Suggestion Conceptual Class - Guardian

[Delfofthebla]

Yeah, I figured for the smaller 3x3 CC block based spells you would have to create the blocks and then teleport the target to the inside to the correct spot to avoid lag issues.

The larger glass bubble was not intended so much as CC as a short block against spells, similar to the way Earthwall can be used.

Hmm, didn't think about the TP. That would probably work out fine.

I believe there should be a place for:
1-3 person groups consisting of mostly damage with maybe a little support, 3-6 person groups consisting of at least one full on support and then whatever potent mixture you can come up with, and then 6-10 person groups that consist of 2-3 full on supports matched with their dps to make a formidable team.

Well, I agree with this, and I can also agree that's probably not where we're at, and it's probably nobodies fault other than my own. But, how you feel about the current dps heavy lineups is how I felt about the support heavy lineups. In bastion, 1 support would give you an amazing advantage, but if you stacked them upwards, there was no beating it. I think a full 10 man team with Bards, Clerics, Paladins, and Disciples would beat ANY matchup that doesn't have at least 5 of the same with them. It's a tough thing...to prevent supports being more useful than dps. But I do not agree that Bastion was balanced like that. In 5 man tournaments, you typically had 2 support + beguiler, and in 10 man groups, if you had 3+ support you were guaranteed to win.

Wisdom is gone from guilers but they still have the best CC and AOE burst.

Beguilers still have wisdom.

What's fun for me is large coordinated group fights, which I used to run all the time in Bastion, and as you know I was very successful in it. This 3-8 solo class hodgepodge as I have called it so far in Haven has not appealed to me at all and I have thus been much less interested.

I found them very fun too, and I enjoyed partaking in them. But I think that's just the state of the server right now. A lot of the people that PvP'd in bastion are getting bored and backing out. TC is practically nonexistent, freeps are pretty spotty, and umbra has only got a few stragglers that still bother to log on.

I do not think adding a teamfight class will change this. If anything, I'd expect it to deter large teamfights even more, due to the demotivated PvPers being even more demotivated.

I believe that this is wrong,
It's not, if you want to balance around it all you need to do is add MORE support. Don't want to be forced to have a Cleric in your 5 man group? Then create 4 more classes that have strong support to use instead! Don't want to use a support in your 5 man group? Expect to die. as you should. If you want a good and balanced system give players the option to play real and organized combat and balance it by making several viable options, not by removing them.

I don't really agree with that thought process. I just flat out don't believe adding more to the pile will actually get people to play more support. The only thing that matters is whether or not people give a shit about leveling the class enough for your team to have one when the fight comes around.

People.
Hate.
Playing.
Support.

Why? The leveling is insanely slow, they don't deal hardly any damage, they don't get kills, and they don't get to "feel" the accomplishments unless they place arbitrary values on them. I'm not saying support players can't feel accomplishment, but rather, most people do not feel accomplished when playing support. The few that do are those that actually bother to play them.

People also like to get kills and be a part of the action. The amount of people that actually love the idea of supporting there team is much, much lower than those that like to just run around and kill people. This is the case in every game. You, Eldry, are the type that likes to support. That's great, but you have to understand that most people simply don't give a shit. Supporting in games has always been the least fulfilling for the majority of video game players, and thus, the role for the minority. Forcing more than the minority to play something they don't want to play just so they can be on that level is kinda unfair in my opinion. The idea is to maintain a balance of required support so that the supporters can support, and the killers can kill, without tipping the scale too far to the side of the "unfun" classes. When forcing players into things they don't want to do, they get aggravated, and quickly grow bored.

I believe this is extremely wrong,
This is just trash talk, you are talking your opinion and smearing it over the faces of everyone, I have talked to more people that want organized large group battles then I have talked to ones that were against it. Saying no one likes the idea of organized fights with actual support based classes is just being blind to reality. Saying that no one wants to have to organize a proper group to have a edge in large battles is an even further streatch.

Nowhere was it written there that nobody wants large group fights with no support. What I am saying is that nobody wants large group fights that are so support heavy that normal players have to stray outside of their preferred class style so they can keep up with the kingdom that has garnered a large amount of support players.

Let's tear down the walls for a second, and look at Herocraft not as a group of plugins and rules, but as a group of players, that have established their footing and chose their alliances.

Nobody wants to fucking fight AD. Why? Because you guys always have 10, and your town is filled with people that like to stack support on top of extremely high damaging classes. The reason we don't have large teamfights is because not only does nobody really care anymore, but not everyone has enough people to care anymore. The groups that have PvP'd in large groups in the past, are now shadows of their former selves. And while the map reset has brought a lot of people back, it turned out to turn a lot of people away too.

The motivation just isn't there, and organizing a fight that we aren't equipped or thrilled to partake in just isn't going to happen right now. However, I'll say this.

is the difference between players that want to run solo classes/small raiding classes wanting to be viable in large group fights against organized group leaders that want to run competitive groups. It comes down to solo players screaming that a 10 person group of Wizards, Ninjas and Goons would lose against an organized group that includes proper support, and it should.

I don't know if you have noticed or not but dozens of players have seen the writing on the wall and the current distaste for actual organized group fights this map and have left because of it. There is no such thing, all the support classes have been gutted and the only thing to do right now is run teams consisting of random DPS/Solo toons.

Bastion was the pinnacle of large group fights and there were hundreds of dozens of organized teams that would go head to head creating the best fights and pvp experiences I have had in the two years I have played. Haven has has exactly ZERO organized teams of players because all the support classes have been gutted and killed.

I won't lie and say this didn't hit me. I...cannot disagree.

When I was added to the balance team in Bastion, I was overwhelmed with a desire to "right the wrongs of the world". I handled everything at face value. "Samurai is too good, it's bullshit! This support being in the fight ensures that they win every fight, and they can also win every 1v1, so it needs to be nerfed!" It was not uncommon for me to look at things like that. And I don't think that I was wrong in thinking these things, but perhaps I went about correcting them in the wrong way. However, I didn't have as much power and influence as I did now, so maybe this is the only thing that could have happened. Indeed though--what you say is correct. My repetitive blows to support classes has single handedly pummeled them out of necessity, and I can see why that would discourage group play.

My ultimate goal was what I've been saying in this thread--discourage high amounts of supports being able to turn the tides of a fight. When a group brings 2 bards and 3 disciples, that should not guarantee a victory against a team with 1 bard, 1 disciple, and a bunch of DPS. The better solution back then, (and now) would be to limit group size to 5, and add a raid group functionality, while retaining the strength of the support classes.

But...I'm fairly bored of the game. Even if teamfighting were to return, I would not likely return to my previously motivated self. The best you'll get out of me these days is a quick popping on for a fight or two, a post like this, and maybe a few bug fixes here and there. I'm just not in a position where I am willing to "right all the wrongs" again, even if they are my own errors.

I will say though, Paladin and Mystic right now are retardedly strong support classes. Try em out for a bit and you'll see the horror of the support.

 

[Zephael_]

Additionally, his skillset will provide little actual aid to his leveling experience, and only slightly improve group play. However, group leveling is still a very slow, unviable, uninteresting experience, even with the recent mob scaling changes. It is still more productive to level by yourself, which detracts from group play for power-levelers.

On this point, I agree that this is a problem, by I think the solution isn't too make every class able to solo level, but make it viable to group level. It is VERY MUCH more FUN to level with friends than to level alone even if it's just grinding mobs. (and isn't playing games all about fun?) Plus, even the fact that you are bringing up this point shows that the group leveling issue is limiting the potential of classes.

That town v town thing LO / AD was building for olympics sounded awesome, but it sounds like a lot of the people that were working on it have not been playing much lately. I would be more than happy to help with such a thing, although what help i can provide dunno, not much of an engineer or anything lol.

The reason no one is working on this is because it's all on the creative server, and last I checked, it was still unavailable.

 

[Delfofthebla]

On this point, I agree that this is a problem, by I think the solution isn't too make every class able to solo level, but make it viable to group level. It is VERY MUCH more FUN to level with friends than to level alone even if it's just grinding mobs. (and isn't playing games all about fun?) Plus, even the fact that you are bringing up this point shows that the group leveling issue is limiting the potential of classes.

I can definitely agree to that. It's a common thought process for older players that grouping just isn't worth it--it's faster to solo level, even if you're in the same area.

Perhaps Kainzo should increase the xp bonus for grouping to encourage this.

 

[Eldrylars]

I can definitely agree to that. It's a common thought process for older players that grouping just isn't worth it--it's faster to solo level, even if you're in the same area.

Perhaps Kainzo should increase the xp bonus for grouping to encourage this.

Not the right thread for this but a scaling xp bonus would be wonderful. As mobs scale in difficulty, so doe sthe % XP bonus for groups.

 

[Keache]

Woah! I was only expressing my opinion on group support/defense classes... No need to flame my post just because I indirectly disagreed with you, @Eldrylars. Don't agree with me? Fine. Don't go around saying "you're smearing your opinions all over our faces, and they're horribly wrong1!111."

 

[Eldrylars]

Woah! I was only expressing my opinion on group support/defense classes... No need to flame my post just because I indirectly disagreed with you, @Eldrylars. Don't agree with me? Fine. Don't go around saying "you're smearing your opinions all over our faces, and they're horribly wrong1!111."

I was quoted your broad defining argument above but I can do it again here.

They almost always wind up being the difference between a victory and a defeat between two opposing groups. It's hard to balance around that, and nobody wants that to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game.

They way I read that was you saying that nobody wants to deal with a group with support. When you use broad words like nobody you should not be surprised if people take the broad sense of the word as your meaning.

That being said, in my replies I said I do understand that some people do not want to work with organized groups and just want small skirmish fights where it's 3v3 solo toons, but just as many people like large fights where it's not just a bunch of solo players trying to get kills.
IMO, a large organized group with 1-3 support toons should always beat a unorganized group of random solo toons, and that there are a lot of people that want this to exist in both Herocraft as well and many other multi player RPGs.

 

[Eldrylars]

Just to re-emphasize what Delfofthebla said, that's the problem with a lot of classes that are purely support/defensive. They almost always wind up being the difference between a victory and a defeat between two opposing groups. It's hard to balance around that, and nobody wants that to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game. I love the ideas, they all sound neat, but at the end of the day that's what it really comes down to. Though it's also worth noting that lag and other important issues must be considered.

I will take it down a note, and simplify that, having good support/defense toons in a large group fight should win over randomly grouped players. I can understand that some people don't want to have to make a proper group to be successful, and just want to win organized pvp with solo toons because they are more fun to play, but it takes work and skill to run a proper group and work as a team and that work and organization should be rewarded.
My suggestion to the "i don't want to play a support class" is to get enough heavy support classes that all have a powerful niche that each township could find at least a couple players that would enjoy playing them.

As you can see by my recent class examples, the Idea of Dancer, low damage very mobile rogue that supports by disruption, the Guardian which supports with close range in the combat buffs and cc, The Cleric that supports through his awesome heals in an attempt to keep him group alive, and the Bard which supports his group with buffs and with skill and spell disruption of the enemy.

If you get a good selection of group support toons then you are more then likely going to get several players that match them and will help your team. Have all 5 main support toons in a group, you will lose a lot of damage but you will gain a lot of utility and for that you may win, but build a specific group to work together with each others strengths and you will certainly do the damage.

 

[Solidze]

I will take it down a note, and simplify that, having good support/defense toons in a large group fight should win over randomly grouped players. I can understand that some people don't want to have to make a proper group to be successful, and just want to win organized pvp with solo toons because they are more fun to play, but it takes work and skill to run a proper group and work as a team and that work and organization should be rewarded.
My suggestion to the "i don't want to play a support class" is to get enough heavy support classes that all have a powerful niche that each township could find at least a couple players that would enjoy playing them.

As you can see by my recent class examples, the Idea of Dancer, low damage very mobile rogue that supports by disruption, the Guardian which supports with close range in the combat buffs and cc, The Cleric that supports through his awesome heals in an attempt to keep him group alive, and the Bard which supports his group with buffs and with skill and spell disruption of the enemy.

If you get a good selection of group support toons then you are more then likely going to get several players that match them and will help your team. Have all 5 main support toons in a group, you will lose a lot of damage but you will gain a lot of utility and for that you may win, but build a specific group to work together with each others strengths and you will certainly do the damage.

I was thinking instead of new classes, what you brought to the table for skills can be used to rework some classes, especially support HEALERS. Strip some healing they have, add in disrupt and such. Bard is a GREAT example of what a support should be, however I think regular healers should only have 2-3 heals that heal for a bit with decent/high cds, rest are low duration buffs for burst damage/mitigation with decent cds and disrupts. Where since tanks are rare and such (besides a paladin), we can move tanks into the spot light of debuffing. This would be a great deal of class comps for tournaments, group play and more variety of classes around solo. Like dread knight for example, selfish class.....how paladin provides healing auras and healing, allow the DK to be the debuffing/buffing tank.....have them rotate through 3-4 auras, which you swap depending on situations of fights. Healers shouldn't be relied on, with decent/high cds on heals....it'll be up to a players skill level to hold out until heals are back up, of course though you may have group invulns to help out, aoe slows etc. We just need a different direction on how to lead these classes forward to make every one of them useful. Going back to tanks for example, you would only bring them if they could output group benefits. Tanks fall into support roles (tons of buffs/debuffs/disrupts) in mmos as "protectors or the supporters of supports", hence why I made the DK suggestion.

 

[draconis99]

sorry, just realized i was tagged here. you and I may have lots to talk about @Eldrylars

 

[Keache]

They way I read that was you saying that nobody wants to deal with a group with support. When you use broad words like nobody you should not be surprised if people take the broad sense of the word as your meaning.

@Eldrylars

There was nothing broad about what I had said. If you can't read properly, then just say so and I would be more than happy to reiterate.

So how about I do that for you, since you're missing my point and construing what I said into what you're assuming I meant (you do know what the say about assuming, don't you?).

What I said was that nobody wants [pure support/defensive classes that often are the only thing that mean victory versus defeat] to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game.

In case you STILL don't understand what I just said, here's some further explaining.

When you play an RPG, you should be allowed to play what you want to play. It's called a role-playing game for a reason, after all. ideally, when someone says "I am a mage! I love blasting people from the back of the group with my arcane powers!", that person will become a mage or caster of some sort. That's their idea of who they are. When someone says "I love supporting my allies, I enjoy feeling important and helpful without having to deal tons of damage or tank too much." That person will ideally become a back-line supporter. Nobody (oh God, I used that horribly confusing word again) wants to be forced into playing a class that they otherwise don't want to play in order to succeed. Does that mean that nobody wants to fight a group that has supports? Absolutely not. What it means is that group a, that doesn't have supports, should be able to take out group b, which DOES have supports, if they are more skilled than group b. Likewise, group b should be able to take out group a if they are more skilled than group a. It should all come down to skill and ability rather than "Because this group has something we don't, we will automatically lose and not even try to bother." That is arguably the worst feeling in an RPG, because it makes things unbalanced and unfair. Why am I supposed to play something that I think is utterly boring and not my style in order to ensure victory, or at least even a chance of victory?

I have the utmost respect for Guild Wars 2. The way they designed their game was so that there was no reliance on the "holy trinity" of Tank, Heal, DPS. Everyone can heal, everyone can DPS, everyone can tank (to an extent, obviously. If you tank in that game you're doing it wrong). What it then came down to in that game is what do YOU want to play? At the end of the day, that should be the question. Not, "what do you HAVE to play?"

So, what does this have to do with my comment about classes that are purely support/defensive? I never said anything about groups not wanting to have to deal with fighting those classes. I said (not meant, Eldrylars) that nobody wants to deal with classes which are, in effect, overpowered. Can you agree with me if I say that "having class A on your team, while the other team does not have class A will nine times out of ten result in a victory for your team" is overpowered? If you can balance purely defensive/support classes so that that is not the case, then perfect! How Herocraft is currently designed, however, makes that extremely difficult. Hence my comment, "It's hard to balance around that, and nobody wants that to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game."

STILL don't agree with me? Fine. To each his own, as they say. Just don't go off on a tangent about what you think I meant as opposed to what I said.

 

[Eldrylars]

So how about I do that for you, since you're missing my point and construing what I said into what you're assuming I meant (you do know what the say about assuming, don't you?).

What I said was that nobody wants [pure support/defensive classes that often are the only thing that mean victory versus defeat] to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game.

This is a wonderfully clear and easily understanding statement.

When you play an RPG, you should be allowed to play what you want to play. It's called a role-playing game for a reason, after all. ideally, when someone says "I am a mage! I love blasting people from the back of the group with my arcane powers!", that person will become a mage or caster of some sort. That's their idea of who they are. When someone says "I love supporting my allies, I enjoy feeling important and helpful without having to deal tons of damage or tank too much." That person will ideally become a back-line supporter. Nobody (oh God, I used that horribly confusing word again) wants to be forced into playing a class that they otherwise don't want to play in order to succeed. Does that mean that nobody wants to fight a group that has supports? Absolutely not. What it means is that group a, that doesn't have supports, should be able to take out group b, which DOES have supports, if they are more skilled than group b. Likewise, group b should be able to take out group a if they are more skilled than group a. It should all come down to skill and ability rather than "Because this group has something we don't, we will automatically lose and not even try to bother." That is arguably the worst feeling in an RPG, because it makes things unbalanced and unfair. Why am I supposed to play something that I think is utterly boring and not my style in order to ensure victory, or at least even a chance of victory?

If this had been written or even a much short version that clearing stated your fear, then I am sure there would have been no confusion. Perhaps it was and I did not see it, but assume one way, assume the other. Better to have a proper explanation of what someone is trying to say.

I have the utmost respect for Guild Wars 2. The way they designed their game was so that there was no reliance on the "holy trinity" of Tank, Heal, DPS. Everyone can heal, everyone can DPS, everyone can tank (to an extent, obviously. If you tank in that game you're doing it wrong). What it then came down to in that game is what do YOU want to play? At the end of the day, that should be the question. Not, "what do you HAVE to play?"

This has it's marrits for sure, but at the same time personally I feel that it takes away from the RPG aspect of a game. When I learned in GW1 that people could completely respec their characters mid map without penalty I was extreamly turned off. Not because I thought people should be trapped and have to work their asses off for that feature, but I feel that it dumbs down your persona and takes away from any individuality of character. Everyone is everything to me is the same as Everyone is nothing.
That being said I have never liked sticking a character into a corner and saying stay there, that's all you get. As will be seen when I release my RPG.

So, what does this have to do with my comment about classes that are purely support/defensive? I never said anything about groups not wanting to have to deal with fighting those classes. I said (not meant, Eldrylars) that nobody wants to deal with classes which are, in effect, overpowered. Can you agree with me if I say that "having class A on your team, while the other team does not have class A will nine times out of ten result in a victory for your team" is overpowered? If you can balance purely defensive/support classes so that that is not the case, then perfect! How Herocraft is currently designed, however, makes that extremely difficult. Hence my comment, "It's hard to balance around that, and nobody wants that to exist in Herocraft or any RPG game."

I certainly agree that very few people are ever happy with IWIN buttons, myself included. I am always the person rooting for the underdog. At the same time though, as much as we don't want to force players to play one way, we also don't want to force them to play another. It all comes down to balance, and although it may be "harder" to balance pure support classes, it's not impossible. A Wizard has an advantage over most classes in 1v1 fight as a group with a pure support will have in a group fight. The trick is making it an advantage, and not an IWIN.
So I will challenge you, how would you see this class as an IWIN in a 3v3, 6v6 or a 10v10? What could be changed to help balance the idea while not detouring from the purpose of the class?

In small group fights, I don't see this class being as much help as large group fights, do you feel the same? How then in large group fights do you feel that it should be balanced? Do you feel the buffs are to strong if there are 9 other players benefiting from them? How about scaling buffs, if more then 4 players are effected the effects are reduced by 10% for each additional player?

Do you feel that 2 Wizard and 1 Ninja would have no chance to to beat 1 Wizard, 1 Ninja, and 1 Guardian?

 

[Eldrylars]

sorry, just realized i was tagged here. you and I may have lots to talk about @Eldrylars

Sounds Terrifying!

 

[Keache]

So I will challenge you, how would you see this class as an IWIN in a 3v3, 6v6 or a 10v10? What could be changed to help balance the idea while not detouring from the purpose of the class?

At this time, I feel like any support class, not just the guardian, can be a potential "IWIN" class in 3v3, 6v6, or even 10v10. In regards to the Guardian, I think that not only would it need to be changed, but the whole of Heroes as well. As much as I would like to apply the Guild Wars 2 formula to Herocraft, I don't think that's necessarily what Kainzo wants. Regardless, as long as the "holy trinity" is present I don't think there's much we can do regarding the innate power of support classes in any group situation.

I'll edit this post later. Kind of just threw this together; I've got class that I should probably pay attention to right now.

 

[Dakinara]

But...I'm fairly bored of the game. Even if teamfighting were to return, I would not likely return to my previously motivated self. The best you'll get out of me these days is a quick popping on for a fight or two, a post like this, and maybe a few bug fixes here and there. I'm just not in a position where I am willing to "right all the wrongs" again, even if they are my own errors.

I will say though, Paladin and Mystic right now are retardedly strong support classes. Try em out for a bit and you'll see the horror of the support.

Meh that is sad to hear, you have made some really cool skill contributions to herocraft and i really liked the way things were heading with skills going to more aimed / active abilities. Regarding this whole support / no support thing, IMO certain types of support stack too well, namely, group heals. Group heals exist as is in part i assume because of the goofy single target healing system. I was hoping that the improvements you were making to skills function such as on pyromancer would eventually make their way into the realm of healing and replace too easy-to-use group heals and annoying-to-use single target heals, but now i know to just go be emo in a corner. 4eva.

Can understand the burnout though, happens to everyone, especially from a programming side i would imagine

 

[Eldrylars]

I will say though, Paladin and Mystic right now are retardedly strong support classes. Try em out for a bit and you'll see the horror of the support.

Oh the horror!