Patch 4.50.9 - Relics of Malice

[Damon Otter]

Hello Everyone,
Thanks for weighing in. We are listening!

We may adjust the challenge levels for each reward tier as we see how players are faring. It's more popular to move them down than up, so we set them high at the start.

When this build was on Test, we originally had the best rewards at the Platinum tier. After some feedback from the Test community, it helped us to clarify the design goals, and make an adjustment. We moved the best reward down from the Platinum reward to the Gold reward. Our goal is that if someone is dedicated to doing Raids, they can achieve the Gold reward by the end of the season. Platinum will require a herculean effort, however, and the reward is mainly for the bragging rights; and the reward now reflects this. So, in evaluating the Raid balance, we think everyone should be basing it on reaching Gold, not Platinum.

About relics- we will allow them to remain active for a while after the Season ends -- perhaps through all of the following season-- so that there is an overlap of two seasons worth of relics. We thought about making the permanent, but the game already has many sources for elite, permanent gear; and with the relics we wanted something different. Relics that are rotating in and out of the game allows for ever-changing and fresh gameplay. We could for example release an overpowered relic that completely changes the way you play your character, and players would be able to experiment with it, and because it eventually rotates out, we need not be too concerned that we've broken the game permanently.

We're also thinking seriously of removing the numbered challenge levels entirely, as has been suggested here and elsewhere, and switching to a simple bronze, silver, gold, platinum, heroic scheme, in which you need to succeed at each tier 5 or so times before unlocking the next tier, but within a tier, the difficulty remains constant. Each new tier will be a little different than the one prior- more enemies, more goals, tougher enemies, and will have better drops. I can't say for certain when we'll have this ready- it's a bit of work- but we think it's a better scheme for many reasons; and especially because it makes it easier for players to group up to do a raid- ie, "Hey, doing Rookery Silver now, any takers?" instead of "Hey, doing Rookery challenge level 18- please no challenge level 15 players or below- any takers?" (This idea was a player suggestion- we don't take credit it for it, but we like it!). Further, Heroic tier will probably have infinite progression for the truly competitive players.

In terms of the big picture, we want to spend a bit more time polishing Raids so that players really enjoy them. We hope that for most players they provide nice side content, and that for some players, they are the main focus. Again, we want a game that suits many different playstyles-- that is, a game where everyone has a place. As we said on the livestream, after we polish Raids a bit more, we want to focus on the villaging side of the game as our next major effort.

Best,
Damon

 

[Halleebell]

I understand where you are coming from, but you still seem to miss the point that this session of Raids is STILL IN TESTING and not finalized, nothing is set in stone as of yet and the Otters probably may change the numbers of completed raids to reach certain levels. They may lower bronze to 5 levels but make up the difference on Platinum. We don't know what will happen until they get the data that they need. If a mass majority of players never make it past silver, they may adjust the difficulty of the levels and/or decrease the number of levels needed to change ranks. The dungeons were on constant adjustment the 2 years that I played them. First they were a challenge then were to easy, then way too hard, then almost back to a great challenge before they were removed for raids.
The Point is Wait, play them, and give honest feedback about them. The devs have to make the game enjoyable to the Majority of players, not just a few.

Oh I get your point you’ve said it enough In bold letter for me to comprehend. But we are going off what they’ve said in the here and now. Not in the future or the maybe. if we do not voice our concerns then there’s most likely not a chance it will change. Have a good night.

 

[Priest Daimheach]

I've skimmed through all the posts (did not read them thoroughly). It appears that people feel very strongly about their position.
I'm not one of those people. While I love doing group content, I am not interested in competitive group content - ie I will probably never get to platinum.

However, I'd like to point out that as far as I know, Raids are still in beta - meaning that devs are still developing them. They WILL put out things that we absolutely love. They WILL put out things that we absolutely hate. Only time will tell what works and what doesn't. If the devs find that things aren't working for season 2, they'll probably change some things for season 3.

My point is - take a step back - it's not even live yet. No one's truly played them yet. Let's give it a chance to see how it goes.

 

[Giruv]

We may adjust the challenge levels for each reward tier as we see how players are faring. It's more popular to move them down than up, so we set them high at the start.

Can we have bronze tier or at least unlocking next raid zone at challenge level 5? That way at least it is more accessible to everyone to try all the raid zone. This way even tho many player can't get the Gold/platinum tier, They can still do raid for the ducats from daily/weekly rewards. And still got the big reward from ducat vendor such as gear armament, toy, and mount.

 

[Lyrra]

Hello Everyone,
Thanks for weighing in. We are listening!

We may adjust the challenge levels for each reward tier as we see how players are faring. It's more popular to move them down than up, so we set them high at the start.

When this build was on Test, we originally had the best rewards at the Platinum tier. After some feedback from the Test community, it helped us to clarify the design goals, and make an adjustment. We moved the best reward down from the Platinum reward to the Gold reward. Our goal is that if someone is dedicated to doing Raids, they can achieve the Gold reward by the end of the season. Platinum will require a herculean effort, however, and the reward is mainly for the bragging rights; and the reward now reflects this. So, in evaluating the Raid balance, we think everyone should be basing it on reaching Gold, not Platinum.

About relics- we will allow them to remain active for a while after the Season ends -- perhaps through all of the following season-- so that there is an overlap of two seasons worth of relics. We thought about making the permanent, but the game already has many sources for elite, permanent gear; and with the relics we wanted something different. Relics that are rotating in and out of the game allows for ever-changing and fresh gameplay. We could for example release an overpowered relic that completely changes the way you play your character, and players would be able to experiment with it, and because it eventually rotates out, we need not be too concerned that we've broken the game permanently.

We're also thinking seriously of removing the numbered challenge levels entirely, as has been suggested here and elsewhere, and switching to a simple bronze, silver, gold, platinum, heroic scheme, in which you need to succeed at each tier 5 or so times before unlocking the next tier, but within a tier, the difficulty remains constant. Each new tier will be a little different than the one prior- more enemies, more goals, tougher enemies, and will have better drops. I can't say for certain when we'll have this ready- it's a bit of work- but we think it's a better scheme for many reasons; and especially because it makes it easier for players to group up to do a raid- ie, "Hey, doing Rookery Silver now, any takers?" instead of "Hey, doing Rookery challenge level 18- please no challenge level 15 players or below- any takers?" (This idea was a player suggestion- we don't take credit it for it, but we like it!). Further, Heroic tier will probably have infinite progression for the truly competitive players.

In terms of the big picture, we want to spend a bit more time polishing Raids so that players really enjoy them. We hope that for most players they provide nice side content, and that for some players, they are the main focus. Again, we want a game that suits many different playstyles-- that is, a game where everyone has a place. As we said on the livestream, after we polish Raids a bit more, we want to focus on the villaging side of the game as our next major effort.

Best,
Damon

Thank you for listening! I realize we cannot have everything we want, but I am so glad you heard us and are working on solutions... Please make it less costly in terms of resources and time required... more rewarding... and mitigate the grind. Thanx again Otters! (I'm not asking for much! lol)

 

[Rock]

it makes it easier for players to group up to do a raid- ie, "Hey, doing Rookery Silver now, any takers?" instead of "Hey, doing Rookery challenge level 18- please no challenge level 15 players or below- any takers?" (This idea was a player suggestion- we don't take credit it for it, but we like it!)

Thank you, KAVE. A genius and elegant solution!

And props once again to a dev team that values its player feedback.

 

[Littlenymph]

As we said on the livestream, after we polish Raids a bit more, we want to focus on the villaging side of the game as our next major effort.

Best news ever.

 

[Schlarbie]

Thank you, Damon! For this:
"Thanks for weighing in. We are listening!"

And this:
"We may adjust the challenge levels for each reward tier as we see how players are faring. It's more popular to move them down than up, so we set them high at the start. "

And this!
"We're also thinking seriously of removing the numbered challenge levels entirely, as has been suggested here and elsewhere, and switching to a simple bronze, silver, gold, platinum, heroic scheme, in which you need to succeed at each tier 5 or so times before unlocking the next tier, but within a tier, the difficulty remains constant. "

Thank you!!

 

[Alamor0]

I just want to say... WOW! Just grabbed this game today and saw plenty of players around--had a great time with a shaman! And now I see an actually active forum with developers that LISTEN?! And use iterative processes that allow for testing and changes as opposed to being locked into certain approaches? And it's cross-platform? I may just have found my new home.

 

[Littlenymph]

I just want to say... WOW! Just grabbed this game today and saw plenty of players around--had a great time with a shaman! And now I see an actually active forum with developers that LISTEN?! And use iterative processes that allow for testing and changes as opposed to being locked into certain approaches? And it's cross-platform? I may just have found my new home.

I'm going into my 8th year for many of the reasons you just cited.
Welcome to V&H. Hope to see you around for a while to come.

 

[Queeny]

I just want to say... WOW! Just grabbed this game today and saw plenty of players around--had a great time with a shaman! And now I see an actually active forum with developers that LISTEN?! And use iterative processes that allow for testing and changes as opposed to being locked into certain approaches? And it's cross-platform? I may just have found my new home.

Just be careful that you don't use steam or you cannot play cross-platform.
And welcome to the game

 

[V]

Can we have bronze tier or at least unlocking next raid zone at challenge level 5? That way at least it is more accessible to everyone to try all the raid zone. This way even tho many player can't get the Gold/platinum tier, They can still do raid for the ducats from daily/weekly rewards. And still got the big reward from ducat vendor such as gear armament, toy, and mount.

Bronze definitely should have been kept at 5 or perhaps even lowered to 3. Players need to run 30 Raids just to unlock the first brand new one. Some players may be able to do that in a couple of days while for others it would take weeks or months. The Raids should not be dividing players to this extent when one of its core design goals is to function as group content.

 

[Math Fish]

Bronze definitely should have been kept at 5 or perhaps even lowered to 3. Players need to run 30 Raids just to unlock the first brand new one. Some players may be able to do that in a couple of days while for others it would take weeks or months. The Raids should not be dividing players to this extent when one of its core design goals is to function as group content.

On that note, I wonder if there is a way to separate the unlocking of new raids from Bronze altogether? Like, unlock new raids at 5 and Bronze at 10, for example. I also noticed that the new scaling constants are 40% damage and 25% health. So it is more like a DPS race: See who dies first. I think 40% was the damage boost from Season 1 as well. Between that and having new objectives appear at higher tiers instead of higher levels, it looks like the intent is for there to be more raids, but not necessarily have those raids be tougher. So, I'm curious what everyone thinks: How do the early raids compare to Season 1?

 

[Halleebell]

this bug is back. I know the last time it wasn’t all the way fixed cause the runes would still be for the opposite class. Hopefully we can see this resolved. It doesn’t affect me personally cause I’m 95 but I’m sure some who are still lvling would want an item with their class power and the correct runes.

 

[Dawnfire]

How do the early raids compare to Season 1?

They definitely feel tougher. Compared to Season 1 dungeoneering is a lot weaker, and the new relic system offers a lot less early game too. I wonder how game changing will relics be at epic/legendary level, but probably not a lot. Reaching scale 50 with the current relics/dungeoneering won't be as easy as Season 1 for sure.

 

[Argus]

The silver reward in raid is a toy. Toy in this game is nothing more than waste of space as there is no dedicated option like mount to use them immediately without taking up quick slot or going back to inventory screen.

I really hope the upcoming village update will have a dedicated option for toy and pet similar like mount to make them more useful.

 

[Giruv]

. I also noticed that the new scaling constants are 40% damage and 25% health. So it is more like a DPS race: See who dies first. I think 40% was the damage boost from Season 1 as well. Between that and having new objectives appear at higher tiers instead of higher levels, it looks like the intent is for there to be more raids, but not necessarily have those raids be tougher. So, I'm curious what everyone thinks: How do the early raids compare to Season 1?

I haven't do much of the current raid so can't say for certain, but that seems to be an interesting change. I believe on the previous one, beside Red Prince most player issue at higher level raid is not enough time, so it could be a good change, also I think it will make raid less resource intensive for player that have mana issue. If the issue is staying alive rather than time, doing party run with tank and healer will also be more interesting to do.

The reduction seems to be very steep tho, It was 80% per level on the previous one and only 25% per level on this one. At challenge level 21 at the old one it is +1600% while now only +500%, even at challenge level 50 it will only be +1500%. At the same time dungeoneering and relic also much weaker, so still need to try it first.

 

[Sinjin]

Rewards still need to be tweaked. No, I’m not asking for a pony... but the rewards for a weekly shouldn’t be an inferior item for the wrong class. Weekly should follow ‘Tater rules’ (epic quality for the proper class). Epic might be a tad much since you can do 5 a week, maybe ‘rare with a chance for epic’ would be better.