Pistoleer Archive

Thread: Any theories on how to make a workable combat balance?

AEK
Thu May 06, 2004 6:41 pm
#1
OK, i'm having a hard time understanding how this combat balance would work if it is ever implemented. I haven't been completely up to date on all the boards so I don't know exactly what is in the works. Maybe if some good solutions are presented the DEV's might implement an idea or two. Keep in mind the other classes and the intricacies of how they work and interact, so please don't only post give pistoleer this and that (better weapons & working specials) and nerf the other classes, even though that may be what it takes the end.


Let me say I ama master pistoleer and master creature handlerso I can handle some most of the higher level content with a good buff and weapon, but more often than not I will get owned if I don't have a buff or didn't have my trusty meatshields. Dodge and speed are my primary advantages.


Firstly, to equalize things, it seems that either a bunch of people will get nerfed (TKA, rifleman, etc.), which will cause a huge uproar/whinefest in the community (account cancelations, etc.), or bring the weaker classes (i.e. pistoleer) up to a higher level. Maybe there is some optimal middle ground here. The longer it takes the harder it will be to accept for some people.


Second, there is talk about specials not draining from HAM stats so buffs won't give infinite special spam ability. Possiblylike the jedi"force power" bar? Please no, not my fanshot! It's all I have! I personally don't think master combat professions should need a buff to be competitive.


Third, how would the rebalance affect creatures or mobs? Should their difficulty be increased/decreased to offset character changes?


Finally, although wevery littleinformation about the new jedi quest system, try to predict the interplay of any said changes.


Just like to get some ideas because I am having a hard time seeing how this could work with things in the current state.


Cheers!
Waste93
Thu May 06, 2004 7:08 pm
#2

Here is a repost of mine in regards to this topic. Since I was responding to another question some of it may not quite make sense since it's out of context. So feel free to ask for any clarification.






Which is the major issue. People think of game balance as a linear issue. In otherwords a Master level combat profession should do the same damage as all the others.


In most cases they are correct but not in SWG. The reason being we have professions and not classes. Because of this it is impossible to balance in a linear fashion because of the ability to cherry pick abilities.


Have you even played D&D? Are a novice magic user and fighter balanced? Nope. Not even close. The fighter will destroy the magic user almost every time. But what about higher levels? The magic user will probably kill the fighter almost every time.


Lets look at it this way. Lets compare three elite combat professions. Rifle, Pistol, Carbine.


What these nerf herders want in the name of "balance" is everyone doing the same amount of damage at the same level. They like to use Master as their base measurement. So lets ignore for now that a novice Rifle is behind the others. Lets just look at Master level.


A Rifle does the most damage per second at Master level of the three. That is not in dispute. So these people, in the name of balance, want to reduce that so it is the same as the others. Lets say they do. Are those three profession now balanced?


Lets check. Since all the damage is equal it's ok there. Speed would be about equal. Accuracy about the same. So far so good. But lets also look at defenses and special abilities. Those are parts of the profession.


Riflemen have few status change defenses. Pistoleers have lots of them. So now it is no longer balanced. So we can either increase the defenses for Riflemen and Carabineers to equal those of the Pistol or drop the Pistol to our level. All in the name of "balance" of course.


So now we have defenses equal. But what about specials? Carabineers have lots of status effect changes while Pistol and Rifle have few. So again in the name of balance we would have to change them to be equal.


So we end up with three identical professions. Just different titles and graphics for their weapons.


Now we would also have to balance all these issues for Novice level also and up thru the tree. Good luck doing so.


So we come to how to balance them. It's what I call circular balance. That means certain professions have advantages that work well against others. Rifle has pure power (damage output). In a slug fest the Rifle has the advantage. The advantage of the Carbine is the ability to cause status effects. The pistol is defense against status effects.


So what we have is A usually beats B, B usually beats C, and C usually beats A. In other words, equal skill level players and HAM face off. The rifleman should defeat the pistoleer. The reason being the rifle does pure damage (his strength) while the defenses vs status effects doesn't help the pistoleer since the rifle isn't doing them. So the rifle takes on the carbine. Now the carbine does status effects. This disrupts and negates the rifle advantage of pure power and the rifle has little defense against these kinds of attacks. So the rifle gets hit with a dizzy, KD, and a host of other effects. Since the rifle is laying on his back he can't attack. Carbine should usually win. Now the carbine faces the pistol. Pistol has lots of defenses against status effects and can dodge the attack all together. So the carbine is forced to attack the pistoleers strength. While the Pistoleer has few status change attacks they have enough to help since the Carabineers has few defenses against them. Pistoleer should win.


That is a circular balance. Each profession had advantages and disadvantages. It is not nor should it be a 50/50 all the time. Just take the above example and expand it to include all the combat professions. Yes it is difficult to do, but with a profession based system that lets you cherry pick skills it is the only long term solution to achieving balance.


It will also require reeducation for those that think of balance as linear.


When these people complain about how much damage a Rifleman does. Ask them about their defenses or what status change attacks they cando. If they want to focus on one thing about the rifle they think is overpowered. Just show them how you can turn it around and tell them that their ability is something that can help them in certain situations and is not something a rifle can do.


Most people don't look at these other factors in balancing since they are mostly passive. When your defense vs KD kicks in it doesn't tell you. Yet everyone can see the damage done in the combat spam. So it is easy to pick on. But that isn't the whole story. If they still don't understand, just tell them to watch and fire of a special without buffs so they can see our HAM costs. Then tell them to watch someone doing the same with a pistol.




If you want to do some digging there is a rather lengthy debate between me and another Pistoleer both on this forum and the Riflemens forum from a couple of months ago. In the end we came to actually agree for the most part.


If you are interested in it and can't find it let me know and i'll dig it up and send a link.


For your first question. Based on how I see balancing I don't think a lot of people will need to get nerfed. Taken everything into account you can do some tweaking. However you will also have to educate many people to learn to look at the total package of what advantages a profession has. Espcially the passive abilities.


Second question. The new HAM system is suppose to work this way. You will have a second "HAM" bar that your specials work off of. Right now when you use a special it drains you HAM and in effect means you are hurting yourself. So lets say you use a special that uses 100 Health out of your 700. You are now at 600 Health and that is the same bar you take damage to when hit. In the new system you will have a second "HAM" bar that is used in regards to your specials. It will recharge at a set rate. I think they said 25 seconds. So when you using it and do that 100 Health move, your Health that you take damage to does not decrease. It will only lower when damaged.Since this second "HAM" bar isn't dependent on your regular HAM. Buffs won't effect it, which means no more infinite special spamming.


Third question. As part of the combat revamp the MOBs were supposed already modified. It's why we saw dramatic HAM increases to some MOBs. Though this will again have to be tweaked once we see the total effect. However the main parts were put in months ago. At least that was the reason given for the MOB increases.


Final question. Can't really comment much. The Devs came to realize how poor their choice of how to unlock the Jedi slot was. Mastering random professions does not only not fit the spirit of SW when it comes to Jedi, it let to hologrinding, and massive discontent as players had to gut their characters in an effort to unlock the slot. A quest type unlocking makes more sense and means players may not have to gut their prefered playing style just to grind. Overall effect has yet to be seen of course because we know so little about what it will be, how it will work, how long it will take to complete, and how difficult it will be.




Colonel Waste - The Wookiee Crusader
Vicu
Thu May 06, 2004 9:18 pm
#3

That was a very in depth examination, but doesn't seem to take into account range and environment that well. We still want realism in this game.


One can't wield rifles effectivly in smaller spaces, in star wars, combat aboard ships or in most buildings, look at any swat team footage, they don't use the sniper inside any building, he has to be at a substantial range to be effective, while the others go in with submachine guns, pistols and shotguns, medium to short range weapons.


Proffesions needs to be masters of thier environment, snipers can ambush from great distance, but when we're up close pistols and knives must be the ideal weapons.





___________________
Violence for the people!

Vicu Bro'lya - Master Pistoleer, Master Fencer, Master Explorer, Rebel Colonel and Ace Pilot
AEK
Thu May 06, 2004 11:29 pm
#4
Very nice Waste93, keep the constructive comments coming

Imaridril
Fri May 07, 2004 4:37 am
#5




Waste93 wrote:

Have you even played D&D? Are a novice magic user and fighter balanced? Nope. Not even close. The fighter will destroy the magic user almost every time. But what about higher levels? The magic user will probably kill the fighter almost every time.


Lets look at it this way. Lets compare three elite combat professions. Rifle, Pistol, Carbine.



What these nerf herders want in the name of "balance" is everyone doing the same amount of damage at the same level. They like to use Master as their base measurement. So lets ignore for now that a novice Rifle is behind the others. Lets just look at Master level.






I don't think its fair to apply this analogy to SWG. In a pen and paper RPG, a good GM will try to ensure that all of his players have a fairly equal level of challenge and reward in the game. Also, in a pen and paper game, the only "players" in the game world are those sitting at the table. They don't have to worry about haveinggame content monopolizedby other min/maxers. The other big difference is that inmost pen and paper games, player's are constantly leveling. In SWG, most players are going to spend 90%+ of their gaming time as a Master, and thus balance at master has to be taken much more into consideration than balance as a non-master.







So what we have is A usually beats B, B usually beats C, and C usually beats A. In other words, equal skill level players and HAM face off. The rifleman should defeat the pistoleer. The reason being the rifle does pure damage (his strength) while the defenses vs status effects doesn't help the pistoleer since the rifle isn't doing them. So the rifle takes on the carbine. Now the carbine does status effects. This disrupts and negates the rifle advantage of pure power and the rifle has little defense against these kinds of attacks. So the rifle gets hit with a dizzy, KD, and a host of other effects. Since the rifle is laying on his back he can't attack. Carbine should usually win. Now the carbine faces the pistol. Pistol has lots of defenses against status effects and can dodge the attack all together. So the carbine is forced to attack the pistoleers strength. While the Pistoleer has few status change attacks they have enough to help since the Carabineers has few defenses against them. Pistoleer should win.






That's how its supposed to work in theory, but currently its far from that. The reason being is that in the current combat system, raw damage is massively more important that state defences and status changing effects, especially in PvE. For example, when going up against most of the high end MOBs in the game, a rifleman is going to outdamage a pistoleer by close to 10 to 1. A pistoleer's defences are going to come NOWHERE close to making up for that. In order to even begin to get on par, the pistoleer's defenses would have to allow him to avoid 90% of the damage dealt by the MOB. And even then this wouldn't be balanced, since the rifleman would be able to take down 10 high end MOBs in the time it takes the pistoleer to drop only one. As for carbineers and their status change effects, those are also not worth much against high end MOBs. A carbineer can spam specials all day on 100k+ HAM MOBs and they will rarely ever stick. And even when they do, getting a 15 second knockdown once or twice during a 20 minute fight is pointless. The advantage this gives you is miniscule compared to the advanted you get from being able to do massive amounts of raw damage.


Personally I don't think damage vs. defenses vs. specials can ever be balanced. Raw damage is either going to always be superior, or completely inferior. The reason for this is time. Even if defenses and specials for low damage profs are raised so that both high and low damage dealers can take on the same level of MOB, you're still going to be stuck with the situation that the high damage dealer can take down the mob in a quicker amount of time.







That is a circular balance. Each profession had advantages and disadvantages. It is not nor should it be a 50/50 all the time.






Actually, I think itshould to be 50/50 all the time. A paper/rocks/scissors system where certain proffessions always beat other proffessions is unfun for many players and gets rid of strategy in many situations. A better system is onewhere every proffession has a large enoughnumber of strategies at their fingertips so that there is no other single proffession that they can't go toe to toe with, assuming they know how to emply those strategies.


Personally, here'sa basic outline I would use for balancing combat.


Damage Types and Damage Dealing: There are currently8 different damage types that are used in the game. Each basic combat proffession should have access to at least4 different damage types. (More for Commandos and BHs). As for the ability to deal damage, all proffesions should have a comprable DPS, however the variety should come in what sort of damage type(s) each proffession can deal heavy damage with. For example, every proffession should have at least one weapon with Heavy AP, however, each proffession's Heavy AP weapon should be of a different damage type.


Accuracy: Accuracy at different ranges needs to be exagerated more. Master Rifleman need to miss more often at close range, whereas Master Pistoleers need to miss more often at long range.


Status Effects: All proffessions should have specials that do a similar variety of status effects. Some proffessions should be better at sticking certain status effects than others, but each proffession should have at least one or two status effects that they are quite profficient with. Introducing two or three new types of status effects would allow for a greater level of variety. (For example, therecould be a new status effect that temporarily lowers a targets movement speed, this could then be used to try and keep your targetwithin a specific range.)


Defenses: All proffessions should have a comprable level of defenses. The variety should come in what defense area they are better at. For example, one proffession should have high Defense vs. Knockdown, whereas another migh have high Defense vs. Blind. As for the other defenses, i.e., Dodge, Counterattack, Block, Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, each proffession should have similar amounts, but not all of the same type.


Tanking: Right now I think that most melee proffessions are a little to powerfull when it comes to tanking. Granted, part of this is due to overpowered armor, however, I still think its out of balance. Melee fighters should have two types of tanking abilities. One should be a low level tanking ability that allows them to take a little more damage than normal, while still dishing out the normal amount of damage with their attacks. The high level tanking ability should allow melee fighters to absorb much more damage, but at the same time significantly reduce the amount of damage they can deal.


Armor and Buffs: Non-loot enhanced composite armor either needs to have one or two more vulnerabilities added to it and/or it needs to have its base resists lowered by about 10-20%. (Personally I think it should be given at least one morevulnerability and not just haveits resists lowered, as this would bring composite down to a level such that players would actually have a reason to seek out RIS armor, BH armor, and Mandalorian armor. It would also add more strategy by ensuring that at least every type of armor has a weakness.) As for Buffs, the new HAM system is apparently going to make it harder to spam specials while at the same time allowing mind to be healed with stims.


Healing: Medics and Doctorsshould to have a significant penalty when using a stim on themselves. I know this would make many doctors mad, however as it stands right now, having high level medic of doctor skills give a player amassive combat advantage. A player who spends his 250 skill points solely on combat proffessions should be better in combat then a player who only spends 92 points on combat and then puts the rest into a support proffession.


Stun Damage: Right now the Devs have this notion that stun damage should be treated differently than all other types of damage in the game. They have done this by making sure that every type of armor is vulnerable to stun. This might seem like a clever idea on paper, but in practice it is bad for the game. Elevating one damage type to some sort of special status ensures that that damage type will always be the most dominant in PvP. This is bad for variety and bad for strategy, and furthermore it puts proffessions without stun damage weapons at a big disadvantage. Stun damage needs to be treated like every other type of damage, i.e., some armors resist it, and some don't. There really is no justifiable game mechanic reason for keeping it the way it currently is. All it does is give a big perk to a few proffessions, while at the same time essentially squandering one of the eight damage types and lessening the ability to have variety amougst armor and weapons.


Active Defenses: Right now almost all defenses in the game are passive, which gets rid of a lot of strategy and skill. What I would like to see is the addition of several special moves that allow players to temporarily give themselves bonuses in one area while giving themselves penalties in another. For example, here's a few ideas...


  1. Add a special move that temporarily raises a player's defense vs. knockdown while at the same time lowering his movement speed.

  2. Add a special move that temporarily raises a player's ranged and melee defense while at the same time lowering his accuracy.

  3. Add a special move that temporarily raises a player's defense vs. intimidate while at the same time lowering his ranged and melee defense.

  4. Add a special move that lessens the duration of a dizzy while at the same time lowering the player's dodge, counterattack, or block.

Besides the above four there are plenty of other options that could be thought up. The goal would be to give players more strategic options in combat. For example, if you were going up against a proffession that you knew was good at landing intimidates, you could try to use special#3 from above in order to counter his advantage. At the same time, however, if your opponent was smart, after seeing you use special #3 from above, he would switch to a high damage/low accuracy weapon, since he would know that your ranged and melee defenses were temporarily lowered.





Master Pilot - Adonis Overstar
Pre-NGE Weaponsmith/Armorsmith - Ulrech Overstar

KSE Firespray: Baphomet

Waste93
Fri May 07, 2004 6:41 am
#6



Imaridril wrote:


I don't think its fair to apply this analogy to SWG. In a pen and paper RPG, a good GM will try to ensure that all of his players have a fairly equal level of challenge and reward in the game. Also, in a pen and paper game, the only "players" in the game world are those sitting at the table. They don't have to worry about haveinggame content monopolizedby other min/maxers. The other big difference is that inmost pen and paper games, player's are constantly leveling. In SWG, most players are going to spend 90%+ of their gaming time as a Master, and thus balance at master has to be taken much more into consideration than balance as a non-master.




SWG is suppose to be an RPG also though. So comparison to an RPG is valid.


That's how its supposed to work in theory, but currently its far from that. The reason being is that in the current combat system, raw damage is massively more important that state defences and status changing effects, especially in PvE. For example, when going up against most of the high end MOBs in the game, a rifleman is going to outdamage a pistoleer by close to 10 to 1. A pistoleer's defences are going to come NOWHERE close to making up for that. In order to even begin to get on par, the pistoleer's defenses would have to allow him to avoid 90% of the damage dealt by the MOB. And even then this wouldn't be balanced, since the rifleman would be able to take down 10 high end MOBs in the time it takes the pistoleer to drop only one. As for carbineers and their status change effects, those are also not worth much against high end MOBs. A carbineer can spam specials all day on 100k+ HAM MOBs and they will rarely ever stick. And even when they do, getting a 15 second knockdown once or twice during a 20 minute fight is pointless. The advantage this gives you is miniscule compared to the advanted you get from being able to do massive amounts of raw damage.


That is because the easy way out was taken in making the high end MOB what they are. What they did was add resists, armor, and HAM. This makes you rely on pure damage and cuts out the other advantages of the other professions.


So how do we fix this? Well since the Pistoleers main advantage is defense you make that play more of a role. You give the MOB more status effecting attacks and have them use more specials.


Lets look at MOBs. Right now there is no advantage to attacking a specific pool since all those pools are basically even. Why not change it so certain types favor one pool over others. So we would have elephant types (Snorbl) with high health, mid mind, and low action. While cats (Dire Cats) would have high action, mid health, low mind. Humanoids would have say high mind, mid health, and low action. That kind of thing You give each base species a pool of points. You would then divide those say 45% to the main, 30% mid, and 25% low. This would make it advantageous for certain professions to fight against certain MOBs since they can target a given pool.


Next we have the high end NPCs. I'm probably not the only one that wondered how someone of the same species as a player can have 100X or more HAM than a player, wear heavy armor instead of just light, and has almost 100% resists to everything. Again the easy way was taken. To make them tougher they just beefed them up. So why not do this a different way. Drop their HAM to more realistic levels, but make up for it by having them use more specials in their attacks. Also have them use more status effect changes. Those that should have Force Powers give it to them and have them use them frequently. By doing this you can drop raw damage from being the only factor in taking them out. Defenses will be more important, and tactical use of status effect attacks on them will also be more important.


Personally I don't think damage vs. defenses vs. specials can ever be balanced. Raw damage is either going to always be superior, or completely inferior. The reason for this is time. Even if defenses and specials for low damage profs are raised so that both high and low damage dealers can take on the same level of MOB, you're still going to be stuck with the situation that the high damage dealer can take down the mob in a quicker amount of time.


But the high damage dealer is also more vulnerable. It isn't just about how much damage but the total survivability. Lets say a Pistoleer does half the damage as a Rifle. But the Pistol is also twice as likely to survive. Is that not also balanced. One other factor that has cut into the Pistoleers abilities is actually the buffs and armor. This has reduced the need for good defenses. Back prior to all the high end armor and all the buffs I think the Pistoleers were actually better off. So we have to find a way to bring it back to where it needs to be.


Actually, I think itshould to be 50/50 all the time. A paper/rocks/scissors system where certain proffessions always beat other proffessions is unfun for many players and gets rid of strategy in many situations. A better system is onewhere every proffession has a large enoughnumber of strategies at their fingertips so that there is no other single proffession that they can't go toe to toe with, assuming they know how to emply those strategies.


Absolutely not. Saying it should always be 50/50 also gets rid of tactics and makes it solely determined by luck. It also means there is no difference between the professions. For it to be 50/50 all the time it means we would have to have the same damage output, defenses, status attacks, etc. So we end up with all these different professions where the only real difference is the graphics of their weapons. This is exactly what you propose in your solution. Everyone being the same. In that case why not get rid of all the combat professions and just make one called "Warrior"?


A 50/50 approach is also impossible given the ability to cherry pick skills. Think of all the uber templates. BH/Pistoleer, Commando, Defensive stackers, CH/Any combat profession, CM/Rifle, etc. You'll notice that with one exception, all those uber templates were templates that cherry picked skills. The Commando was an oddity because when they fixed them they over compensated. Even if you can linear balance Master level professions, that balanced is easily destroyed because of how we can build templates. How many combinations are possible? And can you balance all those combinations?


No. Each profession should have a role. A niche that they are useful for. Strengths and weaknesses. A role for each profession where they excel over the others. A rock/scissors/paper approach is the way to go. But in this case the paper usually beats the rock, not always.









Colonel Waste - The Wookiee Crusader
Waste93
Fri May 07, 2004 6:49 am
#7




Vicu wrote:

That was a very in depth examination, but doesn't seem to take into account range and environment that well. We still want realism in this game.


One can't wield rifles effectivly in smaller spaces, in star wars, combat aboard ships or in most buildings, look at any swat team footage, they don't use the sniper inside any building, he has to be at a substantial range to be effective, while the others go in with submachine guns, pistols and shotguns, medium to short range weapons.


Proffesions needs to be masters of thier environment, snipers can ambush from great distance, but when we're up close pistols and knives must be the ideal weapons.







No it doesn't. That was a basic exam for just three professions. Pistol, Carbine, and Rifle. You would have to expand it to include the others.


The basic premise though is that each profession has a role to fill.


Also riflemen are not snipers nor can they be. As you stated the "sniper can ambush from great distance". However there is neither ambushing nor great distances in this game. Yes TH said he wanted riflemen to be snipers but that is not possible given the limitation they have place on things such are range and everyone being always visible on radar. So riflemen are infantrymen.


But enviroment is an important factor. In close quarters the advantage should lay with the melee classes. While open terrain should be the preferred enviroment of the riflemen. Other professions would also have their preferred situation.


Someone in another thread asked how we saw a battle with riflemen, carbineers, and pistoleers. Here is how I see it. The riflemen is the damage dealer. They lay down fire injuring the enemy. The carabineers are the skirmishers. They try to keep the enemy from closing on the riflemen. They do this by crowd control. Using AoE attacks and status changes to keep people away. The Pistoleer is the anti-Carabineer. Their defenses are used to conter the Carabineer and take them out. Once this is done the others can close and eliminate the Riflemen at close range where they are weakest.


Of course you can expand that example to include the other professions. But that is just a basic example of how each profession has a role to play.



Colonel Waste - The Wookiee Crusader
Imaridril
Fri May 07, 2004 9:49 am
#8






Waste93 wrote:



Imaridril wrote:


I don't think its fair to apply this analogy to SWG. In a pen and paper RPG, a good GM will try to ensure that all of his players have a fairly equal level of challenge and reward in the game. Also, in a pen and paper game, the only "players" in the game world are those sitting at the table. They don't have to worry about haveinggame content monopolizedby other min/maxers. The other big difference is that inmost pen and paper games, player's are constantly leveling. In SWG, most players are going to spend 90%+ of their gaming time as a Master, and thus balance at master has to be taken much more into consideration than balance as a non-master.




SWG is suppose to be an RPG also though. So comparison to an RPG is valid.






Agreed, however the point I was trying to make is that just because D&D employed argueably poor game mechanics when it came to balancing high level proffessions doesn't mean SWG has to go the same route. I used to play a lot of MERP and Rolemaster years ago, and while it was true that high level magic users could get very powerfull, high level non-magic users could get equally as powerful by gaining access topowerfull weapons and items.








That's how its supposed to work in theory, but currently its far from that. The reason being is that in the current combat system, raw damage is massively more important that state defences and status changing effects, especially in PvE. For example, when going up against most of the high end MOBs in the game, a rifleman is going to outdamage a pistoleer by close to 10 to 1. A pistoleer's defences are going to come NOWHERE close to making up for that. In order to even begin to get on par, the pistoleer's defenses would have to allow him to avoid 90% of the damage dealt by the MOB. And even then this wouldn't be balanced, since the rifleman would be able to take down 10 high end MOBs in the time it takes the pistoleer to drop only one. As for carbineers and their status change effects, those are also not worth much against high end MOBs. A carbineer can spam specials all day on 100k+ HAM MOBs and they will rarely ever stick. And even when they do, getting a 15 second knockdown once or twice during a 20 minute fight is pointless. The advantage this gives you is miniscule compared to the advanted you get from being able to do massive amounts of raw damage.


That is because the easy way out was taken in making the high end MOB what they are. What they did was add resists, armor, and HAM. This makes you rely on pure damage and cuts out the other advantages of the other professions.


So how do we fix this? Well since the Pistoleers main advantage is defense you make that play more of a role. You give the MOB more status effecting attacks and have them use more specials.


Lets look at MOBs. Right now there is no advantage to attacking a specific pool since all those pools are basically even. Why not change it so certain types favor one pool over others. So we would have elephant types (Snorbl) with high health, mid mind, and low action. While cats (Dire Cats) would have high action, mid health, low mind. Humanoids would have say high mind, mid health, and low action. That kind of thing You give each base species a pool of points. You would then divide those say 45% to the main, 30% mid, and 25% low. This would make it advantageous for certain professions to fight against certain MOBs since they can target a given pool.


Next we have the high end NPCs. I'm probably not the only one that wondered how someone of the same species as a player can have 100X or more HAM than a player, wear heavy armor instead of just light, and has almost 100% resists to everything. Again the easy way was taken. To make them tougher they just beefed them up. So why not do this a different way. Drop their HAM to more realistic levels, but make up for it by having them use more specials in their attacks. Also have them use more status effect changes. Those that should have Force Powers give it to them and have them use them frequently. By doing this you can drop raw damage from being the only factor in taking them out. Defenses will be more important, and tactical use of status effect attacks on them will also be more important.







Those are all good ideas, but I don't have much faith in the Devs reworking MOBs too much. They've already pushed the combat rebalance back quite a bit, and by the time they do get the balance done, they're going the have the Space Expansion and all its bugs and content to worry about also. I personally hate all the 100k+ HAM MOBs as much as you, but I'd be highly suspect if they were to dissapear and be replaced with sometime more sensible like you put above. When it comes to deciding how we think players should be balanced, I think wehave to assume that MOBs are going to stay mostly the same.








Personally I don't think damage vs. defenses vs. specials can ever be balanced. Raw damage is either going to always be superior, or completely inferior. The reason for this is time. Even if defenses and specials for low damage profs are raised so that both high and low damage dealers can take on the same level of MOB, you're still going to be stuck with the situation that the high damage dealer can take down the mob in a quicker amount of time.


But the high damage dealer is also more vulnerable. It isn't just about how much damage but the total survivability. Lets say a Pistoleer does half the damage as a Rifle. But the Pistol is also twice as likely to survive. Is that not also balanced.






The thing is, "survivability" rarely comes into play. In PvE most smart players can go days at a time without ever getting slain. For arguements sake, lets assume that the Devs have created a MOB that is supposed to be the maximum difficulty MOB that a master combat player can solo. Now lets assume that both a rifleman and a pistoleer have an equal chance of defeating this MOB. Under the current system, assuming both players don't get slain, the Rifleman's higher DPS is going to allow him to drop the MOB in 1/10th the time it takes the Pistoleer to do it. Or in other words, while the pistoleer is busy taking down one of these MOBs, the rifleman is taking down 10 of them. Now, in order to balance this situation, you'd have to increase the MOBs offensive power to such a degree that a rifleman gets slain 9 times out of 10 when taking on this MOB. (Personally, I don't think pistoleers currently have anywhere near the defenses necessary to give them 10 times the survivability of a rifleman, but that's besides the point.) Now, in order to do this fairly, the Devs would have to start adding high end MOBs that are custom tailored to each proffession. Again, this is something I don't see them doing. And even if they did try this, they would have to take into consideration how a MOB that is tailored towards one proffession fares against a player with mixed skills or a group of players.








Actually, I think itshould to be 50/50 all the time. A paper/rocks/scissors system where certain proffessions always beat other proffessions is unfun for many players and gets rid of strategy in many situations. A better system is onewhere every proffession has a large enoughnumber of strategies at their fingertips so that there is no other single proffession that they can't go toe to toe with, assuming they know how to emply those strategies.


Absolutely not. Saying it should always be 50/50 also gets rid of tactics and makes it solely determined by luck. It also means there is no difference between the professions. For it to be 50/50 all the time it means we would have to have the same damage output, defenses, status attacks, etc. So we end up with all these different professions where the only real difference is the graphics of their weapons. This is exactly what you propose in your solution. Everyone being the same. In that case why not get rid of all the combat professions and just make one called "Warrior"?






That's not what I'm advocating at all. In my previous post I went into detail how thedifferent proffessions should be given variety.Under the system you're proposing,taking the three primary ranged proffessions, we have one proffessions, rifleman, who is a high damage dealerfor the majority ofdamage types, one proffessions, carbineer, who has lots of status effects, and one proffessions, pistoleer, who has lots of state defenses. What I'm proposing is that each proffession have high damage dealing abilities, but not for all the same damage types, that each proffession have some status effects, but not all the same ones, and that each proffession have some defenses, but not all the the same area. Given the devs limitations when it comes to testing and developing new content,I think this is the only way balance can be achieved in PvE. As for PvP, I think balancing the proffession the way I propose would also be the best way to maximize strategy. Under the situation you propose, you've essentially got paper-rocks-scissors, i.e., rifleman beats pistoleer, pistoleer beats carbineer, carbineer beats rifleman. The only strategy in that system is "run when you see one of the proffesions that can own you." A much better system would be one where a pistoleer can go toe to toe with a rifleman, but only if he employs the right strategy, and vice versa. And in order for there to be multiple strategies in any given situation, the different proffessions need to have more than just one modus operandi.
A 50/50 approach is also impossible given the ability to cherry pick skills. Think of all the uber templates. BH/Pistoleer, Commando, Defensive stackers, CH/Any combat profession, CM/Rifle, etc. You'll notice that with one exception, all those uber templates were templates that cherry picked skills. The Commando was an oddity because when they fixed them they over compensated. Even if you can linear balance Master level professions, that balanced is easily destroyed because of how we can build templates. How many combinations are possible? And can you balance all those combinations?






Actually, I'd say that "cherry picking" makes balancing much more difficult under your proposed system than mine. The reason being that the way SWG currently works, its much easier to dabble for defense than it is for offense. A master pistoleer who dabbles in rifleman will havegood defenses, but still have poor offensive power, while on the other hand, a master rifleman who dabbles in pistoleer can have both great offense and great defense. Now, you might suggestthat defenses should be scattered throughout a proffession's skills trees, but all this does is get rid of dabbling all together, which goes against the wholeidea of having a skill system. Under the system I'm proposing, each proffession would start withdecent damage in some areas, decent defense in some areas, and a decent ability to land some status effects. All dabbling would givesomeoneunder my system would be the ability to put more strategies in their playbook.







No. Each profession should have a role. A niche that they are useful for. Strengths and weaknesses. A role for each profession where they excel over the others. A rock/scissors/paper approach is the way to go. But in this case the paper usually beats the rock, not always.





I'm not saying that each proffession shouldn't have a role. All I'm saying is that trying to make one proffession's role be only damage, one proffession's role be only status effects, and one proffession's role be only defense is going to be extremely hard if not impossible to balance. I'm also making the claim that such a system minimizes strategy on the individual level, makes it much harder to balance PvE content, and gives "cherry pickers" the ability to be the paper, rock, and scissors all at the same time.




Master Pilot - Adonis Overstar
Pre-NGE Weaponsmith/Armorsmith - Ulrech Overstar

KSE Firespray: Baphomet

Imaridril
Fri May 07, 2004 10:05 am
#9




Waste93 wrote:


Someone in another thread asked how we saw a battle with riflemen, carbineers, and pistoleers. Here is how I see it. The riflemen is the damage dealer. They lay down fire injuring the enemy. The carabineers are the skirmishers. They try to keep the enemy from closing on the riflemen. They do this by crowd control. Using AoE attacks and status changes to keep people away. The Pistoleer is the anti-Carabineer. Their defenses are used to conter the Carabineer and take them out. Once this is done the others can close and eliminate the Riflemen at close range where they are weakest.






I'd also like to add that I think the main reason we're seeing things differently is because I think you're focusing more on how to balanceplayers in PvP whereas I'm focusing on how to balance players in relation to the current implimentation of PvE. So, let me ask you this question, "How do you see a battle between a group of players and a high end MOB?" Here's how I would see it going down under your proposed system... One player, most likely melee, acts as the tank.Any pistoleers in the group sit around contributing nothing because their DPS is to low to matter, and their defenses are massively inferior to the tanking ability of a meleer. Any carbineers in the group stand there spamming status effects, however they rarely ever stick, and even when they do their duration is miniscule compared to the 10-20 minutes the fight is going to last. Any rifleman in the group end up doing the brunt of the work in the encounter, and the only other player in the group that really contributes anything to their success is the tank.







Master Pilot - Adonis Overstar
Pre-NGE Weaponsmith/Armorsmith - Ulrech Overstar

KSE Firespray: Baphomet

Waste93
Fri May 07, 2004 10:25 am
#10




Imaridril wrote:

I'd also like to add that I think the main reason we're seeing things differently is because I think you're focusing more on how to balanceplayers in PvP whereas I'm focusing on how to balance players in relation to the current implimentation of PvE. So, let me ask you this question, "How do you see a battle between a group of players and a high end MOB?" Here's how I would see it going down under your proposed system... One player, most likely melee, acts as the tank.Any pistoleers in the group sit around contributing nothing because their DPS is to low to matter, and their defenses are massively inferior to the tanking ability of a meleer. Any carbineers in the group stand there spamming status effects, however they rarely ever stick, and even when they do their duration is miniscule compared to the 10-20 minutes the fight is going to last. Any rifleman in the group end up doing the brunt of the work in the encounter, and the only other player in the group that really contributes anything to their success is the tank.








Not really. I see everyone of having a role they are the best equipped to handle. So against some MOBs certain professions would be more advantageous to use than others.


I agree with your analyses as of how it works now. However if you change it so that MOBs are like I said it makes the roles more important since the advantages of any given proefssion match up better. But in your example lets say the MOB does frequent status effect attacks. That can drop the melee tank and MOB can move in. That is where the Pistoleer comes in. They become the secondary tank since they have the highest surivability rating in that kind of situation. The other role of the Pistoleer is that of the Anti-Melee as I see it. Of course some tweaking will need to be made to fulfill this role. Namely a small increase in Def vs Melee, and increases to all their status defenses.


You analyses is correct in regards to how some MOBs would be. Just like you have players set up so A beat B, B beats C, C beats A. You have the MOBs set up in a similar fashion. So that certain professions can hit their weakness. It makes it a matter of matchups. Yes this would take some work. But in the long run make it more enjoyable and tactical.


Balancing towards PvP is actually easier to do than PvE because the Devs have taken the easy way to making MOBs more difficult and thrown things badly out of whack.


As for cherry picking, it makes a linear balancing impossible. Which is why you have to have a circular balance as I call it.



Colonel Waste - The Wookiee Crusader
AEK
Fri May 07, 2004 7:06 pm
#11

Wow thanks for the well thought out input. OK, I couldn't quite absorb all of that but here is what I agree on:


Total damage output wins nearly everytime. If defenses offset offenses then it would be fair. Throw in targeted pools equally distributed with associated A vs B vs C vs A scenario then it might be workable in a PvP sense. PvE mobs definitely would take some tweaking (to put it nicely.) Tactics and available weaponsare important in getting the maximum use of your character.


Onmy question 4, it was just released today on how people could "purchase" force sensitive abilties to get bonus modifiers, presumably including combat. This just seems to add another variable and make the problem all the more complex.


What makes it even more complicated is that everybody isn't a single pure combat profession, some will dabble in or master another (like me with CH) which could tip the scales.


I still don't see how it's possible to make it work

Noslen_Yelnats
Sat May 08, 2004 11:59 am
#12

I think the reason why this whole combat thing doesnt work is because its all RPG type battling. Theres no real skill involved therefore its relied on character level. It will be very tricky to balance the combat system just because theres really not a whole lot of user skill involved in fighting. Its all based on what level your character is at.



Noslen


Waste93
Sun May 09, 2004 12:12 am
#13




Noslen_Yelnats wrote:

I think the reason why this whole combat thing doesnt work is because its all RPG type battling. Theres no real skill involved therefore its relied on character level. It will be very tricky to balance the combat system just because theres really not a whole lot of user skill involved in fighting. Its all based on what level your character is at.



Noslen







Actually that should make it easier. Without a skill based system you would have a "twitch" based system. This relies solely on the players reflexes and how good their connection is.


So how would you balance something that depends on the players real life reflexes? You can't. If someone is faster in RL than someone else, they will always be faster. But you can balance if using a skill based system like SWG has.


The difficulty in balancing SWG isn't because it's skill based, it's because we have professions instead of classes. If you played an RPG you know what a class system is. In AD&D you had Fighters, Thieves, Magic-Users, etc. They all had advantages and disadvantages. Some were powerful at low level, while others were only so at high level.


But that is where the difference lies. In SWG you can pick and choose skills. You can take Dirty Fighting from Smuggler, Master Pistoleer, and TKA. You can pick and choose what skills you want. It would be like in AD&D of taking the weapons for a fighter, the thieving skills of a thief, and throwing in some cleric or magic-user.


Because of all the possible combinations of skills, balancing becomes very difficult. Not because it's an RPG or skill based system.



Colonel Waste - The Wookiee Crusader
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