PvE Adjustments

Shayde

My numbers aren't terrible then? That's really good to know, because the 3% smite against a grizzly seemed really low at 15 str.

Dochitha

We could really use more hunting places too, I personally prefer quicker respawn cos of personal loop.

Shayde

I am fine for now with the hunting areas, they are plentiful and I can barely get through them as it is. My problem is the increasing disadvantage those of us that are participating/testing the free to play model are experiencing, or at least I am.

Let's start with just getting lessons to actually be "tanky". Right now I need to have Clotting in Survival, Empathy/power in Spirituality, Healing in Devotion, Earth shield in Healing. Two of those are near trans, while the other two are around 50% on trans. At 79, using the 5 lessons per level model and the 160 I had started with at lvl 5, I made 545 lessons off of leveling. Okay, that's a little over a quarter of a skillset. At 79, through just leveling alone, I gained 175 bound credits. If I transfer them to lessons that is 1050 lessons. Okay, that brings one skill set to near trans. I still need more lessons, so I am going to have to spend money. $20 gives me 2000 lessons which is a good deal. Combined with the lessons I gained before I can trans one skill and a half.

What is baffling me is if you even get to level 100, without buying a single thing, you won't tri-trans your skills off of just leveling alone. You'll have around 2500 lessons. If this is the case, why are we making the skills that actually make a person "tanky" so high up?

Is my math wrong on this? 

I would be fine with the idea if it was labelled as it is. You'll -have- to spend rl money or you'll have to spend time not leveling/just questing to be able to afford the credit market. 

Now to be fair, of all the Ire games I've tested the free model, Achaea was one of the easier/cheaper alternatives. Which is nice, but I'm seeing the $10 for 1000 lessons labelled as new, how the heck did everyone tri-trans beforehand without spending months?

Omor

@Shayde I'm not a big fan of the current hunting system, but I'm working through it best I can.

Honestly, I think most everyone pays to have lessons. Even if it's just the IRE monthly, that's 5 lessons a day, plus 100cr(+5 per month). That, plus the 5%(+5% per month) exp bonus, makes it tangible to get your lessons without having to spend too much. Yes, you still have to spend, but how can IRE support the game without some sort of income?
If you want a truly free-to-play Achaea, you pretty much have to avoid any sort of combat or hunting, and solely RP. Hell, RP as a beggar if needed.

I know it's not an answer, really, but if you want to to even decently well, you kinda have to spend some amount of money, just on lessons.

Edit: Some spacing.

Halos

House and city credits sometimes cost less than half the price of those on credit market.

Atalkez

Even free to play models have to have income to stay sustainable. 

I'm sure every effort is made to make things accessible across the board, but there have to be some places where the incentive is to purchase. You are not wrong, though, you are forced to get lessons from auxiliary methods, leveling alone isn't enough. I know the topic has been brought up before, and it was slated to be looked at. These guys only have so much time in a day!

Sherazad

I have an alt who tritransed around level 80+.  I haven't paid for OOC cr, but I did get someone to buy me the 2 lesson packages for IC cr. She doesn't have access to house and city creditsales too. I'd say it's way easier to get lessons these days than before the PvE changes. 

Cooper

One thing I will note is that it would be really nice for people to get a race/trait reset for free with these changes. I know I personally would have set up my traits/race a bit different if I had known serpent bashing was going to be adjusted and I don't want to spend 100/200cr to compensate for that.

Shayde

Sherazad said:

I have an alt who tritransed around level 80+.  I haven't paid for OOC cr, but I did get someone to buy me the 2 lesson packages for IC cr. She doesn't have access to house and city creditsales too. I'd say it's way easier to get lessons these days than before the PvE changes. 

I'm a rogue, 90% in one skill, 80% in another, 38% in my third, and 33% in survival. Right now I've spent maybe $100. $20 for the lessons, $45 for the wheel to get bound credits, and $35 in misc credits for lessons. I'm pretty sure my partner is going to have a fit.

I'm not necessarily complaining that I have to spend money more so than I am saying how ridiculous it seems to me that if you get dragon you won't trans all three skills. If it is being worked on, that is great. I like the game, just not necessarily the richest person.

Telendrieth

You know, I have always wondered how feasible it would be to have your primary bashing skill grow similarly to battlerage. One skill per class that simply grows tied to your level, and allows you to at least hunt, if nothing else. Just an idea I've tossed around in my head, haven't really polished it.

Sena

Shayde said:

I'm not necessarily complaining that I have to spend money more so than I am saying how ridiculous it seems to me that if you get dragon you won't trans all three skills.

You won't trans three skills just from the lessons/credits you get with your levels, but you'll definitely be able to trans them by bashing to dragon. High level bashing gives a lot of gold.

Dochitha

@Shayde Yeah keep hunting and pile up those gold. Tougher areas generally pays out better. Hit dragon and your hunting game will change, and it's not that hard to hit dragon these days, it's not even rare now. High end hunting makes you dozens of credits every day. Hunt up gold, invest into your hunting, hunt more, invest more into your hunting, rinse repeat, it will solve all your problem.

Sherazad

@Shayde yeah, my alt isn't dragon, doesn't have access to city/house creditsale, no OOC cr, has 2 of the newbie lessons pack paid with IC cr, did not bash too long. She still got tritrans mostly due to quests and bashing/leveling smartly. I compare it against my first character who was not tritrans for years. That's how much better it is compared to before if you bash/level wisely. 

Grandue

@Shayde I was nearly omnitrans before I ever spent any RL money. Achaea is a long game unless you want to pay RL money, but you can definitely get all your skills transed without having to spend money on the game if you play it right and stay focused on the long goal. There are good ways to make gold and make it quick, buying cheap and selling high, learn your quest routes, etc. When I first started I sold my services as a Wordsmith, writing custom descriptions and such and I saved up gold to buy things in bulk from people and then break it up and sell them at a higher price to multiple people. I got a lot of enjoyment out of the game learning how to make my own path before I ever bought my first RL credits. 

Aesgar

You are holding:

Additional wearables:

   fullplate22279      a lightweight suit of rune-etched full plate


This explains why I hated the PvE changes so much.. I haven't been wearing my armour <span></span>

Tolan

Aesgar said:

You are holding:

Additional wearables:

   fullplate22279      a lightweight suit of rune-etched full plate


This explains why I hated the PvE changes so much.. I haven't been wearing my armour <span></span>

I feel like all runewardens are like this.

"Why can't I tank?!? Oh, I'm not wearing my armour"

"Why can't I kill?!? Oh, my weapons aren't runebladed"

Telendrieth

Tolan said:

"Why can't I kill?!? Oh, my weapons aren't runebladed"

I wasn't a runewarden when they changed the weapon runes around, so I was a bit shocked when they did nothing to the stats of my sword.

that being said, I've done that exact same thing with both my scale and fullplate. -shudder- Not pleasant.

Borran

Paine said:

Penwize said:

I'm curious, what exactly is it that you all find slow about bashing, compared to how it used to be?  And why is that bad?

Is it how long things take to die?
Is it how long it takes to gain xp or gold?
Is it how slow your attacks are?

Mobs take longer to die. However, IMHO that is not a bad thing because XP and gold are much much higher. Denizens are also easier to find alive. It took awhile to get used to having to hit "weak" denizens longer than I used to hit them but I like the changes.

Since battlerage was implemented and denizen health/damage was overhauled, I can go almost *Anywhere* in Achaea and find things to kill and they will give me experience even at level 103. This is in stark contrast to before battlerage when I had a hard time finding mobs that were still alive during peak hours. If by some miracle I did find mobs they were usually miniscule experience.

That was the complete opposite of "fun". When I would log in once or twice a week and only have a few hours to spend, if I spent part of that time bashing I didn't want to waste half the time looking for things that were still alive.

Don't try to accuse me of not knowing where to find good bashing spots. I know where to find anything if I want it.

Or wake up in the middle of the night to bash

Xaden

Or move to GMT and have all the best places free all the time

Antonius

Until some dick gets Dragon and starts taking them all the time.

Xaden

Not -all- the time...

Skye

People in my timezone: Mindshell, Sarathai, Seragorn, (sometimes) Proficy

tell me about this magical period called off-peak again.

Linton

If classes are now divided into tankers, damagers, etc, then I think it will be nice if each of these groups have some battlerage abilities tied to those roles. Like tanker with a room attack battlerage that draws aggro to himself.

Kiet

Tank* 

Tolan

Linton said:

If classes are now divided into tankers, damagers, etc, then I think it will be nice if each of these groups have some battlerage abilities tied to those roles. Like tanker with a room attack battlerage that draws aggro to himself.

Except, it's not only classes that make the person a tank or a cannon. It's also dependent on race, statpack, traits ..

Battlerage skills are only dependent on class, and none of the other things.

-1

Sena

Nobody is really being divided into specific roles. For the most part, there's still only really one "role" (dealing damage), these changes just prevent certain classes from being better than everyone at both dealing damage and staying alive, so there's some tradeoff.

Frederich

Yeah after looking over some things and actually comparing classes.

My other, unartied friend as a paladin SnB

2% every 4-ish seconds.

Monk

2-3% every 2.3 seconds.


So, while they can absolutely tank anything really thrown at them... I still do about double their damage on a normal run through smacking enemies.  Which is, y'know.  Cool.  Doesn't address our tankiness issue, but I don't think it really has to, especially considering this is unartied.  I doubt that my damage output will actually get THAT much better, but at the very least, I can do hit and runs pretty effectively...

Even if it does leave me open to be insta-killed by 2-3 classes because I have 0 mana by the end of it. #MonkIssues.

Cooper

If your friend is s&b attacking at 4 seconds they are doing something incredibly wrong. Should be 2.2 at worst. 

Frederich

Who knows.  However if they're paladining it up and supposed to be attacking 2.2 and doing 2%, they're dealing... more or less, more damage than me and are also way tankier.

Which I will be upset about because #Balance.  It was their hunting combo, iirc...  Maybe most of the balance issues stem from the fact that Paladins get a free +2 STR that most pretty much always keep up on themself... and for at least 15 minutes every hour, they get an extra +2... and they get weathering... and can STILL be runed up...

I mean, that might just be a small part of the issues that go on with balancing.  They can pretty much con spec and take no penalty for it... or they can str spec and get a ton of perks alongside it.  Especially whenever "Toughness" which is supposedly one of the 'KEY AWESOME DEFENSES AS A MONK" can also.. be duplicated by a priest/paladin with I think, Earth Blessing.  (Don't quote me on that last part though because I have no fucking clue how to paladin/priest))

Antonius

If they're currently attacking at 4 seconds they're probably using a broadsword and tower shield, so they'll be doing more damage but at a slower attack speed. Reducing that time to 2.2 seconds will also reduce the damage per attack.