Combat Balancing

Naah

I totally feel like this is going to get stomped to the ground, but hey, the forums are the place to submit some ideas and hear some feedback.

So lately my kick has been it's no longer how you use your skills that make the player good at combat, it's how much artefacts you have piled on.
Now, true in most cases, there's the few classes that feel underpowered (Shaman, Jester, Runewarden) but in the same token; I love seeing people who've been incredibly devoted to that class and destroys people with the class. It could be due to artefacts, but I like to think that it's because they've spent 50+ IG years and really learned how to match up against every class and the core mechanics of the class they are playing. (Keep in mind I'm not calling Shaman/Jester/Runie UP, simply I just see an underwhelming amount of them in combat situations compared to other classes)

For someone like me, who wants to join the combat rankings or become a Champion/Assassin someday, I'm scared because I simply can't match up to players who have a huge arte stack and can tank my finisher because my pre-damage was too minimal. I'm not sure how accurate this statement is, but I hear that Vaehl used to sit at NoT and take people on without artefacts to call his own, (due to classhopping?) and for the most part win. I will never be that good, I don't have the devotion to combat that a lot of players seem to have. I like to do combat because for me Achaea is a game, and the combat can be fun, regardless if I win or lose. I join a rampage not to win, but to see how other people play and the obsess over the log for an hour to see where I messed up. I mean I duelled Rangor twice over, knowing that there was no way I'd win. The same for most people, if they want to duel with a real IG/IC reason, Naah will just go for it.

So this is more towards the Combat Rankings, since, if you're an Assassin every little arte you can get helps.
I feel like if you're someone in the combat rankings and someone challenges you to a rated battle, it (somehow) matches up your stats, artefacts, and any form of boosts like (true)favors. It then equalizes it out by either shifting your stats to match the persons, revoking artefacts, temporarily removing the favors, whatever. That way when those people go up against each other, it really is about how effectively you use your skills instead of, oh let me only fight everyone when I have +6 intelligence and my zaps/rends/warp deal over 40% of your health.

Now trust me, I totally get how impossible it is to do all this. Putting a monk against a serpent and then having it try to equalize artes is just kinda stupid. If they are going to equalize a monks strength to that of a serpents, there may be a problem. So as much as I'd like to see some form of equal combat to be put in place, I guess half the fun of the game is really seeing if you can take down the artefact population, and prove you are better than X, Y, and Z. Monk may be one of the easiest classes for PvP, and I shouldn't whine, but I think I'm always going to have a steep learning curve against combat alts and people who can just straight up beat me in everything, regardless of how much I numb and kai heal/transfusion.

So give me your thoughts, is combat good the way it is? Should there be some form of equalizer when matching up within the combat rankings? Do certain artefacts need a certain nerf?
I'm sure there's a thread on this, but I couldn't find it. If there is, just spam WTF/Lol at me and I'll go away.

Mishgul

Keep trying to do silly, near impossible things until you catch someone by surprise. 

Alternatively, do ten push ups and ten sit ups everytime you die. 

Anedhel

I wouldn't be adverse to an 'artifacts nil' arena setting. I know a lot of people on both sides of the artefacts argument get uppity about it, but I pretty genuinely think there's space for a more balanced playing field in Achaean combat.

That said, I get where people who've bought artefacts might not ever want to use that setting. They paid a ton for their advantages, and in any significant aspect of the game, they should be able to enjoy them. Nevertheless, I also very much understand your point of view, being on the poor side of Achaean fighters all my time in the game.

I don't think combat rankings should be changed, because combat rankings are supposed to reflect the winningest warrior, not necessarily the most knowledgeable/skilled. Artefacts are part of winning.

Naah

Anedhel said:

I wouldn't be adverse to an 'artifacts nil' arena setting. I know a lot of people on both sides of the artefacts argument get uppity about it, but I pretty genuinely think there's space for a more balanced playing field in Achaean combat.

That said, I get where people who've bought artefacts might not ever want to use that setting. They paid a ton for their advantages, and in any significant aspect of the game, they should be able to enjoy them. Nevertheless, I also very much understand your point of view, being on the poor side of Achaean fighters all my time in the game.

I don't think combat rankings should be changed, because combat rankings are supposed to reflect the winningest warrior, not necessarily the most knowledgeable/skilled. Artefacts are part of winning.

Aye. Which is why I'm stating before everything thinks I'm screaming that artefacts need to be removed or completely redone. It's totally part of the game, I acknowledge it.
But there's always those times where I just want a mode where everyone gets their artes, favors, whatever stripped and we're put into an arena and it's a battle of wits and how you play your class.
There are certainly times where I can beat people who are artefacted if I just play smart, but on the other end of the spectrum I like to wonder if I could have beaten them if they simply were like me without any artes. Would the match never end, would he/she still win, would I have come out victorious? Because it's no fun for me when I'm only halfway through a prep, and the other monk is literally sitting down with a cup of tea ready to instagib me when he thinks it'll be most funny.

Nim

Anedhel said:

I don't think combat rankings should be changed, because combat rankings are supposed to reflect the winningest warrior, not necessarily the most knowledgeable/skilled. Artefacts are part of winning.

It scares me how correct you are, but I disagree that their current implementation is all that great. They do, in fact, reflect the combatant who can win the most points in the least matches, and avoid losing any. Ever. You have 20 matches/season to do this.

The silly part of this formula is that if artefacts do contribute to victory (sketchy; they increase the number of people you can beat, but decrease the number of people who, knowing how the system works, will fight you), it creates a system where artefacts eventually produce more artefacts.

It'd be cool if combat rankings were just a matter of raw skill, but historically, some classes (serpent) needed artefacts. And then there's the consideration of character skill vs player skill.

I guess what I'm saying is plz fix combat rankings

Antonius

Lol at Runewarden being underpowered, or being under represented. There are more Runewardens than any other Knight class, and it has some ridiculous burst damage potential even without artefacts, not to mention decent group utility.

Artefacts provide an advantage, that's what people are paying for. Sometimes that advantage is huge, other times it means very little. There are plenty of Occultists, even without having that many artefacts themselves, that can tank my massively artied damage, and the fact that I have every defensive artefact available means very little. I still have to know what they're doing, when things are dangerous for me, and how to deal with it.

If you want to fight somebody without their artefacts to see what the outcome is, try asking them? They might not say yes but at least you can say you tried.

Caladbolg

I don't think artifacts help that much, besides sip ring/Shield of Asborb. but that's just my two cents.

Artie band for blademaster allows you to lock faster and to do more damage.. breaking slightly faster is kinda meh. imo it saves me oh.. two slashes at most so 3 seconds?

I think the biggest problem with your no artifact thing is that many people (me included) have there systems and everything setup with the artifacts.. Take a serpent for example if he's used to using his Thoths and all of a sudden he doesn't have it it'll impare his ability to fight with out it.. on the same concept you have monk/Blademaster which has different break points depending on the artifact. Along with certain combos that will only work with the speed boost you get from artifacts.

Although with Certain classes (Magi, Monk,Knight) the damage can get into the insane levels.

Nim

Caladbolg said:

I don't think artifacts help that much, besides sip ring/Shield of Asborb. but that's just my two cents.

Then why do people buy them?

Lilian

Caladbolg said:

I don't think artifacts help that much, besides sip ring/Shield of Asborb. but that's just my two cents.

Artie band for blademaster allows you to lock faster and to do more damage.. breaking slightly faster is kinda meh. imo it saves me oh.. two slashes at most so 3 seconds?

I think the biggest problem with your no artifact thing is that many people (me included) have there systems and everything setup with the artifacts.. Take a serpent for example if he's used to using his Thoths and all of a sudden he doesn't have it it'll impare his ability to fight with out it.. on the same concept you have monk/Blademaster which has different break points depending on the artifact. Along with certain combos that will only work with the speed boost you get from artifacts.

Although with Certain classes (Magi, Monk,Knight) the damage can get into the insane levels.

I want to point something out to you since you mentioned arte bands for blades. http://www.logsty.net/logs/XS5zY This is a log of our spar in that rampage. I have a level 1 to your level 3..The difference is pretty huge ignoring the fact I should of ran on void fist. (Not that I had time to, you pommelstrike'd me once, voidfist then pommeled me again). Stuff like bands are actually a HUGE advantage and very easy to take there of. All you did was pommelstrike and impale me, and broke my legs one at a time and that WORKED. A level 1 band cannot do that at all. Also you were in Sanya and I was in Thyr!

edit:

I messed up a lot in that fight too which contributes to the fact but I still can't do anything like that with a level one band. ((why the hell was I knee striking weep ;0;.))

Tesha

Often, perceived issues of combat balance come from a lack of understanding or experience. Combat is actually in a pretty good state at the moment (except maybe Thoth's fangs, but they might be in the same boat as veils as moneymakers).

Artifacts contribute a lot, but combat knowledge and quick thinking contributes a lot more. I would strongly advise against seeing artifacts as a reason your opponent beats you, read and re-read logs and figure out at least one thing that you could have improved on, then improve on that for every fight from then on. You will be amazed at how much better you start to do when you're not just trying the same exact thing again and again and hoping it works this time. 

If you can't find something to improve on, show the log to someone else and see if they can help you. If you (understandably) don't want to post the log in the 1v1 thing, try getting friendly with a few good fighters and seeing if they would mind helping you out. Some might prefer helping people in their own faction, others prefer helping anyone who asks, others won't help at all because they see you as competition, and some others just might not know enough about your class. If someone says no, just ask someone else.

Biggest piece of advice I can give is to just keep at it and don't blame artifacts. 

Naah

Tesha said:

Often, perceived issues of combat balance come from a lack of understanding or experience. Combat is actually in a pretty good state at the moment (except maybe Thoth's fangs, but they might be in the same boat as veils as moneymakers).

Artifacts contribute a lot, but combat knowledge and quick thinking contributes a lot more. I would strongly advise against seeing artifacts as a reason your opponent beats you, read and re-read logs and figure out at least one thing that you could have improved on, then improve on that for every fight from then on. You will be amazed at how much better you start to do when you're not just trying the same exact thing again and again and hoping it works this time. 

If you can't find something to improve on, show the log to someone else and see if they can help you. If you (understandably) don't want to post the log in the 1v1 thing, try getting friendly with a few good fighters and seeing if they would mind helping you out. Some might prefer helping people in their own faction, others prefer helping anyone who asks, others won't help at all because they see you as competition, and some others just might not know enough about your class. If someone says no, just ask someone else.

Biggest piece of advice I can give is to just keep at it and don't blame artifacts. 

Aye, thanks.

I'll never blame artefacts, I'll never stoop that low. 

Just sometimes I want to give up when someone like Rangor or Santar wants to straight up duel; it's more my mindset that's making me lose in the end, not their strength in artefacts.

Tesha

You definitely shouldn't start with dueling Rangor or Santar. That's like teaching a kid to swim by throwing them in the middle of an ocean while they're sleeping fully clothed with their wrists tied. Start out with a level 60 serpent trying to steal from you, then move on to people in your own skill range to work out your kill method, then start gradually fighting better and better people. Once you can reliably beat people your own skill, stop sparring them and move on to the next challenge. It isn't about winning, it's about getting better. 

Naisar

Lol @Caladbolg Blademaster bands are one of the best artefacts in the game, not to mention being exceptionally cost-effective.

@Naah I think Runewarden is one of the best classes to try and break into upper tier without artefacts.

Artefacts have huge impacts on pacing.  It's easy to be flippant about their effects, especially if you're not on the receiving end.  But Achaea is balanced around high damage & healing respective to health totals, so small percentage differentials can cause much larger swings than other games.  The other thing to remember is that a lot of Achaea revolves around the execution of your finisher.  Sure that +2 strength artie might not make the difference between a Paladin being able to DSL you to death, or kill you with the disembowel, but his prep will be painful enough that it delays your own setup significantly.  Even if artefacts don't directly cause wins, the benefits they provide can completely change the character of the fight, and that's just considering those with small passive bonuses.

Xith

Naah said:

I totally feel like this is going to get stomped to the ground, but hey, the forums are the place to submit some ideas and hear some feedback.

Arador

The way I see it, Artefacts allow you to be lazier about certain things, allowing you to focus more on others.

Let's say I am fighting a a Monk. Both of us unartied, I have to play a bit defensively now and then to try and keep my health high for the moment they start their finisher. They higher my health is going into that final stage, the better my chances of surviving.

Now let's say I have defensive arties. Sip ring, regen ring, diamdem for faster shield whoring etc. Now I have an easier time keeping my health high during the fight and have to spend less time and attention about being defensive. I am less likely to die to mid setup damage when I get careless and that is the strongest benefit I gain. I can still be killed by the finisher but less likely to do so after being careless with defense mid fight. The monk has to adapt his strategy to try and get me lower on health and try other methods of killing me than the ones that would normally work very easily.

Now let's turn the tables and the monk has offensive arties to boost damage and I have none. In the same scenario he gains a chance to kill me mid setup if I am careless but if I fight defensively I can still survive, it just takes a lot more effort on my part to try and mitigate the damage. He will now have an easier time of killing me and more options to do so with plus with me focused a lot more on the defensive, I am hurting him less.

If we now combine scenario 2 and 3 it gets closer to scenario one. I can afford to fight less defensively and still survive and he has less chance of killing me easily when I get careless.

There are obviously variations and difference in this scenario depending on the class but it all comes down to the same principle.

Arties allow you more grace and room for being lazy, defensively and offensively but these can be mitigated by changing strategies, fighting in a way that helps your own survival or looking at other methods to kill people. They also open up new strategies defensively (eg. ring of flying) and offensively (eg. Knuckles making mangling more feasible).

But at the end of the day artefacts mostly affect HOW you fight someone. They can make up to some degree for a lack of amazing skill by making combat a bit easier but put someone truly skilled against someone with a buttload artefacts and the former will always find a way to mitigate the effect of those artefacts.

For me, my defensive artefacts allowed me to become a more skilled fighter as they allowed me focus less on defence and truly practice explore my offensive options. By not focusing every moment on trying to stay alive, I got to play with my offence more. You can take those artefacts away and while I will have to focus on defence more and adjust to that again, what I have learned over the years offensively by not dying 20 seconds into the fight is still in my head and has become more easy and natural for me to do.

Valdus

Artifacts are completely overpowered in every sense. Here is some recorded footage of how obscenely powerful I am able to become by equipping all offensive artifacts.

Dorn

10/10 would die to.

Wessux

I should probably read what everyone is saying, but instead I just skimmed and I'm gonna go from there.

Artifacts are powerful, yes they tilt things in your favor, but I kill fully artifacted people all the time. Artifacts just take the pressure off of you in combat. You've got more health to deal with the other guy and you do more damage to make them shield or run. But it doesn't make you unkillable. Knowing how other classes work and how to dodge their setups is what makes you unkillable.

Another thing, you should take pride in the kills you do get when you've got little to no artifacts. Killing Kross or Kardal is like cocaine to me. I've got a sip ring and two pipes, and one of those was free. They spent thousands of dollars on this game. I feel like a badass and show should you. Hell look at Mizik, that guy murders people and he doesn't have artifacts (or very few), he just understand combat better than most people.

I do agree though fighting artifacted people is most of the time not fun, but it doesn't mean you can't win. It only means you have to fight at the top of your game all the time.

Jhui

gotta be the right class to compete at top-tier without arties.

preferably one that uses its offense as its defense.  Sentinel, knight, apo, etc.

Fighting as unartied monk is probably one of the worst classes you can go up against an artifacted person with.

Shecks

Shaman/Jester is probably your best bet playing without arties.  You'll have to resort to some "cheap" tactics, but they're not tactics that the artied monks aren't using too, so you'll sleep easy anyways.  I hope I don't regret pointing this out, but it's been a long while since we've had a decent jester.  It's been even longer since being a decent Shaman was possible.

Jovolo

Vaehl/Zyvix would disagree about the Shaman bit. Jester, you're right. Rean did well but the guy was so gimmicky (dropped off the radar a bit after bomb nerfs).

Best class without arties assuming a good level is probably between any of the Knight classes, Sylvan, Apostate or Sentinel.

Naah

Shecks said:

Shaman/Jester is probably your best bet playing without arties.  You'll have to resort to some "cheap" tactics, but they're not tactics that the artied monks aren't using too, so you'll sleep easy anyways.  I hope I don't regret pointing this out, but it's been a long while since we've had a decent jester.  It's been even longer since being a decent Shaman was possible.

Xer went Shaman and was pretty good at it for awhile, then went bard or magi, I forget which was first. I haven't seen any combatant Jesters in awhile that will actually fight outside of group combat. Only Jester I know off the bat would be @Kaie but not sure on that one. But I'm sure there's been a few Jester combatants around.

Shecks

Never underestimate the "nobody knows how to counter your class because nobody ever plays it" factor.  It's pretty huge.  When I played shaman and bard, people were dropping left and right to things that should never, ever work, just because it was probably one of the first times they've ever even seen it. (like the first twelve times I died to heartseed -_-).  It won't help -that- much against super top tier guys, but you never know.  It's a lot easier to come up with new ideas for Shaman than it is to come up with new ideas for Monk.

Naisar

Shaman has a lot of dirty little tricks, so learning how to deal with them basically consists of losing 5 spars or so until you get the gist of what you need to be careful about.  I don't recall them being difficult once you've wised up though, so I'm not sure how good they are long-term.

Xer

I WANT TO BE SHAMAN AGAIN SO BAD THAT CRIPPLE CHANGE PRONE MY GOD FUCK RING OF FLYING AND EARRINGS YESSSSSSS

Caladbolg

Naisar said:

Lol @Caladbolg Blademaster bands are one of the best artefacts in the game, not to mention being exceptionally cost-effective.

@Naah I think Runewarden is one of the best classes to try and break into upper tier without artefacts.

Artefacts have huge impacts on pacing.  It's easy to be flippant about their effects, especially if you're not on the receiving end.  But Achaea is balanced around high damage & healing respective to health totals, so small percentage differentials can cause much larger swings than other games.  The other thing to remember is that a lot of Achaea revolves around the execution of your finisher.  Sure that +2 strength artie might not make the difference between a Paladin being able to DSL you to death, or kill you with the disembowel, but his prep will be painful enough that it delays your own setup significantly.  Even if artefacts don't directly cause wins, the benefits they provide can completely change the character of the fight, and that's just considering those with small passive bonuses.

Actually I fought Strata with out it on accident the other day and didn't even realize it was missing. Instead of preping at 3 legslashes to each leg he preped at 3 legslashes and 1 compass to each. Since the extra damage doesn't really do much for me while fighting him. ..and most people.. and the extra speed is nice, but isn't actually required in a brokenstar combo. I'll just start fighting people with it off and see if I notice much of a difference... If I can get the break points setup right in the limb counter >_>

Xith

I'm in the Aaaavatar state, maaan.

ETA: Giant mushy friend.

Xith

Wtf.. how did this get in this topic. I swore I posted in the Membrane.....

And I've never done drugs, I swear.

Accipiter

@Xith, you took the wrong approach. You should be saying that you love the smilies and that Achaea is an accurate representation of being high as you understand it.

Dorn

Caladbolg said:

Naisar said:

Lol @Caladbolg Blademaster bands are one of the best artefacts in the game, not to mention being exceptionally cost-effective.

@Naah I think Runewarden is one of the best classes to try and break into upper tier without artefacts.

Artefacts have huge impacts on pacing.  It's easy to be flippant about their effects, especially if you're not on the receiving end.  But Achaea is balanced around high damage & healing respective to health totals, so small percentage differentials can cause much larger swings than other games.  The other thing to remember is that a lot of Achaea revolves around the execution of your finisher.  Sure that +2 strength artie might not make the difference between a Paladin being able to DSL you to death, or kill you with the disembowel, but his prep will be painful enough that it delays your own setup significantly.  Even if artefacts don't directly cause wins, the benefits they provide can completely change the character of the fight, and that's just considering those with small passive bonuses.

Actually I fought Strata with out it on accident the other day and didn't even realize it was missing. Instead of preping at 3 legslashes to each leg he preped at 3 legslashes and 1 compass to each. Since the extra damage doesn't really do much for me while fighting him. ..and most people.. and the extra speed is nice, but isn't actually required in a brokenstar combo. I'll just start fighting people with it off and see if I notice much of a difference... If I can get the break points setup right in the limb counter >_>

Assuming you slash at ~2s (you probably slash faster, but 2 is a nice number to work with), that's going from 12s to prep to 16s to prep, the band saves you 25% of your prep time. That's pretty significant. And the band also makes each slash faster, so it's actually going from 12s to around 17-18s I'd estimate. The band is saving you nearly a third of your prep time at that point.

Then it'll also shave off a fraction of a second on the break/prone, allowing you to impale that little bit faster, and potentially secure a second impale while one leg is still broken, allowing more bladetwists if you need them.

I'm assuming you're using my limbcounter? It should have an option thing set up to just change what band you're using in the scripts, so tracking it in the limbcounter becomes relatively easy.

Lilian

Dorn said:

Caladbolg said:

Naisar said:

Lol @Caladbolg Blademaster bands are one of the best artefacts in the game, not to mention being exceptionally cost-effective.

@Naah I think Runewarden is one of the best classes to try and break into upper tier without artefacts.

Artefacts have huge impacts on pacing.  It's easy to be flippant about their effects, especially if you're not on the receiving end.  But Achaea is balanced around high damage & healing respective to health totals, so small percentage differentials can cause much larger swings than other games.  The other thing to remember is that a lot of Achaea revolves around the execution of your finisher.  Sure that +2 strength artie might not make the difference between a Paladin being able to DSL you to death, or kill you with the disembowel, but his prep will be painful enough that it delays your own setup significantly.  Even if artefacts don't directly cause wins, the benefits they provide can completely change the character of the fight, and that's just considering those with small passive bonuses.

Actually I fought Strata with out it on accident the other day and didn't even realize it was missing. Instead of preping at 3 legslashes to each leg he preped at 3 legslashes and 1 compass to each. Since the extra damage doesn't really do much for me while fighting him. ..and most people.. and the extra speed is nice, but isn't actually required in a brokenstar combo. I'll just start fighting people with it off and see if I notice much of a difference... If I can get the break points setup right in the limb counter >_>

Assuming you slash at ~2s (you probably slash faster, but 2 is a nice number to work with), that's going from 12s to prep to 16s to prep, the band saves you 25% of your prep time. That's pretty significant. And the band also makes each slash faster, so it's actually going from 12s to around 17-18s I'd estimate. The band is saving you nearly a third of your prep time at that point.

Then it'll also shave off a fraction of a second on the break/prone, allowing you to impale that little bit faster, and potentially secure a second impale while one leg is still broken, allowing more bladetwists if you need them.

I'm assuming you're using my limbcounter? It should have an option thing set up to just change what band you're using in the scripts, so tracking it in the limbcounter becomes relatively easy.

Your counter for whatever reason is off with break passes that seem to change based on health levels ... Someone with 4000 health breaks totally different then someone with 4200 for instance and it's hard to find consistancy with that (And I have my counter set to fire) - so I imagine that is the trouble he is having as well. Sometimes setting the break point one higher or lower fixes it, sometimes not. It's really bizzare.