Make fort battle skills more effective

I searched using my thread title and it doesn't seem like this idea has been formally proposed, so I'll take a stab at it

Proposal
Increase the effectiveness of fort battle skills from the current ^0.4 to ^0.5. Optionally, the +25 bonus to aim can be lowered to +15 and +10 defense bonus to +0. All of these numbers are adjustable of course.

Current Workaround
Pure hp tank

Details
This decreases the effectiveness of pure hp and makes your attack/defense bonus more significant in battle. Since fort battle skills are also used for other game aspects such as dueling and jobs, being a certain build isn't as restrictive and allows more access to other players who are currently stuck dueling or doing jobs that may wish to fort fight. Diversification in fort battle builds are now possible, since hp will not be the only factor.

Abuse Prevention
Each fort battle build will balance each other out: str-based attack build vs. mob-based defense build vs. all-round build that can unlock more jobs vs. duelers' current 'op' dex-based attack build vs. char-based build if app/tactics get reverted for duelers. Those who wish to, are still free to go pure hp, though it will be less effective.

Summary
Allows for variety and experimentation with builds, akin to duelers with their different builds.

Administration
Does this idea meet the Ideas Guidelines & Criteria?Yes/No
Does this idea appear on any of the Previously Suggested Ideas List? Yes/No

rice farmer said:

Proposal
Increase the effectiveness of fort battle skills from the current ^0.4 to ^0.5, adjustable ofc.

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Add "except for the leadership" and you've got yourself a guaranteed yes from me.

It would be more effective to put sp in multiple skills rather than just leadership, so I think that won't be a problem.

The problem isn't just that they need to be more effective, bonuses also need a lower min. ^0.4 isn't the main problem, the +25 is.

maybe, but the +25 applies to everyone so I don't see it as the main problem.

rice farmer said:

maybe, but the +25 applies to everyone so I don't see it as the main problem.

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Leave the +25 and this solves nothing. Isn't the problem you're trying to address people going pure health? As it is now, the ^0.4 from fort gear and +25 barely hurts anyone who's pure health. How is this going to make things any worse for people who are pure health? Their bonuses will go up.

Sure why not, I'm gonna get in a fight with you
Should it be +15, then?

Elmyr said:

The problem isn't just that they need to be more effective, bonuses also need a lower min. ^0.4 isn't the main problem, the +25 is.

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if the skills are taken into account a lot more then why would a fort fighter put skills anywhere else?

yes to this, awesome idea that gives more dimension to the game and more scope to players builds.

i think devs will always have a problem implementing though, as it requires a complete rehash of the current system that is based on total HP.

-Neo- said:

if the skills are taken into account a lot more then why would a fort fighter put skills anywhere else?

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So they don't die?

Elmyr said:

So they don't die?

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that doesnt make sense E


if fort skills are more important, dodging bullets will be more important as simple as that.

if you have health but no means to dodge then you wont last long.

Would like to see a little more discussion & feedback on this idea, before moving it to be voted on. So...keep talking, i want to see more opinions on this idea.

I joined world two to become a fat tank so I vote a selfish NO

Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to put all your sp in health and could do other things? Plus, those who start late on a world are not in the best position to fort fight when everyone else has 7000 hp.

rice farmer said:

Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to put all your sp in health and could do other things? Plus, those who start late on a world are not in the best position to fort fight when everyone else has 7000 hp.

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If it becomes about the skills, new players will still be at a disadvantage.

There's a big gap between ^0.5 and ^1 and even more so when your points are divided among the 5 skills.

If skills matter more, then higher levels with more SP have the advantage still. If lower levels aren't at a serious disadvantage then neither is high health.

Elmyr said:

If skills matter more, then higher levels with more SP have the advantage still. If lower levels aren't at a serious disadvantage then neither is high health.

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ofc and what is wrong with low<high?
thats not the point
the point is that this would bring diversity to builds and broaden gameplay, some dodging, some aiming...
hp system is very dull imo. that pushes players away from fort fighting.

Hm, I am all for nerfing HP in fort battles, but I wonder if this is the way to go...

If skills would matter more, it would be easier to get them from gear too, considering that the first points matter a lot more (both in the current formula and the proposed change).

Maybe you all know how the battle mechanics work, but I don't. If we knew how they worked it would be easier to come up with suggestions on how to make the skills more valuable in comparison to health.

I figure that it works something like this:
shooters attack value - dodgers defense value = chance to hit
chance to hit + random value (0..1) : if <= 0.5 -> miss, if > 0,5 hit

Then considering there are about 150 AP and 450 sp to get for a level 120 (+ something like 30-60 more from gear) we will have to decide what we want the outcome to be when (on the ground):
a) a pure hp* shoots at a player with 0 hp but 200 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
b) a pure hp shoots at a player with 0 hp but 100 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
c) a pure hp shoots at a player with 0 hp but 50 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
d) a pure hp shoots at another pure hp
e) a pure hp dodges from a player with 0 hp but 200 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
f) a pure hp dodges from a player with 0 hp but 100 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
g) a pure hp dodges from a player with 0 hp but 50 points (from AP + sp + gear) on each FF skills
h) a pure hp dodges from another pure hp
i) all the above considering walls, towers and other structures

When we know what we would consider fair (considering that pure hp can't actually do anything but FF - while leadership, stamina and hiding are good job-skills, etc, etc) then we can get started on a formula.

/Edlit

* I'm using 'pure hp' as anyone that doesn't put skills in leadership, aiming, dodging, stamina or hiding

I'm all for balancing fort battles and nerfing the HP effectiveness.

We have to make a decision. It's simple, if we don't the devs will. Now if we want the devs to implement something that we like, we must compromise and submit what we want. We HAVE to submit something, or else we will all be complaining in 3 months about how horrible the new update is.

Anyone who wants to continue complaining about every idea without submitting something productive, please just leave now and never come back. We need people to bring arguments and suggestions to stop ideas that are not fair, but we also need those people to bring something to the table with them.

My personal feeling is this, and I am okay with disagreement and I will agree with an idea that is sensible and well taken by the community.

1) Fort battle skills can't be essential without taking into the account of the players build or level. We can't have higher level players dominating fort battles, higher HP players dominating, different classes dominating, or different builds dominating.
- The point of a fort battle is team work, regardless of anything they enjoy about the game. That's what we need to get back to.

2) I am all for players who dedicate themselves to preform better, but I am against players who do not to suffer severe punishment. Where is the fun in the game when everyone must focus on one aspect of what this game has to offer?

3) The roadmap states that we will be able to pick our bonus's. I do not see how this will help anything whatsoever. Let's say we can choose, what's the difference with what we have now? You can fix your characters from older worlds, but does nothing to balance the problem we already have. If you can pick between bonus's, who wouldn't pick critical hits? Who wouldn't pick going ghost? And who wouldn't pick the soldier HP bonus?

What I am saying clearly is we need to develope something that addresses the issue. We need to all look at the issue and agree. We don't have to like the idea and we don't have to all love it. But we need to agree it's the best route. Until people realize that a change is needed and they are willing to compromise, all discussions = pointless.

Well In response to all of what's been said so far I'd say:
Yes we need to try and come up with an 'improvement' we don't expect it to be perfect, not sure there's a perfect solution, but just better than now so:
1) Higher levels deserve to do better in fort battles IF properly skilled - just like in real-life a soldier with 10years experience would normally do better in a battle than a new recruit. But just doing better by having more HP doesn't reflect this.
2) Choosing your own bonuses doesn't necessarily remove all imbalances/issues, but it does give total freedom to your character setup, and then if everyone does happen to choose the same bonuses then at least they'd be equally balanced and it would make it clear what kind of bonuses people want for future updates where perhaps we could get expanded options for the bonuses and refinements etc
3) We don't want to alter the battle calculation tooooo much and then find we hate it, better to go with a step at a time and see how it goes and push for more in a future release if the first steps work.
So I suggest:
1) Decrease the 'base' awards for attack/defence from +25 and +10 (I think that's what they are now, right?) and set them to +15 and 0 - this means pure HP will have lower battle stats making 'fort' skills more important
2) Increase the 'calculation' multiplier from ^0.4 to ^0.5 - again this will benefit people with 'fort' skills over HP, but will also reward higher level (i.e. more experienced) players more than lower level (i.e. less experienced) players thus making it worth bothering to level up and progress in the game. However it would still benefit lower-level players against HP players. Then if it still seems like HP is over-powered we can push for the next version to expand on this 'skills' correction.
3) Support the proposed change to allow for characters to choose their own combination of Bonuses, and then see what happens in terms of the combos people actually go for, and how this impacts on gameplay etc, then once we have a clear idea of that suggest improvements/additions as appropriate.

This proposal would mean NO restriction on people choosing full HP if that's what they want, WOULD still reward higher level players as is correct to do, WOULDN'T require huge re-programming just minor tweak to existing programming figures, and WOULD get us progress and a step towards a more balanced character build fort battle situation.

Surely that's a fair enough 'first step' that we can agree on, put to vote and get implemented without any 'takes ages to program' delay?