Update Discussion: August 28, 2017

[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/show...nd-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