Yo there! NC!
Guys and Gals, I need some help here because I really don’t understand what you are doing. You constantly ask us to supply you with ideas on enhancing the level of game play and yet, you constantly do things to lower the level of game play instead. Allow me to explain myself on this please?
C1 Dagger class way overpowered!
As it has been explained to me the Dagger Class totally ruled in PvP. So, you nerf the class for 60% of their hit power, fine, I have been told, even by players that had daggers, that the class was way overpowered, so ok there too. Then you remove the Might Mortal weapon enhancement from the game, though those same Daggers inform me that the real problem was with the Focus enhancement which actually worked in conjunction with several of the Daggers attack skills. So, you nerf that conjunction so that the enhancement no longer combines with those skills, uh what?? That’s a triple nerf, or quadruple or more if you wanted to count the number skills that were affected by that third nerf.
Result?
Daggers have slowly disappeared from the game. You very seldom run into any high level Daggers and the low level ones (mostly new accounts I’m told) eventually get to the point where they stop leveling and rerole as something else. Seems that when they begin approaching C-B grade and see how much trouble they are having, combined with being told about the nerfs by the older players, they decide to try something else.
C2 Bladedancer/Swordsinger combination in a party rocks in C1!
The BD/SWS combination is nerfed so that they are penalized MP for each others Dances/Songs. Furthermore, at least one of the SWS songs is nerfed (accuracy I believe). It’s possible that the SWS had other nerfs that I am not aware of.
Result?
While the Bladedancer is still in high demand for both Fighter melee and
nuker parties, the SWS has slowly faded from sight. In my entire alliance (150+) we have only 1 SWS. There are at least 6 Bladedancers that I know of. My Son started a SWS and now tells me that if he had known about these things he would have gone Temple Knight instead.
C3 Nukers rule the Fighter Class in PvP.
The Fighter Classes constantly complains that they have no chance against the nukers in PvP. They are right too! So what’s to be done about this? Wham! C4! You nerf the Aura Flare skill of Nukers so that it has a negative effect on the Nuker giving the Fighter Classes a better chance in PvP. But! You also nerf all of the AOE skills in the game, including the skills of the Fighter/Tank Class.
Folks, you need to check that dictionary you’ve been using. No where in the definition of Enhancement does it say anything about taking away from something! Enhancement means to “add to” or “make improvements upon”, whatever the current subject is! Without exception, as I see it, everything I refer to above involves removing something from the game. Hence my confusion with your actions. You tell us that you want to enhance the game yet all of these nerfs, and there are many others that I haven’t refered too, have resulted in lowering the level of game play. Not raising it.
At this point you might well be tempted to ask me, “well hey there dude what would you do then?” Ok, let me run a few items by you.
Has it ever occurred to you that you are applying the nerfs in the wrong place? Or perhaps I should say “in the wrong direction”? Try this on for size….
Daggers
Fine, even the Daggers themselves will admit (if they're honest) that they were way to powerful in the original setup. But, after removing Might Mortal and nerfing the way Focus worked with their skills, I would have returned half if not all of their original hit power. That at least would probably have left them on an even keel with the other Fighter classes and maybe they would not be fading away.
BladeDancer/Swordsinger combination
With the advent of C4, you have added new higher level areas (Hey! You see that? You ADDED to the game!). More higher level Mobs with an AI that I have to admit makes the fighting tough and exciting. I would remove this nerf completely. With the level of melee available in these new areas, parties are going to need to rock in order to make any headway. Very impressive those new Mobs are. Hehe, I can’t wait to see how the bots are going to try and handle that!
Nuker and Tank AOE nerfs
Ok, here is where I think you really blew it. Yes, the Fighter Classes had trouble the Nukers. Hey I have trouble with Fighters too! If they get too close, well, anyone that knows anything about the attack mage class will tell you that we are made of tissue paper. Hit us a few times and we’re dead! Problem was, the Fighters couldn’t get close before we killed them, and even at close range they lost against Aura Flare, from the Spellsinger due to his casting speed, or the Sorcerer due to his power level. So you nerf Aura Flare? Did it not occur to you that it would have been just as effective, and be an enhancement to the game, if you simply raised the M Defense of the entire Fighter Class? Now you are adding to the game instead of taking away!
As for nerfing the AOE skills? A nerf which affected so many classes? What in the world were you thinking? Once again you take away from the players, lowering the level of game play, instead of raising it! Making it even harder to move your toon up. Folks, I’m sorry but this one wasn’t too well thought out, you’re making a game that is already pretty hard to play, even harder. Taking the game from being fun, to being work. I have a job that pays me money, now I have a second job that I have to pay for. This pretty much takes the fun out of it and if the game isn’t fun, why play? Just for the PvP? That might be fine for some people but not for me. Also consider, with this nerfing I’m not sure yet just how effective my SPS is going to be in a siege anyway. I still have my ranged attack but up close I figure I’m going to die. Well, that’s ok. You die in sieges all the time. But if that’s all that’s left for me I’ll have little reason to stick with the game. About now you wondering just what the hell I’m talking about right? Well then here we go…….
Last night I went out into the world of C4 and tried to find out what effect these changes will have on my toon. I selected 3 different parties types.
1. ABG AOE Nuker Party
Not so good. Sleeping Cloud indeed will only effect about 20 Mobs…..if your lucky! Seems that most of the time it wouldn’t hit on even close to 20! It gets worse though. The Tank for the party was a level 63 Temple Knight with a level 66 SPS (me) with SC4 (Sleeping Cloud level 4). Turns out that her Hate Aura doesn’t hold more than 20 Mobs either. We did a lot of testing on this one folks. The tank pulled in only specific numbers of Mobs, this is fairly easy to do since the Mobs around Main Skeleton hill come in 5 mob packages. So she pulled exactly 30 Mobs. It went sort of like this…
Hate…Hate….SC4…….SC4…OMG!! (scream!)....approximatley 10 level 60 mobs leave Tank and jump on SPS’s head. SPS dies……..really quick! (tissue paper remember). Mobs turn on Tank, Tank casts Holy Aura to root mobs and run away (telling SE and Prophet to run away!). Holy Aura, which under C3 would land on 80-90% of the train, lands on a total of? 1 Mob! SC4 wears off of the rest of the train, 30 level 60 Mobs jump on Tanks head…..Tank dead! Quick too! Foolish SE tried to heal Tank, SE dead! Smart Prophet uses skill Return! Prophet lives! 75% of party dead. Wow! Ok, let’s try it again. Same result.
Change tactics, let’s pull exactly 20 Mobs. Only pull Past Knight Mob groups. Under C3 we could dispatch this train with 3 spells, 1 AOE sleep and 2 Nukes. Under C4 it takes a total of 7-8 spells each time. At least 2 SC4’s and the rest Nukes. Why? The AOE attacks aren’t even hitting 20 mobs at the same time. We did this 5 times in a row with exactly the same result! And, since we can only pull 20 Mobs at time, th XP is no longer worth the effort or the supplies used. The only reason that ABG nuke parties ever worked for XP was that you could bring in 30+ mobs. Fact of the matter is, you had to pull 30+ mobs or it wasn’t worth the expense, time, or XP!
ABG Nuke Parties are a thing of the past now.
2. Mixed Nuker/Melee Party: (SE/Prop/2sps/Sorc/BD/TH/OL/WL)
Rune Area, Location Valley of Saints. Western Entrance to Screaming Swamp.
Oh boy! Not so good here either. SC4 has no effect on any Mob that I can find. Mobs are highly aggro, use Spirit and Soul Shots, and I must admit that the new AI is very impressive. They party up or run away and bring back friends....a lot of them!
Fighting action? very enjoyable!
Experience Points? 3k per kill. Sucks raw eggs off the ground!
Adena drop rate? 550a. Sucks rotten raw eggs directly from the shell!
Moved deeper into the danger zone. Found higher level Mobs. XP moved up to 6k per kill, much tougher fight, and the adena still sucked!
3. Tower of Insolence:10th Floor
Melee party:(SE/Prop/2sps/Sorc/BD/TH/OL/WL)
Standard melee action and XP for 10th Floor with the following exception.
I found that my sleep was suffering a better than 50% fail rate. My job in party was sleeping only. With full buffs I had 2845 MP's. I found that during one buff round I burned over 75% of my MP just trying to sleep Mobs. To make matters worse, I realized later that, at level 66, the Mobs that I was having trouble sleeping were the same Mobs that I had no trouble sleeping at level 60-61. So even my normal sleep spell has been affected by C4!
So, 3 types of parties were tried and the results showed me that under C4 my toon has been gimped to the point that I don’t think it’s of any value to me, the party I’m in, my Clan or my Alliance. It now appears that I will just be playing my BD.
The point to this whole post?
Daggers nerfed: now almost gone
Swordsingers nerfed: Fading away
Nukers nerfed: Will they begin to fade now too?
What next? Nerf the support mage classes? Grind the Elemental Summoner’s out of existence? Is this game doomed to spiral down until the only Classes left are the ones that use swords or bows?
NC, why don’t you try adding abilities to the players to find your balances instead of removing them? Why do you insist on continuing to treat NA and EU like Koreans? This is a NOT a racial slur. Eastern and Western philosophy are very different. The mind set of the “Asian” Continent are very tuned to grinding away at life. So it makes complete sense that their games would follow suit. This is not a bad thing, it’s simply their way of life. Not a thing in the world wrong with that! But, such can not be said of NA and Europe. Here we move and move fast. Our lives and way of life are extremely dynamic. If we don’t like the way a tool works, we don’t just keep grinding away with it! We get a better tool or make one! Trying to force us all to play the same game simply will not work. You have the potential of producing a game with PvP and PvE action on a scale that is unprecedented in the history of games.
You want my suggestion? Pull every nerf you ever put in the **** game and cut us loose! Let us show you what we can do! My God! The battle action will be beyond belief! Imagine a castle siege with 400 Nobeless Class Warrior’s and Mages on each side of the battle! Alliance War’s of such power and magnitude that the Mobs themselves will run away screaming with terror. Antharas and Valakis will cower in their lairs, trembling with fear! Let us go dammit! Lets us PLAY!
LVL66 SpellSinger (soon to be no more)
LVL63 BladeDancer (who knows?)