Where we're at

[Gramm]

delphon!!

[Loretta]

Aghars!

[btown]

Loretta you stay out of my aghar mmk,  i pk chu!

[Jorquin]

Change update time! None of these changes are on game port currently, this is just to keep people in the loop. Feel free to throw out feedback.

- Countless items which were once damage have been reverted to their former glory.

- Various items were re-balanced. Some got nerfs, others buffs. Some limits have changed. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty.

- % damage reduction on items has been almost entirely removed. When someone gathered several items with this stat they became unkillable. Three items that had % damage reduction affects were reverted to limit_damage or minor_limit_damage flag respectively as per their previous state. A couple more kept their % reductions. I'll leave it to you to work out which they are.

- Ambeoutin is now awesome, although it looks worse on paper.

- Due to popular demand the shield of Huma is now autohaste again.

- The 2 item set for evil align characters which gave extra_attack now provides autohaste instead.

- Neutral characters get no haste because reasons.

- Shamans can now play with the orbs, as long as they're gentle.

- Aspre Tohz has moved into the 21st century and is no longer force load. His items have had their load rates adjusted accordingly (lowered dramatically).

- Ebony has also moved into the 21st century.

NOTE: If you can think of any other easy-ish mobiles that load top tier equipment send me a message. The intent here is that rent_decaying top level equipment which loads on easy mobiles should have a low load rate, and load on percentage. This is to help re-circulate equipment and generally stop people hoarding the  shinies available to small fries.

- A new spellbook for mages has been added to 20 ish mobiles around the world. This book contains spells from all mage book tiers starting from the lower frosted glass tier, ranging all the way up to big area spells. The chances are spread so that higher level spells are very rare, but I would expect someone to hit the jackpot occasionally. I'm not going to say which mobs or where to look, but will say they vary in strength quite a lot. They should be accessible to all levels of players. The load rate is very low, but as they're not in obscure locations you'll likely stumble across them as you play. They're also death load to prevent larger playing groups muscling out the small fries.

- Items from several high end mobs have been re-adjusted. Many were simply too good, even for their load location. Don't worry, they're all still beastly - just not disgustingly overpowered.

- Sunray and lightning storm will once again load on mobiles accessible to normal people

- One quest for a particular spear which was ridiculously obscure has been reworked.

- A quest in Castle uth Wistan that had utterly ridiculous rewards for its difficulty has been smacked with the nerf bat.


Item set and race changes to come. We're also talking about putting up a poll to get an idea for when people would like a pwipe. Tentatively we've been discussing 16 September, though sooner or later isn't out of the question.

Feel free to toss feedback my way.

[Super Tacoman]

NOTE: If you can think of any other easy-ish mobiles that load top tier equipment send me a message. The intent here is that rent_decaying top level equipment which loads on easy mobiles should have a low load rate, and load on percentage. This is to help re-circulate equipment and generally stop people hoarding the  shinies available to small fries.

- A new spellbook for mages has been added to 20 ish mobiles around the world. This book contains spells from all mage book tiers starting from the lower frosted glass tier, ranging all the way up to big area spells. The chances are spread so that higher level spells are very rare, but I would expect someone to hit the jackpot occasionally. I'm not going to say which mobs or where to look, but will say they vary in strength quite a lot. They should be accessible to all levels of players. The load rate is very low, but as they're not in obscure locations you'll likely stumble across them as you play. They're also death load to prevent larger playing groups muscling out the small fries.

- Sunray and lightning storm will once again load on mobiles accessible to normal people

Item set and race changes to come. We're also talking about putting up a poll to get an idea for when people would like a pwipe. Tentatively we've been discussing 16 September, though sooner or later isn't out of the question.

Feel free to toss feedback my way.

i love you.

[kmark101]

Wonderful!

I think the following stuffs should be nerfed for balanced (10 person group) play:

- Volley should be further nerfed, even legendary volley should hit for very hard/extremely hard
- Mtn scout damage multipliers should be nerfed hard. Also Burst must be nerfed for fewer attacks. To compensate, these skills should have other side effects.
- Animate dead (even at legend) charmies should hit very hard max and not carry an offhand
- Spirits should hit very hard max and not carry offhand
- Primal fury should be nerfed to provide way less damage boost.
- Punch damage must be nerfed (maybe it should not give damage at all but have the daze chance only)

Think this is the bare minimum, these op abilities ruin wipe after wipe because ppl steamroll content with them.

About weapons, I like the high str requirement on the most powerful weapons. If you fixed Ambeoutins pls also fix the Emperor's weapons and gear.

Also can ac and armor apply have larger effect somehow in melee? I would love to see if tanks that have full plate armor have some kind of tanking advantage (and maybe -damage at the same time?). Maybe certain amount of apply should provide minor_limit_dam?

Keep up the good work!

[eddiex]

Wow. Exciting changes. Thanks for the hard work!

[Kir]

Wonderful!

I think the following stuffs should be nerfed for balanced (10 person group) play:

- Volley should be further nerfed, even legendary volley should hit for very hard/extremely hard
- Mtn scout damage multipliers should be nerfed hard. Also Burst must be nerfed for fewer attacks. To compensate, these skills should have other side effects.
- Animate dead (even at legend) charmies should hit very hard max and not carry an offhand
- Spirits should hit very hard max and not carry offhand
- Primal fury should be nerfed to provide way less damage boost.
- Punch damage must be nerfed (maybe it should not give damage at all but have the daze chance only)

Think this is the bare minimum, these op abilities ruin wipe after wipe because ppl steamroll content with them.

About weapons, I like the high str requirement on the most powerful weapons. If you fixed Ambeoutins pls also fix the Emperor's weapons and gear.

Also can ac and armor apply have larger effect somehow in melee? I would love to see if tanks that have full plate armor have some kind of tanking advantage (and maybe -damage at the same time?). Maybe certain amount of apply should provide minor_limit_dam?

Keep up the good work!

Lol couldnt disagree more with this entire post except the part about full plate. On another note, thanks for the hard work Jorquin!!

[Jorake]

Wonderful!

I think the following stuffs should be nerfed for balanced (10 person group) play:

- Volley should be further nerfed, even legendary volley should hit for very hard/extremely hard
- Mtn scout damage multipliers should be nerfed hard. Also Burst must be nerfed for fewer attacks. To compensate, these skills should have other side effects.
- Animate dead (even at legend) charmies should hit very hard max and not carry an offhand
- Spirits should hit very hard max and not carry offhand
- Primal fury should be nerfed to provide way less damage boost.
- Punch damage must be nerfed (maybe it should not give damage at all but have the daze chance only)

Think this is the bare minimum, these op abilities ruin wipe after wipe because ppl steamroll content with them.

About weapons, I like the high str requirement on the most powerful weapons. If you fixed Ambeoutins pls also fix the Emperor's weapons and gear.

Also can ac and armor apply have larger effect somehow in melee? I would love to see if tanks that have full plate armor have some kind of tanking advantage (and maybe -damage at the same time?). Maybe certain amount of apply should provide minor_limit_dam?

Keep up the good work!

I think volley does need a nerf. But veryhard/extremes? That's a bit much. If anything nerf legend volley so it doesnt last forever. I wouldnt touch the damage at all though. Do you want to be some other damager and hit very hards/extremes? Warriors/thieves can both get multiple attacks. Should they also be very hards/extremes? I would lower the amount of things it can hit to... 4 max(It is a volley after all)

Burst is also fine. Its a bapting burst! Mtn damage? Again, it should do mega damage but have a longer cooldown, shorter uptime.

Animates need to hit harder than very hard as well. Why dont you just ask them to keep all weapons at 2d6? Jesus. Clerics are already boring as shit. So instead of being able to have 3(maybe 4?) animates, keep it at the same damage, but limit it to TWO max. And make the charmies poof in 15-20mins max

As far as I know, spirits havent been able to hold an off hand for a while. Also. They should hit harder than(theres that bapting very hard shit again)very hard. Should they annihilate? If i control the spirit of aspre tohz, shouldn't he at least massacre? I think a good fix for this is leave spirit base damages alone(whatever they were a couple wipes ago) and tweak amplify spirits spell. Lower its damage by 15% and it would be good to go.

Primal fury should stay 100% the same. There is nothing wrong with this spell. It doesn't last that long. Druids already got healing cloud nerfed(which is justified) We just had a bunch of people leave because of changes. And you are trying to bapting baby proof the mud or something. How about you personally are only allowed to use wooden swords from tarsis tree house. And you can very hard all day if you want.

I actually agree with the last one. Punch damage does need nerfed! Keep daze. Thats kinda cool.

Lower pvp damage by 25-30%

Drink a bapting beer and lets wipe this place!

[Gramm]

Thank you. Really looking more and more forward to these changes and the coming wipe.

[blackmagus]

- A new spellbook for mages has been added to 20 ish mobiles around the world. This book contains spells from all mage book tiers starting from the lower frosted glass tier, ranging all the way up to big area spells. The chances are spread so that higher level spells are very rare, but I would expect someone to hit the jackpot occasionally. I'm not going to say which mobs or where to look, but will say they vary in strength quite a lot. They should be accessible to all levels of players. The load rate is very low, but as they're not in obscure locations you'll likely stumble across them as you play. They're also death load to prevent larger playing groups muscling out the small fries.

Best change in a long time.

[reed23]

Great work Jorquin and other immortals.  My applause for you guys listening to the players desires and concerns.

I completely disagree with Kmark's post.  We just went through the nerfing game and most players hated it to say the least.  People who think the game is too easy are completely wrong.  Core who has all the gear and the most powerful characters did the end game fights recently, and it wasn't a cake walk from what I was told. 

From a PK perspective, the longest PK battles I've been involved with in years were when druid healing cloud hit 2x.  Our 10 probably had much better equipment, but Teric's healing cloud kept his clan alive for 10-20 rounds during multiple fights.  People who say healing cloud was super OP may be right, but if you consider it OP, maybe you haven't seen the recent healing capabilities of Shamans.

[kmark101]

I think you guys fail to see the point. Every wipe someone gets volley, zones are steamrolled. Every time someone gets animate, suddenly +6 massacres (that supposed to be at least 3 players!) added to the group (then you whine about group limit and how the "content should be adjusted"). Every time legendary mtn scouts popping boss fights are trivialized. This leads to constantly maxxed gear and boredom. I'm sure every guild had the bot druid that's only purpose is to spam primal fury whenever it's possible... how is this fun or good for the game?

Don't get me wrong, I also hated the weapons etc.. nerf and very happy that they are reverted, but there are certain aspects that must be nerfed/balanced to better game experience. The pre-nerfs game was extremely stupid and boring in another way.

[Alecto]

Pretty much every legend class has a game-changing skill or ability.  That is why it is worth it to grind out for legend.  If you nerf two or three you have to nerf them all for balance and eventually legend stops being the shiny object that is the immediate goal on wipe day for most people.

Legend bash and assault are huge, legend assail is huge, Freedom is huge, legend fade and dodge are huge.  The people that get to legend first have a distinct advantage, but that's how it should be: Arctic is a meritocracy, the people who put in the most time and effort get the shiniest stuff.

[Pyder]

Item set and race changes to come. We're also talking about putting up a poll to get an idea for when people would like a pwipe. Tentatively we've been discussing 16 September, though sooner or later isn't out of the question.

Feel free to toss feedback my way.

Some feedback then... Wipe this thing right now so we can get back to having fun :D