Update Discussion: March 2, 2023

[Tandiril]

Personally I am still on the fence on the max-enchant change. I think it is a complex problem, considering mod slot distribution, different skills needing different amount of mods to be effective (e.g. UA vs FM), its place in the grand scheme of balance, etc. Right now this seems more like a PR problem of a maybe necessary change, but since this would require a whole wall of text on its own, I will skip it for now.

Combat XP change, agreed on the Kur Tower example of Celerity, I experienced that myself today. My suggestion: Treat a too high level enemy as if it was lower level in terms of xp gain. Not sure if this is the best approach, but I am absolutely sure that you shouldn't feel getting punished for actually managing to best the more difficult enemy. But overall a good change, mass murdering enemies 40 levels below your main skill shouldn't be more effective than actually fighting enemies on par with you.

Weather Witching being resurrected came as a total surprise, but as a good one!

3. I propose leaning into the ice magic synergy a bit more

So far I have experimented a bit with Ice Magic and WW, and I wanted to chime in on this point to name a couple of additional synergies.
- 2 mods for Tsunami that debuff targets to receive more damage from "sentient weather phenomena" -> this works for the cold sphere (tested).
- A mod for dampen that makes it deal cold damage and debuff targets further for cold damage, can even be made into a cluster aoe. Bugged right now, because all debuff stacks are lost if you get hit, which turns it into a silly/funny game of tag. Whether this is a really interesting bug or an experimental feature that slipped into production remains to be seen.
- Blizzard snare (and fear if you play the full chaos experience), Tundra Spike root/stun and Freeze solid mezz gives you the break you need to pull off channels mid combat, even solo. Ranged enemies are a bit of a problem, but that needs to be tested and overall would be ok. EDIT: Ranged enemies turned out to be a real pain, especially if there are multiple. I therefore second Melkhiresa's proposal of baking in some channel protection into e.g. Wind Ward. EDIT EDIT: I played around with ranged evasion. It does kinda do the trick, but needs a lot of gear/mod investment for only an okish result.
- Silly side note: popping Wind Ward with mod that reduces the cd of Tornado on getting hit, following up with Cryogenic Freeze enables you to get hit for 0 damage, therefore still triggering the effect without consuming the ward (roughly tested).

Overall the skill is very pretty to look at and fills my personal itch for an ice based offensive mage combo (and I can finally fly now!), even though right now it feels I am playing the "Gazluk Anarchist". That is also the issue this skill has imo: Its signature as chaos magic skill is well deserved, and can be quite a bit of fun, but is not well suited for grouping, where control is paramount. It doesn't have the tools for tanking, nor for proper supporting (calm skies doesn't cut it), instead it has solo tools and knockback pets. The former is of limited value for a primary damage dealer in a group if you have a dedicated supporter, and the latter can very well be a real problem in a dungeon. And if you remove it, you are left with your generic fairy spring dps that is probably outclassed by other skills in this regard.
So to me, at least in combination with Ice Magic, this is really more of a solo combination. And summoning tornados, and ice spheres, and rooting and fearing your opponents was very fun so far! But having your tornados knocking around enemies is not a very efficient way of defeating them. Now, imo fun beats efficiency, but it really depends on what you want from a skill.

To sum up, Weather Witching seems to be an outdoor skill ... which makes sense, given the name. And it overall looks promising. Thing is, there are lots of indoor activities in this game.

(On a different note, when I first heard of weather witching years ago, that they would be at odds with the druids, and that you were working on a weather system, I kind of expected something...mightier. Like making it actually rain in a region, screwing with the fire mages. Fingers crossed we will see something like this one day, assuming the full fledged weather system is still something worked on. Keep up the good work!)

[Maeglin]

Ok. I don't often come to the forums anymore. But I need to now.

I am a long time PG player. Started 7+ years ago. Contributed several times to the game and am a VIP subscriber. I followed Citan here when Asheron's died because I loved that game and just knew that he would develop something that I would love to play. He did. But...

The recent changes to the max-enchanted gear crafting is, in my opinion, a grievous mistake. Don't get me wrong--I believe that Citan and Sandra are brilliant game developers and designers. But this latest patch was not well thought out.

Why learn high level gear recipes now? Why spend countless hours gathering materials just to get that ONE extra mod on a maxed out piece? Why go through the anguish of trying to get a max-enchanted Yellow when the previous 40 tries have failed? I have personally crafted many sets of level 80/80 max-enchanted gear for my Guild mates. And was happy to do so.

If you can get the same thing now, with a drop, what's the point? I'm guessing that 30-40% of the game's incentive to craft/gather/level has been nerfed. And I'm used to nerfs. This one just doesn't make any sense to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and not looking at it correctly. If so, someone please show me where this isn't an unfortunate decision on Citan's part.

Respectfully,

Maeglin

[poulter]

The stated reason by Citan for the max-enchanted change is to facilitate balancing of damage output from builds? i.e. it can't be achieved with 7 mod gear in the game.

My review of my current Fire /Priest build (A known powerful combo) suggests that the removal of the mods will impact survival /healing /non-damage capability i.e. damage output will not change. Thus, the intended outcome of the change will not be achieved (see earlier post for mod figures).

Please could I ask other people to undertake a similar review with their builds & to share the analysis?

[Casalia]

Brain dump #2 in reference of https://forum.projectgorgon.com/show...March-2-2023#6

After some more time has passed, giving me more time to think things through, my initial post has perhaps been a bit premature. The general tone is still unchanged, but I might take some time to at least evaluate WW a bit more. Bringing me to my first point for this comment.

The reason I lashed out at WW was that it has a lot of what makes a lot of all the other top dps so strong (synergy with spring fairy + a lot of AoE with dots). I completely neglected that it also introduces some unique gameplay options, synergy to pets, channeling, conditional AoE based on distance to mobs. Also interesting shield mechanics with cooldowns and more... However, since it has the firstly mentioned traits which are a known good way to obtain high damage, this seems to a skill with two routes. Low risk - high reward or high risk - low reward. Because there it is really hard to come up with build combos and synergies for the latter mentioned parts of that skill it's high risk. Looking at possible synergies revolves around channeling which is rather unpredictable, and I don't consider synergies with pets a good trait either, given the current state of pet AI. Leaving the shield - which is at most useful for soloing. And thus a Skill that is clearly intended to be a DPS, with some solo options will simply be reduced to the AoE dots / nature /electricity thing in practice. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad skill, or that it won't be more viable in the future, leading to my next point.

"The Future" Alot of things currently are planned for the future, I for one was expecting balancing changes for this patch, which is why I am mostly disappointed. Balancing has once again become a thing of the future, as has the removal of 7 mod gear. Given the rather infrequent updates of this game, it make is it really hard to handle things of the future. They could be happening in 3 months or 3 years... (careful of hyperbole, I took some artistic freedom here to get my point across)
I think the current change to the max-enchanted crafting system should either be reverted until LVL 90 hits, thus giving veterans an incentive to venture out into other skills, as well as giving new players that want to invest a lot of time into it, catch up to veterans. Or just rip off the bandaid now and immidiately remove (or have us remove) one of the mods from our max-enchanted yellows, thus once again leveling the playing field between newcomers and veterans. This inbetween state is very unhealthy for the game imo.

Now once again the new max-enchanted gear. I actually really welcome the whole 6 mods max on gear regardless whether its crafted or not. Crafting still won't be useless because there are many craftable gear sets that cannot be looted. Furthermore Crafted gear has 'some' more crafting points allowing for more stuff to be added. [A recommendation here is to maybe increase the crafting points on crafted gear further, allowing still only 1 augment but much more utility like pockets] Though I have to point out that mod distribution is actually horrible on some skills and also should be reviewed "in the Future", if you want to know more about which skills are in desperate need of some mod restructuring just ask the community, we really do know these things
One reason I think this will have less of an impact then some make it out to be, is my personal experience with just sticking to purple max-enchanted previously. For builds that I really liked I made the effort to make them yellow max-enchanted. But for the majority of my builds the difference is somewhere between negligable and immeasurable. The majority ofc also implies that there are some builds for which that does not hold true, where having 7 mods really makes a huge difference, a lot of times gloves come with all the AoE mods for abilities meanwhile also having alot of extra dmg there as well. I guess this might be intended as you now have to make a trade-off, which you can currently skip by having 7 mods.
I doubt these changes will currently have an impact on bringing the Power-Gap between individual skills closer together though. This is why I initially had the knee-jerk reaction of condemning this patch. I also want to add here that having a timeline or even a current WIP viewer would be a great thing. I don't really care for what you are developing or the pace of developement or anything... I just don't want to be surprised like this, it was a rather unpleasant surprise. And this also means not having jack impose ENTIRELY WRONG impressions about whats upcoming onto us.
If I knew that lvl 90 is 3 - 6 months away, that'd be reason for me not to throw in the towel, but thinking it might take until next year, just make me want to pull the line here. Managing expactations is really important to me, and saves me a lot of trouble. And apperantly others as well, when I review current chats on discord and in the forums. You should work on that.

I hope this was a bit more constructive criticism then my last comment and that it may lift some of the bad spirits around.

[Dumdidum]

For me you guys lost the plot. Endless tweaks of systems that are fine as is, while leaving the elephant firmly sitting in the room. The game is not growing in active players online, at least when i am logged in, and it is not because of how xp was earned or maxed modded crafted gear.

Crafting:
- it is a drag to craft for other players because of the number of ingredients required (and storage space), and the time consumption of it all. Therefore no council incentive when there are other much more lucrative ways.
- new players have to somehow find a kind spirit to craft for free, or level crafting themselves, which they do not have the funds for
- that leaves dungeon drops, and if you do not like to be carried or hate doing daily runs, you are screwed
- it also shows in less and less player stalls, the game's player economy is not very healthy
- as a side note, i levelled all crafts to max, and there is no way i ever will earn back the counsils spent. Unlike other MMO's where crafting for others was my main income stream and time sink
- make crafting great again. Crafted gear should always trump dungeon drops. Items/ingredients for crafting should be accessible whereever they are stored. Modded gear should be tradeable. Player stalls should have way more room to sell crafted gear. Player stalls should be way cheaper to maintain and not go bust after 3 days. If you feel the need to make crafted gear obsolete, compensate us. Our time is the most valueble thing we have. There is no way i will make any new gear set worth 2 mil, just to see it go poof in the next patch.

New players
- for a real reason why new players drop out you would have to ask them, but here are my 2 cents
- no storage space
- no counsils quick enough
- levelling feels very very slow in the beginning (and is much much harder lvl 1-35) than lvl 35 and up, when it should be the other way around.

Other things to do besides fighting
- the game is centered around fighting, i get it. But the more you find other things to level up/earn an income, the more players will be interested.
- ie crafting, merchant, housing and house decoration, and yes, pet breeding/levelling. But not what we have now, a genetics spreadsheet on a timer.
- dare i say some sort of 1 vs 1 ladder system? i know people here seem to hate pvp, but it would give a huge boost to the need to find niche builds, and you could make a bettting system or monthly ranking system around it.

Time sinks
- plaese get rid of time sinks. The hours i have waited in fae realm for nightfall so i could finally hand in my wo's. The endless times having to go to the wo's boards to get the wo i need, etc etc. Its no fun period, and it only makes me want to play less, not more.

[Enphuego]

To be honest, the max enchanted yellow gear was long overdue for a nerf. The way a lot of bonuses and stats in this game tend to multiply together leads to a lot of the balance issues especially when a highly motivated player starts stacking the snot out of it. You see it when one player is doing 10X the damage of another or one tank takes so little damage in a top level dungeon that the healer switches to DPS gear. Removing the extra mod from max enchanted crafted gear at least reduces the difference between average and top tier.

My main issue with it though is that it made dropped loot into useless phlog fodder. I'd much rather do something interesting like assemble a set of Scorpiclaw armor for tanking or wear Winter Court armor. With the wide variety of white stats on dropped gear, you could build some really fun sets and it would take quite a while to get a full set. I do wish that the white stats or at least just the armor value would scale with level so the more interesting gear sets (like the GK ones) could somehow be found in a better form.

The xp nerf hasn't seemed to impact me that I've noticed, but I do feel that the upper level range is a tad restrictive. If you are leveling a second skill it's pretty easy to end up fighting things that are above your level. Especially with good food buffs, I've found myself not even taking damage against mobs around my level. As a test I just took my 45 lycan / 48 unarmed skills out to Rahu where a level 60 Invincible Bulwark hits me for 16 armor / 16 health after food and with crappy leather level appropriate gear - seriously I even have a few green items. I got ~250xp. So I figured why not take it out to Povus where I easily soloed a 75 Deinonychus which I got zero xp for. Knocked out an 80 Ratkin while I was at it, got an add, didn't have an issue. It's not really out of the question to solo something 30 levels above you. I'm not sure how I feel about this - honestly it seems like it's going to be a pain in the rear to find level appropriate mobs to hunt. I'm not sure where I would even head at 45/48 - Eltibule gnashers? Those are 30/36 so a bit low. Tor-Uraks look like a better bet (~500xp). I tend to hunt in places where I'm either able to farm materials or gaining xp in secondary skills like Elf anatomy or sometimes above my level so I can have gear ready to reroll when I hit the next tier of mods. Now I'm going to need to be pretty particular about what I'm killing. Wouldn't you rather me out in Povus or Rahu instead of in Eltibule streamrolling Tor-Uraks? Honestly it's a tad boring.

I can see what you are trying to avoid with powerleveling, but maybe it needs some tweaking? As an example if I got 500 xp for taking out a level 60 mob at 45 then there'd be no real advantage to it other than fun. All I'm saying is that this puts a cramp in the way I like to level which is generally to tackle the most difficult content I can reliably solo or just go farm stuff I needed to farm anyways. I'd totally take the wolf out for a run on Povus night for XP so long as I can reliably improve the situation without constantly dying.

[poulter]

Max-enchanted mod change:
There are still 54 mods available to use in a build, so the impact on builds is only if you need 55+ mods. That is, if your current optimum build uses 60 mods then the impact is 6 mods.

As previously posted, a review of my current Fire /Priest build suggests that the damage output from the build will not be lessened as I can accommodate the change by removing support /survival mods.

This negates a major aim of the change i.e. balancing damage. The main impact of the change is expected to be on my tanking & healing builds.

XP gain:
This is very messed up at the moment.
I have been levelling Weather Witching (from level 55, now level 65) in Rahu Sewers (using Fire Magic, level 86) & am getting xp /kill c. 2,500 /mob, without any XP buffs.
Even worse, I can 1-shot kill multiple mobs with AOE (my gear is max-crafted). E.g. 6 mobs for 2.5k xp each in 1 fight.

Needless, to say, levelling has become trivial. (I also levelled some in Povus & was getting 1,100 xp /kill).

[Enphuego]

This negates a major aim of the change i.e. balancing damage. The main impact of the change is expected to be on my tanking & healing builds.

Not necessarily. The net impact of changes depends on the rest of the game balance. The game designers could easily tweak damage output from mobs to reduce the difficulty of tanking and healing which would level out the playing field between newbie tanks and fully geared tanks. To some extent the damage output from high level dungeon mobs had to be cranked up *because* tanks and healers would be bored otherwise.

As for the XP I haven't tried min/maxing it yet. I will definitely try targeting the +5 level mobs and see if I can gets some more xp per kill.

[Coglin]

I invested a MASSIVE amount of time and energy in leveling fishing and the ridiculous amount of other classes required for the bonus levels to make the Conch for my beloved bard.

That conch will now, not even be close to the top in slot for value to my build.

It makes me feel as if that time and energy is not respected and I ABSOLUTELY had no reason to believe crafted gear was not expected to be best. All the other MMOs do the same thing. Thus this was the only one I ever bother with crafting in, now I simply feel the rug was pulled out from under me on that.

Why are game developers so against the time and effort put into crafting, allowing it to create best-in-slot items?




I mean, honestly, what is next? Will I discover the hours and hours of killing tens of thousands of spiders prove useless too because taming the correct wild one will supersede the value of the ones I breed after all the time/energy I spent getting the correct tools to do so?

[Mikhaila]

I think along with the removal of a 7th mod, there needs to be a look at the classes that benefitted from those slots.

Not all skills are equal. Some became OK by making that 2 million council set of master crafted gear. Others get by with normal red/purple.