design Speaking of Balance

[Ueda]

Dear Ninja,

First of it's kind rant Dev log.

Balance is hard. Everyone has a favorite kind of ninja they want to be, and in an anime/manga, you don't have to consider balancing it in any legible way.

When initially designing each mastery, I had a vision for it to affect the players gameplay heavily, for them to be good in certain scenarios, weak in others and also plan unique training experiences for them.

For example, as a Tools Ninja, you would have a unique advantage in battles where you could prepare in advance by placing traps. You would have a harder time in spur of the moment battles or ambushes. You would also spend a lot more ryo on tools, hence have a harder time leveling up.

As a fire ninja, you would have a big advantage in small arenas. Without any meaningful crowd control, you would rely heavily on AoE and landing your jutsu, which would be more easily done when there is little place to run. The large open world of Nin Online has little tight spaces besides bridges and valleys, but as new arenas are used for more chunin exams, maybe we'll see arenas where this mastery and others shine more.

Sword ninja and Fan ninja are the only mastery where you need to hunt for your weapon. As more boss fights come, you will hunt for better weapons with better stats.

I got a message from somebody saying tool ninjas were unbalanced because it was too broken because they OP when they can prepare for fights but are useless when they are fighting unprepared.. Good job me?

My point is that there's a special place for each mastery in the games balance. The ideal end point is not where every mastery is balanced in a 1v1 fight or a 5v5 team fight. The end goal is for each mastery to have areas where it excels, and are weak in. Arenas where some will prosper and others fail. The end goal is not for support medics to have the same easy time training as Taijutsu ninja. The ideal balance is when each class feels like it has enough merit and fun points to be worth the training.

There's a lot more to do, and always will be more I can do to improve the experience of each mastery. Sometimes tweaking values isn't enough, and sometimes it fixes things entirely. But there's more to balancing and game design than everything being fair in a 1v1 fight and I hope everyone who reads this gets my vision at least.

PS: Typed on my phone right before bed. Ignore typos!

[Jessica]

You guys are doing great, I think this will help people understand a little bit better. I think some people just have to realize we're also still in testing and the game isn't finished, so there's a lot more coming that'll add onto balance and make people feel better about the paths they choose.

I actually really enjoy the many changes I've seen recently and from last year, and only looking forward to all the stuff you have planned for us this year Rory! Good luck Devs, Artists, and Game Leads!  

[Mana]

INT WM is the Batman of NiN online. With enough prep time you have near 100% chance to win any fight within reasonable amount of opponents. But Rory I am not Bruce Wayne. I am not rich.

End mi misery.

[Lambomb]

gg 1000+ ryo wasted in 2 seconds

[Mana]

1 minute ago, Astolfo said:

gg 1000+ ryo wasted in 2 seconds

There is another +400 (for senbon but that's not for int WM it's for medic) to spice it up. 1600x2 at least spent daily.

[Skyefallen]

Yup, Weapon master is brutal. Should not cost so much, no one should ever pick this master for 10-50, your just nerfing your wallet. While I agree that you should excel in some areas and not in others, I do NOT agree that one should spend more. That's bad design. Add crafting personal tools already.

[Mana]

21 minutes ago, Skyefallen said:

Yup, Weapon master is brutal. Should not cost so much, no one should ever pick this master for 10-50, your just nerfing your wallet. While I agree that you should excel in some areas and not in others, I do NOT agree that one should spend more. That's bad design. Add crafting personal tools already.

Not to mention, this is just me PvP'ing at level 50. Back when I trained to level up and get jutsu exp I had to use even more tool. There were days where I couldn't do anything besides missions because I had no ryo and when I got something from mission/ saving up - it all went down the drain in one day.

[Ryouta]

Balancing is probably one of the hardest things to do with a game, which is completely understandable since Nin will never truly be balanced. If people wanted a truly balanced game, we would only see a game where all of the attacks are the same, completely removing the fun out of the game. Nin Online has the potential to become a diverse game where you can become the ninja of your dreams, a quality that should and will always be at the core of the game itself.

Keep up the good work Rory!

[Toska]

Thank you for taking your time to explain and show us your vision of the game, instead of ignoring us completely. It shows that you read our complaints and care about them.

[Ueda]

7 hours ago, Skyefallen said:

Yup, Weapon master is brutal. Should not cost so much, no one should ever pick this master for 10-50, your just nerfing your wallet. While I agree that you should excel in some areas and not in others, I do NOT agree that one should spend more. That's bad design. Add crafting personal tools already.

There's 12 other ways to play, play those ways if you aren't willing to spend ryo.

[Skyefallen]

Just now, Rory said:

There's 12 other ways to play, play those ways if you aren't willing to spend ryo.

That shouldn't be an arguing point here. I understand all of this is based on something, and you stand by your decisions. But when you look at the data, how many people enjoy "playstyle as tool weaponmaster" and all of them agree that its a dead end mastery cause of "ryo burden" something is badly designed there. It shouldn't be so detrimental.

If I threw a Kunai at something, can I not pick that up? Did it vaporize? I can see that maybe it was damaged, maybe beyond repair. But I would still throw a broken Kunai over none. What anime related character is carrying 200 of each tool in their satchel? None. It's not realistic, and it can be changed. Just make thrown weapons permanent, 10 cast per 180 sec, and cost 100 times more or something.

None of your monsters generate a way to "accrue" finances past the burden of tool ninjas. Unless I get and sell blank scrolls to other players at the rate of 1/150 or so (napkin math) I wont afford my tools. And I won't have any jutsus either cause I sold all my scrolls. And I would be taking every bit of loot from my party.

Crafting was thrown in as an option, as it would breathe new life into the game if we had something to gather material wise. New areas to fight for control. So much potential.

I enjoy lots of things in your game, mostly the playerbase. I offer opinions, and feedback, as a player perspective, and to tell me to do something else, is kind of insulting on a small level. You should open yourself up to debate and criticism more often, I think it would benefit not only the community as a whole, but yourself as a developer. Most dev's these days do polls on the community to make changes, what to focus their resources on, to bring the community in. If you polled about weaponmaster, you would hear a lot of "rework needed".

I hold nothing against you for your decisions, but I will speak my mind about things I don't like. And yes, most likely, I will stop playing this unrewarding mastery until it is changed, like everyone eventually does.

[Ueda]

56 minutes ago, Skyefallen said:

That shouldn't be an arguing point here. I understand all of this is based on something, and you stand by your decisions. But when you look at the data, how many people enjoy "playstyle as tool weaponmaster" and all of them agree that its a dead end mastery cause of "ryo burden" something is badly designed there. It shouldn't be so detrimental.

If I threw a Kunai at something, can I not pick that up? Did it vaporize? I can see that maybe it was damaged, maybe beyond repair. But I would still throw a broken Kunai over none. What anime related character is carrying 200 of each tool in their satchel? None. It's not realistic, and it can be changed. Just make thrown weapons permanent, 10 cast per 180 sec, and cost 100 times more or something.

^ Ten Ten - the character that tool ninjas are based on

None of your monsters generate a way to "accrue" finances past the burden of tool ninjas. Unless I get and sell blank scrolls to other players at the rate of 1/150 or so (napkin math) I wont afford my tools. And I won't have any jutsus either cause I sold all my scrolls. And I would be taking every bit of loot from my party.

Crafting was thrown in as an option, as it would breathe new life into the game if we had something to gather material wise. New areas to fight for control. So much potential.

I enjoy lots of things in your game, mostly the playerbase. I offer opinions, and feedback, as a player perspective, and to tell me to do something else, is kind of insulting on a small level. You should open yourself up to debate and criticism more often, I think it would benefit not only the community as a whole, but yourself as a developer. Most dev's these days do polls on the community to make changes, what to focus their resources on, to bring the community in. If you polled about weaponmaster, you would hear a lot of "rework needed".

I hold nothing against you for your decisions, but I will speak my mind about things I don't like. And yes, most likely, I will stop playing this unrewarding mastery until it is changed, like everyone eventually does.

I'm not making an argument with that statement. I'm simply stating the fact that I've created 12 other play styles for you to choose from so that if you don't want to play the class I specifically designed as a burden on ryo, you can play the other 12 classes which are available that aren't. The class is designed to be expensive. It's designed to also be unarguably useful. Ask yourself this, despite the burden of spending a lot of ryo, do you see people using it. Despite the difficulty of training it, do people still do it? Yes - because it is unarguably worth the trouble because of the potential use of it in a lot of battle situations.

I understand that you want to play a tool ninja regardless of whether it suits your play style, and you want the play style to fit your ideal, but unfortunately, to do that in a game, I would need to make every class the equal of another in every way, that would otherwise add variety to these play styles. If you've read my original post, it explains that I understand that players do want to play the jutsu set they like most visually and are predisposed to like, but when you're choosing masteries, what you're choosing is a unique play style.

Your opinion was taken well, and I think my short response was informative enough because the original post explains MY point. I have direct line of communication with every member of this community, they can PM me, reply to topics, DM me on Discord, Skype me, email me and expect replies in a matter of seconds to hours. You will not find any other online game where the lead developer is responding to member's every spur of the moment idea and comment within 24 hours, so I don't think I need to open myself up any more than that. Unless I were to start giving out my address.

New points in response to your ideas / feedback:

Monsters don't generate easy money because I don't want to encourage grinding. So missions offer better and faster rewards.

By designing it so you can pick up kunai after using them it forces the player to pick up after themselves otherwise waste ryo. It's not fun to constantly pick up kunai each time you throw one from the ground. It's more fun to throw it and hit enemies and be done with it.

EDIT: When I said suit your play style, what I mean is that there are going to be quirks about each mastery. But if you don't like it, another one might.

[Booty Gang Pinku]

you know what Rory..,.all I really want to say is thank you! Explaining your vision makes it easier to understand where you're coming from and what your point of view is on all of this. I can't wait to see all these new changes coming in 2018! Especially the advanced masteries and elemental wm attacks etc. With the new maps you guys added that's awesome too. + you guys legit put out 10+ patches in the 2-3 weeks that I was gone like wth that's pretty insane to me and I appreciate the work you guys put in! The thing I don't agree with tho is the cost of wm. Like I get it you're a master of tools and you need to buy your tools, but at least find a way to reduce these costs because it's pretty ridiculous. I understand your vision and stuff like that but at least idk maybe try to make tool scrolls available for wm and make them have int requ. Maybe make it so that you use these scrolls and "summon" a full stack of the certain tools in your inventory. So for instance lets say I buy a kunai scroll for like uh 200 Ryo that sounds grindable xD and when I right click on the scroll I get the tools. Mhm yeah anyway! I respect the work you guys put in hope it only goes downhill from here

[Endeavor]

I think once we reach double mastery for tools then we can expect a different play style that will not only benefit us with traps but other combat as well.

Here are some ideas if you haven't thought of them yet Rory  

 

[Skyefallen]

I'm not trying to make you change something because its something "I feel is hard". It's ridiculous at the current setting. All I am asking is to take a look into it. There is maybe 3-5 tool ninjas that are actively playing. They all have been feeding off of their other characters ryo stacks. It's almost unplayable. Like... nearly impossible. 

You can bypass the pick-up "clean-up" by coding it as a conditional. if tool is used, tool-rng (1/10) chance to recover tool in inventory. Or, even better, let us pick them up, cause I would love to pick up my tags that go unused to cut costs.

I argue that its not fun to pay for them > not fun to pick them up. Especially since you have already coded mass item nearby pick-up.

If anything, just remove paperbomb as an item, and let the jutsu summon them. That would effectively fix the problem enough to enjoy the class.

I appreciate you taking the time out to honor my opinion. I am not intending any of my statements to be confrontational, apologies if they seem so. text is hard to convey emotion.

22 minutes ago, Rory said:

I understand that you want to play a tool ninja regardless of whether it suits your play style, and you want the play style to fit your ideal, but unfortunately, to do that in a game, I would need to make every class the equal of another in every way, that would otherwise add variety to these play styles. If you've read my original post, it explains that I understand that players do want to play the jutsu set they like most visually and are predisposed to like, but when you're choosing masteries, what you're choosing is a unique play style.

I don't think its to that extreme. I enjoy the style, not the associated negative that it requires. I am suggesting its toned down some, not all.

24 minutes ago, Rory said:

Your opinion was taken well, and I think my short response was informative enough because the original post explains MY point. I have direct line of communication with every member of this community, they can PM me, reply to topics, DM me on Discord, Skype me, email me and expect replies in a matter of seconds to hours. You will not find any other online game where the lead developer is responding to member's every spur of the moment idea and comment within 24 hours, so I don't think I need to open myself up any more than that. Unless I were to start giving out my address.

I was only hinting at allowing the players to drive some of the changes, to award their dedication to a game that you have maybe only played as a developer in, not as a player. Especially not as every mastery I would think. Sometimes the community can help you iron out some of the overlooked small things. Was just something I have seen work. I appreciate the efforts you do go through.

26 minutes ago, Rory said:

Monsters don't generate easy money because I don't want to encourage grinding. So missions offer better and faster rewards.

You don't want to encourage grinding, but missions are substantially low rates, and items in the game are extremely expensive. Blank scrolls are the fruit of grinding alone, and with an rng system in place for success, leaves it very likely that you will be grinding for a long time. If you were to do missions alone, it would take how long to buy a long robe (cosmetic item) for 35k ryo? Or the sword that costs 1million. I feel some of that is pretty excessive comparatively to rates you can attain even with grinding. Maybe the items are meant to tease you, but, seems like fashion is too pricey, or its encouraging cash shop (totally okay to do that seeing as the game is f2p).

 

[Mana]

I simply want to add that while people who love to play INT WM will choose to play it, there are not many of those that do.

I've seen many try to play it in the past, because it looks and seems fun but after reaching a certain point they all quit. Reason? 

Not enough income to supply themselves.

The grind costs you money. PvP costs you money. Training jutsu cost your money. From missions only you may be able to generate 100-200 ryo a day, at best during early levels. Leaving the player in position to do nothing to do for the rest of the day.

While I understand what Rory is saying, but this mastery's weakness overwhelms everyone else's.

The only reason one manages to get through is by funneling money from alts into one or by basically asking people for loans or trying out your luck at the casino. 

I don't think this the right way, it doesn't feel like it.

I have many wonderful ideas on how to balance this mastery out. To make it less powerful in a very unique, interactive way and less costly while still remaining above others.

@Skyefallen I will not give up.

[Crowlock]

Int Wm is like a mech - cost to maintain but can create chaos during fights. When one int Wm traps more than half of the raid or makes 20 ppl respect the tiles THEN u know what are you payimg for. Tricky mastery demands tricky ways.  Also in each mmo theres a class or classes that cost shitton cause they require something specific to function. Now you might say that int wm itself is hard to maintain, but guess what - content is flowing in, i bet there will be other ways of grinding a coin as well : ) so calm ur tits.

[Mell]

Hail Lord Rory

[Atrane]

[Itachi Uchiha]

On 2/13/2018 at 10:34 AM, Atrane said:

Or gets canceled after a dot or map change. Or gets canceled after taking damage. But 2s cast time is also a pretty cool idea lol