I just checked and at the moment all DoTs have the same price (3-6-9). Shouldn't the DoTs that give do more then just damage- Scour, Rabid, Poison, and whatever else I'm missing - be costed more than the DoTs that only do damage?
You make a good point regarding the pure nora values and what the ability brings to a match, but it also depends on the champions intended role. Think of this as a sort of balancing trick. Some champions may be a little too powerful and nora efficient. One way to balance them is if they have an ability that isn't quite as powerful as another but has a similar cost. This also works the other way around. If a champion is under-preforming then it can get the better version of the ability and not have it increase its cost. With that said, the individual nora costs for abilities can always change based on the intended role of the ability. In some cases they aren't intended to be better for balance tweaking but it is intended to be a one off and not meant to be in direct comparison even though it is very simmilar.
Jolt will be fixed to 3/6/9. Others will stay the same for now. Poison/Disease makes sense as they do have less potential targets to impact, though Scour is the odd one out there, of course.
I'm actually completely against this system. Are you gonna value intimidate the same on champion with arrow eater? I didn't think so. Abilities shouldn't be valued this simple. It should be per champion (to many parameters matter, its speed, the faction, range, hp all these things make a certain ability higher or lower value depending on its host). I really don't know how you guys keep this up. I mean it's plain arrogant in my opinion to think treating it this way is gonna work. It also was plain arrogant to rebalance everything without playing the games for hours on end. You just can't have that feel.
Every faction has atleast 170 champions and with more to come. 170*8=1360+ champions to individually price. Please, by all means share a system to go about this. I'm sure they'll welcome it as much as the scientists welcome a new theory to prove that the big bang theory is flawed.
+1 An additive formula is just too crude. You should at least move to costing from the interaction of the basic stats, and even better rolling in some abilities. Probably noone will pay attention to a noob, but here's how I'd improve it. Calculate each of: - Maximum move for a champion (using spd, leap, teleport, lumbering etc). Have a set of values for these. - Maximum move first turn (as above, but with initiative etc). Have a set of values for these. - Maximum melee damage (using atk, multi-attack, pummel, etc). Average over n turns. Use the average def value from *every* champion in the game. - Maximum range 2 damage (as above) - Maximum range 3 damage (either range 3+ attack, or damage from move 1/attack range 2/move back 1) - etc. - Average number of taps * DoT. Reduce the value of this using the average number of champs with tough/resist/immunity etc from all champions. - Total damage reduction (def, tough, resistances) * HP. Damage reduction from resistances should be taken from the average number of attacks of that type from all champs. Same with ignore defence. Then the basic cost for a champ should be something like the maximum of these, plus some small fraction of the other values (maybe 20%). Each turn a champion can only do one of these things (so taking most cost from the best role), but should also get some extra cost for flexibility. All remaining abilities can get added on at the end until someone works out how to roll them in to the formula.
If you'd take 5 decent players in poxnora and put them together for 1-2 week 6-8 hours a day I'm pretty sure that they would fair pretty well reviewing all the runes and trying to figure out balance. It wouldn't be perfect but it would be a lot better than just smacking lineaire algorithms on a game this complex. Of course they can't really expect this from the players unless they had a job at DoG and got paid for it. But they should at least consider changing cost values on specific champions. If this is merely the first layer of more to come pin-point balancing I don't mind it that much. But they shouldn't stick to this method so sturdy, do a little manual here and there (not just general champ cost but ability cost depending on the champ).
Sorry man, but your post is completely untrue. It takes more than being a good player to understand about balance. The algorithms are our best shot at balance, because not only there are thousands of runes but giving a pattern to abilities allows greater control. Like Senshu said in another thread(and like I've been saying everyday for months) refinining the algorithm and giving sandbag abilities to champions that are too efficient(changing abilities too, in a last case) is better because: 1- we have been in this "algorithm free" pox, and it didn't end well. Changing champions individually opens a door for gross mistakes, like the situtation deep miner and scorched dwarf stand on right now; 2- by slowly improving the algorithm we can actually have a standardized game, which is a lot better for the playerbase Poxnora usually attracts. You may argue that balance is hard to obtain(or impossible) in this path because it takes too much work/time and manually changing costs is certainly way easier, but I assure you that it has a way higher chance to pay off. @Razzoriel , kind of offtopic but your post made me want to say something. After seeing a few PCR posts, I realized how little people in council care for balance. Of course I've been told that countless times, but I guess I had to see to believe. I honestly believe council should cease existing, for the sake of this game. I would love working for ST, but I foresee it would end terribly for me; while I'd try to actually balance runes, other council members(I'm not generalizing) would simply buff particular runes to fit their own vision of meta. If I don't follow the "buff your favorites" train should I get into council, my suggestions would end up killing ST. There is no way of achieving global balance when those(theoretically) in charge don't give a flying firk to other factions. I know it is hard on the Owls and I wish there was a better alternative, but allowing players to dictate the directions in this game(even if partially) is not working at all.
@Lushiris I have a couple of issues with what you are saying. 1. An algorithm which knowingly "overcosts" abilities to tweak the champ it is on, is a little worrying. This essentially overcosts champs based on other abilities and actually undermines the alogorithm. 2. This is further undermined by the fact that I believe champs have been manually adjusted (confirmation anyone). If an ability, which is known to be more powerful, cost more and manual adjustments didn't exist - then maybe I would agree. But this isn't the case.
I do think skill correlates with balance sense. If you understand which champs the put in your deck you obv know why they are better than others. And if these people got paid to do it and had to do this job for 8 hours a day, I'm sure they would do a decent job (5 opinions would be a huge buffer for mistakes). Of course they shouldn't be bias and of course all this is only side track of our argument because this will never happen but in theory I think it would be great. And I actually think manually changing every champ is a lot harder than slapping an algorithm. And maybe after refining that algorithm you may get a somewhat balanced game. But it can't match that of pure manual editing done right (I know you don't have faith in this because it's never been done right). An algorithm just seems to easy of a solution this game is so complex and like I said there are so many parameters per champion. Examples, Say you give an UD champ improve range than the improve range would have to be a lot more expensive because the base value of the ranged champs still gives them the highest UD bonus. Say you give a 6 ranged champ rend 2, that's like smacking an extra 4 damage on him (ofc not entirely think about though, maybe other rend champs in your deck, or the enemy has regeneration) If you do this to a melee champs 4 extra damage is way less OP. So they should be costed differently. Also combinations of certain abilities such as paralytic feedback and paralytic strike, or traps + relocation effects should be considered a higher price in most situations. And also important. I think that the higher the nora cost of the champ the lower extra's should be costing because they won't ramp up the speed of the champs to a high extent. So If you have 2 champs worth of stats you'll likely only have around 7 speed making him a lot less effective than him split in 2 champs with around 6 speed for example(This isn't as black and white as I'm explaining here, but I hope you understand what I mean).
Just no. If that's truly how things are done, then it is the same as adding manual cost adjustments to a champion. Which is fine, really (if done carefully), it's not like we expect the formula to be absolutely perfect, some things will have to get adjusted that way. Doing it the way you described it however, simply says that you are afraid to call it "manual adjustment" or to admit it is that and you're struggling to make it all fit neatly into the formula, even though you are obviously bending it. Because otherwise, the whole point of the formula is to correctly represent -as much as possible- the power of an ability through its nora cost. The main problem with the approach you described, aside from just being outright silly, is that you can't guarantee said ability will remain on a very well defined and limited number of champions. You have chosen as your game development plan to release expansions indefinitely. Something at some point is very likely to also receive the same ability, and then it might very well become a problem. You are very likely to forget why you even did things this way in the first place. Surely you won't deny that abilities meant for very specific champions ended up on others before, in the past. Need I remind you of the AA fiasco (hint hint: remove incorporeal and make it a straight up beater or severely tone down his stats and give him a simple way of being incorporeal; I don't even get why he's in KF aside from forced lore, but I digress). And I'm sure others can provide more examples if needed.
that's what we call an untruth @ the rest- knowing what's better DOES NOT equate to understanding why it is we have never been in an algorithm free pox. we have always had the alg and then a series of adjustments, so far as i am aware
