[X] My Assistant

People grind exactly how much they want. The only way to reduce "grinding and tedium" would be to introduce hard limits to how much you can do just that.

Still here Tenb? I think I shouldn't have mixed grinding + tedium together for that question since they are a bit different. So I'll split them up:

Tedium:
Any plans on making the game "faster"? Like less real-life motions (not sure how to phrase it but..) here's an example: Instead of making a user press different buttons to cycle spells, how does making it so that if you cast an offensive spell that is on cooldown, it will automatically switch to the next strongest available? Does that sound acceptable to you?
I don't think that's too much to ask for since there's no strategy or thought process involved in spell cycling anyway: It just follows a flowchart of "Use T3, if on cd, Use T2, if on cd, use T1"
(or maybe there's already a script that does this, somebody let me know if there is one)

Or less real-time limits too: like with the guys who used to be able to do more than 4/actions per sec.
I can see it balancing the gap between those in Europe and other parts of the world, but having an artificial limit placed on game speed is just that: added tedium.


As for grinding:
Will you indeed set hard limits? Like 1000 rounds a day in GF? Although I can already see the multiple account problem coming up... I can feel the answer is already a no. Maybe the previously suggested 1000 rounds per GF run would be much better.

I don't measure region, but looking at time, staff usage is very even throughout the day, varying from ~46% during Asian prime hours to ~51% during US prime hours.
People grind exactly how much they want. The only way to reduce "grinding and tedium" would be to introduce hard limits to how much you can do just that.

Well, I guess the logical explanation here is that people can't switch styles. Even though it's way easy to get a decent set of melee items, most people can't afford to. Did the numbers change much from pre-patch?

As for grinding and tedium, well, number of turns/round is a pretty good indicator for tedium. Another good indicator for tedium is how much thought has to be put into the game while playing. The more turns + more thoughts needed, the more tedious it is.

And maging right now is way more tedious than it was last patch. And more restrictive plus less rewarding as well.

And also, prof is way too useless. Before this patch, it was good. It provided constant damage, so by wearing an optimal setup (3phase/2gossamers or 4phase/1gossamer or prof staff/5 phase), you maximize your damage output, due to cross multiplying. Now, at best prof doubles your damage (highly unlikely), and at worst barely increases your damage. The resist thing is dubious at best, since it is multiplicative, so you'll always get resisted anyway.

The new phases are nice in theory, however in reality the majority of decent mages won't be moving away from their current setup. The reason being it's too difficult to obtain the new prefixes in a reasonable time frame, and by that I mean within my lifetime. I still don't have any magnificent/legendary frugal/charged pieces in my setup.

Now I know I'm asking a lot when mentioning magnificent/legendary nice prefix phases of heimdall, but you have to understand that's about the only option that can be considered an upgrade, if not an equal. Everything else you throw at us will be deemed a downgrade, which is not incorrect. And nobody likes to downgrade their gear.

EDIT: Another thing I want to mention in regard to staff usage. I think the WTS/WTB prices is a pretty good indicator for how strong a style is. Bindings of Slaughter haven't really drop in prices much, while any mage stuff plummeted in price. Crystalized Phazon used to cost the same as a Binding of Slaughter while being much rarer last patch, now costs 1/4th of a Binding of Slaughter. HG Cloth and HG Wood costs the same as HG Metals, while being rarer as well.

Don't mix up the means with the ends.

Prioritizing and targeting the thoughest threats turn by turn, before they bring you down, IS a strategy.

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) I never knew you had to target the toughest monster as a melee. If anything you don't target them, since they can't parry domino (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Even for shade DW, I doubt many people go anything other than 111111111112222222223333333344444444555555566666667777778888888999999 (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Same with 1H.

This post has been edited by ChosenUno: Jun 5 2013, 13:38

Tenboro: talked a bit with buktore on irc, I think either range limit or CD limit has to go. CD adds little strategy(not none but less) when there are already mana costs to balance around and range, while it adds more, would enable to have an usage for doing arenas on normal.
But if staff usage is so high, what was it pre-patch?

Don't mix up the means with the ends.

Prioritizing and targeting the thoughest threats turn by turn, before they bring you down, IS a strategy.

So did mage, even on normal - always choosing the worst target. For iwbth, hey, having that cooldown on cure would have been deadly with old damage.

But as buktore says, such comparisons are completely pointless to the discussion.

As for grinding and tedium, well, number of turns/round is a pretty good indicator for tedium. Another good indicator for tedium is how much thought has to be put into the game while playing. The more turns + more thoughts needed, the more tedious it is.

And maging right now is way more tedious than it was last patch. And more restrictive plus less rewarding as well.

Disagree on this point. More thought may be slower but not less tedious, rather the opposite. In fact, maging is now easier that pre-patch in thought needed, since you need to pay less attention to your health and selecting the highest spell available is less thought-provoking than, say, selecting which mob to hit with 2x damage or whether to hit worst mob or hit coalesced mana.

This post has been edited by Lement: Jun 5 2013, 13:49

Besides, it was not the driving reason for the morale/hunger system, but it was a factor.

I'm curious as to what the driving reason was.

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) I never knew you had to target the toughest monster as a melee.

Now you do.

Even for shade DW, I doubt many people go anything other than 111111111112222222223333333344444444555555566666667777778888888999999 (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Same with 1H.

That's simply unrealistic, and I'll leave it at that.

Well, I guess the logical explanation here is that people can't switch styles. Even though it's way easy to get a decent set of melee items, most people can't afford to. Did the numbers change much from pre-patch?

False. Right after the patch, the mage usage plummeted, but the number of battles fought did not. Which indicates that they were indeed able to switch their style. After the post-patch corrections that were grounded in the data I could read from the system, the situation was reversed, and mage is about at the same level as it used to.

As for grinding and tedium, well, number of turns/round is a pretty good indicator for tedium. Another good indicator for tedium is how much thought has to be put into the game while playing. The more turns + more thoughts needed, the more tedious it is.

So mindlessly getting more stuff faster = not tedious. Gotcha.

I'm curious as to what the driving reason was.

People creating massive personal armies of PL 25 trash mobs for no purpose other than farming materials.

Post patch: Mage cannot switch and stop playing
Post correction: Mage come back

that's it. You did not address the switching constraints.

For old players, there are 3 constraints to switch:
Equipments: equips are significant investment, with the low credit income, its hard to change the gears
stat points: almost irreversible for the daily limit
ability tree: time consuming to do so

You may focus on new players choice and switching pattern of old players.

False. Right after the patch, the mage usage plummeted, but the number of battles fought did not. Which indicates that they were indeed able to switch their style. After the post-patch corrections that were grounded in the data I could read from the system, the situation was reversed, and mage is about at the same level as it used to.

I never stopped maging. I just use the odd health pot nowadays when I cop spastic damge.

People creating massive personal armies of PL 25 trash mobs for no purpose other than farming materials.

So before the patch, a PL 25 monster had the mat farming capability of a PL 250+ monster? Now I kinda feel stupid for getting 30 monsters to 250+ (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Don't mix up the means with the ends.

Prioritizing and targeting the thoughest threats turn by turn, before they bring you down, IS a strategy.

You can do it the other way around too. Look at the hp of monsters at the start of the battle and finish the weak ones to overcharge, then hit with spirit stance or skills the strong ones and keep watching out your status and spells. Of course you can hit the strongest one with skills just right out of the bat if you're ready. There are always some monsters who deserve to die first

But you could say, in normal or hard difficulty the 1234567890 is quite valid as strategy (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

So before the patch, a PL 25 monster had the mat farming capability of a PL 250+ monster? Now I kinda feel stupid for getting 30 monsters to 250+ (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

It was more about quantity over quality. 10 lowbies beats 1 decent in the long-term (I'm just guessing at the ratio here but you get the idea).

So before the patch, a PL 25 monster had the mat farming capability of a PL 250+ monster? Now I kinda feel stupid for getting 30 monsters to 250+ (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

I think the major factor between high PL and low PL monsters are that high PL monsters could drop High Grade mats. I'm not sure if PL affecting the drop rate of bindings, which were what people were more interested in.

I'm not sure if PL affecting the drop rate of bindings, which were what people were more interested in.

It did, it doesn't anymore though.

Quick question, what is the default battle items you can carry now? (I'm seeing six, plus one infusion and one scroll slot)

I only asked 'cause I trained Pack Rat before the upgrade so I want to know if I'm missing a slot or something.

This post has been edited by Jigsy: Jun 5 2013, 16:07

Quick question, what is the default battle items you can carry now? (I'm seeing six, plus one infusion and one scroll slot)

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Character_Menu#Battle_Items

A few things I would like see changed:

1. Remove the pots from the ability page...... A potion should be just a potion, not an Ability, especially not a Major one at that (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

2. Un-nerf the Arcane Focus spell, so it's not so much a "Girl Slap" spell .... it's tough to cast for 234 Mana points just to have to re-cast Spark or cast a Cure immediately after (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

3. Add Ether Tap to the Supportive Abilities to increase the duration or make Drain a multiple target spell with
an increase of either or both Ether / Spirit Theft duration

I'm not looking for the one shot, one kill spell or the 4 figure credit drops, just a even chance to play HV on a reasonable difficulty level without having my fanny handed to me every round or so

Hat in hand Mage (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I might as well make tons of heavy/light melee accounts and spam the server, since it seems like objective statistics are all that matter.

I do understand that they are one of the most objective ways of seeing whether mage/melee is "playable" by looking at their popularity.However, there may be many other factors as suggested by Rei-tenshi or Uno, e.g. ping, cost of changing etc.

I look forward to CD/range changes for the better.

This post has been edited by cirrux: Jun 5 2013, 16:26

I tried to switch from mage to melee but my proficiencies for melee are way behind and I've spent the last X number of years collecting mage gear.

I was one of those that popped over to melee early and then eventually switched back to mage. Partly because the post patch fixes made mages more tolerable, partly because I cant melee effectively anyways.

Mages are definitely in a better place now then when the patch hit but I'm not sure usage statistics are the only metric for mage / melee balance....


On that note, I would really like ap distributions tied to equipment sets so I can switch to my melee set for testing / prof leveling without having to reset the entire ability tree from my mage set. Why not let people switch fluidly between styles? I already have almost 60 points trained in ap and I cant even max out one style, much less have the ap for specing two styles at once.

Even for shade DW, I doubt many people go anything other than 111111111112222222223333333344444444555555566666667777778888888999999 (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Same with 1H.

It doesn't sound like you've ever played a schoolgirl marathon with dw/shade, or if you did, you weren't using the most time efficient method.

It doesn't sound like you've ever played a schoolgirl marathon with dw/shade, or if you did, you weren't using the most time efficient method.

I'm not insane enough to play a schoolgirl marathon with DW (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I did play with 2H full slaughter, though. It was mostly 5555555555555553333333333333333338888888888888 oh everything but girls died spam cleave on spirit stance with PA. This was during the 2x HP era.

Took 1 hour on BT, close to 3 hours on IWBTH (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Took 1 hour on BT, close to 3 hours on IWBTH (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

That doesn't make sense to me and kind of makes me never want to do that ever solely due to the time investment.