Random Discussion About Chris' Daily Blog

I've said this before: the solution may be as simple as having NPCs be differing types of mages. Why are they casting everything? we're trying to get players to specialize, shouldn't the NPCs do the same? All NPC mages being fire-mages was bad, but also having them all have access to all magics is ALSO bad.

 

06/05/2017
Chris says:
Today will be a short day for me. I think after yesterday, I'm done with reddit for a long while. Today my goal is to make sure the team is working on the right stuff in Starr's absence and then focus on a real overhaul of long duration buffs.

The current plan for the buffs is to make most buffs long BUT have some attached penalty to them. As they were, people felt they had to keep them up and they only lasted a few minute which left players constantly casting and recasting the buffs each fight. For R42 I changed most buffs to be long duration BUT without a downside. For R43 I will likely extend all buffs but make them include a negative aspect as well. So for instance, I will probably make buffs last 1 hour plus BUT each buff might have a minus some amount of attunement to the opposite magic school and minus a little focus.

So for Strength of Earth, it might add 12 strength but subtract 6 air attunement and 12 max focus from your pool. It needs to be a choice that the player has to make vs just something that must always be there. The old choice was do you spend the time and effort to recast it over and over, which was a good balance but tedious.

Thoughts? (BTW, writing this from home as the amazing Maxine is sleeping in and making me late)
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My concern is that if every buff is long even though it will have penalties it takes away from having to manage buffs to paying attention to what is going on. It becomes the same as the mess decay got into. Nothing is simple, it has to get all confused and then balance has to happen. It makes the system more confusing than it has to be. If x is done y will happen. What if you step in lava and you die if you do not have protection on is y=x . Y being buff is not on and X is you are dead. If your buff ran out and you are not protected then that is your bad. Buffs having durations to be managed to me is much more simple. Can we please just do it and be done? I don't mind dying to lava from not being prepared or even dying after some tries of my using my buffs for it being game designed this way. At least I got to try.

 

I was referring the comment of limiting stats to only one at a time. I feel that I have to be well rounded enough with stats and buffs and also defenses to survive and complete that scene in order to advance the story.

I also prefer to play single player and not be limited to playing one archetype. Otherwise the player would not have the ability to choose which skills that they want to develop and have any flexibility.

 

Personally I'm all for adding negatives to stat buffs because I think it may help diversify builds because you may not be able to use them effectively all together. But maybe instead of negative attunement its negative stats.

If I remember correctly 100 attunement with a lvl 100 buff gives +23 to the stat for x duration. Maybe increase these stat buffs to have potential to reach the 40-50 range, but take away from the other stats.

ex: 100 attunement 100 strength of earth = 50 strength -15 int - 15 dex
ex: 100 attunement 100 air's embrace = 50 dex - 15 int - 15 str
ex: 100 attunement 100 enlightenment = 50 int - 15 dex - 15 str

This makes stat buffs individually less effective than they currently are if all 3 are used at once, giving the player only 20 to each stat at 100 attunement+skill instead of the currently potential 23 each if they use all 3 buffs together. This also makes the stat buffs individually about 2.5x stronger than they are now if used on their own.


You want str and dex?
ex: 100 attunement 100 strength of earth = 50 str - 15 int - 15 dex
ex: 100 attunement 100 air's embrace = 50 dex - 15 int - 15 str
total = 35 dex, 35 str, - 30 int.

And you can give the exact same effect to the juxtapose combo that debuffs stats to -50 +15 +15.

Spells and abilities to my knowledge only use 1 or 2 stats in their calculations anyway, so people shouldn't need all 3.
Any magic is obviously int
Earth and air being the exceptions that can be modified by strength, and dex as well as int.

Physical abilities use dex and str, and is only affected by int in your total focus pool. This is where UO's health, stamina, and mana bars were nice. You could create a 'stupid' 10 int berserker, because mana was useless to your build.


I just don't think stat buffs should be tied into receiving negative attunement.

 

In this situation I just use douse, def stance and death shield, or shield if ice instead of death shield should work as well. Once agian, its situational.

 

Wouldn't they all just end up at +20 if you did all 3?

 

Wouldn't they all just end up at +20 if you did all 3?

 

@Chris Leave the buffs alone. I think it's a terrible idea to change them further. There is already a minus for each of them. You have to build the skill up to use them. That is already minus enough. If you are determined on putting in a debuff then make it only for stacked buffing. So single spell lower stats no debuff , 2 stack slight debuff , all the way to 5 stack large bonus/debuff that would make the choice if it's needed at all. I still think it is not needed.

 

I'm all for limiting buffs (high durations on many are fine) and giving them downsides... just have to put a lot of thought into this (Chris is great at this you know) and agree on the downside so everyone is happy.

Also, maybe decreasing the positive effects if the downside is small and balancing them against other skills with equal effects. My inner strength lasts 1 minute 35 seconds and strength of earth lasts what... 6 hours now but both give the same thing. Take a guess which one I've never used .

@Chris STOP reading Reddits!

 

Well yes, but that's still -3 compared to what we currently have, and would require 3 trees being at roughly equal attunement just to keep all stats in the positives. And +20 in every stat for an obsidian arrow isn't going to be as effective as +50 str/int or +35 int and +35 str. Some would still choose to go for the +35 or +50 route depending on the build. Which is what I mean by it could help diversify builds. I don't need a ton of focus in my archer build, so I can opt out of int entirely on my gear. If I have to sacrifice more int to have +35 dex and +35 str, I'm gonna do it.

All in theory anyway, and thought of on the spot as a way to leave attunement out of it. Exact values I'm sure would be subject to change

For the stat buff durations, I'd be content with a half hour long buffs across the board regardless of attunement but with the changes I mentioned. I don't think we really need any harsher penalties for a half hour or maybe even an hour long buff if that's not enough.

 

Its 21 stat per buff at 100 attunement with 100 in the buff skill I think, but I get what your saying.

 

if you still run a buff deck, its 27 stat per buff for 1 hour

 

Maybe with attunement gear, no gear, 100 attunement, 100 in the skill 5 stacked 25.3, unstacked, 21. I am not positive on the unstacked, but pretty sure its 25.3 stacked.

 

I get 27 on my dex buff.
Since i run a high dex set, it influences my air tree in such a way that it gives me more dex from the buff.

 

So to have an opinion here I need some info. What does having a higher focus pool actually do for you? Does it increase my regen? Or is it the obvious my max is higher and it just takes longer for me to burn through it? What existing penalties are there in the game for having things like pets/summons/etc? Why do those exist in terms of what are we preventing against?

For @Chris, which buffs are you planning to increase the time on? There are naturally far more than just the 3 stat buffs and the moon quad resist buff. Douse for instance: If you lower the fire attunement as a result of casting douse on yourself... well you've negated part of what douse does in resisting fire. Due the the extremely different mileage and usefulness of all the magic trees, especially when considering what they're diametrically opposed to, I don't think attunement is a good *penalty* because mileage varies far too much right now. It also doesn't affect all play styles equally.

Strength and Dexterity are in opposing attuned trees; however, they're both basically equally important to any melee class. Outside the obvious need for intelligence, Mage based builds value strength, sure, but it's nowhere near the value melee places on both dexterity and strength. Whatever you end up doing, the result really shouldn't "buff" mage play as a result of melee truly requiring two stats to do anything. The same should go for melee as well.

Assuming we need a penalty for buffing (which sounds goddamned oxymoronic and stupid btw), it needs to be equally damning in scope. Attunement doesn't fit that bill at all. I'm not sure focus does either. A limited # of buffs probably makes the most sense as you're not being crapped on for buffing, you just can only sustain so much buffing because mortal and all that.

Off topic but with intent towards the topic (yes I did), there is no specific *extra* skill that increases my chance to hit with all melee weapons. Mages have a minus fizzle skill, bows have an increased accuracy skill, but melee gets the shaft here. *IF* you added another skill to the game that increased melee chance to hit such that we could be mostly strength and not this half/half strength/dexterity hybrid we currently have to be plus allowed bows to primarily scale their damage off Dexterity w/ a little strength then you would have something to work with. There would be a true *MAIN* stat to each kind of play style and then you could rationally restrict buffs this way.

Just my 2c.

 

It helps with using combat skills. If high enough, it never runs out and thus allows the player to spam fight without hindrance. If low enough, it leaves the player with only auto strike capabilities.

It's a "classless game" meaning that there's no pure melee or mage unless the player chooses to hinder or restrict themselves in that way, which is purely by their own choice to do.

~Time Lord~

 

lol I get what focus is and how having some is good Time =P. I want to know if there's any hidden effects of having a higher maximum.

It may be a classless game, but please understand my base point of play-style. Mages naturally aren't trying to get hit, same as bows, and melee is up in their face. Ranged vs melee. Spells vs physical damage. The restriction isn't in the choice of skills but the weapon/armor type. You're not casting anything advanced wearing a heavy plate chest without wands just the same as you're trying not to face tank in cloth. That's the differentiation I was trying to bring up.

 

Are you using any air attunement gear? what is your air attunement? I don't think the base stat effects it because I get 25.3 on each, and for it to just be flukey enough that all my stats are perfect for them all to be equal would be pretty dam amazing.

 

我沒意見...
我只希望這些調整是短暫和快速的
不要像[溫水煮青蛙]一樣

 

I heard that the higher your focus, the better your focus regen, never tested this myself though.