Things We Would Love To See Added/Changed

[kuroari]

They're ready-made actions on a timer, like you'd expect from standard MMO's, a total injustice to Ryzom's stanza system.

Okay first off the bat i am by no means an experienced MMOer, but do other MMOs have stanzas that normally take 10minutes+ for the timer to reset? i've only ever played MMOs for a day or two so never really progressed into them

edit :: my reasoning here is, i would love to see a bit MORE of a mix with the auras (we can already mix things like self-heal hp/sap/stamina/focus so long as they all fit the time credits) so something similiar with all auras would be nice. however, the 'timer' concept is defo necessary ... it's not there like in other MMOs where you cast a spell and wait a minute before casting it again.. these are (generally) "Uber" powers that NEED to have timers as to not be abused (As we saw when there was that bug with the timers being reset everytime your character died)

[sidusar]

Okay first off the bat i am by no means an experienced MMOer, but do other MMOs have stanzas that normally take 10minutes+ for the timer to reset?

No, other MMOs do not have stanzas period But uber-actions that you can only use once every 10-30 minutes are definitely present.

But, forget the timer. I just meant they're ready-made actions and there's nothing to fine-tune, so it defeats the point of having a stanza-system.

I realise the MPA-auras are uber-powers that need to have limits placed on them, but take the regeneration auras. They shouldn't even be on the same timer as the uber-ones to start with. Being able to combine them like you can with selfheals would be nice too. And I don't think the option to make them last longer at some cost to your sap/stam would be particularly overpowering.

The selfheals have so much more potential too, for that matter. Imagine giving them health/sap/stam credits, so they can be used to sacrifice health for sap or sap for health. It'd probably have to be at a loss and there'd probably still need to be a minimum required time credit, to prevent it becoming overpowered, but it'd open so much more options to use them.

[bruare]

On auras, I personally rarely use any auras other than MPA. If the auras were not all on the same timer it would add some more options. Why would I ever use a health regeneration aura if my MPA won't be available because of using it? However I would like to only be able to have 1 active aura at a time and maybe all the regeneration auras on the same timer and maybe all the protection auras on the same timer. But wouldn't it be nice to have warcry and MPA on seperate timers.

There is one gameplay mechanic that I think is way too overpowered in Ryzom. That is the sap imbuement of weapons. It should not be instant or untimed. Much better would be like a 10 second cast time when sap loading a weapon or a 20 minute timer on reloading a weapons sap load. How do you think lev 250 boss's are duoed?

Mob resistances for electricty, shockwave, poison, and fire might be nice but I would still just find the best magic for the mob. Personally I think it is something the developers planned to do but were just never able to get around to. Right now those protections/resistances come into play in the OP battles with having to equip good jewels and adjust magic based on the opponents jewels.

As for debuffing mobs and buffing teammates, I sort of like the way it is. In EQ1 shammies and enchanters could debuff mobs attack speed by about 80% and increase teammates attack speed by about 100% -- do you really want that type of gameplay in Ryzom? We can slow the attack speed in Ryzom but it is a link so we can do nothing else while linked. Say we establish the link and it lasts 5 minutes and we can do whatever else we want -- then isn't it way too powerful. I'm not saying it can not be made better but be careful or it might just get overpowered and I do like the fact that Ryzom is not a buff/debuff heavy game ( EQ1 allowed 15 buffs up on each char and most buffs were very useful and some lasted like 4 hours).

As for melee stanzas having a lot of variety, I just don't see a whole lot of it. Sure there is some. But saying hey I can do 3-4 cratchas and others need healing on every one --- come on that's your jewels. And winning a PvP against a much higher lev char in melee -- maybe with better use of powers and auras and some fancy equipment but because of melee stanzas -- come on?
More variety of powers/auars could help make melee more intersting and some development of the body part attack stanzas but I didn't find a whole lot of use for them other than the attack head of a PC caster. This is another gameplay mechanic I think the developers planned to improve.

And 1 handed weapons is another gameplay mechanic that I think the developers underpowered and intended to develop more but just never got to. However A top notch shield will let a 1 handed meleer take 4 hits for every 3 hits a 2 hander can take.

! gameplay mechanic for PvP that I think has potential is for successful taunts to force engagement. So if someone on the other side successful taunts me, I'm engaged with them for however long the taunt holds -- no matter what I'm doing -- including healing. Of course what happens when someone on my side successfully taunts him off me? -- guess the taunt on me drops -- nice.


As for healing, I find it quite good as is. If you want to be in the debuff game just raise your affy skills and then choose what to do when. You really want healers to be in the buff/debuff game too. And it does take most of us quite a while to get good at healing as is -- hey I'm 200 heal and still learning.

I wouldn't necessarily be against changing Ryzom's magic skill tree and mixing the affy skills with healing/ elemental skills but it would be a major change and I sort of like it just as is. Of course small good changes are always welcome.

Digging is somewhat linear -- find the best stanzas and a good system and then turn the music up or turn on a movie and go enjoy a few hours (days?, weeks?, months? ,lol ) of relaxing digging. But you do have to experiment with different stanzas as you attain them. And I have seen plenty of players digging like 2/3s the number of mats they should have been able to because they just didn't take the time to experiment as much as they should have. And focus becomes a problem after lev 160. And you can use a CPer. And you can decide how many different actions to use per dig. And you can decide to use the kill node during dig tactic. And you can do the 2 encyclopedia quests and over dig a terrain for kicks -- anyone else done a Q250 dig with a lev200 terrain dig skill? And the you can dig Ex mats in any zone -- I did both Maiden Grove and The Void for 3-4 weeks each as I leveled up my dig skills. And Sup mats in PR are the real challenge anyways. So digging although a long grind is the most robust forage system by far of any game I've played.

I consider all of these to be minor issues to Ryzom right now but if something can be easily and quickly improved, I'm all for it.

And of course I fully agree with -- most of all -- turn the servers on and take our money.

[d29565]

- why limit it to a few different types of damage and a few control spells?-
...
Lets see the healers not just restore hitpoints, but be able to make the nukers spells more powerful, or the tank more able to deflect blows. Lets see the afflictionist be able to exert so much control over a creature or creatures that the tank takes much less damage, and the healer can spend his or her time doing all the other options available.

I'm a master of elemental magic. Why is this the limit of what I am able to do?
Why can't I create an aura around myself, in which people regenerate much faster, or an aura around the tank which harms enemies?

To be honest, it sounds like you are describing the auras and buffs and blessings (I'm a Paladin in WoW, so I have to deal a lot with them) which i despise from games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. They may be useful, but people soon expect you to give give give and become greedy.

I think the auras that Ryzom already has implemented, auras you gain from certain rites, and the select melee auras are plenty enough. A few could use some revamping of course, but if more auras were to be added, I feel like the challenge would be taken from Ryzom a little.

"Oh look, were got an extra spawn. Healer, hit that protect aura you have and we'll be good"

As it stands now, if an extra mob or so joins in, everyone gains a little excitement (at least I know I do) trying to keep everyone alive, trying to keep the mobs away from the healers, and so on. You all know what I mean to say happens when extra mobs join.

I'm using PvE examples because I haven't been one to look at auras in PvP yet in Ryzom (or the buffs and what not in GW or WoW cause i'm not that high level yet).

Why can't I do anything about incoming hostile spells (regardless of whether they are from a cratcha or a Karavan)? Why aren't there hundreds of options and possibilities?

Actually, you've got plenty of possibilities when dealing with hostile spells. Jewelry in ryzom is a magnificent creation allowing you to protect against spells that you think you may need. If you are fighting a lot of cratcha, then you want to get some grind jewels which protect mainly against the spell they use (can't remember what it is).

The same applies to PvP. You want to get jewels that protect well against a variety of nuking spells and affliction spells. This is when the joys of boss hunting come into play, because you need a certain type of mat for a certain percentage of protect. (I may have it a little wrong, I usually just ask Fasi what I need for my jewels and he know all the little stats involved).

But needless to say, you can have protections against enemy spells (be they homin or mob) through jewelry.

The stanza system is criminally underused - I would love to see some of the complexity that could be there, but just isn't.

I agree to an extent. A lot of the stanza system is used quite well. When the devs revamped the nuke system, while I still hate the wait time, it was a good decision. A good nuker can play around with their stanzas until they are pretty damn good.

I'm sure some work can be done on the melee aspect though. I'm not as good a meleer as I am a nuker and healer, but just from reading the "arguement" of melee and nuking, I can tell it can use some work.

What I mean to say, is that the stanza system is used well in some aspects, and not so well in others.

[akovylin]

From one point of view i think there's no big need in changes

From other point of view i think there can be found ways to introduce useful buffs/debuffs in Ryzom mechanic with links:
- buffs - remote auras - afflicter shoot friendly target that gets aura variant (50% protection, or 50% increased melee damage or whatever) and maintains that link/buff
- debuffs - damage amplifiers to melee/elem damages same way
- can be used with bombs and etc (some drawback here i think needed)
- maintaining requires constant use of sap/hp like dots (multiplied on number of targets from bomb?)

afflicters are quite good in small hunting teams - such additions can give them interesting role in PvP?

also if hots can be intruduced and everything combined with hots/dots (buffs/debuffs) it will bring well alot, maybe too much even

[iceaxe68]

If there is one thing I've learned for sure from this thread, it's that I'm a total noob and can't wait to get back in there and continue my education.

[arfindel]

From one point of view i think there's no big need in changes

[...]
I strongly believe Ryzom needs continous fine tunning not large scale revamps. This thread is probably a good proof of it. X: make mobs more damage type dependent, Y: don't make them dependent to a "receipe" mechancial thing - that was one of the main contradictions. Then what a dev should do? Look into the skill, maybe try it himself a while, then make very small increments decrements in some nuances of a skill/resist item. It's not fun for example to have every single mob sensitive to one damage type, but it is fun when you fight your newbie way with almost whatever spell for some levels and suddenly you get eaten alive by a mob in a new area that is not responsive to your "hit same button" strategy. Even more fun would be to have Gloutonous yubo sensitive to ice, Newborn yubo sensitive to everythign and Aggressive yubo sensitive to a number of spells only. They did that to some extent on the new newbie island and it was later revamped at the cryes of certain newbies that it was too hard *sigh*.

afflicters are quite good in small hunting teams - such additions can give them interesting role in PvP?

Not sure if I am right but I have always felt that afflicters (in pvp) were the pair of ranged proffessions. Both very very slow to grow up, both very complex, both deadly but also both keeping the performer pretty defenseless.
If you look over the bazar forum I believe you'll see that Sunce, probably one of the most pvp dedicated people on the server, was offering mercenaries specialists in afflicting at some point. It's not accidental that this offer coincided with the increasing number of ranged fighters.

[akovylin]

Anyway i hope there won't be changes in first half a year - for such a game where "world is model" good analytics team required for even tuning

[iphdrunk]

Not sure if I am right but I have always felt that afflicters (in pvp) were the pair of ranged proffessions. Both very very slow to grow up, both very complex, both deadly but also both keeping the performer pretty defenseless.

I've had a love-hate relationship with afflictions since day one and, due to the several tweaks, re-balances, additions, bug fixes and changes in general, afflictioners such as myself we have suffered the so -called "Nevraxian Pendulum Effect" (NPE, to be added to the acronyms list) i.e., ranging from << extremely useful due to bugged implementation>> (e.g. blind on kiban) to << I apologize for being such an XP leech everytime I land a stun, and I am grateful because being in this team seems to be the only way to raise DA past 235...>>

Several people have written about potential improvements, and they are all worth considering. This applies both to PvE and PvP.

It is reasonably clear that, for some specific PvE configurations, afflictions are good. Blind on cutlers, jugulas, stun on kipees, helping low level melees in heterogeneous teams to land at least one hit (nothing more frustrating to a meleer than to miss 3 times to realize that the glasscannons have pulverized the cuttler) -- I am not stating nothing new here, it is common knowledge --, provided of course that maximizing the amount of xp per player per unit time was not your ultimate goal-

In PvP, it's a different story. Due to a (shameful) amount of invested play-time, it happens that I clicked enough times so (no particular player-skill here) I was a relatively high level mage in several disciplines, including afflictions and fortunately with extremely good gear. During a period where this difference could be perceived (again, not showing off, nothing that deserves being proud off) such as Ep 2, it was useful, fun, and to some extent, an enabler for a more varied strategy. When, as natural, level differences dissappeared, good gear was made more available and player community got homogeneous, afflictions became the readheaded step-child of magic, deserving a revamp -- cfr. my post about PvP rant -- there are too many factors (factors out of control pf the player and left for the randum number generator): my level, my stanza settings, the chance that I fail the cast, the natural resistance of the target based on the level delta, the effects of jewels, if the spell actually lands, the duration of the link, during the duration of the link, whether the spell had the effect or not (e.g. a mad target does not necessarily hit himself) and all this subject to the caster staying still...

However, other than the need for tweaks, one of my best memories was a team -vs- team prime roots battle (IMHO one of the best PvP team battles I have been involved in *ever* in Ryzom) Sinful, Lathaniel, Booster, Themac, Yours truly against Brithlem, Morgaine, (Infinities) etc. -- (sorry memory is not serving well). I basically afflicted. In later conversations, they called me "Fearnissa" ) and coming from those guys it was rewarding and satisfying. In short, afflictions make magic richer, varied, fun, and enable some strategy, provided that some balance is done. As they are now... it would be worth checking again, with the new elements : equally leveled players, jewel and natural-race resistances, etc.

Thanks for reading,
Ani

[bruare]

Anyway i hope there won't be changes in first half a year - for such a game where "world is model" good analytics team required for even tuning

LOL, I would be shocked if there aren't changes on minute 1 of Ryzom restarting. My impression is the developers have had the servers running for a bit now and probably are trying changes out. I do not "know" anything but if they were just going to get Ryzom up and running as Ryzom was when it went down then I would expect Ryzom to be up now and that would be great by me.