Ultimate Weapon Discussion

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[hateborne]

Ultimate Weapon Discussion

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

[Rent Due]

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.

[Chunka]

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!

[Krupa]

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

[Nexxel]

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.

[Krinkle]

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.

[Brokyn]

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.

[Danish]

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.

[Expletus]

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.

[Digz]

ill just quote what i said in a previous thread

going from 1m hp to 8m hp in 4 ranks is what needs to be changed, id say leave the rest of the weapon as is, especially after the removal of the clicky.

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.

[Expletus]

Some ppl are limited by connection and hardware.

[Digz]

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.

[Drep]

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.

[Raygan]

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

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.....

[Dinadas]

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.

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