The future of PvP in SWL

[Meta-Moth]

I think if Funcom think that weapons or abilities need re-balancing (which they have said they will be) then they are fully aware that there is already a problem, and PVP isn’t even here yet. I think they arrived at this conclusion themselves.

Need i refer you to posts #265 and posts #267 of another topic where you mention FC dropping the ball in regards to tanking and your expressing worry that they would “Funcom it all up” if they were to re-balance.

This of course coming from the perceived notion of how wonky it all is in PVE.
I’m grateful to those within the SWL community who took the time to make their voices heard in highlighting these issues as it has led to the devs decision of taking a look at how they can re-balance it all for the better - before PVP arrives.

The road to Eldorado is paved with good intentions

M

[newbieshoes]

Exactly, so I’m hesitant to see them try to balance stuff for some kind of horrible PVP/PVE hybrid and making it worse for both sides. Balance for the two cannot exist in harmony.

[Meta-Moth]

You will never get true harmony. That in itself didn’t even exist in TSW (they also mentioned that in the recent stream) It was a constant rework, re-balance to try and get some semblance of balance. But i do feel lessons have been learned from SWL.

The many voices that have expressed their feelings about the many issues presented and how mechanics just don’t work correctly with the skills, weapons, glyphs, signets etc between both the character we control, what we’re given to work with, what we have to work against and how it interacts with PVE - is a complex issue. So it can never be completely right or harmonic in that sense - but they have acknowledged that it can be made better - and they are working toward that. To which, i am most happy about.

All we can do is make them aware of what the problems are that we face - since we, as all members of all parts of the communities - collectively - are the ones who play this game and we are the ones who are expected by them, to stay for the long haul.

I don’t feel anybodies voices are louder or higher or more heard than anyone elses. We are all in this game playing it together and if things change and people don’t like the change - then they will have to be more adaptive, they should know Funcom by now and that is:

“Change always comes - and sometimes it comes fast and hard”

Don’t be hesitant - - Bee the change.

M

[Meta-Moth]

Thank you for your contribution.
You’ve earned 3 ascension points.

[Drenneth]

Now to be clear, as I’ve stated before in this post I don’t expect and in fact would advice Funcom not to alter/balance abilities in SWL purely for the sake of PvP. Part of that is because unless something is so broken that it makes the content unplayable I typically look long and hard for a counter before even thinking about crying for a Nerf. But at the same time I’ve never really understood players adverse reactions to change. I suppose it was always a PVE thing really, I mean, countless times abilities would be balanced for PVE and PvP players would rejoice like it was Christmas because all of a sudden it was like they received a whole set of new toys to play with. Change was a beautiful thing, It sent all the theorycrafters minds to the drawing boards. Yet I knew some PvE players that literally quit the game because an ability got nerfed, suddenly a boss that took them 5 seconds to kill now required an additional 5 seconds of there time. Then I had to ask myself, if that one ability was so critical to your build that you would quit the game over it doesn’t that imply it probably wasn’t balanced properly?

Anyways, I know I don’t share a common opinion on the matter simply because I love change even if its my own hard thought out builds that are getting nerfed. But that being said Ive made it clear several times that personally I don’t expect Funcom to go out of there way to balance PvP because lets face it, regardless of whether I feel change is good I don’t think this game can afford to lose players over any matter if it can be prevented.

[newbieshoes]

I’m not opposed to change. I’d just like to see it done with a firmer grasp on mathematics so we don’t end up with things like bosses killing tanks in a single auto attack if they’re not cycling Tank CDs. Or Rifle’s “best” DPS elite skill being “The one from your other weapon”

Honestly I was concerned when word got out they were nerfing hammer because hammer is/was a VERY popular weapon and wanting to change weapons in SWL is a massive pain once you made an investment into them. Which I think the devs knew if hammer dps got the same treatment fist dps did they would have lost a much larger portion of their playerbase. TSW you could be less invested in weapons so you could swap fairly easily and players did do that as either exploits got fixed or abilities got nerfed/buffed because they didn’t have to rebuild the new weapon from freaking green/blue back up to purple/yellow or god forbid, red.

[Mnord]

Yes I think that in SWL it may be difficult for funcom to create a “good” balance with the small amount of flexilibity available in the current ability list.

In TSW the wheel was vast enough so that both PvP and PvE existed in “parallel” worlds where each activity had its fair share of “own” niche abilities and passives. And even then, regarding the few common elements between the two, blance was difficult (strange attractor, anima shot, aoe’s, expose/corrupt, pvp signets, pve talismans,…), and to make it worse, badly handled.

But I think that they could keep the abilities as they are now and still add a battleground and see how it goes.

[Elenoe]

@Drenneth

suddenly a boss that took them 5 seconds to kill now required an additional 5 seconds of there time.

nerfs and changes are not like that really. In TSW one of PvP changes was limiting some elementalism abilities to 7m from original 15m, regardless NYR circle is 12m away from boss. It never caused any imbalance in PvE before, except now it become unusable.

The other fun PvP change was adding cast time to base leeching ability. It was working well in PvE but it was abused in PvP so they changed it and made leeching more… unreliable at best (it was suddenly annoying).

@Drenneth

if that one ability was so critical to your build that you would quit the game over it doesn’t that imply it probably wasn’t balanced properly?

Well, you use blade. You know how “balanced” things are in builds, how many “choices” we really have now and how would slight change, let’s say remove chi bonus from harmony and replace it with let’s say “much better” purge would do.

You may be happy to theorycraft. I was too in TSW, prooving Ele main is better then Pistol/SH since the start, up to the NYR NM. And every change meant I reglyphed talismans, changed secondary, changed skills and rotation. Fine. Had plenty BB/crits/astrals to do that.

In SWL the previously mentioned change would mean put aside l70 blade and level another, put aside a l70 ele and level another weapon. At best pull out signets and use different ones, with another head if I ever determine how it really works (you see, I’m still reevaluating other possibilities and combinations that might do some good, but I can’t test it). And you do all this with just a hope that in a month of serious grind you might get some results because the alternative “without harmony” build can’t be even tested before it’s fully leveled. I would like to, but I’m still short of backup glyphs for alternate weapons. That’s how balanced it is now.

And let’s don’t start with how bugged and ambiguous every single things is. Even in TSW you’ve known more then now. You never know from description how thing really works to make any kind of reliable preparation. You need to spend resources first, test it and hope you’re able to observe results. You can’t plan here like you could in EVE where things are transparent and super simple and the complexity is made through infinite combinations rather then obfuscation.

In Warframe? Yeah, any changes are “good”. They do them mostly right. You have so many frames and weapons, almost no locks anywhere. And even if you needed to “reglyph” it takes a day of grind. Also they always refund any “points” in changed things so you can “reallocate” elsewhere. Same with ESO. They change things, you get free reallocation.

So yeah, I’m scared of changes in SWL too. Because I know they have no idea how things works. Even without synergies, with skills simplified to bones, they still have no clue. They set random changes and then “observe” the results for months. How could they even comprehend how we are using blades? The only thing they know is that “it’s some kind of mashing buttons”. Just look at blade results in most hands. You remember why Tsunami sucks? It’s not because of what is written in the description or number balancing, it’s completely invisible to them.

[BombShelley]

@newbieshoes

I’d just like to see it done with a firmer grasp on mathematics

Careful what you wish for. Some of the worst ‘balance’ in games comes from something being mathematically perfect but utterly useless in the actual game setting.

For example, I remember a game with a random dodge chance mechanic that was mathematically perfectly balanced with a flat damage mitigation rate. At one point, they statistically mitigated the exact same amount of damage.

Dodge tanks were unplayable though, because a statistical chance to completely dodge boss one shots was not worth the paper it had been calculated on when the flat mitigation resistance tank always survived the big hit with just enough HP for the healer to go to work.

Given that I personally suspect Evade in SWL is probably similarly balanced on a useless piece of paper… just more firm math might be the exact opposite of what SWL needs.

[Mnord]

@Elenoe

I was too in TSW, prooving Ele main is better then Pistol/SH since the start, up to the NYR NM.

What do you mean?

Pistol/shotgun builds were the only ones that managed to down NM nyr pre-nerf (blood was arguably a decent alternative for pistol because it had what made pistol powerful: multi hit builder, channeled consumer for EF and even better range but it lacked the utility from ww). For raw dps (but more burst oriented) hamfist and hamblade were also quite popular.

Ele was on par with the other ranged decks back during the DoD era but it’s really the swap to the abuse of bombardment (so much that nerf and controversy ensued) that pushed it behind shotgun+channelled EF builds.

It’s only after the wheel rework that elem became almost unanimously the “FOTM” weapon (due to live wire buff/mani interactions, % buff boost/powerline and the nerf of EF + bombardment) so not only ele got buffed but EF+bombardment builds got heavily nerfed.

Not directly related: I think that SWL’s AR problem is similar to the old pistol/shotgun problem.
Not only pistol/shotgun was a high dps build but it was easy, had a versatile elite ranged aoe and could bring the best utility (hinders/cleanse/DABS).
Here in SWL, AR is not only among the top dps but also has the highest range, a non-elite aoe in the single target rotation and relatively safe and easy gimmick (especially with KSR).

I don’t think that it is healthy for a game to have so much advantages in a single weapon.

[Drenneth]

@Elenoe

suddenly a boss that took them 5 seconds to kill now required an additional 5 seconds of there time.

This statement was intended for a different purpose. It was to show that content was all ready extremely easy before and after most nerfs that took place. You took it a little more literal then I intended but that’s ok. You still understood the point.

@Elenoe

And every change meant I reglyphed talismans, changed secondary, changed skills and rotation. Fine. Had plenty BB/crits/astrals to do that.

Never re-glyphed a talisman before. Had about 250 10.5+ talismans near the end of the game for different setups. That is truely where SWL is lacking though as @newbieshoes stated It was far more easy to swap weapons and talis on the fly in TSW. And yes I do agree I think that increases the danger in rebalancing in SWL by a large margin.

@Elenoe

So yeah, I’m scared of changes in SWL too. Because I know they have no idea how things works. Even without synergies, with skills simplified to bones, they still have no clue. They set random changes and then “observe” the results for months. How could they even comprehend how we are using blades? The only thing they know is that “it’s some kind of mashing buttons”. Just look at blade results in most hands. You remember why Tsunami sucks? It’s not because of what is written in the description or number balancing, it’s completely invisible to them.

I certainly agree with you here. They have not even the slightest clue and just the same didn’t in TSW. All you have to do is watch a dev stream to notice that lol. My position is still the same though, I advice strongly that they do NOT balance abilities purely for the sake of PvP but even with there lack of knowledge and the steep grind involved in moving things around and making changes on a personal level I always enjoy ability revamps.

One thing Id like to see funcom do more of is alter the receiving end more then the dealing end. Theirs a game my wife plays which I don’t even know the name of (some Chinese MMO) but talking to her about it and they revamp all the boss stats and resistances and even slight changes to mechanics (what can be impaired etc) every few months. Not only does this offer a lot to make content feel “new” but in some cases it can act as a way to balance abilities without changing the abilities themselves.

[Elenoe]

@Mnord

What do you mean?

I mean I was able to be higher then P/SH even with their bombardment, at ST that is, throughout the changes.

But as I see now with blade on NYR10 and HR6 it might have been more related to mechanics skills then the weapons themselves. Nevertheless.

The point was, it was possible to adapt to changes in TSW. I’m not sure how “worth” it will be in SWL since even the slightest change might easily mean leveling a lot of different gear. Which stopped being fun somewhere around yellow levels.

[Mnord]

@Elenoe

I mean I was able to be higher then P/SH even with their bombardment, at ST that is, throughout the changes.

Ah yes I myself outdpsed many good builds with less powerful builds, it is true that in TSW there was huge gaps (that couldn’t always be compensated by builds or gear) between players due to the skill.

Though, out of “personal” contexts, P/SG builds were performing better. It is the reason why everything that made it powerful was severely nerfed and that it was overused by the top cabals whenever they were racing in high-end content or pushing the boss kill record timers (where P/SG’s were used beyond just dabs while ele was only used by the “tank” for SF)

[Oyajuu]

Does it smell like relics in here? I could swear it does.

Seems it’s the longest thread on these forums, at least recently? Keep up the good fight Drenneth & al. I really want to hear the 2 minute countdown again. And again. And again.

[Drenneth]

Oh the memories.

[Meta-Moth]

That’s because some of us are really old and the carer hasn’t been round yet with the meds.

[newbieshoes]

We have that now. Def/Evade glyphs aren’t worth using for this reason. And keeping up with threat at higher gear levels, but a similar issue. SWTOR had it right when I did raiding in it. Basic punches to the face were not 1 hit mechanics but actual 1 hit mechanics could not be dodged and do $TEXAS amounts of damage that even the most ridiculous mitigation combos would not save you. But your example is another of poor balance of the boss punching you to death in 1 hit.

Hell, even TSW has always been super wonky about Last Resort and Immutable letting you survive stuff. I probably should try testing Immutable with more mechanics. I know for example you can run over the flames in the city before us with Immutable up and no die.

[Meta-Moth]

Build it - And they will come.

#FusangBets4SWL
Eat
PvP
Repeat

[Starsmith]

Immutable works on everything PvE except scripted deaths like Whisper of Darkness running out. If you get a hit that’s for millions or billions of damage, it’s probably a scripted kill and nothing will save you. Otherwise, Immutable lets you stand in lots of bad stuff.

[Sawo]

It was a pleasure to see many PvP suits in Agartha, and familiar names above them.
Thanks guys, was fun… even that I really really miss my Glyph stats from gear