Race Balance Issues

Arisilde

Heya folks. Before we start, I just want to say I understand this is alpha and all subject to change. I just want to discuss the design as it currently stands, as far as I can glean from all the info posted. Looking for some dev feedback, but you guys feel free to point out anything I may have missed, as I have not been here for a year scouring the forums I certainly may have

So, the crux of the issue I am seeing is the game seems to be stacked well against the demons, and they don't seem to have enough pros to balance them out in line with the other race's utility. Again, feel free to point out any pros or cons you know about that I don't list here. I'm attempting to keep these pros and cons as 1:1 as possible to give a more accurate representation. So, starting with the baseline, we have:

Humans:
Pros:

Can choose any alignment from the start.
Take no debuffs on other worlds by default.
Free access to their world, fairly free access to the beats world, relatively free access to the demon world depending on alignment and god.
Fairly high access to all resources in the game due to this world access.
Fairly easy access to all shrine quests again do to world access.
Can have safe zones if desired, based on alignment.
Artifact system to modify their bodies (stats?)
Can grind positive karma through combat with evil players and criminals.
Can grind negative karma through combat with mobs and players.
Easy access to 6/6 gods.

Cons:

No attributes above 20 by default.
No attribute affinities.

Beastmen:
Pros:

Can choose any alignment as soon as they leave their world.
Take no debuffs in human world.
Can grind negative karma through combat with mobs and players.
Can grind positive karma through combat with evil players and criminals.
No need to use temple offerings to adjust karma.
Have safe zone cities by default.
Easy access to 5/6 of gods.
Free access to 2/3 of the planets.
- Thus easy access to 2/3 of the resources in the game.
Some attributes above cap.
Some attributes with affinity.
Have access to abomination form for added options.
Abomination form is easier to reach due to the ease in general of gaining negative karma.

Cons:

Can only choose good by default.
Lose access to ancient power when not in home world.
Gain debuffs in the demon world.
Very limited access to 1/3 of the planets.
Some attributes with lowered cap.

Demons:
Pros:

Can grind negative alignment through combat like other races.
Some attributes above cap.
Some attributes with affinity.
Easier teleportation to other worlds (but what are the limitations?)
Have access to angel form for added options.

Cons:

Can only choose evil by default.
Can not choose neutral or good even when the leave their world.
Can not grind good alignment through combat like other races.
Easy access to only one god, limited access to 2 more, and low access to the other 3.
- Thus much lower access to temple offerings and shrine quests to adjust karma.
Much higher reliance on temple offerings and shrine quest than other races to adjust karma.
Can not have safe zones.
Free access to only 1/3 of the game world, limited access to 1/3 of the game world and very limited access to the last 1/3.
- Thus much lower access to resources than the other races, unless teleportation takes up the slack.
Lose demonic power when they leave their world.
Take vitality damage when they leave their world.
Actively rejected by beast world.
Angel form is harder to reach due to the difficulty in general of gaining positive karma.

I think it's pretty clear from this list that there's a bit of a disparity here. I also want to point out that the karma mechanics in general seem to favor negative karma, with much less ability to gain positive karma unless you already have positive, so that makes it even harder for a demon to raise their karma. So, it seems to me some more balance work needs to be done to make these races still different, but relatively equitable in terms of pros and cons.

Just so this is more constructive criticism rather than just complaining, here are a few suggestions I have to even the system out a little bit, just for starters:

If you are above 2500 karma you can only pick good alignment.
If you are between 2500 and 1 karma you can pick good or neutral.
If you are between 0 and -2500 karma you can pick neutral or evil.
Neutral demons no longer take vitality damage in the human world.
Demons can pick neutral gods at character creation.

Savitr

I’m also interested in seeing what the developers think about your points. It’ll be interesting if we could get more insight into more of the pro-demon points. It’s hard to sell people on a pro-demon choice when you start looking at what data we have. Although that simply could be due to what quantifiable data we have. Namely how good is 21 in a stat versus 18, and how much easier teleportation is. My biggest fear is that it’s far easier to be a Beastman and simply run content before purposefully losing Alignment to push to a Tartaros existence. It just seems far easier to go one way than the other and without some quantification it becomes difficult to recruit for demons.

A concerned but faithful - Warlord of Tartaros

Arisilde

Yeah like I mentioned, it just seems like the game is geared toward negative karma a lot more than positive. For another example, look at humans. You can go lich, but is there a positive parallel that you can become? I don't believe I have ever heard of one. Going abomination is fairly easy to get the alignment, but going angel is so super hard the dev repeated it a bunch of times in his stream, heh. Why is it so much harder to get positive alignment than negative?

I can say from past experience that hard alignment systems like this are routinely abused by unscrupulous players/groups. If you make it a bunch harder to get positive karma you're going to have a rash of people tricking folks into going negative. One evil guy with a group of good guys. The evil guy attacks you, you go to attack back and the good guys jump in front of you. Other similar lame tactics. It happens all the time in these games. The design needs to account for that sort of thing or there will be a lot of unhappy folks.

Jetah

you dont 'choose' a karma. you have to grind it.

good beast can't attack other good karma players. if they want to lower their karma they have to do so on the human planet.

the whole game is against the demons.

portals to the beast planet last 30 minutes then non-positive karma players are forcefully removed from the planet.

Marovec

I think this is a great question to ask, and start examining/discussing now, early in the development. Alignment based PvP is a tough act to juggle, but still plenty of time to tweak things to get it right.

@Jetah I agree karma is something that needs to be "ground" (grinded? that you have to grind? ), but I think the current issue is that there seems to be very little way to grind good karma. Whether that be from the perspective of a demon, or another race that decides to change alignment.

Maybe that is intentional? Not sure...

Arisilde

@Jetah Right, I never said you can set karma. I understand how you gain/lose it, as stated by my lists of pros and cons. Ways of adjusting karma are listed in the majority of them. That was sort of my point, that there is a very distinct leaning toward negative karma based on number of ways, and ease of ways, to get negative as opposed to positive karma.

Razvan

Regarding karma - I don't exactly see what's your issue with that. It's fair that gaining karma is much harder than losing it because it's a system meant to separate players in 3 groups: pve-only, occasional pvp and hardcore pvp. Maybe demons should be indeed given the option to start as neutral, but imo the whole angel thing makes little sense (I'd rather just make it a separate starting race).

Regarding demons: stat-wise, I'd say that beastfolk are optimised for tank (bear), support (deer) and rogue (tiger). Demonfolk are optimised for warrior (hellfire), rogue (shadow), mage (blood). I think a lot more people will go beastfolk->abomination than demon->angel, so in the end the demon guilds will be a lot more balanced than the beastfolk (who will lack damage). I expect demons to have an edge on asteroids. I also expect loot to be better on demon planet, but if that's not the case, the materials on demon planet will be the most expensive for sure.

PS: There are 2 big cons on Arboreus: resources will be dirt-cheap compared to other planets and since there's no way to dispute pve spots there will be a lot of griefing.

asspirin

@Razvan also Demons seem to have passives (hellfire - stone skin depending on % of hp, nightmare - more dmg or aim at night, blood - more damage on attacking enemy) while beasts have to slot their shapeshift skills. Imo planets were ment to be "choice of game difficulty" from beginning.

Arisilde

@Razvan My issue with karma is actually not specific to demons, it is just exemplified by them. If the whole game makes it super easy to go negative, but hard to go positive, how many people do you think will drift negative unintentionally and then struggle to get back? The game sort of naturally pushes you that way because that's how the mechanics seem to be balanced.

As for angel, I kind of understand it. It's nice for people to have options, it's just weird to me that the options are so imbalanced.

That's a good point about PVe on the beast world, though I'm mostly listing hard mechanics so i'm not sure if something meta like that really hits the list. I will have to consider it.