Patch 1.127 Update and Upcoming Hot Fix Discussion

All,

A huge thank you to all of your feedback here, on Discord, and submitted to our Feedback Form that we've been inundated with over the past few months! We have read every scrap thus far. We'd like this thread to serve as a way to communicate back to you that we've taken in much of that feedback, have made some plans to address it, and to then discuss your feedback towards those plans outlined here!

As stated in our previous Grab Bag, we hope to introduce Patch 1.127 with housing features, bug fixes, and some tweaks to Endless Conquest restrictions sometime in March.

In addition to that, we will be introducing a Hot Fix in the next week or so that will address some of the feedback on class and realm balance as well as address many of the content-bugs that have been reported over the past several weeks.

We wanted to provide you all an opportunity to chime in and help shape the direction of our patch and upcoming hot fix!


Patch 1.127

Our newsletter poll last Autumn asking about which housing features you would like to see updated gave us a clear direction to improve the Market Explorer window. That will be our major focus of the housing updates but we'll also be introducing several other housing features and bug fixes.

First, house repossession will be re-enabled in 1.127. This means any houses that are currently due to be repossessed from account inactivity will get repossessed as soon as 1.127 launches to live.

Next, we have a fix for the annoying need to manually refresh house vaults on server-up (though the fix will require the vaults to be manually refreshed once more, subsequent server downtimes won't!) and a fix for CMs that have reached plat cap to not sell any more items. We'll also be introducing brand new hi-res and updated textures for all existing housing tiers! A 5th house tier won't make it into Patch 1.127 unfortunately but we do have some of that work well under way for when the right opportunity to fully implement it comes!

Aside from housing, we also hope to tackle some rather annoying and long-standing bugs like concentration buffs randomly dropping and occasionally hitting a load screen when using mass gateway as well as many more!

For Endless Conquest, we've seen a steady population and a solid conversion rate from EC to Veteran accounts since its launch. That said, we would like to make EC even more attractive to play and try while still maintaining the value of a subscription. We're currently looking at adjusting the 180-day timer down some, taking a hard look at the buffing restrictions, and making some tweaks to the progression rates for EC accounts. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this and all of the above!



Live Hot Fix

As stated, we'd like to have this Hot Fix come out towards the end of this coming week (or early the following week) to address some of the recent concerns around class and realm balance.

We are currently looking at making some boosts to the PBAoE classes that did not get the 425 delve, Armsman and possibly all Heavy tanks and then making some adjustments/reductions to the AoE-portion of Champion stat debuffs (Curse set bonus), Enchanter's AoE loyalty cloak /use, and possibly a slight reduction to the 425 PBAoE delve.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the above as well as what else you think can be done to address some of the realm and class imbalances!


Onward,
John
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Comments

  • Please dont touch heavys, they are the most ballanced classes in the game, if anything is needed it should be a antikiting tool on them, but i feel tthat their defences are so strong, that they should have that, infact, just leave them the way they are, they are perfectly fine as they are now.

    If you nerf heavys, i will have to join the old whining choir asking who really asked for that, i have a really hard time imagining that anyone would want to change heavy tanks. I know some people who play them would naturally like them to get boosted, but who is saying they are too rough, they can slam and go 2h, its totally a 1 trick pony, and lots of classes have no problem killling them, specially kiting classes. Heavys have some classes they excel at killing, but isnt that the rock paper scissor part of the game.

    Lets leave heavys the way they are, nothing good will come from a Broadsword© Boost to the class, which then will get nerfed, and cmon.,they dont need to be toned down, at all.
  • Revert back the pbaoe damage boosts. My Sm pbaoe’in for approx 800 and with crits it’s over 1K every 1.5 seconds.

    Also any “boosts” should be in very very small increments. A lot of the EC players came and went due to these “adjustments”. The past 3-4 years of “adjustments” has wrecked DAOC Live population.

    Also time to fully revert back stealth patch and remove free Remedy from all Archers.

    GL
  • Please:

    Pbaoe is not THAT op unless you are stacking in which case there are work arounds (some). You can only cast while stationary, and you're in melee range of who you hit. Tanks worth their salt in open field will just step back a pace or two and keep you in melee range, while you hit them for 1/3rd damage. Old PBAOE was definitely inferior in many circumstances. 365 delve pbaoe seems reasonable to me.

    Boost heavies by nerfing others: making non-heavy wall climbers also drop off the wall when damaged. Fury on a lower reuse timer.

    Chanter cloak personal use only (still super OP), or nerf to 20 sec duration (still super op for siege pushing).. or give it to every realm.

    Up blacksmith band use from 5 to 6 minutes.

    Let EC accounts purchase level 1 houses, but NOT place a cm.

    Drop the 25% and 50% bp/xp level restrictions by 10 levels on the mithril pots. (can't use 50% xp until level 45, 35 seems more reasonable). Let's not pretend it's still the experience since you can buy an instant everything for 6500.

    Sever the tether on pets going inside oil platforms as well when doors are closed.

  • Change ranger rr5 from pet attack to pet scare
  • Nerfing Champs... :o :s :/
  • I'll wear the healing mantle until it gets looked at. Just watch the Hero zerg on a daily basis. They arrive at a keep and the first thing that happens is wardens/druids/bards all find a spot on a wall and just spam heals for the 30 minutes or so that it takes to capture the keep. Is this really what you want your game to look like? Root issue in my view is the ability to spam spreadheals with no fear of going OOP. Solutions? Increased the power usage of spread heals(all group heals) and make them be affected by disease. Being able to heal someone with no LOS to them needs to have a con attached to it. Not getting RPs should not be that con.. There needs to be a little bit of fear when you climb inside of a keep, at the moment there is ZERO fear by attacking realms(Hero)

    In terms of Heavy Tanks, Armsmen have no real unique abilities anymore that set them apart in today's game. Days of Plate/Pole being defining characteristics is gone. Everyone will agree that Heros are by far the best Heavy tank with Warriors being a close second because of how defensive they are. To be honest I don't think Heavy tanks should be touched at all, they are a vanilla class in nature BUT if you want to switch up the META for a while then tweak them some and watch the game flow in that direction.

    It's known that Hib PBAOE grps benefit and are on a whole separate level with the addition of champ aoe debuffs. This is a given, and should be looked at.

    Lastly I would say leave the PBAoE at it's current delve BUT again increase the power cost by a lot to again create some semblance of thought instead of mashing a button with no fear.
  • Champ is one of the least played classes in the game, and have little else to offer grps aside from Siege Breaker.
  • Thaibow wrote: »
    Champ is one of the least played classes in the game, and have little else to offer grps aside from Siege Breaker.

    oh I totally agree, BUT the IRC crew wanted to make a point about the new 425 delve and in the process they showed and flaunted how OP the champ debuff were in unison with that setup. I have no idea what to do to them and that's why I said it should be looked at. Sadly there are classes on all 3 realms that are just left behind in the group department, Champs are on Hib, Reavers on Alb and ..No idea who it would be on Mid.
  • I think anyone on the other end of AE champ debuffs in a tower or keep can attest to their extreme potency.
    Champs were borderline useless in groups with single target debuffs and would be again if they are reverted to single target. But there’s got to be a middle ground.

    Bumbles is correct about the combination of abilities that make hib defensive (and in some cases offensive) sieging extremely effective. Some light handed nerfing, and a few boosts to the defense oriented composition of alb/mid could bring things into balance.

    Placating heretics some without turning them into the next reaver will be tough. Mid defense is a mess. I don’t envy the cleanup.

    But I like what I read above so far and look forward to the notes.
  • edited February 2020 PM
    Totally agree on keep defences healers need to be pushed away from the base of keep walls.
    I have suggested moats or a type of barrier.
    The other thing is inner Keeps they need to be looked at currently once outter door is down inner keep is a death trap enemy with numbers has all the advantages and line of sight.
    Look to prevent acccess to ramparts for enemy compartmentalise ramparts access to each stretch of wall from lower doors that need to be melee down.
    If you fall off a rampart you die would give minstrels with zephyr to do
    I think you need to not just look at armsman but the whole tank group synergy on alb the reaver has got to be looked at and bring something to the party.
    Remove recent pbaoe changes far to powerful for hib.

    Increase armsman damage or change spec points look at rr5 remove penalty
    Snapshot for free
    Please please please reduce minstrel aoe mez to a realistic speed say 2.5 it’s very rarely used at moment and would increase Albs group utility set up.
    Please look at providing items to boost paladins power.
    Please look at the melee tic and change reactionary styles to positional
    Pain necros have been nerfed way to much please revert the changes.
    No need for anytime style nerf
    Make free to play viable.
    Make realm timer 1 hour
    Look at relic keep design it’s not good for defence.
    Look at keep doors again I think they are 2 hard need reduction bring them back to old levels but increase ability of casters to dominate courtyard and reduce enemy’s ability to heal.
    Bring back maze towers but link them to central keep portability as long as maze tower is owned by friendly realm people can still port in maze tower breaks port.
    Make all outer towers like that on all keeps I’m talking towers furthest away from keeps.
    It would mean that defending forces could open port and bring action to those areas.
    Install postern s on all keeps.
    Make it so relic guards assist nearest group leader.
    Post edited by Brut on
  • One more thing fix sorc speed so it’s not such of a pain in the ass to get up the whole your spell has been cancelled thing needs to go when you hit speed you get speed it shouldn’t drop because of some key glitch.
  • New pbaoe selve is fine compared to the increases of hitpoints over the years! 1 thing i would like changed is the speed of the heretics spell from 2.0 to 2.5 so they cant spam the spell with 392 dex and nuke Down a heavy tank there are hitting the heretic!
  • Thaibow wrote: »
    Champ is one of the least played classes in the game, and have little else to offer grps aside from Siege Breaker.

    oh I totally agree, BUT the IRC crew wanted to make a point about the new 425 delve and in the process they showed and flaunted how OP the champ debuff were in unison with that setup. I have no idea what to do to them and that's why I said it should be looked at. Sadly there are classes on all 3 realms that are just left behind in the group department, Champs are on Hib, Reavers on Alb and ..No idea who it would be on Mid.

    Savage
  • Rohan wrote: »
    I think anyone on the other end of AE champ debuffs in a tower or keep can attest to their extreme potency.
    Champs were borderline useless in groups with single target debuffs and would be again if they are reverted to single target. But there’s got to be a middle ground.

    Bumbles is correct about the combination of abilities that make hib defensive (and in some cases offensive) sieging extremely effective. Some light handed nerfing, and a few boosts to the defense oriented composition of alb/mid could bring things into balance.

    Placating heretics some without turning them into the next reaver will be tough. Mid defense is a mess. I don’t envy the cleanup.

    But I like what I read above so far and look forward to the notes.

    That situation is soo few and far between though.. You've only seen a few Champs lately due to PBEoE changes, and ST/debuffs. And it's really only an issue due to Hib populaton honestly.
  • Blabla blablabla bla blabla ...
  • edited February 2020 PM
    I'll wear the healing mantle until it gets looked at. Just watch the Hero zerg on a daily basis. They arrive at a keep and the first thing that happens is wardens/druids/bards all find a spot on a wall and just spam heals for the 30 minutes or so that it takes to capture the keep. Is this really what you want your game to look like? Root issue in my view is the ability to spam spreadheals with no fear of going OOP. Solutions? Increased the power usage of spread heals(all group heals) and make them be affected by disease. Being able to heal someone with no LOS to them needs to have a con attached to it. Not getting RPs should not be that con.. There needs to be a little bit of fear when you climb inside of a keep, at the moment there is ZERO fear by attacking realms(Hero)

    If there are enough defenders, it is absolutely no problem to push healers away from keep walls. With catas, casting through windows, cast assist, jumping down the wall, ...
    Its all a question about too less defenders.
    Post edited by Kroko on
  • Would be good, if one wouldnt be able to put relics in the most inner keeps. So hibs not in scath/ailline, albs not in rena/hurb, mids not in fensa/avakr.
    Then atleast 2 relics have to be put in a non-port keep, making defending harder.
    This would make it harder for a realm to hold 6 relics.

    Maybe in addition: as soon as a relic is in a keep, if you log out there for 10min++, your toon gets auto ported to relic town. This would make it impossible to just log your defence toon in a relic keep.
  • I'll wear the healing mantle until it gets looked at. Just watch the Hero zerg on a daily basis. They arrive at a keep and the first thing that happens is wardens/druids/bards all find a spot on a wall and just spam heals for the 30 minutes or so that it takes to capture the keep. Is this really what you want your game to look like? Root issue in my view is the ability to spam spreadheals with no fear of going OOP. Solutions? Increased the power usage of spread heals(all group heals) and make them be affected by disease. Being able to heal someone with no LOS to them needs to have a con attached to it. Not getting RPs should not be that con.. There needs to be a little bit of fear when you climb inside of a keep, at the moment there is ZERO fear by attacking realms(Hero)

    In terms of Heavy Tanks, Armsmen have no real unique abilities anymore that set them apart in today's game. Days of Plate/Pole being defining characteristics is gone. Everyone will agree that Heros are by far the best Heavy tank with Warriors being a close second because of how defensive they are. To be honest I don't think Heavy tanks should be touched at all, they are a vanilla class in nature BUT if you want to switch up the META for a while then tweak them some and watch the game flow in that direction.

    It's known that Hib PBAOE grps benefit and are on a whole separate level with the addition of champ aoe debuffs. This is a given, and should be looked at.

    Lastly I would say leave the PBAoE at it's current delve BUT again increase the power cost by a lot to again create some semblance of thought instead of mashing a button with no fear.

    I suggested something along the lines of extending the outer towers near the outer oil and putting in some type of postern door leading to the top and maybe removing climb points on them. This way the defenders can have LoS on the attacking support class. This would force the attacking casters to keep the defending casters at bay.
    Dreamscape 12Lx Dark Lotus
  • Kroko wrote: »
    Would be good, if one wouldnt be able to put relics in the most inner keeps. So hibs not in scath/ailline, albs not in rena/hurb, mids not in fensa/avakr.
    Then atleast 2 relics have to be put in a non-port keep, making defending harder.
    This would make it harder for a realm to hold 6 relics.

    Maybe in addition: as soon as a relic is in a keep, if you log out there for 10min++, your toon gets auto ported to relic town. This would make it impossible to just log your defence toon in a relic keep.

    This... This is a solid idea!

    I like the direction you're taking with EC too, Broadsword. However, I feel as if there still need to be more positive changes. Yes, I understand that the idea behind all of this is to try to have the player re-sub again, but, with such limitations; why should they? Yeah, you're giving them the ability to play, and that's fine and all - but what if you gave them just a bit more??
    Listen to the people - they will guide you..
  • I'll wear the healing mantle until it gets looked at. Just watch the Hero zerg on a daily basis. They arrive at a keep and the first thing that happens is wardens/druids/bards all find a spot on a wall and just spam heals for the 30 minutes or so that it takes to capture the keep. Is this really what you want your game to look like? Root issue in my view is the ability to spam spreadheals with no fear of going OOP. Solutions? Increased the power usage of spread heals(all group heals) and make them be affected by disease. Being able to heal someone with no LOS to them needs to have a con attached to it. Not getting RPs should not be that con.. There needs to be a little bit of fear when you climb inside of a keep, at the moment there is ZERO fear by attacking realms(Hero)

    The problem with your solution is that it would go a long way towards making heavy tanks irrelevant in siege situations, and I think that impacts not only heavy tanks but it makes the taking/defending of a keep a much more boring/one dimensional excercise. Everyone would probably end up huddling against the wall or simply playing casters/beating on a wall for a while. There would be much fewer fight interactions during a siege take/defense.

    Now, spreads should cost more than they do, double in fact. I can definitely spam the level 48 spread more or less constantly, maybe a second delay here or there, and that would heal the entire diseased group. It's basically a full group heal (or close to it), without the timer or insta cast.

    Group heals definitely get eaten up by disease and heal for a lot less, I'd say they are in a fine place. A group with even a r13 bard, druid and warden trying to keep a hib tank alive when there's more than 7 albs/mids assisting on the target, is probably going to fail, and will fail with any disease/debuff. Also there is a type of person who really enjoys the simplicity of doing this sort of thing, and I think it's good for the game to have things like that since not everyone is leet.
  • I like the idea of compartmentalizing the walls so harder for an enemy to dominate with tanks that have healers tucked away out of los. You used to be able to use murder holes on top of the walls to hit people below much more efficiently which kept people from the walls as well could this not be redone again ? Also how about smaller scale siege along the walls to help move people away from the walls.
  • Koe wrote: »
    I'll wear the healing mantle until it gets looked at. Just watch the Hero zerg on a daily basis. They arrive at a keep and the first thing that happens is wardens/druids/bards all find a spot on a wall and just spam heals for the 30 minutes or so that it takes to capture the keep. Is this really what you want your game to look like? Root issue in my view is the ability to spam spreadheals with no fear of going OOP. Solutions? Increased the power usage of spread heals(all group heals) and make them be affected by disease. Being able to heal someone with no LOS to them needs to have a con attached to it. Not getting RPs should not be that con.. There needs to be a little bit of fear when you climb inside of a keep, at the moment there is ZERO fear by attacking realms(Hero)

    The problem with your solution is that it would go a long way towards making heavy tanks irrelevant in siege situations, and I think that impacts not only heavy tanks but it makes the taking/defending of a keep a much more boring/one dimensional excercise. Everyone would probably end up huddling against the wall or simply playing casters/beating on a wall for a while. There would be much fewer fight interactions during a siege take/defense.

    Now, spreads should cost more than they do, double in fact. I can definitely spam the level 48 spread more or less constantly, maybe a second delay here or there, and that would heal the entire diseased group. It's basically a full group heal (or close to it), without the timer or insta cast.

    Group heals definitely get eaten up by disease and heal for a lot less, I'd say they are in a fine place. A group with even a r13 bard, druid and warden trying to keep a hib tank alive when there's more than 7 albs/mids assisting on the target, is probably going to fail, and will fail with any disease/debuff. Also there is a type of person who really enjoys the simplicity of doing this sort of thing, and I think it's good for the game to have things like that since not everyone is leet.

    Would giving spread heals a smaller radius help or would that nerf it too much in open field fights? Or perhaps making it a longer cast delve.
    Dreamscape 12Lx Dark Lotus
  • Bodyguarding from the safety of the Lord room on group members on the inner oil level is preposterous!
  • Dreamscape wrote: »
    Would giving spread heals a smaller radius help or would that nerf it too much in open field fights? Or perhaps making it a longer cast delve.

    Smaller radius and longer cast time would both make it unusable open field, and really even tower/keep fights as well. Spread is for when there's not time to clear disease or hit a st/not in LOS, etc. A longer cast would mean people die while you're casting. Smaller radius means you have to adapt playstyle entirely and suddenly support is interrupted or out of heal range.

    I think 181 cost for level 48, 160 cost for level 39, and 136 cost for level 30 SH, same radius, same cast.

  • edited February 2020 PM
    Jesus only a chimp would think that a champ is useless in a grp setup.... *All I have to say*. U get every debuff necessary to make the grp thrive with a 15 sec cd "I believe", plus (A champ with a BRAIN that can peel / cycle there debuff's on multiple targets is a game changer in my opinion.)
    Post edited by Olfura on
  • Yep great interupts rr5 aoe debuff s damage what more do they want lol at hibs just lol
  • Koe wrote: »
    Dreamscape wrote: »
    Would giving spread heals a smaller radius help or would that nerf it too much in open field fights? Or perhaps making it a longer cast delve.

    Smaller radius and longer cast time would both make it unusable open field, and really even tower/keep fights as well. Spread is for when there's not time to clear disease or hit a st/not in LOS, etc. A longer cast would mean people die while you're casting. Smaller radius means you have to adapt playstyle entirely and suddenly support is interrupted or out of heal range.

    I think 181 cost for level 48, 160 cost for level 39, and 136 cost for level 30 SH, same radius, same cast.

    +1. Spreadheal power cost should be higher to be in line with power availability to prevent it from being spammed. They could even fix the cost and make it %based (20, 25, 30% per tier or higher) as opposed to a raw power point cost.
    Olfura wrote: »
    Jesus only a chimp would think that a champ is useless in a grp setup.... *All I have to say*. U get every debuff necessary to make the grp thrive with a 15 sec cd "I believe", plus (A champ with a BRAIN that can peel / cycle there debuff's on multiple targets is a game changer in my opinion.)

    +1. Champs never needed AoE debuffs to be useful in groups. Having every debuff available on one class with a short RuT was sufficient. One of the many changes that shocked me when I returned a few years ago.
    "The grab bag isn't for explaining every single class change decision or reasoning or that's all we would ever do." - John_Broadsword
    "The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
    "Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
  • Koe wrote: »
    Dreamscape wrote: »
    Would giving spread heals a smaller radius help or would that nerf it too much in open field fights? Or perhaps making it a longer cast delve.

    Smaller radius and longer cast time would both make it unusable open field, and really even tower/keep fights as well. Spread is for when there's not time to clear disease or hit a st/not in LOS, etc. A longer cast would mean people die while you're casting. Smaller radius means you have to adapt playstyle entirely and suddenly support is interrupted or out of heal range.

    I think 181 cost for level 48, 160 cost for level 39, and 136 cost for level 30 SH, same radius, same cast.

    That's what I figured.
    Dreamscape 12Lx Dark Lotus
  • Aoe debuffs on a tank are insane coupled with a enchanter it’s why hib tank trains wreck could never understand why that was ever allowed to stand in game completely changed the tank group situation in game really needs a look at or give other realms the same ability
  • @Brut seriously?? Read all your "ALB" proposed changes, and I lol'd. I think you and Jenny been to the pub in merry old England one too many times.
  • Yeh seriously do you seriously think hib aren’t dominating in game now do you seriously think hib tank groups are not the meta in game now do you seriously think hibs don’t have the relics all of the time do you seriously think that hib don’t have a Zerg that runs 7 days a week a minimum of 5 hours a day.
    Do you seriously think the game is balanced
    Do you seriously think the game can carry on like this.
    Or are you happy to Zerg empty Keeps with your new buddies the irc zergers lol I mean seriously irc are zergers now
    Lot of hibs in big denial here I call it for what it is undoubtably you will deny protest redicule just to keep the status quo but people are seeing through the crap now the stats don’t lie.
    I would love every alb and mid who see irc players log in to troll them with the Zerger tag whenever they poke there noses out in region spouting crap just spam zerger at them very funny and very annoying can’t wait to troll potatoe I mean patars with it they been calling people zergers for years but the wheel has turned full circle they have become what they despise.
    Now after that rant I’m off to the pub enjoy.
  • For Endless Conquest, we've seen a steady population and a solid conversion rate from EC to Veteran accounts since its launch. That said, we would like to make EC even more attractive to play and try while still maintaining the value of a subscription. We're currently looking at adjusting the 180-day timer down some, taking a hard look at the buffing restrictions, and making some tweaks to the progression rates for EC accounts. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this and all of the above!

    Here could be done much more as stated numerous times now everywhere. Dont know if you need more feedback on this.
  • Brut wrote: »
    Yeh seriously do you seriously think hib aren’t dominating in game now do you seriously think hib tank groups are not the meta in game now do you seriously think hibs don’t have the relics all of the time do you seriously think that hib don’t have a Zerg that runs 7 days a week a minimum of 5 hours a day.
    Do you seriously think the game is balanced
    Do you seriously think the game can carry on like this.
    Or are you happy to Zerg empty Keeps with your new buddies the irc zergers lol I mean seriously irc are zergers now
    Lot of hibs in big denial here I call it for what it is undoubtably you will deny protest redicule just to keep the status quo but people are seeing through the crap now the stats don’t lie.
    I would love every alb and mid who see irc players log in to troll them with the Zerger tag whenever they poke there noses out in region spouting crap just spam zerger at them very funny and very annoying can’t wait to troll potatoe I mean patars with it they been calling people zergers for years but the wheel has turned full circle they have become what they despise.
    Now after that rant I’m off to the pub enjoy.

    /facepalm

    Someone started drinking before heading to the Pub...
  • Brut wrote: »
    Do you seriously think the game is balanced
    Do you seriously think the game can carry on like this.

    do you seriously think, nerfing hib and buffing alb are gonna help you 80v20.

    the 8v1 meta of the 80v10 meta is a playerbase issue of winning with numbers, those type of players will red its dead until they are on the back foot and then vanish until the resistance/dominate force has dissipated and then the circle begins again. you are forced to be reactive without reward and this also disadvantages those that can only play a few hours a day vs those that can play 12 hours a day and skip a few hours in between when action doesn't suit them.

    i wish the answer was simple, but nerfing champs and chanters won't change the herorius effect.
  • The biggest problem on YWAIN is that when one realm is dominating RvR, it shuts down all other aspects of that realms ability to RvR. IE when hero zerg is rolling cutting all ports and taking keeps, any solo/duo/small mans now have to boat from relic town to make it back to the action. Outer keeps are effectively useless to Hero because he can take a keep without cutting port thanks to population imbalances. This forces an entire realm to play one play style: zerg keep defense. While this is great when we had a reason to defend something, now there is no reason to defend thanks to dead realm pride and relics are too easy for hero to take right now.

    So let's learn from this. Remove the old/broken relic system and update the bonuses your realm gets from owning more keeps. New server doesn't need relics, or you risk one realm dominating the other two for the life of the season, and we want to promote BALANCE not IMBALANCE. . Remove the broken keep RP reward system as well, it promotes 8mans jumping on the zerg train and consolidating action rather than spreading it around a little bit .If you're going to lock people down to one realm, and one realm is set up to dominate that season (we all know certain patches certain realms were stronger, some groups will take advantage of this, ontop of relic stacking), people will just quit or go farm EC players on Ywain.

    Provide more incentives for groups 4 or less. This is probably one of the more important points for the overall life of DAoC. A lot of people can agree the general playerbase ATM is pretty, well, bad. People consider assisting high level play..... The best way for people to learn their classes and abilities is small manning. You need to use the full strength of your class to be competitive in a small man, unlike zerging where you're mistakes can largely be covered by other players around you. 8man elitism isn't a good thing to promote either.

    IMO I would use the Solo zone strategy here:

    Allow groups 4 or less to click an obelisk in each realms maze. Obelisk gives 25-50% RP bonus, and allows you to port to the other realms mazes. Mazes would become a hub for small man action, and if 8mans try to come gank them they can run to the obelisk and port out, or all the smallies turn. Return the buggane's obelisk to the middle of the island for 8mans giving them an extra 15% RP's. Also if you're in a BATTLEGROUP you should not reap the rewards from buggane, no RP bonus for you. If you want to play with larger numbers, which a lot of times means you're going to zerg down any smaller force you find, THAT is your RP bonus from zerging. You can't give huge RP bonuses to zergers, or else you have the product we have today: high RR brain-dead zergs.

    Also on this progression server I would cap the RR at 5-8.. If somebody decides to sub in month 4 of 6 during progression server and nobody is leveling anymore so they have to do it all solo, they might not keep subbing. Then they have to wait 180 days................................



    Edit: One last note, want to bring back more old subs? When we launch the progression server bring back the 14 day free-trial for previous subs. It will give your player base that decided to leave JUST over Broadsword, a chance to come back in and see your new shiny product before deciding to go EC or sub.



    Most issues today IMO are rooted in population. Hib has dominated before, and the top spot has usually been a turntable, sometimes lasting a month, a couple years, or in some cases the life of the server (speaking archived servers). So with one dominating realm being a near constant, the changing variable is population.

    200 vs 100 is one thing, at least with 100 people you will get plenty of kills, plenty of RP's to go around.

    50 vs 10 is another. Add multiple language barriers, general pessimistic attitude, and some ill-advised patches and you have what we have today. I agree the devs should not bail anybody out of this situation, but we are still looking through too small of a lens here. The game needs to change for the population we have, not strive to keep the same system designed for several thousand people playing on the same map.

    Until BS does something that improves the system, we will have this cycle on repeat. This could even be used to explain why no solution to realm timers will work. Extend realm timers or remove them, you will alienate people. We had "realm pride" and realm timers work before because there were multiple servers, and you could only play one realm per server. With one server, there will always be some swapping, so the entire model needs some rethinking there as well.

    ATM we are trying to hold up a broken system designed for something we don't use it for, and trying to change the inner workings (class balances is a good example) instead of fixing the system as a whole. Does this mean DAoC 2? Does this mean they need to change the relic/port system and create a new flow? That's all up to @John_Broadsword .





    The fact that on a leveled keep, the outer towers can see the inner CK roof is one of the worst keep design flaws. One way to remove that is to stop keeps from leveling up aesthetically, only difficulty-wise.




    EC driving players to other places. Wonder if we've realized BS does not have a monopoly on DAoC. I can think of a couple F2P models that just limit inventory/bank space. I'd restrict EC on vaults, housing, mount inventory. No stackable items.

    Right now they can't even run the same buffs as everybody else without spending $$, why RvR if I have other options to do the exact same thing with no restrictions for free?




    F2P players are also likely to never sub at all, no matter how well EC is done or how well the game is doing. Once you open those gates, there will *always* be a market for BS to tap into. Making it so restrictive that nobody wants to hang out for free, BS loses this revenue. There will ALWAYS be a good portion of the F2P players that will never sub to a game, and will spend some $$ every month in cash shop on skins/QoL/etc. But not if they can't compete in RvR thanks to RSP caps, supremacy pots restrictions, and more.

    Missing out on revenue here.

    And if you increase the value of subscriptions (like giving us free mithril every month, say 200-400), you wont get too many subs unsubbing.

    "...the best thing to do if you disagree (or agree) isn't to ask us why (which is rhetorical)...." -John_Broadsword
    "the patch [1.127] is later this year" -Carol_Broadsword, aka "constable paddy biehbien of the **** local community Enforcement force "
    send a message with your wallet
  • Clearly the answer is to offer a sub cost discount equal to the highest population bonus being granted to your realm during the time period in which you were active active in RvR. If you're gaining RPs during a period where your realm received a 50% bonus, then you get a 50% discount for that day's worth of your monthly fee. If at any point during that day you log onto a realm with less of a population bonus than one you've participated in then you lose any discount you had already earned that day and are ineligible for further discounts for the rest of that day (i.e. you're encouraged to swap to realms with less players, not more).

    I'm only 90% joking.
  • edited February 2020 PM
    Patar wrote: »
    [removed]

    If anyone needs a nerf, it's you.
    Post edited by Carol_Broadsword on
  • KoeKoe
    edited February 2020 PM
    On XP for EC accounts:

    I helped a friend level up two toons to 50 on an EC account for kicks. Combination of PL, BG quests, (Tower runs), and PL quests. Quest XP is in a good place, IMO, but could be boosted a little bit in the BG's. She spent hours running back and forth and it seemed like she went from maybe 36-37, or 38-39. The level 40-50 quest in NF (kill 100 mobs) is good for the portion of the grind where it really gets rough otherwise, but you really need a bunch of friends to make it work. I think that's a good way to grind; people should be grouping up for these quests. She did pop a 25% and then 50% xp token, so I'm guessing she put in $10 this month between armor dyes and xp buffs. However she did it more as an investment in not having to pay the $15/mo every month. If she didn't have my help it would probably have taken her three times as long, or more. Still we/she probably put in 14-16 hours per toon. On conversion to subs, I don't think she's going to convert to a real sub as she's absolutely a part time gamer.

    Post edited by Koe on
  • Would also be nice to have a mithril buff for Crafting speed/gain for those of us who can't wait around for the next bonus weekend.
  • To tald your part of the problem remember tald you have been at the forefront of the patches and changes mainly I might say to benefit your tiny 8 man irc community well people have voted with there feet the leet 8 man community is a tiny part of the population but has a voice in the community that is disapropriate to its size you have wrecked this game with your influence.
    You just don’t get that the majority of the community isn’t stuck in a basement for days on end pondering how they can exploit the crap out of the game and then call it good play.
    Most people in this game want to return to a game that wasn’t so frigging clinical it’s like you got a small bunch of androids devoid of common sense and intuition advising the devs.
    Just carry on with running people down and promoting the realm imbalance and the non stop zergs again are you seriously saying The realms are balanced tald and yes changing the tank meta changing keep design will change the herorius Zerg something you have no experience or idea of at all.Ffs your not even in the game you don’t play wake up and smell the coffee tald jeezus Christ give me a break what an absolute balloon.
  • realm loyality rp bonus and rp defense bonus that takes in account damage and heals, not just rezzez and kills.
  • it would be nice to get something for all the damage i do to hero at bold lol

    without killing him :)
  • edited February 2020 PM
    My two cents regarding the topics in the letter.

    Class balance:

    1.) Remove the level 50 PBAOE spells. Lack of bomb groups has more to do with the small population than the effectiveness of bombing. These spells are only causing further imbalance to an already poorly balanced game. If you want bombing spells to be stronger, then just reduce the fall off damage for the last PBAOE spells pre-1.126.

    2.) Remove heavy tanks passive AoM and passive HP boost. I have no issues with their respective abilities (Fury and Rampage) since they are on timers and Ywain is very timer based. Unless abilities get cut across the board, there is no reason to remove them from one class type. Make heavy tanks have to choose between survivability and damage via their RSPs.

    3.) Increase Polearm damage for Armsmen. They are claimed to be the weakest heavy tank yet they used to be the hardest hitting heavy before styles were changed. This can be done iteratively but requires BS to respond quickly to feedback on a week-to-week basis as opposed to months. I would even give them auto-train for all base weapon types and remove auto-train from Warriors.

    4.) Increase power cost on spreadheals. This spell is overpowered in keep fights as it completely ignores disease and doesn't require LOS for a large heal. Coupled with high damage mitigation, climbers become extremely difficult to kill. My suggestion is to fix spreadheal power cost on a % basis starting no lower than 25%. Each spreadheal tier should increase cost by at least 5% if not 10%. The idea is to curb spreadheal spam so it becomes a situational spell and not a go-to spell.

    5.) Have the Enchanter class cloak /use ability apply to only one spell casted within the 60s timer. This ability is literally a direct copy of Stormlord ML10 Arcing Power, except it affects the entire group. The limitation on one spell cast makes it extremely situational which should be the goal behind these types of /uses.

    6.) Remove the AoE component on Champion debuffs. I loved playing my Champion even before all these class changes happened with BS. Never once did I think they needed AoE debuffs. I would even go so far as to suggest removing the group buffs component attached to each debuff. However, without proper balancing across the board, that may be too harsh.

    Endless Conquest:

    1.) Remove the 180 days lock-out entirely for recently subscribed accounts. All this does is keep players from logging in, further diminishing an already small population. Punishing players for briefly subscribing is not a great way to retain customers. If anything, removing this lock-out will get more players to subscribe during events and bonuses which means more revenue.

    2.) Expand class / race selections to at least classic level if not SI. You have competition in the DAoC market. Making EC less appealing than the competition isn't a good strategy. I would go so far as to unrestrict ALL classes but that seems to be unfavorable by the community as a whole, specifically regarding stealth classes.

    3.) Allow EC accounts to use tradeskills and level them at a slower rate than subscribed accounts. Preventing EC players from using already leveled tradeskills is atrocious and not being able to participate in certain aspects of RvR (siege / repair) is ridiculous. This shouldn't be a reason to subscribe.

    4.) Allow EC accounts to use buff potions. I have no qualms with EC accounts having classic buff restrictions. However, there is no reason they shouldn't be able to use buff potions outside of MTX. Not only do you put these players at a disadvantage in solo / small man scenarios, they are a burden in group play because they can't buff themselves after being rezzed. Unless you're going to remove buff pots altogether, this needs to change for EC accounts to be viable in RvR outside of zerging.

    5.) Allow EC accounts to own a cottage. Inventory space is at a premium and should remain that way for EC players. However, unless you manage to make an account vault, there is no way to transfer items between characters on ANY account without the aid of another player. House vaults at least serve that purpose for most items. I'm glad you're looking at expanding housing tiers which I assume means more inventory space for subscribers.

    6.) Remove the RSP cap for EC accounts. The RP progression rate is already low enough to merit a subscription alone. There is no reason to kick these players while they're down. Gaining RR is the end-game and the sense of accomplishment comes with increasing your characters potential. Placing a cap on that will only push prospective players towards the competition.

    7.) Allow EC accounts to use respec stones but only once (maybe twice) a day per character. The current implementation requires EC accounts to use respec stones purchased through the MTX store which comes across as a cash grab. While I understand you want to make subscriptions appealing, you don't want to completely lock out a feature that is important to gameplay.

    In general, I think the approach to EC should be limited inventory space and sluggish progression with very minor restrictions. If these restrictions are in place to not devalue a subscription, then its time to INCREASE the value of a subscription (see below for some examples). If the solution to these heavy handed restrictions is to subscribe, then EC was a waste of development time as the previous 14-day free trial was sufficient for this purpose.

    Subscription Bonuses:

    1.) Give all subscriber accounts Mithril each month (100-200). This isn't a novel idea considering ESO does this. It may cut into a small portion of your profits or it may entice players to spend a little bit of extra cash to close the gap in having enough Mithril to spend on a particular MTX item.

    2.) Expand the veteran rewards. I hate the fact that redeeming a veteran reward counts toward all realms and not just the realm you've redeemed the reward on. This should be changed such that these rewards can be fully redeemed on all three realms on one account.

    3.) Remove the realm timer completely. The 15 minute timer clearly hasn't had the desired effect. Population balance has to be done by the players unless you're willing to force players into the lowest populated realm. Locking players out of an underpopulated realm only exacerbates the population imbalance issue. Additionally, RP pots should work like the Battlefield potions and only count down when the character is logged in. That way players aren't compelled to stay on any particular realm because they don't want to feel like they wasted their $.

    4.) Expand inventory space. I imagine with the additional housing tier, more vaults will become available. Just in case that wasn't a thought, you should seriously consider adding it.

    5.) Make /train usable everywhere. This is more of an annoyance for leveling and low RR characters. However, it is QoL and having a subscription should benefit the subscriber.

    You honestly can't go wrong here regarding subscription bonuses unless you put abilities / skills / must-have items behind a pay wall.
    Post edited by Tyrantanic on
    "The grab bag isn't for explaining every single class change decision or reasoning or that's all we would ever do." - John_Broadsword
    "The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
    "Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
  • jesus, thats a wall
  • @brut seriously triggered,
  • Koe wrote: »
    On conversion to subs, I don't think she's going to convert to a real sub as she's absolutely a part time gamer.

    So many others like this, and BS is losing revenue and players not making the F2P model attractive whatsoever.

    "...the best thing to do if you disagree (or agree) isn't to ask us why (which is rhetorical)...." -John_Broadsword
    "the patch [1.127] is later this year" -Carol_Broadsword, aka "constable paddy biehbien of the **** local community Enforcement force "
    send a message with your wallet
  • @John_Broadsword Here is my honest feedback to help the game in its current state. These changes would be extremely beneficial and you wont have to go back and hotfix them after.

    Remove aoe from champ debuffs, too strong. I am saying this as my main toon atm is a champ....

    Nerf heavies so they arent unkillable, hero zerg is unkillable. Sometimes my grp can take him 5 r11 caster with a 50% debuff. Entire grp focusing on him solo..... but even thats rare. That is so unbalanced. Theres no way normal players can kill him. Remove their passive AOM. Passive aom + cloak + fury + moose + IP + rampage.

    Another related idea to make sieging actually interactive and fun - remove wall climbing ability completely.

    Don't touch pbaoe delve. It's not terribly op and all realms have access to it. It's the champ that makes hib so op. Not to mention its the champ that makes alb and mid so crap. Can't bomb when red aoe debuffed on every caster. We do want it to be dark age of mongo tankers. In fact increase the necro bainshee and lock one to 425 too so they are viable.

    Midgard is the worst realm by far for 8man or zerging. Buff casters spec nukes to allow for them to do dmg. The hybrid or casters setups are crap. Insane low dps compared to alb or hib. Give supp spec a 209 spirit nuke. dark spec a 209 cold nuke. summoning & bone army spec lines a 209 energy nuke.

    They are also crap because shaman + pac is crap in comparison to bard + druid. Give shaman a pet like druid and it will be viable for grping other than resists. Or better yet, give it a peel. Maybe even both. bards and wardens all go 10 blades to side snare. Having backline peels is extremely NEEEDED in midgard. If this comes at nerfing dps (dots, nuke) of sham than so be it. It shouldnt be dpsing anyway in a group (like a druid).

    Skalds are crap in 8v8 so we never run one (((although we rarely play midgard in general because it is so bad compared to hib/alb))) so we dont have sos. I dont even know where to start. The constant cresendo was way to OP for midgard tankers.. so not that. We also want to be able to have sos in a caster / hybrid setup so they change shouldnt just be good for tankers. Honestly not sure without making them too OP for solo play. My mind initially went to champ like debuffs but single target obviously.

    Wizard r5 is the longest standing joke in game (aside from pet pathing). Up the delve and add a snare component.

    Give valks battlemaster or banelord instead of stormlord (lol).

    And for the love of god nerf tic r5, aoe snare range and and have it give an immunity, and the pulse that they can still spam cast over and over while being meleed.
  • Please take a look at the merc rr5 ability which is, compared to its description, not working as intended.

    Feedback and proof can be found here:
    https://forum.darkageofcamelot.com/discussion/3092/merc-rr5-ability-bugged

  • xuu wrote: »

    Nerf heavies so they arent unkillable, hero zerg is unkillable. Sometimes my grp can take him 5 r11 caster with a 50% debuff. Entire grp focusing on him solo..... but even thats rare. That is so unbalanced. Theres no way normal players can kill him. Remove their passive AOM. Passive aom + cloak + fury + moose + IP + rampage.

    Another related idea to make sieging actually interactive and fun - remove wall climbing ability completely.

    Don't touch pbaoe delve. It's not terribly op and all realms have access to it. It's the champ that makes hib so op. Not to mention its the champ that makes alb and mid so crap. Can't bomb when red aoe debuffed on every caster. We do want it to be dark age of mongo tankers. In fact increase the necro bainshee and lock one to 425 too so they are viable.

    I don't think nerfing all heavies just because hero's are the best heavy tank, and keeping pbae at the same delve is a solution. If theyre going to buff heavy tanks then don't touch the pbae, but if theyre going to nerf all heavies the pbae needs to change a little bit, at least.

    Also taking climb walls away from heavy tanks +53742560937. Light tanks should be the only ones climbing, they don't have the HP/Beefiness of a heavy to withstand too much dps inside a keep. No climb walls would turn it into a caster-only fest for breaking down the outer door, while heavy tanks do nothing but either camp the outer door or posterns. Doesn't sound too fun and interactive to me.
    "...the best thing to do if you disagree (or agree) isn't to ask us why (which is rhetorical)...." -John_Broadsword
    "the patch [1.127] is later this year" -Carol_Broadsword, aka "constable paddy biehbien of the **** local community Enforcement force "
    send a message with your wallet
  • Hopefully John pays no attention to most of these biased posts.
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