152 replies to this topic

[Arioche]

Good Morning everyone!

 

Since the update, I've been keeping an eye on both the Discord and the forums to take note of your concerns, and have decided to open a feedback thread in order to help compile this information in one place.

 

Firstly, I'll be conducting a get together with the team to have a look over the existing buffs and see where we can make some balance changes. I would like to address the issues surrounding some of these buffs that have, over time, grown extremely powerful.

 

Secondly, I'd like you all to use this thread to share with me what changes you would like to see for Fallen Sword. What is it that you like or dislike? What could use a little bit of love? 

 

[Emperor Sidd]

Hi Arioche

 

In my opinion, Fallensword has received very little development or changes in the better part of a decade because every change has been met with criticism by the vocal minority. It probably creates a negative atmosphere and lowers the incentive for the staff to try anything.

 

Over the years many people have spent time writing up ideas for the game or proposing reworks but they don't seem to go anywhere. I believe the reason is that players do not account for the work involved to execute their ideas into the game. Couple that with half the people on the thread disagreeing; leaves no incentive for the Fallensword team.

 

I suggest the reverse; the Fallensword team posts a thread about an idea or changes, let people provide feedback and the Fallensword team can decide how they want to proceed with any suggestions if at all but at least the players are given the opportunity to provide feedback. Many players have expressed a desire for communication from the admins, you can fill this void.

[Tilley10]

Here is the link to the Potential Balance Changes - Buffs Thread: https://forums.hunte...33#entry1003239

It might be nice to have separate threads for each group of ideas to keep things more organized. I, of course, defer to Arioche on their preference

More ideas to come later below from me!

[Tilley10]

 

Good Morning everyone!

 

Since the update, I've been keeping an eye on both the Discord and the forums to take note of your concerns, and have decided to open a feedback thread in order to help compile this information in one place.

 

Firstly, I'll be conducting a get together with the team to have a look over the existing buffs and see where we can make some balance changes. I would like to address the issues surrounding some of these buffs that have, over time, grown extremely powerful.

 

Secondly, I'd like you all to use this thread to share with me what changes you would like to see for Fallen Sword. What is it that you like or dislike? What could use a little bit of love? 

 

 

Arioche,

 

Hello, nice to meet you and welcome to the FS community! I want to start by saying thank you for opening up this for open communication between the players and HCS staff. There has been a little disconnect between the two and this will definitely bring everyone back together. I do look forward to you working on this and making FS the best it can be!

[EpicPiety]

Hello Arioche,

Before I get into it I want to give credit to those who contributed. 

- Tilley10
- SS

- Toreth 
- Other players who wish to remain anonymous

 

We are all extremely excited for you coming to us to chat. A few of us have got together who have been playing this game for years to chat about the major problems that exist in the game today. We hope you will take your time and possibly branch out and create different mega threads on each specific area that interests you. Please note this is sort of a rough draft. We tried to keep it as overly broad as possible.

 

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#1 Power creep, General game balance, whenever we get an update the power creep is just furthered

 

#1a - Buffs (Buffs are to overly biased towards defense. There is too many buffs which play into each other. A lot of buffs are too powerful)

 

#1b - Lack of Scarcity (IE there will never be enough demand for gear/services and there is also no proper trade off in composing, SH,KE,Coa,Cod 350/480 can be brewed and used for a poor mans penny)

 

 

#1c - Lack of Gear options (2000-3000+)

 

 

#1d - Game scaling (The game scaling does not match the power creep we keep getting more powerful buffs which dumb down content across the game)

 

 

#1e - leveling formula is far too easy. With the introduction of AL/Lib/Con 750 and now 850s we can gain a level per 400-500 stamina or 200-250 in 2x. The leveling formula should be reworked. Making it harder to level would also stop the constant demand for you to create more content (More time to saturate level ranges with gear). Seeing as it would be unfair to retroactively implement a change to the formula possibly start it EOC forward.

 

#1f - Game updates seem to overshadow other aspects and coin them moot.

 

 

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#2 - Lack of meaningful updates to various aspects of the game (IE composing got an update but it was our last update we got aswell)

 

 

#2a - GvG

 

           #2i - https://forums.hunte...4&hl=gvg&page=1

 

#2b - Arena 

 

            #2i overall lack of reward in the arena

            #2ii - going to defer to the arena experts on this one

 

#2c - Inventing

 

           #2i  - largely overshadowed by composing for potions

           #2ii - access to way too much of a supply so there is no demand 

           #2iii - Inventor 2 needs to be nerfed from 250 back to only allowing 

                    175 and inventor 500 needs to go 500>250

           #2vi - recipes need to have lower success rates so everything does 

                     not always pass

 

 

#2d - PvP

 

 

           #2i - possibly look into bringing back pvp seasons (or just the good parts). This was                                     implemented with a few bugs. Everyone was opted in and lost massive exp from the bug                     and were annoyed and voted it out. I believe if this is implemented with opt in opt out                           feature it will be fine.   

          #2ii - maybe some of the pvp community can chime in.

 

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#3 - Lack of communication

 

 

#3a - we would like transparency on future updates. Most of us have been playing for years and believe our opinion could help you perfect the game. In addition we would like better patch notes.

 

 

#3b - possibly create a mega thread whenever you are looking to update something.

 

 

#3c - possibly create a collective of veteran players to provide HCS with special message boards to directly communicate with cows when warranted. I've seen this work in various games

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#4 Epics (idk how people will take this but I believe the game was much more fun before the introduction of afking in epics)

 

 

#4a - This is a time based stamina regen game. Epics help us regen stam faster but the trade off is we have to wear them all the time. This really dumbs down all sorts of aspects of the game.

 

 

#4b - is it possible to change the entire class of item and distribute that stamina gain throughout other methods?

Cba to fix post format XD sorry for your eyes

Edited by EpicPiety, 24 March 2021 - 16:48.

[Pardoux]

Inventable Items.

 

It was suggested some (long) time ago (and met with cow approval) that, to limit inventable items, scarce items were used in the invention process.

Scarce items such as Chest crystalline ('cos, heaven knows, other than "Sword of Emerald Fire", "Spirit Tainted Boots" and "Pulsing Heart Armor", they're all pretty useless)

 

Temple crystalline too - that's not something (that I've seen) getting much use

 

SE drops (a list was provided, at the time, of the numerous SE drops that haven't been used so far - and can be, if required, provided again)

 

I'm sure this list could be easily expanded upon ..

Edited by Pardoux, 26 March 2021 - 06:09.

[shindrak]

PvP Arena needs new rewards and more low level tourneys  ..

 

 More uses of Arena quest items in recipes  and new Arena invent able sets to sink other less value sets

 5 tourneys for every 100 level should be good

Edited by shindrak, 24 March 2021 - 20:01.

[Grumpy Grey]

Instead of tinkering with what working at the moment, There is a trail of minor broken functions left in the game from the various updates over time.

It would be nice to see these addressed and fixed before embarking on a new round of messing with things that are working instead of potentially adding more to the list that is broken

Edited by Grumpy Grey, 24 March 2021 - 23:23.

[Arioche]

Thank you to those who have provided some feedback and suggestions so far. From what we receive, we hope to put together an action plan and present to the wider player base what they would like to see worked on first. At the moment, bug fixing is taking priority, so I hope you can bear with us   
 

 

#1 Power creep, General game balance, whenever we get an update the power creep is just furthered

 

#1a - Buffs (Buffs are to overly biased towards defense. There is too many buffs which play into each other. A lot of buffs are too powerful)

 

There is indeed a collection of buffs that seem, alone and in combination, very powerful. After reading the feedback (from both sides of the argument) over the past few days, this is something we would like to focus on and see where we can make adjustments, or where things can be left alone to play out with more data. 

 

#1b - Lack of Scarcity (IE there will never be enough demand for gear/services and there is also no proper trade off in composing, SH,KE,Coa,Cod 350/480 can be brewed and used for a poor mans penny)

 

At this point in the game, it is quite difficult to make drastic changes in the way the formula calculates composing costs without making it arduous for a great number of players to progress. Difficult in the way of: How does this effect the wider player base? Will this make it more difficult for a Level 25 player, who has recently unlocked Composing, to get some headway?

We can look into seeing how we could overcome this issue, but it is one that requires careful consideration.   
 

#1c - Lack of Gear options (2000-3000+)

 

If I may, can I ask you to elaborate on what you mean here? Would you like to see more mid-level gear sets added to compensate, as there are many players who have yet to break into those higher levels? Or are the options given not satisfactory enough for certain play modes?

 

#2 - Lack of meaningful updates to various aspects of the game (IE composing got an update but it was our last update we got aswell)

There are indeed some areas of the game that are needing a little bit of love. GvG, Arena, PvP, Titans; all of which either need new incentives, store updates or mechanical tweaks. While we are going to focus on fixing what is broken first, we would like to create a poll in the future.

 

#3a - ... In addition we would like better patch notes.

 

The patch notes follow a standard structure, so what would you like to see done differently?

 

Inventable Items.

 

It was suggested some (long) time ago (and met with cow approval) that, to limit inventable items, scarce items were used in the invention process.

Scarce items such as Chest crystalline ('cos, heaven knows, other than "Sword of Emerald Fire", "Spirit Tainted Boots" and "Pulsing Heart Armor", they're all pretty useless)

 

SE drops (a list was provided, at the time, of the numerous SE drops that haven't been used so far - and can be, if required, provided again)

 

I'm sure this list could be easily expanded upon ..

 

We can have a dig through to recover that list, but if you are able to provide it that will be very much appreciated   
 

Instead of tinkering with what working at the moment, There is a trail of minor broken functions left in the game from the various updates over time.

It would be nice to see these addressed and fixed before embarking on a new round of messing with things that are working instead of potentially adding more to the list that is broken

Bug fixing and focusing on what is currently not working is taking priority at the moment, so all I ask is that you bear with us as we work through these issues. An action plan will be created to ensure that we cover as much as we can during this time   

Additionally, if there is any glaring issues that strike out to you as critical, please feel free to share and explain.

Once again, thank you for providing your thoughts so far! 

[wazzimoto]

Instead of tinkering with what working at the moment, There is a trail of minor broken functions left in the game from the various updates over time.

It would be nice to see these addressed and fixed before embarking on a new round of messing with things that are working instead of potentially adding more to the list that is broken

Agreed 1000% ...including all the broken components and glitches included with the latest update!! 

The game has more broken components currently than ever before at one time.......

[TheCount]

Many of the imbalances when it comes to PvP is lack of gear. Everything considered "overpowered" at the moment could be countered by simply adding the gear needed to do so. Defense is only the overall meta because of lack of armor sets. In practice, myself and others familiar with PvP have found that when the gear is available, Armor is more reliable than Defense.

 

My biggest suggestion would be adding Armor gear (both Attack/Armor and Armor/Damage) into the 1000-1499 range, 2200-2499 range, and many more armor sets 3500-EOC. Also, 4000+ gear seems to follow a trend surrounding Damage. Understandable for some sets, but when many setups at that level rely of Barricade or Entrench to get Defense or Armor. That is another issue more gear could solve.

 

The new gear added could come in the way of new invented Crystalline, both using Ladder Tokens and Arena Tokens. Gear could also be added by way of SE drops, preferably in the direction of the Skull Carver or Dreadlord SEs where the drops are used to invent. New creatures could be added to the Scavenging caves with drops used to invent as well, potentially tying more than one aspect of the game into each other. While these options would make the gear rarer to acquire, it also could create a supply and demand.

 

I won't say much on the topic of GvG reworks, as I think Ryebred's thread was as well thought out as it could be. If that's not possible though, new rewards in the RP shop used to invent rare best in slot epics across all level ranges would spark activity at least for a short time. And I'm not against the idea of cheaper RP items being used in the Recipes for rare sets similar to Clotildes or Eadgyths.

 

Making new SE's stronger would be nice as well. Players at level 300 shouldn't be able to kill an SE like Rion with three buffs and in epics. That doesn't feel very 'Super'. SE's similar to Empress are designed much better in my opinion.

 

PvP Seasons sounds like an interesting idea, I wasn't around for the first attempt so I can't speak much on it's execution. Though given the proper rewards and an opt in feature would probably bring the activity to make it worth developing.

 

All of these are ideas put forward by someone who is just now getting a cup of coffee, so take them as seriously as you like. I will add/edit as I wake up I'm sure. I would obviously like to see the bugs and broken things fixed first and foremost, though you sound like you have it under control.

 

I'd also like to thank you for opening this line of communication in the first place, and actually engaging in conversation with the community.

Edited by TheCount, 25 March 2021 - 15:26.

[EpicPiety]

There is indeed a collection of buffs that seem, alone and in combination, very powerful. After reading the feedback (from both sides of the argument) over the past few days, this is something we would like to focus on and see where we can make adjustments, or where things can be left alone to play out with more data.

 

We agree, this is something that will take time and data. We propose that certain buff combinations needing balance e.g. Flinch & Fumble, Dispel Curse & Dark Curse specifically 350 variant available get changed in a balance update for a few weeks for testing and you can review the data. It is best to change these buffs and see how the game evolves from there. Nothing wrong with reverting a change or tweaking it again if the outcomes are not desirable in the long term.

 

At this point in the game, it is quite difficult to make drastic changes in the way the formula calculates composing costs without making it arduous for a great number of players to progress. Difficult in the way of: How does this effect the wider player base? Will this make it more difficult for a Level 25 player, who has recently unlocked Composing, to get some headway? We can look into seeing how we could overcome this issue, but it is one that requires careful consideration. 

 

 

We agree making changes to composing costs would complicate things, frankly will be unfair. Fortunately for leveling composing you should only be using common frags. To create a lot of the more powerful potions it’s required that you use LE among other frags.

 

LE frags are far too easy to come by. LE Mobs are supposed to be above Elites yet farming elites is a lot harder than farming LE’s. LE Mobs work with Animal Magnetism (AM) and with animal magnetism 500 when you kill it, it will remain on the same tile (100% respawn) This means you can kill it over and over again and bring mass legendary sets into the game. One person could supply the entire game with a Legendary Set in under an hour. Not only that this is fairly inactive gameplay and overall not fun.

 

Needless to say what makes a successful game is having things to work towards, strive for… a goal. LE sets are among the most powerful in the game and still among the easiest to come by. By limiting the access to supply on LE items it will in turn start to fix composing as well as liven the game.

 

The following changes are being proposed to LE Creatures.

 

• 100 LE Creatures per type will spawn in the realm spread over the eligible maps each LE spawns on (So 10-20 per map)
• They will respawn instantly although if you over farm a current map and the other maps are not being farmed you might have to venture to another map to find them
• AM will no longer work on legendary creatures

 

We have received huge buffs to FI and have an addition of Lady Luck to increase drop rate but  the above should at least breathe some life into LE and correct various aspects of the game.

 

 

If I may, can I ask you to elaborate on what you mean here? Would you like to see more mid-level gear sets added to compensate, as there are many players who have yet to break into those higher levels? Or are the options given not satisfactory enough for certain play modes?

 

 

 

The third option, the options given are not satisfactory in areas other than hunting.

The current state of buffs and the levels at which they are available favor defense setups.

There is a lack of armor sets to make viable counters to defense setups.

The overall diversity of sets available to use outside of hunting has sharply declined over the years. One of the reasons for scarcity is the rate at which new levels are added to the game, giving the content team much less time to fill the ranges with well thought out and plentiful gear options, meaningful quests and so on.

At higher levels of the game, you frequently see players hit each other with similar defense setups that depend on the 2% rule for win or end unresolved combat.

The aim of adding more sets to the game is to give players options to strategize against each other. Instead of one oppressive strategy (Currently defense at most levels), more like rock paper scissors.

 

Below is the distribution of items, data is collected from UFSG

 

 

One solution we agreed up was increasing the effort required to hunt through new content( levels) which can be achieved through a few ways for eg. scaling creature stats exponentially. This should allow the content team more time to create sets, quests, etc.

 

There are indeed some areas of the game that are needing a little bit of love. GvG, Arena, PvP, Titans; all of which either need new incentives, store updates or mechanical tweaks. While we are going to focus on fixing what is broken first, we would like to create a poll in the future.

 

 

 

That would be great, to give you some perspective once upon a time we had a list of things that HCS was going to work on. GvG was the next big ticket item. There was also a really fun PvP revamp that occurred called PVP seasons but it was discontinued because of bugs during execution. It should be salvaged as the bugs have been addressed. 

 

The patch notes follow a standard structure, so what would you like to see done differently?

 

 

Simply put we would just like detailed patch notes on all changes. Often over the years things would change and sometimes it wouldn’t even be announced. Possibly have bug fixes included so we can know if something is fixed or not. For example when a new buff was added like Healer, many people did not know about it because players don't intuitively check the skills guide. New buffs should be presented on the home page like new levels are so everyone can be aware of what it does.

Edited by EpicPiety, 25 March 2021 - 17:04.

[missshiv]

Hi Arioche,

 

Thank you for taking time to create and regularly monitor this thread.  I know the community as a whole appreciates your willingness to listen to our suggestions.

 

- 2.d PvP  -- Please consider expanding the normal PvP range for regular hits, possibly to 25 or even 50 in higher ranges.  The average online player base sits comfortably around 300 daily, and with a level spread of nearly 5000 levels, the distribution of "active" players available for completion of Daily Quests is not even.  Too often the complaint is not "I have to hit the same person 9 times;" rather, it is "I have no targets."  Expanding this would increase activity within a larger span of players, as well as potentially adding interest to the bounty board.

 

- 4 Epics  -- The game is currently over-saturated with epics, with many selling for less than the cost of a handful of fsp.  As we've seen possible back in 2018 with the Writhing Ward, Steamwork Cuirass, and the Inferno Hammer, these items can be tiered and stats modified accordingly.  This would drive the demand for the less desirable epics up, as well as reinvigorate titan hunting and inventing, especially if inventing probabilities were adjusted as mentioned above.  As it stands right now, securing titans are no problem, but waiting for them to be finished off can take over a week due to general disinterest.

 

- 1.c Lack of Gear -- As mentioned in Count's above post, there is a significant shortfall of viable armor-based gear in certain ranges.  This leads to stagnation in pvp setups, where basically these ranges have textbook ideal pvp gear sets with little incentive to expand past a handful of sets.  The ideas put forth in order to create/invent new gear sound exciting, especially if they are able to incorporate multiple neglected aspects of the game (caves, specifically).   

 

- I'd also just like to plug Ryebred's gvg suggestion, as it is very thorough as still relatively viable years later.

 

Thank you again for your time, and I'm looking forward to what changes may come from this!

[EpicPiety]

- 4 Epics  -- The game is currently over-saturated with epics, with many selling for less than the cost of a handful of fsp.  As we've seen possible back in 2018 with the Writhing Ward, Steamwork Cuirass, and the Inferno Hammer, these items can be tiered and stats modified accordingly.  This would drive the demand for the less desirable epics up, as well as reinvigorate titan hunting and inventing, especially if inventing probabilities were adjusted as mentioned above.  As it stands right now, securing titans are no problem, but waiting for them to be finished off can take over a week due to general disinterest.

Epics will eventually be worthless aswell as they cannot keep raising the stamina gain on them. We have been capped at +7 and i doubt we will see anything more. They need a fundamental change entirely, or some bigger change overall.

[Pardoux]

 

We can have a dig through to recover that list, but if you are able to provide it that will be very much appreciated   
 

 

As requested.

 

 

As you can see, there's a lot of scope for using both low level (pre1K) and higher level SE drops for inventing in the future

 

Hopefully it's obvious what the other numbers adjacent to drops represent, but just in case it's not, that's the number of recipes they're already used in ...

Edited by Pardoux, 25 March 2021 - 23:12.

[yghorbeviahn]

One idea to raise the demand for Epics would be to use them for inventing as well, even better if that could be used for Potions instead of gear.

 

I've been thinking about what buffs a Potion would need to have to make destroying an Epic on it worth, if that idea gets the green light, a whole thread should be made about balancing those Recipes, some ideas:

 

Hunting Pot 01

1 - Skaldir Boots

1 - Shezmu Amulet

1 - Maneki Collar

1 - Dwarven Bronze Clock

 

AM500, AL500, CSV500, LIB500, LF1500, DBL1500. (Like a GE Chest)

 

-

 

I don't know if the demand for that kind of potion would be high enough to justify the price of making, but it's just an example...The idea is just to cut the overflow of Epics in the market.

[Pardoux]

One idea to raise the demand for Epics would be to use them for inventing as well, even better if that could be used for Potions instead of gear.

 

I've been thinking about what buffs a Potion would need to have to make destroying an Epic on it worth, if that idea gets the green light, a whole thread should be made about balancing those Recipes, some ideas:

 

Hunting Pot 01

1 - Skaldir Boots

1 - Shezmu Amulet

1 - Maneki Collar

1 - Dwarven Bronze Clock

 

AM500, AL500, CSV500, LIB500, LF1500, DBL1500. (Like a GE Chest)

 

-

 

I don't know if the demand for that kind of potion would be high enough to justify the price of making, but it's just an example...The idea is just to cut the overflow of Epics in the market.

 

Using the very low end, valueless epics for POTIONS is something I could easily get on-board with

Great idea

[suderlon]

Hi Arioche

 

please first fix all bugs that is reported, next you can do poll and changes

[kitobas]

before doing anything please we having bugs that not good for game, longer they staying worse it becoming playing, please do fixing

 

I liking very much that admin coming and starting talking with players what needing improving game but I hoping not disapearing after players doing long time work, thank you

 

but I seeing big problem in this

here many topics starting and this will be coming confusing with later discussion here on many topics with many pages, better create external topics in forum for gvg, pvp, arena, .... please not all topics here then bring confusion

 

there many topics here good but I wanting putting one correction

 

#2d - PvP

 

 

           #2i - possibly look into bringing back pvp seasons (or just the good parts). This was                                     implemented with a few bugs. Everyone was opted in and lost massive exp from the bug and were annoyed and voted it out. I believe if this is implemented with opt in opt out feature it will be fine.   

when I seeing players posting not truth about pvp I needing posting

bro, you knowing massive exp from bug was only in first hours of pvp season that hcs fixing fast, you knowing season was lasting more than 2 weeks, you knowing that biggest problem of season was bounty board, bounty board was biggest joke, you knowing many community not liking season and voting no

 

there other things bad about season but better for admin you please go read pvp season topics for knowing truth why season was bad and getting rejecting by community, please go reading forum topics

 

I liking EP that you posting many topics, some good and showing you putting time for thinking but please bro, always posting full truth, not half truth

 

 

there other topics I wanting posting about but too early posting, I will waiting reading when have more and more detail of topics (pvp, gvg, arena, ....) then I posting too

 

thank you admin for opening this topic for doing comunication with community and showing good, thank you

Edited by kitobas, 27 March 2021 - 10:50.

[Prop]

I'd quite like to see seasons back again with the bounty board as it is now.

 

The last iteration made a mockery of the bounty hunter medal as well for those that had grinded for it.

 

Fumble was a weird one to see implemented, I'd suggest removing it completely, replacing it on the skill tree with healer at 150 and leaving it in composing. In fact all of the new buffs could be put into the skill tree, it's been an age since that's seen any attention. (capped by BE or not I don't mind)

 

If the arena stays at it is, could it at least have more tabs split into ranges? The lack of spawns for people even wanting to try after completing the novice levels for moves has always been a bit of a weird one for me to see personally.

 

The re-introduction of polls in game would be good too. I know people voice things here but it's not the be all and end all of how all people play.