Delay release, rework entire game

Battleborn Open Beta Open Beta General Discussion/Feedback
#36

Melee characters ARE at a massive disadvantage in the entire game. I never thought you were attacking me or anyone else, btw. Just trying to get facts across.

Melee requires you to be in close proximity of your target to have any effect.
Ranged only needs line of sight and occasionally don’t even need that. (Grenades.)

Melee characters struggle to fight opponents such as the Ice Guardians and the Galactic Emperor because of the chest being the area where damage can be inflicted.
Ranged characters have no problems.

I don’t even think melee characters can even score critical hits.
Ranged can easily target critical zones such as Head shots with relative ease. This is really noticeable with the Thrall who are very tall characters.

Melee isn’t much faster than ranged.

Melee doesn’t have better protections than ranged.

Melee will take damage in a fight.
Ranged: Taking Damage is optional.

Melee can’t snipe a sentry.

Melee can’t hit/target a ranged character that is dealing damage to him from across the map forcing a retreat or death.

Melee AOE is not better that ranged AOE, in fact being able to AOE from range should always be the preferred attack.

The truth is, we have evolved our combat abilities to make melee a bad choice. If you have an army of swordsmen and I have one jet with one bomb. I most likely will win. You swordsmen can’t attack the jet and the bomb can kill your entire army.

#37

The flaw isn’t in the first person winning or forcing a draw, the flaw isn’t that a tie exists in a game, the flaw is that once you know how it works, first will ALWAYS force a win or a draw, and it’s not exactly hard to learn how to do that. Chess doesn’t guarantee this for whoever goes first, there’s way too many pieces, tactics and potential moves to consider.

This is a funny subject of debate for a Battleborn forum.

They can and it bloody hurts, just gotta aim up slightly, slash across their face.

#38

dont agree.

#39

It’s a not a flaw, it’s balance. That’s the point of the game, if you know how to play you should be ALWAYS able to force a draw or win. Anything else is unbalanced or plain unfair. Even coin tosses are unbalanced unless you use a coin specifically designed for flipping and even then you should always be forced into a draw because a perfect coin should always have a 50/50 chance of landing on one side or the other. If you play to 100 in a perfect setting you should both always end with a score of 50/50. The flaw only comes in when the coin itself is unbalanced and the one who knows which side is more likely to show up will have an advantage and will win more often.

This isn’t really out of place for Battleborn, as this is a game and most concepts of gaming are broad enough to think about for any game.

What about the Thrall in Incursion and other tall baddies? Or Geoff and his tiny eye crit?

#40

But then how do you find a winner, where does skill become a factor, and how do you avoid whoever’s going second from feeling crap because they know there’s no chance? The key is to find a score of 50/50 over a large amount of games so that when two characters meet, on equal skill levels, there’s a decent chance that either side will win. Reaching 50/50 because one side is always guaranteed to win is just artificial.

I took out the Thralls in Incursion all the time as Cal, slashing them in the face. Galilea too though the gits often knocked me away mid-combo. I even did the finishing crit often with the melee attack of ranged characters. You can crit Geoff too, but that tiny eye is a pain to hit even with most ranged characters. Ben hates that eye.

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#41

It’s not artificial to be perfectly balanced. It’s artificial to add unpredictable or random occurring events that cause a swing to go one way or another. It’s artificial to design a character to do better against an other character.

These are things game designer DO because perfect balance is often boring. There are a lot of game design books that discuss perfect balance in games.

Take a look at the game Soccer (football). The game itself is perfectly balanced. If both teams are perfect and neither team makes a mistake then the game will end always with a 0-0. You can’t factor in luck in this hypothetical situations because we are trying to discuss balance and skill theory.

You start to get winners and losers when you have equally matched teams, in the sense of each team has the same exact rules to how their players should behave, but the individual players are able to predict the actions of the other players and force a mistake.

You shouldn’t lose a match because of the rules of the game say your character can’t beat another character because it was designed that way. It should be that each character has perfectly equal opportunity to win as long as they are playing well and not making mistakes.

Another example of a perfectly balanced game is a Staring Contest. 2 rules: Don’t look away, don’t blink. The first person to break the rules loses. Simple. The skill in this game comes from the individuals and not from the core mechanics.

#42

-Well, i suppose this is a disagreement because I feel that melee characters are on an if not even then at least close enough playing field and that the literal distinction you made to some degree make the difference between melee and ranged.

  • Melee is close range but that is because they are…close range…ranged characters can shoot close or far but I believe for most ranged chracters the best DPS is usually mid-long range. I think that melee characters do more damage to some degree also. at least consistently and it is easier for them to do so within limits.

  • I don’t know if it is a struggle since I have mainly my own experience and I can’t speak for the other hundreds of thousand other players but as long as I am near an enemy as a melee character I can attack them. Sure enough, there are better areas to attack but in the case of that 2nd to last boss before ISIC I usually just aim my attacks higher and everything is fine.

  • Someone already said it but melee characters can score critical hits and because they are closer I believe they can do it easier and more frequently because of att spd increases.

  • I want to say yes and no because it really depends on items, plus skills upgraded, but in general let us say they aren’t isn’t that why a good amound if not nearly all melee chracters have some skill to dash or CC to counter the distance+SPD of ranged characters has over melee?

  • I think that all melee chracters have some form of augments that gives then life steal or health regen thus making them harder to kill or in exchange for having to go up closer to enemies to kill them and usually are able to take more damage because of it. So I would say with additional health and health regen plus other I prob didn’t mentoin they have more protections.

  • ranged chracter taking damage in a fight isn’t optional unless they just do not show to the fight. On that point, it isn’t optional to the extent that range chracters themselves can decide when they will take damage without any consideration of anything else. Of course, I think you may have meant somewhere along the lines that if a ranged chracter can sit back and snipe they won’t take any damage unless they decide to move up, but the situation is only what they can see and is not entirely up to themselves.

  • Well, sniping is a term usually associated with ranged damage so techincally no. Unless melees have a ranged skill that allows them to do so.

  • Again as I said above this is usually because of the difference between being a ranged and melee chracter and all of the advantages and disadvantages that come along with that.

  • Hmm, Since we are going into skills would you say that there are more Ranged AOE skills or Melee AOE skills? Which one also deals more damage would you say? (Because my opinion is limited and I can again only based this on what I have seen and played as and against) But also in the end which is better is just my opinion and so other than that I can’t refute what you said with anything factual.

  • This last part isn’t nessarily true I personally evolve along whichever path suited me for a particular match. Also, I can’t say it is not wrong since I don’t have any data to say otherwise.

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#43

But also on this reply of balance , as you guys said it’s artificial and it is only a theoretical balance as balance its the ideal situation. But games do not usually have symmetrical balance and are usually asymmetrically balanced because as you said it would be boring if I attack and you attack we both deal the same damage and then all that comes down to is who moves first as the fastest will win. So when you take out any outside factors and variable such as humans and etc etc everything is “balanced” but once you move, once you decide to choose what you like the balance is broken and you start to essential enter the line back and forth depending on your actions.

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#44

I can’t argue your opinions against my facts. My facts still stand. I am not going to write up all the variables to prove the advantages of ranged vs melee and I will only leave you with this:

War was originally fought with tooth and nail… then someone threw a rock.

#45

Well that completely fine because in the end my opinions are just that opinions and in the face of facts I can do nothing but bow out and say I’m wrong. I’m honestly happy to do so for anyone as long as they can back the “facts” with reliable data. And you’d do not necessarily have to anyone can do it and you can link it or show it. Because in the end Even if everyone says the earth is flat I’ll believe it’s round because of the data that was shown to me, until otherwise someone can show me data that shows me a flat earth that proves the current data to be wrong.

#46

I guess this will be my last attempt at convincing you but I don’t say you’re wrong, exactly… you just seem to be missing a point. The data is available and should just be common sense. Your analogy about the world being flat is backwards. I am arguing it’s round you are arguing it’s flat. I am saying that if I have a gun and you have a knife and we are of equal skill with our preferred weapons I will almost always win.

In fact, Deadliest Warrior did a lot of study on this premise about the effectiveness of ranged vs melee weapons.

In fact, our history of weaponry and war proves what I am trying to convey. Many battles were won through-out history specifically because of range advantage. The thing of the Mongols with their bows or the USA with the Atomic Bomb or the development of various projectile weapons through-out history or the development of chemical weaponry (a form of ranged AOE).

#47

I see I see, well although I think you misinterpret what I’m trying to convey because it would be more like from your example that you are telling me that the earth is flat while I’m saying it is not flat but it’s round based on previously obtained data and knowledge, but if you were to ever prove to me its flat with more reliable data I would say it’s flat. but its fine, but I generally try to keep video games, and real life separate because although you can compare the two the differences in the variable absolutes in video games and the variable uncertainty in real life are too great to honestly compare seriously.

#48

Oh yeah but if you meant range characters at farther ranges are advantage then yes I agree,

#49

Opinions =/= facts

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#50

if you know how to play you should ALWAYS be able to force a draw or win. Anything else is unbalanced or plain unfair.

That’s not… necessarily true. Perfect balance sounds good in theory, but it’s nearly impossible, and pretty boring.

Battleborn is a really complex game. There’s a lot of objectives and things to keep in mind- killing enemy players and minions, gathering shards and then choosing whether to spend them on gear or structures, where to be at what time to contribute to a fight, etc. To give every single character the exact same capability in each of these tasks is really difficult, and that’s if their skillset is kept similar. As it stands now, a majority of characters are quite specialized- Marquis is good for only killing players, minions, and structures from far away while Caldarius is good only for running around really fast to outnumber enemies in fights and blitz neutral shards. Caldarius is naturally good against Marquis even if they both play well- his mobility denies Marquis the ability to sit back from far away and snipe, and makes him really hard to kill. This denies Marquis a fair fight, but in turn Marquis can deny a fair fight to other characters who can’t counter his advantages. Think of the game not like tic-tac-toe, but like rock paper scissors, which in my opinion is a lot more fun.

#51

Ok, I think we are getting on the same page now.

I think Melee characters SHOULDN’T have a disadvantage in a game because it can be controlled and they can be adjusted to provide the balance.

Back on topic to my original post as well, the map layouts give advantages to Ranged characters more than melee characters because their isn’t a lot of cover to advance upon ranged character. Usually in games that want to allow close range to be more advantageous would provide areas where it is more viable to use CQC, like corners.

I think melee can be handled better in this game by elevating the center of the map giving it a center peak so that ranged characters can’t just shoot across the map. Also, there should be places of concealment for ambushing characters and staying out of LOS.

The fact though is that video games are a simulation of real life with creative flair but have the convenience of controllable variables.

I just think more can be done for melee characters to give them a competitive edge rather than just having them perform as easy targets for ranged characters who know how to use cover, range, and LOS.

I think that melee characters should be able to use the same LOS mechanics to some degree to improve against their disadvantages.

One way to do this is add an ability to all melee character that whenever they are hard-aimed onto by ranged opponent the opponent immediately begins taking damage. Forcing ranged characters to disengage on melee targets occasionally or at the very least make them use the soft aiming mechanic which causes reduced accuracy.

#52

I honestly didn’t have a problem going solo with EL DRAGON (I have to type his name in CAPS.) against ISIC Magnus

#53

I had already made the point of it being boring. Also, tic-tac-toe was an example of balance. Rock, Paper, Scissors is actually a better example for this style of game and thanks for bringing it up.

In this case: The game only has 3 picks and 1 move to decide a winner. If you just pick Rock all the time your opponent can just pick Paper all the time and win. One problem with this game in that is if your favorite option is Rock and you always want to pick Rock then you will never win against players who always pick Paper. It sucks but it’s part of that games integral design and wouldn’t be able to work without it.

Battleborn is not that game though… Because there are other variables that makes some character choices better than others in all cases because of map layout. Rock, Paper, Scissor has no such advantages but if we were to say, “If Rock can stand in X location then Paper can’t beat Rock.” Then Rock becomes the most viable choice and the game becomes unbalanced. That is more the case for this game, in which has been my point from the start.

#54

That’s entirely true, and while it may not be entirely ideal, that’s just the reality of any moba and most games that draw from moba elements. Counterpicks and a balanced team are core parts of a moba game- if Rock can hold x position perfectly then Paper can’t beat Rock, and that is indeed unbalanced, but only in a 1v1 scenario between Rock and Paper. There is also of course Scissors present, who can force Rock out of position x so that Paper can beat it, thus rewarding the team that has both Paper and Scissors, and defeating the unbalanced problem.

The game can be seen as just a web of separate matchups that favor one side or the other, but it’s such an intricate web that each individual matchup, especially in a game like battleborn where a currency mechanic plays less of a role, has little effect on the overall web. That to me is one of the things that makes mobas great- sure you might be having a hard time beating something that seems unbalanced, but later in the game teamwork can trump that and so it becomes really hard to have something that’s problematically unbalanced or uneven, especially in organized play.

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#55

I completely agree but that’s not the case currently for this game. The fact is right now there are certain characters such as Oscar Mike and Orendi who if they are on your team, assuming perfect skill, they will beat every other match up. Add in Galilea and Marquis… Then your team is unreasonably op and can devastate the battlefields currently presented against any match other than the exact same team.

My ideal team is: Ambra or Miko, Galilea or El Dragon or Rath, Marquis, Oscar Mike, and Orendi

I don’t believe there are any stronger compositions currently. Marquis, Oscar Mike, and Orendi should be on every team with at least Ambra or Miko. Then pretty much any tank because they are practically all the same except for El Dragon who may have been nerfed from his OP state.

I think my point is more that there are those three that seem to be the best choices only because of the type of game this is… An FPS/Moba…

Both Oscar Mike and Orendi have the ability to escape, regenerate shields quickly, and extremely powerful AOE. This makes guerrilla tactics the most viable choice of play for these two. Combine that with the Sniping ability of Marquis and they are just unstoppable, hypothetically.

Adding in Ambra with her Legendary and Galilea teaming to be the front line with their healing, damage, and tanky-ness…

It becomes more obvious how this team composition just brutalizes the rest, currently and hypothetically.

Just looking at the abilities and potentials, I would be running this composition always if I had a well enough team.