Valiant Force Forum

Since the abuse of SDD comps the whole ecosystem of PVE content has been in constant changes to try to limit it, or at least make it’s use more limited or impossible (raid 2?)
This is a long lasting problem in VF that will keep making people trying to discover new ways to keep using, and they are damn right by doing so… why?

-         Bosses on Master event can kill all your Heroes in 1-3 turns and have 600.000+ HP
-         ALL Legendary/Master Bosses will inflict at least two of these: Poison, Bleed, Aura Silence, Silence, Heavy ATK Debuff,
-         Bosses can inflict OP Debuffs with On Attack Skills,
-         We can’t clear Debuffs with consistency, no single Hero in this game can.
-         We can’t heal back Damage received on Legendary/Master if you consider the long CD for all Healers

With all those things in considerations, it’s only natural that players will try to kill bosses fast and so they don’t have to deal with all this! So we are talking about 2 fundamental flaws here.
1.      Balance is made for us to kill bosses in the first 3 turns (600 HP to kill in 3 turns)
2.      Only way to do it is by using (and abusing) trigger comps.

That’s the same reason people went with SDD for Raid 1 Bosses, devs said that it was designed for even top guilds to find it hard… THE VERY FIRST RAID!!! Guys, take it easy with balancing, people want to be able to clear new content, or at least see they are not that far from it, it was the first RAID, no need for such exaggeration, and so we got nerf after nerf to get to what was to be the real thing at first place.

Why am I bringing this old topic again? Well, because things keep being the same. And Now devs are creating content designed to counter abuse of mechanics like Infinite Combos. Believe me, as it has been proven, time after time, players will find another ways to make new Infinite Strategies, and what will you do? Keep the Nerf Hammer happening? Nerf is one of the most controversial topics in any online game, as people lose time AND MONEY investing in something that the Devs allowed to exist, making them believe it will keep being good. Raid 2 is getting same treatment with more nerfs and people are again feeling bad about nerfs.

What will those players feel about this incoming nerf? What will happen to all those trigger team comps that people invested? 2 Turns Aura Silence? It's effectively 3 Turns, the turn it triggers and 2 more after it, exactly like this last event. It's NOT FUN! You are punishing the players for a system that should be fun at first place. Elves + Double Snow White is aproblem and they should be nerfed in some way.

What can you do to counter this?

Nerf the SYSTEM, not the CONTENT!

You can’t keep making new rules that only apply here or there, and the Hit-Count Counter Bar was a bad decision in the first place, why? I’ll tell you why…

Aura Trigger system is the Heart of Valiant Force, it’s easily the most interesting and unique part of it, and where the fun comes. What you’re doing is, here, there’s this system that can make you do large combos with your heroes, it’s very fun! But you can’t use it in every content, because Bosses will destroy you if you do. They will destroy your formation, poison you, stun you and lots of other crazy things. You CAN’T calculate if your team will hit the 15 hit counter so you can easily get FUCKED and have to reset the game. Why are you guys punishing us? It feels very bad when this happens.

Now, instead of keep complaining I’ll suggest something.
Instead of using Enemy Based Counters every time, implement what I call the Stamina Bar System for your Heroes.

And How would this work? Simple…
Your heroes get tired after every new action they perform. What are those actions?

Movement: 25% of Stamina Bar (so you can’t move infinitely with refresh)
Attack: 20% of Stamina Bar
Defend: 100% of Stamina Bar
Skill: 50% of Stamina Bar
Aura Trigger: 5% for each Hero Triggered in Aura.

After the Bar reaches 0% the hero will stop and won’t be able to perform any other action. This is not like Defend, he will take full damage after he stopped.
Even if you have less Stamina than required, your Hero will still do the action you’re trying to do until it’s Zero. But after he/she perform this action he/she will stop. Example, if you have 5% you can still Defend, use Skill or what else.

Important: The Stamina will go back to 100% in the next turn

For Persistent Aura Heroes, if they have 3 people linked in their Aura at start of a turn, he/she will start with 85% of Stamina Bar. For On Attack Buff Aura types, like Vincent Berserker it will only cost Stamina if the Buff is not applied or the new buff would add more turns to it.
Those values are only placeholders and will need some balance.

Below is an example of how it could be implemented and show on the Grid Area

https://imgur.com/tgrkh8n


The cost values can also be tweaked, like higher cost for trigger heroes (you can show the value on the Hero Page on Gallery and Inspection). Maybe make the Persistent Aura Buff Types don’t lose stamina at all… this can make some of them more valuable as they will be able to Attack more… lots of things can be done in this system so it can be good. 

Why is this a better solution? First, this can give the strategy back to our hands, we can plan our actions, make diverse squads based on stamina consumption, and when our heroes stop attacking we will know that this was our fault, and we will feel good, we made maximum use of this hero to make him reach 0 Stamina. This also makes infinite combos impossible, there’s no way to create SDD or any other type of infinite combo.

Another benefits of this system: Devs will be able to make better balanced Bosses, without the need of making a Boss that cast Poison with 7500 Damage for 3 turns + Reduced Healing by 80%, seriously, who thought this was a good idea? Also, the max damage output of a squad will be reduced and similar among types of players (old players, new players and the like) so we they can lower the overall difficulty of Bosses so we can use Healers to Heal or Cleanse without having to rely on items all the time. Maybe then this will feel like a Turn Based Strategy game again. 

That's all I have to say, feedback  from the community is apreciated

Hi Bear,

No offense but regarding about the stamina action bar that you suggested, if VF Dev were to implement it, most of us all will quit VF.

VF Dev has already nerf DS rune (diminishing returns) and put the anti trigger 15 turns rage silent aura, which I think it's already good and reasonable balance.

What you are suggesting will further anger the rest of the community in VF.

Best Regards,
Haro

As much as I hate trigger teams, implementing a stamina quota immediately kills rangers/healers triggers imo. Both classes can't take a hit, even more so with the rangers as healers have a bit of MAG even when fully invested in ATK(meaning they can take skill damage somewhat better). The strategy behind trigger teams is kill everything before the enemy reacts and they absolutely have 0 defenses to speak of. I think reducing the chances of triggering when a trigger occurs is already the most feasible solution. 

And no, I don't use trigger team in PvP in case you think I'm a user of a cheap(but highly efficient) strategy. 

On a similar note, I'd much prefer your suggestion over diminishing trigger chances if Mystics and healers have something relevant to do while their skill is on CD. It would really be nice if mystics and healers have some sort of subskill they can use (like inflicting freeze on one target, removing debuff, add ATK to an ally, etc.). This way, all heroes except guardians(they function as tanks though so they aren't really supposed to be doing the damage under normal circumstances) can contribute something every turn. It would be cool if summoner Talissa can summon two small golems every turn(I can see them having half the stats of her golem). On the other hand, maybe AB Lucille could give an immunity to one ally every turn. This essentially gives healers and mystics a niche in PvE. I don't think that's enough to outclass trigger teams but I think they'd now be highly viable for PvE content.

Nice suggestions

Agree with the first part, which refers to the debuff stuff of recent bosses.

My team is mostly composed of kratos healers... and I can auto the master map of most event, finishing in turn 8-10. But I know most people can just kill boss in 2 turns... sometimes they have to.
I see the reason why most people consider defense less important... as the boss will kill you, or at least debuff you to make you disabled/weakened if the battle last 4 turn or more...regardless of your defense. My team have a lot healing power but even so I sometimes die just because the boss's skill is ridiculously strong and you have almost no counter for it.For example, the Santa Wolf, who put 7.5k poison damage per turn on you and reduce 80% of your healing... which basically means the dev simple want you to die after 2-3 turn. I use Teresa Inq's skill to cleanse and heal after the boss put that debuff but my teresa is not always that smart on auto...and I see no solution for people who don't have squad cleanse heores...(also even with teresa, the boss cast the skill every 4 turn and teresa's skill is 6 turn CD, so you have to kill the boss in next 4 turn or you are dead)

In short, the devs make the boss to definitely kill you in 4 turns, and punish players who try to kill the boss in 3 turns... the devs must love the boss so much...(well I don't mean to be rude to the devs, I'm just saying, as a player, I feel this is NOT fun)

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And for the second part, which refers to the trigger counter mechanics... I feel silence aura is just dumb... It does nothing but to force every player to bring mass cleanse pot to battle. As mentioned above, if the boss aura silence you, you basically lost more than half of your damage potential... and after 3 turns, you're not recovered from the aura silence... you are simply dead...I see people using rangers with 18k atk and 2k def, wait for 2 turn is not an option for them...

I prefer the anti-trigger mechanic (If we however need one) in Rem gate, what she does is... just end your turn upon getting 15 hits. no more punishment and no debuff in your next turn. However, still, not able to kill her in a few turn means you have to face her powerful skills... one shield her with 20% of her health(she can have 500k-1m hp depending on the gate level), the other one shoot 4 missiles that highly likely to one-shot your heroes... so basically the game is still.... who can dash out more damage before turn 4...

the total stats a player can get is limited, of course you can always work on your equipments/runes for a bit better stats but there is still a limit for that. however, the monsters/boss have unlimited stats, whatever the devs prefer to put on them. If a player hero can have 14666 atk, 8666 def and 66666 hp like Nefariel in 30-3, we don't need sdd, we can do reasonable damage to the boss and tank all damage until the boss is kill... but we can't... I have a Nimue with 18k atk 11k def but only 7k hp... which means she die from poison in 2 turns...

I understand the devs feel... it is less epic if player can kill a boss in 2 turns, which makes them frustrated... and I understand the devs always trying to bring some exiting challenge for us. but I would like to say... 
We don't like to kill the boss in 2 turn either...sdd or trigger archer or trigger healer ... all required heavy investments on equipments and runes, at least pulling the required heroes itself is an investment.  And we love to try out fancy heroes... heroes who can jump, heroes who can summon, heroes who can transform...
But we feel unsafe, we feel we are going to die once the boss cast skill, and now we even feel worse since we will die once we hit the 15 trigger limit... which is basically RNG-based and out of our control. 

In short, give us another option before devs nerf trigger. I still remember the most epic combat I ever experienced in the game... the tutorial!
we are caught by surprise and have to use a 3* leon on our squad. Darrion helps tank the damage, Freya tries to do physical damage but failed... and then Kiera unleash her powerful spell after being protected by her allies for turns... and burn the giant dragon to ashes... THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! THIS IS WHAT WE FEEL EPIC! However in fact, in normal game... darrion is never attacked since his def is so high... Freya dare not go forward to out put physical damage since her def is so low, and Kiera, even protected by allies for turns and successfully cast her skill, does no damage at all... 

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And finally, for the last part... which is the stigma bar... I feel it is not a good idea...
I believe it is a genius idea to limit trigger without letting the players feel punished, and it is a much better solution compared for current 15-hit counter.
However, the action bar will make players feel it is a waste if a hero doesn't use up his/her action bar by the end of a turn... and will somehow lead player to pick trigger-based heroes over other heroes(like mystic that does nothing except the turn they cast skills). And this will make trigger-based aura significantly better than other type of aura(like persistent stat bonus). Also what will happen for those heroes who trigger to attack in enemy's turn?

In short, I hope we can develop a mechanics that encourage player to use every type of hero, not focused on trigger-based heroes. Otherwise, whatever limit you put there, the new game is about to how to work out the most trigger under those limits...

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And I would like to say something about my own suggestion for future PVE content. Please stop doing on-spawn poison/bleed/atk debuff/def debuff/aura silence... and on-attack poison/bleed/atk debuff/def debuff/aura silence... and upon-15-hit poison/bleed/atk debuff/def debuff/aura silence... this basically does nothing but force everyone to bring mass cleanse pot to battle.
Make the skill of event boss more forgivable... basically make it dodge-able..like tile-based skill, summon a spike after 2 turns...and make the skill of the boss somehow beneficial for players as a bonus for successfully dodged the skill, like leaving a randomly placed bonus tile in battleground, providing huge atk boost for any hero standing on it.... 

I use the almost exactly same squad for every event since half a year ago(but I can auto just since 2 months ago), Every event seems to be the same one(except lancelot tower), I use the same strategy, same heroes, beat the boss on auto in about turn 6-10... every boss have a massive debuff skill in turn 3 or 4 in boss wave, and my teresa inq will cleanse it on turn 4-5 (I clear wave 1 in 1-2 turns)... ...

We want BOSS-BASED strategy, we want each boss feels different, like how different you feel when you use cybella instead of luna..(maybe this is a bad example)
Like the santa wolf... why not let him throw Xmas gifts into the sky... and those gifts will drop on random tiles after 1 turn, and remains there for a few more turns... if a hero standing on the tile when gifts drop, he suffer a huge amount of damage, but if he move to the tile after the gifts land, he gets the gift, providing some random buff like all the buff item devs think up... i mean those candy, turkey, dessert.... The game should have been more interesting than it is now...

My idea is ... instead of punishing the sdd/trigger team, just give some bonus to those who don't use sdd... like if the boss throw out a chest containing 50 gems every 5 turn, 3 times at most each battle, people will try to use a team that can survive 15 turns... and if they know they have 15 turns to kill to boss, they won't care if a hero will trigger a lot or not...

PS: Give Theia a revamp! Let's make our heroine great again! (If she's ever great in the past Orz... ...)

Greetings!

The ability to use SDD team in Raid 2 is clearly not the developers' intention.

Why most players prefer to use SDD in raid; is mainly due to:
 ▸ Skip bosses' skills
 ▸ Able to achieve considerable amount of output with least effort input

▸ There will be no reason to why one is unable to clear using de-buffs with consistency.
▸ Items in-game can assist you with this if units that are able to perform such actions are not favorable in your setup.
▸ Plus, you do not have to do raid every single day.

Next, moving on to Raid 2 - Counter Mechanics.
With fear / silence etc. as a passive when X amount of hit is achieved during players' turn phrase is well designed.
This system is not new, but is unique to all bosses in Raid 2 after the up-coming 11th Jan patches.
 ▸ This enable players to formulate a new type of strategy instead of watching the whole fight for 5 mins+ (Example: Raid 1), if they want to get better results.
 ▸ This will not apply to players who do not care about their damage dealt, and just copy top ladder setup.

Side note, there are no 'pro' in SDD. You just have to min-max your core attacker.

On to the 'Stamina' system suggested.
IMO, I feel that this is totally un-necessary and complicates the game even further.


Have a nice day !
~Cel

I won't mind stamina in pvp but in pve it's gonna be a problem for some content.

Can't the devs implement a different rule or mechanics in pvp, I played an online game before were the mechanics in pvp is different for pve. Skill values and passive works differently there, if we implement it here in VF, in pvp we'll have stamina to prevent long trigger chains or aura have different values like reduced potency for triggers.

And please to the devs, stop releasing heroes that just triggers be creative with auras, I remember a valiant that is used for revenge team were she stuns enemy when allies gets attacked. Do some aura that can counter, or on attack cleanse like "20% chance to clear debuffs of everyone in aura if allies gets hit", or "15% chance to cast meteor (50% of matk)on enemy when allies in aura gets hit"

No.

This would only create more new problems in the future. Instead of nerf, they should buff all other obsolete heroes.

I applaud the effort to come up with a solution and the concept, however I feel that

1. The proposed solution is too complex. It's a turn based game, and then we put mini-turns (via stamina bar) within a turn?
2. The proposed solution requires re-balancing the entire game. Every story map, every event map, every tower floor, every raid boss.

It is basically not a feasible solution. Feasible solutions require only slight changes, such as nerfing trigger chances, or adding diminishing returns on triggers, or the like.

In my opinion, Raid 2 was clearly indicated by the developers that they do not want to see any SDD or infinite combo tactics in there, the whole "we challenge you to use SDD in Raid 2" thing is wildly misinterpreted and overblown to mean "if you can do it, ok you win" when that isn't the case. A raid boss should provide a decent challenge to a guild, and having just 4 out of 35 members being able to do 45 mil damage to it (to kill a 220m HP boss) is ridiculous.

I don't know why players are salty that the new SDD is going to get nerfed, it is clear from the outset that having a way to clear all content (without 15-hit counters or on-spawn debuffs) in a single turn is broken.

I will leave with a quote from Tywin (from Orion guild) on Discord.

It is because of the competition with guild to get higher rank raid tier thus everyone find the most effective method to deal as much damage as possible. It is not they want to abuse trigger. The raid bosses can be cleared slowly over a week plus.but because of this.stupid competition within guild, everyone is forced to do this else loses out

This unhealthy system of inter guild competition should not even be in place.

Please remove the internal guild competition chests from Raids. Everyone in the guild should get the same rewards. I've gone over this in the past as well in other posts.

I applaud the effort to come up with a solution and the concept, however I feel that

1. The proposed solution is too complex. It's a turn based game, and then we put mini-turns (via stamina bar) within a turn?
2. The proposed solution requires re-balancing the entire game. Every story map, every event map, every tower floor, every raid boss.

It is basically not a feasible solution. Feasible solutions require only slight changes, such as nerfing trigger chances, or adding diminishing returns on triggers, or the like.

In my opinion, Raid 2 was clearly indicated by the developers that they do not want to see any SDD or infinite combo tactics in there, the whole "we challenge you to use SDD in Raid 2" thing is wildly misinterpreted and overblown to mean "if you can do it, ok you win" when that isn't the case. A raid boss should provide a decent challenge to a guild, and having just 4 out of 35 members being able to do 45 mil damage to it (to kill a 220m HP boss) is ridiculous.

I don't know why players are salty that the new SDD is going to get nerfed, it is clear from the outset that having a way to clear all content (without 15-hit counters or on-spawn debuffs) in a single turn is broken.

I will leave with a quote from Tywin (from Orion guild) on Discord.

It is because of the competition with guild to get higher rank raid tier thus everyone find the most effective method to deal as much damage as possible. It is not they want to abuse trigger. The raid bosses can be cleared slowly over a week plus.but because of this.stupid competition within guild, everyone is forced to do this else loses out

This unhealthy system of inter guild competition should not even be in place.

Please remove the internal guild competition chests from Raids. Everyone in the guild should get the same rewards. I've gone over this in the past as well in other posts.

+1

I applaud the effort to come up with a solution and the concept, however I feel that

1. The proposed solution is too complex. It's a turn based game, and then we put mini-turns (via stamina bar) within a turn?
2. The proposed solution requires re-balancing the entire game. Every story map, every event map, every tower floor, every raid boss.

It is basically not a feasible solution. Feasible solutions require only slight changes, such as nerfing trigger chances, or adding diminishing returns on triggers, or the like.

In my opinion, Raid 2 was clearly indicated by the developers that they do not want to see any SDD or infinite combo tactics in there, the whole "we challenge you to use SDD in Raid 2" thing is wildly misinterpreted and overblown to mean "if you can do it, ok you win" when that isn't the case. A raid boss should provide a decent challenge to a guild, and having just 4 out of 35 members being able to do 45 mil damage to it (to kill a 220m HP boss) is ridiculous.

I don't know why players are salty that the new SDD is going to get nerfed, it is clear from the outset that having a way to clear all content (without 15-hit counters or on-spawn debuffs) in a single turn is broken.

I will leave with a quote from Tywin (from Orion guild) on Discord.

It is because of the competition with guild to get higher rank raid tier thus everyone find the most effective method to deal as much damage as possible. It is not they want to abuse trigger. The raid bosses can be cleared slowly over a week plus.but because of this.stupid competition within guild, everyone is forced to do this else loses out

This unhealthy system of inter guild competition should not even be in place.

Please remove the internal guild competition chests from Raids. Everyone in the guild should get the same rewards. I've gone over this in the past as well in other posts.

While I kind of like having equal rewards and preventing interguild competition for rewards, I fear removing them may discourage some guild members from participating in the raid at all. If a significant number of guild members will obtain that kind of mentality, I don't think it's going to be healthy.