[DEV] Rebalancing Changes, PvP/Combat/Stanzas, Sep 08

[lawrence]

Nevrax has just updated the Currently In Test section of the website with a series of previously announced rebalancing changes (PvP/FvF-related), as well as new additions. We'd love to hear your feedback on them.

[ P v P ]
- When leaving a PvP zone and entering a new one, it could happen that you got the message: 'you are safe' when you were not.

- You cannot invite to your team players from opposite factions in a PvP faction area.

- Right now PvP damages are divided by 2 compared to PvE. The original purpose was to make PvP fights to last longer, especially since magicians were able to inflict too many damages. Since we would introduce magical damage absorption, while offensive casters would still have a slightly advantage regarding damage quantity, it would restore some balance here. Also, in PvP, armors above q160 aren't useful since they absorb more damage than a warrior will ever be able to inflict. We then removed this dividing factor.



[ C O M B A T ]
- Double missile stanza now has a new cost: the relative cost. In order to fine tune PvP and PvE, double missile add a 20% cost to all actions.

- Double affliction + direct damage cost when making the action has been increased of 20% overall.

- Recast timer for certain auras are now of 20 mins.

- Depending on the aura, there is a 10 minutes timer for you to be affected again when one wears off.

- Stanza for Area of Effect (bomb, spray, ricochet) have had their power doubled, this is for damages and heal also. Except the first stanza/brick of those 3 effects, which is a bit under factor 2.

- Armors should now absorb creatures' critical damages as intended by the gameplay. Absorption values have been fine tuned. A certain amount of melee damages you receive from creatures will now be absorbed by your armors. Of course, those will vary depending on light, medium, heavy armors and their stats.

The new absorption values are as follows:

• For light armors, the absorption range changed from 5%-15% to 5%-25%;

• For medium armors, the absorption range changed from 20%-30% to 20%-40%;

• For heavy armors, the absorption range changed from 45%-55% to 40%-60%.

The 2 handed melee weapons (sword, axe, pike and mace) have now differentiated characteristics, and all of them have a value. Here, the 2 handed sword is the reference for damages and speed comparison:

• axe & mace: 20% more damage, 10% slower;

• pike: 20% less damage, 10% faster, 20 in reach (3 others weapons have 10) that allows to lower received damages by 10%;

• sword: has a parry bonus that allows to lower received damages by 10% (comparing to axe and mace).

Depending on the used materials, the 4 weapons:

• reduce one's dodge from -20 to 0;

• increase target's dodge from +20 to 0;

• reduce target's parry from 0 to +20.

So, the effectiveness of these weapons will depend on the mobs' defence mode: those who parry will be easier to kill, and those who dodge will be harder.

- The way resistance works on jewels has been undergoing some changes. You can notably see those in your persona window 'P'. The RESISTANCE category now has more tooltips and the category PROTECTION appeared, also filled with tooltips. They are both for jewels only.
- In a nutshell, resistance let you know if you will be hit by a spell or not; and protection indicates the reduction percentage of spell damage.

- Each jewel can have up to 3 resistances. Those resistances come from the raw materials which you use in order to craft your jewel.

- The new types of resistances (which replace the former ones) are as follows:

• Desert resistance: includes fire, blind, madness;

• Forest resistance: includes poison, sleep, snare (slow move);

• Lake resistance: includes cold, shockwave, stun;

• Jungle resistance: includes electricity, slow, root;

• Prime Roots resistance: includes acid, rot, fear.

- You get a bonus with the resistance of your originating ecosystem.

- When crafting jewels, in the crafting windows, the greyed stats are not used (only the 3 best are chosen). Tooltips will detail it in the craft window, also providing examples of how it works for a better understanding and making the desired/appropriate jewel.

- Former jewels will have their resistance converted to the new system when needed.

- Moreover, jewels now have 3 classes: class 1, 2, 3. Their difference relies on their durability. You will need more raw materials to make a higher class one.


- The protection system (which is not the same thing as the resistance!) has also been reworked:

• All homins share a common base protection;

• Protection values specific for each civilization are added to the base values on specific magic types: 10% for generic damages, 20% for natural damages, 0% for all others;

• The maximum protection percentage is 70%;

• There is also maximum number of absorbed points, depending on the best skill of the character;

• Generic magic damages are: Acid, Cold, Rot;

• Civilization damages are: Fire (Fyros), Poison (Matis), Shockwave (Tryker), Electricity (Zorai);

- Special attacks from creatures are now absorbed by either armors for melee damages or jewels for magical damages - there is however some special attacks that are still unabsorbed, this is on purpose.


[ S T A N Z A ]
- Actions in your handbar could be stuck if you played a spell then a power.

- Some tuning was done on sap, stamina and HP heal:

• HP heal is divided by 2;

• STAM heal is 5 times higher;

• SAP heal is 4.16 times higher.

[alexrowe]

Hate the new nerf for magic is this only in pvp mode?

[sidusar]

Hmm, that's quite a lot to comment on, so I'll keep it brief.

- You cannot invite to your team players from opposite factions in a PvP faction area.
We were previously told the whole world would be made faction PvP. Does this mean we will not be able to team with players from the opposing factions anywhere anymore? (If so this a very, very, very bad idea.)

Increased the cost of double missiles has been discussed to death already. I'm still in favor of it.

Sounds like the timer on auras has been made shorter? That's probably a good thing.

Area of Effect doubled is good, hopefully they'll be usefull now.

We don't need increased absorption values on armors. We need increased max vs values. The damage absorpted by armor is rarely determined by the absorption value.

More diversity amongst melee weapons is good, as long as it turns out to be reasonably balanced ofcourse.

The new jewel system sounds like a nice improvement, more complicated statistics, high quality jewels... should make things more rewarding for jewelcrafters. (Though I feel sorry for the jewelcrafters who had to grind their way up on basic quallity jewels)

New magic protections sounds good too, but I'm not sure how exactly jewels will raise magic protection?

I'm glad mob special attacks will be absorbed. Which special attacks will remain unabsorbed though? Kitin special attacks? Boss special attacks?

Wow, stam heal 5 times higher and sap heal 4.16 times? They'll be over 50% more powerfull than the current heal life then. Quite a lot more than originally planned, but I'm definitely not complaining Should compensate nicely for heal life being cut in half.

[grimjim]

All looks good to me. ATS people get testin'

[roninpvp]

How many times do we have to ask for higher MAX vs values for heavy armour. The protection factor is not the limiting factor.

[mrshad]

Isn't 'in test' the items that are planned for more or less immediate release?

This is a lengthy list to just sort of spring on us.

There is still no word about granting more credit bricks for melee, and similarly, no word about additional credits for magic, since the cost for spells is now higher.

Does it really matter, in the end?
The nerfs will happen no matter what we say.
PvP is going to take center stage, no matter what we want.
The changes that really need to happen (such as increased max absorbtion on armor) are paid no mind.
And EVERYONE knows this list is far from what will actually be in the patch, despite the oaths against stealth changes.

[rushin]

How many times do we have to ask for higher MAX vs values for heavy armour. The protection factor is not the limiting factor.

yep.

but as to the rest wow and grats! racial differences at last those of you lazy homins that havent applied for ats do so and we can make sure its all working nicely

[sidusar]

Does it really matter, in the end?
The nerfs will happen no matter what we say.
PvP is going to take center stage, no matter what we want.
The changes that really need to happen (such as increased max absorbtion on armor) are paid no mind.

That's a bit too pessimistic. It's true they don't listen to everything we say. Specially on matters like halving heal life where half of us doesn't want it and half of us does (bit hard for them to decide what 'we' want if we all want something else). But they don't simply discard all our comments either. Remember, their original plan was to cut heal life by 3, increase heal sap and heal stam by only 2, and increase the double missile casting time by 2 seconds. Because of our whining, this has been brought back to cutting heal life by 2, increasing heal sap and heal stam by 5, and no change to the double missile casting time.

[magick1]

All looks very interesting and quite promising.

Only one question:

The 2 handed melee weapons (sword, axe, pike and mace) have now differentiated characteristics, and all of them have a value. Here, the 2 handed sword is the reference for damages and speed comparison:

Shouldn't something similar apply to one handed melee weapons? (I am assumeing that they are now equal to each others as 2H weapons are.)

[micrix]

I m looking forward to the new animations Take care DEVs what you are doing to Trykers !!!!!

Is XP involved in the changes on jewelscrafting. Do class 3 jewels give more XP when crafting ?

I really would like to know how the +20% cost on magic works. Do you change our counterparts (range, time, HP and SAP) with +20% when patching, so that we can keep our spells as they are ? Just that they are using 20% more in relation to our healthbars ?

I am looking forward to the doubled bombs was always a fan of it.
The new stats on heal seem a little to rough to me. We will see what it will be when patched in

The "not team with other faction" thing makes me nervous...