Client Changelog 01/09/2018

[HtGeist]

knight and chosen changes cannot come soon enough, knight being made more interesting and fun to play will certainly help in order's composition woes

i really like the flat dmg reduction now available to SM and BO, especially since avoidance has been nerfed in several ways recently. 10% is huge but needed on what are possibly the 2 least tanky tanks

also expect to see dps shamans everywhere, like, 2016 levels

Looking at the changes... What makes you think dps shamans have overtaken AMs in the dps department? I'd still expect AM > shaman for pure dps after this.

You can dps when your alive..Shammy has the stay alive geta away tool of an entire warband at his solo disposal,the fact they can cleanse snares and cleanse WH stealth openers..on top just makes my mind boggle...they need a harsh toning down..either make WH stuff uncleanseable or make kd and silence not share immunity.

[catholicism198]

Read plz again what write Azarael

there cannot be a tactic which then makes one more powerful than the rest, and that will apply for Focused Mending as well.

I'm really loving how you're taking things out of context to try to prove a point.
Here's the FULL quote:
"My statement requires some clarification. When I talked about auras overshadowing the rest, I was talking in reference to the rework, not the current state of affairs.[/b] When the auras are balanced, there cannot be a tactic which then makes one more powerful than the rest, and that will apply for Focused Mending as well."

-----

Re: rate of changes

Having change after change after change is actually a good thing. -That way people can drop a class before they invest too much time on something they will end up not liking or pick-up a class because the changes look fun/promising.

I was hoping the Kobts changes were coming next week, but from the sound of it- they're not.

[Azarael]

I'm sorry, but it's how I'm reading it, partly because most of the people doing that hold a more conservative balance/design viewpoint. If the changes are bad, that's one thing. But complaining about the rate of progress in and of itself?

One leads to the other - take a step back and look at the changes; their frequency, the reverts, the various aspects touched on at once, the conflicts with old changes issued before your comeback.
Then ask yourself what you'd think if you'd see someone operate like that within the first few weeks of getting back to a WIP-environment, how much confidence you'd have in the individuals ability to gauge the impact of w/e is being introduced.

Changes avoidance formulas, changing morale rates, rolling out broad changes to classes (mostly in the drip-down fashion you've spoken out against yourself) and tampering with backend stuff all at once ~ reverting some changes within days if not hours because of initial community backlash or gut feeling(?), others because you didn't inquire as to what you are changing is a default state or has already been revised (e.g.: Engi magnet). Furthermore, ducttape fixes like the strikethrough approach or the change to buffs to circumvent the mess that is the stacking hierachy. Also, conflicting and contradictory statements - e.g.:
You dislike spellbreaker being entirely dependant on a tactic, turn around make two masteries entirely dependant on one tactic (2h requires Violent Impacts to be remotely playable Violent Impacts, ST dw requires Violent Impacts to make the new filler in Trollslayer [PA] useable to begin with).

There are things you didn't see behind the scenes.

Firstly, I came back partly because of client control and partly in response to long-standing complaints about the state of RoR - gleaned during my time in the background since roughly the time of the code leak to the time where I rejoined.RoR.

The following were part of that:

- Disrupt / avoidance rates (which were reverted to what worked during my time - NOT to something original, and I did experiment with a renown passive to oppose the defense gained from a renown passive as well, which was perfectly valid)
- Morale (which was changed to work exactly like live - which I had been roundly criticised over not doing when I was the project lead in 2015/2016 - and again, nothing original here)

On broad changes to classes: The community is polarized on that and I don't view that as a battle that can be won. Some people will support it and some people will oppose it. You opine that I will eventually ruin the game and go back on myself in the end. I disagree - look at Archmage/Shaman. What is that if not a refinement of the old experimental mode? How much, exactly, have I gone back on, when you compare all of the changes that have ever been made? And would you prefer it if I simply didn't go back on myself and let it stand? It's almost as if you don't understand the necessity of experimenting with ideas, and the importance of being flexible. The difference between RoR and an established game is that I don't have the luxury of a test team behind the scenes to filter all this out from your eyes. It gets done on live, and problems that I don't anticipate get hotfixed - and quickly - as a result.

I think on that point, the proof will be in the pudding. I certainly see no reason to stop simply because people have a feeling it won't end well. If I see a problem that's crystallized and should be tackled, or a useless skill, or something else, then it will be dealt with, and any resultant problems from that will be dealt with as well. The mindset of not creating secondary problems led to garbage like Inevitable Doom being the go-to ST and AoE skill on Slayer.

As for the backend - that's part and parcel with the above. If you like, I can avoid "tampering" with the backend (how pejorative considering I originally wrote most of what I'm changing). But if you don't want me to adjust the backend, you will never see certain issues fixed. I do not wish to ignore the metaphorical burning kitchen in favour of saving the roof. The core has issues, and I will work on those as well.

On my personal preferences: That's an uncharacteristically weak point. I have expressed opposition to mandatory tactics. I have expressed opposition to them specifically where they form part of every single build on a class. Yes, having a tactic that is mandatory for ST builds on Slayer is not great. But I will, happily, take that over a given tree being weak, and there is no contradiction: I can dislike a concept and still support/use it. I would be a tool if I weren't capable of that. Hell, there's even an argument for making the base mechanic work like Violent Impacts does.

I also see nothing wrong with what I did on Envenomed Blade/Fervor either, by the way. Reworking the stacking system would cause major, and unnecessary, problems elsewhere in the game, and if you can cleanse a basic, stacking DoT skill from a class that can just as easily spec a build to try to kill you faster with burst damage, what's the point? The problem was specific to WH/WE, and so I solved it on WH/WE. I will support that wholeheartedly and without reservation.

You seem, in this case, to criticise progress because it is not perfection.

One final point and I made it a while back: This effort, and the major parts of it specifically, will not last forever. There are only a limited number of classes that have issues big enough to justify a rework. At this point the only ones that definitely should get one are KotBS and Chosen (on auras) for reasons that should be obvious to everyone, and the only ones that should optionally get one are DoK and WP (on melee). Nothing else needs reworking.

[tazdingo]

knight and chosen changes cannot come soon enough, knight being made more interesting and fun to play will certainly help in order's composition woes

i really like the flat dmg reduction now available to SM and BO, especially since avoidance has been nerfed in several ways recently. 10% is huge but needed on what are possibly the 2 least tanky tanks

also expect to see dps shamans everywhere, like, 2016 levels

Looking at the changes... What makes you think dps shamans have overtaken AMs in the dps department? I'd still expect AM > shaman for pure dps after this.

nothin just shammies have always been really popular even when borked and now they have extra bomb potential. shammy buffs always lead to gobbo infestations. i remember t2 sieges with like 50% gobbos. i call these the "pre-guardian" days

[GodlessCrom]

If this was live, people would be creaming their undies over the rate of patches. Havent been bad patches either

[Greenbeast]

Yer Not So Bad not working on npc's, which means that shamans are excluded from any kind of group pve content now. Will this be addressed?

[Foomy44]

knight and chosen changes cannot come soon enough, knight being made more interesting and fun to play will certainly help in order's composition woes

i really like the flat dmg reduction now available to SM and BO, especially since avoidance has been nerfed in several ways recently. 10% is huge but needed on what are possibly the 2 least tanky tanks

also expect to see dps shamans everywhere, like, 2016 levels

Looking at the changes... What makes you think dps shamans have overtaken AMs in the dps department? I'd still expect AM > shaman for pure dps after this.

nothin just shammies have always been really popular even when borked and now they have extra bomb potential. shammy buffs always lead to gobbo infestations. i remember t2 sieges with like 50% gobbos. i call these the "pre-guardian" days

Could you please explain how this patch gave them extra bomb potential? I must be missing something.

[charlysixb]

Yer Not So Bad not working on npc's, which means that shamans are excluded from any kind of group pve content now. Will this be addressed?

I always liked to use yer not so bad in pve too ( gunbad runs ) but dont think this will exclude shaman from it xD i have a pve set with ap regen that works **** great xD ( onslaught set + genesis cloak + rr 39 sc staff + x4 ap rings + resto burst )

[Foomy44]

In other words...

It not because i wanna say somthing bad its because me and not only me fear what kotbs will be downbalanced like some happend with other classes.

I'm afraid my class is gonna get nerfed and that's not fair.

Some of my freinds alredy drop they WL

Some of my friends really liked playing an obviously broken class that let them own everything in small scale 99% of the time with minimal effort, soon as their OP was gone they didn't wanna play that class anymore, not fair. Test changes aimed at making them balanced? Lol no ty.

Order need some protection too not only destro.

I play Order and choose to look at everything from their PoV only, Destro is ez mode obviously. BTW if I mainly played Destro I would be saying the exact opposite thing.

[Darosh]

Spoiler:

I'm sorry, but it's how I'm reading it, partly because most of the people doing that hold a more conservative balance/design viewpoint. If the changes are bad, that's one thing. But complaining about the rate of progress in and of itself?

One leads to the other - take a step back and look at the changes; their frequency, the reverts, the various aspects touched on at once, the conflicts with old changes issued before your comeback.
Then ask yourself what you'd think if you'd see someone operate like that within the first few weeks of getting back to a WIP-environment, how much confidence you'd have in the individuals ability to gauge the impact of w/e is being introduced.

Changes avoidance formulas, changing morale rates, rolling out broad changes to classes (mostly in the drip-down fashion you've spoken out against yourself) and tampering with backend stuff all at once ~ reverting some changes within days if not hours because of initial community backlash or gut feeling(?), others because you didn't inquire as to what you are changing is a default state or has already been revised (e.g.: Engi magnet). Furthermore, ducttape fixes like the strikethrough approach or the change to buffs to circumvent the mess that is the stacking hierachy. Also, conflicting and contradictory statements - e.g.:
You dislike spellbreaker being entirely dependant on a tactic, turn around make two masteries entirely dependant on one tactic (2h requires Violent Impacts to be remotely playable Violent Impacts, ST dw requires Violent Impacts to make the new filler in Trollslayer [PA] useable to begin with).

There are things you didn't see behind the scenes.

Firstly, I came back partly because of client control and partly in response to long-standing complaints about the state of RoR - gleaned during my time in the background since roughly the time of the code leak to the time where I rejoined.RoR.

The following were part of that:

- Disrupt / avoidance rates (which were reverted to what worked during my time - NOT to something original, and I did experiment with a renown passive to oppose the defense gained from a renown passive as well, which was perfectly valid)
- Morale (which was changed to work exactly like live - which I had been roundly criticised over not doing when I was the project lead in 2015/2016 - and again, nothing original here)

On broad changes to classes: The community is polarized on that and I don't view that as a battle that can be won. Some people will support it and some people will oppose it. You opine that I will eventually ruin the game and go back on myself in the end. I disagree - look at Archmage/Shaman. What is that if not a refinement of the old experimental mode? How much, exactly, have I gone back on, when you compare all of the changes that have ever been made? And would you prefer it if I simply didn't go back on myself and let it stand? It's almost as if you don't understand the necessity of experimenting with ideas, and the importance of being flexible. The difference between RoR and an established game is that I don't have the luxury of a test team behind the scenes to filter all this out from your eyes. It gets done on live, and problems that I don't anticipate get hotfixed - and quickly - as a result.

I think on that point, the proof will be in the pudding. I certainly see no reason to stop simply because people have a feeling it won't end well. If I see a problem that's crystallized and should be tackled, or a useless skill, or something else, then it will be dealt with, and any resultant problems from that will be dealt with as well. The mindset of not creating secondary problems led to garbage like Inevitable Doom being the go-to ST and AoE skill on Slayer.

As for the backend - that's part and parcel with the above. If you like, I can avoid "tampering" with the backend (how pejorative considering I originally wrote most of what I'm changing). But if you don't want me to adjust the backend, you will never see certain issues fixed. I do not wish to ignore the metaphorical burning kitchen in favour of saving the roof. The core has issues, and I will work on those as well.

On my personal preferences: That's an uncharacteristically weak point. I have expressed opposition to mandatory tactics. I have expressed opposition to them specifically where they form part of every single build on a class. Yes, having a tactic that is mandatory for ST builds on Slayer is not great. But I will, happily, take that over a given tree being weak, and there is no contradiction: I can dislike a concept and still support/use it. I would be a tool if I weren't capable of that. Hell, there's even an argument for making the base mechanic work like Violent Impacts does.

I also see nothing wrong with what I did on Envenomed Blade/Fervor either, by the way. Reworking the stacking system would cause major, and unnecessary, problems elsewhere in the game, and if you can cleanse a basic, stacking DoT skill from a class that can just as easily spec a build to try to kill you faster with burst damage, what's the point? The problem was specific to WH/WE, and so I solved it on WH/WE. I will support that wholeheartedly and without reservation.

You seem, in this case, to criticise progress because it is not perfection.

One final point and I made it a while back: This effort, and the major parts of it specifically, will not last forever. There are only a limited number of classes that have issues big enough to justify a rework. At this point the only ones that definitely should get one are KotBS and Chosen (on auras) for reasons that should be obvious to everyone, and the only ones that should optionally get one are DoK and WP (on melee). Nothing else needs reworking.

I've added a TLDR do my post before refreshing the page and seeing your response, it essentially sums up my concerns.

Spoiler:

TLDR:
How do you expect to find inconsistencies and bugs in say the backend shenanigans, if things are changed so rapidly?
I think you'd do yourself a favor if you stopped trying to please everyone and react within short notice to input sit back and craft a concept, then implement it.

I did not intend to claim that you'd eventually ruin the game, my apologies if it came off that way.

On the topic of responsibility and willingness to revert decisions:
Neither the reverts, nor the changes are - by themselves - an issue. It's the convoluted mess they create, as is, say, pushing patches without the support of the rest of the team and having jumbled up tooltips/mechanics for any period of time.
As to backend, as far I unterstood it the backend has undergone work, as did every other aspect of the game, during your hiatus ~ it appeared to be ironed-out for the most part, bar whatever shortcomings you are now tackling.

Personal preference is a strawman if you use it as base for argumentation, just to contradict yourself later on down the road... the ability to use/support something you do not like doesn't turn you into a saint, it just shows that your personal preference is in essence meaningless (as is the personal preference of everyone else).
Is it to be expected, that if you someday happen do dislike xyz in the game, xyz is being hammered away on in spite of it functioning; in spite of its actually flaws and shortcomings?
You didn't solve the shortcomings with the mastery trees either, you essentially moved a problem from one tree to another while subjecting the entire class to the implications of it, whilst tampering with the bits unrelated to the issues that you deemed too strong of a competition for your rework ~ without any consideration whatsoever of how paper-play conflicts with what is actually being played.
In regards to the stacking hierachy, well, I take it, you rather change every single ability in the game to circumvent it - or rather the abilities that aren't to your personal liking - than the backend of it? For that as is, you've changed here a few abilities and there a few abilities, while the bulk of them are left untouched, you are essentially introducing more and more inconsistency for no good reason - is tackling the root of the issue really that much more of hassle than continuously fighting its symptoms?

I by no means am looking for perfection, for that frankly perfection is a state that will never be achieved, especially not with the remains of a dead game; I do criticise progess if its but a compilation of changes for the sake of change (or whatever is the cataclyst of your spree) ~ see link in the spoiler above.

In short, what I've written in the spoiler above, again:
You would do better if your structured efforts. That's about it.

Abbd.:
To rephrase the exactly above a tad: You are creating snapshots upon which you (and all of those who cannot read your mind) judge the movie (spot bugs, inconsistencies and powercreep).