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Raidou

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  1. Raidou

    Armor Skill Rework (3.1.2.4)

    By Raidou,


    Patch Notes
    Overview:
    Hello Incarcerated Citizen's of Aincrad,
    Time to address one of the elephants in the room: Armor Skills. There has been noticed a small amount of confusion but a drastic amount of inconsistency across the board in regards to these passives. It has lead to a 'meta' in the shape of light armor and it discourages variety. This patch aims to rectify this.
    Original Skills:
    Originally our Armor skills looked like this:
    Change Reasoning:
    Now first lets look at the worst offender in overtuning, Light Armor by comparing the other two skills:
    Cloth Armor | Can Benefit from 3 Evasion (Via Enhancements) and 1 Mitigation (Via Enhancements). This tunes its Defensive Enhancement Limit to 4
    Light Armor | Can Benefit from 3 Evasion (Via Enhancements) and 2 Mitigation (Via Enhancements). This tunes its Defensive Enhancement Limit to 5
    Heavy Armor | Can Benefit from 1 Evasion (Via Enhancements) and 3 Mitigation (Via Enhancements). This tunes its Defensive Enhancement Limit to 4

    One of these numbers is not like the others. A simple solution is to bring Light Armor in line with the other two, but to define it differently. Given 3/1 and 1/3 on Cloth and Heavy respectively, it only makes sense that Light Armor become a 2/2 so the scale looks like this:

    Cloth | 3/1
    Light | 2/2
    Heavy | 1/3

    1,2,3 and 3,2,1 Nice even and balanced.
    Then we look to ranks, which are inconsistent across the ranks. Using Cloth Armor as an Example:

    Rank 1: 5 MIT +5
    Rank 2: 8 MIT +3?
    Rank 3: 12 MIT +4?
    Rank 4: 15 MIT +3?
    Rank 5: 20 MIT +5 again?
    This inconsistency can lead to confusion as to what each rank provides. As a result each will be retuned to follow the following formula:

    Cloth Armor | +4 Mitigation per Rank
    Light Armor | +6 Mitigation per Rank
    Heavy Armor | +8 Mitigation per Rank
    But hold on, wouldn't that add up to 40 from Heavy?
    Answer is yes, it sure would. This is because the difference between Cloth & Light both at rank 5 was +10 Mitigation, yet for some strange reason the difference between Light & Heavy was only +5 Mitigation. Strange and inconsistent. So we will be rectifying that as well.
    Final Changes:
    ► Cloth Armor
    5 Ranks
    Passive
    Effect: Gain Mitigation based on your rank in Cloth armor. You can only benefit from one armor skill at a time (the respective armor type must be equipped). Your mitigation is capped at 1 equipment slots.
    Rank 1: 4 MIT
    Rank 2: 8 MIT
    Rank 3: 12 MIT
    Rank 4: 16 MIT
    Rank 5: 20 MIT
     
    ► Light Armor
    5 Ranks
    Passive
    Effect: Gain Mitigation based on your rank in Light Armor. You can only benefit from one armor skill at a time (the respective armor type must be equipped). Your mitigation is capped at 2 enhancement slots and Your Evasion is capped at 2 enhancement slots.
    Rank 1: 6 MIT
    Rank 2: 12 MIT (-1 to Stealth Rating)
    Rank 3: 18 MIT
    Rank 4: 24 MIT (-1 to Stealth Rating for -2 total)
    Rank 5: 30 MIT
    Description: You have become proficient in Light Armor with leather or scale armor and few metal plates, allowing you protection as well as some maneuverability.
     
    ► Heavy Armor
    5 Ranks
    Passive
    Effect: Gain Mitigation based on your rank in Heavy armor. You can only benefit from one armor skill at a time (the respective armor type must be equipped). Your evasion is capped at 1 enhancement slot and you take -1 to Stealth Rating per rank.
    Rank 1: 8 MIT
    Rank 2: 16 MIT
    Rank 3: 24 MIT
    Rank 4: 32 MIT
    Rank 5: 40 MIT
    Description: You have become proficient in plated armor of metal and chain, acting as a wearable shield.
  2. Raidou
    Overview:
    Given the state that support archetypes are currently in (we know, staff as a whole is trying to find a good way to approach the problem) we've discovered that most supports have little to use their post actions on. We'd like to address that by looking to one of their only non-heal based post actions (action economy is everything, and we want players to spend it in a meaningful way.)
    Likewise, we'd also like to address the difficulty of obtaining equipment. As it sits we feel as though our current avenues for gearing and preparing a 'frontline ready' character is a little too pigeon holed, gatekept and otherwise a chore. A small removal of recurrence on NT should help alleviate the crawl and allow for more explosive growth. Something for your time and effort.
    Leadership Breakdown:
    These are all the respective changes to Leadership that are current as of this patch:
    [Rank 1 Leadership Art] Elusive
    Active: Post Action
    Energy cost: 4 EN
    Cooldown: 2 Turns.
    Effect: Increase the Evasion of all players in your party by 1 for a single turn, while decreasing your own by 1.
    Description: The user raises their weapon/fist into the air, with each player in the party glowing a soft blue glow for a few seconds.
     
    [Rank 2 Leadership Art] Rally
    Active: Post Action
    Energy cost: 6 EN
    Cooldown: 2 Turns.
    Effect: Increase the Accuracy of all players in your party by 1 for a single turn, while decreasing your own by 1 for your next attack.
    Description: The user raises their weapon/fist into the air, with each player in the party glowing a soft violet glow for a few seconds.
     
    [Rank 3 Leadership Art] Steadfast
    Active: Post Action
    Energy cost: 8 EN
    Cooldown: 3 Turns
    Effect:  Status Effects that would be applied to the party for the next two turns would instead be applied to the user instead (normal rules for how status effects refresh instead of stacking apply).
    Description: The user raises their weapon/fist into the air, with each player in the party glowing a soft silver glow for a few seconds.
     
    [Rank 4 Leadership Art] Inspiring Speech
    Active: Post Action
    Energy cost: 8 EN
    Cooldown: 3 Turns
    Effect: Decreases all currently active sword art cooldowns of all other party members by one. The user cannot regain any energy until the start of their next turn.
    Description: The user raises their weapon/fist into the air, with each player in the party glowing a soft red glow for a few seconds.
     
    [Rank 5 Leadership Art] Press the Attack
    Active: Post Action
    Energy cost: 10 EN
    Cooldown: 3 Turns
    Effect: Increase the Damage of all other party members by +(Target's Tier) base damage for a single turn. The user’s base damage for their next attack is decreased by the total increased base damage for their next attack.
    Description: The user raises their weapon/fist into the air, with each player in the party glowing a soft iridescent glow for a few seconds.
    NT Breakdown:
    As of this patch, repeating Nature's Treasure no longer requires the spawning of mobs with defined/set stat blocks or mechanics. However, the quest must still be completed the first time correctly to be eligible to use loot minimum mobs during a Nature's Treasure.
  3. Raidou

    Floor 27 Boss Fight (Post Completion)

    By Raidou,


    Community Feedback
    Now that all is said and done, we'd like to plug the community and see how the material was received. This is an attempt to cater future content to the desires of the community. Below is the outline of the design process behind Wushen and the Ronbaru Roundtable companion event.
    Wushen:
    Too big to hurt, he was supposed to embody the idea of facing a titanic monster that easily dwarfed the players involved. Based around the Wuxing cycle, he was the embodiment of a Boss that had access to Incarcerate/Trickster builds and was really DoT heavy.

    Phase 1:
    Does low damage, attacks available energy instead.
         This is why the fight seemed so long, as to add more value in enhancements/consumables/skills that were not present (Recovery, Vitality, Meditation)
    Drains hatred, to require more investment and activity from tanks.
         This was to encourage the use of all available hatred generation tools and make off tanking or DPS-Tanking much harder
    Targets Mass Heal crystals, to discourage their usage over true Support/Healers.
         This was to discourage the past excessive utilizations of these consumables and allow for Supports to feel useful
    Status effects that were unused had a function (Stun, Paralyze, Delay, etc.).
         This was to enable what was previously irrelevant in the fight to have a use case.
    No real danger of dying, unless hatred was not held and healers did not heal.
    Phase 2:
    Does moderate damage, which lessen as long as heads are controlled.
         This was to allow for the aura of danger, and allow DPS to play a pivotal role besides killing the big guy.
    Created a barrier to prevent direct damage against the boss. LD usage removes it. 
         This allowed a use case for Searching/Nimble/Dismantle/Reveal in a way that was useful but not required. Giving a use case of these skills in the boss fight.
    Spawns were drawing from the Bosses available HP pool, as to add value to killing multiple waves of enemies.
         This shows that a boss cannot produce a limitless amount of resources, and was a narrative way to explain that they were a part of him.
    Status effects would propagate to the heads if applied directly to Wushen, Save Disables (Burn, Delay, Freeze, etc.)
         In the past, DoTs on the boss were not as effective as they could be. Given the design, Wushen was aligned to elements so elements would be his Achilles heel. 
    Hatred was only utilized on Wushen to ease up tracking and demand from already strained tanks.
         Reduced clutter, and makes it to where tanks only had to focus on the big guy. The adds would follow suit.
    Only real danger was if a head critically hit multiple times.
    Ronbaru Roundtable:
    The companion event, where narrative could directly influence the boss fight. This included triggering head critical attacks or weakening some of Wushen's phase 2 effects. A way for lower level players to participate in one of the sites biggest events for lack of a better word. The narrative between this event and Wushen's fight were intrinsically tied together.
     
    Conclusion:
    Wushen and Ronbaru Roundtable required players to think instead of just roll dice. Moving forward this will be the design goal in mind. Less of a massive amount of hitpoints or mitigation, but mechanics and narrative that must be worked around and understood to find the weakpoint. It is our belief that although mechanics are important, they should be enforcing the idea of narrative first and foremost. Moreover, all the mechanical nuances and items that go unnoticed or are considered 'subpar' to a current meta will be looked at and addressed. We want to encourage diversity and forethought into a boss raid. Its the sites hardest content, and it should require all the site has to offer to succeed.
    Voting in the poll above, which will not be anonymous, is an agreement to explain the details of your decision. Constructive feedback is key to plans moving forward. Each of you have direct involvement in the route we choose to take moving forward.
    ~ Truly Your Resident Evil
    Raidou Kuzunoha
  4. Raidou

    Floor 26 Boss Fight Rewards

    By Raidou,


    3.1
    For those of you involved in the floor 26 boss raid and received a <<Fate's Armament>> from Gabrandr's defeat, there has a number of questions regarding these items. Staff is making this announcement as an aim to rectify this. Anyone who possessed this item and participated in the companion event "Defying Destiny" is eligible to submit the vanity weapon to their evals. The item will become a T4 Demonic Quality Weapon, type being whatever the player so chooses and the name and description can be defined by the player. In addition the enhancements present on the item will be of the players choosing:
    1 Unique Enhancement (Excluding Cursed) 3 Standard Enhancements Please before submitting the item, make sure that the character in question participated and received rewards for 'Defying Destiny' in addition to the Floor Boss fight for floor 26. Only characters that received thread closure rewards from the companion event will be eligible to upgrade the item this way.
    Your resident weirdo,
    Raidou
  5. Raidou

    Appraiser Q.O.L (3.1.2.2)

    By Raidou,


    Patch Notes
    We’ve heard the outcries! It seems the community has some issues with Appraisers, being the most difficult and least rewarding profession we have available. Staff would like to change that. As such we have come up with the following alterations to try and turn this profession into a more rewarding experience.
    #1 - Fusions
    Appraisers are now able to fuse unidentified items just like any other profession. Appraisers can only fuse unidentified items of the same item type using the following table to create higher quality items of the same type:
    2 Uncommon unidentified items = 1 Rare unidentified item 2  Rare unidentified items = 1 Perfect unidentified item 2 Perfect/Demonic unidentified Items = 1 Perfect unidentified item 2 Perfect/Demonic unidentified items + 1 Demonic Shard = 1 Demonic unidentified item This means an appraiser can take two uncommon unidentified consumables, and combine them up to a rare unidentified consumable before having to roll! Hopefully this will aid in reducing the sheer amount of rolls the profession has to do.
    #2 - Less RNG/Reduce shop clutter
    Appraisers are the one major source of Unique enhancements. Likewise, all characters need these things and as such it's a painstaking process. No more will an appraiser be stuck with 16 instances of paralyze immunity that no one wants, using the following system:
    An Appraiser can take an item with a unique enhancement(s) and convert it into one Mystic Essence per unique enhancement that was on the item, these essence maintain the ID of the item broken down (if more then slot was present these use duplicate roll ID’s akin to Alchemist/Cooking Professions. I.E. #123456-1, #123456-2). Only items that were identified with the Appraiser’s identification mechanic are eligible for this mechanic. This process does not use up any of the Appraiser’s daily identification attempts, but does destroy the item in the process. Once an Appraiser has 3 Mystic Essences saved up, which are kept within their shop and maintain the ID’s from the deconstruction of Uniquely enhanced items, they can use the 3 Mystic Essences to forgo rolling for a single slot on the item and instead select one unique enhancement of their choice for that slot when identifying ANY item type of ANY quality.  Mystic Essence can only ever be used on a single slot of the item, but it will at least weaken the strain of RNG on Appraisers as a whole. Goof hiding in a barrel,
    Raidou
  6. Raidou

    Custom Skills (3.1.2.1)

    By Raidou,


    Patch Notes
    Custom Skills:
    Thats right! We’re trying this again. So how are they different this time?
    They cannot be used in Raid Bosses
    They cannot be used in any Site Wide events
    When submitted, they enter a waiting list for when they will be evaluated (1 every 30 days). At which time, the one that is currently being evaluated will be reached by a member of staff to create a discord ticket. This area is to discuss and help balance the skill to an acceptable level.
    Before a player with a custom skill joins a thread, they must have TOTAL AGREEMENT from all participants in the thread they are joining. If even one player does not want them used, they do not function (these things can be considered god modding otherwise.)
    Reasons for the above caveats:
    #1
    Bosses are difficult, Floor Bosses are difficult-er. Given the sheer amount of players present, even the slightest bit of bad numbers create a huge amount of work for all involved (Players & Staff). Couple this with the fact that these can cause contention, they will be blanket banned from these in entirety.
    #2
    Events are for the community, not for the individual player. It would be a nightmare to try to logistically get every writer to agree to them. The solution is simple, assume that no one agrees and move on. Some events also can give unique rewards, and there could be some that believe that the custom aided in efforts to obtain these rewards. Although they are balanced around the 10 SP cost, we’d like to avoid this. No Customs in Events, self run or otherwise.
    #3
    The last time these existed, we had a massive showing of them popping up everywhere. These things flooded the Approval section, commandeered general/systems chat. This is something we’d like to avoid, as it was harmful to more relevant discussions in these areas. Likewise, the sheer strain they put on staff, it turned into a madhouse. Each one has to be carefully checked for loop holes, and checked for strength against the 10 SP cost. This takes time, and 30 days should be more than enough.
    #4
    Although small, these can provide an edge that wasn’t present before. Custom skills cannot be harmful to other players' experiences on site. To make this the case our solution is to allow them to be a choice if they can be used (much in the vein of killing/shoving another player.) Some writers want difficulty, or want a vanilla experience and this will allow them to do so without fear of a custom skill changing this.
     
    So what's the process?
    The character must have a Paragon Level of 50+
    First Submit the skill for evaluation using your personal evaluation topic (in #approvals) much like crafting, Only the name of the skill is required. It will be added to the list kept here. This list is the waiting list using the timestamp as your place in line. Each writer is allowed one character in the waiting list at any given time, further additions will be barred.
    WARNING: If a person in line hassles a member of staff in any way due to the process or how long it takes, they will be moved to the END of the waiting list. CS are not the staff’s current focus and cannot afford the stress of having them being blasted on any channel.
    Once the skill is next up in the waiting list, a member of staff will approach you and have you create a discord ticket. This is the place where the skills function can be discussed in an open way. All members of staff are welcome to chime in their thoughts, or disagreements. This is where the player can broadcast their idea, not in the general channels of the discord (Including but not limited to General/Frontlines/Systems).
    WARNING: This is meant to be a hassle free experience, for both the player involved and the staff responsible for them. There will be no arguments, and should the conversation transition to an argument the responsibility falls on the player. Staff’s main goal is to allow these to be a ‘fun’ addition to a player, not an overwhelming power gain in the vein of Uniques past.
    After all is said and done, staff has helped you create something ‘fun’ and interesting as an addition to your character. A member of staff will take the design and put it up for all to see, once this point is reached it can be included in your character.
    When you submit a custom skill for approval, this means you have agreed and read all of the above. We expect a veteran player who has reached the criteria to fully understand the procedure and stipulations.
    F.A.Q
    Wont this make the game too easy/unbalanced?: Not really, given that the characters that can submit a custom skill are level 82. This means the character has obtained 359700 EXP. For context that is 72 times the exp reward for the hardest fights in the game. 
    Staff assumes at this point, the character in question has completed most if not all quests in the current game. The small impact these give, either through speed or item drops to be minimal at best. From our point of view, the level 82 character wouldn’t have an issue regardless. With or without a custom skill.
     
    I have a complaint, that’s not fair/balanced: Again, given the above a level 82+ character isn’t going to have trouble in standard content. We will not consider complaints regarding how a character at this mechanical power saved a single post or earned another 1000 col from a kill as a result of a custom skill. This is because, it's likely that the 1000 col is tiny by comparison to the col they have stuffed in their wallet. Don’t worry, you’ll end up getting one too.
     
    Their Custom Skill is better than mine: The responsibility for design comes from the player, our job is to weigh the effect and decide if it is worth 10 SP or not. In the event that a player's custom seems weaker than others, the primary responsibility falls on the player's initial design. Not Staff.
     
    What if mine ends up being too strong?: Staff reserves the right to change or alter any Custom Skill to match it to its 10 SP cost. If at any point balance changes or loopholes in its operation are found that allow it to exceed this consistent 10 SP cost, it will be re-evaluated. Until this time, the skill will become inactive and expected to be resubmitted using the above procedure.
     
    What if I make one, and don't like it?: A custom skill can be refunded like any other using its 10 SP cost. However, in the event of trying to create a new one the player must follow the procedure above and will be placed into the waiting list as if this was their first submission.
    Yours Truly,
    Residential Spreadsheet Warlock, Community Idiot Raidou
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