Discuss

[teOx]

However, the size modifier of your weapon is a much bigger deal now because the size modifier modifies the final damage instead of just weapon attack.

bring back astro's thread!

B>drake card

things are consistently being updated. i believe changes are being made to aspd already since it is by far the biggest complaint gravity has received, although there are still screenshots of people hitting 190 aspd somehow.

all of these things are being nerfed/altered in preparation for 3rd class (speculation) so that the game wont be so ridiculous. on average monsters have received about 60% HP reduction... so yeah...

to mage classes: dont let ayu fool you there. its true that cast time is being reduced but there are very many perks. for one, int is shown to decrease cast time now as well as dex, allowing for more unique builds and also damage by magic in general is supposed to increase since weapon atk and matk is a huge factor now.

Weapon attack differs from the final damage you see. With a level 1 weapon, the real damage you see is 2.1 times the weapons attack power. With a level 2 weapon, this modifier becomes 2.2 times, level 3 is 2.3x, and level for finally is 2.4x. The refine bonus is calculated the same as it was before, but its also modified by this modifier

matk is increased also by refine as well. refining weapons will have a much larger effect on final damage with this in mind (which is great because of how hard it is to upgrade =x)

one great side-effect of this is that autocast weapons like that JT instrument and many swords will be much more useful than they are now since you can do more damage with magic with very little int and high matk weapons and such.

about the cast times, since all spells now have a fixed cast time as well as variable cast time, skills like bragi wont be as overpowered (bard, dancer classes balanced). instant cast will be impossible to achieve but that is balanced by some skills getting faster. its rumored that bolt cast times are reduced significantly while mass damage skills are increased.

the atk and matk added by str and int, respectively, is drastically altered. most noticeably, the exponential factor is gone. for example str builds do not need to end in 0 anymore, the formula as it currently stands is basically 1 atk per str, with 1 additional atk every 2 and 2 additional atk every 5. basically something like 10str = 1+2+1+2+3+1+2+1+2+3 =??18 atk, for 180 atk at 100 str. (this means megingjard in its current state only adds 72 atk and most likely will be buffed since its not that good with this formula in place, bloodied shackle ball anyone?).

this basically means that your damage will be higher at lower levels compared to now, and that builds will be different (more possibilities) since dropping str wont be such a bad thing. luk also supposed to be less useless, having alot of affects, dont wanna go through them at this time.

overall it seems gravity's goals are to improve party mechanics and balance between classes and pvm, and how weapons/cards work. as things stand, levelling is also extremely easy compared to the current system (people being able to achieve 99 trans in 2 days with 10x rate.... a bit too fast imo but probably necessary with 150 lvl goal in mind). screenshots show a +10 quad carded bow doing less damage than a high atk bow with 1 card (possibly to prepare for level 150 and stats going over 99). my personal concern about that is that extended classes are currently being neglected but im confident gravity will balance that as well.

overall balancing is still in progress and anything can be changed so stay open minded. after much thought i think these changes are 100% awesome and will make the game much better for everyone especially new players that want to join RO but are intimidated because everything is too crazy

[Honeko]

I have to say.. I've played many, many, many MMO's. EQOA, WoW, FFXI, RO, CoH, CoV, DOMO, Rappelz, Fiesta, Twelve Sky, and more. And of all of them once I stopped playing... I've only gone back to RO and WoW. My friends wanted me to go play on their Private WoW Server when I quit Offical. And I've been on iRO, HeRO and another private server. My point. Of all the MMO's I've played, RO is the most unique and enjoyable. And this is coming from a guy whose absolute favorite game of all is Final Fantasy 7, an anime freak, and all around Japanese Fanboy.

So I mean, yeah, Balance is an issue but you can never have perfect balance in a game. Take D&D. The DM can create anything, and whose to say that the Monster they create is not able to kill the PC's?

What I'm trying to say is that RO is not WoW. And if it tries to be it'll be ruined. I mean, WoW is all gear reliant. And it does stress the party dynamic, and true MMO's are meant to be played by Many people at once. But what if you only have a few minutes to play for whatever reason? Or you just feel like beating on something and not talking to anyone? That was my biggest pet peeve about FFXI, you HAD to have a party to level. And everyone knows you can't just find a party. You have to wait for the most part.

To tell the truth, I actually prefer to Solo when I'm leveling, But that's what I like about RO. You can do that and yeah, you may die, but you get right back up and march your happy butt right back and the mob you were killing is at the same health you left it. Not to mention, that the class system is one of the best on any MMO. How many other games, can say we have a gender based class? Final Fantasy Tactics? That's not an MMO, but it does have the best class system ever on a console game.

Seriously, MMO's are all about leveling. Grinding, Farming, MVPing,PVPing, what ever you are doing in an MMO is leveling. So changing the leveling system isn't what gets me about these new changes. It's the fact that they are trying to make it WoW. I left WoW both times because it got boring. Seriously, to me, nothing beats watching my Sin tear monsters apart with his katar and looking smug and ready for the next one when he kills it.

Sorry that my rant is so jumbled, and whatnot, but it's a rant so I have that right. Anyway, I mean graphics wise, RO is one of the best MMOs. Sometimes, 2D graphics are better than 3D. Each and Every class on RO has a different sprite, and it's color, head, hairstyle, and hair color can easily be changed in game and it will show up. There's some MMO's out there that the only thing that changes is your weapon. True you can't change the look of your body, coming from a programming perspective, that would be a whole lot of work, and if it was, the amount of items, and classes would be a lot more limited.

So to end my ranting and raving. I agree. Somethings would be nice to have changed but the core system shouldn't be changed at all. If you're worried about Balance issues then make new areas only for those of triple digit level to level in. And just deal with PvP. If you think about it. PvP is inherently unbalanced and always will be. One player may have just begun to play, where as his opponent has been playing for years. How is that fair? Even in WoE, you can't guarantee that everyone will be roughly the same level. That would end it all together, Higher level guilds would be punished due to the fact that they couldn't take part, or vise versa.

Anyway, I'll end here.

[teOx]

contrary to popular opinion, gravity is making changes based on the insane amounts of userbased complaints.

most iRO veterans have stated that they welcome these changes and think it will refresh the game. its no secret that RO is ridiculously unbalanced in certain aspects and gravity is taking the 3rd class opportunity to revamp the game to be more playable to everyone, especially new players since thats what gravity needs at this point.

on the subject of WoW, yea its probably the best MMO out there. gravity is taking the systems from other MMOs that are better than their own while keeping the original RO charm and appeal. i think thats the smartest thing they can possibly do at this point. especially since they seem to have scrapped RO2 temporarily.

about partying, the current system wont ruin soloing, just make it more viable for ragtag parties to party and get comparable experience to someone who is soloing. and with the crazy level exp% system being tested it is conceivable that you will always be able to find a party. and if not, soloing still wont be bad.

[GM-Ayu]

Actually, I did read the new magic formula, and I stand by the fact that wizards are useless. Why? Great that Gravity is pushing everyone from "speed caster" to "power caster", but what's the point when SG will always be 5 irreducible cast time? Int reduces cast time, but only the reducible portion of it can be reduced (10 sec of SG is reducible). This 5 seconds cannot be reduced by bragi or suffragium, and who the heck has enough kiel cards to spread around like this? Double Expert Ring is not going to get you anything shorter than 4 second... We'll rely on totally new equipment to have anything cast at a decent rate.

All the spells and the formula changed to boost spell damage, because chances of spells going off is far more infrequent. Let's not forget casting cooldown (thankfully still reduced by bragi) is still there...

I think there's a reason why we have current wizards get as humanly high dex as possible in opposition to as high int as human possible. Fast casting is vitally important, and now they are pushing wizard to the point that not even SW will give them enough time to pull a cast off.

(I have nothing against rod refine boosting matk, or even having luck as part of the equation. What I do have is that the irreducible cast time portion is far, far too long...)


The other thing, MvPing is going to be a mess. There is no reason for MvPs to have mobs unless their mob is same level as the MvP, as they won't be able to touch the person due to level damage reduction bonus. If they just went through the extreme introducing skills like Wide Status effects, Earthquake, Clashing Spiral and Hell's Judgment to promote party MvPing, now we revert back to soloing because you can solo any MvP as long as you are 20 levels higher??? By then I guess only the ones like Valk and Ifrit being in lv 130+ will do more than 1 damage to a max level character huh... So much for promoting partying aspect and changing locations so people can't always grind on the same old map, and instead explore the world of RO. What we have, is that if people are mad at snipers and champs solo camping MvP now, oh no, even the wizard will take 1 dmg soloing MvPs now "as long as the level is good enough."

[teOx]

MVPing system will require a revamp of course. confident it will come.

as for wizards, i think its going perfectly with their plan. it seems all skills that have previously been deemed overpowered have been nerfed significantly. recently screenshots shown that EDP is nerfed, AD (can be reduced by def and mdef) and asura are nerfed, bragi is nerfed, etc.

this effectively forces every class to use more skills and alternatives. SG will no longer be the end all spell for wizards. as i mentioned, bolts are faster casting now, SG damage is increased significantly while increasing cast time. if you can imagine a new wizard play-style employing more than just 1 or 2 spells per levelling spot. focus seems to be driven on balancing all skills even within its own class. woe will also be enhanced by this since magic will not be so easily spammed in a precast. wizards will be using far more spells (HD damage is increased along with quicker bolts) rather than relying on a high dex storm gust to do everything. SG is now a huge incredibly power spell will be worth the wait time needed to cast it.

just need to be open-minded. i can imagine how this will improve gameplay.

just like how champs will be forced to use alot more skills to kill rather than asura, and creators wont rely solely on AD for damage, wiz class will also become more versatile. one of the main complaints i personally had about this game is how focused it is on spamming a single skill whether for pvp or levelling (relatively).

keyword is overpowered. SG will be an awesome skill, but now will be situational as strategy requires. (instead of spamming SG everywhere with near instant cast dex, situations will arise where players will be like "oh crap hes casting an SG hurry and stop him!", obviously isnt viable in pvp without first disabling the opponent somehow.)

i am optimistic about these changes.

[GM-Ayu]

skills that have previously been deemed overpowered have been nerfed significantly.

True for other classes, but only those other classes. We see that the usual "dominant" skills that other classes use the most often are weakened, while other skills are boosted so that they are more feasible. Sinx has EDP and Sbk weakened (or, "potentially weakened" since Sbk's change is arguable if it's good or bad), while Meteor Assault's new formula promotes it. Old 'definite' skills are weakened while overlooked skills are now strengthened. Chemists use to do nothing but throw bombs, but now both bomb abililties are weakened, while receiving an indirect boost in the support department because high priests basically lost 1/4 of their healing power due to new heal formula.

I am fine with that kind of changes, where you promote other skills, but I don't think that's the case for wizard at all.

Look at wizard's skill changes, and you realize that it's the same change for all but one spell (one spell being stave crasher). 1/3 casting time is now irreducible. Since it's the same change to all spells, relatively for the wizard, nothing has changed until you compare the wizard to other classes. For the wizard herself, every spell is "equally" fast/slow. Storm Gust sounds awful now that there is 5 second irreducible cast time with 10 second reducible, does that make us want to make a new build? Not really... because Meteor Storm will have the same formula. Heaven's Drive, Lord of Vermillion and even Napalm Vulcan will all get the same changes. When every skill within a class is changed by the same ratio, it's not going to promote using new skills. Storm Gust is still the relative strongest and just as fast as before compare to other wizard skills. You aren't escaping freeze first, amp, JT as your basic combo as your base, and resorting to other skills like fire pillar or sight trasher only if the basic combo fails.

If bolts are suppose to be the way of the future for wizards, then we'll be having some problems of sages and profs beating the wizard in everything possible because of double bolt. Wizards rely on their AoE spell, and sadly since all AoE spell is basically changed by the same ratio-dependent formula (LoV did get a damage increase though), doesn't look like Gravity is promoting anything new to the wizard class at all in terms of skill build up unlike all the other classes. I don't see how my skill builds need to be changed at all, as it's *still* the best I can do already, except now I suck more at it because I'm much slower at it.

(If they do something like, MS stun/LoV blind changes go up to rival SG's 3 hit 100% freeze, or boosting the much forgotten fire pillar/sight trasher/napalm vulcan, then I can see why we want to switch some builds around. With just a standardized cast time increased formula applied to all 4 AoE, it's still foolish not to pick SG as the "be all spam all" spell out of all wizard AoE spells.)

The only definite change I can predict for wizard, is that if you don't have SW now, you will have SW with this update.

I see much class changes as necessary, even the high priest ones although it is a 100% nerf and no skills got better for them. They die faster than any other classes. They can only do well if they can get out their spells fast enough to kill the enemies before they are killed (or inflict them with a status like freeze in SG, curse in napalm vulcan, stun if it's MS, or Stone Curse.) It doesn't work out to compensate them with higher damage, because they are going to be dead before the cast even goes off.

[teOx]

"Once upon a time, long before there was 150 dex. There was a wizard that had 10 seconds SG cast-time. But he had no problem doing so because he had his trusty Knight friend to mob for him, and a wonderful priest companion to heal and buff them. Ah, good ol' days."

"They're trying to make AoE magic what they're supposed to be. Slow but powerful.

SG which is an AoE spell casting as fast as a single target CB 10 and dealing 5x the damage of CB in a huge AoE and has a 100% to freeze all its target after 3 hits which is better than FD is pretty broken imo."

QFT.

pretty much sums up my opinion of SG. overpowered to the point of rendering so many other skills obsolete. and i never said bolts are the way of the future, i listed it merely as an example of buffs to other skills. im confident more changes will be made, not to mention preparing for warlock class.

[mahawirasd]

i agree with ayu on most of the stuff... they should make SG slightly weaker than LOV or the other AOE spells or give statuses to LOV or the other AOEs (maybe LOV = silence or stuff like that)... because as ayu said, even with it being nerfed significantly, it seems that it still doesn't warrant that much change...

i just hope the Jlvl hike is expressly for the second and 2.2 jobs only please... support acos have it quite hard in the old system to get to j50... lord have mercy...

well for the str factor, it still seems that being in multiples of 10 still pay more than not being in multiple of 10 as the main factors are 2 and 5...
for Matk, i believe it is good news to have weapon refine lvl affect it as that is only fair. Ouch now oris etc are gonna go up... anyhow, the previous 7 and 5 factors are a bit big IMHO...

well now it seems that people are going to put a bit more statpoints on vit and the like... good news IMHO...

i have not played RO that long, but i do believe that originally RO is not too well even-ed out and it definitely does not give enough incentives to group up (unless for MVP and woe). Hopefully the new system would really push ppl to group together because i believe that is what MMOs are supposed to be about... party exp definitely needs bonuses and giving a drop % bonus on even-share, even-drop parties could also be a good idea, no?


-w-

[teOx]

[Aaronock]

As long as they don't screw my double bolts up too much...They could change double bolts actual skill thing a little and make it where bolts cast faster and do more dmg maybe in accordance to the other changes...but the poor sages that try to level with mage skills...hmmm I dunno, even with all the changes popping up it sounds like a headache to try to figure it all out.

Are bolts going to be worse/better...I can't tell right now from reading the differing posts between teOx and Ayu, then again I probably shouldn't be reading stuff like this so late at night anyway.