Update Discussion: August 28, 2017

[srand]

Update Notes for the July 28 update are posted here: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?704-Update-Notes-August-28-2017

But there are two other posts you'll want to read also that expand on the basic notes:


Level 65-70 Gear Mod Changes (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?705-Level-65-70-Gear-Mod-Changes)
Augmentation and Transmutation Changes (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?703-Augmentation-and-Transmutation-Changes)


Now that you've read all that ... discuss away!

[cr00cy]

"Bottles of milk stack to 5."

YES! OMG best change ever, 10/10.

Now only thing we miss is option "fill all empty bottles" when near wate source. Then it will be perfect.

Well downloading now,and then i go make new char. look forward to checkign out all new stuff

[kazeandi]

Fire and Archery got hit pretty hard with the nerf bat. While I can't comment on Archery (I'm only 55 there), Fire has always been inferior, compared to Archers, this balancing just reinforced the gap.

As for Animal Handling, I had completely given up on it after hitting 73. Will give it another try.

[ErDrick]

Hiyas, long time since I posted..mostly because I was too lazy to make a new forum account when you changed venues for your forums. I have still been following the game obviously, and log in to play once in a while.

Anyways with that being said I thought I'd leave some feedback about why players head in the direction of pure dps builds so often. ( because I read all your patch notes and blogs). It has pretty much been forced upon us because of how hard mobs hit, coupled with how big heals are not spammable and heal over time abilities are much much too weak to counter you being hit for 300+ a pop. In addition to that your current system of multiple respawns encourage dps checks ....because frankly if you don't clear areas fast enough ( and keep moving with very few short rest breaks) you get swarm-raped. The multi-repop-at-once mechanic is sooooo bad in this aspect, I know your intent was to make things difficult but there is a huge difference between difficult and " if you don't kill fast enough and or take too long in one area you die with zero counter-play options."..There is literally nothing you can do to save yourself or your group when 10 things respawn on top of you...You are just dead....when I say this I mean a fully decked out group in level 70 ( optimal / transmuted /augmented ) yellows will still die if a respawn happens...god help you if you are geared in gear with 3 modifiers like you specifically mentioned in your blog.

I personally feel like big damage numbers and twitch reactions are better suited to action-rpg's( as in the kind of games with manually controlled dodge and block mechanics). The time-to-kill in this game is much to short from both ends here. As in most level-appropriate encounters are basically " you or them in 10 seconds"...if you don't kill them that fast they WILL kill you. Even your highest end ( gazluk keep ) boss fights follow this pattern, except maybe they up the time to kill to 20 seconds, after that you run out of resources for both healing and damage..so again, you or them in a short time frame.

Correct me if I am wrong here but I was under the assumption that you wanted resource management to be important to combat, currently it isn't. Mobs hitting for extraordinary amounts coupled with the sheer amount of creatures you face at once and the respawn shenannigans negate any sort of resource management, the simplest way to explain this is again...you or them, in 10 seconds.

Rage reduction and healing mechanics are correctly balanced for 1 v 1 encounters, but not for group content....no rage management skill in the game even comes close to negating the rage that 5-6 players are dishing out. Same for healing...same for tanking...it all seems to be balanced against solo situations. As you may remember I tried so very hard to make a tank build and a rage management build work...tanking is possible versus one target only( which can be useful on bosses, there are also a very few specific builds that can actually keep you alive versus multi-targets but that's mostly due to 90-100% invulnerability mechanics, such as staff spins...once those invulnerability windows are up you are just as dead as anyone else, healing is almost a non-factor.). Tanking still has a plethora of aggro issues versus multiple targets however, such as not having abilities to generate said aggro on more then one target. Rage management also is nowhere near viable as a primary build in group content.

if you would like to see people playing other roles in group content besides dps then you need to balance content for that...My advice would be to lower the mob density in group content but make every mob take much longer to kill, as in 5-10x current health totals, but also reduce their outgoing damage so it's manageable. If you are going to force players to fight 10 mobs at once they need to be the low-health variety, not 10 elites that each hit for 250-300 damage per shot. This would have the added benefit of making content that is intended for grouping be non-soloable, because you would run out of resources in a long fight by yourself...the other benefit is of course, is if someone needs to afk for 2 minutes it isn't a guaranteed wipe ( which it kind of is atm).

Thanks for reading, I would like to see others opinions on these topics and feel free to agree or disagree as the situation warrants. Don't just read it and say nothing though, they need our feedback..it is super important in a beta like this.

(P.S. - I have mentioned all of this and more in feedbacks in-game, but I don't know what you have or haven't read, also I have more room here)

[Tagamogi]

"Bottles of milk stack to 5."

YES! OMG best change ever, 10/10.

Overpowered! But I'm ok with that. And very happy, too. :)

I mostly wanted to say I really appreciate the extra long patch notes and blogs for today's changes. I find the thoughts that go into game changes very interesting, and I'm really looking forward to actually playing and trying things out.

One quick comment on battle chemistry:


But on the other hand, I need to make the gear mods for the golem's abilities worth using, or they won't get used. And I realize many of these mods are still underwhelming.
My problem with the golem mods is more that I don't trust the golem to use its abilities correctly, so any mod for them is immediately far less attractive than a mod for my own abilities. I'm possibly overly paranoid, but I don't trust the golem with dps abilities - I'm afraid it will rush in and aggro the wrong mob, and trying to manage that isn't worth a small dps buff to me. I've been using the golem solely as a passive mana battery, which doesn't really seem like it needs buffing. I have noticed its healing mist positively on occasion, but I can't really think of a situation where it would matter to me if it heals for 20 or 40 more - the scenarios in which that would actually save my life are too rare for me to prefer a healing mist mod to a mod for my own abilities that will be useful in every fight.

Is there someone who is actually using the golem for dps who could comment on what mods they would find attractive?

[Niph]

I have updated my parser to version 288 (search this board for "Json Parser").

[Unruly]

When is a new ui going to be introduced? Surely it's going to be the biggest source of bugs/fixes? Or are you planning on going to Steam w/ the current UI?

[cr00cy]

ErDrick
I must say i agree with you. I mentioned it several times - both in game and on formum - that there is too much dmg flyign around. On both sides.

Recently i decide dto level up[ few skills, and, instead of goinf full burst, wanted to try more susatined build. Skills i used were Hammer+shield, Druid+Bc, Staff+Ice magic. Long story short - it did not work out. Closest was IM+Staff - but like you said it was more thanks to spins/def stance. Druid+bc ultimatly worked really well - but again it was only becasue iw as able to burst mobs down in one rotation. Hammer+shield was very weak - mostly becasue shield offers too low sustain(and i ditn had too good gear for it).

with my current build (wolf+unarmed) im able to fight multiple mobs and susatin longer fights (my current record is around 2 min of constant fight), provided no too amny mobs come at teh same time - and that they deal msolty physcial dmg. With shield mods from unarmed i can stack up rather high amount of mitigation. But then again most of the tie i ahve to burst mobs asp anyway.

So yes i totlay agree with lowering palyers dmg output - but at the same time monsters shoudl have they lowered too. This or palyers defense (hp/armor) and/or sustain should go way up.

[DamageIncorp]

I am pretty disappointed in the archery nerf. I have been playing archer/sword since February and have pretty decent gear. Even with the prior mods I was not remotely close to a god by any stretch of the imagination. I die a ton and in places like the back of the goblin dungeon. Yes you have great DPS, but you are also a glass cannon. That should be the trade off for good quick damage. I think the majority of people complaining about the skill probably don't even play it. You have one awesome skill (mangling shot) and some very good supporting skills (heavy and heavy multi). A lot of the other skills are too weak to even be considered. The elemental skills are under powered and skills like blitz and basic are so weak they are unplayable even with the small benefit of a combat refresh. To make a statement that hammer "is in a good place" tells me that we need to do some playtesting of the skills. Hammer is fun but is over costed power wise and lacks the damage to make it viable for higher level content. I didn't see cow mentioned in the post, but it a virtual indestructible tank. It also has one of the fastest movement abilities. Lycan is also extremely powerful. There is obviously an opportunity cost to different builds and I know this is still alpha so I hope perhaps some further personal research on the part of the decision makers will lead to the realization that there is a huge opportunity cost to going for straight DPS. I personally have very few ways to mitigate rage and lack healing and defensive buffs but understand the trade off. Archery also eats up a lot of power. I think every build type should have some "go to" skills.

[Easylivin]

Fire and Archery got hit pretty hard with the nerf bat. While I can't comment on Archery (I'm only 55 there), Fire has always been inferior, compared to Archers, this balancing just reinforced the gap.

As for Animal Handling, I had completely given up on it after hitting 73. Will give it another try.

What do you mean by "always"? Fire was the damage king for at least 3-4 months in my almost 3 years of playing.

Archery was high DPS before, then nerfed, then tweaked and improved, now nerfed again.

It's going to happen again. Find a skill you enjoy and play. If you always want to be the highest DPS be ready to chase the different skills as they get tweaked.


General question for archers, do you use multi-shot? At high levels it seems silly because you are going to pull something you didn't want to and get the group killed. So why bother?

[Easylivin]

Hiyas, long time since I posted..mostly because I was too lazy to make a new forum account when you changed venues for your forums. I have still been following the game obviously, and log in to play once in a while.

Anyways with that being said I thought I'd leave some feedback about why players head in the direction of pure dps builds so often. ( because I read all your patch notes and blogs). It has pretty much been forced upon us because of how hard mobs hit, coupled with how big heals are not spammable and heal over time abilities are much much too weak to counter you being hit for 300+ a pop. In addition to that your current system of multiple respawns encourage dps checks ....because frankly if you don't clear areas fast enough ( and keep moving with very few short rest breaks) you get swarm-raped. The multi-repop-at-once mechanic is sooooo bad in this aspect, I know your intent was to make things difficult but there is a huge difference between difficult and " if you don't kill fast enough and or take too long in one area you die with zero counter-play options."..There is literally nothing you can do to save yourself or your group when 10 things respawn on top of you...You are just dead....when I say this I mean a fully decked out group in level 70 ( optimal / transmuted /augmented ) yellows will still die if a respawn happens...god help you if you are geared in gear with 3 modifiers like you specifically mentioned in your blog.

I personally feel like big damage numbers and twitch reactions are better suited to action-rpg's( as in the kind of games with manually controlled dodge and block mechanics). The time-to-kill in this game is much to short from both ends here. As in most level-appropriate encounters are basically " you or them in 10 seconds"...if you don't kill them that fast they WILL kill you. Even your highest end ( gazluk keep ) boss fights follow this pattern, except maybe they up the time to kill to 20 seconds, after that you run out of resources for both healing and damage..so again, you or them in a short time frame.

Correct me if I am wrong here but I was under the assumption that you wanted resource management to be important to combat, currently it isn't. Mobs hitting for extraordinary amounts coupled with the sheer amount of creatures you face at once and the respawn shenannigans negate any sort of resource management, the simplest way to explain this is again...you or them, in 10 seconds.

Rage reduction and healing mechanics are correctly balanced for 1 v 1 encounters, but not for group content....no rage management skill in the game even comes close to negating the rage that 5-6 players are dishing out. Same for healing...same for tanking...it all seems to be balanced against solo situations. As you may remember I tried so very hard to make a tank build and a rage management build work...tanking is possible versus one target only( which can be useful on bosses, there are also a very few specific builds that can actually keep you alive versus multi-targets but that's mostly due to 90-100% invulnerability mechanics, such as staff spins...once those invulnerability windows are up you are just as dead as anyone else, healing is almost a non-factor.). Tanking still has a plethora of aggro issues versus multiple targets however, such as not having abilities to generate said aggro on more then one target. Rage management also is nowhere near viable as a primary build in group content.

if you would like to see people playing other roles in group content besides dps then you need to balance content for that...My advice would be to lower the mob density in group content but make every mob take much longer to kill, as in 5-10x current health totals, but also reduce their outgoing damage so it's manageable. If you are going to force players to fight 10 mobs at once they need to be the low-health variety, not 10 elites that each hit for 250-300 damage per shot. This would have the added benefit of making content that is intended for grouping be non-soloable, because you would run out of resources in a long fight by yourself...the other benefit is of course, is if someone needs to afk for 2 minutes it isn't a guaranteed wipe ( which it kind of is atm).

Thanks for reading, I would like to see others opinions on these topics and feel free to agree or disagree as the situation warrants. Don't just read it and say nothing though, they need our feedback..it is super important in a beta like this.

(P.S. - I have mentioned all of this and more in feedbacks in-game, but I don't know what you have or haven't read, also I have more room here)

I agree. Combat needs some tweaks. Back when sword was the agro holder we seemed to have roles in groups. Then that was removed so everyone started healing. Now we say "screw healing, kill it ASAP" and its working so far. Sure groups wipe when there is a respawn or a bad pull, but that isn't a challenge really as much as it is an annoyance.

For odd balanced mobs the best example I can think of for a mob that takes too many resources to kill is the golem in GK. When I've killed it with a group with a cheese and a good power food, I use all my power, energize, and dig deep. Then I wait for energize to come back, use it and try to finish the golem off. Maybe this is a lvl 80 mob but killing that golem is "annoying"

I don't have any suggestions at the moment for improvement but willing to help with combat testing and offer feedback.

[Khaylara]

Fire was always very high dps, it was tweaked few times as well, combos were added then removed etc. I never found it lower dps than archery. I agree with Erdrick that the game (although the abundance of dungeons is nice) is not balanced around groups. Group roles don't seem to be the focus.


On the update topic-especially the augmentation and transmutation skills. Imo the changes are absolutely insane. First problem is filling our inventories with pure crap. Second problem is the crazy amount of items needed to hit one level of either augmentation or transmutation. Example lvl 64 to 65 weapon augmentation requires 51200 EXP, decomposing low level items gives 50 exp per item, decomposing a lvl 60 item gives 400. There is still an insane amount of items needed. That relates to what Erdrick said about DPS, that's the only way to farm so many items really, high dps so you can solo as many mobs you can in order to get drops and level. Using extraction recipes is almost out of question unless one is crazy enough to use heaps of gems and carry lots of beads to do that (it's just too costly).

Now I normally don't bitch and whine about grinding, as I told a guildie I did poetry and cheesemaking when that was considered crazy..and it was crazy:) He argued that Citan wants us to specialize BUT augmentation and transmutation are not specialized skillsets. I understand that as specializing in carpentry, toolcrafting, leatherworking...but not that much transmutation and augmentation. Especially transmutation was meant to be a user friendly skillset, it was absurdly hard anyway to reroll mods now it's nearly impossible to level without 24/7 solo grinding. One would argue that dungeons are better for that purpose but in practice they are not. Imagine a whole group standing around waiting for me to extract augments and fill my inventory with useless augments that i'm gonna have to drop anyway.

I would revisit those changes and touch up the exp. As always I'm not talking about me in particular, i'll finish all to 70-90 in a couple of weeks max but imagine how it is for a newer player who doesn't have my dps or my gear to have to grind 1 million items in a lower level dungeon to gain 10 levels of augmentation. Imho it's a bit much. Cause yup, by rough calculation, using crypt and goblin dungeon drops it takes 800-1k items per level above 60 (which, coming back to the inventory issue, results in heaps of different types of beads, prisms and phlogistons).

[Malice00]

Excellent update. The new/revised area of South Serbule is top notch. Much better content, great goblin war base, goblin logging area is kewl also. Nice touch with tunnel from starter area. The updated Ranlon villiage is really a nice upgrade also. Dispersion of fish in lake was right amount. Lastly, the new NPC's is a much need upgrade to that area. Came out of tunnel with levels 10 in three fighting skills...still died twice to Megaspider, and gave up..."Boss Monster". Good call on stacking milk, boy that was a inventory killer before the update.

One question on my behalf is I do not understand blacksmithing and armor manufacturing. Is there a difference, will it get an upgrade. I currently have not topped out the leatherworking skill yet...but as a traditionalist, I am partial to metal armor verse leather. So I am looking forward to expanding that skill, even if it is bastardized into using both skills.

Or all including textile, tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing, etc..

[jaspen]

Inventory management has always felt a bit like a subgame to me in PG and the latest patch with all these tiers of prisms and baubles along with extra recipes, became the expansion pack to that subgame. I already spend far more time managing my inventory than I would like to admit to. It often exceeds my active hunting and exploration time but that is another topic. Killing a NPC is often far quicker than looting, processing the body and then first stage processing of the loot.

I agree that leveling these skills is going to become a somewhat daunting task due to the number of items/experience needed, extra inventory management and time. Don’t forget that the current interface with its shifting recipes groups, large number of groups and now even larger number of recipes, puts a time delay in finding the recipe you want for the type, and now level, of the item. Then you have the fun of dragging items into that tiny box, hoping it doesn’t snap back to the inventory and then if not wanted, dragging the results to the bottom of the window to drop it. All the while trying to keep up with spawns and if grouped, the group. Also, while you are fighting, dodging spawns and trying to keep up with the group you also have to frequently obscure your vision with two extra windows and then get rid of them. It also makes random exploration a little less enjoyable as you accumulate 3 times more prisms and 3 times more baubles as you plow through multilevel NPCs along with, once again, sorting the level of the items you have looted with the proper recipes.

I have mentioned this before long ago, and I am sure others have as well, but could we have some way of getting master recipes for the transmutation and augmentation skills? Have all the sub recipes you want but include additional unified master versions under a unified recipe tab?

I will give two examples. The first example is having one single master recipe for Distill, for all rarities (The game can check the rarity of the item and then see if you have the sub recipe and then either processes the request or complain). The second example is having one single master recipe for Decompose that not only combines all level types but also combines weapon and both armors (The game checks the level and item slot type, sees if you have the recipe that matches and either processes the request or complain). The other skills can be done like this as well, with other checks obviously. The amount of unneeded clicking, searching, time and frustration this would save would be substantial in my opinion. Having all these tabs and recipes for something that is related and frequently used is very inefficient. If I didn’t explain that well let me know and I will go into more details or even do a mock up.

[Khaylara]

Yes to the "master" recipes. The way I see it both distilling and transmuting could have this kind of recipes. For example decomposing a low level yellow item would give 2 baubles and 1 prism, the highest level would give 8 baubles and 3 prisms, but all of the same type. I'm already going crazy managing all the medium and large baubles of few types, prisms of few types PLUS I sold some of the medium mats by accident. That on top of the-almost impossible-exp needed for one level, it's just too much.


Few reasons I don't like this direction in development (more and more tedious things to do):
1. It reduces the amount of fun I can have as a gamer, most of the times I can't be bothered cleaning my inventory in order to run a dungeon. I used to be able to just log and jump in Nexus w/o much notice, that's impossible nowadays. By the time everyone cleans up their backpacks the group is sometimes ready to disperse.

2. Citan shared his vision for this game some time ago, how he sees it in the future (correct me if I'm wrong)-a game to which players will come back again and again, played with long breaks even but in PG players should be able to pick up where they left off and just have fun. It was like that for me but lately not so much, it feels like I took an unexcused leave of absence from my job and got left behind (if I play less or not log at all for 2 weeks even).

The problem here is not the new content, new content is amazing! But the lvling process is becoming more and more tedious and boring, doubled by the eternal storage and inventory issues. And frankly the new content feels a bit all over the place. I explored Serbule Hills and instead of enjoying it I was thinking "why another cook NPC and how many stacks of this/that do I need to gain favor with these new NPCs"...and I don't lose my sense of wonder easily:) Guildies can testify that I still follow NPCs around and crack up at their dialogues but getting more and more disorganized recipes (that I can hardly find in my recipes book),spread between half a dozen NPCs is kinda dampening the mood.

In order to keep up with these mindless (and boring) daily tasks one has to be a true completionist and play a minimum of 7-8 hrs a day then spend some time to write reports (and tbh I haven't read many written by "completionists", there are like 3-4 of this type of player who actually bothers to write detailed forum reports). There's not so many of us in general, the player base is small and as a result you don't get enough data collection and accurate feedback. Most of us simply don't have the time to play for that long every day (although some of us would like to). So you might end up putting hundreds of hours of work into changes that are and will stay insufficiently tested. In the end that might attract some hardcore type of players who enjoy long daily grinds but might be unappealing to the niche target this game initially attracted.
Thinking just of last few patches, how many played bard at top level and in different situations? And wrote detailed reports on the skill. I can only think of one player who did both.
How many people maxed brewing and how many offered data about the lvling process and the bugs. At least on the forum I saw almost none.
(I'm not criticizing because I haven't done any of those myself, I simply don't have enough resources, storage and uninterrupted game time to do all of that).

Idk what prompted these crafting skills changes but as I said in the long run it might be appealing only to people who actually enjoy having alts for storage and playing solo a lot (nothing wrong with that but that might become the core community of PG with nobody to test group play, terrain or other small type of bug etc).

I also don't know if my long explanation made any sense but in a nutshell I feel like some of these changes towards a more "grindy" type of game are going to alienate many existing and potential players and I don't think that is Citan's intention. He doesn't have to ask us for opinions every step of the way of course but adding more and more game changing content without knowing if the players/how many of the players actually enjoy this content could prove to be a slippery slope.

Imho few funny dialogues and a few challenging mobs are way more enjoyable than adding 1921736435 extra decomposing recipes:)


PS the changes in poetry reading, although very socially impactful have a downside-it did make lvling poetry trivial and Poetry Appreciation was a "goals" skill, something that was challenging and kinda fun in a masochistic way...you either had to farm the crypt for primers or maybe become a necromancer and talk to corpses about poetry. Now you only have to take your char at the inn and click on a podium, nothing challenging or excessively fun about it, just more tedium (don't go afk for too long, keep clicking the darn desk, rate rinse and repeat).

[Tagamogi]

I thought the transmutation blog update made the reason behind the transmutation and augmentation changes pretty clear - remove the incentive for high level players to farm low-level stuff. That seems pretty reasonable. If you use only transmutation during dungeon runs, you'd only need 2 extra slots for the new prism sizes, or maybe not even that if you know that only high level gear will drop and you will only need the large prism.

Of course, you'll still need a place to store the unneeded prisms, and all the different augment sizes... Somewhat related to that, I was finally looking at the new cooking recipes yesterday, with the division between great and regular meats. Yes, it makes sense in the high level vs low level kind of sense, but it's still a lot of crap to keep track of as a player, much less store, and it makes storage alts more and more necessary.

I liked the old one-size-fits-all augmentation rules, just because I was playing a lot of lower end content still and had a use for the items I found that way. I'm not really unhappy about being told that if I want to level high-end augmentation, I now need to farm high-end items, that's fine, just less convenient. Storage-wise ... well, I just cleaned up my t&a alt before the patch, so I have plenty of room for the new augs. Obviously, that's not a desirable way to play though, and players shouldn't feel that t&a alts are mandatory. (Actually... people tend to vendor a lot of their augs and phlogiston, so maybe t&a alts aren't mandatory and I'm being too hoarding again. Still, it seems that most times changes in game complexity result in more items without a corresponding match in storage upgrades, so I find it really easy to get overwhelmed unless I can sort out stuff on my storage alts. New UI, etc.)

Yet another edit: I kind of like the new augmentation recipes as far as extracting augments goes. For some reason, it feels more intuitive and less math-y to me to say that I need 20 aug ornaments of size x in order to to extract an aug from an item of a particular level range, rather than looking at the item's exact level and then calculating the augs needed based on that. This makes it easier for me to look at a stack of aug ornaments and see at a glance how many extracts I'll be able to do with them, and whether it might be time to finally sell off a few.

[Khaylara]

I thought the transmutation blog update made the reason behind the transmutation and augmentation changes pretty clear - remove the incentive for high level players to farm low-level stuff. That seems pretty reasonable. If you use only transmutation during dungeon runs, you'd only need 2 extra slots for the new prism sizes, or maybe not even that if you know that only high level gear will drop and you will only need the large prism.

Of course, you'll still need a place to store the unneeded prisms, and all the different augment sizes... Somewhat related to that, I was finally looking at the new cooking recipes yesterday, with the division between great and regular meats. Yes, it makes sense in the high level vs low level kind of sense, but it's still a lot of crap to keep track of as a player, much less store, and it makes storage alts more and more necessary.



Why i said what i said...many players who are in theory level 70 (but w/o adequate gear or bonus levels etc) will not be able to farm Gazluk or even Rahu solo, they are forced into lower level dungeons like KT, WC. I think everyone was at some point in that situation when you have to downgrade because where you should be kicks your arse. In order to get these skills up many players will be forced to go into the lower level places (removing the incentive you mentioned) and they will be needing a lot of said lower level drops to lvl augmentation or transmutation.
Not pulling this out of my hat, I do know a lot of players who are in theory lvl 70 but are unable to farm in ilmari, rahu or gaz due to lack of endurance, gear, etc. That is why I think these changes are beneficial only for high level players who put a lot of hours into grinding these (more complicated) crafting skills.

Note-I can actually farm all the high level places (with some difficulty but still can) so not lobbying for myself:)

[kazeandi]

This looks like a P2P-typical scheme to make players buy inventory upgrades - only that there's no such cash shop (yet?): Lots and lots of item drops, recipies that use many different items, but only limited *and* scattered storage across the different zones.

I get that you want many skills in game, each with an important purpose, but then you went ahead and made it all worse by requiring trash like "tufts of fur" (4 councils vendor price). And now this. Also don't forget, we're only midlevel, 70/125. Smells like lots and lots of additional tiers of required vendor trash, prisms, baubles, wood, metal etc in the future.

There was nothing wrong with highlevels farming lower content either. We did that in other MMOs, too, and "at least I get some baubles out of it" was a good motivation to help lowbies kill bosses in lower dungeons.

Then there's the point Khaylara is talking about, 70ers stuck in lower zones, because higher ones are too difficult to farm in for various reasons (one point being that winter gear is absolutely mandatory).

I'm not looking forward to content higher than 70 TBH, looks like a long, bleak grind, all while fighting the inventory war.

Please give these points a good thought.

[Tagamogi]

Not pulling this out of my hat, I do know a lot of players who are in theory lvl 70 but are unable to farm in ilmari, rahu or gaz due to lack of endurance, gear, etc. That is why I think these changes are beneficial only for high level players who put a lot of hours into grinding these (more complicated) crafting skills.

Hm, hard to evaluate how other players are doing. I personally would consider the Tower View Cave in Gazluk to be pretty accessible to anyone 60-65+, and that has 3 chests and a named (although the named would be tough at the lower level range). You do not technically need any winter gear to reach the cave, although obviously it helps.

As a point of anecdotal reference: I believe I finally maxed my second combat skill ever right after the Mushroom Farming patch. Prior to that, I had completely explored and mapped the Tower View Cave, Snowblood Shadow Cave and No-Name Cave, as well as a good portion of the Windy View Cave (before the introduction of mummies, haven't had time to go back since). So, I don't think the Gazluk content is overly hard, challenging in some places, sure, but that's what makes it fun. All of the gear for my max level skills was obtained solo, although I possibly qualify as an above average player since I do have 4-5 bonus levels for both of my max skills, and I have been crafting and wearing a nice set of primarily purple, primarily level 60 winter gear.

I wonder though ... if someone hasn't been grouping to get gear, and hasn't been crafting to get gear, and hasn't talked to other players to see if they could craft gear for them ... do they really care about maxing transmutation and augmentation asap? And if so, why? It seems like they wouldn't even have the gear that would require the higher level t & a recipes.

Sorry if I've been wandering completely off-topic, it's just that I don't feel it's really a problem for someone level 70 to get 60+ gear. Whether it takes a reasonable amount of time to farm enough gear to level transmutation and augmentation at a reasonable pace is another question. I can't really answer that - I haven't really been paying enough attention to either set of skills, so I'm not sure what a good pace of leveling for them would be and whether the new xp distribution allows for that.

[kazeandi]

I farmed the Gazluk caves when I was 70 fire / 60 druid, in 60/60 gear and it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. I'd not have been able to do that in the typical mix of 40/45er gear with the odd 50er piece you loot in dungeons you can handle (wolf cave, dark chapel entrance). I killed the named by death-rushing it, in 2-3 "runs". Maybe, if you spent lots of time on single pulls and used every trick in your arsenal, you could "progress" there as a fresh 70 in 40er gear, but would that be fun?

I'm in a guild, only brought gems and stuff for my suit (60/60 would be entry level), but I know at least 2 people in rather inactive guilds who just couldn't get even that level gear to only get started.

Killing stuff that tough also hardly counts as farming - progression beyond 50 is borked from the POV of a solo player without long friend list, of whom there are many. I see 70ers in Ukorga blues every day.

Doesn't help that the Gaz DOT is just crazy for PG's equivalent to Arathi. Punishing a player for daring to step out of the newbie zones, with a vengeance.
I dread the thought of the maxlevel zones.

[Niph]

One can make, or ask a skilled player to make, level 70 leather armor pretty easily. Amazing skin can be farmed solo at level 60, and is most likely sold by players anyway (I have stacks of them on my vendor). So, even if it's hard to acquire dropped level 70 gear solo, and can testify it is unless you've specialized in cold environment survival, grouping the entrance of Gazluk Keep with leather armor is in my opinion possible, and from there you get all the loot you want. What you need is a decent reputation and basic fighting skills, so that people will assist you to make the armor and accept to group with you. If you want to do it all by yourself, then yes it's definitely much harder.

Regarding the storage issue, one need to stop hoarding and sell/buy all these mats: only phlogistons and prisms really need to be stored, and there is no point keeping all levels, only the two level ranges that matter when you transition at 30 and 60.

(Disclaimer: I'm well-geared and don't have these problems anymore)

[kazeandi]

Yeah you can farm the stuff you need (including the yellow crystals and other mats) if you have a crafter and know what you need. Like I said, I'm in a guild, so I can ask, but people who play 2-3 hours a week, in a small and dead guild, either need to grind LW up or are SOL.

And this is only the "difficulty" side of the game. "You don't have to hoard everything" is fine, if slightly incorrect: You can't hoard everything. Even only the stuff you need for your armor, your cooking, transmute, augment and all the crystals and metals from geology and you'll run out of space.

I would take out all the trash drops needed for crafting, just don't make them drop in the first place. The unending stream of crap in our inventory is the consequence of the design decision to not have cash drops, even when it would make sense and you're fighting humanoids. With very, very few exceptions, mostly in the beginning.

[kazeandi]

And now we have meaningless depth: Additional recipes for Transmute, when the skill itself wasn't broken in the first place.
Cheap items gave cheap phlogiston, what was wrong about the system?

And who cares about the XP to level the skill, it's a one-time thing. Once you got it maxed you're done. If that was the point in the first place, giving less xp for lower level item distills would have fixed it without clogging our inventories and making me scratch my head when I logged in and went to the legacy vendor to find out what to trade my prisms for.

[cr00cy]

I play solo liek 99% of the time, most, if not all of my friends list is inactive, same for my guild. I had almost no problem with obtainign gear for my level. I was able to farm in gazluk with no winter set in lv 60 gear. When enterign new lv range i sualy replace my old pices slowly if i find somethign good, then craft myself whole set when i reach amx lv.

Only way i can see for peopel to have trouble gettign gear is if they rush to max lv, which is kinda pointless - you can level up just fine when farming for gear or mats for crafting.

About storage - i have problems only when i wnat top hoard lots of mats to go on crafting spree (liek i did when flower arrangmend, or brewign came out). I can fit everythign i use in marna and hulon - plus few more things in ARhu. And still most of my storage is filled with stuff i keep just in case i will need it. SO yeh i keep mats for LW, BS Carpentry, agumentation, transumtation, cooking, several stacks of stuff for brewing and flower arrangemd (for when i fianlly decide to level them up), plus almost all lv of mushrooms, just in case i will need them for something, AND tons of diffrent crap that i will probably never use but keep it just in case.

So im always suprised when peopel claim that they hoard only what they need, and still dont have neough storage.

[Khaylara]

Just to clarify I have more than enough storage and carry around a set of amazing cloth gear with full pockets. Also amazing max enchanted yellow set of winter gear and a spare evasion set (also yellow max enchanted level 70).

Now that I 'm done showing off, how many have such gear? I can cope solo in Gazluk, very hard and with many deaths solo GK entrance. How many can do that? That's what I mean by lack of accurate feedback. Naku and Niph are also old players (btw lol how did you manage in Gazluk w/o winter gear?! White wolf or?...). The majority don't have 50+ pockets to carry all the byproducts of transmute and distill, or the ability to solo lvl 70 mobs. So they're gonna have to farm KT or panthers to destruction if they have any hope to one day be able to reroll the mods on their gear or add an extra mod. Everyone is aware I suppose that dropped gear (including epic and legendary) is very hard to use w/o customizing it.

I don't want to debate but I feel that the changes made to 2 generic trade skills (transmutation and augmentation) were unnecessary and they had a negative impact on crafting. The recipe book is now even more annoying to use. Instead of streamlining the existing recipes it feels like going back in time towards the old type of augmentation oils when you hade to look for few minutes to find the right recipe and got loads and loads of useless junk as result. That is just my opinion.

PS If I'm asked to make gear for someone else I mostly likely won't. Mostly because I don't keep lower level mats and the max enchant things (like vervadium, spruce, amazing skins) I tend to need myself. I am generally a helpful player but it seems like the days when we made free stuff and gave it away at the well are gone.
In fact it might sound selfish but it would be good if everyone stopped giving away freebies, crafting from their own stash etc. We need to see how the game economy works (or doesn't work) if lower level players are doing everything by themselves. We need to see if there's a market for crafted items. I know most of us got help even if small but this type of small village economy is not going to work applied to a large player base. Tbh I think feedback coming from players like myself is rather useless overall, we need to see if these changes work for newer players. Augmentation and transmutations are individual skills, everyone has to do them alone at some point so we need to see how that works. Maybe I'm wrong not liking the recent changes so more feedback from newer players who are doing that now would be great.

[Tagamogi]

Before I get distracted again:



One question on my behalf is I do not understand blacksmithing and armor manufacturing. Is there a difference, will it get an upgrade.

I believe we are supposed to get a new armor smithing skill in the future. Some of the current blacksmithing recipes, like the werewolf armor, will then be moved to the new armor smithing skill. This is fairly old information - I don't recall seeing anything new on this topic recently.


On to augmentation: As someone who doesn't use augmentation or transmutation much, I tentatively like the changes (minus the storage and needing to figure out which prism to use for what). I have been vaguely leveling augmentation and keeping all the materials for whenever I feel inclined to actually mess with my gear. The net result of that to date is approximately a dozen augments ever extracted, maybe 4 applied to gear, and 12,000+ assorted ornaments/contraptions/thingies in my alt storage. I think the new division will help me let go of lower level ornaments a bit better since there is no longer any point in hoarding them for my "best ever" gear.

I'd like to see a reduction in phlogiston types - it would be nice if there were only 3 types of phlogiston that span the same level ranges as augmentation. I can't keep all the different phlog types straight, so it seems simpler to just ignore the lower levels entirely rather than guess what type of phlogiston I might need if I wanted to change something on level 25-35 gear. (Yes, the item workbench will tell me, if I have the item and if I'm near the workbench, neither of which is necessarily the case when I'm trying to decide how useful a handful of rough phlogiston is going to be to me.)

Edit: Also how about just a single generic "remove augment" recipe that works on augments, shamanic infusion, blacksmithing armor enhancements, and whatever else is out there? Preferably using a simple, easily obtainable ingredient, or maybe even just plain old cash, so people don't need to hoard that.

[cr00cy]

Cold resistance potions, campfires and blnakets. Lost and lots of blankets. Tough right now i carry 2 sets with me - one winter for traveling/gathering in gazluk/kur and wolf armor for farming caves.

Problem with changes to skills -crafting or combat - is that you are not ment to achive amx lv fast. or at least i see it like that. For example, i often see people asking how to level fastes (or used to see - dont have time to play too much recently). And this is wrong mindset. You are not suposed to rush to max lv -you are supposed to take it slow, leveling other skills alongside your combat ones. Or at least it how i see it.

But i understnad why people try to rush to max lv - its what absicly every other mmo is about. In most, probaly every, other mmos you will get gear enough for your lv from quests/DF. Its not the cause in PG.

I agree with you Khay that feedback on many things form old-timers like us might be not most valuable - but i dont think its useless. For example, after last update i amd enew char to test chnages to newbioe areas. And im progresing much faster than i did when i started my 1st char. Not because i have any help (i didnt and wont give anythign form my main to this one) but because i know what to focus on.

And this is main problem imo. Progression in Pg is diffrent than in others mmos, so peopel who come here and try to apply knoledge form other games they palyed often fail.

Lastly - i will hold my judgment on changes to transmutation untill much later. Not only its too early to say for sure iof it was good change, abd one, or it didnt matter.
And besides - talkign about newbies and transmutation/agumenation is a bit pointless, considerign that most of them wont be able to learn this skills for quite some time.

[Malice00]

(Quote, please be patient, I am and old geezer and still learning to navigate the quotes and such) Hm, hard to evaluate how other players are doing. I personally would consider the Tower View Cave in Gazluk to be pretty accessible to anyone 60-65+, and that has 3 chests and a named (although the named would be tough at the lower level range). You do not technically need any winter gear to reach the cave, although obviously it helps.

Well I will tell you how I am doing. I am trudging along without using Wikia or guidiance from others. I assume a lot of peeps play that way. I have played with guilds and teams on other games and have a modest disdain for it due to people trying to control my game through proxy leadership. So I am one of the ones who cannot do most of these higher level questing at 74 sword, and 75 shield. I am ok with that, because I am now learning all the basic skills I should have dabbled in earlier. Does it really matter. Not to me, because I am not in competion with anyone else. I sometimes get bored with farming lower level items to get better skills.

In my opinion why in gaming reality would someone want to pay for a game to max it out in a month. I know people who are doing this in AC emulator. Good for them. Stepping back I am o.k. with the game and the intent of the DOR. I probably won't play much if at all later on when all the jerks pay to play and I haver to listen to adolesenct jerks cursing because they earned a horrible curse and can't figure the cure out.

[Khaylara]

Naku-you should know by now I'm not into "fast" at all. I'm probably the slowest older player. What I'm also not into is "tedious and feeling like a real life job", imo we had enough repetitive things to do w/o adding some very disorganised and frankly -in my opinion- useless recipes.

Same thing for both crafts I'm complaining about -simplify them to a single type of material as outcome (prisms, phlogiston or baubles) but high level items should yield a higher amount whilst low level items should yield a very small amount of all 3 mats. I just went to Nexus and I'm lucky to have patient guildmates, takes ages to sift through the transmutation recipes and drag the right item into the right window, it's annoying as.

Notice I didn't (ever probably) complain about combat skills nerfs, those can be unpleasant but necessary. The craft skills change is odd.


@Malice/Drizzt off topic but guilds in this game don't have much importance beyond socializing. From my experience nobody tried to tell me how to play or what to do. I've been in only one guild so far so my experience is limited but I didn't encounter that kind of issue.

[Sasaki]

Ugh. Every time you guys make these kinds of changes I really want to jump back into the game to test it out. I guess I'll try harder to be interested in the game even though I'll have to reroll once Fae comes out. I've kind of been waiting for that, but these changes are big enough that I feel like it's worth it to jump in and at least take a look around, if nothing more than for feedback.

I'll be playing a bunch tomorrow. Maybe make a new character and try to cheese or glitch things as much as possible in the newbie dungeon to see if anything is easy to break :P

[Deiko]

I want to echo ErDrick's commentary, which perhaps deserves a separate thread, despite being the stated reason for the Archery rebalance in this patch. Characters who are not tightly focused on maximized dps are at an extreme disadvantage at the moment: both tanks and "support" builds (which typically means healers, but here also means rage management and theoretically crowd control-focused builds).

Broadly speaking, there are two sets of problems. One is numeric, related to character skills and mob values. The other is institutional, and will be more challenging to fix. Note that these are NOT exclusive problems at the endgame, or in Gaz Keep. Small groups of characters can get a preview of these problems in the first floor of Kur Tower, the elemental wing of Goblin Annex, and to a lesser extent in Borghild. They are under-reported as problematic experiences because, I believe, relatively few players are: 1) grouping for content, 2) grouping exclusively with appropriately-leveled players rather than overleveled and/or overgeared characters, and 3) experiencing content with builds not intended to maximize dps.

Numeric problems
The numeric problems are the easiest to understand, and the most likely to be corrected through simple balance passes. Tank builds, up to and including staff/shield, do not generate competitive aggro in AE situations (single target threat is pretty good). Healing skills, across the board, do not heal enough to support sustained combat; they are either trickle heals an order of magnitude too small or appropriate heals with far too long of cooldowns to sustain the role. Rage management is perhaps too good in 1v1, but is absolutely incapable of combating more than 2 characters' rage generation, rendering it largely valueless in group play.

At the same time, most mobs in group content environments are highly front loaded. Low HP, very high damage. That starts as obviously as Zombie packs in Kur Tower.

Note that in content intended for solo play, these are less substantive problems. Tank builds at level do just fine in overworld zones, in pre-Annex Goblin Dungeon, and even ironically in Kur Graveyard. The same is true of many support builds. They kill more slowly, which has troubling secondary effects, but they play according to their function. As you advance to harder dungeons, and attempt group play (again, at-level) the numeric challenges become increasingly profound. Characters cannot tank for appreciable amounts of time, both because they cannot hold AE threat and because they cannot be healed against inbound damage.

Institutional Problems
These might matter more. Foremost here is the repop-by-pack mechanism. This mandates constant group movement. In part as a consequence of the numeric problems, being at ground zero for the respawn of 3, 4, or 6 simultaneous enemies is almost invariably fatal. Also, repop rates are often fast even without burying, and appear stridently unpredictable.

This prevents "camping" in the traditional MMO sense. It also severely affects bard support features, which require motionlessness. It also has knock on effects for tanks; it is literally easier for damage focused players to burn down groups than for tanks to acquire snap aggro in your 4 new friends.

At its core, Staff is an interesting and enjoyable build. Shield has well designed elements. Bard is a philosophically interesting support character. But in reality, the durability of Staff is perhaps best employed to "buy time" against attackers in order to apply damage, rather than to tank. Shield is a deeply disappointing support tree (perhaps except for the stun, but again, 1v1 is not the concern here). And bard has crippling movement limitations coupled with a trickle heal that simply does not scale (and so I suspect the class is largely used for its large damage AE, which has other, chain aggro flavored, concerns).

It is telling that the most-discussed Psychology ability is You Were Adopted. That bards are cited for their large radius AE damage source. And that druids are lauded for the AE damage enabler that is modded Rotskin (and for flight, an unrelated concern). There is, to my knowledge, essentially no content with enough HP, at any level, to require a concerted effort at sustain to defeat in a full group at appropriate gear. And, indeed, such content would be impossible at current enemy output levels.

While that holds true, adjusting Archery will not solve the player obsession with damage uber alles. If Archery is nerfed sufficiently, something else will take its place. Making tanks and support characters appealing as group members requires first making it more possible to perform those roles, and then making a place where doing so is beneficial.

[Niph]

I 100% agree with the above post. And yeah it should have its own thread, but there has been such threads in the past. I guess we still need patience.

[jaspen]

Sorry for the upcoming blocks of text...

I agree we need more feedback and discussions from a larger variety of players. The problem we often have is people tend to innocently judge others based on what they personally can do, what they know or their goals. Perhaps someone doesn’t hunt Gazluk or its dungeons because the dungeons are lackluster and bland, they find the cold depressing or they have visual/physical impairments and prefer fighting less threatening and easier to manage mobs. Maybe someone “hordes” because they like helping players, just starting out trying to raise favor, cooking, saving mats for gear, etc. or they do work orders because they like feeling like a merchant or they love cooking a large variety of meals not for the power of the food but for the role play aspect. Perhaps someone hunts lower level areas because they enjoy the layout of the dungeons, the creature types or look of the landscape, maybe they don’t want to stay in one spot killing over and over and want to roam and explore everything from Serb all the way to Rahu. That guy may choose DPS not for bragging rights and big numbers but because he wants to be self-sufficient, he doesn’t group because he has a kid that he constantly has to stop playing to tend to, his play time is during off peak hours or his goals lead to places others do not want to hunt. Maybe some people race to the top because there is limited population in their level range or they want to be able play with an existing friend. Then you have skill related situations were some people can solo Pask with relative ease yet a small group of like level players wipe to him.

I am sure we all know and are aware of the above but it is good to be reminded. I see a lot of post about I don’t have this problem, I don’t see why the player does not do this or that, or claim everyone does something because of simple X reason and so forth. Some problems are solved by knowledge and others are personal playstyles that aren’t right or wrong. It isn’t always black and white.

Concerning the new augmentation/transmutation change… I do agree, when possible, it is nice to keep over powered players out of the newbie friendly spots as to not unintentionally grief other players. Could we not simply have the augmentation exp and item returns be based off the skill level and not the recipe? You can still have all the recipes you want, hopefully adding in the master ones I mentioned earlier, but the returns are based off skill. A short simple example is when I have 60 augmentation skill and I decompose a level 10 item, I get nothing but maybe a little exp. This would allow newbies to still get normal prisms and still be able to have something they can sell to higher level players. It would also reduce the clutter both in inventory, mules and on the vendors. Keep in mind as the level raises I assume even more Prisms, baubles and whatnot will be coming down the pipe.

[kazeandi]

This is gonna be long with no tl;dr.

I'm not an old player.
Been in this game for 3 or 4 months now and still in the middle of getting my skills up there, always strapped for cash with gear way below my level.
My main build is Fire with either Druid (for grouping) or Animal Handling (for solo). Fire and AH are max, but my gear is lvl 60.

What I spent most of my energy on was trying out things. I'm the type of player with a deep aversion to everything gathering/crafting, but had to do both for substantial amounts of time, which greatly diminished the fun factor for me. I did it because I had to. You need a source of money and the first choice for that was Transmutation. When I could break down all types and got favor with Sie Antry and her friend, the value of phlogiston was nerfed to nothingness. Picked up Skinning/Tanning, which replaced Transmutation as primary source of money.
I don't mind farming for money or things that directly (almost) translate to cash, but Surveying, for example, is a huge timesink that's not fun at all for me. I do it sometimes in bursts to stock up on the stuff I want, but I dread it every time.
I just got Armor Augmentation to 20 and still can't get any of the others, because the thought of engaging in the other needed crafting professions makes me want to quit.

I came to this game for the sense of freedom and adventure, for the impression the guidance-less systems left on me. To try out skill templates, collect interesting gear, find ways to have fun in multiple ways. Some of the design decisions however, like the absolute need to craft, or the concept of "advanced", hard to obtain/level skills, are putting a damper on it every time.

Wanted to play Bard, because I find support roles fun. Getting beyond 50 was a pain already (bought a primer for 60k after 3 days of disappointing corpse speaking, after boring Goblinese grinding), then found out you need Flower Arrangement, for which you need Gardening at 50 plus a ton of seeds of all kinds, and that's where I gave up. I find crafting bad enough, please don't make me play a Facebook game in order to obtain the unlock for a completely unrelated combat skill. Every Bard being a top notch gardener and flower arranger is not only a very bizarre thought for me - it's clearly an attempt to keep me off the skill, and you succeeded.

I was a pet class player in games like UO, DAoC, WOW, so naturally Necromancy and Animal Handling temptedme. Tried Necro, found it completely unplayable (or rather say, not fun, because it's a) not balanced at all, underpowered and weak, with extremely brittle pets you can only heal with Necro itself and b) full of uncalled for restrictions, such as the need for a graveyard, or the even weaker skull type summons). Gave it up almost immediately after a guildie had helped me get it - which would have been hard by myself.
Decided to go with Animal Handling, despite seeing all the problems the skill had, some of which have been amended somewhat now, some of which completely break the skill in groups (control, handling, aggro, behavior). I guess those problems are harder to fix and even then, pets are still very weak. When I first leveled it, it was considered the weakest combat skill. I would pass that title on to Necro, now that AH stopped being broken for solo, while in groups, AH still out-gimps it easily, with your pet suddenly chasing a buggy, fleeing (for no reason) mob down a crowded hallway, summoning half of the dungeon upon my team.

Psychology was good. Too good for heals even, and for it's uninteresting role as a secondary skill. No need for nukes in that tree, make that an "attack other mobs" skill and a charm and stat debuffs. I say that, because "healing" is not a thing in this game. Heals being weak or on long cooldowns makes playing a healer in groups impossible, while as a "heal pot substitute" solo, it's way, way overpowered, because itakes healing skills a must for skills like sword, hammer etc.

Druid was neither great support (but decent), nor good mainskill soloing power, but it worked fine with other skills.

Bard was good solo, irrelevant and possibly a security risk in groups, and now you nerfed the damage - why even bother with it anymore? It doesn't have meaningful buffs or utility that makes it desirable for groups. Groups are better off with a DD with heals and fear (Psychology). For what you get, it's way too weak. Risk/reward skewed. Obtainability: "bored vet level".

I hit 73 AH first and my gear for it was at best lvl 50ish, because a max level pet doesn't have enough killing power to be the motor of the build. That would be cat, the DD pet, played with a support skill, but it doesn't work out because killspeed being so slow, you'll run out of power before a group of 2 mobs your llevel is down. Bear now tanks a single mob okay-ish and at least distracts the others till I can kill them, but AOE aggro seems low, if it even exists.

So that's my builds now, along with Lycan being on schedule a bit before fullmoon, with either Psych (strong combo) or AH (illusion of a strong build due to my tank pet being 20 lvls higher than me).

As you can see, I experimented a lot, unlocked things like Staff, Mentalism, Shield, but never got to trying Battle Chemistry (brrr, Alchemy, crafting again) or highlevel Bard.
I enjoy farming, minmaxing, thinking of ways to make things work, while disliking the overly strong role of crafting here. Why crafting is even required only to start a skill, and then even more to progress in it I do not know, but it's a big minus for my type of player. Even in cases like Archery, the costs are too high to make it worthwhile. Yes, you can craft your own arrows (brrr, crafting) and farm everything yourself, or you can buy ammo from players if you're lucky and can find long/dense and at an affordable price.

But then I look at Sword and Lycan and think, why even bother when there's easymode skills that don't require expensive leveling, crafting, other PITA things like red books/explosive runes, and can kill everything 10 levels earlier in lowbie gear while being drunk and pressing random buttons?

For Archery you have upkeep costs. Fire costs your left nut and possibly a kidney in the future to level. AH has micromanagement and lacking power. You see where I'm coming from. Not only power, damage isn't balanced in all cases (overall it's not too bad tho), but also PITA-factor.

And now you make Transmutation and Augmentation even more of an item management sub-game.

[Atis]

Ppl are saying that 1v1 is ok, well, its not. With lower dps skills you kill much slower, whole long grind becomes much longer for no benefits. And since you regenerate to full in a few seconds after every fight, all sustain skills (tanking/support) have little value on sologrind. I tried to make it work with different combinations of psych, menta, staff, shield: even on low levels difference is so glaring, I dropped all silly ideas like "play what you enjoy" and started leveling that boring overused Fire. Combat system is clearly favours DPS - 2 dps skills always work better than 2 semi-support ones.

Lowering damage across the board and ofc increasing XP and droprate to compensate for slower killing would not fix everything but help a great deal.

[FURY]

For those of you that wish to continue the discussion on combat as a whole. https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?717-Over-Powered-and-Under-Tuned

[Khaylara]

I think ErdRick put it here because it's somehow connected, at least in the Global convos it was. People are unhappy every time damage gets nerfed(which is okay, part of alpha) for a reason, this reason being players have mainly dps focused builds. Dps only is not encouraging group play (or at least not a group in the traditional sense of it, it's only a bunch of people doing damage to the same target). When changes are made to combat skillsets it would be good to see some aggro boosts, some actual pure healer builds reflected in mods changes etc., not just "boost crits, boost damage, nerf crits, nerf damage". I'm not dismissing the work Citan is putting in development at all but every update people keep complaining about the same things (on Global but idk why not here)-everything about pets (all pets) and second-damage being nerfed .

[Novacat]

What you want to avoid in high/low level interactions is competition yes, but also you want to avoid having no reason to go back. "I need me a pile of X" helps ensure there's higher level traffic in the area so newbies can get escorts and meet the higher ups. "What to do with all those greens" is on the good side of going back and hunting in low level areas, whereas "I also need those copper nodes" is the kind of competition you don't want.

[Deiko]

Ppl are saying that 1v1 is ok, well, its not. With lower dps skills you kill much slower, whole long grind becomes much longer for no benefits. And since you regenerate to full in a few seconds after every fight, all sustain skills (tanking/support) have little value on sologrind. I tried to make it work with different combinations of psych, menta, staff, shield: even on low levels difference is so glaring, I dropped all silly ideas like "play what you enjoy" and started leveling that boring overused Fire. Combat system is clearly favours DPS - 2 dps skills always work better than 2 semi-support ones.

Lowering damage across the board and ofc increasing XP and droprate to compensate for slower killing would not fix everything but help a great deal.

Tanking and to some extent support roles do function in 1v1. They are unquestionably slower to progress, which represents a separate series of problems. But "tanks and healers solo slowly" is an MMO trope that might as well be an axiom at this point. That's not to say it's not a problem (but if they soloed at the same rate, why would solo players not all spec this?). It's not the same magnitude of problem as the fact that they have a dedicated role in group play, which does not currently function.

[Khaylara]

We'll move the conversation suppose but I thought I'd chime in one more time. Reading different posts I realized that different players have different images of a tank.
1. A player who can hold aggro off a group even though their DPS is low, this would be a taunt focus build (imo no combat skillset in PG fulfills that role atm)
2. A "tanky" player-a player with very high defensive stats, mods and playstyle. Kills slower but doesn't die a lot. I doubt anyone goes for that in PG because there's no advantage in it (for an entire combo build). Most of us go for a "tanky" combat skillset as secondary (staff, shield, sometimes staff+shield but staff set as offensive skill). At the moment pretty much everyone plays dps in a form or another.

When I write "tank" I have 1. in mind

[Crissa]

I think one of the biggest problem I've found with tank builds is a lack of skills that control stun, and that you have to trade Taunt for Survivability. It's tough to get the right balance, and since most of that is gear, there's no way I can use an ability to change the mix based upon need.

[Malice00]

Friend Khaylara, my guild reference is beyond the Gorgon world. I have not tried a guild in this game, but I have probed them through boards and in-game. I might not be fair to all the peeps here. It is strickly my opinion, since my guild experience are mostly from other MMO's as a member and guild leader.

To my recollect, I think the largest amount of people I have seen at sign-in daily has been 127 total. While typical it is in the 90's and during the early morning it is around 30ish (eastern standard time). Truth be told, I do not have confidence in society that there will be a shift from the norm. The guilds I have known and some good, most marginal and some really horrid, have all had a common goal. That minimal goal was socializing with some effort to contribute to the guild. I fully agree with you there.

I will be the first to acknowledge and state I am wrong if people who play this game when it goes live are of different mind set or are more mature. But let's face a fact. Most people that will buy this game are gamers who have played AC, WOW, Rift, etc. Same people just a different venue.

[kazeandi]

Sword and Lyca are pretty tanky and don't exactly kill slowly. Fire kills in one big burst, but then you're empty and whatever survives your power bar will make quick work of you.

There's no healer/support template here anyway. Not enough power and cooldowns on heals make that impossible, more so than damage. Heal skills usually have at least 1 big nuke.

[Atis]

but if they soloed at the same rate, why would solo players not all spec this?). It's not the same magnitude of problem as the fact that they have a dedicated role in group play, which does not currently function.
Tanks and healers in PG are hybrids, all their skill lines have plenty damage abilities, many monsters are vulnerable to damage types from those lines. But in other classic MMOs solo tanks and healers and their hybrid versions would at least have better sustain than DPSers. Here being solo DPSer has no drawbacks - first aid and armor patching costs are low and you cant have high DPS skill on sidebar anyway, recovery between fights is fast even with lvl5 food. Changing recovery between fights wont help - ppl will just swap to support loadout and self-heal. So best thing i can think of is to make even solo fights benefit from sustain abilities. And maybe buff tanking skills, right now BC skin buffs beat shielding.

[Roekai]

i dont even know why we are still having this conversation.

evasion, as a matter of fact, would make the mobs do* less damage, make power management more important, tanking and the trinity (group roles) more important, prolong the battles.

dont give me that RNGesus bullshit either, because as long as you aren't a glass cannon and can sustain power, health, and armor over the course of a fight (in my case, almost indefinetly) all missing is going to do is make you more aware of you power management and prolong the fight.

Eyyy VAY shun

[drivendawn]

Is this game being built with trinity mechanics? Or a build it your way and have it balanced based on in pro's and con's of each class? After all this game seems to be built to be more like AC and not EQ.

[srand]

We've just put out a quick hotfix update to address some of the bugs in the August 28 update. You can find the notes on the launcher or in the August 28 Update Notes (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?704-Update-Notes-August-28-2017&p=5789&viewfull=1#post5789) thread.

As a sort of aside, we are actively reading your feedback. But the hotfix came first. :)

[ErDrick]

i dont even know why we are still having this conversation.

evasion, as a matter of fact, would make the mobs do* less damage, make power management more important, tanking and the trinity (group roles) more important, prolong the battles.

dont give me that RNGesus bullshit either, because as long as you aren't a glass cannon and can sustain power, health, and armor over the course of a fight (in my case, almost indefinetly) all missing is going to do is make you more aware of you power management and prolong the fight.

Eyyy VAY shun

If you want evasion so badly go get yourself cursed by Lord Sedgewick , it gives both you and your targets 30% miss chances. I don't think anyone else wants it.

[ErDrick]

Is this game being built with trinity mechanics? Or a build it your way and have it balanced based on in pro's and con's of each class? After all this game seems to be built to be more like AC and not EQ.

It's not about the trinity being necessary , just about it being viable to use "at all". Also about combat being more then a dps check which is all it is right now. Making a build that can defeat a hard opponent is awesome and fun, making a build that can beat said opponent then losing anyways because you simply lose the dps check isn't much fun. Also once you get all your shiny new stuff combat becomes tedious and boring in it's current form. Then the inventory management after combat is also tedious, then a few vendors run out of cash so you have to travel halfway across the world to sell stuff and that's tedious, then you level up a skill but oh guess what....you need favor and cash for the unlock, more tedium...it's just too much, combat is one of the main places where it could be spiced up.

Also, he keeps nerfing dps specs which is understandable, except that dps is also forced with no alternatives because of how the current systems works...nerfing the solution to the problem, basically, instead of the problem. ( edit here- I actually have no problem with the nerfs btw, I am currently main specced for archery and got hit the hardest, I played around with it a bit though and it's really not a big deal to me.. I mean, nerfs are going to happen in a testing phase and even in a finished product....but I also noticed chat was full of non-stop complaints about the nerfs which is what brought me here. It's not the nerfs themselves but what they are a symptom of, and why they were even noticed in the first place).

I'm not trying to get things changed in such a way as tanks and healers will be required, what I want is for combat to be engaging and fun in a group setting, nothing says you cant still use 6 dps specced people for that combat...current system of "you die in 10 seconds unless all your adversaries die before those 10 seconds" just isn't fun, mostly because no matter what other mechanics are present it's basically the same dps check in every group fight in every dungeon.

Honestly I don't even like having to say things like this in a public forum because I have nothing but the utmost respect for Citan and all the effort he puts into this game...But at the same time, I want to see it succeed, so I must speak up sometimes.... Stuff has been going in a direction of excessive tedium for a long time now ( and yes I know I keep reusing that word). He needs to know before it gets completely out of hand.

Favor grind is pretty bad but understandable ( it is my hope that when the game is more fleshed out most favor grinds will be quest lines instead of random gifting).

Inventory tetris is also pretty bad, but he knows and I am seeing some improvements to it. ( storage nubs, milk stacks now etc).

Reducing our cash flow sucks for us as testers because an obscene grind is now required to unlock and try more skills, but I can understand it because I assume he wants to see how the economy will work in the finished product, and it seems like it will be in a decent place for a long time once that happens.

But....combat is just borked as soon as you get into content that is designed for more then 1 person, and that can be fixed.

[drivendawn]

It's not about the trinity being necessary , just about it being viable to use "at all". Also about combat being more then a dps check which is all it is right now. Making a build that can defeat a hard opponent is awesome and fun, making a build that can beat said opponent then losing anyways because you simply lose the dps check isn't much fun. Also once you get all your shiny new stuff combat becomes tedious and boring in it's current form. Then the inventory management after combat is also tedious, then a few vendors run out of cash so you have to travel halfway across the world to sell stuff and that's tedious, then you level up a skill but oh guess what....you need favor and cash for the unlock, more tedium...it's just too much, combat is one of the main places where it could be spiced up.

Also, he keeps nerfing dps specs which is understandable, except that dps is also forced with no alternatives because of how the current systems works...nerfing the solution to the problem, basically, instead of the problem. ( edit here- I actually have no problem with the nerfs btw, I am currently main specced for archery and got hit the hardest, I played around with it a bit though and it's really not a big deal to me.. I mean, nerfs are going to happen in a testing phase and even in a finished product....but I also noticed chat was full of non-stop complaints about the nerfs which is what brought me here. It's not the nerfs themselves but what they are a symptom of, and why they were even noticed in the first place).

I'm not trying to get things changed in such a way as tanks and healers will be required, what I want is for combat to be engaging and fun in a group setting, nothing says you cant still use 6 dps specced people for that combat...current system of "you die in 10 seconds unless all your adversaries die before those 10 seconds" just isn't fun, mostly because no matter what other mechanics are present it's basically the same dps check in every group fight in every dungeon.

Honestly I don't even like having to say things like this in a public forum because I have nothing but the utmost respect for Citan and all the effort he puts into this game...But at the same time, I want to see it succeed, so I must speak up sometimes.... Stuff has been going in a direction of excessive tedium for a long time now ( and yes I know I keep reusing that word). He needs to know before it gets completely out of hand.

Favor grind is pretty bad but understandable ( it is my hope that when the game is more fleshed out most favor grinds will be quest lines instead of random gifting).

Inventory tetris is also pretty bad, but he knows and I am seeing some improvements to it. ( storage nubs, milk stacks now etc).

Reducing our cash flow sucks for us as testers because an obscene grind is now required to unlock and try more skills, but I can understand it because I assume he wants to see how the economy will work in the finished product, and it seems like it will be in a decent place for a long time once that happens.

But....combat is just borked as soon as you get into content that is designed for more then 1 person, and that can be fixed.

I only said so because others brought it up but can understand what you are saying. Honestly I like things you have to work for and gives you a sense of accomplishment and makes it so there is more to do instead of just skilling up in a matter of weeks. However maybe make some other ways to begin training past 50,60, and so on would be a cool thing, like epic quests or named monster hunts for that lvl. Honestly once you bring up a number of vendors favor and sell stuff in the market money isn't a problem at all but it is harder starting out so maybe make some of the early vendors easier to get favor with would be a good idea?I do like the idea of more quests for favor on npc's as you said. :)

As for ways to make combat more engaging besides add kite/mez would probably "IMO" be more damage nerf across the board(the world is to easy to solo and needs more danger to me) and make boss mobs (especially in dungeons) power moves more devastating to make rage management a higher priority. Also saving achieving extra lvls for battle skills at launch for when you hit the 100 cap or only allow so many as you lvl will make people less OP while going threw the lower lvl group dungeons.

[kazeandi]

As for ways to make combat more engaging besides add kite/mez would probably "IMO" be more damage nerf across the board(the world is to easy to solo and needs more danger to me) and make boss mobs (especially in dungeons) power moves more devastating to make rage management a higher priority. Also saving achieving extra lvls for battle skills at launch for when you hit the 100 cap or only allow so many as you lvl will make people less OP while going threw the lower lvl group dungeons.

The world isn't "too easy to solo and needs more danger". The enemy strength vs the characters are just fine.
Of course, if you go to Eltibule at lvl 30 and Kur at 50, things might feel that way.
If you're a veteran who knows what abilities to get mods for, or even which of the abilities in a skill work best together, the game becomes a lot easier. But it's not the case initially.

It doesn't have much to do with how much players deal either, those numbers only have to be in balance among the skills. What needs to be done is more mob HP, while lowering mob damage output. And that's only for elite mobs and some bosses in dungeons.
Solo content outdoors is just fine. The classes with their cooldowns work well.


Making a build that can defeat a hard opponent is awesome and fun, making a build that can beat said opponent then losing anyways because you simply lose the dps check isn't much fun. Also once you get all your shiny new stuff combat becomes tedious and boring in it's current form. Then the inventory management after combat is also tedious, then a few vendors run out of cash so you have to travel halfway across the world to sell stuff and that's tedious, then you level up a skill but oh guess what....you need favor and cash for the unlock, more tedium...it's just too much, combat is one of the main places where it could be spiced up.

This is the main problem in this game, everything is such a pain in the ass, and sometimes for no good reason. I don't think nerfing damage is the best way to get it right.
- Getting rid of the "total respawn" mechanic is a good way, make mobs come back one by one.
- The shout mechanics are nice for some mobs, but for others, I don't know why they're even there. Wolves hunt in packs, but panthers? Social aggro should be restricted to social mobs, not to everything of the same sort or sometimes, everything in range.
- Dragging fights out by raising mob HP, while simultaneously lowering power costs of all abilities would make fights longer (and therefore more prone to mistakes, which makes them more difficult by default). You can then either tone mob damage down or shorten heal cooldowns.

In fights right now, it's not a lack of balance that ruins it, it's that you have to rush forward, respawns breathing down your neck, a lack of a proper resurrection spell and at lower levels (the 20s would be nice, to support grouping for dungeons at appropriate levels). Pets rushing in and pulling additional mobs is a pain.

The shout mechanic also doesn't make sense in some situations. Like when you want to pull, say, the mob in the middle first for strategic reasons, but can't get it to aggro by proximity without pulling something else, too, so you mez the mob that's in the way - now the mob shouts and they all come. Mez puts a mob to sleep and shouldn't lead to a shout, only damage should.

Then we have mob spawn design problems, like the first intersection in Wolf Cave, with a stream of mobs patrolling through, which is the most difficult part of the dungeon right at the start. Another example would be Kur Tower, where you have those large packs of zombies, melee skeletons and skeleton mages. Once you break through those places, it gets easier, when I'd anticipate a dungeon to start easy and then gradually get harder. Right now it's, if you can do the entrance, you're fine for all the trash.

[ErDrick]

srand I know you guys read our feedback, it's the first thing I tout about you as a development team to anyone whom I recommend this game to, it's where you really shine. It's also 100% of the reason I even bothered going through the trouble of typing it out. I have a question for you though.

Do you guys still have a test server available like you used to?

What I would like to test:

Copy 6 characters from live to that server, send them to Gazluk Keep. Increase elite mob health in Gazluk keep by 1000%, decrease their outgoing damage by 50%. Change respawn mechanics to single ( one at a time based on when they were killed...certain mobs could still multi-spawn, such as the guys that only have 2k health and don't 4 shot you) See how that plays out and use it as a baseline. I think that would be pretty damn close to solving a lot of issues with group combat...but may need some numbers tweaking, only way to know would be to actually be able to try it.

If that's too difficult to code zone-wide a smaller 1 hallway dungeon with similar mobs would also work...I don't know if either of those are even possible anymore but I'll never know if I don't ask right? Worst case scenario we could just gather 6 people in a random place and have you chain spawn a new mob you make just for this purpose I'd imagine....doesn't matter what it looks like, they could be 200k health chickens for all I care.

Couple random thoughts only loosely related:

We need a summon group member skill, for when you are an hour deep in a dungeon and 2 people have to leave but the other 4 would like to continue..something like a reverse teleport that only works on group members in the same zone with a very long cooldown( 30 minutes or so). Having it cast upon you would also trigger your own cooldown to prevent 1 person chain-summoning a whole group by themselves though.

We need "safe spots" every so often in all dungeons, there needs to be places where everyone can safely take 5 without it being a disaster, preferably at 30 minute intervals...just one empty room.

When you mesmerize a monster, it needs to be invulnerable to all damage for at least 5 seconds so it isn't instantly broken, most people do not even load a mesmerize ability anymore for group play because it is 99% useless....I am not exaggerating when I say this. ( Another solution to that is social macros like everquest had, where you can tie a line of text to the activation of an ability " mezzing (target) , you break it you tank it" etc. But that would require the new UI to have that functionality).

------------
Finally I would like to thank the people who took the time to respond and add their own thoughts to this important issue of group combat. Incidentally some other good points were made by them as well.

[Silvonis]

Do you guys still have a test server available like you used to?



The only test server is our current 'main' server. We no longer have the secondary test server, but it may make a return in the future.

[Niph]

I Tested the altar of Tast, in Gazluk City. It correctly rejects non-HC players with a message saying you must be in hardcore mode to use the altar. Once HC, I could use it, and it gave me the buffer (Tast's Boon, +5% to Max Health and Max Power). Then I died (in GK, not very smart but I managed to get back to my tomb) and sure enough the buff was gone.

However, if you return as HC to get the buff again, then turn off hardcore mode in Serbule, the buff stays. I'm not sure if intended or not, but worth mentioning. Serbule is just one word of power away...

[srand]

(P.S. - I have mentioned all of this and more in feedbacks in-game, but I don't know what you have or haven't read, also I have more room here)

It's handy to have in-game feedback reports - makes it easier for us to compile everything in a form we can track and check off as we make changes. But you should always feel free to post here in addition or instead, because there is a lot more space here, better formatting, and you can also get other players' input.



I have updated my parser to version 288 (search this board for "Json Parser").

Excellent!



When is a new ui going to be introduced? Surely it's going to be the biggest source of bugs/fixes? Or are you planning on going to Steam w/ the current UI?

We plan to launch the new UI before Steam. We're working hard on it internally and hope to have it out very soon now. (I can tell you from experience that it's not quite playable yet.)



This looks like a P2P-typical scheme to make players buy inventory upgrades - only that there's no such cash shop (yet?):

Do you mean play-to-win? We will never be P2W; Citan has an abhorrence of that style of game. The optional subscription will give you access to some special things, and if I am remembering correctly there will be a cash shop as well, but we are very much talking about things that aren't necessary to 'win' - cosmetic items, convenience items.



For those of you that wish to continue the discussion on combat as a whole. https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?717-Over-Powered-and-Under-Tuned

Great idea! It can be tricky to sort out several detailed conversations in these discussion threads. (We want the discussion! And this is a fine place to do it! But when one set of feedback gets really detailed, sorting out it and having it all in one place can really help us keep up! But we will manage either way! And that is too many exclamations!)



I Tested the altar of Tast, in Gazluk City.

We got your in-game report! Thanks, Niph. I know we don't have a lot of hardcore players yet, so it's handy that you tested it out. :)

[Niph]

I don't know if it happened after the patch or the hotfix, but Gazluk Keep seems much darker now.

[kazeandi]

Do you mean play-to-win? We will never be P2W; Citan has an abhorrence of that style of game. The optional subscription will give you access to some special things, and if I am remembering correctly there will be a cash shop as well, but we are very much talking about things that aren't necessary to 'win' - cosmetic items, convenience items.

What's a "convenience" item? 5 inventory slots for $20?

[Roekai]

cash shop =/

[Atis]

Do you mean play-to-win? We will never be P2W; Citan has an abhorrence of that style of game. The optional subscription will give you access to some special things, and if I am remembering correctly there will be a cash shop as well, but we are very much talking about things that aren't necessary to 'win' - cosmetic items, convenience items.

P2W items always go as convenience. It's sure convenient to have 2x storage space in a game where storage is easily the most useful thing, that can save you hours of time every week. Or slots on hotkey bars. Or extra teleport binds. Or...
Citan might want to rethink that "convenience" part.

[drivendawn]

To me p2w is buying gear or weapons or even things that give direct access to getting those items.

[kazeandi]

To me p2w is buying gear or weapons or even things that give direct access to getting those items.

That would play a role in a PVP game, where gear is the central focus. It's a different case here. We have lots of inconvenient factors to combat, the whole game is based on "if you want X, then do Y first, but for that, you need Z and (insert 5 random trash items) per step". Part of this is fun, because you have to plan out your route, whereas execution sometimes isn't. Inventory management is a huge factor here, as is vendor juggling. The crafting systems are designed in a way that make you want to be self-sustaining (because of interdependence), many people here craft all their stuff themselves and have all crafts leveled or in queue for later.

In such a scenario, 5 more inventory or 10% faster plant growth or 10% bonus foraging is worth more than a better weapon or armor, because, all in all, combat is not the only big thing here.

So, when devs talk about "only convenience items", all the red flags rise at once. Not because I think this particular dev is malevolent, but because I've been burnt more than once by such talk. Where convenience ends and P2W starts is constant subject of debate.

[srand]

Firstly, my sincere apologies - I am mis-remembering about a cash shop. (This is why I use caveats when I am wandering into conversations; I am very much capable of getting it wrong! But I will always try to correct myself when I find out.) :) In this case, I was getting confused with what I know about the optional VIP subscription ... which, admittedly, isn't at all pinned down yet.

So I'll just re-iterate the basics that I am very certain about: Citan abhors P2W and has no intention of taking development in that direction. The optional VIP subscription will really help illuminate that line, I think ... when we have more details on that. :)

But as you know and probably get tired of hearing, we are very early in development and not everything can happen at once. So in the meantime we can only be very upfront with you about our goals - and we try to do that. And this is as true of game systems like Skills and combat as it is true of anything else.

... Which brings us back to the rest of the discussion thread! :)




kazeandi: I am glad you don't think we're actively malevolent.

[drivendawn]

Firstly, my sincere apologies - I am mis-remembering about a cash shop. (This is why I use caveats when I am wandering into conversations; I am very much capable of getting it wrong! But I will always try to correct myself when I find out.) :) In this case, I was getting confused with what I know about the optional VIP subscription ... which, admittedly, isn't at all pinned down yet.

So I'll just re-iterate the basics that I am very certain about: Citan abhors P2W and has no intention of taking development in that direction. The optional VIP subscription will really help illuminate that line, I think ... when we have more details on that. :)

But as you know and probably get tired of hearing, we are very early in development and not everything can happen at once. So in the meantime we can only be very upfront with you about our goals - and we try to do that. And this is as true of game systems like Skills and combat as it is true of anything else.

... Which brings us back to the rest of the discussion thread! :)




kazeandi: I am glad you don't think we're actively malevolent.

Thank you for the clarification on that Srand. :)

[Khaylara]

Since the conversation seems derailed towards pay 2 win, I doubt we'll ever have that in P:G. Additional character slots for a small sub is not p2w. P2w is being able to buy items from the cash shop/with cash shop currency that can never/very rarely be obtained via playing. I.e. on a private server pay $ 100 and get an enchanted +10 weapon when just by playing you can't get more than say +4. That's my definition for pay 2 win-special pets, special gear, skills that can't be obtained simply by playing.

Convenience in my books is "do a quest to become a wolf or pay to have a character directly wolf" (this is actually in a kickstarter package). Yes, you don't waste 1 hour on becoming lycan, you conveniently get it by default cause you paid for it. Is that "winning"? No, it's convenient but it's not obtainable only via cash shop. Same goes for (future) mounts. You can do a quest to get one or get one by purchasing a package. It's not package exclusive item.

kazeandil and Atis (sorry but since i was blocked ingame there's no other way to adress them) - srand avoids being blunt but me as a part of this community I would like to ask you both to rethink the tone of your posts and your in-game rants. Criticizing is one thing but insinuating that the devs impose limitations so they can cash on them is kinda offensive. Me personally as a player dislike it as in 3 years of playing I learned that much about them-it's a passion project not a cash cow.

[kazeandi]

kazeandi: I am glad you don't think we're actively malevolent.

Ubisoft or EA are (releasing half a game, rest via DLC), or certain f2p publishers (read up on the shops in Archeage or BDO), those would be cases where the policy seems to be "milk em till they topple over".

I do think though that the base of this game is busywork. Time- and moneysinks in abundance, and selling ways to circumvent that would imply that all this is made the way it is as incentives for buyers.

I'm sure you don't want that, but in order to avoid it, you have to redefine what "convenience" means for PG. That's why I'm being such an annoying commenter.

[kazeandi]

Khaylara i don't imply they do it, i mention that it looks like that's the intention and if they want to avoid it, they have to be careful.

Btw, you're not blocked ingame (or /unignore doesn't work properly), i'm just not online, is all. Not that i'd want to take forum discussions into the game when i am. Too busy clicking my way to gardening 50 :/

[Atis]

Since the conversation seems derailed towards pay 2 win, I doubt we'll ever have that in P:G. Additional character slots for a small sub is not p2w. P2w is being able to buy items from the cash shop/with cash shop currency that can never/very rarely be obtained via playing. I.e. on a private server pay $ 100 and get an enchanted +10 weapon when just by playing you can't get more than say +4. That's my definition for pay 2 win-special pets, special gear, skills that can't be obtained simply by playing.

Convenience in my books is "do a quest to become a wolf or pay to have a character directly wolf" (this is actually in a kickstarter package). Yes, you don't waste 1 hour on becoming lycan, you conveniently get it by default cause you paid for it. Is that "winning"? No, it's convenient but it's not obtainable only via cash shop. Same goes for (future) mounts. You can do a quest to get one or get one by purchasing a package. It's not package exclusive item.

kazeandil and Atis (sorry but since i was blocked ingame there's no other way to adress them) - srand avoids being blunt but me as a part of this community I would like to ask you both to rethink the tone of your posts and your in-game rants. Criticizing is one thing but insinuating that the devs impose limitations so they can cash on them is kinda offensive. Me personally as a player dislike it as in 3 years of playing I learned that much about them-it's a passion project not a cash cow.
First things first. I ONLY answered to that "convenience in cashshop" remark. srand may not be aware how jaded mmo veterans can take this line. Whatever insinuations you heard are on you. Also what was that about ingame block? i dont have any.

Now for the rest. "Pay or do quest" implies 2 things - quest is so bad ppl would like to pay to avoid it, you can pay your way through hardships and limitations. Since grinding is only thing you can do in P:G and only available "win" is to progress further, paid speed up would be p2w. All those excuses "but nothing is paywalled, you can grind for 5 years 24/7 and get item that can be instantly bought in shop" are old and tired.

But since srand corrected himself, we are just having distracting tangents here. No cashshop is planned ATM so nothing to discuss.

[kazeandi]

Also what was that about ingame block? i dont have any.

That was about me putting Khaylara on my ignore list ingame. I've removed her from that list already, but that doesn't mean I wanna sit somewhere and chat about this kind of stuff ingame. My gaming time is limited, forum access is almost always possible.

[Khaylara]

Now for the rest. "Pay or do quest" implies 2 things - quest is so bad ppl would like to pay to avoid it, you can pay your way through hardships and limitations. Since grinding is only thing you can do in P:G and only available "win" is to progress further, paid speed up would be p2w. All those excuses "but nothing is paywalled, you can grind for 5 years 24/7 and get item that can be instantly bought in shop" are old and tired.

But since srand corrected himself, we are just having distracting tangents here. No cashshop is planned ATM so nothing to discuss.

srand is "herself".Your posts and ingame rants are full of negative comments and I shouldn't expect anything else I suppose BUT this is a tad exaggerated even for you. Grind 24/7 for 5 to become lycan or unlock fae? Srsly, does that sound like pay 2 win to anyone else? Cause obviously you've never played a real p2w game lol.


I recommend reading the kickstarter notes and the store packages still available before assuming the worst and spreading it on Global.
srand I hope you guys stay safe and Irma leaves you alone

[kazeandi]

You're overdoing it with the ad hominem here, Khaylara.

[srand]

Thanks, Khaylara, but it's okay. kazeandi, Atis, let's move this back to useful update discussion.

Edited to add the actual important bit: Citan and I may get backhanded by Irma in passing, but we should be fine. And the game servers are not in Florida and shouldn't be affected at all. Fingers crossed. :)

[Arundel]

kazeandil and Atis (sorry but since i was blocked ingame there's no other way to adress them) - srand avoids being blunt but me as a part of this community I would like to ask you both to rethink the tone of your posts and your in-game rants. Criticizing is one thing but insinuating that the devs impose limitations so they can cash on them is kinda offensive. Me personally as a player dislike it as in 3 years of playing I learned that much about them-it's a passion project not a cash cow.

I doubt if these devs would do such a thing considering how they cleared things up earlier in the thread (just a few posts earlier). However, I think it is perfectly fine to be blunt in confronting developers about the threat of P2win type mechanics particularly when they impose large limitations like with inventory in this game. I have had doubts recently and was expecting (til that post from Srand) that they will have these features as something like "$5 for +5 inventory, etc." just because of the heavy limitations in game. This is based on my history with MMO's lately figuring out they can impose limitations and then milk people for money from them.

To question if this will be the case during an Alpha of all things isn't just acceptable, but I would say it is mandatory for us to be blunt if we want a good game. I didn't see anything that was insulting or over-the-top from these posters - I just saw a few guys who are exhausted with P2win mechanics ruining games wanting honest feedback. All that said, I'm feeling safe that the devs will only have these features in the VIP which to my understanding is a once per month fee that gives a set bonus (this is how every other MMO I know of does it). I think that kind of "P2W" is fine because it helps them generate consistent money, which funds the game, and it also cannot be purchased over and over like typical P2W mechanics (as in my example of $5 for 5 inventory, the player buys this 500 times and has infinite space).

Patch feedback: I haven't had time to test the new zones due to work but I am not a fan of the changes that added more prisms and beads. We are already short on inventory and this just made it even more annoying. I don't even understand how this was necessary or improved gameplay at all, I feel this was a waste of development time and didn't help. I'd ask the devs seriously consider reverting it if for no other reason than the absurd amount of inventory these now take up.

[Atis]

srand is "herself".Your posts and ingame rants are full of negative comments and I shouldn't expect anything else I suppose BUT this is a tad exaggerated even for you. Grind 24/7 for 5 to become lycan or unlock fae? Srsly, does that sound like pay 2 win to anyone else? Cause obviously you've never played a real p2w game lol.


I recommend reading the kickstarter notes and the store packages still available before assuming the worst and spreading it on Global.

It seems whole concept of "example" eludes you. Also being surprised that RANTS are negative... were you expecting to see rants like "OMG this game is so good, I dont even.... OOOOOHHHH!!!!!" When something is done right, ppl just go and use it, why would they discuss it extensively? Its natural to discuss flawed parts, because you dont want to use them.

srand
useful update feedback: newbies in genchat sounds more lost after update, at least those who left Anagoge via dungeon. SerbHill NPCs and mob spawns are far from being noob friendly. many just dont understand what CAN they do after dungeon. Skills useful for them are still taught in Serb town, aggro mobs besides spiders are too tough, lack of shops and storage options. If idea was to show them some hardships before getting to safe town, it should be be conveyed more clear, at ELI5 level. Anagoge takes few hours for actual newbie, add an hour or 2 wandering in SH and many players would think they saw enough to judge game. You might lose some positive first impressions with that. I'd suggest to not wait till next big update and add in some dialogs and road signs that clearly point in Serb direction as temporary fix.

[Citan]

Actually, I haven't ruled out selling a few slots. It may happen. But if you think that's what "pay to win" means, you're wrong. Look, this thread already set me off on a bad foot by calling me Hitler -- as you no doubt know, that term "pay to win" is very offensive to game designers, and this thread is already Godwinned. Calling my game p2w shows a deep misunderstanding of what the term means.

P2W means pay to WIN. Have you ever played a p2w game? Try beating the best players in a p2w game without paying lots of cash. You literally can't. P2W means that to be competitive, in whatever form competition takes, you have to pay more.

That is not what's going to happen here.

"But slots are power!" no. Stop it. That argument is nonsense. People don't seem to understand just how many items are in the game, and how many more are coming. At least 1000 more types of items.

Let me repeat: THERE WILL BE AT LEAST 1000 MORE TYPES OF ITEMS. Probably far more than that.

You will not be able to store all the items. Even if you send me $1,000,000 and the deed to your house.

My job as a designer is to convince you to sell your shit. Not hoard it. I am working on tools to help, and that's a major focus on game systems going forward.

I will have tools that show you exactly what each item does, and help you quickly determine if it's something you'll likely need in the near future. If not, you will need to sell it, and I will make it easier to sell your items.

I will NOT be giving you inventory slots to store all the items you want to store. Not ever. I simply can't, and I wouldn't want to if I could. I want you to sell shit, because that's the only way the economy will work.

Why more items? Because it will make your life easier in the long run. As we progress into beta, individual items will fill FEWER roles than they do now, not MORE roles. That will help you make decisions faster. Right now, say you find a piece of worthless green glass, and you know it's used in three or four alchemy recipes. You go "Eh, I may need this some day" and you spend 30 minutes trying to store it somewhere. (Hint: you don't need it.) In the future, the game will make it as clear as I can make it that you should sell it. The green glass won't secretly have a special use at level 502 that compels you to save it forever just in case. All of its uses will be listed when you right-click the item.

I'm hoping that simplifying items' roles will help. But it will also mean there are a lot more items, because we won't reuse items as much. And there are a LOT more skills coming, all of which have their own items. So you will never be able to store all the items you want to store.

If I add a few more storage slots as part of the monthly VIP pass, or some other little thing, it will be a small benefit, and it won't scale -- you won't be able to just keep buying slots. In other words, it will not solve many players' fundamental desire, which is to store literally every single valuable thing you find, and conveniently to boot. You will not be able to do that. If that's a deal-breaker for you, I can accept that, and you should look for another game.

But if your main inventory concern is that it's just hard to manage, I agree, and as I've said before, we're going to improve things. We'll be addressing problems like these:
- it's hard to tell what items will be useful to you in the near term,
- hard to find where you left your stuff,
- hard to find a buyer for your items,
- hard to clear out your inventory quickly so you can go adventuring

Stay tuned and please be patient. We will be working on those problems in lots of ways during beta.

[Khaylara]

Okay (I'm trying to contain my excitement here) so we're going to have an item, let's say "Mutton" and it's gonna be listed on it that it's used for "Lamb roast" and"Mutton leg" and if I don't intend to cook those dishes I can get rid of it? Please say yes and it would be the best thing ever after the storage search function.


(edit-I got rid of tattered books then i had to buy them with 1 to 3 k a pop when I realized what they were for so yup, very exciting news for me)

[SassySusie]

Okay general discussion about the latest update:

When it first came out I was upset (mostly because bat was not ready yet, and the prism and bauble system), but was quickly reminded... I am here for testing a game that is not done yet.

The Prisms and the Bauble system ... my opinion: Its not a bad thing. I Do Carry Medium Prisms and large prisms with me because all I need is Nice Phlog at this time. I do wish it could of been the same kind of prisms for the same Phlog though, it would of simplified things a little bit.

Now I want to give my opinion on Serbule Hills... I brought a new friend into the game today from another game I play. She wanted to pretty much play the game on her own... with very little help. She found her way to the dungeon on starter island... then she says "oh look I found my own way out". Well she was no longer on starter island, she was in Serbule Hills. Everything was killing her, even the rats (IMO there needs to be a certain level in your fighting skills that you reach before you can go through the portal). I went and got her and brought her to Serbule, where she could kill the pigs but at least it was something to help her level. But I will say I enjoyed her going through as a new player this morning, (I was on Discord with her the whole time). Everything was so exciting to her, she loved mushroom gathering.... picking apples... and after she got a saw chopping the wood. I was seriously laughing so hard to hear her running into something new... it was like listening to a kid on Christmas Day (yes she is an adult lol). She was so surprised to hear this game was in Alpha though. "But it is so advanced!"

Okay now that I rambled forever... here is my actual suggestions
First make the prisms the same size for the same kind of phlog
Second make a skill level requirement of some sort to get into Serbule Hills (not like level 3 that she was)
Third Please get Bat done as soon as you can so I can be full time animal :P

Other than that mad respects for the small team that is working on something so large!

[Khaylara]

I forgot the feedback for the new dungeon exit. I made a new character before the update and posted her at that passageway towards the Serbule Hills tunnels (it wasn't working at that time ofc). I logged her there and made my way through spiders and darkness towards Serbule Hills. I was able to kill the stuff there but Serbule itself is a much better choice for newbies. NPC's in Serbule are much more beginner friendly, it's easier to get their favor and most skillsets are beginner friendly. Serbule Hills has...Rappanel and Tyler Greene, none of the combat skillsets being taught by them being very newbie inclined (prerequisites and favor). I tried to get to Serbule portal by dying but I got sent back at the cave entrance every time. The portal is rather hard to see and there's nothing to get a new player's attention towards that spot.

It might mess up with the Lore and the maps a bit but my suggestion is to move the cave opening where the old tutorial cave was (east of Serbule, on the Serbule map). Serbule Hills is more fun now but for a character that's at least level 20 imo.

[Citan]

Khaylara - yep, that's the plan. If you didn't have one of the recipes yet, it might say it's needed for "Unidentified level 40 cooking recipe" or something like that... I haven't decided if it will spoiler undiscovered content or not.

But there will be other tools also. You'll be able to right-click an item and get a list of vendors who will pay full price for it (and have remaining cash to do so), NPCs that it will be an especially-good gift for, and barter options it's needed for.

Eventually we'll have a very robust database, basically, that lets you quickly figure out whether you need the item or not.

[kazeandi]

Citan first things first: nobody calls PG p2w (yet?), what we say is "please don't do X, Y, Z, as that's what p2w games do" - that's a fundamental difference right here and has nothing to do with "calling you Hitler" (that escalated quickly).

Now for your idea of item management and inventory slot sale:

In this game, which is niche, has peaks of 100 players online (and I don't see that becoming 1000, unless you beef up models, animations etc considerably), the economic system is such that you need a certain degree of independence. The market doesn't provide a lot, and what you can get is limited and mostly overpriced (because players are greedy).

You also need crafting skills as direct prerequisites for combat skills. Some (like fletching) are strongly recommended for above-mentioned reasons.
Ergo, everyone will end up with a number of crafting skills to various degrees.

In this case, we have a flood of useful items (and you announced 1000 more), which might be worth a lot (stomach 1200c each anyone?) - you won't throw them away lightly.

Then you have items worth nothing, useful for nobody, like "matted hair", which also contribute to inventory problems (and I mean inventory, not storage). This compounds to a huge pool of drops with many useful items, many of which you will want to pick up.

Now, many people already go around with chest and legs with pockets instead of mods, else their combat sessions would be riddled with inventory overflow all the time. The influx of items/time is bad already and you intend to make it worse.

Sorry, but take your "inventory upgrades are not p2w", stuff it in the next trash bin and sit down to think again.

You don't win against mobs with inventory slots. You don't win against players.

You win against crappy game mechanics, intended to goad you into buying more slots!

Much as you don't like to hear it, this is what you claim not to do: monetizing solutions for intended problems. That's like dropping people in a desert, then selling water at every corner.

I won't tell you how to fix that, because I now came to believe you do know that already and create the situation with eyes wide open, hoping you can deflect criticism by calling your inv slots "convenience items". Call it p2w, convenience, whatever. All that is just semantic. What sticks is the impression of "f2p schemes again".

Don't get me wrong, the game is fun in many ways, else people like me wouldn't bother, and just move on.

I've been paying for subscriptions since UO 1998, $15 a month doesn't hurt me. I will not, however, buy "convenience" via cash shop. All that has to be included in the subscription. Sell me mounts and purple firewalls and gear reskins and extra emotes on top of that and I'm cool with that.

But make sure not to call a mule a horse. We are NOT stupid.
And don't think your "you didn't play real p2w games" was all right, because, frankly, you don't know shit about what we played, how many good games we saw wither away after devs tried to cash in in horrible ways, and returning the "Hitler" love to your preceived enemies doesn't sit well with me. Swapping the victim role can not work when it's you who are in control.

Now that I got that out of my system, I'd like to ask you why you discontinued the coin drops and why everyone HAS to love crafting in this game.
Why is ut that, from 50 onward, you can't progress combat by combat alone anymore?

Examples would be Bard (raise prereqs by making us perform better/more) or Battle Chemistry (diversify Alchemy and make us level through that instead).

You said some of these cases are placeholders. What do you plan to replace them with?

[Citan]

@kazeande - ah, I see what the problem is: you want me to balance the game around the current user population! That's absolutely insane.

First, there's absolutely no reason we can't reach 1000 concurrent users. That's a very modest goal. We had 250+ concurrent users TWO YEARS AGO, the last time we did a small marketing push. Those players ran out of content and wandered away a few months later, and we haven't done much to bring new users in, because the game isn't finished yet. But I am going to finish the game.

And when the game is finished, if we can't get a measly 1000 concurrent users at peak play hour, then the game will have failed, and we will have to shut it all down. We can't even cover costs with the current user base. But I'm not fretting about it right now, because we aren't trying to bring in new players. Because the game is not finished.

So no, I'm not going to spend any time making your life easier right now. I know Alpha is hard because there's no players to buy or sell to. You can either deal with those frustrations, or not, that's up to you.

But seriously. Cut it with the p2w bullshit. Suggesting that a few inventory slots is p2w is VERY insulting. You insinuate you've played p2w games, but a p2w game requires thousands of dollars investment to win. It won't even be possible to spend thousands on this game after launch. So it will obviously not be p2w. And since "this game is going to be p2w" is pretty much the most insulting thing you can say to me, you need to stop, please.

Edit: I reread your post and I think it's best that we admit this is not your game. You actually think I'm making game design decisions in order to bilk money out of people... that shows such a lack of trust that I don't think we need you here any more. Your feedback has helped in the past, but it's time to admit that this is not the game for you. Go play something fun! Something without any crafting!

[kazeandi]

Citan
Why you read this as "balance this for 100 players" is a mystery to me. I don't say that anywhere. What I'm saying is, player economy forces you to take up crafting. With 1k players online that won't change much. More stuff might be available, but a) prices won't be lower than they are now because you can only supply so much, and b) combat skill prereqs alone force you to take up a craft.

Then I said that p2w, convenience, etc are just semantic.

What we're talking about is the concept of the game as sales platform for digital goods, not "win". How about we cut out all those only loosely defigned terms and talk shop here. By creating artificial shortages and then selling means to overcome that, we indeed have a cash shop with attached demand creator, the game.
IF all these things can be obtained by subscribing monthly, I don't care. I'm used to that and find pay2play fair. Letting freeloaders suffer is irrelevant to me.

You also didn't answer my questions.

[Roekai]

yikes............

[Citan]

By creating artificial shortages and then selling means to overcome that, we indeed have a cash shop with attached demand creator, the game.

What are you overcoming by having, say, 10 extra inventory slots? You don't overcome anything. The inventory is still much smaller than you want it to be.

There is no artificial shortage: I'm giving out as many inventory slots as I think players should have. I didn't make that number artificially small. I assume the average player won't spend a dime beyond their purchase price, and I want the game to be fun for them.

But I expect we'll need continuing money to keep developing the game in the long term, so we'll give players small benefits for paying a monthly subscription. I don't know if those benefits will include inventory slots, but if so, they won't get a lot of slots. It sure won't be enough to make players happy with how the current inventory system works!

So the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying is not semantics: it's scope. You will never be able to buy your way out of inventory management problems! But those inventory problems are real problems with the game, and I intend to improve them in the future. I definitely don't intend to let you solve the game's inventory hassles by giving me extra money. I'm insulted by the idea that I'm making the game extra crappy in order to get extra money. I'm just not finished yet. There's a lot more work to do.

We can talk about other topics in other threads; this one is already pretty chaotic. The short answer to "why are some skills gated by other skills" is... that's the sort of game I want to play, so it's the game I've made.

[kazeandi]

This is where you're reading me wrong. I'm repeating myself here (again), but nobody says the game IS (insert monetizing model name term here), what I've been talking about is "If you do X, Y, Z, that will have effect A and that sucks, because..."

I get that the thought of your game being viewed as a cash grab kind of thing is insulting to you and provokes an emotional reaction. But that's not what's happening. You read half of what I write, get angry and reply to what you deducted from that part, not to what was actually said.

That's kinda exhausting and leads to endless repetition.

What I do disagree with on a design POV, is the absolute necessity to craft. Crafting and combat are 2 different subsets of activity and not everyone likes both.

I do like combat enough to keep up some degree of crafting, but I don't enjoy it. That you need all the extra items to craft and in turn create inventory problems only adds to my problem, but that's my problem, not everyone's.

Whether you want to be strict or reasonable in this regard is up to you.

But don't mistake me for an enemy of whatever sort. I'm voicing my thoughts because I'm concerned about some aspects and your ideas on them are not clear. "Let's talk elsewhere" doesn't exactly help - guess I'll wait for a blog post.

And now relax already.

[Arundel]

@kazeande - ah, I see what the problem is: you want me to balance the game around the current user population! That's absolutely insane.

First, there's absolutely no reason we can't reach 1000 concurrent users. That's a very modest goal. We had 250+ concurrent users TWO YEARS AGO, the last time we did a small marketing push. Those players ran out of content and wandered away a few months later, and we haven't done much to bring new users in, because the game isn't finished yet. But I am going to finish the game.

And when the game is finished, if we can't get a measly 1000 concurrent users at peak play hour, then the game will have failed, and we will have to shut it all down. We can't even cover costs with the current user base. But I'm not fretting about it right now, because we aren't trying to bring in new players. Because the game is not finished.

So no, I'm not going to spend any time making your life easier right now. I know Alpha is hard because there's no players to buy or sell to. You can either deal with those frustrations, or not, that's up to you.

But seriously. Cut it with the p2w bullshit. Suggesting that a few inventory slots is p2w is VERY insulting. You insinuate you've played p2w games, but a p2w game requires thousands of dollars investment to win. It won't even be possible to spend thousands on this game after launch. So it will obviously not be p2w. And since "this game is going to be p2w" is pretty much the most insulting thing you can say to me, you need to stop, please.

Edit: I reread your post and I think it's best that we admit this is not your game. You actually think I'm making game design decisions in order to bilk money out of people... that shows such a lack of trust that I don't think we need you here any more. Your feedback has helped in the past, but it's time to admit that this is not the game for you. Go play something fun! Something without any crafting!

I appreciate you clarifying your points and what we can expect in your last two posts. If you read mine, I loosely referred to "Pay2win" as starting to sell inventory slots with near unlimited quantity, or something similar.

A little anecdote and an explanation of what I consider "pay2win" and what I don't consider "pay2win" (my opinion). I recently played Black Desert Online and it started off with buying convenience stuff that really affected gameplay and income such as inventory slots, amount of workers allowed, etc. However, it was limited in quantity and probably was somewhere between a small and significant boost in income if you played properly. Then they started releasing items you could buy which directly sped up how fast you could enchant items. The end goal was that while they didn't "sell" the best items, you could buy them easily in game and then with the cash shop spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and be miles ahead of everyone. I was one of the wealthiest players in the game (prior to the true pay 2 win arriving) and admittedly bought a good bit of stuff for crafting (inventory, workers, etc.) but stayed on a tight budget (I think I spent $100-$200 total on the game in 6 months, not bad). When they launched that one item that let you enchant for 1/4th the cost certain players suddenly had extremely rare items cause they were buying thousands of dollars of the true "Pay2win" item and you couldn't compete with these guys in pvp or pve. Also, they could enchant these items with basically their wallet alone and then sell the items so they had better armor, weapons, and more cash (billions more). I could no longer compete and refused to throw my wallet at the game to compete with people who would ALWAYS spend more to win.



"Is it Pay 2 win?" I think the main concepts in determining if a convenience cash shop purchase is convenience or raw power is two things (that I can think of):

A. The quality of the advantage it gives. +1 inventory when you have only 1 inventory slot is far more meaningful than +5 inventory when you already have 100 slots (probably the scenario that will actually occur in our game). This issue can be debated, but in the end it comes down to opinion. I think most people that are reasonable will argue a small increase in convenience (space, time, etc.) is fine.

B. Which takes us to the more important point: quantity, or how many times you can purchase something from the cash shop. If I can buy infinite (or near infinite) inventory or teleports or whatever it gives me a monstrous advantage and if I buy everything and spend thousands of dollars I will be light years ahead of everyone else. Even if the amount isn't infinite but very high (instead of 5 inventory more when I have 100, 500 more when I only had 100 is insane) it is still virtually infinite and in "Pay2win" terms becomes a real case of "buying power". This causes said player to earn maximum money with no extra effort and to have more free cash at all times by not having to spend money on certain things and also by having more space (effective income in a dungeon run, etc.). Its shifts from being a small increase to being a complete game changer.

I think it is clear that you are suggesting A will happen but never B. I am ok with this, but I get nervous when developers start to shift towards B. To be honest if you are insulted: we have literally had developers in both large and small games PROMISE in flat out language "I promise I will never do that" and then turn around and unleash infinite sales or indirectly purchasing power/income after launch. I hope you can understand that you aren't being insulted (though some of the others have used strong language) but that we are asking you to stick to your word as basically every developer these days does lie, and its a sad fact. I have a lot of faith in this team, but I've had faith in other teams which later went full "pay 2 win" and never commented on why or defended it. Most developers cash out when they can, and its frustrating when you love a game and its purity as a game (and not as a tool to measure wallet or manhood size). I hope this all makes sense.

[kazeandi]

A freemium model where you have x% more xp from activities, x more inventory slots, your mount has x% more speed when you subscribe is ok in my book. Selling all these buffs separately is the first step on the path to the dark side. Look at UO, selling soulstones, stable slots, skill boosts etc, all while collecting the sub - devs are very crafty when it comes to ways to milk players. Of course people who witnessed such things are afraid that the game they love (this game here!) might fall prey to these very schemes. The word "cash shop" alone makes me shudder.

While there's 1000 ways to "do it right", experience suggests that most devs get greedy at some point.
Now understand it as what I mean it to mean: I'm worried this might happen, I don't say it will.

It's also not some thing of the past, Albion got released in June.

[Sheawanna]

Citan is not for P2W PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
End of statement end of drama and end of this post !!!!!!!!
having a few extra slots to buy does not equal p2w no matter how you justify it !!!!!!!!!!!

[kazeandi]

Citan is not for P2W PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
End of statement end of drama and end of this post !!!!!!!!
having a few extra slots to buy does not equal p2w no matter how you justify it !!!!!!!!!!!

Why do you bring up "p2w" again?
You obviously didn't read the whole thread, much less properly.

[Sheawanna]

Why do you bring up "p2w" again?
You obviously didn't read the whole thread, much less properly.

Oh I did but someone always believes/thinks otherwise ....

[kazeandi]

Doesn't make any difference. Right now, there's no cost attached to PG at all.
What happens in the future is nothing more than some vague ideas. That's why we're discussing this now, before time and energy has flown into concepts and backpedaling is painful.

And that's really all there is to it.

[srand]

We wandered a bit off-topic. I don't want this update discussion to get any harder to search than it already is, so I'm closing the thread. But thank you all for all of your feedback, positive and negative. Hearing about your different experiences with the last update is invaluable as we set about tweaking and fixing for the next one. :)