Nerfing damage +other gameplay balances

[shylucky85]

The build paths are interesting to look at and imagine but hard to be enjoyed as all mobs die way to quickly.

i would like to see a nerf in base skill damage with more emphasis on +skill dmg nodes.

As of now the player has access to easily to both damage / atk spd / and defensive buff (via nodes). I would like to be forced to choose atk vs defence vs other (atk spd) buffs.

higher mob resistances to force users to have alternative skill elements. To add to this battle situations where each fight requires the use of multiple elements. perhaps add ‘absorb’ and/or ‘reflect’ to mob stats.

would be nice to have a higher difficulty setting or option to buff mobs with rewards.

lower movement speed in general and even moreso for armor (vs dodge) equipment. ie add a movement penalty on defence focused pieces. it is way to easy to dodge / kite mobs and bosses.

lower health in general. force the user to invest into defensive ability nodes. interesting idea would be to increase damage taken when more then x mobs are attacking you at the same time (melee) or behind you (take more damage when running away)

please add skill tree for dodge skill or alternatively have skills for dodge scattered throughout other skill nodes

lower bow damage! via atk speed nerf and/or range

would be interesting to have ‘skill books’ (and even specific skill node books) to upgrade skills
(and even force user to either upgrade the character tree vs skills trees)

and/or nerf mana regen. make mana leech a valuable trait and limit the frequency of skill use

nerf health regen… make life leech valuable

nerf attack rating and force user to invest in DEX (melee / range)

nerf cast speed and force user to invest in … (magic)

nerf dodge (distance/frequency/add MANA consumption/maybe add cooldown time on skills after use… which can be later upgraded through its skill tree or other skills tree nodes)

please add more interesting mob behavior… running away / regrouping… kamikaze mobs… specialized status effect mobs… mobs with channeling or charge abilities.

more mob skills… force the user to move / dodge vs stand and use skills… more mob skills that silence skills (use certain skills) / restrict movement (slow or stop movement or can’t dodge) / other status effects (ie. can’t regen)… force user to invest into cc resist

mob abilities that ‘linger’… ie on death leaves xxx (slows that stack or stun after x stacks)… ie on death buffs other mobs

harsher dealth penalties (ie durability / item breaking/ dropping of inventory or even equipment!)… and a use for gold throughout the game

more on durability / item breaking… limit the repair availability on top. example lower durability after repair or needs certain items to repair or sacrifice (equal) item type/level/rarity to repair. force users to plan out future development and have use for other equipment. force user to maybe adjust their play style / abilities as the game progresses.

[Heavy]

I agree and disagree on alot of points here

@shylucky85

i would like to see a nerf in base skill damage with more emphasis on +skill dmg nodes.

I don’t think this is necessary.
On top of that, alot of people (still) complain about the harshness of the skill respec system (even though it got already way less punishing over the course of multiple patches). Lowering base damage, without skill node investment would make this issue even worse.
I personally like the skill respec system, but i don’t see this change helping at all.

@shylucky85

As of now the player has access to easily to both damage / atk spd / and defensive buff (via nodes). I would like to be forced to choose atk vs defence vs other (atk spd) buffs.

This really depends on the skills. Some skills have alot of interesting offensive and defensive option and you never will be able to take all offensive and defensive routes that are usefull for your build. There are very few skills were i ever have the opportunity to take all nodes that i would want to take.

@shylucky85

higher mob resistances to force users to have alternative skill elements. To add to this battle situations where each fight requires the use of multiple elements. perhaps add ‘absorb’ and/or ‘reflect’ to mob stats.

Those kind of mobs already exist and they are pretty notciable in higher MoF Echoes for sure.
Those mobs are always the same base types, so it get’s pretty boring for a build to always have the same mobs be very tanky against your build.
Having new Mob Modifiers giving random magic/rare mobs resistances to one specific damage type would be a cool twist. Either by resistance or a “shield”.
This type of modifier should never happen on the same mob with modifiers like max health or dodge though, making soem mobs HP Sponges.

Also i am nopt a big fan of reflect affixes. IF they ever implement reflect affixes it should be very clearly visually communicated that a mob has reflect and that reflect should be a temporary buff on the mob, every now and then

@shylucky85

would be nice to have a higher difficulty setting or option to buff mobs with rewards.

I am not sure if devs plan anything like that. But i think the base difficulty is kidna a good middleground for every type of player currently.
But I would like to see more and higher MoF Timelines and a mroe significant increase in difficulty for empowered timelines and maybe even a 3rd, even more difficult option for timelines.

@shylucky85

lower movement speed in general and even moreso for armor (vs dodge) equipment. ie add a movement penalty on defence focused pieces. it is way to easy to dodge / kite mobs and bosses.

Combat and game pace in LE is already relatively slow and movement speed is a really rare to get stat. I don’t think they are any changes to MS necessary.

@shylucky85

lower health in general. force the user to invest into defensive ability nodes. interesting idea would be to increase damage taken when more then x mobs are attacking you at the same time (melee) or behind you (take more damage when running away)

I really like that Health, Dodge, Armour and Resistances are all valauble defensive options and you always want a combination of those.
I don’t understand why you want Health to be lowered. Health is a purely optional defensive option like all the others.

@shylucky85

please add skill tree for dodge skill or alternatively have skills for dodge scattered throughout other skill nodes

Not sure what you mean. There are already plenty of skills that grant temporary dodge.

@shylucky85

and/or nerf mana regen. make mana leech a valuable trait and limit the frequency of skill use

Please for the love of god, do not introduce mana leech.
Also why you suggest nerfing mana regen and then suggest a totally unbalanceable mechanic like mana leech?
Mana management in LE is one of the greatest in any other similar game.
It’s mandatory and cannot be trivialized.

@shylucky85

nerf health regen… make life leech valuable

Both Health Regen and Leech are really strong, neither of those is stronger than the other.
Leech is already super duber valuable. It’s already borderline OP IMO.

@shylucky85

nerf cast speed and force user to invest in … (magic)

Not sure what you mean. There are spells that you can scale with damage and/or cast speed.
Also some of the more expensive spells are already worth more scaling with raw damage instead of cast speed.

@shylucky85

nerf dodge (distance/frequency/add MANA consumption/maybe add cooldown time on skills after use… which can be later upgraded through its skill tree or other skills tree nodes)

I really like dodge in LE. It never can be a primary solo defense, you will always need other defensive on top of it, since it’s hardcapped at 75%.

@shylucky85

please add more interesting mob behavior… running away / regrouping… kamikaze mobs… specialized status effect mobs… mobs with channeling or charge abilities.

I think LE always has some of the more interesting mob behaviours, but we certainly can get more and more. (Btw there are already mobs that run away)

@shylucky85

more mob skills… force the user to move / dodge vs stand and use skills… more mob skills that silence skills (use certain skills) / restrict movement (slow or stop movement or can’t dodge) / other status effects (ie. can’t regen)… force user to invest into cc resist

I guess that’s an ongoing proccess as we get more mobs and the game develops anyway. LE already has a great emphasize on telegrapghed abilities, even on random trash mobs.

@shylucky85

mob abilities that ‘linger’… ie on death leaves xxx (slows that stack or stun after x stacks)… ie on death buffs other mobs

I personally dislike “on-death” effects, it’s just a cheap way of intropducing mob mechanics that does not make them matter, when they live.
PoE for example introduced all those On-Death Effects, because giving mobs abilities while they were alive was worthless, because the power creep was so ridiculous, it didn’t matter, because mobs didn’t live long enough.
I prefer mobs being tougher and matter when they live.

There are already some On-Death effect, which basically do very little damage, they could buff that as a first step, but i don’t want to see many more of those effects.

@shylucky85

harsher dealth penalties (ie durability / item breaking/ dropping of inventory or even equipment!)… and a use for gold throughout the game

Death Penalty is planned, confirmed by the devs.

[shylucky85]

these nerfs are to compliment the base system that the game has built for stats.

without them the skills and stats become mundane. the game at the moment is purely about stack DPS… see an enemy (regardless of what type or rarity) and plow through them and rush forward.

this game has potential to become a deep arpg… at the moment playing the game feels like playing (sorry horrible example)… feels like playing torchlight. There doesn’t feel a NEED to optimize equipment and stats to specifics and especially to clear areas. Example… i have a fire build archer and playing through the desert areas with fire resis mobs was the difference between mobs melting in 0.5 seconds to 1.5 seconds.

CLARIFY when i said dodge i meant the dodge SKILL not the stat. have a tree for the dodge skill or have buffs for the dodge skill throughout other skill ability trees.

[Heavy]

The base difficulty of the game, especially for the story does not force your to invest a whole lot in defenses, i agree.
Especially since alot of the super lethal stuff is telegraphed.

@shylucky85

without them the skills and stats become mundane. the game at the moment is purely about stack DPS… see an enemy (regardless of what type or rarity) and plow through them and rush forward.

@shylucky85

There doesn’t feel a NEED to optimize equipment and stats to specifics and especially to clear areas.

May i ask how far you gotten into the game?
If you playing high MoF you definitely need to optimize your skills, passives and gear.
Of course i would like to see evne harder stuff, but there is certainly alot of content, that requires you to optimize.

And defense in LE is king. Most of your damage coems from synergistic skills and less so from gear (generally)

@shylucky85

CLARIFY when i said dodge i meant the dodge SKILL not the stat. have a tree for the dodge skill or have buffs for the dodge skill throughout other skill ability trees.

All classes have at least ONE movement skill, which is optional.
I don’t think we need more dodge/movement skills.

[shylucky85]

Story Temple of Heorot and level 40ish.

my feedback should apply to even story mode and not just end game content. I’m losing touch / difficult to get into the story… mainly because I’m blazing through the combat so quickly. mobs + rare mobs are 0 threat (and a waste of time essentially just in the way to get to the boss). bosses can’t kill me and dodging is too simple.

Also i am playing Archer. The impacts of skills/stats maybe more balanced for melee and im interested to try that when multi comes.

[Heavy]

Your post and initial feedback is definitely valuable, but i think, when proposing such huge and plenty of changes, you should state, how far you already reached.

Most of your feedback will most likely change, when reaching endgame. When you are forced to build your character more synergistic.

You did not experience alot of the game yet. Also some of the Monolith Of Fate Bosses (Endagme Mode) are actually real bosses and do require tactic and awareness.

You also have not seen all enemy types yet.

I agree that LE is very easy in story mode currently.

[Llama8]

And as a general reply to all of the “nerf player damage”, the campaign is pretty easy at the moment, hopefully they will beef up the mobs a bit between chapters 5-7 (Imperial era through to Heoborea/Thetima).

[helot_commander]

Funny enough, it’s the fire temple to heoborea that usually does me in. I tend not to stack resists super heavily before then, so one good fire skill can take me out.

The game’s difficulty is almost directly proportional to how good your resists are. If you haven’t picked up any resists, it gets hard, fast. If you’ve been crafting and carefully managing your resists, it’s a cakewalk.

[gunther.leenaert]

So basically, if you’re smart, you need to play this on hardcore. Oh, and it was the Heoborea cold mobs for me I’m now sporting some resists.

[Llama8]

Yes, but you can also get through to somewhere in the 30s-40s with just lvl 2 dodge gear.

[Llama8]

HC isn’t any harder though, it just punishes you harder for failing.

[gunther.leenaert]

What do you mean? Not dying is a real challenge. (I’m playing my first acolyte -> lich btw)

[Heavy]

He is just saying that Hardcore does not make the game itself “harder”.

Like the difficulty of the game itself.

[Llama8]

Yeah, as Heavy said, the mobs don’t hit harder or have more resists or have more skills you just get punished for ####ing up harder.

[Irrelevant]

Okay first things first even if people wan’t to nail me to that elitist cross after. Level 40 and story mode is a weak point for balancing feedback. If they balance everything about the possible stats you can have in each zone the might loose arround 50% of the playerbase because people want to get over with the story part in most cases.
It’s a Beta and balancing so far shoul’d be the least important thing outside of broken stuff or not working or wrong working mechanics. Is the game to easy? For a lot of vocal players it is as well as to hard for another group of vocal players. Then again most of the players are silent so it lokks to me like everything is in a rather good place.
Sure it’s a bit strange that the game finaly ramps up difficulty later on but there was no hack and slay with a hard story mode ever. With the additional endgame stuff that will be added I couldn’t care less about the story difficulty because I’m an endgame focused player. Monolith and Arena aren’t my cup of tea because both game modes are to braindead for me and the most important thing I look forward to is the new endgame that may become a thing in the future.
Right now I think the story line is in an okay state not to troubblesome and not far to easy untill you have a bit of stuff crafted that makes the whole story line totaly useless ^^.

[Llama8]

The balance early game is important, I just don’t think one can make sweeping judgements about the entire game based on the early game, as valid as those judgements may be for the early game.

I’m sure the devs will give the entire campaign a balance pass or three at some point to give the game a more consistent increase in difficulty.