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Reworking Balance

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4/22/2014 19:14:39   
Goony
Constructive!


 Hiyas,

There is currently some balance concerns with some builds that take advantage of the way rage is calculated. Without going into details about the builds I'd like to outline a new way to calculate rage.


Current Rage Calculation:
Rage will cause the next attack to ignore a percent of defenses, dealing extra damage.

[Formula] Filled Rage Bar = 40 + (2.5 * Level)

* As an attacker, rage is gained at a rate of 110% of damage blocked (by the opponents defense/resistance) + 1% per 4 support you have over the defender, up to a maximum rate of 125%. If at a support disadvantage, the minimum rate is 95%.
* As a defender, rage is gained at a rate of 25% of the damage taken, +0.25% per 4 support you have over the attacker, up to a maximum rate of 29%. If at a support disadvantage, the minimum rate is 21%.


* I would think that this calculation on epicduelwiki hasn't been updated to reflect the 10x change as the damage blocked/taken should now be divided by 10...

The way rage is calculated has been changed once since beta and it was originally introduced to offset tank builds.

Before I describe a proposed calculation method, I'd like to outline the goals for the new method:
1. Rage bar will factor in the respective total health points of each player.
2. Rage build will favour lower levels and lower legend rank.
3. Rage build still includes a factor to offset tank builds.
4. Support will have a more significant role in determining rage gain.

Proposed Rage Calculation:
Rage will cause the next attack to ignore a percent of defenses, dealing extra damage.

[Formula] Filled Rage Bar = (Your Total HP/10) + (1.5 * Level) + (1 * Legend Rank)

* As an attacker, rage is gained at a rate of 75% of damage blocked/10 (by the opponents defense/resistance) + 1% per 2 support you have over the defender, up to a maximum rate of 125%. If at a support disadvantage, the minimum rate is 25%.
* As a defender, rage is gained at a rate of 25% of the damage taken/10, +0.5% per 2 support you have over the attacker, up to a maximum rate of 40%. If at a support disadvantage, the minimum rate is 10%.

So, the static 40 in the formula has been changed to your health points divided by 10. The level factor of 2.5 has been changed to 1.5 so that is offsets the higher value of your health points. Legend rank value is debatable, but will offset some of the additional damage/defence that they gain over opponents of lower rank.

I have reduced the speed that rage can be built by the attacker (dependant on support differential) by reducing the percentage from 110% to 75%. I massively increased the way support effects rage build by adjusting the amount of support required to get 1% additional rage build from 4 down to 2 and also modified the minimum value.

While I haven't increased the speed that rage is gained by the defender, I have changed the way support effects rage build significantly including a big change to max/min values and the percentage gained/lost is also very dependant on respective support.

In short, I expect, rage should be 1-2 turns later in the battles dependant on multiple factors and this would need to be well tested, across all levels, as the changes are pretty major!

Chew on that for a while and tell me what you think. A HP/str build with low support will struggle to get rage. Widespread ramifications on builds would be interesting as it may still not be enough to reduce the advantages of HP/str builds.



< Message edited by Goony -- 5/21/2014 4:09:18 >
Epic  Post #: 1
4/23/2014 6:09:46   
Xendran
Member

The problem is that it still doesn't fix the fundamental issues with the overall combat system, while retaining severe stat scaling issues due to the way damage reduction works.
The formula to make rage compensate for flat damage reduction would be so esoteric that almost no player would be able to understand how or why it does what it does.
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 2
4/23/2014 7:41:08   
Goony
Constructive!


 Yeah, I do understand what you're saying, but all I am doing is proposing changes within the current game structure.

This will not be a nirvana solution to fix the build diversity issue. I have reservations that it will not do much at all as the current practice of using high HP and strength doesn't really need rage to win. I played on some of my lower level alts and the build is basically endemic throughout the game.

We have spoken a lot about balance over the years Xendran, if we had our time over again things may be quite different now and I'm sure that the devs have some similar thoughts... The fundamental features of the game are in place, I guess we'll have to wait and see what Titan and Rabble do with balance moving forward :)

< Message edited by Goony -- 4/23/2014 7:44:12 >
Epic  Post #: 3
4/23/2014 10:01:29   
Mother1
Member

While this would be a welcome change for defensive builds since they would be broken apart by the current flavor of the week build, I see this as a shift from high HP strength builds getting rage quickly to focus builds getting it quickly instead.
Epic  Post #: 4
4/23/2014 11:14:28   
Xendran
Member

quote:

The fundamental features of the game are in place, I guess we'll have to wait and see what Titan and Rabble do with balance moving forward :)


They need to be torn apart and completely rebuilt. There is no other option. More bandaid fixes will just continue the current trend: Playerbase decline. Every single fix outside of rebuilding the mechanics is a bandaid fix because the mechanics are completely broken at their core.
It's a matter of whether they want to save the game and give it a chance at revival, or if they instead want to get the most out of it before it dies and start work on a second game.

< Message edited by Xendran -- 4/23/2014 11:15:01 >
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 5
5/15/2014 1:51:06   
DillBagel
Member

I'm going to have to agree with Xendran. A complete rework of the battle system may be the only thing to rebuild the playerbase, as the battle system is the main reason all of the old player base left. Although play may be a little more equal than in Gamma or Delta, the new similarities in classes have caused a lot of play to become monotonous and tedious. Consider when a player "retires" from EpicDuel; generally someone retires from work, not a game, so is that what people consider battling in this game? Really, radical changes may not get it right the first time, but they may just breathe life back into the game.
AQW Epic  Post #: 6
5/15/2014 8:58:38   
DarkDevil
Member

hmm , while this may fix the high hp builds problem but it won't fix rage totally because of scaling.

i think the first thing we need to do is to determine how frequent do we want rage to happen than making a formula.
we also need to look for a good conversion rate between attacking and taking damage , for example one attack to quarter of player hp so you will do for example 4 attacks or lose all your hp to get rage.

so we need to discuss how will rage work best.
AQ Epic  Post #: 7
5/15/2014 9:22:33   
Xendran
Member

The only way to make rage accomplish its goal properly is to make it act as an intermediary between current damage reduction numbers, and what the numbers would be on a logarithmic percentage based damage reduction system.
Meaning it would be more work to make rage actually helpful to the game than to rebuild the entire stat system.
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 8
5/16/2014 7:05:48   
Remorse
Member

I support,

I always thought rage feature could be adjusted to be more suitable, and had made a few ideas as well in the past to do so.

Essentially your proposed method supports everything I think needs changing with rage.

Which includes lowering the advantage it gives to damage output builds rather then being used as only a way to counter tanks.


I also think making it improve more with support will give needed bonuses to the support stat.
Epic  Post #: 9
5/17/2014 1:50:58   
Xendran
Member

I have no problems with the actual idea per se, (outside of some numerical tweaks) i just wish development time would go towards a real fix to the combat system rather than needing using rage as a bandaid.


< Message edited by Xendran -- 5/17/2014 1:51:56 >
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 10
5/17/2014 5:08:08   
Remorse
Member

^ By that logic I think most of us would agree that if possible the whole combat system should be given an overhaul. I think most of us realize however the chances of that are unfortunately slim.

This does not mean we shouldn't be pressing for it however and I admire your persistence.

< Message edited by Remorse -- 5/17/2014 5:12:34 >
Epic  Post #: 11
5/17/2014 22:04:58   
Goony
Constructive!


 Been looking at the way def/res is calculated and also at the flat damage value that is generated by weapon damage. I have a few ideas that I'm formulating and will present it soonish with the intent to remove stat scaling!

One comment I sort of missed from Mother1

quote:

I see this as a shift from high HP strength builds getting rage quickly to focus builds getting it quickly instead.


Ok, in terms of the game focus builds are perhaps the most balanced.
They have an even spread of stats with a combination of defence and attack. Without returning to an agility style of variable to counter health, the use of rage is in my opinion a good counter measure! Is there any reason why it would be bad that focus builds would rage 1st?

< Message edited by Goony -- 5/17/2014 22:10:08 >
Epic  Post #: 12
5/19/2014 1:19:36   
Remorse
Member

^ I actually think focus builds reduce a lot of possible variety by dominating all build styles with some sort balance in the stats department.


And this is due to the major advanatge robots give.


What this does is lowers the viability of builds that don't use robots.


It sort of forces focus in a seance and I think robots should be removed from improving with focus for that reason.

I remember before robots were released as I'm shore a lot of you do as well.

Their were many builds that didn't necessarily spam a stat that were single handily removed form the game due to the introduction of robots.
This may be builds with a combination of 2 stats high, or maybe high hp and balanced stats etc.



Builds that have to deal with the repetitiveness and mindlessness of high damage output builds should indeed be helped however something should be done about focus builds to increase the variety of builds that fall under the category of not a high damage output spam one stat build.
Epic  Post #: 13
5/19/2014 19:20:14   
Xendran
Member

quote:

It sort of forces focus in a seance


You meant sense, but a seance also requires some focus :P
You're right about the robot issue though, the entire concept of it is a bandaid fix for high stat numbers getting out of control (which is caused by flat numbers being used for defence and resistance).
ED absolutely refuses to fix the cores of their issues, and instead adds layer upon layer of bandaid fixes. From rage to agility (thank god that's gone) to focus to caps on how much of a single stat you can have on a weapon to skill stat requirements to removing scaling on healing to placing damage multipliers in the wrong place to having negative scaling on skill investment, etc.

It's just a complete mess of broken mechanics and this is the reason that epicduel is widely considered to be constantly getting worse.

< Message edited by Xendran -- 5/19/2014 19:21:35 >
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 14
5/20/2014 5:16:34   
Remorse
Member

^ Completely agree,


I always thought that battles were boring because of the lack of counter options for popular builds but now I realize that it is merely the so called band aid fixes that is restricting creativity rather then necessarily the lack of counters on it's own.


In fact if the system allowed for slight flexibility without facing creativity restrictions. I'm sure balance would be a lot more self fixing.

where by the viability and variety in counter options becomes much greater to automatically shut down potential abusive builds with out the need for the devs to intervene with yet another harming band-aid fix.




Ignore my bad spelling, I have dyslexia.



P.S sorry for taking this way off track G00ny.

< Message edited by Remorse -- 5/20/2014 5:45:21 >
Epic  Post #: 15
5/20/2014 17:25:14   
Xendran
Member

Yeah it's somewhat off topic but rage falls under the category of one of these bandaid fixes, so it's worth talking about the greater issue that rage is contributing to which is them piling up on each other and leaving the game in the state it is.
Whether or not it's worth spending the time to rework rage is impacted by knowing that it's not a mechanic that can actually fix the balance without just breaking it in another place because of the way the game works.
AQ DF Epic  Post #: 16
5/21/2014 4:00:41   
Goony
Constructive!


 It's ok Remorse, some good points have come out of the topic and while it is a little off topic the main issue appears to be that to achieve balance the devs have resorted to scaling and making all weapons equal.

What I really enjoyed in Beta, Gamma and part of Delta was making builds.

To be creative then meant you needed to 1st think of what build you wanted, then research weapons that had the stat points in areas that helped and weapons with requirements that also worked with the skills you wanted to use.

Now with weapon requirements gone and all weapons having the same stats the uniqueness of builds has disappeared and this in itself means that everyone can make the same build... Hence, this is one of the major reason that builds become OP'd very quickly!

Robots have different damage outputs and this is somewhat offset by the abilities of the cores, but there is no real model by which they are balanced to ensure that overall they are equivalent in power. Weapons used to have different damage ranges and this was in the main offset by stat allocation. Going back to that type of model would make builds harder to copy, but I don't know if they would be prepared to do that. This could also be used to balance weapon specific cores!

One thing I'd like to point out, and it's not to say I told you so to the devs. When we were testing for the Omega release I pointed out that weapon damage was too high. This was because the damage had remained the same and hp went from 2 points to 1 per stat point. Nevertheless, it was released and afterwards it became totally apparent that the damage was too high (I kept quiet at the time and was the brunt of a lot of criticism because the players blamed the testers for not doing their job). But afterwards, instead of dropping weapon damage as suggested the devs went the other way and made the stat progression very severe and in the end the hp was adjusted to 1.25hp per stat point. It's really still biting at balance because players get most of their damage from weapons, strength isn't really required... Meh...

Another point is that there were just way too many changes that made no sense to me, like the shift from strength + weapon damage to just weapon damage for melee skills. I think when players keep asking to go back to Beta days, reversing some of these changes would make the game more like what it once was.

Lastly, in my opinion as a player who was one of the greatest supporters in the early days, the worst part for me was that I had one of the biggest and most diverse inventories and was able to use the different stats and requirements of weapons to create a unique build that I was able to use to gain an advantage. Those days are long gone and basically today there is absolutely no reason to buy individual weapons except for the art or rarity value and in some cases for the seldom seen new cores :/



< Message edited by Goony -- 5/21/2014 4:04:36 >

_____________________________

In Epic Duel,
success is not final,
failure is not fatal
and it is the courage to continue that counts!
Epic  Post #: 17
5/21/2014 4:35:17   
Remorse
Member

^ Agree it was kinda disappointing that they made all weapons equal is distribution.



I always pushed for the removal of enhancements because of the extra power and extreme prices however the slight flexibility in weapons stats distribution was a good thing.


It allowed some but not total flexibility.

Unfortunately they went full out and made weapons totally flexible removing the identity of the weapons except for it's skin.





I wish they considered my suggestion pre-omega on enhancements, which was to keep enhancements, but instead of them giving extra stats they rather represented the amount of times you can change the weapons fixed stat distribution.



Using this system the exponential cost prices in place for enhancements would be appropriate as if you wanted to customize a weapons you liked a lot it would cost a massive amount however it would be completely unnecessary in terms of a battle advanatge making it a reasonable ethical price setting.





I think reverting to this system could still be possible and may be something they wanna consider if they decide to go back to a few things that made the game more likable in the eyes of a lot of players.











I also completely agree with the high weapon damage, After reading your explanation it makes sense that a lot of the anti-variability and balance issues are caused by unnecessary diminishing returns, I say unnecessary when they don't consider more appropriate fixes like lower base weapon damage.



One major problem is people who don't invest in much in STR at all can still hit hard.



Why is it good that a tank with low damage out-put deals the same as those with high simple because of high base damage weapons.


If you think about it, that is what makes tanks to strong requiring a need to counter them with rage.


Epic  Post #: 18
5/21/2014 6:17:31   
Goony
Constructive!


 I really don't agree that tanks are an issue at the moment, if that was the case players wouldn't be training HP...

Maybe it's my interpretation, but the sword wielding builds that have 1400-1600 hp are not what I'd call tanks and they seem to me to be the most prolific. The reason is the damage from swords at level 40 is 360, while armors have 120 def/res that is often split meaning that if you disregard strength damage and def/res derived from stats the damage is between 240 to 360.

Add to that at 60 stat points strength damage is 130-156 or 1/3 to 1/2 of weapon damage. The def/res at the same value of 60 stat points is 195-234... So why is it that weapon damage is so high in relation to armor defences, yet at the same statistical value def/res is marginally better than strength.

All that's happening ingame is that stats are negating each other and the damage is derived from the differential between weapon damage and armor def/res. Therefore HP becomes the most useable stat to train since very little is gained from using the other stats...

I am not going to give direct answers, but it just smells wrong... If I was a chef and I had cooked up this formula I'd throw it in the bin, use better ingredients and cook it up differently :/
Epic  Post #: 19
5/21/2014 6:41:19   
Remorse
Member

^ Yeh very true,

I didn't mean that tanks are an issue at the current state, I was just referring to that being an issue to tanks becoming strong in the past.


No doubt stat and hp abusers are to be dealt with but I can see as a result of that focus tanks will just take their place unless they fix the whole system.
Epic  Post #: 20
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