Stat stacking and balance/nerfing

nanfoodle

Over nerfing classes skills for balance. Why not instead flush out how stats work. Adding soft and hard caps for things like int and str?

The problem is when you balance a class by how DPS will be done when you have max stats. Lower levels eat it hard.

For people that don't know what soft and hard caps means. At a point a stat like int and str would at a soft cap still give you a damage increase but at a lesser degree. When you get to a hard cap, you would get not more use from that stat if you add more past the hard cap.

IMO this is why classes like Bard and Mage are balanced so badly.

Thoughts?

Volgaris

They should flush out the stats. It's odd this isn't done already, being such a core part of the game. Soft caps and hard caps are bad ideas, it's just a bandaid for a bad system. Making dumping all stats but one a viable option, or rather the meta is where skewed balance comes from. It's simple character progression. Stack your attributes with your gear and when you level you get an ittybitty little skill point to "customize" your character. It's about as simple and basic as you can get and still be called an RPG. Balancing for PvE and PvP are very different too, not an easy task. Problem is they only have two strings to pull the main attribute, int, str, dex, and the 'power' stat, physical or magical.

SmileGurney

I would imagine Intrepid considers character stats when attempting class balance passes, but from a personal priority perspective I would like them to address stat -> power -> damage scaling issues once for all. We had to deal with the impact of that in Phase1, and now again Phase2. Sources of those stats where different but the root cause is the same.

I get it that from Intrepid perspective those issues might be secondary, but they seem to miss that combat, small and larger scale is one of the few game systems which are enjoyable atm. It makes players come back to the playetest. It is not the brainless grind and fishing for high rarity materials and rare mob drops. In order to have a social sandbox, and fuel any political games / player created content in the game, you need people playing, and atm we are in a situation where whole guilds just stop playing.

So...if Intrepid intends to have play testers continue playing, at least as source of data, and some bug reports, then those foundations for enjoyable combat experience should be maintained.

Taleof2Cities

Is the Intrepid Combat Team at any milestone where they should be focusing on combat balance, nanfoodle?

Remember that there are still two classes to be released.

Note that your OP is still good feedback … but I’m not sure we’re at a point in Alpha 2 where there’s a lot of dev focus on this issue.

There are already replies in this thread asking for wholesale changes … to a combat system that is still being tuned to its original vision.

nanfoodle

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Is the Intrepid Combat Team at any milestone where they should be focusing on combat balance, nanfoodle?

Remember that there are still two classes to be released.

Note that your OP is still good feedback … but I’m not sure we’re at a point in Alpha 2 where there’s a lot of dev focus on this issue.

There are already replies in this thread asking for wholesale changes … to a combat system that is still being tuned to its original vision.

That's my point. There is no reason to balance combat, skills or balance till they fix stat points. We just got a balance of skills on the Baird's that left people not top geared hurting for DPS but balanced people who have stacked int on their Bard. I'm just suggesting a way to make low level and low geared players not feeling like they lost a valid build type. I get Steven wants gear to be meaningful. It's still over tuned.

Laetitian

nanfoodle wrote: »

Adding soft and hard caps for things like int and str?

I agree with everything else, but hard and soft caps for stats are such lazy balancing mechanics. Might as well not have stats at all, and just dictate a predefined configuration of what each class plays like relative to its gear's level and rarity. 🙄
No.
Properly figure out what sources your stats can come from and adjust their scope so they can't escalate beyond what's healthy for the game.
Edit: Realised a bit too late that Volgaris had basically already said all of this; sloppy speedread, sorry.

Agree with your other point, though: it's time to figure out meaningful stats source distribution now, to create the foundation for meaningful balancing work later on.