Balance. It’s a term I’ve seen thrown around the forums everywhere. The problem is, most of you are getting it wrong. Balance in a game or in anything for that matter is ONLY achieved by adding the proper counterweight.
In the Conan or any survival battle game where apparently the developers have an open ear, this is being done completely wrong. In Conan, I’ll say it’s mostly being done wrong as I do see true balance with some updates.
Take a balance scale for reference. Now place a rock on one side. The scale tips. Now, take some rock off that side. What do you get? It’s still tipped. Add some rock this time…still tipped? Yup. That is because balance is impossible to achieve by buffing or nerfing an item. Period. There is no exception.
Now using that same reference, keep that rock on the scale and add feathers to the other plate. If you add enough feathers, eventually, it will balance out. THAT is the ONLY way to achieve balance in ANY game.
Balance is only achieved by an equal counterbalance.
Sword of Crom OP? No biggie, farm new Crom armor, and Sword of Crom damage is reduced by 50%…You now live to fight another day. Runaway, adapt and approach attacking those thralls in a different way. Acid Arrows? No biggie, water orbs can be used to neutralize the acid. Gas Arrows? Boom sandstorm mask. THAT is “balance.” Applying nerfs or buffs…is not. It’s laziness and poor thinking. Nerfs and Buffs are bandaids that eventually ruin a game. Games, such as Conan, are enjoyable because they ARE challenging. When you remove the challenges, you ruin the game.
Developers, listen to your audience for sure but don’t take so many suggestions literally. I refer back to Sword of Crom OP paragraph. Don’t nerf, create a balance. Don’t buff, create a balance. Not only will creating a true balance to the game add more strength to the game but it can also lead to more player activity which is the ultimate goal. Keep people playing. As long as you make the difficulty of the task worth the fight to get it.
You’re obviously too young to have historical context for the things you suggest, and too uninformed about this process. Heck, from your last bully pulpit post about PvP, I’d say games in general. What you propose is an arms race, where Funcom makes a mistake with a weapon’s damage, so they need to introduce a counter. Or somehow buff a counter? Would they have to have introduced the counter-armor if none existed?
That will be exhausting. Haven’t you ever heard of Mutually Assured Destruction? There comes a time when certain things have no counter and must either be banned or diminished.
If I’m trying to balance two things on a scale, and one is heavier than the other, I have two options: add some to the lighter side, or take some from the heavier side. Refusing to consider one option in all cases is no better than refusing to consider the other. The hard part - and hence the ongoing discussions- is knowing which option to choose in any given situation, taken in the context of the game as a whole. Maybe it’s not as easy as it seems to make those decisions.
LOL, I’m probably older than everyone on this forum and have more gaming experience including development. I was building games and designing them before most of the languages of today even existed. So, too young is way off. LOL
Bully pulpit? Sigh…So many players with weak character these days. Toughen up young man. Life doesn’t care about your “feelings”. It’s a game about dominance and war, not architecture digest and tea parties. “Oh look at my place. Isn’t it pretty?” Yeah, pretty sure I’m gonna blow it up.
It’s not an arms race. Funcom didn’t make a mistake with Acid Arrows, Sword of Crom, Lifeblood Spear. People were and still are just too lazy to adapt and overcome the obstacle so they scream nerf. I have no idea how you even would come to the point that it’s an “arms race” when something like Acid Arrows could have been defended against with a simple water orb. (for example)
The armor was also an example (maybe read the post before replying). And instead of introducing new armor, they can develop a recipe that can be added to modify existing armor. Not “exhausting” at all. It brings balance and gives players more things to accomplish.
As a real-life combat veteran, you better believe I’ve heard of “mutually assured destruction” and it’s clear that you do not understand what it means at all. It is my guess that you weren’t even born when it was at its peak. Since you completely do not understand the concept.
Avatars are Mutually Assured Destruction. A sword of Crom is not. Clans possessing T3 altars are less likely to use an Avatar against a clan that also has one. This is because it can retaliate with their own avatar. Hence the meaning of “Mutually Assured Destruction.”
No such moment exists. The player should adapt to the skill level of the game, not the game adapt to the level of player. Use ANY professional sport as a reference. When players try out for a team, they don’t say, "wow, we really like you…but you can’t hit the ball. Sooo, let’s just go by how many times you catch the ball. " NO. They either have it or they don’t. They get better or they don’t make the team.
Also no true. I use the Acid Arrows as an example because it’s the most recent victim of poor player play. There needed to be a counter to Masked Silent Legion thralls. Acid Arrows was a good solution. But rather than finding a way to counter acid arrows players cried “nerf”. A simple solution would have been using the same thing that eliminates Gas Orbs … water orbs. OMG They’re shooting acid arrows…Okay, no problem… Boom water orbs deployed. Done.
That’s not a hundred things needing to be changed. It’s a single addition with an appropriate response. One that doesn’t even need to be changed. However, people are too quick to cry OP and don’t try any other way of defeating a tactic.
It’s sad really. That means there are too many quitters. And that is proven by how many players quit a server after they’ve been raided. I have no respect for players that whine about losing a fight or quit because they did.
I was one of the first ones to cry REMOVE acid arrow from the game. Reason: the game engine and it’s AI can not react “intelligently” enough to not path STRAIGHT INTO THE CLOUD. In a perfect game world I have no problem with your argument though.
They didn’t need removed. They needed changed. Make them work like bleed instead of a cloud, only have it tick away at durrability instead of health (have it do 1 HP per second to stop healing and to keep the health bar visible). Then when you melted their helmet with acid ticks, hit them with a poison cloud arrow.
The acid arrows causing a cloud, melting armor, and doing massive damage for almost no cost was a problem.
They NEEDED to not release it in it’s current form from testlive, they DID. Luckily, they had listened to the pvp community quickly and that original form was nerfed. Still doesn’t change the fact that no matter what any player does they cannot make a non-following thrall move out of that cloud when the player is offline. I can’t re-write AI per thrall. NO COUNTER
Which is why I suggested changing it to a bleed like effect. In other words, you have to hit them directly and keep the stacks up. Once you have melted the helmet, you put in the work, so the follow up poison arrow is justified.
Well offline raided can’t be helped. That’s just a dick move and hopefully, you’ve built an alliance with other clans that can warn, alert or even protect your base when you’re not online. I know, in our case, we build alliances and we are required to help out each other or they’re out and on their own. No resource trading, no purge assistance, no backup. If not, you’re going to have to rely on your base design. That’s all on you then.
Compelling? Okay, so no one said you’d have to babysit. Personally, no thrall is worth that to me anyway. They’re thralls, just go make more. It’s not like they’re tough to make. You place them in the wheel come back when they’re done.
However, in answer to your statement, you don’t. If you’re defending your base, you have them ready to go and toss them as needed. The only time you’re going to be around them anyway is if you’re defending your base from a raid. It’s not hard to carry some water orbs on you since they already work to neutralize Demon Fire, Grease and Gas Orbs. However, ff defending your base isn’t compelling, then again - change to the proper server mode where you don’t have to defend it.
Ha, if you say so. You just think I look silly because you’re embarrassed to face the fact that you make excuses for everything rather than find a solution as I do. I frankly don’t care if you think I look silly. Your opinions mean nothing to me. As stated, I adapt to the game, so even your nerfs will do nothing to me. I will still find a way to play the game as intended…I’m here to destroy my enemies. My enemies are anyone building around resources, blocking game points of interest, attacking lower level players when they have no ability to fight back (if you’re part of our alliance).
Then i would never want to play any of your games. Developers don’t usually use the idea of a fix for broken/unbalanced mechanic reported by the players be “Get Good” or go play another style.
I also think its that you’re putting too much worth in your thralls. Not one of them is important and all of them can be replaced. If you’re developed your base properly, you can put out thralls at a breakneck pace. So, if someone wants to attack my thralls from a distance, have at it. But to do that, you’re going to have to find the ones I have hidden that have free reign of my outer perimeter. Those will overwhelm most intruders. Even with Acid arrows.
I’ll try not to trigger you again. Your “soapbox.” It is your thread, after all.
Your problem is you want to see what you want, rather than reading the actual words, or asking the other’s opinion. MAD isn’t about some gimmick sword or a silly avatar. Acid arrows in their original state were Mutually Assured Destruction. Simple. And water orbs do not counter.
When technologies are introduced to the realm of sport, there are almost always tweaks and changes. Demanded by the players. Professional Tennis: cyclops bounds reader. When it was first introduced, its line calls were so severely different from the human referees or lines judges that it was presumed the machine was at fault. It was adjusted to more human tolerances. In the advent of high-speed video, we have learned cyclops was actually more correct. And adjustments are made on both sides, just like in life. Just like in war.
Now we’re assigning weight variables to the balance equation? I made no mention of worth, this was only 1 example of many that was originally chosen due to recentness in memory by you sir. My comments have nothing to do with my opinion of worth of a thrall. I tried a vathis last week after patch just to check if that script was still running. I could care less about thralls or tames. What I could see coming was a broken mechanic.
Apparently he cares a great deal about them because they constitute his entire battalion of meatcurtain. That’s what Set is for, clear a path, take out the archers, meet your Enc buddy in the middle.
