Saves, mages and melees. Controversial, I know.

[Erelei]

Don't think I've ever see a melee two round a prepared mage. 

I have however, seen a mage two round a prepared melee.

So.. mages, imho, have the higher ceiling. 

Like Chesta said, too, everyone's been there. Getting roflstomped is just part of the initiation process. If anyone has any suggestions (haven't yet seen one) you're more than welcome to spit some off so we can decide if that would be a necessary change to help newbies along.

[Celerity]

There are probably lots of imbalances at play here, and that is what this discussion is doing, opening up the complicated issue and trying to identify the parts, if any, that we want to do something about.

5 hours ago, Erelei said:

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.

I agree that everyone is certainly biased in some way. I disagree that people are necessarily biased towards what they are currently playing, their favored class(es) or even mages/melee in general. I personally made an effort to switch up class types and builds in a conscious effort to find imbalance. My last major characters were a mage, melee, rogue, and then communer.

After each, I submitted suggestions that would 'tone down' the class I had just played (e.g. increase cleric mana costs + tone spell-turning, get rid of assassinate, lower cap of melee saves on vuln, and alter very high end damage output to status effect on invoker). I had a high profile necro failure some years ago from which I gathered my thoughts for the basis of the eventual necro rework.

I had some minor characters as testers playing hybrids during the lives of those characters. I had a paladin of little consequence from who I suggest 'tone ups' to the class. I had a DK after which I suggested a charm change (yes, f0xx, the idea originated in about 2010, not 2017 :p). I do agree with @tassinvegeta about hybrids being generally too weak, except for rangers. Do I have a melee or mage bias? My last templates that I can remember were for herald, tattoos, perks, berserkers, shield warriors, necromancers, bards and ninja. Many of my suggestions have been rejected, some implemented, and some may yet be implemented years down the road.

Melee players will typically suggest changes that affect melees, there is bias, but more importantly, that is what they are qualified to suggest about. The same with mage players. Suggestions could come because they got beat, but it could also be anything other reason. That is more of an individual personality thing rather than a broad assessment of all player's suggestions. People DO tend to suggest things that are relevant to them currently, but that is also reasonable.

One way to go about reworks would be to look at the pfile output and see which classes/races/cabals are very under-represented. Instead of assuming they are out of balance, assume they are out of fun, and consider why people aren't using them. It doesn't matter much if necros were out of balance or just not fun, people were not playing them. That made them a prime candidate for a rework. We've been getting a steady input of reworks, so hopefully the players are distributing better than they used to.

 

3 minutes ago, Erelei said:

Don't think I've ever see a melee two round a prepared mage. 

I have however, seen a mage two round a prepared melee.

So.. mages, imho, have the higher ceiling. 

Like Chesta said, too, everyone's been there. Getting roflstomped is just part of the initiation process. If anyone has any suggestions (haven't yet seen one) you're more than welcome to spit some off so we can decide if that would be a necessary change to help newbies along.

 

I've seen, done, and been killed in several two rounders in a melee vs prepared mage fight. Nexus ogre ranger against undead necro? Just about any ogre ranger nexian fight vs a vuln mage. My undead necro was getting two rounded by every melee in the game at that time and I wasn't exactly a newbie in any sense of the word. Azantar two rounded my elf invoker sigil. Monks do it every once in awhile. I've seen way more two rounders against mages than dealt by mages. My first post had several suggestions, btw. I struggle to think of what prepared melee could be two-rounded by a mage. Four call lightnings might take out a low hp melee of some kind? Old necro maybe, but only against unprepped? No other mage can chew through 1000 hp in two rounds through preparations.

The power ceiling on mages is probably lower than the ceiling on melees...mages pretty much max out once you have your build going...a melee always has to shift their gear around and their damage potential doesn't ever 'max'. This has always been the justification for what the strongest melees are more powerful than the strongest mages. It is acceptable because mages have a better quality (and likely quantity) of life to compensate. You can relax on a mage...a melee you always have to be out gathering stuff. There is some debate whether the very strongest mage builds (typically clerics in the past) are stronger than the strongest melee builds (typically ogre ranger/warrior in the past), but it is pretty moot since those builds are often so powerful as to be imbalanced in themselves.

[Izzy]

I have 2 rounded a prepared Melle as my mage, though the stars aligned.  I have also nearly been two rounded by MANY melles with my current mage.

 

I dont think there is a huge problem, I think it is minor.  Save vs Spell + Hit dam equipment needs to be toned down.

 

I think smoking in combat is ridiculous.

 

PULLING MURDER ROUNDS FROM USING A MENTAL OR MAL AS OPENER IS BROKEN.  I got the jump I should not eat a murder round.

 

 

[f0xx]

9 minutes ago, Izzy said:

PULLING MURDER ROUNDS FROM USING A MENTAL OR MAL AS OPENER IS BROKEN.  I got the jump I should not eat a murder round.

That's the only actual problem in this thread.

Any feedback on that, @Erelei?

Do you consider that as a bug or a feature?

[Erelei]

2 minutes ago, f0xx said:

That's the only actual problem in this thread.

Any feedback on that, @Erelei?

Do you consider that as a bug or a feature?

I've found no evidence that it's purposely coded that way. I can't answer that yet.

[Erelei]

@Celerity - When you add cabals into the mix, we approach unbalance at radical levels, especially if the one against the other is of a lower rank than the other.

Whether this is something we should continue to allow is entirely allowed to be discussed. But if we buff lower ranks, then those that don't cabal are at a huge disadvantage - if we lower the ceiling for higher ranked cabal members, then it's not as cool to have one, etc..

[aaa]

I've found that fights with both parties using protection are longer, more forgiving and generally more satisfying than when a neutral is involved. How about giving mages a type of protection that affects all aligns but doesn't stack with actual protection. 

Try it for a week or two, if you see mages suddenly being unstoppable gods then remove it? You can tick it off the list and move on, doing nothing on the other hand will spawn these debates over and over again.

 

Or how about giving mages a new armor/shield type spell for -50 ac, this will have mostly no affect against godsuited mages because of diminishing returns and will help lesser geared ones, thus lowering the barrier of entry. Too op after a month? Remove it.

At the end of the day, the powercreeped items are the problem but bandaid fixes like this can somewhat normalize things to the way they used to be.

[Lloth]

Please support statements of overturned powercreep with examples. We can then discuss among the staff if it warrants a change. 

[f0xx]

1 hour ago, Wade said:

How about giving mages a type of protection that affects all aligns but doesn't stack with actual protection. 

Sounds fair. /sarcasm

[Manual Labour]

Giving mages protection from neutral doesn't seem that fair...That would mitigate a LOT of damage and make those with the ability to heal really sustainable.

As for a spell that gives -50 AC not changing much, I disagree. Top players know the diminishing returns threshold and would just take that free AC and gear even more HP.

[mya]

About mages survival > meeles. I don't notice this on my melees. I can push my meeles a lot further than my mages and run.
 

Also, someone refereed that meeles have access to spell forged item that grant spells. Some of them are pretty powerful. Some are pretty powerful vs mages. But what I wanted to say is that there is no items to grant skills. Such as blind fighting. 50% blind fighting would be a great boon on a non blind fighting class. Not that I'm even sure such kind of items should exist, but I wished to refer it.

The problem with stacking AC is that it only protects vs meele attacks and some very few rare skills. Direct damage stuff isn't protected. Stuff like throw or weapons proc damage (wrath/flameblind).

If you are going to make a new +AC buff, please make it a wand. So that no meele can use it. And then improve paladins virtous light to give decent AC. Something like -level  AC (50 at L50).

Smoke should not be a combat action. There are pills for all this, and sheath;hold;quaff for potions. Losing one's sanctuary in combat should have consequences. Same for flight. Sure you can eat a pill of sanctuary in combat but you will have a low duration sanctuary that will fall on the first successful dispel and that will drop shortly again, without you having a way to cancel it.

Some other minor stuff:

Throw, should be blocked by missile shield. Thieves/Ninjas can strike from surprise and no one is 100% under that spell. Or at least 50% of times like for archers, or at least when fleeing, keeping auto-throw on murder. If you just got blackjacked you won't have the missile shield up.

Paladins virtuous light should really grant a better AC buff. Paladins should also have access to spears, in my view, which would grant mounted charge with a shield from a 1h spear. This would empower the class a bit vs meeles, because frankly, the only Paladins I see last a bit are the ones about to be accepted into crusaders.
Also, Paladins would benefit a lot from having a kills related things like malforms, but not malforms. Something like a horse empowerment or something close to Avatars. Or some mix of it. Like L1 granting 1 horse attack (bite), L2 bless arms (at cost of level "power"), L3 empowered restorative spells, L4 allowing a weapon naming, L5 blind fighting.

Necros and DK's are fine.

Invokers, just reduce the entry to the class by having identify sprint the +AFF bonus, mana cost reduction, and cast time reduction information. All the vets of the class know this, and operate 99% of the time on a fully charged staff. Allowing newbes to easiery understand mana charge would help them since they are the ones running around with non optimal mana charged staves.

BMG's. I hate having BMG's changed because they are so well done and unique, but they need a small buff. I would say give them enhanced damage. Or something RPish named that is mechanically equivalent to it. The possibility that their meele in combat suddenly is relevant will completely change the class approach to PK.

[Chesta6384]

5 hours ago, Chesta6384 said:

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 

5 hours ago, Fridge said:

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.

If mages were to land spells with ease again....Well....Let's just say you will hate shamans.  It's always been possible to get max saves.  It's just easier now which means everyone has them.  

Mages have their perks.  

 

[Manual Labour]

Lower all damage by around 30%.

Merge sanctuary/protection into one spell of protection that blocks around 20% of melee damage. By melee damage I include and limit reduction to damage dealt by weapons in combat, projectiles, and other fighting skills (bash, kick, charge etc...). Spells would do full damage, including spells cast by weapons, armor or items.

Give this new spell to all classes that already had sanctuary, and make it self cast only.

Remove all sanctuary/protection consumables from the game.

 

 

[aaa]

2 hours ago, f0xx said:

Sounds fair. /sarcasm

I see you come from the future where this has been deemed the case, any chance of next week's lottery numbers? 

The suggestions I said aren't final proof of concepts, they were merely meant to show the possibility of the type of change. 

1 hour ago, Manual Labour said:

Giving mages protection from neutral doesn't seem that fair...That would mitigate a LOT of damage and make those with the ability to heal really sustainable.

As for a spell that gives -50 AC not changing much, I disagree. Top players know the diminishing returns threshold and would just take that free AC and gear even more HP.

It doesn't have to be as strong as protection, look at those logs of that invoker savant. The fight he doesn't have chronoshield he gets destroyed and the one he does have it, it seemed a lot more fair and the opponent had to use some tactics beside flee and murder. 

If your concern is it would be too op for classes that can heal, don't give them the spell, give them something else. 

As for the ac spell, I'm sure you understand the idea behind it, something that lets non-godsuit mages close the gap. Maybe make the ac it grants have diminishing returns or grant less ac per extra 20hp they get from armor for example. 

[aaa]

2 hours ago, Lloth said:

Please support statements of overturned powercreep with examples. We can then discuss among the staff if it warrants a change. 

When I have time I'll collect some data but in general a lot of the new gear is never in but the old tier 1 gear is normally in. 

It's obviously desirable for some reason and I'd wager its because it's strictly better. 

The class revamps are also another example of powercreep, harder to prove without the statistics though. 

[Fool_Hardy]

This weapon is greater than that one in battle.

If I am a warrior, I can always choose the superior weapon. Spoken, I can always have weapon advantage. If I understand the mechanics, this means I can effectively lower my opponents ability to parry my weapon.

The mage. Will rarely have the weapon advantage. The mage can only parry.

My melees can stay in battle longer too, because they have more than one defense.

Spell defenses SHOULD compensate for this, and did when the only people with +40 +50 were giants/demons with nearly no saves (-12)-(-25). With the numbers you are all achieving now, the magic is outweighed by the might.

Look at in simple terms, start at the beginning. The Armor spell, EVERYONE has it. Its not special anymore. Sanc? Not special. Flesh armor? Nope. Maybe pass door? Not since the first age.

Any spell you got, anyone else can get. Why not start there? In the beginning.

Make spells that are guild/cabal ordained more affective/potent than any consumable form. A mages cast armor = -30 ac. Smoke a gyvel, eat a pill, or whatever for -15.

Then wait a couple of weeks. Watch the effect of the change. Then modify other prominent spells as necessary. Do I think this is the easy button? No. I think its a start.

[f0xx]

What I find really funny is that most of the people here who complain about melees 
play mages exclusively and do relatevily well with them. When they try playing melees, 
they are not as successful (to put it soft).

If you take class to class comparison, mages are much stronger than melees. They can't be
lagged, you have sanctuary and protection available to you, buffs, you can't be lagged. Your
spells do the heavy lifting for you, you don't need special weapons against each enemy you face,
itemization in general is much easier. To put it short, they have much easier time when it comes
to preparation.

Melees on the other hand are dependant on EQ. Their strength changes with the tier of the EQ you 
are wearing. If you wear the best EQ available, wield the best weapons, hoard all the consumables
out there and have a high cabal rank, you are bound to be strong.

When Izzy rolled his melee character the first thing he told me was "Dude they are so dependable
on consumables". That character didn't last long.

Melees have a much greater room to grow their power because they start from a much lower point.

You see Chesta here? He has killed decked Elder Crusader using high level weapon, with a shaman
wielding just a weapon and a shield.

You think you're gonna get more PK success by buffing "mages"? You lie to yourself. It will just 
make hardcore melee players like Tassin and Trick learn mages instead.

If I were you, I would seek ways to improve and adapt, instead to change game mechanics. I mean, 
just look at the arguments you are using: "My melees can stay in battle longer". What is that 
statement, with no context, supposed to mean even?

You characters are badly built, badly itemized, your tactics are bad, your selections are bad, 
your EQ is bad, and you expect to go toe to toe with characters like Raynald, Kelmi, Cervall,
Ilsurik, Kotrag and others who have the best EQ, have carfuly planned their characters before 
even rolling them, have high cabal positions, sound tactics, speed and vast knowledge.... not 
gonna happen. Changing the game mechanics will make them adapt and they will still be on top.

In the end, the players that have learned to adapt and seek ways to constantly improve will 
do well. The players that want to change the game so it suits "their" playstyle, will not.

There is a very sound logic behind L-A's "Harden up princess".

[Kyzarius]

You lost me Foxx, when you just dismissed everyones well thought out suggestions and observations as complaining.

 

I like @Fool_Hardy point and approach.  

[Mmm Coffee]

Two cabals with gear that automatically heals blind is pretty dang frustrating too.  Given the forementioned ease of saves accumulation.

[Gaunticles]

Here's an idea, make 3 servers and separate them by class type. Melee plays on the melee server, hybrid on hybrid server, and mage on mage server. 

[Fool_Hardy]

I suppose we need to answer a question before we investigate further.

Is the game balanced around all players having all the buffs? I.E. Do we balance classes on the assumption that every character will eat/smoke consumables?

Maybe we do now. Who knows? I assure you, the source used to create Aabahran was not.

And @ Foxx, you make strong arguments for the melee characters. Please retain this civil tone and continue the discussion here. You points are valid.

That said. I do not play any class primarily. Neither Melee, Hybrid, or Caster. I enjoy playing different things.

The trouble comes on ALL of my characters, with the current >+60 H&D combined with -40 saves and -600 AC. And 5 of six characters can not HIT their enemies, period.

With +30 H&R (once viable) you will miss (note MISS, not be defended against). This problem affects my melee characters more than my casters.

Truthfully, it leads me toward casters because fireballs will damage my opponent. Unfortunately today that fireball ingures ferals, Mutilates Ogres, and tickles elves.

Harden up princess = Go play somewhere else if you do not like the current environment here. This is not the way we should think, or acknowledge peoples frustrations.

 

[Zavero]

I agreed with what @f0xx posted. With exception to the last line.

3 minutes ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Harden up princess = Go play somewhere else if you do not like the current environment here. This is not the way we should think, or acknowledge peoples frustrations.

 

+1

[mya]

The refutal to F00x argument is if things are so balanced why have people been playing a lot more successful meeles than mages.

And lets keep Qclasses/Races out of the thing, because Qstuff are on a different level.
We should also not be discussing Cabal stuff, because I should not have to be cabaled to be able to win a fight.

9 hours ago, f0xx said:

If you take class to class comparison, mages are much stronger than melees. They can't be
lagged, you have sanctuary and protection available to you, buffs, you can't be lagged. Your
spells do the heavy lifting for you, you don't need special weapons against each enemy you face,
itemization in general is much easier. To put it short, they have much easier time when it comes
to preparation.

"They can't be lagged," but they can't lag. Exception exist, with Monks/Blademaster balance and Evil Clerics sermon / Necros pet lag.

" have sanctuary and protection available to you, buffs," BMG and Necros don't have sanctuary. BMG don't have protection. There are no consumables of Dodge.
Meeles also have buffs. Warcry, Berserk. Non communers also have to gather bless which is a lot worse than warcry. Not to speak of missile shield, and remember meeles can't use missile shield because they can use bows.
All classes have to gather consumables.

"Your spells do the heavy lifting for you, you don't need special weapons against each enemy you face," Yes, but a meele with the weapon choice has a way to potenciate his damage, by choosing a weapon that others can't defend as well or a vuln weapon. Mages have little or no way to (curse), and are always dependent on his opponent choice of using or not saves.

 

In my view it's not the classes mechanic that is unbalanced. It's the gradual empowering of equipment which benefits meele offense and spell defense (2 factors) while only empowering mages defence as HP (1 factor). F00x is right in that meeles are more dependent on EQ, but the reverse of the coin is that the EQ improvement benefited more meeles over mages.

I also don't think AC increase is the solution, because the more we buff EQ the more we decrease the impact of player skill on PK.

 

Ok, I have an Idea that will be pretty controversial. What if we suddenly we introduced an herb that cures dirt kick.
I hate the idea because it will lead to more grinding, has a huge impact on the game, but it will balance some things for mages.
I dispel, you smoke sanctuary. All right, you dirt, I smoke cure dirt. Pretty fair and balanced.

[Izzy]

The fact this topic gets brought up so much should be cause enough for concern.  I am happy that it has still been allowed to continue.

 

I find it difficult to play melle, not because i cant do it, yet because i just don't like it.

 

When u look at the phase, and the mains we all choose to play, how many really play successfully mages in comparison to successfully melle.

 

My goal is to type who and see diversity amongst the list.  I am bored of fighting all the same things.  Warrior/Ranger/Ninja

 

If u notice They are all classes that use bows.  Generally these are the powerhouses.

 

 

[tassinvegeta]

@Izzyyou forgot bard  

Not sure any of these solutions solve the problem as they either;

1. Power up the mages whom don't need it. I.E. Invokers, Shamans

2. Power up mage tactics that don't need to be. More defensive powers for Bmgs etc...

3. Doesn't address hybrids.

The fix should only either target the landing rate of mals and mental spells or the ability to recover from them so easily. (exception being shamans)

Something that would help us all tailor and target our suggestions is to look at statistics of classes and races played and selections chosen over a period of a few years. Wonder if the Imms have access to this and wouldn't mind posting this for us all to see?