BTW on block cost reduction - it should maybe get up to 40%, but dhould work like damage reduction - multiplicatively, not additively - f.e. 50% dmg reduction + 40% +30% in fact makes you taKe 0,5x0,6x0,7= 21% of dmg and not 0%>. BCR should worl the same, but the numbers could be adjusted to compensate.
Just buffing everything leads to unnecessary power creep, and there are already complaints about that going on. Balancing things doesnât mean nerfing everything to the lowest level or buffing everything to the highest; usually the most effective way is to bring both extremes towards the midline. In this case, I think Stamina and other block-related Properties are (close enough to) the middle, so the others need adjustment.
Also, metagame will never be gotten rid of completely. No matter how much some of us (myself included) dislike it, with asymmetrical gameplay there will always be at least a slight power disparity, and others will always stick with the stronger choices, no matter how small the difference. Of course, even if perfect balance can never be achieved, it doesnât mean it shouldnât be aimed for, and the closer we get to that, the less need people will feel to stick to the (then weakened) metagame.
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Balance is a really tricky subject. It means different things to different people. Thereâs no way to do it in a way that wonât peeve someone.
- If you balance it to promote cooperative team play, the players who want to be able to solo everything lose out.
- If you balance it to promote effective solo play, players who want to play the team game lose out.
- If you balance it to promote the feel and style of gameplay that was envisioned by the creators, players who want to play outside of that vision lose out.
Ideally you want to treat all of the above equally, but I donât think thatâs realistic. Thereâs just too many variables to try and make everyone happy.
Right now Iâd argue that the balance swings heavily in the favour of solo players. Iâd even go so far as to say that the vast majority of the game is far easier when youâre playing true solo.
I think buffing other traits would be fine IF there are also nerfs and caps implemented. Diminishing returns on stats after a certain threshold is one option.
Swift Slaying could probably use a nerf - perhaps reducing the attack speed bonus (if 20 is too high, and 10 is too low, perhaps we could say for sake of discussion, 15%). Or give it a cooldown before it can proc again - as it is, faster attack speed means more chance of one being a crit, which resets the duration . . . I would suggest maybe setting it so that the cooldown is as long as the duration of SS, preventing it from helping to proc itself. Start there, and then see if that helps it be more balanced.
I have never actually minded that procs were tied to crits. It IS limiting for balance, but was addressing the problem of the first game where you had to memorize every single on-hit/killâs possible chances, and the indicators for them could be quite annoying (especially if happening consistently). Now, you need to remember one number (would REALLY help if we could see a stat screen, though. Please FS?), which aids with accessibility and thatâs a good thing. You get a single, intuitive indicator on your attacks that tells you that youâve procced an effect.
But I am off-topic from the initial subject. I still think that just having a single âDamage reductionâ as an option would be the best. Just make such things multiplicative with other damage reduction effects.
I think Block/push angle is . . . well, itâs not useless, but ultimately the push/block angle thing doesnât really affect the game as much as I think was initially planned. You generally want to (and can) avoid blocking hits from outside your optimal arc. If your block is getting hit from outside that, odds are that youâre going to be so overwhelmed that itâs not gonna matter what the multiplier applied to the block is. It can be niche useful to make a character have perfect block all around, but that doesnât outweigh other strategies, and block-tanking is still vulnerable to disablers.
If everything but health and stamina is near universally considered useless, then why would bringing them up to parity be considered power creep?
Again, do NOT nerf health or stamina. Increase the other properties in power until people have a reason to use them at all. Once everything is on the same page you can start balancing them with each other. If this was a science experiment you are using health and stamina as the control, the only way to ensure that your changes are working is to compare them to this baseline.
If you nerf health and buff everything else youâre throwing the baseline out the window. People will just figure out whatever the new meta is and youâre right back to square one.
No, weâre not back to square one, since there wonât be such glaring disparity anymore. People want to use builds they like and most doesnât care about âmetaâ, as long, as itâs not drastically affecting their performance. HP is leaps and bounds better than everything else. If it was just a little bit better, people wouldnât take it as often and fhey would start using other properties.
There will always be less and more popular choices. But the task of the devs is to allow us as many viable choices as possible. Yes, there may be new âmost popularâ property, but it doesnât matter as long, as itâs not a âmust haveâ for overwhelming majority of players.
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Because Extra Health is a universally applicable (works on all Careers equally, works against every enemy, and doesnât need triggering) 20% boost to your survivability. Itâs simply too good. Compare to the DRs: Half the effectiveness, and against half the enemies at best. Compare to Swift Slaying (A Trait, already supposed to be somewhat more effective, and still considered to be too strong by many, as can be seen in this thread too): a similar boost to your offensive power, but needing a trigger. Compare to most other universal buffs (Movement Speed, Attack Speed, Crit Chance) which are limited to 5% effectiveness. If everything else were brought to the highest performersâ levels, it would certainly be power creep. And honestly, more work, as the âhighest performersâ are a small minority, no matter whether weâre talking about Talents, Properties, Traits or players.
The end result is the same whether the low endâs strength gets significantly raised, the high endâs significantly lowered, or both done in moderation: Everything is closer in strength in relation to each other. If either end is changed exclusively, the general balance (the average power of effects) changes, and with it the feel of the game. If both extremes are brought closer to the middle, the average still stays (close to) where it is, preserving the general feel and balance. Thatâs why both nerfs and buffs are required in balancing a game.
And, as Iâve said before, itâs less work to change the few outliers than to move everything else towards those outliers. In this case, Extra Health is a clear outlier, being strong enough to be practically a mandatory pick.
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Yeah but +health isnât as nearly as overpowered as you make it out to be, it just has no meaningful competition. Iâve met people who forgot to put curse protection back on after doing Fortunes and it took them days to notice the difference in health. The answer to this problem isnât to nerf health, itâs to bring the other options up to parity so that you have multiple viable options to choose from and players can tailor their equipment to their intended play style.
Hereâs some ideas. In hindsight some of these might be better off as Traits or weapon properties, and I wouldnât recommend having this many properties in the same slot as it would make it much harder to reroll the one you want unless they change the crafting system.
+10-20% Health
The baseline, to which all other options are compared.
+1-2 Stamina
An extra stamina shield is always useful, particularly to weapons that emphasize push attacks.
10-30% Block Cost Reduction
This is always useful the same way stamina is, but people usually prefer to dodge away instead of taking a hit because of hyperdensity and other issues that can instakill you through block. I think blocking mechanics in general could use some attention but thatâs a separate conversation.
-10-25% Temp Health Decay
This does two things. It increases the delay before THP starts to decay and it decreases the amount of THP you lose per tick by up to 25%.
25-50% Knockback Reduction
This reduces the linear distance you move when shoved or hit by bosses. It also makes you recover faster after being shoved.
+15-45 degrees to Block Angle
The original percentage based bonus is useless because it scaled to the existing block angle. Weapons with a narrow angle would receive little benefit and weapons with wide angles like shields would receive a larger bonus that they didnât really need. Having a flat increase to block angle makes this more attractive to both weapon types and certain classes like WHC and Unchained.
Reflect 5-20% of parried hits
To count as a parry you have to block just before an enemy hit lands using the same timing window as the parry trait. This wonât have any effect if you run out of stamina (IE if the enemy hit breaks your block).
+10-25% Block Speed
Block speed shortens the animation time between pressing RMB and entering a blocking state. This also effectively makes your push/push attacks faster because it shortens the delay between pushes. The only weapon that wouldnât benefit from this is the falchion because it already blocks instantly.
5-10% DR vs Skaven or Chaos
Damage reduction is typically more useful than health because it scales to the damage you take, whereas flat health bonuses do not. As with charm power vs it would be possible to roll a necklace with both DR vs Chaos and DR vs Skaven if you wanted balanced but unspecialized protection.
5-10% DR vs Area
Area DR covers all AoE abilities from specials (flame/gas/bullets/storms), stormfiends/troll bile, environmental effects (flame barrels, rockets/catapults, garden of morr finale) and also grenades if you drop one at your feet (or a teammate does). Basically everything that isnât a melee attack.
5-10% DR vs Infantry/Armour/Monster
This type of DR applies to all enemies, but sorts them by armour type. So infantry would include horde mobs, maulers, sorcerors and globadiers. Armoured would include SV, gunner/flame rats and superarmoured enemies like CW and level bosses. Monsters includes the 4 random bosses as well as packmasters.
5-20% DR vs Berserkers
The DR bonus is higher for monks and zerks because their damage output is so high and there are only 2 enemies in this armour class.
With the addition of vs armour DR, +HP is now the defensive equivalent of Crit Power. It works on everything but isnât as effective as 20% DR versus chaos infantry etc. 20% DR sounds like a lot but like +20% power you have to target a specific race/armour combo, so it wonât be nearly as universal as something like Barkskin.
I mean, defensive talents were always kinda crap, disables still get you and getting hit has never been the goal, I would rather just see super high mobility stuff slightly toned down, and the really bad mobility weapons buffed, -5, -6 reductions on stuff is abysmal. Like half of the 2h weapons arenât worth taking cause why not just dual wield or use a 1h when both the dodge move and stamina regen on big weapons is just absolute booty.
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