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Post by madzapper on Dec 8, 2017 22:02:45 GMT
For the most part tags are not too 'difficult', in fact most new players can fly to Level 30 until they face the Mother of Corn and the !newbie channel blows up with "Help, I can't damage Mother of Corn, it's been 20 minutes and she's only Barely Injured!". This is only the beginning since half the Level 30+ tags are the same; if you're a new player, good luck trying to bring down those ridiculously tanky bosses with your melee toon. Unless the henchman can cast IGMS, I don't think it'll make a difference. I don't know about the coding time, but I definitely agree that level 30 is where a lot of the new folks start having issues. It's really where you need to start functioning as a party a lot of the time. Hels is almost the polar opposite for many casters and second tier ab folks. I, personally, would like to see some of the ridiculous high AC, SR swapped out for things that users encounter later on like types of kickback and/or specific immunities that matter, but can be overcome with the proper gear. Those things help people get used to LL and beyond more.
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Post by woqued on Dec 8, 2017 22:08:32 GMT
Money isn't an issue even for newer players; I thought it would be for me, but randomized gear sells for very good money in the armor/weapon shops and random weapons or simply going through the loot at Bandits or the Beholder tag cave grants you all the money you could use on shop goods. The new blood simply needs to realize the power of randomize to have money to utilize shops or use invis and grab valuable sets from bandits/pow. That said I don't think staring and deciding which and what items to remove from the shops as is is worth anyones time unless they do it out of passion or as a curiosity. I believe the new users are forced to randomize most of their gear by hand. Even if 50% of the found gear was randomized, I think it would be enough of a boost to help out. I say 50% because at low levels, finding gear you can wear is rough enough without it being randomized out of your level. Yeah, this is what I also meant by "realizing" the power of it - perhaps should've used better words. Any item you don't intend to use => instant randomize and see the value or discard - but it may not be obvious that such an option is there and how much value it entails.
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Post by desocupado on Dec 8, 2017 22:14:26 GMT
Removing regen and all 100% has a long mileage.
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Post by madzapper on Dec 8, 2017 22:15:27 GMT
I believe the new users are forced to randomize most of their gear by hand. Even if 50% of the found gear was randomized, I think it would be enough of a boost to help out. I say 50% because at low levels, finding gear you can wear is rough enough without it being randomized out of your level. Yeah, this is what I also meant by "realizing" the power of it - perhaps should've used better words. Any item you don't intend to use => instant randomize and see the value or discard - but it may not be obvious that such an option is there and how much value it entails. I think if you don't automatically do it for some of the loot, it becomes too much of a chore. I also can't tell you how many new players I've had to walk through the process of "randomization" so that they can farm their own gold. If part of the loot was randomized already, they get used to randomized loot, see the value, and probably get some good items to boot.
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Post by woqued on Dec 8, 2017 22:16:29 GMT
For the most part tags are not too 'difficult', in fact most new players can fly to Level 30 until they face the Mother of Corn and the !newbie channel blows up with "Help, I can't damage Mother of Corn, it's been 20 minutes and she's only Barely Injured!". This is only the beginning since half the Level 30+ tags are the same; if you're a new player, good luck trying to bring down those ridiculously tanky bosses with your melee toon. Unless the henchman can cast IGMS, I don't think it'll make a difference. I don't know about the coding time, but I definitely agree that level 30 is where a lot of the new folks start having issues. It's really where you need to start functioning as a party a lot of the time. Hels is almost the polar opposite for many casters and second tier ab folks. I, personally, would like to see some of the ridiculous high AC, SR swapped out for things that users encounter later on like types of kickback and/or specific immunities that matter, but can be overcome with the proper gear. Those things help people get used to LL and beyond more. +1+1+1+1 - monsters primary "obstacle power" being ridiculous DR and Immunities makes for a fairly big turn-off encounter. Even dealing with some of the primary offenders like Hel, Zerya, MoC and the lvl 40 Dragons Would go a long way. Could easily make them simply punch harder, give them kickback of their types, or other abilities and tone down defenses. HP seems like a better way to make balanced encounters than absurd regen, damage reductions, soak and immunities - and HP sucks too if gone to extremes like Zerya. There are much better encounters at 1-40 such as Drider Chiefs and their mages, Deepbats, Axilar, Hendrons / Grey Queen, the silly ant weaponmaster, the Zenths, Razhid, Lolth - they can be challenging and interesting at least to a small party or soloer without resorting to absurd defenses.
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Post by woqued on Dec 8, 2017 22:17:30 GMT
Yeah, this is what I also meant by "realizing" the power of it - perhaps should've used better words. Any item you don't intend to use => instant randomize and see the value or discard - but it may not be obvious that such an option is there and how much value it entails. I think if you don't automatically do it for some of the loot, it becomes too much of a chore. I also can't tell you how many new players I've had to walk through the process of "randomization" so that they can farm their own gold. If part of the loot was randomized already, they get used to randomized loot, see the value, and probably get some good items to boot. I always bind !randomize and command targeter at CTRL 11 + CTRL 12 (get them with one hand by pressing ctrl near Enter) and spam through the inventory periodically. Edit: also always do the same when forging at ixion; bind !randomize, !forge and command targeter to make such potentially chore-like activities less so.
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Post by woqued on Dec 8, 2017 22:19:53 GMT
Removing regen and all 100% has a long mileage. Regen only becomes absurd when there are high DR's on the monsters so the multiple attacks that land don't do anything but chip damage which ends up being unable to overcome the regen. Regen is fine when it's on beefy monsters that take damage. Edit: okay i'll start responding to these in one post, the post spam is getting out of hand! Sorry.
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Post by Growly on Dec 15, 2017 17:24:51 GMT
When I started playing it was AW POA, and there was an item in the Finely Crafted Imports, a Carafe, that you would load with 5 potions, and get 10 uses iirc. You not only saved gold on pots, but the buff time was reduced significantly. Maybe add something like this for low level new players, have the old lady in merchants sell it and be usuable at a low level, say, 4 or 6. Just a thought. Z
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Post by chirality on Dec 15, 2017 19:05:13 GMT
could just go ahead and put the uro one as lowbie tag drop/quest reward tbh
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Post by Growly on Dec 15, 2017 20:00:03 GMT
Could but the Uro one is only good for one pot, the one I remember held 5, similar to an autocaster.
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Post by Torin on Dec 15, 2017 20:06:48 GMT
Some teleportation device for low levels. Not just the gem that brings you back to town, more something that teleport you back and forth. I really missed something like this when I once started HG.
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Post by chirality on Dec 15, 2017 22:46:51 GMT
Could but the Uro one is only good for one pot, the one I remember held 5, similar to an autocaster. Sure, that'd be great. I was just offering a related idea not instead of. Some teleportation device for low levels. Not just the gem that brings you back to town, more something that teleport you back and forth. I really missed something like this when I once started HG. Same. Something like "town portal scroll" and/or waypoint system.
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Post by Growly on Dec 16, 2017 0:06:19 GMT
That would be a good change chirality, make em more low level friendly, as you said maybe as a quest item. can you have more than 1? cant remember
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Post by fallenwizard on Dec 16, 2017 15:02:10 GMT
There's tons of inconveniences on the lower levels. Overall this post can be flagged as /rant in case of mod team wants to keep 1-40 balanced for group of 3+ players. My view however is that any strong, well built/geared char should be able to solo his way to lvl 40 tags. 40's is the point where I'd first start encouraging partying but there's still plenty of tags there that could use tweaking among them.
Then there are things that are annoying as in time sink, not something that makes the game hard. One good example of such is 1min run from town to quests in docks. This adds good 30mins or so in total during the levelling, something a modern game should get rid of. Few possibilities for this: change the quests to town or add different token that ports you to each of the areas in docks as a reward for first round of quests.
Something that has been brought up, something similar to Gate spell, a way to port back on your current progression point. I'd like it to be something that cancels on death so it is more used to unload stuff/give in quests/buy items that helps you kill your enemies that you currently cant harm etc.
This brings us to many very annoying enemies. Back when I was levelling many new chars, I made a bot account that had chars parked at lvl 8, 17, 21, 30 and 40. Even those casters with optimized spell selections/and unlimited to be able to kill all the bosses it was still far far from fun.
I know few years ago there was some rework around many of the 1-40 areas but that didnt address many of the bosses and their balance issues. As it has been mentioned MoC, Hel, 30+ dragons are very in very unhealthy position. Dragons used to be lvl 20 end game bosses that were targeted for targeted 3-4 man parties to handle with their ele immunities, insane ab/ac and timestop etc abilities. Those are all something that a lvl 80 max lvl mod such as HG should change by a lot.
I'll list some things here. AC / AB that I mention dont take tumble into account since tumble is class specific as is WM/AA AB boost or pal/clr buffs.
Formanian Matriarch: lvl 22 tag that has insane ab. Ac of lvl 22 char is around 10 (base) + 8 (def) + 8 (nat) + 9 dodge (4 haste, 5 boots) + 8 (nat) + 8 armor + dex/shield/armor = 65'ish and she cuts through that like a butter. Untill she swaps to use the +0 no ability/dmg bonus bassie for crafting that is in her backpack.. AB of tier 1 bab tank is around 48-50 (21 bab, +7 wep, +2 buffs (bless/aid), +4 feats, +15 str/dex) and her ac on my memory is very high + resists to physical dmg. First of.. get rid of the blade and make put in into her chest. 2nd balance her resist so that she takes dmg from +6 weapon hits, aka can keep x/+5soak if want to avoid spell physical dmg. Her ab should cap at 50'ish range. Tbh, I'm not 100% sure if my melee's failed to kill her due ac or DR's but her ac should cap at 50-55 and phys resist/immunity lowered into to the said x/+5 soak.
Asimathas/Ghrenaxis/Lithu what ever those 30-32 drakes names are... they should be killable by melee's as well, even if it is slow fight.. Get rid of their time stop that can and will kill a solo melee. Their ab/ac/regen/immunity should be such that there is a clear opening for store bought gear to deal dmg to them (maybe 2-3% of their hp/hit). AC wise lvl 30 is (+10's is avail due lvl but more likely to have +9 average) 10 +9def, +9nat, +12dodge (optimistic that one has +8ac boots and haste) + armor/dex/shield = 70'ish. AB by 30 varies more due different builds opting into dev crit instead of more str/dex early on etc.. but AB of 25bab + 5 feats + 9 magical + str/dex = 52-54 should be the balance point. (note how magical stays the same as store weps are +7 and +2 buffs vs +10 gmw available at the lvl).
MoC/Queen Z should be around similar numbers to the drakes, I can see that diff ele/exo is prioritized but phys doing 0's is just blatant split to the face especially given their hp numbers. Also note that if target has conceal/Edodge their ac should be lowered by 4-6 range.
Rhaz is interesting boss as being sort of anti-magic but isnt any way vulnerable to melee either.. some number fixing should be in order here aswell.
Hel and her crew, I read they stopped using TS but as long as their immunities wont change they are nothing but 15-30mins pita. If you can survive their melee you will kill them in time, if not you die fast.
Similar ac/ab check would be in order for the morgue of darkness boss, shadow something.
Same player ac limit of 75-80 should be the balance point for boss ab up to 38 (lvl 40 gear provides significant ac boost, untill that there is very minimal increase). This is of course assuming no additional items are to be made. Adding plain +10/11.../15 item to a merchant would change these numbers by a lot as then one who focuses ac could actually achieve required numbers. However, just adding the AC items wouldn't help anything killing the bosses, something still needs to be done to player dmg options or bosses resist/immunity/ac.
Then there's the 40 drakes that are just plain out anti-fun, melee does nothing, casters spam same spell 100 times and then it might die. Again, melee's need to deal 2-5% of their hp in dmg with reasonable hit percentage. That 2-5% depends on the regen they have, 5% means 20 hits aka 4 rounds aka 24secs/48 with 50% hit ratio, which is too short of a fight, but high regen would counter that. Balance around 5-7min fight would be my goal for solo melee, mages should kill faster as they also are in bigger danger of dying them selves.
There's still other stuff but will leave that to another post.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2017 17:37:03 GMT
There's tons of inconveniences on the lower levels [...] That is SO me right now I've been the last 3 days stuck at level 29, cant take the next level or I'd lose tags. Mother of Corn, weapon ineffective. Bloodpool, weapon ineffective. It's been like that for a while now, and my weapon isn't half bad. Today I was with some other melee type against Bloodpool, I asked why that was happening. Same answer I've been getting since I started here: "we're going to need a wizard". Awesome, alweays the same. When you can't even hit the boss for "1" damage, something is wrong with balance. I can't barely find people to party with, now they must be wizards. I don't buy the "it's meant for parties, everyone has a role" argument, by the way. Not when casters are soloing their way up without issues. Sorry to be this negative, but I'm struggling finding a reason to continue. PD: If the person I was trying to do Bloodpool with earlier today reads this: sorry that I ragequit after the fail
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