66 replies to this topic

[Leonis]

Please use this section to discuss any balance ideas you may have that you feel could help the class benefit from.

Keep in mind that we are not looking to create overpowered situations and not all suggestions will be considered valid if they are outside the design scope of the class.

[SpawN9999]

so far a shield soldier/knight has a much easier time leveling from 1-100 in comparison to how it is now . However, I can already tell theres gonna be a huge debate on the lack of pvp taunting skills, thats what makes a knight what it is. (not just the pvm taunt)


Also noticed sweeping strike nd rain of arrows still lag ( dmg cant be seen).

[KTFlash]

I still think the knight needs more crowd control, pvp sense. I mean, what is the purpose of having a tank-class if he can't disrupt, or prevent the enemy raider reaching the friendly cleric aside from two stuns who are unreliable at the end?

Also, I feel the sword force skill animation is really slow.

[Leonis]

Sweeping strike, when tested, worked. Rain of Arrows is known, will be fixed next patch.

KTFlash, let's talk about those aspects more.

• Improving crowd control.
• Sword Force Animation is slow, slow to cast or slow to end after it goes off?

[SlowBob]

*walks in*

Improving crowd control:
KTFlash is right, since the game got a big focuse on teamplay and most knights got loads of HP/Def there would be a lot of opportunities.
An aoe which allowes to taunt multiple enemys would be certainly a good thing to give the class attributes a sense in pvp.
Another nice skill would be a "party heal" which requires HP instead of MP.

*walkes out*

[KTFlash]

Sweeping strike, when tested, worked. Rain of Arrows is known, will be fixed next patch.

KTFlash, let's talk about those aspects more.

• Improving crowd control.
• Sword Force Animation is slow, slow to cast or slow to end after it goes off?

1 Crowd Control: This is focused on wars/CD/any type of pvp that involves more than 2 players (I mean, anything pvp outside the TG 1V1 pvps). The idea behind the knight is having a powerful defensive character who can take a lot of damage and protect his allies, going in first line. But in the real game, raiders, champions, battle artisans, for naming a few classes, can ignore the knight (cause he doesn't do dmg at all with these cleric heals/hp pots) and dive for the squishiest targets (mostly Clerics, and to some extent, Mages and Bourgs). What can a knight do? I have played myself knight for quite a long time and the viable options are:

a) Trying to lock down the raider/champ with 2 stuns/1 aoe taunt. The stuns are unreliable at all, misses most of the time against raiders and the taunt is silly cause the only thing you need to do is to re-target the squishy. So a knight can't peel for more than 1 or 2 seconds.

Trying to kill the assasins: Really? A Knight trying to kill a 3k dodge Raider or a 12k def Champ with silly 4-5k at most of damage and at most 2k accuracy? And don't meantion trying to kill these Battle Artisans or Scouts, that's begging to be kited.

c) Focus the enemy cleric(s) or squishy source of damage (mage): While the Knight is the only class who can dive a crystal with 2 mages aoeing and silence, and surviving more than 10 seconds there. He can't chase a decent cleric. He may be able to kill a mage if her team leaves her alone and she doesn't have heal. But the idea of the knight is not to to kill people, is ot defend, peel, disrupt.

At the end, the knight should be able to be the initiation for a team, if he decides to go first, or have a good, realiable and useful amount of crowd control if he decides to protect his party/group/clan members. How to do so? In my opinion, there are some options:

- Make the stuns, slows, any skill that have a status modifier, being reliable.
- Decrease the damage output overall. Knight is not the class who must be killing
- Increase the duration/reduce the cooldowns that have crowd control.
- Make the knight have an activable aura who allows him to recive 10/20/30% of the damage deal to close members. Or make it target unique buff: 30% of all the damage dealt to this character is taken instead for the source of this buff" aka the Knight.
- Give him initiation power. Maybe a dash as the champion's one.
- A decent taunt. Not that silly aoe that doesn't even work sometimes.

The knight class is strong in pvp 1v1, but in wars is lame. He does have the SAME amount of crow control as other classes but lacking the damage, utility, etc.:

- The champ has same crowd control, more damage, slighty less defense, more mobility, infinite mana.
- The raider has more mobility, best sticking-to-target power, more damage, same crowd control, more dodge, much less defense.
- The mage has WAY more crowd control,way more damage, way less defense, same mobility, also debuffs (still a weak class in "wars").
- Not gonna speak of cleric for obvious reasons.
- The scout has more damage at the end, best poke/kite, more mobility, more crowd control, way less defense.
- The bourg has more range/poke/kite power, same mobility, way more damage, same crowd control, less defense.

To be honest, right now, the best disrupt ability of the knight is the Sword of Divinity wich lags the enemy team lol.

2.- At the start, the animation is SO slow that is getting out of my nerves.

[Leonis]

*walks in*

Improving crowd control:
KTFlash is right, since the game got a big focuse on teamplay and most knights got loads of HP/Def there would be a lot of opportunities.
An aoe which allowes to taunt multiple enemys would be certainly a good thing to give the class attributes a sense in pvp.
Another nice skill would be a "party heal" which requires HP instead of MP.

*walkes out*

An AoE that allows to taunt multiple enemies - Sacrifice

Taunt in PvP was disabled to be used on players. Two things to why:

• We didn't feel it right to force a player to change target and direction of attacks by forcing melee, when some classes may not be a melee class to begin with. (Mages largely) as their advantages are their range, but their weapon is close range. Additionally, not everyone changes what they're doing because of a taunt if higher intelligence lets them know better than to stop beating on the person they're about to defeat. You finish your target, then move on.
• I wanted to put in a mechanic that would reduce the 'taunted' target's attack power, unless they were attacking the 'taunter' to encourage attacking the taunter, but that wasn't something we could pull off easily in the time constraint we have.
  
  Forcing a target to melee you was being abused, causing players to unwillingly enter combat.

Largely it was #1 that gave justification not to allow taunt to be used in PvP. If you're just sitting there, someone yells at you but you have an uncaring disposition towards them, you wouldn't attack, no matter how they yelled.

Another nice skill would be a "party heal" which requires HP instead of MP.

Knights are protectors, not healers. You may be thinking of a Paladin. Leave some room for growth, sheesh!

Unfortunately, KTFlash, I can't take the majority of what you just posted because reading through it, you're using live server situations and examples. Nearly none of it was from Pegasus testing. The entire reason of having Pegasus up, these forums for feedback is to be about the experiences you have regarding the Pegasus skill update that is being tested. You are welcome to compare live server to Pegasus server experiences and how they differ and to suggest changes based on how some skills and effects are now in place on Pegasus.

Until then, I can't accept nearly anything you just said because I cannot see a clear line between what you're offering as feedback based on Pegasus testing or live server experience.

[KTFlash]

Im just stating what is on the live server and what I hope to see in the high lvl pvp testing (if ever will be). But just an example: Yesterday we had a party at DoD and a 100 raider came and killed our both 100 cleric, and I was unable to do anything against him to protect them.

[SpawN9999]

Leo, how was it being abused?

How are Knights going to protect teammates when there's no mechanic to force an enemy to attack you? They barely attack you now and that's WITH taunt .

[DoubleRose]

Knights should do better against critical hits now since they don't pierce armor, however, they should be wary of their opponents. Certain enemies counter them more than others.

The pros and cons of mace vs sword are more defined now. Giving them more attack speed lets sword shine in builds were you use skills between several attacks. Maces are still strong with shield and weapons attacks

[Leonis]

Look guys, I'm very sympathetic to the whole idea that Knights are protectors and that you feel they need a way to force attention to you when your allies are in trouble. However, the ability to force someone to initiate an action against their will is different than incapacitating or weakening them. The incapacitation (stun) is a pretty straight forward mechanic to pause/stop combat flat out. Very powerful. However, being able to force someone to attack a different target, that's like mind control and worse than incapacitation. Why? Because you're removing the ability to think and control a character by controlling it for someone else.

How it was abused? Well, in ways I would not want to be intended by design

• Player is running away, low on health knowingly not wanting to engage in combat because of the risk of low life. Taunt forces them to turn and start fighting, even though they know better. Now if there was a skill that slows their movement enough to catch up or even stops them in their tracks, that's the skill's design intention. But taunt is intended to be a means to take the attention of a target to try and provoke them in to engaging in combat with you. But it doesn't force it.
• Player is intentionally trying to run towards an objective (ie: Crystal) but suddenly is pulled towards the taunter, even when they had no intention of entering combat.
• Muse/Mage (staff user to be precise) is generally a ranged skill based class, not melee. If taunted, instead of turning and casting on the 'taunter' they begin to run up to them because it forces a melee action, which is against how the class would normally generally play.

It's basically situations like that where it is against intended design.
But the abuse happens mostly in simple 'civil' situations, where someone is just watching others in the Training Grounds and gets taunted, begins running across the field to engage combat they had no desire to engage in.

One of the proposed mechanic changes that I've been discussing to enable it to be used in PvP, is to make it only change the target of who is being taunted. This is the same effect of 'getting someone's attention' so if they're skill mashing, the next skill will target the person who's attention was just changed to. Secondary effect would be that the taunt's "duration" would be how long the target change lock would last. The ending effect of this would mean, that the next skill that's cast, would go to the targeted player (Knight) but melee would continue, unless it was told to attack again, but now under the new target.

To me, I feel this is more fair, because it doesn't stop anyone from their current action and what they're intending to do, but it does force attention to be changed and new actions would then engage against the 'new target.'

I'd be interested to hear feedback regarding this.

[KTFlash]

I'm ok with any mechanic that allows the knight to be a reliable source of protection without being overpowered.

I think what determines how skils should be made are the fact that can be countered by proper desicion making of the player, rather than a "we dont want to force a player do to anything they don't want (engaging)". The proper countermechanic should be "you don't want to be taunted? wait until your teammates initiate and they use their peeling skills before diving an assasin". An assasin should not be able to dive careless, kill the squishy and run like nothing happened.

Just my two cents.

edit: also, what about the super slow startup knight skill "sword force" that I mentioned early on?

Edited by KTFlash, 28 June 2013 - 04:01 PM.

[Leonis]

I'm ok with any mechanic that allows the knight to be a reliable source of protection without being overpowered.

I think what determines how skils should be made are the fact that can be countered by proper desicion making of the player, rather than a "we dont want to force a player do to anything they don't want (engaging)". The proper countermechanic should be "you don't want to be taunted? wait until your teammates initiate and they use their peeling skills before diving an assasin". An assasin should not be able to dive careless, kill the squishy and run like nothing happened.

Just my two cents.

edit: also, what about the super slow startup knight skill "sword force" that I mentioned early on?

Ah, I'll speed up the cast animation to see if that helps. I had forgotten that one.

But I understand the desire to protect, but one of the defenses of the 'assassin' class for us (Hawker/Raider) is a high amount of dodge. If you can't hit them, it reduces your effectiveness of making them want to back out. So, now the question is, would a severe dodge down buff be something to consider worthwhile in order to make it possible?

[KTFlash]

Personally I wouldn't consider Scout an assasin class. Typically, an assasin is someone who can take an enemy fast enough - most of the time the squishy valuable objective on the enemy team, aka cleric, bourg or mage). While the scout is a class who can deal decent damage at all stages of a pvp game like CD, he is more like a support class that can kite, using hit and run strategies. Raider, on the other hand, is the definition of the assasin in Rose. Single target damage, can take squishies fast due to the nature of critical, fast hits and dodge mechanics.

I have never been against a class being able to do that in order to win a game. But, the point is, currently that strategy has no counterplay - every pvp is "kill the cleric". There is a reason why champs and raider are the most played class in the game: deal a great amount of damage with a low chance of being wiped out fast enough by the enemy team. Call it a low risk high reward classes.

A dodge buff down skill would be just a uncountereable strategy - what can a Raider do? Just run and wait for cd to refresh. Become invis as most. How much seconds would you give to that skill? Would it be a % buff or a flat amount? or both? I can't really say anything wihout some numbers.

And thanks for letting me speak about my favourite class in the game

[SpawN9999]

How about a single target attack that hits an ally ( like a heal) that transfers a % of the dmg taken by an ally onto yourself? This would be a high mana consuming attack and it then forces enemies onto you by thier own choice.

Maybe have it count as healing inflicted in PvP arenas to reflect a knights usefulness

[SpawN9999]

Oh and for that new proposed taunt mechanic, how do you then expect me to troll TG by stranding afk players in random places?

Just kidding.

I think having the skill hit the knight and keep regular hits on the intended target is a fair compromise.

Well have to see how It's gonna play out in wars

[Genesis]

After some discussion with Leonis about his design ideas and concerns with the use of taunt in PvP scenarios, I've spent some time tinkering with the taunt mechanic and made some initial adjustments to how it functions. Will continue the discussion with him on Monday and see if any further adjustments need to be made before the changes are put on Pegasus for testing.

Taunting Monsters
The taunter's target will always change it's target to the taunter, and start running towards the taunter to attack them.

Taunting Players
If the taunter's target is attacking a target (using melee, with or without skills), or moving towards a target to attack it, the character will change it's target to the taunter, and start running towards the taunter to attack them. Otherwise if the taunter's target is casting skills (without using melee), moving to an arbitrary location, or standing idle, the character will change it's target to the taunter, but continue whatever action they were doing.

[Radxr]

Taunting Players
If the taunter's target is attacking a target (using melee, with or without skills), or moving towards a target to attack it, the character will change it's target to the taunter, and start running towards the taunter to attack them. Otherwise if the taunter's target is casting skills (without using melee), moving to an arbitrary location, or standing idle, the character will change it's target to the taunter, but continue whatever action they were doing.

That's actually a great idea there Genesis and Leonis. I look fowards to seeing something similar to this in the next patch or so.

Radxr

[KTFlash]

Will the taunt have duration, or will it be as silly as now where you can retarget as fast as you are taunted?

[RexZshadow]

• Player is running away, low on health knowingly not wanting to engage in combat because of the risk of low life. Taunt forces them to turn and start fighting, even though they know better. Now if there was a skill that slows their movement enough to catch up or even stops them in their tracks, that's the skill's design intention. But taunt is intended to be a means to take the attention of a target to try and provoke them in to engaging in combat with you. But it doesn't force it.
• Player is intentionally trying to run towards an objective (ie: Crystal) but suddenly is pulled towards the taunter, even when they had no intention of entering combat.
• Muse/Mage (staff user to be precise) is generally a ranged skill based class, not melee. If taunted, instead of turning and casting on the 'taunter' they begin to run up to them because it forces a melee action, which is against how the class would normally generally play.

1. stun/root/sleep basicly any type of CC works under the concept, if you want to go by then there shouldn't shouldn't be any type of CC or movement skills. The point of using certain skill is to catch people off guard, just because they are low health and stay way doesn't mean they should be safe.
2. Isn't that the point? Tank's job is to tank for objective or for players, prevent enemy from getting objective is same as prevent them from killing your team. Again by this logic shouldn't we remove stuns and root as well since it will prevent them from getting there as well.
3. If your don't make taunt range too wide its not an issue as all because they probbly won't be in range, you want to set it to something like smaller than caster range but wide enough to get good amount of melee and set it to like 5 closest target so even if caster are in range most likely more melee are closer unless you purposely go in their back line then again thats the point of knights is to disrupt so if they take the risk of jumping in than they should be allow to do something.

I really don't see issue with taunt since it work on the bases of other CC, disrupt.

If still can't do taunt then give us an aoe fear, don't need them to come to us just make them run around randomly would be good too. Other skill is a pull skill, pull target toward you since knight isn't moble so a dash would seem werid but something to pull enemy to you would be good as well coz it let you peel.

[Genesis]

Will the taunt have duration, or will it be as silly as now where you can retarget as fast as you are taunted?

That is a point of debate at the moment. I believe that without providing sufficient visual feedback to the player (that is, something more than a system chat notification), forcing a "target lock" for a fixed duration would feel more like an interface glitch than a feature, especially with the next patch coming that relaxes object targeting restrictions during combat (which should make the interface feel more responsive than present).

[DoubleRose]

Taunt-
For the next x (low couple) seconds, the player targets the knight and if they attack in any way all their moves will be on the knight. They can still run around or choose to not fight. They will not automatically attack the knight when they are hit with taunt.

[SpawN9999]

That is a point of debate at the moment. I believe that without providing sufficient visual feedback to the player (that is, something more than a system chat notification), forcing a "target lock" for a fixed duration would feel more like an interface glitch than a feature, especially with the next patch coming that relaxes object targeting restrictions during combat (which should make the interface feel more responsive than present).

maybe put a icon next to the name of the knight thats taunting you like a monster icon

, etc

[KTFlash]

Crossbow Knight Skill "Rain of Arrows" makes the character stop autoattacking when cast. Working as intended?

[Leonis]

1. stun/root/sleep basicly any type of CC works under the concept, if you want to go by then there shouldn't shouldn't be any type of CC or movement skills. The point of using certain skill is to catch people off guard, just because they are low health and stay way doesn't mean they should be safe.
2. Isn't that the point? Tank's job is to tank for objective or for players, prevent enemy from getting objective is same as prevent them from killing your team. Again by this logic shouldn't we remove stuns and root as well since it will prevent them from getting there as well.
3. If your don't make taunt range too wide its not an issue as all because they probbly won't be in range, you want to set it to something like smaller than caster range but wide enough to get good amount of melee and set it to like 5 closest target so even if caster are in range most likely more melee are closer unless you purposely go in their back line then again thats the point of knights is to disrupt so if they take the risk of jumping in than they should be allow to do something.

I really don't see issue with taunt since it work on the bases of other CC, disrupt.

If still can't do taunt then give us an aoe fear, don't need them to come to us just make them run around randomly would be good too. Other skill is a pull skill, pull target toward you since knight isn't moble so a dash would seem werid but something to pull enemy to you would be good as well coz it let you peel.

 

1. Taunt is not a crowd control, it is a spot control and being able to stop someone from running away is not what it is intended to address. As been in discussion, it is a means to take attention of a target off its target, to protect them. So in a chase, it is unfair to force that player to alter their intention of escape.

 

2. Yes, attention, but if you're not engaged it shouldn't force you to turn a 180 if you just happen to be walking towards a location. After a lot of discussion and debate, the mechanics are going to be working as Genesis explained just above.

 

3. Taunt is essentially calling out to a single target. Sacrifice is the mass/group taunt version. And we don't have the mechanic to limit the number of targets acquired at the moment.

 

"Fear" was a mechanic I wanted, but we didn't have the ability to implement it in time. In the future perhaps.

A "Pull" mechanic will end up being discussed for the future. We've settled on the adjustment to taunt for now.

 

"Rain of Arrows" stopping attacking on cast, no not as intended but should be fixed in the next patch.