Squad Leader Archive
Thread: REVAMP FOCUS: Misc. Concerns
One thing I would liketo say, the SL buffs are definately not overpowered with the AI revamp. The high levelled npcs seem to be master everything and don't need to worry about action mind or cooldown timers making them ridiculously hard - one BH/Carbineer managed to flukea win against a BH boss mark, but only with Doc buffs, SL buffs, foods, constant bacta infusions and a whole lot of luck.
These SL buffs have become an absolute necessity for the high end content, and it would be a worry if they got toned down because our own class calling nerfs on ourselves
And what was the statement about gating content? Wasn'tthe reason why some suggestions of SL improvements were rejected, the fact that Devs didn't want SLs to be _required_ to go fighting? As well as any other profession should not be a "absolutey must have" but rather a "nice to have" in a group?
As long as this statement is true, i consider our current status, as well as the current AI on TC, to be broken.
I am sorry, but i feel that the current status of Elite mobs is "slightly out of hand". While i agree that stuff like Krayts and Gorax for example should not be soloable, the status at the moment (or rather, befor the last update a few hours ago, haven't been on TC since then) certainly is not the way it should be.
Message Edited by Sylow on 10-12-2005 01:33 PM
Regarding other professions Revamps
- As Darth Sushi said, it looks like there are fixes in the line for Commando, Ranger and Smuggler, but that will not affect the PvP game that much since they only boost up and hopefully balance those profession.
With that sad, I want to bring this thread: Random Thoughts About Class Roles into the focus of our attention as well and, naturally
, my reply in that thread on page two 
.Allthough this thread is more about the classic class roles in a MMORPG the origin of the issue of this discussion is the high damage output all profession/classes do in this game.
In their attempt to make combat faster they increased the damage output of all weapons, being able to on-hit-incap a player, based on the wrong assumption this would make combat fast and dynamic. In fact this only only killed combat because a fight is too short.
A fast and dynamic combat is NOT a combat that is over within just a few seconds, but one where you have to make a lot of decisions within just a few seconds (thus fast) over a longe time (thus dynamic).
Current fights are all just damage over time vs. healing over time, or mind bar vs. force bar as I mentioned in that thread. All damage in dealt in this game is far far to high and having called shot even close to tripling this will make game even more boring and shorter.
Regarding AI Revamps
- With the current cheating AI, who dont have to worry about action or mind it is realy hard to estimate how balanced, fair and fun the PvE game will be. If the NPCs, would use the same set of rules/game mechanics as the players, it would be easy, but since SOE/LA was to lazy to program a usefull AI and went with levels and the angry bag approach with the CU -live- is the only place that will show how balanced everything is (did I ever mentioned how much I hate this level system and that I still hate it? Well, yes I do
still and a lot .)Regarding Action Cost for healing
- The new introduced action costs of healing is only a futile attempt to prevent everybody from healing themself to try to enforce dedicated "class roles". The new special using AI (although I havent tested it on TC yet) is also just another futile attempt to make combat "dynamic". With the high damage output and stupid (sorry there is no other word for it) level damage multiplier system, there were only two options the DEVs had to make NPCs more "challenging": increasing their HAM/regernation rate or cheat thus introducing "special attacks" or "immunities/resistances".
Now, where does that put us as SL with the new buffs and abilities?
Regarding trippling damage
- An ability that triples the damage output of a group to take out MOBs, who cheat, with "immunities/resistances" and "special attack" while having not to use action or mind will break PvP combat and the nerf bat will follow.
If we are going to fight MOBs with +15k HAM at level 90 while taking +10% for each level they are above us and who have regenerations rates that equal a full groups damage output that we need the high lvl buffs of the SL this will again just break PvP and the nerf bat will follow again.
Well I lost myself somewhere along the line, and I think I ll have to sum it up to make my rant more understandble.
- The damage output off all weapons is way to high. There is no tactic, strategie or dynamic when its all just damage over time vs healing/regeneration over time.
- The level system with damage multipliers is just plain stupid.
- "Spicing" up the non existant AI with cheats (immunities, resistances, special attacks, higher regneration rates/health) will break the game into a PvE and a PvP part, where one ability balanced in PvE might be unbalanced in PvP. With this we are just one step away from the reintroducing of PvP damage reduction, which the CU originall wanted to avoid.
IMHO, these are the root origins off all combat problems with PvP, classes/profession and PvE.
Although the CU has managed to balance roughly all profession they totally negated all their efforts with the too high damage output off all combat profession and the introduction of the level system.
All these broken concepts at the center and base of combat everything what is build on top will just make balancing the game even more difficult not to say futile.
Originally the skill point system allowed you to create your individual template and play that "character". With the additional level system on top, as it is implemented now it renders the original variety completly useless.
Two easy fixes:
- Spending skill points raises your level. Each character that has spent all 250 skillpoints should be an lvl 80 character, regardless where he has spent his skillpoints.
Characters templates are still limited to the different abilities (or lack of them), armor mitigations and certifications as well as weapons certifications, and for the sake that multiple combat professions realy should matter, keep the health increase for combat profession only. - Widen the level damage multiplier, since I dont think we will ever get rid of this concept. It should not be 10% per level but more 5% or 2%.
- Reduce Damage of all weapons to half or 2/3, and adapt healing to this as well.
From there you can start fixing the states of smuggler, pistoleer and all other crowdcontrolers.
Ah well, sorry for my a bit to off topic rant, but I hate fixing symptons on a broken system, when you can fix the root of that problem
.
Yes this is happening, we're well aware of it. Currently this is done with multiple offensive buffs (sometimes due to players using bugs to get multiple buffs, as these bugs haven't been adressed yet) and excellent weaponry (such as the new MBH rifle which is a loot item and has over 1200 max damage), and occasionally the rifleman sniper shot and aim mod. Don't jump to conclusions too fast about this...
LiakyK wrote:
I saw a pic from TC where a guy was testing with the new weapons and SL buffs, hit a guy for over 5k before the armor took some off
Mavhawk wrote:
They should change combat level to be based on how much Combat XP you've gained over time..
I'm not sure what good this kind of a system might create, aside from rewarding veteran players for the amount of time they've put into the game. I also get the feeling there's more that you're thinking than what you wrote, care to explain a bit more?
Actually i think there could even be some credit in that.Allow everybody to convert any weapon or combat XP into some "veteran XP", just like on the jedi grind. The ammount of XP transfered into this would give a bonus on the characters level. Of course, no matter how much XP you insert, you can't climb over the maximum level set in the game.
The traditional lv. 80 would be at lv. 80 anyways but this concept would allowll some more diverse builds, or god beware, a person with one combat profession and one crafting profession then even would be able to work his or her way up to the max. level.
Of course, with lower levels gaining less XP per kill, the crafter would have a very long way to go to reach that level, but at least it would be possible if he is ready to put the necesary effort into it.
As further step on such a concept, raise the maximum achievable level to 85 or 90, but don't allow more than 80 levels to be gained via skillboxes. Make those levels over 80 to be very expencive in XP and at the same time make each character at level over 80 to loose one level when being killed.
This could keep people, especially those involved in PvP, busy for quite some time...
Yeah, but then what about those of us who don't die in pvp?
(i'm not one of those... 
)
Grozurr wrote:
Yeah, but then what about those of us who don't die in pvp?
(i'm not one of those...
But seriously, i'd worry that this sort of thing would cause 2 big problems:
1) upset the ballance by creating players which are hard enough to kill due to experience and temp, but then in addition you do even less damage because your own level is only 80, and can't hit them. It just creates too much of an issue with the "i win" button.
2) how would those people get those extra levels? afk. Ok, yes there would be people who gain their levels by actually playing. BUT those people are also the ones who aren't going to stress much over dying in pvp. I just KNOW that it'll cause more afk play, and people will become obsessed with the extra level bonus. It happened before CU with the sea's, and it'd happen just as much with the levels. Just afk some xp overnight, turn it in, and you've got yourself an extra level or two. Make the xp turnin too harsh, and people will just become more stressed over pvp, and the hate tells ensue. It's a game. If you're stressing over a false death in a game you've got some serious issues to address.
Grozzer Agoutt
Kauri
MSL/MRM
CL has no impact on pvp other than max HPs
Xactly. In PvP those 5 levels mean nothing more than one shot fired at the target. Considering how much health bonus you can get by enhancing armour, considering how much you can get from foods and stuff and especially considering how much you gain from a certain crystal from some village quest, this bonus is insignificant.
Anyways, don't forget, this was just a suggestion of adding some end-gaming, the bigger point would be that this mechanism would allow non-double-masters to also get to adequate levels, just with much bigger effort. For PvE levels just matter a lot...
Just to expand on my original post, theprogression of your Combat Level from 1 - 80 should not be based on your learned skills, but from the skills you gain in combat over time. Becoming a dual master should give you enough combat skill to become a CL80, but so should being a master marksman and master entertainer (or doc or whatever other non-combat profession) for the same amount of XP you gain while fighting as a master marksman. And 80 should still be the cap, not going over that to make invincible players.
So say you are a Master Brawler and Master Dancer. Once you reach Master Brawler you're what, CL50? If you keep fighting and gaining all that Combat XP your Combat Level should increase based on that, not on what you've learned as a skill, but from how you are able to use your skills. And if you drop a skillset to pick up something else, why do I get weaker? The CL should always go up to 80, but not go down.. Well maybe over time if you don't gain combat XP for a while, like 1 CL a month if you don't get XP, or 1 a week of online game play if you don't get XP.
And the system always keeps track of your combat XP gained for each creature killed, it just may not add it into your Combat XP Pool if you're capped. The CL could still be calculated as a seperate counter even if you're Combat XP is capped.
Sylow wrote:
I'd love to put them into /sys, but those commands are not there for game technical reasons.
It's rather the attempt to give SLs in game the appearance and atmosphere of leading the team, instead of just standing there like a zombie and mystically having buffs appear on teammembers.
Some of the default messages are not too suitable for that, but since they can be adjusted to each SLs individual style, this is no real problem, each SL can use them to somewhat create his personal way of leading. The only problem with them is that they are a dead give-away on who to target if those SL buffs on the enemy team start to annoy you.
So in sum i would say, it could be helpful for PvP if the SL would be able to switch them off, but if Devs say that they want to keep them in place for balance or tactical reasons, i am ready to accept it. Rerouting them to groupchat, on the other hand, makes little sense to me, despite all real combat communication happening in a channel and not on spatial.
So whats the status on this? I've seen this type of post way too many times...with the current system of SL Buff shouts it will limit the PvPer, whether GCW, Guild Wars, Duels, etc.