Remove health as a player controlled skill

[Bad Billy Jack]

The best duelers have to spec for dueling, the best crafters spec for crafting, the best fort fighters spec for fort fights, the best questers spec for quests....

Yes, I agree with you & others who have said this. However, FFing is a team gameplay, not an individual thing, and this is where the problem is. The other specializations are individuals & can do their thing on any time schedule.

FFing requires 184+ players to be at the same place at the same time & mostly online.

When the game had more players, we didn't have this problem.

 

[DeletedUser]

It's really unlike any other skill and being able to raise it is unrealistic. Practice can improve your aim, or your dodging, or any other skill, but no amount of training is going to let you get shot 40 times.

Yet nearly all Role Playing Games give significantly more health/HP to more developed characters to that those characters can face tougher (unrealistic) obstacles. Bears, Dragons, Super Heroes, Demi-Gods ... what ever your preferred game is, it's there. A player, irregardless of their level, should not be able to survive 8 shots from buntline either but that's the "skill/ability" that is placed in the game for higher level and advanced characters to complete/survive/thrive against the more advanced weapons not only in this game, but in any RPG. I think something should be done to discourage the rampant placement of a pure health character but not by nerfing them and bringing other players (who have not skilled in health) up to their level.

I think these kind of proposals, not just in health modification but all proposals related to fort fighting, show the deep passion that the fort fighters have for this game yet at the same time it also demonstrates the frustration they are having with this aspect of the game becoming "stale" (for lack of a better word because it hasn't descending into boredom yet but it's headed there). With all fort being of the same design, except for the three sizes, the battlefield is nearly always the same, there is little change in strategies which are used and fort fighting is more like a dance than a combat competition. If Inno wants to invigorate the entire fort fighting concept of the game then they have dozens of suggestions in their forums to add to this feature but I don't see changing the health skill being any type of a fix for the fort fighting problems we're experiencing.

Players make a choice on what type of player they want to be and fortunately there is a feature in the game that allows players to reskill if they want to do so. Those players that want to be "tanks" have made an active choice to do so, just as the dueler as decided to skill for dueling and the quester has decide to spread their skills to maximize their ability to do most jobs. With the reskill potions in the Bonds Shop available, it makes reskilling much easier than it was before as well so if a fort fight wants to do something else they can accumulate the necessary reskill potions or LP buffs and get it done (when they're done with whatever task they've chosen then they can return to fort fighting).

I think something needs to be done to discourage the HP over allocation but not to limit or cap it (and regardless of whether you agree with the term CAP or not, effectively that is what it is when you can't add your SP's to health anymore then it's CAPPED ... even if it's CAPPED by level, it's still CAPPED). I've often thought "Why are the other five skills set to ^.4 but not health", then I ran the numbers and found that health would need to be somewhere between ^.7 and ^.9 to make it playable there, but that's just one idea on how health allocations could be given "diminishing returns" but it would not stop players from allocating all of their SP's in health as they do now anyway.

Personally, I love Fort Fighting but occasionally I need to break from the insanity that accompanies this feature of the game (telegrams, spam whispers, absolutely vile and venomous chat ... it all just becomes too much after a while and I have to step back for a while). A bit off topic, but there are many more problems with fort fighting than rampant health abuse. Find out what causes players to leave fort fighting and then you have found the areas that need to be addressed instead of curbing runaway health.

The argument in this proposal is to return the SP for health to the players so that they can do other things in the game. The players have the choice to do that now and they have chosen, for better or worse, to dedicate their skills to the health skill and become the best fort fighter they can be and that's their choice. These players may not have as much or even any interest in other aspects of the game and if they do then they're free to pursue those other aspects any time they wish to do so by reskilling.

 

[Bad Billy Jack]

From what I hear claim to, Inno plans to nerf FF health anyway cuz there is agreement that tanks are the problem.

The main reason for this suggestion was to make sure Inno was looking at all options & I had never seen my suggestion enter into the mix. What I have been hearing is that we would naturally reskill away from health with the suggestions already made.

Perhaps Inno could run a test by just giving all FFers my suggested health in fort fights only regardless of their allocations & see what effect it has.

~ ~ ~

As an aside, we also have to keep in mind that the game will continue to be updated. If my suggestion was accepted, we all know Inno would respond in the future with more health gear & buffs, just as we are already seeing more quests & crafting that require even more reskilling away from tanks.

I consider my idea to basically be a health reset with the future growth in game options on the way.

 

[DeletedUser]

From what I hear claim to, Inno plans to nerf FF health anyway cuz there is agreement that tanks are the problem.

Where did you hear that? I've heard nothing of the sort and I'm not exactly without sources. It sounds more like a rumor than anything.

 

[canufeelit]

if that many people are complaining about it on this server then there will be even more on the others. hp nerfing is a given imo

 

[Bad Billy Jack]

Let's now add making FF skills more important to this idea.

1) Increase bonus from each skill by at least 25%

2) Movement priority is now the sum of all skills, not just Leadership

Now for character FF bonuses (this probably comes with ducking from the flames)

Remove them totally, especially at least premium bonuses! Replace them with job bonuses. Alternate is to cut them in half.

I believe this would even up the skills for a more balanced AP build for jobs.

Most of you will claim that I am trying to make everyone the same. You would be absolutely correct! I would like to see online & tactics be what wins battles.

 

[WanderingStranger]

A few problems.

1. Low levels have a MUCH harder time getting into fights instead of an easier one.

You just changed it from being based off of people who were willing to put points into health to being based solely off of level.

2. Some people only care about fort fights.

Some people dont want to duel. They dont care about quests beyond how it helps them in fort fights. Personally I believe I have done under 20 hours of jobs in 2012 on w15.

and 3rd and most important in my opinion

3. If you "standardize" one skill because of one aspect of the game the same argument could be made for every aspect of the game.

You could standardize the points you can put in dueling skills. It would keep duelers from investing enough points to easily beat people who do not put points in it. Limit every skills so people couldnt get more exp and money from jobs.

Player A chooses to put points into appearance because they want to collect roses from the job Perform with Buffalo Bill.

Should the same player be able to do the job Construct a Casino because they want metal chips too?

Player B puts points in shooting because they want to be a ranged dueler.

Should they be just as good wielding a melee weapon?

**


As I understand the mechanics of the game we CHOOSE how we place skills.

Why should I have my choice removed because you dont want me to choose how I play?

 

[DeletedUser]

Very good points (you seem to be making a habit of that lately, WS), but I disagree with that one reason for making this suggestion in the first place, about being able to spec for fort battles and other things.

1. Yeah, I lied, it is a cap for out of control hp. It gets old after a while. My problem with it isn't about limiting what else I can do when I'm specced for health, it's just about what high hp does to fort battles.

2. The basic premise of the fort battle skill system is that anyone can do it. Even without being specced for fort skills and even do well at them. This one goes both ways. For one it's no longer true that anyone can really do them, because without hp you're going to have to beg for rank every battle and even if you get one I doubt it leaves you feeling very good about yourself. Secondly, the fact that forts skills aren't incredibly important has opened the door for people going pure or mostly pure health. I really don't think that's what the devs had in mind.

I just don't see things leveling off at this point and any adaptation that can be made to strategy to win consistently against a competent defense with comparable hp. With GG stacking, while it was devastating against defenders, we were starting to figure out effective defenses for it. HP has been increasing since GG stacking and isn't coming back down and there's really no effective way to counter it.

Maybe this idea isn't the answer, but I really think something needs to be done.

 

[WanderingStranger]

HP can win if overwhelming but sides tend to balance out in average (I check about half of the fights I am in). Defense usually has a little more but this is for 2 reasons. People show up to defenses more often and instead of 100 people with low hp offliners people cut them down to 84 and cut down the low HP offliners.

Worlds get out of balance but even the older active worlds (w11 I believe) doesnt have 260 people who are pure HP or even 184. w15 probably has the most active players and I regularly see low level players getting into fights.

 

[WanderingStranger]

Secondly, the fact that forts skills aren't incredibly important has opened the door for people going pure or mostly pure health.

I almost added a line similar to this. I would rather see a change to increase the worth of fort skills. It allows many more options for a player build than the standard "lets limit HP in some way" response that most off these seem to be.

 

[Bad Billy Jack]

A few problems.

1. Low levels have a MUCH harder time getting into fights instead of an easier one.

You just changed it from being based off of people who were willing to put points into health to being based solely off of level.

In a very real sense, it has always been about level. Higher levels have the most AP/SP to allocate. In the olden days we quested until we got a reasonable level, then started to FF. This required level to FF went up with tanking & now with sooo much more to do in the game for high levels, they have more gameplay options instead of the only FFing they used to have. High levels that used to switch to FFing, no long are. With my suggestion, the higher levels who currently do not have heath will FF.

I have watched the decline in FFers in the older new worlds of w11 & w12. When we are lucky enough to fill medium battles on both sides, half of all FFers are offline. Worse, but better for battles, the offline tanks are getting ranked over lower onliners cuz they are needed. This results in the lower levels, having tried a few times, give up & no longer even try to get into battles.

Currently, it is attacks that have the biggest trouble filling, resulting in booring battles.

Now I admit, if the current system is kept, FFing will not end. We will have elite vs elite in small fort battles only. And don't get me wrong, small forts are very fun, just extremely exclusive.

 

[DeletedUser563]

Although I like this idea I feel that many ideas is suggested rather from the point of view of a strategy fail: hp isnt everything a online player with even 1000 Hp can adjust his positioning better than any hp tanks who just runs to a spot and stand there. So why not rank the lower hp onliner. That does not make sense? There is many other criteria but still I will almost never not rank a onliner imo . Like you pointed out these players usually quit and in the long run your left wondering why there is only 20 offliners tanks defending. That is why?

 

[WanderingStranger]

I have seen a lot of complaints in this and older posts about ranking offliners and I just dont see it. Rarely on any world I have played will a 6k offliner be ranked ahead of a 2k onliner. If it happened even 10% of the time I could see it but it just doesnt happen that much.

People take one or 2 bad experiences (often where they ignore their own behavior when asking) and point them out as occouring every single fight.

Here are some ideas instead.
Show up and keep showing up.
Be Patient.
Do NOT threaten to leave or never come to fights again or threaten anything else. (I refuse to rank people like this)
Get a decent weapon. (we have probably all seen level 60s with rusty harqs)
Get at least SOME HP.

I believe it was charliedude who said on another thread that he got to 2k and got in almost every fight. I was around when he was a young fighter. He did every single one of those things and is now considered a "regular". If most people think back they did exactly the same thing when they first started fighting.

 

[Bad Billy Jack]

Most of the time, lower heath onliners will get ranked. We just don't see many of them. I will refuse to rank any FFer less than 1K health. It is not only that your 1K onliner has no health, he/she also has no movement priority. If a player is not gonna spec for heath, he will also not spec for leadership.

Your claim that if we make it known that we will rank onliners before offline tanks, it will improve battles I cannot agree with. We are not talking a small HP difference, we are talking 1K vs 8K.

Offliners work better in attacks if they properly set targets. Defenders thusly must respond to attacking offline tanks with defending tanks.

Offliners would work better in defends if they were more team players, but alas, many are not. There is a reason most attacks start on the east. Attackers are trying to avoid the offline Soldiers Tower with its 9 tanks. Soldiers have the most health, especially if premium. Perhaps if a battle leader could move offliners to another spot, it would improve defends.

Your 1K onliner will soon be bumped to point on attacks & die quickly as soon as the battle leader orders a move. Again, attacks are the problem, everyone likes defends better, due to fort bonuses.

Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees, please.

The problem with FFing is not so much that tanks have destroyed FFing. It is due to players having multiple worlds but battles all occur in a tiny Prime Time window. These elite give up FFing on certain worlds so they don't have so many battles to keep track of. Sooo, we are losing elite FFers too! They might still come offline, but that is not helpful.

Next is that the game has changed so that there is soo much more for players to do rather than FF which takes up soo much time with travel, getting ranked, dying & recovering energy. For many players, it is just not worth playing such a one dimensional tank game, especially if they play multiple worlds. For players with multiple worlds, this works as an offliner.

 

[DeletedUser]

OK, it was 3am when I had this "epiphany moment" related to this topic and BBJ might be able to work something like this into his idea because it falls in line with this but also makes health something that can be "gained". The basis for my "epiphany" was the basic question, "Why does health increase in virtually every RPG based on a players 'level' rather than the tasks they perform or their accomplishments?' In that moment, this idea 'hit' me:

Base health for fort fighting on fort fighting experience and base dueling health on the success and failures achieved during dueling? You don't really get 'more health' in the sense you can take more damage as a PC (Player Character) but rather the health reflects your level of expertise at avoiding damage (this explanation of health in RPG was put forth at a GenCon gaming convention I attended in the early 80's and it's the only thing that really makes sense in-so-far as gaming health goes that I've seen).

For each fort battle you attend you have a percent chance to gain 1 health for fort fighting and that percentage is your bonds reward as a percentage.

Dueling health should give you a chance to earn health every time you're injured (either 1% per hit or something of that nature) and a losing dueler should have a slightly higher chance to "learn" health than a successful dueler (you learn more from losing especially if it's painful and it's very hard to learn when you don't get hurt at all).

Anyway, that's my early morning epiphany on health and I thought I'd share it in this forum. Under this idea, regular health could actually still be retained as is for use and abuse during every day jobs as well so no adjustments would have to be made to the 4 Attributes and 20 Skills present in the game.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't think this idea will make it. I still like it even if I have different reasons for like it from those Billy used, but I don't think it will get enough votes to be submitted. It's still possible the devs will see it and like it. People have argued that it will cost Inno money, but I don't really see why it would as long as the soldier advantage is changed to apply to hp from levels instead of just the health skill. Maybe a new health premium could be added for all classes as well.

 

[DeletedUser]

Maybe a new health premium could be added for all classes as well.

Now that's an idea that Inno would make a killing on! I'm surprised nobody's put that one forth because Inno would/should jump the gun so to speak and immediately add in something like that to generate more revenue for them (but if you think we've got "tanks" now, just wait until you see a premium tank soldier with an additional 50% health premium too, Fort Battle Fields would be littered with 20K HP mega-tanks).

 

[DeletedUser]

Still will prefer Kayaks idea about diminishing returns. With a cap alot off players really will get the similar builds.

 

[DeletedUser15057]

I have long thought that the HP increases should only come from Levelling up, any further increases to an individuals HP comes from items bonuses, quest items, and product/buffs made or bought.

The only caveat I would put on products and quest items is that they not sustainable, i.e. they only have a restricted time on their use. Which is pretty much how they are set-up now.

Fort fighters who rely on extremely high HP for their effectiveness will find this tough to achieve I know.

 

[DeletedUser]

in the brazil server now 70% are pistol just they get exp in battles i think the hp isnt the problem... need change to ^0.5 for do hp less effective and remove critical or the way of get exp in the battle, why dodge just give upb need give exp too