[R#186] T#186-T#197 Patch Discussion

[Tino]

There is no way they bring back hybrids (if we cant get the weapons balanced its gonna be impossible for hybrids to not be OP again), it would just end up being messy...we should focus on balancing weapons and pure skills like apu (which is a useless class outside of pve atm)

The way they used to balance in nc1 was find the weapons that needed changing and change that weapon to be better in pvp. Whether that is increasing clip size, increase damage, increase frequency, etc...if all the weapons are changed there is no way this will succeed without problems. Get the pvp weapons the community wants to OP fight with on the same level and then as a whole decrease all their damage, etc.

Really the question is what weapons need to be beefed up to be viable in pvp? What weapons does the nc community want to play with again?

Everyone knows I love the dissy =) but it for sure needs to be decreased to 3 bullets like the non rare mini dissy. Also maybe decrease the clip size so they have to reload more often.

Good Luck to the volunteer team on this venture...it literally holds the life of nc in its hands 0.o

<3 Tino

[Kame]

Also, we are aiming for weapons of TL75+ for PvP viability. This is mostly the lower limit for PEs. Other classes we are looking at TL95+

That sounds logical, but in the actual game I dont think it is. No one uses a TL 85 Tangent Lightbringer. (I'm no game programmer, but perhaps epic weapons could gain the damage bonus from epic status instead of streamlining their TL with other weapons TLs)

The DPM/TL curve is only linear from TL75 onwards; the DPM drop from 105 to 84 is less than 18%.

Thats almost 20% !!!

Also your graphic here shows that your intended TL/damage curve for P#186 gets linear at TL49. Link to thread

Look at Termi vs BHG.

TL87 Termi (8 744.33)

TL113 BHG (10 160.58)

(TL gap (26) is about 23%, in your example TL gap (21) is 20%)


20%, again. 1/5. Thats a LOT in a pvp game.



Im no game programmer or mathematician or anything but you guys asked for our opinions so I'm gonna say right now that I highly disagree with what you guys are proposing.

Regarding this :

Again you are assuming too little will change. As we have repeated all too often, more will change than you think. Discount what implant and armour values the game currently offers. Forget what Psi benefits the PE currently gets.
It is all up for change.

This sounds like a Evolution 2.2 rehash to me. People got used to the game in the state it is, and now you guys wanna redo the wheel all over again ??

I would personnally advocate for small, incremental changes to other aspect of PVP than the DPM/TL ratio. I dont want to have to re-learn the game again and Im sure Im not alone thinking this way.




To me, this is wrong :

The DPM/TL curve is only linear from TL75 onwards; the DPM drop from 105 to 84 is less than 18%.

If anything, at first tought, it feels like the curve should be linear within non-rare weapons only. Once you talk rare and EPIC and WOC, adjust weapon by weapon.



Also you guys need to think about things like ammo clips and burst size before you do the damage thing. The ammo clip size and burst size should be adjusted first, and should be standard even across rare and non rare. It sucks using a 32 ammo TPC or a single beam shot laser rifle. I have a shit ton of stuff to say about game balancing but no time to put it down on "paper". Sorry guys.





So seriously guys please dont go ahead with that patch right now.

[Kame]

Been on test server for 10 mins with Tino. Definitely a problem with stack damage.

[Sevendust]

Woah, a whopping 10 mins...

Btw, Termi is a PE weapon (TLs up to 105 for their graph).

@Tino, Hybrids weren't OP in 2.1 to begin with.

Also, you can't seem to read what the GMs are saying. That this is basically ALPHA testing for the balancing. This is stage 1 of maybe 5, BEFORE everything is done on vedeena & it goes to Sparta to be tested for final bugs/problems.

Where the hell is everyone at on the balance patch everyone's apparently been waiting for? O.o

[QuasarSee]

Damage Output only a joke?

i have test an Tank with Creed, TT TL 75 Epic Cannon, HC is at 239, when i skill higher i have no really resist ...

Damage with the TT Epic Cannon only 202?!? Creed only 400. On the Retail Server i have with 250 HC an Output up to 544 without a ammo mod.

i think thats is the wrong wrong way to Balance NC, please dont nerf the Damage output so heavely down.

a TL 115 Weapon have to deal Damage like about a big fat Hammer, not like a Teletubbie.

Sorry for my english

[Brammers]

Kame - you need to chillout and stop stressing. If you actually read anything properly from the devs, this patch is probably one step in the whole balance process and your posts seem to demonstrate you not read or undertood anything they have said.

I would personnally advocate for small, incremental changes to other aspect of PVP than the DPM/TL ratio. I dont want to have to re-learn the game again and Im sure Im not alone thinking this way.

So what you are saying is you want the game balanced but don't want to re-learn the game again. It's almost like saying you want to keep your current choice of overpowered weapon.

Any game that does a rebalancing or a patch forces players to re-learn how to play it. If you didn't have to re-learn how to the play the game whether the changes are small or big, wouldn't the game become....boring?

Been on test server for 10 mins with Tino. Definitely a problem with stack damage.

So you spent a whole 10 minutes testing? ....Wow! So you spent a lot more time writing all these posts full of whine that the NST is doing it wrong.

I have a shit ton of stuff to say about game balancing but no time to put it down on "paper". Sorry guys.

I guess we won't see any more posts from you. It's been interesting reading the posts from QuasarSee, Sevendust and a few others who have actually tested and provided figures and feedback to support their views and arguments. I've seen nothing concrete from you at all.

So when you come back with decent evidence to support your arguments, people may listen to your arguments. And also give the NST a fair chance and something useful to work with. This is the first step in the balancing process, not the last step. Also remember 2.2 balance was never even finished properly.

[Sevendust]

Damage Output only a joke?

i have test an Tank with Creed, TT TL 75 Epic Cannon, HC is at 239, when i skill higher i have no really resist ...

Damage with the TT Epic Cannon only 202?!? Creed only 400. On the Retail Server i have with 250 HC an Output up to 544 without a ammo mod.

i think thats is the wrong wrong way to Balance NC, please dont nerf the Damage output so heavely down.

a TL 115 Weapon have to deal Damage like about a big fat Hammer, not like a Teletubbie.

Sorry for my english

Creed is high TL, & does rediculous dmg on Titan. It kinda actually needs a nerf. As does the dissy.

& This balance is actually the opposite of your thinking. No more of this "use this or that" OP weapon boringness. With everything about the same for the class's choices, the "big fat hammer" dmg is going to be done by those who can aim well.

[Kame]

10 minutes of testing is better than none at all.

You guys should be glad I put in time instead or dissecting my post and trying to demonize what I say.

My opinion about the game is as valid as the next man's and has it's place here.


Besides, everything on that server is laggy and for me, even the login screen : When I rezz myself, my char gets up about 5 seconds after the rezz spell is done on my rezzing computer.
Also simple stuff like jumping over a rail or droping down a mountain killing runners doesnt help.
The first day I went to test it took me about 30mins to find someone to poke me after I died dropping 10 in-game feet. Ultimately I had to log on IRC to have a GM poke me on the test server. Shit like that doesnt make it easy to help, I spent 30 mins setting a char up.
Most of the time, actually testing takes me 1/3 of the time it takes to set something up on that server. Doesnt feel good at all.


Also, most of my clan doesnt give a shit about the test server, the balancing, or the game at this point in time. They are ready to move on to other games and desert NC. If you play EST, you probably already noticed the population drop by 2-3% on weekdays evening. Were not as active as we were a month ago.
We havnt had an OP fight in about 2 weeks.
My clanmates have valid points about whats being done wrong and I believe those points are voiced in my posts.



If you dont listen one bit to the pvp crowd, youre gonna lose it, just as in 2.2. We're telling you the approach you take is wrong, dont disregard it.

[RUn3]

First off.
All you tradeskillers need to be quiet sit down, while the actual pvpers talk about the pvp aspect of the game.
When the time comes for the mob balancing you can have your say. (no but seriously listen to the people who's played this game for about 10 years.. We actually know a thing or 2 about it.)

As i stated previously making this game linear and smooth is not the way to go, atleast not when it comes to rare and woc weapons, they need to be fine tuned individually otherwise you're gonna end up with the good pvpers using max dmg harder to aim weapons, and the newbs with the less damage ones.. guess who's gonna win and who's going to yell cheat, hacks, reported, ect.

I am aware that this is not the final patch and it's by far not ready ect. ect.

But Kame is right. The last attempt at balancing this game ended up in a clusterfuck of turdballs.

Don't fuck this up by taking the easy way out.

[Tino]

Seems like everyone is afraid to hear the truth from real pvpers like Kame (he did win the most recent pvp tourny put on by 17th)...when was the last time we saw brammers in an OP fight? just saying...dont start attacking other runners because of the time they spent testing or what they think of the direction of the patch. I personally think all these dumb charts ppl are posting on this thread are a waste of time lol. Find the weapons that need to be changed and change that specific weapon to be useful again...thats the only way to approach this without failing.

THEY WILL NEVER BRING BACK HYBRIDS GET OVER IT!

[Trivaldi]

Let's lay off the personal stuff and stick to the discussion at hand please. That goes for everyone in this thread.

[William Antrim]

You cant go about "buffing" this weapon or "nerfing" that one because it is what the people who played the game at the time wanted. That was the KK way and look where it got them... bankruptcy. People bitched and moaned about stuff and they gave in. They changed the game, those people quit and now look at the game.

If you start changing weapons one at a time to what you think is right you will never get it right. When an architect designs a house he doesnt say to the bricklayer "just chuck a few bricks here and a few more there, if that doesnt work just put another on top".

NC is in the same predicament at present. It literally is rewriting the rulebook on pvp for this game. You cannot let human bias come into that just because you like a weapon and someone else prefers another one. In years to come other people will hopefully pick up nc, what happens if they prefer the Blade of Ceres? They wont come here and go HEY BUFF THE BLADE OF CERES ITS NOT BALANCED!!!! Come on man. Lets look at the big picture here.

I am no maths genius but the balancing by the numbers is the only way to go here. Everything in this game is done by the numbers. All the skills add up to 300. If thats not done by the numbers then what else is?

So if you take a specific classes primary skill (100 for 3 of em) then they should be able to put out around the same equivalent amount of damage if their skills (under the hood) are the same. This is the kind of balancing the team is trying to achieve. There will be variations on this amount of damage but if the player has X strength/dex/psi and Y RC/PC/APU/HC/RCL etc then they should give out Z damage. If that RC/PC etc blah blah is lower they will do lower damage. This step one of a MASSIVE process.

They already said on multiple occasions that if things need to change they will change. If subskills need to move there is the potential that they move if it serves the game best.

I cite the subskill resist force for example. It is currently in Strength, yet all the other subskills are in Constitution. This could easily imbalance force modded weapons due to some players higher or lower "reserve pool" of points to spec for resist force. PE (dex based) for example doesnt need Strength for much so he can spec high resist force and pierce resist. The Tank (hc/mc) needs his Strength points for his HC but he doesnt need his dex as much as the PE does (only needs TC and agility).

So you see if classes have "spare" skills currently whats to say they dont adjust imps/armour to compensate for these higher/lower amounts.


At the end of the day the dpm balancing will give one thing. The TTK. This is what most FPS games balance their guns on. Time To Kill. How long does it take to put that guy down with this weapon. In nc they are gonna need to factor in resists whereas most FPS games do not need to worry about this as players dont have resists, they have a standard amount of health etc.

So when DPM has been balanced - or arrived at something they feel is roughly balanced they can move on to the Armour/Resist issues. When that is done they can measure the TTK. When that is roughly the same for ALL classes you have balance.

When you have balance, you have NC.

Please, tell me I am wrong.

[Kame]

In order to lay a solid foundation for weapons, in my opinion it's best to adjust things like burst/clip size BEFORE you even start looking into DPM.

Just like when building a house, a certain order MUST be retained. You dont start by shiming stuff right away because it might need more shims when other parts putting weight on it.

To me, starting with DPM is like starting with the windows and doors.




In my opinion again, it's also best when runnin any type of long term project to be able to get the small stuff that wont need touch up out of the way.

Who knows, but that small stuff might even be delivered before the rest of the project if that small stuff is deemed solid enough, thus satisfying part of the demands right away.

[Kame]

I have a lot of love for this Neocron game. It is, after all, my favorite PVP game and has been for the last 10yrs or so.


I worry about the future of the game and stuff like the DEV team not even having their facts together as a whole makes me cringe. Just look at the statements below, how does one guy says linear at TL75 and yet the intended graph shows TL49 ???

Also your graphic here shows that your intended TL/damage curve for P#186 gets linear at TL49. Link to thread

The DPM/TL curve is only linear from TL75 onwards; (...)

Why dont you guys put the whole roadmap for balancing up for discussion (With full details even) ?

Im sure the community would have great input, and it'd be nice to know where we stand right now vs the timeline of the whole balancing act.

[William Antrim]

Because everything we think we know about nc has been flattened and they are starting from scratch. Hence why a linear yardstick is needed. You need a start point (we have one - absolute zero) and an end point - the highest TL weapon. Everything inbetween is up for discussion/change.

For all we know they could change the tls of all the guns again as sevendust (I think) mentioned.

Nothing is set in stone here. Everything is up for discussion, hence why you need an unbiased, completely open and honest transparent yard stick. Thats the DPM curve.

If you start thinking about pistols as a separate entity, or rifles, drones or even melee everything starts to deviate from that. So many other factors come in to play (TC affects high tech weapons, FCS affects psi but in a different way, melee doesnt "reload" as such but uses stamina boosters instead etc etc).

That is why you have to start at day 1 week 1 and work up. This stage isnt even in the practical. They are still developing the plans.

Thats how I see things when I read through the notes of this patch. Its a fuckin godsend of a patch because it is just the first step. It is not smashing souffle with a sledgehammer, the KK way.