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Author Topic: Proposed changes to Slows  (Read 3106 times)

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Reaver

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Proposed changes to Slows
« on: March 04, 2019, 05:29:36 pm »
So the staff team was talking last week about slow spells across the board, and one idea came up that we'd like community input on.

Currently, most slow spells are magic-based, with a couple specialized exceptions being disease-based.

From a design perspective, this leads to us having to make mobs with higher magic resists -- or nearby friends who buff them -- to make slows landable and still somewhat challenging.  This has an unintended consequence of making all other magic-based spells harder to resist as well, including other debuffs and damages (DoTs and nukes)

So, the thought we had was to make each class that is capable of casting a slow spell, focused on a particular resist type.  For example:
Enchanter - magic based
Shaman - disease based
Beastlord - poison based
Cleric/Pal/Necro - either poison or magic based (undetermined at this time)

ALL slow spells for these classes would be based on that resist type.  The thought behind this is that it helps each of the classes stand out a bit more in  this field, and gives the design team some more interesting options by making certain mobs more resistant to a particular type of magic class.  This would have the effect of making certain kinds of slower classes more beneficial in certain circumstances, as their slows would land easier than other types.

This is not to say that other slower classes are useless -- just they would have a somewhat increased chance of slow being resisted (against certain mobs only) compared to the other slower-types.

So, what do you all think?  Would you like to see each class who can cast slows specialize in a particular kind of slowing?

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Peete

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2019, 06:14:40 pm »
I like this idea. I would ask that you also consider that if the class casting slow can debuff that they can't debuff the stat they can cast slow. For example, shaman lower disease resist s make their slow poison based, chanters can lower magic resists so make theirs cold based... something along those lines that way other debuff classes are needed.

Reaver

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2019, 06:23:12 pm »
I like this idea. I would ask that you also consider that if the class casting slow can debuff that they can't debuff the stat they can cast slow. For example, shaman lower disease resist s make their slow poison based, chanters can lower magic resists so make theirs cold based... something along those lines that way other debuff classes are needed.
In a raid setting, absolutely.  For a single group, I'm not so sure.

Dolmir

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2019, 06:37:34 pm »
I don't see anything wrong with this proposed change except for the overlap of slow spells available to Beastlords and Shaman. I'm assuming that the Shaman/Beastlord slows would be restricted to Shaman as part of the changes.

That said, I think this is not addressing the core problem that existing slows present to the game: if you design encounters to be difficult while mobs are slowed by 50% then they will become impossible without slow and probably trivial with 75% slow. On the other hand if you design them to be merely difficult without slow it then then will be trivial with even a modest slow. This is why in original EQ they eventually resorted to slow resistance or outright immunity. I think this did not go far enough: my recommendation is to reduce the effectiveness of all slows to a maximum of 30%. I believe this would make slow still very good but not totally game-changing.

Here's a question about damage and tanking:
For every 1000 damage taken by a Warrior, how much should a Knight take?
Chain class?
Monk?
Leather class?
Cloth caster?

I don't know what my exact numbers would be, but here are some that I feel are reasonable
Knight: 1100
Chain/Monk: 1400
Leather: 1600
Cloth: 2000

If you agree that these numbers seem reasonable, then even 30% slow should still feel too strong because it rivals the Warrior's entire advantage in damage mitigation compared to a second-rate tank. More-or-less the entire point of the class that is being rivaled by a single spell available to another class.

Reaver

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2019, 08:07:02 pm »
Slow %'s have already been adjusted, and should be a bit more in line with the intended content difficulty.  We expect to be done with the large changes, and any future changes will likely be small tweaks, in this area.

Dolmir

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2019, 09:22:16 pm »
I didn't think that the slows had been changed because my character window still shows 25% haste when I have Turgur's Swarm/Insects on. Will an update to spells file fix this?

I did a quick test and found that Turgur's Insects most likely applies 50% slow now. I think this is a good change but I fear that even at this level slow will have the same polarizing effect on enemy damage output.

whoopinstik

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2019, 11:49:00 am »
I dont think the balance of WHO can slow is an issue. With a small population and a 2box limit, shamans became popular. I would keep the slowing classes the same. Chanter/Sham/Bst/Brd for everything and necro for undead. They all have kits unique to their class and that isnt broken. Just the diversity of the classes because of how the server developed.

With that said, I think dividing the element of the slow is a good idea.
Enchanter - magic based
Shaman - disease based
Beastlord - poison based
Necro - undead only (consider event bosses immune to all but necro slows.)
Bard - jack of all trades slow but 20-25%.
AA Slow - stay instant/unresist and across the board like Bard OR just a spell gem replacement AA to save room and mana (like Live).

This would stimulate diversifying alts for those that have been around a while since the server will still continue to see growth favoring a slower/healer over other choices.

Eldarian

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2019, 02:10:53 pm »
I didn't think that the slows had been changed because my character window still shows 25% haste when I have Turgur's Swarm/Insects on. Will an update to spells file fix this?

I did a quick test and found that Turgur's Insects most likely applies 50% slow now. I think this is a good change but I fear that even at this level slow will have the same polarizing effect on enemy damage output.

the UI tools lie, if you die a timed parse via log you will see the difference

Goraug

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2019, 12:20:26 am »
I like the idea of giving each class that can slow a unique certain resist that they can slow. But also think say if Enchanter slow is magic based they should have a magic debuff to try to help land it. Depending on where you go npcs will have higher resists to certain saves. So in the end it will take care of itself and i do not think you need to handicap classes with not allowing them to cast a debuff for their specific resist class.

Reaver

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2019, 07:42:53 am »
AA Slow - stay instant/unresist and across the board like Bard OR just a spell gem replacement AA to save room and mana (like Live).

Picking out a piece of the comment for side-discussion and clarification.  (This is off-topic of this thread)

Regarding AA slow, the vision for this ability is to provide a kind of pre-slow for difficult encounters, such as raid bosses or tough group bosses.  The purpose was to have some kind of minor slow in place while the players work to land a 'real' slow such as turgur's or similar.  Knowing the intent of the AA may help explain why the ability had to be modified in such a drastic way.

That said, I don't think we're going to see an AA like described by whoopinstik.  The intent here is not to replace a spell gem, but to augment a group or raid's capabilities for taking down tough encounters.

Like it or not, the limit on number of spell gems forces players to prioritize their combat role.  Overall, I think this is a good thing.  Adding AA's that can replace critical spells on the spell gems bar is part of what leads to class homogenization like we see in WoW and all the other clones.

Reaver

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Re: Proposed changes to Slows
« Reply #10 on: March 09, 2019, 07:10:46 am »
So far, it sounds like the community generally supports the idea of focusing each class' slow spells into a different resist type.

If anyone has an objection that hasn't already been raised, please bring it up soon.  If not, we'll probably start working on this next week sometime, and plan for implementation by the end of March.

 

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