Attack Speed and Champion Levels

[BAgate]

Could we cap the attack speed bonus from champion levels? Attack Speed has so many benefits (LoH, cooldown reduction, triggers) in addition to damage that allowing it to increase indefinitely is way overpowered. Could we just cap it and let additional champion levels be used for either power or life %?

[Arionthe]

I agree with you on attack speed being overpowered when compared to other attributes. My post earlier touched on the same issue. However I think capping it doesn't really increase variety of builds. Everyone will just max it out so we all still look alike. Instead I think the better fix is to reduce the trigger chance of attacks in a second on LoH, cool down, and triggers. So for those that still wants 10 attacks a second, they can. Only that those attacks above 6 a sec won't bring the player those ancillary benefits that makes it so overwhelming.

[Hissatsu]

I would actually vote to cap it for a different reason: game looks silly with insane AS. Watching LED videos, any charm the game has disappears, because character models just jiggle like they're bugged, and instead of fireballs, a stream of yellow flows out of them, which looks more like a yellow laser. This happens since he has over one thousand CLs. Attack speed should be limited in the game to reasonable values so that even with all the buffs, your character attack looks cool, or at least, looks proper.

Maybe the change could be something like when attack speed goes above certain value, like 3 attacks per second, instead of speeding up the animation you just get a chance for your attacks to multistrike, so 4 attacks per second become 3 attacks per second with 33% chance of double strike, and 7 attacks per second become 3 attacks per second that always strike twice with 33% chance of triple strike, etc. The interface would still display your AS value as it should be, but in the game it would look better.

[123Klutz]

instead of fireballs, a stream of yellow flows out of them, which looks more like a yellow laser.

That's cool.I'm gonna try it

[Hissatsu]

That's cool.I'm gonna try it

Well, it's actually not, because it's not supposed to be a laser. It looks like the game has bugged out and animations are screwed.

[Led]

Well if you dont want to have a lazer mage then dont put your points into attack speed. I do see what your saying its looks silly but everything in the game looks silly.
They have already mentioned a soft cap on CL is in the works so lets just see what the devs are cooking.
I dont understand what you mean about the charm of the game goes....its a game and i still find it fun. if all your after is a game that looks good then there is nothing stopping you from running max grapics and small pulls with sub par gear.
99% of the skills look silly. but this game does not win based on looks. This game is great because of the gameplay engine and the endless endgame where if you want you can always better yourself.

[marioj]

I would actually vote to cap it for a different reason: game looks silly with insane AS. Watching LED videos, any charm the game has disappears, because character models just jiggle like they're bugged, and instead of fireballs, a stream of yellow flows out of them, which looks more like a yellow laser. This happens since he has over one thousand CLs. Attack speed should be limited in the game to reasonable values so that even with all the buffs, your character attack looks cool, or at least, looks proper.

Maybe the change could be something like when attack speed goes above certain value, like 3 attacks per second, instead of speeding up the animation you just get a chance for your attacks to multistrike, so 4 attacks per second become 3 attacks per second with 33% chance of double strike, and 7 attacks per second become 3 attacks per second that always strike twice with 33% chance of triple strike, etc. The interface would still display your AS value as it should be, but in the game it would look better.

Or they could "condense the dmg" like it was done to dgm icons, the animation would be normal actions like 1 atk/s but the dmg formula would still be the one on the char

[Hissatsu]

Well if you dont want to have a lazer mage then dont put your points into attack speed. I do see what your saying its looks silly but everything in the game looks silly.
They have already mentioned a soft cap on CL is in the works so lets just see what the devs are cooking.
I dont understand what you mean about the charm of the game goes....its a game and i still find it fun. if all your after is a game that looks good then there is nothing stopping you from running max grapics and small pulls with sub par gear.
99% of the skills look silly. but this game does not win based on looks. This game is great because of the gameplay engine and the endless endgame where if you want you can always better yourself.

Well, to me the game is awesome both technically and graphically. I like how it looks, not only the gameplay.

[Arionthe]

I think graphic aside, the game mechanics are what makes a game great and good longevity. My problem with insane attack speed has more to do with the fact this single attribute affects many other aspects of the gameplay in a nondiminising way. Which is really unique and forces blunt nerfing in those other parts. Take the original immolation trigger from the apprentice set. That just illustrated the utter silliness of mass attacks combined with trigger effects. Attack speed affects damage, let's assume for arguments' sake, at 70% effectiveness as same cl investment into power. The problem is attack speed does so much more than just straight damage. More LoH, more cool down reduction, more trigger effects, more stuns/slow/freeze, faster ramp up mantle effect, more efficient damage output, etc etc. I'm sure I'm missing a few aspects. So given the massive imbalance between attack speed and power, the only two attributes with no cap, it is a no brained choice. So as we "better" ourselves, we just all look like lesser versions of LED. No variety because what LED has done is trailblazing the optimal setup. You will be a fool to follow any path but his because the cookie cutter build is sooo much better than the next build. Hence 90% of high lvl players play, look the same. To culprit is attack speed's effect on other gameplay elements. To balance it better, and to allow other builds to exist, the game need to reduce the difference beteeen putting pts in attk speed vs power.

I like variety. But I am not one to pursue an obviously lesser build for the sake of just being different. We play for fun, not for frustration.

Damage doesnt really matter that that much after you get something close to 150k per second. In fact attak speed's other benefits is far more important than damage at high cl levels.

Why was cc countdown meter implemented in the first place? Because mass attacks combined with status stun lock/freeze bosses. Again all evidence points to the real power of high attack speed. It is not damage.

Just my 0.02

[Led]

Great post, I would be all for attack speed in CL getting capped at 100, it would solve alot of the issues you raised, but not the main problem of us all doing the same thing. We would all just max out AS put all the points into power.
Why does only the offence skill tree have an open ended place to put points. Why not have all 3 TABS with an unlimted place to put CL points, that way we would get more diversity and the AS will not be so overwhelming on the players above CL1000

[Arionthe]

Great post, I would be all for attack speed in CL getting capped at 100, it would solve alot of the issues you raised, but not the main problem of us all doing the same thing. We would all just max out AS put all the points into power.
Why does only the offence skill tree have an open ended place to put points. Why not have all 3 TABS with an unlimted place to put CL points, that way we would get more diversity and the AS will not be so overwhelming on the players above CL1000

LED, I will assume that was a reference to my wall of text. Thank you for the positive response.

The reason I think capping attk speed in CL to 100 doesn't fundamentally change things is that, yes, it will reduce the extreme usage case of 10attks/sec. But it doesn't change the fact that it is THE premium offense attribute. By capping it at 100 will actually introduce another problem. That is every piece of equipment will now need to have attk speed attribute for optimal build. This further reduce the variety in equipment. At least today if I have a great piece, high armor, LoH, power etc, at least I don't need to feel I must get 14+% attk speed for it to be usable. Since I can catch up the speed with CL later. This narrows down the selection of GOOD equip further and makes eq looting an even longer slog. Not exactly what I hope to see.

As I suggested, the real problem is that value of attack speed is far more than damage. So the real solution is to reduce its effectiveness in those non damage aspects. Bring it more in balance with other attributes. In the other thread I suggested a solution. Basically to successively reduce the chance of triggering any effect as the attk/sec goes up. I think this will fundamentally change the balance of power between attack speed and other attributes.

That is how we can get more variety into the game. Don't make one thing overpoweringly good. With attak speed adjustment as suggested, now people will need to invest more into LoH, ability rate, etc. that makes choices harder but makes other builds more viable. Nah many builds are viable, it is just who wants to play a build that we know is 40% as effective as the cookie cutter given the same CL, same investment in time for eq.

I like the idea of making other tab/attributes uncapped. I know I want my armor % to the sky if allowed.

Quick suggestion, if we only use one weapon and has no shield, tome what have you. Let's say it is the two handed weapon style. Just a flat 1.5 damage multiplier. Now you hit harder but slower. Like all the old RPGs. Maybe even 1.5 times the attributes on the weapon to boot.

And be if I forgo a weapon, just use shield. Then we'll that is another post.

[CastDaddy]

Why does only the offence skill tree have an open ended place to put points. Why not have all 3 TABS with an unlimted place to put CL points, that way we would get more diversity and the AS will not be so overwhelming on the players above CL1000

I think the answer here is simple. There would be a chain-reaction of other problems that arise, such as:

1. Insane Armor %. Could create builds that reduce something like 90%+ of damage taken (maybe more, I've never used an armor build)
2. Same can be said for having "too much" Life or LOH, which at very high CL levels would be OP
3. 1000%+ XP builds
4. Crazy Ability Rate

Even with diminishing returns, with enough CL points applied to these other categories, the game can become unbalanced in a different direction. I believe they have them capped for a reason.

P.S. I think BAgate and Arionthe make some valid points in regards to Attack Speed and how it steers everyone to construct the same end-game build. Your improvements sound nice in theory, but from a development side I think you are asking to change too much of the core mechanics of the game. I welcome the changes, however, I think the engineering side of this may be a bit more complicated as it touches a lot of different things. It's not always the functional improvements that create development scope, its the regression testing (of all other aspects) and bug fixing that extend those efforts.

[BAgate]

I realize changing this would be a mess and so isn't a high priority. My point, and why I think doing something about this in the long term is important, is:

1) As Arionthe said, as things stand AS basically does everything, so as long as you have sky high AS then power, LoH, and ability rate are redundant. Nerfing AS would force players to choose from among those, which would create diversity (and make the game more interesting IMO).

2) Currently damage potential is unlimited but durability is not. With Multiplayer coming that is a problem. I'd like a balance where ability to do damage (power) and ability to take damage (life%) could both go up. Again, would create more variety.

3) Castdaddy, it isn't an engineering/development question, but a game balance one. Implementing the changes we have asked for should be trivial. Seeing how those changes would impact play are complicated, but if that is a barrier no one is willing to cross, then the game will never improve. And thankfully, as seen with mage nerf and others, the devs are willing to take a risk.

Ideally what I'd like to see is an initial hard cap of 250 pts per tab, (50 power/50 crit rating/50 crit dam/100 AS) (50 life, 50 armor, 50 LOH, 100 regen) (100 ability, 50 move, 50 exp, 50 gold) allocated as it is now, but after CL 750 those values lock and you can then allocate new CLs to power or life as you wish. This would restore importance to LoH and ability, would avoid minimizing the value of triggers (that can only trigger so often), would increase diversity of builds at high levels (glass cannon, tank, balanced) and, since recovery is capped but life isn't, recovery would be at a premium which might make apples/potions useful.

[CastDaddy]

3) Castdaddy, it isn't an engineering/development question, but a game balance one. Implementing the changes we have asked for should be trivial. Seeing how those changes would impact play are complicated, but if that is a barrier no one is willing to cross, then the game will never improve. And thankfully, as seen with mage nerf and others, the devs are willing to take a risk.

Fair enough. And agree with everything you said. The diversity would be wonderful. My point was simply that... we've had lots of great suggestions for improvements and balancing, many of which are more time consuming to implement than others. The Devs are going to be looking at the time it takes to implement a feature, and weighing that against how much impact it has on the player economy. I have a feeling that other features that benefit more than just the small percentage of advanced end-game players trump that list. If I'm the one prioritizing the backlog, these Attack Speed changes fall into the bucket of "bigger fish to fry".

Food for thought.... Multiplayer/PVP gives the Devs a chance to introduce new balance changes that do not exist in Single Player. I think the 2 will be significantly separated (speculation). It's quite possible they are already working some new metrics into the PVP engine, including more balanced DPS/Life/Abilities amongst the classes as it will be easier to introduce these with new PVP development rather than shaking up the stable single player mode. Anxiously waiting to see what they release initially...

[Jose Sarmento]

Great post, I would be all for attack speed in CL getting capped at 100, it would solve alot of the issues you raised, but not the main problem of us all doing the same thing. We would all just max out AS put all the points into power.
Why does only the offence skill tree have an open ended place to put points. Why not have all 3 TABS with an unlimted place to put CL points, that way we would get more diversity and the AS will not be so overwhelming on the players above CL1000

I second this suggestion. Not only does it increase build variety, it also limits even a CL1000 player to +500CR / +116% AS.