Debate: Shouldn't Sorcs be the one getting nerfed?

[Geralt]

I've just read through the insanity that is happening within the Wizard community. And unfortunately I can't help compare and contrast this with the situation that Sorcerers are in. Sorcerer's during HSN and the past few years (from what I've been seeing) have gotten a metric ton of both combat and utility benefits across the board. There were no counter-balance to these additions as far as I can tell. With that being said, shouldn't the Sorcerer class really be getting a nerf? This is more a question for debate and not a statement of either or. Please, once you give an answer try to support it with something concise and thought out. Minimal flame on this somewhat controversial topic please.

[Taernath]

I think the issue with advocating a sorcerer nerf is that they were already nerfed very hard around the transition from GSIII to GSIV during Growing Pains. The changes to spells and lores they've received in recent years (all very good IMO) did a lot to alleviate lingering issues and make them interesting and fun again. I think removing or nerfing gains would just put sorcerers back at square one in the Bad Old Times.

[Tgo01]

Please, once you give an answer try to support it with something concise and thought out. Minimal flame on this somewhat controversial topic please.

You poor, foolish soul.

[Euler]

I don't really understand the need for nerfs at all.

Let us assume profession 'x' is over-powered.

Case 1. I am profession 'x'

Either I mind being OP or I don't

If I mind being overpowered I should change my build to not take advantage of the OP and I will be happy.
If I do not mind being OP then I am happy.

Case 2. I am not prof 'x'

Either is bothers me that 'x' is more powerful than my profession or it doesn't.

If I mind that 'x' is more powerful than I am then I should make a prof 'x' character and be happy.
If I don't mind 'x' is more powerful than I am then I am happy.


So, don't nerf, be happy.
I have fun playing underpowered characters. It is like playing on expert level. Plus, here is a little secret that I have discovered after capping and retiring several characters....






Watching text that says

"your short sword slices off a kobold's ear"

is not so different from watching text that says

"You shoot lightning fire with the heat of a million suns from your ebon tipped fingers and brutally incinerate the ear off of a dark lord storm ninja death knight"


At a meta level the only thing that makes the playing experience unique is your friends in the game, not gear.

[azim17]

What does all that even mean ^? Go fuck yourself Geralt.

[caelric]

I think the issue with advocating a sorcerer nerf is that they were already nerfed very hard around the transition from GSIII to GSIV during Growing Pains. The changes to spells and lores they've received in recent years (all very good IMO) did a lot to alleviate lingering issues and make them interesting and fun again. I think removing or nerfing gains would just put sorcerers back at square one in the Bad Old Times.

This. Sorcs got hit hard during the Growing Pains, and lasted until about 2012 before getting any dev. The recent HSN put sorcs close to wizards (at least where wizards are before the 506/515/519 nerfs), but I'd still say wizards are more powerful.

Regardless, I'm guessing by your recent join date, Geralt, you are either highly uninformed about GS history, or you are trolling. Or reading your first posts, you are originally from way back in the day (as are many, many of the posters here, including myself in the 93-96 timeframe), and only recently returned after having missed at least 10+ years (growing pains were 2003/2004, IIRC). Either way, why would you ask if a class needs a nerf, unless you are, in fact, trolling?

[Fallen]

There are aspects of sorcery which could be argued are overpowered. These would likely be Scroll Infusion, Evil Eye, Dark Catalyst, and possibly Implosion.

Scroll Infusion is a pain in the ass spell with the potential for insane defensive and utility based payoffs. I think a great many sorcerers don't bother with it at all because of the time, costs, and effort it takes to maintain a useful scroll collection. That's likely why it isn't seen as overpowered. The biggest nerf they could apply to Scroll Infusion is a buttload of roundtime to use it. If it took even longer to maintain a scroll collection, people would just say, "fuck it" and MA if they wanted to gain outside defensive spells.
Scroll Infusion can in part be seen as balanced because we are a class that cannot easily be given a full suite of buffs by receiving minor Elementals (401, 406, and 414) or Minor Spirituals (101, 102, 103, 107 (and 115 and 120 with MIU)). Every other class in the game can gain easy access to one set of these spells or another for a substantial boost. Sorcerers cannot, as we already are balanced around having 2 minor circles as a pure class.

For Evil Eye, I would suggest they up the no treasure kill to an endroll of 225. A lack of treasure is a strong disincentive to use a spell for regular hunting. Note that this spell cannot be used on multiple types of creatures, including all undead.
For Evil Eye to result in a kill which leaves treasure, an endroll of 201 is required. Since sorcerer TD on creatures is typically quite high, this is very difficult to achieve when hunting in a like-level scenario. This means that for a sorcerer to make use of this spell, they need to be heavily dedicated to overtraining in spell research, which means cutting out pretty much any significant training in secondary skills pre-cap.
The argument for the spell being unbalanced begins post-cap, and with the addition of enhancives. Far enough post cap, a sorcerer's TPs become less restrictive, and becoming fully 3x in spell research is far more feasible. Add in the ability to raise one's CS even further by using enhancives, and the ability to generate a 1-cast killing endroll becomes quite possible. Keep in mind that there are some creatures nearly immune to Evil Eye in late-end hunting ground, such as Ithzir, and that for a sorcerer to raise his Sorcerer CS, he needs to buff not 1, but 2 different stats to +20, double the effort of a Wizard or Cleric.

I personally don't see a need to nerf Dark Catalyst, as it doesn't work well on many creatures, namely Semis and Squares. If it were to see a nerf, I suppose they could lower the baseline crit power by 1 rank, and require 12 ranks in each lore to bring it back to where it was. They could also nerf the mana returns again, removing them entirely. The returns are small, but they add up over the course of a hunt.

Finally, Implosion. I should say Focused Implosion, as no one uses Open Implosion for regular hunting. As with Evil Eye, this spell is balanced by its distinct risk of resulting in a kill with no treasure. Attempts at balancing this spell should likely be focused upon increasing that aspect, though I suppose the reduced mana cost for the focused version could also be on the table.
Focused Implosion is also balanced by the need to train in 2x Spell Aim in order for it to be useful to any degree. This requirement used to be more than enough to justify the power of the spell, but with the recent inclusions of Disintegrate bolt, Balefire, and Web bolt, this argument loses some power. That being said, I would argue the vast majority of sorcerers do not bolt as their primary means of attack. Many look to Spell Aim as a place to save TPs for an already expensive to train class. For many, the risk to treasure and the possibility of having to cast the spell 2/3 times to get a kill removes it as a staple hunting choice.

As to whether Sorcerers deserve these changes and wizards don't deserve their nerfs, I would argue that every class has its somewhat overpowered aspects. I think some changes are in order for Rapid Fire and Immolation especially, but definitely not to the degree which are being carried out.

Haste needed the cooldown applied to other-cast scenarios, as pretty much every square class becomes unbalanced with 100% uptime of haste. Beyond that, a simple mana penalty for repeatedly putting up Haste would be fine.

Rapid Fire should have the ability to stack the durations removed, a small mana cost penalty attached to spell costs, a 1 second RT minimum, and a simple mana penalty for repeatedly putting it up.

I don't really consider the changes to Cone as too big of a nerf. If you want lightning you can either pick up the 10 ranks of lores in Water/Air, or just wait for the ability to set your attunement to lightning.

Immolate needed a nerf at high levels. It had an insane instant kill rate and put whatever it hit in 10 seconds of hard RT. Without seeing how it performs with a heavy lore investment I can't say how bad the nerfs are. However, as Wizards only have 415 as their other high level CS spell, it should remain considerably powerful, especially with a high investment of lores. The damage cycles should remain as they are, just lower the instant kill rate and lower the amount of RT it gives if not using evoke. As an aside, I can't believe they didn't do anything with Weapon Fire for wizards. They keep banging on about making them a CS class, then leave a nearly useless high level CS spell completely useless.

Just my .02.

[Viekn]

I don't really understand the need for nerfs at all.

Let us assume profession 'x' is over-powered.

Case 1. I am profession 'x'

Either I mind being OP or I don't

If I mind being overpowered I should change my build to not take advantage of the OP and I will be happy.
If I do not mind being OP then I am happy.

Case 2. I am not prof 'x'

Either is bothers me that 'x' is more powerful than my profession or it doesn't.

If I mind that 'x' is more powerful than I am then I should make a prof 'x' character and be happy.
If I don't mind 'x' is more powerful than I am then I am happy.


So, don't nerf, be happy.
I have fun playing underpowered characters. It is like playing on expert level. Plus, here is a little secret that I have discovered after capping and retiring several characters....






Watching text that says

"your short sword slices off a kobold's ear"

is not so different from watching text that says

"You shoot lightning fire with the heat of a million suns from your ebon tipped fingers and brutally incinerate the ear off of a dark lord storm ninja death knight"


At a meta level the only thing that makes the playing experience unique is your friends in the game, not gear.

The most fun I've had in this game has never centered around hunting or dominating critters in the field. It's always been spending time doing things with my friends in game or random interactions with GM controlled characters or NPC's.

[Cereal Killer]

I'm against nerfs, but the only thing I begrudge sorcs for is cross realms transport.

[Viekn]

I'm against nerfs, but the only thing I begrudge sorcs for is cross realms transport.

Absolutely agree with this. I don't think it needs to get nerfed, I think there needs to be a way for all players above a certain level to have the ability. I agree with not wanting to turn River's Rest, etc. into Wehnimer's Landing, which is why the ability to do this should be level based and set to a fairly high (50?) level, and include certain possible penalties like the current sorcerer ability does.

[drauz]

I've just read through the insanity that is happening within the Wizard community. And unfortunately I can't help compare and contrast this with the situation that Sorcerers are in. Sorcerer's during HSN and the past few years (from what I've been seeing) have gotten a metric ton of both combat and utility benefits across the board. There were no counter-balance to these additions as far as I can tell. With that being said, shouldn't the Sorcerer class really be getting a nerf? This is more a question for debate and not a statement of either or. Please, once you give an answer try to support it with something concise and thought out. Minimal flame on this somewhat controversial topic please.

If by combat benefit you mean making our spells usable, then yes we got some changes. There not being a "counter-balance" to improvements doesn't make it unjustified. Sorcerers needed these changes.

Maybe you should list why you think Sorcerers are OP other than I heard something. Please make your comment concise and thought out.

[Silvean]

Should sorcerers be nerfed? Maybe. I just destroy Nelemar and Duskruin without any problems. I'm all the time talking about how I fry (and sometimes saturate) in about 3 to 5 minutes or your pizza is free. And I do that shit self spelled. I have 1x a day items that I forget to use all the time.

I'm about to go to bed with a beautiful woman, so I'll have lay out some quick thoughts on why sorcerers should not be nerfed.

1. They were already nerfed around the time I first quit GS. Since the current wizard nerfs have been talked about for years, the gap between the two events is not as large as it seems and they can be read as belonging to the same context.

2. Our most powerful hunting spells for speed kills are: Evil Eye (717), Focused Implosion (720), and Dark Catalyst (719).

3. Evil Eye is compromised by only working on living creatures, destroying treasure, and requiring huge end rolls.

4. Implosion is compromised by destroying treasure. It's also heavily level dependent.

5. Dark Catalyst is compromised by only working on magical and squishy critters.

6. Maneuvers tear sorcerers apart. You can spend all of those TPs to get 1x CM, 2x Perception, and 1x PT -- it does not solve the problem.

7. The full badassness of CS requires 3x spell training and enhancives on the 2 most difficult stats to enhance.

8. The HSN additions to sorcerers did not add much power to sorcerers. Pestilence (716) is a good spell with some hunting functionality; remember it has to do its thing before I disable or kill a critter -- rare. HSN added some spell changes, lore benefits, and quality of life improvements: it's the quality of life stuff (like simplifying Animate Dead) that I like best.

9. Any bluster about sorcerers above comes with 10 million+ experience, once I had enough CM ranks and 3x spells to deal with Nelemar without breaking a sweat. It takes a lot of TPs to make all of the best sorcerer stuff happen.

10. More to the point really, where would a sorcerer nerf go? Take away Ensorcell (735)? Take away Planar Shift (740)? Take away Scroll Infusion (714)? Those are all great spells but there isn't anything unbalancing or wrong with them that I can see. And if the nerf needs to go toward sorcerer hunting abilities, you'd have to make me understand why. We're quick but other professions can be quick when played correctly. And, as noted above, every one of our best spells has some kind of limiting factor.

[Fallen]

Really, the only spell I could see receiving a nerf for sorcerers is Evil Eye. GMs don't like reliable 1-hit kill spells almost as much as they seem to dislike 100% uptime on powerful short duration utility/defensive spells.

Implosion is pretty unreliable at like level, and doesn't often leave treasure. Evil Eye *IS* reliable on certain creatures and does leave treasure. Like I said, if you absolutely need to be a dick, bump up the no-kill treasure to 225. It'd come off as pretty petty though, for the reasons Silvean spelled out in his post.

[Androidpk]

>I'm about to go to bed with a beautiful woman, so I'll have lay out some quick thoughts on why sorcerers should not be nerfed.

:lol:

[Jarvan]

I don't really understand the need for nerfs at all.

Let us assume profession 'x' is over-powered.

Case 1. I am profession 'x'

Either I mind being OP or I don't

If I mind being overpowered I should change my build to not take advantage of the OP and I will be happy.
If I do not mind being OP then I am happy.

Case 2. I am not prof 'x'

Either is bothers me that 'x' is more powerful than my profession or it doesn't.

If I mind that 'x' is more powerful than I am then I should make a prof 'x' character and be happy.
If I don't mind 'x' is more powerful than I am then I am happy.


So, don't nerf, be happy.
I have fun playing underpowered characters. It is like playing on expert level. Plus, here is a little secret that I have discovered after capping and retiring several characters....






Watching text that says

"your short sword slices off a kobold's ear"

is not so different from watching text that says

"You shoot lightning fire with the heat of a million suns from your ebon tipped fingers and brutally incinerate the ear off of a dark lord storm ninja death knight"


At a meta level the only thing that makes the playing experience unique is your friends in the game, not gear.

In a sense.. it's almost like saying...

"The NY Yankees spend 3 billion a year on players and always win the World Series"

"If I don't like the NY yankees always winning the world series, I should be a Yankee. If I don't mind them always winning, it doesn't matter"

The game really wouldn't be all that fun if 90% of the people played one class. That's why things are generally "Balanced".

Of course.. wizards will say they were balanced.. or even underpowered before this all started. But that's what ever class says as the bat is swinging at them.

[Fallen]

In a sense.. it's almost like saying...

"The NY Yankees spend 3 billion a year on players and always win the World Series"

"If I don't like the NY yankees always winning the world series, I should be a Yankee. If I don't mind them always winning, it doesn't matter"

The game really wouldn't be all that fun if 90% of the people played one class. That's why things are generally "Balanced".

Of course.. wizards will say they were balanced.. or even underpowered before this all started. But that's what ever class says as the bat is swinging at them.

A key difference is the Yankees compete in a league directly against other teams. No one competes against each other in GS. It doesn't really matter how overpowered one class is as long as no class is underpowered. That is why development time should be devoted to fixing any problems with classes well before they bother going around nerfing others.

YEARS of time preparing this lore review, and honestly a good number of wizards would rather they just left their class the fuck alone. That's not good use of what limited resources Simutronics has at their disposal.

[Luntz]

What does all that even mean ^? Go fuck yourself Geralt.

^

[Maerit]

In a sense.. it's almost like saying...

"The NY Yankees spend 3 billion a year on players and always win the World Series"

"If I don't like the NY yankees always winning the world series, I should be a Yankee. If I don't mind them always winning, it doesn't matter"

The game really wouldn't be all that fun if 90% of the people played one class. That's why things are generally "Balanced".

Of course.. wizards will say they were balanced.. or even underpowered before this all started. But that's what ever class says as the bat is swinging at them.

No, it's not like this at all because the primary difference between what you described and GS is that GS is not competitive.

I do not compete with other classes for spots in raids. I do not compete for loot or drops. I'm not competing with any other class to win prizes. The level of competition in GS is minimal. The only areas of competition are: 1. Group Hunting when you can't hit things fast enough to get XP and 2. Events like Duskruin where one class is better capable of maximizing the rewards from the event. At least from my perspective, GS is a Role-Playing game, not an E-Sport.

Which is why I believe there's zero reason to balance classes in this game for the sake of competition with other classes. If one class is better at hunting than another, so what? Just like there's zero reason to nerf various "creative" builds just because they fall outside of normal game design, unless they blatantly break areas of the game. If you want to be able to do something another class does, you should play that class!

The only reason the Devs should bother to "nerf" anything is to help support game design. If they want to release new hunting grounds, but one class will wreck it too easily due to a specific ability, then they might have to consider reducing the power of that ability (like how Rapid Fire was turned off for all but Wizards in Duskruin). In the end though, it isn't necessary to make classes "equal" or "balanced" in GS.

The only area of "fairness" that should be addressed is utility. From my perspective, they need to buff other classes to make it possible for everyone to have a utility that is both difficult and time-consuming that requires dedicated training to utilize and which is profitable.

Frankly, they should have never given Ensorcell to sorcerers. It should have been something Monks could do (and be called something different), and then they should have allowed Sorcerers to open cross-realm portals for a limited number of players based on training with a cooldown. This would give Sorcerers income (basically, pay a sorcerer instead of a chrono-mage) from cross-realm transportation and Scroll Infusion, and the value of the Monk class would be significantly improved. Paladins should be able to permanently sanctify weapons for others (but they should have something else also). This would give:

Wizards - Enchanting (and spellups)
Rogues - Locksmithing (they need something else)
Warriors - Armor Resists (crush, pierce, slash), sheath-making?
Rangers - Armor Resists (elemental), imbed making, foraging, skinning
Bards - Loresinging, Purification
Clerics - Raise Dead, Chrisms
Empaths - Healing (they should get something more also)
Sorcerers - Cross-realm travel, Scroll Infusion
Monks - Ensorcell-type ability
Paladin - Permanent Sanctify (they would also need something else, too niche)

The only "imbalance" the game suffers from is how popular any one class is over the others, and that imbalance doesn't generally cause the game to be any less fun or interesting.

[Buckwheet]

stuff

I agree with most of the stuff in this post. I have never understood the jealousy people throw around based on class.

I have zero fucks to give that Kerl with his billions of gear in scatter can obliterate anything with thrown weapons compared to my OHE based paladin.

I have zero fucks to give that someone has 10 thousand dollars to spend on Duskruin tickets to get ridiculous items.

As long as everyone has an equal chance to participate, I don't see what the issue is.

[Methais]

Nobody needs to be nerfed.

That said, if the bullshit happening to wizards right now represents the bar that GS wants set for combat, then pretty much everyone else would have to be nerfed if they wanted it to remain consistent across classes.

But much like the wizard nerfs, that would be extremely gay, minus the dudes banging other dudes part.

Geralt is probably some GM's troll account anyway.

[Warriorbird]

I don't think any of the spells needed nerfing from a game balance perspective. I understand the Rapid Fire and Haste nerfs for keep people addicted to Simu/increase RT/stop gaming Simucoins reasons and Immo because it was two much packed into one spell.

[Kronius]

Should sorcerers be nerfed? Maybe. I just destroy Nelemar and Duskruin without any problems. I'm all the time talking about how I fry (and sometimes saturate) in about 3 to 5 minutes or your pizza is free. And I do that shit self spelled. I have 1x a day items that I forget to use all the time.

I'm about to go to bed with a beautiful woman, so I'll have lay out some quick thoughts on why sorcerers should not be nerfed.

1. They were already nerfed around the time I first quit GS. Since the current wizard nerfs have been talked about for years, the gap between the two events is not as large as it seems and they can be read as belonging to the same context.

2. Our most powerful hunting spells for speed kills are: Evil Eye (717), Focused Implosion (720), and Dark Catalyst (719).

3. Evil Eye is compromised by only working on living creatures, destroying treasure, and requiring huge end rolls.

4. Implosion is compromised by destroying treasure. It's also heavily level dependent.

5. Dark Catalyst is compromised by only working on magical and squishy critters.

6. Maneuvers tear sorcerers apart. You can spend all of those TPs to get 1x CM, 2x Perception, and 1x PT -- it does not solve the problem.

7. The full badassness of CS requires 3x spell training and enhancives on the 2 most difficult stats to enhance.

8. The HSN additions to sorcerers did not add much power to sorcerers. Pestilence (716) is a good spell with some hunting functionality; remember it has to do its thing before I disable or kill a critter -- rare. HSN added some spell changes, lore benefits, and quality of life improvements: it's the quality of life stuff (like simplifying Animate Dead) that I like best.

9. Any bluster about sorcerers above comes with 10 million+ experience, once I had enough CM ranks and 3x spells to deal with Nelemar without breaking a sweat. It takes a lot of TPs to make all of the best sorcerer stuff happen.

10. More to the point really, where would a sorcerer nerf go? Take away Ensorcell (735)? Take away Planar Shift (740)? Take away Scroll Infusion (714)? Those are all great spells but there isn't anything unbalancing or wrong with them that I can see. And if the nerf needs to go toward sorcerer hunting abilities, you'd have to make me understand why. We're quick but other professions can be quick when played correctly. And, as noted above, every one of our best spells has some kind of limiting factor.

As always, Silvean dropping truth bombs all over the place. /endthread

[Astray]

I really want to meet the person and ask them why combat, which isn't the focal point in a RP MUD, needed to be slowed down. I get that being at Cap allows you to be a jerk but there's literally no PvP or CvC like ye olden days.

[Methais]

I really want to meet the person and ask them why combat, which isn't the focal point in a RP MUD, needed to be slowed down. I get that being at Cap allows you to be a jerk but there's literally no PvP or CvC like ye olden days.

Because Dave Whatley is retarded.

And yeah, he's the one calling it (I had to dig after they wouldn't tell us anything on the officials), and is apparently wanting to get more hands on with things, which will probably be a fucking disaster.

[Kembal]

Sorcerer nerf? Wha? No, they don't need one.

Empaths have a utility nerf already announced but unclear as to when it'll happen....Empaths on subscription accounts will have to link to patients for 15 seconds before being able to transfer wounds (just like F2P empaths have to link for 30 seconds now). I'd rather have stamina-based wound transfers than that. Linking will destroy field healing, which I think is one of our neatest abilities.

[audioserf]

Yeah the healing link stuff is the epitome of "more tedium, less fun" and there's no reason to do it. I agree with the "don't nerf anyone" theory, if someone is weak (ie Monks) bring them up to par, don't gut other powerful abilities. But I'm not a GM so I can't understand why the do what they do. I hope for their sake (financially) and our sake (enjoyment) that it ends up working out.

[Astray]

Because Dave Whatley is retarded.

And yeah, he's the one calling it (I had to dig after they wouldn't tell us anything on the officials), and is apparently wanting to get more hands on with things, which will probably be a fucking disaster.

I think the thing that upsets me the most is that deep down, this clown thinks he's doing the right thing. Like, "I slowed down combat. Now players have more time to interact with each other!" or some bullshit.

[audioserf]

More like "if we slow down combat, it'll take even LONGER to cap, and people will pay for even longer before growing bored from lack of post-cap game design and quitting"

[Methais]

Sorcerer nerf? Wha? No, they don't need one.

Empaths have a utility nerf already announced but unclear as to when it'll happen....Empaths on subscription accounts will have to link to patients for 15 seconds before being able to transfer wounds (just like F2P empaths have to link for 30 seconds now). I'd rather have stamina-based wound transfers than that. Linking will destroy field healing, which I think is one of our neatest abilities.

What's their justification for this dumbassery? Do they really think this is good for the game?

Will it just happen to coincide with some Simucoin store release that makes linking instant or something?

[Astray]

I hope everyone bitching about screen scroll enjoys bleeding to death while their empath links to them.

[Kembal]

What's their justification for this dumbassery? Do they really think this is good for the game?

Will it just happen to coincide with some Simucoin store release that makes linking instant or something?

This is Estild's post on 3/5:


As recently announced in the Free to Play (F2P) discussions, we're implementing a new feature for healing Empaths. You may now TOUCH <target> LINK to establish an Empathic Link with the target. For F2P Empaths without a Healing Pass, it takes 30 seconds to establish the link. For F2P Empaths with a Healing Pass or for non-F2P Empaths, it takes 15 seconds. While a link is established, it lasts for 3 minutes and no other Empath can transfer wounds from the target. An Empath may only have one link active at a time and each player can only be linked to one Empath at a time. The Empath or the target may UNLINK at anytime to end the link early.

F2P Empaths will be required to form an Empathic Link before they can transfer any wounds. This is optional and now live for any non-F2P Empaths. In the far future, this will be a requirement for all Empaths, but not until we implement and review a number of other things with healing. This feature has always been on my list to implement for a long while, but as a much broader project. It'll be some time before I get to the latter, but I did want to warn everyone now.

So no justification given, but apparently we're getting a review of healing as a whole when it happens.

I posted my stamina-based alternative at that time. (in summary: you can link and not pay stamina to transfer, or not link and pay stamina to transfer)

Just waiting to see where it goes. Won't be surprised if it generates a lot of pushback when it comes. Hopefully they'll have better messaging than how they handled this.

[Taernath]

What's their justification for this dumbassery? Do they really think this is good for the game?

Will it just happen to coincide with some Simucoin store release that makes linking instant or something?

The answer is in the post you quoted. It'll kill field healing (read: pocket empaths). There's also the patient limit, too.

[caelric]

I hope everyone bitching about screen scroll enjoys bleeding to death while their empath links to them.

Are there any retards bitching about empathy screen scroll? Are GS players that fucktarded? (Rhetorical question, I know the answer)

[Jarvan]

Actually, I would say that people are competing with each other in this game, not as much as in the past, but still they are.

Classes always have to be balanced, in any MMO. It's just how it is. Saying, "oh, it will be perfectly fine if one class can obliterate anything in 1 second all the time.. the other classes won't mind" is just stupid.

You also have to look at how different this game is to most other MMO's. How often in WoW can a paladin have access to most of the wizard spells? Or cleric spells? Yeah, there are buffs they may get, but they can't cast self buff spells from a scroll.

Lets face it, chars in this game WAY outclass critters. So much so it isn't even funny at the upper levels. Critters are based on self spelled and 4x gear. Now add in 20 mill exp above cap, and +50 weapon skill enhancives +40 stat enhancives, SK items, scroll and imbed spells outside their circles... gear that makes 4x look like -10x. Now let that person swing a claid in 1 second. Difference in a warrior's AS and the Wizard's is now meaningless... even better.. let that wizard cast a spell 20 times in that 1 second using a script.

Haste should have been changed back when they did away with haste 2, same with rapid fire. People wouldn't have bitched nearly as much.

But you know.. while we are on the subject of boosting classes instead of balancing with nerfs... I think Rangers should get auto 1 sec snipe times because they are rangers. Bards should be able to have zero spell failure, zero rt added, and zero CM penalty in any sonic armor, not just no mana loss, their spells should never fail at all, even in full plate with zero armor ranks I mean come on.. it's magic floating in the air... it should have no physical hindrance on someone. Paladins and clerics should naturally just be able to banish undead up to their level + a level per 5 points of wisdom and aura. Empaths shouldn't be able to hunt living things without losing their ability to heal for a set time... but if they do hunt living things all their attacks and spells should auto receive MCW due to their mastery of anatomy. Rogues should be able to steal loot from critters, and generally find more loot then anyone else. They should also get triple the ambush bonuses. Warriors should be able to forgo wearing armor like monks and get bonus DS and padding based on their armor training. They should also be able to triple train in weapon skills. Monks.. monks should be able to attack much much faster. Sorcs.. not really sure what more they need.

Yep... game would be totally fun with these things added.

Kinda like playing Civ V after editing the map so you have every possible resource in your starting area and 20 ancient ruins so you can get lots of gold and free tech.

[Kembal]

The answer is in the post you quoted. It'll kill field healing (read: pocket empaths). There's also the patient limit, too.

Do people have MA pocket empaths that actually tag along with them during a hunt? Most pocket empaths that I've seen sit somewhere safely and get tapped for healing.

[Methais]

The answer is in the post you quoted. It'll kill field healing (read: pocket empaths). There's also the patient limit, too.

Is field healing really that big of an issue for people who aren't MA'ing?

Are they really gonna force this on everyone else because of MA field healing?

If they weren't so stupid, they'd only make it require a link when you're outside of town in a non-sancted room if field healing was the reason.

Unfortunately though, they're stupid.

[Astray]

Are there any retards bitching about empathy screen scroll?

Yes.

[Jarvan]

They have this is DR and it works perfectly fine. High level empaths have just a few second link time.


also...


Thread: Debate: Shouldn't Sorcs be the one getting nerfed?
Nobody wants to play a game where they die on half their hunts. Critters always have to lose.

If critters always have to lose, why do you even hunt? Why not have all critters have just 1 HP and don't attack players. If there is no challenge, there is no game.

[audioserf]

Stuff and hyperbole

I agree with some of what you've said here. I think that the Band-Aid should have been pulled off on Haste and Rapid Fire back when Haste II got killed off. At the same time, we didn't have powerful scripting ie Lich at that time, and it's possible the GMs didn't imagine players being able to fire off 40 casts in one second at that time. I still think this entire thing could come down to 1) Make Rapid Fire self cast and 1 second minimum RT 2) make Haste Self Cast and 3) make both non-imbeddable. War Mages are a solid (and fun!) build, but not the ideal power build much past the mid point of the game (70ish). Leaving Haste as a class ability for Mages to mitigate a lot of RT would be a nice profession perk for mages, while removing the proliferation of Haste to all characters with little to no effort or investment.

What else is left that is truly OP? I don't think anyone can argue that 1030 is balanced. That spell is wild. But I'm also not clamoring for it to get nerfed because bards using 1030 to hunt doesn't negatively impact me in any way (well, if they use it as AOE and I get murdered, it does, but that's not what I'm getting at).

I also think that without every profession having at least one ability that you could argue is "OP", there's a bit less fun in the distinction among classes. You need that "woah" moment the first time you see a Paladin make a room kneel and then MStrike it into oblivion with an uncalled for AS. A THW Warrior using Berserk in a camp. The first time you see open 1030. The first time you see Wither cast through a Spirit Slayer. That stuff's just COOL. Bringing everyone down to an equal power level where it takes 3 minutes to kill one creature with plink spells and attrition melee... not so fun. At least, not to me.

[crb]

I'm against nerfs, but the only thing I begrudge sorcs for is cross realms transport.

You can take my chronomage coupon spell, really, take it.

[Taernath]

Is field healing really that big of an issue for people who aren't MA'ing?

Are they really gonna force this on everyone else because of MA field healing?

If they weren't so stupid, they'd only make it require a link when you're outside of town in a non-sancted room if field healing was the reason.

Unfortunately though, they're stupid.

Simu seems to have a habit of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Haste perceived to be too powerful? Nerf it across the board. Healing used for MAing? Nerf it across the board.

[Buckwheet]

Actually, I would say that people are competing with each other in this game, not as much as in the past, but still they are.

Classes always have to be balanced, in any MMO. It's just how it is. Saying, "oh, it will be perfectly fine if one class can obliterate anything in 1 second all the time.. the other classes won't mind" is just stupid.

You also have to look at how different this game is to most other MMO's. How often in WoW can a paladin have access to most of the wizard spells? Or cleric spells? Yeah, there are buffs they may get, but they can't cast self buff spells from a scroll.

Lets face it, chars in this game WAY outclass critters. So much so it isn't even funny at the upper levels. Critters are based on self spelled and 4x gear. Now add in 20 mill exp above cap, and +50 weapon skill enhancives +40 stat enhancives, SK items, scroll and imbed spells outside their circles... gear that makes 4x look like -10x. Now let that person swing a claid in 1 second. Difference in a warrior's AS and the Wizard's is now meaningless... even better.. let that wizard cast a spell 20 times in that 1 second using a script.

Haste should have been changed back when they did away with haste 2, same with rapid fire. People wouldn't have bitched nearly as much.

But you know.. while we are on the subject of boosting classes instead of balancing with nerfs... I think Rangers should get auto 1 sec snipe times because they are rangers. Bards should be able to have zero spell failure, zero rt added, and zero CM penalty in any sonic armor, not just no mana loss, their spells should never fail at all, even in full plate with zero armor ranks I mean come on.. it's magic floating in the air... it should have no physical hindrance on someone. Paladins and clerics should naturally just be able to banish undead up to their level + a level per 5 points of wisdom and aura. Empaths shouldn't be able to hunt living things without losing their ability to heal for a set time... but if they do hunt living things all their attacks and spells should auto receive MCW due to their mastery of anatomy. Rogues should be able to steal loot from critters, and generally find more loot then anyone else. They should also get triple the ambush bonuses. Warriors should be able to forgo wearing armor like monks and get bonus DS and padding based on their armor training. They should also be able to triple train in weapon skills. Monks.. monks should be able to attack much much faster. Sorcs.. not really sure what more they need.

Yep... game would be totally fun with these things added.

Kinda like playing Civ V after editing the map so you have every possible resource in your starting area and 20 ancient ruins so you can get lots of gold and free tech.

If you obtain all those things and the game isn't fun for you anymore...stop using them. All those things that you listed are, is goals. Nobody forces you to do it. If you don't want 20 million post cap xp or any of the trinkets run around and do something else or don't play.

I personally enjoy my 35m experience and being able to run around with open hands in offensive stance. Some ridiculously high percentage of the time I don't die. But if I walk in like that to a Grim camp I get obliterated. So I go back to OTF/Nelemar.

The thing about GS is that you can choose to compete however you want. You just seem to be hung up on competing with people/characters.

I give no fucks if Jarvan had 1 second sniping eye shots. It neither harms no helps my character or my play. I can't think of many situations in which the monster generation would be so lopsided that you could mow down rooms full of creatures, and have fun doing that, and getting any sort of benefit. I believe the requirement for having to absorb XP and the current treasure system would prevent any kind of impact to me.

So what if you could solo clear every warcamp in the game on a Saturday due to your epic epeen 1s eye shots. I am sure there are other people who have a 2-3 man team, or more, who are just as capable.

I mean jesus, when 60% of the total money produced from skinning was going to one person not a single person had a clue other than the GMs and when it was over there was almost nobody here who complained about the ensuing economy.

People put way too much importance on their existance or other people's in the game.

[Silvean]

You can take my chronomage coupon spell, really, take it.

But it's also a gold ring!

[Kembal]

Is field healing really that big of an issue for people who aren't MA'ing?

Are they really gonna force this on everyone else because of MA field healing?

If they weren't so stupid, they'd only make it require a link when you're outside of town in a non-sancted room if field healing was the reason.

Unfortunately though, they're stupid.

That'd nerf me in invasions. I kept an entire battle group from disintegrating at North Gate Saturday night, by healing wounds in the middle of fighting. (those eyeless red orcs were crazy hard.) Can't drop a sanct in that situation.

[crb]

To the OP of this thread, fuck you in your face you fucking fucker.

Sorcerers had it so fucking bad at one point the PM fucking apologized to us for FORGETTING we didn't get anything (ANYTHING) in the prior HSN (mid 00s). You know (or maybe you don't know) the corporate culture at Simu, an apology from them is a big deal, reserved for major fuckups.

In the mid 90s sorcerers were fucking nuts, critters had TDs of level*3 so get a high enough level and it was gravy train, then TDs changed, then every single sorcerer attack spell was nerfed, hard, and then nerfed again. Go find a log of "old DC" if you want to cry.

During the conversion to GS4 they had phased releases, phase 1, phase 2, etc. We were again left out of phases 1 and 2, except for the creation of 712, which was necessary for game balance because sorcerers didn't have a single professional defensive spell, NOT ONE. And they had to give us one to balance the game at all.

During these dark days we had FEWER IMPLEMENTED SPELLS THAN BARDS!!!!ONEONEONEONEone. Seriously, fewer spells than bards, how the fuck do you end up with that problem? Also during these dark days, and until only recently, sorcerers were the least popular profession as measured by WHO PROF of the original professions, and even when you counted paladins, often paladins beat us. (Wizards, by the way, still #1).

Then we're told, clearly, "componentry is the direction the game is going to, so we're going to add all this componentry shit to your spells, but its okay, because we're going to go out and add it to everyone else too." And paladins get ridiculous prep cast permanent kitchen sink item buffing spell 1625 with no components, clerics get swiss army knife (117 functions and counting!) 325 with no component (other than the object to be blessed, which I don't count as a component). Later on they add yet another runestone to scroll infusion (wtf?)

Meanwhile, as I've proven mathematically time and again, sorcerers get saddled with the highest training costs among all pures. The only pure profession that has 3 lores, the only pure profession with lores that affect only 1 circle, the only pure profession expected to pay 0/7 for a core lore (all others are 0/6) or lower. Having to pay 0/2 for scrolls despite being the supposed scroll profession. Having to pay more MTP per point of mana return than clerics or wizards*, having to achieve double the enhancives to boost cs*, getting raped on a couple alchemy formulas for similar reasons*, and having overall a lower TP ceiling that other pure professions because of a weird factoring issue that crops up when you have two prime stats and one of them is aura (or discipline, but no one has discipline).

*empaths also get fucked here.

But now, yes, you're right, we got some dev, finally. They cut my animate dead duration by 75%. DC is still shitty, and not as strong as the spells that ripped it off (1115, 519, 317) and oh ya, want to lore boost it? Train in 4 different lores. Da Fuck. We still have the highest component load. We still have the highest training costs. We still don't have access to a level 50 spell (clerics do, empaths do, wizards have one planned at least). And of course, it is fucking OFFICIAL SIMUTRONICS POLICY that minor circle spells are weaker than major circle spells, and we're the only pure without a major circle.

Okay, yes, we're REALLY REALLY GOOD at killing things 5-10 levels younger than us, and uncrittable things with high health, we have a coupon to get 50% off chronomage rides - as if my wizard doesn't have 500k in free rides thanks to cashing in gold rings...and finally, after 2 decades, we have utility benefits, something we can sell to other players.










Also yes balance matters. No one hunts in a vacuum, if one profession is super strong critters will be adjusted to deal with that superstrong profession, this puts less strong professions who also hunt said critter at a disadvantage.

[audioserf]

At some point in time they may wish to revisit the paradigm of balancing creatures for plain 4x gear, no society characters. That is a really nice idea when considering the brand new player with no "inherited" silver/gear, learning the game from scratch. But that concept breaks down hard at higher levels. If you make it to cap, you prooooooobably have accumulated enough silver for at least some 7x stuff, to say nothing of enhancives, and I'd reckon 999/1000 characters who cap are in a society of some sort. If we want to talk about giving critters more of a fighting chance, balancing them around better gear and society membership could be a part of that analysis.

[Kronius]

everything virilneus said

I was wondering when you'd chime in. Spot on, sir.

[Buckwheet]

Also yes balance matters. No one hunts in a vacuum, if one profession is super strong critters will be adjusted to deal with that superstrong profession, this puts less strong professions who also hunt said critter at a disadvantage.

This is the only thing you said I disagree with. You and I both hunt OTF well because ez. I don't hunt scatter because..hard. (For my play style and willingness to put in the gear costs.) But there are plenty of people who destroy scatter and I hear that high level bards can own scatter. I don't want to see scatter creatures turned up because of bards. I don't feel like the knowledge that bards can own scatter makes me wish I was a bard. I feel like trying to find out how I could own scatter and what it would take and then I might take the time to get the gear or experience needed to do the same.

I just think too many people are saying B b b b b but bards! Scatter! LOOK! and they just want it for free. I just feel like it has no impact on me.

[audioserf]

a detailed retelling of the horrors Sorcerers endured at the hands of GS3

And I think this is one reason wizards are so freaked out by the prospect of the Big 3 Nerfs. That's a large reduction of power all at once, and as of now, there's nothing (that has been communicated to players) coming down the pipe to make up for it. Nobody can say with a straight face that any of the ELR spell buffs have made a material difference to wizard hunting compared to 506, 515, 519.

[Silvean]

Just excerpting the higher TP cost bit of crb's post. I wonder what the rationale was? I sometimes think there was an intention to treat sorcery as more difficult to learn because the end result in terms of both RP and mechanical efficacy was going to be awesome. But the development never matched the setup.

Or, they had a notion that being the masters of mixing spiritual with elemental magic provides benefits and requires higher costs. That reasoning seems to be entirely IC with very few mechanical results. As was pointed out, having two minor circles kinda sucks.

I might as well add that lores generally suck and any addition that makes a lore attractive as a somewhat justifiable double or triple cap goal is better than nothing, e.g. elemental lores and DC. I think that's a legitimate way to look at sorcerer lore training and that's lame. As I've said before: lores sound cool, and they ought to be cool, and they're fucking expensive, but they're mostly pretty weak.

[Buckwheet]

And I think this is one reason wizards are so freaked out by the prospect of the Big 3 Nerfs. That's a large reduction of power all at once, and as of now, there's nothing (that has been communicated to players) coming down the pipe to make up for it. Nobody can say with a straight face that any of the ELR spell buffs have made a material difference to wizard hunting compared to 506, 515, 519.

QFT

[Fallen]

This thread is beginning to deliver.

[Buckwheet]

I always hate replying to a thread to just reply or go off topic but I remembered something amusing about my play style from my old sell out thread. I had listed tons of shit, some high end etc.

Donquix posted this:

Donquix
11-18-2013, 10:44 AM
My favorite is account 11.

1-10: LOOK AT AT THIS AMAZING SHIT. BLOWS YOUR MIND.

11: 32 million exp and 4x leathers. Deal with it.

11 was the account I kept as the primary account. So yeah, it gets the job done.

[caelric]

To the OP of this thread, fuck you in your face you fucking fucker.

Everything V said, and leaving the above in the quote because, well, because, I agree completely


V said it well, if a bit over the top.




Just excerpting the higher TP cost bit of crb's post. I wonder what the rationale was? I sometimes think there was an intention to treat sorcery as more difficult to learn because the end result in terms of both RP and mechanical efficacy was going to be awesome. But the development never matched the setup.

Or, they had a notion that being the masters of mixing spiritual with elemental magic provides benefits and requires higher costs. That reasoning seems to be entirely IC with very few mechanical results. As was pointed out, having two minor circles kinda sucks.

I might as well add that lores generally suck and any addition that makes a lore attractive as a somewhat justifiable double or triple cap goal is better than nothing, e.g. elemental lores and DC. I think that's a legitimate way to look at sorcerer lore training and that's lame. As I've said before: lores sound cool, and they ought to be cool, and they're fucking expensive, but they're mostly pretty weak.



And as a side note, the TP thing is a holdover from the old Rolemaster days, where sorcerers were 'hybrid' magic users that combined two realms. Of course, Empaths never had to deal with this, as they were originally pure spiritual users in GS3, as there was only spiritual and elemental back then. In RM, though empaths are hybrid spiritual/mental, and when we finally started to think there might be a third spell realm (mental), they did make empaths train in two mana control types. The obvious next move would be to give empaths minor mental and take away major spiritual, but that will likely never happen for a multitude of reasons.

Further on the side note: in RM, hybrid classes could access the major lists of the realms they knew, at a higher cost. Fuck yeah, give sorcs access to major spiritual and major elemental lists, at double the cost. I'd be all over that like white on chow mein... Game unbalancing, I agree. But if we are going to keep some relics from RM (higher lore costs and mana control costs for sorcs), lets keep them all. or do the fuck away with many of things V mentions. Do the same with empaths: give them minor mental, and then make major spiritual double cost, and if major mental ever is implemented (pipe dream), give that to empaths at double cost. Or, fuck it, make sorcs the ultimate hybrid, and give them minor mental.

Either way, no OP, sorcs do not need to be nerfed, again. As V said, GFY, and stop trolling.

[caelric]

And I think this is one reason wizards are so freaked out by the prospect of the Big 3 Nerfs. That's a large reduction of power all at once, and as of now, there's nothing (that has been communicated to players) coming down the pipe to make up for it. Nobody can say with a straight face that any of the ELR spell buffs have made a material difference to wizard hunting compared to 506, 515, 519.

But, but...the seed 10 % chance of getting slightly higher TD doesn't make up for that??????!!!!???

[Silvean]

A post.

Yeah, I was trying to get away with not using the word "hybrid." I can't say I was a big Rolemaster fan but I've played it tabletop and own some of the Shadow World books. It hasn't come up in a while, but I have a post somewhere where Silvean claims IC that there is no such thing as a mental sphere of magic, it's just a subset of elemental. This way it cannot be said that sorcerers are not, in fact, the masters of all magical spheres.

I doubt they'll open up training in more than 3 circles or that they are working on any meaningful post-cap development beyond hunting areas. I think I am most looking forward to Estild's couple of mentions of unique lore abilities for those who go to 150 to 200 ranks in a single lore. That would be cool and sorcerers would have access to more abilities for reasonable costs than other professions. Finally, being a hybrid would be a little more beneficial. Sadly, nothing indicates these lore abilities have moved beyond the "neat idea" stage.

[audioserf]

I don't see how you can give anyone the ability to train in a fourth spell circle without it becoming immediately massively unbalancing. Past a certain point, all you've GOT is excess exp/TPs. Kaedra walking around with self-cast 425, 430, 513, 712 up, throwing around Cone and Dark Catalyst? Yikes. Nevermind the balance issues of allowing more than one class to harness the true power of Stone Skin!

[Fallen]

Eh, I'd rather they allow more spell slots in the sorcerer circle than 1-20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 750.

It's very limiting not to have a major circle to draw on for high level spell slots. Sorcerers only have 750 left open, not counting the minors, which have to be balanced for all the other professions who have access.

[Archigeek]

I don't think sorcerers deserve a nerf. That said, it's worth remembering that wizards got the nerf big time on the utility side during growing pains/GS4 switch. Familiars, mage recharging, and enchant all got a haircut, while many other professions received pets/utility skills that are pretty good. So now, many years after suffering through that, they face a nerf to their three most powerful combat spells. Worst of it all is that the way this whole thing was presented was FUBAR. I'd say most of the anguish could have been avoided with a better implementation plan.

Also, I think some of the new sorc spells are pretty cool. Using them as an example of good improvements instead of pressing for nerfs might provide better results.

[caelric]

Yikes. Nevermind the balance issues of allowing more than one class to harness the true power of Stone Skin!

There's the problem. We need to nerf 520. Massively OP. Then we can give major elemental to sorcs...

[Kronius]

Yeah, I was trying to get away with not using the word "hybrid." I can't say I was a big Rolemaster fan but I've played it tabletop and own some of the Shadow World books. It hasn't come up in a while, but I have a post somewhere where Silvean claims IC that there is no such thing as a mental sphere of magic, it's just a subset of elemental. This way it cannot be said that sorcerers are not, in fact, the masters of all magical spheres.

I doubt they'll open up training in more than 3 circles or that they are working on any meaningful post-cap development beyond hunting areas. I think I am most looking forward to Estild's couple of mentions of unique lore abilities for those who go to 150 to 200 ranks in a single lore. That would be cool and sorcerers would have access to more abilities for reasonable costs than other professions. Finally, being a hybrid would be a little more beneficial. Sadly, nothing indicates these lore abilities have moved beyond the "neat idea" stage.

Wyrom or Estild, or maybe both, spoke about possible long term goals for the extremely capped. I'd love to see sorcs have the ability, to choose spells from the Major circles to research. The costs should be prohibitive, of course, to those with incredible amounts of XP, but it'd be a huge carrot to work towards.

Say for every 10M in experience you can research 1 major spell 1-25, 20M 25-50? Can you imagine a 20M+ sorcerer with 240?

[Methais]

But you know.. while we are on the subject of boosting classes instead of balancing with nerfs... I think Rangers should get auto 1 sec snipe times because they are rangers. Bards should be able to have zero spell failure, zero rt added, and zero CM penalty in any sonic armor, not just no mana loss, their spells should never fail at all, even in full plate with zero armor ranks I mean come on.. it's magic floating in the air... it should have no physical hindrance on someone. Paladins and clerics should naturally just be able to banish undead up to their level + a level per 5 points of wisdom and aura. Empaths shouldn't be able to hunt living things without losing their ability to heal for a set time... but if they do hunt living things all their attacks and spells should auto receive MCW due to their mastery of anatomy. Rogues should be able to steal loot from critters, and generally find more loot then anyone else. They should also get triple the ambush bonuses. Warriors should be able to forgo wearing armor like monks and get bonus DS and padding based on their armor training. They should also be able to triple train in weapon skills. Monks.. monks should be able to attack much much faster. Sorcs.. not really sure what more they need.

Sounds good to me. Only whiny little bitches care what other classes are able to do when it doesn't affect their own class.

[Methais]

we have a coupon to get 50% off chronomage rides - as if my wizard doesn't have 500k in free rides thanks to cashing in gold rings...

This 50% discount thing fails to take into account the part where you get charged 300k if you use the chronomage more than once every 3 days.

I'd probably trade enchant and charge item for a cross realm spell. I like to travel around to different towns and mix up my hunting, but I typically don't because I'm the travel system sucks, and by the time I get to say, OTF from Teras, I don't even care anymore and just log out.

I wish Simu would stop being dicks across the board when it come to cross realm travel and just let people go where they want when they want. The whole "realism" thing is about as relevant as people who think professional wrestling matches are real fights.

[subzero]

However, as Wizards only have 415 as their other high level CS spell... As an aside, I can't believe they didn't do anything with Weapon Fire for wizards. They keep banging on about making them a CS class, then leave a nearly useless high level CS spell completely useless.


They dropped the ball with 514, too, which I find rather amazing in light of their stance on immolate and wanting a better baseline for all weezards. Last I checked, Stone Fist was a lot worse than immolate even with heavy earth training.

[subzero]

Absolutely agree with this. I don't think it needs to get nerfed, I think there needs to be a way for all players above a certain level to have the ability. I agree with not wanting to turn River's Rest, etc. into Wehnimer's Landing, which is why the ability to do this should be level based and set to a fairly high (50?) level, and include certain possible penalties like the current sorcerer ability does.

No. Walk this idea of yours into a fire so that it dies.

[subzero]

That said, if the bullshit happening to wizards right now represents the bar that GS wants set for combat, then pretty much everyone else would have to be nerfed if they wanted it to remain consistent across classes.


Don't worry, they'll get there! Sorcerers were the first to be moved towards attrition-based combat. Now it's the Wizards' turn (I don't think this situation with the lore review is all that bad, but anyhow)! Who will be next? Empafs? Maybe they'll get moved to attrition and be made into a mental/spiritual hybrid at the same time.

[audioserf]

Nah empaths are GM darlings. I'm not worried about them. Clerics too.

[Maerit]

Don't worry, they'll get there! Sorcerers were the first to be moved towards attrition-based combat. Now it's the Wizards' turn (I don't think this situation with the lore review is all that bad, but anyhow)! Who will be next? Empafs? Maybe they'll get moved to attrition and be made into a mental/spiritual hybrid at the same time.

Actually, Empath's are getting moved to attrition based healing (links!). And if I were to guess a class next on the slate, which is again - stupid - it would probably be Bards. They've already threatened 1030, might threaten Tonis nerfs too if the haste change do ever go live.

[Fallen]

They dropped the ball with 514, too, which I find rather amazing in light of their stance on immolate and wanting a better baseline for all weezards. Last I checked, Stone Fist was a lot worse than immolate even with heavy earth training.

Stone Fist and Weapon Fire were seen as broke beyond the ELR's ability to fix. They should have tossed Ice Patch on there too, but eh. They didn't state it outright, but I think they count Boil Earth as outside that scope as well. It's fairly obvious due to the fact that 1. The spell sucks, and 2. It wasn't in any way helped during the ELR.

Sucks 409 wasn't helped either, but that wasn't for a lack of suggestions god damn it.

[Androidpk]

I'd love for 411 to work on enchanted items.

[subzero]

Stone Fist and Weapon Fire were seen as broke beyond the ELR's ability to fix. They should have tossed Ice Patch on there too, but eh. They didn't state it outright, but I think they count Boil Earth as outside that scope as well. It's fairly obvious due to the fact that 1. The spell sucks, and 2. It wasn't in any way helped during the ELR.

Sucks 409 wasn't helped either, but that wasn't for a lack of suggestions god damn it.

That makes sense. I figured at the very least they'd consider dropping the thresholds for the various commands with fist. Weapon fire and boil earth I tend to forget even exist because they're so useless, though.

[Fallen]

The Wizard Spell list has more dead weight than nearly every other spell list combined. You can't just point to wizard's overpowered spells and say, "Careful what you wish for" anymore either. People weren't wishing for crap and they still got nerfed to hell.

[audioserf]

Dead weight is a great way to describe a lot of the Wizard Base list. It would be nice to hear about a Wizard Spell Review to address that. They seem focused on nerfing the Power 3 spells, adding some damage-over-time party tricks to bolts, and calling it a day. Spells like Invisibility, Weapon Fire, Boil Earth, Wizard Shield, Familiar/Fam Gate (should be combined with Gate unlocked via lores) even Enchant (archaic design when compared with the excellent implementation of Ensorcell) all need some serious work. The actual bolts themselves would be better off consolidated rather than eating 75% of the spell list for various versions of the same effect.

[crb]

This is the only thing you said I disagree with. You and I both hunt OTF well because ez. I don't hunt scatter because..hard. (For my play style and willingness to put in the gear costs.) But there are plenty of people who destroy scatter and I hear that high level bards can own scatter. I don't want to see scatter creatures turned up because of bards. I don't feel like the knowledge that bards can own scatter makes me wish I was a bard. I feel like trying to find out how I could own scatter and what it would take and then I might take the time to get the gear or experience needed to do the same.

I just think too many people are saying B b b b b but bards! Scatter! LOOK! and they just want it for free. I just feel like it has no impact on me.

I don't hunt scatter because I have invested so much time and effort into being awesome through outside spells. I spent like 200m+ for my 1109 tattoo, can't use that in the scatter.

[crb]

Just excerpting the higher TP cost bit of crb's post. I wonder what the rationale was? I sometimes think there was an intention to treat sorcery as more difficult to learn because the end result in terms of both RP and mechanical efficacy was going to be awesome. But the development never matched the setup. .

You're assuming there was a rationale. They just didn't think things through, it happens. Lores were a brand new thing, and they sort of winged it. They thought

"Hmm, sorcery sorta needs its own lore."

"Okay, what a cool BENEFIT, sorcerers will totally love that. Their own private lore to modify their single professional circle."

"Ya, Bubba told me to put lore costs at 0/6 for pures, so stick 0/6 on it."

"Okay, done.. but they got minor elemental and minor spiritual too, going to need lores for those, but it doesn't make sense for them to be the same as sorcerer lore... what, 0/7?"

"Sounds like a plan. Some players were posting on the forum that we should make sure to do cost/benefit analysis on new mangler skills."

"What is a cost benefit analysis?"

"I don't know... lets go play Warcraft for awhile."

....

Wizards also have 0/4 for EMC whereas clerics have 0/3 for EMC. Which is BS, because clerics have the lowest physical training costs of all pures. I won't ask for clerics to be nerfed, as the golden children of GS4 I know that won't happen... but...

Wizards need to have their AS skill changed to 0/2 from 0/1, then EMC changed to 0/3 from 0/4 to make up for it.
Sorcerers need to have AS changed from 0/2 to 0/1 because scrolls.
Then they need to fucking fix sorcerer lore costs. I would like to see 0/3 for Sorcerer Lore, 0/6 for the other two. This still puts sorcerers at 0/15 for 1x, whereas wizards get 0/6, clerics get 0/6, and empaths 0/12. At the VERY FUCKING LEAST sorcerers should get 0/5, 0/6, 0/6. 0/6,0/7,0/7 is just insulting.

Then the TP formula change would be straightforward so sorcerers do not get penalized for being a hybrid with aura as a prime stat, but I don't hold out much hopes for them fixing that. It is at least 9th grade math to see the obvious issue and every time I've posted it they don't even acknowledge it....so I'm not sure they even realize it.

[Whirlin]

I agree with all of Viril's points... however, I've heard statements that they will not adjust TP costs of characters, due to lolcoding. Supposedly, it would cause a recalc operation that would likely crash the system, or cause substantial downtime. Remember when Thondalar and I got access to house paupers, and we basically crashed the server just by pulling the roster of all Paupers members? It'd be like that... but effect ALL Characters, be a couple dozen calculations, rather than just a name return, etc... And the Simu servers can't handle more than like... 2 operations at a time.

Here's a pic of their server room:

http://i.imgur.com/RdvdmoH.jpg

[Whirlin]

As you can tell from the behind the scenes picture, they're still trying to upgrade to CAT-5.

[audioserf]

Which one of those cats is responsible for the planned wizard nerfs, and can we feed it into an ATM like in American Psycho?

[crb]

This 50% discount thing fails to take into account the part where you get charged 300k if you use the chronomage more than once every 3 days.

I'd probably trade enchant and charge item for a cross realm spell. I like to travel around to different towns and mix up my hunting, but I typically don't because I'm the travel system sucks, and by the time I get to say, OTF from Teras, I don't even care anymore and just log out.

I wish Simu would stop being dicks across the board when it come to cross realm travel and just let people go where they want when they want. The whole "realism" thing is about as relevant as people who think professional wrestling matches are real fights.

I would make this trade

[Androidpk]

As you can tell from the behind the scenes picture, they're still trying to upgrade to CAT-5.

You mean CAT-6, they're already at 5.

[Astray]

Has Simu ever released the type of server they GS4 run off?

[Buckwheet]

There was some recent post on the officials about what they were going to upgrade to. The specs were..underwhelming.

[Parkbandit]

The whole "realism" thing is about as relevant as people who think professional wrestling matches are real fights.

Um.. if it wasn't real, you wouldn't break someone's nose.

http://insidepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/cenanosebroken3.jpg

John Cena would like a formal apology.

[Astray]

There was some recent post on the officials about what they were going to upgrade to. The specs were..underwhelming.

Another hampster? This one named Freckles?

[Velfi]

Has Simu ever released the type of server they GS4 run off?

They've only posted pictures.

http://i.imgur.com/qyBu5XT.jpg

[Astray]

In all seriousness, the game isn't (or shouldn't be) so hardware intense that they need a die-hard server. If that IS the case, what the hell is all the subscription money going to?

[Velfi]

In all seriousness, the game isn't (or shouldn't be) so hardware intense that they need a die-hard server. If that IS the case, what the hell is all the subscription money going to?

It isn't? Tell that to the invasions that bring the game to its knees on the reg.

[Whirlin]

In all seriousness, the game isn't (or shouldn't be) so hardware intense that they need a die-hard server. If that IS the case, what the hell is all the subscription money going to?
Awww... you must be new here.

[audioserf]

If that IS the case, what the hell is all the subscription money going to?

Failed mobile app games, primarily. GS feeds Simu's other endeavors; very little GS money finds its way back into GS.

[Astray]

It isn't? Tell that to the invasions that bring the game to its knees on the reg.

I guess, I just can't imagine this game being SO hardware intense that it requires a high-end server.


Awww... you must be new here.

I will cut your face.

[Androidpk]

It seems like the game would be data intensive with the number of players and critters and keeping track of everything going on at all times.

[Astray]

It seems like the game would be data intensive with the number of players and critters and keeping track of everything going on at all times.

I suppose so. But don't critters spawn when prompted to? A GM or player in their AO?

[Silvean]

>CRB argument about sorcerers having 3 different lores to train in at 0/6, 0/7, 0/7.

>He says, "I would like to see 0/3 for Sorcerer Lore, 0/6 for the other two. This still puts sorcerers at 0/15 for 1x, whereas wizards get 0/6, clerics get 0/6, and empaths 0/12."

This morning while showering (i.e. washing off this hot bod), I thought about ways you could counter this line of reasoning. I think the GMs would immediately say that a sorcerer is not expected or forced to train in elemental or spiritual lores, that they are post-cap opportunities. While this may be true from their point of view, it doesn't change the fact that sorcerous lore, the lore we are expected to train in, only modifies one circle.

Another way to come at this would be to argue that Necromancy, at least, is pretty powerful as far as lores go. I don't know if it is the best lore in the game but you end up with some decent benefits if you cap at 1x in just necro. It modifies 8 spells, a class ability, ensorcell flares, and rotflares. The modification to Pain (711) and the double ensorcell flares are especially powerful. So, even if it modifies just one circle, it does a hell of a job.

A third point is that you could view three separate lores modifying three separate circles as an opportunity for more power. It gives you 600 lore ranks with (ultimately) more latitude to focus in on individual circles and spells than any other profession. The problem with this reasoning is not so much that lore costs are jacked, it's that the lores themselves don't offer a payoff in the minor circles. You could fold this into an argument made by CRB (and others going back to Thalior) that having two minor circles is a disadvantage. Part of the problem, in fact, is that these minor circles have to be balanced across so many professions. You could justify better minor circle lore effects for sorcerers alone but they cannot be given to sorcerers alone unless (perhaps) it's decided that sorcerous lore should start modifying the two minor circles. There's an idea!

As things currently stand, going 2x in sorcerous lore or 1x in either elemental or spiritual lore is a postcap goal for sorcerers. For me, it's a goal best left for beyond double cap and that's saying something. The game would be more interesting, it would be better, if there were more hard choices to make between the two sorcerous lores and among all of the lores available to sorcerers overall.

[Methais]

I would make this trade

That's only because you never leave easymode OTF. :p

[Silvean]

Of course, you could buy 89 regular chronomage spheres and 20 rush tickets for a total $100 in simucoins as well. Seems like that would hold you for a while on top of gold ring passes and whatever else.

[Archigeek]

I think anyone should be able to train in as many different lores as they want: 2x for pures, 1x for squares, semi's get a big fuck you and only get to train in three lores, because OP. No seriously though, I don't care what semi's get. I do think though that lores aren't so powerful that it would hurt anything if someone with enough TP's trained to the max in all of them. Might as well give them something to train in at that point.

[crb]

>

Another way to come at this would be to argue that Necromancy, at least, is pretty powerful as far as lores go. I don't know if it is the best lore in the game but you end up with some decent benefits if you cap at 1x in just necro. It modifies 8 spells, a class ability, ensorcell flares, and rotflares. The modification to Pain (711) and the double ensorcell flares are especially powerful. So, even if it modifies just one circle, it does a hell of a job.

It is nearly impossible to to compare relative effectiveness of a lore subtype across professions or spell circles. If I wanted to bother (I don't much, not right now) I could show many other examples. Things also do not exist in a vacuum, in that pain is a pretty cool spell without necromancy, you're letting the spell's base functionality influence you, additionally there are varying expectations for training in various closed spell circles which affect their lore based bonuses.




A third point is that you could view three separate lores modifying three separate circles as an opportunity for more power. It gives you 600 lore ranks with (ultimately) more latitude to focus in on individual circles and spells than any other profession.

Power? No. Latitude? Somewhat, debatable. Coming in at triple the cost.


You could fold this into an argument made by CRB (and others going back to Thalior) that having two minor circles is a disadvantage.

Not argument, not opinion, stated official simu policy. Minor circles are intended to be the weakest spell circles in game.




Part of the problem, in fact, is that these minor circles have to be balanced across so many professions. You could justify better minor circle lore effects for sorcerers alone but they cannot be given to sorcerers alone unless (perhaps) it's decided that sorcerous lore should start modifying the two minor circles. There's an idea!

Ya, we've been asking since GS4 started.

The problem with shared circles is you must balance training expectations across multiple professions. Bards are expected to get elemental lore (mostly air) wizards are expected to 1-2x elemental lores in varying amounts. So then take sorcerers. If the spells are designed with lore thresholds to gain power at high lore amounts, sorcerers are expected to train in elemental lore, and if that is so, then our TP costs are outrageous.

Same thing with spiritual lore.

We're sharing these spells, which are officially as per simu's policy weak spells, with professions that have an easier time accessing their lore benefits, that puts us at a decided disadvantage for 2/3rds of our known spells.

[caelric]

Failed mobile app games, primarily. GS feeds Simu's other endeavors; very little GS money finds its way back into GS.

And Whatley's coke habit. Can't forget that. Or has he moved on to other drugs? I mean, coke is an 80's thing, GS is at best, a 90's game, what were the drugs of choice in the 90's?

[Whirlin]

And Whatley's coke habit. Can't forget that. Or has he moved on to other drugs? I mean, coke is an 80's thing, GS is at best, a 90's game, what were the drugs of choice in the 90's?
Pills?

[Androidpk]

Gemstone has existed since at least 1987.

[audioserf]

Big Homie Dave Whatley's for sure popping Quaaludes.

[caelric]

Gemstone has existed since at least 1987.

Yeah, but GS1 was internal, GS2 was shorter lived, and the characters did not transfer over. GS3 has maintained the same character base into the GS4 transition.

[Androidpk]

Pills?

I'd say heroin, ecstasy, crystal meth.

[Silvean]

Alright, CRB, we let sorcerous lore modify the minor circles and then instead of Locate Person, we can have EVIL LOCATE PERSON. Instead of Magic Item Creation we have CURSED MAGIC ITEM CREATION. Letting sorcerous lore modify the minor circles a little is pretty sensible actually but I doubt we'll see that happen.

I think Whatley is into making movies now. A lot of people I know with money get into that.

[Wrathbringer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW7dJDuJQKc

Next step is facial tats.

http://richwny15.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Gucci-Mane.jpg

Then ?????

Then ROB FORD

http://i.imgur.com/dlkcXpj.gif

Then profit!!!!!!!

http://cdn3.everythingzoomer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/rob_ford_1.jpg.size_.xxlarge.promo_-610x408.jpg

What a retarded post.

[Warriorbird]

What a retarded post.

It'd help if you could actually appreciate the similarities in appearance (and love of drugs) that David Whatley, Gucci Mane, and Rob Ford possess but that'd be asking you to be culturally informed.

[Geralt]

Been looking over the shoulder of my sorc buddy, fully capped go into OTF, Rift etc. I'm beginning to lean back to the side of wizards should being nerfed. But I think both Wizards and Sorcerers and now Bards are both very OP compared to say any of the square classes.

BTW, to the 300 negative reps I got just from this thread I say to you all...

http://www.joblo.com/newsimages1/thanos-iamge-2-8-8.jpg

[Silvean]

Things also do not exist in a vacuum, in that pain is a pretty cool spell without necromancy, you're letting the spell's base functionality influence you, additionally there are varying expectations for training in various closed spell circles which affect their lore based bonuses.

A problem with Pain (711) is that its RT is our best defense against the maneuvers of certain unstunnable critters. If you can't achieve a high enough end roll to put the creature in more than 3 seconds of RT without the necro lore, then having a significant amount of necro lore may be the only way to avoid more deaths in certain hunting areas, e.g. greater water elementals or the scatter. It may be the case that necro lore is more important than I previously thought -- it could be essential to reliable hunting success with postcap critters.