Board News.old [context]
Sender Astark
Date Wed Feb 27 17:40:30 2013
To all
Subject A Major Update - Part 1
Over the past few weeks we've done an extensive amount of work behind the scenes that will contribute to a more efficient workflow. We have setup an extra server to reduce the load on the main port, bug tracking software setup to better manage issues, and automatic, redundant backups setup so that we don't lose any critical information. Now that we've got these systems and processes in place, we'd like to share some more information with you all about the changes we have planned, and the direction we are taking things. The overall vision of most the changes that we're making is to make game play more engaging, faster, and balanced. Things will be scaled down slightly, particularly in regards to mob HP. Player changes will follow to maintain balance As it stands, we have mobs with over 100,000 effective HP. With the exception of tough mobs on EQ runs, most everything else deals very little damage and most fights require nothing more than "kill mob , action <skill>, wait". Players are already hitting the 200 point stat cap, and many skills/spells are not very useful due to the way combat is handled. The biggest change we are making is to the health and damage of mobs. Mob health is effectively halved, and damage is doubled. Additionally, mobs will have more attacks and more skills, rather than inherently being able to do everything. This will allow players to effectively use afflictions and maledictions on mobs, such as, blind, bash, slow, poison, etc. All of these effects will have a greater impact on a mobs combat effectiveness and how they fight. Mobs won't be able to circle you when they're blind, and they won't be able to cast spells or use stances when they have no moves. They will actually have mana pools so that spells like energy drain are viable against mobs. Summoned mobs will have less HP, but also hit harder. You will not likely see a player make an army of 10 zombies that lasts them for hours anymore. Tattoos and EQ will be changing. Ratings will be more consistently applied to EQ so that you don't see 97s wearing tons of 94 EQ. EQ will have less stats (str ... luc), but the tradeoff will be more +hp/mana/move, AC, Saves, Hitroll, Damroll, and possibly other affects/flags as we make progress. You feel weaker stat wise, but again, our goal is to have the overall balance the same. You may need to rest more often between fights, but fights will be significantly shorter. The purpose of this change is that players aren't hitting the 200 stat cap so early on. Yes, it's possible for us to rework the entire stat system or increase the stat cap, but that type of change simply makes higher level characters more powerful, rather than balancing out the entire range of levels. Some weapons will be modified so that we have a more balanced spread of damage types available, and so that more weapon types are available, at each level range. We will get rid of vorpal flags on weapons that can't actually behead, like flails, and we'll change damage types so that we don't have 2 swords in the game that are 1 handed, level 90, doing divine power damage.