Client Update 1.7.1 is Live!

[Plasticuproject]

I know a lot of you will view this as complaining but I have a genuine problem. I have a shoddy 3g connection on my old android phone so I usually have a little bit of lag most of the time, but up until now I've been able to manage. Now with the gcd it seems I have ABSOLUTLY no idea when I can hit the skill, when it will take effect or even when it will finish cooling down. I simply CANT play anymore. It's not even up to me, it just doesn't work like this. So because I live in a semi rural area and don't have the cash for a new phone I can't play anymore. So yell at me for complaining but how would you feel about this update if it totally rendered you unable to play a game that you really enjoy? I hope the devs somehow get this under control so I can play again. If not I guess have no choice but to quit.

[Snakespeare]

... there are times when I have to solo on level-appropriate maps for my lower-level chars because no friends are on or when I hit "go to" on a quest, I'm dumped in an empty room. I'd like to be able to do that without dying eleventy-billion times. I was always cautious before, pulling one or two enemies instead of rushing in. Now even that frequently results in death ...

I wonder why my experience is different from yours, Rauen. I have been soloing a lot just because I like to pause a lot. Yesterday, I did a few Sewers runs to see how GCD worked in groups, and found that people are not done learning how to get the most from their characters yet, which made for a lot of deaths. So I went soloing and I liked it. Maybe it's the rythm. The music I listen to has andante as well as presto and adagio, and I think it has slowed down from molto andante to andante moderato, is all. I didn't die more because I used the health pots more, but I used the mana pots less, so it evened out for me. Or maybe it's my bird. I have had mana shortages since they revised all the weapons back in AO2 (when our full Thoth gear turned into useless items, remember?). Now I seem to maintain the blue level in my mana for much longer, and I like that.

I will try my mage tonight. Perhaps then I will experience what you have described.

[Justg]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

[Kindread]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

Thanks for the update JustG. Will let you know how it feels...with level feedback.

[Zeus]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

Thanks JustG. Sounds promising.

[xyoz]

justg, i hope you and the STS have listened to all our opinions, and i would like to know what the main reasons were for adding global cooldown

[Echelong]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

I will test that out later and see. Main problem I think goes to mages debuffs and heals are not been used now. Mages use all their 12 skills while birds use 9 or 10. Debuffs expire to soon for them to be effective now and its easier to spam pots than to heal too.

[Hullukko]

If GCD did stay what would be the thing(s) you would change in game to rebalance it again. I'm not suggesting it will stay in its current form but I reckon they probably won't fully remove it either, so I'm trying to gain some ideas from people on what would make GCD more balanced and bearable.

It'd still be a compromise to the wrong direction for the wrong reasons.

Slowing it down is not what I want at all. Any change to that direction is only a question of threshold. The 0.5 is enough for me to stop altogether, .25 might still be sluggish and would drive me away just a tad slower. Making it shorted than an average latency and queue up those presses on skills that aren't blocked by individual cool down and you get pretty much exactly my android experience so far and you'd get rid of the multipressing. But... This was something very much different from prior major changes and I'm afraid multipressing was just an excuse.

I'm a SW developer, I work in the same field as STS. I know why decisions and changes like this are made. Money talks and the prospect of a larger user base form low end devices leave little room but those not accepting it to just walk.

I'm cool with that, their game, but don't, don't, think that I like it. After having enjoyed the game for six months daily and now being forced to look into something else will leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Just my 2 cents.

[Lesrider]

I never said people should just be content with the changes; I just want them to see it from a different perspective. Change is always hard and uncomfortable because we're creatures of habit and when we're used to something, it's hard to get us to change. But you have to understand that one of the greatest benefits of this game is that the Devs rock and they update release new content faster than any other game I've seen. Now if you guys just stop looking at the small picture (the now) and look at the big picture (the future), you'll see that this benefit of fast content release is also their downfall if things stay stagnant as they are and the game doesn't evolve.

They can just keep adding new maps and raising the level caps. With new maps come newer weapons that are more powerful. With more new powerful weapons they have to scale the bosses up to compensate. Make a few new graphics on weapons and bosses and voilà, new content. We finish all the quests, we hit the level cap, we obtain all the new stuff and then realize, there's nothing to do so we look to PvP and its broke. As overpowered as we are, with the gear scaling up with new content and no change in the game mechanics, PvP would be more broke than ever. The game HAS to evolve. That's the great thing about this game. The Devs are players too and they want to make the best game possible and to do that, they game has to evolve.

Morawk, were you here when ao3 was introduced?
It was challenging, you had to be fast on your feet, every class had to do their part. Before ao3 came out, you didn't really need to know how to play your chars -- I was proof, bc I got all the way to 45 with my bear, not even knowing what "aggro" was or that beckon/taunt were useful skills (I had maybe one point in each, if that.) and I did NOT powerlevel. I played through all the campaigns, not really even watching my xp. Just killing things.
But ao3 changed that. Myself and some other friends made sure to max out all three classes so we could all swap out to whatever class was needed. There was real strategy involved, and it made us completely obsessed.
Then, some people complain it was too hard and they nerfed it (all mobs became easier to kill). They also rebalanced everything, making weapons weaker/slower in order to focus the game more on skills. Now they're going backwards and making skills take the backseat. And you're saying that this back and forth makes it more interesting???
They had a good thing going back then and many people enjoyed it. Now many of those same people do NOT enjoy it (even before GCD). Now they introduce something that doesn't make the game easier or more challenging, just slower. So doesn't appeal to casual players or elite players (except maybe for you).

Change for change's sake is not necessarily a good thing.

[Plasticuproject]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

I hope that makes a real difference in feel and timing. I know you guys are working hard to make this work. I just hope its works out well enough for the both of us to be satisfied.

[Plasticuproject]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

I hope that makes a real difference in feel and timing. I know you guys are working hard to make this work. I just hope its works out well enough for the both of us to be satisfied.

[Dartagnian]

We'll put out an iteration today that gives you more feedback on when you actually have fired off your skills (instead of waiting for the server to verify it). Hopefully it makes a difference in the way it feels.

I hope that means just the shading on the skill rather than just visually enhancing the GCD. If it's a visual enhancement to help us see how good and great the current duration is, then it will be a disappointment to see that after 12k views and 60+ forum pages of suggested fixes or alternatives, actual constructive ones, that this would be the "fix" to all the uproar about the GCD.

Please go back through the posts and look at other suggested fixes. I'm begging you.

[Sterist]

Err, this is a touch screen game on a mobile phone platform. The control layout on screen is a necessity.

precisely. this makes an exception to the mmorpg standard of having GCD. you cant paint all platforms with one brush.

[Laviticus]

Just a note: let's say mages did get divided into dmg and priest. How could a healer pvp? Bad idea, let's just hope for a timely update and fix to all our cool down woes.

[CanonicalKoi]

I wonder why my experience is different from yours, Rauen.

Oh, yeah, I remember the nerfed-Thoth-angst all too well. Worse, I remember pre-nerf AO3 mage auto-target/one-shot. Thankfully, that one got changed, but not before I gave up on mage-ing until recently. No, I'm referring to lower-level chars--in this case, level 15 and level 22 mages. Level 15 was trying Balefort--not pretty. I can tell you this much: my-so-far level 31 Immortal bird? Staying in dry-dock until this settles out one-way or another.

[Mothwing]

i just played a run with gcd and i quit because i couldnt take it any longer. it COMPLETELY ruins the flow of the game ESPECIALLY for mages. i am very disapointed and i wish ypu giys would take it away altogether. dont shorten the time, dont tweak it, TAKE IT AWAY.

[Snakespeare]

OK, I'll try my level 19 pally tonight, then. Let's see if I can still solo the goblin stronghold.

Pally may be the answer...

[drewcapu]

No more tutorial levels, so I'm gonna miss selling those L2 wands and bracers. lol

I'm not going to comment much on gcd since I only had a chance to do a handful of runs yesterday. In the few runs I was in though, I didn't mind the slight slow-down. It made me really pay attention even more than usual to what everyone else was doing, especially versus bosses. You can see who tries to complete combos which require two different classes. You can see which elves are trying their best to time their heals. There's good reason to perhaps trying a shorter gcd interval, but I think gcd will be something we can get used to. Remember when weapons speed got adjusted?

Emotes are nice. I'm gonna repeat something I mentioned in chat yesterday: It would be cool to have emote combos! Even better if certain emotes/combos/etc made certain enemies (especially bosses) react differently. ie say something different, or even attack/perform differently. With gcd, we actually have more time to use emotes while playing. LOL. I'm kinda curious to find out what gestures are left after the diagonal 3-finger gestures are assigned (presumably to Emote Pack 3).

[Kindread]

precisely. this makes an exception to the mmorpg standard of having GCD. you cant paint all platforms with one brush.

I dunno. This doesn't seem like a strong or relative comparison. The control layout on a touch screen is a physical necessity. There's no choice in the matter. *shrugs*

[Sterist]

I dunno. This doesn't seem like a strong or relative comparison. The control layout on a touch screen is a physical necessity. There's no choice in the matter. *shrugs*

i am not making an argument of where the controls should be. i am simply saying BECAUSE the controls MUST be on the screen, certain standards with these types of games must be forfeit to cope with the limitations of the platform or the player experience goes downhill (>_<)"