Saves, mages and melees. Controversial, I know.

[Fridge]

Hey, I've noticed a few threads involving this subject being closed off because it became out of hand. I'd really like for that to not happen to this thread, as I believe this subject needs to be spoken about.

I noticed someone mention that playing a mage is about timing, the same as playing a melee and timing disarm/dirt kick etc. However, the fundamental difference is that there is no real saves system involved with dirt kick/disarm etc. It does not matter how good your timing is if the spell is saved against. Let's say you're fighting someone and take a chance to cast dispel because if it goes off you'll have a pretty good advantage,  9/10 that spell will probably fail due to the saves of your opponent, thus completely negating your timing. 

I understand that there is equipment and cabal abilities available to boost spell level, but as mentioned previously, these are few and far between. Whereas it is much more common to have a very safe level of saves with an average set of equipment. I've even seen some non rare items with better stats than some of the best rares which were being used when I last played. I understand that this is probably due to the option to make a moderate character, but then again, there is a reason moderate characters can't stock up on rares.

Lastly, another reason I believe that there is a low number of mages is due to the fact that there are some very easily accessible consumables and spellforged items available to melees which allow them to have a huge amount of buffs etc and negate the fact that they don't have access to them as class abilities. Whereas for mages, you don't have that option. You don't have items that give you enhanced damage, dodge, bash, dual wield, shield block, dirt kick etc etc etc. 

Items and consumables like that are mostly one sided as there is no real counterpart for mages.

I've said my bit, and I really hope that we can keep this a civilised conversation without personal digs and throwing around comments that people are whining and moaning. 

Let's keep this constructive, as I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say that I think this is a problem.

[sarcon]

+ 1

[Celerity]

What is your proposed solution?

Just to clear up a misconception: You can 'save' against skills (such as dirt kick) and melee attacks. They don't hit/miss equally against everyone. That said, skills are harder to 'save' against because they aren't generally as powerful as spells.

Do we want skills and spells to operate the same? If so, the passive output of melees would have to be considerably toned down (or mages increased). This would be a tough rework. There was a suggestion about tiers of success rather than just hit/miss recently. This could work for both skills/spells potentially.

-

Is it a problem of gear inflation? This is well-known I believe, but go ahead and post the most offending pieces and comparisons. The real problem is balancing everything. Equipment balance tries to:

1. Provide a minimum threshold of stats (the amount you need to be competitive). This is why non-rares are buffed up, cabal outfits, and so forth...so that people don't require rares to compete. Is this too high, low or just right?

2. Provide a maximum threshold of stats (the amount that makes you too competitive; i.e. overpowered). This is why spell-level items are distributed in non-stackable ways (face slot), vuln weapons are lower avg damage, and so forth. Is this too high, low or just right? Is it imbalanced for some stats or all stats in general? Which ones?

3. Distribute based on power. Strong items are rarer than weak items. The idea is that there should be an imbalance between people based on their ability to gain/maintain gear, recognizing it as part of the skill of the game. Distribution suffers though as all the best items tend to be used by a relatively few characters rather than spread out due to this.  Rotdeath tries to mitigate this but owner-only makes the problem worse.

So if you want to fix equipment balance, you have to do so in a way that does not weaken #1, not strengthen #2, and still is used by the people that need it. It is a tough thing, thus not a lot of progress on this issue. The problem is that when the staff tries to correct one of the three, another one becomes less balanced, and so you end up correcting it again the other way in a different way. I suggest lessening the overall usefulness of gear and put that strength into skills/spells, but that will inflate the strength of consumables.

-

A problem of consumables? On one hand, anyone can use a consumable, even if you already have the spell. On the other, it is true that melees gain spells, but mages don't gain melee from consumables. However, this is also mitigated because even mages gain non-class spells from consumables which can really help them (slow, for instance).

If a character is dispelled, they tend to lose a lot of spells, not just sanc. Consumables are also finite. Let's consider the balance of consumables:

1. The range of effects offered. Should every spell have a consumable usable by every class? Perhaps we can come up with tiers of spells that can be allocated to herb, potion, scroll, staff, and wands. Herbs being the most accessible, wands being the most powerful/specialized. (get rid of ranger staves skill too...that need has been overcome by group sanctuary from the glimmering staff :P).

2. The availability of consumables. Are some too common/rare? Are the purchasable ones properly balanced by cost and power?

3. The storage of consumables. Do they last too long/short? Can certain classes extend the life of consumables? Can they do this and give them to other classes? You can affect the stackable quantity this way.

4. The side effects of consumables. Do they have a lag? Is this lag different for different kinds of consumables in/out of combat? Can you use them in combat? Held/Fumble? Do they have incur negative effects on use? Addiction too weak? How reliable are they? Do they always provide the right spell at the right level to the right target?

4. Saturation of consumables. Can you spam consumables without a cooldown? If I drink 5 potions in one tick, will the effects be negative/random? Can I eat 7 hearts in a tick and get the full benefit from each or does it scale? Can I use consumables under all conditions (full/poisoned/dysentry/etc).

 

Just some thoughts.

[hotspring monkey]

1 hour ago, Fridge said:

there is no real saves system involved with dirt kick/disarm

Fight on water or grey rooms and don't lag yourself.

 

1 hour ago, Fridge said:

You don't have items that give you enhanced damage, dodge, bash, dual wield, shield block, dirt kick etc etc etc.

You do and it's available to ALL classes and aligns except goodies. Suck it up goodies, join Knights and get a Vanguard, the MVP of FL. That thing will PK on its own. 4real.

(OUTCAST) (Translucent) (White Aura) Lejarak is here.
(Charmed) A zombie of Traven, the Chieftain of Desolation stands here serving his master.

1 hour ago, Fridge said:

Let's keep this constructive

But wimpy is broken!

[Lloth]

You don't get a flat "saves" with melee abilities, however, they can miss. And that miss chance can come collectively from a lot of sources. A certain perk gives a chance. A certain race gives another. At least one class has a way to avoid them (substantial bonus in that it gives a fairly decent chance to avoid ones that would otherwise hit, not just increase chance to miss - the difference is subtle, but certainly a major consideration) Having high dexterity and AC both lower the chance of being hit by them too. Spells don't have that complexity. You either cast it or you don't. That's actually what neccesitates mind disruption techniques. 

 

Aff spells, when saved against, do not have an affect of "nothing". They still deal damage, albeit less.

Mal spells don't enjoy that benefit, but when they do land, they generally accomplish more (plus those saves are the second hardest to get without compromising other stats) 

Mental spells are tricky, especially dispel. Iirc, and @Erelei may have to fact check me here, dispel not only lands more often with low saves, but actually strip more too. As well, damaging mental affects generally have a second affect, like paralysis. If that landed easier, there would be (justly so) a huge outcry. That said, they are harder to come by than the rest without sacrificing a lot of potential offense (comparatively speaking, anyway)

And then there's breath. The new kid on the block and most overlooked. Only really useful against bards and dragon breaths of all types. But what they lack in matchup variety, they make up for in potency. With high breath saves, you can negate a very substantial portion of a class' power. Even their vogues.

Add to all of that the universal saves... And that's about it. Not a very complex system of spell defense, but one that is far more visible than the melee alternative. Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of misconceptions like the above, "spells can be saved, but melee skills can't". Bare brass facts are, though, that they can.

[Lloth]

13 minutes ago, Celerity said:

What is your proposed solution?

Just to clear up a misconception: You can 'save' against skills (such as dirt kick) and melee attacks. They don't hit/miss equally against everyone. That said, skills are harder to 'save' against because they aren't generally as powerful as spells.

Do we want skills and spells to operate the same? If so, the passive output of melees would have to be considerably toned down (or mages increased). This would be a tough rework. There was a suggestion about tiers of success rather than just hit/miss recently. This could work for both skills/spells potentially.

-

Is it a problem of gear inflation? This is well-known I believe, but go ahead and post the most offending pieces and comparisons. The real problem is balancing everything. Equipment balance tries to:

1. Provide a minimum threshold of stats (the amount you need to be competitive). This is why non-rares are buffed up, cabal outfits, and so forth...so that people don't require rares to compete. Is this too high, low or just right?

2. Provide a maximum threshold of stats (the amount that makes you too competitive; i.e. overpowered). This is why spell-level items are distributed in non-stackable ways (face slot), vuln weapons are lower avg damage, and so forth. Is this too high, low or just right? Is it imbalanced for some stats or all stats in general? Which ones?

3. Distribute based on power. Strong items are rarer than weak items. The idea is that there should be an imbalance between people based on their ability to gain/maintain gear, recognizing it as part of the skill of the game. Distribution suffers though as all the best items tend to be used by a relatively few characters rather than spread out due to this.  Rotdeath tries to mitigate this but owner-only makes the problem worse.

So if you want to fix equipment balance, you have to do so in a way that does not weaken #1, not strengthen #2, and still is used by the people that need it. It is a tough thing, thus not a lot of progress on this issue. The problem is that when the staff tries to correct one of the three, another one becomes less balanced, and so you end up correcting it again the other way in a different way. I suggest lessening the overall usefulness of gear and put that strength into skills/spells, but that will inflate the strength of consumables.

-

A problem of consumables? On one hand, anyone can use a consumable, even if you already have the spell. On the other, it is true that melees gain spells, but mages don't gain melee from consumables. However, this is also mitigated because even mages gain non-class spells from consumables which can really help them (slow, for instance).

If a character is dispelled, they tend to lose a lot of spells, not just sanc. Consumables are also finite. Let's consider the balance of consumables:

1. The range of effects offered. Should every spell have a consumable usable by every class? Perhaps we can come up with tiers of spells that can be allocated to herb, potion, scroll, staff, and wands. Herbs being the most accessible, wands being the most powerful/specialized. (get rid of ranger staves skill too...that need has been overcome by group sanctuary from the glimmering staff :P).

2. The availability of consumables. Are some too common/rare? Are the purchasable ones properly balanced by cost and power?

3. The storage of consumables. Do they last too long/short? Can certain classes extend the life of consumables? Can they do this and give them to other classes? You can affect the stackable quantity this way.

4. The side effects of consumables. Do they have a lag? Is this lag different for different kinds of consumables in/out of combat? Can you use them in combat? Held/Fumble? Do they have incur negative effects on use? Addiction too weak? How reliable are they? Do they always provide the right spell at the right level to the right target?

4. Saturation of consumables. Can you spam consumables without a cooldown? If I drink 5 potions in one tick, will the effects be negative/random? Can I eat 7 hearts in a tick and get the full benefit from each or does it scale? Can I use consumables under all conditions (full/poisoned/dysentry/etc).

 

Just some thoughts.

For longer than I have been staff, there has been a long going discussion on ways to dial back powercreep. However, some pieces do slip through the cracks. If you guys notice any, my inbox is always open.

 

Funny choice of words, though. "Dial back". I hear it from a lot of people that the goal should be the removal of powercreep. That's generally how you can tell (and i mean this very nicely - I don't want to offend anyone with that view, I am just a blunt dude) that those people haven't spent much time behind the wheel in a building environment. Contrary to popular belief... Powercreep IS healthy*. 

Consumables, though I don't like them, are a neccesary evil. Melees simply would not be able to function properly without them. The major issue with them appears unrelated, or just unreported since it's a benefit enjoyed by many, but is actually that a lot of the stronger ones - specifically the nymph hearts - have a limiting factor that is completely bypassable. The weight system. Do an ID on one, those suckers are heavy. Intended, as it discourages having a bunch. Enter...backpacks and quivers. I actually brought it up to Volgathras, and then the staff as a whole, and some changes were discussed to fix it, but were ultimately not implemented. It may be revisited in the future, but it's been a while since it was talked about. 

* in moderation. Rewards need to match difficulty. Otherwise, there is no point to having difficult fights. If there's the choice between getting some silken sleeves from the grave robber, or risking death to get an item with 4 more AC.... You can bet your sweet butt I am just sticking to the grave robber. You want powercreep, you just want to keep it under strict control. Where a lot of games, and even (again, blunt doesn't mean I am calling out) prior builders here, fail in this is that the items far outweigh the risks. Or, they are locked behind a wall of initially difficult puzzles that artificially inflate the difficulty for the first year or so until memorized (looking at you, Gear). That's how you wind up with equipment like the Adeptus set that is far and away best-in-slot for most classes but justvas easy to get as a Centurian Hauberk, if you have the patience and time. 

[Fridge]

If I had a proposed solution, I would have suggested it. However I don't. That's why I wanted to start this conversation so that we can come up with a solution. 

I also understand that balancing is difficult(understatement of the year). Another reason for starting this discussion was to raise the issue that there is an imbalance and to have everyone highlight what those might be. It's easier to find the balance when the whole picture is in view.

As to skills missing, I always viewed those as being more in line with losing concentration on a spell. However I admit that I could be wrong and factors such as AC could have a larger effect than I presumed.

As to charmies bashing, you're relying predominantly on RNG for that one, where as the spells that melee characters have access to can be activated on command. Melees are vastly dominant in melee combat, makes have spells to compensate. When you give melees access to too many spells you end up making makes redundant. 

I agree with Celerity on most of the points raised on consumables. However the usefulness of consumables on melees vs mages is definitely in favour of the melee. As they have the melee advantage and the equal the defensive portion of a mage's spell list. 

Even though afflictive spells still deal damage when saved against, it does not equal the damage output of most melees. And if you attempt to cast any other spell, you are more than likely to fail, meaning you are increasing the gap between the damage outputs even more. From my experience, you basically have to just spam aff spells and generally just disregard any other spell as it will most probably just fail.

Pretty good conversation so far everyone. Keep it civil.

 

[aaa]

I think small, regular tweaks are needed. Hearthstone suffers from a similar complaint, and that is that they don't alter the numbers often enough.

I might be in the minority for this one, but I'd prefer more frequent number tweaks even if that results in something too strong. It won't matter because it can be changed just as easily.

I remember when I had my vampire and shield warriors just got redone, I lost a good 5 lives to the slith warrior while they were too strong but I'd prefer things like that to happen than for nothing to happen at all.

I wouldn't be complaining if halflings went back to their pre-nerf overnight, you could give it a month and see if they really ARE that strong. I doubt a pre nerf halfling blademaster would be deemed any stronger than todays ninjas or yesterdays bards.

A similar approach could be done with items, something too strong? Lower some values, if it never gets used again, raise some other values.

[Pali]

43 minutes ago, Celerity said:

There was a suggestion about tiers of success rather than just hit/miss recently. This could work for both skills/spells potentially.

It could indeed.  The main reason I suggested it was because I think a significant chunk of the issue here is perception.  Part of the balance between mages and melees has always been survivability, so that in a direct matchup head to head, a melee should have an edge in combat, because when things go wrong it's the mage that has an edge in escaping (bash protection, innate teleport/recall, etc.).  The problem is that, compared to making your opponent run or killing them, survivability is a hard thing to actually FEEL, and it definitely doesn't make you feel powerful the way winning the actual combat does.  When in combat 4/5 spells cast do absolutely nothing to your opponent, you feel powerless - even if you can reliably escape your opponent and try again later until the dice roll your way.  The idea behind the tier system was to try to alleviate this perception of powerlessness, to help a mage feel like he's doing something even if he really isn't doing much more than presently, because perception matters.

[Lloth]

Lejarak, Sylf, Lellieialla, chesta's demon cleric, anamus, mmm beers' unread necromancer, rathanous, Baan, any of Hit and Run's casters, just to name a few.

All of whom did fantastic against some major Melees titans. I think skill has more to do with it than people want to believe. Mages are harder, but have the reward of being more affective hen done right. Low skill floor, high skill cap. Melees doesn't take as much work to have basic potential to kill with, but some of the better recent melees have struggled against the better recent mages, to say the least. 

The real issue, in my eyes, is that people in general, no matter the game, like to see possible ways something isn't their fault when things just don't pan out, especially in competitive games. It's far easier to do that than it is to identify what mistakes were made by said individual. 

 

Did that melee kick your butt because consumables OP, or because you cast dispel 85784268953 times without keeping fast enough pressure to stop him from farming more? Was it because saves OP, or because your AC is way lower than it should be? Was it because fury OP, or because you stood still casting with 3 stacks of it? 

As to feeling powerless, and perception, I do agree. I think that's obvious given the above. Perception very often leads to misconceptions here. I am not sure it warrants adding such a massive overhaul onto Erelei's plate, though, when a discussion like this could be used as a platform to change some opinions on just what constitutes "powerful".

[aaa]

If you want to retain players, you need to raise the skill floor. Theres a reason low skill floor games (Like natural selection 2) die.

[Lloth]

Not really a valid comparison, since FL having a low skill floor on a certain subsect of its classes isn't really the same thing as an entire game of nonskill. Low skill floor characters (or in this case classes) are, from a design standpoint, required. New players have enough of a learning curve as is. Making it worse just closes that avenue for maintaining numbers, which makes it an objectively bad idea to nix this. 

 

I hope this video explains it a bit more.

 

 

[Fridge]

So what happens when a player with high skill uses a class that requires low skill but has high power?

[Lloth]

They do well, but it doesn't make them OP. That's where skill ceiling comes in. You will find that classes with a lower skill floor have a lower skill ceiling too. Assuming equal chase/eq/efficiency knowledge, the character with a higher skill ceiling class will overpower the one with a lower skill ceiling.

[Fool_Hardy]

Still think the answer lies in severely limiting the number of skills/spells a character can master.

Its completely ridiculous if you think about it. If Aabahran was a story, every character in the book is a master of all trades.

Make people CHOOSE to be good at somethings, but do not allow (worse really, encourage) them to be Great at ALL things.

The reason people reminisce about the "good old days" may be because players had time to make a mistake and at the least survive.

Today. Do everything right or die wishing you had.

 

On a side note, someone mentioned cabal outfits above. With the current numbers and abilities of modern equipment, maybe these outfits could be updated.

[f0xx]

2 hours ago, Lloth said:

The real issue, in my eyes, is that people in general, no matter the game, like to see possible ways something isn't their fault when things just don't pan out, especially in competitive games. It's far easier to do that than it is to identify what mistakes were made by said individual. 

Let that sink in.

[aaa]

12 minutes ago, f0xx said:

Let that sink in.

So basically you're telling everyone to "git gud" because you're not experiencing any problems?

[aaa]

2 hours ago, Lloth said:

They do well, but it doesn't make them OP. That's where skill ceiling comes in. You will find that classes with a lower skill floor have a lower skill ceiling too. Assuming equal chase/eq/efficiency knowledge, the character with a higher skill ceiling class will overpower the one with a lower skill ceiling.

Perhaps we shouldn't be looking at skill floor/ceiling but the barrier to entry.

(The following is my opinion only)

The barrier to entry to play a successful mage is too high and the reward is too low.

The barrier to entry to play a successful melee is too low and the reward is too high.

 

For example, I'd compare melees to the R8 in csgo when it was first released to mages being the scout. 

[Erelei]

Truly, I don't think anyone can be unbiased in suggesting a solution - everyone is going to be biased with whatever class they currently play. Some players play strictly mages, and think melee's are overpowered or have too much up their sleeve (regardless of them continually stomping them) and then there are players who play only melees, who continually stomp everyone too, but somehow, mages are the issue because of this or that.

Like Lloth said above, it's really people looking for excuses as to why they may have lost to a specific melee at the time. Even though they continually stomp all other melees, that one person who stomps them and they lose, suddenly something is wrong with the melee classes.

Same goes for the other side.

[Mmm Coffee]

I blame the RP necklaces...because I'm too lazy to get 100 RP points.

[Zavero]

I used to love playing melee characters. My favorite classes were ranger and warrior. Since I came back, much of the equipment has changed or been added. I honestly switched over to playing mostly mages because it's easier to PK with mediocre equipment with a mage.

Warriors need great equipment to survive and be competitive. I don't have the time or knowledge to attain these items. I know I can PK with an underequiped mage and have done so since I came back.

Maybe if I was like 12 years younger back when I was a total dick I would just full loot everyone and get equipment that way. But now I usually don't even look into the corpse or take the gold even. Soft... Haha.

[Chesta6384]

There's nothing wrong with mages.  There's nothing wrong with melees.  There's nothing wrong with fury.  

There's something wrong with gear

 

Decked melees will hit the hell out of mediocre geared mages giving the perception of being too powerful.

Once the mage gets his gear up to par AC wise it will balance out.   What I see so much in many of these logs where the mage loses are the critical mistakes.

Mages have little room for error, melees on the other hand have far more room.  Successful mages will be played by elite pkers that make very few mistakes.  Less experienced mages will get rolled by a train hitting melee because the overwhelming damage they see puts them into a panic and causes mistakes.

There is no fix to the learning curve of pk.  We all went through it.  You're going to get stomped by powerful chars.  It's a fact of FL.  If you can't take it go play with barbies

[Fridge]

I didn't start this conversation because I was being stomped in PK. I haven't been in that many yet, and the ones I died in, I know I deserved to lose because of mistakes I made. Whether the person beating me was a mage or a melee is irrelevant because I know that they are better.

I had just noticed that the chance of landing spells was next to nothing regardless of what I fought. The difference is if I fought another mage they would also have trouble landing spells where as melees don't seem to be hampered at all, as they are still able to do huge amounts of damage regardless.

My biggest concern was still that if you give melees access to too many of the perks of being a mage(spells) then there is basically no reason to play a mage unless you are an absolute god at this game.

And I'm not going to stop playing this game because of that and go pick up a couple of barbies, it's just something that I've noticed.

[tassinvegeta]

I don't know. I play melees, hybrids, rogues but not mages. With that said I can understand if I'm biased in favor of the former. I don't care about the mages much but I am affected when it comes to the spell set of hybrids, and the ninja's blindness dust/poison smoke.

I consider myself a pretty good player. So when I play melees I can consistently do very well. I can even give the more skilled players or just players trying much harder than me a run for there money.

When I play hybrids is when I start seeing issues. It feels as if most of the spellset isn't as affective as I feel it should be. I used to be very good with them but now barely have the motivation to put in the effort to play one seriously. I look around at recent months/years and see a very low ratio of successful ones. Hybrids I played in the past didn't have this problem much but it has become more apparent recently. Am I no longer as good with hybrids or did something else change...

Yet when I play a melee. Bam easily at the top again.

Ofcourse there are other factors involved. But I'm seeing the same thing across FL. Aren't statistics supposed to help discern imbalances, not fun classes, classes requiring too much skill for the power, classes with too many banes, or too easily accessible banes, people choosing the same selectables over and over? I don't know. I just think theirs glaring problems when you see 10 successful warriors/rangers in the last year and 0 non qclass_qrace dks/paladins.

[Izzy]

I think the problem is a mage can really go out and stomp on almost anyone, and make it look simple, the problem arises when you start stepping into the realm of Very good Mage vs Very good Melle.  It will always be so much harder for the mage.  The mage can not make ONE mistake.  The melle can make several.

 

I have said my 2 cents far to many times, I am tired of beating a dead horse.  There is a problem, but we must first admit there is a problem.