DunDef Digest 9/6/12 Discussion Thread

[Argotto]

The way I see it, It's not that it was messed up so much that it wasn't really designed for the loot we have now. At this point if they created a new loot generation system, they'd have to go back through every map and tune the loot parameters for every difficulty and it would likely take a long time to do- time they obviously don't have. Balance isn't a simple beast. It's easy to rework one thing and have something else be broken. It's not "bugging", it's just not built for what it's trying to generate.

I'd remind you that while loot drives progression, this game isn't just about getting the best loot. If you remember that, you might have more fun with it. Stop grinding, and start enjoying it.

Personally, I feel pretty good to have played this game for close to a year. A lot of my games don't last that long.

No matter how you slice it, it comes down to a responsibility a lot of customers feel Trendy has to fix their mistakes. This game IS about loot gathering, especially once you've already beaten everything at least once, or at the most, on insane. As soon as you hit the nightmare stuff, loot becomes your main focus above all, and lets face it; the game truly starts when you hit nightmare.

What you said is subjective, but I respect your opinion, because it is really something I cannot bring myself to do. Just play the game for what it 'is' right now and be content. I am sorry to say that I cannot bring myself to simply be content with how things are going right now. Perhaps balancing this game isn't as easy as most of us would like to believe, but it cannot be entirely out of the scope of possibility for them to tweak some numbers that would adjust the rolls on negatives or seeing godlies in NMHC aquanos, ect ect.

So many people have left the game, and it could be for different reasons, but I know two of my family members who joined in with me ended up leaving just because of the loot situation. We don't have 10 hours a day to spend playing this game, sadly. So if we can only play around 3-4 a day, it will take months upon months at this rate to collect the gear we need to progress (without player trading of course, which is what my remaining cousin and I have been forced to do for our entire sets across 8-10 characters between us).

[oldbrokenlink]

re: RNG

if all the logic is in the unreal script that is available to us, then why doesn't someone do a conversion that makes it better.

if it works then i don't see why trendy can't adapt it.

if some logic in c/c++ then trendy may need to release that part of their code

or at least someone replace any c/c++ stuff with unreal logic.

either way the thing is to create conversion that fixes it and then move to the conversion

[grey-1]

re: RNG

if all the logic is in the unreal script that is available to us, then why doesn't someone do a conversion that makes it better.

if it works then i don't see why trendy can't adapt it.

if some logic in c/c++ then trendy may need to release that part of their code

or at least someone replace any c/c++ stuff with unreal logic.

either way the thing is to create conversion that fixes it and then move to the conversion

Someone like CrzyRndm, Dingle, etc.?

Ok... take a look at: http://forums.trendyent.com/showthre...bug-RNG-fixing

[Alhanalem]

No matter how you slice it, it comes down to a responsibility a lot of customers feel Trendy has to fix their mistakes.

You'll most likely have to wait for their next game, unfortunately. They can't work on their next game if they continute to devote all their time to this one. Even the best games fade after some period of time. This is pretty much one of those cases where they simply have to take their experience with this game, learn from it, and improve on their next game. In my opinion, if you've gotten to the point where the only thing that matters is the loot, then you've already milked a huge amount of value out of the game. I for one, while I'm not playing as much as I used to (Though I've turned a lot of my attention to level design), am satisfied with the many fun hours I spent on the game. When I come to the point where I'm not playing anymore, it's not going to be a grudging departure.

I had a lot of fun, I've accumulated over 1400 hours on the game. I'm satisfied that I got my money's worth. This isn't an MMO or game that I'd expect to play for 5-10 years, and that's okay.

OBL: Someone is dissecting the loot generation as mentioned above- though it is only realistic for one person to put band-aids on the problem without revisiting the numbers tied to all the maps and analyzing the game balance as a whole and all that jazz. It actually wouldn't be that hard to do something like "make negatives more rare or have no negatives"- but that's not balanced, by itself. If all loot is made the same amount of better, you end up just delaying the same problem...

[Demonseye]

Well, not really, since maps like Palantir or the Crystalline Dimension simply can't be done on Nightmare without the right stats for now.

That's why tweaking the ogres/copters, or correcting the RNG would be cool.

Tweaking ogres would allow to have less stats to win the same thing, because overall difficulty would be lowered. Correcting the RNG would allow to get better stats and so to beat these damage sponges in order to win.

Else we can look into my friend WinterBraid's suggestion of revalorizing the hero skillpoints to be really useful in nightmare.
http://forums.trendyent.com/showthre...oding-required!

[Alhanalem]

Tweaking ogres would allow to have less stats to win the same thing, because overall difficulty would be lowered.

The overall difficulty of a difficulty called "nightmare" doesn't really need to be lowered. It's supposed to be hard as hell. People should realize what they're getting into.

However, I would very much like the hero stat points to be more important. Even with the slightly higher ramp and slightly higher cap, a single piece of good mythical or better gear can have more total stats than your hero, I always felt that was a bit on the "huh??" side.

[Carlh267]

The overall difficulty of a difficulty called "nightmare" doesn't really need to be lowered. It's supposed to be hard as hell. People should realize what they're getting into.

I don't mind Nightmare being hard as hell. However, I do mind that progression is hazy as hell and that without using summoner and EV, Nightmare mode goes from being hard as hell to darn near impossible to progress at some points. Almost all builds nowadays use EV buff beams and summoner walls, which makes it almost for somebody like me, who doesn't want to pay for either, to progress.

Nightmare needs to be balanced around the original 4 characters, and at the present moment, it feels like it was balanced around players who had access to paid character's defenses in addition to the regular heroes. That isn't right, and should be changed. I don't mind that the DLC characters make it easier to progress, I just don't want them to feel mandatory.

[Alhanalem]

Nightmare needs to be balanced around the original 4 characters

Unfortunately, it's balanced around all characters, not just the original four. If the new characters didn't bring something to the table, nobody would get them.

If buff beams were, say, half as effective as they are now, they wouldn't be used because they wouldn't be worth the DU cost (Nothing else EV offers is particularly mandatory, not even the walls)

If summoner minions used DU, they wouldn't be used because they'd cost too much and attack slower and offer little new other than being able to move, which by itself isn't much of a compelling reason to use them. The only reason summoner is any good at all is because his stuff is extra.

Making a new character useful but not mandatory or excessively compelling is no easy feat. It has to be good enough that people will want to get it, or you'd never sell it, but if its even slightly beyond that, people will complained because they're "forced" to buy it.

The barbarian basically falls under the "not good enough" category, because the cases where he's actually desirable to have are very rare, and not really that relevant anymore. The jester is probably the closest to a perfect balance between doing something people would want without compelling people to buy it, because it does do useful things, but a lot of them require luck and are therefore unreliable in a tight situation.

However- if you're playing online, you can benefit from the DLC characters without owning them yourself. Thus, you're never truly forced to buy any of them, because you can just play with someone who chose to buy them.

[paintolar]

To add to the above post, people also need to remember that nightmare is also a paid dlc. It only makse sense that it be balanced around other paid dlc characters. If the origonal game (ie: easy- insane) required other paid dlc, i would agree something was oout of whack. As it stands now, i believe the dificulty is great.

[Carlh267]

Unfortunately, it's balanced around all characters, not just the original four. If the new characters didn't bring something to the table, nobody would get them.

If buff beams were, say, half as effective as they are now, they wouldn't be used because they wouldn't be worth the DU cost (Nothing else EV offers is particularly mandatory, not even the walls)

If summoner minions used DU, they wouldn't be used because they'd cost too much and attack slower and offer little new other than being able to move, which by itself isn't much of a compelling reason to use them. The only reason summoner is any good at all is because his stuff is extra.

Making a new character useful but not mandatory or excessively compelling is no easy feat. It has to be good enough that people will want to get it, or you'd never sell it, but if its even slightly beyond that, people will complained because they're "forced" to buy it.

The barbarian basically falls under the "not good enough" category, because the cases where he's actually desirable to have are very rare, and not really that relevant anymore. The jester is probably the closest to a perfect balance between doing something people would want without compelling people to buy it, because it does do useful things, but a lot of them require luck and are therefore unreliable in a tight situation.

However- if you're playing online, you can benefit from the DLC characters without owning them yourself. Thus, you're never truly forced to buy any of them, because you can just play with someone who chose to buy them.

Again, I'm not saying I don't mind that these new characters bring new defense options to the table, I just don't want to feel forced to get them in order to progress. Almost all end game builds at the moment utilize summoner units, EV buff beams, or a combo of both. I don't mind that something new is being brought to the table with the new heroes, but I shouldn't be forced to use them in order to progress. The new characters and new defenses are fine, I'd just rather be able to beat the game without spending money on them.

The EV and Summoner both bring extremely interesting concepts to the table, and I don't have any problems with how their defenses work. What I do care about, however, is that progressing without them really is a nightmare. People would still buy the additional characters if they weren't extremely powerful- many people I've played with online bought the 4 gender-swapped characters, even when their abilities were only slightly modified from the original characters. So saying that customers won't buy new DLC because it doesn't bring much new to the table isn't really viable, because plenty of people already bought DLC that only slightly changed the game (and only in a hero-related aspect, as all the gender swapped classes had the same towers).

And the argument "well you can always play online" is also an illogical argument, because while I'm not forced to buy the new characters personally, I still have to rely on somebody who did. Like it or not, in the game's current state the EV and Summoner are practically required for getting through end game content bar some sort of freakish miracle or glitch, and forcing your players to slog through 1 DLC by buying another is an extremely bad business practice. Even if you don't personally buy the DLC, many others already have, and it still severely limits your ability play the game in your own way, as well as cheats other people out of their hard-earned cash.

TL;DR: I don't mind that the new heroes make things easier, and I don't mind that that the defenses are new. What I do mind is that without buying 2 DLC's I don't want to get, I can't complete another I did.

To add to the above post, people also need to remember that nightmare is also a paid dlc. It only makse sense that it be balanced around other paid dlc characters. If the origonal game (ie: easy- insane) required other paid dlc, i would agree something was oout of whack. As it stands now, i believe the dificulty is great.

What does Nightmare being a paid DLC have to do with anything?

I don't care that I paid for access to nightmare. I bought that because I wanted to. I don't want to buy the other DLC's, but now I can't progress without them because I didn't pony up for even MORE DLC? Get real, if you support a business practice where you have to complete paid DLC by buying more of it, you're only screwing yourself and other people out of more money. Its a horrible business practice, I just want to be able to complete the DLC I paid for without being forced to spend even more money on this game.

To be clear- I'm not asking for DLC character nerfs, I'm just asking for original character buffs, so I can complete something I paid for without paying more.