Ryzom

There's an awful lot of overreacting here, but that is pretty typical. It seems to me after harvesting a bit today after the patch that the specializations still help to stabilize the node while extracting. In fact it appears that harmful ext plus specialization is as stable as using gentle extraction, but with much lower focus consumption. Therefore I plan to keep the specializations even if they were to offer a respec. Eventually they will remove the ability to switch modes so easily, remove the ability to move back 2 steps to avoid gas and reinstate kami anger. When this happens you will be glad to have additional ways to help stabilize the node if you are soloing as a harvester. One thing I do think they need to tweak tho is gentle extraction - it doesn't stabilize the node enough to make it worth the focus cost.

Kraak - Fyros Crafter of Fine Weapons

I still don't see how they can nerf mat specs. I have heard every argument from it being unbalanced, to it being good for the game to have them put in check. Now does any of that really make sense?

First, what is there to balance? There is absolutely no way that 1 forager could supply a crafter in any sort of way to keep up with the massive rate at which equipment decays in this game. Also, is there really an "end game" result to balance? Our kingdoms do not go to war with each other, and there is no PvP conflict where some foragers would create an unfair advantage, so what is there to balance?

Now is it really good for the game to "put things in check" so to speak? Yes, in a way it is. Game economy is very important, but let's think about this a little bit. Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to actually add some content to the game before you take content away? There are so many things missing from the game at the moment and taking skills away at this point makes no sense.

In closing I think they should re-think their strategy because with releases of World of Warcraft and EQ2 they should be really trying hard to keep customers and not doing anything to put a seperation into the game already.

I guess what else is there to say?

A general point respec will have to be offered eventually as alot of the skills dont work as described and some have been or need to be adjusted.

poopsex wrote:I still don't see how they can nerf mat specs. I have heard every argument from it being unbalanced, to it being good for the game to have them put in check. Now does any of that really make sense?

First, what is there to balance? There is absolutely no way that 1 forager could supply a crafter in any sort of way to keep up with the massive rate at which equipment decays in this game. Also, is there really an "end game" result to balance? Our kingdoms do not go to war with each other, and there is no PvP conflict where some foragers would create an unfair advantage, so what is there to balance?

Now is it really good for the game to "put things in check" so to speak? Yes, in a way it is. Game economy is very important, but let's think about this a little bit. Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to actually add some content to the game before you take content away? There are so many things missing from the game at the moment and taking skills away at this point makes no sense.

In closing I think they should re-think their strategy because with releases of World of Warcraft and EQ2 they should be really trying hard to keep customers and not doing anything to put a seperation into the game already.

I guess what else is there to say?

They're fixing the too-fast decay rates. This has been noted for about a week now. But, to be fair, perhaps you just hadn't gotten around to reading any of those threads.. that's fine. Now you know .

I'm not sure bringing something, which was giving XP too generously in the first place, closer to what was intended could be called "nerfing". It's called balancing. Right now, from what I gather, harvesters are able to advance at a rate that is far faster than intended, especially relative to the other skills. This is not good in the long run.

As for the question of "how will harvesters be able to supply crafters when they need mats?"... well, perhaps that's supposed to be the challenge for Harvesters, and Crafters alike to work out? Seems to me that just because your primary focus isn't on going out killing stuff that your gameplay experience should be any easier than those who do. If you were always able to gather what crafters want nearly on demand, so fighter/mage types could get what they want nearly on demand, well.. I don't think that's really a challenge.

I'm noticing an underlying theme in some of these threads where people are basically saying, "if they change the way it is now, the game will become more challenging, I won't be able to level as quickly, and I don't want that".

I also find it kinda humorous how some people will jump up and down about a problem that affects them negatively, crying "bug! bug!" and demand it be fixed "or else ...". But, when a problem benefits or gives them an advantage, they jump up and down, crying "nerf! nerf!" and demand it be left alone, "or else ..."

But... that's just my observation...

Mekos wrote:Seeing as material specializations will provide a "boost in the speed at which the quality raises from 0 to the specified quality" after the patch, http://www.ryzom.com/?page=releasenotes&id=21 , please remove specializations from our characters and refund the SP points when you patch. Going from 0 to desired quality faster is not an important skill, and not what we purchased those specilizations for. This feels like a bait and switch.

-Meeks

I agree a respec and refund option is definatly needed. When you implement a game based on skills then change those skills you should allow people the option.

This skill worked just like the description stated then it was changed. No where was it ever posted until after the change did say not working as intended or that it would be changed.

Again quit fixing what aint broke and fix what is.

Well I was really not going to say anything but i can't take it. I really love the game and usually I really do think Nevrax is doing a great job of trying there best to fix bugs as fast as possible. I have a chr that I really dont use anymore because I wanted to try and make one that didn't use allot of wasted skills that in the description sound to be great only to find out that they are almost compleatly worthless >Besserk< for instance with its hoarid recharge time for a measly 10 damage inc. Anyway my old chr is alwready 128 in forage and i don't even use it anymore but all these people saying that these people shouldn't be upset abt this nerf because they shouldn't be getting 3k per pull need to take a step back and think about all the other classes that when they group can EASILY get 3k if they want to per kill if they kill higher mobs and with good healers can do it NON-STOP and don't even try and tell me any different because my new chr is a fighter mage and it is just as fast as foraging use to be. Also you can't group forage to add to your xp to make it 3k either because no matter how many mats you pull per extraction you are not getting any more xp from it. Also now the only thing they acomplished is to make all the other foragers that got to high levels using the skill "as it was intended in the description to work" almost uncatchable to foragers just starting out so unless you were foraging from the get go you are now behind the pack and it will take 3X as long for you to get there as all the ppl that alwready foraged! Now that isn't even bringing into the account that you cant possable forage enough mats to do crap untill you reach higher levels. So I would love to know how this NERF is going to help anyone??? Is all they did was help seperate the foragers that started early even more and make it near pointless to even bother to do a skill that was a huge grind to begin with. It would be different if they made the skill pull mats faster but they didn't is all they did was make the mats get to the ql faster that you could pull to begin with. Now i for one could care less about getting all my specializations refunded because they helped me and other ppl get better xp than without it (except the poor ppl that bought it recently no knowing it was going to be pulled out from under them, those ppl i really feel for because they wasted xp and got crap outa it). I really don't know what I'm trying to say here other than Nevrax screwed up on this nerf and to all you ppl that don't forage and are crying oh its fair, thats crap because now all the other classes have the ability to get 3k per kill if in a good group with no down time and a forager is now sevearly screwed because they can't. They could have at least came to a happy medium like 2k per mat or somthing right before you hit the next teir but no thought was given to that just Nerf em. Well I for one am glad i don't use my other toon anymore but it really makes me sit back and think if they are going to sit back and nerf more ppl without notice and if they do I for one will laugh at the ppl that were crying oh I see nothing wrong with nerfing the harvesters. The only thing that will affect me is high Q stuff was almost impossabe to find before and this is going to make it even worse, oh but wait then you Nerf cryers will be crying you can't gat any high Q stuff bacause there are'nt enough ppl foraging high Q mats. So just wait and see how this affects ppl with more ppl coming into the game and leveling all the other classes fast in big groups and they can't get their armor aor weapons they need casue there are no more new foragers casue its even more of a grind. So say what you will but they just killed it for all of the new foragers and it's going to affect every one.

P.s. This did not "Balance" the skill for the above stated reasons!

Paragraphs are your friend.

shrike wrote:Paragraphs are your friend.

I know, sry was thinking more on the subject at hand than the poor ppl that have to read it.

"P.s. This did not "Balance" the skill for the above stated reasons! "

If it turns out that's the case, I'm sure they'll further work at it until it does. They can't know how well, or how poorly their changes are going to work until they're fully implemented and people start using them *alot*. You can't tweak things in a vacuum and get them perfect the first, or even second time.

So if it turns out things still aren't balanced, or maybe they overshot the other way and made it too difficult.. they'll work at it more. At some point, it's gonna reach a point that Nevrax is happy with - even if some in the community still feel it's broken.

I think the harvesters could help out alot by bringing what they're noticing to Nevrax's attention in an informative, objective (e.g. not in a way that will benefit you most), matter-of-fact way.. such as "I'm doing this.. and this happens.. But when I do this.. this happens.. That seems kinda off".. Assuming you enjoy the game and want to see it work so you can continue enjoying it, that would seem to be the most helpful way to get it worked out, rather than "rawwrrrr!! It's buggy! This game sucks!! Rawwrrr!!".

That's just a general thought.. not directed at anyone in particular. I notice alot of folks already do this, so that's good .

lupine04 wrote:They're fixing the too-fast decay rates. This has been noted for about a week now. But, to be fair, perhaps you just hadn't gotten around to reading any of those threads.. that's fine. Now you know .

Oh so they're getting to it, super. Interesting that they still chose not to "get" to it before this harvesting nerf, even though it affects the entire playerbase, not just the harvesting community.

lupine04 wrote:I'm not sure bringing something, which was giving XP too generously in the first place, closer to what was intended could be called "nerfing". It's called balancing. Right now, from what I gather, harvesters are able to advance at a rate that is far faster than intended, especially relative to the other skills. This is not good in the long run.

Ok then, what Nevrax should do is lower the combat xp cap to 1700, which is about the max xp I can get from a pull. I mean what's fair is fair, right? While we're at it, we should take a whole line of combat actions and make them useless, how about increased damage or bleed? I mean, fair is fair, and whatever the wise devs say must be right, right?

I removed the extraction specialization and the jungle specialization from all my extraction actions, and saw zero difference in the speed, danger and quantity of extracted mats, while it used about a half the focus. That means those stanzas have no benefit whatsoever, they're just wasted SP. I've only had them for 4 days. How is it "more challenging" to simply nullify 80 skill points worth of skills? What was the challenge, to guess which skills were going to be nullified? Is that the kind of challenge that Ryzom is going to be?

As for the question of "how will harvesters be able to supply crafters when they need mats?"... well, perhaps that's supposed to be the challenge for Harvesters, and Crafters alike to work out? Seems to me that just because your primary focus isn't on going out killing stuff that your gameplay experience should be any easier than those who do. If you were always able to gather what crafters want nearly on demand, so fighter/mage types could get what they want nearly on demand, well.. I don't think that's really a challenge.

This shows you have little to no knowledge of how difficult it is to a) find resources that you need b) find them in the right quality c) learn how to extract them without dying in a reasonable quantity, all while d) avoiding all aggro mobs that can kill you in 3 hits. Harvesting was plenty challenging enough. This nerf doesn't make it more challenging, just less fun.

I'm noticing an underlying theme in some of these threads where people are basically saying, "if they change the way it is now, the game will become more challenging, I won't be able to level as quickly, and I don't want that".

Not more challenging, less fun. The game is a drag and a grind now, where it was fun before. I can't even extract q 100 mats, even though I have harmful extraction 100! I can only get 99, which matters if you want to make q100 weapons. Again, explain to me how it's more challenging to take an entire line of skills and make them useless. Are combat players ready to step up and become similarly emasculated?

I also find it kinda humorous how some people will jump up and down about a problem that affects them negatively, crying "bug! bug!" and demand it be fixed "or else ...". But, when a problem benefits or gives them an advantage, they jump up and down, crying "nerf! nerf!" and demand it be left alone, "or else ..."

But... that's just my observation...

You may not have noticed, Mr. Observation, but the NA server has like 250 people on it tops. Alienating 50 or 60 of them at this point is not a wise move. It's already such a low population game that it detracts from the experience. What I find amusing is the people who will come on the boards and defend ANY bone-headed action of the devs, as if they were relatives or as if you owned stock in the company. Take another 60 people out of the game and you won't have a game.

But... that's just my observation...