How to fix Impulse, Wall of Elements, and other AOE abilities

Thechemicals · November 2014

woodsro wrote: »

Hi,

this is just a thought, but i think this im going outline below is how you stop the lag and AOE spamming on PVP.

1. Give Impulse, Wall of Elements, and and other AOE Diminishing Marginal Returns - This means for each player that is in range of the spell, reduce the damage by 9%, with a max reduction of 54% at 6 targets.

AOE attacks are meant to be supplemental, not the main focus of your attack...PVE/PVP be darned, they can scale dungeon mobs to compensate for the nerf, but AOE should have diminishing returns. if 6 targets are in range of Impulse, damage is reduced by 54%. AOE is meant to be used on 2-3 targets, not 5 or more, if you use it on 5 or more, your returns should be smaller and it should have horrid mana efficiency.

2. Give Impulse, Wall of Elements, and other AOE the same nerf Bolt Escape got - after 1 cast, the next cast within 4 seconds costs 50% more and halves your mana regeneration for 4 seconds.

3. Healing Springs should not restore ultimate unless healing a target thats health is below 100% and nerf Healing Springs/Ultimate generation by 5%- - This takes away some of the incentive for spamming this skill over and over, and over again, while still being a useful heal. Perhaps also slightly increase its cost.

This deters folks from spamming AOE over and over and lagging the server.

They need to do something to deter this AOE spamming in pVP, it causes too much lag...we have siege, ballista's, etc to use if we want AOE attacks....this will encourage folks to use siege instead of Impulse and the like.

just my 2 cents.

Where does it say aoe is intended to be supplemental?

Sylvyr · November 2014

There are 2 major things going on here that people are pointing at AoEs for

1) Lag/real time computation overload
2) Zergballs

In regards to 1:
Sure, it would probably ease up the server's (dis)ability to keep up with damage, targets, etc. The cost of reducing or nerfing AoE though is less functionaility. It takes away from the basics of the game. AoEs are fun and good for certain situations and the same can be said for single target. These 2 general classes add variety and tactics to the game in their respective functions. Imagine taking it to a level where there are NO AoEs, sure, everyone could go single target and it would be that game, but I think a lot of people would say it's only half a game.

AoEs add a substantial dimension to games in general. Even in shooters there are things like grenades, shotguns, mortars, etc, that add a whole dimension in the form of multi-target or AoE, just like this one and many others. Start taking that away to reduce demand on the server, while sure it'd porbably help a lot, it would strip away at that dimension. Other MMOs that have PvP elements that I've personally played have experienced similar issues and they were solved through updated hardware and code to facilitate them as opposed to dumbing down the game.

In regards to 2:
If you nerf AoE DPS and not AoE/multi-target heals, you'll likely end up with even more zergballs, but for different reasons. Under the umbrella of healing you'll want to be in a healball. Just the DPS coming out will be single target, maybe even against another healball. And that would be interesting and it'll become a race on calling out a single target to kill, and the team that does this best will prevail, and those that have the best chances of doing this will of course be those with TS, and other potential tools to accomplish this.

This could be balanced by nerfing or doing away with AoE heals. That then opens up even another can of worms....

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · November 2014

woodsro wrote: »

Generating ulty by spamming HS out of combat shouldn't even be an option, if that's the logic we have, I should be able to spam lighting flood repeatedly at the floor so I can generate free ulty too without hitting a target.

Since the healing springs is not restoring a single hp out of combat to people at 100% health, it should not be generating ulty. That would be no different then impulse spamming out of combat generating ulty, its a stupid mechanic (no offense)

I'm all for letting HS heal 6 targets and Gen ulty when its being used in combat or actually healing people, but not spamming it out of combat on full health targets.

I'd rather them work on something useful. People in solid groups have spell sym anyway so damage is not an issue, they will just use that. From What I've seen the lag seems to be from to many players close together not just server wide aoe casts. Every time I hit unplayable lag there seems to be150+ at one keep or outpost and significantly more people at times too. This is what needs to be addressed.
+ in regards to this " aoe is supposed to be for 2-3 targets+we need diminishing returns" nonesense . Its capped at 6 therefore its meant for up to 6 with a preference for maximum for better effectiveness. The hardcap is in place of diminished returns you can't have both. You already have less effectiveness when your hitting more then 6 via zero friggen damage.

Edit, I'm addressing multiple thing in here but quoting properly is a pain on my phone.

Nijjion · November 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

The target cap was actually always there.
There were just a couple "buged" abilities that got fixed in the patch that revealed its presence in the game..

Yeah as a DK none of my abilities had caps... it was *** glorious. Can't wait for the 6 person cap to be fixed.