Fall 2021 Balance Adjustment Megathread

[Archnon]

I too appreciate the words from Iron and Garr. They mean alot. Thanks guys!

Recovering from my usual rework depression, I think the only thing I'm left with salty tears about are the movement speed issues.

Monks:
The last speed nerf for monks was unpopular and this only makes it makes it...oh...about 40% worse. I've said in a previous thread my 80 year old wizard with a pocket full of haste wands was now as consistently fast as my monk. Now speed has all but been removed as a feature of the class. Can't say I'm a fan of this change.

Everyone Else:
Speed has also seemingly become a right for all classes? I suppose dexers achieve it through blinding speed (which has a hefty stat requirement + an epic feat cost). The usual high str/con warrior types now get it from sprint (which costs nothing). Rangers, at least out of combat, get it as a class feature. Barbarians get a further 'closer' boost when raging. Cavaliers get it charging and mounted. The casting classes with haste and wand access sit near the top of the heap. And then there is Warlock, which can do everything these days, so why not give them a speed feat AND infini-haste? This is a cursory post, so this is probably not even all the ways to become fast. Of all these egalitarian speed changes, I predict what it will really do is simply empower the same group of 'no-windup' closers even further, which is just another bit of evidence for Barbarian ascendancy folks worry about in this thread.

So, I'm really feeling this right now, and agree that it is a bit crazy. As pointed out, everyone is constantly hasted. Most rogue builds get reduction in cool down and can keep blinding speed permanently up. Barbs get the surge. Warlocks are permahasted. Other casters keep haste up constantly. Even now mundanes get a sprint. In this environment, I almost think it would be more fair to give Monks blinding speed cooldown at the same rate as rogues at least.

And man, cavalier is kind of silly now with sprint. I feel like now, the average fighter can outrun a well trained rider for a short distance and most magically enhanced individuals can just flat out outpace them. Perhaps it is time to rethink this and reintroduce some variability to everyone isn't always at 150% speed and the means of getting that speed matters (magic, sprinting, a horse).

[Mattamue]

sprint

So my understanding is that sprint is a free action 150% movement for STR or DEX characters. Any character on that path is going to have 10+ mod in that stat, so 150%. To me, that closes the gap a little for mundanes to have a burst of speed to catch up to the always-hasted casters. So, it is an option for more than just the DEX characters with blinding to have the ability now.

Some additional thoughts. Sprint feels like a fighting game mechanic, in a good way. I see Sprint as a resource you can choose to use at the start of a fight to close a gap. Save for the middle for a kill. Or save for the end to run away. I like that the mechanic gives all these choices. That lets the other character counter-play against sprint by saving or using their own speed cooldowns to try to beat how the opponent wants to use their own speed effects. I don't know if this was the intended design, but I like the counterplay built into this ability.

Otherwise, always appreciate when the game is kept fresh. Thanks!

[Dr. B]

I know also that they were not mentioned in the initial balance pass, but they fall, as correctly pointed out by Archnon, in the dangerous number zone, and they seem quite an overtuned class at the moment.

The thing is, they don't have the same damage output as the high AB melee builds that just got nerfed by the CoT and WM changes. They also don't have particularly great defense and will usually have to stop attacking if a melee-er charges them. So I think they're fine. Kiting is an issue (IMO), but all classes and builds can exploit that, including melee-ers.

[Itikar]

The thing is, they don't have the same damage output as the high AB melee builds that just got nerfed by the CoT and WM changes. They also don't have particularly great defense and will usually have to stop attacking if a melee-er charges them. So I think they're fine. Kiting is an issue (IMO), but all classes and builds can exploit that, including melee-ers.

The times I saw them actually facing a melee opponent, they did not stop attacking, they just kept shooting, and won. And that was the canonical monk/aa/ranger build I saw.

Maybe against proper weapon masters they have a harder time, the meleers I saw fighting were not weapon masters. But then there are many meleers who are not weapon masters, like swashbucklers, barbarians, blackguards, etc.

So a little adjustment and decreasing their overly good numbers would remain healthy.

[Itikar]

Ah, well, I can't argue with your anecdotal evidence there. Nerf the AA's, now!

And how is precisely your evidence not anedoctal either? You argue they do not have particularly great defence and they cannot stand in the face of meleers. When they can reach easily 60 ac and they /can/ stand in the face of meleers, as a point of fact, something I have personally /witnessed/ with my own eyes and that can be tested easily on PGCC too. It can also be easily calculated that against characters with 40+ ab they will not be hit very often. Then of course with the lack of burst damage, and in a world of heal potions they have their limits too. But they are nowhere near a bad place and the combination, in addition to betraying the soul of the prestige class, is very far from balanced. As anything that can get BOTH high ac and high ab, and kite, effectively is.

If you have a more compelling argument, come forward and provide it, I am eager to change my opinion. But using such sarcasm and frankly belittling tone certainly won't do your positions any favor.

So, yes, please, nerf arcane archers. And make them a bit more arcane too, while at that if possible.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Uh im being told part of the changes coming is the removal of the healer path for the cleric... i would be interested in knowing why and if it will be replaced with something new in the distant future?

Healing domain is the closest thing to healer path cleric.

[Dr. B]

Ah, well, I can't argue with your anecdotal evidence there. Nerf the AA's, now!

And how is precisely your evidence not anedoctal either? You argue they do not have particularly great defence and they cannot stand in the face of meleers. When they can reach easily 60 ac and they /can/ stand in the face of meleers, as a point of fact, something I have personally /witnessed/ with my own eyes and that can be tested easily on PGCC too. It can also be easily calculated that against characters with 40+ ab they will not be hit very often. Then of course with the lack of burst damage, and in a world of heal potions they have their limits too. But they are nowhere near a bad place and the combination, in addition to betraying the soul of the prestige class, is very far from balanced. As anything that can get BOTH high ac and high ab, and kite, effectively is.

If you have a more compelling argument, come forward and provide it, I am eager to change my opinion. But using such sarcasm and frankly belittling tone certainly won't do your positions any favor.

So, yes, please, nerf arcane archers. And make them a bit more arcane too, while at that if possible.

Your "friend" who had 40+ AB probably should have used a True Strike potion. It would have forced that AA who was standing there shooting him at point blank range to run away. But I gather that this took place on PGCC where those can't be bought, so I can see why he didn't have one. Taunt is also an option, made much more widely available now with the skills update. Fundamentally, the issue you're describing is that the guy didn't have the AB to hit an enemy with 60 AC, whereas the enemy had the AB to hit your friend. This doesn't establish that AA has a balance issue. They don't have absurd damage and won't drop you in a round or do like some of the classes that just got nerfed. They do benefit from an extremely cancerous movement mechanic (kiting), but that problem isn't internal to the class, and it doesn't sound like that was happening in the scenario you described anyway.

[Itikar]

Your "friend" who had 40+ AB probably should have used a True Strike potion. It would have forced that AA who was standing there shooting him at point blank range to run away. But I gather that this took place on PGCC where those can't be bought, so I can see why he didn't have one. Taunt is also an option, made much more widely available now with the skills update. Fundamentally, the issue you're describing is that the guy didn't have the AB to hit an enemy with 60 AC, whereas the enemy had the AB to hit your friend. This doesn't provide evidence that AA has a balance issue.

Finally some valid points. I still remain of the opinion that the arcane archer pack is currently a bit too good, all things considered, for reasons already stated, but I can recognize that.

Still, some of those points are true also for monks, and they are rarely seen as a particularly balanced class either. As things stand arcane archers are just ranged monks. They often have a monk dip as a matter of fact too.

Also, for the record, I did not see this happening once, but I saw several people confronting the ranger/aa/monk build. Taunt was not really popular when these episodes happened, and there were no true strikes at hand. In all cases, the arcane archer performed very well, and often came out on top. Still, something that requires a true strike at hand just to be hit reliably by a good number of builds, some of which were dedicated melee builds, hardly falls in the category of builds that are healthy in my humble opinion. Not so much for the numbers alone, since the damage is effectively small, but for the fact that it's a particularly good combination for kiting, which by itself already has issues. I remain that if the class could be brought to more sensible numbers, just for either ac or ab, and also made a bit more interesting at that, it would be a net improvement for the atmosphere and the environment. It's also probably not the worst offending build of the server, but it remains pretty close there from what I could personally experience as an outsider.

Do feel free to disagree, by all means.

[Dr. B]

I remain that if the class could be brought to more sensible numbers, just for either ac or ab, and also made a bit more interesting at that, it would be a net improvement for the atmosphere and the environment.

In the former case, by "the class" do you mean monks? Because the extra AC that build gets has nothing to do with it taking AA levels.

[Itikar]

I remain that if the class could be brought to more sensible numbers, just for either ac or ab, and also made a bit more interesting at that, it would be a net improvement for the atmosphere and the environment.

In the former case, by "the class" do you mean monks? Because the extra AC that build gets has nothing to do with it taking AA levels.

The arcane archers I saw at work all had monk dips, so I speak of those. I am not familiar with other arcane archer builds that do not include monk. The arcane archer part obviously provides the ab, not the ac. It's obvious that monk dips have their issues, and way beyond arcane archers, but on such a combination these issues seemed particularly glaring.

Decoupling arcane archer from monk dip would probably be a nice and clean way to go about it. The ability to go arcane archer with a ranger dip is also another thing that arcane archer really did not need, and which probably should not have changed from vanilla, which did nothing but bastardize the class. Or maybe just rename them divine archers.

[Flower Power]

A competent AA would have still won that engagement even without a monk dip.

All an AA needs is a speed boost from haste and to master the Shootin'-and-Steppin'. The only way to really balance/"fix" archers would be applying micro-snare on ranged attacks.

[Exordius]

Healing domain is the closest thing to healer path cleric.

That does not really answer my question though?

[Miskol]

Let's focus on the topic at hand and not branch off into other issues folks. If you have feedback on something else, unrelated to the recent balance adjustment, start another thread for it.

[fulminea]

go for Orog.

Yes. Everybody should.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Gar said some things I'm sure everyone read, no need to repost.

Irongron said some things I'm sure everyone read, no need to repost.

First thanks for responding to the calls for an explanation of the theories behind these changes and the future changes. I do have a better grasp of what you are trying to do now at least, and while I have a few questions/issues/concerns I will wait for the second update to bring them up. One thing I do feel is important to mention now however is that if there is too much parody between the classes when it comes to ac and ab, stealthers are going to rule the server in short order as long as they are allowed to corner stealth. The new sprint thing will help with that at least once, but a savvy stealther will be able to time that out just by running away again. I would suggest adding a cool down to stealth in pvp as well too.

What I did want to bring up however, and the reason I pinged you both was because you both mentioned it, is PvE balance. You're not going to solve this by nerfing builds because honestly I could solo 85% of the server content with the gimpiest of the gimpys. What needs to happen here if this really is an issue you want to address, and you aren't going to like what I am going to say, is a complete overhaul of difficulty levels of the dungeons. Personally if I were going to work on this my plan would be to make dungeons impossible to solo on level (and impossible to enter above level) and the bosses epic fights (for that level range) that people can brag about beating (since they can only do it once under this new hypothetical system) and I would have 2 or 3 on level wilderness areas for a certain level range each that people can solo and do modestly well, but with the goal of having people meet up to take on the dungeons with like leveled folks for the real rewards. But that's a HUGE project and probably too crazy to suggest, so I will just take parts of how I would accomplish said goals and try to apply them to different scenarios based on possibilities of what your goals with this point might be.

If you want dungeons to be the same as they are now, and the ability to solo as it is now, just harder to kill the boss

This is probably going to be the easiest fix for the right now, and may be just what you are looking for. What you want to do is give each boss a group of underlings, people stronger then the normal spawns in the dungeon but not quite as strong as the boss. They each should be somewhat unique and have different weaknesses and strengths, and that's important as will become apparent as you read on. Based on how many people trigger the boss launch (I think you use triggers since sometimes bosses double spawn and I assume thats because someone who didn't fight the boss triggered them by munching for goodies in the base) a number of party members will spawn, up to say six since after that the dungeon is going to be too easy and low xp anyways. So if a guy is soloing say the kobold mines, not only will he have the half dragon at the end he will also have the half dragons rogue. Or the half dragons mage. Or the half dragons cleric. If four people enter the dungeon, then 4 of these party members will spawn. Since there is a variety of six, and they all have different weaknesses and strengths, it will be impossible to be completely prepared for exactly what you will find. The guy trying to solo having the potential of having to deal with a tough fighter as well as the boss or a tough cleric as well as the boss or a tough wizard as well as the boss...yeah, you would have to be as crazy as me to really go for something like that.

If you want to make the dungeons harder in general, especially for people who solo and run through these things ate lightning speed (guilty of this here!)

You need more swarms. Think the boss map of goblin town only scarier, or the gnolls when you are on level (14-25) and the ones across the way see you enter the map. Its just never going to be difficult enough to take down groups of 3-5 at a time unless you make even the easy spawns murder bots with high ab, and then no one will do the dungeons. Mind you its always going to be really hard to balance between what people can do solo in a pinch and what will be challenging to a group, so going too hard this route may eliminate solo dungeoning more then you intended too.

I think that's enough for a random post in a random thread, since most other ideas are just variations of those two cores and this advice is unsolicited after all

[Its_a_jelly]

Okay. Here's the quick version.

Ab stacking, especially since loremageddon, and partially due to our decisions earlier this year to counter absurdly high ac builds (specifically divine dex) and the weakness of str build in general, went way too far. I can take the blame for this as I pushed a lot of the str build buffs earlier this year. We reached a point where div dex was no longer top dog, which was the goal, but we took it way too far and should have focused more on div dex rather than buffing everything else around them.

1. All of the ab nerfs were to revert the changes from earlier this year and get numbers back to a reasonable area. Ab should be in the low 50s at best, and we were seeing many builds pushing high 50s and even 60s. This makes both pvp and pve a joke, and causes many other builds to be effectively obsolete, such as str divine and mundane dex.

2. The barb changes were to allow more races to access barb. Due to the nerfs we just did, barb and hexblade are going to be the top builds as they were untouched. We pushed our changes for those to part 2 as we haven't decided on what to do yet, although barb will likely just lose their 4 dodge ac.

3. The IB/Rogue/Swash changes were for consistency between classes and to allow more variety.

4. Whip was nerfed because of the variable whip and +5 whips being too strong. We chose to keep those weapons as is rather than change the weapons as they are still a very solid choice for builds that don't care about crits, such as heavy rogues.

5. With the nerfing of high ab builds, divine dex builds very very clearly were going to come out of this as effectively untouchable, and for the sake of preserving pve, we chose to nerf them rather than buff everything around them again.

6. Twohand weapons went down to 1ab because we reached a point where their damage was enough to render sword n board noncompetitive against them. This was a pvp decision.

7. Minotaur was nerfed because it was absurdly overpowered. Award races shouldn't ever give a mechanical advantage.

8. Svirf was nerfed for the same reasons.

9. Drow is also very strong right now, and there have been a ton of issues of drow just blatantly running around in daylight and ignoring their racial penalties. We may need to make further adjustments to drow in the future (specifically making them choose between the 32 SR and major gift), but we are going to let them be for the time being.

10. Bless / war cry / battletide were done for the ab reasons explained in 1.

The overall goal is for ab to range from the 40s to low 50s at best, and AC to peak in the low 60s before expertise. I feel like we did a good job of reaching those ranges with these changes. I understand this stuff isn't fun for everyone, but it was a very necessary change for the overall health of the server, in pvp and pve.

As far as pvp balance being a concern. We are a server that has non-consensual pvp. That is a very important part of the server and a big contributor to our high quality of rp / storytelling. Actions should have consequences, and bad things happen to good adventurers. That part of the server is not ever going to change, and it shouldn't. With that said, anyone who played during the summer of op monks can understand why pvp balance is important. When a class/build is an outlier, they can drive the rp narrative and effectively play protagonist to their own story and no one can do anything about it. That's not what arelith is about, and on a server where death has weight in rp, and no one is a protagonist, having a somewhat level playing field is extremely important. There is never going to be perfect balance, but leaving outliers in would be doing a disservice to all of our players, as inconvenient as these changes are.

We made the decision to try to do all of the balance updates in one big update rather than a constant stream, but if the constant is preferred, we can go back to that. We haven't really done much in balance updates since the beginning of summer, and these were all updates we've been working on since then.

Why was monk speed nerfed?

It has already been nerfed/capped to the point that anyone could be just as fast with a simple potion or haste spell (or blinding speed or sprint or...).

Monk speed is what makes playing a monk fun. Please bring it back...thanks.

[garrbear758]

Why was monk speed nerfed?

It has already been nerfed/capped to the point that anyone could be just as fast with a simple potion or haste spell (or blinding speed or sprint or...).

Monk speed is what makes playing a monk fun. Please bring it back...thanks.

Haste is dispellable. Blinding speed has a cooldown. Monks are virtually impossible to escape from or to catch if they are running away. The only other class like that is shadowdancer with HiPS which I've said before is being removed when we rework the class. The rules of engagement for monks are very different than any other class because a well played monk is never going to die, and that sometimes carries over to their rp, consciously or not. Anyone choosing to fight another player should have to weigh the consequence that their actions could lead to their own death, and that lack of commitment makes some classes have an ability to control their own narrative with little consequence and that is not what arelith is about.

[Shadowy Reality]

Haste is dispellable. Blinding speed has a cooldown. Monks are virtually impossible to escape from or to catch if they are running away.

And yet we have Warlocks with infinite Hastes and Invisibilities. That 3 second cast on Haste every 6 minutes does not make them any less hard to escape or catch than Monk's with their speed.

[Archnon]

Haste is dispellable. Blinding speed has a cooldown. Monks are virtually impossible to escape from or to catch if they are running away.

And yet we have Warlocks with infinite Hastes and Invisibilities. That 3 second cast on Haste every 6 minutes does not make them any less hard to escape or catch than Monk's with their speed.

And rogue blinding speed cooldown gets down to nothing on most builds.

[Kaeldre]

Monk is a defensive class. It is difficult enough to kill or disable one in combat, even more so if they've decided to flee.

The comparisons given are not defensive classes. Many will burn their blinding speed as combat begins.

That said, speed is a defining quality of the monk archetype. I would not mind a slight increase after we've seen this play out.

[garrbear758]

Monk is a defensive class. It is difficult enough to kill or disable one in combat, even more so if they've decided to flee.

The comparisons given are not defensive classes. Many will burn their blinding speed as combat begins.

That said, speed is a defining quality of the monk archetype. I would not mind a slight increase after we've seen this play out.

We’re discussing bringing it back up in a scaling manner based on monk levels, but it won’t be to 150. Probably start at 110 and go to 125 at 30 monk, but it’s not set in stone and I wouldn’t expect any higher than that.

[Anomandaris]

In part 2 of the balance update, here are some things you can expect, very much subject to change.

1. Removing the 4 dodge ac from barbarian.

2. Changing pale master's crit immunity from 100% at level 10 to 5% crit immunity per pm level.

3. Something to tone down hexblades debuff burst. Solo they are mostly fine and probably just need to come down a number or two. In groups they make it very easy to just burst down a player or boss. The most likely potential changes here will be lowering their scaling to cap at 5 instead of 6, and/or changing the hex to be a "life-steal" type effect, where instead of say -4 ac to a target with hex at lvl 20, it would be -2 to the target and +2 to the hexblade.

Again, these are very subject to change so take them with a gigantic grain of salt.

Overall this look about right, but why targeting 1H barbarians rather than the 1000 HP two-handers with very high damage and damage mitigation?

The good:
-Some people (devs) care enough about the quality of this environment to volunteer their time thanklessly to make it better for all. Seriously, thank you.
-Changes are and were needed to fix glaring things that allows ppl to overflex their imbalances mechanical power limiting joy of others, thanks again for doing all this!!

The “meh”:
- changes seem to be made in “closed door” discussions between a very small number of people with minimal communication and transparency
- regular, sweeping changes have created major player fatigue and ppl quit or phase out due to this
- the server has approached a “balance asymptote” or point of diminishing returns. Major changes are not actually improving the state of overall balance much, just changing the meta to modify WHO and WHAT is more powerful.

This last point is gonna be contentious, but it’s key. I’ll disclaim by saying overall balance HAS benefitted by many changes made in the last couple years. But as stated, a good bit of this recent update and pending updates aim to fix the overturned nature of AB and DMG from str builds. It’s as others have said, balance whackamole. This is not a surprise and was predicted quite clearly at the time of those past changes. A lighter more iterative touch would avoid this back and forth.

I remember the posts I and others wrote back when dex was in meta and people were decrying the woes of str builds. I was watching saying “Oh well here comes the str meta….” This was not speculative, but to me an obvious trend to support problematic overturning of AB and dmg #s that make PVPd with these builds about as one sided as ever, getting one round kd’d and crit with multi hundred + dmg hits. Not surprisingly the times I’ve seen PCs with two-handers (or just crit builds in general) stage close to “enemy” PCs with, get fiesty and shotgun pvp to 1 round people has skyrocketed, along with the popularity of these builds…

So the issue isn’t updates for balance, we need those! It’s how they are done that (sometimes) produces a counterproductive output other than the intended goal, that presumably being increased overall joy for the server population.

I’m not a mechanical wiz, but I think I’m an decent builder and have PVPd enough to see a pretty glaring gap between the hypothetical theory crafting around which many balance conversations hinge and how these things play out in the “wilderness” that is the live server.

E.g. Let’s dial barb back a bit more by reducing its AC. *scratches head* does it make the class weaker? Sure, technically on paper, but the basic premise is it sits there eating hits to the face with high hp and dr while it smacks you back way harder than you can possibly hope to, thus killing you faster. The barb proceeds to drink heal pots like like a frat boy drinking light beer, laughing as it is functionally unkillable and can continue to fight as long as it has consumables. How is losing some AC going to do anything but make this build more painful to lvl to 30? It’s still gonna get geared and ready to terrorize PCs exactly as it had before… but wait now it can sprint even faster and for longer than it’s physically weaker enemies. But wait, there’s more!! Melee str builds can also STOP TIME with a fairly low UMD invest. They can void ALL MAGIC with a consumable rod for what is an instant win button on top of everything else. They have almost ALL useful wards at their disposal for relatively cheap and higher caster level than most EPIC mages, not to mention many offensive magic tools too. They can also often achieve unbeatable saves and pierce +5 damage resistance.

The process by which balance is managed needs to be examined because the output is not the desired result as often as it could be with a different design principle.

TLDR:
We’re playing balance whakcamole and have exchanged dex meta for str meta in the name of balance. But thanks for trying, sincerely, it’s a thankless and tough mission! Let’s maybe examine ways to not have such a volatile meta chasing server culture and mechanical landscape?

[Duchess Says]

(snip)

[garrbear758]

With the exception of warlocks and cleric domains, the only significant balance change since June was removing hide/ms from Blackguard, and after part 2 of this update, it will be awhile before we do anymore significant changes again. I don't think we can really get much more infrequent than that.

[TurningLeaf]

D20 is incredibly hard to balance in a setting like this. 1 or 2 point difference often results in a 100% or more increase in effectiveness. This is why modern mmoish settings use percentage-based buffs and debuffs. Thanks for doing your best devs.