Update Discussion: August 25, 2019

[Coglin]

The same way I feel about all Elite mob damage ( and it's actually bleeding into non-elites in some places) in all zones atm, It is extremely high for a tab target game, you can literally be killed faster then you can react, in a lot of cases even reacting instantly won't save you. ( obviously being a tank gives you some buffer buuut). Example that has literally happened vs a non-elite in fae realm: I get hit twice and see that I need to heal, click heal, heal goes on cooldown and gets activated, die before it actually heals me... so 3 hits from a non-elite in this case, that's about 4-5 seconds vs approximately 700 health and 800 armor ( and thickskin with 7 modifiers on top of that), which is much higher then the average person is going to have. Other random things have killed me in 2 hits, but it might as well be one hit because the same thing happens, I get chunked, hit heal, die before the heal actually takes effect. The elites are fully capable of 1 shotting me and so is general prask still.

No instant kills are acceptable at any level unless it's some special mechanic like a face of death simply because there is no way to actively dodge or block such mechanics, and to be honest those are way too prolific.[/QUOTE]

I cannot say i agree with you here. As I have spent a great deal of time in the realm and I have not experienced being 'insta-killed" in any manner you have. Particularly with non-elites. It makes me curious, what kind of groups are you running with? what build or class combo are you playing? I have 640ish health and 730ish armor playing bard/druid and I have won several fights solo against 3-5 mobs at a time. I admit i had to pull many tricks out of my sleeve to survive in those rare instances, but none the less, I feel like the difference is made by maintaining great awareness of any mobs near me and having a mentality of always being prepared for anything.

Typically when I die, I can almost immediately identify what I could have done to either has won the particular fight or not have gotten myself in a bad situation, to begin with.

[ErDrick]

You don't have to agree, you can feel completely differently and that's fine and dandy. To be fair the bees, panthers and plant creatures are complete pushovers... the fae didn't seem all that deadly either besides the Lethargy Puck who can 2 shot ( we did kill him though, but plenty of party members got 2 shotted by him.. his rage could be a potential one-shot I'd imagine although offhand I can't remember if his rage is even an attack or not, but I didn't test that ).

Let me know how it goes vs 3-5 bears or trolls though, or any elite.. yea, your group will most likely defeat the elite but someone is going to die unless you are running with the 5-10 most competent players in the game. Also if you are grouping for non-elites with said people of course it's going to be easy, I generally don't group for outdoor zones/non-elites unless it's just for socialization or to help someone else that is struggling.

Also the point isn't that it's impossible to defeat them, it's entirely possible.. it just isn't much fun. It's like fighting manticores, I can kill them solo but it isn't fun because the time to kill is 5 seconds vs 45 seconds ( as in if I let them, they will kill me in under 5 seconds, but if I don't let them I can kill them in 45). When you group for manticores you can kill them in 7 or 8 seconds but some random person can and will still die in 5 unless they are chain stunned or rooted / feared etc. I guess they are still fun as a "lets see if I can do this" but that wears out pretty quick.

The skillsets I played around with there though were bard/chemistry ( 95-100% optimized), fire/chem ( 90%ish optimized), fire/shield ( fire is 90% or so, shield 50-60% but you don't use shield solo with optimal mods generally ), bard/shield ( bard 100% shield 50-60% again) and then archery/chem ( 100% optimized). I'll admit I only played for maybe 4-6 hours because the combat wasn't much fun for me, and also the wall of councils I was looking at needing was just too daunting to give a crap about actually putting in the effort. It also doesn't help that I'm unsure what skills I actually want to stick with and level ( after a long break), and just to try one is going to be a million councils... except I can't just vendor everything either because I also will need several thousand phlogs.

For a more complete rundown of my experiences: bard song of discord does less damage even at max stacks then most basic attacks ( combat refresh attacks) do for other skillsets vs a single target and the ae aspect was severely nerfed. ( if you are in a group and not being hit constantly forget about doing decent damage with that whatsoever... which would be completely acceptable if the support role was strong, but it isn't except for group rez and moment of resolve ) also it is impossible to kill a troll ( just ONE non-elite troll) using either of those skill combs aka bard/shield or bard/chem, unless you also modified your chembombs to ignite ( P.S "fire shield" didn't seem to effect trolls regeneration capabilities whatsoever). Fire was fine until I ran into things that were 100% immune to fire damage. Obviously archery/chem was fine in a fully optimized gearset... you can mesmerize problematic or ranged mobs, and ae root melee mobs. I personally hate playing archery even though it is still a strong skill, because it's such a pain in the ass. I also turned mob health bars to "always show" because otherwise you can't see potential adds through the foliage ( previously I had it set to show the bars for my target only).

At the end of the day I gave away all my jellies and logged out. I will check back if combat gets some sort of rework that will make it enjoyable again, and I'll still read the forums because I still care about the game even though I don't really feel like playing it as is.

I am curious what you and others think about all the other examples I gave where you are either killed instantly or unable to act for so long you might as well have been killed instantly, though. For example a 5 second ae disable is completely nuts when you can potentially die from 3 hits. I don't want things to be easier btw, I just want to have time to actually react, if I wanted to play an "avoid the red circles or die instantly" game, I'd play one. In fact I actually want it to be a lot harder but less stupid, as in mobs with much larger health pools, but not 10 at once, and them not being able to kill you in 1-4 hits.

There is no solution that will please everyone though, and never has been.. so I don't know what to say at this point.

[Okeephe]

I sympathise with the scenario you put forth, I’m also a more casual player.
I agree things would be rough on someone. With a 500k balance at patch launch

BUT..... (this isn’t an attack, just stating fact), I’d average 2-3 hours a day, I realise I will not progress as fast as others, I accept this. So, much like my journey to lvl 70, I shift the goals to small increments

Sell your. Skins, even if you intend to leatherwork, you won’t be crafting that gear for a bit at your balance and pace, and you’ll turn over stocks of skins very fast in the current climate

Given time, you’ll likely end up in the position where your earning jelly faster then coin, without coin, the jelly looses its value, so sell some

Foraging, skinning should be primary crafts to prioritise..... all the usual tricks used after leaving the island come back into play.... you see what I mean I’m sure

If you like, I’d be happy to help out with a few farm cycles I do, and again, I do so casually and while not flush with coin, I’m doing well now on the jelly front, so much so that coin, not jelly is my problem (new work order board Citan? )

Anyway, if you need a hand, feel free to lookup Warhaz online (gmt +10 Australian Eastern)

There are ways forward, it will be slower, but casuals can make it work

That's not the point. The point is that for a long period players like me are not moving forward. It's like running dungeons in the game 50 times before you are allowed to loot the bosses.

Everyone with cash, trained, and starting working towards 80 (90) right away. I have to go out and do 5 levels (or more) of farming just to get the privelege of actually earning the xp to get those 5 levels, i.e. doing everything twice

I plan out what I am going to do each session by what skills I need to level, and if I can't level any, then I find it hard to play.

[Clip]

I know FR is far from complete, and what's there is REALLY cool, but please don't lose sight of solo-preference players completely. Things were pretty bad at 70 and are significantly worse at 80 with Fae Realm being chock full of elite and group-only content. After a few madcap frenetic group-running-everywhere experiences, I've mostly not played since the update.

While grouping should be the most efficient way to get gear, I want soloing to be viable at all levels and I agree that it's too slow to get gear while soloing at some level ranges. We'll be working on this in the future...

I actually thought most of those Gazluk caves were full of level 70 monsters already. .... I'll plan on making some changes there for the update after.

I hope those changes are aimed at tuning for 80s, which is where we'll be probably be spending most of our lives for the next year or so.

There's a wide spectrum between "I want soloing to be viable at all levels" and "solo players are not welcome here, go play a different game," but even from our friendly community, I hear a lot more "go play a different game" than I hear suggestions on how to make soloing viable. (For the obvious reasons that soloing for Royal Jelly is a foolish decision right now, and in-game money sources haven't scaled with the increased uncap costs.)

It seems like the implementation decisions are moving farther away from solo viability. Citan's posts were a big driver in my first and subsequent decisions to spend money on the game, and the war caches were awesome, so I'm looking forward to seeing things start to swing back from the the "group or GTFO" extreme.

Thanks!

[Lasc]

That's not the point. The point is that for a long period players like me are not moving forward. It's like running dungeons in the game 50 times before you are allowed to loot the bosses.

Everyone with cash, trained, and starting working towards 80 (90) right away. I have to go out and do 5 levels (or more) of farming just to get the privelege of actually earning the xp to get those 5 levels, i.e. doing everything twice

I plan out what I am going to do each session by what skills I need to level, and if I can't level any, then I find it hard to play.

I do see what your saying, you want reward for your effort in the content/context of what your doing.
So i take it youd rather no jelly requirement and increased coin requirement? (Jellies purpose was intended to ease the cost burden), Yet yes, it also introduces a gate to people who cant gather these at the required rate, ok, point taken.

People with Cash find it easier, yes. This game loosely equates to cash = levels. Even before the new content this was the case. Buy whatever, gain player power, game difficulty decreases. (eg, buy leather & gems, craft better gear, game becomes easier due to the players increased power)

I dont know how to answer your concern. Save that my experience was not the same.

My experience was:
I only had 2.2m councils by launch, enough to open 5 abilities (once i had the jelly), and skill them. (2x Combat abilities, fletching, skinning, leatherworking)
I ran (and still do) all the Rahu, Casino, and Sunvale work order boards.
I had skills in my build to cover trolls, and high evasion mobs, as well as 1-2 stuns, and some aoe when needed.
I died alot learning aggro radius of mobs, socials of mobs, and where to find good farm spots. Uriana's quests are invaluable, and hoarding every "rubbish" drop/harvest does wonders with Midge (i agree with Mbaums was it, midge is a bastard :P )
And i still do die frequently when i miss-judge pulls or aggro radius.

Barring 90mins or so on day 1 doing honeycombs, All my efforts have been solo.
Initially things were very slow, and my levelling pace outstripped my rate of gaining jelly. By CA level ~75 on each, that all changed, and i just seemed to be building barter drops faster and keeping on top of Uriana's quests better.
Im now 80/80 on my combat, and filling out the remainder slowly while i turn my focus back to farming for coin.
Coin, not jelly is now my issue. And i've all but depleted key resource to fill work orders (leather, slabs, gems)

Yes, once i get the coin, i will go back and have to unlock and re-do content for first aid, armor patching, endurance, etc.
But this was my same experience at the previous teir unlocks also, and im fine with that.

The 'specials' that mobs have can be an issue, as im geared to handle things, many wont be. Especially given the mixed population across FR.

I know FR is far from complete, and what's there is REALLY cool, but please don't lose sight of solo-preference players completely. Things were pretty bad at 70 and are significantly worse at 80 with Fae Realm being chock full of elite and group-only content. After a few madcap frenetic group-running-everywhere experiences, I've mostly not played since the update.

I hope those changes are aimed at tuning for 80s, which is where we'll be probably be spending most of our lives for the next year or so.

There's a wide spectrum between "I want soloing to be viable at all levels" and "solo players are not welcome here, go play a different game," but even from our friendly community, I hear a lot more "go play a different game" than I hear suggestions on how to make soloing viable. (For the obvious reasons that soloing for Royal Jelly is a foolish decision right now, and in-game money sources haven't scaled with the increased uncap costs.)

It seems like the implementation decisions are moving farther away from solo viability. Citan's posts were a big driver in my first and subsequent decisions to spend money on the game, and the war caches were awesome, so I'm looking forward to seeing things start to swing back from the the "group or GTFO" extreme.

Thanks!

I agree Clip. Though, After learning 2 or 3 farm spots, im finding things easier.

Im loathe to give it away, its been good to me, but.....

I find income an issue. The sooner we get the ability to complete 'Amazing' tier work orders the better. Someone mentioned the economies of the zone. Some of the in-zone drops could use an increase in vendor value to assist in income gains perhaps.... Havent thought that through, but it feels like alot of the income sources to support the new tier are outside of FR..... maybe thats good and bad.... In two minds....

[Ranperre]

I had Jewelry done (level 78 with bonus levels) last Thursday and have had some time to think about it. It was designed by a sadist. You need several thousand slabs and ores, but the slab motherlodes you need to do don't drop the ores you need when leveling. Then, after you piss away a million+ on materials, the only way to get the slabs for the current content is as a bonus off of the currently highest level slab motherlodes. That's a dictionary definition of masochism right there. Loved it, give me more please (no /s).

Special notes on Jewelry:
- The terminology is 10 levels off from the rest of armor crafting. "Nice" leather/cloth is level 40, but "Nice" jewelry is level 50. "Amazing" is level 70 armor, but level 80 jewelry. I would appreciate more consistency in this realm.
- On max enchanted, Nice & Quality jewelry (level 50 and 60) require a vervadium while the Great jewelry (level 70) requires a single glowy yellow crystal. A piece of vervadium is worth 2.5 glowy yellow crystals, as in verv is worth more than a glowy yellow crystal. This seems off to me, if using items that can be directly compared to each other, higher level gear should require "more". For reference, Amazing (level 80) requires 1 verv & 1 glowy yellow crystal. If you switch nice/quality jewelry's verv with great's glowy yellow crystal for max enchanted pieces, it would make more sense.
- Love the priest piece and the ring is pretty much best in slot for any dps. That said, priest healers get nothing out of the white stats of the priest piece, it'd be nice if you could install a priest gem into the normal neck piece. This is a little specific and pedantic compared to the other notes though.


On flower arrangement: I certainly hope that tulips and fae mystosis or whatever drop in the new dungeon. Even if they're supposed to be rare, the day/night cycle has made them super rare right now.

[Tagamogi]

I haven't made it to the new zone yet, so take my opinions for what they are worth:

I'm concerned with the price tag for the new unlocks. 300K plus is large enough that percentage discounts become very significant. (At least to me.) One of my first thoughts when seeing the new prices was that there is no way I'd ever be silly enough to uncap any skill past 70 if there wasn't an NPC training discount event happening. I forget whether the weekend training events are usually 10% off or 20%, but even at 10%, that's going to be 30K+ I can save by waiting for a weekend event, aka the profits from 3-4 good work orders. So, it makes a lot of sense to just wait for a weekend event and remain capped until then, but it's not a mechanic I'd consider fun.

Rubbing a little bit of salt into the discount wounds is that notoriety now gives reduced training costs past level 50 too, so obviously the most efficient way for me to train skills is to do a bunch of group dungeons I don't enjoy first in order to collect notoriety so I can train cheaper. if I don't do that, let's say I miss out on a 5% discount every time I train, that's 30K needlessly spent just when unlocking 2 combat skills, never mind their abilities. ( FWIW, my main is at 72 notoriety now, missing primarily Dark Chapel and Gazluk Keep since I did run the other group dungeons at times. My alts are a both a little bit past 50, through about 95% pure solo effort.)

My suggestion for the NPC training discounts would probably be to cap them - make it so you can at most get a 20% or other fixed number discount, either from an event or from a combination of notoriety + civic pride + whatever. I think that might feel like less of a race to collect as many discounts as possible.

My other concern about the price tags for the new skills is that they make lower level content progressively less relevant. I understand the idea is that higher levels costs more so that not everyone gets level 100 in everything, but that also means that higher level drops need to be worth a lot more to support the higher level skills. So, the most efficient way for someone to level multiple skills is to get to max level asap, farm at max level for cash, and then speed-raise any other combat skills to max level asap too, so they can do the well-paying content. As someone who likes both efficiency and puttering around in lower level content at level, that makes me a bit sad. I'm not sure what the best way of scaling this is. The level 61-70 combat unlocks still feel painfully expensive to me ( in an "ok, so this takes effort" kind of way). The level 71-80 unlocks sound more like "haha, no way" to me right now.

Edit, on a totally different topic:

I am curious what you and others think about all the other examples I gave where you are either killed instantly or unable to act for so long you might as well have been killed instantly, though. For example a 5 second ae disable is completely nuts when you can potentially die from 3 hits. I don't want things to be easier btw, I just want to have time to actually react, if I wanted to play an "avoid the red circles or die instantly" game, I'd play one. In fact I actually want it to be a lot harder but less stupid, as in mobs with much larger health pools, but not 10 at once, and them not being able to kill you in 1-4 hits.

Yes, that. I don't normally play group content, but even solo, I'd like fewer stuns and less spike damage and overall slower combat that takes a little bit longer to resolve.

[Clip]

I have a lot of sympathy for the dev team. They are trying to entertain people who are in-game 40-60 hours/week or more, constantly grouping and taking down elites and dailies. (Not hyperbole; many of my guildies have that number clearly visible in their Steam stats, and I've had my weeks, too.) These uberplayers are generally friendly, helpful, fun, and by virtue of being online so much, by far the most visible and available players.

These are exactly the kind of people you really want to keep playing the game, because they form the core of an active, healthy online community. But it takes one heck of a treadmill to give them something to do during their Project Gorgon full time job.

Where I think it breaks down is when you get some aspect of the game that's effectively impossible unless you're constantly grouped. Gear farming at level 70 was an example, where GK elite runs were the only feasible way. (by a factor of 100x or more time investment). Grouping elites, the biggest problem is decomposing/phlogging and shoving stuff in crates as fast as piles up. If there was a way to advance solo at 20% the rate of groups, that'd be just fine, but this update probably takes bit of a step in the opposite direction.

do a bunch of group dungeons I don't enjoy first in order to collect notoriety so I can train cheaper.

How do you feel about only having to do the dungeon once, as opposed to having to run it repeatedly? If you can get the notoriety by joining a zerg run or good group, and then never have to repeat it, does that make it less bad than having it be a mandatory part of your daily play?

[Cev]

[QUOTE=Clip;16432]I have a lot of sympathy for the dev team. They are trying to entertain people who are in-game 40-60 hours/week or more, constantly grouping and taking down elites and dailies. (Not hyperbole; many of my guildies have that number clearly visible in their Steam stats, and I've had my weeks, too.) These uberplayers are generally friendly, helpful, fun, and by virtue of being online so much, by far the most visible and available players.

These are exactly the kind of people you really want to keep playing the game, because they form the core of an active, healthy online community. But it takes one heck of a treadmill to give them something to do during their Project Gorgon full time job.

Where I think it breaks down is when you get some aspect of the game that's effectively impossible unless you're constantly grouped. Gear farming at level 70 was an example, where GK elite runs were the only feasible way. (by a factor of 100x or more time investment). Grouping elites, the biggest problem is decomposing/phlogging and shoving stuff in crates as fast as piles up. If there was a way to advance solo at 20% the rate of groups, that'd be just fine, but this update probably takes bit of a step in the opposite direction.

QUOTE]

Is there still a place for the solo player in the future of this game ?
My playing style is pure solo and I like crafting more then fighting.
So my tailoring/leatherworking are 70+ and my fighting skills only 50+. Until this last update this was perfectly possible to play this way so good points for the dev team
Now I need other things then crédits to unlock my crafting skills ... Maybe build in the choice to pay all crédits instead of the new items ?

[Lasc]

Before i get shouted down, this is just an idea, the game is beta, so throwing this out there....

The goal of this is to (initially) ease the casual into the new content, and ease the INITIAL cost burden of entering any new tier
Somewhat a radical re-think of things

* "Tier" unlocks on all skills and abilities removed altogether (ie, the unlock for the right to continue earning experience) - this allows people to experience what they want, when they want, without risk of taking the hit to the pocket for the privilege

* The cost that was associated with the tier unlock, is re-distributed (added and spread evenly) to all abilites/recipies associated to that skill, within that tier. So if an unlock was 400k, and a skill had 10 new/upgraded abilities through that teir, each ability and/or skill has its own cost increased by 40k. The net cost for progressing fully through the tier is the same upon completion. This suits the casual as they can plan for more incremental upgrades, go at a slower pace, etc while still progressing through said tier, and the more involved player, perhaps one with bigger balances, doesnt feel any impact either, its all the same to them, just the cost spread over time rather than sudden lump sums.
This means ability costs for 1-50 would be unchanged, and jump considerably there after.

* Wider expansion of exp penalties. The reason for this is with the removal of the tier unlocks, there needs to be some form of "hand break", sorry a better term escapes me, to stop someone thats say, level 75 Combat, going back to say Rahu sewers, or similar, owning the content there as a way to progress with considerably reduced risk, and at the same time potentially spoiling the game experience of others in the zone who are appropriate tier.
Note this would just take form of an exp penalty, opportunity for drops etc remains unchanged, no EQ style "Trivial Loot" BS. This point is only intended to attempt to say to people "If you want to experience leveing in Fay Realm - Level in fay realm, or Gazluk. Dont expect to see full reward below level 60 content".

Anyway, just a thought, It would solve the Tier gate of people moving forward, but ultimately mean the burden of progress is the same, as you'll need the skill upgrades.