Blight Delta 177-discussion

[awdz]

We'll change Cloak of Thorns back so that you can again use it on any level player. The other changes to it will remain, however.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :-)

[Dragonboy]

After taking a closer look at the list something actually caught my eye and nearly made me weep.

Ruxus are no longer aggressive and have a slower wander frequency.

Not sure what the actual reasons are for this change (also don’t agree with it), but on Chaos I leveled on them from lvl 24 to 30 in varied size of small/regulars and even 2 or 3 large ruxus and yes they are aggressive, but I loved it since it kept me on my toes.
They truly force you to fight to the absolute best of your abilities, if you slack but a moment chances are that you do not survive your mistake… True if you are foolish enough to walk into a huge spawn they are very dangerous… So don't!

Also from my personal experience the aggressive nature of the Ruxus are a perfect way of learning how to play your character in various difficult situations (at least it was for me playing my hatchling).

Please don’t put the Ruxus on tranquilizers just because players are not careful !!!

[Silverblaze]

I'm not sure which dragons everyone here have been playing. I don't dodge on mine. If I do it's a freak of nature. Even monks with super evasion get hit at high T5 and T6 so why a dragon is worried about it in the least is beyond me.

The change to evasion and adding dodge won't change my game much at all.

I take as little damage as possible from all attacks and reply in kind by hitting like an ICBM. repeat ad infinitum.

If devs would give me a like amount of armor per level as evasion lost I'd never bat an eye. (6 more armor a level and 0 evasion a level) suits me fine.

Hence why the ceremonial scale -% evasion makes me laugh. +300 armor for a dragon way better.

Well unless you're sporting a triple teched venegance scale etc. You get the idea yes?

[Phillip]

I Dont like the nerf on the following

cot ( Not that i use it as a dragon ) but it still effects game play when in fierce combat .

Dragons getting there evasion slashed to bits and the token gesture of an evasion style thats a passive ability

The hoard thing is rather odd. I would like to see what rick or amons reason behind this is ... My belief is there going to attempt to create a economy in this game one way or another , However i Personally think this is a bad move at the present time,For the following reason . Until all the revamps are done and the islands get fixed for the major comps. The economy can not thrive for the higher level players due to an imbalance in components a Key factor in Istarin traid .

Another interesting move
Selling Tier 6 Technique Components to Pawnbrokers will go down in value after a number are sold.

Assuming there trying to stimulate an economy for the high players. Players should be able to Craft t6 armor and be able to use it ! That will make the value in the community worth the effort in obtaining them . and a appropriate price will follow . whats interesting about this is there trying to get us to pawn stuff when the values of our goodies aka Forms hoard and useless t 6 comps are worthless. clearly not what is worth the time and effort it takes to get them.

Perhaps i am over thinking this but if that is there goal for us to start pawning items that means that there is not enough currency in the game in other words a $ is not driving another $ (Or in this case silver )

I'm don't know if it's about the economy. Pretty sad if it is...

To stimulate this game in its current state and making it happening again will require some new art assets, in corellation with a new enemy that requires totally new & different armor/weapon types to overcome - this will jolt the crafters into gathering resources and adventurers into getting comps/recipes to make the stuff.

Anyone here played AC1 in the early days will remember how lame the economy was until the shadow war came along, adding motes for the Atlans to the loot table, as well as shards for the armor - Remember the tools needed to switch the crystals? and the string for bows? The reality is not that many things were added - but those changes made the players feel the dire need to have such to participate because the mobs were litterally at their doorstep. The economy went through the roof and stayed that way for 3 years, over the same event.

I think VI's idea is to make things less so other areas of gameplay will become more. Kinda like every morning you been having a bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel, but now all you get is the bagel...So, to have the bacon, egg and cheese is actually more.

And more is better, right?

[GlindorOcculus]

Hoard items having coin value: Hmm... I'm alright with this change. I think it will have more of a positive impact then negative. It'll definitely help bipeds earn some coin. Whenever I look on the NT connie I always see TONS of hoard items, so hatchlings won't suddenly keel over from loss of hoard income ;-) Hoard is pretty easy for hatchlings to obtain, just hunt down some WA, and if you don't get a lot of hoard dropping from them you can always use the coin made off of them to buy hoard on the connie. And there is the change of some more craftable items becoming hoardable, so it makes it even easier. (Even though they give low hoard value, every little bit counts!)

Dragon evasion decrease: BOOOO!! I agree with Chasing on this one.

Snarl, ect..: Changing to mind damage from crush? Since when have those abilities done crush damage?? Anyways, I'm alright with them doing mind damage. :-)

[Peaches]

We'll change Cloak of Thorns back so that you can again use it on any level player. The other changes to it will remain, however.

Thank you Amon!

[Creme]

We'll change Cloak of Thorns back so that you can again use it on any level player. The other changes to it will remain, however.

I am curious what the reasoning behind the changes were. If it is to discourage PLing low level characters, then the change to only allow the caster's tier be active works; however, by re-enabling all levels of cloak to be cast, I can see this as encouraging behavior that enables the cloaker to be in a minimal aggro zone, with a recycling hotkey every 5 seconds, casting cloak on any level recipient.

If the change is to discourage the use of cloak aside from a minimal damage threshhold, well then again, see above regarding the minimal aggro zone.

At least by limiting cloak to a single tier (that of the caster) and only being castable upon the same tier, this effectively promotes grouping by players of a similar level (and/or rating if desired) and negates the PLing aspects of cloaking low level characters.

I'm not sure I understand the happiness behind being able to buff someone with an almost useless version of cloak as once the damage threshhold is attained, the cloak evaporates (unless of course, there is some means to continually recast it on said player w/out undue hardship). I assume the damage threshhold is less for each lower tier.

Also, is the damage total strictly melee? It seems unfair for a cloak to evaporate from spell or ranged damage, when the cloak is not dealing any damage to ranged attackers.

[Guaran]

On the cloak of thorns: Nice to be able to cast on lower players. Power leveling? No. they still have to go fight for themselves. If they are being power leveled they likely are not getting hit anyway, and you never put COT on the lower toons in a group when trying to power level them. All that does is make them take more aggro. The change back to keep all the tiers allows someone to give a beneficial buff to a lower player and send them on their way. That's not power leveling in the least.

being removed after so much damage done: This is probably how it should have been all along. Might require some toying around with the amount of damage tho. It's currently 2k dmg for the t5 COT on blight I believe. It seems a bit low. Perhaps increase it but also put a longer cooldown on it? Hmm that would practically eliminate the ability to buff groupmembers.. While I see the sense in this change, all it really does is make the ability need to be recast alot more often. Especailly when grouping. As long as these changes will apply to Oastics and treants as well, I suppose its fair. Players will just have to be on their toes and keep the cot buffs coming, mobs will be less smart. This change does put it a bit closer to say Glaring Quills, but cot would still be far superior due to unlimited casting capability, vs GQ's limit based on ice elements... Ultimately I think testing the changes on the live shards, and guaging impact will be needed, and as I mentioned above, possible tweaking to the amount of dmg dealt before removed.

Hoard coin value: I think this is fine as long as the pawn value in coppers is less than 25% the hoard value (maybe should be even less?). Which is the typical selling price on chaos, that sells (20% hv to 33% or so sells). You dont want to discourage selling to others, but I can see the point about new players possibly percieving the game as broke when they don't know what to do with hoard at low levels. Pawning it for a little something is fine for them, and the coin value doesn't need to be huge to accomplish this.

Stuns: I think it makes sense they cannot be cleansed. This will work in mobs favor since they never bothered to cleanse it before anyway, but players did.

Dragon evasion changes: All I see this to be is a nerf, because contrary to popular belief, my testing has show that dumping all tp's into evasion produces a noticable difference. Lowering it by 200 means a dragon will almost never evade, even WITH evasion skill maked with tp's. Now, if the dodge is actually going to have a noticeable, positive effect, then it remains to be seen how this change will affect gameplay, and it could work out in Dragon's favor. Amon, care to elaborate on the reason for this change? Make dragons evade less? Or try to improve their dodging since it might work better than evasion?

I'll try to do some testing with this on Blight tonight.

Oh and plz FIX for real, the primal rage and fangs of fury and the bards tail.

Update: Logged into blight and the dodge/evasion changes aren't in place there yet, so can't test it for now.

[Creme]

On the cloak of thorns: Nice to be able to cast on lower players. Power leveling? No. they still have to go fight for themselves. If they are being power leveled they likely are not getting hit anyway, and you never put COT on the lower toons in a group when trying to power level them. All that does is make them take more aggro. The change back to keep all the tiers allows someone to give a beneficial buff to a lower player and send them on their way. That's not power leveling in the least.

Not all power levelled characters are level 10 rating 10. Any level 1/rating 50 character could have enough health to handle aggro with cloak, and there's players that can and have PLed others by continuously spamming cloak so that the damage limit is meaningless.

A T1 cloak, at a guess would have a damage limit of say...150. That would be gone probably within 3-4 minutes, less if there are multiple mobs. That would make it relatively meaningless as a "beneficial buff to a lower player".

[Darkwing_Duck]

WHAT!!! they`re ruining CoT! what`s the point in playing a druid in group hunts if you can`t even buff everyone with your best ability? :O
That just makes my scales quiver. >

[Dragonboy]

CoT will now be as usefull to others like Spiked Scales is to a true (not power using) Lunus. Dramaticly decreased.
Be happy you can still cast it on others, who knows when the devs will change that permanently.

I suggest everyone will have to learn, adapt and live with it!

I remember trying to gather some components/forms and coinbags a few months back were 2 ancients of a notoriously disliked guild on Chaos were claiming the entiry Fire Opal field agro’ing every golem in a large radius while letting them get hit for 400 damage per golems hit using Cloak of Thorn for as long as it remained active… The fact that this is possible is just plain BS in my book.

[Creme]

CoT will now be as usefull to others like Spiked Scales is to a true (not power using) Lunus. Dramaticly decreased.
Be happy you can still cast it on others, who knows when the devs will change that permanently.

I suggest everyone will have to learn, adapt and live with it!

You're comparing apples to oranges here. A druid does not equal a dragon with the same armor protections, etc.

The annoyance of having to recast it every 1-4 minutes during heavy fighting is far more inconvenient than being able to cast it upon other players, hence my questioning the reason behind the change. Let it actually address that reason and leave druids/rangers minimally impacted in their own gameplay. That should be the first priority.

[Knossos]

Amen Creme

Knossos

[Silverblaze]

On the cloak of thorns: Nice to be able to cast on lower players. Power leveling? No. they still have to go fight for themselves. If they are being power leveled they likely are not getting hit anyway, and you never put COT on the lower toons in a group when trying to power level them. All that does is make them take more aggro. The change back to keep all the tiers allows someone to give a beneficial buff to a lower player and send them on their way. That's not power leveling in the least.

being removed after so much damage done: This is probably how it should have been all along. Might require some toying around with the amount of damage tho. It's currently 2k dmg for the t5 COT on blight I believe. It seems a bit low. Perhaps increase it but also put a longer cooldown on it? Hmm that would practically eliminate the ability to buff groupmembers.. While I see the sense in this change, all it really does is make the ability need to be recast alot more often. Especailly when grouping. As long as these changes will apply to Oastics and treants as well, I suppose its fair. Players will just have to be on their toes and keep the cot buffs coming, mobs will be less smart. This change does put it a bit closer to say Glaring Quills, but cot would still be far superior due to unlimited casting capability, vs GQ's limit based on ice elements... Ultimately I think testing the changes on the live shards, and guaging impact will be needed, and as I mentioned above, possible tweaking to the amount of dmg dealt before removed.

Hoard coin value: I think this is fine as long as the pawn value in coppers is less than 25% the hoard value (maybe should be even less?). Which is the typical selling price on chaos, that sells (20% hv to 33% or so sells). You dont want to discourage selling to others, but I can see the point about new players possibly percieving the game as broke when they don't know what to do with hoard at low levels. Pawning it for a little something is fine for them, and the coin value doesn't need to be huge to accomplish this.

Stuns: I think it makes sense they cannot be cleansed. This will work in mobs favor since they never bothered to cleanse it before anyway, but players did.

Dragon evasion changes: All I see this to be is a nerf, because contrary to popular belief, my testing has show that dumping all tp's into evasion produces a noticable difference. Lowering it by 200 means a dragon will almost never evade, even WITH evasion skill maked with tp's. Now, if the dodge is actually going to have a noticeable, positive effect, then it remains to be seen how this change will affect gameplay, and it could work out in Dragon's favor. Amon, care to elaborate on the reason for this change? Make dragons evade less? Or try to improve their dodging since it might work better than evasion?

I'll try to do some testing with this on Blight tonight.

Oh and plz FIX for real, the primal rage and fangs of fury and the bards tail.

Update: Logged into blight and the dodge/evasion changes aren't in place there yet, so can't test it for now.

Dumping that many points into evasion just to dodge sometimes is a waste of TP's. I say good on the devs for eliminating that waste of points.

Just my opinion of course.

[Vasilios]

The annoyance of having to recast it every 1-4 minutes during heavy fighting is far more inconvenient than being able to cast it upon other players, hence my questioning the reason behind the change. Let it actually address that reason and leave druids/rangers minimally impacted in their own gameplay. That should be the first priority.

just my words.

please don't change anything on druid/ranger

[LOVWYRM]

I still insist, that nerfing CoT will change Istaria- only a little bit maybe- but I doubt if for good.

I heard you Silverblaze- so some/lots/all may use it for "powerlevelling".
We can discuss-if thats always illegal- somewhereelse.
Or if powerlevelling can be prevented at all. Or what to do against it.
Nerfing CoT is not the key- there are other things first.

And Rv- those CoT dragons at the fireopals- did they do something illegal- or was ist just annoying? If I see others work on this spot. I leave- and come back later. I go out to fight there more or less regulary- without CoT (sometimes even have no time for spiked scales^^) and I pull the whole field.
(and lol- I`m just a normal dragon- no uber, no buffs). And I do that as long until I have what I came for. Drags may use CoT or not- not much difference.
I speak up here for the druids.
CoT is part of their identity. I understand the grief!

And Silverblaze: I do not need a dodge- but I need my evasion. The discussion, if drags need that is as old as our race. So are the different ways
how to train a creature of our kin^^Not all the same- different opinions- different dragons- that is part of the fascination

[Dragonboy]

You're comparing apples to oranges here. A druid does not equal a dragon with the same armor protections, etc.

The annoyance of having to recast it every 1-4 minutes during heavy fighting is far more inconvenient than being able to cast it upon other players, hence my questioning the reason behind the change. Let it actually address that reason and leave druids/rangers minimally impacted in their own gameplay. That should be the first priority.

Point 1. Comparing apples with oranges does not work here, comparing different types of apples is more accurate. Both abilities do exactly the same thing only they are linked to a different skill.
Point 2. How many “pure blood� (single school) druids do you know in this game with has multi-classing?

Lets not forget that Spiked Scale has a recharge timer of 2 minutes and lasting for 1 minute…
What is the recharge timer for Cloak of Thorns? Looking at the wikia 5 seconds and lasting for 15 minutes.

Just stop complaining about a good change, learn to live with it that way overpowered abilities get toned down.

[Dragonboy]

And Rv- those CoT dragons at the fireopals- did they do something illegal- or was ist just annoying? If I see others work on this spot. I leave- and come back later. I go out to fight there more or less regulary- without CoT (sometimes even have no time for spiked scales^^) and I pull the whole field.
(and lol- I`m just a normal dragon- no uber, no buffs). And I do that as long until I have what I came for. Drags may use CoT or not- not much difference.
I speak up here for the druids.
CoT is part of their identity. I understand the grief!

The fact that they claim an entire spawnfield is not illegal, but because of the fact that they leave nothing for other people to kill proves they are very selfish (which I had already heared but never experienced in person before that day). The most annoying part of those dragons were that at 1 time one left. I went in his/her spot to at least have something to kill.
A few minutes later the dragon who left came back and landed in the exact location were it had left before and started pulling every freaking mob in its immediate area including those that I had already pulled. But this type of grieving was not the discussion considering they are Americans and I am European and thus can hunt them at a different time as well… I was speaking about the 400 damage for a duration of 15 minutes CoT did for them that I find annoying while my Spiked Scales barely manages 150 for 1 freaking minute..

[Vasilios]

I was speaking about the 400 damage for a duration of 15 minutes CoT did for them that I find annoying while my Spiked Scales barely manages 150 for 1 freaking minute..

a dragon does up to 3000 damage (gold rage) so u dont need an CoT or spiked scales. and if this not enough, dragons have FOUR area spells to kill more opponents. bipeds (druid) has exactly TWO area spells.

so there are NO change needed. dragons are mighty in single and multi strikes.

did you already played a biped and tried to kill some golems or undeads? its not easy to survive if you just have one class and do low damage. dragons can heal, do real good damage and flee in the air with only a single class.

[Phillip]

The fact that they claim an entire spawnfield is not illegal, but because of the fact that they leave nothing for other people to kill proves they are very selfish (which I had already heared but never experienced in person before that day). The most annoying part of those dragons were that at 1 time one left. I went in his/her spot to at least have something to kill.
A few minutes later the dragon who left came back and landed in the exact location were it had left before and started pulling every freaking mob in its immediate area including those that I had already pulled. But this type of grieving was not the discussion considering they are Americans and I am European and thus can hunt them at a different time as well… I was speaking about the 400 damage for a duration of 15 minutes CoT did for them that I find annoying while my Spiked Scales barely manages 150 for 1 freaking minute..

What does that have to do with the change?

lol dragons do more melee damage than any others.