Low Level Re-balancing - Levels 1 to 10

Dev-Cole

Dev-Cole

Administrator
Staff member
Morning,
Please link item rewards from longer quests within the specified level range that you feel should be buffed; I don't have time to research all of this, so the community can help here.

When comparing power, lets aim for these rewards to be similar to the original adepts. Hopefully this will promote questing and provide an alternative progression to players who do not want to adept farm.

Adept items from newer adepts will be toned down a bit.

Spells change suggestions within this level range can also be presented.

I will review presented changes with administration, and if the changes seem good, will update.

Thanks
 
Not sure if this would be the right area for it (so I am hesitant to research), but could quest items in place right now in this level range be made expable? That way they could grow with the character similar to most adept gear? If so, I would definitely do some digging.
 
Yes, we can make quest items expable, but its a bit more work. I would say if its a very long quest and you want the reward to last a bit longer, we could make it expable.

Also, please list the level of the quest; this will help me balance the item, Thanks
 
The human monk newb quest rewards could use a look:
Are you interested in higher level quests w/ rewards that could use a buff? Tbh, most lvl 1 - 10 quests I've done felt relatively appropriate in terms of award (except when compared to some of the overpowered adept stuff). Just from trawling the wiki there's a lot of lvl 20-50 quests with rewards I already wouldn't use: (e.g., Flanel Blanket from this quest or Radiant Crystalline Axe from this quest).

The biggest set of items where my reaction has been "who would use this" has been low level dungeon loot and low end tradeskill itmems which is a whole 'nother can of worms I suppose.
 
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seem to recall newbie monk quest from grobb being pretty junky also int caster newbie quests in newport(final item is fine). surefall druid newbie quest foraging items need to be a lot less rare and last time I did it the warrens section of it was bugged to the point it was not able to be completed(the escort part would cause half the zone to agro you). think almost all the paladin specific newbie quests are pretty junky aside from the shield of mercy. rogues are in a good spot I think except that their questline doesn't give much gear variety. SK/Necro/cleric is fine they get a nice payoff in the end. Warrior quests tend to be sucky til the end they really need a nice quest ending item for the 1-10 range and 10-20 range. Probably more I can't think of atm.
 
I noticed while leveling my paladin at a slow pace that they have no particular threat spell up until the 55? blind. The low level blind is poor aggro and I entirely relied on root to tank. It would be helpful if there was some sort of threat spell a paladin could level with so they can feel they are fulfilling the tank role.
 
Here's a hot take:

Why does anything not relevant to endgame content have placeholders?

I mean this in a serious way - you could easily maintain all of the progression requirements and feel of all of the zones prior to say... 60 or so - and just remove all placeholders. That would encourage people to come in, get their named, get the drops, and just go to another zone, and do more content in a given level.

There's plenty of zones per level, and quest density pre-65 is not a problem - if you got every spawn pre-65 to be up and drop your items you'd still have stuff you skipped on the way there.

On the whole - if you're rebalancing the entire lowbie experience, the BEST quality of life buff you could do is totally remove placeholder spawns.
 
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The % chance of a named spawning could be looked at. ie, if its 10%, that could be increased to be more common.
 
https://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Antique_Plate_Vambraces probably need a nerf on ac - Fixed

The Vah newb questlines also should be on your list if they aren't (don't know about other classes but I was able to do the first part of warrior one at lvl 3) -- see Vigilance (war), Martialism (rog), Duplicity (brd), Atavism (shm), Animism (bst)

Grobb Rusty Barnacle Covered armor quests (dunno if you already buffed armor since I destroyed it weeks ago, but noticed the swords are untouched) -- questline appears to be only partially implemented so that should be taken into account if you do buff the swords.
 
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Two things to consider while rebalancing (and maybe consider changing the mechanic) since I'm seeing a lot of the items buffed this round with these stats:
  1. Currently +elemental damage doesn't affect spells that are under lvl 50 (also must cost more than 5 mana) : see https://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/threads/disarm-and-dmg-items-question-general.29047/post-293982
  2. Skill modifiers don't give their extra effects prior to level 65: see https://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/2010_Patch_Notes#Patch_Notes_-_03.2F18.2F2010
The skill modifiers are going to at least provide some decrease in fizzle / etc. but the elemental damage stats are likely never going to do anything (unless the toon gets to 50+ wearing gear this gear, which does happen I suppose).
 
Ranmere said:
The skill modifiers are going to at least provide some decrease in fizzle / etc. but the elemental damage stats are likely never going to do anything (unless the toon gets to 50+ wearing gear this gear, which does happen I suppose).
Click to expand...
Elemental DMG on non-weapons used to be mostly confined to high-level gear. As I recall, Woldaff's big push for newbie quests in ~2012 resulted in a number of lowbie items with elemental DMG because, at the time, he didn't realize the benefit only applied to level 50+ spells costing 5+ mana. It would probably be risky to change the mechanic now due to balance issues. (A level 65 NEC could spam the fast-casting, negligible-cost level 1 Lifetap spell and get hundreds of HP back, for example.)

To avoid confusion, it probably would be best just to remove elemental DMG on items other than weapons and gloves. (Perhaps boots too, but I can't remember if elemental DMG on them contributes to Kick, Flying Kick, etc.) However, that's a big undertaking in itself...
 
Grinkles said:
It would probably be risky to change the mechanic now due to balance issues. (A level 65 NEC could spam the fast-casting, negligible-cost level 1 Lifetap spell and get hundreds of HP back, for example.)
Click to expand...

Yeah either remove it from items to avoid confusion (newb saying why is this item not changing my spell damage) or modify the mechanic to scale somehow for lower lvls. Lots of ways to do that where it wouldn't affect how a 65 interacts with spells but still provide some utility for lower lvls.
 
Final (weapon) reward on the Halas warrior questline feel underpowered for difficulty/time to get them (looks like they weren't touched by your revamp so far):
https://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Heavy_Berserker_Axe
https://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Stone_Berserker_Axe

Final (armor) reward from Halas warrior questline may want to have it's exp requirement dropped a bit, currently take ~57 million to max, should probably be 1/10th of that.
https://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Runed_Berserker_Chestplate -- also noticed that Recovery II is listed as Focus Effect, rather than effect, not sure if that bugs the regen or not (probably does): edit, confirmed regen not applying.
 
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