[PvMP] Balancing the Curve

[hanxcve]

Basically what SSG needs to do is remove raid gear from pvmp by adding +300% incoming damage and -300% outgoing damage to freeps audacity if it equals 1 and then buff creeps base morale by 100%

[Snowlock]

If I start talking about run-speed then I'll start talking about how I think mounts should be disabled in the Ettenmoors and Creep maps should be removed entirely, and that'll just end in blood and tears.

Too slow to move around that much area. Buff March to match mounts, remove maps.

[sapienze]

Remove the BPE debuff from March and other Creep run speed bonuses. There is no reason for it anymore. Freepside can virtually one shot any creep who has it on while entering an engagement.

Redline Hunters and Burgs love finding creeps with March on just because of the debuff. Without March Creep runspeed is soooo slooowww.


Maps aren't going anywhere nor are mounts.

[ChaChaLoco]

The title of this thread is "Balancing the curve" so I would think in a discussion about balance you would be interested in defining balance, since the whole point of your suggestion is to "balance" something.

The title was simply referring to normalising the extreme differences between fresh freeps and veteran freeps as defined. I think the substance of my post made it clear what the nature and scope of my discussion was.

You say now that you are not talking about mathematical, objective balance as shown by the objective measurements, but instead about your personal feelings of good PVP, where the definition of good PVP is wholly undefined, so the reader has no frame of reference as to what you mean.

Balancing numbers is very much what it's all about. If you don't start with a solid, indisputable measure of balance, mathematically defined, you just end up with the usual goggle-wearers flinging insults at each other to "git gud" or the soloers vs the groupers or the casuals vs the elites. That's probably part of the reason why most of the suggestions coming out of PVP land are ignored, they are not objective, but subjective feelings-based suggestions that would result in disaster. It wasn't that long ago a bunch of people were calling for all crit/devestates to be removed from the moors because the big numbers were scary.

I never was talking about trying to achieve perfect mathematical balance between each side in general. I didn't clearly specify that from the outset because frankly I didn't expect anyone to interpret my post in that way. Personally, I think that it's impossible to accurately quantify balance in a mathematical sense and translate that to 'good' (meaning subjectively fun/enjoyable) PvP. The thing about computational models is: garbage in, garbage out. If the data you use is inaccurate/incomplete, your model will be too - and, for the record, I'm sceptical that your data will be at all accurate/complete. Firstly, as I noted earlier, there are problems with the usefulness of your Combat Analysis tool (see my above posts). Secondly, I struggle to conceive of how you will mathematically quantify the skill and ingenuity of human players. Thirdly, you mentioned that part of your process would involve your own (subjective) observations. Lastly, even if all such problems are overcome, any data you come up with will require interpretation and translation into substantive changes which would (ideally) result in fun/enjoyable PvP. Your data might be informative (if accurate/complete), but it certainly isn't determinative.

The easiest way to do this is to have a well designed map with different tiers of defensive fallback positions where a weaker force has a chance to put up a fight instead of running all the way back to the 1-shots/backdoor. Osgilliath tried to do this with their keeps offering +15% evade chance and beefy NPCs, but those were not tiered in any way and was poorly implemented with the shuffle bridge overshadowing most of the other dev work there.

These fallback positions can be designed around the mathematical balance model between creeps/freeps to buff the weaker side to a appropriate extent while within the fallback area

That just sounds like a shuffle with extra steps.

Too slow to move around that much area. Buff March to match mounts, remove maps.

Maybe remove maps, buff Mobilise to a +50% run speed buff and March to +35%. In any case there are more pressing issues in PvMP than this so I don't really want to get into it too much here.

Remove the BPE debuff from March and other Creep run speed bonuses.

Yes, that needs to happen.