Combat Balance

[Burns]

As you might know, top players are talking about their damages in hundreds of thousands.
New players talk about it in... tens. not tens of thousands, just tens.

So, like, there i sat with tons of logs, trying to find some creative way to even things out a bit, at least a bit. Just because it doesn't seem really likely for a player to stay when other people can deal a 10.000 times more damage than him. Emphasis on TEN_THOUSAND_TIMES, not a thousand more, but houndreds of thousands more.
Which is only achieveable by shop or a lot, lot, lotlotlot of mindless grinding. And creatures they don't even know about when starting.

But hell, it's hard to balance things, specially because Mur already did a lot of balance-work, and damn, he did it really fine for anything but top-grinders.
And suddenly it occurs to me that i look at the wrong things! It's not tokens that need new balance, it's not crit-boost either, they work just fine!
The only thing that matters here is ORDER!

As with most things, timing and order are crucial in MD battles.
Currently, what happens in a combat is this:

Check rituals and occasionally do a low-vit-randomizer
Load rituals
Apply token-boost
Apply special influences
Apply Combo
Apply energetic influence
Fight

If you just switch two of those sequences, which are probably actually as simple to switch as a cut-paste in the source, and turn it into

Check rituals and occasionally do a low-vit-randomizer
Load rituals
[color="#FF0000"]Apply special influences[/color]
[color="#0000FF"]Apply token-boost[/color]
Apply Combo
Apply energetic influence
Fight

you don't even need to mess with the balance Mur so eloquently puzzled together already, and not change much for most of the players, but cut the damage of top players by... roughly 80%. Probably more.
That turns hundreds of thousands into a few ten thousand, which sounds by far saner. Still not really good, but a whole lot better than current state of things.


Also, since Angiens were designed to do damage comparable to those lethal tokenmonsters, they need to be... regulated, too.
I'd say, cap the burn (NOT the self-inflicted damages, things get calculated normally, and the damage to _the other person_ gets capped afterwards) with the ammount of VE they have at the moment. For the untokened top-players, that's a cut to 1/15th of their current burn-power, tokened angiens would lose 99,99% of their current burn. Not that they'd get weak by that, they are endlessly overpowered as it is.


No new tokens and crit-boost-systems that are totally low when you only have a little of this and a little of that, no, keep them as it is, power to the younglings! But let them work in another order, and the old top notches, token-whores and crit-boost monsters lose their god-status.

Qualified critics are welcome, but please, don't post when you don't have a clue what this might mean if implemented.

[spoiler]
Btw: VE-whores, also the ones with angiens, are not as much of a problem as it seems, either, with severly lowered damages and severely increased VE, eles get a role to play again[/spoiler]

[Blackwoodforest]

You really got the point and I am glad to see someone with the right skills really care about this topic. Since grinding it a big problem all over all games maybe this correction of yours can be tested and maybe implemented.

[Tarquinus]

Allow me to agree. As a fan of both the combat system and the Fight Club, I would love to see the problem of the orders-of-magnitude difference in damage redressed. Well said, Burns, and well thought.

[lightsage]

Before continuing reading, please consider this carefully: I am confident almost all of you have already read some "new" knowledge in burns' post, there is more here...

[i][u]Do you want the solution handed to you?[/u][/i]

[spoiler]
[quote]
Also, since Angiens were designed to do damage comparable to those lethal tokenmonsters, they need to be... regulated, too.
I'd say, cap the burn (NOT the self-inflicted damages, things get calculated normally, and the damage to _the other person_ gets capped afterwards) with the ammount of VE they have at the moment. For the untokened top-players, that's a cut to 1/15th of their current burn-power, tokened angiens would lose 99,99% of their current burn. Not that they'd get weak by that, they are endlessly overpowered as it is.[/quote]


I still see a problem there, first let me expand on your "sequence".

Before creature boost aura's[sup]1[/sup] (or any other aura for that matter), there is also a creature's base stat. Now, this would still be applied before creaturboost aura's. For the very simple reason that they would not have any effect at all otherwise.

Now back to the angiens, they happen to have quite a lot of defence they also have a creatureboost that applies to this. This results in a defence so high, that without a 6 drachorn (5 boosters 1 GG) or another angien rit it's almost impossible to damage and even with the drach rit damage will barely be dealt.

There is of course still ways to use damage the angiens or lifesteal on these angiens. However, without the boosts they'd still be left with an insane amount of VE. (To get back to the numbers, I've seen rituals with 500k ve on EACH creature).

The power on angiens is also quite high, and even without tokens boosted maxed angiens deal a lot of damage 1/15th of this with high ve (combocount is enough for this for most players) is easily enough to wipe out pretty much any other ritual and by far more than lifesteal (as this is caped at 20%). In addition to this, they won't "overburn" themselves any longer resulting in freezing being much less effective.

So what do we have? Angiens that survive the first hit easily because the damage output in general is nerfed. And do not kill themselves completely (or overkill even) after their devastating hits (which, at 1/15th of current are still devastating and a claw I or III doesn't result in more self inflicted damage as your easily caped on the 99,99%) which usually result in a completely destroyed ritual the case of (very) high VE on defense [sup]2[/sup] or a lot of lucky freezes exempted.[sup]3[/sup]

Now, as I see it, there's 3 plausible solutions (In addition to burns' suggested changes):

a. Cap the damage[sup]4[/sup] at a reasonable amount, 8k is a number that springs to mind[sup]5[/sup]
b. Remove the ability to target multiple creatures (in addition to above mentioned changes) This would make a 6 angien ritual a lot less useful whilst still having them as high damagers (yay for ritual diversity)
c. Cap the damage dealt at the value that 99.99% of ve loss would normally "allow" (might have to finetune the 1/25th)[sup]5[/sup]
Also: Instead off 99.99% I'd suggest the angiens just being left with 1 VE.

You will notice this is mostly a "rough" idea. It'll take us into the right direction but not completely ballance the combat system (and under power several shop features).

Please Mur, think carefully about changes you make as the last ones have either offset the ballance (rusts, tokens, angiens) or not worked (priest, SW/TS) and the combat system was a thing of beauty before. I know there is a lot of thoughtful consideration (and math) required in order to balance the system out as well as the need to give an "edge" to people who buy things in MDShop. Should you want help from the community I'd suggest a forum with limited access or a work group as it'd require discussing details that are in essence spoilers (more has been revealed in this topic about game mechanics/angiens than I'd like already)

1: All aura's that boost a % for example [attackboost], [creatureboost] or [levelscare]
2: This is a lot harder on defense than on attack as in defence you only have your personal VE opposed to simply combo count.
3: In fact, a not-insanely-high-ve-ritual would need to contain atleast 3 freezers and a loreroot archer/lifealer to have a [i]chance[/i] at winning.
4: NOT "attack" so this'd be the effective damage dealt to the creature
5: NOT a calculated amount, I might put a different value there after considerationg
6: Also not a value I've done calculations with yet
[/spoiler]

[Burns]

Late response to Light: That's exactly why i wrote 'NOT the self-inflicted damages, things get calculated normally, and the damage to _the other person_ gets capped afterwards'. They were supposed to keep their overburn flaw, it was practically the only way to win against their massive defence.

Now Angiens are stripped of their only weakness.
Whereas a newbie had a chance against 6 angiens before, with rather simple tricks, they are now only beatable with force, just like critboost-token-monsters T_T

You know, i'm really glad that you pick up on ideas so fast, but you didn't quite make things better with that change...

Edit
I guess that could be read wrong, so i'll clarify: Angiens are pretty different from before, and a lot less god-ish, which is great, yeah, but they were flawed to some point which made them beatable. Now they are... like drachs, basically, just a lot stronger. Fine, fair enough, maybe a newbie should simply have no chance against angiens, like they are not supposed to have a chance against drachs.

But the original problem, that with tokens and crit-boost causing damages well beyond sanity, that's still the same, it just was turned into a problem that's only with shop creatures (currently, until people get a hold of enough of those tainted angiens).

I see that MD needs an income, and providing things to beat anything to pulp in shop obviously works to some point, but it doesn't have to be THAT much damage. Critboost should provide a massive advantage, and so should tokens, but combined, they should be massive+massive, not massive^massive as they are now.

iirc, MRDs damage of 1 drach boosted with 5 rusties was 20k, and the damage of all tokens added together is like 6k, if somebody by coincidence has all with the matching principles and knows better, correct me please. The damage of a tokened drach boosted with 5 rusties is about 400k. Why not turn it into 26k? That's still a great advantage, great enough so it still pays to buy both of it, even. And that wouldn't be THAT offputting for freeplayers.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Burns

[Muratus del Mur]

no it is not a simple copy paste replace. that order you talk about is one of the things that gets me brain damage when i think about it. I will have to investigate the exact case of those two things to know for sure , but what i can say now is that i am forced to load things in a certain order because they might depend one on the other.

There is also the issue of future flexibility, things that are more likely to get more expanded than others need to be loaded last so that they have access to the things loaded before them. Tokens will not change anytime soon, they are hard to change because they also need an image and currently i dont plan to push anymore image on that poor little creature icon. So tehnically tokens should be loaded first because they are more "fixed" than influences. Influences can expand in the future a lot more, so it is better for them to have access to what tokens did to the creature in the first place than the other way around.

just a sec, i will check something


..

yep, listen to this, freeze for example. A creature needs to be frozen first in order that the antifreeze will make any sense. Otherwise, if you unfreeze it first then the freeze comes into play, it will make no sense because it will get frozen regardless of how well it is unfrozen "before".

..
i think there are more such issues with the "order". To switch places of these two, i need to review all the abilities and see what will get broken if i do so. Right now there is a big comment i see above the token loading function telling that it should be _before_ the influences. I honestly don't remember all the reasons i put that warning there (for myself to read later), but i dont plant to switch them without analyzing every possible aspect first.

[Burns]

Probably i can't see all the reasons, then...

What i found as reasons for token to go first are the following:
Logic structure (Crit, Crit-related, Rit, Rit-related, player as order from smallest bit to biggest part of the ritual [Creature, then token, then critboost, then combo, then influence])
Not making blooddrops overpowered, they are pretty cheap after all
Keeping other %-based tokens lower, too
A few auras that still don't work (mostly skillvampire)


What i found as reasons for tokens to go second:
Antifreeze-tokens, which are currently useless according to your explanation :/
Logc order, if you consider tokens not part of a creature, but a spell cast on them (not a natural part of a crit, but a special feature added by a player's shop)
Not having 50k+ as damage standards anymore

If i remember right, you invented tokens as a way for a newbie to beat the stats of a veteran.
That just doesn't work out as it is, Vets don't need their stats when they can play with critboost-tokens. In fact, they make sure to not play their stats, because that would lower their init and damage a _[size="6"][color="#FF0000"]LOT[/color][/size]_.

[No one]

I don't understand what are you fighting about, really.
Why do you want to make an equilibrium between new players and old players or just grinders ?
There is just one way to do that: REMOVE PERSONAL STATS. That is very simple.

There would be another way, to change all formula to use logarithms, that way, all players will be limited to certain max values. That way, you will simply know those limits and all players will be equal in the end.

There is only one game that I've played where with experience you don't gain more stats and that one used items as a reward for experience. Do you want to use items instead of personal stats ? So be it, in about 2 years, some will have some uber perfectly assorted items that will kill the most players and they will still be considered as "over-powered".


So? What do you want ? Are you afraid of a few loses against the "big" ones ? Do you fill sorry for the little ones ?

SO WHAT ? You GGG age players do not know how it was at the beginning.

I will give you a solution for your problems : Move all players to Marind & No man's Land and forbid the other lands (if you stay longer then 5 minutes in a single location you will be sent to GoE for example).
That way you will see plenty of players to attack and defend against. (Remember Willow's Shop ?)

For the GGG age players: let me give you a short vision of the past: players with [b]100ve[/b] were in Willow's Shop trying to get the wins / exp for a new level of a creature.




The only thing that really needs to be fixed is the creature's stats & abilities. But that takes time and not all changes are good. Live with it.

If you want to suggest things, suggest ways to improve not to over power creatures / auras / life .

Edited June 2, 2010 by dst
Adding the missing words :D

[No one]

I will try to say something different, that I way I post again and I don't edit the previous one.

First of all, I must appologize.
I read this topic this morning and it seems that my post is a bit harsh but I assure you guys that this is not personal. So, Burns, excuse me for interfering with your topic.


And on topic:

I do understand what you want to say Burns, some people are overpowered (and I do consider myself in the middle league) but they will always exists. As long as "stats" exists (personal or for alliance) and those can be increased, there is no way to stop a player to aspire to be the "all mighty powerful" in MD.
Also, there are many different points of view of how to be "all mighty powerful" and i'll give some obvious examples: Mur master of code (some say disaster) / Chewett "il capo di" forum / Rendril / dst and even I am Bored (for just being boring) and that is just some of them.
In other words: you cannot completely remove the "overpower" from this game without losing it's "soul".

(Lightsage, this is no connection with what you wrote, don't take it personally)
So, if you don't want to completely change the game, I propose you (all) to take in consideration, when saying that a creature is overpowered, only that is too powerful next to other creatures ON THE SAME PLAYER.

Start talking about creatures being overpowered and not about creatures on SOME players.

That way you should compare only creatures on players with similar stats.

In that spirit I proposed 2 things in the above post:
1. change the formulas to use logarithms : and I already stated that it is a bad idea some "grinders" will lose their interest
2. make some special days with special events : no personal stats / common grounds only





Once again I will excuse myself if my posts seem to be pointing at some people (without me spelling their name).
I only intend , as some of you do, to improve this game

Edited June 2, 2010 by No one

[Burns]

It might be true that some people have too much power, too, but my point is not about some players, but some rituals being absurdly overpowered.

I mean, any jackass can get their principles to cap, and with enough money you can buy as much crit-boost as you wish and as many tokens as you like, but the ammount that crit-boost adds in certain combinations is simply insane. What is the point of the most eloquent combat-system when there's a god-ritual in the shop?

Since we're at remembering things, i bet you'll remember the evil rits you (and others) invented back then. Fat baby, 5 birds+grasan, 6 grasans+massive stats... We couldn't beat them just like that, but they could be beaten, with freezers, with singles and some stats, at times with eles.
Drachorns were an extension that was kinda tough already, with their massive powers, but those were rare.
Rustgold was a step down, but it was necessary. We adapted, and Mur granted us new hollow warriors to deal with so much freeze. Not that a lot of rusties were easy to beat, but you can outstat them, and you can antifreeze their evil powers.

But now, critboost+tokens makes an absolutely insane combination, and you don't outstat that with a lot of grinding. That's too insane to be outstated.
After years of grinding, there's that remote chance to win under certain circumstances. Easy for us to say, with two years of active days, a lot of tricks, and decent stats. Harder for a newcomer, if you ask me. Constantly losing to the shop, with a 1:500 chance to win unless they buy things or grind 24/7 for a year or two, doesn't sound very appealing to newbies, does it? It doesn't even sound appealing to vets, for that matter...

And about _players_ being more powerful than others, that is simple: age and activity give an advantage. But the first 100 active days are worth more for your MD-experience than the 5th 100 days.
We grow slower, we don't learn new tricks, we start to specialize on something we find particularly useful. Newbies don't do that, and with a bit of stats and experience, they can beat mere stats, specially when the stats don't come in the best rits we have, but in the rits we train something with. New players can look forward to their first angien, which will go and beat most people's stats singlehandedly. But keeping up with the monsterdamages is too much to ask for, even from and Angien.

[No one]

I agree, the angien seem to be overpowered. But has small (almost invisible) weakness as it requires a lot of VE.
Also some tokens seem to be over powered.
Also the new stats from the story are waaaaay higher then what the old ones got.


As for the uber shop ritual ... I will not mind it. I even say thank you to them.
And that only because it is required so that the game can survive with some like me (free credits only).


As for order & method of computation ... it will change, if it really has to, it will. [b]But not today.[/b]

In the mean time ... any suggestion is taken into consideration and discussed (more or less).

Lets encourage Mur to finish the features that he started so that he can have time (and will) to look upon the little things.