Balance issues - PVP

[Skragna]

Darkness, unlike lamps, is /weightless/ and can be stacked as deep as he wants it to. If he's going to fight a single human Crusader, he could stack five layers of it and they will still be blind.


Mathematical!

[Delmon]

Human with ghoul addition cant see past a certain darkness, especially 5 stack darkness. Lamps can stack too. Gems can stack. Darkness is like masks... its physcological more than anything.

[Skragna]

... Delmon. Let me put it this way. Phelan wishes to attack Luminier, whom he knows can spring four sources of light /very/ quickly. Thus, he stacks five layers of darkness, then walks in. Luminier activates his four light sources. There is still one layer of darkness, which leaves Luminier blind, but Phelan is a ghoul! He can see in one layer of darkness, leaving him with sight. Again,

Mathematical!

[rex]

I think we are getting way off topic here. This is supposed to be about Good-Evil balance.

I want to reiterate what I said before which I was hoping people would comment on.

I previously said:
"I go to the tundra to see the tower of pain has been re-opened. After gathers all the force I can myself and another Cruasder spend 2 hours clearing a path to the Tower of Pain only to go inside and see two giant ghouls, a revenant, skeletons who cut off heads with ease, banshees etc etc. Three hours later we close the tower of pain. Now you’re asking, why not bring a bigger team? We have done this and it almost always ends badly with a banshee insta kill, skeleton, revenant etc. Now that the tower of pain is closed we log off with no way to reinforce the tower of pain. We log back on 12 hours later and it is open again. Perhaps the problem is that we don’t play at the same time and I’m not asking people to start playing when I play but the fact that Sathonites can still be on the offensive while they are not online where as a Cruasder can not is a problem in my opinion. There is no realistic way to keep the tower of pain closed without having a Crusader online at all times and even then with 2 sathonite clerics with two undeads by their side one lone Crusader stands no chance."

My question is, how is this fun? There is no motivation to play a good character if 5 hours of playing results in no net gain at the end of the day. Or, we go an clear the undeads the Sathonites make while they sleep only to find a new set of 30 undeads when we wake up the next morning. Give the goodies a chance to leave a present behind for the bad guys once in a while! Its no wonder its hard to find a person willing to play a good person nowadays if there only job in this entire game it to clean up after the Sathonites.

As for PVP. There is a way to already trap someone in a room in this game. I will not go into details about this but if you know the right people you can get these items. It was abused previously but thankfully it is more difficult than it used to be to get these items now. Making the ability to trap is completely unnecessary. All this change did was help an already powerful guild limit the types of strategies one can used against them. We want to promote a diverse strategy. All this change did was limit the strategy in my opinion.

Trap works for XX seconds. Satho can casts X bone spears in the time which results in Rex at death doors (it only takes two and rex has very high con) and Rex gets the very low chance for a critical of 2-3 swings at the sathonite in mood defend with plate armours and a shield. Something needs to change.

[Delia]

Darkness is manageable but it is always in the advantage of its user as you usually should be the one doing the hunting. In team combat situations darkness loses its meaning but on one-on-one it is usually quite decisive. Perhaps a crusader can haul around all the lamps in Elvandar but a shao or a mage, for example, simply can't.

Against Sathos you always need the backup guy. I suspect this goes against Asrals as well if they use their fire miracles. In my experience almost all one-on-one situations have went for the Sathos unless the opponent can instakill with a hit. This is from a standard meet&bash scenario. Ambushes are another thing.

As for the Tower of Pain I do agree it has become a rather tiresome revolving door and there is very little actual point of doing anything about it as it is now. Perhaps it should stay closed/open for a period of time before anything could be done about it?

[Delia]

As for the revenants, if there were couple of active shao masters for example they would vanish in a heartbeat. Good guys just need their numbers and diverse abilities to cope.

[Rudolpho]

Let me try to explain this from another point of view. Not everyone in this game is a Crusader or a cleric. You have Rangers, Rogues, Shaolin, and any number of guildless characters. With the exception of Crusaders, halflings, and those who possess the one or two specific rare items, there is no defense against miracles. Notice many of these characters are lightly armored. Miracle dodging is the only defense they have against vastly more powerful guilds. So, what has been done is these advantaged characters, who can wear heavy armors without losing their advantages... who can wear shields without losing their advantages... and can go to mood defend without losing their advantages... can now use a fast casting miracle to hold these lightly armored characters in place... these very same characters without defenses against miracles... and spam harmful miracles on them in heavy armors in mood defend behind a shield, and essentially bend them over a barrel. So you took powerful advantaged characters and made it easier for them to have their way with weaker disadvantaged characters. Rangers, Rogues, and Shaolin lose their abilities in heavy armors. Sathos and Asrals do not. I'll concede that the way Taniels are now, it may very well balance out, but not in the case of the other two clergies. Furthermore, they can do all this now without another skill. If anyone wishes to perform a similar function, they must train up a whole separate "set traps" skill, and then there's the Rogues' spikes. These nasty little buggers trap everyone in the room, thus they're as much a hinderance as a help. They cost a large sum of gold and require more than simply coins to purchase. They degrade staggeringly with each use of them too. Essentially one of the few real Rogue advantages has been handed away to clerics, who didn't need it, and don't have the repercussions attached in using them. As I see it, the rich just got richer.

[Delia]

Speaking as a shao player the new trap does not faze me much. Bonespear does damage, pins you to the room, causes bleeding AND removes use of shao specials so...

But before everybody becomes overtly agitated let us see how it actually plays out in game. Take sparring matches with the trap in place, etc to see if its completely overpowered or not.

The thieves seem to be the ones losing here. There I have to agree.

[Delia]

Bit more about darkness...does anybody train blindfighting? I personally like the skill and it goes well with the shaos(who actually have to train the skill, more or less)but I kinda did not like how it was nerfed ages ago.

Shaos trained in blindfighting had the ability to initiate combat while blinded using allowed basic moves. This was removed after Delia managed to kill one of the two Sathos attacking her(or rather came in and started calling miracles)which was quite unexpected by them. Considering Shaos carrying loads of lamps do not fly, literally speaking, it was a big downgrade for the skill. Thoughts?

[isengoo]

I always hated the hit and run tactic so I'm all for the new miracle

[luminier]

I always hated the hit and run tactic so I'm all for the new miracle

Ya casting miracles and sitting in one spot takes soooooo much skill

[rex]

Bit more about darkness...does anybody train blindfighting? I personally like the skill and it goes well with the shaos(who actually have to train the skill, more or less)but I kinda did not like how it was nerfed ages ago.

Shaos trained in blindfighting had the ability to initiate combat while blinded using allowed basic moves. This was removed after Delia managed to kill one of the two Sathos attacking her(or rather came in and started calling miracles)which was quite unexpected by them. Considering Shaos carrying loads of lamps do not fly, literally speaking, it was a big downgrade for the skill. Thoughts?

Blindfighting 100 should make you on equal playing ground with an enemy who can see in my opinion. If it does not then that does need to change.

[fernao]

Blindfighting 100 should make you on equal playing ground with an enemy who can see in my opinion. If it does not then that does need to change.

Almost, but not quite. Darkness should still prevent you from using specials, initiate combat other than with area effects and lower the effectiveness of aim a bit. But there should not be any other malus besides those with blindfighting 100.

[fernao]

Hmm, mages have a trap spell but since none reportet on its use or was "victim" to it yet, it never came up.
As for the trap miracle...
- Is it new and shifts balance? Yes
- Does it require a change in tactics when used? Yes
- Is it buggy and overpowered? Probably yes
- Is it in beta and under wizard review for balancing? Yes
- Does it give clerics of all player accessable clerical guilds a chance against constant hit and run? Yes
- Does it steal from the uniqueness of the rogues? Probably yes, but so does the mages spell no thief ever complained openly about.
- Are the rogues an occupational guild? to my knowledge, NO

So, as suggested before by others, I'd say go out with you friendly cleric buddies and test it, report your finding to the wizards, so they can get a better picture!

[Delia]

Having blindfighting 100 or not is besides the point. Shaos can use some of their moves when their skills are high enough but they lost the ability to initiate combat which I always took as this bit of mystical chi thingyness. Later on after the killing feint I imagined the ghost of Yegerfin appearing to Delia echoing the words:"Use the chi, Delia. Use the chi!" Yes, that is what happened.

[Delia]

As for magic, I think there are a couple of ways of hindering other characters all of which differ from each other and require different magics to be used. As all those are outside Delia's realms of immediate interest I cannot say much about them either. But what I know the effects should not be long lived. We in the magicbiz have perfected the art of self-nerfing.

[anglachel]

... Three hours later we close the tower of pain.
... We log back on 12 hours later and it is open again...

Yes, the tower of Pain is a problem. It is for my oppion to simple to close or to open it. But how to change?

Only put more or stronger guards/monster is no solution. There was the idea that the the one who closes or opens loose his life. But this to hard.

It must be something that is make it very hard to close/open, if that there was recently a change. But it become more easier with the time.

So that one side open or close the tower, it can be sure that it will not change so easy in the next time.

[fernao]

I think we are getting way off topic here. This is supposed to be about Good-Evil balance.

And I thought it was about PVP balance. Good and Evil is another thread. Asrals, shaos and rangers are included in this discussion and though they may have a bias towards the good, Asrals and Shaos at least are supposed to be neutral.

I want to reiterate what I said before which I was hoping people would comment on.

I previously said:
"I go to the tundra to see the tower of pain has been re-opened. After gathers all the force I can myself and another Cruasder spend 2 hours clearing a path to the Tower of Pain only to go inside and see two giant ghouls, a revenant, skeletons who cut off heads with ease, banshees etc etc. Three hours later we close the tower of pain. Now you’re asking, why not bring a bigger team? We have done this and it almost always ends badly with a banshee insta kill, skeleton, revenant etc. Now that the tower of pain is closed we log off with no way to reinforce the tower of pain."

There are ways that have been and are used ...

"We log back on 12 hours later and it is open again. Perhaps the problem is that we don’t play at the same time and I’m not asking people to start playing when I play but the fact that Sathonites can still be on the offensive while they are not online where as a Cruasder can not is a problem in my opinion. There is no realistic way to keep the tower of pain closed without having a Crusader online at all times and even then with 2 sathonite clerics with two undeads by their side one lone Crusader stands no chance."

Same is true for a single satho against a closed and defended tower. So I see no problem there.

"My question is, how is this fun? There is no motivation to play a good character if 5 hours of playing results in no net gain at the end of the day. Or, we go an clear the undeads the Sathonites make while they sleep only to find a new set of 30 undeads when we wake up the next morning. Give the goodies a chance to leave a present behind for the bad guys once in a while! Its no wonder its hard to find a person willing to play a good person nowadays if there only job in this entire game it to clean up after the Sathonites. "

Same is true for us sathos when a bunch of crusis and taniels was awake. We gotta spend hours upon hours to clean up after you

"As for PVP. There is a way to already trap someone in a room in this game. I will not go into details about this but if you know the right people you can get these items. It was abused previously but thankfully it is more difficult than it used to be to get these items now. Making the ability to trap is completely unnecessary. All this change did was help an already powerful guild limit the types of strategies one can used against them. We want to promote a diverse strategy. All this change did was limit the strategy in my opinion."

Hmm, standard strategy experienced from the satho point of view is charge by unicorn mounted crusi, ride off of crusi mounted unicorn, rinse and repeat. If we manage to harm the crusi or the unicorn, the get a cleric buddy heal them fully, and almost with no delay its back to charge and ride off. And if the mounted crusi stays for a bit, well, unicorns are damn tough to kill, deal quite some damage and cannot be blocked. So yes, you are used to get in and out at your will without hindrance.

Or crusis and supporters assemble under protection of a watchtower, but I won't complain there, since that is basically the same as having undead guards or a rev to be backed up. As for revs, I think the whole satho guild, given the current active players, can mount less revs than the crusade can plant watchtowers, assuming their number is limited in some way, and from all those revenants rarely more than one single rev is not outdoors, and that one indoors is at a known location. If you know its there and are not prepared, your fault, not ours.

Trap works for XX seconds. Satho can casts X bone spears in the time which results in Rex at death doors (it only takes two and rex has very high con) and Rex gets the very low chance for a critical of 2-3 swings at the sathonite in mood defend with plate armours and a shield. Something needs to change.

Haven't tested the trap miracle myself yet, so I cannot say how long it lasts and therefore not how many bone spears can be prayed for in that time.

And although our guild wizard told me that there were satho plate armours somewhere in the files, we don't have them. We got bone armours as our best defense. Unless we buy custom plate armours, buy plate armours we can get from shops or through quests, we don't have or use plate armours.

[Delia]

Mages in general cannot really be compared regarding the trap to other guilds as the probability of having several mages with trapping spell is ridiculously low One mage perhaps but not a guild of people. The current mages are all very different which is really nice IMHO.

[fernao]

And none of the current mages supports the evils. Some are neutral, some assist the goodies within certain limits and one is a stout member of the good side. So, from my point of view, the goodies "own" the mages. And if there would ever be a mage supporting us evils, I wonder if the same OOC discussion will start as with the alchemists.