Itemization Updates & The New Expansion

[Energizeric]

To clarify a bit on the armor reduction, we were concerned with the survivability of rogues in PvE and PvP scenarios being far too high for their damage output ability. This takes into consideration both armor and health gained from stats. The largest populace affected will be the higher level players, lower level players will not see as big a difference in their survivability by comparison with this change.

We feel there are enough tools at a players disposal to increase their survivability where they see fit, only now they must take some calculated losses in damage or other damage related stats to do so. This feels like the appropriate balance for the class. Of course we will be watching, and listening, but we do encourage players to play around with the new skill masteries, jewels, and pet combinations to explore the potential for Rogues moving forward.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Just a thought, but if your end goal is actually to reduce the damage output of Rogues, by forcing/suggesting that they add some defensive skill points at the expense of damage, then why not leave their armor alone and just reduce their damage.

A big complaint of mine this season and last season is these typical clashes that end in 5 seconds. I much prefer the long drawn out clashes I see when playing at twink levels. By reducing armor, you just cause players to die faster. And trust me, players are stubborn and will always choose to maximize their damage at the cost of armor and health. So in the end, we are just going to see even faster clashes.

[iAmBurberry]

soooo..... when can we get an Auction NPC in guild halls?

[Energizeric]

I wonder where this idea of gems not being able to be used past level 46 came from??? ......

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...83#post2348983

[Carapace]

soooo..... when can we get an Auction NPC in guild halls?

At the moment we do not see a benefit in this, as we want players to convene in centralized town locations to particpate in the community. We feel that adding things like the Consignment Shop to the Guild Halls would be counter to this point.

[Carapace]

I wonder where this idea of gems not being able to be used past level 46 came from??? ......

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...83#post2348983

We had a nice giggle in the office because we were already discussing such plans before that post came to light, but more or less hit it on the head

[Morholt]

I wonder where this idea of gems not being able to be used past level 46 came from??? ......

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...83#post2348983

I suspected this to be for para and eyes only. Wasn't expecting to see it for the non-game changing gems, heh.



Thought: I think the rogue defense nerf is to try forcing groups in elites to need a character of each class.
However, if that is the case, it should be a pve only effect. Let them keep their defense on PvP.

As for the "use 10 points into razor" response...not only is there Nekros galore in the game, but there is also the superior damage reduction of Consecrate from arcane staff, AND the fact that a damage reduction elixir is constant and better. Ten skill points used up to occasionally benefit from the investment? I don't see anyone doing that.

[Jazzi]

I suspected this to be for para and eyes only. Wasn't expecting to see it for the non-game changing gems, heh.



Thought: I think the rogue defense nerf is to try forcing groups in elites to need a character of each class.
However, if that is the case, it should be a pve only effect. Let them keep their defense on PvP.

As for the "use 10 points into razor" response...not only is there Nekros galore in the game, but there is also the superior damage reduction of Consecrate from arcane staff, AND the fact that a damage reduction elixir is constant and better. Ten skill points used up to occasionally benefit from the investment? I don't see anyone doing that.

All great points. I wonder if sts ever thought about any of those 3 class parties are great at the moment with the arcane weapons and such. The way I see it is, that sts is pretty much reacting to something which was on the table 4-5 months ago

[kickazzrogue]

Why is all the new legend gear for low lvls again weaker then ever I don't understand it all I know it's just crate gear but even the last couple events gear has been weaker with Galen jord eloia being the exception.

[iAmBurberry]

At the moment we do not see a benefit in this, as we want players to convene in centralized town locations to particpate in the community. We feel that adding things like the Consignment Shop to the Guild Halls would be counter to this point.

ahh ok. thank you for the response. I never had put that into consideration and see by what you mean.

[worshiped]

Zeus, even though i have debates about this i can not be bias about this, this was an unfair debuff in twink level as well. I can easily say i did not like it because of vs rogues seemed a little high but you have to think fairly and i totally agree with what you are saying and agree STS has to fix this or debuff something with tank and mage.

[Ticklish]

The armor nerf on rogues is a huge blow to the class. I know the team is trying to balance out classes for now, but I wished you guys spent more time playing the game before coming to such conclusions. With eyes no longer socketable in future gear, we can already expect to see rogues sacrificing damage for hp and mana. Do we really need them to sacrifice even more damage for armor as well? A noble diamond adds a measly 26 armor to an item. You reduced more than 10 noble diamonds worth of our armor. This is not class balance. It's class annihilation.

I'd also like to point out the huge xp requirement for ONE level. Please tell us that's a joke because not a lot of people can afford to level up with plat (even with double plat offers, because they don't work for many countries outside of US, and you have players all over the globe). Too much of a grind to level up will just discourage players. And we are talking 10 levels here. Please, think of your average players too.

[Energizeric]

Just was thinking that with the 1 para/eye gem = 8 noble gems exchange rate, para and eye gems are going to be eliminated. I wonder what my 8 para/2 eye level 10 mage set is going to be worth.....

Guess it doesn't matter much because I have no plans to sell it...

[Kakashis]

I play rogue and feel like I'll need to try out the changes extensively. It feels like we get our stats reduced just so we need to "upgrade" to new items just to get back what we lost.

[Tatman]

Just a thought, but if your end goal is actually to reduce the damage output of Rogues, by forcing/suggesting that they add some defensive skill points at the expense of damage, then why not leave their armor alone and just reduce their damage.

I can't speak about twink levels, because I gave up on this part of the game a long time ago. Endgame pvp rogues, however, have already done this. The richer people have put enormous amounts of eyes in their gear. The poorer folks like me have cheapish pvp sets with nature jewels. I also know some rogues with unusually high armor, which means either reinforced gems or diamond jewels. All of this at the expense of damage, obviously.

Now STS interferes once again and tells us "use masteries to up your survivability". Well, I have a question. Which masteries exactly? I see only razor shield, and that's just on paper. First of all, 10% damage reduction in laughable (it won't save you from anything), especially considering the fact that you will need to invest 10 additional skill points to a skill that's already borderline useless in both endgame pvp and pve. And secondly, we all know (at least those of us, who play the game) that this damage reduction won't stack with damage reduction from other sources, thus making it useless.

Ok, I understand class balance, I understand the pleas of the mages and tanks, I understand the efforts put by STS to make the game more balanced. Everyone, who knows me, knows I'm an advocate of class balance. I've made suggestions in this regard, I've spoken against ridiculous things like the aegis nerf, I've implemented a rule against classism in my guild etc. etc. But all these recent changes are starting to look more and more like some anti-rogue campaign. Glintstone set with a 100% useless set bonus in pvp and 99% useless in pve. Arcane weapon with a proc that's 100% useless in pvp. Crit passive nerf. Huge armor nerf. Skill masteries most of which look completely meh to me. And finally - "we feel rogue survivability is too high", which is a claim, completely detached from reality.

[Ardbeg]

From a Pve viewpoint: if rogues and mages are shifting back to being glass cannons again, while stg buffs tank taunts, i am good with it. Last season Tanks were really necessary in pve was nordr (i play all classes). Give the changes some more time and watch carefully what it means for guild and party dynamics!

[Repeat]

Remiem,

First off, I would like to say great job on this new content!

I think one of the few changes that needs to be made is that Para and Eye gems should be allowed to be turned into the new 8th-9th tier gem. Otherwise, this will just crash the noble market and cause a lot of collectors to lose money. Keep in mind that these people who purchase eyes/paras are your biggest spenders. People like Papa are valuable assets to the company. I do like the compromise though, you guys did great in minimizing the damage while phasing out the gems. Good job!

EDIT: Never mind to the 9th tier suggestion, I was not aware that 1 eye would give a noble for each jewel. GG!


My second issue is with the planar pendant. If this does not get nerfed in a similar way as the arcane ring has been, then it will have issues further down the road too as then eyes and paras will never truly be phased out.

Lastly, how much armor reduction are we talking about for rogues? The thing is, while razor is a great damage reduction, it does not stack with the bonuses of Nekro. So, essentially, it's a full out nerf. This will result in many things: increased one hits in PvP (damage is already WAY too high for any class) and more reasons not to use rogue in a clash. Why? Sorcerers, with their shield, actually end up taking far less damage than rogues do. Our armor is still well below warriors. If you look at the gap for warrior to rogue armor, it's about 700-800, depending on the set up. If you look at the gap for sorcerer to rogue it's about 700 as well. So, reducing this gap while not taking into account the mage shield or the fact that damage reduction does not stack (making razor upgrade useless if you have nekro) will just lead to further class issues.

This way, the collectors do not lose value and the gem system is phased out for good as well!

The rogue armor nerf is really an insane nerf. I think that STG is overdoing it. As I said before, it was about a 700 margin from each class. Sorcerer->Rogue = 700 & Rogue->Warrior = 700

Now, there is a less than 300 gap between sorcerers and rogues. However, STG is forgetting that sorcerers have shield while rogues do not. The balance was okay before, so please revert it back to what it was...it's simply not worth playing a rogue currently.

Sometimes I think they know all this on their own but they want to decrease the number of rogue players by making other classes more attractive to play atm there are more rogues than everything else... to create a better balance for next season. I hope it is not that way and the changes doesn't make rogues weaker than warrior... I am really scared about some changes like the crafting slot limit and the rogue thing but I love this game and I know sts want only the best for it and I think with a good contact to the forum and an ear to this really useful feedback like from zeus and many others everything will be fine and we will have a great season... ty sts for the next season and all the new things u guys always bring to us great game! ^^

[TW84]

Why is all the new legend gear for low lvls again weaker then ever I don't understand it all I know it's just crate gear but even the last couple events gear has been weaker with Galen jord eloia being the exception.

Because people who bought best twink gear already whine in forum if something better comes along.

[tomsawer]

I made this diagram to illustrate what's been going on.


Gear progression has been wonky lately because of the mistakenly overpowering items from the Tindirin expansion (Ren'Gol was supposed to dumb down the curve that escalated with the tindirin cap). But rather than waiting for the curve to stabilize to the ideal standard, STS is softly descaling the items while releasing better items gradually, up to the point where rich players are on the same progression curve as the semi-rich players and so forth.

On the Ideal graph, it shows what is ideal to the overall growth of the game, as item power grows exponentially, yet algorithmically in relation to the existing curve. On the AL graph, the red line represents AL's gear progression, while the green line represents what should be ideal. Semi rich gear follows the green line, while the rich gear follows the red line.

During Tindirin cap, several OP items were released, including Rendtail's Dragonstone ring, ancient planar pendant, certain imbued armor varieties, as well as eye and para gems. Their release caused the curve to increase drastically and ubruptly and caused too much imbalance in the game. The gap between top players and the next-up was astronomical.

So the steps to help stabilize the curve were to dumb down existing items to a reasonable and fair extent. The arcane ring is still OP at lvls 41-46, which is perfectly fair, and the game will benefit from the choice to softly descale them as players progress through the game.

I'm glad it takes a little while to level imo

10k for lvl up from 46 to 56!? Wtff!? So for 55 to 56 its 100k xp right? Humm maybe peoples will start to be lvl 56 in 2018

[extrapayah]

please take a look again to the conversion rate... auction price is a good example

normal gems should be converted to at least damaged - weak (are you sure that it is still abundant in AL? just by looking at cs price, we can guess that the price is caused by good stat from its grand version AND its rarity in quantity)
reinforced should be at least fortified primary + fortified diamond
tarlok are okay (tarlok is not so expensive because their grand stat is not so good)

tbh eyes and para conversion rate is a bit too high

please consider market price, you are forcing players to outdate their items, so please make it fair, consider quality, market price, and rarity, not rarity only...

[Anehazaz]

Remiem,

First off, I would like to say great job on this new content!

I think one of the few changes that needs to be made is that Para and Eye gems should be allowed to be turned into the new 8th-9th tier gem. Otherwise, this will just crash the noble market and cause a lot of collectors to lose money. Keep in mind that these people who purchase eyes/paras are your biggest spenders. People like Papa are valuable assets to the company. I do like the compromise though, you guys did great in minimizing the damage while phasing out the gems. Good job!

EDIT: Never mind to the 9th tier suggestion, I was not aware that 1 eye would give a noble for each jewel. GG

This way, the collectors do not lose value and the gem system is phased out for good as well!

ok so whilst I can empathise with papa regarding the price crash of a number of items,he's just one of many (myself included). What I take exception to is the suggestion that certain members of the al community are more valuable than others. Please let's talk about the community as a whole as this is what makes arcane legends. I frequently here the same old stuff about plat players/non plat players,collectors etc. I personally am tired of hearing suggestions that decisions should be based on how it affects the minority as opposed to the majority. Everybody makes choices on this game...it's a risk we take. No one is more important than anybody else...

oh....how naive I am, guess some ppl are more important as recent event has just shown!