Solutions to help make melee's not bad DPS
- Thread starter Tevinter
- Start date
No one was doing that at the time of this parse. Pretty sure no one in that parse even had that belt at that time either. I don't get why any of the dev team can't give a simple update stating they are working on things or any type of update. Its great to see them working on other things, but you guys need to finish things you start. Its frustrating to your player base to not know what's going on and you half ass important aspects of the game.
donfolstar3
Dalayan Master
No, no. Working on a random newbie quest system that people will enjoy for a day or two, but not with other newbies who are spread all across the world since any kind of newbie hub (like other MMOs including Live) is not in cards, is much more important than fixing the daily problems that go on unfixed.
Two things:
One I personally still disagree with using characters like Solo, Lleoc, and Zurkka in anything to do with balance. These guys are Superman, Spiderman, and Thor. They aren't good examples of the average, at least imo.
Another thing, I want stuff done as much as the rest, but the way you guys say things here as if your hard-earned money is being wasted by these worthless devs....I personally wouldn't want to work any of the shit you mention with my free time if I were them. Literally half the posts I see in these types of discussions I feel hurt the cause more than they help. "Great... That post is really gonna make them want to work on it..." I occasionally put my foot in my mouth too, and wish they'd even say, sorry guys we think this is fine as is or anything, but please remember these guys don't owe us a gd thing.
One I personally still disagree with using characters like Solo, Lleoc, and Zurkka in anything to do with balance. These guys are Superman, Spiderman, and Thor. They aren't good examples of the average, at least imo.
Another thing, I want stuff done as much as the rest, but the way you guys say things here as if your hard-earned money is being wasted by these worthless devs....I personally wouldn't want to work any of the shit you mention with my free time if I were them. Literally half the posts I see in these types of discussions I feel hurt the cause more than they help. "Great... That post is really gonna make them want to work on it..." I occasionally put my foot in my mouth too, and wish they'd even say, sorry guys we think this is fine as is or anything, but please remember these guys don't owe us a gd thing.
Dinadass
Dalayan Pious Diety
Most people have been constructive and polite. We understand that staff are volunteers, they work on what they feel they should be doing, and that's completely fine. But when things are changed and left half finished, or very significant issues remain completely ignored for months, it gets frustrating. And as you pointed out, these things might not actually be ignored, but with zero staff comments or input of any kind, that's the impression that is given from the perspective of the players.
cian2
Dalayan Master
these are the people i play with, i'd be interested to see parses from other guilds, but I dont play with them. and it's also a good representation of well-played characters, which is what should be balanced around imo. it's hard to balance around someone who only plays to 70% of their potential. also, the current problem with the game is probably at it's most extreme at the high end, so I think it's valuable to consider.
honestly, I think this is a cop out argument. if you don't want to be a dev, let someone who wants to do it, do it. if you are passive aggressively punishing your playerbase by breaking things and ignoring them and laughing about it in dev chat, you should probably just hand over the reigns and move on, it's best for everyone involved. i'm not saying that is what is happening, but it's easy to see how it could be implied. It's silly to suggest we have to coddle the devs to get them to comment or fix things, we are all adults here, and players pointing out perceived problems with the game and DISCUSSING them is an important part to building a successful game. I was a dev myself, and it's just my opinion that the "woe is me" dev attitude doesn't help anyone. No one is forcing you to do anything, but you have hundreds of people who have played this game, and the job you willingly took is to work on the game. We are beholden to that fact.
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Oh by no means am I saying that's not valuable to consider. I'm just saying that if you're using those particular characters to classify the problems or lack thereof as a whole, well then I disagree. Those guys are the extreme imo. That being said the best argument against the whole thing is the well-played character argument, and could possibly be used as a showstopper in any of these discussions. How many times have people said the paladin issues are overblown because most paladins suck at playing their class? There's really no good way to prove the well-played thing, although I don't dispute the fact that the characters in that parse are some of the more/most well-played. I'll try to dig up some other parses, but tbh outside that extreme end of the game, the well-played argument becomes much more relevant. The lower tier you go, very generally I'd think, the more less-well-played you'll get examples of (obviously nowhere near across the board). So how do you prove the issues if these types of factors, at least to a degree, invalidate a straight up parse outside an entire group of assumed well-played characters?
Well, it's hard to argue against this without knowing how many devs-in-waiting there are in reserve. I've always kind of assumed the devs we have are at least most of the only ones willing to do the job. Maybe I'm way off in that assumption.
I understand the rest that you're saying, but I'm not really saying they need to be coddled as much as just not be abused. Pointing out problems and discussing is one thing, and I'm sure there isn't hardly a single person dev, gm, or otherwise that would argue that this is a bad thing. The problem lies in the way things are brought up, and the general maturity level that some bring. You cannot tell me that some of these posts wouldn't (or haven't?) at least annoyed you, if not straight up pissed you off, no matter how valid a point a person was trying to make. There's a big difference in saying something like "Could you grab me a beer while you're in there please?" vs. "Get me a fucking beer, and hurry the fuck up worthless fatty." All I'm saying is no matter the level of frustration, there's no reason to stop acting like adults.
Tarutao
Staff Emeritus
At this point, I'm really only able to comment on this as a player and not as a staff member. That said, it's worthwhile to point out the tier range included in any of these discussions.
If you want to talk Tier 13, then including Solosolki, Lleoc, Zurkka, Eisley et al (and probably even Tarutao) is effectively required. The number of players that are applicable for such a discussion is small enough that they aren't able to be excluded. Furthermore, any melee versus caster dps arguments for Tier 13 must consider the "oh, there aren't any resists on this mob" issue with certain fights that currently exist in this tier. That itself is a partial issue whose remedy's consequences with regards to fight difficulty could most likely be corrected through proportionally appropriate HP reductions on the fights in question.
If you want to talk anything in the Tier 0-11 range, then that's hasn't been made clear and is a separate discussion altogether, but saying that melees are inferior to casters throughout the full range of the raid game seems a bit much, and that's what it appears is being said.
*goes back to the Tiers 9 through 11 thread*
Dinadass
Dalayan Pious Diety
At least for monks, the DPS combo and overcap H2H makes low and mid tier monks higher dps than they should be, but then our dps gets equalled and surpassed by the other classes at tier 9ish and by 12-13 it's a very substantial gap. This has been posted and discussed in numerous threads, OOC conversations, and IRC for the past 3+ months. At this point trying to do anything before the combo system revamp and (hopefully) completion and rebalancing of bane damage seems like a waste.
I don't know how rogues fare in the lower and middle tiers, but it seems like they're in a similar situation as monks at the upper tiers.
I don't know how rogues fare in the lower and middle tiers, but it seems like they're in a similar situation as monks at the upper tiers.
As a maxed out rogue, this. Mob moves you miss your chance to backstab 2-3 times, your not meleeing, and now your doing the dps of a T9 caster, then there is the whole not being able to crit on some 6man mobs, i went to rohk with a enchanter the other day and even with him keeping unmaking up (25-30% of the time he got the mez both times we tried) i was still only pulling 700dps, when i used to do this fight with exodus i was actually worth bringing to this fight id do around 1200-1300, I haven't tried curator yet but i'd imagine without bango it would be impossible to do with me in the group unless you brought Solo,Nwaij,Sint,ect,ect,ect you get my point. This all stems from bane damage and the lack of the useful ones on any T12+ gear a melee would actually use. The bane damage did alot to help on the mobs that you had to move around alot on, it would actually balance out the HUGE gap and casters still won the dps race on moving mobs because duh they are ranged DPS, but the gap between a T13 Rog and a T13 Wiz on a T13 fight with movement shouldn't be 600+ dps it should maybe be more around 200-300, and on a fight where there is little to no movement a rogue should be out parsing a wiz by 200-300 dps. Maybe i'm wrong and this isn't the view on this subject but as far as i am concerned a rogue and a wizard only fill one role in a raid/6man group and thats to DPS and when the gap between the only 2 classes thats role is to ONLY dps is so huge there is certainly something broken.
Is the idea going to be add resists to these fights to nerf caster dps, leave melee's alone and tone down the encounters overall total HP to bring it all in line? Because some of these fights would already be pretty much impossible for anyone trying to progress past T12ish without farming out 50 tomes and supremes on all of your raiders, and it was my impression that was trying to be avoided.
TL;DR I'm a top tier rogue and i would like to be useful again, please help!
OK, I had this discussion a bit in OOC the other night, and after checking with Wold to make sure I wasn't talking out of turn, I can comment on a few things.
First off, and perhaps most importantly, please realize melee DPS is NOT being ignored. Yes, we have not talked a lot about it publicly. I can tell you, however, that internally it is a hot topic, and has been for quite some time.
Then why is nothing apparently being done? Why are the newbie quests getting supposed priority?
I alluded to this in OOC - the changes are NOT as straightforward as you might think. As I work through damage calculation conversion right now, I am struck by just how complex it really is. To add to this, it's important to consider there are longer-term things on the horizon...most notably the style system.
With 3.0, we will be getting more flexibility in what we can offer, and while we haven't talked much about this, it's definitely going to be a big win for melee folks I think. But, we have a problem insofar as any changes we make NOW need to take that into consideration. Otherwise we end up with the following:
- Make a significant upgrade to, say, monks today. Monks get a nice surge in base DPS, maybe other classes to a lesser extent.
- 3.0 comes out, new styles start to hit, and we need to ratchet back base DPS to focus on providing maybe something situational or switchable (don't quote me on this, it's all theory with absolutely nothing coded for it), or now monk DPS way outpaces rogues or some such
- Monks (in our example) now see a nerf, and the balancing game has to start all over again, with some classes now out of whack, and monks in particular feeling shafted. Gear decisions and other factors may now be, in retrospect, problematic, and everyone gets annoyed.
I use monks here specifically because I know they are getting serious thought. Balancing is a very tricky art. I'm always impressed with the discussions I see back and forth about it, and what's being thought about.
So what happens for now? It's still being discussed. There were some really good ideas mentioned, maybe some will be incorporated, I'm not sure. What I do know is that the input is very appreciated, even if we don't necessarily agree. Please don't take silence as ignoring everyone - the folks who work on balance and such have tons on their plate. I volunteered to post because I like doing it and I have a few spare cycles, but the notion that the dev/admin team "doesn't care" or is ignoring player input, I can categorically dismiss as not true. We just maybe need to provide a bit more feedback in this area, which I hope this has.
So, in short, melee DPS is indeed being looked at (with monks getting some specific attention), but there's nothing specific to share yet. Balance is always at the center of all this, and the transient state of 2.0 to 3.0 doesn't help in terms of being able to offer up immediate solutions, though we will do so where we are able. Please keep the (respectful) feedback coming, and we'll do what we can to at least acknowledge things when appropriate.
As a postscript to answer the newbie quests question, which has come up a lot: those quests were reasonably easy to implement, didn't need a whole lot of consideration in terms of balance, helps make life easier for new players (which everybody likes), and provides a nice mini-project. Things like that really don't impact the bigger issues - they just aren't large enough.
First off, and perhaps most importantly, please realize melee DPS is NOT being ignored. Yes, we have not talked a lot about it publicly. I can tell you, however, that internally it is a hot topic, and has been for quite some time.
Then why is nothing apparently being done? Why are the newbie quests getting supposed priority?
I alluded to this in OOC - the changes are NOT as straightforward as you might think. As I work through damage calculation conversion right now, I am struck by just how complex it really is. To add to this, it's important to consider there are longer-term things on the horizon...most notably the style system.
With 3.0, we will be getting more flexibility in what we can offer, and while we haven't talked much about this, it's definitely going to be a big win for melee folks I think. But, we have a problem insofar as any changes we make NOW need to take that into consideration. Otherwise we end up with the following:
- Make a significant upgrade to, say, monks today. Monks get a nice surge in base DPS, maybe other classes to a lesser extent.
- 3.0 comes out, new styles start to hit, and we need to ratchet back base DPS to focus on providing maybe something situational or switchable (don't quote me on this, it's all theory with absolutely nothing coded for it), or now monk DPS way outpaces rogues or some such
- Monks (in our example) now see a nerf, and the balancing game has to start all over again, with some classes now out of whack, and monks in particular feeling shafted. Gear decisions and other factors may now be, in retrospect, problematic, and everyone gets annoyed.
I use monks here specifically because I know they are getting serious thought. Balancing is a very tricky art. I'm always impressed with the discussions I see back and forth about it, and what's being thought about.
So what happens for now? It's still being discussed. There were some really good ideas mentioned, maybe some will be incorporated, I'm not sure. What I do know is that the input is very appreciated, even if we don't necessarily agree. Please don't take silence as ignoring everyone - the folks who work on balance and such have tons on their plate. I volunteered to post because I like doing it and I have a few spare cycles, but the notion that the dev/admin team "doesn't care" or is ignoring player input, I can categorically dismiss as not true. We just maybe need to provide a bit more feedback in this area, which I hope this has.
So, in short, melee DPS is indeed being looked at (with monks getting some specific attention), but there's nothing specific to share yet. Balance is always at the center of all this, and the transient state of 2.0 to 3.0 doesn't help in terms of being able to offer up immediate solutions, though we will do so where we are able. Please keep the (respectful) feedback coming, and we'll do what we can to at least acknowledge things when appropriate.
As a postscript to answer the newbie quests question, which has come up a lot: those quests were reasonably easy to implement, didn't need a whole lot of consideration in terms of balance, helps make life easier for new players (which everybody likes), and provides a nice mini-project. Things like that really don't impact the bigger issues - they just aren't large enough.
Dinadass
Dalayan Pious Diety
Thank you for posting.
3.0 is, in an absolute best case scenario, several months away. Once 3.0 is done there is still the task of actually deciding what to do with the new combat options, coding, balancing, etc. I sincerely hope you guys decide to throw melees some love, even temporarily, in the mean time. Leaving classes broken because buffing them would lead to nerfs down the road isn't a very good situation to be in.
Implementing something temporarily, and then introducing the new combat system whenever it's ready while at the same time reverting the fix (if necessary) seems to be the most balanced option.
3.0 is, in an absolute best case scenario, several months away. Once 3.0 is done there is still the task of actually deciding what to do with the new combat options, coding, balancing, etc. I sincerely hope you guys decide to throw melees some love, even temporarily, in the mean time. Leaving classes broken because buffing them would lead to nerfs down the road isn't a very good situation to be in.
Implementing something temporarily, and then introducing the new combat system whenever it's ready while at the same time reverting the fix (if necessary) seems to be the most balanced option.
JesusPrice
Dalayan Adventurer
In 3.0......
Will SK pet be worth using? Green Con pet is sad.
If not, let me dual wield Scythe!!!
Pewaa!!!
Will SK pet be worth using? Green Con pet is sad.
If not, let me dual wield Scythe!!!
Pewaa!!!
Anything like that would be considered as part of post 3.0 re-balancing I'm sure.
I envision it like this:
- 3.0 released, looks very similar to 2.0 except some small things. The goal is new client and fixes. I personally will be happy if I never see a raid bug or LD zoning again.
- New features of 3.0 are prioritized for a 3.1
- Balance around those new features is determined - styles, pets, AAs, things like that would need to be considered
- Some testing and back-and-forth to try and work out optimal balance over all tiers
- 3.1 released with updated things
We haven't discussed it yet, but I'd think it would go something like that.
I envision it like this:
- 3.0 released, looks very similar to 2.0 except some small things. The goal is new client and fixes. I personally will be happy if I never see a raid bug or LD zoning again.
- New features of 3.0 are prioritized for a 3.1
- Balance around those new features is determined - styles, pets, AAs, things like that would need to be considered
- Some testing and back-and-forth to try and work out optimal balance over all tiers
- 3.1 released with updated things
We haven't discussed it yet, but I'd think it would go something like that.