Game Balance Summit - Dec. 8-9, 2011
Summary and Feedback
Greetings,
On Dec. 8 and 9, 2011, several members of the Dragon Saga community and the GMs met to discuss game balance concerns, including the following issues:
- Class/Skill Balance
- Stat Balance
- Item/Equipment Balance
- Professions Feedback
- Miscellaneous Feedback
The community members chosen for this event were selected from among those who are most active here in the Game Balances section of the forums. Below is a summary of the specific issues discussed during the meeting. The GMs collect all of this feedback and forward it to the developers for consideration with regards to implementation of future game balance measures.
If you would like to contribute to the discussion on these issues, or suggest new ideas for game balances, please feel free to leave a comment here. Thank you in advance for your contributions, as they will help us improve gameplay for the entire community.
Please keep in mind, however, that all we can do is make suggestions to the developers. Ultimately, it is up to them to decide what changes are made to the game.
- Class/Skill Balance
- Warriors
- Body Activation: A group member said this skill seems to lose its effect when changing maps, and it could not be determined if this was a glitch or intended.
- Spin-It Bear: The group agreed this skill should either be moved to the Myrmidon skill tree or removed altogether. The instant cast time, infinite vertical range and Aim Rate buff on this skill also were deemed overpowered.
- Mega Storm Blade: The group agreed that this skill should become a passive upgrade skill in conjunction with the Storm Blade skill, rather than be its own separate skill.
- Barricade: The group discussed the need to nerf this skill, either by removing its ability to heal, its ability to cure, or both.
- C*ckroach Life: A group member said this skill should be changed back it the way it used to work, restoring a character's HP up to the 40% mark, rather than healing a flat 40% HP regardless of the character's current HP.
- Wyvern Blade: A group member mentioned that some Myrmidon/Overlord players would like to see this skill get a superarmor status.
- Stumble: The group generally agreed that the Aim Rate debuff on this skill is too powerful, and that a potential solution would be to change it to an Evade Rate debuff, instead.
- Archers
- Sniping: It was agreed that the Sniping skill's cooldown is too short and needs to be increased, considering how powerful the skill is.
- Untouchable: The group generally agreed that this skill is underpowered, considering it leaves the user at 1 HP/MP. Potential fixes included making it an instant kill or perhaps making it lower the target's HP/MP to 1, as well.
- Tesla Coil: It was agreed that this skill's cooldown is too short, allowing players to have the AoE out indefinitely. The group said the cooldown should be increased so this is not possible.
- Mages
- Heals: The group discussed the fact that heals currently are too powerful in PvP, and a possible solution would be to change the mechanics so that heals are nerfed somewhat in PvP.
- Double Shot: The group agreed that this skill should be made a passive rather than an active skill, as it was in the past, as making it active makes it a nuisance to use and is seen as an unnecessary change.
- Thieves
- Dexterity buff: The group discussed the need to change this buff so that two Dexterity buffs cannot stack with each other (instead, the newest casting of the buff should override and replace any existing instance of the buff).
- Perfect Strike: It was noted that this skill is underpowered considering the long 60-second cooldown and the minimal damage it can produce.
- Certain Kill: A group member mentioned that the passive buff "Certain Kill" seems too good to get for no cost, and that it should perhaps be a separate passive skill that requires skill points to obtain.
- Burrow: The group discussed the notion that this skill would better serve its purpose if it had a short cooldown and duration (perhaps something like a 6-second cooldown and a 4-second duration), so that thieves could use it to dodge attacks more often instead of hiding for a prolonged amount of time. It was mentioned that this might cause issues with not having enough Burrow time to avoid certain attacks in PvE, which was countered by saying that Shadow Walk can also be used to avoid attacks.
- Shadow Walk: The group mentioned the need to fix the current cooldown bug on this skill that allows users to use it too often.
- Violent Blow: A group member mentioned the possibility of removing the stun from this skill, as it was deemed to be a bit too powerful.
- Frozen Windmill/Headspin: The group discussed the fact that it seems unnecessarily overpowered for these skills to continue to rack up an infinite number of hits while the user is frozen.
- Wood Rush: The group generally agreed that the Aim Rate debuff on this skill is unnecessarily overpowered considering the short cast time, and that a potential solution would be to change it to an Evade Rate debuff, instead.
- Summoners
- Mana Burn: The group discussed the need to nerf this skill, but did not go into specifics as there is a currently existing thread on this issue in the Game Balances section where much discussion already has taken place.
- Cast Times: The group mentioned the need to lower cast times on most Summoner skills, as the current cast times leave them at a significant disadvantage in PvP if they do not rely on Mana Burn.
- Twin Fighters
- Cooldown Resets: The group discussed the imbalance caused by Twin Fighters' ability to reset their cooldowns using a glitch/bug, resulting in them being able to spam skills in rapid succession. Everyone agreed the glitch/bug should be fixed so that this is no longer possible.
- Wheel of Fortune: The group generally agreed that it doesn't seem right that Twin Fighters are able to revive themselves and teammates. However, it was mentioned that the cooldown on this skill is 9 minutes, so if the cooldown reset bug/glitch is fixed, WoF might not be a big issue anymore.
- Warriors
- Stat Balance
- Aim Rate/Evade Rate: According to the GMs, the developers currently are working on addressing the issue of Aim Rate and Evade Rate to come up with potential solutions.
GM Aramis (Nolanvoid) said, "Basically, they are aware it is an issue and are currently testing the effects of different types of changes, taking into account equipment, skills, etc., to make sure the gap (between possible Aim Rate and possible Evade Rate) doesn't create an imbalance that can't be recovered from."
GM Hastur went on to explain that the developers have said they will make changes based on the feedback received about Aim Rate/Evade Rate, but no specific details have been released.
In relation to the Aim Rate/Evade Rate issue, the group discussed the possibility of changing mechanics so that when a target is frozen or stunned, its Evade Rate drops to 0 or its hit rate rises to 100%, since a frozen or stunned target logically cannot evade attacks. - Movespeed: The group discussed the issue with certain skills that root a player to one spot -- such as Netbind -- that do not prevent a target from moving if the target has exceptionally high MSPD.
- Block Rate: The group discussed Block Rate and the fact that it currently seems overpowered, particularly with regards to the Knight/Paladin/Dragoon classes and their skills that enhance Block Rate.
Several players said Block Rate should not be able to completely stop any attacks, and that instead perhaps it could give a % chance to ignore critical hits, or reduce the incoming damage from critical hits.
Also discussed was the possibility of limiting Block Rate % in PvP or changing the mechanics so that when stunned or frozen, a target's Block Rate is reduced to 0. - STR/INT/HLT/AGI Balance: The group mentioned that the four main stats require a better balance, and that STR, especially, seems like a near-useless stat, thus it should be made significantly more effective.
- Aim Rate/Evade Rate: According to the GMs, the developers currently are working on addressing the issue of Aim Rate and Evade Rate to come up with potential solutions.
- Item/Equipment Balance
- Downshifted Gear: The group discussed the issue with downshifted gear and GM Aramis said it is an issue the developers currently are trying to address. When Professions were first released, it was possible to Soul Shift options from a higher-level piece of equipment onto a lower-level piece of equipment, resulting in some players who were able to shift high-level stats onto low-level equipment and Item Mall equipment. This led to extreme stat stacking that is no longer possible and results in imbalance issues.
- Defense on Secmathian/Elga Sets and Paris Wings: The group generally agreed that the defense on Secmathian/Elga set pieces and Paris Wings is too high and should be lowered to prevent defense from reaching a point where ATK/MATK values can no longer produce reasonable damage.
- Set Bonuses: The group mentioned that set bonuses seem to be all over the place in terms of usefulness, and that for better balance the lower-tier set bonuses (2-piece, 3-piece) should be made less powerful and the higher-tier ones (5-piece, 6-piece) should be made more powerful to prevent users from mixing and matching powerful lower-tier set bonuses and other special gear to achieve extreme stat stacking too easily. It was also mentioned that the developers don't seem to have enough of an understanding of what stats are useful for which classes, meaning that some classes get great set bonuses while others get bonuses that aren't very useful.
- Professions Feedback
- Materials: The group discussed the fact that currently it feels like it takes too many materials to create products using the Professions systems, following several patches since the introduction of Professions that increased the number of materials needed for Production.
- Insurance: The group discussed the issue with insurance scrolls for the various Professions being too difficult to create due to material costs and the low number of scrolls obtained through the insurance creation process. The possibility of having a separate recipe for creating insurance scrolls was mentioned as a potential solution.
- Miscellaneous Feedback
- Survivability in PvP: The group discussed the fact that it can often prove difficult -- especially in high-level PvP among stacked opponents -- to take down a target due to the discrepancy between ATK/MATK and DEF/MDEF as well as the high Max HP multiplier provided in most PvP modes. Several possibilities were discussed, and the group agreed that the easiest solution would probably be to lower the HP multiplier in PvP so that players die more quickly/more often, promoting faster-paced gameplay. The group also said that as an added bonus, lower HP would make heals more reasonable in PvP.
- Handicap Option in PvP: GM Aramis said the developers are interested in getting feedback on possible changes to the handicap option in PvP. The group agreed that probably the best solution would be for the developers to come up with a standard set of equipment that feels balanced for each class, and have the handicap option force-equip this standard set onto every character in the PvP match. The possibility of a handicap that ignores all equipment except for weapon and sets the weapon to one of a certain level (like level 25), similar to the current method of naked PvP, also was discussed.
- Hotkey Bars: The group discussed the need for more hotkeys for skills and items, perhaps another full row of hotkeys or expanding the current bars to include more slots.
- Infinite Aerial Recovery: The group discussed this new mechanic and generally agreed that it should have some kind of cooldown, so that players cannot use Aerial Recovery indefinitely.
Edited by Rimmy, 10 December 2011 - 12:57 PM.