- Joined
- Nov 25, 2012
- Location
- United States
I had originally planned to post this in this thread: http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/general-balance-concerns-discussion.45690/ however, I'll be having us discuss a lot of nitty gritty technical stuff about the attribute system itself, so I figured it was better off in it's own thread.
I believe our current system of Strength and Agility are faulted, from a balance perspective. Strength is supposed to be the "melee" stat, however, very few melee bother putting many points into it. Why is that? Well, because left click attacks, the primary form of melee damage, is already at a very high level, even without strength. Additionally, the damage increase from Strength is very low, meaning the attribute is not very valuable. The defensive statistics are much more rewarding, from a player perspective.
The same can be said about Agility, but the true issue is with Ranger. A ranger can focus on a very tank or caster type build, while still maintaining very high bow damage. They don't actually need any Agility points, which is not how we want it.
So, the system needs to change, and I don't just mean a few number tweaks. We need to discuss exactly how we think the attributes should effect these things, and then decide what numbers to attach to them.
Let me give a quick example of how weapon damage works for a random class.
This is Ninja:
The "item-damage" is the base damage that they deal with a weapon. At level 1, this is the exact weapon damage they deal. The "item-damage-level" is a multiplier that is added to the base damage. If the ninja is level 50, with a diamond sword, he would deal 39 + (0.3 * 49) damage (53.7). Notice how the first level is omitted from the multiplier.
However, with attributes, all we did is stick another number to the equation. Currently, strength is a "global" modifier. Meaning that regardless of what tool or weapon they are using, the damage will increase based on their strength. The current number for this multiplier is 0.35. If the Ninja is level 50 and has 30 strength, he will deal 39 + (0.3 * 49) + (0.35 * 30) damage with a diamond sword, which factors out to 64.2. The 30 strength gave him an extra 11 damage or so. Not bad, but not necessary, provided their are better incentives for the class.
Bow damage works in the exact same way, but with agility rather than strength. I'll post numbers for reference, but keep in mind that these numbers make absolutely no fucking sense at all. The "true" damage seems to go far beyond the final number due to arrows dealing damage based off of their velocity.
Here is Ranger:
At level 65, they do 10 + (64 * 0.4) projectile damage,which equals 35.6. Projectile damage is increased by 0.185 per Agility. If the level 65 Ranger also had 30 agility, he would deal 10 + (64 * 0.4) + (30 * 0.185), or 41.15 bow damage. It's up to you guys if you ever really wanna experiment with those numbers, but I haven't tested them in a while. Keep in mind that Bow Strength increases arrow velocity by 20%, further enhancing the final damage number. I would say that a ranger with that much agility would be dealing around 210 damage per shot, but I can't say for sure.
As you can see however, levels offer much more advantages than attributes, even though they are gained from the same actions. In very early stages of Attribute Development, I had removed all "per level" aspects of Herocraft, and replaced them with attribute based alternatives. However, due to the ever-drawing release date of the new map, and my lack of any major assistance, I decided to revert the changes. The current balance situation is undoubtedly due to this decision, but it was made to preserve what little balance we had left at the end of Bastion.
Anyways, I am of the opinion that there is little to no dependency on Agility or Strength for melee or ranged classes, and that it is an issue that needs to be resolved. There are several ways that I believe it can be done, but before laying those out for everyone, I'd prefer to gauge the thoughts of the team.
I believe our current system of Strength and Agility are faulted, from a balance perspective. Strength is supposed to be the "melee" stat, however, very few melee bother putting many points into it. Why is that? Well, because left click attacks, the primary form of melee damage, is already at a very high level, even without strength. Additionally, the damage increase from Strength is very low, meaning the attribute is not very valuable. The defensive statistics are much more rewarding, from a player perspective.
The same can be said about Agility, but the true issue is with Ranger. A ranger can focus on a very tank or caster type build, while still maintaining very high bow damage. They don't actually need any Agility points, which is not how we want it.
So, the system needs to change, and I don't just mean a few number tweaks. We need to discuss exactly how we think the attributes should effect these things, and then decide what numbers to attach to them.
Let me give a quick example of how weapon damage works for a random class.
This is Ninja:
Code:
item-damage:
Iron_Sword: 33
Diamond_Sword: 39
item-damage-level:
Iron_Sword: 0.29
Diamond_Sword: 0.3However, with attributes, all we did is stick another number to the equation. Currently, strength is a "global" modifier. Meaning that regardless of what tool or weapon they are using, the damage will increase based on their strength. The current number for this multiplier is 0.35. If the Ninja is level 50 and has 30 strength, he will deal 39 + (0.3 * 49) + (0.35 * 30) damage with a diamond sword, which factors out to 64.2. The 30 strength gave him an extra 11 damage or so. Not bad, but not necessary, provided their are better incentives for the class.
Bow damage works in the exact same way, but with agility rather than strength. I'll post numbers for reference, but keep in mind that these numbers make absolutely no fucking sense at all. The "true" damage seems to go far beyond the final number due to arrows dealing damage based off of their velocity.
Here is Ranger:
Code:
projectile-damage:
ARROW: 10
projectile-damage-level:
ARROW: 0.4At level 65, they do 10 + (64 * 0.4) projectile damage,which equals 35.6. Projectile damage is increased by 0.185 per Agility. If the level 65 Ranger also had 30 agility, he would deal 10 + (64 * 0.4) + (30 * 0.185), or 41.15 bow damage. It's up to you guys if you ever really wanna experiment with those numbers, but I haven't tested them in a while. Keep in mind that Bow Strength increases arrow velocity by 20%, further enhancing the final damage number. I would say that a ranger with that much agility would be dealing around 210 damage per shot, but I can't say for sure.
CARRYING ON
As you can see however, levels offer much more advantages than attributes, even though they are gained from the same actions. In very early stages of Attribute Development, I had removed all "per level" aspects of Herocraft, and replaced them with attribute based alternatives. However, due to the ever-drawing release date of the new map, and my lack of any major assistance, I decided to revert the changes. The current balance situation is undoubtedly due to this decision, but it was made to preserve what little balance we had left at the end of Bastion.
Anyways, I am of the opinion that there is little to no dependency on Agility or Strength for melee or ranged classes, and that it is an issue that needs to be resolved. There are several ways that I believe it can be done, but before laying those out for everyone, I'd prefer to gauge the thoughts of the team.
- Do you agree that this is an issue?
- If not, what do you think the real balance issues are right now. Are there any?
- If so, how would you solve it?
- With your proposed method, how will it affect other classes than the primary ones you thought of it for?
