Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

01-11-2013 03:58 PM

[source]

Akihiko Matsui

Dev Team

Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

Hello.

Thank you for the vast amount of feedback regarding battle.

We’ve received a variety of different adjustment suggestions and amongst them a suggestion for enfeebling. However, instead of thinking about this in terms of individual points, I’ve been reading over everything from the viewpoint of battle overall.

Towards the end of last year I made a series of posts about the plans we have; however, this raised the issue of requests for more specific, concrete details, which in turn made it difficult for all of you to hold discussions. With that said, from an overall battle system perspective, I would like to share a couple of ideas the development team is currently thinking about.

Please note that all of these ideas have not been finalized. Also, please know that the below is not the entirety of the overall battle adjustments.

We’d appreciate it greatly if you took the content listed here to not represent the cure-all solution, and see it more as things we will be doing while working to solve the issues.

Balance between two-handed and single-handed weapons

This is a topic that has been discussed in several threads, particularly one about making adjustments to single-handed weapons, and we would like to perform adjustments.

As has been mentioned, food and other choices are quite limited due to the fact that status modifiers are far greater for two-handed weapons and there is a higher need for accuracy when using single-handed weapons.

For example, we are currently looking into the possibility of adding some form of merit that would enhance the modifiers for the single-handed weapon main weapon slot.

Regarding Dark Knight

This is a topic that has been discussed in several threads, particularly one about dark knight being too powerful. As was commented during VanaFest, we feel dark knight is becoming powerful, and at the same time decided to put off the adjustments we had looked into at that time. I believe there are many who remember this.
We are currently looking to adjust Desperate Blows and Last Resort.

Currently, the haste cap for equipment and magic is the same for all jobs, but haste from abilities is a separate category outside of this cap, and Desperate Blows is the ability with the highest value of haste.
However, simply reducing the value of Desperate Blows would only cause dark knight to become weaker, so we are considering giving a portion of the total haste effect granted from Desperate Blows to Last Resort, and giving the remaining amount back to Desperate Blows.

Current
- Desperate Blows +25%
Post-adjustment
- Desperate Blows +10% (*Value with 5 merit points)
- Last Resort +15%

Simply put, this adjustment will allow you to gain this effect in the case you use dark knight as your support job.

While currently, it might be difficult to imagine the situations where a front-line job would select dark knight for their support job, we would like to look into this based on this possibility.

Regarding Defense

This is a topic that we have received feedback on asking to increase the boons of defense. Due to the attack/defense ratio, the meaning behind adding defense past a certain value starts to become pointless, and we would like to make it have meaning.

As a merit, for example, the more you increase your defense, the lower the damage taken will be and the boons for Defender would become large.

On the other hand, while under the effects of abilities that decrease defense such as Berserk or Last Resort, the damage you take would become higher than what it is currently.

Merit Point Weapon Skills

This is a topic we have seen in threads asking to increase the cap on the merit point weapon skill category.
Instead of adjusting the cap value, we are currently looking into adjusting the modifier values so that these weapon skills can be used with a single merit point.

We are envisioning to make it so 1 merit point will yield a 65% status modifier, and each point afterwards will grant an addition 5% for a maximum of 85% (no changes to the max value).

Elemental Magic

We have received a variety of feedback on elemental magic.
The first thing I’m thinking of doing is making adjustments to the damage calculations.

Here’s my current image of how elemental magic is going to work:
The damage output on earth element spells will initially be lower compared to the rest of the elements, but have the best cost performance overall. Also, INT will have an even larger impact on the damage output. As a result, players will basically try to raise their INT and magic attack to get closer to the damage output done by lightning element spells.

Breakdown by element
- MP Efficiency: Earth > Water > Wind > Fire > Ice > Lightning
- INT Offset: Earth > Water > Wind > Fire > Ice > Lightning
- Initial Damage Output: Lightning > Ice > Fire > Wind > Water > Earth
- Maximum Damage Output: Lightning > Ice > Fire > Wind > Water > Earth
Breakdown by spell tier
- MP Efficiency: I > II > III > IV > V
- INT Offset: V > IV > III > II > I
- Initial Damage Output: V > IV > III > II > I
- Maximum Damage Output: V > IV > III > II > I

The charts below explain my idea in detail.

* The magic attack does not include any offsets.
* “INT+0” and “INT+100” represents the INT difference between the caster and the target.

Tier I	INT+0		INT+100
Tier I	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	10	10	42	160
Water	16	25	66	165
Wind	25	40	92	170
Fire	35	55	108	175
Ice	46	70	126	180
Lightning	60	85	149	185

Tier II	INT+0		INT+100
Tier II	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	78	100	175	350
Water	95	120	195	355
Wind	113	140	213	360
Fire	133	160	233	365
Ice	155	180	255	370
Lightning	178	200	278	375

Tier III	INT+0		INT+100
Tier III	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	210	200	360	550
Water	236	230	386	560
Wind	265	260	415	570
Fire	295	290	445	580
Ice	320	320	470	590
Lightning	345	350	495	600

Tier IV	INT+0		INT+100
Tier IV	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	381	400	581	850
Water	410	440	610	865
Wind	440	480	640	880
Fire	472	520	672	895
Ice	506	560	706	910
Lightning	541	600	741	925

Tier V	INT+0		INT+100
Tier V	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	626	650	855	1200
Water	680	700	909	1220
Wind	734	750	967	1240
Fire	785	800	1014	1260
Ice	829	850	1058	1280
Lightning	874	900	1103	1300

As far as casting time and recast time goes, here’s my current idea:
- Tier I~V spells will all have same casting time / recast time.
For example, Tier I spells will have a casting time of 0.5 seconds and recast time of 2 seconds. Therefore, both Thunder I and Stone I will have the casting time of 0.5 seconds and recast time of 2 seconds.

The charts below explain my idea in detail.

Tier I	MP Cost		Casting Time		Recast Time
Tier I	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	9	4	1.5	0.5	6.5	2
Water	13	10	1.75	0.5	7.75	2
Wind	18	16	2	0.5	9	2
Fire	24	22	2.25	0.5	10.25	2
Ice	30	28	2.5	0.5	11.5	2
Lightning	37	34	3	0.5	13	2

Tier II	MP Cost		Casting Time		Recast Time
Tier II	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	43	36	3.25	1.5	14.5	6
Water	51	43	3.5	1.5	15.75	6
Wind	59	51	3.75	1.5	17	6
Fire	68	60	4.25	1.5	18.5	6
Ice	77	68	4.5	1.5	19.75	6
Lightning	86	77	4.75	1.5	21	6

Tier III	MP Cost		Casting Time		Recast Time
Tier III	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	92	64	5.25	3	22.5	15
Water	98	75	5.5	3	24	15
Wind	106	88	5.75	3	25.25	15
Fire	113	101	6	3	26.5	15
Ice	120	115	6.25	3	27.75	15
Lightning	128	129	6.75	3	29.25	15

Tier IV	MP Cost		Casting Time		Recast Time
Tier IV	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	138	112	7	6	30.75	30
Water	144	129	7.25	6	32	30
Wind	150	148	7.5	6	33.25	30
Fire	157	169	8	6	34.75	30
Ice	164	190	8.25	6	36	30
Lightning	171	213	8.5	6	37.25	30

Tier V	MP Cost		Casting Time		Recast Time
Tier V	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Earth	222	156	8.75	10	39	45
Water	239	182	9.25	10	40.25	45
Wind	255	210	9.5	10	41.5	45
Fire	270	240	9.75	10	42.75	45
Ice	282	272	10	10	44	45
Lightning	294	306	10.25	10	45.5	45

Please note that we will be making additional adjustments on elemental magic using this change as the foundation.

Regarding Content

To start off, we are looking into adjustments for new Nyzul, Legion, Odin's Chamber II, Voidwatch (up to Provenance Watcher), Salvage, and in the event there is further necessity, new Salvage as well.

Below is what we are looking into for adjustments.

New Nyzul
- Adjustments to the warp range of floors
Legion
- Adjustments to monster levels
- Adjustments to attack power and defense
Odin's Chamber II
- Adjustments to monster levels
Voidwatch
- Expand the usage range of the void clusters to Provenance (Provenance Watcher)
Salvage
- Re-examine the drop rate of level 35 equipment
- Make a change so that monsters other than the NMs that spawn from ramparts in Bhaflau Remnants drop the same equipment
Walk of Echoes
- Adjustments to monster levels
- Remove EX status from each type of coin
- Add sacks that contain multiple Trick Dice and Liminal Residue

Past this, we will continue to make adjustments as necessary, and we will be making it so strategy and play style variations can be developed instead of having to win with a huge amount of fire power in a short amount of time.

While I am repeating myself, the above are by no means finalized. There are many other topics we are looking into at the moment (enmity, TP given to enemies, etc.), so I would appreciate it if you could read over all of this on the basis that there is a possibility that the implementation order and adjustment method changes.

Thank you very much.

Subscribe

01-16-2013 08:09 AM

[BG source] [JP source]

Slycer

BG Translator

Hello!

Thanks for your feedback.

We've taken a look at the feedback we've received about the possible adjustments and we'd like to address a few of the questions that have been raised.

Even though the proposal mentions that the adjustment is specifically for DRK, assuming the Haste from Last Resort will apply to one-handed weapons, I think the combination of the one-handed weapon correction you mention in the post plus strengthening Last Resort will be enoug for one-handed weapons to catch up with two-handed weapons.

Hold on a minute...because of Dual Wield I have close to 80% delay reduction... does this mean I can cut some of the Dual Wield for one-handed weapons?

The Haste effect planned to be granted to Last Resort will, along with that of Desperate Blows, only be applicable to two-handed weapons. The overlap of the effects would be too significant if the delay reduction applied to one-handed weapons (because of Dual Wield) or to hand-to-hand weapons (because of Martial Arts).

I'm afraid that adjustments to hand-to-hand weapons are going to get lost in the mix between one-handed and two-handed adjustments.

In the adjustments regarding balancing one-handed and two-handed melee weapons, hand-to-hand weapons will also be included and considered along with one-handed weapons.

However, since the performance of one-handed and hand-to-hand weapons differ significantly, they won't be treated uniformly (for example, the adjustment of "increasing the correction value of the one-handed weapon in the main weapon slot" which was talked about previously will be significantly different for hand-to-hand weapons).

Considering the unique circumstances around hand-to-hand, we will continue to make the adjustments separately.

Regarding elemental magic, would this also hold true for magic casted by automatons?

The elemental magic adjustment does also apply to magic used by the automaton. [[edited:]] While stats can be raised on the automaton, it's easy to Overload while doing so, and we will take this into account when we look at the balance of the adjustment.

Translated by: Slycer

Subscribe

01-18-2013 10:39 AM

[BG source]

Slycer

BG Translator

Defense (Attack/Defense Ratio)

Regarding the contents of the post above [[Matsui's original post]], we are considering adjustments to the attack/defense ratio as follows.

At very low defense, damage taken does not increase.

At present, there is an upper limit on the offense/defense ratio.

Depending on the opponent's attack value, if the player's defense value is 50% or higher, the damage reduction will increase. If the player's defense value is less than 50%, the damage reduction will be the same as if it was 50%.

Because of this, even though combining Last Resort and Berserk greatly reduces defense, for example, the damage reduction does not fall as significantly.

----New Proposal

The maximum reduction will be calculated from the attack/defense ratio, and the upper limit of the calculated ratio will be increased such that when defense is very low, damage taken will continue to increase.

When defense is raised, damage taken is not reduced

This is mainly against higher level enemies and occurs because of something called level difference correction. The attack/defense ratio is calculated and impacted by each one level difference, reducing the calculated defensive power by some extent.

----New Proposals

For new monsters created, starting with Seekers of Adoulin, create them such that the level difference correction will not apply. We would compensate for this by adjusting monsters' attack values, defense values, and stats.
Eliminate level difference correction. By eliminating the level difference correction, you will be able to more significantly reduce damage taken by increasing defense as expected.

The text above was what I was able to confirm directly with the person in charge of the team discussion. The information included has not been finalized.

Since this post is about content in development, the information is not confirmed and information included may change. It is possible that there is a lack of information or clarity, or errors included, and, if so, the content will be edited at a later date.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Translated by: Slycer

Subscribe

01-18-2013 10:51 AM

[BG source]

Slycer

BG Translator

Content Adjustments

Regarding the contents of the post above [[Matsui's original post]], we are considering adjustments as follows.

New Nyzul

The reasoning behind using Embrava is to greatly increase the speed of defeating enemies. Rather than adjusting the random warp pattern any further, we have decided to modify the strength of enemies.

Defense Adjustment
For enemies with certain weaknesses, allow attacks against those weaknesses to do further increased damage.
Level Adjustment (further adjustments may be needed)
- Floors 1~20: Reduce enemy levels by 10
- Floors 21~40: Reduce enemy levels by 7
- Floors 41~60: Reduce enemy levels by 4
- Floors 61~80: Reduce enemy levels by 2
- Floors 80~100: No change

Legion

Adjustment of HP, defense, and attack strength.

As mentioned previously, we are considering eliminating the level difference correction values for the attack/defense ratio. If we move in this direction, adjusting the level of the monsters at the same time will make the monsters that appear too weak, so we would not adjust their levels. We are still considering HP adjustments along with the attack/defense adjustments.

Odin's Chamber II

Adjustment of HP, defense, and attack strength.

Similarly to Legion, if we adjust the attack/defense ratio by eliminating level correction and level at the same time, the monsters would become too weak, so we would not adjust their levels. We are still considering HP adjustments along with the attack/defense adjustments.

Subscribe

Long post, just going to link to it.

From:
To:
Subject:
Body:

Overall Battle System Adjustments For The Future