Originally Posted by
YourMaster
And back on topic, the removal of 'IncreasedDamage' on top of strenght has had an even bigger impact on the dragon than I would have had expected. My guess is this change has a huge impact all around.
Well based on what you're saying here and in posts after, it sounds like the damage increase stacked with the strength increase by a multiplier. So it would be (Base Strength + Strength Growth) * (1.00 + Damage Growth). For comparison, the actual percentage damage values for melee fighters would be:
Code:
Original FX
Lv1: 1.000 1.000
Lv2: 1.350 1.458
Lv3: 1.700 1.972
Lv4: 2.050 2.542
Lv5: 2.400 3.168
Lv6: 2.750 3.850
Lv7: 3.100 4.588
Lv8: 3.450 5.382
Lv9: 3.800 6.232
Lv10:4.150 7.138
Originally Posted by
YourMaster
Needs a lot more testing before making further balance modifcations.
I don't have time to get involved in balance testing for FX right now so not much else for me to say about that.
Originally Posted by
Krizzie
I have no problems with change, as long as it keeps close to the original game. Adding/removing skills is something I'm not a fan of. Just as you pointed out.
The mentioned changes for the Dragon are getting more of a personal taste thing than just "fixing" something.
So I would search for a "fix" in the stats of the Dragon and not in adding spells.
Changing stats is just as drastic as changing abilities. Certain stat or ability change can push a unit more towards its intended purpose or it could pull a unit away by deluding its concept of function. This of course depends on the specific changes being done to a specific unit.
The current suggestion for the Dragon's abilities does not involve personal taste at all. It comes from an understanding of what the original Dragon did and the acknowledgement that the Dragon is currently weak and thus needs certain buffs to remain relevant. The Dragon is a Heal / Armor tank primarily, and the suggestion is to help realize that within current FX.
If anything, your suggestion for adding melee is far more drastic than my suggestion to boost his Armor and give him Protect.
Originally Posted by
Krizzie
Everything here is based on opinions, I get the feeling you think yours has a higher weight than those of others.
I do not devalue the opinion of others. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am more interested in hearing what others have to say if they think differently from me, even if I end up disagreeing with them. They are more likely to say something that I did not consider as they have different mentalities and priorities compared to me. It's all apart of increasing my understanding and perspective of a situation. It's quite simple, really.
You probably only feel that way because of the comment I made at the end of my last post. However that is merely an observation I made based on your current and past actions. It is something that does heavily influence your stance in these kind of discussions, so I felt it was a significant detail to point out.
Talk of balance is more objective than you might think. The concept of what to do with the Dragon and to make him into a Heal / Armor tank, for example, is something that is subjective, yes. However, what makes him balanced and what is able to realize that concept within the context of the game and its mechanics is something that is much more objective. I do also have a lot of experience with balancing in specifically both DK1 and DK2.
Originally Posted by
Krizzie
Er, when did I say this?
Exploits, bugs, errors, mistakes should be fixed. If the fixes cause new problems then these should be discussed.
It would take some time to find the discussion thread even with an advanced search, I think, so for now I won't bother.
However, if it freshens your memory, the discussion was about the Dark Mistress being overpowered and how she is effective against practically everything. You were saying how Orcs can counter the Dark Mistress because they can chase them and back them against a wall. That's when the Ranged AI bugs out and no longer casts its spells like Lightning / Drain and the Orc's higher melee capabilities over the Dark Mistress starts to shine. I'm fairly certain that you did not present it as a bug, however, which is quite important to establish proper perspective from your past position.
Originally Posted by
Krizzie
So you could make Armor increase by level? Can you also change the percentage of increase? Cause the normal 35% of the base value per level is a bit much I guess..
If that is the case then that could be an ideal fix. The higher the level the higher the Armor gets.
Armor shouldn't increase on leveling. As mentioned before, it is consistently good no matter how high or low damage values get because it absorbs damage by a percentage. Armor's effectiveness is relatively the same. The only thing that needs to properly scale with damage, in this case, is Health.
Causing armor to increase on level will have a drastic impact, requiring units to be rebalanced in addition to having the undesirable effect of pushing the game away from its roots. The only way an armor increase could avoid having that level of impact would be to have an extremely low growth; something less than 5%. At that point, however, it does beg the question of 'Why?' The armor growth ends up being either pointless because its too low, or causing more drastic and undesirable effects because it isn't too low.
Adding the functionality for the possibility of Armor increasing on levels, however, isn't a bad idea. It allows for more flexibility if someone wants to do modding within FX.
Originally Posted by
Krizzie
But isn't "the problem" fixed when mefisto changes the calculations of the stats?
It now sounds as other creatures are the problem cause they use an overpowered melee attack?
Part of the problem from what I've seen with the Dragon is related to what I mentioned before. Due to the removal of the Strength cap of 255, higher leveled enemies are more threatening to Dragons. Spell damage increases also played a part in this too. It's kind of funny because Strength now properly scales with Health, as Health eventually outpaced the former in the original.
Now, the removal of drastic spell damage increase does help the Dragon considerably. He might still be weaker than he's supposed to be at higher levels, so a minor stat increase of +10 Armor might give him an extra push.
It would seem that YourMaster and I were on different pages when we spoke earlier. We both acknowledged that the Dragon was weaker, but I didn't realize just how severe his problem was. I was referring to how he's been noticeably to significantly weaker for a long time in FX due to certain bug fixing. YourMaster was referring to a problem that popped up recently with melee damage scaling out of control due to a bad damage formula / growth as I highlighted at the beginning of this post.
With Mefisto's change, the main problem that YourMaster highlighted is fixed, but there is still the problem with the Dragon generally being weaker that I've been talking about. The spell damage drop does help him but it also hurts him in other ways, so he might still need a little extra something. It's just something that'll need experimenting.