Estarra2009-11-18 20:14:30
This thread is for feedback on the damage updates and to open up a discussion on damage caps.
Regarding damage caps, the obvious reason for them would be to stop over-the-top individual attacks. However, one envoy has brought up these strong arguments against damage caps:
Anyway, test out the recent damage updates and give us feedback on whether we even need to consider capping damage anymore. It'd make our lives easier if the answer is no!
Regarding damage caps, the obvious reason for them would be to stop over-the-top individual attacks. However, one envoy has brought up these strong arguments against damage caps:
QUOTE
-Skills that lower health such as binah and papaxi curse will be
devalued (if a target is taking 25% of their health in damage, they will
continue to take 25% with lowered health).
-Buffs that increase health and high health in general will be devalued.
The higher your health, the less likely you will hit the cap and benefit
from it. Meanwhile, low health races will have damage on them blunted
while still retaining the benefits that balanced the low health:
faelings will retain the full benefit of a level 3 sip bonus and
furrikin the full benefit of a faster tumble.
-Racial weaknesses will lose importance. Kephera benefit from level 3
cutting/blunt resist while never having to worry about taking more than
25% from poison based attacks, so on and so forth.
-Skills that amplify damage, such as omen, sensitivity, shadow steal,
and achromatic aura will become meaningless as damage nears the cap.
-Classes that focused on doing large bursts of damage with relatively
slow attacks (obviously mages being the poster child for that) will lose
an important part of their offense, while classes that do good damage,
but spread out over more attacks (faster attack balance, in other words)
will see little loss of damage. Warriors and monks are the two I'm
thinking of in particular for that.
devalued (if a target is taking 25% of their health in damage, they will
continue to take 25% with lowered health).
-Buffs that increase health and high health in general will be devalued.
The higher your health, the less likely you will hit the cap and benefit
from it. Meanwhile, low health races will have damage on them blunted
while still retaining the benefits that balanced the low health:
faelings will retain the full benefit of a level 3 sip bonus and
furrikin the full benefit of a faster tumble.
-Racial weaknesses will lose importance. Kephera benefit from level 3
cutting/blunt resist while never having to worry about taking more than
25% from poison based attacks, so on and so forth.
-Skills that amplify damage, such as omen, sensitivity, shadow steal,
and achromatic aura will become meaningless as damage nears the cap.
-Classes that focused on doing large bursts of damage with relatively
slow attacks (obviously mages being the poster child for that) will lose
an important part of their offense, while classes that do good damage,
but spread out over more attacks (faster attack balance, in other words)
will see little loss of damage. Warriors and monks are the two I'm
thinking of in particular for that.
Anyway, test out the recent damage updates and give us feedback on whether we even need to consider capping damage anymore. It'd make our lives easier if the answer is no!
Lawliet2009-11-18 20:28:51
I would just like to say: Why do you hate mages so much? 
Trasse2009-11-18 20:43:13
I was under the impression that massive bursts of damage were sufficiently difficult to pull off that everything balanced out nicely. Obviously with mega-buffed stats, some disparities could stand to be altered a tiny bit so demis can't just spam bashing attacks to outpace healing, but I don't think caps are the way to do it. (besides, you'd be cheating yourself out of magic damage rune sales if they're suddenly worthless!)
Edit: Just saw the list of attacks that would be affected, answered my own question about Meteor.
Edit: Just saw the list of attacks that would be affected, answered my own question about Meteor.
Llandros2009-11-18 20:45:37
On one hand it sucks being killed in the blink of an eye, but it looks like it could get crazy complicated to balance out. We'd virtually have to do an envoy process of every attack in the game. I'd rather it not be done over being rushed through and creating new balance issues.
Damage scaling would be nice but when you lay out the pros and cons it might very well be not worth it.
Damage scaling would be nice but when you lay out the pros and cons it might very well be not worth it.
Unknown2009-11-18 20:47:06
She mentioned, I believe, that it would only be basic attacks. These to be precise: basic weapons (jab/swing), basic monk (punch, kick, jakari, tahto, shofa, nekai), elemental blast, elemental staff, druid cudgel, nature talisman, moonburst, nightkiss, cosmic fire, symbol, and minorsecond.
Heres the full post!
Heres the full post!
QUOTE
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Streamlining Combat: Damage Updates
First, I'd like to thank everyone who helped test the updates to the
various damage formulas. It is trickier than you can imagine! While
everyone may notice some very slight changes to the amount of damage you
do, the majority of the changes impacts those with super high stats
(strength, intelligence, etc. over 20). In other words, super high stats
shouldn't give such a gross advantage in terms of raw damage as it was.
The big change is for weapon stats which now have a more prominent role.
Thus, there should really be some difference in choosing a damage weapon
over a precision weapon, etc.
The last damage update we are considering is to put a damage cap on the
following attacks: basic weapons (jab/swing), basic monk (punch, kick,
jakari, tahto, shofa, nekai), elemental blast, elemental staff, druid
cudgel, nature talisman, moonburst, nightkiss, cosmic fire, symbol, and
minorsecond. The damage caps would be based on a target's maximum health
and consideration would be taken into account for one-handed vs.
two-handed weapons, as well as multiple monk attacks. These caps would
be aimed to prevent over-the-top damage attacks.
However, capping damage for basic attacks is still only in the
consideration stage. With the aforesaid damage updates, there may be no
reason to have caps. Also, there are some valid and strong arguments
against capping damage and we'll be listening to player input as well as
waiting to see how the damage updates level the field before making any
final decisions.
Penned by My hand on the 20th of Klangiary, in the year 250 CE.
To : Everyone
Subj: Streamlining Combat: Damage Updates
First, I'd like to thank everyone who helped test the updates to the
various damage formulas. It is trickier than you can imagine! While
everyone may notice some very slight changes to the amount of damage you
do, the majority of the changes impacts those with super high stats
(strength, intelligence, etc. over 20). In other words, super high stats
shouldn't give such a gross advantage in terms of raw damage as it was.
The big change is for weapon stats which now have a more prominent role.
Thus, there should really be some difference in choosing a damage weapon
over a precision weapon, etc.
The last damage update we are considering is to put a damage cap on the
following attacks: basic weapons (jab/swing), basic monk (punch, kick,
jakari, tahto, shofa, nekai), elemental blast, elemental staff, druid
cudgel, nature talisman, moonburst, nightkiss, cosmic fire, symbol, and
minorsecond. The damage caps would be based on a target's maximum health
and consideration would be taken into account for one-handed vs.
two-handed weapons, as well as multiple monk attacks. These caps would
be aimed to prevent over-the-top damage attacks.
However, capping damage for basic attacks is still only in the
consideration stage. With the aforesaid damage updates, there may be no
reason to have caps. Also, there are some valid and strong arguments
against capping damage and we'll be listening to player input as well as
waiting to see how the damage updates level the field before making any
final decisions.
Penned by My hand on the 20th of Klangiary, in the year 250 CE.
Unknown2009-11-18 20:50:02
I'm unable to sign on and try it out now, but if my damage has been lowered in any way, I'll have to cry...
Lehki2009-11-18 20:57:00
I think a general damage cap based on max health would definitely be a bad idea. Maybe some hard coded caps on individual attacks. No idea about actual decent numbers off hand, but say a one handed warrior weapon could never do more then 900 with one swing.
Llandros2009-11-18 20:57:16
The change to over the top stats might just very well do the trick.
Unknown2009-11-18 21:02:05
Staff needs a buff, not a nerf. Same with Symbol. And Cudgel.
Xavius2009-11-18 21:03:27
Hard caps are probably a bad idea, but could DMP-ish scaling kick in for hefty hits? Like, if the attack would do 20% or less of max health, there's no change, but damage above that is reduced by 33%, and if you still manage to hit 40% of max health, reduce the remaining by half. It would still disproportionately hit slow attacks, but less so.
Lehki2009-11-18 21:17:43
Xavius2009-11-18 21:18:50
QUOTE (Lehki @ Nov 18 2009, 03:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Why?
Because a level 40 faeling would never die.
Unknown2009-11-18 21:32:15
QUOTE (Lehki @ Nov 18 2009, 03:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I think a general damage cap based on max health would definitely be a bad idea. Maybe some hard coded caps on individual attacks. No idea about actual decent numbers off hand, but say a one handed warrior weapon could never do more then 900 with one swing.
I might agree with that, if you're talking about non-artifact weapons.
Lendren2009-11-18 21:35:44
I wonder what impact it'll have on those damage runes, and whether refunds will be offered if they're nerfed again.
Estarra2009-11-18 22:09:29
QUOTE (Lendren @ Nov 18 2009, 01:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I wonder what impact it'll have on those damage runes, and whether refunds will be offered if they're nerfed again.
If you're talking about what impact damage caps would have on damage runes, that's a concern I have as well!
If you're talking about the impact the current damage updates have on runes, I asked the testers to test all aspects of these changes, including how they affect weapon stats, strength stats, and runes, and I didn't hear any negative reports on runes so I don't think they should be considered "nerfed".
Estarra2009-11-18 22:11:55
To tell the truth, I'd rather not put in damage caps which is why I'm hoping that these latest updates voided the need for them. But if people still report that damage is over-the-top with respect to normal attacks on a regular basis, it's something we'll definitely consider. So the bottom line is to please give us feedback one way or the other!
Xenthos2009-11-18 22:19:24
QUOTE (Estarra @ Nov 18 2009, 05:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
To tell the truth, I'd rather not put in damage caps which is why I'm hoping that these latest updates voided the need for them. But if people still report that damage is over-the-top with respect to normal attacks on a regular basis, it's something we'll definitely consider. So the bottom line is to please give us feedback one way or the other!
Well, my question is if this is the same formula that was on Test-- in which case warrior damage is probably going to have to be tweaked down a little bit. But it seems like staff damage and the like is better now (about a 300 damage drop on Ceren's mega-staff against me as a surged Faeling with ~9k health).
But we'll see how it works live as people play around with the new numbers. Thanks for the time and effort put in, I appreciate it!
Llandros2009-11-18 22:25:55
My puppet strings have been pulled agin and i've been asked to raise concerns specific to bards.
Since we are dependant on burst damage to get around dealing with deafness and love potions on top of whatever forms of hindering people use, hard damage caps for example would have a stronger impact on bards than some other classes. Also, with all the magic dmp/resists out there bard damage already has a rather large variation in range.
Since we are dependant on burst damage to get around dealing with deafness and love potions on top of whatever forms of hindering people use, hard damage caps for example would have a stronger impact on bards than some other classes. Also, with all the magic dmp/resists out there bard damage already has a rather large variation in range.
Desitrus2009-11-18 22:30:32
QUOTE (Xavius @ Nov 18 2009, 03:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Because a level 40 faeling would never die.
It would die in 5-6 hits, it can't sip for a quarter of its life.
Things like sensitivity and omen would overcap, but there's no reason people should just die instantly to normal damage attacks. Ever.
Desitrus2009-11-18 22:32:49
QUOTE (Llandros @ Nov 18 2009, 04:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
My puppet strings have been pulled agin and i've been asked to raise concerns specific to bards.
Since we are dependant on burst damage to get around dealing with deafness and love potions on top of whatever forms of hindering people use, hard damage caps for example would have a stronger impact on bards than some other classes. Also, with all the magic dmp/resists out there bard damage already has a rather large variation in range.
Since we are dependant on burst damage to get around dealing with deafness and love potions on top of whatever forms of hindering people use, hard damage caps for example would have a stronger impact on bards than some other classes. Also, with all the magic dmp/resists out there bard damage already has a rather large variation in range.
@Narsrimadros: It pretty much has no effect since it wouldn't change a fully charged DChord. There's no reason m2 should blast someone for 50%+. There's no setup involved, you perform an action less active than razing rebounding to apply it, for crying out loud.
