Feedback from Season 2

- Team or Solo events -- which were more fun? Which felt more rewarding?
Both. Especially when it was Random teams.

One thing about blitz team events is the threshold for waiting for your teammates needs to be lowered. Everybody suffers in this blitz when we have to wait 12+ seconds for the countdown to even start. I think a 5 second leeway would be appropriate.
Another quality of life is at least in team events it requires lvl 28 for LLD. And if this format is considered for HLD, then requiring lvl 75 would be a decent number to set it at.
The reason why this event is probably healthier, is it allows inexperienced people to get wins, watch and cooperate with the more experienced and geared players. There were people exploiting point gains by joining the event with lvl 1-17 characters and ultimately ruining a lot of the chances at the team even winning.

The experienced players have a lot of fun, because its a challenge on how hard they can carry. And the fact that people aren't friends with the top players that always usually have a dedicated dominant roster makes it seem like a demi can be won for anybody.

FFA is fun in small doses. I would consider even lowering the event by 5 minutes from what it is now (and of course adjusting the point brackets). IMO the event feels too long, and as the gaps between the leaderboards get longer and longer, the event becomes less interesting.

3v3 ctfs need a blitz version. The waiting periods are way too long. With the dmg debuff being very harsh, there's not much of a turtling dominance that would allow games to go on so long. This may change in a 6v6 setting however (ie 3 ppl defending and 2 attacking). But in a 3v3 setting its just not possible to draw out super long matches. The event is really fun itself. As far as a competitive scene, with minimal numbers like 3v3, quicksilvers make the matches very very fast. If quicksilver flag carriers were somehow restricted, then the matchups would be longer and probably more interesting. (Probably would require a bit of coding/testing). For now a blitz CTF would be much more enjoyable. To increase attendance, I would suggest being able to solo Q and do random teams. maybe do like 3v3 ctf blitz matchmaking for like 4 events a week, then on the weekend focus on swiss and swiss CTFs. Weekdays are the fun versions of the pvp events that everybody can enjoy. The newer LLDers can learn a lot playing with others (even if they die and spectate) and possibly feel like its worth queuing for the event. I don't know if there would be able to be some formula that puts a tier 1 resistance point holder, with a mid tier and a low tier. Then match make based on the average teams scores, (the side effect may be slightly increased Q time for better balance, but probably much more enjoyable experience for everybody).

If the weekend (more competitive) events Swiss CTFs, Swiss 3v3s, and 1v1's both HLD/LLD were to be a focus. They should be substiantially higher in point values as it would create the deserved season point separation between skill and dedication. Also would increase a possible spectating scene.

I do enjoy blitz, its probably the best way to get newer people interested as they will most likely get matched vs simliar skill opponents while having more run and gun high action.


- Skill diversity -- Which skills do you feel were underrepresented?
i'll cover this in a separate post

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Qarl wrote:

- Team or Solo events -- which were more fun? Which felt more rewarding?

Team events. I believe 2v2 events would be a great edition as well.

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Qarl wrote:

- Blitz, Swiss, CTF or FFA -- Which events did you enjoy the most and why?

Swiss, and CTF. CTF rounds are currently too long though the timer should be cut down quite a bit, probably even half of what it is now.
Team Swiss events would also be a really good addition IMO, especially combined with the idea of 2v2 events.

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Qarl wrote:

- Skill diversity -- Which skills do you feel were underrepresented?

More to come soon. 2 handed builds in general need a lot of help, as well as many melee skills.

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FreeMark wrote:

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MullaXul wrote:

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neyhoumi wrote:

- 2-handers are rather nonexistent in LLD. In HLD, a huge amount of HP can make up for the loss of defence, but in LLD nobody uses two-handed weapons.

Not even close

He's saying in LLD. And specifically says they can be made useful in HLD...

No he was talking about HLD and 2h indeed lacks defenses

Events:

I have to agree what waggle said about the events. 2v2 events are needed both in blitz and swiss form.

The distribution of events was better now than in season one. Replace some of the 1v1 blitzes with 2v2 events and the next season will be really nice. I am already hyped about them.

I don’t feel there’s much you can do to fix the particular event types you have created. They seem to be working exactly as they are supposed to.


Skill diversity in LLD:

Many of the skills that aren’t used but mentioned in the lists of people are definately viable. Take static and lightning strike for an example. I feel those are skills that can potentially be extremely good with the right setup and opponent. Dual strike and glacial hammer are also very viable with the right gear.
The concepts of stuff like reave, infernal blow, sweep, cleave, ground slam, ice nova, storm call and shock nova were never meant to work in a pvp setting so why bother changing their numbers. Lightning arrow and split arrow almost fall to the same category I have to say.

Things that are actually too bad to use in anything else besides maybe a CWS setup:

Spells: Fireball, Glacial Cascade, Lightning Tendrils, Incinerate, Ethereal Knives, Shockwave Totem

Attacks: Elemental Hit, Double Strike

Notice almost all the attacks with concepts that support single target damage are viable to an extent. Balance-wise, I wouldn’t go and touch anything else besides the ones I mentioned in my list of useless skills. A simple mana cost change would be enough to make some of the skills viable but in most cases the skills also need a major damage buff.

2handers are just bad but it’s not the fault of the skills. The weapons just don’t give enough damage to overcome the huge loss in trigger gems and defense. The fix would be either give the weapons more damage or give them some kind of utility (changes in riposte and reckoning perhaps?!).



Balance in LLD:

I want to make clear that in my opinion the balance should be adjusted for the “competetitive” side of this game which is bo7s.


Widely used things that require adjusting:

Acro+phase is still the most imbalanced node combination for LLD. The extra 40% stun immunity for attacks and 30% for spells is something people don’t usually talk about. Shadows with acro become almost stun immune with 35% stun avoidance in hat. Shadows also have access to CC+HE and have 77% increased physical damage nodes for bear traps and puncture which are extremely big advantages over other classes.

There are only and exactly 2 reasons why people don’t take acro every single time with every character. One of them is the 30% reduced block which makes trigger gems not work as efficiently in melee vs melee. The main reason though is the absurd passive tree of Templar for elemental builds. The sheer amount of increased damage, damage penetration, 10% status ailment, hp, regen and resists the tree provides is just insane when you compare it to anything else available on the tree. There is just utterly ridiculous amounts of utility for 34 points. An amount that even justifies skipping acro+phase.

The problem here is that this thing will be extremely hard to fix for pvp only. I seriously don’t have an answer for fixing this shadowtemplar-meta at the moment (without breaking pve). For now I will just keep making shadows and templars until I figure out something worth suggesting.

Witches, duelists, scions and marauders feel truly useless to me at the moment. Anything they could do, either templar or shadow (ranger too in some extremely specific scenario) can do better.


Another topic of interest would be bear traps, status ailments and EE

Bear traps are probably the number one cause for desync in pvp. Now I don’t know how to fix this but it really is a thing that makes playing this game even more uncomfortable than it already is with the normal desync mechanics.

Burn can be good but no one has realized this yet. Freeze is almost useless since it’s so easy to counter. Chill is one of the most imbalanced things left in pvp. It would be really really good even with a little less effectiveness. Shock is the number one reason for one shots in this game and is the most powerful ailment of all. It could use a slight reduction in power too I feel.

EE is a bit too amazing right now, especially in conjunction with CWS setups. A slight reduction for pvp is probably in order.

reserved

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FreeMark wrote:

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MullaXul wrote:

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neyhoumi wrote:

- 2-handers are rather nonexistent in LLD. In HLD, a huge amount of HP can make up for the loss of defence, but in LLD nobody uses two-handed weapons.

Not even close

He's saying in LLD. And specifically says they can be made useful in HLD...

In lld a 2h doesn't have access to more life then a 1h, not enough to curve viability nor make the claim it covers defenses. High HP pools mean dick in hld too, all about block,dodge,not getting crit 1shot or hit in general. 2h damage output also doesn't make up for lack of defenses. Only damage that can do that is achieved with crit and that's 2h's second weak link behind defenses. I'm not wasting time on this stuff anymore. Everyone's leagues ahead of my dumb newb ass, so if anyone wanted my opinion they can read my beta feedback then ask themselves why new feedback directly mirrors it 2yrs later. Good luck, see ya....zzzzz.

PVP is still crap.

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MullaXul wrote:

In lld a 2h doesn't have access to more life then a 1h, not enough to curve viability nor make the claim it covers defenses. High HP pools mean dick in hld too, all about block,dodge,not getting crit 1shot or hit in general. 2h damage output also doesn't make up for lack of defenses. Only damage that can do that is achieved with crit and that's 2h's second weak link behind defenses. I'm not wasting time on this stuff anymore. Everyone's leagues ahead of my dumb newb ass, so if anyone wanted my opinion they can read my beta feedback then ask themselves why new feedback directly mirrors it 2yrs later. Good luck, see ya....zzzzz.

You and Tommy are 2h'ers in HLD are you not? I think the confusion lies in that you two are relatively competitive but then you both say how much 2h'ers suck. There's a disconnect.

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Dopamineloveaffair wrote:

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MullaXul wrote:

In lld a 2h doesn't have access to more life then a 1h, not enough to curve viability nor make the claim it covers defenses. High HP pools mean dick in hld too, all about block,dodge,not getting crit 1shot or hit in general. 2h damage output also doesn't make up for lack of defenses. Only damage that can do that is achieved with crit and that's 2h's second weak link behind defenses. I'm not wasting time on this stuff anymore. Everyone's leagues ahead of my dumb newb ass, so if anyone wanted my opinion they can read my beta feedback then ask themselves why new feedback directly mirrors it 2yrs later. Good luck, see ya....zzzzz.

You and Tommy are 2h'ers in HLD are you not? I think the confusion lies in that you two are relatively competitive but then you both say how much 2h'ers suck. There's a disconnect.

Rarely plays my 2h anymore, mainly my witch caster and troll ranger. WItch especially is so miuch stronger in dps and defense. Also, 2 successful 2handers don't make 2h in general viable. As a melee you can't just be melee, you need ranged alternatives

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Tommie_Sjukskriven wrote:

Rarely plays my 2h anymore, mainly my witch caster and troll ranger. WItch especially is so miuch stronger in dps and defense. Also, 2 successful 2handers don't make 2h in general viable. As a melee you can't just be melee, you need ranged alternatives

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. I need to get a viable HLD'er up and running again soon!