Discuss Dev Blog: April 2, 2019

[Swanzo]

@Golliathe after the nerf that already occurred lycan cant do the kind of damage you describe. This exactly what I'm talking about. People acting like the previous nerf didn't happen.

[Karura]

I don't know about the nerf that happened previous to this upcoming one. I joined the gamed not on the last full moon, but the one previous, which must have been after said nerf. However, I will share my experience so far with Lycan hopefully this will provide good feedback.


Ability Breakdown,
Claw:
Pros - Is a combat refresh ability with the standard 15 second refresh, and does a little extra damage to vulnerable targets, costs no power, and has very small animation cast time.
Cons - Doesn't do a whole lot of damage, higher lvl mobs rarely are vulnerable, if you're out of power in a fight and this is your only skill available, you will most likely die since the power return isn't enough for other combat abilities power consumption unmodded. There is a slight animation cast time with the standing animation, sometimes the monster can run out of range during the animation causing the attack to trigger doing no damage. Level locked until altar of Norala.

Bite:
Pros - It's a core attack, has a mod to make it AoE, has a very small to almost no animation cast time for its burst attack.
Cons - Does small damage unmodded on low lvl mobs, can give an error often if a monster is running or slightly out of or behind you in the 5m biting range, which triggers the skill anyway doing no damage, and using up a medium amount of power. Level locked until altar of Norala.

Pack Attack:
Pros - Is a signature debuff ability allowing you to deal slightly more damage the next time you use the same ability on a target, is sort of a party debuff allowing other Lycans with the same active ability to do slightly more damage as well in that regard.
Cons - Does small damage unmodded on low lvl mobs. There is a slight animation cast time with the leaping animation, sometimes the monster can run out of range during the animation causing the attack to trigger doing no damage, and using up a lot of power regardless. Level locked until altar of Norala.

Pouncing Rake:
Pros - Is a CC type ability which stuns a target below 33% armor. Will convert damage into partial armor damage if armor on monster is full instead.
Cons - Does small damage unmodded on low lvl mobs. Can be evaded, if monster armor is 34% it wont stun, has same problem if monster moves out of range during animation it will trigger anyway consuming power. Level locked until altar of Norala.

Howl Mode:
Pros - Gives enhanced in and out of combat regeneration, is sort of a werewolf party buff can stack with other werewolves howling up to 6hrs? 1hr solo otherwise. Boosts damage, by a few points changed one skill from 501 to 507 damage.
Cons - Takes a few minutes to get it to full duration period, has to be out of combat to not have the howl stop howling.

Shadow Feint:
Pros - Can teleport a player back to a safe spot when monters = more than 1, giving an edge to running away or pulling a monster/boss.
Cons - Has a 1 second cast time, in reality its like 1.3-1.5 because of the howling animation, 5 hits could kill you before you teleport back, aside from pulling or fleeing it isn't used.

Pouncing Rend:
Pros - Is the better version of Pouncing Rake, does only armor damage and the stun is calculated after the armor damage is done - so if you deal damage enough to get that monsters armor below 33% it will stun. Does decent armor damage modded. Is a fun skill to leap at a monster and have them stop dead in their tracks.
Cons - Does small armor damage unmodded to low lvl monsters, has an animation cast time that again during the animation if a monster runs out of range will trigger the skill regardless while consuming power, and not actually doing any damage. can be evaded, is a monster drop ability book.

See Red:
Pros - is a skill buff to do 10% more slashing and piercing damage for 30 seconds, can be modded to also heal, restore armor, or add a little extra damage.
Cons - Has an animation cast time of about 1.5-2seconds. Takes awhile to get this skill since its an advanced ability from Sanja.

Skulk:
Pros - Makes you harder to detect to monsters, gives a damage bonus for next attack (sort of like a stealth class sneak attack?).
Cons - Has an animation cast time of about 1.5-2seconds, reduced sprint speed by -50% making it easier for the next attack to have an out of range error, since monsters move a lot faster in combat than a player unmodded. Costs a lot of power. Takes awhile to get this skill since its an advanced ability from Sanja.

Blood of the Pack:
Pros - Is a signature support ability, heals you unmodded, and give +% to trauma damage.
Cons - Has an animation cast time of about 1.5-2seconds, consumes a lot of power, trauma damage is ineffective to a lot of monsters, takes awhile to get this skill since its an advanced ability from Sanja, and is lvl locked until altar of Norala.

Sanguine Fangs:
Pros - Is a nice attack, deals piercing damage, causes trauma damage.
Cons - Does small damage unmodded on low lvl mobs, can give an error often if a monster is running or slightly out of or behind you in the 5m biting range, which triggers the skill anyway doing no damage, and using up a medium amount of power. takes awhile to get this skill since its an advanced ability from Sanja, and the last version is a book drop. The DoT isn't sustainable enough damage.

Double Claw:
Pros - Has a fast reuse time, is low power cost, can be decent damage wise as a follow up ability.
Cons- There is a slight animation cast time with the standing animation, sometimes the monster can run out of range during the animation causing the attack to trigger doing no damage, and using up a lot of power regardless. damage is subtracted by how much armor a monster has. takes awhile to get this skill since its an advanced ability from Sanja.

Smell Fear:
Pros - reduces rage on a monster/boss, has a very small to almost no animation cast time for its burst attack.
Cons - Does small damage unmodded on low lvl mobs, can give an error often if a monster is running or slightly out of or behind you in the 5m biting range, which triggers the skill anyway doing no damage, and using up a medium amount of power. Is a book drop and advanced ability from Sanja.


Other:
Werewolf Armor
Pros: Makes you into a meat shield being able to tank some hits, sort of. Looks amazing,
Cons: Really hard to lvl the necessary requirements to even begin crafting (lv35 goblinese, lv48 toolcrafting, lv72 blacksmithing, lv58 surveying, lv50 geology, foragaing up do cedar, like family favor with Kodan who only gives decent favor with master metal slabs unless you want to farm 1000 figurines etc... and all favor likewise with the respected crafts mentioned above including the fairy in WN), takes roughly 400k in recipe costs, and another 600k in materials. Leaving wolf form unequips all your armor making you naked, and having to equip them each time. Makes the untransformation into another playable skill impossible since you are 1 shot away while being naked to death.


Overall:
To me werewolf abilities feel a little broken, the class skill line feels well rounded and balanced at low lvls, but quickly becomes linear and backs you into a corner at lv50+ when all of a sudden you can't progress until a full moon, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just an inconvenience. This is why I think many people go for the hard to acquire modding to boost the only AoE attack "Bite" with skulk, see red, and blood of the pack etc... 4 months to lvl70 is a long long time, at least for me. Wolves don't like being backed into a corner, and in order to keep up with guild members, and other players who started around the time you did, who still expect you to go to the hard dungeons with them... a solution had to be made. It isn't hard to lvl to lvl70, it took me less than a week to get from1-50 and 50-60 less than a day which is a huge advantage for other players who don't get lvl locked into full moon periods totaling 4 months. I for one am glad for the rebalancing, I hope the other abilities become less useless doing more sustainable damage at high lvls and high lvl content, and the skill line itself then wont be so linear feeling. I look forward to the said changes, but hope that other players wont complain so much it destroys the class like I've seen in other games from peoples butt hurt feelings against 1 persons hard work to have an advantage. The new solo content sounds awesome, hopefully Lycan can actually solo it after this lol (I am still a little skeptical of the nerf/rebalancing... time will tell).

Things I hope are getting fixed outside of rebalancing in next patch and near future:
The animation cast time range errors,
The SFX of Skulk, (I think this is already happening)
The Darkvision in the daylight not being a thing, (epileptic seizures aren't fun, also eyes adjust in real life for animals to their environments. same with us).
The Eating Corpses during a fight, (is happening!)

[Golliathe]

@Golliathe a lumber arrangement and some lumber booze i can gather about 80-100 spruce in one food cycle in Gaz, easy. I'm sitting on 300-400 elegant fletchings, around 80-100 of: copper ore, arrowheads, acid cleans needed for arrows. I'ts very low maintenance only draw back with archery is the time you have to wait for arrow shafts to dry.......

Arrows cost money. We can derive that by noting that it takes time to collect arrows as well as time to make them.

Just to be clear here... you are using 2 end game buffs (booze/flowers) and collect a ton of spruce. How much spruce do you get without those buffs? When we're looking at cost you need to add those buffs to the cost of how much money you use. Good displays for example are not cheap and can be sold for a lot of money. Likewise instead of 'pissing that spruce into the wind' you could have sold it on the player market. You probably had to gather some rare crap that took time to make the booze and you either bought the display or gathered more rare crap for that too.

How many arrows do you use in say 2 hours of fighting? Assume we are talking about a Gazluk Keep run where the pulls stop maybe 2-3 times the whole run?

How many arrows do you use if in 2 hours if you are somewhat chill and partially fighting about half the time with low key effort?

The answer really doesn't matter. The point is you have to go out and do something to maintain your power. That thing you need to do costs you time that time could have been spent doing something else. The resources you gathered in that time are essentially sacrificed instead of sold for great profit. For a more casual player this could have drastic repercussions; do I go spend my last 30 minutes of play today gathering arrows so I have some for tomorrow or do I go gather my 24 hour cooldown crystals?

For Necromancy, mentalism, fire magic, battle chemistry and everything else.... I paid some councils and my power lasts forever.

If I want to shoot arrows I have to spend money. As an archer you are literally an aurumancer shooting potential profit out of your bow.

Let's consider 2 guilds. Guild A is all archers who always play archery and maybe a secondary skill. Guild B has no archers. Assume each guild is made of 50 people all level 70. Assume both guilds have equal levels of activity in terms of combat hours logged and money earned as well as spent per members as a function of time (outside of archery).

After a year which guild will have more money? The answer is guild B. Guild A will have spent a ridiculous sum on arrows after one year (*when we say 'spent' consider the idea of theoretical money lost by not selling an item*). People are not machines and will miss some of things they meant to harvest that were on a cooldown. In the case of a casual player you might lose 25k worth one night because you didn't get your crystals and instead made more arrows.

[Golliathe]

@Golliathe after the nerf that already occurred lycan cant do the kind of damage you describe. This exactly what I'm talking about. People acting like the previous nerf didn't happen.

I'm not acting like that at all. I feel super bad that anyone's gameplay was ruined by this patch. Wolf got hit with a nerf at the same time all powers got a recalculation event with how % modifiers work.

There were some people who were acting like, "wolf was fine how could you do this?!" And in the next breath they would tell you wolf deserves this damage because it is a permanent choice.

It was clear to me ages ago that wolf was broken and the mighty nerf hammer would eventually strike it down. My game play has been negatively affected by wolf for a very long time as it was very easy for the wolf to just run through mobs (training if necessary) and skipping rudely ahead to kill the boss we were clearing to fight in a few pulls.

It's not quite the same but im sure people would say the same to me for monopolizing areas before the aoe nerf.

@Karura not to burst your bubble but all classes start to feel the pinch at level 50. Do you have transmutation/augmentation at 50? I doubt it. You can pretty easily kill level 70 content with a 100% perfect rolled/augmented level 50 gear set (assuming you have a good class/build synergy - not 2 random things). The irony is that it is faster to level up from 50 to 70 than it is to collect a perfectly rolled level 50 set.

[Golliathe]

Even now at lvl 70 when training a lvl 60 skill its often much easier to smash kur tower, or the elementals in goblin than it is to go where the effort is more yet the exp is less.
Which is fun for us , but honestly how long can it continue it's better we have other options so the newer folk can have there dungeons back.

I was being slightly funny but I was trying to point out a few things:
1. Noob enemy bashing might be too beneficial
2. Noob enemy bashing ruins areas for people at the appropriate level
3. It would be great if there was an area that discourages lvl 70 players to fight anywhere but there instead of go bash noob areas. This area of course would not have bullshitty environment mechanics.

I dream of a lvl 70 area - maybe a big cave with some graves to talk to... mushrooms, high level cave fish/shark and no really annoying elements to contend with. Ok maybe have a water hazard where theres one part that you gotta swim underwater for a while to get to the air pocket; during that swim some enemies may attack you... so certain classes would really not like going down there (fire/mental/bc/archery). One of the enemies of course would be a shark so a player might go oh let me catch that shark... oops thats an attack shark.

I disagree on the disagreement... um, you know what I mean. I hope. In my opinion, if something should be considered a level 50 zone, it needs to commonly drop level 50 gear. So, to me, not the mushroom cave, not the goblin dungeon, and I wouldn't really put Kur Tower into that category either since the vast majority of the loot I get there is lower than level 50.

A first time player at level 50 is going to be wearing some >45 gear and some 50 gear. The transition from low game to mid game isn't instantaneous. Most people do not have trans/aug so gear they pick up for certain slots MUST HAVE A SPECIFIC MOD.... or it is trash. Kur/Yeti drop mostly 45 but drop some 55 gear. The end of the goblin area drops 45-50 gear. Just about every class needs 1-2 specific mods leveling up and you will keep stuff you shouldn't because you dont know how trans/aug work OR they simply are not available to you.

You are welcome to disagree but the state of places for people in the '50' block is quite healthy: last 2 areas of goblin, kur tower, wolf cave, Winter Nexus. I jokingly state the mushroom cave is a level 50 area but if that zone is empty and the others are busy you can make as much if not more xp there than you could elsewhere depending on your gear (note* as your gear gets better and better you will get less xp/time in mushroom as the levels get longer and you can kill everything better so killing a higher hp mob eventually becomes nearly the same effort as a low hp mob. When that happens you stop going to the shroom area).

What's wrong with the Gazluk Caves? I've been happily dragging my alts out to them without any winter gear or fire or blankets whatsoever (but with speed buffs and mushroom circle bind in New Prestonbule). To me, they are a totally awesome place to solo, if maybe more level 65ish than strictly 70. I might very eventually like a solo area that drops level 70 gear rather than 60-65 but since I don't really play at max level anyway it's not been a concern for me.

Nothing is wrong with the caves.... except there isnt a merchant nearby. They are out in the boonies for new characters that wont have the 2 easy to get to Gazluk teleport abilities. And there is the cold to contend with as well as the lvl 70 monsters most people cant kill when they actually get to that area.

In other words a lot of time is spent running there to get to the event. You stay a little while and then have to run back to civilization.

Level up two new skills at once because leveling is fun? Ok, I appear to be a minority here.

Why on earth would you do that? a friend of mine was telling me she was averaging 30 min/level in a specific spot all the way up to level 68 by power leveling herself using zero pieces of gear for the 'off class'. You're basically resetting yourself to like level 15 to train up 2 new skills. Yuck.

[Celler]

The quote above you claim is mine regarding levelling 2 skills together is actually from Tagamogi not me.

But we are here to have fun at the end of the day and if folks get fun from a playstyle that is not as many use then good for them.

I like your friend perhaps often train unmodded skills with a BC set of gear with endurance and generic mods .This way the gear is suitable for buffing the BC skillbar and the other mods add something at least to whatever I maybe raising on the 2nd bar.


With regard to players in low lvl areas, almost everywhere offers some useful stuff, for example lower kur tower will give ancient stencil,stomachs and red rose seeds there all of some use.
I think so long as folks are respectful to others in there its not such a big thing.
But charging around ignoring every corpse just to maximize your exp gain is never gonna make you popular with those around you, I don't encourage folks to bury stuff that is there choice, but at the same time treating everything as if it's there for you and fuck everyone else is only gonna make you unpopular.

[srand]

Thank you, everyone, for all of your feedback - and the interesting discussion it engendered. I think we've extracted what we can from for the moment, so I'm closing this thread now before we start going in more circles. Thank you again!