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New Math...and PVP

Discussion in 'Release 50 Feedback Forum' started by Antrax Artek, Jan 25, 2018.

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  1. Antrax Artek

    Antrax Artek Avatar

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    I have to be honest, I'm really disappointed about new math, dps can be just 10% less than before, but we have to remember that in pvp terms the dps means nothing if not on an afk player.

    There are some schools that to be effectives must be used doing a crazy work trying to stack skills much as possible instead of spamming them, and yes they could oneshot someone with really low hp (for example with brittle brawn equiped) but considering the fact you had to run and defend yourself from ccs/stuns to stack them was just fair.

    This math created an important disavantage to these schools with a big range between lowest and highest damage and no cc/stun/debuff. Now stacking for example a stone arrow 5x does something like 70% less damage than before R50.
    The average damage with 5x stacked stone arrow was around 400 and now, i'm lucky if i can hit more than 100 with it and the average damage of 1x stone now is something like 50 damage from around 200 in R49.

    Anyway this is part of a larger problem, death school now seems pretty unuseful considering the fact they heal themself often just using death skills and with this damage reduction, heals are pretty inconsistent.

    In my opinion balancing means give something unique and useful to every tree in game (magic and physical) and not putting on equal footing some trees and giving advatanges to anothers based on who complains more or less.
    We have to keep in mind who is the player that feels something unbalanced and is asking for nerfs cause sometime the problem is just the player and not the game balance.

    Sometimes is just better don't exaggerate especially while nerfing or boosting something, and here, i'm sorry but this happened too often.
    A perfect example is the abyss between polearms and bludgeons.

    There was a time when i wrote a thread just to help others to understand that all was perfectly balanced, i tested all skill trees in game (especially in pvp) and i was pretty proud and sure about it.
    After that, things changed, release after release, bringing the game to the complete imbalance we are witnessing now.
    Many who complained asking for balance when the game was already balanced never flagged pvp themself but they have been listened like authority.

    Now losers are winners and winners probably will left the game or will adapt using the uber build of the month.

    I went to SotA cause the combat was really skill-based but now i feel like all can make same things regardless of their irl skills and reflexes, we're all identical if not one uber tree and doesn't matter if you're fast, if you pratice everyday using all ur free time, if your character is well structured, if you stack your skills or play better than another.
    In any kind of 2v1 or more you're bound to die cause with new math 2 ppl does more damage than 1 exactly like 2+2=4 or better 2>1 and in pvp as i always said this is the worst thing that can happens.

    PS: I seen many matches in R49 ending up with naked fighters cause they over the time during virtue league, i can just imagine what will happens next saturday.

    A game with long and unrealistic fights combined with low damages is not fun at all and makes players feel unsatisfied.

    I'm not the one who like complains but this time we crossed the line between improving and ruining the game. I have to admit i'm really sad about that.

    PVP is a science , not math.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
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  2. Kpopgurl

    Kpopgurl Avatar

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    I like the changes. When the MR changes come your mage will hit harder again if you specialize as MR stacking is more limited.

    Virtue league shows the game is a button mashing contest. The changes implemented are complete but fix a lot of issues. the defensive skills make them a lot more twitchy. Spamming skills is out. I appreciate that.
     
  3. 2112Starman

    2112Starman Avatar

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    Ive been out farming 3 hours today and to be honest, I dont see any difference in my play at all.
     
  4. Antrax Artek

    Antrax Artek Avatar

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    Same here, i didn't noticed any difference in pvm. This is cause you're not an active pvper.

    @Kpopgurl not possible atm, have i to wait another month to see something good hoping to never see 30 damage from my main damage skill?

    Buttons smashing was fine, real life combat is based on hitting more time and strongest as you can someone to win a fight. The intellectual part is the fact you've to plan a deck for those buttons.
    I understand, realism and fun are fading, trying to convert SotA in a math, turn based rpg.
    Maybe is too late for me...
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
  5. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

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    Sorry, nope
    Are you an experienced real life fighter?
    Imo it's not about that.
    4 years Judo
    3 years Karate
    10 years Aikido

    But that's not the point here.
    I cannot make valid points i just duelled for some time and allways won :D

    But i would agree that button smashing is maybe bad for pvp.
    Idk, i think you make fair an valid points.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
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  6. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    For my part, my last fight with the R49 release, was against someone who had 69% damage avoidance and death shield when I examined him.

    With my bow, I was in the back of the guy (he didn't move), one 5 stacked rapid fire, charged attacks and aim shot. For something like 20 hits, I got something like 14 glancing blows (damages divided by 3). I took less than 15~20% of his life because each small attack was healing him at the same time. Yet, I have trained my ranged skill a lot and even if my gear is far from being the best, it's also far from being a founder gear.

    Then, the guy attacked me. I decided to stay where I was, to test his attack. I was in front of him. He placed a 5 stacked earth quake on me and I lost more than 400 hp... With one hit... One hit which took him less time to do than my rapid fire alone (from behind). More than half my total health lost with one glyph against 15 or 20% (rapidly healed with healing grace if my memory is correct) with 20 hits including (at least) one skill above level 130.

    Of course, as I didn't move, it was easier for him but placing a earth quake is not that hard when you use air and water spells like he usually does.

    I barely see where player skill is involved here. It was was simply a matter of finding the best gear & skill combination.

    I didn't duel this release. I can hardly say if the new changes are good or bad, for now. But things had to change, for sure. But I agree with one thing : fights must be faster. We should have less defensive stuff that can be used alltogether.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
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  7. Kpopgurl

    Kpopgurl Avatar

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    Why didnt u use piercing shots?
     
  8. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    You mean the skill which already deal half the damage aim shot does ? :D It's an unlocked glyph in my deck and I think it was not available at that time. I should check my log to be sure I did not use it in my 20 hits through.
     
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  9. Kpopgurl

    Kpopgurl Avatar

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    Not on that kind of target.
    Someone prepared to face physical dmg you hit with normal physical dmg...
    Despite having a skill that avoids his phys protection.. i see some player skill involved here. No offense.
     
  10. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    A glancing blow divide damages by 3 (and its happening two times for three tries). The max damage with piercing shot is half the max damage with aim shot and probably even less compared to a free charged attack. Not much a difference here. Based on theory and practice, piercing shot have never been a very useful thing for me, even if it is still in my deck. But I would be interested if you have demonstration of its usefullness.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
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  11. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    So there are a few threads on this. As I've said in those, the median and average damage is the same and the crit math should currently be the same. There are a couple of things I forgot to mention though. The damage absorption from armor had a bug that was making it come up about 30% low and that was fixed. Also, it was not including rings, belts, necklaces that added absorption previously. That means that damage resistance has the potential to stop more damage and lower the overall damage.

    As I've mentioned in the other posts, these changes will probably only be noticeable by the top 1% BUT those are almost certainly all going to be in PVP tournaments. Now that we've had a day of numbers to look at with some actual PVP going on, I still believe that PVE is where I want it and that it may actually get a hair harder on the high end in R51. However, I believe you are correct that PVP needs to move faster and the higher damage resistance plus the tighter min to max values has muted the effective DPS too much for PVP. Working on a fix now that will up PVP damage significantly, especially those who take this stuff seriously and compete in tournaments!

    We already made a patch for this morning so this change will go in for the afternoon patch. If all goes as normal, that will probably go live right after the dance party.
     
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  12. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    Sorry to hear your disappointment my friend. Anyway, wait for r51 changes, this is a huge process of combat and resistance changes (we will get different types of physical damages too this year).
     
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  13. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

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    Really like crushing, slashing, stinging?
    Well that's great.
     
  14. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    If I'm not wrong, Blunt, Slashing and Piercing.

    Is one of those things Chris want to implement in SotA :)
     
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  15. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

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    kewl
     
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  16. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    I think treating PvE and PvP differently could lead to some issues. I have some reasons to say this :

    - First, I see no reasons why a fire ball or a fire arrow casted by an elven mage should behave differently than the same spell casted by an outlander ; and yet, we get this feeling that NPCs don't have to deal with the same limits in terms of range, focus, etc... Of course, limited focus for NPCs could introduce some possible exploits, maybe, especially with NPCs mages and Torpid Torment, but currently, it would had additional tactics in the game and make magic resistance worth something with PvE. Currently, you can resist all what you want, as long as you can't kill your opponent quickly, he will NEVER run out of focus and he will hit you and kill you as long as he is alive. Archers will always use disabling shot on you without any limitation... etc... (By the way I wonder why human NPC warriors never use body slam or the subterfuge similar skill on us, that would be fun :D).

    - Secondly, when outlanders can mitigate damages much more than NPC do, it's not only a problem for PvP, but also for PvE. I guess that you balance PvE accordingly but when people play with a lot of defensive skills or healings, some others prefer to focus on DPS, in order to kill the target before being killed by it. And there is no real incentive for this type of tactics in SotA. One could say that people who don't train their defense are only doing a bad choice, but I think that would a shame if you have to use all available buffs and heals over time, to be competitive. I don't know how R50 changes influence that but it will still be a concern for me as long as you can train every passive and use every defense skills simulteanously (I was so happy to see the dodge effect for 2 seconds... and so sad to see the one for 30 seconds but I'll wait, to test how it is working with a weighted system).

    - Thirdly, I thought the DPS changes have been intended to limit the gap with the 1%s who was min-maxing every defense in a pretty bad way. Now, you plan to change PvP DPS maths in order to fix the the slow pace of the fighting... for the 1%s, while the min-maxed defenses are probably the problem since the beginning.

    Sorry. I don't mean to be negative. By the way, I understand that you can't manage every NPCs like outlanders, especially when talking about dragons, trolls or daemons. But I just wonder how creating more "exceptional rules" about PvP in your system can solve the overall need for balance.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
  17. Antrax Artek

    Antrax Artek Avatar

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    Thank you @Chris for explaining details and understanding my point of view, i appreciated.
     
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  18. Violet Ronso

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    The issue here comes from not being able to land those "Critical" hits (and I don't mean the game mechanic critical hit here, I mean landing that very good one). Reducing the min-max gap for PvE doesn't mean a thing because at the end mobs don't react to the amount you are outputting that much, they react to position and their critical health and stuff, meanwhile, in PvP, the other avatars will react to your damage output, and when you are skilled enough and make those good combinations of attacks and skills, you should be able to get these huge spikes in damage, because you worked for them, and that's mostly how you will get your kills. Now if my DMG is always around 75 instead of 50-100, that means my enemy can plan accordingly and just make sure his health stays in that 75+ safe zone, without risk, and he can make sure to mitigate more, and heal easier from that. Now if instead the math is slightly different for PvP, getting these random-er hits means I have a higher KO potential, but my damage will also be less consistent so I can be unlucky with this. Planning ahead and working for it though, I should be able to nearly ensure that higher hit with a higher KO output, meaning if my enemy wants to stay safe, he will also have a harder time.

    Also, Damage resistance has changed a bit, before I had 20 with a Max of 40%, so I would only resist 12 DMG out of my 20 possible, now I get 75%, which means on that 30 DMG hit, I will block the full 20, that means that I have become more resistant especially on hits that are more consistent.

    The change in math is not an issue at all for PvE, on the contrary I actually love it, but I can understand the PvP perspective that this really goes against what Port has been working on for PvP, which is to try to shorten PVP fights, not have them going on for a couple minutes.
     
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  19. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    Currently, to level up your max damage, player skills are not much involved, but only a combination of play time (grind for experience and equipement) and luck. Of course, some people will figure out how to make a PvP build faster than others, but at the end, most people will use a lot of skills (and gear) in common. How many people using cabalists hoods in PvP ? How many using the warlock chain ? The Lich King Ring ? etc...

    I think it is a bad design because it will just keep most players out of the PvP experience. Most casual players don't have time to craft the best equipment or get the gold to buy it. They don't have time to play this race to the best defenses/damages and level their skills much.

    I think it's the main reason why our PvP population is so small and why there is so much a gap between the "top level" players and the others. When play time and luck are really determinants in a fight, people who have less time (the most part of us) won't even try to compete and that's logical. Soft caps were a part of the solution but until now, they have not been very efficient with all the ways you have to pass through. Everything which involves player reflexes would be good to me (limiting defensive skills to a few seconds with NO bonus after that, for exemple, would force players to time their use, to make choices).

    Also the problem here is that PvE should be a good school for PvP, which obviously is not. People can build a decent deck for PvE, which will be useless in PvP. As long as there are too much differences between both, don't expect people to go from one to another easily.

    Also treating PvP as a special fight only strengthen the feeling that NPCs are just here for the grind and that break the feeling of a living world in my mind.
     
  20. Filter Bubble Algorithm

    Filter Bubble Algorithm Avatar

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    Personnaly, I love the changes to the defensive skills, it adds a LOT of reactive gameplay to pvp and especially to pve. If only npc could have this boon, it would really make pve interesting, but you can expect a lot of complaints of the rise in difficulty. :p
    But there is the issue with a healer running around with only defensive skills as cards in rotation non-stop, getting that 2sec bonus from dodge and shield block everytime you click it can really give you many moments of immunity, especially if you rotate them and use them when you know a big hit (a 5xstack) is incomming. Synergeticaly with healing spells, you can make a character that cannot die but you sacrifice all your dps for it which is what is to be expected. So as ive said, im loving the changes , we are all going to haveto rethink our decks.
     
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