Curse

Ensign · Feb 10, 2005, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

I guess using 'bug' was a bad idea. What I meant is that the concept is flawed and abusive. It should be fixed by +/-10 max energy (you don't gain/lose energy by equiping an item).

If it worked that way, then you'd just start off your fight with the +20 / -2 pip equipment, then after you've spent 20 energy you swap to your normal equipment to kick your regen back up, since max energy is superfluous at that point. That's even more abusive than how it is now, since you're not giving up the pips when you need the energy badly, nor are you ever dropping into negatives to get that regen back when you pay off the loan.

Peace,
-CxE

Sausaletus Rex · Feb 10, 2005, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

If by scarcity you meant alpha scarcity, then I wholeheartedly agree with you. But after this playtesting phase, scarcity becomes much less relevant than balance between mods.

I don't think so, not really. While there will be more items in release there's also going to be more players to split them, too. Items and their mods seem to be the result of random drops. All adding more players into the equation of people killing mobs for the chance to get a certain item is to change the numbers, not the percentages. If a monster drops a rare item with that mob on average 1% of the time, it doesn't matter if it's 10 people or 1000, it's still only going to turn up 1% of the time. If it takes an alpha hours of slaughter to get an item it's going to take everyone else that same amount of time, too - if not longer, alphas tend to know and share the best spots and methods to farm.

Of course, past release more people means more of an ecconomy and I think that's a valid point. You might not have to spend the time an alpha would you might be able to head to town and plunk down some gold to get that "perfect" item (And that's what we're talking about here. Not just "good" items. "Perfect" items. Items at the absolute height of their power. Nothing less will do if you want o be competitive. It might be a fraction of a percent difference in power or efficiency but that fraction is exactly what you're looking for if you're trying to reach the top of the mountain or stay there. You want every single advantage you can. You want to do away with ever last disadvantage, no matter how small. You want that slightest edge you can find in order to increase your chance of winning. You're an athlete. You're trying to cut a hundredth of a second off your 100m dash time because that's the differnce between first and third place.) but that in and of itself is problematic. That gold has to come from somewhere. And if the best items are rare they're goign to be expensive. Even if you're not slaughering the Zealots to get the items you might be going after the Pinesouls to get the gold. Or amassing Iron to sell for gold. Whatever, you're still investing time and effort to acquire things, you're just doing it indirectly.

And it also brings up the dark spectre that Ensign mentioned earlier. That of the secondary market. People are going to want the best items if they matter - and they need to matter otherwise there's no point to having them for anyone - and there are always going to be those who'll want to take a short cut. And they'll be willing to pay a premium to do so. There'll be people farming or running bots to collect these items to put them on sale on e-bay or some other way, EULA be damned. While the game might be constructed with instancing to keep a player away from the kill stealing, griefing, and camping that attend a secondary market in a more traditional MMO that doesn't mean a secondary market isn't a problem. Instancing is a great attractor for farming. To respawn things you just reenter the zone. And the zone is static, there's no potential of an outside event beyond your control to interfere with your actions. GW is, if the demand is there, a botters paradise. People will run bots, amass high level rare items, runes, black dyes, skill rings, and more, and then dump them on the market. You might never have to deal with someone stealing your kill but you will have to deal with someone wrecking the ecconomy and devaluing the wealth of your character.

And it's not a matter that can be solved through balancing mods. That's like saying abusive skills can be fixed by balancing. They can't. Not completely. It's just the nature of things that there's going to be some imbalances somewhere. Some combination that's going to be more powerful in a given situation than any other. Diversity is always going to be at odds with balance. The key is to make it so that there are many different checks and counters within the system to prevent something from becoming too overpowered as well as to have several situations so that one combination or skill might be underpowered somewhere in another it's fair or even overpowered. Not every skill is going to be great in PvP, some are going to shine in PvE and vice versa.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That brings us to another topic that Saus didn't touch on too much in the first post - weapon swapping.

Right, I mentioned it in passing. Mostly because it's a whole 'nother can of worms and there was enough on the plate already. The issue of item dependancy and item scarcity was my main point. But you're right, it's a valid and important consideration.

The Warrior with a +1/-1 (And, hey, you want to talk about imbalance? There used to be +2/-1 and even +3/-1 weapons!) energy sword is going to be suffering when they can't attack (But any Warrior is going to have problems when they're up against defensive buffs designed to combat Warriors. It's a worse case scenario. You don't plan how to deal with that. You plan how to keep out of that situation.) but that's only if they're still holding that minus regen sword. You don't hold that sword when you're not planning on swinging. You unequip it and switch to another weapon when you're not in combat (Well, you don't need to when the battle starts, unlike a health degen weapon but whenever you're not fighting and you want to regen it goes in the sheath.). And you try and find a weapon that's going to give you the best benefit in *that* situation. You might hold onto a sword that shortens cripple duration and adds armor against elemental damage, maybe, in case someone's going to take potshots at you or snare you while you try to close. That's the essense of weapon swapping, those bonuses on your weapons are at their best in certain situations by carrying more weapons you can be at your best in many situations. It's not going to be uncommon to see people switching back and forth between their weapons furiously in order to gain that momentary upper hand. At that highest level of competition, anyway.

Ensign · Feb 10, 2005, 02:15 AM // 02:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

If by scarcity you meant alpha scarcity, then I wholeheartedly agree with you. But after this playtesting phase, scarcity becomes much less relevant than balance between mods.

Not really.

Supply is X items per player per hour
Demand is Y items per player

Scarcity is the ratio of supply to demand, which makes the 'per player' part fall out. The difference between one uber rare among 1000 people, and 1000 uber rares among a million people is negligible from an individual's perspective. Only the passage of time changes the equality, and judging from what alphas are saying the passage of a month doesn't reduce scarcity to acceptable PvP levels.

Scarcity becomes irrelevant as time goes to infinity, but patience is limited.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

Some skills are incredibly hard to find (i.e: exotic crafter only). Is this a problem ?

Now that you mention it, yes, it is. Charm gambling seriously discriminates between connected and unconnected individuals - an organized guild can easily get every skill they want within a day or so, but if you aren't connected you're pretty much on your own to find someone who can make you a charm. If it's an obscure spell that most people don't want? Get ready to sink 10k into gambling, and hope you get lucky...

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

But as long as these rare skills are not stronger than regular ones, it's not really a problem for competitivity.

Options = Power

Give me 50 'balanced' options and an opponent with just one balanced option, and I'll trounce him every time. Balance doesn't mean identical - every skill, every build has weaknesses, and those who have the tools to adapt do so and rise to the top. Those without access to the tools fail.

Skills that are objectively balanced can be subjectively powerful or weak. The value of any particular attribute, skill, or item depends entirely upon what you're up against.

Are the Pyromancer's, Hydromancer's, Aeromancer's, and Geomancer's armors balanced? Definitely. But which one is the best? We could have that debate, but what is certain is that there *is* a right answer, given the context of the opposition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

A lot of players are looking for this kind of grind.

I'd tell those players to find a different game. People looking for the level grind, the item grind, the treadmill with that carrot always in front of them are going to be severely disappointed with Guild Wars, whether item availability is changed or not. Hitting level 20 takes a week at most - getting all the skills you need is a matter of days. Why is it that way? Just a design decision made early that guided the rest of the process. Certainly, the game *could* be reversed into the standard 'time spent, not player skill' model, but I and many others would be severely disappointed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

The problem with Vigor runes is that they are useful to all characters.

I don't think so - the problem with Vigor runes is the lack of viable alternatives. The formula for the vast majority of characters is 'the best vigor rune and minor runes for all of my attributes', with slight variations like 'best vigor rune plus best absorption rune plus minors for all attributes' for Warriors, and 'best vigor rune plus a major or superior rune for my one main skill line plus minors for everything else' for more specialized characters.

If there was actual competition for armor slots, whether to take a vigor rune or not would be an actual decision. As it stands, a lot of characters have empty slots for runes in their armor, even with optimized equipment - there are zero decisions to be made.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

These mods are way too generic and too straightforward. It's easy to find the right mod for your build.

Is it really that easy? Or are you just glossing over the actual decisions being made because they're easy to understand?

+7% attack rate is a +7% damage boost in and of itself. Do you have enough additional buffs to make that worthwhile over the straight 10% damage, or are you better off with that? The increased attack speed helps you charge adrenal skills faster, as well. the +armor penetration mod? That one varies wildly - against casters it's weak, but solid when prying open tin cans. In addition, it gets even better when stacked with other armor penetration - but how much better?

What is increased energy and adrenaline really buying you, but increased damage from fueling damage skills? Between attack skills stepping on each other and inefficiencies, you just might be better off taking the straight +damage, even with adrenaline heavy builds.

Which is better, +30 health of +4 armor? Why? Do you understand the relationship between health and armor, how the two feed upon each other, and how each of those mods actually affect your chances of survival?

I don't think that the mods at the top of their respective lists are the best in those lists. I don't think it's even close, in fact.

The simpler the mods, the harder it is the find the *right* mod. Why? Because they have *possibility*. Each can be used in so many ways, they're applicible to so many different builds, that when it comes time to actually choose just one the decision is surprisingly difficult. Sure, understanding what a mod actually does is easy, but evaluating it in context? Incredibly difficult.

Compare that with more obscure mods. These are the exact opposite - they're hard to understand, but incredibly easy to evaluate once you understand how they work. That's the nature of obscure and narrow effects - they aren't generally applicible so very few people ever want to bother with them.

Certainly, there are builds that are clearly going to want one particular item over another - but how is that different from having obscure mods? With general mods, you give people the option of using several different bonuses to augment their build. With weird mods, you give them a bunch of non-options and a couple of mods that obviously fit. How is that any better?

Peace,
-CxE

FrogDevourer · Feb 10, 2005, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

People are going to want the best items if they matter - and they need to matter otherwise there's no point to having them for anyone - and there are always going to be those who'll want to take a short cut. And they'll be willing to pay a premium to do so. There'll be people farming or running bots to collect these items to put them on sale on e-bay or some other way, EULA be damned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Only the passage of time changes the equality, and judging from what alphas are saying the passage of a month doesn't reduce scarcity to acceptable PvP levels.

I've read your very long posts a few times but I still don't agree. Don't take me wrong, I do understand your p.o.v and you do have a point. Sure the classical mod system leave some room to grinding. Of course you'll see farmers who are selling stuff (for gold or on ebay). Ok it is bad.

But the huge difference with D2 or WoW lies in the amount of power you gain from a perfect weapon as opposed to a decently good weapon that you can find in a week or so. In EQ or in many mmo games, the difference is so huge that just cannot compete without them. If you didn't have your ith weapon in D2, you could not pvp (barring sorceress). The current issue in GW is that to be PvP competitive you DO need a few overpowered mods.

Once item mods have been decently balanced, the situtation is entirely different. A good GW weapon could brings +20% pvp power and a perfect one only +21%. The perfect weapon is still better and it could sell on ebay. So what ? Some players will be compelled to gain this tiny +1% even if it means buying on ebay. Then they'll be stronger afterwards. Good for them. PvE grinders will remain happy farming for their dream weapon. So what ? Most competitive players will be perfectly happy with their good but not perfect weapon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'd tell those players to find a different game. People looking for the level grind, the item grind, the treadmill with that carrot always in front of them are going to be severely disappointed with Guild Wars, whether item availability is changed or not.

That's probably why I still disagree. Any online PvE game has to rely on grinding to some extent because you can't do the same quests again and again, and you can't explore endlessly. Classical mmorpgs are sickening because they use this trick in a simplistic and basic way but you just can't hope for GW to be entirely grindless. The alternative would be to start with a PvP option and all skills/mods available. A good part of the PvE side of GW is about getting items and gold, about trading and crafting, about getting skills. As long as you can play the game without having to grind for weeks for something good (not perfect), I'm fine with that. If it can convince WoW/Eq players to play GW and to grind for weeks for a +1%, I don't have any grudge against that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

If there was actual competition for armor slots, whether to take a vigor rune or not would be an actual decision. As it stands, a lot of characters have empty slots for runes in their armor, even with optimized equipment - there are zero decisions to be made.

...

The simpler the mods, the harder it is the find the *right* mod.

I don't think so. Just look at what happened with D2 sockets. Lots of socketable items, and quite a lot of sockets options (runes, charms...). Most mods were very straightforward and all PvP sockets were used only by a small handful of mods: increase attack speed, +dmg, resist all, etc... All other mods, and notably those who were not as easy to understand, were simply ignored in favor or the generic ones. The same stands for charms : +life, +mana, +dmg... All PvP charms and sockets were used by 5% of the game mods.

If ANet leaves item mods as they are, there simply won't be much room for future mods. If generic runes are changed to +dmg +speed and so on, they will overshadow any non-generic effect. Then only a handful of rogue builds will use the future mods. Three expansions later, that would cause an bigger grindfest : you must get a rune with one of the top 6 mods (out of 100), otherwise your rune is worthless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's the nature of obscure and narrow effects - they aren't generally applicible so very few people ever want to bother with them

That's why you can't have both generic and narrow effects in competition. ANet can design 10 to 20 useful generic effects at most and hundred of narrow ones. I'd choose the latter anyday. At least, I wouldn't have to bear with a dull environment where I would have to choose between 5 decent mods. Sure, some obscure mods may be overlooked during the beta phase, but they can be nerfed on the fly with a scalpel stream.

Brett Kuntz · Feb 11, 2005, 05:15 AM // 05:15

I've always had this idea for runes:

There should be runes for every skill, well most, ie:

Inferno Rune: Add +10 dmg to Inferno, but take +15 dmg from Inferno
Life Siphon Rune: Add +3 seconds to effect, but +5 seconds are added when it's used against you.

This would allow for further customization of armour. ATM there's 7 (?) rune spots, but most classes only have 5-7 ruins availble, everyone's just going to use them all and put no thought into it. Either that, or Anet's holding back on some more runes untill retail.

Ensign · Feb 11, 2005, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

Once item mods have been decently balanced, the situtation is entirely different.

As long as options = power, which is a fundamental truth, then no, the situation isn't entirely different. It isn't the 1% boosts in power that are the big problem - it's the unique modifiers, the ones that make or break characters that are a problem. It's finding a focus with the right +1 to a skill out of the 450 possible ones.

It's the same problem as skill availability. Even if all of the skills are balanced, that doesn't mean that an arbitrary selection of eight skills is any good. You need a set of skills with synergy, not just with each other but with the whole team. Items work the same way - you don't just need 'balanced' items, you need the right items, items with synergy with your attributes, your skills, each other, the rest of the team. You need items that are metagame dependent, items to switch between as the competition changes.

Take all of the skills in the game and make the only way to acquire them is via 1% boss drops. Every 100 bosses you get a random skill. Is this an acceptable way of handing skill availability - after all, additional skills just give you options, not raw power.

Because if that isn't acceptable, then the current item system shouldn't be, either, because it's even worse than that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

Classical mmorpgs are sickening because they use this trick in a simplistic and basic way

How would adding a sickeningly long item grind to Guild Wars be any different? Items are rare, so you have to play the same levels over and over again hoping to get the right drop. That sounds like the item grind in every other MMO ever made.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

I don't think so. Just look at what happened with D2 sockets.

You're mistaking the problem here. The problem wasn't one of simple mods / complex mods, but that the entire game is a cespool of bad balance. Why was Ruby/Fervor the only Jewel to be used by competitive players? Because it was orders of magnitude better than every other Jewel in the game. It added percentages while everything else had pathetic, linear returns.

Why does every Sorceress in Diablo II look the same? Because there are best items. Because balance between mods wasn't part of the game design. +Damage and +Damage% are easy to understand, but the latter was the only one people wanted because it's just plain *better*. People don't use +mana per kill items because they're complicated - they don't use them because they suck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

If ANet leaves item mods as they are, there simply won't be much room for future mods.

You're drastically understimating their creative team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

If generic runes are changed to +dmg +speed and so on, they will overshadow any non-generic effect.

Just because a modifier isn't generic doesn't automatically mean it's bad. You can make an extraordinarily complex modifier that could be fabulously broken, or complete garbage.

You could have something trivially simple (+10% damage), to slightly complex (+15% damage while in a stance), to painful to evaluate (+20% damage while enchanted, -30% damage while hexed), to the just plain bizarre (+80% damage to Ghostly Heroes in the Hall of Heroes between the hours of 9 PM and 2 AM, PST, if your weapon is purple). In the end, every modifier is broken down to its fundamental effect - damage, energy, and time. You figure out the conditionals, you play the odds, and you take what's going to give you the best chance of winning - regardless of how bizarre the mod may be.

Maybe what you mean by 'non-generic effect' is a modifier that doesn't affect resources or time. The term for modifiers like that is "cosmetic", because they have no actual effect upon the outcome of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

ANet can design 10 to 20 useful generic effects at most and hundred of narrow ones.

They can make both. Balanced against each other, they'll all see play one way or another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

I wouldn't have to bear with a dull environment where I would have to choose between 5 decent mods.

Are you so sure of that? Are you lobbying for an environment that has a lot of diversity and choice, or are you creating a plethora of narrow effects that ultimately end up being a bunch of non-choices?

I'd be interested in seeing what sorts of mods you would like in the game.

Peace,
-CxE

Sausaletus Rex · Feb 11, 2005, 07:08 AM // 07:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

to the just plain bizarre (+80% damage to Ghostly Heroes in the Hall of Heroes between the hours of 9 PM and 2 AM, PST, if your weapon is purple)

That's just plain stupid. Everyone knows the purple weapon mods are teh suck. It's the orange weapon mods you really want...

Brett Kuntz · Feb 11, 2005, 07:30 AM // 07:30

I dyed my hammer red once, thought it looked like ass, so I dyed it silver thinking it would return it to it's normal colour. For the remainder of the event I was known as "the dude with the pink hammer". :o(

Feb 11, 2005, 09:11 AM // 09:11

The wonders of dye remover

Bgnome · Mar 03, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

would you guys mind making a guide listing what mods are available and what mods you can get with upgrades?

Mar 04, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Thats pretty much impossible. Even if the NDA wasnt in place, there are alot of mods out there to keep track of.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Mar 04, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

More importantly... you can DYE weapons!? I was under the impression that only armour could be dyed. I wonder what a dyed bow or a dyed dragon sword would look like.

Pharalon · Mar 04, 2005, 02:12 AM // 02:12

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...4&postcount=48

Oh what pearls of knowledge can be discovered by reading the post 4 above your own....

Shrapnel_Magnet · Mar 04, 2005, 02:16 AM // 02:16

lol, I read that... I read the whole thread... it was more of a rhetorical question, said in exclamation/excitement.

Galatea Orea · Mar 04, 2005, 03:13 AM // 03:13

I want that pink hammer. It'll look great with my go-go outfit.

jaynan · Mar 04, 2005, 04:16 AM // 04:16

quick question - will this game be as susceptible to bots with the game hosted on anet's system? couldn't they tell if someone was running a bot?

as far as pharming, well if someone wants to it's there time. for me, there is so much game to explore i'd have a hard time killing the same guy a thousand times hoping for that perfect fit. especially when i can get something pretty decdent crafted. if uber weapons do show up, they'd probably get nerfed if they caused a large balance issue.

getting a little off topic -
one of the articles i read that really made me consider this game stated they want to keep it balanced and prevent the trainers and other hacks that plagued games like diablo and D2. trainers killed d2 for me. you couldn't play an open game without being hacked. i hope the streaming updates keep this from happening to GW.

it just seems anet is putting A LOT of thought into how they want this game to run, and it looks like it should be challenging and fresh for a long time to come.

Ensign · Mar 04, 2005, 05:01 AM // 05:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaynan

quick question - will this game be as susceptible to bots with the game hosted on anet's system? couldn't they tell if someone was running a bot?

People are running bots *right now*.

Can bots be detected? Sure, but that's just a cat and mouse game - they detect one signature, so the bot writers have to get a bit more creative so that they blend in better. Then those get found and you repeat the process. It's just an arms race between botters and developers.

It's fairly simple - if there's top flight equipment that people want, but they can't acquire it in a timely fashion on their own by doing 'fun' activities, then they'll look for alternatives so that they can avoid the equipment grind and play the game in a way that's actually fun. People don't turn to duping, botting, and/or ebay because they want to, but because they have to if they're going to enjoy the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaynan

if uber weapons do show up, they'd probably get nerfed if they caused a large balance issue.

Well, there are uber weapons. There are going to be uber weapons in release. It's just a question of how much better they are than everything else, and how easy they will be to acquire. But they're going to be there.

Peace,
-CxE

Ellestar · Mar 04, 2005, 09:55 AM // 09:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

If it worked that way, then you'd just start off your fight with the +20 / -2 pip equipment, then after you've spent 20 energy you swap to your normal equipment to kick your regen back up, since max energy is superfluous at that point. That's even more abusive than how it is now, since you're not giving up the pips when you need the energy badly, nor are you ever dropping into negatives to get that regen back when you pay off the loan.

Then items should reduce current energy when you change items so you'll get lower max energy (if you change from +20 to Max Energy to +0 you also get -20 to current energy). And when you change items from +0 to you +20 you don't gain current energy. That way it's still possible to change +Max Energy bonus during a mission, but there is no benefits if someone does that during a fight.

Skills should work as before of course (they should change both max and current value).

Lamaros · Mar 04, 2005, 10:17 AM // 10:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

People don't turn to duping, botting, and/or ebay because they want to, but because they have to if they're going to enjoy the game.

Not completely true.

Ensign · Mar 04, 2005, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellestar

Then items should reduce current energy when you change items so you'll get lower max energy (if you change from +20 to Max Energy to +0 you also get -20 to current energy). And when you change items from +0 to you +20 you don't gain current energy.

Right, basically the worst of both worlds - though that has interesting implications for weapon switching in general that I'm not entirely comfortable with - say, switching between different +12 foci for different mods results in a loss of 12 energy.

I don't think it's a problem the way it is - it's a niche set of equipment that you swap into when things get tight - but it's an option that's available and thus shouldn't be ignored.

Peace,
-CxE