Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Stats multipliers hurts build creativity and I think AoC should make a difference regarding this
George_Black
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
Currently I am playing Witcher 3 for the 3rd time. Some times I log into ESO for a couple of BGs and then I log out quickly.
However these two games got me thinking recently that the main reason why people can't create fun builds with the classes and weapons and other tools we are given is that many games designs forces competitive players to use boring combinations.
First off, something unrelated to multiplier (%) bonuses.
In ESO stamina is the attribute that increases your stamina pool. The more you have the more physical skills you can use before you run out.
Magica is the attrivute that increases your magic pool. The more you have the more magic abilities you can use before you run out.
The devs also though it would be good if stamina gave you bonus physical damage and magica gave you bonus magic damage, regardless of actually having stats like Weapon Damage (increase physical damage) and Spell Damage (increase physical damage). There are also items that let you increase equally both your damage stats.
But if you are a fighter that wants to spare some points into magica, so that you can utilize some non dmg magic abilities like... I don't know, buffs, you can't do that. Because if you sacrifice your stamina points, your physical damage weakenss, even if you have high Weapon Damage.
And if you wanted to play as a battlemage? Nope, sry. Unless you dump all your points into stamina, you won't high enough physical damage output, even though you have good enough weapon damage.
Now to the main point of the thread. In ESO as well as other mmos, many buffs, passives, actives, selfbuffs, group buffs provide % bonuses.
Again from ESO, there is a buff called minor brutality which increases your weapon damage by %. So if you have access to this buff you would like to stack on Weapon Damage and weakness your self in other areas such as max MP, max stamina, stamina regen, HP regen. Anything.
Since you have this unique buff you want to drop everything and stack Weapon damage.
But what if this game didn't design this buff with a % bonus, rather a flat bonus. 100 Weapon damage at lv 15, 150 weapon damage at lv 25, 350 weapon damage at lv 50. There. You got your unique increase that not many other classes have. You got bonus to your weapon damage. But you are not forced into ignoring all other stats and just play with the same monotonous attack pattern.
And what about critical? Critical rate, critical damage. You want to increase your critical rate because you are a roque, but you sacrifice your weapon damage. Your damage is so low that your critical strikes are barely better than your normal strikes. And you also have chances to NOT land a critical hit.
Then you want to increase your critical damge but you have to sacrifice your rate,meaning good luck in landing one good strike.
But what if your weapon damage is low then what's the point of having high crit damage? 10 extra damage? When you land a crit?
Wouldn't it be better if there was only CRITICAL RATE? If you have high damage and high critical rate, you will often deal strong blows. Simple.
In witcher 3 there are combat skills that increase the damage of your strikes, there are magic skills that increase the damage of your magic and there are alchemy skills, that increase the damage of your bombs and the potency of your potions.
If you slot combat skills, you get free physical damage bonus. For every skill you slot you get 10% more dmg, meaning you can end up with 400% more damage on your sword strikes. Now compared to that your magic abilities or your bombs do laughable damage. If this lazy, free bonus, tied to no active action was not in the design of the game, players could easily pick and choose some sword skills, some magic skills and some alchemical skills and actually build a proper Witcher 3 playstyle, and feel like you are a witcher.
Did that free 10% bonus needed to exist? What does it offer to the gameplay, other than forcing players to play more boring builds.
Do we really need % bonuses and multiplier buffs? What is wrong with flat bonuses that increase the more the player lvs up that ability? Aren't bonus multipliers the main offended in min/maxing and to some extend some builds becoming OP, leading to balance problems?
If a class is designed to go in deal damage and get out, then design that class.
If a class is designed to take damage and CC, then design that class.
If a class is designed to deal some damage, take some damage but not be the focus target, design that class.
With % bonuses you have unkillable tanks that do nothing else, you have 1 shot rogues and mages and people complain.
People chose to play as a tank because they know that a tank does and doesn't. Same with damage dealers. % bonuses don't do ANYTHING to improve the identity of classes.
However these two games got me thinking recently that the main reason why people can't create fun builds with the classes and weapons and other tools we are given is that many games designs forces competitive players to use boring combinations.
First off, something unrelated to multiplier (%) bonuses.
In ESO stamina is the attribute that increases your stamina pool. The more you have the more physical skills you can use before you run out.
Magica is the attrivute that increases your magic pool. The more you have the more magic abilities you can use before you run out.
The devs also though it would be good if stamina gave you bonus physical damage and magica gave you bonus magic damage, regardless of actually having stats like Weapon Damage (increase physical damage) and Spell Damage (increase physical damage). There are also items that let you increase equally both your damage stats.
But if you are a fighter that wants to spare some points into magica, so that you can utilize some non dmg magic abilities like... I don't know, buffs, you can't do that. Because if you sacrifice your stamina points, your physical damage weakenss, even if you have high Weapon Damage.
And if you wanted to play as a battlemage? Nope, sry. Unless you dump all your points into stamina, you won't high enough physical damage output, even though you have good enough weapon damage.
Now to the main point of the thread. In ESO as well as other mmos, many buffs, passives, actives, selfbuffs, group buffs provide % bonuses.
Again from ESO, there is a buff called minor brutality which increases your weapon damage by %. So if you have access to this buff you would like to stack on Weapon Damage and weakness your self in other areas such as max MP, max stamina, stamina regen, HP regen. Anything.
Since you have this unique buff you want to drop everything and stack Weapon damage.
But what if this game didn't design this buff with a % bonus, rather a flat bonus. 100 Weapon damage at lv 15, 150 weapon damage at lv 25, 350 weapon damage at lv 50. There. You got your unique increase that not many other classes have. You got bonus to your weapon damage. But you are not forced into ignoring all other stats and just play with the same monotonous attack pattern.
And what about critical? Critical rate, critical damage. You want to increase your critical rate because you are a roque, but you sacrifice your weapon damage. Your damage is so low that your critical strikes are barely better than your normal strikes. And you also have chances to NOT land a critical hit.
Then you want to increase your critical damge but you have to sacrifice your rate,meaning good luck in landing one good strike.
But what if your weapon damage is low then what's the point of having high crit damage? 10 extra damage? When you land a crit?
Wouldn't it be better if there was only CRITICAL RATE? If you have high damage and high critical rate, you will often deal strong blows. Simple.
In witcher 3 there are combat skills that increase the damage of your strikes, there are magic skills that increase the damage of your magic and there are alchemy skills, that increase the damage of your bombs and the potency of your potions.
If you slot combat skills, you get free physical damage bonus. For every skill you slot you get 10% more dmg, meaning you can end up with 400% more damage on your sword strikes. Now compared to that your magic abilities or your bombs do laughable damage. If this lazy, free bonus, tied to no active action was not in the design of the game, players could easily pick and choose some sword skills, some magic skills and some alchemical skills and actually build a proper Witcher 3 playstyle, and feel like you are a witcher.
Did that free 10% bonus needed to exist? What does it offer to the gameplay, other than forcing players to play more boring builds.
Do we really need % bonuses and multiplier buffs? What is wrong with flat bonuses that increase the more the player lvs up that ability? Aren't bonus multipliers the main offended in min/maxing and to some extend some builds becoming OP, leading to balance problems?
If a class is designed to go in deal damage and get out, then design that class.
If a class is designed to take damage and CC, then design that class.
If a class is designed to deal some damage, take some damage but not be the focus target, design that class.
With % bonuses you have unkillable tanks that do nothing else, you have 1 shot rogues and mages and people complain.
People chose to play as a tank because they know that a tank does and doesn't. Same with damage dealers. % bonuses don't do ANYTHING to improve the identity of classes.
0
Comments
A flat bonus buff allows you to spec into MORE stat options. You can always keep going into more of the same stat like the one given by the buff, you are not missing out on anything.
If the same buff gives % bonus, and you don't go after more sources of that stat, you are missing out.
There is no logic in saying that % bonuses offer more pathways.
Only flat values allow for more build varieties.
Buffs like that are like keystone passives in Path of Exile. They exist for you to create a build around. If you dont want that build, you dont use that buff.
Percent values offer more pathways if the developers are not shit. Each stat should have a similar buff made available to players, so that players can pick a build and go all out in to it if they wish.
What limits choice is shit developers.
For the love of the gods yes!
I remember in ESOs beta thinking: "Wow this is like DDO with a bunch of skill trees I can pick from to make a cool character", then a the game came out and I was capped thinking: "gee this is not the build flexibility I signed up for...". That game just makes all of the exact opposite of what I consider good development decisions. I don't know much about ESOs development, but it is almost like ESO had someone with a really solid dream in the beginning, then that person mysteriously vanished. Leaving a bunch of people with weird ideas to finish the game.
I don't think using multipliers is the issue. DDO/POE use multipliers all day and I can spend hours in both of their build editors coming up with solid builds I want to try.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Aren't we all sinners?
CASE A: 0 inherent magica, 10 points to spend, +50% multiplier for mages
CASE B: 4 inherent magica, 10 points to spend, +50% multiplier for mages
This is trading depth of specialization (read: uniqueness) for build flexibility though.
Personally, I like games that allow you to specialize powerfully, but with explicit penalties and drawbacks.
This. I generally keep my build a little more horizontal for the vast majority of gameplay and only everest that shit when I get to end game. The horizontal portion (99% of the game) allows for significant build diversity.
Remember, just because you're not steamrolling content doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.
Hours and hours.
Nothing beats theory building a character from scratch and discovery that it's not only fun, it's also effective!
It should say non-shit.
I would change it, but it appears I have accidently deleted that whole post... and replaced it with the Cliffs Notes version.
Oh, well good thing your phone chose the only socially "correct" option, so we won't cancel you this time hehhehheh /s
I think this exists for good reason though. In order to allow truly hybrid playstyles to compete, where you could pick whatever abilities/weapons/perks you want, then nothing could be allowed to synergize. Anything that synergizes has to be taken/used along with it's counterparts, leading to restricted builds. Without synergy, the end result would be that every ability works statically, with little regard for other abilities in the build. Unfortunately, I think that would lead to even less build variety, because it's extremely hard to make new abilities that are unique, interesting, and balanced compared to other abilities, when they aren't allowed to interact/synergize at all.
Basically, it's easier to make a lot of different class kits/specs, which can be complex because of their ability and perk interactions, than it is to create a bunch of different abilities that don't interact and try to build an interesting character from that.
Isn't that kinda how Albion works? I never played it. Can someone attest to the build variety/quality in Albion?
Yeah, it would seem my phone is more PC than I am.
I haven't played Albion, but I agree that increased specialization makes it easier to balance the classes and each build, because you can target tweaks at certain builds more easily without affecting other builds too much, even if it's a % multiplier.
An example from LoL was the item "Deathfire Grasp" which would deal x damage to an enemy and increase all magic damage they took by ~35% for a few seconds. This item became a huge part of almost every mage's kit in the game. Eventually the item was removed from the game completely (probably because it had 0 interactive counterplay) but the fallout was that all the bursty assassin mages who had been balanced around the item were unable to execute for a few patches because they had lost ~30% of their damage output, whereas non-assassin mages weren't affected as much.