Canned_Apples wrote: »only ones that seem to be mad are those solo nbs that play 100% gank specs so, yes, the devs know what theyre doing.
Believe me, they don't know what they are doing. This happens in every industry, most of the time, the creators hire testers to test their creations because they don't know how to use/test their own creations...
Imagine engineering vehicles for example. Do you really think every engineer out there is an expert Car Driver? They have to hire professional Drivers to test their vehicles, and they proceed to adjust the Car based on the feedback from the Drivers...
It's exactly the same here, just because they know programming and game design, doesn't mean they actually play the game, doesn't even mean they are any good at this anyway. I bet you my account that the top 5% Elitist Min/Max Competitive Players, are better at playing this game than their own Devs.
What's happening right now, is that Devs are experimenting with their creation without a clear view of what/how they expect to achieve.
there is some truth to what you are saying but you are speculating on most of it, because as far as i can see based on your comments and your forum account home page it looks as if you are not on that dev team, and we have no idea how much they do play, in addition there have been changes in staff and some of them like Gillium the rogue has extensive playtime and he is now a dev.
altho that will change because he is of the older play group he still played for several years.'
several times throughout the years we have seen them playing and alot of them including Brian Wheeler have been here now in their field going on since long long before beta and even alpha and some even earlier.
and we have seen them play on videos and livestreams including Rich Lambert even once said he goes home and play for a few hours every night.
in addition we can only assume how they play, do they play like we do? do they pvp like we do?
if so how often? how much per day / week
is it on private servers? do they play with us daily in the campaigns in pvp? in Trials and just hang out in towns and sometimes zone chat?
several times they have said throughout the years "we will see you ingame"
the last live stream Rich Lambert even said that when he loggs in to play that people spam him with whispers about things that bother them about the game. so we know theres some serious playtime happening there to be able have that kind of interaction.
when they claim they will see us ingame does that mean they are on characters we play with daily and we dont even realize those guys are actually devs?
i stand by my earlier comment that bares repeating
i am convinced the developers know alot more about not only nightblades but the whole game far better then not only myself but also all the people on this forum.
they work on this game for a living, they study it day in and day out, they know about this game, not everything they do is going to show that but i can promise you that if you were inside with them you would be amazed at what we Dont know and how good those guys actually are.
i still support that belief.
Given the number of situations where a single target ultimate is vastly worse than AOE spewing, and the niche-ness of the hard counter, and the way it gives stamblades some reason to exist in group PvP... I can see the logic behind it. There are a lot of very harsh counters still in the game, say Detect Pots and even new wings are pretty harsh. I can see how it got to the PTS.
Imagine it in an organized group play scenario. It might do wonders if it hits a healer or mag support at a critical moment. It wouldn't be enough alone to burst down any mag dps in the group who'd still be kept up by other healers. Spewing it off randomly in an ulti-dump would also be a waste. Considering the skill with those types of constraints in mind make it look partially balanced. Even underwhelming.
All that said there's no way it is making it live and ends up slottable. If it makes live with counterplay then for 40% of targets I'd have to save up nearly twice the ulti cost to hope that lag screws my opponent over and prevents them from doing the counterplay. Or I could slot DBoS or Onslaught and have an ulti that is worth slotting for 100% of targets.
danthemann5 wrote: »Yes. One particular dev directly involved with the combat decision making process plays stamblade main. This is the driving force behind these NB changes. Do the math, they know EXACTLY what they are doing.
JumpmanLane wrote: »ONE Dev Knows what’s he’s doing...making that night blade “brawler” somewhat viable? Lol.
JumpmanLane wrote: »ONE Dev Knows what’s he’s doing...making that night blade “brawler” somewhat viable? Lol.
Sanguinor2 wrote: »JumpmanLane wrote: »ONE Dev Knows what’s he’s doing...making that night blade “brawler” somewhat viable? Lol.
He isnt making it "somewhat viable" he is making it insanely OP if all of the changes go live.
Giving the Stamblade Brawler the strongest damage mitigation, the strongest snare removal, great mobility and repositioning tools, good hots and the ability to run rally as burst heal, all the while sitting on capped resistances in a no cp enviroment and still having good stam susain with over 6k weapon damage and this combined with turning half of the PvP population into free AP by using a somewhat cheap ultimate on a high ult gen class certainly is not "somewhat viable" but rather very very strong.
They're in a horrible position for PvP though.
Surprise attack (the skill that actually fits the class) is gutted, pigeonholing you into using mark target which gives away your next move (not very stealthy at all)
Grim focus is now gutted of its buff, which isn't the end of the world but it hinders the burst of what's supposed to be one of the burstiest classes in the game
I like the cloak change
And then there's incap... "major defile 30% heal reduction is too strong! So let's give it the strongest debuff in the game so now it gives 100% self heal reduction and stops you from using ANY magicka abilities" - and then there's the gank aspect of this "snipe is too strong and is being abused (legitimate issue) so let's nerf that, but now we'll turn incap into one of the most powerful gank tools the game has ever seen!"
JumpmanLane wrote: »ONE Dev Knows what’s he’s doing...making that night blade “brawler” somewhat viable? Lol.
All fine and dandy, but not at the expense of other play styles
Sanguinor2 wrote: »JumpmanLane wrote: »ONE Dev Knows what’s he’s doing...making that night blade “brawler” somewhat viable? Lol.
He isnt making it "somewhat viable" he is making it insanely OP if all of the changes go live.
Giving the Stamblade Brawler the strongest damage mitigation, the strongest snare removal, great mobility and repositioning tools, good hots and the ability to run rally as burst heal, all the while sitting on capped resistances in a no cp enviroment and still having good stam susain with over 6k weapon damage and this combined with turning half of the PvP population into free AP by using a somewhat cheap ultimate on a high ult gen class certainly is not "somewhat viable" but rather very very strong.
They're in a horrible position for PvP though.
Surprise attack (the skill that actually fits the class) is gutted, pigeonholing you into using mark target which gives away your next move (not very stealthy at all)
Grim focus is now gutted of its buff, which isn't the end of the world but it hinders the burst of what's supposed to be one of the burstiest classes in the game
I like the cloak change
And then there's incap... "major defile 30% heal reduction is too strong! So let's give it the strongest debuff in the game so now it gives 100% self heal reduction and stops you from using ANY magicka abilities" - and then there's the gank aspect of this "snipe is too strong and is being abused (legitimate issue) so let's nerf that, but now we'll turn incap into one of the most powerful gank tools the game has ever seen!"
The quintessential MMO rogue-style gameplay has been heavily reduced in its effectiveness. Nightblades as a class are fine. Their reduced burst is compensated with increased mitigation. Grim's extra resistance can be sacrificed in order to burst. If you're not a tank, you don't choose to burst or not, you choose when. And that choice has consequences that it previously lacked.
The silence is the problem. It's at once too much and too one-sided in its effectiveness. On the one hand, a stam character can, for the most part, shrug the silence off. On the other, a mag character is doomed.
The other silence, Negate, is an area of denial. If you don't want to be silenced, move. Incap can be dodged (if you call it or have a good connection), but that costs stamina. Stamina that magicka characters already have in short supply. This is why I think it should be a disarm that disables weapon skills and passives instead of a silence. That would heavily reduce offensive effectiveness without cutting out defenses for mag and do little if anything for stam. It would be more even in its effectiveness between stam and mag. And while it would slightly favor mag characters due to the increased number of mag class skills versus stam class skills, mag characters have less stamina for dodge/breakfree and are predominately ranged. To be hit by incap as a mag character means you're already at a disadvantage by being in melee.
Canned_Apples wrote: »only ones that seem to be mad are those solo nbs that play 100% gank specs so, yes, the devs know what theyre doing.
Given the number of situations where a single target ultimate is vastly worse than AOE spewing, and the niche-ness of the hard counter, and the way it gives stamblades some reason to exist in group PvP... I can see the logic behind it. There are a lot of very harsh counters still in the game, say Detect Pots and even new wings are pretty harsh. I can see how it got to the PTS.
Imagine it in an organized group play scenario. It might do wonders if it hits a healer or mag support at a critical moment. It wouldn't be enough alone to burst down any mag dps in the group who'd still be kept up by other healers. Spewing it off randomly in an ulti-dump would also be a waste. Considering the skill with those types of constraints in mind make it look partially balanced. Even underwhelming.
All that said there's no way it is making it live and ends up slottable. If it makes live with counterplay then for 40% of targets I'd have to save up nearly twice the ulti cost to hope that lag screws my opponent over and prevents them from doing the counterplay. Or I could slot DBoS or Onslaught and have an ulti that is worth slotting for 100% of targets.
I can see what you're saying, but you know as well as I do how badly this is going to be abused versus used in scenarios like what you're talking about. Step out of Cyrodiil for a second and think about how detrimental this is going to be in BGs for example. It is the ultimate magicka gank tool
They're in a horrible position for PvP though.
Surprise attack (the skill that actually fits the class) is gutted, pigeonholing you into using mark target which gives away your next move (not very stealthy at all)
Grim focus is now gutted of its buff, which isn't the end of the world but it hinders the burst of what's supposed to be one of the burstiest classes in the game
I like the cloak change
And then there's incap... "major defile 30% heal reduction is too strong! So let's give it the strongest debuff in the game so now it gives 100% self heal reduction and stops you from using ANY magicka abilities" - and then there's the gank aspect of this "snipe is too strong and is being abused (legitimate issue) so let's nerf that, but now we'll turn incap into one of the most powerful gank tools the game has ever seen!"
The quintessential MMO rogue-style gameplay has been heavily reduced in its effectiveness. Nightblades as a class are fine. Their reduced burst is compensated with increased mitigation. Grim's extra resistance can be sacrificed in order to burst. If you're not a tank, you don't choose to burst or not, you choose when. And that choice has consequences that it previously lacked.
The silence is the problem. It's at once too much and too one-sided in its effectiveness. On the one hand, a stam character can, for the most part, shrug the silence off. On the other, a mag character is doomed.
The other silence, Negate, is an area of denial. If you don't want to be silenced, move. Incap can be dodged (if you call it or have a good connection), but that costs stamina. Stamina that magicka characters already have in short supply. This is why I think it should be a disarm that disables weapon skills and passives instead of a silence. That would heavily reduce offensive effectiveness without cutting out defenses for mag and do little if anything for stam. It would be more even in its effectiveness between stam and mag. And while it would slightly favor mag characters due to the increased number of mag class skills versus stam class skills, mag characters have less stamina for dodge/breakfree and are predominately ranged. To be hit by incap as a mag character means you're already at a disadvantage by being in melee.
When you contemplate such issues, you are overthinking it. How much design effort do you think has gone into this? I'll tell you how much: "Hmm. What effect haven't we yet tried on Incap?" <Reaches into a hat>.I guess the big difference is the Silence Incap has group applications because of how mag centric support roles are that a stamina sorta-Silence wouldn't...
Fair enough. I also main a magblade - a melee magblade even - and I feel the other way about this. You answered: Yes - the devs know what they're doing. I disagree. I feel a modified version of Hanlon's razor applies in this case. Something like: Don't assume there is any intent when a change looks this stupid. The fact that this wasn't their first choice, but it only went in at the last minute, only reinforces that perception for me.Victor_Blade wrote: »I main a magblade and I know incap will delete me, but at least I can take a number of people down before I die. No more magsorc hiding behind pets, no more shield spam when their health goes below 80%, no more streaking out of attack range.
Cloak>incap>fear>merciless. Can't wait for it to go live lel.
Fair enough. I also main a magblade - a melee magblade even - and I feel the other way about this. You answered: Yes - the devs know what they're doing. I disagree. I feel a modified version of Hanlon's razor applies in this case. Something like: Don't assume there is any intent when a change looks this stupid. The fact that this wasn't their first choice, but it only went in at the last minute, only reinforces that perception for me.Victor_Blade wrote: »I main a magblade and I know incap will delete me, but at least I can take a number of people down before I die. No more magsorc hiding behind pets, no more shield spam when their health goes below 80%, no more streaking out of attack range.
Cloak>incap>fear>merciless. Can't wait for it to go live lel.
the silence needs to be removed not "add counter play" because that would screw with negate and thats in a good place
Victor_Blade wrote: »I main a magblade and I know incap will delete me, but at least I can take a number of people down before I die. No more magsorc hiding behind pets, no more shield spam when their health goes below 80%, no more streaking out of attack range.
Cloak>incap>fear>merciless. Can't wait for it to go live lel.