Posts made by MidniteArrow

It would be nice if the recipe tooltip showed how many of that recipe were currently known.

Make Durability Matter Again

Ok, joking aside, there is a huge grind in this game to be a great across-the-board crafter. And there is little benefit. There is some, and it matters, but the community seems to feel like item quality just isn't important, not important enough to justify worrying about.

An Orange item needs to be much better than a White.

My preferred way to address this is to limit the enchantability:
White: not enchantable
Green: +1 max
Blue: +2 max
Purple: +3 max
Orange: +4 max

I'd also like to see some level of durability increase return, without losing the current performance bonuses. There should be a reason dedicated crafters are important.

My knight+longsword+shield build has no problem soloing. We should expect some people to see it as a step backward, and some to see it as a step forward, because that is how a balancing patch should feel. If you were OP before, you see a decrease in power, and if you were UP before, you see an increase in power.

If there are entire segments of builds (i.e.: mage) that are not viable as solo, that should be fixed.

But "most people's build got weaker" is exactly what should be expected, because most people choose the OP builds.

We need things worth fighting for more than we need to balance fighting.

@spoletta I agree. If that's changed, I'll just wait until it expires to re-cast, which does slow down the healing by about 50%. But the healing will still be there in some capacity.

Can't test ATM, but something kept me from doing this in-game previously, and I assumed it was combat (since I was in combat at the time). Everything in the expanded action list (arrow on the action bar) was grey.

@spoletta It kind of has to in some capacity though.

If it is not up and you have 2000/2000 HP (with 25 CHA), inspire will take you to 2400/2400 HP. Are you saying that it should take you from 2000/2000 to 2000/2400?

@spoletta You can't change your abilities mid-fight. Meaning I can't use second wind and then replace it on my bar with a shout, pulling it back in a minute later. Combat prevents that AFAIK. This is a good thing.

@spoletta and if that is broken, we could make action bar changes mid-fight. Which would be really bad.

@MrErad This thread has really become two different ones.

2h vs 1h+shield
ability restriction by weapon

When it comes to the second, I'm not trying to make any statement about staves specifically. I think every weapon should be tied to a school. But I'm not saying that to use cryomancy you have to use an ice staff. Maybe there's some other mechanic for tying your weapon to ice. Maybe every weapon should tie to 2 schools (like an ice rapier would enable swordsmanship and cryomancy). I don't know. All I'm really saying is that we shouldn't enable the entire set of magic schools at once.

When it comes to the first - I just think adding defense should come at some cost. This is done already for the mace school. Not sure why we wouldn't do it for cryomancy. Choosing a 2-h cryomancy weapon should make you do more damage than a 1-h cryomancy weapon. Right now, it doesn't, because a scimitar/mace let you cast everything in the spellbook. Part of that is no school restriction. Part of that is no 2h restriction within a school. Adding 2h restrictions within the magic schools would make staves more powerful.

Both of those are done and done well IMO for the melee schools.

@spoletta I'm just applying the logic across the board. If the CD/movement penalty from a shield is sufficient for cryomancy, it should be sufficient for mace fighting as well.

@spoletta If CD and movement are an effective mechanic, then then none of the melee schools should have a 2h requirement.

@MrErad said in Ability Variation and Restriction:

Taking a melee weapon + shield is better as a caster. You get a slight cooldown increase but gain resistance across the board still keep your damage amount depending on the weapon made.

This is a huge part of what is broken. Adding a shield should always drop your DPS. It doesn't because the "best abilities require 2h weapons" that applies to melee schools does not apply to magic schools.

@spoletta exactly.

@spoletta are we going to do the same thing with melee? Make a sword give you +20% for sword skills, but still let a sword use all the mace abilities?

I have experience playing a tank in this game but no real experience with light/medium armor builds. From that perspective, the ability tree seems pretty broken.

What I see for heavy armor users seems pretty nice. Your armor choice narrows the tree. Your weapon choice narrows the tree. There are options, mostly built around the weapon you use, and you can get access to more abilities, but play is going to be more complicated, requiring weapon-switching during combat to enable different abilities. I ran that build in PVP and it seemed to work well. Shield charge + sword heavy ability, switch to 2h-hammer for hammer heavy ability, switch to 2h-axe for axe heavy ability, switch back to shield for defense and cooldown.

But from what I can tell, the other builds don't have these problems. Some abilities require light armor. Most require light/medium. None require medium. None require heavy.

The magic schools also don't work like the weapon schools, but they probably should. Split Earth is great, but you can't use it with a sword, because it requires a hammer. You can't use it with a mace, because it requires a 2-handed weapon. Magic schools should be the same way. Everything in Cryomancy should require an ice weapon. The strongest things in Cryomancy should require a 2-handed ice weapon. Want a fire/ice build? No problem, equip a fire weapon and an ice weapon, and weapon-switch to cast abilities. Want to mix 3 schools? No problem, add a 3rd weapon. Want to mix 4? No. Just like melee can't. Want a block chance and more defense from a shield? No problem, but you'll give up the higher-effect abilities to do so (and gain access to shield-requiring abilities).

More defense should always pair with less offense. Flexibility should come with a cost. Every set of choices (armor, weapon, off-hand, jewelry) should somewhat equivalently narrow the ability tree.

@LordSkykal The resistances drew me to knight armor, not the passive. But my biggest issue with it is the lack of unique abilities. Nothing requires heavy armor. A more balanced set of armor requirements for abilities would drive a lot of variation in armor choice.

I'm going to make a dedicated post for this since it is related, but also a little bit its own thing.

@GamerSeuss PFO had a single character per account, kinda, and I had much more of an identity in that game than I do here. The more I play this game, the more I miss that one. [Pathfinder Online]

But it failed miserably. It was too hard to play and never reached critical mass. Sandbox without a lot of players, there's just nothing important to do.

I like the "let's just make sure the player got notified" approach. The stuff staying seems good too. Maybe we could just leave everything even if it does change hands and have an auction, with the city getting the proceeds.

The ability to save/restore at a different plot enables a player to move plots which shouldn't be allowed IMO. I'd rather that not get implemented, even though it would make my life easier. It will make people less tied to the local city and make losing that city less of a big deal.

@GamerSeuss generalist characters won't have specialty dump stats, specialist characters will. A team of specialist characters will likely beat a team of generalist characters, because the generalist characters will have spent resources on capabilities that are not helpful in the current situation.

I think it is perfectly fine if you don't want your characters to have dump stats. But we should stop short of telling everyone how to manage their characters. I certainly have never approached this game from a "one active character" perspective. I've got my town manager/crafter, my PvE gatherer, and my two PvP support. None of them are generalists. They all excel at what they do, and they all have dump stats.