Heroes: Upcoming Balance Changes - Open Discussion

[fallen]

There are some upcoming balance changes for Heroes that I wanted to share with the dedicated theory-crafting crew to get everyone's feeling and reaction out before any changes occur. None of these changes are set in stone, so consider this a moment to discuss, weigh options, suggest alternatives.

I really should be working on E4, but its a good moment to stop and look at some math. I have given them A, B, C, D labels, so when you respond, please be sure to address an individual change.

Lol, 3 years later and I love this game too much. Must make it better!

A. -Armor and -Resistance Curses
UPDATE: In the next update, this simply becomes the rule of the game. Armor and Resistance can be over-Cursed and taken negative. Your groups focusing on stripping Armor and Res will continue to operate as they have. The display of monster detail stats in the game now honor this rule and will show -Armor and -Res points.

Why? It has been this way for 3 years and the testing we did on fixing the bug found that a lot of play-styles in the early Episodes were negatively effected by this change, and that it had very little effect (either way) once you reached Episode 2. Thanks to En1gma for a great comment that made me think of this differently. We had come at it from such a "it's a bug, crush bug!" angle.

Original description:
xdesperado helped uncover a bug this week about how -Armor and -Resistance curses could stack together to cause -Armor and -Res on monsters, which basically translates to extra Damage. We are closing this bug, but wanted to put it out here so that players can react. This means, whenever you saw a monster with "0 Armor" that it potentially had -Armor, and might have been adding some points of Damage above and beyond your roll. Past Episode 1, most monsters have high enough Armor not to be hit by this, unless you're doing as xdesperado was doing and stacking Choking Ash 10 and Punishing Blades 10. This is more of a balance concern for early game, where up to the Great Shaman, it is not too hard to get 0 Armor on most enemies if you are using a solid Armor curse, not to mention two.

That said, those groups that are focused on stripping all enemy soak are likely to feel this at any point in the game. We are doing a lot of testing on our end to make sure this is an acceptable change, as we know it has strategy impacts, and has been a bug in the game for 3 years running.

B. +HP Buff Becomes More Auto
UPDATE: Everyone agrees. Included in the next update!

Thanks to some great feedback and suggestions, we've decided to take change how +HP buffs. We have avoided allowing them to Heal, which would have required a reduction in their bonuses, but instead they maintain the % of HP the hero had before the buff. I you were banged up with 50% HP, you'd end up with 50% HP of your new Buffed total. If you were uninjured with 100% you end up with 100% HP of your new total, no need for healing.

C. Vraes and Daggers
Vraes was never intended to wield a dagger and a shield. I have always wished we had fixed it immediately the first time someone mentioned it, because it was a bug then. His Talents were designed and balanced for 2+ AP weapons or dual wielding (see Ferocity). Now, it is a valid play style due to its 3 year history. There are a few ways we could address this, but I'd be interested in hearing the crowds thoughts. The prevailing theory is as follows - whenever Vraes attacks, regardless of the weapon or dual wielding combo, the minimum AP he can spend is 2. This directly targets Dagger+Shield combos and pushes you to at the very least, pick up a 2 AP Light Blade. No Respec is required for players that have invested heavily in 1 AP Light Blades, you can still make valid Dex builds that are super-tank and avoidance based, trading the extra Dmg from Strength for your Dodge bonus. Dual Wielding is not affected by this, carrying 2 x 1 AP Light Blades is still valid (spends 2 AP).

D. Critical Dmg Multiplier by AP
As your heroes enter E4, the Critical % rates available continue to grow. With dedicated build and the right set of gear and weapons, you can hit 50%+ Critical chance. This evolution has continued to change the potential balance and place of Critical Hits within the game's math. The proposed change for comment is to derive the Critical Dmg Multiplier from the AP of the Talent or Weapon used in the attack. Today, Critical Dmg Multiplier is either 200%, 250% or 300% picked randomly for every Crit hit. The proposed change would allow 1 AP weapons to Crit from 150% to 200% Dmg, 2 AP weapons to crit from 200% to 300%, 3 AP weapons to crit from 300% to 400% and 4 AP weapons to crit from 300 to 450% Dmg. This would reduce the Dmg caused by low AP attacks, and increase the Dmg caused by high AP attacks. Spells like Firestorm and Banishment stand to benefit, as do 3 AP and 4 AP weapons. Dual Wielding would roll its Crit Dmg Multiplier based on the full AP cost of the two weapons combined.

I still have to spend a few hours with the proposed % ranges for each AP, but just like the Dmg of a weapon ranges of all weapons and talents are derived by their AP, this would flow into Criticals and lead to a fairer distribution of AP spent to Avg Dmg caused.

[wascalwywabbit]

1. xdesperado started the initial thread that caused matrim to find the bug.

2. What of dual wielding 1ap + 2ap and final 1 ap attack is done..? Does this affect Vraes and/or crits? Does that final attack become single wield effectively?

3. The crit idea is good, and just got online to suggest a scaled own version in the wish list section, I figured it'd be shot down - glad i was on the right track. The reason I was thinking the crit option was actually as a fix for Vraes 1 ap for some builds by itself since it'll adversely affect his BR 1ap builds the most.

4. Str instead of acc. for NM..?

[Lurk]

B. looks a bit complicated to me. As i understand, point is just to make all added HP replenished until buff ends. So, IMHO you can just use new HP_temp pool as an addition to HP pool. Damage taken first goes to HP_temp pool and overflow to HP pool after. Heal first goes to HP pool, rest to HP_temp pool. When buff ends, HP_temp pool goes to zero.

[En1gma]

A. I kinda like the thought that you can over-curse on Armor... It makes the Talent Points worth it, and for me adds a cool thought that I rained SO much Ash and cut it SO deep with Punishing Blades that the targets will end up taking more damage than they are meant to. This being said, it IS powerful, but so is FEROCITY 10, or Juggernaut 10, or EA 10, or Strickening + ES + Elemental gear. I think that it could stay the way it is, but maybe only allow for a certain % of over-curse. Say 10%, this allows the player to stack SO MUCH armor curses on something that they are at an even more severe disadvantage. I'm fine either way on this one-- I'm the type of player that keeps my total possible Armor debuffs relatively equal to my enemys' armor total in general.

B. While the proposed changes would certainly help, it would STILL require some measure of healing to get back what the buff doesn't give. To make it as simple as possible, keep the IN COMBAT rules for the buff as is: Casting Stone Skin while IN COMBAT will not restore any health whatsoever. But change the OUT OF COMBAT rules-- Stone Skin will restore the HP only if the buff is not currently on and OUT OF COMBAT. This gets around any exploits while allowing Vraes to get back into combat straight out of any situation.

C. Balance the use of 1AP + Shield exactly like you've mentioned. It's WAY OP and allows the player to abuse V's skill set unfairly. Dual Wield should remain unchanged, as you give up any modicum of added defense (besides what the better weapon grants of course) in return for a much higher offensive capability.

D. I love the idea of Crit % going up with AP cost, though it would severely cripple some of my builds' damage output significantly if 1AP is nerfed (balanced) too harshly. This would GREATLY encourage players to try out the 3+4 AP weaponry, and I'm giddy to think of a 4AP FEROCITY crit and the sheer havoc it would create How would Elemental Damage be rolled? Same as the weapon AP multiplier?


Thank you for allowing us to weigh in on this, seriously!

[matrim]

D. I like this idea. It personally hits my groups hard because I focus 1 AP weapons but I don't really rely on critical hits and instead lean on the vastly increased damage that Strickening brings to the table, crits are just gravy. Something I would like to see added to this is to increase some strategies with Kyera. Currently I have not had her in a group since discovering how good Strickening is. She has EA which is great but perfectly replicable with FF, ToS or any combo of weaker -AP curses. Nothing comes close to the raw power increase of Strickening. I propose that either through a buff (piety ward needs some love IMO) or a curse (would have to be on EA, already awesome, some utility might need to be taken, like the -acc) she can increase the die roll on the crit. Early on she can add +1 to the roll (increasing damage by 50%), mid level +2, and level 9-10 increase +3. This brings big damage to the table as with her on your team you know crits are going to be massive. It also increases the attractiveness of higher AP weapons with her in the group as only the higher AP weapons can take advantage of the +2 and +3. Think of it as a divine insight into weaknesses (in the case of a buff) or divine exposure of the enemy's weakness (in the case of a curse).

[xdesperado]

fallen all your proposed changes look good to me.
Especially like your B, I autocast all buffs after resting and after end of each combat. Will make me check that everyone is max or near max HP if I'm casting those. Also your proposal makes them bad substitute for an actual healing spell or potions in combat which is how it should be. Save SP/potions out of combat from not having to Heal a fully healed hero also way it should be.

[Cory Trese]

A: My look at this is that we're talking about a flat 5% to 8% damage reduction which seems like it will have the largest impact on low AP weapons.

B: A percentage heal is in line with most game's implementation of health improving buffs. I think a straight percentage is the simplest way, easy to explain and totally matches the "health bar looks the same" which is important to people.

C: I'd still like to just eliminate the bug but I know that it would cause complaining because of respec and stuff. I think the 2-AP minimum is a good compromise ... not what we'd do if it was a multiplayer game but works for single player balance.

D: You know I love this one

[fallen]

Mar 22, 2016 14:57:07 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

1. xdesperado started the initial thread that caused matrim to find the bug.

2. What of dual wielding 1ap + 2ap and final 1 ap attack is done..? Does this affect Vraes and/or crits? Does that final attack become single wield effectively?

3. The crit idea is good, and just got online to suggest a scaled own version in the wish list section, I figured it'd be shot down - glad i was on the right track. The reason I was thinking the crit option was actually as a fix for Vraes 1 ap for some builds by itself since it'll adversely affect his BR 1ap builds the most.

4. Str instead of acc. for NM..?

1. Sorry, my bad. Too much going on, too little sleep.

2. If you dual wield, had 1 AP left and had a 1 AP weapon, as Vraes, you could not attack "Not enough AP."

3. Glad we're thinking alike.

4. Not sure what this is in reference too?

[wascalwywabbit]

fallen You have suggested elsewhere that you were thinking of adding str to NM, I figured this would also fit with dmg per ap balance and Vraes intended builds.

Also, what about the extreme cases of 5-6 ap dual wield for Vraes - how would that go with the proposed crit changes?

[Cory Trese]

Mar 22, 2016 15:49:33 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

fallen You have suggested elsewhere that you were thinking of adding str to NM, I figured this would also fit with dmg per ap balance and Vraes intended builds.

Also, what about the extreme cases of 5-6 ap dual wield for Vraes - how would that go with the proposed crit changes?

The math would be liner so you'd absolutely destroy with a 6AP dual wield and critical.

[Rashar]

(A) Sounds perfect.

(B) Sounds perfect, less micro management with stoneskin and similar buffs.

(C) Sounds perfect, removes the insane 1ap build, keeps 1ap+1ap dual wield build an option, keeps a dex based Vraes wielding 2ap light blade an option. 

(D) Complicated, changing the crititcal damage range based on the ap cost of your action will have a huge impact. Besides not everybody is stacking critical hit and for some heroes it just not a viable option.
As a baseline 100:number of attacks is the %crit where you will see results and that is the % that you need to reach if you want %crit to be useable for a hero. As an example Kjartan with firebolt (2ap) needs atleast 33% crit in order to become reliable and even then it is to low as he will likely spend his ap on other things aswell thus making a crit build Kjartan out of the question. The same logic applies to all heroes, it works best for Vraes and Tamilin who have respectively a 33% and 27% crit buff. Making Vraes the ideal hero for critting with 1ap and 2ap weapons and Tamilin has a good amount of crit for her 1ap throwing knows and when given atleast 6%crit with gear also her bow attacks. This means that when the weapon has a higher number of ap the hero needs to have the desired %crit to go along with it. And even though with gear 50% crit can be aquired it means that in those slots you miss out on any other type of gear. Tamilin with a lot of crit gear makes a great damage dealer but a lousy frontwoman as there is no parry/dodge/stealth. So I personally feel that taking gear with %crit will balance itself out due to the fact that it means your character does not get to take another type of gear, so I think that % crit gear defines the build of the character naturally.

Now if this change goes live then tamilin her Torrent of steel 1ap throwing knives damage output is nerfed, meaning that it has become less desireable with a 150%-200% range you probably outright killed it, making 1ap throwing knives just as useless as the 3ap and 4ap 2 handers now are. Any other characters that might be using throwing knives will feel the same sting and 2ap throwing knives will become the standard.

1 handed weapons that cost 3 ap will be a better option but they will most likely still be inferior to 2ap weapons, with a 2ap you require only 33% crit and when using a 3ap weapon you really need that 50% crit. Aside from that the issue also lies in versatility, like I pointed out before; moving 1 step has no effect but moving that 2nd step has the same effect as losing 1 ap or 2 ap. This also makes lower ap weapons more valueable. Another issue is that there actually is such a thing as overkill, doing huge damage on 1 enemy might be the way to go for boss enemies that have been singled out or are the last one standing. But in cases where there are lots of enemies a lower ap will again be superior because you can potentially kill more enemies which also results in less enemy attacks. And ESPECIALLY these last two things are what makes two handed melee weapons trash tier. Having a 4ap spear that does 65234656% crit damage is awesome but if the end result is that you killed 1 ratman with 346283648 damage and the other version of you killed 2 or 3 ratman with respectively upto 400-600 damage then it is not hard to see which of those 3 is doing the worst. In this case the numbers of the 4ap are out of the world and when it comes to dmg/ap ratio he is THE number 1 but in terms of killing potential he scores a 1. This also applies to 3 ap bows as they are god awful aswell for these same last 2 reasons.

If you want to make 2 handed melee weapons (3ap bows) useable or better then I don't think changing how critical damage works will be the answer.

(1)Their damage is to low or the ap cost too high w/e way you want to look at it.
(2)Wielding a 2 handed weapon means you can not wield a shield so you miss out on parry and the magical bonuses the shield would have had and the itemization of the 2 handed weapons does not make up for that even though their stats are already a bit higher then 1 handers. The magical bonuses on 2 handers need to be better and also higher then 1 handed counterparts otherwise a 1 hander + shield will just be better because of the amount parry and magical bonuses you receive.
(3) Versatily
(4) killing potential
(5) misses... if you miss with a 3ap+ weapon you are hurt more then when you miss with a 2ap or lower weapon

Before I get to the conlusion and offer a solution I mean no harm to anyone personally and I would like to thank fallen and Cory Trese for their persistence in addressing these issues.

Ok so after all of this how would I like to see things changed... hmm...

I would probably lower the %crit damage of 1 ap attacks to a set amount of 200%-ish this will make them reliable/consistent and thus still competitive with 2ap attacks who will go from 200% 250% 300% giving the 2ap weapon a much higher top damage and also average damage.

I would lower the ap from every two handed weapon spear, sword or hammer in the game by 1, now before you start laughing hear me out... as I pointed out above doing this would make the 2 handed weapons versatile as you can now swing 3 times, they have the same killing potential so no overkills, it would solve the issue that two handed weapons stats are to low because now that they are equal to the 2ap 1 handers the reason for wielding a 2 handed weapon would be DAMAGE. Sure you miss out on some parry and magical bonusus but you gain mobility, equality, damage, missing is not so painful anymore so it leads to more diverse gearing as you no longer have to prioritze accuracy. Basicly it would mean that 2 handed weapons would be a real option and the equation is more damage or more defence/magical bonusus.

I would prolly just get rid of all 3 ap bows and all spears, hammers, swords that would still have 3 ap more after the -1ap. Less is more! This also solves the issue of critical damage for things as 1ap attacks have a set 200% and 2ap attacks or any type of spell have the 200 250 300 range so there are no 3ap and 4 ap things.

With kind regards,

Rashar

[wascalwywabbit]

Mar 22, 2016 16:02:34 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Mar 22, 2016 15:49:33 GMT -5 wascalwywabbit said:

fallen You have suggested elsewhere that you were thinking of adding str to NM, I figured this would also fit with dmg per ap balance and Vraes intended builds.

Also, what about the extreme cases of 5-6 ap dual wield for Vraes - how would that go with the proposed crit changes?

The math would be liner so you'd absolutely destroy with a 6AP dual wield and critical.

That's generally good imo, Cory Trese, but doesn't that give a bigger boost to Kincaid, who's the only character that can AoE with that setup, despite him not doing as much per target, he can easily hit 2-3 targets an attack, unlike Selen and Vraes who are single hit melee?

Rashar your points for crit and high ap weapons are valid for many low hp trash mobs, but multi-hit requiring high hp targets still can go down faster with their proposal of crit % x ~ap. You can swap weapons situationally, as long as not done too often, choosing the right weapon for the use case is ideal imo, or should be, not sticking to one low ap weapon style.

[samopop]

D. I like this idea! I think higher AP weapons need some increase in attractiveness. Some of the more interesting effects of this might be:
1) ToS essentially gets a nerf w/ 1 AP daggers (which is probably how most people that think it is overpowered are using it)
2) Many Selen/Kincaid 1 AP strategies will be nerfed because they rely on crits to keep damage high vs armored/high resistance enemies
3) Vincent's energy storm becomes quite powerful (since w/ Eye of the Storm he can start w/ 20% crit)
4) Effects on big AoE spells (Banishment and Firestorm) may be large: although neither of these character will have high crit %s in general, these spells hit a large number of enemies simultaneously meaning you will be seeing giant 4AP crits regularly).

Regarding balancing higher AP weapons versus lower AP weapons: how about an even bolder suggestion (almost certainly too large a change for HoS): *all* damage modifiers could scale with the AP usage of the weapons. For example, bracers that added +d19 damage currently would add (based upon the AP of the weapon):
AP | +dam | mean +dam
1    | d9     | 5
2    | d19   | 10
3    | d29   | 15
4    | d39   | 20
Currently, any additional damage from talents/items gets a larger multiplier for lower AP weapons since they are used more frequently. Obviously the increased damage bands for higher AP weapons (and other things) is meant to compensate for this, but it seems like attacking the issue at the source would be a simpler and more balanced way to handle it that can't be exploited by particular builds. (again, this is likely way too invasive for HoS due balance, design, yadda, yadda.)

[slayernz]

A sounds great
D sounds awesome - but has some complexities. I partially agree with Rashar in that we don't want to really nerf the 1AP dagger attacks too dramatically as to render that build too weak to be worthwhile. I guess that in testing you'll find the sweet spot. I don't mind the 2AP weapons having a bigger spread from min to max crit. Again though, I see where you're going with the higher CHD for higher AP weapons because it offsets the fact that you get less hits per turn with those weapons. Testing is critical.
B is fine. It makes logical sense that heal buffs don't act as healing, but maybe I haven't had enough coffee and will need to re-read to make sure I understand.

The only slightly contentious one is C.

C is ... well I agree that Vraes shouldn't really be running around with a dagger and a shield. However, to make him have a 2AP minimum irrespective of what weapon/s he is wielding could cause a lot of feedback from users who say "this is a bug, I equipped Vraes with a 1AP weapon and he's using 2AP". Making Vraes have a penalty for holding a shield could be valid - dagger alone = 1AP, Dagger + shield = 2AP, but how would you word that? You can't have 1AP for the shield, because then when he's holding a 2AP sword + shield, you don't want people to expect 3AP per attack.

Instead, maybe add a x% penalty to all dagger attacks that Vraes does. It can be explicit: "Vraes likes big blades because he likes stabbing right through the body wherever possible" ... or it can be hidden. Users will begin to notice that Vraes wielding daggers results in lower damage. They can either buff with skills, or they can change their behavior to other weapons because the return/reward is lower with daggers.


Now here is something I thought of when I read this thread ...
IS there any way that we, as your fanatical community, can help with testing? Can you create a few extra lines of code that will allow you to have the feature changes you suggest above be latent (non-active), but can be activated using a code (like how we enter the mighty weapons code). If we create a new game with say "-TestABC" it will enable those code changes, and we can report back on whether it made our game better or worse.

It would reduce the burden of testing on you both, and we could try out the new features and see just how much of an impact it makes before it goes live to your entire customer base.

[wascalwywabbit]

Maybe have it so you never parry with a light blade when wielding/wearing a shield? That combined the crit nerfing of 1ap, and buffing of crits with 2ap plus, makes 2ap plus more appealing already, even without penalizing ap use for Vraes, i.e. making 1ap=2ap. Raising str with NM would do that even more. That's my own best alternative combo for C. Vraes and daggers. That penalizes all crits focused 1ap blade dmg, and only Vraes 1ap dagger defense, while making str builds more appealing for Vraes in particular, but also all other str weapon users thru the crit option.

My only problem with D. is it appears to help Kincaid most of all for melee due to his high AoE melee options, CS and SoS, along with insane dual wield potential. Edit: Fyona and Vincent have the AoE but no dual wield and less crit potential, Vraes and Selen have the crit potential and dual wield option, but no AoE. Hence the top end edge cases help Kincaid most.