Arcane Odyssey v1.13 Balancing Changes WIP

[Kitty_Cushion]

@Fluect

Discussed this a little bit. The current idea is that power doesn’t need to affect it especially when combined with the Intensity changes (which I dislike but I can’t single-handedly dictate everything, plus it has its benefits). As the amount of Power people use is rapidly starting to lower, it wouldn’t be incredibly drastic.

Also brought up the topic of DoT scaling again. I think that if absolutely needed you could make DoTs more potent on ult arts. Not sure if its necessary though, especially if DoT magics like Poison are no longer held back by their disgustingly low damage multiplier.

Sorry for replying late as well, I was away.
The discussion on this continued for quite the long time while you were gone.
I made some discoveries and realizations in that time.
The primary problem with DoT’s right now, which is responsible for the change to the formula even being suggested (which affects all classes, not just magic), is very strong magics with very strong DoT’s.
These are:

@Kitty_Cushion

Seriously what the hell is this?
Almost 1.4x total damage.
Second strongest status effect in the game.
Has puddles.
Synergizes with itself and over half the games other status effects and magics
Clears a crap ton of status’ from the user when charging
Large attack size.

Acid (Same story as magma but slightly (-0.05 base damage multiplier) weaker, smaller size, and better magic speed.)
Metal (Total multiplier nearing 1.3x when bleed procs, which is always. Easy fixes would include making its bleed threshold high, nerfing its bleed, or removing its bleed.)
And, to a lesser extent, earth. (Bleed threshold is a lot more fair here)

Next would be that the new formula makes a lot of mechanics/spells entirely irrelevant if you’re using an intensity build or poison magic.

@Kitty_Cushion

I’d have no reason to use my ultimate spell or charge my moves anymore if this goes through, since they won’t increase the damage of my poison anymore. Nor would I have any reason to collect/use any rare spells that deal significantly more damage than basic blast, as, again, they no longer do anything but add a small amount to my already low impact damage.

@Kitty_Cushion

now I can just pick whatever move is the easiest to land and spam that for maximum mileage out of my poison. Bonus points if this move just ends up being beam or self explosion. Ultimates, charging, synergy, damage multipliers, and impact damage are now irrelevant as long as it procs the maximum value.
I think it drives poison too far into the gimmicky side of things for a base magic at that point.

This includes any charged spell, ultimate move, synergy (as they would only affect impact damage), spell stronger than a blast (in an ideal meta the blast is not the standard strong attack, it should be the standard average damage attack), or difficult to land spell.
This means poison is now all about finding the largest, hardest to avoid attack and then spamming it while running away. You don’t need a further game plan or to be fun to play against.
My bleed and plasma synergies being entirely pointless is really disparaging.
Oh and blocking also becomes entirely pointless against intensity builds, as damage of the hit, is, again, irrelevant.

This big ol chunk of text is entirely for mages, I don’t even know how it would affect weapons or strength builds. If it’s already a nerf for pure magic I can’t imagine it being a buff for the other things that use damaging status’.

Oh and as an aside, look into how crystal interacts with ultimate moves. Apparently ultimate moves apply stackable status’ twice per hit, which can make crystal (0.975 damage multi) apply it’s crystal shatter damage bonus multiple times for humongous bonus damage in a massive area.

Going to post this so I can get involved in the current discussion about vit without forgetting.

[Kitty_Cushion]

I think the biggest problem with vitality from a development standpoint is that in the grand scheme of things it just seems to exist for the sake of having more options.
Nothing vitality has been said to be able to do cannot be replicated by already existing stat builds or gear.
Vitality weapons are just forced drawback builds on conjuror.
You can already increase your health with armor.
Vit is better off being canned so long as it remains vitality and isn’t reworked into something else entirely.
Vitality weapons could just be an interesting new category of weapons to play around with, not a whole fourth category of stat builds.
There really isn’t much in terms of further development the stat can get to make it unique without stealing ideas for what would be critical defensive options, and removing it would overall improve the ease of balancing the game.
The only world in which I can see keeping vitality as the best solution is a world where it’s just reworked into something different entirely, like a summoner/occult thing like many people keep suggesting.
Make it all about ghosts, souls, and disjointed attacks that don’t come from the user.
Otherwise what’s the gameplay difference between them and a conjuror with drawback?
Especially if you run paladin…
They have more health but deal less damage? Couldn’t I already do that by investing into high defense armor and accessories?

[pristine]

@Kitty_Cushion

Vitality weapons are just forced drawback builds on conjuror

I think this is an unfair assumption, just from the way Spirit Weapons have been discussed. These aren’t just going to be Weapons that take your HP when you use them. They seem to be functionally distinct from the options Weapons users have, and I hope Vetex does follow through and develops them in a way that provides a unique user experience.

@Kitty_Cushion

There really isn’t much in terms of further development the stat can get to make it unique without stealing ideas for what would be critical defensive options

I don’t really feel as if this is the truth, personally. Vitality is underdeveloped beyond any shadow of a doubt, but I feel like the stat has even more potential than what Spirit Weapons can bring to the table. The claim that Vitality is ‘filler’ isn’t exactly fair, though I guess I can see where you’re coming from. Every stat is based off of a playstyle: Tank, Zoner, Rushdown, and Mix-Up. There are plenty of other fun and unique options that could be added to Vitality builds down the line that reinforce their roles as Tanks in the game, though I don’t expect to see them anytime soon.

I’ve personally always envisioned Vitality builds as the ones ‘leading the charge’, so to speak. I played a lot of WoW when I was younger and the first that comes to my mind when I consider the power fantasy of a class like Paladin in AO is that stalwart warrior who uses their health and unique abilities to force the attention of opponents unto themselves, but are more team-reliant than most other builds due to their lower damage output. I think this can definitely be reached in time: hopefully Spirit Weapons stick the landing and end up being fun and unique, and the Stat only has more room to grow from there.

[Jayns]

Dont they get leap from their magic already?

[Level]

Forgor to reply to this but I think the only reason str skills are 30 higher than magic is vet hasn’t made ultimate art crash yet

[pristine]

warlock does , juggernaut does not have magic , nor does warlord

[pristine]

aint ultimate art crash in the game ? stg it was in that first trailer , I wouldn’t know tho I don’t play berserker at all

[DubiousLittleTyp0]

can’t spell warden without the W

[BFTyrant7803]

Me watching Vitality get gutted further:

(Ok but seriously even though I never planned on touching vitality but seriously… at this point it might as well be removed… or at the very least completely overhauled and rebooted)

[pristine]

Bumping this again for any testers skimming the thread. Would very much appreciate some insight into the thought process of removing HP regen scaling entirely.

[T3qnix]

A passive buff on Vitality that would be cool is if you got HP regen and faster energy regen upon charging your aura. I feel I feel like Vitality should also be reworked and have name changed to Spirit instead, because it probably makes more sense and better defines the class.

[pristine]

Spirit would honestly be a sick name for the stat I won’t lie

[BFTyrant7803]

Honestly that’s a neat feature… but I will say quite powerful so I’m this case the lowered damage… along with spirit weapons harming the use would make more sense

[Inferno]

Major Doc Change List #1:
Big discussions happened and a bunch more changes have happened.

This has been changed to only in combat, as it would be tedious to get max health outside of it. Generally, it seems we want to keep HP high, but have regen play less of a key role in combat. This may change heavily though as more discussions can happen.

Hunger drain from bottles is very frustrating to deal with. Reducing it should make it more bearable to use Sailor Style, as it puts less emphasis on managing hunger.

Removed as it’s not necessary to remove the option anymore.

Additional Explosion damage nerfs to make up for its high strengths.

Aura and Focus will be having a shorter duration to make it feel more of a trade off, then a free stat boost increase. Please understand that it should not be something you pop at the beginning and last the entire fight.

Pulsars size has been changed from -50% → 30% to keep its size still generously big. However, it will have even more startup and a higher cooldown.

This was removed as it was felt that other enchants are relatively equal to strong/defense. Nerfing it would make strong/defense more dominant again.

Secondary stat amulets have gotten a bigger buff to match enchants still. This will give more purpose to them then only picking Power/Defense ones.

Feels too lacking and underwhelming. It’s projectile speed being increased should put it more similar to other options, without being too overpowered.

Increased by 1s (used to be 6s.) Clashing lingering attacks are generally pretty good and we don’t want to over-nerf Tempest.

Honestly, yeah…

These have been removed due to overcomplications. I don’t think vetex is willing to rework many skills, so it’s better to leave it as is.

These changes overall are to make it feel much more interesting to use M1s as they require too much of a skill floor.

Multi Shot rework has been removed… Sorry Perf.

Multi Shot should still remain a situational niche, but excel at it a bit more. Rapid Fire would just have slightly more things to go off of. Piercing Shot after the compensation would still remain similar, but due to it being hitscan, it’s forced to have a smaller AoE.

Removed as this incentivizes passive play

Until we get a better idea of how blocking/parrying should be, these changes are gone.

This just doesn’t require you to imbue for spells to fill heat.

Some experimental ideas have been removed and saved until later down the road.

[Divanochi]

Nice

[ImaLettuce]

@Inferno

Hunger drain from bottles is very frustrating to deal with. Reducing it should make it more bearable to use Sailor Style, as it puts less emphasis on managing hunger.

Sailor isn’t the most unfun, as somebody who uses a scald combo. I’d rather say cannon fist is the least fun to play.

@Inferno

Additional Explosion damage nerfs to make up for its high strengths.

My iron leg/explosion warlock is going to fall off quite a bit after this

SpongeBob Production Music Hawaiian Cocktail

Also, would thermo work better than iron leg or is leg solid enough?

[Borg]

@ImaLettuce

Sailor isn’t the most unfun, as somebody who uses a scald combo.

Scalded only seems to have positive interactions with Ash, Sand, Wood, explosion and Magma, right? So it makes more sense to use Sailor Fist than Thermo fist due to how the synergies work.

Asking because there isn’t much info about Scalded on Trello. Just found more about it on the wiki.

[Crusade]

@Several_people

Fair, but you’re withholding the information that the synergies in question are actually antisynergies.

Most of those will never be a factor unless you’re ganking someone with a buddy that is using a magic that is an antisynergy with it’s status.

Frozen is the stun that requires a combination (most common in warlocks, maybe conjuror with a sunken sword); light and crystal are the most likely because they synergize together to begin with.

As a reminder, this is warrior:

THE weapon class, and if we were to give shadow a +5% synergy with itself, then it becomes:
~1.09x damage, 1.15x size, and 1.15x speed (the bonus of +30% is halved)

[Divanochi]

@Borg

Scalded only seems to have positive interactions

Scalded has the same interactions as fire’s burning

(Seared is scalded’s previous name)

[JustDebel]

Why is the option to change block from the G key to the F key not considered high priority? It’s one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from players trying to get into the game.