Dev Diary - February 2017

[Dresden]

Renown Mastery
Objectives that we have in changing the system will be to address power creep, in particular the backend advantages of a free mastery point every 10 RR’s.

Give us the extra one at 50rr and i'll be happeh :p

[Glorian]

Me and my guild won't mind any kind of wipe if the server go straight in a good way, it's annoying yes, but we'll be fine in the future.

But i must agree Dani's points about getting +1 more mastery points every 10
...

Aye and aye.
You need to cut the grass sometimes so the garden looks more even.
And the mastery point at 50 or 60 opened up very interesting builds at Engi for example.
Would be a pitty if that is gone.
So please let the one at 50 stay.

[Gerv]

Have you considered that they may be incorporated into set bonuses of gear or through tactics or through accessory sets?
Or who knows, maybe they will be reduced to every 20 or 30.

Just because they are removed does not mean they may be re-introduced. You need to grasp the wider options and not be so short sighted.

[theoddone]

Great job, good to hear about all the new gear and a great summary of all the effort going into the project!

Renown Mastery
Objectives that we have in changing the system will be to address power creep, in particular the backend advantages of a free mastery point every 10 RR’s.

So these mastery points are just going away? That seems like something of a shame since there are many cool specs that require the additional RRs. Maybe make it possible to buy spec points for renown? Maybe have +2 in a specific tree on stronger tiered gear instead? More horizontal progression that way since there are 3 different trees to spec into!

Not a full wipe, but we will be taking a swing at renown ranks.

That's the disappointing part. Let's be honest it's pretty much a wipe. It takes 3-4 days of hardcore play under good conditions to get from 40 to 50; It takes a comparable amount of effort to get from 60 to 62. But I am sure those people who are 70+ will feel great about having 47-48. They earned those 3 days of renown over the last 6 months. So with that cute graph later in the thread it basically means people who invested a lot of time into the same characters are f*****d. I don't understand if you don't understand, but I am surprised people who's characters are getting wiped aren't more mad. The 'signals' in the last thread were that renown wipes just for the sake of slowing power creep wouldn't happen. I know because I started that conversation, so don't try me. I just don't get it. Why does it have to be 'signals'? Why can't you just say: Renown will be wiped! People enjoy leveling characters up, because those characters stay leveled up. So for instance those who enjoy the process of leveling would have been much better of leveling alts than focusing on one character. I took a clue last time and didn't repeat my mistake, but pretty pretty please could you be more transparentabout the fact that high renown rank character wipes will be coming in the future? Or just set a renown cap? Like I literally do not mind at all that wipes are a fact of life on an alpha server. I accept it. But why should players play under the illusion they are gaining something when it's not going to get wiped because of a bug or anything else but simple 'power creep'? I promise I will actually do the math for you guys, but I will just give you an estimate here. When renown gets reset to 40-50 in 2 weeks a gap will appear again between more hardcore players and casual players. The more hardcore players will be reaching RR70-80 by the middle of July. So are we having another wipe in the middle of July? Is it going to be to RR50 or RR60 this time? Should people who care about character progression (Yes this game is an RPG) be leveling alts or not? I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt, because I like this project and think that you didn't expect things to go this way and that this was some sudden decision, but please! Like you know this stuff is predictable.

Well Im a bit pissed about it. If they wanted to avoid RR power creep there should have been a cap. It is however also ok. Because its alpha, which is about trying things, and now we have tried it, but we should learn from it as well. Because as you said, it will happen again. Are we going to have wipes at every release of new gear? It is much better then to have a renown cap instead of making people disappointed with renown wipes. There would also be less uncertainty with a cap. I would rather not see purple numbers, than having my earned renown points taken away from me.

With the current system there will be more like "invisible" RR caps. People will play to around rr50-60, and after that it will be uncertain if a new wipe will come. Which will be confusing for the player base.

As for the "should read between the lines" argument, just lol, we are entering the realm of fortune telling. Interpretation can go both ways. It was also implied that there would only be wipes due to bugs. Just so much uncertainty which can ruin motivation to play.

I also find it strange that power creep through RNG purple bags is completely fine. Because things like the genesis set and purple proc weapons do make a difference. However, predictable power creep with renown ranks which is earned by dedication and hard work is not ok.

[sanii]

Have you considered that they may be incorporated into set bonuses of gear or through tactics or through accessory sets?
Or who knows, maybe they will be reduced to every 20 or 30.

Just because they are removed does not mean they may be re-introduced. You need to grasp the wider options and not be so short sighted.

If the goal is to "address power creep ,in particular the backed advantages of a free mastery point every 10 RR’s" it strongly implies removal over re-incorporation , else the 'powercreep' is still there it just shifted from RR's to setbonuses/items.

At least that's what i think the others are thinking as it was my first impression of it as well!

But it's good to hear that there are more thing's going on there , i assume in the "wider option's" you can also take a more individual approach towards which classes can get extra spec point's or not . So i'll just wait and see what you have in store for us , before i actually make any other comments !!

[Psema]

Can we please get a detailed list of the sets + items along with their stats and bonuses before the patch hit the server?

[Bozzax]

May I suggest you announce the rr compression with server messages before you do them. Pref with a friendly tip to read the dev 2017 and every x hour up to the change.

I'm thinking you may avoid a bit of drama and spur of the moment posts

[Aurandilaz]

IMO it would be better to offer even more mastery points, in a way to enhance classes and allow players to pick abilities that are sub-optimal under tighter Mpoint constraint, and maybe even experiment with weirder builds if more points can be spent on abilities of secondary importance.
Because as it is, most careers have 1-2 optimal specs for ST/AoE, Def/Offe... and so many abilities are never chosen because they are less good choices when having to pick with tight MP constraint.
Interesting option to allow this would be to have pocket items that grant +3 or +5 points in certain mastery trees.
More variety in choosing mastery skills allows players to get even more out of their class, and maybe even pick abilities that they have never picked before.

[Bozzax]

Unless you don't give enough points to buy everything in all trees every variant will have its own set of optimal specs.

Moving it to gear instead of rewarding on rrs don't make it less of a power creep problem. I suspect those pockets would be obtained by a grind regardless.

One could argue though havibg more points to spend @40 (or less) compared to war could be refreshing.

[Morf]

i am a little concerned about the mastery point thing, is anything set in stone at the moment ? i would like to think the more mastery points to spend the better (to a certain extent).
Where some classes can get everything they need at 40/40 others need rr70 or rr60 with the extra point from set bonus to be able to be competitive in comparison to other classes.