RE: Skill Requirements (Full Version)

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Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 7:07:32)

@Zion: Then that would explain why epicduel makes up on average only 2% of the active users on artix games.
This game has even worse stigma about it than any other AE game in other gaming communities.



zion -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 10:00:53)

Although, you must admit that PVP games are harder to properly design/balance/execute than PVE games. Maybe they are just a bit over their heads here... although its still a charming game nonetheless.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 10:24:48)

Oh, they're more than just a bit over their heads.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 14:20:27)

There is a beauty in simplicity. If defenses were % based, then we would have to use a calculator to play every fight and most people would not want to do that. btw I read how you felt bludgeon had that "oummph" that other skills seem to lack. But if they made more skills cost 0 energy and brought passives back every class would have power in a different area.




Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 15:16:54)

You do not need a calculator to do rough percentages, and those who do are not going to be doing the math that already exists in the game.


Everything can be rounded to approximately 10% very very quickly.

Oh you have 38% Damage reduction? they have 500 damage?
boom drop to 50
boom multiply by 4
200ish damage, that took all of 5 seconds to do.

It's no more or less complicated than triple digit substraction.
Also like i said, it is impossible, in every sense of the word, to make strength properly balanced with flat reduction.
It will be in one of these configurations:

Useless at low end, underpowered at mid end, balanced at high end
Underpowered at low end, balanced at mid end, overpowered at high end
Balanced at low end, overpowered at mid end, broken at high end


Also, what is simple about reducing a different percentage of damage each time, and getting a different amount of percentage benefit from each stat point compared to your opponents stat points?

There is nothing simple or beautiful about all these factors that hinge on all these other factors that are not even related to your own character and are then usually modified by a tertiary force (and sometimes even more).



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 15:39:30)

I have no idea what you really say about % based defenses. But it sounds like one investment in tech would decrease a small % of energy damage taken.

It is not really strength itself that is the problem but it is the inability of the other classes(besides mage)to do damage with technology ,support, and dexterity with stat investments in other areas than strength. Part of the reason is lack of energy regeneration and the fact most people invest little to no points in energy at all unless they have the ultimate maxed. The other problem is that skills that scale on stats are pretty much useless unless you spam the stat. If there was say a 0 energy damage skill (like strike, gun, aux, robot) that scales on either of the other 3 stats then they would have the opportunity to do as much damage as a strength build.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 15:52:16)

It has nothing to do with "doing as much damage as a strength build".

Again: Unless you are using a formula like (damageTaken)/(damageTaken*3+defenceStat) which actually makes it so you cant tell the player how much they will reduce until it's already happened, it is literally impossible to balance flat gains because there is NO way to predict what kind of percentage gains each point gives a player, so in different situations you end up with massive advantages that just break the game. It's pure chaos when it comes to how stats interact with each other.

I have substantial training and i do game balance for a job, i also have been playing this game since 2009. You don't think with the amount of balance work i've done i haven't tried balancing flat numbers in turn based pvp? I've theorycraft revamped the entire class system for this game at least twice, and redone the stats at least three times as well. Flat reduction, no matter how much you try to fix it with diminishing returns, ALWAYS ends up in one of the three sates i listed. I have tried it many times. It doesn't work. This is why i gave up on it and am so adamant about needing to abolish it completely.


Investing in technology would increase your Resistance. Your resistance would be displayed as a percentage. When hit with energy damage, you will remove that percentage. This keeps it in line and takes out the need for rage, minimum damage, and damage multipliers being in the wrong place.

There is a reason that while doing such a big sweep on Adventure Quest, they decided to keep the percentage reduction system rather than replacing it with a flat one. If a flat one was better, they would have done it.


Another perfect example of something cuased by flat defense / resist numbers: Being able to lower the damage of a boss down to 30 and permanently tanking it.
You literally cannot make that fight balanced, because if you keep the damage where it is, it's too easy for tanks. If you raise it to make them challenging for tanks, you obliterate everybody who isn't a tank. See what i mean? You just can't do it.



DarkDevil -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 16:24:35)

PVP and PVE are two different games when it comes to balance.

in PVE a monster would have a stable slope of damage and defence fixed on all levels so all you have to do is to have a fixed assumed monster damage to fix defence percentage.

while in PVP you must put for the change of levels where 10% damage reduction at 20 dex and 50% at 100 dex won't be balanced due to scaling and how different builds could be , so a tank build can't be made untill lvl 40 while lvl 1-30 won't even have enough defence and will just dump into offensive stats.

so what would happen is stats losing their benfit per level so for lvl 10 to have 50% reduction will have 50 dex while for lvl 40 to get 50% will need 100 dex.

now tell me how damage will be assumed for a stable slope ?

i think i am getting an idea in this but it will be hard.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 16:37:06)

The thing is, you have some of the current system permeating into there, which is the assumption of strength being as powerful as it is.
The thing is, if the stats were actually balanced, you wouldn't NEED the extra percentage reduction because everything is balanced around having a total number of stat points, rather than specific numbers of specific stats. It would be balanced out with balanced stats because you have a similar number of points available, and there is no "optimal" distribution of points.

There are still more effective builds, however you would be building differently. Currently you build around stats. With a balanced system, you build around skills. Right now you pick a stat and find the best way to abuse it, rather than picking a skill and finding the best way to synergize with it without necessarily having to push one of your stats way higher than the rest.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 16:59:46)

Strength is overpowered for one reason, no other stat can do what it does: deal consistent damage each turn with no energy cost. If we gave that ability to an extant to other stats(MANY MANY other ways), then it would be more balanced.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 17:18:38)

It has nothing to do with the fact that it deals consistent damage with no energy cost, it has to do with the AMOUNT of damage being dealt.

That amount hinges entirely on your opponents defence/resistance. Regardless of how much control you think you have over it by pushing it, it is still always determined by something that is not on your character. This means you can never know how much of a benefit strength is going to give in comparison to other stats, because it is based on your opponents flat def/res.

The reverse is also true: You can never know how much of a benefit dex/tech are going to give in comparison to other stats because it is based on every single one of your opponents damage outputs. If it was % reduction you would always know, but because it isn't you never know.

Then you have HP, and its usefulness SEEMS tied to your def/res, but it is also tied to your opponents damage output, and again because of flat reduction you can never know how much benefit you are getting from HP.

The only stat you can ever actually know how much a player is going to benefit from is energy.

Now you can ask the question: How can you balance dex gains vs tech gains vs str gains vs support gains when it is literally impossible to know what those gains are until a battle has already started, AND those gains change every single time you fight a different build? You simply cannot actually calculate the effectiveness of the stats, which is why it is quite literally impossible to balance them. There is no formula that can output an effectiveness, which means the opposite holds true, in that there is no formula in which you can input an effectiveness to break it down into its parts to figure out what kind of gains a stat should have.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 20:19:28)

quote:

literally impossible to know what those gains are until a battle has already started, AND those gains change every single time you fight a different build?

What's wrong with that? Unpredictability is an intergral part of epicduel. We wouldn't play it if we knew the outcome of every single match.

quote:

The only stat you can ever actually know how much a player is going to benefit from is energy.


Not really... you don't really know how your opponent can tamper your energy until you see their skill tree and even after that, they can pull out cores.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 20:46:06)

Whats wrong with it is that it makes the game literally impossible to be balanced, like i have said many times. I'm going to stop responding to you now because you are blatantly ignoring things that have been presented to you in a logical manner by somebody with extensive experience. You're also twisting words in order to make your point of view look better. I am not willing to argue against points which do not actually exist because they have been fabricated by misusing words and skewing & heavily exaggerating concepts.

So instead ask yourself this: What ISN'T wrong with a system that fundamentally cannot be balanced in a game where balance comprises the entirety of meaningful gameplay?



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 22:14:13)

I am not ignoring it. I read every word. You are making it sound as though your opinions are facts. The literal definition of bigoted...

And if you can't balance using flat numbers, maybe someone else can.

quote:

What ISN'T wrong with a system that fundamentally cannot be balanced?

All of us have varying degrees of what balance means. Mine is that there should be many options of both builds and classes where none of them are "the best". Like you said rock, paper, scissor, with builds.

You are just suggesting that there is only one way: the restart button. It's like telling a classical musician I do not like classical music, all your years of training are useless and you should go find another occupation.

I'm am more than sure that there are more ways of balancing the game than pressing the reset button.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 22:35:31)


t is not bigotry. I have already explained why you cannot assign values to the stats, which means they literally cannot have any equilibrium with each other.

You are TOTALLY ignoring this fact, and claiming that you aren't is a bold faced lie to every single person that reads your post, and is a blatant insult to their intelligence.

I expected more from this thread, especially with how thorough i was in trying to explain things in a way that don't require you to have any training or experience to understand.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 23:00:07)

Someone tell me if I am summarizing Xendran's posts correctly or incorrectly.

He is basically saying that the unpredictability of the benefits in investing in flat stats is making the game fundamentally unable to be balanced.

Personally, I cannot see head to tail as what that has to do with balance. Unpredictability could make or break a game depending on the audience. Personally, the battle mechanics I like in epicduel are rage, deflections, blocks, crits, and the availability in choice of builds even though the last one could be way better than it is.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 23:22:35)

You aren't even talking about the right things. I don't know where you even thought luck factors were a part of this discussion because i have never mentioned them once outside of one instance of using block as an example for why diminishing returns are necessary. This shows that you havent actually fully read my posts, otherwise you wouldn't be able to confuse "Luck factor" and "unpredictability" the way you have. You cannot skim my posts, you should realize that by now.


Unpredictability in damage reduction refers to the additional percentage of damage reduction you get from X+n dex or tech compared to X dex or tech.
This value wildly changes based on your opponents strength which is what cuases unpredictability. You can never for any reason or under any circumstance predict how much of a percentage boost in your effective health you gain without having an opponent, which means you can never balance it with any other stat because its "value" is constantly changing based on who your opponent is.

Balance means all stats are equally valuable. The problem is that stats have no set value, they have an infinite number of values within a series.
Unpredictability also applies to every other stat and factor that relies on something outside of your character, but it has nothing to do with removing luck factors.
If anything, luck factors would be more viable to build around if you introduced balanceable stats and pseudoentropy because you could build around expected turn orders (knowing that certain luck elements are either guaranteed or extremely likely to occur on certain turns due to pseudoentropy)

Also, if anybody is wondering why you can balance PvE games that have flat values unlike PvP Games: It's because enemies in PvE games have predefined movesets and stats. If you had flat defences in a game where enemies were randomly generated out of a pool of movesets and potential stats, youd end up with it being just as imbalanced.



King FrostLich -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 23:42:19)

quote:

He is basically saying that the unpredictability of the benefits in investing in flat stats is making the game fundamentally unable to be balanced.



Because..... in the long run when certain items or any sort of stuff gives you enough amount of defenses, you can dump a hell lot of stats of strength since every stat scales addiditively/diminishing flat rate. If someone already has around 300+ defenses with barely any use of stats(thanks to armor switching, weapon enhancements and cores that add % of luck) they no longer need to invest on that particular stat and just SIMPLY DUMP EVERYTHING TO HP AND STRENGTH, thats why it's considered OP why strength builds remain dominant because defenses scale at a flat diminishing rate, slowing and BARELY even going to make up against strength damage. Xendran's idea of making defenses turn into % sounds similar to how Dota 2's defense(in their mechanics, armor) that scales by % in an asymptotic rate. This means armor gives you a certain % of defense rather than a flat, fixed number when adding amounts to it. It continuously increases at a diminishing rate THAT NEVER REACHES 100%.(otherwise every attack the enemy does to you, deals exactly 0).


In this game of Epicduel, typical strength builds have at least 550 damage. If you want to counter those types of builds via defense, you would need defenses of around 400+ to negate powerful damage. How do you do that? Of course dump everything to dexterity and technology but what happens to your strength and support? Exactly nothing. If you want to counter them via a normal build(5 focus or high abuse build) you also need luck to happen but will you deal enough damage against high strength users if they can deal higher damage and higher hp than you? Of course not. That's ridiculous.


Speaking of unpredictability, I actually find it fine about luck but the reason why it's broken(underpowered or overpowered) are


1.) Increases using flat rate but uses an independent chance formula. What does independent chance formula mean? It uses its own said % to happen when rolling the dice. This means if block is set to 20%(after calculating everything), it really is 20% resulting in either OP and UP results for the winning and losing side respectively.

2.) One sided. Luck is one sided because if one stat is more dominant than the other, it has a higher tendency to occur similar to statement no.1. Resulting in stat abuse.

3.) Minimum and maximum chance has plausible results. The main reason why strength builds are dominant is usually, they have 80 - 90 dexterity. With the maximum chance to block to 35% even if achieving a higher dexterity than them, it barely even helps since that's too low to occur and you still have to think of gun damage, ignoring blocks. It would have been way better if it was set to a max of 50% but meh. Game would become too complex and even more OP since several people now use it. The minimum chance has a very small chance of actually saving you. 1% - 2% barely saves you and the amount of turns in this game makes it so frustrating that it might never happen at all.






Mother1 -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 23:57:10)

I guess this is why I am seeing a rise in merc's in the game as well with high defenses. With that and their hybrid armor (which works best with high defenses) I am seeing them effectively stand up to their strength builds and many times effectively winning.

It is also because of this that I am hearing players screaming for hybrid armor to be nerfed due to it making even 550 strength builds do 30 damage.



Xendran -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/19/2014 23:59:25)

We need as many people as possible to realize that it is literally impossible (not figuratively impossible, or difficult) to balance the game without redoing the stats.

If we get enough support, we can get the devs to at least start doing it. It doesnt have to be done right away, but confirmation that they are working a revamp is all this game needs to get some positive PR roling.

Keep reading these four words, Titan and Rabble: Literally. Impossible. To. Balance.
At least come out one way or another on it. Either tell us youre going to revamp it, or admit that you are going to leave the game permanently broken so those with hope for a balanced future can get out while they can. Trust me when i say you REALLY don't want the "hopefuls" sticking around if you plan to leave it broken, because if enough time passes they will be the ones exposing how fundamentally broken various parts of the game are and it will hurt your PR and make other players much more cynical of balance updates.


Doesn't that last sentence seem familiar.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/20/2014 0:21:53)

quote:

Balance means all stats are equally valuable. The problem is that stats have no set value, they have an infinite number of values within a series.


Who would want equally valuable stats? One on the fundamentals of epicduel is that certain stats in certain places will beat other stats in other places. If you take that variety away, then there will surely be another exodus.



King FrostLich -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/20/2014 0:57:31)

quote:

Who would want equally valuable stats? One on the fundamentals of epicduel is that certain stats in certain places will beat other stats in other places. If you take that variety away, then there will surely be another exodus.


Unequal stats DOES NOT promote variety because it means there's a specific configuration of stats that is the best which promotes using only that configuration. All stats being equal means you won't be penalized for having a weird build or not stacking stats.



edwardvulture -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/20/2014 1:09:22)

how is that possible? I just don't see it. For example, the nature of just the first two stats, Health and Energy, differ in so many ways that the majority of players invest in Health one rather than then Energy. Health helps you survive and Energy allows you use your skills/cores. Just the difference between those two specific functions makes it impossible for all 6(or 7 as Xendran argues that focus is also a stat) stats to become equal.



King FrostLich -> RE: Skill Requirements (3/20/2014 1:28:02)

Equality in power can be had without equality of function. That's all I can say....



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