Combat, Skills, & Magic Testers - QA Skill Boost Requests

@Attenwood

Hey if your still needing testing I could use:

Character Name: Zithro
Desired Skills: Blade Tree all 100, Ranged Tree All 100, Life Tree All 100, Earth Tree All 100,
Desired Stats: 500 Health, 450 Focus.

Thanks

 

@Attenwood

I would like to test crafting again. I will set up a lot in Owls head again and update this post.
I have claimed the village lot to the right directly when you zone into Owls head.
I have also set you to Co Owner on the lot.

Char Name: Ashmaul

Myself and Daxxe will test every thing you give use. we can them all in a few hours so any resources and skills would be great.

Thanks again
Ash

 

Master Vallo

all combat and magic to the max pls going to have some free days off.

 

UPDATE: As a way to bypass the time-intensive nature of manual skill entry, we now have a tool that will simultaneously boost EVERY skill all at once. So the process is now an all or nothing choice. We will be going through request posts and boosting those that asked to assist in testing.

If this is problematic in anyway, feel free to let me know in a post by saying "Attenwood, I do not want my character to be the embodiment of perfection" and I'll make sure to reset your skills back down.

 

/boost

 

Character name on QA?

 

@Attenwood, please boost character "Ruby Atani". Thanks!

 

Opp, ill get back to ya later on that one.

 

@Attenwood
Could I get resources to test crafting please?

 

Status as of 07.21.16 09:53am CDT

Need Review:
@Rubus Bramble: No character created since wipe. Waiting for creation and ping.
@EclipseMaiden: No character created since wipe. Waiting for creation and ping.
@FrostII: No character created since wipe. Waiting for creation and ping.
@Lockeydragon: No character created since wipe. Waiting for creation and ping.
@Vallo: No character created since wipe. Waiting for creation and ping.
@Ruin2: Waiting on character name

Done:
@Oba Evesor: Done
@Couldin: Done
@Ancev: Done
@Sindariya: Done
@Gamician: Done
@Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Done
@Sammegarian: Done
@Bushmaster: Done
@ashmaul: Done (need specifics of what resources are needed)
@helm: Done

 

Please post your request with specific material types desired in the Crafting thread linked in the original post.

 

/boost Archer

 

Char created and online right now.

 

can I just get everything maxed out to 100 and I'm just Juko in game

 

@Attenwood
@Chris

First I want to thank you for the opportunity to test using GM skills. I've been able to confirm quite a bit about my many observations over the years, and I'd like to share that with you now.

1. Because my character was level 1 and everything I normally would fight was much higher than that, I couldn't hit them. I would miss with just about every attack even though all my skills were at 100. This may not seem like a big deal, but believe it is. What I find consistently when I play the game is that I have to fight monsters much higher level than I am to keep my XP pool increasing. This is very hard to do if you're playing the game solo and straight up (i.e. you're not using popular exploits like standing by a ankh near quickly respawning mobs, using high level tamed pets (which are OP), kitting (yes of course this is an exploit), or all three (like at a control point). If you're just normal solo player your XP runs out pretty fast, so back on point you have to fight stuff much higher level than you are or you don't advance.

Which means you're going to be missing a lot, but it also means your summoned pets are going to be missing A LOT. For example, who will win in a fight? A Daemon that was cast using a 100 level skill? Or a Large Polar Bear? Well the answer is that the Polar Bear destroys the Daemon while only losing about 10% if its total hit points. So if you said Large Polar Bear, you were correct (because my character level was only 5 at the time). I believe that summoned creatures are using the "level" of the caster to determine if they can hit something or not. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is.

The problem is that, as stated above, when you're trying to play the game "straight" you are going to be fighting stuff much higher level than you to keep your XP bar filled. But your summoned creatures are not going to be able to hit anything making them completely worthless. Even if they can hit things they're really pretty worthless though, not even close to the power of a tamed pet. An interesting experiment would be to see what level a caster has to be before a skeleton can beat a tamed chest mimic. I'm guessing it would be pretty freakin high (like 60 something).

2. The first thing I noticed when I started testing all these GM skills was that my hit points were really low. That surprised me A LOT because I always assumed that the bulk of hit points came from your skills. I knew level played a factor but I didn't know how much of a factor. It's ENORMOUS! In fact, it's so bad, it will be difficult for me to not lose my cool and jump out of a window while writing about this.

At level one with all my skills maxed out to 100 my hit points were something like 250. Now think about that. We've all seen players that are high level running around with 500, 600, even high 700's in hit points. So what's making up all that extra HP? Levels. As my character began to kill things, my hit points went up dramatically. I was probably about level 10 or 15 when my hit points reached 315.

What this means is that if the only difference between my character and someone that's GM'd every skill is character level, then will have as much as 500 more hit points than I do. So they can literally kill me three times as easy as I can kill them just because they farmed a bunch of mobs. It doesn't make any sense. The skill levels should matter a lot more and the levels should matter a lot less and the end result is that no one should be walking around with 500 extra hit points than anyone else. Hit points should just be a very flat line of progression that is not tied to levels and can never have such a discrepancy. Otherwise you get pvp fights that are based around "knowing" that you have such a ridiculous advantage that you can't help but win. That's an environment that promotes griefing and meaningless pvp.

If we're really serious about making pvp better, we'll flatten the curve for hit points, remove the level modifiers, and when it's all said and done, a 55 GM'd player might have 100 more hit points than a new person, but nothing more than that. That will promote much more interesting and meaningful pvp. (my next observation will show a good example of "why" that is)

3. I also tested what I'm sure many people have thought about building, an assassin. Sneak Attack, Night Step, Shadow Form. That's all you need to make the first hit. I tried to include Poison also, but it's bugged and unable to be triggered.

What I found using this build was exactly what we all know. Stealth is broken at the design level. Sneak Attack doesn't do enough damage. Night Step isn't practical. Here are some common examples of what I found:

• I used a 5 stack shadow form, at night, with all my skills maxed out, and I was IMMEDIATELY unstealthed by an archer that was about 30 feet away from me. It was comical how poorly "the best" possible stealth stats worked.
• When using a 5 stack backstab with an 82 strength and a 60 dexterity, hitting from behind the target while stealthed I consistently did between 74 and 159 points of damage, and never crit (using a regular longsword). Now remember that there are players walking around with near 800 hit points, and this build (in theory) would be the bulk of your attack capability. So what this means to me is that it's not viable in any way shape or form to use this in pvp, and it's a waste of time in pve because everything else is so much more efficient. I had videos of this, but it's just not worth the effort to upload them.
• Using a 5 stack shadow form, in the dark, I was consistently spotted by mobs if they were facing me.
• I tried to use Mind Lock while stealthed, it unstealthed me. Really? Mind lock can't be used when steatlthed? There are many skills that should be usable when stealthed, Night Vision comes to mind. Really anything that doesn't make an aggressive move or cause damage or make light should be usable in stealth mode.
• When using a 5 stack 100 level night step, in the dark, I was consistently spotted and unstealthed before I could use an attack. This completely removes any reason for using night step for its intended purpose.
• A 100 level Night Vision only last for like 2 - 3 minutes. While a light spell lasts for almost 8 minutes. There's a lot of balancing between spells with the same function that still needs to occur.
• The amount of effort it takes to perform a stealthed backstab is unparalleled with anything else in the game. You have to stack shadow form, and sneak attack, move without being spotted, and attack before your glyphs expire. Even if you're using a 100 skill level mind lock, it's extremely challenging. Which would be fine, but that it doesn't do very much damage relative to all the work and skill points being used.

4. STR, DEX, INT. I have maxed out all skills but my STR is 82. My DEX is 60 and my INT is 60. This means that strength is unbalanced. The skills that people choose lead them to be stronger than they are dexterous and intelligent. That makes the majority of characters more built around HP...and punishes people that don't want to be he-man.

There should be more balance.


Here are my suggested changes for stealth, sneak attack, and night step:

• First, sneak attack should be changed to Back Stab. I don't understand why we want to make yet another frontal attack (we have tons already) that is really supposed to do well when you use it from behind a target. Back Stab should only work from behind. What to level it up? Practice makes perfect.
• Next, Back Stab should ignore armor, ignore avoidance, ignore resistance, ignore level, ignore dodge, ignore block, and if successfully attacked from behind and while steatlhed it should automatically crit. This is the payoff for all the hard work involved in using this skill.
• But to ensure that we NEVER create a situation where there are one shot kills, Back Stab should only do a percentage of damage (recommend 65%) regardless of what the target is. So if it's a new person that has 100 hit points it should do 65 points of damage. If it's some pumped up power gamer with 800 hit points it should do 520 points of damage. (this assumes that the player has full hit points, yes you'd be very vulnerable to a finishing backstab if you were low on hit points)
• Regarding stealth, I think the system we have works "ok". But vanish and camouflage don't have a lot of usefulness at the moment because people don't have an incentive to stand still. I believe the incentive to use vanish and camouflage is that players should be 100% invisible using these spells. If they move or use an aggressive act, make a light source, or perform an act that would cause damage, then they should be unstealthed and there should be an appropriate cool down timer before they can use the spell again.
• In addition, I believe that the Reveal spell should momentarily stun people that are unstealthed by it. This would help even out the cat and mouse game of using stealth.
• Night Step, if used at night, should not destealth you, in fact it should give you a temporary bonus to your stealth ability against mobs that will make it impossible for you to be destealthed for a good 3 seconds. Why? Because that ensures that you can actually make an attack and get some value out of the skill. It's already limited by it being night time, and by you needing to time your attack, and by it just working this one time before it has a cool down. Currently it really almost never works.
• Remove or lower some of the skills that add to strength to balance out the playing field between the attributes so that all add up to 60 with max skill level.

These are things that I've been saying for a long time, but now finally I have been to the top of GM mountain and I have proof that this is how it all works (or doesn't). Please make these changes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.

 

Here is my OP spell list:

1. Chain Lightning

• It's a really cool spell. But the range is extended well past the 20 listed on the mouse over to 20x20x20x20 whatever happens to be around in the scene. In practical terms it can go 40 or 60 if you have stuff spaced out far enough. I can't even see where it's going half the time the range is off my screen. That's OP.
• It looks like R32 has increased the focus cost, that's good. However there's no freakin cool down for this thing. (or for Lightning) so it's really just a spammy sort of spell that doesn't have a downside. It would be great if there were a way to reflect this spell back on the caster. That would stop the spamming very quickly in pvp.
• Used this spell to kill everything and I never got interrupted. I don't like interrupts and maybe this was a change for R32 (good!) but I wanted to note that when I use Death Ray I get interrupted all the time, so it should be happening with this too if it's not an intended change.
• I think the biggest problem with this spell is that it has a very good chance to stun every time it's used. I stunned about 10 skeletons that were higher level than I was with just a few casts of chain lightning, then finished them all up as they stood helpless. Think about archery for a moment. We don't make archery skills that let you both do an enormous amount of damage AND slow people down. Those are two separate skills. Here we combine them without balancing the impact to the rest of combat. That's OP.

Suggested changes:

• Add a long cooldown to this spell. NightStep which does ZERO damage and doesn't even work right had a huge cooldown. But this spell doing critical stuns for just 25 focus (maxed out on focus skills) is unreal. I'm cool with giving players the howitzer, just stop firing it like it's Gatling gun. Maybe also consider making it cost MORE focus the more you use it in short time intervals.
• The stun effect would be less problematic if you made the spells that have them use a cool down so you can't chain stun everything that moves. But I also feel like this needs a counter. Just having "well grounded" and a slightly better percentage chance of being stunned doesn't cut it. Give players a reflect spell that also has a cool down. Now the game of cat and mouse is afoot!

 

2. Searing Ray

• Went out to test the effectiveness of Searing Ray vs. Banish Undead. WOW, nothing tells you how OP Searing Ray is like THIS test. Read the tail of the tape, below:
  • Searing Ray is a Level 2 Spell. Banish Undead is a Level 3 Spell.
  • SR does 20 to 151 Sun Damage. BU does 0 to 141 Life Damage.
  • SR has an extremely fast casting time, I can almost cast this spell twice as fast as BU.
  • SR in my test crit for 280 points of damage against undead! BU was doing 50 points of damage consistently and then began to pick up at the sample size got larger. But SR really was more reliable, and with the fast casting time much better. I believe this difference makes SR better than BU, even against undead.
  • BU has a higher range at 48.8. SR has a 20 for range.
  • SR costs 19 focus (at these maxed out levels) and BU costs slightly less at 13.

What's really funny is that I was testing all this against undead and Searing Ray was 10 times as good as Banish Undead.

Suggested changes:

• This is another spell where having the ability to reflect the direct damage would be very helpful in pvp.
• I recommend giving direct damage spells larger cool downs so they can't be spammed.
• I also recommend making Banish Undead more effective than Sun Magic against undead.
• I also recommend making Searing Ray less effective at night so that it turns into a spell that is less effective than other direct damage spells during that time.
• Consider making Banish Undead less effective against non-undead. But making it have a secondary benefit against undead, like they run away.

 

@Attenwood

Protests is the name , thanks

Pronounced pro-tests and not the angry sign type

 

I wanna play god mode! Selene is Selene.

 

@Attenwood
You mentioned "ping", and I'm assuming that you want notification when our char is in QA.
Robert Frost has a char now, so the skill bump would be good.... When you get a chance.