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==== Dragons ====
:I don't think I want to move toward a "super l33t powers that are intentionally limited to a tiny group" game design. I can see why it's exciting, but from my viewpoint as a game designer it feels... well, kind of psychologically manipulative. We get everybody playing in the hopes of getting this amazing thing, and then only give it to a tiny fraction of people. In that case we might as well just implement paid loot boxes... at least I'd get money out of it that way!
:Kidding aside, there are some ways that can work (e.g. when there are scores or even hundreds of weird overpowered things, and each is super rare). But I don't think that's an approach we'd want to take for this particular game.
:: 6/21/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2178-A-realistic-way-to-add-dragons&p=15940#post15940
==== Combat Length ====
:In terms of combat length I'm basically trying to get battles to last long enough that there can be nuance and difference to each monster. I've long since realized 40 seconds (or even 20 seconds) isn't going to be possible without a lot of annoying restrictions. EverQuest has a lot of very forceful game systems in place, including trash monsters that require grouping, punitive XP formula if a group has members with too divergent of a level range, HUGE level-up power increases combined with huge monster XP drop-offs to push people to new content every level, etc.
:Without a lot of those forceful systems, we aren't going to achieve really long fights for trash monsters. But I'm still trying to make combat last long enough that a 12-second DoT isn't "lol that's useless since the combat will have been over for 11 seconds". I don't know exactly how far I can get there, since I don't have the time to try to rebalance/redesign literally the whole game yet again. So we'll see. I will be happy if the average solo monster takes 10 seconds to kill at an appropriate level, and that is a reachable goal... but that may not be good enough if a high-level person can still kill low-level trash instantly (and has a motivation to do so). We may need more gameplay blockers like XP reduction to help with the different problems. But I only like to add restrictive systems as a last resort. There are a lot of ways you can play the game, and adding restrictions tends to make one gameplay style better, but often kills off other ways of playing.
:Anyway, the point is, I don't have an exact combat length in mind, and change is slow because there aren't any easy dials I can change to magically make combat longer. For instance, increasing monster health means players run out of Power, and increasing max Power changes... a million other things. Every change cascades into other changes, and I have a lot of hats to wear, only one of which is game-balancer. So right now I'm taking it slow and iteratively, picking and choosing when to jump into a new cascading balance problem, while also nerfing serious outlier builds that are making it even harder to move things where I want them.
:As for the existence of difficult-to-obtain-en-masse drugs with serious debilitating effects being available only to rakshasa, that's because Rahu is in the game and the other races' core locations aren't. There will be lots of weird shit for every race eventually. (Will the races be balanced? Well, let's not jump to conclusions, but we'll give it a shot!) If those potions seem wildly too powerful in practice, though, then that's useful feedback. The high-powered versions are also supposed to be pretty rare, so if you're getting enough of them to reliably run GK with them, that sounds like there's a bug somewhere...
:: 6/21/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2180-Estimating-the-Value-of-Mitigation&p=15939#post15939
==== Borghild Acid Bug ====
:I've heard of that but have never been able to find it. All the spawn spots look valid to me. I need to see it in game or get game coordinates. So if you see it again please stand as close as possible and send an in-game report, which will include coordinates, and a direction from there. Thanks!
:: 6/17/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2176-Borghild-Acid-Sigil-Bug&p=15910#post15910
==== Moon Phases ====
:We calculate the real-world New Moon and Full Moon dates, then make those three days long by starting one day before and ending one day after the real-world date. Then we divide all the remaining days between the other phases.
:I guess I'm mis-remembering it. Here are some illuminating comments from the code. It uses a public-domain bit of code I found (and can't find online anymore, the links are dead...) that "determines the fraction of the moon's disk that is illuminated at a given time", and also tells if the moon is waxing or waning, for a given Julian date. (Presumably at midnight, but I don't really know. The formula uses a bunch of hard-coded constants that only work at the date-level.) It's based on calculations by Jean Meeus, I think this book https://www.amazon.com/Astronomical-.../dp/0943396611. I honestly don't understand any of the moon math.
:Using that code, my code just divvies the dates up, assigning a moon phase to each date.
::// we want the "full moon" to be EXACTLY 3 days. So we find the
::// most full day, and declare that day to be full, as well as the day
::// before and after it.
::// We do the same for the "new moon" and the two quarter-moons, also exactly 3 days.
::// the dates that don't have phases yet are the "leftover" phases.
::// Their length varies between 3 and 5 days depending on the month
::The "leftover" phases are WaxingCrescentMoon, WaxingGibbousMoon, WaningGibbousMoon, and WaningCrescentMoon.
:: 6/11/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2169-Moon-Phases&p=15873#post15873
==== Mentalism Psi-Waves ====
:I've been thinking about this also. (Mentalism is coming up in the rotation for skill revisions.) The original goal of the waves was to let players pull off EQ1-bard-style buff interleaving. But I'm not sure that's ever going to be worth the hassle.
:Originally gear was the big limiter here, it was just too hard to gear for multiple waves. But now that most treasure effects apply to multiple waves at once, it's relatively easy to gear up for a two-Wave setup. Even so, when I playtest Mentalism these days I always end up just using one Wave over and over, because it's too hard to keep track of which one to interleave each time.
:So ... yeah, maybe it's time for that design to go.
:---
:So why not just make them toggles? We could conceivably do that now (with a few days of coding) : just press the Wave you want, and you get that one at max potency forever. Switch to a different Wave and you get the new one at max potency but the old one ends.
:One problem here is the Power cost (and action cost): if you only have to use it one time, out of combat, who cares about the cost? The ability doesn't need to be thought about at all. And we partially balance gear based on things like power cost, casting time, and reset time... so most of the treasure effects would get weaker as a result. In many cases, too weak to be useful.
:Since so much of the mentalist's power comes from the waves, I think there NEEDS to be some interactive element, for balance purposes. It can't just be a toggle. I'm just not sure what that should look like.
:I recently tested out an idea where you toggle which wave you want, and then every 20 seconds it just "casts it for you", still charging you the usual Power cost. But it's really confusing and clunky. (You still have to wait 60 seconds before that system gets up to full power, switching Waves doesn't do anything until the next 20s time is up, and most importantly, suddenly having your character stop and cast a buff during a tricky fight is ... not always okay.)
:---
:I could definitely change the reset time from 20s to 30s. I just don't know if that'd be enough to change peoples' minds if they thought 20s was annoying.
:---
:So anyway, more thoughts are welcome!
:The most brain-dead simple way to "fix" the waves is to just make them last 20s, the same as the reset time, and have them be 3x as effective, so just using it once gets you the full potency for 20s. After 20s if you want to press a different one, you can. (There would probably be Power cost or potency changes as a result, but they'd stay roughly the same power.) What do you think of that idea?
:: 6/11/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2165-A-discussion-of-psi-waves-in-mentalism&p=15872#post15872
==== Delete Forum Account, GDPR ====
:(We're a private non-EU company and are not required to abide by the GDPR, but by separate trade agreements.)
We don't currently offer a way to delete all of your forum posts. But if you've revealed your real name, address, or other personal information in a forum post and would like it to be deleted, please email the URL of the forum post to [email protected].
:: 5/28/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2156-Is-there-anyway-to-delete-this-forum-account&p=15799#post15799
==== Ormorek ====
:(I have no idea where you're going with this one, exactly, but I've enjoyed seeing your take on Ormorek and look forward to reading more! You made me dredge up my lore notes on him, and see how I can get the remaining important bits into the game. But anyway, I think you've got a decent read on him -- Ormorek does have some followers -- although a lot of them are really just drinking buddies -- and followers do annoy him, at least superficially, but you get the idea he's secretly pleased...)
:: 5/22/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2097-Clip-s-Notes-Arisetsu-and-the-Puzzle-Box-of-Ormorek&p=15773#post15773
==== Animal Form switching ====
:Animal forms are intended to be semi-permanent, so animals have access to special resources in exchange for the other resources they don't have access to. There will be more animal-only resources and opportunities in the future (to compensate for new resources animals don't have access to in the future). If I reduced the resources in animal town, then long-term animal players would be extra screwed. That would be stupid. The correct fix is to stop people from switching constantly to get the best of both worlds. So I'll do this, iteratively over time (fixing some animal pain points to reduce the need to switch, making transitions take longer or cost something to prevent idle switching, etc.)
:In other words, if you're switching back and forth constantly to take advantage of Animal Town resources, you are playing in a way I don't intend to support. That's not illegal or anything, and you have no way of knowing what my intentions are if the game doesn't make it clear. But understand that I will ultimately fix the game to be the way I intend it to be.
:: 5/16/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2133-Cow-collect-milk-error-message&p=15749#post15749
==== Bug Reports ====
:Please submit in game bug reports for bugs, thanks! If you have an example of a bow with a crossbow mod please include it in the report.
:: 5/9/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2136-why-do-all-the-bows-have-crossbow-mods-and-not-archery-bow-mods&p=15675#post15675
==== Skill Switch Buffs ====
:When you switch skills, your buffs from the old skills should stop working. This has to be coded and tagged manually, and as you might imagine, there is a ton of complex data to configure. So I sometimes don't bother if I think the buff is short and irrelevant. Other times I just overlook it. Anyway, if you have an exploitable scenario where you can swap skills to get lots of buff stacks, please report it so it can be fixed more quickly. It is definitely not intentional!
:: 5/9/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2102-Update-Discussion-April-26-2019&p=15674#post15674
==== Timers ====
:There is a bug with Collect Milk 2/3 that will be fixed in the next update.
:We will never have a visible timer for things like "how long til I'm a vegetarian" or "how long until I'm treated like a real cow" because needing one tells me that you are gaming a system that is not supposed to be gamed. You aren't making a life decision -- you're just trying to min/max things. I don't want that. In fact I'm considering making the duration for things like that random to help prevent abuse. Animal Town (and future animal resources) are intended for people who want to play that way. They're not intended to be cheap storage for everyone.
:: 5/8/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2133-Cow-collect-milk-error-message&p=15652#post15652
==== Take the Lead ====
:If you're talking about the spped boost from Take the Lead, it has a rarity prerequisite, as many other mods do. You'll need an Epic rarity item to roll the high-level versions of that treasure effect.
:: 5/7/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2103-Rerolling-fire-shield-shoes-iso-Take-The-Lead&p=15638#post15638
==== War Cache ====
:Definitely the most difficult part of the War Caches is getting the combat balance right. We want them to be fun and challenging for players in the low 50s who might not have good gear -- which really means they should also be good for players in the mid-40s that have great gear. (They will obviously be WAY too easy for players in the 60s+ with good gear; that's okay.)
:I would love to hear from players in that target level range. Are certain dungeons too hard? Are they all too hard? Too easy? If you notice especially imbalanced ones, please refer to them by their letter-number combination (e.g. S-4). You can find that by looking in your quest log. Thanks!
:: 4/28/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2102-Update-Discussion-April-26-2019&p=15475#post15475
==== Constructive Comments ====
:What I'm hearing is "I am IRATE that I was only able to solo a portion of this light-hearted weekend event! I demand that every event be perfectly labeled as to its exact details before hand or FUCK YOU!"
:Is that what you meant to say, cozycats? Because that's what I read. I can FEEL your rage seething through your words, and I gotta tell you: it's feels unreasonable, given that you're upset about a silly little live event that you had absolutely no obligation to participate in. One where you knew we were trying out brand new tech. One where you KNEW it wasn't going to be polished or refined yet.
:I had to go back to the in-game chat logs to try to figure out what the hell was so upsetting to you... but that didn't help much either, except to confirm that you were really not having fun. You complained about every possible thing. Grouping, soloing, the difficulty, the rewards. Why did you keep doing the event, when you clearly despised it? When doing so only made you angrier? I don't know.
:In this post, I can't tell if you're trying to say "live events should all be soloable" or "you shouldn't have any surprising requirements in an event" or "multi-part events are unfair" or "the Rahu sewers are too hard" or what. I do hear "I AM FURIOUS!", but that's not "actionable feedback", as we say.
:This is a brand new system we're trying to refine. We need feedback, but not the outrage. Please keep in mind who you're talking to: people. We are just people. People who are trying to make some fun times for players, for no additional fee, just because we want you to have fun.
:You didn't have fun, that's useful feedback! But that's where the usefulness ends -- I've read this post twice and I still have no clue what live event would have made you happy. All I know is how upset you are... and I really can't see why, but I do accept that you're upset. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry you were outraged. Easter Egg hunts are not intended to incite fury.
:But please be more constructive with your feedback in the future. Thanks.
:: 4/28/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2104-Latest-event-quot-for-everyone-quot&p=15474#post15474
==== Customer Support ====
:I'm sorry we lost your support ticket. That's probably on me: a lot of support situations end up requiring my time, and I can't do all of them in a timely fashion, and when something is put off for a while, it can end up falling through the cracks. This problem is why we now do most of the game-data collection (like titles) within the game, to cut down on how much work I have to do for each title. We're trying to get out from underneath this problem we created, and all I can do is apologize that it happened.
:But again, a forum post is beyond unhelpful. I sat down to think "okay! I'll figure out who this is and fix it! ..." aaaannnd nope: I have no idea who you are. Please send in yet another support ticket. It's the only way we can reliably tell who you are.
:: 4/28/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2106-Appalling-Customer-Support&p=15472#post15472
==== Priest Healing ====
:I'm interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this -- I have my opinions but I'm not super-well versed in how the skills interact with each other, so figuring out how to balance the different support skills is tricky and something I intend to move kinda slowly on, tweaking iteratively. So I'm in a "gathering feedback" phase here.
:I want to say though that Priest is not a "cursed" class and there are no realistic down sides to taking the priest oath besides some possible one-off events -- events which could happen to anyone in any class. ("Oh no, so and so is rounding up anyone with Unarmed skill over 100 for being a dangerous vigilante... you login in a prison!" Could happen to anyone any time with any skill. Maybe it happens to Priests a bit more often, but it doesn't affect your daily or even monthly play, so it's absolutely not something I'm going to balance around).
:Druid IS a curse class, so to speak, but that doesn't mean it should be better at healing -- it should offer more diversity of builds to make it useful in more roles and combinations. It is also, on paper, supposed to have "the best debuff in the game", so I actually expect that in return it should be a tiny bit less potent at healing overall. Not saying that's where anything is, just telling you the eventual goal. The various goals are QUITE complicated and getting it all perfectly right is probably impossible. But we'll see what we can do.
:---
:Please feel free to continue the discussion, BUT keep it civil and try to avoid hyperbole. I'm interested in your opinion about what's over/under-powered, but when there's people saying contradictory things, I have to take those opinions with a grain of salt anyway. The most important thing I want to know in cases like this is: what's the most fun thing? What aspect of each skill is inherently crazy fun? Maybe it's way over-the-top right now and needs a little toning down, but it needs to STAY somewhat over-the-top in order to stay fun. Are there things that are overpowered but not especially fun? Things that could be toned down to make room for other things?
:Keep in mind that I have to offer 60+ different treasure mods and 12+ abilities for every skill, so no skill can be too focused on any one thing. I'm not talking about turning a skill into a one-trick pony, I'm talking about more subtle distinctions. Each skill is allowed a handful of intentionally-somewhat-overpowered abilities and treasure mods. So part of what I'm trying to figure out is: what parts of the skill need to be a bit OP to really shine, and what parts of the skill would still be serviceable and useful even if they aren't as powerful as they are now.
:I'm not expecting people to give exact breakdowns by mods or abilities. The first thing to identify is: what is the really fun thing you can do with this skill? I want to avoid cutting the fun bits out of the game!
:Of course, sometimes an ability is really only fun because it's crazily overpowered. In those cases, the fun may not be saveable, if the skill has a lot of other things going on. But let me make that decision.
:So let me know what bits you think are fun, so I can do my best to keep those bits if possible. (This applies to individual skills and also to skill combinations!)
:: 4/19/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2079-Priest-Offers-Too-much-vs-Other-healing-class-Options&p=15364#post15364
==== Skill Cooldown Errors ====
:(Edited to fix a duplicate posting, then a bit more detail)
:I think for most people, these errors are due to network synchronization issues -- the first two are due to ordinary network lag that happens in in a very particular form. The third is a more complex timing issue. Anyway, I need some fancier heuristics to prevent those false-positives, and those will happen over time. But I do think the first priority is to prevent those errors from putting the ability on cooldown.
:For the next update I've changed the error code to resync the client's timer (and refresh the Power meter, since the client would temporarily think the Power cost was still spent). There actually was code to do this already for most errors, but it was buggy -- it only worked for the first tier of each ability (e.g. it would work on Punch 1 but not Punch 2). Should work better soon!
:: 4/18/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2074-Skills-getting-errors-and-resetting-cooldown&p=15341#post15341
==== Brambleskin, Prickly Users ====
:I've talked about this before and I know you understand the difference, @User. Is brambleskin overpowered? Okay, fine, it's cool -- I'll nerf it in-place in the future. No big deal. No need to knee-jerk nerf it overnight, we can wait a few months and get a better picture of how to change it.
:Now, if getting access to Brambleskin required a player to sacrifice hundreds of weapons in order to unlock it, consuming many many hours of grinding, and I knew it was going to need to be super-nerfed, I would feel a lot more pressure to nerf it immediately.
:You can tell the difference between "an ability everybody gets for leveling up a skill gets nerfed" versus "a thing you have to work really hard for gets nerfed", right? I know you can. You're not an idiot, you're a troll.
:---
:Look, User this is your last warning. I don't need this much pointless flaming and negativity on the forum. I need to be able to read the forum without becoming depressed, and you're ruining this forum for me. I'm not a big company with a moderation team, I'm just a guy who goes to work every day and works his ass off to make the game better. Every stupid day that's what I'm doing, and it's very hard to keep a positive attitude with this... shit from you. It has to stop now. If I read another obviously trolling post I'm going to have to ban you from the forums.
:You can express any opinion you want but you can't express it with this bombastic rhetoric, as if every stupid overpowered thing is life and death and proof that I'm the devil. Actually, you know what, I really don't need to hear from you anymore. I understand that you hate the game and think I'm incredibly unfair and I'm a huge asshole. Read you LOUD AND CLEAR. You don't have to keep saying it. And in fact I insist that you stop.
:: 4/18/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2090-Dangerous-Weapons-were-removed-because-off-balancing-the-game-but&p=15340#post15340
==== Damage Types, Bug ====
:No combat skill should have access to all three physical damage types. That was an error and will be fixed anywhere it occurs. In general a skill shouldn't use more than three damage types, actually. Certain skills (such as Archery) have access to a wide range of damage types, but those skills have counterbalancing down sides which lycanthropy definitely doesn't have.
:Yes, that means sometimes you have to struggle to figure out how to defeat content. Hey, good thing the Winter Nexus is a GROUP DUNGEON right? Almost like one person can counteract the weaknesses of someone else.
:: 4/8/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2070-Discuss-Dev-Blog-April-2-2019&p=15203#post15203
==== Titles, War Caches, Small Groups, Werewolf ====
:- You can't get two titles because the system can't support it: you can only have one title attached to each account. If you already bought a title package, don't buy another!
:- You can't duo War Caches, and I'm not going to delay an already very long development process to try to shoehorn it in somehow, because duoing content is very underused. If you and a friend start together, duo content makes sense, but that's literally the only time duo content gets used. It just doesn't work psychologically. Nobody wants to join a pick-up-duo because it's way too stressful. A large group spreads out the blame and responsibility, and players find it much more acceptable.
I tried for YEARS in pre-alpha to make two-man groups a thing, and then three-man groups, before eventually accepting defeat and doing six-man groups. So that ship has sailed. I try to make content accessible for duoing when convenient, but it's certainly not something that I could conveniently add to War Caches, sorry.
:- I feel like the people who think there's already plenty of solo content for the 55-ish level range are completely wrong... to an insane degree, actually. There are literally no solo dungeons for that level range, and the only soloable outdoor content is quite difficult.
:- Werewolves will be fine. The updated version improves sustainability, removes annoyances, improves Trauma builds (and tosses out weird remnants like that one Piercing attack). It opens up new options besides the one dumb overpowered build everybody's using.
:If your opinion is that the skill isn't overpowered anymore, we'll have to disagree. It's still overpowered in the most extreme setups. (If you aren't using the most extreme setups, then the change won't be as dramatic, but it'll still be a nerf.) Also, comparing one overpowered skill to another overpowered skill really doesn't help your case. Other skills with gigantic burst-damage numbers will also be getting nerfed over time.
:Looking at the changes, this actually feels like a buff to the skill, but I'm not going to call it a buff because that would seem disingenuous: werewolf players WILL log in weaker than they were before (assuming they're using the OP build-du-jour), and to get better builds, they will have to remake all their gear, which is tedious and annoying. But after players rebuild, they will be fine in terms of damage and survivability. In the long term, werewolves will not be underpowered.
:And if they are, we'll fix them. And if they're still overpowered, we'll nerf them again.
:If the idea of rebuilding your entire werewolf setup is too stressful for you, I completely understand. I recommend taking a break from the game and coming back in a while! I'm not trying to be a dick with that recommendation, I'm just telling you what's worked for other players in the past. There's no monthly fee or anything, and your characters will be fine in suspended animation while you're gone, so take a month or two off. By the time you return, other people will have figured out the most-crazy wolf builds anyway and you can copy them if you like.
:As for undoing the lycanthropy curse, nope. Never ever happening because permanent choices are permanent. But I am frankly offended by the idea that I'm "forcing" you to use the skill. The beast form is forced on you, but the skill is NEVER forced on you. Have you tried a nice Unarmed/Mentalism build? Werewolves are pretty good at it. There are a dozen other skill combinations available if you really hate the werewolf skill. And as a last resort option, you still have plenty of time to remake your character before the game officially launches. :But we will under no circumstances be offering a werewolf "cure". (Or a druid "cure" either!)
:: 4/7/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2070-Discuss-Dev-Blog-April-2-2019&p=15188#post15188
==== Unity Physics, Terrain ====
:The alternative is frankly much worse: without a VERY generous physics setup, you just get stuck in the terrain all the time. This is due to Unity's worthless, worthless physics engine (which is obviously tuned for racing games and not for moving around in tiny congested spaces). It actually worked a lot better five or so years ago and then starting with "Unity 5" they shat all over themselves and everyone was constantly getting stuck everywhere, so I implemented the current workaround. I haven't looked for better workarounds in a few years and it's on my list to do, but frankly it's not at the top. I'm more concerned with synching animation to movement, that's something that can and will be improved. As for water, we'll work on it when we want to do more with it. Right now there's not a lot of underwater content and not a lot of plans for more underwater content, so there's no reason to focus development time on underwater movement.
:: 4/7/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2075-Physics-Problems&p=15186#post15186
==== Transmutation ====
:This thread is going in weird places...
:My screenshot shows mods having an equal chance of being rolled. That's true most of the time, but not always. My point was that you don't know when it's true or not, so the next update will show you. That's what's changing! Not the actual percentages, just the ability to see those percentages.
:I want some mods to be super common, and I want a few mods to be hard to get (and I know that upsets some people, but too bad). What isn't acceptable is for some mods to be "secretly" hard to get. I think it should be obvious when you're rolling for something that's rare -- that just seems fair. So the next update will make that clearer.
:If you don't think this small change will resolve your problem, you're definitely right! Because I'm hearing symptoms that I simply can't explain right now, so more info is needed. I expect the extra info from the next update will make it a lot easier to figure out what's happening. Then we can discuss things further.
:: 3/27/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2020-Transmutation-rolling-for-Gear-must-change&p=14988#post14988
==== Armor ====
:Guys, just to keep things on track: we're not changing armor into a totally different thing. We're DEFINITELY not going to add percentage-based mitigation to every "defensive" skill just because monsters hit too hard right now. We're going to tune the systems we have until they work. I need help on micro-ideas, not macro-ideas.
:At this point, I really don't need help inventing entirely new game systems that sound fun on paper. The problem is that actually combining a game's worth of systems is hard. It's especially hard in a game like this, with a LOT of different systems interconnected. At this point, replacing any game mechanic inevitably causes other balance problems to appear, and creates a cascade of new problems. Complete system replacement is the nuclear option.
:So my point is this: we're talking about game systems that mostly work. They just need refining and adjusting, like all game systems do. Replacing a game system always sounds sexier and more fun than doing the hard, tedious work of tightening an existing system design. But we're in beta now, not alpha, and it's time to buckle down and start solving the nuts-and-bolts balancing problems. I can't avoid them forever by just trying new stuff. Every design has a ton of weird side-effects that have to be worked out, and each time we replace a game system with an entirely new system, that just postpones the hard work.
:The current problems with armor seem like they can be solved by monster rebalancing, so that's the first thing I'll try. It sounds like monster crits aren't scaling correctly, because (obviously) there shouldn't be such a thing as "one-hit kills". So we'll work on that first. If any of the existing systems prove unbalanceable, then we'll open the floor to new ideas.
:---
:Actually, I feel like I'm yelling and I don't mean to: there are no wrong answers to the questions here. There are just answers that are more- or less-useful to me right now. I definitely don't intend to sound upset just because you're giving me answers I can't use!
:I wanted to steer this thread toward smaller points of discussion, but really, I've already received plenty of actionable feedback in this thread. So I think it's run its course and has some great ideas, and I'm just going to close it for now. Thanks.
:: 3/27/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2038-Critical-hits-bad-behavior-amp-quot-end-game-quot-content&p=14987#post14987
==== Character Changes ====
:Players will be able to change their character's appearance and sex at a later date. We don't currently plan to let you change your race, however. (It's much more complicated technically, and the three upcoming races will have very different play details.)
:Edit: we haven't talked about offering name changes, but I expect we'll eventually offer them in some form.
:: 3/21/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2044-Gorgon-Shop-Horse-Lord-Package&p=14903#post14903
==== Gorgon Shop Package ====
:The packages are applied per-account. The VIP features (which are still very TBD) are shared for all characters on the account. Other features, such as items, will need to be claimed on a particular character via an in-game button when they're available. (It will work similarly to how the /redeem command lets you redeem gift items... in fact it might literally just use the /redeem command behind the scenes.) We plan to break the features up granularly so you can claim different parts on different characters, though -- the horse(s) and tigers don't have to be claimed on the same character!
:You don't have to (and can't!) pick which character receives each reward yet. However, for other info (such as what title you want), the little golem will ask you questions and record your answers. You can come back later to change those answers, up until we actually implement your feature.
:Custom titles are per-account, not per-character. (But if they were per-character, you could just give your title scrolls to your alts, anyway.) I think that titles are the only part of these particular packages that are actually implemented yet -- but it will still take time for you to receive the title, because we need to add the title to the permanent game data. (It has to go into a "string table" so we can eventually get your title translated into multiple languages.) So after you've given your answers to the golem, it sends us a little notification, and we'll add it into data for the next game update.
:Our game's housing is probably going to be per-account, just because I don't think it'll be reasonable to have every alt pay for their own house. But it might be per-character with a more complex roommate system... that's still up in the air. Anyway, if you get a house with the pack, you're getting one instanced house... which may or may not automatically apply to all your characters, but if it doesn't, I expect you'd at least be able to let them crash at your place.
:Oh, and yes, everyone will be able to buy a house in-game, although they will be quite expensive (many millions of Councils). We will also have a rented apartment system, or something like it, for people who can't afford a house yet.
:Similarly, everyone will be able to buy a horse in-game (and horses are per-character), but the horses included in these packs are on the high end, in terms of stats and genetics. Ditto tigers.
:: 3/21/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2044-Gorgon-Shop-Horse-Lord-Package&p=14901#post14901
==== Critical Hits, Roots, End-Game ====
:There are some good discussions going on here and I'd like to keep them going! But I'd like to ask for more specifics. I don't get to participate in a lot of group combat recently. I don't have time -- I'm working 12-ish hours a day on the game, so even having time to solo is hard. So I rely a lot on feedback for group combat, and we really don't get a lot of feedback about grouping that's in a format I can act on.
:I say I don't group a lot, but I've managed to get in enough pick-up groups to know that grouping wasn't particularly difficult or engaging before we added monster crits. It was basically a cakewalk. (And it can still seem too easy, depending on the level range and group composition... but the crits at least make people pay more attention!) In fact, I do think the monster crit system has been good for the game because it changed the equation from "grouping is too easy" to "grouping is frustrating because it's too hard to control X, Y, Z things." This seems like a step forward to me. Maybe we can dig into more fundamental problems, the kind that we very rarely get feedback on.
:Monster crits were added because monsters were too predictable and they dealt too little damage. This solution addresses both problems! It's a first attempt at a solution, and I could fine-tune it (lowering crit damage, reducing the chance of chain crits, etc.), but I'm not sure that's the thing to do right now -- it really was added as a quick-fix so that I could look for other underlying problems. I'm not sure if we'll keep monster crits at all: we may want other solutions to the underlying problems.
:If you're unhappy about crits, the questions to answer are: Who was involved (levels, general combat skills type info), what did you fight, what did you do to counteract all that the surprise damage (I assume your team had sidebars full of healing/support abilities, for instance... so were those not good enough? Not fast enough to use?). I need to know how you tried to adapt to the problems, and why it was still unfairly difficult. Help me to understand the issues.
:And yes, there are situations where I won't be sympathetic: if you're trying to solo-kill a large number of monsters at once with a CC-mitigated "AoE pit", then I want the monsters to kill you a lot -- a lot more than they probably do now, actually. That's insanely dangerous and should generally result in your death. Were you trying to solo-kill (or duo-kill!) an Elite? Again, I actually want that to result in your death most of the time -- and will probably make those types of scenarios MORE difficult, not less.
:But if you're talking about a full group that gets wiped repeatedly because of crits, that's something I don't want to see. Maybe I just need to add a cooldown-timer so crits don't happen too often in a row... but I really suspect that'll hide deeper problems again. I want to dig in. Could you have countered the crits if you'd had more healing available? Are you carrying a bunch of weaker players in the group, and we need better group-composition tools? Or are you not focusing damage well, and the group needs better coordination tools? Better de-aggro? Is taunting just completely useless? Is healing too weak? Is monster detection too good?
:This provides an opportunity to improve the game's full-group issues... and I'm not even sure I know what all the fundamental full-group issues ARE. But if you have some clues, I would appreciate your insights!
:tldr: I can tweak the "band-aid fix" of crit damage -- but first I need to know it's not bandaging over a more serious problem.
:-------
:The OP from @Golliathe is a good example, and the reason I chose this thread -- those details about roots/mezzes are good insights and I would love to hear more discussion about those and related things -- things that need focus or improvement, either because they're too good or too irritating.
:RE: mezzes and DoTs: mezzes are supposed to ignore DoTs because, until recently, most DoTs lasted 15+ seconds, often lasting 30 seconds... making mezzes useless if even a single group member used DoT effects. Finding the right power curve for DoTs has been extremely challenging, and I didn't feel like DoTs needed the extra stigma of "don't use DoTs asshole, you'll break mezzes". Now that all DoTs are 12 secs or less, it starts to make more sense, but I still worry they would break too many mezzes.
:RE: monsters not picking a new target if they're rooted -- that's just crappy AI that I haven't tried to improve. I didn't really think too long about that case, because it opens a can of worms. If a monster changes targets because they're rooted, isn't that a general case of "I should change targets if my most-hated foe is unreachable"? They're the same thing, right? So where do I draw the line? If the monster is moving too slow to keep up (because the player has super-cranked movement speed), should the monster just attack somebody else nearby? Or are we talking about a specific hack for "monster is rooted = find a new target"? In that case wouldn't a 75% movement-slowdown be more effective than a full root? It gets weird. I don't know where to draw the line.
:RE: "overtaunt" -- I'd need lots more specifics here to be able to tell what's up.
:------
:Thanks for your feedback. Also, I've mentioned this before, but since this is a contentious topic, I wanted to remind here: I really appreciate people who are able to separate their emotions from their feedback -- it makes it a LOT easier for me to process it if you aren't outraged at the same time. I'm only human, the game is made by humans, there are lots of mistakes and some of them are stupid mistakes we should have fixed a long time ago. But it's not too late -- we can fix them.
:The more you can give me info in a format like "my group did this thing, and we expected this result, but got this other thing", and the less "only a crazy idiot would think X is working", the more practical help you're giving!
:: 3/18/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2038-Critical-hits-bad-behavior-amp-quot-end-game-quot-content&p=14824#post14824
==== Transmutation ====
:I don't consider this to be just a "quality of life" feature because it provides probability info that isn't available any other way right now.
:The system doesn't remember old mods that used to be on the item -- that info isn't stored on the item at all, and there's no way for there to be a bug where it accidentally reverts. It's just a weighted random roll. But it's weighted! It uses the same probabilities that the random-loot system uses, so if a mod is common in loot, it will be a common transmutation result too.
:So if you're seeing A-B-A-B, it means "A" and "B" have very high probabilities of showing up. The exact weights for some mods may be bugged or incorrect (and this display will help us find them). But they can be intentional too. Some mods are very common (such as base-damage mods, which are weighted 5x higher than average). A small number of mods are intentionally rare. And there are some weird cases where we use REALLY high or low weights to get different effects. For instance, if you're re-rolling a generic mod on a crossbow, the odds are like 90% that you're going to get one of the three crossbow mods. (Since crossbow isn't a "real" combat skill, the only way to make sure that crossbows have good chances for crossbow mods is to make those mods' probabilities very high.)
:The devil is in the details -- and that's where the bugs hide too -- so this update will make more of those details visible so we can see what's up.
:RE: transmute table bug, no I wasn't aware of it, but I'll look into it, thanks. (In general, if a nasty bug is long-running, please re-submit it as a bug. It probably means we lost track of it, or think it's fixed when it isn't, etc.)
:: 3/9/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2020-Transmutation-rolling-for-Gear-must-change&p=14730#post14730
==== Transmutation ====
:One of the Transmutation changes in the next update is a way to see what you're rolling for. I suspect one of the problems people run into is that they're trying to roll something that simply isn't available on that item, for one reason or another -- be it bugs or just misunderstandings of what can show up where. So this will help expose problems. And beyond that, seeing what's going on will let people plan better.
:Here's a prototype of what I'm working on. Basically it just pops up a custom "book" screen that lists each possible outcome, and the odds. Eventually we'll wire it into a nicer-looking UI, but for now I just want to make sure the info is available.
:There are other changes as well that are still in development.
:: 3/9/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2020-Transmutation-rolling-for-Gear-must-change&p=14728#post14728
==== Lauch Date ====
:Realistically I don't think we are launching this year. There are lots of contracted deliverables needed, and those deliverables have often involved delays and time overruns, so I have to assume there will be more... and right now, a 2019 launch seems unlikely.
:But "launch" is just a milestone. Hmm, how to put it... how about this: remember World of Warcraft's crafting at launch? Probably not, because it was abysmal, boring, and 100% pointless. But it was "complete": WoW shipped with a crafting system, and mounts, and character customization, and everything else it was obligated to have. Then their live team spent years making those bare-bones implementations not-sucky. (Edit: with arguable success in some cases... WoW's crafting system is probably not a good example here. )
:So when I say we aren't launching in 2019, it's because there are certain big-ticket features (like mounts, housing, other playable races) that I feel have to be included to consider the game "complete", and only some of those will be ready this year. But delays give us time to flesh out the rest of the game, rework systems that suck, and generally make the game better BEFORE we launch, instead of after.
:I'm not in a huge hurry to launch the game in a bare-bones-but-technically-complete state. I think these delays can be a little bit of a blessing in disguise, allowing us to add more content, systems, interactions, and fun stuff, before we pronounce the game "finished".
:: 3/9/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2023-Any-estimate-or-information-on-full-release-date&p=14727#post14727
==== Transmutation ====
:Actually, I just made some tweaks to Transmutation costs for the next game update. I was also JUST NOW taking a walk and thinking about a way to show transmutation possibilities in-game. And then came home to read this thread. Weird. Anyway, I definitely want the game to be more communicative about Transmutation. Not sure what the time table there is -- could be next update, if my crazy implementation idea works -- will have to see.
:: 3/5/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2020-Transmutation-rolling-for-Gear-must-change&p=14649#post14649
==== February 2019 Update ====
:Thanks for the feedback everyone, please keep it coming! A few notes:
:- We will be making small tweaks to the new dungeon's spawn rate. But the dungeon is designed with the expectation that you have at least the 3-second spawn premonition. It may not sound like it would help, but it helps. You need it!
:- (tagging @Yaffy in particular here, though lots of this is general.) There are no known open bugs with accuracy or evasion, meaning all old reports were closed as Fixed or Invalid. I do believe at least one actual bug report of yours was addressed in the past few months, where others were closed as invalid reports because they conflate different mechanics. There are lots of weird systems in the game that aren't connected.
:- For instance, "Miss Chance" is not the opposite of accuracy. Miss Chance is a separate chance for you to miss. It can't be avoided in any way at this time -- only something that gave you a negative Miss Chance buff could counter it, and there's nothing like that. So there's no way to avoid the Darkness debuff in the Dark Chapel, and that's by design. (This also applies to player abilities that apply a Miss Chance to enemies -- right now the debuff from Cloud Sight is completely unavoidable, even on Elites and Bosses.) You can differentiate Evasion from Miss if you are watching carefully, because the floaty "EVADE" will be replaced with "MISS".
:- Projectile Evasion is not the same thing as Ranged Evasion -- only literal projectiles (such as missiles) are evaded by projectile evasion. Attacks like Flamestrike are ranged attacks without a projectile. Ranged Evasion is a new stat that covers all types of ranged attacks. (And may eventually replace Projectile Evasion -- not sure yet.)
:- Accuracy buffs now show up on the Persona screen, so this is an easy way to make sure that the buffs are at least buffing the appropriate stat.
:- Skulk smoke screen: we'll try to find something else for it when we next look at the Werewolf skill. We can't currently do translucence for wolves (the shader won't do it), but we can probably find something else.
:: 3/4/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2000-Update-Discussion-February-20-2019&p=14602#post14602
==== Botting ====
:Well, I was working on an email answer, but I guess I can just post that here. Please consider your email tickets closed.
:--
:You were flagged as possibly botting. This involves a lot of factors. (None of those factors involved other players.) You then failed a simple "bot check": you ignored private messages from the admins, and when a special popup box appeared on your screen, you logged out. This is behavior we see from common botting programs, so we did the most appropriate thing...
:We reminded you that botting is not allowed.
:We didn't punish you, because failing a bot test is not "proof" of botting. It's a heuristic, a test. If you fail a bot check, it could just be a random accident. So all we do is tell you not to bot. If you REPEATEDLY fail the bot check, though, we have to assume you're botting.
:This isn't some crazy new idea we invented, either. Bot checks are the same for all MMOs. There's no 100% reliable way to detect all botting, so we use human beings to check up on people that seem suspicious.
:I know that being forced to prove you exist (by answering an admin) can feel insulting. That's just the way it has to be though. You are obligated to answer an admin when they prompt you. You can't ignore them.
:Since you aren't botting, then I'm sure this won't happen again, and there won't be any more problems. Case closed. Thanks.
::-As to policy changes, there are none here.
::-Botting is not the same as AFK howling, or AFK anything else. Botting is using hardware (such as macro mice or keyboards) or software (such as overlays, macros apps, etc.) to automate any part of the game. You were accused of BOTTING, not of doing something while AFK.
::-Bot tests are run periodically every day all the time. They are absolutely NOT "admin abuse", that's proof of admins doing their jobs.
::-The "headache" debuff you apparently received comes from regular game content, such as when completing a hangout with Yetta, or sometimes when using words of power, drinking from a Cauldron, and more.
:: 3/4/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2017-Clarification-request-from-Citan-and-Srand&p=14599#post14599
==== Damage-Mod Recipes ====
:We'll be revising more damage-type-mod gear and recipes in the next update. (Well, not the next quick-fix update, which is tomorrow, but the next "real" update.)
:A warning about those damage-mod recipes: I expect we'll increase the potency of those recipes, but due to technical limitations we usually can't convert old equipment that already uses those recipes, so they will probably be stuck with the old (current) values. So unfortunately you may need new gear to get the updated effects. I'm sorry about that, preemptively; we try to update all gear "in-place" when possible, but sometimes it's just too expensive (in terms of dev time).
:Edit: hmm, it may be possible to do conversion for those recipes -- I'll have to see. The items don't store what recipes were used on them, so I have to write "sleuthing" code that analyzes the item and tries to figure out what happened to it. "Oh, it has +3% fire damage and it's missing 60 enhancement points, I think I know what happened here..." That sort of code gets really ugly really fast, and usually causes more problems than its worth. But given the small number of recipes involved I may be able to do it. I'm not sure.
:At the very least, you should hold off on using those recipes on new items.
:: 2/21/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?2000-Update-Discussion-February-20-2019&p=14453#post14453
==== Fixed Update Schedule ====
:The idea that I want to be here coding my ass off at 5am on a Saturday because I insist on doing everything? That's complete nonsense. I want to be the person designing, yes, but not the person designing, coding, analyzing, performing database maintenance, overseeing CS, prepping ads, etc.
:I would love to hire more people, and we definitely will. Actually I expect the first full-time developer hire may be possible soon... but I'm not hiring anyone unless I can do it responsibly.
:I realize you're all familiar with indie companies that burn their budget fast and end up successful. Minecraft (or whoever) did it, so why can't we? Because the successful ones are extreme outliers. I've been involved in a half-dozen of those projects where indie teams burn their money fast and pray it works out. It almost never works out. I'm too old for that shit, and I won't keep passing that sort of tragedy on to other game developers, or to you. Because the people that usually lose are you, the customers that buy in early.
:How many Kickstarter MMOs have failed after reaching their goal? Most of them. But I can confidently say we are not gonna fail. Really! We won't hit our time estimates at all... but eventually we will make good on our crowdfunding promises. Reaching the finish line is my top financial priority, and I won't jeopardize that goal.
:So we hire contractors when we can. And when we can hire full time people -- and give them realistic time windows to get ramped up before we expect them to pull their weight -- we will! We're watching our bank account carefully and planning when we might be able to hire more people. I'm optimistic, but I don't have a crystal ball. When we can hire, we will, simple as that.
:--
:As for schedules, this is an MMO in development. We release updates when they're ready for testing. Your job as Early Access players is to help playtest, so we can't release them too early: when we do that, you just find the obvious bugs that we already knew about. Getting bug reports about already-known issues is a huge waste of time for everybody! We need the updates to be clear of obvious bugs or design flaws, so you can give us feedback on finished ideas.
:So why don't I just announce a launch day that's like an extra month delayed? Because we need feedback on changes ASAP. We're back here working really hard every day, and we need that new info as soon as we can. So I'm not gonna sit on a finished update for even a single extra week!
:And I don't think people want us to delay updates by a few weeks to ensure we hit the deadlines... what I think people really want to know is "why don't you work FASTER!!!!" And it's because we literally cannot work any faster. We are working as fast as humanly possible. When we can hire people to work faster, we will.
:I try to keep you in the loop on where we are in the update process. It does change a lot though, and I'm often wrong. But it's the best I've got. If you'd prefer to just be surprised when an update comes out, you can easily accomplish this by not reading my twitter -- that's usually the only place we talk about timelines.
:Thank you for supporting us while we struggle with this Herculean task. The game is finally starting to feel like a "real game", which makes people assume we're a large development team. That leaves us in a weird spot because we aren't. We're what we can afford to be. We work super hard, and we haven't stopped for years and we aren't gonna stop until the game is done. And hopefully, soon, there will be more of us doing that work.
:And you're here now to see it happening, and to help shape it. I'm excited to show you this next update, but even beyond that, we have great ideas in store for the future. Thank you for the opportunity to show them to you.
:: 2/16/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1991-Updates-Help-me-understand&p=14399#post14399
==== Lost Dungeon? ====
:There's a large brick building in Gazluk city, which is the actual Gazluk Keep. There's an entrance into that building.
:In the desert it sounds like you're probably at the wrong ruins, there are a couple of dilapidated cities and ruined buildings out there. You're looking for a square basement-entrance type thing that lets you get into an underground area.
:: 2/6/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1975-Labyrinth-Gazluk-Dungeons&p=14304#post14304
==== Brewing Feedback ====
:The bug you describe is not something I'm aware of, and I definitely did not see that during testing (when I made about a thousand kegs of hard liquor). That was a while ago, but I don't really see how the system could get out of sync, offhand. All hard liquors use the format of (one of 3), (one of 4), (one of 5), and (one of 4), for a total of 240 combinations, and all hard liquors use the same result set. As long as you figure out which of the new ingredients maps to which of the old ingredients in a previously-figured-out recipe, you should be able to calculate the new recipe.
:So if you have a reproducible scenario where that's not true, please report it in game with details of exactly what you're doing (which two recipes you're comparing and which things you're putting in them) and we can try to reproduce and fix it. Thanks!
:: 1/25/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?722-Barl-sorry-Brewing-feedback!&p=14168#post14168
==== Animal Tame Network Lag, Real Time ====
:Seeing that message while taming is definitely due to overclocking the computer. Basically the server tells your game client, "okay, now show a progress bar for 10 seconds while the tame happens", and the client says "okay I'm done"... but it's been less than 9 seconds. (More than 10% too soon.) If the client were to report in too LATE (say after 15 seconds), that could be due to network latency or a bad connection. But if the game client is finished significantly SOONER than expected, that means the client is running faster than real time.
:This doesn't necessarily mean someone is trying to cheat -- we've seen it happen especially with "CPU overclocking" and "RAM accelerator" type software that comes bundled with new gaming computers. It's a cheap trick that can make some some games feel more responsive: by making the game think time is moving 10%-15% faster, you can move faster, etc. This is fine in singleplayer games, but it's unfair in multiplayer games.
:@user - I don't know what you're referring to, but if you have a reproducible scenario please report it in-game. And of course make sure you aren't running anything that can overclock your computer It kind of sounds like you're using overclocking software that is just barely under the threshold that we check for.
:(In the patch notes, we mentioned that we removed an error about overclocking when you try to reuse a toggled ability. That's a different scenario: toggled abilities have a reuse timer like every other ability (say, 10 seconds). The game client assumed you could turn the ability off without waiting 10 more seconds. But the server assumed you had to wait the full 10 seconds to turn it back off. So if you tried to turn it off after only a few seconds, the client would be fine with it, but the server would tell you that you seem to have overclocked your computer -- because it assumed the client actually tried to wait the 10 seconds. That scenario was just a bug, and is fixed now. The overclocking error message can still show up, correctly, in other scenarios.)
:: 1/16/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1940-Can-t-Tame-Animals-Anymore&p=14081#post14081
==== Change Race? ====
:We don't plan to offer a way to change your race. You'll be able to change your appearance and sex, however.
:: 1/8/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1922-Race-change&p=14023#post14023
==== Dangerous Weapons "Fiasco" ====
:A fiasco?! Hmm, that sounds like I've done a bad job managing expectations.
:Look, I know nerfs are painful. I can respect that you're angry, but let's stop pretending this is a balanced and finished game. Stop comparing your skills to OBVIOUSLY overpowered skills. You know we're going to nerf those, right? Of course we are!
:There are a lot of nerfs coming.
:To repeat, a lot of nerfs are coming.
:A LOT OF NERFS ARE COMING. Does shouting help?
:I mean, I think it should go unsaid, because it should be REALLY obvious that a werewolf who can deal a bazillion damage a second, while also healing themselves completely every few seconds, is overpowered. We all know it.
:But we also know the game's framerate isn't very good, the UI is clunky, spawns are appearing underground in some cases and some video drivers have crashes and there's too little content in various level ranges and there's tons of confusing game systems and... on and on it goes.
:We're working pretty much nonstop, and scaling up as quickly as we can, but we can't fix everything at once. And high-level balance has had to take a back seat. That doesn't mean it's not happening.
:Bottom line: I am not planning to make every skill as powerful as the most overpowered skills in the game. I am planning to nerf overpowered skills and game systems. Because that's what a true beta is: a time to get the balance right.
:So we will be nerfing and buffing repeatedly, over and over. I will try to be respectful of your time investments whenever possible. That's the best I can do. Constructive feedback is appreciated, but calling a nerf to an extremely imbalanced game system a "fiasco" ... well, if that's a fiasco, expect a lot more fiascos to come, I guess.
:---
:So why did I nerf this, when all those other things are overpowered too? Because, again, I want to be respectful of players' time. Most of the nerfs that will be coming are in-place nerfs: treasure mods or abilities will have their numbers lowered, but they'll otherwise keep working. In this case, when I became convinced I couldn't salvage the design, and it would need to be entirely replaced, I shut it down immediately so you wouldn't keep wasting time and resources with it.
:That doesn't mean I think it was the most overpowered thing in the game. It means I want to do right by my beta testers as much as I can, and letting you invest resources into it for another few months would have been cruel.
:---
:I know nerfs suck. I wish I didn't have to. But I do. If this one pissed you off a lot, well, this isn't the last nerf by a long shot, so if you can't tolerate them and want to come back when the game is done, I completely respect that. But complaining about nerfs during a beta is just not understanding what a beta is.
:There will be a lot more nerfs, a lot more buffs, a lot more game systems, a lot more major revisions. If you approach the game with that understanding it can be a lot more fun than if you expect everything in-game to stay the way it is now. Because it won't!
:As for the replacement to this system, it won't be a recipe at all, I think. Right now I'm playing with a system where you hand your weapon to an NPC and they apply a random permanent buff... or debuff... to the item. Very simple and approachable for the target audience of level 40-ish players.
:We'll convert existing "do nothing" items to use positive buffs from the new system. But keep in mind the system is designed for level 40s, so the buffs are in that power range. (I don't think that should be too surprising to hear, either: the old recipes consumed garbage newbie metal, they were learned in the level 40 city, and had meager level 20 blacksmithing requirements... obviously the main audience was NOT people who can mine legendary metal out of Gazluk!)
:So don't expect the replacement buffs to be as amazing as a +300 weapon, but they will still be a noticeable and useful buff to your items. In addition, we'll return some of your lost resources where it seems appropriate (e.g. refunding the price of the recipes, maybe refunding the metal in some cases, etc.)
:: 1/7/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1912-Dangerous-Weapon-revamp&p=14019#post14019
==== Ecological Voodoo ====
:Hmm... hmmm. Very interesting ideas in this post, thanks!
:: 1/6/2019
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1906-New-Skill-Ecological-Voodoo-Do-something-(creepy)-about-those-pesky-respawn-rates&p=14003#post14003
==== Can't use First Aid Kit on sidebar ====
:First Aid Kits are "ammo" for the First Aid abilities; those abilities are what you should put on your sidebar.
