09-09-2004, 04:56 AM
Bolty,Sep 8 2004, 04:53 AM Wrote:The bonuses need to be percentage based across the board or the item gatherers are going to quickly upset game balance when the game goes retail. It'll be Diablo II all over again.Seems to me that percentage based solutions give rise to exactly the exploits that plague Diablo II and LoD. The Breath of the Dying runeword comes to mind on that thought. Not terribly unbalanced in a Phase Blade but laughably so in an ethereal Colossus Blade.
A percentage solution is only viable if every possible combination is considered, especially the extremes and any multiplier effects. If you miss one combination, the masses will find and exploit it.
A more elegant solution, and far easier to test and balance, would be an absolute cap, or a cap per level. Perhaps a maximum of 1 or 2 points per level in the fire spells example would yield 60 or 120 at projected endgame power. Caps would cover those unforeseen combinations.