LE Balance Committee - A serious suggestion for overall game quality

General
41

I development you don’t pass into production anything untested. Of course you will continue working, but you only publish a version that were properly tested. Technically there a quite a few methods to “freeze a version” and continue the work on another branch/version, whatever method they use. Again, is just good practice.

You are absolutely no one to say that.

You so didn’t present any proof either, I over-exceeded in my explanation, don’t expect to happen all the time.

Obviously a core skill not working at all would be quite high on any priority list.

All the possible ideas you exposed only shows you have no idea about coding methodology in general.

Thanks to you, it is not the case, you’re clearly the fool here. That’s how it works.

Again, maybe I’m wrong, and I will gladly take it back if I’m proven wrong, but a random dude telling me I am making things up when all screams I am right… Dude, sorry.

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42

Sometimes in development you don’t have the time to fix all the bugs. Actually that’s most of the time. If you had to fix literally all the bugs before shipping anything out no game would come out in time.
Also the person who makes the first claim should provide the proof.

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43

Same thing happened to me which made me stop playing a while back, i made rank 3 with my VK warpath proc’r and sure enough they ripped it to the bone. I am complete agreeance with you that nerfs should be a last resort and devs should consider meta builds as not the problem. the problem is the rest of the builds available to the class are not inline i/e skills suck, dps not there, and most of all in this game the defense is not there. I am currently running a minion necro and was having fun destroying timelines but hit a wall at EoC (emporer of corpses). The entire screen just fills up with dps pools, dps whirlwinds, and dps breath attack. the breath attack is fine, its like lagon, just move but with all the blood pools there is no where to go and half the screen is a die in 2 secs whirlwind. So if you stand outside the outerhalf of the screen, all the blood pools fill up the center. Character defenses have been too far nerfed for the fight. Basically you need 150% in necrotic and physical res to take the damage, which more than likely means you need extra gear for specific bosses. Which is impossible in arena, I dont want, and i believe most gamers (you know 99% of the non elitists) don’t want, 15 sets of gear to make the game playable at areas.
I feel your pain on the nerfs.

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44

Yes, Q&A test everything before it gets anywhere.

He is, 'cause he’s a CT & you aren’t.

45

Well, first, if he doesn’t say so I am not a fortune-teller.

Second, I don’t give a F damn. He is still being an ass, being CT gives him (or you) any moral superiority over other people.

Anyways this is far from productive in any way. I’m out of this discussion. Try to watch your manners, I will also try myself.

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46

This is true.

Yeah, this a daily quest. But believe it or not, this is me veing relatively polite and more, mellow, than I have been in the past (just ask some of the devs).

47

Its important for royalty to have dignified behaviour

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48

You wouldn’t say that if you’d met me…

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49

You guys nailed this point. 100% agree.

cough BOWMAGE cough

I too am 100% against “important” player drive game changes. These should come from the devs based on internal analytics, NOT perceived observations as human gut feelings and impressions are notoriously contradictory to actual data. No company should allow players access to internal analytics.

Suggested Solution:
Instead of buffing/nerfing specific skills and skill trees, implement new Uniques or class-specific Idols that can change those “unplayed” skills and bring them up to par, or even slightly above the current meta.

I currently have 6 MP characters – one from each main class and two Primalists as I am theory-crafting a new Primalist build. Each of the builds I play has a silly mechanic of some kind that pushes the interactions of skills into the stratosphere. None of them are balanced in any way. Balancing is notoriously difficult as gear and other drops can make huge swings in how a character plays.

Suggested Solution: Outsource balancing to an AI. XD

50

Horrifying.

I love it.

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51

HAL9000: I’m Sorry, Dave, but Ingvar’s Head and Gambler’s Fallacy is game-breaking and should you choose to equip them together I will be forced to spawn Orobyss in your toilet the next time you use the bathroom.

Have a nice day.

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52

Oh well, at that point I thought you might already have figured out. I’m not running around telling everybody. Why should I? Because everytime it comes to surface this happens:

Nobody said that. Nobody acted liked that. All I asked for was you to proof your statement. And I suggested to not spread rumours.

I didn’t use a single curse word. And I didn’t call you an ass. Or a liar. I didn’t ask you to ‘shut up’. But ckearly, I’m the one to watch my manners.

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53

Seems to me all the things that this thread is asking for are already happening and EHGs has the luxury of no drama associated with, “what makes him/her so special!”.

I’m not in that group, and I’m really happy about that because that group expends a ridiculous amount of unpaid and unappreciated (except, quietly, by the devs) effort… as this thread shows.

I hope dev teams are already thinking about using ‘AI’ (big data techniques) to determine which builds are … which. Where ‘which’ can mean anything from popular/unpopular, over-performing, under-performing, or, more abstractly, just more fun to play. I don’t expect that from this team because that is a specialized skill that currently commands $$$ or a great deal of effort to come up to speed. (maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised).

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54

Maybe Orobyss IS an AI and the Void Horrors are all that was left of humanity after the AI war…

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55

I’m not sure what this sentence means, its worded wierdly and hard to understand.

Anyway, before this thread got derailed by an imagined problem that a group committee composed of the players in liason with the devs would become ‘self-serving’ and promote only changes in their own interests, despite my objecting that doing this in plain sight would be scrutinized by everyone including the devs,

The main points were that, with respect to the devs and their time, they most certainly wouldn’t have the time to sink thousands of hours into each class playing them. And while they are designing the skills/items and making the decisions, they wouldn’t have the insight that players with thousands of hours played would have on some things and my point is that they could draw upon that with something like this.

Alternatively, their time is valuable so time essentially ‘wasted’ theorycrafting how to curb or buff certain skills or items could be spent implementing new content if a balance group were constantly offering suggestions on these things as they arose.

The end result I am seeking is a diverse, healthy meta where many many builds are viable and none can be outlined as a clear winner above all the rest. This is currently not what we have - it is very clear who the winners and losers are and where a select few are miles above all other builds.

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Can the Devs themselves play every possible build: Of Course Not.
Can the Devs code analytics so that they have insight into every possible build: Duh.
Trust the Analytics.

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Analytics are a bit of a problem. I played the old EQ Werebear once and threw it away instantly bcause it was mindnumbingly boring. My Data would be terrible compared to someone who likes it and plays it 24/7.
What data do you use at the end of the day to nerf things? The data of the best performing 10% the data of the middle ground or the data of the worst players with the setup? I guess we all know the data to this and I think the game is balanced arround dmg potential rather then numbers themself because if it was only about numbers there would’ve never been a Bastion ingame.

58

I think Mike has said any analytics is/will be auxiliary to other factors in decision-making.

I think as long as it doesnt become the only factor, sensibility and aesthetic will prevail :slight_smile:

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59

You’re totally right. A small group of people in an elevated position behaving self-servingly and focusing primarily on their own interests instead of those of the larger group they’re meant to represent has never happened ever. It’s never happened in education, banking, business, government, sports, medicine, religious and spiritual organizations, charity, law enforcement, technology, gaming, journalism, law, entertainment, or really just any organization of any kind. Totally imaginary, doesn’t happen, definitely not to gamers.

That would definitely prevent any and all possible behavior which is not 100% altruistic. Unless, of course, there were even the smallest chance that anybody could ever communicate with each other in a more private, secret way. It’s a good thing no method of doing that exists!

The idea that devs need to sink some arbitrary number of hours into actively playing each class in all its possible iterations in order to balance them - and also do so equal to a player with a singular, narrow, and probably self-serving viewpoint of the game - is not sensible, just arrogant. This is why forums and data and analytics exist.

This is specious at best. Even at a smaller company like EHG where people are going to wear multiple hats, the idea that spending time on design and balance automatically takes away from implementation of new content is silly.

And even if it did, there’s still no reason to alienate every other player by creating a Special Cool Kids Balance Group, because anybody who’d be in the SCKBG can already share their thoughts and concerns on balance and discuss them with anyone else who might be in the SCKBG right now. That alleged higher quality feedback can already be delivered to the devs. Once again: The only real goal of such a group is to create a caste system for feedback and ostracize “average joes”.

A “best players only” feedback group does not make that result more likely in any way whatsoever. It’s just gatekeeping.

Outliers in usage, for one, are extremely easy to identify with data, and those are generally the most egregious things that need to get nerfed. If you run analytics on every character that’s pushed X Corruption and the majority of them are using the same item/build/class, there’s clearly a problem there and something needs to be changed. I don’t think anybody’s proposing that be where the process starts and ends, though.

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60

Personally, I’d say such a thing doesn’t necessitate a change, but definitely necessitates questions:

  • Are we ok with this?
  • What are the identified or possible positive and negative consequences?

The answers may lead to change (or not).

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