huhbum

Still giving support for this! If cost is an issue, charge a fee in gold or EP to transmogrify gear.

Often times in group battles or large-scale battles(WB's in particular) there are multiple effects of the same type being applied by different players. Rupture, Boiling Blood, Envenom, are examples of debuffs and/or over-time effects applied to enemies. Some of these effects are auto-refreshed and don't need any kind of special system(Crushing Blow, Vicious Poison, Eagle Eye etc) but many do need to be refreshed and it's difficult at times to tell when to.

It gets quite confusing at times as to which debuff belongs to which player and that can affect skill rotation performance. Is there a way to apply an outline or border to debuff icons that YOU apply, or perhaps make debuffs applied by YOU appear at the front of the enemy debuff window?

I'm okay with the cooldown on Resurrection(where is that option in the poll?), but I think not being able to communicate at all while dead is problematic. Additionally, as mentioned earlier in the thread, if your resurrection is cancelled during the cast for whatever reason(such as moving or clicking), it should not activate the 5 minute cooldown.

I'm also curious to know if the cooldown timer is affected by Spell Haste. It should be, right?

I respecced to DPS weeks ago, Guthix! I've run all the dungeons as DPS that I've been interested in running in.

I'd respond with a longer post, and I had one written, but I think it is better simply to agree to disagree in this case.

Suffice to say, the point of debate is that: reducing potion cooldowns in dungeons will make players somewhat more survivable, and make DPS builds that are highly mana-dependant do more overall DPS over time.

As players, we can decide for ourselves whether that is a good or bad thing for gameplay.

I believe that it is a bad thing for gameplay, but that is the opinion of just this one player.

Decide for yourselves what you believe!

I like the potion cooldowns being as punishing as they are, as they limit the amount of reckless play in dungeons that can be survived just on potions alone(players can still be reckless! but they have to find more creative ways to stay alive).

I also like potion cooldowns for limiting the sheer amount of sustained DPS that can be put out by some classes; players must choose their skill rotations and talent builds more carefully for either burst or sustained DPS, or face the risk of running out of mana.

I would be okay with lowering potion cooldowns on the lower level instances to aid new players and/or players without experienced healers/tanks(Ohdar Scar and below).

TL:DR version:

All they have to do for a quick fix is CHANGE THE LOOT TABLES. 

^ Incentivize use of current solo/smallman content by improving itemization of non-dungeon areas.

I agree that dailies are somewhat of a chore when they are required for progress in every aspect of the game. While I thought that the crafting dailies were an excellent boost, the dungeon daily/weekly quests, on the other hand, are something of a flawed fix for areas that have limited replay value.

The problem? Daily quests for dungeons actually further limit replay value, as now instead of players willing to run dungeons many times over until they acquire the necessary resources from them, they will now only run them when daily/weekly quests are available, as per the requirements to obtain rewards. This is not a good quest mechanic, however hindsight is 20/20.

Solo and group content life expectancy can be increased exponentially by re-visiting itemization. Why did players grind for months and years on end in games like Diablo 2, Ragnarok Online, and the like? Because of the rarity of exceptionally good items as a real reason to grind. Eldevin has great potential for a robust itemization system:

-Item rolls on weapons are a fantastic start, but they are only available via dungeons, and the World Boss rolls are simply not competitive in most cases.

-Armor is extremely generic, as is stat distribution on all equipment. Make these more varied, more random, and more awesome, and suddenly you go from having exhausted current content to having people hungry to grind out the best rolls for the best gear. Most importantly, at least some of these new items should be available for solo players, and there shouldn't be only one best equipment option for each armor type.

-Jewelry suffers from the same issues of being craft-only, too generic, and too limited. Offer players a chance at finding super-rare jewelry that's at least competitive with the crafted option.

-As an incentive for crafters, give them an option to modify gear to an extent, with some limitations/risks.

Give players a reason to go out and grind world zones like Taranuka and Azraq, and all of a sudden you don't have to spend developer time on creating solo dungeons because you've made world zones better for solo players to enjoy and be rewarded for playing.

I don't have much time to play these days, but I agree wholeheartedly that the requirement to group in order to obtain content gear is obstructive and not so fun when the current dungeon mechanics greatly limit who is capable and/or willing to do certain dungeons, due to the limitations of daily/weekly dungeon quests and DPS requirements versus incentive.

However, rather than exhaust developer resources by making brand-new solo content, I suggest instead modifying existing content through good itemization changes and drop changes to make adventuring in existing zones worthwhile!

I really liked some of the points in the main post of this thread as well as some of the responses. I want to highlight one point, though:

This is a tricky one. We DO play the game, and while none of us have made it to top level on the life server, we have our own client and server which we use to test higher level content as best we can. However, the fact is we just do not have the time to play every single aspect of the game as thoroughly as we'd like, and players will always find new ways to approach things that we don't think of. Being a top level, dedicated MMORPG player is practically a full time job in itself and we all already work full-time (and then some).

It is absolutely essential(not recommended, not a nice thing that might be useful, but essential) to have at least one member of your development team that knows the ins and outs of the game as well as the top players do. I absolutely love HCS for how communicative, responsive and community-oriented they have been in the past, but I also notice that as your development cycles lengthen, the team's overall understanding of game mechanics and gameplay issues tends to fall by the wayside.

This is a crucial error of a lot of smaller game companies: the longer a game world exists, the less the developers have time to play it, therefore become less knowledgeable about the gameplay itself, and then players and developers alike become frustrated because the actions and reactions of each side make less and less sense to the other side.

I truly appreciate how hard you all work on making this game great. However, there are of course going to be things between developers and players that get lost in translation simply because the way players see the game and the way developers see the game do not necessarily mesh well. The way this communication gap is bridged is by having either a dedicated playtesting team(which your company is probably too small for) or by having someone play the hell out of Eldevin and become a real pro at it, so they can communicate via first-hand experience some of the issues players are having and how they might be fixed.

You're absolutely right that it takes an incredible amount of time to be as dedicated to MMOs as some of the hardcore MMO gamers, but unfortunately there's no substitute for game experience and putting in the time. How you manage to find that kind of time when you guys are this busy, though, well, there's the hard part.

Developer livestream for collecting live player feedback once the new client is released sounds like a good start though! Hint, hint.

Had some time to sit down and type for a bit this evening, so I thought I'd tackle one of the more interesting game mechanics issues from the past few months.

The topic for this post is attribute diversity and how it can be improved in Eldevin!

Currently, there is very little incentive to invest attribute points in certain attributes, depending on class:

-Only Tank builds invest any significant points in Vitality

-Only Rangers(and some Mage builds) have any reason to invest any points in Focus

At level 45 (with 2 points in wild instincts, 3 in marksman, 3 in sleight of hand, 10% attack power buff, 10% attack potion)

 

pure 6/0 ranged -> +207.24 dps, 5.544% ranged haste, 6.16% ranged dodge -> more than 0/6 pure focus

pure 0/6 focus -> +31.944% crit chance, +59.268% accuracy -> more than 6/0 pure ranged

 

 

I found that the damage is almost the same, just either higher base damage, or more reliable crit. With full items, end game crit gear, talent bonuses to crit, crit buff, and 2 points into torrent talent, can get over 85% crit rate 50% of the time.

-Almost all DPS builds are forced to go 5/1 or 6/0 in their primary damage attribute to remain competitive

-Energy is almost never invested in, for any build, for any class

HCS has acknowledged the issue about stat allocation diversity in previous patches, including the haste/dodge nerf and the attack power scaling nerf in previous updates. Additional nerfs, however, would be most unwelcome. The general sentiment in previous months of the developers would suggest that making stats like Vitality and Energy more attractive, would be preferable:

PvE Balance

We're working towards a big game balance patch. This will be aimed at leveling the playing field between a number of classes. We're also looking to seriously reduce the amount of haste and dodge you gain from your primary attribute (melee / ranged / sorcery). We're also looking at mana costs and cooldowns for all high level abilities (15+) with a view to improving balance of these before we release the new content. We are currently looking at ways of making energy and vitality more valuable. We will be aiming to do this patch sometime next week and everyone's respec cooldown will be reset. 

 

The question is, what can be done to buff Vitality, Focus and Energy in a balanced way to make them more attractive to invest in, rather than seeing only one viable stat allocation for each class?

A few major points to consider:

Enrage Timers / Rumble-style DPS race mechanics are extremely limiting, in that they punish lower DPS builds to the point where only glass-cannon builds are viable for the content. HCS staff have mentioned before that they disliked players investing no points in vitality; however, implementing DPS race mechanics on boss fights and in dungeons reinforces the need to min-max DPS and reinforces a desire to make glass-cannon builds. I have always been against the notion of enrage timers for this reason; players are already punished for playing slowly(since it takes more time to complete things). They should not be double-punished.

Additional nerfs to Melee/Ranged/Sorcery are not a viable option because the primary damage attributes have already been severely watered-down from their original incarnation, and will continue to scale poorly to level 50(with attack power scaling less well with each character level). Rather than nerf the damage attributes more, I highly suggest buffing the other attributes to make them more competitive.

Synergies with talents and builds should be considered in that buffing Focus or Vitality too much without considering game balance could end up making Templars and Rangers too powerful. Rangers already get a competitive DPS build by using a Focus-oriented build, so tweaks to Focus should bear that in mind. Vitality, as the bread-and-butter survivability stat, is used almost exclusively by Templars, so any additional defensive power bonuses to Vitality may make Templars too tanky(as well as still not being attractive for DPS classes to invest in).

Energy needs a significant buff. This cannot be stressed enough. Even with the severe nerf to Enlighten in a previous patch, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to invest in Energy(in fact, the nerf to Enlighten made it even less viable to invest in Energy, as Enlighten is the only max mana percentage-based regeneration talent that requires no combat action).

Attribute allocation and itemization go hand in hand. It cannot be stressed enough that a large part of attribute allocation is tied to the stats players receive on gears. Having more diverse gear options opens up the possibility for more diverse stat allocation builds(for example, if I had a custom chestpiece with +Melee, +Vitality, +Vitality, it might make me consider investing in Focus or Energy to compensate). Equipment creativity is something that Eldevin has great potential for, and the opportunities to improve itemization are endless! This has already been discussed in several other threads, but it is essential to mention it again, as the two issues are very closely related.

So, what now?

Fortunately, the developers are receptive to suggestions and ideas, and there are certainly a few avenues for improvement. Some possibilities:

-Giving the non-damage stats damage. This is the simplest and possibly most useful fix. Give a certain amount of attack power(less than the primary stat, but enough to be useful) for investing in Vitality, Energy, or Focus. This gives more incentive for DPS classes to actually invest some points in something other than their primary stat, buffs Templar DPS(since they almost always must invest in Vitality for survivability) and makes Focus Ranger builds even more attractive(borderline overpowered). The downside to this is that it's difficult to determine how much attack power(and which attack power) to allocate to each stat.

-Giving the non-damage stats additional defensive ability(defense, dodge, status resistance). These would certainly help tanks out, and make investment more attractive. The obvious downside is that there's no damage(which is currently priority 1-A in the current game world) so all DPS classes will still give the stats little to no consideration.

-Adding talents that synergize with non-damage stats. This already exists to a minor extent with the Ranger talent Wild Instincts(and is a big reason why heavy Focus investment is only really viable with Ranger builds) and seeing more talents like this could make some builds opt for a different stat setup.

-Buff the heck out of Energy. Seriously this stat needs some love: you could honestly double or triple the mana increase from each point in Energy and it still might not be worth the points(although it could potentially open up some very interesting max mana builds).

Anyway, food for thought! Improving stat allocation diversity could really add an additional level of intrigue and customization to the current game system.

Disclaimer: Feedback from one test run(2+ hours). I'd like to do additional testing, but this is my initial feedback on the changes to Rumble's Grotto.

Really quick, as I have to go to bed soon for work tomorrow! Here are my major concerns with the revamped Rumble's Grotto(non-Ascended version, the Ascended version can be plenty hard and extra frustrating if you like):
 
-The 'totem' daily only gives the party member that destroyed the Kaur Totem credit for destroying the totem. This is a very party-unfriendly mechanic, and will definitely lead to ninja-toteming. I suggest changing this to a party-wide totem counter or adjusting it in another way.
 
-Granite boss: Purple koolaid AoE cloud damage is very strong, and has an enormous radius(despite the awesome name, Purple koolaid AoE clouds appear to work exactly like rocks....except there are three of them, with a large radius. This fight is very troublesome for undergeared or laggy characters, especially considering the tight confines of the fight allowing little to no dodging room from the splashes. Our healer pretty much had to go back to town, get a shield, and spend most of the fight keeping himself alive instead of the tank(wasn't too bad, would hate to be a pure tank in that fight though).

Edit: Reading around, it may seem that the splash damage is a reverse-rock; that is, it does less damage at the center than it does at the edge. I'll have to test this further. I'm still concerned about how the cloud damage areas overlap with one another, though.
 
-Trash packs and enemies in general: I haven't run RG much pre-patch in the last week, but the trash packs seem extremely, extremely slow to kill compared to before. I don't think their HP has been increased much, but perhaps a significant defense or damage reduction buff occurred to the monsters. It extended the dungeon time greatly(even with wipes to bosses while testing mechanics, it should never take almost as long to clear trash in non-ascended RG as it does to clear trash in ASV).
 
-Rumble: The new mechanics are interesting but do not actually fix the issues with the old Rumble.
 
The issues with the old Rumble:
- tedious, boring fight
- healing mechanic.
 
The issues with the new Rumble:
- first 50% of the fight is a tedious, boring fight
- healing mechanic not only still exists(he will auto-heal twice, although for less hp than previous) but is now made significantly worse with the healing crystal that heals for 50,000 per tick, and cannot be killed quickly by DPS unless they have exceptional gear (this is the real big one, and I am kinda sad that you guys took the mechanic that was the worst part of the Rumble fight and made it worse). I HIGHLY suggest limiting this mechanic to Ascended Rumble's Grotto.
- prison crystal and healing crystal spawn at the same time in 3rd phase
- Rumble can chain-CC the tank in 3rd phase with his stun followed by crystal prison, or in the 2nd and 3rd phase if the tank crystal is not killed immediately, because the cooldown on crystal prison is very low
- no crystal prison immunity(not an isolated problem to just Rumble).
 
-Bugs:
 
- The repeatable quest that requires the Kaur Bows(forgot the exact name) gives both the remnant and the flake reward instead of the option to choose one.
- Kaur Archers(and archer mobs in general) bug out heavily if you let them attack you and then run out of line of sight.
 
First attempt, went for 2+ hours, I had to go to sleep for work, healer had to log as well. It's kind of cool, but I feel the non-Ascended version needs tweaking, as casual parties are going to get absolutely murdered in there.
 
The dailies are cool! However, I do not want to do the dailies in lieu of running the actual dungeon(which can be accomplished by killing the trash, one spider, blowing up totems, and never actually bothering to kill Rumble ever, and then running BT in 25-35 minutes instead of RG in 1-3 hours).
 
I think what I've seen so far in the new RG will make for a very cool and challenging Ascended version, though, and I look forward to trying that out when I have time! For the non-Ascended version, though, I think that the dungeon is much less attractive to run as it was previously as it currently stands(and is now significantly worse than BT, whereas before it was equally fine, minus Rumble). I think it can certainly be adjusted properly to be fun again, though!

This has been requested before but I am posting it again because I have never seen a response by staff as to why they have not done this.

 

Please change the mage/prophet staff melee DPS to sorcery.

Templars, Warriors, Assassins, and Rangers all get weapon DPS (melee or ranged) as well as a side item that gives melee or ranged DPS. Only Mages and Prophets get an essence for sorcery but a melee DPS staff.

Please fix this.

As well as fixing the loot table for staffs, please set up a schedule for Cow personnel to be at the ec fountain where we can trade our existing staffs for the new ones with sorcery (instead of melee) DPS. People can submit tickets to indicate they request a replacement so staff will know how many need a replacement (and what kind of staff).

Errr....

Throwing weapons may state that they do Melee DPS sometimes, but they in fact do Ranged DPS. There is one ranged skill(Jolt) that is a ranged attack that actually does do Melee DPS, on a 30s cooldown.

Ranger one-handed weapons do Melee DPS, and not Ranged DPS.

Edit: Follow-up information clarified by Cygnus in a later post. I was slightly off in how DPS is calculated(wrong idea, right conclusion) and his post better explains the interaction.

It's been a bit of a nagging concern to players that patch notes are not as thorough as they could be. With each update, a few changes always seem to slip through without being documented.

Recent example:

I just noticed today that Crimson HQ mobs were changed so that they all shoot you with ranged attacks now.

This is actually something I mentioned in my very first post ever on the Eldevin forums, too:

Edit: I forgot to mention one nitpicky thing. Please, when releasing patch notes, make sure to include all of the changes! In the 1.01 patch, the HP and damage of Wild Shigra monsters was changed. While I am absolutely okay with this and other balance changes, please do not make stealth changes! Documenting and displaying all changes is the best way to avoid angry players talking about stealth nerfs.

Please, for future patches, include the full changelog of fixes and changes in each update, no matter how mundane or small the change might be. Also, if you could archive all patch and update notes in a sub-section of the forums, so players can quickly get up to speed with what's changed over the months/years, that would be fantastic!

Be that as it may, it is a valid point that many players here do, do. Most players within this community are either new to the mmorpg genre, new to gaming or very casual. Thus resulting in choices and feedback that solely revolves around them rather than the potential for a thriving population.

I agree with this statement to the point that, quite often(and I am guilty of this at times as well), players only seek the development outcome that solely benefits themselves over the benefit of the 'greater good', in this case the community.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but the explanation that you just posted is a thousand times more constructive, and therefore better, than your original one-liner. Fostering a positive community experience is the best way to encourage people to think of others, and not just themselves!

Returning to the original point, it's refreshing to see so much developer attention on the suggestion forums today!

Supporter only limited areas, it was said that it wouldn't be like this on release but I believe it is the only thing to "enforce" happy players into needing a subscription to access content that they otherwise are missing out on.

 

This could be supporter only quests, a supporter only profession. These kind of areas shouldn't give anything that a normal area would, unless it is unique to the game. Unique items (no matter what they are, weapons.. etc) shouldn't be better than any globally obtainable item.

 

However I can see the current community hating that idea since most seem to hate game-working suggestions that would put the game into the right direction. So if it is going the cosmetic only route they really need to increase cosmetic storage space and give a reason, achievements, bragging rights.. etc for those who own multiple cosmetics.

Yikes. That comment wasn't very nice. Don't give in to hate, that leads to the dark side of the forums!

I still stand by the belief that the Supporter buff is strong enough, although I do think it is important to provide incentive to players who are already maxed out in everything to continue subscribing. However, this needs to happen without adding any additional grind power behind the Supporter buff(which is already plenty strong when grinding just about anything). I would certainly be okay with additional cosmetic support such as access to additional vanity storage, etc.

I am decidedly against locking off content to exclusively Supporters, as it would tilt the game further towards the 'freemium' model, which effectively is just a cleverly disguised P2P model without any of the benefits and with all of the downside. I'd much rather see a pure P2P system than that alternative, although that would be a risky business decision in that case.

Although, one thing that would be a very cool middle-ground in terms of exclusive access, without locking off 'real' content, would be to allow Supporter access to a beta test server to test new patches and builds.

Ye olde Octoboss has been nerfed several times since release day. In the last patch his damage output was decreased roughly 1/3rd across the board.

Yes, he can still pose a problem to low-armor characters with low HP. Consider grabbing the Obelisk buff from Northam before running To3 if you're having trouble surviving his attacks.

Timing your Redemption/Plasma Shield for optimal reduction also helps. His attacks follow a set pattern, and using good tactical sense with your defensive skills can mitigate a lot of its damage!

I had a tutorial video about him, but unfortunately twitch ate it.

With the new content update, two new dungeons(Rumble's Grotto and Shadowcaster's Crypt) have been released, and Ascended Secluded Valley was revamped. While these dungeons have great potential, I think they need some tweaking. Let's go over them one at a time:

Rumble's Grotto

This place is actually pretty fun right now for the most part. Enemies are tough, but beatable, and well-tuned and well-geared parties can tear through packs quickly and consistently. The first two bosses are challenging enough to be interesting, but not too strong.

The one main problem with this dungeon is Rumble himself. He's not particularly challenging OR fun to kill, and bogs down runs with his constant self-healing, which he will do several times as he changes phases. Self-healing seems to be a theme with these Level 45 dungeons, and unless there is some kind of hidden trick to them(that isn't an exploit), I think a lot of self-healing bosses could do without all of the self-healing, as it prolongs fights unnecessarily. Rumble is the worst offender in this case, as his fight alone is longer than the other boss fights combined, and then some. I would suggest either to combine some of his 'phases' and have him heal less often, or remove his healing altogether.

A lesser issue is that of the spiders in the troll-holes. They are actually more deadly than the regular bosses in Rumble's Grotto(even though they are just default Crystal Spiders with boosted damage and HP, this goes to show you how deadly these things are in close quarters!), but offer minimal reward for their risk. In fact, almost all groups opt to skip these optional bosses, as one glimmering gem isn't worth the time or effort to kill them.

Fix these two issues, and you go from having a good dungeon to a great one!

Shadowcaster's Crypt(Also referred to as Bochdaen Tomb)

This place, in my opinion, is the more fun of the two dungeons, and the more rewarding, with four regular bosses instead of three for the same amount of time and effort(Hi, Rumble!). There's actually very little I'd like to see changed here, as the monster packs are plenty fun, and the boss fights are varied and interesting, for the most part. The recent patch changes to the end boss help a ton, kudos!

Two things to suggest, though. Firstly, the spectral witch boss, again, has a healing mechanic which serves no purpose except to prolong the fight, and isn't at all interesting or fun. It was a surprise the first time, but the mechanic quickly lost its lustre. I understand that her max HP is lower to compensate for this mechanic, but she still heals too much. I'd rather see her only heal 50-100k HP and do something cool like start throwing shadow balls everywhere or something!

Secondly, our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Jazzhands, the optional skeleton elite bosses, again, are far more difficult than most of the regular bosses, and again only drop one glimmering gem, which means they are skipped by groups entirely, without fail. If they were worth killing, they'd be a great extra challenge!

With minor changes, this dungeon goes from a great to a fantastic one!

Ascended Secluded Valley

Ascended Secluded Valley(ASV) has become the real talking point of late as players continue to max out on gear from the other two dungeons. Firstly, let me start off by saying something positive in that I absolutely love what you guys did in buffing the regular enemies to have special attacks, making them an actual challenge, as an Ascended dungeon should be. I'm glad you could make it work!

However, there are three critical issues with ASV:

Firstly, monsters and, specifically, bosses, have far too much HP in the dungeon, which doesn't actually add a level of difficulty to the dungeon, but instead frustrates players by requiring a certain level of gear to even be able to attempt bosses due to enrage timers. Gear check fights don't even belong in WoW raids, and they certainly don't belong in Eldevin. There's a reason why enrage timers were removed entirely from games like Diablo 3. Slow groups are already punished by completing things slowly. They don't need to be double punished.

This is compounded by the fact that the bosses aren't actually much different at all from their non-ascended predecessors, they just have overtuned HP and enrage timers to create the illusion of difficulty.

Secondly, the rewards for clearing ASV are not commensurate with the increased difficulty. Bosses here need to drop more than a single gem/loot item.

Thirdly, the relic rewards do need to be looked at. I understand the concept of limiting relic gains per day to maintain the exclusivity of fabled weapons, but having no relics drop at all normally in the dungeon and only gaining three relics per day is too extreme, especially when these weapons currently available will inevitably be made obsolete by the time the Level 50 update comes around! I would perhaps be alright with something like three relics per day if we were already at the Level 50 cap AND had access to other Ascended dungeon quests, but currently this amount is far too limiting with only one dungeon available for a reward that will get replaced with new content.

ASV needs a significant overhaul to be made into a real dungeon:

-Monster and boss HP needs to be decreased significantly, down to slightly-above-normal-dungeon levels.

-In lieu of increased HP, boss encounters need to be made more difficult in other ways, like giving the bosses abilities that require player skill to defeat.

-Bosses need to drop significantly more loot, and possibly relics.

-The daily relic rewards need to be increased to five per day at the least, and can be re-evaluated once the Level 50 patch comes out(and when more Ascended dungeons come out).

Hopefully you guys can take some of these suggestions into consideration! Cheers.