March Patch Changes / Rebalance and future balance suggestions

[Krowley]

I’ve been meaning to make this post since the update, but have not really gotten around to it. I’ve had ideas on rebalance for a while, and wanted to break them down, section by section.

Crafting:
The crafting changes to max enchanted gear was a kick in the pants, for quite a few reasons. Notably:
1. This wasn’t a nerf to specific, overpowered classes and builds. It was a nerf to all builds. And even more so to non-meta builds. Meta builds can afford to lose a few augments and they will still be GOOD, but lower builds losing augments can make or break those builds entirely. For a game that wants more variety and less gatekeeping, this will lead to both more gatekeeping and less variety. Running an off-meta build was only truly viable with the most bonuses that build could afford, and a full 3/3 off spec build could be viable in end game dungeons because of their heavy crutch-use of augmentation.
2. There was really no need for it. Purple max enchanted gear has always existed, and has always been the same as boss drop gear. If the goal was to bring dropped gear in line with crafted gear, see below.
3. Crafting is far too easy now. 30 crafts got me full yellow gear, 8 pieces. With extra yellow pieces. It’s trivial now, and the value of crafting materials is on the cusp of collapse. You no longer need 300 glowies to make a few max-enchanted pieces, you only need 10.

My suggestion to crafting is actually rather simple:
1. Alter the EXP curve to make it slightly less for some things. Refining raw materials (textile creation, etc) should be about where it’s at. Crafting finished goods (cooking/cheesemaking/leatherworking/etc) should be reduced, or the exp granted by finished products should be increased. Not overwhelmingly so, but right now to get 50 cooking is an absolute CHORE, and it’s a process of repeating thousands of crafts to get a few levels at late crafting stages.
2. Allow 3/3 items, and change the formula. They’re no longer “max enchanted legendary”. Add a new tier of item, mythic (orange), which is 3/3. Make this the old 3/3 max enchanted. Allow crafting of non-max enchanted recipes to craft mythics at the current max-enchanted proc rate (something around 5%?). Change “max enchanted” to be “lucky” and allow it to craft mythics at a rate 50% higher (so 7.5%). This will allow player choice of using rare materials or not to craft, and allow low level players to craft amazing gear for themselves with some ease.
3. Have dungeon elites drop mythic items at a 1% drop rate, maybe 2%. Have bosses and mini bosses drop them at a higher drop rate.
4. Implement a new crafting recipe, “enhance,” that allows crafting a lower tier item into a higher tier. Enhance leather, for example, will take a level 10 leather item and allow it to be crafted to level 20. (Enhance should work in 10 level stages). Have it cost materials, and at higher levels, rarer materials like glowies. Have it also cost phlogiston and prisms, to offset the cost of someone crafting a piece of gear and needing to transmute it to get perfect rolls (with this proposed system you could craft a level 10 piece of crap mythic gear, easily and cheaply transmute it, and then enhance it for way less than enhancing a level 80 piece of gear. Requiring phlogiston to enhance each tier would offset that a bit). Enhance isn’t just for crafted gear- allow it for all gear of the type. Leather armor, organic armor, staffs, hammers, etc. Dropped or crafted.
5. Allow upcrafting of tiers. So for a legendary item, allow it to be “enchanted” to the next rarity. Blue to red, for example. This would cost materials, rarer materials at higher levels (glowies, verb, maximized gems, etc, and not an insignificant amount of them). Allow this to be done with basic materials up to red tier, and then use rarer materials to purple and yellow and orange. To get orange, it should also require a rare item (5% drop rate) dropped from the boss that drops the item being enchanted. This item can also drop from chests in the dungeon (1% drop rate) and can be obtained by distilling a yellow variant of the item (25%) or a purple variant (5%). So say I have a Zuke’s ring and it’s yellow. I want to enchant it to orange. I’d need to kill zuke and get “Demon’s Horn” (plus materials) to change it from yellow to orange. I can either get it from Zuke, or break down another ring Zuke drops, or get it from the chests in GK.

Conclusion on crafting: I think removing the 3/3 was a horrible mistake. It didn’t really nerf top tier builds, but it REALLY nerfed non-meta builds. Trying to make dropped items comparable was a noble endeavor, and I think the correct decision, but it can be achieved in such a way that doesn’t make crafting so trivial, and still rewards players who go above and beyond to get the best gear. Remember that there is no end game, so reaching end game immediately through 20 craft attempts is not a good idea. The end game for players is truly getting non-meta builds to become new metas, and that is done through rigorous gathering, farming, and then crafting and hoping for a chance at 3/3 gear to make the build really shine. We can make dungeons valid and necessary for builds as well (though I will caution, there is a line between a dungeon being fun and becoming a chore).

Exp Changes:
Overall, I think the exp changes were mildly heavy handed on the lower tier stuff, and a complete oversight on the high level stuff. At low levels there are great places to farm, especially as a new player without amazing gear and a high level secondary skill to power level off of, because mobs were not “heavy hitters” and were fairly dense. Exp gathering and loot drops were rather easy. At high levels though, there are few places that have 70-75 mobs that are soloable in clusters of them without an elite build. A new player trying to get 80/80 for the first time is REALLY GOING TO STRUGGLE with their lack of gear, gourmand levels, food, buffs, etc. Before they could fall back to a zone that they were comfortable with, now they have to take it on the teeth.

Endurance farming is also entirely broken and I believe this is actually a bug. You can’t level endurance in any manner that won’t involve alcohol and therapy.
Proposed changes:
Roll back SLIGHTLY the exp changes on low level mobs for veteran players (players with two combat skills level 80). Don’t make them the same, but increase them slightly to allow veteran players to not just fae-realm mash themselves to the ground.
Roll back HEAVILY the scaling for players with no 80/80 combat skills. These players currently don’t have a chance of catching up by themselves, and many of them don’t realize it yet (thankfully).

Dungeon Changes (proposed):
When the 6 person party was first introduced, it was built with the premise that 6 players at level of the dungeon with red gear could run the dungeon. This is not really feasible for GK and certainly not for WT. It’s difficult for labs too. The dungeon system is off kilter- for one, we don’t have a lot of end game content, so veteran players need a challenge, but this gates new players out of content. With the current crafting changes, new players running off-spec would be hard to run through GK with multiple of them, and WT without a party of elite players picking up their slack.
I propose: different tiers of dungeons, non instanced. For GK, make a sub basement that is significantly harder. For WT, make another ship level that is significantly harder while the other floors are easier. Reduce the difficulty of the main floors, and alter the AMs to reflect that difficulty. These harder floors should offer better gear as rewards: higher chances for legendary+ items, rare crafting components, rare skill books, etc. Things that are useful to end game players, but are not crucial to new players starting their journeys. This would make dungeons far more inclusive. Also offer increased party experience, so the new player experience is better leveled through dungeons and playing together.
Another idea: allow for 12-person raids and reduce the loot of monsters dropped from those raids. For gauntlet for example, no completion title or LECs (maybe?), but still allows people to run gauntlet for a lower chance at titles, better loot, etc.

Combat skill changes:
There are some combat skills that are just… bad. Sword, the first weapon you start with, is awful. Deer is in the middle of an identity crisis. Necromancy is decent, but it needs love too. There are far too many to list, and I don’t have great ideas on how to fix these. Ultimately I’d like to see every combat skill have 3 viabilities: tank, healer, dps. Some will do better as a dps, some do better as a tank, etc. But all should excel at one thing, and still be good at others. Right now, staff shield and cow builds are the tanks, and are really the only viable end game tanks. Fire/shield is possible but it’s still sketchy.

Effectively what I’m saying is that instead of nerf/nerf/nerf, lets focus on buffing those that are weaker to be competitive. And add synergy varieties to them in the form of alterations on skills. In the way rotskin can become rotflesh, lets have molten veins become obsidian skin, which allows for a defense bonus while being used instead of reflect damage, for example. Or molten veins become acid veins, allowing for an acid reflect bonus. Or molten veins becomes corrupted veins, allowing for melee attacks to deal additional darkness damage on hit. Variants to the skills that are not in the form of augments, but in the form of alterations (again, rotskin/rotflesh style). Things that allow skills like ice to synergize with necromancy, or weather witching to synergize with shield. This is a mammoth undertaking, and I won’t trivialize that, but I believe deer should be far more than the “off tank that gets smacked to death immediately” and sword/shield should be a viable tank.

Whew lads and ladies.

One last suggestion: Test server, separate from live server, that allows players to properly test changes. Allows them to spawn gear, set levels, etc, so we can see how bad or good things are before they're delivered.

Please don't take this as a critique on the developers. I know how hard their jobs are, and with a small team/big ambitions, and real life obligations and setbacks, their job is not easy. This isn't a critique. It's real feedback with real solutions.