The current balance of this game

[DarkestLight]

As a lone Tank I am very worried about the current balance of this game.
If i go to the GY i get about 300 exp a kill due to the hoards of archers (and sadly i was the only warrior there), I was there too tank, and tanking anywhere up to 8 enemies at a time! I'm making a large contribution to the group and yet i get almost no reward for it. 300 exp a kill? I could get as much exp going to farm blue/red slimes and get more GP at the same time.

We need major change to the Warrior/Tank classes! Just like you get credit for attacking a monster you should get credit for being attacked by a monster. This should be calculated by the number of times you are hit and should be reduced in some way by the total damage you take (as a good tank will take less damage then another class this rewards tanks the most). This way Warriors/Tanks get more credit, more exp, and hell maybe an actual chance to pick up an item now and then.

In addition tanks should be able to somehow taunt groups of enemies to draw them off of archers/mages better and give a real team strategy aspect to this game. Perhaps because a dedicated tank cannot use magic this needs to be available through an item, archers need to buy arrows, mages need to buy spell ingredients, and tanks need to buy this new item, this sounds fair to me.

Well that's just my thoughts, feel free to post your thoughts on the current balance of this game!

[Big Crunch]

Honestly i enjoyed your thoughts on being a tank. I've experimented with every build i can imagine and tank is by far the most underrated and undervalued, but it is the most overlooked. Nice ideas, i dont know how well they could be translated to gameplay, but i like the direction.

BC

[o11c]

By its very nature, a tank (or a healer) will always get much less exp than any other class.

However, the problem is made somewhat worse by our horribly imbalanced monsters and stats.

The solution is to find someone near the same level and enable party exp sharing - those of us who kill fast do appreciate meat shields.

[DarkestLight]

Honestly i enjoyed your thoughts on being a tank. I've experimented with every build i can imagine and tank is by far the most underrated and undervalued, but it is the most overlooked. Nice ideas, i dont know how well they could be translated to gameplay, but i like the direction.

BC

Thank you very much for your response!
I was more looking to inspire ideas then write actual formulas etc, Ill leave the details to the Dev teams.

By its very nature, a tank (or a healer) will always get much less exp than any other class.

However, the problem is made somewhat worse by our horribly imbalanced monsters and stats.

The solution is to find someone near the same level and enable party exp sharing - those of us who kill fast do appreciate meat shields.

Once again thanks for a response!
I agree that tanks and healers do get the least amount of experience however tanks have the most dangerous task there is, healers can sit back and heal away from any trouble but tanks must fight on the front lines the whole time. This job deserves at least equal experience compared to any other fighter class. I think the way to do that is give them credit for tanking thus the idea for giving them credit if they get hit (after all its their job.) As for being able to taunt groups as a tank, this would benefit every class.


To all those who haven't responded: Please this topic was made to inspire thought about how to improve The Mana World!
A response DOES NOT have to be about what I said, respond to me or others, or propose your own idea to improve this lovely game!

[radiant]

I'm not opposed to the general principle of getting less XP and drops; it's a consequence of having to burn through fewer resources than other players (arrows, iron ore...) and hence not needing as high a rate of return to maintain profitability. It could do to be a bit higher, sure, but there's no requirement that it matches up with a fighting partner who's spending items to drop lightning bolts all over the place.

You can't just put "damage taken" into the XP assignment formula or else I would get XP simply by standing on Jack O's ledge overnight while it attacks fruitlessly, without so much as needing to send any packets, let alone automate any actions. At the very least, that would require a significant overhaul to the botting policy.

For a while now I've been advocating a "whistle" item: like the scissors, it would be "expendable" with a use script that replaces it in inventory, and its effect would be identical to the #itenplz spell, but without the requirement of positive magic-attack. For monsters like floating skulls, that would be vastly better than having to give up on someone because it would be a complete waste of time for me to even try to attack the damn things.

Have you read my old topic with some thoughts on the perspective?

[DarkestLight]

I'm not opposed to the general principle of getting less XP and drops; it's a consequence of having to burn through fewer resources than other players (arrows, iron ore...) and hence not needing as high a rate of return to maintain profitability. It could do to be a bit higher, sure, but there's no requirement that it matches up with a fighting partner who's spending items to drop lightning bolts all over the place.

The Setback to not having to buy items is the risk involved with being the tank, YOU must take the damage for your group and YOU are responsible for keeping your allies away from the monsters. I also proposed a tank item that would be a must for tanks to get much benefit from these changes, thus draining their GP a little for the increased Exp and higher then 0% chance to get a drop.

You can't just put "damage taken" into the XP assignment formula or else I would get XP simply by standing on Jack O's ledge overnight while it attacks fruitlessly, without so much as needing to send any packets, let alone automate any actions. At the very least, that would require a significant overhaul to the botting policy.

Re-read my proposal. How much you "contribute" as a tank would be the number of HITS you take not raw value, and that 'contribution' would be further reduced BY the total damage you take.
In short the more damage you take in 1 hit the less effective you are being as a tank, thus you get less credit.
Someone getting hit for half their life in 1 shot by a Jack O would be considered a VERY LOW amount of credit as a tank.


"credit" IS NOT exp.Currently the more damage you do the more "credit" you get for killing that monster. If you did 42% of the damage you got 42% of the exp, if no one else did more then 42% of the damage then you and only you can pick up the items dropped. All I ask is to give credit to the person tanking the monsters damage as well as the person killing the monster.

[radiant]

Well, of course you can't take too big of hits or else you become "dead" and can't hold the monster's attention anymore.

But figure this much: If I were to stand still on the Jack O ledge and draw its attention undisturbed, it would dish out 2400 hits every hour. About half of those would be 1s, and the rest gradually scale up to a maximum of about 43. And I could keep that up indefinitely (as the total damage works out to less than 4.16 per second), or at least until someone decided to join me and put the tortured soul out of its misery.

You can't possibly award XP for that, or else standing still unattended would have to be reclassified as botting, just like auto-attacking all nearby monsters, since it's a way of progressing the character without paying attention to the game. And then the town would become a ghost town practically overnight.

[Derpella]

IMHO the good solution would be taking off dexterity, just like archers don't need strength. 15 dex should be enough to do any monster. And it's more realistic- you need great accuracy to shoot a flying object or a fast opponent, but when you're just bashing him with sword and he's standing next to you and not moving it's harder to miss. Really, warriors have enough stats they must put their points in.

[DarkestLight]

IMHO the good solution would be taking off dexterity, just like archers don't need strength. 15 dex should be enough to do any monster. And it's more realistic- you need great accuracy to shoot a flying object or a fast opponent, but when you're just bashing him with sword and he's standing next to you and not moving it's harder to miss. Really, warriors have enough stats they must put their points in.

This solution might work too. Swords are naturally much heavier then bows so wouldn't strength increase your accuracy? Just like bows get damage and accuracy from dexterity maybe warriors should get damage and accuracy from strength.

[pitriss]

I'm totally agree with derpella.. Nice idea.

[JDuran]

IMHO the good solution would be taking off dexterity, just like archers don't need strength. 15 dex should be enough to do any monster. And it's more realistic- you need great accuracy to shoot a flying object or a fast opponent, but when you're just bashing him with sword and he's standing next to you and not moving it's harder to miss. Really, warriors have enough stats they must put their points in.

This is the best idea I've heard so far ^^^^^^^