Feedback Release 155 (Rise of Balor)

These do still work, they just aren't displaying the green numbers. I already reported that to support when it was on test server... actually, I told them that in the first couple of days and it made it all the way to the live servers... but what did I expect.

 

Several Things:
1. Ranger's Deadly Blow essence cost need to be reduced from 3 to 2 because its damage was nerfed. Also, the talent Quick Death need to be changed back to 7% attack speed per stack because I could hardly notice the difference even at 15% attack speed increase.
Or you can just increase its damage to 96% which was the damage before r155.

2. The quest "Missing Ingredients 2/2" from Pacalli NPC drop rate is bugged I think, please check because not a single quest item dropped after 20 shamans kills. After 30 kills only 1 dropped...

3. The quest "Fight Back! 1/1" from Amini NPC need to have the number of kills reduced from 50 to 25 because throughout the entire map there are only about 7-10 of the quest monsters....

 

Nerfed Critical :-(

I had a Dragon Knight built around a high critical value (~45%). That allowed me to count on a very impressive damage when using the combo: Rage Leap, Head Butt, multiple Smash hits. At the higher Critical rate, most of the time at least one of the blows against stunned and defensed-reduced monster would be critical. Add in essence bonus and it was some serious damage. Now the Critical rate is so low that it really can't be counted on as part of a tactic. Unless there's some really Critical up items, Critical skills become rather random but not dependable.

 

Couple things that stood out:

- Fame tree is bugged, people with over 10million total points in surplus only went up to 41 instead of 50
- The explosion of the rangers explosive arrow is dealing physical dmg, not fire damage

 

So let's see. I am not a big PVP fan so my comments will be clearly biased towards PVE. Sorry PVP fans, nothing against you, just the way I experience Drakensang and I am perfectly fine with it. Secondly, I play Spellweaver. I recently made a Dragonknight but since I am still quite noobie at it, I don't think my remarks are highly relevant here. So let's stick to all remarks from a Spellweaver's perspective.

First things first, Destructor Normal! FINALLY! I had been waiting for this for ages. I really don't get why the need to make a "Difficult" variant of the latest boss first, and only release the "Normal" when a new boss appears. Really... just separate the loot, allow people to finish their quests, and bam! no harm done. I do hope the new end boss does not have a strict "Difficult" version or I swear to god I'm gonna flip.

The critical hit rate nerf is understandable, but to be fair, it encourages me to drop my book and go two-hands (keeping it for now since it grants me +85 damage). The orb would be a nice alternative, but since you guys upped the armor of the Spellweaver items I am not sure I want to do that. We'll see...
I also noticed the general increase in damage on monsters, though as a feedback I would like to know if this occurred thorough the entire game or only on the latest maps.
Overall I am okay with the changes done to the game. I understand the Dragonknights will be sad especially because they will have a much harder time doing things solo, but frankly, it was about time! My Dragonknight has NO problems going through the quests, where I really struggled with a Spellweaver. They were just too good and needed some balancing. Go ahead, complain, it's my opinion on this from a PVE perspective (again, personally I don't care about PVP, and to be honest I think it's a mistake to even try and balance the two by pushing the same buttons).

The Lor'Tac quests are fun and more "quest" oriented because of the lack of the question mark - this might annoy some people, but that's part of the changes. I wonder if these changes propagated retroactively on older quests too... if they didn't, you should consider it! Otherwise it looks like the game is inconsistent.
I am almost done with the first map, except for the eggs quest. Really... those eggs are incredibly rare thorough the map, incredibly difficult to find, and I am not sure they respawn. I also noticed the quest does not remark if I got any (still at 0/15, 0/6 in spite of having quite a few in my inventory already).
I also noticed generally more randomness thorough the maps. Both for quests and powerful bosses. I am not sure if it's just because I am not used to the maps yet, but the initial feeling is great here. Gives more diversity to the quests and it's generally fun.
The drop on the new maps... horrific. Mostly green, rarely blue, took me ages to find two extraordinaries and one legendary. I really hope that with the parallel worlds rethink we don't lose the great drop there. It would really be a shame if that happened.
As for overall difficulty... yeah, the new bosses can be a pain, they deal a LOT of damage.

Now onto the whole new skill system and the way the Spellweaver himself was affected in my view.
Overall it's interesting that my Spellweaver feels tankier. I don't know why, it might be the maps, but I felt that the damage increase was not that big of a deal outside the main bosses. Of course at first I had to start putting my points in because otherwise I saw an apparent decrease of power.

I appreciate what you did with the Experience Tree - this is great! I can finally customize the abilities any way I want. The downside? Some people will feel robbed because in the process of balancing, you took out default bonuses and just moved them into upgrades. This of course will feel like a decrease of power but since you can select that option if you truly choose to I guess it's not that big of a deal. I can live with it!
My question here: do we retain the bonuses we used to get from leveling up in the experience tree? That bonus is no longer visible. Or is it native to the character leveling up now?
Next, let's have a look at the abilities themselves.

[Quick attacks]
Magic Missile - this ability because CRUCIAL really! My spellweaver already took advantage of it to regen mana. The life regen is something I always wanted on my Spellweaver and now I am glad to be able to get it from my favorite main attack. It makes the game much more strategic now and I love it! As a remark, previously the ability used to do 105% damage with bonus. Now it does 100%. Don't think we haven't noticed
Ice Missile - 30% damage makes this ability incredibly weak. I understand it adds a cold effect on enemies, but it just ain't enough. The bonuses are also nothing impressive. This was a horrible ability almost nobody picked prior to the release, and nobody will even now. (I may be wrong and the 5 points upgrade is actually that relevant...)
Chain Lightning - not sure there is much of a difference here. Still remains my primary attack for crowds of enemies.

[Nukes]
Lightning Strike - honestly, this was my primary nuke. I was so excited about the mana upgrade that I could go 3 strikes at a time, that it took me a little to notice how ineffective this is now. Can't really tell why, but I no longer find myself using it that much solo. Maybe in groups it will be as efficient as it used to be, but right now I feel the monsters are moving too fast so I can predictably strike them. And lacking good freeze abilities now really affects the potency of this skill too. I think this is the biggest change for me, having to move away from Lightning Strike when I solo.
Fireball - It remains to be seen if I will switch back to Fireball-mode, but right now I don't see much of a change here.
Frozen Sphere - I want to like this ability, I really do! But right now, it feels like a mix of Chain Lightning, Fireball, Lightning Strike and Destruction. Tries to do a bit of each, and frankly I feel it is a fail. The trail damage is pathetic (50%), the mana cost is insane (50) and the explosion itself is quite unpredictable at first (150%). If I want the explosion effect, I will stick to the lightning strike... it costs the same after all. If I want crowd control, I can simply use Chain Lightning because it's just as effective and it costs me no mana.
Meteor - I prefer destruction to it, but it looks like you did some neat improvements to it so I will give Meteor a chance at some point. Not much to comment right now.
Destruction - 750% damage... are you kidding me? With potential cooldown reduction. This is INSANE! Best upgrade on my Spellweaver, and it's definitely tweaked for PVE as numbers matter into having this ability really strong. Nobody ought to complain about the cooldown reduction in PVP. This becomes my primary nuke spell and I am taking advantage of all three bonuses on it which are great! It requires a bit of strategy and it maximizes your damage. What more can you ask for?

[Support]
Guardian - Being able to cast it for free is cool. My friend uses it a lot and he was happy with maximizing it. I didn't really care that much so I invested nothing in it but it's great we have an improvement here.
Singularity - The 2 and 5 bonuses are something people will invest in. I doubt anyone would waste points in the 3... the 50% damage which was default-given previously is useless. I especially love the cooldown reduction which makes for an interesting tension in a spellweaver's strategy - stay in the Singularity and expose yourself to the enemies but take advantage of the cooldown reduction or more to safety and kick their tushes? Nice!
Frost Wind - Did you really have to remove the default freeze effect? This is the biggest downside to the spellweaver that will affect a lot of players and groups. It's a huge nerf here and I am sure you will hear lots of complaints. The 2 seconds duration in PVE won't do much for the players. In PVP... well, you can nerf it separately I guess. Not wasting points in liberation here, and I feel the mana regeneration effect is *meh* (I use the Magic Missile for that), but for some it might have some usage. Without the freeze it is completely useless.
Frost Nova - Of course since Frost Wind is so useless now, Frost Nova is highly important. I am not sure I put any upgrades in it so far but more experimenting is needed here.
Teleportation - I am happy to finally have liberation available without the need of PVP. It was highly useful in some PVE situations. Not sure the 1 second movement speed bonus makes any difference, so that upgrade feels kind of useless for me, but other than that this remains a highly important skill for any spellweaver.
Mind Control - still using it only for the Astral Phenomenon. Scapegoat seems interesting so I might give it a shot when I have more points.

Summary: Using chain lightning, magic missile and destruction right now, stopped using lightning strike, frost effects much less efficient but still necessary, singularity still efficient, guardian situational, teleport frequently used.

For the Knowledge Tree I am also very happy with what you did. Initially I was a bit setback that you got no bonuses, which could actually be fully obtained by spending all your points in damage & HP, but now you have more diversity and a greater means of boosting other stats. I am particularly happy with the mana boost here (which unfortunately is not that great because of the low usage of Lightning Strike, but still good combo with Teleportation and a Ring of Inner Fortitude). The Cyanide Shield is something I might get later on, right now I can manage without it. I like my speed so the bonus damage is not that great for me, but with some tweaking I might end up using it. If I use an orb I might enjoy the bonus block rate and compensate for the speed reduction with a few points in movement speed. Great job on the options you offer here!

All-in-all my feedback is positive, I am looking forward to see how further balancing acts and what the parallel worlds changes have in store for us. Keep up the great job!

 

Some positive remarks:

-I love the wave animation in Still Water Bay.

-Also the Ice Cradle is an awesome map, especially the musical atmo has nailed it. (Maybe make the PW atmo also easy on the ears instead of 3 hour showdown score? It would motivate many to not mute the game.)

-The bird sound effects on the jungle maps is great. This helps a lot with the whole forest impression.

-Realm frags have been increased. A good decision, since many working players felt excluded from the moon events. (Not sure if realm frags do their job as motivator at all anymore)

-The Skill/Wisdom system is great. More individual choices. Although it will break the melee classes, since controlled risk by getting hit is not an option anymore with 4k+ base dmg ranged classes. The phrase: "Bringing a knife to a gunfight" springs to mind. SW or Ranger were the class to go for easy PVP success, now this simple advice is more true then ever. I dont mind, but many will.

-The toad monsters are really repelling, well done to the designers!

-The shallow water walks are great, but there are some textures that need working. Still good work!

 

A few more positive remarks...

After the initial anaphylactic shock of seeing my dmg and hp stats lowered, I began to explore the new skills setup and soon corrected for the losses. Nice. I love how attack speed, damage and hp can now all be increased via wisdom. Also, you can really customize skill deployment with this setup. And though I haven't killed many monsters yet, so far I like what I'm seeing/fighting. It's challenging w/o being too intimidating (I also noticed that monsters on prior levels, eg, Stalgard, definitely hit harder, making these levels more challenging too, w/o being too much).

I still have yet to get a sense of the drop rate and quality outside of one mystic cube, which offered nothing new (a lower-level gem).

But overall, so far: nice work.

 

2 major issues for now:
1. Upgrade cost for bugged items is not fixed for those that are already upgraded. E.g I have a 45 lvl bugged purple shield with 5+M in it, at lvl 49. Similar 45 lvl shield is much cheaper to upgrade.
2. Myself and a number of my friends lost a lot of glyphs invested into items. This applies to upgraded lvl45 rings, for instance. They make them cheaper to upgrade now, and also cut the already invested glyphs to match current upgrade costs. I assumed those glyphs would be returned in such case.

 

Everything that related to design (maps, monsters, effect, etc) looks great to me. I also wonder if all the forest dwellers communicates by puking on each other. nevermind they are funny and I love the new skill system. Well done dev team!

The worst part for me is now we have to choose between damage and hp. I really want to reach my previous 10k hp without losing damage too much but it seems impossible with 30 wisdom points we got at lvl45. 35 points for the start would be more acceptable, or rise up the wisdom tree's cap by at least 10 more points?

 

Quests need more detailed info,if i need to backtrack to a previous map for a quest,please state so in the info.
1 (cold climate)is get heart from a guard?what guard,what map?
2 (a very jullov holiday) find dr.bon jovi lol, this idk,not enough info,is it on the map it says its on?iv'e been to every inch of the opal shrine.

 

All white axes bought from Ochaki the weapon maker (the guy that fixes the armor) in Yalteptl come with 1123 critical hit bonus. Is that normal or bug?

 

The new attack speed of 2 handed is insanely low!!... and also we had this 10% penalty from 2h talent...
you should FIX THIS or leave OPEN the knowledge branch..... wich should be another solution...

 

Normal. Axes come with 12.5% crit hit value as a base stat now.

 

i want my speed back.. not that useless crit line.... or unless they leave knowledge branch opened with no cap....

 

Thanks!

I'm no expert whatsoever, but it seems to me that 1h DK is much more powerfull now than before, since its possible to select both dmg bonus and block bonus in knowledge tree.

 

Re: 10 point weapon damage with attack speed loss talent, it will depend on where your damage is coming from. I have a lot of off weapon damage bonuses (red ess set, 6 or 7 damage lines on my rings, claw, belt), and didn't want to lose speed and thus rage buildup. So I did not take the 10 point talent, and instead took 10 more points of increased damage.

 

Excellent answer, thanks once again!

 

There is a bug with the quest Saving the World Heart 1/3. After finding the tottems and the door to Yolotl you must put a dagger on th Podium of Purity but it's bugged and you can't put it.

 

not only that they have removed some early lvl items which were cool like hunting bow, siege bow and gillie mask without introducing any new bows despite the increase in lvls.

 

Before the update rangers used to deliver double damage to marked targets... That's what hunting arrow skill's descriptions stated then: You mark your target then you deliver double damage to marked target with any of your skills. Now after this ability is gone. Whats the point of marking targets?