Update Discussion: May 25, 2018

[Ortallus]

What a spicy patch day

Despite common sense, people don't seem to understand that their builds are subject to change. My main build was heavily affected by this too, but I'm not taking a 'sky is falling' outlook. It's an opportunity.

[BabyBlue]

What a spicy patch day

Right? I just wanted to know everyone's first impressions on priest.

[Crissa]

I think the change is reasonable. Even at three mobs the AoE is doing more damage than the single-target skills are. It gives us a sweet-spot to aim at.

And as far as I can read, the split of damage is such that every additional mob means the AoE is doing more damage, it's not like it's being split proportionally. You still do better with more mobs - you're just less likely to blow them out of the water.

[Karamasha]

Is it possible to see my pledge i game?

[ErDrick]

What up my glipglops!

I'm not sure where to even begin, but here goes.
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AE changes:

Firstly I want to point out that being condescending to other players about mechanics which you don't seem to even grasp or understand completely is not helpful. Nobody here wants easy mode. Most people that are being vocal about why this is a bad idea are doing so because they care about the game and want to see it succeed.

That being said, there are only 2 reasons why you would ever level and gear an AE build. The first reason is to make money, which is sort of needed because costs become extremely prohibitive later on in the game...especially when you are working on leveling your 15th skill to 70....so you do the work of leveling up an AE skill so that you can use it to speed up the grind of whatever new skill you want to level.( which is the 2nd reason to even level an AE build) and also pay for this new skillset. You might be asking yourself what's the rush? Welp after you play this for several thousand hours you might understand that a bit more, the slow way starts to lose it's charm. AE builds are utter crap in group content ( unless you severely outlevel the content in question)...because not only will you cause every mob being hit to rage on you at the same time ( thus killing you instantly) But you will also break all forms of crowd control your party is using to stay alive. It is important that you understand that AE builds only have those 2 uses, because without those, there is no reason to ever use one.

When people reach the apex of their chosen skills and have explored all current content, the only thing that keeps them logging on is that they can level and try a completely different skillset and playstyle, slowing down that process does more harm then good ( aka prohibitive costs and unreasonable timesinks). When the "pain in the ass" factor becomes greater then the "enjoyment for time spent" factor, people stop logging on.

Another important thing to consider is the change would be reasonable if he stopped throwing 10-15 mobs at us at once. Go and try to fight in goblin annexes or on rahu plateau to get a good idea of what I mean, there are a million other places but both of those are simple examples.....So I guess there is a 3rd use for AE builds, and that is because it is forced on you for certain content. That is not our faults, it is by design. Another example of this would be how respawns in dungeons currently work, as in....10-15 things suddenly appear on top of you and then proceed to rape you. This is the main reason btw why people are forced to focus on DPS builds and skillsets, because if you are too slow at killing you lose the game, the respawn will make sure of it.

For reference for the newer players, respawns didn't always work like this...they used to happen singly.

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Archery treasure effect changes:

Just why? I have not been using archery for a while now and that is because the inventory space lost is already not worth using it over another skill, combined with the horror of fletching and the fact that every attack effectively costs money to fire it just isn't worth using over another skillset. Adding to that the "utility" that archery used to have has been rendered largely useless. I mean the only utility it ever had was hookshot and snare arrow. Hookshot is not only useless but it can actually kill you when a party member uses it on a monster that disables in an area when they pull it on top of everyone else ( or any mob that does any sort of PBAE). Snare arrow is okay for solo play but goodluck with that in groups. I cannot understand why archery damage was reduced farther, especially when you consider that the effected skill was mostly "heavy shot" a 40 second cooldown that at BEST ( as in with any and all buffs you can use for it including calligraphy) it hits for 4300 damage, which is comparable to the druid skill cosmic strike off the top of my head, which has not been changed.

For the newer people: Hookshot ( and the spider equivalent ) used to be the only way to single pull reliably besides proximity aggro ( body-pulling). Archery was 100% worth it when that was still effective, especially considering it sped up single pulling to the point where you could beat the dps check for respawns.

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DoT effects:

DOT builds have a lot more issues then the damage from them being sub-par. The biggest of which is that at level 50+ stuff starts being resistant or even straight immune to the damage type you are using, since we only have 3 damage types to choose from atm ( fire / trauma / poison). Building a spec that relies on DOTS will always assure that you are useless later on when this becomes an issue, because no matter how good your DOT damage is at least 1/3 of it will be irrelevant. From a solo standpoint however, DOTS are and always have been viable regardless for a defense or crowd control focused build....Where you really start to see problems are in group play...in fact the whole game falls apart when group play is introduced.

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Group play VS solo play:

I would go as far to say this game is pretty well balanced for solo play.

-Rage reduction is great for solo play.
-Heals are well-balanced for solo play.
-Crowd control is invaluable for solo play.
-Incoming damage is manageable for solo play ( due to heals and rage reduction and crowd control actually working).
-DOTs are great for solo play.
-Pets are fine for solo play.
-Being a defensive fighter is great for solo play.

In a group however, all of this goes to shit.

-There is no rage reduction skill in the game that can manage the rage from more then 1 player effectively, making it useless and a waste of mods to even try.
-There are no heals in the game that can consistently keep up with the incoming damage your party starts to receive....yes some of them can keep you alive for one big pull, but since you are essentially forced to keep going without stopping even for a second or you will eat a "game over multi-mob-respawn" to which there is zero defense against or warning it is coming....yea, not great.
-Most crowd control is equally screwed in group play, mezzing is a joke unless you are using it as the puller to separate mobs before they even get near you( unfortunately it is also unreliable weather it will successfully land on the mob or not). And mesmerizing a mob that is already in close proximity to your group is just laughable, if it stays mezzed for more then 2 seconds you better go buy a lottery ticket, because it is your lucky day.
-Incoming damage starts to get utterly ludicrous , with 1k health and 900 armor I can survive maybe 6 hits in gazluk keep...thus you are forced into building for damage, aka kill them before they kill you.
-DOTS are useless because nothing can be allowed to live for more then 5 seconds, aka one dot tick....or else you will die.( again because of the forced dps check respawn timer and the incoming damage).
-PETS ....see DOTS explanation above, same issues, except you also have to deal with "assist mode" not working correctly and accidentally pulling 10 more monsters onto your group.
-Defensive fighter ( aka tanking)...there is no skill in the game that has a short enough recast timer that you can use it to aggro more then one mob at a time ( for bosses or solo pulls tanking is great, but if all you do is solo pull you run the risk of the ever-popular multi-respawn-rapefest. And even if there WAS a good AE taunt, you could never survive it unless you use ONE specific skill to make yourself immune to incoming damage for 10 seconds, and when that fades( or is on cooldown) you die like anyone else.

My main problem I guess, is I play this game to be social and group up with friends and explore and conquer new stuff. And right now group play isn't fun at all besides the first time you explore a new area.....I realize it is super easy to complain about things then to come up with workable solutions, so that being said....

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Some suggestions to fix group play:

-Give all mesmerize type abilities an invulnerability window where mesmerize cannot be broken by anything for at least 5 seconds. Fix pets so they stop breaking them also.

-Make all taunt effects in the game a flat amount instead of being % based, 300 % of "no damage" because you didn't penetrate their armor is still no taunt ( this includes pet taunt effects) also raise the flat amounts to reasonable levels where they can actually take aggro off someone else hitting for 3k spike damage.

-For all elite ( group) mobs and bosses, reduce their outgoing damage by a large margin, at least 50%. Increase their health pool by an even larger margin, 500-1000%...basically slow this shit down and make it interesting instead of the spam strongest attacks fest it currently is. Group fights that last a maximum of 10 seconds because you have no choice, as in if they aren't dead by then...you will be, are not fun.

-Change the respawn mechanics for elite mobs to either respawn one at a time or in small groups...In fact It would be perfectly fine to link 3-4 mobs together, as in pulling one aggroes the other 3 every time, but they also respawn the same way, with that group counting as a single mob for that purpose....space them out a bit more so that this is possible. Basically make them harder more challenging fights, and allow us to see the respawns "catching up" behind us so we have a fighting chance.

***I cannot stress enough how badly the respawn system needs to change, it is 100% un-fun in it's current form....there is nothing fun about forced dps checks in every single fight, and even less fun in instantly wiping 2 hours deep in a dungeon because someone had to afk for 30 seconds and we didn't beat the timer for the respawns.***

Longer fights will have a few benefits. Tanking will be more important ( but still not required to the point where you have to have a tank). Dots and pets will have a chance to shine and do what they are supposed to ( but I would also suggest fixing pet assist mode and removing immunities to dot types). Also it will stop people from soloing elite content that you do not wish them to solo...because power will run out in longer fights. Lastly, changing fights and respawns in such a way will give us OPTIONS besides building for straight killing power....right now we don't have them , if we want to succeed it's damage or bust.

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@ Citan I hope you realize that I am only taking the time to write this stuff out because as always, I want to see you succeed....you have done a lot of good, and I know it can feel like you are being attacked for what others perceive as being wrong..... But this is not my intent, my goal is to see a game that's fun to play and will have staying power. You have been moving farther and farther from the "fun" side of the pendulum to the "this is more trouble then it's worth" side. As a developer and not a player, there are some things that look good on paper or mechanically, but in actual practice aren't fun.

If you want a different sort of feedback then tell me what your vision is, and I can try to tailor feedback towards making that a reality....atm all I can do is 'guess" that having fun should be the top priority. Remember that I am the guy that leveled several skills that I had zero interest in just so I could try to give good feedback for them back in the early days.

@ Everyone else, if you read all this you have my thanks. If your opinion differs feel free to give your own viewpoints...just be respectful when you do so.

If you agree with anything I mentioned though ( or even disagree)....please do not remain silent about it. From the 30 or so people I have had lengthy conversations with about these issues ( either in-game or on skype or discord) Almost all agreed with every point I have made here. You are not doing the game any favors by just reading it, saying "yep" to yourself, and moving on....they need to know that these are actual issues and not just "ErDrick issues".

Thanks for reading the wall of text...sorry about that but I feel like all of this is important or I wouldn't have bothered.

[Lyramis]

@ErDrick great post. Agree with all of it.

[Erthiel]

I support making Elites weaker and with more HP to prolong the fight, I sent a suggestion for this before, but it truly is stupid, when a mob can kill me in 3 hits. Getting so much dmg that I cannot even click the fighting abilities but just the 2 heals I have and die anyway cos the delay between when I click and the heal/armour is applied is so long.
@ErDrick 1k health and 900 armour - how is that even possible, I have nearly half less and I am actually lvl 70 with full yellow gear -_-

Anyway @ErDrick, thanks for a great post, I agree with all the parts I read from it :-)

[ErDrick]

I support making Elites weaker and with more HP to prolong the fight, I sent a suggestion for this before, but it truly is stupid, when a mob can kill me in 3 hits. Getting so much dmg that I cannot even click the fighting abilities but just the 2 heals I have and die anyway cos the delay between when I click and the heal/armour is applied is so long.
@ErDrick 1k health and 900 armour - how is that even possible, I have nearly half less and I am actually lvl 70 with full yellow gear -_-

Anyway @ErDrick, thanks for a great post, I agree with all the parts I read from it :-)

Shamanic infusion on "red" gk armor and mods for druid skills fill with bile and brambleskin that increase max hp / armor, also top tier foods.

[Celler]

Agree with Sudo, and pretty much every word ErD used with the exception of Welp, I'm sure I could of used something far more deserved than that.

I really don't like game mechanics that push me back to lower lvl dungeons to be under the feet of the up and comings to be honest. Must suck for them to battle bravely as a group past fog just to find some old timer bashing on endless spawns of elementals.

Never been the min max gamer that Awol and ErD and others are, my builds tend to just be some semi workable things to have some fun with whilst I grind the lvls before moving onto the next or newest thing. So I'm not overly attached to much.

Have seen how dramatically broken Bard was/is, Hammer I understand can hit 3 things for 10k or so damage, also think wolf had an issue that it could buff its damage to a stupid point.
Were any of these actually addressed or are they to be left as is?

Still can't understand why the 2 most important things have not been added.
1 Where is the Spider Crossbow Harness?
2 When do I get a Harmonica (preferably with a neck rack and bard enablement) ?

[SausageJavelins]

<Post>

<Knife_Fighting>

As a psycho knife killer, I welcome the damage mod changes and ability changes that made knife a lot more fun, but also more viable at higher levels. The expansion of "not looking at you" to include stuns and fears was much needed, and opens up new combo possibilities where before it was *always* the same (mes, then backstab or surprise throw). I especially love the bleed mods for DoT trauma and poison, which bring my bleed abilities up to a useful level for Venomstrike and Backstab.
The buff for throwing knife abilities makes my heart sing, as those are my bread and butter knife damage. The damage might need a little reigning-in, but I have not tested extensively and I was not taking more than 40-60% of the kills over an archer/druid while in Gazluk Keep (with all useful mods on her suit). It's still not terribly overpowered because metal slabs are required for the throwing knives, and that seems loosely-akin to archery's fletching.
Adding the offhand knife was a great way to introduce knife in combo with other skills with a wield requirement in the main-hand, although I have not seen any with skill wield requirements (they were all no wield) and they do not seem to be dropping on Gazluk Keep mobs aside from a select few bosses. This means that unless you are lvl 1 Knife, the offhand knives are not viable at the moment since you cannot get the full whack of offhand mods necessary for a build.

</ Knife_Fighting>

<AoE_Damage>

I am guilty of at least partaking a few times in the Kur AoE farming gig (although I never did so when anyone else was out there) and Knife does have an AoE, That being said, I can see where a diminishing return on damage for AoEs is necessary or one risks everything high levels camping low dungeons and areas using these attacks, leaving little to hunt for the lowbies. Personally, I never really use burst attacks on more than 3-5 mobs, and its usually just to grab their attention away from a group-mate about to get toasted. Sure you will have complainers, but I think that is a necessary growing pain for a game in development.

</ AoE_Damage>

<Performance>

Serbule still seems bad during peak times, but I have noticed a decrease in bottlenecks and increased response time during these times of server stress. Oddly, even though the peak times seem better, there is still a little stuttering even with <120 players logged in. This is somewhat perplexing but since I am not privy to the inner workings of the server it would be inappropriate to comment much further. Keep the performance fixes and changes coming, because they seem to be working.

</ Performance>

</ Post>