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Suggestion Haven World News - Nightly Balance Update

Dakinara

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
Good Evening Haven, we are here live to provide your nightly class popularity *cough* balance *cough* update. Without further adooo, lets check the derpler 9000 for our current specced numbers

Totally balanced classes that are the fairest online at 8:30 EST -
wizard - 10
ninja - 9
dragoon - 6
ranger - 13
TOTAL - 38

Those other classes... that are poor and smell
druid - 3
cleric - 1
bloodmage - 1
disciple - 1
runeblade - 2
bard - 4!!!
beguiler - 2
necromancer - 3
pyromancer - 2
dreadknight - 0
paladin - 4
berserker - 1
TOTAL - 24

A marked balance improvement from last night, clearly the most balanced era of balance ever balanced. Tune in tommorrow when we provide more fair and balanced numbers coverage!
 

werwew19

Coder
Balance Team
Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 10, 2012
Location
United States
Good Evening Haven, we are here live to provide your nightly class popularity *cough* balance *cough* update. Without further adooo, lets check the derpler 9000 for our current specced numbers

Totally balanced classes that are the fairest online at 8:30 EST -
wizard - 10
ninja - 9
dragoon - 6
ranger - 13
TOTAL - 38

Those other classes... that are poor and smell
druid - 3
cleric - 1
bloodmage - 1
disciple - 1
runeblade - 2
bard - 4!!!
beguiler - 2
necromancer - 3
pyromancer - 2
dreadknight - 0
paladin - 4
berserker - 1
TOTAL - 24

A marked balance improvement from last night, clearly the most balanced era of balance ever balanced. Tune in tommorrow when we provide more fair and balanced numbers coverage!
Your derpler 9000 is broken as hell.
 

AzenYumCha

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Jul 2, 2011
I disagree. The fact that the amount people who play a certain class defines how 'unbalanced' it is - this is definitely incorrect.

However, there are definitely some balancing that is required and I'm wondering why the unbalanced is being ignored (I am judging this from public discretion, senior staff could be planning in but it helps to notify the playerbase, if possible). The classes that you have listed have perks that counter most classes.

Ranger have large coverage (distance in which they can cover - rounds with range, ease of landing damage) , as well as game-changing mobility, CC and AoE (surprisingly...)

Dragoon have powerful defense, whilst dealing consistent damage, game-changing mobility and screwing most mana-reliant classes with Lunar Lance.

Ninja have an immense DPS when close and CC is beyond powerful with their combo. And again, with this class in accordance to Agility, it is easy to escape death.

Wizard have intense burst and mobility that can most likely save you from virtually all battles (enderpearl...?)

These classes have large amount of mobility. Rangers should have a decreased amount of agility to balance their stationary positioning.
CC is a huge factor. Ninja should have a slow that breaks upon damage than a 2 second stun that does not break after half of your health is lacerated.

tl;dr - These classes get you kills. This is why they are currently being played often. Tweak them accordingly, so they are balanced.
 

Dakinara

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
does op = popular? no.
does op correlate strongly with popular? yessssss

azenyumchu post very good. Would also note that bows being able to be fired during warmups makes aimed shot very ridiculous, especially given the ~30 block range or so.

Most of the people playing these classes would agree they have big advantages over the other 12 classes listed. At a minimum, they all have the advantage of great escape abilities (smoke, grappling hook, enderpearl, superjump) that are basically get-out-of-jail free cards, making them the preferred gank-and-run classes by far.
 

STDs4YouAnd4Me

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Sep 11, 2012
Lets put it this way, if I could choose between world peace and a balanced HeroCraft, I'd choose balance 100% of the time.

Also, I'm pretty sure all the beguilers on the server took a day off.

Disciple4Life, going down with the ship, captain.
 

malikdanab

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
"Correlation does not equal causation"
With that said, I believe these class are the most popular due to their ease of use and due to peoples suggestions. I've seen plenty of "noobs" ask which class they should choose, and they will list the above class. Now, is this due to them being OP? Possibly. Is this the only reason? Absolutely not. I know some class will be not as popular, but this shows that steps need to be made to make other classes more appealing.
 

lioIIoil

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 23, 2012
Popularity does not coincide with "balanced"
This is 100% true. Classes like wizard/ninja is going to always be more popular than classes like boodmage. Why? because wizard is popular from other games/movies. Everyone knows what a wizard/ninja is and what its playstyle is. They are fun classes to play.
 

Dakinara

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
This is 100% true. Classes like wizard/ninja is going to always be more popular than classes like boodmage. Why? because wizard is popular from other games/movies. Everyone knows what a wizard/ninja is and what its playstyle is. They are fun classes to play.

I am not arguing that this isnt part of the effect, but a great case example is ranger. Last map, ranger sucked except for tracking people, partially due to latency, partially due to class abilities. Soooo many people want to be legolas, xXlegolasXx, XXXlegomylegolalalassXXX, etc, in fantasy games and yet no one played ranger at all in bastion really. Because it sucked. Saying popularity has nothing to do with balance is as wrong as saying it has everything to do with it.
 

lioIIoil

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 23, 2012
I am not arguing that this isnt part of the effect, but a great case example is ranger. Last map, ranger sucked except for tracking people, partially due to latency, partially due to class abilities. Soooo many people want to be legolas, xXlegolasXx, XXXlegomylegolalalassXXX, etc, in fantasy games and yet no one played ranger at all in bastion really. Because it sucked. Saying popularity has nothing to do with balance is as wrong as saying it has everything to do with it.
Well people knew it sucked and didn't play it because of that. That is different than people playing wizard because it is fun.
Master Yi is probably the most popular champion but he isn't the most powerful one.
Why don't we just force people into specs so there are equal numbers. Wizard will always be more popular.
 

0xNaomi

Legacy Supporter 6
Retired Staff
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Hey, if people want to not have healers with them that's their problem. Just means they die easier.
That said, Cleric for life.
 

STDs4YouAnd4Me

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Sep 11, 2012
In any game there are usually less supports than damage classes.
But not at the ridiculous ratio as Herocraft's demographic represents. There were countless number of times on Bastion where there were 80-100 people online and I'd be the only Healer spec. There's been times this map where I've seen as low as 2 healer specs online with 100+ people on.

The writing is on the wall; there's no real reason to be a healer when your heals won't even come close to as powerful as a bursty's class damage. Add in the fact that GOOD heals have a long warm-up and you're a sitting duck waiting to die.

I think it would be interesting to make a healing class that specialised in shielding itself/its allies from damage rather than heal through it, very similar to a Discipline Priest on World of Warcraft. It's shields wouldn't necessarily be 'invuln' but rather, for example, a shield that lasts 8 seconds and absorbs up to 200dmg. That'd be neat.
 

Eldrylars

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Location
Dragon through ...
To long to read? The most played classes tend to be the easy to play classes or the ones that are good solo raiders. It's not class balance so much as it is class purpose.

wizard - 10

Ease of play: Easy - Moderate. Easy to play well, moderate to play very well, powerful damage, powerful support
ninja - 9
Ease of play: Easy - to Moderate. Solo tracking and PVP extreme, with lots of fun skills, second best solo raider class to..
dragoon - 6
Ease of play: Easy. Best solo raiding class with the highest amount of survivability and one of the best classes for sneaking into cities.
ranger - 13
So unused over the last map or so is finally a viable play. Easy to die if you get focus as taking damage while using grapple breaks it( as well as the fact that grapple needs to hit a higher location to be effective. Deadly in the back of a group fight raining arrows on enemies from a safe distance. Poor in lag still.
druid - 3
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard. Druid has some offensive abilities and great support but lacks mobility and is not the easiest class to learn or play while being rather a good class if you know what you are doing.
cleric - 1
Ease of play: Hard - Very Hard. Clerics have no offensive capabilities and no combat support other then their group invuln which can only be used once a fight. Their heals are by far the best in the game and used properly can turn the tides of a battle quickly. Although Clerics tend to have the best mana regeneration and a large mana pool they will easily use up all their mana in a large team fight so managing mana is very tricky and with the targeting of single target heals being difficult the life of a Cleric is appreciated but hard.
bloodmage - 1
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard. Blood mages can be powerful casters and can output a lot of damage, yet they are not the easiest class to learn how to control and manage their damage and skills. Definitely a great class, just not understood by most players.
disciple - 1
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard Disciple tends to be a hard class to play in a lot of fight scenarios as it's sorta all over the board with it's skills. It has several damage skills and several skills to manipulate players and these can play well, but at the same time since it's more of a jack of all trades type of class it often loses in 1v1.
runeblade - 2
Ease of play: Moderate Runeblade used to be used as much as Ninja, but with the current Ninja having track the runeblades have really fallen off the top tier even though they are still a very powerful class. Runeblades have a lot more in your face damage then it's counter part the Ninja as well as equal if not better mobility but Ninja's track and massive damage from behind has given it and edge recently in play count.
bard - 4
Ease of play: Moderate Bards tend to have a lot of mobility and a lot of combat options and group support. They were and even in their strange state still are good to have in group fights. They tend to be only moderately difficult to play as the biggest thing you have to pay attention to is their short buff durations.
beguiler - 2
Ease of play: Easy - to Moderate Beguiler tends to be one of the easier classes to play. With it's multiple forms of stuns and large AOE it's not hard to play a beguiler will and cause a lot of damage.
necromancer - 3
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard Necromancers have some great damage output but a chunk of it is damage over time, making the Necromancer a powerful foe, but one that has to do a good bit of kitting while his spells do their dirty work.
pyromancer - 2
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard Pyromancers have some massive melee/close range damage and burst out a lot of damage quick and then sustain with their melee. The problem and where the Pyro gets difficult is their limited armor and hp and their need to be in close proximity. With minimal mobility and low survivability in fights this class is often bypassed.
dreadknight - 0
Ease of play: Moderate The Dreadknight can put out some serious hurt and tends to be very tanky, but without good mobility they do not make good solo classes which drops the class down a couple tiers for most players.
paladin - 4
Ease of play: Moderate The Paladin can put out some hurting and tends to not only be very tanky, but also good team support, yet still without good mobility they do not make good solo classes which drops the class down a couple tiers for most players.
berserker - 1
Ease of play: Moderate - Hard. Berserkers can output a lot of damage and have some reasonable control methods to help them in fights, but most of their abilities rely on them taking a lot of damage which makes it difficult to try to get in and do the high damage while somehow staying alive. With a lack of high mobility this class is often overlooked.
 

Dakinara

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
That is a good summary eldry. One of my biggest issues is the ease of escape for many solo raiding classes. The closest thing to a counter is bard and speed pots but even then accelerando is strictly inferior to crazy crap like throwing an enderpearl 60 blocks away, or superjumping 50 blocks into the air, and they can always bring a speed pot too.

IMO, enderpearl and superjump should be made not usable in combat. These classes have enough escape abilities to where getting out of combat to use these is not unreasonable, and they still serve the function of getting into places to raid. I would also love to change smoke to where the cooldown, cost and duration are all decreased to facilitate short duration, more frequent invisibilities to backstab / evade attacks rather than just escape.
 

Kainzo

The Disposable Hero
Staff member
Founder
Adventure Team
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Location
The 7th Circle of Heaven
Now granted, I am not saying we are fully balanced. Balance is a journey, not a desitnation - we are always having things come out to add to classes and i highly doubt we'll ever be 100% balanced.

We will strive hard to make every class fun, enjoyable and have it bring something to the table on par with others. The heuristic isnt apples to apples, its apples to oranges in some cases.
 

Eldrylars

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Location
Dragon through ...
Now granted, I am not saying we are fully balanced. Balance is a journey, not a desitnation - we are always having things come out to add to classes and i highly doubt we'll ever be 100% balanced.

We will strive hard to make every class fun, enjoyable and have it bring something to the table on par with others. The heuristic isnt apples to apples, its apples to oranges in some cases.

Definitely, and our current balance is very well done(never perfected as things change and certain classes certainly need some good tweaks), the largest thing we see is the varying purpose of classes and the functions they serve. People will usually take the classes that work best solo unless they are part of an organized pvp group, but so far in Haven; I have not seen many organized PVP groups, just jumbles of random solo classes the whole map.
 

Dakinara

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
One of the things that also bugs me is classes like dreadknight / paladin are very easy to kite, and that is fine from a 1v1 balance standpoint to some degree. But there is only one class (bard) that offers any significant support to them to help them overcome this weakness. The game as a whole is just very slim on snares and group movement buff / debuff which is another reason why the solo pvp classes are so popular i feel.
 
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