• Guest, HEROCRAFT PUBLIC RELEASE IS HAPPENING AN HOUR EARLIER! TONIGHT @ 7PM CST GET READY FOR IT! play.hc.to
    Read up on the guides and new systems! Here.
    View the LIVE Map here @ hc.to/map
    Stuck or have a problem? use "/pe create" to to open a ticket with staff (There are some known issues and other hotfixes we will be pushing asap)
  • Guest, Make sure to use our LAUNCHER! Read more here!

Party Size and Balance

LightningCape

Holy Shit!
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Location
Republic City, Earth Kingdom
Personally I hope we look more carefully at party sizes. I agree with people who say it should be more than 5 on PvP. Mainly for different reasons:
  • Class balance as of now doesn't work well for 5v5s
    • This is a pretty massive change to how fights will go and what classes people will pick "which from talking to people is mostly going to be warriors and healers". And I don't blame them. This new party size promotes this. It will make some classes more viable than others. Something that isn't new to hc, but this change will make it more apparent.

  • People are coming back
    • There are a lot of people who've stopped playing who are coming back for this map so lowering the party size with more amounts of people coming isn't a really good idea.

  • Currently no support for allied towns and parties
    • Doesn't matter who big your party is, allies can still hit each other because of the no town damage thing only working in the same town. (Which is strange imo)

Hopefully linking parties and keeping effects is doable as kain noted on the suggestion thread. If not then I feel it should just be increased.

@Kainzo | [USERGROUP=38]@Balance Team[/USERGROUP]
Feel we need to discuss this. It's a massive change.
 

Egorh

Outcast
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
I have already gave my input on parties of 5. The only way I can see it working effectively is being able to link your parties. People have always 'joined forces' to take down someone with more people.
 

Yavool

Legacy Supporter 9
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Location
Spokane, WA
That doesn't help...as the future changes notes gave 3 different party sizes (5/10/15) for 3 different worlds (PVP/PVE/RPG):

Heroes Changes: Party size reduced to 5 in PVP. 10 in PVE. 15 in RPG.

I am unclear what party sizes we are talking about for what worlds, and I didn't see a party size listed for an Adventure map...so I can't comment on the balance until I know where are starting at.... Help, please?
 
Last edited:

LightningCape

Holy Shit!
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Location
Republic City, Earth Kingdom
That doesn't help...as the future changes notes gave 3 different party sizes (5/10/15) for 3 different worlds (PVP/PVE/RPG):



I am unclear what party sizes we are talking about for what worlds, and I didn't see a party size listed for an Adventure map...so I can't comment on the balance until I know where are starting at.... Help, please?
PvP is PvP, basically the Haven we know today. RPG is another world for adventure. Information on adventure has been floating around forums for quite awhile now.

@Kainzo I know you've stated previously that you don't want to increase the number for PvP but is it possible to "link" parties? I feel something like that would be a nice compromise that brings relief to some.
 

Kainzo

The Disposable Hero
Staff member
Founder
Adventure Team
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Location
The 7th Circle of Heaven
PvP is PvP, basically the Haven we know today. RPG is another world for adventure. Information on adventure has been floating around forums for quite awhile now.

@Kainzo I know you've stated previously that you don't want to increase the number for PvP but is it possible to "link" parties? I feel something like that would be a nice compromise that brings relief to some.
We wont be linking parties at the get go. The coding isnt there for it and it's an advanced concept that will require some thought. The entire reason for reducing party sizes is to reduce the zerg-forces that roam the lands and /everyone/ (except the zerg) bitches about.
 

LightningCape

Holy Shit!
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Location
Republic City, Earth Kingdom
We wont be linking parties at the get go. The coding isnt there for it and it's an advanced concept that will require some thought. The entire reason for reducing party sizes is to reduce the zerg-forces that roam the lands and /everyone/ (except the zerg) bitches about.
The "zergness" isn't large people roaming the lands "which I see as a positive sign on the server" it's that while looking for large groups they come across individuals who get absolutely steamrolled. If it's something you plan to do later then at least keep parties sizes high(er). With the large amount of people coming back, making large groups, I feel it's a mistake.
 

Yavool

Legacy Supporter 9
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Location
Spokane, WA
The "zergness" isn't large people roaming the lands "which I see as a positive sign on the server" it's that while looking for large groups they come across individuals who get absolutely steamrolled. If it's something you plan to do later then at least keep parties sizes high(er). With the large amount of people coming back, making large groups, I feel it's a mistake.

Furthermore, the main (justified) bitching came from the victims of high-level characters slaughtering Lost Souls. Shrine helped that out quite a bit, even if the world was underutilized. The leveling of the xp/drops on the PVE to equal of the PVP server hopefully will help that more peaceful world to flourish. I would go as far as to suggest that Shrine get an XP/drop *BOOST* over PVP so that it encourages population, and allows lower level players to be able to grow at a faster rate than their PVP-focused bretheren (esp. if PVP is getting xp perks).

I watched the old school massive team PVP battles that @Apherdite posted some time ago... THAT was EPIC. If you want to promote that sort of epicness, then the party size needs to be as big as it can be, so as to not allow friendly-fire to be an issue. 95% of all MMORPG spells and actions (if not more!) create friendly-fire immunity. Herocraft should follow that same line of thinking, if at all possible.

Bigger parties promote more collaboration, more use of Teamspeak and other chat channels, and ultimately the same thing that HC is promoting within its crafting restrictions and trade: more community playing.

PVP parties should be set at 25.
PVE at 15.
RPG/Adventure at 15.

-yav
 

Delfofthebla

Legacy Supporter 4
Retired Staff
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Location
United States
  • Class balance as of now doesn't work well for 5v5s
    • This is a pretty massive change to how fights will go and what classes people will pick "which from talking to people is mostly going to be warriors and healers". And I don't blame them. This new party size promotes this. It will make some classes more viable than others. Something that isn't new to hc, but this change will make it more apparent.
Before I begin, I'd like to point out that I still agree on a raid system being the best way to go. However, I completely disagree with your statement. The only thing this party size reduction does to "class viability" is lower the viability of classes that were previously more useful in 10v10s. Luckily for us, those classes were the ones that were the most powerful!

As I said in my other post in the suggestion thread: http://herocraftonline.com/main/thr...-limits-and-concerns.53077/page-7#post-420684
Back in Bastion, if you were goin to a big teamfight, do you know how you won that fight?

Beguilers.
Wizards.
Bards.
Clerics.

and less relevantly:
Paladins.

notable mentions:
Any warrior ever.

Why? Because of the clusterfuck of AoE's present in Herocraft. And I'm not just talking about damaging ones either. Heals and buffs were immensely powerful for these fights, if not more so.

AoE effects are more powerful the more people present.
PlagueBomb was doing somewhere around 230ish damage during Bastion.
230 damage is not much on it's own, but what about if there's a 5 man teamfight?
230 * 5 = 1150 damage.
what about 10?
230 * 10 = 2300 damage. Double. Cool!

This of course goes for heals as well...
GroupHeal can take that same 230 heal and turn it into a 2300 heal very easily. Individual buffs are less quantifiable, but the result is the same. The larger the party size, the more beneficial these things are.

Things like Clerics, Bards and Paladins being so useful in larger teamfights is directly due to the potency of AoE abilities. Paladins (and all other warriors) play a slightly...different role in all of it, but it all stems from the same issue. The tankier something is, the less it is affected negatively by AoE effects. (Whether they be positive or negative).

You state the game is not balanced around 5v5's right now. Assuming we even have any actual balance for 10v10's either, I'd like to point this out. If the game is not balanced around 5v5's, why the flying fuck are tournaments held 5v5? Should tournaments be 10v10? Should all notions of victory from previous tournaments be publicly declared "invalid" because we were not balancing for them?

No, no I don't think so. And for the record, I totally tried to balance with tournaments in mind. At least starting midway from Bastion. I tried to make supports and Warriors less viable, while increasing the viability of "single target" classes like rogues. I won't say I was entirely successful, and attributes basically threw all of that out the window, but it was always in the back of my mind.

5 man party sizes do one thing: Reduce the number of slots that you can "ally with".
What does that mean?

* Left clicks will hit "non allied" targets.
* Harmful AoE abilities will hit "non allied" targets.
* Helpful AoE abilities will not hit "non allied" targets. (Mostly heals/buffs, but you can include GroupTeleport/Port for this as well.)

So, we have two instances of AoE, and one instance of just genuine inconvenience for melee fighters. However, lucky for us, town protection is still aids and prevents left clicks from hitting them!

However, that is exactly what a raid system would provide for you!
In a typical raid setup (for any MMO), you will have the following scenario.

1. A group of players will decide they wish to group.
2. Five Players group up, group is now full. This is dubbed 'Group A'
3. There are 5 additional players that wish to group together with Group A. They form their own party, and form 'Group B'.
4. Group A party leader creates a "Raid Group". The raid group contains one group, Group A.
5. Group A party leader invites Group B's party leader to join the Raid Group.
6. The raid group is now formed, and they are "loosely allied".

* Assume that all 10 players are standing on top of one block.
* A cleric from Group A uses the skill "Group Heal". Every single player in GROUP A is healed for the amount.
* Nobody in Group B receives any healing.

* A Dragoon in Group B uses the skill Tremor.
* Nothing happens because there are no "enemies" nearby.

* All players from all groups start spamming left click while looking at each other.
* Nobody takes damage because they are all allied.

* A wizard from Group B walks to spawn and casts GroupTeleport.
* Everyone in Group B is ported to the Wizard.
* Everyone in Group A is left where they originally stood.

======
It may seem silly for me to line it all out like that, but I'm not entirely sure everyone understood what I meant by "Raid Groups" in my original posts. I don't know if this scenario is something that people agree or disagree with either.

But that's pretty much how it works right now! (Unless I am misunderstanding how the town protection system works.) Granted, you all have to be in the same town, which definitely sucks, but it's not far off from what would eventually be the reality.

Yes, not being able to port 10 people on top of one guy in a swamp is shitty. Yes, being unable to GroupHeal or Accelerando and have the effects reach 10 fucking people is "unfortunate", but it sure as hell is a lot more balanced in my eyes. Sure, there were a lot of opportunities where being able to Port/GroupTeleport your whole party of 10 people was really nice, and if I were still playing, I'm sure it'd bug me that I couldn't do that anymore. However, I understand that it is how it should be, and so I would personally bite the bullet in that case.

----
On the note of player mentality: Perhaps people are saying these things, but I have a hard time beleiving it will become the reality. Players should not start treating every fight the same way they do as a tournament just because of the party size restriction. It seems very backwards to me that because they have a limited number of slots, they are suddenly all worried about being the most effecient with those slots. When all along they could have been doing that, and it would have been much more effective!

In Bastion though, they did do this. I saw more fucking support in Bastion than I ever did in Haven, and I'm sure it will be the same on this map. (Mid Bastion, every god damn party had 2 disciples, 2 bards, a cleric, and 2 beguilers.) So long as AoE's dominate the Herocraft PvP scene, AoE classes will shine through.

I would also like to take a brief moment to point out right now, that if you have a problem with people always wanting to play with warriors and support classes in their groups, then why the flying fuck is it OK for tournaments to be this way? If you don't want the "most effective" strategy to be used in every situation, then the fucking strategy needs nerfed, or other strategies need buffed.

Furthermore, the main (justified) bitching came from the victims of high-level characters slaughtering Lost Souls. Shrine helped that out quite a bit, even if the world was underutilized. The leveling of the xp/drops on the PVE to equal of the PVP server hopefully will help that more peaceful world to flourish. I would go as far as to suggest that Shrine get an XP/drop *BOOST* over PVP so that it encourages population, and allows lower level players to be able to grow at a faster rate than their PVP-focused bretheren (esp. if PVP is getting xp perks).

I watched the old school massive team PVP battles that @Apherdite posted some time ago... THAT was EPIC. If you want to promote that sort of epicness, then the party size needs to be as big as it can be, so as to not allow friendly-fire to be an issue. 95% of all MMORPG spells and actions (if not more!) create friendly-fire immunity. Herocraft should follow that same line of thinking, if at all possible.

Bigger parties promote more collaboration, more use of Teamspeak and other chat channels, and ultimately the same thing that HC is promoting within its crafting restrictions and trade: more community playing.

PVP parties should be set at 25.
PVE at 15.
RPG/Adventure at 15.

-yav
While I know that Kainzo does not actually treat HC as a "PvP server", I have a hard time seeing it any other way. And in any sandbox MMO with PvP being the focus, Friendly Fire is on at all times, even for parties. Parties are only a method to allow "tracking" of HP, buffs/debuffs, and/or positioning via Map or overhead symbols.

And that fight was not fucking epic. I was there. It was lame as shit. We had 10ish people (with some lowbies) dicking around waiting for the freeper team to bring their 10 for a fight. We waited around for a god damn HOUR trying to let them get "prepared". While we were waiting, 10 more showed up (newerth / TC) with 3 paladins, a bard, and 2 fucking clerics. The paladin party destroyed us, and then freepers finally showed up to clean up what remained. It was a clusterfuck of AoEs and stacked support, with the winners being the ones with the most tank/support.

It may have looked fun from the outside, and the newerth/TC team had a blast I'm sure, but it was rife with class imbalance and just utter bullshit resulting from indecisive players and unlucky timing for us. An enjoyable battle to watch, but not to play in. I would prefer the game be at a point where that kind of battle can be fun for all sides involved, and I do not believe that it was the case in that instance.

And I've been in teamspeak for many of these "large fights", from multiple towns. (Umbra, TC, Newerth, freepers).
collaberation? HA! It's more akin to

"DUDE I NEED HELP I NEED HELP."
"SOMEBODY FUCKING HEAL ME!"
"GUYS WHERE ARE YOU?"
"WILL YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP SO I CAN TELL WHATS GOING ON!"
"GUYS WHERE ARE YOU FIGHTING?"
"WHERE DO I GO"
Everyone: "DUDE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP WE'RE FIGHTING!"

The type of players that play this server for the PvP are not the communicating type. From what I understand, C12 was the only one that ever actually was able to "coordinate" anything, and he's long gone. Umbra was successful at PvP due to us not needing much communication in order to understand what needed to be done, but even then, our TS was filled with random BS and stupid shoutouts. (In a few of my youtube videos you can see this, but if it was really bad, I typically took out the TS audio and threw in music instead, or just didn't upload the fight at all)



=========

To summarize everything: I don't really agree with 10 player parties, and never have. I like the 5 man setup, but I also think not having to worry about your 5 other people is something that should be addressed. You cannot and will not stop "zergs" from occurring. That's just the nature of a PvP based sandbox. You will see 10v10s, you will see 5v5s, and you will see 10v1's, 5v1s, and so on. That's how sandbox works. The "epicness" of fights as some call it, is also irrelevant to me. I just wish to be able to "play" with people that I am friends with, and I wish others to be able to do the same.

But what I do care about is the potency of AoE based classes in environments where "zerging" is occurring. You cannot (and should not) attempt to limit how much players can play with their friends, but you should not make the process so god damn beneficial. It needs to be possible to do so, but also maintain a non-chaotic level of balance when it happens. There should be an "upper limit" of benefits for AoE abilities, and party size is just one method of making that a reality.
 
Last edited:

Dsawemd

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Realities:
  • The Zergs are all in 1-2 towns.
With this 5 party size they will continue to Zerg using their town pvp-off to avoid all the inconveniences highlighted above, except for party heals/buffs.
  • Other towns can't similarly abuse the no-pvp town system because they are not as pvp focused.
They also can't band together with non-townies to take on the big bad Zerg. This effectively means that only the top one, two, perhaps three pvp towns have any chance at the objectives.

@Kainzo if you keep 5 man parties, you must remove no-pvp among town members. Otherwise not only have you encouraged the large town Zerg meta, you have doubly encouraged it by making it impossible to band up and fight these large towns.

IMO, if you want party size at 5, make it a reality. Right now in top tier pvp we do not have a party of 5, we have Town versus Town, with the requirement that there be some sort of AoE healer (cleric druid disciple) in every group of 5.
 

LightningCape

Holy Shit!
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Location
Republic City, Earth Kingdom
IMO, if you want party size at 5, make it a reality. Right now in top tier pvp we do not have a party of 5, we have Town versus Town, with the requirement that there be some sort of AoE healer (cleric druid disciple) in every group of 5.
This sounds kinda stupid if it's true (cant varify).
Starcraft_II_Zergling_by_Dazuro.png
 

Dsawemd

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
The Freepers and The Neighborhood watch are the two top pvp clans. Each clan is in a single town. When they are logged in, no one contests the cool new objectives because these town groups are stronger than party groups.
 

Delfofthebla

Legacy Supporter 4
Retired Staff
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Location
United States
Well, unless you actually create a system like the BattleArena plugin, you are always going to see large numbers of players holding these points, even if the party size is much lower.

Even on Bastion, when we had a party limit of 10, it was not uncommon to see 12-15 in big fights simply because the "had" the people to bring.

Now that there are actual objectives, this is going to be more true than ever. No amount of "party size" limit or "raid system" implementation will save you from this. If people want to capture a point and they have people, those people will come.

The only way to prevent such measures is to actually punish or prevent such behaviors, either through the mechanics of the plugin, or through the rules of the server.


But as far as the "AoE healer in every group" part is concerned. This is the nature of anything "competitive". We saw it in every single tournament before this day, and we'll see it from here on out. If it is more beneficial to have a healer in comparison to another DPS and there is some sort of "reward" involved, people are going to push for the best.

This, by the way, is something you all asked for on numerous occasions. It is also something I really did not like from the perspective of a PvP server. I enjoy this archetype for PvE matters, but when it comes to PvP, I do not appreciate it. However! The server wanted it, and it always had it.

With the addition of a "competitive styled" pvp event combined with a reduced party size to match our Tournament setup, these PvP hotspots have become full fledged competitive events, and are being treated that way by the players. They are now playing to win. What's even better, is that unlike a tournament, there are no formal rules in place. They can bring as many items, and as many players as they desire. Woohoo!~

And from what I've gathered just sitting around in the Freeper / Hollywood teamspeaks, the reason there is so much stacking of clerics / paladins in these things is because they have dubbed both classes with the term: "Broken as Fuck".
 
Last edited:

Egorh

Outcast
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Although people will always bring over 5 while raiding, or going to a conquest point I still think that the no-pvp in townships should be ripped out. If you are only able to zerg or have multiple parties (that can't hit eachother) while in one town it gives clear advantages to sticking in one town (not going for kingdom).

For AOE healing: They will probably stay OP. They are meant for groups and if they are too weak people will choose to replace them with someone who can do good damage. For group fights we probably want to give some sort of healing debuff (similar to how league of legends prevents stacking heal. Using one right after another makes the 2nd one weak), but this might not work with how HC PvP works. Also, both Druid and Cleric have pretty high 1v1 potential. Rinse and repeat the same combo as you kite and heal. The best way to deal with their 1v1 potential would be to implement more heals like Bloodgift (you can't self heal yourself)
 

LightningCape

Holy Shit!
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Location
Republic City, Earth Kingdom
If you are only able to zerg or have multiple parties (that can't hit eachother) while in one town it gives clear advantages to sticking in one town (not going for kingdom).
This
And from what I've gathered just sitting around in the Freeper / Hollywood teamspeaks, the reason there is so much stacking of clerics / paladins in these things is because they have dubbed both classes with the term: "Broken as Fuck".
They're not wrong. Cleric fullheal is laughably spammable. Got to lvl 50 ish last map and if say 3-4 people came to raid our swamp I literally couldn't die. When I maxed the only thing that could 1v1 me was a paladin.

As for paladin:
  • Free, long lasting,cheap, and short CD stun
  • Best armor
  • Amazing healings
  • Invul
  • Fullheal
  • Best mobility (horse)
  • Not to mention the left click damage while surviving for so long is crazy (more with fire enchants)
  • Things meant to counter pally (casters) get their dmg healed away
Broken as fuck sounds about right. Hope this gets fixed by the time I come back, seems my prediction of mass warrior wasn't so wrong.
 
Last edited:

Dsawemd

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Cleric changes
1. Giving them base 50-55 armor and tons of base Endurance (they use no stamina) so that to increase their Armor, it would cost them a ton of points. This would effectively lock them into their base armor but it would allow them to wear balanced, lore appropriate outfits.

2. Change Scaling on some of their skills. We need to make WIS less attractive, it is the 35+ wisdom Cleric that is most broken.
First thought: DivineBlessing now scales with Constitution. FullHeal now heals the target for the Cleric's total base HP, self healing reduction still in-place.
We could also add CON scaling to Dispel or their Invulns.

The problem with Cleric is that building Wisdom results in great, spammable heals. But what else would Cleric build? WIS is all they need right now, once they have defensive stats. If we lock them into 50 armor and add incentives for building CON, I think we will see a tankier, less heal spamming Cleric.
 
Top