EZ Server

Here it is ladies and gents, the discussion you've all been PM'ing me for and spamming me with tells over. You can all finally post your thoughts, feelings, feedback, and trolling.

Rules of this discussion: KEEP IT FOCUSED, NO S--- SLINGING, NO INSULTING.

I've been given many "solutions" by you ladies/gents. To be fair, some of them are so far out in left field that they may as well be political campaign speeches (insofar as transparent goals from the prettied speech). A few of them were very rational. Lastly, two of them were utterly hilarious (while simultaneously insulting).

What we need is to come together and figure out a solution that we can all (or mostly) agree upon.

---

After spending a long time trying to decide how to handle this situation, my suggested solution is this:

• Bring UWs' HP down to ~3x the HP of the matching tier's tank weapon (i.e. UW5 would be equivalent to Abyss, so ~75k HP)
• Bring UWs' damage down ~5x to matching tier's DPS weapon (i.e. UW5 would be, again, equivalent to Abyss, so ~5000-6000)
• Adjust UW Procs to match the weapons again.
• Flesh out the UW Augs (proc, focus, click, and stat [replacing worn aug slot]) to allow players to build their Ultimate Weapons to be unique feeling ultimate WEAPONS (not be-all, end-all weapon).
• Fix T8 and T9 to be less...ridiculous
• Fix resists across the server as a result of these adjustments

The UW augs that I'm looking at could be a variety of things. I'm looking at adding back an AoE click, defensive click, snap aggro click, a twincast click, and (potentially) a swarm pet click. Procs may include melee damage procs, melee heal procs, or melee defensive procs to name a few. Focus will be very much to-be-announced (TBA) as I've got a few particularly awesome ideas that I want to play with to make sure they are 100% before I go promising what I cannot deliver. Finally, the stat augs will be in place to let you beef up you hp, hp regen, mana, mana regen, or heroic resist (potentially with others, per request).

---

The HP and damage seem harsh, but are not intended to gimp players. The problem that I've explained to numerous people, numerous times is that content balancing is impossible at T8 and above. The tanks have such VASTLY varied stats that I could not balance the tier to fit both ends of the spectrum without either building entirely separate copies of each tier, create huge arrays of buffs, and/or spending 2-3x the effort per tier to work around a problem. The problem should be solved instead of band-aid fixing everything for this one, colossal problem.

For example: T7->T8 warrior will be looking at potentially ~1.3 - 1.7 million HP with ~1500-2000 with resists that could be anywhere. With UW7, that's potentially 500k more HP and 700 more heroic resist. Currently, T8 mobs require ~3k resist to get them to stop crucifying your tank. If the UW were normalized a bit, then the heroic resist levels could be brought down to more manageable for those that are not UW wielders. (Problem here: Make resists non-UW ready and give UW holders (1/3 of playerbase) a cakewalk...or make it built around UW and screw over 2/3 of the playerbase)

---

Solutions Suggested Already:

• Build large amounts of NPC-only buffs to scale content for UW holders.
• Build multiple versions of each zone for UW holders
• Delete all UWs (lol)
• Build legacy UWs and new UWs, nerfing the damage on the "legacy UWs" while leaving the defensive stats.
• Just stop allowing people to combine/turn in for UWs and "phase them out".
• Revert UWs back to before Hunter stripped my original changes to them and just leave them be.

The first will simply not happen because I do not have the time/energy/patience to rebalance one tier numerous times when fixing the problem is really what needs to happen.
The second is solved above in the reply to the first.
The third will not happen.
The fourth may work, but still doesn't solve the problem of scaling.
The fifth would take ~3 more tiers to resolve.
The sixth doesn't do anything except add more power.

---

This post will likely be updated as the discussion progresses.
Short Link is http://tinyurl.com/ezuwtalk
Short Link for spreadsheet is http://tinyurl.com/ezuwnumbers


-Hate

The UW is something that, regardless of how you come by it, takes quite a bit of time to obtain. Time we could have spent progressing our armies.

as such, that time should pay off


If the T7 epic is 2000 dmg, then the UW9 should be 5k
if the T7 epic is 300k hps, then the UW9 should be 750k
if the T7 epic gives 200 resists, then the UW9 should give 550
if the T7 epic gives 3 slots for augs, then the UW9 should get 4 (with one being an aug that will only work with an UW)

basically the UW should be not 10x the epic, but more like 2.5x

The UW should be capped at its current XI and new T10 content should give us something new, which would eventually phase out the UW over the course of a long time.

the player that puts in the time and effort should be rewarded with an edge in the new content. Meaning, a T7 geared warrior and crew should be able to walk into T8 and break into it, however the T7+ UW9 warrior and crew should be able to walk into T8 and break into it faster and with greater ease because they put in the time on the side quests.

Think of it this way, you can do Twhatever without strike augs, but it would take forever, so you do the strikes for all your crew, this takes a lot of time, but when its done you have ease of passage. same applies here.

The UW should not be required, needed, or must have to progress past T7, but it should allow an ease of passage to represent the time and effort put into the thing.

UW isnt an easy quest, no matter how well geared your team. It takes time, and lots of it. UW holders SHOULD be able to rip through the same tier content a lot easier with it than without.

That being said.....the current setup is ridiculous. WAY too many hps.....WAY too much white damage, and while the white damage may not seem like much when you combine it with some of the class spells out there it gets pretty gnarly.

IMO the UW needs to be revamped a LOT. First, I dont think, first, that essences used for things like strike augs, SoA, mana necks, etc should be used for UW as the bottleneck. Throttling drop rate on these essences to control UW difficulty isnt the right way to do things (my opinion). All this does is make newer players breaking in to the aug climb or the SoA climb that much more likely to get frustrated and find fun elsewhere. No, dont make it a cakewalk to get these essences for these items, but keep things separate: sharing SLS and Essence of Norath is enough. Take UW OUT of the tier essence grind as it stands now. Do this by starting the UW at or after T5, or make other items that the UW recipe uses.

Regardless of how you handle that, I firmly believe that before T5 you just shouldnt have a UW. Makes no sense at all. I'd revamp things to the point that UW1 is a weapon that requires drops in Abyss, and that requires level 73 to craft. Scale it up to the point that its a weapon far better than a 4.5 epic, with benefits for the hard work that the UW should require. But...really need to get the UW out of the hands of the lower tier players. No matter how you run it, unless you completely nerf the hell out of ranks 1 to 4, its far too powerful to be used to progress through that content.

Also, this would get a lot of lvl 75+ players the hell out of lower tier zones, and leave those for the up and coming players.

I loved the old effects on the UW, but without a doubt they made players with them very very hard to kill. While some saw the old sword proc, for example, as a dps weapon, the reality was that it was the ultimate defensive weapon because of the killshot heal. A well timed click and you went from 10% to full health without a healer. I think if we see some of that type thing back it needs to be reworked so its a bit better balanced. I'd love to see some class choices for the UW that made sense. Allowing epics to be slotted into the uw helped with this a TON, and I hope that feature stays.

Will add more as I think about it. Farming rubicite ore! :D

Talk about hitting the nail on the head, good job rent!

I did have an issue with the UW's for casters. Bonus dmg and healing are a point to point add not a multiple and all spell rules applies to the bonus.
Long story short, i dont see myself doing melee as a caster please up the bonus for us casters, or lets see what ya had in mind for the Focus effect.
Just hope a focus effect would not compete with UC.

Krupa

So much has already been said that anything I were to expand on would be redundant, But, why not.

Sipmly, new tiers Other then discovering the ergonomics of mob placement and how spawns and things are handles boil down to Hp vs Dmg.

How long (how many hp) can the main tank last VS how fast (damage your group does) can kill MOB A to be able to progress to MOB B.

Up till UW's were introduced hunter for the most part spent most of his time redesigning a zone with the fist part of what i described ( ergonomics and spawns and loots) and the DMG vs HP later. he would then tweek a zone after it was broke into, to fit properly. ( remember all the posts about Anguish)

After the UW's, Especialy after the last 3 upgrades it became apparent you could not balance a zone for toons with and without a UW.

Lower HP, Lower Dmg. How much? No clue, i suck at math  ;)

After that adding in effects and such will then make the UW's still ultimate and desirable. 

Balance to make them desirable but not Necessary is the Key.

I dont want to stir up trouble, but i do want to put in my thoughts on this. Ultimate weapon has alot of hp, and alot of dmg, and can make content trivial for someone who has it if the top teirs arent balanced around the UWs, i understand that, heres how you fix that, you balance the top tiers as if UW dont exist, just like it was originally stated it would be. And if using my UW to farm content trivial makes me bored, i can fix that too, switch back to my epic 8.0.

Honestly I worked on this weapon to be able to roll over content easily, and its been slow nerfed little by little and its just being accepted because they are such small nerfs. Id really appreciate a FULL refund for the work i put into my ultimate weapon through an npc or something if these nerfs continue.

Again, not trying to cause trouble, not saying there is no problem, im just saying how i feel about this. I understand it is a complicated subject.

Quick edit, Id just like to say how very strong I feel about a FULL refund npc if nerfs happen, we were promised alot of things about UWs, and none of them happened, this isnt anyones fault because hey, shit happens, but also, Its not my fault, i should recieve all the plat, essences, sls etc i put into UW if i dont want to use it any more.

The only issue with a full refund NPC is that there would be very little market, and therefore very little value, to the essences and other materials you would get back.

The biggest concern I have right now is that the UW has a slot for the epic, which comes with a click effect.  Can you have multiple click effects on one weapon?  Other than that, I have nothing but faith in Hate to balance content so that people without a UW can get by, while the UW will greatly reward those who have invested the time.

I did want to expand on my idea for a Legacy UW...

I feel that if the current UW had the extra aug slots removed so that it was just the epic aug and had the damage reduced to scale with the content changes it would be a virtually unchanged weapon.  It could then be named a Legacy Ulitimate Sword (Staff, whatever) from rank I to rank XI.  An NPC would be available to turn in your Legacy UW for a matching rank shiny new UW (and maybe an aug as was suggested when the initial UW changes were talked about).  A new rank of UW would not be obtainable without handing in the Legacy for the New UW.

This would allow those who want to have too many HP and kill slowly the opportunity to steamroll current content, and the rest of us to upgrade to the new UW with it's new augments that allow customization to our own play styles.  Hate would be free to make his adjustments and tweaks to make the new UW a valuable, but not game breaking item without too many people complaining that anything was taken away from them.

Will content be balanced along with the UW nerf?

Its been a while since I've been in T9, so it might have changed... But, the way I see it - you can't really do much in there, unless your tank (and offtank) has a shitbunch of HP.

As long as the balancing act continues on the NPC side aswell, I think the above changes are fine.

I agree with krinkle on the refund if significant changes are made. The essences would not go to waste as I've put soa and strike augs on hold for a long time to invest in the uw. I do believe it should not include SLS or essences but maybe a long ass kill quest for an upgrade component. Keep it more along the lines of t5 and UC.

Should you decrease the stats of the weapon? Yea but a balance of the upper zones would almost have to follow. A nice balance will be worked out and some won't be happy but this is a very dynamic/ organic server.

ill just quote what i said in a previous thread



Damage should be left alone as i dont think its that big a deal. This is a botting server, if you want to do more damage you simply add more toons, direct result is time invested in new charcters = more raid dps, and theres no limit to that. Is there ever a point where someone with too many toons does TOO much dps and becomes an issue with the community? If someone wants to put in endless hours into obtaining an item to increase their dps, how is that any different then someone putting in endless hours to making an army of toons to increase their dps? convince is the only thing i can think of.

Adding an army of healers of increase survivability isnt going to stop you from getting 1 shot. Max hp is the name of the game and no amount of toons will be able to compete with an item with 10s of millions of hp.

Some ppl are limited by connection and hardware.

oh i know some if not most cant handle 12 toons or whatever, thats where its more "convinent" to have a uw compared to multiple groups. Im mainly talking about it just being entirely possible and well within the rules to increase your dps. There is an alternative to increasing your dps outside of a uw. There is no comparable alternatives to upgrading survivability outside of Halloween pet, shield and roa. again im just pointing out alternatives and the lack there-of.

I personally like the For Example section Hate listed.  I think 3x the damage and 5x hp's on the current tier is still nice.   It still gives everyone the ability to work towards having it and it still will help with smashing content.    I don't even mind the essence grind.   

I'm a 1 group team and just zoned into t8 for the 1st time.  I have no UW yet.  Just an soa and 198 roa.   Having to run another group would kill me.  I have no interest in having to form a raid since we all been playing on this server for years and able to do everything with 1 group. 

 I've been working on the UW for some time now.   I have enough essence up to t4 now but since money never drops, it's all wasting away in the bank until i can come up with cash and those damn tofs essences.   

With the upcoming nerf, It would be nice to drop the essence of platinum down from 10 million to something more manageable.   and the essences from tofs removed or not made floor specific.

I like the for example idea and it would still allow for content to be made around normal tier progression.

I think this is an excellent option.  It makes the UW better than an epic (although I have issue with that in and of itself) but it doesn't make it a cake walk.  As long as content is adjusted to fit the epic players, then the UW would still give you that "leg up" that everyone wanted it for in the first place.

I disagree with changing the UW quest at all.  leave it as is, that way as new content is brought out (assuming it will) then new UW's will be brought out too.  It helps to give the playerbase something to do when not wanting to progress but also doesn't make it a "have to have item" to progress from tier to tier (that should be gear/epic).

I think this is the best idea of all and. at least for me, gives me exactly what I thought the UW was all along.

I also don't disagree with making strike augs available for UW as well as the epic aug.  Although maybe making the augs changeable to make people be able to customize their epics...maybe turn in warrior aug to obtain "x" class aug and make it UW usable...like a warrior with a pally proc or warrior with a cleric proc or warrior with a Sk proc....yadda yadda yadda.....

My suggested fix/new UW system

Revert to old recipes, given hp nerfs etc and clicky nerfs I think this fits.

Implement aug recipes built around the 10k/50k exp tokens that incorporate some of the stuff from the new recipe, EoFS essences, 10mil plat sinks, EoN, with some more variety.

Since the UW as is becomes mostly a shell to customize I think this fits, and will create a larger demand for EoFS of all levels because more recipes will utilize it, and i think it will accomplish the ultra rare vision of Hunter's for the highest/most powerful augs if the recipes are done correctly.

This makes getting an UW easier again, because it is also less powerful, and the ship has sailed on it being uber rare.  If done correctly could make making it a true ultimate weapon a rarity with maxed out augs.

My old post. but still fits.

I will miss the white damage if it goes, because I always like big crits, but I think the HP is the most unbalanced aspect of them.

My thoughts....

Remove the UW...

Enter the Ultimate Aug....

we all like (I think) the new weapon epic aug system currently in place.....

make the UA....could have big Heroic resist buff..heroic stats.....massive AC....defensive buffs...add in some fun procs...whatever....then we can use the nifty new weapon graphics...the aug wont raise white damage but could have a massive proc...
 

players could use the class epic aug in 1 slot...the UA in another slot...then the ninja/ice/fire of there choice in the rest....

can hand in the UA for diff ones that have diff effects....ae proc.....spell focus...ae heal.....whatever...you chose....


MY 2 Cents have been spent....

thank you...

I have dumped 10's of millions of plat and thousands of essences into my UW's. Now we are looking at nerfing them to be a step above epics but I can now sink more plat, mats and time to bring them back up? I am not trolling you Hate, I am just wanting to give you some perspective feedback. With the suggestions you have put forth the effort I put into my UW's will in no way match what I am left with. I did not look over the plethora of suggestions except to skim, I looked over your post. So I have a few ideas, if I riposte else's idea just look at it as an endorsement.

Artifact Ultimate Weapon:
Give people somewhat of a notice that all UW's will be frozen as they are. A week or 2 window to allow them to upgrade them. Take away all the extra aug slots except for the epic slot and make it so the UW can not be upgraded any further.  Allow people to continue to exchange them from one type to another.

New Ultimate Weapon:
Exactly as you have described in your post.

3rd option:
Allow people to turn in their current UW's for the equal tier of epic, fully aug'd plus an amount of plat to offset the cost between the two, or the equivalent amount of credits, (for cases like 1h'ers) and allow those credits to be transferable. This option should only be allowable if the Artifact Ultimate Weapon is not viewed as a viable option.

I like the first 2 options myself. This makes it so people don't just get screwed out of all that plat and effort they put in.

Before I start, please know that I am not attacking, I am seriously trying to find information!

The bit in yellow, can you elaborate? I am going to take the safe assumption that you are referring to when the UWs lost their shiny clicks. This happened due to a small adjustment I made to each UW and the bulk of the server reacting EXTREMELY negatively. I threw my hands up and pretty much said whatever. Hunter got REALLY upset and reverted them to before I ever touched them (which was the nerf everyone saw) since numerous said I wasn't qualified to touch it.

The bit in red, again, can you elaborate? I cannot remember anything specific about promises for the UW.

As for a full refund, I cannot simply refund and item because you no longer want it. If so, I've got millions of AAXP to Fugitive, Denzig, or Stone/Xiggie if they decide the RoA isnt' worth it anymore. If the item were being utterly destroyed, then yes I would refund it in full.

---

You cannot have two clicks on a weapon at a given time. This would come down to a question of do you want an epic click on UW or offhand/bagged-item?

---

The goal is build it to be the Ultimate Weapon, not the server-breaking-best-in-slot-forever item. :-)

As a result of these changes, A LOT of resist and damage rebalancing would be done to fix the MASSIVE gaps created by these items. (Which is my biggest problem, content balance)

---

Keep'em coming. I'll continue to update this thread as I'm able (at work).


-Hate

The original "UW" was meant to be a fun, game-breaking, and hard to get item. It was certainly fun, wasn't that hard to get, and only broke the game as much as you allowed it to. You can always break the game if you want; I still remember the days of people 30 botting the MCP for 4.0 books. The UW just allows people to do that without loading up or so many chars or backflagging a compensatory flavor-of-the-week class character, and allows people to trade off little chunks of time in building the item for less time spent on the progression zones.

Honestly, I think the game post-UW was more fun than the game pre-UW, but then again, that's my personal view. I don't think the game should be built around the UW at all, because I think the UW should be what it originally was: an option to invest some time on questing to see a benefit on the time spent to progression. Have a UW and want the game to be harder? Un-equip or decrease your group! I haven't done t8/t9, so if that needs to be modified to not require the UW, then it should be modified.

Hate's current suggested solution sounds less like a fun or game breaking item, and more like an optional/marginally better epic for the respective tier. That's fine, but that's a different item, and arbitrarily so. I don't know what your plans are with the augs until you reveal them in their entirety, so I cannot speak to what degree they might influence my conclusion. I don't actually care what you do, but I hope the item retains a unique sense of fun above all else. Ideally, I believe that the UW should retain its game breaking capabilities; if I want to "break the game" (that alone is arguable for a mid ranged UW), it's hardly limiting the person who chooses not to (especially in light of how limited our economy is), as long as they do not have to suffer content tailored to the UW, and that could simply be solved by not tailoring the content to the UW.

Don't worry, I didn't take it as such. I have expected this to be 100x more violent than it has been.

You won't be completely "at the start" on the augs. Some of the clicks will be given to those that have certain weapons and certain ranks (i.e. UW AoE click may be restricted to 1h swords (UW Long Sword), UW Shield Click may be restricted to 1h mace (Ultimate Mace), etc etc). You will not start with the highest rank, but you will not be flat out pissed on either.

This may sound dickish (not intended), but I'm not blind. I understand the hellish grinds that some people have put into them. I'm aware of the botting some have done too, but I'm not letting that taint/skew my judgement. I was a player here and did grind up a few augs (though certainly less than others with more melee heavy groups). That being said, I do understand the time sink.

Xiggie, I would ask that you read over the thread as time permits. Yes I understand that a LOT of time was spent into getting these items. I have no doubt that you've noticed that glaring imbalance they cause. A warrior being able to pull the first 1/3 of a zone, afk autoattacking, then repopping...no healer...no assistance...solo destroying ~50-70 NPCs just a tier or two less. With new tiers, it's become pretty much impossible to cleanly balance content. This is READILY seen in T8 and higher ToFS (ignore T9 though, it was left in beta state). The problem will only continue to get worse (if it can even continue) in future tiers. T9 is locked down both because it's incomplete and because I cannot bring it down to meet both ends of the player spectrum (even the middle ground is more favorable to the UW holders).


-Hate

I have tried to reply to this 3 times now but keep restarting, heres what it boils down to.

In your first post Hate you say that not nerfing the UW will help 1/3 of the server and hurt the other 2/3. The issue I have with this is that if you have done the UW, you have put in a shit load of work, especially with the nerfs to acquire it. The EoP sink alone is enough to stop most people who aren't already swimming in Plat, then you add in the EoN and EoToFS and to just even get started you are talking about longer than most people spent getting their first UC.

I've got enough Qvic, CT and ToFS essences to make up to UW2, what I don't have are the EoP, EoN and if the weapon gets nerfed down further I wont bother with it. I agree that the HP are out of whack on it, cap that at 1 million. But those that have the upper ranks have put in a ton of time, I don't even have one and I've got hundreds of hours invested into it. Taking away the "Ultimate" aspect of it does nothing for anyone who has spent even 10 minutes trying to acquire one.

A.100 essence (some times days....some times weeks/months of farming)
B.10 million plat(not a big deal)
C.EON(not a big deal)
D.SLS(easy)

Vrs

Collect 10 pages from mobs you are clearing anyway for armor or flag quest progression...

If you want to reduce the impact of the UW on content then it seems fair to look at reducing the quest to get it... Do you want to spend weeks or MONTHS farming for an item that is 2.5 times as good as your epic and you don't really need? Probably not...


so the real question I see is...


DO we want content balanced around the UW?

If so then reduce the UW to a non content breaking status and reduce the quest to get it equally...
IF you don't then return it to its forever awesome glory....
you cant balance it...
people will get very butt hurt no matter what you do(not your fault...just people being people)...people who have spent most of the $$ that run this server...and time....the very people who make the community that the rest of us swim in... In a game that is run almost 100% in instance with people boxing all the toons they play with...what does it matter if its an OP weapon? who cares? people blast past content and then what?

You have stated that the goal is to phase out future UW's and reduce the gap?  Several of the later tier zones Are balanced around the UW currently, so I believe this should be included in this delicate issue.

An easy solution I see would be to nerf UW Hp and then balance mob damage in T7 or T8 and up. You can additionally, keep UW DPS as is and/or add in augs/clicks.

This accomplishes several things.  You get your gap closer by adjusting UW HP and mob damage at higher tiers.  You dissuade people further from a mandatory UW situation by reducing this massive HP buffer that some people sought after it for and would continue to do so.  You keep the nice damage bonus (and remember not to balance content around it, ever again) which still gives it a use and a goal that people with all that extra time (and or money) will still work on it for.  The amount of DPS the UW provides can always be replaced by additional fully aug'd toons and usually with less time/effort.

Yellow: No, I do not want another "forced" requirement instead of properly balancing the zones. UC, RoA, and class aug/gear is enough.

Right now, the essence drop rates are still somewhat low (but not crap) due to the overall adjustments Hunter made to the server to stem the flow of UWs into the market. This directly hit the new players harder than it did the upped echelons that could simply power clear 50% longer (though it sucked for those clearing more too).

Orange: Former Glory? You mean when everyone attacked me saying that I wasn't fit to adjust the UWs and Hunter removed my original changes that made them so godly? That won't happen in their current state.

Red: Yes, people that want to speed through content with no real challenge (or just like getting better without a contest) will enjoy this item. Those that donated a lot for an item that gave them the ability to speed past content never lose that speed. The problem (as stated before in this thread) is once the UW reaches point X (literally X, not the roman numeral for 10), the player has little or nothing to fear from the current tier. It's just a slow, low/no challenge grind to get 100 of the current tier's essences to reach the next tier with little/no challenge with another slow low/no challenge grind to get THAT tier's 100 essences. Once that point is reached, you've essentially broken in and beaten a new zone without ever having setting foot inside it.

The reason I care? I want this server to prosper. If I just gave everyone what they wanted, you would all have fun for a few weeks (maybe even a month or two) and then the server would become a ghost town. If you don't believe me, look at all the EQEmu and WoW emulated server with godmode and GM powers enabled. They seldom see more than a few dozen players at a time. Why? There is no challenge and there is nothing to overcome. When you are handed your loot versus fighting tooth and nail for it, there is no real feeling of accomplishment. Hunter cared and took steps to slow the UWs (but not enough). His steps were global (to the server) and far reaching.


-Hate

Hehe :-)

For the most part, you essentially stated what I stated (minus the damage component staying as is).


-Hate

A ton of ideas have already been posted - however, I'd like additional stats if possible Hate.

Can you tell us how many people with 6+ chars from the same IP address that DO and DO NOT have an UW (both sides of the debate per-say)?  IE - 120 people who play 6+ chars have at least one UW, while 145 people who play 6+ chars do not own an UW currently.  

What I'd like to see is how many serious progression driven people do not have already own an UW.  There will always be exceptions to every rule, but I believe this would be a great start to narrowing down an acceptable solution.

I am glad you received my response as I intended instead of a troll. I have done enough trolling on the forums and i would like to get away from that. Especially when dealing with you. I didn't take anything you said as dickish either.





You had me at Hello. If I am reading this right I like it a lot. Basically giving those with higher UW a leg up that they earned on the uw instead of just giving them the new UW and telling them they are screwed on that hand slot. Especially if you are talking about giving out some or a choice of the new augs that would make the tier their UW is at.


Again you're not dickish and I appreciate your views on it. Under Hunter the server molded itself to the best way of doing things. I understand your appreciate the delicate task completing what was left undone and improving what was already there. For the record I agree with transitioning the server so that botting is not needed at all.



I will look over all the posts on here, just had some things going on that needed my attention plus I wanted to put some untainted ideas out there. I agree that something does need to be done with warriors basically being able to be a group themselves. Before some of the nerfs that came about I could go into a tier above me with an Ultimate Weapon below what I have now and tank bosses and any adds that came my way. I could prolly kill 10 or so trash with no gear from that zone. That is broken plain and simple. One of the alluring things about this server though is the ability to go back to previous content and utterly rape it. Maybe not to the degree it currently happens though. I hope we don't lose that allure to the point of other servers but I do hope some of it gets toned down a bit for the health of the server.

Thanks for your time man.

I'm not massively far along in the server (prepping my crew for T6 and no UW) I want to drop my thoughts here. I've personally never cared about the damage, as long as they aren't absolutely decimating current content with a combat round or two. The HP and maybe Heroic Resists have always been the content swaying factor on the item. If those came down to realistic and manageable levels (I do still think they deserve to be above epics as it is a grind) content would be more balanceable. I'm also all for augs that are nice for UW holders. I'm not against them having extra damage, healing or what not (Anything that can be provided by adding a character pretty much), but in the aug thread I stated that I was pretty against UWs having extra mitigation stats and clicks cause that just bridges the gap again. Remember this is just an outside view as I'm pretty sure most this thread will be from people with UWs.

The UW quest was extremely poorly implemented to begin with, and the itemization of the stats/hp on it were based off nothing that existed to balance it against and was done in a vacuum.  First and foremost, the UW quest should have been level locked to T7 since that was the highest tier out when UW was put in AND the intent of the weapon was a dangling carrot for people who had already gotten max gear and defeated the content that existed WITHOUT needing the UW.  Everything up to and through T7 could be done before the UW existed, yes I know I just said that but I'm emphasizing my point.

After UW was put in without any level requirement, people started abandoning the tiered progression that existed and was completely balanced around not having UW, and instead just started working on the UW in lieu of gearing a crew of toons up and consuming content while progressing at the same time.  This was the first problem introduced by the UW in my opinion.  You didn't need the UW to progress prior to it's implementation so if you want to attain the UW, it only makes sense that you get to the point in progression where it was introduced.  Remember when the level was increased based off flags and people threw a shit fit because their high level strike augs wouldn't fire on their low level toons anymore?  Hunter intentionally level locked them so you'd have to advance to gain the increased benefit of a higher level strike aug, I think him not doing so with the UW was an oversight that he felt he couldn't correct after people started donating RL $$ to get the UW.

The second problem introduced with the UW was the inflation of HP slapped onto higher versions of the weapon.  When you have a sword with an HP amount that eclipses a whole set of tier appropriate gear, you have a problem.  Hunter obviously felt that in order for the UW to be ultimate, it needed to have a rediculous amount of HP that doubled at every new level of it.  The problem that presented was when he made T8 he used a max gear, max UW character to balance around (/rude Fugi).  A lot of tuning had to happen in T8 because of that, people can remember when rampage was removed from the game globally.  It was removed because when you first entered T8, even max geared in T7 crap, killing mobs was a crap shoot because if they rampaged too much and took out one of your healers, you were fucked because of the unresistable 1mil DD that would fire on the tank along with the high melee dmg and AE's that your group had to try to mitigate.  Hell, I remember killing Dozekar with my cleric standing outside rampage range and chain healing the warrior while he solod it because nobody would live through the fight with all the shit happening between AEs and rampages.  The problem was that the damage output on the warrior was manageable if he had a UW but there was no way in hell the rest of the group was able to survive it reliably since they didn't have the HP from the UW.  Since the removal of rampage, the only thing that has mattered is gearing your warrior enough to tank the incoming damage without having to worry about what gear your alts were in since they could easily resist the AEs with high enough resists...T8 was the point that UW became more than an optional piece of gear because the damage output from NPC's was balanced around it.

I'd be fine with gutting the shit out of the HP on UW and capping it or only doing tier level increases at a rate consistent with epics...ie 2x or 3x the HP of the same tier epic.  The UW could have zero stats at all on it, a full reimbursement could be offered and if the damage was left alone I'd still keep it for that alone, not because I can round up more mobs on a pull to kill.  Tedium is the only thing I find about EZ that is daunting, and having a UW to boost damage output saves me from feeling compelled to load in a second group of toons just to kill fast enough to not get annoyed to the point of logging.

I don't think the quest itself needs to be dumbed down or made easier, if you don't have a bankroll of plat to do the combines for UW then you shouldn't be farming UW components, it's meant for people who have little else to do.  Plat is laughably easy to farm if you really want to get it, the EOFS components are annoying to farm but hardly impossible and all but the master you can just buy off someone with enough plat, SLS, or whatever other currency they want.

I'm all over the map on this post because instead of just posting it, I keep getting distracted and coming back to add more thoughts so I'll end it here.  Sorry if it's a lot to wade through, but I just wanted to give a first person perspective of what I know about the UW.

Dont think I wanna see the quest dumbed down.....if anything I'd rather it were made more challenging, and limited to players T5+. But I'd like to see the quest separated a bit from other crafters guild items (augs, SoA, etc).

My views are very much in line with Dim, I couldn't have said it better. 

HP = No

DPS = Yes

Fix server + Keep some value of UW.

Xiggie, don't worry. I'm here to help keep Hunter's virtual sandbox going as long as humanly possible while continuing to deliver a (free) good time.

Dimur, excellent post. :-D

---

Keep it flowing! No changes will happen for a few weeks. I'm not going to surprise you with a nerf or ninja-nerf this. Everything be will VERY transparent and VERY open.


-Hate

Here's my somewhat unique opinion on the UW:

I was a hardcore EQ'er 10 years ago on live... the kind of player that played for 14 hours a day, every day, for years.  Had the best gear, had full AAXP when expansions were released, and an elitist attitude to match.  If there was an item that required a LOOONG camp that was as 'game-breaking' as Verant / Sony allowed in game, I probably owned it.

What irked me back then was entitlement.  By that, I mean the endless threads and posts from people who wanted everything... wanted their epics, wanted gear that scaled better for raid gear, wanted AAXP nerfed, wanted flagged/keyed zones unlocked because "they paid full price for the game just like everyone else and wanted the entire product".  And who wanted all this?  The people with families, the people with FT jobs, the people who just played for fun because they had a life and liked to escape for an hour or two a day.

...lol, and you had folks like me: sitting back, getting angry over SOE catering to this crowd of "slackers" by nerfing this and nerfing that...shaking my head, screaming to simply pay your dues and you can indeed have it all.  But don't think for a second you're getting the same pixels as I get by playing 1/7 of the time I did.  It pissed me off to no end to see my time and effort minimized patch after patch.

Years later, I still feel that way.  I still feel that, here on EZ, the best items should never be close to accessible by the casuals...and that the difference between the best and the rest should be significant.
-
-
-
-
-
Only problem (personally) is that I'm now, 10 years later, that casual player.  I don't deserve an UW and will never have one, and that's fine.  But I'm still an elitist, if that makes sense!

Long story short:  I'm on team UW.  Don't nerf the UW, for God's sake... keep them amazing, to reward the players who put in their time (very long time), and ignore the entitled, unwashed masses.

Thanks for listening~

I still feel that no more ranks of uw should be made, if you want to lower hp, fine, but leave dmg as is.  Find new quests/items in t10 to grind out that are less gamebreaking. This gets you a pretty sick dps weapon that will likely never be replaced, and you can stop balancing content around it.  No future time is put into the weapon as there aren't future ranks, and people if they want can go back and farm them up still.

** Lowering dps doesn't make much sense to me since you can just box 3-4 groups of toons with max augs with the essences it takes to make the weapon.  Better for the server and player to consolidate the resources on a single character

I am proof that a casual player can obtain an UW. It has taken me close to a year to get up to an 8. Nothing wrong with that, I just didn't prioritize my gaming time towards that until recently. I am suffering now trying to catch up with my strike augs and SoA. That is totally my fault but it's the path I chose.

Hell of a first post :-)

While I generally support the "If you want it, work for it" mentality, this isn't really on that level. This comes down to us not having a full team to develop MANY raid zones that allow players to grind their way up in alternate ways. If the UW were owned by just a few and not 1/3 of the player base, that would be a totally reasonable to allow them to stay. As Dimur and I have pointed out earlier in this thread, EZ's progression system is currently more jacked than ever. I will be building some "epic" items that are truly worth of the name in due time. These will be the "HOLY SH** IT'S A <epicnamegoeshere>" type of thing with a large reliance on chance and farming (think Raster, across numerous zones, not designed by satan...err SoE).

---

Marxist,

The UW will still be VERY powerful. The white damage is coming down because it's a bit awkward given the highly curious nature of white damage as a whole on this server. Hell, because of the UWs, most people see the new zone dropped items (toting 2-3x their original white damage) and considering it crap because it isn't in the 10s or 100s of thousands like the UW. The proc for each weapon is going to stay damn powerful. The formula is below:

Matching tier Ninjastrike DMG * X = Proc DMG

The "X" will be the weapon's modifier. The bow/sword will likely have the largest proc, followed by the mace, and ending with the dagger. The staff may act a dual item (2hb melee or 2hb caster, depending on augs), but that remains to be determined (need more time to play accountant).

---

Hope that made sense :-)


-Hate

just got home, read through the currently 3 pages of this. do not need to rephrase what Dimur and Stone have said, but i agree with it.  Some considerations:
1. UW 8,9,10 take a long time. i work full time, and it took me 8 months of doing nothing but farming for UW.


2. I agree at a minimum that the hp should come down, as long as thr hp on t7+ mobs comes down as well. Starting point would be to cap it at about 1m hp.


3. white damage should be left mostly alone, or if you must, reduce it by x amount, increase the proc by 1.5 amount some number to not feel like you are losing out.


4. As is, there is not a way to balance t8+ around the haves and have-not's. but there should be some consideration for the people who have dumped massive amounts of time into it, they should be able to roll over content faster. that was one of the ideas in creation from the start. we all know DPS is just a function of time invested in your bot army. more toons + more Strike augs = more dps. as such, leave the total damage alone or nearly untouched. this could could include lowering white and upping the aug damage, and/or adding in hp/dps/other augs into the other slots.


5. consider moving away form regular essences as the main ingredient. For example, have several different colored stones that are just for UW that drop in certian now tier zones, cold even be that is all those zone are used for ( like the POP zones POI, poa, pow, etc?) that way UW and strike augs are decoupled. strike augs are difficult enough for new players, this should make them a little easier to farm. Or have the color stones drop in same zones, this would help out everyone, similar to how the old way ROA helped new players progress to 70.


6. if it is to be made something like just 3x of tier epic i too want a FULL refund of components, as i would want to make more toons to replace lost damage.

tldr: lower HP, keep dps, decouple from essence.

 

T7 is doable w/o UW...I finished everything in t7 with just a regular epic...t8 was where UW became a must.

T7 is more than doable without a UW.   I just finished t7 with my warrior (working on the rest of my solo group now).     I have full t7 armor, soa 30, roa 198 and only 2 lvl 10 leaf's.   My hp's sit at 1,042,137 as im looking at it now missing just couple buffs.     That is pretty crazy vrs a single weapon that already had more hp's.

If any of you remember my drunken rants (and yes, i usually always wait until i'm drunk to bitch :)  ),
I was firmly against the game breaking of the UW.   I've been progressing as fast as I can as a casual using everything except a UW.    

Now knowing that I would be screwed come t8.  About 4-5 months ago I started grinding as much as I could for the UW.   I have essences banked for the 1st 4 tiers now and been trying to make money to just make 1 of them.    Money isn't as fast to come by as those who have multiple groups or a UW already.      15-30 minutes of clearing abyss with a UW compares to our 3-4 hours to make the same 650k-1mil for clearing it all.   and then after that one clear it's usually bed time or kid time.  

If the UW is nerfed but stays in the range of what you listed in your For Example section...I would totally keep grinding for it.   I think that idea is awesome and keeps it from being game breaking.    Nerfing it down some like that too and leaving the quest semi the same makes it to where no one can really complain.   If the quest was put back to where it was before the quest was nerfed by adding all the extra things needed, then no one can really complain.   The new folks would have it the same as the old folks.    The only difference would be slightly less hp's and damage.   Nothing would get too much easier and in the end folks would still have the weapon able to smash content but at a slightly slower pace.

I think a problem statement should be created.

I'll stick with what I suggested before that I think would fix the UW. DOCK the hp on the thing. It can stay at the 1mil or whatever it is at now but after that raise it by 500k, not double the hp. The DPS on it is fine, that would be my breaking point on the time invested is for the dps to be docked. Otherwise the investment could've been else where in pushing more groups. I liked the damage on it so I pushed forward to work on it because I liked the idea of having a serious amount of dmg on my warrior so I didn't have to build an entire second or third group to have the same dps output.

After the current tiers out this has probably been said start working on benefits to using it besides stats, my example previously was something like you can put in a lot of time and get an aug for the UW that would allow a sort of paladin epic proc to make it unique in it's own way and still an edge up. If you stopped upgrading white damage and hp after the current ranks and docking the hp on current ranks to the 1mil system at 9 is it? And adding 500k hp each rank instead of doubling it you'd be going somewhere with the UW. Docking white damage to me seems like it'd then make it an incredibly un wanted item and the people who invested their time into that feeling screwed in the end.

do what dimurwar said  ;)

This might be the most civil discussion i've ever seen on these boards  ;D.

Lots of excellent points, i'll add my 2 cents from a t5er whom, while i haven't started my UW yet, has spent a boatload of time in side progression gearing up to 1500 resists on my main group and filling out all my UCs and strike 7s, etc.

100 dragon minors.

Just let that sink in for a second. 100 dragon minors. Thats insane. Thats ridiculous, and that comes in the laggiest side of the laggiest zone on the server, which limits your killing speed on spaced-out mobs even the average level 72 can one-shot. It's a complete and utter time sink with zero side benefit.

And there in lies the issue: Many parts of this quest are complete time sinks with zero chance for multitasking. You are literally giving up hours of your life for the simple purpose of having a super amazing doggy-whacker that will give you huge hps and enough dps to reduce your need to play barbie with an extra 6 to 12 toons that would be needed to match the eventual UW9+ dps output. Hell you can even argue its a happy thing for the server in that the less bots needed, the smoother things run in the first place, even factoring in the screaming fast new host/software we've been blessed with via akk, crab, & co.

Multi task is the name of the game. TOFS essences? fine, we still can grind plat, up resists. and finish out ultimate charms in those places. Gods Essences? Sure, once again, v2 charms and plat are involved there, too.

And so on and so forth. As someone with a degree in economics and game theory, i get as much of a rush as I'm logging in my toons deciding how *best* to spend my few precious hours of 'me time' on EZ than i do actually whacking things and looting corpses.

Here's the real issue with the UW:

Essence of Norrath:

Total waste of effing time. period. It's a complete time sink and hours shaved off your life expectancy. NEXT.

Essence of Platinum:

Many ways to grind plat and still benefit your toons doing things you might otherwise be doing, but you are taking away from your strike augs and shield of ages and such by sucking all your plat into EoPs, whatever. Not as bad as... ummm.. oh yeah---

Superior Light Stones:

The essence of suck on EZ. I'm a complete animal when it comes to farming these for strike augs, and good gravy its a total waste of effort. No charms, no resists, no gear.. I mean, until there is a gloves of rallos zek/aquamarine/peridot quest that nets fantastic resulting gear.. Its once again hours shaved off your life in the name of acquiring ultimate doggy-whacker. And it uses a resource you are already using for almost everything else worth having (SoA/Strikes/etc). Above all else, this should probably be changed to another form of currency acquisition (blood of coral or something.. who knows.. just a change of scenery? I digress, getting far off point.)

And Essences!

Cazic Thule, Qvic, Postorms. None offer any real form of substantial platinum gains, people seeking UW are generally far beyond having toons that need the armors that drop, and none are in a zone where multi-boxing even speeds up the process. I've found qvic and CT essences to drop decently enough that its just an annoying time sink... but it brings me back to my original point:

100 dragon minors. Holy smokes.

Getting 100 of anything in a zone that lags to high hell and offers you no other reason to be there is rough. If i managed that and then got the LAPD treatment from a nerf bat, you'd see me at the top of a watchtower w/ a rifle on the six o clock news.

Amazed you folks are so civil, it's commendable.

In summation: we live to multi-task. If it was possible to look at ways to make the farming (not necessarily pop up only in t6/t7 type places where we'd be anyway) at least have multi-tasking progression value, you could see an easier compromise mission statement to be made and examined.

But what i see in this thread are a lot of good people who have spent an unholy amount of time *not progressing* in any measurable way for the sake of acquiring a UW. That truly has to be respected (and i'm not saying you do not respect it Hate, it's quite obvious you do. The existence of this thread is proof of that, I'm just spelling out the investment.)

I don't have the magical answer to what to do about UW (nor should i really, I don't yet have a dog in the fight!).  But i find it kinda hard to believe on a server where the high end is comprised of pretty hardcore dudes that there's going to be a lot of people willing to grind a 6-12box to T8/T9 and are going to say 'Best weapon out there? screw it, i don't want it". Strike Augs and Reward Items aren't technically "necessary" for max progression, but content is tuned around them, too. There isn't a need for a shallow end on the EZ swimming pool-- anyone that far along is going to want and grind a UW and the problem will likely solve itself.

Here's another way to look at it: Is there really an amazing item you could put in the database that the end-gamers wouldn't both a.) desire and b. ) work toward? And if we're handing out trophies based solely on hours /played... Those side non-progression hours (ok months) spent still add up as if they were in Anguish and Loping Plains and Tofs bettering their toons in some other way.

Heck you might even argue that any time Hateborne spends developing end-game content without the UW in mind is time wasted. And any *significant* nerf to UW in the name of balancing content is also an iffy proposition-- its supposed to be game breaking. /shrug

100 dragon minors is nothing. The real pain is the god majors. After that the rest is a cake walk.

Last double loot - I farmed up 100 dragon majors , 100 god minors and 120 god majors. In 80ish crystals, I got 3 dragon minors.  RNG may have been playing tricks, but that has been the only thing keeping me from making another UW right now.

Double loot provides a means for casual people to acquire UW, but there is a tradeoff.  My 12 do not have maxed strike augs, but I have an UW7 I think, been awhile.  I am stuck on the master EoFS essence camp.

I believe the HP is the root balancing issue.  I would start there. 

I think the points have been made about the damage aspect and how it is really a moot point.

I think Hunter was going to switch from exponential growth, to 1mil + 500k every tier after that.

As is, the time invested for something marginally better than equivalent epic would be a major nerf.

Could add in a level 73 requirement.  I had 75 down, but UW farming is an excellent distraction during your first trip through t5.

Again I would like to see the recipes reverted, due to last change, and all the extra stuff to be worked into the augment system.  create an actual market for EoFS

Agree 100%. Again, no one should have a UW before T5. Just silly.

As far as the UW augment idea people are rallying behind, I don't see that as a reasonable path to take.  First off you'd have to sit and figure out what effects you'd want to put in that were desirable enough to warrant the grind and then you'd have to tune those effects against the already abundant multiplicative effects that already exist.  If having cool effects on weapons is something people want, then I'd suggest working that out via the current weapon drop system.  I don't want to have to sit and customize my UW, I did the grind for it because of what it is and have little interest in popping shit out here and there to add this or subtract that.  This isn't even beginning to address all of the time Hate would have to put in designing a whole new tier of augments, regardless if he's fine doing so I think his development resources are better spent elsewhere.

Another question I have is why are people suggesting changing the essence drop requirement from the UW quest?  I don't see what that addresses, all it does is add more clutter to already cluttered and limited bag space.  So instead of farming essences and keeping them in a nice, neat stack and leaving it up to you to decide how you'd like to burn through them...I guess I'm at a loss for understanding how this would streamline things and believe it would create more clutter and more unnecessary tedium.  If you are saying you don't want to have to choose between using them for strike augs or UW, the answer is quite simply strike augs because you benefit from the dps those do far more than the hp/dps of the UW.  I'll say it again, the UW should have been level locked to T7+ because the linear progression path that existed before it did was entirely viable and a shitload of people traversed it before the UW gimped content.

 UW or not, you don't start to steamroll the high hp, high regen mobs in T7 until you have a striked out support cast.  I'm glad I was done with my T7 strikes before UW was put in because I probably would have been tempted to do the same thing so many other people make the mistake of doing...grinding grinding grinding for that big shiny UW and neglecting one of the only 2 things that I think matter when fighting content current to you.  Number one thing that matters is being able to survive an attack round and heal the damage back before the next round of incoming damage, and number two is how quickly you can kill the mob(s) and continue to the next...in case my point was missed number two is easily addressed by strike augs.  My advice is to maximize your damage output so you can maximize your return on investment for the time you spend in game and worry about the shiny things like UW and RoA after you get to the point that those are some of the limited grind options you have left.

Heh while well worded, you merely stated the problem. I'm aware of it and have been for months. I only started spending real time trying to figure it out after Basher began messaging me about continuing their work after we lost Hunter. Until I posted this thread, I devote some time each day since trying to find the BEST way to handle this item. After nearly 2 months of thinking, a few hours of debating with numerous people (few hours per person), and then generalized questions to gaming coworkers about this....it still comes down to what I believe to be the best (WHICH DOES NOT MEAN IT IS THE ONLY WAY THINGS WILL HAPPEN!). I'm well aware of what time has been spent into these items. The only suggestion I would make towards your post is look at it from my side of the fence. The damage is stupid high, bordering game breaking, but it's less problematic than the survivability stats. It's impossible to balance content with such HUGE health/resist gaps.

---

Red: Right now, the UW8 or UW9 (which are the ones most likely to be held when entering ToV) have 750k - 1mil HP (which is 630 - 880k more than a non-UW tanker. Even with the 500k per rank, in another tier, it's back to the SAME situation that it's in now during the next tier (UW10 being 1.5mil, UW11 being 2.0mil, etc)

Yellow: Based on the example I gave, I listed ~3x health and ~5x damage of the matching tier. I'm not sure if "marginally" is the correct word.

In example:

• UW1 would be ~1k hp and ~500 dmg (odd man out)
• UW2 would be ~2k hp and ~1000 dmg (odd man out)
• UW3 would be ~3k hp and ~3000 dmg
• UW4 would be ~5k hp and ~3100 dmg (odd man out)
• UW5 would be ~9750 hp and ~3200 dmg
• UW6 would be ~39000 hp and ~4000 dmg
• UW7 would be ~75000 hp and ~5500 dmg
• UW8 would be ~120000 hp and ~7800 dmg
• UW9 would be ~180000 hp and ~9000 dmg
• UW10 would be ~270000 hp and ~11500 dmg
• UW11 would be ?? hp and ?? dmg

Orange: Could you elaborate please?

---

Red: I've already got 4-5 that I'm keen on using and wouldn't mind building a small array of augs (but they do not HAVE to be matching tiers). It would be easy to simply build the augs for every 2 tiers (since they stupidly powerful anyway). The augs themselves don't necessarily have to be grind farmed. It could be handled in any number of ways, from stupid rare global drops (1:25000) or public only camps. While I generally agree that development resources should be allocated elsewhere, this awkward situation that the UW has created needs to be addressed.

Orange: It may be worth considering to add a basic level requirement to prevent players without access to Abyss and above from starting or using the UW. This would need a bit of legwork on my end to see what levels actually own them.  As for streamlining into progression zones (i.e. SLS and other nonsense drop in same progression zones), that simply won't happen.

Yellow: With the UWs hp brought down to less ridiculous levels and the white damage tweaked down slightly, we could look at lowering the regen, damage output, and sheer health of some of the T7/T8 mobs (less so in T7, VERY MUCH SO IN T8).

---

For those that were not in game last night, Akkadius flipped through all of this thread and was VERY impressed at how clean and professional everyone has been. I am still waiting for the dam to break and the tidal wave of @%@# to wash this thread away, but maybe that won't happen this time. :-D


-Hate

Without getting too in depth, your suggested damage values are incredibly weak in comparison to the existing weapon.  That's not a big deal for most classes with the exception of the warrior who doesn't have access to strike augs and would considerably neuter the dps they've been able to enjoy with the UW.  I'm fine with gutting the hp and stats of the weapon if it remains ultimate in terms of the dps it offers.  As has been pointed out numerous times, you could strike out a shitload of support characters with the amount of essences invested in the UW, so I don't see why the damage has to be so horrifically degraded.

For Hate's question.

Well It takes ~30 times the materials of one strike aug.  100 essences, few SLS, plat, EoN, I approximated it to be 30x that tier's aug.

The Return on investment should be at least 10-15 a damage boost that an equal aug would give, that is why I don't consider the damage to be game breaking as is.  You get a big boost for having it, which you should, as is.  

The exponential growth on the hitpoints is a major problem, always has been. And I could see how the resists is also a major issue.  Could tone those down to whatever is deemed fit, and I wouldn't care.

As far as some examples.

Let's say Damage Aug 1 could be EoFS 1 +10k exp token
   Damage Aug 2 could be EoFS 2 +  DA1 +10k exp token
   Damage Aug 3 could be EoFS 3 + DA2 + EoP (maybe it has a hell level like jump)
   Damage Aug 4 oculd be EoFS 4 + DA3 + 50k exp token


Could vary the formula some, could add in damage types to proc with some of the magic supplies.  But work the extra stuff into the aug recipes. EoN, EoP, and EoFS.  I would at least include EoFS and do some of the suggested tweaks below, would create a potential market for them.

Might take some tinkering on the EoFS drop rates, maybe add a small chance to drop from trash.

Edited, to have a chance to drop from all trash, not just above 4.

Some of the problems with the UW that i didn't see mentioned.
1. It is a linear quest really, the only difficulty increase is the the essences are from different tiers. Major items need to have some sort of difficulty increase as the item progresses. RoA is an example, that keeps the top end items in the hands of only the most dedicated, yet it allows others to work on it and still have something decent
2. Quest items for UW can be bought.

Or

Have alternate recipes maybe have EoP and EoN be substitues for EoFS for certain aug recipes.

Could have choice on what you spend time farming.

Maybe EoN's could sub for EoFS 1,2 or 3.  and EoP's for 4,5,6

best augs requiring a 7 and master.

Just another idea I had while rereading my post.

The damage values listed were an example based on my first post. That is ONLY white damage. I did not include the proc damage which, as stated in posts before, is scaled off of the matching Ninjastrike multiplied by the weapon's modifier. Those are not set in stone, nor are they finals. I just meant to give a brief illustration. If the white damage is too low, then it can be adjusted. It's not a huge deal this early in the discussion, but I would welcome better suggested values for white damage. :-)

---

As I mentioned to Dimur's post, the white damage was a basic example for illustrative purposes. The aug damage is already higher than that of a single Ninjastrike. The thing to remember with strike augments is that they provide simply damage. The UW provides some defensive stats (HP/Resist/Regen), extra white damage, and a vessel to produce numerous other effects (or a higher rank of said vessel).

I really want to keep it as an explosively powerful WEAPON, but not the Equip-To-Win item.

---

To expand on the powerful WEAPON, it may be beneficial to replace the UW Proc slot with a standard aug slot. Allowing an extra Fire/Ice/Ninjastrike for those that wield it.


-Hate

I could live with a proc equal to the current + ns level if the white is dropped. As is I can take a uc2 ns9x2 monk and drop mob 3x faster than my war with uc2 and uw8.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to balance current and future content if we focused more on white damage dps than constantly adding new procs and DD strikes?  At least with white damage you don't have to worry about multiplicative effects as much since you can't lower delay below 35, and with upgrading spell based damage, classes that have limited access to that damage enjoy an ever increasing disparity in dps compared to others.

Normally yes, but I'd have to undo A LOT more than I care to do. It would involve a hefty drop to the augs, scaling up of the weapons, figuring out which effects cause explosively high damage, and which ones are not worth casting anymore.

I'm not really open to rebuilding the bulk of the server as we know it, even though it may be the better design setup.


-Hate

Why a drop to the augs?  I'd suggest from this point forward focusing on increasing white damage and not advancing proc/strike damage as much comparatively.  It would be much easier to uniformly advance the dps of characters since every character benefits from white damage melee increase, even casters that actively melee between spell gem refreshes.  Not trying to be argumentative at all, just trying to understand.

Just to add a time perspective:

Per quest journal:
100 Essences of Qvic completed February 18th
100 Essences of Loping Plains completed July 6th
100 Essences of Temple Veeshan completed September 26th
(To be fair I could've completed ToV about a week earlier, but September 26th was the day Hunter made it live)

7 months of nothing but farming UW materials. 2.5 months to go from UW9 to UW10 alone. I am by no means a casual player. I was the first to put T9 on farm and augged out boxes instead of hording for UW11 because we all knew this was coming, and the risk vs. reward just wasn't there.

The concern I have about ideas such as 3-5x epic strength is that it is not 3-5x the work to have gotten here. I have a hard time believing that we'll find a middle ground that keeps those that invested so much time in this item happy, and the ability to make changes moving forward. I am wrong a lot though, and will be happy to help test anything Hate wants to try.

My idea contribution:

HP was raised by 250k starting at 250k (forget which one that was). Leave UW9 at 1M, make UW 10 1.25M and UW11 1.5M. Delete UW12 and never look back. Call UW11 The Spinal Tap and be done with it. (The last part was a joke, yes)

Leave proc and white alone.

Remove all current and future UW work including ultimate augs.

Wave goodbye to the Ultimate Weapon once and for all. Isn't anyone else sick and tired of thinking about it?

Yes, the handful of folks who have it maxxed, or close to it already, will have a leg up for a little while. So what? Those of us that have UW10+ are not your everyday EZ denizens and are trickling down the strats and spoilers anyway. In a few tiers it will even out and we'll still be the ones beating new content as it's released, UW or not.

Anyways, thanks Hate for trying to figure it all out. If there is anything I can do to help I'm a tell or PM away.

Denzig

If the white damage is game breaking then being able to play multiple groups is game breaking.

The damage as a whole. Please don't take it out of context.



-Hate

Den-

I agree completely that the UW "Line" should end now at 10 or 11 w/e the max is. However cutting off the UW quest completely and not being able to progress what I currently have is not fair at all to me and anyone else who is currently in the line. I understand you're at the end of the spectrum and it's all old news for you. If you were afforded the opportunity to progress it to an 11 then so should anyone else who has one... nerfed or not. Now if you haven't started the quest... that's on you... I look at that sort of like the Halloween event. 

Cant agree with this more.  I think UW, of any level, should be locked out just like strike augs were, until you complete T7. T5 doesn't need an UW as that is the first zone that really challenges and needs to be tough to weed the shit-sorry players out of the gene pool.  :o

Bringing the hitpoints down on the UW sounds like a good move too as long as t8-9 are kept in perspective. I don't want those zones to be a cakewalk; but as I stated earlier I would definitely expect a leg-up, having an appropriate level UW on current content, versus the person who is going into the same zone with the epic.

Well here is my problem with the white damage taking a hit. Sure things are bound to change, and in fact I think the HPs on it were always ridiculous , the HP wasn't my reason for striving for it. I thought hmm I can work really hard and get a UW that does the same dps as a full group of dps characters therefore all my resources, time, etc went into making the UW so that I didn't have to work on a second or third group. Now, as it stands a second group of dps will stomp the UW and all the resources I put into UW could've gone towards that group instead. Essentially in the long run the nerfing to white damage will do more bad than good. Since you said there won't be any returns if the UW becomes undesirable it seems to look uglier and uglier. I will however continue to try and stick it out to see the end result but not looking so pretty now if the white damage takes a hit.

Could we not make this entire issue go away with the introduction of UW mobs?

so you go into a new tier and you can progress or whatever as you like....but in a side room...is a billy bad ass mob...something extra for the UW holders...something horrible and ubber...with great rewards ...maybe takes 2 groups of bots with uw to take down..3....or just 1...


regular progress balanced for normal non UW ......check

ubber content for the ubber ubbers......check


think ancient wisp style mob....just over the top...

hell could be fun for the people doing the programming to just come up with ways to kill the ubbers.,..point being that you would not have to nerf anything....and content would be content...i don't think 2 bosses of bad ass per tier would be hard....have fun with it...

memorial day 2013, i took the week off before to farm crystals. had 700 t1, and 120 t2. got my 100 t1 in maybe 5-7 hours. spent the next 13 straight hours just killing in t2. ended up buying my last 15 t2 essences that night. there was one period i got maybe 5 essences in 3 hours. so yeah t2 can be a bitch.

Good point. Meleeing casters seems weird to me though, maybe procs/clickies would be a good way to balance their damage or maybe new ultimate spells? i donno.

I actually like this idea, mainly because the UW was meant to STEAMROLL content, not get a little % addition i.e A+ for trying and investing your time. That would be a good move right there alone, allow for an UBER in each tier just one mob with special mechanics and (optional)*required* for UW holders that would give them a challenge, while letting them steamroll the content they rightfully deserve to steamroll because of the time invested in the UW. *Maybe even make it so if you are a UW holder you have to kill this UBER while non UW holders don't in order to progress into another Tier* ( I know there are ways to flag things as such ) just an opinion to go along with a pretty brilliant idea.

Well, I don't know how many times I have started a post then deleted it.  However, I guess I will throw my 2cents out there.

First, I would like to give a quick rundown of my time back on EZ.  Just about 10 months ago I returned and I will admit I returned for the UW.  You know its the Holy Shit of an item and I wanted one.  However, when I returned I had 6 toons that were t2/t3 geared.

Now, I have 13 toons all t9 flagged with RoA's 300 to 400, SoA-L, ALL strike augs are 10's, all uc2 working on 3's and a UW X.  Before anyone says how the hell did I do that... Well, I didn't pay to win that's for sure.  I have dedicated 12+ hours per day almost 7 days a week to get there.  So with this inevitable topic I have done some major soul searching and reading of this thread and here is where I stand at this time....

I agree with Denzig, just stop the UW altogether, dumb down the hps starting a rank 6 250k and add 250k per rank there after ... UWXI = 1.5mil.  Leave damage and proc alone.  Not saying the quest should be removed but leave it there, no more ranks, no UA's, nothing just end it.  This makes me think of the band aid we all dreaded to removed when we were kids ... 1... 2.. OUCH!!!! but has to be done.

Personally, I liked that Hate said something about a "True Epic Weapon", which I hope it means a stand alone system that can be done at any tier , use any tier and strikes augs but have more of everything else on it than it's tier skin.  This seems more viable route to go and have a bigger return to the server longevity and health while giving us a really nice upgrade that will not break the game.

I have agreed with a lot of the posts here, but I do feel we are spending to much time on something that has broken our game. And if we all can accept that it has broken the game and no matter what idea's we have for it ... it still breaks the game.  Maybe, then we can look at another route for those ubber weapons we want.  Also, Hate could call them Ultimate Weapon 2.0!!!! might ease the pain )

Anyways, Just my 2 cants again, be safe everyone and see you all in game...

Fuzy

This info available Hate?

I've read through this a few times. Clearly nothing will make everyone happy but it seems the HP drop, leave white dmg alone are mostly agreed upon.

I would like to see a number of people per IP with UW's and ranks.

this entire discussion boils down to one thing:

Time and Effort

time and effort put forth for an item in game VS time and effort put forth for what we are going to end up with for the progression of the server

I highly doubt anyone cares that much about the item as much as they care about the hours/days/weeks/months they spent obtaining the item.

never underestimate the gamer. Hunter put this item in as a carrot, not something he thought everyone would stop everything to get.

what happened is a few people got the item, linked it and everyone else saw an item that they had to have. So we all dropped all other projects to obtain said item.

this single carrot stopped the progression of everyone that wanted it. stopped aug progression, tier progression, everything.

so no one cares about the item as much as they want a representation of their time.

its kind of like buying a new car. we want XYZ car, so we work towards getting XYZ, then the car manufacture company says, well the car goes to fast so we are going to have to install whatever to limit that. well, that's not what I paid for. I paid for the fastest car on the market, thus, I want the fastest car on the market. if I paid X amount for the fastest car on the market and now its not then I want X amount back because its not what I paid for. *paid for is not referring to RL $$*

HP's have been addressed many times in this thread, mostly saying, its ok that the HP's are taken away if the mobs are dumbed down as well.

damage however is not something people want to see go away because then we have to add toons, or up toon power to equal

UW is an ultimate farming weapon above all else. its very nice to be able to back farm items without having to log in all of your crew to do so. Take T5 for example. its nice to solo T5 vs logging in 6 toons to do the zone. I believe this, above all is what the butt pain is about.

I farmed the UW to make it easier to back farm for augs, plat, etc. Take that away and why do I have the darn thing? Why do I need it anymore?

900 essences, 90 million plat and time could have net my crew full strike 9 augs easily. If my UW9 is going to become UW5 then id like to have 400 essences, 40 million plat, 4 EONs and 20 SLS back to make strike augs, or shields, etc.

current stats - future stats = net refund for a product I have to settle for, not what I purchased.

Time can not be given back, we all enjoy playing and that is not in play, but items are in play.

just thoughts

I just had a thought while reading Rent's post. Omitting a bunch in the quote...


This gave me the idea to just lock out the UW from the top 1-2 tiers. Just make it so we can't wear it in those zones. Code is in place already, I think, in Overthere (if that's not what OT's code does, please correct me).

Then when a new tier comes out, you *could* remove that code for the lower tier. Or you could just leave it in place and we just can't use UW past whatever tier.

I also think that this should be coupled with a level limit on starting the quest. Should be at least in T6 or T7 before starting it, really.

Locking out isn't an option in my opinion. These are progression zones and it's "Game on" type of scenario.

Hate - Could you possibly revamp some of the zones on the test server, either t8 or t9 then ask a few higher end players to come and raid one of those zones with a proposed UW they have on the active server? Get feedback that way? Test then implement !

One change that was made to nerf damage in a way was to fix/implement the regen of mobs.  If my crew of 12 can clear T8 in 1 hour with UW9, whatever changes are made shouldn't affect that. 

If we go with the "old school" eq standards - we disable UW quest and keep it in game.  Pre-nerf circle of shadows for example, cast time vs insta-cast.  Just saying.

No Takishi. I can pull the number of UWs out there. The number of people that us 6 or 6+ is impossible to report because there is no way to log this action. I can pull every account by IP, but that doesn't give me anything. If you pulled characters, levels, and HP by IP from me, you would see most of mine around the same...even though I only play 6 (but have 14). The only way to truly find out is to one by one each IP address and associated accounts, manually parse through items, and my judgement calls on "is this an active or shelved character?".

tl;dr - Not possible.

---

See reply above.

---

Keeze,

I don't have the time, energy, and/or patience to completely rebuild/revamp/adjust zones to test theories. Being a bit of a one man band for development, I'm extremely limited on time (less so than Hunter though). I'm doing most of my dev work at my day job (as we're STUPID slow for another month). I'm fighting to get T9 corrected for the general population, let alone rebuilding for theory testing.

---

The regen was added to combat ARMIES of zerks afk & autoattacking. It does not represent a true solution though. Regen does less for nerfing damage and more for creating DPS checks.

---

Rent,

Great post and thank you for it. I'm not going to quote and edit it down, but it's been noted. I appreciate it!

---

Ladies/Gents,

Dimur brought up a valid point. Maybe white damage across the board is a bit low. If I were to double the white damage on all the tier dropped weapons and then scale UWs 5x off the new value (which is effectively 2x the example previously), would this better suit the weapon?


-Hate

Seems to be begging the question, but I don't take issue what is being proposed by it.

I'm assuming this would also include tweaks to T8+ mob health, regen, etc?  As it stands right now, rollover sucks in T8 and will get worse once the UW damage is gimped revamped.

Might be too much to try and track the amount of UWs per IP, but maybe just taking a look at how many 100 essence quests have been completed could give a rough estimate.

P.S. Hi everyone  :P

yep

Caught back up on this, and thought I'd comment.

Rent I think put it perfectly. I think any solution needs to really keep his post in mind.

Three things I see as an issue with the UW: hps, ability to steamroll early content and how the quest impacts other, necessary quests already in place (and sorry, but if you try to tell me that strike augs, mana necks and SoA arent necessary in the game as its set I'll just point and laugh at you).

HPS: simple fix. Ratchet the hps down a bit. As to how much, I dont think I disagree with the numbers Hate's talked about thus far...as long as higher tier mob hps take a beating, too.

Content steamroll: just to be clear....not talking about someone level 75 going back into HoH or T5 and soloing like a beast. I think thats part of what you pay for when you progress, UW aside. The UW should make it easier. I think the whole lockout idea is a BAD one. But.....I dont think a level 71 should be able to grind his butt off for a couple weeks an completely trivialize content to T5....and thats what happens often enough. Again, I think the UW needs to have a minimum level of 73 or 74....that the bottom levels need to be knocked off, that farming for items needs to start around T5, whatever....but it needs to be a Big Boy Toy (and yes, already through the bottom tiers of the UW myself).

Impact on other farming: covered this before, but I think it needs to be restated. I do not think the UW quest should share core essences with strike augs, mana neck or SoA. I think the core bottleneck item needs to be something thats JUST used for the UW. Make it multizone, sure.....make it grindy, no problem! But using the same essences that are a MUST for progression in the game as the throttle for the quest is, IMO, a mistake. People trying to create their first augs/SoA/whatever shouldnt be competing against players 4 levels higher with 100 times the cash and resources and fighting a drop rate meant to control the rarity of the most powerful item in the game. SLS does that enough as it is :P Get newbies off the same treadmill...its just plain not fair to them. I think if you look at the above suggestion on making less UW (starting at a higher tier) this would help a ton on its own, even if the first essence you needed was, for example, Abyss.....but I think the best solution is to use a different item for the quest than zone essences.

Anyway, great thread, great ideas. Thanks for listening, Hate.

I think Dimur said it before, but...  Why does it matter if you are farming 100 Essence of Whateverzone and then another 30 Essence of Whateverzone or if the first 100 are replaced with NotAnEssence of Whateverzone?  You still have to farm 130 of something...  Might as well be able to keep them in 1 stack till you get over 100.

The reduction in Essence drops was a way to slow down the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on the server.  It didn't work, and it did make it harder to farm Essences for strike augs.  Hate has already assured us that when he works on UW balance he will also re-adjust Essence drops to make them work for everyone.

Let's not create more problems, let's find a solution to the big one.

If all you are doing is x2-x3 dmg on current weapons that drop and then making uw x5 those, I'd like a full refund on the weapon.  I might have missed another change being proposed, but I see this as a proposal by itself.

I really liked Rents post as he hit the core of the majority of peoples issue with the changes to UW. Mainly where I reason with my no white damage change is because I like many others saw the item and worked incredibly hard to attain it ; and like I've said in other posts, I didn't see the HP per say and go after it for that reason, the damage was the carrot that dangled and made it so desirable. With all the materials I've invested into the UW I could've augd an entire group that as the current stance seems will completely demolish the dps return from the UW alone.

Another good point of his ; "UW is an ultimate farming weapon above all else. its very nice to be able to back farm items without having to log in all of your crew to do so. Take T5 for example. its nice to solo T5 vs logging in 6 toons to do the zone. I believe this, above all is what the butt pain is about. I farmed the UW to make it easier to back farm for augs, plat, etc. Take that away and why do I have the darn thing? Why do I need it anymore?"

I hated t5, with a passion - worked hard, flagged up and above working on the UW as much as I possibly could and now thanks to the UW I was able to go back to t5 and instead of having to worry about carrying a group behind me in water and everything else or pulling to X location to kill everything with my group I can just run through the zone and solo it efficently on my warrior without a ton of hassle that used to be there. Why? Because I invested a lot of time into achieving an item that was able to do such. I liked the ability to go back and trivialize content and be able to do it without having to carry toons on my back just for the dps to support it.

tl;dr I think touching the white damage is a huge mistake and if you look at the general pool of people, that's where we agree on , the white damage needs to be left alone and more so look at the hps factor of the weapon that is in itself game breaking when it comes to content development.

Ok, lets try this scenario: Nooblet the Ninja starts on this server, loves it, decides to stick around and play. Sees quickly that he needs to box, so he creates his team. Then he discovers that to be worth a sheet his tank needs SoA. So thats 4 essence from every tier. His 2 megamelee need 2 NS augs each....which is 4 per tier per character, starting at CT essences.....and 2 more FS class chars. Toss in some icestrikes, and suddenly he needs 20+ essences from each tier. So....he's gathered some cash, harvested some essences, but he wants to use his cash surplus to buy more, or trade extra SLS for essences.

But.....because the UW uses the same essences the demand for them is skyhigh, and the buyers are mostly higher tier players who make 5 mil a day without breaking a sweat. This pushes essence prices up, to the point that making a NS5 costs 5 mil JUST IN ESSENCES if he buys them at going player trade rate.

Then, 2 months down the road, management decides UW are too easy, so they lower drop rate.....which completely cockblocks newer players.

And this is what we're seeing now. Our server economy was a mess to start with, and UW has made it worse. Most goods are overinflated anymore, and UW is one of the biggest reasons why. If you move the UW off the tier essence standard this may change a bit.

Why don't you just type lets take uws off essences?  Nobody disagrees that essence drop rates suck (in a lot of zones, not all), and having them balanced towards uw farming is dumb.

I did. Just replying to people arguing against it.

Love it or not UW is part of EZ. in the last year essence drops have gone up loads namely dropping 1:200 trash and 1:10 named. it has become very easy to start and work on UW from the get go.

from what ive seen it has been that the higher tiers when opened up have been for the top players to break and get the benefits and then after a few months that tier is made easyer for the lower players can catch up.

Yes UW is very very powerful but i would hate it to be reduced in power as its a status symbol and reward for a lot of work.

With Hates latest work on the epic skins i see this as more of a solution ie make epics slightly more powerful . how about more epics even... 8.1 by having a combine of two epics to up the hp/ac regen etc.

have the damage of epic be similar to say 3 less the equivalent uw. so the t8 epic be similar to the uw5. means those who wants the uw will still get an advantage but also those who dont can keep up somewhat.

on side note ild love to see UW ac augs ))

T8-9 have not been reduced so that epic-level players can break into the zone. t8-9 have been nerfed because the content wasn't properly introduced/constructed in the first place.  These zones were made with UW in mind on creation.  That is not how this server was designed until after the UW was introduced....of course UC wasn't suppose to be "required" when it hit the shelf either but we all see how that has gone. 

You have to see it from Hate's stand point too. He is a one man band...and this aint his day job....unfortunately it just feel into his lap.  I think we should all be willing to bend a little because I'll be honest...I wouldn't want his job....dealing with a bunch off mother f'ers QQ everyday and not even getting paid for it!  F' that!  ;)

Honestly - I haven't put an opinion out there yet, as many options are on the table already from a give/take standpoint.  But just so my name is on the list as well:

Hitpoints - deflate them to 3 times epic of the tier, puts people on a fairly even playing field when it comes to future development of bosses, zones and expecations of tanks.

Damage - this is the main reason most people got the weapon, hitpoints were a close second.  If we scale epics up, and UW down, the edge still resides with the UW.  However, at that point, materials would be better spent fully augmenting and upgrading characters with the same essences/mats/etc.  

Stats - Seems fine other than HPS, although resists are high compared to epics.

Proc - Doesn't need changed imo, as NS9's or 10's hit harder.

I do agree that the UW has caused a large chain reaction on the server, and one that may cause long term issues.  Point being - if we keep the UW as-is, we will eventually run into a "Max" on damage before rollover.  That is my only true concern with inflating damage values and keeping the UW as it stands.  If that concern isn't reality and we're able to push the limits higher with the patches being implemented, then I don't see a problem anymore.

However - I still feel we're talking about 20% of the population that do not own at least one UW already on a toon.  UC, UCV2, SOA, and ROA aren't required items to progress on the server.  

UC - everyone would agree that the UC is indeed required if you ever want to complete T5/T6 (assuming you haven't yet).  
UCV2 - Required if you plan on beating T7/T8.  
SOA - when entering T6 for the first time, you quickly learn that anything that reduces the damage your tank takes is worth getting, and likely required to an extent.  
ROA - now a byproduct of killing and gaining AA's - not required.
UW - With the revamp of essence drops, increase in plat bag / mob dropped plat, unleashing most zones, allowing 100 mobs at a time - Is there a reason the UW isn't part of the progression to an extent? Sure, it sucks for casuals. I play when I can, and finally getting my UW was awesome.  Took me months of farming, 2 double loots and trading to get it.  But anyone who has a UW has been through the same exact path. Hardcore players and casuals alike, can get the exact same item.  It just depends on how much dedication and RNG skills you have.


With all of that being said - Hate, I truly appreciate the time, energy, and effort you, Love, and Akka put into the server.  Thank you for keeping this ball rolling sir.  Hopefully we can all semi-agree on a solution.

  
Edit - added color for sh!ts and giggles.

The bit in red is DEAD ON. This is just part of what would be an ongoing cluster@#$^ that would be each new tier.


It's part of it. I spent many many hours helping Hunter for no reward because it was challenging, difficult, and (oddly) enjoyable. Now, in Hunter's absence, I volunteered to step up even more. I'm here to help keep EZ running as long as humanly possible while providing an enjoyable experience. :-D



-Hate

I think at this time...I will volunteer for a UWx testing...if you could just deposit that into my account i will see if all these OP claims are valid!! fact checking is very important.. and we should all do our parts...




thank you in advance

I think in reading through all the concerns here what if this were to happen:

HPs scaled to a total of 1,100,000 for UWXI (that way each rank would give you 100k hps)

white damage stays the same, but capped at 120k

resists stay about the same at 100 per rank

level recommendation set at 74 with reduced stats for lvl 73 and lower

augment slots set at 4, slots 21, 22, 27 (worn) and 30 (click)

stat numbers stay the same, str, stam, dex, etc

different bane for each weapon,
sword, dragon
mace, floating skull
staff, whatever,
etc, etc

a compensation package for the time spent for current vs new weapon

XI caps the weapon, slowly phase out with focus on epics going forward

maybe, maybe not agreeable, /shrug may not even make sense, but it seems 97% of everyone wants the white damage to remain, likes the new augments idea that is coming, agrees HPs are way wild, agrees that there should be a compensation for the quest that was done for an item that will be diminished.

I like your post rent

Damn, Rent, I like that post too

thanks guys.  ;D

Red: No. That's part of the problem. If the HP is scaled based on weapons in zone, the gains are still significant but not producing a HUGE gap. With the HP/resists coming down, the resists across the game can be reduced to be less stupidly high.

Orange: The white damage will cap out around Uw8 and produce no gains except procs (which, in turn, will cause QQ cease to provide an increasing reason to upgrade it versus augs). As for the augment slots, I'm not entirely sure if I want to add a normal aug slot yet. Still waiting on feedback and number crunches. On top of it, I do want the UW to feel like it is a gain each time instead of a gain until rank # and then it's a weak return on investment.

Yellow: Ehh, maybe.

Lime Green: That's pretty much coming (level req) and staying the same (stats).

Glowing Red: Absolutely not. If you want a "compensation" for the new weapon, I will.. only if you let me scale back every account you own from the point that you earned the UW. I know this sounds incredibly harsh, but you are wanting a refund or partial refund without considering how far you boxes have come as a result of this supremely powerful item...you are vastly unprepared for what else will come with said refund.



-Hate

oh I'm shot! the boat is taking on water.

one point though, the part about how much
I, we, current holders gained from this weapon,
I want that for everyone. I want our new players
to have that chance as well. I hate it when the
top gets to use something and then it's nerfed
and the new players, and the more casual guys
get shafted cause of it. really causes hurt and
discontent.

just thoughts and of n

At the end of the day, we're at your mercy.  Strip the massive HPS, resists, stats, etc. The end goal should still allow UW wielders to clear content at about the same rate, T7+.  It'll be a kick in the balls if clearing T8 goes from an hour to three hours because of the changes. 

Ultimately, as long as T8+ is tuned appropriately to match the nerf/rebalance, I don't care.

Just create a run speed version 2 and give that as a parting gift :-).

The boat won't sink.

That bit of "free progression" once a certain rank of the UW has been earned will not happen for the new people. I understand it may be temporarily entertaining to mow down new content with little to no challenge once or twice, but it loses it's luster when the entire game becomes that way. You've reached point X (again literal X, not rank 10) in obtaining an UW strong enough (or more than enough) for whatever tier you are in currently. At this point, the tier is broken already without you ever entering the zone. As I've stated before, at this point you are just aimlessly running the tier to get your gear and 100 essences to break the next tier before you step foot in the door. Rinse and repeat until you quit the server from boredom.

(and yes, I'm overly generalizing in the statements above.)


-Hate

---

EDIT: Takishi's post stop my post.

Not entirely. I'm bringing this up because I want everyone to share their opinions, views, and thoughts on this. As I've stated before, I could just make sweeping decisions but then I would have no one to build content for after that. I don't want that. I want to keep this sandbox running. :-)


-Hate

 I just keep reading this thread and I just have to ask is the part about wanting a refund and if u get one you want be prepared for what ? is that some kind of threat ? I would like to know either way thank you .

Assuming this allows you to scale back some mob dmg from the top tiers, and the aug slot allows some additional DPS.  I am ok with the above hateborne changes for the good of the server.  With that being said, I have a UW IX, not a XI.  I can't speak for other people, but this is the thread to be heard in.

This item/quest chain is holding me back from slightly adjusting T7, heavily adjusting T8, and setting up final number for T9.

This damned item/quest chain also makes T10+ impossible.


-Hate

Completely understand, but ultimately you have veto power. All I was getting at.  For the most part, I think folks are in agreement with the changes. With the expectation that content/mob/tier changes are made to somewhat offset the weapon changes.

Start Derail: V2 fastest travel item a possibility? /Derail

+1 to what Rent said.

I would also add much of this is around expectation management.  If the UW is nerfed because it appears to be game breaking, what about ROA 1000, Experience Mask, Ultimate Charms, Shield of Ages, and the mitigation from the buff pet and warrior epic.  Do these also require balancing to "fix the game"?  Will there be future changes to these items as well?

Heh undercurrent of aggression.

No, nothing else causes such a gigantic disruption in health and resist pools as the Ultimate Weapon. Once this one quest line is done, some of the hilariously high resists on many things will come down (both on items and npc checks). The net result of those change would be less total resist on character, no more arbitrarily high resist checks.

Despite what this probably looks like, I'm actually trying to make the game more enjoyable.


-Hate

I mean hey, majority is with you 100% of the way with the changes up until you mention white damage taking a hit. The justification for swinging at the resists and hps are there and most agree, but it seems there are no real common grounds on the white damage as it isn't as justifiable considering you can replace that dps easily with a group ; the dps can be there if you want , so why not let the people who already invested the time into it the dps they worked for so they didn't have to invest in a second or third group to pump the equivalent.

I do know you mentioned bringing hps down across the tiers and all that jazz but if you think about it ; if you do that, am I still clearing  X zone as fast as I was previously given the changes? If not, that's a problem.

I've been sitting back watching this go on from a distance for a while, kind of feeling like I didn't have a dog in this fight because I'm not a UW holder. Still made it to T7, and then some with the assistance of the very helpful Rent and Raygan. So then, bored at work, for the last 24 hours I decided to start farming and trading up for Qvic essences. Just to see how quickly I could get to 100, so I'd have at least some basis to post on.

~12 play hours. That's all it took. It sucked, but it happened. EOP and EoFS are another matter, sure, but I've gotten a few of those just by doing resist farming. Higher tier essences will suck too, I'm also sure. I have no doubt that the people who are in the upper tiers of the UW dedicated a lot of time to getting it. That being said, lets look at some of the major things that I know a lot of us have spent time on. Specifically things that have been "nerfed" and "beneficially implimented" since the start of my play time in early 2012.

-Shadow unlimited warp (Also, unfortunately the mob used to farm v2 charm upgrades.) Changed to ~4 Max
-Added ToFS and introduced massively higher drop rates for v1 charm upgrades
-Increased v2 charm upgrades from trash mobs; Introduced in multiple zones
-MCP deathtouch removed, making progression past T4 easier.
-LDoN train farming for POINTS, with the occasional charm upgrade is no longer the norm
-Lore, unstackable tiki crystals changed to stackable, allowing much easier and faster T1/2 clears.
-2 hour T5 wrist mob timers dropped to 30 minutes
-SLS stackable, GLS drop rate increased

Absolutely sure I'm missing a ton of other notables, but you get the point. The vast majority of people can read the above list and say, "Man, the way it used to be was like pulling teeth." UCV1 sucked. T5 wrist progression sucked. SLS farming still sucks.

All of the above implementations were made at the discretion of, like, TWO people working hard as hell to make content for you to enjoy; Their adjustments were made to make it so that it wasn't so easy you quit, but it also wasn't so difficult and mentally taxing  that you quit, either. With the exception of the SLS. This is exactly the scenario here and needs to be seen from the opposite end of the road. What's coming isn't a nerf, it's a general increase in progress ability across the board while still allowing the dedicated players to keep a significant chunk of their rewards from horizontal progression. Hate spelled that out clear as day. I didn't expect a refund for the time spent on UCV1 when they made it easier, and had I done UW, I wouldn't expect one either. That's now how it works. So here are my thoughts.

Implementation ideas:

Bring white damage to a level identical to what you would see out of a fully geared, secondary DPS group of 5 of that tier with augs. This allows for you to make reliable and fair increases for tiers to come based on hard numbers. Plus, this'll stop people vetoing an adjustment because they did it so that they didn't have to make a second group. It smashes the validity of their argument.

Bring HP to = Sum of all visible armor for the current tier. T7 visible armor gives you 500k HP? 500k HP on UW requiring that tiers essences. A significant boost in HP and still not game-breaking, especially if you're breaking into T8 with it.

Bring Heroic resists to ((Current Tier Minimum Resists - Average Innate Resists)*.60). UCv1/2/3 plus a handful of farmed augs would take care of the rest. This would allow UW holders to keep resisting everything, while keeping our new, "beta" content from having a massive Zimbabwe-like inflation. It also allows the content to be adjusted in a way that the guy who wants to farm heroic resists instead of UW can still break in without a month of work in ToFS5. This is important to think about now before we start getting into the BILLIONS with HP and 10's of thousands in heroics.

bringing a uw to a groups dps would raise the dps of the uw... I'd not waste time on long exhaustive posts unless you are going to parse out what you are proposing.

i like the UW will do

100k HP per rk.

50-100 Hero ressist per rk.

10 Hero stats per rk.

UW 1-5 same dmg as Monk whis UCv1 + NS same rk as UW
UW 6-9 same dmg as Monk whis UCv2 + NS same rk as UW
UW 10-11 same dmg as Monk whis UCv3 + NS same rk as UW

UW augments will upgrade dmg and co. that u will do a few more

Ultimate Heroic Augments that will do Heroic Resists 20 + Heroic Stats 5 per rk
Ultimate Proc Augment u can choose ( lifetap low proc dmg / AoE middle proc dmg / Focus Proc dmg high dmg )
Ultimate Click augment atm not an useful idea ! ( dmg / sw / heal / short doration pet )
Ultimate Focus Augment killshot heal / Killshot Mana / Killshot refresh buffs u already taked / Short Duration Pet

augments are quests like UW ( 10 essence + SLS + EoP + EoN per rank )

Ultimate Heroic Augment = UHA = UHA got rk I to X
Ultimate Proc Augment = UPA = UPA got rk I to X
Ultimate Click Augment = UCA = UCA got rk I to X
Ultimate Focus Augment = UFA = UFA got rk I to X

UPA I = ( lifetap = 500 / AoE = 1000 / Focus = 2000 ) /// UPA II = ( Lifetap = 750 / AoE = 1500  / Focus 3000 ) or anything like that ... that the dmg we got now are ok for focus dmg version and goes down to AoE version and again down to lifetap version ....

 I think it was a good post...yes the amount for a whole group may be off a tad but hy blast the guys reasonable idea, unless you just being a douche bag troll?
 
 

Just wanted to get the thread back on track again.....so I bring you a dear sweet man, Mr. Henry Winkler....

(http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/0613556b2fa6311fe7fa0f60ea48d38c.jpg)

.....covered in bees!

White DMG. Hell no we won't go!

To argue devil's advocate here and say that balancing dmg off the UW is required or even needed is a bit of a stretch (in my opinion).  The goal of an item with increased dmg is the benefit of shorter runs in higher tiered content (as anything you one shot with epic or UW doesn't count).  Lets say you balance a tier around people having UW, you then end up with people without it dropping off due to ridic clear times, or forced to roll additional toons (or get the UW, which we don't want forced).  That doesn't sound like a great option at all.

Other scenario and more logical one is you balance mob hp around a typical box that does Not have it.  In this situation, the UW just adds the benefit of reducing hardware resources/toons with added dps.  A lot of people got it originally for that extra hp as it was relatively needed for T8+.  It seems like the majority of players are all on board with that HP issue getting handled.  DPS just doesn't have that same across the board easy to see logic for any change.  You can argue that you want to change it to make it more in line with Epic's but what would the point be if you are going to stick to NOT balancing content around UW?  These took a Long time to get and you acknowledge this by starting this thread stating that their will be MASSIVE QQ and then stating you were surprised it hasn't been as bad as it was anticipated.

If reducing UW damage has anything to do with server or coding constraints needing less #'s in general, there are other options.  You could reduce T7 or T8 mob hp by as an example, 25%, and then the UW white damage by some other equiv % to keep the overall dps advantage from having the item, consistent, yet achieving a lower value total which can move into further content.  This brings the Epics you are making closer to the UW while still giving the UW an advantage (which it Should have). I'm indifferent to the augs, do whatever, tho I will warn that adding custom UW only augs may help to further people into getting a UW and have the potential to open up new problems down the road.  Allowing current augs in there could work, and may help balance a white damage reduction.

Having reread my post, I want to at least throw out there that iv been a big supporter of what you do for this server and this is just me throwing my 2 cents in this delicate issue, as you requested.  Not meant to be read as aggressive.  :)

Just wanted to say that the level of commitment from everyone in this thread is very cool. Instead of ripping on each other, people have been respectfully disagreeing and weighing their viewpoints and that is very cool to see everyone pull together considering recent circumstances.

Hate has most of the changes visualized and felt out in his mind. We've had a conversation about this and it's very sensitive nature and I have brought out things that I've experienced/observed in the past from a generalization standpoint. I think it is going in a direction it needs to, and since everyone is aware of it happening and even more-so everyone has an input on how these changes will be made makes it even better.

I have some analytics I plan to present to Hate from a statistical point of view that will help when it comes to crunch time of making the cuts. But making them happen in such a way a smoother transition can be made without putting down the insane amount of work people have put into this and at the same time carefully making sure that the reward factors and feelings of achievement are no different.

We appreciate everyone staying on topic (Most people anyways) and working together for a collaborative solution.

-Akka

My ideas were not posted as finite. I'll absolutely yield to you saying my numbers are way off. I simply don't know because I don't own one. I'd be happy to know what the UWVII / VIII / IX / X parses VS group parses are currently. The idea was given as a foundation to build off of. Make the UW equivalent to an agreed upon number of toons with augs within it's respective tier.

I think the real argument here is whether or not to lower the UW dmg, and most players don't see a good return on investment or any real need in terms of balancing content for doing so.  Finding a new spot to balance kind of takes away from that argument, and I replied to your post at 3 am, so apologies if that came across a tad blunt.  People keep posting ideas that seem out of left field for how to balance uw dmg, and a better question is this, why does it need to change?  To really start considering a tradeoff, I think we need to see the implementation ideas with the augments hate is proposing. We're trying to have a discussion without a lot of the information required to make an informed decision.  I don't recall anyone having issues with lowering hp or resists, so there is at least a level of trust that something fair will be implemented there.  With all that being said, I think we are left asking what is actually coming next.

Yeah, I have to agree. White damage on the UW needs to stay as is. Hps, hell yes. Or....if you are reducing white damage you need to bring back the click damage in some form, or bump procs.

White damage doesn't have to stay the same.....as long as the end result is the same. IE - nerf regent/mob health it would be a wash.

Future scaling. Not being blunt, but that's what it boils down to.

I honestly think if Hate could share some ideas about how the dmg compensation will work we would be less leery to harp on the white dmg.

Vic as it stands now. An UW8 has 80k white dmg and sword strike (proc) is at 82813.
At T7 my monk has an 10 and 9 strike aug, 275k and 225k with white dmg around 2500ish?

Warrior-
Keeze hit Practice Dummy for 1142819 points of non-melee damage.
Keeze hit Practice Dummy for 496878 points of non-melee damage.

white dmg:
You slash Practice Dummy for 2177398 points of damage.
You slash Practice Dummy for 1693558 points of damage.
You slash Practice Dummy for 422 points of damage.
You slash Practice Dummy for 483958 points of damage.
You slash Practice Dummy for 124 points of damage.

Monk-
Ninjitsu hit Practice Dummy for 3795000 points of non-melee damage.
Ninjitsu hit Practice Dummy for 3105000 points of non-melee damage.
Ninjitsu hit Practice Dummy for 1650000 points of non-melee damage.

white dmg:
You punch Practice Dummy for 48087 points of damage.
You punch Practice Dummy for 29 points of damage.
You punch Practice Dummy for 9908 points of damage.
You punch Practice Dummy for 8919 points of damage.
 

So from the looks of it taking that white dmg down is a HUGE chunk of my dps out the window.

Ooooooo are you going to add realm first achievements along with heroic mode?  :P

As for a real suggestion, if the damage on UW 9-11 post-nerf is still high enough to where warriors are worried about hitting the threat roll-over, would it be possible to get a swappable epic aug via the epic vendor that lacks the 50% threat mod on the stonewall? Currently I just use the Cowardice gem from t8 (-20%) and masked strength 3 (-50%) from the enchanter. I haven't lost threat on my warrior and haven't had any threat rollovers in t8 at all.

i didn't read past page 3 if i rehashed anyone else ideas i am sorry.

I am trying to think of a long tern solution. Long term UW is too complicated to keep in the game as it and keep scaling with new content. i dont like the idea of farming triviall content for 100's of hours to make a single item, that changes breaking new content. my best idea to not make the effort of everyone who completed the UW a waste is the following:

What ever the current UW max is make that the CAP for now on.

convert the UW  in to UA (Ultimate Augment), it would be forced on next upgrade or could be anytime if you dont want to upgrade it anymore.

make the UA have high damage, HP and heroic resists. it would be better than any current aug by a decent margin

Once the UW/UA is MAX level give those people free upgrades for their UA for like 5-10 tiers keep it at like double-triple NS damage.

eventually UW can die off.  it will be easier for the people running the server to balance. the UW is a hot topic. it needs a concrete solution to end the constant talk about it. once it is converted to an augment it would be best for warriors, other classes still see a nice gain from it. people that already have them will still have their damage and survivability greatly boosted. It would just less appealing for non-tanks going forward.

i like to add, i dont have a UW and never intended to farm one. i have a lot of respect for the people who put in the time, effort and/or money in to it. i just know hunter had a vision for the UW, he created it and later expressed regret for making it. i dont want to take anything away from the people who made it, i just feel it should be phased out long term.

why not scale the stats as an equivalent of a higher tier epic to give it a base point and then modify a proc or some dmg as needed from there?  this will give you something to truly start with as a base and what lvl content it would impact.
for example
UW1 = epic 3.0
uw2= epic 5.0
uw3= epic 7.0
at this point since it would get ridiculously high numbers in the end i think it should scale by one epic lvl
UW4=epic 8.0
UW5=epic9.0
UW6=epic 10.0
and so on

you can then add a proc on there depending on the weapon type to  increase damage or add survivabilty if its deemed neccesary

Well if the white damage is an issue somehow in balancing, would a proc not be?   Need more input about the issue with the damage, as I don't believe it is game breaking based on effort/investment required (especially with the ability to have put those resources into gearing alts)

Only reason that i could come up with White dmg vs Proc is White dmg as a norm cant be resisted. mind you there is still stone walls and such, but only thing off the top of my head after being up for 29hrs, LoL.

This idea has merit as well.  :)

I don't really see the damage being an issue either, you could get more damage if you made augs with the 100 essences instead of the sword. The real issue is the HP. The reason the damage was so amazing on it earlier was the Warrior's Way t7+ bonus on chests. I didn't even feel like my UW was worth it until I got rank 7 with that BP. Now without the BP and without the AOE click, I'd imagine even UW 7 would be depressing damage wise.



At UW9, the proc makes a massive jump from 82.8k to 298k, surpassing both NS9 and NS10. If there was a damage nerf, I imagine it would just be to 9 and above. I don't really think 9 needs a nerf. It finally seems worth all the trouble at that point, but I see how the HP is game breaking. I'd be fine with making the HP maybe 20k above each epic per rank, something similar to this:

UW 1 = epic 1.0 + 20k hp
UW 2 = epic 2.0 + 40k hp
UW 3 = epic 3.0 + 60k hp
etc

I'm not going to build duplicate items for sake of testing. I will build a UW9 of each item with the "new" stats for those that want to test (I'll have to manually hand it to you and destroy it to prevent you from dual wielding UWs....).

I will also try to build a spreadsheet today with the new values and post them in this thread to give a better idea. :-D


-Hate

Would it be possible to try these out on Test before testing on Live?  Just thinking... get the rough balancing done there first to avoid the majority of carping.

Ok, here is the mock-up that I'm currently looking at for UWs.

---

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjdPtSifsCeQdGNLNlNwb3JFRUhFZEtFbVdnVS1Cb1E&usp=sharing

---

The thing to keep in mind is the key to the right. The red groupings control the amount each value is multiplied by to get the new hp, damage, and proc values. I set it up this way to give you ladies/gents/trolls a before/after comparison view. They are obviously subject to change too. Right now, you may notice the damage lower in some places and higher in others. This is due to the goofy scaling of the current UWs. I know it doesn't make a ton of sense, but that's just the way they were setup after Hunter removed all my adjustments to them back in December.

I was unclear on what I was trying to say with the damage too. The white damage was too high in some causes which caused strange things. Certain effects (Ancestral Grudge for example) caused E X P L O S I V E dps with current UWs. The proc damage scales better currently as the bulk of the bloody server has been designed for/around augs. Overall, the weapon really isn't getting punished as bad as everyone has been complaining/threatening each other about.


-Hate

85% HP reduction, 10% proc dmg reduction, and a 64% white dmg reduction?

Regarding explosive dps with white dmg because of one spell, can't the same be said for the spell dmg when bard epic click mod and ench VT mods are applied to procs?  The benefit of AG on UW wielders could be mitigated by a longer lockout on the spell refresh easily enough, couldn't it?

Regarding Nexxel on the benefit of white dmg over spell dmg doesn't really apply since there's really nothing that resists the DD proc dmg from strike augs, not to mention that the white dmg is mitigated by mobs and their AC values...ie it hits for max dmg far less often than not.

I still contend that the net result needs to be at or very near zero sum change in dps with the UW.  It's been stated quite often in this thread that you get more benefit from the components required for UW when they are used for strike augs on additional alts, so if overall dps is in fact the mitigating factor the only way you can really address that is to limit the amount of toons that you can bring into a zone.  And if that's the direction that you decide to take with things, along with neutering the dps from UW, that warrants a seperate discussion thread.  If not, then I just don't see the issue on the current dps of the UW.

Question regarding the UW weapon types, why is the bow the least altered white damage wise?  It goes from UWX bow dmg of 120k to 92k while the sword goes from 120k to 46k, staff goes from 170k to 86k.  Looking at the proc dmg, the sword gets ~ 10% bonus to 330k while the bow jumps up ~ 50 % from 280k to 550k.  Why the disparity in the adjustments to the different weapon types?

Another thing to consider when using minor proc dmg increases to offset major white dmg decreases...procs will fire once per round while you can swing multiple times per round when applying white dmg to a mob, not trying to be fragmented with my posts here but just adding in observations as I consider them.

Will there be a modification to the UW questline with these nerfs?

Will the modifications done to T7 and T8 also reflect similar percentages in reduction?

Going to go with my mother's advice, "If you cant say something nice....don't say anything at all."

Not thrilled with those projected numbers with the amount of time it takes per tier.

Also the dmg on the bow is ridiculous compared to the other weapons.

I hope you scale the zones based on epic and not on uw cuz losing that amount of hp and dmg is a huge hit.

I could see the changes working IF the recipe was changed.  Otherwise I don't see myself continuing this item.  Recipe I would suggest would be:

Weapon mold / Previous Weapon
100 Essences
5 SLS
2 Ore (same progression as Ninja strikes)

From there I would remove the group lore tag and make each weapon type lore.  Meaning you could have long sword and mace, but not dual wield a long sword.  I would also make each weapon type have its own unique proc similar to the clicks that were added.

long sword: magic dd
mace: heal
great staff: ae
dagger: poison dd
bow: ??

A) Dim, thank you for actually posting useful/actionable info.
B) If you don't like numbers, SUGGEST A NEW MODIFIER(S) AND SPECIFY WHICH BLOCK (i.e. UW Damage Mods). Simply saying that you don't like them and posting no alternatives/suggestions is pretty much the same as not posting at all.
C) Those asking about refund see post: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=4241.msg54088#msg54088


-Hate

Tad on the defensive side hate. Again you got 10 pages of ppl giving options and the majority saying leave white alone. But you're gonna do what you're gonna do regardless. With the numbers you posted I wouldn't waste my time and resources with the quest line but rather with augs / soa / etc.

Added tiered tank hp and tiered dps damage to right side for scaling comparison (purple).


-Hate

Keeze,

No offense friend but I've got about 2/3 of this thread as useful data. Now that I've posted more numbers, I'm getting lots of flak but no suggestions. It's hard to be patient/polite when being bombarded with "WTF fix the numbers!" in tells/PMs with no solid suggestions. The items are scaled off of the new tier dropped items, the scaled modifiers are on the spreadsheet in red boxes. If people want white damage up, suggest different modifiers.


-Hate

This represents a problem with the quest, not the weapon itself...you shouldn't be bothering with the quest until your toons are striked out anyhow, especially since you acknowledge that those resources would be better spent on strikes.  This is why Hunter's biggest mistake in making the UW quest was lacking the foresight to level lock it to a point in progression where you would have addressed maxing out strike augs prior to engaging in a quest that was intended to be something to consume resources after you had no need for them anymore.

As far as changes to AG, you're far more likely to see people with multiple bards than multiple shaman since bards aren't a 1 trick pony...they dual wield NS augs, have TB line for aggregate proc dmg on the group, have no issues with hate rollover since they can just fade at will, amp up DD damage and mana regen with their epic click.  Whereas shaman don't stack well, they don't do dps themselves, have limited dots and no real DD nukes, have a good group DD buff in kraken that one shaman can keep up on multiple groups, have a decent buff on their epic click that now lasts longer, but is still limited by the 15 minute lockout on single groups and 26?ish lockout when used with MGB.  The only real benefit they can offer in multiples other than keeping AG up is being able to buff their epic click more often than every 15-26mins.

I think that is because people have been saying they understand the issue with the hitpoints but why touch the damage...over and over.

I think the other issue, considering how many essences it takes to just make one UW, you could make a whole bunch of dps classes for the cost.

I agree cut the hell out of the hitpoints but don't touch the damage.  For me you are taking a weapon that is 120k base and cutting it more than half!  that is a HUGE amount of dps lost!

You are scaling it against a weapon that cost 1 Tov essence to make.  The UW X cost me 100 ToV essences to make!

I'm sorry if I missed it somewhere, but what is the significance of the DMG Mods on the UW weapons?  Does a 2.0 dmg mod mean that instead of new dmg on UWX sword being 46k, it's 92k?  And again, why is the bow being skewed so much less than the other weapons?  The 4.0 mod on it eclipses the 3.75 mod on the staff which takes up 2 slots.

Nevermind, I think I understand it now...you set an arbitrary baseline for the tier based weapon dmg on UW and applied a mod to each weapon type, please advise if I am wrong.

I still am not seeing why so much love is given to an item (bow) that really only benefits one class to use when they already have access to NS augs while diminishing another class' benefit they get by using the UW since they have no access to strike augs except exceedingly weak IS augs.

Hate, you post that anything refund oriented is something you are against because of the progress it enabled.  There would be more and easier progress equipping and augging out alt characters rather than building this weapon. Each augment and alt upgraded would provide a dps boost per augment upgraded, providing steady and exponential growth, whereas upgrading your uw took a lot more time for what would have been a smaller overall dps increase.

ex: Your party is doing 100k dmg, you upgrade an aug, its doing 105k dmg, upgrade another aug, 110k dmg, so on so forth.
With UW you are losing all the time and flexibility that smaller and faster upgrades would provide in order to gain an condensed dps item for a single character.  The logic in flat out refusing to compensate for previous UW gains is somewhat flawed from what I see

And I'm also curious about what dimur asked in terms of dmg mod (and how it would stack with UCs).  Also didn't see anything on aug slots.

I'm assuming you are referring to UW Sword 10. You are looking at the 120k -> 46k white damage, but plainly or foolishly ignoring the 298k -> 330k proc increase. Yes I understand that white damage counts more per swing than procs. Procs do not encounter AC modifiers (as Dim has stated) while white damage does.

---

Use the bow and tell me you don't agree with that decision on bow damage/proc. :-)

As for the HP drop, this change will happen with T7/T8/T9 NPC damage and NPC health changes. I've stated this nearly every other page in this thread.

---

As I've tried vainly to explain previously, once you hit point X (again...for the fourth time, literally X, not rank 10) you have beaten the tier without ever entering it. Once you reach this point, you can simply clear through whatever tier until you get 100 of the essences and break the next tier without entering it.

Many people have made OBSCENE gains because of the crazy amount of hp, resist, healing, damage it adds. I am not going to refund players for something they've used for months to massively accelerate their team(s) forward. Same with a car and whomever provided the speed limiter. If you bought a Porsche that goes 160 mph and had it for months/years, kick ass for you. Next U.S. gov't goes "lol speed limiters @ 100mph or tickets tickets tickets". If you were to approach the car dealer and expect/demand/ask-for a full/partial refund based on this new legislation, they would laugh until one of them likely required an ambulance.

I don't know how else to explain this rationally. It's provided HUGE gains for a long time and will still provide a fairly brutal improvement over the dropped bits to recognize the effort you ladies/gents/trolls have put in to it.


-Hate

To echo what Hate has said, people have benefited from using the UW already and there's really no reason to expect a refund of resources.  I don't see anyone who already had their UW10, prior to the UW nerf notice from Hunter months ago, asking for reimbursement and really those are the only people who legitimately could be asking.  Anyone that has advanced their UW since Hunter and Hate both acknowledged it was going to be toned down in some capacity did so knowing that the end result wasn't going to necessarily be what it currently is.

Dim and rest,

I'm sorry, I assumed it would be clear. Seriously, this was my fault trying to do too much at work and in game. I am sorry. :-(

 I added a basic example to explain that. The mods are HOW each item is scaled. Proc damage is matching Ninjastrike damage * Weapon's Proc Mod = End Result.

The damage is scaled (partially) off of the dropped items from each tier. This way the white damage is RELEVANTLY scaled off of the damage the rest are using. Again, I know the numbers are off and will welcome suggested values (provided they are reasonable, no 5.0 or 10.0 mods).


-Hate

The only thing the UW really provided an advantage with was survivability, and that got adjusted appropriately a while back.  As for having a porsche that drives 160? Thats great, but having 20 civics driving 100 gets more things moved.  The advantage  is having 1 car that can go that fast versus having to balance 20.  And if you already have 20, can bump to 30, etc.

I feel the better way to look at this is moving as much possible form point a -> b, because that is what you are trying to accumulate a lot of resources.

As for beating a tier before you enter it, I think that is a problem with the implementation not having a level cap or recommended level attached, which is not the same problem as the dps numbers themselves.  I feel that you need to look at each problem with the weapon and identify solutions for each problem rather than a single fix for everything.

But that too is part of the issue.  NS augs don't take nearly as many essences to make as a UW does.  The cost to benefit seems to be going to just making another monk or bard or (insert ns class here). It just seems for the cost it would have been better for me to have made 6 more toons than to have spent the time on the UW, especially since the only reason I did it was so I could try to stay on par with current content.

I guess just roll with the punches though.  What happens, happens.

So....the year+ that they've been scaled that way is wrong?

As I've stated before, can you suggest a better set of modifiers then?


-Hate

What is the purpose of the modifiers exactly?  I understand what they are now, but still am confused as to what their purpose is.  If you could expand on the benefits of moving the current damage model to a base*dmg mod model, perhaps would could give better feedback.

I spoke in more detail in game w/ you hate, but putting it out on here (hopefully with more clarity than before) just so others can see:

People were forced into farming UWs to move through t8+, with that going away, a lot of time that people had to spend farming this could have been better spent allocating resources to balancing a larger raid party with augs.  

The primary allure of the UW is the white dmg and the way that works with warrior mechanics, changing to spell damage further removes value from the weapon.  

I find it very difficult to input balancing ideas for the weapon without seeing the future augment ideas, what they do, what they cost, etc. Also unable to be seen are any other mechanics each type of weapon might have (rune proc, ae proc, etc)  I would guess this might be something that is added on the augments, but do not know.

I would like to wait for changes on damage until we can see what the ideas for these augments are, and can see the full picture.

What I was saying, as an example, is what I have been saying all along. The overall cost of the weapon should make it worth the essences. I am not putting numbers there because I think they are fine where they are at (for the white damage). It is robbing Peter to pay Paul kinda deal, because the hitpoints are where the issue really is.

In t8 running just 6 toons (normally War(UW), pally (8.0), clr (8.0), mnk (8.0), rog (8.0), brd  (8.0)...it takes a normal amount of time to kill trash and a normal amount of time to kill named mobs.  I don't want to have to run more toons (although I have another group and all my toons are maxxed strike aug'd to this point)

Why cut damage so drastically?  it makes the weapon lackluster at best. I understand the hitpoint thing.  I understand making it not game-breaking.  What I don't understand is cutting the balls off the weapon (figuratively speaking).

And I am spit-balling here...but if the white damage is going to take a beating like that...can maybe put all 3 strike augs in the weapon?  1 NS/1IS/1FS plus the epic...and a UA (if that is ever implemented.) that way the dps is still decent?

I know it's gotta be frustrating as hell for you in trying to tune this Hate, but the only thing that people can agree on is that the HP on the UW required mobs to hit for an insane amount of damage to compensate.  I think most people are okay with trading the hp loss on the weapon off for the decrease in the crazy high melee output from mobs.  I also think that most people are okay with shedding some/most of the heroic resists on the item in exchange for more reasonable resist requirements from the mob(s) spell damage.  But to be completely honest, it's hard for us to see the need for lowering the dps of the weapon.  Mob hp can stay the same, regen can stay the same and it's a net zero change...stuff is still going to take a considerable amount of resources to efficiently plow through and UW dps isn't going to make or break your ability to do so.

 I still don't see the point in making a whole new tiered system of UW augs, it seems like a time consuming endeavor and a balance nightmare...the UW is only an exceptional dps weapon on a warrior since they don't get dps strike augs, other toons mitigate a lot of the potential damage gain on doing a UW in the form of the strike augs they have access to.  If someone wants to waste time making UW on their monk and sacrificing an NS aug weapon in doing so, more power to them but it's not a very good return on materials/time invested.

Please be more specific as to why you think the dps on the UW is hard to balance around when monks and rangers can crit NS for 8mil a pop, I don't think anyone is trying to call you out at all but we are having a hard time following your logic.  If you can enlighten us a bit more on your thought process it might make the two way communication a bit less frustrating.

Mainly why I think you aren't going to see a better suggested stat multiplier here is because no one wants to see the white damage touched, there are 11 pages now, and at least once on every page there is the DO NOT TOUCH WHITE DAMAGE. Why? Because no one sees it reasonable for that to happen, we all agree on the game breaking factor of the UW, slash HP, slash resists, make changes to allow for the compensation to be there in game so that the hit on UW losing hp and resists balances out well and not game breaking. But touching the damage is in no way going to solve anything but make a bunch of people upset.

I first was upset when even the word nerf UW came into play, but I (like many others) actually followed the thread, made some arguments and conjured up some ideas that might be more "reasonable" of course not all will agree. But we all agree that the white damage needs to be left alone. I'm still waiting it out and seeing what happens to it instead of rage quitting at the first talk of nerfing UW but what it comes down to is what you do with the white damage (which should be left alone). Upping the strike damage on it isn't going to benefit considering X only procs X times per round of combat, where swings and in warriors case flurries hit multiple times in a round of combat + their normal combat swing diminishing still the damage return for such a huge hit for a slight increase in proc damage on the UW.

My in-game conversation with Marxist, a few with Dimur (over the last week) & his posts today, and one with Blurring have made valid points. They brought legitimate arguments with a few metrics to back it up. Huge thanks to those three gents.

I've MASSIVELY increased the white damage modifiers to pretty much bring them to almost the exact same as they were before.

Please keep me posted with your feelings on these new values (procs and white damage).


-Hate

Now you good sir, are on to something!

Thank you for listening to the community Hate.  This thread has been strikingly civil compared to the last few UW threads over the years. 

Once this gets finalized, shall we move onto what Mobs/Tiers/Zones will need mob Dmg adjustments?  Tiers/ToFS etc.

Looked at the new idea, I like it, and Dimur...you worded what I was thinking perfectly and more elegantly than I did, ty.  ;D

(http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x206/Bobtheamerican/uwinflation_zps4cb97e7b.png)

This is to give everyone an example of what we're dealing with on the HP values.


-Hate

this is

(http://x2.fjcdn.com/comments/Madness+No.+This.+IS.+SPARTA+_7e9032b78bffcdb7161b1ba849f65002.jpg)

EZ Server?   



LMAO

Just some quote fun :) (nothing intended serious, you all know me!)

EzServer Player: Choose your next words carefully, Hateborne. They may be your last as king.

Hateborne: [to himself: thinking] "Damage and Hp's"?

[Hateborne unsheathes and points his NerfBat at the EzServer Player's Ultimate Weapon]

EzServer Player: Madman! You're a madman!

Hateborne: Damage and Hp's? You'll find plenty of both down there.

EzServer Player: No man, P99 or Live, no man threatens a EzServer Player!

Hateborne: You bring the weapons and gear of conquered nerfs to my city steps. You insult my Loveborne. You threaten my server with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, EzServer Player. Perhaps you should have done the same!

EzServer Player: This is blasphemy! This is madness!

Hateborne: Madness...?

[shouting]

Hateborne: This is EzServer!

+99999999

 ;D

(http://s30.postimg.org/b99agzojx/Untitled.jpg)

Well, SO much for keeping this on topic an civil.  ;D

Let the Lashings continue till Nerfs and Moral improve!

Wait!?!? Did I say that right?!?

Okay... sooo.... boo hiss???? I give up.

How to introduce change 101


first off is to declare that the sky is falling ..items will be deleted, Nerfed  and reduced to bank trash.(Freak out time)

Second is open long drawn out threads describing in lured details how much you are going to hate the changes.(tempers flare people, people rage quit, and then come back...)

Third is open up for general discussion and let people propose how they would fix it.(this sense of control is important for the final stage)

Fourth stage ......Fix it...not as bad as you first said...not nearly as bad as what people feared....and better than what people thought you would do....and then with this nerf...you become the hero!

Hero status? Interesting.

?


-Hate

@

For Hateborne:
(https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6049608960/h9DA7EE32/)

For Fugitive:

(http://theineptowl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Gay-Super-Hero.jpg)

What in the hell

(http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130227210959/silent/images/9/97/Trainn.jpg)



  :D

My work here is done

Locking thread and posting new update to grab attention on home page news section.


-Hate