Might as well start thinking about this now. Obviously no game can be balance perfectly, so some amount of thought is always going to be how it could be done better. I think there are three Areas we should consider:
Meta Balance
Things completely outside of gameplay that aren't balanced, such as maps (Flags on Exile are not the same) or starting Positions (Is the 4th player spawn on cataract too far from the shop?). "Exile isn't balance because Dark has an easy MPS flag, while light has an easy HPS flag."
External Balance
These are the balancing mechanisms once a game has started, between players. For instance, a certain Demigod vs another, or perhaps a certain Skill that one player has, compared to a different skill someone else has. "Spit is too strong, as it kills other Demigod's Well."
Internal Balance
These are mechanisms that each player has, and generally dictate what play styles work or don't. "Nobody ever uses Yeti's with Sedna because they are too weak." This kind of balance isn't something that makes a player win or lose against another, but rather just limits which strategies/actions are good enough.
For the purpose of the discussion, let us consider only a few things at a time if possible. A list of all the changes 'you would personally make' to something can be entertaining to consider, but we will likely get places, and come to better agreements, if we can cite actual reasoning, and discuss that. Here's an example:
Bad Example
Blade of the serpent is too good, I never use the staff of the warmage, staff should increase attack speed by 100%.
Good Example
Favor Item: Blade of the Serpent
What is the balance issue? The Blade allows for significantly better mana generation than other favor items, making it at the very least, not internally balanced. Compared to the Staff of the Warmage, it gives more damage, and 300 less mana. However, with a single activation of the Blade, and dealing 400 damage in 10 seconds, you get that back.
What kind of Solution? I think we should fix this balance problem by making the Staff of the Warmage Stronger
Proposed Solution: Allow the Staff of the Warmage to be activated to give a large attack speed boost for a short time.
This gives us three points to discus. First, do we agree the balance problem exists? Second, after we agree it does, what kind of solution do we want to do? (For instance, you could have also just made the Blade weaker, instead of making something else stronger, or even removed it if the concept is simply unbalanceable or too negative to play). Thirdly, what roughly should the fix be? I strongly urge you to leave out numbers. It is easy to negatively react to a large sounding boost to Damage, when that isn't really the point, the point is that it should give SOME amount of boost. Disagreeing over the exact numbers is a minor thing we do after all else is done, and is generally experimental in nature.
If at all possible, let's try to avoid too much bickering, and focusing just on good discussion for now. Once we can actually get the modding done, and have people willing to try it out, I think we will be able to make good progress!
Plate Visor
Current problem: More expensive than Scaled Helm and worse
Proposed Solution: Give it a plus +850 mana and + 5 vision radius
Although this doesnt make it neccesarily better than the Scaled Helm on maps with +15 mana per second it becomes a much better choice. It however has an extra 300 more mana than scaled helm allowing for another ability to be used early on and many people will find the +5 vision thrown in handy Im sure
Gladiator Gloves
Current problem: They suck compared to gauntlets of brutatily and are almost double the price
Propsed Solution: Increase from 5% attack speed to 15% and increase minion damage to 6 instead of 4. This would need to be tested before any further changes can be made. These gloves would be better suited to DGs that start with a high attack or like UB and TB incresae the percentage further. However I have the feeling this item needs damage put on it...
Further changes will be made once Ive looked into how to change the Vinlings helmet
I think health stacking is such a working strategie because it has a lot of realtive effect. A demigod level 1 has between 1420 and 1900 health and a health regen of about 3 (!). spend 400 gold and take botf and you have increased this by 1200 hp and 10 hps. Also, rook for exampel gets 150 extra health/level and about 30 extra damage/slap per level. This means that an item that boosts health by 600 is the equivalent of 4 levels rising. However, there is no item in the regular shop that gets you more than 30 extra damage, the equivalent of 1 level. If you would simply boost the health per level to 200-350 and the starting hp to 2000-3000 (this might be a bit extreme but when you can mod yourself you can improve the balance by trial and error) and the extra damage for items to buy in a shop from 15-30 to 40-100, suddenly you can compare health stacking to dps-stacking. at present, the only 2 good dps items are mageslayer and ashkandor (mb also cloak of flames) but I ussually dont have gold for artifacts. And an increase of my damage by 30 + some other effects isnt that impressive while for the same gold I can increase my health for 1100, and some other effects on my armor and mana. That does help me a lot.
I don't say that health stacking items are overpowered, I say that they are neccesary for survival. (which is worse than just overpowered) A 2000 hp reg can be killed in a few seconds at level 8. You need hp far too much at present.
Secondly I'd like to discuss torchbearer. I think he is underpowered and too fragile. I understand that every demigod needs to have weaknesess but in this case his weakness becomes a fatal handicap imo. He is as fragile as regulus but with lower range and lower speed. Worse, he is the demigod that focusses on damage and AOE but his damage isnt even that impressive. his fireball does 1050 damage at level 10 has a reasanable range and a relatively long casting time. Sedna's pounce has 1000 damage, interrupts and has an almost immediate effect, but she has to get closer. I think the armor of torchbearer as well as the damage done by his ability's should be raised.
And I'd like to react to Epiphenomenon who says rook is underpowered because he has low speed but isnt even that impressive in combat. However, a good tower farmer with allies that can tp in when neccesary doesnt even have to move (well, only short distances, back and forth trough your lane) so his low speed doesnt even matter that much. (no, you dont need to rtb that much. With rook, I ussually rtb for the first time when I am level 5 or 6) When rook needs to escape he can try to tp out. I think this is no major problem to rook. I agree that he is a bit fragile in mid and lategame but this can be solved by giving him some extra dps or armor. (rook relies on his ability to outdamage opponents)
The reason I believe that kept the developer from making more effective damage boost items, is the damage of skills (which skill with dg level). You have to understand that the skill damage (assuming you have enough mana) stacks on top of the autoattack damage. This has to be considered when boosting damage items. Auto-attack is not the only damage source.
One way to reach high dps, that is working right now, is minion stacks. This works well, and you have to make sacrifices to get there, which makes it quite balanced (except for erebus, whose minions are a bit over the edge). He needs very little investment (itemwise) for them to be effective.
since the new patch with modding support will be release sometime in the near future (like a few weeks at max i hope) i thought bringing up this thread again aint the worst idea.
imo when starting to balance by modding you have to make shure you have one fix point. if you start just nerfing there and buffing there without one fix point you will most certainly end up with another imbalanced gamestate. but perhaps this time the dmg items are overpowered.
i like the idea of just saying the length of fights shouldnt be changed but i guess it will be pretty hard because that way many stats have to be changed. you have to nerf hp items and buff starting hp. already two points. if you say the cheap hp items are good you can begin with changing dmg and other items directly.
Heh, I can't wait for mods, i think this will help out SD too, so when we make a change attempting to create *better* balance, they can either try it themselves, or can trust us as a whole, and hopefully will also make it easier to change, considering many modders wouldn't mind helping out, although, i am sure that they will want to do this themselves...
Thanks SD/GPG for adding modding tools to 1.2!!! (Hopefully?)
DaBRUM
As I already pointed out in the other thread, making fights last longer can be accomplished without adding hp. Healing is one thing, but things like temporary shield ie Orb of defiance or disable effects can also lengthen or change battles.
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