Truly fixing backstab

[The Crazy Animal]

What balance? "Lets hope I dont get rounded"

Player verse environment balance. I.e How easy or difficult the game is to play when you are simply out adventuring. If you raise the HP values or sharply increase a players ability to do damage then you make the game much easier. I.e. the PVE balance is shifted from normal to easy...

Any idea to fix backstab will need to take both PVP and PVE into account.

[Darmius]

Could always do what DAoC did and use different formula's for PVP and PVE.  Or just a blanket %dmg reduction on PVP.

[SluTFisHy]

Personally, I dont think raising the hitpoints 1-2 points per level per class would effect the game too much. On top of that a blanket dmg reduction of about 15% on pvp would even the playing field out fairly well.

It's a decent "temporary" fix.

[The Crazy Animal]

Could always do what DAoC did and use different formula's for PVP and PVE.  Or just a blanket %dmg reduction on PVP.

Currently MOBs don't use the same exact combat mechanics as players, so its already kind of different. (Mobs don't get real swings they use non-magical spells to fake the appearance of a players normal swings.)  However from a game mechanics stand point both Vitoc and myself agree that we'd like to have NPCs and PCs interact in the realm in a nearly identical manner. So keeping it different would be detrimental to that long term goal. I'm sure the logic behind this isn't 100% clear at the moment but that is where we'd really like to see things go.

Personally, I dont think raising the hitpoints 1-2 points per level per class would effect the game too much. On top of that a blanket dmg reduction of about 15% on pvp would even the playing field out fairly well.

It's a decent "temporary" fix.

A 1-2 HP per level gain would probably not produce a noticeable effect in PVP or PVE until it accumulated for 50 or so levels. However since it is also less then one to two swings worth of normal damage at any level along that course it hardly seems like an effective change. The type of change that I'm speaking of in terms of HP increases that would create an imbalance would be for example a flat +20 at say lvl 1. Basically If you can take any number of hp and put it on a character in an area appropriate for its level and can easy say it probably won't die now then that's bad for PVE balance. However I really don't think HP is the problem here rather its the damage.



Instead of using a blanket % method of reducing damage there are other ways to go about it that can be keyed in to balance in with the other combat game mechanics better. So reducing damage using one of these compartmentalized dynamic means could use something like:

Critical Hit Defense - Decreases the chance to be hit with a critical hit.
Critical Hit Damage Reduction - Decreases the damage dealt via a critical hit.

These types of damage reducing abilities could then be introduced on both armor and as a calculated character stat. I really do think that's two of the big combat abilities that is currently missing from the game.

Second I really do think players are getting too accurate at high levels. Which could be from AC and or Dodge being too low or from the ACC formula just having the wrong gain increase per level since this is predominately a higher level problem. Yes players should get better at swinging there weapon each level but they should also be getting better at avoiding being hit at the same time. Things that could help fix the avoiding being hit portion would be a level based AC blur effect where each level or each couple of levels you gain few points of base AC (ie AC that exists before equipping items.)

[Darmius]

Critical Hit Defense - Decreases the chance to be hit with a critical hit.
Critical Hit Damage Reduction - Decreases the damage dealt via a critical hit.

Ohh goody resilience, if you can't fix it throw more variables at the problem.  Okay it's not that bad of solution but it should be a last resort IMO.  Major mud has too many layers of crap on top of crap that need to be fixed before more should be added.  Actually DR could be replaced/change with resilience, and it would keep plate from being nearly invincible at low levels.

However from a game mechanics stand point both Vitoc and myself agree that we'd like to have NPCs and PCs interact in the realm in a nearly identical manner. So keeping it different would be detrimental to that long term goal. I'm sure the logic behind this isn't 100% clear at the moment but that is where we'd really like to see things go.

Building NPC's like PC's is a really good change and it will probably help close the gap between PVP and PVE.  Yet you are going to end up re-writing all of combat with this change, and frankly with the development cycle...  it's going to be forever.  Don't get me wrong, it need to be re-done, but mud players are going to start dieing due to old age.  %dmg modification would be a simpler implementation.

Second I really do think players are getting too accurate at high levels. Which could be from AC and or Dodge being too low or from the ACC formula just having the wrong gain increase per level since this is predominately a higher level problem. Yes players should get better at swinging there weapon each level but they should also be getting better at avoiding being hit at the same time. Things that could help fix the avoiding being hit portion would be a level based AC blur effect where each level or each couple of levels you gain few points of base AC (ie AC that exists before equipping items.)

I agree ACC formula's need to be balanced.  But I don't agree with AC gains per level.  Adding AC is going to just throw off ACC formulas even more.  Maybe using level difference as an ACC modifier in pvp would be a better idea.  Down side to this would be unlimitied pvp ranges, high level players would be near invincible.  Yet it could be balanced with alignment hits, npc bounty hunters etc.

[The Crazy Animal]

Ohh goody resilience, if you can't fix it throw more variables at the problem.  Okay it's not that bad of solution but it should be a last resort IMO.  Major mud has too many layers of crap on top of crap that need to be fixed before more should be added.  Actually DR could be replaced/change with resilience, and it would keep plate from being nearly invincible at low levels.

LOL... Actually its just a couple of missing content control variables, I'd even suggest putting in similar ones for back stab too. It isn't and should not be thought of as a game engine fix though. As ability variables like these only allow you to fine tune game play via the content. Which can only address one portion of the 2 sided problem.

I'm not a huge fan of the current DR system either and personally if I were to change it to suit my own vision I would probably want to use a percentage reduction scheme with a max soak value rather then a straight value as it is now.  So DR would be shown as something like 20%:10 where you would soak 20% of a hit up to the point of 10 damage. This would make it rather easy to design balanced armor. Since you could then proportionately adjust the max damage soak to fit with-in the damage ranges for a given level bracket. And at the same time remain very flexible in both low or high damage situations by adjusting the max damage soak and or percentage. As well as also allowing you to still express the old style of DR by using 100%:Value which is a good transitional factor to have.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by resilience. Would you like to explain it?

Building NPC's like PC's is a really good change and it will probably help close the gap between PVP and PVE.  Yet you are going to end up re-writing all of combat with this change, and frankly with the development cycle...  it's going to be forever.  Don't get me wrong, it need to be re-done, but mud players are going to start dieing due to old age.  %dmg modification would be a simpler implementation.

Actually it doesn't change as much for combat as you would think other then NPCs would now need to attack as players do. And all those formulas and methods are already in place for players. So a lot of the basic framework is already in place. So the big changes for mob combat would be in the logic method to sequence the attacks and spells i.e. the AI to control it. And on the data side creating the stats, stat increases per level and data structure to dynamically generate their spell lists. Once that happens though combat formulas would then work exactly the same for both PVP and PVE and any changes to those formulas would only need to be done once. Also from a content stand point its a much needed change since it would then enable us to start re-using mob instances across a broader player level range. That's something that would speed up content development and that is something that is still currently very outdated and tedious.

As far as %dmg modification goes it I still kind of think the larger portion of that issue revolves around the damage increase for crits rather than damage done via normal hits.  So it might be a good place to start just by reducing that damage calculation.

I agree ACC formula's need to be balanced.  But I don't agree with AC gains per level.  Adding AC is going to just throw off ACC formulas even more.  Maybe using level difference as an ACC modifier in pvp would be a better idea.  Down side to this would be unlimitied pvp ranges, high level players would be near invincible.  Yet it could be balanced with alignment hits, npc bounty hunters etc.

LOL Unlimited PVP ranges and they call me crazy...

Having an AC gain per level wouldn't change anything in the base ACC formula. This is because your ACC and Your ACC's miss percentage are two different formulas. If you have an ACC of 200 or 360 will still remain that exact value that no matter what your targets AC is. AC in terms of ACC is only used to calculate how often you should miss a given target.

Keep in mind the end result that is wanted here is to reduce the damage per round that a target player would take and that this effect is able to compensate for the the damage and ACC increases that is gained via leveling. I.e creating a effective counter balance for what I consider to be over bloated ACCs that are encountered at higher levels.

The gain in AC would just be the equivalent of some one putting on a piece of armor with a higher AC value. And this would actually be fairly easy to balance out and test for since its very easy to create a number of AC gauged rings to test it with. All testing really takes is taking two exact characters of a given level,race,class,encum and placing them in the arena and you fight them with no Armour and a non acc modified weapon. You record the base fight stats and decide a value to attempt to reduce the ACC by. Then by using the AC gauged rings you attempt to key in the amount of ACC you want to reduce via AC for that level set. Once the values have been keyed in all it takes is creating the formula.

And yes having an AC gain per level would actually provide you with a lvl difference based ACC modifier because AC is used to calculate your ACC's miss percentage based on your targets AC. So if you have a few levels worth of AC and ACC gain on your opponent that would be the level difference modifier. I.e You would appear to be slightly harder to hit and they would appear to be slightly easier to hit even using identical characters in all other ways but level.

The current PVE mob ACC values would however need to be re-adjusted slightly though to compensate which is kind of a pain in the butt. However that's a better option then to only make the "Phantom counter balance AC" work in PVP.

[Darmius]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by resilience. Would you like to explain it?

Resilience is a character attribute that reduces the chance to receive critical strikes or spell critical strikes, reduces the effect of mana drain spells, reduces the damage taken from critical strikes and spell critical strikes, and reduces the damage taken from players overall.

World of Warcraft skill - Resilience

[The Crazy Animal]

Resilience is a character attribute that reduces the chance to receive critical strikes or spell critical strikes, reduces the effect of mana drain spells, reduces the damage taken from critical strikes and spell critical strikes, and reduces the damage taken from players overall.

World of Warcraft skill - Resilience

Ah ya I never got into wow its all graphical and stuff ;p...

The thing I don't really like about Resilience as they describe it is that has multiple functions combined into the the one ability. Its better from a balance stand point to have each one of the abilities separate and individually accessible. However I do really like that they increase the amount needed to get the same % value as level increases. Which is the type of integral counter balancing system that mmud really lacks for many of its formulas.

[ThunderGod]

what is it about bses that need to be fixed?  i dont really see anything wrong with them, other than that all these retards that make mystics or whatever dodge EVERYTHING just about

[schwagg]

what is it about bses that need to be fixed?  i dont really see anything wrong with them, other than that all these retards that make mystics or whatever dodge EVERYTHING just about

Backstabs were far inaccurate before some adjustments were made. The most recent adjustments brought bs acc to about 80% maximum. This still needs tuning, but is better than it used to be by far.

[Dragon]

u max backstab %80 dumb

u backstab level 10 when u level 50 u backstab %100 not %80

u one level =  1/0 ac backstab   u 10 level = 10/0 ac backstab

ac no help ac backstab dodge help ac backstab  dr help backstab damage