304 replies to this topic

[Ramen]

I find all of the complaining a little disconcerting. I'm about 98% certain that this is not the "end" of the skill balancing as Heim has alluded to. Having it uploaded to the live servers will serve get much more testing done, seeing as many people were having issues even logging in to Sakray. On top of that there won't even be "real" WoE's for the rest of the month. Seems like the perfect chance to settle into the these changes and give some legitimate feedback. I say legitimate because no one will listen if you're just going to cry about how your class has become "useless" or "unplayable" just because the damage of a skill was lowered or something like that. If it's really so broken and you care so much, take the time to give specific reasons as to why it's broken and needs further adjusting. People in the real world are much more likely to listen to and accept a well reasoned proposal over some brat crying and complaining about how unfair it is.

[HayrohsLegacy]

To make RG a true tank, they should have 50% chance on Guard level 10, remove fixed cast time and increase duration on Sacrifice and 90% reduced ranged damage with Defending Aura 5.

RG is already hard to kill w/Guard Lv 5, Defending Aura Lv 5 80% or if you also bring full reduction gears. Even theyll put Sacrifice fixed cast time, well I'll just search for a safe spot for me and my squishy pt members to get Sac-ed.

I said true tank yes but not to be like a "Man of Steel", Reflect Damage is bad too if youre not taking dmg and keep on blocking w/Guard at higher skill level/chance, 50 hits reflect limit? Solution: just re-cast. I used to play my RG tanking at the same time killing ppl around 7x7 w/Reflected dmg + Overbrand combo.

My opinions were from my own WOE experiences

[lainee]

I hope they add Magic Strings in our skill tree... IT'S ENOUGH!

I posted this at our guild forum before. Reposting here

Deep Sleep Lullaby has been nerfed to the point of being useless. At about 92 int, even if deep sleep goes off (with much lower chance now too) you will sleep for less than a second with almost an instant recovery (you might see one Z of the ZzZzZz) .

Saturday Night Fever also seems not to be working (at least in GD). Madness ailment seems to have no effect. Skill delay is pure comedy.

Sirens Voice, longer cast time and much lower chance of working

Not that it really matters for WoE, Severe Rainstorm has now been re-named Severe Nerfstorm. Completely useless now and I pity and Wanderers and Maestro's that are not 150/50 yet.

While I planned to still main on my AB, I was going to skill and stat re-set my Wanderer to a pure WoE build just in case it was ever needed. Honestly no point now if the above skills are 'working as intended' in the balance patch. At least Maestros can still 'String' and have Windmill Rush...

It's kind of funny as I changed to priest class, not long after trans-classes were introduced to RO, really due to the style of WoE that developed (hello portal casting) and that Gypsies were just becoming more and more redundant in general (think about the skill tree from dancer/gypsy upwards - the kRO devs have not looked at it in many years. Most of it is junk now, or does not work or is just pointless in renewal, come to think of it it was pointless pre-renewal) There has always been a massive gap even between the usefulness of Dancer/Gypsy/Wanderer when compared to the 'boy' performers (maybe this is one of those Korean cultural things I don't quite grasp? Korean Machismo or something) - but now that gap is no longer bridgeable. Wanderers have only one use now - to AFK on in Pront wearing your cutest hat.

Edited by lainee, 13 December 2011 - 06:51 PM.

[asayuu]

I find all of the complaining a little disconcerting. I'm about 98% certain that this is not the "end" of the skill balancing as Heim has alluded to. Having it uploaded to the live servers will serve get much more testing done, seeing as many people were having issues even logging in to Sakray. On top of that there won't even be "real" WoE's for the rest of the month. Seems like the perfect chance to settle into the these changes and give some legitimate feedback. I say legitimate because no one will listen if you're just going to cry about how your class has become "useless" or "unplayable" just because the damage of a skill was lowered or something like that. If it's really so broken and you care so much, take the time to give specific reasons as to why it's broken and needs further adjusting. People in the real world are much more likely to listen to and accept a well reasoned proposal over some brat crying and complaining about how unfair it is.

I think while the "live testing" is done on the main servers, Sakray could be used to test suggestions of changes. Damage balances, cast times, chances of effects, and so on.

[Weeeelium]

To make RG a true tank, they should have 50% chance on Guard level 10, remove fixed cast time and increase duration on Sacrifice and 90% reduced ranged damage with Defending Aura 5.

haha what do you want auto-warg rangers to do then? throw paper arrows?

[VanishingPoint]

Thanks for providing us with the free reset. Hopefully this will get the old players to come back while encouraging the active players to remain active.

[rivermans]

December 13 we will be applying the Skill balance patch. For many of you this is old news that you've been milling over for months already. For some that aren't as familiar with the behind the scenes discussions here on the forums this may be a bit of new news.

1st, most of this maintenance is about just implementing of the Skill balance update. With it there are some other system changes that we need to update as well.

1st Some 3rd classes do have HP modifications. Below is the changes, this would be level 150 with 0 vit (vit adds 1% HP)

• Rune Knight 17808 -> 14883
• Warlock 6960 -> 7669
• Ranger 10451 -> no change
• Archbishop 8283 -> no change
• Mechanic 10897 -> 12531
• GX Cross 13188 -> no change
• Shadow Chaser 13188 -> no change
• Royal Guard 13188 -> no change
• Sorcerer 10451 -> 8883
• Minstrel 10451 -> no change
• Wanderer 10451 -> no change
• Sura 10897 -> no change
• Genetic 8283 -> 9111

Also most monsters in the game received updates to some of their stats like dex or damage and Experience reward. Monsters still exists within their current level range. The Turn In rewards will be adjusted accordingly. Typically exp for the 1-99 levels was lessened from monsters, while the monsters at the 130+ were increased. The overall intention is to make a more gradual and natural leveling curve. This is not a project that is complete from kRO or from us. We will be spending the next few weeks looking at quest rewards and making them feel like a more a natural part of the characters progression rather than a complete aside for time and effort spent. Please read the very bottom of this post for what this means and why we pushed to get this completed today.


Skill Resets: There will be a new very flamboyant NPC in the Eden Group that will do a full stat/skill reset 1 time for free. If you want more resets on that character it will take 1 Reset stone for the 2nd, 2 for the 3rd 3 for the 4th etc (#ofReset - 1)= reset stones needed

The Kafra shop has largely moved into the Item Mall GUI which is a button near the minimap, this will work on most maps for access to the kafra shop. For now we will leave the NPCs in the 2nd floor of the Eden Group while you adjust to the update.

Maintenance notes:

• New Turnin from Gramps
• Reset NPC in the Eden Group Kitchen
• Item Mall GUI added to the game
• Skill and class rebalance added.
• Christmas Lucky Box added until 12/27 (scheduled)

Next week we are trying to update 14.1, as many of those contents may directly enhance your current game play in ways that will make more sense with this skill update, so we do not want to overly delay on that implementation, plus it is a great time for us to advertise the game in the media if we have an episode update.

Next week will also be event WoEs of some sort, this means that this weeks castle holders will lose their castles next maintenance, their Econ and holdings backed up and reapplied once the event WoEs are over. During the event woes only certain realms will open up during the WoE period, and there will be 2 castles on the realm that are "normal" and 3 that are event WoE based, reward will not be treasure (indeed treasure won't spawn anyway) but will be items that help the guild make zeny and recouperate WoE cost.

*-------- Long winded explanation follows ------------*

We began talking about the Skill Balance we were working on since last April, with expectations of having all the skill updates applied sometime last July. kRO at that time was directly working on a new skill balance that took feedback from many countries into account and was better received than the original, they wanted us to hold on until August/September to get the skill balance update. It was plausible to do this since huge sweeping changes should be few and far between, and this is a large change to be honest. When we were discussing our update schedule there were a lot of mini updates that had to precede the skill balance, as the skill balance was built with the "physics" of 14.1 in mind, which basically means that certain game functions only work with the 14.1 build.

So the Indonesia Map, Brasilis, 13.3 and the Costume Tab all needed to precede the Skill Balance update. That meant delays in our schedule. We were planning to be at this point of implementation in Late october or Early November, but we had certain technical difficulties due to this being the first implementation of this update outside of kRO or jRO, and not having workable files to work on our English systems. These are the sort of things that happen in development, normally we don't get so much at once, but it isn't unheard of. If we don't launch today that means 14.1 has to be delayed into next year, because the next 2 weeks are going into Holiday time which means very lessened support and ability to affect changes and fixes quickly. (Plus I had 2011 marketing budget planned for these updates, it going *poof* would make me cry with the lost opportunity)

I know with certainty that there are going to be things that are disliked in this update, likely because a class was glossed over, or made weaker or another class skills got enhanced etc. I know that is true and would happen in any sort of skill update, but I really hope that we all can look at this properly as a step in the right direction. Originally it was thought this would be the "end all patch" for skill balance from kRO, but after much discussion about feedback from around the world and the very passionate discussions over the last many months a new, more realistic, mindset emerged. It is impossible to fix everything at once, and really an MMO keeps evolving so constant tweeks have to happen, if feedback and the needs of the individual versions aren't addressed it will harm their player base and ultimately business. I know those statements sound like "duh" statements but a large business is not a person it is numbers and it doesn't have common sense it just has resource management and efficiency desires, and trying to cram an idea that uses resources without imediate gain is *hard*.

So 2011 is step 1, its long overdue but oh so needful. 2012 will likely have at least 1 if not 2 skill tweek updates (much smaller than this) , we need to take your feedback on how things are after this patch and get changes made. Things like resistances, damage, combination effects between skills etc all are things we want to modify. We pushed this update through Sakray faster than many of you wanted, and didn't allow tons of build testing, this was very intended as we knew it was impossible to make "balance changes" on this patch, it is a yes or no not a line item veto power. It takes months to get changes applied properly through the kRO then out to the world patches, I can't let iRO sit as it is for many months while we nitpick on specific skills, it just adds more frustration that we aren't moving forward. The Sakray testing was just to make sure the skills did what they were stated to change to (we will update the website as we can) testing builds so often misses the point of verification testing which was why the limitations.

You call this balance what a joke! RK's are already getting hit with a damage reduction on Dragons Breath and now you sit and nerf them even more with the HP modifier. Gotta hand it to the GM's you don't even listen to your player-base, and don't give me this excuse this is from KRO. You essentially are killing your own game and will lose alot of players from implementing this buggy skill balance patch.

Fundamentals of programming taught in College show the software (i.e RO in this reference) life-cycle as the following:
Requirements (changes needed ingame)(phase completed)
-> Design (changes needed are programmed in this case)(phase completed
-> Implementation for testing purposes on Sakray ->(proposed changes needed are put on Sakray)(phase completed
-> Bugs Sumbmitted and Final Testing Completed phase not completed. As you can see you skipped the final part of the software lifecycle used when creating software and in this case your just adding to the already broken mechanics of this game. All the playerbase is asking you to do is fully workout the bugs of content before releasing it cause it is just plain stupid implementing content that is already bugged on Sakray into the live server. Yea you may say its easier to fix stuff when its live, but if you wanted to deliver a quality product that players would enjoy more I would strongly recommend workout all the bugs of content before releasing it.

@Ramen the playerbase shouldn't honestly be the ones doing the testing of the content as I know many other games i.e WOW, Everquest, and many others have actual game testers on staff to test for bugs.

@Heim glad to see the skill patch finally going in, but I don't agree with the fact you are releasing it in a very buggy state. Get the bugs out before releasing it as it will save you from complaints from players later on weeks down the road. Whose choice was it btw for the HP mod changes?

[HayrohsLegacy]

I wana see RKs this Saturday WOE

And will still play my Storm Blaster

I love Rune Knight whatever nerf theyll get

Edited by HayrohsLegacy, 13 December 2011 - 06:53 PM.

[ZeoKenX]

Goodbye OP shadowform and manhole, hello OP crushing strike.

Glad someone sees how bs that move is now =o

[CeruleanGamer]

haha what do you want auto-warg rangers to do then? throw paper arrows?

My post is more directed on GoH Suras. They aren't suppose to dent 30% of my HP with GoH with me on Defending Aura level 5 and full reduction gear.

[Weeeelium]

My post is more directed on GoH Suras. They aren't suppose to dent 30% of my HP with GoH with me on Defending Aura level 5 and full reduction gear.

I support this for goh suras

[GuardianTK]

You call this balance what a joke! RK's are already getting hit with a damage reduction on Dragons Breath and now you sit and nerf them even more with the HP modifier. Gotta hand it to the GM's you don't even listen to your player-base, and don't give me this excuse this is from KRO. You essentially are killing your own game and will lose alot of players from implementing this buggy skill balance patch.

Fundamentals of programming taught in College show the software (i.e RO in this reference) life-cycle as the following:
Requirements (changes needed ingame)(phase completed)
-> Design (changes needed are programmed in this case)(phase completed
-> Implementation for testing purposes on Sakray ->(proposed changes needed are put on Sakray)(phase completed
-> Bugs Sumbmitted and Final Testing Completed phase not completed. As you can see you skipped the final part of the software lifecycle used when creating software and in this case your just adding to the already broken mechanics of this game. All the playerbase is asking you to do is fully workout the bugs of content before releasing it cause it is just plain stupid implementing content that is already bugged on Sakray into the live server. Yea you may say its easier to fix stuff when its live, but if you wanted to deliver a quality product that players would enjoy more I would strongly recommend workout all the bugs of content before releasing it.

@Ramen the playerbase shouldn't honestly be the ones doing the testing of the content as I know many other games i.e WOW, Everquest, and many others have actual game testers on staff to test for bugs.

@Heim glad to see the skill patch finally going in, but I don't agree with the fact you are releasing it in a very buggy state. Get the bugs out before releasing it as it will save you from complaints from players later on weeks down the road. Whose choice was it btw for the HP mod changes?

Doesn't change the fact that all those HP mod changes were all from kRO. Why are you blaming the iRO GM's about something that kRO decided to give us? The playerbase has no say in it, whether the GM's know it's right or not.

Why did you feel the need to quote the first post by the way? /swt

[JStoneheart]

Please, increase GoH damage! I can't die fast enough against suras!

[rivermans]

Doesn't change the fact that all those HP mod changes were all from kRO. Why are you blaming the iRO GM's about something that kRO decided to give us? The playerbase has no say in it, whether the GM's know it's right or not.

Why did you feel the need to quote the first post by the way? /swt

I felt the need to post it so could point out my point of view and those changes show me where they came from KRO, since I see no where a link to anything showing a hp mod change. And learn to read I actually asked where the HP mods came from at the bottom of my post.

Edited by rivermans, 13 December 2011 - 07:30 PM.

[asayuu]

It's kind of funny as I changed to priest class, not long after trans-classes were introduced to RO, really due to the style of WoE that developed (hello portal casting) and that Gypsies were just becoming more and more redundant in general (think about the skill tree from dancer/gypsy upwards - the kRO devs have not looked at it in many years. Most of it is junk now, or does not work or is just pointless in renewal, come to think of it it was pointless pre-renewal) There has always been a massive gap even between the usefulness of Dancer/Gypsy/Wanderer when compared to the 'boy' performers (maybe this is one of those Korean cultural things I don't quite grasp? Korean Machismo or something) - but now that gap is no longer bridgeable. Wanderers have only one use now - to AFK on in Pront wearing your cutest hat.

We will be outclassed in quantity by expanded super novices! And I love being AFK!

We need to face it. The class is dead. After playing dancer classes for over three years [not here], I considered changing main. After playing GX and Ranger on Sakray... I may not really "switch" mains, but I will be enjoying playing a non-dancer class after a very long time. And sit AFK with cute hats when I'm bored.

OH I KNOW. kRO should double the wanderer base HP. So we could be useful for something. As "Training Bags". /gg

Edited by asayuu, 13 December 2011 - 07:24 PM.

[Cubical]

Goodbye Inspiration & Genesis Ray
But with almost all skills getting nerfed/lowered dmg I guess I can tank better now and less killing spree

Finally, Royal Guard becomes a true "TANK CLASS"
No QQ here, still maining my Royal Guard, and hope we will have a smooth game after maint

there was a small nerf to overbrand, but Vanishing point stayed the same. Personally i prefer a hybrid tank/attack RG so this patch doesnt really hurt her as much. Maybe we'll see some of the old sac and tank strategies from the pally days come back?

Edited by Cubical, 13 December 2011 - 07:30 PM.

[Cydra]

there was a small nerf to overbrand, but Vanishing point stayed the same. Personally i prefer a hybrid tank/attack RG so this patch doesnt really hurt her as much.

Lol. The patch did nothing to improve our tanking. Our attacks just got neutered.

[Falcifer]

Overall I don't mind this balance patch, but I dunno...
I'm glad it's nerfing manhole and shadowform, since the spamming of those skills indicated a bad chaser; it'll teach chasers to play smarter and use fly kick/windmill/masq combo like they should, not manhole precasts.

And I'm not sure if this was put on sakray (I didn't test it), but isn't swing dance supposed to be OP? I heard it's supposed to give 193 aspd to *anyone?* at job 50 wanderer...that and classical pluck/slow grace/song of despair are the only support options I can think of x_x But everyone has to admit DSL was insanely OP and needed to go. Either deep sleep moves get nerfed (the current balance patch) or implement a headgear card for deep sleep immunity (adding it to nightmare card would be nice :3)

[Viri]

Overall I don't mind this balance patch, but I dunno...
I'm glad it's nerfing manhole and shadowform, since the spamming of those skills indicated a bad chaser; it'll teach chasers to play smarter and use fly kick/windmill/masq combo like they should, not manhole precasts.

And I'm not sure if this was put on sakray (I didn't test it), but isn't swing dance supposed to be OP? I heard it's supposed to give 193 aspd to *anyone?* at job 50 wanderer...that and classical pluck/slow grace/song of despair are the only support options I can think of x_x But everyone has to admit DSL was insanely OP and needed to go. Either deep sleep moves get nerfed (the current balance patch) or implement a headgear card for deep sleep immunity (adding it to nightmare card would be nice :3)

Windmill is a useless skill vs people that use things to make the instantly stand up automatically! Seems to be getting more popular, sprite barely even looks like it sat for a frame.

[Clogon]

since I see no where a link to anything showing a hp mod change.

Searching for info posted by people with this info is a good start at finding these...

http://forums.warppo...74-new-hp-mods/

http://forums.warppo...post__p__630855


@Cydra:
+125 def/mdef + immunity to stone curse, petrification and frozen without the need of cards for 3 mins and immunity to GX poisons for 30s is not an improvement on your tanking abilities?


@asayuu:
Swing dance is pretty op!

[Cydra]

Overall I don't mind this balance patch, but I dunno...
I'm glad it's nerfing manhole and shadowform, since the spamming of those skills indicated a bad chaser; it'll teach chasers to play smarter and use fly kick/windmill/masq combo like they should, not manhole precasts.

And I'm not sure if this was put on sakray (I didn't test it), but isn't swing dance supposed to be OP? I heard it's supposed to give 193 aspd to *anyone?* at job 50 wanderer...that and classical pluck/slow grace/song of despair are the only support options I can think of x_x But everyone has to admit DSL was insanely OP and needed to go. Either deep sleep moves get nerfed (the current balance patch) or implement a headgear card for deep sleep immunity (adding it to nightmare card would be nice :3)

Overall, you must be a genetic or shura player.

[CeruleanGamer]

They should have just left Reflect Damage alone. 40 attack limit goes down really fast if you get attacked by a GX or an Agi RK. Might as well just get Shield Reflect since with that at least you can pass to other people during Sacrifice....

[HayrohsLegacy]

there was a small nerf to overbrand, but Vanishing point stayed the same. Personally i prefer a hybrid tank/attack RG so this patch doesnt really hurt her as much. Maybe we'll see some of the old sac and tank strategies from the pally days come back?

Hmm its ok, no big deal even they nerf RG's atk skills coz we are supposed to be just tanking, but well if they nerfed OB a bit I just use it to distract mobs of ppl in WOE and just PVM killing skill, yes prolly the old Pally days tanking might be back after this maint

Lol. The patch did nothing to improve our tanking. Our attacks just got neutered.

Its obvious that most atk skills and their formulas are getting lowered/nerfed, means lesser dmg > tanking = better

Edited by HayrohsLegacy, 13 December 2011 - 07:39 PM.

[Cubical]

Lol. The patch did nothing to improve our tanking. Our attacks just got neutered.

Vanishing point didnt get touched from the notes i saw. The nerfs to Inspiration where not that bad and OB had a SP/'third hit' nerf. Really the biggest problem with RGs was the reflect damage bug and the Exceed bug. Those needed to go.

It also doesn't help the fact that magic classes can't cast while being attacked in woe. I mean how are we supposed to defend ourselves or attack if we can't fight back?

simple you grab a sac RG. Back when i still played i was always part of a party that had a sorcerer in it and we pretty much covered each others weaknesses very well. He would mob control with AoE and i would Vanishing Point chip enemies to help him kill. When he couldnt kill GTB users i stepped in and level'ed them for him. Theres plenty of RGs out there, however most play a attacker/rush down RG. The RG class shines brightest on defense, offense isnt that bad but not the greatest. Theres also the issue of RGs that actually know how to play the class effectively. Some probably bad enough that they dont sac the right people or at the right time. Thats not the case with me though!

[Falcifer]

@Cydra
I am a GX and Chaser.