Hi there,

So the first content pack has been applied on the Public Servers with tons of Skill Re-balancing. Now I want to introduce you the plan of 2nd part of skill re-balancing. The post might be long, here is the Table of Content, try to copy and search for the interesting content so you don’t have to read the whole post 😉

Table of Content

[General]

1. Efficiency of Defense is now lowered?
2. Low-Level difficulty problem
3. Concept of Skill SP consumption
4. Cool time and Duration shortened
5. Instant-cast related issues
6. Time for clearing Dungeon increased?
7. 1-vs-1 Battle Balancing for Sword / Magic characters
8. Skill slot and Skill point problems

[Warrior]

1. Battle Mode 3 DPS

2. Bear Vitality and Cats Recovery duration

3. Bloody Spirit Defense penalty

4. Panic Cry “Resist Critical Damage” option removal

5. Warrior Balance Concept

[Blader]

1. Low hit rate of Crushing Blow

2. Battle Mode 2 related

3. Skill Critical Rate removal

4. Blader Balance Concept

[Wizard]

1. Damage increased

2. Battle Mode 2 PVP Damage

3. Battle Mode 3 Synergy related

4. Wizard Balance Concept

[Force Archer]

1. Battle Mode 3 Damage Reduction

2. Art of Snipping

3. Damage raised with single target attack

4. Battle Mode 2 related

5. Force Archer Balance Concept

[Force Shielder]

1. Base Attack

2. Lower attack success rate

3. Aggro problem

4. Force Shielder Balance Concept

[Force Blader]

1. Base Attack

2. Execration problem

3. Survival problem

4. Debuff Instant-Cast related

5. Force Blader Balance Concept

[Conclusion]

—————-

[GENERAL]

1. Efficiency of Defense is now lowered?

▶ The formula for calculating damage reduction is changed in the Rising Force update as you know.

Since there are many others stats that take place in the damage reduction, the efficiency of Defense is changed for sure.

In the past, Defense is equivalent to the damage reduction terminology.

Better than before, with the new damage reduction calculation, Defense acts as higher factor in the whole formula.

With new contents like monsters’ stats rebalancing, the challenging level of whole game increased. However adapting is a MUST, since there will be harder content which will be released ahead.

2. Low-Level difficulty problem

▶ Rising Force update provides some certain challenges for low-level characters.

Difficulty for lower-than-100 range has been tuned to be equivalent with higher-than-100 range, the game play is smooth and clear.

The main idea of keeping updating low-level content is making the game more attractive for new players as well as genuine players who want to be re-experienced the game.

Dungeon at 100 and below (like Volcanic Citadel) will be adjusted some how.

Some will be hardened, some will be lowered, for the best game play…

3. Concept of Skill SP consumption

▶ From Rising Force update, some skills consume SP for casting

The idea of requiring some SP for casting skill does not come out from the development team only, that was from the community.

When we heard about the skill casting required SP, we found that would be nice idea since special skills must consume some special things too, not easy-to-get like MP (buying directly from NPC).

So with the comsumption of SP when casting some special skills, player must pay more attention and the game play will be more “strategic”.

4. Cool time and Duration shortened

▶ In Rising Force update, many skills got adjusted for cooldown and duration.

These adjustments are pointed to rebalance game play, these changes are tested and adjusted based on the feedback from players and volunteers.

Changes will affect both PvE and PvP activities in game so it’s hard to control factors as players but that improves the challenging level of game play.

5. Instant-cast related issues

▶ Instant-cast is designed for improving the game play experiences

Instant-cast allows players doing another actions in the same time with casting Instant-cast skill (for example, using moving skills)

And by the way, the Instant Immunity skill is now Instant-cast too, so when you see the opponent, cast the Instant Immunity and cast another attack skill is possible. It’s now a REAL “Instant” Immunity.

6. Time for clearing Dungeon increased?

▶ Rising Force update make changes to half of the game system. So what are main purposes?

The whole system has been updated, as mentioned above, Defense one of main concepts is changed too,  that leads to various things that affects game play.

However, in order to minimize the disruption for existing players due to huge-changes, changes are scheduled to be applied gradually.

Every changes which is selected to apply in Public Server must be tested carefully by players, developers and must be under the control of designer.

Changes are applied to classes, to filling up game balance but every change comes with pros and cons. To explore game changes, players need to pay time to adjust their previous strageries to match up with new game content.

7. 1-vs-1  Battle Balancing for Sword / Magic characters

▶ In 1-vs-1 Battles, the advantages always is for Ranged / Mobility classes

As predicted,  the changes affect the whole game system. Ranged classes always get advantages in 1-vs-1 Battle before Melee classes.

However the team is considering to add new form of Battle or even brand new Battle Field, where the distance might not be the key to win in battles.

8. Skill slot and Skill point problems

▶ This part was disclosed in previous interview but now it is still under-development for achieving the best results.

But you can expect to get that there will be some kind of adjustments to simplify the Skill Slot / Skill Point system.

This will be disclosed soon in Test Server to get some feedback for sure, just be patience.

[WARRIOR]

1. Battle Mode 3 DPS

▶ After Rising Force update is available, we got many complains about Warrior Battle Mode 3 DPS

Most of opinions are about DPS in BM3, we collected the feedback from various ranges of Warrior players. Players with low-end and high-end gears, players with short and long experience.

Fatal is one of problems too, for comparing with other classes, the speed of Warrior is one of cons that could not be filled up by pros from high attack bonus.

2. Bear Vitality and Cats Recovery duration

▶ Currently Bloody Spirit, Bear Vitality and Cats Recovery have different duration, that is uncomfortable.

After the update, we got comments about the differences between of skills’ duration. As you know BS – BS and CR are perfect combo for Warrior. But the difference now makes uncomfortable. This has been reported as global problem for other classes.

3. Bloody Spirit Defense penalty

▶ Defense penalty of Bloody Spirit has been reduced

Not like other class, Warrior is an absolute-non-Force class. Most of Warrior’s skills are casted at short range (yeah, Warrior is a Melee class), so Defense for Warrior is a key point.

Then why Warriors have to suffer the big penalty of decreasing Defense when using Bloody Spirit? You know when something raises sharply some another must be down for sure, in this case Attack-Defense, they are like two parts of a see-saw.

However, 5% of penalty has been taken, now Warriors feel more confident when using the epic buff skill!

4. Panic Cry “Resist Critical Damage” option removal

▶ The concept of Panic Cry skill has been changed

Since there are many changes related to resistances, after analyzing the game data, we decided to remove the “Decrease Resist Critical Damage” option from Panic Cry skill however we added new effect to the skill, the chance to make target into “Suppression” state.

That’s all about rebalancing, things go up, things go down.

5. Warrior Balance Concept

▶ Warrior is a typical Melee class in MMORPG

Warrior in Cabal is Melee-Tanker class, the pros of Warrior are Damage / Defense / HP.

Controlling Warrior seems to be easy enough for most of players. Compare with the past, the Rising Force update did not change too much, stats are raised to compensate the slow attack speed.

By the way, we are pretty sure that Warrior is the Melee class with the widest-attack area. That advantage gives Warrior some benefits in PvE and Mass-PvP-Battles.

As mentioned above, slow attack speed is one of disadvantages. That lets the 1-vs-1-PVP-Battle harder for Warrior.

There might be some update / additions to the 1-vs-1 Battle specially for Warrior, that will be disclosed later.

We might do some skill tuning for Warrior but changes are not big since the whole concept would not change.

[BLADER]

1. Low hit rate of Crushing Blow

▶ Crushing Blow miss so much, but the Critical Rate is high

The skill has been designed as low-success-rate. Now there are new factors that affect the MISS/BLOCK so there are internal changes which are applied for Crushing Blow that ensure that the skill maintains the original concept.

However skill still gives epic output damage (of course when success). To keep the balance, the penalty of low-success-rate still there.

2. Battle Mode 2 related

▶ Blader’s weapon in Battle Mode 2 is the special weapon for tough situation.

If the adjustment for this is carried out, the balance related problem might make the output damage goes down, not like the way Bladers want.

3. Skill Critical Rate removal

▶ Many skills of Blader have Critical Rate as option. Now in Rising Force update, these options are deleted.

Critical Damage goes up as the compensation for removal of Critical Rate option.

Changes might be applied to Battle Mode attacks, so the Critical Rate will be depended on equipment grade.

4. Blader Balance Concept

▶ Blader is the best DPS class! There are some minor changes that are applied to Blader.

We are investigating data related to damage in dungeons, 1-vs-1 Battle,…

Damage will be adjusted according to collected data. We might reconsider option of “Silence”

[WIZARD]

1. Damage increased

▶ Wizard’s Damage has been increased compare with before update.

Due to rebalancing, new Magic Attack buff skill has been added to Wizard, that helps increasing the base Magic Attack.

However since players gain a notice-able amount of Magic Attack from new buff, adjusting attack skills are not needed.

There might be some additional content in future for Wizard, that will be revealed later.

2. Battle Mode 2 PVP Damage

▶ Damage of Battle Mode 2 is changed in Rising Force update.

We applied downgrade 80% to Wizard damage in Battle Mode 2 after Rising Force update, since in BM2, Wizard casts 2 skills at once, so that means the amount of output damage is simply double.

This was forgotten in the first release of update, but a bit later, we applied the change to lower it.

Sorry for any inconveniences, this is our mistakes.

3. Battle Mode 3 Synergy related

▶ There is a big gap when you compare the Base Attack of Non-Force classes with Force classes.

Force classes have low base attack, but the chance to deal Critical hit is higher, that’s the concept.

However, we might add the critical chance to Synergy of Non-Force classes, of course carefully with analyzed data.

4. Wizard Balance Concept

▶ Wizard is a high magic damage with wide range. We are keep adjusting the basic concept of rebalancing for Wizard.

With the special “firepower” kind than other Battle Style, Wizard is optimized with numerous of targets.

This concept was kept maintaining to ensure that Wizard could be the defender when the party faces with huge amount of opponent. Since Wizard can cast Stun effect on targets, it works like a saving-method.

For changes that do not fit to the basic concept, we might change to improve later with analyzed data.

[FORCE ARCHER]

1. Battle Mode 3 Damage Reduction

▶ Defense as well as other defensive stats make changes to the whole damage reducing system

Defense still keeps the main factor in defensive calculating formula and to keep the balance between classes, when Force Archer got very high damage and speed in Battle Modes, the defensive stats can not be high.

However we can adjust something in the future to fill up the problem of lacking defensive stats.

2. Art of Snipping

▶ Art of Snipping adjustments are unavoidable to filling up gaps between classes. And of course, we just lowered the final output damage.

Since the skill is a bit overpowered, the penalty should still be there, yes we mean the unmovable. As in some previous interview, we mentioned that we might remove that penalty but not for sure, not now.

3. Damage raised with single target attack

▶ In Rising Force update, we apply some changes that causes Damage raised with single target attack.

For example, we improved the synergy effect of Battle Mode 3, compare with before. To get a fast fact, we can say, the damage has been raised around 150%. Most of skills which designed for PvP activities are raised in damage too.

Healing ability is not changed, still like before the update.

However, just want to confirm that Battle Mode 2 is not included here, it’s not the single target attack.

4. Battle Mode 2 related

▶ We got many complains that Battle Mode 2 is less efficient after Rising Force update.

In fact, we improved some features for Force Archer Battle Mode 2, for example, the Amp and Add Dmg stats are raised, as well as the appearance of new options like Penetrating, Hit increase (which are applied in Nov 21st)

To get a fast fact, we can make sure that the whole damage is raised about 152%, compared with before.

As mentioned above, the clearing dungeon time is raised, that dues to many reasons, we are keep analyzing data everyday and we might apply some changes later.

5. Force Archer Balance Concept

▶ To make clear, Force Archer is kind of support class, with heal and buff skills.

There are many issues related to Force Archer, specially on Battle Mode 3, we are keeping reviewing requests / feedbacks and trying to maintain the main concept of Force Archer.

By the way, the Passive Skill system are finalized and will be pushed on the Test Server soon, that might solve the Force Archer issues.

We are sorry for being delayed.

[FORCE SHIELDER]

1. Base Attack

▶ Low Attack , yes that’s the main complain about Force Shielder.

Adjusting by adding more base attack to Force Shielder will change the base concept of game that Force classes have low base attack. And it’s unequal if we add more base attack to Force Shielder only.

However the base attack is still raised a bit, due to the internal calculating formulas, you can simply notice that via weekly patch notes.

2. Lower attack success rate

▶ Since the ability of defense of Force Shielder is the main concept, to keep the balance, attack ability must be lowered.

With the future content like Tower of Dead B3F, the pros of Force Shielder will be impressed.

The chance of performing a success attack is low but the defensive ability is very high, as well as the addition of Guard Break skill that fill up cons of Force Shielder.

3. Aggro problem

▶ The main role of Force Shielder in party is taking aggro and being the main tanker.

In fact we are now just counting Force Shielder with the role as the main tanker only.

About the taking aggro, we are working on the brand new “aggro-related system” that depends on Defense.

That will make Force Shielder be the Aggro-Tanker and will improve the position of Force Shielder in party.

For fast fact, the position of Force Shielder in party will be improved.

4. Force Shielder Balance Concept

▶ Why do we get so many feedback on base attack?

Mentioned above but now, I will tell something more, instead of giving big damage, Force Shielder is designed to be a class that gives a Big Critical Hit. You know, currently Completer and Transcender skills are working really good.

Back to the update, while all classes got raised in resistances, including Critical Rate resist, we increased the Critical Rate of Crushing Blade.

And after all, to make it clear, we want to confirm that there might be no change to “Low Base Attack” issue.

Things gonna be applied to Force Shielder, perhaps an interesting thing.

[FORCE BLADER]

1. Base Attack 

▶ Low Attack, we got many complains about this problem.

Adjustment for this in under review-progress. But you know, rising base Attack for Force classes might break the current concept of game. So that must be careful, the solution of changing internal calculation might be selected.

By the way, Force Blader is the class who owns many powerful Buffs/Debuffs, so please be patience if changes come late.

2. Execration problem

▶ In the Rising Force update, when the debuff casting fails, the cooldown lowers by a half.

Execration is a debuff, so when it fails the caster can still use Field of Execration, and repeat that progress. That causes some unbalance issues, specially in Battles

We are reviewing this issues and will apply some changes to this.

3. Survival problem

▶ Decrease the ability of Field of Execration skill is lower the survival ability of Force Blader.

That’s the comment from many players that we received. We will review and consider to take changes on this issue that must maintain the balance for all classes.

4. Debuff Instant-Cast related

▶ Many skill changes to be Instant-Cast, including debuff skills,

Receiving complain is a problem, solving them is a bigger one. We are working with this issues, we might increase the time of debuff skills.

5. Force Blader Balance Concept

▶ We will describe some more information about Force Blader Battle Style.

First, Force Blader is designed to be a debuff-er, so Force Blader has many pros in 1-vs-1 Battles. As the prove, most of names in Mission Battle Ladder are Force Blader.

How about other role? Can Force Blader be good in another point? We are hoping to get more comment in future about this. And by the way, we are consider to apply some changes for Battle Mode 2 for Force Blader in near future too.

 [CONCLUSION]

You got it all, if you have time, try to read them all, these information are useful at some points, yep but very long. As I mentioned everywhere, things could be applied, things could be changed.

Thanks you to spend time for reading things! Be careful, it’s now the Winter. It’s freezing outside, keep warm!

Thank you!