Balance Suggestion Overall Game.

1. Private Mode (Remove me)

Causes lack of visibility of players to new players. Giving a skewed perception of how many people are online. Would help with over saturation of more common Artifacts. Enable a stat on the launcher or website show actual player count online. Steam numbers not showing true # which most reviews look at, showing the game in the wrong light. Perception of the public needs the real information! The biggest complaint I get from new players is they never see anyone playing the game. Also comes up as a point when Youtubers review the game.

2. Loot Tables (Tighten me up)

Narrow me down per mob type or boss type.

Example: Now I loot a dragon, and the good loot is possibly 30-some-odd different artifacts in the loot table, most not having any relation to said dragon. Torqdal can drop any Artifact from what I can tell, except ones that are exclusive to other bosses like Spider boss and so on.

Example of a more organized way to set a loot table.

Orange Dragon: Eliminate from Loot Table most, to all non-related artifacts.

Generic Junk Loot=% Chance in addition to the below.

Common Loot=75% Chance (Fire Ring Common)

Uncommon Loot=20% Chance (Wand of Undying Embers Common)

Rare Loot=5% Chance (Vexlyn’s Ember of Conflagration Common)

3. NPC Balance

I am going to be as general as possible, considering this is a big topic.

There are a few builds that are what I would call Viable for Attenuation (15M XP an hour) Bludgeon in Spindle Extreme, Fire anywhere with high mob density, Any Taming build, and Bard build. The problem with other build does not only lie in the build itself, it lies in the resistances of the NPCs. With my personal experience I know that If I make a very good Air build with High INT/Dex and High Attunement and I go to Spindle, I will not be doing more then 30 some odd dmg due to NPC resistances being extremely high. This is the same issue with Death builds and not just in spindle. I also think that Death being able to drain life from death style mobs at a low percentage. This would open a lot more of the game to the player. In conclusion The NPCs in the game need a serious resistance balance pass.

4. SKILL TREE Balance

Tweaks across the board needed. I’m not going to know about or have the space to list everything. I’m going to concentrate on the standouts.

Polearm: Low crit rate overall not taking advantage of the crit dmg Poles are good at. Focus cost for Polearm abilities are extremely high. Base Pole dmg still way too low to compare to other melee trees.

Bludgeon: Too many CCs when using all your abilities in spam type build the CC resistance buffs stack too quickly, do too multiple abilities have the same CC on them. Maybe Spread out he different CCs among the melee trees. Stun with Bludgeon, Knockdown with Poles, Knockback with Swords?

Swords: Most of the abilities have a huge delay due to the animations. Keeping you from using other abilities after each other. Feels really bad and non-fluid in their movements.

AIR: Overall damage output low. CC Resistance stacking an issue here as well. Maybe enable the ability to modify abilities to remove CC and add damage? Enable a way of removing the Focus drain from the attunement buff! A buff should not make you worse... Creates an issue for new players trying to use AIR as an option.

Death: Overall sad damage. (May be due to almost everything high level having to high resistance to death) Need some kind of PBAOE (Including drain with it) Would help with viability in bigger fights. Need to be able to drain health even from death mobs, I would suggest at a lower rate of healing.

Earth: Damage horrible. AOE cast time very bad, should be able to insta cast without stopping your movement. Maybe make it leave behind a minor dmg effect on the ground where you cast it? Maybe a constant Knockdown chance?

Water: Damage is low. I understand that this Is probably meant to be a support skill tree. Slow just not good enough. The shield needs more incentive to use it over the alternatives.

Sun: Damage is low. Also, a secondary for sure. The Cone is too expensive on XP and Focus cost. Maybe have a Sunray AOE that locks you into its focus attack, slowly drain focus over time, why doing damage, doesn’t end casting until you end the cast?

Moon: Debuffs not good enough! Damage is almost OK.

Fire: No Touchy!

Light Armor:

Turn me into Medium Armor. (Leather) Add a Dex Buff with Crit DMG or Crit chance on Spec.

Add Light Armor: (Cloth) Base me around caster builds. Including an INT buff with Crit Chance or Damage on Spec.

Subterfuge: 2 Attacks with 0 damage on them. Backstab animation delay, huge amount of time before you can use another ability. Stealth ability near non useable. Game needs Hand to Hand weapons, The stat loss by not using weapons doesn’t make this a viable option.

These are all my opinions, and my suggestions. This all comes from my years of experience in this MMO and many others! I ask the Devs to contact me with any questions. I volunteer my time freely to a game I wish to play for a long time to come.

 

I am in complete agreement with everything you said.

 

No private mode already existed years ago, the game played terrible due to game not being able to support large dungeons, large numbers of players.

2 to 10 players hunting the same 3-8 mobs that spawn in one area trying to get the same drops frustrated way too many people, this is a thing that was already tested "no private mode" and failed miserably (Population was still low), thus introducing private mode as the permanent fix.

Just so you are within full understanding, the game had a small population back when we had no private mode and it improved nothing, only made it worse.

Also remember the fact, majority of players wanted private mode so it is not going anywhere, its going to stay in the game.

 

We may differ in opinion, but the game has come a long way since then. A lot more stable! Would force more other zones to be used instead of the 3 zones used now. I would perhaps delay the removal until they add more difficulty levels to older zones. Would create more options. EverQuest did very good with this, do to other options when certain zones were full.