Supporter newsletter 51

Issue
This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #51, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

This week we are focussing on getting new features for the mini-expansion into the game and fully functioning. All the features have the basic tech required for them now, however that means they are a still a way from being completely finished.

Both of the new leagues require quite a lot of content, as does the general themed content for the mini-expansion that is going in all leagues.

Everyone is working hard to make sure we have stuff ready to show off, and then comes the work on making sure its ready for actual play.

It’s an ambitious set of content and it is a lot of fun to put together.

Transitive and Intransitive Balance

Last week I discussed opportunity cost for the purpose of balancing unique items. This week I am going to cover balancing intransitive mechanics.

Transitive mechanics are ones we can compare on a strictly numerical basis. If a unique item has mods that provide increased physical damage, it is very easy to compare it to other items that deal damage. If an item provides good defences, we can compare it to rares that provide similar benefits.

There are plenty of unique items that only have transitive mechanics, but are still worthy of being uniques. You might assume, if it can be compared strictly numerically with rares, why should it exist if it does what a rare does anyway? An example of a unique that is strictly numeric in nature is. It has values you can’t get on other items, such as negative Elemental Resistance and very high Item Rarity. While the values are beyond the normal extremes for these stats, these are stats that normally appear on other items.

It is reasonably easy to assess the weakness or strength of this item relative to other ones.

A lot of unique items have stats that we can’t assess in this value vs value way. They have benefits and penalties that are intransitive. We can’t strictly compare them in the same way. The question then, is how can we compare and balance these items.

The first way is to try convert the stat into something we can value and compare with something else in a transitive fashion. For example a Keystone, or something equivalent to a keystone, we can estimate as being worth a certain number of passive points to the user. This will vary by build, but it gives us some kind of estimate. We can then work out what those passive points could buy, instead of going to that keystone. This isn’t an exact process, but helps assess the value of something. There is often something that can be used as an intermediary value to be able to compare most game elements to other items.

The next way to balance items with these hard to compare stats is by actual testing. First we can test it with existing builds. This isn’t enough, as often new types of stats will make new builds. Its hard for a small team to guess all the possibilities, but we have some creative testers. The final challenge is estimating what might become powerful later as the game changes. We have an advantage there in that we know more of what is coming up, but part of it is knowing what game systems are more fragile, and which are more robust.

For example, something that changes the nature of charges can be dangerous, as the power of the unique item will change with any other changes to the charge system.

Insider Info

This week I thought I’d show another excerpt from the original design document (written between 2007 and 2009). Here is a section about character classes that withstood the test of time relatively well:

When a character is created, the player picks a class for it. There are seven character classes:

Marauder: (Strength) Aligned primarily with strength, marauders focus on abilities that increase their raw damage output and ability to withstand large blows.

Hunter: (Dexterity) As the dexterity character, the hunter specialises in ranged bow attacks and fast bladed weapons such as rapiers. Their skills generally augment movement speed, hit accuracy and evasion.

Witch: (Intelligence) As the core caster class, most of the available skills are magic spells that inflict a variety of elemental damage types or increase her energy shield defences.

Swordsman: (Strength/Dexterity) The swordsman benefits from both strength and dexterity skills and is hence encouraged to dual wield strength/dexterity items and engage in melee combat.

Trickster: (Dexterity/Intelligence) As the dexterity/intelligence class, the trickster attacks fast with many critical hits and specialises in dagger/claw combat combined with the subtle schools of magic.

Templar: (Strength/Intelligence) A holy warrior aligned with strength and intelligence, the templar specialises in augmenting melee combat with spells.

Adventurer: (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence) The adventurer is a jack of all trades. The adventurer is equally balanced towards all attributes and is therefore best used with character builds that choose skills from all trees. Initially, the adventurer class is not available to players. It will be a prestige class unlocked for completion of the game.

All character classes are designed to be fighting classes with backup support abilities. There is no concept of a support-only class (though players are welcome to play in any style they want, if they would like to specialise in support abilities).

The choice of character class affects what types of skills the character will have greater ease specialising in. Any character class can do any action, but some are substantially more effective at actions aligned with their attribute ratio. For example, a witch character (100% intelligence) could use a heavy maul to attack, but would be ineffective. She could invest points in strength or dexterity passive skills, but would not get the benefit that a native strength/dexterity character would.