Ultimate Weapon Discussion

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[Dinadas]

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

[Chunka]

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

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

[Dimur]

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.

[hateborne]

(omitted for relevance)

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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

[Dimur]

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.

[Dinadas]

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.

[Premador]

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.

[Dinadas]

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.

[hateborne]

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.

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. :-)

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.

(omitted for relevance)

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

[Expletus]

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.

[Dimur]

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.

[hateborne]

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

[Dimur]

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.

[Denzig]

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

[Gannicus]

The damage is stupid high, bordering game breaking, but it's less problematic than the survivability stats.

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

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