Let's keep the bard and warrior rune stuff to another thread. Muddying the issue isn't going to help. If someone's going to reply to Zacc, start a new topic or whatever.

Quoted for truth. I think a redesign of Night, and also one of healing (Because I've disagreed with the healing changes ever since they were implemented (something which envoy input didn't occur on, which I think was a mistake)) would be a good thing. The choke thing is a major point as IMO, choke is one of the least fun mechanics in lusternian combat.

start: just a few ruminations..

The problem is the skills cannot be compared one on one.. its not like chess where each side has two horses.. or even WoW.. where the characters are more or less the same things with different names..

And then there is no baseline.. from what i gather there is no set in stone threshold when things are supposed to be balanced.. - omnitrans, tri-trans? xxx-trans?

Maybe perhaps we should start from that.. lay out the point that says if you trans your three guild skills+combat/resiliance/discipline.. then two people of equal might fighting against each other no matter the guild, and using all their skills should probably end in a draw.. (or a really long battle)

which bring us to the next problem.. who exactly is this two people that has equal might? no player is absolutely equal in skill with another.. so basing balance from player contest cannot be trusted to a degree.. - so perhaps we can program an artifical player then let it play against itself?

And then lets move on to group balance.. what would be the exact composition of the group to baseline.. like 3fighter+1monk+1celestine+1mage is the ideal and will always be stronger to a group composing of lets say 6fighters.. so people will always try to achieve some sort of combination like that...
(just a few examples, because you know, we need something to measure and just throwing a bunch of stuff in there is not the way to go..)

some very interesting programming problems are in here im sure..

end: just a few ruminations..

an idea is to balance it from statistics is pretty good, but not sure if you have something like that implanted that tracks skill use.

For example if you were tracking the skills most used and least used of that class, you can improve the least used skills and maybe tone down the most used skills.

One of my econ professors used to use the axiom "to a man with only a hammer, every problem is a nail" when referencing the econometrics crowd. The same issue could potentially happen here- to take the extreme for ease of illustration, say the class "Pie baker" has 8 "good" skills, and 2 "excellent" skills. Pie bakers lean heavily on the two excellent skills.

Now, say we have the class "Sushi chef". They have 8 "bleh" skills, and 2 "good" skills. Sushi chefs lean heavily on the two good skills.

Applying a purely internal analysis to both, you come to the same result. Either both have their lower skills raised, or their higher skills lowered, or some combination thereof, but the end result is the same. Pie Bakers are better off than Sushi Chefs.

Even if this could somehow be accounted for, I don't feel that pure usage statistics are a strong enough measure on their own. They're part of the picture, but if, say, you asked me to make a regression where the dependent variable is "amount of usage", while I'd definitely include power, I'd also have to include hard to measure things like flavor, as well as other factors like power cost, location restrictions, etc.

In addition, there would be issues where in situation X, an ability could potentially be, by all accounts, far too powerful beyond what it is intended, but it otherwise is nothing special, or even nearing inadequacy, which would be difficult to account for properly with a usage mechanism.

As messy as it is, I think we're better off looking at abilities in more of a soft sense first, as a determinant- does an ability seem over/under powered? Why is that preception created? Is there merit behind the perception? After closer examination, is it probably too strong/weak? What makes it that way? How would a change that addresses this ability impact the class, and the other classes?

..and then get down into the "maths" of the thing.

That part isn't nearly as hard though. It's the broader things that we've been getting stuck on.

So, lets take another hypo:


Lets presume we're playing in the group balancing-centric sandbox, and take monks. Ok, lets give them a unique role. Lets say their role is passive group assistance, and defence removal.

So, to address this, we scale their damage back a significant amount to give us "balancing" room to work with. Then we give them a suite of abilities that breach, nullify, or even prevent defences from being raised. Maybe even let them do things like force warriors into unfavorable stances, or maybe a trans skill that nullifies demenses temporarily.

Then we take harmony and whatever the Mag/glom monks get, and tone down the abilities, but make them passive effects that work on either everyone in the room, or all enemies/allies as appropriate.

Roughly, we'd have a class that would be very effective in group combat, but likely far less effective in direct one on one fighting.

Now, some of the monk players who posted above may really enjoy this, but I'm sure others would hate it like... something that hates something else a whole bunch.

And, foreverafter, should a monk (or any other class that would wind up in that situation) ever make a post in rants about their ineffectiveness in one on one situations, they can be summarily silenced with "it's about group balancing, you're supposed to lose". Which probably isn't going to make for a very happy player.

I think it makes infinitely more sense (well, not infinitely but it's fun to type) to let every class feel independently viable against every other class, and once that framework is in place, to correct mostly for glaring issues in group combat. Even from a business standpoint, I think it would be easier to sell credits on the premise "this arti would help me stand up to X", rather than "this arti would provide a tangible but nebulous benefit to my group in combat, though the outcome of an individual fight against X is probably not going to be any different."

I don't see why there's any reason a class can't be made effective in solo and against groups. Look at demesnes. While not the best example for a game mechanic, it has several strong abilities, some more effective in solo, but the whole thing affects groups too, and treelife/currents/rubble? are especially effective at breaking up groups. It wouldn't be that hard to balance either side without affecting the other - if druids were too powerful in solo, slowing down their demesne to 12 seconds would give people more time and so forth to resist, and if they were too powerful in groups protection scrolls could be upgraded to protect against every demesne effect and dissolve slowed down (you still couldn't effectively use prot scrolls solo) requiring the druid to have to throw dissolve around a bit more if s/he wants his/her demesne to be at full effect and giving them a better way of dealing with it.

Your post is basically a false dichotomy. I've said in the past that making classes imbalanced as far as groups go on purpose (or not focusing on correcting it) is a bad idea because it means that ceteris paribus, an X will always defeat a Y of equal skill, leading to a stale situation. However, it's -also- bad when - the above taken for granted - some groups have things that make them useful in teams or to the org, because that just makes the classes that are only balanced solo fighters strictly worse. Without direction this is also much harder to fix effectively because it isn't simply a case of powering up abilities and adding new ones until a given matchup is stronger (sap reduced from 8p to 5p.)

But from the previous posts, the converse is exactly the impression I got from the "focus on group balance" arguments. Plan the game around group balance, which almost inherently comes at the expense of one on one balance.

If it didn't, then there's little point in the discussion to begin with. If we could have both, of course we'd want both. A fundamental asssumption here seems to be, at the very least, we can have one, but it will come at the cost, to at least some extent, of the other.

Given that choice, I'll take one on one balance every single time. At the very least, from all indications, we need more stable one on one balance now, before we run the train off the rails in pursuit of a whole different philosophy.

I don't think the idea you can only have one is very well-founded. All I can think of to really support it is that the envoys can only submit so much stuff at once.

Anyway, you're missing an important aspect: the more time gone without giving any attention to general usefulness and group combat (which is unlikely to ever reach a consensus stable equilibrium, given the pace and the fact that new things get added, but we'll ignore that) the harder it becomes to repair the situation in future. When you have systems as complex as Lusternia, just tacking things on the end is doomed to failure. You have to have this stuff worked in as soon as possible.

EDIT: Btw, while I'm against solo balance being ignored for reasons I already covered, you can't just assume there aren't people who prefer being more useful to being able to kill people solo. If it was decided that a given person could only do one effectively, I'd 100% pick the former.

It's not that you can only purely have one or the other, but one often can come at the expense of the other. Certainly, if you have limited labor, and you shift your focus away from one, progress towards it slows by some amount.

From a coding layperson's perspective, it looks like the ship has already sailed on that. Besides, as you mentioned, it's not as if development has been negligent on group combat at all- demese effects that break apart groups, anti-raiding mechanics, abilities like stag sacrifice and some bard songs are already designed around group combat. Why should any more focus be shifted towards it than already is?

Certainly, several posters have expressed that they'd rather see the current situation stabilized before we trapse off the beaten path.



No, but in the (whopping, I know) two MUDs I've played prior to this, people like you existed in the minority by a significant margin. I played on one called Aalynor's Nexus for a while that took things to an extreme (I haven't played in six years or so, so I don't know what the current state is, or if it exists). Priests and bards there did almost nothing alone, but were essential to doing anything in a group. Thieves and barbarians could kill stuff very well one on one. End result? There often weren't many priests or bards around.


(EDIT: *pokes Shiribot* Come ooooon repllly, I'm still booooored and it's been like half an hour or more! *whine*)

There is a way to have perfect class balance in Lusternia. Give all the classes the exact same abilities and available artifacts, but call them different things to make things more warriory or druidy. Make sure each class produces the exact same damage output, can produce the exact same afflictions, uses the exact same hindering abilities, exact same utility and bashing abilities, and either everyone or no one has demesnes. This would also allow you to balance each class at every ability level. To make sure there are no loose ends, make all the races have the same statistics, same advantages and disadvantages, but call them different things. I guess you could still keep different stats if you made them affect different damage types, but that's just asking for trouble.

Assuming that nobody wants the above solution (I sure don't), balance is always going to be an extremely loose approximation at best, because there are just too many variables to be able to realistically reduce the discussion to a baseline - or one or two baselines. Doing so, in fact, is a recipe for creating imbalances. Any change you propose to a class, you have to take in virtually all factors that add into the equation.

Let's balance warriors with druids:

Warrior: I need heavy-duty artifacts for appropriate damage output, whereas other classes don't need one or can buy one artifact to increase magic damage.

Druid: My damage is awful, actually.

Solution: Give warriors and druids the exact same damage output and the exact same choices for artifacts that will affect their damage in the exact same way.

Warrior: Uh, Druids have a demesne. I can only do damage and afflict one on one.

Solution: Demesnes are removed or both classes get them.

Druids: Um, I can't use venoms on my cudgel to afflict, and some warriors dual-wield, increasing their chances.

Solution: Druids can envenom cudgels. All warrior specs are changed to single weapons and given the same venom chance as the cudgel.

Eventually, both of these classes will end up exactly the same.

You cannot balance Class Apple against Class Orange on a factor-by-factor basis. If you make all the classes equally effective in single combat, then you're going to have to make them equally effective in group combat so one doesn't edge out another (and how you balance effectiveness in group combat is beyond me, since each class contributes to group combat in completely different ways). Then, you'll need to balance them all out for equal effectiveness in bashing. Then influencing. Etc. etc.

I'm not saying we should stop all discussions about whether or not a particular ability is underpowered or overpowered, and I also believe we can -in a general sense- see if one class continuously outshines all the others, but I think we're all going to have to agree to deal with "class balance" on a very ambiguous basis. They are just too different to pick a factor and "balance" around that.

I don't think balancing for group combat is all that hard when you consider how simplified group combat really is. You, demesne. You, keep him still. Everyone else, kill the bastard. My combat spam reading talents are second to none, but you need the kind of reading and typing skills that land you in the Guiness Book of World Records to parse the enemy group and figure out where to drop an affliction to save someone's life. Plus, a group of anyone, no matter the levels, skills, or archetypes, has a very reliable kill method by just spamming bashing attacks. Parry all, stance upper, and start bashing!

So:
Are the demesnes equally suitable for group work? I'd say so, so that can be left alone.

Does everyone involved have a way to participate in group spamming activities? Meaningful damage, keeping someone still, substantial group support?

Warriors have good damage. Not so much on the other two. Warriors traditionally have high health, which is a huge perk when the opponent commander calls your name.

Guardians are fairly good at keeping someone still. Since the stat nerf, quickened cosmicfire with 20 int ceased to be meaningful damage. The rare healer Celestine has substantial support skills. Sacraments Honour might count as decent group support, but it's not huge compared to the damage output of a group. Overall, guardians do rather poorly in this arena, and Celestines have a slight (I said slight, Malarious!) edge over Nihilists.

Wiccans have good damage and moderate ability to keep someone still. The rare healer wiccan has substantial support.

Mages have good damage (including damage vs. groups) and the demesne.

Druids have moderate ability to keep someone still and the demesne. The moderately rare ecology druid has damage against groups. I'm a druid, I admit bias, but I think this is a very bad arrangement compared to mages.

Bards have very good damage, ecology and glamours bard have damage against groups, very good ability to keep someone still, and very good group support. Ths is an issue.

Monks have good damage output when paired with the wounding output of a warrior and moderate ability to keep someone still.

Roles and Group Balance are not mutually inclusive. In fact, I would even say that roles are one of the primary causes of displeasure with group combat as it is. When archetypes are focused around the roles they should play it means that if a role is not filled there will be obvious imbalance. It can not be denied however that the removal of all distinct identity or abilities from the archetypes would leave them bland and boring. The goal though should be to give each a unique purpose without making them essential in any area. That is not the case right now, as can be seen with the demesne situation.

Demesnes offer an undeniable advantage in any battle, but that is especially true in battles between groups. Now demesnes have minor counters such as protection scrolls, but even with those a demesne held can mean the difference between victory and defeat. The most dependable counter to its power is another mage who can break the meld. Other than that however the only other option is enduring the brunt of the demesne’s force in the hope that killing the mage who holds it will be possible before all hope is lost. This places enormous strain on mages because they hold the power and by extension responsibility to change the tide of any battle. Also it creates a situation where the lack of a mage places your organization in a dire situation.

So it should be obvious that when I argue for a focus on group balance, it does not mean that I wish to see more situations like the one I mentioned arise. No, if anything it is my hope that they will cease to be. I wish to see the day when large scale conflict does not focus around small subsets of abilities. As it stands however, that is the case but a lot of these problems have their roots in one-on-one development. Guilds argue for changes based on their assessment of their one-on-one prowess predominately and don’t take into consideration other factors. That is not a criticism of them though, because it is easy to fall into that trap.

I firmly believe though that if all skill evaluation started at the group level than flowed down to single combat, a lot of these issues would not exist or even come into being.

(At work, so this is mainly in response to posts I saw before I started writing it off and on a few hours ago, not any that followed them)

Not exactly on topic, but perhaps group combat itself should be changed.

If there was a way to engage/disengage an enemy (not related to the warriors' skill), group combat would consist mostly of one-on-one combat in the same room, it makes sense actually from realism perspective.
While engaged with a particular enemy, you cannot attack another unless one of you disengage. Room effects could be tweaked and toned to fit the new rules. Instead of zerging damage, each person's solo combat abilities could play a role. That would provide for more interesting battles.
Implementation could include spam reducing by focusing on the particular enemy and ignoring all messages unrelated to you in a group fight.

Crazy or worth a thought?

Just a thought, this squibbling over envoy ideas are annoying tho and that's if you dont have any common sense, that would happend yes and is a very extreme example of wrong calculations.

If it was by statistic, you would see clearly skills that gone unused get improved. Measure the statistic by diffrent means, instakills, guild popularity, afflctions, etc etc.. then just look at the bottom of those and you will usualy find the ones that are useless that needs a boost and if you look ontop the highest one, could be decreases creating variaty of tactics instead of relying on the same overpowered moves.

Would save alot of time wasted on squibbling over whos skill is the best, before envoy suggestion go through.

I do disagree, they could have roles they peak at but not limited too, and all roles could be counterable by abilities. For example if a mage is holding a demesne it could be possible to get that mage out of the room, with reasonble abilities. (not by some unstoppable means of ganking him into the same room of your group, but more like skrimish abilities.)

A good ability for that, would to take the mage into another room, but not into the same one you came from. (To avoid silly ganks and could work through shield, blocks, icewall to prevent this camping)

If they have a warrior that can seperate, you could pay attention to when it happends and assist the mage in the other room so he can get back to the main group, if an assault takes place.

As i've mentioned before, we need skrimish abilities for group combat to avoid these silly camping spots. (btw i'm pretty sure a mages demesne is still active when hes dead tho, i know it was that way when stangmar died, might be a bug i forgot to report.. *goes to report*)

You can't always trust what the general consensus is on which skills are useless and which are not. Truth be told, many people are not creative nor do many try things for themselves and determine if they can find a use for a skill or not. Many just sit back and wait for someone else to tell them what tactics to use, and then just follow suite. What that leads to is a lot of people using the same tactics over and over again, but it does not actually determine whether those tactics are optimal, and the ones rarely used are sub-optimal. I personally have found uses for plenty of skills that others consider useless, so from my own experience I seek to test things for myself (if possible) instead of accepting the general consensus.

What Geb said.

People claimed Nihilists sucked until Thoros actually used the skills properly.

Even so, if they arn't useless those that are not used much would become more attractive to use, would bring new players into said guild. I still think it would be more productive then envoy squibbling and producing batches of suggestions each month just to get some changes.

For the majority, if a skill isn't used much it's not that great and deserves to be upped or the 'topskills' are too good and makes them not consider the 'not so used skill' an option.

If the statistic is there, then there's no politic argument.