Development Team Letter - CLASS BALANCING

It's not a binary choice. There might be enough money coming in for employees and profit to operate at the current quality level, bumbling along as they go, but not enough to dig out every bug in a faster period.

 

Oh yeah, they have plenty of money. Youzu's last quarterly report (released today) is online. Here are a few of the things that popped out at me.

• Growth in total assets over the previous year: 29%
• Growth in revenue is a bit lower: 27%
• Revenue per employee (yuan converted to usd) 1.7M (yeah that M stands for million) Note: this is raw cash flow and not profit. However this is almost 3x more than the industry average.
• Solvency (risk of not going bankrupt): 1.6 (with 1 being the industry average) Note: There all many ways (some very complex) to calculate this. The score I posted here is and avg. from 3 financial analysis sources. In other words it is highly unlikely they are going under in the next 5 years.

I could go on but I'll just say that this is a company I would invest in (if I wasn't already retired and keeping what I have in very, very safe places ) Anyway the problem is not money. So what is it? Hell if I know... I'm psychotic not psychic

Luck be with ye,
Mikey,
Tegan

 

They are lazy then

 

Youzu is much bigger than just DSO. Whether DSO makes a profit or not, we'll probably never know. It is easy to see that the player base has shrank.

 

True. Since BP is a subsidiary of Youzu there is little detail info about it specifically. Bear in mind though that Youzu paid ~90M USD to acquire BP (this is how Youzu has grown so much by acquisitions like this.) Also note the current CEO of BP is a former Youzu exec. I would be very surprised if they were willing to write off this investment by letting BP's flagship game wither away and die. More to the point there is no way Youzu is posting significant revenue gains without it's subsidiaries contribution. So yeah, we do kinda know that BP is still generating revenue.

True the player base has shrunk on half the servers. But there is no way to to tell if this has affected revenue growth without data. Typically if a company is unhappy with revenue growth the first thing they do is cut G&A costs. There is some indication that this already happened with the shutting down of the partner servers.

Getting back to the topic of balancing related to all this is the question have there been G&A cuts within the DSO shoppe itself? If so then that would be at least a partial explanation for why things are taking so long. But if not then the reason is... well whatever.

The dev(s) responsible for starting this thread seemingly have disappeared. It would be really beneficial to the discussion here if they would reappear

Luck be with ye,
Mikey,
Tegan

 

Mikey here is the answer ... this time don't focus on bugs but focus on the other things

 

Since your background is code monkey stuff (mine is engineering, mech aerospace & business finance) this is probably a fair assessment. The only thing I would correct is one word in line #11. Since BP was privately held at the time a 'hostile' takeover was impossible. In reality the current group of investors were looking for a buyer so they could send their own postcards from Fiji

Luck be with ye,
Mikey,
Tegan

 

Hello all.

Looks like this thread is getting some serious attention (lots of posts) and I am hoping that what I'm about to write here won't be lost in space.

So about classes...

Dragonknight - Honestly I can't say much about this class because I'm not playing as DK. However in PvP it looks like some tanks are nearly immortal and it is really hard to do anything to them. If the problem is in life regen and Lifekeeper mace, change the 'With each successful block, you regenerate 0,4% of your maximum Health Points ' to 'With each successful block, you regenerate 40 Health Points'. It will make Lifekeeper users much less 'immortal'.

Dwarf - Oh dear Dwarf. From the very beginning there is one big problem with this class and it hasn't been fixed since this day. Critical Hits. It is really useless to play with one handed pistol and tool in the second hand. Most of the players go straightforward with this class - two handed gun + max damage. Nobody cares about critical hits with this class... unfortunately. Well there is a one simple solution for this problem. Let turrets do critical hits. Also decrease their base damage (I don't want to make them OP). This will fix the problem with the lack of critical hit usage for Dwarfs. I will say even more. IMHO not only turrets should do critical damage but also Guardian or Wolfs. Every pet should be able to do critical hits.
Second problem with dwarf is that not all of his skills are really that useful. I mean 'Bomb' is a really interesting skill but almost nobody is using it. It's too weak for Pvp and even for Pve. Something has to be changed here. Maybe dwarf should throw bombs faster and they should explode earlier.

Ranger - My favourite class. Not because it's op (it's kinda strong though) but simply because most of Ranger skills are actually useful. It's quite easy to kill single targets and hords of enemies. About Explosive Arrow - well I don't think that this skill is really a problem (in PvP). The problem is in Q7 set. "When you hit an enemy with Net for the next 2 seconds you receive + 150% increased damage and Explosive Arrow has no concentration costs.". I suggest to change Explosive Arrow to Precision Shot or completly rework this set. EA is powerful and making it even stronger is pointless. Also maybe 'Net' skill should be nerfed. Recycling - If you hit a foe with your Net, there is a 20% chance there will be no cooldown time. Because 40% is kinda much.

Spellweaver - Oh my... Have to agree that at this moment this is the weakest class in the game. Someone said that it is like weaker version of Ranger... hard to disagree. Spellweaver class should be improved and I have few ideas how we can make it stronger.
Fireball - slightly increase damage of fireball and make it more useful against hords of enemies. Something like triple fireball (additional talent) or simply increase the area of effect of fireball.
Chain of Lightning - slightly increase damage of that skill.
Lightning Strike - I think that the 'Accelerated Discharge' talent should be improved. Decreases Lightning Strike's impact time by 50%.
Guardian - A nice skill for Spellweaver but one thing is missing here. Something that is working with Ranger pets very nicely. Simply copy-paste the 'Bound Lives' talent for Wolf Pact. 'The Wild Pack will heal you for 60% of the damage caused by teh summoned creatures'. Guardian should work exactly the same way. Hopefully Spellweavers will die a little less often because of this.
Destruction and Meteor - Decrease cooldowns by like 50%? Remember that administrator in Dragan event in Gloomy Pastures? His Destruction was weak but he could spam it like a mad man. Maybe something like this should be done for Spellweaver class.

Changes for all classes:
As I said before - Every pet should be able to do critical hits.
But there are more problems. You guys said about it before. Two handed weapons are too powerful when you compare them to single handed. I think there could be solution for it. The problem is in offhand items. I found it to be extrelemly weird that you can't put ruby or onyx gems in offhand items. This should be changed and it would make offhand items much more useful. I mean let's take Royal Ruby of Qaizah. 60dmg x 5 = 300 additional damage. Can it boost one handed weapons? I think the answer is Yes.

And last but not least problem... This game desperately needs more classes! Last class (dwarf) was added in... 2013. I mean... Seriously? 5 years without new class? Compare it to other (competing) games. How many classes they have? 4? I don't think so. This game needs at least two new classes. One melee class, more offensive version of DK, dual-wielder, maybe ninja or something. Second class, an alternative mage, tankier than Spellweaver, kind of a priest/summoner, less offensive but more supportive.

Well... I think that's all. Feel free to disagree with me. That's just my opinion. I just hope developers really read posts in this thread...

 

Not taking it personally bro, everyone has the right to voice his own opinion imo.

So you are telling me that this same company who kept adding 1 expansion every 2 years (expansions that require a lot of planning, time, tests, brainstorming and most importantly the cooperation of all the departments) does not have the manpower to fix some exploits? They were about to add a new expansion this year if im not mistaking until the community said "how about no".
So they had the manpower to make lvl 60 happen this year but they are short on staff when it comes to bugs and exploits?

Were they short on staff 3-4 years ago when they promised guild battles or a new class..or transmogrify and other stuff? Or like 1 year ago + when they promised us a re-balance?They werent short on staff back then otherwise they would not promise so many things knowing that they dont have the manpower to make them happen.And we still had lots of bugs and exploits even then.Maybe now they are but most likely there was a point when they had enough ppl, and yet it always took BP a long long long time to deliver what they promised.

Do you really believe that it takes years to track down botters?They most likely track down a botter minutes after using the bot program.
In town, the botters follow always the same patterns (same roads when going to specific maps) and on maps they use the skills assigned as soon as the cooldown gets to 0, and always in the same order...skill 1-2-3-4 for example.If a botter would be to play, his actions will be exactly the same for 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 year, while if a human player would be to play he would not be able to follow the same road twice in a row (click on the same spot to move forward in city) or do the same combination of skills in the same interval of time.He would ALWAYS spend same time to get on a map, ALWAYS sell after x number or runs and so on.

Something like this does not take 2 years to investigate.Bots use scrips, scripts are based on patterns (skill use, movement and so on), and patterns are not that hard to notice.We had people catching bots on videos for crying out loud, without investigating 2 years before and without having to use special "tracking" programs or dunno what else .

The reason why it takes so long between bot scans is different imo.When 1st ban wave came, there were a lot of top payers that got banned.They started botting at 1st and ended up paying a lot later on because they got addicted to the game.Once they got strong, they stopped botting hoping that they wont get caught for doing that in the past, or they reached a point where they cared too much for their characters to risk using bot again.From that point they became payers.Same is happening now.

Besides, bots are good for competition.They can play 24/7 while you cant as a human being so u will have to rely on buying ander/essences/pots in order to run as fast through them maps
and get as many points as possible in the limited amount that u have on your hands.

If BP really cared about removing the botters from game they couldve ran a script weekly that banned everyone who was playing 24/7 for 1 week-10 days in a row for instance.Guiness record was 11 days and i doubt that guy is playing DSO. An account online for 7 days + either belongs to a botter or was played by multiple person, either way its not allowed.It would not ban all of them but at least some will be banned.

This is my theory about why we get bot ban waves so rarely and why BP doesnt care much about banning them on a weekly/monthly basis.This makes more sense than that "short on staff" excuse.

 

Good ideas, but...

...with 100k life, lifekeeper regenerates 400 life points... your proposal would make lifekeeper useless, in pvp and pve. 40 life points is nothing.

Change to: lifekeeper 1% pve, 0.1% for pvp.

 

I do not know if they are short staffed or not. My guess would be that they will claim different people do different jobs, which may very well be true.

DSO has promised many things that have never made it into the game for whatever reason. Who knows why.....

I do agree that it should not take years to catch bots. Many of the big games run bot programs on a very regular basis.

Whatever their excuse is, they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing bots to run for this long.

 

Options with lifekeeper.
1. Change it to work on top of current HP, not Max HP. As well as other healing things, so there is a way to slowly defeat a tank.
2. Change it so it cannot heal you, e.g. it doesn't returns more than the dmg received, ever.
3. Account for the damage being taken, not just HP. It could be 0.8 from 100k hit, but it should be much less, let's say 0.1 with 5k hits.
4. Remove old version from the game, or let others buy it to. There shouldn't be such a critical item in the game if it couldn't be obtained again. Unfair towards newer players.
5. Drastically decrease it's offensive values.
Etc

 

Disagree with everything You said. I don't think Life Keeper is a problem. However, if everyone wants to nerf it, then it should only be nerfed from PvP. The effect can be removed from PvP but should be increased to 1% on PvE because 0.4% really doesn't make a noticeable advantage in PvE.

 

Hello! Here are my suggestions of what could BP do to buff Mage based on Archer DPS.

Archer Explosive Arrow:
100% + 200% - Base EA
100%*0,4+200%*0,4 - +Tree
100% - +Marked enemy
_____________________
475% DMG per EA
_____________________
Q7 Set:
While using net - +150% increased DMG / Free cost for EA for 2 sec.
40% Chance for Net to reset - another 2 sec of [^]

Archer - 20000 DMG + Q7 Set + 1.5 AS - Not counting Crits
Damage over 10 sec (15 Attacks)

THOSE CALCULATIONS ARE NOT CORRECT BUT GIVES US SOMETHING TO BASE ON:

Combo: 2 EA -> Net -> 3 DMG Buffed EA ->
40% -> 3 DMG Buffed EA
60% -> 1 Precision -> Adrenaline -> 2 EA -> 4 Normals

475% * 2 + 475% * 3 * (depends of how much 150% gives you flat DMG - lets say 10k) 1.5 + 0,4 * 475% * 3 * 1,5 + 0,6 * 360% + 2 * 475% + 4 * 60% = 950% + 2137,5% + 855% + 930% = 4872,5% DMG in 10 Sec = 974500 Damage

Lets remember that Net have 12 sec of CD so another 2 sec will be 3 Auto's for 60% that would lower this dmg a bit.
But also lets add that I wasn't taking appearing of 40% chance twice so that would increase this dmg a bit.

I will repeat that those calculations are not near good, but give us something to base on.
Since Ranger have that RNG element with 40% chance of another huge amount of DPS, I would suggest Mage to be:
constant damage dealer with the DMG of Average Ranger DMG - That would make Mage sometimes better, sometimes worse depending on the net RNG.

Mage buff to get those DPS:

Q4 Set: When electrifed foe get hitted by Thunder return 20 Mana.
Q8 Set: When foe is immune to freeze effect: Every ice bolt hit reduce your next Thunder/Sphere cost of 3 Per hit up to 18

Thunder Cost: 50 (60-10 from Tree)
With changes above: 50 - 20 - 18 = 12 after doing 2 Autos with bolts.
That would allow Mage to do non-stop 2 Auto + Thunder on boss fights (well atleast on ~~1.5as).

Mage - 20000 DMG + Q8+Q4 Set + 1.5 AS - Not counting Crits

Thunder Damage:
250% - Base DMG
250% + 50% - +Tree
250% + 50% + 50% - +Q4 Wand
75% - +Q4 Set Bonus
_________________________________
575% DMG per Thunder WITH Q4 Set
__________________________________
Damage over 10 sec:
Combo with this change: Thunder Chain -> 3 Thunders -> Teleport -> 3 Thunders -> 2 AA -> Thunder -> 2AA -> Thunder
2 AA with Sigri = 3 * 37.5% * 2= 225%
50% + 3 * 575% + 3 * 575% + 225% + 575% + 225% + 575% = 5100% DMG in 10 Sec = 1020000 Damage
Let's also remember that this would make Q8 set "must be" on Mage, so he will lose 22% of Max DMG, 11% AS from Karrabossa set aswell as mage is more "paper" class.
With those changes Mage would actually do a 227,5% more DMG in 10 sec than average dmg of Ranger (take note of Karra set).

Current problem with Mage is that his spells cost way too much where other classes can cast them for free:
War -> Expect free AS from Q7 gains 10sec of free spell casts
Ranger -> Net 2 sec of free casts with chance of another 2 sec
Dwarf -> expect towers -> Q7 AS + Special Shot have no costs
Mage -> Sigri set! Mobs only!

To make it fair Q7 set would need to get buff too, but I will be honest I don't play Q7 (yes you're right I'm Q4+Q8 Fanboy) I don't care but I can only say:
Since the buff lasts 9 secs it can't be too strong, but also bonus is casted on a 1 min cd spell (with the possibility of reduce CD [circle or mind control]).
My dry suggestion: +25% Crit DMG; Burned foes takes additional 10% DMG; Fireball DMG + 25% on Boss Fights;
That would make Q7 Set better for Solo-Rankings for mage.

And last change: Ice sphere instead of longer freeze for 2 points -> When encounter enemy, explode instantly for full DMG.
That would allow Mage to do bosses alone with something better than Fireball.

 

I was talking about pvp. You can disagree as much as you want. There is no reasoning in the world that would explain the existence on an item that makes a player to gain HP while being hit (gain more HP that was taken a a result of a hit), just because he owns this broken concept of an item. And I'm talking as a DK now, not a mage.

This whole concept is as horrible as it gets. If we apply this concept to other game aspects, game will die. Essentially, here what it is, generalized:

There is a skill, item, talent, itemset, whatever that flips the mechanics and make it opposite. Instead of receiving damage thus lowering HP, you gain HP so its higher than was before the it, in many circumstances.

Now let's use the same logic elsewhere.

Imagine there is an item, talent, set, whatever that makes a player speed higher when hit with a speed lowering attack. As an example, a playing owning SpeedKeeper pauldrons will gain speed instead of losing speed when hit with a marker shot/ice bullet/swing etc. The same broken scenario. Lifekeeper makes some of the opponent skills useless, so does the SpeedKeeper.

Another example. There is an Item, DamageKeeperAmulet, that makes a player deal more damage for 3 seconds instead of less when hit with the damage lowering attack such as rageful swing or turrets.

One more. There is an Item, ArmorBlockResistanceKeeperRing, that makes your block, armor and resistance higher instead of lower during an armorbreak.

And so on. If you don't follow it, conceptually, i doubt I can explain it better. I hope they bring more of those ridiculous concepts into the game so people finally get how broken it is.

 

If find this particularly bizarre in light of the fact that the regen from runes is disabled in PvP. Also a couple months ago I tested Sargon set and found the regen from that is also disabled in PvP.

So we have this one oddball item, for just one class, that defies the the rules for all other gear. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me

Luck be with ye,
Mikey,
Tegan

 

Basic bots do what you say (and it's hard to actually call them bots) but the "good ones" (or simply the "real" ones), use pixel recognition, use virtual keyboard, don't have specific patters (despite what you think... you can even program them to actually change the paths randomly between several different ones and the only reason you would set a path would be to unload the charge on the pixel recognition system or to prevent inhefficient paths) and can do a lot more than you think.
Just as the daily deal bug/exploit sometime it's really hard to get an exploiter from a legit player.
In that case, I thought it was really easy to catch the exploiters because it was enought to check, in the DB, how many times the same price was redeemed in the same day, then I thought that a smart exploiter would have redeemed the prices in different days just to prevent this form of traking, so it was needed not the day the price was redeemed but the day it was booked but then I thought that it could be an information not stored in the db but just as a log and I realised that to check ALL the logs was basically impossible also for the simple reason that logs, usually, do not contain datas older than few days (in the best cases few months)... things aren't as simple as we wish.

 

The source code of the bot in question was once available, a year ago or more. I should have it backed up somewhere. If I remember correctly, there were two cheating protocols, with current based on networking. Authors of the bot just broke their UDP packets or smth like that. And it sure wasn't based on graphical analysis. So it was easy to catch if they cared.

Exploit should be easy too assuming they gather appropriate data. It just takes time to script it across all the dumps of the data. I would be surprised and upset if they don't find the solution. Crafting can be tricky though. But if they don't find the bastards, they should in some way simplify crafting for everyone, like letting 3 items stay when reverting crafting. Otherwise playing this game is pointless.

 

I'm pretty sure that the PvP bots are just like Saved_81 said though.

And not to go off the topic, it's time we heard something from devs about progress with what they posted when they started this thread... I think we should get an update on their progress as soon as possible, so we can post our concerns and suggestions before they post it into the test server.

 

I would be surprised if any special PVP bot exists in DSO.