Where are things to go from here?

D

Draeos

Dalayan Elder
In the Cella nerf thread, The overall tone is to make things easier, T12-13 is to hard for the average joe to stand a chance is my take away. With that in mind i have a few questions.

If progression past 11 and into 12 and 13 is to hard, How are things like the MQ zone Tur'ruj going to be dealt with, As it stands Ree is the hardest raid encounter in the game, but this is a main quest zone, So my question is are Rujik and Ree going to be lessened in difficulty?

Prison, Atm Custo is probably one of the hardest on tier raid mobs in the game next to ree, Is this going to be altered as well, Along with Taeshlin trash, Trash after Taeshlin and taeshlin himself? Prison was a zone everyone who starts this game at T1 and works there way up does and if things are indeed going towards the lets make it easier front, These things might be up for getting changed. So my question here is, Are these things going to be changed to be much easier?

Cmal 4.3, This mob holds massive progression loot that there is not another source of anywhere as far as i am aware of, Is this encounter going to be changed to be a much easier encounter, or are there going to be equivalent progression items placed else ware?

Then my final thing is, If these encounter are not going to be changed, Are the items that will replace the slots from much easier mobs going to be really really close items but the ones from the more difficult encounters will still be better? Or are they going to be almost the exact same items just from a much easier set of encounters? Trivializing the need or want to ever do these encounters again?

Basically what i am asking here is "Where are things to go from here?" What is the exact idea what kind of changes can we expect to content already in game besides item nerfs? If any.

These are probably some vary hard questions, and i wouldn't doubt it might sound a bit trolly, I am not trying to troll anyone just trying to get some real answers to some hard questions. Well i and others decide if we want to continue pouring hours upon days upon months into this game that we all love and have been playing for years now.
 
Something I believe from the thread that has been going on and people have been glancing over and fully taking in is something Woldaff has said several times. That there is items that have been made overly powerful, and to an extent which allowed encounters to become more difficult.

Something I believe that the staff wants to provide is alternatives. More content for the regular joe to be able to go and fight to lessen the blow of learning these harder encounters. Things that are slightly easier, but provide upgrades/tomes below these encounters to allow other normal/causal guilds a better chance at obtaining and conquering these fights.

With things being made "less difficult". This term has been thrown around a lot, and it's all relative. If they reduce the incline in which people have become stronger, in comparison with the encounter difficultly respectively, in all, the fight has not become any easier, just more in line with the people that will be fighting said dragons.

In all reality, this is only if these fights are indeed found to be too difficult for the people that will be fighting them. Say Ree, for instance, if the cella/crystallis nerf has taken away enough of a bonus to mana, that it now has healers going OOM where as before they had 25% when ending the fight. They will then reduce the damage output, to fall in line so that healers doing the same job the did before will then have 25% mana when ending the fight. So the fight hasn't become any easier, just adapted to follow with player progression.

Something that is missing in the current end game *which is only a temp end game, this is a MMO, it constantly expanded and new stuff comes out for higher tier and on tier content* IS options, you go to ikisith, you go to Yclist, then to spires, then to turruj while hitting up prison.
Adding on content more on tier, or slightly below tier will allow characters to gain more momentum get bigger numbers allowing them a buffer on what was harder fights for us to break into. Thus allowing the average joe an easier chance to get new fancy items that would have otherwise been much more difficult to obtain.

The main point, is this will take longer for them to obtain, as they will need to progress though other zones, learn different encounters on or below tier in order to progress to zones that we jumped to. So they trade off more time, for easier times down the road. Just the same as everyone back in the day didn't want to jump into prison because "it was too hard!!!" we need to get everyone giant shields, farm the hell out of DHK/PoA etc before moving and killing anything in OP. Of course, the better players could jump right into prison and begin getting upgrades right away. plainly due to them being better players or going for risk vs reward. Something we do every day by being on "the bleeding edge of content"

So where are things going from here? We have a whole part 2 expansion still being developed for us, a 3.0 version of the game in slow progression to allow more development in not only player abilities, spells, aa's, styles, crafting etc, and the whole game. Some items are going to get weaker, some will get stronger, some mobs will fall in line, some won't.

I used to have a Crystaline Djinni blade that had a 3.0 all/all modifier that was supposed to be 3.0, I had spent months and months pugging/ringering with old PR/beyond/etc to get this weapon as it was a extremely rare drop. Until it was decided it was over powered and nerfed down to 1.6. These things happen, and AoE's were reduced in -checks to ensure that raids could still resist things.

So overall, progression is going to happen.
 
I really like the way discussions have been going latley in terms of attitude and such. I really hope this upward spiral continues to go round and round! keep it up fellas!
 
I think people pretty well understand the vision, they (we) just find it... unfortunate, I guess is a way of putting it. For the past 1-1.5 years, we basically saw a whole new game, a time I would describe as the golden era of this game, the Marza Era.

the Marza Era wasn't necessarily better or worse, it's more accurate to view it an entirely new vision of the game. Skill became more important than stats, and this led to new people rising to the top and some people finding they couldn't hack it anymore. You couldn't farm until you overtiered it, because there was no intermediate tier. It was as if tier 13 didn't really exist, you just jumped straight to 14. FWF was the only guild to ever truly experience it, and that's also really unfortunate. Others are being robbed of the opportunity to achieve something worth being proud of in this game. It invigorated the game, provided boss kill ventrilo excitement I haven't seen since WoW, and spoiled the hell out of us.

Loot per hour dropped by a giant amount. You could either farm spires and get 10+ loots in a raid night, or you could go work on a marza fight and be rewarded with anything from a buggy unwinnable fight, a night of wiping repeatedly, or if you got lucky... Marza Loot.

Marza Loot is an unusual thing. First of all, you need Marza Skill to make Marza Fights worthy of Marza Loot. If I can describe the fights and loot in one way to distinguish it from the rest of the game, I would say it was apparent that they were made by someone who was passionate about the game and how far it could be pushed, and of course possessing the intelligence and creativity to make it work.

Whether things were really overpowered or not, I still don't honestly know. I've been nerfed severely, and all I've truly seen is a decrease in my enjoyment of the game. I'll leave it at that.

We were spoiled. I think for some of us, the idea of going back to how it used to be makes us stop and think... okay... wait, is it really over?

That's why the tone you see from most people is more a subdued depressed type rather than anger. The devs decided the current way is unsustainable. It's basically an end to the Marza Era. I can only be so upset about a game, but I did play this game for a long time, and I do find it a little sad. I guess all I can say is I'm glad I got to experience it.
 
I completely agree with evwrything Eisley said and am too glad I got to experience the Marza era. Where there was truely boss fight creativity and having to skill your way past bosses and not overtier/out gear them.
 
Anyone who has played, quested, or raided in this game pre-Ikisith to present can easily tell that the coming and going of developers has made for a pretty inconsistent overall experience. Cohesion would only be attained by having the same group of developers with the same vision for the game from start to infinity. But since this has been out for a super long time, players and devs fluctuate and the end result is decidedly (by the powers that be) not good.
 
cian2 said:
I think people pretty well understand the vision, they (we) just find it... unfortunate, I guess is a way of putting it. For the past 1-1.5 years, we basically saw a whole new game, a time I would describe as the golden era of this game, the Marza Era.

the Marza Era wasn't necessarily better or worse, it's more accurate to view it an entirely new vision of the game. Skill became more important than stats, and this led to new people rising to the top and some people finding they couldn't hack it anymore. You couldn't farm until you overtiered it, because there was no intermediate tier. It was as if tier 13 didn't really exist, you just jumped straight to 14. FWF was the only guild to ever truly experience it, and that's also really unfortunate. Others are being robbed of the opportunity to achieve something worth being proud of in this game. It invigorated the game, provided boss kill ventrilo excitement I haven't seen since WoW, and spoiled the hell out of us.

Loot per hour dropped by a giant amount. You could either farm spires and get 10+ loots in a raid night, or you could go work on a marza fight and be rewarded with anything from a buggy unwinnable fight, a night of wiping repeatedly, or if you got lucky... Marza Loot.

Marza Loot is an unusual thing. First of all, you need Marza Skill to make Marza Fights worthy of Marza Loot. If I can describe the fights and loot in one way to distinguish it from the rest of the game, I would say it was apparent that they were made by someone who was passionate about the game and how far it could be pushed, and of course possessing the intelligence and creativity to make it work.

Whether things were really overpowered or not, I still don't honestly know. I've been nerfed severely, and all I've truly seen is a decrease in my enjoyment of the game. I'll leave it at that.

We were spoiled. I think for some of us, the idea of going back to how it used to be makes us stop and think... okay... wait, is it really over?

That's why the tone you see from most people is more a subdued depressed type rather than anger. The devs decided the current way is unsustainable. It's basically an end to the Marza Era. I can only be so upset about a game, but I did play this game for a long time, and I do find it a little sad. I guess all I can say is I'm glad I got to experience it.
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This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. I think the next month or so will be pretty telling on whether or not I continue to play this game. Marza content was the reason I was reinvigorated to play and exceed at the highest level possible. If his content, gear, and overall approach is determined to be against Woldaff's vision for SoD then I am not sure this is the game that I began to enjoy so much anymore.
 
Obscenitor said:
This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. I think the next month or so will be pretty telling on whether or not I continue to play this game. Marza content was the reason I was reinvigorated to play and exceed at the highest level possible. If his content, gear, and overall approach is determined to be against Woldaff's vision for SoD then I am not sure this is the game that I began to enjoy so much anymore.
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I don't often agree with Bango......But I agree 100%

P.S. I would much rather see the items nerfed than the fights nerfed or made irrelevant by easy content with equivalent loot.
 
T12-13 with FWF was probably the best gaming experience I've ever had.

Really depressing to think its just going to be trivialized by more-of-the-same. Marza content made the end-game of SoD feel so epic.

I honestly thought most his loot was underwhelming compared to the fights, but what we really got from Marza content is the excitement in ventrollo and /gu at knowing that you and your team just worked together, made the right moves, pressed the right buttons, to overcome some challenge that you'd probably been learning together for the last few days. Really epic moments when we first beat Custodian, or Sharn Ree, or anything t13.
 
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Moraelintz said:
special quest mob for jyre
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truth

Disclaimer: this is from when it was still being buggy but its a funny screen shot OK GEEZ
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Really, don't know where to start but:

The server is administered by volunteers who get no reward for their efforts and a shit-ton of abuse for anything the players take a dislike to. The Admins are dependent on the good-will of the developers who are intelligent but eccentric so getting any corporate direction must be like herding cats. Be grateful for what we get, it is free.

I think the biggest issue is the vision some people have. The very best players on the server (of which I'm not one) want to create a niche game which provides a series of incredibly challenging encounters with amazing rewards and I can understand that desire but it isn't really feasible.

The server has a constant turnover of people joining and leaving and requires a robust population to continue to survive. To maintain its numbers it has to appeal to all levels of players. Concentrating all development on encounters that you want would inevitably lead to the less able-bodied deserting the server.

Only a few handfuls of players make the grade to the tier you describe and there is enough drama on the server to ensure they don't all stay in one guild. This means with current server numbers neither FWF or CW can do the content as you describe because they don't have 18 elite players who reliably log on at the same time.

Your model only really works when one guild totally dominates as there isn't enough content of the nature you describe to serve even 2 guilds in competition.

Saying all that the item nerfs and fight tweaks do seem to be illogical and the difficulty of the fights needs to be properly balanced against the nerfing of the weapons. For example, I think it is now arguable that 4.3 is too difficult and needs to be made fractionally easier or some of the item nerfs rescinded.

What I really would love to see is an open discussion on where the server should be going that involved more than the hard-core gamers and heard all views. The people who have posted in this thread are not exactly your average SoD user.
 
Catering to the lowest common denominator is destroying our public school systems and maybe the future of this server
 
Radaere said:
Catering to the lowest common denominator is destroying our public school systems and maybe the future of this server
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I'm not advocating that merely pointing out that the server needs to have a healthy base of players to progress and to develop the elite players you need.
 
Goldfolk said:
Really, don't know where to start but:

The server is administered by volunteers who get no reward for their efforts and a shit-ton of abuse for anything the players take a dislike to. The Admins are dependent on the good-will of the developers who are intelligent but eccentric so getting any corporate direction must be like herding cats. Be grateful for what we get, it is free.

I think the biggest issue is the vision some people have. The very best players on the server (of which I'm not one) want to create a niche game which provides a series of incredibly challenging encounters with amazing rewards and I can understand that desire but it isn't really feasible.

The server has a constant turnover of people joining and leaving and requires a robust population to continue to survive. To maintain its numbers it has to appeal to all levels of players. Concentrating all development on encounters that you want would inevitably lead to the less able-bodied deserting the server.

Only a few handfuls of players make the grade to the tier you describe and there is enough drama on the server to ensure they don't all stay in one guild. This means with current server numbers neither FWF or CW can do the content as you describe because they don't have 18 elite players who reliably log on at the same time.
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This couldn't be more wrong. Currently both CW and FWF have enough players for this content. CW recently one shot Custodian right? It could be argued that that fight is tougher (from a skill check perspective) for an entire raid than a couple higher tier fights. And currently, FWF is having no issues killing anything outside of VZ (which just requires more attempts to learn the final phase).

Goldfolk said:
Your model only really works when one guild totally dominates as there isn't enough content of the nature you describe to serve even 2 guilds in competition.
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It would only be this way if they don't intend to add content after what already exists. And even then FWF is already at a spot where Sharn'Ree and Rujik are dropping considerably more rot loot than non rot loot. The primary reason they are done is for Opus chance or a couple rare items off Rujik.

Goldfolk said:
What I really would love to see is an open discussion on where the server should be going that involved more than the hard-core gamers and heard all views. The people who have posted in this thread are not exactly your average SoD user.
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It's possible to cater to both casual players and hard core players, I hope you do realize that. The only thing we are asking, is to not make the fun, challenging, and rewarding high tier fights irrelevant by adding "fluff" content with similarly itemized rewards, or by nerfing said high tier fights.

Goldfolk said:
Saying all that the item nerfs and fight tweaks do seem to be illogical and the difficulty of the fights needs to be properly balanced against the nerfing of the weapons. For example, I think it is now arguable that 4.3 is too difficult and needs to be made fractionally easier or some of the item nerfs rescinded.
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Nerfing healer weapons barely changes a damn thing as far as difficult content is concerned. The only thing it did is make the game less fun if you happen to have those weapons and want to melee.
 
My guild is nowhere near some of these fights, but I would certainly be sad to see them trivialized by the time we got there. Part of the fun of higher tier fights has been figuring out the strat not the gear.
 
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There is plenty of content that 2, 3, and possibly even 4 guilds could compete against. There is still unbeaten content so always something to try.

As far as the elitist comment is concerned it is not necessarily the op rewards that are desired as much as the nontraditional tank and spank with this or that ae tht is desired. It is the complexity and movement and strat required that is desired. This also reduces part of the musflation where the mobs hit harder and have more hps then the tanks healers and dps new more dps/health/ac this trivializing previous content where with Marza content skill can make the mobs not have to hit for as much with as many hps so the dps/healers/tanks don't need to be as geared.
 
Well it may be that I have misunderstood the points being made by FWF posters which weren't as clear as they could be.

I was told that after Custo it only gets more difficult and I think we may struggle but that may be underselling CW as many of the people in it do know how to push buttons and I have been impressed with our ability to devise strats especially on the changes in Spires and Tur Ruj.

I agree with your point about fluff encounters but in general I am against weapons that are so OP they make a huge difference to encounters especially 6 man.

FWF and CW may or may have just enough players atm to compete but the attrition rate means they won't in the future as we are running out of people to recruit and guilds to absorb.

To me the main issue still remains recruitment to the game.
 
Goldfolk said:
FWF and CW may or may have just enough players atm to compete but the attrition rate means they won't in the future as we are running out of people to recruit and guilds to absorb.
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Absorb each other. It's what happens when two guilds that are similarly tiered start to have problems filling raids with people over boxes. I am almost certain someday down the road this may be thought about. Who knows.
Alternatively, both guilds could just die because they are stubborn.
 
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