So what's the deal with Kelvin?

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#41

@Kitru

No. Balancing refers to balance between characters. I don’t know what “balancing them against an ideal range of performance that all characters fall within”. Solipsism aside.

If Kelvin were balanced between other characters, he would tend (statistically) to appear just as often as other characters as he would be equally desirable. This is made even more clearly by your later admission.

The reference to overcompensating makes my point.

Since Robert Merton popularized the idea, unintended consequence has been something all social scientist consider with every policy decision. It is now to the point that even hard science spend considerable time attempting to identify and ameliorate the effects.

The statement that “This is pretty much standard in every single multi-character game” does not make it right or balanced. I hope I don’t have to explain that.

#42

[quote=“jYorkElder, post:41, topic:1543810, full:true”]No. Balancing refers to balance between characters.
[/quote]

If you honestly believe that every character is specifically compared to every other character when any balance decision is made, you’re deluding yourself. That’s an insane amount of work, especially when you’re balancing multiple characters, which causes a cascade effect so that it’s basically impossible.

I explain this later on, which you apparently missed.

In a game with a large number of options, you don’t try to balance every option against every other option. You decide on a certain level of performance against which you try to get each character into (in truly class/role based systems, you create separate levels of performance for each role and, if necessary, tweak the values for those roles against each other to keep the roles balanced); if they are within that area, it can reasonably be assumed to be balanced (it’s not perfect, but it gives you a very good view). This allows you to work on balancing a large number of characters simultaneously and constantly because you’re comparing them against a single set of values rather than every single other option that exists.

Not necessarily. You’re assuming that people act in a purely rational manner. In rock-paper-scissors, each throw is, from a system view, equally likely to win such that most people simplistically assume that each throw will appear as often as the other throws. This is straight up wrong. Scissors appears significantly more often than rock, which itself shows up more often than paper.

People are not pure logic machines. There’s a reason behavioral economics is actually useful in the real world while traditional economics is basically useless rubbish that people who know more about math than people stare at, wondering why they keep turning out wrong.

And if you actually read the context of that statement instead of just parroting it back, you’d realize that I wasn’t talking about balance. I was talking about player behavior. Even if every character was perfectly balanced against every other character, there would still be an uneven distribution as players, as a community, gravitate towards a small number of specific strategies. It’s not a behavior unique to MOBAs or video games or what have you. It happens everywhere.

The point is that you can’t just look at the statistics of how often a character is picked in order to determine whether they’re balanced or not. That statistic simply demonstrates how popular the character is, from which you assume that the popularity of the character is determined primarily by how effective the character is (which is a laughably ignorant assumption that assumes people are perfectly informed logic engines rather than imperfectly informed irrational decision makers that tend towards absurd irrationality).

Even in go, which is about as perfectly balanced as you can get (they even have a specifically calculated point advantage that the white player gets because the first player has the tactical advantage of first action), there are certain strategies that predominate because people gravitate towards certain thought patterns on a regular basis. The rules haven’t changed in centuries (the addition of the komi, or compensation points, has been included but only as a realization that first play gives is a distinct advantage) but strategies have changed drastically, with a small number of strategies always rising to the fore until someone comes along with a new one that shifts the metagame to compensate for it.

4 Likes
#43

Not sure if this has been said, but I’m getting tired of chomp. And there is a VEEEERY easy fix for it. Watch this:
"When an enemy hit by Chomp is killed in the next 3 seconds, Kelvin will get permanent health"
YEAH! THAT SOUNDS GOOD!
Because I don’t like being that kill stealing ice golum in every Meltdown match. It annoys people, while I actually really need it.

#44

@Kitru

It is not impossible it is difficult. Impossible is hyperbole.

I read your article thoroughly.

Please notice you consistent use of straw man arguments (e.g., “balance every option”, “every character”, “perfectly balanced”). As I did not use these terms, you are attempting to undermine my argument with erroneous terms.

Please note I used the term “tends” and “statistically”, not every. Also, I spoke of general character balance not “perfect balance”.

Go is an erroneous example as all stones are equal. When they are played within the match (e.g., fuseki vs yose etc) and position make a great difference but the individual stones are all equal. In BB, this is not the case. Characters cannot be substituted. Nor, clearly, are they balanced. Not that I would want such a balance as Go is a completely different game. I won’t address “rock-paper-scissors” as this is

All of this does not detract from my original statement which was that people have stopped using Kelvin because they feel he is less effective than other characters. You may argue that my premise for why people feel he is less effective than other characters is wrong but now you must wade into the murky waters of guessing why people do things.

In my line of work, when I don’t know why people are behaving a certain way, I ask them. I know this is heretical from an economics perspective but it has a certain efficacy. The people I have asked tend to suggest that they stopped playing Kelvin or are currently choosing to not play Kelvin because he was not longer as effective as other characters. Perhaps you have better information.

I no longer play Kelvin because I stick to PVE and I have him all the way to level 15. I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I was simply responding to @LucaGoes original observation that Kelvin no longer shows up in PVE or PVP. Actually, the direct quote was:

#45

Except that the individual stones don’t matter. You don’t have a choice between which stones to use. You have a choice on where to place them, which is where the various strategies are concerned. If we were discussing chess, we wouldn’t be talking about how the game isn’t balanced because the Queen has absolutely incredible movement while the pawns are absolutely horrible.

I brought up go within the context of the metagame, not balance. Go is balanced, but you can still predict reasonably well how people are going to react because of the metagame. A small number of strategies predominate, regardless of how many truly effective strategies there might be.

What? Is it impossible for you to refute because it demonstrates exactly what I’m saying is happening in BB as well as every other competitive medium?

And my point is that the character could be perfectly balanced, and many people would choose to play other characters. The incidence of character selection is a marker of popularity, not balance.

It’s also incredibly ignorant from a psychological/behavioral perspective. People very rarely actually know why they made a decision if it’s not a well informed conscious decision with a small number of options. The more options you have, the more you rely on intuition and heuristics to make a decision and the less likely you’re able to actually elucidate why you made that decision. You’ll still actually say something, because people don’t like to admit that they did something without a decent reason, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true.

[quote]I was simply responding to @LucaGoes original observation that Kelvin no longer shows up in PVE or PVP.
[/quote]

Except that what you said is known to be wrong. Just because options are equal does not mean that the results will shown statistical similarity in their being chosen. That’s assuming that people are rational. People are not rational. They are incredibly irrational.

I’m not arguing that Kelvin is balanced at the moment. In fact, I’ve been saying for a while that he’s probably the worst character in game at the moment and actually explaining how and why I arrived at that conclusion. What I’m explaining is that you can’t use popularity as a marker for how balanced a character is; there is a correlation between the two, but it’s very weak (and only really shows up in the most extreme examples). There are a slew of other variables that matter just as much, if not more, than actual performance (ease of play, aesthetics, lore, personal preference; perception of effectiveness is more important than actual effectiveness too, and the perception of effectiveness is a heuristic driven almost entirely by the metagame). I barely ever see Mellka, Orendi, Ghalt, or El Dragon get chosen in PvE but that doesn’t mean there’s an imbalance in their performance (Mellka is mediocre but still better than Kelvin atm; Orendi, Ghalt, and El Dragon are all actually very good for PvE). I see Oscar Mike more than any other character in PvE, but he’s nowhere near being overpowered compared to characters like Alani, Ambra, Thorn, Rath, Attikus, and Galilea (only looking at the characters I’ve played; I’m pretty sure there are a number of other characters that are just as good, if not better, than Oscar Mike for PvE).

4 Likes
#46

What are your opinions on thorn, I don’t think she is overpowered but overtuned, and I don’t know if her ult synergises with her kit or is to easy to use

#47

I absolutely love Thorn. She’s an absolute beast in PvE (definitely one of the best characters outright) though she’s nowhere near as good in PvP because her rate of fire and projectile speed are so low (her ranged attacks are so slow that you have to lead whenever you shoot, but players bounce around like manic hamsters; other characters with low projectile speed make up for this by throwing out loads of projectiles but Thorn can’t do that); still, Blight and Wrath are excellent for player killing because they’re AoEs and work incredibly well when you Curse a target. In PvE, your basic attack and Volley are your biggest damage contributors; in PvP, your basic attack and Volley are simply ways to Curse your opponents with Blight and Wrath doing most of the damage.

#48

I just feel her aoe for blight is too powerful, I feel doing reduced damage to minions would Balance it and to make her have a choice to speed up or slow enemies down instead of both

#49

[quote=“cadecampbell, post:48, topic:1543810, full:true”]I feel doing reduced damage to minions would Balance it and to make her have a choice to speed up or slow enemies down instead of both
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Eh, it’s no better at minion clearing than any number of other ground effect AoEs (I actually think it’s weaker than OM’s now). As to the slow or speed up part, keep in mind that she really only gets the benefit of one or the other since she’s supposed to be a long range character: either she uses it as a ranged attack that slows or she uses it as a melee attack that allows her to move quickly (and only for a short while). It also had its duration nerfed pretty hard a few weeks ago so, eh.

#50

I’ve always felt she had to good wave clear using it, I guess I just feel it is so much to do both and damage, on the other hand I never complained about marquis being able to do that but it isn’t instantaneous

#51

So after playing Kelvin some more i realized he can put out damage = to the other tanks wiyh the exception of toby. His mutation of having bite increase with damage based on current health is soooooo good. I’ve chomped players for 650 damage, which is insane for an attack going for every 5 seconds. And seeing how I have chomp giving me addtional shield and my health regen i can dart around chomping minions in 2v1 or 3v1, having my team successfully finish tasks needed. Ive taken as high as 80k damage as kelvin and only 4 deaths, which is insane for a tank! Ive also out parsed rath, pendles, caldy, melka, and other assasins as the tank.

As he currently stands, kelvin has the 3rd highest damage output besides end game boldur but has the potential to take the most physical damage of all the tanks (even Montana).

I might make a damage dealing kelvin (health regen, skill damage, healtg) here in a bit just to see if maximizing his skill damage potential will be better than the damage reduction for pushing players out

#52

Finally someone sees his power

#53

[quote=“tha_shogun_12, post:51, topic:1543810, full:true”]I might make a damage dealing kelvin (health regen, skill damage, healtg) here in a bit just to see if maximizing his skill damage potential will be better than the damage reduction for pushing players out
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Kelvin has great damage and survivability… if he can get there. No one is saying that he isn’t an absolute monster when he’s level 10 and has had 20+ minutes of continuous minion munching. The issue is that, until he gets to about 3-4k hp he’s about as squishy as a normal DPS (who have other abilities/passives to keep them alive), begins to compete with the other tanks when he’s at 6-7k, and finally start eclipsing them at the tail end of the battle/mission when he’s got 10k+ hp.

It’s not Kelvin’s endgame that’s the problem (with a skill damage and cooldown driven build, I was about to throw out continuous 750 damage Chomps thanks to Firmware Update); it’s his early game that so heavily relies on Sublimate to keep him alive and able to Chomp things.

1 Like
#54

Sorry for the random disappearance, everyone, had a busy past few days.

That seemed to be the big issue I noticed when I played him all that control doesn’t really mean anything without people to follow up on it.[quote=“Master_Oddjob, post:6, topic:1543810”]
The problem comes about from the fact that he’s the only melee character now who has nothing to effectively deal with being kited.
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I agree, sublimate doesn’t really move fast enough to allow him to close the gap fast enough, and Ice Wall for all its cc is pretty hit or miss when it comes to stopping someone’s escape(though to be fair I was in lots of 1v1s for some odd reason so I didn’t get to use it as often as I would have preferred, I may need more testing.[quote=“Rabid_Explosions, post:10, topic:1543810”]
Kelvin was once something great, on his own, now he is HEAVILY dependent on his team mates to even make it out of a skirmish with his life. Before he could keep his own, harrass, tank, and escape without that much hassle if you played him that way, now you can’t guarantee an escape, can’t CC well enough to harass, and your damage has never EVER been anything to write home about.
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I may actually pull a team together and see how much better he is with a premade- I saw my first Kelvin a day or two ago with a full five and he was a bit more of a hassle, though to be fair, I was first-time Atikus so I was having a bit of a rough spot as it was :|[quote=“Kitru, post:13, topic:1543810”]
(the helix that make Chomp do loads of damage is based on his current hp; it’s gonna provide a laughable amount of he’s not packing an unholy amount of hp)
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Would a slight buff to this balance him out a bit?[quote=“squirrelboy11, post:20, topic:1543810”]
Like atticus sublimate is his only escape, and with a high cool down players are often stuck between using it as an escape or some form of initiator/mid fight game changer. The stun isn’t enough for that, and the speed loss makes it a pretty mediocre escape now.
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This is really what keeps me from giving him/Attikus a chance- If I initiate with Pounce/Sublimate, my options are fight and die if I don’t have follow up from my teamamtes because seriously I am a bigger target than half the BB cast sitting on each other’s shoulders, or using it to run away…which means I am now a giant target that is now also not damaging the enemy as well.[quote=“cadecampbell, post:24, topic:1543810, full:true”]
Control, late game unstoppable tank, disruption, chomp damage, and sustain
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Like someone said earlier, you’ve really gotta get to the end game to get those benefits. Meltdown? Not happening, since people surrender/dc more often than I’ve ever seen. Incursion. You are getting insta-focused without a support behind you, chomping minions- one at a time- is painful. Capture I haven’t played enough to determine his effectiveness there.[quote=“jYorkElder, post:37, topic:1543810”]
I have noticed from talking to PVP players that the diversity in PVP is falling off. Players stick to a few of the characters as they perform better in PVP. GBX should look into this.
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I personally have lots of diversity in my matches, with the exception of Kelvin and maybe Phoebe(which I don’t expect to change until people adapt to the slow changes, but again, neither here nor there).[quote=“cadecampbell, post:46, topic:1543810, full:true”]
What are your opinions on thorn, I don’t think she is overpowered but overtuned, and I don’t know if her ult synergises with her kit or is to easy to use
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Thorn is my favorite Space Elf Goddess- er, Sniper.possibly favorite BB in the game, hands down. I think she’s designed in a way so that even if you aren’t the best at flat headshotitng with her bow, you can still reasonably do well provided you land blight and her ultimate, though she is balanced out by the fact that at close range she is absolutely dead by any melee with a bit of common sense.If you can catch someone distracted in a 1v1/clearing minions/etc, those arrows and volleys can help turn situations into your team’s favor reasonably well. Whenever I convince people to give BB a shot, she’s the first one I recommend to them.[quote=“cadecampbell, post:50, topic:1543810, full:true”]
I’ve always felt she had to good wave clear using it, I guess I just feel it is so much to do both and damage, on the other hand I never complained about marquis being able to do that but it isn’t instantaneous
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Her wave clear is outdone by everyone else with a bit of aoe. Blight is more for applying the effects that come from her helices that using it to clear minions.

Long wall of text, sorry xD I was actually in queue this whole time and I’m now loading into the match,s o I’ll be back in a bit.

1 Like
#55

I personally agree on her against melees which I main, she just stands no chance

#56

I’ve already stated this, but I now have actually thought about these changes and wonder what other think about them.

  1. Chomp being able to hit multiple MINOR enemies at once.

  2. When you Chomp an enemy, and that enemy dies in the next 3 seconds(The enemy does not have to be killes by you.) you gain a permanent health boost.

Both could even be helixes. (I’d prefer 1 just be part of him tho.)
And, about point 2, maybe you get less permanent health if you don’t finish them off with Chomp.

2 Likes
#57

I honestly love both of these. I opened up a thread in the Kelvin discussion about ideas like this, and these are both great for just making Chomp farming more fluid. Chomp stacking is a great mechanic because Chomp loses damage as the enemy gets closer to kill range, making it a great reward for your skill, but when he has to rely on it for his entire endgame presence the flaws really show. I can just pressure Kelvin out of lane if he goes for minions and cripple his endgame- Boldur, on the other hand, has a shield to relieve pressure and- since his endgame is based on his Helix rather than Chomp farming- has more options to reach that endgame ( Capture points, Thralls, Turrets, Assists…).

The slow change can offer up a new CC for Kelvin to use, they can buff Permafrost (Honestly, name 2 characters that can’t get through the shield by themself in under half a second), they can address his number of bad Helixes (I.e. Make Hibernation last a set duration upon ending Sublimate, make Groupthink stack based on how many allies are in radius & have the regen extend to the allies, make Icemaker not garbage…)- depending on how they want Kelvin to play, there’s a lot of options to help buff him.

1 Like
#58

[quote=“Jayko, post:57, topic:1543810, full:true”]Chomp stacking is a great mechanic because Chomp loses damage as the enemy gets closer to kill range, making it a great reward for your skill, but when he has to rely on it for his entire endgame presence the flaws really show.
[/quote]

Chomp has absolutely nothing to do with the target’s current hp. It does base + (min(500, 15% of target’s max hp)) damage, so, if anything, it actually gets proportionately stronger the lower the hp of the target is.

I have a hard time seeing them allowing multiple targets to be Chomp’d or gaining hp if a Chomp’d target dies within 3 seconds. Allowing you to Chomp multiple targets just gets weird since it’s not like Kelvin can really fit more than one enemy in his mouth. Gaining hp if the target dies within 3 secs doesn’t make sense either because Chomp is supposed to represent Kelvin literally eating the target; how is he going to eat it if it dies after he Chomps it?

The only problem with Chomp, as I see it, is that the hp stacking is linear when it really should be logarithmic (really big gains at the start that slow down the higher his hp gets). Beyond that, it’s fine. Making it an AoE or gain hp post-kill is just too much. Also, it makes Chomp pretty much his entire kit, which is boring.

Kelvin needs to have Sublimate beefed up a bit (undo one of the two nerfs he just got) to make his early game and control capabilities viable. I also wouldn’t be adverse to some kind of damage aura to Ice Wall so that it’s not longer this really mediocre ultimate (it pretty bad, consider it can’t really lane block).

#59

OH NO! Something in a game with elves, Golums, living mushrooms and robots that have emotions doesn’t make sense!
(I hope that didn’t come off as offensive btw. Because it’s just meant as a joke.)

I am pretty sure Kelvin can fit all 4 of those minion bots in his huge mouth though. ;p

I really don’t think that making it easier to gain health wih Chomp makes Chomp Kelvin’s entire kit. Sublimate is still way more usefull against enemy Battleborn and teamfights. Sublimate makes him the controller, and Chomp (is supposed to) make him the tank. But right now, both skills seem to be lacking.

Edit: Phasegate is Phoebes entire kit(Why is she the only Battleborn that got 1 skill? ;p) and she is still fun!

Edit 2: I don’t even think Kelvin eats, now I think about it… I don’t think Miko eats either…

#60

I played Kelvin since the open beta, and I honestly always thought it was the current HP. I honestly feel pretty dumb right now:joy:

I understand your point about the other Chomp ideas not making much logical sense, but hey, they’re still fixes. The Exponential curve, though probably still the best idea I’ve heard, would still be hard to code, and could really impact him in PvE. I still love listening to the other ideas, though the exponential curve does make the most sense for a PvP environment.

I think we can agree Chomp did its job fine, it’s just the fact that Kelvin has to bank on it so hard since his other 2 skills are so weak now that makes it seem bad. As a result, our main focus right now should be on Sublimate & Ice Wall.

I like giving the movement speed back on Sublimate, then maybe adding the AS Slow to it. If it’s going to be his main form of control and team support the 1-second stun is a problem for a 24-second cooldown, but the movement speed is the main thing I think a lot of Kelvins want back.

Ice Wall needs a lot of help. The damage might help, or maybe a length increase by default so you’re less limited in where you place it- they’ll have to change Great Wall of course- or at the very least some better hit detection to make it more reliable.