PvMP fast balance passes

[ScribeEzra]

Wait a minute Kate is right, I've yet to see any Filer out heal a 8 strong freep group like I witnessed a solo mini, with 3 main dps classes from creepside grinding down on her, she ran from lumber camp to Gv steps with virtually 3/4 morale intact, and don't use the lazy analogy that the creeps must have been bad because there were 4 over rk 10 who know thier class....give a Filer a mini's healing capabilitiesand then moan freeps.

[Chicobandito]

I never could understand how Balance could be proven.

Everyone is so positive about their claims and I'm sure they are all correct but how is it proven?

Damage and morale don't line up. Stats don't line up. Gear is different. Essences, corruptions, racial traits, class traits, audacity and plenty of other factors I'm sure.

It's waaaay too confusing to me. It's like saying: 2 + apples = Red balloon + Hugh Hefner. So since it is "=" then it is balanced.

Plus, how do you try to balance the numbers (of players in the Moors)? I mean, some servers have lots of one faction on while others have much fewer. Faction A has the numbers so Faction B needs to do more damage...

Is there a way to show visually on a chart or graph how the factors are balanced...damage, mits, heals, etc?

I guess what I'm saying is "Show me" how it's balanced. Regular math is preferred.

With Respect.

CB

[Silverking77]

Balance? its almost the opposite of balance in a game like this. You are really trying to ignore the middle and knock down what stands out as being way outside the norm...Leaving enough flavor to give a side/class a flavor of its own without making us all the vanilla in the middle game of checkers.

On the topic of nerfing WL's rez......as a WL player our benefits to group would be damaged further I feel,...thats not to say nerfed to death but lets face it, the WL's have needed some love for awhile now in some form or fashion atleast a reworking. I like having opposite ends of the spectrum, such as guardians,.they should not have any dps to speak of with defense skills like that and wargs should have high dps with almost no defense,..where as champs/reavers are about teh middle ground with good defense/offense skills and cappies/WL's are the middle of the heal/buff with no really standout heal/dps abilities unless they trait to extreme and then they suffer in other areas.

And yes all balance is thrown out the window when we enter the moors and one side has too many numbers unless we as a group try to help control it. I would regularly just send some in my group off to scout or take and OP/DOF keep something just to help one side and thats a tough call as anyone who runs groups knows,.someone switches sides/someone logs..a kin leaves to go raid,..any effort to help the other side usually only last a few minutes if you get it right for that long. I have had some good nights tho where we all just get it right and the fights are awesome. I like fair friendly fights with people that like to have fun.


Warpig

[WhiteGoliath]

or you just stick the pvmp at one level and keep balancing it till its done, even tho you cannot change classes to the core, you could put moors at an entire different level, or other scaling system. So this means, moors at one level will solve the problem of rescaling it every time with every update, which rlly does waste time of developers.

But if they change something class basic like dmg, or heal, it should be adjusted to the armour aswell, depending if its outbalancing or not.

this way, creeps will always stay at one level and freep side might need minor changes everytime a freep class gets a little update to its core (traits, skills dmg or heals)

[GrandCru]

Whether the increase of freeps' base damage/heal is ~25%(hunter damage) or 100% (mini/rk heal), such artifacts, if they are supposed to remain as they are, will proliferate within a couple of weeks (e.g. 6 this morning on AH, 2 yesterday).

Therefore creeps' damage/heal will have to increase accordingly too, contrary to some ''objective'' thoughts.

some freeps will have access to these relics, and some won't.

Still salty, I imagine. Ask the band wagon for a hug.
Or be patient, one can't have everything within couple of days after the update, unlike Audacity Armours...

[Constrictions]

These relics are going to be very OP indeed.

Your fear is warranted, great GrandCru.

[Maryam]

Whether the increase of freeps' base damage/heal is ~25%(hunter damage) or 100% (mini/rk heal), such artifacts, if they are supposed to remain as they are, will proliferate within a couple of weeks (e.g. 6 this morning on AH, 2 yesterday).

Therefore creeps' damage/heal will have to increase accordingly too, contrary to some ''objective'' thoughts.

An objective and long term solution is to break all linkage between PvE gear/stats and Freeps in PvP. Freeps should be as limited in relative power/build as Creep side, even if it takes some of session play to achieve.

[Constrictions]

This is really encouraging, Vastin and Cordovan. Thank you for this interaction. I've lacked time to post some of my own thoughts, although most others have got the meat of it.

I'll definitely be logging in to BR to give detailed feedback about any changes you're making.

[Maryam]

I witnessed a solo mini, with 3 main dps classes from creepside grinding down on her, she ran from lumber camp to Gv steps with virtually 3/4 morale intact, and don't use the lazy analogy that the creeps must have been bad because there were 4 over rk 10 who know thier class....give a Filer a mini's healing capabilitiesand then moan freeps.

Either the Mini was exploiting somehow, and/or you and every Creep involved was absolutely terrible.

[Constrictions]

An objective and long term solution is to break all linkage between PvE gear/stats and Freeps in PvP. Freeps should be as limited in relative power/build as Creep side, even if it takes some of session play to achieve.

Bad idea.

Often freep gear has been developed as an extension of the respective class, or even group role. For example, LI's are and have been used to balance classes, 6mans and 12mans when certain classes/roles are seen to be lacking (Champ rend?).

Obviously this is far more reaching than one skill, or even the LI system. Removing set bonuses on essence gear was a 'big thing' because classes were for a long time being balanced around having/using certain sets.

[Maryam]

Bad idea.

Often freep gear has been developed as an extension of the respective class, or even group role. For example, LI's are and have been used to balance classes, 6mans and 12mans when certain classes/roles are seen to be lacking (Champ rend?).

I think Freeps can do just fine without gear without too much balancing, but even if not, it would still be much easier to balance Freeps once and forever, than it is to try and fail to do it every new gear/level update.

[Constrictions]

I think Freeps can do just fine without gear without too much balancing, but even if not, it would still be much easier to balance Freeps once and forever, than it is to try and fail to do it every new gear/level update.

Perhaps. But we can't expect to exclude all the novelty of future updates. Disabling LI's and giving non-LI PvMP weapons would be interesting, but then this type of design creates a lot of discontinuity with the rest of the game. For a small game like lotro, I don't think that's a good idea.

[GrandCru]

These relics are going to be very OP indeed.

Your fear is warranted, great GrandCru.

OMG it's a scam! 10k gold. Report!




...

Check the tooltip of a damaging/healing skill before and after slotting a rune.
It's done by hovering above the icon.
And come again.

[siipperi]

OMG it's a scam! 10k gold. Report!




...

Check the tooltip of a damaging/healing skill before and after slotting a rune.
It's done by hovering above the icon.
And come again.

Maybe you should? Dps ones are meh for most parts

[Riza666]

Wait a minute Kate is right, I've yet to see any Filer out heal a 8 strong freep group like I witnessed a solo mini, with 3 main dps classes from creepside grinding down on her, she ran from lumber camp to Gv steps with virtually 3/4 morale intact, and don't use the lazy analogy that the creeps must have been bad because there were 4 over rk 10 who know thier class....give a Filer a mini's healing capabilitiesand then moan freeps.

Just because it happened it doesn't mean it happens all the time. Those Creeps must not be very "good" if what you said is really true. It takes 2-3 "good" Creeps to take down the top tier Minstrels in this game

[Giliodor]

Whether the increase of freeps' base damage/heal is ~25%(hunter damage) or 100% (mini/rk heal)

Nice fictional numbers.



That is the real increase in DPS for physical classes.



And that's the actual increase to healing.

[Constrictions]

Thanks for that Gil. So we're looking at a 2% increase to tooltip damage, and a 60% increase to tooltip heals. In other words, the DPS runes will have 0 effect on DPS (or even damage in general).

As for heals, gotta keep in mind that a 60% increase in tooltip healing doesn't equate to a 60% increase in HPS. Should be quite a bit lower (possibly around the 20/25% mark). But as for specifics, I can't find any data that could help me predict what kind of effect this will have. My 'raw' hunch is that this will influence the HPS rates of HoT based classes (captains/rks) more than burst healers (bears/minnies) - which makes sense given how things are for them currently.

Just some thoughts for the doomsayers, anyways.

[Kasius]

60-80% is the numbers I have for Tactical Damage/Heal, with 2 rare stacking runes (76.8 vs 96 for incomparable, hence the ~100%).
Fictional and meh.
Negligible.
Hence the uselessness to even mention them.

Thats not true.
1 incomparable is 26% dps boost and 2 are 45-47%.
2 rare stacking runes would be maybe 40%,but more like 35%+

Phys runes are ####(for some classes like wardens even a dps decrease).

Heal runes are strong.Good for rks(they can stack 2).
For mini healing they are way to strong and that will make the op pvp heal mini even stronger.That was not needed

[WhiteGoliath]

ooh look at that




*OP HEAL CAPTAIN WILL RETURN*

[Giliodor]

I only have on tactical (Rare) DPS relic, but since the increase is linear anyway (I believe), the increase can be calculated all the same.



(21,988-18,223)*2 would be the tooltip increase with two relics, making the overall damage increase (21,988-18,223)*2/18,223 = 41.3%.

I guess one might say that

Testing matters

Because...

60-80% is the numbers I have for Tactical Damage/Heal, with 2 rare stacking runes (76.8 vs 96 for incomparable, hence the ~100%).

Seem like

Nice fictional numbers

to me.

[DrRabbitfoot]

To illustrate these 2 points, I'd like to bring your attention to these newly introduced... artifacts

One per weapon, AND one per class item.
These are the rare ones, not INCOMPARABLE.
And yes, they bump up the BASE (tooltip) healing or damage by a double digit % (if not triple).

Which makes them very popular in a certain category of objective/competent/knowledgeable/commended players asking to somehow decrease the current creep healing and damage.




So, if it is the intent of SSG to keep such artifacts as they are, to introduce more of them in the future, in addition to the usual more-essence-slots, then there is and there will be a lot of bumps up to do creep side.






?...

I'm going to assume this is why I'm seeing a big return of healstacked freep groups in the last few days. In particular, healing Minis have been decidedly absent since the update came out and now they're everywhere.

[Mathea]

When will this be available for testing?

[ScribeEzra]

All these claims and counter claims about the potency of Runes just proves one thing....PVE gear has NO PLACE in PVP. It must a nightmare to try and balance with all these new editions, so DON'T.....audacity armour and weapons for freeps in Moors alone should be the way forward, and will be far easier to adjust to maintain balance.

[Giliodor]

All these claims and counter claims about the potency of Runes just proves one thing....PVE gear has NO PLACE in PVP. It must a nightmare to try and balance with all these new editions, so DON'T.....audacity armour and weapons for freeps in Moors alone should be the way forward, and will be far easier to adjust to maintain balance.

I agree with that, which is exactly why I suggested PvMP-only armour/jewellery. It would be amazing if that extended to weapons.

[whyski]

Heh. Luckily the feedback is unanimous and sensible on certain points:
- Some of the initial feedback I'd gotten was that it was taking far too long for creeps to kill ettenmoors mobs - but it sounds like that isn't a DPS problem, so much as a disparity between creep/freep NPC vitality? That should be easy enough to address once I find out where it's coming from.

This may have already been mentioned, but Freep Captain Generals in outposts/keeps and Creep Tyrants in Keeps are level 116 atm. If they were lvl 115 it would take much less time to kill them. Freep NPCs that are currently 115 or lower probably don't need much adjustment, if any. I haven't checked what lvl the Bosses are in the DoF yet...

Also Creep DWFP potions are currently set to remove lvl 115 debuffs and should be raised to lvl 120 like what was just done to freep potions?