bonuses: Yes, they are quite silly compared to vitapods. The only real difference you can notice with it is during PvP, but there you can only have 1, 2 or perhaps 3 extra bars. I like your proposed idea for armor offering 3 styles of defense. Perhaps though it would be even better to not have it armor-item bound, but rather as a "vital part" of your armor item that you can swap? That might need a larger rework of armor though.
Perhaps Vitapods should still be kept as an in-game drop though, but then a lot smaller? And as mentioned before, some vitapod-alternatives would be nice aswell.
Fri, 12/10/2010 - 07:26
#3
I'm not sure
I'm not sure however that the changes you propose are ideal though. Just to throw this in, personally I would rather see normal&piercing opposed to elemental&shadow. The first are the "normal" damage types, the latter are rather "magical" in my opinion.
Think of a tank, they have a lot of Normal defense. All that thick armour and firepower protecting them from impacts, bullets and other deadly things.
Now, imagine an RPG. An RPG is piercing damage, they actually concentrate high explosive ordinance right down to a needle point to punch straight through that armour and blow a hole in it.
There's no defense against that for most tanks, without additional protection or special active systems that cause the missiles to detonate before they hit the tank.
Which aren't commonplace or viable in most combat situations for armoured vehicles.
Obviously, viscous fluids would be the thing to absorb piercing attacks. High calibre armour piercing rounds actually disintegrating on contact with water.
But dropping a brick on that water would break it's surface tension in a snap.
Now do you understand why Piercing and Normal are opposites?
Because in real-life, they are opposites.
Don't have a rationale for Elemental or Shadow, but if you really need one I'll make something up.
As said before, the problem is that you're faced with too many types of damage during a run through a gate.
The idea is you're meant to choose the lesser of two evils. Becoming an unstoppable he-man shouldn't be an option, ever.
Yes, they are quite silly compared to vitapods. The only real difference you can notice with it is during PvP, but there you can only have 1, 2 or perhaps 3 extra bars. I like your proposed idea for armor offering 3 styles of defense. Perhaps though it would be even better to not have it armor-item bound, but rather as a "vital part" of your armor item that you can swap? That might need a larger rework of armor though.
The main idea was appeal to players of three distinct styles:
Cautious: Health
Calculative: Defence
Capable: Ability
Players who don't know much about the game might opt for more health to get a blanket defence against all damage, but low resistances to it.
Players who know what to expect and tend to be more efficient in their killing may opt for high defence to reduce the risk of fighting in dungeons.
Players who have lots of skill or just enjoy being on the knife's edge can choose ability armour, to enhance their skills and chance of survival.
I don't really understand the last part.
Perhaps Vitapods should still be kept as an in-game drop though, but then a lot smaller? And as mentioned before, some vitapod-alternatives would be nice aswell.
Vitapods are unnecessary, player health shouldn't increase as you go deeper, it should increase as your gear gets better.
If depth scaling is so severe you need to offer players more health at every depth, that's a balance issue.
Like I said: Since they've been beefed up, it's made the balance patches pointless, because all you did was double monster damage, then player health and then player armour. The only thing you need to double is weapon damage and we're back to how the game was before.
Fri, 12/10/2010 - 08:22
#4
For the piercing vs normal damage:
For the piercing vs normal damage: Well if you look it at from your point of view, yes. I thought more in the direction of other MMORPG's. There it's usually either reinforced leather/metal/whatnot against normal damage, and the more cloth-magically reinforced armor against magical attacks. Everybody's opinion I suppose.
The part you didn't understand arose from the question about core art for armor. I was thinking along the lines of armor having a core element that would provide either 3 bonuses you suggested. That way you could still have the option for which damage type you wish to "specialise" against, and be able to freely choose your armor-play style.
Vitapods, well they are unnecessary yes, but they make better damage balancing easier. You can only loose half a bar of health at the least. If your overall health on average (depending on vitapod spawn) increases throughout a gate, then monsters can inflict a higher (and more accurate) percentage of damage? Lower health would else mean more rounding off numbers which makes differences in damage output in-game a lot higher than they actually are percentage-wise?
Fri, 12/10/2010 - 08:31
#5
You can only loose half a bar
You can only loose half a bar of health at the least.
You can lose less than half a bar, it just doesn't have a visual correspondence.
There was an issue with the revive window appearing when your health was below the last half but not yet zero that resulted from this.
I was thinking along the lines of armor having a core element that would provide either 3 bonuses you suggested. That way you could still have the option for which damage type you wish to "specialise" against, and be able to freely choose your armor-play style.
One of those playstyles is having extra defence.
So, no, I would find that redundant.
I thought more in the direction of other MMORPG's
You mean MMORPGs that only have melee damage and magic damage, as opposed to four very specific types?
Sat, 12/11/2010 - 04:30
#6
damage TYPES
...Anyway damage TYPES. I can only think of a few places where pierce-type damage is used. Maybe making it more like a special defence. By special defence I mean more like the fire, freeze, etc resistances.
But I'm very open on that, I'd love for someone to show me where they are. In a civil manner.
Sat, 12/11/2010 - 20:23
#7
Hefty amount of moderation
Hefty amount of moderation done in this thread to keep it on topic, let's keep it there.
Sun, 12/12/2010 - 16:54
#8
More damage types would also
More damage types would also be nice (with stats distributed less unevenly between many armors).
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 09:32
#9
Just encountered something
Just encountered something pretty stupid with armour Variants.
I got a Piercing Resist: Ultra on my Seraphic Helm and it only adds 25 points.
That is incredibly useless, to say the least.
If you're going to offer unique variants that don't add to pre-existing stats, at least make them worth the time to acquire.
An ultra bonus should be at 75% of the highest armour value on the item, not some dimensionless number.
Something needs to be done about this, eventually.
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 09:42
#10
Personally I'd say just get
Personally I'd say just get rid of that type of unique variant. Else you'll have people with armor offering near 100% defense for either 3 types of damage or near 200% for 1 type of damage? That seems quite unbalancing, on top of how unbalanced it is already so far.
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 13:52
#11
Evolution I don't know if
Evolution I don't know if you've played around Haven lately, but if you have... you might have noticed there's no such thing as 100% defense in this game, let alone 200%. No matter what damage type a monster does and what armor you wear, they always damage you.
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 14:51
#12
Agger, I meant along the
Agger, I meant along the lines of Shoebox where the 100% means a full bar of the defense stat. (if that was what he meant as well)
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 16:22
#13
Sorry, I didn't get what
Sorry, I didn't get what Shoebox said.
Tue, 12/28/2010 - 17:19
#14
Personally I'd say just get
Personally I'd say just get rid of that type of unique variant. Else you'll have people with armor offering near 100% defense for either 3 types of damage or near 200% for 1 type of damage? That seems quite unbalancing, on top of how unbalanced it is already so far.
Well it's pretty useless as it is right now.
But if they got rid of those types of unique variants, they would only be able to buff pre-existing stats on an item, which means things like Cobalt Armour would just plain suck in terms of potential.
The way the game is balanced right now leaves a lot to be desired, really. Since your armour barely reduces damage already as it is.
Also. 75% of the highest value on the armour seems fairly reasonable for an Ultra bonus, considering how much damage they add and how tiny they can make your charge time when stacked.
I mean, they should be rare and highly sought after variants, but instead I'm presented with a meaningless 25 points that doesn't reduce damage from anything except spikes and slime projectiles, to an entirely unnoticeable degree.
And since that 100% defence would only be on one item, a full bar would technically only be 50%.
Not that having the maximum amount of defence actually does anything, anyway.
GLASS CANNON! KA-POO I'M DEAD.
Anyway yeah, i agree so long as the positive effects that turn us into glass cannons are definitely worth it. I wouldnt wanna be shown up by a guy who wanders into the midst of the battle, looking like a samurai and obliterates the swarm in two moves. That wouldn't be cool. Unless, of course, I'd nearly wiped out the entire swarm and two under-powered sword strokes from the masked warrior takes their last bits. That looks heroic, see.