You are now the game designer, how do you fix skill imbalance ?

Thevenin · April 2014

So you are the game lead balance designer, and have just decided to wander on the official forums for your monthly stroll.

There seems to be a rageing uproar about vampires, dragon knights, sorcerers, impulse, bash and VR10s in AvA, and you've just watched one of the many videos showing an emperor vampire DK/sorc taking on 30 people while sipping his soda.

You now have to write the balancing part of the next 1.1 patchnote, what are your decisions ?

awkwarrd · April 2014

Enable "Silver Bolts" to remove Bat Swarm.
Enable "Silver Bolts" to remove 10% magicka and drop magicka regen by 40%

This is a hotfix for a bigger patch solution that completely fixes all broken skills.

Sariias · April 2014

Well, whole armies having to dodge tiny groups of DK and Sorc vampires does seem silly so I'd probably just remove dodge from the game.

Vlas · April 2014

By balancing them...

Tarwin · April 2014

I'm now the poor developer lead employee assigned to balancing to keep everyone happy? Sorry, I quit. and will find another job that is still in pre-release stages. That's about as appealing as being the President of the US right now. You will never make everyone happy!

Dudis · April 2014

Nerf cost reduction for ults into the ground

Remove any and all AoE Caps from the game but make AoE spells have falloff (less effect the further from the center you get)

Make stats (hp/ma/st, armor etc) scale rather than just being a static value for lvl 10-49. Just change all their gear to a level 49 version of whatever they're wearing and call it a day.

Have the tip of every loading screen porting to and inside Cyrodiil be "If it looks and sounds painful, it probably is. MOVE AWAY FROM CRAP!"

Change the out of combat "bug" so you can actually sneak after killing someone and getting to safety. THEN nerf Mist Form and Sorc Teleport.

I could go on. There are easy fixes to all of these problems.

Zintair · April 2014

Biggest Changes I would make and said 100000 times are these.

Remove Ultimate Cost Reduction completely from the game.

Remove the ability to generate Ultimate while an ultimate is active.

Add DR for Dodge/Roll Soft CC immunity of 2-5 seconds.

Relook at the scaling of stamina abilities to make sure they are working as intended aka Bash etc.

Fix the Vampire bugs to have them operating as normal. Aka Healing in Mist Form or the bugged passives.

I would consider the 6 person CC cap if only I could gain time in developing the DAOC AoE fall off system where center AoE hits hardest and falls off the further you move from the center. Would also have to change healing with this I am sure.

Dudis · April 2014

It's weird i think that pretty much everyone agrees what has to be done and yet we're arguing about it haha.

I hope Zen is paying attention...

Syndy · April 2014

Not allow Players to gain Ultimate while currently using an Ultimate.

Bolt Escape and Mist Form get Dimishing returns over 15 second period. By this I mean they use it once they get 100% speed/distance, next time in the 15 second window from the first they get 50% of the spells effectiveness, then 25%, then 13% etc.

When breaking out of a Root, players gain an immunity to root just like any other form of CC.

Ult Reduction Gear removed from the game.

Shield bash damage receives the same diminishing returns as the Bolt Escape Mist form. First 100% dmg, then half that, then half, etc.

Fix Vampire Mist Form to correctly make player immune to all healing.

Reavan · April 2014

My idea for aoe.
Countering the zerg is all well and good.
But when people start using aoes as the go to ability even in small groups or 1v1 then something is wrong.

I don't think the target cap is a great idea but i also dont believe in these cookie cuter aoe builds that excel in any situation. So i am against aoe spam but aslo against zerging.

The dacoc spreading out makes sense and i have a fine idea to enforce it.

IDEA
Remove target caps of aoe.
Reduce damage of aoe by a %, could be anything. Lets say 25% of the current.
If you hit 3 targets you do double damage to each.
4 targets triple damage.
5 targets quad damage. (same as now)
6 targets 5x damage.
7 targets 6x damage.
8 targets 7x damage.
9+ targets 8x damage. (or double the current damage)

This way dedicated aoe builds have a place to counter zergs while removing the whole concept of AOE SPAM VS EVERYTHING.

Sleepydan · May 2014

1.1 patch notes per sleepydan.

Persistent auras damaging auras are now classified as dots.

Siphoning strikes no longer works on dots.

Mist form no longer has 100% cc immunity. Now has 75% reduced cc effect.

Werewolf transform ultimate now costs 25% less resource.

Werewolf light and heavy attacks now deal up to 50% more damage, scaling with stamina.

Silver bolts costs 25% less stamina

Tandara · May 2014

I don't get it why everyone cries about mist form(alone not combined with crapswarm etc.). Atm this is the one abilitie which keep me playing this game. It's like a vanish but not so effective. For myself as a person who enjoys solo pvp it's a skill which I couldn't miss in any case.

Bolt escape is another thing because it's limited to one class.

It just makes really no fun to play a stealth type char without any escape mechanism. And there mist in it's current form is really well designed to keep us non zerg players playing. It can be countered easily like in any other game with pbae etc. but at least you have a chance to get away from those 6-10 player ganksquads who find it funny to farm solo players. ;>

BUT yes I fully agree it shouldn't be able to be combined with damaging abilites like batswarm. It should just an escape tool nothing more.

Sleepydan · May 2014

I agree. My only thing with mist is that it counters the fighters guild counter. 100%immunity to their knockdown. And every other knockdown, but their knockdown specifically.

That's why I like making it a 75% worse knockdown instead of immune. It's still better to wait till it fades, but it's not troll everyone effective in a 1 vs 100 scenario that people complain about.

It also feels right to me.

Silver still jacks it up, but how much can you really jack up mist anyways

Gisgo · May 2014

First i would put a team on collecting data (if there isnt one already).
Fixing ultimate spamming is the first thing that comes to mind anyway.
Dark talons should be more in line with every other CC.
Maybe fix oil pots placed on the same floor?
Atm i dont see anything else terribly broken.

Kililin · May 2014

PVP balance:
First of all, i would check the characters of the forum posters whining about balance and their guilds to boot.

If they dont do pvp with VR10 groups, their opinion is meaningless, because i can only balance for top level, not for all possible level combinations.
Also their builds will be taken into account, if they are gimmicky or focused on anything but pvp i will also discard the complaints.

If there is a legitimate complaint go to skill balancing.

Also i would make sure that pvp is not only about numbers, and try to implement mechanics that support this. Example: Crowd Control, unlimited AOE...
Why: because it helps alleviate population imbalance and makes for epic stories

Skill balance:
Skill balance i would check myself and compare the damage output of different skills and weapons check if the lower skills provide enoug utility to warrant the low damage output and adjust the values accrodingly.

Vampire balancing:
I would check why small groups can survive vampires just fine, but there are zergs dying to them.

Kratork · May 2014

there is only one solution, zombie dragon, zombie dragon mount and zombie dragon raid

Tandara · May 2014

Sleepydan wrote: »

I agree. My only thing with mist is that it counters the fighters guild counter. 100%immunity to their knockdown. And every other knockdown, but their knockdown specifically.

That's why I like making it a 75% worse knockdown instead of immune. It's still better to wait till it fades, but it's not troll everyone effective in a 1 vs 100 scenario that people complain about.

It also feels right to me.

Silver still jacks it up, but how much can you really jack up mist anyways

It should counter your Silver Bolt.. The idea behind how it was designed( I think so I can't say for sure) was that it is a "get to da choppa skill". You should get away with this skill. Every single change in terms of the ability will make it useles and not used anymore. And you can if you've choosen the right skills in your bar still catch/kill a player in mist form, - it's actually rather easy.

Just think about that you can be targetet like normal. I would rather insta heal myself than use mist because I know for sure I wont have a chance to flee at all.

ONCE AGAIN I am 100% with all of you that you shouldn't be able to do any damage while in mist form(even if precastet like with inhale/batswarm) .

But please for gods sake don't touch the skill itself. It would ruin the game for all of us 1vs1 players without real advantage for the AvA player, besides that they can zerg a single guy with 50 players.

aeroch · May 2014

Fixing bugged skills and passives would be a good start

Ultimate snowballing in Cyrodiil needs to be addressed, like others have already pointed out. I'd like to see the Ultimate gain from damaging players with AoE reduced a bit as well.