Changes to archery

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Krovakin, Mar 25, 2021.

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  1. Superbitsandbob

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    But to what end?

    When I said more attractive I meant outside of the current player base. What does this balancing do to make the game one that people want to play? These changes will not make the players at the top end suddenly want to group more. They are a certain breed of player. Are they impacting your game session? I guess if someone is one shotting the content in your group then probably.

    These incremental changes are not going to drastically change your experience though. To create challenging group or raid content you need to be working within some parameters. There won't be any until some proper hard caps are put into place.

    I guess it feels like there is no planning behind any of this maybe through a lack of understanding of the game? The Twitter page generally says "I am going to try changing this today" based on what? A good solid understanding of how the game works? It feels more like "the minority of players who post on the forums and twitter are complaining about archery so lets try this today".

    It really needs a team of devs to sit down and come up with a proper plan with a rough timeline on how they are going to limit players powerbase so they can start creating raid and group content that is challenging in the right way, beyond super-powered zombies or a dragon plonked down surrounded by every erratically acting mob type in the game.
     
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  2. Violet Ronso

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    It is simple, who likes an unbalanced game? Anyone who could potentially want to come and PvP will be turned off by how archers rule. Anyone who wants to play a water mage will quickly realize how weak and useless they will be compared to a fire mage. Anyone who wants to melee will quickly realize that archers can do everything they can do and more with no effort.

    A game where things are so imbalanced makes it so although you have the freedom of choice, a lot of people will feel like they are purposefully imposing a handicap on themselves if they don't use the 2 best builds, because they won't be able to do 50% of the content, and that will mean less people will be interested in "playing the classes or being constantly behind".

    They are, by impacting the economy and making everything overpriced with the insane amount of gold they bring in effortlessly, by making most items worthless because they can generate an over supply of everything.

    Based on actual data that you do not have access to, based on the feedback from the top players, who actually understand this games mechanics, based on years of watching the players progress and see how things are working. If you guys think Chris has no clue what he is doing you are wrong. Sure, some things feel weird or uncalled for, but trust me these changes have the impact Chris expects, and the loud minority is those who don't understand the game mechanics or don't use them.
     
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  3. Superbitsandbob

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    Some of what you suggest is just down to different trees doing different things. Looking at the water tree skills I would not expect it to do the same thing as the fire tree. It is more support focused is it not? In my experience of watching players over the years there are non fire mage and non archers (melee players) that do a lot of the content. Just imo but this is about a lack of control overall than specific trees. Is it easier to balance content by saying that each player can build a deck, for example a bit like UO, and use 700 points worth of skills or have it as it is now with a constant stream of tweaking and changing? Maybe make GM's meaningful and that's where it stops?

    Nice try, but I am sure there are players leaving comments here with lots of experience that don't necessarily agree with you. Doesn't make them wrong. The Twitter feed for example does not give a good impression of an overall plan. Nor does frankly, the way things are being implemented.
     
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  4. Violet Ronso

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    At this point, I guess we should simply agree to disagree, doubt we are ever gonna come to an agreement on these matters.
     
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  5. Superbitsandbob

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    I do agree with you just for the record. I think the game is grossly imbalanced. I just think the current plan and these small incremental changes are not going to work. It needs a longer term vision probably via the use of a big, sharp short term sting for the current player-base to get things back in balance.
     
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  6. FBohler

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    Agreed.

    The big question is still unanswered:
    How nerfing fire and ranged will do any good to water and blades (besides PVP)?
     
  7. Violet Ronso

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    Blades : They don't need help, honestly.

    Water : a tree made for group play, more as a support tree, would see much more effectively if group play was required for scenes.

    Hope this answered your two questions!
     
  8. FBohler

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    Didn't really.

    I see zero water mages doing xp runs in LGF (100% group play, zero solo), is that a meta archer's fault? How nerfing archers will make water mages show up in LFG xp runs?
     
  9. Superbitsandbob

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    I think if there was an over-arching plan to it all, maybe there is and I haven't seen it, then I could understand the issue. Nerfing skills, any really not just archery, is not suddenly going to make group play more attractive.

    If people like grouping they are doing it anyway as many people group with guildies and friends and you mostly know how they play. Hell you could even ask them if they were guildies or friends to do something different occasionally as opposed to pew pew dead.

    Also, some people like to group with people that are super powered. They level quicker and they also see parts of the game they may not otherwise see. Is that a bad thing? Balance/nerf can have a big impact on people, even those who stay silent on the subject, that we don't always take into consideration.

    I think there needs to be a more scientific approach as well. I've seen a lot of, "I've done this and its insane" with little evidence. You really need to see all of the stats and numbers behind it. Are we doing it because we have 3000000000 focus or because the skill itself is overpowered? Taking numbers from a player at max gear and who has enough XP to just put anywhere is not a good barometer.
     
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  10. Vesper

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    See, here's the thing about all of this: "we" aren't doing anything becayse "we" aren't making a video game. Chris and his team are, and they don't need to provide you with evidence, an explanation, or any justification for what they do with their game.

    Somehow, and I've never seen it with any other video game I've played, people in Shroud think they're owed something. On the contrary every one of us falls into one of three chatagories. We either pledged for, flat out purchased, or are playing this game for free. Whichever it is, contract complete.

    Chris is working on his game, he has a team that's doing it with him, and they're all letting us play it while they do. For those here in this thread and all the other 6+ page whine fest, when does the game you're working on get released? I'm enjoying playing Chris's, they're all doing a good job, be grateful.
     
  11. AzazelReborn

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    Lets all agree that nerfs and buffs needs to happen.

    The real problem is unfinished features, there is current work going on in the background with adding new skill tree to the game. So many new things are going to be added to the game. We all know the game is unbalanced at the moment.

    What the devs should be focusing on should be the rest of the current skill tress that are under utilized. Work on those skills and tree before adding new ones. Bard was added over a year now and is still broken and on 100% refund. With new tree added the game would be even more wacky. When you don't know what you are doing nothing good is going to come out of it.

    Fix what we have now, do not add new thing that will make balancing even more difficult. If every tree was created with meaningful purpose then we wont have majority of the population flocking to 2-3 build only.

    We have amazing tress already, with two or more skills added and changed between them more people will use them more. That should be the focus for balancing and not what the devs are currently focusing on.
     
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  12. Superbitsandbob

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    Admirable though your defence is I would guess, no hope, that Chris does not see it the same way. Anyone who has run a business or project would know that waking up and doing what you want for that day and the customer should be happy with that is a recipe for disaster. Unless, and this could be the case, that SOTA is now just being developed in a bubble with the current players that are left telling Chris everything is fine. Great if you are in that bubble I guess, but it is not viable for the health of the game.

    I would also check out some other game forums if you think SOTA players are entitled and you've never seen it before. That's a weird statement to make.
     
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  13. Vesper

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    Close, but the idiom is wrong, in reality; The customer is always an *******. Think about it.
     
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  14. Superbitsandbob

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    I'm sure anyone that has worked in a customer focused role feels the same. :) There is a difference though between whether a customer is always right or not and making decisions that is healthy for your business that includes the customer and maybe more importantly, gives current and new customers a clear way forward.
     
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  15. Vesper

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    And the view is that a balanced game will attract more customers.
     
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  16. Superbitsandbob

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    Just that. Just balancing the trees will attract more customers? Tree balance is not what people talk about outside of the forum with regards to coming back to the game. In fact coverage of the game seems to small now that I doubt any new potential players are even aware that Archery or fire is OP.

    Let me give an example.

    Another game called Project Gorgon is going through a similar thing and the developer, much less funded and manned for what it is worth, came to the conclusion that combat was too quick with little strategy and that tanks were not viable. Their overall plan was to give tanks more of a roll, slow combat down a bit and try to inject some more strategy into the combat. Especially boss encounters where they wanted to make tanking more viable. They also highlighted that there were some skills that were a bit OP and needed to be nerfed but this was done as part of an overall plan for where they wanted combat to be. They have made some changes since then and continue to do so. They put up threads on the forums when these changes go in and actively encourage the players to give feedback.

    Anyway yeah. If you are enjoying the game and like the current development direction then that is all that matters.
     
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  17. AzazelReborn

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    @Superbitsandbob I know what you are saying. The problem is 1 they don't have the man power to do the stuff to attract new players. 2 they don't have a project manager that would help them attract new players.

    In order for them to do what new players want and need they will need years to do so and also fix existing problem. I don't think they are willing to stop releasing new features to focus on the latter. So this is going to be an issue for many more years to come.

    In fact I think its up to us players to help them resolve this issue. Can we as a player base be happy with what we have now for the next say 3 years while they work on finalizing the game. Or are we too impatient for new feature that we don't care about fixing broken stuff?
     
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  18. Superbitsandbob

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    I think the manpower thing is fair but there are other indie MMO's out there working with much less. I just think a clear goal in mind goes a long way towards taking people along for the ride however long it takes.

    Why is Archery being balanced? Is it just because it is doing too much damage? Based on what and what are the modifiers and multipliers involved? How is that then affecting peoples enjoyment of the game in real environments and not just tests? How many people are actually playing in a group and is it really an issue for them? Why do we want to stop players soloing what is supposed to be group content? Can you stop them? Is it even possible to stop them now with billions of XP and the top end gear. How does nerfing a skill affect lower level player (in reality and tested properly)?

    Sorry just a load of random and rhetorical questions I would be asking myself in this situation. :)

    I think the reality is that it is not possible until you have parameters to work in and the current system has none.

    Something like:

    Episode 1: GM skill cap. x attunement cap. 100 stat cap.
    Episode 2: 120 skill cap. xx attunement cap. 120 stat cap.

    That kind of thing.
     
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  19. FBohler

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    @Superbitsandbob
    You hit the nail once again.

    People will group up if they want no matter how strong they are.
    People won't like being forced into group play if they don't want to.
    Nerfing any skill won't make other skills any better.
    Balancing a niche feature (PVP) at expence of the majority of the active players won't bring any new players in.
     
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