Balance rework and new players

Rarok

Dalayan Elder
I can see the new re-work to nerf buffs so everyone does not go through the process of buff botting all key bonuses and making the classes actually worth taking along...

My question is, why? Am I misunderstanding the changes? Buff bots have been a thing since 2001. There has been permanency -> soulbound, then changes to make all buffs longer and a static length to make buff botting easier. Some thing recently to grant new players buffs even without the buff bots since they had the biggest disadvantage for not being around for years with 20 different cleric's info. You have people who maxed every tome and every AA using super buffs. It sounds like all major buffs will be brought down to 10 mins?

My point is... new players get the shaft here. Sure it impacts old players too, but new to intermediate players are going to be the ones to really suffer. Will there be anything to close the gap between new and old players? It seems to me like that gap between T0 and T11 really should be made smaller in terms of XP needed since XP will undoubtedly be harder to get without all those buffs. Will there be any catch-up mechanics added with these nerfs?
 
Sounds like there will be an opening for my cleric to get leech xp, I guess... ha... Maybe I should roll an enchanter too and just sit at zones offering perma buffs for leech.
 
yea i foresee a lot of shaman and chanter afk bots.

also: look me up, i'll leech for ya on skorj!
 
But seriously, is there any catch-up mechanics or is the initial AAs and all XP the same as it always has been- just with various nerfs to AE farming and now buffs? Maybe they expect and rely you will group up with the fully geared max people who even with the nerfs still farm faster? When I look at it as an outsider, just seems like the grind is getting harder which makes the gap between players way larger when it should be getting smaller.

Edit: Also same for plat farming. I have seen various nerfs through the years to make that 1,000,000 plat target get harder and harder. I know the game is balanced for the top guys, but when someone joins and they are looking at a year grind even with ringers, it is painful. And from what I see, that year just covers the minimums to make you raid worthy.
 
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absolutely. sever mechanics, such as aoe weapons, nerfed ruinics, nerfed plat farm areas, warrior disciplines were more powerful in previous eras, so it is harder to xp/pp farm as a new player in that respect.

you could certainly point out that there are more ringers on loan (which i find to be a goofy balancing idea but it's what people will tell you), and that there are a handful of new xp zones or quest lines that can help you out. There's also some new bridge items like LOIO BoE's and hate armor to help get started.

I agree with your assessment though, that the laundry list of things you need to do to go from leveling, to raiding, to raiding good, to maxing out has gotten longer, and the tools to do it with have gotten slimmer.

(tho to be completely fair, the archaic farm was made simpler and should be substantially faster now. so that's one item on the check list that's fast!).
 
Removing the Codex of Power and rolling that bonus into other tomes (now AAs) was a nice change that alleviated some of the grind. It would be nice to see more, though! :)
 
I guess the only thing that matters is the players who do stick around are having fun. I saw a lot of complaints about the lady buffer and how annoying it was to login 3-5 accounts just to prepare to grind. Now they don't have a choice... it just isn't available. I am sure the overall experience is better now, but if I had all those buffs pretty much permanently and someone decided they would fix the game by taking them away, it would stink.

I don't even know what the game is like now. I know what my experience was a couple of years ago and the mountain of things in front of me with T1 gear and only 400AAs... it just seems to be getting harder which, I guess... is what the people in charge want. Glad to see this tome/AA change though. Tomes were confusing. There is no quick fix to make new players feel welcomed. It is a game designed around 'ringers' at this point. But please, do correct me if I am wrong.
 
yea that's about right. there's a huge laundry list of things to do, and raid targets to hit. we're told constantly that it was much harder to do these things originally, and how easy it is now for high tier raiders (because they have high tier gear). all the while we loose tools that were available for years.

it sure is easy though to get carried by vastly overtiered ringers though!
 
So, I have pretty much no contacts within SOD, similar to a new player. Sure, I see a few people who might remember me, but doubtful. No point playing without a PST guild!

Anyways, what is my quickest way to getting access to one of these ringers? Also, lets say I want to skip the whole process of making a new character... do guilds just hand them out if you want to main them?
 
a LOT of people are generous with ringer information. i don't give out information i was given without explicit permission personally. I suppose you could try to re-main a ringer character hehe. hell you may have some one just say "here , play my rogue" but keep in mind they're kind of saying "level up my alt so that if i feel like i later i can change the password and have a leveled up alt. I bet you could literally ask for a ringer box info to partner with whatever you're playing in ooc and some one would give you SOME kind of info if for no other reason than for you to grind xp on their T5-9 tank alt.

it's kind of daunting to start a new character, but if you kno what you want to play and join a guild, folks will usually loan you a dude to play. Some classes get an easier start than others. A friend made a cleric, and within a month he was in the raids. admittedly cleric is a kind of extreme example because they're in such high demand folks will help them and keep them moving. He got info for an SK that wasn't even decent tier for our guild, but just was in the tiers, so he could use the cleric and sk "ringer" (tho it wasn't really that big of a character). to do all the quest content leading up to raiding.

it seems like clerics and some times druids get more of a helping hand than most classes to get into raiding cus healers are always in demand. tanks are the worst because a ringer healer doesn't make you not a paperbag to start. dps can be a mixed bag. chanters can jump immediately into raiding and do decent dps, but are liquefied ass to play out of raid if you want to accomplish anything.

getting some homies to help advise the progression is pretty helpful. if you want to hit me up on discord for more specific advice, i'm Defixio on the shards of dalaya official discord.
 
getting things done on your own as a dps class felt really bad before. now it is going to feel even worse. i feel like a lot of questing content was designed to be done solo / duo, and even if its not, nobody wants to help someone else trap animals in fof or kill random shit in dreadlands that give shit exp and drop no money.

best of luck to the up and comers
 
At least we dont have to farm tomes and opus.. So theres that... Remember when the opus were all gated in turruj... I do like th aa change.. And fomelo omg thank god for that... It would be nice tho if the AA conversion didnt effect charactet power so much.. Also you guys are jerks for taking away our 9 hr buffs and perma kind lady... Thats litterally why i dont log daily anymore.. And the nerfs cmon the devs are loosers for the recent nerfs.. Chestgaurd of clear thought was fine for the last 10 years since spires was released.... Idk I think its been around since at least 2010 ish.. Not saying it wasnt op.. But wtf why....
 
It is nicer tho to log in and farm 2 or 3 aa as a
Opposed to loggging in at 42.81 of tome and getting 44.67 when u log.. Feels a tiny bit better
 
Chestgaurd of clear thought was fine

It should be the same math-wise. When low level healing spells were buffed, that made Chestguard of clear thought stronger, so the proc rate was lowered. The proc rate times base heal product should be the same as before
 
It should be the same math-wise. When low level healing spells were buffed, that made Chestguard of clear thought stronger, so the proc rate was lowered. The proc rate times base heal product should be the same as before


The thing is that playing a healer you want consistency. Lower proc rates make it harder to avoid overhealing because you can't rely on it as much. A pure numerical parity averaged over multiple casts isn't going to accomplish the same output.
 
experiment bp is still OP and im surprised it wasnt just straight up nerfed. not sure why this discussion is even taking place.
 
Why nerf anything? Do what WoW does, add a new tier where trash loot is comparable to current raid gear and everything previously is unusable. Boom, you can fix all items without nerfing anything.
 
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