Content Balancing

[Saereth]

Just wanted to drop some feedback on some of the higher level content. Yesterday I was with a group that decided to take down a few krayts. This was something that pre-cu live I was accustomed to doing with 2 people in 5~10mins, we were surprised to see 600k+ HAM and 95% resists across the board on these mobs. We decided to give it a go anyway and after about 20 minutes we had chunked through barely 10% of its life. We could tank it indefinitely with grind level armors, nothing special.

We kept at it until the server reset and all progress lost on the beast where we decided to just call it for the evening. We love challenging content, but changes like that dont feel challenging or rewarding, they feel like pure tedium. Trying to stick with the theme of tougher content, perhaps making them hit a bit harder, or aggro swap, or give them a bleed/disease/other mechanic to make them more of an actual challenge besides massive HAM/DR. This would be more of a game enhancing change and less monotony in already grind intensive game.

[Lasod]

out of general interest how big was your group, what professions were involved?

[Kelec]

I just want to second this.

I know this is supposed to be a hard mode server and I really like that but this seems a bit excessive.

We messed with an Ancient and a Juvenile. The Juvenile had just over 450k to all stats with straight 95% resists while the Ancient had 620k to all stat with the same resists. Killing the mobs is completely doable, and they have mechanics in place to punish you if you don't control them. That being said an hour plus kill time on something supposedly as weak as a juvenile is insane.

Here are the stats juveniles used to have. 40k ish HAMs


And to answer your question Lasod, MS/MD, MS/MR, MP/MF, MR/CM.

[Cynar]

So what you are all saying is that they don't do enough dps, because they are too easy to tank. Noted!

[Saereth]

Lol, While I appreciate admins and dev's with good humor, I think the heart of the matter is risk vs. reward. There is some risk in fighting these, but if you can tank them successfully as a group you can most of the time tank them indefinitely, if there is a flat dps increase to the point of them being untankable, then obviously people wont be alive to even attempt to grind through that much health. That being said, alot of us came to play a pre-cu style server, giving the mobs 10x health and additional resists is a fairly extreme change to that gameplay. Now I'm not saying the development team is "wrong" for the choices they've made, but from a player standpoint it definitely feels much less fun imo.

Lastly, and slightly offtopic, I've been trying to do my due diligence as a player to understand all of the balance changes implemented and I've read through all the patch notes on the forums here but I cant find any specifics for end game balancing tweaks like this posted anywhere. Where can we view details of major changes to enemies we may be preparing to combat similar to these krayts? It would also help to know for us players to locate and report bugs. (I.e. is it intended for a juveneille krayt to have 450k HAM or was an extra zero just accidentially added to the stats and should be reported) Things of that nature....

[bobaphat]

Just to verify because I hadn't hunted any post patch. I'm killing them now and they take longer because of the added chances for state effects but are certainly still possible to solo/kill. I solo giants in 30 minutes easily. Juvis take half that.

They were already barely worth killing because of the awful drops. The added time it takes to kill them now kinda makes them even less appealing, essentially 1 less giant a buff session. Time to mark up my krayt stock.

Also, Grands have 400k ham, not Juvis.

[Kelec]

Also, Grands have 400k ham, not Juvis.

Our experience last night begs to differ.

[bobaphat]

Before i'm accused of whining.

I think Krayts are kinda where they should be in terms of balance. You could always solo them on live and in fact they were easier then. Krayts have always just been a giant time sink. If anything needs to be adjusted with them, it's the loot. Considering you can go through an entire suit of armor in a buff session and come out with literally 0 loot, that's a big pain.
A buff session on janta/ns/tuskens etc and you'll at least have some blue rug patches and it won't cost you near as much in terms of your gear.

Edit: Please post a screenshot, i'm at the GY right now. I don't see 400k juvis.

[bobaphat]

Right now.

Terminal mind buffs fyi. Still solo, np.

[Cynar]

We may alter drop rate percentages, but make killing these things easier we will not. I see someone soloing a grand krayt dragon and it makes me think. Maybe this thing isn't dizzy/kding people enough. Maybe it needs to breath fire like those buggers in the geo caves that hurt so bad. Maybe it needs to apply bleeds that really hurt.

This is higher game content( I hate using end-game, the game isn't over). Higher end content should have great rewards, but it shouldn't drop pearls, scales and tissues like junk loot rates on a meat lump. It should also take some time. These rewards make great gear and sell for tons of cash. The percentage rates prevent that awesome loot from becoming common place or a dime a dozen. This is where Awakening separates itself from candyland servers.

This was something that pre-cu live I was accustomed to doing with 2 people in 5~10mins, we were surprised to see 600k+ HAM and 95% resists across the board on these mobs. We decided to give it a go anyway and after about 20 minutes we had chunked through barely 10% of its life. We could tank it indefinitely with grind level armors, nothing special.

We have stated many times this isn't live. This is our own custom version of pre-cu. People keep making comparisons of what they were used to 10 years ago. Fact of the matter too much of this content was too easy in live. It made a lot of us sick to watch someone go out in one buff session and end up with 5-10 pearls. It won't happen here. You need to come to terms with this.

[Kelec]

Right so. You're right Juveniles are right around 65k. I went back to the one we were fighting last night once I got home from work.
Here is a screenshot

[timex1]

Right so. You're right Juveniles are right around 65k. I went back to the one we were fighting last night once I got home from work.
Here is a screenshot

Don't fight those, those are just as bad as Ancients.

Kill Juveniles, Canyons, Giants, Grands.

Don't bother with Adolescent and Ancients.

[Saereth]

The percentage rates prevent that awesome loot from becoming common place or a dime a dozen. This is where Awakening separates itself from candyland servers.

Im always sad to see players and devs alike becoming defensive on what could otherwise be constructive discourse. So Pre-cu standards were candyland, the re-envisioning of "challenge" and "hardcore" here is the new and improved more "fun" version. It is what it is I suppose, and will do my best to warn and inform new players or those considering the server. I was serious about doing my part as a player to be informed of these new challenges, how do we go about obtaining those changelogs for the balance changes... I'm still looking?

also @Baph, very nice hammer And I agree with your assessment, the time to kill going up isnt nearly as much as an issue as the reward for doing so. (well, that would be assuming a stable server, we've had krayts reset mid kill on muliple occasions now adding to the time cost). Even on live there were a timesink as you said, now much more so.

[bobaphat]

Edit: Response to Cynar, i'm at work so a bit delayed sorry. That grand, dizzy/kd me probably close to double or triple what they did before the patch (just observational evidence but I've farmed them hella). I have dizzy and kd resist both capped or close to as well.

Please don't make them "harder". The way combat works, nothing is really "hard" and it never will be. Making things dizzy/kd more or increasing ham, all it really does is increase the time it takes to kill stuff. Increasing damage doesn't really make things any harder either, we may require 2 people to taunt swap something we can solo now, but in reality it's not more difficult, just more of a hassle.
Increasing damage/HAM also causes more durability damage (and we've seen how well people reacted to that).

Right now I think it's fair to say that at least half the community can't do "end-game" content. From what i've seen in game most people think the game is already too hard. Making high end mobs take longer really just hurts the few people that actually get out there and do it now. Which in turn will make it harder for newer players simply because the economy will obviously have major changes if difficulty rises.

Now having said that, I'm up for taking on difficult tasks in game and especially if the loot is smexy. I just don't think this is the way to do it. Certainly not now when half the content in-game is barely touched.

[Lasod]

devils' advocate reply


so lets say for instance a group of 20 ppl went out to kill some kyrats

how long would it take for that group to kill them?

the question is, is it about difficulty or that its difficult to do solo or in small group?

IMO if its something that the devs feel should require a group of 10+ people to complete then so be it, if the difficulty does not change between 2 and 20 ppl then the difficulty was changed in the wrong way

[Cynar]

The percentage rates prevent that awesome loot from becoming common place or a dime a dozen. This is where Awakening separates itself from candyland servers.

Im always sad to see players and devs alike becoming defensive on what could otherwise be constructive discourse. So Pre-cu standards were candyland, the re-envisioning of "challenge" and "hardcore" here is the new and improved more "fun" version. It is what it is I suppose, and will do my best to warn and inform new players or those considering the server. I was serious about doing my part as a player to be informed of these new challenges, how do we go about obtaining those changelogs for the balance changes... I'm still looking?

also @Baph, very nice hammer And I agree with your assessment, the time to kill going up isnt nearly as much as an issue as the reward for doing so. (well, that would be assuming a stable server, we've had krayts reset mid kill on muliple occasions now adding to the time cost). Even on live there were a timesink as you said, now much more so.

No one was getting defensive I was stating fact. Players have been trying to get us to change to suit their play standards since launch. I am just telling you how it is here. You can take it or leave it. Best advice I can offer is don't be a smartass as the same time as offering to do your part. You are welcome to make suggestions, but don't get sore when you don't receive the answer you were hoping for. As for new players they can make their own decisions about playing here.

Bobaphat, don't worry they won't become more difficult. We may jiggle the drop percentage chances a bit in favor of better drops. It will only be a smidge though. We just like to make you über loot hunters sweat a bit.

[Cynar]

devils' advocate reply


so lets say for instance a group of 20 ppl went out to kill some kyrats

how long would it take for that group to kill them?

the question is, is it about difficulty or that its difficult to do solo or in small group?

IMO if its something that the devs feel should require a group of 10+ people to complete then so be it, if the difficulty does not change between 2 and 20 ppl then the difficulty was changed in the wrong way

Depends on the group I guess. 20 of the right people will burn these down in a minute or two. Loot vs time changes when you have 20 people splitting that loot. You are correct. We aren't redesigning a complete game mechanic to have some scaling balance for 2 to 20 people. Would be nice if we had that kind of time but we don't. "We play with the toys the gods give us."

[timex1]

Quick example using http://www.swgcalc.x10.mx/

Grand Krayt has 90% against Blast and about 400k mind.

Now throw 1 swordsman just using headhit3 with a 5.2 196-659 PH. No bleeds, just headhit3.
Overall DPS is 159 per headhit3 (capped speed) every 1 Sec.
400k/159 = 2515 hits(secs) = 41mins

Now throw 10 swordsman with same PH, just headhit3, etc.
159*10 = 1590 dps
400k/1590 = 251.5 hits(secs) = 4.1mins

Add some bleeds, maybe a few riflemen to stack mind bleeds, CM with poisons. And time is reduced even more.

I think krayts are fine just the way they are. They are a time sink for solo and even 2-3. As they should be so things are not over farmed.

Want to kill it faster, throw more people at it. Plain and simple.

[QuorTek]

Wouldn't mind grouping up more as it is... especially if it pay better off being grouped lootwise for people actually being there like 80m range of the mob or closer since the XP formular work like that, make it work from 3 or more people, so one cannot exploit increased loot drop from just having ones alt following around.

or follow the formula 3-5-7-etc. code.

[Hunter]

Disclaimer: I'm not saying it should be done this way. Just throwing some ideas out there.

There's two different difficulties being discussed here. There's the difficulty in killing the creature and the difficulty in getting good loot from the creature.

I haven't gone Krayt hunting here, but in live I could solo at least three Giant Krayt's at a time. It wasn't particulary fun because it took so long and wasn't dangerous. I personally would find it more interesting if they were more dangerous, but didn't take as long. There should be a chance of things going wrong (that I can do something about) that keeps me engaged. To me fighting a Krayt should require at least a small group and the goal should be to kill it before it kills you (more damage, less hitpoints). That all takes time to develop though since balance in SWG is a bit weird, so for the purposes of this thread I would be against increasing hit points since it doesn't make the fight more dangerous, just more boring (my opinion).

I feel that the more important part difficulty-wise and for the health of the server is the loot. If you want less high-end Krayt loot, I don't think the solution is uping the kill times, I think it is to play with the loot rates. Tweak the high end loot drop rates to where you want them (maybe more rare). I would favor seeing lower end to medium end loots being higher so there's some excitement to getting a kill. You might get "usable" stuff more often, but just drop the rate of finding really good stuff to where you want it.

Side Note: Really the problem isn't the Krayt's and other things are too weak, the problem is the player characters are too strong. I don't necessarily think this should change, but it makes balancing the creatures much more difficult (I may start another thread about that).