Curse

Neo-LD · Jan 25, 2008, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

I appologize for slipping this in here but go try Hero Battles where you HAVE to run 2-3 sometimes even 4 characters with multiple shadowstepping skills to have any chance of success...

Your point being?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

In vZ we often ran vodcamp builds against sinsplit and then just overpowered them with sheer 8on8 power in vod, this was the easiest and most effective way to deal with them. Now such a strategy would be MUCH harder to pull off. I'm not in favor of basecamping but sometimes it's the only viable option against mobile teams (see iQ vs EvIL game 3 GWFC).

Care to elaborate on that? Seems to me that emphasizing the 8v8 VoD slugfest would favor the vodcamp teams, since are better equipped for it. If, for whatever reason, it does work as you say, then... whats wrong with that? VoDcamping shouldnt be a viable strategy.

@ Andrew Patrick

Useful suggestion (imagine that): Please fix NPC aggro so they dont chase so far away from the flagstand. Last night had a team very pressured at ~20:30 and were up 5-6 archers + bodyguard (they had no NPCs left). They fell back to their Lord, which was advancing to the stand, but unfortunately our NPCs followed. Guild Lords are actually really powerful in the new VoD, so with theirs engaged and ours not, we became pressured and had to fall back, leaving our NPCs behind. We still won, but its sucks to have your hard fought NPC advantage commit suicide right before crunch time. Fix please.

God Apprentice · Jan 25, 2008, 02:51 AM // 02:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

01/23/08 Update

Skill Updates
Victory or Death
· The Guild Lord will now use his axe when combating other Guild Lords.
· NPCs during Victory or Death will do 30% more damage, and an additional 10% more damage each minute after Victory or Death.

Monk
· Aura of Stability: decreased duration to 3..10 seconds.

Dervish
· Pious Assault: decreased activation time to .5 seconds.

Warrior
· Fear Me: increased recharge time to 6 seconds.

Ritualist
· Sight Beyond Sight: reverted duration back to 8..20 seconds.

Thoughts?

@ Pious, hmmm lol?

@ Fear Me, good job.

dwchang · Jan 25, 2008, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I talked to Izzy, and he said that Splinter Weapon is being looked at, and is likely to receive adjustments in an upcoming build. Since it is used it many different game types, they are trying to find the best way to achieve the desired effect. He is aware of the concern, both of us (and anyone else who plays GvG or watches observer mode) have seen it's impact on GvG, and it is being worked on.

Thanks. Hopefully Ancestors is also being looked at.

And I realize I'm a broken record player here, but improving NPC AI and how they react to AoE would probably be the best solution to all of this

.

erk · Jan 25, 2008, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohan

Fix the NPCs AI and then splinter won't be as much a problem

I lol'd

I have to agree, Splinter and Ancestors are useful in lots of other areas than stomping clumped NPC's at VoD, the problem is the lack of AoE scatter in the dumb NPC's, not that Splinter is over powered, it's damage is only medium compared to most other AoE.

moriz · Jan 25, 2008, 04:01 AM // 04:01

from what i've seen, npcs do scatter from AoE. however, the archers are hardwired to heal first, THEN scatter. which result that they get farmed while they put up their 3 sec cast troll unguent.

reverse this sequence (run first, then heal) should help.

Div · Jan 25, 2008, 08:17 AM // 08:17

The thing with splinter is that if your team has no splinter and they do, I'm pretty sure their monks can keep their archers up MUCH longer than you can (at less energy cost), meaning the pressure is still on your team. If your monks can keep up archers better than the other team while they have splinter and you don't, then your monks are much better than opposing monks and should win the game regardless. In a situation where you have a fairly large NPC advantage going into VoD, sure you might win. But we're talking about when there's a nearly equal matchup, and one skill completely turning the tides of battle.

However, will nerfing splinter alone solve the problem? Maybe it will, maybe it won't. You'll still see powerful AoE, but I would consider them to be more "balanced" AoE skills, like rodgorts and esurge, compared to "imbalanced" ones like splinter. It's less powerful, and shutdown from a balanced build is more prone to destroy those more balanced AoE skills. Changing archer AI and pathing would still be the best solution, just maybe not practical due to programming constraints.

Kaon · Jan 25, 2008, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Care to elaborate on that? Seems to me that emphasizing the 8v8 VoD slugfest would favor the vodcamp teams, since are better equipped for it. If, for whatever reason, it does work as you say, then... whats wrong with that? VoDcamping shouldnt be a viable strategy.

It happens often that in vod the battle is fought in the "middle" aside from the flagstand. This means the npcs will fight each other and one side will win with a stroke of luck (although generally 1 team just has slightly more npcs). In vZ we did this trick a lot versus sinsplit or mobility teams. If we didnt kill their lord at 20, then we'd run back and go to the flagstand where we'd usually find 4-5 archers, they were powerful, but because we're good we were able to slowly come back in the game. Now this is MUCH harder.

Later on we just moved with the npcs and fought 8v8 but we still generally were a few archers behind.

The only possible solution against supermobile builds (WM, sinsplit, recall, randomway) is to finish the match before vod (highrisk-highgain) or to play very defensive and vodcamp. Usually you still lose some archers, but because of superior 8v8 power you can mostly handle it.

This should be a viable strategy as it is sometimes the ONLY way to win a match, and it's very hard to pull it off. True vodcamping has almost never been rewarded and I can't remember a playoff where vodcamping against a balanced build meant victory. (or actually, Meow vs PnH in CT was one).

The npcs damage buff serves no point but to force players to take the npcs out quicker. Guess what you need to take in order to do that? Yes! Splinter weapon!

Sinful Doom · Jan 25, 2008, 10:16 AM // 10:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Your point being?

My point being I agreed with your statement and it occurs in other aspects of PvP in this game. Nothing more than that.

LifesRestorer · Jan 25, 2008, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwchang

Thanks. Hopefully Ancestors is also being looked at.

Ancestors being 5 energy is just wrong. it used to be 10 energy until a rit nerf where everything got changed to giving exhaustion. AR was one of these skills, and to compensate energy cost was downed to 5. After the balance team decided that exhaustion wasnt a good way to fix rits they took out the exhaustion, but AR still stayed at 5 energy

Kaon · Jan 25, 2008, 05:59 PM // 17:59

AR 15 energy imo. It's a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing aoe lightning orb that even allows you to spike with a 1s cast skill to participate double in the spike.

LifesRestorer · Jan 25, 2008, 06:27 PM // 18:27

10 energy 1 second cast imo

Andrew Patrick · Jan 25, 2008, 06:49 PM // 18:49

I asked Izzy about the NPC's AI, and he said that, when instructed to split up, they tend to neglect that whole attacking thing. So it was a matter of NPCs that attack from a close ball, or NPCs that take their sweet time getting into position that usually die before they actually start attacking.

It's not something that isn't being considered, nor is it something that hasn't been tried. I imagine if the changes to Splinter Weapon prove ineffective, alternatives will be explored and NPC AI may be looked at again.

Winstar · Jan 25, 2008, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

It happens often that in vod the battle is fought in the "middle" aside from the flagstand. This means the npcs will fight each other and one side will win with a stroke of luck (although generally 1 team just has slightly more npcs). In vZ we did this trick a lot versus sinsplit or mobility teams. If we didnt kill their lord at 20, then we'd run back and go to the flagstand where we'd usually find 4-5 archers, they were powerful, but because we're good we were able to slowly come back in the game. Now this is MUCH harder.

Later on we just moved with the npcs and fought 8v8 but we still generally were a few archers behind.

The only possible solution against supermobile builds (WM, sinsplit, recall, randomway) is to finish the match before vod (highrisk-highgain) or to play very defensive and vodcamp. Usually you still lose some archers, but because of superior 8v8 power you can mostly handle it.

This should be a viable strategy as it is sometimes the ONLY way to win a match, and it's very hard to pull it off. True vodcamping has almost never been rewarded and I can't remember a playoff where vodcamping against a balanced build meant victory. (or actually, Meow vs PnH in CT was one).

The npcs damage buff serves no point but to force players to take the npcs out quicker. Guess what you need to take in order to do that? Yes! Splinter weapon!

There has to be a balance of some kind struck here though between being able to out muscle someone at VOD and being able to use NPC advantage as a tactic to win matches. Its an equally shitty situation to discourage mobile builds and more split oriented play because immobile stand teams could simply outmuscle you regardless of the npc situation. Part of the reason splitting should work - I assume anyway - is that you're presenting a threat that cannot be ignored by the other team. Ideally they are not as well suited to split and you can take advantage of this and score kills away from the stand and collapse to take advantage of positional mistakes. Yet all of this requires a real threat, and that real threat is loss of NPC advantage and the ability to control flags and moral. But the power of certain builds at VOD undermines that substance of that threat, which in turn undermines the motivation to play more mobile split oriented builds.

Servant of Kali · Jan 25, 2008, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Splinter Weapon is being looked at, and is likely to receive adjustments in an upcoming build

I'm by no means GvG expert but what if Splinter was changed to deal dmg only if the attack is BLOCKED? Of course, to target and adjacent foes, and with dmg adjusted accordingly.
Would that help with NPCs, or not really?

Div · Jan 25, 2008, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

I'm by no means GvG expert but what if Splinter was changed to deal dmg only if the attack is BLOCKED? Of course, to target and adjacent foes, and with dmg adjusted accordingly.
Would that help with NPCs, or not really?

Would be interesting, but I'd say that'd completely kill the skill. The times when blocking is an issue is on party members, and you won't get to splinter them very much. This'll prevent stuff like shields up and ward melee being too powerful, but who knows.

Yue · Jan 25, 2008, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Doesn't splinter shot do that?

Div · Jan 25, 2008, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

Doesn't splinter shot do that?

Yes, and that's probably where he got his idea.

Andrew Patrick · Jan 25, 2008, 07:46 PM // 19:46

What is your guys' opinions on the NPC change? Did it make things better, worse, or not really change anything?

Hypothetically, if Splinter Weapon is dealt with and your NPC's are able to stay up longer, do you feel the damage increase is a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously it is irrelevant if they die before the bonus takes effect heh.

Are there additional changes you would suggest? Please keep in mind changing their pathing and AI has complications involved, but if you have additional ideas on how to improve their role in GvG (someone suggested Elemental protection at one point) please share them.

red orc · Jan 25, 2008, 08:08 PM // 20:08

We play GVG for the joy of fighting other players. The insane buff to the NPCS at VOD changed winning to a PVE fight. This is not a step in the right direction. NPCS should play a part, but now they are what matters in VOD and not the human players. I dont think that winning VOD should be decided according to who manipulate NPCS better. This should be changed.
Also, as to splinter, I think that having my ele go /rt to provide AOE skill is wrong. Splinter should be changed as well.

Sinful Doom · Jan 25, 2008, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Andrew, see if you can also have Izzy teach the archers what the word obstructed means.