Henpecking and Nitpicking on Gerenal Stat Balance

[Kyuzo_dono]

As the title sounds, I'm gonna nag, but it's not random b*tch*ng; it's an accumulated slight frustration with constant and evident overall nerfs and favoritism, when it comes to "caster/magician" class in many RPG's, and now in Gaia's, too. I do this cause I care. If we gonna make a regular thing outa playing this game (which we've already been doing in our group) we gotta care about the details (which we already started to). I'm not only voicing my own concerns here, but it's something we also have discussed with some good folks randomly at our Garena group (GHoF), which perhaps I'll introduce here on this forum later.

Main Attributes:

I'll make long story short. The following is my 3rd-4th revision of this generic idea over a couple of weeks. First I'll point out the current "Imbalance" that has caught my eye. To my knowledge, what skill points provide your char atm, is as following:

Agility:
1. Attack Power, given it is your char's main attribute.
2. Attack Speed, 1% per 1 agility point, if I'm not mistaken since no way to calculate, and it's not been stated either.
3. Critical Chance, with formual:

CC = 5 + (Agility / Sqrt Level)​

4. Evasion, which some might not know, and I "think" it goes with this formula:

Eva = 5 + (Agility / 2 x Sqrt Level)​

Which is basically same as CC just x 1/2

What made me realize evasion's dependability on agility btw, even though not stated in game, was cooperative guine..*cough cough* genuinely respectable team members and also the fact that, when choosing character, Squire model shows 5 Str and 4 Agi while when you choose it it's vice versa, so he starts with 7% evas, and if you take "agility" as your first point, it turns to 8% !!​

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strength:
1. Attack Power, given it is your char's main attribute.
2. Critical Multiplier with this formula:

CM = 150% + (Strength / 250)​

3. Armor Penetration equal to:

ArP = 1/2 x Strength​

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Intelligence:
1. Attack Power, given it is your char's main attribute.
2. Spell Power, with the simple ratio of 1 to 1.​

So, basically in terms of being overpowered/favored, Agi > Str > Int.
Just as simple as 4 > 3 > 2. As for the number of perks, each attribute now provides.
Practical point: you don't see many bishops, and I'm one of the few in our own current team (GHoF) as there is no.. let's call it benefits of shouldering the burden of playing such class. And also game logic, as we call it is failing due to the fact that it makes no sense why being "agile" would make your magical powers more capable of damaging.. .

What's more, in brief, would be that:

1. MP pots have draconian cooldown.
2. MP pots by default restore less MP than HP pots (100 vs 150 / 250 vs 350 for bigger pots).
3. Wisdom skill, only adds 5% extra MP to this already-nerfed amount (100 x 5% = 5 more MPper wisdom point) whereas Constitution adds 10% (while 10% x 150 = 15 extra HP for HP pots). So even constitution is way overpowered compared to wisdom.
4. Constitution buildup is progressive, whilst Wisdom is additive.
5. Even with all the notable differences, MP pots are ironically, more expensive.

I must add, that I understand the following, as possible reasons for such notable nerfs and I'm not just complaining; (but even all these won't justify such big nerfings imo, I'll explain

Possible Reasons:

1. Everyone need HP, whereas only casters need MP, which is slightly irrelevant since tanks are spending HP to win fight, whereas casters are spending Both, and esp MP.

2. Melee attackers/tanks are more in danger, but casters stand at range thus lower aggro, which is kind of irrelevant when it comes to hunter/sorcerer/necro with high capability of generating aggro due to gigantic dps.

3. Magic is kind of naturally easy to get overpowered, esp with 1-sec-cooldown spells you have designed, so you do have to consider a "leash" systems to keep it in check, while tanking and attacking is much less so. Take Frost Cage vs hateful strike (20 sec vs max 2.5 sec disabling on enemy) for instance. Still irrelevant, since attacking is free, and physical/attack cooldown (AKA attack speed) is boostable via gear, spell, talent and agility. Despite the implement of "Spell Haste", that you have intricately seen necessary to add to the gameplay system, currently the only class enjoying the benefits of it are rangers, via Feline Reflexes.

4. MP simply could be less necessary than HP, in terms of amounts, due to a general balance of spell costs. Still, I might add that a lengthy fight with low-gear characters in team against bosses like shade , demand high usage of mana by casters, since they are the ones keeping the team together (bishop keeping all alive, druid doing same with much less MP capacity while they have to also dps sometimes, hunter and mages controlling battle circumstances while also focusing dps...), which altogether neutralizes this reason.

5. Simply because you want to keep your preferred level of difficulty present to the game, which is much much appreciated, in my personal case. However the cooldown and expensiveness of the pots, make it "irritatingly" difficult in the general view, and slow game pace for casters, which I'm sure is not your main intention.

All said and done, if you don't call this imbalance, and done deem it needy of attention/tweaks, I'll have nothing to add to this discussion. The way things are atm, is just not straight. But if you can even slightly understand the disadvantage felt by a caster class player, like myself, please read my revised ideas. I very much am aware that you are implementing new system to include spell haste and other tweaks to the game in later versions, but please also be kind enough to bear with my ideas. Thank you.

My Suggestions:

A) Separate "Spell Critical (Chance & Multiplier)" from "Physical Critical", only for hostile/dps spells ofc, as I think it's perfectly reasonable that you can't "critically" heal someone. Even though this surely will take some time off your table, and will require re-coding, I think we all see it worthy, and your game deserving it.

B) Affiliate "Spell Critical Chance" to Int (aka how "smart" you choose your char to be), which would make total sense in the "role-playing" point of view and serve as an immersion element as well, like the rest of these suggestions. Accordingly, associate "Spell Critical Multiplier" to Wisdom.

C) (This could conflict with option B, overpowering the two mentioned attributes, but low percentages could most probably help with that) Redo the cooldown system for spells, and make them dependent on either one of Int/Wisdom and give spell haste to the other. The former going to Int and the latter going to Wisdom is more sensible, imho.

D) Make "Evasion" an all-attribute-dependent stat, for a very simple example, average of the sum of agi+str+int, which then again makes good sense.

E) Implicate "All Resistance" with ofc a very low percentage, to Constitution, and balance out the progressive amounts if you have to. You, I am almost certain, are going to put into the game, different elemental resistant gear, which will in addition to this create a very suitable purpose and motivation to farm different areas for different resistance gear to be able to fight with unique bosses, each having their own master element or some even all.

Needless to mention, these are only suggestions, if in any way I'm sounding overly demanding or expecting, I plead innocent .

>> C O N C L U S I O N <<

-> Agility, will for all characters, provide:
1) AS
2) CC

-> Strength, will for all characters, provide:
1) CM
2) ArP

-> Intelligence, will for all characters, provide:
1) SCC (Spell Critical Chance)
2) SP

-> Wisdom, will for all characters, provide:
1) MP
2) SCM (Spell Critical Multiplier)
3) Bonus to pot consumption
-> Constitution, will for all characters, provide:
1) HP
2) ALLR
3) Bonus to pot consumption

And all 3 main attributes, with a formula of your liking, will for all characters, provide:

1) Evasion

Thanks very much previously for your attention, and for making this game.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Hmm, you have some valid points and I like the overall style of your post, but you seem to base the discussion on the simple amount of bonuses granted by the stats, not how the stats actually work out in the game.


Caster were never under- or overpowered just because INT did only grant spellpower and nothing else.

Also, MP aka Mana is a much more valuable stat in Gaias than HP aka Life, hence the increased cost, the non-progressive wisdom stat and the high cooldown on Mana potions.
Even items reflect this, as the amount of items awarding HP is huge, whereas items that grant a bonus to MP are very rare and usually grant low bonuses to MP.
The reason for that is that the MP cost of spells does not raise with the level. A heal at level 1 costs the same as a heal at level 50.
That's why MP does not and must not progress the same as HP.
HP can rise with levels and gear almost without limits (well, its actually not THAT simple, because Constitution must not become obsolete - that's why I implemented the progressive increase of HP awarded by CON). For MP, it would make the concept of mana management pointless. The only way to put a challenge to mana management is to counter it with two methods:
1) increase the length of fights to give players more time and reason to consume mana
2) implement new useful spells with higher mana cost to increase the average consumption of mana per x minutes
However, 1) is partially countered by mana potions, as mana potions can be translated to mana regeneration. If the mana regeneration exceeds the mana consumption players can create, the whole principle of adding MP to the pool becomes pointless.
2) is also a critical point, as older spells are not meant to become obsolete at some point. I can't just add a "Heal v2" at a later point of the game which is the same as the original heal, but heals twice the amount simply because that would totally suck and take the fun out of the ability hunting.

I finally managed to get Gaias Retaliation to a point where Mana actually matters (not so with 1.1m, but definitely with 1.2!) and Wisdom is worth putting points into.
It was very hard to balance both MP, +MP on items and wisdom to achieve that.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Well, thanks for the attention. Maybe it's just a difference of ideas speaking here. Personally, I'd like to see ups and downs, pros and cons for all 5 attributes, so that the player's "choice" and "style of gameplay" would be the main definitive point between same-char-playing people, rather than who gets phenoix, polt etc faster. I mean how appealing is it to know your char is someday gonna look exactly like this other guy's char and there is a pre-defined "best" choice for all, no matter the difference in a person's taste. How smart is it to just have two options to prefer between, Pheonix and Fury for your bard's main weapon i.e.. That being said I AM considering limits of a TFT map, and you have already far taken them beyond any other similar games I have played, and I have played WCIII for 7-8 years sporadically.

At the very least I was hoping to stir things up towards a change for the better. At the moment, and to be honest, wisdom, so to speak, is the dumbest choice of skill for any char, save bishop and maybe sorcerer, ironically. I play a full int-based dudu and I just .. felt a loss for 4 points of wisdom I chose to take for the betterness of team since there are many toddlers these days playing low-gear and low-lvl chars, failing at shade and so on, and I don't like failing obviously, so I had to sacrifice all dps. One hope was that when I have to dps I would summon efreet but, meh, 1.5 x sp spell and just one spell? The spirit of fire, just one weak spell.. I mean I used it tactically at some farm game to kill Gaelas Tar easily since we had no stuns, that was fun, but what abt some serious fights d3 or d4.. where do I get "my dps" if not from variable and versatile gameplay options. There are some options, yes but so limited, it's as if they don't exist.


Abt mana pots, it's just simply a hindrance to game pace when for example, a druid with no wisdom points is healing a team of 5 at shade; and they start at game time 2 pm and can do shade twice consecutively.. but the mana pot CD keeps all stood up.

And maybe my post was all too long for you to point out things you see valid, so I dunno what to reply here, but mainly, what about separation of SCC from physical CC and adding more value to Int and/or Wisdom, at least for sake of making immersive sense..? And also what will be the future factor affecting spell haste?

Please do remember that my suggestions are not about mana boosting or w/e. Simply about the cooldown because it's causing game pace hindrance. About mana management, it's something I assumed necessary some time ago but with good team and sync in team play the idea almost vanishes completely. How about an idea of the good old lvl 1/2/3 upgrades for spells, at high costs like MC's, quest tokens (I have still no idea what this is for) and such, at special trainers. It's also something I wished I could get, I kept clicking same spell at trainer again and again, thinking it might work at first, only to encounter the error "You do not fit the requirements" . E.g., a bishop could improve his heal after a quest and with some MC/Gold at a specialized trainer/guild master from [ SPx5 for 9 mana ] to [SPx6 for 15 mana ] ? The option would still remain player's, as to decide if it is worth it or not, much like resetting stats.

I'm now ever more impatiently looking forward to 1.2..
I'd also like to know if the evasion formula is right.
Thank you.

Again sorry for lengthy post.

 

[Vestra]

Zwieb did mention that there will be over 100 new items in 1.2, and after 1.2 maybe we could look into new early game items who knows. There will be different builds by all means.

 

[kevs926]

2. Attack Speed, 1% per 1 agility point, if I'm not mistaken since no way to calculate, and it's not been stated either.

i think it is 2% like the default in wc3

So, basically in terms of being overpowered/favored, Agi > Str > Int.

very true for bishops at least. the points you put on int has been less significant with better gears. for example, 36 bish at max d3 gears, you have 118 sp i think. how much of those were from int points? that's roughly 18 int. so int stats give like 18% SP at this point. Aint that pretty low for 18 stat points spent? bishops have been overhealing anyway. so most of those extra SP are used on 18% extra shield life, extra damage from crippling and soulstrike.

anyway... shouldnt it be like those int points are at least 40% of all your SP? like how 18 cons give like 351 HP which is more than 50% of your total HP. Thats why everyone gets cons..well i dunno if i should be comparing it like that though. it is probably because level gives int agi str, but level does not give hp.

my rankings for the 5 stats is like this:
Con >>> Agi > Str > Int > Wis

But wis is very situational. I could put it in #1 slot if we're talking about fighting FL. But in general i put it last cause there is not much need of that extra mana esp with 0 cooldown rejuv pots.

EDIT: your wisdom/mana ideas are somehow wrong. You shouldnt feel too bad at putting wisdom on druid. efreet can dish out 50dps already. i dunno what else you put on druid but agi is just plain terrible for druid. so it mustve been a con/wis split for the points not put on int. splitting it in half is not a really bad idea tbh and will be necessary later on probly. also, mana pots have 5 mins cooldown and there are 8 mins real time per game day

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The Problem of the decreasing input-to-output ratio of stats is present for all stats. Remember that STR and AGI also just add 1 AP for the corresponding classes.
That being said, I agree that some kind of progressive bonus should be added to INT, so that speccing INT does not become obsolete on highend gear levels.

I will probably add a spellcrit modifier on INT.

I'm also thinking about adding 'epic level' bonuses to stats at level 20 and above.

Wisdom was never meant to be a mono-build stat. I feel okay with the fact that people put like 4 or 5 points into wisdom if they dont need the HP from CON.


To be honest, I dislike the whole 'specc hero points into stats' system. I'd rather remove it and give the heroes a fixed amount of stat points/mana/health per level. But I love the idea that players can sacrifice HP for offensive potential if they wish so.

If someone can present me ideas about how to replace the whole stat system, I'm open for it.
To me, the stat system itself is broken. I did my best to balance out mana management and health in gaias and I think it works, but thats not because or despite of the stat system, so I'm not that attached to keeping it as it is.


EDIT:
Was kind of thinking about something like 'training' buttons increasing a certain stat or hidden stat tailored to the class choice.

There could be one for every stat or hidden stat and depending on the base/advanced class you selected, the selection of buttons changes.

For example, a sorcerer has:
MP, SP, crit, haste, resistance

then, a Crusader would have:
Armor, HP, resistance, AP, attackspeed

A druid would have:
AP, MP, SP, haste, attackspeed

etc.


Looks like a good solution to make skill points much more valuable. It also adds to diversity, as players can now specc into 5 skills for each class instead of just 2 or 3 that actually make sense.


EDIT 2:
As the world of Gaias has a lot of different gods and goddesses, I could assign every stat to a specific deity.
So for example, the armor skill button could be named after the god/patron of stones/mountains/metal, whereas the SP skill button could be named after the goddess of magic. Critical strikes could be related to the god of luck/gamble, attack speed or haste could be related to the god of birds/cats, etc.

 

[kevs926]

To be honest, I dislike the whole 'specc hero points into stats' system. I'd rather remove it and give the heroes a fixed amount of stat points/mana/health per level. But I love the idea that players can sacrifice HP for offensive potential if they wish so.

I like the idea of fixed value for all the five stats. But some players really want respecing though. If we try to combine both, we would have a "default" value for the five stats and a "respecing of default values". the default value would be automatic. Every level the stat points are automatically allocated. If you choose to respec those points there will be "penalties".

For example, your level 30 bishop has been auto allocated with
12 int 11cons 7wisdom. Now you choose to remove 3 points of cons to put in to int. So you will lose health normally from those 3 cons lost but you will gain lesser spellpower from the 3 int you obtained from restat. lets say theres a rule for every point that you go overboard of int. like only 0.9SP on the first one, 0.8SP on the second one. The idea is, the default value will be generally better because there will be no "penalties" and the farther you respec from the default values, the penalties gets bigger.


EDITTTTT:

EDIT:
Was kind of thinking about something like 'training' buttons increasing a certain stat or hidden stat tailored to the class choice.

There could be one for every stat or hidden stat and depending on the base/advanced class you selected, the selection of buttons changes.

For example, a sorcerer has:
MP, SP, crit, haste, resistance

then, a Crusader would have:
Armor, HP, resistance, AP, attackspeed

A druid would have:
AP, MP, SP, haste, attackspeed

etc.


Looks like a good solution to make skill points much more valuable. It also adds to diversity, as players can now specc into 5 skills for each class instead of just 2 or 3 that actually make sense.

wow this is so much nicer i definitely agree to thiss!!!!!! instead of the previous idea i just mentioned

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The only thing thats bugging me:
Splitting up the skills into all sub- and hidden stats increases the number of required custom icons I need even more

 

[kevs926]

the CROSS could work temporarily, just give it different colors for now.

 

[S0ulseeker]

I understand that set stats on hero levels would probably seem more logical on a scale of balancing and the deity system does sound kind of cool, I don't think I'd like to see the replacement of stat points. Being able to stat how you like and building your hero how you see fit is such a big aspect of Gaias and I personally hate when other games dumbs things down and make them more simplistic and 'casual'. It forces characters to be built in similar styles and do the same roles. Perhaps it could be implemented well with deities but I just don't think getting rid of the stats entirely would be the best choice. I love having that extra option to personalize each hero as they see fit.

 

[Vestra]

No set stats, fuck that noise.

Sorry I'm tired so I'm probably going to construct a terrible argument here but hey, why not.

The stats, as they are, are really quite fine. I don't understand this whole 'sp classes are weak' thing that's going on here, they're easily the highest current dps classes, bishops are fucking overpowered if anything.

The thing that makes the current system work is the multipliers on spells. That, and what I see as a complete lack of resistances on most current monsters. By all means if you're going to start making resistances count more, then maybe things like crit chance for spells can be looked into, but as it stands spell dps is kind of right where it should be. Fast, heavy nukes that actually take agro in most situations.

A good person to have in this discussion would be Egotenks, his knowledge of a sorcerer is pretty extensive. I'd go so far as to say he's probably the best sorcerer player I know.

Anyway that's it for SP, after 1.2, and I strongly suggest you leave it 'til AFTER 1.2 so we can look at endgame balancing before drastically changing shit, then maybe discuss something like this?



Alright back to set stats.

WoW has allocated stats, Diablo 3 has allocated stats. It's tedious, stats aren't even relevant anymore. I love the gaias stat system, it's basic, it works. You know what needs to go where when customising yourself for a run.

I really, really hate the idea of getting armor from stat points. I'm fond of your 'no armor because you're naked' theme, it fits with, well, good rpgs.

I look at gaias the same way as I do diablo 1, basic mechanisms with a complex result, you're able to put small numbers in places to cover massive ground in combat.
Truth be told a few stat requirements on items wouldn't bother me, I suppose that would fuck with the build freedom though.

Exchanging the current system isn't going to stop cookie cutter builds, more item diversity will.

Why the fuck would a druid need attack speed.

I'm a bit lost with what I'm typing, current stat system good, other stat system aligned to gods = every other stupid wc3 rpg.


Yeah what soul said was more constructive, personalisation over dumbing shit down. If someone wants to make an agil druid, let them, if someone wants 4 extra ARP so their mage can auto attack for a significant amount when OOM, let them. Allow people the choices because ffs every other new rpg is taking them away. D3 was such a bad game.

 

[kevs926]

zweib is actually suggesting more customization here, i dont get the 2 posts above.

anyway there is no need to argue about set stats, as it is not gonna happen and no one would like it.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I understand that set stats on hero levels would probably seem more logical on a scale of balancing and the deity system does sound kind of cool, I don't think I'd like to see the replacement of stat points. Being able to stat how you like and building your hero how you see fit is such a big aspect of Gaias and I personally hate when other games dumbs things down and make them more simplistic and 'casual'. It forces characters to be built in similar styles and do the same roles. Perhaps it could be implemented well with deities but I just don't think getting rid of the stats entirely would be the best choice. I love having that extra option to personalize each hero as they see fit.

Hmm, I don't really see why splitting up stat points over all existing hidden stats would hurt personalization.

Let's face it, the stat system in its current implementation is very one-dimensional. The amount of customization possible breaks down to mono-statting the main attribute of the hero and taking some points out of CON to spread over either WIS for casters or the secondary attribute for AGI/STR classes.

It's not like I want to change the way AGI,STR and INT works, I feel it's pretty balanced right now; I just feel like exchanging the skill point system to affect hidden stats instead of main stats might be a good idea which would actually support customization instead of fighting it.
Wether armor should be a available through skills or not is another discussion.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

@kevs: Yes, other than 2x shade, tbh I don't have any serious probs with mana pot cd. I do understand there has to be a big cd.

@Vestra: The way things are, is Very good actually. It's just this flaw in me called perfectionism. Ironically enough, when I see something very very good, I want it already better. And yes armor, an external and physical characteristic, shouldn't ever have anything to do with stats.


I'm being very off-topic here.. or maybe not..
But how about a 3rds stats offshoot.. like a 2nd set of hidden stats.. some brutal stuff. Like block ph dmg, return ph dmg, endure critical ph dmg, endure magic, neutralize magic, spell return (doesn't always have to be right back at the casting target..), absorb mana from hostile magic, chance to negate negative effects from allies with friendly spells like heal.. symbol of fury etc, chance for hostile spells to burn a chunk of mana off the target (spell / magical penetration), chance for lightning based to "shock enemy" making them miss attacks etc etc ...

Think about them Zwieb, perhaps with associating the right stuff to the right main stat, in the long run Every single stat would be very very much worth it.. and this I believe would also allow much more versatility scope on bosses spells/behaviors.

EDIT: By 3rd set of stats, I mean like, intelligence results in SP (or spellcrit w/e), then in turn spellcrit or just a good amount of spell "power" with some formula could govern how penetrating your spells could be into the boss's tough mental/magical shield.. how strong your physical toughness is would govern over the chance to tough out a critical hit by some crazy (and proly underpaid, digruntled) mob

 

[kevs926]

a 3rd set of stats or more like special stats is probably taken care of some items, like those minus threat passive on polt and EStrings. He could add more of those special abilities passives and items instead of implementing more set of stats. Actually isnt the bag skills trying to achieve this already?

also i dont get why we would have a 1st set, 2nd set, 3rd set. I think its is better to only have one set, like what zweib has suggested. One set of stats should be enough for customization as long as having diversity is achieved. The way things are, everyone is pretty much taking the same stat build.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Talents can be anything, literally have no limits imo in designing long as stay true and useful to the class of char. Stats have to make sense and be resultant to their parent stats.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

There's no new set of stats planned and it doesn't really make sense to me. There is more than enough stats available to select from.
Situational stuff can be covered by item special abilities or proccs.

Let's try not to make the game even more complicated...

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Let's try not to make the game even more complicated...

lol. Fair enough.

 

[Vestra]

Throw in more stats and this ends up Tkok 2. Personally I'm fond of gaias for it's simplicity. Regardless of how many little buttons you get to press, there is always a cookie cutter build. At least gaias let's me auto attack shit with a full agil mage and makes it fun.

I do kind of understand what you mean though zwieb, as it stands currently the game is essentially set stats with the option to throw one point off into your main attribute every second level, that is kind of boring.

so encourage different builds, different skills alligning to other attributes, have more than one stat on certain items, maybe items with tradeoffs on other stats for heavy bonuses. Your customisation can come from a wide variety of items rather than the same shit I've seen in other rpgs.

If you want though, make stats increase per level and have these hidden stat things, they sound like a second talent system though. If you're got some ideas draw them up as that poor guys icons might have no use soon.

 

[TinyTeaser]

Throw in more stats and this ends up Tkok 2. Personally I'm fond of gaias for it's simplicity. Regardless of how many little buttons you get to press, there is always a cookie cutter build. At least gaias let's me auto attack shit with a full agil mage and makes it fun.

I do kind of understand what you mean though zwieb, as it stands currently the game is essentially set stats with the option to throw one point off into your main attribute every second level, that is kind of boring.

so encourage different builds, different skills alligning to other attributes, have more than one stat on certain items, maybe items with tradeoffs on other stats for heavy bonuses. Your customization can come from a wide variety of items rather than the same shit I've seen in other rpgs.

If you want though, make stats increase per level and have these hidden stat things, they sound like a second talent system though. If you're got some ideas draw them up as that poor guys icons might have no use soon.

LOL agreed, tkok is the most complicated shit... lovely game when you learn it but it is NOT user friendly...like there will be so many nubs in Gaias you will make a new character every time you are playing with someone -_- - NO - BUT gaias still needs some options to make your character different from all... now, i know this sounds LONG and im gonna get attacked *gulp* but... the answer to this is pretty simple :

More Talents, right now we have 3 trees per class, and we get 1 talent point from lvl 30 every 4 levels... (max 6 points) ok... that is a bit of customization... but, hardly. You will find someone the same class/items and talents still :/ ... now personally i hate a twin in a game xD i Love been different (i wanna be the ONLY growth druid xD ^^) idea is to make every tree 11 talent points... and a talent every 2 levels... (meaning 11 talents at max level) now i know the hard work you put in the talents already, i saw the progress! but honestly... we all know that 4 levels per talent point is too much to add some 'flavor' to your hero...

Items, WE ALL KNOW THIS, i hate seeing the same end gear, or even the same start gear! loool xD i know all of this is so much stress on Zweib but its the truth! if we had items like 'Sheild of the Bear, Sheild of the Boar' and they slightly have different stats....alot of different builds will be seen! just hate seeing the same gear on maxed out people... Also with this Talent system going, will be nice to see the same classes (with different talent trees) farm for different items! just adds more variety you know

Last, but not least, The Skills! The same skills on EVERYONE (with one different) ... its just so 'cloney' xD don't get me wrong, the skills in this game are amazing, personally my favorite is remedy/Nature blessing (yes I'm a dudu fan ) but with different skills we will see a lot more variety of players? right now we have um i think 10 each? (correct me if im wrong) with 1 spell left over, meaning 11 spells all together... what ive noticed is that everyone seems to get rid of the same spell -_- ... then we have 1 dead spell *yawn* I say you add like 5 more on each class! (wtf?! lool.. yeah i know that's time and effort, but this is the best ORPG in warcraft 3, why not make it even better so NONE can catch up )
But to be honest... this may not be needed with the Talents if you add more points/perks....

Sorry for this long ass message, just suggestions not for myself but from everyone I've played with Garena/Battle-net. Not been disrespectful or anything, just all humble

DonRhymez

 

[_lycan]

Man i've always agreed with you vestra, but this time i won't the stat system could have some spicyness like what zwieb said, his idea was pretty awesome.


1 or 2 extra talents, could also help (so we can combine more the talents never ending in 2 level 6 talents obv).


there should be skills that you can get only by talents (for example: water gloves could be only Water element mage).


Obviously more items really more, even sets maybe?


well that's all i think it could be added for 1.2

 

[Vestra]

His idea is still inevitably going to lead to cookie cutter builds. It won't allow changes, if anything it will encourage people to make the same shit right from the start.

It is by all means a neat idea but I personally don't think it fits gaias.

Skills relating to talents would be shit, more talents by all means.
Could always add in god trees or some shit like that, just throw another form of customisation in there once people reach 50 for more diversity.


Darkly you barely ever agree with me I'm fairly sure we've fought on more than one occasion.


I know these ideas seem fancy but idgi, why fix whats not broken. The stat system as it stands, in 1.1m3, works just fine, has for ages. The caster based dps works fine, everything seems to work fine hence why I'll say once again, wait until the endgame is out to make drastic changes to balancing.

 

[kevs926]

His idea is still inevitably going to lead to cookie cutter builds. It won't allow changes, if anything it will encourage people to make the same shit right from the start.

care to explain why? atm we have 5 choices of stats, 2 out of 5 are useless stats. So if we actually have 5 stats to choose from and each of them is useful people still end up having the same builds?

 

[Vestra]

Because eventually, people will still come to the same conclusions, we need this much hp and this much attack power to be this effective. Or they'll get overly confused and read a guide, and never be encouraged anyway.

Idk what you mean '2 are useless'
If anything, only one is really useless to some classes and thats strength
Agil still provides some crit to mages and the like, it's a sub option once you have enough hp. You don't need 700 hp in d3, you don't need full int to be effective.

There are options out there people are just fucking lazy

 

[Ihazdialup]

Going off that god stuff, could align yourself to a certain god, giving boosts, similiar to talents, maybe one every 25 levels? So one when your about to class or have classed, then one at max, not giving much diversity, but a hard choice. It'd also be nice to start seeing items that "Increases Fire damage by 5%" or something like that, or increase stats other than atkspd by not just a set amount. So we'd start seeing people with different item builds, but again, people will eventually come to the same conclusions, but maybe not idk, with percentages and not just straight up "+5 to (this)" btw, good name for a lightning staff would be Blitzkreig, Lightning War.

 

[Vestra]

did you just translate german for a german

 

[Ihazdialup]

translated german for people who dont know what it actually means

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Hmm, I understand your reasoning Vestra. Currently a lot of talents award percentage bonuses to those hidden stats and having skills also adding a numerical bonus would be lame.

I'm not quite sure how to solve the redundance of skills then. I'd love to make the talent system more massive and spread it over the complete level range, but this is simply not possible, for three reasons:
1) the class change at level 25 changes the set of talents.
2) It was hard enough to get ideas for 15 talents for each class. I'd need at least 3 or 4 times the amount of talents to have options over the entire level range...
3) And also it would be lame, because skills are always linear, which means you have no branching if you want to reach a higher tier talent.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Could make it more like a tree i.e you can put several talent points into the same talent, up to 5 or something...less, bonuses, more talent points in the end, greater bonuses, allowing more statcusotmization. While still having the "ultimate" talents set as a 1 point wonder talent.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Could make it more like a tree i.e you can put several talent points into the same talent, up to 5 or something...less, bonuses, more talent points in the end, greater bonuses, allowing more statcusotmization. While still having the "ultimate" talents set as a 1 point wonder talent.

Doesn't work. WC3 does not allow more than 5 hero skills per unit.


If we come back to the idea to keeping the way the current skill system works, I might add some additional flavour to the stats (or stat skills), to make them more worthwhile, kinda how the implementation of Armor Penetration made STR useful for AGI classes. People will still spec AGI, but if they got some points leftover, they can put into STR and actually get something out of it. I'd like that for casters aswell.

I could imagine AGI granting spellhaste, but it would be very hard to balance that out.
Also, a spell crit or spell crit damage modifier on INT could be interesting.
Can't think of something useful for STR on caster classes, though.

Having some more flavour on AGI for casters would help a lot, I think. At least it would make people think "do I really need that extra HP?" instead of just dumping the leftover points into CON just because there is no alternative.

 

[Ihazdialup]

okay, well I tried XD

 

[Vestra]

Well strength for a caster seems pointless, if you bring out this ranged mail dwarf like we all know you will just give some strength factors into debuffs and everyones happy

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Vestra, I'm not sure why you mistook my interest in empowering Int and Wis, only for "dps casters" while all I nagged about were shop an dudu. Let me clarify, I fracking Love my sorcerer and everything is fine, if anything I'd ask for a nerf lol (and a possible lesser cooldown for magical mirror).
Like I said at beginning, my main concern was the bishop class. Other than being a nice guy, caring for the game, wanting more games to happen and people having fun, give me one single reason why any given individual would play the bishop (or play it again) with no benefits, and constant strain due to need of attention in game (esp with noobs as tanks/dpsers). You can keep insisting in a team that "Guys, tank+heal is heart of game blah blah.. please make more shops/dudus/zerks etc. I'd gladly help u out fast farm etc etc." But what you practically see is, a ton of monks, bards, crus, sins, hunters.. and few dudus, zerkers, necros.. and a scarcity of bishops.

You know why? Cuz healing is boring. I'm telling you ppl's ideas, as well as mine. They're like this: I want to show off my CC and Eva instead of running after some tank that doesn't have patience to wait for previous divine shield to disappear. I wanna come outa boss battles with a smug face cuz I just managed to reach 160 dps on him, not a wrinkled one cuz despite all my efforts someone still died and they are blaming me.

I wouldn't go anything but sin, then hunter and then sorcerer (and no i wouldn't take 6 intel away for 1% CC, items already cover a very good CC for mage class anyway, and I'm still carrying shiny gem FTW at 35 xD).

The main, and only part of my discussion, which seems to have been misunderstood or overlooked here by all, save zwieb, is give people a reason/motivation (as far as possible, the same exact amount of reason there is for playing all classes) to play a pure healer class. You know why? Cuz I've run a 30+ ppl and I had to memorize names, classes, levels, and I can see from my POV that every one wants to look cool, so they go choose epic dps.

Assassin, imo, atm is THE most appealing class, by far and nothing comes close. Insane AS, CC, Eva, damn good buyable skills, you can steal, make more gold than anybody, and look down on all like a bawws. Shop at the other end of this rope, is in one word meh. You have to concentrate, guess who will mt/offt and who in which order will get the aggro and guess-heal sometimes. Check people's gear/stats/armr to know who needs more luv !. Keep looking at fight ground and QI which can be quite annoying at FL (blazing flame fight) with people coming in and out and icons disappearing because of that. Keep nagging to people about team work, offtank go get caged plz, Mt go right after offt get aggro or casters will die .. and all this, yet still at the end.. a fucking sheep dies there and all will give the BISHOP the look over shoulder.

And no I can't NOT max out my intel, shop's job is too vital. I'd want my shield to hold as much damage as possible, my mend save ppl from imminent death, and so no goddamn way I'm taking agility, str or carrying glacier staff. Necros can go die with their skellies for all I care and wear panties and carry sex toys as staff for all Anyone cares (actu, according to a friend of mine, dudu and necros are easiest classes to choose when u want to go afk switch to porn, and not pay any attention to game). Them being or not being there doesn't vitally change the gameplay, what so ever, cept maybe at shade + Andy.

Lastly thank you Z, for taking into consideration, the spell CC and CM stats. And this is just clash of ideas and me nagging, don't take anything to heart.

 

[TinyTeaser]

</3 I liked you until you insulted Dudu's and Necro's xD

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Didn't mean to insult. It's a joke between me and him cuz he afks sometimes with dudu and necro. I'm awful at sounding funny or trying to, sorry.

 

[Vestra]

See Kyuzo your playgroup is completely different to that of s0uls or mine, in our playgroups and I suppose I'll speak on behalf of him for now, bishopping is not only common, its challenging, respected and viewed as the best class in the game due to it's immense durability in combat, not only in d3 but all throughout the game. It doesn't need any bonuses, it's heals are massive, it's tank as fuck resistance wise. It can actually tank lady solo, easily, whilst maintaining agro over a sader or a bishop who monitors his attacks.

The class is awesome, monks are shit, I'm not sure what your playgroup likes so much about them. They maintain agro and can solo tank anything sure but their dps output is below average.

Being a dps in gaias is easy, it's not showing off. Whoever can auto attack the most isn't the best, it's why I class ego as the best sorcerer I know over others, he knows his casting times, his damage output, when to prioritise certain items. Sure on nearly any other class he's a giant pain in the ass bust I know his sorcerer nearly always has control. Please just wear some fucking FR ego ):

It's not 6 int you'd take away, probably something like con, you really don't need massive amounts for d3. Even so 6 points to one crit multiplier is fairly shit, maybe zwieb should look into either more crit for int based items, or less crit on items and a higher multiplier on stats.

For the last time, epic dps is not cool. Hell, sins aren't even the highest dps. They are, probably, the laziest class in the game. Even hunters have to spam more than they do, acid, auto auto auto auto, maybe interrupt, why bother when your auto attacks take more damage priority over skills.

Sins are boring as fuck, they just look pretty and steal items. It sounds to me like people in your playgroup are having more of an ego trip than actually playing the game as a team.

The in and out during fl is also the wrong way to do it, at least by my standards. It works sure but I've done it thousands, yes, literally thousands of times with 5 people in the center dodging ashes while maintaining a star shape. They're not too hard to dodge.

A good bishop is hard to find, and when you do find one, it's often they will admit to their mistakes or everyone knows who actually fucked up in a run. It's not always about blaming the bishop, just like you can't always blame the support or the solo in dota for the team failing.

No, bishops should not spec anything other than int, they can by all means but heal crits aren't needed at all really, bishops heal enough anyway. Full int/con with 3-5 wisdom does the job, keeping 450-500 hp for firelord in full FR.

Thats a strange opinion on necromancers man, not all old men have sex fetishes.

Panties are nice though, so soft.

So
Soft.

 

[Vestra]

I should really just bullet point my posts with the way I type it's fucking ridiculous.

 

[Ihazdialup]

I gotta agree with vestra, bishop is probably the most OP class, and wut about me, and my sorc =/ ik my shit to, but bishops, OP I was solo healing and I could still get like 150 dps in d3, with pre-d3 gear, was level 34, but nvm that. Its actually possible in d3, if you have a druid healing, to hold 300+ dps with a bishop. which is crazy.

 

[Vestra]

Shaddup tank sorc

 

[Ihazdialup]

lol when im on your side, your telling me to shut up?

 

[Ihazdialup]

also, strength could add a bigger crit modifier, on elemental spells, idk just tossing ideas, this was probably a really bad one

 

[Vestra]

lol when im on your side, your telling me to shut up?

I was kidding, you're a good sorc too

 

[nmphuong91]

I think that Vestra missed the point of the topic and Kyuzo's argument. This topic is not about "SP class is underpowered", nor "Bishop is boring". It's about "Stat balance".
As Kyuzo's first post point out, Int doesn't have as much impact as Agi and Str do. Plus, SP class do not benefit from Str at all, and CrC from Agi is low. At the moment, SP Class depend on gear, and gear alone.
Thus, SP Class doesn't have much choice at the moment, every full geared SP Character look the same, and has the almost the same dps no matter how they spend their stat point.

 

[Vestra]

I haven't missed the point. Those were the points. Just because int doesn't say things like '0.26 chance to spell crit, 1.26 heal modifier, 0.56 spell critmultiplier per point' doesn't mean shit. It really doesn't need any more bells or whistles.

Int does have a significant impact in the multipliers the skills provide. Int based classes do their job extremely well. If you want all these bells and whistles all this shit would need a massive nerf.

All classes depend on gear, gear is what runs classes in gaias. That point is immensely invalid.

Variations in dps will come from more items. As I've already said, maybe give CC for every 4 points as opposed to 6. You'll have to take items into account then though.

Most items ingame are roughly balanced round the stats players have. Any changes like this could mean massive overhauls to prevent fucking crazy dps.

If you want spellcrit you'll have to separate the other multiplier purely to autoattacks. If you want spell haste, there may need to be a shitton of balancing involved but I can see spellhaste working on int.

I'm just saying, for things items could cover easily, we'd need to rebalance a fuck ton of shit just because people want the illusion of complexity. In the end you'll all use cookie cutter builds because as you've said you want to look pro, or some ridiculous shit like that.

 

[kevs926]

bishops could easily be an insane dps too if theres already a druid to do the healer job.

i mean mathematically, you have a 3x spell you can cast every 2.5s and 7x spell every 15s. even incinerate + magic missile wont match crippling curse in single target dpsing. Actually, lightning charge(x2.5) and soaked(x1.2 if target has 0 initial LR) = soul strike, the only difference is when it crits. Most undead bosses, bish pawns asses. Sadly, Andy has insane resists on magic and shadow.

 

[texugo1337]

Lets buff Bishops and nerf Hunters, because agi is imba.

 

[Vestra]

Sadly, Andy has insane resists on magic and shadow.

He does? Never noticed it really, explains why bishops don't take agro.

Quit your bitching texugo we'll get there, I'm sure 1.1n will bring something fancy for hunters and shit like that. Really they're not that bad of a dps now.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I will add a crit-damage modifier for spells on INT in the next update. The actual chance to crit will not be affected.

Agi will also grant spellhaste. I think it makes sense that a more agile character is able to perform complex magic rituals faster.


The troubling thing now is the formulaes, as haste is a percentage modifier and percentage modifiers don't work well with stats that are absolute values.


Here's the basic principles on how different formulaes work out ingame:

1) Linear formulaes based on the absolute number of stat points (like critdamage on STR) are usually lame, because the impact of adding a single additional point is almost zero. We have this problem with Crit damage on STR.

2) Formulaes divided by the squareroot of the hero level increase the impact of a single point, especially in the early game a lot, but the impact of a single point becomes less and less valuable, the higher the level gets. We have this effect on chance to score a critical hit with AGI.

3) Formulaes subtracting an offset value and then have a linear behaviour have a strong impact on a single added point over the entire level range, but tend to get overpowered really fast with the specific gear collected. I used this type of formula on 'Celestial Zeal' and it worked pretty well in this regard, as it negates the base STR disposition of Crusaders that comes with leveling, which means that at the time you can buy the ability, if you respecc everything from STR into INT, you will deal roughly the same damage with autoattacks. As gear also represents that (a piece of equipment that has both STR and INT usually has only half of both values over a single stat equipment), it works.


I think I am going to alter the formulaes to be a mixture of 1), 2) and 3), because it seems to be the best way to balance percent modifiers without making stat points useless at a later point of the game.
Creating offset factors on the base stat progression of the individual heroes makes it more balanced when comparing true classes to hybrids and makes "off class stats" more interesting to have.

The formula for crit damage could look like this.
Critdamage = 150% + ((STR / BaseSTR) - 1) * 15%

On crit chance, the same approach:
Chance to Crit = 5% + ((AGI / BaseAGI) - 1) * 10%


This basicly means that for example an Assassin needs a lot more AGI to achieve the same crit chance value as a Crusader. However, if we consider that AGI is a lot more valuable to Assassins and Crusaders still got a decent AGI disposition to start with, Assassins will still get higher crit ratios as Crusaders.

These are the other percent modifiers:
Spell Haste = ((AGI / BaseAGI) - 1) * 25%
Spell Critical Damage = 150% + ((INT / BaseINT) - 1) * 15%

Remember that it does not take as much AGI to have twice the amount of BaseAGI as it takes for Assassins, for example.

 

[Vestra]

Those could be extremely interesting to see, is it possible to implement them into 1.1n beta testing?

On the end of this, lets make symbol of fury add spellhaste, y/n?

 

[nmphuong91]

Lets buff Bishops and nerf Hunters, because agi is imba.

Monk as well. Agi class with ability to heal? Nerf please.