Benefits of a % based merged +dmg & +heal spell system? - Page 2

Holyman · 10/11/06, 5:46 AM

Originally Posted by Daboran

There is a school of thought that you should never used % based modifiers at all unless you allow player stats in the form of defence against spells/melee to scale in a similar way. Reasoning being that it all works fine for the first few player levels, but quickly gets out of hand if (when) you raise the level cap. The safer way is to design a linear scale for spell ranks. WoW does this, but then ignores the rule in talents and in itemisation :rolleyes:

There have been many MMORPG that have found out far too late that using % modifiers on attack capabilities scales far faster than player health pools.

It would work rating-wise, so at lvl 60 casting a lvl 60 spell would recieve more % benefit from 100 rating than a lvl 70 casting a lvl 70 spell.
WHen raising the level cap one increases the hit rating needed for each % as the levels go higher, its a simple concept.
It can easily be balanced to fit leveling up.

snape · 10/11/06, 11:00 AM

The implementation of the +dmg stat in the current game is in my opinion not too terribly bad - but there are a few glaring issues that I'd like to see addressed.

Snares - Frostbolts gets 95% of the +dmg bonus it would get if it didn't have a snare...I'm of the opinion that if the mob you're hitting is immune to that snare (I.E. a boss) then it should get 100%, and so on. (I'm fire, I don't think frostbolts, but you get the picture).

Enchants - There are exactly 2 slots of armor that we can enchant to increase our DPS (without ZG enchants). Rogues have 7. Warriors have 7. Hunters have..7? It's imbalanced in my opinion, that they have better DPS Enchant options across the board, and practically a monopoly sub-60 (the 2 DPS Enchant slots for casters being both extremely expensive and basically unheard-of sub-level 60).

Cast Time / Lag - This has been covered earlier in the thread. A spell queue would be nice, as long as it's implemented correctly. Also, short cast time spells could (in a perfect world) be given a +dmg bonus increase based on some, I don't know, "average server lag". Haha, yea, that's a really bad idea, but maybe they could give them a few % point increase to be fair. After all, we can't auto-attack with spells, but everyone else can with melee, even with lag.

Holyman · 10/12/06, 8:12 PM

Thought about it some time. How would it in this system be harder to make penalties to certain spells to adjust them?

Just as the current system can be worked around (scaling penalties and pw: shield, mf sclaing etc) couldn't this be worked around aswell?

One could have 2 ways of tweaking a spell. Decrease/increase the amount of % it gains from spell power rating (wich si basicly reducing its scaling) or reducing/increasing the base damage of the spell to affect it as a whole with both scaling and damage before spell power rating.

Creating the right balance does not seem to be a bigger problem in this system than in the current one imho, unless there are some problems with coding it or something.

I do not see any differencies in difficulties between tweaking spells in this system or the current one. Can someone enlighten me?

torrent495 · 10/12/06, 9:27 PM

I think spell damage is a pretty solid mechanic. Add on to the fact that the entire game is balanced around it now, and I think changing it fundamentally would be a huge hassle and not really worth the effort.

Larisroth · 10/12/06, 10:10 PM

What has been suggested isn't really too different from what we have now. All that really changes is what the default base value is. The current +damage system bases it on cast-time with a low level penalty. A damage precentage rating bases it off the raw spell effect, in any case it would have to be able to be tweaked.

Downranking is an issue, but it's mainly an issue for healing spells. While they don't really want people to be downranking, they haven't nerfed it too much. (spells < level 40, rather than < level 20). For healing at least it appears they've fixed the the percentage talents to work off the full heal rather than just the base spell, so even some of that nerf appears to have countered.

What I'd like to see is for them to go through and just do a quick review of the spells that are different from normal. They could ease up on the penalties for a few.

Larisroth · 10/12/06, 10:16 PM

Oh, and the biggest problem with the caster classes is as ever itemisation, especially for spirit based healers...

(http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thre...d=290226&sid=1)

Holyman · 10/14/06, 9:48 AM

Originally Posted by Larisroth

What I'd like to see is for them to go through and just do a quick review of the spells that are different from normal. They could ease up on the penalties for a few.

With a % based system they wouldn't have to tweak spells as often to make them on par with others as they would have an equal dmg/heal ratio no matter how high spell power rating.

I honestly believe it would make it easier for them to keep the game somewhat balanced as new gear come without continuously having to change everything (and we all know they are often slow at changing stuff).

Chmee · 10/14/06, 9:16 PM

Originally Posted by panny

Originally Posted by Chmee

Originally Posted by Oggie

I don't mean offense, but in some cases the scaling factor is what keeps a spell balanced.

Personally, I think spell scaling is one of the worst designed portions of the game. While a caster is less gear dependent than a warrior or rogue, the WAY a caster scales up with gear is very different as it pertains to all their skills.

The problem I see is how spells scale depending on cast times. While spells that are instant cast will always be highly valued, at least as PvP goes, those spells that have cast times of 2.5 or greater will grow exponentially more powerful as compared to spells with cast times of 2.0 or less.

Er... no, it doesn't. Global cooldown being 1.5 seconds means whether you cast 2 fireblasts or 1 untalented frostbolt, you get the same benefit from your +dmg gear. It's the talents that reduce cast time that is the problem. They boost the relative contribution of +dmg over time, which increases the disparity between spells that have shortened cast times as you get more +dmg.

Wow... this is what happens when I pay attention to someone else's math without doing it myself. If anything, short cast time spells become MORE efficient with +damage, especially with higher crit ratings... Unless you have those reduced cast time talents going.

Anyway, please disregard my old argument.

Holyman · 10/15/06, 9:45 AM

Originally Posted by Chmee

Wow... this is what happens when I pay attention to someone else's math without doing it myself. If anything, short cast time spells become MORE efficient with +damage, especially with higher crit ratings... Unless you have those reduced cast time talents going.

Anyway, please disregard my old argument.

Thats why a change in the base values of all spells must be done when changing to such a system. One could still make some burst instant spells somewhat good base if they have a rather long cooldown. Like blastwave for instance could have rather high base damage considering it has a rather big cooldown.

Spells basic damage would be based on cast time, cooldown and wether its AE or not. Kinda like it is today with basic damage off spells, but just tweaked a bit to fit perfectly with the % based sys.

The only short cast time spells wich would become more efficient than the longer cast are the ones with high base damage, and those oftenhave rather large cooldowns. One could decide the base damage of each spells from what it does per second compared to other spells in the same category, but also considering wether the spec wich uses that spell has other kinds of damage boosters like dots.

Just requires a slight change in many spells basic damage values :-)

Agrimat · 10/16/06, 12:25 AM

I don't really see the value of this thread. It's comparable to discussing "leaked" class talent lists.

You're proposing a completley hypothetical system that doesn't exist in any form in WoW and probably never will. The game doesn't work that way. End of discussion until they announce that the game will in fact work this way.