Release 33 Instructions

I think forcing PvE players into PvP instances, even for the story, is going to be very UNpopular, given the Kickstarter goals.
I urge you to reconsider this decision, even if that means an exception for story scenes only.
Personally, I think this decision will, again, reduce your target demographic needlessly, but that's just my opinion.

 

@DarkStarr - I am really saddened that you went ahead with the decision to force players to pick between giving up days of their progress and potentially millions of experience points, or having a skill that is effectively worthless because it caps out usefulness at level 55. I am minorly more sad by the fact that this decision was introduced alongside a convenient store item to reduce that loss to "only" 10% and save hours of gustball training.

This sends the message that as players, we should feel thankful that we are given the option to pick between either spending money, or losing game time whenever portalarium decides to completely rebalance or rework any skill in the game. It also implies heavily that players should only stick to the mass-used trees, as every rebalance on those has been small and contained, some requiring multiple balance adjustments, rather than over-doing it.

Throwing one in "for free" is not only inadequate as the skill tree spans much more than just one skill(high level tamers require collar recovery+ taming at minimum, so already we're 1 book short for both skills), but insulting as it means that you see this issue as being big enough to warrant reparations to players, but not enough to actually change anything on the week+ QA was out nor to actually give the players back the full amount that they lost. This means ~2-3 million exp lost at 10% in the average case. It sends the message that people were wrong to level up the skill and that you wish to punish them for it. While I am sure this was not your intent, that is what it conveys when forcing players to give up their progress at anything less than 100% return rate.

In addition, given that the ratio of tamers to non tamers is well under 1 in 10( would venture 1 in 100 for any considerable amount of skill invested), this has the appearance of a bribe to buy everyone's tacit approval to a 10% experience loss on any future change and that they should pay for the privilege for it not to be higher. When players complain later on a more widely used skill, I predict "Well you didn't object in r33" will be used.


For everyone who is not a tamer, here is the context for saying taming is useless except cosmetically: At gm summoning/combat training skill, a large red spider(taming 55, collar recovery 30s) is equally powerful to a ferocious red spider (requires 119 taming + 90+ collar recovery). Current projections (untested but fairly accurate) seem to put this continuing past 120+ skill in each.

 

OMG those undead and their mages are gonna be A LOT harder to defeat without the ability to loot while weapons out! I'm up for the challenge!!!

Looks like another amazing release!

 

No, the lots always came with the first 15 days of taxes free. That's been happening for a while.

 

Perhaps you didn't hear during the telethon (and I don't blame you it was 12 hours long) that they will be giving everyone a Book of the Obsidian for free?

 

The implication (to me) from this one time "gift" is that from this point forward, players will be financing balancing and bug fixes. Not a good thing.

 

@DarkStarr this should be reworded if you can't interact when being attacked by a creature only vs just being in combat mode (which I hope isn't the case).

 

It seems you didn't read the rest of the post before quoting. I took time to write it, so can we do that next time? Thanks!
Let me repeat it here for you:

 

Also mentioned during that telethon, was that orbs currently work by adding 15 days free, and therefore ARE stackable. This was news to I believe Darkstarr, as he was corrected on air when he said they don't stack. While we were assured that this bug would be quickly repaired, as it stands currently that is their behavior.

I look forward to, as we found on QA, the first time people try fighting a group of liches/skeleton mages.
Since you can't loot anything, it is quite tiring for anyone who is not an AOE mage as they res each other faster than single targets can kill them in high end areas.

 

We're in early development, and I have been saying that pet taming was OP for about a year. I have a hard time believing that anyone didn't honestly recognize that.

Ferocious Spiders on sale for 50k! Seriously? How could anyone compete without this?

The whole thing has a very "don't cry for me Argentina" kind of feel to it. The lesson to learn here is that if you're over using a particular skill or tree or tactic or strategy, then prepare to adjust when it's fixed. The lesson is not to just expect the developers to ignore it and allow you to game the system at the expense of everyone else. That goes for everyone, including me.

 

Reminder: 'Alpha' game will change often.. it is not released yet, it was only final wipe.. roll with it.. comment in the correct forums with relevant data you've gathered yourself to back up any problems with all proposed changes.

 

So yes, there is hope for cannibalism!!!

 

Absolutely, and I'm hoping for it as well! I'm very certain we will see it...

 

@DarkStarr , you cannot resist the power of the darkside! Step into the darkside!!!! Muahhahahaha

 

Nope. I would rather not blame the victims, myself. Blaming customers for playing the game, and then making them pay for the bug fixes? I've never heard of a company doing that before, and I don't think it's a good precedent. But then again, I am very small.

 

We don't use the term "Alpha" or "Beta" any more it's just "Early Access" now

 

Is this the, "a rising tide lifts all boats" philosophy?

I realize that there are a number of people that like to use that as a rallying cry. "Why not make everything else better and leave pets alone?!" But the reality is that making everything else better would require 4000% more development work verses fixing the problem. I don't see people using taming skills as victims. I see them as people that got a ton of experience using an OP skill. I wish my skills were that OP, I might have reached more of my level grinding goals already.

 

I haven't played in forever, how do I get the headphones, I have had the game for well over a year, so I know that the date shouldn't be an issue.

 

They should be in R33 - tomorrow.

 

So does this forced multiplayer for PVP effect POT and PRT that are PVP? Isn't that going against what you said before about being able to get your stuff out of the bank in a PVP town without having to be in multiplayer mode? ie you make the POT owner mad he kicks you out then he can just camp the bank and kill you each time you try to come get your stuff?

How are you going to handle PVP in story mode when people are spawn camping the entrance to the zone and people won't be able to get to the teleport mage or other method that you would use for quick travel cause your rooted/stunned right when you zone in. Your giving PVP players free targets without the "Meaningful PVP that also minimizes griefing" as you have no "red"/"blue" system in place.