~ Ultimate PvP balance thread ~ HLD & LLD

work in progress, just a copy paste for now

I'm not going to talk about the high end of balance changes, but about the base for a change:

Ideally pvp would be accessible for all functional pve builds, but in my experience the difference between pve and pvp is so vast, that perfectly viable pve builds become totally unviable for pvp. This alone creates a pretty big barrier to entry.


Some examples:
1) There is pvp damage scaling, equalizing damage somewhat between different builds (in a pretty unbalanced way, but it deserves a thread on it's own imo). This damage reduction scaling is only applied on the base damage, without taking defences of the target into account. So despite there being damage equalization in place, a new pve player with low chaos resist will get into a lot of totally onesided matchups.
Another consequence of this, is that lowering enemy resists (EE+double cursing) to increase damage is a lot more effective in pvp than in pve. An experienced player will have significantly overcapped fire resist, a new player trying pvp will not. Similarly builds that stack penetration will do comparatively better dps in pvp than pve.
An example in the other direction: chaos damage versus CI.

My suggestion: Some kind of base defense equalization that is applied after debuffs+penetration.

2) The "your enemies cannot leech" modifier. Leeching is one of the most popular defences in pve, but pvp builds on marauder side or rich players with a corrupted helmet can 100% negate it without any significant sacrifice. This makes it easy for a new player to kill himself on another's defenses.

You could say that it's the same in pve, where the majority of builds get stuck with cannot do mods at high tiers of map levels, but imo that is also an example of bad design. Modifiers like this should be making the opponent/map harder, but not impossible.

My suggestion: no more 100% immunities, but multiplicative reduced effectiveness modifiers (also in maps :p).

3) If you are ranged and your projectiles have 0 pierce chance, you cannot pvp since cwdt+frost wall is easy to link and will be up 100% of the time.

My suggestion: make frost wall destructible or give it an innate chance to be pierced.

4) Builds with ramp up or high start time: minions, charge based builds,...

I don't think there's an easy change to make pvp more accessible for them.



Not related to the above, but still a pet grieve of mine:
Asocial players who shut down sarn arena fighting through their actions. I suspect we've all seen it happen. It only takes 1 asocial player with a build better than the rest, to shut down any possibility of fights occurring between everyone else. Dead arena in a minute or 2.

My suggestion: vote kick + temp ban for entry.










LLD Feedback Patch [2.1]
Coming soon

Thoughts on other people's balance feedback
"
Heelon wrote:
LLD

High Priority

Barrage

Barrage is, and i am saying that as a bower, probably the most broken, fastest killing, selfcast skill at the moment. There is not much that needs to be done here other than reducing the dmg. The only counters to it are whirling blades (as long as it deals good dmg) and cws frostwall but it is kinda unreliable since you can shoot through it sometimes and the cws itself is not that reliable vs it.


Blade vortex

The dmg of that skill is way too high at the moment and i believe no one has ever tried a crit version yet. It outweights the disadvantage of pre casting by far. It is quite easy to obtain a number of blades that is killing someone in a (split-)second just while whirling around and casting it.
There are currently only 2 real counters to it, smoke mine and blink arrow. The problem here is that you need to get hit first in order to make sure that your opponent does not follow you with flicker cause that is pretty much a death sentence.
And here comes the biggest problem: Multistrike. If your opponent is using multistrike he straight up follows you regardless what you do, giving you no chance to avoid vortex in any way and leaving you with no possible counter left.


Weak elemental spells

Every elemental spell but spark is lacking dmg. Compared to the dmg potential of bowers and melee the dmg is just way too low. The introduction of controlled destruction was a big step into the right direction.I really love that gem cause it buffs non crit caster without giving crit caster too much of a buff.


Cast when stunned

That topic is a little bit more difficult. A straight nerf would make casters unplayable since there is not much they can do without it due to weak spells.
The solution is to make caster itself viable even without having this. CWS spells deal way too much dmg and kinda take the fun out of pvp. If there are 2 casters fighting each other it kinda turns into a cws fest with one spell triggering another cws proc. I gotta admit though that this is really amusing to watch but not fun for the players.
I do not want it to get removed out of lld completely since it is a nice strategic feature but it should not deal the main dmg of a character.


Namelocking

Idk if this should exist in pvp at all. I am abusing this by myself and if someone cannot break the namelock, which is only possible with blink arrow, you can basically hold down your main attack button and do nothing else in MOST (not all) situations.
Please give us more chances to break namelock. Flame dash should do that as well for example. Or simply make arenas a bit bigger so that there is a chance to get away from that.



Low Priority

Whirling blades

Even in lld wb too fast. You can kite every build that is not using wb pretty easily. The decision to make wb faster was a good one, it was just a bit over the top. Right now almost every build is using it simply cause it is by far the best movement skill and those who don`t, are missing quite a lot of potential.


Stun

Stun:

This is a mechanic that can win duels so why is it so easy to stun in lld? Every skill with enough dmg can stun and even stunlock from time to time. In my opinion someone should invest into stun and therefore sacrifice something else for it to get such a strong effect.
At the moment it is just for free. I do not have any problem if anyone sacrifices a gem slot for the stun support. Or loses phys dmg/life on the belt for some stun duration.
But i have absolutely no stun duration increases and stunlock people from time to time just because i got high attack speed. I wanna fight and not hit helpless opponents.


Blast rain

Blast rain:

Some might see this as a bigger problem than me. I think this skill is not completely over the top but it should get reduced its dmg by a bit. The killing time is just a bit longer than barrage while being a ranged skill.
It`s harder to hit than roa but has way more dmg, which is what i really like since it is better in some situations whereas roa is better in other situations. When talking about the mechanic itself the skill is in a good spot.
The dmg though needs some adjustments.




I agree with most of what you've written down but I have some thoughts/comments.
Spoiler
Barrage, Blade vortex and Blast rain all "abuse" the same mechanic and I think a simple T-Value override should do the trick (hopefully without overnerfing them).

Whirling blades for all builds is a bigger issue than you make it out to be and I feel it's partly responsible for melee performing so badly.

Loving the idea of more skills being able to break namelock!

About the "weak" elemental spells. Overall I'd like to see a shift to selfcast being scarier than CWS but I think alot of the spells haven't really been tested to their full potential since 2.0/2.1
Last edited by Monstacookie on Jan 18, 2016, 4:23:03 AM
Work in progress as well... RL is real busy :/

Ahfack's Main Post (Draft)


I'm going to list these how my brain works, and I will include proposed solutions the best I can.

Critical

Frost Wall
No longer should work with CWDT or totems. Selfcast only. Reduced duration in PVP and/or put in a longer cooldown in PVP. This is being abused heavily and everyone knows it.


Explosive Arrow
Reduce AOE. Reduce damage. Make explosions blockable/dodgeable. Fix higher-ground to lower ground abuse. Fix glitch parts of levels where EA can be shot like it is shooting down or exploding on a wall that does not exist. The list goes on and on...


Lightning Arrow
Like the others, I think the secondary damage is completely unnecessary. Reduce damage of skill as well.


Spark
This needs to be nipped in the bud right now. The damage is way too high, you can put knockback on it and freeze up instances, causing people to crash. The potential for abuse is too high here, and needs to be stopped before it becomes the "new EA" Just watch VAKillingFloor in talisman and tell me it's not broken :)




Major

Traps/Mines


Tempest Shield


Block/Legacy Aegis



Minor


Whispering Ice
Reduce duration of skill




Cut/paste from original thread cuz why not? :)
Guys, there's some really, really good stuff here and I appreciate everyone typing out all the long stuff so I don't have to. I agree with basically everything in this thread.

I've been playing for 3 years and I've been melee this whole entire time until Talisman league, and it's because Melee is COMPLETELY DEAD in this game for pvp with no hope whatsoever, that's why Sith and other melee gods quit/are quitting. (Not trying to be dramatic, this is what it looks like to an experienced player). Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one stupid enough to still be 2h RT in this game. One thing I do know I am is hard-headed, and I choose to believe that GGG will address these issues in the future, so I don't want to divvy all my gear up I've worked so hard to put together.

Just to preface, I'm not gloating in this next line, and the point of my post isn't to complain about losing. I have said this time and time again: I'm not invincible, just very strong! :) But there's a certain point where you get tired of trying to kick water uphill, and I think that's where everyone is at right now.

I just want to paint a picture much like rup did. I have 10k life WITH acro/phase acro (14k life w/o), overcapped res, great chaos res, 6 perfect jewels, all good life regen nodes, the best weapon in the game, leg kaoms (obv), 100% freeze/chill immune, all the items I could want for this character including weapon/ammy/boot/flask swaps etc... I use multiple melee skills, not just Cyclone. Static strike, Heavy, and Double I carry on me at all times depending on who I am fighting, and I incorporate PA/CA on my offhand.

With all these things, I have very little chance. It's still possible to 1shot me offscreen before I can even see you, kill me with 1 op trap/mine, or just walk into me for 0.1 sec with blade vortex - all while wearing a tabula and barely investing any exalts at all. Don't even get me started on EA. LOL.

The first two things that needs to happen is make Frost Wall self-cast only, and decrease duration of Whispering Ice.. No FW totem, no FW cwdt. People are abusing this like crazy, and everyone knows it. This is an easy fix that GGG could fix in minutes.

Would type more but running out of time!

Oh and one more thing, there's a guy in pvp talisman that is abusing spark/knockback pretty well. He can crash everyone in the entire arena because there's too many instances of knockback hitting at once. Probably just nip that in the bud too.


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Last edited by Ahfack on Jan 18, 2016, 3:17:22 PM
rlowe's Ultra Mega Supreme Tacti-Cool PvP Wisdom Cool!
Since everyone's already posted completely unbiased opinions on what's broken and how to fix it in ways that totally won't make their build better than everyone else's, I figured I would contribute since I'm, at best, a mediocre pvp'er who frequents arena and has opinions on things too! But my post will not include facts and numbers and pie charts and triangle graphs like everyone else's, mine will be a bit more towards optimization and performance. So observe me now! Watch as I pretend to know how things work, and how you, yes YOU, can fix them kinda maybe!

Spark
This skill that is widely disregarded as D2's equally-neglected charged bolt spell seems to be the newer meta in pvp, but it's having disasterous results from both its high damage AND its hit on performance, as well as something slightly less than expected. Spark's ability to be used to flood arenas, both big and small, is taking strategy out of pvp and just allowing people to win because of how long they last, how powerful they are, and the fact that they are projectiles that move around cover and can get you from anywhere.

However, a more unintended side-effect of this is a hit to performance because of the sheer volume of spark particles/sprites and the engine's lack of ability to handle it effectively. Add knockback to the mix and you have heavy instance-crash-potential! Another side effect of this is how the engine handles sources of Spark from a distance, in that the spark particles don't render, but the entities (or whatever your engine sees them as) still exist. Basically, it's invisible sources of damage. Probably not the best for pvp! Worse still is the alternate effect for Spark, as this introduces 3D models (WITH POLYGONS!!!) and further particle effects scripted to appear after the spark spiders "die".

The only fixes I can think of for this would be either a reduced projectile count, slightly reduced cast speed, or slightly reduced duration of the sparks, hopefully keeping spark useful, but reducing its ability for abuse.


Bladefall
This skill, from what I've seen, isn't exactly the highest in damage to the point it's abused, but seems to have a heavy hit on performance, especially when there's multiple Bladefalls going off, be it from traps, mines, or multiple players casting it at nearly the same time. Because of my lack of experience with any 3D rendering programs and scripting, my only thought on this would be a different way to render bladefall.


Firestorm (Siege Ball Effect)
Firestorm's fun. It's a fun, spammy skill with lots of killing potential, but almost exclusive to its alternate effect, the siege ball thing, is the immense FPS lag it brings with it. When cast fast enough on screen, the lag is, while noticable, maybe not QUITE as nightmarish as I'm making it sound. However, when a caster is using it offscreen, that's where the trouble can begin, going from 0-100 reeeaaal quick, depending on how fast someone's moving towards it. In Arena, the effects are almost crash-inducing, as the effects load and start to render all at once when you get close enough to where they were created, even WORSE if you were nowhere near whoever was casting it for a good amount of time.


Summon Raging Spirit
This isn't really that laggy in and of itself, but when combined with either Minion Instability, or whatever the hell piece of gear that gibs enemies, it can turn the game into your favorite interactive slideshow. When enough are summoned, skills that hit multiple enemies, either through the use of pierce or AoE effects, can cause tremendous amounts of lag. Icestorm, for instance, given enough AoE increases and stacks, used against enough of those little skulls causes massive visual lag. The only thing that may remedy this is a reduction in cast speed (though this feels a bit harsh) or reduction in the amount of raging spirits that can be active per caster (this also feels a bit harsh).


Lightning Strike
Probably the only lag-inducing melee skill out there, Lightning Strike, when given more projectiles and super fast attack speed, seems to bring down FPS quite noticeably. I'm guessing it's more of a visual thing. Perhaps a redesign or some kind of optimization of the visual aspects for this skill would reduce framerate issues?


Icestorm
Yes. My new main skill. Though none of you would think a skill invoking massive amounts of snow particles, chilled ground, and heavy chunks of ice per cast would cause visual lag, you're wrong! For me, the reduction in FPS is negligable even when I'm just standing there with my finger on the right mouse button, other players have stated (read: angrily complained) that the repeated use of my skill (read: spamming) causes lag (read: lag). Perhaps a redesign of some of the particles would make this skill easier to render and cause less strain?


Arena Invisiblilty!
This is a new thing that happens, and none of Arena's more frequent guests seem to understand why. Random players will, for no conceivable reason, occasionally become completely invisible, even to the point of not having a marker on the map. The only visual indication of a player's presence is curse marks and any auras they are running, as well as whatever attacks/spells they are using.


Let me know if any of this is inaccurate, specific to me, or needs rewording or whatever. I'll add more to it later maybe.
Lavender or Leave.
PvPresident, 2016
//
You'd better run.
“EA is fine” -relith
Last edited by I_am_Upset on Jan 18, 2016, 9:11:17 PM
For the Advancement of PVP Counterplay Potential

This is a step series and changes suggested here should be considered as a whole because each issue relates to the other in some way.

Aegis
The very existence of Aegis prevents/makes it extremely difficult for any hard nerfs to damage values that skills can dish out. Too low of a dmg per hit, aegis will completely or near completely nullify it, particularly legacy aegis. But if some skill has too high of a dmg per hit, then it goes back to being a 1-2shot/instagibbing skill. To allow for more counterplaying capability, the es gain on block should be at most to 1% of armor in PVP fields; this change opens up the ability to direct pvp dmg dealing options from high dmg per hit to high DPS for overall pvp matches while still allowing legacy aegis users to enjoy the full benefit in PVE.


X Element Penetration

Getting high max resists is insanely good vs elemental dmg, that is.....until you factor in penetration....Penetration imo should work not by ignoring max res, but by ignoring total resistances instead.
For example: If a player had 100% total fire res, and 75% max fire res going up against 25% fire penetration. That player should be treated at 75% still (100-25) instead of being treated at 50% res.
With the way penetration currently works, it just makes balancing elemental skills so extremely difficult because of how much adding in few amounts of penetration can increase improve dramatically the dmg of an elemental attack. By making a change in penetration, it allows for easier skill dmg balance, while opening more options for resistance lowering curses/ele equilibrium play styles, and allows for punishment still for players who do not overcap resists!


Movement
Movement skills need some speed balancing, this is talking about leap slam and lightning warp in comparison to whirling blades, normal running, and blink arrow. Something needs to be done here, because you also have to take into the account of the delay it takes for one to cast the next damage skill after using a movement skill to gapclose, and by the time that happens, enemy can be half ways down the corridor already, making it incredibly hard to actually put leap slam/LW into use as a real movement skill .


Life Leech
I don't think it's right that players should be hard pressed to either go for 1 shotting/instagib methods or run anti-leech for more drawn out fight setups. Being able to leech off an enemy should not be something absolutely feared or detrimental to ANY build. Back in D2, they knew leech was an op mechanism which was exactly why they put a penalty to leech in PvP; Thanks to the penalty, only when target is life tapped in D2 during PvP were players truly able to observe a large amount of difference. Life leech should be something of a minor bonus in PvP, not a make or break stat to include or devote against in any build. Thus here I am advocating for a leech penalty, values of course would be drawn from actual pvp test results; can for example, start at 10% leech effectiveness and move up slowly if too low to find a good balance point.


LifeRegen
Regeneration is yet another factor which makes damage balancing in PVP hard. If hard nerf damage, then life regen gets more effective thru the ability to simply just run away after an extended skirmish til you regen everything back or at least stall until it is a draw. That to me is hardly PVP; it'd be more like a game of chasing "insert random trollface here". My suggestion is to also apply a pvp scaling for regeneration; by doing so it gives more flexibility to lower skill damages which opens up potential for more engaging and exciting fights.


Arenas
Pretty much all the pvp arenas are small space types with blockage at some points. Personally I think it should alternate between both open/wide fields (talkin about mud flats style without trees in the way), medium sized, and small/closed fields to allow different builds to bring out their unique strong points in a fight.


Avenger's flask as a Punishment for crit Setups
I do think that crits should be punished, and rightly so for the amount of extra dmg you can get wih crit, change avengers to 5 charges gained on taking a crit, thus can indirectly lend a helping hand to RT builds and the like without having to nerf Crit. This of course also makes it much more punishing for players that just skill spam such as blade vortex, spark, etc.


Separate Armor/Evasion effectiveness Scalings for PVP
Game shouldn't be using PVE formulas for PVP, cuz they are 2 completely different catagories.....


Instead of trying to adjust the mechanics of every skill, using such a limited range for applying the fixes, perhaps they could just introduce a big ES / HP bonus for PvP alone.
"
aryosgr wrote:
Instead of trying to adjust the mechanics of every skill, using such a limited range for applying the fixes, perhaps they could just introduce a big ES / HP bonus for PvP alone.


Not sure if i understand your suggestion correctly, using a limited range for applying the fixes ?

You need to elaborate more.

By increasing ES/HP to high amounts would make it impossible to kill eachother, damage would need to be increased on almost everything that does damage in order to make it on pair... that's even more of an hassle than adjusting them to the current pools.
IGN:Hauntworld - ICU Omniscient PvP guild
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Last edited by hauntworld1 on Feb 1, 2016, 8:20:57 AM
There's a lot of stuff that you can't really alter specifically for PvP, life being part of it (as is any speed, area, etc...).You could easily imagine halving any damage done in PvP, but you cannot alter the life pool, as this makes the character have different PvP stats depending on where he is fighting the other player (cutthroat/bandits quest or PvP instance).
Haunt could you call a moderator to clean those posts ?

No offense guys but this is a special topic with a specific way to post inside. Either edit your posts to match the topic guidelines or they will be deleted. You are free to do normal post in a new topic or existings ones.
Last edited by IceDeal on Feb 1, 2016, 10:24:33 AM
The following ideas are inspired by private duel leagues of diablo 2 that worked out very well and pvping felt really balanced no matter what character/build was played.

So first off i dont play PvP in this game nor do i have a big clue whats the really OP shit i just hear stuff from time to time like EA spam or LA one shots, a few trap builds here some lame max block tanks there. I coud see myself checking out PvP in this game if it wasnt so much dual wielding credit card builds - Just kidding, I mean if it would be more fair in general. But to the point:

Required System change (can only be done by GGG)

- Player damage and leech against other players is reduced by 90%


Player to Player regulation (made by players for fair interaction):

- As corrupted items can give incredible yeah almost absurd power such as +1 arrows or +max resist or +1 curse, +2 weapon range ect. it is better to prohibit corrupted items completely (just not those that are created by corruptions)

- No mirror items (obvious one)

- No Legacy items

- Max Block allowed: 55% (no Blockpenetration gem allowed) this also counts for temporary buffs. You are not allowed to exceed 55% block

- Max Dodge/Spelldodge allowed: 45% (for both each -see Block rule for eceeding mechanics)

- Max resist is not allowed to exceed 90% (this also counts for flask usage)
Example: 84 Fire Resist + Ruby Flask = 90% Resist (maximum allowed)
Its fine to have 90 max resist without a flask, but then resist flask is not allowed to push over 90%

- Flasks: No Vinktars, No Rumis, No Dying Sun, No Taste of Hate, No Zerphis

- Maximum Movement speed allowed for ranged/casters: 110% (same rules as resist rule with flasks)

- Maximum Movement speed allowed for melee: 120% (in this case you are not allowed to wield a bow or any other form of ranged attack/spell/weapon/skill that is not melee if you are at 120% instead of 110%)

- Curses: Players are not allowed to use Temporal Chains against other players

- Players that use ranged weapons such as bows or one handed weapons such as daggers, claws or one handed swords are not allowed to have more than 7 attacks per second (with all their fancy buffs up - see resist/flask rule)

- Maximum Crit Multi allowed is 550%. Players are not allowed to exceed this value with temporary buffs.

- Maximum Crit Chance allowed is 70%. Players are not allowed to exceed this value with temporary buffs.

- Maximum Eemental Penetration allowed is 50%

- Maximum life regen allowed for life builds is 6% and for ES Builds its 4.5% (Except Righteous Fire is used permanently then life or ES regen is unlimited)

- Cospris Malice interaction with discharge is prohibited

- Frostwall is not allowed to be used with cwdt

- Players need to show other players their gear before the duel starts (this includes flasks) after the gear have been shown, no player is allowed to swap gear during the duel except for equiped off hand that also was shown before the duel started.


I think thats it from the top of my head. (May need further improvement and testing). I think there is a further prohibition list required for skill gems but i dont have the experience to set one up. I will leave this to the pro lamers eh.. i mean pro pvpers.

But to give a decent start:

- EA, LA, Blade Vorftex are prohibited




Now someone with a host server need to setup a webside. That website requires this list of rules. A player registration. Some kind of mailing/message system. A table with recently played duels. A table with all registered players for the season. A season is 3 months. There is a hall of fame entry for every No#1 player winning a season

How this website works? You mail a player via website or ingame with their IGN which they have to register with one of their IGN's and ask for a duel!. Players are allowed to refuse a duel invitation once by one player. When the same player ask for a duel 24 hours later you are not allowed to refuse the duel.

During the duel both players may take screenshots to backup their claims for a win/lose. Once the duel is finished the winner have to enter the duel with the endresult for example 5(win) 2(lose) which means player won with 5 kills and 2 deaths. The difference between win and lose is given the player as ladder points for that season. Losing player has to confirm the loss. If losing player refuses to confirm within 12 hours after the duel and the winning player have proof in form of screen shots the losing players is banned for the season.

Any other cheaty tactics or breach of rules can lead to a season ban. Players that lame for 3 seasons consecutively are banned for life time.
Last edited by zzang on Jul 25, 2017, 6:02:12 PM

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