Grimgo
02-11-2005, 03:25 AM
<DIV> <DIV>This post is intended to discuss recent and upcoming changes to game balance. Some of these changes will be met favorably, others less so, but the goal of all of them is the same: to ensure a fun, challenging game that keeps players excited for years to come.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The changes discussed below will be seen in Live Update #3, which is on the Test server today and going to the live servers next week.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Damage Output</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There has been a lot of discussion on the forums since launch regarding the relative power of each class when it comes to dealing damage. The intended order of damage output by archetype is (and always has been): mage, scout, fighter, priest.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Obviously that isn't the order currently present in the game. Right now fighters do the most overall damage, followed by scouts, followed by mages, and finally priests. This is a situation we are working to remedy, and Live Update #3 will make major strides toward addressing it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mages are intended to to do a lot of damage at the price of being frail defensively. With this major update, wizards and warlocks will see a damage output increase of up to 300% in the case of many key spells. These changes, affecting the classes from 20 to 50, should put them at the top of the heap when it comes to damage output. We are still in the process of evaluating changes to summoners and enchanters, but recent DoT stacking changes, bug fixes in this update, and buff timer changes (see below) should help the other mage professions feel more useful and powerful until their damage output can be thoroughly assessed.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The greatest imbalance currently in the game relates to fighters. Tanks are supposed to absorb damage, but they're also currently the best at dishing it out. This is due to the way our strength bonus works. Currently in the live game, a strength of 400 (achievable at the higher levels with buffs and gear) results in a 200% damage bonus. This results in fighters being the premier melee damage dealers, since they typically have the highest STR values.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Live Update #3 changes the bonus awarded by having high amounts of strength. The table below illustrates the effect of the bonus change.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>STR Old Bonus New Bonus <BR>100 125% 125%<BR>200 150% 135%<BR>300 175% 145%<BR>400 200% 155%</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As you can see, the soloer or small group player, who is unlikely to reach high levels of strength, will see little or no impact. The change has a considerable effect at the upper levels of the game when players can achieve extremely high STR in raid encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>While this change will have some impact on scouts, it should be minimal enough (due to the fact that they typically don't have STR at the same degree as fighters) that scouts will now have higher damage output than fighters. This helps scouts fill the role they were intended to fill as damage dealers through the use of their powerful arts.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This update by no means represents the final balance of damage output. We will continue to tune spells and arts to achieve the goals stated above.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Tanking</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The last major update included a significant change to the way agility affected damage avoidance. Similar to the bonus given by strength shown above, agility had a major impact on how likely a character was to avoid an attack.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For example, if a monk or bruiser could be buffed such that his agility was 200 points higher than the opponent's to-hit stats, they would avoid all but 4% of the enemy's damage output. A plate tank with a shield also had 96% avoidance, and a scout with no shield had 90% avoidance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Even an AGI advantage of 100 points allowed light and heavy armor tanks to avoid all but 14% and 15% of enemy damage output, while scouts avoided 77% of the damage. Since this stat advantage was easily reachable with typical buffs and debuffs, tanking was trivialized in many encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The change we implemented was to raise the stats of NPCs that are level 30 and higher while decreasing the bonus given by agility. Higher-level encounters were no longer as trivial to tank, especially for scouts (who are not meant to be tanking heroic and epic content anyway).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After further parsing and analysis, we have decided that further delineation is needed between a fighter's ability to tank versus a scout's ability. As part of Live Update #3, we are improving heavy armor to mitigate 11% more damage and light armor to mitigate 35% more damage. In addition to making fighters tank better overall, this should address concerns raised by bruisers and monks. Light armor tanks still depend on deflection, but with increased mitigation their tanking ability should be less prone to streaks of damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Tradeskill Changes</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>While not related to combat balance, artisans need attention of their own. We've read the comments on the crafting boards about how some tradeskill classes are extremely dependent upon obtaining components from other professions while some are virtually self-sufficient.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In Live Update #3, all tradeskill classes can refine their own materials and components. While each subclass will still be needed to produce the final products, the interdependency for components has been removed.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This update also includes an added production cost to the crafting process: fuel prices. We feel this is a necessary step, both to remove money from the economy and to help establish costs and values for crafted goods. The fuel price will be used in determining the sell-back value to vendors, so artisans will not be penalized for producing goods to raise their skills and selling the items back to NPC merchants. However, the primary means of earning cash for artisans should be selling products to other players.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We will continue to tune the crafting system and address bugs and balance issues as they arise.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Mounts and Run-Speed Buffs</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In Live Update #3 we will be decreasing the speed buffs given by mounts. Run-speed enhancements, especially at the entry level, should provide a way to travel faster, not act as a means to avoid every potential battle.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The changes to run-speed enhancements will be as follows:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Starter Mounts (2.5pp) - 24%, formerly 32%<BR>Standard Mounts (5pp) - 32%, formerly 40%<BR>Best Non Status Mount (8.2pp) - 40%, formerly 48%<BR>Flying Carpets/Undead Mounts (50pp and status) - 48%, formerly 56%<BR>Totem buff - 24% with a 30 minute duration, formerly 40%</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The biggest change, however, will be to paladin and shadowknight mounts that are granted as one of their entertainment spells. The original intent was for the spells to grant a horse with no run-speed buff at all. The fact that there was a significant speed boost was an error on our part, and while we regret making a drastic change to an existing spell, in fairness to other classes we feel this is the best approach.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Crusader mounts are currently a 32% buff, which will be reduced to 10% (the same speed as Journeyman's Boots). While still giving a benefit, the horse will provide a relatively minor enhancement.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There have been numerous requests to increase the speed buff provided by Legendary Jboots. However, since the Jboot effect stacks with other run-speed buffs and the boots themselves provide nice stats, we have decided to leave the boots as is.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We realize this change won't be a popular one, but we feel it is better for the game that we make it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Other Spell Changes</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In Live Update #3, we are making a few overall changes to spells and arts that should be seen positively by most everyone.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>First, spells that are blue, green, and grey will no longer fizzle (assuming your casting skills are maxed for your level). While I had previously reported that white-con spells would be included in this change, some issues arose that prevented us from including them. Instead, we will reduce the overall chance that white-con spells will fizzle. My apologies for the confusion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Secondly, we have changed buff timers significantly. Short-duration group buffs will last 10 minutes instead of 3 minutes, and single-target buffs are being changed to last 15 minutes. This should provide increased utility to many buffs, both for soloing and group play.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There are many additional changes coming in Live Update #3, as you will see when reading the update notes in the Test server forums. Hopefully this post makes clear some of our goals and the reasons behind the decisions we have made. The long-term health of the game is our greatest motivation, as we work to ensure that EverQuest II is a fun and challenging game now and in the future.</DIV> <P>Message Edited by Moorgard on <SPAN class=date_text><FONT color=#756b56>02-09-2005</FONT></SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>07:22 PM</SPAN> <P>===========================<BR>Moorgard<BR>EverQuest II Community Guy</P></DIV>