Q&A Time Again!

Ahmet

Q: What was your biggest mistake as producer, and if you could go back, how would you do it differently?

Nicola says, "Not taking a vacation or really a day off for the first 14 months."

Nicola says, "Also calling Makarios to come fix something in the middle of his Christmas dinner."

Makarios scowls miserably.

Q: What do you consider the greatest mistake in balancing combat you've made?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Combat balance mistake?"

Makarios sucks thoughtfully on His teeth.

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "The best bug was worldwide voyria."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Biggest mistake was probably blademaster infuselightning, I've not really had to revert many things."

Q: Will there ever be other forms of theft outside of serpent? Or are you trying to weed out theft like the rest of IREs and keep it minimal?

Nicola says, "No plans for more theft, but I don't hate theft at all."

Q: Are there any plans to revamp the weather system to include actual precipitation again? Or temperatures that make sense?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "I will look into weather, sure."

Q: What was the replacement for Milking going to be when it was taken away from Serpents, and are we still going to see it, or is that gone?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Long gone."

Q: Have any factions made RP decisions that you didn't approve of, and if so, what would you rather have seen happen?"

Nicola says, "Daily."

Nicola says, "Player run means player run."

Q: Are there plans for Delosian eagles? I remember you guys said that was a goal for this year. Have other things gotten in the way of that?

Nicola says, "Massive other things have gotten in the way of a few projects, but using Delosian eagles is still on the cards."

Q: Can Twilight have a secret order where you don't know who is who in it and they can join other people's order but SURPRISE! They're still actually DArkwalkers?"

Nicola says, "What's to suggest this isn't already the case?"

Q: What would each of you say your favourite single contribution to Achaea was, be it a feature, a storyline, an area, et cetera?"

Nicola says, "My favourite contribution was the Reckoning."

Diplomat Ictinus, Arcane Architect says, "My favourite contribution so far is The Margam foray, for obvious reasons, but my favourite is likely to change by the end of the year."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Favourite contribution is tough."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "I had a lot of fun with the mining and foray systems since they were pretty complicated in parts. Depthswalker is obviously up there too, but its probably one of the former two for me."

Q: Are there plans to have Tlalaiad have a much larger part of Achaea's storyline? Since His birth, he's been super sparse, and that makes me a sad megalomaniacal agent of destruction.

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Tlalaiad is doing things."

Q: Are you content with the current restrictions of Alchemist and the Forestal classes, or will that be revisited at some point down the line?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "I'm not sure what you mean, all the cities decided they wanted alchemists."

Makarios shrugs helplessly.

Nicola says, "It's not really important decision making if we just let everyone decide on a yearly basis."

Nicola says, "Actions have consequences."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Alas, the curse of hindsight."

Q: The digsite system was really cool but it's never used anymore. Any plans on using that in the future?"

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Probably not."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "It was mostly a one off for the relics system."

Q: Can we get an option for dragons to be able to use emotions in tells?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "That's on the list."

Q: Is there any ETA on when Crusade benefits will get a revamp? Or is that still a bit into the future?

Nicola says, "Considering what we have planned, that's a bit into the future."

Q: Is there any intent on bringing back the lore (the whole dragon orb thing) that was part of the previous tutorial system? There are a few small things that bug me about it being gone compared to the new tutorial."

Nicola says, "There are plans for something along those lines. They aren't gone though."

Q: Will Shikudo staves be made to fall under blunt for weaponry shatter or was that left out on purpose?

Makarios sucks thoughtfully on His teeth.

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "It wasn't intentional, but I'm not sure we'll do it either."

Q: What are the odds of getting "Slave" type added to the HOUSING SERVANTS types?"

Nicola says, "I'd say zero."

Nicola says, "People do horrible things in player housing, even more horrible if they have denizen slaves to do them to."

Nicola says, "It's a scary road we'd rather just not go down."

Q: Speaking of housing servants - are there any changes for housing, in general, on the dart board somewhere?

Nicola says, "Not on the dartboard in the office, but they're not entirely off the table."

Q: Has anyone suffered in the newest foray yet, or has nobody finished the map?

Diplomat Ictinus, Arcane Architect says, "Nobody has gotten that far yet, to my disappointment."

Nicola says, "Nor used the Margam wheel either."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Margam has been completed twice to be specific."

Q: Also, any plans to address the discrepancy between how possible forays are for those with versus without artefacts? I know that's probably really hard to balance, taking into account health and regen and sips and stuff."

Nicola says, "Average group level and strategy makes more difference with forays than sheer tanking."

Nicola says, "If you expect to go in and DOR kill @target you won't get far at all."

Q: Would you say that forays lean more towards having tank and DPS, or more towards mechanics?

Diplomat Ictinus, Arcane Architect says, "I would say it's both really. Most of the mechanics are simple to figure out, it's the execution that is often the problem. Average group level makes a big difference when it comes to how difficult the actual bosses are, but the mechanics are the same regardless and rely more on logic and not just rushing in blind."

Diplomat Ictinus, Arcane Architect says, "I will note that I'm responsive to feedback on anything specific re: foray difficulty. Just saying "it's too hard" isn't helpful - if there's a specific issue, let me know."

Q: Hmm. So Mindshell has been analysing cvlasses with regards to bashing. Do the admin take those numbers into account at all? Are there any plans to look at balancing certain classes for bashing, since there are a few that are still -really- insane, and -really- crap?

Nicola says, "The class bashing disparity is in the best place it's probably ever been."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Well, we already know the damage numbers for the most party."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Part, rather."

Nicola says, "While there will always be one lesser or better than the rest, it's nothing compared to prior states. We are always keeping an eye on things."

Q: Any chance that stockrooms are going to be a think of the past when the shops rework happens?"

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Far too early to say."

Nicola says, "No plans either way there."

Q: There has been some concern talk outside of the realms of how people are being deterred from returning due to a lack of balance in what is RP acceptable combat? I've noticed myself more and more that it seems fairly easy for one or two key people to just...make up something to drag an entire city into combat with the raid. No real valid, RP reasoning or a very loose one at that. Have you thought of maybe looking more closely into player actions or how and why a city initiates a raid? Or to have more events focused for those players who are not warriors and wish for something that doesn't need be to resolved with brute force?"

Nicola says, "I quite like where organisational combat is right now. Cities don't need reasons to go after one another, the fact that they are different cities is reason enough. I'd not want to see a purely safe zone in Achaea (and hated it when we had one.) When a raid occurs I see many CTs where they'll usher folks who aren't interested in defending out of the area and once a sanction is in place there's no punishment for attempting to defend."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "At the end of the day Achaea's a player driven game - we'll step in if people are breaking the rules through illegal pk etc, but instigating conflict within the rules is something better handled IC through diplomacy etc."

Nicola says, "Mathilda made a really astute differentiation on forums the other day, non-combatants are a good and fine thing and have their place. Anti-combatants are more of a problem, people who like PK are never lesser or worse than those who profess RP, most of the time those who like PK also RP as well. But there's never going to be a time when we say you can RP and be utterly free of PK consequenec."

Q: How do you feel about furnishing so far? Any plans to flesh it out more? The results seem less satisfying than they were with the previous system, especially with the super long names if you use all the options, and the smaller capacity on chests kind of sucks.

Nicola says, "We don't have immediate plans to expand furnishing further, but it's definitely not a locked and done system."

Q: Oh right. Any plans for when we might see a new war system? I understand you guys were trying to draw from our uhh... really poorly executed war between targ/mhaldor.

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "We've had some long war system discussions this year. We will have something eventually, but its something we're not going to rush."

Q: What's something that you've always wanted to do in Achaea, but either couldn't or haven't been able to yet?

Nicola says to you, "Destroy projects in a blazing rain of fire."

Nicola says, "Not viable for many reasons, but I dream of it."

Makarios ponders the situation.

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Agith'tai: round 2."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "But in all seriousness, I'd like to give our factional classes another pass over."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "But that is a tough thing to find time for."

Ahmet

Q: If you had the time and resources to completely reinvent one class from the ground up, be it for flavour reasons, combat balance, or whathaveyou, which would it be and why?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Jester."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Because."

Nicola says, "I love jester."

Nicola says, "And would never see it changed."

Makarios gives a pained sigh.

Nicola says, "I hate druid."

Nicola says, "In all games I play I hate druids."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "A paladin remake would be good too."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Because bladefire was so much cooler than devotion."

Q: Do you feel the shared skillsets of Necromancy and Devotion are important means of holding together the two factional classes identities, or are you totally okay burning them to the ground?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Personally I don't like shared skills, but those particular skills are a big part of class identity at this point."

Nicola says, "I don't love shared skillsets on classes. I'd rather see a class be what it is with originality."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "So changing that would have to be for a very compelling reason or for something markedly better."

Nicola says, "The Evil faction won't be weaker for having two equally awesome classes."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Like I said though, factional classes are hard to put dev time aside for."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Because by their nature they only benefit a very small subset of people."

Q: Does being anathema'd block off access to vivisect?"

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Vivisect requires you have some essence but doesn't consume it."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "So yes."

Q: Any pesky bits of lore you wish you could retcon?

Nicola says, "I don't think I'd retcon anything."

Nicola says, "Nothing is irredeemable."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Nothing springs to mind for me. I think Achaea's various teams have been pretty good about a cohesive lore stance over the years."

Q: Why is the [SoA] paragon so much more expensive?

Nicola says to Nazihk, "Because it offers functionality that would never normally be available to the classes who cannot use the Shield of Absorption normally."

Q: Any plans to make stencils riftable? Or make their shelf life longer?

Nicola says to Gawi, "No plans for that."

Q: Will the BIG BIG somewhat bigger than other bigs be in upcoming?

Nicola says, "We try to upcoming all big or noteworthy things."

Q: How much warning you expect to give?

Nicola says, "As much as we can, depends on how planning goes."

Q: Looping back to forays for a moment, in a more concisely worded manner: is it just a fact of life that two level 99 dragons with wildly different investments in the game, as far as health, regeneration, resistances and the like go, face the same challenge within forays? Or are there plans to address such discrepancies?"

Diplomat Ictinus, Arcane Architect says, "I won't go into intricate specifics on what happens under the hood re: foray scaling/etc, but there are some features in there that work on a % health basis so it isn't always a guarantee that more health = more survivability."

Q: Now that weather's been redone, what's the nastiest system under the hood?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Heraldry."

Nicola says, "Oldest, nastiest, and worst."

Q: If you could choose a Divine role to never go unfilled, which would it be and why?

Nicola says, "I love all of our gods equally and cannot choose between them."

Q: There are a lot of gods that are never around, is this something you guys are concerned with or can do something about?

Nicola says, "God roles fill when there's someone who wants to fill them. We'd love to see all the roles taken, but it's not really in our control."

Makarios nods His head at Nicola.

Nicola says, "We run a Celani call usually twice a year."

Q: Is there any consideration to kill more gods?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "We don't kill gods without a reason."

Q: Is there currently anything in the works for High Clans? Maybe a change in their role, or possibly getting rid of them?"

Nicola says, "They're on the list of things we want to address."

Nicola says, "But no explicit plans yet."

Q: Can you share some of the other things on that list, that are for our eyes?

Nicola says, "Furnishing expansion, player housing."

Nicola says, "Jester rework."

Nicola says, "Shops, yep."

Nicola says, "That list is a wish list."

Nicola says, "Not anything that's in preparation."

Q: When can we lay siege to cities with ships?

Nicola says, "No current plans, I think."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "The issue is that half the cities are landlocked."

Nicola nods Her head at Makarios.

Q: Oh speaking of botting. At what point while fishing is it considered shrubbery worthy? Because lets face it, without -some- triggers it's a nightmare trying to fish especially if you have people with you."

Nicola says, "If we catch someone fishing and they are unresponsive to our attempts to get their attention, they will very likely sprout leaves."

Q: As far as I know, spears can only be used by Sentinels, if I'm wrong there please correct me. Is there any thoughts on expanding which classes can use spears?

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Spears will likely remain sentinel specific."

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Though anything is possible down the line."

Q: Any particular kind of weapon you'd like to introduce in a class?"

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Shortswords, polearms."

Q: Is it my imagination or have the prices of retrieving approved crafting designs gone up?"

Nicola says, "Price for claiming an approved design is based on the prestige assigned. The more unique or elaborate the design, or the more unusual the materials, the higher the cost."

Nicola says, "As far as I know that's not been changed in some years."

Q: If we want to buy an artefact pet, can we ask the Garden to write it or do we have to propose a draft that will be edited?

Nicola says, "I believe there's a charge involved if you ask pets to write for you, it takes a lot of their time to create and then go back and forth through reviews."

Q: "How much more for that?"

Nicola says, "I'm not sure offhand, one would have to email pets@achaea.com and ask!"

Mathilda

I got a mention! Retire;confirm 

Atalkez

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Margam has been completed twice to be specific."

Nazihk

Q: Pineapple as a pizza topping?"

Nicola says, "Pineapple is best pizza topping."
Eminent Master Farrah Roualt says to Nicola, "Yessss."
Zulah, The Legendary Gambler says, "Pizza without pineapple is not pissa."

Makarios

Dairon said:

This is my first time participating in one of these Q&A's! I just want to say thank you guys for all the great work and awesome content. I've got a couple of questions regarding talismans. 

1. Is there a reason for such a high drop rate of azatlan knives? They've got limited functionality and the drop rate on those are abnormally high compared to the rest. It's not that I want higher drop rates on the others, I just wish I'd stop seeing azatlan knife pieces. 

2. Will you introduce a redemption value for seafaring and wonders pieces? 

3a. Do the seafaring talismans drop from the random caches for this month's promotion? 3b. Will seafaring talismans make a return in the near/far future?

4. The talisman market seems to be dysfunctional due to two reasons. First, the pricing is entirely based on the seller, which does not allow for interaction between the buying and selling parties, which results in the same pieces being offered for exorbitant prices. Secondly, this often leads to an over-estimation of the selling price, which in turn further discourages talisman sets being completed (which ultimately lessens the value of the promotion packages in the eyes of the player/customer). I know likely a lot of work and very unlikely, but having a bidding system for the talisman market would fix some of the issues. I feel like many people would attempt to make/create more talisman sets if they could find more reasonable prices. 

1. No particular reason, its just a harmless(*) consumeable so its common.

2. Maybe, still being discussed.

3. They should, I'll investigate if they're not. There was a problem with the map from that set that needed some other changes to happen to resolve which may all be complete now, so we will likely revisit that shortly as well.

4. Bidding on the market already exists, its a decision that the seller makes (direct sell or auction) when listing the piece.

Makarios

Mindshell said:

Diving:
Do you have a list of all possible treasure that can be found?
How does a dives chance to find treasure function nowadays, there's only ever one bell and do zones get farmed out and/or is there a risk/reward setting to the zones you choose to dive?

Population:
Can we get another state of Achaea classes/races breakdown again?

Work:
What's been your favourite addition to Achaea this year?

Personal:
Who is the punniest?

Diving:

The list is finite but various things impact it. Find chance functions as previously.

Population:

Will look into this today.

Work:

Definitely has to be forays.

Personal:

I don't have favourites.

Makarios

Daeir said:

Kal-tai-vakha as a PLAYABLE RACE?

jioKHANUI8DPHADU9ISON

This was a possible ending, yes. Wasn't a joke.

Atalkez

I’m up super late, but I wasn’t around for the live portion, so here we go! If I’m doubling up questions, sorry!

@Makarios
1. Who is your favorite PKer you’ve ever watched/fought/dealt with in terms of skill/innovation?

2. What do you consider ‘top tier’ baseline requirements? Mastery of one class, or mastery of many?

3. How often would you say someone does something that surprises you in relation to how you anticipate things being used?

4. Why does Chenubis not reward with an honours line?

@Nicola

1. Do you like how the new furniture stuff worked out? Any new ideas that may be coming in that vein?

2. What is your fondest memory as a player? As a God? As Producer?

3. What do you think about current player vs player relations? I’m sure you see the comments on Discord etc, between factions.

@Ictinus

1. Do you think Margam has been beaten optimally yet? As in, is there something we’ve missed?

2. Will there be new forays released anytime soon?

3. When can we expect the rewards to increase? I don’t see anyone finishing a Margam wheel anytime soon.

Krypton

There are 6/8 Margam wheel pieces out there already!

Atalkez

No there aren’t, unless something is off. It’s been completed twice, and we only have 1 piece for it. I’m not sure what Seragorn got.

Makarios

Atalkez said:

I’m up super late, but I wasn’t around for the live portion, so here we go! If I’m doubling up questions, sorry!

@Makarios
1. Who is your favorite PKer you’ve ever watched/fought/dealt with in terms of skill/innovation?

2. What do you consider ‘top tier’ baseline requirements? Mastery of one class, or mastery of many?

3. How often would you say someone does something that surprises you in relation to how you anticipate things being used?

4. Why does Chenubis not reward with an honours line?

@Nicola

1. Do you like how the new furniture stuff worked out? Any new ideas that may be coming in that vein?

2. What is your fondest memory as a player? As a God? As Producer?

3. What do you think about current player vs player relations? I’m sure you see the comments on Discord etc, between factions.

@Ictinus

1. Do you think Margam has been beaten optimally yet? As in, is there something we’ve missed?

2. Will there be new forays released anytime soon?

3. When can we expect the rewards to increase? I don’t see anyone finishing a Margam wheel anytime soon.

1. Not going to answer this one, sorry!

2. Win. If you're consistently beating other top tier people across classlead cycles etc, you're top tier.

3. Not that often anymore, but occasionally. Its great when it happens.

Krypton

Atalkez said:

No there aren’t, unless something is off. It’s been completed twice, and we only have 1 piece for it. I’m not sure what Seragorn got.

Greys has one, and Cyrene has 3.

Antonius

They gave some out as prizes for the Y750 ship race.

Morthif

Atalkez said:

Makarios, the Meticulous says, "Margam has been completed twice to be specific."

Still feels good.

Wicella

I thought of another question!

There hasn't been any wildfires that Eleusis has been able to find in over 10+ IG years. Are there any plans in the works to reintroduce these mini events, perhaps with varying intensity and severity?

Rispok

What is the status of quest maintenance? At times, I have heard issues of quests being 'broken', as in not completable. An instance that comes to mind is Suliel. What can players do when they think a quest may be borked? I have an open bug (and work on it when I have time to determine if it's a bug or me not finding things), but it can be a major challenge to determine if it's user error or code. Do you have suggestions for whittling it down on the player side, without issuing or filing bug reports, to help detect if all factors in a quest are working as intended?

Ictinus

Atalkez said:

I’m up super late, but I wasn’t around for the live portion, so here we go! If I’m doubling up questions, sorry!

@Makarios
1. Who is your favorite PKer you’ve ever watched/fought/dealt with in terms of skill/innovation?

2. What do you consider ‘top tier’ baseline requirements? Mastery of one class, or mastery of many?

3. How often would you say someone does something that surprises you in relation to how you anticipate things being used?

4. Why does Chenubis not reward with an honours line?

@Nicola

1. Do you like how the new furniture stuff worked out? Any new ideas that may be coming in that vein?

2. What is your fondest memory as a player? As a God? As Producer?

3. What do you think about current player vs player relations? I’m sure you see the comments on Discord etc, between factions.

@Ictinus

1. Do you think Margam has been beaten optimally yet? As in, is there something we’ve missed?

2. Will there be new forays released anytime soon?

3. When can we expect the rewards to increase? I don’t see anyone finishing a Margam wheel anytime soon.

@Atalkez

1. Nobody has approached Margam the way I would approach it if I was taking it on as a player. Occam's razor!

2. No specific timeframe for more forays but more of them are definitely planned.

3. See #1 in part, but reward balancing is more of a thing for @Makarios.

Nicola

Atalkez said:

I’m up super late, but I wasn’t around for the live portion, so here we go! If I’m doubling up questions, sorry!

@Nicola

1. Do you like how the new furniture stuff worked out? Any new ideas that may be coming in that vein?

2. What is your fondest memory as a player? As a God? As Producer?

3. What do you think about current player vs player relations? I’m sure you see the comments on Discord etc, between factions.

1. I don't think furniture is in a bad place now. No immediate plans to do more with it, but it's not off the table.

2. As a player, there are a few, playing unexpected spoiler in Twins takes #1 spot for me. As a Producer, still everything about the Reckoning, except the lack of sleep I got that month. It was the first real event idea I had when I was a Demigod. (And we put it together in less than 3 days.)

3. I'd like to see player vs player relations come back into game somewhat, I don't love the separation into the likes of Discord and Skype, but it is what it is. As for content, this is the internet, it's easy to be horrible to people.

Prythe

Nicola said:

2. As a player, there are a few, playing unexpected spoiler in Twins takes #1 spot for me. As a Producer, still everything about the Reckoning, except the lack of sleep I got that month. It was the first real event idea I had when I was a Demigod. (And we put it together in less than 3 days.)

3. I'd like to see player vs player relations come back into game somewhat, I don't love the separation into the likes of Discord and Skype, but it is what it is. As for content, this is the internet, it's easy to be horrible to people.

I dislike the Lulz that comes with that OOC interaction because factions. Pre-raid warnings, etc. I grok that people are going to make friends / acquaintances with folks with whom they find things in common (coding, etc.) but some of the BTS "yuck it up" stuff feels very out of place to me.

Nice job on putting together an event in three days. Wow!

Ailea

I have no idea if this has been asked (particularly within the game itself), are there any plans for constructing or making a firmer purpose for the layorder for Divines? Presently it is commonly used as more like a "waiting room" ordeal and I'm curious if there are plans to actually make it be structured with like different kind of ranks and channel opportunities, essentially to make it more functionable and purposeful than what it currently is? 

Mathilda

Ailea said:

I have no idea if this has been asked (particularly within the game itself), are there any plans for constructing or making a firmer purpose for the layorder for Divines? Presently it is commonly used as more like a "waiting room" ordeal and I'm curious if there are plans to actually make it be structured with like different kind of ranks and channel opportunities, essentially to make it more functionable and purposeful than what it currently is? 

Someone asked this in the live Q&A! They answered that they'd like to see it happen (lay members being an actual thing), I think.

Caelan

Makarios said:

Morthif said:

Do you consider this months promotion a failure and any chance on improving upon the idea? Mid month refresh now with better chances of robesthread and robesneedle?

Definitely not a failure, its been pretty popular for the most part. Lots of grandmagi pieces entered the pool as well.

Antonius

How widely appealing and available do you expect this upcoming huge release to be? Is this something that's going to be interesting and usable (without a large investment) for most of the playerbase?

Alyxeri

Antonius said:

How widely appealing and available do you expect this upcoming huge release to be? Is this something that's going to be interesting and usable (without a large investment) for most of the playerbase?

You'll have to buy a limited edition talisman that has trade-in a value of 2500cr just to be able to access it, sorry.

Ictinus

Antonius said:

How widely appealing and available do you expect this upcoming huge release to be? Is this something that's going to be interesting and usable (without a large investment) for most of the playerbase?

It will have a broad appeal to absolutely everyone, regardless of level or character investment. 

Shirszae

      

Shayde

Nazihk said:

Q: Pineapple as a pizza topping?"

Nicola says, "Pineapple is best pizza topping."
Eminent Master Farrah Roualt says to Nicola, "Yessss."
Zulah, The Legendary Gambler says, "Pizza without pineapple is not pissa."

Best answer ever.

Aegoth

Filthy pizza heathens. Pineapple is an offensive, vile, and reprehensible blasphemy to the very sanctity of the most holy pizza. The pizza gods revile you!

Antonius

I used to like Nicola and Farrah but now I am not so sure... Pineapple on pizza is disgusting.