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James
June 23rd, 2013, 16:30
I've been playing around with Rain of Arrows, and watching the Wizard using Ice Storm.
Both are skills accessed at player level 60, and both of us were using the skill at level 30. The skills at this level also have an equal cost in energy.

I'm not sure what the Ice Storm "to hit" is calculated against, but it was successfully hitting every opponent on "War Bringers" on hard. Conversely, my rain of arrows at the same level was hitting, at best, 2 out of 6-8 opponents.
The poor hit rate of Rain of Arrows is due to every enemy receiving an average chance of receiving a hit, modified:
+ my skill level
- the targets level (size)

Am I correct in thinking that my 50% of hitting was, for a level 69 target, modified down by 39 (50 + 30 - 69)?

Again - I'm not sure what the Wizards calculation is, but the level 30 Ice Storm hits would have been doing more damage per hit than my attacks, but for my large weapon and poison bonuses (not typical of most scouts?)
So, for the use of a skill accessed at the same level, a scout is:
i) hitting about 1/3 as much as the Ice Storm
ii) hitting for less damage

Can we take a look at this skill, it seems to be particularly weak given the energy costs and level at which you can access it?

Alex
June 24th, 2013, 07:39
Our goal is to balance all skills after the ambushes be implemented: http://www.otherwind.com/forum/showthread.php?1014-Tuning-ROADMAP-for-Balance&p=2595#post2595
so this kind of feedback is going to be very useful for then. Particularly I already have noted this skill for a deeply review.

To clarify some of your doubts:
- An "average" chance base (before modifiers) is not exatcly 50%. For instance, a skill with base chance of 40% and other with base chance 60%, are both described as "average" chance.
- Skill level used and target level modify this chance up and down respectively, but the effect is nor linear. You may not add and substract these levels as percentages to calculate final chance. You may check the final chance for every target for skills with one unique target. This skill works the same way tough it changes the base chance.
- Magic spells and prayers make direct damage. There is no hit roll, though defense may reduce damage amount taken.

When skills be balanced, both skills launched at the same level, should deal the same amount of global damage (unless we had other considerations which may benefit or penalize a certain skill).

Zab
June 24th, 2013, 10:14
Alex, I have quite a few concerns here. First, Ice Storm is scary. I am all for scary skills, but it should take longer to build them up maybe. Realising that you still have further modifications to make, I still wonder over the comparability of Ice Storm and Arrows. Yes, they should relatively comparable, however, if they will both look like the current Ice Storm, it looks like automatic death for other parties. I think it will not take long for scouts and mages to team up together and easily wipe out other parties, especially if they all use their Ice or Arrow at once (and especially if/when you allow people to set up a template of attacks for when they are offline). I think level 60 is just too soon in the game to allow this kind of attack to happen. Also, if mages and scouts can team up and easily wipe out all the competition with these two skills, again, I think it ruins your idea of a heterogeneous party (not to mention, may stall the game when other guilds/parties feel they can't win, so why play?). It kind of is already ruined. We have two active mages currently in the game who are holding their own, at least against the monsters, when they come to visit some of the higher level players, despite being up to (personal) 40 levels below their teammates.

I have often thought that Burst and Fireball should be the eventual scary skill for scouts and wizards. That these should be the skills that eventually add extra attacks. Starting off with the ability to attack two opposing party members (or monsters) and then every 20 levels, getting an extra attack added. This would prolong the onset of super scary skills. However, that would also mean ditching both Arrows and Ice and having to come up with new skills and I understand that this sort of idea would be harder to accomplish at this stage of Beta. But I sure wouldn't mind a skill that actually helps my party more than slight increases to speed and decreases to party size.

Rastlin
June 24th, 2013, 11:31
Maybe to balance skills this would help.


On Everquest PvP servers:


Q: How are spells different on Rallos Zek(PvP)?
Most spells work the same, but there are a few important differences.


- Damage spells only do 66% of their normal damage against players

Alex
June 24th, 2013, 13:25
Thank you Stephen. In fact, you may be very accurate. In the original design too much time ago, these direct damage dealt half damage that currently. Or better said, now they deal double damage than the original design.

The problem came when, in a certain point of the skills implementation, we noticed that damage was very low and we doubled the factor constant. This was a subjective judgement and it was surely a mistake, and will be very easy come back to the original design(which was objective based on numbers and not subjective), just changing a constant factor. We must go back also to the ugly, original description, though (1d6 "over two" damage points instead just 1d6 damage points)