Paragon dev hand out 27,000 bans this month, plan multiple class nerfs next

Epic Games has handed out about 27,000 one-day and three-day bans to Paragon players as they continue their work on evolving the live, early-access game, said Steve Superville, the game’s creative director.

In his monthly state of the game post, Superville detailed the work the team has been putting into striking the right balance for game length and characters. Superville also feels that the team didn’t live up to the promises it made to keep players in the loop following the version 28 update.

"Paragon is in Early Access and we are using this time to make pretty sweeping changes," he wrote. "Going back to early online tests in January, we promised to communicate these changes to you early and often. With v.28, we didn’t live up to that. As we try to make things right, we’re going to give you some perspective on v.28 and look ahead to next week’s changes in v.29.

"Real talk: balance is hard. We aren’t always going to get it right immediately, but we will always adapt and work to improve."

The post goes on to detail the many changes that have already hit the game’s Casters, Rangers and Fighters and the ones inbound meant to help balance out play through what sounds like quite a bit of nerfing. It sounds like caster Gideon, ranger Twinblast and fighter Rampage are going to take the brunt of that stat lowering.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s going on:

Nerf

Gideon, who was so powerful that players rarely selected other casters, was already nerfed in the current version of the game, removing his crowd control immunity during his Ult.

Casters across the board will be getting an increase in their basic attack per level damage from one to three.

Ranger Twinblast was another character that seems like the only rational selection for his class, Superville wrote.

"We believe the reason is his extreme mobility and free Attack Speed, relative to other Rangers," he wrote. "To bring him back in line, his mobility tool is getting nerfed by reducing his evade distance significantly and his Nitro (Attack Speed pump) is getting an overall decrease in damage output. We may need to look at a kit rework for him in the future."

Rangers in general are having their starting and per-level Health decreased from 400 to 380 and 100 to 85 next week. Additionally, offensive card stats are being nerfed to limit the effectiveness of damage-only builds; affecting both Damage (6.5 from 7.5) and Attack Speed (5.5 from 6.5). Finally, the update will "dramatically" reduce the amount of LifeSteal per point (2.5% from 4%), putting pressure on other survivability stats - Health, Health Per Second, Physical / Energy Armor, and Shields.

Fighter Rampage’s ultimate will be reduced in duration from 15 to 12 and health regen from 100/175/250 to 50/125/200.

All fighters will be affected by the offensive stats nerf also.

What’s next, next?

The good news is that it seems that all of these changes, as well as tweaks to the economy, are helping the team push the game toward its match duration target goals.

Game times this month, Superville says, have been reduced by as much as five to seven minutes and the average game seems to take less than 36 minutes to wrap up.

"Again, not quite reaching our target, but certainly an improvement over the frequent 1.5 hour matches of v.27," he wrote. "We will continue to adjust the game in a number of ways, keeping an eye on match length and work to balance shorter matches against the desire for strategic opportunity and comeback potential."

Moving forward, the team plans to continue to focus on regulating bad behavior through bans, improve matchmaking (including a new way to restart a match without penalty when a player drops), introduce card crafting, banners and competitive play.

"We continue to read and process all the feedback that the community provides, smile at the encouragement, analyze the criticism and do our best to be a part of the conversation," Superville wrote. "We hold fast to our belief that the best games are created by a partnership between developers and players."