28 réponses à ce sujet

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

I know there was a thread about a lack of a healer role in damp (elementalist vs keeper) in the past but I'd like further expound this and say outside of the dedicated tank (lego) and dps classes (archer, reaver, assasin etc) there doesn't seem to be any actual direction as to what these other classes were designed specifically for like the alchemist.

Take the keeper for example, she obviously is supposed to keep the group alive and her abilities justify that but the elementalist also has barrier as well as more offensive spells. I still don't understand why she wouldn't have pull of the abyss, it is after all a support ability.

Obviously they want variety and some customization for the player in classes but do you guys think due to the hybrid nature of a few classes this actually hurts the longevity of this damp? At the end of the day, are we REALLY going to pass up the best abilities? This unfortunately goes back to the dead horse argument of someone choosing lego over AW, when the latter fulfills the role of both tank and mage.

[veramis]

The keeper doesn't have much that is both good and unique to her, just some barrier passives and static cage. She would be better if she had PotA because the ability is so overpowered, but imo that isn't the way to achieve longevity. I disagree with the idea that longevity can be reduced because classes don't have enough uniqueness to them or specific roles that can only be filled by them. The problem is that this game is balanced like crap and even if there was balance there are too few possible ways to play each class. There should simply be no clear "best" anything, whether classes, abilities, or equipment, as such narrows down the number of ways people can enjoy the game. In my mind, it is irrelevant if classes share many abilities with other classes. The only things that matter for longevity is that there are many ways to experience the game and that things are balanced to the extent that most people are willing to do so

 

Ideally, the content must be balanced so there will be more than just 1-2 optimal builds for each class. The best and easiest way to add variety would be to add additional equipment options (weapons-that-aren't-meant-to-be-obsoleted, armor types, multiple accessories like 5 amulets/rings with reduced effectiveness of successive accessories), loosened equipment restrictions (with penalties to compensate for things like spell damage based upon Sulevin's Blade's weapon damage), loosened skill trees (not wasting points in earlier active and passive abilities to obtain desired abilities further down the tree), more abilities (not just brand new abilities, but even more hybridization), and 1-4 additional slots for abilities so that the game isn't just about mashing four abilities as soon as they are off cool-down and there is enough mana/stamina to use them.

 

Balance and variety in such a way could drastically increase the possible number of viable build permutations and ergo different ways of experiencing a class many times over, i.e. a 2-handed, dagger, bow, sword and board, or lute-wielding keeper, that uses defensive, offensive, CC, or blood magic, versus the only two keeper builds at the current time: the Barrier-bot keeper and the Confused keeper who thinks EB DPS>CL DPS or that not slotting barrier is better.

[yarpenthemad21]

I would argue that balance shouldn't be the main goal for the pve game. It should be a "fun factor" and "is class/build/etc viable".

What breaks "balance" and makes content trivial are promotions. 100 wilpower = 50% more damage, 50% magic resistance. In theory you can have capped crit chance, range defense, melee defense, magic defense, bonus damage from outer space and boosted health. On everything. Always. 

 

Game clearly wasn't made for that amount of promotions. Hp pool of enemies are silly compared to those in single player. Perilous enemies are weak "hp" wise but to balance it they hit like trucks. Armor wise,  defensive wise multiplayer kits are somewhere on level maybe 5 in single player. What breaks it? Promotions. 

In SP sometimes OP crafting can lead to great stats but not that great. You won't get mage/thief with capped everything  defensive and boosted damage at once.

 

I don't know what should be done to fix it because it's plain design fail. They just made a game around casual which promote every kit maybe few times. They wanted to add some reason to level up, promote, making both gold and xp matter but as always some players just played too much.

[Gya]

@DrakeHasNoFlow

I'd disagree; if anything, the potential to build and play classes in multiple ways, and the fact that you don't need classic rpg roles, should in theory add longevity to the game. You're right, an Always Winning can tank as well as a legionnaire, and generate a butt load more XP, but unless you're all about the XP farming, it won't matter. People will pick whichever they find more fun.

However, on perilous, the openness of build and playstyle potential is limited:

@Veramis

Agreed. It's a shame, because there are fun classes that are simply not useful or even viable on perilous. Case in point, the alchemist. What's the point of elemental mines? And with flask of fire? Is it a morality fable warning us of the harms of wastefulness? Or is it meant to teach children not to leave Lego lying around because most of the pieces won't actually contribute damage to your enemies/parents?

That said, it seems clear that MP was balanced around threatening, where most builds work with mid to high tier weapons. Perhaps the idea was that perilous shouldn't be easily accessible to any build of any class?

Also, my keepz has mad deepz brah y wud i use barrier on teammates, just slows me down, one time I killed a shade on routine with energy barrage, true story, totes legit.

[veramis]

Agreed, yarpen. There's no way for bioware to balance the game well when a ~1000 hours-played account character can take 5x+ more damage and deal 2x+ more damage than a ~200 hours account character. Ideally they should've implemented diminishing returns and a damage reduction cap far lower than the current 80% damage reduction, not the linear or even increasingly-powerful returns we get from attribute promotions at the moment. But it's probably too late to do anything about it without ticking off promotion farmers, and the different difficulty levels will continue to be either "cakewalks" or "too-****ing-hard" for an increasingly large percentage of the playerbase. In comparison, a MEMP player is much more likely to find multiple of the different difficulty levels to be fun, challenging, and rewarding, because the game had significantly better-balanced content all-around, be it equipment, abilities, classes, or difficulties.

[Sulaco_7]

Agreed, yarpen. There's no way for bioware to balance the game well when a ~1000 hours-played account character can take 5x+ more damage and deal 2x+ more damage than a ~200 hours account character. Ideally they should've implemented diminishing returns and a damage reduction cap far lower than the current 80% damage reduction, not the linear or even increasingly-powerful returns we get from attribute promotions. But it's probably too late to do anything about it without ticking off promotion farmers, and the different difficulty levels will continue to be either "cakewalks" or "too-****ing-hard" for an increasingly large percentage of the playerbase. In comparison, a MEMP player is much more likely to find multiple of the different difficulty levels to be fun and challenging, because the game had significantly better-balanced content all-around, be it equipment, abilities, classes, or difficulties.

 

Just to say, it's probably okay for them to ****** off promotion farmers in order to rebalance the game.  The people who care about the promotion stats comprise such a small portion of the (already small) player base, it would not make any difference if they all out right quit the game.  Rebalance the game for the majority of the players - their telemetry data should tell them who these players are.

[Puffy9999]

And April Marches on without any new content...

[veramis]

And April Marches on without any new content...

 

For what it's worth, I think bioware did a really good job with the new DLC and IMO it will add a lot of hours of gameplay. That is if some of the very bad bugs worse than the key bug are ironed out and don't destroy the game . There's even a bit of changes related to balance but imo there's a lot more that could be done in that area.

[ChessEffect]

Not that I want to sound like a broken record, but I really think it's the stability and connectivity issues that are what cause people to quit playing.

 

With all these other games (whose names shall not be mentioned lest we get off topic) around it's little wonder people ragequit after they crash and can't connect again and again.

 

Removing Origin from the equation would solve about 90% of the problems by my reckoning.

[veramis]

^It's not just origin. DA3MP has a lot of bugs and very bad net-coding. ME3MP similarly requires origin, is a 4-person co-op, etc., but is many times more stable and does a lot better compensating for sub-optimal latency.

[Torkelight]

plain design fail.

This whole MP is a design fail.
 

it's the stability and connectivity issues that are what cause people to quit playing.

Actually not the greatest reason that cause people to quit. The reason people (like me) quit is the lack of content for the MP. But after that, stability, connections and BUGS! If only they had some more content, more (challenging) bosses, better AI, better loot system, crafting system for MP (so much materials, nothing to do with them) - I would still be playing this probably. 

I havent been playing for maybe two months. Have anything actually been added to the game at all? 

[J. Peterman]

That is if some of the very bad bugs worse than the key bug are ironed out and don't destroy the game . T

 

Worse? Whoa!!

[teltow]

I think bioware did a really good job with the new DLC

 

But it seems they don't want to give it to us.

[Courtnehh]

This whole MP is a design fail.
 

Actually not the greatest reason that cause people to quit. The reason people (like me) quit is the lack of content for the MP. But after that, stability, connections and BUGS! If only they had some more content, more (challenging) bosses, better AI, better loot system, crafting system for MP (so much materials, nothing to do with them) - I would still be playing this probably. 

I havent been playing for maybe two months. Have anything actually been added to the game at all? 

Hardly mate, I wouldn't even bother.

[ChessEffect]

I have heard that  bioware did a really good job with the new DLC and it will add a lot of hours of gameplay.

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

Hopefully with this new dlc most of us won't have to resort to picking the same class of characters to carry through a successful extraction.

[Torkelight]

Hardly mate, I wouldn't even bother.

It couldnt drag me away from Guild Wars 2 anyway. Its such a superior waste of time. 

I check in here one every few weeks still to see. Nothing yet? Oh well, figures.

[J. Peterman]

Hmmmm..so if the new DLC is still in the beta phase, is it safe to assume that the Microsoft exclusivity deal wasn't to blame for it not being released a few weeks back?

 

Or am I wrong and the beta period is over?

[DrKilledbyDeath]

You're asking in the wrong place Joe. I think you are most likely to find the answer to that question nowhere ever.

[J. Peterman]

You're asking in the wrong place Joe. I think you are most likely to find the answer to that question nowhere ever.

 

You're correct. How silly of me.

[stysiaq]

I think I'll finish Pillars of Eternity for a second time before DA:I gets any new content

[CitizenThom]

lack of variety is the main thing that hurts longevity, that and no real goals to pursue.

[ChessEffect]

What about the challenges? The 3 million golds?

[Laforgus]

If promotion and Stat reward didn't existed, the MP game was about which class was FUN and which you LIKE more. not a convenient or farm thing...

 

Any 4 man group can beat perilous, doesn't matter if have 1 of all stats or 1000. With practice and patience to get good dropped items any team could do it, at it would have felt better because a challenge should stay a challenge. Like Mass Effect 3 Platinum.

 

Its a matter of time until this start to feel like a chore.

[SpaceV3gan]

Just to say, it's probably okay for them to ****** off promotion farmers in order to rebalance the game.  The people who care about the promotion stats comprise such a small portion of the (already small) player base, it would not make any difference if they all out right quit the game.  Rebalance the game for the majority of the players - their telemetry data should tell them who these players are.

Balancing the game while taking away the only clear sense progression it has wouldn't work, at least not for too long. This game has a hardcore playerbase at all because of the promotion system, and from time to time I come across new players farming their way to better stats. I dare the promotion system (plus a loyal fanbase) is what has kept this game alive throughout six month of developers negligence.
The promotion design is not just flawed but also pretty unsound. I would like to see it being revamped so that we can have a balanced game, but then, without a progressive manifest like ME3, there isn't anything better to replace DAMP promotion system so this game can keep a committed playerbase for long.