In terms of the stamina adjustment - I’m thinking something in the area of +50% stamina regen at 0 (equipment load) and -50% at max (and above). But these would obviously need to be tested out first to see how they feel.
I don’t THINK it will require much testing from the player’s perspective to find the perfect point as it won’t affect total stamina, just the regeneration (although affecting total stamina is another option - but that affects an attribute point, which would lead to more changes).
The weight categories would still matter, I just wouldn’t want to add too much ‘weight’ to them as it would lead further to everyone playing as one of 3 weight classes. Having ‘in-between’ classes, at least in theory, should lead to more player diversity. (but I wouldn’t mind it being tied to the 3 weight groups if that’s easier to implement or there’s no difference when tested).
Another option to improve the balance would be to simply scale the enchantment/gem bonuses on each type slightly (e.g. +7-30% armor for cloth but +4-15% armor on plate, and leather/male equidistant in-between.
In terms of weapons, I actually had a different idea, which is to allow the player to grey out any/each of the 4 offensive abilities on the stat screen which would then result in weapons requiring those abilities not dropping at all (but now I’m getting off subject).
less Weigth or Extra Defense are Enchant Stats which are simply bad at lower Weigth classes.
One solution are fixed values for Armor and every 10 Level and/or Enchanter Building Upgrade the values rise. A big problem are “perfect” enchanted cloth/leather items which you never Upgrade because you ignore Armor Class.
% Values must in my opinion exclusiv for Ring Slots.
or Enchants are classified in attack or defense
Cloth 1 defense 3 attack Stats,
Leather + Net 2 attack/Defense
and Plate always 3 Defense and 1 attack Stat.
Means you attack Build in Plate is always lacking in Attack Power compared to other armor classes but excel in Defense.
Indeed, cloth armor cannot compete with plate at the moment.
I have seen some good suggestions here; allow me to present some of mine.
Currently it does not require much to be able to wear plate armor and still reach medium load. As such I would say equip load attribute scaling as well as enchantments related to gear load/weight need a review.
High “reduced weight” roll on a plate is extremely strong, yet almost neglectable on cloth armor. At the same time there are no enchantments that prefer cloth/lether.
I would leave rings and gems as a strong option though, since those have high opportunity cost.
Power of enchantments could scale with gear type. (I mean the % range that can roll on an enchantment) Cloth would have the strongest enchantments, plate the weakest. This would synchronize well with many concerns mentioned here:
→ Now a glass cannon build is possible as cloth will have higher offensive stats than plate.
→ There is a dynamic nature to gear, since there are 4 armor types as well as 4 gear slots to mix. Players would have many levers to fine tune builds to their liking.
→ No need to add passive boni to focus or stamina in cloth/lether armor, since the corresponding enchantments will be stronger.
This is easy to fix. Just don’t allow armor to spawn with weight-modifying enchantments. That way it’s not possible to get plate armor without a big equip load enchantment. And then if you play a heavy character, rather than looking for plate armor that’s miraculously lightweight, you’re looking for plate armor that’s magically more resistant.
That by itself wouldn’t necessarily prevent equip load from being a better investment than other stats. But it would mean you actually have to INVEST in equip load to actually use heavy armor. Depending on how light/resistant the individual pieces are, it could still turn out that investing in the equip load necessary to use plate armor is objectively better than investing in health or damage stats. But it’s easy to tweak those kinds of things once you’ve got a system where equip load is actually required to use heavier armor…
As it is right now, it’s hard to balance these systems because everything is technically available to everyone with little or no investment, based solely on RNG. The game doesn’t need to be perfectly balanced, but it screws up character building and flavor/worldbuilding/universe’s internal logic for every character to technically have access to plate armor if they get lucky or farm and/or save scum for a long time.
I also agree with ShortCat’s suggestion:
Power of enchantments could scale with gear type. (I mean the % range that can roll on an enchantment) Cloth would have the strongest enchantments, plate the weakest.
The plate armor is already penalized by needing equip load to move in the normal range. For instance, I have 40 points in the equipment load. Suggestions to penalize this with stamina loss is not a good balance suggestion at all in my opinion. This does not occur in any ARPG. It would totally destroy the viability to plate.
As far as giving cloth and leather buffs, I agree with making them more viable choices. Like extra defensive stat, or some special implicit attribute.
Not to mention I use weight decreasing gems as well. These are game mechanics that are there as choices because people want to use the heavy armor. Penalizing that further is going too far in my opinion.
All these calls to nerf everything are getting ridiculous. People will end up getting the game in a state like Diablo IV, which is a game I have not played in a long time because of all the nerfs the devs kept implementing.
I want to enjoy the game. But, if people keep calling for things like nerfing it will end up making the game unenjoyable. Which, I truly hope does not continue to be what the focus is on. If some areas of the game are lacking, make them better, do not nerf.
The only reason people are using plate so heavily (… got it ) is that it is practically impossible to get through the crucible with anything else. (special hyper effective range builds aside that are at the edge of exploit)… and actually only because the eccho knight does ridiculous dmg while being super mobile.
You simply need that defense or die. Penalizing that further will lead to nowhere because there is just no alternative.
Also, the boss arena is so small compared to the mobility and range of the eccho knight, that you cannot stay at a distance all the time.
The equip load is actually not a penalty, nor should it imho. It is a gameplay decision. If “too light” or “too heavy” is penalized, there is only one choice, and one could remove the weight class entirely.
Personally, in all ARPGs I like to use heavy plate. I love Elden Ring and the Souls series because you can do it all (wear plate, fight hand to hand, swords, shields, and magic). I hope this game goes in that direction honestly and if you want to grind it out, you can max out all attributes.
No fear, it is absolutely the opposite of that what I want (and I think the others here aswell). It is not about getting rid of heavy plate builds. In fact I have one character with each weight class, so that also includes heavy.
It is more about raising the other armor types to the same level, so that the decision about what gameplay style you want to have is up to the player and the build, and not “forced” or “favoured” by the mechanics. (That does not mean that they should feel and play the same though.)
Yep. I agree. I noted that in a post. If something is not up to par with another area of the game, do not nerf the good stuff, upgrade the areas that are lacking compared to the good stuff.
that is not always as easy as it sounds. from a business and economic perspective it might be better to nerf one thing, rather than adjusting the math and code behind 200 things.
that would cost a lot of time, resources and money, and the community would go batshit crazy about not getting any new content, because multiple teams are blocked by “buff ALL the rest”.
its not just done with one button press, and everything is stronger. There is a lot of work behind it and there could also be other things connected to it, so it would take immense work to check all the dependencies.
I realize this. However, looking at the crap state of Diablo IV… I would hate to see this game follow suit with that direction of nerf bombing the game after streamers make content (which is exactly what Diablo IV devs did and caused me to stop playing that game a long time ago, along with a ton of other people). Nerfs are a mood killer for games; there is really no argument that would change my mind on that.
you are of course allowed to have and keep your opinion. There are still several reasons why this game can and should not be compared to Diablo 4 and blizzards absolutely user unfriendly practices.
i just think its way too early to rally up the “nerfs ruin the fun” flags here. we had 2 patches so far, and while nerfs have happened, there is no way to predict or assume that we will see “nerf bombing” here.
after all it is early access. and aside from that developers have all the freedom to ensure their vision of the game is realized in a way it feels right to them.
i trust the process, and i trust, that once this game is finished, it will be a ton of fun despite or even because of balancing decisions.
but all this is going away from this threads initial point, which is still valid in my book. other armor types need to be viable. everyone just running plate because it is (as of now) superior, reduces build variety. There are several options to resolve this issue. be it by buffing other armor types like cloth or leather, nerfing plate or adding new features like set bonuses.
in the end i am again very confident, that they will find a way to make it work.
Yes, well, I just hope they do not go down that route (that was the point of my post - not saying it is there yet). However, some nerfs they have done already took away a few fun builds and nerfed them into the ground as options. I still try those types of builds just to see and the HP/Focus gain on hit builds are very hard to achieve now. The parry build mechanics have so much that gears towards them it is hard to get anything else, as there are a ton of on parry enchants and very few on hit options that yield meaningful results, without heavy penalties.
Yes, that is dual daggers build. Daggers have been noted to be very strong precisely because they hit twice quickly. Slower weapons (2 - hand) do not get nearly as much benefit, even with agility rings. The one handed swords are the same thing. If something hits multiple times quickly, it will benefit much more than slower weapons in this area.
but isn’t that exactly how it should be? synergies like that with daggers or any fast weapon and on hit passives make these builds strong, while other builds profit from other passives or strategies, like heavy 2-hand for poise breaks and more damage when the enemy is exhausted.
or lets say focus on kill. make a mage build that 1shots mobs with rune attacks and instantly refills your focus.
I do agree we are straying from the topic. I do see you point about stagger damage. However, as I have made a point in this game and others, one of the fun builds in any ARPG is HP/Power/focus gain. They nerfed that option for 2 handers. Before the nerf, it could be accomplished better. Finding a balance for that would be great. To argue that only fast weapons should benefit better from this area of fun is not really valid; it just is pushed to say you have other options for those weapon types (2-hand). While this is true, I still believe that regardless of the weapon choice, the HP/Focus gain should be viable. As it stands now, as a result of the nerfs, the only viable option is daggers or a very fast sword, which one hander swords are not very fast, unless you stack the agility rings currently. Or let’s say like the needle spear because of I believe its focus or hold attack that hits multiple times. I have run a stagger build (currently using the unique that gives plus 3 stagger). While it is great and does stagger, lacking the HP gain in the crucible really forces one to use the food mechanic heavily. With the current refresh rate on food use, this is very far less than a good choice, as food takes between 15 to 18 seconds to use again.
) is that it is practically impossible to get through the crucible with anything else. (special hyper effective range builds aside that are at the edge of exploit)… and actually only because the eccho knight does ridiculous dmg while being super mobile.