One More Time (Updated)

#59

The general idea of how I see balance is that everything should have some reason to use it regardless, though some things more-so than others. Items that infringe on the niche of others while being strictly better in almost every way is something I have the most issue with because even if it’s an endgame vs midgame, you’re still basically just replacing an item altogether. It’s the sort of thing I see with Bone Dagger vs Stinger, though even that has a bit of leniency due to it being a case of Cyan vs White and not White vs White.

Also, with something like Gladiator Guard vs Mercy’s Bane, it’s a fairly unfair comparison due to the fact that Mercy’s Bane is generally an actually balanced item, while Gladiator Guard is just a fairly OP version of it without many - if any - drawbacks. Mercy’s works because of its massive loss of Defense in comparison to even a Dragonscale Armor, overall resulting in monstrously more damage taken in return for a decent chunk of DPS; Gladiator Guard only slightly reduces the DPS it gives in favor of removing almost any penalty in terms of Defense(outside of against T15, which drops from the same dungeon mind you) and even giving a lot of Speed.

As for Zaarvox vs Gladiator, it feels… wrong, that in order for an item to be good, it has to specifically be paired with another item, even if they happen to be STs. It’s the thing I dislike most about the way ST sets are generally designed; half of the set outright relies on other items to function well or even decently, and now with newer sets, some items are legitimately required to get full effectiveness.

I can’t exactly show every detail, as it’s for the aforementioned Private Server, but I’ll show an edited example of what it looks like.

image
image.png1461x701 55 KB

Essentially, every factor you want to put onto an item has a different effect based on a lot of variables, such as Projectile Count, the True Range of the item, if it has a Status Effect, the Arc Gap range(Scattershot), and of course the normal stats. It shows all of the stats and how they’d react to different amounts of Defense, as well as just raw damage, and even with boosts. All of these are then taken into account with a value that compares itself to Tier 12, including Tier 13 and 14, and based on how many points it has versus Tier 12, it’ll tell you if it needs to be stronger or weaker, while having a range so there’s room for leeway.

It overall works very well, and allows for testing based on the aforementioned variables without having to put it into the game, or even into a testing server. Things will behave differently with different Attack and Dexterity values of course, but given the distribution of those stats among classes, certain things will end up being better or worse on specific classes regardless and should be taken with a grain of salt. There isn’t one for abilities, but those are too specific - especially with the things I want to do to the classes - to put into a calculator.

I can also clarify what some of the terms here mean if you’re curious about their implementation.

Absolutely. Kabam’s biggest issue was neglecting a lot of the game in most aspects and funneling pay-to-“win” into the game, while DECA’s biggest issues are either their marketing, or their complete lack of consistency when it comes to the strength of items, whether it’s endgame or not. Powercreep is normally a bit more… excusable in single player, but not only is this an MMO, it’s a co-op that also relies on luck for getting good things. Powercreep simply doesn’t work well with the game’s overall design, at least IMO.

It’s nothing against you for disagreeing on certain things like Jugg, as I didn’t clarify that one myself. A couple of other things are just hot topics for debate as well, and I’m going down with the ship on those ones either way.

#60

That’s your problem, you have opinions on the internet.
It’s illegal to have opinions on the internet.

#61

It’s not illegal to have opinions, but sometimes they are best kept in your head for the courtesy of others, an art form far too sparsely mastered, it would sometimes seem, both digitally and otherwise.

#62

Buffing weaker/older UT’s will create the same situation as nerfing stronger/newer UT’s.

Buffing ST’s and making P2P players stronger is not something we need at all.

#63

There is a massive difference.

Man, it’s all about Dreamless want to tighten the power gap of UT’s/ST’s.

Nerfing O3 UT’s (bar from pre-nerfed Enforcer) means there is no point of raiding the respective dungeons even iwith the Life Exaltations or O3 tops.

I was expecting item rebalances on RotMG itself, not from some kind of PServers…

#64

No. If you buff, say, coral bow, to have DPS on par with leaf bow and make the shot spred way less, then it will be on par with leaf bow.

If you nerf leaf bow to have similar DPS as coral bow, then the effect will still be the same, leaf bow and coral bow will be effectively the same. Nerfing and buffing the strong and weak, respectively, make no difference.

#65

To both @BaconSM and @PRCSakura,

There’s a reason I say that it takes time to balance things out properly, and the both of you are helping to prove why I say this; the both of you are looking at things far too surface level and immediate than what it should really come down to.

Coming to balance things that are of a similar rarity and difficulty to obtain may seem simple. “Oh, both of these are from dungeons that are similarly balanced, so clearly they should be just as strong as each other, right?” No. That’s looking at things way too plainly and not taking into account a lot of other factors of balance in games as a whole, and not just Realm or RPGs.

What you’re missing is differentiating the items. Sure, both of them are from dungeons that require similar skill levels and are similarly hard to find, so having them be around the same level of strength makes sense. But that is not the thing of most importance here; what ultimately matters is keeping them within a similar level of strength while keeping their purpose and identity unique.

However, I’m also going to use this time to tackle specific points directly.

Absolutely untrue. Leaf Bow is known for having strong single target DPS, due to its lack of pierce, while Coral Bow is faster than a Tiered bow while having one less shot, and keeping pierce. If you have either of them be similar in DPS, Coral Bow will always be infinitely better because it has the benefit of keeping its pierce, and simply buffing it to Leaf Bow’s level, or nerfing Leaf Bow to its level, would ultimately be a horrible way of tackling the issue.

I’m not going to use that system that’s specifically made for the server in question to balance out things from Prod, as their factors are wildly different and their basis for balance should be wildly different as well. You can’t expect something made for different specifications to work when putting it with something that’s just similar and nothing else, because that’s ignoring all of the factors that went into the system itself.

I was showing it as an example that it is not something that requires this huge and overwhelming amount of effort, and that people can make something like it by themselves if they really wanted to.

PRC is correct about the assessment, but ultimately, the both of you aren’t viewing it correctly. Tightening the gap between UTs and STs, and even tiered items, is something that should come naturally when it comes to the balance that’s in something as specific as Realm is; it’s a co-op MMORPG first and foremost. You can balance out endgame items to be close enough to items that are from midgame or early lategame to make people who are newer to the game think, “Hey, that can be me someday!” without it feeling like it’ll be so wildly into the future that they’ll have to rigorously train just for a chance to get it.

The most important thing to bear in mind is that you should keep endgame strong, but not too strong, and that early game should be kept tame, but not so tame that people who are newer to the game will neglect it even when they’re new. Think of the Woodland UTs; they’re generally on the weaker side, but offer enough gameplay variety and are a good introduction to what UTs should be, and as such people who are newer can enjoy them while also getting a grasp for what UTs in the later parts of the game will do. Now think of Corsair Ring… it… it’s almost not even worth wearing for the difficulty of the dungeon compared to where you get Tier 2 rings, which will ultimately be better in all scenarios. And it’s a Cyan.

As I mentioned earlier, this is ultimately the wrong way of thinking. You have to have a fine balance between buffing things in the earlier parts of the game and nerfing things in the endgame to make the level of progression feel more fair, rather than the massive jump it has. Step too far with endgame, and now you’ve done what PRC fears where endgame isn’t worth running. Step too far with pre-endgame, and now you’ve done what Bacon fears, where things effectively feel the same.

This is mainly why it’s best to carefully spend time to make sure that these things are handled carefully and with lots of consideration, rather than how they are now. And I do not say this with no experience; one of the UGC members talked about how things are going there, and from what they’ve explicitly said, DECA not only has the final say in a lot of things(including balance) but is also in absolutely no rush. One UGC member left after 200 days of no response from DECA. If they’re fine with talking about it themselves(the person who mentioned this, not the person who left) and you want to hear it directly from them, I’ll redirect them here so they can talk about it themselves.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to imply, given what it was in response to. “For the courtesy of others” makes it sound as if me stating my opinion and giving my reasoning for it is somehow harming others. I won’t say that this is what’s happening, but that’s simply how it sounds.

Either way, I’m not going to apologize for having my opinions and stating them publicly with my reasoning behind it, just because some people might not be fine with it. They’re not harmful opinions.

#66

That was more aimed at them being snippy about it, not you. Sorry if it was taken that way. I’m increasingly unhappy with drama as of late, part of it from irl. Perhaps I’m starting to get a little cold, but I still stand by what I say.

#67

Mainly went off of what it sounds like, since I wasn’t sure what to take of it(as I mentioned). I can understand being unhappy with drama as recently, I’ve seen way too much of it in other communities and ultimately this thread has been causing some of it as well for fairly dumb reasons.

#68

If I was being snippy I’d come at you with a pair of scissors.
:scissors:️ :scissors:️ :scissors:️ :scissors:️ :scissors:️

:fist: Rock wins, right? (; -Book

#69

I’d assume Coral Bow would actually be worse since the damage would be split between two shots, meaning it’d be worse on higher def enemies but sure

#70

The main dynamic is that Leaf Bow has much higher DPS from the get-go due to the fact it lacks both pierce and only has one shot. Sure, against higher defense enemies it would do better DPS, but that would only be better against single targets which usually, doesn’t happen that often unless it’s things that are more endgame.

At that point though, without using any items from endgame, Deathless Crossbow would be better, even if you buffed Coral Bow. It would be even stronger of an option if Leaf Bow were instead nerfed.

This is also why balancing specific items alone and not the rest will ultimately result in a large amount of inconsistency. It may take a lot of work, but updating everything of a certain type at a time rather than dispersing multiple updates through a month at a time or more will make for a complete shift of meta every time an update is dropped.

Unless you’re doing things like bug fixes or quick changes that are because of unforeseen circumstances like a number being wrong, smaller updates rather than big ones usually end up being worse because people will be hesitant to do anything in fear of an update changing a few things drastically while the rest could potentially be left to rot.

Back onto the topic at hand, though. With the exception of single target, very high Defense enemies, if you put Coral Bow and Leaf Bow near the same DPS, Coral Bow would simply outperform it in almost all ways. Doing that wouldn’t solve the issue, and would in fact make it worse at the end of the day, because the intention when going in should be to make items have a similar range of usefulness if they’re from the same dungeon, but DPS is not the only factor at play. There’s a lot of things you need to think about before making changes if you want to make everything feel different from one another while also making everything still have some sort of use in different levels of play, or even the same level of play.

#71

alr, testing this with haizor, this is completely false

ssssssa
ssssssa.PNG1366x628 112 KB

let’s compare the “buffed” coral bow (rose creamish line) with the two bows that I believe outclass it, t14 bow and leaf bow

as you can see, leaf bow is outDPS’ing the buffed coral bow. While yes, the coral bow is better for group clear, why should I use it when t14 bow does better realm clear and does more damage. Mid range group damage? Sure, but what situations would you need mid range group clear but can’t have close range group clear?

Even then, with our heavily dps meta, who cares if coral bow can do good group clear if everyone only cares about dps? sure, group clear is important, but at the same time, most players really only care about damage, and with items like divinity, there’s not really much of a want for more group clear items when all group clear items are high dps items(such as divinity), or are EXTREMELY good at group clear (such as geb wand or vortex plating)

#72

Hold on… are you saying that Coronation do not need any rebalance or what??

#73

I was specifically leaving out endgame drops - Tier 14 Weapons included - for the fact that they’re obviously going to outrank most things in the current game setting, and I specifically mentioned that I was leaving out endgame for the example. Also, it doesn’t look like you saw what I was trying to say: putting them both in a similar DPS range would result in Coral Bow being better in most situations for the benefits that it has over Leaf Bow, excluding things like single target enemies that have nothing around them. It was used to help say that no, simply buffing Coral Bow or nerfing Leaf Bow and nothing else would not fix the issue, and mentioning Deep Enchantment only helped reinforce that; why should you use either Leaf Bow or Coral Bow when you can just simply get Tier 14?

The DPS meta is something I’ve never exactly liked to begin with, because there’s a lot of factors that should be taken into account when it comes to an MMO, and not just DPS. Most other games have a lot more focus on dispersing a lot of things such as support, defense, everything… while Realm is all focused on killing things so quickly you don’t have to deal with it anyways. This is the biggest reason that dungeons like Lost Halls(not Cultist Hideout) end up being completed with enough people, because the shots aren’t usually around long enough for people to feel the burn unless they’re in a relatively weak group.

And some of the new items or changed items like Wand of Geb are taking what should be a niche set for certain items in certain ways and simply overriding them entirely, Wand of Geb less so but still. The AoE of Divinity removes the need for any other sword that has piercing while offering more DPS, Vortex Plating basically just gives people a low MP massive bomb of damage because it doesn’t have an MP requirement, and Wand of Geb can instantly slow down or even murder a large group of enemies by switching to it every few seconds to fire it once. Hell, it’s even worse with Doku No Ken, as that’s a raw 1000 damage you can just switch back to at basically any time while covering a large radius.

There’s too many factors and items that will simply remove the necessity of almost 80% of the non-tiered items in the game, and with a lot of them, you don’t even need to use them all the time to get their benefit. Hell, with most of the ones I mentioned you don’t even need to use it most of the time; just switch to it, use its effect, switch back. Sure, while that’s an interesting way to go about swapouts, when the best way to use your items is to only switch to it for a moment and immediately switch back, while also making that remove most items from play, it creates a massive dent in game balance.

With things like singleplayer games, this would be different. Their progression is much more heavily tied to how far you actually are in the game, because there’s no going back and doing older stuff in this kind of scenario unless the game allows it and you have some reason to go there for something very specific. Progression is far more streamlined. But with Realm, it’s a co-op MMO, and people can take their endgame stuff at any time to basically just romplestomp anything they want to without anything stopping them, especially with how drastic the balance is between everything. It just… doesn’t work for this game.

Coronation is only in need of a slight Dexterity reduction, ~1 - 2 Dexterity or so. Other than that, it’s a much less gimmicky ring and for endgame, it’s much more on the fair side due to its dispersion of stats that make it strong, but not a complete replacement for most things.

#74

And you can’t do that when comparing items because the bow of deep enchantment is an obtainable item that people use. Sometimes.

People do not use the T14 bow much. It is widely known that the tiered bow are complete utter garbage. You literally only use the T14 bow if you don’t have harp, leaf, or anything that is just better. And people don’t use coral bow either, leaf bow is just better. Yes, it lacks a pierce, but it honestly does not matter when fighting a boss. Very little endgame bosses require piecing weapons, and you can always get a piercing bow as a swapout to leafbow that is NOT t14, like deathless or vbow for the lucky few.

Right… so wanna explain to me how two people I saw with endgame gear got romplestomped by O1 today? If you’re careless, you will still die. It doesn’t matter how stacked you are, you can even lose a fully exalted character to the godlands.

Coro really does not need a nerf. if you nerf the DEX by 2 points, it would be literally worse than a fucking Sphinx in terms of DPS stats! A Leuc drop worse than a tomb drop? Inconcievable!

–

Also about your point that realm shouldnt be all about DPS: It isn’t. There’s a reason why most don’t consider the UB rings as 1/4, and that’s because they don’t provide any supplementary effects to bolster your survivability. Fungal tome priests are prioritized in raids because, well, survivability. Mseal as well. The reason why DPS is a meta is because of the HP scaling, and not even because of HP scaling. Just thinking about it, the faster you kill something, the less of a threat it is.

#75

Do you not get what I was trying to say in the slightest? The comparison was specifically done between two items that dropped from a similar difficulty of dungeon due to the fact that we’re talking about things that should realistically be in a similar margin in terms of strength. I even specifically mentioned every bit of my reasoning when explaining this to Josh, which you conveniently did not include in favor of very specific snippets that are out of context.

I’m not sure if this is just willfully ignorant or completely misunderstanding every point I’ve been making about how balance works, but either way, please actually pay attention to what it is I’ve been saying. It’s just becoming bothersome that you’re taking very specific snippets and only bothering to talk about those, when they’re all a part of an overlying point and are connected in a very specific way.

The current World Record for a full Oryx’s Sanctuary is 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

You immediately assumed the number would be 2, when I mentioned in specific 1 - 2. A reduction of 1 would still work just fine, and I gave a range for a reason, because it all depends on what everyone thinks in terms of that number. While it’s still a very, very balanced out ring, the DPS of it is just the tiniest bit too high for something that also gives a strong amount of HP, MP and DEF, but not so much that you need to reduce it this huge amount.

I’m also going to jump to the next point as well, because

You cannot say, with no sense of irony, that DPS is not the meta like you did in the paragraph below it while also comparing Coronation to Sphinx and saying that Coronation is worse than Sphinx only because of its DPS stats. Sphinx’s other benefit is simply 100 MP, while Coronation has 110 HP, 55 MP, and 5 DEF. I’m flabbergasted that you had the audacity - the willpower - to directly contradict your own line of thinking only a single line later.

Hell, based on your own thinking that “they don’t provide any supplementary effects to bolster your survivability”, Sphinx would be extremely worse than Coronation because it provides no survivability benefits to anyone except for classes that are known as healers, of which one has extreme requirements in Discord runs anyways. You also cannot say that DPS isn’t a meta while also giving the direct reason that DPS is the meta and is almost entirely what Realm is about currently:

I don’t understand what your overall deal is. You cherrypick things from entire statements that are meant to be kept together for the sake of the point, you ignore a lot of the things that go into a complete statement, and you directly contradict yourself mere seconds after you say something. It baffles me.

Please either read what I said in full before you pick very specific segments to talk about, take the entire statement and respond to it as a whole rather than those specific segments, or don’t bother at all. I’m not here to have all of my statements warped into something completely different for the sake of you trying to make a point out of something that’s not even the intent of what I was writing.

#76

those records are largely carried by the existence of ep, not a particularly endgame item
(apologies if i’m cherry-picking, just saw this random piece of your post and wanted to comment)

#77

Bacon’s argument in this instance was that people with endgame gear got flattened by O1 in their experience, while a lot of the people who were in the WR had endgame gear on top of EP. However, I will say that largely, the equipment isn’t as big of a deal with something I neglected to specifically mention when talking about the World Record - and that’s the fact they were even able to use EP safely at all.

It’s entirely on me for not mentioning it, and I do apologize, though I’ll admit that I’m kind of just over it and wasn’t really in the mood to argue over the semantics of “I saw this one time, so clearly you’re wrong”.

(And don’t worry, that wasn’t cherrypicking. It was a very short statement.)

#78

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.