Race Stat Changes

[anthriel]

Normally bad choices are to do 'mostly' with stats and not races. I know there have been some people who used the completely wrong race for the class (lets say a elemental slayer, doesn't exist, but that's an extreme. If anything, if something like this was 'introduced', it would be more like your account gets lets say, two free racial change points and you can change two classes rather then being able to change all your races.

Now you are at least getting somewhere by considering the need for its introduction. Bad idea on the way you are thinking of doing it though. As an ongoing thing in the game (ie im not talking about as compensation for rebalancing here) having 2 free racial changes per account would just lead ppl to making more accounts and transferring characters more to access racial respecs. The viable possibilities i see are:

(1) The easiest way is to just enable it in the normal "realloc" process (though i dont think you need to up the exp cost anyway ... 25% EXP loss feels steep enough to anyone at almost any level and i never see it being done lightly at the moment, especially since most new players who use realloc usually only do so after level 20).
(2) Enable it via as a quest item that drops randomly from any OAD bosses (kinda like an ember)... this has the additional benefit of rejuvenating your end-game somewhat by giving ppl the motivation for running the Salamander/Ref etc for the 30th time even though they've already got bored of the standard loot and monotonous nature of the OAD.
(3) Enable it via a gold cost item sold somewhere for similar price as the Unbinding scroll ($100k is costly enough in gold that i dont see people buying these lightly either)

Option 1 is easiest to implement but still would leave a sour taste in a new player's mouth (ie a feeling of wasted EXP)... I prefer options 2&3 cos they actually help your end-game (i.e. its easier to tell a New Player that instead of losing EXP they need hurry and finish their 25er and then go on more OADs or more or gather more gold which gives them something to strive for in game rather than facing a costly/demotivating re-alloc)

I don't think many bar maybe the first couple characters a player might create have issues, and I still don't think you should be able to racial change twenty 25'ers.

On the issue of getting racial respecs as compensation for rebalancing, I agree with Cyrus's previous post almost entirely. It may not feel like big changes to you but it is easily discouraging especially for causal players. The person with twenty 25ers is likely to win some / lose some on rebalancing and not be as affected as much as the casual player who only has say four 25ers. You may not think giving Lings more End and giving Elves more Int (rather than End) is a big deal, but basically this proposed change subtly pushes Elf towards being useful as a "magic race" to distinguish them from Ling's new use as more of a "fighter race" (relative to each other)... but previously many ppl deciding on which race to use as a Bard or Ranger had a fair choice of +1 Agi (Ling) or +1 End (Elf) and chose Elf... then their current Elf Bard/Ranger (say halfway to 25er) is suddenly sub-optimal and players (especially casual ones who dont have time to churn out more 25ers) are going to feel burnt by that. Giving everyone free racial respecs as compensation is one way of addressing/compensating it. But if you dont choose this then I hope you realise that it is a significant enough "bad feeling" for players that you do need to offer them some form of compensation (eg like the new scroll Eld was talking about, although i'd argue for something like 5-10% EXP loss, because at 50% loss most will still feel very burnt)

The EXP scroll thing might be an option though. Kind of like retaining at least some XP for it. I would assume you would need specific amounts or maybe a full amount. I.E: using this scroll will remove all your XP/put you to level 1 and give you half the XP back as a scroll. I dunno about class locking though because if you class lock scrolls what's the point of using scrolls? You might as well allow racial reallocations but for a XP fee on the character similar to how it is now, just a heftier fee. That would be a possibility too, and maybe a better choice to prevent abuse. Or a mix of what a I talked about with ant above and racial reallocations costing XP.

As an ongoing way of enabling racial changes, the 3 solutions i suggested above seem simpler and kick more goals for EO than Eld's scroll idea. I think something like Eld's scroll idea could help as the way to compensate for rebalances though... (although i do argue that 50% EXP loss is way too high a penalty if its for compensation purposes!). I think Eld is correct in suggesting class locking for any item that allows racial change or EXP transfer... otherwise you get much more abuse because some classes are much easier (or more advantageous) to level than others (e.g Bards are easiest imho and leveling one in a party can almost be like legally botting ... also leveling Thieves also lets you farm gold at the same time etc) and suddenly ppl could recycle Bard/Thief exp to help them level that other class they are finding difficult etc (would have said Assy, but thankfully you finally/wisely fixed that!)

On a personal note regarding your current proposals, (like Cyrus) im not entirely sure i care which as long as we get racial respecs or some compensatory way to salvage EXP because i dont have much leveling left in me (so starting a new character to level from scratch to try and enjoy whatever proposal you implement is a largely irrelevant scenario to me). Personally i think if we are given the ability to racial respec then i think proposal 5 (which is more like a 1 off major rebalancing overhaul) potentially has alot for it in terms of giving people good choices, but i havent put alot of thought into the detailed balance of it yet. Proposal 4 rocks the boat the least (ie doesnt have the feel of a major overhaul) but i personally think it doesnt fix the races enough for you cause yourself all this player-goodwill drama to implement (ie you'd almost be better leaving races as they are and letting everyone live with the imbalance they've learned to accept/expect rather than pissing off the playerbase if they dont get compensatory respecs or some other way to salvage EXP)

Peace

[Lateralus]

First off I don't think it's intended to have race changes besides maybe this 1 event where there is a large rebalance but even that is pushing it imo. So a minor 25% loss or a small amount of gold doesn't seem realistic at all. While I could see maybe 1-2 per account for this one i wouldn't want to see it be a forever thing. I mean what do you want next class changes when classes get updated and balanced?


Then you say you'd want to do option 5 which are the biggest changes yet only if every character gets free race changes. (So you do think races need balanced)

Then you say option 4 doesn't change stuff enough might as well keep it unbalanced. (Would rather have the game unbalanced than have to level a new character to be one stat point diff)

I really don't know where to start... I mean the games going to get balanced because well games should be balanced. It's literally 1 stat getting added to races which is super minor there are hardly any nerfs. I really really don't see the disturbance here.


It's like you say you don't want changes unless you can auto free change to the races you want is that what I'm gathering?

If you don't have time to level and don't have that many characters wouldn't you just want the option 4 with the minimal changes and maybe 1-2 free race changes? You can't have that many leveled characters you just said you don't have time to level stuff so how is that not enough? Plus if only 3-4 races get changed then the odds it affects your minimal characters is pretty small right? Sorry your just not making a lot of sense.


On topic to the actual stats:

If your going to raise half the classes end and lower the top end why not just raise the base hp and make each end point worth 50hp instead of 60hp?

Maybe have
17end at 950hp
22end at 1200hp

Instead of the current
17end at 900hp
23end at 1260hp

Then you wouldn't have to give all those races an end point and could keep the stat diversity a bit more. I still think halfling and de could use the boost to 18 and 19 but no point to then do all the elves humans etc.

[anthriel]

. I mean what do you want next class changes when classes get updated and balanced?

No i dont. If you read my posts carefully you'd see im against class changes. That's cos when players choose a class they generally know what they are getting into (ie an assassin is a dps character, barb is a melee character, sorc is a spellcaster etc) and unless you are changing a class's concept entirely (e.g. barb is now a spellcaster) then tweaks like the recent barb/ranger/assy ones dont really take a player out of the desired/expected playstyle they committed to playing when they created that character. Race is another matter because it is a "means to an end" to having a good barbarian/assassin/sorceror etc which all players inevitably desire. Mistakes with race prevent people from finding fulfilment in accomplishing the character they desire to play, or at least force them into a costly/demotivational re-starting of the game. I dont see how this can be good for player retention or motivation. I struggle to understand how you as a "professional game developer" would rather lose players or frustrate them than provide them a way out (either as compensation for rebalancing or ongoing afterwards when inevitable mistakes are still made by new players etc). If your experience as a game developer leads you think it is wise to change game parameters that represent significant amounts of ppl's time/effort without offering some form of compensation/goodwill to these players who have invested in your game, then i can only wish you every success in your own games and hope you will start posting a list of them in your signature so that I (and however many or few players feel similarly to me) can avoid accidentally wasting our time in trying them only to be disappointed later. I have given my opinion as one mere game consumer of many and i may well be wrong (if people dont relate to my experiences/opinons)... On the other hand you have staked your professional experience as a game developer to assert the opposite view. I leave it up to NH to choose and really hope it all works out for you both.

Then you say you'd want to do option 5 which are the biggest changes yet only if every character gets free race changes. (So you do think races need balanced)

Then you say option 4 doesn't change stuff enough might as well keep it unbalanced. (Would rather have the game unbalanced than have to level a new character to be one stat point diff)

I really don't know where to start... I mean the games going to get balanced because well games should be balanced. It's literally 1 stat getting added to races which is super minor there are hardly any nerfs. I really really don't see the disturbance here.

It's like you say you don't want changes unless you can auto free change to the races you want is that what I'm gathering?

If you don't have time to level and don't have that many characters wouldn't you just want the option 4 with the minimal changes and maybe 1-2 free race changes? You can't have that many leveled characters you just said you don't have time to level stuff so how is that not enough? Plus if only 3-4 races get changed then the odds it affects your minimal characters is pretty small right? Sorry your just not making a lot of sense.

I probably should have emphasised my caveat more that i wasnt really interested enough to look at the specifics of Proposals 4 or 5 in great detail. Proposal 5 just looked like it was making more change than Proposal 4 and my general summary point about it was to basically say: "Better to go all out with changes and provide adequate compensation to players rather than only taking half-measures without compensation... because doing the latter will piss people off and not adequately fix things anyway"

That's all i cbb writing for now... care-factor depleted. Peace all and good luck.

[Inverno]

I dont know how the AGI update will change the game, but actually i would say the the safest option is:

+2 INT for gnomes, +1 AGI for Lings

Its doesnt change the game balance too much as the other options. Gnomes are already the "glass magic cannon" and lings are already the "dodgey option". So youre just improving what theyre supposed to be. Even with these updates, other races will not be shadowed, since ppl will still pick other races if they want (or need) more HP. Also with this option, u dont need to distribute rerolls for lots of races, just for ling and gnomes chars.

[NiteHawk]

Now you are at least getting somewhere by considering the need for its introduction. Bad idea on the way you are thinking of doing it though. As an ongoing thing in the game (ie im not talking about as compensation for rebalancing here) having 2 free racial changes per account would just lead ppl to making more accounts and transferring characters more to access racial respecs. The viable possibilities i see are:

(1) The easiest way is to just enable it in the normal "realloc" process (though i dont think you need to up the exp cost anyway ... 25% EXP loss feels steep enough to anyone at almost any level and i never see it being done lightly at the moment, especially since most new players who use realloc usually only do so after level 20).
(2) Enable it via as a quest item that drops randomly from any OAD bosses (kinda like an ember)... this has the additional benefit of rejuvenating your end-game somewhat by giving ppl the motivation for running the Salamander/Ref etc for the 30th time even though they've already got bored of the standard loot and monotonous nature of the OAD.
(3) Enable it via a gold cost item sold somewhere for similar price as the Unbinding scroll ($100k is costly enough in gold that i dont see people buying these lightly either)

Narh it would be similar to how it is now, I would have to give current accounts two or whatever to compensate for the changes. Otherwise it wouldn't be a thing you can constantly do 'freely'. Kinda like how I give out free reallocation points. Yeah if it was introduced at least 25% would be needed, but it would probably be a little more than that. Current reallocation is 25% past level 16 and goes down. Level 8 and under is free (and if you make a mistake reallocating if you simply reallocate again before releveling you won't double eat your XP. I'm not sure about a gold thing though but it's something that can be talked about afterwards too if players in general think it's an OK idea. It would probably be more then 100k though and I don't think it should be an easy thing to get I.E. a quest of some sort. Racial changes on that scale to me would be too much. (At least from my point of view).

...then i think proposal 5 (which is more like a 1 off major rebalancing overhaul) potentially has alot for it in terms of giving people good choices, but i havent put alot of thought into the detailed balance of it yet. Proposal 4 rocks the boat the least (ie doesnt have the feel of a major overhaul) but i personally think it doesnt fix the races enough for you cause yourself all this player-goodwill drama to implement (ie you'd almost be better leaving races as they are and letting everyone live with the imbalance they've learned to accept/expect rather than pissing off the playerbase if they dont get compensatory respecs or some other way to salvage EXP)

I do agree with that, and that's the issue. I don't feel like the small changes are enough and doing it once and then once more isn't what I hope to do. I do like proposal 5 the most myself. Eventually I will probably post these, issue is I know people are also gonna freak out even though they probably still won't use some of those races, silly enough 8)

I think I might throw in the AGI changes soon just for a quick test, and then we'll take it from there too and see what needs to be changed. Doing 2.5% per agi instead of 2% means a decent difference, though benifits all the races that need to be, except freaking saurians benefit from it too in general, which is crap since they are great already. Guess going to still see how it works though soon.

If your going to raise half the classes end and lower the top end why not just raise the base hp and make each end point worth 50hp instead of 60hp?

Maybe have
17end at 950hp
22end at 1200hp

Instead of the current
17end at 900hp
23end at 1260hp

That is a possibility too but I was try avoiding reducing END off high races that seem to be OK with their current END (bar dwarves which +1 str/-1 end I think makes them OK.) as people might freak out. It is a possibility though.

[Dan]

People are saying a lot of things but i think gnomes and lings should be priority, bc they are popular and are under balanced with other races atm.

+1 end is a need, if add +1 agi on gnome, i would do the same with ling, so ling is the physical gnome.,

But they cant same end tier with any other races. I would +1 end elves and de.

I dont see a goblin take a hit like a human, i would -1 end them as well.

All other stuff i would let for later discussions.

[anthriel]

Narh it would be similar to how it is now, I would have to give current accounts two or whatever to compensate for the changes.

I'm not quite sure I understand how u mean to do this as Ive not played long enough to experience a free reallocation being handed out before. But if say you are giving 2 racial respecs per account as compensation and we all know this is going to happen that way, wouldn't it just incentivise opportunistic players to create 10 accounts and wait for all to be given 2 free race respecs and then transfer all their (hypothetical) twenty 25ers between those accounts so that all twenty can get free racial respec? Isn't this exactly what you said you didn't want? In any case those 3 suggestions were meant for it as an ongoing mechanism for future newbs who make mistakes rather than as compensation for a large scale change (or at least as some eventual way out if u weren't intending on giving out compensatory race respecs after a race rebalancing at all - though I don't suggest this course).

If you are intending to give out some for compensation purposes (not talking about ongoing mechanism here) but are worried about widespread abuse to change 20+ characters, maybe a compromise is to allow racial respec for around 5% exp loss (by item in telegram so those on extended break aren't disadvantaged, which they would be if it was a 'limited time' thing they missed). In my opinion 10-15odd million exp of levelling (plus gold cost to relevel to 25) is possibly not psychologically too much for ppl who feel strongly about changing particular character or two to enjoy it gratefully as compensation, but still enough annoyance that ppl won't do it lightly on every single character they have (which we would if it's entirely free, just cause we can) - You'd probably want other opinions as to what is an appropriate amount of dis-incentive to change ....but in general you'd want a number that feels low enough to still feel like compensation for most, but still high enough so that Xmill exp times 20 25ers doesn't feel viable to abusing.

[Lateralus]

That is a possibility too but I was try avoiding reducing END off high races that seem to be OK with their current END (bar dwarves which +1 str/-1 end I think makes them OK.) as people might freak out. It is a possibility though.

I thought the idea was to narrow the hp range gap? If you just bump the base hp on everyone by 50 and then make each end point worth 50 the new base with 17end will be 950(instead of 900) and the new top with 22end will be 1200 (was 1200). So the highest races wont change it will just be a little less difference between all the races and the base will go up 50. I believe thats what you are looking to do and maybe you wouldnt need to throw +1 end on over half the races. I still agree that halfling and maybe dark elf could use the +end tho.

On a side note I dont understand if you are trying to make gnome more viable as a race why you would give the other race that overshadows them (elf) the exact same buffs? This basically cancels out anything gnome gets and puts them back to where they are now.

Elf is currently better as ranger, paladin, cleric, all melee, sorc, necro and maybe druid. I dont really see the point in buffing them the same as gnome as it accomplishes nothing. +1int and +1wis(which hardly makes a diff) is not better than +1end and +1agi on anything including a caster. Maybe if casters had some kinda backstab type move where they did 4x damage like slayers that would be the case but they dont so I dont think anyone would argue they would rather have the +1int/wis over +1end/agi and thats only taking in account casters. Like i said they already have more str and chr as well making them better for all 4-5 melee classes and paladin/cleric/ranger on top of that. This is also mostly true for half elf as well.

I could see if maybe the changes were
Gnome +1int +1agi
Elf +1int
Half +1int

Then it might atleast make gnomes an interesting choice for druids? and maybe slightly casters so elf only had an end edge and not end and agi. with that low of str gnomes are not going to be useful for anything but casters and maybe druids (int doesnt matter much on spells/healing so having +1 int just really isnt that big of a deal compared to more end or agi that the other races have). Dwarf paladins/clerics have crap int and agi but just on end alone they are prob best in game. there are drakeblood pallies and lizard priests that do fine as well. penetration used to somewhat carry int only for casters but now with that gone its just not a big deal anymore. I have not tested but I dont think a dwarf chanter/dm would be bad either.

[daedroth]

I'm not quite sure I understand how u mean to do this as Ive not played long enough to experience a free reallocation being handed out before. But if say you are giving 2 racial respecs per account as compensation and we all know this is going to happen that way, wouldn't it just incentivise opportunistic players to create 10 accounts and wait for all to be given 2 free race respecs and then transfer all their (hypothetical) twenty 25ers between those accounts so that all twenty can get free racial respec? Isn't this exactly what you said you didn't want? In any case those 3 suggestions were meant for it as an ongoing mechanism for future newbs who make mistakes rather than as compensation for a large scale change (or at least as some eventual way out if u weren't intending on giving out compensatory race respecs after a race rebalancing at all - though I don't suggest this course).

Best way is to avoid it all is by giving warnings/advice during character creation (said this before though). Highlight, via colour text, recommended stats and race for a class. Give information Saurians are suited for blah blah blah in an additional little window attached to the character creation screen. This would probably involve a lot of changes to the character creation, but basically if a new player goes against the advice/recommendation here... then tough sh.. luck.

I think giving a race change to each account (from account creation) is a bad idea, too exploitable. Only current accounts should be given a racial re-change (if the changes are drastic enough). New players should just be informed, during character creation, that making a saurian mage would be a bad idea, etc.


With the changes (imo):
Ling: +1 Agl. I dont think they should be any tough, i like the glass cannon aspect to them.
Horc: -2 wis... aye makes sense.
Dwarf: I think they are fine as is :p. But the -1END/+1STR is ok. I think MR should stay the same; they are meant to be magical resistant.
Dark Elf: +1 END, I see them as being the physical elfs, tougher.
Elf/Helf: I think are fine... except Helf should be more intelligent and/or wiser than humans (going by elf stats) so +1 INT to both might work.
Gnome: I think they should be glass cannon (like lings) +1 AGL, but if elf/helf get +1 INT, then they should get +1 INT too (remember. these guys have the highest stat allocation points).
Humans: 13 Base CHR.

Problem is Saurians. With AGL changes they become better. If you look on Horc and Saur as being the physical races; STR/END vs AGL (although STR is close) then Horcs (who usually get beat by Saurias already) are going to do even worse. That is going to be a fun issue to address.
How can you either nerf sauria or up others without it turning to shit? Esp. if horcs are given a -2 wis, maybe give sauria -2 wis, but then what about drakes? eeek!

[NiteHawk]

I'm not quite sure I understand how u mean to do this as Ive not played long enough to experience a free reallocation being handed out before. But if say you are giving 2 racial respecs per account as compensation and we all know this is going to happen that way, wouldn't it just incentivise opportunistic players to create 10 accounts and wait for all to be given 2 free race respecs and then transfer all their (hypothetical) twenty 25ers between those accounts so that all twenty can get free racial respec? Isn't this exactly what you said you didn't want? In any case those 3 suggestions were meant for it as an ongoing mechanism for future newbs who make mistakes rather than as compensation for a large scale change (or at least as some eventual way out if u weren't intending on giving out compensatory race respecs after a race rebalancing at all - though I don't suggest this course).

If you are intending to give out some for compensation purposes (not talking about ongoing mechanism here) but are worried about widespread abuse to change 20+ characters, maybe a compromise is to allow racial respec for around 5% exp loss (by item in telegram so those on extended break aren't disadvantaged, which they would be if it was a 'limited time' thing they missed). In my opinion 10-15odd million exp of levelling (plus gold cost to relevel to 25) is possibly not psychologically too much for ppl who feel strongly about changing particular character or two to enjoy it gratefully as compensation, but still enough annoyance that ppl won't do it lightly on every single character they have (which we would if it's entirely free, just cause we can) - You'd probably want other opinions as to what is an appropriate amount of dis-incentive to change ....but in general you'd want a number that feels low enough to still feel like compensation for most, but still high enough so that Xmill exp times 20 25ers doesn't feel viable to abusing.

It would be yeah. I'm not sure 10mil of XP is quite a hit though. I think anyone would change their chars or what chars they wanted to do still without much loss. Sure they'd have to level that amount but I think if I said right now that we're doing racial respects with 10mil losses no one would care about the loss (What would people say to that, as a opinion to everyone?)

I thought the idea was to narrow the hp range gap? If you just bump the base hp on everyone by 50 and then make each end point worth 50 the new base with 17end will be 950(instead of 900) and the new top with 22end will be 1200 (was 1200). So the highest races wont change it will just be a little less difference between all the races and the base will go up 50. I believe thats what you are looking to do and maybe you wouldnt need to throw +1 end on over half the races. I still agree that halfling and maybe dark elf could use the +end tho.

Oh you mean adjusting the formula from 950 to 1200 rather then 950 to 1250, right I get that. That might be a possibility yeah instead of adjusting END.

Problem is Saurians. With AGL changes they become better. If you look on Horc and Saur as being the physical races; STR/END vs AGL (although STR is close) then Horcs (who usually get beat by Saurias already) are going to do even worse. That is going to be a fun issue to address.
How can you either nerf sauria or up others without it turning to shit? Esp. if horcs are given a -2 wis, maybe give sauria -2 wis, but then what

Saurians already have low MR though and I don't think it really matters. HOs will get beat by saurians more often than the other way around but I think HOs in a bigger group would do better too due to more HP and easier chances to double tap everyone by far. You can't really just compare it to the 1vs1 argument too cause some races make more sense with solo and others make sense in larger groups type deal. HOs could get a couple more small bonuses or increased current bonuses though.



Proposal 6: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

I don't think AGI needs to be changed just yet with the above example as 2.5% is actually quite a nice boost, either HP probably. Less needed changes with formula changes.

With the above there however:

I removed one allocation point from saurian and HOs because I noticed they can still max out wis even with +1. There is no real sacrifice, so this would mean they could get a max of 13 wis with a +1. HO's with +1 have a max of 12. I think that is better than lowering their wisdom.

END formula changed so the starting HP starts better at 17 end and goes up to 22 end, which is the same as current HP.

AGI is 2.5% per AGI difference. I was thinking a minimum dodge rate would be better but then I realized it doesn't matter with the current formula I am working with anyways. I.E if you had a roll of 0-50 for chance to hit and then we tweak it here so its 0-56.75. Would be the same thing as 6.75-50 in terms of hit rate as the other person also has a same check. AKA it's 0-50 roll check on you and then 0-50 roll check on them. Higher value of the two wins for hit vs dodge. (obviously 0-50 changes with your hit rate or dodge rate)

.5% means a good difference, I know it sounds not like alot, but it will matter I think.