[DEV] Rebalancing changes - Proposition

[ariwen]

Healing is now far overpowered. This means that melee and elementalist roles can just use their maximum credits and rely on healer to keep them up in every situation. This results in melee and elemental to waste hp/sap/stam at incredible rate and healer must cast heals fast to keep them topped. This means that only healer has to do work in combat, but it is not problem as there is enough healing power to keep party up.
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Are you a 100% healer, not using OA or DA, while healing just trying to keep eveyone up??

Reduce need for healing + increase healing points = balance

how does this actually help the healer. we still have to use All of our energy to focus on healing.

[magick1]

Looking over the list of propossed changes, it appears to balance several things nicely.
There are 2 but's

6. Changing XP gain to give some even when the target resists
Offensive magicians and warriors are disadvantaged for XP gain compared healers, since their spells can be countered by resists from the enemy. We would make offensive magicians and warriors gain XP even when they don't do any damage, to balance the leveling speed.

Unclear if this applies to affliction mages as well (one aff. is a defensive, not offensive). Hopefully it is all kinds of magic (and combat for that matter), so as to level the playingfield for everybody.

10. Increasing double spell points consumption by 20%
For the same reasons, the casting cost of the double spell would increase by 20%, forcing the magician to use more the other counterparts.

Seems rather steep, especially for solo nukers. Actually it is the only proposed change which looks like too big a nerf (for lack of a better word).
It might pan out with the other changes, but I seriously doubt it. I would prefer to see it not included at all.

[totnkopf]

20%? This is a bad change - This would mean that using a dbl missile with 2 level 250 spells my original cost (of 500 credits) would now become a 600 credit spell (if I am reading this right).

It already costs enough to cast these spells, espieccally when you are slowing the spells down, without adding on range (Which yes, I use anyway) AND time credits.

My suggetion would be to do either 9 or 10. Not both. Either make the cost of the spell more (so that we have to use time credits ourselves) OR increase the time. Not both

yea, agree with what as said here. one or the other, but not both plz

[sidusar]

I find it strange that a lot of people seem to consider the 20% increase in the cost of double missile spells a bad idea, because "double missiles cost too much already". In my opinion that's exactly how it should be. You can't expect to be doing insane amounts of damage without paying a huge cost in health and sap for it.

To those worried the 20% extra cost will make elementalists run out of sap too fast and keeping the healers away from the tanks, remember they're also increasing the casting time for double missiles. The net effect should be that nukers burn energy at the same or even slower rate than they do now, but do a little less damage (which is fine as they're doing too much right now). Only increasing the cost and not increasing the casting time would be a worse idea, that would make nukers burn energy even faster than they do now. (Double missiles IMO shouldn't be the default anyway.)

As for the dividing heal life's power by 2, yes, if that was the only change being made it would be a huge problem for healers. But as long as the proposed changes to armor and jewelry make the tanks able to take a lot more damage, this should balance out the decrease in healing. The only net effect will be that 'nuke-tanking', having an elemental mage as tank, will be a lot more difficult (again as it should be, mages weren't meant to tank).
[Though, I would like to propose another change here: give fighters the ability to keep more than one creature taunted. With healing power cut in half, getting an add on your mages while your tank is already fighting something else will be a lot more difficult to deal with.]

Also, heal stamina and heal sap are boosted, so if the fighters just switch stanzas a bit (right now in groups I use maximum health credits to pay for my attacks because it's much easier for the healers to heal) and the elemental mages stop spamming double missiles and instead use single missiles and DoT(which can be paid for only in sap), it shouldn't make things harder for healers at all. I know if I'm healing, most of my effort doesn't go towards keeping the tanks alive, but towards keeping the nukers full of sap. With double sap heal this should be easier.

And then there's the increased AoE power. If AoE becomes worth the cost, it should make it much easier on the healers, as they can heal the entire group of nukers/tanks with one single spell rather than having to heal them all individually. Also it should be a lot more fun to be an elemental mage during raids.

So all in all, the changes as they are presented here, I like them. All of them. Provided that it is implemented right ofcourse. I agree it should make for "far more involving and rich combat".

[keoni]

The balance as it is now is hard enough for healers to cope with. They can't stop for a second to think about anything else but healing.

That's often true, but it's usually because you might have one healer trying to keep up with four or more teammates doing the "fun stuff" - melee or offensive magic. Given how potent healing is in the current paradigm, that's entirely feasible, although (as you note) extremely stressful and not at all fun for the healer. With the proposed changes, effective teams will be forced to have a higher ratio of healers to damage-dealers - so the stress on each individual healer might actually be less.

As a byproduct, I'm hoping that talented healers will gain more stature & respect among their peers - as it is now, they seem too often taken for granted.

[akicks]

I find it strange that a lot of people seem to consider the 20% increase in the cost of double missile spells a bad idea, because "double missiles cost too much already". In my opinion that's exactly how it should be. You can't expect to be doing insane amounts of damage without paying a huge cost in health and sap for it.

It's because the 20% increase is in conjuction with added time.

If this was to go through how it currently looks then single missiles will become as effective as dbl missiles (dbl missile speed is forced upwards so that you can actually cast 2 single in the same time frame - without the added 20% credit cost). Although we shall see if I'm right about that in testing .

All the other changes look like good changes to me, it's just those two together that look bad.

[thebax]

I do not believe healin be so "over-powered". Dis mebbe true iffin yer affliction/nukage be well o'er yer healin level, and/or iffin yer tank or nuker dat yer teamed wit jus happens to haf 50 levels o' melee o'er whatever skill dey be usin atm.

To those dat DO believe it to be too powerful, I offer dis simple test: Next time yer out huntin, either with a healer, or as one, fight wit yer highest offensive level against a mob dat gits de both o' ya (or more) 2k or so, but don let de Healer use amps. Time will be decreased, on avg, by30% more den dey propose, cuz Hash be fair common, but power will be decreased by aroun 30% less den dey propose (dependin on grade, an/or how many yelks ya killed fer de amp) Net result in healin per minute=proposed changes. 'cept o' course, yer healer won't be payin de extra cost fer his/her spells.
Assumin dat de healer gots heal as thar highest magic skill, an ya be used to +100% cast speed, +74% power, I'm bettin yer gonna haf sum trouble. If ya can, an I'm bettin sum can, git a full level dis way, ask yerself "Is this enuff fun fer me to pay a monthly charge?"

[sidusar]

If this was to go through how it currently looks then single missiles will become as effective as dbl missiles (dbl missile speed is forced upwards so that you can actually cast 2 single in the same time frame - without the added 20% credit cost). Although we shall see if I'm right about that in testing .

Well, if these changes mean that one double spell will take just as long to cast as two single spells but cost more credit, then the double missile will be useless and we don't want that. I assumed that wouldn't be the case though. Right now a single missile without time credits takes 2.8 seconds, and a double missile 3.0 seconds. Adding 1.5 to 2 seconds to the double missile would make it 4.5 to 5.0 seconds, still less than the 5.6 seconds it takes to cast two single missiles.
So let's assume it'll be 4.5 seconds. This means a double missile will, compared to two single missiles, cost 20% more credit to obtain 19% less casting time. Hmm, this would indeed be a bit too costly. I think it would be better to add only one second to the casting time, or to increase the cost by 10% instead of 20%. (I still think they should increase both the credit and the casting time, but the numbers given do seem too high.)

Edit: thinking further, it seems to me the best way to balance this would be: using a time credit on a double missile that's exactly enough to pay for the extra cost (the 20%) should make the casting time exactly 5.6 seconds. With the proposed changes however this would make the casting time (I estimate) somewhere around 6 seconds, making the double missile actually weaker than the single missile. So I have to agree, 20% extra cost and 2 seconds extra casting time together is too much.
But 10% extra cost and 2 seconds extra casting time, or 20% extra cost and 1 second extra casting time, that would make the double missile just slightly more powerfull than the single missile (which is what they're trying to do, right?). Personally I'd prefer the 20% extra cost and 1 second extra casting time, because in my opinion the double missile should be a way to do a lot of damage quickly but at a great cost to your health and sap. (And no, that's not how it is now. Right now it's a way to do more damage than a single missile at the same cost.)

To those dat DO believe it to be too powerful, I offer dis simple test: Next time yer out huntin, either with a healer, or as one, fight wit yer highest offensive level against a mob dat gits de both o' ya (or more) 2k or so, but don let de Healer use amps. Time will be decreased, on avg, by30% more den dey propose, cuz Hash be fair common, but power will be decreased by aroun 30% less den dey propose (dependin on grade, an/or how many yelks ya killed fer de amp) Net result in healin per minute=proposed changes. 'cept o' course, yer healer won't be payin de extra cost fer his/her spells.

That doesn't give a good picture at all. That's how the situation would be if they're only implementing the nerfs. But they're not, they're adding in bonuses as well, to armor, to magic resistance, to sap and stam heal etc. Don't only look at 4, 9 and 10 and conclude that those will make things too hard. Ofcourse those will make things too hard, that's why they're also implementing 2, 3, 5, 11 and 12 to compensate.

[mmatto]

After reading Katriell's post in general forum, I remembered earlier mention about increasing fighter critical hits. Has this been dropped as I found it important improvement?

[mmatto]

One thing that could be added is higher level range credits. I remember that if I use double missile with full range credit (@lvl 190), spell range will get only 7m shorter than without range credit.

@Ariwen I guess we have different opinions how big and how much higher level party a single healer should be able to heal. Otherwise, I don't see how healer can expend all his power usually and I used to have healing my highest level.