Frustration with Barbarians

[woqued]

Feb 28, 2020 18:07:59 GMT FunkySwerve said:

Feb 28, 2020 16:59:09 GMT woqued said:

If you can remain large, keep 20% 2h multiplier (instead of usual 40%) but get to wear a shield, and have no issues swapping weapons - then Barbs will be strong contenders for top TANKs (not general melee) in the game. Not in damage, but in durability and utility they make up what they lack in damage. In current Limbo farming meta, barbs wouldn't be top dogs (because damage is king, we already manage to make fairly unkillable 40% modifier chars, whats the benefit of even more defenses if we do it with 20% multiplier) but would arguably be THE best starting melee character in the game for any new player, and provide an absolute powerhouse for parties - and possibly be a super nice frontliner in future areas thanks to them being... Beefy, and providing fear aura.

This is my concern.

Caveat: If dualwielding is reworked to be compareably strong to 2h and barbs would get free weaponswitching while retaining all extra attacks from a doubleweapon and get to use a shield while at it, it would be one of if not the best melee type character in the game. Currently I would love to play a doubleweapon Barb with a shield if not for the immeasurably miserable weapon swapping scenario - you need to be able to hit key targets, and that is way too often not the case for a Barb due to healing issues.

We're not likely to edit dualweilding too much, but rather create play environments where it is more valuable.

Funky

Why is that a "Concern"? We lack that type of characters in the current melees, and it wouldn't be the sturdiest most utility character (tank shifters, 1h bc) it wouldn't provide the most utility (its just fear aura, compared to rogs inflictors and spelltanks it doesn't even carry a torch) it wouldn't do the most damage (less, by a large margin than regular 2h) and it wouldn't be the tankiest (still very vulnerable to infliction mechanics). It would simply be a strong soak type that we sorely lack at the moment. 

Being the best STARTING MELEE isn't something that you should be concerned about, imo. Barb suits that role perfectly even in classic DnD. 

[FunkySwerve]

Guess I misread your post. My concern is that we bump them up too much. Should have paid more attention to your parenthetical. Though I think some of the unkillable meelees will be less so after we make tweaks at the Mechanus drop.

Funky

[woqued]

Yeah that's a reasonable concern, and quite possible if barbs are given a lot of help. They don't need a lot, just the swapping issue.

I don't think they would be op in any way if their swapping issues were removed. 20% damage, not top dog in damage or utility or defense, just quite good in all of them is a good place for a class in an unique Barbish way is a good spot. Giving them other types of fixes though might lead to powercreep extraordinaire, especially if some other things are brought down. Also, if Mechanus isn't as long as Limbo but more dangerous and not so reliant on melee damage, then sturdier melee characters will garner more respect and that includes Barbarians. I think that might actually set a good point for balancing other classes.

[gladi8or]

Sorry I am away from home right now and can't reply immediately. My suggestion is to remove the ss and allow barbarians to stay large, using large weapon and shield without the nerf that is usually associated with being large. This 20% damage loss forces you to use the ss to become medium to negate this loss.

I am not suggesting any buffs be added. I simply believe swapping weapons like other tanks would put them on par.

This large size ability to use large weapons and shield, in my opinion, would allow tanks to be as useful as a self buffing tank. A fair trade off by my estimation. I do not fully understand the mechanics of the game, I am going by personal playing experience.

[FunkySwerve]

I'll run it by the team. I'm still on the fence, but leaning towards doing it.

Funky

[gladi8or]

Well, I sincerely appreciate you hearing me out on this. I honestly believe this change would see more players making barbarians on Higher Ground. Cheers.

[horbag]

i know i would make me one! i always liked barbarians but this was indeed one of the reasons why i ended up deleting mine, thanks for looking into it funky, realy appriciate it!

[woqued]

Honestly, if you would be into it, you could send some DM to test different classes and races from different players - summon endgame monsters of various types to fight them and see how sturdy they are or aren't, and how much damage they deal or don't in a controlled environment. In confusing big party environment it's harder to gauge the power of specific characters and players due to both human errors and very variable run spawns and characters excelling in different areas. Damage of a (weapon using) class is much easier to calculate than their durability, imo.

And - I must add - unkillable melees are quite rare, it is the powerspike of XRs - both weapons and armors - that made them truly shine, and those EXTREMELY stacked in good BURs. Most others still have weaknesses of various kinds, so tweaks alongside Mechanus that hit the durability of melee characters hard could hit a breakpoint where majority of them became carpets in endgame content. Due to the way how AC vs enemy AB and immunity vs infliction mechanics work is that there are quite specific breakpoints where tanks suddenly go from taking damage consistently to almost never taking damage, meaning they suddenly become very inflict-proof and gives players (and their partymates) ample time to restore them before they ever enter DANGER DANGER zone. Hits to melee AC or concealment very rapidly makes them extremely vulnerable in infliction areas and thus more carpety - or just means they chug potions instead of hitting things hoping someone else isn't doing the same.

[chirality]

Feb 28, 2020 18:05:09 GMT FunkySwerve said:

Instead, I'm curious about balance implications, and how far barbs are actually behind all the rest. I get not liking cumbersome mechanics, but generally they are there for a reason, or we would have removed them. I'm happy to reconsider such things if it won't create more balancing issues than it resolves, however, which is why I asked about the likely actual effect. After finishing reading your post - and thank you for keeping it succinct - I'm not sure where you fall. You agree we should do it, but then warn about buffing barbs. Can I conclude that you think this edit would not make them too powerful vs other two-handers?

Funky

Okay, gotcha.

So in regards to how far are barbs behind all the rest: about the nerf %, or the loss in 2h% dmg versus comparable "2h/shieldless-friendly" classes, such as divine tanks, monks, and rangers. Now first of all, keep in mind that barbs aren't really behind all the rest per se, as imo it is still a very strong class and even in the current meta there are some examples of very strong 2h barbs that function essentially as just a 2h Str crit imm tank, that doesn't receive any special boost to 2hness cuz it doesn't utilize the class feature (I'd compare to a divtank that doesn't use divshield, relying only on critimm and partybuffs+hide basically). Getting bit offtrack so let's circle back: barbs are behind other 2hers that receive class features which promote a 2h or shieldless build, in the fact that they don't get the full 2h% dmg that those others get. Yet still, they are a good class, and ofc let's not forget that a big part of all this in the first place is because shieldless-friendly 2hers got overbuffed initially when they shouldn't have; so that + the fact that barb is a very good class, means imo we need to be careful how balancing goes. That's all I meant.

So to circle back, barbs do fall somewhere between "full 2h%" 2hers and staffies/staffmonks (aka truly broken and dead--barb at least can just go 2h w/out SS; staffy literally was anti-exploited out of any option other than holding 1 qstaff with nothing else inhand xD) in the lineup.

I'm not saying that this edit (if we're still referring to something that makes the SS mechanism faster and more weap-swap/buff friendly) would make them too powerful vs other 2handers, because the thing is that right now, powercreep allows virtually any class to survive as a 2her, so this means that we're just looking at dmg output numbers, and that means playing anything that doesn't capitalize on full 2h% dmg simply isn't quite as meta. So even with this edit, people still would prioritize other classes, imo such as monk and ranger, which are very, very, very good 2hers and due to various class features (like wis bonus as we all know), are some of the strongest pupils to take advantage of how high attribute scores can get rn.

However, on the other hand this edit would allow barbs to be fully played to their (well, I think we all think their full extent, I'm pretty sure everyone thought SS being so hard was just a mechanical fact) true realized capacity as fluidly-changing 1h-2h tanks, that would be an even bigger buff than simply letting you fully utilize the 20% SS 2h-shield (which again isn't as meta as full 2h but is nothing to sneeze at). Yet I had this in mind when writing the previous paragraph and I'll stick to the answer that yes, it would be a very good buff for barbs, but I don't think it would elevate them into the #1 spot; other classes are simply too strong as well rn, and much like a 1htank can swap to a 2h weap for bashing stuff, a 2h non-barb can also easily swap to a shield + para weap kit any time if needed, so it's not like barb being able to suddenly do that on the fly without messing with buffs or anything, would be unique; but it would allow barbs to do that and keep a 20% dmg delta vs their full-2h% competitors if they ever do swap to a 1h situation. Eh, I don't think it's much to think about, I'm just trying to be thorough.

Anyway, the people's vote or whatever was a random joke, I may just as well have said Nobel peace prize or something, it was more about the fact that this is *definitely* something that should be done, rather than about voting or mass opinion being a determining factor on devwork. I'm just saying, like the fact that the SS thing is so broken is just a really sad disappointment and I certainly think the best way forward is to implement that, then see what the next step for tweaking the playing field is. My gut says just do it and leave it alone; next step is to somehow fix qstaff; then honestly I think that would be ok for rn on 2hers, it's just a load of buffs yes, but aimed to level it off (and then can re-tweak % levels, even on a case basis if needed); i think the longtime effort has already been on (as you said in other post) creating an environment where non-2hers are more valuable. I think that's fine I just may disagree on the best way to pursue that goal; I just think you can create an environment more amenable to non-2h success by not only tweaking mob stats but also by again, redoing the weap/weap buff system a bit (even little by little) and by reducing the presence of hp sponges. I admit that I may have gotten overused to the crazy environment with RG et al in terms of slogginess (even advocating for nerfs), but I kind of feel like non-tank phys dmg spam was largely replaced with a reliance on 2h phys dmg spam, which after XR weaps and limbo stuff and gems and all this was all working at full capacity, was then largely replaced with a reliance on 2h non-phys dmg spam. Iirc the intent w/ sg&raj was to then largely tweak the environment (runs, mobs, mob stats, etc) and classes etc to transition dexers/non 2hers into providing competitive ele dmg and then teasing 2hers back into the reliant phys dmg source as they should be.

[therealmilli]

I love my Barb, but the main issue I have is the 2-3 rounds it takes to change weapons while in combat.

[chirality]

uhm, just to be clear, sorry I know that's super late but I wanted to give it a shot.

tldr: barbs actually are only limited rn by SS not being fully functional. keep this in mind. as a class they have literally everything, like rangers every box is checked. SS is the one thing that directly competes with Wis AC in terms of #1 godtier 2h-enabler ability; the point of SS is literally to let you 2h and shield at the same time. if it worked without interfering with weapon buffs or extra wasted time, it would definitely be powerful as hell. Doing this buff without tweaking the 2h% levels any wouldn't elevate barb to top contender overnight I think; as long as SS isn't offering full 2h%, barb wouldn't be unanimous #1 because it would essentially be the same as now but more flexible (prolly definitely unanimous #2 behind a 3way tie of monk ranger fighter).

edit: also, while the point of that post wasn't to say "omg barbs are op", i also want to toss this in there as food for thought: don't forget that I've been leaving SS dualweaps (oldskool style) out of the narrative entirely. now if we've already been seeing a shift to a dexer/dw-er/anything-but-a-gd-2her friendly environment, and that trend shall continue (as it will and should), then consider that a big SS buff now/soon, followed by microbuffs or whatever incremental or not, but more buffs favorable for DWers, will definitely put barb back on a very special type of pedestal.

again, this totally isn't to harp overmuch on barb power, it's just to mention stuff i forgot or clarify, which happens to be about barb power. but overall while 2hing for the full % they're just any other tank and as long as that's the case their power will come more from flexibility and adaptability to complex run design (like a sorc as caster), or from SSing dual weapons to take advantage of a DW-friendly environment, whichever is the case.

[gladi8or]

Since the topic of voting has come up, can we all vote that Bale keep his posts to 150 characters of less? jk... maybe 😜

But honestly, Barbarians are decent, the change with ss is only suggested to improve play and overall effectiveness of the class. It certainly won't make barbarians overpowered or the top class, but I would bet there would be more of them played across the server. I'll leave it at that.

[FunkySwerve]

Feb 29, 2020 17:20:14 GMT woqued said:

Honestly, if you would be into it, you could send some DM to test different classes and races from different players - summon endgame monsters of various types to fight them and see how sturdy they are or aren't, and how much damage they deal or don't in a controlled environment. In confusing big party environment it's harder to gauge the power of specific characters and players due to both human errors and very variable run spawns and characters excelling in different areas. Damage of a (weapon using) class is much easier to calculate than their durability, imo.

We don't have enough people to build areas quickly, let alone spend time doing this. Loggers are a quicker way to get this data.

Regardless, we decided to make the edit. We're also adjusting fear aura to scale much higher (it's basically useless after you hit Tia in the current mechanical setup based on Hit Dice), and considering giving pure barbs stun in that aura.

Funky

[woqued]

Feb 29, 2020 21:45:35 GMT FunkySwerve said:

Feb 29, 2020 17:20:14 GMT woqued said:

Honestly, if you would be into it, you could send some DM to test different classes and races from different players - summon endgame monsters of various types to fight them and see how sturdy they are or aren't, and how much damage they deal or don't in a controlled environment. In confusing big party environment it's harder to gauge the power of specific characters and players due to both human errors and very variable run spawns and characters excelling in different areas. Damage of a (weapon using) class is much easier to calculate than their durability, imo.

We don't have enough people to build areas quickly, let alone spend time doing this. Loggers are a quicker way to get this data.

Regardless, we decided to make the edit. We're also adjusting fear aura to scale much higher (it's basically useless after you hit Tia in the current mechanical setup based on Hit Dice), and considering giving pure barbs stun in that aura.

Funky

I know the lack of personnel, and loggers are notoriously shitty sources of information unless there are glaring outliers (which, more often than not, have to do with player errors of various kinds). Just threw it out there anyway  

Sounds good on the barb part! I look forward to seeing how popular they get. Do you have something in mind for a hypothetical scenario where this was all a scam or misread on the player bases' part for reeling them back in? Or would that be part of a more general melee edit you mentioned upon Mechanus hitting the game? I don't think they will be op, but I think they might be very popular due to being easy to pull off. 

[FunkySwerve]

I figure they'll get reeled back by the 2H edit when Mechanus hits. We're trying a different ac profile in Mechanus, which is likely to reduce damage from tanks somewhat.

Funky