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CP Caps and Build Variety (warrior)

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    CP Caps and Build Variety (warrior)

    I’m going to throw my idea out there about the CP. LED suggested to uncap categories beyond just Power and Attack Speed. I agree with him because you really need to give player more choices to promote diversity/customization. However I also understand other players' fear of unintended consequences etc. So I suggest we have soft caps instead of hard caps on categories.

    Offense

    Power soft cap 100

    Critical Rating soft cap 50

    Critical Damage soft cap 50

    Attack Speed soft cap 50

    Defense

    Life % soft cap 50

    Armor % soft cap 50

    Life Regen soft cap 50

    Life on Hit soft cap 50

    Utility

    Ability Rate soft cap 50

    Movement soft cap 50

    Extra gold soft cap 50

    Experience soft cap 50

    To exceed soft cap, you need to first meet soft cap in each tab. After 450 CPs, every CP earned is in a general pool where you can apply to any category desired. To go from 1x soft cap to 2x soft cap, for example to raise critical rating from 50 to 51 will need 2 CP. To go from 2x soft cap to 3x soft cap, i.e. Power from 201 to 202 will take 3 CP. To go from 3x soft cap to 4x soft cap will take 4 CP etc. The increasing cost in CP as one invest more into a particular category will act as a natural brake but still allow the player that option as long as he/she is willing to pay the cost.



    Build variety.

    I play mostly warrior so I will use that as my case study.


    Cookie Cutter build (LED warrior) This is the dominant build in the game. Dual wielding warrior with cleave primary and frenzy secondary attack. Utility/Active skills are Battle Rage, Shockwave, 3rd skill of choice (charge/ITZ etc). The reason this build is the clear dominant build is because it is clearly the best in just about every situation a warrior might encounter. Damage output comes from two sources in the game. Normal attack and skill damage. This build is clearly the best in dealing out normal attack due to highest attack speed. In fact the normal attack damage is so high that often active skills or “blade fury” are ignored because they actually decrease the DPS when activated. This build also has the highest survivability due to hiyghest LoH courtesy of highest attack speed. So as long as you have enough HP to survive being one shotted, you can take a licking and keep on going. Finally this build also has the highest skill damage output due to shortest skill cool down. The reason is, again, the highest attack speed that triggers cool down reduction more frequently. As you can see, attack speed underpins all those positive feedback loop. Part of the reason why I suggested to reduce attack speed’s impact on those other non-damage aspects of the game so the cookie cutter build isn’t so leaps and bounds better than other builds.


    Shield Warrior (balanced warrior) This is the build I would like to play. It become more interesting with the buff to the skill Deadly Throw. Normal attack, this build loses to dual wield due to slower attack speed (1x vs 1.4x). Its survivability gap is narrower because it’s likely to have higher armor. However not enough to overcome the 1.4x LoH advantage of dual wield build. So far it loses 2 out 2 use cases, normal damage and survivability. To make this build more competitive, it needs to shine more in the skill damage department. However that’s not possible currently due to longer skill cool down vs dual wield. Since this build relies more on skill damage rather than just normal attack, it needs the game mechanic to favor it in the skill cool down department. That is why I suggest to replace the Shield Slam effect to something like a skill cool down reduction. Shield Warrior needs to be able to cast utility/active skills just a tad more frequently than dual wielder to compensate for the lack of fire power in other departments. Utility skills: Battle Rage, Deadly Throw, Shockwave. I also suggested to replace the Defender set 6 piece bonus to Deadly Throw skill (something like 10% chance to trigger Deadly Throw when blocking an attack, capped at one trigger per 3-5 secs). This way makes the defender set the set to have for shield warriors.


    Two Handed Warrior (Slow attacking but massive damage) This build is for those that doesn’t equip a shield in the off hand nor a weapon. A 1.5 bonus damage multiplier is standard. The attack speed can be set at 80% of Shield warrior to really set it apart. So this big brute will always lose out in normal attack vs dual wielder. That means this build is really geared for skill damage. Think Blade Fury that no one wants to use. This is perfect for this guy. Same goes for Devastate and other skills that don’t take attack speed into consideration. This build will be focusing on skill cool down so they can cast it more often. ITZ will be a perfect compliment (might have to change the mechanic a bit here so we don’t have this guy in permenant devastate mode thus overpowered).


    The way to promote build variety is to ensure different builds are best in certain situations. Even better when certain game mechanics reinforce each other to create a positive feedback loop. For example shield warrior wants to have more blocks. Perhaps they want to purposely be low in dodge and parry so more blocks can be triggered. This allows shield warrior to have more available stats on eq since there is no need for parry/dodge stats. Whereas two handed would want more parry than dodge since parry can potentially reduce the skill cool down. Dualwielder should want dodge more than parry as they are more about normal attacks with skills mostly acting as buffs to their normal attacks and situational change of pace. This creates variety. Dual Wield build will be the only build people play as long as it wins in all the use cases: Normal damage, skill damage, and survivability. Build diversity can only be achieved when that is no longer the case.

    Just my 0.02
    Last edited by Arionthe; 08-27-2017, 10:04 AM.
    GAQO KITO REZO 1934

    #2
    Great post. i like it
    I was thinking more simple like just making AS capped, making bonus life uncapped and possibly movement speed uncapped or something else from utility tab.
    This way as you gain more CL you have to continue to equally spread you CL and not just become an attack speed monster.

    Your right about the defenders set needing work. i was thinking the 4th piece bonus should be #20% chance to block and the 6th piece be #shield slam and blade fury are automatically cast,
    Defenders is a very hard set to get and it is so poor. The 6th piece bonus has to be better than the jug 2 piece as a reward for running it.
    Led

    The needer of Nerfs,
    The greatest sheepshagger of all

    Killed 1970 frogs...and plans to kill 1 more
    HALU RALO ZEYO 0519

    Comment


      #3
      Thanks LED for the positive feedback. Sometimes my stream of consciousness can be confusing and lacking in focus. What I would love to see in this great game is variety. I think that, more than anything else, can keep a game alive.

      Starcraft is a great game with three very different sides and yet they are very balanced in the gameplay. They achieve this without making every side the same just with a different skin. That to me is the ultimate in game balancing and variety. I know blizzard is a hard act to follow. It is because I love this game so much that I have high expectations for it.

      Builds dont have have to be equal in everything to be balanced. Far from it, I would like to see clear strength and weaknesses in different aspects of the game for any given build. Then we have the classic rock scissors and paper situation. That is the end goal actually.

      I see the game in three general elements. For an action rpg, we have damage output, survivability, and finally active skill effectiveness. The third part can impact 1st and 2nd. For example, skill devastate not only dished out massive amount of damage, it also renders the player invulnerable for a time. This can replace some need for survivability during the time the skill is up etc etc.

      ideally you rank rank builds along those three aspects. Take my warrior case study above, here is the current ranking of the builds (for a given level of CP and equal level of eq)

      dual wield build is 1st is damage, 1st in survivability (LoH), and 1st in skill effectiveness (shortest skill cool down).

      No no wonder everyone plays that.

      What I would like to see is: shield warrior 2nd in damage, close 2nd in survivability, and 1st in skill effectiveness. That last part can only be accomplished (since every build has access to the same skills), by having the shortest skill cooldowns. That is why it is so important to give shield warrior some additional cool down help. Since shield slam is so meh, perfect candidate to be replaced with a skill cool down (3 secs per trigger, slightly better than the 2 sec normal attacks get)

      finally should my two handed warrior build becomes a thing, this build actually has the greatest potential in skill effectiveness due to that 1.5 base damage multiplier. Then the ranking becomes, 2nd damage, 3rd survivability, 1st skill effectiveness. Then each build is the best in different areas and shield warrior is the jack of all trades. That creates variety. I hope this post makes my thoughts clear.

      Thanks for reading.
      GAQO KITO REZO 1934

      Comment


        #4
        I read everything, I like to give people there time in the sun so to say and not be too much of a forum hog. What I can say about this game is the dev team is slow paced. They do good content but it takes awhile and 1st and foremost we need multiplayer. There is no point in a perfectly balanced game if we can only play with ourselves. That's why I suggested very simple changes like opening the different CL slots to put points into as they 'could' do it will minimal effort for great potential reward.
        Led

        The needer of Nerfs,
        The greatest sheepshagger of all

        Killed 1970 frogs...and plans to kill 1 more
        HALU RALO ZEYO 0519

        Comment


          #5
          That is true. Least effort for most gameplay impact. To go from opening a couple more categories for uncapped CP investment to my suggestion of soft caps isn't too much more work. since the change does not require any game mechanic adjustment. But my suggestion opens up greater variety and hidden in it a sneaky way to balanace attributes. I don't know if anyone caught on to it.

          Notice i I put soft cap on power to 100 instead of 50 for AS. I feel currently AS is a much more valuable attribute than power which is only pure damage. But effort to earn 1 CP is the same. So by adjusting the soft cap, you can actually tilt the field a bit. 300 CP investment into AS in my system will only yield 150 pts into AS. The same 300 CP will get you 200 pts into power. 500 CP gets you 200 in AS but same amount will get you 266 in power etc.

          so so if we are going for the most bang for the buck, let's move the CP system to something like I suggested. Votes? Who knows, perhaps the DEVs were already thinking along this line, we just didn't know.
          GAQO KITO REZO 1934

          Comment

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