Suggestion Few opinions on test server balance and attributes

[Dakinara]

While you aren't wrong of my distaste for healers, your example situation is very off the mark. Basically, I do not wish for the major healing classes (Mystic / Cleric) to be able to kill other players in most situations. They are support classes, and should rely on supporting in order to win their fights. In a 2v2, where one side has a healer and one does not, I'm completely fine with the healer side winning in most cases (assuming he plays his cards right).

The problem is, if their heals are very large values, they can simply kite in circles while dealing very minute amounts of damage, and then eventually win the fight. And not just one fight. Every fight. Most players that play the healing classes don't know how to PvP very well, but a few do, and the ones who do, are invincible. It's not an enjoyable experience to fight a good mystic / cleric, because you will get kited for 10 minutes until they eventually win. It's stupid, and it's not what I want out of the healing classes. I find them to present a very poor form of combat, and a very poor balance situation. But whatever, /rant off


On your heal numbers statement, you are forgetting about the potency of mana regeneration. This a new mechanic to Herocraft, as previously, each class has had a static mana regeneration value. While no, I don't allow you to get obscene levels of healing with wisdom, but I do let the heals exceed the values that you currently see on live, assuming you have a very high wisdom value. In addition to this, the healers have near absurd levels of mana regeneration, allowing you, with minimal mana management, keep your group sustained for much longer durations. If anything, I have buffed the "kiting healer" strategy, as healers benefit majorly from wasting another player's time.


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If this were a standard MMO, I'd have no issues, but it isn't, and so I do. It's too easy for a healer to counter every single class in the game if they have the ability to heal themselves excessively while also kiting any attackers. It's relatively bullshit. Now, I can offset this by increasing the self-heal reduction and then buffing heals, but then healer players will have the same statements of "I don't heal enough". Regardless of how people rate the healing or 1v1 capabilities of these classes, I would much prefer any one of the healers to be in my group over most classes.

Delf i agree that it is generally too easy for a healer to keep itself alive. Alot of this is due to the combat mechanics of minecraft, where damaging an enemy pushes them away, in effect helping them kite. IMO many melee classes should have an ability of sorts called "toss bola" which would be an icebolt type projectile that would root the target if hit for 2 seconds (break on dmg, maybe 10 second cooldown with stamina cost) to help offset this issue. I think this would be a fun mechanic for both kiter and chaser, as if the kiter is paying attention they can try and juke / dodge projectile.

However, in regards to healing specifically, rather than nerf all healing, or further increase self healing reduction, I would much prefer each healer have at least one small, low cooldown heal that is target other ally only. Then the big heals that can potentially be used on self should have longer cooldowns, and have to be used more intelligently so that you have a decision to make on if you should use it on self or ally in many situations. And the target only ally heal could be made to be non macroable, so you would have to more "skillfully" actually target people you want to heal (but not have it be super annoying like now where you will usually start healing yourself instead).

And yes mana regen is much stronger now, but many mana costs were increased to offset - it is still pretty easy to run out of mana fast atm on test, especially when you have to use group heals when only a single target heal is needed.

Also, I agree pure healers (cleric / mystic) should not be a good 1v1 class in general if they focus their attributes on healing. However, they should be a very strong group class and remain a staple of group fights - personally i think healing adds alot to group fights and would be a shame to lose it just due to 1v1 situations - other ways to change hat by reducing ability of healers to heal self by increasing big heal cooldowns, etc.

 

[Dakinara]

also - in general i love all the skills being added on test, is really diversifying the combat of the game a lot ^^.

 

[Carbash]

Could you add a speed debuff while casting the short cd high heals? This would cut back on kiting. You could then add instant heals that allow for mobility but as reduced heals and longer CDs.

 

[LordZelkova]

So, how about that bard? Only having skills to 40.
@Delfofthebla Not trying to be rude but is there any word on Bard? It doesnt even have all its skills on test. Is this some kind of major major overhaul? Hell, battlesong and manasong are identical on test right now.

 

[northeaster345]

Can I comment that constitution is way too high on magic resist right now?
You get a paladin with almost 1200 health at 30 constitution and 87.5% magic reduction
Bolt which is supposed to do 240 damage does 30 damage. That's obscene
There's no way to kill a paladin like that, you don't even need that much constitution to be basically magic immune.

I thought that caster classes were supposed to be good against warrior classes because you can but damage through the ton of armor they have, but constitution gives the very good benefit of health with an absurd amount of magic resistance. I'm not against incidental magic resistance, but the way stats currently are makes magic basically useless.

 

[Dakinara]

Can I comment that constitution is way too high on magic resist right now?
You get a paladin with almost 1200 health at 30 constitution and 87.5% magic reduction
Bolt which is supposed to do 240 damage does 30 damage. That's obscene
There's no way to kill a paladin like that, you don't even need that much constitution to be basically magic immune.

I thought that caster classes were supposed to be good against warrior classes because you can but damage through the ton of armor they have, but constitution gives the very good benefit of health with an absurd amount of magic resistance. I'm not against incidental magic resistance, but the way stats currently are makes magic basically useless.

constitution definately needs an adjustment, i made a post earlier in this thread giving a reasonable breakdown of how dmg bonus vs dmg reduction stats could be made to work.

 

[lioIIoil]

Yeah 87.5 % magic resist is horrible. way too overpowered.

 

[Danda]

Yeah 87.5 % magic resist is horrible. way too overpowered.

It's broken atm, it'll be getting fixed the values should be like 5% reduction max.

 

[lioIIoil]

It's broken atm, it'll be getting fixed the values should be like 5% reduction max.

Yeah I agree I think that attributes should be able to affect the the class but not change it entirely.

 

[Dakinara]

I think somewhere between 5% and the current numbers would work best to balance things, but it all depends on where the damage numbers start at, how much int buffs them, etc.

 

[Kainzo]

Herocraft PVE is on it's way, you may see some changes when this hits the shelves


I'll be having a heavier hand in balance around this time as it's one of my specialties for PVE balance. Bare in mind we have to make both worlds happy and right now the more pronounced one is pvp encounters.

 

[northeaster345]

I think somewhere between 5% and the current numbers would work best to balance things, but it all depends on where the damage numbers start at, how much int buffs them, etc.

Dumping into int can put you around 10% extra magic damage, so 10-15% if you max on endurance doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but as it is it's ridiculous

 

[Dakinara]

Dumping into int can put you around 10% extra magic damage, so 10-15% if you max on endurance doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but as it is it's ridiculous

Yeah it can work either way - id prefer a system where you can get bigger bonuses to both damage and damage reduction as I posted on page one (because armor is certainly going to give a big damage reduction to physical unless they completely change how it works), but the system can work either way (small bonuses, big bonuses, etc). My preferred system would be something like:

Each point of str gives 2% dmg bonus to melee (60% dmg bonus at 30 str)
Each point of int gives 2% spell dmg bonus (60% dmg bonus at 30 int)
Each point of con gives 1% spell dmg reduction (30% dmg reduction at 30 con)
Each point of endurance gives the effect of 1.5% physical dmg reduction (45% dmg reduction at 30 endurance - higher dmg reduction than spell since melee also has left click dmg bonus).

Then you can specialize to some degree towards high damage, or high defense vs magic or physical, but you cant have it all. If endurance (armor) is the only stat that gives a big bonus, then pretty much everyone will spec heavy into into it, maybe wisdom for mana regen if caster / healer

 

[Delfofthebla]

Not sure when you last check north, but int gives a lot more than 10-15% damage bonuses. In most cases, it's 15-30, and that's on a per skill basis. Even if it were just 10-15% as you stated, it would still be worth it, due to the sheer number of skills that most classes have.

This is the same case for wisdom, for the record.

 

[Dakinara]

Not sure when you last check north, but int gives a lot more than 10-15% damage bonuses. In most cases, it's 15-30, and that's on a per skill basis. Even if it were just 10-15% as you stated, it would still be worth it, due to the sheer number of skills that most classes have.

This is the same case for wisdom, for the record.

Yes, most caster skills now get very large bonuses from int. IMO maybe a little too high given the minor damage reduction we currently get from constitution. But we shall see I suppose. Wizy and beguiler in particular look . . . scary with a high int score lol.

 

[tigereye99999]

I mean I don't want to just go off stating this is op that is op but Forcepush/Forcepull needs to be examined for Disciple, Dragoon needs to be (slightly) nerfed and I don't know if I was imagining things(probably was) but I thought I saw Blink let someone tp like 100~ blocks. Also I think that there shouldnt be a money reagent to reset but there should be a debuff when you you reset your attributes(maybe even put someone at like 1 heart and slow them) prevent people from Reset macroing and getting a shiton of Agility in a jiffy if you really need it.

Obviously your hard at work but something have crazy scaling. This must have been such a headache to balance but I am surprised at how good it has been. I havnt been like "WTF HE JUST ONE HIT ME" yet...

I have been screwing around on test more and I have a few suggestions:
Clerics are still SUPER good at kiting and healing and just outlasted xxSam can attest to this he chased me FOREVER and I was able to outlast him. I think that Clerics heals are fine where they are at because If I want to outheal a wizard I need to use every last bit of mana(maybe heals could be reduced a little). I think that Clerics base Agility needs be decreased even more so they can kite less. Its at like -10 or something but it should be around -20. If they want to run away all day then they should have to suffer for it. It shouldn't affect clerics who are in the heat of battle. That leads me to my next suggestion

The base Attributes are good and all but having negative base attributes barely affects people. It takes barely any attribute points to get out of the negatives because it only costs like 1 per when your in the negatives.
A simple fix could be basing the deteriorating effects off how much you spent on that attribute not on how much you currently have. So to go from -20 to 0 would cost the same as going from 0 to 20.

I have a few others but don't feel like typing.

 

[northeaster345]

Not sure when you last check north, but int gives a lot more than 10-15% damage bonuses. In most cases, it's 15-30, and that's on a per skill basis. Even if it were just 10-15% as you stated, it would still be worth it, due to the sheer number of skills that most classes have.

This is the same case for wisdom, for the record.

Yeah, I just meant over what it currently is on live, 265 damage for bolt at 35+ int isn't a ton more damage. It just means that most skills do very low damage if you don't put any skill points in. There is currently no magic resist on live.

Your way of comparison is right, but my frame of reference is the current server and I need 25+ int just to get back to that amount of damage, then 10 pts of int will add maybe 10% more damage over that "base" amount

 

[huntmoak]

What if clerics had like a small speed debuff when wearing iron or diamond armor? or you could give melee classes a gap closer?

 

[Danda]

Yeah, I just meant over what it currently is on live, 265 damage for bolt at 35+ int isn't a ton more damage. It just means that most skills do very low damage if you don't put any skill points in. There is currently no magic resist on live.

Your way of comparison is right, but my frame of reference is the current server and I need 25+ int just to get back to that amount of damage, then 10 pts of int will add maybe 10% more damage over that "base" amount

okay but what do your other stats look like when you do this?

 

[Dakinara]

Yeah, I just meant over what it currently is on live, 265 damage for bolt at 35+ int isn't a ton more damage. It just means that most skills do very low damage if you don't put any skill points in. There is currently no magic resist on live.

Your way of comparison is right, but my frame of reference is the current server and I need 25+ int just to get back to that amount of damage, then 10 pts of int will add maybe 10% more damage over that "base" amount

Its really hard to say how balance is gonna come down. Most melee classes got the same issue and some actually have lower dmg overall with the new attributes, even if raising str. Plus melee abilities now seem to be reduced by armor as well. Healing was nerfed alot too, so even if casters dont get a big damage bonus over live, they may still be sitting prettiest out of everyone (since con reduces spell damage by basically nil). I think this is gonna be hard to balance by launch and will just be something that has to be adjusted afterwards as needed. Should be interesting O_O.

Personally, I am willing to live with what may be funky balancing for a bit in order to have attributes and new abilities introduced.