240 réponses à ce sujet

[DragonRacer]

ok, it's starting to drift a little, but for BSN, 4 pages of deep player insight, pretty much spam and snark free is a serious achievement  .

 

Honestly, that's worthy of a Victory Chest in and of itself.

[Luke Barrett]

ok, it's starting to drift a little, but for BSN, 4 pages of deep player insight, pretty much spam and snark free is a serious achievement  .

 

I know, right?! I'll probably do more directed topics like this in the future if they continue to go well. Trying not to sway any of the feedback with my opinions on things but most of it is roughly in line with the data we're getting as well as my own personal perception of the characters.

 

 

Just curious, what limitations are you working around when making changes? The Katari buff didn't involve changing the skill tree ect...it was Multiplayer exclusive. Are mechanical changes like that what you plan to use to buff or nerf the classes in place? Or would changing skill trees be an option? I'm assuming changing abilities functions isn't an option, and as a result buffing poison or throwing blades would not be achievable? 

 

Can't really comment directly on what I can and cannot change but I'll say that the easiest thing to do (especially as of the last patch) is tweak numbers on skills. SO while I couldn't easily add extra actions to an ability, I could, hypothetically, increase the damage multiplier for them

[Proto]

Can't really comment directly on what I can and cannot change but I'll say that the easiest thing to do (especially as of the last patch) is tweak numbers on skills. SO while I couldn't easily add extra actions to an ability, I could, hypothetically, increase the damage multiplier for them

 

Very nice. Thanks you for the info. Hopefully people can pass along some strong ideas.

[BreakJohn]

i love that you guys are looking into class balance, personally while i do feel some classes are a bit too strong(looking at you cillian) the balance isn't too bad at all in this game. its hardly game breaking and a few little tweaks should at the very least liven things up a bit. 

[DrKilledbyDeath]

As far as my opinion goes, I'd look more into making weaker classes more perilous viable before I'd go nerfing anything. It's not like it's PvP and one class being better is breaking everything.

 

That said, Alchemist could use some love. A lot of cool skills but they never work out well in practice. Elemental mines, either agro everything and die instantly or you miss everyone with it and waste it. Get surrounded, pop frost flask, combo with Shadowstrike but that doesn't help much. One enemy gets shattered and the rest are back on you in seconds. All of the alchemist moves seem like they are better suited for longer encounters (poisons, mines, etc) but in a game where the faster you kill the better off you are it doesn't sync well.

 

Assassin, not sure what can be done other than have the stamina on kill and stealth work better. When it goes well, you are popping in and out of stealth hitting for ridiculous numbers, it seems like there are 2-3 assassins on the field. When it doesn't go well because you didn't get stamina back or stealth CD didn't reset, you die. Like right away.

 

Necros, Im sure I'm beating the dead horse... I hate Simulacrum, it is horrible. The duration gives you just enough time to pick someone up if they are downed.... if you do it right away or else you'll fall over dead half way through. And the worst part is when you kill a ton of enemies, your ghost has full or close to full HP, but you still fall over dead. If you can't fix it, at the very least just move it so we aren't forced to take it to get the precious Walking Bomb.

 

I almost wish their skill tier system worked like Borderlands so we weren't forced into abilities that are useless. Case and point, needing Shadowstrike to get reduced threat (or is it stealth on kill... I can't remember, but you get the idea) on the Alchemist. It's one thing to get a passive, but for a tree to force you to waste a skill on an ability you will never use sucks.

[Beerfish]

One thing to consider Luke, other BioWare lurkers and other bsners, strongest and weakest can change dramatically on the last wave because of the very different dynamic.  Some classes in jeopardy in the 1st 4 waves really shine when being able to take down bosses.  Some fairly dominant offensive classes that look great in waves 1-4 get smashed on the last wave due to lack of cover, the knockdowns or fear of bosses and the many distance missile attacks from mooks.

[BansheeOwnage]

FTFY

 

One of the reasons I quickly realised I hated Shield Wall was precisely because I could take damage while using Shield Wall, you can block an alpha strike, but it is not something you can rely on to turtle with.

I almost never play perilous, but I turtle with it just fine. As long as you have the stamina regeneration passive and only block for a split second, then continue attacking to regain stamina, you're fine, even without the stamina amulet.

[DrKilledbyDeath]

I almost never play perilous, but I turtle with it just fine. As long as you have the stamina regeneration passive and only block for a split second, then continue attacking to regain stamina, you're fine, even without the stamina amulet.

It's all good until you are on wave 5 with 10+ things hitting you. Your stamina goes away instantly and you may as well be standing there naked after that point.

 

I don't quite understand how a move like fade step costs no mana, but combat roll takes stamina away. Would be nice if it was free to use, keep the CD though.

[BansheeOwnage]

Can't really comment directly on what I can and cannot change but I'll say that the easiest thing to do (especially as of the last patch) is tweak numbers on skills. SO while I couldn't easily add extra actions to an ability, I could, hypothetically, increase the damage multiplier for them

I'm wondering how the changes you will make to multiplayer (including fixing bugged abilities) will affect singleplayer. Obviously I'd really like the bugged abilities specifically to be fixed in both. Any comments there?

[BansheeOwnage]

It's all good until you are on wave 5 with 10+ things hitting you. Your stamina goes away instantly and you may as well be standing there naked after that point.

 

I don't quite understand how a move like fade step costs no mana, but combat roll takes stamina away. Would be nice if it was free to use, keep the CD though.

Yeah, as others have said, the 5th wave changes all the rules. It's still good for blocking attacks from commanders and such though. Agree that Combat Roll shouldn't cost stamina, at least with the upgrade. I don't feel the need to use it with only 4 slots as it is.

[Luke Barrett]

I'm wondering how the changes you will make to multiplayer (including fixing bugged abilities) will affect singleplayer. Obviously I'd really like the bugged abilities specifically to be fixed in both. Any comments there?

If we're fixing bugs with patches it will be in both. If we're doing balance I have the ability to make number based changes exclusively for MP side of things.

 

Hope that helps

[TheLastAwakening]

The Hunter: I think this class could benefit from an increased threat reduction and wider radius from explosive shot. I play him with stealth because playing him any other way I gain too much aggro. It would be nice to walk in when I spot an opportunity and drop a spike trap on incoming enemies without being in stealth.

 

The Alchemist: Her flask have a very short duration.

 

Necromancer: Virulence doesn't work well off host which means you'll get hit and mindblast barrier gain was broken when I tried that build. Also chill from fade step didn't give ice armor even if they froze I guess that it doesn't count as a persistent cold spell. However if chill did work with ice armor the Necromancer would be even sweeter.

 

Templar: She needs help, I just tried line in the sand for the first time, I don't want to level her again for a long time. She is basically a two skill combo. I did make this nice mercenary build using challenge, unbowed, wrath of heaven and combat roll but it was only viable for threatening.

 

Stealth: I take the same damage in stealth as normal but more often than not when I get shot in stealth it's a situation where I should not of been spotted. For example a new enemy spawns but disregards my stealth and shoots at my character. I think that there should be a chance to miss or where damage when hit in stealth has a good chance to be ignored if not reduced.

 

Guard: This is loss way to easy. Of course I don't want the game to be a breeze but guard < barrier and everyone knows. I'm more surprised that because of how great barrier is that we didn't have a class that discharges barrier with a short cooldown (AW  )

 

When in doubt...Tech armor.

[Vorna]

 

Firstly, a word of caution on balancing- remember that many people discussing balance have quite a few promotions under their belts, and can have their perspective on balance issues skewed. Combine this with an armory that is more filled out (often with items like the HoK ring), and they can have a view that will not help a core class and may end with the game balanced for the top tier players- which could be a dire problem for DAMP, which struggles with player retention and massive matchmaking problems (talk about something that really needs to be buffed, it's matchmaking).

 

-

On the Arcane Warrior:

 

Beware nerfing him, the last thing we want is another Katari, and the seemingly small nerf to the Reaver has made her tedious to play and fairly weak. Also note most suggested nerfs for the AW throughout the history of DAMP have been asinine and vengeful. People tend to get very angry at classes that can solo well, I have very acute memories of the hatred for the supBD in DAoC for instance, a class that could have easily been destroyed with a nerf or two, and been much like her sister, the worst class in game, the darkBD. The Arcane Warrior excels at tanking and his design should facilitate that. Any nerf to the AW should come with associated buffs to his ability to tank, be it threat generation, on demand tanking abilities, or just the replacing of useless talents. As stated earlier in this thread, his armor talents are generally useless due to barrier not taking armor into account and perhaps should be replaced. If I were to nerf anything, it would be his damage- but retaining the same level of barrier generation- bringing him more in line with the leg (low damage, high survivability). Sometimes, people just need to accept that certain classes will be better at soloing than others, and the AW will always be one of those unless he is redesigned from the base up (or nerfed so badly he's useless, which is what some of these people want).

 

To put this in a way many people here might be able to understand, let's avoid Krysae nerfs in DAMP, please.

 

-

On the Alchemist:

 

I agree with most others here, she is the weakest class in game currently, and it hurts me because my favorite classes are always the tricksy trap based rogues. A major part of the problem is the awfulness of most of the 'trap' skills in the game (something that drags the Hunter down as well, though he can largely work around them): 

 

-Elemental Mines is just bad, the cooldown is too long, the damage is pretty weak, the effects aren't anything to write home about, and if you haven't blanketed the area completely, they're basically a slightly more effective Caltrops. Combine this with the fact that 'Throw Everything' wastes all your stamina ANYWAY after you've used fireflask, and it's a very uninspiring skill.

 

-Toxic Cloud is a better skill than Mines, but still has major problems. Largely, its massive cooldown and reliance on requiring contact poison and explosive toxin to be anything of note. Then throw on spamming with fireflask not being all that useful, and it comes out feeling very mediocre if not worse.

 

-Poisoned Weapons isn't really a trap, but is in the tree... and is completely god awful. The Alchemist seems to have *much* lower base damage on melee attacks compared to the Assassin, and the poison doesn't seem to help span the gap much at all. AND it's on a long cooldown.

 

-Knockout Bomb- honestly, I've never even tried it... because the Alchemist has issues in the 'can kill' department, and I try to keep my skills in the realm of 'can help me kill things' rather than the 'will get broken by the three other people with me'.

 

-The Stealth tree is in better shape, but 'I was never here' needs to be easier to get.

 

Basically, you're pretty much forced into playing her as a gimpy version of the assassin who has a fraction of the damage. And this damage imbalance is a major problem, the assassin survives by being able to kill quickly so she doesn't get gibbed, the alchemist can't. She takes easily twice as long to kill a target, and this leaves her vulnerable for a long time. Killing slower also leaves her far more vulnerable to blocking, which is honestly out of control. She's more likely to die and less likely to kill than the assassin, while her trap tree brings nothing to the group that an Elementalist, Archer, Hunter... anyone, practically, can't do better. She needs help.

 

-

On the Templar:

 

If we were going to judge classes without good gear, without promotion bonuses, and without someone to barrier them, the Templar would objectively be the worst class in the game. People who think she's great are largely packing items like the HoK ring or running around with pet Keepers. Her saving grace is her ability to bomb highly benefiting for HoK gear or a pet Keeper. Her tank tree is trash as well, almost embarrassingly so (at least the Alchemist can field a few vaguely different builds, the Templar is basically forced into one build... and that should be a dead giveaway the class is hurting). To fix her? She needs native HoK on her nuking/buffing tree and complete reworking of her tank tree. Including the native HoK would atleast be an easy way to stem the bleeding and put her in the 'pretty viable if not good' category, even if her tank tree is still trash. Also, it should be noted, her cooldowns are generally too long (yes, including her nuke combo).

 

-

On the Reaver:

 

She's in a better place than the Alchemist and Templar, but not by a lot. The nerf to Dragon Rage/Rampage pretty much destroyed her on two levels. Firstly, it made her less survivable and weakened her damage output. Secondly, it made her incredibly tedious to play. With the reaver, you spend the entire game micromanaging your health... obsessively so. It's just not fun. Whoever thought it was a good idea, they were oh oh so wrong. I preferred losing Rampage healing after death to the tedium of Reaver play now (it was like an extra challenge put on the reaver to not die, heh). But yes, I just stated I preferred a bug to the silly balance change.

 

Also, to note on Rampage, it's pretty much a required Reaver ability. And it's pretty stupid how long it takes to get to it on the tree. Quite honestly, it should be where Devour is. I cannot think of a single sane build that wouldn't take Rampage, it's what makes the class what it is.

 

And I have to ask, why in the hell does she have threat+ abilities? She isn't a tank, and she has no real way to generate guard. Why? Who would ever take them? Why even put them on the tree? Because you didn't know what to put there and decided to put some filler abilities for newbs to mistakenly take and make themselves a liability? No threat+ talents on the AW, yet the Reaver gets them... I just can't....

 

-

Miscellaneous:

 

-The Hunter, as I stated, shares some issues with the Alchemist due to trap crossover, and Spike Trap is pretty bad as well (despite the nifty ability to use it while stealthed). He's much stronger due to range and sharing some Archer abilities (I must say though, Throwing Blades, unlike pretty much everything in the Alchemist's trap tree, is pretty awesome). He needs to be looked at (and why doesn't his 'Bait and Switch' do something that would actually benefit him rather than increase his likeliness to die?), but I'd put him at much lower priority. He's pretty much my favorite character to play though, so perhaps I see him through rose-colored glasses.

 

-The Katari has serious issues with being blocked. Both Charging Bull and Whirlwind can be cancelled by block, and it can be a life or death situation. It makes taking Whirlwind a detriment.

 

-Caltrops. Lulz. If it was on anything other than the Archer, I'd probably be angry about the hilarious uselessness of this skill. But because it's on the Archer, who is one of the strongest classes in game, it can be laughed at. But, no really, Caltrops might be the worst skill in the game and should probably be fixed- unless it's intended to be a little piece of comedy for us to laugh at.

 

-Enemy blocking is largely out of control, and tends to hurt the classes closer to the bottom the most (Alchemist, Reaver, Katari). For all the kvetching about how the one thing that undoes the AW is the almighty block, he is far less susceptible to it than the three classes I noted (he actually has ways to deal with it).

 

-Guard is weak, people more obsessive about math can explain why, and have been since the game launched.

 

-Fix matchmaking. I know this isn't a balance issue, but ffs, that perilous challenge a few weeks back required me to solo perilous four times. Because it took me forever to actually find matches, and it was plain faster for me to just solo them. Matchmaking feels like it only pulls from people in a 50 sq. mile radius around you with the small group of people one sees over and over.

 

[ksam]

There are so many underpowered classes like hunter, reaver, and katari. Hunter isn't weak, but it doesnt make sense to pick it over archer. Why not give it stealth? Reaver is too squishy. Katari is too squishy. Armor rating doesn't seem to have any effect on mobs above routine. Even templars die too fast and theyre supposed to be the tankiest class in the game. Basically, bring more suvivalbility to each class besides the obvious ones.

[ksam]

Also I dont recommend nerfing alchemist and arcane warrior and archer because i think theyre balanced. There is a learning curve to them and they have their weaknesses. 

[nibyl]

There are so many underpowered classes like hunter, reaver, and katari. Hunter isn't weak, but it doesnt make sense to pick it over archer. Why not give it stealth? Reaver is too squishy. Katari is too squishy. Armor rating doesn't seem to have any effect on mobs above routine. Even templars die too fast and theyre supposed to be the tankiest class in the game. Basically, bring more suvivalbility to each class besides the obvious ones.

Um, hunter already has stealth. Katari is too squishy? Maybe it's my promotions talking but he sure doesn't feel squishy. Templar the tankiest? Nerfing alchemist? How high are you?

[Drasca]

Um, hunter already has stealth. Katari is too squishy? Maybe it's my promotions talking but he sure doesn't feel squishy. Templar the tankiest? Nerfing alchemist? How high are you?

 

It is fair to say from ksam's perspective that they are weak and squishy to ksam. That is not universally true however. There also may or may not be a language barrier going on. It is pretty obvious that ksam has not really explored these classes as we have, and there may be an art to making these classes more intuitive + learner friendly.

 

I wonder if Luke could change the character tree tooltips as well to better reflect an accurate description of the MP skills actual function. That would be a nice step forward without actually needing to do much heavy coding.

 

It would be work, but it would be worthwhile and not nearly so much work (balance testing, coding, etc).

[ksam]

Um, hunter already has stealth. Katari is too squishy? Maybe it's my promotions talking but he sure doesn't feel squishy. Templar the tankiest? Nerfing alchemist? How high are you?

I obviously dont play game as much as you do but thats what ive come across playing these classes

[Rolenka]

I agree with many here that alchemist needs some work. She can be fun and a refreshing break but nothing she can do really stands out. I would rework her poison skills. She has too many parts of the tree devoted to it and they are useless in a multiplayer team environment. They do too little damage, take too long to kill, and enemies are long dead by others before they have an impact. Nor do they have any cc or combo synergy to justify them. Their only use is in a solo game for the achievements.

 

Also, isn't an entire enemy faction immune to poison?

[Drasca]

Also, isn't an entire enemy faction immune to poison?

 

No, only some of the demons are immune, but it is enough to want to avoid Demons while doing the poison kill challenge.

[FRZN]

No, only some of the demons are immune, but it is enough to want to avoid Demons while doing the poison kill challenge.

Just the wraiths, right?

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

Also I dont recommend nerfing alchemist and arcane warrior and archer because i think theyre balanced. There is a learning curve to them and they have their weaknesses.

Did you really just say AW is balanced and a learning curve with weaknesses in the same sentence? Rofl

[Drasca]

Just the wraiths, right?

 

I'm fairly certain the wraiths are poison immune and possibly the terrors too (may not be, but I'm fairly certain it isn't just wraiths) . Again, I have to look & test, as I cannot recall off hand (as I don't use poison enough to recite by memory). Perhaps there is another here that uses poison enough to memorize the list (or is willing to test / watch from the fade)

[KalGerion_Beast]

I'm fairly certain the wraiths are poison immune and possibly the terrors too (may not be, but I'm fairly certain it isn't just wraiths) . Again, I have to look & test, as I cannot recall off hand (as I don't use poison enough to recite by memory). Perhaps there is another here that uses poison enough to memorize the list (or is willing to test / watch from the fade)

Used to use poison a fair bit, can confirm it works on terrors.  I know wraiths are immune to poison, and I believe thats it for standard demon faction enemies.  

[Luke Barrett]

All undead also immune to poison. I also believe it is only wraiths for demons but without my trusty toolset I can only go off memory