Keeping all AAs relevant over time while providing better scaling & balance (an analysis) [Archive]

daray

08-18-2011, 07:31 AM

So, since AAs are currently on the developers’ radar with GU61, it has had me thinking about the issues with the current AA system at large. If you look over the AAs in the order/timeline that they were introduced since their inception with KoS to now, you will see a clear pattern of their “effectiveness” on player power. Those introduced early on (e.g. under the old KoS tree) are clearly showing their age and in many cases are far out-dated relative to current player power (mostly due to the growth in itemization). For example, AA choices introduced with KoS, at that time, afforded players significant gains, relative to the gains derived from gear of that same era. Now, if you look at those same unchanged AA choices under current DoV itemization/mechanics, they have an extremely diminished impact (e.g. 10AAs invested netting you the same gains as half of a single blue stat on one equipment slot). In fact, this happens every time that the game grows. To illustrate the problem, there is an AA under the old KoS tree for two classes that provides 0.4% potency per rank (up to 10 ranks – so 4% potency with 10 points invested). Back in KoS, those AAs were actually worth an additional 4% to damage output. Under current mechanics and itemization, those 10 points in today’s currency are worth only just over 1% to damage output. This will obviously continue to diminish as passive potency numbers continue to rise. AA choices need to stay equally relevant as the game grows (i.e. retain the same relative ratio to increases gained via itemization), and the only way to achieve this would be by allowing them scale accordingly with the attributes gained from gear. In other words, to always use standalone multipliers, percentages, or tie them to an attribute that grows with the game (e.g. primary stats). An obvious additional benefit here would be that there would be less need for the continual revamping of AAs that we seem to be getting on an on-going basis, and balance ought to be retained far better between the classes as the game grows. Please keep in mind that this isn’t designed to be a thread about why class x is better than class y, but rather a discussion about the design of AAs in general, and equally applicable to all classes. --continued in next post due to character length limits--

daray

08-18-2011, 07:34 AM

Potency, Crit Bonus, and other uncapped / soon to be uncapped statsProviding these types of stats in fixed amounts is where the biggest issue lies, because these stay the same while their counterparts on gear continue to rise (at a seemingly exponential rate of late). The solution, as stated above, would be to instead to factor them in as an additional multiplier, percentage, or somehow tie them to something like primary stat numbers.Examples:An AA that provides 4% potency (or crit bonus) to all abilities (or one ability) could be changed to a standalone multiplier, rather than applied to an existing multiplier – i.e. it will create a new *1.04 (or whatever number retains balance) multiplier to the end of the damage calculation formula, instead of just adding to your current (continually growing) potency multiplier. You could just see it as “Increases the effectiveness of X ability/abilities by Y%”, where Y is, in fact, an additional multiplier tagged onto the end of the formula.Expertise and Critical Genius under the Heroic Tree (available to all classes), could just be a standalone % increase to your current potency/crit bonus values – such that it “Increases your potency value by 0.5% per rank” or “Increases your crit bonus value by 0.5% per rank”. In other words: If you currently have 200 crit bonus before applying this AA, then at rank 10 you will now have 210 crit bonus(200*1.05). If you then increase your crit bonus to 300 before applying the AA, you will now have 315 crit bonus (300*1.05).An AA that provides fixed haste / spell haste can be altered to work like Expertise and Critical Genius above. E.g. an AA that currently adds 10% spell haste could be changed instead to multiply your current spell haste value by 10%. In other words, instead of 100% spell haste becoming 110% spell haste through the additive process (100+10), you instead achieve it by multiplying (100*1.1). At higher values, e.g. 200 spell haste, you then get 220 (200*1.1) instead of 210 – basically the AA is retaining the same effectiveness as your gear improves.New abilities gained through AAs (e.g. damage abilities such as Hailstorm, Plaguebringer, etc)This is an example of something AA acquired that is scaling appropriately, because they are in fact modified by your overall attributes (including those derived from both AAs and gear). No issues at all here.Summary:Sorry for the long read. I could go on with an exhaustive list here, but this should be enough to illustrate the gist of what I am trying to highlight, and why I feel there are issues with the current AA system design from the ground up. I just feel that if the AA system were to be revamped in such a way, it ought to future-proof it and make the whole thing far more robust, while retaining relative class balance without the continual need to readjust AAs every time the game moves on.