Feedback Battle Frenzy's Flawed Mechanism

Discussion in 'General Archive' started by Ashwing, Jan 14, 2017.

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  1. Ashwing

    Ashwing Forum Greenhorn

    Hello there. I am a regular player who is currently adamantly working on his Dragonknight.
    Having played (and worked for) several MMORPGs, I recognized a troubling issue regarding a specific skill.

    Dragonknight's Battle Frenzy skill has an obvious fundamental malfunction- whether it was designed intentionally this way or not (however it's quite sad if it was). And here is why:

    In MMORPGs, skills such as Battle Frenzy are categorized under the class of 'Buff', which are beneficial skills that affect yourself and/or others. The 5-points talent, Inspiring Presence increases both my and my allies' health by 20% for 10 seconds. All is well up until this point.

    Now, the 3-points talent named Invigorating Anger, when used, starts regenerating 1 second after it is used; then it periodically heals the Dragonknight for 2% maximum HP per second (10% maximum HP over 5 seconds). We name this effect, 'HoT: Heal over Time', which is a form of continuous heal that 'ticks' each second. HoTs are, by nature, inalterable; which means they cannot be removed, slowed, or quickened by any means- their 'determined duty' is to unfalteringly 'tick' each second to provide their user 10% HP over 5 seconds. HoTs can be used repeatedly to renew and thus prolong their effect(s); and this is called 'Sustaining'.

    Now here comes the disappointment: When a DK uses Battle Frenzy, to taunt the monsters via 2-points talent Condemn, he/she start the regeneration process of Invigorating Anger, 1 second after its usage, the DK gets their 1st tick of 2% max HP, BUT, when they use the Battle Frenzy again, the HoT effect instantly fades into oblivion by getting cancelled, it creates a 1 second gap of doom - where there should be a 2% HP regeneration- and reapplies the HoT all over again. This is a huge flaw of its innate mechanism, since by nature, reapplied HoTs can NOT cancel their previous selves, they simply extend their own effects- and 2% HP tick per second is its primary effect. To further support my case; if you look at the 5-point talent Inspiring Presence, when we reuse Battle Frenzy, we do NOT see that the 20% HP that we provide our allies with get removed (all allies losing their max HP suddenly), and then they get a 20% HP increase again- like a ping-pong ball. While the Inspiring Presence effect is 'extended' without 'cancellation'- obeying to its true nature, Invigorating Anger gets cancelled, and worse, it devours and robs the DK of 1 HoT tick, which should NOT cease to exist until it completes its process.

    Conclusion: Reapplication of buffs - and in our case - Heal over Time effects do not cancel themselves in order to continue doing the exact same job of their very own effect they just cancelled 1 second ago- you must surely realize how absurd it is for something to prematurely destroy itself, only to create the same effect with a loss of value inbetween- as an insult and punishment for simply using the skill again. Inspiring Presence does not have this flaw, it does NOT remove 20% HP buff to self, nor to other players only to increase their hp by 20% again 1 second later- as if it was a prank; whereas Invigorating Anger is malfunctioning as I have explained in detail.

    I would appreciate if the developers took the time to reconsider and 'fix' Invigoration Anger's mechanism and return it to its rightful place- where it can function properly, without this tragicomedic self-destruction.

    Thank you for reading. Have a nice day.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2017
    bLaind likes this.
  2. wangwang

    wangwang Active Author

    If i understand correctly,you mean if you taunt after 1 sec right before you taunt,the 2nd regen of the 1st taunt will disappear and need to wait another 1 sec till the 1st regen of the 2nd taunt kicks in?

    I don't think it is ture because DK uses warflag and taunt 2 times within 1 sec, he will still regenerate.Won't cancel the former taunt effect.
     
  3. Ashwing

    Ashwing Forum Greenhorn

    Well. When we use our taunt for the first time, we start getting 2% max hp with 1 second delay, and if we use the taunt for a 2nd time right after the 1st Heal over Time tick, the 1st taunt's HoT, halts (dies off), and the HoT starts 1 second after the 2nd taunt- which makes us lose 1 tick of 2% max hp simply because we taunted the boss to prevent our allies from getting annihilated. The HoT is supposed to continue ticking each second, regardless of how many times we taunt, just like the 5-points-buff; sadly, this is not the case.

    And if we use the warflag, and spam taunt after seeing the 1st HoT tick, we actually NEVER (until warflag disappears and we cannot reuse taunt, of course) regenerate HP due to this self-destructive act. Try it if you'd like, you will never see a 2nd Hot tick if you precisely taunt every 0.9 seconds- we are basically performing mass abortion.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2017
  4. bLaind

    bLaind Forum Baron

    The bleeding effects, and I think the stun ones too, are bugged:
    You "bleed/stun" mobs and if you hit them again while already bleeding/stunned, the second effect is cancelled because the first bleed/stun needs to finish its cycle.
    On the Fury of the Dragon skill: If you drop one over another, the first get's nullified by the latest one. Having the bleed/stun effects work like FotD would be better... rather than canceling every other next effect because the first one needs to finish.
     
  5. Novadude

    Novadude Commander of the Forum

    In re: fury of the dragon - i believe the nullifation effect of back to back uses is intentional. Similar thing happens with some other area effect over time attacks like steam mechs tesla turrets.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
  6. wangwang

    wangwang Active Author

    Haven't noticed this until now,doesn't regen with mutiple taunt within a second.
    I believe this is intended to prevent abusing the flag and taunt.Otherwise you just spam taunt under warflag and get unlimited regen,nothing can kill you under this circumstance.
     
    EhtovK likes this.
  7. Tilwin90

    Tilwin90 Padavan

    I remember back when I was doing StarCraft 2 modding that I had many ways in which I could play with buffs and make different buffs perform completely differently, so the subject is very complex and deep.

    I think what you guys are mentioning here is right now a global implementation of most of the buffs - especially debilitating and regenerating effects. I would not include item-activated buffs here since those feature a cooldown usually identical to the buff itself or buffs with charge counters

    I can see an explanation as to why this is needed in some situations: stun effects for instance. This is from the perspective of a Spellweaver - whether this approach should be applied for benefic effects as well is another discussion.

    In theory, imagine I am freezing a monster both via Frost Nova and Frost Breath. If I breathe on an already frozen opponent, the already in-place frost effect won't happen - hence the duration of the already existing frost effect (from the Nova) is not prolonged, but ignored instead.
    I just took this as the way the game is intended to work. This increases the level of skill the player needs of course to ensure he/she chains the freezes properly - and to be honest, I got used to it and I find it as the norm for this game. Each game is different - I wouldn't simply take this as "oh but I saw this in all other games treated as in a different way". That's no argument...
    On the other hand this is also true for debilitating effects done by monsters on the player - if a frozen orb explodes next to you while you are already frozen, it deals damage but does not prolong the already in-place frost effect. I learned how to use this to my advantage as well, as to let all frost effects resolve before I teleport out of the freeze.

    But wait, the situation complicates more: what happens if the player is under a debilitating effect that lasts 5 seconds (with 2 seconds elapsed) and you put that player under a 2 second freeze. Normally that player should stay frozen for 3 more seconds... do you reduce the duration to 2? Do you increase the duration up to 5? Should it remain 3 seconds? I can understand why the simpler solution here is to just ignore subsequent debilitating effects - wait until the target is no longer debilitated, then chain the next debilitating effect appropriately.

    For positive effects of course it's the same thing - you have a 2 seconds heal and want to chain another 2 seconds heal. That could translate into multiple implementations:
    - Ignore the subsequent heal
    - Reset the heal (though in the example above sometimes you might end up shortening it)
    - Take the maximum duration between current heal and added heal and make that the remaining duration (same as reset if the same duration is in place if we talk about the same ability)
    - Separate distinct buffs from distinct abilities as to not interfere to one another, then it reduces the problem to either ignore or reset.

    Also the following supplementary tweaks are possible if buffs are made distinct (some already exist on various sets like the Twin Queens set for instance):
    - Add duration "charges" - this allows setting a cap as to limit how long the heal can last if augmented by subsequent heal triggers
    - Add effect "charges" - resets the heal but adds charges to the effect (augmenting the effect)

    Bottom line, any modus operandi is correct (which is quite an ambiguous term here anyway). It's more a matter of intuitiveness, skill-expectations (from the players) and game mechanics.
     
    knifesss and EhtovK like this.
  8. Ashwing

    Ashwing Forum Greenhorn

    I see that everyone has some concerns regarding buffs/debuffs in this game, but let us please take small steps and not flood developers with dozens of them.

    I invite you all to just focus on the self-cancellation of Dragonknight's Heal over Time effect; not on stunned, frozen, poisoned, slowed, bleeding status effects. There is a heal over time talent that self-annihilates itself because the repeated use of Battle Frenzy's dynamic wasn't structured properly so as to serve as a sustained heal. It punishes Dragonknights simply for taunting the boss 2 times in a row- yet the game expects us to do so in order to protect our allies. This is nothing other than a cruel joke.

    Battle Frenzy's Invigorating Anger should only refresh the duration of HoT to 5 seconds instead of destroying itself- nothing more needed here; nobody said anything about extending the effect to 15 seconds, or makin it tick every 0.5 seconds...
     
    Tilwin90 likes this.
  9. Tilwin90

    Tilwin90 Padavan

    Very fair point Ashwing. Why the buff is erased is indeed a good question as it does not go in concordance with how other buffs function. At the very least it should leave the previous buff unaltered, though in this case I would agree it should reset the timer on it as well.
    The 1 second delay is also quite nasty and it causes a lot of problems to less experienced tanks as it is quite counter-intuitive. If it did not exist, it would remove the "1 second of doom" problem. It also affects the taunt in a similar manner - it's not enough that you already have a casting time on the skill, but you also have to wait one second after that for the taunt to trigger.

    But then again, I have noticed that highly experienced warriors don't seem bothered by all this, so I wonder if it's just a matter of "getting used to" and "practicing". So I'm curious about experienced-players opinions on this!
     
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