Naijin no longer on staff

[drumpel]

The change from GS3 to GSIV was to remove some of the headaches that were in place such as the open level system and classes having access to so many outside circle spells. They had troubles designing new hunting areas due to having to take so much of this into consideration.

GSIV introduced a cap to level (100) and a restructuring of spell circle availability. A good amount of spells were changed to self cast and some were changed to situational spells (919 and 140 are great examples). With these things in place, the idea was they could design more hunting areas for high level because they didn't have to worry about uncapped AS/DS/TD/CS.

The past 8 years or so there has been a drastic change in how they do things. They no longer care about the capped end-game content or trying to designing hunting areas for this level range because they now have so much more to take into consideration, just like the GS3 days. They've introduced so many SK items, adjustment to adding everything + the kitchen sink to weapons/armor, access to outside spells (specifically the invoker), new items/spells/scripts that boost your AS/DS/TD/CS and ascension (even though they've only released the entry level tier) it's impossible to design capped hunting grounds without nerfs being put into place.

We're back to the GS3 days in terms of available power creep. The levels may still be capped at 100, but with Ascension, new items, higher enchant level (was 10x, it's now 15x), SK items and so on.....the GMs have to find a way to combat the fuckup they've created. Instead of leaving things alone or focusing on improving things for classes, they're also going through and nerfing aspects of the game because they can't just take away everything they've added without alienating most (if not all) of the population that's left.

The access to so many spells, now look what they're doing to some hunting areas....adding of spell sever because of their fuckup with allowing the access to so many spells with and letting SK items run rampant into the game.

People are running around with armor/weapons that are easily heavily crit and damage weighted, scripted to boost AS/DS/CS/TD, fancy flares and so on that basic hunting is impossible to impact most people like that. Thus, the introduction of the CML/SMR system to be changed over the SMRv2 system. This system fully bypasses the AS/DS/CS/TD aspects and coupled with the open rolls everyone is guaranteed to get fucked over by the system regardless of whatever fancy items/services they have and no matter how much money they've put into them. Then add in the SMR downward defense adjustment in PSM3 and pures really got screwed there. All pures were screwed with the loss of 20+ SMR defense and squares come way out on top with the fact they bypass most heavy armor SMR penalty (with enough overtraining in armor use), plus heavy armor reduces the crit factor for manuevers.....squares and some semi builds make a lot of maneuvers used against them laughable.

Changing spells over to SMRv2 doesn't really help players, either. The SMRv2 system is very heavily based on level. No matter how much I over train my capped wizard in the wizard circle, spell 917 is going to suck ass against creatures that are higher level than him. Sure, the endroll results may allow my cast of 917 to have a higher endroll to get a successful hit on a target, but if that target is 4+ levels over him, the effectiveness of 917 drops off considerably. Then the results are reversed if that 4+ level creature hits him with a SMRv2 spell/ability, it hits that much harder over like level creatures. Over hunting with SMRv2 spells isn't viable and not having a reliable CS based spell to help that means as a wizard you're bolting.

The GMs have no one but themselves to blame for fucking over the system and having to constantly hand out nerfs to "correct" the overpowered aspect of everyday players with their souped-up items and access to nearly every spell out there.

Anyone that constantly feels the GMs are doing things well with nerfs/reductions to "balance" the game out are either naïve about everything or just don't understand the fucked up situation the GMs have built with all these changes.

The GMs fucked up with allowing the game to drift back to GS3 days and their only out now is to nerf stuff that's been in place for years. Fuck them and their ignorance.

It's no longer a balancing game for the GMs. It's turned into a "we made some classes more powerful with all the stupid shit we added to the game and some of these classes are more OP than ever so we need to nerf some stuff." For a while now and from here on out it'll be a never ending cycle for the GMs.

Taking away to "balance" the game isn't okay. Sadly, though, we're left to the mercy of the GMs because they get to code/design/change how the game functions.

[Mobius1]

The change from GS3 to GSIV was to remove some of the headaches that were in place such as the open level system and classes having access to so many outside circle spells. They had troubles designing new hunting areas due to having to take so much of this into consideration.

GSIV introduced a cap to level (100) and a restructuring of spell circle availability. A good amount of spells were changed to self cast and some were changed to situational spells (919 and 140 are great examples). With these things in place, the idea was they could design more hunting areas for high level because they didn't have to worry about uncapped AS/DS/TD/CS.

The past 8 years or so there has been a drastic change in how they do things. They no longer care about the capped end-game content or trying to designing hunting areas for this level range because they now have so much more to take into consideration, just like the GS3 days. They've introduced so many SK items, adjustment to adding everything + the kitchen sink to weapons/armor, access to outside spells (specifically the invoker), new items/spells/scripts that boost your AS/DS/TD/CS and ascension (even though they've only released the entry level tier) it's impossible to design capped hunting grounds without nerfs being put into place.

We're back to the GS3 days in terms of available power creep. The levels may still be capped at 100, but with Ascension, new items, higher enchant level (was 10x, it's now 15x), SK items and so on.....the GMs have to find a way to combat the fuckup they've created. Instead of leaving things alone or focusing on improving things for classes, they're also going through and nerfing aspects of the game because they can't just take away everything they've added without alienating most (if not all) of the population that's left.

The access to so many spells, now look what they're doing to some hunting areas....adding of spell sever because of their fuckup with allowing the access to so many spells with and letting SK items run rampant into the game.

People are running around with armor/weapons that are easily heavily crit and damage weighted, scripted to boost AS/DS/CS/TD, fancy flares and so on that basic hunting is impossible to impact most people like that. Thus, the introduction of the CML/SMR system to be changed over the SMRv2 system. This system fully bypasses the AS/DS/CS/TD aspects and coupled with the open rolls everyone is guaranteed to get fucked over by the system regardless of whatever fancy items/services they have and no matter how much money they've put into them. Then add in the SMR downward defense adjustment in PSM3 and pures really got screwed there. All pures were screwed with the loss of 20+ SMR defense and squares come way out on top with the fact they bypass most heavy armor SMR penalty (with enough overtraining in armor use), plus heavy armor reduces the crit factor for manuevers.....squares and some semi builds make a lot of maneuvers used against them laughable.

Changing spells over to SMRv2 doesn't really help players, either. The SMRv2 system is very heavily based on level. No matter how much I over train my capped wizard in the wizard circle, spell 917 is going to suck ass against creatures that are higher level than him. Sure, the endroll results may allow my cast of 917 to have a higher endroll to get a successful hit on a target, but if that target is 4+ levels over him, the effectiveness of 917 drops off considerably. Then the results are reversed if that 4+ level creature hits him with a SMRv2 spell/ability, it hits that much harder over like level creatures. Over hunting with SMRv2 spells isn't viable and not having a reliable CS based spell to help that means as a wizard you're bolting.

The GMs have no one but themselves to blame for fucking over the system and having to constantly hand out nerfs to "correct" the overpowered aspect of everyday players with their souped-up items and access to nearly every spell out there.

Anyone that constantly feels the GMs are doing things well with nerfs/reductions to "balance" the game out are either naïve about everything or just don't understand the fucked up situation the GMs have built with all these changes.

The GMs fucked up with allowing the game to drift back to GS3 days and their only out now is to nerf stuff that's been in place for years. Fuck them and their ignorance.

It's no longer a balancing game for the GMs. It's turned into a "we made some classes more powerful with all the stupid shit we added to the game and some of these classes are more OP than ever so we need to nerf some stuff." For a while now and from here on out it'll be a never ending cycle for the GMs.

Taking away to "balance" the game isn't okay. Sadly, though, we're left to the mercy of the GMs because they get to code/design/change how the game functions.

I agree with a lot of things you are saying. But I don't agree with what you have to say about nerfs. Again, please explain to me what has been nerfed? Sure, there have been a small handful of nerfs, but overall it's been nothing but buffs buffs buffs. They have been incredibly generous in their willingness to raise the floor when possible rather than nerf.

I also agree that there are problems with the SMR2 system and higher levels, and this needs to be addressed. Not just SMR2 offense, but SMR2 defense, in fact, since the diminishing returns make it pretty unfair when trying to defend against higher level SMR2 skills when we are capped at level 100 and critters are not.

As far as pointing blame at GMs or trying to read into their intentions, I just don't see any real validity or value in it. Naijin certainly isn't to blame for the pay to win disaster that we are in now, or all the mistakes made by previous developers. In fact, it's been nothing but a source of headaches for him, and is probably the biggest reason he stepped down. I find it very sad that we are in a position where GMs that genuinely want to balance the game, are dragged through the mud just because they've inherited such an impossible situation. I for one was so damn happy that they hadn't just put their hands up and surrendered, but with Naijin gone we are sadly moving more to that direction. Just because it's a freaking mess, doesn't mean we aren't better off having them do their best to try and improve it.

Ultimately, it comes down to what I said in the very beginning in this discussion - The real problem is our dev structure in Gemstone, and the lack of collaboration between GMs and other departments (and lack of pay, full time work, etc.). Instead of being master of pay 2 win, Wyrom should be trying to send the game into a more cohesive direction. Instead we have quick money grabs being his MO. But hell, I probably can't even fairly put that one on Wyrom, as it's probably largely out of even his control, since I'm sure he's under a ton of pressure from his bosses. So really, I'm not even going to criticize him, and quite frankly I've seen him also do a ton of good for this game where he has been able. Hell, without him GS might very well have died by now. Ultimately, this whole Stillfront situation is a downright disaster for us players!

The truly unfortunate thing is that Simu was bought out by a company that has no problems preying on the mental disorders of this player base and exploiting them to the full. Not that they are the only company guilty of this in the MMO world, but it's certainly the worst I've personally seen in any game.

[Gelston]

The truly unfortunate thing is that Simu was bought out by a company that has no problems preying on the mental disorders of this player base and exploiting them to the full. Not that they are the only company guilty of this in the MMO world, but it's certainly the worst I've personally seen in any game.

Like it would have been any different if it wasn't.

[Mobius1]

Like it would have been any different if it wasn't.

Honestly, it's certainly correct to say that that is just an opinion of mine. In fact some people argue that p2w is the main reason the game still exists, which could very well be true. Not that I personally feel the ends justify the means, in any case.

But ultimately, I really see absolutely no value in statements like this:

The GMs fucked up with allowing the game to drift back to GS3 days and their only out now is to nerf stuff that's been in place for years. Fuck them and their ignorance.

Where people are freaking trashing on unpaid or underpaid GMs who literally work on this game out of the goodness of their hearts. I'd love to see these people do a better job of running this game!

It's not constructive, and it's not even valid, IMO. And this is coming from someone who has probably argued with GMs more than he has agreed with them!!

[Gelston]

Honestly, it's certainly correct to say that that is just an opinion of mine. In fact some people argue that p2w is the main reason the game still exists, which could very well be true. Not that I personally feel the ends justify the means, in any case.

But ultimately, I really see absolutely no value in statements like this:



Where people are freaking trashing on unpaid or underpaid GMs who literally work on this game out of the goodness of their hearts. I'd love to see these people do a better job of running this game!

It's not constructive, and it's not even valid, IMO. And this is coming from someone who has probably argued with GMs more than he has agreed with them!!

People derive other value out of positions besides money. Sure, people trash GMs, and that sucks usually, but these people are also paying for a product and get upset with it.

[Mobius1]

People derive other value out of positions besides money. Sure, people trash GMs, and that sucks usually, but these people are also paying for a product and get upset with it.

And those people unfortunately only make our game worse, by getting GMs like Naijin to throw in the towel.

[Methais]

I don't believe any of those skills were ever intended to have builds based around them and be used to kill critters outright - At least not in their current iterations. I'm not saying they shouldn't be boosted, by any means. But hell, we all have useless spells/abilities. You want to see useless abilities? Look at 90% of my rogue skills!

You literally said the exact opposite in regards to Weapon Fire, Stone Fist, Sandstorm, Meteor Swarm, etc. just a day or two ago:

Most of the spells you listed are valid points and could use some tweaking. But even so I think most of them still actually make viable builds, so most of them are not THAT bad.

So...please either explain what you're basing that statement on, because it completely contradicts the quote above it. Or just acknowledge that you don't know what you're talking about and are talking out of your ass.

[Mobius1]

You literally said the exact opposite in regards to Weapon Fire, Stone Fist, Sandstorm, Meteor Swarm, just a day or two ago:

So...please either explain what you're basing that statement on, because it completely contradicts the quote above it. Or just acknowledge that you don't know what you're talking about and are talking out of your ass.

What, you can't think of any use for those skills? Hell, I may not like Sweep myself, but I can think of plenty of viable builds that make good use of it. At the very least I am happy to have it as an available tool for certain situations, even if they aren't common for me personally. I mean sure, Meteor Swarm isn't going to see use, but I didn't say ALL of them.

[Ramrod]

It's no longer a balancing game for the GMs. It's turned into a "we made some classes more powerful with all the stupid shit we added to the game and some of these classes are more OP than ever so we need to nerf some stuff." For a while now and from here on out it'll be a never ending cycle for the GMs.

Taking away to "balance" the game isn't okay. Sadly, though, we're left to the mercy of the GMs because they get to code/design/change how the game functions.

100%. But here's the thing - I don't give a shit if someone dropped $30k+ on the game and doesn't die. That doesn't affect me. Introducing game-wide nerfs to "fix" those players does affect me.

The bigger problem is that the GM's decide what the problems are in an echo chamber and then spend their time fixing those problems rather than just asking players what they want and designing around that.

[Methais]

What, you can't think of any use for those skills? Hell, I may not like Sweep myself, but I can think of plenty of viable builds that make good use of it. At the very least I am happy to have it as an available tool for certain situations, even if they aren't common for me personally. I mean sure, Meteor Swarm isn't going to see use, but I didn't say ALL of them.

No, I can't. And it's not because I haven't made an attempt over the years. It's because they are completely ineffective, a waste of time (some of these spells have a build up time before they start doing anything at all, and once they start doing stuff it's still weak trash), a waste of mana, and a wasted opportunity cost vs. casting a spell that actually does something useful. If you had a clue about wizards at all, which you're repeatedly demonstrating that you don't, this wouldn't even be being debated. Ask any wizard anywhere if you think I'm just talking shit. Hell ask any GM if you don't trust the word of any players and they'll almost definitely tell you the same thing. There are 0 instances where spells like Weapon Fire, Sandstorm, Meteor Swarm, etc. are useful.

Stop moving the goal posts. You literally said "most of them still actually make viable builds" when literally none of them make a viable build, and you can't explain how or why any of them would make a viable build, and instead keep backpedaling and moving goal posts.

Like this:

I mean sure, Meteor Swarm isn't going to see use, but I didn't say ALL of them.

You're right. You didn't say all of them. You said "most" of them. Which is still wrong as fuck and you'd know this already if you knew anything about wizards.

Again, when Naijin posted the data, Wizards were still performing well in Divergence areas. You can't just make claims that Wizards have issues without any proof to back it up. If bolts are so awful, why are you still outperforming so many classes even with the Divergence changes?

If you really think I'm gonna go make a bunch of of clips to present an argument to you because you just decided I'm making shit up, especially when you've already demonstrated that you don't know shit about wizards as it is and keep changing your arguments when bullshit is pointed out...no.

Just stop acting like you know anything at all about wizards.



Which reminds me...

I have first hand experience with this. When I returned to the game in 2014, I chose to be a wizard so I could mostly just rely on my own spells for defense, have a 3 sec RT because I knew I didn't like the classic ohe 5 sec melee RT, and could eventually enchant stuff for my own use.

I made it to level 40 before I just got bored as hell with it. Bolting just felt like I was slowly plinking stuff to death. There didn't seem to be many 1 or 2 shot kills, not a lot of crits, very few knockdowns unless I used Tonis bolt, no extra damage beyond what I did with the initial hit. Just continued to hit that 903 macro 3-7 times before turning to the next critter in the room and repeating the process. I wasn't using rapid fire. I can't remember if I just didn't have enough mana yet to consistently use it (I believe this was before the changes to harness power) or if there was another reason. I admit that maybe I wasn't the best at being a wizard, but I didn't see that I had a ton of other options for a better way to do things. I ended up just selling the character.

Rapid Fire comes with a cooldown that you can eventually train down to 0 at 202 EMC, so it was most likely that. You can still cast during the cooldown, but everything you cast will cost an extra 5 mana. Which at lower levels will make a pretty big difference. And by the time you have enough mana to where that won't matter, you'll have enough EMC to eliminate the cooldown.