EQ's percent modifiers need an overhaul.

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Shakara, Jun 12, 2022.

  1. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    I would still argue that they don't need to scrap the entire system and the work from attempting that would be massive. How many times in the past have we seen "math" not work as expected and the balance of the game get messed up.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  2. Sancus Augur

    I agree - scrapping EQ's entire combat system is not a good idea and not something I suggested. Ending the automatic scaling of % modifiers at current levels, while imperfect, is something they can do and is neutral from a balance perspective.

    What they do need to do going forward is make sure that abilities with "flat" values are scaled at the same overall scaling rate as other abilities. Assuming all % modifiers are staying constant and the standard upgrade to spells is 21%, those flat values need to scale at 21% as well. Spells already do this across the board, but AAs are scaled linearly, and bonuses from items are also scaled linearly or not at all. There are a few specific values that are exceptions, but in general, +21% to spell base damage, +21% to weapon damage, +21% to combat abilities, and +21% to AA flat values, heroic strength, spell damage, procs, etc. would yield the exact same balance as before the level cap increase. Where we currently are is not balanced so additional changes would be required, but this prevents the "moving target" problem that has often been cited as a reason balance was done imperfectly or not at all.

    To give an idea of the current problem, I'm going to use Nature's Sweltering Wrath's DoT damage going into ToL:

    DoT Base Damage increased 10.3%
    The focus AA increase (21% -> 27%) brings that to +15.4%
    The Enhanced Maladies increase (134% -> 202%) brings that to +48.9%

    New ranks of Destructive Cascade, Destructive Vortex, Season's Wrath, and all the ADPS abilities (Illusions of Grandeur, Fierce Eye, Chromatic Haze, Beguiler's Synergy, Conjurer's Synergy, Defiler's Synergy, etc.) further increase the cumulative expansion-over-expansion increase in particular scenarios. Worn foci, though much less impactful, have the same effect.

    Compare that to Wrath of the Forest Walker: 7,000 -> 8,000 (+14.3%). That SPA doesn't crit and isn't modified by anything else except for SPA 461 (viz., Beguiler's Synergy). 8,000 is essentially nothing when added to spells that add millions of damage each cast on average, but it's falling farther behind due to scaling at lower rates than modifiable base damage.

    This is not in any way Druid specific - I chose them because NSW was disproportionately impacted by the Enhanced AA upgrades and they have an SPA 286 AA. The alternative would've been either not upgrading the aforementioned AAs or adding flat damage modifiers that are then scaled at the same rate as spell base damage. From that baseline, the only % modifiers that would need to change would be for intentional balance adjustments.

    In a perfect world classes wouldn't crit 100% of the time, some of the growth in ADPS would be walked back, etc., but I agree the prospects for that happening are low. Nonetheless, I think taking steps to make current development make more sense would open the door later for more intentional balance changes that address other, long-standing issues.
    Stymie, Skrab, kizant and 2 others like this.
  3. Nennius Curmudgeon

    You have a gift for understatement. Some past changes have created more problems then they solved. Folks should be careful what they wish for.
  4. Strife Lorekeeper

    Ahh classic warring. The proverbial It's always been this way guy.
    Stymie likes this.
  5. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    No, this is not a case of "it's always been this way" rather a case of the work involved would be massive and likely cause many more issues while they tried to get everything fixed. They have shown that they can have issues when rebalancing things and a quick example of that would the the dot changes and several classes that had to have dots adjusted multiple times and not everything is still where it should be.

    Some of the things mentioned are just find and others have issues. There is no reason that they can't leave what is present alone and change how the do things going forward like they did with Cleave.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  6. Zalamyr Augur

    The current issue with crit rates (especially the heroic dex situation) definitely needs a solution. I'd hate to just see it rescaled, as that would have some pretty hefty balance considerations, especially retroactively in TLPs (which, as much as some people don't care, probably need some consideration). But at the same time, having every melee class eventually just critting full time isn't sensible.

    It'd take some work in the combat system, and might be unfeasible, but I feel like making mobs have a resistance to crit rates (similar to how things like heroics vs strikethrough for tanks work) could be an idea. That allows increased crit rates to still matter, lowers crit rates on modern content, but isn't also a nerf to player power in previous content.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  7. Shakara Augur

    Problem is this is not an issue of being innovative. This is a gameplay crisis. You cant just "do nothing". Its a question of what action should be taken not if we should take action or not.
  8. Shakara Augur

    I think we are past "the balanced could get messed up". Many of the balance issues in the game stem from poor game design that is not addressed. At some point you just need to bite the bullet because just painting over the issue for another 5 years isent going to work. Yeah it will take work, yeah there will be some broken stuff but the game isent going to get better if you dont.
  9. eqMath Journeyman

    EQ's percentage modifiers are a problem, but I don't think they can/will be addressed in terms of spells.

    Generally speaking, there are no consequences for poor quality work on EQ. I mean no disrespect. I just wish there was more respect on the development team for EQ.
  10. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    There is a big difference between addressing balance issues as they move forward and making a massive change to how everything works and having to rebalance the entire game from scratch. There is nothing wrong with them switching how things work going forward but that is not the same as changing everything.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  11. Shakara Augur

    You are missing the point. Right now as we speak there are chronic problems. The overuse of percent modifiers are causing some of these chronic problems. The game can not move to a healthier state without addressing the source of these issues. Leaving in all these focus AAs for instance is causing them to be unable to add new AAs. They cant just stop adding HDex to gear and the more the add the more %crit enters the game. There is a dire need for this type of rework.
  12. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    I think you are missing the point, redoing all the modifiers as been suggested would be a massive amount of work as would the rebalancing that would be needed. Considering the balance issues we have seen on other smaller changes I don't see how this would not end up with the same mess.
  13. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    I think we can sum all of this up to "We have a problem" and "It would be very difficult to fix"
    Laronk, Vumad and Waring_McMarrin like this.
  14. Laronk Augur

    You don't think the dot revamp was smooth? =)
  15. kizant Augur

    The DoT changes would have been better it they were done over a shorter period of time. We actually had players crying about nerfs because they waited half a year before making needed adjustments even though the final result is still overpowered. It seems to me they need to dedicate more time to working on these issues instead of a handful of days once or twice a year.
    Sancus likes this.
  16. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    Having read through the thread, the OP and Sancus would have the entire game's combat system be broken and be rebuilt from the ground up. The percentage benefits that they are complaining about are going to break the entire game's balance. Every class at every level will be hit to some degree. It will make the majority of the game unplayable for an extended period of time.

    Changes going forward are the only reasonable approach. Changes going backwards require a completely unreasonable amount of work to make the game just playable against trash let alone named or raid mobs.
  17. Tucoh Augur

    [IMG]
    Stymie likes this.
  18. Warpeace Augur

    Maybe change it because its not really working?
  19. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Change the entire system and cause many more issues? A change of this scale would have me concerned about balance being messed up and things broken for a good while. Just look at the recent changes to body types and how there are still issues around things that got changed. The changes suggested here would be hitting things on a much larger scale and there is much more that would have to be changed.
  20. Cicelee Augur

    People were complaining about CasterQuest, and that melee never had a chance to compete on DPS parses.

    Now people are complaining that melee crit 100% of the time via hDex and want to change that which could lower melee DPS even more?

    OK this was made in jest. Maybe it was funny, maybe not. Reader can decide that. But, are players quitting EQ over this? Heroic dexterity crit rates and percentage modifiers?

    IMHO the game needs some class balance adjustments to make it more fair for some and less for others as far as DPS goes. I would rather make changes to other things first (increase/decrease base flat numbers) before messing around with fundamental things in game that has been around over two decades...