Realistic attributes leads to balancing/compromises

[tntdogs]

I have only played a little but been following the development for a while and after seeing some PvP I decided to write this post.
Since everyone seems to be wearing the heaviest plate armor using melee weapons but also being able to do as much damage with a bow as someone who would play a ranged build.

It was mentioned by Henrik last stream that the reason for bows requiring strength is for it to be realistic.
But I think this attitude can lead to limiting the plurality of playstyles and in turn sometimes require compromises or balancing that make the game less realistic.
Sometimes making things more unrealistic in theory (like what attributes is required to use a bow) will make them more realistic in practice, and in turn possibly give better balance or room for making it easier to balance.

I am not saying this is the attitude Mortal Online has but as an example, making everything be based on realism then balancing it until it is no longer realistic could lead to increasing the complexity of balancing the game and make it difficult to promote/"allow" different playstyles.

Personally I would like to see the world of mortal online not only exist of plate wearers and melee infantry who can use the best bows almost as good as someone who would want to dedicate the playstyle to be an archer and use bows. But I don't know if this is something they consider.

I just hope they are aware of that balancing will eventually (most likely) break realism anyway, I saw a video of mounted combat. It looks far from realistic, but that is fine because its probably unfinished and/or had to be tweaked this way for it to be more balanced.

I want them to question themselves, maybe it is better to go the "conventional" way of other RPGs and old school RPGs where certain attributes allows you to use certain weapons, it might not be rational in it self. But the outcome could be different as it could distribute playstyles into different groups.
Sure DEX is probably not required to be able to pull a heavy bow, but maybe the outcome would allow for more diversity in a simpler way.

I just made this post to share my thoughts, and does anyone know if they are ok with all footmen using bows and introducing a very heavy meta that might be hard to break out of.
I am confused with this attitude regarding where things are supposed to be realistic but also having a need to balance stuff so there will be a pluarlity of playstyles.


EDIT:
This post is shit and not accurate, but I was/am concerned with what what I heard from Henriks stream regarding realism, then how it was implemented.

 

[agui]

I totally agree with you.

As the game is now a turn base game, i think, at least, we need to improve some balance.

Bows are really something that needs more balance. You can have skill range combat (secondary) and do alot of dmg with bows on foot.

I think you could do the actual dmg today only against PVE, not in PVP . Reason: game is already dam slow , no stam bows are hiting hard as hell on ppl ... without the player with the bow has the bow (primary) skill on. Thats , for me, is just absurd.

I dont know what could be done, but i really think DEXTERITY should inflic on the damage made by bows users on foot and on mount. And Ofc you need to get archery skill to do reasonable dmg ... yes ... wanna be a foot archers go spend 100 points on that.

If you put DEXTERITY to play ... inflicting dmg done by player on mounts too, it would bring back VEELAS and SHEEVRAS to be mounted again ,as MOUNTED ARCHERS, . Despite there low str the HIGH DEXTERITY would inflic in bow dmg and high weakspot chances using small bows.

I will limit me to this opinion. But game now a days is a crazy "death ball" of tank players (oghmirs and thursars, mostly) with good armor and heavy weapons and ofc , SPEARS (nerf that shit), , doing 50+ dmg when we have only 200 (+ or -) ... need to think more to balance the foot fighting, cause, as it is, now a days, is dam boring.

 

[Avenoma]

Dex = better aiming skills and should account for higher damage numbers (better aim = hitting vital areas easier).
However, you unknowingly sealed your own argument. High Strength characters already use high Dexterity and increasing the contribution from Dexterity would only make them stronger. And reworked Strength prolly isnt an option right now.

 

[agui]

Str char has low dex like less then 99 ... my idea is that high dex like 115 + makes a difference .. or everybody would give a high imput in dmg ...

This is to make alvarins class back to be important as mounted archer cause they have no use right now as mounteds or using a bow.

 

[Avenoma]

they have no use right now as mounteds

but, we arent really horse peoples, we're um, jungle peoples.
besides, whats wrong with 110 bows for Alvarins? They already make strong mounted archers, plus our small size will allow us to ride small mounts that are hard to hit.

 

[Dracu]

This is mortal online.... everything needs actual balance. The „complexity“ .... actually lets call it randomness... cause thats what this system leads to in the end... has way to many variables that are connected to each other and make it kinda impossible to properly balance since its hard to make assumptions on what the end results will be and what else it will change.

As example:
A spear out of maalite does to much dmg. What can be touched? The material piercing modifier(which reduces it on every weapon type) or on the specific Weapon head (affects all materials).

The game will never be truly balanced due to the nature of the system and the limited testing capabilitys... i doubt 100% that SV has auto calculators for all their systems to single out undesirable broken things... which is why they will exist. A look at mo1 makes this clear.

The system is probably the most horrendous balancing job one could have and will always do poorly at.
Its just „fixing around the fotm“ hope and pray it does what its supposed to.

Actuall balance would prolly require a redesign of complete gamemechanics from races to crafting to materials.

 

[agui]

but, we arent really horse peoples, we're um, jungle peoples.
besides, whats wrong with 110 bows for Alvarins? They already make strong mounted archers, plus our small size will allow us to ride small mounts that are hard to hit.

Make strong mounted archers i think you went lil far ... strong mount archers are oghmir and thursars as they are strong mcs too

 

[Woody]

Reinventing the wheel isn't the solution, and especially not now. It's too late to even consider it this close to persistent release.

Balancing in a live game is ongoing and a never ending task. It changes over time based on the addition of new content and thus the changing of metas. The best we can ask for is more variables in all the equations that make up the attributes, skills, spells, weapons etc etc. That way, if they do have to balance something, they can perform smaller tweaks at an individual level using the levers (variables) at their disposable.

With this in mind, the attribute system is actually a really good solid base for all content to scale off of. For the most part it is consistent in the assumption that more points in one attribute pool is a power increase and this is true across all builds and playstyles. It therefore enables the player to double down on their chosen playstyle through their skill point allocation and then via their Armor, weapon and spell choices.

So essentially, balance comes in the form of the individual tweaks at the skill and weapon end of the spectrum, not with wide sweeping changes made to attributes that affect every playstyle.

 

[Rhias]

Are weakspots on head-hit still in place for archers? If that's the case Veela's, with higher weakspot chance might do more dps vs heavy armored targets.

 

[Avenoma]

strong mount archers are oghmir and thursars

naw, they are the top archers, not just strong archers. sounds like you may need to roll one of them to get what you want.

 

[ulfy]

It was mentioned by Henrik last stream that the reason for bows requiring strength is for it to be realistic.

He also referenced his father's strength (as a fencer), as if it was his strength that made him a good one, instead of the result of such training. If strength was that important for such sports, then we'd have behemoths like Hafthor dominating the scene. But obviously that's not the case...

Endurance, dexterity.... reflexes & precision. These things are equally, if not more important than sheer strength in many physical pursuits... including fencing & certain types of archery.

 

[tntdogs]

He also referenced his father's strength (as a fencer), as if it was his strength that made him a good one, instead of the result of such training. If strength was that important for such sports, then we'd have behemoths like Hafthor dominating the scene. But obviously that's not the case...

Endurance, dexterity.... reflexes & precision. These things are equally, if not more important than sheer strength in many physical pursuits... including fencing & certain types of archery.

Yes that is not the case but I think the point of that story was more that certain sports/activities that you might not consider requiring you to be strong but its actually very important. And maybe people have probably been given the impression from other games that being quick and agile is the most important part about using a bow.

But I agree with you.

 

[ulfy]

Yes that is not the case but I think the point of that story was more that certain sports/activities that you might not consider requiring you to be strong but its actually very important. And maybe people have probably been given the impression from other games that being quick and agile is the most important part about using a bow.

But I agree with you.

Yeah, perhaps that was where he was going with it, but I get the impression that he undervalues Dex for such things.... where I believe it requires both. I'm certainly not of the mind that archers should be running around with all Dex and no Strength, but Dex certainly should play more of a role than it does now.

 

[Tzone]

What problem do these adjustments fix?

 

[ulfy]

What problem do these adjustments fix?

Giving different stats ways of impacting different play-styles could hopefully deteriorate some of the Meta going on right now, like Heavy Armor + Strength dominating for virtually everything but magic.

Since Dex has such little impact on Archery, anyone wanting to be a proficient foot archer or MA, will simply choose the highest strength character... which is also best for so many other playstyles. Archer/Foot Fighter/MC/MA.... high Str & highest armor trainable.

 

[MolagAmur]

I think they should give all the clades a set movement speed (their max since 99% of people max their Dex). Then rework Dexterity to be more of a meaningful stat rather than movement speed and weakspot chance.

Of course this would require a lot of adjustments overall...but in the end would make Dexterity a primary stat like Strength and Intelligence. They could make certain weapons scale from it such as light bows, thrust weapons, poison chance, etc. Just examples but you get the idea.

Dex has always been that boring stat that every single build has to max to be competitive in PvP. Except for mounted builds of course...but that's another topic.

 

[Woody]

I think they should give all the clades a set movement speed (their max since 99% of people max their Dex). Then rework Dexterity to be more of a meaningful stat rather than movement speed and weakspot chance.

Of course this would require a lot of adjustments overall...but in the end would make Dexterity a primary stat like Strength and Intelligence. They could make certain weapons scale from it such as light bows, thrust weapons, poison chance, etc. Just examples but you get the idea.

Dex has always been that boring stat that every single build has to max to be competitive in PvP. Except for mounted builds of course...but that's another topic.

The problem is that Dex is already such a powerful stat in of itself because of it's direct link to movement speed, arguably one of the most impactful stats in the game. The only changes I think are warranted to dexterity is something that directly impacts a specific playstyle, e.g. bows/archery. Changes to movement speed is a big no no given this changes every build/playstyle in the game. The MS/Dex balance right now feels good in that yes, Alvarins get the most benefit from it but it's not enough of an impact to make me want to roll that clade over all other considerations.

 

[MolagAmur]

The problem is that Dex is already such a powerful stat in of itself because of it's direct link to movement speed, arguably one of the most impactful stats in the game. The only changes I think are warranted to dexterity is something that directly impacts a specific playstyle, e.g. bows/archery. Changes to movement speed is a big no no given this changes every build/playstyle in the game. The MS/Dex balance right now feels good in that yes, Alvarins get the most benefit from it but it's not enough of an impact to make me want to roll that clade over all other considerations.

Thats exactly why I said movement speed could be set to a default speed for each clade. It would throw a wrench in all balance though which is the issue. Its just a design flaw imo to make dex effect movement speed in a game like this.

If they want clades to be different speeds, fine. That makes sense from a balance perspective. The current system with Dex contributing works, its just not ideal. Is it worth all the work to change what I proposed? Probably not...

 

[Woody]

Thats exactly why I said movement speed could be set to a default speed for each clade. It would throw a wrench in all balance though which is the issue. Its just a design flaw imo to make dex effect movement speed in a game like this.

If they want clades to be different speeds, fine. That makes sense from a balance perspective. The current system with Dex contributing works, its just not ideal. Is it worth all the work to change what I proposed? Probably not...

Yea probably not worth it and not to forget, representing power/effectiveness through attributes is far more intuitive. It's also easier to balance across the board because you can just dial that variable up or down and all clades are affected.