DRK - Excessive "Conditional" Effects

[Shurrikhan]

Crater said it better than me , but I’m not saying remove the lowest skill cap class from the game. I’m saying the punishment drks have for say, a badly timed tbn or, not dealing with ld properly are too punishing for what they offer in return. Increase the reward or if they’re too scared to throw balance off lower the punishment.

And all I'm saying is that, once achieving an external balance acceptable to SE (relative to its alternative jobs), any tuning of the rewards for complexity, when trying to establish internal balance, ought not to affect DRK's overall viability.

Now, we're not externally balanced yet, so that leaves us more flexibility with which to set internal balance right, but never will our simply being harder to play make us stronger overall.

Thus, we may be able to see faint, faint increases to reward to "complex" play, but I figure our best bet lies with reducing the punishment, reducing the significance of idiosyncrasies where they did not previously contribute to choice.

For instance:

• Delirium now requires that either BW or BP is active before being usable, OR, when neither BW nor BP are active, it causes Delirium to instead embonus the next use of either (beginning its cooldown upon applying the bonus).
• TBN now restores half its % consumption as Blood. It can therefore reward any proportionate amount to a maximum of Blood.
• Living Dead now requires only 75% of the target's maximum HP to be restored and shows a graphical indicator both of the remaining %HP on its HP bar that must be restored before Walking Dead expires (and Doom completes) and of the time remaining to remove Walking Dead, as a 3D graphic above the Dark Knight's head. The Doom effect is now separate from the Walking Dead effect; the death immunity granted by Walking Dead is no longer cancelled when the Doom component is removed.

[Crater]

And all I'm saying is that, once achieving an external balance acceptable to SE (relative to its alternative jobs), any tuning of the rewards for complexity, when trying to establish internal balance, ought not to affect DRK's overall viability.

They definitely ought to. Doing twice the work for the same results is never a viable way to design a fun game, while designing a straightforward baseline-viable 'easy' option and a more effective 'hard' option is proven to work.

And SE's attempts to "reduce punishment" for playing hard classes poorly, along with their attempts to "close the gaps" between skill floors and skill ceilings, have been almost universally disastrous for every class they've tried it on, and have almost always required additional changes just to walk back the damage they've caused (typically by widening the skill gap again).


They've broken their own design "rules" in worse and more egregious ways than this before, so there's really no reason to expect this to be the one line they refuse to cross.

[Shurrikhan]

They definitely ought to. Doing twice the work for the same results is never a viable way to design a fun game, while designing a straightforward baseline-viable 'easy' option and a more effective 'hard' option is proven to work.

When has it ever been proven to work? I've seen plenty of examples of the opposite, be it in WoW, Rift, League, Overwatch, or so forth, but I have yet to see it "work". The closest examples I can think of are player-customization choices within a given class that amounted to very, very little throughput variance, not usually of linear correlation to their increased skill requirements (similar to price vs. quality curves).

Why would any skilled player play a class that requires less skill if they will be noticeably penalized in overall and by-event throughput for that reduced requirement? You would end up with non-choices at each end. And while that might work for a moba with a vast set of class options, that would continue to be met with uproar if classes were effectively pruned from serious content. And when a game is entirely slated towards raiding what is the point of having an easier leveling or dungeon experience on a job that will be significantly disadvantaged thereafter? By that point, you've essentially decided, knowingly or unknowingly, that you will never be good enough for a class with stronger theoretical output to be useful to you. You have chosen to be of lower tier.

The largest aim in class design shouldn't be to have the high skill setups have higher rewards and the lower skills setups lower potential, and so forth: it should be to create enjoyable, balanced classes. If that means offering traditionally "easier" classes more means of control around which to be balanced, then so be it. The only absolute "rule" should be to never confuse convolution with complexity. Players should be rewarded for their understanding and skillful execution of class mechanics with the ability to adapt and control those tools, not merely for maintaining mind-numbing rotations despite artificial difficulty. If it does not provide choice, it does not provide complexity.

:: Also, SE's own stated purposes for design shifts are so tremendously self-contradicting that they really cannot stand as precedent for any of particular design philosophy. There is not a single goal they alleged that has not been made worse in some way, and more importantly, there has never been any thorough attempt on their part to explain and reconcile their decisions. Their alleged goals may as well be considered spattered words divorced from any of the actual content of their changes, promises that got lost early into production.

[MauvaisOeil]

There's something that also needs to stop : Pointing everything that makes a job itself as a flaw, will only ending making the job lackluster and boring.

The DRK is built, lorewise and gameplay wise about sacrifices and costs. While it might be undertuned and badly done for some part, doesn't mean it needs to go away.

Because, with all the changes you ask, the job will just be a paladin or a warrior with a greatsword and dark visuals, and that's poor...

[SyzzleSpark]

Because, with all the changes you ask, the job will just be a paladin or a warrior with a greatsword and dark visuals, and that's poor...

Um.

What changes? I only pointed out problems, I didn't really suggest much of anything.

Like Crater said, sacrifices are fine, but we should get a reward for that sacrifice. An investment should turn a profit.

[MauvaisOeil]

But would you accept standart benefit for well executed investment gameplay, and underpowered ones if badly executed ?

[SyzzleSpark]

But would you accept standart benefit for well executed investment gameplay, and underpowered ones if badly executed ?

I'm not sure what hair you're trying to split here.

Sure I'd accept punishment for badly executed gameplay sure as I would have accepted losing Darkside for overextending myself back in 3.x.

What I ask of the abilities listed is that if the punishment is going to fit the crime, the reward should fit the investment. It currently doesn't. I didn't outline this in the OP though, because that was not its intended purpose; I really just wanted to point out a design flaw.

Now, if you're saying that we should accept the punishment of things like Living Dead and such based on the benefits they already confer, we're going to disagree there, because that's where it becomes a balance issue wherein the other tanks can do the same thing either more cheaply or without being in danger of punishment. That's not a proper risk-reward.

Risk-reward with respect to balance issues implies that you take a risk the other jobs do not, but if it pays off, you also get a reward that they do not get as well.

Otherwise its not "risk-reward", its merely "risk---"

[MauvaisOeil]

I'm not sure what hair you're trying to split here.

Sure I'd accept punishment for badly executed gameplay sure as I would have accepted losing Darkside for overextending myself back in 3.x.

What I ask of the abilities listed is that if the punishment is going to fit the crime, the reward should fit the investment. It currently doesn't. I didn't outline this in the OP though, because that was not its intended purpose; I really just wanted to point out a design flaw.

Now, if you're saying that we should accept the punishment of things like Living Dead and such based on the benefits they already confer, we're going to disagree there, because that's where it becomes a balance issue wherein the other tanks can do the same thing either more cheaply or without being in danger of punishment. That's not a proper risk-reward.

Risk-reward with respect to balance issues implies that you take a risk the other jobs do not, but if it pays off, you also get a reward that they do not get as well.

Otherwise its not "risk-reward", its merely "risk---"

I'm simply wondering : would you accept the DRK to be harder with results beeing in line with other, and not better because "harder" ?

You seems to have a harsh opinion about pretty everything, including the core balance of cost in the DRK toolkit, wondering "would balance suffice your expectations, and would you sacrifice the core of gameplay for that ?"

[SyzzleSpark]

I'm simply wondering : would you accept the DRK to be harder with results beeing in line with other, and not better because "harder" ?

You seems to have a harsh opinion about pretty everything, including the core balance of cost in the DRK toolkit, wondering "would balance suffice your expectations, and would you sacrifice the core of gameplay for that ?"

I think that if you have to work harder, with a greater risk of personal loss or failure, the payoff should be proportionately greater. Its really simple. Working harder to attain results equal to, or in some cases worse, than the other jobs in your role, to me, is not fun.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But would you accept standart benefit for well executed investment gameplay, and underpowered ones if badly executed ?

For example purposes, let's look at the respective immunities.

Hallowed Ground; 10s; 7m CD
Holmgang; 6s; 3m CD
Living Dead; 10-19s; 5m CD

At face value they all are relatively even. However, once you look at the effects, you start to see the issue. Paladin requires nothing from anyone since it literally takes zero damage. Warrior, meanwhile, can self-heal if absolutely necessary. Dark Knight is the only tank entirely dependent on a healer to survive its own immunity. Say you're in a scenario where people have died, including one of the healers. Paladin and Warrior can use their abilities to save the day. Now Dark Knight technically can, but you've also put a huge burden on the one healer to heal you within ten seconds. Warrior just switches to Defiance, uses Equilibrium and Inner Beast to buy itself some time.

This is the issue when people talk about how unrewarding Dark Knight can actually be. Nearly every hallmark ability in their arsenal requires more work for only equal to even worse results.