Team Battle Balancing

This is a delicate subject. A lot of players have expressed that there are issues with Team Battle Mode (which I'll just call PvP, player vs. player, for shorthand). We know that the developers tweak the PvP parameters and the computer AI quite often because we see the game download "new resources." Each time they push new team battle files down, it throws us all for a loop because we don't know what they have changed. Teams you used to ride to victory one day may not serve you very well the next. But here is some breaking news from our friends at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 which may help explain what's going on. Their raid team published this just today, and this will change the way you think about your PvP strategy. Keep in mind that this is subject to change, and very likely will given Line Rangers' track record.

Team Battle Attack Power Reduction Ratio

Published and valid as of: July 14, 2014, 6:37pm. The text contained within this box is an English interpretation of the original article. 

• Article originates from: LINE Rangers 台灣社團
• Authors: 黃郁弘, 小為
• Testing Contributors: 黃郁弘, 陳安安, 小為
• Editor: 小為

The Line Rangers Raid Team is focusing on attack power specific to Team Battle this time. 

Rangers' attack power = DPS x Attack Speed x Attack Power Treasure modifier 

We discussed the details of this formula for finding actual attack damage in the attack speed post where the Raid Team hashed all that out.

The team experimented with rangers in Friend Battle Mode and discovered that rangers' attack power while in Team Battle Mode is weaker than in Single Player Stage Mode. The amount by which they are weakened is determined by the ranger's classification. 

Quick example:
Level 80 Alice's attack is reduced down to 33813. Level 70 Shu is weakened to 4049: Alice's attack power is approximately equivalent to 8 Shus on single target damage.

Test Method

The test team used Friend Battle Mode to do all their research. They allowed the opponent to attack their tower (since only the home tower has HP values now) in order to exact the damage inflicted by rangers. If you click on the article, you will see the pictures which illustrate Witch Cony inflicting exactly 24808 damage on the home tower, a farcry from the calculated 49616 damage per hit she should be making in single player mode. 

Sampling of rangers of various class types and their modified attack power in PvP Mode. The last column is the rangers' attack reduction modifier rate

Conclusion

The Line Rangers game has adjusted the damage rate practically once per week. Last week, splash rangers were reduced to 0.20, single-target rangers were 0.25. 

The week of July 14, highlights were attack class rangers 0.70, while other single target rangers were 0.50. 

This just continues to prove that Team Battle Mode is not ruled by splash rangers. If you have Dumpy, Prince James or Dancer King Boss, it's time to take them off the bench. You may find them surprisingly effective. 

For players who play with free rangers, Alice and Masked Moon are great choices. 

This week, attack rangers have the highest attack modifier as they're attacking at 70% power. All other single-target rangers are performing at 50% power and splash rangers are doing just 15% of their original power. Yikes.

Surely from the early days of Team Battle Mode, we have felt that something was not quite right. Our rangers do not perform the way we expect them to. Thanks to the team at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 we now know what was happening last week for a few days when it seemed as though our rangers were dying faster. Some modifiers must have been changed which created a difference in the actual damage rangers were inflicting and the way we expected our rangers to be performing. 

Some players may be outraged by this, but this info doesn't shock me, actually. A lot of games that have vs. player and vs. computer modes create a modifier for damage vs. other people because the pure damage in vs. computer environment would spell the end of player controlled units in no time at all. The amount of damage that is increasingly demanded to keep up with the challenge and difficulty of single player would not translate well in a PvP environment. This is an attempt to "balance" the rangers to make the PvP experience smoother and more worthwhile. Everyone will have their own opinions about whether this is helping. 

My biggest problem with Line Rangers with regard to these modifiers is the fact that players have gotten NO NOTICE about their existence nor the changing of these values on a near-weekly basis. This is something I criticized in my survey to the developers. They change stats without telling us. They change stage environment and enemy formation without so much as a warning. And they created and tweak these attack rate modifiers without any indication. We're left to wonder week after week why our fine team last week sucks this week. Or why our good tank yesterday is getting fried today. I understand that Team Battle is new and the game still needs tweaking. But the players should not get penalized for the mistakes and trials of the developer. At least give us the opportunity to properly adjust.

If anyone out there in LINE world is reading, my greatest plea would be to give us notices when significant changes like this are pushed out. Please?

And finally, I want to emphasize that the above stats are a snapshot of the PvP environment as of July 14 afternoon in Taiwan time. These numbers may not apply for tomorrow or the week after. And I wouldn't expect for the authors of the article to continually update the modifier numbers, either. It really changes too often to keep up-to-date 100%. But the point is, we know that our team composition needs to take into account for this kind of a parameter. This week, if you have the super good single target attack rangers on your team, you're probably kicking butt all over the place on the ladder ranking. Next week, it might not feel as great.

By the way, this does not mean that there is no place for splash rangers. You shouldn't just cross splash rangers off your team. Their potential damage is still huge when the enemy stacks up a bunch of rangers together. What this deters is having a whole 5-man team of splash rangers. That comp might not be a very effective team at the moment.

It's also possible that they tweak other stuff, like how much HP rangers have. We don't know if they've ever touched that stat in the past or if they will in the future. Sometimes you just have to go by feel of how your team is performing, and adjust accordingly.

Edit: This is more of an afterthought but... I just realized that I should feel kind of cheated by these modifiers. I spun the Gacha a lot over the last few months for splash rangers like SoCo, KSM and Ola Brown. Especially Ola Brown because he came around right as Team Battle was introduced, I wanted him badly! And I'm sure a lot of you were spinning for a chance at Susu recently. They're all splash rangers and they were promoted as the most powerful rangers in the game. And yet we just found out that splash rangers are performing at a mere 15% of their normal power in PvP. Anyone else feel like they've been played for a fool? HMMM...