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Module 4: Why soft caps and diminishing returns are not needed...
ayroux
Member Posts: 4,271 Arc User
Now before people uproar about power creep, I just want to lay this out and think about it first.
Currently most games, including neverwinter, implement soft caps on stats to prevent players from getting extremely high values in one stat... Well what I am curious to know is really why.
Think about this for a second, what you are REALLY doing is forcing players inside one "optimal" stat layout. For instance, its really not beneficial for players to stack crit over a certain point (call is 1800) because the diminishing returns hit so hard. Where as players can stack ARP up to over 3000 and still see substantial results.
Ontop of that! Players can stack Power and HP with NO diminishing returns. So once a player hits certain DR values in crit/arp, then they are forced into stacking more power.
Now.... IF players were allowed to stack values without worrying more about DR, you would start to see alot of unique play styles come out.
For instance maybe a player wants to stack his crit values to 3000-4000 and forgo power/arp to get massive crit chance. Well, isnt him giving up ARP/Power already a "diminishing return" loss in the form of opportunity cost?
Or take ARP. Alot of classes can get massive ARP, what would it hurt to let them stack more? at the loss of power/crit?
Or take defense, if a player wants to TRULY be the biggest baddest human shield he can, why cant he stack defense? Currently a class like GF who can easily get 5000 defense hardly sees any benefit from the stat... Why? They have to forgo crit/arp/power etc to get that stat further...
The point being, I think the stats in NW should be more of a linear function not exponential curves. What this means is:
CURRENTLY:
Early on, stats provide more benefit but later experience diminishing returns and thus the term soft cap is created where players see no real benefit in stacking that stat past the soft cap.
WHAT IT COULD BE:
Early on, stats provide much less benefit but going from 800 crit to 1000 crit provides the SAME benefits as you going from 1800 to 2000 crit or 3000 to 3200 crit.
What this does is open the door to players to play a style they actually want to play, and not what the softcap dictates they play.
Tenacity can easily work the same way, provide less benefits early on, so typically around 800-900 there isnt a big benefit however if you lessen the amount 800-900 gives, then you can continue to stack the stat well into the 1300-1400 range IF YOU CHOOSE and still see favorable results.
PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS IDEA!
Currently most games, including neverwinter, implement soft caps on stats to prevent players from getting extremely high values in one stat... Well what I am curious to know is really why.
Think about this for a second, what you are REALLY doing is forcing players inside one "optimal" stat layout. For instance, its really not beneficial for players to stack crit over a certain point (call is 1800) because the diminishing returns hit so hard. Where as players can stack ARP up to over 3000 and still see substantial results.
Ontop of that! Players can stack Power and HP with NO diminishing returns. So once a player hits certain DR values in crit/arp, then they are forced into stacking more power.
Now.... IF players were allowed to stack values without worrying more about DR, you would start to see alot of unique play styles come out.
For instance maybe a player wants to stack his crit values to 3000-4000 and forgo power/arp to get massive crit chance. Well, isnt him giving up ARP/Power already a "diminishing return" loss in the form of opportunity cost?
Or take ARP. Alot of classes can get massive ARP, what would it hurt to let them stack more? at the loss of power/crit?
Or take defense, if a player wants to TRULY be the biggest baddest human shield he can, why cant he stack defense? Currently a class like GF who can easily get 5000 defense hardly sees any benefit from the stat... Why? They have to forgo crit/arp/power etc to get that stat further...
The point being, I think the stats in NW should be more of a linear function not exponential curves. What this means is:
CURRENTLY:
Early on, stats provide more benefit but later experience diminishing returns and thus the term soft cap is created where players see no real benefit in stacking that stat past the soft cap.
WHAT IT COULD BE:
Early on, stats provide much less benefit but going from 800 crit to 1000 crit provides the SAME benefits as you going from 1800 to 2000 crit or 3000 to 3200 crit.
What this does is open the door to players to play a style they actually want to play, and not what the softcap dictates they play.
Tenacity can easily work the same way, provide less benefits early on, so typically around 800-900 there isnt a big benefit however if you lessen the amount 800-900 gives, then you can continue to stack the stat well into the 1300-1400 range IF YOU CHOOSE and still see favorable results.
PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS IDEA!
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They don't have a big team, they can't deal with broken builds immediately. Look at the TR for the longest time. Look at perma stealth today. Look at GWFs.
Once the stat pool has been significantly increased to a certain point (possibly in module 4), then they can probably raise the soft caps. But for now, it is the lesser of 2 evils.
Overpowered 60 CW ~ Thaumaturge 14.5k
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~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
Making the stats work as a linear function would suggest implying 100% DR, 100% Crit chance and so on, something that is "broken" however you look at it.
Horizontal asymptotes aren't the issue. How rapidly the slope approaches zero is.
Sounds like quite a good suggestion and offers the possibility of better balancing classes.
that's what hard caps are for.
even in games where people stacked to such an extent, including evade builds, there was usually a class/build that countered it. 1 high stat can be dangerous, but it makes you even easier to counter than an "optimal" build.
i agree with this
I means theres your answer right there.
Every MMO (popular ones) works the same way.
Stack Crit to 100% crit chance? lol
99% deflect? lol
good Idea Ayroux, It just wont work though.
Neverwinter is largely in the same position. Lots of people have been at 60 for awhile. Its conceivable that MOD 4 might introduce a level cap increase which probably will mean the formula for calculating stats will change resulting in a need to gain gear with much higher stat bonuses to get you on the same playing field you are in now with your current stats.
Honestly when I first started playing I thought the general idea was that each class had gear choices that put emphasis on certain stats for a certain style of play. As you obtained higher levels you got bigger stat increases and you got more stats modified in decreasing modifier size. What surprises me is that model did not continue. I was hoping to have a character that would be a bit more rounded but focused but instead they went back to modifiying say 3 - 4 stats (increasing the amount it is modified substantially) instead up adding gear that modifed 6 - 8 stats. These modifiers seemed more PVP orientated as is expected from a mod that is PVP focused.
I can only hope if there is not a plan to increase level beyond 60 that we go back to getting gear that modifies other stats such as control bonus, AP gain, combat advantage etc.
I would also like to see more modifers in the realm of HP and Power in that event as IWD/MOD 3 is proving that my current character is in much need of a boost to deal with the buffed mobs. I had hoped to deck myself out in full BI gear and see how that goes, but between the increasing use of dual RNG to get a drop (random chance of finding HE for drops and then another random chance to actually get the item from the drop) its becoming more of a pain than i'm willing to put up with. I'd much rather see Kessel retreat (which is more of a dungeon than skirmish by the way) turn into a chance to drop MH/gloves once you have it unlocked.
My previous MMO had orange color geared that was custom gear. You put mods (that games equivalent of enchants in a way) into that gear to give it the stats you want. I really would like to see that in this game, but that would require putting more enchant slots in gear and making enchants modify stats slightly differently or add more stat mods to them). So basically you can use purple gear with specific stat mods or you can use orange gear that allows you to put the stat modifiers you want in them.
I personally am not put off by soft or hard caps on stats but would like to be able to choose which stats are modified .... especially since it seems that aside from HP your stats are NOT modified by your level at all (something I think it should do even if its a small modifier).
Well the issue here is your taking it to an extreme. Noone could get 100% crit or 100% deflect thats insane....
Im NOT saying keep everything as it is right now, but think about this. Say 2000 deflect grants you about 18% more deflect.. Well 3000 deflect would get you (linear) 27% more 4000 would be 36% more
So youd have to push 4000 deflect which would be VERY hard to do, at a loss of most likely other stats like HP (in enchant slots) as well as offensive stats to push that, and for what? 36% deflect bonus? If you want to great! This may easily put you over 50% with feats/stats etc and that MAY be a good build for what some1 wants to do, thats the point!
But again thats what makes this MORE unique is the ability to customize your own player... People prefer certain stats.
To the person talking about ARP and DR values for PVE - again this is the point! For PVP there literally is NO arp cap - its whatever the DR is on an opponent. Thats part of the fun here:
Some players will choose to stack defense boosting DR a massive amount, players will counter this to try and stack ARP but again lose out on other stats.
Heck if youd like to have "controls" built in, put a hard cap into the game... Maybe deflect hardcaps at 30% bonus (in example above would be about 3300 deflect) Maybe crit hardcaps at 25% or 30% who knows... This just gives more opportunities to play how you want.
This is another great point! YOu could either give each class variable soft/hard caps and keep current implementation, OR!!!
Implement my idea - make it all linear AND implement different HARD caps for each class. Maybe the MAX critical % value a GF can gain is 25% hardcap while a CW can go to 30%
Or HECK, maybe 300 critical goes further on a CW than 300 ciritcal on a GF. So keep it linear however 300 critical on a CW is 2% while its only 1.5% on a GF who knows...
Still the bottom line here is ALL stats should operate like the POWER stat does know...
I thought of this as well and honestly I agree. I think one thing that COULD also be interesting would be random rolled stats on gear.
What I mean by that is take an item and give the stats a stat RANGE that it can roll. Almost like Black Ice gear T1 - T3 how its the same stat but a range.
If they threw this on PVE gear it creates almost a tier within a tier of gear.
You could take THAT a step further and just assign each gear with instead a set "offensive" and "defensive" stats and it rolls which stats come up.
Maybe you get a set piece that has Power/Recovery/Deflect but the next time you got that item it popped up "ARP/Crit/Defense".
Taking THAT a step further you could do BOTH values AND stats....
Yeah like I said, the number of offensive slots and defensive slots - or better yet call it "traits" is locked.
So a weapon typically has 2 offensive and 2 defensive - or just assume that.
well how many "offensive" are there? Power/Crit/Recovery/Arp. So if it had two slots it would random roll of the 4.
Say you got Crit/Power.
Next would random defensive: Defense/defl/HP/regen/tenacity?
Say you got HP/regen.
Now you have a pretty rockin Weapon with HP/power/crit/regen. Could have easily gone the other way though and youd get Recovery/ARp/Deflect/tenacity....
But what this does is allow for a more mix n match of stats AND gives incentive to try and get more copies to maybe better the traits on the item.
Same could even go for the trait "values".
Maybe trait 1: Offensive (+350 to +400 stat value) and you got Power @ +389.
Trait 2: Offensive (+250 to +350) and you got Recovery @ + 313.
Defensive trait 1: (+350 to +400) and you got HP (multiplied by 4) and you got + 1564 (391*4)
Defensive 2: (+250 to +350) and you got Regen @ 261
Your Item would look like:
Power +389
Recov + 313
HP + 1564
Regen +261
Hypothetically you could roll a perfect roll and get the SAME weapon with
Power + 400
Recovery+350
HP + 1600
Regen +350
The trait AND roll can be randomized....
No offense, but games with that item setup are just bull****. If the item you want is extremely rare already, why would you actually ask for a second RNG to attempt to get the actual stats you want with it? If you don't get those stats, you weapon that you worked to get is now worthless to you.
Hey its just an idea!
But to get this thread really back to the OP, linear non DR stats IMO would help diversify this game alot. Thats the core of the issue, with all players basically being forced to stack the same things, all players end up with roughly the same builds and same encounters.
Ever notice why most ppl run radiants in defensive for HP? because no dim returns. Ever notice why power stacking is BIS For PVE? Dim returns...
Removing Dim returns I dont think would even change PVE much, but it would drasically change PVP. Now you could have an ultra high DR defensive GF who might excel versus say a crit stacking HR however get an ARP stacking HR against the GF who would lay waste to him... It creates a checks and balances approach where players can play how they want, not hit soft caps on as many stats as possible...
but no because thats bad for everyone else
CRAZY MIKE - 14.6k PvE CW
Backbone - 16.7k PvP HR
[SIGPIC]http://i59.tinypic.com/s3hts7.png[/SIGPIC]
If they were removed I would exploit the hell out of it, as would most people.
But as stats on gear increase, especially in cases like Black Ice gear where there are fewer total stats but the values of each are much higher, we hit DRs too quickly and upgrading gear will become less beneficial.
You know... I try and always respect people on the forums for their ideas and it just seems to me the same isnt returned.
Currently with 1k recovery that provides about 10% reduced CD. Which btw (you probably know this) it requires 100% reduced CD to cut this in half. So to have 1/3 recharge speed you would need to be at 20,000 recovery not 8000...
Also I really doubt youd even want to play with 8000 recovery IF you could get that in PVP without a stone, because then youd literally have almost no power/crit/arp/defense/hp...
Even if you DID get 8,000 recovery that would roughly be 80% reduced CD which is still only a REAL 40% drop in your CD. So a 10 sec just became a 6 sec CD.
Ontop of that, while that MAY seem really fun, I think it would be pretty dang hard to survive because this would open you up for 1 shot TRs again as well as HRs/GWFs who can CC/CCimmune you, but yes this is the entire point.
I mean most of the real objections here to be honest I dont think really make sense when you lay it out mathmatically. Its almost like, or I feel its like, if someone from the get go said "Power shouldnt have diminishing returns" and then your response would have been
"so ill just stack 8k power, i would be able to have like 3x the damage?..... hell yea
but no because thats bad for everyone else"
Well the REAL math actually supports it...
So my question is, again, doing the math, why is this a bad thing? If a player wants to try and stack 5000 crit, go for it! He will have no power no arp no defense.... And again, why is it that Power/HP dont have diminishing returns then? Maybe they should if everything else does.
the truth is that most players on most classes hit DR on most stats. On my GWF right now im hitting major DR on crit, pretty strong DR on ARp (at about 35-36% total including Dex) DR on defense, deflect etc.... This is also what makes DARKS the idea loffensive enchant - because the DR is SO much higher (you can stack well into 3000 and still get benefit)
All I am saying is removing or as some said increasing the DR in light of either the class or the new gear, to me, makes alot of sense BECAUSE it gives players more choice as to how to play. When you limit the player in the stat benefits everyone ends up looking pretty dang identical....
The wisest post right here. Glad you get it.
I agree, EVENTUALLY, I think softcaps should be moved upwards. Right now, it is the lesser evil that prevents a greater evil of more broken builds being introduced into the meta.
If they have time to adjust DR or such, might just to make sure the new class is balanced.