We have taken notice that many of the available HP & MP restorative items in-game are not being utilized. After some investigation and review over the restoration items and its system, several things were noted behind how these items were seen, used and impact game play.
Noted issues and problem areas.
These items were noted not to have either a design guide, seen method of intent or are were simply problematic in how they impacted the overall sense of game play.
1 What items are desired and used most.
â?¢ As none of the restorative items required a level in order to use, the highest available item would be the typical choice of desire and purchase.
â?¢ Many of the other items aside from the highest tier, were generally ignored or overlooked as they were not "the best." We want that all the consumables have a purpose and usefulness.
2. Some consumables take too long to restore at higher level ranges.
â?¢ This was an issue with higher tier restore over time items being inadequate to counter incoming damage.
3. Instant potions are highly popular.
â?¢ Without restriction of frequency of use, battles became "I can tank it because I have a lot of potions." This caused an upset more for PvP players on the receiving end who felt it no longer was a strategy to compete against someone than it was who had more money to blow.
â?¢ For PvE situations, players would charge fearlessly against a monster they normally wouldnâ??t, again because they could sustain the damage purely through money consumption.
4. Most recovery items were initially created from the original 1-100 level system.
â?¢ This caused most restoratives to lose their usefulness very quickly as you approached level 100 as well as many of the game play changes that have occurred since the beginning of ROSE Online.
5. The weight of many consumable items was typically not an issue
â?¢ You could carry vast amounts of restorative items from the low weight relationship of each item Vs the maximum carry capacity characters have and can obtain.
What weâ??re looking at doing and why.
1. Placing level requirements on restorative items.
â?¢ This will provide miniature goals to work towards while leveling to achieve the next restorative tier to use.
â?¢ This will cause all ranges of consumable items to be necessary throughout game play.
â?¢ It allows items to be scaled properly for their intended level range, increasing the amounts they restore for so higher level players can better survive, without affecting lower level game play, from being "invincible."
2. Adjusting the amounts of restoratives and giving them some strategic consideration. Weâ??re looking at two main types of restoratives and giving them distinct roles in game play. Heal over time (foods) and instant restoratives (potions) and the various mechanics that are available to use in combination with them.
â?¢ Intention â?? restorative items are helpers, not a supplement or complete replacement to having support from others.
â?¢ Foods
- Making food items restore over a standard time duration, which means the amount would increase per tier to fulfill their listed amount of HP/MP.
- Removing the cool-down restriction and group cooling effects.
â? Upside: You can continuously use the item to keep the restore effect going for HP &MP.
â? Downside: If you consume a food item before an active one is finished, you lose the remaining amount that would have been restored from the previous food in effect and the new food starts.
â?¢ Potions
- Increasing the restore amounts by a significant amount but applying a short cool-down.
- The increase will make them a more powerful source for recovering HP/MP when taking large amounts of damage suddenly, when you are critically low on life or desperate for MP in order to use a skill.
- This also removes the "I can tank it because I have a lot of potions" from being how one would survive massive damage when they would otherwise not be able to.
â?¢ PvE & PvP considerations.
- Cool-downs would only be tied to other items of similar nature, so potions will not cause foods to become unavailable, but a potion would lock out all other potions from use.
- The change to add cool downs has the intention of making combat in both PvP and PvE be more of a concern and judgment call.
- PvE, quick burst to counter a large hit or skill.
- PvP, choosing when the best time would be to use it to survive and emerge victorious.
3. Adjusting the weight
â?¢ Carrying multiple full stacks of restorative items to burn through highly difficult situations or areas isn't really a game play mechanic that supports the idea of offering a player an intriguing combat challenge, than it does just constantly pushing a button to last through a fight. With the increase in how much would be restored for various items, the weight is going to also be adjusted as well. Based on the baseline of carry capacity maximum generated and the changes to restorative items, you can expect the weight to increase depending on the item's tier.
4. Monster Drops
â?¢ We will be removing the restorative items that can drop from monsters that you can keep in inventory. This has shown to be counterproductive towards the need for purchasing restorative items and another goal of trying to have an essential drain of money from the economy so it doesn't continuously inflate.
5. Item Mall Jelly Beans
â?¢ To continue keeping a uniqueness to Item Mall items, we will be looking in to a way to keep the Jelly Beans useful and desirable over the normal in-game foods and potions.
Additional notes from Development
1. Crafting ingredients for potions
â?¢ Because of the change in scale of potions, the ingredients for those potions would also need to scale and match with what they are creating.