Meta Mayhem! Test Realm Dev Diary

[Oxnhorse]

To me, Ratbeard took on PvP and is doing everything in his power to make PvP look and play the way he wants it to. I've seen him stream PvE and it's evident that they're not fans of the way Wizard101 plays. I think PvP will generally love this update and I very much think the game as a whole will be better with it than without. They have a vision and they're sticking to it.

The core fix is simple: linearize it legitimately and rescale it. It's going to take a lot of work, but it will be worth it. I'd personally scale it flat damage. I'd leave percentage-based damage and resist out. I'd get rid of sun enchants and I'd re-evaluate all the gear. Jewel sockets will be re-assessed. You'd have meaningful level-ups and base stats. (Gear reliance is too high in this game. Think of all the sections on each gear. Every single piece of gear has stats on it. Decks, mounts, amulets, pets, they have stats now. Not anymore.) Flat damage will be just like enchants. Flat resist will function like it does now (except will be divided on overtimes so they still function well). Flat healing boost. Flat everything. All combat modifiers can remain percentages. The core of the gameplay doesn't change much. Just percentages. It scales well and combat counters can keep these modifiers at bay. They know that flat damage and resist works well. They implemented it into Beastmoon very effectively. I was actually really excited that they'd nail it. I love Beastmoon. But, we got this.

Hello,

I agree with almost everything you said with the exception of the astral enchants. I have seen Ratbeard make the same complaints, but I love how KI introduced the star, moon and sun enchants; because they have saved my bacon countless times.

Ratbeard kinda explained that the astral spells broke KI and the game in Arc 2 and 3; but I gotta be honest here cause with the introduction and teasing of Morganthe behind almost every corner, the astral and shadow spells took W101 to a whole new level for me and really impressed me to the point I didn't want to shut down.

And with the newer works nerfing the mobs in Avalon, Azteca and Khrysalis; maybe the astral spells aren't needed, but they do provide the extra strength needed at times to take that boss with 21K down a peg or 2 when they don't spawn cheats.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the Astral Schools being added in the game was one of the coolest ideas KI ever had, and if they would have never added them, many players like me would have quit awhile ago.

Oxnhorse

[Orzee]

This dynamic has become a staple of Wizard101 and players have given us strong indication that they prefer this current model.

I would love to see a non-Twitter poll comparing this stat limit and flat stats. I do concede that percent-based damage and resist are staples, but is that a valid enough reason to choose this model? Nevertheless...

Nerf the gear already, don't overcomplicate the stats with limits. Nerfs happen in MMOs. What's worse is that nerfing the stats actually solves many of the problems. Nerf the gear and nerf the enemies.

They don't even have to do that much, really. There's a handful of gear sets that are even problematic:

• Waterworks
• some Wintertusk crafting gear
• Tartarus
• Darkmoor
• Dragoon
• Pack wands level 90+

Reduce the damage and critical by 5-15% each set and you're good to go.

Here's the kicker, though, they can actually buff the block to all this gear. Block is a heavily underrated stat. Add a little more pierce, even, since the damage and critical have dropped. It doesn't have to be even be a 'nerf', they can just reallocate stats. Then they can adjust mobs as needed (give them some more critical to counter the block, drop their health a bit, whatever). The devs should also consider modifying the gear so it consistently gives stats. One of the reasons the gear got out of control is that gear changed what stats it gave. Wands stopped giving block. Robes stopped giving critical and damage. Boots rarely ever gave critical until late-game. I get that it promotes gear stat diversity, but gear in Wizard101 is rarely competitive anyway. There's usually a specific set that's the "best" and a slightly comparable second "best." Maybe even nerf the gear just to make other gear less unappealing.

Another, simpler, approach is to lock the damage inflection to your level:

All stats below x level stay the same (for the sake of this example we'll say level 100). Those level 100+ will have an inflection point locked to their level with a cap at say 200% damage. This way you won't have to worry about damage going extremely out of hand, it's more future-proofed, and those with 170% damage at level 140 can actually look forward to leveling because it will unlock more damage for themselves. Are they receiving a nerf right now? Yes. But they can look forward to growing in the future.

For resist, you can keep the resist cap at your level so immunity is still achievable, and it scales nicely with pierce. Or you could keep it the same. Resist is less of a problem in my eyes, as growing more powerful generally means at least dealing more damage. You can become stronger defensively with health while keeping resist the same across levels.

I think this would be the fairest and probably best compromise the Devs could take.

@Oxynhorse Celestia was also one of my favorite updates! Honestly, I very much like the Solar Surge implementation that Ratbeard came up with (though I entirely disagree that X-pip spells like tempest should always do +50). One of the things that angers me about KI is their approach to balancing PvP while ignoring that it might also be broken in PvE. I absolutely would've welcomed this change in PvE. One spell to replace the many damage enchants that I learned to get Epic! I know many people wouldn't agree, but it'd have been nice.

[Oxnhorse]

I would love to see a non-Twitter poll comparing this stat limit and flat stats. I do concede that percent-based damage and resist are staples, but is that a valid enough reason to choose this model? Nevertheless...

Nerf the gear already, don't overcomplicate the stats with limits. Nerfs happen in MMOs. What's worse is that nerfing the stats actually solves many of the problems. Nerf the gear and nerf the enemies.

They don't even have to do that much, really. There's a handful of gear sets that are even problematic:

• Waterworks
• some Wintertusk crafting gear
• Tartarus
• Darkmoor
• Dragoon
• Pack wands level 90+

Reduce the damage and critical by 5-15% each set and you're good to go.

Here's the kicker, though, they can actually buff the block to all this gear. Block is a heavily underrated stat. Add a little more pierce, even, since the damage and critical have dropped. It doesn't have to be even be a 'nerf', they can just reallocate stats. Then they can adjust mobs as needed (give them some more critical to counter the block, drop their health a bit, whatever). The devs should also consider modifying the gear so it consistently gives stats. One of the reasons the gear got out of control is that gear changed what stats it gave. Wands stopped giving block. Robes stopped giving critical and damage. Boots rarely ever gave critical until late-game. I get that it promotes gear stat diversity, but gear in Wizard101 is rarely competitive anyway. There's usually a specific set that's the "best" and a slightly comparable second "best." Maybe even nerf the gear just to make other gear less unappealing.

Another, simpler, approach is to lock the damage inflection to your level:

All stats below x level stay the same (for the sake of this example we'll say level 100). Those level 100+ will have an inflection point locked to their level with a cap at say 200% damage. This way you won't have to worry about damage going extremely out of hand, it's more future-proofed, and those with 170% damage at level 140 can actually look forward to leveling because it will unlock more damage for themselves. Are they receiving a nerf right now? Yes. But they can look forward to growing in the future.

For resist, you can keep the resist cap at your level so immunity is still achievable, and it scales nicely with pierce. Or you could keep it the same. Resist is less of a problem in my eyes, as growing more powerful generally means at least dealing more damage. You can become stronger defensively with health while keeping resist the same across levels.

I think this would be the fairest and probably best compromise the Devs could take.

@Oxnhorse Celestia was also one of my favorite updates! Honestly, I very much like the Solar Surge implementation that Ratbeard came up with (though I entirely disagree that X-pip spells like tempest should always do +50). One of the things that angers me about KI is their approach to balancing PvP while ignoring that it might also be broken in PvE. I absolutely would've welcomed this change in PvE. One spell to replace the many damage enchants that I learned to get Epic! I know many people wouldn't agree, but it'd have been nice.

I do like the ideas you have here regarding Solar Surge that was introduced for PVP, but there is a huge problem that Sparck, Ratbeard and Eric Stormbringer have in nerfing, removing content and/or replacing content; the Astral Sun Enhancements were MUST HAVES that became a vital part of gameplay that REQUIRED US to have the previous one learned, which augmented our spells and made them stronger against Mob/Bosses in the 2nd and 3rd Arcs.

If they were to take them out of the game entirely and replace it with Solar Surge with the Epic stats (+300), then KI will have robbed the newer players of the awesome experiences many of us had looking forward and hoping to see what KI provided as we traveled through the Morganthe and Spider storylines.

As for your gear suggestions, I love this as well. One thing I would advise is that the rare gear in becoming more winnable, that they consider putting jewel sockets into them. On all 6 of my wizards, I am constantly upgrading my socket gear and pets, so that I feel as if I am on the cutting edge.

And I have seen people in Darkmoor that hate crafting bog the teams down, because instead of spending maybe an hour on the Drake charge in the first battle, we spend maybe 3.5 hours and instead of fighting the enemies most of us are healing the Water Works person and returning 2 or 3 times in the process.

Some of the gear looks great, but adding sockets to those gear sets would help KI figure out how to provide excellent gear sets year after year.

Here's another idea that might be doable: My Life has maybe 3 sets of his Darkmoor Hood, Armor and Boots that has taken up space in my Crowns Bank (I'm limited to say 80 items, not 120). Why not let players upgrade their gear stats, by allowing a 10% upgrade each time we want to add the same piece to the Mali gear? That way, the player is able to empty his/her bank to make room (if not fed to the pet) for questing overflow that quickly burns a hole in that space.

It might appear to be unfair, but many of us have gear that we are unwilling to part with, and most Darkmoor gear can't be beat by what Karamelle offers at the moment. The spellements are allowing us to upgrade at least once in Karamelle, why not our gear? KI has stated many times in recent months that they are running low on ideas for gear.

I have to admit, the best thread for gear I have ever used was one called BEST FARMABLE/CRAFTABLE GEAR because the person that wrote the in-depth thread gave stellar advice that everyone should read; and even if you hate crafting it gives you something to look forward to when you feel as if there is better gear and stats to be had.

Oxnhorse

[Eric Stormbringer]

I would love to see a non-Twitter poll comparing this stat limit and flat stats. I do concede that percent-based damage and resist are staples, but is that a valid enough reason to choose this model? Nevertheless...

Nerf the gear already, don't overcomplicate the stats with limits. Nerfs happen in MMOs. What's worse is that nerfing the stats actually solves many of the problems. Nerf the gear and nerf the enemies.

They don't even have to do that much, really. There's a handful of gear sets that are even problematic:

• Waterworks
• some Wintertusk crafting gear
• Tartarus
• Darkmoor
• Dragoon
• Pack wands level 90+

Reduce the damage and critical by 5-15% each set and you're good to go.

Here's the kicker, though, they can actually buff the block to all this gear. Block is a heavily underrated stat. Add a little more pierce, even, since the damage and critical have dropped. It doesn't have to be even be a 'nerf', they can just reallocate stats. Then they can adjust mobs as needed (give them some more critical to counter the block, drop their health a bit, whatever). The devs should also consider modifying the gear so it consistently gives stats. One of the reasons the gear got out of control is that gear changed what stats it gave. Wands stopped giving block. Robes stopped giving critical and damage. Boots rarely ever gave critical until late-game. I get that it promotes gear stat diversity, but gear in Wizard101 is rarely competitive anyway. There's usually a specific set that's the "best" and a slightly comparable second "best." Maybe even nerf the gear just to make other gear less unappealing.

Another, simpler, approach is to lock the damage inflection to your level:

All stats below x level stay the same (for the sake of this example we'll say level 100). Those level 100+ will have an inflection point locked to their level with a cap at say 200% damage. This way you won't have to worry about damage going extremely out of hand, it's more future-proofed, and those with 170% damage at level 140 can actually look forward to leveling because it will unlock more damage for themselves. Are they receiving a nerf right now? Yes. But they can look forward to growing in the future.

For resist, you can keep the resist cap at your level so immunity is still achievable, and it scales nicely with pierce. Or you could keep it the same. Resist is less of a problem in my eyes, as growing more powerful generally means at least dealing more damage. You can become stronger defensively with health while keeping resist the same across levels.

I think this would be the fairest and probably best compromise the Devs could take.

@Oxynhorse Celestia was also one of my favorite updates! Honestly, I very much like the Solar Surge implementation that Ratbeard came up with (though I entirely disagree that X-pip spells like tempest should always do +50). One of the things that angers me about KI is their approach to balancing PvP while ignoring that it might also be broken in PvE. I absolutely would've welcomed this change in PvE. One spell to replace the many damage enchants that I learned to get Epic! I know many people wouldn't agree, but it'd have been nice.

A gear audit is coming(not this update but it's in the works). Thank you for the feedback and please keep it coming! As previously stated- we are monitoring community sentiment as we roll out and plan potential changes.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem with limits, Eric, is that stats are allowed to keep on increasing, but our effectiveness in combat from these stats is not. Let's say that at level 140, someone has 170% damage. Because of limits, at level 250, they will STILL HAVE somewhere around 170% damage (assuming they chase the new gear), never being able to reach and exceed 200%. We have the same problem with resist; people are going to be able to keep on increasing their resist stat, but the percentage will not be increasing once they exceed the intersection value and approach the limit. Limits make damage and resist stagnant, and because the other stats in game either have a hard cap or a limit already, you are literally not getting stronger as you level up. People complainthat new world gear is barely an improvement over what we had before, but changing damage and resist to limits will make it so that the ONLY benefit you get from new world gear is health.

The entire problem with damage, pierce, and resist is that they are percentages. The developers from 2009 knew this. As long as you try to keep the stats as percentages, we will not be able to have meaningful growth as we level up. Limits are just a bandaid solution that push the problem off to the future, and someday in the future when everyone has 300% damage, you're going to be hearing a LOT of complaints that their actual damage percent is <200% and that it's pointless to chase new gear. Just convert everything to flat stats so we can have linear and MEANINGFUL stat progression again, while also keeping things sustainable for the game. People are going to complain about the change, but as with any controversial change to the game, people complain about it only for less than a month and then get used to it pretty quickly. It's far better than pushing it off into the future, and then having to deal with complaints that level 200s have the exact same stats as level 140s, just with more health.

As stated in the update notes- I recommend checking on Charlie's article once it releases. It should provide a more definitive look at the formula and help with understanding exactly how the limit system works. In terms of the limit, it is fully adjustable so while this compromise doesn't necessarily eliminate power creep to the degree a true flat system would, it does allow us some degree of control(using your example- we could potentially adjust the limit, intersect or curve to meet future player progression needs).