From http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=159579

Lvl |         Name                    |     Stat on Live   | Stat on Test-Live  | 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80 | Vicious Cabochon Star Ruby       | +8.9 1HE dmg       | +0.5 1HE dmg       | 
80 | Scything Cabochon Star Ruby      | +8.9 2HE dmg       | +0.5 2HE dmg       | 
80 | Thrusting Cabochon Emerald       | +8.9 Dagger dmg    | +0.5 Dagger dmg    | 
60 | Brutal Teardrop Peridot          | +4% Fatality       | +1% Fatality       | 
80 | Sacred Cabochon Golden Bery      | +14.3 Holy mgc dmg | +2 Holy mgc dmg | 
80 | Evasive Oblique Emerald          | +0.5% Evade Chance | +0.2% Evade Chance | 
80 | Inviolate Cabochon Star Ruby     | 0.4% Melee Invulns | 0.2% Melee Invulns | 
80 | Immutable Cabochon Tyrian Sapph  | 0.3% Magic Invulns | 0.1% Magic Invulns |
80 | Unyielding Cabochon Emerald      | 1.6% Crushing Invn | 0.3% Crushing Invn | 
80 | Tenacious Cabochon Emerald       | 1.6% Slashing Invn | 0.3% Slashing Invn | 
80 | Quenching Cabochon Star Sapphire | 1.4% Fire Invuln   | 0.3% Fire Invuln   |

This is a serious serious nerf, but tbh something major was needed.

Of course, now crafting seems rather pointless.

The sensibke thing woul dhave been simply to change the way plus damage worked - ie not add it into the base dps from which combos were multiplied - but there you are. Nerfing invulnerabilities even more is bizarre.

Sadly this may be too late, and upset too many people, but at least it was a way to deal with the rampant duping - just make the duped gems worthless.

On the other hand, those who paid for all their gems are likely to be miffed - although it was clear that some kind of nerf was going to happen.

It's funny though - from +8.9 to +0.5. Funcom sure don't nerf by halves do they.

Everything they do seems to involve major major swings. Makes everything so unpredictable. People know that mechanics change in an MMO, it's essential. But these swings sure test the patience.

I'm not really in the know reguarding how duping works in AoC so this may be out of line but... it seems to me that nerfing a feature of their game because it could be exploited, rather than actually fixing the exploit, was the wrong way to handle the situation. Yeah, it screws the people who were doing the duping but it also seems to screw everyone else to.

Its like if your going to lose at a game of chess because the other guy was cheating, so you set the room on fire and run away.

Why nerf..holy..damage?

God the guys working @ AoC are idiots. PoMs can't even DPS, now they nerf them even more. (PoM is the only class that deals holy damage)

Originally posted by TasTY

Why nerf..holy..damage?

 

God the guys working @ AoC are idiots. PoMs can't even DPS, now they nerf them even more. (PoM is the only class that deals holy damage)

Cause the only people that had sets with these were the gem dupers, and they'll be using it in the future for easy raiding of Epic gear on Holy damage mobs.

Better idea would have been to ban them all but at this point I doubt Failcom can afford to ban anyone.

This looks like an attempt to make current gems worthless so they can introduce new ones in the future.

Originally posted by Raltar

I'm not really in the know reguarding how duping works in AoC so this may be out of line but... it seems to me that nerfing a feature of their game because it could be exploited, rather than actually fixing the exploit, was the wrong way to handle the situation. Yeah, it screws the people who were doing the duping but it also seems to screw everyone else to.

Its like if your going to lose at a game of chess because the other guy was cheating, so you set the room on fire and run away.

The dupe was fixed before this.

Two basic problems with the original post.

The numbers are meaningless out of context.  How do these changes effect the burst DPS which was screwing with the balance?  Just looking at some %'s on the gems doesn't tell you that.

The other problem is that this is the test server.  You use a test server for testing things.  It doesn't necessarily mean these changes will be promoted to Live.

I think that this will ultimately just annoy even more players.

Yes, the damage has been done with the duping. But the legitimate players who worked to get their own gems will now be nerfed. That's not even tweaking or balancing, that's a blatant killing of an in-game feature.

Thinking back to the days of Diablo 2, it's like when the expansion pack for that game came out. All of a sudden, gems (which had been extremely useful before then) became worthless, due to runes and runeword combinations.

Plus... itemization already sucks rather horribly in Age of Conan. Destroying people's gear because duping was allowed to run rampant for such a long time seems like adding gas to an already quick-burning fire of hatred.

>< funcom dev

They seem to just be lost. Thier philosophy seems to be just keep changing stuff, we'll eventually get something right

It's about time, the 1 hit 1 kill pvp is one of the things that sent me away from AoC. Now all they need to do is work on content, itemization and fix the god damn end game content (crafting, battlekeeps, citys, raids etc.) PLUS a LotRO/EQII vanity slot system.

It's funny though - from +8.9 to +0.5. Funcom sure don't nerf by halves do they.

I propose the invention of a new word for this level of nerfage since Nerf just isn't strong enough.  How about Ferf? For Funcom Nerf.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Raltar

I'm not really in the know reguarding how duping works in AoC so this may be out of line but... it seems to me that nerfing a feature of their game because it could be exploited, rather than actually fixing the exploit, was the wrong way to handle the situation. Yeah, it screws the people who were doing the duping but it also seems to screw everyone else to.

Its like if your going to lose at a game of chess because the other guy was cheating, so you set the room on fire and run away.

 

The dupe was fixed before this.

it was fixed before this only in the most limited sense.

What happened was that the dupe was no longer possible. But by then literally thousands of gems had been duped, and they had remained in the game.

So in fact just to stop the ability to dupe was not a "fix" of the problem. The fix would be to a) remove the gems b) make the gems much less powerrful.

I see why they did b) as even bought gems were clearly skewing the entire itemisation, such as it is.

But in so doing they - as another poster noted - not so much nerfed as removed an entire game mechanic altogether. ie gems went from very overpowered to essentially worthless (although I guess that will become clearer in time). We do know now that three level 80 gems gives less bonus than a level 20 blue item. I guess they will reduce the blue items also?

Anyway. something was needed and this is better than before.

BUt wow - talk about crazy ass gameplay adjustments. Its really quite spectacular how they swing... I guess it reveals the full extent to which this game was barely out of alpha in terms of gameply design, let alone anywhere close to release state.

Originally posted by Bodeus

>< funcom dev

 

They seem to just be lost. Thier philosophy seems to be just keep changing stuff, we'll eventually get something right

People at FC are just testing the infinite monkey theorem: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem Too bad one can never have enough time, money or patience! Incompetence and hopelessness at their best.

All gems have been nurfed as a temporary measure.

dont even have a gem yet.

glad to see their working things out. trying to.