Siege War issues explained

[DarkLink64 921]

Hi!

 

I want to tackle a very important aspect of the game - Siege War.

Siege War is, without a doubt, the primary objective of the game. Players may find other things to do, but, the main path of the game is to level and gear yourself, so you can conquer the Bless Castle. So, to my understanding of the game, Siege War plays a very important role.

1-Lag issues and exploit

For quite a long time, Siege Wars wasn't yielding any fun. I believe the game should offer the very best condition for Siege War, so it becomes a fun and competitive experience, instead of something that feels like a drag and participating players can't wait for it to end.

Lag is taking out the fun of the competition. You can barely understand what is actually happening due to lag. Also, lets differentiate things: I'm talking about connection lag, not "low fps". 

When you're experiencing lag, your character receives PvP penalties that reduce your damage dealt. 

 

The Score System of Siege War is directly tied to how much damage you deal be it on towers or on other players, so, lagging directly heavily impacts the user experience negatively.

 

PvP Penalty only applies to Player vs Player damage, damage to structures is still 100%.

 

This opens for a big exploit: Intentional Lagging.

 

Siege War is suffering of major lag problems, and almost everyone is prone to it. I'm one of them. However, even being lagged myself, I've found many players that, no matter how long I've keep attacking him, the damage was never confirmed.

 

This is caused by a simple thing: Incredible aumont of ping. Like, ping values above thousands. Also, by fragmentation of packets due to intentionally limiting internet bandwich.

 

I can find lots of players where, under the Siege War lag, my damage is dealt two or three seconds later, but there are MANY players that my damage is never dealt. To be honest, I can see on Notice that i've killed players that i've attacked minutes early.

Players can intentionally lag their connection so they can deal 100% damage to structures while delaying a lot the damage taken, to the point the data is lost.

If the abusing player moves far away from the original local point of when it took said damage, it will be discarded. 

 

This isn't something new - It is easily observable on normal situations. If, for example, a fast running character like Archer or Assassin, takes a Divine Piercing or Shadow Master skill, if she receives all hits (and not flinch), they can run very far away and the lasts hits are completely discarded.

Exploit is simple: Lag as much as you can on your Download speed by using speed limiters / intentional many downloads like multiple Youtube Videos or FTP/Torrent leechs, then you can still deal 100% damage to structures (after all your upload speed is intact), but the damage taken will be extremely delayed or lost.

Sometimes the PvP Penalty fails to detect real lagging, because if you can intentionally break down one of two connections type (Upload and Download), it may still even allow players to hit with 100% damage other players, even under lag situations.

It happens A LOT with these damned Archers everywhere. I move to empty areas of Bless Castle and i'm still taking full damage out of nowhere. Only after some seconds I see Archers facing Backwards and her projectiles going towards me.

 

To score lots of points and maximize your tower damage doesn't depends on your strategy, or on how strong your character is. Lately, it's based on how much do you use lag in your favour.

 

The most obvious solution for this would be: Reduce damage dealt to Towers and other structures when receiving a Penalty.

But, it also generates a problem. Siege War is lagging for everyone else. Having that said, even a full clan of 15x, with 60 members, won't be able to destroy all towers, if they all have their damage lowered against towers.

 

Real solution is to make a hotfix and optmize server bandwich for Sunday Siege Wars.

 

When the server side issue is fixed, then, adding penalty to Tower damage can be also implemented.

 

______________________________________

 

2- Area of Effect Damage imbalance

 

We all know that classes should have strong and weak points, but, nothing justifies the current "meta game" for Siege War.

 

I believe each class should have its role during the primary goal of the game, while not having an enormous advantage over a single or two classes.

 

AoE Damage is the key aspect for Siege War success. And the math is simple.

Siege War score is based on players Damage Dealt against towers AND players. If you attack in a wide area, you will damage Towers AND a MASSIVE aumont of players near it or on your projectile path.

 

1v1 skills can deal, per hit, much more damage than a single AoE skill cast due to higher % modifiers and critical rate. But, A single AoE skill can out-score a 1v1 Skill if you target Towers and at least 2 nearby players.

Also, 1v1 attacks are voided almost all the time. Players got lots of Block/Defense/Evasion. Even towers can Block 1v1 Hits! At same time, AoE skills will ALWAYS hit Towers and players.

 

It takes no time to conclude that using AoE is the key for winning - At same time you will kill enemy players, you'll score more AND kill towers.

However, AoE damage is completely unbalanced at PvP. Roles are not defined correctly, and the stronger AoE outputs, has no actual counterplay, plus extreme lag.

Thats why, no matter how much conditions to let Archers have her Perforation critical damage, they will still use it on SW.

Everyone can easily conclude that ARCHERS has a onipotent presence on Siege War, while Shamans being the second best.

Archers can exploit LAG easily while dishing an enormous aumont of Damage to towers AND players. They boasts lots of Block and Evasion through gears/buffs, 1v1 Attacks against Archers can HARDLY punish them, if they can block and evade most of 1v1 attacks, and when getting hit, most of the damage is reduced due to penalty.

Perforation hits like a Truck, and it easily reachs the highest Critical chance possible: 70%. Two perforations at same time is enough to cheaply kill everyone else. No wonder why Archers are always on top after Siege Wars.
 

Shamans comes in second because Shamans has very high % AoE skills, while none nerfed on PvP. Most classes have their AoE damage reduced on PvP, Shamans does not. 

 

Shamans naturally have LOTS of Defense, like any mage class, and have high HP with above than average Absorption.

Much like Archer, Shamans keep away from towers, so they won't receive much damage from melee players, while dishing lots of AoE damage (It isn't higher than Archer because it can not have criticals).

Also, to be honest, Any ranger class except Priestess has a very upper hand in Siege War.  In order: Archer, Shamans, Mages and Atalantas are the strongest classes for Siege War without minimal counter-play.

 

Counter play would be being punished by melee characters, but, PvP Penalty + high block defense and evasion from these classes doesn't allow a proper counter play for AoE damage comming from multiple sources.
 

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3- Melee characters are rendered useless or can only focus on PvP

 

Most of Melee characters have their AoE damage reduced on PvP or are naturally weak, like Knight, Fighter and Mechanician. Assassins doesn't even count, she is on a dead state. Pikemans boast okay AoE damage but can't survive.

 

Surviving is the key point here.

Since melee characters have weak AoE damage, their only option is to 1v1 Towers. But, Towers can block their damage, and, by being melee, they are EASY target for MULTIPLE Ranger characters.

 

Two archers using perforation is enough to kill any Knight/Mechanician on towers. Really. No one can withstand these Perforations. Even Knights and Mechanician, two classes that have good tanking capabilities, can't withstand AoE damage comming from rangers.

 

 

__________________________________________________________

 

Siege war needs an emergency care and update.
 

Lag is taking out the fun, and promoting exploit based gameplay.
 

Class balance is hard and complex, we all know. But the imbalance is quite extreme: There is no real balancing over Ranged AoE damage VS Melee Characters.

There is no real way to counter multiple Rangers, other than gathering other multiple Rangers to kill each others. Melee characters are useless - they are just meat shield for players to score more points, and can't properly PvP due to 1v1 being blocked / evaded / defended and reduced by lag penalty.

 

 

Thanks, Luiz, a.k.a. DarkLink64.

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by DarkLink64

[Clem 1,241]

I read the first part of lags in BC 

& you’re right !! 

 

I reported it before & they asked me to record it 

 

But people already report the bug 

 

I personally loose all the interest to go SW since I can’t do nothing due to lag ( because people do not receive my dmg )

 

As I said before, the lag don’t from me since I got the best connection we can have here with France.

 

Atm I prefer go to bc during the week, where people take my own damage without delay.

 

 

I hope something can be done asap

 

Nice one Luiz !

 

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by Clem

[christopher 100]

I argeed with the Lag part during the SW!!!!

It is very annoyed when you hit a target for multiple hits, then the target attack you and you die...

A lot of range class especially AS take advantage of this lag, while they received 0 damage they still deals a lot damage to people who doesnt have lag.

Another point i want to point out for AS is that, As' Perf only deals massive dmg when the AS doesnt use tier 5. Which I think is OK, because without tier 5 and without vl, AS is very weak and I am pretty sure a lot of other character can kill AS with 1 hit in that stage. But, the problem is the lag. There are a lot of things happen during the lag. For example, with  lag AS has the opportunity to stun, or to run far away to received 0 damage. Another example is that AS can choose you stay and keep perf into the tower, after the AS die, she can kill a lot more exp than lost.

I think you have some strong point about this matter, and i know a lot of people has report this matter to GM and lag during SW has happen in a very long time, but nothing has change!

[DarkLink64 921]

The reason to why it hasn't change is understandable (refactor must ends before this), but I think SW should have a much higher priority over anything, since its a make or break in regards of server health.

[christopher 100]

1 hour ago, DarkLink64 said:

The reason to why it hasn't change is understandable (refactor must ends before this), but I think SW should have a much higher priority over anything, since its a make or break in regards of server health.

Argee! Not only at SW but BC is a big factor of this game. A lot of player has full items with decent level and all they want to do is BC and enjoy themselves but with this LAG, how can people enjoying themselves.

[bigpro 148]

impossible to play in sw sunday why? 

you need do like 20skiil to kill someone

everyone with lag and i dont know why it like that 

[Coyy 78]

+1

[Wartale 7,375]

Thank you for your input on this issue. We will try to work on something in the future base on all the suggestion that we have received.

[DarkLink64 921]

I've made a list of possible quick fixes

 

- Under Lag Penalties, reduce ABS, Evasion/Block/Defense modifiers by a large value

- Decrease the damage dealt by any AoE attack against players during SW
- Decrease Structures ABS significatively when receiving 1v1 Damage

- Remove Block/Defense from Structures (so low Attack Rating characters like Mage / Shaman can properly hit towers with their 1v1 attacks)

 

Goals:

 

-Punish players that actually benefits from Server/Intengional Lag (pretty much Archers and Shamans everywhere), by reduced 1v1 Voiding mechanics like E/B/D, they will be easily killed by other players.

- To even out lagging players, because the attacking player will have its damage lowered and the defending player will have its defensive mechanics lowered, so they should actually perform as if no lag would be happening, at same time giving a justified advantage for non-lagging players

-Make AoE based play to be almost useless/irrelevant, since its generic and dull and requires no strategy, because current AoE play kills both players and towers + high scores
-Promote 1v1 Based play, where players could decide to either focus on Tower Destruction or focus on PvP as a counter-play

 

 

Never miss skills could still exist, the problem is when and how they are distributed. For SW, i believe some class might still have 100% skills, but not through AoE, but rather a 1v1 skill that can have (or not) criticals while still never failing. 

If I would suggest something like this, i would definitelly add this mechanic for Assassin, with some setup required. Not a spammable skill that never misses.

Edited December 6, 2017 by DarkLink64

[heoantap 21]

great suggestion! these never die archers are anoying

just a reminder: mage tier 5 (stone spike) miss like crazy in BC vs players and towers. it's not 100%

[sandro 1]

+1

[Gilberto Junior 0]

+1