Breed balance via Nano/Heal Delta

[NixBood]

While I like the concept behind making the breeds different, I'm not sure how well at least a few breed+prof+setup combos would take to these changes. Then again, my thinking that could have to do with my dream of one day doing one of those craaaaazy HD setups on my nanomage enforcer.

[Moonbolt]

no but a 220 trox doc running uot of nano when a 220 NM doc never does would basically break 220 trox docs for example.

[Mostadio]

IMO certain breed/prof combos shouldn't work. Just because you have the option to make it doesn't mean it should be viable. There should be advantages and penalties to every combination, even if those penalties "break" the combo's viability. Atm there are very few breed/prof combos that do not work and atm there are very few differences in combinations except for breed perks and maybe the inability to equip alphas in certain slots. The rest is purely cosmetic.

[alderwaran]

IMO certain breed/prof combos shouldn't work. Just because you have the option to make it doesn't mean it should be viable.

a better "because" would be welcome.
in rl even women are allowed to vote and black people become president - so why shouldnt there be atrox docs and nanomage enforcers in an online game?

[Demoder]

a better "because" would be welcome.
in rl even women are allowed to vote and black people become president - so why shouldnt there be atrox docs and nanomage enforcers in an online game?

Those ain't different breeds. If cats and dogs were allowed to vote, and chrimps became presidents/dictators/kings, I could see the relevance. But they're not.

no but a 220 trox doc running uot of nano when a 220 NM doc never does would basically break 220 trox docs for example.

If there's no real benefit to rolling a nanomage doc (there's no noticable nano bonus since the worst nano-dealer (atrox) have no problems) - why would ANYONE roll a nanomage doc, other than for "docs should be nanomage, because"?

In general
Why have different breeds if there's no noticeable penalty/benefit?
Trox doc: Better healdelta. With OSBs might still manage to keep its nanopool up throgh the heat of the worst battles, and have an easier time soloing.
Nanomage enforcer: Um..... Right. Doesn't run out of nano, so can keep running their toolset. Healing would be nerfed.

As it is now: No.difference.what.so.ever. And that's boring. VERY boring.

There would still be trox docs and nanomage enforcers. People would just get to feel the sacrifice they make... And some would find it worth it, and still go ahead and do it. IMO, certain prof/breed combos *should* be more rare than others, simply because they're thougher to pull off. And if it's thougher to pull off, it's more fun when you DO pull it off.

[NixBood]

It's starting to sound like y'all that're supporting this just want Cookie Cutter Online...

[Demoder]

It's starting to sound like y'all that're supporting this just want Cookie Cutter Online...

If there's no difference between choosing atrox/solitus/opifex/nanomage, it is ALREADY cookie cutter online regardless of which breed you choose, because they all perform the same. They just look different.

[NixBood]

I would love to see there be greater differences in the breeds, but making certain breed/prof combos completely nonviable for folks who don't have a nigh-infinite budget would be for the worst.

[Demoder]

So you want a greater difference without there being any noticeable difference? :|

Do I really have to say this again in bold?
I need feedback on which numbers would make most sense for making this suggestion achieve the abovementioned goals without forcing everyone into cookie-cutter setups. Choosing one breed over another should give both benefits and drawbacks; But neither should be so extreme that a single breed is the clear winner.

Saying "this sucks", "you're all for cookie-cutter online", "it's fine as it is" etc is nothing but trolling. It is OBVIOUS the hd/nd mechanic is not fine as it is.
PLEASE come with constructive feedback. I know you're capable of it, if you try hard enough.



Edit: Yes, there's quite a bit of constructive feedback in this thread. Thank you.

[NixBood]

So you want a greater difference without there being any noticeable difference? :|

...without forcing everyone into cookie-cutter setups...

But neither should be so extreme that a single breed is the clear winner.

I'm not trying to refutiate you, but now you're just starting to sound incoherent. It's like you're vehemently opposed to what I'm saying, but saying you want the same thing. I'm not trying to troll or anything, but either you're being disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable, or you've worded some things in a horrifically confusing manner.

As for the exact numbers, I've still yet to have a char that reaches both 2sec HD and ND, even though I do have a 220, so I can't quite say how I feel about the numbers presented. Can't quite afford the item(s) that I'd be able to buy to remedy this immediately, and haven't had a whole lot of luck in trying to farm the whatever that leaves out...


(Also, I wasn't quite targeting you with the outright negatory comment I made before, that was more meant for the more...radical supporters. I get the feeling that at least a couple of 'em would like to see most breed/prof combos go the way of the nanomage shade ;O)

[Demoder]

tl;dr of the OP:
At the moment, hd/nd must be a balancing nightmare because you have to consider both amount and tick rate. I suggest taking the rate out of the equation, making the balancing effort focus on the delta amounts. By making the *delta tickrate cap of your breed reachable at any level, hd/nd will be viable at lower levels again. The only thing you need to balance now, is how much hd/nd one can get per tick at a given level.
Breeds should affect your hd/nd regen in some way, to make them more different to one another.

Anything else in the OP were merely intended as examples on how to achieve this.

Better?

[NixBood]

I meant your reply to me. The parts I quoted. ;P

[erozc]

How about just bumping up the required skill for nanodelta 2 second tick by like +150 and +200 for stamina, or so. Besides, I never really understood why these have to be tiered as they currently are - a sliding value would be better so that you could have for instance 2.5 sec delta.

[Demoder]

NixBood: I don't see the problem.
It's completely possible to make the different breeds have slightly different benefits, big enough to make a difference but not making anything impossible.

Examples:
Atrox doc: You'd get extra innate healing (and HP bonus), meaning you won't have to use your heals quite as often when soloing, and you can take a bigger beating before having to heal. In raids, you would be less desired unless there were support professions providing you with nano (yay, finally some use for MPs and traders!).

Nanomage doc: You would probably not run out of nano unless you did something wrong. If you do, a stim from a teammate should tip the balance anyway. You'd be the optimum choice for raids, because you'd be a healing totem when that's needed, and can dish out damage with your DoTs when there's not so much need for heals. You would probably struggle with soloing, however.

[Demoder]

How about just bumping up the required skill for nanodelta 2 second tick by like +150 and +200 for stamina, or so. Besides, I never really understood why these have to be tiered as they currently are - a sliding value would be better so that you could have for instance 2.5 sec delta.

Would still make hd/nd useless at lower levels, and still make it a pita to balance since there's still two very dynamic variables to factor in.

[alderwaran]

man there *are* already pro's and con's on breed selection.
have you ever played an atrox doc with his 45% ncr cap or a nm mp with crappy hp?
my personal story on this is as le came out i resettet that *pistol* mp and maxed tradeskills because i was so fuuuuuu by funcoms 1hb/2hb decision, and i resetted my doc from shen to pistol because i needed the additional nd.
at the current state you already have to make sacrifices to cope with your breeds choice disadvantages which in return lower your breeds advantages.
hp/ncr/hd/nd and weapon/nanoskills already have to be heightend at specific ends for specific breeds (nm and trox being the extremes ofc)

[XenonDe]

NixBood: I don't see the problem.
It's completely possible to make the different breeds have slightly different benefits, big enough to make a difference but not making anything impossible.

Examples:
Atrox doc: You'd get extra innate healing (and HP bonus), meaning you won't have to use your heals quite as often when soloing, and you can take a bigger beating before having to heal. In raids, you would be less desired unless there were support professions providing you with nano (yay, finally some use for MPs and traders!).

Nanomage doc: You would probably not run out of nano unless you did something wrong. If you do, a stim from a teammate should tip the balance anyway. You'd be the optimum choice for raids, because you'd be a healing totem when that's needed, and can dish out damage with your DoTs when there's not so much need for heals. You would probably struggle with soloing, however.

Atrox and Nanomage Doctors aren't a good example because for doctors there are already big differences between Atrox and Nanomage. For pvm they are both viable of course but that is thanks to the powerup of players compared to mobs. For soloing there really isn't much difference between trox and nm at the moment. Trox have to be infinitively more careful about their nanopool already though and wanna stick it to 1v1 when dotting while soli and nanomage docs especially have no problem with keeping 2-3 mobs triple dotted.
If Atrox nanodelta is nerfed and nm nanodelta that's gonna change a big deal because the added heal delta for Atrox doesn't do a doctor that good for most encounters. The mobs hit too fast/hard, have to high AR and/or are immune to ubt making healdelta less usefull and requiring heal spam instead. NM docs often end up the better tanks thanks to the absorb anyway.

The real difference though is pvp. There are quite some differences between atrox and soli/nm. Doctors in pvp never have enough nano. We're always out when fighting and struggling with it, more so in the future on the rebalance. So atrox are at a disadvantage in that regard. On top of it they do not get the option of tacky hack a solitus does (and yes, it still is quite a advantage) nor do they have the superior option of using the NM absorb and that absorb especially with the skill lock modifiers we have makes a whole lot of difference. It's THE item that makes me wish I had rolled a NM. There are other little things like nanoskills, nano resist and nanoinit where atrox is penalized too.

Are both viable? Hell yeah. Are there differences between them? Hell yeah!
Another thing to consider in are the breed perk drafts. If they'd go live like that most doctors would go NM or Soli anyway for the OP perks and there's a huge difference between the breeds and their best gear due to the breed perks already. (Atrox and Soli would be the pvm dd peen docs choice, nm or soli the pvp docs choice, and opi the "be different" full def docs choice)


I know this is just focused on one profession and I'm not opposed to more differences in Breed. But I'm quite sure it's gonna be like this for many other profs too and I wouldn't be surprised if the breed perks alone make a huge difference. Changing breeds further before the breed perks are finalized may be too soon to judge the effects.

€: Rework of Delta for lower levels though so it's not completly useless I am all for.

[RimorRage]

In theory I actually think that this is a good idea, its the implementation and the game the way it is at the moment which often causes ideas like this to fall on there face.

If I think about a Atrox Enfo and NM Enfo I think that in theory having large differences in HD and ND for the breeds could work in that you could have an Atrox Enfo staying alive by relying on HD and choosing when to cast mongo in the knowledge that it cant be chained and you could have a NM Enfo spamming mongo/layers etc to achieve the same effect but in the knowledge they have low hp and almost no HD. However, the relative skills would have to be tweaked and the ND/HD numbers would have to be very large and almost perfect as anything other than perfect would leave an obvious choice.

In theory this would mean that both breed choices were viable but would have different play styles in order to achieve the same effect and as a result breed choices wouldn't effect viability but would effect play style.

In reality though, with the vast array of items in game and available nanos, I think if this was introduced with the very high numbers this would have a large effect on other profession's breed choices and maybe create some very OP set ups (Atrox Shades as an example).

As a result I think the level of work and testing that would be required to obtain the perfect numbers goes far beyond this rebalancing stage.

[Obtena]

It's starting to sound like y'all that're supporting this just want Cookie Cutter Online...

No ... ironically, anyone supporting every breed and prof having the same stats is wanting cookie cutter.

[Josephina]

With the current nano- and healdelta mechanics I consider the following to be the main problems:

• Useless at low levels, mandatory at high levels.
• And related to last point: any additional ability increase past a certain point no longer matters. The game pre-SL just wasn't designed for the numbers in mind that we can reach today.
• Indiscriminative between different breeds.
• Almost entirely dependant on items and not on any "innate skill".

If I could change this I would let increments of nanodelta and healdelta be much more gradual with ability increases, and more gradual across the levels as well. Without some "magic" skill level at which it suddenly becomes awesome, without making additional skill increments useless and without making certain breeds the mandatory choice for certain professions.

The following formula as healdelta/nanodelta could achieve that: recharge = 6000/(500+ability). I'd combine that with a healdelta/nanodelta tick that depends on the Body Development or Nano Pool skill of the character, lets say a base tick of 1/10 the related skill. No exclusive profession or breed locks on anything, no hardcaps, just pure good old fashioned skill based stats. Some professions can ofcourse reach higher stats in certain skills than others, so there's no need to create different scaling templates for nanodelta/healdelta to differentiate between professions.

With a few rough examples:
An atrox with 1200 body development, 1000 nanopool, 1100 stamina, 700 psychic, +150healdelta/nanodelta would have: 4320hpm and 3000npm (nano per minute).
A nanomage with 1200 body development, 1000 nanopool, 800 stamina, 1000 psychic, +150healdelta/nanodelta would have: 3506hpm and 3750npm (nano per minute).

An atrox with 800 body development, 600 nanopool, 600 stamina, 400 psychic, +120healdelta/nanodelta would have: 2198hpm and 1619npm (nano per minute).
A nanomage with 800 body development, 600 nanopool, 500 stamina, 500 psychic, +150healdelta and +150nanodelta would have: 2000hpm and 1800npm (nano per minute).

An atrox with 240 body development, 220 nanopool, 200 stamina, 150 psychic, +0healdelta/nanodelta (no Jobe ... another discrepency) would have: 168hpm and 143npm (nano per minute).
A nanomage with 240 body development, 220 nanopool, 150 stamina, 200 psychic, +0healdelta/nanodelta (no Jobe ... another discrepency) would have: 156hpm and 154npm (nano per minute).