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Addressing the Bigger Picture: Player-Monster Asymmetry in Game Balance Changes and its Implications

 
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1/4/2025 23:49:52   
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Gateless
Member

Addressing the Bigger Picture
Player-Monster Asymmetry in Game Balance Changes and its Implications


Bare with me, because I will be presenting a philosophical argument and not a mathematical one—because while I can provide individual examples that involve mathematics, the core argument itself cannot be relegated to the domain of number crunching. Because I think that these are important points to raise that focuses on the bigger picture, I will make this post despite it lacking the number of equations and data typically associated with posts in this sub-forum. Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone of an ageless aphorism: when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is to say that by being too narrowly focused, one easily loses sight of the bigger picture.

To be brief, the main point I want to make is simply that game balance changes, on the whole, needs to account for and potentially modify monster-sided behavior as well. Overly focusing on player-sided behavior in a narrow manner, results in solutions that end up being more akin to "retconning" the power of the player to produce semblances of balance. Rather than producing a game that is both balanced, and coherent, in the sense that the game becomes actually intuitive to play—which should be an essential part of the goal. That said, all this comes with the massive caveat of how small the AQ team is, and what is and isn't feasible for the developers to pull off. That is something I won't attempt to address in this post, aside from stating my acknowledgement with regards to practical limitations.


Example 1Nonsensible Monster Stats

One example of the relevance of monster-sided behavior is that, as a result of the (good and much needed) changes to player stats in recent years, monsters now have, on the whole, nonsensible stat distributions—due to archaic investment in DEX for hit chance. And these nonsensible stat distributions do effect gameplay, with the simplest and most prominent example being an effect of the Initiative calculation: (LUK + STR/2 + INT/2 + DEX/2)/2. Sparing numerical details, this implies that players need a larger Mainstat and-or LUK investment than they would be inclined to intuitively think (without knowing the actual formula for Initiative and the actual stat distributions of monsters), to boost their Initiative chance by the amount they expect. Put simply, it is non-intuitive for players to expect a full investment in 2 Mainstats in monsters, when he or her only runs 1 Mainstat.

By virtue of the reasoning provided (for how the player would intuitively think): while players might be inclined to think that a full stat investment in 1 Mainstat and LUK, along with an Initiative boosting armor, would be sufficient to provide guaranteed first turn Initiative on standardly scaled monsters at Level 150, this turns out to be false. An Ambush Potion is needed on top of that as well—and also you can trim off your single Mainstat and-or LUK to specific numbers while still getting this guarantee—which is extremely non-intuitive in terms of gameplay mechanics, and contingent on the player actually knowing precise numbers and formulas. The caveat here is that many older monsters (i.e. by and by large the monsters in the game), have a combination of Melee and Ranged attacks; so simply offloading the DEX stat on monsters to a non-Mainstat, even if that were feasible, will adversely effect their coded attacks. For this reason, I am merely pointing out the problem without suggesting a solution that I think is viable.


Example 2Nonsensible Monster Defenses

Let's discuss another example and an issue that is possibly even less practically mendable (given the size of the AQ team), however a major game balance issue nevertheless: statistical non-uniformities in monsters. While elemental non-uniformity is something veteran AQ players regularly come across and discuss (both in relation to monsters and player equipment), something that is often overlooked even by veteran players, is statistical monster MRM non-uniformity. In the Data Science tab of the spreadsheet generated by Nivp, one can clearly see that, statistically speaking, monsters have an over 20 point disparity between their Melee Defense and their Ranged and Magic Defenses. Specifically, the averages are 63.59 for Melee, 40.95 for Ranged, and 39.67 for Magic. This also doesn't even touch on the non-uniformity in monster attack damage types, alluded to earlier, which is a far lesser issue (and not even something Nivp has statistics on).

That is to say that by using Ranged or Magic damage (with Magic being marginally better in this regard), the player is, in practice and on average, obtaining a major boost to hit chance for free. And vice versa, by using Melee damage, the player is effectively reducing their hit chance by over 20 points in monster MRM, on average. It does not take complicated mathematics to conclude that this effects both gameplay and balance. It is also needless to say that none of this is intuitive for the average player, unless said player has actually seen the statistical breakdown of AQ monsters directly—something which under normal gameplay circumstances is as far removed from gameplay as humanly possible. And yet all this directly impacts the player's metaphorical mileage in AQ.


These are not the only examples, where either: 1. non-uniform modifications (i.e. modifications intended at addressing player-sided behavior in exclusivity), due to monsters being left the same as before, produces actual gameplay implications that are sub-optimal or non-intuitive for the player (accounting for player intuition, being an important aspect of game design). Or, 2. monster-sided behavior needs to be looked at and modified, for the sake of producing a balanced and coherent game that is intuitive to play, and without a requirement on the part of the player, to find and look at hidden information or statistics of the game under the hood. However, since the central point here is not niche but far-reaching, I want to be brief and conclude here.

Lastly, I'd like to state that I am not saying that players that have more knowledge of the game and its mechanics, shouldn't have an advantage over players that don't. The fact that players with more game knowledge have an advantage is true of any game; not just AQ. What I am suggesting is that, due to haphazard and asymmetric implementations in a game with hardcoded symmetries, the advantage provided by such knowledge in AQ is so disproportionally important, that the game may as well be, in certain respects, asking of all players to have such knowledge, simply to enjoy the game and to play it in a manner which does not drastically subvert his or her expectations. Which is a fault that falls purely on game design in any reasonable assessment; not on the player.

_____________________________

“Thus, because the wise do not find that an illusory horse and elephant are a horse and an elephant, they do not qualify as nonexistent, but because they are found by fools, they qualify as existent.”
Post #: 1
1/5/2025 19:45:14   
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  Ward_Point
Armchair Archivist


Summarizing the above:

1a) Monster stats are problematic
1b) Due to Formulas not being well known to Players, the value of Initiative as an effect is reduced. As it stands, the value of Initiative is already reduced due to 2 Mainstat Monsters vs Typically Single Mainstat Players

2) Based on average MRM across monsters in the Database, Warriors have a tendency to be more disadvantaged in battle compared to Rangers and Mages.
AQ  Post #: 2
1/5/2025 20:06:35   
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Sapphire
Member

The stat revamp moved the blocking and BTH help from both dexterity and luck to baseline power w/o a 2nd or 3rd stat needing to be trained, while leaving most monsters with dexterity. The only thing dexterity is providing to monsters is the boost to initiative, unless they are using both ranged and melee attacks. I will say, that there are many monsters with both STR and DEX trained but only attack with 1, either melee or ranged. Furthermore, the fact players no longer "need" DEX means they're free to train things like CHA and END. I would bet more players train END than before the stat revamp, and also because IMO the positive reasons to hybridize in most cases do not outweigh what END is providing. I often wonder if instead of killing DEx's addition to blocking, they should have only had it provide blocking to Ranged, and then INT provided blocking to Magic, and STR provided blocking to Melee. These blocking boosts would have countered END's HP value, and dodge mechanics would be way more dependent on specific MRM attack types instead of universally being applied.

ANyway, The power gained by the player is vastly more than the style bonuses provide, and there is a massive need to buff many monsters. We even still have many monsters with INT trained but no MP bar.

Monsters need a redesign, and staff have acknowledged that a monster revamp is perhaps being planned. My hope is that this is done properly, even if a lot of time and effort is required. I would hope that we do not see a simple slapped on idea and we're done.

I used to think giving monster dex something would be good enough, but other GBI topics have led me to believe that the monster revamp not only should be a more in-depth endeavor, but should be done before any widespread and wholesale changes are made to any one singular mechanic (nerfs to specific things mentioned in other GBI's) I think a monster revamp , once completed, would provide more clarity into tackling everything else.

I did not know that average MRM on monsters was at such a disparity. This is good to know, and it also further highlights the need to look at everything monster have and do. Perhaps , if it isn't already the case, (and it might be due to the OP's knowing this) that the monster database have a feature that tracks each monster's MRM and showcases an average that can be looked at on the fly, so the devs can make informed decisions when designing monsters to ensure the average amongst the MRM's are fairly equal.

< Message edited by Sapphire -- 1/5/2025 20:45:11 >
Post #: 3
1/6/2025 20:01:44   
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Telcontar Arvedui I
Member

I believe that while fixing / updating all the monsters' stats and MRM in one go is an undertaking of nigh-impossible proportions, there might be a more manageable solution, depending on the certain conditions.

We know that each story-quest (The Last Ride Finale) or location (eg. Northlands via Crossroads) draws their monster encounters from a select pool, whether they be familiar monsters we know, or completely new monsters with different artwork and mechanics. And we know that the staff have been setting aside time to update older quests (namely the Devourer Saga). As these content get released or updated, we could/might see monsters getting updated, by moving points allocated in DEX (if completely unneeded) to, say, END or CHA, as well as getting MRM adjusted to present a more uniform defense.

However, this should be entirely up to staff discretion. Some existing monsters have deliberately skewed MRM defenses, simply because narratively or thematically, people expect - intuit, even - that kind of bias in defense against different forms (M/R/M) of attacks. And DEX also serves as a major save roll for Burns, among other things, so yea, Burn-focused playstyles have an additional point of complaint - but if the devs start to reallocate all DEX points to END or CHA for all monsters, wouldn't that simply result in complaints from users who employ statuses that roll against those monster stats, saying the meta shifted against them? Another solution could have the monsters end up with maximum (or near-maximum) allocation in their attacking mainstat and LUK (since LUK is the overarching minor save stat), and then distribute the remaining points evenly across the remaining 4 stats to provide for equal defenses against any save-roll-related stratagems the player can come up with. But that would end up with monsters having a 250/70/70/70/70/220 (example) stat spread that is just jarring - or worse, misleading.

So back to the "drawing monster encounters from a select pool" part - IMO that might be enough to apparently resolve the problems outlined in the OP. Through carefully picking and assembling the encounter pool, supplemented by behind-the-scenes update of a select few monsters, devs can, under a close-to-realistic workload, release content with an encounter pool that is statistically unbiased towards all M/R/M offenses, AND at the same time offer players a semblance of control over Initiative rolls with a mix of monsters with high (double-mainstat plus LUK) and (single-mainstat with 0 LUK) low stat allocations. The overarching problem still exists if we look at the game's monster database - but in realistic gameplay we can get as unbiased as can be.

< Message edited by Telcontar Arvedui I -- 1/6/2025 20:07:08 >
AQ  Post #: 4
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