Just wanted to put out a quick post on what to expect for the back half of 2024.
Disconnection IssuesIf anyone is still experiencing disconnection issues, please let me know here, or in game, or on Discord. Based on what I've seen, I am pretty sure the server code devs were able to find the issue. For anyone interested in what that was you can find the information
HERE.
Wings of the AngelI don't think I ever actually did a forum post about the cost associated with Wings of the Angel when it is cast on lower level characters. Quite simply, Wings is incredibly powerful even for higher level characters, and results in completely trivial content in the lower tiers. Originally the cost should have been added at the same time as the duration for the buffs was increased, but was not included at that time (I couldn't make it work properly). So while players can still buff individually with the class buffs included in Wings, casting it amongst lower characters will result in a cost of 2,500,000 per character level 76 and below.
Cost for Wings was removed as part of the investigation into the disconnections, as it was added about the same time as the server code update that ended up causing us problems. Since that is/was not the issue, expect the cost to be added back in the near future.
Difficulty, Group Size & Time Requirement DiscussionsBoth Sarthin and I, have had discussions amongst ourselves, talked with players interested in constructive discussions as well as reading forum posts, Discord messages and OOC chatter regarding the difficulty of content, group size and the time required to complete newer content. We'll go through some bullet points...
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Kael, overall, takes too long. We agree with this general sentiment, and are working towards some tuning that will hopefully result in a more reasonable time investment requirement than it currently takes to complete T11. Now, as a player it may seem like this is an easy fix, just increase spawns & drops, adjust NPC difficulty where they may be too hard for the average player, and everyone is happy. From our side, it requires some degree of finesse to both maintain what Sarthin's vision was in the gameplay for T11, while addressing player concerns. Our initial changes will start rolling out sometime this week, and continue until we are happy with it. As we've mentioned before, neither Sarthin or myself have any experience in game development, and there will be areas where that shows. One of our shared faults, is that we don't want to see our hard work steamrolled in a couple weeks by the likes of Pubise, Fec, Denzig amongst others who run large highly efficient armies, which the solution for which creates some unacceptable collateral damage for players who just want to log on and have a good time, so that needs some adjustment.
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Group sizes are a bit out of control for the average player Sarthin and I both prefer difficult content, and between Veeshan's Peak, Rallos event, Kael Drakkel and Fear Itself, we've tried to create more challenging content than is typical for EZ. This creates issues in trying to balance our desire for challenging people to play better than they've had to in the past (eg. not just auto-healing with a single Paladin), while not driving up the number of groups needed to effectively work through the content. It is easy to make certain classes more desirable, which can in turn results in people feeling the need to bring a whole group up, because why go through Abyss and Sunderock for a couple characters, when you can just bring up another whole group. This of course results in the effective group size meta going from 18 to 24 to 30 to 36 in short order, which is understandingly daunting for people just starting out. Smaller groups have always required much closer attention to min/maxing, and a focus on farming the best gear before moving on, and that just doesn't seem to happen as much anymore. Now, we just end up recommending adding another 6 rogues instead of trying maximize their current DPS, instead of trying to maximize what they have. There is no easy answer here. While it's possible to impose group size limits on content, and some people, even with large armies, agree that this is a possible solution, it's not without a host of legitimate complaints from people who have spent countless hours bringing up group after group to try and keep up with the current meta. We could scale content much more aggressively as groups get larger, and while this is a less direct way of trying to control group size, it would also be a hard pill to swallow for some, though it's certainly still in the running as an idea going forward. Currently, our planning for T12 will see easier NPC difficulty (relatively speaking) than we've seen in VP, KD or Fear Itself, but NPC scaling will ramp up in difficulty as more are pulled. This mechanic was used in Misty Thicket (the caster/fighter guild alternative) to control twinked characters from being able to effectively zone pull, and will be used similarly in T12 - Vex Thal. While some players will be able to pull more than others, and there won't be a coded hard cap, there will be a functional hard cap. This will work in unison with the group size scaling similar to what's already in place in Kael and Fear Itself.
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Difficulty. I think it probably goes without saying, not everyone is a fan of super difficult content, and while we definitely see more people excitedly talking about killing their first Enslaved Dragon in Veeshan, or bosses in Kael than we do spawning Vampire Bats in Loping Plains, these can also be a great source of frustration when you just can't get over the hump. So, T12 will move away slightly from these extra difficult encounters, and go back to a slightly gentler NPC difficulty level, and we'll gauge the response from there. While Sarthin and I, somewhat selfishly, want to create content we'd like to play, we also understand we are not the majority, and while we obviously need to make decisions that may be unpopular from time to time (mostly me, Sarthin ain't got no juice!
) , we do want to make content that people enjoy playing.
What now? • Expect changes soon-ish to Kael. It's not going to be shortened in half or anything, but we'll start making incremental changes, and go from there.
• Tier 12 - Vex Thal's development will continue. It is going to be a fairly basic tier, but some fun surprises. Expected _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , 202_.
• Fear Itself concerns - we've seen them, nothing concrete to announce regarding that.
• Any other concerns, please keep them to yourself, we all have problems, deal with them like adults....just kidding, post them here...or send direct messages to Sarthin, he's a good secretary.
For Akkadius & Sarthin,
Draca
