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Atlantica Online News - Solving the Double Monk Issue IV
Posted by Jon Wood on Sep 29, 2009 | 4 comments in our forums
MMORPG.com Atlantica Online Correspondent Andrew Corpuz writes this look at the issue surrounding the double Monk issue in Atlantica Online and gives some possible solutions.
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There currently aren't many alternatives to Holy Guard that benefit a row of mercenaries; a player is most usually going to place HG on a row whenever he is able since there isn't much else that can be done to buff that row. If a significant number of friendly skills are increased, then there will be less reason to place Holy Guard. Strategically, adding a significant amount of these category of skills can change the mechanics, making buff and support equally as imperative as dealing direct damage.
1) Passives
Summary: While passive skills don't affect players under HG, the skills usually don't affect enough mercenaries (in a typical formation) or don't provide enough of a buff to prevent the user from placing HG. Since passives can stack extremely well and with zero effort in battle, an increase in the number of passives will keep players from using HG on characters under the effect of multiple passives. However, because they are passive (not requiring thought to activate in battle), the addition of more passive skills is not as an effective tool as adding other types of friendly skills.
I understand the need to change some things about how mercenaries operate in Free League, but I do not think the Double Monk Formation is changing much.
I have used the DMF on my level 108 Power Saw mercenary, and I do better exchanging my monk with a more useful mercenary.
Having read these articles, I disagree that the Monk poses a threat, Holy Guard is a two-sided blade, in the fact that it negates any ability to heal, from shaman, prophet, exorcist, or princess. So in other words, its a counter productive skill. The only use for Holy Guard is to block an exorcists ability to block magic on your back row (Example).
Also, looking at higher level battles, anyone with a ranged build, including gunners and archers, can effectively disable any monk in just a few rounds.
Free League is more about skill than you think, DMF does not create in imbalance towards other players who don't use the formation. It is simply a way of playing for people who seem to think that it works for them. If someone just happens to lose horribly to someone else because of their formation, it is not the blame of the other person. It is the fault of the person who has a crappy formation.
And as I said earlier, it is more about skill than formation. Example being, I have witnessed a formation of 6 staff mercenaries, 2 ranged, and 1 melee. This formation also took down a very high level GM Battle. It was not the formation that killed the GM, it was the players effective use of his skill that won him the battle.
So in the famous words of someone that Im sure some of you know...
Quit QQing!
What I got from that is that they seemed to be re-thinking about making the mistake they were about to make.
Instead of gimping dmf itself they seem to plan on giving other abilities to other jobs.
Nice work, glad to hear it didnt take them 4 years to learn that unlike the other big MMO's
Enough already. Why we need 4 articles on solving one minor problem in a game is beyond me. If we ever see a version V of this debacle, MMORPG needs to be lambasted for posting it.
Atlantica was a nice breath of fresh air initially to many who found the innovative combat fun, but once they got to a higher level they found out it was the normal heavy grindfest, highly dependent on the in game store.
F2P games are fun to try out, but staying around in any of them is an expensive chore.
Personally adding a new merc with some of the same abilities other than the puni crappy one, will probably make it at least a more diverse team experiance.