Stacking soak and reduction

[ST_DM_Myle]

Yeppers on all that. The question seems to be not if we should, but how we should.

Another point of view...

Damage potential. Some PC'sare able to unleash huge damage. PM's already have a hard time dealing with them - how will the non-PM's survive?

One of the best builds I have seen was a Pal/Cl/WM who wa part of the Hunters... I know for a fact that this build mows over those Dwarven Defender PM builds that are built round immunities and DR..... and has very little trouble and no need for an amber. In fact, the only builds that consistantly beat this guy was mages who spammed TS/Horrid/IGMS.


If we drop immunities to 25% max, are we really balancing things or just shuffling the deck?

We are coming up with several good ideas.... but lets be sure if we as a community purpose something, that we address the entire issue.

What is our goal... are we willing to accept that "x" build will reign elite.... why?

Is it even possible to level the playing field?..... should we?


Myle

[Roland Deschain]

Yeppers on all that. The question seems to be not if we should, but how we should.

Another point of view...

Damage potential. Some PC'sare able to unleash huge damage. PM's already have a hard time dealing with them - how will the non-PM's survive?

One of the best builds I have seen was a Pal/Cl/WM who wa part of the Hunters... I know for a fact that this build mows over those Dwarven Defender PM builds that are built round immunities and DR..... and has very little trouble and no need for an amber. In fact, the only builds that consistantly beat this guy was mages who spammed TS/Horrid/IGMS.


If we drop immunities to 25% max, are we really balancing things or just shuffling the deck?

We are coming up with several good ideas.... but lets be sure if we as a community purpose something, that we address the entire issue.

What is our goal... are we willing to accept that "x" build will reign elite.... why?

Is it even possible to level the playing field?..... should we?


Myle

Well one of my biggest concerns is that immunities don't get nerfed too badly.

I think that a little bit of immunity is alright, I do not want to see 100% immunities walking around.

Alright the most immunities that can be gotten with perfectly forged gear.
Pierce: 65%
Bludge:65%
Slash:85% bsk hood, armor, Ring x2, Ammy, belt,
That is with armor and 8 forged items with the same immunity.

Now the slashing immunity is rather easy to get. But the others are Very hard to get unless you are the luckiest person to grace the server.

So 100% can not be reached just by forging Items. You would have to have drop items that have more than 5% on them.

So I believe the question now is, what is a reasonable number for immunites? I think somewhere in the 25-35% range is not unreasonable.
And if it stays the way it is now. It wont bother me either. There are ways around high damage immunities

[ST_DM_Myle]

Well... would adding a 1:1 ratio of immunity:vulnerability suffice?

This would allow the immunities and everything to stay the same - just make it so a dynamic adjustment of items will take place to insure that a Physical Immunity is offset by a Physical Vulnerability and an Elemental Immunity is offset by an Elemental Vulnerability.

While people would still be able to amass significant immunity, they would be subject to the vulnerabilities. This would mean that a foe would just need to try a bit of trial and error to figure out the weakness and tactics would become even more important.

In fact, under this system, we might end up with people who forge and reforge seeking to get 'sets' that have specific weaknesses.

As in...
If I am facing a morning star... I want to maximize Pierce and Blugeon immunity and sack all my vulnerability to slashing.

This will make forging 'perfect sets' even more difficult and will probibly give rise to more players learning to specialize in more than a single weapon type.

Myle

[Caesius]

So Myle are you proposing modifying drops like the Blackstone Hood to have penalties to balance out the benefits?

For example the properties you might read on a Blackstone Hood in this case could be:

Damage Immunity: Slashing 25%
Damage Vulnerability: Bludgeoning 10%
Damage Vulnerability: Piercing 10%

Such an item would make it much more specialized against slashing weapons and people would more often than not think twice about the tradeoffs. If we were to see changes like this made to drops I think it would also be cool to see variants of this hood that give bonuses to the other two physical damage types with the appropriate penalties applied.

[Roland Deschain]

Well... would adding a 1:1 ratio of immunity:vulnerability suffice?

This would allow the immunities and everything to stay the same - just make it so a dynamic adjustment of items will take place to insure that a Physical Immunity is offset by a Physical Vulnerability and an Elemental Immunity is offset by an Elemental Vulnerability.

While people would still be able to amass significant immunity, they would be subject to the vulnerabilities. This would mean that a foe would just need to try a bit of trial and error to figure out the weakness and tactics would become even more important.

In fact, under this system, we might end up with people who forge and reforge seeking to get 'sets' that have specific weaknesses.

As in...
If I am facing a morning star... I want to maximize Pierce and Bludgeon immunity and sack all my vulnerability to slashing.

This will make forging 'perfect sets' even more difficult and will probibly give rise to more players learning to specialize in more than a single weapon type.

Myle

What about those of us who already have Forged gear?

Also, it Takes ALOT of forge stones to get a high amount of immunity. It has taken me easily 30 forge stones to get what I have. (gear for one character) If we add more variables into the *Blank* Forge stone that adds Immunity, then it is going to be too hard to effectively forge Immunity gear.

[ST_DM_Myle]

So Myle are you proposing modifying drops like the Blackstone Hood to have penalties to balance out the benefits?

For example the properties you might read on a Blackstone Hood in this case could be:

Damage Immunity: Slashing 25%
Damage Vulnerability: Bludgeoning 10%
Damage Vulnerability: Piercing 10%

Such an item would make it much more specialized against slashing weapons and people would more often than not think twice about the tradeoffs. If we were to see changes like this made to drops I think it would also be cool to see variants of this hood that give bonuses to the other two physical damage types with the appropriate penalties applied.

Yes and no... only 1 opposition trait, not two.

So a Hood would have 25% vulnerability added of either Bludgeon or Pierce .... if we go with the 1:1 scenerio.




As for those who already have forged gear.... a script could add a random vulnerable trait equal to a current immunity.

Personally, if we went with something like this - I'd rather see some way that would allow people to bring their items that have already been crafted and select the vulnerability they want for a few weeks... then add a retro-auto assign script later as part of the item check processes.


Now, I realise this would complicate things.. not to mention create work for Driller... but... just addressing the immunity percentages does not address the issue of how much damage is delivered... effectivily making high damage characters vastly more powerful - while reducing others (especially 'average' character or non-PM's) ability to defend against them.

Rather than try to balance one type of defence and then have the pendulum swing the other way, adding a weakness to what is currently a strength, may be able to offset things and provide a beter balance.

Myle

[tropiofCancer]

In the case of adding vulnerabilities to existing gear I fail to see how it resolves anything really. Why not just cap the maximum amount of Immunity? You may think "Well it will hurt lower damage dealers" but but 25% of a 100 point crit (75-20 from a Greater Belt=55 is substantialy less than 25% of a 60 point crit 45-20=20. So it would actually help someone who doesnt do as much damage , and why dont they do as much damage in the first place? , probably because they have an arsenal of spells , HIPS , soak , or any other trade off .
Its not just PvP either . I got no problem admitting that some days I wake up and powergame for a few and some days I RP and explore . On the days that I powergame or rebuild a char I do what everyone else on the server does , go to ants w/ all my slash gear on as soon as I hit 11th level..all the way to 25th . Yeah theres enough slash gear that if I am surrounded by them I can get up and get a beer or cup of coffee . Who cares if Im 10% vulnerable to pierce and blud when the majority of the monsters do one damage type. That leads us to yet another possibility for improvement , I would think that if I were bitten by say..a giant ant it would not only would break every bone in my body but shred it as it does (Blud and Slash). Yeah we gotta be carefull that we dont end up like Aerelith but w/o change anything becomes stagnant and boring . BSK is a living game world and I think Driller , Luceran , and the DM staff have done an excellent job keeping it that way .
Dont let my comment avout Aerelith mislead you , I have played there and it is an excellent RP server w/ so many tweaks and character nerfs that Its like learning NWN all over again . Its also got a ton of added content and the bugs that go with it .
Long story short I believe the simplest solution is to just cap the amount of immunities . Ockhams Razor and $%#@ . If not we're all gonna be standing in a line outside the state building waiting to get our gear nerfed like were in Soviet Era Russia waiting for a potato.

[Alamore-Threepwood]

My two sense, PvP aint that much out of control, the only thing thats getting out of hand is how crazy high slashing immunity can go, but then again, people with the 100% slashing immunity tend to have no other immunities, so yes they may beat the crap out of a swordsmen, but say, some one hit em with a war hammer, full damage , but I do like the idea of caping immunity, not sure if at 25%, maybe 30% (Dun know if scripting would allow such a thing) not so much to take the "out of control" PvP builds in check, but just to kinda help people start making better balanced out gear.

[Roland Deschain]

agreed, a cap is a better solution than adding vulnerabilities, And it is also the easiest for Driller.

[Thanatos]

Allright people, don't hate on the soaker builders too much. I was drunk when I came up with that particular build lol.

On the subject of the problem at hand...I'm thinking a cap would be the best idea all around. That, or eliminating the % immunity forgies. But having read the suggested solutions, I think a cap would be the easiest and best solution.

So TOC, you don't have to worry 'bout hunting me down. Besides, you know I have no shame when it comes to throwin down with you amigos and lord knows I will use the most underhanded of tactics at my disposal LOL.

[Andrun]

...PvP aint that much out of control...

You want to take on Eldrun again, then? Let me know and I can set a weekend aside for that fight.

Anyways, in all seriousness, I believe seeing an immunity cap of 30-35% (ie- ~one third) would make the most sense. Easiest to implement, least complicated to learn.

And regarding TropicofCancer's post about 25% PR in Nethriss; I haven't tried Nethriss with only 25% piercing resistance and a greater belt, but I have done it with 35% and piercing resistance and a greater belt. At that point, there's 2 things that actually do damage to me... the 10 magic damage from the Umgah Archer and the Greater Ruins and Hellballs from the Umgah Mage (37 Spell Resistance and Negative Energy Protection... immune to Harm, no Ice Storm has slipped through and its rare when I see a Horrid Wilting hit me). Now, granted I can't hit the buggers with my hammer, but Harm/Maxed BBs work easily enough.

...use the most underhanded of tactics at my disposal...

Wonder if Al would think having ~1000hp and casting Heals, Greater Restorations and Mass Heals be 'underhanded'?

[Douglas Thurman]

Hi guys, been a while I know but I had to pipe up and put in my two cents on this one. After reading all of this topic, and thankfully no one has seriously flamed anyone else, I've got to say I missed BSK. Anyhoo...to the topic at hand.

I've played on servers that limit the AC to 65, and resistances on items to 10/-. No Pierce resist, and elemental resist to 5/-. All of this on one server no less. It sucked. But, the RP was good so I dealt with it. You all know we build our characters to fit within each server. If I took my character from the other server and plopped him in BSK he'd get his level 40 butt kicked by the ants within a few seconds.

It has been my experience we build our characers one of three ways:

1. Powerbuilt for fighting the MOBs. These are the characters with uber damage potential and magical ability specifically for dealing with spawns.
2. Powerbuilt for PvP. These are the uber resist, uber damage, sneaky AC maxed characters who can tear through another player's character like a hot knife through butter.
3. Powerbuilt for both. A mix of different items insure that you're ready for anything. These characters can hang in a PvP fight but not always win, yet can also fight slowly through a high level area without dying too often. This is more of an RP build as well.

As for immunities, resitances, and reductions. Without them my characters would not survive most MOBs, and forget PvP. I think that even with items that give such powerful amounts of resistance to damage, there is always someone out there with power to defeat them. Yes, the most common weapon out there on the battlefield is the sword. Fine. Carry a sword. Make sure though that it's a BIG sword. Make sure you're a hulking pretty boy Paladin with Divine Might. Let them have resistances and such. Be the mage with IGMS. You don't see any items with magical. divine, positive resistances. The clerical spells are nice in that most of them do divine or positive damage. It's all in the way you build the character regardless of the items out there.

If Driller were to suddenly decide to take away all magic items and reduce the fighters to plain weapons and armor...we'd adapt. Mages and Clerics would be a stronger force on the server. As it is with the high level of magic, the melee classes have a bit of an edge over the magic using classes. It's a give and take on the administrative side to make sure we all have fun.

If you don't like the imbalance for PvP, then don't PvP. It's a big server. Driller and company have done an impressive job with BSK and I love this topic. We need this kind of constructive debate to make BSK better for everyone.

[ST_DM_Myle]

OKay... seems we have a plan developing... Immunity cap.

The debate is where to start the cap.

Some say 25% others 30% and others 50%...

I'd do something stupid, like start a poll.... but then people with 3, 4, 10, accounts on the forums would spam the vote.

So... How about we just go with the gentlest change of 50% and see how that change effects PvM and PvP. If that change is not enough, we can draw it down more until we find an equilibrium(or however that is spelled).

Does that sound like a fair compromise?

Myle

[Cybermagi]

DING! We have a Winner!

[tropiofCancer]

Cap sounds great with me . As for Mr Thurmans retort though I gotta say , as the owner of a hulking pretty boy paladin myself . You can buy divine resist at Akons sto' . And mages on any server you play on low or high end mages always have the upper hand . Can you imagine the calamity that would insue if you found armor w/ magical 5/ resist that didnt disappear when you put it on! Oh My! Then you couldnt target a single character with a dozen maxed IGMs To me personaly though thats not a problem , they deserve it for having their $%# handed to them on a regular basis during the leveling process. Damn good topic we've all discussed guys . My vote is for the 30% cap .