My Wishlist

[BAgate]

Again, as to the relative damage, I AM NOT SAYING TO DO THAT! It was about aesthetics with a general comment about good design thrown in which everyone has latched onto.

As to the concept of viability. First, story mode as is is not itself viable because it is ridiculously easy and gives no rewards (hence many of these ideas). So lets stipulate that story mode has its difficulty and rewards increased for the sake of discussion. Then, maybe I used the wrong word with 'viable'. My point was that other builds are MASSIVELY superior. So if a 'tank build can't be as tanky as a non-tank build' then what is the purpose of a tank build? And so why would anyone play it? And so it therefore isn't 'viable' in the way I am using the word. So ultimately the idea is to come up with some idea(s) that would make multiple builds that are all equally as good. If anyone else has ideas, please, contribute. But having one attribute from which all good things come is counterproductive. Everyone MUST maximize (until diminishing returns) that attribute, so any build/playstyle which gives an advantage there breaks things.

Would this necessitate reworking sets? Of course. Wouldn't be the first time that's been done.

As for classes, again, this would require some reworking. Again, not the first time. The comment on mages waiting for cooldowns misses the point. There would be some reworking such that the specials would deal on avg as much damage (with shorter cooldowns) as attacking with specials (with longer cooldowns). So it wouldn't effect leaderboards, it would just provide more ways to play. Same for BH. And it wouldn't be ONLY 3 spells to cast, you could sprinkle in some attacks. You just have to balance.

The point I am trying to make is that right now everything is lumped together and comes from one place, so there is no variety. If you rebalance so things don't all come from the same place you get variety, and you don't have to sacrifice performance.

[Faelyn]

The vast majority of your post just reiterates my points from my last post.. You sort of gave yourself the answers to your own arguments regarding to what I was talking about, with emphasus on the part where much of the game needs a rework to incorporate your designs. Tanks don't necessarily have to have the highest hp. You can play them for their defence oriented skills.

Before you give steps 2 and 3, you should at least provide a blueprint of step 1. You skipped over a lot of things that need to be done before they can get to where you want. Maybe a better solution is to give your input on how to go about bringing a change before the change itself. Reworks are easier said than done, especially when you have to balance everything.

Anyways, I'm sorry for this incomplete reply. I will be doing something for the next couple days so this is the most I can give you now.

[BAgate]

No problem. I just think the details of how everything would be rebalanced is far outside the scope of a thread like this and that the need for such was implied. My original list was not meant to be exhaustive or final, and I think you have raised many valid points. The one thing I would emphasize, though, is that no one who has criticized any of my suggestions has been able to point out an existing alternative playstyle (that is equal/viable), nor have they proposed any other suggestions as to how such could be facilitated. So if you don't like mine, please, come up with some other ideas and share them.

Without major overhaul eternium will be a niche game that most will quickly lose interest in, and I don't think anyone wants that.

[Rytrik]

No problem. I just think the details of how everything would be rebalanced is far outside the scope of a thread like this and that the need for such was implied. My original list was not meant to be exhaustive or final, and I think you have raised many valid points. The one thing I would emphasize, though, is that no one who has criticized any of my suggestions has been able to point out an existing alternative playstyle (that is equal/viable), nor have they proposed any other suggestions as to how such could be facilitated. So if you don't like mine, please, come up with some other ideas and share them.

Without major overhaul eternium will be a niche game that most will quickly lose interest in, and I don't think anyone wants that.

If you're proposing a major 180° overhaul of the game design, then I think the onus is on you to do the deep thinking and actually create a blueprint as to how it can happen.

you're wanting players to be penalized for using Auto attacks if they want to use specials. And essentially vice versa. That is a massive design change and would take a fuckload of recoding to make it happen. In essence it would be a completely new game. And remember, there's only about three people working on the game. What you're proposing would require large amounts of resources to do.

[Arionthe]

I thought about staying away from this topic. But seems like I couldn't resist. My views on the topic isn't surprising or new for those that I have had discussions with. But here are the changes that would change a lot of what BAgate is talking about.

Alacrity currently dominates the CDR game. I estimate that it is worth about 75% of total CDR when geared to effective 1500 AR.
Recovery is the key stat for defense. Once you moved beyond 1 hit kill on toughness, Recovery stat determines how durable you are in a fight. Higher recovery, more durable, full stop.
DPS output comes from three sources. Normal attacks, Specials, and triggered procs.

The above three elements share a common thread, all are massively influenced by attack speed. Hence all competitive builds focus on a required amount of attack speed and Dual Wielders have a substantial advantage over one handers.

Now how to change the current situation assuming if that's even what Devs want.

1. Reduce Alacrity effect in the CDR game. This can be done by implementing a simple change. Instead of reducing ALL active cooldowns when Alacrity triggers, it reduces ONE active cooldown when it triggers. Currently there is 3 Utility/Specials slots. This effectively reduce Alacrity's impact on CDR by 2/3. So instead of 75% of total CDR, now it's 50% of total CDR, on par with AR at 1500.
2. Reduce Alacrity reliance on Attack Speed. This can be done by introducing more ways to trigger Alacrity. For example, on blocked hits, on parried attacks, on dodged arrows, on even damage taken. Basically any action that isn't a normal attack performed. This moves Alacrity away from the sole domain of fast attackers. If you are surrounded by a big mob, you can actually see your skills cooldown speed up because you build your character to withstand massive packs (woo, build variety?)
3. Reduce Recovery's reliance on Attack Speed. Again allowing LoH to trigger on actions other than normal attacks or specials that use normal attacks (RF) will reduce attack speed's influence on Recovery. Again, blocked hits, parried attacks, dodged etc see above. This incentives builds that are sturdy as measured by toughness. You see there is a limited budget of stats. When one invests in toughness stats, you are invariably trading off stats in offense/recovery. Giving more ways for recovery to occur outside of attacking something will truly change how a durable character can be build for this game. As it stands, a dual wielder with high LOH will ALWAYS be more durable than another build when facing packs of ghosts. Not exactly a logical situation.

That is all you need to do.

[BAgate]

Rytrik - I take it you don't code. Because most of what I suggested was geared to be easy to code. Change drops? Should be one place. Change level, a tweak of existing functionality. Change to alacrity, already exists, just change the values. Etc. There would need to be extensive rebalancing, but again, that is just changing some numbers. Nothing is completely changing anything. With exception of minions and new named items, the changes I suggested should be able to be implemented in a week.

Aionthe - well thought out as usual, and just for the record, I'm glad you chimed in. This is the type of brainstorming I was hoping for. A few thoughts:

1) I still think alacrity is overpowered. Why should AS have as much impact on cooldowns as AR? Personal opinion, but I think it should at most supplement AR, not be its equal.

2) What would your limits be? Because it seems like you think alacrity/LoH should just trigger on everything. Would you want some differentiation, or was the generic trigger your intent?

3) Would you tweak the LoH/life regen balance any?

[Arionthe]

1) you have to think a little more long term. Minion skills are pretty blah. I’m guessing that eventually the minion skills will be dropped and instead more active skill slots will be implemented. When that happens, alacrity impact will be further reduced automatically. To 1/4, 1/5 or even 1/6. Additionally, when more active skills are available, I would guess the individual skill cooldown will be increased. Then the balance between alacrity and AR will be further tiled in the direction you desired.

2) when 1) happens, since alacrity isn’t as powerful, you can now afford to have it trigger in more ways. This gives player choices in how to achieve the desired CDR target. Due to limited item stat budget, you will still have to have trade offs. So I’m not worried that CDR will break the game in that scenario.

3) this is tough. You have to accept certain compromise when dealing with a mobile game. What I mean is that mobile game need to have more forgiving gameplay. I have my thoughts on this topic but I think the more critical changes are in my suggested changes.

[BAgate]

I'd love to hear the dev's thoughts on where minions are going, but I've never heard anything along the line of what you assume. Absent that, any other thoughts?

And as for forgiving gameplay, that is one thing. Instaheal is another. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.