[April 12] Initial Development Manifesto Feedback

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whatkey wrote:

Wouldn't more servers reduce the latency and help alleviate the desync problem for most (if they were properly placed)?

No, because most of the game's problems aren't really latency. The problems are related to unstable game logic. (That is, minor variances in input create major variances in results)

As someone else pointed out, pathfinding is a big (perhaps the biggest) culprit here. Most online games don't do other units' pathfinding on the client in the first place, but if you are going to, having it modified by unreliable data such as the position of other moving entities is a really bad idea that causes minor errors to snowball.

Reading the topic about the desync there is one conclusion that i have towards you GGG and its not meant to flame but the problem we have, and why we suffer from desync, is your idea of 'hardcore'.

I dont gonna play a game that cultivates rubberbanding. I think running through mobs is always better then desync. Wake up please and start to see the problem at the roots: Its the first few rules towards hardcore and cheaters that has broken your game and left us with a small playerbase.

What if they limited unit collision when the collision is under extreme stress?
Like if a unit is trying to move through another unit(s), but cannot yet keeps trying, what if there was an increased chance to allow it to disregard unit collision in that instance?

The survivability all comes down to Armor and Evasion. Something needs to be changed, to allow Melee to survive better AND do more damage. The main thing that comes to mind, is making Armor work similar to Resistances, but that seems like a bad thing from a development standpoint. Since that would make Armor no different and feel stale/boring, and also resemble D3...

Some guy mentioned giving mobs a reverse Point Blank effect, so that the closer the player is to the mob, the less damage the player takes. That might be the easiest solution. And it might also add some interesting gameplay for Ranged players as well (like Ranged players rushing into Melee range to tank a specific hit, instead of standing still off-screen.)

Maybe removing Resolute Technique altogether and making no attacks miss (Personally I've always hated the concept of 'Accuracy'), and instead leaving the Critical Evasion aspect of Accuracy/Evasion (maybe even double it to compensate for the lack of missing.)

I think that that, combined with the impending buffs of Melee On-Crit Effect and Physical Damage, that it would greatly buff Melee Physical dps as well as open up many new build options for players.

Chris:

The one point I read that really might irk me is this:

Have monsters on the client attack your server location rather than client location to reduce entropy. Maybe compromise on them attacking a mid-way point between the two. The drawback here is that it means they'll appear they are swinging at the air, but they're technically more in sync.

Does this mean you will be changing how combat works slightly? One thing I HATED about another ARPG is that you could not dodge attacks, and you would frequently die half a screen away even thought you technically dodged the attack. Is this what that quote means?

Other than that I am ALL for everything else in the manifesto (except letting players choose their ninja loot cuz I am all for cutthroat Wraeclast)

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The physical-elemental disparity will be addressed. There will probably be an on-critical effect introduced for physical damage (which may be as simple as a guaranteed stun, but the options are still being considered).

Stunning would be best as it increases survive-ability.

Stunning would not be the best. tuns are already basically inherent to crits. You do enough damage with a crit to stun always anyway. Elemental crits already stun all the time. Compared to shock, freeze, and burn it's pathetic. Even if the stun ignored life completely, the physical damage output would be inferior to shock and burn, and the defensive side would be inferior to freeze. Ground Slam already stuns constantly and it's no where near elemental damage effects.

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Chris wrote:

There's also a PvP revamp coming! We're looking at the following areas of improvement:
PvP balance tweaks (without breaking the existing PvE balance)

A very nice idea I'd take a look at is what GuildWars 1 did. They had two sets of skills: pvp and pve. If a skill needed separate balancing for pvp, they'd make a copy of it and edit it accordingly. When you join a pvp area, players use pvp skill versions. It allows balance of pvp without affecting pve in any way.

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Patsboem wrote:

Reading the topic about the desync there is one conclusion that i have towards you GGG and its not meant to flame but the problem we have, and why we suffer from desync, is your idea of 'hardcore'.

I dont gonna play a game that cultivates rubberbanding. I think running through mobs is always better then desync. Wake up please and start to see the problem at the roots: Its the first few rules towards hardcore and cheaters that has broken your game and left us with a small playerbase.

this is an awful opinion. you'd rather have a game that highly prioritizes softcore gameplay and better response so we can have more cheaters and a bigger playerbase? the cheaters WOULD be the bigger playerbase

why does PoE have out-of-sync problems and Diablo 3 does not?

My biggest problem with the desync isn't the deaths actually. It's that there really isn't any way to react to the visuals on screen. You see an enemy walk up to you and instead of doing an animation and hitting you, you just get hurt. You see a spark projectile coming towards you, you move out of the way but still get hit. It makes the game very frustrating when you can't rely on movement as a defense. You must just completely rely on stats instead which gets a bit boring. With projectiles, I think the problem is they all move very fast. Arrows for example go way too fast for the server to be able to predict correctly relative to the client visuals. Another example is Brutus' chain grab. You can really see prediction at work there. The player has to move out of the way before the chain starts or it will always hit you. If you manage to move out of the way visually after the chain starts, it will still hit you.

D2 seemed to have this right, probably because the visuals were much more limited and relied on sprites. It still had lag but you rarely got hit by things unless you also did so visually. D3 has similar problems as PoE and deals with it like an MMO (even more annoying) where it waits to show the visuals but even if you move out of the way you get hit as long as you were there when the animation started.

Edit: Also woooo, my avatar! And thanks for bringing back the BM.

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xultimax wrote:

why does PoE have out-of-sync problems and Diablo 3 does not?

They do, they just don't have as many limiting factors on unit movement as PoE does in the hopes of creating a more "Hardcore" experience.. I think D3 doesn't even have unit collision, but I may be mistaken, been so long since I played it..