724 réponses à ce sujet

[Voorhees88]

BALANCE ALL THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 not proceeding in making all things worthless

[defleshing]

wow clearly lots of time and effort went into this. good to see a thread with an actual purpose and not senseless complaining. i got nothing to add but good work.

[Deucetipher]

Have you been able to test these changes, or is this purely a theoretical exercise? I know you're on Xbox, but some of your comrades are on PC and could try to test it out, though not on BioWare's servers.

[GodlessPaladin]

Deucetipher wrote...

Have you been able to test these changes, or is this purely a theoretical exercise? I know you're on Xbox, but some of your comrades are on PC and could try to test it out, though not on BioWare's servers.

While it's mostly theoretical, Kronner has done some testing with the changes (though he could only test in single player).  For my part, I've done what I could with what I had.  For example, applying different damage boosts via equipment or abilities and trying out various weapons, recording results on ranges and things like that. 

Kronner's tests are how we arrived at the new cooldown number for Tactical Cloak, for example.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 19 juin 2012 - 06:41 .

[Cyonan]

Deucetipher wrote...

Have you been able to test these changes, or is this purely a theoretical exercise? I know you're on Xbox, but some of your comrades are on PC and could try to test it out, though not on BioWare's servers.

PC users are forced to use Bioware's servers.

Unless we wanted to do a whole lot of less than legal stuff, which we do not =P

Modifié par Cyonan, 19 juin 2012 - 06:40 .

[Grunt_Platform]

Balancing the Geth Pulse Rifle's a tricky one. I've run the calcs and even with a 20% damage buff it would have slightly worse DPS than the Carnifex and leave the caster classes who want to use it exposed much longer.. But its great accuracy, ROF and capacity mean that making it too competitive with the Carnifex could have it out-performing every other AR.

One thing I'm curious about is... do the INIs have any values for force/stagger thresholds and resistances for players? Because it really feels like a krogan with Tech Armor up shouldn't flinch as often as they do.

If those values don't exist though, I guess that's patch material.

[Shampoohorn]

Here are a couple of ideas for your consideration:

Asari melee: reduce the lead in animation by XX amount of time.
Like you've said, their melee is no more effective than other characters we now have access to. Keep their recovery time the same.

Fortification ideas:
Melee damage boost when active, vs only when purged. 25%?
Add an AoE force component to heavy melee attacks.

Singularity: Evolution 1 also increases max number of simultaneous targets lifted from 2 to 3.

Heavy Pistols: Reduce magnification of scope mod by 1/2, limiting their equivalency to sniper rifles.

Modifié par Shampoohorn, 19 juin 2012 - 06:51 .

[WandererRTF]

If you read through everything you will see that most of the changes apply to evolutions that nobody ever takes. For example nobody choose cloak duration over damage, and the changes here go a long way to making it more attractive. Also while buffing the most underperforming characters makes the game a little easier for that character, it doesn't make the game easier than it would be by taking the overpowered characters everyone is already using.

And boosting just about all existing melee values is what then? Dropping weigth and/or boosting damage on wide variety of weapons (far beyond stated N7 weapons) is what? Boosting base stats or evolutions 1-3 does not belong to that bracket either. Rest might, but even those are not 'rarely used' evolutions. Please do have honesty enough to call those changes what they are instead of calling them 'balancing'.

A: The challenge of a game is primarily affected by the efficacy of its most powerful (yet reasonably easy to use) options. Simply bringing up underperforming options to the level of better options does not make the game much easier. That said, we have decided to aim for a higher balance point as opposed to a lower one for two main reasons. First, because buffs give me more design elbow room to expand the role and variety of things, and two, because people generally like buffs better than nerfs... including Bioware, according to Eric's previously quoted statements.

And despite of Eric's previous statements Bioware has had no qualms in actually nerfing things in the game. It has done so several times. The changes listed are not limited - they are wide reaching. How then would you balance the enemies, give say for example Marauders 25% more damage and shields (seems in-line with your proposed changes).

[GodlessPaladin]

EvanKester wrote...
One thing I'm curious about is... do the INIs have any values for force/stagger thresholds and resistances for players? Because it really feels like a krogan with Tech Armor up shouldn't flinch as often as they do.

  Good question.  I haven't found anything like that, but I'm not exactly an expert in that department.   If anyone can find such values, I'll add those suggestions to the list, because Krogan stagger lock vs Geth sucks.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 19 juin 2012 - 06:43 .

[BjornDaDwarf]

Regarding the "Balance All the Things" BSN Group, is it a publicly viewable group? I'd dig being able to be a fly on the wall and see some of the discussions about various powers/weapons in a more controlled environment.

I did a quick search and didn't come up with anything, but didn't know if there was such a thing as private groups that aren't even visible without an invite.

[UKStory135]

This list is pretty good and I agree with most of it. The only thing I'm not 100% sold on is the Evo 6 TC nerf. I'm still not convinced that the SR's are OP, even with all of the TC bonuses. DPS numbers are misleading (the Predator and the Eagle are >> the Carnifex according to DPS). Other than that, great job.

[Elecbender]

Cyonan wrote...

Very nice set of changes. Just so you know, the melee values for Rebellion characters are:

Male Quarian
Light melee damage: 150
Light melee force: 350
Heavy melee damage: 600
Heavy melee force: 0

Vorcha
Light melee damage: 250
Light melee force: 350
Heavy melee damage: 600
Heavy melee force: 850

Ex-Cerberus
Light melee damage: 400
Light melee force: 200
Heavy melee damage: 350
Heavy melee force: 450
Heavy melee impact radius: 600

Also, I believe that the Sentry Turret's rate of fire is 540. It has a burst fire delay of 2 seconds, but I haven't played QE in so long that I don't remember if that matches up with what we see in game.

If I can find where they buried the Combat Drone data, I'll post that.

How are you accessing the MP data?  I'm only finding SP values.

[GodlessPaladin]

UKStory135 wrote...

This list is pretty good and I agree with most of it. The only thing I'm not 100% sold on is the Evo 6 TC nerf. I'm still not convinced that the SR's are OP, even with all of the TC bonuses. DPS numbers are misleading (the Predator and the Eagle are >> the Carnifex according to DPS). Other than that, great job.

The TC nerf comes alongside a buff to most sniper rifles, making it a null sum for the most part.  In practice, it's not so much an Evo 6 TC nerf as it is a Krysae-Infiltrator synergy nerf.  With these changes, the Krysae cannot one-shot shielded enemies on a Geth Infiltrator.

So yeah.  It's a nerf to Krysae-Infiltrator synergy.

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 19 juin 2012 - 06:50 .

[RamsenC]

I would give Vanguards a 50% weapon damage increase after charging. Doesn't make sense that a low risk move like AR or cloak give way better weapon bonuses. Especially since AR and cloak both have very high defensive utility as well.

I miss Vanguards being the shotgun masters.

[Apl_Juice]

WandererRTF wrote...

And boosting just about all existing melee values is what then? Dropping weigth and/or boosting damage on wide variety of weapons (far beyond stated N7 weapons) is what? Boosting base stats or evolutions 1-3 does not belong to that bracket either. Rest might, but even those are not 'rarely used' evolutions. Please do have honesty enough to call those changes what they are instead of calling them 'balancing'.

You're forgetting that with the melee upgrades, you don't have the health and shield upgrades. The melee options deserve the buffs since they are competing with health, which is widely considered the better option. It is technically a buff, but overall it equates to a more balanced Fitness tree.

As far as weapons go, yes, we're buffing them, but they're being buffed to compete with existing weapons. That doesn't pull player effectiveness up past difficulty benchmarks, its just giving you more options when it comes to loadout.

Some powers are getting buffs to both trees. Here, the consensus was that those powers underperformed. One instance I can think off the top of my head is the proposed buffs to Cryo Blast, which, in the vanilla game, isn't a better debuff than Warp, which is a debuff, damage power, and a primer for the always useful Biotic explosions.

And despite of Eric's previous statements Bioware has had no qualms in actually nerfing things in the game. It has done so several times. The changes listed are not limited - they are wide reaching. How then would you balance the enemies, give say for example Marauders 25% more damage and shields (seems in-line with your proposed changes).

Eric didn't say he wasn't nerfing at all; BioWare would just rather balance through buffing. Yes, I share your concerns that the metagame will be to easy. Its a concern for BioWare too, as then credits become too easy to get. I don't think they'll let that happen.

Overall, with these changes, I don't feel like the overall playerbase will perform better; we'll just be using different tactics.

[Cyonan]

Elecbender wrote...

How are you accessing the MP data? I'm only finding SP values.

Their coalesced file runs on a bit of hierarchy.

First, it'll check the one that I assume they have on the Mass Effect 3 server's at EA. This is where weekly balance changes get added, and this is also why none of the weekly balance changes show up in our local version of the coalesced files.

Second, it will check the multi-player section of the local file. If it finds data there, it will use it.

Lastly, it will default to just using the single-player values if it cannot find anything in the other two places.

So basically the SP values are the MP values, unless they changed them in a weekly balance change, or our coalesced specifically overrides it, which it does have a few for some powers in the sfxgamempcontent area under biogame.ini

As for how I get DLC things. You have to decompress the DLC files and read the coalesced they have there. Most of their stuff is listed as MP content, since it's MP DLC.

[Apl_Juice]

Double post.

Modifié par Apl_J, 19 juin 2012 - 06:54 .

[Saaz5555]

Nice changes, but I think you missed a lot of weapons (ARs and SMGs).

[rcolol]

WandererRTF wrote...

If you read through everything you will see that most of the changes apply to evolutions that nobody ever takes. For example nobody choose cloak duration over damage, and the changes here go a long way to making it more attractive. Also while buffing the most underperforming characters makes the game a little easier for that character, it doesn't make the game easier than it would be by taking the overpowered characters everyone is already using.

And boosting just about all existing melee values is what then? Dropping weigth and/or boosting damage on wide variety of weapons (far beyond stated N7 weapons) is what? Boosting base stats or evolutions 1-3 does not belong to that bracket either. Rest might, but even those are not 'rarely used' evolutions. Please do have honesty enough to call those changes what they are instead of calling them 'balancing'.

Boosting melee is intended to make people consider using the melee part of the fitness tree more, adds variety to character creation.

Weapon damage increases, weight drops, is intended to open up the variety of weapons people use. You know, so you don't see everyone with a Paladin, Saber, Krysae, GPS, etc....

It is balancing.

[GodlessPaladin]

Awesome, Cyonan! Good to finally have the values for these things

[Morning Elf]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

I'd
also like to see cryo explosion changed so that the target doesn't need
to be killed to be triggered.

 

No fixes, weekly balance update style changes ONLY,  Final Destination.

Someone claimed a while back that this is just a flag in coalesced.ini.

[molecularman]

WandererRTF wrote
And boosting just about all existing melee values is what then? Dropping weigth and/or boosting damage on wide variety of weapons (far beyond stated N7 weapons) is what? Boosting base stats or evolutions 1-3 does not belong to that bracket either. Rest might, but even those are not 'rarely used' evolutions. Please do have honesty enough to call those changes what they are instead of calling them 'balancing'.

Most of the tweaked weapons, as well as melee, are currently underused. Buffing them will only make the game easier for those few that use the weaker stuff, which isn't any problem since it gives more players equal potential, it doesn't increase the maximum potential of more powerful setups. More variety, you see, not more power.

[neteng101]

List seems pretty reasonable, but I do think some things don't make a lot of sense. TC duration without the extra duration already is barely enough to cap an objective, so all you'll end up doing by lowering it that much is encourage "offensive" infiltrators to just ignore objectives entirely. This will be the end result pretty much, and teams will suffer overall I suspect. I suspect those who chose the shorter duration will also be far less likely to rush to reviving fallen teammates too.

No issue with trying to make duration be more viable though, so certainly increasing the length of the evolution makes it more attractive.

[Ektogamut]

WandererRTF wrote...

If you read through everything you will see that most of the changes apply to evolutions that nobody ever takes. For example nobody choose cloak duration over damage, and the changes here go a long way to making it more attractive. Also while buffing the most underperforming characters makes the game a little easier for that character, it doesn't make the game easier than it would be by taking the overpowered characters everyone is already using.

And boosting just about all existing melee values is what then? Dropping weigth and/or boosting damage on wide variety of weapons (far beyond stated N7 weapons) is what? Boosting base stats or evolutions 1-3 does not belong to that bracket either. Rest might, but even those are not 'rarely used' evolutions. Please do have honesty enough to call those changes what they are instead of calling them 'balancing'.

A: The challenge of a game is primarily affected by the efficacy of its most powerful (yet reasonably easy to use) options. Simply bringing up underperforming options to the level of better options does not make the game much easier. That said, we have decided to aim for a higher balance point as opposed to a lower one for two main reasons. First, because buffs give me more design elbow room to expand the role and variety of things, and two, because people generally like buffs better than nerfs... including Bioware, according to Eric's previously quoted statements.

And despite of Eric's previous statements Bioware has had no qualms in actually nerfing things in the game. It has done so several times. The changes listed are not limited - they are wide reaching. How then would you balance the enemies, give say for example Marauders 25% more damage and shields (seems in-line with your proposed changes).

You will note that most of the weapon changes are either to ultra rares, with the intent of making them immediately accessible once unlocked, underperforming weapons such as the incisor, or difficult to use weapons like the kishok.  Seeing a lot of these weapons more oftten in lobbies would be a good thing, I think. 

Lastly it seems like certain power buffs are tailored to one class over another.  And boosting melee makes building a melee character more viable.  And fuirthermore to properly do so you would have to sacrifice other options (like health and shields, gear, etc).

[GodlessPaladin]

Wanderer also seems to be ignoring that we did nerf some things. The Hurricane, Talon, Krysae, and Tactical Cloak all got nerfs. We also are still discussing how far the Talon nerf should go, as well as whether or not anything should be done about the Reegar. At first we found an "allowable mods" thing in the .ini file, and thought we could use that to stop it from having the piercing mod like the GPS and such, but apparently that .ini value doesn't seem to work. 

We also recognize Grenade Gear as an issue, though currently I have no elegant ideas for addressing it.  I mean, it's not like we can decrease the number of grenades it grants at each level upgrade (1).

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 19 juin 2012 - 07:03 .