December 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Demoonchild]

Well I guess the main thing I can discuss about this update is Tailgunner Eddie getting a buff, which I think is fantastic since he's actually my main Eddie and I think he is seriously underrated. So to see him getting the buffs he's getting is greatly appreciated.

BUT, I really don't think changing his talisman slots is necessary - at least in my case (I run him with 4 boost and 2 strength which is my ideal setup with him) - seeing as some of his key moves scale based on the special stat so confining him to a maximum of just 3 yellow talismans I feel potentially affects his capability. Just my input of course but I'm glad that Tailgunner is finally getting some love.

I don't agree with the talismans setup.
The new configuration seems better since it opens more chances to use Tailgunner at his best, so you will be able to give him, for example, Echo which is currently impossible to do. Or you can give him a set of thorn or explosive, plus 2 strength snd one green to improve health and turn him into a killing machine.
I pretty like the tuning with 3 mandatory red, if you don't want him, just leave your Talismans as they are, and take care on no take them off...

[Sponholz]

The problem is that our current system doesn't allow us to just not gain Fury from an action... the amount of Fury you gain (assuming no outside factors) is based on the character's Special stat. There's global multipliers we can tweak based on the feature (that would affect all skills), but not something we can use to reduce the Fury gained from doing a specific action. Thus the current solution, of making it pretty reliably give you an extra turn in some situations... but not guaranteed (so that if you want that "utility" of shedding off certain debuffs, it's a gamble).

First things, first... Thanks for the fast reply! This is one the things I like the most about this game, the feedback from the staff, and the advanced changes opened to discussion is something that I already said on another thread, pretty rare this days.

Ok back to it, I will talk based on my personal experience, since I don't have access to any parts of the coding involved on LotB, but, if there is a global variable/function to calculate the amount of fury gained based on char stats, there should be something that calls it when any given action is used, and there should be some way to disable calling that specific function that calculates the fury, doesn't matter if its based on a global value or not, if the function is not called there could be a NULL return.

Or, they could add an exception on the function that calculates the fury so that if the action calling the function have the ID for Call to Arms (which I believe there is a way to track which action is calling any function, in some cases even the LABEL of a button can be used to raise an exception), returning a NULL (or zero or anything similar) value for the fury gained if it was called from certain skill, if there is nothing atm that can filter things like this, I strongly suggest that something on this line should be tested internally for future use, this game can be really complex as coding goes, just looking at the amount of different effects and combination of this effects that can occur on a single battle.

AGAIN:

Based on personal experience on coding both professionally and for personal use. I'm just trying to discuss and be as constructive as I can.

As usual, Cheers!!! Ed.

[Amarthir]

for example, Echo which is currently impossible to do. Or you can give him a set of thorn or explosive, plus 2 strength snd one green to improve health and turn him into a killing machine.

I would say to give this a chance. Let's say that he has an Echo and a Hunter set. If he gets accuracy up, Barrage could lower everyone's defense and ignite them at the same time, and if he gets an extra turn, he can use it again for very brutal damage. Then you add the Allied General for raising attack and giving him critical hit chance, he'll probably wipe out alot of competition. He'll do wonders in Brave New World

[Sparton_LOTB]

First things, first... Thanks for the fast reply! This is one the things I like the most about this game, the feedback from the staff, and the advanced changes opened to discussion is something that I already said on another thread, pretty rare this days.

I'm happy to have the dialog with you and others as well! It's definitely something we still don't see many game developers do, but I love to be part of these discussions to help improve the game more and to help inform/educate others on the development process that goes into games like ours (especially with more and more people getting into games and software in general).

Or, they could add an exception on the function that calculates the fury so that if the action calling the function have the ID for Call to Arms (which I believe there is a way to track which action is calling any function, in some cases even the LABEL of a button can be used to raise an exception), returning a NULL (or zero or anything similar) value for the fury gained if it was called from certain skill, if there is nothing atm that can filter things like this, I strongly suggest that something on this line should be tested internally for future use, this game can be really complex as coding goes, just looking at the amount of different effects and combination of this effects that can occur on a single battle.

This is basically the approach we would need to take to do what you're proposing (adjust the code, with either adding to data structure to support it or part of the code change requiring a specific work around to get the desired effect). It's totally doable (as far as coding goes, damn near anything is technically possible), but the problem is that it then goes from something a designer can fix to something that requires a programmer to fix... and that is often the bottleneck for the most important kinds of fixes or improvements. The time it would take to fix that could be equal to or more than the time to fix a combat hang, or functionality to enable an entirely new kind of talisman or skill effect.

In this case, because the idea of "don't generate fury for this specific situation" only opens up a strategic option for a small subset of characters, it's something we have to weigh against the value of doing one of those coding fixes, and right now that isn't the place we'd want our programmers to focus our attention on. That said, it's definitely something we'll keep in mind... if we see more potential places where the kind of functionality you're describing would be valuable, then we're re-evaluate based on what we'd be planning to deliver on that next milestone.

In summary, most of the tuning and a handful of the fixes you see in stuff like the tuning notes is stuff that Kaz or I (but mostly Kaz) can do as designers to improve and deepen the experience of the game, and that's usually the constraint most fixes and changes will have. Utilizing programmer time is something we need to be very careful with to ensure we don't fall into too much of a defect for quality improvements (it doesn't matter what game you're talking about, there's always another bug to fix).

[slauki]

the balancing seems very reasonable to me, love the TG fixes and the changes of his slots. he might even become useable in the arena. "rambo" is one of the coolest eddies for sure, so he deserves some love.

agree on JJJs suggestion, AHE is a very strong hitter but a bit more surviviability would be cool for him.

aside this i would just like to ask you if you could consider some counter for perfect immunity, which slows down matches a lot. right now only thing we have is an aop to shorten down the duration of buffs. but if chars like death dog would remove all effects (including PI) this would be great. sure it's kind of a contradiction to remove perfect immunity, but i think it's necessary.

shouldn't be an crazy aoe removal, but i had something in mind like letting perfect corruption neuter perfect immunity. so if you have PI on a char and an enemy puts perfect corruction on you the PI will simply disappear without being perfect corrupted. so the char will be simply stripped.
like permadeath as counter for perfect immortality.

regarding your coding time post this might be too much, but something against all these edas would be cool. as said before i don't think they are OP but they slow everything down a lot and make arena really annoying to play.

slow games --> less sow burned --> less refills --> less income --> threat of unemployment

cheers

[Sponholz]

This is basically the approach we would need to take to do what you're proposing (adjust the code, with either adding to data structure to support it or part of the code change requiring a specific work around to get the desired effect). It's totally doable (as far as coding goes, damn near anything is technically possible), but the problem is that it then goes from something a designer can fix to something that requires a programmer to fix... and that is often the bottleneck for the most important kinds of fixes or improvements. The time it would take to fix that could be equal to or more than the time to fix a combat hang, or functionality to enable an entirely new kind of talisman or skill effect.

In this case, because the idea of "don't generate fury for this specific situation" only opens up a strategic option for a small subset of characters, it's something we have to weigh against the value of doing one of those coding fixes, and right now that isn't the place we'd want our programmers to focus our attention on. That said, it's definitely something we'll keep in mind... if we see more potential places where the kind of functionality you're describing would be valuable, then we're re-evaluate based on what we'd be planning to deliver on that next milestone.

In summary, most of the tuning and a handful of the fixes you see in stuff like the tuning notes is stuff that Kaz or I (but mostly Kaz) can do as designers to improve and deepen the experience of the game, and that's usually the constraint most fixes and changes will have. Utilizing programmer time is something we need to be very careful with to ensure we don't fall into too much of a defect for quality improvements (it doesn't matter what game you're talking about, there's always another bug to fix).

Yeah I agree, I was just using the Call to Arms as an example by the time I wrote that, was talking more as a coder/programmer and also as a player, if it would require any changes to the game engine, then yeah at this point I advise to just think about adding as a fail-safe/troubleshoot measure on a mid to long term, when a deeply change like that could be done and tested well.

Hence why I previously posted that a simple change to the value would be bug free, and I can see that trying to implement a change to the core of the game can bring more harm then good atm.

Again, I am really pleased for the fast replies, and the fact that you don't try to rodeo things up, just plain explain, helps a lot also. On times like we live today a little transparency of whats going on behind the scenes can go a long way. (this don't applies to just LotB, gaming or whatever product you name, a customer service like the one you all provide is indeed a rare thing).

And I am also really pleased and happy by the fact that so far, my forum experience on this game is just awesome, almost all the players that post here try to be as constructive as possible, and almost always leave the toxicity on really low levels.

So in all honesty, props to LotB Staff (Sparton/Kaz are the ones I see the most on the forums, but this extend to everyone involved), and all the players that post a lot of good info and feedback to the devs, I am mostly sure I can speak on their behalf that a crowd like this makes the life of a developer a lot healthier. I wish I had the feedback most of you provide while I was coding as a profession.

Particularly this time of the year.... Cheers!!! Ed!

[Nicko]

the balancing seems very reasonable to me, love the TG fixes and the changes of his slots. he might even become useable in the arena. "rambo" is one of the coolest eddies for sure, so he deserves some love.

agree on JJJs suggestion, AHE is a very strong hitter but a bit more surviviability would be cool for him.

aside this i would just like to ask you if you could consider some counter for perfect immunity, which slows down matches a lot. right now only thing we have is an aop to shorten down the duration of buffs. but if chars like death dog would remove all effects (including PI) this would be great. sure it's kind of a contradiction to remove perfect immunity, but i think it's necessary.

shouldn't be an crazy aoe removal, but i had something in mind like letting perfect corruption neuter perfect immunity. so if you have PI on a char and an enemy puts perfect corruction on you the PI will simply disappear without being perfect corrupted. so the char will be simply stripped.
like permadeath as counter for perfect immortality.

regarding your coding time post this might be too much, but something against all these edas would be cool. as said before i don't think they are OP but they slow everything down a lot and make arena really annoying to play.

slow games --> less sow burned --> less refills --> less income --> threat of unemployment

cheers

So you’d like to see ALMOST Perfect Immunity

But if they did come up with a counter I like your suggestion. Aces High “Do or Die” is a nice counter to Immortality - and when combined with the other buffs they made recently - brought him nicely to 5* status

FOTD may become much more usable if Perfect Corruption was a counter to Perfect Immunity

[angelkelly]

the balancing seems very reasonable to me, love the TG fixes and the changes of his slots. he might even become useable in the arena. "rambo" is one of the coolest eddies for sure, so he deserves some love.

agree on JJJs suggestion, AHE is a very strong hitter but a bit more surviviability would be cool for him.

aside this i would just like to ask you if you could consider some counter for perfect immunity, which slows down matches a lot. right now only thing we have is an aop to shorten down the duration of buffs. but if chars like death dog would remove all effects (including PI) this would be great. sure it's kind of a contradiction to remove perfect immunity, but i think it's necessary.

shouldn't be an crazy aoe removal, but i had something in mind like letting perfect corruption neuter perfect immunity. so if you have PI on a char and an enemy puts perfect corruction on you the PI will simply disappear without being perfect corrupted. so the char will be simply stripped.
like permadeath as counter for perfect immortality.

regarding your coding time post this might be too much, but something against all these edas would be cool. as said before i don't think they are OP but they slow everything down a lot and make arena really annoying to play.

slow games --> less sow burned --> less refills --> less income --> threat of unemployment

cheers

So basically you want A.Valkyrie to be even more op. No thanks.

[slauki]

So basically you want A.Valkyrie to be even more op. No thanks.

it was an example akelly...

[Nicko]

So basically you want A.Valkyrie to be even more op. No thanks.

Good point. If used Perfect Corruption would likely need to nerf that part of the Assassin Valkyrie.

Not a bad idea actually

And to Slaukis original point, I liked the Perfect Corruption idea because all of a sudden another Eddie (FOTD) other than the “Big 3” - VHE, Aces High, and Pharaoh - becomes really usable.