Update Discussion: May 25, 2018

[ErDrick]

Btw I would also like to add that while a tank and support is nice to have, a full group of 6 DPS people in the level of gear that Yaffy has suffers no problems destroying groups of 6 elites at once, because each group member is capable of soloing a mob ( although we focus fire instead). The only thing that can kill you besides player error is bad timing on AE disables from tacticians in that situation....or if someone needs to afk for a minute, or if you have to stop to phlog stuff because you have full inventories( repops). It is still boring though ( imo).

But again we are talking about people that are essentially level 90 in level 70 content. Which isn't useful info when talking about balance.

Not trying to attack the valid points you have made though and I hope you don't see it as such.

[ErDrick]

@Tagamogi

What do you use your AE abilities for if not to kill trash mobs quickly? Do you AE manticores to death or something? Do you use ae skills from skillsets that are level appropriate for dungeons or areas that you are in? As in, are you using ae's to kill things @ level 40 that drop level 40 gear that you actually need ( aka you are wearing level 30-35 gear, and using the level 40 versions of those skills, as an example). If so, how do you survive the pull long enough to kill them ( at appropriate skill levels). If not, what exactly are you doing with them? ( these are honest question for the sake of clarification and balance btw, not an attack).

I would love to hear your perspective. I didn't tell anyone "you must play the way I say" I just stated the only reasons that I know of, why you would use them. Could I be wrong? Of course I could, show me how... it's 100% possible that you can change my mind. I definitely don't mind that you disagree with me, your points are equally valid.

Also I proposed more then one simple solution, the 2nd was stop throwing groups of monsters at us if you don't want us to ae them. I am 100% fine with AE being nerfed if we are not then forced into fighting multiple opponents at once.

As for your opinions on archery, valid as well...but you can't have all of the things you mentioned on the same set of gear.( at least not at amounts to make them effective) And a lot skillsets have those same options in different flavors.

Rest of what you said I can agree with to some extent, and even if I didn't your perspective is valid and welcomed.

[Crissa]

I loved using crowd-control skills in WoW but the targeting in PG is just... Alot sloppier. I haven't played in the last few weeks and hope the patch before last made it better (having the tab list order change all the time was annoying, and having click-targeting use a different formula somehow than mouseover has been... limiting) But this is beta, so you expect some ongoing troubles.

Of course, I played a Feral Druid and even when I played Resto I wasn't above going bear to stun something so I could have breathing room.

[Aionlasting]

I loved using crowd-control skills in WoW but the targeting in PG is just... Alot sloppier. I haven't played in the last few weeks and hope the patch before last made it better (having the tab list order change all the time was annoying, and having click-targeting use a different formula somehow than mouseover has been... limiting) But this is beta, so you expect some ongoing troubles.

Of course, I played a Feral Druid and even when I played Resto I wasn't above going bear to stun something so I could have breathing room.

Ay I agree with you Crissa. This game leaves much to be desired when it comes to the group interface and targeting in general. It makes healing really painful when it comes to targetted healing. Its one of the reasons I won't try the preist class right now.

[kazeandi]

The "Enhanced Client" in UO has a target frame that contains the health bars of "mobs in range" you can click. Some other game (forgot which) had a frame that listed all mobs you're currently in combat with (FF14 maybe?). Something like this would be handy, also the marking of mobs.
With such tools, planned crowd control would be doable, smooth and fun.

[Tagamogi]

@ErDrick - Yes, we have pretty different playstyles. I picked up an aversion to anything resembling endgame in my WoW days, so my usual approach is to level a couple skills together and then switch to something else when I get close to max level with them (or get bored of them earlier on). I wouldn't use a max level aoe skill to powerlevel a second skill because it doesn't make any sense to me to speed up the leveling process which is the part of the game I like the most.

I also wouldn't use aoe to mass-farm lower level mobs because I find farming boring.

So, I use skills with aoe just the way I'd use other skills. I tend to solo or duo in vaguely level-appropriate areas, and the aoe works out fine for that. I don't really go out of my way to look for aoe opportunities - I'm quite happy if I can splash some aoe on just one or two adds. If I pull more than that, I'm usually dead, so I don't try for it. It's not all that exciting, but it basically amounts to me having fun dabbling around with aoe without feeling any particular need to go for max efficiency.

There are a couple mass aoe exceptions to that:
- Kur Tower. I find playing chicken with a bunch of zombies to see how many I can group up before they kill me to be insanely fun. I am actually quite sad that experience got nerfed. I think when I was leveling fire magic, I spent a lot of time in Kur Tower - level 38-56 or maybe even a bit higher. The last few levels weren't as fun because things were getting rather too easy but I stayed there because there isn't much else to do between 50-60. So, I suppose this can count as power-leveling but I would probably spend just as many levels in Kur Tower if I was leveling two skills that did not include aoe.
- Outdoor Gazluk orc camps. I was duoing with a bard tank friend and we were definitely trying to stack as many mobs as we could to aoe them at once (which was usually not that many thanks to all the casters and archers.) So, that's been nerfed now too, but my preferred solution would really be to have the spawn rate in those camps changed, so that we don't have 5 casters popping on top of us at once. Madly spamming all available aoe seemed to be the only way to live through that.

So, I can definitely see some of the problems you are talking about, even while mostly staying out of endgame group content myself.

Maybe this is getting off-track a bit, but how would you propose making the money-making and repeat-leveling process more fun? Just grinding through things as fast as possible with an ae skill you otherwise don't want to use sounds not fun to me... I realize definitions of fun differ, but would you be actually enjoy grinding for money/xp if aoe was changed back to the way it was before? ( Also a serious question aimed at understanding your point of view. My own answer is basically to avoid anything that starts feeling like a grind and take game breaks if needed, but that certainly does not make anyone money fast.)


Archery - yeah, I really shouldn't say "I'm ok with a nerf for a skill that I don't play anyway." It is a nice skill though, and I felt you were undervaluing it a bit. It's correct you can't use everything at once but sometimes it helps to be able to just quickly switch in an ability even if your overall gear isn't optimized to make the most of it. I also felt the archery nerfs in this patch were primarily aimed at Mangling Shot which I would very much rate as the most powerful and possibly overpowered archery ability. I don't know if it needed nerfing, but I know it's the one ability that I never took off my archery combat bar, no matter what other abilities I tried.

[Tagamogi]

The "Enhanced Client" in UO has a target frame that contains the health bars of "mobs in range" you can click. Some other game (forgot which) had a frame that listed all mobs you're currently in combat with (FF14 maybe?). Something like this would be handy, also the marking of mobs.
With such tools, planned crowd control would be doable, smooth and fun.

Ooh all of that. (EQ now has a similar list that shows all mobs currently in combat with your group. As someone who started playing EQ around 2000, it still feels a bit like cheating to me but it makes a mezzer's job much, much easier. )

[ErDrick]

Maybe this is getting off-track a bit, but how would you propose making the money-making and repeat-leveling process more fun? Just grinding through things as fast as possible with an ae skill you otherwise don't want to use sounds not fun to me... I realize definitions of fun differ, but would you be actually enjoy grinding for money/xp if aoe was changed back to the way it was before? ( Also a serious question aimed at understanding your point of view. My own answer is basically to avoid anything that starts feeling like a grind and take game breaks if needed, but that certainly does not make anyone money fast.)

That's a very good question, I don't really have an answer that will apply to everyone. A good start would be making group content fun and engaging so that people wouldn't mind starting from scratch as much. For me personally, it's not the exp that is the problem as much as It's just not enjoyable to repeat as is. Mowing down your enemies in a matter of seconds before they mow you down is acceptable in a twitch style combat setting, as in where you can do dodge rolls and active blocks and interrupts to avoid getting instantly killed, but I don't find it acceptable or fun in this type of tab-target game. But hey, maybe that's just me, that's one of the reasons I posted...to try to get a feel for if anyone else feels the same way, or if they don't....to find out why they don't.

But not everyone wants to be in a group 24/7 either and that shouldn't be forced, I myself just want to kill stuff alone at times, so that is not gonna alleviate the issue for everyone.

Other then that....reduce the costs of unlocks and upgrades to manageable levels. Yes, AE grinding is quite boring, I don't even really do it for the exp, I do it for the cash to pay for the unlocks and skills...it comes to roughly 400k to fully unlock a skill ( plus whatever you had to do to get the required favor with 2-6 different NPC's depending on which skill we're talking about). But while I am grinding that cash I might as well not waste the exp, so I level something up while I do it just to make it a tiny bit less boring and wasteful. I have never sat at panthers in kur for a whole day doing this btw, I do it in 50-70 level content usually...and only for 1-2 hours at a time because it drives me crazy with boredom. I wish I didn't have to do it but if I want to try something new, I do have to.

Like if I log on tomorrow and decide to level a skill that I have not worked on before, like...knife fighting. I know I am going to require 400k-1million councils when all is said and done to do that. All the other options for making that money in a reasonable time frame have been systematically eliminated. AE grinding for it is kind of the last bastion, and no..I don't enjoy it. That said, I do enjoy AE'ing for 5-15 hours more then I'd enjoy grinding 1 mob at a time for 100 hours to accomplish it ( although both options are still shitty to me). This is only gonna get worse @ level 91 unlocks.

Grinding is part of mmo's, I get that. When I played everquest though the group combat was closer to what I want to see here so it felt like less of a grind ( not to be confused with EQ in it's current state though, not even close to the same animal). Dungeon or named bosses also had unique drops to keep you going in there for. ( which is another thing this game desperately needs, more things like the ring from the gargoyle in GK). To be clear both dungeon bosses and soloable nameds "in the field" had items like this, there was always a solo alternative...maybe it wasn't as good ( but in some cases it was) but it was still something to do even while alone.

Another nice feature that EQ had that I wouldn't mind seeing was that monsters that were a certain amount of levels below you stopped giving you experience, but they also didn't aggro you when you were trying to run from point A to B. Just a quality of life thing though.

It seems like the costs are also pretty prohibitive for first timers as well, I have seen quite a few new people getting stuck at 50 or 60 for a few weeks at a time, simply because they can't afford to buy the unlock ( or afford the favor grind itself). Now I could go to GK with groups and sell everything that drops...except that I also need phlogs and stuff so.... screwing myself one way or the other. Better to just go mass kill some stuff that drops nothing I need and sell it. But neither of those things would help first timers. I should note though that I always try to avoid screwing with newer players, I will usually leave an area rather then kill everything and deprive them of their fun...although not everyone is going to be that respectful. ( although sometimes I don't even know other people are there)

Speaking of the cost issue though, some input from first time players would be pretty helpful to determine if this ( money) is as big of a problem as I think it is... I know it is to some of the other veterans I have talked to about it. In most games though, your money would be going towards upgrading your gear instead of unlocking skills so...this game is in a strange place as far as that goes, and I could be completely off the mark.

I feel like when changes are made the only question that they should be asking themselves is "is this going to make the game more fun?" Balance and realism is nice but if it isn't fun neither of those really matter. If the answer is "not really" then they need to be thinking of alternate options. Easier said then done though, and I also understand that. On top of that there is no change you could possibly make that will please everyone, also understood.

I'm not trying to say "OMG do what I am saying or the game will fail", I'm trying to start discussions that might lead to the game becoming better.

But the short answer would be : Make it more fun ( by fixing group content), lower costs so we don't HAVE to focus on making a ton of money just to try something, and stop throwing swarms of mobs at me. Alternate goals like unique items ( or even skillbooks) would also be a plus.

[ErDrick]

As far as acrhery changes btw, we really need to wait and see how the other skills balance out after the next patch before I jump to(more) conclusions. My point about that was mostly it isn't any better or worse then any other skillset, while having extra requirements ( fletching ...which also requires foraging and alchemy and gardening and mining / looting trash mobs you'd never loot otherwise just to get your arrows back/ other people stealing your arrows / arrows eating up 8-12 inventory slots/ every attack costing you money/ If you don't pay attention and happen to run out of arrows, that skill just became invalid...hope you aren't 2 hours deep in a dungeon).

It used to have an ability that set it apart from other skillsets, in the utility that hookshot brought, which made it worth using in some situations regardless of the downsides ...but that is gone. The stated reason for it's removal was that the single-pull offered by it made things too easy...leading me to believe that he also does NOT want us body-pulling single mobs either and they just haven't figured out how to address that yet ( could be wrong, if a developer wants to correct me on that, please do).

Some people used it purely because it could be modded to do insane damage though ( if anyone remembers at one point it was doing 10k+ critical hits consistantly), and that's how it got attention and also a nerf bat, and that's understandable...but if it's just "in-line" to other skills then the drawbacks aren't worth it. ( as always, in my opinion..not as a fact).

[ErDrick]

I really need to log off here and stop posting walls of text, but my 2 cents on a aggro meter would be a no. I don't want to see the game be easier, I just want to enhance the fun of a few systems that I feel need it, or even make it harder in some aspects.

I had to add that or id be a hypocrite for asking people not to just read my posts and move on without leaving their own thoughts or feedback !