All Posts by Svayvti

Why did they mess up class blance in MoM so badly? what are they going to do about it, and why aren't they discussing it more (Minstrels and RKs mentioned good.... LMs and Guardians they've been quiet about).

Why the shift to combat mechanics where damage is practicallly all important and avaoidances and debuffs have been rendered practically useless?

Why were melee/ranged damage types scaled higher and made more powerful than tactical damage and skill types?

Feedback from some class communities was very, very negative after the release of NDA. What is his reaction to reports that feedback from Minstrels and Loremasters was (is?) ignored till the end of beta.

LM is kind of an awkward class post-Moria.

Their biggest improvement was easily too AoE damage, but they're still not anywhere close to an AOE damage class. They've got some really big damage AoEs, but on slower cooldowns so they don't come close to any DPS class like the Champion.

Their CC took a hit, and honestly mez is not that useful in the new instances except in certain situations. Plus if you're not one of the LMs that can heal wounds, I don't really want you in my team.

Champions however are great. They're not as played as the Hunter, got serious damage upgrades and weren't hurt at all really by the combat mechanics changes which nerfed defenses (Champions usually have no defense except armour which was improved). Their clobber ability which interrupts inductions is key to winning many instance fights so they are regularly in demand too.

I'm not comparing them in quality, but motif and type of game. Likewise it would can Earthrise to have a lot of FAIL(com) and suck as well. Funcom isn't exactly known for delivering quality content.

I'm watching both Earthrise and Fallen Earth in hopes that they'll be quality successors to the types of games I listed. Certainly gamers deserve something outside of the fantasy genre that isn't a low quality mess.

More like this is AO 2 and Fallen Earth is Neocron 3 or FoMK 2

All the tactical classes (Minstrel, LM, RK) need a serious lookover and redo.

If the RK had been introduced with SoA mechanics, it would probably be perfect. The combat mechanics changes however really screwed over those classes badly. Melee/Range classes got a lot more DPS out of the combat mechanics changes, and every class got weaker defenses. The tactical classes just plain got screwed, some more so than others.

Traditionally I would have pointed at Turbine's record and said have faith.. but right now they've got a lot of issues that shouldn't have made it out of Moria beta so I don't know what to say other than wait and see.

Runekeeper specific I'm told it gets a lot better as you get closer to 50, but after 50 due to tactical ability scaling it actually becomes worst of all :(  Supposedly the class dev is looking into it though.

How about another rhetorical question since you won't consider this one:

Any chance Turbine really screwed up?

I love the content of Moria itself, but Turbine really messed up some good class balance from before.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Class Changes  D-

New  Weapons System B+

New Areas B+

New Classes B

New Skill Trees C-

Crafting Changes C

Overall C

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh coming from someone who has a rep as a Turbine fanboy but Turbine really did fall down a few notches in my eyes on this one.

What? you mean I wasn't trolling when i warned you about the class changes?

and if you think LM isn't screwed up, try using the Ancient Master trait path. It is nice for the solo LM that they got two DPS trait paths, but you're not wanted in groups for DPS. The LM CC is hurting and our secondary use of healing is also in trouble because you have to go pet path for it.

Burglar has one broken trait path as well, but at least the class dev admitted so and that he intends to fix it.

It is a good expansion pack.

The reviews here however are obviously biased too far in favor. The proof is simple, not one negative comment about them.

Every game and every expansion has problems you can find, ignoring them just makes the reviewer look like they have an agenda.

I think everyone who ever played AO is hooked by the utter joy of a Sci-Fi MMO and the utter frustration of it being developed by Funcom.

I'll be keeping an eye on this one along with Fallen Earth and even the Stargate MMO.

Captain or Runekeeper for sure.

So far it seems that Captain is benefitting a lot from the high level increase in melee damage (51-60). I don't know if the Runekeeper is there yet, but I'm sure it will be by the time you get one to high levels.

Originally posted by Sherkalyn

Not taking into account the fact that newcommers are treated much worse almost everywhere else IS denying part of the truth.

This is not even close to true from my experience. How many other MMOs are you playing?

A good example of a game where the community is turning the game around from disaster would be Horizons (Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted). Ryzom is as far from that type of community as Ryzom is from WoW's community.

Originally posted by blindside044

Your debating fall on deaf ears here; assuming  you want something to actually change. And If you do want something to possibly change, post on the official forums. The devs DO read the forums, though they may not post. If enough people complain, there is a good chance something will be done about it.

Not the issue is trying to explain that there are some serious cons to the expansion, which our resident fanboy refuses to admit.

Look, it is pretty obvious that the Loremaster and Minstrel beta testers are the ones who have been seriously worried. It is also obvious from the post Jackdog linked that they weren't addressing these issues in beta like they're supposed to. You can't balance classes in beta? what kind of nonsense is that?

I guess the same that says certain included play preferences aren't valid (raiding, grouping)?

Anyways, the people looking for pros and cons should have enough adequate information now to make a decision.

Originally posted by Jackdog

 At any rate Turbine was pretty good after the initial release at going back and tweaking as needed on classes, I see no reason they will not do so after Moria after they get a chance to see how the classes play out in their metrics and from forum feedback. I remember at LoTRO's initial release Captains were a joke and LM 's were probably the most difficult to play effectivly. Every one was either hunter, minstrel, burglar or guardian it seemed. A few champs in my kinship but no really many of those either at release.

Sorry if I come off sounding as if Turbine can do no wrong but going  from SWG to Horizons to EQII to the LoTRO  beta kinda made a Turbine fan boy out of me I am afraid.

Anyway I have a hunter that I made at release and never took past 15 so it is time to start to lvl him up I guess.

In this day and age people don't have to accept 'but it now and we'll go back and fix it later'. It just isn't a winner's mentality. I mean the Loremaster beta testers came right out and said they don't even know who the Loremaster dev is as there has been 0 communication about the class through the beta process. Does that instill a lot of confidence? A loremaster in my raiding kin has been ranting about the traits being arranged so DPS-threat reducing traits are in a trait path with no damage abilities, and all the curing traits we depend on are in the pet path we wouldn't have him touch normally when raiding with us.

Burglars have a trait path they've admitted is broken for release. Some zones like Lothlorien won't be finished for release. Major nerfs across the board to everyone's abilities (other than damage which is why everyone including you is rolling a hunter) as soon as they patch to the expansion.

There is a lot of good stuff in this expansion that I like, but overall it sounds like they're in a rush to launch it well before it is ready.

Wow, that was a straw man attack if ever I saw one.

Who said anything about making old classes useless?

I know some people feel the need to defend Turbine for everything, but seriously there are some issues in this expansion and one of them is that the increased diversity of builds they advertised is not going to happen for many classes.

P.S.- over half my kin is in beta too. This is a big part where the minstrel concerns are coming from.

Originally posted by Jackdog

I don't know as much about Minstrels, but the Minstrel forums are up in arms about perceived loss of solo-ability. They certainly are gong to take very hard hits from the nerfing of tactical crit and tactical damage.

Since all the essential LM curing skills got dumped in the pet tree, the debuffing build isn't going ot be too popular when they can't remove that wound which will kill you in a few second, or keep stuns/silence off the main tank and healer. Yeah, all the LMs will be going at least halfway up the pet tree to group except when there are no stuns or wounds to worry about. Plus a Loremaster who can't mez or cure wounds/disease/stun/silence? They're going to be as popular as the warty old woman who doesn't go out in public.

Burglars got the gambler trait tree, nobody will be using it for long. Then you have either the cookie cutter soloing build, or grouping build. Not going to find very many differences in build there.

So for making players different from each other, this is rating a big FAIL.

Originally posted by Papadam

Trait sets: LotrO currently lacks character specialization and everyone playing the same classes have very similar builds. This will change with MoM with the inclusion of trait sets. Every class get 3 different sets that will give you certain bonuses for equipping traits from those sets but you can still mix and match as you like to make it fit the way you play.

Pretty good post overall, but I had to disagree partially with the quoted part above. This is only true for some classes, some like the Loremasters and Minstrels have class trait trees that contain serious debuffs to selecting them and funnel attributes in such ways that there will be far less specialization and more cookie cutter builds. The loremasters are discussing that their trait tree is evidently goofy with questionable advantages and some arrangements that don't make sense.

Overall it seems like the popular classes or the new classes are getting a lot to be happy about, and the already underplayed essential group role classes are going to become even rarer.

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Originally posted by Sasi

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The game certainly inspires passion among it's devotees, and the debates are just as pointed between "vets" as they are between "vets" and "newbies". Thin skin may be a liability. Even in disagreements, though, the discourse seems to me to be more civil than in most other spots on "Teh Internets". Read any political blogs lately?

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http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pat070381.html

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I've never heard ANYONE say the game should stay static. Just differing opinions over the direction to be taken. Some do have strong opinions, and defend them vigorously. I see no problem with that, regardless of whether I agree.

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To them I would point to successful games like WoW, War, LotRO that have game elements for many different kinds of people. Rather than being "super-niche" they try to have something for several kinds of people. More Ryzom "vets" need to accept that some things can be added as side content without taking away from their game (like having PvE as well as PvP outposts as it was in the original vision).

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Point number one, regarding making things harder: I've heard just as many complaints about things that were made easier. Perhaps the dev teams were off in their estimation of what was best.

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Nevrax was certainly off in their testing. If they'd paid ANY attention to their testers then Patch 1 would not have went live and Nevrax would probably still be in business with 100x the current population.

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Point number two, regarding PvP: I also think the developers could have left more options in those cases. However, quality PvP can attract as many people as it frightens away, so that may be a wash in terms of potential population. As it happened, I doubt that enough PvP fans knew about the changes to make up for the losses. Better marketing might have compensated, but I'm just conjecturing.

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It doesn't need to take away ANY players if it is a side-game for those who love it. If people had a choice between PvP and non-PvP "Old Lands" then all the PvP complaints would have gone away and a lot of people would have stayed. Nobody complains about dueling, or the arenas, or other areas where PvP is consentual. They do complain about having to enter a PvP zone to access a forage material they want (and most foragers are nothing more than easy targets in PvP).

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I'm not much of a PvPer myself, as I'm much too slow and clumsy.
However, conflict and difficulty are an important part of the lore of Atys, so I hardly see how the addition of PvP breaks with the ongoing Saga. Just one homin's opinion. Oh, and ganking is quite rare, in my experience. And it's certainly less harsh than being eaten by aggro mobs, as there's no death penalty.

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You can have conflict without PvP. There was a long "Cold War" between the U.S. and Soviet Union without any battles directly between them. Conflict can take many forms than just "to arms and gank the enemy". In example the fame system in Ryzom which is excellent is under-utilized. I also loved the competition between sides to build their own temples, but the PvP required as a forager or crafter to build the temple was obnoxious.

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Now, if the changes you and I would both like to see don't happen, are you bitter enough to want Ryzom to fail just to satisfy your anger about changes you didn't like? Or would you be OK with it limping along and providing endless hours of fun to the people who still enjoy it?

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My interest in the community has sadly gone away with the two guilds of about 160 players who quit between the two events I listed and I can't get too interested in joining the community until I feel the game and its community might really have a future again.
 

How about: 

I would if digital upgrade was available in my state.