How to Balance Guests (Full Version)

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The_element -> How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 15:55:30)


Sorry for the click-bait title in advance. Guests are legitimate strategy, except when used with hyper offensive classes such as chaosweaver, where guests are used as meat shields to absorb damage and debuffs. However, outright removing guests limits playstyle and there are many viable ways of removing guest cheese on hyper offensive classes without banning guests from the inn. I don’t believe guests are problematic on less offensive classes, as they more drawn out battles and guests typically get one-shotted by the increased damage of the bosses.

Currently there’s an equal chance for the boss to target the player and guests. With two guests there’s a 1/3 chance to be hit and with one guest there’s a 1/2 chance to be hit by the boss, so overall there’s a 2/3 chance for the player to be protected, until the guests get one-shotted.

I think a new variable can be brought in called ‘aggro factor’. Let’s define the aggro factor of a class as the probability for the boss to attack the player regardless of the number of guests, and this will vary for each class, so that cryptic has a different probability of being attacked than chaosweaver for example. To add perspective, the current ‘aggro factor’ is 1/3 when using 2 guests.

Let’s give most classes the ‘default aggro factor’, which is X, where X is some value empirically found from player testing. For example, X could be 1/2 or 2/3 or 3/4. This will be done universally to game engine 15.0.27 , to make the implementation of this variable more easy and quick. For some classes they will have their own aggro factor, here are some examples:

- For chaosweaver the aggro factor is 100%, so the probability of being attacked by the boss to attack the player regardless of the number of guests is 100%, so guests cannot be used as meatshields.
- For doomknight v2 the aggro factor is 100%, so the probability of being attacked by the boss to attack the player regardless of the number of guests is 100%, so guests cannot be used as meatshields.
- Other offensive classes can have high aggro factor
- For cryptic the aggro factor is 10%, so the probability of being attacked by the boss to attack the player regardless of the number of guests is 10%, so guests cannot be used as infinite source of damage
- For ninja the aggro factor is 20%, so the probability of being attacked by the boss to attack the player regardless of the number of guests is 20%, so guests cannot be used as infinite source of damage
- Other defensive classes can have low aggro factor

Also, for some classes that want to be encouraged to use guests, they can have:
a) high aggro factor if defensive class (guests will be protected) e.g. pirate
b) low aggro factor if offensive class (guests will be meatshields) – no class should be in this category, but it is an option for the developers
If desired by the developers, the aggro factor can scale to CHA for certain classes.

Hopefully adding ‘aggro factor’ will add increased depth to Dragonfable’s gameplay and will not limit playstyles. I would be grateful for people from the discord and the forums to critique this suggestion. Thanks in advance.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 16:37:31)

Instead of rolling out complicated and redundant changes, it would be so much simpler if guests were completely disallowed allowed into the Inn.
There have been literally dozens of accommodations made to ry and balance guests, and they're still awkward and challenge-breaking.

This is increasingly approaching the v1 argument and has only gone on to show how much better for the game it would be to block them entirely than to account for a hundred fiddly edge cases that then go on to restrict future design.




TFS -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 17:00:37)

Guests are literally designed to make fights easier. The portion of the game that's intended to be challenging was not designed with guests in mind (or at least the vast majority of it wasn't). I think everyone can agree with these statements, and then use them to conclude that guests are the problematic variable.

DragonFable's design/balance mentality has been, ever since DoomKnight was revamped, about altering or restricting problematic content, rather than warping the entire game to accomodate it. Which is what your suggestion of adding something to every single class in the game would be. Not to mention how illogical it is (or at worst, entitled) to assume the developer would drop everything they're currently working on in order to do something that clearly would require extensive development time.

My personal opinion would be that restricting guests from the Inn would be the easiest and most intuitive solution, and I know my opinion isn't a particularly unique one amongst other players. Nor would it go against DF's established model with respect to game balance, nor do I think guests are a problematic for what they were initially designed for (crutches while questing). But the solution that the game seems to be going with is altering guest scaling and/or mechanics, and provided it's done in a way that actually solves the problem (though I can't imagine any non-convoluted way in which it could) I'd be more than delighted with it, and imagine those with similar opinions would be too.

In any case, though I respect the amount of thought you've put into this post, I think the fact that it demands individual classes be altered rather than global guest functions precludes it from being a plausible solution.



The_element -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 17:43:18)

@Erosionseeker

quote:

This is increasingly approaching the v1 argument and has only gone on to show how much better for the game it would be to block them entirely than to account for a hundred fiddly edge cases that then go on to restrict future design.


I don’t think the arguments for v1 in the inn is comparable to guests. Verlyrus already said that he doesn’t want to restrict all guests (you can check the discord for context) and the change to guest health a while back proves this.

@TFS

quote:

DragonFable's design/balance mentality has been, ever since DoomKnight was revamped, about altering or restricting problematic content, rather than warping the entire game to accomodate it. Which is what your suggestion of adding something to every single class in the game would be. Not to mention how illogical it is (or at worst, entitled) to assume the developer would drop everything they're currently working on in order to do something that clearly would require extensive development time.


quote:

In any case, though I respect the amount of thought you've put into this post, I think the fact that it demands individual classes be altered rather than global guest functions precludes it from being a plausible solution.


Firstly, I want to emphasize that guests and doomknight v1 are not comparable to one another- it’s a false comparison. Secondly, Verlyrus has already mentioned he doesn’t want to blanket ban guests from the inn and has taken steps to mitigate some of the problems of guests, such as, decreasing the guests health pool. On the discord, he said he was looking into other options such as targeting only the player in the inn or gaining bonus for each guest. If guaranteeing inn bosses target the player are possible, then the suggestion with aggro factor should also be possible. I also said:

quote:

Let’s give most classes the ‘default aggro factor’, which is X, where X is some value empirically found from player testing. For example, X could be 1/2 or 2/3 or 3/4. This will be done universally to game engine 15.0.27 , to make the implementation of this variable more easy and quick.


This would be a universal change to the game engine, so would not require a change to each individual class. It’s kind of like how the changes to bonus to hit rolling from 100 to 150 meant that each skill in the game didn’t have to be changed. I also said ‘for some classes they will have their own aggro factor’ and gave a handful of examples, so it’s not like I’m saying every class should have its own aggro factor. Apologies for any miscommunication and thank you for the feedback.



TFS -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 18:05:48)

No one has said guests are equivalent to DoomKnight V1. Both posts are citing the design mentality that began with the removal of DoomKnight V1. Please do not straw-man.



The_element -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 18:26:48)

@TFS

quote:

No one has said guests are equivalent to DoomKnight V1. Both posts are citing the design mentality that began with the removal of DoomKnight V1. Please do not straw-man.

I’m not constructing a straw-man, I’m saying the problem with doomknight v1 is not comparable to guests in the inn. One is only really problematic with hyper offensive classes like chaosweaver in the inn and the other has 421% base damage and beats almost all fights in 7 turns because of life carve. A skill that guarantees victory unless the boss does something like full heals or one-shots the player.





aryc0110 -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 19:34:29)

Actually...
This suggestion, with some tweaks, could be implemented pretty effectively as far as I can tell.

If it were to base 'aggro', instead of on individual classes, on types of buffs/debuffs, and worked as a binary rather than RNG. It could be based on a single individual buff/debuff too. Enemies targeting based on whether an MPM buff or debuff is present would fix the most problematic part of guests. The target with the greatest MPM debuff/least substantial buff is attacked, with the exception being when the buffs/debuffs are equal between two targets or there are no buffs/debuffs present. This would mean that as long as Cryptic has its shield up, its guests would be hyper-focused, and as long as Chaosweaver's gambit is up, guests wouldn't be hit at all and you'd be forced to face tank 60%/120% additional damage. It'd also give the illusion that enemies are actually intelligent and won't just slam into the guy who is tanking all of the hits.

I'm not the best at game balance so I'll leave the suggestion up for others to pick apart, but an initial run-through of this in my head would make guests actually interesting to play with and require different strategies than playing solo, with its own unique challenges as opposed to the current system of using them as an outright crutch.

I also don't know how hard or easy this would be to implement.

EDIT: Maybe MPM/BPD would be better, with MPM having more weight-per-point than BPD would if this is possible, since MPM is generally stronger.



asgaron -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/10/2021 20:47:49)

Guests kinda suck but that's fine....If the AI did not target them and only them when they realize their feeble attacks do no damage to me or yknow just not attack me regardless till they die -.-
ME
( - _ - )
GUEST
(°0° )








Low blow



Dratomos -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/11/2021 7:34:36)

In my opinion asiest way to balance guests is to have Inn Bosses (that player could cheese through with aggressive beastmaster) is to have mechanic that insta-kills them, like what Sir Bearginion or Super Sentog have. Outright removing them isn't fair to the players who aren't so experienced. But creating a whole new mechanic based on only guests on Inn is not something I think is worth devs' time and resources.



The_element -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/11/2021 14:52:28)

@ aryc0110

quote:

If it were to base 'aggro', instead of on individual classes, on types of buffs/debuffs, and worked as a binary rather than RNG. It could be based on a single individual buff/debuff too. Enemies targeting based on whether an MPM buff or debuff is present would fix the most problematic part of guests. The target with the greatest MPM debuff/least substantial buff is attacked, with the exception being when the buffs/debuffs are equal between two targets or there are no buffs/debuffs present. This would mean that as long as Cryptic has its shield up, its guests would be hyper-focused, and as long as Chaosweaver's gambit is up, guests wouldn't be hit at all and you'd be forced to face tank 60%/120% additional damage. It'd also give the illusion that enemies are actually intelligent and won't just slam into the guy who is tanking all of the hits.


I really like this suggestion, maybe there could be something along the lines of:
- If player MPM or BPD defence is below 0, attack the player
- If player MPM or BPD defence is between 0 and 100, continue normally
- If player MPM or BPD defence is over 100, attack the guest/s
This gives the feeling that the bosses have intelligence and target whoever has the weaker defences.



Fire alandry -> RE: How to Balance Guests (2/13/2021 13:35:13)

I bought CW only a few months back, and before it I pretty much relied on guests. They helped me a lot, and I still felt the challenges are hard...
Yes, they are harded without guests. But removing them will lock the Inn for players who doesn't know the best strategies and equipment. By the way, why a rare item is okay and not guests? I'm looking at you, Boxhat;)

Well, here's my idea. Remove (in the Inn) the 60/120% bonus damage, and instead- If you have guests, the boss will get an extra turn as long as you have a living guest. Especially in the Inn, the rotation and the space between nukes/heal is extremely important. So, the guests will add damage and can absorb debuffs for you- but in return, the enemy has 2 turns.



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