[Chaos]

As of late, we've had numerous Balance Fu topics concerning damage and how much one can survive. For instance, a request to lessen Lich's -HP/+FP racial because they have too little HP to survive for more than 1~2 rounds. Or how X skill does too much damage, and so on. It all runs under an overarching theme: "X will kill/die too easily."

Rather than stand and watch as we do the same balancing acts over and over again, however, I'd like to propose a potential adjustment that would be best seen in a test build: Make every variable that provides a linear boost to HP and FP is increased by somewhere between +50%~+100%.

To be more specific, by 'linear' boosts, i mean anything that isn't multiplicative. So while you'll get more HP/FP from levels and VIT/WIL respectively, Gigantic Gene will still only slap down a +10% HP bonus.... and by 'Test build', I mean we take the latest version of SL2, adjust all the linear values that increase HP and/or FP accordingly (or do a work-around, such as a 1.5x~2x multiplier between the subtotal HP/FP and further multipliers), couple all the current saves and run a temporary server to see how the new numbers work in action.

The idea is that, if everyone was given a greater margin for taking damage, high damage potential would not be a serious cause for concern, and those who are forced to go with relatively low HP (such as Lich) will be able to run without being a one-hit wonder in the wrong kind of system. Of course, such a change can cause a number of issues (largely with PvE), which is why I'm asking for a test build in order to see how much potential this idea has off of paper and what issues it would actually face.

[Autumn]

I believe that kind of step being too drastic to achieve basically the same thing that nerfing those specific instances of damage would achieve, for example there are a few passives, namely Naga's and Glykin's that run off of %based health regeneration, these will easily dominate even more than they already do if HP Values were changed this drastically, the game is already balanced around FP and HP Values as they are, Summoners running rampant with over 600 max FP at their disposable (and not being lich) would not be okay, same with Naga hexers running around with over 900-1000 HP (a whopping 50 HP Recov per turn) and not to even mention poison damage, lets not even go there.

A few hyattrs reaching over 1200 HP will most definitely not fix the current influx of tanks and off-tanks that are basically tanks thanks to DR, the fact that people aren't taking damage right now does not suffice for a change this drastic, but rather, the fact that autohits, you know, those skills that bypass hit checks completely and barely have any counterplay to them other than out ranging them, the fact that these autohits are reaching upwards to over 200 base damage, you don't even normally see those kinds of numbers on basic attacks that have to deal with so many counters to them its not even funny, this is why people don't basic attack anymore, because autohits do more and do not receive any punishment for doing so.

I believe I will take a quote from the deadly arms thread and say this kind of drastic change would be best suited for if after the DR Cap's thread goes through or not..

[Grandpa]

I like Chaos' idea, personally. I had been thinking of something similar months ago but never really got around to saying anything about it. The majority of people have issues with health, fp and all that so I think the game should be balanced around them rather than the few people that are going to go super whatever for stupidly high health. Honestly if all races were to that point by default we'd probably be good. But as-is, if think we should go with Chaos' plan and just cut down on the Naga nonsense and Hyattr health.

[Egil]

-1 for the reasons that Spo listed.

[Soapy]

Good god no. Did you miss all the threads/talk about DR, Sayakana, KNP etc being way too good?

We don't need tanks and off-tanks being tankier.

[MegaBlues]

What does 600 damage to one person might do 50 damage to someone else.

SL2 is a game that, despite its apparent lack of variety, has a giant amount of variance due to strategies, items, stats, etc etc. That's why most attempts of giving examples based off of what's "average" get written off because the idea of average varies from person to person.

To fix this, you would need to reduce variance (addition not multiplication), agree on what an average is, and adjust to move everything closer to this average.

all of which would require lots of heartache, argument, and effort, so you'd better just get used to playing the game where everything is so strong it's balanced and if you're not up to snuff you get stuffed

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But for a direct answer, I think that adding another multiplier would only exacerbate the issues. Person A has 300 HP, Person B has 500 HP. Assuming they deal equal amounts of damage to each other, doubling their HP would only make Person B twice as hard to kill, only making the problem worse in the end. The only way this possibly benefits the person with lower HP is if they gain enough to be able to survive one whole turn instead of being instantly killed, and then for them to be able to use this single turn to make a significant change to the battle flow.

[Rendar]

I mean. The way another game I play has attacks do damage in certain ways.

A person with 12k health can still die to stuff that a person with 6k health can, however they live a bit longer (assuming conditions are fine)

How? By having attacks do a % of your health, alongside X amount of actual damage to you. So a Phase Backstab (Literally one of the skills the sneaky class gets) does something like.. 30% of your health, PLUS 800 or so (depending on their strength/dex, etc.).

What does defense apply to? Well, admittedly, only the static number. So armor that have resistance to the type reduces the damage of that, but DR (basically our resistance) reduces the overall you take...

This probably does nothing to really alleviate anything besides throw more ideas into the pool.

[Ranylyn]

Some battles can already be painfully drawn out. The last thing we need is to make everything universally tankier.

I think Spo and Blues really hit the nail on the head. I'm completely against this idea.

[Exxy]

While I can see a reason behind this and wouldn't rule it out I feel it would still require an enormous overhaul to the already existing content which could pose a problem(; an overhaul that relies on another overhaul). But all in all, we won't know what to expect until we try it out (and from what I'm gathering, which is something Chaos didn't go into too much detail about on this thread is the proposed DR Cap and how much it would drastically effect how hard things can hit currently: how a hit would be effected by going with "Highest Value Only Applies" with DR meaning your 60% DR could be reduced to 30% depending on circumstance - Original 100 -> DR Current 40 -> DR Changed 70).

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A great example I can think of where a game changed it's values part-way through its life would be Runescape 2 (I wouldn't be surprised get flak over this).

They essentially multiplied the HP/Damage values by 10, along with a few minor tweaks (Hitpoints -> Constitution, etc, etc. Insert more knowledge fodder). The community -hated- it, although in retrospect it allowed Jagex to diversify their PvE/PvP more-so than what it had been before that point.

Although I still stick by to my "Let's stop slapping on more shit to theories before we can test them", +1.

[Sarinpa1]

I didn't expect this to be something to recieve positive comments. Then again, I saw them trying to discuss something remotely reminding me of balance on OOC.

Absolutely not.
The game is balanced around average values one can reach, FP costs same as HP. Making a drastic change would completely fuck up the gentle nudges the game has been getting in one way or another.