Response to the Update
 

There has been an unusual lack of commentary on the recent update. This is unusual for these forums, and i don't fully understand why.

Ok, my two-penny's worth:

THE GOOD:

1. archers are not the gods they once were - it has become much harder to play one now. For too long i think the other classes have suffered at the hands of archers who get away with too much.

2. realm invasion offers a new and exciting perspective on the game, and will provide adventure and renewed interest in the game for the experienced players who perhaps might have been finding the game somewhat stale.

3. Agro mobs, welcome back. Mobs shouldn't be idle, as they were before. Even better - they now have skills (along with guards) - this adds an exciting edge to the game.The mob bosses are cool too.

4. The loot and treasure system is another exciting twist to the regnum world.

5. The improved/fixed skills are no doubt a welcome addition for many.


THE BAD (in the order i dealt with the good)

1. Simple question: what happened to the 'middle way' with archers? Ok most agreed they needed a nerf, but to go from one extreme to the other doesn't make any sense. Archers evaded too much before the update, but now they evade nothing. Something in between should have come from the update, not a one extreme from the other change. In short, the evasion tree is broken. Spell elude, car reflex and dodge are utterly useless (in tests i evaded more without them!) So what we have is a reduced duration of spells that don't work.

2. Invasion: i warned about this and tonight is only the beginning of the proof.
In the 5 hours i played tonight both the alsius forts were almost continually taken by enemies (along with prolonged capture of our castle and large hunting parties swarming all over alsius - not to mention our realm was captured). In the 5 hours i played how many times did alsius capture herb or samal? Answer: not once! We were constantly on the back foot, fighting and dying over and over against many times our number. NGD needs to keep a close eye on the number of times each realm takes the other's forts/castle/inner realm and the duration of captures. This is all that is needed for proof of how imbalanced things are.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned - Syrtis and Ignis on Ra tonight were on several occasions colluding with each other to take alsius forts and castle. There is no question about this - it was happening! Why the 2 largest realms would gang up on the smallest fills me with dismay.

3. I like the agro ob system - only complaint - more loot! So far I've had only small amounts of gold from mobs that take a lot to kill.

4. New treasure system: in 5 hours tonight i found one lot of magnamite and no treaure box. Is it supposed to be this rare? Doesn't really matter if it is, i just hope the there are good items to be had. If there are then i agree with the rareness.

5.. OK skills - i'll speak for hunters: if evasion is gone forever, give us something to compensate. Even i (who called for fewer evades) didnt anticipate going from what we had to nothing. Hunters need a dmg/attack tree of their own, because as they are now they are weak in attack and have poor defense.

I 100% agree with Wudy....my concerns are the same.

Archer Nerf:
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I am happy with the Archer nerf cause we needed it....but not to the extreme. It sux for all archers but moreover it sucks for hunters. Marksman have range so the modification there is easy (I know cause I have a marks and I immediately went all range and am doing dandy). However, as a hunter I have no real damage outside of my pet. And I went the direction for a while of massively buffing my pet only to see him destroyed in a horrific fashion. So perhaps NGD could share with us their ideas and plans for the hunter. This is not a bitch complain...I love all the changes...but I hope hunter's weren't WICKEDLY nerf'd for nothing.

Invasions:
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I love em....but really....NGD needs to take a look at what was happening today. Syrtis and Ignis buddying up to kill and invade alsius. Wow....that really sucked. It sucked so bad that alsiuns were logging off left and right...we were overwhelmed and it took the joy out of the game for me pretty quickly.

Lag:
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Wow......I think soemone in IRC said it best... "God didn't lag this bad when he created the world...WTF!!"

Sheesh....I need a break :looking:

Alsius are no better.

They took Shaana, and Syrtis came along, they left each other alone so Syrtis, the bigger force (Really? I hear you ask) could zerg us and stop us from taking back the fort. Only once we had beaten Syrtis did Alsius come out of the wood work to get their share of owning.

Guilty. :P

Actually it was "MY GOD, NOT EVEN *Expletive* GOD HAD THIS MUCH LAG WHEN HE MADE THE *Expletive* WORLD!!"

Wudy, about the teaming..it isnt planned, alsius and syrtis are doing the same thing right now as we speak, syrtis had shaana, alsius had meni, samal was left, syrtis AND alsius were there at the same time. It isnt a planned thing, but if one realm captures another realm's fort/castle, the behind realm will help the invading realm, just because it'll be easier.

Yes, it was very welcome after the heavy nerf we had :)

I dunno if you logged with your marks, but you've probably heard that marks can get 65% resist ranged damage, so there are still a hard way, just a slightly weaker, ranged, but longer form of AoO... even more protection than before. I would like to see acrobatics with duration = cooldown and strategic position nerfed - same problem for caution with warriors, knights are screwed.

We had the same this night in Ignis, it just occurs by opportunism, so if you've one fort or you castle under enemy control, you must free it asap, or you stay stuck at castle for hours or play ping pong between your castle and one of your forts. This aspect of invasion is a bit boring to be honest :p

It's the case, i loot 2 to 5 items/leveling hour, and others drop at the same rate according to what is said on IRC, so you're probably unlucky :/

Mmm if your looking for opinions I guess theres a lack because *suprise suprise*

Its still fresh and shaky, really I don't wanna ruin the moment, but I still think these invasions won't work, in time they will create more stress.

Sure everyone got an orgy on day 1, but its just a new thing, only time can tell if it will stay like that.

Those of you on Ra will have more lag wheras those on Horus are playing more smoothly, with some lag aswell, but not as bad as Ra. In this case Horus has the edge.

Mob's have skills now, which is a feature in most other games, but now that mobs are harder to kill they need to give more rewarding, I would say they should give even more exp than before the cut to exp.

This game has evolved into a zerg on zerg, blob on blob game, where either:

A.) you win so easily you didn't even break a sweat,
B.) you lose so bad it makes you frustrated,

there is a point C, that happens very rarely, and that point is a fight that is even on both sides, where each side gives it their all and the tide can turn with one mistake or breach

Now invasions in my opinion will become a MUST on the to-do-list, in not talking about bugs, but im talking about players ingame,

What will happen one day when one side will not want to fight? They will be forced to, they will have no choice, they will NEED to fight back and theres nothing to do about it.

I'd like to withdraw from this statement.

I think it is really important NOT to fix the evasions.

It is true that hunters are badly protected ATM - and i strongly believe that they need something.

However, it should NOT be evasion we turn to.

Rather, better dmg protection (acrobatic back to how it was, or maybe a 10 sec difference between duration/cooldown).

Either this, or give them better dmg.

Yes this is the only thing i don't like. Acrobatic should have 5 sec more duration. 10 would be even better but 5 sec more would be nice :P.
And about xymerald bows. IMO NGD should read their own words about xymerlad first.
Ok i like this update. My config didn't changed at all. Maybe i will do 1 exeprimental config for some time. I still can kill from camu like before. But i will not participate in small fights :D only big battles where i can count on conj.

We were told that they would reveal the source of the Xymerald this year, but now they've removed it. :S Not exactly showing the source...

By the way, am I the only one having trouble to find magnanite rocks? I haven't found one yet.

I think I now have got an explanation for why I went down so quickly at Trelleborg yesterday evening. Even with Spell Elude I barely resisted anything. I probably should reskill and put the points somewhere else, this is useless now.

I also agree with other people that monsters should give more XP now they're harder to kill. I mean, Savage Leopards now have Rake, which is some Tear Apart for twelve seconds, doing 60 damage each time. OMG

word!
I have found it stale because of imbalance, I like fighting, wars are the kick!

I really think mobs idling was nice somehow as they didn't intefer with my fights and gave me necro, however I got killed by one today while fighting the enemy and didn't get necro that's good

however mob powers, I don't like em' it makes levelling harder but the xp didn't increase so levelling got yet another nerf which I'm not too exited about, imo this will hurt warriors more than ranged classes

I agree

I can't wait to see how they all work out

I think archers need a middleway too, not evasion but some other kind of defense be it resistance to debuffs or cc's
I think the same with knights, I don't think they should block, the effect/time from debuffs and damage should be reduced instead if they invest points into their trees so they won't become heavy tankers and still do the damage they do now.

on horus ignis invades the other realms while they sleep -.-

more loot AND xp, they got stronger so I think the reward should be better too

I seem to find them a lot near borders between areas, specially beaches

not only hunters, now warlocks have 1½ useless spells for their level 19 trees (I say ½ because mod is now only useful at level 5 being made a chance spell)

However summon lightning is still not worth it and this is supposed to be 1.0? Imo 1.0 means a finished game, then patches comes

edit: I forgot something else which is bad with the update, ECONOMY has not been fixed in game, items are still dead expensive and the income is low, plus repairs and fort captures this is a lot

My two cents from a character leveling aspect is that it is definitely harder to level a character because after you kill a mob and have to rest, another mob respawns behind you and starts to attack. Increased difficulty without any increase in payoff.

Also I have never noticed a mob resisting powers as much as they do now, it is easier to kill a mob sometimes by regular attacks alone without using any skills.

All this boils down into a longer time to level, which is what I think NGD's goal was in order to influence ppl buying more xim.

I also will agree with makarios68 in that if you dont buff you tend to resist/evade more than buffing for archers which is pointless. I think SOTW has been made into an attack attractant because I havent been able to evade anything (even spells) with it and just utilize it as another form of mobility when mobility is on cool down.

As far as NGD getting rid of Xymerald I think they are flying by the seat of the "Good Idea Fairy." They probably had this idea they thought was so cool, woke up the next day and said forget it. The biggest part I didn't like about the patch is that they lowered the levels of a lot of items in our inventories and some of the items were paid for by in game gold, so when some folks had to work up to get said items after the patch they were worth a lot less.

All in all the application to which NGD pays attention too seems to be a perfect world where everything works. They do not fix glitches in the game that have been outstanding for long periods of time (ie Collision Issues that they have known about for months). They fix the game when it doesnt respond the way they want it too. Lastly they apply patches without taking into consideration realm balance and time zone differences. This leads to this patch rewarding realms that are active when no one else is, two versus one realm wars, and the realm with the least warzone active populace being repeatedly screwed over and over again without any real promotion to improve the realms chances to compete in invasions.

Like some in Alsius I'm at the point of exploring alternatives to RO with a high likelihood of leaving.

I'd like to add, from a hunter point of view:

- Although i'm glad about the reduced effectiveness of the evasion tree (and the resulting quieting down of archers), hunters have been nerfed too much. This is evident in the distinct lack of enemy solo hunters in Alsius lately. I can now often patrol Alsius from meni bridge to pp2 without scanning a single hunter. Hunters have gone REALLY quiet, and altho we all 'hate' them i don't think this is good for the game - we need someone to hate!

- I strongly think that dmg reduction buffs for archers and warriors alike should be put back to a duration/cooldown parity. The only exception to this rule should be the marks buff Strategic Position, as this overpowers them when its duration/cooldown are the same.

- I believe that hunters should be given something to compensate for their loss of evasion, but not something that makes them as 'indestructable' as before.

- Several players i know whose main char is hunter (including members of my own clan) are quitting hunter because of the changes. They say the class is ruined. Altho i think this is overstaing the case, i think its fair to say that their effectiveness is not what it should be. I think many hunters now feel forced to fight at forts, because they feel they are too vulnerable in their true function: hunting. This is because most classes totally own them now.

- Mobs = crazy evade/resist rates. NGD please sort this out and soon!

- Realm imbalance: this needs sorting too. Alsius are too often on the back foot, defending their castle and forts for huge periods of time. They usually deal with this pressure admirably - i have been really impressed with their efforts of late. But hey, it would be nice to be attacking enemy castles and forts as often as we defend our own!

what I don't like in this update:

1) I agree that some spells needed a change, but many spells got nerfed in a certain way I really don't like (I'm speaking of different classes): for example why the hell introduce standard protection/dmg buffs with longer cooldown than duration? And why are staff magnifications unchanged while warriors suffer from this? I would rather have less bonus on caution than the same amount with a gap in between. I skilled a lot of spells because I need them or because they are expected and not because I like them. High lv DI is somehow not worth the points at the moment but I don't want to overwrite high lv DIs with low lv either. The result is some kind of "I don't like this class" - feeling. Personally, I guess I won't play warlock or barb anymore since there is not a single setup which makes fun for me and is efficient at the same time and I still need some more thoughts on conjurer setup right now, maybe I'm even waiting for a new patch ^^.
2) as some people already stated before: lots of useless spells. I tried the new protection dome lately and it is a joke, I resisted about 15%... . Imo the spell was fine as it was. It was powerful but the -movement speed is actually very dangerous if melee classes are close and the spell is necessary to compete against areas at fort doors (even with the nerfs to most areas, I see a big advantage for the fort defending party now).
Since spell elude has even less points than dome now, I can fully understand archer's complaints.
3) changes in game mechanics towards more static gameplay: have a look at terror range: it is "0" now. combine with a range 30 staff and arcane projection and you end up with a huge range if you cast it while forward running. No possibility to cancel this with classical meteor/tremor. reaction duel between warlock and conjurer does not exist any more since protection dome is not worth the skill points as stated in 2). Any n00b can throw a nice terror like this and although it will "only" stun, it still does quite some area dmg. The excitement is simply gone !
4) items: I like the idea that players can get superior items by some means but this should be somehow related to skill or some an interesting aspect of the game and not to grinding/collecting very rare things. those two activities are just again two things an ambitious player would have to do.
5) Invasions destroy some aspects of fort fights, although they were introduced to give them a purpose.
6) even more "mysteries": I would like to see a place in this forums where all the game mechanics, especially formulas for stats and other ingame mathematics are explained by a member of NGD. For example it would have been nice if they wrote: "the gem pedestrals are located at xyz for realm abc" instead of "each realm now has a gem pedestral"

I feel that I should add to this thread, because I was one of the loudest complainers before the update. Last summer, I felt the game was no longer fun because of lack of balance between classes, high evades, stagnation due to lack of any purpose to taking forts, and utter uselessness of castles.

However, I have to say that NGD had done a fantastic job with this update, in so many ways.

Class balance is again restored. Hunters are no longer the tanks they were never meant to be, and knights are again the ones leading the charges, as it should be. It seems all classes have been nerfed to some extend, but I believe they were done logically. I have a conjurer, warlock and marksman, and I do not have any complaints about how they were nerfed. They are all fun to play, each has something useful to add to the group, and each has its weaknesses as well.

What attracted me to Regnum in the first place was the way that a team can work together, and how a team of mixed classes is stronger than the sum of its parts. I think that was lost months ago, but is again restored, with improvements.

Previous to this update, when a lower level character casts a spell on a higher level character, it was evaded/resisted almost every time, even with a difference of only 2 or 3 levels. Now, level 30-something characters have a chance to be of some use in the warzone, because spell evades/resists are lowered. This is a huge improvement for those with less than level 50 charters.

The concept of invasion has breathed new life into the game. Now, castles are critically important, and people are encouraged to fight hard to regain them. Fort battles are a constant thing now, keeping the game interesting.

Fort and castle guards are much stronger, which is great. I used to capture forts and castles by myself with just my support conjurer because guards were so stupid and weak, but no longer. The ability to upgrade a fort or castle is a great idea, and rewards for capturing help to keep people able to play without the need to grind to pay for worn armor.

On the negative side, I've noticed mobs have much higher evasion, even Easy and Very Easy ones. This, in addition to the fatigue system, makes it difficult for people leveling.

When I felt the game fell apart last spring/summer, I stopped buying Ximerin, because I didn't feel the game was worth supporting anymore. Now, I'm happy to say that I again purchased Ximerin, and will continue to do so as long as the game stays fun, and continues to improve.

Good job, NGD!

-Mehgan

I agree that protection dome isn't as effective as before given the movement speed penalty. It doesn't offer the same protection it used to against area spells. I would prefer if it were changed into a damage reduction or a spell duration reduction spell (depending on the level) than it is now (essentially still a luck spell).

The overall balance is now better than what it used to be and the game has become interesting again with the addition of invasions.

im trying to get interested in Regnum Online again, and i see the middle island and christmas stuff, but you say my hunter was nerfed? ._. nice welcome back present... ^^

Umm, the invasion system in regnum isnt excatly the hardest one out there, have a look at what you need to in Warhammer online to sack the other realms capital city.

Then you know what hard is

I can't stress how much I hate the new spell resistance system NGD has implemented. Being a conjurer I loved using protection dome in all situations. Mainly when I was a warjurer. But now? I'm better off putting the points into Dragons Blood and hoping for natural resists, because it's a waste of mana and points. Before the update I could kill pretty much anyone, even in 2 vs 1's. I actually think it worsens my resist rate. It went from +50% resist to +75...not 75%. "Is that good?" I first asked myself. The answer: No, it's beyond bad. This is a problem, because every time i run across a warlock I get a face full of sultar, there goes my zarkit and i'm finished. Same with mind squasher, If that hits bye bye zarkit and all attack buffs. This will carry over to fort wars as well, it won't change the tide of battle AT ALL. Before it was almost the perfect counterpart of a knight's Deflecting barrier, but now it's useless. End of story.:ranting:

This is my only real concern about the update, although I do agree with the points made about invasion imbalances and unchanged mob rewards.

IMO Protection dome was way too good before the update, but now it is way too weak.

Protection Dome should become better again - but NOT luck based!
Maybe it could decrease duration of all negative spells casted on the players underneath it, as suggested by Katiechan.