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Mana - the useless vital
(Warning, fairly ranty post incoming...)
Ok... Please, please slow down with these changes.
I've brought this up before, but healing pressures Health and Ego stats, which are already Guardians' weakest, and the health drops can be pretty borderline lethal sometimes. Hence Vitality, right? But that's a bit useless if every heal/farheal can kill you a la before you hit demigod. Which with these health drops, would put us back to pre-demi levels pretty much. Solution 3, assuming my class is supposed to be 'weak' at health, could drop me under 5k base health. That's silly and ridiculous when I already have a skill (well, more than one) that chunks me for the majority of my health, and would make lusternia about unplayable for any kind of pve too. Even a 1k drop, assuming solution 1 and 'average' rating, would hurt.
And then ego... Mostly that would hurt for influencing. Need a lot of buffs and I can already barely handle NPCs like Afmecia without dropping to 0 and sometimes I can't. But Healing does pressure ego too and, to me, it does not seem like an OP skillset. People still die well enough in pvp.
And then we come to mana... The useless vital... Keep it above 50% to avoid instakills, some skills require it to be full, but otherwise, it's just not meaningful. Health tanks for you and fuels skills. Ego tanks for you (in influence and debate battles), and also fuels skills, at costs high enough to matter. Mana has some token costs but just... doesn't do much. Even if you increased the costs, that would really just be a buff to mana instakills.
But the real 'mana' of Lusternia is power... That's what fuels any of the decent to really powerful abilities, leaving actual mana a bit out in the cold.
Please don't leave me with a class that has tons of a vital I can't use, and too weak to actually do much of anything in violent and nonviolent pve, as well as put Healing to use in pvp.
Ok... Please, please slow down with these changes.
I've brought this up before, but healing pressures Health and Ego stats, which are already Guardians' weakest, and the health drops can be pretty borderline lethal sometimes. Hence Vitality, right? But that's a bit useless if every heal/farheal can kill you a la before you hit demigod. Which with these health drops, would put us back to pre-demi levels pretty much. Solution 3, assuming my class is supposed to be 'weak' at health, could drop me under 5k base health. That's silly and ridiculous when I already have a skill (well, more than one) that chunks me for the majority of my health, and would make lusternia about unplayable for any kind of pve too. Even a 1k drop, assuming solution 1 and 'average' rating, would hurt.
And then ego... Mostly that would hurt for influencing. Need a lot of buffs and I can already barely handle NPCs like Afmecia without dropping to 0 and sometimes I can't. But Healing does pressure ego too and, to me, it does not seem like an OP skillset. People still die well enough in pvp.
And then we come to mana... The useless vital... Keep it above 50% to avoid instakills, some skills require it to be full, but otherwise, it's just not meaningful. Health tanks for you and fuels skills. Ego tanks for you (in influence and debate battles), and also fuels skills, at costs high enough to matter. Mana has some token costs but just... doesn't do much. Even if you increased the costs, that would really just be a buff to mana instakills.
But the real 'mana' of Lusternia is power... That's what fuels any of the decent to really powerful abilities, leaving actual mana a bit out in the cold.
Please don't leave me with a class that has tons of a vital I can't use, and too weak to actually do much of anything in violent and nonviolent pve, as well as put Healing to use in pvp.
beep
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
8.8k is rare but there. 9.3k~10.3k is common. 10.8k sometimes. >=11k, exceptionally rare.
Woo rare warrior class?
That is not what I see on succor. Unless a lot of people are participating in pvp events that you don't think of as 'high tier fighters'.
...anyways, these changes won't hurt Xenthos levels of health. Only the already squishies that aren't deserving of 'above average'
As is these changes aren't really targeted at "high tier fighters" but nerf absolutely everyone, from the newbie fresh out of Newton to the fresh demi that can't fight in endgame areas without redlining, and everyone between.
This sounds like a problem with the healing skill to me. Perhaps this should be changed. Perhaps bring that up to your envoys.
Solution 3 was a bit ridiculous, yes. I said as much when I set it on envoys. It has since been changed with an alternative.
... Sounds like a problem with the skill. The majority of the game aren't healers.
Solution 3 on PVE? Yeah, maybe. Solution 1, not so much. Yes, it would hurt a bit, but even you with 9800 health can survive being at 8800 unless you walk into a room with... 3 cave fishers? Which would kill you even at 9800.
There are a lot of factors that go into influencing - your buffs, your prestige, mob strength (and named mobs tend to have a higher one). Without any of this data, this is a bit of a non-point.
I'll come back to this one later.
Okay, sure, this is a problem. The resource is not being used well enough. This should probably be fixed. Any ideas? Maybe mana classes should have various mana upkeep drains (guardians for their links to their summons/gems/fleshforms, mages to upkeep their meld)? Iunno, throwing an idea at the wall, feel free to offer ideas of you own.
Health : 10905/10905 (Bard)
Health : 11800/11800 (Warrior)
Health : 10800/10800 (Wiccan)
Health : 12960/10800 (Mage)
Those are just people I randomly pulled off of QW just this second. If you're missing these numbers and you're constantly succoring people, I'm really not sure what to tell you.
As for this report being an 'exaggeration', the first time this was brought up was an envoy meeting on May 29. It has been discussed a few times since then, and has gone through a few iterations. Initially, we were going to leave the base alone and only change the percentage of the buff. This was argued against because it would devalue the artifact, and was only changed to modifying the base literally today. About two or three revisions of the report ago, since it is a bit of a living proposal right now.
Now, let's go back to your earlier point.
Yehn said:
People still die well enough in pvp.
Sure. Except damage isn't really viable in any way short of a healer killing themselves or 10 people whacking on you consistently (and even then, there's consistent complaints that this isn't really working from both sides.) A lot of this is due to the screwy resist stacking, and this is on the table to be looked at as well.
But a lot of why this report exists is another matter that was on the table during the May and June meetings, and a constant point of discussion for the last 2-3 months with envoys: Dehomogenisation of classes.
The overhaul has put everything into a state where every class feels the same. The plan right now is to go over every archetype and give it a good combover, let us put it into a good part of combat where it thrives. This is, as of this month, officially in progress starting with bards. However, the path we want to go with bards (emphasising octaves and lowering offensive AoE) is limited by several factors, including the aforementioned health and resist issues.
I was going to announce this officially when the first set of approvals went in, but because I can't ignore forum ranting, I figure I should provide some context.
There's a lot of factors that go into a decision, and adjusting the entire state of a game isn't something I take lightly. There's a reason why I've provided a route for commentary to all envoys, who are more in tune with the game's combat than I am, before actually coding it. And just because things exist in solutions doesn't mean solutions can't be changed or new ones can't be provided. And just because I throw up a report doesn't mean it's going to happen.
If it does happen, and a class or skillset is severely affected by it, it will be looked at. It's all on the block to be looked at anyway. But if any major changes need to happen, now is the time while we're still looking at everything and planning it out. There is a basic plan set in place for every class to be looked at to give them a solid mechanical theme and ensure they still function over the last seven years of overhaul and however many years of changes before that, and we need to keep those in mind now, not after it's all in. We don't need to repeat the mistakes that have been made during the overhaul and just ignore them while making changes.
I've spent way too long typing this. That's my thoughts on the matter. Leaving it there.
... Sounds like a problem with the skill. The majority of the game aren't healers.
These are things I've pointed out before. While the overhaul made healing a lot better, and the whole concept of an empathic healer is really neat, it just doesn't mesh well with the "mage that has tons of mana" type (which it seems someone had a vision of).
But back to the root cause -- a global vitals change affects anyone and everyone. Stuff like this shouldn't be written off if the change is centered around a minority to begin with -- combatants with 10/10 or 13/13 buffs, or somewhere very high there...
I'm at 9.8k now because I bought a fitness rune when I returned (and a rune of absorption, and finally trained a beast to bodyguard). It did make things a lot easier. Whereas before was "don't miss a beat or lag even slightly or you're dead".
I also have 9.3k when an h/m/e buff isn't available, so that would be 8.3k with an 'average' rating under solution 1. (Of course I try to keep that buff but the nature of conflict quests means sometimes someone stops that from happening.)
Now, what about a fresh demi with 6k health and other vitals, maybe 7k buffed? Do they really need to be nerfed?
My memory of that unpleasantness is still fresh enough and I don't particularly want to return to that point, even if I could still pull it off thanks to arties, and my ego still is in the low enough range that I would lose access to a lot of areas with a vitals nerf...
Not a non-point: End point is still the same... Nerf means losing access to mobs, using the buffs and so on that I have access to.
If you go with, for example, the "I like swords" archetype for warriors and give them a below average ego rating, that would really make influencing hell on them, particularly for leveling or fresh demi...
OTOH, solution 3 would make it very much easy mode on some... Until new mobs are added that require that strength, anyways.
I would normally suggest trading mana for power (not the vital/resource)... like if you want to do something stronger than usual, it has a mana cost proportional to the strength of the ability.
But, power (the vital/resource) already covers this... If I run into a group of really tough mobs or something, I spend power to deal with it.
Just adding a mana tax, or a larger one, to existing abilities... doesn't really add much, but if you want people to be more careful of mana instants then that would do it. And... could actually be a further nerf to pve depending, since sipping mana means you can't sip health...
I don't think that was very random... I think you pulled off people with the highest vitals...
What do the complete results look like?
I can understand wanted to protect the value of the artifact... but please, please be careful about what you're putting on that altar.
-snip-
Ok this is fine. It's also an area of knowledge that isn't my strength. I can understand that being a goal. But if base vitals can be class specific, why can't caps be? So warriors can have lots, but other types will cap out sooner...
Or why not increase pvp damage output of basic attacks (especially since the new solution 3 would inflate health even more...)? Or tons of other things that maybe already came up for discussion.
If the problem is top tier combatants, it just seems like there has to be a more focused solution that would work...
That's understandable. While not everything about my class is very consistent my impression of it isn't to say it's brokenly unusable.
But changes like this, as you say, you're changing the entire state of the game... The consequences will reach far beyond high tier combatants, and pvp combat generally. Sol1 will really make some things miserable on some classes for leveling/basic demi, new Sol3 will make it silly easy on some...
I do appreciate the time you took to respond and give your thoughts. Thank you.
That being said, I think mana lacks a meaning outside of PK as well that would actually make mana interesting to people. What's the point of being a mage with a high mana pool? you'll never notice you're benefitting from it anyway. It's just not playing in the same league as health ( bashing ) and ego ( influence/debate ). Solutions to this that are not a huge deal of work? not sure there are.
Theres a lot of points raised here Ianir has covered but the long to short of it is classes had vastly different vitals, resistances and tankynes pre overhaul. Overhaul broke this and basically gave all classess the ability to get pretty much the same vitals, resistances and roughly the same armour.
This will be a very good fix to make classes more distinct.
Protip: You'll be wasting keystrokes telling me this is a bad idea. I don't care. Brainstorming, fam. Just post a better idea instead.
Protip2: Paragon is awesome. Utterly awesome. Even Kallari is now a serious contender, and I saw Iggy facerolling a few matches back, until I levelled up Bang Bang! and started farming the slippery sonofabitch. At max CP with Tainted Magic, and three maxed damage cards I can oneshot him. It's a beautiful thing. Other MOBAs are available.
I agree with the notion that health is -much- more important than mana or ego.
This report would be a buff to warriors, which I think is fair (making them the more tanky class). One of the big sticking points is that people hate to have things taken away. Players are used to having lots of health, and bashing certain areas, and they're going to be mad when that changes.
I don't think it really means that this report is a bad idea. I personally like it, as long as we're acknowledging that HP is more important than MP/EP, and are fully aware that we're nerfing some classes while buffing others.
Anyways, I'm really not OK with losing access to bashing and influencing areas. I can't just go and level up a bit more to get those back. And from a less personal standpoint, nerfing everyone but warriors (and bards for ego? or whoever would get the top ego stat)... is that really going to help retain players to the point where they get to demi? As is, leveling up I found I could not take many areas unless I was a fair bit above the recommend level in that help file people pass around (one of the reasons I turned to influencing...). And this report would nerf BOTH those things for most classes, which is just going to make it harder on those coming after.
All hail the group astral/aether bashes, I guess...
It makes a huge difference to mana kills and how you can cure. Specific skills yes make a bigger difference. Eg Succumb totally ruins folks with lower mana due to the high fixed mana drain as part of its set up. When you can drain 3k mana as a fixed thing thats 50% of a 6k mana targets vital. But to me that 3k fixed mana drain is 24.3% of my mana.
Can you see how having a higher mana pool makes a huge difference to surviving mana kills?
The difference between doing 50% of someones mana in a set up and 24% is a huge huge huge difference.
It does sounds like this is the biggest issue against the change.
I do agree that mana is significantly less important for bashing, but there are some locations that have enough bleed to pressure your mana. In combat, I feel the impact of a lower max mana more than lower max health, as mana kills against me are often done 40%+ mana (partly a function of how twist works).
I don't really influence a whole lot, but ego drain isn't really an issue for me there vs general speed. This could move the Justice competition back to heavily bard favoured, though, which I think is a shame.
So, here's a rate I pulled from an aether run just now...
Group astral, last time I was there with a group of 5 or so, was 1.6m/hr
Compared to solo... pre arti, I could maybe approach 200k, with arties on astral, I can do about 360k/hr, and only on astral. Influencing is around 260k/hr in Lirangsha. So... why nerf solo when it's already so far behind? Fractionally as much as group activities...
What is your ego vital at? Yes, if it's in the range this report is supposedly targeted at... 11k+, you're not going to have much trouble... And yes, influencing's limited by speed too...
But nerfing the low end so strongly will really hurt.
I'll just say that dropping the max health of other classes and leaving warriors at ~11k is a solid buff for them, as well as a solid buff for damage kill classes.
Finally, I like that people are more survivable. The old days of getting popped in 5 seconds in big group fights were seriously lame. I support the changes, but at the same time I hope that the average time to death remains roughly where it is now, because I think it's in a good place. If we see people melting way too fast after the change, I'd recommend toning down some damage skills, instead of boosting health higher again.
Heck, Hallifax and Gaudiguch are still waiting for monks from the last overhaul.
If a change does things like, make a previously manageable hunting area untenable for a group of players, that change had better have some amazing reasoning behind it, because you've just diminished the game experience for all those players.
If your objective is good, but your method results in the above, change your method.
I won't pretend to have a deep knowledge of what is being discussed here. I can't tell you if the objective of the report is a good one or a disaster for a large number of people. I just don't have the experience to know. But if you're pulling things away from people, particularly those who aren't at the top-tier? Think hard. Because you can do more harm to their experience than whatever benefit is actually derived.
Health:7800/7800 (4/13 vitals boost)
Mana:10800/10800 (10/13 vitals boost)
Ego: 7800/7800 (4/13 vitals boost)
That is with the following:
Seems a bit... iffy to be tweaking numbers off the presumption that people are going to have 13/13 in all 3 stats. I already feel rather squishy with just 7800 health, now if the numbers are tweaked, those numbers are going to fall further - and that is as a DEMIGOD.
EDIT: Changed numbers/bodyscan to include full buffs as a Celestine, unless I missed a couple.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
If the problem statement is for demis at 10+ buffs... If virtually all examples are demis at 10+ buffs. Then I'll just say again: Your solution should target demis at 10+ buffs...
You'd be able to clot a lot with all that mana, at least.. : P