Changes to lootable magic modifier

[Eonwind]

Hello everyone! A new update is closing in and just before it happens we want to tell you about a big change that's going to be part of it: fix the magic modifiers from looted items.

First off we would like to explain you the bases in case you're new to planeshift: magic lootable modifiers are obtainable only by killing NPCs (means you cannot craft them, if you want to add magic to your crafted weapon ask a mage or an expert crafter and he will tell you what to do). Based on a few factors, including the modifier rarity and the maximum value your character can loot, you can loot items (usually weapons) possessing up to 3 modifiers: a prefix, an adjective and a suffix (e.g. Perfect Crystal-Steel Knife of the Warrior). Some modifiers are easier to find than others (rarity) and each modifier has a cost multiplier that will rise the base weapon cost and usually rise as the rarer is a modifier. Each modifier will give you or your weapons a special bonus, thus making your looted weapon not only precious, but an effective tool for your character.

Updating the magic modifiers is something we really wanted to change since a while. For a long time we knew they required a big review and a re-balance, the reasons are many:

• some were really not interesting (the bonus was too low compared to its cost modifier);
• some modifiers could add up creating combinations that are too powerful than it was intended;
• a damage of over 2000 damage (possible with the most powerful combinations) is completely out of the range we deem acceptable both for PvP and PvE;
• the new combat system will introduce more attack options, some of them will affect the damage output too, thus making the previous point even more serious than it is today.

For the reasons explained above rebalancing the attack modifiers before the new combat system is rolled in was mandatory and so we did it applying the following principle:

• the items relative power have to match their relative modifier cost; this means many modifiers have been empowered
• magic lootable modifiers work differently than enchanted modifiers: this means looting weapons is meaningful becuase you cannot find the same type of modifiers in craftable weapons (e.g. attack bonus are only available in lootable magic item.)
• it's no longer possible for a single modifier to have both an attack bonus and a bonus to the item damage. In the future Prefixes (Steel, Tin, Crystal-Steel, ...) will no longer give attack bonuses and Adjectives (fine, perfect, ornate, ...) will give attack bonuses but will not give any damage multiplier to the weapon base stats.
• Suffix have been reworked as well: to follow the previous point requirements they will no longer have an attack bonus and a damage multiplier in the same modifier (except a notable exception). To make up for this loss more bonuses have been added in place to make the modifier more meaningful from an IC point of view (see below);
• some effects have been changed to better match their name: usually you could expect a Fire or Frosty weapon to deal fire or frost damage, but the previous setup was only giving a damage bonus multiplier. With the current changes these weapons will give a real elemental bonus on top of a (rebalanced) damage bonus;
• stats bonuses were designed when the skills an stats caps were lower, therefore many of them have been refitted (usually doubling the bonus)
• the cost modifiers haven't changed: so no need to rush and have your characters sell their stock of precious looted weapons before the release
• what was powerful now will be powerful tomorrow: while the above changes were necessary we don't want to have your precious loot become crap all of the sudden. Therefore we tried to maintain the scale of power between the existing looted weapon. As a consequence your ultra-powerful weapon will still be the most powerful weapon around. Of course some modifiers had to be tweaked and their power scale had to be refitted to match the cost modifier;
• missing abilities: some magic modifiers are buffing way skills, but there is only one modifier buffing a sword skill. Why cannot a magic weapon buff their own weapon skill? We think there is no reason and therefore some weapon modifiers will buff its own weapon skill (e.g. a sword will buff the Sword skill, an Hammer the Mace & Hammer skill);
• no lottable modifier rarity has been changed: if you're asking yourself if, in the next update, some magic modifiers will become harder to get than now, the answer is a plain NO!

What after? For now we're pretty happy with the current loot modifiers setup but we're eager to know your opinion and tests about the current setup.
In the near future more urgent priorities will occupy the rules department, but there are still some improvement and possibilities we would like to explore in the future:

• a more comprehensive and readable description of weapon bonus;
• the possibilities for some bonuses to be looted only for a specific category of equipment (e.g. Spidersilk only lootable for armors)

We hope you will understand the need of these changes and they will suit you as much as they suit us.
We are looking forward to hear from you!

[Bonifarzia]

Thanks for the good news 

You know that I like this topic much, and the ideas you listed here seem very reasonable.
With the affix system we had, I got the impression that new effects were just added over time while keeping the "historical" bonus effects, which has lead to some strange and poorly balanced characteristics. So, it is really cool that you guys tackled a redesign, while trying to keep the good aspects we got used to (we'll see about that, but I'm optimistic here).

Concerning attack and damage modifiers: Seems very reasonable to limit the number of multipliers you can get (not only on a single affix or item, but the set). The only other way discussed earlier to mitigate the issue of super high damage (EDIT: or defense): Switch from multiplicative to additive percentages, but then you'd have to do the same for the item value (tria) and overall rarity (e.g. rolling the number of affixes first, and then use relative probabilities to assign them). But since you already found a solution, such discussions are no longer needed

Looking forward to seeing the new magical items in action.

[Vaneal Serozen]

These changes sound very beneficial for balancing and should make equipping one's character more interesting.  Well done.  However I do have one concern and that is for the two handed weapons.  Will they be given stronger buffs because only one can be equipped at once? 

[Eonwind]

However I do have one concern and that is for the two handed weapons. Will they be given stronger buffs because only one can be equipped at once?

Excellent question!
At the moment no particular bonuses are given for 2-handed swords (albeit a specific attack style will be designed), currently 2-handed weapons already deals more damage than their 1-handed counterpart and therefore the item damage multiplier will make them proportionally more powerful than their 1 handed counterparts.
Anyway the overall impact of 2-handed Vs. 1-handed weapons is surely something worth analysing in detail in the future.
I'm putting this in the rules department to do list.

[louscroo]

So you're nerfing attack boosting weapons, but not doing anything about defense boosting items?

It is much easier to loot defense modifier items than damage boosting ones. People complain about weapons dealing so much damage, but don't make any effort to loot defense items that prevent ALL weapon-based damage. I have a full set of "Ancient XXX of the Defender" and "Masterwork XXX of the Defender" with q300 armor and people with two Perfect Weapons of Talad's Arm and Masterwork Battle Helms of Blinding Strike can't do any damage to me when they're in bloody stance.

It's silly, because in the hours that I've spent grinding for nice attack boosting weapons, I've looted ten times as many max defense helms, shields and weapons. And all the big grinders have full sets of that defense gear for all their friends.

Is there any plan on balancing that?

It seems you want everyone to run around in game and be unkillable by weapons. The only thing that makes sense to use in combat is magic. I guess everyone can just run around as a magic-slinging tank.

Yes, casting drops defense considerably, but if a warrior wanted to fight a max armor mage with full defense gear, the mage just needs to stand there and laugh at the warrior.

I know you said that the rework of damage is going to be balanced, but another consequence of nerfing attack buffs is that when you make the best weaker, you make the adequate inadequate. Having satisfactory weapons, the ones that dealt a third or half of max HP damage from bloody stance, are going to be even weaker now. And you mentioned nothing of making these items easier to loot.

Yes, one-shitting someone is ridiculous, but so is being undamageable. Balance the whole thing. Someone maxed combat skills with defense gear shouldn't be able to sit in full defense and laugh when another maxed player with attack gear does only 10 damage per hit from bloody stance.

That may be "balanced," but it results in a stalemate. There is nothing fun or dynamic or engaging about a stalemate. It's silly enough that a stalemate can be obtained by one party simply running away.

So, yeah... Are you going to do anything about defense modifiers?

[louscroo]

To clarify, here's a scenario:

Player 1 aka "Attacker"
-Masterwork Trigrain-Steel Battle Helm of the Warrior
-----Attack Modifiers 1.6 • 1.6 • 1.4
-Dark Crystal-Steel Battle Axe of Talad's Arm
-----Slash 13.50
-----Attack Modifiers 1.4 • 1.8
-Masterwork Small Battle Axe of Blinding Strike
-----Slash 3.42
-----Attack Modifiers 1.6 • 2.0

Player 2 aka "Defender"
-Full q300 Armor except helm
-Ancient Battle Helm of the Defender
-----Defense Modifiers 1.5 • 2.0
-Ancient Battle Axe of the Defender
-----Defense Modifiers 1.5 • 2.0
-Ancient Battle Axe of the Defender
-----Defense Modifiers 1.5 • 2.0

Defender's defense modifiers total at 27.
Attacker's attack modifiers total at ~28.9.

>Attacker takes bloody stance.
>Defender takes fullydefensive stance.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage.
>Attacker hits for no damage for the next 3 hours.

Yeah, let's nerf attack modifiers. That's what's imbalanced. This isn't even taking into account how easy it is to loot defense mods and how hard it is to loot attack mods.

Food for thought.

[Eonwind]

As a clarification defense bonuses have been treated equally like attack bonuses. Therefore there should be no imbalance between the two. Today the maximum defense bonus from a single modifier was 2 while the best single attack bonus was 1,8. Now there is modifier which yield an attack bonus of 2. Still the setup forbid from stacking up the attack bonuses up to the previously overwhelming values.

Speaking about defense and combat a clarification must be made: as of now, in the damage calculation script, attack bonuses and weapon quality weight (mathematically wise) the same like defense bonus and armor quality. However when a defender is confronted with an attacker with the same attack bonuses like the defender's in defense bonuses the latter will statistically loose the match.
The reason is the random roll between attacker and defender are different: the attacker rolls a number between 0 and 2 while the defender rolls a number between 0 and 1.

Why? Because else (and I tested bringing the random ranges equal for both) you could have an "impasse" in combat where neither attacker or defender can win. Worse most of the outcome will result in missing dealing no damage. This would make the combat extremely tedious.
That's why there is the need to put one of the two side of combat at disadvantage.

It's possible for a "defensive" fighter to win over an aggressive attacker but he needs to use more refined strategies (like using healing, fighting back and in the future using special attacks designed especially for defenders) than just hoping to win by standing in front and relying on passive defenses.

[Venalan]

If the item quality of the swords used is treated equally to the quality of the armour, then with q50 swords vs q300 armour with equal buffs would the armour not all ways block the attack due to being 6x better? Would it be possible to balance the total defense modifier against the average quality of all the armour a defender is wearing.  So, <= q50 average armour gives 100%, and q300 gives 1/6 ish of max defense. So a rule something like, min(1, 50/average armour q)*(defense modifier)?

[Eonwind]

If the item quality of the swords used is treated equally to the quality of the armour, then with q50 swords vs q300 armour with equal buffs would the armour not all ways block the attack due to being 6x better?

First off, all the looted items are 50q, so it's not possible to have 300q armor with analog 50q weapons modifier.
Second the attack defense bonuses are applied in the calculations to determine whether or not the attacker hits the target. At this point no quality factor is accounted for.
Weapons and Armor quality are accounted for the damage calculation, so only after the script has determined if the defender has been hit or not (to make it simple a good quality armor can reduce the damage taken a lot but does not eliminate it completely). At this stage attack and defense bonuses are still important because the damage is also based on the hit calculation's margin of success.

To briefly resume the concepts:

• combat calculation can be split in 3 main stages: check if the target is in range, calculate if the target is Hit,dodge or block and finally (only if the target is hit) calculate the damage.
• attack and defense bonuses affect (differently) both the calculation to know if a target has been hit and the damage it takes after
• attacker and defender stance affect (differently) both the calculation to know if a target has been hit and the damage it takes after
• weapon and armor stats (including quality) only affects the damage calculation

As a final note, we are considering a review if the damage calculation to remove or revise the overall impact of attack/damage bonuses (including stances attack/defense modifiers) in the base damage calculation.
Such change has the potential to greatly improve the damage output balance but also will deeply affect the current damage setup with deep impact.
Therefore we plan NOT to change the current setup in the short-term because it would requires extensive tests on all range of power level and equipment and we are currently focused on tasks we deem more important.

[Venalan]

It's really interesting to have this properly explained. I can see my view on things were wrong. Thanks eonwind.

[Bonifarzia]

Hi Lou, nice to hear/read again from you.
That's a good example, and I remember similar figures from the time when we still had a champion's cup, but you skip the most important factor. If you discuss that "PvP" equipment caps out physical damage (not the chance to hit, but actual "failure" to inflict damage on a hit), then magic modifiers were the bigger problem. As far as I remember, there was a plethora of defense spells you could stack, but I don't remember more than one significant attack booster. Likely, there's a bunch of new spells to improve the situation. Of course, quality plays also a role for this, as Venalan pointed out. When I tested this a while ago, the effect of quality on damage was nonlinear, and results in much less than a factor of six for 300:50. Still, it is a relevant term.

First off, all the looted items are 50q, so it's not possible to have 300q armor with analog 50q weapons modifier.

Though, attack and defense modifiers are applied to the entire set. You can have good defense boosters and still use q300 armor, but you cannot have good attack multipliers and use q300 weapons. I guess the damage modifiers you can have on a weapon (e.g. multipliers for slash value) do outweigh this quality effect, so I don't think it is really a problem.

On topic, I think Eonwind's point is to revise all the affixes of random loot, and not just to nerf damage. If you discuss damage in a PvP scope, it gets all much more complicated, because you have to take into account many factors, including the fine tuned progression system for PvE.

[Bonifarzia]

Please remove this one, I hit quote instead of edit

[louscroo]

The scenario I presented above was an impasse between the attacker and defender, despite the attacker having higher attack modifier. Nothing has ever suggested that attackers have an advantage over defenders. The only "advantage" that attackers had was that the theoretical cap for attack modifiers is higher than that of the defense modifiers, but I have a greater chance of getting heart disease than ever looting that weapon. With the changes that you are mentioning, effectively limiting attack modifiers to two possible slots on an item and nerfing them overall, you are buffing defense modifiers.

The system favors defense, and there's no denying that.

Do you take the tactics involved in PvP into account when you balance the combat? You really should, because maybe you'd come to understand how to properly balance the system.

[Venalan]

My understanding of the changes is this, forgive me if its wrong.

The lower attack bonuses will cause a reduction in max damage. Whereas the lower defense bonuses will increase how often you are hit. This I hope will mean that your example where a defender is never hit should not happen. However without knowing how important the difference between them is for determining hit success compared to their absolute levels I can't be sure.  Maybe eonwind can.

[Bonifarzia]

As Eonwind pointed out, defense modifiers (stance and buffs from spells and items) do not only influence the chance to get hit, but they also decrease the damage taken, possibly up to a point where no damage is dealt at all ("fails"). I think exactly this is Lou's point. Chances to hit do not seem to be problematic.
Getting the affixes to better balance is certainly not the wrong thing to do. To improve the PvP stuff, maybe the defense values of some armor or the actual factors of the stances can need some tweaks, i don't know. Or you could consider another term to lower damage, such that you extend the expected life time, but not towards infinity