VN Boards Archive

[VN Boards Archive]

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Topic: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.

Jennifer_the_Great Title: Shrimp Farmer Posts: 35,926 Registered: May 6, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 35,628 User ID: 676,008	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	http://forums.ac.turbine.com/showthread.php?t=53246 Greetings. We have been reviewing player feedback for quite some time and we are in the process of designing some changes for the February update in response to player feedback and suggestions. We are looking for early feedback on these changes and posting this early design well in advance of our February update so we have plenty of time to make adjustments. Player Goals and Requests We have rounded up player feedback and the players have, over time, put forth the following goals and suggestions. ~ Address the racial imbalance in templates. ~ Allow a greater variety of weapons to be useful. ~ Allow greater freedom in player templates and racial choices. We realize there are many questions about the small details arising from this post. Our goal for this initial description is to get feedback on the larger design and the ideas presented without micromanaging the specifics. Racial Skills Racial Skills have had balance issues essentially since the game launched. New players are currently able to choose a race and already have an inferior template even as they enter the training academy. Our goal is that races retain their initial flavor, but in the end no race is the superior choice as all races can achieve template parity. All current racial skills will be removed. All races will get Arcane Lore automatically trained for free All races will get 2 additional skill credits to spend at creation All races will get 6 additional points added to the specialization cap Skill/Attribute Reset NPCs and the Temples will have their timers/uses reset to allow players to easily adjust to the new changes. Races will still have their free starting augmentation. Races will gain a free augmentation that provides a small damage boost to one weapon type. Higher level characters can work toward changing this augmentation to any other weapon type so any racial choice can ultimately achieve any template. Characters will be able to change to alternate weapon types that may not be included in the preferred weapon type of any race. Melee Skill Consolidation and Missile Skill Consolidation Due to the varying costs of melee skills, several choices are ignored due to being underpowered. Also, unlike Two Handed, Magic, and Missile combat, each skill is missing/weak in certain elements where as the other combat types have access to all damage types. We feel two handed is a great example of how a melee skill should work. All of the melee skills will be condensed into 2 new skills. One Handed Combat: A 6/6 melee combat skill based off Strength/Coordination. One Handed Finesse: A 4/4 melee combat skill based off Quickness/Coordination. Weapons of all types (mace, sword, dagger) will drop for each weapon skill. Most one handed weapons will use the One Handed Combat skill. Some weapons (stiletto, rapier, etc.) will be designated as finesse weapons and use the One Handed Finesse skill. One Handed Combat weapons will be balanced against each other and competitive with one handed swords. As you might expect from the lower skill cost, finesse weapons will do lower damage than One Handed Combat weapons. Missile weapon skills will also be consolidated. All of the missile skills will be condensed into Missile Combat: A 6/6 missile combat skill. All missile weapons will use the Missile Combat skill. Bows, crossbows and thrown weapons will be balanced against each other and competitive with Bow. With the consolidation of melee skills and missile skills we want to make sure we preserve a sense of flavor depending on the weapon you choose. All melee and missile weapon types will have uniqueness to their stats. Daggers, for example, might all be multi strike, and axes might have lower damage but bigger crits. The racial augmentation will allow each race to favor a specific weapon type by giving the character a small damage boost with that type of weapon. Higher level characters can work to change this augmentation to favor any weapon type. Characters can only have one weapon type augmented at any one time. Existing characters will get one free change to the weapon augmentation of their choice. Shield Skill At the same time as the consolidation skills we will be adding a 2/2 shield skill that uses Strength. This skill will determine how much al/aegis effect you gain from equipping a shield. Specializing in Shields and leveling your skill will provide the full benefit to top end shields. Training in Shields and leveling your skill will provide a lesser benefit. The idea is that Two Handed Combat, Weapon and Shield Combat, and eventually Two Weapon Combat will all have similar 8/8 total cost. These styles will be balanced against each other. Skill Adjustments: Some skills could use a bit of an adjustment to make them more useful. Missile and Magic Defense formulas would be adjusted to mirror the offensive skills. We will be doing a balance pass on all creatures to rebalance Missile and Magic Defense skills to reflect these new values. As a result this should fix defenses on creatures to more consistently reflect the relative power of the creature. We will be doing a balance pass on all creatures to rebalance melee and skill attack skills to reflect these changes. As a result this should fix offensive values on creatures to more consistently reflect the relative power of the creature and make Missile Defense more useful. Gearcrafting would be folded into Item Tinkering with no increase in cost to Item Tinkering. New Skills: Although we are not ready to discuss these with players, the February patch would bring in new skills that would enhance different aspects of combat. Part of the goal is to give the height/power attack options more of an effect. To give a slight tease into what we are considering, a 2/2 Dual Wield skill may be on the table. -----signature----- Morality isn't a 'persona', it's a way of life. Either you have it, or you don't. - Fraxcat Stupefied. 10/11/84 - 12/25/04 Jaclyn. 09/18/86 - 04/01/07
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laris_bloodsong Posts: 9,219 Registered: Jun 22, '01 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 9,118 User ID: 185,181	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	this is a huge huge change from what we currently have. im not sure im going to like it or not. guess we will find out by the way im going to guess this means all my stuff is no longer worth while to keep -----signature----- And the children of Solclaim fled the iron fist of Eldreth, of Vault Network, and they had naught to eat but cold pizza and flat Pepsi, for they were in haste and were also forced to leave their stars behind.
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Bob_The_RadialSander Posts: 2,309 Registered: Dec 30, '01 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 2,255 User ID: 583,378	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	AC3 edit to add cursing... &^(&#^(^##&()Q^Q$^)Q$^)&^&^Q#&^(@$^@#@^ &(@&(&*^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -----signature----- Free Droz Take my wife please! I take my wife everywhere, but she finds her way home. My wife asked me to take her somewhere she had never been for vacation. We went to the kitchen. Proud Member of the Anti-CliKKâ„¢
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Taomagicdragon Posts: 2,573 Registered: Mar 8, '05 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 2,561 User ID: 1,033,976	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	To add some pertinent information: 1) - All loot will carry over meaning that Swords will now use One Handed Combat instead of the Sword skill and all Rapiers would use the One Handed Finesse skill. No current weapon will be un-usable though, other than Sword and Bow, most melee/missile weapons will receive a substantial boost, not unlike what a new loot tier would've done. Additionally, all cantrips and spells would carry over under the current postings, so an Epic Sword bracelet would become an Epic One Handed Combat bracelet, as an example. 2) - The game would move from the current "race-based" system (which, currently, is so close to being class-based in that mages now made really need to be Empyrean/Undead) to a "loot-based" system where the difference in fighting comes more from the items themselves with the racial weapon augmentations being one reason to choose one race initially even though you can later swap that weapon type for another. Note: existing characters would be able to swap their weapon bonus augmentation for free once. What does this mean in the interim? ~Loot~ Any weapons you currently pull will either still be top-end (or near-about) for Sword and Bow. Any weapons you pull for War/Void/Two Handed will probably be at the same level come next patch. Any weapon not named in the first two lines will be considered under-powered compared to post-February but is little different than when a new wield req/tier is introduced. Any shields will be vastly different. Any armour/clothing/trinket/jewelry/aetheria/cloaks will retain their current use with spells/cantrips being renamed. ~Characters~ All races will be equal in terms of skill credits. All races will gain 2 extra skill credits (and 4 more, effectively, with arcane lore being the new "innate skill" like run and jump. All current players can swap their weapon bonus augmentation one time for free (new players will have to pay some kind of fee, probably luminance and/or MMD's). ~Quests~ Quest Weapons will be changed over most likely. So is it worth it to use MFK's? The majority of items you could acquire will still be in the top-tier of items with only some weapons being significantly lower but I must point out that they wouldn't be any less effective then as they are against things now, meaning that fire rend crossbow will still deal the same amount of damage post-February but you'll be able to grab better crossbows later. If all you want to do is loot weapons, you may want to hold off, unless all you keep are swords, wands, two-handed, and bows. Hunting and mixed loot chests will still yield things that will be very good after February and I can't see any reason to hold those Mhoire Treasury Chest Keys any longer than necessary. -----signature----- Taomagicdragon - Lvl 275 - Mage Ly'nette - 249 Archer, Shadow-light dragon - 221 Sword Loremaster of the Crimson Knights Sentinel of the Order of Perfect Light
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LaceTP Posts: 4,102 Registered: Jul 23, '06 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 4,097 User ID: 1,157,896	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	Overall I think it's good. Especially the racial skill changes. So many people are so opposed to change though. I do laugh at the nerd rage posts with people saying they will cancel their 9billion accounts. -----signature----- DT - Eveil DT - Foxwind I'm a Carebear, sup. Clan officer for Gabs Clan(Pirates of Dereth) Since the begining Lace-the-Pacebringer - 275(Sword/Life spec) ---- Djinn the Angel of Death - 275(War/MagicD)-Retired account-
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-Anomie- Posts: 10,993 Registered: Nov 12, '00 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 10,338 User ID: 54,195	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	Sounds good to me, though how it actually plays out remains to be seen. In any case, I wouldn't mind the extra skill points to use on other skills. Now if they would just do something with Person/Monster/Whatever Assesment (like delete them and give us all two more skill points )... -----signature----- Imowyn, level 14X bazooka Anomie, level 10X bazooka in training (still)
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AC4LifeXxX Posts: 464 Registered: Feb 27, '09 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 464 User ID: 1,349,805	Subject: Weapon Skills Update for February 2012.
	-Anomie- posted: Sounds good to me, though how it actually plays out remains to be seen. In any case, I wouldn't mind the extra skill points to use on other skills. Now if they would just do something with Person/Monster/Whatever Assesment (like delete them and give us all two more skill points )... They did give something to assess creature, and it is well worth the cost. edit: is there a day when the vnboards are actually working properly? -----signature----- (none)
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