Potential Upcoming Healpot Nerf - Feedback Needed

[ReverentBlade]

I don't like a cooldown, personally. I think some ability to burst heal a few potions in a row should be maintained, otherwise mages get a lot stronger. You want to curtail endless endurance. Diminishing returns is the way to go.

[Aren]

I don't like a cooldown, personally. I think some ability to burst heal a few potions in a row should be maintained, otherwise mages get a lot stronger. You want to curtail endless endurance. Diminishing returns is the way to go.

According to some of the avid mage players, mages are currently in a bad way. That is something to consider.

[chris a gogo]

I really don't think this is a good move.

It's the problem with powerful potions being craftable that has upset the balance.

Freedom of movement, death ward and heal these remove the threats posed by casters.

You can stop them you can't kill them and they can heal faster than you can hurt them.

To fix this issue the best move IMO is to remove the first two, then it allows luck into the equation as saves can be beaten.
But with having these potions crafted means there are alot of them, so they remove any weakness a class/build has to be exploited.

[Complex]

I agree here that simple is better, so even if the toxicity system was kept, I would just use it for Heal/Shield pots.

Except for Wild Mage and Shadow Mage, mages are in a bad spot when it comes to 1vX (and SM is probably the most unfun thing to fight ever, with HiPS and Save or Lose spells being their main strength). Mage PvP used to be balanced around Time Stop: you harassed your enemy until they could not top their HP off and you pressed the combo buttons to try and kill them.

The issue I have with this Heal pot nerf is that while it is a step in the right direction, it opens a window through brute force, and not skill. This means that Sorcerers (who are now great supports but anyone with Heal/Shield pots can laugh at) will be buffed because they have so many IGMS to throw out, while unpathed Wizards remain weak and confined to oblivion.

While it'd be nice to maybe have something more complicated than just CD or DR, Toxicity sounds quite similar to them. Drink four potions then they stop working for a while. I would start with DR, and gather a few people who know how to play mages (and other classes) to test the numbers and tweak them accordingly until the right ones are found.

Sorcerers were stronger than Wizards for PvP before the Time Stop change happened, and it is fine if that stays that way because Wizards offer different things, but managing to balance this for unpathed Wizards to be a decent option would be ideal. I suppose that there is some sort of sweet spot in which the change can be impactful enough for it to favor Wizards without completely overpowering Sorcerers (which, honestly, I doubt could happen in the allegedly unfun manner it was happening with evo comboing).

[Royal Blood]

I wanted to mention after reading this thread that to me, heal potions represent one of the -must haves- for PVP. So, as someone who I guess like has learned to PVP more recently heal potions have been super essential to have in bulk.

In a fight where I am outnumbered I could go through a lot of those. I think i've gone through up to 10.

In single combat pvp I will burn heal potions unless I don't see a route to victory. Like maybe I am using them to compensate while I try to position or wait out a buff another character has or something. But I mean, if I can't win I either run or just let the fight end I won't prolong something that isn't working.

I'd say don't change it at all. Balance in this game is garbage, let's be real. If you don't get destroyed by lag, graphic glitches, or a slew of other issues that are out of your control then you could just simply get destroyed by an unbalanced or cheesy class. Heal potions in my opinion offer a safety net that compensates for those things in some regard. Maybe not to win, but at least disengage.

I once nearly died in a 2v1 because my character sat there round after round after round waddling back and forth because haste had bugged out and was stuck which happens to me often where the character just stutters after casting haste. Either I can't run, or I can't cast. It's really bothersome. In that case I changed to sanctuary after nearly dying, heal potion, then managed to re-engage. So like yeah, heal potions compensated for how bad this game can be like mechanically.

[Dr. B]

The issue is with heal potions. A simple cooldown is enough. I hope the feedback here gives enough evidence that the toxicity system would not be a necessary or popular change.

[ReverentBlade]

I'll reiterate a last time before dropping so as not to beat a dead horse, but a potion cooldown will make IGMS+IGMS +Ruin combo too strong. Telling you now, as a mage that uses it. I would hate to see a potion nerf cascade into messing with spells on top of it. You want to use diminishing returns.

[NauVaseline]

RE: Toxicity - As other's have stated, we already have a lot of meters, but I'll go a bit further and point out that on average, potions used by PC's in Arelith do not compare in mechanical power to the potions used by Geralt in The Witcher series that this toxicity meter seems to have been inspired by; it'd be a nuisance and ultimately feel like a burden to mundane players.

Second, I think a cooldown will do - there are other options to surviving a fininite IGMS spam then a functionally infinite heal spam

[Inordinate]

Instead of a cooldown have it do diminishing returns on the amount healed, rolling timer based on when the last one was used.

[OleBlighty]

Instead of a cooldown or toxicity, just decrease the amount of healing done.

Also consider higher CON being able to negate the toxicity levels.

[redhawx]

If a healing pot change is comming. Consider to make it so that the CON stat play in how many healing potions you can drink before they become less efficent or starts to not work at all. The HD of a class could play in too.

[Kalgoon]

A new Toxicity mechanic is intriguing, which can play into other systems, like Poison, but it does seem unnecessarily complicated.

As others have mentioned both cooldown and diminishing returns, they do seem to be good options. I like both options on their own and can see either working, whichever one is easier to code.

It was further pointed out that Heal potions seem to be the culprit here.
>What if Heal potions were only half as effective in combat but fully effective out of it?
>What if the potion acted more like Regeneration 50, only healing so much each round, no matter how many potions are chugged, but adding to a running total until the healing from Heal potions stops?

[Halibutthead]

>What if the potion acted more like Regeneration 50, only healing so much each round, no matter how many potions are chugged, but adding to a running total until the healing from Heal potions stops?

this is my favorite suggestion so far (extending the idea to all healing spells), but i'm interested in seeing the toxicity mechanic.

[garrbear758]

Thank you for all the feedback. I will not be implementing a toxicity system. Healpots will still be getting nerfed, but we will go with a simpler method - either slightly lower CL, diminishing returns, or a cooldown.

[WanderingPoet]

What about making heal pots heal 25% of your life? Then those people only getting 400HP are only getting 100 life, and the barbarians and other high health lower AC characters with 1000 life will get 250 life.

Those divine dex builds can only buff so many stats. The biggest concern would be high AC characters with high HP, but even then they'd be doing low damage if they maxed out their con. The other concern would be druids in a high HP form, but that may just need a separate (like base it off their base con, maybe).

So alternatively, 4 life per point of con, 4 points per hit die (so a barbarian with 20 con would get 128 life back, and have 510 life, a 30 con ED would have 168 life per potion with 660 life)

[Skibbles]

I've seen a lot of PvP over the years, probably not as much as some people, but I've been on Arelith for quite a while.

I've never once seen someone spam heal pots, one after another, endlessly in a fight - much less prevail from it.

With the one theoretical exception of out healing a sorc (who for some reason only has one spell and isn't trying to use any of the crazy strong disables a sorc is know for) if you're healing that much you're expensively losing. Other than that it's obviously a mage problem not a potion problem.

Is this really an actual issue or is this a loud armchair problem for a very specific situation?

Since Garrbear already walked back the toxicity idea there's not much more to add, however, I didn't see anyone mention the new player experience.

As changes like these are considered its my hope that the team recognizes that all these mechanics (thankfully not this one) make it increasingly hostile to new players coming in.

We're almost to EVE Online tier of years of learning all this stuff going on if we aren't there already. I've been here for eight years and I still can't even figure out the settlement system (which is absolutely savage to new people because the entire thing is undocumented while Arelith vets run circles around them) or remember all the class changes.

Now that's not such a bad thing, as having lots of stuff is also fun and might inspire a lot of new players with all there is to discover, but I just wanted to mention the NPE. The advantageous disparity between new players and veterans is growing to a chasm, but that's almost worth an entire thread on its own.

I edited this comment to add clarity on a few thoughts.

[-XXX-]

Why not simply make selected potions count as alcohol?

Sobriety is a toxicity meter essentially.

[Hunter548]

I've seen a lot of PvP over the years, probably not as much as some people, but I've been on Arelith for quite a while.

I've never once seen someone spam heal pots, one after another, endlessly in a fight - much less prevail from it.

With the one theoretical exception of out healing a sorc (who for some reason only has one spell and isn't trying to use any of the crazy strong disables a sorc is know for) if you're healing that much you're expensively losing. Other than that it's obviously a mage problem not a potion problem.

Speaking just from pure personal experience, I've had a few fights where 2-3 heal potions turned the momentum tide against casters; around two months ago I was involved in a group fight where I healed around 3000 damage between Lay on Hands, two greater restorations and a bunch of heal potions. This stuff does happen, and does end up mattering.

As for those crazy strong disables, some of them are useful but it's worth keeping in mind that saves are not a reliable way to attack prepared players. Ignoring things like death ward, pretty much any build (hyper optimal git gud approved or not) can get high enough saves to reliably survive save or (bad thing) spells from a "standard" caster (38-40 casting stat, non-shadow mage) with a little bit of effort. Most of those can get high enough saves to do it to any caster that isn't a totem druid shadow mage DC build.

(Now, granted, in practice people are often a lot more vulnerable to save spells than they "should" be because they don't put in the effort to get decent saves. This isn't a point in favor of the strength of those spells, however. Those players are making unforced errors, the same as someone who starts a fight on a WM without buying/crafting a weapon.)

IGMS is the benchmark for these sorts of discussion about caster performance because it's the most efficient spell in the game if no one is making preparation mistakes.

[-XXX-]

The successful execution of most strategies involves the control of variables and reduction of any possible intervening random factors as much as possible.
DC spells are random effects with a very high variance as they are an "all or nothing" kind of a deal. In theory they represent the exact opposite of what you want to be doing when executing a thought out strategy.

Most players will take the guaranteed damage from IGMS over a random chance (no matter how high) of winning the encounter on the spot because of this.
^ this all applies even before you take easily accessible wards and high saves present in most builds into consideration.
^^ there's also the factor of credit. Most players would prefer to ascribe their success to their skill and not luck.

[Skibbles]

Alright - but I don't hear why this makes the potions bad. I'm well aware healing oneself and others can turn a battle, and I didn't say I've never seen someone drink a few. I just haven't seen someone drinking ten of them back to back as a viable rock solid winning strategy, one that everyone has equal access to, and consistently wiping everyone with that strategy.

Most pvp I've seen, groups included, is over in merely seconds or maybe a minute or two. The fact yours lasted that long sounds awesome - not horrible and in dire need of quickening.

Thus, it seems to me, that the heal potion topics always boil down to the same thing: missile storm. It's the same example every time, for years, as if friendless sorcerers are running amok 1v1ing but never succeeding.

We're balancing two classes and heal potions for every character in the game, around a single spell, because it's the only tool in the box? That's not weird to anyone?

Also speaking from personal experience, playing a wizard for six years, I'd rather just have more tools that have better than a 5% outcome.

[Aren]

I have been in PvP fights where the opponent ran in circles chugging heal potions, and applying haste when necessary. That’s literally all they did. They would have died 4-5 times over, had They not been able to do so. Eventually their buddy showed up and dropped an EDK.
Heal potions need diminishing returns.

[ReverentBlade]

That sounds more like a metagaming issue than a balance issue.

[-XXX-]

Heal potions are bad for vancian spellcasters that rely on successfully executing evocation combos. Essentially you're pitting a very limited resource (spellslots) against a barely limited one (inventory slots).

Though that's not the only issue with heal potions. Some fights - especially ones between evenly-matched melee builds can be won by successfully juggling improved expertise, heal potions and true strike.
While some sort of tie-breaker is often necessary in such cases, this one in particular has a very "pay (gp) to win" kind of aftertaste to it.

[OleBlighty]

Thank you for all the feedback. I will not be implementing a toxicity system. Healpots will still be getting nerfed, but we will go with a simpler method - either slightly lower CL, diminishing returns, or a cooldown.

Will higher CON play a factor at all?

[garrbear758]

Thank you for all the feedback. I will not be implementing a toxicity system. Healpots will still be getting nerfed, but we will go with a simpler method - either slightly lower CL, diminishing returns, or a cooldown.

Will higher CON play a factor at all?

No