R33 is just TOO much nerf

Loving the new changes. The game was always billed as an active gamers game... not a sit back and watch a pet fight for you game. I get that there is more adjusting to be done but I really like the fact they nurfed the crap out of taming to help balance the active gamers... we have a couple of months of work to do to catch up to everyone who used the overpowered pets for leveling and gold farming... seems only fair things get balanced with a bit farther than needed and then slowly brought back. IMO, keep it how it is for another month AT LEAST if not longer.

 

Okay I'm good now. He did say a lot of pictures or whatever

 

...I don't think that 20 opinions in the sea of thousands of users is a scientifically dependable sample.

 

As it sits right now the majority of people visiting the boards are people presently unable to play (at work, login queue, etc...) or specifically logging in to complain about things. It would be a miracle if the outcome of the poll was not negative because happy people are less likely to show up and vote on knee-jerk anger posts.

Sure, I have some complaints. Mostly about the deed raffle which could be to my benefit if lucky. I might even dislike the economy slow-down changes. But I've not had a chance to play and find out yet. And honestly, neither has anyone else. This is far too quick to render reasonable judgement.

I work at a game development company. Trust me, we don't put much stock in vocal minority and knee-jerk polls. If you want to make a difference, try to present a case for how this damages the long term prospects with a rational discussion. Any GOOD developer has systems in place to gather player metrics. Things that tell us what people do in game rather than just what they say about the game. Your poll measures nothing compared to that. Trust me, if there is a decline then they will see it. And then they will look for opinions in the community. And they will focus on constructive criticisms, not on vocal minority whining.

 

I think instead of the CONSTANT nerfing, Portalarium needs to sit back and take a long hard look at balancing everything as a whole instead of picking single things to nerf. No one likes constant nerfs, and frankly, it makes the game far less enjoyable. There was one thing found to be wrong with the water tree and instead of analyzing it and thinking of ways to make it work differently the entire tree was nerfed hard and still hasn't bounced back from it. It seems the same has happened to the taming tree now too. Not to mention the subterfuge tree is next to worthless aside from a select few (if that) skills in it.

It seems like a lot of the trees and skills were put in with the "oh this sounds cool" idea, but never totally thought through in comparison to other trees. It's been bothering me for a while now and I just kept thinking "next release they'll actually balance the skills", but here we are with nothing balanced and a constant wave of nerfing.

 

I didn't play most of pre-wipe as I didn't want to burn out and have no idea what water tree nerf you are talking about. That being said, I have been thoroughly enjoying the water tree. Sure, I am not positive if the damage trade-off for the slow effects on fist and arrow are 'worth it' but it is cool flavor. Shield of Ice is pretty awesome defensively. Soothing Rain gives a nice longevity boost - though the difficulty of seeing through the rain is a bit rough. The elemental pets are a little weak it seems and sometimes get in the way of self-healing but are definitely useful. And douse makes the majority of fire-themed enemies become much easier. Definitely not a pure damage tree, but a lot of utility in it. I like it.

As for constant nerfing, I think the concern is that people are finding their way to the end game way too early. Also, if any given skill is must have, then it is probably too powerful.

 

Stop complaining. Play the game. Give constructive feedback.

 

Me thinks persistence came a bit too early. Me also thinks there is no such thing as balance in complex systems. Me also also thinks that nerfing should be done lightly and often. Mega nerf is never the way to go.

I feel very bad for all the tamers who went in 100% after persistence. Thanks to my decades of experience in the IT profession I have learned to never trust anything until after the first major service pack is released. Unfortunately for MMOs this pretty much means never. I am just taking the game very slowly. At this point I have 600 gold to my name with my first sword down to 89/99. I refuse to jump into anything full speed at this point as I know it will result in little more than lamentations down the road.

If you see something shiny and game winning this release know that is will only be so during this release because the only way devs can "balance" a complex system is watch for the major data spikes and then squash them.

 

This is far from a complex skill system. It's pretty straight forward compared to lots of others. There just wasn't nearly enough thought put into them.

 

So what you're saying is.....Taming = Vista??!!

 

Honestly guys, a lot of you just look ridiculous with all this whine, threats and doomsday. I'm not exactly happy myself but you all click confirm on the picture below every time you log in. Still you act like 10 year old kids that haven't learned to control their feelings yet or how to expres constructively.

 

While this is 100% true, we're also in persistence. The stuff we're doing now counts for real this time. They may still be working on the game, but what we're doing has a lasting effect on the game as a whole. The effort put in now is lasting, or should be.

 

@Gnarxly Yes, but that in no way reduces people's duty to express their complaints, disappointments, or appreciation.

 

@Gnarxly Is this feedback forum ?? It's true that you will see more negative feedback than good one... this is human nature not because we are 10 year old crying baby

 

I disagree. The schools are not straight forward. They are not like most MMOs that made x professions that are really just different skins on similar powers. These are completely separate skills that have unique powers and they can be mixed or matched in literally thousands of combinations. Worse the skills have no hard cap so as long as power gamers can keep all their skills fresh they can make templates that are amazing and that will be in the data spikes regularly. Power gamers will rule and they will always pick the most effective skills and thus we will have FOTM issue here constantly and the mega-nerf bat will be pulled out to whack down the new FOTM and the devs will continue this cycle ad naseum to the chagrin of the casual players that just want to enjoy the game for what it could be if only dev cycles could be put on creating new content instead of finding balance that never will be by severely degrading what was a bit OP last month.

It seems the more things change the more they stay the same.

 

The new Walt Disney style Mining respawn is rediculus !!!

 

If you want to see a complex skill system look at Shadowbanes. This is a fraction of what Shadowbane had. It's not even close. Not to mention Shadowbane was fairly balanced after a couple of adjustments (not constant nerfs).

While there isn't a hard cap (there wasn't in Shadowbane either), there's an obvious point where the effort put in is not even close to the return you get from it. The effort is MUCH better spent in training something else up. Even if you do have everything maxed, you can only use so many of the skills in your deck. It's not super complicated and the deck compositions make the skill tree even more restrictive.

 

But freaking out is so much more rewarding!!! ;-)

 

Well. Ladies and gentleman. I do appericate all you thoughts and comments. We all have many different opinions on taming. If you want to compair it to UO you have to follow your dragon which has 5x health you do. You have to heal and control you pet. It's not just follow you pet around and loot the dead bodies. It also takes a lot of time gold and skills to be able to control a pet. The simple solution to the problem was to put skill reqs on summoning pets. Not to nerf the entire taming tree that many people spent countless hours raising an experience pool to train and time time to make collars. This practice that PORT just did basically said hey tamers, we do NOT care about you and your pledges but we do thank you for your money, keep the $ coming. During R33 I bet their $ intake will go down drastically unlike last release when I can honestly say I supported the game 20x more. Now I do not even enjoy going out and hunting. I have the most skill in taming and do not even summon my worthless pet and yes I tamed my own large red spider that I used. And bunny I must say thank you for the pics of the finger of shame. The DEVs have had an epic fail on their part and will be witnessing a major backlash in people loosing interest and not playing the game as much.