PvP broken mechanics

[MrFreeze]

Yeah, maybe more so offensively than on defense. No ones talking about it cause it's to all our advantages, but there are some rediculous things you can do with multi proc hitters on offense too.

[Sparton_LOTB]

When I won the DM I put that defense together, and now face many similar defenses. I routinely beat them going second - but I have a Prisoner. If you don't have a Prisoner and go second? Good luck! There have been a few who have appeared here and told tales of victory going second, but it's almost impossible. Perhaps that's what you were referring to

But to Slauki's point - every character should have a counter - and there is one for this combo. He's called the Prisoner.

But the Prisoner being the only counter to the Prisoner is the problem. When a character's only reasonable counter is the opposite side having the same character, then it becomes a game of "have that character or lose substantially more", and it makes every team force themselves to dedicate 1 or 2 slots to specific characters you'll then see everywhere (which is what we see a lot of in the top 25... but also in a lot of the lower rankings, too).

With all that being said - I hear what Mr Freeze is saying. I'm sitting here typing while owning the combo in question; I'd perhaps feel like him on the other side of the fence. At the same time I've put a ridiculous amount of time into this game - and some money too - and so I would think my defense SHOULD be really strong. But not unbeatable.

Yeah, in the end, that's the goal; we don't want everyone to win 50/50, and we want people with better stables of characters and the skill to know how to best pair them up to have better win rates than others. We just feel that some characters create massive spikes in capability to achieve high win rate, and commonly it doesn't have to due with specific synergies the characters have, but in their raw presence and power that start invalidating many more opposing options than intended.

I initially griped about the Corrupt General nerf and it ended up being a good thing. We all want this game to be fun, so I appreciate this dialog and look forward to seeing what you bring to the table. While this isn't a democracy - you guys ultimately calls the shots - it would be great if there was at least some dialog about your proposed way to handle this before implementation as it is an issue that is pretty significant.

That is precisely what we'll be doing next week (and I guess to a degree what we've started in there). We'll start with a few characters that on our end we specifically want to look at, but I'll also be opening the a dedicated thread for others to make their case if they think there's something we on the design team are missing, so we as a community can look at and discuss what'll make Legacy of the Beast's PVP as dynamic, competitive, and fun as we can for as much of our players as possible.

The bottom line is, no matter who you nerf, some characters will always be better than others, and this is what makes them desirable, and what will make people keep playing to earn and and paying to buy souls in order to be lucky enough to pull these characters. The Prisoner is currently the strongest (arguably--at least, the one you fight latest in the game campaign) boss character that can be drawn... does it not make sense that he would be one of the most desirable characters?

It's not a problem that the Prisoner is popular/valuable in PVP. We knew that well before PVP would launch that he would be popular. Our oversight is that there's no practical answer to him without using him.

If we introduce other characters with the same passive, we haven't solved the problem. We've just made it so there's a shortlist of characters with X passive you need to bring to have a top-end defense. Team building on defense still stagnates in basically the same way.

Our goal is that there should be viable combinations of characters/talismans that can meet or exceed the value of having a prisoner on defense, even if that means it's much harder to get such a combination. Right now, it doesn't look like that exists, and due to the nature of why he is so dominant, there may not be anything without changing the nature of how his passive works (such as no passives for everyone, or only some characters getting locked down, etc).

And it's then a chicken - or - the - egg argument

Are a lot of these players at the top because they have Prisoners? Or do they have Prisoners because they play a lot and managed to score them - just as they're playing PvP a lot?

Yeah, that's a good question, and something I'll be continuing to review next week.

If I remember correctly... [my quote about not turning this into a Prisoner discussion thread]

RIP my intentions.

[The Educated fool]

Our goal is that there should be viable combinations of characters/talismans that can meet or exceed the value of having a prisoner on defense, even if that means it's much harder to get such a combination. Right now, it doesn't look like that exists, and due to the nature of why he is so dominant, there may not be anything without changing the nature of how his passive works (such as no passives for everyone, or only some characters getting locked down, etc).

Interesting. I suppose then my questions must become why should there be characters that exceed the value of the Prisoner? And which characters are then more worthy to be the best ones? I honestly don't get this criteria at all, and legitimately wonder about the answer to these questions... but I've asked similar questions in this thread already without reply, so I doubt the answers are forthcoming. Ultimately, I'm just a random player anyway, and some things may simply not be meant for me to know.

At this point though, based on your conclusion here, the nerf bat of Damocles seems destined to fall upon the Prisoner no matter what, so further discussion in another thread would seem entirely unnecessary anyway, from my perspective. At least I can save myself some time.

[Nekroliun]

Idk if this classifies as broken but using holy smoke's hunt on an enemy that has a 2-4 burns (physical ones) usually insta kills him. Pretty op, it one shot the freaking sentinel beast... also tried it in pvp against some of the really low ranks, it usually still one shots everything... pretty powerful, but idk if broken cuz it depends on burning talisman for me with the red bat, but since there's the desert guy's perfect hit passive that procs talismans his could be a pretty good tactic, thou using bugs to win is dirty af

[CanyptianFit]

I've got to give the devs credit. The more I play pvp the more I'm impressed with the delicate balance they have achieved with the character builds. The prisoner has his weaknesses, is clearly powerful, but also requires more work to get. The G/A soul is the most pricey, so you have to give a lot to try and get him. If you spend your points on souls for the chance to get him, there is a difference then spending your points on shards. Trade-off.

I got a G/A rare soul on on the last round of pvp, and heard Bruce's scream only to get my second gunner Golden son. I was hoping for anything but a dupe.

I really was perplexed with Slauki's comments that the defenses would be a lot more diverse without the prisoner. I think so and maybe not. Still wondering on that.

At the end of the day I'm glad that the first person to attack is random, as that gives me a chance to win. Again, I'm not afraid of the prisoner, certain builds will almost guarantee a win if going first with him; and if I had him I would have him in my defense for sure. But I'll take that chance.

Top 5 teams be lenient on me. 😍 Please!

This decision on how to counteract him is not to be taken lightly. If he his to have a counterpart they should be an assassin I'm guessing. Hard to get with similar shortcomings.

Love this game damn it.

[Nicko]

Our goal is that there should be viable combinations of characters/talismans that can meet or exceed the value of having a prisoner on defense, even if that means it's much harder to get such a combination. Right now, it doesn't look like that exists, and due to the nature of why he is so dominant, there may not be anything without changing the nature of how his passive works (such as no passives for everyone, or only some characters getting locked down.

Or a 60-70% chance his passive kicks in. 50% is too much of a nerf��

Disabling ALL passive so for both teams? Kind of like Visions Eddie stuns himself? Also an interesting idea...he couldn't be paired with the DM effectively anymore

[Sparton_LOTB]

Interesting. I suppose then my questions must become why should there be characters that exceed the value of the Prisoner?

The intent is not to say we want other characters to exceed the value of the Prisoner. The intent is that certain combinations of characters should exceed the value (ie allow you to get a higher winrate) than any old team which splashes the Prisoner.

Which isn't to say we don't want him to be good in a team for attacking or defending, or even that we want to make it so there's more teams which have high win rates without Prisoner than those which do. We just want to ensure that the top teams will not always want to pick the Prisoner if available, no questions asked.

[RCarter]

Or a 60-70% chance his passive kicks in. 50% is too much of a nerf��

Disabling ALL passive so for both teams? Kind of like Visions Eddie stuns himself? Also an interesting idea...he couldn't be paired with the DM effectively anymore

I struggle with the idea of nerfing the Prisoner in the name of PVP.

So the best plan is to nerf a toon for one aspect of a game, running the risk of rendering it useless for the rest of the game?

Hmm, sounds pretty weak to me.

If people are so cheesed off about seeing him in PvP lineups, ban him from PvP. Just don't trash him for the rest of the game. The Prisoner is as solid a toon that LotB has in terms of balance in both the campaign and the dungeon.

[Nicko]

The intent is not to say we want other characters to exceed the value of the Prisoner. The intent is that certain combinations of characters should exceed the value (ie allow you to get a higher winrate) than any old team which splashes the Prisoner.

Which isn't to say we don't want him to be good in a team for attacking or defending, or even that we want to make it so there's more teams which have high win rates without Prisoner than those which do. We just want to ensure that the top teams will not always want to pick the Prisoner if available, no questions asked.

Kind of like a Prisoner, a Desert Maurader, a Golden Son, and a Tailgunner Eddie

[MrFreeze]

Maybe this should be in the bugs thread, but is anyone else experiencing weird things tonight? I just lost two matches in a row, to the same team, because invisibility was removed when no characters on the opposing team had the ability to do that. I'm confused.