[PvP] Wards & Drains - Balance Suggestions

dersidius

So as my guilds stronghold is starting to reach the middle levels of progression, New equipment and consumables are becoming available to us for use and testing. One of the most recent item(s) that have become obtainable in game within the last few days are the AP/Stamina Wards & Drains that are purchased through your guild overload enchatment vendor.

As far as adding a new mechanic to PvP that forces new counter play as well as opens up opportunity for class counters to be flip flopped and give the old prey a chance at turning the tables on previous predators, the wards and drains in idea would certainly fit that bill.

Unfortunately, and quite expectedly, the implemetation of these new wards require immediate rebalance and tweaking to better perform and not over perform in today's meta PvP. In their current form, both drains are way over powered, and completely merc anyone who dosen't have access to these enchants or the defensive wards that negate them. The AP wards make it impossible for some classes to ever get off dailies. Combined with the right (Most likely broken) powers, the stamina drains completely stamina starve all classes.

Faced with such an over bearing obstacle , only one option is feasible. Use the wards to completely negate the drains and return to the meta PvP that existed before the wards.

Now, this dosent seem so bad (unless your guild can't obtain the wards or drains) but here's what this situations results in. The overload slots become useless because everyone is using wards out of fear of the over bearing drains, and since everyone is using wards, the drains themselves become useless in extension.

Now hears my balance suggestion to alleviate both issues, to give wards a use, to give drains a use, and to not (completely) destroy those unsble to acquire them.

First, change the AP drain to mimic the stamina drain In terms of a progressive depression based on hits. Say 2% ap drain per hit.

Now that both drains respect a scaleable priniciple, wards can be better scaled to fit the desired affect.

Because wards completely negate the drains, both glyphs become useless in a catch 22 fashion. To alleviate this, wards needs to be made multiplicative so that they don't competely negate drains , but certainly lessen the affects of which .


The desired result should be this.

AP drains and stamina drains should be a noticeable reduction in their respective field, however on rank 1, the reduction should not overcome natural unwarded generation, but damper it. Rank 2 should completely stall genration, but not be enough to over bear natural generation to the point of complete drain on contact.

The wards of course should lessen both affects , but not completely negate them.


Now of course, all classes gain stamina and ap at different rates , this alone makes this balance suggestion a monumental task to do properly.

Hopefully a solution can be reached, and the over all affect will result in all classes being unable to continue to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out dailies as if they're encounters, and the same to be true for dodges.


Of course, all my suggestions and percentage numbers are hypothetical and need to be scaled to meet appropriate balance and are not based on any tests but simply serve as placeholder.

Please respond with any constructive ideas to improve upon this suggestion.

gweddry

I would rather have those overloads removed, but of course that won't happen. However what you suggested would balance those out better.

dersidius

Removing? Why? Right now classes have enough ap to call dailies encounters, and enough stamina to spam dodges with no need to balance for the big hit and enough to hold up shield indefininatly .... Unless they directly target ap gain or stamina generation, something else needs to be done


Not to mention it adds a new realm of counter play

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gomok72

Dersidius, I tested these on test and yet again, I sent word to the powers that be in regards to how over powered they are and the synergy between them and T. Frostburn/Frost (Paladins and GWFs). But they still put them out there with no cool down or ICD. PvP now has become a whole different beast, due to these, I agree with everything you are saying about these overloads and hope that the devs come to their senses in reevaluating these overloads and their effects.

Me and Sophi had a brief discussion about this last night.

-Kymos

mamalion1234

dersidius said:

Removing? Why? Right now classes have enough ap to call dailies encounters, and enough stamina to spam dodges with no need to balance for the big hit and enough to hold up shield indefininatly .... Unless they directly target ap gain or stamina generation, something else needs to be done





Not to mention it adds a new realm of counter play

you like to pvp without have chance to avoid attacks?

dersidius

Yes, maybe then I'd actually die once in a blue moon.

Quite currently, my only deaths directly correlate to amount of times I've come across a GF on the other team

gweddry

I agree there is too much AP all around, and for some classes too much stamina as well, but I don't think that these issues should be solved by adding items that fix them. IMO it would be better to reduce stamina for classes that need that and then maybe introduce something like ap depression. Cryptic isn't able to balance the game with what it has now, adding more items/feats/build options etc. will make balancing it even harder.

dersidius

I agree with what you said, but at the end of the day, what will happen is what's easier for the devs to do

jobsalotofwork

The new mechanics benefit TR way to much since they have stealth. They should change stamina/guard drain to drain stealth too.

rayrdan

Stronghold Boons: Corrected the numbers of the Stamina Ward and Drain boons. Also added text to make it easier for players to understand what they do.


Right now on preview...im not in the mood of log in and test tho

icyphish

Great news, I hope the 'boon' they refer to means 'Enchantment'

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ryoshinette

Any news about broken enchants? Any dev's response?

dersidius

ryoshinette said:

Any news about broken enchants? Any dev's response?

Technically speaking, the enchant's aren't broken. They are working as intended...

But that doesn't mean they aren't OP!

aleblain

jobsalotofwork, are you rettarded?? I can't insult you enough about your stupidd idea without getting my comment deleted!! TRs benefit from the drains??, are you mad! TRs and melee classes suffer that the most. A TR out of stealth and without stamina is a free kill. By themselves, the stamina drain enchants are super stupidd and unbalance! Favor too much some classes. I would love to see them broken auto-draining to the end of time ----> One less problem, less unbalance.

vinceent1

dersidius said:

ryoshinette said:

Any news about broken enchants? Any dev's response?

Technically speaking, the enchant's aren't broken. They are working as intended...

But that doesn't mean they aren't OP!

how can you know that? tooltips are not proof of anything

mamalion1234

dersidius said:

Removing? Why? Right now classes have enough ap to call dailies encounters, and enough stamina to spam dodges with no need to balance for the big hit and enough to hold up shield indefininatly .... Unless they directly target ap gain or stamina generation, something else needs to be done





Not to mention it adds a new realm of counter play

tr cant talk about stamina which is to his advantage. 0 stamina for tr increase their damage a lot + the boon cool resolve.

dersidius

@vincent , I'm not going to waste my time argueing about something so trivial, I don't know where you get off trying to contest an issue like that

@mamalion1234 , Thats 100% false. I'm not going to go around and say what class benefits the most... But the boon at max potential results in 5% more damage for tr, Thats hardly worth not having any dodges. In fact I'm a bit baffled you even think it's relevant ...

grimah

The BEST change would be to make stamina drain and AP drain to STOP the regen of those types for a certain duration.

e.g. stamina drain halts stamina regen for 5 seconds. AP drain lowers AP gain by 80% for 10 seconds etc etc.

kweassa

Actually, the best change is to remove it as a whole, and give it as a special function to certain classes which are considered weak in PvP. That was the whole frickin' point when I suggested the possibility of 'sapper' builds, as seen in other Cryptic games, so perhaps certain classes perceived as weak or lacking would gain a special function which no ther class can do.

Instead, they just decide to proliferate to anyone and everyone, making the entire PvP experience a whole lot of garbafe. Instead of such functions coming from one or two classes as their unique features, now, everyone does it to everyone. And then, when the wards are all proliferated next, then it will become useless again.

Bad idea. Don't need. Good bye. Good riddance.

ryoshinette

@kweassa
I can't buy those enchants, few days left till I'll be able.
English is not my native - "... ward proliferated ..." Is that means, that effect of drain will be totally negated?
If yes - you are bringing to me some hope Please explain.

kweassa

ryoshinette said:

@kweassa
I can't buy those enchants, few days left till I'll be able.
English is not my native - "... ward proliferated ..." Is that means, that effect of drain will be totally negated?
If yes - you are bringing to me some hope Please explain.

It's something I've only heard. Dunno if its true or not. Apparently, the default efficiency of the drains vs. wards will be on a 1:1 scale, and then it will change according to the level of additional boons provided through SH upgrades. When maxed out, still on a 1:1 scale.

Can't seem to recall whom I've heard from that tho' ...

Anyhow, that's why for the members of big/prominent PvP guilds the wards/drains will cancel each other out and basically the same thing as nothing.

It is about the stupidest move I've ever seen -- in reality, all this will be is nothing more than a feature that does nothing for those really committed/interested in PvP, but at the same time MASSIVELY abuses/punishes/griefs potential new players and just makes them never wanna try PvP again.

So why do we need this thing for??

ryoshinette

Thanks.
If it's true, then it makes all of those drain enchant users even more stupid in my eyes. They are not oriented on win against equals, just against ppl who can't spare so much money they did.

Some opinion from "we know which guild" would be valuable.

vinceent1

there is enough their opinion on the web. "find vincent, drain his stamina and kill him 100times per match, teach him a lesson

i heard something about good leadership biggest pvp guild have but i have never heard who is leader, he never introduce himself on official forum. so its hard to get proper opinion

icyphish

drains vs a girlfriend that annoys me while gaming... i rather choose the drain...:(


I also wanna report that Dread Ring legion's mobs must have built up their market place to rank 4, they were using AP drain on me. damn the demons...

vinceent1

it reminds me, icyphish is only one who really deserve his stamina drained to the ground

icyphish

I have just shared my build in GWF forum maybe u would start seeing more GWF that is always whacking right next to you

kweassa

icyphish said:

I have just shared my build in GWF forum maybe u would start seeing more GWF that is always whacking right next to you

Battlefury, huh. Didn't expect to see any other GWF player using this power, heh.

dersidius

To be honest I'm not sure why the community is criticizing the current dev team for adding new content..

In truth, it's over power at the moment, but even so I applaud them from trying to implement a new realm of uncertainty to a pvp que.

The only thing the dev team has to get in order is to stop making new items "the new best thing" but instead make them equal with the old with a new realm to explore.

This will increase build variety and break the necessity of every class to follow the same meta to be relevant.


The idea behind the drains are good, the ap in this game was way out of control.

The implementation of the idea was very off and needs some attention.

nuudlz

dersidius said:

To be honest I'm not sure why the community is criticizing the current dev team for adding new content..

I don't think people are critizing the Devs for adding new stuff at all.

People are just annoyed that everything new is bugged. Tenes, Emblem, Valindra, Kessels, Blue Glyphs, and so on. Same for new classes and class changes.

dersidius said:

The only thing the dev team has to get in order is to stop making new items "the new best thing" but instead make them equal with the old with a new realm to explore.

Theyve to test their changes properly. They gave us the Alpha preview (and yes, it would need some adjustments so people can buy everything, not just a plain copy) which was a pretty good idea and worked good for alot of things. I'm confused why they don't keep it running. I rather have patchday every 2 weeks (1 week for alpha) than every 1 week for new content.