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General Concerns

32 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 7:25 AM
883Dave
At higher levels this game has become stupid.
Before forest I was able to farm T5 and beat T4 Missions without many problems. Now T2 may not be completed. T3 is out of the question.
I need 300 frags to upgrade to T3, next is 900 frags, at the present rate I will be lucky to upgrade one piece of equipment every month or two.
It seems now it is an easy win, or a death.
The game now is build, fight, die, build, respec, fight die...you nerfed our speed but forgot to nerf the NPC's speed. Sometime it takes several rounds of building just to get one try at a kill.
Problems I have noted are....
Level effectiveness is out of wack
Speed is a problem
Not enough rage can be stored

40 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 7:34 AM
dansonage
I haven't reached lvl 45 yet so i can't comment on Tiers, but the speed nerf is too heavy, especially for a ranger class with some extra impact on a wizard.
This is because rr was the only damage skill that a ranger has with a useful secondary. before the nerf it allowed us to get extra attacks in which made up for its slightly lower damage and gave us those extra turns of regen. Now however with the diminishing returns it doesn't make a difference. I get no extra attacks in using the skill. I have put a ticket in about this and i will reiterate here.

I suggest that the speed bonuses on freeze and rapid reload add the bonus % directly to the speed multiplier instead of to the base speed. this would mean that it still actually has an impact.

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 8:14 AM
Last Edited May 30th 2015 at 8:34 AM
Farflier
I'm still hoping this is just the first stage and more (lots of) adjustments are still coming to mechanics and balance. But, just in case they aren't fully aware of how the game plays right now we should post our experiences and perceptions as players.

Game mechanics as they are now will simply not work and are driving more and more players away every day. While I don't necessarily think the speed change is a problem, it certainly exacerbates the other problems. It also doesn't appear to be functioning the way you say you designed it. There is apparently NO threshold at which you get 2 turns, even 200%. As Phaque said, combat is now literally an auto-win or auto-lose situation, there is no challenging middle ground. Prior to jungle I could either farm T4s if I wanted quick & easy, or I could do T5s for somewhat of a challenge, though not an insurmountable one. Now, I can either do T2s for a ridiculously easy win, or die over and over again in a T3 that I can never hope to beat. This is, I believe, primarily from the level effectiveness of mobs - a difference in effectiveness seems to have an absurdly greater effect than it should. Mobs get nearly guaranteed crits on you, for more than your possible maximum health, at just 2 lvls higher than you. It would make sense to me if we were capable of doing heroic tiers similar to the tiers of our gear; someone with all T3/some T4 gear should be able to farm T3 heroics and some T4. Instead, we are stuck at the same tiers no matter how upgraded our gear gets (this was kinda true even before jungle as the rate of scaling grew from tier to tier). I would be amazed if T5 and T6 SPs were even possible right now, with maxed out gear and all. I did think heroics needed to be slightly more difficult, but this was quite a radical flip to the other end of the spectrum.

It has a far more favorable psychological effect on your playerbase if instead of increasing difficulty/absurdity of existing content, you add new content with higher difficulty. If people are approaching T6 farm status (nobody was).. add T7. Nobody gets hurt.

There are several other ongoing issues right now related to gear, stats, etc.. but done typing for now. Here's hoping there are still players a week from now.

Cheers

EDIT: I'd also like to mention that while leveling from 30 to 45 as a previously maxed-out character was pretty enjoyable, I've also been playing two low-level alts as if they were new players (purchasing starter packs only). Prior to jungle release and associated balance changes, the difficulty was appropriate for them and it was enjoyable playing them. Now, it is exceedingly difficult to progress through the campaign. I can't imagine many potential new players sticking around if they are having a similar experience.

886 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 8:52 AM
David Whittaker (CNE Dev)
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback.

Phaque, can you tell me if this is the case on just some of the new missions? or all the missions now at lvl45 (even the Forest and Desert on Heroic). I will defiantly look at the difficulty.

Dasonage, the speed adjustments shouldn't be effecting rapid reload, but again I can look at how much of a boost it is giving. It is certainly possible its not doing as much as it should.

Farflier, You are correct about the intention of the tiered gears and the tiers. They were intended to match up on a more one to one basis. One issue that has come up that we didn't take fully into account when balancing the difficulty was the ability to store up rage and then use it use the highest power attack on each and every mob. We also didn't anticipate the 4x or 5x speed some players build up to which very quickly made most of the % stat buffs on the higher tier monsters mean a lot less.

It is our intention that it ramp up from easy to hard, not just be a wall. So I am going to copy your character over to the dev server and run some heroics. See how it feels with your gear.

In regards to your alts, how far along are you getting before it gets to difficult? what level are they relative to the content, and what kind of gear do they have? My first thought is if its gear related there is a lot of room for giving better drops through the first areas.

-David

32 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 9:09 AM
Last Edited May 30th 2015 at 9:15 AM
883Dave
Hi David,
The mission that I used for reference is Investigate the farmhouse.
Seems all missions, MP's and bounties I have tried are the same, what I once was able to beat or have a chance at, is out of the question.
It almost seems T2 can be completed, T3 is death

Edit:
I am able to get to higher bosses in Hot

886 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 11:36 AM
David Whittaker (CNE Dev)
Hi Guys,

So playing as Farfliers character copied back to our development server I do think that the combination of the speed reduction and the harder heroics made things much harder than intended.

I have reduced the level and speed bonuses on all the tiers above T1. In this state and with a few potions I was able to complete some T4 desert missions.

Some of the Jungle missions depending on the monster type and wave count are still quite a bit harder than the earlier heroics. Going to have to think about how to approach those.

-David

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 11:45 AM
Last Edited May 30th 2015 at 11:53 AM
Farflier
While you're on my account be sure to take full points in healthy lest you be oneshotted by a 200k crit in T3 :p

While on the subject of heroic difficulty, might I suggest that the fragment rewards scale non-linearly as well, more inline with the difficulty. Prior to jungle, very few bothered even attempting the next highest tier for them, as +2 frags wasn't worth quadrupling the amount of time it took to clear a mission. I only went for T5s on the weekends because of this. This will be an even bigger issue now as the difficulty gaps have become much larger while the rewards remained in place. The difficulty is nonlinear, the cost of upgrading is nonlinear, why are the rewards linear?

Prior to changes, my alts could beat missions where enemies were 1-2 lvls higher than them, with a little difficulty. Now I must rely on a lucky AoE crit if I wish to beat enemies 1 lvl higher than them, and 2 lvls higher just ain't happening. Scorpions of 2 lvls higher, for example, will get 3-4 attacks between my alt's and almost every one is a crit. I have yet to survive long enough to take a 2nd turn. At least some of this might be attributed to the unavailability of gear for certain slots. I think it was about lvl 22 before I started seeing any helmets, and about lvl 24 before any rings or necklaces came around. No cape until lvl 30 if I recall correctly. Companions can actually be useful while progressing, but only if you can manage to keep their lvl and gear up to par, which is nearly impossible unless you intentionally slow your own progress down significantly. Even then their primary purpose is still to serve as meatshields, *occasionally* their damage may make a difference. Companions also have significantly less gear options than the player character themselves. Only one ring, no necklace, etc. And with it going to take so long to tier up your own gear, companions will be left behind statwise to the point that the ONLY purpose they serve is to absorb exactly 1 hit. The weapons from starter packs help, BUT only for the level that they are. They are replaceable by white/green weapons at the very next level. This last bit could probably be remedied by the "minimum effectiveness" you've implemented on the higher-lvl packs.

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 11:47 AM
Farflier
Ah, yes, it would be good to keep in mind that wave battles are several orders of magnitude harder than single-part battles within the same mission. If I survive past the first wave, it's with dead companions and very little health. The 2nd wave is guaranteed to finish me. That'll be a hard one to resolve, I reckon.

52 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 1:07 PM
Annie
How about testing it with an average Joe and not the strongest character in game?

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 2:19 PM
Farflier
Annie has a point

886 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 2:54 PM
David Whittaker (CNE Dev)
Hi Annie / Farflier,

My intention with testing with Farfiers character was to see how much the farthest completion limit had been pulled back. It also operated as a litmus test of sorts - if his character couldn't finish the t2's then something is very wrong.

I will be honest and say we didn't do any testing past T2. What we did do was take a level 45 character, and gear them up with full blues (no purples), and use that character to run through a selection of heroic missions from the forest, desert, and jungle on tier 1 to confirm they were at the appropriate difficulty. This was with the intention of making sure no player would arrive at lvl 45 and not be able to complete the first heroics. So that was our "average Joe" test.

If you have some other suggestions for that, or a character or gear setup you would like me to run some tests with I am happy to oblige.

-David

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 3:24 PM
Last Edited May 30th 2015 at 3:42 PM
Farflier
Well, if the intention is to have the difficulty more inline with the gear level, then I should be able to reliably complete T3s in a reasonable amount of time and have a chance at T4s. Or, given my gems, T4s should come reasonably easily if stats can make any difference in the shadow of level effectiveness. This is not the case.

886 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 4:38 PM
David Whittaker (CNE Dev)
Hi Farflier,

With the adjustments I made earlier you should on the forest and desert missions be able to do t3 without issue. At least the missions I tested with your character seemed possible. The Jungle missions need some evaluation because they do seem to have worked out to be harder on heroic.

-David

6 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 30th 2015 at 9:54 PM
Last Edited May 30th 2015 at 10:20 PM
Direfalcon
Just a couple of points to add. I ran a few T3s at 45 yesterday and they were challenging but not impossible (although I did have to respec a few times in between to get the appropriate build for a particular fight). And that was without pots. I was running hefty health builds though which may have made it easier.

Today on some T3s I have seen adjustments made. They are not as fast or hitting as hard so I feel I could do T4s on those again and they would be about the same difficulty level as they were pre-jungle.

I couldn't do many T5s before the jungle update without potting, but I'm ok with that. I could usually finish most fights in a T5... but the last fight would often get me. So in terms of tiers - things seem pretty balanced from my perspective compared to pre-jungle. That's without me switching out any of my gear for new equipment.

*Edit* this is of course limited to the small number of missions I've run yesterday and today, but I have seen those adjustments start to show up. These have all been in the rainforest shard - I don't know if this makes a difference to T3 missions in the desert or jungle, as they may scale differently with more difficult base enemies...

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 7:25 AM
Last Edited May 31st 2015 at 7:48 AM
Farflier
Hmm running some forest and desert T3s now not seeing much difference.. Single-wave battle of 4 mobs kills me pretty good, even with 250k health. Requires lots of luck not getting critted if I want to clear multi-wave battles, OR a respec into full-blown AoE that non-VIP players would be unable to do, and even an average VIP player would not have the damage output to make it successful. Can complete the T3s at least, with some respeccing.. but I very much doubt any T4 would be possible for me at this point. Will try some other T3s and a handful of T4s..

EDIT: Just tried some T1 jungle heroics as well. You weren't kidding.. T1 jungle missions seem to be equivalent or greater difficulty than T3 forest/desert. I just exited the last one I was in, was taking way too many suicide runs to build, etc.

32 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 7:34 AM
883Dave
What I am finding frustrating is wasting stamina to try levels that I have previously been able to beat.
Tried several SP missions and bounties today
Slyder...was able to beat T3 prior to Jungle in a respectable amount of time.
Today
T3...out of the question
T2...might be able to beat it given enough time, however I am not married to this game and do not have the time to put in.
T1...too easy
I understand that part of my failures results from lack of companion level, however at the rate of progress, in part due to the loss of stamina cancelling missions I was previously able to complete, I'm not sure that I will be willing to put the time in to upgrade them to a level that they are more than 1 hit meat shields
Investigate the farmhouse...was able to beat T4 and farm T5
Today
T3...too easy
T4...not willing to put the time in to kill. Got through the mobs, at boss, usually got 3 strikes in before being killed, that's if there was at least one none crit.
Without keeping a log or an excel speadsheet, I have no idea what tiers I can do missions on now.
Also, it is really annoying having the Improvement pop-up screen after every death...I know what needs to be upgraded.
I will give it another couple of days, but to be honest frustration has set in.

23 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 7:52 AM
Farflier
Also, speed really does need to be looked at. At 1425 speed, is it reasonable that the mobs get 2 attacks between mine? If speed is to still matter at all whatsoever, this should not be the case. Especially if a relative 200% is to be the cap, then these mobs have AT LEAST 2850 speed? May as well drop to 0 speed if the mobs get 2 hits between either way...

Don't get me wrong, speed WAS a ridiculous god stat as you have said. It needed a nerfing. I just think something has broken it now..

52 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 8:33 AM
Annie
I just did a T3 Across the River mission (Forest). It went quite well with the first mobs, because there was only 3 dorks in each fight. But then I got to where the chest is. The 2 waves of 4 dorks killed me easy, with 15 points in Healthy. I respecced to Wall of Fire, and only this way I could finish the mission.

Speed is such BS now. I get to attack, then the mob, then me, and them again - back and forth like playing a fireball ping pong. I tried using both speed rings earlier - didn't change anything! Having perfect secondary stats and tier 3 equipment should make this easy to complete without respeccing multiple times (I don't know how non-VIP players can complete anything these days). Before I could do T4 missions, and certain T5's that were challenging but yet possible with time invested.

Speed IS broken. Do something!

52 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 8:55 AM
Annie
Tried "Jimmy the Thief" solo bounty on T2. Not only he attacks twice, I also could only kill them with max wall of fire/healthy/intel build +10% class attack pot, +guild AP pots. If you want people to buy pots to do missions that are not even on par with their level/tier, might as well just quit now.

886 Posts
Link to post - Posted May 31st 2015 at 2:34 PM
Last Edited May 31st 2015 at 2:35 PM
David Whittaker (CNE Dev)
Hi Guys,

Ran a bunch more heroics this morning, testing Forest, Desert, and Jungle.

I just finished discussed the difficulty issues with Justin (he does most of the balancing). Namely we discussed what the highest difficulty completed should be with the new speed changes, how the harder jungle content is effecting tier complete-ability, and how many fragments it makes sense to earn from each tier.

In regards to the highest difficulty our intended balance looks something like this:
-Full t1s = t1s are a breeze.
-Full t2s = t2s are easy.
-Full t3s = t3s are doable.
-Full t4s = t4s are sloggable,
-Full t5s = t5s are winnable if you're super lucky,
-Full t6s = no... t6s are impossible.

The highest difficulty you were able to complete before the speed changes were quite a bit higher than originally intended. This is because of the massive boost speed gave. For a lot of the jungle missions and some of the other missions this ideal difficulty is not being achieved. But it is our goal and we are going to make adjustments until it is a lot closer to that.

In regards to speed... You have a base level speed, at level 45 that base is around 166 (see your speed stat on the stats page and subtract the bonuses). If you have a speed bonus of 166 giving you 332 speed you are at 2x speed and start to suffer from diminishing returns. Along this curve - http://gyazo.com/926e8743b4b1dace5f8abd3647ae32e7

So under this curve, your biggest return stops around have 600-700 speed. Having more than that doesn't add a whole lot to your battle speed.

Maybe this isn't the perfect balance point, but we do want there to be a point at which it starts to make sense to focus your gear towards other stats that help you hang in a battle, such as health or armor.

Anyway without making any promises, the results of todays discussion are:
- Jungle missions when on heroic are harder than intended. May put in a by area heroic adjustment stat to counter.
- Some jungle monsters are too fast on heroic, probably makes sense to make them 10-15% slower.
- Speed adjustment has greatly reduced max achievable heroic.
- Reduction in max achievable heroic will reduce fragment collection rate, probably makes sense to adjust the number available at each tier to adjust for this.

-David