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#Post#: 460--------------------------------------------------
Item Balance
By: Dolmir Date: February 1, 2019, 1:37 pm
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I'm just going to say that there are a bunch of items that are
way too good to the point that is is going to become more and
more of a problem to make more rare or more well-protected items
better by an amount that feels good for the players but does not
inflate overall equipment quality too much. Some examples:
Almost every item in the Timmothy/Kosari/Delvea content
Imbued Granite Spaulders
Hero Bracers
Lavastorm Earrings
Shield of the Devout
Idol of the Underking
From casual observation it appears that the current policy for
dealing with items that are worse or comparable to "earlier"
items is to always buff the item that compares unfavorably to
the other when taking rarity or difficulty into account. This is
going to eventually lead to character power going beyond healthy
limits and we may see some problems arise:
- Tank classes will be pushed out in favor of Berserker,
Shaman, or Cleric tanks
- New players will take far too long to catch up with the
veterans
- Content will become too easy
- Low level content will become massively trivialized
Rather than suggesting [s]buffs to problematically good
items[/s] changes to individual items I think we should develop
and adopt "power rating" formulae for different classes of
items, with the overall power rating limited by some combination
of the rarity of an item and the difficulty to get a shot at
obtaining it. I don't have an immediate suggestion for the
specifics of these formulae, but I think we should have
different ones for tank gear, melee dps gear, caster gear, and
spell dps gear. If the developers agree to this idea I'd be
happy to help develop the idea. A natural consequence of
implementing this idea should be that a bunch of items actually
get nerfed, in some cases by a huge amount.
#Post#: 490--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Darksabbath Date: February 7, 2019, 8:01 am
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The items off Timmothy already got one round (of just deserved)
nerfs. I am not sure they need more hits. Some of the Delvea
stuff is a tad strong/weak, it depends on which class it is for.
But, I seem to recall Eld saying it was meant to be an intro to
planar raiding set, so it was meant to be the upper echelon of
gear before that point.
The other items on your list I haven't looked into what the
local upgrades have been, so I won't comment on them.
#Post#: 496--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Dolmir Date: February 7, 2019, 10:14 pm
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The main point of my post was to suggest an idea for approaching
the whole problem, not just individual items. You are welcome to
disagree with me on whether delvea gear is too powerful but
that's besides the point.
#Post#: 497--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Nefemunia Date: February 8, 2019, 3:22 pm
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I feel you bring up an interesting thought that has always been
on the mind of many. How do we balance this without destroying
our very creative process and in retrospect our time and art.
The shower answer is you cant. The long and more detailed answer
is to understand how each class works. Berserker should be
squishy damage dealers, a cleric should be great at healing but
not so great at tanking. A tank should be great at tanking,
while not so great as damage. So how can we balance this. One
thought is a reduction of AC on berserker related items while
not impacting the soft cap code and returns. As it stands the
code feels good in terms of its returns. However in time I can
see berserker being able to tank present day 6 man bosses in the
future. Should this be acceptable? There is no easy answer.
Concider a comparision. Should a level 30 berserker be able to
tank crushbone? The comparison we are facing is new goals vs old
goals. I think a reduction in AC is due. And such higher AC
values should be reserved for Primary tank classes, War,SHD,Pal.
if a Tank item has 50 AC for a slot a comparable item should
have 1/3 for another in most items. This is not the rule of law,
but the intention of development. Next issue is HP values In the
coming weeks ill take Close looks at such things.
#Post#: 500--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Dolmir Date: February 8, 2019, 4:32 pm
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Reducing availability of tank stats to non-tank classes is
another aspect of item design that I think is important to
address and is pretty closely related to the issue of balancing
items relative to one another with factors like class role held
constant. Having gear for distinct purposes available to
distinct classes naturally requires that more gear overall must
be added to the game. I think this makes it even more important
to develop tools that help item designers create items within
acceptable stat ranges: if more gear is created by feel rather
than by formula there are more opportunities to mistakenly
create something unacceptably over- or under-powered.
#Post#: 501--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Elizuth Date: February 8, 2019, 5:14 pm
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This also leaves more opportunity to scrutinize old-world loot
and turn more previously mundane or untouched items into
something special :)
#Post#: 502--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Nefemunia Date: February 9, 2019, 10:53 am
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A formula cant be follows for developing new items, there are
Several Scenerios that for each would require an impossible
motion of possibilities. Let us say we create a weapon intended
for players around level 30, this item has a 50 Dd proc and is
tradeable For the classes of War Rog Rng, and Shd. if we agree
that Rog shouldnt have lots of AC on items then in cross impacts
the other classes such as War and SHD on that item. Furthurmore
if this item had attack on it, it would be impacted the same way
with DPS and tanks on the same item. Then we bring up another
motion of issues, its tradable so pets can gain from this. How
will these stats balance or unbalance pets. The short answer is
you can never know. If you had unlimited time and all the
resources of the emu at your disposable you may be able to know
then. There will never be perfected balance at every level
aspect of the game. All we can do is the best we can with the
best possible information available.
#Post#: 503--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Elizuth Date: February 9, 2019, 9:35 pm
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This is why most servers, even Live, eventually move towards
systematically created armor. Tier X armor that doesn’t feel
unique anymore, just fills in your gear “requirement” for that
stage of the game. I like the way old world gear is set up right
now- it’s a bit patchy, and some stuff is still untouched
unfortunately, but among the things that HAVE seen some love,
it’s nice to see variation. For instance, Hero Bracers are way
better than FBSS, which makes HB’s something really cool and
worth seeking out.
#Post#: 512--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Darksabbath Date: February 11, 2019, 6:46 am
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[quote author=Dolmir link=topic=242.msg496#msg496
date=1549599281]
The main point of my post was to suggest an idea for approaching
the whole problem, not just individual items. You are welcome to
disagree with me on whether delvea gear is too powerful but
that's besides the point.
[/quote]
Don't get me wrong, I understand what you are saying. Some kind
of guideline for items should be in place, if it is not already.
Otherwise you get items dropping from a level 30 mob, that
outshines stuff from lvl 50 dungeons.
My point on the Delvea gear is that some of the stats might feel
strong on a zerk, but those same stats feel weak on my sk.. it
is all about class roles. The gear in Delvea is not specialized
to roles, sadly. A zerk gains more from all the stats, and gets
a nice boost in ac/hp over what their gear might normally
provide with a Delvea piece. While as a sk, those extra stat
points are nice, but just don't mean as much to me as ac/hp/ def
boosts that my tank only gear gives. I have kept some of my
darkforge gear instead of getting Delvea pieces for just that
reason, a few extra points of str/dex etc is nothing compared to
+ac/hp/block/dodge etc.
What is needed is more role specific equipment, to minimize that
issue. And any items that cross the roles need to have the stats
"muddied" a bit to compensate the increased role. By muddied I
mean the ac should be an average between the roles, and then the
total stat points should average between the roles also. Then
give them a usable focus effect to make it special enough to
make members of both roles willing to sacrifice their main stats
to actually use it. (Otherwise the item would likely just get
ignored.)
#Post#: 513--------------------------------------------------
Re: Item Balance
By: Dolmir Date: February 11, 2019, 12:05 pm
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[quote author=Elizuth link=topic=242.msg503#msg503
date=1549769757]
Tier X armor that doesn’t feel unique anymore, just fills in
your gear “requirement” for that stage of the game.
[/quote]
When item quality is uneven then certain items become the
"required" item. Think about how many casters are wearing
Aviakian Helmet and Belt, or how many characters use IGS or any
other item on my list.
[quote author=Darksabbath link=topic=242.msg512#msg512
date=1549889185]those same stats feel weak on my sk.. it is all
about class roles. The gear in Delvea is not specialized to
roles, sadly.
[/quote]
Yes this is certainly part of the problem. The delvea gear is
mostly all/all and at least somewhat useful on most classes
(tank classes seem to be the exception here). This means that
many items are the best or close to the best items available for
their respective slots for at least one class, which is
inappropriate for items so easy to obtain in my opinion. Making
better options available in more difficult content is possible
but might not be the best approach for reasons I have suggested
above.
[quote author=Eldarian link=topic=242.msg502#msg502
date=1549731222]
All we can do is the best we can with the best possible
information available.
[/quote]
I agree with this and I think you brought up a good reason why
we should not use the same formula for items regardless of class
restrictions on the item. I also think that we can improve
results by being systematic about how powerful to make items. I
that sense I think that developing some quantitative guidelines
can be part of a strategy for "doing our best". If you are at
all open to the idea I could work on this and show at least an
example of what I am talking about. If you don't like the idea
whatsoever I'll just drop it and give feedback on items
individually. In the absence of rules or guideline for items in
general I don't see a way to approach item balance more
efficiently than that.
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