The Shroud Nerf and how its not going to fix the problem

@DarkStarr @Chris

So I saw this in blog a few weeks ago and I'm a bit disappointed to see this change made it into live, since its not going to fix the perceived "problem" that it was meant to solve, namely, that everyone's wearing the Shroud.

First of all, its the quest item received for completing the main storyline and shares the name of the game. People are gonna wear it. Why is this bad? Additionally, every other back item in the game (except for the health-hiding add-on store cloaks) are PURELY COSMETIC.

So, option 1: Wear back item with stats
Options 2-9999: Wear back item with no stats, or nothing in the slot.

That's the first issue.

---

The second issue is, the penalties - bonuses sliding scale does not make sense.

The whole "love is dex and hate is aggro" thing made sense. "Courage is strength, cowards run faster". I'm on board with this, it meant that your choice mattered.
If you raise love, you get dex. If you lower love, you get aggro boost.
This was an elegant, simple sliding scale. It did not need additional penalties. The penalty was you DIDNT get the effect from whatever virtue you didn't choose.

Combine this with the vague, awkward virtue system and you are essentially saying that every player who has spent time courageously killing bosses, for example, now gets a global -5% move speed penalty. What? In what universe does this make sense, or seem reasonable?

We are seeing people essentially being penalized for choosing to uphold virtues ...that doesn't seem right.

-----

So from my understanding, there are 2 things we want to achieve here:

1. Make it so not everyone is wearing the same back item
SOLUTION: Make other back items with stats so there are other options. Like say, make cloaks masterworkable/enchantable.
POOR SOLUTION(current): Screw up the only back item that does have stats. People are still gonna wear it because its still better than nothing.

The KEY missing element here is that the shroud offers max damage resist and avoidance, which no other back item in the game does. I'd love to wear a quiver on my back again but especially in light of the recent MAJOR nerf to max damage resist, I need every bit I can get. Give this 'base' functionality - the DR/avoid - to all back slot items, and make them enchantable/masterworkable, and you'll see variety aplenty.

2. Make it so that virtue choice is meaningful
SOLUTION: Give players feedback about virtue decisions so this can be an active choice
POOR SOLUTION (current): Penalize players for virtue scores that there is no meaningful way to change or even understand.

I'm completely ok with "cowards" having a 5% move speed bonus. I think everyone is okay with this. And if you can muddle through the virtue system and figure out how to raise/lower the ones you want, then you choose - speed or strength.

What is NOT okay is adding an ADDITIONAL penalty to move speed. You are already "not getting" the 5% that cowards get, there was no need for an additional 5% screw-you to be added on top of this. Same with the other virtues. This was not necessary.

It was particularly not necessary when you consider that movement speed is a basic quality of life feature, that has gotten several additional nerfs recently to movement speed effects, and basically we're now saying everyone who is virtuous must now be slower. I'm sorry this just doesn't make sense.

Nobody wants to fiddle around equipping/unequipping the silly cloak when they're trying to get some place because of this. I'd happily lower my courage down to neutral to get rid of the benefit and the penalty except there's no effective way to do this - my courage score is always maxed because I actively play the game and kill things.....

@Lord British
3. Lastly, this change, more than ever, makes the virtue system not fit for purpose. And I think that this is an important system. I say this because people are not having their virtue be a reflection of their morals or behaviour, its instead being used to maximize desired stat gains. For months I played this game as a sneaky cat who stole inkwells and produce from merchant stalls, and sported by black shroud as a result. This was a roleplaying choice.

But, sadly, I'm a magic user, and I need the intelligence boost, so I've had to completely change my behaviour in order to not get a penalty to my main stat (or just, not use the quest items, which seems a bit silly, they are there to be used right? And in the case of the cloak, as mentioned above, there are NO alternatives).

Its been a long, long road to redemption from the days of my black shroud, but I made this choice NOT because it fits with my character or backstory, NOT because its the kind of character I want to play, but because someone has arbitrarily decided that stealing things makes you stupid. I don't think this is how the virtue system was intended to be used, and this change has only made it more evident.

I think we need to go back to small bonuses for virtue and get rid of the significant penalties, else actually make viable alternatives so that people can avoid/bypass the virtue system and its effects on their combat capabilities of entirely. The current situation is extremely unsatisfactory.

 

Good post. I think a lot of this is simply solved by (as you said, Shimizu) allowing cloaks to be masterworked and enchanted. Give us some more meaningful options. I wear the knight's cloak because it has a light source (that is currently screwed up), and because I don't have the shroud yet. This is not dye-able. I'd really like to wear something that is not green someday. More choices for back-slot = good for all.

 

I try my level best to not rant, life is simply too short but this change to the shroud is nonsense, seriously annoys me, on a scale of 1-10 its a 100! I get it the virtue system and it's even fun in a weird way, as what is being implemented as virtues bares no resemblance to any social construct I know in either Real life, SF or Fantasy settings re the Shroud. For example Speed is a basic function based on gravity, mobility, weight, height and a physical genetic disposition, and thus has nothing to do with a person being good or bad. Are we to argue now that everyone in the Olympics are all bad people because they are all faster than most humans out there? as you're interpretation of speed is bad people run faster...

I love the idea of including virtues as a choice we get to make, so please make the virtue rules transparent and visible, as well as changeable by the users BEFORE you go penalize in game content.

If your collective objective is to stop everyone wearing this one style of shroud, why give it out as a quest item in the first place? OK hindsight is pointless So why not add more versions of the shroud as an interim solution, one for each year?

As Shim already said

and this latest nerf is unnecessary.

Take the speed nerf off the shroud please; I can see this virtue system being really complex to implement but getting players to run slower is not the answer other than one that will simply annoy people and make them want to play less rather than more.

lastly I would strongly recommend you add a consultant sociologist/anthropologist to your team to help you navigate the complex issues of designing behavioral based content that actually makes sense; there has to be a Masters/PHD student out there that would love to collaborate on something like this and help you build a real virtue system vs. one hacked together resulting in this misunderstood virtue system we currently have; use the right tool for the job, someone who knows inside out why people do what they do and when.

 

When this was brought up in a previous release - my and others idea was just to make cloaks (including the shroud) pattern-able. The heraldry cloak is a pattern - so why not let all cloaks be salvaged into patterns? That would let player's choose what their shroud will look like and would solve the problem of the "too many people are running around with shrouds on".

 

This isn't a nerf... its a fix. The Shroud was always intended to be a zero-sum item (NOT the exact words, but the basic meaning of those out of @DarkStarr 's mouth), meaning that for every bonus it conferred upon you, a matching penalty was also applied. Just another thing they put out there, and then left alone for way too long before getting around to fixing it, so now it feels like a nerf.

 

I'm a light melee (starting virtue: courage) so do care about speed more than those heavy armor, stand in the trenches slugging it out builds. But you are right that even the already slow types don't want to be slower as a quality of life consideration.

There was a thread about the recent update also reducing movement speed abilities in combat. Unfortunately this is an added layer to stifle light armor builds who have made the decision to trade off formidable defensive protection to be a little lighter on their feet.

 

Yea honestly not a needed change at all what we need is a way to add a cosmetic item on top for quest items. R54 has added the ability to remove patterns from items.

 

Fix, nerf ...not going to argue the semantics. It remains that it is the only back item with any combat benefit at all - and it was that prior to the stats being added at all. That's why its a popular item. And yknow, since its the final reward of the main storyline and named after the game. It shouldn't be something you're discouraged from using - its a quest item so you can't even hang it on the wall. I don't think this change is going to stop people from wearing it, which was the supposed purpose of this "fix" - until other back items are brought up to par its still the only game in town. I stand by my feelings about how this warps the virtue system into a minmax mechanic instead of an actual reflection of your character's virtue - especially since the virtue gain/loss system is so cloudy and arbitrary. Should the goal of the game be to avoid making meaningful virtue decisions and strive for complete neutrality? So what, I need more magic resist so I have to go steal things and lie to people? This makes no sense from a narrative, roleplay, realism, practicality, or any other point of view.

 

Personally I don't care one way or the other. There are no semantics involved: IT IS THE WAY THE THING WAS INTENDED TO WORK. There is nothing at all to do with "we don't want people wearing them as much".

For myself, I would rather they had fixed the horrible clipping issues it has with EVERYTHING, than to have done ANYTHING with the stats it gives, but that's me. As for the virtue system, well, that needs to be ripped out at the roots and re-envisioned before something as ridiculous as this cloak came into being.

It's a shroud... implying that there is ultimately a balance to everything, so while the things it gives (or, more to the point, what you have to DO to get the bonuses you WANT) may not make sense, the concept is solid, if not something people would actually desire because of the "good with the bad" concept behind it.

 

Actually, in Chris's blog he specifically mentions that he snooped a group and 6 out of 8 people were wearing the shroud which is what inspired the nerf since it wasn't supposed to be better than all other back items.
So in typical fashion that we have come to know and love, instead of improving other back items, this one got "fixed."

You're completely that missing the point that even with NO STAT BONUSES WHATSOEVER the shroud is superior to all other back items due to the max resist and avoid.
I'd be completely happy if I could just 'blank' my shroud and wear it without the virtue "benefits" - but that is not practical or realistic with the current virtue system's implementation.
And I also feel that 'move speed' is an important quality of life feature that shouldn't be penalized because you go out and kill things (courageously). Since when does being a hero and slaying evil make you slow?
Or stealing stuff makes you more magic resistant? Are there guard npcs with electric shock sticks zapping thieves and that's how they've built up this tolerance?

I'm not against balancing the cloak, but the way that it has been done is awkward, clunky, and impractical.

The way it was done originally, was clean, it was elegant. Choose - speed or strength. Choose, resist or int. Choose, dex or aggro. This was FINE, required a player to make a choice, and you got one or the other. For the game's namesake quest reward after a 10+ hour quest you SHOULD get something nice? Otherwise why do it? lol

From Chris blog:

This "fix" has not changed that, as even with the penalties the shroud is STILL the best back item.
Discouraging people from using the quest item named after the game, or making said item pointless seems extremely counterintuitive.
Making the virtue system all about "gaming the stats" seems to go against the original vision.

Don't want everyone to feel like they have to wear the shroud or be at a disadvantage? MAKE OTHER BACK ITEMS WORTH WEARING. Problem solved.

My objection to this nerf like so many others is that zero viable alternatives have been added.

 

Well said.
We seem to be getting a lot of reactive, somewhat negative and extremely impacting game changes at the moment. I wish we could move towards a more incremental tweaking and refinement approach especially given we are now a fair way beyond release and new players are being encouraged to join us. Even though I've been playing for several years I'm finding these large reactive changes confusing and frankly tiresome.

 

Great read here, I really appreciated this kind of feedback on forums.

 

I'm sorry, but I agree with the change. The shroud is cool, but it was getting kinda lame that everyone looked the same, like people with towels on, rather than the badasses I'd like to see with different character correct gear.

 

I'm confused. This change was made to the Shroud to reduce the viability of wearing the Shroud (which is the main chapter one story reward and non deco), by making its bonuses unattractive to the wearer, because someone didn't like the aesthetics of seeing everyone wearing the same cloak?

As others have said, it still has the best stats as alternatives can't be crafted.

I do understand what others are saying about this actually being a fix, to reflect how stats should be applied to gear that reflects virtue and hopefully may make more sense going forward, but then I don't understand why courage makes one slow or thieving provides a magic resist.

Does this mean that brave and honest players wearing stat reflecting gear in the future won't be able to compete with certain anti hero classes? I'm genuinely lost right now.

 

100% agree, bang on.

 

I agree, I hate the looks of the shroud but im forced to wear it because well its required via the stat bonus.

 

I'd just like it if cloaks/back items could have Enchantments (no masterworks), and possibly a single gem. This would allow us to craft the equivalent of a Knight's Cloak, which has a Light enchantment, just by adding a Sun gem and single enchant. The minor stat bonuses available through enchanting alone should not make these any more powerful that the Shroud.

Or, turn the Shroud into a helm again, possibly with some +Intelligence to compensate with losing access to the Bonesteel Crown. Really, this should be a choice: wield a Dread Artifact and risk corruption, or use the Shroud that the Oracle rewarded you with for freeing the Titans from that same corruption. Those on the path of Virtue should not even question the choice here.

Alternatively, allow the Shroud to have a pattern applied. I really want to keep my Ornate Quiver appearance, even if I can't use it as a container.

(Finally, and I've said this before, only show the Shroud's true appearance to the player wearing it! Same with the Dread Artifacts. Give them a slightly different, non-epic appearance when someone else is wielding them. Remember, we are supposed to be the True Avatar, but we can't feel that way when everyone else has the same epic items we were told only we could acquire.)

 

+1 to all those ideas

 

Actually, this is not true and several places in the game tell you that.

I personally don't wear the shroud or any of the dread artifacts because they look awful.