Grievances about game mechanics (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Artix Entertainment Games] >> [DragonFable] >> DragonFable General Discussion



Message

The ErosionSeeker -> Grievances about game mechanics (5/18/2021 0:08:06)

Excessive nerfs
For the past few years, DF has been trying to introduce more nuanced gameplay than monsters that are just damage sponge / damage spikes.
This has the unfortunate consequence where people get split between those that care for game mechanics and those that don't, leading to issues where people are wholly unprepared and uninterested in difficult fights in the actual story.
This gets compounded by significant nerfs on monsters like Cryohem (kill the mooks), Siofra (simply shield turn 1), the Lagohms (don't use multi-hits), and numerous other monsters part of world-ending main story threat 15 years into the game, leading to a cycle where people who don't ever want to be challenged demand making things easier, and as a result everything else in the future gets handled the same way, to the point where people unironically suggest the spook hydra get moved to the Inn because none of the testers could beat it.

This is even more of an issue because of how drastic most of these nerfs are. Cryohem had a significant HP and damage reduction, Dragonbane Siofra lost 95% of its turn 1 damage and half its health, and the Lagohm monsters lost the only thing that stopped them from being facerolls.
Boss monsters out in the world might as well not have any mechanics if people are going to throw tantrums and get their mechanics gutted less than three days later.

Reactive shields
That being said, there are quite a lot of uninteractive game mechanics that really should be looked at, especially because things like reactive shields are used at a frustrating frequency. This is more of a big deal because huge MPM is hard to counter now that LUK hits are (rightfully) removed.
The modern "2 hits and then 600 MPM" model is funny because it's the most unfriendly version seen thus far:
When: 2 hits, 300 MPM
Dolaas: 4 hits, 300 MPM
Illumina: 4 hits, 500 MPM
Prince: 2 hits, 300 MPM
Adventurefiend: 2 hits, 600 MPM
King: 2 hits, 600 MPM

There are even lots of options to diversify this, such as using BPD, elemental resistance, or even Reaver regen. Why is it always 600 MPM? Why not BPD, or allres, or something other than the all-or-nothing 600 MPM? Some other solutions should be considered, rather than the current drastic design mentality of starting with something overdesigned, and then completely removing it because players who didn't try and refuse to use a different class or take advice. Prince and King were always far easier than the Radiant Leech, and now they aren't threatening at all.

CHA pets
CHA pets are terrible. Basically none of them are worth using even if dragon didn't exist. They require a significant stat investment to achieve their potential, and even when you invest 200 CHA they barely make a difference. 200 CHA makes it so Extra Fluffy Tog has a 25% chance to do all of ~200 extra damage; investing 200 in a damage stat, END, or possibly even WIS would be more valuable. Even the boost that Chimera gets from CHA is almost insignificant, with 200 CHA giving you an extra 50 BPD for... 3/16 turns.
Indeed, these other pets shouldn't be overwhelmingly powerful, but current levels of scaling make many of them seem like CHA investment is an outright trap even in regular gameplay, too. There's not a very compelling reason to use any of them, given how most of them are from challenge bosses that you could be using a 3 point dragon to beat in the first place.

A lot of times, these problems are also magnified by unofficially documented spur-of-the-moment changes that don't get looked at ever again. Siofra got nerfed because of a few responses, almost a year after it came out. Even when it's not the case, it gives off the impression that testers don't know what they're testing for, don't know what they should be testing for, or that the dev expectations of the testers aren't being well-communicated. This is especially noticeable when you see the fluctuations in difficulty between things like Tizheruk (who is far more fair than many seem to believe), Amalgam, and now Verriton.

I suspect everyone kind of knows about these issues, but nobody is really willing to discuss them. I hope these issues get addressed by the tester hunt, because it's really starting to seem like casual players making the calls on what's fair and what isn't, and then getting further blindsided because they didn't try learning those mechanics from earlier.



Laeon val Observis -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/18/2021 6:33:22)

Being an old game, it is an impossibility to try to appease meatheads and tacticians all at the same time, hence the excess nerfs. It also crosses my mind if the players are forgetting that this is an RPG with a story and not a cookie cutter game, so it shouldn’t always be an easy slog. Nonetheless, I do understand your gripe about this segment of your post, especially more so after my views on a few more veteran community members were marred during the Tizheruk debacle. Based on my observations, the fairest compromise seems to be a backwards approach. That is, a difficulty setting system. AFAIK there was practically zero complaints when the Amalgam was released despite it having anti-burst mechanics.

As for the shields, definitely the When reaction barrier is getting a little overused. I do understand though why 2 seems to be the minimum magic number for it due to potent default class skills having a hit count at around 3-10. Reaver and Yalla barriers can definitely have some time in the spotlight, although the latter might be difficult to balance with all the anti-All that players have in their grasp. When suit and Seppy doom armor can also be welcomed if the HP justifies, but they have the same issues with Yalla barriers. Finally, since bosses have obscene MPs without any uses, perhaps introducing an MQ-esque mana shield can be looked into.

For pets, I see the most glaring issue is their damage output. The latest Inn pet, for example, only deals about half what a normal Dragon attack would. That can be easily remedied by increasing base pet damage without CHA intervention. As for CHA-affected status effects, since players might just get close to the reasoning of making the game beastmaster friendly involves intensive changes, that might be another story. After a few thorough thinkings, the best I thought out is to reduce the CHA needed to bolster those effects whilst having a cap as to how high such effects can reach.

I do have doubts on your perspectives on Inn Siofra and the pet Chimera. Did the former really get a nerf, since all I noticed is the effects of powercreep more than anything. The Chimera, on the other hand, is an exception to the CHA system. If you’ve seen Astral’s dragonless demo vidos, its BDP shield is relatively sound at 0 CHA despite changes to boss BtH scaling algorithms.



Zeldax -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/18/2021 7:02:47)

OP was probably talking about Siofra in Leaving the Nest, the finale of The Nest storyline, since IIRC he used to have a nuke on the first turn (he was also considered to be harder than Inn Siofra which is funny).

I completely agree with The ErosionSeeker regarding the nerfs. In my opinion, the bosses' placements (Lupin and King Verriton) in the story were enough to justify its difficulty, considering that they're fairly far into the Book 3 timeline so players would have enough experience to know some mechanics of the game. While I'm not exactly a fan of reactive MPM shields, I thought it made sense for the two Lagohms to have a shared mechanic. As OP said, it could have been changed to something else while still keeping the reactive part of the mechanic (like increasing the limit to the number of hits before the reactive shield takes effect, lowering the MPM numbers, or changing it from an MPM shield to BPD or All resistance), rather than just completely removing said mechanic.

DF isn't a visual novel, and as mentioned earlier is an RPG, so it has lots of room for diverse mechanics. If people wanted (story) bosses to just have high HP and big damage numbers, they should play AQW instead.



Verlyrus -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/18/2021 12:03:13)

I appreciate all the feedback!

From my point of view, there's a massive gap between people who regularly attempt inn challenges, and players who are much more casual. And then there's another huge gap between casual DA players and non-DA players.
While I never endeavor to balance around Non-DA players, but I would rather over-nerf a main story encounter than make it inaccessible.

I would argue that reactive shields haven't quite been overused. But I do agree that I can get more creative with them or make them more interactive.

First and foremost, I think about theme when trying to attach a mechanic (along with gameplay considerations like anti-burst)
It's as simple as "When has time powers. being able to "move fast" to avoid attacks after a certain point makes sense"
"Dolaas is spoiler spoiler spoiler, so being able to spoiler makes sense"
"Illumina shiny. Blindingly so."
"Prince/King rely on their technology to fight rather than their physical forms, as a representation of their 'nobility', compared to their lesser soldiers such as the seekers or others, so a "reactive" shield makes sense."
"AdventureFiend is a stalking, mind bending hunter, so being able to 'fade out of existence' is thematic."

Out of these, Dolaas and Prince/King could have probably been reworked to different kinds of reactions.
Definitely something I've been trying to work on and improve variance with.

Regarding CHA pets, they're pretty tough to do, I agree. I guess this is a spoiler but Extra Fluffy Tog is meant to be upgradable in the future. However, with the investment required for the dragon pet, it's also intended to be the best generalist by far. And its wide and customizable moveset is a big part of that. I don't think that's a problem necessarily. I always try to give pets their niches, and if I fail, well, they're still cute. And there's also nothing wrong with just playing un-optimally from time to time.

I also wanted to try to tie CHA more to guest stats, which is something I have plans for still, since the removal of END/WIS scaling.

A "story mode" setting is possible, although it would still be a major endeavor, since I'd need to make sure I set up a proper exception system for certain challenges and wars and the inn, etc.
Creating an accessible easy mode for bosses along with normal or extreme is something that I try to do when there are potential issues. However, it still can take quite a bit more resources, as each easy, normal, or extreme is actually set up as a different enemy- and I don't want to just make scaling changes if I'm doing something like that. Maybe it would be better if I just sucked up my pride and did easy scaling adjustments and had them available rather than not, though.

Again, I appreciate all the feedback, and I hope my response helps clarify how these decisions are made.

PS: One of the neat things about DragonFable being a live service game is that I can make adjustments and such as needed. Things aren't necessarily set in stone.



Milenius -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/19/2021 16:39:21)

I think a boss should be nerfed only when the "challenging factor '' becomes pointless. With this I'm meaning that only a boss that requires a very specific way to beat it, making us only capable of using a few classes to exploit that mechanic. This is of course when there is a boss in the main storyline, which I consider should be playable (not easy), with every unlockable class. Bosses like Tizheruk don't apply to this because they are totally optional so one could expect them to be something else.

I don't see a problem with reactive shields, while it might be present on more bosses that I remembered as OP pointed out, it doesn't make the battle impossible with some other classes on main storyline, but I should also agree that they are quite common lately. Maybe a solution to this might be instead of a reactive shield, they could apply a reactive debuff for one turn to the attacker, allowing pets and guests to do something and not abuse with their damage in the process.

I really like to see what they plan to do for CHA, pets and guests but currently I have my own questions about pets in general like Attgased doll or Inn pets. While I understand that our dragon should be the strongest and versatile of all pets, the rest of them are barely usable in general. IMO Stan the scan orb in its simplicity doesn't have this problem and baby chimera is close to it, but that's it.

Maybe it's me, but I don't see a practical use for Attgased doll or Sporcalling while pets like Krampy, Doom Figmini or Hacked Magi Drone having a clear use doesn't seem to be reliable pets for their activation rate, even I believe that in long term Twilly is more useful than Krampy. I would like to see what Verly and Dove are cooking for the Fluffy tog, but currently I like the idea of it's enragement mechanic.

I'm not sure if this would solve a problem, but it might be of some use if having a build with CHA >= (STR+DEX+INT)/3, the pets receive a buff of damage. Also for the pets I mentioned above, what if their activation rate also has a cooldown like Baby chimera (shorter depending on the pet). This is just an idea, not sure if it is what is needed.



Laeon val Observis -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/19/2021 20:15:02)

If you haven’t yet noticed, three of the pets you have mentioned above – Attgasedd, Sporcaling, and Figmini – already have action cycles. That is, they really follow a script as to what they’ll do. Coaleptimini and Party Tog are also prime examples, so scripted pets are on the rise. Chimera is a hybrid type where it’s shield is predictable whilst its DoT isn’t. CHA-affected probabilities have also been experimented upon recently with Extra Fluffy Tog and Mini Feargeist, with the former also displaying a dynamic action cycle last seen in Stan. I don’t think that older probability pet skills will receive that treatment though. For the damage up you’re proposing, it feels unnecessarily complex. Simply just doing a patch to increase base pet damage would be more feasible.



Milenius -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/19/2021 20:47:39)

Honestly I didn't know about Figmini, in my mind it simply randomly gave mana or attacked, by bad.... I'm aware of Attgasedd cycle, I just don't know how to properly benefit from it even with a CHA build, but again that is my ignorance talking. Sporcalling I know it has a rotation, but even stacking DoTs with other classes like ninja, is difficult for it to overcome a Fighting/Magic dragon damage, so I see no point in using Sporcalling. But to be fair, compared to most of the other pets Sporcalling is one simplest to get in the Inn. I forgot about Feargeist, you are right, it gives me more to think and test... The last thing I want is to make this more complex of what it already is, just can't stop feeling pets in general beyond dragon, Stan or chimera are the only ones to consider when fighting an Inn boss... Anyway, thanks for the feedback ^^



Korriban Gaming -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/19/2021 23:43:18)

While I do appreciate some variety in story bosses apart from being damage sponges I feel like a certain line has to be drawn somewhere since the step-up in difficulty may come as a rude shock to casuals and especially so for returning players. DF is often praised as having the best storytelling out of all of AE's games and having these supposed boss "walls" could get in the way of that. There are some bosses which I wholeheartedly agree with OP that are overnerfed but I personally feel that story should be accessible to everyone, especially casuals who make up a large majority of the game's playerbase. Though the more veteran players with their knowledge and BiS gear may be able to do all the story bosses, even many a times with joke classes, we have to keep in mind that this is a very small minority and at the end of the day, the storyline isn't supposed to have Inn levels of depth in mechanics.

quote:

leading to a cycle where people who don't ever want to be challenged demand making things easier, and as a result everything else in the future gets handled the same way

I do not agree with this. If something (especially story) is too difficult for majority of your casual playerbase then it should definitely be changed/nerfed. Story after all is meant to be enjoyed by all, mostly the casuals. This is not the Inn. There are of course some who have requested for Inn challenges to be nerfed too but that's another argument since OP's point seems to be on story bosses.

With regards to Reactive Shields, I do agree that it's not a fun mechanic to deal with. I think the biggest problem is that 2 hits is just too little for most of the classes in the game. Maybe make the Shield pop up at 3 or 4 hits. This would ensure that casuals who like to main certain classes that have more hits don't get punished too badly. While it is still doable with classes that have high hit counts, often times it is very punishing and is almost impossible as a casual player. As a content creator, I have received multiple comments over the years on some story bosses whereby casuals are unable to beat them while using certain classes. I get that every class has it's own niche and uses but boss mechanics (especially story bosses) shouldn't be too restrictive on what classes can be used to do them. This allows people to roleplay/main as the class they like to use for the story without having to change it up just for a certain boss fight.

The point with CHA pets is a little more tricky to deal with imo. I feel like it's fair that our Dragon is (and should rightfully be) the strongest pet in the game being the destined World Destroyer and all. Often times, there is no reason to use any pet apart from Dragon especially if you have a fully fed one. My suggestion for this is to let us choose which skills to use for pets with different skills, similar to how our Dragon functions rather than just a single attack button. With added cooldowns to the skills I do not think this would make other pets with skills OP but at the same time it could give people more reason to use them if they can strategize and work around the pets' skills rotation.

quote:

This is especially noticeable when you see the fluctuations in difficulty between things like Tizheruk (who is far more fair than many seem to believe), Amalgam, and now Verriton.

Tizheruk and Amalgam EX are definitely some of the harder story bosses imo. Regular Amalgam and to a smaller extent, Thorin (maybe still with his MPM shield but without the attack that cuts your HP in half) and the Verritons is a reasonable level of difficulty. Then again, Tizheruk and Amalgam EX are optional so the step-up in difficulty is ok imo.

quote:

because it's really starting to seem like casual players making the calls on what's fair and what isn't, and then getting further blindsided because they didn't try learning those mechanics from earlier.

This is where I take issue with OP's post, this sounds so elitist and condescending. Just because you can do all the challenge fights does not mean everyone else can. So many a time I have seen responses to people struggling with fights is to "git gud". While that has been toned down a lot as compared to a few years ago, it is still prevalent and also a big reason why casuals are generally less vocal on the Discords for fear of getting mocked and ganged up on by the better players when they rant about a boss fight. A game should be enjoyable for all, not just a certain group of players who are "better". The more hardcore players get their Inn challenges and the more casual players get their story content. I feel the staff has done a very good job in balancing the needs of these 2 so I don't know why you would even say something like that. Dragonfable started off as a casual game, Inn was only introduced in recent years, majority of its playerbase are casuals and play the game for its engaging storyline. Dragonfable did not start off as "Dark Souls" level of difficulty, so expecting your casual playerbase to turn into that is unrealistic.



Laeon val Observis -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/20/2021 2:03:36)

@above while you do have very strong points that still runs into the consensus of those here who have already expressed their perspectives on boss and shield play, myself included, I do however see some holes on the former side:

1. Your first and final premises – did you already factor in the equation the possibility that this played a role as to why the DF team opened its doors to volunteer testers after many years? Clearly there is something off already going on in how to balance dev discretions and the expression “the customer is always right.” The very expression that even I, a former member of the customer service business, had trouble staying and still has trouble going back to said business.
2. Your second premise – while minor, last I checked, nowhere in Erosion’s post did he cite nor imply Amalgam EX. The only way that I’d only see someone rant about AmalEX is if they mistakenly clicked extreme mode for any circumstance, one of the 2 flaws of my proposed difficulty setting system. I believe that the only thing very oppressive of Amalgam in all modes is its anti-Crit play, which can be only least concerned by DW (that’s 500 DCs for those who don’t main Warrior) and the Azaveyran Board helms (not exactly a pleasant run, even just for the basic helms).

After giving further thought on the CHA conundrum, I’ve come to the conclusion that it will never be perfect if it solely depended on points on the said stat. We don’t have that much trainable stat points to spread. And no, as much as I want it, I did consider something similar to MQ’s benefits to become SC (SCs get 6 training points per level up as opposed to 5 for NSCs) but it will cause more balance issues going beyond CHA. While I do agree that our dragon is the number 1 pet, it doesn’t mean that it cannot be overcome. As Verly said, they are meant to be the best generalist. Nothing says that more specialized pets can possibly overcome our scaly companion outside of shielding, stunning, and sniping (and to a lesser degree, Boost up). After doing a thorough research on modern pets, as older pets used archaic balancing, those that do generate significant powers have level scaling as part of their status condition’s formulae. Perhaps that is the best means to make pets better when statuses are concerned. I’m more liberal towards damage, even though I put my own suggestions on that part of improving their usefulness.



TFS -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/20/2021 2:15:06)

For what it's worth, DragonFable has pretty consistently had story bosses with mechanics/abilities since the beginning of Book 3 - over half of the game's lifespan. It's not really fair to say that bosses having shields or buffs or stuns is something that's a recent trend or rude shock. Baron Valtrith and Manacrest, as examples, came out in 2013 and have shields, stuns, warning shots, and nukes - and both of these are bosses that a player who's gotten to modern content would already have defeated and learned from. Saying that DragonFable shouldn't have story enemies with mechanics because it's always been this way is both untrue and selling the game short, IMO.

It's also important to remember that this is still an RPG, and enemies becoming more powerful as you progress through the game should be expected. If you have to use a different class/strategy in order to defeat a boss monster I don't really understand how that can be construed as a bad thing - provided it's plausibly doable and reasonably accessible to players, of course.

Anyway, that's not to say it's impossible for story bosses to be unfair to casual players, or that such concerns aren't valid. Absurdly high numbers and heavily-weighted luck-based attacks do crop up and disproportionately affect lower-level characters when they do. An example of this would be the 50 base MPM/BPD on many recent monsters such as King Thorin; this is obviously going to disproportionately harm players without high bonus gear (ie, casual and low level players) and doesn't really add anything to any of the fights it appears in. There are also bosses like Aspar who have an extremely powerful attack with no set rotation and can just keep spamming it if the player is unlucky. And of course this isn't just limited to Book 3; even in Book 1 there's stuff like good old Doctor When and his plain old number vomit, who have been getting (justified) complaints for nearly a decade. All of these, in my opinion, are instances of justified difficulty concerns - or at least more justified than vaguely gesturing at mechanics not belonging in the story.

I also don't think any recent story boss that was nerfed became a complete joke or shell of its former self (barring Dragonbane Siofra), so I don't understand the retroactive outcry to begin with. Like, the mechanics are still there but the numbers were just adjusted; no one's losing anything, but the people who struggled with stat checks are gaining something. When this is done well, and on something that actually deserves to be nerfed, it's only a net benefit and I don't understand how it can be seen as a bad thing.

But that's just my opinion, of course. The opinion that's probably tinted this whole post is that I personally think it's fun when a game expects you to strategize a bit, within reasonable bounds, and am not a fan of the answer just being "go grind/buy more". Reasoning out how mechanics work or knowing what stats do isn't something that's necessarily unique to hardcore/endgame players, but high-end stats/gear definitely is. DragonFable's bosses generally fall into the former category and I enjoy that quite a bit, but I also agree with concerns that the latter category can be unfriendly to casual players.



dragon_master -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/21/2021 6:08:50)

^Doesn't every game that nowadays gets tended to casuals, simply die out over time?
That will not happen with DF. Let casuals whine all they want. Once they play their casual games for a while those to get boring and what do we end up with? A product that nobody enjoys because it loses its' challenges. I'd rather fancy DF stay the way it is.



Korriban Gaming -> RE: Grievances about game mechanics (5/21/2021 14:22:56)

quote:

did you already factor in the equation the possibility that this played a role as to why the DF team opened its doors to volunteer testers after many years?

People come and go, I don't know specifically if that was the reason they're looking for testers but I'd say it's always welcome to see new volunteers on the team. I hope there'd be a good mix of casual and hardcore players from this new batch of testers.

quote:

2. Your second premise – while minor, last I checked, nowhere in Erosion’s post did he cite nor imply Amalgam EX. The only way that I’d only see someone rant about AmalEX is if they mistakenly clicked extreme mode for any circumstance, one of the 2 flaws of my proposed difficulty setting system. I believe that the only thing very oppressive of Amalgam in all modes is its anti-Crit play, which can be only least concerned by DW (that’s 500 DCs for those who don’t main Warrior) and the Azaveyran Board helms (not exactly a pleasant run, even just for the basic helms).

Yea, OP did not mention Amalgam EX, I just cited it as an example since that was what I remembered off the top of my head. Personally I haven't seen much, if any, complains regarding it though since there's no reason to do the fight unless you're looking for a challenge.

quote:

The opinion that's probably tinted this whole post is that I personally think it's fun when a game expects you to strategize a bit, within reasonable bounds, and am not a fan of the answer just being "go grind/buy more".

I fully agree with all of your points. Now, in no way am I saying that the game shouldn't introduce new mechanics for bosses out of the Inn, but I think the issue here is finding the balance between what's fun and interesting without it being too difficult.

I think I was not clear enough in my initial post regarding classes. I personally feel that all classes (outside of joke classes) should be able to do all story bosses with moderate difficulty at best if the class used is the "most unoptimal" for the fight. For story bosses I would much prefer if people can strategize around gear swapping as opposed to class swapping.

quote:

^Doesn't every game that nowadays gets tended to casuals, simply die out over time?
That will not happen with DF. Let casuals whine all they want. Once they play their casual games for a while those to get boring and what do we end up with? A product that nobody enjoys because it loses its' challenges. I'd rather fancy DF stay the way it is.

And what games may those be? This is a perfect example of elitism. DF's popularity and playerbase stemmed from its fantastic storytelling and most definitely not its difficulty. Even before Inn was introduced, I would like to think that many people still enjoyed DF and would have continued to enjoy it even if the Inn did not exist today. While the playerbase is always changing, it is still undeniable that a large majority are casuals and you have that small handful which are more hardcore albeit more active compared to the casuals. Ignoring either side would do the game no favors. A balance has to be struck between both sides



Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition
0.125