open call to the developers!

Got something on your mind about the project? This is the correct place for that.


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prsm
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open call to the developers!

Post by prsm »

A very wise person that played this game said to me, you need 405kk xp to get to level 99. Having said that and saying its true, you have only half reached the end of leveling when you start level 97, stop and think of that for a second! At the start of level 97 you still have over 200kk xp to go and therefore half the game yet to play!

I am level 99 and was involved in a pvp event tonight, a level 91 mage kicked my butt, owned me! One hit and i was dead. I am not bitter about this at all, the fact that a mage can hit so hard is okay by me. in fact, i think the development team is leaning towards the mage. They have upped the ore drop rate, introduced the new mage crown. the warrior is being left behind (and by the same token, so is the archer).

My question is this, will they be eliminating the warrior all together or will they be re balancing it?

I truly believe a level x mage should stand an even chance beating a level x warrior or level x archer, but if the game is going to lean completely to one side, we should be told so that we can lean collectively to that side!

I think this is a fair question, and once again having reached level 99, i am not bitter. But i have new characters that i have started and see no point in playing either warrior or archer if the content for them is going to be ignored or totally unbalanced!
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mistergrey
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by mistergrey »

It is a fair question, for sure lol. While I think lightning power is pretty fair against monsters (considering a fast or strong warrior can easily match lightning damage in the same time frame), it's crazy in pvp still.

Of possible solutions, most seem to have an issue.

-Lowering the power would just make lightning not worth it for mages, since they already "pay" for it by being unarmored and paying for supplies.

-Lowering the drop rate of ore won't rebalance anything, since it costs a warrior nothing but time and maybe healing items to kick some serious ass.

-Adding some magic based weapons to encourage mage/warrior hybrids would at least help some pvp conflicts, since if warriors had decent INT their magic def could be effectively boosted. Still, this involves too much calculation to expect anytime soon AFAIK.

-Raising base magic defense on all characters would be nice, but at the same time it would have to be a fine balance - lower level warriors can kill a high level mage in two-three hits, so lightning Should do some serious damage to compensate... just not instant death damage lol.

-My favorite fix, pending a stat rebalance eventually, is to add some equipment with magic defense (aside from the 30kk monster skull helm *sighs*).

-OR, another silly idea, a consumable, fairly expensive item that boosts one's magic defense a lot, regardless of INT for a while, similar to iron and concentration potions. Of course, this would surely be abused without some limitations and thought, so there's another problem lol.
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by teslacoolguy94 »

I have noticed that this server has focused mainly on mages atm while other servers have balanced it out or are working on it so its fairly matched.Who knows devs might be working on something but they should come out and share what there working on so things arnt unfair and unmatched.Grey is also right that they should do something maybe like raising magic defence or coming out with new items to help warriors and/or archers.
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Freeyorp101
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Freeyorp101 »

Fix max hp and have less focus on damage reduction (for all attack types).

All other proposals I have seen are quickfixes which only complicate matters while not addressing the core problems.


---Freeyorp
(09:58:17) < tux9th> Freeyorp: your sig on the forums is kind of outdated
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Acegi
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Acegi »

In a way, giving everyone extra HP and hoping things will work out is really a "quick fix" in disguise. What do you see as the "core problems"?
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by reggie »

Well, before level 60 or more, I think magic is not an option, you can level it, practice it but before lvl 60 (or more) it's just too expensive and ineffective, no matter if it's pvp or pvm. But things change dramatically upon that point cause eventually players are able to have 99 int and more than 80 vit. Also, as time goes by, you'll be able to gather a large stock of consumables for magic being smooth.

And well since I'm a newbie, let me propose an scenario and please tell me how much unbalanced this will be; and how far from being fair and balanced:

We are at the arena. We are watching two players in a match; both of them the exact same level (past lvl 70):

1-Mage: He has full stock of intelligence; tons of life and before entering the arena he casted asorm, betsanc and ingrav for a quick start.

2-Warrior / Archer: Think about their best stat config; it does not matters.

I think there is no way a warrior or archer could survive; ingrav in power and range is just of of league. Even if the mage uses flar, I don't think the warrior or archer should get a chance. Even if the mage suffers somehow damage; lum will just heal faster than the attacker can take down again.

IMHO, TMW was not designed for pvp.

Am I wrong?

The thing is, since I don't like money, Im always glad to spend some money every couple of days for switching stat configs from warrior to mage. I don't see the fun of being just a Warrior or a Mage.
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Freeyorp101
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Freeyorp101 »

Acegi wrote:In a way, giving everyone extra HP and hoping things will work out is really a "quick fix" in disguise. What do you see as the "core problems"?
Damage reduction is the most blatant case. It has somehow become the norm that damage should be reduced to 1 or close to it, and monsters slowly whittled down.

Armor/hard def/def1 is proportional damage reduction - a warlord plate alone has 27% incoming physical damage reduction. Add in a steel shield and warlord helm, neither of which are particularly hard to get, and that shoots up to 65% physical damage reduction. The full suit, adding in fur boots, leather gloves, and jeans chaps, nets the wearer 78% physical damage reduction.

Note that this is before vit/soft/def2 additive damage reduction, and the vitbonus damage reduction.

Honestly, the only way mobs have a chance to get through after the early-game is by reducing def by coming in swarms, or by having unbelievably high damage attacks (which you are likely only to encounter in the lategame from graveyard mobs or from JackOs), or through the occasional critical (should someone decide to not put enough points in luk to make this effectively impossible, which is easily done.)


Mob base level is consistently extremely high, making character dodge useless, and giving always-hits magic a not insignificant edge in the mid-game.
(And before anyone mentions skulls again, that is a case where they are meant to be vulnerable to magi, in much the same way that fallen are meant to be vulnerable to physical attacks.)

For my graveyard builds I dropped the level far lower than it 'would' have been had I instead blindly followed the trends established in the past. After analysis both from observing in-game and by parsing the server logs, I believe that they are still much higher than they should be, but show a noticeable improvement over other mobs in that difficulty range.


That max hp pools are far lower than they should be is without question. TMW follows a classless system design mechanic, and tmw-eathena reflects this in some ways. However, we have inherited the old class-system and the default definitions - every character on the server is of the most basic class available, with a low base pool and very slow growth.


tl;dr: The core problems come from those deciding on past values for content either not understanding or not caring about the systems we inherited.


I see only two ways to fix this.
a) Redo all content from scratch to better fit the systems we have inherited from eAthena. (I belive this is generally the approach that Rotonen favours?)
b) Redo the systems to better fit the values that we have. In some cases, the values we have do have some logic to them, even if they don't work with what we have right now.

Where a given area of content has a sensible curve, albeit not one fit to tmwAthena, I would want to rework the systems. Where a given area of content is obvious nonsense, redo.

The damage reduction formula can be altered easily enough to fit what we have, and it is a simple enough matter to adjust the hp growth/base values in the database to more sane values, though altering the formula could work just as well. The monster database can use a near overhaul, though the roles they seem to have tried to fit into can be preserved.



This is no quick fix, nor is it merely "giving everyone extra HP and hoping things will work out". I don't see where you got that impression. Perhaps you missed or otherwise did not read my past posts elaborating on this matter?


---Freeyorp
(09:58:17) < tux9th> Freeyorp: your sig on the forums is kind of outdated
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by prsm »

quick, my thread was hijacked!

i am not looking for a rewrite of the game, i was simple trying to state that if a mage can kill a warrior in one hit, should a warrior not be able to kill a mage in one hit.
Having said that, if the developers were to answer that question "No", than i was going to turn my others into mages!
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Freeyorp101 »

You're asking the wrong question. Neither should be able to kill the other in one hit or similar. It does indeed need to be fixed, but it's not going to be fast, and it's not going to be easy. The problem with PvP is just one aspect of the mess we have to fix now.


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(09:58:17) < tux9th> Freeyorp: your sig on the forums is kind of outdated
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Matt »

Good old days where lvl 65 was an impossible task.

PvP was always broken in TMW, I guess you need to treat it differently than PvM battles.
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Acegi »

Freeyorp101 wrote:Damage reduction is the most blatant case. It has somehow become the norm that damage should be reduced to 1 or close to it, and monsters slowly whittled down.
...
Honestly, the only way mobs have a chance to get through after the early-game is by reducing def by coming in swarms, or by having unbelievably high damage attacks (which you are likely only to encounter in the lategame from graveyard mobs or from JackOs), or through the occasional critical (should someone decide to not put enough points in luk to make this effectively impossible, which is easily done.)
This is obvious and I too agree that is a bad way to go essentially asking for botters to take advantage. I see two ways of solving this.
1) It unambiguously implies that defence is too high and these item's effects should be rebalanced lower forcing warriors to put more into vit.
2) Leave the defence alone and create a system where limited interactivity can still give the botters the same results but at a much slower rate forcing them to play more interactively. I do have an idea for this and will propose this in another topic.
Freeyorp101 wrote: Mob base level is consistently extremely high, making character dodge useless, and giving always-hits magic a not insignificant edge in the mid-game.
(And before anyone mentions skulls again, that is a case where they are meant to be vulnerable to magi, in much the same way that fallen are meant to be vulnerable to physical attacks.)

For my graveyard builds I dropped the level far lower than it 'would' have been had I instead blindly followed the trends established in the past. After analysis both from observing in-game and by parsing the server logs, I believe that they are still much higher than they should be, but show a noticeable improvement over other mobs in that difficulty range.
...
That max hp pools are far lower than they should be is without question. TMW follows a classless system design mechanic, and tmw-eathena reflects this in some ways. However, we have inherited the old class-system and the default definitions - every character on the server is of the most basic class available, with a low base pool and very slow growth.
I'm assuming then that monster levels are meant to be on par with player levels then? I've noticed that certain bits of code say that if player level is -20 or something to the monster the drop chance and some other special traits occur. Would it perhaps be prudent then to create a monster level <-> human level conversion. An analogy would be celsius and farenheit. I suppose this could be treated as a patch to this problem if I'm understanding correctly.

Classless system at the start is a good idea because players can learn the game as they play rather than realise they don't like style X of the gameplay and can't change. I can definitely see the difficulties of balancing the game because people like to have a certain style that just works for all situations well and this just doesn't happen in a game that has variety. Not only are you balancing pvp, the player vs monsters is really split into "farming (profit) monsters", "levelling monsters", "boss monsters", "quest monsters" etc. This is just for individual monsters. In each map there are many monsters together creating another level of complexity.

One way of thinking would be to create maps that have a specific target market in mind. Because you are right, some monsters do serve their purposes well and I do completely agree with skulls being mage's prey so in this case, you would create/choose a map with a secluded area which spawn skulls just for mages. It makes sense that you would want a map where all classes can participate but experience has shown that spreading mage monsters in the mix with physical fighters forces players to "hide" skulls in the corner if possible making it harder for mages on their own to fight a group of skulls wherever they are hidden.
Freeyorp101 wrote:
tl;dr: The core problems come from those deciding on past values for content either not understanding or not caring about the systems we inherited.

I see only two ways to fix this.
a) Redo all content from scratch to better fit the systems we have inherited from eAthena. (I belive this is generally the approach that Rotonen favours?)
b) Redo the systems to better fit the values that we have. In some cases, the values we have do have some logic to them, even if they don't work with what we have right now.

Where a given area of content has a sensible curve, albeit not one fit to tmwAthena, I would want to rework the systems. Where a given area of content is obvious nonsense, redo.

The damage reduction formula can be altered easily enough to fit what we have, and it is a simple enough matter to adjust the hp growth/base values in the database to more sane values, though altering the formula could work just as well. The monster database can use a near overhaul, though the roles they seem to have tried to fit into can be preserved.
Balancing always means redoing content. As for the system we have now it is sufficient to get players continuing to play, I would think however if the maps with monster spawn sites were rethought out then the balancing game can continue.

To the original topic, for players resetting is quite costly (considering the effort required towards the top 90s for just a few dozen more points to use). PVP really does need to be rethought out. In the last pvp event, as an archer maxing out 99dex barely did much damage to full armoured warriors even tanked mages require a few archers going at them to kill them. Obviously as the OP also wrote lightning vs everyone is really a slaughterhouse. What are the thoughts on this?

EDIT: Sorry for hijacking your topic prsm! My last paragraph is back to OP anyway though!
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by fate »

Hi,

if you really want PvP, then how about anti-magic armour? It might offer increased magic defence at the price of reduced defence against physical damage.

There are many other issues with PvP, though (such as the archers vs. warriors matter-- and the general lack of any point to it), so this raises the question of whether anyone has the time, skills, and interest to actually implement a coherent system.

-- fate
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by Speiros01 »

When I say PVP, I mean one on one events in a ring. It is an idea only, too.

For PVP, it should be fought in the underwear, or in a pair of shorts/skirt of equal value. That would prevent any inequalities.

Then there should be no magic.

There should be bare hands, not weapons.

It should be fought on an equal term, such as the levels being made to match for the short term battle, or limits to what levels can battle with each other.

One should be able to step out of the hit range, and step back in again. Therefore, allowing more misses of the enemy.

All automation should be off.

If this happens, there will be a battle based purely on skill or luck.

As for rewards, there could be certain belts given, which can be challenged, and the belts give the holder extra points or skill levels, such as attack +10, or something similar. Of course in the PVP battle, the belt will have no authority, as will the other items.

There could also be a series of belts. One for hand to hand combat, dagger attack, short sword, or other weapons, where the battles are fought on equal terms.

Also, the holder of the belt should be obliged to defend his title at least once through a certain period, and not hold off from challengers, or his belt disappears. Of course this should be fair, as the winner needs time to play his game too, rather than just constantly defending his belt.
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by mistergrey »

Speiros - A naked arena with no magic isn't a fix at all, it's more just blatantly unfair to mages lol. If something like that was even considered, I'd just say make a second pvp arena for mages then, if warriors are so bothered lol.

fate - Thank you! Armor with magic def bonuses is something I've been kind of pushing, but including a phys def bonus is perfect. That would stop warriors from having insane defense and magic defense should that ever be implemented. Also, I used to play as archer most of the time, and it was about useless in pvp - you can max vitality and armor up, but this takes away from the damage you can cause.

Prsm - PvP seems unbalanced in most ways, but keep this in mind: In other games, such as say Diablo 2, different classes have very different strengths and weaknesses. In the beginning, a mage is about useless, whereas a warrior/barbarian will slaughter everything. Later on, at a high level, mages usually kick the pants off everyone else. Point being - classes should not be directly equal. PvP needs work, but it's boring and less challenging if all classes are the same. If I as a mage want to go fight warriors effectively, I'll need to stack some points into vit and maybe luck - Even with magic barrier and protect spells on, you managed to kill me in few hits in the pvp event :P. So, it's fair to me that if warriors wanna fight mages, up your INT, maybe even cast magic barrier on yourself.

Sorry for the novel, lol. Just some thoughts.
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Re: open call to the developers!

Post by DarkWater »

The current magic system is horribly broke. How broke, well if it was a cat. It would have been shot, ran over by a car, gutted, skinned and mounted on a wall for 20 years. Doing anything to fix this system would be like taking the 20 year old cat down off the wall, shoving the cat's fur down its throat and performing cpr for 3 hours in attempt to revive the cat.
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