Xendran
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quote:
I think we forgot how to be efficient when we spend time working with balance.
What you're forgetting is the wow-factor of skills, combined with the actual enjoyability of classes. When you give every class a big load of minorly effective skills and then make it so you can barely use them due to energy, you get a very lackluster game.
This is the sole reason that with something like my class revamps i made every single one of them VERY powerful.
When i returned not long ago, i remember saying "Wow, that's powerful, i could make a build around it" when I was testing out bludgeon. Every skill should have a similar effect on players.
Also, it's only inefficient if you do not have the correct mindset, which unfortunately is true of the developers. Talented artists and programmers, not the same caliber of talent or passion in the actual mechanics design and balance department.
For example, it took me under an hour to design the entirety of my Dark Mage class. I'm not even close to the skill level of titan and rabble at programming though. This is why i've been saying for a long time, they need a dedicated balancer in their staff that has the power to veto any and everything that titan and rabble suggest in terms of mechanics and balance.
They are very skilled programmers, Nightwraith and Charfade are amazing artists, and Cindy has produced some awesome storytelling but they are not prepared to truly be mechanics designers. Another thing that confirms this to me is how simple epicduel was when it started. A person with a true PASSION for balancing a game would have never left the mechanics so simple, as it makes them so abusable when striving towards a player versus player game.
I am in no way trying to insult titan or rabblefroth, they are both extremely intelligent individuals and i have watched them get better and better at programming (especially Titan) over the course of the years that I've been here, I just feel that they need to take a step back and get some serious help in the mechanics department. They have good ideas, but the execution of those ideas is what really either makes it great, or drives it into the ground.
I also feel that they have been in their positions for too long, and have not spent enough time playing other games, to really be able to get into the mindset of a player, and what a player would enjoy. This is also true of the available microtransactions.
Other games have put time into things like item skin transfers, effects that glow, things that make you really stand out or let you make your character fit a certain theme. These have been wildly successful.
A caster mage, for example, could have his/her armor replaced with an effect that turns his/her entire body into glowing plasma, to fit the theme of plasma spells and energy control. A blood mage could have bloodied armor, or more brutalized and damged looking weapon skins available.
The lack of passion or true correct mindset also severely impacts the speed at which balance updates are released. I know i use myself as an example a lot, but my initial passion for epicduels balance is what singlehandedly got me into my current mindset for balance, and allowed me to become both the Vice President and Head of Mechanics/Balance for where i'm at now. When you look at something like my threads, you see the speed at which interesting mechanics are created, tested and tweaked. This is undoubtedly faster AND more drastic than the kinds of balance changes we see, especially with somebody who has enough experience actually battling in this game that you can predict entire battles in your head at a very fast rate. This is the kind of mindset and efficiency you need to properly balance your game. The entirety of the Dark Mage class was created in under an hour, and while obvioulsy not perfectly balanced has no true glaring flaws when compared with the other revamps of classes. Something like tech mage recieving Battery Backup is what I would consider a glaring flaw, but I cannot truly fault the developers for not realizing it at the time of implementation.
With Titan and Rabble's programming skills, and a DEDICATED balancer we could be seeing balance changes more frequently than once a week, let alone the current time it takes. Not only that, but a balancer would have time to spend actually playing the game to get the utmost feel for the balance without having to worry about taking time away from the programmers, time which is EXTREMELY valuable. As much as i don't like that the developers do not play the game anywhere near enough to balance it, every second they spend logged in is a second they could be improving the back-end aspects of the game and implementing systems for the future.
Having balance updates take so long and be so minor is taking away from the time they could be spending improving the security, tightening up the implementation of features, improving the engine to allow for more complex mechanics to be put in place, and so many other things that Titan and Rabble are capable of, but are not able to do due to them also having to take on the responsibility of balancing, which they are not prepared for. Dark Mage took me only an hour to have it at a near-finalized product. Can you imagine if epicduel got a new class every 6 months, that did not break the balance and had interesting, balanced, completely original skills? A dedicated balancer could make that possible.
Titan especially, I have seen get so much better at programming than he was back in 2009. It's a GIANT amount of progress, and EpicDuel Omega was one of the finest examples of this. The problem is that the severely damaged balance prevents players from seeing this. The core system is a wonderful idea that makes it so much easier to implement all kinds of new skills, but they are barely able to take advantage of it. The fact that they have now multiplied health and energy has fixed the previous rounding issues and allows for many more interesting percentage based skills, and even percentage based skills with decimals. There is so much potential still in this game that is just not being taken advantage of, and the poor balance is not only preventing the developers from reaching this potential, but it also prevents the players from seeing this potential. This means that not only does the time have to be split on balance, but they have to deal with attempting to keep the community in a reasonable state. It's a very bad position to be in, and it is likely extremely stressful on the developers.
I never saw this before i became a developer myself, but you have no idea the kind of stress that attempting to keep players happy while also pushing updates that seem like they have substance to them, potential overworking due to determination, and community backlash causes.
Whoever it is, it does not matter, as long as it is a logical minded person with a true passion for balance. It could be me. It could be you. It could be somebody we've never seen or heard of before. But it has to be done, for the developers sake (and sanity), and for the future livelihood of EpicDuel, before the playerbase dwindles further than it already has.
This is a post that I feel should be read by everybody that plays this game, so they can understand WHY the game is the way it is, rather than simply assuming that the developers are not capable of creating a great game.
< Message edited by Xendran -- 1/30/2014 16:03:25 >
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