1.7.1 Client Update (57072)

[Blayzn]

I went through a few runs with the latest patch, and it seems to be working more like "normal". I still find the GCD animation headache-inducing, but at least I didn't have to spend all of my time looking at it waiting for my skills to become available again. I would classify the current GCD level as "liveable", though I would still prefer to get rid of it altogether. It's kind of telling that the best thing I can say about the GCD is that I don't notice it very much.

I read through as much of the feedback as I could and all of the dev posts, and I'm still not sure I see a need for the GCD at all. It seems to be causing bigger problems than it is solving. I hope that a solution can be reached quickly before too many people give up on the game and STS starts losing money on PL. I think it is admirable for the devs to work towards their vision of the game, but at the same time you can't alienate your user base with unwanted changes. Being the ultimate casual RPG may not have been your goal, but frankly, that's what it is. If you try to change that you may satisfy yourselves and a small portion of your users, but you will lose the vast majority of your market. I have never had any interest in the "big" MMORPGs, but was hooked on PL due to its casual, fun nature and quick gameplay. If it loses its unique charm, I will sadly have to move on to other games. Devs, please don't lose sight of what makes this game special.

Couldn't agree more.

[skavenger216]

Oddly enough, I was in town last night talking to ppl about the gcd, and I said something along the lines of " the devs haven't said anything yet, but don't be surprised if theres a patch tomorrow that shortens the gcd to like .15 or .25 of a second, and/or removes the gcd from buffs/debuffs". Man am I good . Anyone need any lotto numbers picked while I'm at it? Lol

On to the feedback, one word, perfect. This current iteration of the gcd restores the fast, fun, smooth flow of combat, while still doing its job. I am a fan of this current gcd, don't change it unless its to remove it from buffs and debuffs.

I only played a couple runs to test it out, but I was actually having fun again. It was actually difficultfor me to log out so I could provide feedback, whereas yesterday I was unable to do more than 2 or 3 runs max because it simply was not fun.

Great job devs! I can't speak for everyone, but you have made at least one gamer happy!

On a side note, out of curiosity, what is the gcd set at now? Seems like .25.

[Rusalio]

Love and marriage, love and marriage...la la la la al la oops I mean

Devs and players, devs and players go together like to make a dream team....

Thanks devs for listening.....regardless of the outcomes.... Seems like more love mail then hate mail....lol

STILL want join button to work!!!

[shloppyshmo]

Thank you sooooo much! new GCD adds almost nothing accept the inability to use all your spells at once. Quite perfect if you ask me! Great job! PL is back!

[LordEspe]

Again I like the new update, but the bug to the skills not activating is frustrating!
What happens is: the button lights up and when you push it, it looks like it's activated (but no skill) then it lights up again as if GCD and skill cool down is over!! It only happened twice, two different maps (two different skills) and it fixed itself both times, after a few tries!!

Other than that I really enjoy playing PL and ignore RL!! Haha

[NeoQueen]

So, GCD was implemented to not only slow down the leveling process, but to reduce lag due to skill mashing, right? Although I played as a Mage today I am still not a fan in any way, shape, or form of GCD. Even with the shorter cool down times the game play is much slower and you spend more time looking at your skills to either a) see if they are ready to be used or b) making sure you actually pressed the skill than you are paying attention to game play. Personally, this has caused me to heal my teammates when their health is really low or not heal them and have to rev due to lack of attention on their health bar.

I really believe that if players disliked it so much that the cool down time was reduced then it should simply be removed. I don't think there will ever be anything smooth about pressing, waiting, pressing, waiting, etc. My suggestion is that if there is a worry about leveling too quickly then more XP should be required for each level and/or not only XP is required to level (ex. Players must complete a set amount of quests first or certain difficult tasks). Also, if lag due to skill mashing is another worry than can we please have an option to hide all skill effects. I used to play the MMORPG from GaiaOnline, zOMG, and they had that option. It really reduces the extras on your screen, allowing better views, and it does reduce the lag/battery usage one can experience.

[SUPAPRODIGY]

whats up now GCD more peeps like u now or not but guess whst get used to it because there not removing it so we have to jut get used to it ;O

[lilbyrdie]

Only had time for one run, but --- definitely an improvement. I'll have to do some timed runs, but this feels like it's getting reasonable. As others have pointed out, I'm not focused 100% on the skill buttons now.

I did have one glitch: At one point, one of the buffs (mage) was showing as "ready to cast" but wasn't actually ready. It kept triggering the GCD, then going back to full bright, but with no effects. Haven't seen it again and it went away once it's own timer finished and I could cast it again. Might be something to watch for. (This was on an Android Xoom tablet, which supports a full 10 fingers of multitouch, FWIW.)

Now that the GCD seems to be better, please look at improving the headache inducing, nauseating animation for GCD. Others have mentioned this, too, I see. This aspect is almost worse now that the GCD is faster.

Thanks for continuing to respond to feedback, STS employees!

[lilbyrdie]

Again I like the new update, but the bug to the skills not activating is frustrating!
What happens is: the button lights up and when you push it, it looks like it's activated (but no skill) then it lights up again as if GCD and skill cool down is over!! It only happened twice, two different maps (two different skills) and it fixed itself both times, after a few tries!!

Ah, that's what I noticed.

Thing is, I think what's happening is the skill did activated, but it's own cool down timer didn't start. Since it looks like it should work (being a bright button), we keep trying it -- but ultimately just waste a button press since the failed attempt activates the GCD. I'd have to play more... but it sounds like enough of us are seeing it that they'll be able to reproduce and fix.

[Genes]

Definitely a huge improvement. But it seems like some of my skills aren't registering and I have to tap them several times. Never had this problem before -- don't even think that happened yesterday.
So far only tested it in town, though.

I have the same bug! Sometimes the skills don't register. And it's not becuase skills are still cooling down or my device prolem.

[Tengotengo]

This is much better. Self combos are much easier to do, and the difficulty is still up there in comparison to non GCD. We'll be more able to solo, but will still feel the sting when not in a group.

2 way communication is a wonderful thing.

[markus]

Played a few games with it and it is def getting to a better place! I would still like to see at least tweek in xp,money, and pink drop rates and possible tweek of dmg or slight mob hp. Other then that excellent work so far still gona take a bit to get used to but def worth fixing rating to at least 3stars 5 when all tweeking is done!

[The Real Jira]

Speed feels like it's getting better, but IMO, it's not great yet -- would LOVE to see it just a bit faster.

Also, I don't know if it's the timing or ??? but the animation on my iPad is wonky... It seems like: hit button, effect fires, button double flashes (odd), then GCD animation, then I can repeat. Anyone else notice this?

I do appreciate you listening to the user base -- keep it up and let's make it a little faster. =)

[Pandamoni]

I have the same bug! Sometimes the skills don't register. And it's not becuase skills are still cooling down or my device prolem.

I'm having the same issue and it's VERY!!@!#@!@!$$#@### frustrating.

I just tried with the shorter cool down and I think I like it even less but that may be because only about 60% of the time my skills even registered I was hitting them--I know it's not my device as it would be pretty coincidental to have my device stop registering when I hit a skill right when the release happens (I'm not a skill masher).

One thing I do not like about it is that my role in the group has drastically changed. I liked keeping people buffed, keeping mobs debuffed and healing people. I also enjoyed actually causing damage AND getting kills. I like seeing my kill count go up. I just ran hideout and got 9! kills. This is much less than I'm used to getting in that dungeon. I wanted to keep my group buffed and healed and it caused me to have less time to cause damage. I don't like that I have to choose between helping out the team and doing what I love to do--nuking the crap out of stuff. I'm hoping that this is more of a pronounced problem because I can't get my skills to fire even if it's "ready".

The skill will appear ready, then I'll hit it and it will go dim for a split second as if I have actually hit it but nothing will happen (no skill will fire) then it will relight right away as if it's ready again and it does a kind of weird double flash thing. I'll have to hit it a few times for it to finally work.

Also, while my death count is relatively high (I'm a little over 1,000) I'd like to keep it from going up at a rapid rate. Once I started playing the game more I started paying attention to deaths and now I like to see that number creep up as slowly as possible. I'm having to guzzle health pots a lot more than I remember guzzling before.

I am also now being annoyed by the dim down and lighting up of the skills. When it was .5 seconds I didn't notice as much but now it's really distracting.

Now, before people scream that I need to give constructive criticism, I don't really know HOW to suggest anything "better" to do with GCD because I don't really know what might work better other than nixing it all together. I haven't even PLAYED a video game in 18 years (since Donkey Kong for Nintendo and that was only casually. Before that the only game I'd really played was Super Mario Brothers for the original Nintendo when I was 10) so I don't have fancy suggestions and I don't really understand the mechanics of the game from a developer POV so I can't give feedback with suggestions of how to fix it. I've just given my feedback about my play experience so far. Up until now I've not really contributed much to what I DON'T like because I know it must be hard and very political to have everyone screaming and up in arms about things but the suggestion to give it a whirl leads me to believe that you guys want to know if you're getting closer to finding something people will like. So far I'm kind of bummed.

[Artemis]

Ehh. I still suck at pvp with it. Butt much better for PvE

[sticky420]

Deff much better but as I was playing today id cleear a room and before goin to next room I would buff so im stand there hit my spell nothing hit it again nuthin had to push it 5 times on one occasion and six another to get it to activate this is just one spell it would do gcd but did not activate now I know it was Doin it because I was not fighting just standing outside a room so now im wondering when I am fighting 10 or 15 guys not paying as much attention the same thing has to b happening so ic there's a way to fix that that would b great im starting to get used to gcd but if tthats something that goes along with it im back to sayin get rid of it if its gonna b flair

[skavenger216]

Deff much better but as I was playing today id cleear a room and before goin to next room I would buff so im stand there hit my spell nothing hit it again nuthin had to push it 5 times on one occasion and six another to get it to activate this is just one spell it would do gcd but did not activate now I know it was Doin it because I was not fighting just standing outside a room so now im wondering when I am fighting 10 or 15 guys not paying as much attention the same thing has to b happening so ic there's a way to fix that that would b great im starting to get used to gcd but if tthats something that goes along with it im back to sayin get rid of it if its gonna b flair

Holy never-ending sentence Batman! Punctuation is your friend sticky420

I also seem to be experiencing the bug where you hit an ability and it doesn't register. It's actually gotten me killed a couple times. I love the new gcd timing, but would love it even more if you guys could fix this slight bug.

[JaytB]

I played with the new gdc timings and start to like it more and more.

I have a feeling we're almost there. A little bit more decrease in time would be perfect IMO, but this is definitely playable again

To all doomsayers: See... You just need to have some patience

[XRAX]

Again, thank you devs for your hard work and persistence in trying to satisfy the community with this massive change to the game mechanics .

I will speak on behalf of the majority of PVP community only.

In short, the more you reduce the inter-skill interval for GCD, the more the community become satisfied. Although GCD implementation may create a more entertaining and challenging PVE experience (for those who may believe this), PVP is longer close to what it used to be. It is easy, not entertaining, non-competitive and lacking challenge, slow, and like I may have mentioned before, any low level player with zero experience can join an arena full of hard working experienced players and aim for scoreboard leader. I have so many points on my mind, and as always, i reserve my posts for constructive criticisms ONLY, as I encourage others to do so as well.

On going issues with GCD

Character Diversity:
There is no longer diversity in PVP. All STR based characters are inefficient. This means palladins, warbirds and str bears no longer have a place in PVP. Birds, by default, have way too low armor to stand a chance vs any opponents especially mages (unless using a mixture set which is still frustrating for both sides to deal with...raid roach fails for dex birds now). The ONLY class this update benefits, of course, are mages (if you're a mage, go raid roach dex mage).

Balance:
Somewhat related to what i mention above for character diversity is balance. Before, if you were a good elf (imperialelf, xghostx, kellylita, jjjlove, etc...), a good bear (rosalka, toughie, fabio, etc...), a good pally (amy, tina, faryia, etc...), a good warbird (falcom brothers..etc), a good bird (skimmey, hmmhmm, etc...), and so on, you earned it. These select few that I mentioned, as well as many others, were distinguishable as top PVP palyers. Each one of these players (and not limited to these) were able to kill absolutely any other player head on - i have personally experienced this. They had to undergo a mission to get to where they have achieved prior to GCD - deaths, kills, practice, commitment, determination, experience, and much more. There was an evident learning curve that separated the top from the rest. There was a high positive correlation between experience and skill prior to GCD.The fast paced combo tapping gave room to create endless possible skill combinations with the limited amount of skills available to you. PVP as it stands was not designed to handle an obvious GCD, and it has lost its very unique and special characteristics.

For now ill leave it to these points. There still is a lot, lot more to be said and considered, unfortunately I have to get back to work. I will post again when I can.

(I'll include this in most posts, but implement GCD for the sole purpose of controlling mulitouching. If GCD is here to stay, reduce it to .075-.1 seconds at most. Keep the originality and intended mechanics of PVP alive.)

Thank you devs for never giving up and working so hard. The whole community appreciates that our voices are always heard and never brushed under the carpet .

[darkerelf]

I tested it and would have to say thx dev. I did run across issues where you had to tap some spells multiple times to activate. Only tested on my mage and when I use the bless spell it sometimes does not highlight darker. The spell is casted but stays clear, it could just be my layout of spell, and its on the top right.

If you could add a small bar ontop just like the auto attack due to the interference it causes it would help out a lot. And to add with some others, can u give us an option of 3-5 spells only bless and debuff with no gcd. Honest truth I was against gcd but it definitely helps in pvp. Not sure about pve, because when I was doing bandit boy hideout some spells I had to tap multiple times. So it does not look so choppy on gcd please add a bar ontop of spells just like the auto attack.