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  • noworries#8859 noworries Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 651 Cryptic Developer


    You keep mentioning mod 19 do you mean 18?

    scaling, dreadnought, and hellbringer changes are all m19, arcanist adjustments are m18. None of that was the intention of the thread which is why it seems out of place for conversation in the preview forums for something a full module away.
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User

    gweddry said:


    The only way those numbers are even remotely close to being true is perhaps if you include (catastrophically) failed runs. There is sure going to be a lot of those so they will have a huge impact. Training runs with one or two strong dps players the same. Also because most of those dps specs aren't accepted for runs, I doubt some of the numbers (dps GF is probably the best example) have any significance.

    The numbers were for ToMM runs over the period specified and it is accurate data that has been normalized for better comparison. We also have the whisker plots to see the full range of every player over the time period and where they fall.

    The point of showing the ToMM data is not to suggest that in all aspects of the game the classes are that close together. It was intended to show that 1) when top item levels and top skill levels combine, the classes potentials are a lot closer than players would typically expect and 2) ToMM is not exclusive to any sub group of classes, although it is certainly easier for some classes than others.

    We don't use that particular data set for where our major class balance efforts are targetted, we focus more on the top 10% game wide, which does show bigger percentage differences between the paragon paths, and does drop Dreadnought down quite a bit more as I had mentioned in that previous post.
    Since this data was taken from TOMM runs and normalised for better comparison so why make this confusing and lets stick with TOMM as an example. So from your findings, a wiz is apparently only doing 6% more than fighter ST dps and 1.4% more than Hellbringer?

    What if i can prove to you that actually, a cleric can out dps a fighter, warlock and even barb and rogue and on par with rangers?
  • edenfay#2737 edenfay Member Posts: 55 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    (nm my comment on the data, I misread it)

    As regards scaling and caps @noworries#8859 I am curious if you able to offer any further design insight regarding caps where scaling does *not* apply. For example, in the case of LoMM vs ToMM vs MOD18 Dungeon, the gradual increase of critter strength means that a played properly geared for MOD18 Dungeon will, upon returning to LoMM, find herself seriously overcapped. Intuitively, one might assume that gear obtained from "ultimate" content remains superior; in this case, however, being overcapped for content will always be undesirable and lead to worse performance, because the compromises made for those caps (reducing Power, say, or removing % Damage gear) no longer offer any benefit.

    Not wishing to ask leading questions here, but is the expectation that players will voluntarily swap to older gear for optimal gear? Or has there been some discussion regarding "softening" caps to make Power-stacking less mandatory?
    Post edited by edenfay#2737 on
  • noworries#8859 noworries Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 651 Cryptic Developer
    sobi#1980 said:

    gweddry said:


    The only way those numbers are even remotely close to being true is perhaps if you include (catastrophically) failed runs. There is sure going to be a lot of those so they will have a huge impact. Training runs with one or two strong dps players the same. Also because most of those dps specs aren't accepted for runs, I doubt some of the numbers (dps GF is probably the best example) have any significance.

    The numbers were for ToMM runs over the period specified and it is accurate data that has been normalized for better comparison. We also have the whisker plots to see the full range of every player over the time period and where they fall.

    The point of showing the ToMM data is not to suggest that in all aspects of the game the classes are that close together. It was intended to show that 1) when top item levels and top skill levels combine, the classes potentials are a lot closer than players would typically expect and 2) ToMM is not exclusive to any sub group of classes, although it is certainly easier for some classes than others.

    We don't use that particular data set for where our major class balance efforts are targetted, we focus more on the top 10% game wide, which does show bigger percentage differences between the paragon paths, and does drop Dreadnought down quite a bit more as I had mentioned in that previous post.
    Since this data was taken from TOMM runs and normalised for better comparison so why make this confusing and lets stick with TOMM as an example. So from your findings, a wiz is apparently only doing 6% more than fighter ST dps and 1.4% more than Hellbringer?

    What if i can prove to you that actually, a cleric can out dps a fighter, warlock and even barb and rogue and on par with rangers?
    I always enjoy watching top tier players show off their skills, so I would certainly enjoy seeing a cleric performing that well. For clarification, in game wide data the Arbiter does outperform Dreadnought already, with a larger sample size it wouldn't be surprising at all to see them also exceed fighter in ToMM. But it would certainly be fun to watch an Arbiter go toe to toe with a top tier ranger.

    In the end though, that by itself wouldn't change our plans to bring Arbiter and Dreadnought up to the target range for balance as on average they're both below where we'd like them to be.
  • mongol69mongol69 Member Posts: 447 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    Yeah, never seen any hellbringer warlock nor an arbiter even come close to numbers within successful runs. I would love to see at least one screenshot of a warlock in a successful run put out that damage differential to a cw and rogue.

    The hellbringer class mechanics and magnitudes at peak damage potential don't even come close to base rotation of arcanist, let alone within those numbers in tomm.

    Try showing us statistics of successful runs....because those numbers being "normalized" appear to be code for skewed. Take data from hundreds of random group fails and handfull or successful runs, muddle the results together and what you get vs just comparing successful run data and you have vastly different results.
    Post edited by mongol69 on
  • gweddrygweddry Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 278 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    gweddry said:


    The only way those numbers are even remotely close to being true is perhaps if you include (catastrophically) failed runs. There is sure going to be a lot of those so they will have a huge impact. Training runs with one or two strong dps players the same. Also because most of those dps specs aren't accepted for runs, I doubt some of the numbers (dps GF is probably the best example) have any significance.

    The numbers were for ToMM runs over the period specified and it is accurate data that has been normalized for better comparison. We also have the whisker plots to see the full range of every player over the time period and where they fall.

    The point of showing the ToMM data is not to suggest that in all aspects of the game the classes are that close together. It was intended to show that 1) when top item levels and top skill levels combine, the classes potentials are a lot closer than players would typically expect and 2) ToMM is not exclusive to any sub group of classes, although it is certainly easier for some classes than others.

    We don't use that particular data set for where our major class balance efforts are targetted, we focus more on the top 10% game wide, which does show bigger percentage differences between the paragon paths, and does drop Dreadnought down quite a bit more as I had mentioned in that previous post.
    I didn't doubt the accuracy of the data itself, I doubted the preparation/preprocessing. If you just average damage charts for a class across all TOMM runs, the result has no meaningful value. At minimum, all failed runs should be removed during preprocessing. I'm not sure what specifically you meant by normalization in this context.

    I have been part of all sorts of TOMM runs, from training to speedruns. I can tell you from experience (and have numerous act logs) that as a warden, I cannot even come close to the suggested ~98.5% of arcanist's damage. Have I done it before? Yes, of course. But every time I did I had some sort of an advantage -- better build, less res sickness stacks, being able to position better to maximize dps time etc. When "top item levels and skill levels combine" as you say, the differences are there. And they are much larger than your data suggests.

    Thank you for your answer and the insight, I appreciate it.

  • wilbur626wilbur626 Member Posts: 1,019 Arc User
    I like that @noworries#8859 is able to tell the whining choir of "underperforming" DPS classes to learn to play in such an elegant way <3
    Elite Whaleboy
  • elwing#6559 elwing Member Posts: 29 Arc User


    The numbers were for ToMM runs over the period specified and it is accurate data that has been normalized for better comparison. We also have the whisker plots to see the full range of every player over the time period and where they fall.

    Thank you for giving insight into your collected data. Still, like others already mentioned here, I have problems to match those numbers to actual DPS results (out of my experience).
    But I know data preparation can have a huge impact in data interpretation. I don't doubt your numbers, but I still have some questions:

    With "normalized" you mean you recalculated all data with a z-transformation using the Assassin as a baseline? So the mean Assassin does "0" damage and somebody doing one Assassin standard deviation more damage will get the score "1"?


    Arcanist +3%
    Blademaster +1.8%
    Warden +1.5%
    Assassin --
    Hellbringer -1.6%
    Dreadnaught -3%
    Arbiter -6%

    Are those numbers a comparison of the means or medians out of the non-normalized data? Or are those the results of the normalized data? (I would also be interested in the sample sizes.)

    Is there a chance to see a whisker plot/box plot?

    Those questions are just out of curiosity. I kinda like statistics. :)
    Ligula Trickfoot
  • kors#9447 kors Member Posts: 110 Arc User

    Scaling

    I'm happy to read that.
    In italian we say "meglio tardi che mai" which is "late is better than never". It's long time we're asking a better work with scaling, because actually it's a mess in most of the dungeons/skirmishes/trials.
    I hope in mod 19 it will be good, since we're waiting 3 mods to have a good scaling.
  • demarw2#2749 demarw2 Member Posts: 70 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    > @noworries#8859 said:
    > (Quote)
    > I always enjoy watching top tier players show off their skills, so I would certainly enjoy seeing a cleric performing that well. For clarification, in game wide data the Arbiter does outperform Dreadnought already, with a larger sample size it wouldn't be surprising at all to see them also exceed fighter in ToMM. But it would certainly be fun to watch an Arbiter go toe to toe with a top tier ranger.
    >
    > In the end though, that by itself wouldn't change our plans to bring Arbiter and Dreadnought up to the target range for balance as on average they're both below where we'd like them to be.

    I really like, that you plan to balance Dreadnought (and Arbiter). But I hope that will happen before mod19 (and before mod18). Because mod17 is live. On console it will be live for a long time. And I as a Dreadnought want to have the chance to pass ToMM before mod18 or mod19 will go live. I also want to have the chance to enter a random group for ToMM and I don't want to get refused all time because I am a Dreadnought.

    PS: sorry for off-topic. But I have that on my mind. :(
    Post edited by demarw2#2749 on
  • coolgor28#5062 coolgor28 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 79 Arc User
    Can you tell us if all dps paragon will have 3 offensive slot. Right now Barb's and gf have 2 less. And tha data that barbarian are 1.2 % behind arcanist in single Target aka tomm runs with 2 offense slot less is not possible. As other are saying this data are way off to the one we see everyday when we run tomm.
    Guild

    The imaginary Friends

    Main Kingslayer.jr(barb)
  • bigdragon#4214 bigdragon Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    I think all dps classes should have 3 offensive slots... When using a defensive tank 3... You should be able to change your teammates depending on the build
  • keraunos#8365 keraunos Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    I am very happy that this is being discussed.
    I am an endgame barb and from what is my experience every single day those data do not correspond to reality. Arcanists, rangers but also thieves do much more damage for the same objects as my barbarian, especially on bosses. We need adjustments in many parts and it does not seem at all sufficient to me what I have read. I was hoping for a more incisive intervention, I feel that I will be disappointed and I believe that I will stop playing if mod 18 does not solve this huge gap. I really don't understand why you don't listen to what the players of a certain class are telling you, since it is under everyone's eyes.
    I wish I could make toom as a dps and feel necessary as an arcanist but instead I am seen as a doll barbie. What's the point of playing again if I can't run the final dungeon as a dps? I've never seen this in any game
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited December 2019

    sobi#1980 said:

    gweddry said:


    The only way those numbers are even remotely close to being true is perhaps if you include (catastrophically) failed runs. There is sure going to be a lot of those so they will have a huge impact. Training runs with one or two strong dps players the same. Also because most of those dps specs aren't accepted for runs, I doubt some of the numbers (dps GF is probably the best example) have any significance.

    The numbers were for ToMM runs over the period specified and it is accurate data that has been normalized for better comparison. We also have the whisker plots to see the full range of every player over the time period and where they fall.

    The point of showing the ToMM data is not to suggest that in all aspects of the game the classes are that close together. It was intended to show that 1) when top item levels and top skill levels combine, the classes potentials are a lot closer than players would typically expect and 2) ToMM is not exclusive to any sub group of classes, although it is certainly easier for some classes than others.

    We don't use that particular data set for where our major class balance efforts are targetted, we focus more on the top 10% game wide, which does show bigger percentage differences between the paragon paths, and does drop Dreadnought down quite a bit more as I had mentioned in that previous post.
    Since this data was taken from TOMM runs and normalised for better comparison so why make this confusing and lets stick with TOMM as an example. So from your findings, a wiz is apparently only doing 6% more than fighter ST dps and 1.4% more than Hellbringer?

    What if i can prove to you that actually, a cleric can out dps a fighter, warlock and even barb and rogue and on par with rangers?
    I always enjoy watching top tier players show off their skills, so I would certainly enjoy seeing a cleric performing that well. For clarification, in game wide data the Arbiter does outperform Dreadnought already, with a larger sample size it wouldn't be surprising at all to see them also exceed fighter in ToMM. But it would certainly be fun to watch an Arbiter go toe to toe with a top tier ranger.

    In the end though, that by itself wouldn't change our plans to bring Arbiter and Dreadnought up to the target range for balance as on average they're both below where we'd like them to be.
    Thank you, it is appreciated. I do not doubt your findings, like i said, i have seen barbs dish out 286k encpds over 3-4minutes dummy test (probably more for the one barb in my guild). I am sitting comfortably at 300encpds on a dummy with no lion heart and 193k power but i have another build which presumably can do much better but harder to play. What i do think makes the difference is how difficult the class is. Wizards, rangers and assassins are just too easy to play and can easily mimic a dummy test in TOMM than an arbiter or a blademaster can, so my dummy tests over 3-5minutes are too difficult to mimic in a real dungeon and that's where most arbiters in TOMM fail. That doesn't mean the class doesn't have the capacity. The reason why most of us are infuriated is because the select few that know their class thoroughly are judged because the majority of others are not able to play their class optimally and thus we are discriminated. I will look forward to arbiter adjustments as i have so much to share but making gear complement them and making their mistakes less unforgiving in the kit can be a way forward. I can't however say anything about hellbringer, but i have seen amazing hellbringers, however, TOMM favours wiz way too much so they are always too far ahead in dps. It is widely known that to play wiz optimally, you have to smash the board as fast as you can, whereas arbiter is all about timing, a well thought out class i must say but a little clunky right now though.

    Post edited by sobi#1980 on
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User

    While I am always hesitant to go off topic in a thread as it makes the information about the initial topic hard to find. In this case, at least so far, there doesn't seem to be any confusion about the information in the initial post, so I will briefly tackle the 2 main things being brought up here, but there likely won't be a lot of back and forth on those topics in this particular thread.


    Class Balance

    We agree that there is an imbalance in the DPS roles. In M19 the two main classes being adjusted for balance are the Dreadnought and the Hellbringer. When M18 comes to preview we will have information on a few adjustments to Arcanist feats/class mechanics to bring them more in line with the balance target (I realize saying this will make people think the worst, but Arcanist will still be powerful after those adjustments and the changes will be available as preview goes live for feedback).

    All of that is important context for the following part of that discussion. First is that there will never be perfect balance across the classes, and there will always be some classes that are harder to play and therefore under-perform for a more casual player, but can potentially even over-perform for a particularly skilled player. We have created a lot of analytics on class balance since M16. These include normalized damage charts, whisker plots, and percentile graphs, which we can filter by time ranges, classes, and specific content. We are actively using this information for how to tackle class balance.

    As a general point, Assassin in most charts is right around where we feel ideal balance should be right now. Since ToMM was brought up, let's take a look at the PC results from 1 Nov to this morning, and use Assassin as a baseline for where the other classes are at when running that content. I think players may be surprised at where some of the classes line up in this comparison.

    Class -> Damage performance in ToMM +/- %

    • Arcanist +3%
    • Blademaster +1.8%
    • Warden +1.5%
    • Assassin --
    • Hellbringer -1.6%
    • Dreadnaught -3%
    • Arbiter -6%

    It is clear there are outliers in Arcanist, Dreadnaught, and Arbiter. The others, however, are all very close together and in general would be considered all within an acceptable range of balance. In charts that include a wider range of content (or all content) there are larger percentage differences which shows there are more areas of balance to tackle than this one chart shows. ToMM is a useful example to see how the classes compare when played by top tier IL players, and hopefully also shows that ToMM is complete-able (and has been completed) by all classes in the game.

    Changes from this chart compared to more broad charts show a larger positive differential for Arcanist and Warden, brings Blademaster below Assassin with Hellbringer right behind that and brings Arbiter above Dreadnought. You see a wider variance when including a larger selection of content as it adds a far greater percentage of the player base into the damage pool.

    There were some paragon paths not listed there, such as Whisperknife, Hunter, and Thaumaturge. Whisperknife and Hunter are not performing where we'd like, and are paths we want to work on, however since those classes have very solid paths as their other choices, that puts the priority a bit further down the list on class work.
    Thanks for the numbers. As an HR player I'd really like you to work on Hunter. Warden is performing well, but it is extremely boring, has basically one single build and transform all HRs in the game into cookie-cutter copies of each other. Most of the HR powers are completely useless.

    Please do not focus only on numbers, but also on what is fun to play. A character with single power that does average damage and has an average cooldown will fulfill your damage requirements but will be horrible to play.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    kors#9447 said:




    Bingo! You cannot estimate skill ceiling, so in reality, taking a sample from a bigger population will actually result in a skewed result where the dps of that specific class will be lower. It's obvious that more wiz's are played in TOMM so their average dps will skew to being average whereas generally only the best of non-meta classes are chosen for TOMM. Although, i am a bit skeptical about the exact %performance difference, i do know that skill ceiling non-meta classes can really shock the majority of playerbase if they saw their true potential. We started with 50% dps difference between a barb and wiz but now people have adjusted it to 15-20%. The dev's consider it about 1.2%, which is definitely lower than i would put it at, especially in TOMM.

    I do advise the dev's to stick with skill ceiling players only, especially for TOMM and balance ST depending on that. For other dungeons, the bigger the sample the better, in my opinion.
  • mcfobmcfob Member Posts: 76 Arc User
    Well, I suppose I should be happy that Dreadnaught is finally going to get some help, but, I do have to say that there is a considerable gap and I am skeptical that the changes will narrow this gap much, adding 3% or even 10% damage is not going to cut it, the Dreadnaught really is terrible compared to CW/TR/HR
  • rafamarques#5700 rafamarques Member Posts: 155 Arc User
    edited December 2019
    ... so, until you guys realize that something is wrong in that balance data, if something is wrong in that balance data, we will need wait, for example, one year at least?

    but i have a simple question: what is the difference, in damage, between tanks/healers and that dps?

    is possible decrease that a little?
  • tom#6998 tom Member Posts: 952 Arc User

    While I am always hesitant to go off topic in a thread as it makes the information about the initial topic hard to find. In this case, at least so far, there doesn't seem to be any confusion about the information in the initial post, so I will briefly tackle the 2 main things being brought up here, but there likely won't be a lot of back and forth on those topics in this particular thread.


    Class Balance

    We agree that there is an imbalance in the DPS roles. In M19 the two main classes being adjusted for balance are the Dreadnought and the Hellbringer. When M18 comes to preview we will have information on a few adjustments to Arcanist feats/class mechanics to bring them more in line with the balance target (I realize saying this will make people think the worst, but Arcanist will still be powerful after those adjustments and the changes will be available as preview goes live for feedback).

    All of that is important context for the following part of that discussion. First is that there will never be perfect balance across the classes, and there will always be some classes that are harder to play and therefore under-perform for a more casual player, but can potentially even over-perform for a particularly skilled player. We have created a lot of analytics on class balance since M16. These include normalized damage charts, whisker plots, and percentile graphs, which we can filter by time ranges, classes, and specific content. We are actively using this information for how to tackle class balance.

    As a general point, Assassin in most charts is right around where we feel ideal balance should be right now. Since ToMM was brought up, let's take a look at the PC results from 1 Nov to this morning, and use Assassin as a baseline for where the other classes are at when running that content. I think players may be surprised at where some of the classes line up in this comparison.

    Class -> Damage performance in ToMM +/- %

    • Arcanist +3%
    • Blademaster +1.8%
    • Warden +1.5%
    • Assassin --
    • Hellbringer -1.6%
    • Dreadnaught -3%
    • Arbiter -6%

    It is clear there are outliers in Arcanist, Dreadnaught, and Arbiter. The others, however, are all very close together and in general would be considered all within an acceptable range of balance. In charts that include a wider range of content (or all content) there are larger percentage differences which shows there are more areas of balance to tackle than this one chart shows. ToMM is a useful example to see how the classes compare when played by top tier IL players, and hopefully also shows that ToMM is complete-able (and has been completed) by all classes in the game.

    Changes from this chart compared to more broad charts show a larger positive differential for Arcanist and Warden, brings Blademaster below Assassin with Hellbringer right behind that and brings Arbiter above Dreadnought. You see a wider variance when including a larger selection of content as it adds a far greater percentage of the player base into the damage pool.

    There were some paragon paths not listed there, such as Whisperknife, Hunter, and Thaumaturge. Whisperknife and Hunter are not performing where we'd like, and are paths we want to work on, however since those classes have very solid paths as their other choices, that puts the priority a bit further down the list on class work.
    May i ask what the topend difference between the classes is? Im speaking of the highest dps recorded of an arcanist compared to the highest dps recorded of e.g an Arbiter or Dreadnaught? Those numbers dont correspond at all with what i and the people i know see ingame when running Tower of the Mad Mage.
This discussion has been closed.