Update Discussion: March 9, 2020

[Mbaums]

It seems wrong that a fairy not playing mentalism has nothing to show for it in a dungeon except negatives.

I disagree with your statement and I want to say upfront that this is nothing personal. Intentions and interpretations get crossed sometimes on forums and I'm spelling this out upfront in a very direct way.

OKAY-- your stance assumes that there is no game play outside of a dungeon and not picking mentalism is a waste of a fae. A lot of players have only 1 character because of the engaging skill system on PG. This is a massive transition where the intrinsic value of the player-account is absolutely changed. Every person that unlocks Fae MUST have another character who can complete a quest in WN, and so it's always someones 2nd+ character with unique opt-in mechanisms+curses. I'm trying to say: players generally know what they are getting into. Or at least we do, having red the dev blog. The rules for what an unlocked character needs vs a first character shouldnt be the same.

But I'm not really answering the issue yet. Fae have skills with twists, and even if the player is not using those skills, part of the experience to raise skills to use other skills. If someone rolls a Fae and uses unarmed and sword and never touches AH/Knife/Ment/ice magic and never flies and only uses plate, that's hilarious and the only 'nothing to show' situation.

[Aionlasting]

- It's not intentional that fairy magic be usable from the sidebar, that will be fixed soon!

- Elites and bosses use all kinds of different rage attacks besides aoes, but the fact that you only remember the aoes probably indicates just how ineffective those other attacks are...

- Stunning IS supposed to have diminishing returns. But it diminishes slowly from a 4-sec down to a 1-sec stun, which takes a while. It was designed around a 15-second battle duration, which has never actually happened. Should be less of a problem when combat is longer, but yeah, maybe this is a system that I should crank up, at least temporarily, to move people away from stun-locking.

Thumbs up from me if youre working on this ... all I can say.

I know you've got tons of MMO experience under your belt and you're a gamer too at that so you've played other mmo's. I know you know the various creative ways to make monster combat more engaging and fun.

Part of it is probably player abilities too... how come you havn't implemented a Area of effect spell you cast on an area? Your AoE abilities are really just "cleaves" as they require a primary target to cleave enemies nearby with... its odd. Is it a unity limitation? Is it a UI limitation? I suppose the same could be said for enemies too, i'm hard pressed to think of a monster that casts an area of effect ability players need to move out of? I think they too just cleave off a primary target with unavoidable AoE damage.

Who knows... Well. Gl. Combat in my opinion is probably more important than any other element because the entire game revolves around combat... even if you go pureley into crafting you will at some point run into an enemy... unless you're a hermit but how then can you advance in the game? So combat must be fun, fluid, engaging, sensible, challenging at times, and reward at others.

[Coglin]

Thow come you havn't implemented a Area of effect spell you cast on an area? Your AoE abilities are really just "cleaves" as they require a primary target to cleave enemies nearby with... its odd.

I for one sure hope ground targeted AoEs never come near this game. I think it has value in RvR or PvP style mmos. In a PvE game like this I feel it would be a hindrance and I hope never to see it here. I for one do not feel it fits this game in the least, just my opinion.

[Glythe]

- Stunning IS supposed to have diminishing returns. But it diminishes slowly from a 4-sec down to a 1-sec stun, which takes a while. It was designed around a 15-second battle duration, which has never actually happened. Should be less of a problem when combat is longer, but yeah, maybe this is a system that I should crank up, at least temporarily, to move people away from stun-locking.

As players can we get the same rules of diminishing returns to cc effects apply to us ?

I disagree with your statement and I want to say upfront that this is nothing personal. Intentions and interpretations get crossed sometimes on forums and I'm spelling this out upfront in a very direct way.

If someone rolls a Fae and uses unarmed and sword and never touches AH/Knife/Ment/ice magic and never flies and only uses plate, that's hilarious and the only 'nothing to show' situation.

I do not take offense just because someone has a different opinion. It is fair to say then you agree that a fae in a dungeon - not using mentalism is at a severe disadvantage to someone playing the same classes as a different race? Should there not be some advantage to being a fairy even if you are not playing mentalism? Or maybe the penalties overall for being a fairy should be less extreme?

In terms of game design I see it as a better model when you have a choice between two things and the first option is good in scenarios a,b and c while the second option is good in c,d and e scenarios. If there is a third choice that is good in scenarios a-d but not e then you tend to have a problem. This game is unfinished (even still I enjoy playing it tremendously) and often there is a 'third choice' that is clearly better than the rest. I would love to see many things in this game smoothed out to be equally appealing choices. They need not be equal choices in terms of same skills with different colored effects; but rather they should have different ups and downs where they are weak or strong.

how come you havn't implemented a Area of effect spell you cast on an area? Your AoE abilities are really just "cleaves" as they require a primary target to cleave enemies nearby with... its odd. Is it a unity limitation? Is it a UI limitation?

Have you ever played Battle Chemistry or Fire? Both have AoE effects that you can cast without needing a target. One of the spells that got removed from the game hit all targets within I think 20m but was replaced with MV. The one thing I do not like about ice magic is that both of the AoE spells I use on my roation require a target.

[Citan]

As players can we get the same rules of diminishing returns to cc effects apply to us ?
It is fair to say then you agree that a fae in a dungeon - not using mentalism is at a severe disadvantage to someone playing the same classes as a different race? Should there not be some advantage to being a fairy even if you are not playing mentalism?

The problem here is you're selectively ignoring convenience. A fairy ice mage has a TREMENDOUS convenience of not having to research any of their spells. That is a ton of work... and even unlocking the ice magic skill is hard. You've chosen to ignore all that and say "but AFTER all that convenience, what do they have? They suck!"

But if you're going to completely ignore convenience, then fairies are obviously superior to other races. They lose 16 inventory slots but have a fairy-only storage spell that gives them access to 30. 30 is greater than 16, case closed. Fairies are better if you ignore convenience factors. (They can't use metal armor? That just an inconvenience while finding gear -- we'll ignore it too.)

The point is you can't just selectively ignore convenience. If you want to argue that the inconvenience of accessing those extra slots is worse than the inconvenience of researching 100 levels of ice magic, that's an argument you can make, but that isn't the argument you're making. You have to take all the costs and benefits into account, not just "what have you done for me in the last five minutes of gameplay in this dungeon."

---

In general, I think we'll have to wait some time to see how people feel about the race's tradeoffs. I count it as a win if long-term players aren't incentivized to reroll as a fairy because of obvious mathematical combat superiority. The advanced races are going to be all about tradeoffs, conveniences versus inconveniences, doors opened vs. doors closed. And I'm basically aiming for contention. Because if everyone agrees that the tradeoffs of one race are better than another, I've done a poor job balancing. If there's a fair amount of argument about whether the tradeoffs are worth it, with some players liking the tradeoffs and some disliking it... that's a sign of good balance. So I'm going to mark you in the "not good enough tradeoffs" column, but we'll see how some more players feel before making changes.

[cr00cy]

Ok, some more feedback on Fairy from me:

- I would love to see them havign more uniqe spells, not only for mentalism, but Ice magic too.

- Most item crafted by fairy racial skill are bordeline useless. Tools, like saw or skinnign knife are ok-ish, but ultimatelly pointless, since pernamnet, high quality one sare rather easy to get. First aid kits are better, they are consumables anyway, so crafting one or two when needed might work. Shields are complelty pointless -why I woudl ever want to use skill-enabling equipment that will eventually dissaper? Food, from all recipe si unlocke dso far, is best choice, since oyu cna craft it and eat it immedietly.

My suggestion is to make tools pernament, reduce cost of crafting, or increase yeld of consumables.

- It would be nice if we had more use for Fae energy and dust/ice we create. Maybe more feiry-specyfic skills, similar to the one that reduces flight cost? Like temporal increase to electricy/ice damage, increased evasion, etc.

- I like fae-specyfic teleportation skills, but it would be nice if we got begginer quest that would boost our Teleportation enough to learn Recall Beggining.

[Vish]

Sugestion: don't remove Fairy magic skills from side bar, Add fae energy cost for them or add fae energy cost to then if mentalism skill is no one of active skill

[Glythe]

Is it intentional that non fairy characters can make use of the fairy dimensional pocket?

The problem here is you're selectively ignoring convenience.

But if you're going to completely ignore convenience, then fairies are obviously superior to other races. They lose 16 inventory slots but have a fairy-only storage spell that gives them access to 30.

That is a very fair point that fairy characters get ice magic for free - and I did overlook it.

Maybe I am doing something wrong but my fairy storage only has 10 slots (I am guessing that is a later skill).


I know most people are not where I am in the game right now but when I decided to train and level ice magic last year it was because I could do so all the way to 70 at no cost besides uncap fees. The PG community as a whole does not seem to value ice magic but that might change when more people get it for free (even though I prefer it to fire and had both at the 70 cap before the 80 update). Not too long ago I traded 1:1 some of my red books for frost nibs if that goes to show how much less desirable ice magic may seem to be. You will often find the level 75-80 ice research material on vendors because most people simply do not want them.


I mention this because I am guessing that orcs will get fire magic for free. I estimate free fire magic would be at least 3x more valuable/desirable than free ice magic.


If I did not say so before - thank you for the Update! I am still enjoying my fairy character that I am testing in both mental/ice and a clone of my normal build.

[alleryn]

Maybe I am doing something wrong but my fairy storage only has 10 slots (I am guessing that is a later skill).

Levels 23, 33, 47 in Fae Race skill give 10/20/30 storage slots [i think... the recipes are named Storage Portal (10 items), Storage Portal (20 items), Storage Portal (30 items), but the descriptions do all read "Open a portal to a private pocket dimension. You can store up to 10 items in it. The portal closes after 5 minutes." Presumably it's a typo in the desciptions].

[Niph]

Feedback about another item in this patch: pet tanking fix.

Pets can be very good tanks now, at least aggro-wise. I tested two of them, the Tundra Bear, and Chopjaw (both maxed). Tundra Bear had no issue grabbing aggro instantly with Sic'Em, and both were able to keep aggro throughout all fights from start to finish. Autopsy reveals Tundra Bear usually had 85% of the aggro at the end, and Chopjaw 75%.

My build is Sword/AH. My gear is mostly max-enchanted+augmented Epic and Legendary, has all taunt mods at level 80 except main-hand and off-hand mods that are at level 70.

Taking lessons from these changes, I should rebalance my gear toward less heals + more damage for Sword, and less taunt + more damage for AH, since my character never tanks. (Before the patch, I used to share damage between me and the pet to survive longer.)

Tests performed at GK entrance, where I have no trouble soloing elites as long as I pull single.