Reclassifying items' rarity

[hiliadan]

5 levels of difficulty exist for sites, from the easiest to the hardest, they are Common, Strong, Epic, Legendary and Mythical.
The rarity of items is associated to these levels of sites so basically, you'll get Legendary items in Legendary sites.

It is thus important to correctly classify items' rarity to avoid getting very strong items after clearing a Bandit Camp or inversely to get a very bad item after clearing a Ziggurath.

You can find a list of all items by category here on the Wiki http://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/Items/

I checked it for Use Items (those that can stay in the inventory to be used) and I found the following items that needed reclassification in my opinion:
– Lizard on a Stick should not be Epic but Strong at best
– Mana Powered Heavy Drill should not be Epic but Strong at best + add another ability maybe to make it useful on the Surface?
– Rod of Lightning Charge: am I missing something or is a Legendary item the same as a Common item???? (Shock Bolts)
– Stick of the Frost Witch: same as Rod of Lightning Charge
– Wand of Fiery Doom: same as Rod of Lightning Charge

Another player, Lightform, further classified this Accessories item as "sell on sight" so I propose it should be classified as Common:
- Darkbringer Gemstone (accessories, Strong, Urban Concealment): should be Common

Could you please help us to reclassify items for the PBEM & Single Player balance mod http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466 ?
So what's your opinions on wrong categories for ALL types of items? (I checked only 1 category out of 8)

Thanks!

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

İlk olarak hiliadan tarafından gönderildi:

Strong sites (all the sites without a level that are not Common or a Haunted Boneyard): Scroll of Knowledge, Item Rack

Item racks vary a LOT though.

Some are guarded by a handful of low-tier racial units... other are guarded by 5 human knights and a priest. On Normal defender strength.

Admittedly, you can still bring multiple stacks to fight them, so they're still weaker than most other treasure sites. But certainly much more dangerous than the other "strong" sites.

[hiliadan]

İlk olarak Iguana-on-a-stick tarafından gönderildi:

Item racks vary a LOT though.

Some are guarded by a handful of low-tier racial units... other are guarded by 5 human knights and a priest. On Normal defender strength.

Ok good point, so I investigated that and here are the results: age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Item_Rack
Basically you can have 5 different item racks due to the Random Spawn Strength: Very Weak, Weak, Medium, Strong, Very Strong. The rewards will differ for each.
So I guess we need to:
I8: Item Rack's item reward rarity depends on the strength of the defenders:
- Very Weak & Weak Defenders: Common items
- Average: Strong items
- Strong and Very Strong: Epic items
(in modding terms, it's split it into 5 different adventure sets)
(was 1 reward set with all items available, and value of items linked to defenders' strength)


Also I'm separating the Frost Bolt and Fire Bolt items from the bigger proposal and upping them to Strong as no hero starts with them.

I9: Stick of the Frost Witch : legendary -> strong | usable frost bolts
Wand of Fiery Doom : legendary -> strong | usable fire bolts

[hiliadan]

By the way, I clarified how item rewards (and different values) work and are related to rarity here: https://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/Items

[sinobas]

I had the same question about the shock stick vs rod of lightening. The bothered to make a weapon with a different class and icon but it has the exactly same attack value. I think it was a mistake.

[hiliadan]

New and related topic:
What do everyone think about the Armour of the Obsidian Armor of the Black Knight, which gives +60% for all protection except Physical EDIT: and +3 def / EDIT?

Should it be nerfed to lower protections? Should it be rarer?

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

If you nerf it, I suggest keeping the elemental resistance but lowering the normal defense bonus, making it more of a specialised anti-elemental armour. Right now it gives +3 defense, which makes it just as good as the Enchanted Armor of Sturdiness, which is the physical variant of this armour.

[komninosm]

İlk olarak sinobas tarafından gönderildi:

I had the same question about the shock stick vs rod of lightening. The bothered to make a weapon with a different class and icon but it has the exactly same attack value. I think it was a mistake.

yeah that makes no sense, it should at least give the shocked debuff or something to differentiate it

[hiliadan]

v1.27 of the balance mod has implemented many of the changes discussed here for items, you can see it in the changelog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgwAg70dwNm8i3nFJqt8hrnwpNmxudn2aSXuvDet-5w/edit
That includes that Rod of Lightning issue: the item is now common.

Regarding the Obsidian Armor of the Black Knight, we could remove the +3 def (which I had forgotten), and maybe add a defense malus.
But don't you think it should be made rarer? It could for instance be available only in Ziggurat and Lost City, or even only in Ziggurat, and only if you get no other reward.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Adding a defense malus or removing the bonus altogether seems over the top. Reducing the bonus to +1 would make much more sense, since it is legendary armour after all. It's supposed to help, not hinder. (We have the Accursed Armour of the Tower of Ruin for the hindering.)

Make it rarer, sure, but I think that balancing items should fall short of making them weak. A Mythical suit of armour should just be better than a normal one, and not be a liability against all enemies except those with elemental attacks.

A rare but awesome item = Very cool to find.

A situationally-awesome-but-often-a-liability item = not much fun to find.

Now this is just one item and not such a big deal, but in general, I'd be very wary of balancing things my moving them to a middle ground. Especially in single player (which is my main play mode) that kind of change would make me want to not use the mod.

[hiliadan]

See the rule proposed above,

İlk olarak hiliadan tarafından gönderildi:

Ok so here are some proposals for classifying items expressed in hero's upgrade points (UP):
- Common: 1-2 / +1 damage
- Strong: 2-3 / +2 damage
- Epic: 4-5 / +3 damage
- Legendary: 5-6 / +4 damage
- Mythical: 7 and more / +5 damage or more

That armor is 3*5+1+2+4=22 upgrade points. It is way way more than all other items. Making it +0 def or even -1 def still makes it 14 to 15 UP and still the best item by far. That's a key item to get to 100% protection on all elements. I'd still be happy to use it, even with -1 def, or even -2 or -3 def.
I mean, defense is rarely an issue for high level heroes. Whereas being immune to all kind of damage except physical is very very valuable.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Nitpick: Wouldn't that be 21 UP? +3 defense only costs 1 + 2 + 3 points.

Anyway, I missed that chart. Looking at it, I'm not sure I quite agree with that metric. For one thing, I think it undervalues defense and resistance points.

Defense and Resistance get increasingly MORE valuable as the numbers go up, as they do effectively make a unit invulnerable to all but the strongest attacks of that type. Reducing 10 damage to 9 won't keep your hero alive much longer. Reducing 2 damage to 1 will double his life expectancy.

So particularly for high level heroes, there is much to be gained by bolstering defense and resistance.

The normal hero upgrade point costs kind of reflect this (but are also applied to hitpoints, where there's a decreasing utility gain.) But applying this to items would undervalue items that give many small bonuses over an item that gives 1 big one. With items, getting 1 big bonus isn't nearly as good because you can stack a bunch of items that give smaller ones.

With this calculation, I could have five items that each give +1 defense, +1 resistance, +1 ranged, +1 melee and +5 hitpoints, or one each that give +3 to each stat. (and +2 resistance.)

Instead, I'd suggest a flat point value. If +1 damage is 2 points, +4 damage is 8 points.

Edit: But looking at the chart, is something like this already happening? The totals don't make a lot of sense. +4 damage would be 10 UP, not 5-6.

Finally, I think the proposed chart would require nerfing many items to make it fit. There are lots of items that have many more points than what you propose. Just glacing at the vanilla Torso armours:

* Armour of Divine Regeneration: Epic, regrowth, 10 points (Okay, that is too much, you probably reclassified that one)
* Jattah's Rags, Legendary, +2 DEF, +10 HP, 40% blight resistance: 8 points
* Merlin's robe: Legendary, +2 RES and + 10 HP, 9 points.
* Robe of the Ancient Priest: Legendary, +2 RES and healing, 10 points.

Even if it is more balanced, finding strong items is one of those deeply ingrained reward mechanisms that makes playing these games fun. I vote against doing that.

Most of the first round of changes indeed avoided that: even when it took things away, like Seduce, it gave back other things that were cool to use, if less unbalancing, like Siren Scream.

[hiliadan]

What chart are you talking about exactly?

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

İlk olarak hiliadan tarafından gönderildi:

What chart are you talking about exactly?

This one:

Originally posted by hiliadan:
Ok so here are some proposals for classifying items expressed in hero's upgrade points (UP):
- Common: 1-2 / +1 damage
- Strong: 2-3 / +2 damage
- Epic: 4-5 / +3 damage
- Legendary: 5-6 / +4 damage
- Mythical: 7 and more / +5 damage or more

I admit it takes a little imagination to picture it as a chart. :-)

[hiliadan]

Ok. I think I counted 5 HP as 1 point, because as you say, there isn't higher returns on investments with more HP, unlike for defense and resistance. So 2 of the items you picked cost a bit less.
Then we kept some items as Legendary even if they qualify as Mythical with the rule I listed, if they didn't seem obviously OP. The rule between Legendary and Mythical should probably be refined, it's maybe not 5-6 and 7 or more, but 5-7 and 8 or more...

The Obsidian Armor is obviously in another class, being basically twice as good as most (all?) other items.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Well, I did argue it should lose the defense bonus. I agree that one is over the top.

You could also consider reducing the elemental resistance down to 40%. 40% to everything is still very good, but not quite as easy to push into total immunity. You'd need the armour AND a ring of Fire Resistance to be immune to fire, or Forge Aprons, the Armour AND a third 20% skill.

But it would need to keep a defense bonus then, even if 40% resistance is 10 points in your system. Otherwise it'd be too close the Traveller's Cloak of Joy.