Client Update 1.7.1 is Live!

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Originally Posted by Wizo

Perhaps I'm being dense but I cannot see how a queue like system will make a better playing experience. You still have to wait for skills to cool down and on top of that I think it would be annoying if skills stack up and you just have to wait until each is cast. What happens if you changed your mind after pressing that skill and it goes into a queue and you didn't want that skill to stack after all? You might press a number of attack skills, which go into a queue only a while later you may realise that you in fact needed to heal instead but can't because the other skills would have to come first. Instead, I think either the GCD times could be reduced a bit or each individual skill cool down time that occurs in addition to GCD be reduced as I've mentioned earlier.

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Thank you.

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Originally Posted by mothwing

Lmao at this post. Im so pissed at GCD i am willing to quit if they dont fix it. It's completely ruined this game and thats really too bad. Would you rather stick with GCD with reduced time but still affects our play? Or go back to the good ol' days and have a regular gameplay thats comfortable to the players. And whay difference does it make what age i am? Lmao

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I believe your age matters because perhaps it is showing just a bit here. We all get that YOU are upset over the GCD system, and YOU are going to take your business elsewhere if YOU don't get what YOU want. Fact is that it's been proven time and time again that the devs are here for us and work hard to get the job done. They are going to take constructive criticism and work it into something we can all enjoy. So, unless YOU have something useful to say perhaps YOU should wait and see how this plays out.

I dont think skill queuing would be a good idea. Pretty much takes the strategy out of everything, as well as timing. You might as well set auto-attack to automatically attack anything in range for you too. :)

A que system would make it worse. What happens when you have skills qued up and the mob is dead?

We've already seen much better loop times. Combat feels more paced to us that have been playing with it for a few days. It is much more strategic in PvP. It is here to stay, although we may tweak timings, mechanics, and the balance implications of it, particularly with regards to the rate of content consumption. We have an update coming this afternoon that gives you much better feedback on when something has been fired so you don't have to repeatedly tap it.

Sweet! Just got to some wifi and updated to 1.7.1. Looking good =D

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Originally Posted by BeardedBear

I dont think skill queuing would be a good idea. Pretty much takes the strategy out of everything, as well as timing. You might as well set auto-attack to automatically attack anything in range for you too. :)

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Isn't that what the people are complaing about losing? Losing the ability to spam and auto-attack at will?

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Originally Posted by FluffNStuff

A que system would make it worse. What happens when you have skills qued up and the mob is dead?

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Usually when there isn't a target, the que cancels out.

I'm not a huge fan of queueing skills. I've done it in other MMO games and the features that evolve from a basic queue system don't maintain a very strategic or challenging experience.

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Originally Posted by Cinco

I'm not a huge fan of queueing skills. I've done it in other MMO games and the features that evolve from a basic queue system don't maintain a very strategic or challenging experience.

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Ouch, shot down by the man...

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Originally Posted by Gluttony

I believe your age matters because perhaps it is showing just a bit here. We all get that YOU are upset over the GCD system, and YOU are going to take your business elsewhere if YOU don't get what YOU want. Fact is that it's been proven time and time again that the devs are here for us and work hard to get the job done. They are going to take constructive criticism and work it into something we can all enjoy. So, unless YOU have something useful to say perhaps YOU should wait and see how this plays out.

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Other than me, quite frankly not many other people are too happy with it either lmao

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Originally Posted by Cinco

I'm not a huge fan of queueing skills. I've done it in other MMO games and the features that evolve from a basic queue system don't maintain a very strategic or challenging experience.

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As a Brit, we are used to queues - we queue for everything, in fact I'd go far as to say we are drawn to them like a moth is to a light. Queues are never fun. lol

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Originally Posted by 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...

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Might well be, Snake. I've never run a pally, so I can't say. I haven't tried my baby bear yet either, just the 50. My baby birds die with great frequency soloing appropriate levels. :(

One thing i don't like about the gcd is when you click your spells, all of the spells go black then fill back up like it would normally for using a spell, it can get a bit confuzing this way not knowing what spell you just used. They should all just go shaded rather than shaded and fill up...if this makes any sense lol.

When the GCD was first announce a month ago I responded that I would wait and see, that it might barely be noticable. I've already spoken my opinion on the implementation. But I'll add this, if you guys can find a balance between avoiding lag while maintaining as close to the original feel as possible, that might work.

I like everything about the update except for the censorship and the global cooldown. I can understand and deal with the censorship, but the global cooldown has really hurt the gameplay experience for me, especially for my mage character. I used to vary the speed at which I casted spells depending upon the relative strength of the monster being battled. It was also a fun challenge having to manage the mana drain with rapid fire spell casting. Now I feel like a metronome casting a spell every second. And because of my high mana regen, casting a spell every second no longer drains the mana as fast. So now spell casting is boring and monotonous. And I have to agree with other users who say that it is much difficult to kill bosses without having full control of spell casting with global cooldown. And yes, I am very aware of what each spell does and when to use each spell. In the Alien Oasis it took me over three minutes to kill a boss when I was only able to cast one spell at a time. As I said before, this particular melee got VERY boring and monotonous. One spell a second means 180 spell casts for 3 minutes. Blech... Makes me want to use the new Puke emote over and over again....

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Originally Posted by Justg

We've already seen much better loop times. Combat feels more paced to us that have been playing with it for a few days. It is much more strategic in PvP. It is here to stay, although we may tweak timings, mechanics, and the balance implications of it, particularly with regards to the rate of content consumption. We have an update coming this afternoon that gives you much better feedback on when something has been fired so you don't have to repeatedly tap it.

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GCD has in part been implemented to promote the consumption of platinum and generate revenue with the new full-revive that cannot be hidden.

Confirm or Deny? :p

cannot deny that this causes more deaths, so that's what it comes down to ^^^^^^

... another thing dawned on me after playing a little since my last post and this may be what is being addressed today, but how about a simple color change instead of the all greyed out from skills on recharge vs. GCD .... might help , dawned in me watching buff bar more to see what was still active.

Free extra virtual 2 gold...
~Elvix

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Originally Posted by Dyclonious

Ok new idea! Keep the GCD, reduce it to 0.2 seconds, & add a ability queue.

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My enchantress casts lightning, the GCD starts but I hit Firestorm before it is ready. Firestorm is put in a queue and initiated imediatly after the GCD clock is up.

Ability Queue, plain and simple... run with it.

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i already had this idea and posted it 30 pages ago and no one commented on it so i thought that no one agreed that it would be a good idea o_O..glad someone else is on the same page as me:)

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Originally Posted by Redbridge

Folks, can I suggest an additional tact, to assist the Dev Team?

I think there is, almost, global agreement that GCD hasn't been the best, and that whilst the rest of the update has been very much welcomed there are a few tweaks, we would like. All that to one side.....

In order for the Dev Team to get some really good, constructive feedback, how about we all have a go at answering the following question, as I suspect it may allow them to be armed with a more rounded approach to solving/progressing the GCD issue.

If GCD was to stay in its current format, what other changes would you like to see to the game to make it work.....?

A few people have started to touch on this in previous posts, but I have a feeling that the community's answers to this may throw up some other alternatives which could help balance things and meet what they are trying to achieve.

So, I'll go first shall I. If the reliance on skills is going to continue to be reduced, I'd like to see more balance brought to weapons and their effectiveness. Increased weapon damage and/or Mob/Boss reduced armour/health.

Anyone else got any thoughts? Please don't say get rid of GCD. Constructive suggestions on what changes would be required to make this new GCD work better..

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I have never really posted before this change as I typically lurk. This change has changed that. I agree, Devs need constructive criticism, however, what you are suggesting is that we try to fix the problem we now have, which was to fix a problem (in my opinion) that didn't exist. I used an analogy in a previous post for old timers like myself of "New Coke." What did they do when people went through the roof? They brought back "Coke Classic" and eventually dropped the new formula and went back to regular Coke. That is what I believe needs to happen here. Granted, this is a great game with really involved Devs...we are only human, and sometimes good intentions have bad results. I strongly feel this way about the GCD.

Don't try to fix the broken fix. Just remove the problem.

If I understand correctly, people (iPhone, iPad) could hit skill buttons at the same time and oneshot kill in PvP. I did not know that as I run on a Droid. Also, I could care less about PvP. if that was a problem, surely there would be a way to disable this feature or implement a cool down so minuscule that it would render that option ineffective. The gaming experience has changed and why you see so many (admittedly non-constructive) posts that say something like "Remove GCD, it bleh, bleh, bleh" is because it has emotionally affected so many and changed the thing they loved... me included. Just because some can't articulate why, exactly they don't like it, should not dismiss the criticism. I have seen many, many first time posters who feel so strongly that they have come to the forum to post something...even if it is a flame.

Maybe I don't know enough of the reasons for why the change was needed, I'll admit that. Maybe things needed to change for some technical reasons, I'll admit that too. But the indisputable fact remains: PL as most have come to know (and love) it, has changed and every single post both for and against should be considered. The fact that most are against is telling... Even more telling are those old-timers like myself who have been disillusioned in the past (with other changes to games) who have given up and said "so-long"... I don't want that to be the case here, it is too good of a game...which is why I keep posting my opinion in various forums (hopefully I have the right one this time).

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Originally Posted by Justg

We've already seen much better loop times. Combat feels more paced to us that have been playing with it for a few days.

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Loop times? What do you mean?

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Originally Posted by Justg

It is much more strategic in PvP. It is here to stay, although we may tweak timings, mechanics, and the balance implications of it, particularly with regards to the rate of content consumption. We have an update coming this afternoon that gives you much better feedback on when something has been fired so you don't have to repeatedly tap it.

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Looking forward to it!

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Originally Posted by Cinco

I'm not a huge fan of queueing skills. I've done it in other MMO games and the features that evolve from a basic queue system don't maintain a very strategic or challenging experience.

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Are you saying it's challenging now (PvE, not PvP)? I find I just sit there and watch the GCD bar move up and tap as quickly as I can when it's cleared. Feels more like Whack-a-Mole than strategy or challenging (though, now that I mention it, it's not that different than before -- but before there was usually only one choice opened up at once, now there are often several). I've advocated for a queue system before, but done right it's probably overly complex on both the UI front and the back end. I haven't convinced myself that a queue would be better in all circumstances, just some.

That said, before the GCD, it was like a queue -- just not visual. You could mash out a bunch of stuff, but the order in which it came out was a bit unknown. At least now combos seem very reliable! :) (Just guessing, but I'd say that my skill output, although much less, is far more efficient.)

But the point of the queue would be to be able to switch your focus over to the weapon, party stats, or even the main screen to watch. But that focus on the skill buttons isn't a GCD issue so much as it is the style of game that we have now. The skill buttons have always been the primary focus. I think I have to pay more attention to them now.

I suspect that if skills could go higher in level or if there were more skills such that at whatever the max level is you could only have about half of the total skill points allocated, there would actually be a more clear route to using just a subset of skills. Currently, I think everyone (of a high enough level) is trying to us all skills. The focus on having all available and usable may be part of the issue. If everyone had to pick their top 5, GCD would be taken very differently, I think. (But don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that change... just giving it as a counter-example explanation of some behavior.)