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Min/Maxers are Being Left In Dirt

Discussion in 'Release 55 Feedback' started by Zeddicus Zorander, Jul 11, 2018.

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  1. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I'm so sick of this "close the gap" argument.
    As an experiment, a friend of mine recently made a new character. In one week, doing upper tears xp bonanza, got it to adventure level 89. And it can solo dragons. (With melee, of course). IN A WEEK. A week of hard grind yes, with gear handed to it, but a week. There's plenty of folks been playing nearly two years who can't accomplish that. Hell, I'm a mage playing since day 1 of persistence and the dragon is simply not worth my time - takes far too long to kill by comparison vs. using a weapon.

    So, kinda two points here:

    1. The GAP is imminently breachable. You can, very quickly, catch up to the point where you can comfortably do most content in the game, assuming you're using a weapon-based build. Especially with all the double-time-XP-bonanza going on now, its easier than ever to level if levelling is your goal.

    2. Magic did NOT need a nerf, its already far more expensive both in terms of gold and XP to level/use, far more limited due to mob resistances (or downright immunity), and there are far, far more ways to boost weapon damage than spell damage, or to boost strength vs. int. Both in terms of active skills, passive skills, material bonuses in crafting - magic gets the short end of the stick in every category despite having to dump hundreds of millions into attunement to reach a similar level of damage output as a weapon user can achieve with 1/10th the experience. And that's assuming they've trashed 500 wands trying to get that magical attune-int-(arrow) combo - without which magic damage is a bit embarrassing.

    The main problem at the moment (in my opinion of course) is and has always been that balance changes are made based on what a small % of extreme min-maxers can achieve, rather than what 'most' players can do. If you nerf the high end too much, you take away the goal (ie, why level up further?) and without that goal of someday being able to _whatever__....then you essentially win the game, your character is done, now go dance party or pvp until bored. Not a good long term strategy.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2018
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  2. Gix

    Gix Avatar

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    Why level up further? How about it being a consequences of your actions rather than a goal?

    If the game isn't interesting enough to warrant playing the game without worrying about how much numbers people are crunching (ie: by having other goals besides increasing an arbitrary number), I can see it being a problem, sure. The game isn't necessarily strong on that front and it's possibly the main reason why it's not the most popular game out there, but that doesn't mean they should abandon the idea of the game just to end up with another treadmill.

    What's not a long term strategy is letting min/maxers get too much power. When something is nerfed, you should already know the answer as to why it was nerfed... So the real problem is identifying what constitutes as "too much".

    So YOU say it's too much, some other people are saying it's too much... and then there are others who feel it's been warranted. This isn't a game-breaking issue.

    I believe (and hope) that Meteor Shower got nerfed this release; it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was obliterating most combatants in PvP tournaments on a single cast... and if someone's complaining about THAT being nerfed, then they're just complaining because they lost an "i win" button.

    Everybody's I've seen on livestreams, youtube videos or some such have managed to overpower the game by involving spells (mostly AoEs) in some shape or form regardless if it's fire, frost or lightning.... not to mention lots of healing. So from my own personal experience and observations, I'm not surprised that magic got nerfed.

    The crux of the matter (and why some people argue against the min/maxers mentality) is some players, players who decided to push the game to its designed limits, are complaining when the math changed. Shouldn't they be happy that they got more numbers to crunch instead? They're chasing a carrot and that carrot simply moved.

    So, using your logic, "what happens if the min/maxers finally get the carrot?" I also want to point out that there's a difference between someone who's just grinding to power up and someone who min/maxes... if the min/maxers are getting stuff nerfed, I can't imagine why they'd be surprised... they should know!

    P.S. - I'm not suggesting that melee is balanced either; the amount of utility and damage polearms get is ridiculous.
     
  3. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    The meteor shower was broken, and has been fixed. I think its pretty clear to most people that the R54 values were a bit insane, when you could cast meteor and go make yourself a sandwich and come back and loot. I agree with you here, it was obviously broken and in need of balance. Its a good example of something being adjusted that we can all understand why.

    The attunement change? Absolute bafflement. Sure, you may see a few extremely optimized (minmaxed) mages on streams that can stack a bunch of Aoes on the ground and things die. If you watch different streams, you'll be seeing damage output on melee users that is absolutely over the top because you can easily stack up to 300+ str and pile on weapon damage armor and a dozen stances/passives/etc. to boost it. This is the min-maxer problem - and the min maxer can do so, sooo much more with the melee toolset. I could see, perhaps, an adjustment just to the "lasts two minutes, sits on the ground while do you other stuff" spells - but a blanket change to attunement has made magic go from "weak and unappealing without 10x the xp investment" (r54) to "downright pointless unless you're looking to pvp" (r55). And I continue to watch new, low level mages come into the game and within a week switch to melee or bow because the magic is so incredibly weak at the low end. I continue to watch mid level mages pick up melee or bow because is easier and stronger for a lot less effort. I know this because I make gear for a -lot- of people. How many mages have come asking for bronze, leather, bows, swords? Dozens. How many melee/archers have come asking for mage gear? None to date.

    I'm not saying give minmaxers a carrot. I'm saying by giving them the stick you're also giving every other player the stick also. The min maxer will go and find the next hot /overpowered build the next month and carry on gaming the system. The person who's invested a lot of time into their character who logs in and finds themselves useless, will not. Not forever, anyway.
     
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  4. Gix

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    @kaeshiva I think you’ll agree when I say that min/maxers exist in all variations of spec: melee, magic, range, etc. To be angry that only one got nerfed is a bit moot in my opinion as the others will also be adjusted in due time.

    What’s ridiculous is the amount of time it takes to make the changes, not the fact that the changes happen (like the OP’s complaint).
     
  5. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    Indeed.

    And as you say .. "in due time" - perhaps weapon-users will be adjusted.

    The problem is that this attunement nerf has happened when mages already have significant disadvantages compared to melee across the board.
    8 skills that raise strength, 2 skills that raise int.
    More strength masterwork options (weapons) - no int equivalent.
    Various passive skills that raise crit, damage, attack speed etc = no magical equivalents except spellbinders, which renders you unable to move and completely kills your defense. Not really viable in most situations.
    Weapon damage materials for crafting = no magic equivalent (ie bronze) (both weapon and magic users can get +crit chance armor, but the magical version costs significantly more due to beetle rarity)
    Weapon users get a cheap, pumpable +damage skill, no magic equivalent.
    All weapon trees have an additional "weapon damage" passive. Mages nope.
    Weapon users get more glyphs allowing every hit to take advantage of all the gear, stances, passives. Mages must mix elements (except perhaps fire) due to insufficient damage glyphs even w/ specialization to fill a deck.
    Melee users get additional perks such as backstab, armor weak points, sneak attack....
    Even FOOD, There's plenty of strength and dex food. Int food from a boss drop talon only? I'm not talking about the +1 coleslaw lol.

    The only thing mages get to improve their damage is attunement, which already had diminishing returns and has now been made significantly worse (about a 40% overall damage output nerf at my level).
    Attunement requires a significant time investment and xp investment to get anywhere near what a weapon user can dish out.

    This is before we even address fizzle limitations and reagent costs and every-boss-in-game-resists-magic issue and magic immune mobs and magic shutdown mobs and all the other disadvantages certain "flavors" of mages have without having to have a different set of gear depending on where you fight because ...well, there's undead in nearly every scene in the game, making death magic less effective, as an example. A weapon user can take their weapon and go kill anything in the game with it - you simply will not convince me that magic is "balanced." I've done the math. I've pulled out a sword and seen firsthand what I can do with a lot less investment. If I wasn't so invested in magic, and if being a mage wasn't important to me from a character identify standpoint, I'd have picked up a weapon long ago, as I've seen so very many other former mages do.


    So...in due time? We'll get all the perks that weapon users get? The material bonuses and the stances and int buffs and int foods and the active/passive damage increasers and stat increasers? Maybe? But nerfing the 1 thing that mages could do to raise their output - attunement - seems counter to purpose. I've been hearing that "physical resistance will be a thing" for over two years now but there's not yet evidence of it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
  6. Gix

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    I'm counting on adjustments/nerfs for weapon damage and I'm actually hoping that weapon users will actually get a bigger nerf across the board. Contrary to popular belief, I find Bludgeon to be in a good spot... it's just that the others are easily more powerful in comparison so everybody wants Bludgeon to be buffed. If that major nerf ever happens, I'm hoping that Sneak Attack will get adjusted accordingly (like boost crit damage) because stabbing with a dagger (as one should) is pretty lackluster in general (in PvE).

    I'm also hoping that Specialization will eventually play a bigger role for casters. Maybe it could be set as multiplicative/exponential to the attunment and therefore, would prevent weapon users from accessing the more powerful aspects of spell-casting. So getting Specialization by itself would be "okay", but the more spells you level up in that tree (gaining attunment), the bigger the boost you'd get from Specialization.

    The issue with spell-casting at this very moment is that it's too accessible, so any weapon user can wield magic and get even more powerful... especially if you consider the utility spells.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
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  7. Snakyy

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    This whole argument about min maxers are silly. World need specialized characters. That is how you make a great team. You have that spell farting mage, motherly or monk like healer, shady rogue like archer and Mr Plate Mail just because all have their spesific role they have SPECIALIZED TO.

    However developers now seems to say !"¤%"& that! They want carbon copy characters of Jack Of All Trades that have that one weapon and all the spells. As if you want to optimize your build, READ best performance from your effort, train all magic to 80 as that is nothing difficult to get. Specialization any further is just waste of your time and effort. Rest of the points to armor and melee and needed tactics and focus skills.
     
  8. Snakyy

    Snakyy Avatar

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    And we are whining on this forum for keeping us warm only. Developers have not replied as they don't listen us. Simple as that.
     
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