Consistency Patch Reception

[Ekamo]

Most of the changes probably won't have any further ramifications, but some will, and I'm just genuinely interested in you guys' thoughts behind this whole patch.

Keep it civil.

[Reldnahc]

I think they're putting a whole lot of emphasis on consistency when in reality, an inconsistency is intended for balance purposes. Demented Shaman's Entangle is the first thing to pop into mind as the effectiveness of the skill increases ten fold from level 2 to 3 moreso than any other level change. If the inconsistencies didn't exist for balance purposes, then I'm fine with them doing the whole thing. It makes the game easier to learn and more approachable if ever so slightly. They did throw in some real balance changes with Elec/Pebbles which is fine I suppose.

[Malefication]

I'm in general quite disappointed with it. I don't really mind most of the changes that hardly effect balance, but they were pretty unneeded and unmotivated.

My biggest issues are those who actually effect balance, especially Electrician and Pebbles. Would have been infinitely better to nerf the stun duration on Stalagmites instead of the damage. Legionnaire nerf was completely unwarranted and wrong.

I also dislike the Corrupted buff, and I'm quite unhappy with the attack damage normalizations (FA, Slither, Pollywog, Tundra). Polly's ulti got quite a damage nerf, and if we wanted to nerf Polly, this was definitely the wrong area. Slither, FA and Tundra pretty much got buffs, as their lasthitting with skeletons/wards/coeurl just got easier and far more reliable. Definitely nothing that was needed.

[Gorb]

What if these resulted in further, actual balance tweaks at a later date, Malefaction?

Is it your opinion that the changes you are unhappy with negatively impact the current competitive/high-level scene?

[Hsssh]

This is a waste of time.

Was anyone actually getting confused that Slither has non linear scaling on his spray's range? What was actually gained by changing it? Is HoN a better game now because Legio has 300/450/600 on his ulti instead of 300/450/625?

All this patch amounts to is "lets change bunch of numbers so they look nice and hope that we don't break anything while doing it".

[Tomate]

I kind of feel like Hsssh...
I feel like they crunched in numbers which hopefully won't have much impact on the game balance... Some spells were meant not to scale linearly for the sake of balance...

It's a bit like if they decided to make everything a straight line... but is that the solution? The issue with the genre in general is the learning curve... it is absolutely incredible how hard this game can be to learn... and making it more accessible is definitely a positive sign, but making it too straight forward might remove for experienced players a lot of the diversity which makes the game interesting.

[Gorb]

I recall people complaining that the numbers didn't scale nicely and that some values didn't make sense. I can't remember names, nor can I remember if it ever happened in this subforum.

However, it has come up, with some regularity, over the past couple of years.

That said, I refuse to believe that making ability costs and damage more uniform (when scaling) will remove "diversity" from the game. It removes pointless complication and unnecessary confusion. That's about it.

@Hsssh: I'm intrigued as to what you can "break" changing damage values and manacosts in an incredibly specific and minor way.

[Malefication]

What if these resulted in further, actual balance tweaks at a later date, Malefaction?

Is it your opinion that the changes you are unhappy with negatively impact the current competitive/high-level scene?
Legionnaire didn't warrant any nerfs, at least not anything that huge to his charge.
Corrupted didn't need any buffs.
Electrician didn't need any nerfs, or at least not to his E damage. No motivation for it.
Pebbles should be an outlier in burst damage, and he still is. His perma pick/ban status in comp. games is honestly almost more due to problems with Nymphora's ulti than with the hero itself. He might have needed a nerf, but S2 did a stupid and boring nerf. Would have been much smarter/more elegant to lower the stun duration from 2 to 1 second. Would also weaken his laning power (although he could still get outlaned np if people tried).

FA and Slither reliability buffs is bad for the same reason that it would be bad if all heroes' attacks were normalized (I will ragequit if this ever happens), and if Pollywog Priest needed a nerf, this was absolutely the wrong way to nerf him.

PS Would love if someone actually ran solid calculations on how big the damage nerf on Polly's ulti is.

[zstarkey42]

I don't think these consistency changes were that important, I don't see what's the problem with skills that don't scale linearly with levels. It gives certain heros that 'magical' level where they switch from being passive to offensive even without hitting 6. I think Pebbles' nerf was fine. He still able to instagib squishies, but you at least have a chance of surviving now with vestments and a bracer. His 2s stun duration at all levels more than makes up for it. He was a popular competitive and pub pick, and while I agree there were other priorities before him, it shows S2 is at least walking in the right direction on balance. I don't see what was the point with electrician's nerf, though. Hardly found him game breaking.

And I believe the changes in FA, Poly and Slither's minions won't affect them at all; all they did was average out the min/max damage on their attacks. I take it as a buff more than anything.

[Gorb]

Legionnaire didn't warrant any nerfs, at least not anything that huge to his charge.
Corrupted didn't need any buffs.
Electrician didn't need any nerfs, or at least not to his E damage. No motivation for it.
Pebbles should be an outlier in burst damage, and he still is. His perma pick/ban status in comp. games is honestly almost more due to problems with Nymphora's ulti than with the hero itself. He might have needed a nerf, but S2 did a stupid and boring nerf. Would have been much smarter/more elegant to lower the stun duration from 2 to 1 second. Would also weaken his laning power (although he could still get outlaned np if people tried).

FA and Slither reliability buffs is bad for the same reason that it would be bad if all heroes' attacks were normalized (I will ragequit if this ever happens), and if Pollywog Priest needed a nerf, this was absolutely the wrong way to nerf him.

PS Would love if someone actually ran solid calculations on how big the damage nerf on Polly's ulti is.I didn't ask if you thought the nerfs were needed.

I asked what your thoughts were if these resulted in further, actual balance changes (as supposed to scaling standardisation). I also asked if the changes you don't approve of would negatively affect the competitive scene.

EDIT: also your argument is flawed in that assuming wards/minions having their damage normalised does not mean heroes will have their damage normalised. That's like saying Stalagmites' damage was nerfed so every other AoE stun in the game will also be nerfed at some indeterminate point in the near future. Flawed.

As far as I can work out, hero damage range is so that a small element of luck can prevent people from memorising the exact damage a hero can put out under a certain set of circumstances. Minion/ward damage is excessive and perhaps beyond the range of randomnity required - though this is merely a supposition on my behalf.

EDITEDIT: trying to run maths on Polly ult, just for the sake of it. Bear with me, though someone will probably beat me at my speed :D

Assumptions for this data set (I am attempting to maximise the damage difference:

Wards run for their maximum lifetime (45s).
Target takes 100% of the splash damage.
Target is hit by all 8 wards and none are destroyed during their lifetime.
Target has 0 Physical Armour (just because PA varies tremendously and I want to get 100% of the damage lost.
Assuming a Base Attack Cooldown of 1.7s because I have no idea what speed they attack at (corrections welcomed)
45/1.7*8*40 vs. 45/1.7*8*41 ((39 + 40 + 41 + 42 + 43)/5) == 8470.59 vs. 8632.35 - 1.91% variance
45/1.7*8*55 vs. 45/1.7*8*56 ((54 + 55 + 56 + 57 + 58)/5) == 11647.06 vs. 11858.82 - 1.82% variance
45/1.7*8*70 vs. 45/1.7*8*71 ((69 + 70 + 71 + 72 + 73)/5) == 14823.53 vs. 15035.29 - 1.43% variance

Yeah this isn't much of a nerf at all to the damage, Mal.

Even considering the maximum theoretical damage value (that you still won't achieve because I'm assuming 0 PA and other such variables):

45/1.7*8*40 vs. 45/1.7*8*43 == 8470.59 vs. 9105.88 - 7.50% variance
45/1.7*8*55 vs. 45/1.7*8*58 == 11647.06 vs. 12282.36 - 5.45% variance
45/1.7*8*70 vs. 45/1.7*8*73 == 14823.53 vs. 15458.82 - 4.29% variance

More of a nerf, agreed, but you will never see anything approaching this kind of variance in a game situation, ever.

[Hsssh]

@Hsssh: I'm intrigued as to what you can "break" changing damage values and manacosts in an incredibly specific and minor way.

Obviously it won't break HoN in half but "balanced" heroes might get pushed into OP or UP category with such small tweaks, things add up after all.


I take it as a buff more than anything.

Did Tundra, Slither and FA really need buffs? One is perma picked/banned, another one is picked every second game and third one is sleeping till he explodes again.


As far as I can work out, hero damage range is so that a small element of luck can prevent people from memorising the exact damage a hero can put out under a certain set of circumstances. Minion/ward damage is excessive and perhaps beyond the range of randomnity required - though this is merely a supposition on my behalf.

Lots of people hit against low values of their attack damage so they can get 100% last hit, giving pets average damage makes them easier to use for last hitting creeps in lane.

For example if i'm not mistaken in Dota you'll find lots of farmers with low damage range while support heroes/roamers with higher damage range so its harder for them to last hit reliably and they are forced into other roles.

[Gorb]

Ah, I see what you mean r.e. minions, but given that Slither's wards and FA's minions are uncontrolled you can't necessarily control your last-hitting as well with them. If this was something like Booboo or Couerl then I would understand, however.

EDIT@Mal: finished Polly damage calculations, I'd appreciate it if someone checked them over though :)

Basically Mal I think you're overreacting a bit. Corrupted's buff isn't much more than a visibility buff. Legi's charge gets buffed for the first three levels with a moderate nerf at level 4.

The bigger change, Electrician, is losing, what, 16 effective damage per target (assuming 5.5 Magic Armour) from his E at level 4. Is that really that much of a nerf? Genuine question, as I feel Elec and Pebbles could be more than simple scaling changes.

[Hubaris]

As for normalization, its such a mixed bag. On one end, it makes it easier to see that each level increases your damage by X or Y. I feel removing too much of it and normalizing too much will kind of get boring. The biggest example to this is Demented as his power jumps up with the third rank in a lot of his skills, forcing the player to make a decision (although I guess added effects in upper levels or more max charges is different than damage redistribution). Some inconsistencies (such as Steam Bath) benefited from being rescaled as it had very strange numbers before.

As long as damage doesn't get normalized for auto attacks, that would be the death of HoN.

The E losing damage won't hurt him as much as the nerf where he can no longer use shield without at least 5 mana (still disgruntled about that one).

Overall its nice to see numbers move in a linear fashion (for the most part), but if balance dictates that doing a linear number would break a hero, doing it non-linear shouldn't get any qualms (see Blacksmith Fireball for further example).

[Malefication]

I didn't ask if you thought the nerfs were needed.

I asked what your thoughts were if these resulted in further, actual balance changes (as supposed to scaling standardisation). I also asked if the changes you don't approve of would negatively affect the competitive scene.
Sorry, I was in a real hurry when writing that post and herped and derped a bit. Captain Hindsight says that I just should have waited with replying until I got home. I'd need some example of how standardizing mana cost increase or w/e would be used in balance that couldn't be possible before the standardization. If I understand you correctly, yes I think the unwarranted buffs/nerfs (or wrong nerfs) to heroes will affect the comp. scene negatively. How much is an entirely different question.

There's this proverb that in English I think is "Many a little makes a mickle", could be suiting. Many of these small (but wrong) changes could easily turn into something bigger, especially if things like this keeps happening. One does not simply nerf a hero (or buff for that matter). Unless a clear problem can be identified, the hero shouldn't be changed. If a clear problem is identified, one should try to find the best solution to fix it, and proper motivation for why that change is the correct one. Most of this just seems really thoughtless and unmotivated, and that is definitely a wrong way to go about with balancing heroes. /ramble etc.


EDIT: also your argument is flawed in that assuming wards/minions having their damage normalised does not mean heroes will have their damage normalised. That's like saying Stalagmites' damage was nerfed so every other AoE stun in the game will also be nerfed at some indeterminate point in the near future. Flawed.
I might have worded it badly in my rushed post, my apologies. I never tried to argue that hero damage normalization would happen, just that normalization of Coeurl etc. is bad in the same way that hero damage normalization. And hoped that hero damage normalization would never come. Never tried to imply that it would.



[Maths]


More of a nerf, agreed, but you will never see anything approaching this kind of variance in a game situation, ever.
Seems like I indeed overreacted to the Polly change. My bad.

Question is though: Did CD need a visibility buff? If yes, why?
Did Legionnaire need a nerf to lvl 4 charge, and if yes, why? Why did the earlier levels need buffs and in that case, why not make it 200/300/400/500 speed?
If Electrician nerf (I am 99% sure Elec and Pebb changes were actually intended as nerfs from the get-go) was psuedo-irrelevant to his balance, why was it necessary? Could just have easily scaled the nuke to do 75/150/225/300 which would only nerf the first and second level of the skill (though compared to current, lvl 2 would be the same) and get the streamlined scaling as well. Changing Elec with the motivation of nerfing him, why the damage on E? Was the max level damage even considered a problem?

Again, no problem with nerfing or buffing heroes, but there should be proper motivation for the changes, which I really don't see in most of these (just like +2 str on Flint completely missed the mark).


inb4 I'm herpin' and derpin' again. Hope I didn't damn 3 am. Also, Slither wards are actually easily controllable. You can make them hold position and all that stuff. I should go max wards more often so I can use them as ez lasthitting tool, never actually tried it that much.

[Changis]

I kind of feel like Hsssh...
I feel like they crunched in numbers which hopefully won't have much impact on the game balance... Some spells were meant not to scale linearly for the sake of balance...


This was my first thought and still my biggest concern. I guess manacosts might be more intuitive for new players in the long run, but that requires stats gains/starting stats to be adjusted for rebalance, right? What are the plans for that? I hope there was a plan for that already before the consistency changes

Then we have yet to consider how items relate to the new changes to mana costs/starting stats/stat gains and that is even more tricky since it affects all heroes. Question is if it's worth the effort and putting balance at risk temporarily, but that's up to S2 I guess.

In general, a consistency patch like this also lowers the number of factors that can be used for balance. What some might call inconsistency, might be called uniqueness by others, emphasizing a hero's prime level/game phase while not breaking the hero at an earlier or later stage.

I feel this discussion started already with some of the attack range normalizations and this patch is an extension to that. Some heroes with a specific set of abilities might be easier to balance if some inconsistencies/unique features were allowed. Sure, one can balance the game by flattening all kinds of features across the board, damage range, attack range, spell range, cast range, etc, but this would create a quite bland and uninteresting set of heroes...

All in all, I don't feel like this kind of consistency patching is really necessary, and it might even be harmful to the game. This was a patch I could do without.

[man_guy]

If you're going to do a twiddle your thumbs patch, fix this one.


Unholy Expulsion:
Adds 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 spirits to level 1 Unholy Expulsion
Adds 1 / 3 / 4 / 6 spirits to level 2 Unholy Expulsion
Adds 0 / 2 / 4 / 7 spirits to level 3 Unholy ExpulsionI know nobody is going to level stats over her passive, so by the time you hit 16, the inconsistency will never be an issue in a real scenario. It's a lot more elegant in Dota (as of now) to just do 3/4/5/6 for every level of the ultimate.

[Jezu]

Consistency is a good thing as long as it doesn't make the game stale or break the balance so that it can't be easily fixed.

The patch didn't do either one of those, so it was good.

Inconsistency and randomness are the two flaws which should be minimized.

[Hubaris]

If you're going to do a twiddle your thumbs patch, fix this one.

I know nobody is going to level stats over her passive, so by the time you hit 16, the inconsistency will never be an issue in a real scenario. It's a lot more elegant in Dota (as of now) to just do 3/4/5/6 for every level of the ultimate.

3/4/5/6 presents some problems.

At level 7 if I decide to go 4 into Power of Death (Which I do often over Wave), it changes the amount of spirits from X+4 to X+6 (I'm not looking, tired).

It changes the balance of Defiler completely by doing it that way. That is one of the cases (a la Dsham) that it shouldn't be made linear as it adds significant power to the ultimate early on. This isn't a rescale but a complete rebalance of the skill and the hero.

[`11411181]

Consistency is a good thing as long as it doesn't make the game stale or break the balance so that it can't be easily fixed.

The patch didn't do either one of those, so it was good.

Inconsistency and randomness are the two flaws which should be minimized.

Unlike say, removing entire creep camps or making them all the same.

[Skyve]

Unlike say, removing entire creep camps or making them all the same.

What about predetermined spawning patterns for jungle creeps then?

[Kemenykalap]

Really nobody realised that the Legionnaire change is more like a buff than a nerf?

[Gorb]

I pointed that out, yes. Depends on how much the level 4 nerf affects the fully-leveled performance of the ability though :)

[Farosarg]

The patch makes sense but reading the notes made me an idea, though that is probably already thought through by the developers. What if the skills were intentionally not scaled evenly? Prime examples here being Demented Shamans Entangle and Arachnas aura. Sure there are others like Ophelia and Tempest and others with similar traits but what if instead of trying to get rid of most of it for sake of consistency, there was actually better benefits for grabbing that level 4 on a skill, especially if it is not the usual cookie-cutter skill that is leveled first no matter the situation. Obviously it shouldn't be the case for every hero but I'd like to think that it would be better if it was implemented more, to get further different "tilt-periods" for heroes.

Would it make the hero designs more interesting or would it just be another bothersome thing for newcomers to learn and wouldn't accomplish anything in the long run?

[Skyve]

Farosarg, a lot of the changes only were a +/- 5 per level though, and it's unlikely that the majority of those heroes affected had much meaning to their inconsistencies. Artesia especially looks more like the fixing of a typo than anything.

Pebbles on the other hand probably had the big jump in damage on purpose.

In general I don't mind getting rid of inconsistencies that don't serve any purpose (Devourer, Bloodhunter).

[Ekamo]

Consistency is a good thing as long as it doesn't make the game stale or break the balance so that it can't be easily fixed.

The patch didn't do either one of those, so it was good.

Inconsistency and randomness are the two flaws which should be minimized.
That is just like, your opinion.

Excerpt from a previous discussion I had on this (quote is not mine).

Fun > Arbitrary patterns
Which contributes more to fun, neat patterns in abilities, or a well balanced game? Because in all cases where there is not an existing balance problem with the off kilter abilities, I submit that you are compromising balance, and therefore overall fun, in the pursuit of arbitrary patterns.

[Skyve]

Then I would like for you to highlight how the majority of changes affect balance (in a negative way) Ekamo.

[`11411181]

Burden of proof isn't his.

[Skyve]

Doesn't mean I can't ask him about his opinion on the majority of changes that happened.

Edit: or rather the reasoning which lead to his opinion.

[zstarkey42]

Can't we just agree these changes had very little to no impact in the game for the most part? The only noticeable 'nerf' was on Pebbles damage, and it was still minor and compensated by a better stun at earlier levels, or perhaphs even Armadon's move speed. Electrician does like -15 post mitigation damage and most player controlled creeps now have static values that are exactly an average of their previous min/max damage. This doesen't change things at all in the long run. All it does in practice is stop players from blaming rng whenever someone runs away with 2 hp from said heros once every blue moon.

Yes, some heros got very small indirect 'buffs' in mana costs and skill damage at earlier levels, but are any of them really worth discussing for the most part? Is Legionnaire op because he charges a bit faster at earlier levels now? Is VJ suddently op because he can cast his ult at lv 6 with 50 less mana? Is BH viable now becausehis ult does 10 more damage at lv 11 now? As for other mana normalizations, most heros don't really have mana issues past level 10-15 so does this really make a difference in the grand scheme of things? Perhaph I'm missing something here but this patch brought mostly negligible changes at best to me.

[Farosarg]

Farosarg, a lot of the changes only were a +/- 5 per level though, and it's unlikely that the majority of those heroes affected had much meaning to their inconsistencies. Artesia especially looks more like the fixing of a typo than anything.

Pebbles on the other hand probably had the big jump in damage on purpose.

In general I don't mind getting rid of inconsistencies that don't serve any purpose (Devourer, Bloodhunter).

I know my post was pretty much off-topic since my point wasn't about the patch. Should probably have saved it for IRC anyway.

[Ekamo]

Doesn't mean I can't ask him about his opinion on the majority of changes that happened.

Edit: or rather the reasoning which lead to his opinion.
I believe status quo should be retained unless there are solid arguments for tampering with it. And I have yet to see any solid reasoning why a nice looking number progression is directly beneficial to the game.

[Gorb]

Steep learning curve, ease of memorisation, elimination of outliers, beneficial level progression (except in circumstances of intended level benefits, i.e. Demented Shaman's Entangle).

Just a few reasons.

[foxmindedguy]

I believe status quo should be retained unless there are solid arguments for tampering with it. And I have yet to see any solid reasoning why a nice looking number progression is directly beneficial to the game.

Easier to grasp, easier to communicate, looks neat, unnecessary randomness sucks in my opinion :(

[Hsssh]

I always thought that randomness is when you roll the dice and not when something has 70/75/70 scaling.

[Hubaris]

Its random in the sense that it deviates from the norm for no reason at all and it seems random that it does deviate from the norm.

As to what normal is...

If you see 50 redheads with freckles and such and 1 without, you can say that it randomly deviates from the norm. Same concept. Random doesn't always imply chance, but something which is different for no cause at all (at first glance at least).

Semantics.

[HWACHA]

can you do a pebbles full combo nerfed damage? like what he can max out now? is it around 80 damage less?

[changlingbob]

Hey, the graphs look pretty now.

I don't think its worth putting in much more thought than that, s2 doesn't appear to have done.

(less facetiously, all these changes were a waste of time compared to actually examining undesirable outliers and modifying them as desired. In fact, I would prefer that (almost) all skills scale linearly, but just going 'ok all skills scale linearly now' is not the way to do it)

[Hubaris]

can you do a pebbles full combo nerfed damage? like what he can max out now? is it around 80 damage less?

You can find Pebble's changes here:

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?435263-v2-6-10-Pebbles-Stalagmites-Ramifications

[Zloka]

Since I'm a huge fan of consistency, and nothing angers me more than RNG, I definitly think the patch is a step in the right direction. Now rework rewind plz!)

[Cashman]

I don't see the problem with some irregularities in the ability scalings. However, Pebbles scaling was a bit odd with the last level only adding 40 damage.

Just like Demented Shamans intended gain in power, who says Pebbles level 4 Stalagmites wasn't meant to be only 40 damage, only to lessen the intended gain in power from levelling it to 4 immediatly, over Chuck and other abilities?

Moreso, why can't Hammerstorm get an extra boost from levelling his Galvanize to 4, as before he got 10 armor rather than 9.


At the end of the day though, I don't see why the changes were necessary as most are just changing numbers just to change numbers for no reason.

[Gorb]

(less facetiously, all these changes were a waste of time compared to actually examining undesirable outliers and modifying them as desired. In fact, I would prefer that (almost) all skills scale linearly, but just going 'ok all skills scale linearly now' is not the way to do it)
"I would rather they changed almost all skills to scale linearly but I'm not happy that they changed almost all skills to scale linearly".

You have a problem, I think, with wording your posts. The "keep it civil" in Ekamo's OP also still applies.

[changlingbob]

It is not that they now scale linearly that I object to; more it is that the decision appears to have been made to make everything scale linearly and just done it. I mean, pebbles took a nerf, but as noted a couple of posts above, was the lesser growth on rank 4 an actual balance consideration originally that, in going 'I want the line on this graph to be straight', has now been overlooked? Is this outlier desirable or undesirable? Is it there for a purpose? Too bad, now its a straight line.

Now I actually misspoke when I said I would prefer skills to scale linearly; I would actually prefer skills to be regular. Old stalegmites is obviously irregular: 100/180/260/300. Linearly is obviously regular: 100/160/220/280, increase by 60/level. So however is something like the following: 100/180/240/280. This latter example increases by 80/60/40 each level, and very clearly determines whether this skill is a skill to maximise as fast as possible or a skill that has diminishing returns (if this is indeed the intent of the 40 at last level).

We already have skills that are one-point-wonders (valkyrie's javelin does not change stun duration with levels, for example), and there are skills that just get better each level with improved everything (damage, mana cost, range, whatever; I can't think of any off the top of my head though!). There are even skills such as demented shaman's entangle that have other optimal points. To me, examining why a skill is irregular and making it regular in such a way that fits the design and balance intent is more important than just making everything that currently is irregular and jamming it into a straight line distribution, as was done.

[Skyve]

I believe status quo should be retained unless there are solid arguments for tampering with it. And I have yet to see any solid reasoning why a nice looking number progression is directly beneficial to the game.

So you would rather still have two decimal points on some heroes statgains? Because what was the purpose of that change other than to make the numbers look "nicer"?

[Ekamo]

There are some reasons for why I think consistency as a reason in itself shouldn't be striven for. It should not, in my opinion, be the only reason for a change, and should always be subordinate to two other much more important considerations, balance and design.

A neat scaling of numbers might look nice for someone who loves linearity and straight graphs (hrmhrm) but from a design perspective it is as arbitrary as it gets, and so is any scaling until you figured out what effect you want out of it. This effect is what you want to achieve during different stages of the game with the skill, and ultimately the hero, and can be very deliberate in its implementation. Demented Shaman's Entangle is one of the few extremes out of this, but there are/were/could be several more.

Let me take Pebbles previous scaling for example. I could easily make the argument that the design intent behind his "odd" scaling on Stalagmites was to quickly make him a force to be reckoned with early game, while keeping his overall max potential slightly when he had his skills maxed out capped.
Or why not Arachna? She had a longer cooldown on level 1 to slightly try to keep her already ridiculous ganking in place, while later on when people group up more and she loses most of her solo ganking advantage it transitions into a more effective and consistent weapon to be used every teamfight/encounter which retains her relevancy.
What about Forsaken Archer? They were designed that way to retain their high effectiveness to harass, but being harder to lasthit with, just like any hero is with their differing damage ranges. Same thing could be applied to Tundra and Coeurl.

I could probably make this case for five more of the changes in the latest patch, where I think the good design that the previous "odd" scaling promotes way outweighs any arbitrary, neat number scalings. Don't take me wrong though, I do realize that some of those previous numbers merely were Dota fossils with no real reasoning for their odd scaling, such as Blood Hunter or Devourer and were changing them was probably the right thing to do, because in this case the benefits previously outlined by some of you with applying the neatly scaling numbers outweighed the non-existing good design that was gained.

What I'm asking for is thought behind the possible implications behind every change, and not indiscriminately approving of everything that removes RNG, weird scalings and odd Dota mechanics. There might be a reason for why they are the way they are, but then again, there might not. Either way, that possibility should not be ruled out until a proper analysis has been conducted, and that is all I'm asking for.


So you would rather still have two decimal points on some heroes statgains? Because what was the purpose of that change other than to make the numbers look "nicer"?
Those were hidden numbers, only accessible by going into the game code itself, and thus a completely different matter that required its own discussion. Which it probably received.

[Gorb]

@Ekamo: while I feel Pebbles should be debated in his thread as his change was more of a balance-affector than most of the others, I will say that a 20 40 damage loss is not going to harm a top-tier hero that has a good fifty twenty-five times that number in (regular) burst.

With regards to your examples, do you think Arachna needed the buff? Is Arachna in a decent place at the moment? Would this change push her into an overly-strong position? As a counter-argument I could argue that her early-game harass comes from the ability to (ab)use her orb attack to bypass creep aggro and slow the target for further (hard-hitting) auto-attacks. If you want to nerf her early-game, perhaps nerf the scaling of her orb? Or look into other options.

The same goes for Forsaken Archer (beyond the fact that your primary last-hitting control comes from your autoattacks and thus additional help from Skeletons is simply block damage added to your autoattacks, accounting for the delay between auto and Skellie attack).

You seem to be resisting the changes on the ground that they are change rather than opening up avenues of discussion on the heroes themselves (perhaps in their own threads) and seeing what impact the changes have on the hero.


It is not that they now scale linearly that I object to; more it is that the decision appears to have been made to make everything scale linearly and just done it. I mean, pebbles took a nerf, but as noted a couple of posts above, was the lesser growth on rank 4 an actual balance consideration originally that, in going 'I want the line on this graph to be straight', has now been overlooked? Is this outlier desirable or undesirable? Is it there for a purpose? Too bad, now its a straight line.

Now I actually misspoke when I said I would prefer skills to scale linearly; I would actually prefer skills to be regular. Old stalegmites is obviously irregular: 100/180/260/300. Linearly is obviously regular: 100/160/220/280, increase by 60/level. So however is something like the following: 100/180/240/280. This latter example increases by 80/60/40 each level, and very clearly determines whether this skill is a skill to maximise as fast as possible or a skill that has diminishing returns (if this is indeed the intent of the 40 at last level).

We already have skills that are one-point-wonders (valkyrie's javelin does not change stun duration with levels, for example), and there are skills that just get better each level with improved everything (damage, mana cost, range, whatever; I can't think of any off the top of my head though!). There are even skills such as demented shaman's entangle that have other optimal points. To me, examining why a skill is irregular and making it regular in such a way that fits the design and balance intent is more important than just making everything that currently is irregular and jamming it into a straight line distribution, as was done.
Does everything now scale linearly? Have any abilities been left out?

Is it impossible to assume that the consistency patch could be used at a basis for further variance (based on regularity, as per your approach - which I approve of, btw)?

I want to thank you for responding and I agree with what you are saying, however regardless of their intentions/inspiration behind this patch, I am confident that it allows a stable platform for further experimentation and scaling (even if that wasn't the particular aim).

[changlingbob]

Does everything now scale linearly? Have any abilities been left out?

Is it impossible to assume that the consistency patch could be used at a basis for further variance (based on regularity, as per your approach - which I approve of, btw)?

I want to thank you for responding and I agree with what you are saying, however regardless of their intentions/inspiration behind this patch, I am confident that it allows a stable platform for further experimentation and scaling (even if that wasn't the particular aim).
I'm not sure if things have been left out, but most heroes appear to have been considered.

With that said, I actually disagree about the patch giving a stable platform; I mean, it does, but now if we want to consider non-linear but regular scaling we have to go back a couple of revisions before we can go forward. Its not a huge thing, but it does get in the way of just examining what the current numbers are and what the state of balance is and determining a solution. Its a stopgap to that aim, rather than actually trying to achieve it (assuming that is the aim). Making everything linear for now certainly aids ease of use, especially for new players, in the short term, but I bet if some of them get semi-reverted to a scaling more similar to the irregular changes people will get confused, especially those newer players who are just getting the hang of things.

[Gorb]

The thing is, you would have had to enforce consistency as a whole (i.e. removing a layer of design complexity that is the outliers of DotA-ported values and also irregularities of S2 hero design) before applying another layer of design complexity (that is regularity in scaling for a few heroes that need it), simply because you need to evaluate which heroes actually need it and which would rather benefit from different tweaks (see the suggestions/issues in the OP of the Pebbles thread).

Consistency makes thing easier to read, it allows people to make better sense of hero strength progression and finally eliminates any confusion when attempting to pinpoint the cause of over (or under) performance. This is why I feel that it provides a solid base for further work.

If the regularity was introduced (per hero that may require it) within a short timeframe to 2.6.10, I'd agree about the confusion. However I would argue that this theoretical second balance patch would be a substantial amount of time away to allow the standardisation changes to be tested and observed. This gives players time to acclimatise, in addition to incremental scaling being easier to get your head around than seemingly-random values, a la Pebbles' old Stalagmites damage steps.

Addendum: Perhaps ironically, DSham's Entangle doesn't seem to have been touched (unless it was standardised prior to this patch?) :p

[Ekamo]

@Ekamo: while I feel Pebbles should be debated in his thread as his change was more of a balance-affector than most of the others, I will say that a 20 40 damage loss is not going to harm a top-tier hero that has a good fifty twenty-five times that number in (regular) burst.

With regards to your examples, do you think Arachna needed the buff? Is Arachna in a decent place at the moment? Would this change push her into an overly-strong position? As a counter-argument I could argue that her early-game harass comes from the ability to (ab)use her orb attack to bypass creep aggro and slow the target for further (hard-hitting) auto-attacks. If you want to nerf her early-game, perhaps nerf the scaling of her orb? Or look into other options.

The same goes for Forsaken Archer (beyond the fact that your primary last-hitting control comes from your autoattacks and thus additional help from Skeletons is simply block damage added to your autoattacks, accounting for the delay between auto and Skellie attack).

Did I even once talk about the state of the current balance of these heroes? Because I'm fairly sure I was just talking about the design aspect, so your comment about Pebbles was badly placed.

TL;DR version for what I think the old versions of the three heroes' skills design intent was:

Pebbles: Quickly scaling early on to be able to deal among the highest early game burst damage in the game, while later tapering off with a minor gain at level 4 of Stalagmites. This could also be tied into his hard time with positioning early on which makes it a high risk/reward skill then, but later on with mobility items when that is not as much of a problem, the skill isn't extremely dangerous percentage wise anymore.

Arachna: Weaken her already ridiculous early ganking while still allowing her ultimate to be a good teamfight tool later on. She might be on the weaker side currently, but I do not think the right way to balance her is make her even more of a threat during her early ganking phase, that is after her ridiculous laning (which I think is justified but that is a completely different debate) currently her strongest card.

Forsaken: Niche her Skeletons into more being used as a harass tool early rather than a lasthitting tool. Gives her strong lane presence but irregular skeletons combined with her damage spread of 6 on her regular attacks gives her more of a trouble lasthitting vs. strong lane opponents.

All of these three mainly has to do with design intent, and not as much with balance to do. I am not saying said heroes can't be balanced unless they stayed as they were, I am merely stating that I think they are more dull now, i.e. anti-fun.



You seem to be resisting the changes on the ground that they are change rather than opening up avenues of discussion on the heroes themselves (perhaps in their own threads) and seeing what impact the changes have on the hero.

Oh, I don't mind change the slightest. Change is good for the game, if it is implemented to achieve a specific goal that outweighs the possible downsides. The change has to be undertaken with a deliberate and focused intent behind it, and I'm currently arguing that most of the changes implemented in this patch lacked that.

[Gorb]

My point was that you didn't talk once about the current balance of the heroes. So, um, thanks for proving that ;)

You cannot argue from a purely design standpoint when discussing balance changes, especially given how linked balance and design are.

You are as welcome to your opinions on the heroes as I am on mine, however that doesn't make them right (by definition, opinions are not right nor wrong, but eh). If Pebbles' Stalagmites was meant to taper off, why were the values so random? Why wasn't a model adopted a la changlingbob's whereby you see diminishing returns on leveling the ability?

If Arachna's ult facilitated "ridiculously easy ganking" (again, I'd argue it was more her orb) then why were the gank-responsible aspects of the ult not nerfed (not even looking at Q for now)? A cooldown is a good tweak for balancing the recurrence of the ability, but her absurd ganking power comes from the effects of Spider's Sting combined with her slow/dot (which negates healing to boot, now). I could quite easily argue that the cooldown increase at level 7 isn't an as effective way of nerfing her early game harass/ganking potential as looking into her Q or other aspects of her R.

Now, FA. I could go on about this hero for a long time (I quite like her, Arach and Pebbles ironically enough. Not to say that I'm any good, but I've certainly played them quite a bit). Skeletons are inherently flawed in that they fold to a single attack and provide gold (/+ negligible XP) to the attacker. This promotes harassing the (rather slow) Skeletons inbetween last-hitting (which as an Agility ranged hero FA doesn't do that badly at, barring going up against, say, Flint or CD).

I also fail to see how normalising the damage scaling per level on Stalagmites, standardising the cooldown on Spider's String and regulating Skeleton autoattack damage counts as making the heroes more "dull". For starters, "dull" implies a lack of enjoyment and is therefore an incredibly subjective term (which doesn't make for objective commentary, imo). Secondly, you could make Pebbles' Stalagmites more "interesting" by adopting the method changlingbob suggested above, however in order to do this I feel normalising the damage steps is a good way to eliminate any confusion with regards to the numbers themselves (and their effects on balance). Finally (as I've covered Arach a coupla times now), FA's Skellies dealing a possible +/-(6 x variance) per combined set of attacks (assuming no harass from the support/opposing carry, assuming 6 Skeletons, etc) is not going to make or break anything but the most luck-based of situations (which in themselves have a oh God don't make me do the maths stupid probability of occurring).

I'm pretty sure at least the Pebbles change was undertaken, originally, to make the numbers look nice - however, the decision to lower the ability's overall damage probably came as a result of balance brainstorming (before even hitting SBT or whatever). However, that's just like, my opinion, man :)