new balance changes discussion

[ruisen2000]

Overall, love the new skill buffs overall. Feels great to have cursed thunder/fire not doing 200 damage.

- DoT from cursed fire and venom strike at rank 3 feel a bit negligible (seems to be around 60 damage/sec from eyeballing it)

- Blood Fire feels a bit too powerful at 50% increase compared to other skills. Its very easy to maintain max charge, very quick to get to max charge (3 enemies in tormenta). Especially compared to venom strike at the lower end which gives you about 1% extra damage output overall, a nearly permanent 50% seems a bit strong.

- Broadsword AoE nerf: Can't remember what the old numbers are, but the nerf didn't seem to have been applied? Spin cut/reverse spin cut still do the same damage per enemy as cleave/flourish.

- The fixed Dutchman Wrath Rank 2 and Rank 3 seem to give the same damage bonus as far as i can tell

- Siege got nerfed by 50%, ouch. Although the damage is much more in line with Blunderbuss now, so that seems pretty fair. Both still do twice as much more damage than Flaming Skull/Wither on staff, so would be nice to see a staff buff.

 

[Truecrash]

Hey there! Just dropping by to help explain a few things.

Overall, love the new skill buffs overall. Feels great to have cursed thunder/fire not doing 200 damage.

- DoT from cursed fire and venom strike at rank 3 feel a bit negligible (seems to be around 60 damage/sec from eyeballing it)

So, this is actually really hard to manage. The damage for DoTs are shared by both enemies and players, which means we can't really tweak these to be higher without impacting other areas of the game. The compromise was making each rank increase the duration of the DoT, rather than the damage per tick. That being said, Venom Strike at rank 3 does about ~1,000 damage in total, so it's definitely nothing to laugh at in an extended fight.

We'll be looking into a fix for this in the future, though.

- Blood Fire feels a bit too powerful at 50% increase compared to other skills. Its very easy to maintain max charge, very quick to get to max charge (3 enemies in tormenta). Especially compared to venom strike at the lower end which gives you about 1% extra damage output overall, a nearly permanent 50% seems a bit strong.

We'll definitely be looking more at Bloodfire soon!

- Broadsword AoE nerf: Can't remember what the old numbers are, but the nerf didn't seem to have been applied? Spin cut/reverse spin cut still do the same damage per enemy as cleave/flourish.

- The fixed Dutchman Wrath Rank 2 and Rank 3 seem to give the same damage bonus as far as i can tell

Hmm... that's weird. I'll check these out as soon as I can, thanks for letting us know!

- Siege got nerfed by 50%, ouch. Although the damage is much more in line with Blunderbuss now, so that seems pretty fair. Both still do twice as much more damage than Flaming Skull/Wither on staff, so would be nice to see a staff buff.

Staff was actually buffed! Every skill was buffed up to be on par with flaming skull in terms of desirability. Desolation as it is can clear out most non-boss enemies in the game in one hit at rank 5, so I'd consider checking that out when you get a chance. Even blast has its uses now, as a finishing move!

Thanks for the feedback, it helps us a lot to see discussions about the current game balance. Hope you're enjoying the update!

 

[FranciscoHernandez]

Siege Charge only does about 2.4k damage MAX, Blunderbuss still does 8.7k. Grenade is worthless now.

 

[ruisen2000]

Siege Charge only does about 2.4k damage MAX, Blunderbuss still does 8.7k. Grenade is worthless now.

Blunderbuss takes about 2 seconds for take aim and 5 to reload, where siege charge just takes about 2 seconds for he animation and reload (you get full damage from long volley even if you charge it by only a millasecond - not sure if that's a bug). So the average DPS ends up being comparable.

@Truecrash thanks for the reply!
Flaming skull is still a fairly low benchmark compared to the current siege/Blunderbuss, imo. It takes around ~5s to charge to do roughly the same damage as siege, but with siege you can be churning out a grenade every ~2 seconds, though this would be a different story if long volley was changed. (This is with Flaming Skull +8 and Siege +5/Long Volley +7). But I digress, staff is much nicer now and isn't terrible like it used to be.

 

[Roger-Daniel]

nade nerf would seem a lot more fair if they only decreased the damage nades deal to enemies. Increasing the amount of damage nades do to the player seems overkill

 

[Misha]

nade nerf would seem a lot more fair if they only decreased the damage nades deal to enemies. Increasing the amount of damage nades do to the player seems overkill

There was no intention to increase self-damage with the exception of Maelstrom Charges. This will be looked at.

Siege Charge only does about 2.4k damage MAX, Blunderbuss still does 8.7k. Grenade is worthless now.

'Worthless' is a strong word for comparing a weapon that's meant to hit one target versus one that hits a huge area. Granted, it's being worked on still, but that's not a fair comparison to either weapon.

EDIT

Let me make sure to specify that these are not 100% permanent. The grenade changes are STILL being worked on. They will most likely not remain as they are in the future.

 

[Roger-Daniel]

There was no intention to increase self-damage with the exception of Maelstrom Charges. This will be looked at.

thats good because i don't remember sieges doing this much damage. It was the same way on the test server weeks and weeks ago but I just assumed that was part of the nade nerf.

https://gyazo.com/8b808ae7f9c8fc30f0ca31fef6f7fff7

EDIT: Also, is maelstrom dealing the correct amount of damage to begin with?

 

[Truecrash]

thats good because i don't remember sieges doing this much damage. It was the same way on the test server weeks and weeks ago but I just assumed that was part of the nade nerf.

https://gyazo.com/8b808ae7f9c8fc30f0ca31fef6f7fff7

EDIT: Also, is maelstrom dealing the correct amount of damage to begin with?

That definitely seems like a bug, did you hit multiple enemies there, maybe one was off-screen? I'll add it to my list of bugs to check this weekend for sure, though.

In regards to Grenades, perhaps a way to tweak them further without lowering the damage would be changing the charge time of Long Volley, but I'd definitely like some feedback over the next few weeks before implementing more changes to them, or to Blunderbuss and Staff.

 

[Saltbeard]

There was no intention to increase self-damage with the exception of Maelstrom Charges. This will be looked at.



'Worthless' is a strong word for comparing a weapon that's meant to hit one target versus one that hits a huge area. Granted, it's being worked on still, but that's not a fair comparison to either weapon.

EDIT

Let me make sure to specify that these are not 100% permanent. The grenade changes are STILL being worked on. They will most likely not remain as they are in the future.

Blunder could be used on more enemies too except it's bugged so we only get rep and loot from one.

 

[Saltbeard]

That definitely seems like a bug, did you hit multiple enemies there, maybe one was off-screen? I'll add it to my list of bugs to check this weekend for sure, though.

In regards to Grenades, perhaps a way to tweak them further without lowering the damage would be changing the charge time of Long Volley, but I'd definitely like some feedback over the next few weeks before implementing more changes to them, or to Blunderbuss and Staff.

I don't understand why even bother, why make something less fun? Maybe it's a bit OP but this is not a competitive game and like, everyone has acces to it.

 

[Truecrash]

I don't understand why even bother, why make something less fun? Maybe it's a bit OP but this is not a competitive game and like, everyone has acces to it.

The same logic could also be applied to single player games. It's just someone playing alone, so why tweak balance?

The simplest answer is because if you don't, things will get stale and repetitive, and people will lose interest in your game. People naturally crave new things, and as game developers it's our job to give them those new things -- balance is just one small part of the larger picture.

As far as not being a competitive game, I disagree. PvP and SvS is definitely competitive, and I've even seen looting have a competitive atmosphere at times. It's also not about making something 'less fun', but rather about giving you more options by making something not magnitudes better than every other option. We don't want gameplay to punish people for playing how they want, rather than using what's currently broken -- instead, we want you to feel that you're being rewarded for using the weapons you love, especially when playing with others in group content.

As a side note, the team is really passionate about what we do, and a few of our members have a passion for game balance -- myself included -- so please trust us when we say we aren't trying to ruin the game or anything. We're thinking carefully about the long-term health of the game and its content, and have a pretty clear roadmap of where we want to take the game's weapons and skills, but we're also making sure to go slowly so we can get everyone's opinions over time once they've adjusted to the changes.

 

[Saltbeard]

The same logic could also be applied to single player games. It's just someone playing alone, so why tweak balance?

The simplest answer is because if you don't, things will get stale and repetitive, and people will lose interest in your game. People naturally crave new things, and as game developers it's our job to give them those new things -- balance is just one small part of the larger picture.

As far as not being a competitive game, I disagree. PvP and SvS is definitely competitive, and I've even seen looting have a competitive atmosphere at times. It's also not about making something 'less fun', but rather about giving you more options by making something not magnitudes better than every other option. We don't want gameplay to punish people for playing how they want, rather than using what's currently broken -- instead, we want you to feel that you're being rewarded for using the weapons you love, especially when playing with others in group content.

As a side note, the team is really passionate about what we do, and a few of our members have a passion for game balance -- myself included -- so please trust us when we say we aren't trying to ruin the game or anything. We're thinking carefully about the long-term health of the game and its content, and have a pretty clear roadmap of where we want to take the game's weapons and skills, but we're also making sure to go slowly so we can get everyone's opinions over time once they've adjusted to the changes.

Well, thank you for you answer except I didn't say we should have weapons one shot anything? Single player games don't get much weapon changes, it's mostly done before the game even releases.

I also didn't mention PvP and SvS because I consider them irelevant, how active is that scene? I find the gameplay of the game makes for lackluster PvP game modes especially when people can have better everything than others.

And well, was grenade better than other options ?Maybe.
Does that mean I always used it? No.
Does that mean I saw others always using it? No. I really don't think it was that much of a problem.

Also, I want to say that some probably don't feel as rewarded when using the grenade now.

 

[Roger-Daniel]

That definitely seems like a bug, did you hit multiple enemies there, maybe one was off-screen? I'll add it to my list of bugs to check this weekend for sure, though.

In regards to Grenades, perhaps a way to tweak them further without lowering the damage would be changing the charge time of Long Volley, but I'd definitely like some feedback over the next few weeks before implementing more changes to them, or to Blunderbuss and Staff.

nah, it simply just does that, no matter how many enemies you hit. example However, if you are referring to the maelstrom thing, there weren't any other enemies around (which shouldn't matter because it will still deal 1650 regardless if u hit 1 enemy or 4) and I didn't hit myself.
Here's an example of what siege was on live prior to the nade nerf. self inflicted damage using nades seems to have nearly doubled.
This bug also may be the cause for why Maelstrom will instantaneously kill you if you are caught in it's radius, no matter how much hp you are at. example (4100 due to the damage of the attack combined with the bug, plus 1650 from attacking an enemy/myself)

I would think that if any change was made to accompany the nade nerf regarding self damage (i know the current change was unintentional), it would be a decrease in the amount of damage you take from your own nades. Not only because the nades deal less damage so it would be logical that way, but also the fact that it takes more nades to kill enemies, which allows them to get closer to you, and you'll be required to throw more nades which may result in you getting caught in the explosion radius.

 

[Truecrash]

Well, thank you for you answer except I didn't say we should have weapons one shot anything? Single player games don't get much weapon changes, it's mostly done before the game even releases.

I also didn't mention PvP and SvS because I consider them irelevant, how active is that scene? I find the gameplay of the game makes for lackluster PvP game modes especially when people can have better everything than others.

Well, it's a good thing I didn't say anything about having weapons one shot anything either then.

As far as single player games not getting balance updates post-release, that's definitely not true. You could look at games like Slay the Spire, XCOM, Faster Than Light -- even more relaxing games like Stardew Valley get balance changes! Game balance is a common thing in every game, especially in MMOs like TLOPO.

You mentioned the game as a whole, so I thought it relevant to mention the active parts. PvP and SvS are actually really active, they make up a good portion of our player-base. You may not personally enjoy them, but plenty do -- some enjoy it enough to even host tournaments that have cash prizes! (Which, speaking personally here, I think is really neat to see in games. I'm a huge fan of tournaments of all kinds, and seeing them here is great.)

nah, it simply just does that, no matter how many enemies you hit. example However, if you are referring to the maelstrom thing, there weren't any other enemies around (which shouldn't matter because it will still deal 1650 regardless if u hit 1 enemy or 4) and I didn't hit myself.
Here's an example of what siege was on live prior to the nade nerf. self inflicted damage using nades seems to have nearly doubled.
This bug also may be the cause for why Maelstrom will instantaneously kill you if you are caught in it's radius, no matter how much hp you are at. example (4100 due to the damage of the attack combined with the bug, plus 1650 from attacking an enemy/myself)

I would think that if any change was made to accompany the nade nerf regarding self damage (i know the current change was unintentional), it would be a decrease in the amount of damage you take from your own nades. Not only because the nades deal less damage so it would be logical that way, but also the fact that it takes more nades to kill enemies, which allows them to get closer to you, and you'll be required to throw more nades which may result in you getting caught in the explosion radius.

Gotcha, guess that rules out my theory then. This definitely looks like either a bug or unintended behavior, I'll have to examine it in-depth this weekend. Guess I'll be making extra coffee!

As far as reduced self damage, I agree, I'm really unhappy with how high it is right now and will definitely be looking into lowering it. Thanks for reporting this!

 

[Saltbeard]

Well, it's a good thing I didn't say anything about having weapons one shot anything either then.

As far as single player games not getting balance updates post-release, that's definitely not true. You could look at games like Slay the Spire, XCOM, Faster Than Light -- even more relaxing games like Stardew Valley get balance changes! Game balance is a common thing in every game, especially MMOs like TLOPO.

You mentioned the game as a whole, so I thought it relevant to mention the active parts. PvP and SvS are actually really active, they make up a good portion of our player-base. You may not personally enjoy them, but plenty do -- some enjoy it enough to even host tournaments that have cash prizes! (Which, speaking personally here, I think is really neat to see in games. I'm a huge fan of tournaments of all kinds, and seeing them here is great.)



Gotcha, guess that rules out my theory then. This definitely looks like either a bug or unintended behavior, I'll have to examine it in-depth this weekend. Guess I'll be making extra coffee!

As far as reduced self damage, I agree, I'm really unhappy with how high it is right now and will definitely be looking into lowering it. Thanks for reporting this!

Well, from how you said things I basically understood that I meant we don't need any kind of balance. That would mean weapons one shotting anything, I didn't mean something that bad.

And I know game balance is common, I might have been wrong in some parts but I clearly forgot RPG games(lots of those with broken skills and where you can get to the point you one shot most enemies tho) exist so I apologize. How does Stardew Valley receive balancing though?

But in those games you mentioned people complain if a skill sucks and not so much when a skill is OP, mostly when they are really really broken. Show me one person who said nades are too powerful and should be nerfed and I might agree.

 

[Truecrash]

Well, from how you said things I basically understood that I meant we don't need any kind of balance. That would mean weapons one shotting anything, I didn't mean something that bad.

And I know game balance is common, I might have been wrong in some parts but I clearly forgot RPG games(lots of those with broken skills and where you can get to the point you one shot most enemies tho) exist so I apologize. How does Stardew Valley receive balancing though?

But in those games you mentioned people complain if a skill sucks and not so much when a skill is OP, mostly when they are really really broken. Show me one person who said nades are too powerful and should be nerfed and I might agree.

No reason to apologize! It's all good.

Stardew Valley receives tweaks in the form of drop rate changes, combat damage changes, mini-game difficulty adjustment, and so on, based on player feedback. You can see a small example here.

Multiple members of the staff team and players we've spoken to about general game balance commented on how strong grenades were and that they should be dialed back. For what it's worth, I'm a player too and was not fond of how strong Grenades felt, staff don't just magically get booted out of player status just because we work on the game .

Hopefully there's a bit more insight as to why the changes were implemented now. We'll be keeping a close eye on any player feedback about the changes, so anyone is free to comment suggestions so we can get a better idea of where to go from here.

 

[Saltbeard]

No reason to apologize! It's all good.

Stardew Valley receives tweaks in the form of drop rate changes, combat damage changes, mini-game difficulty adjustment, and so on, based on player feedback. You can see a small example here.

Multiple members of the staff team and players we've spoken to about general game balance commented on how strong grenades were and that they should be dialed back. For what it's worth, I'm a player too and was not fond of how strong Grenades felt, staff don't just magically get booted out of player status just because we work on the game .

Hopefully there's a bit more insight as to why the changes were implemented now. We'll be keeping a close eye on any player feedback about the changes, so anyone is free to comment suggestions so we can get a better idea of where to go from here.

Didn't even know that game has combat. Most of those don't refer to combat in itself, different kind of balance I guess.

Well, I would like to see these discussions. But I think they're with the testers, right?
I agree about staff, didn't say they're not players anymore but they're the minority here, with more "power" but that's another story. At the same time you can't always listen to what the majority says...you guys know better.

And well, take it with a grain of salt but let's see, that guy said that grenades do max 2,8k damage now, I can literally dish out that damage with my pistol in 3 shots if I have the right ammo, you could say the grenade is an AOE weapon but then the blunderbuss exists,that only has 1 shot.. but still, I think it's kinda weird.

There is also the fact I could use the grenades on a single enemy, but why bother now if it's easier to use my pistol.
All in all I could be wrong with how damage scales with other skills and I'm just dumb

 

[Boots/Darkness]

thats good because i don't remember sieges doing this much damage. It was the same way on the test server weeks and weeks ago but I just assumed that was part of the nade nerf.

https://gyazo.com/8b808ae7f9c8fc30f0ca31fef6f7fff7

EDIT: Also, is maelstrom dealing the correct amount of damage to begin with?

To go off this I threw 2 siege (Breath of Hallowed Woods) and it nearly killed me with the second one as well. I did some testing to see how far back I had to stand not to get hit by the grenade because it seems the explosion area has been increased as well.. Pretty much gotta be half way up the ramp and throwing it at the direct middle of the enemies or your grenade will most likely kill you before it kills the enemies or all at the same time..

 

[Misha]

Didn't even know that game has combat. Most of those don't refer to combat in itself, different kind of balance I guess.

Well, I would like to see these discussions. But I think they're with the testers, right?
I agree about staff, didn't say they're not players anymore but they're the minority here, with more "power" but that's another story. At the same time you can't always listen to what the majority says...you guys know better.

And well, take it with a grain of salt but let's see, that guy said that grenades do max 2,8k damage now, I can literally dish out that damage with my pistol in 3 shots if I have the right ammo, you could say the grenade is an AOE weapon but then the blunderbuss exists,that only has 1 shot.. but still, I think it's kinda weird.

There is also the fact I could use the grenades on a single enemy, but why bother now if it's easier to use my pistol.
All in all I could be wrong with how damage scales with other skills and I'm just dumb

As odd as it might seem, the mentality you nailed down in this post was a goal of sorts for those of us who were working on these changes. See, save from boss encounters due to simply having better options (and the fact that they couldn't go through players), Grenades were the go-to weapon of choice for most players who needed to slay enemies in a large group, or spread out among a bigger area. Yeah, staff had its niche in areas like "Bridge" in Isla Tormenta, but the premise of it was that the weapon never had to be switched out for other choices.

I do hasten to reply to your call of the Blunderbuss being an AoE weapon, which in a sort of way it is. However, when we discuss AoE we're talking about a large radius in all directions either from the player or projectile, in which Staves and Grenades are the only two which fill this niche. However, having to make weapon decisions based on what you'll be fighting is precisely a step in the right direction. The entire idea is that all weapons can shine in their own respects. **Please remember that once again, grenades are not done! We are still looking at them to make them more viable overall.

As well,

To go off this I threw 2 siege (Breath of Hallowed Woods) and it nearly killed me with the second one as well. I did some testing to see how far back I had to stand not to get hit by the grenade because it seems the explosion area has been increased as well.. Pretty much gotta be half way up the ramp and throwing it at the direct middle of the enemies or your grenade will most likely kill you before it kills the enemies or all at the same time..

(and @Roger-Daniel as well)

The self-damage increase is indeed a bug. There was no express intentions to buff self-damage on grenades, and wow is that much. As well more in key to @Boots/Darkness' reply, No, grenades did not receive any express radius buffs regarding the projectiles save from the two special ammo types found on the Hollowed Woods grenades. The rest are as they have been since Disney.

 

[FranciscoHernandez]

At this point I think a better question is what did staff mean by adding whole new arsenals in the future with expansions. Dual cutlasses maybe?