Darkfall issues: the lack of combat balance.

[Yakamoz]

The balance in Darkfall doesn't exist and Aventurine is trying to fix it after months of whining, but as it was proved many times they are not really sure what they are doing.

The whole idea of doing more damage to a character who happened to use a magic staff in the moment when an arrow stroke him...Jeez. Seriously ? Why ? It is is plainly stupid. Not because it is immersion breaking but doesn't solve the problem with melee, archery and 90 % of armour types being obsolete. How many times have you seen people trying to melee or wear anything else then bone armour ?

I know that Darkfall is drifting closer and closer to a Quake mod, but why not try to keep some immersion and balance in this game.

There was an easy and much more reasonable solution to the balance problem.

1. Up the magic defence on armours above chainmail and make it to mitigate the percentage of received damage not like it is now just a static number.

For a sake of argument I will simplify that idea for the example.
Divide the armours with ranks calculated with their not modified encumbrance.
Each rank of armour: banded, scale, plate, full plate etc. would give you additional 10 % of magic damage mitigation. Starting with banded armour which would give you 20 % of damage mitigation, scale would give you 30 % of damage mitigation, plate 40 % of dmg mitigation and so on.
That would actually make people to consider wearing anything else then bone armour. That would make people to consider being a melee or an archer character.

2. Make completely not effective casting in anything heavier then chainmail and bone armour. Not impossible but not effective, each another rank of armour would
- make casting time longer
- rise the mana cost
- lower the damage
for 10 % ( starting with banded 20 % )

3. Make completely not effective shooting from a bow in anything heavier then scale. Not impossible but not effective, each another rank of armour would
- make nocking time longer
- rise the stamina cost
- lower the damage
for 10 % ( starting with plate 20 % )

4. Rise the risk for mages on the battlefield, just compare how much money in equipment you have to risk as dedicated archer or melee to roll on a battlefield with much is risked by a mage.

5. Start rewarding magic users for aiming skills, the damage formula and mana efficiency should look like that:

a. Single target spells: ray spells and no AoE spells: the best damage, medicore mana cost, medicore cooldown, the highest traveling time, no AoE,

b. Multiple target spells and easy targeting spells ( with AoE ): low damage, big mana cost, long cooldown, slow traveling time, various AoE.


6. Do something about general movement and melee mechanics: double tap dodge move, charge ability working like a dodge but forward with longer distance, change the parry/block mechanics so it deflects the striking weapon and opens a chance for a counter attack. We know you are not pleased with how is the stamina handled, any plans to fix that ?

[Azraine]

some of these ideas are okay, but they seem to favour the non hybrids too much. The way AV are implementing it, with skill restrictions, as opposed to armour restrictions is a more favourable method in my opinion.

I think youve seen a glimpse of what they are doing, instantly branded it nonsense without seeing the whole picture. Wait for the patch, see what balance they have done, then perhaps we can debate more on what balance steps need to be taken from there.

[Yakamoz]

some of these ideas are okay, but they seem to favour the non hybrids too much. The way AV are implementing it, with skill restrictions, as opposed to armour restrictions is a more favourable method in my opinion.

I think youve seen a glimpse of what they are doing, instantly branded it nonsense without seeing the whole picture. Wait for the patch, see what balance they have done, then perhaps we can debate more on what balance steps need to be taken from there.
Sincerely I wish you are right. Skill restrictions still do not offer any benefits from wearing anything else then bone armour, neither promote player skill: aim and movement prediction.

[Azraine]

Sincerely I wish you are right. Skill restrictions still do not offer any benefits from wearing anything else then bone armour, neither promote player skill: aim and movement prediction.

well the reason everyone wears bone is because of the low encumberance, and the fact that we all MUST cast or fail. So if there were skills, like mage killer, that make your archery better, and you no longer need to cast so much, you can wear more protective armour.

I think the higher end armours are a bit shit for their encumberance though. So armours do need some modification, but i dont think that the majority of balance should just come from changes to armour.

[Indestructible]

I like these ideas, and I also think Hybrids will still have a place after ideas like this are implemented because not everyone that wants to melee/mount fight would be willing to fight in a 60 encumbrance suit of armor.

[Captain Kirk]

the ideas are good but im going to chill and wait for further information on the next patch before i panic! :p

[lanigav]

OP is retarded, good fights ALWAYS go to melee range. People that try jump cast spin on good players just get owned. People that try to ONLY melee will always get owned, that is the first sign of a complete noob, if they charge at me with a sword out I jump cast spin them to death, otherwise it turns into a melee duel after a few volleys of nukes or arrows.

The healing options that everyone has now makes it near impossible to kill a good player without being right on top of them, e.g. melee. Again OP is just wrong and a DF hater, I think the hello kitty line of games might be a better fit for him.

[Yakamoz]

People that try jump cast spin on good players just get owned.
if they charge at me with a sword out I jump cast spin them to death,

You contradict yourself quite a lot, I advice talking with your therapist once a while, furthermore you live in a false conviction that you are a good player.
Thank you for your contribution anyway.

[Early Grace]

You contradict yourself quite a lot, I advice talking with your therapist once a while, furthermore you live in a false conviction that you are a good player.
Thank you for your contribution anyway.

no he doesn't what he is saying is a good player won't just charge futilely with a sword, they will swap to a bow and force the fight back to melee since you die fast getting shot in the back with arrows.

[Aristos]

I wouldn't even bother replying to his posts. He's a borderline troll. I've never seen him say a single well written argumunt. His posts are usually packed full of repetitive insults or assumptions on the state of combat currently without any facts to back it up.

[Aristos]

no he doesn't what he is saying is a good player won't just charge futilely with a sword, they will swap to a bow and force the fight back to melee since you die fast getting shot in the back with arrows.

Then the mage would just stop jumping away and turn around and nuke...doing more damage than the archer anyways. *facepalm*

Seriously, you're just as bad as laniglav.

[Kaol]

who are these moths of players?

[dariobrun]

/signed every single suggestion you made...those are exactly my same ideas :D

The only thing i would add to that is to make only DMG spells be affected by encumberance..we all know that the only real healing we have is in spells (potions are too slow/heal too few) so if i absorb more dmg due to my high armour but then i cant heal myself, i more or less lose the advantage in absorbing more dmg.

For buff spells it is the same...you can simply take off 1-2 pieces of armor and buff and then dress up again and, since we know no one would ever buff itself while fighting but it is done pre-fight, it has no real effect having buff be affected by encumberance...it is juts a minor annoyance.

Finally debuff spells, if not affected by encumberance, could give rise to a whole new combat style...a melee/archer/debuffer....we know that debuffs are more or lesse never used since they are hard to hit with and why using them while you can blast your enemy to death? well if they were not affected by enc then a heavy warrior could try to gain some advantage in combat by using them (or choose not to, it is a choice since they are surely not game-changing :D)

[Early Grace]

Then the mage would just stop jumping away and turn around and nuke...doing more damage than the archer anyways. *facepalm*

Seriously, you're just as bad as laniglav.

Or since they will only be a few steps ahead they will hit themselves also with the nuke while the archer goes back into melee range and rapes him.

[Aristos]

Or since they will only be a few steps ahead they will hit themselves also with the nuke while the archer goes back into melee range and rapes him.

Why is everyone in your theoretical combat situations complete idiots? If the warrior was that close, the mage just aims behind the warrior with a level 50 nuke, easily hitting the warrior while avoiding damage. And if you're bunny hopping and the melee user is gaining ground on you, you're doing it wrong.

[Early Grace]

Why is everyone in your theoretical combat situations complete idiots? If the warrior was that close, the mage just aims behind the warrior with a level 50 nuke, easily hitting the warrior while avoiding damage. And if you're bunny hopping and the melee user is gaining ground on you, you're doing it wrong.

This works both way idiots, if you are bunnyhopping you are not gaining ground on the melee user.

[Aristos]

This works both way idiots, if you are bunnyhopping you are not gaining ground on the melee user.

Exactly, but you're still keeping out of melee range while doing damage to him. If he switches to a bow, you turn around and nuke until he switches to melee again then you start bunny hopping again. Or just pull melee out yourself.

[Early Grace]

Exactly, but you're still keeping out of melee range while doing damage to him. If he switches to a bow, you turn around and nuke until he switches to melee again then you start bunny hopping again. Or just pull melee out yourself.

you turn around to nuke and he is instantly on top of you. If you keep arguing my own points their won't be a reason for me to post :(.

[Aristos]

you turn around to nuke and he is instantly on top of you. If you keep arguing my own points their won't be a reason for me to post :(.

But he has a bow out...again if he switches to melee the mage would just pull melee out himself or start bunnyhopping again. It's not hard to make enough space between you and a guy right on top of you to be out of melee range again. If there was player momentum, it'd be a different story and bunny hopping would be impossible since you could stay on a guy's ass with melee much easier. Anyways if a guy is trying to press a mage with melee, he's going to be at 50% hp by the time he even gets close thanks to the ridiculous damage of the high end nukes.

But that's a good thing...

[Early Grace]

But he has a bow out...again if he switches to melee the mage would just pull melee out himself or start bunnyhopping again. It's not hard to make enough space between you and a guy right on top of you to be out of melee range again. If there was player momentum, it'd be a different story and bunny hopping would be impossible since you could stay on a guy's ass with melee much easier. Anyways if a guy is trying to press a mage with melee, he's going to be at 50% hp by the time he even gets close thanks to the ridiculous damage of the high end nukes.

But that's a good thing...

So he forces the mage to melee isn't that what you want? or forces the mage to bunnyhop and then swaps to bow and puts arrows in his back again.

[Aristos]

So he forces the mage to melee isn't that what you want? or forces the mage to bunnyhop and then swaps to bow and puts arrows in his back again.

Force would mean that it's the mage's only option, which I didn't say. He has several options from that point. But honestly it's not like the mage would be at a disadvantage in melee anyways. Everyone wears bone so everyone has the same physical protections and since there's no skill cap in place a high end mage can do just as much damage in melee as a warrior.

[dariobrun]

even if you manage to bring him in melee range and keep him there, then the mage bring out his 2h mastered weapon and kill you in melee since you are at 50% hp or lower and you do the same dmg due to him being able to get every skill in game ;)

[Yakamoz]

even if you manage to bring him in melee range and keep him there, then the mage bring out his 2h mastered weapon and kill you in melee since you are at 50% hp or lower and you do the same dmg due to him being able to get every skill in game ;)
It would be a bit different if your scale/plate armour offer a decent magic protection and much superior melee protection then his bone, wouldn't be ?
That's exactly the point of that thread and all of you theoretical pvpers, I talk to you Early Grace and Aristos...I appreciate your interest in my topic but stay on the topic or seriously GTFO my sandbox.

[Laz]

even if you manage to bring him in melee range and keep him there, then the mage bring out his 2h mastered weapon and kill you in melee since you are at 50% hp or lower and you do the same dmg due to him being able to get every skill in game ;)

Point and match.

Well, the higher end armors like full plate/infernal/dragon can change this scenario but they're so ridonculously expensive in comparison to bone armor and some regs.

[Realbigdeal22]

/signed. This is a really good suggestion and i hope they will listen to you

[Yakamoz]

/signed. This is a really good suggestion and i hope they will listen to you
They never listen...never ! * continue to mumble to himself Gollum style *

Point and match.

Well, the higher end armors like full plate/infernal/dragon can change this scenario but they're so ridonculously expensive in comparison to bone armor and some regs.
Just another example of broken risk/reward ration in DF, time to fit it.

[MikeJT]

1. Up the magic defence on armours above chainmail and make it to mitigate the percentage of received damage not like it is now just a static number.

For a sake of argument I will simplify that idea for the example.
Divide the armours with ranks calculated with their not modified encumbrance.
Each rank of armour: banded, scale, plate, full plate etc. would give you additional 10 % of magic damage mitigation. Starting with banded armour which would give you 20 % of damage mitigation, scale would give you 30 % of damage mitigation, plate 40 % of dmg mitigation and so on.
That would actually make people to consider wearing anything else then bone armour. That would make people to consider being a melee or an archer character.


This would be completely changing how armor works in the game. I personally don't like this idea. By that same logic, should it would the same way for melee and arrow damage as well?

Right now when a person firing a R0 bow with 1 archery skill hits me, they do about 2 damage per arrow when I'm wearing my plate-scale mix. If it was only a percentage reduction in damage, they would probably be doing much more. So would you would end up with is alot of people doing MORE damage per hit.

For example, right now if someone hits me with a maxed out firebolt from an R80 staff, they do about 15 damage, and I hit them back with an arrow in their bone set for about 22.



2. Make completely not effective casting in anything heavier then chainmail and bone armour. Not impossible but not effective, each another rank of armour would
- make casting time longer
- rise the mana cost
- lower the damage
for 10 % ( starting with banded 20 % )


Agreed. All they have to do is nerf the effect of armored casting. I think that every point in armored casting reduces magic encumberance by 0.20. If they nerfed that to 0.10, then 100 armored casting would only reduce encumberance by 10 points. Mages should have to enchant armor they wear to reduce its encumberance, if they want to wear heavier armors.




3. Make completely not effective shooting from a bow in anything heavier then scale. Not impossible but not effective, each another rank of armour would
- make nocking time longer
- rise the stamina cost
- lower the damage
for 10 % ( starting with plate 20 % )


Yeah why not. Archery should be a specialisation in its own right too. You should have to make sacrifices in your kit out to max out its damage.


4. Rise the risk for mages on the battlefield, just compare how much money in equipment you have to risk as dedicated archer or melee to roll on a battlefield with much is risked by a mage.


IMO they should take reagents and materials off vendors and add new ways to get them in game, and leave the free market take hold. Melee and archery users are subject to market prices for practically everything they buy. Armor requires alot of metal, so a 1 gp per ingot price change can add tonnes to the price of our armors. Mages however wear bone which is fixed price at 4 gp each for leather and 4 gp each for bone. The first thing they could do for melee users is reduce the crafting costs, if they're not willing to take regs off vendors.


5. Start rewarding magic users for aiming skills, the damage formula and mana efficiency should look like that:

a. Single target spells: ray spells and no AoE spells: the best damage, medicore mana cost, medicore cooldown, the highest traveling time, no AoE,

b. Multiple target spells and easy targeting spells ( with AoE ): low damage, big mana cost, long cooldown, slow traveling time, various AoE.


Or simply give us declining damage from the epicentre of the spell. Its ridiculous just how far off a mage can hit with some spells and still get full damage. IMO at the outer edge of the AoE, even light armor should be enough to negate its effects completely.

The second thing they need to do is to stop things like wall of fire doing damage once you've left its AoE.


6. Do something about general movement and melee mechanics: double tap dodge move, charge ability working like a dodge but forward with longer distance, change the parry/block mechanics so it deflects the striking weapon and opens a chance for a counter attack. We know you are not pleased with how is the stamina handled, any plans to fix that ?

All they need to do for parry is add a melee speed debuff that lasts about 5 seconds from when they hit the shield. If they continuously lay into the shield their melee speed debuff would get higher and higher.

[MikeJT]

People that try jump cast spin on good players just get owned.



if they charge at me with a sword out I jump cast spin them to death


Huh?

[Xiandriz]

But he has a bow out...again if he switches to melee the mage would just pull melee out himself or start bunnyhopping again. It's not hard to make enough space between you and a guy right on top of you to be out of melee range again. If there was player momentum, it'd be a different story and bunny hopping would be impossible since you could stay on a guy's ass with melee much easier. Anyways if a guy is trying to press a mage with melee, he's going to be at 50% hp by the time he even gets close thanks to the ridiculous damage of the high end nukes.

But that's a good thing...

oh what you obviously forgot is that the mage has often as good meleeskills as you. So that 50% of damage screws you. And if you happen to do any good, the mage pulls the stick out again casts confusion and does witchesbrew and your screwed. Simple as that.

[dariobrun]

It would be a bit different if your scale/plate armour offer a decent magic protection and much superior melee protection then his bone, wouldn't be ?
That's exactly the point of that thread and all of you theoretical pvpers, I talk to you Early Grace and Aristos...I appreciate your interest in my topic but stay on the topic or seriously GTFO my sandbox.

yep, the lack of balance betweeen the various armors surely exacerbate the problem even more cause if they were balanced at least the meleer could stand a chance even if he reaches the mage when he is at 50% hp...obviously the best thing would be to have both armors and combat styles balanced...but at least having one of the two done properly could help a lot :D

[lanigav]

How is anything I said a contradiction? I said if someone charges me with a sword I jump spin cast them. I also said that jump spin casting only works on noobs; that should lead you to infer than only noobs charge with a sword out.

Aristos, OP had it coming he posts bullshit all over the forums and if you took a moment to actually read what I'm saying you would see the arguments as well, sorry if sometimes I assume you (as a reader) actually read what other people write before claiming there is no support to their arguments.

As for me being a border-line troll, yes, I let trolls and complete morons know what I think of them. Get over it or think of it as troll-trolling.

[lanigav]

Then the mage would just stop jumping away and turn around and nuke...doing more damage than the archer anyways. *facepalm*

Seriously, you're just as bad as laniglav.

Here let me make this real clear since you can't seem to read an argument:

First off there aren't classes in DF

Second in this case someone trying to close the gap on a mage
-mage stops to shoot at "archer"
-"archer" pulls out sword
-mission complete

Is this simple enough for you?

[Yakamoz]

I will make it easier for you to understand the purpose of my post by some questions:
How many people have you seen lately pvping in different armour then bone ?
Why is it that people wear only bone armour ?
What's the point of having other armour types if the present combat mechanics favours only one of them ?
What can devs do - apart of changing how handled are AoE spells - to change that situation ?

BTW I would love if you elaborate about me posting bullshit all over the forums.

[Azraine]

I will make it easier for you to understand the purpose of my post by some questions:
How many people have you seen lately pvping in different armour then bone ?
Why is it that people wear only bone armour ?
What's the point of having other armour types if the present combat mechanics favours only one of them ?
What can devs do - apart of changing how handled are AoE spells - to change that situation ?

BTW I would love if you elaborate about me posting bullshit all over the forums.

thats what makes it so awesome when im running around in scale/plate/studded/banded. Im gathering lots of bone sets, but at least they kill me and go "lame" when they get my armour. Makes me happy.

[DeathCorpse]

armor should have penalties to magic not bonuses, unless they are enchanted with a bonus.

any metal armor should have penalties to at least fire, air, water, and probably earth for obvious reasons. I do think that melee type bonuses should be upped some for the metal armor types to mitigate melee and arrow damage more.

leather, studded, bone, and robes should all have bonuses to magic. Leather, studded and bone, distinct choice here is air i.e. they dont conduct electricity. And maybe some of the other elemental schools. Bone should have an added protection against necro.

You should be able to make robes with specific bonuses to specific schools, i.e. a robe of fire protection would protect you from all schools but a lot from fire damage.

robes being the best protection from magic, but you are a very soft target for archery or melee.

leather: standard protection from all magic, with bonus to air, maybe also some slashing protection above normal.

studded: same as leather, but more melee bonuses, and a tad less air protection due to the metal. more slashing protection and a little better for the other melee types.

bone: extra bonus to slashing and necro. standard bonus to other magic schools, almost no protection or a penalty to bludgeoning attacks.

all metal armor: increased bonuses to all types of melee, scaled to the type of armor. penalty to lighting damage ( I think this is obvious) penalty should be increased with the quality of the armor i.e. more metal. super high end armor like dragon or infernal, maybe they use non or near non conductive material :). more on this in a second.

chain and scale armor, bonuses to all melee, but increased protection against piercing, arrows, and slashing.

banded, plate, full plate: increased bonus to slashing, bludgeoning. the plate armors while getting increased bonuses to slashing and bludeoning will also have protections against the other melee attack types on par with or better than chain and scale.

infernal: like plate, great resistances to all melee types perhaps a little better than full plate. maybe a protection bonus against necro, and fire magic, and less penalties to the other schools.

dragon: a little better than infernal on the melee department, bonuses to the elemental, necro, or arcane school based on the type of dragon scales used. i.e. fire dragon very high protection against fire, but maybe very weak protection against water and standard for other schools. Any of the bone dragons: high necro protections, but week against arcane, standard for other schools. The color of the dragon armor should match the type of dragon scale used, red dragon = red armor. black dragon (usually is acid, so acid bonus i.e earth)= black armor etc. They could add blue dragons (air) white dragon(water) bone (necro) gold dragon (maybe arcane...)

This adds distinct bonuses and penalties to each armor type and makes them all more viable. and with the post i made about magic would in my opinion create a very dynamic and diverse environment.

added note: archers should suffer a penalty to nocking time of arrow and or a damage penalty if using anything above chain mail / scale armor.