76 réponses à ce sujet

[Theghostof_timmy]

I'm done with this.

[Zander-o-]

Yes it is necessary. Heartbreaker is for the Elite, anything less than those incapacitating effects will make it a breeze for them.

 

You'll never be able to balance everything for multiple point of references (difficulties in this case). When the game launched, it was balanced toward Threatening. Now, it's more balanced toward Perilous where every character is doing just fine. If you change the point of reference to Threatening, it's now way overpowered. If you change the point of reference to Nightmare, a lot of builds are underpowered. The balanced has been designed for a fixed point, nothing will ever make it balance anywhere else. Had they balanced the game toward 1 "design" and scaled that design in aspects that involves skills instead of equipment and promotions, then it would be balanced for all difficulties. It's not done like that so we're left with what we have...

Thank you sir! I like your argument, i didn't think of balance for the higher difficulties this way, thanks. 

Did you make a reference about ME3' multiplayer? I may be wrong about this, but the progression you had there had much more emphasis on player skill and game knowledge than gear, although this was present.

 

One more question to you, Mordin Solus, do you think there is anyway to get some of the mechanis from HB to the other difficulties? HB seems like a different gamemode altogether, not just difficulty. (btw, sorry for calling you Mordin, your picture reminded me of him)

[Zander-o-]

Have fun balancing a difficulty where you have to expect players not to:

 

1. Bring any support class

2. Bring any form of crowd control

3. Bring any DPS-oriented class

4. Play with good builds

 

Dragon Age has ALWAYS been about team composition and having each character fill a dedicated role (Tank, support, DPS, controller, etc.)

 

You want to create a hard difficulty that ignores all of that. Seriously?

Actually no, i just expressed myself wrong. As you said, good team composition depends on having each character fill a dedicated role, if you just consider the general idea of each role, there is more than one character that fills an specific role (like the Reaver and Avvar, which are DPS). Rephrasing what i said, you should be able to play with any character that fills the role you need to fill. 

[Zander-o-]

I'm done with this.

Ok, bye! Thanks for the attention! This gif is really cool *--*

[Zander-o-]

Have fun balancing a difficulty where you have to expect players not to:

 

1. Bring any support class

2. Bring any form of crowd control

3. Bring any DPS-oriented class

4. Play with good builds

Btw, i din't get it. Shouldn't that kind of thing be expected, or at least the first 3? The only situation i see this being an issue beyond the player's control is when Pugging. And as you said, to be succesful in HB you need coordination, which is pretty difficult while in a pug. In closed teams, on the other hand, this kind of stuff can be considered achievable. Part of what makes a multiplayer gamemode challenging is exactly coordination.

 

But this isn't what i criticized, and i don't intend to, so i'm diverging from the subject.

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

 

-snip-

 

Firstly, just a disclaimer to everyone. I merely helped Zander with some formatting and detail questions. I deliberately did not want to influence the spirit of the post with my opinions.

 

On topic: I do not mind the mechanics used in harder difficulties. I do, however, mind that the most unique mechanics are now essentially locked behind a grind wall. I am referring to Heartbreaker, of course.

I, and others, had made the suggestion that Heartbreaker is too fascinating of an idea to be locked away to only veteran players. It should be a game mode, not a difficulty. Essentially a half step up from each difficulty (Routine+, Threatening+, etc). That way, you can experience the unique enemies and tactics even without having 90+ promotions.

 

Also, I really like the idea that each faction in Heartbreaker should be custom-tailored to specialize at taking out a certain class. Venatori would be anti-warrior, Red Templar - anti-mage, and demon - anti-rogue. That would give Heartbreaker a better feeling of balance and encourage people to not, say, only run mage classes. Of course, this would have to be introduced with a faction selection (hint hint Luke, hint hint).

 

Again, that's just my musings on the subject. Good job to the OP for starting such a great discussion!

[Luke Barrett]

Also, I really like the idea that each faction in Heartbreaker should be custom-tailored to specialize at taking out a certain class. Venatori would be anti-warrior, Red Templar - anti-mage, and demon - anti-rogue. That would give Heartbreaker a better feeling of balance and encourage people to not, say, only run mage classes. Of course, this would have to be introduced with a faction selection (hint hint Luke, hint hint).

 

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

[Spin-Orbit]

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

Woooo I love the sound of that! Soon I hope

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

 

That would be perfect. But what about making Heartbreaker a game mode instead of a difficulty?

[Wavebend]

That would be perfect. But what about making Heartbreaker a game mode instead of a difficulty?

 

Like this?

 

It's so hard to come up with something simple.

 

If you add a "+" mode to each difficulty, you end up with 10 difficulties in the difficulty selection list. This creates Matchmaking problem. The only solution I found is the one illustrated above (or similar). Anything more complex makes the UI clustered

 

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

 

I don't like the idea

I don't want to assume that you're doing this because it's the simplest way of doing it, but if it is then I understand completely.

[Zander-o-]

If enemies do eventually get tyed to maps (hopefully not in any difficulty), what would be a good justification for the choice of faction/map? Perhaps lore, or map design, altough i find lore to be a much more attractive reason for it.

[Luke Barrett]

If enemies do eventually get tyed to maps (hopefully in not any difficulty), what would be a good reason to do it? Perhaps lore, or map design, altough i find lore to be a much more attractive reason for it.

 

IF it is done it will only be for heartbreaker

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

Like this?

 

Something like that. I was thinking Game Mode not extra difficulty.

 

IF it is done it will only be for heartbreaker

 

May I ask why we can't have faction selection in general?

[Wavebend]

Something like that. I was thinking Game Mode not extra difficulty.

 

If you choose to put Heartbreaker as a Game Mode, then this would potentially creates Matchmaking issues where half of the playerbase is in "Normal" mode and the other half in "Heartbreaker" mode. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

IF it is done it will only be for heartbreaker

 

I can deal with that. I can't find a better solution (except an ugly selector) so I'll go with this. There's also the possibility of not locking it at all.

[K_A_Rnage]

Some interesting ideas in this thread.
Off topic but on theme;
I have only completed NM with a DPS lvl 20 Reaver having friends as barrier bots/CC.
My point is that when maxed my Reaver actually has 7 Active Abilities, wasting 3 skill points.
I would like to see skill trees that are not hard locked into abilities, giving a player more freedom.
This may be achieved via the respec system clearing all abilities and not requiring tree progression to select them.

As for HB, tried it once and LMFAO has I got stomped on the first wave. Haven't been back but when my friends n I have a couple Hakkon's I'll give it another try

[Angelus_de_Mortiel]

If you choose to put Heartbreaker as a Game Mode, then this would potentially creates Matchmaking issues where half of the playerbase is in "Normal" mode and the other half in "Heartbreaker" mode. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I understand. If DAIMP had a larger player base, this may be more conceivable, but you are right that it really just wouldn't work at this time. Five difficulties and four maps is it's own challenge for matchmaking as it is.

 

 

To Luke: I'm serious though... ME3MP had this great feature of being able to create a lobby with random or specific maps with random or specific faction. In DAIMP, you can only create a lobby with a specific map and only a random faction. I know ME3MP's way can be done, as FC has a random function to the map. It would be completely possible in a future patch to have the ability to create a lobby with a specific faction and a completely random map. To me, playing "Random/Random" lobbies was the most fun, as you just never knew what to expect.

[KalGerion_Beast]

I understand. If DAIMP had a larger player base, this may be more conceivable, but you are right that it really just wouldn't work at this time. Five difficulties and four maps is it's own challenge for matchmaking as it is.

 

 

To Luke: I'm serious though... ME3MP had this great feature of being able to create a lobby with random or specific enemies with random or specific faction. In DAIMP, you can only create a lobby with a specific map and only a random faction. I know ME3MP's way can be done, as FC has a random function to the map. It would be completely possible in a future patch to have the ability to create a lobby with a specific faction and a completely random map. To me, playing "Random/Random" lobbies was the most fun, as you just never knew what to expect.

Random, Random, were the best in ME3MP.  Always a surprise.

[Spin-Orbit]

IF it is done it will only be for heartbreaker

I had assumed this is for only HB

[TheThirdRace]

Thank you sir! I like your argument, i didn't think of balance for the higher difficulties this way, thanks. 
Did you make a reference about ME3' multiplayer? I may be wrong about this, but the progression you had there had much more emphasis on player skill and game knowledge than gear, although this was present.
 
One more question to you, Mordin Solus, do you think there is anyway to get some of the mechanis from HB to the other difficulties? HB seems like a different gamemode altogether, not just difficulty. (btw, sorry for calling you Mordin, your picture reminded me of him)

Yes I made a reference to ME3MP. ME3MP had something DAMP is seriously lacking: almost every weapon was viable in Gold difficulty. That made the game much easier to balance across difficulties because what would influence the most the outcome of a match was player skill, not the actual weapon you're using.

Another good thing about ME3MP was that there were many ways to kill a normal enemy under 3 seconds, which made balancing weapons and abilities a "breeze". That leeway made a lot of different mechanics work together very well, Bioware didn't have to worry too much about the exact numbers like they do in DAMP. Of course, "mini-bosses" required a lot more firepower, but then again it was possible to kill those things under 3 to 5 seconds if the whole team focused fire on it. ME3MP was "flexible", DAMP is set in stone and require a lot of work for a tiny modification.

DAMP is also a very different beast from ME3MP. DAMP is more about anticipation, you need to anticipate what will happen in 3 seconds from now and react now or you won't be able to evade what's coming past those 3 seconds. This "passive" action makes it very frustrating because the characters aren't responsive as much as the player would like to. ME3MP was the total opposite, reaction time was key to a lot of situations. As long as your reflexes were good, you had control of your character (at the exception of a few "unfair" situations).

So to answer your question if we could integrate some mechanics from Heartbreaker in lower difficulties, I say it's possible but it will never be really balanced. Because of the way DAMP is designed, the balance range target is incredibly small. Because of that imprecise state of balance, anything and everything is tightly related which makes it impossible to balance for a majority of player. I could argue ME3MP was balanced for every player because it's based on skills while DAMP is balanced toward 1 player because of the sheer number of variables involved. If anything was changed in ME3MP, the consequences mostly stopped there. If anything is changed in DAMP, the consequences ripples thru the whole Thedas universe and affects everything.

I think by now you can understand why DAMP balance is a flawed design. It will never be balanced, all we can do is have fun while we can. I do hope they'll learn from their mistakes and really think the next game through. The amount of bad designs in DAMP is incredible, it's like they implemented everything that failed in ME3MP while staying away from almost everything that worked...

P.S. My picture IS Mordin Solus... no offense taken

[Drasca]

I was thinking of locking each one to one of the starting maps (Venatori always in Tevinter, Demons in Elven and RT in Orlais) and making FC random actually. The Red Templars are especially anti-mage and ranged units in general - they may be the most sinister of the three in terms of me being unfair I did however try very hard to avoid using any hard crown control based on feedback on Venatori.

 

 

They absolutely should be unfair, and in different flavors of unfairness for variety.

 

The fact that Red Knights bypass the normal spawn limit via transformation alone, and delay the normal line of sight aggro behavior is quite interesting alone.

 

I really like map variety between factions though. It generates more interesting situtuations dealing with each of the factions on a different map.

 

I look forward to more tricks to them. Hopefully they'll be interesting, but not impossible to deal with.

[akots1]

I look forward to more tricks to them. Hopefully they'll be interesting, but not impossible to deal with.

  You are the first of the top 100+ guys who is ... expressing some concern. All the rest seem to just be sure they'll tank it out. If not, grinding a few more promotions would be enough. IMO, that shows who relies on what while playing.

[akots1]

If you choose to put Heartbreaker as a Game Mode, then this would potentially creates Matchmaking issues where half of the playerbase is in "Normal" mode and the other half in "Heartbreaker" mode. It just doesn't make sense to me.

 

There won't be any issues noticeable to 99% of players. Nobody is going to pug HB as already essentially nobody pugs NM and very few pug perilous. Have you ever pugged yourself? If not, I suggest just giving it a try. It takes about 10 minutes to find a lobby in peak hour. If you are not picky, you can land in GiP with lvl1 archer or keeper trying to solo the first group. They usually go to the fade and quit by end of zone 1 and you will lose connection while host migrates in 3/4 of the games in my experience.

 

On the other hand, it gives an option to customize the party and actually improves the chances to extract not because people got lucky with their choices but because they put some thinking into the pre-game selection. You don't want to set FC dragon to random and get storm dragon whilst you have only cold resistance potion equipped on a mage with staff of Razikale as that would not end well. Those, who like to be surprised and who can handle this surprise, might have to endure, I guess. IMO, for avoiding boredom, the host can switch settings every match to something different.

 

Also, random is random and you don't want to play Platinum Collectors on Condor two times in a row. Which might actually happen more than one would anticipate normally. Considering that there are only 3 and a half maps in DAIMP.

 

Lastly, IMO, HB might be just more popular than normal game as it is new and ... "fresh", so that it won't split players in half as some people would just migrate to HB completely. I do plan that for myself and really anticipate it. These people might include those who don't like to grind, like something new, and have some experience to give a good fight in HB at threatening or perilous difficulties. As we have seen based on number of responses to you "Who has beaten ... " thread, the HB-NM combo might be not the most popular adventure. There is still no video and not even a normal screenshot of it. Yet, there are multiple request for "moar bouncing".

[Drasca]

  You are the first of the top 100+ guys who is ... expressing some concern. All the rest seem to just be sure they'll tank it out. If not, grinding a few more promotions would be enough. IMO, that shows who relies on what while playing.

 

I'm one of the few that knows combat mechanics and talks frequently. Aznricepuff knows his stuff, but doesn't post here in MP. Grinding doesn't require much game knowledge.

 

I'm sure HB's final form will be do-able by release, because they balance around it. Beta however... hahahahahaha. Guinea pigs. Lemmings really, thrown off a cliff.

 

I'll say this, there were players that thought Beta Perilous was impossible until it was done (by me and wavebend + others). There were also players that thought HB would be doable with no team coordination and their bad builds. They didn't succeed. They needed to L2P to succeed.

 

I didn't play with people in HB that didn't want to coordinate, and they definitely did not succeed because they didn't coordinate or approach the problem under new directions (from their terrible cookie cutter builds).

 

My teams were the first non-dev/non BW people to beat HB, and the first to do the Perilous Dragon before that.

 

When it comes to situations that actually require coordination, I can excel to the top.

[Wavebend]

My teams were the first non-dev/non BW people to beat HB, and the first to do the Perilous Dragon before that.

 

Hey, hey, my team was the first non-dev that beat HB, not yours

[Wavebend]

There won't be any issues noticeable to 99% of players. Nobody is going to pug HB as already essentially nobody pugs NM and very few pug perilous. Have you ever pugged yourself? If not, I suggest just giving it a try. It takes about 10 minutes to find a lobby in peak hour. If you are not picky, you can land in GiP with lvl1 archer or keeper trying to solo the first group. They usually go to the fade and quit by end of zone 1 and you will lose connection while host migrates in 3/4 of the games in my experience.

 

On the other hand, it gives an option to customize the party and actually improves the chances to extract not because people got lucky with their choices but because they put some thinking into the pre-game selection. You don't want to set FC dragon to random and get storm dragon whilst you have only cold resistance potion equipped on a mage with staff of Razikale as that would not end well. Those, who like to be surprised and who can handle this surprise, might have to endure, I guess. IMO, for avoiding boredom, the host can switch settings every match to something different.

 

Also, random is random and you don't want to play Platinum Collectors on Condor two times in a row. Which might actually happen more than one would anticipate normally. Considering that there are only 3 and a half maps in DAIMP.

 

Lastly, IMO, HB might be just more popular than normal game as it is new and ... "fresh", so that it won't split players in half as some people would just migrate to HB completely. I do plan that for myself and really anticipate it. These people might include those who don't like to grind, like something new, and have some experience to give a good fight in HB at threatening or perilous difficulties. As we have seen based on number of responses to you "Who has beaten ... " thread, the HB-NM combo might be not the most popular adventure. There is still no video and not even a normal screenshot of it. Yet, there are multiple request for "moar bouncing".

 

Well, you're free to make the suggestion and try to find a way to implement it. PM Luke about it. I have nothing else to say