Critical hits, bad behavior & "end game" content

[Golliathe]

My comment about the cake was referring to unarmed combat currently. Much of your mitigation comes from buffs and the icing is the magic 18% that never goes away.

The danger with a flat % mitigation system is that you dont have to bother fixing your armor. Why would we want the game to be like that? We have skills that restore armor and it would be far more interesting if you needed you keep your armor up.

Yaffy pretty much showed perfect evidence of what's wrong with rage criticals, so I'm not sure that aspect needs much more feedback. Keep in mind that just because he showed these examples in level 70 content doesn't mean it isn't an issue at every level though , I'm fairly certain it is! So, we really don't need more proof that this is bad, but can definitely use some possible solutions which will still maintain a challenge.

I think rage criticals might be fine as they are with tweaks if:

1) armor values were based on type (cloth having value 1.0, leather 1.5, plate 3.0 - or some variation)
2) % mitigation based on armor values were added to the game
3) monsters lost rage when out of combat for 10 seconds


This could alleviate much of the snooze function citan sees in groups. DPS types need to be careful or they pull aggro and get hit. If they take a crit on a rage attack they die. I think I can live with a dps character dying from a rage crit but having tanks be beefy enough to survive them. In fact I kinda want the DPS to die. Why? Because specialized damage characters should not also be tanky. That creates problems where you have the best of both worlds. This is why D&D wizards/rogues (the highest dps classes) don't get to wear plate.


I think we need to backup and ask questions:

A) Does Citan intend for us to prevent strong boss mobs from using their rage attack in order to succeed in certain tough encounters?

Right now the answers is - who cares if the boss has a rage mechanic. I find that boring honestly. That being said WOW went overboard with this and each boss fight was - ok here's the song and dance you do for this boss. That was stupid and boring.

Likewise it would be shitty if you NEEDED an ice mage to make a boss fight smooth to make his rage bar stupidly long with the double +66% debuff thing.

B) Should tanks be the only ones who live through strong hits? (tank definied as specialied armor+ mods for classes like shield or unarmed)

C) is it ok for people to solo in places like GK at the level of the content (last part being very important).

If not then please make the first room be a linked all or nothing pull. Anyone who figures out how to kill 4 mobs at once deserves to solo there.
If the answer is no then as I said before certain skills probably need a rework so you cant stack crazy amounts of dmg reduction.

we might as well discuss armor while were discussing crits, because their relevant to each other. And a lot of people that understand game mechanics solidly can (probably?) agree that armor in it's current state is not working well. It does something, but it doesn't feel like it does what it's supposed to do, or so many people wouldn't wear pockets. Armor is great when you have it, but after it's depleted it is not so great.

I like the idea of armor being worth %mitigation instead of flat mitigation, but that would be insanely hard to balance not only now, but all the way to level 125. The best ideas are probably the ones that will require the least amount of work for the developers.

I don't think it would be as hard to balance as you think. Level 50 armor would count up to X value total offering a % to damage and mobs at that level could be tuned based on changed resistances.

Armor if based loosely on how it is now.... you have 2 options.

1. Unarmed is initially tankier but has no ability to restore armor so you become squish much faster.
2. The armored guy has less base mitigation but can use multiple abilities to restore armor.

I see the game needing to progress so that these are equal options - not one being 5 times better than the other.

Increasing base armor values on heavier armor types would also be another possible solution, but also has it's own problems ( and doesn't touch on the problem of depleted armor leaves you a sitting duck waiting to be one hit killed anyways). Having too much base armor would make you take so little damage you'd be in very little danger of losing it though ( aka boring aka what Citan wants to avoid).

If the tank has to worry about using abilities to restore his armor instead of spamming damaging abilities that makes the fight more interesting. If the DPS needs to maybe back off OR possibly try and steal aggro form the tank to keep the tank alive that keeps the fight more interesting.

Right now an unarmed tank has pretty flat % mitigation and that's boring. I feel THAT is what citan wants to avoid. Dynamic % mitigation based on fluctuating armor values would make combat spicy.

The most successful groups in GK are boring. Pull mobs- kill with cheap tricks - repeat. There is very little danger except from the super rage criticals. People are usually rezzed mid combat.

To me, this (my idea of mostly removing the armor bar from being part of the health bar) seemed like a decent middle-ground solution that requires less dev time. Also since several people are in favor of increasing mob health...this does that both directly and indirectly through mitigation( since they keep their armor).
.

I think it's neat to have an armor bar but it would be so much better if it meant something. Imagine for example if your character sheet told you that at 1000 you had 50% mitigation. If your armor is 50% full then that means you lost half your mitigation (no matter how much armor you have).

Skills that restore armor become way more valuable and combat becomes way more interesting - keep your armor up and be safe or ignore it and potentially die.


One last closing thought that will probably be extremely unpopular - why do animals get to use a shield as an animal? Ok sure fine let them use the mods or whatever but it seems like a cheat to be able to use the armor from a shield while playing an animal (this of course would assume that we change armor to a % mitigation system).

[Golliathe]

Very late page 7 edit:

Did we talk about fear? We didn't right?

Fear probably also needs some fair play balancing.

1. Bosses should probably be immune to equal level fear abilities (but if you fear them with a lvl 70 item or spell and they are maybe lvl 50 or below it should work)
2. Fearing a monster should probably do what everquest did - keep assist radius if it runs away. This makes fear a tool to use in "if" situations not a crutch.
3. Fear should probably break roots and vice versa. It is beyond cheese to root everything and then fear it (to prevent subversion of point #2 ); nothing actually moves and just stands there to die without attacking. Once again D&D is a good model for the why on this aspect : fear a monster and it will run unless you corner it and then it will fight you to the death.

[ErDrick]

Going to agree that EQ had some solid mechanics we don't have here (although it got dumbed down to the point where it's pretty shit now). EQ had a team of devs behind it though, PG doesn't really have that atm, unless we want to drive Citan, Srand and Silvonis (more) insane, we need simple solutions, at least I think we do.. I could be wrong though, maybe they want to do balance right once and for all and move forward from there.

You have some good points though, and I sort of agree that unarmed is overpowered right now for tanking (or everything else is underpowered, take your pick). One thing I actually had thought of as far as extending health / making armor untouchable though is that it would mitigate some of the other problems you mentioned. 5 seconds of cheese tactics (root/fear) becomes less relevant if the monsters live for 20-40 seconds, same for 6k aggro..6k taunt is crazy when a monster only has 6k health, not as much if it has 20 or 25k though ( and bosses with 90k). More then that really since they wouldn't lose the mitigation from their base armor for the most part, much higher effective health. Also this would give damage over time and pets (which are basically damage over time as well just with a visual) to shine and be useful, though that also has the problem that pets would never be able to damage certain monsters through their armor mitigation unless you also lowered it somehow, hmmm (technically they could just change pets damage type to indirect though and not change anything else to make up for that). I am not trying to discount any of your valid points though, just to show that I had thought about them and this seems like it covers most of them ( but not that it's the "right" suggestion... end of the day it probably isn't).

Bosses being immune to cc effects is something I have thought about a lot, because in standard rpg's and mmo's they usually are. I would sort of hate losing the ability to "mez boss, pull and kill his guards", though. Fear Immunity definitely makes sense for bosses though at least, a guy with 50-90k health would never be afraid of you even if you tried to force it with magic. Stuff like root and mesmerize though, I dunno .. even though that's the standard it has always annoyed me ( especially in rpg's where you get all these nifty status effects that never ever work). So I kind of like that here they actually do work, but I still get your point.

Assist radius works differently here, feared mobs do keep their assist radius but they only shout when taking damage vs just seeing you/being pissed at you. (I feel you though on this one as well, for me using fear seems like an "oh shit we are fucked if i don't try this" kind of last resort, because that is how it has always been in other games. But I don't know what they wanted it to be in this game, just because I'm used to it being one thing doesn't mean it cant be something else in their vision). Also while the shouting mechanic is realistic, I's harder for a player to plan around then aggro being based on line of sight and proximity to other things that are fighting.. I mean it is realistic for mobs in adjacent room to hear their buddy being squashed and rush to it's aid, but it's frustrating from a gameplay perspective because we lack any tools to be able to look inside that room and know there are going to be 10 more things charging out at us if we attack the guy that looks alone in the hallway.

What you said about root / fear interaction (that is, one breaks the other) I can agree with wholeheartedly though, but it isn't an omg fix this immediately kind of game breaking priority ( but still something that should definitely be noted and possibly worked on at some point).

[Golliathe]

So really the issue of pockets is that people choose pockets over other options. So then we need something where people say I don't know if I want pockets or something else.

The simple solution if you ask me is to have reinforcement of armor be amazing.

What if we do something like:

1. Cloth can't be reinforced.
2. Let reinforcement stay as a 2 enchantment points per point - but change the effect to 1% mitigation per for leather and 2% per for plate/organic.
3. The caveat: This mitigation bonus works as a percentage of your current total armor pool

Cloth armor (including the super cheese nimble set) would still give 40 pockets
So now leather armor would have the option to have 20% mitigation based on armor + the 18%. (monks in plate can't also use the 18% bonus)
Now plate would have 40% mitigation.

Anyone who desires to be tanky can still be tanky and anyone who wants to give up a ton of defense to have pockets can make that choice.

Recode abilities that give you a % dmg reduction to be an either or with a higher/lower modifier. In other words you could still use psychology to get 25% damage reduction but it wouldn't do anything until you had less than 25% dmg reduction active. This type of % stacking would go a long way to essentially having a "no solo" sign on the door of elite dungeons. This would also mean it would make the monk 18% redundant so if you were trying to solo with unarmed psychology instead of getting 18%+ 25% you would be getting 25% and nothing from the 18% reduction. Yes this would nerf the hell out of unarmed psych but it would keep them from being able to solo group content monsters.

*** I highly suggest you putting this into the game to balance % mitigation so that we don't have mega solo combinations like we do right now ***.


Give Elite monsters % mitigation based on armor type. In other words all the armored gk mobs would be a lot tankier and have strong armor. The health would stay the same but it would matter a ton more that the monster has strong armor.

Rather than just giving the mobs more health the mobs just have more of a damage shield (which potentially gives them more life). You could burst them down with pierce damage (maybe a well coordinated duo/trio). Armor only damaging powers would be far more valuable; on that end since they are rare and of questionable value right now what if you made armor only abilities skip mitigation? In other words an 1800 dmg fireball hitting a mob with 50% mitigation full armor only does 900 damage but an acid burst does full damage.

Bosses being immune to cc effects is something I have thought about a lot, because in standard rpg's and mmo's they usually are. I would sort of hate losing the ability to "mez boss, pull and kill his guards", though. Fear Immunity definitely makes sense for bosses though at least, a guy with 50-90k health would never be afraid of you even if you tried to force it with magic. Stuff like root and mesmerize though, I dunno .. even though that's the standard it has always annoyed me ( especially in rpg's where you get all these nifty status effects that never ever work). So I kind of like that here they actually do work, but I still get your point.

Rooting a boss is not 100% - what if he is ranged? That's basically no effect.

What if we make bosses have a 50% chance to resist fear/mez for an equal level ability. Then you have a "risky" option that can pay off but isn't a guarantee. This would still be in line with what CoH did with bosses being resistant to control powers.

Assist radius works differently here, feared mobs do keep their assist radius but they only shout when taking damage vs just seeing you/being pissed at you.

Simple fix: If a mob is feared - have it call for help every time it takes damage.... I mean it is a quivering crying pitiful thing right? Would it not be screaming help? HELP!?

So you could fear a mob away to control it as long as nobody touches it. Rip your team if you put a dot on it however.... as it will mean 10 mobs flying onto your group.

[Golliathe]

I sort of agree that unarmed is overpowered right now for tanking (or everything else is underpowered, take your pick). One thing I actually had thought of as far as extending health / making armor untouchable though is that it would mitigate some of the other problems you mentioned. 5 seconds of cheese tactics (root/fear) becomes less relevant if the monsters live for 20-40 seconds, same for 6k aggro..6k taunt is crazy when a monster only has 6k health, not as much if it has 20 or 25k though ( and bosses with 90k).

Any style of % mitigation would also prolong fights and do the same thing. The reason I really like the idea of having armor be an ablative form of protection is that you have to work very hard to keep your armor value high. If armor becomes untouchable you have to completely rework all powers that restore X amount of armor and the mods that go with them.

I also like the fact that it would make unarmed tanking completely different from armor tanking. Unarmed largely speaking doesn't really have much in the way of armor restoration. But if they had a base "always" percentage that could make it strong, interesting and different from armor tanking. If I didn't say so before the 20%+ 18% would be one exception where you get both forms of DR stacking.

As I said before needing to have active armor restoration would hopefully make people want to make different class or power decisions rather than : I am not the tank therefore I will just stack damage abilities and maybe a self heal or two.


Before anyone goes oh man 40% reduction is crazy! let's talk about that a moment.

Regular armor right now is pretty crap and the nimble cloth armor is better. You ignore the first melee hit, you ignore the first burst attack every 12 seconds and you get to ignore an untold number of archery/magic projectiles. Oops! Pardon me for letting the cat out of the bag but nimble pants can block upwards of 10-20 attacks. It doesn't always work like that but it does work like this for some monsters. In other words when you get the "i'm going to dodge everything" event to trigger you can solo a mage in gk and the only way he will damage you is from his pet (which will miss with its first melee attack). This is in the category of "game breaking" if you ask me.


In the case of two mobs the nimble armor will block at least 2 attacks over a 15-20s engagement. The second attack can in some cases be that experience crippling one hit rage critical.

IF you had 40% mitigation - you would be nearly out of armor mitigation around the 3rd or 4th double pair of hits.

When you consider adding arrow and poison damage into the mix the nimble armor is still probably better. When you remember that the supposed heavier armor doesn't give you any % mitigation there becomes no question that tailoring makes an end game armor product that nothing else comes close to matching.

Is that really the kind of armor balancing Citan had in mind all along? I hope not.

[INXS]

Nimble armor is ok, but with the evasion leather set + nimble gloves and evasion belt i never lose to infiltrators and mages from a distance using archery skill.

[spider91301]

Honestly for the most part I have lost internet in this topic if the time factor is key in this but if its getting this fixed tomorow or getting weapon smithing so I can craft my own swords and shields in a week im going with weapon smithing, topics getting old and honest if your carefull and your rng doesn't full blown suck ass you still can get good loot so this doesn't matter to me much especially since I got a max enchanted cloth armor with a shit load of pockets and soon to be 101% avoid death mod so I will have one on my my necklace and pants, So I can now honestly say- ONE SHOT ME IF YOU CAN YOU FKING BASTARDS

I know coding is hard but with how long its taking to get any traction on a possible fix and that added with the factor of my attention span being the size of a rodent I stopped caring about the crits fixes or ideas on how to fix it

PS: The rodent sized attention span is the main reason/90% of the reason I stopped caring if it gets fixed

[Citan]

Guys, just to keep things on track: we're not changing armor into a totally different thing. We're DEFINITELY not going to add percentage-based mitigation to every "defensive" skill just because monsters hit too hard right now. We're going to tune the systems we have until they work. I need help on micro-ideas, not macro-ideas.

At this point, I really don't need help inventing entirely new game systems that sound fun on paper. The problem is that actually combining a game's worth of systems is hard. It's especially hard in a game like this, with a LOT of different systems interconnected. At this point, replacing any game mechanic inevitably causes other balance problems to appear, and creates a cascade of new problems. Complete system replacement is the nuclear option.

So my point is this: we're talking about game systems that mostly work. They just need refining and adjusting, like all game systems do. Replacing a game system always sounds sexier and more fun than doing the hard, tedious work of tightening an existing system design. But we're in beta now, not alpha, and it's time to buckle down and start solving the nuts-and-bolts balancing problems. I can't avoid them forever by just trying new stuff. Every design has a ton of weird side-effects that have to be worked out, and each time we replace a game system with an entirely new system, that just postpones the hard work.

The current problems with armor seem like they can be solved by monster rebalancing, so that's the first thing I'll try. It sounds like monster crits aren't scaling correctly, because (obviously) there shouldn't be such a thing as "one-hit kills". So we'll work on that first. If any of the existing systems prove unbalanceable, then we'll open the floor to new ideas.

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Actually, I feel like I'm yelling and I don't mean to: there are no wrong answers to the questions here. There are just answers that are more- or less-useful to me right now. I definitely don't intend to sound upset just because you're giving me answers I can't use!

I wanted to steer this thread toward smaller points of discussion, but really, I've already received plenty of actionable feedback in this thread. So I think it's run its course and has some great ideas, and I'm just going to close it for now. Thanks.