Changelog (UPDATED 6/12/16)

Updated.

i noticed spider heads say 250exp but they give 100 :/

Updated.

Updated

Updated

Shivas power grew again?!

Limitless wrote:

Shivas power grew again?!

He has another friend visiting for the holidays.

and he himself is stronger yes

350 power skua scrolls!

Updated again.

Some clarity added

Changes to compulse to limit the number of compulsed NPCs.
This will be reviewed over time.

Lordlava wrote:

Changes to compulse to limit the number of compulsed NPCs.
This will be reviewed over time.

Am i to expect nerfing of other classes to compensate? Or is it just a general reduction of power of spellcasters yet again?

Loving the change to the GC and compulse. Good one

1. Companion spell amended to make the mana related to the mod power of the spell. The biggest winners will be low ranks when the cast GC (16 mana required at private). The biggest losers will be high ranked GCs without concentrate (about Col Hara).  Concentrate roughly halves the cost of cast GC, depending on your mod conc skill.

2. The GC stats have been changed. This will mainly be a benefit at higher ranks where the NPCs can cast curse and stun.  Mainly immunity but also a few other small changes.  Note skele and undead have not been changed.

3. The companions (GC, undead and skele) will now advise you if the have been abandoned and died and let you know what you have lost. Normal deaths in combat do not get reported.

4. Dispel on other characters changed to increase the chance of failure if your dispel is not high enough. No change to dispelling self.  Whilst this was mainly aimed at NPCs dispelling players, it will also have an impact on players dispelling players and NPCs.

Asmodeus wrote:

Am i to expect nerfing of other classes

Please note that I am not "nerfing" anything.

The aim is to fix anomalies and issues that are not consistent, whilst we implement new features.
If the changes have gone too far in anyone direction then we can review them over time.

At some stage Necromancers will get a make over.

Lordlava wrote:

1. Companion spell amended to make the mana related to the mod power of the spell. The biggest winners will be low ranks when the cast GC (16 mana required at private). The biggest losers will be high ranked GCs without concentrate (about Col Hara).  Concentrate roughly halves the cost of cast GC, depending on your mod conc skill.

2. The GC stats have been changed. This will mainly be a benefit at higher ranks where the NPCs can cast curse and stun.  Mainly immunity but also a few other small changes.  Note skele and undead have not been changed.

3. The companions (GC, undead and skele) will now advise you if the have been abandoned and died and let you know what you have lost. Normal deaths in combat do not get reported.

4. Dispel on other characters changed to increase the chance of failure if your dispel is not high enough. No change to dispelling self.  Whilst this was mainly aimed at NPCs dispelling players, it will also have an impact on players dispelling players and NPCs.

Asmodeus wrote:

Am i to expect nerfing of other classes

Please note that I am not "nerfing" anything.

The aim is to fix anomalies and issues that are not consistent, whilst we implement new features.
If the changes have gone too far in anyone direction then we can review them over time.

At some stage Necromancers will get a make over.

The problem remains that races that rely on gimmicks like sorcerors and arch harakims get touched the most. 3 compulsions maximum means that you can no longer compulse pent amongst other things. This also impacts the power balance in pvp and LQs. Already AH cant blast2 and are rendered near useless in LQs, now you take away the only offensive spell they have left in those situations. Stun barriers effectively nerf the capacity of spellcasters to defend themselves and surive in such content as well. All the while creating a significant gap in how the game is played as melee classes see their relative power grow yet again. AH have no offensive capacity in pvp minus the compulse spell. Now with mod caps unlocked, certain classes get unbelivable boosts to immunity which further makes spellcasters utter trash in pvp. Atleast if you take away compulse, fix lq blast2 and modify blast2 damage formula to penetrate immunity. Or even add a skill that penetrates immunity. Spellcasters have no way to minimize damage from seyans or ATs at this point. No way to block 270-280weapon skill with 150+ wv and 270 immun mod.

The GC improvements as of january 2 were lackluster. At 200 mod and 210 power I guess, I had 55imm base and 94res bases. Even with 315 power bless, the gc was getting stunlocked in uw. If you want to make it stronger allow the bases to go higher and buff its offensive capacity. Wv bonus and maybe even sh1/sh2. Gc is still useless and will remain so until it has some likelyness to necro gcs. I will further test gc as it is in my future skills to max. Will keep you posted. The changes at lower rank outside of where they get cursed seem to be ok. That 5h2h base mod increase is meh tho.

I like you guys tackling balance. I would just hope that some transparancy in the decision process would exist. You are doing a great job coding and I think a lot of people are weary of having their classes touched especially when most dev decisions so far have seem to be made without much consultation. You don't have to consult us but open channels of communication will lessen the blow when we get "nerfed" or when other races get buffed. Just my two cents. I do commend you on your overall openess to discuss in game and through message board. Keep up the good work and I hope you guys see that my comments are always directed by my love for the game. Nothing personal when I call out stuff.

All the changes I make are effectively trials and some have already been re-tweaked since implementation.

The Comp limit was going to be between 2 and 5 max.
3 was the compromise and we will trial it. It may or may not change again depending on how it goes.
My Sorc used to pent with 4 or 5 of the strongest in any one area - spelled up and he was untouchable. Every 28 minutes I transferred them for the experience and started again.
I have observed pents that were full of comps so that the caster could run through an area of 10 pents without ever being touched.
No change was made to duration which remains at 30 odd minutes from memory.

My GC used to pent icies. If the gargs were hit with C2 then he was untouchable.
Without C2 he was garg droppings. This was the reason for increasing immunity and a few other smaller and less significant changes.
We did not want to make a low rank GC overpowered whilst making him useful at a higher rank.
Lets observe and see how he fares.
GCs do not appear to get AV or WV bonuses as their str/agi increases. This may be a contributor to their limitations.

Asmodeus wrote:

Lordlava wrote:

1. Companion spell amended to make the mana related to the mod power of the spell. The biggest winners will be low ranks when the cast GC (16 mana required at private). The biggest losers will be high ranked GCs without concentrate (about Col Hara).  Concentrate roughly halves the cost of cast GC, depending on your mod conc skill.

2. The GC stats have been changed. This will mainly be a benefit at higher ranks where the NPCs can cast curse and stun.  Mainly immunity but also a few other small changes.  Note skele and undead have not been changed.

3. The companions (GC, undead and skele) will now advise you if the have been abandoned and died and let you know what you have lost. Normal deaths in combat do not get reported.

4. Dispel on other characters changed to increase the chance of failure if your dispel is not high enough. No change to dispelling self.  Whilst this was mainly aimed at NPCs dispelling players, it will also have an impact on players dispelling players and NPCs.

Asmodeus wrote:

Am i to expect nerfing of other classes

Please note that I am not "nerfing" anything.

The aim is to fix anomalies and issues that are not consistent, whilst we implement new features.
If the changes have gone too far in anyone direction then we can review them over time.

At some stage Necromancers will get a make over.

The problem remains that races that rely on gimmicks like sorcerors and arch harakims get touched the most. 3 compulsions maximum means that you can no longer compulse pent amongst other things. This also impacts the power balance in pvp and LQs. Already AH cant blast2 and are rendered near useless in LQs, now you take away the only offensive spell they have left in those situations. Stun barriers effectively nerf the capacity of spellcasters to defend themselves and surive in such content as well. All the while creating a significant gap in how the game is played as melee classes see their relative power grow yet again. AH have no offensive capacity in pvp minus the compulse spell. Now with mod caps unlocked, certain classes get unbelivable boosts to immunity which further makes spellcasters utter trash in pvp. Atleast if you take away compulse, fix lq blast2 and modify blast2 damage formula to penetrate immunity. Or even add a skill that penetrates immunity. Spellcasters have no way to minimize damage from seyans or ATs at this point. No way to block 270-280weapon skill with 150+ wv and 270 immun mod.

The GC improvements as of january 2 were lackluster. At 200 mod and 210 power I guess, I had 55imm base and 94res bases. Even with 315 power bless, the gc was getting stunlocked in uw. If you want to make it stronger allow the bases to go higher and buff its offensive capacity. Wv bonus and maybe even sh1/sh2. Gc is still useless and will remain so until it has some likelyness to necro gcs. I will further test gc as it is in my future skills to max. Will keep you posted. The changes at lower rank outside of where they get cursed seem to be ok. That 5h2h base mod increase is meh tho.

I like you guys tackling balance. I would just hope that some transparancy in the decision process would exist. You are doing a great job coding and I think a lot of people are weary of having their classes touched especially when most dev decisions so far have seem to be made without much consultation. You don't have to consult us but open channels of communication will lessen the blow when we get "nerfed" or when other races get buffed. Just my two cents. I do commend you on your overall openess to discuss in game and through message board. Keep up the good work and I hope you guys see that my comments are always directed by my love for the game. Nothing personal when I call out stuff.

Compulse was nerfed, GC buffed. Thus the balance has been achieved.

You don't need another offensive spell on AH when you have dispel. Sadly dispel was unnecessarily nerfed.

How was dispel nerfed?

Also losing an army of potential fighters to get 50 base immunity is not balance, its a massive joke. I admit I have not tested these changes past 210 power gc. The reality though, is that if the balance requires 300 mod, it is totally useless lol.

Offensive dispel was an easy way to "cheese" kill enemies.

If you had concentrate and your enemy didn't, all you had to simply do was dispel him til out of mana, and you win.

Motoko wrote:

Offensive dispel was an easy way to "cheese" kill enemies.

If you had concentrate and your enemy didn't, all you had to simply do was dispel him til out of mana, and you win.

So the problem with that is what? Are you seriously taking away all use for haras in this freaking game? How was it nerfed? Let me guess you cant dispel positive spells now?

Asmodeus wrote:

Motoko wrote:

Offensive dispel was an easy way to "cheese" kill enemies.

If you had concentrate and your enemy didn't, all you had to simply do was dispel him til out of mana, and you win.

So the problem with that is what? Are you seriously taking away all use for haras in this freaking game? How was it nerfed? Let me guess you cant dispel positive spells now?

you can, it's just harder, it's more of a nerf to seyan and necro for offensive dispelling.

Relax.

Motoko wrote:

Asmodeus wrote:

Motoko wrote:

Offensive dispel was an easy way to "cheese" kill enemies.

If you had concentrate and your enemy didn't, all you had to simply do was dispel him til out of mana, and you win.

So the problem with that is what? Are you seriously taking away all use for haras in this freaking game? How was it nerfed? Let me guess you cant dispel positive spells now?

you can, it's just harder, it's more of a nerf to seyan and necro for offensive dispelling.

Relax.

It sounded like you nerfed it because  Sorc or Haras with concentrate could spam dispel and win the mana fight.

But it's more of a nerf to seyans and necros. So it was intended to nerf Concentrate races but the actual change nerfed other races harder.

Very disappointing. As if Seyans needed a nerf.

I've never heard anybody complain about dispel. I hope it gets reverted.

Oldhaus wrote:

It sounded like you nerfed it because Sorc or Haras with concentrate could spam dispel and win the mana fight.

But it's more of a nerf to seyans and necros. So it was intended to nerf Concentrate races but the actual change nerfed other races harder.

It was more of a nerf to necro than anything, seyans can still dispell most things they could before with max dispell(90)(and before you have max dispell its very unlikely you could sustain dispelling before this change.) while necros only get 75 and lower will int.

As for harakim, they can still dispell almost everything in the game at max..

I think its a good change, and it wont doesn't effect 90% of players anyways, except those using it to make stuff way easier than intended.

The change to dispel came about as a consequence of the dispel spell being enabled for NPCs.

The consequence was that an NPC could dispel a player with an equal power spell in a few seconds - leading to a rapid death in a few scenarios. At least one player reported this in the Abandoned Town quest recently.

Possible options included:
- Limit the mana on NPCs with dispel (still remains an option for the builder)
- Increase the exhaust time for dispel (changed marginally)
- Limit what spells can be dispelled or who can do dispels (rejected)
- Add a random mod skill amount needed to dispel another character. (So some times you only need the equal mod dispel and randomly sometimes you need more. The consequence is that sometimes you may need to recast to achieve the dispel if your mod skill level is too low.)
- Only limit NPCs dispelling Players (rejected but could still be an option).

I removed all dispel spells from all NPCs and so only ones that we explicitly want it in will have the skill.

This is a fairly major change and is being monitored to see if it has any unintended and undesirable consequences. So far I have heard comments about the concept but no one has noticed any changes (yet).

Lets keep an open mind and review it. If it really is a problem then we can review it again.

Just a suggestion, if the nerf on Dispel was a consequence of NPCs getting the ability to dispel, reduce the dispel base on NPCs and revert the nerfs on Dispel.