Non-non-item nerf thread

[Otcho]

There should probably be a whole thread for this, but adding low strength group heals to the dd component of the summoned cleric hammer and other assorted priest only weapons would be pretty rad, could scale throughout the levels/tiers. It's a fun mechanic that shouldn't just exist at the "end" of the game!

This is not the answer to fixing it. If you want to give this to everyone it needs to be through some other mechanic and not just by pigeon holing every weapon into a static upgrade line. Rework divine rage, Make a new spell for all of them, Give them a tome, Give them a quest/something to get an ammo proc/etc but not lolundo all itemization. Then we don't ever have to make choices between using THE HEAL STICK or THE FUCK STICk because we know that sod players cannot handle choices. Worst case scenario: every priest weapon becomes the FUCKHEAL stick.

 

[Arael]

I get your point, but I'm not suggesting it be on all weapons, just that there are a few choices that use this mechanic prior to t11.

Healers should defintely have lots of (power appropriate) options when it comes to their weapons, healstick fuckstick debuffstick runestick etc etc... I feel like adding it to divine rage or a tome would be too much, and negate the whole idea of situational use

 

[Zaela]

You use the excuse its hard to balance shit when only one guild is doing it, Thats bullshit. Its pretty simple to see if an item is op or not once a couple people have it, not wait 1.5+ years till it reachs general population and then take it away, How long will a dog chance the steak at the end of the stick before he realizes that he will never get the steak.

BREAKING NEWS: I guess it is now "bad" to use more then one [Lore Item] Augmentation in your gear. Rohk, The Traitorous Hand was put into the game almost a year ago and people have been using the same Augmentation that is "best" for their class in both their Legs and Chest ever since. Not one person knew this was NOT intended since they are limited to only 2 slots. It's just so lame for everyone on the server to have such a small dumb nerf given to them just because you woke up one day and felt that it's "wrong" for the server.

I don't have a place in this conversation but I think a point needs to be made here:

You assume that there is perfect communication between devs and in particular between Marza and the rest of the devs. There isn't. In the past, crazy items were rarely made, and there would often be 1 person (Jayelle or me) designing items while someone else actually made encounters, so communication about items was necessary. This isn't the case anymore. Marza was pretty set on making his own items with weird stats and effects from the start as I recall.

A lot of the time we (or at least I) don't know about entire encounters Marza has made. No one else has put quite so many new, very-high-end encounters in old zones; players tend to heard about them before any of the other devs do.

It would be easy to watch an item for balance during the first few weeks after it was looted, if anyone knew it existed at all. Marza obviously isn't gonna do that.

When we do finally notice something, we probably won't even know what it does. "What is that proc? What does it do? Huh, I wonder if that's intended..." Marza does not make him self available to ask questions at all anymore these days, so we don't really know. It takes a while to get a good handle on what his items do, where they are from, etc.

As for augs, Marza also does not particularly seem to care if limitations on his things work as intended or not (lore augs, -20% deity spec for taking the jyre sword, numerous non-standard worn effects and focuses) and certainly does not ask for help making them work. Or tell anyone how they're intended to work at all. Oh, and he never asked if was okay to make any of his augs (there's a reason no one else's content has unique augs beyond Giant/Dragon and MQ, and stuff that does not fit into normal items at all like bounty).


tl;dr blame Marza for being lazy about communication, item design and balance in a lot of ways.

ps not intending to insult you Marza, but here we are.

 

[Kedrin]

As for augs, Marza also does not particularly seem to care if limitations on his things work as intended or not

The aug's only work in your Legs and Chest, so you can only have two ever. I would say that is a Limitation. I only guessed that he made them lore to stop people from having a bag full of them in their bank. Again this is only my insight on the items.

When we do finally notice something, we probably won't even know what it does. "What is that proc? What does it do? Huh, I wonder if that's intended..." Marza does not make him self available to ask questions at all anymore these days, so we don't really know. It takes a while to get a good handle on what his items do, where they are from, etc.

I am rather amazed that the developers of this game are at as much of a loss then you guys are playing off to be in this thread.

FWF is just a group of random dumb people playing a video game, somehow we find out what items do and how they work, hell we even try to help de-bug items what we think are not working correctly. Yet somehow it takes you guys over a year to find out what is going on?

 

[ynnear]

make things have slaar approve it, release it, i would imagine this would be done. If i understand this right slaar is viewed as the manager of development, tao Game masters etc. If content do be released slaar should put his ok on it to avoid this problem in the future. If you follow this in the future with validated work or what is known as project logs everyone in the loop.

Project Zone Super phats!
Lore: The Rage of Blazewind has trickled off and his remnants are growing in Dalaya.
Focus: Next level of raiding Tier 14?

Stage One: Development of zone to include entree quest, mob pathing and axis.

Today ...
Entree way Was finished
Ran into a pathing from roamer; suspected zone file error
Entree quest responses and main theme finished. see sub topic for more details

So if slaar had any comments suggestions or hey i dont want this done this way, changes could be made and as well as anyone else on the dev team could see hey this guys working on this, mabye i can work on part 4 or even 5 and we can meet up compare idea's notes etc.
This should help fix the communication Problem. If this idea is even taken into consideration. If not well we can always make more sand castles until the bully comes back.

 

[Zaela]

I only guessed that he made them lore to stop people from having a bag full of them in their bank.

Could be; if this is the case, he should tell us about this so we can make a system for it. Our old scripting system and client limitations do encourage crappy workarounds a lot of the time... but the Lore tag should be consistent (can't have two of the same lore item in your inventory) rather than having one definition for augs and another for everything else if at all possible, imo.

FWF is just a group of random dumb people playing a video game, somehow we find out what items do and how they work, hell we even try to help de-bug items what we think are not working correctly. Yet somehow it takes you guys over a year to find out what is going on?

We really shouldn't have to police his content at all! He should be the one making sure there is agreement about his new ideas in item design among the dev team as a whole, and he should be the one making tough balancing decisions about his items. We have our own projects and our own bugs to fix and our own crap to balance and our own things to do.

 

[Silosobi]

Well marza did a lot of trying to balance his items. Many of them changed many times after they were first obtained in attempts to balance them. I guess they were still not considered balanced by the people in charge, but since marza was the only one making content at the tier of those items at the time its hard to balance against other dev stuff.

Its understandable to change some things though.

I think its silly that robe/verdict/bangoarms got made worse than stuff that is waaay easier to obtain, but hopefully that will be corrected with time?

 

[Otcho]

I get your point, but I'm not suggesting it be on all weapons, just that there are a few choices that use this mechanic prior to t11.

Healers should defintely have lots of (power appropriate) options when it comes to their weapons, healstick fuckstick debuffstick runestick etc etc... I feel like adding it to divine rage or a tome would be too much, and negate the whole idea of situational use

Lets be real, you will literally never use any stick other then the one that is the crystalis clone. You would segregate healer+caster weapons unless devs want everyone to heal with melee. You should just change it at the fundamental level.

 

[ynnear]

here an option that can time into whats hes asking, maybe offer a tome if your not wanting to give it to us directly but for instance or on heal cast has a chance to proc our main hand, would be a good idea for cleric tome 2-3

 

[Dimmi]

Could be; if this is the case, he should tell us about this so we can make a system for it. Our old scripting system and client limitations do encourage crappy workarounds a lot of the time... but the Lore tag should be consistent (can't have two of the same lore item in your inventory) rather than having one definition for augs and another for everything else if at all possible, imo.



We really shouldn't have to police his content at all! He should be the one making sure there is agreement about his new ideas in item design among the dev team as a whole, and he should be the one making tough balancing decisions about his items. We have our own projects and our own bugs to fix and our own crap to balance and our own things to do.

I'd swear there was a position on staff for someone to oversee dev activity. This makes at least two public shows of ineffectiveness of that position. Don't take this as criticism of anyone, just take it for what it's worth - a suggestion to consolidate some policies and communication behind the scenes.

 

[ynnear]

so i did a test, on the path that was applied tonight, out of 100 times being hit my bp proc'd 17 times. and out of 100 melee hits my crystalis proc'd 3 times. Is this working as intended? Or where you after a different objective?

 

[Ulandx]

In the absence of real beta-testing

... you do a fantastic job.

Have you ever played a healer for exp? Its not fun its boring as fucking hell, I did it cause it was needed

Its a matter of taste,I tried to main other classes and it always turned out I was playing my Cleric
more than any other char.

How is your post useful in any way,should they balance/itemize the game arround players
who dont like the class they play ?

And dont get me started on this "needed" crap,remember this is a game and NOTHING is "needed".

I agree with Malicre, here are a few facts we look at out wall and we press 1-3 buttons. Our little reward for playing a class that is NEEDED in a raid format was we could go have fun soloing simple things.

I still can solo things with my Cleric way better than my comparable geared/tiered Ranger.
Maybe if you wouldnt dislike the class you play you could as well.

 

[ynnear]

obviously your missing the points malicre and I have been trying to make.

 

[mechkl]

Nothing is needed? try doing an on tier t10+ encounter with no clerics tell me how that goes.

So your reasoning for nerfing these items is you need room for future items, so why not come up with new ways to progress items outside of stats/procs. I feel like this is close mindedness on teh dev side of things... marza does think outside the box and maybe that could be brought in line. But it sounds like some of the content creation rules you guys employ are outdated.

Aside from that making future content isnt going to matter if no one is playing this server. No one can lie to themselves and say its not dying anymore and it is mostly due to the shear amount of nerfs and removals. Not most of the people left are only tied down here due to this is where thier group of friends is.

I agree with dimmi that someone needs to take the reigns on the dev team. Lack of patch notes and an almost blatant disregard for player input what so ever. Sure this is ur sandbox, but keep that mentality and its going to be you, yourself and noone. A good amount of the time you guy produce amazing work but you keep stretching and skewing these gems to create piles of shit from once amazing works.

 

[Rorne]

So your reasoning for nerfing these items is you need room for future items, so why not come up with new ways to progress items outside of stats/procs.

What is an alternative way to progress items outside of those things?

 

[CharmCitysKing]

And dont get me started on this "needed" crap,remember this is a game and NOTHING is "needed".

Then why are items and zones and xp and money getting nerfed?

because they "needed" to be


It's not so much the fact that all this stuff is getting reduced. It's that we wake up one morning with xp, money, items and zones nerfed without any warning...Or even a forums post stating "Hey, we're going to reduce xp/cash in this zone" or "We're changing the stats/function of these items"

I think if you were up front with the players about how/when you're going to change the game, we'd be a little more receptive to said changes. Maybe even ask for input from the players? How about an item thread where dev's get feedback on items they put in the game?

And to be honest, this whole "those items were too OP they needed to be nerfed" is kinda bullshit. If you put in the ungodly hours it takes to get your toon to tier 11+, you deserve a fucking awesome healstick or damage stick or whatever to make exp grinds easier/funner imo

 

[Malicre65]

... you do a fantastic job.



Its a matter of taste,I tried to main other classes and it always turned out I was playing my Cleric
more than any other char.

How is your post useful in any way,should they balance/itemize the game arround players
who dont like the class they play ?

And dont get me started on this "needed" crap,remember this is a game and NOTHING is "needed".



I still can solo things with my Cleric way better than my comparable geared/tiered Ranger.
Maybe if you wouldnt dislike the class you play you could as well.

I have been playing Malicre my cleric sense January 30th 2009, Its not always fun, but over time i got certain rewards for spending so much time and effort on my toon, When i was still t8ish watching FWF run around with heal sticks i thought it was one of the coolest items put into the game, this gave me dedication to Farming the 600k to buy an eternal, Farm out 20 tomes worth of exp and keep going. But to continue playing a game that when u log in you never know if your items, Farm zones, exp zones are going to be nurfed to a useless state is not how i wish to play a game. Its not fun to log into a server where some random person thought this might be a good idea lets do it without any input from players who actually play the game. Citadel is a perfect example, That zone was the best exp zone to date, What do the team in charge do, nurf the exp, for what point? has this ever been clarified, the skill it takes and gear it takes to hunt here, and yet Kaesora is better exp, with 1/10 the effort. Makes no sense, these pointless nurfs is the demise of this server, I for one am completely done, unless they revert these changes or at least come up with a logical way of doing nurfs, with some regard to the playerbase i cannot devote my time and hope that the next time i log in my once cool items are not nurfed again cause Slaar or any other person is in a weird mood today.

 

[Faelus]

Dear Marza - I will miss your cool, fun items, that made playing a healer class not fucking stupid some of the time.

 

[Radaere]

I've been playing a druid here on and off since 2003/4. It's on and off fun and boring because that is how this game is and how the class is. How can you possibly say that having your self heal bp and healing weapon nerfed makes this game less fun outside of it makes you mad? It's not like the nerfs are keeping you from doing any of the content you are already regularly doing. If you can't solo now after the nerfs, you are just a terrible player. If you can't exp the same content, you are just a terrible player. If you can't get the same enjoyment out of playing the game with less spell particles flying from your character's hands, then I am sorry, cast more spells or use your Ancient hammer the gods gave you. Get over it, you big bitch babies.

 

[fuwok]

I'd swear there was a position on staff for someone to oversee dev activity. This makes at least two public shows of ineffectiveness of that position. Don't take this as criticism of anyone, just take it for what it's worth - a suggestion to consolidate some policies and communication behind the scenes.

This post is not to beat up the devs or supervisory staff. That's my disclaimer. This post is also really long and for that I apologize.

A long, long time ago, I applied to become a dev and my application was accepted. Following a crash course in how to use the developer utilities and cutting my teeth on designing a quest (the now infamous "awful fairy", itself the subject of a nerf or two), the other devs in my class of dev trainees were assigned to populate a very large outdoor zone with quests, mobs, raid mobs and events.

There was a thread in the dev forums for us to coordinate, and we had each other's emails and whatever else. Basically what happened was that we ended up splitting the zone up by quadrants and cool geographical features and then going to work with our ideas, which basically were fleshed out in a couple of lines in a post and then acted upon.

I felt (and I think other devs in my group may have felt the same way) that our mission was hopelessly vague and that feedback was very hard to come by. The dev staff was always available to give us programming pointers, but not much was available in the way of guidelines like "don't make mobs that charm and blind, nobody likes that" or "don't put spell x on item y". Slaariel lurked around to make sure we didn't commit any misconduct offenses. Slaariel you're my bro so don't take this the wrong way ok!

Anyway, after making a really cool event with Rari (who did most of it as I recall and was a pleasure to work with), the magnitude of dealing with a giant zone with no direction between 4 people crushed my hopes of being a dev. Some time later I resigned because I felt like I was adding to a patchwork quilt and not creating some cohesive picture.

As for the real devs, they get less supervision than that. They work in secrecy, even from each other, and generally are so busy that they never check out each others' work. They may not be allowed to, either. Basically, everybody just makes their thing and then you mush it all together in the game world. That's why tomes feel the way they do, and sometimes overpowered mechanics emerge where two worlds of thinking meet. Or why zaela seems so surprised when someone does XYZ to LMNOP.

This is also why rewards differ so greatly between pieces of content. Some devs are stingy with rewards. Others subscribe to the "Monty Haul" DM theory (for those nerds amongst ye who play Dungeons and Dragons). This lack of cohesion makes it so balance in the gameworld is tenuous and basically impossible to achieve.

Add to that the continuous rebalancing threads and differing opinions on how things work and/or should work - that's the formula for the sands of time-dollars falling through the hourglass of nerdfingers.

edit: the final bit that I wanted to add is that none of the content devs actually play the game. They played before, but none of them have time to play and dev. They are also prohibited from doing their own content for a certain period of time after it comes out. Those factors mean that no devs are play-testing their own content or even each others'. In this way, unbalanced items or encounters will never be discovered unless they have been in the wild for a long, long time.