AoE Changes & Discussion

[Yaffy]

Since there's a lot of discussion about the AoE change in the latest patch, I thought it'd be relevant to make a thread specifically about the discussion of this change.
There's a lot of opinions, both positive and negative, but I hope we can have a constructive discussion to help us (and the devs!) understand how the changes have affected game play. Experiences with the changes are greatly appreciated here, although remember that everyone will have a very different experience so some people may feel heavily impacted by the changes while others not so much.

For those that aren't sure of how the changes work, AoE damage now does less damage to all targets hit as more enemies are hit by the AoE. The first target(s) are also affected by this damage decrease, so none of the enemies are exempt from the damage penalty.

The damage scaling is as such (After personal testing):

3 targets or less: 100% damage
4 targets: 75% damage
5 Targets: 50% damage
6 Targets: 40% damage
7 Targets: 30% damage
8 or more: 25% damage

So with this, I'd like to point out that after 4 mobs, AoEs will be doing less damage in total. You will do 300% of the AoE's damage if you hit 3 or 4 mobs, but when you hit 5 mobs you will start doing less damage in total (50% * 5 = 250%) all the way down to 8 (25% * 8 = 200%). Once you start hitting 12 mobs you'll be back up to 300% and further mobs will increase total damage.

From my personal experience, I thought that the nerf would be extremely limiting, but it doesn't seem that bad after some testing. However, I do feel like there are some strange quirks with how you start to lose damage as you add mobs, which seems counter intuitive. Although it's fair to weaken a single player who is trying to solo many mobs at once, I feel like the nerf causes some strange interactions in ordinary group play.
For example, in Gazluk Keep there are many rooms where there are a large number of non-elite "Trash" mobs clumped together and it's not uncommon for parties pull 5-10 mobs at once in this situation (whether on purpose or by accident). However, due to AoE's doing less damage with more mobs, AoE's end up doing so little damage that it's more effective to simply switch to single target instead as the AoE damage is unnoticeably small. This causes a strange situation where AoEs become valuable when fighting a few mobs at once, but become very weak if there's too many. While I can understand a sharp penalty to damage to hinder a single player trying to farm many mobs at once, I believe that a group of 6 players should be able to fight a group of 5-10 non-elites without such a large penalty.

I do appreciate that the AoE change has made these trash mobs more dangerous, as it makes the dungeon more interesting! (Before they would just fall over instantly and were completely ignored for the most part). However I think AoE's losing damage as mobs are added is counter intuitive and causes AoEs to only be useful in certain situations, as currently AoEs should actually be avoided when there are too many monsters due to their low damage (Unless if they have a good secondary effect).

My personal suggestion for the developers is to allow the primary target of the AoE (Whichever monster you have targeted) to always take full damage from the AoE and for two additional enemies to always take full damage or at least 50% damage minimum. This would mean that AoE would still be helpful even against large mobs as you'll be still be doing some noticeable damage to a few enemies and then the other enemies would take minor splash damage. This would allow groups to continue using AoE if they pull a large pack in a dungeon, but still make it very difficult for a single player to farm huge packs as mobs past the first three would still avoid most of the damage.

Please post what you think about the changes, your experience with it, and any changes you might like to see. Any suggestions are appreciated! Just make sure to explain your reasoning as best as you can. Not just for the others posting on the forums, but also so the developers can understand you!

[Mechant]

Honestly I was not expecting an AOE nerf, we were expecting a balance in general for combat skills, especially the stacking mods being too overpowered, Bard :rolleyes:

AOE being nerfed no more easy farm I guess ?

[ErDrick]

What merchant said. I was expecting balance changes specifically for group combat with the release of priest, I was also expecting some bard specific balance changes and/or blanket changes to reduce outgoing and incoming damage.

[FuzzyKittens]

I absolutely agree with the OP's full post. Yaffy's suggestion of 3 creeps taking full damage and each additional creep taking less is actually how I thought the change was going to be implemented. I'm sincerely hoping that the way it currently functions is a bug. I'd also like to offer an alternate suggestion: get rid of diminishing returns and just cap the max number of enemies effected by an AoE and adjust overall damage as needed. As a side note, skills and mods that increase AoE range are a lot less attractive/desirable with the current changes in place.

[FURY]

My two cents.

Citan said in the Dev blog with the introduction of a pure healing class he wanted to round up and make combat uh, correct. As stats for mobs and players were all a bit off due to no focused healing on the players end, there was just no way to sustain. They also mention that not all of the changes made it in, remember he said they wanted to change how stacking mods worked and I don't believe that just those 5 bullet points was the fix he was looking at (and a very bandaid looking blanket AOE-attack nerf at that) when he was talking about changes to combat at this big of a level. If Citan truly wanted to cut back on AOEs there are several other ways to do it, from the area they effect, to the base damage, to the ability's cool downs. . . there are lots of knobs that could be turned, this feels a bit ham-fisted. Perhaps even as a result of rushing to get rushing to get the patch out with the new skill.

I foresee that the AOE nerf will be scaled back a bit over the coming patches, but the mods that have yet to be touched will be conversely slowly pruned down.

[Justarius]

I'll admit I was surprised in the blanket way AoE was nerfed. Simply making it so more than 3 critters get reduced damage feels very... inelegant.

[INXS]

Been using BC extensively this what I'm getting, 3 critters 3 dead, 4 critters 3 dead one with very low hp, 5 ...3 always go down and rest got low hp. I do see the nerf as what it actually should be before it was way too easy now can't kill all in one shot, that's ok I got more abilities that I can use, been grinding priest skill using BC and not much of a change compare to before. In short even though my main skill are archery/BC this "nerf" seems right and just.

[Golliathe]

I do see the nerf as what it actually should be before it was way too easy now can't kill all in one shot, that's ok I got more abilities that I can use, been grinding priest skill using BC and not much of a change compare to before. In short even though my main skill are archery/BC this "nerf" seems right and just.

This is way to cut and dry comparison of AoE and balance. Take a look at something like Sword/Shield and compare that to Fire/Mentalism. I started this game with a friend as Fire/mental and he went Sword/shield. Sword had some pretty strong AoE powers based on gear but paired with shield you also have no problem tanking. Sword is very strong and quite honestly is in need of a nerf for single targets to be on par with the weakened state of Aoes. What?

Why play fire magic? Like seriously, whats the point of fire magic with the AoE nerfed? With the current end game most things resist fire so you're dead weight. Know what fire is good for? It's a nice utility skill I use to avoid cold weather problems. Considering the time/resources I spent on a lvl 50 class that's a complete waste.

To make a long story short it really isn't fair balance if you have something like sword that is amazing for tanking a single boss AND has good AoE options based on gear. Fire can't tank a wet paper bag (even if you throw on plate armor). Fire has to do something well or no one will use it.


Overall in my opinion the problem of AoE attacks is a design problem as much as a class balance problem. From my point of view it feels like lazy content design to just have high end play be swarms of monsters. Players naturally went for the path of least resistance vs swarms and the solution was AoE attacks.

Question for the developer:

If you're going to limit players to effectively damaging 3 mobs at a time for full value then can we please have a way to pull only 3 mobs at a time? (that doesn't require jumping through a flaming hoop while under the effects of a jump potion)

[snowe]

The damage scaling is as such (After personal testing):

3 targets or less: 100% damage
4 targets: 75% damage
5 Targets: 50% damage
6 Targets: 40% damage
7 Targets: 30% damage
8 or more: 25% damage

So with this, I'd like to point out that after 4 mobs, AoEs will be doing less damage in total. You will do 300% of the AoE's damage if you hit 3 or 4 mobs, but when you hit 5 mobs you will start doing less damage in total (50% * 5 = 250%) all the way down to 8 (25% * 8 = 200%). Once you start hitting 12 mobs you'll be back up to 300% and further mobs will increase total damage.

If 3 is to be the magic number, and the magic number shall be 3, then I would have hoped they'd at least make the decay less capricious.

Something like:

<3 targets: 100% damage
4 targets: 75% damage
5 targets: 60% damage
6 targets: 50% damage
7 targets: 43% damage
8 targets: 38% damage
9 targets: 33% damage
10 targets: 30% damage
11 targets: 27% damage
12 targets: 25% damage
13 targets: 23% damage
14 targets: 21% damage
15 targets: 20% damage
N targets: (300/N)% damage

At least doing it that way wouldn't run into weird deltas where the total damage done spikes around unexpected because a rabbit hopped into range while fight a few wolves. Particularly for purposes of aggro generation (whether a taunt or otherwise) functions based off of damage done. When the time comes that AoE heals need to be nerfed the math could be done similarly.

Edit: This would open the door to item mods restricting AoE targets as well. A 'Fire Breath' mod that just hits targets in front of you, or a sword AoE mod that hits your current target +4 others (but never more than 4 to keep the damage from decaying). It could be situationally useful.

[INXS]

Anyone remember the 8% damage reduction sword got last year, caused a lot to rage quit, now that's a nerf.

[Justarius]

If you're going to limit players to effectively damaging 3 mobs at a time for full value then can we please have a way to pull only 3 mobs at a time? (that doesn't require jumping through a flaming hoop while under the effects of a jump potion)

This concisely says I think what I've been trying to say. I feel like my level 50 fire is best used as a way to survive in Kur now. Hooray. ;)

There are just too many mobs to solo in most dungeons when adds are pulled so easily. When I started the game I was like, "Oh, it's a 'toss massive amounts of mobs at you' kinda MMO; I'll go for AoE."

Now it's seeming to turn more into a forced grouping MMO which isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but it's sad that solo play is limited to running around the outdoor areas and trying to find that one mob you can actually pull without getting any 'friends' involved.

[Mikhaila]

And yet many of us have no problem at all pulling one or two mobs at a time and clearing dungeons.

I think there is some bias here: The people doing AOE have played for a long time not having to worry about what they pull. In fact, they try to pull as many as they can. Time to learn how to just pull a couple at a time. Maybe mix an AOE skill with something that gives some CC or healing or durability.

[Leodane]

And yet many of us have no problem at all pulling one or two mobs at a time and clearing dungeons.

I think there is some bias here: The people doing AOE have played for a long time not having to worry about what they pull. In fact, they try to pull as many as they can. Time to learn how to just pull a couple at a time. Maybe mix an AOE skill with something that gives some CC or healing or durability.

This expresses my thoughts pretty accurately. Body pulling isn't really hard to do, just slower, which I think is where many complaints are coming from. I appreciate any game adjustment which results in people having to be more thoughtful and diverse - mix in a CC or two, rather than a full loadout of AoE's. Even though it hurt, I like the nerf. I was BC/Bard before the nerf, and boy, did that patch change my play style. I switched over to Bard/Ment, and am enjoying a more even-keeled build. The first time 8 bears in Elt killed me after the patch was a little humbling, but we adapt.

[Golliathe]

Know what's really wrong with the game right now?

Head on over to gorgon explorer and type in: jhtb9b9d

This is an incomplete build mind you and something I put together extremely quickly.


Fire Base Damage: +26% (head), +18% (neck), +26% (mainhand), +18% (offhand) = 88% dmg increase from armor. On top of that every spell is going to add up to +72 daamge.

That is beyond completely insane without looking at any other modifiers. At a guess it seems like Aoe Damage might be fine for fire post nerf (using that as the example) if you had every possible bonus stacked.

It is possible to stack bonus damage with % bonuses and + bonuses to be about triple the base damage. This imho is why aoes felt broken when you didn't have any. So how about we make armor not do that?


Armor should do cool things, but I don't think it is right that I can put on one piece of level 50 gear and have a +43% damage bonus to my epic attack. It makes me automatically discard any armor I get as a potential upgrade that doesn't offer that bonus.

Likewise it becomes silly when you get a helmet and it doesn't have +dmg % to both classes you are using. That is automatically a "junk item" even if it is yellow. I mean honestly at some point if that's how we're making the game you pretty much need to have +dmg % as a "base" drop on all armor pieces that can have it (or massively reduce that bonus and put it in the base higher tier spells).


I can look at unarmed and say having a ring/pants combo that makes barrage suddenly into an AoE and sets those targets on fire..... that's really cool. But thinking about fire that is able to stack hundreds of extra damage on 2-3 skills via + dmg and % damage is a recipe for disaster.

I don't want to have to look at 50 purple- yellow chest pieces and say "nope" to all of them because they didn't have +50% damage from two separate mods for two of my abilities.

The reality is that when I stopped playing unarmed around level 38 I was still using some level 10-15 gear. It is impossible to give up that combo of +aoe dmg / +fire attacks. And before you ask I was getting some dungeon runs to bosses from my guild.


I don't want to highlight the problem without suggesting a solution so here it is: Keep game changing modifiers. I absolutely love modifiers like the ability to make dragons breath into an AoE.

Tone down all the +/ % damage bonuses and have those be part of the base spells at higher levels. Reward people more for leveling up and buying the top level spell. So instead of a 26% damage boost on my helmet how about we put 19% damage increase on the base skill and let the helmet have a 5% damage increase.

I really don't think we should have +40-50% damage boosts to abilties based on armor either.

Otherwise we end up with spells like firebolts. You get the 88% dmg boost for all fire, 94% dmg from head/neck, +85 dmg hands, +116 armor damage hands, up to +72 damage from chest/feet, and another 48% dmg from main/offhand with a 4 second cooldown to reuse.

And the 185 base damage ability turns into a 425 base damage ability that still gets +116 armor damage and up to +72 damage more.

Who wouldn't want to use firebolts on an 11 second cooldown for 51 power/cast to deal 613 damage to everything within 25m?

I say that combo is broken and yea the aoe nerf you guys added is appropriate to all that stacking. So how about we remove all that ridiculous stacking (make up new mods for many.. not all of the %dmg stuff) and then undo the AoE nerf..... unless you plan on allowing us to do 3-4 pulls in an area that otherwise usually pulls 8-12 things.



And yet many of us have no problem at all pulling one or two mobs at a time and clearing dungeons.

Yea lemme see a video of that in Borghild or Gasluk. Even the mushroom dungeon is designed so that it is insanely easy to get 8-10 mob pulls in multiple areas (which is why aoe folk love to xp there).

[Mikhaila]

GK is designed for groups, not solo, so I don't see that as a great example.

Gazluk plateau i solo in all the time, outside and in the caves.

Borghild is just fun :) I soloed there for many levels. Died a lot, it's a very challenging dungeon because of layout, clutter, mob mix, etc. And yet still possible to pull one or two mobs at a time. It's just hard to explore the whole thing. You can move room to room, take your time, and slowly advance. You have to accept that at times your going to die and start over. But even right at the entrance it has some very good loot.

[Bigiss]

I support this change to the previously unchecked infinite scaling of AOE damage. I believe people are blowing this out of proportion- Fire magic is still totally viable, and vitriol saying its just for warmth now is helping no one.

I do think the proposed change that some number of targets always take full damage make sense though.

I would be interested in hearing the Developers give their reasoning to why it was set up the way it is, because it could be the correct path and we just dont know it yet.

Edit: New forums account because I couldnt remember my login info... Ive been playing since Feb 2016.

[ErDrick]

One thing I would like to add to this discussion...

He doesn't really want us body-pulling single mobs. There used to be 2 skills in the game that allowed for single pulls and he changed them to not work.

The game design seems to be that he does in fact want us to face multiple monsters at once in group play, we have just been avoiding it.

The way respawns work currently backs this up. You are meant to be killing 5-6 mobs ( at least) at a time to be able to beat the repops.

[Yaffy]

Fire Base Damage: +26% (head), +18% (neck), +26% (mainhand), +18% (offhand) = 88% dmg increase from armor. On top of that every spell is going to add up to +72 daamge.


Be careful not to overestimate base damage modifiers, as they're quite a bit weaker than you think. Base damage modifiers only increase damage based on the original damage of the skill and don't have any effect on other modifiers such as flat damage or modifiers that effect specific skills. They do however get multiplied by percentage buffs to damage types and other outgoing effects (Ex. Fire damage +10%, Enemies take 50% more fire damage, etc).

This means that if you don't have many other properties, then they're excellent because they boost the damage of your skills by the listed value, but if you have other modifiers then they will give you a significantly smaller bonus to damage. They're basically one of the most fair mods in terms of boosting damage while avoiding huge amounts of mod stacking, because if you're stacking a huge number of damage boosting mods, the amount of damage you get from base damage bonuses is minimal in comparison. So while it's helpful when starting out a set, don't worry too much about it being a necessity for a full set!

However on the other hand the other effects of the modifiers do multiply with each other, especially the flat damage modifiers which get multiplied by % boosts to the skill. This actually puts the damage of the fire bolts you're describing at 816 to 990 damage, so that sounds like you'd dislike it even more! (The armor damage doesn't get multiplied though). This kind of damage is honestly very normal though for a maxed out AoE.

I wouldn't call this kind of damage broken by any means, especially because the modifiers in question are level 80 which is ten levels higher than the current content. But you are right in that damage is heavily reliant on gear, which means that character strength is based mostly on gear. Personally I see a good reason for having character strength be based on gear, because that's what makes players and builds unique. The reason why players can't just switch builds on the fly and do everything in a game where they can use every combat skill is because they're limited by collecting gear.

Now there is a big argument though on just how effective gear mods should be when it comes to character strength, and the devs have lowered gear mod strength and increased base attack damage in the past, and they might do it again if they're looking at reducing damage. Right now character strength is heavily based on gear, especially when it comes to damage, but there is a reason for it.

Sorry if my post isn't that helpful, it doesn't really feel like it, but it's just my two cents.

[Tagamogi]

My personal suggestion for the developers is to allow the primary target of the AoE (Whichever monster you have targeted) to always take full damage from the AoE ...


I really like this part.

I'm considerably less clear on what I'd like to happen after that.



and for two additional enemies to always take full damage or at least 50% damage minimum.

This also seems reasonable. I could also go for aoe that only hits at most 3 enemies at a time rather than reducing the damage done per enemy. Of course, deciding which additional enemies beyond the main target will get hit is a bit of a problem, so the current blanket style reduction may be easier. Plus limiting the aoe hit to just 3 enemies would be a considerable nerf to aoes that have non-damage effects.

We could also have mods that allow us to switch from one aoe style to the other? Or mods for smart aoe that allow it to skip over mezzed targets?

One thing I'm also wondering: Under the current system, once we get level 100 and level 125 gear mods, won't everyone's aoe damage go up to the point where they can still solo large groups of lower level mobs?

Finally, I think the aoe ability description should make clear what's actually going to happen when multiple mobs get hit - I found the patch notes rather confusing in that respect since my immediate reaction was "how much exactly?". ( Thanks for testing that, Yaffy! It seems like INXS had different results??)

Edit - forgot a couple other things I'm curious about:
Does the aoe change apply to player-dropped items, i.e. explosion sigils? What about mobs hitting players - would their aoe damage be reduced if they hit 6 players instead of 3?

[Murk]

My two cents is that I think it's the right thing done the right way. We wouldn't be having this discussion if it had been like this from the start.

Really, the notion you can AOE 10 mobs at once isn't so good and I always found it not to make sense.

[Dibbuk]

I have to admit I was disappointed in the nerf as well. I had expected to see all classes to be granted at least one AOE attack, rather than nerf the existing AOE's. It will become much more difficult to develop a character, knowing it can be nerfed as soon as it becomes capable of solo battle.

[OpieFisher]

The problem with an AoE nerf is the same problem with AoE builds in general which is in short that it's not really needed in the first place. In at level play you have to do horrible things to the nice people in your group to do enough damage to warrant trying to use AoE for damage in the first place.
Even playing perfectly you are gonna mess up eventually and pull the next room over. Eventually the Bacon meter will run out and the ability bar will turn grey.
You got a lot of tools to help solve the situation you made if you are playing with Ice or BC,but that doesn't change the fact that the entire group has to account for the way you play for you to do alright damage in the first place.
I say again,alright damage.This is coming from a guy that had group with folks that were down for my shenanigans even.
The whole reason to play an AoE build is so that you can wear and/or say off color stuff and get away with it strictly off the fact that you clearly make poor life decisions and have already been punished enough.Well that and going down to the value town that is roots/BC buffs but you get the gist.

Kur panthers are fine and dandy but you try that in labs or gazlak keep get ready for a hot mess and see previous statement,we're talking two different beasts and I think that bears pointing out.
I'd rather have seen something like an open area,out in kur mountains for example, would have a dampening effect on AoE like the scale is now but in a dungeon the damage would have remained unchanged.

If the problem is farming that needs to be fixed in and of itself.
It aint just an AoE change that's gonna solve that bit on it's own not to mention the game itself becomes a lot more tedious if eliminating farming altogether is the end goal here.
I farm in Rahu for the most part with all kinds of builds and thought that was decent money,just as a side note there.

Honestly the change felt more like a curse than anything,like it should have been used as a mechanic in a zone/boss/rage attack.
Could have made it into a mod for an ability too if you take the base idea and play with it,a damage/healing mod that scales with the targets involved.

All that being said I still like playing AoE builds even after the change so I can't complain too much.

[Mikhaila]

I have to admit I was disappointed in the nerf as well. I had expected to see all classes to be granted at least one AOE attack, rather than nerf the existing AOE's. It will become much more difficult to develop a character, knowing it can be nerfed as soon as it becomes capable of solo battle.

Every character is capable of soloing. Not every character could drag in a dozen mobs and kill them at once.

[Celedor]

One thing I tend to forget is that we're play testers. So when there is a nerf that greatly affects my character, I shouldn't be too upset, and view it instead as the developers trying to get the game right according to their vision.

Easier said than done though. I still get a bit annoyed when this happens :)

[Golliathe]

What really bothers me about the AoE nerf is that this little gem didn't get touched at all:

Whenever you take damage from an enemy, you gain Bard Base Damage +8% for 15 seconds

Excuse me? How did this not get nerfed into oblivion? Bards are still running into groups and killing everything if they have this mod.



Now there is a big argument though on just how effective gear mods should be when it comes to character strength, and the devs have lowered gear mod strength and increased base attack damage in the past, and they might do it again if they're looking at reducing damage. Right now character strength is heavily based on gear, especially when it comes to damage, but there is a reason for it.


Please tell me what that reason is that makes the game make sense. I'm level 74 wearing lvl mostly lvl 50 gear.I can compare my gear to someone who has fully kitted/crafted items in the same class. He does 3x my damage with each attack. That's lame. If this game is supposed to be like everquest then gear should be no more than ~20% of an increase from best in slot to pretty good gear you farmed solo.

I realize they don't want everyone carrying around a fire staff so that when they get to the boss that is weak vs fire everyone becomes a fire mage. But by the same token gear shouldn't have +100% damage boost to a skill because you have one attribute on one piece of gear. I expect more like 10% boost and keep the base damage massively higher.

In other words....in moderately crappy gear my attacks do about 400 damage at lvl 70. Someone in full damage gear does 1200 damage per attack. How about we make the game so that the base damage on the attack is somewhere around 1000 damage. So me in my crappy gear I might do 1100 damage, and the guy in the uber gear set now only does 1350 damage.

Yes that's a huge nerf on the guy who min/maxed everything but now you don't have anyone powerful enough to solo the "end tier" content. Isn't that really the point overall? Otherwise the next meta will just be single target death strikes.

With that being said I think this still creates tons of room for utility buffs instead of just +insane damage numbers. Looking at my example the guy with end tier armor has all kinds of crazy buffs from armor and even though his damage is only slightly higher he has an insanely easier time fighting the same content because of all the other bonuses floating from his armor... but he takes almost as long as me to kill everything. The difference is that he can probably be sipping tea with one hand while he fights in a very relaxed state.

Isn't that what this thread is really about? Hey something is wrong when one guy can do damage like an entire group. How does he do massive damage like that? The answer seems to me that armor is giving too much of a damage bonus (not that aoe attacks are inherently the problem).

[VanHelsing]

Please tell me what that reason is that makes the game make sense. I'm level 74 wearing lvl mostly lvl 50 gear.I can compare my gear to someone who has fully kitted/crafted items in the same class. He does 3x my damage with each attack. That's lame. If this game is supposed to be like everquest then gear should be no more than ~20% of an increase from best in slot to pretty good gear you farmed solo.

Hey, mind posting your build? i remember being lvl 50 in lvl 50 crafted gear outdpsing lvl 70's by 3-4k. It may just have to do with how you mod your gear, though the end game gear does provide a very noticeable boost to damage you shouldn't be doing that little damage unless you aren't properly modding your gear/transmuting those 50 legendaries to get the mods you need. (Assuming you have 50 legendaries) Also your rotation prioritization might have something to do with it as well so posting that may help me help you figure out what your doing wrong.