Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
[quote="Jakkal"]I'm not talking about end game clerics, I'm talking about lower level abilities. And it's not fair to judge all clerics based on one of the more exceptional clerics abilities, that's the reason that rogues got nerfed a couple of times, because of super high end rogues.[/quote]
I am speaking about Clerics from 1-55, I used endgame as an example because I think they should've been nerfed to lower their Dps, Lavy/Rose was a poor example though I agree but even my Cleric (in totally shit gear from level 30-40 quests and crafted) when I switched to War was pushing some pretty damn good Dps with gear, tweaked attributes and affinity. I don't personally think I should of been able to Dps that well as a Cleric, the main role is to be the (let's face it) top pure healer with the biggest instant heal out of all the healers, if they want a Dps increase they must lose some healing to balance the class and that then takes away from their very core role and in turn unbalances the rest of the game/classes/group and raid dynamics.
The Clerics were nerfed back in the good old days because they were too powerful and for the exact reason that I am asking for them to remain the same, if people want to play a Healer, expect to heal, if they get impatient easily then either role a Dps class or maybe VG isn't for them.
I am speaking about Clerics from 1-55, I used endgame as an example because I think they should've been nerfed to lower their Dps, Lavy/Rose was a poor example though I agree but even my Cleric (in totally shit gear from level 30-40 quests and crafted) when I switched to War was pushing some pretty damn good Dps with gear, tweaked attributes and affinity. I don't personally think I should of been able to Dps that well as a Cleric, the main role is to be the (let's face it) top pure healer with the biggest instant heal out of all the healers, if they want a Dps increase they must lose some healing to balance the class and that then takes away from their very core role and in turn unbalances the rest of the game/classes/group and raid dynamics.
The Clerics were nerfed back in the good old days because they were too powerful and for the exact reason that I am asking for them to remain the same, if people want to play a Healer, expect to heal, if they get impatient easily then either role a Dps class or maybe VG isn't for them.
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
[quote]if they get impatient easily then either role a Dps class or maybe VG isn't for them. [/quote]
I can't think of a nice way to say this, so I'm just going to say what's on my mind. This is a poisonous attitude for the game. This is exactly what people used to say to rogues when we asked for our abilities to have some *use* and everyone else told us to roll a sorc. I'm not making this statement because I'm a cleric player that gets annoyed that my DPS is so low. When I played my cleric I only had auto attack on for the healing weapon consecration, so my DPS was always LOW and that didn't bother me. But John specifically asked for levels 1-10 here, not 1-55.
I have checked our raiding parses and let me tell you, in numbers, what you've failed to account for in words. Our Death Cleric (Which supposedly gets pretty good DPS) is putting out 1986 DPS and HPS of 331. Other other cleric, which was a preservation cleric put out 755 DPS and HPS of 1352. Our Disciple is putting out 7895 DPS and an HPS 4726. Clerics have the best single target burst heal, but aren't the best healers - especially in group heal situations.
It might "seem like" a war cleric's DPS is "way too much" for a leveling cleric, but they're still putting out DPS WELL under a paladin. And I will not take a single really exceptional cleric's DPS as an indication of how a class is doing, especially with all the comments of raiders being "OP" and "Exploiting" going on.
I am not saying that clerics need to be on par with paladins or any other class. I am saying that we could increase the numbers of some of the level 1-15 abilities to give them a little boost since finding a group WILL be difficult. Because you can't even get the cleric affinity until level 20, this changes absolutely NOTHING for becoming a war cleric.
It's one thing to say "Getting a group makes for better XP!" because it's true for all classes. It's another thing to say "You are REQUIRED to find a group to get XP". Good luck finding one.
With the population expected to be low, we have to make some changes so the game isn't frustrating. Increasing the numbers on lowbie abilities will not affect raiding clerics ONE SINGLE BIT unless you can prove to me that some cleric out there is using Anathema I in their raiding macros. (Hint: They don't.)
I can't think of a nice way to say this, so I'm just going to say what's on my mind. This is a poisonous attitude for the game. This is exactly what people used to say to rogues when we asked for our abilities to have some *use* and everyone else told us to roll a sorc. I'm not making this statement because I'm a cleric player that gets annoyed that my DPS is so low. When I played my cleric I only had auto attack on for the healing weapon consecration, so my DPS was always LOW and that didn't bother me. But John specifically asked for levels 1-10 here, not 1-55.
I have checked our raiding parses and let me tell you, in numbers, what you've failed to account for in words. Our Death Cleric (Which supposedly gets pretty good DPS) is putting out 1986 DPS and HPS of 331. Other other cleric, which was a preservation cleric put out 755 DPS and HPS of 1352. Our Disciple is putting out 7895 DPS and an HPS 4726. Clerics have the best single target burst heal, but aren't the best healers - especially in group heal situations.
It might "seem like" a war cleric's DPS is "way too much" for a leveling cleric, but they're still putting out DPS WELL under a paladin. And I will not take a single really exceptional cleric's DPS as an indication of how a class is doing, especially with all the comments of raiders being "OP" and "Exploiting" going on.
I am not saying that clerics need to be on par with paladins or any other class. I am saying that we could increase the numbers of some of the level 1-15 abilities to give them a little boost since finding a group WILL be difficult. Because you can't even get the cleric affinity until level 20, this changes absolutely NOTHING for becoming a war cleric.
It's one thing to say "Getting a group makes for better XP!" because it's true for all classes. It's another thing to say "You are REQUIRED to find a group to get XP". Good luck finding one.
With the population expected to be low, we have to make some changes so the game isn't frustrating. Increasing the numbers on lowbie abilities will not affect raiding clerics ONE SINGLE BIT unless you can prove to me that some cleric out there is using Anathema I in their raiding macros. (Hint: They don't.)
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John Adams
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Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
k, I need the back-n-forth to end regarding one single item out of 180. Both are valid points, and will not only be considered, but will likely be experimented with once we implement Abilities and Combat. Only then will we truly understand "balancing" anyway. I think what you both forget; this is not SOE's engine - not one single part of it is. However they did calculations will likely not be how we do it. How we will do it is through a ridiculous amount of testing and discussion with class experts.
I'd also like to hear from other teammates besides Kilsin and Jakkal (no offense) and I need the soap-boxing about every other opinion to stop, especially on this topic. What I want here are opinions, not never-ending debate about 1 thing. I need to know how each of you think, individually, about the things I am asking about. Out of this, we lay the groundwork for our direction. 1 topic covered in a week is not getting us closer to our goals.
Others who are reading this, please get involved. Either echo Jakkal's initial response, or dig into the 180'ish items and find me some stuff that interests you (purple, blue and red team members).
As a threat for no participation: If Jak is all I hear from, then that's the direction we'll go (Kilsin's points considered).
I'd also like to hear from other teammates besides Kilsin and Jakkal (no offense) and I need the soap-boxing about every other opinion to stop, especially on this topic. What I want here are opinions, not never-ending debate about 1 thing. I need to know how each of you think, individually, about the things I am asking about. Out of this, we lay the groundwork for our direction. 1 topic covered in a week is not getting us closer to our goals.
Others who are reading this, please get involved. Either echo Jakkal's initial response, or dig into the 180'ish items and find me some stuff that interests you (purple, blue and red team members).
As a threat for no participation: If Jak is all I hear from, then that's the direction we'll go (Kilsin's points considered).
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
[quote="John Adams"]Great starter list, Jak. Thanks. Couple questions:
Cleric DPS
By "Cleric DPS" you mean the stats of the weapons they use, increasing their spell damage, or some calculation just having to do with them being Clerics that they somehow output less damage overall? I would think all "classes", standing there naked with the exact same stats, did the same DPS. No?[/quote]
I don't think I properly addressed these so let me get back to that. Not all classes were created equal. The tests I did on live with endurance regen were all level 1 characters except the shaman (Because they didn't have an endurance using ability at level 1). I believe the results were that all of them regenerated 20% Endurance every 6 seconds, except the cleric and the shaman. They ticked 10% End every 6 seconds. So I felt like this was a bug. This alone might help Cleric/Shaman levelling, and I think that should be where it starts.
But they weren't all equal. Each one has stats and weapons with stats, but all the abilities did X amount of damage. Some characters get bonuses, such as rogues in stealth. Clerics have a DPS stance, which supposedly increased their DPS by 15% but reduced their mitigation as well. But it never seemed to really work to me. What I'm asking for is that if something took 15 hits for a cleric to kill, reducing that to say 12 hits would be a little bit nicer. It doesn't put the cleric anywhere near the dps of other classes, but will help them level if they solo.
[quote]
Difficulty
For the "dots" difficulty, as well as difficulty in general - I'm questioning the rumors that SOE revamped entire noob areas and put level 45 mobs where there used to be level 6. Is this true? Or can we rely on every spawn we place in a "noobs" starting area will not slaughter them?[/quote]
I don't know about this one. I know that Tursh, Tanvu and Khal was mostly left alone because they became the new non-IOD starter areas. I think Lomshir might have gotten a boost. And Mekalia was blocked out with high level mobs around it. Not sure what SOE was planning to do with it. But I don't think any of the other starter areas were messed with.
[quote]
IoD aka "Twinktown"
For IoD, I've read a lot about how it was just ridiculous gear. I'm not sure if that's compared only to Racial towns or not. If so, we can certainly offer similar rewards in all starter areas. This feels precarious though, because people are used to their Tursh Village / Halgarad rewards. If we start changing rewards, the game will not "feel" the same. Will it? IoD, I am willing to sacrifice. I'd personally rather not even have an IoD, but I think some actually liked it... and if they only liked it because they got some insanely powerful rewards, and we change that... ?[/quote]
There's some things to keep in mind with IOD, in that not only did it give really great Adv rewards, but it also gave really great crafting and diplo gear/rewards. In addition to that, they made the levelling for all three spheres not only seamless, but also immersive, much more immersive than the starter areas. You felt like you were part of something bigger than your character, and that's where IOD really shined. There wasn't much boring about it. And if you went off the beaten path, you'd find a lot of named mobs that dropped nice gear.
The starter towns never did that. They never had a storyline such as "Wait a minute, the ulvari are messing with the hobgoblins! We have a mutual enemy, convince the hobs to work with us so we can stop them!" They have quests such as "I really hate these wolves, go kill 10 of them."
But about the rewards specifically, I don't think they were TWINKY, but they were much better than what the mainland starter areas gave you. The original IOD stuff was yellow, the stuff on the starter towns was green and blue. Starting diplo and crafting in the starter towns didn't really reward you with much, and what it gave you was basic. Again the IOD gave yellow stuff. It only really helped you for a couple of levels after you left IOD, but it was still better than starter towns.
I just think that whatever set we go with, it should be the reward across the board. You can give it different names, like Tursh's Undies of Undeads and Dahknarg's Dropping Catchers, but they should be equal stats wise no matter where you go.
[quote]
Helper Rifts
For lowbie helper rifts, I thought about this. I play Morrowwing often (because I love it) and I kinda dig the idea of "Teleporter NPC". Talk to an NPC, they send you somewhere. You want to go to Halgarad (from any other town), find the Lesser Giant and have him send you. It keeps Rifts out of the picture. However, I also really like the "white rifts" idea, which still involves some effort to head over to one. I am just not sure we can make up new Rifts, because those seem to be in the client xml files.[/quote]
I think this would work quite well, it really doesn't matter how it's implemented as long as players have a chance to reach each other without having to resort to everyone playing on the IOD.
[quote]
Rifts "level locked" : what does this mean exactly? If I try going to a level 50 area and I am level 10, it won't let me?[/quote]
Right. That's the way they've always worked since the change from networked rifts.
Cleric DPS
By "Cleric DPS" you mean the stats of the weapons they use, increasing their spell damage, or some calculation just having to do with them being Clerics that they somehow output less damage overall? I would think all "classes", standing there naked with the exact same stats, did the same DPS. No?[/quote]
I don't think I properly addressed these so let me get back to that. Not all classes were created equal. The tests I did on live with endurance regen were all level 1 characters except the shaman (Because they didn't have an endurance using ability at level 1). I believe the results were that all of them regenerated 20% Endurance every 6 seconds, except the cleric and the shaman. They ticked 10% End every 6 seconds. So I felt like this was a bug. This alone might help Cleric/Shaman levelling, and I think that should be where it starts.
But they weren't all equal. Each one has stats and weapons with stats, but all the abilities did X amount of damage. Some characters get bonuses, such as rogues in stealth. Clerics have a DPS stance, which supposedly increased their DPS by 15% but reduced their mitigation as well. But it never seemed to really work to me. What I'm asking for is that if something took 15 hits for a cleric to kill, reducing that to say 12 hits would be a little bit nicer. It doesn't put the cleric anywhere near the dps of other classes, but will help them level if they solo.
[quote]
Difficulty
For the "dots" difficulty, as well as difficulty in general - I'm questioning the rumors that SOE revamped entire noob areas and put level 45 mobs where there used to be level 6. Is this true? Or can we rely on every spawn we place in a "noobs" starting area will not slaughter them?[/quote]
I don't know about this one. I know that Tursh, Tanvu and Khal was mostly left alone because they became the new non-IOD starter areas. I think Lomshir might have gotten a boost. And Mekalia was blocked out with high level mobs around it. Not sure what SOE was planning to do with it. But I don't think any of the other starter areas were messed with.
[quote]
IoD aka "Twinktown"
For IoD, I've read a lot about how it was just ridiculous gear. I'm not sure if that's compared only to Racial towns or not. If so, we can certainly offer similar rewards in all starter areas. This feels precarious though, because people are used to their Tursh Village / Halgarad rewards. If we start changing rewards, the game will not "feel" the same. Will it? IoD, I am willing to sacrifice. I'd personally rather not even have an IoD, but I think some actually liked it... and if they only liked it because they got some insanely powerful rewards, and we change that... ?[/quote]
There's some things to keep in mind with IOD, in that not only did it give really great Adv rewards, but it also gave really great crafting and diplo gear/rewards. In addition to that, they made the levelling for all three spheres not only seamless, but also immersive, much more immersive than the starter areas. You felt like you were part of something bigger than your character, and that's where IOD really shined. There wasn't much boring about it. And if you went off the beaten path, you'd find a lot of named mobs that dropped nice gear.
The starter towns never did that. They never had a storyline such as "Wait a minute, the ulvari are messing with the hobgoblins! We have a mutual enemy, convince the hobs to work with us so we can stop them!" They have quests such as "I really hate these wolves, go kill 10 of them."
But about the rewards specifically, I don't think they were TWINKY, but they were much better than what the mainland starter areas gave you. The original IOD stuff was yellow, the stuff on the starter towns was green and blue. Starting diplo and crafting in the starter towns didn't really reward you with much, and what it gave you was basic. Again the IOD gave yellow stuff. It only really helped you for a couple of levels after you left IOD, but it was still better than starter towns.
I just think that whatever set we go with, it should be the reward across the board. You can give it different names, like Tursh's Undies of Undeads and Dahknarg's Dropping Catchers, but they should be equal stats wise no matter where you go.
[quote]
Helper Rifts
For lowbie helper rifts, I thought about this. I play Morrowwing often (because I love it) and I kinda dig the idea of "Teleporter NPC". Talk to an NPC, they send you somewhere. You want to go to Halgarad (from any other town), find the Lesser Giant and have him send you. It keeps Rifts out of the picture. However, I also really like the "white rifts" idea, which still involves some effort to head over to one. I am just not sure we can make up new Rifts, because those seem to be in the client xml files.[/quote]
I think this would work quite well, it really doesn't matter how it's implemented as long as players have a chance to reach each other without having to resort to everyone playing on the IOD.
[quote]
Rifts "level locked" : what does this mean exactly? If I try going to a level 50 area and I am level 10, it won't let me?[/quote]
Right. That's the way they've always worked since the change from networked rifts.
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
i had leveled a Pally Sorc BM and a cleric all to 55 ( 54 for the cleric DAMMIT so close !) and i would say at this point i agree with both sides kinda. my pally was a blast and so was the Sorc. the cleric was my very first toon and i back burnred him for a looong time cuz i just couldnt solo well with him. (Peace cleric i know duh) took forver and a day to kill anything. so i got a friend to tank while i healed that was the beginning of my "find a guild" phase . so that being said i think that the blalancing will go on for quite a while once we get this thing up and rolling. lets do that first lol
IOD i grew tired of but Jak is right 100% i loved the story.. the rewards were great for a few levels and it made doing the alternate spheres fun and worth doing for a new player. that being said as a vet player i could go the rest of my life never seeing it again !
Kilsin is right on with the satement healers heal . so i agree with that too lol
i dont want to throw gas on a fire that may have burned out but i just wanted to chime in is all
IOD i grew tired of but Jak is right 100% i loved the story.. the rewards were great for a few levels and it made doing the alternate spheres fun and worth doing for a new player. that being said as a vet player i could go the rest of my life never seeing it again !
Kilsin is right on with the satement healers heal . so i agree with that too lol
i dont want to throw gas on a fire that may have burned out but i just wanted to chime in is all
The Platinum Order
Alliance of the Griffon
Brains and Brawn
Odinzz 55 Palladin
Psychosiss 54 Cleric ( So Close !)
Femic 55 Sorc
Dorinas 55 Blood Mage
And a mess load of alts!
Alliance of the Griffon
Brains and Brawn
Odinzz 55 Palladin
Psychosiss 54 Cleric ( So Close !)
Femic 55 Sorc
Dorinas 55 Blood Mage
And a mess load of alts!
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John Adams
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Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
Any more input on this before I stop asking and make all the choices myself? I'm trying to include the entire team on the design of this thing, but I will no longer talk to an empty room.
If you agree with the previous posts, simply say so. Staying quiet makes me think you do not care how it goes.
If you agree with the previous posts, simply say so. Staying quiet makes me think you do not care how it goes.
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
[quote="John Adams"]Any more input on this before I stop asking and make all the choices myself? I'm trying to include the entire team on the design of this thing, but I will no longer talk to an empty room.
If you agree with the previous posts, simply say so. Staying quiet makes me think you do not care how it goes.[/quote]
I'm sorry but I must have miss read what you wanted us to do. First I thought it was only to collect "improvement" ideas from different threads... but now I found this...
[quote]So, give me your 3-5 items from the opening post (more if you need to) that affect the immediate task of Starting Areas (Racial Towns and IoD). Thanks.[/quote]
But I'm sad to say that I still don't quite get what you're after.
Do you want us to list 3-5 items from the "wishlist" that would impact starting areas?
Or do you want us to list those that we would like to see implemented now, and not 2 years from now when modifications probably will start?
There's also several items that I absolutely don't want to see other then on a private server, should we ignore those?
If you agree with the previous posts, simply say so. Staying quiet makes me think you do not care how it goes.[/quote]
I'm sorry but I must have miss read what you wanted us to do. First I thought it was only to collect "improvement" ideas from different threads... but now I found this...
[quote]So, give me your 3-5 items from the opening post (more if you need to) that affect the immediate task of Starting Areas (Racial Towns and IoD). Thanks.[/quote]
But I'm sad to say that I still don't quite get what you're after.
Do you want us to list 3-5 items from the "wishlist" that would impact starting areas?
Or do you want us to list those that we would like to see implemented now, and not 2 years from now when modifications probably will start?
There's also several items that I absolutely don't want to see other then on a private server, should we ignore those?
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John Adams
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Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
What I am seeking is your "top favorite community ideas" for the official server that affects *our* content/server implementation. Examples are to bring back DE racial pets, or the Necro (and other) spell lines that were removed, nerfed, or to "fix" the XP curve, bring back Tombstones, etc. IMO, these affect beginning design (code and content) as they have to be considered all the way through the life of the character. In the end game, another example will be to non-Furious level 50 trash, and so forth.
For Custom servers, I have no intention of developing features for custom servers unless we have the time and the desire to see them ourselves, if that makes any more sense.
Look over Jak's list. It's a good example of what I was after, from everyone on the team. Optionally, of course. If you have no opinions, that's fine too. Just asking that people say so, and not leave dead silence at the end of my requests.
For Custom servers, I have no intention of developing features for custom servers unless we have the time and the desire to see them ourselves, if that makes any more sense.
Look over Jak's list. It's a good example of what I was after, from everyone on the team. Optionally, of course. If you have no opinions, that's fine too. Just asking that people say so, and not leave dead silence at the end of my requests.
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
My top 5 for early implementation:
1) Restore original levelling curve so you don't outlevel content as you are doing it, let alone getting to see more content in your level range.
2) Restore original difficulty of mobs (i.e. 3-5 dots).
3) Fix cleric/shaman endurance regen and give clerics a small dps boost at low levels.
4) Fix tombstones (when do we want these to appear, level 10? Level 6? Prior to that, chars can just respawn with all their gear on them.)
5) Bring back Mekalia.
A lot of the other stuff on the list will be really nice to have, but in the meantime, I think these will have a large effect on the early game.
1) Restore original levelling curve so you don't outlevel content as you are doing it, let alone getting to see more content in your level range.
2) Restore original difficulty of mobs (i.e. 3-5 dots).
3) Fix cleric/shaman endurance regen and give clerics a small dps boost at low levels.
4) Fix tombstones (when do we want these to appear, level 10? Level 6? Prior to that, chars can just respawn with all their gear on them.)
5) Bring back Mekalia.
A lot of the other stuff on the list will be really nice to have, but in the meantime, I think these will have a large effect on the early game.
Re: Content Phase 1: Gathering our Thoughts
Before I present my top priority list I will talk a bit of some of my concerns.
Some of the items on the first post are contradicting each other so if we choose one of them then we would indirectly say that we will not implement another feature.
Many people seems to want a harder, slower version of the game back, but there's also wishes for class Foo to do more damage and better gear which would make leveling easier and faster instead.
We can never get the difficulty exactly as it was on sunset for several reasons:
- Our AI will not behave the same so it will make things easier or more difficult depending on how good the AI is.
- We don't know the stats of any mobs and would have to guess quite a bit.
- The exact equations used for combat calculations is not known.
So we will have to rebalance xp gain, mob difficulties, and probably some abilities as well.
Creating content will likely be slow in the beginning when we are learning new things, and speed will pick up later on. So the starting areas might be the only thing the players can do for several months. And I spend a few months creating some content then it's no fun if it's only 2 hours of game play.
So I think we should instead ask our self if we want content to be harder/easier, leveling slower/faster, classes more diverse/similar.
What ever we decide... we will probably have to rebalance it again when combat is more or less done.
Bringing back tombstones would be high on my general list, but I think that the ingame tutorial is in the client and still says that death penalties starts at level 11 and mentions tombstones, so that would not make it to my level 1-10 list.
So my list...
1) Get rid of the over powered gear on IoD, and the redesigned continental starting areas. White gear used to be useful in the early levels and not just cash loot.
2) Bring back Rogue crafting. This will affect loot tables on the mobs.
3) Make some content extremely hard, and other really easy, so we can check what seems to be a good balance.
4) Racial faction as it was at release.
Some of the items on the first post are contradicting each other so if we choose one of them then we would indirectly say that we will not implement another feature.
Many people seems to want a harder, slower version of the game back, but there's also wishes for class Foo to do more damage and better gear which would make leveling easier and faster instead.
We can never get the difficulty exactly as it was on sunset for several reasons:
- Our AI will not behave the same so it will make things easier or more difficult depending on how good the AI is.
- We don't know the stats of any mobs and would have to guess quite a bit.
- The exact equations used for combat calculations is not known.
So we will have to rebalance xp gain, mob difficulties, and probably some abilities as well.
Creating content will likely be slow in the beginning when we are learning new things, and speed will pick up later on. So the starting areas might be the only thing the players can do for several months. And I spend a few months creating some content then it's no fun if it's only 2 hours of game play.
So I think we should instead ask our self if we want content to be harder/easier, leveling slower/faster, classes more diverse/similar.
What ever we decide... we will probably have to rebalance it again when combat is more or less done.
Bringing back tombstones would be high on my general list, but I think that the ingame tutorial is in the client and still says that death penalties starts at level 11 and mentions tombstones, so that would not make it to my level 1-10 list.
So my list...
1) Get rid of the over powered gear on IoD, and the redesigned continental starting areas. White gear used to be useful in the early levels and not just cash loot.
2) Bring back Rogue crafting. This will affect loot tables on the mobs.
3) Make some content extremely hard, and other really easy, so we can check what seems to be a good balance.
4) Racial faction as it was at release.