SubClass Balance Issues in release 226

Elite wrote:

If you are to do any increasing with the shield, the extreme engineers need it most of all.

Yes they too

Re: Shield Healing

I'd rather see sent spec and extreme engi have shield blast (even if it didn't shield themselves).
I really miss it from a team standpoint

Szlat wrote:

Ok, so if the only way to compare subclasses is for an individual, then lets try that way.

So assume I have a player who plays 3 subclasses A, B and C, and his average xp per minute for each subclass is 8, 10 and 13.
Then from his perspective, B is 1.25 times as good as A, and C is 1.3 times as good as B.

Now if I do those checks across all players who have played multiple subclasses, I will get a set of ratios comparing the subclasses.
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The problem with this is that for any given person, certain classes will better match their playing style. I am very much an in-their-face player for the most part on DC (having adapted from a hide and snipe style, or tricks/traps style elsewhere), and so I am best suited for WM or AM (which I play differently than a number of others), and medic or engi are less suitable for me. This will show in my scores. Others will show similar,or differing matches/mismatches.

Szlat- You said you were lowering the percentage of pet damage bonus for each level, does that mean you end up on the same percentage of pet damage bonus once you have maxed it (ie you've accordingly added more potential levels)? So you are spreading the cost to max it over more levels?

So more levels are required in order to max pet damage bonus?

Ability Monster Damage Bonus reduced from +5% per level to +2% per level

Current Build- The skill is maxed at lvl 20, pets get +100% damage bonus
Next Build- The skill is maxed at lvl 20 too, pets get +40% damage bonus

Thats howI think it will be implemented

Ryuxen is correct.

Szlat wrote:

Ryuxen is correct.

haha, that's horrific. I don't get what this is all being based on... there's only one or two monster masters who regularly play, and that's the level 1,000,000 cribbage and myself. I may get higher scores than most high level engineers, but that was the case before I was a high enough level to have any monsters anyway. It's more about attacking mentality than perks of the subclass. My own scores and cribbage's are hardly fair criteria to bring forth an assumption that the monster class is too powerful. Indeed, the perks of Ryuxens "cyber" adrenaline account (lower level than my monster account) means it's usually a close-run thing between myself and him for XP when we both play anyway.

I was thinking we should all meet up on a different neutral server for a deathmatch, to see who actually has the most skill. That might be another variable you disclude, Szlat

It was almost more fun when I was a low level getting all my XP by myself; actually making the effort to have a decent standard of monster only to have it taken away is just annoying.

Sure, give weapons masters more power, give those fast-shooting red laser type sentinels a little less juice, and make hellbenders slightly harder to attain, I don't see any logical reasons for alterations to pets. TBH I could do with MORE health for them, or more adrenaline to stop them dying 100% of the time past wave 12. Everything else seems to be outrageously more resilient in comparison atm.

More pressing issues are things like block health (need to be decreased so people don't camp in bases so much), also make the enemy monsters much more powerful, so, you know, it's like "invasion", hard to survive, and give extras to *really* high levels, like a level 200 shouldn't be maxed out on all stats and thus equal to a level 800 (otherwise you should probably move the server to China with the rest of communism).

for one you dont get the kills... your monsters do. I've looked at the scores and they are way skewed to the monsters. cribbage at least gets kills of his own. sentinals are stationary so their attack range is limited while monsters are mobile so their range is alot less limited. engis and adren masters dont regen health like medic and wm so forcing them to play that way often has them dead in short time... expecially when some medics (cough) dont heal the person standing right next to them during the time between waves

Trooper wrote:

for one you dont get the kills... your monsters do. I've looked at the scores and they are way skewed to the monsters. cribbage at least gets kills of his own. sentinals are stationary so their attack range is limited while monsters are mobile so their range is alot less limited. engis and adren masters dont regen health like medic and wm so forcing them to play that way often has them dead in short time... expecially when some medics (cough) dont heal the person standing right next to them during the time between waves

You're one to talk trooper, I was getting plenty more kills than you before I even had decent monsters

. Of course skaarj get more actual kills than me, they're skaarj, can only hit one thing at a time so tend to finish it unlike other things (sentinels/vehicles/high damage weapons which hit multiple targets, less "kills" but moar XP) and their abilities have been built up over time. Heaven forbid they do well because their stats are maxed, same as I'd do awesome playing with all the self-improvement perks an adrenaline/weapons account would provide.

IDK if Cribbage gets more kills than me. I remember viewing his stats once and being unimpressed. I expect he gets more kills than me but the same if not less than my brother (Freddo) (inb4 same person etc).

Yeah I don't like engineers at all, it's such a negative class, I never got the point of loading a game just to stick up a few defense sentinels and idle for 30mins. Taking away from attacking classes like monsters will probably kill the gameplay completely.

I get more kills with my link than I do with sentinals even running a "kill sent" the entire map. I also never said anything about my kills compared with yours. engineer constructions are also built up over time so that point is not valid.

Ive seen quite some different views on the subclasses and classes in general currently being discussed. As being one of the veteran players on this server, I guess I may comment on a few things. And might I begin by stating mere squabbles are futile when arguing points, and therefore are discouraged. Please leave personal sentiments out.

First off, why is the WM getting bumped up for advanced damage bonus? It is now 3% per level? Is it underscoring that bad? Or perhaps is it that other classes are stealing kills from it? Before, the advanced damage bonus was limited to 1% per level, then 1.5%, it then increased to 2% and now it has jumped up to 3%?... Is it necessary? My highest score as a WM was 4.7k when it was still 1%, can you imagine now in the next build when its 3%? Perhaps a better alternative would be to increase the advanced damage bonus on subclasses that actually require it, and not on the original class itself.

Secondly I couldn't help but notice the monster subclass being tweaked down( aka nerfed) for its excess power in pets as some view it. And then on another note, the sentinel specialist is also being tweaked down. My theory would be these are the subclasses being played the most.

And lastly, most people hate losing power once it has been given, and since the advent of most of these subclasses, a lot of imbalances have been taking place. Why not simply increase monster difficulty as many people have suggested. The players will keep their power but will face adversaries much stronger to suit their level of power.

Elite wrote:

And lastly, most people hate losing power once it has been given, and since the advent of most of these subclasses, a lot of imbalances have been taking place. Why not simply increase monster difficulty as many people have suggested. The players will keep their power but will face adversaries much stronger to suit their level of power.

+1

Ryuxen wrote:

Elite wrote:

And lastly, most people hate losing power once it has been given, and since the advent of most of these subclasses, a lot of imbalances have been taking place. Why not simply increase monster difficulty as many people have suggested. The players will keep their power but will face adversaries much stronger to suit their level of power.

+1

OK! which one of you TWO want TAR and FEATHERING first????

and who goes 1st on the rail???

Elite wrote:

Please leave personal sentiments out.

I agree wholeheartedly. And I will not bother to finish reading any post that does contain personal attacks. That is for the Admins to deal with.

Elite wrote:

First off, why is the WM getting bumped up for advanced damage bonus? It is now 3% per level? Is it underscoring that bad?

I believe so yes. As far as WM classes go, the Berserker and Extreme WM are I think pretty much ok now, but I think WMs are doing much worse.

Elite wrote:

Secondly I couldn't help but notice the monster subclass being tweaked down( aka nerfed) for its excess power in pets as some view it. And then on another note, the sentinel specialist is also being tweaked down. My theory would be these are the subclasses being played the most.

The Sentinel Specialist isn't getting nerfed, just adjusted. The 2 subclasses are played most, apart from the original classes. But that isn't why I am adjusting them. I am adjusting them for 2 reasons. The first is I want to generally move the power away from "unaimed" things doing the killing on behalf of the player - e.g. pets and sentinels. But the nerf to Extreme Monsters is because it is scoring too high. For all the people playing as M/MM, all those that have played the Extreme Monsters subclass get their highest scoring rate in that subclass. (with the occasional exception of Extreme Medic). So this isn't comparing one player against another player. This is comparing each player against themself. I will give two examples.
Code:

 cribbage             AverageXPPerMin
 -------------------- ---------------
 Extreme Monsters     137
 MonsterMaster        113
 Extreme Medic        54
 
 Dead_Freddo          AverageXPPerMin
 -------------------- ---------------
 Extreme Medic        82
 Extreme Monsters     80
 MonsterMaster        58
 MM/Eng hybrid        38
 WM/MM hybrid         30

Look, I have repeatedly said that I need help balancing the subclasses. I need those with access to subclasses to play all the subclasses available to them (at least 10 games on each), and afterwards tell me which subclasses were the weakest and which were the strongest. And if all tend to agree that subclass A is too strong and B is too weak, then we can adjust it accordingly.

You Elite are one of the few who have tried to help recommend how things need changing to balance them - in terms of this subclass needs a but more, and this one is a bit too strong try taking down this skill. And I listened, and followed a lot of what you suggested.

However, all too often I am left with a feeling that people have found a subclass that they score well at, and don't want it changed. And not admit that the real reason they like it is actually down to it being overpowered.

So, I throw the question back to you - why do you think the Extreme Monsters and Sentinel Specialist are the most popular?
And as a follow-on, is this really the way we want the server to go?

Elite wrote:

...Why not simply increase monster difficulty as many people have suggested. The players will keep their power but will face adversaries much stronger to suit their level of power.

To increase the monster difficulty makes it more difficult for the low levels.

But can you see a hole in the argument "my subclass is balanced correctly so don't nerf it, but now I am playing this subclass it is too easy - can you up the monster difficulty"?
If the subclasses are not overpowered, there should be no need to increase the difficulty.

Trooper wrote:

I get more kills with my link than I do with sentinals even running a "kill sent" the entire map. I also never said anything about my kills compared with yours. engineer constructions are also built up over time so that point is not valid.

Comparing your link gun with ONE kill sent isn't a fair comparison. Have you ever seen Ryuxen put up TWO kill sents (assuming kill sent is the fast-shooting laser type) and a base, they dominate a map in a way that my 3 skaarj never could.

I don't see why you have such a problem with the 3 skaarj anyway, they tend to do nothing but shadow me the whole time, in practise merely finishing off and claiming kills I've already done most of the work on with my rocket launcher. Might further explain the so-called "skew" in kills ratios; they certainly don't kill hog an entire map the way sentinals can.

Szlat wrote:

I agree wholeheartedly. And I will not bother to finish reading any post that does contain personal attacks. That is for the Admins to deal with.

I didn't attack anyone bar replying to Trooper's digs.(?)

Like I said before, you're basing your stats on myself and cribbage, and what reliable assumptions can you make from those "stats"? Is medic underpowered for him and overpowered for me? My medic scores arn't an "occasional exception", they're an average

And with regards to the others, I don't know about Cribbage but when I play hard I choose monsters because that's the most fun for my attacking style, if I'm feeling lazy or experimental I may choose engineer so I can sit back and let others use my turrets while I don't myself don't earn a lot. It's your attitude during the game, not subclass that determines your points earned. I can easily earn a lot of engineer points by simply sitting in a hellbender in a busy spot for the entire map if I wish, but if I was going to do that I'd pull out some skaarj instead because it's more fun... the stats are misleading.

If you want my honest feedback, engineers need more ways of gaining XP through methods you wish them to use (XP for every enemy bullet your defense sentinel knocks down, a tiny share of the XP earned by other players using your turrets - manual requirement even if only by a third party), and less damage done by the kill sentinel. WM does need some extra power, though maybe that's just because I've only played it once or twice and subsequently never had time to perfect it.