Balance Update: official thread (stage 1)

[Mattdoesrock]

With this update could NGD also confirm it's thoughts and visions for the classes? And what their purpose is during war and hunting / pvp etc?

[Isemon]

instead of nerfing the spell arcane devotion, put a cap to the cast speed, something like 65% so that gameplay will be still fluent and NGD will still sell gems and sockets.

[chilko]

Originally Posted by Isemon

instead of nerfing the spell arcane devotion, put a cap to the cast speed, something like 65% so that gameplay will be still fluent and NGD will still sell gems and sockets.

Capping is usually the worst way to handle this kind of issues.

Either, some items could become obsolete and people will complain or we ruin possibilities of new content or further enhancements down the road.

The system should be using casting speed instead of casting time as originally designed. We are evaluating how difficult it would be to change that.

[Raideniza]

Originally Posted by chilko

Powers:

• Arcane Devotion nerf
• Sultar’s Terror Splash Damage Nerf

I will try to be as constructive as possible about these two.

As long as I can remember those two spells were never really a problem or threat to game balance, but due to some questionable moves by you guys (nerf knight areas, nerf prot. dome) Sultar became overpowered, overused and over-anything-you-want. I just don't understand why you can't say something like "ok, we fucked up with those changes way back, we're gonna restore it to old" instead of continued nerf? That way knights would get more useful in wz and conjs more supportive, this way... Well I asume everything stays the same because lesser splash damage on ST won't quite change balance and general gameplay.

Speaking of devotion, since I've no clue what the nerf will be (cd or bonus change) I can say only so much. If cooldown will be longer then duration then you'll have useless mage (mostly warlock) during those seconds that devotion needs to get off of cd. If bonus is nerfed on the other hand, you're just separating the premium from non paying customers by another 10 mile gap in my oppinion. What you could do is for instance remove stacking of same bonuses on same item (2x7cs staves are ridiculous) and cap the limit on bonus from gems (instead of 7cs make it 5cs, it's still a lot). In my oppinion, that kind of move would lead to a lot more diversity in gear between players and much more combination options.

Oh btw, I don't understand why only mage gcd is increased, a bit more info on that one and logics behind it?

That's my $0.02.

//R

[Mattdoesrock]

You're going about this all wrong.

You said on the spanish forum that Devotion is 50% of the Cast speed, and that items represent less than 30% - therefore Devotion is the problem.

Was Devotion a problem before Cast Speed items were introduced?

No, it wasn't.

So why is it a problem now? The problem is the items.

Yes, capping things might not always be the solution; but in this case it is. People will still buy your precious item / gem boxes, to get to the maximum Cast Speed. If someone has a complete set of full Cast Speed gear, they could replace a piece or two with an item that has a different bonus.

Then they could trade / give their old Cast Speed gear to someone else etc etc and the cycle repeats. No items would be made useless as there is always someone who needs more Cast Speed gear.

[Ulti19]

Just logged into amun to see some of the changes and I noticed that with the same graphics setting I lose about 10 fps on average, and my character is now pink . Just letting you know in case you did something to graphics.
I'm shader 2
windows vista
nivdia geforce 7150m/ nforce 630m

amd 64 athalonx2

[Pnarpa]

I agree with Raidenza on this one about devotion.

CD > duration => gameplay will be slower because mages will just wait until they can cast it again.
Effect decreases => bigger gap between those who have superior gear and those who don't.

[Yttrium]

Originally Posted by chilko

The system should be using casting speed instead of casting time as originally designed. We are evaluating how difficult it would be to change that.

I hope it's not too hard to change this, since it is the best solution I've read for this problem. It was discussed very well by Narzoul here and is a much smarter system than a hard cap. Basically, the more cast speed you have, the less effect it has.

[chilko]

Originally Posted by Raideniza

As long as I can remember those two spells were never really a problem or threat to game balance, but due to some questionable moves by you guys (nerf knight areas, nerf prot. dome) Sultar became overpowered, overused and over-anything-you-want.

The biggest problem with mages back in the day was that people where able to "dance" to break their casts. We knew back then that Mages may become too powerful we didn't know how much.

Originally Posted by Raideniza

just don't understand why you can't say something like "ok, we fucked up with those changes way back, we're gonna restore it to old" instead of continued nerf?

It's not like we are sitting on a pedestal and we cannot assume our mistakes...

We made a lot of mistakes, but we have a clear objective which is to have a deeper more tactical combat experience meaning (which implies longer combats).

Also, the population in the game has changed a lot. Terror as it is may have been ok on a 10 vs 10 battle but its terrible on 20 vs 20 or 30 vs 30

Also, a lot of the code that some of you guys liked was broken, and is now completely deprecated.

Originally Posted by Raideniza

Oh btw, I don't understand why only mage gcd is increased, a bit more info on that one and logics behind it?

We are still looking into, this but we consider that mages are now a machinegun of very different spells and damage types.

[theotherhiveking]

Originally Posted by cugel

I hope it's not too hard to change this, since it is the best solution I've read for this problem. It was discussed very well by Narzoul here and is a much smarter system than a hard cap. Basically, the more cast speed you have, the less effect it has.

+1 to This.

Its fucking perfect!!