Give us your feedback on the August Letter to the Players! [Archive]

DadgaSilverhand

07-27-2004, 09:30 PM

the redo art on wasps look better, but white ones? hm cool!

as for planned Sept events, i cant wait for 3-Crystal quest. i am worry about the "fate" of the shadow childs in Fenmalien vault, dont want to see it replaced by Shadow Proxy or other bigger ilks, replacing those on Dungeon tatters, Lost garden ruin, other shadow dungeon (mountain fortress?), Fen was a last bastion for shadow childs. i wouldnt mind if they add more shadow childs to make a bit tougher for +15 to 30 lvl.
Lost Garden Ruin was my favorite until the upgraded to Alloy Quest. i gave up that portal tie, it was unfit for 15-25 lvl.
not everyone like to camp olthoi at arcade when some folks like me want to fight low risk spell caster monsters to built up and toughen up magic defense and able to collect trophies.

Thanks for letting us know about Ashen Keys, so i better get them from mules pretty soon.

as for "In Concept" during Oct/Nov/Dec, PLEASE! make Scarecrows just fairly enough common, i was dissappointed with 2003's and 2002's "Late patches" and too soon patches in early Novembers both times, i only seen 3 lowly ranked scarecrows in '03 and not able to find any during '02 since i was lower level and not able to survive in Upper Osteth valley.
I was wondering what happen to "Niffis Mask" aka mindflayer mask was promised during 2002 and masks weren't drop during oct '02, but late in Nov '02 when fixed, it was only one mask that didnt made avialable.
AC2 isnt same game when i got pumpkin mask from Ichabod the Drudge, but it not same satisfation and i no longer play AC 2, due to computer's difficulties and badly need some repairs.

Ibn, i just hope to see plenty scarecrows almost enough to get at least 3-5 pumpkin masks and so everyone if they wanted or not, so they can have fun. those Hollows version isnt same thing, and it is grey/white that look so sick.

Ryori

07-27-2004, 09:32 PM

For the trade quests. I hope the new options are a different dynamic than the ash teeth. That current system doesn't help noobies much and the teeth are rather boring to aquire. When my trade guy can harvest them unbuffed, you know something is wrong... hehe. I don't mind spending time, but camping critters way below the level of the toons they help is just not goodness.

Ironic... I had to work extra hours during that down time so I didn't get to play either and my server was up. Power was also out for four days just prior to the outage. Figures....

EvilElvis

07-27-2004, 09:40 PM

I don't see the caul nerf as the problem so much as the fact that you're just now deciding it's a problem. Especially after you went and boosted Biaka xp not too long ago.

Didn't anyone bother to consider the XP/Hr that place would yield, and compare it to other places?

Evangeline

07-27-2004, 09:43 PM

If you're trying to prevent the camping of the center of the caul by reducing the experience on the marguls, why bother with the graals and helcans? They don't spawn in the center and are found in areas where I never see full fellowships hunting in, let alone solo hunters(rarely).

Hunter

07-27-2004, 09:45 PM

I am begging you to reconsider the Ash tooth change.

These teeth are the only good way to effectively advance the skill of a trade character. 1 point a month if the player is diligent is nothing! Any active hunting player should be able to raise their a skill 3-5 times a month minimum with light hunting. In fact I am willing to bet most able-bodies players of the same level make more in 1 hour hunting than 99% of pacifists make per week on tooth turn ins. Trade characters lack the ability hunt, so they reply heavily on this reward.

Please do not change this. Please make another tooth with the 10%. Many gromnies are ML are common and so far do not have teeth. Ash teeth and gromnies are rare, but exist in high level hunting (Adolescent), so they make the ideal item for pinnacle item.

These teeth while not utilized by many have become a sought after item by people like myself who have pacifist players, and have become a consistent part of the economy. So changing the 25% will not only ‘nerf’ the only way some pacifists have to level, nullify countless hours people have spent tracking down these rare items for their weekly turn in, it will also impact the player’s economy.

So I lay on my knees pleading, raise the difficulty of ash teeth, make then even rarer, make the intended higher rewards lower, but no not change this cornerstone of pacifist leveling.

I will quickly pose a similar argument for Iasparailaun sharing. These swords are mainly shared with level 50 mule/pacifists. Most of these characters are cripples and can not/do not hunt. So what’s the harm if they make 7.5 million experience. Gaerlan quests takes about an hour, if an able bodied level 50 where to hunt for an hour they would likely make 10+ million an hour. So the Iasparailaun allows time spent on a higher-level yield a reward for a lower level, and doesn’t even yield an equal experience per time reward.
I could understand if these could be shared with level ones, but even an able bodies level 20 hunting solo on al can yield more than 10 mill an hour, so…. Please don’t take this pacifist experience cornerstone away.

Please, please, don’t harm us pacifist, we already have a hard enough time as it is, don’t make our lives harder.

BTW: I play 3 pacifists. Rawr!

*beg*

rageofmages

07-27-2004, 09:50 PM

I mean do you guys ever get anything right? Look at how many things you are REDUCING this patch, as opposed to things you are giving us to look forward to.

Once again TURBINE adds content, just to later reduce because they didn't do it right the first time.

Ibn, seriously, what harm is the quick advancement doing on Caul? People earn the right to be there. It is no different then bsd or any other good spot that used to be camped as the BEST xp.

People always flock to the best, it is natural. We all use the best items, get the best xp, and look for ways to do things faster. This letter is nothing more then telling us what we already knew.

EvilElvis

07-27-2004, 09:54 PM

That's another thing:

Maybe more people would hunt outside caulcano if the spawns weren't thick as molassas.

Groups don't want to hunt out there. Some solo players and 2-man groups go to mix things up, find the boss mobs, or for loot, but you never see groups go out there. And the odds are, you really never will. Except for the volcano, the place is dead.

Might as well open the place up more for solo players, and small groups to get s'more activity out there.

Oh, and make non-mages not suck out there.

Forsaken one

07-27-2004, 09:55 PM

So I guess its back to the vod to have people fight over spawns.

ekaoxide

07-27-2004, 09:55 PM

http://vnboards.ign.com/Leafcull/b5155/72828430/?19

I urge Ibn and the Dev team to reconsider the Caul change - Even the people who are complaining about it being "camped" are going to be *negatively* affected by this change.

Caul provided a means for players with decent xp/attribs/skills to actually USE their REAL SKILLS and fellowship/teamwork abilities to produce greater rewards, with perhaps the greatest risk in the entire game.

I am literally in shock of this change, I have took everything in my 3.5 years of AC in stride...the life magic nerfs, the tusker nerfs, everything I adapted to and it never phased me.

This is crossing the line, this will upset many more people then you intended to help - which lets face it, are a vocal minority that you percieved. I never once had an Envoy swoop in and ask me how my Caul hunting experience was going, if I felt it was too camped. If I had, maybe you would have had a different view of what really goes on here.

Please reconsider this change.

KF_AC

07-27-2004, 09:57 PM

Any xp pharm nerf is good, keep it up.

Frieze

07-27-2004, 09:59 PM

Don't nerf Caul!!!

It may be a lot of XP, but the marguls are dangerous creatures and require streamlined fellows of high-level, experienced players to sustain good XP/hour. With a full fellow that is evenly split of experienced and inexperienced players, it is rare to earn more XP than a trip to the Valley of Death would yield.

With a fellow of members who all have 10bil+ experience and honed survival skills, is 70mil per hour unreasonable? In a fellow where people are trying to max their skills, and it may take 5 HOURS in Caul to get ONE skill point, is this unreasonable?

Please reconsider.

Asun

07-27-2004, 10:00 PM

what i dont get is, why not keep it the way it is, people are already used to the fact that they have a place to get awesome xp, now that its going to be taken away, its just going to **** off even more people.

I understand yours guys' motiv of "balancing the system" but hopefully by now you guys have learned that nerfing something especially nerfing the xp of critters will cause anger and disapprovement. your nerfing the place where high lvl people hunt. i hunt there everyday, and its not like we dont let low lvl peeps in on fellows, i had a lvl 70 be in one of my fellows and nobody complained about it. the only place where a lvl 126+ can get some decent amount of xp is going to be nerfed...

decreasing the amount of xp will only annoy the higher lvl people, it doesn't benefit anyone.

Fenshi

07-27-2004, 10:00 PM

Another vote for: DON'T NERF CAUL.

Gouru

07-27-2004, 10:03 PM

Unfortunately, the experience reward at 126 was being shared among fellowship members.

Unfortunately? UNFORTUNATELY???? Immediately after we noticed this I asked if we were meant to do this. The reply was that it was not foreseen, that it might change and that using it was not exploiting. Okay, with this go ahead, I use it to help level some Gouru. (to the tune of about 15 million a week). This was wonderful, I could not get some decent xp without mindless camping of mobs.

Now you make a statement that unfortunately players were using this dynamic, after saying it was okay! Would you make up your minds? If you decide to change it, fine! (Though I really don't think it's needed). If you decided it was too unbalancing, fine! BUT DON'T GO BLAMING THE PLAYERS FOR USING SOMETHING YOU SAID WAS OKAY!

rageofmages

07-27-2004, 10:03 PM

Oh and why do we HAVE to use weepings as mages to pk? Why are imbues which have a great chance of failure far inferior to a quest item?

Is it so hard to add a human slayer imbue? Or how about a human slayer quest to be added to already imbued items that isn't too powerful?

Oh and don't nerf caul.

Mana_Temptation

07-27-2004, 10:04 PM

Please don't change Caul. This is really the only place we have to get xp worth the risk/time.

Glaucon

07-27-2004, 10:06 PM

How else are we supposed to catch up to the players who hit lvl 170, 200, or higher from XP chains a while ago?Its hard enough to get close to that with constant 12 hours a day fellow hunting at caul crater.

I say make it harder in the crater, make marguls harder. If peple can't handle it they wont be able to get the XP. Higher lvls need a way to compete with the people who got hundreds of millions of XP a day from chains.

I dont think lvl 70's-100 should even be near caul crater. Just make it a lot tougher, not same difficulty with lower rewards...

Thats just my opinion :)

Engl

07-27-2004, 10:06 PM

Absolute top XP spot in a game that for many revolves around leveling, and Turbine hasnt checked it out until now?

The nerf seems like a good idea, those monsters were apparently giving way too much experience, I just find it sad this wasnt noticed until now. Whenever something is nerfed after beeing in-game for a conciderable amount of time, people who couldnt take advantage of it will feel left behind.

Axispipe

07-27-2004, 10:08 PM

You know rather than nerffing caul why don't you just improve the XP on all the Higher level mobs out there.

An example would be laucuna and the tusker gauntlet! on tusker island. Along with VOD, many could use some XP increases.

The drama comes from over crowding so Why not give the population more than one choice to hunt for uber xp (50-60 mil an hour)?

Nerfing caul isn't the best option to you, its a band-aid fix like what Mythic (don't be like Mythic) did for melees when the new frontiers release made them useless, and will hurt your player base, please consider that.

You made an error to make them worth that much XP but why punish us for your mistakes, fix it my way you will have people much happier with you.

Cezium

07-27-2004, 10:12 PM

Hehe more xp in other spots would be a great fix.

Gouru

07-27-2004, 10:12 PM

If the problem with Caulcano is the 'fights' that break out requiring admin intervention, why not declare it officially FFA area. It is high level, it is dangerous, you might get trained on, people may steal 'your' kills, fellows may try to take over, but this is BIG BOY land. Put up or shut up. If you can't compete with the others there to get a share of the kills, hunt elsewhere.

Enforce language in that area, but other than that, leave it open as the XP place for those that can cut it.

Would seem like a nice dynamic to me to have one such area in game.

Edit: Note...Gouru is one of those that fits in the class of "can't cut it"

Arch Magi

07-27-2004, 10:14 PM

Thanks for nothing!

So yet again, Turbines mantra of "Exploit Early, Exploit Often" rings true.

You mean to tell me that you guys never tested the "Dragon Pit"? What am I saying? Of course not, otherwise it wouldn't have taken you this long to figure it out and nerf it!

Why don't you take a long hard look at WNY people camp this area and THINK about it!

Because people want XPs, and because you nerfed the HECK out of XP Chains, people will NOT give up their XPs, they will just go from exploit to exploit and you will be in a constant "catchup mode".

Bring back the XP Chains except CAP them at 50% pass thru instead of 90%. That will give the XP junkies XPs to level their mules and desire to macro less.

Oh well, do what you will, I got my 8 billion XPs passed up to my Tinkering mule from hiring Merc's who got 75+ million XPs per hour as vassal passup.

On to the next exploit.

Aiko II

07-27-2004, 10:15 PM

Noooooooooooooo! Dont do the Biaka xp nerf! Please! Did you Hunt VoD at ALL before Caul was updated? Oh my God it was Crowded and Rude and an over all bad experience. People are gonna go back to that and I for one was enjoying being able to go a click or 2 without seeing anyone, let alone the fellows that ignore all but Virindi. My God man! At least EXPAND VOD if you do this!

Oh my god?! You mean the only new way to level my crafter is being nerfed too? (Fellowing with my 126 char for Gman sword turn in) Jesus Turbine, can you not be original rather than swinging the nerf stick?

Look if people are getting XP this way its because there is a need for it. Instead of doing away with it, why not try to come up with NEW ways for people to GAIN that much. Not everyone camps the highest xp mods for hours in a fellow, some do. SO WHAT? let them!

Reydien

07-27-2004, 10:16 PM

Originally posted by Gouru
Unfortunately? UNFORTUNATELY???? Immediately after we noticed this I asked if we were meant to do this. The reply was that it was not foreseen, that it might change and that using it was not exploiting. Okay, with this go ahead, I use it to help level some Gouru. (to the tune of about 15 million a week). This was wonderful, I could not get some decent xp without mindless camping of mobs.

Now you make a statement that unfortunately players were using this dynamic, after saying it was okay! Would you make up your minds? If you decide to change it, fine! (Though I really don't think it's needed). If you decided it was too unbalancing, fine! BUT DON'T GO BLAMING THE PLAYERS FOR USING SOMETHING YOU SAID WAS OKAY!

If you would re-read the "official" statement you yourself quoted, even in the beginning they said it was not foreseen and could change. "not an exploit" does not mean the same as "we have no problem with it." It is my understanding that the experience isn't shared for any of the other levels, is that correct? If it doesn't, why should it for the people who are lvl 126? Also, where in the lttp is any blame placed? What I'm reading lists it as an unfortunate side-effect, and nothing more.

Lucretia

07-27-2004, 10:17 PM

I'll start with the usual...

I've been playing this game for 5yrs as of this month. I've seen alot of nerfs and quite often I've just accepted it, occupied myself with the "administrative duties" of running our allegiance, and eventually found else to pique my interest again.

Since the nerf of the exp chains, I found many people had lost a certain desire to hunt, myself being one of them. I then found a new love in tradebotting, hunting at a lovely 5 mill exp/hr just to gain tons of salvage.

Then I discovered Caul. My character started levelling again after being stale for 2 months (and we're talking "fake" level 150 here, not level 200). With Caul runs on the go, many folks in my entire allegiance gained interest. I met people OUTSIDE of the allegiance to play with. People who had QUIT AC heard about our great Caul runs and started resubscribing. Suddenly the MM of the MMORPG was being reintroduced to me.

Marguls are not soloing creatures. More than once I've run out there and found NO ONE in the crater (overcamped? say again?). I've had to pool together my resources to find people to hook up with to kill them. I don't see a camping problem at all.

Secondly, I don't see a problem with the exp these creatures give out. They're a challenge, even for a group. They require a good amount of team effort. If you're hearing about people making a TON of exp per hour (we'll say 80-100mill/hr), it's because of the "FIX" on exp chains that increased direct vassal exp, NOT because of the critter itself. We're HUNTING with our vassals once again! And afterall, isn't the exp from these critters comparable to Virindi Quidiox and Paradox - yet the Virindi are far easier to solo and far easier to kill.

Yes, some of us are exp driven. I'll admit myself that when my levels come slower, I feel stale. I enjoy hunting for the purpose of levelling, even without my pretty color display. I enjoy clicking on that green triangle even if I only get to do it once a week. I like to SEE the accomplishment of my time and effort in the game.

I would deduce as well, that if there was a "camping" problem on the other servers, then perhaps it was because the server population had a higher number of high level characters that needed the challenge and exp. Perhaps the proper fix was to offer MORE of what the players were demanding and/or fixated on, not LESS. Introduce new spawn points and you could have fixed much of the "griefer" issue.

I hope you re-analyze your problem and find a different solution. In my opinion, the Caul scenario, at least on my server, was not suffering, and it was a positive element of the game for those remaining on Wintersebb.

Please do reconsider.

WE: http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=72828235
WE Poll: http://vnboards.ign.com/Wintersebb/b5334/72834108/

Mistikal

07-27-2004, 10:18 PM

I think Turbine is just making sure we're still interested in the game for years to come.

People complaining about the nerf to the Xp in Caul realy need to look at it again.

It's still the #1 place ingame to make xp. You'll still make insane amounts, just not game breaking amounts.

So it takes you 2 months to max a char instead of one :|

lol, spread out :)

Dieter McBain

07-27-2004, 10:24 PM

I totally agree with Luc above.

How many times during the history of this game are you gonna change the way we play because of some exp being paid out.

If you don't want us to earn exp., do away with it. Make every critter pay nothing. FFXI does it and why can't Turbine for AC?

Do away with exp and levels. Make this a socialist game where we are all equal. Wow, what a concept Comrade Ibn.

Shelendil

07-27-2004, 10:24 PM

I thought Caul crater was great. It gave us two options for high-level hunting. VoD is once again going to be an overcrowded cherry-picking area.

The xp matched the difficulty of the monsters. They're much harder than anything you'll find in VoD because they swarm, debuff magics, debuff shields, debuff weapons, and chain cast both bolts and arcs.

I can solo three virindi on a regular basis; it's next to impossible to solo three biakas and come out the other end unscathed. High risk should equal high reward.

If the problem was that the xp-flow there was too high, this is because they were fixed spawns. I would have rather you randomize the spawns in the crater than reduce the xp for one of the arguably most difficult creatures in the game.

More than anything I'd like to hear the reasoning behind why the creatures were giving more xp than they "should" be.

Frieze

07-27-2004, 10:25 PM

Originally posted by Mistikal
People complaining about the nerf to the Xp in Caul realy need to look at it again. Out of curiosity, how many times have you been to the Caul Volcano and hunted there?

Originally posted by Mistikal
It's still the #1 place ingame to make xp. Actually, I was able to make 65 mil in one hour in VoD with another archer (no vassal XP). VoD will go back to being the only place to level above 100.

Originally posted by Mistikal
So it takes you 2 months to max a char instead of one :| I doubt any character has maxed out (fake level 200+) since XP chains were nerfed. And if they have, it certainly wasn't from 1-200 in 1 month. Or 2 for that matter.

Dushman

07-27-2004, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by ekaoxide
I was under the assumption the LttP was stuff to look forward to...

No one ever claimed that :p

I have hunted in the Caul since it was reintroduced. Average without vassals in your fellow, call it between 40 to 50 million/hour. 33% reduction 27-33 million/hour close to what VoD or the bug dungeons make.

The difference in the 3 places is that it is damn hard to die in VoD or Bugs. The reward for Caul being so much harder should be a better ROI. I guess Caul needs to have the Marguls nerfed also so they don't cast so many wars so quickly...

fashtas

07-27-2004, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by Hunter
I am begging you to reconsider the Ash tooth change.
If you'd read a little further you'd have seen that other things are being *ADDED* to replace the Ash tooth for the same as well as *MORE* XP than the teeth give now

Specifically the last line of the paragraph saying:
However we’re adding new craft interactions with rewards equal to – and greater than – the Ash Tooth rewards.

Genetix

07-27-2004, 10:31 PM

Well, where to start...? The major issue I guess I am having, as well as alot of other players, is the nerf of crater (Caul). Decreasing the ammount of XP per kill you recieve from a Biaka... but what for? To stop the complaints?

I remember when BSDs were always camped, there was always someone who couldn't get in the fellow and was put on a list, and people would complain, but during that time period, I don't remember the XP of Tusker Guards/Slaves being decreased?

And to be honest, I don't think that the XP from Biakas is too high, due to the fact that you can pretty much get sent to the lifestone at any time, due to the crazy ammounts of war and lag. Which is another issue. Instead of focusing on the gameplay of ALL players, you focus on the ones who complain about it being camped. But what about the players which get killed time after time again because of the insane lag?

I still see no way this is justified. Instead of wanting to decrease the XP of Biakas, why not just increase the XP on half of the creatures around Caul and make other places worth hunting than Crater itself? Possibly update VoD and upgrade some of the creatures. Do something, but why nerf a place to hunt that only a handfull of people (I am guessing) complain about?

And from what I have heard, half the complains aren't relevant, anyways. People complaining about "This person stole my kill" or "This person is griefing and pulling" - that happens everywhere, why focus on just one single place?

*scratch head* I had alot to say, but am so flustered I can't manage to get it out right now.

Magzer

07-27-2004, 10:31 PM

Dont nerf Caul, it's good the way it is, and you said that Everyone wants to camp these's spawns, thats not true, there are many that do not want to hunt here, and that do not hunt here. I'v only seen it once where there was more then two full fellows at caul crater at one time, so this statment is false

" Everyone wants to camp these spawns! "

Basicly, why change it now.

Fozzie

07-27-2004, 10:37 PM

My comment is about cual because I really dont know much else then hunting...

Xp chains, legendary things they were... made the highest leveled people on the server, monarchies got publicity, people got respect, lots of good stuff because everybody benefited from the work and time it took to organize, maintain, and just well have them. Nerf stick... eh well now I cant level 6 chars... just 2...

So with this new sistem I am not sure how the #'s work, never really understood them. I am a cual hunter, I do it to raise my stats because at level 200 on 3 chars I dont see the point in hunting 28 mill an hour in lacuna on a good day, or VoD's multitude of creatures. Cual, just last nite had 4 fellowships out there, no fighting, no dragging, and it was rather nice, our group was pulling in 80 mill an hour from people with no vassals, pretty much everyone in the group but me. I meet people out there, get to know them through our attempts to master the spawn, and they eventually swear to me, how the economics of things work out there... Everyone pulling in 80, I was pulling in 200 for a 5 hour span. It really wasn't half bad for me and they all couldnt complain because they are all fresh 126. You can't run out there with a fellowship of level 90 people fresh off the cual recall quest and make that xp. There are tactics and planning involved. Template has been the biggest issue that I have seen with there. Not overcrowding, not fighting, not stealing or anything else, Mages rule Cual pit. Just as plain as that, the ability for a mge to heal for 140 pts without fail is just a phenomenal thing. Not sure how they would make it easier for melees or anything else don't really care because the main character on all 3 of my accounts are all war/magic d spec mages. If the xp chain nerf wasn't understood untill recently, then yall have the problem. With the retiration of many characters on the server of HG, about 7 in the past week, The ability to form a tighter knit group among the people left. A nerf on the monster's xp value after upping it not 2 months back is a bit rediculous, the xp is fine out there, and if another great spot is nerfed then what desire is it to play your high level characters anymore? To level them higher? pshaw, if I wanted to see a text message that said You are now level !!! I wouldn't play this game, at least with the xp flow out there I can still see the colors when I max a skill. 10 hour spans out there pay off but hey why should things pay off for some when the level 50's are suffering to make xp?

Eh rant rant rant sorry for a long read but lots of points to make on this.

Bhodi Amashi

07-27-2004, 10:40 PM

Wow..there is a lot of Love in this room.....

Raziel Nyte

07-27-2004, 10:44 PM

As many times as I've been in Caul, I've never seen problems like the ones you talk about. Of course we usually work our way around back to keep away from everyone, but I always figured it was FFA anyways. They always have had a pretty big aggro radius, if two fellows are close by of course some are going to run from one to another. Players need to quit freaking out and play, if you think your big enough to hang out in hell, then play through it....supposed to be a fun challenge. Your going to die at some point out there, everyone gets three arcs chained on them at once during some point. Quit policing for the whiners and just worry about the language. That place has a fast enough spawn rate with enough area to keep everyone happy, unlike vod and tusker dungeons.

When I actually have time to sit down and hunt xp, I want to make as much as possible. This place was perfect. Keeps you on your toes with none stop dodging and healing which makes it fun, plus with a good group of experienced players you make make awesome xp.....which imo is well worth the risk out there.
Something like this is only going to make VoD even more overpopulated, bring even more macros back to the devs, and cram more people together fighting over xp. I'm sick of tuskers, and will only fight them on bobo, and in vod. I've been through the fighting over tuskers in DM, BSD, camps...plus the golems on aerlinthe. Now it's the tusker dungeons and VoD/dungeons/Bug dungeons. Caul you really don't have too if you just SPREAD OUT.

When you need a bil to level, 20-30mil an hour doesn't cut it, it doesn't take skills, and is mindless hunting. You nerf passup so I can't level my chars together anymore, and now your taking the best xp out of the game and cramming more people either back into the dungeons, or vod where all the level 80-126 should be. It just won't be worth the effort anymore.

Kermit_LC

07-27-2004, 10:49 PM

I have an easier way to make the caul crater area less of a problem: You know those nasty rifts you removed from Portal Space? Give them a new home...in caul crater :D This will make it tougher for the xp.

Either that, or make the spawns include 2 rifts, 1 biaka, 3 hellions, and 3 virindi...and have the rift special spawn ability occur at a quicker rate (of perhaps something not as bad, but close to biakas; perhaps some Hollows?).

Just some ideas. I think that Caul should be a challenge for the experience, especially when people are hitting the skill caps of their skills earlier than ever.

AusarMT

07-27-2004, 10:57 PM

ok your not nerfing the cano, your totally killing it.

next patch Caul fellows and VoD fellows will make roughly the same XP.

Let me think here do I go to caul and get slapped around with 180 damage wars or go to VoD and make close to the same XP with no risk? yeah tough choice there, will VoD be nerfed next?

Barnacles

07-27-2004, 10:58 PM

I like hunting the caulcano, I try to get there 2 or 3 times a week. I've never, ever seen the type of player squabling and bickering that was mentioned in the Letter to the Players. If our fellow was too close to another, we moved. no screaming and whinning. The massive amount of marguls that spawn there, im guessing, are the primary cause of lag there. There is plenty of space for 3 or 4 fellows to be going at the same time there and never even see the other groups. Im still gonna hunt there no matter what cause its fun and the xp was awesome and prob still will be...........

AzulDrakkon

07-27-2004, 10:59 PM

Lots of crying about caul, hopefully this message doesn't get lost in the whining "my xps, my xps, gd you turbine!"

I like almost everything about the recent patch, except you really are nerfing pacifists hardcore.

What I'm worried about is increased war damage...a) most mages can cast 7s by forty if they try b) raising it would be UNBALANCING...in PvM and PvP, you all are deadset on that dumb idea aren't you? Why don't you just give mages insta kill rings and the ability to fly? If you raise the damage on level 7 streaks, I hope half of the pvpers leave in outrage...oddly every patch as of late is either intended or unintentional mage love, and I'm sick of it.

Kawari

07-27-2004, 11:00 PM

Not having been in the Caul but once (For a failed recall scroll attempt) I probably have no right to interject my opinion, but please... don't swing the nerf stick into the Caul crater. During my run to the Caul Asylum I passed through the crater and saw something that I can't say that I've seen very often since playing this game... a full fellowship of players, that were actually WORKING together instead of hunting off on their own while gaining the benefit of 8 other people doing the same thing. As I remember the second M in MMORPG is for MULTIPLAYER and areas like this are actually useful for bringing other players together to cooperate and gain the rewards and benefits for their cooperation and teamwork. From the way the Blackmire quests must be run (fellowships) and the Crystal Lord (reward for this is in dire need of some love...) it is clearly obvious that you WANT to have players cooperating with each other, so please dont nerf something that accomplishes this goal without fail.

On a side note, I have one question about the compensation for players on the 4 affected servers. I would like to know if it will ONLY be available in September, or if it will be available for all existing characters at the time of the rollback but only once. September is when I will be back at college which also means that my account will be inactive until vacation times. Would be nice to still be able to get the XP when I return for Christmas break.

Dencor

07-27-2004, 11:03 PM

Please DO keep the caul change, i know people who can go out to caul and do their HOMEWORK while letting tank sit there and kill in a fellow, if that's honing survival skills please give me a place to hunt on my melee where the tuskers are 1 mil xp each and take less than 30 seconds to kill, oh, and also make them not very high in attack skill so i evade a lot but make them shield hollow, and high high high magic defense so mages cant hit them with spells whasoever and the mages can keep caul how it is.

Mages i'm guessing are the ones mad about caul changing....you know what, play a melee character and try caulcano, it SUCKS and the xp drops fast when melees are in, you KNOW its a mage only place, melees get the shaft as well as archers, why can't they make it even and give EVERYONE the shaft instead of just 2/3s of the skill types.

The Taken

07-27-2004, 11:07 PM

Changes to Caul won't bother me much..

Caul will still be a nice place for XP

Frieze

07-27-2004, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Dencor
Please DO keep the caul change, i know people who can go out to caul and do their HOMEWORK while letting tank sit there and kill in a fellow, if that's honing survival skills please The one time I was in a fellow with a mage using tank, we all died and at best were making 40 mil/hour (a reading that lasted 5 minutes). That's not even worth nerfing.

Fozzie

07-27-2004, 11:11 PM

, I hope half of the pvpers leave in outrage...oddly every patch as of late is either intended or unintentional mage love, and I'm sick of it.

Get over yourself, untill the update in cb/war damage mage was the least DoT among ANY CLASS, Dagger, Staff, any class mage was last place, now we can contend with the rest of the server. Turbines never ending struggle to balance PvP won't end and I have gotten used to that. Thats why I don't pk.

Back to cual nerf..

No decent places to xp for level 200+, I cant stare at a sceen for 10 hours and be like woot 300 mill xp! Plenty of other things to hunt aye, but I have memorized maggies list of quests, I have soloed queen quest, among every other besides gaerlan and others that require team work. There is no quest content that I would hardly be interested in. No Ig status to manage since xp chains and the work and effort associated with them has been tossed. I am one of the economical as well as social giants of HG. There is no challenge in loot hunting, hell I dont remember the last time I actually hunted with the intent of looting. I max stuff and then max more stuff while fighting and talking with vassals... nerf the xp so that I can't make much, quest content can only go so far, no point left to playing, goodbye to 8 accts.

Spiritoak

07-27-2004, 11:13 PM

BLAH!

I'm an archer... and I'm very upset to the NERF of yet another cool thing in AC. (Caulcano)

I've had more fun in fellowships in the cano than anywhere else.

Guess we just liked it too much. Oh well I'll take my toons and park them in the bugs again. After next patch if anyone wants some outdated 80+ bug armor feel free to walk in unbuffed and waltz your way to the queen.

You won't have any troubles as the armor dungeons will be camped to the roof.

Probably have an easy time of the BMII quest for a month till they figure out that people are camping the Burun as they are almost as good as Marguls.

Silifi Of Death

07-27-2004, 11:14 PM

Please, don't make the same mistakes again... The players have posted 5 pages in the first few hours about how you shouldn't nerf Caul. Don't do it, you have to reconsider this. We don't want to be nerfed, ever. Only do it when it's absolutely necessary, otherwise you should just IMPROVE the people who aren't getting the benefits. Instead of nerfing Caul xp improve XP in other areas. Make another High level area if you want to ease the camping.

Hunter

07-27-2004, 11:14 PM

fashtas I have many concerns about that. Why replace a perfectly working item with another one?

This leads to me to believe that they same/better reward will be a 500k or a 1 mill tooth. Which for some will be the same/better but for many others will be a huge nerf.

I say if the 25% tooth is working, there' no reason to make a new one. If turbine would be so kind to grace us with improved rewards, please do not nerf the old ones to impliment them, just add around the old ones; add a new 10% and add the improved rewards.

And the caul issue. I believe a different perspecitve is needed.
Problem: Too many people hunting in one small place and that results in problems.
I see the solution is to duplicate the conditions that make this spot desireable. Add more caul crater type spawns on the isle (maybe new aerfalle extreme zones)so players will spread out. Players go about playing happier and griefing avioded.
Players always have and always will be drawn to exp hot spots. Why not accomidate this desire instead of denying it? I'm not saying making it easy for them, but then again fighting 10-20 Biakas is not what i consider easy ;) .

chakaal

07-27-2004, 11:15 PM

I wish you would introduce GREATER rewards for trade skills, rather than reduce them. I think there should be more VIABLE ways to raise trade skills other than hunting. 10% of the xp does hardly anything for low/mid-level chars. 25% doesn't even go that far.

Find a way for crafting characters to complete a non-combat quest, which provides enough xp as if they had been in serious combat for the same time. And allow them to do it over and over, the same as there is no 'timer' on hunting. (then make running the quest afk a ucm offense- for those that will raise that issue)

Just my thoughts.

Vlad Morbius

07-27-2004, 11:18 PM

This is not what any melee player hoped for, but at the very least we won't see mages running away from the pack any longer. It would have been just as efective if you had just added some high level melee xp, magic resistent creatures to caul to balance it out.
Grats on looking at a long overdue issue with bow, but overall i'm very disapointed my melee will sit idle for another month or so :(

Raziel Nyte

07-27-2004, 11:20 PM

If you really think too many people are flocking to this area, I think you are missing the point why. It's because it's fun, you work together, and there are so many high levels out there now there's actually a place you can go where you can raise 1 skill point after a good day of hunting.

Tank on caul? HA

adament

07-27-2004, 11:21 PM

i think turbine wants to lose more players. the servers are already almost deserted as it is. with all these nerfs they will only lose more people. thanks for ruining this game.

MisatoX

07-27-2004, 11:21 PM

Worst letter to the players ever. WE WANT THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

Nerfing Caul - Bah! Sure the XP is high here, but there's also a risk involved. I don't die anywhere else ingame, but I do die here, regularly. EVERYONE in the fellow has to work together.

It's not crowded. The respawn is quick enough that a lot of fellows can hunt there at the same time and make decent XP.

Right now my sword skill cost something like 240m to raise a single point. That is a lot of XP to raise something *one* stupid point. If I have to move back to VoD that six hours for *one* point of sword....it gets BORING fast.

Aerlinthe changes - Bah again! A LOT OF YOUR PLAYERBASE IS OVER LEVEL 80!!!!!!! I used to love hunt Aerlinthe in the day, and it's a bummer it's still gonna be useless to hunt now since it's geared towards low level. Stop making everything geared towards low levels. With the Caul nerf, us high level, which there are a lot of, do not have many options on what to do. THE GAME IS GONNA GET BORING.

And to top all this **** off you put that gimp Thamior's pic at the top of the Lttp!!!! :p

With all the games coming out soon I'd hope you'd consider making some changes that make us happy and give us new things to do, because if you don't other games will. We don't want useless nerfs anymore.

wicked-warlock

07-27-2004, 11:26 PM

heh, i just reread the LttP twice, and im hard pressed to find a single piece of actual content in it

apparently, youd rather spend all your time making wasps look better, and nerfing things people find fun

if ruining this game is on your agenda, youre well on your way to accomplishing that goal

Spiritoak

07-27-2004, 11:31 PM

Sorry... I also forgot to mention that by nerfing the xp in caul... you've just made my Dark Idol (aegis) ar xbow totally WORTHLESS!

It's not any good for using in PVP... the only thing it was good for was helping to keep me alive while hunting some great XP.

Doubt we'll ever see a "Removal Quest". That might make people happy! :eek: God forbid.

Stopping the gman sword xp fellow thing is just another way to hurt the already unloved trade characters.

Blah!

When I read this stuff it makes me question whether or not I should be wasting money on a game that doesn't listen to its players.

The answer to a problem should NEVER be, "We decided that it was too good, so we're going to adjust it."

A better solution would be to make OTHER desireable areas for people to hunt. One that would also promote full fellowships (which I thought MMORPG's were supposed to be about).

I wish that when I read the LttP it could have said, "Due to the popularity of the center of Caul, it's being overcrowded." "To make this better we will be adding new XP hot spots for melee/missile toons to take advantage of so that things will even out."

/e Rant off.

Vlad Morbius

07-27-2004, 11:35 PM

Listen, to make a long story short, they have realised the folly of their ways, seeing the life of the game slip away by allowing all characters to max out at too quick a rate on Caul. That's the real reason for this or the obvious solution would have been to build another area that was much more melee and missile friendly with the same xp availability. By doing that however the xp flow is still too high and the insterest for the expansion pack would drop even lower.
Take a long look at the last few months and the pattern is pretty obvious. If this was too keep up there would be a bunch of maxed out players leaving for another game by the time the expansion pack hit the shelves.
Just my take on things.

Drewman_MT

07-27-2004, 11:38 PM

Same old Turbine

Nerf the things that 75% of the player base is enjoying, add content that benefits 25% of the player base and continue to ignore balance issue's that are way over due.

I normally dont post on these cause I dont think these posts really get taken seriously, but this nerf of Caul is just stupid. Because of a few whiners that cant handle Caul (The one's complaining about people dragging mobs on them) you are making it so that NO-ONE (mark my words) will hunt in Caulcano.

Why not spread out the spawn's of groups of Hellions and Biaka's across the island and add them into different places in order to spread groups of people out and avoid the "issues" you quoted in the Letter to the Players? Fellowships would still be able to make the xp we are now used to, and it would avoid many of the issue's of other fellows dragging mobs and griefing other fellows.

I would say that almost all the players that are concered with the issue's you quoted as the reason for this nerf would be happy with these changes, as would all the players (90% of the servers?) that want it to stay how it is.

Maxymyllyn

07-27-2004, 11:39 PM

Well, the Caul nerf sucks, but it's understandable. I wondered how long that was gonna last. Still, for the way those little you-know-whats fight, it's a fair amount of XP. I'm not gonna go the way of some others and whine but I would prefer things stay the way they are.

Robes? Haroom. Make them TINKABLE and worthwhile armor. That'd be nice - seeing mages wearing actual robes to fight in....nah perish the thought. :D

Beyond that, seems like a slim patch. When's the billing migration starting? Sounds like y'all are gearing up...

Oh, and when are we gonna see the long-promised in-town tink/craft bonuses that were going to herald the return of players in town?

As a side bar, I recently caught some info on DaOC and saw that they have buffbots, mobile mules, and craft bonus items IN HOMES.

You guys need to do a little catching up, but don't worry, I have confidence you'll get there!

(edited for lame language skillz yo)

Shelendil

07-27-2004, 11:40 PM

I think the problem with Caul needs to be better identified before you come up with a solution.

If the problem is that people are macroing for 50 mill/hour without moving, randomize the spawns.

If the problem is bickering and calls to envoys on certain servers, reducing the xp doesn't solve the problem, only moves the bickering elsewhere.

I truly don't see the reward being too high for the risk involved. I don't look forward to going back to VoD. VoD I find boring now, Caul holds challenge and death.

blackcestus

07-27-2004, 11:45 PM

OMFG....Listening to the whiners again...

well listen to me whine.. leave my damn xp alone! stop lowering my hunting areas ... i dont have a lvl 220 .. i dont have vassals hunting under me.. leave caul alone... !

you wanna help out???!!!!

People whine because there are too many fellows in 1 area.. omfg... wat the heck should i do!????! jee i dunno

because there are too many fellows people drag stuff on other fellows to get them killed because no one wants to let them in...welllll!

MAKE THE FELLOWS BIGGER AND INCREASE THE FELLOW SHARE %

problem solved...

but since your not going to listen to this...

Black cestus died!

sharpy-sc

07-27-2004, 11:47 PM

People are figting in groups and dieing a lot and generally, working our a$$es off for the XP. Leave it alone.,...Why do you have to destroy everything that we enjoy!

Sinis

07-27-2004, 11:50 PM

Ibn do you really want to get into unbalanced issues?

This is just an example a first page look of the top 50 highest characters on each server.

Leafcull:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=1

Frostfell:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=2

Harvestgain:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=3

Thistledown:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=4

Morningthaw:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=5

Wintersebb:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=6

Solclaim:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=7

Darktide:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Rank&Rank=TotalXP&Server=8

Ok keep in mind there would be almost double that ammount of people on each server but not everyone runs or has ran TreeStats.. Also that 1 out of 8 servers top 50 were not all 200+. I gaurantee that 3/4 of this total number of 200+s was all at this lvl by using chains before the nerf. Now if you would like to get into the ammount of lvl 150+ (still a hard lvl to acheive w/o chains, macroing, or even the ammount of xp a caul fellow can produe up to (60 Mill) and hour. The fact that you waited well over a year to fix this problem isn't known to me, but people have caul as a large spot to hunt for 100+'s to lvl up alot and possibly hit a high enouph lvl to not be an underdogg to 70% of the active players on the server. I just propose that instead of screwing everyone over again that didn't use one of your unbalanced problems that you expand the spawn of the Biaka's/Hellion's, possibly put them in dungeons or somthing of the sort aswell, it would be somthing I am sure that everyoen would agree on.

Fozzie

07-27-2004, 11:55 PM

HG's top 10 hasn't changed since xp chain nerf

Estera

07-27-2004, 11:55 PM

guys u cant do this it's been up to long i agree with u on the fact u shouldnt be able to go from 80-100+ in a day but what about the 150+s that u originally made this place for? u want it to take them a year to max out all the stats? i say bring back xp chain or make caul 126+ and expand the hunting area

Fissell

07-27-2004, 11:55 PM

Okay, let me see if I have this right:

The XP on the Gman sword (which by the way, now needs to kill Gman, can only be once per week, and takes about 45 minutes to an hour to complete the quest, and can only be turned in once per 24 hours to stop massive XP acquiring) will no longer share with fellowships. Is this really necessary? I haven't used that mechanic, but it seems like a complete waste of time and resources to change something that is neither a make or break situation. For 7.5 million XP, I could fellow my trademule/tinkerer at level 50 with someone in VoD and make that in MUCH less time than doing the Gman quest.

Okay, so we nerf the Gman idea.

The XP in Caul island (which seemed to me very appropriate for the group/deaths necessary in the hunting grounds for that area) are way too high (too high?!? Who determined this one?).

Okay, so we nerf Caul Island, wasting more time and resources.

Ash gromnie teeth, which can only be done once per week for a whopping 25% of 1 point of a skill, is way too high.

Okay, time to nerf this one as well...god forbid, someone may actually make a few million XP by using a skill.

But, have no fear, we're adding in tradeskills. This should have been done LONG ago, and at minimum when the XP passup changes took place.

I'm not a macroer, not a chainer, but for once, I would like to log in and be able to make some XP. Everytime I reach the levels that are appropriate for my toons, it seems it's time to throw a wrench in the system, and lower the XP produced.

I hate to say it, but if you're trying to make the game as it was originally intended (ie. 3 years to get to 126), as proven by VT, if someone wants to macro/chain/XP whore, it's going to happen in less than a month anyhow. At least let us casual players level for a change, this is insane.

There used to be a time that I looked forward to patch day, anymore, I dread it!!! Stop the insanity, stop the nerfs!

Eschient

07-27-2004, 11:56 PM

Well, add another worthless creature to avoid to my list. The only reason to bother with Marguls and risk having my butt handed to me several times in a row was for the XP. The loot is certainly not worth my time. But, I'll live, I suppose. More time to spend on worthwhile monsters.

I'm nervous about the robes. Am I going to log out on Tuesday night with a nice PP Hoary and log back in to some generic "self-buffing" robe that I'm going to TC?

And the thing I am most upset about....where's the content?? What happened to the "raids" we were supposed to see? This invasion is even more depressing than the Olthoi invasion. Elysa's sleuths sure aren't paying much attention to the whole assassination attempt. Nummy is sure being quiet for someone who was so set on getting "the people" on her side that she did a vulcan mind-meld with an olthoi.

I want the billing migration as much as anyone, but throw us a bone already. The lore is getting really static and immersion is taking a nose-dive. They're hardly story arcs if they just fizzle out halfway in.

Marc

07-28-2004, 12:03 AM

Wow

That last bit on the August Letter to the players concerns me

Nerf Caul Crater.... Please Don't
Please

If you want to add some insanely xtreme hunting spots .. feel free to.

Please don't nerf a place that actually makes a 4 year player interested in xp again.

When raising a skill costs 150 million + it is insane to brake ur fingers for 10 million an hour if you are lucky..

You want to make it tougher.. go ahead

You want me to jump through hoops... sure

but dont do things < yes I am making an accusation>
to purposely make the game uninviting for the 126 + crowd in an effort to diminish the numer of them playing the game in a misguided effort to reduce the average character level.

<edit>

Just so you know I swore i would never get an account on this board because i believe the vault to be "THE OFFICIAL AC BOARD"

but I HAD to speak up about this

Fozzie

07-28-2004, 12:17 AM

hope turbine will check out the amount of responses in the time period on this...

All the people complaining about Gman... Evisc, Warrior, Mut pincer, 15 mill xp sharable. Have friends? pretty sure no 126 char actually remembers and goes for these. Take them along, got a char to 60 off of a few people fellowing with me and handing in.

Jet-eye-nite

07-28-2004, 12:22 AM

I am not trying to defend or offend anyone or group by this statement and I understand I have no more rights than any other player but on the same token I have no less rights than any other player either .

1. I had high hopes of seeing the death of the "Zone" as it has to be the worst part of playing this game , maybe if enough players contact +envoys like was said to of happened in Cauls problem(s)you would sit up and take notice .

2.Lets look at this ( caul reduction ) , 1st Turbine brought this on themselves by packing all the worth while mobs (xp & loot) in 1 or 2 places . Where as before you could ROAM almost anywhere in Dires and find a baddy ,not the case anymore. Too bad they can't just spread the wealth out like it was before and bring the ability of uber xp/loot back to EVERYONE as apposed to a select few .

3.As far as missile weapons ,your just looking at the tip of the ice berd on a real fix for this .

4.Tinkering ,unless your proposing ability to make a min of 100-200+ million xp a month ,save your breath .When are you ever going to realize tinkering is a way of life for some and until you do ,please don't taunt us with tid-bits

5.And even though not mentioned when are you going to finish fixing the loot system ? It still is the pits !

krack

07-28-2004, 12:23 AM

The caul nerf is a bad idea. There has to be a better solution then the current one at hand. For many players, including myself, this is my last bastion and reason in whole for playing ac to this day. The chains are gone, which is ok...but now is you take away or "nerf" the xp that is damned hard to get, it's only going to revive old turbine hatred feelings.

My best suggestion. Leave solo caul hunters alone.There is NO reason solo hunters should be held to the same nerf as the fellow "nazis". IMHO the problem is NOT the xp...it's the players. Take away the ability to earn that outrageous xp in a fellow in the pit...and the pit only.

Or...make caul red only. That would solve a lot of disputes.

SZ_FF

07-28-2004, 12:24 AM

I think changing Caul is a horrible idea. The xp along with the challenge of killing more than 5 at a time is intense. i die numerous times there, and the only problem i've ever really seen is lag.

Everyonce in a while you see someone lure onto you because they cant get into your fellow blah blah, but i deal with it, so do others.

I choose to hunt caul because of the challenge of hunting there, and it feels good getting the xp as a reward for your accomplishment.

If you make it similar xp to other places i might as well just hunt olthoi and make the same xp with almost NO threat of death. It may be boring, but it'll be better than hunting caul after the change imo. and maybe AC will get boring even faster than it has been. not to say it isnt still pretty fun, but it's not like it was years ago, or even months ago.

My opinion of course, i could be the vast minority

Fires

07-28-2004, 12:30 AM

great caul nerf, you finally make a good place for level 126s to hunt and make xp that actually helps them level in about the same amount of time as they were in the lower levels and you nerf it? i dont even see the point , its a fun, worth while place that your going to turn into something that is complete **** and only good for the rewards.

Arch Magi

07-28-2004, 12:31 AM

Look on the bright side people. With little new content, and massive nerfs, there will be less lag.

Because people will be quitting the game and going to other ones because Turbine is constantly nerfing the places that people want/need to hunt to keep the characters that they have worked so hard on over the years going.

On another bright note. After they nerf this 126+ area, they will have more time to redo yet another tired old level 10-20 Dungeon that no one will visit except on VT.

/sarcasm off

SZ_FF

07-28-2004, 12:32 AM

and to voice my opinion on Krack's post, i dont think the PK idea is too smart. that would turn my non-pk gameplay away from caul even more.

But i agree with what he said about soloers. taking on a biaka solo is hard for us non-126+ characters, and we deserve that xp for how long it takes us to take them out. it takes my mage a good 2 minutes to take one out, assuming i dont die. And we need to keep fellows because my melee cant solo there because his magics arent up to par.

In short, don't change marguls. just dont

Heideggar

07-28-2004, 12:42 AM

Ya know, if you guys at Turbine played your game, a lot of these changes you make to PvP weapons, Caul, etc. wouldn't need to happen. The players knew for months how good Caul was for XP. How blind are ya? Creatures in packs giving 1-1.5 mill a pop. It's not that hellions and marguls give so much xp, it's that there are so many in a small area. If there were other creatures that spawned in that crater to help balance the xp-rate, like there is in VoD, you wouldn't have that "problem" you guys find.

It's appalling you guys at Turbine finally see that as a problem.

Woah, these are the same people that say "soon" and "short term" to mean 12+ months, my fault hehe.

I could go into much more detail, but why!? It takes dozens of posts, some getting locked cuz they're there, just to get a response. You guys are gonna do what you want anyways, and some of us can't wait 3-12+ months for a chance.

So, a little advice for everyone:

Exploit Early, Exploit Often You never know when something nice will get reverted/nerfed. Take advantage of whatever you can!

You guys at Turbine are sure pushing people to do just that.

Lilstarr

07-28-2004, 12:46 AM

Please do not nerf Caul. My hubby and I hunt there all the time, and we rarely see anyone else where we hunt. We are both 160+, and I'm finally having fun playing AC again!

Paraduck

07-28-2004, 12:47 AM

Regarding the Caul XP nerf:

Margul XP was increased recently, wasn't it? If it's only the center of the Caul that's a problem, why not just target it instead of the entire island? I believe that area has a unique spawn... so why not just add nerfed forms of the Biaka and Hellion there and leave those in the other areas untouched? That way, those who choose not to hunt the best place for these creatures are not affected as much as those who solely like to camp the center.

Zonomar Xisle

07-28-2004, 12:53 AM

I disagree with the caulcano nerf.

There will be no reason to go there with the risk/reward after the change. Knowing I will put a few corpses out there is ok even if it may be hard to retrieve them, the xp reward is currently worth it.

A fun little playground for higher level characters atm.

Shadow Mouse

07-28-2004, 12:54 AM

Ibn, did you mean that the team is looking into increasing the attacking animation speeds or the speed of the projectile fired by a missile weapon? Just looking for some clarification.

Also, it just occured to me that increasing the speed of missile projectiles might be a good solution to the Missle/PK problem, if it were possible. I'm not sure if it would be practical or even possible with the physics in AC, but I thought I'd ask.

P.S. - If you do increase the animation speeds, could you look into the entering/exiting combat speed on Atlat's? I'm hoping it could be faster or more streamlined. As is, the first "raising of the Atlatl" is unnecessary.

Thanks for the awsome game.

It_the_mage

07-28-2004, 12:56 AM

Dont nerf the CAul.. I love it out there!!!!!!!!!

Ghantar

07-28-2004, 01:24 AM

Leechers, exploiters and macros always whine, and so does the opposition parties. My guess is, you please one, you angry another. I still think the Caul move was right, you people caused this to happen by abusing the +Admins.

Lesson learned ? Respect each other in game and stop acting like children.

I do have this question though, there was some talk a few months back about the Monarchs being capable of giving Officer status which was successfully implemented, but I was under the impression that more detailed positions would be available in the future. Is this still in the gameplan ?

Keep up the hard work, regardless of how some don't apreciate it, and thanks again for Asheron ;)

G.

Askani

07-28-2004, 01:26 AM

I was really disappointed with the LTTP this month. I finally have a place to go and have fun.

I have a challenge, I get XP, I get to be with friends and get decent loot. Now, my fun is being nerfed.

I really don't understand the logic of this. I hunt Caulcano often and there is seldom a problem. Do I have to worry about dying, yes I do, it is one of the only places I hunt that I have to worry and use my skills.

I fight there because it is a challenge and I get rewarded for that challenge, with the nerf, I see no point in hunting there. Why put myself in harms way when I can get the same XP elsewhere with no danger of dying.

I will keep reading what people are saying but at this point, the accounts I have bought back from inactivity will again be laid to rest because I will no longer have a need for them as I do now. I have come to realize that money is not important to Turbine and that by dwindling subscriptions due to people leaving has no effect on what you do for the players.

I also know that I am happy my trade characters are already high level because I don't see you helping them with these changes, but I will have to take a wait and see on those changes.

As to why you are changing the hoary, I really see no reason to fix something that is not broken. To make the AL better, etc, that sounds reasonable, but the style, I can only hope that you make it more elegant and not ruin the grandeur of it. And I am disappointed that you are gonna change all the robes <sigh>.

I hope with this nerf you are planning, you do read what the people are saying.

I am just adding my 2 pyreals worth and watch for further developement on this subject.

Shadowsthwelcvt

07-28-2004, 01:27 AM

For those who don't agree with the caul nerf, please read this petition and sign it. Hopefully this will be a way to tell turbine what we think of this decision.

http://www.petitiononline.com/98iyu7/petition.html

SegZavier

07-28-2004, 01:28 AM

The Aerfalle quest is intended for characters from levels 40-60, but we’ve made some changes that will make it worthwhile for characters above that level as well. We’ve also streamlined the quest to remove some of the delays. For example, the respawn timer on the Repair Golem has been cut nearly in half.

One important change to the Aerfalle quest is that the Ashen Key is being changed from giveable and always-drop-on-death to Bonded and Attuned. If you have Ashen Keys on a mule, we strongly recommend that you move these Keys to a character capable of completing the quest and do so prior to the August event.

When I read the first paragraph I thought "Cool!"

Then I read the second paragraph and thought "What is the point?"

Fozzie

07-28-2004, 01:31 AM

Originally posted by Ghantar
Leechers, exploiters and macros always whine, and so does the opposition parties. My guess is, you please one, you angry another. I still think the Caul move was right, you people caused this to happen by abusing the +Admins.

Lesson learned ? Respect each other in game and stop acting like children.

Yea parental tactics from tubine, make the leeches, exploiters, and macroers quit because they nerfed our xp. Congrats they are all gone, what are the rest of us stuck with? Fallacies of newbs shouldn't effect the entire world of dereth.

Nem

07-28-2004, 01:38 AM

I think nerfing caulcano is a bad idea. Im not going to repeat what has been many times before me but I will say this 1 thing.

If Caul does become a useless place to hunt for xp (and by the way it looks I think it will be) not only will vod be crowded again but everybodies favorite little macroing place Lacuna might become populated once again. Back before Caul was updated, the popular places to hunt was not only vod, but also the tusker duns. We all know what a lot of the people who hunt in the tuskers duns like to do. If this happens, the tusker duns will go back to what they always were.

I think the way it is now is a lot better than the way it used to be.

Jet-eye-nite

07-28-2004, 01:39 AM

I think you should of offered players a choice in the up coming robe change ,considering your doing it w/o our voice for input .
Something like "turn your robe in for the new and improved model " or "be the first goof in MP to sport the Lime Green H robe" . Maybe they will be tinkerable with a 33% chance of success ,lol where it reads something like this " Tinker-man fails to apply Hematite to PP Hoary Robe and the target is reduced to a faran robe " now that would be funny :D

Charon HG

07-28-2004, 01:43 AM

Do not nerf Caul this would be another total cluster **** nuff said for once truely listen to your players not the damnable cry babies.

I only hit that island for the recall quest and body recoveries of my friends and clanmates with my 140+ archer, but my 110 mage hunts there with friends only once a week, or so. We hunt above the volcano and only go in once in awhile. When we've gone in the volcano on the HG server, I have never seen fights over monsters, but other fellows stopping to heal others that were in need. Only complaints I've heard is the mob drag effect onto a solo toon. When running from one area to the next.

Thank you for allowing us to waste our time responding here since you'll do whatever the suposed cryin majority wants.
I'll scream it one last time in the wishful thinkin that you'll hear it for once.

DO NOT CHANGE CAUL!!!!!!!!!!!!

FmrSentFlatfoot

07-28-2004, 01:53 AM

I keep saying this to people in-game, and I've said it once or twice here: "Don't say I didn't warn you!" :eek:

adament writes:

i think turbine wants to lose more players. the servers are already almost deserted as it is. with all these nerfs they will only lose more people. thanks for ruining this game.

Truth.

Vlad Morbius writes:

Take a long look at the last few months and the pattern is pretty obvious. If this was too keep up there would be a bunch of maxed out players leaving for another game by the time the expansion pack hit the shelves.

Truth.

Apart from all the complaints and roars of disbelief, the above two caught my eye, because they border on something else I've been telling people.

It probably wouldn't be good to let out what this is, at this point in time, because not only could I be wrong... I truly hope that I am wrong. But given all that's been going on lately since Turbine has taken over (we all "thought" things were going to look up and get much better for the players), everything has gotten progressively worse with each successive patch, and the future is looking more and more dim.

I will offer this snippet of what I 'think" will happen, which is a real foul "gut" feeling, that's based on (going on) 6 years playing AC, both as a behind the scenes volunteer, and as a regular player.

If you think what's been going on lately is real awful, you ain't seen nothing yet. As soon as the AC1 upgrade nears completion (no they're not going to be totally up front at Turbine Nation), an announcement will be made that will very likely spell the end of most of the current players of AC. This won't hurt Turbine, it will strengthen them... notice I said "them", not "you".

That's all I have to say.... for now.

Marc writes:

Just so you know I swore i would never get an account on this board because i believe the vault to be "THE OFFICIAL AC BOARD"

/e again falls off chair; but this time in a fit of hysterical laughter. :D

/e really wants to spit out exactly what the vault boards truly represent, but knows he'd be banned for the words required to describe it. :eek:

krack

07-28-2004, 02:00 AM

The pk piece of that thread was a joke. The main reason I can see turbine nerfing caul xp is because of all the calls to envoys they get about camping spots (as per the LTTP).

BUT, since Envoy's have to play "pitlords", I thought anybody who wanted to enter the pit could go red and settle their own petty disputes over who's spawn is who's. Of course, the more I think about this...the more I like it. What started out as a joke, is now starting to turn my fancy.

*What if* the pit were changed in a way that would allow people not wanting to enter it and deal with all the BS...and yet still allow the crybaby campers in pampers a recourse to resolve their infantile disputes? I think making it a red only zone would certainly work in that case.

But this is a pipe dream...I can only imagine the commotion this would create.But why the hell not...we already got one going now :)

At any rate, like I said earlier...find a way to disable or nerf fellowship XP only on caul and in the pit. THOSE are the people responsible for this. There's no point in punishing everyone, when you know who the true culprits are.

*As an after thought*~ anyone who calls about campers should get a a dev controlled super MOB on their tails and get demolished. WOuld be something fun at least for the envoys to do!...the newest threat to Dereth...PITLORDS. Demons that can kill you with a mere word.LMAO!!!

AncientExpert

07-28-2004, 02:01 AM

If VOD is likely to get too crowded with the return of the "oobah" caul griefers/XP junkies, there is a simple solution...

Triple the size of VOD.

Seriously..

Most of the (standard) dires are not hunted much, as the players in the 50-80 range who like to hunt there tend to stick to localised areas of the dires where it is easy to get to/recall etc..

Make VOD extend past it's current (small) area, and expand it. This will keep the 90+ Chars happy, and lessen the risk of griefing in the VOD/High Healt/High XP critter areas.

Scrap (LC)

xijin

07-28-2004, 02:03 AM

wow 8 pages of anger, looks like turbine managed to alienate and infuriate the majority of thier playerbase. but dont worry because the remaining players never liked you to begin with

Mildly amused

07-28-2004, 02:03 AM

Its good to see the attitudes that you can see with crater fellows spilling over to the boards. Lovely. As if Turbine needed confirmation that correcting that cesspit was long overdue.

Caul Crater was for xp what the spike macro was for pyreals; just another notch in the 'exploit early, exploit often' list. Now tell me: where will be your next ucm-mage playground that will go unchecked for months...

Ibn Ghon

07-28-2004, 02:07 AM

The problem is the fellow bonus, not the abolute value of the critter xp. If you solo them they are very difficult. I guess I will have to start calling Envoys in phyntos menace and 80+ matron, as the same problems prevail in those dungeons.

You know Caul is probably the final attraction to many old-time players. Find another way to fix it. Make more of the island high-level spawn, for example. Or provide some intermediate level that has some possibility of being soloed and is a tad easier for lower level folk. A third alternative is to raise the level requirement for getting to the place. Quite a few of the fellows there are monarchy-based and contain some very low level characters that really should not be there.

Bottom line is you gonna **** a lot of people off with this.

Sorry should have said urinating I guess.

Elisabet of TAD

07-28-2004, 02:19 AM

This is the first time you guys have done anything in all the time that I have played AC that has bothered me enough to post.

There are very few places I can make decent XP as a 126+ player. I got my toon to this level with little vassal xp, no chains and no macros (this is not to be anti macro, just making the point that I made my levels on my own).

Caul rejuvenated the game for me and it was my hope that more areas of this type would be created to take into consideration the needs of 126+ players.

I have never found the central area camped on Wintersebb and the majority of people I have found there have played long enough that they respect each others space and spawns.

I do not play this game purely to level. I am a monarch (and a monarch as a figurehead, our folks have been sworn to a trade mule from day one of WE) and our guild does a lot of questing at all levels and we strive to keep the game fun for everyone. But Caul is the one place where our high level members can go to kill stuff, see an XP return appropriate to our level and get the opportunity to increase our skills the same as those at levels below us without having to get stuck in a dungeon leveling.

I am extremely disappointed to see this change on Caul as I had hoped from its creation that appropriate content was being created to keep your higher level participants interested.

This is the one thing that had given me hope that you were taking the higher, long-term players into consideration. It saddens me that you are not planning to move forward with content to keep our interest.

The new monthly content and quests are wonderful, but you are taking away a place where I can solo with a challenge as I do not enjoy hunting in XP fellows. For those of us who have reached high levels and stuck by you for years, it is unfortunate that you plan to remove these areas for us, rather than to add more.

Elisabet Latortue
Grand Dragon of The Astral Dragons - Wintersebb (http://www.astraldragons.net/)
Founder of Guardians of Honor (http://www.ispyre.com/GoH)

Korrigan

07-28-2004, 02:30 AM

This patch sounds good. As I never camp those so called "high xp" spots, which in reality are cesspools of greed and grief, the caul nerf doesn't affect me at all, except maybe that some of the doods who used to macro there will come back to Vod ...

- New crafting quests : sounds utterly cool :)

- Aerlinthe revision : can't wait to try it out !!!

- Robes revision : can you say "WOOT !" :)

Along with the new quests which are not mentionned in the LttP, this patch sounds very good to awesome.

I hope you guys at Turbine hold your position on caul, don't cather to the whiner, and do what you know is good for your game.

Dom on TD

07-28-2004, 02:39 AM

"In August, the Mattekar Robes will receive an update. All new and existing Canescent Mattekar Robes, Hoary Mattekar Robes, Swarthy Mattekar Robes, and Robes of the Tundra will be improved in some way. "

So does that mean that Swarthy Hides will start dropping? I've been looking for one since they were introduced to no avail. Please tell me that you aren't upgrading them for the seemingly 1/month/server drop rate. I have so many Canny, Hoary, and Tundra robes that I avoid those creatures, but I make special trips to VOD to search for Swarthies that (on the rare occasion that I find one) never drop a hide.

BTW, thanks for nerfing the Marguls. They were worthless to me before the nerf since I hunt alone as a melee, but now you've taken away my temptation to go die out in the middle of nowhere. And before you ask yourself, no, that wasn't sarcasm.

Ibn Ghon

07-28-2004, 02:41 AM

In fact my experience on MT is they are very civil fun places to hunt, in contrast to phyntos menace, 80+ matron hive and lacuna. In light of this, and posts on other boards, I suspect it is a mage vs. melee balance problem.

^n.b.

skerilis

07-28-2004, 02:53 AM

If overcrowding is such an issue there, then obviously this is what the players want. Wouldn't the smarter solution be to give your players more options to achieve their goals to reduce crowding in one place, rather than take away the one place that currently exists?

Darkness'

07-28-2004, 03:01 AM

NERFING BAD! NO NERF CAUL! BAD IDEA! ME NO LIKEY! KEEP AS IS! PLEASE!!!!!

xijin

07-28-2004, 03:06 AM

here is an idea,

if crowding is an issue then why dont you simply rearrange the spawns so that more of caul has the high xp mobs. or increase the xp of other mobs so people will spread out and hunt over a larger area.

Although i am glad that you still refuse to enforce any sort of this is MY SPAWN or MY MOB rules. There is no such thing as kill stealing or dungeon/spawn/mob ownership. everyone pays the same amount and as such everyone on the server has the same right to kill any mob they want

FF_SK16

07-28-2004, 03:12 AM

That nerf is terrible. I really hope you rethink that Turbine. It's unnecessary with how much experience is required post126, and if you decide to nerf it..

You should consider adding a 126+ dungeon or island that allows 60mil/hr+ fellows. It's only fair to the sanity and lives of those who play.

Tyrion

07-28-2004, 03:17 AM

Great another nerf.

Thanks alot Turbine.

I'm kinda sick of this. Unsubbing my 2 accounts for a while. Maybe the game will pick up again in the future :(

Dendin

07-28-2004, 03:35 AM

Tally one more anti-Caul nerf...too angry/frustrated to post anything more without being banned, censored and booted for language.

Kendarric

07-28-2004, 03:37 AM

ONCE AGAIN TURBINE DROPS THE BALL!

Man, u guys are making this game less fun to play with each patch. First u **** off most of your player base with the unnecessary loot changes, sure I can understand nerfing major drops, but when you have 100+ mobs (cabalist and peerless drudges) casting lvl 7 vulns and war spells, u do expect a bigger payout then the crappy loot they carry nowadays.

Now you want to go and nerf the xp on caul?
Pls enough is enough, this is the most fun I have had playing AC in the last few years, taking my 118th lvl sword/item only tank and each time I go out there I die at least 5x's hunting or trying to retrieve a corpse. Lets face it, not everyone has or plays a mage. This has allowed me to lvl my char and really enjoy having fun doing it.

Now u want to go and nerf the place, well with your nerf will u be making it easier to recover corpses? I don't think so, so we lose the just rewards but it will still be a death trap and just as hard to retrieve your corpses.
JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!
Ro/Ken

Dbd-Quinn

07-28-2004, 03:41 AM

this nerf makes no sense. PPl can make 30 mil solo at VoD with ease and never die, so now you gonna make a full fellow only have 30/mil an hour at caul, but still have the same risk of dying??? If you are going to nerf the xp, you better nerf the risks of obtaining the 30 mil an hour at caul as well.

Do you ever listen to your player base? Do you ever think about the playerbase' needs??? Where is the content for 126+ players???

Have you ever hunted caul??? Since I've hunted caul, I noticed how well players of many allegiances can actually cooperate when a corpse of someone, or corpses of the whole fellow are difficult to retrieve. Once day it took 3 full fellows like 4 hours to retrieve all corpses. That's gamesmanship. Now you telling me that that's not what we're supposed to have??? What is a lvl 150 supposed to do?

Where is the content, and risk reward balance???

You nerfed tuskers, you nerfed VoD, now caul is next. Why even work 2 years to get a lvl 126, if after 126 there is no content, and no consideration of players of that level????

Spk

07-28-2004, 03:52 AM

Wow, that was a really sucky LttP... I was actually looking forward to the new generic salvage skill, some new game mechanics... When is turbine going to stop making patchs like this, where you nerf a couple of things, update on monster's model and call it a patch? I'm really starting to get seriously disapointed... Can't we actually get NEW stuff to do, instead of "new" monsters to fight, and "new" quests to get yet another worthless item? I'm tired of getting "content", we want new things to do in the game, new skills, new long term goals, new pvp options. Damn when is turbine going to understand that?

And don't nerf caul, or tell us the true story instead of saying things like "it's because people don't find it fun to compete there"... What the... Seriously, I yet have to see someone complain about caul, beside the level 50 newbies who think they can come and leech in the fellows and see themselves refused fellowship access.

One month worth of work to make 3 litlle changes to the game, as well as nerf one of the most popular hunting spot in AC, just because some balance-freak at turbine who never play AC feels it's a good thing to do and players will have more fun hunting for 40% less xp. Way to go Turbine.

RotorDemon

07-28-2004, 04:20 AM

Do NOT nerf Caul.

no need for sappy long stories, just don't nerf the darn place. We have earned it.

Akmahon

07-28-2004, 04:47 AM

If you nerf caul you should really add another high level outdoor place to hunt like VoD.

I'd rather let the exp grubs stay there and let me hunt in peace in VoD.

lessthanthree

07-28-2004, 04:57 AM

Please don't nerf this! We finally got a high level/content place to make XP that is about equivalent to the lower level hunting spots....why nerf it? The risks are much bigger, and so are the rewards!

MaddyFF

07-28-2004, 05:07 AM

Reading the LttP, I tend to like what I see. Many will holler and scream about being nerfed as they will only earn 40 an hour instead of 60 mill, but it was out of balance.

ninjalo

07-28-2004, 05:08 AM

i love how turbine is only taking away things this patch. oooo wait, we get new crafting quests...woopty doo!

even after all the arguements and common sense against nerfing caul...turbine is still going to do it. they could care less what we think.

this **** makes me soooo excited for WoW retail. the beta alone beats AC into the ground.

romside

07-28-2004, 05:13 AM

War Magic Improvements
Along with the critical hit improvements that we added in July, we are looking at increasing War Magic damage on Bolts, Arcs, and Streaks at spell levels 1 through 6. The goal is to improve War Magic damage over time at lower levels, where it currently lags behind other combat skills in comparison to its skill credit cost. Level 7 Streaks may also have their damage increased, although this is still being researched. We want to ensure that any improvements we make benefit War Mages in PvM combat without unbalancing War Magic in PvP play.

Does that mean: also more damage for monsters?

Romside

Frieze

07-28-2004, 05:15 AM

Originally posted by MaddyFF
Many will holler and scream about being nerfed as they will only earn 40 an hour instead of 60 mill, but it was out of balance. And you think the Biaka difficulty is balanced being 3x as difficult as VoD and not worth any more XP?

lessthanthree

07-28-2004, 05:16 AM

Turbine shouldn't nerf a place because pepole like it, they need to add more places like it so we have a choice. If they lower xp...they make the place not worth the lag/deaths that go along with the sweet reward that is currently in place. Add another Pit or two and things will be fine.

Nightmare-HG

07-28-2004, 05:25 AM

If crowding is a problem in the caul crater maybe this is a sign the the players need *more* areas for high level hunting, not less! I have to say I joined a caul fellow a couple of weeks back and I have to say far from the problems you've talked about I made great XP, died a few times, and generally really enjoyed myself.

For the first time in months.

Please, don't try and hide the problem of high level hunting away, give us more not less!

Expended Soul

07-28-2004, 05:32 AM

Static spawns like the Caul Crater only encourages macroing.. And you guys are so XP greedy. :P

Add more places like VoD in my opinion, where people have to run around to kill. :)

Just my 2 p.

Xiao bailing

07-28-2004, 05:41 AM

I also have to disagree with the solution that you have proposed for the central area of Caul island.

I think a better idea to solve the problem would be to reduce the amount of Biakas and Hellions that spawn in the area. This would solve 2 things:

1. Reduce the insane lag that most people experience when running through or hunting in that area. On the way to the Caul Asylum you have to pass through that area and its not fun for the people wth older machines.

2. Reduce the exp/hour reward for people hunting in fellowships there. I have to say that hunting in a fellowship at that spot is the most fun i have had getting exp in LONG time, because everyone dies there once in a while even if they are level 200+.

I dont think there is anything broken about the exp rewards of the monsters themselves to be honest. Today i went out and tried killing a Biaka solo just for fun. As a 3 school UA (with 400 buffed life and 500 buffed UA) it took me a LONG time to bring one down, in fact on a risk-reward basis i think they are barely worth hunting as it is.

As far as i know the biakas and hellions dont drop any specific quest items and dont have remarkable loot profiles, but they are a pain in the *** to have on your tail when you are hunting solo on the island. Reducing the exp reward with only go one step further into making them yet another "I'll pass" monster.

Thanks
Xiao bailing SC

meridian59gar

07-28-2004, 05:45 AM

Turbine, I think you need to stop for a moment, and allow some time for serious thought. Every single post on this feedback thread is a player begging you not to implement these changes.

Gaining experience isn't fun.

Nerfing ways to gain experience will not make customers happy.

My highest character is a level 73 mage. I've spent alot of my time collecting the perfect covenant suit, and I finally finished it yesterday. Then, I put it on a mule, because I'll never have enough experience to wear it... ever.

I simply don't have the willpower to spend weeks on end wasting my time in a Matron Hive, or in an Obsidian Plains clan hunt, or in a VoD fellowship. These things are time sinks. These things encourage me to try to Google up some macros that will let me UCM, even past the new 5-minute timer in ElTank. I don't care if I get banned, as it'll just give me that last incentive to stop playing.

Though, when it comes down to it, the entire premise of Asheron's Call is flawed. The eternal more-experience treadmill and the eternal better-item treadmill combine to turn the game into exactly that - a series of treadmills. The only real fun in all of this is exploring, meeting new people, and finding new things. Unfortunately, all of that grinds to a halt at about where I'm at now, because there's a rift between me and the fun that I want.

That rift is a choice. Do I want to spend hours, days, and weeks enduring the mind numbing torture of never-ending XP fellows, just so, when I reach where I want to go, I get to do that all over again for the next thing I want to do?

The answer, for everyone, eventually becomes no.

AzulDrakkon

07-28-2004, 05:46 AM

Originally posted by Fozzie
Get over yourself, untill the update in cb/war damage mage was the least DoT among ANY CLASS, Dagger, Staff, any class mage was last place, now we can contend with the rest of the server. Turbines never ending struggle to balance PvP won't end and I have gotten used to that. Thats why I don't pk.

Back to cual nerf..

No decent places to xp for level 200+, I cant stare at a sceen for 10 hours and be like woot 300 mill xp! Plenty of other things to hunt aye, but I have memorized maggies list of quests, I have soloed queen quest, among every other besides gaerlan and others that require team work. There is no quest content that I would hardly be interested in. No Ig status to manage since xp chains and the work and effort associated with them has been tossed. I am one of the economical as well as social giants of HG. There is no challenge in loot hunting, hell I dont remember the last time I actually hunted with the intent of looting. I max stuff and then max more stuff while fighting and talking with vassals... nerf the xp so that I can't make much, quest content can only go so far, no point left to playing, goodbye to 8 accts.

Get over yourself O.o I'm talking about PvP mainly but lets see here, mages with rending one shotting creatures everywhere but vod, crying when people hit monsters harder than them after they imp and vuln them (teamwork should alwaqys work better than a solo player, ibn said that himself) and the fact that melees and archers don't even compete in "caulcano"...Oh, and their neverending struggle to fix pvp doesn't work because they don't test things, like the wand they updated for whiny mages like you (sing wand) goodbye to all 8 of your accounts, I won't miss you at all.

Salma

07-28-2004, 05:47 AM

Bah! Please don't nerf Caul

Rockhound

07-28-2004, 06:00 AM

I'll assume it's pretty obvious where this is going...leave the caul spawn alone. Just like everyone else here apparently, that is the best place to get xp and meet new people as everyone out there seems to be quite friendly (maybe cause they're getting something out of the hunting!)

Swift-Jake

07-28-2004, 06:31 AM

Turbine, I BEG you not to reconsider changing Caul Crater xp back to what it is now. As someone pointed out on the Vault, people would still be making 40,000,000 xp an hour, more than anywhere else I can think of.

I remember when the max was ~6 mil/hr at Coral Golem fellowships...and people are whining about 40 now. :|

You guys have made a very good step in the right direction, please don't turn around and take it back now. *bow* :)

Bloodbow_HG

07-28-2004, 06:32 AM

Well while we are on the cual subject, if your going to make a change, please remove that floating tower that spins, it is what causes so much lag out there. I came to this conclusion because if I face it or the center of the "caulcano" I get really bad lag, if I turn and face the walls of the "caulcano" the lag instantly goes away. Not sure I agree with the exp changes for the marguls. It is pretty challenging with good rewards as is. I think people would enjoy more places like it, not less.

Looking forward to the new crafting quests.

Keep up the good work, been playing since dec 99 and I ain't stopping now! :)

Elistra

07-28-2004, 06:36 AM

PLEASE DON'T NERF THE CAUL!!!!

One, it takes a hellacious amount of xp to do much of anything once you're 126+.

Two, you can already put 3... even 4... fellows in the crater of the caul with no problems. On my server, we haven't really been having crowding issues.

Three, it's a great place to meet people! :)

Four, I don't know who told you differently, but whoever thinks you can UCM the caul and that work out is an idiot!

YOU WILL DIE. I've seen it happen far too many times. The crater of the caul is very good at showing high level people that we too are mortal.

The level of reward is high, yes. However, the level of risk is equally high. Is this not as it should be?

The reason why Caul is so popular is because in the opinion of the high-end crowd, this ranks up there in the five best ideas you guys had since you took over from MS! :(

If worlds other than Frostfell have been experiencing crowding issues which are that serious, why not add more areas of this nature? That would be great! :)

Dencor

07-28-2004, 06:38 AM

Originally posted by meridian59gar
Turbine, I think you need to stop for a moment, and allow some time for serious thought. Every single post on this feedback thread is a player begging you not to implement these changes.

That is a lie because i myself have voted that the caul change should happen, or, at the very least add hollow monsters to come kill the afk-all-day mages that make xp for not dying and not even trying, or, leave caul how it is and give MELEE and MISSILE characters a place to hunt....oh my God, the mages would complain SO much if a different class could actually get xp anywhere CLOSE to what they make, their skill credit cost means they should be able to make 3 times the xp of any other class!!!

How many of the people complaining about caul are MAGES?

How many times have they taken MAGES away from a powerful seat?

How many times do we see MELEE or ARCHER hunting grounds that don't require you dam* MAGES to help us?

Think about it......caulcano needs to be CRUSHED like a bug.

Elistra

07-28-2004, 06:44 AM

And some people wonder why we grow impatient and/or unsympathetic with melees.....

*points at the preceding post* Behold! :mad:

Sometimes I think that if having war magic specialized enabled you to use this utterly useless beachball that just sparkled and looked cool, they'd lobby to have it taken away, just for the sake of spite.

Listen. I am a 177th level battle og. I have to retrieve my corpse out of that mess quite regularly. If I am vulned, I will go down in three wars, I guarantee it.

Since I have started taking part in the caul fellows, my number of deaths has skyrocketed, and when I go down, due to my level part or all of the rest of the fellow tends to go down as well....

Hellions and Biakas both love to get up in your face and chain-cast. It is not uncommon at all for a fellow to have 6-9 dragons on them at once.

TRUST ME, I'M SO MORTAL AT CAULCANO IT'S EMBARASSING!!

Anyone who says you can go afk all day out there and it not matter just flat out lies. Most of what longevity I do have out there is due to judicious use of Eradicate Life Magic Self.

If there's a macro program which does that, I sure as hell can't imagine which one it is! :mad:

Churi-ya

07-28-2004, 06:49 AM

Instead of nerfing the XP in Caul, perhaps adding the hardware suficient so that lag there wouldn't be astronomical? Is this even do-able, or, is the lag DIRECTLY associated with the machine of the player? Caul is the High Level Playground. Please, reconsider leaving ALL of the toys in the sandbox.

Thank you.

wicked-warlock

07-28-2004, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by Dencor
That is a lie because i myself have voted that the caul change should happen, or, at the very least add hollow monsters to come kill the afk-all-day mages that make xp for not dying and not even trying, or, leave caul how it is and give MELEE and MISSILE characters a place to hunt....oh my God, the mages would complain SO much if a different class could actually get xp anywhere CLOSE to what they make, their skill credit cost means they should be able to make 3 times the xp of any other class!!!

How many of the people complaining about caul are MAGES?

How many times have they taken MAGES away from a powerful seat?

How many times do we see MELEE or ARCHER hunting grounds that don't require you dam* MAGES to help us?

Think about it......caulcano needs to be CRUSHED like a bug.

im complaining, and im an archer

suck it up. if you cant take the heat there, too bad

FmrSentFlatfoot

07-28-2004, 07:16 AM

Originally posted by AncientExpert
It is spelt

It is "spelled".

Go look up "spelt", it doesn't mean what you think it means. :p

Sprawl

07-28-2004, 07:17 AM

Let me start off by saying I agree and respect many of the changes coming in the lttp, however I think it was a very poor "marketing" stratagy (for lack of a better term).

Let me explain:

The idea and the motivation behind the things in the lttp is always to make the game better. You often mention really awesome improvements, like the aerfelle island change, or allegiance improvements. On the other hand, their are times when you have to introduce "nerfs" in the name of balence. Well in the name of balence, please introduce more positive things than "percieved" negative things. Those of us still play cling to the hope that someday all our friends will return. Many of us believe the expansion will be the big catalyst, however I do not see a single person resubscribing after reading the lttp. Of course this is not the purpose of the lttp, but I think it should be a consideration when writing this document as well as all documents.

Thanks for reading,
Sprawl

5150Joker

07-28-2004, 07:20 AM

Turbine,

Do you guys TRY to **** off your customer base and have them leave this game? It sure seems like it. There is NO reason to nerf caul, so what if it gives the best xp? Its also the hardest to manage even when you have a good group to fellow with. Not only that, but it FINALLY gave DT players something to fight over--now you're nerfing it so I guess it will be back to macroing for everyone on DT and we all know how fun that is. I'm sure the non-PK players are thrilled as well. :rolleyes: You guys seriously need to get a clue or hire people that have one.

Deadly Dirk LC

07-28-2004, 07:21 AM

The Caul Nerf...

I think nerfing caul could have been one of the worst ideas you could have done this patch. Where else is a high lvl char supposed to get some good xp, It's not easy to hunt caul, its actually quit difficult. I have been in and seen full fellows get taken out in the matter of a minute or two, so the xp isnt easy to make out there. I don't see why you would even think about nerfing it anyway, very bad idea. I don't know if you realize this but it takes me a good 4-5 hours to raise my bow skill ONCE even making 50 mill p/h and it takes just as long to lvl. Now you want to make it where I have to hunt for 8 hours just to raise a skill point once? What server has Caul been over crowded? I have ran out to Caul quit a few times and found abosutely nobody out there. The most I have ever seen has been one or two fellows and maybe a small fellow ever to the side. I would also like to say I love to hunt my axer out on caul since its the only place he can really do damge in. If I take my axer to the Hidden Caverns what am I supposed to use? The best in Hidden Cavers is Critical Strike Peirce weapon...which axe doesnt have unfortunately. One more thing I would like to point out...Virindi Quidiox's and Profatrix's give about the same amout of xp and can be easily killed in 4-6 shots by a mage.

Lucretia

07-28-2004, 07:26 AM

I've read each and every single reply on this thread since last night. I sure hope Turbine does as well.

Here is a repost of the petition for those who lost it in all the responses:

http://www.petitiononline.com/98iyu7/petition.html

FmrSentFlatfoot

07-28-2004, 07:37 AM

Re: The Petition:

However, do don't reduce the experience of these monsters

Is it DO or is it DON'T? That is the question. Until this is fixed, no one will know which way to vote. For (Do) or against (Don't).

:rolleyes:

Lucretia

07-28-2004, 07:41 AM

I think we can assume that's DO NOT, lol, he posted here against the nerf and also on the WE forums.

Rebel Yell

07-28-2004, 07:45 AM

"However, do don't reduce the experience of these monsters "

Yep, thats why they should bann summer vacations for children.

Calwyn

07-28-2004, 08:04 AM

Alrighty, first the server issues. Blame really can't be placed for this. It was hardware. Someone in our monarchy in leafcull lost their housing items. As did everyone in that settlement. I feel horrible for his loss, but luckily I don't expect we'll be seeing the monthly "oops we messed up the patch" rollbacks of the past.

I have no opinion on the ash gromnie tooth and crafting quest experience quests. If I want experience on my trade guy I go out and actively hunt with him.

The Iasparailaun changes as well don't really affect me. Honestly I think that's an acceptable change. I personally don't think they should be used to power level characters in such a manner.

I like the changes with the sing wands in pkl/pk. Mostly due to the fact that they are avantageous to me personally lol. I'm glad, however they aren't being nerfed pvm even though I don't primarily play a mage.

As for Aerlinthe I honestly don't know what to say. I guess I'll have to wait and see before I can form an opinion about it.

I'm interested in seeing the change for mattekar robes. I have a canny and a hoary and I'd definatly like to see them have a more practical use then collectors items.

The changes to wasps are interesting. I like them, I saw the one on the front page and if this is any indication of the way they'll look thumbs up.'

Now for what I have a problem with. No, Turbine, don't do this. Don't nerf the Marguls. For the past few weeks I've been having fun. I got my sing recall scroll and I'm been seeing REAL progress with my character. I've had so much fun finally fighting in a fellowship atmosphere. This isn't easy, death comes quickly, even to those who do everything they possibly can to prepare themselves. Fellowships must pull together and fight smartly. Even maxed out characters find themselves in a reasonable amount of danger I'd wager. Asheron's Call is NOT my full time job. I don't want to sit and my rear end for 8+ hours just to reach one level. High risk should equal high reward. This is unreasonable. Perhaps you haven't thought this out. I've read all these posts before creating my account here to post my thoughts. Many people have come up with perfectly acceptible alternatives to doing this. Why not expand the area they are found in. This is one I find perfectly acceptible. Here's an idea of my own, perhaps its mage's criticals your fearing. The fact that they can slam a monster with 6000 health for 3000 some odd points of health. Why not give them some sort of aegis effect? If nothing else add some sort of way we can get comparable experience. Perhaps it was MS interfering, but all of you are guilty of letting the experience chains get out of hand. Creating super maxed out characters. Once the chains were gone no one could break in, no one could become higher then them, even with this dungeon it would take much hard work. However, can you not just give us this? The ability to have a shot at competing? Concerned about macroers? Don't be. A good fellow will clear the immediate area of monsters and need to move a short distance. The only fellow I was in that had a macroer in it kicked him out after he didn't respond for about 5 minutes when we had all moved. Later, I believe, he died. Most people won't tollerate this, it puts us all at risk. Fighting? I'm sure it happens, but I've not seen it on Leafcull. Any one that would cause grief here the player base would most likely want see chastised and banned from everything, not just sing caul fellowships, anyway. The only legitimate problem here is lag, I'm lucky enough to have a very high-end system, graphical lag is never a problem for me. Yet I still feel the sting of data lag at times. However, I hunted there lastnight without any lag at all. Perhaps it was the server problems we experienced in Leafcull and the other servers that was responsible. I'll have to wait, myself. Don't punish all of us for immature players. Turbine is a business, not a school.

I'm sorry if I made a lot of accusations and pointed fingers here and there, but these are my personal opinions. These are things, the way I see them.

I'll be drumming up all the support I can over this ussue in my monarchy and in the leafcull coilition as well.

[Edit] - Typo and support message at end

Urrasa

07-28-2004, 08:11 AM

I remember making 500k an hr at lv 50 in bsd with my trusty fire banndit a buff....

I think 60 mill an hr is kinda ridiculious.....

How bout we just bring in those things they had on Shadowclaim we click on for xp .....everyone max out and be done with it.. :|

Lucretia

07-28-2004, 08:23 AM

At least your level 50 got to click the green triangle. If you couldn't have seen your accomplishment through your ability to increase you skills, how much fun do you think you would have had at BSD?

Comparing the exp of years ago to the exp nowadays just doesn't make sense. We've developed, our characters are bigger, we need bigger exp.

And besides, they're not even nerfing them because of the exp, they're nerfing them because apparently people on VT complain too much that they're camped and causing griefers. I don't play VT, and although I understand the pleas of the people on VT who are becoming frustrated, I don't think this is the right solution.

Coral golems were griefed years ago, they didn't nerf the corals, they just gave us more options to make exp elsewhere, and increased the shared exp amongst fellows. That was a smart move. This one isn't.

Myn Darklighter

07-28-2004, 08:27 AM

I find the "nerf" to the xps to all marguls of higher levels to be one of the stupidest ideas in a long time. But not for the reasons that most do.

The "solution" to the "perceived problem" is wrong. You have stated the "problem" is the xps being garnered in the "crater", and that you never meant for fellows to be making that type of xps in one area.

Your solution is akin to saying I have a broken finger, let's chop off the hand to correct the problem. Sure it solves the "broken finger" problem, but nerfs the use of the entire hand in the process.

IF the problem is the xps being made in the fellows in the crater, I can think of FAR better ways to deal with it:

a). Mix up the creatures in the crater just like there are elsewhere. WHY is the crater only biakas/hellions for the most part? Why not have ALL of the other high level stuff in there like you do elsewhere. By mixing it up, you would by the very nature cut down the xps that a fellowship could get in there as a lot of the other things don't produce as high of xps.

b). Simply nerf the spawn rate of the biakas/hellions in there. If the rate of respawn was 1/4 to 1/8 what it was now, that would force groups to do a lot more "moving" around if they wanted to hunt in there, and would not promote the 3-4 full fellowships in there as at best it could support one, making 1/2 to 1/3 what a fellow makes now IF they moved to the spawn points.

Either of the above would SOLVE the "perceived" problem without affecting the xps of ANYONE hunting elsewhere in Caul like I think you designed Caul to be like. Which is much like VoD is....virindi are by far the "best xps" there, but there is not one valley where you can hunt them exclusively...sure you can run around and try to find just virindi, but you have to work ar it to do so. Same with Caul...sure you can run around to just find the marguls, but you should have to work at it.

Aten-LC

07-28-2004, 08:36 AM

if you jackholes are going to nerf caul crater (marguls), then i fully expect you to lower their difficulty as well.

it's just not going to be worth the effort for the xp with their difficulty cranked up like they are.

oh, and how about fixing the BMIII crossbow, while you're fixing your screwups? i've *tried* to use this thing, and it's a piece of ****. the bow does *MUCH* more damage. why the hell give bow *2* benefits (in addition to the normal one: f'n xbows weigh a ton)? you've given them an additional imbue, and xbow damage mod is the same... just coz some jerk dev doesn't like xbow means we should bend over and take it like an isparian, huh? screw that ****.

what i really want to know is: is this the point of time they always refer to as "it gets worse before it gets better" ? or is it just going to keep getting worse?

mishy575

07-28-2004, 08:48 AM

This is ridiculous. There is finally a place for high lvls to go and get decent xp. I makes fellowshipo a requirement, which is what turbine has been trying to do forever. And it is not simple xp gain. You can't solo it. I personally feel that Turbine wants to nerf it b/c of the lag produced in the area due to players bieng there. Regaurdless this is a dumb idea. High level people from diferent areas of dereth are getting together to kill these little critter's, to gain decent xp for the time they spend out there. It takes high lvl characters to even live out there so more xp is necessary to gain lvl and atribute points. You're making it sound like it's simple xp and people are mad b/c of the placement in hte area. I haven't heard one complaint even from people waiting in line to get in a fellow, and people are finding that if they come out in stead of waiting they can start another fellow and it is full w/in minutes. If anything Turbine sould raise the spawn rate, to accomadate more fellows, and help the server somehow to reduce the lag in that area to support more player activity. Nerfing isn't the answer to a place where people gather to hunt in fellow from differnt guild's, and meet new people, and get good xp in full fellow and decent loot at the same time. There isn't a good Reason to nerf this area, and many people have even said if this is nerfed they would leave the game. BAD IDEA. All the way around.

AnotherDude

07-28-2004, 08:53 AM

What Urrasa said:
I think 60 mill an hr is kinda ridiculious.....

This is just an 'inflationery effect' and there needs to be some reasonable limits put on it. In 12 months time, do we expect there to be places where we can make 120 mill an hour?

As the game moves more to this level, I like it less. But perhaps that's just me.

Cheers.

Urrasa

07-28-2004, 08:55 AM

The 500k an hr i was refering to was 3 years ago when i was lv 50 on sc...and that was thought to be pretty good xp....

I went out to caul one time to see what was going on and was told ...."White dot ...shoo!! Go Away!!

Not sorry fellows full.. want on the list??

Im not 10.....and to small to play ball.....dont tell me to Shoo....and frankley it kinda pissed me off......

Im sure that behavior is part of why this is happening....

And yes i did go else where.. did i have a choice?? if i didnt then id be the bad "Greifer".....

ratatosk

07-28-2004, 09:26 AM

Mabybe Im a contrarian, but I think that the hit power of the caul mobs should be increased by the percentages listed rather than reduce the Exp, and shorten the corpse remain time to 1 hour on caul. This will cause peeps to begin losing some of their uber armor / weapons and spend more time gathering new items. Rarely do peeps complain about hard hitting mobs, a challange is a good thing. leave the exp alone

Jaspo

07-28-2004, 09:43 AM

The changes to War MAgic at low levels is dead on.

Having recently raised 3 of each Melee, Archer and Mage along the noob route, War Magic was the least powerful.

But ...

With just trained Life, I was able to drain health (I) and drain stamina (I) enough to survive and replenish mana. It is still much more difficult to get a mage killed than any other char (PVM).

Not that Drains are bad. They are important to keeping a mage involved. As a mage I am always pressing keys, which is a good thing. It is the reason I enjoy playing a mage the most.

So there was a counterbalance to the Weaker offense. A stronger defense. One would not think a mage would have a stronger defense than other classes, but with drains it is true. The price to pay for that is the length of the battle.

gone's mage

07-28-2004, 10:06 AM

Nerfing Caul, WHY?
What is the plan for some of our toons that hunt the place because it gives us a CHALLENGE? As for it being camped by to many peeps and +Envoy being called. Dont ya get that everywhere? Why single out the crater? Nerfing Biakas and Hellions...just silly.

Gone's Mage 126+ Co-Monarch of Clan Takada of Frostfell

ufhamlet

07-28-2004, 10:09 AM

I'm really looking forward to Aerlinthe getting streamlined. Those changes were a LONG time coming. Thanks for making one of the greatest quests in game more practical and enjoyable. I'm also looking forward to trying the 3 Crystals. They're 3 of the very few quests in game I've never done.

I knew the Iasparailaun nerf would come. It was advantageous to low-XP yield characters that weren't intended to hunt like idiots for endless hours. I used 20 or 30 in the last few months and intend to pound as many more as I can before the patch. This had been a step forward for tradeskills mules, but in true Turbine fashion, you're retracting it.

THANK YOU for the warning about Ash Teeth. There was enough negativity on this LttP that I would have gone berzerk to find out that I'd been trading for and using Ash Teeth for comparatively little reward. I'm looking forward to seeing the substitute.

The Margul XP slashing - possibly the worst solution to a so-called problem. What is it that is "unacceptable"? According to you, it's the saturation of a small, premium area by increasingly militaristic players that want to maximize their XP/hour. So what do you do? Nerf the ENTIRE northern half. The correct answer is to thin out the spawn in the central region, changing it to more Shadows. For the explorers and true hunters, Biaka at the northern tip were a great challenge and target. They're now not even remotely worth it. Paradox, Doomsharks, and Zefirs will be my primary prey. I won't even think about Marguls - the payoff for the risk will be totally unreasonable unless they all drop to level 5 spells, half the HP, and/or half the armor. As mentioned above, the VoD will now be saturated again, and the same rude, selfish gameplay will just move to the HC, 80+ Hives, and primary VoD valleys. Quit trying to change personalities and give us incentives to try varied things.

Stupid, stupid, stupid solution, people.

verdant_force

07-28-2004, 10:20 AM

i'm also against the caul nerf. the reasons why have already been stated by others numerous times so i won't bother with repeating them.

as for war magic increases for lower levels, i recently leveled a mage to his mid 40s and was outkilling melees on olthoi. my mage is spec melee defense and war, and with an olthoi slayer war stave didnt even need vulns to oneshot every bug i came across in the hives.

this also screws pk at lower level pretty bad. i know there are hardly any more low level pks, but i've recently started playing on darktide, and level 40-50 mages are powerful enough. after war and life inept on this mage i was fighting, and me with major flame ward and an aegis shield, he was still hitting me for 100 and above with vuln5 and war7. as a level 67 melee, i only have like 220 health buffed.

as for the increase in streak damage, why in the world would you do this for? streaks already serve a good purpose in pk,which is what they were made for. a mage can use streaks and tank archers all day long, outdamaging them even if the mage doesnt have missile d, in which case the archer doesnt stand any chance at all.

KriegPfeil

07-28-2004, 10:29 AM

I don't think the exp should be changed on the toughest mobs in the game to kill. If anything should be changed it should be that the volcano area is the same spawn as the north area instead of 95% marguls. The volcano area gets camped because biakas/hellions are pretty much the only thing that spawns there with a few shadows and virindi. Why is it a bad thing because alot of people want to hunt there? If anything I would think that would mean you did something right there. There is something to be said for giving the customers what they want.

That being said I don't think it is necessarily the exp that is the problem as much as it is that you know you can go to this area and fight 95% of only these mobs. If you mix the spawn up like the north part of caul is I wouldn't think this would be as much of a problem. I have always thought the exp for marguls was correct because they are pretty much the nastiest mob there is to fight. While I hunt Caul frequently in small groups every single party wipe out we have had was because of biakas/hellions. If you lower the exp I don't know if they are then even worth the risk of killing for our group. We don't hunt the volcano area btw, primarily the north or west areas. Also I think you are going overboard with reducing the Graal and Helcan Margul exp. With what their exp will be there will be several mobs in their same area that give more exp than they do. While the Helcan's don't really kill me ever Graal and Creepings result in the majority of the deathes I have on the West side of Caul.

I think small changes often fix problems that appear to be larger than what they are. A 33% nerf is HUGE and you are nerfing some of them by 50% and more even. A 33% decrease means that if you used to get 1.5 million for something, now you get 1 million. To me biakas are worth more than 1 million, they get camped, but that is because you guys created the equivalent of a static spawn of them. Static spawns of mobs always end up camped and having bad things happen as people tend to show their ugly side in these situations. I think if you change the spawn the camping will decrease, which will solve your problem and not make the hardest mobs in the game worth less exp than a number of other mobs.

edit: Forgot the changes or possible changes to pvp. Increasing the speed of arrows is the #1 thing you can do to help archers out and to make Missile weapons work as they are supposed to. So nice work there, increasing streak damage on level 7 streaks would be a huge mistake if it applied to PvP. Streaks already do more damage than your average shot from a bow does. Increasing them would just be ridiculous.

KsBabe

07-28-2004, 10:35 AM

Instead of nerfing the xp at Caul on the "fying dragons" why dont you make them random spawns as all creatures at VoD are. The set spawn at crater t is what attracts so much attention and then leads to all the arguing and bickering.
If the spawns were random everyone would have a chance of running into a spawn and killing (or in my case, dying) as the next fellow. This would also make fellows mobile which would kill some of the lag problems generated by the fellows just standing around killing and the spawn of hellions, biakas, etc.
As for the ash teeth, why nerf those? There isnt many found and no one but a few uses them to level their mules, most have friends or family sworn under the mule and they level them that way.
As for the one level of xp for the four servers that are down, yes we wasnt down as long as DT but I know several people that leveled three or more levels during that period of the rollback. Did quests that they now have to redo, and trades that is now gone and most that I talked to doesnt know if they can get the trade back or the armor tinked up and weapons reimbued.
I think we deserve more than one level of xp, and it doesnt have to be xp but something else to boot. I dont think any of us would mind a new/old pack doll or something along that line. As for sing quality loot, unless it is a useful major, a certain low ws weapon that our chars could use with a imbue on it already or a tinked out piece of armor it wouldnt be something to hold on to as a gift of apologizies.
Sunday was the day most people sit at their PC and hunt all day long while relaxing and most do their needed quests that day. As you all know some quests takes a while to set up and it could be weeks or months before they get to repeat them. So please add something extra to that one level of xp just to show your customers that you do appriecate them and want them to remain happy customers.

Synnah

07-28-2004, 10:47 AM

The first thing that ever hooked me in this game was the fact that I hung out with my tradesgal and played her *full time* never killing a thing.

Of course, she made money by cooking and when I started it wasn't a "money making exploit" to do :(

To see the rewards coming out and hear about the changes for trade chars - I'm truly excited....

I LOVE making nanner splits & such & running my (new and improved, now with melee d action!) tradesgal through bobo dungeon to get to oolutanga - I hope to see another one or two (or 3 or 4 haha) of this type of quest in the future.

No matter what it is though - thank you for thinking of folks other than the hunters! :)

Tradechars have feelings too! :cool:

Gouru

07-28-2004, 10:49 AM

Originally posted by Reydien
If you would re-read the "official" statement you yourself quoted, even in the beginning they said it was not foreseen and could change. "not an exploit" does not mean the same as "we have no problem with it." It is my understanding that the experience isn't shared for any of the other levels, is that correct? If it doesn't, why should it for the people who are lvl 126? Also, where in the lttp is any blame placed? What I'm reading lists it as an unfortunate side-effect, and nothing more.

I'm sorry, but his wording was "Unfortunately, the experience reward at 126 was being shared among fellowship members. "

What makes this 'unfortunate'? It sounds like we were doing something wrong by sharing that xp. This was after specifically saying it was okay. The implication was that if fellowships were not sharing this xp, they wouldn't have had to do anything, but we were, and so we forced them to make this change.

A simple 'we decided that sharing the xp is not good for the game" would suffice. Instead, he chose to lay blame on those fellowships that were 'unfortunately' sharing xp and playing exactly the way that Turbine said they could.

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 10:56 AM

The biggest problem I have with the Margul xp nerf is that Turbine seems to be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

They don't want tons of people camping Caul center and earning 60-100 mil per hour? Fine, even if we GIVE them that as a reasonable goal, this is a TERRIBLE way to achieve that goal IMO.

Look at an individual Biaka. He's quite possibly the toughest non-unique critter in the game. He vulns and critter debuffs with 6s and 7s. He often chain wars. He usually brings friends. He has a high amount of health. Against this difficulty (and the attendant risk) the reward of 1.5 million xp does not seem out of line to me.

If all Turbine wanted to do was decrease top end xp or decrease grieffing, there's many things they could have done without ruining what many people think was a good risk/reward balance for the critters in question. They could have decreased the spawn in center to make the place less campable. They could have increased spawn rate to make it available to more fellows, and increase risk of death for "static" fellows. They could have mixed up the spawns in center.

But nerfing the xp of these critters was probably the worst choice they could make.

ShaRhee

07-28-2004, 11:10 AM

I hunt the Caul crater because that's where I can earn the most xp/hour for my level 153 Grief Og mage and level 145 tinkerer fellowed together. The reason I have to do this is because of the nerf to xp chains ('doh). If there were other areas that yield that kind of xp, I would be hunting there.

I solo hunt, fellowed with my tinkerer (also my patron) for one reason only...to max out her tinkering skills. Solo hunting in the crater yields me about 20-25 mill/hour...fellowed with her, I earn 18-20 mill/hour. I honestly don't think that solo hunting for 20-25 mill/hour is too high for a level 150ish char when monkeys and bugs can yield almost as much or more. Nevermind the fact that a melee can't solo on Caul...

This nerf would probably drop it to 15-20 mill/hour. *sigh* I'll live with whatever Turbine decides, because I love this game too much to unsubscribe, but I would much prefer to see pockets of static spawns of all types of marguls in other areas on the island too, i.e., make a few more craters like that one; make a dungeon with a level restriction of 126+ filled with marguls; make it easier to get around on Caul so people can get to more remote areas to reduce the number hunting the crater; there are any number of fixes to Turbine's perceived problem.

I don't think nerfing the xp is the way to fix the griefing or complaint problems (which I have never seen, btw). Spread it out more so that it's worth hunting other areas on Caul. I used to hunt in a secluded valley where marguls were just a random spawn, instead of static, until I discovered I could solo from one of the entrances to the crater and earn better xp by only hunting those creatures. I believe reducing the xp for them will only increase the problem of too many camping the area because it will become even more cutthroat.

One thing I would like to see is increased xp for the melee/archer friendly critters out there. At this point, the only characters I can solo with on Caul are my mages, and that just doesn't seem right. My melees and archers can't do enough DOT (solo) to make it better than hunting monkeys or bugs.

...just my 2p

simpleton87

07-28-2004, 11:17 AM

are we ever going to see any new tinkering salvages????

seeker

07-28-2004, 11:27 AM

The massive nerf to marguls overshadows everything else in the LttP. It is a huge mistake. I don't think there really is a problem, but the proposed "solution" is downright stupid and lazy. :mad: Are you trying to empty out the Caul and discourage people from hunting there?

There is great reward hunting them, but there is great risk as well. Marguls are some of the toughest creatures in the game. You are always one or two shots from death at any time. It takes great skill and teamwork to make a fellowship work in the Caulcano. The rewards are not out of proportion to the risk.

If there is any problem, you have created it by making such dense static spawns. The proper way to fix it, is to change the spawn in the Caulcano area. The lazy way is to nerf the margul xp and punish everyone who hunts in the Caul.

What we do not need is another worthless, deadly nuisance creature that takes great effort and risk to hunt with little reward.

Please reconsider a monumentally bad idea :(

Swift-Jake

07-28-2004, 11:30 AM

I find it humorous that many of the people who have posted here are in Z's XP TP. Now, I wonder why they are against nerfing the xp? Lol :p

Dendin

07-28-2004, 11:33 AM

I'm with Sha. Her and I hunt alot together on Caul too, aside from solo. The XP we make in fellow, is not over the top, IMO. The number of deaths we incur speaks for itself that these creatures are one bad mother. Even just 2 biaka on you can spell certain and immediate death if they both decide to war you at the same time. Never, in my entire gaming career have I been killed so quickly, and felt so vulnerable, yet so excited to go hunting! You guys finally got me EAGER to go hunt for XP! I actually see 126 in my forseeable future. I'm 110 right now, started hunting Caul at 95 with Sha, now I can actually solo. It's tearing me up that you guys are considering this, because I'm so close. This place made hunting fun again, while being one FREAKING challence. Maybe the reward is too much for ONE biaka, but when you attack one, and have 10 come running in, now THAT is a challence. The 1.5million each is just right. I have never had a problem in fellowing at Caul, having too many fellows in the area, never. Maybe that's because I only play weeknights there and can't get there on Saturday and Sunday, usually, or maybe the problem just isn't there on my server, Solclaim. Please, please, please! Rethink this!

Madgic

07-28-2004, 11:42 AM

Hiya me again,

Gonne make myself unpopular here.

The best thing Turbine ever did to the game was Get rid of chain whoring all of a sudden the worlds were full of real players again and the Chain Gimps ran Crying.

Now they made Caul an XP heaven and all these Chain Gimps came swarming back. Im actually Glad Turbine are Fixing this I could do with a few months rest from the bickering.

I myself do not hunt on Caul and I earn upward of 40+ mill per hour if i actually XP hunt so it just goes to show if you play the game the XP is out there.

If your not a real player Dont play and if stats and XP and level is all your interested in Just Make something up and get a pat on the Back from someone who cares.

Thankyou Turbine for remembering the purpose of a game.

Daveda

07-28-2004, 11:53 AM

I do enjoy the challenge of staying alive in the Caul Crater. Many, many more people have said it better than I can.

Don't nerf it.

I'd make them tougher to kill if you think you need to make any changes. Virindi's return 1.2M I think and are easy compaired to the Biaka's and Hellions.

Maybe you should do something like increasing the portal storm potential if the place gets too camped... or introduce a super Biaka that will periodically demolish the entire fellow if they can't react and retreat fast enough. Make it even more challenging rather than nerf it.

Caul is fun the way it is.

Kevin the Brave

07-28-2004, 11:53 AM

Count me in as another opposed to the Caul Nerf. Caul is exciting for me and the xp is helpful. I feel thats just goona push folks away and this people fighting for posistion ive read about I rarely see that Im just trying to live lol

Eph

07-28-2004, 11:56 AM

Ok, to make this short and sweet. I am not the highest level. My time is limited to when I can hunt. Refering to reducing Caul XP.

However, on VT this removes a location that we use to get XP. I don't play 10 hours plus a day, more like 2-4

How about you stick to your policy. Don't Nerf things, make something better.

Make another location that can compare.

BAD IDEA!!!

introp

07-28-2004, 11:57 AM

My opinion of the LttP in short:

Crafting rewards: Neat idea. More support for tradesmen, tinkerers, etc. is always welcomed.

Iasparailaun sharing at level 126: I don't like it. Gaerlan is a difficult quest that takes around an hour and is on a timer. An hour of work to get 7.5 million XP once a week with my level 65 tradesman seems fairly harmless.

Biting Strike, Crushing Blow (Sing Wands): I'm glad you're addressing it, but I feel you're still missing the main problem here. A wand has very few intrinsic characteristics which determine its worth, unlike all melee/missile weapons. Compare with a simple weapon, such as a bow, and you realize that the lack of a damage bonus on a wand means that you can basically chose a wand for it's imbue/special properties. Make a +50% damage bow with virindi slayer, and a +1% mana C wand with virindi slayer and compare the usefulness of the two. A low mana C bonus can be overcome, but a low damage bonus cannot. This is the reason why quest-generated wands can be so powerful when compared to similar melee and missile weapons.

Aerlinthe revision, Mattekar robes, and new wasp graphics: Nice.

Caul XP reduction: Yes, the XP in the Caul is a bit insane. Tweak it a bit, fine. The main problem, however, is that the incredible XP there is really only available to one type of player (war mage). This is the root cause of most of the conflict I've known there. To me, this requires not a simple change of XP but a change of natural armor levels, AI, etc. to make the monsters less war-mage-only.

Of the in-development items, this one caught my attention:

PvP Missile Speed Increase: I feel that you're still totally missing the boat. Let me be blunt and loud: THE PROBLEM IS PATHING. THE PROBLEM IS WE'RE STILL MISSING A USABLE AEGIS. THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU KEEP RESTRICTING OUR CHOICES FAR MORE THAN OTHERS. If arrows were to fly incredibly fast, as long as the flight time were something more than instantaneous, people could still wiggle and make us shoot all over the place. If you force us into a weapon choice (currently loot-generated for the poor aegis, or hollow/phantom/weeping for the fast arrows you describe) we're immediately at a disadvantage over characters that have choices. Melees can use weeping and an aegis, or phantom and an aegis, etc. Mages can use arcs regardless of wand choice. Please, address this problem directly.

Pyreal-Mage

07-28-2004, 11:59 AM

I'm also AGAINST the nerf. WHY? To appease the ones who don't get the chance to hunt there? That hunting was the only reason I started to hunt again, and it gave me hope in Turbine. Putting those monsters in the way you did, is what brought alot of players back. Why take something out, when it will only cause an uproar against Turbine?

What's the point? Are you worried about players 55+ going to caul and leeching? Change the restriction to Caul to 100+ that will solve that problem, and keep everyone else happy, but will leave a few hundred people upset, rather then a lot of 100+'s.

There is no other place that makes AC fun anymore.. I assume with Aerlinethe - some fun will be brought back.. however, Caul is so much fun, Nerfing it will only make AC lame again. Sorry to say that, but I do (as do others) pay for our enjoyment and fun for the game.. Why take that fun away?

EDIT::

"Caul XP reduction: Yes, the XP in the Caul is a bit insane. Tweak it a bit, fine. The main problem, however, is that the incredible XP there is really only available to one type of player (war mage). This is the root cause of most of the conflict I've known there. To me, this requires not a simple change of XP but a change of natural armor levels, AI, etc. to make the monsters less war-mage-only."

I lol'ed at this.. Ok.. IT's not WAR-MAGE-ONLY.. I hunt in fellow with like.. 4 Mages.. and the rest are Melee/Missile.. so that's not accurate.

EDIT 2::

What happened to player satisfaction? 12.95 may not be alot compaired to other games (14.95 etc.) but it's still alot for the people who have to beg their parents to pay for it. I will repeat myself, taking this away will only enrage people.. and possibly cause them to not care about AC anymore.. *shrug* Your call.

Bellona

07-28-2004, 12:00 PM

Regarding the changes to crafting quests. I hope that includes some quests for tinkers as well as the traditional alch/fletch/cook trade mules, and if not, that that is in the works for the near future. Leveling tinkers has been impossible since the XP nerf and it would be great to have a way to gain XP again. Especially since Tinkering (IMHO) is more valued and used than the Trades. (This last comment in no way implies that I would like to see these quests removed for Trades).

Immortal_Haze

07-28-2004, 12:01 PM

Um, so if I got this right, you have a problem with Caul being fiercely fought over as a nice hunting ground, but you never seemed to have an issue over Lacuna, Holding, etc when fellows controlled those areas and they were the "most profitable" places to go.

Lord, loot distrubution that took months, my home server's database blowing up, DT blowing up for a week and rollback, now nerfs to something actually challenging, fun and rewarding. Guess count me as not satisfied.

Yan_HG

07-28-2004, 12:03 PM

_About the missile weapon upgrades:
Would it be possible to simply make some special arrows? Some that behave like streaks (travel extremely fast and have the same accuracy regardless of setting on the speed/accuracy bar, but suffer a penalty to damage), or volleys and blasts (fire several arrows with reduced damage) should give an archer similar versatility to a mage without restricting possible PvP missile weapons to the basic 3 quest ones. Besides, archers JUST got the ability for magic-absorbing on loot-gen bows. Restricting PvPable bows to the basic 3 would be a little unfair.

_About the lack of In Concept ideas:
Mages are seeing fairly sizable upgrades with the improvements to war magic criticals and the upcoming damage overhaul. Missile weapons received the ability for a magic-absorbing property and should soon be improved further for PvP. Melees are getting a little left behind. Whatever happened to the idea of higher wield-req. weaponry?

_General gripe:
I'm still dismayed with the utter lack of low/non magic character content. So far as I can tell, there's not even any desire to better balance such characters with hybrids/mages. I've never even seen an official statement along the lines of pure melee damage over time in PvP or PvM as being balanced with other character types. I'll post some of my ideas in a new thread since they would be innapropriate here.

Dendin

07-28-2004, 12:14 PM

There isn't really a lack of in concept ideas. There just aren't any NEW ones. They still have all those older ones on the list, they just don't show them in the LTTP. I believe Ibn said that one of his goals in his "free time" is to get them made into one list and post em. But, he's kinda busy.

Aten-LC

07-28-2004, 12:14 PM

ya know, that's another thing that pisses me off: the "aegis for missile weapons" junk. *WHY* the meleeD nerf to the weapon when you apply the stupid thing? and why can it not be REMOVED? why am i being penalized for not being a melee character? i don't see melee'rs getting a penalty for wielding their aegis shields. they don't lose 10% of their meleeD bonus their weapons have.

someone there at turbine seriously has it in for any class that isn't a mage.

Synnah

07-28-2004, 12:17 PM

Leveling tinkers has not become impossible...

you swear to your friend's tinker, they swear to yours. or if you have 2 accounts, there you go.

Impossible is a bad choice of words. "Different" would be much better.

bertman

07-28-2004, 12:33 PM

Changes to robes sound cool, I've been waiting for these.

Changes to G-Man sword, I've been expecting this. I don't care much either way.

Changes to Caul XP, well there seems to be a lot of opposition to them. I don't really think these are a game-breaker. I tend to do mostly solo hunting, and I don't like to die, so I've been there only 3 times, and 2 of those times were to get my corpses. It does seem a little too mage-oriented, since everyone I saw there, not a statistical sample, mind you, was a mage except one. Certainly, reducing xp per monster is a short term solution, and I think it could benefit from stirring up the types of monsters that spawn there. I did know personally of one person who leveled a mage from 110 to the equivalent of 150 in a few weeks of playing, which I think is excessive, but that is me. I try not to concern myself overmuch with other players' levels.

I would like to see VOD made larger, with more melee-friendly spawns so melees could get 25-30 mill per hour. I think 25-30 mill per hour is the most anyone should expect even at the highest levels.

I want to comment on the negative emotions people seem to feel, though. Exploit early and often, that is a chicken way to describe the efforts of Turbine devs. There is no way to prevent people from discovering ways to take extreme advantage of any situation, and it takes at least a month to correct some things, due to the monthly patch cycle. If something is introduced to the game, and people figure out how to turn it to their advantage such that it becomes an exploit, it is not Turbine's fault necessarily, because A) not every possible permutation can be anticipated or planned for, since they are trying to stay ahead of 10k players; B) people learn the tricks, and tell everyone they know; and C) why should turbine hotfix every single issue when a new patch is coming the next month? Every hotfix holds a prospect of downtime and introducing new bugs in the system. It would certainly help if some of these crying whiny babies had just a slight inkling of what it takes to write a simple computer program, let alone a program as complex as Asheron's Call

Forsaken one

07-28-2004, 12:35 PM

Please take the time to think about this nurff to call.

Please dont do it.

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 12:44 PM

"i don't see melee'rs getting a penalty for wielding their aegis shields."

Actually, Aegis Shields have a SL of 0, so they are penalized vs. using another shield. :)

Mat Icefalcon

07-28-2004, 12:51 PM

Wow. This looks to be the most pathetic LttP I've ever read. Blah..

Crafting changes. whoopdeda doo. It should be Titled Nerf Dereth.

You screw over us with the chains, then the loot profiles of every freaking critter in the game (for months and it still isn't acceptable), and now yous are going to take out the fun out of the game for a very significant portion of your playerbase with the change in Caul????

I don't hunt the dragon pit and do so only when asked to help with a corpse recovery.

Lets face it. You are spending too much time on bs on other things.. such as the new billing system.. I was under the impression that the 12.95 a month was for data storage and new monthly content. NOt for a new friggin billing system.

WE WANT MORE UPPER LEVEL PLACES TO HUNT.
WE WANT NEW CONTENT.
WE DONT WANT NERFS.

HAha well I always wondered why I posted. You's never listen anyways to your playerbase. I don't suppose with the Nerf's that you'd be willing to substitue an increase of about a 25 percent chance to find a major on a biakia or something inplace of the lost of xp.

/e loves MS

Kieran

07-28-2004, 12:52 PM

I was excited when i saw the lttp posted today,and was looking forward too some fun additions in the new patch,and then i read the letter.and my excitment turned too another bitter disappointment.

This all started back with the loot changes,which took several months of tweaking too get right;when they first came in i said too myself,"don't worry.it will get better.trust that they know what they are doing".

As the changes kept coming,i was still disappointed,but kept trying too convince myself that eventually"they will start making things better".

Well,the loot changes seem about done,and while the new profiles might seem balanced on paper,in the actual game,they have basically restricted loot hunters too 3 places;VOD,
caul,and the 80+ hive.this has increased traffic in those areas a lot,but at least with the increased traffic it was easier too find a fellow,especially on caul.

Ah,the joys of a caul fellow;great xp,decent chance at usefull high-end loot,meeting lots of new people,and a challenge too survive that was unsurpassed by almost any other area in game.Seems like this was turning into the best high-level hunting ground around,and the most fun.But wait,then comes the august letter too the players.

What happens too caul after the august update?Well,the xp nerf on marguls,while some think are not too drastic,will greatly decrease the amount of players hunting there,which will decrease the amount of fellows,which will make the place much less enjoyable for me,as well as,judging by the posts on this topic,a lot of others as well.

This is in general a very bad idea,as where else can high level(150+) characters find a good mix of challenge,loot and xp in this game?The marguls are arguably one of the most interesting monsters added too the game in quite a while,and some of the most difficult opponents out there.Level 7 debuffs,vulns,and wars combined with a pack mentality make for a truly nasty monster,which should of course give an appropriate reward.I think the current xp levels are just that;appropriate too the risk.

For any of you that think they are giving too much xp,try a several hour,multiple fellowship corpse recovery in the crater with swarms of marguls dropping your 150+ fellows like they were level 1,and then tell me that the rewards are not appropriate for the risk.

As you can tell by my post count i don't feel the need too express my opinion here very often at all,because i have always had faith that turbine and it's staff care about the players and want them too enjoy this game.But.over the last 6 months or so,after enduring all these wonderful "rebalancing" patches,I am starting too believe that I may be very mistaken in my perception of what turbine is trying too do.

I really hope you re-evaluate your plans for the nerf too caul,and consider adding more areas like this in the future.Otherwise,I fear this may drive myself and many others away.

Heideggar

07-28-2004, 12:53 PM

What I find slightly disappointing in the players about their reaction to the LttP is that some of us mentioned a month or more ago about situations like this.

I personally said that with Turbine pulling people from their team to do the X-pack and the Billing, there would be a big decrease in content. Turbine even said there would be a reduction in content due to this as well. Yet, only a couple of us voiced our concern, and now look what happens. You get a LttP outlying a handfull of nerfs, mainly revisions for content, no-inconcept, nothing detailing any changes the players have been hoping for in the past many months, and a bunch of hopes by Turbine that the players will keep paying them money.

Well, at least you guys are starting to see the bigger picture.

Turbine can't just POOF have good content developers and things like that, so I wouldn't expect anything better than this kind of stuff from Turbine until the X-pack and Billing are done.

Yay! that's only several months away!

lol, I'm sorry Turbine, but you're screwin the pootch with your game.

When your players give good solid suggestions to remedy the problem you guys see (i.e. introducing a variety of creatures to offset the xp/rate), why don't you guys do that? It seems simple enough to us, why is it hard for you guys to do it that way? Is it because you don't have the people and ideas around because they're elsewhere doing _other_ things?

If your players weren't so loyal, you wouldn't have a game. period. Many of us have put up with quite enough.

I really don't think you guys understand the dynamics of Asheron's Call or the reasons people play Asheron's Call.

Oh, who the hell tests these areas and comes up with these super sweet reasons for nerfing stuff in this LttP?

She-Nyyx

07-28-2004, 01:27 PM

A couple ideas occur to me after reading thru all these pages.

1) Maybe the 1-50, 50-100, then 100+ fellow limits is not a bad idea. This solves the gman sword, but doesn't completely ruin it. It's not perfect and it would cut me off from xp hunting with a lot of my friends but maybe then they could just leave the fellow xp share thing for a bit and work on something else.

2) I miss the days when I'd be running across the dires searching for scroll chest and bump into that nastiest of creatures - the dreaded C-LORD. An all call would go out and the clan would gather to do mighty battle. I was too small to kill it but they'd let me help out and share the rewards. It lent interest and excitement to an otherwise rather ho-hum task. Just the possibility of running across an creature so out of my level. :eek:

So I'd like to see the static spawns made not quite so static. Sure it's nice if you're looking for guaranteed xp/hour return and I"m not saying Turbine should nerf them. But I'd like for there to be at least a chance of running across one of these 'dragons' somewhere else!

otama

07-28-2004, 01:28 PM

as I see it.. this Caul nerf is really the fault of the players not being able to police themselves, or work together in a civilized fashion.

I have as much frustration as anyone about the nerfing, but essentially this looks to me like we are having our toy taken from us because we couldn't share.

if these are indeed the feelings of Turbine.. then it is also sad that the Marguls outside of the crater are being nerfed as well.. Graal Marguls and squids were my fav thing to hunt when I was bored. It was a nice way of balancing exp with loot. Now, it is as if the solo player is being punished for the actions of the group.

ZarraVandorn_HG

07-28-2004, 01:35 PM

Don't nurff anything on Caul it's great as is and diferect enuff don't @#$%^ it up by nurffing it

Zarra Vandorn

FmrSentFlatfoot

07-28-2004, 01:36 PM

The more I read all these posts, and the more I realize Turbine just doesn't care, and won't do anything except implement the changes as specified anyway; the lyrics to a song by the old Bachman, Turner Overdrive (BTO) Band, stick out like a sore thumb, to which I concur:

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!

You'll find out how all this will culminate down the road, around the time the expansion pack is released, and then you'll truly understand why they continue to do things to ANGER everyone. They want you to quit, period.

I play less and less with each passing day now, because I see a growing trend to push non-mages out. Sure, I could continue playing my half-decent mage, but it's not my preferred choice. Doom 3 is out and now a new MMO called DarkFall is in the works.

Won't be long and I'll be gone for good. (I'll miss all the great people I've met, but then everyone has to say goodbye at some point when the game gets put in the historical archives) I will check back now and then to see the "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" principle hard at work in getting most of you to quit, so they can usher in an all new expansion, that will require everyone who stays, to start over at ZERO.

There, I just spilled the beans. Surely you all see this coming? I sure do.... and have for quite some time. lol

NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF.....ad nauseum.

If you think doing it this way will hurt them, you're dead wrong. It will help them in ways most of you don't see. It will get rid of all those who refuse to start over (very many, maybe the majority), but it will keep all the hardliners (that they've identified via opening up VT, to see how many would leave their BIG toons to start all over again... and there are a LOT). Then because of the new expansion being "new", it will draw in even more people who left for balance reasons etc., and still more who never played because the graphics sucked for the most part.

So for Turbine, it's a win-win situation. They don't care about you or what you stand to lose.. they care about the most important thing that every business cares about.......

The Bottom Line.

bertman

07-28-2004, 01:38 PM

Wow. It seems there is a petition going to get the nerfs de-nerfed. It doesn't seem like all that long ago when I signed the petition begging for an expansion pack. Now I see people complaining that they are going to get an expansion pack, because it slows down the monthly content additions. You can't possibly win. We want an expansion pack, but we are not willing to sacrifice the content of the monthly updates to get it. We want to get away from Zone logins, but we are not willing to sacrifice any content to allow Turbine to develop a billing system. We want new content every month, but we can't stand it when the content changes each month. We want more players in the game, we just don't want any newbies running around doing newbie stuff.

What a lot of people don't realize is that there is a vision somewhere. An expansion pack will need to have some really good stuff to attract newer users, as it hopefully will. Some of the things turbine is doing, as in monster redistribution, which caused a real uproar year ago, loot rebalancing, which people still complain about, and revamping towns and dungeons, is necessary to make the game viable for an expansion pack and an increased population.

At the same time, Turbine has to keep a growing number of high-level characters interested in the game, while mitigating their advancement to even more insanely high levels. So, they create places where high levels can get meaningful xp, like VOD and Caul. I think they have a right to limit the amount of xp people can yield from these high level places. I think they need to.

We have to remember that Turbine is a business, and Asheron's Call is their main product right now. They have to keep AC going to stay in business. Turbine has been fairly responsive in a lot of areas. Keyrings, for example. Level 126 XP for Gaerlan swords of 15 million instead of 800k. Stackable gems of stillness, portal gems, trade notes and writs. Level 7 scrolls that drop from monsters. Sturdy Steel Chests. Buying back AC from Microsoft. Verdantine. Apology tokens. Limits on housing purchases. Efforts to communicate better with the playerbase. I could go on. And a nerf here and there. These are business decisions based on a long-term vision which many players have no understanding of, because they are too busy killing biakas with ACM's in xp fellowships.

Of course, maybe we should all level past 200 in a few weeks, then quit and shut the whole thing down.

Lucretia

07-28-2004, 01:41 PM

Turbine is a business, absolutely correct, however their ability in analyzing, data collection and problem solving is very lacking.

Might I suggest a Six Sigma training session?

Quell

07-28-2004, 01:45 PM

Caul nerfs=

@caul Full fellow of maxed, near maxed mages.

@caul Melees in fellow frowned upon

VOD Vinnie will now become a rare spawn, thanks to selective killing.

Maxed out chainers sitting happily upon thier 200+ lvls

people who did it the hard way just watched the road get even longer.

The REAL fix to this was making the rest of the **** that spawn in VOD worthwhile. Something that has been said for months and months now.

Other then blackmire III the last ohhh 4 patches have been slim at best and **** at worst. I know you guys have a lot going on, but my god do you people even play your own dern game. From the looks of the last 6 months or so, i would say not.

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 01:47 PM

bertman, with respect to the margul question, I'm not convinced there IS a vision. It was only a few months ago that the xp for marguls was RAISED. Now its going back down because a few players (MOST of whom seem to be on VT) have used those critters to power up quickly, and to grief/exclude other players.

Seems less like a vision and more like a kneejerk reaction to me. 1.5 mil for a biaka doesn't seem out of line with its difficulty to me. If the problem is that fellows that camp Caulcano make too much xp, change Caulcano. If the problem is its too easy for mages relative to other toons, change the fighting/defensive characteristics of the marguls. If the problem is that fellow bonuses are no longer valid, review them. If the problem is that people are using passup to push fellowship bonus numbers too far, look at passup again.

But nerfing the xp of a group of VERY difficult critters, who's xp was just increased, is a VERY poor decision, not only in my mind, but in many others it seems too.

Daenerys

07-28-2004, 01:54 PM

I think its really cool that you guys are going to give us a lvl of xp in September, but I was talking with some clanmates and alot lost quest items, which can be re-done. Some, however lost items that dont have as good of a chance of getting recovered, imbued items and higher tinks and the like, as well as, houses (16 of them was the high count I saw on Frostfell).

I was wondering if you have or might possibly consider allowing 1 chance at a chest that spawns good stuff (50% of the time) and uber imbued stuff (33% of the time). Possibly with lvl graded chests, kinda along the same lines of Gman quests.

I think it would make for good customer relations. =)

Signalerror

07-28-2004, 02:13 PM

I propose that a different "fix" could offer some support for both melee's and mages. Keep the xp the same as it is, but raise the health, melee attack and magic defences of the marguls (To raise their over all difficulty into the xp reward range), While lowering their natural armor so archers and melee can get a peice.

Increased health + harder hitting melee attack + more magic defence = Higher difficulty. Higher difficulty = more xp

The changes aim to give mages a harder challange while reducing the marguls melee D and natrual armor to aid archers and melee. But because of the overall difficulty boost, they could keep their current xp

Turbine, ibn, somone. PLEASE take my idea into mind. I think this could satisfy all parties here.

Notoluv

07-28-2004, 02:34 PM

I for one cant wait to see the new Matti Robes. I like to collect them. As for the wasps i think that is cool too. What i didnt like seeing in th Augest Letter, was how they are going to give yet again mages more power. Playing a mage isnt something i find fun. because they have to much power in game. A melee doesnt.

When Pking or PKlite with a mage (melee vs mage) the fight is not fair. A mage has the advantage over the melee, no matter how buffed up and baned the melee is. I think if they are going to help any type of char out it should be the melees.:cool:

Rhesus

07-28-2004, 02:35 PM

Actually, not everbody hunts the Caul crater. I hunted the outer ring on Caul a lot and I treated Graal Margul spawns as a treat. They swarmed, they debuffed, they were hard to kill solo and they gave a great reward in XP even if the loot was lousy.

Other mobs, like Marionettes and the large Zefirs, give lousy XP and represent excessive risk for the potential reward. If a mob should be worth 1m XP, it is a Damned Marionette. They swarm, they debuff, and they chain war to the point it is unfuriating. Oh, and they give lousy XP and lousy loot. Zefirs at least drop lots of loot, but the chain draining and swarming make them more troublesome than the worst of Marguls.

If somebody is paying attention so closely to Caul, they would just make the Marguls a more rare spawn or maybe remove loot from them altogether.

And in terms of risk to reward... I'll tank two Virindi Paradox's any day before I will waste my time with a group of two or more Marionettes or high level Zefirs. At least I'm given the assurance I will get a nice XP reward for my time with the Virindi and the number of Drain's and War's I take are more manageable.

This change blows, but on the upside, I fully expect the developers will now proceed to "balance" Caul further and wind up nerfing all of the mobs that give more than 500k of XP into the ground without thinking about the difficulty associated with actually trying to kill the mobs.

For the attendant risk, mass killing on the lower level mobs near the center of Caul just got more attractive except that VoD technically will offer a greater reward for less risk on the other side of this patch.

That's ok though. I am learning to enjoy the ghost towns that these "balances" make out of different places all over Dereth. As a matter of fact, I thoroughly enjoy being the only person to wander around Tusker Lacuna. Looks like I am going to get the same pleasure on Caul after this next patch.

bertman

07-28-2004, 02:35 PM

About the chainers... You know, high levels are their own reward. I made 126 quite a while ago, with the benefit of chaining for about 10 of the last 13 levels. Then they nerfed the chains. Since then, I have diligently pursued the xp rewards for pincers, tusks and now the golem quests, plus hunting in south dires and around ayan. I have made some xp, and some of it from good vassals, so that I have the equivalent of 139, according to treestats. I am happy at the level I am, and I will be happy to get to higher levels. But I only hunted Caul once, and I have been to VOD about 20 times at the most. I don't enjoy tuskers that much, and matron hive i have visited a couple of times.

I am enjoying the game at the level my character has reached. I hunt for loot, then go gamble it all away at Monty's. I am at a level high enough that I can help other players recover corpses, I can fellowship most of the quests, I can survive in the OP, and sure, I would love to get lots of xp so I can click the green triangle, but I don't consider endless repetitive killing of the same monster over and over all that much fun. Some people enjoy that, but I suspect it is because they get lots of xp. Besides, even reducing the xp is only going to slow them down, and don't forget about the loot: this is where all the majors are dropping.

So you want 60 million xp per hour, plus majors on the loot, in a place where mages rule. I know, don't worry what other people are doing, how they play the game, etc., but dang, isn't something just a little unfair about that? So you get a little less xp, maybe 40 million an hour, and you still get your majors, and you can sell them to me for the plats I earn for 10 to 15 hours of hunting Ayan. I don't see the problem.

So Turbine has decided that it is worth it to them to risk your subscription to balance out the game. They have to be convinced that this is the right thing to do. I'm sorry, but if this is all it takes to make you quit, well, why did you ever play this game in the first place?

Peter

07-28-2004, 02:54 PM

First off, saying the problem is that the caul crater is overcrowded and causes problems between players is a lie. Finally we had a place for high levels to go and earn some decent xp and you nerf it, we don't want to sit in a dungeon for 10 hours to raise *one* skill point, this is a game. Did you even try hunting out there? The risk is huge and the reward is currently equal to it, with the change it'll just become another deserted area, but it seems like that is how you guys want it to be. I hope you listen to your players and realize it would be a mistake.

DON'T CHANGE THE CAUL

Calwyn

07-28-2004, 03:28 PM

I think a lot of you are underestimating the usefulness and potenial of melee and ranged characters at Caul. While mages do INSANE crits, yes I will admit that, I've seen my level 116 sword get a fair amount of kills. He's not leaching, he's holding his own. Anyone who would push me out because I was melee soon sees that I can make the cut and out kill the mages a fair amount of the time. Yes, this is with vulns and imps of course, but this is a team play place. I haven't been fellowed with an archer the last two times I've been there but I imagine they'd outkill mages on a regular basis and put us all to shame. Caul isn't mage only, if anything its high life magic only, and any "class" can have that.

D-K

07-28-2004, 03:29 PM

I for one don't see the big deal about the Caul change.

It will still be a fun place to hunt and you will still get decent XP.

It is a place that makes you stay on your toes or else you die.

I think the biggest problem is that there is only one place like the Caul.

I think the Dires should go back to being scary again.

Turbine should redistribute the critter spawn and make it interesting running through the Dires again.

As a Melee (level 111) the Caul is impossible to hunt without a Mage as support and that should be fixed.

Glaucon

07-28-2004, 03:41 PM

[B]"As a Melee (level 111) the Caul is impossible to hunt without a Mage as support and that should be fixed."[B]

Well if you havent noticed, VoD is much more melee oriented, while caul is mage oriented. I guess you think matron and lacuna should be kept the same so you melees can make 40+ million per hour ina big fellow, but us mages should have to drop down to 32Million per hour with a very good fellow on caul?

I don't complain about VoD cuz I have caul, and you shouldnt complain about caul cuz...you have vod! Caul should be harder, its not meant for every inexperienced players to come out and make 'uber' xp like people who have been playing a lot, or someone who chose a better template.

KriegPfeil

07-28-2004, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by Glaucon
[B]"As a Melee (level 111) the Caul is impossible to hunt without a Mage as support and that should be fixed."[B]

Well if you havent noticed, VoD is much more melee oriented, while caul is mage oriented. I guess you think matron and lacuna should be kept the same so you melees can make 40+ million per hour ina big fellow, but us mages should have to drop down to 32Million per hour with a very good fellow on caul?

I don't complain about VoD cuz I have caul, and you shouldnt complain about caul cuz...you have vod! Caul should be harder, its not meant for every inexperienced players to come out and make 'uber' xp like people who have been playing a lot, or someone who chose a better template.

Last time I checked Mages were better on Devs than non mages. And this was before they gave a boost to mages. One dungeon does that melees may fair better than you does not balance out with Caul. Caul is very large, while a fellow of 5 or 6 means you are running out of bugs at the matron.

L.B. Johnson

07-28-2004, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by Mistikal
I think Turbine is just making sure we're still interested in the game for years to come.

People complaining about the nerf to the Xp in Caul realy need to look at it again.

It's still the #1 place ingame to make xp. You'll still make insane amounts, just not game breaking amounts.

So it takes you 2 months to max a char instead of one :|

lol, spread out :)

Sorry Mystikal, not everyone can make this game their JOB like yourself.

IBN, this is a dumb change. Why do the devs seem to always love to make things harder for players? You could've just as easliy INCREASED the XP of the surrounding areas of caul so that people may spread out, instead of putting 40 mites and rats that will own the hell out of me for measly xp for them.

Hey Players who are fed up with this ****, and I'm even fed up with the dev's of EL Tank I can't believe the put a 5 minute "no input" and it turns off.... stupid, MAKE THE GAME MORE FUN, Not the other way around... is George Bush the CEO of Turbine? gonna run this game into the ground just like the Country.

MATRIX ONLINE = 4 MORE MONTHS!!! Almost here everyone, just hold out, Won't have to wait 2 weeks to change your characters attributes!

Synn

07-28-2004, 04:25 PM

Regarding the Caul nerf...

The same mistake is being made over and over. If you give the players just one or two "top" spots for xp there is going to be overcrowding and all the issues that accompany that.

So much of Dereth is virtually deserted. I can run around in parts of the dires for hours and sometimes not see a single toon.

Why not attempt to spread the players out a bit more? Imagine if Caul had several areas that were all worth fellowing at? And imagine if VoD was just as good, and perhaps part of the Obsidian Plains (upgraded from what it is now of course), and a few dungeons, etc.

It has always baffled me why there hasn't been more of an attempt to do this. The old needn't be abandoned whenever something new is put in. Keep tweaking that old content and I don't mean just low level stuff. There are plenty of places that were once popular that are now ghost towns.

Give us more options and everything will run more smoothly.

Please think about it.

D X Mage

07-28-2004, 04:31 PM

There is no need to nerf Caul. Simply make a few more pits. That should take care of crowding issues.

Cash_we

07-28-2004, 04:32 PM

I hunt in the caul with my mage most of the time and I know for experience there is more than biakas there. 1.5 millions exp its nice, but not the only thing around, the loot in north is better than the average found anywhere else, cept vod, and most critters there gives a lot of exp; last time I went hunting there, I made like 30 millions in a couple of buff cycles solo, hunting only not magic casters( dogs, mites and sharks), and found 2 majors besides a few pieces of w10 salvage among sellables and such. For me the caul will be as good as it has being since the upgrade.

Seishin_HG

07-28-2004, 04:34 PM

Caul,

Whatever... I hunted in Caul from the day it was opened with my level 73 mage. No, not the dragons! :)

Later I tried VoD. Nope, too crowded. Suddenly the area where I hunted in Caul was filled with "griefers!" (meaning rude people). So, I took my wand and went deeper into Caul.

Guess what. VoD has been fun hunting recently! That will change, so, I guess it will be back to Caul when rudeness once again rules in VoD.

Luckily, we do have choices.

Dei Ray

07-28-2004, 04:35 PM

Yet another opinion on the Caul change:

For years it seems Turbine has been unable to balance character advancement. One moment they will recognize that some range of levels are suffering from inadequate or excessive experience gains. Next they will implement some change to try and flatten the “XP curve” only to find no control was implemented to prevent exploitation of the change by characters outside the range of levels the change was intended to target. Next, instead of adding some form or control so the change can’t be exploited by the few, they remove the adjustment to the XP curve. Now they are back to where they started and somewhere down the road some on will recognize that some range of levels are suffering from inadequate or excessive experience gains and the cycle repeats. The result is wasted man-hours in development, a XP curve that continues to be broken and angry customers.

The current Caul nerf is just another cycle in this on going problem. A decent hunting ground was added for the highest-level players of which there are now many. The problem is the hunting area is not restricted to the highest-level player. You see many sub level 100 characters in Caul center when they probably do not have the health or skills to normally hunt there. They survive under the umbrella of the highest-level players and as a result garner XP benefits they should not yet receive. Eighty million XP per hour is not necessarily excessive for an equivalent level 150 character but is excessive for a level 80 character.

So what does Turbine do? Instead of limiting access so 126+ players have a good hunting ground and preventing access to sub level 100 players that are receiving excessive XP, Turbine takes it away from everyone and the XP curve remains broken.

There are so many ways this could have been addressed but clarity of vision and relevant solutions seem to evade Turbine when it comes to balancing character advancement. Potential solutions such as a “fellow free” zone on Caul, an area where you are forced to solo hunt or at least where you do not share XP. A potential solution where access to Caul center is by a portal that is limited to level 100 or even level 126 players. A potential change in fellowship XP sharing where level 126+ characters can not share XP with lower level characters.

There are many ways with current game technology that the XP curve could be flattened with out introducing exploits. Turbine continues to struggle to get it right and continues to flail from feast to famine without finding the character advancement formula to make players at all levels happy.

Todoshi

07-28-2004, 04:35 PM

Sounds like a good patch to me!

Make the timer maybe 30 mins on Aerlinthe so you can actually wait, not cut it down to half (which is I think 90 mins still).

The Cauln issue is good that it will be resolved, if it was not intended, it was a bonus to the players, will be full like crazy until patch now, but then its over and hopefully takes a lot of the grief away.

Thanks for the reward, glad the cluster is fixed and nice to see a something for us :)

Another question, which I would like some official answer, with mages doing again more "damage over time", how is the balance to other classes ? How can melees or missile players compete on this ? To have this damage potential, armor, versatility, low burden on all the different wands (compared to like bows, swords and x-bows), etc. just balanced evenly ?
I know AC was never balanced, but a game should be and this I think took it off a bit more, maybe something to think about ?

Ibn

07-28-2004, 04:41 PM

Before I respond to the complaints about the XP reduction at the center of the Caul, I just wanted to touch on some of the other comments in this thread:

- First off, we rarely if ever talk about new content in the Letter to the Players. You'll be getting new quests, dungeons, and items in addition to the changes listed here, just like always.

- I'm not entirely understanding the complaints from people who want the LttP to be strictly positive. Unfortunately, at times it may be necessary to make unpopular changes to the game. Personally I would rather warn you in advance -- in the LttP -- than spring it on you on the day of the patch. It's just more fair that way.

- Regarding the Ash Gromnie Tooth changes: One of the new interactions will add the same 25% to the skill that the Ash tooth trophies used to. Another new interaction will add 30%.

- Regarding the Robes: Existing robes won't change in artwork at all. Generally speaking all that's being changed is an AL increase across the board, as I wrote in the LttP.

- All topics previously listed as being In Concept are still there, there's just been no new progress or ETA on them.

- Regarding the war magic damage increase, we're looking VERY carefully at changing the damage on level 7 streaks. It is quite possible that they will not be changed at all.

Going to respond to the Caul complaints in the next post.

magicspycko

07-28-2004, 04:43 PM

plz do not change caul
its the only thing i am willing to hunt after i get home from work.
y would i even try hunting then i don't have vassals and will never get higher lvl if i don't make good xp
how about i just don't hunt and run with the pk/pkl pop and bad mouth everybody and get a year ban for just beeing bored

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 04:50 PM

Thanks for the response Ibn. I look forward to your thought on the Caul changes and on the responses you've seen so far.

Dragon_fiend

07-28-2004, 05:06 PM

I dont care about the rest well maybe the Sing wand it is fine. stop having a cry and get some skill in pk/l.

Turbine Turbine Turbine, caul is the only reason i hunt now and i am sure it is the reason alot of other people hunt too.... you are only screwing ur self out of my customers by doing this.

ever herd of shooting your self in the foot? well your aiming at your head

Iron-Claw

07-28-2004, 05:11 PM

Well once agian another nerf for mages.. I would not mind the nerfing if one of two things happened..

1) you once and for all got rid of the use of gear in any format.. I know you got speed detection software but the simple fact is it does not stop the gear users out there they just turn it down too the threshold of detection. gear in turn cuases lag making the fight even more unfair..

2) if you continue to let gear run amock like this then give the mages back run casting.. You allow the the jump spin **** might as well give us back run casting..

===

ON the Cual exp issue. Unless you have a large group killing Biakas, they dont go down that easy.. I know the spots are cramped on carebear servers but on Dt it not that bad.. I usually solo on cual and I think the exp for a biaka is worth it for the time it take to kill one by yourself or for that matter even small groups..

As to these crafting quests.. I think they need alot of work..
Did not seem to be worth my time, effort or costs, the last time I tired them.. Might as well give my guy hunting skills temparorly to lvl him..

Josseppy

07-28-2004, 05:16 PM

My thoughts on caul...

I think what people are failing to realize is just how much xp is being gained from the center of Caul. A good average fellow in the East Matron Hive is 20mill xp per hour, a good fellow in lacuna is also around 20mill xp per hour. Hive is good for melee and lacuna is good for mages. VoD xp doesnt even come close in my opinion since its dependant on so many factors.

Then we have caul, now a 2 person fellow (no vassal xp) gets ya around 30mill xp an hour, pretty good, then you move up to 3 people and it can get around 35-40. Without vassals it will max out somewhere around 50, which is 2.5x the best xp anywhere else. The problem is that with the "Fix" to vassal passup xp, and I say that in quotes because it is much more abusable now, it can get upwards to 100mill xp, and thats when people start pushing and shoving to fight for it.

I think both of those figures of xp are rediculous personally. A fellowship of people without vassals should make somewhere around 30-35mill xp per hour, over the 20-23 one can make in lacuna/hive, Caul is definately the most difficult place to park and hunt so the rewards should define it.

What you need to fix is vassal passup. AC2 has a system in place where a patron cannot earn more xp then a certain percentage to the next level, and then no more is earned from passup until the next level. I like this system and think it should be implemented here.

My concerns with this nerf is that the xp cut will be too dramatic. You are cutting xp for those people who abuse vassal passup exp, and in turn the people who will suffer the most are those without any vassals, like myself and countless others. What will be a cut from 100mill to 60mill an hour for them will be a cut from 40mill to 20mill to us.

Ibn

07-28-2004, 05:17 PM

There have been times in the past that we've presented new topics or changes to the game and been surprised by the vehement negative reaction to them.

This isn't one of those times.

Honestly, I knew that this was going to be the response from the community after the LttP was posted. It's only reasonable. You've gotten used to the reward level at the "Caulcano" and now that level is being decreased. No one likes having anything taken away from them.

Unfortunately, the fact that this makes you unhappy doesn't change the fact that we feel it is best for the game.

Consider this: Imagine that, by mistake, we added a lever to the game that when pulled granted a million XP. Naturally, some folks would be pretty happy to run up to this lever and pull it! And once folks got used to it being there, they'd probably be pretty unhappy if we removed it.

Now, obviously this is a terribly simplified comparison. The Marguls aren't XP levers, by any stretch of the imagination. But a lot of it does apply. For one thing, notice that I used the word "mistake". I'll quite openly state that raising the XP on these creatures to the pre-August levels was a mistake.

But once we realize that it's a mistake, we really have two choices. Either we shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh well," or we grit our teeth and we fix the mistake, knowing full well that all y'all are going to come here and flame us up and down both for having made the mistake in the first place and for fixing it in a way that makes you upset. We chose option two.

On that topic though -- we're not bringing them down to their pre-raised levels. They'll be somewhere in-between.

There've been a lot of suggestions of ways to change the situation other than reducing the XP on the Marguls, but they don't address the basic problem. The basic problem is this: the creatures were giving out too much XP compared to their difficulty.

Regardless of all other concerns brought up -- crowding, comparisons to VoD, high-level hunting areas, soloing vs. fellowships, mage vs. melee balance -- regardless of all of that, the Marguls were giving out too much XP compared to their difficulty. If we didn't fix that base problem we'd just be throwing on band-aids.

Some of you are asking, "Well, so what if we get too much XP? Why does Turbine have a problem with that?" This is the same argument that many players made when we changed the way that allegiance XP works. Let me try to answer it.

Imagine there was a way that you could push a button in-game and then POOF, all of your stats and skills were maxed. That'd be cool, right? Well, sure... for a little while. But then there's no way to advance your character, and without some means of advancement, the game loses a lot of its enjoyment. So you get a burst of fun because, hey, you're a god now! But then once that burst wears off, the game as a whole is less fun.

Now that was obviously a worst-case scenario, but looking at a more moderate example, anytime that advancement becomes easier than intended it creates a number of problems. The first is that it can make the game "too easy" -- without the feeling of having overcome a challenge, rewards lose some of their sparkle. Having a max-tinkered RR sword isn't quite as interesting if we're just giving them out to anyone who asks, right? Having your melee defense skill maxed out isn't as cool if you just clicked one button after character creation to get there, right?

Now the advancement thing sort of leads into one of the complaints that I've seen, that there needs to be more to do at high levels. All I can say to that is that we're listening and that there are plans, but I can' t provide any details at the moment.

There's also the comparison problem. If creature of difficulty X is worth Y reward, then anytime we create a new creature of diffculty X or more, it needs to have reward Y or greater -- otherwise you'll ask us, "What's the point?" and go back to fighting that first creature.

So that means that once this XY creature has been established in the game, the longer it stays in the more of a precedent it becomes and the more it influences new monthly content. It becomes harder and harder to change it the longer it stays. This situation is a perfect example -- if we'd lowered the Margul XP the month after raising it, we would've gotten some complaints (and some raised eyebrows) but nowhere near this many. If we leave it in another six months and THEN change it, we'll get even MORE complaints than we are now. This is a strong argument to resolve it as soon as possible.

So, to summarize: The basic problem is that the Margul were worth more XP than their risk justified, and this problem spawns a whole host of sub-problems. Solving the sub-problems is only a band-aid solution. However the sub-problems do reflect other issues that have been brought up, such as the desire of players to have more activities at very high levels, and we are working to fulfill those desires.

We knew going into this that this change was going to be very unpopular, but we feel it is best for the long-term health of the game. Leaving unbalancing things in the game becomes more unbalancing the longer they stay in, and the more unbalanced the game becomes, the less fun it will be for you, the players.

bertman

07-28-2004, 05:18 PM

Mostly 16 pages of Waaaaah. For the guy who wants turbine to get rid of gear: How would they do that, pray tell? It isn't their fault that people use gear, they are trying to keep it from working, they use detection to try to prevent it, but I'm just wondering how YOU think they should get rid of it. It amazes me what people get mad at Turbine about. 16 pages of "Waaaaaah! You're nerfing my game!" If I quit anything, it will be reading these stupid feedback threads.

Mr_Fred

07-28-2004, 05:20 PM

It's obvious the devs are going to do what they want. This LttP really feels like just one big nerf patch. If there is ANYTHING you can learn from the 5 years of coding this game...is:

NERFING IS BAD FOR MORALE

I say this in bold, large, underlined print because no matter what you nerf...EVERYONE can agree to the above statement.

Ibn

07-28-2004, 05:22 PM

You're absolutely right, nerfing is bad for morale. We try to avoid it whenever possible. You'll notice that frequently when we improve something, we improve it in small increments, so that we won't have to nerf it later.

Unfortunately there are times that we have made mistakes and set something too high. We try not to have this happen, and whenever it does we pay close attention so as to prevent it from happening in the future, but sometimes it still happens.

When it DOES happen, we will unfortunately have to nerf it. The alternative -- leaving unbalanced rewards in the game -- will do more long-term damage to the game than a one-time nerf.

Gafoon

07-28-2004, 05:28 PM

Ya know, I'm ok with Ibn's explanation. He states his case quite reasonably.

I know it won't make a difference but...

Dragon_fiend

07-28-2004, 05:31 PM

NOt ganna bother giving feed back now this is BS you never listen

magicspycko

07-28-2004, 05:32 PM

this happend when ucm was against coc to
ppl that have don it have got most out of it already ( high lvl chars, uber stats, loot, ... )
now your nerving caul to same happend here ppl that have hunted in for the last few months got most out of it.
i just started hunting there like 2 weeks ago.
now its gone again

i wane thank turbine for killing all fun out of the game.
hah who would play the game if it was fun right ?

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 05:34 PM

Ibn, your explanation is quite rational, well thought out. It makes a lot of sense, and it will resonate (to some degree) with those of us who don't want something for nothing.

BUT (of course there's a but!!!! :p ) I'd like some more information on why you think the xp is out of line with the risk, if you can. What I mean by that is, what level toons, in what size fellows, do you look at for the risk vs reward judgement?

My wife and I hunt out there, I'm a level "145" mage and she's a "154" mage. Just last night I died 6 times, she died 4 or 5. I made about 25-30 million xp an hour. She, being my patron, made about 35-45 million (something like that). Now granted, we're risk takers, so we could have died a bit less if we cared enough to be super careful, but still...does that REALLY seem out of line, risk to reward?

Or are you looking at the 170, 180, 200+ toons, and/or full fellows who camp a single spot?

I'll say once again, from my perspective, its hard to see how, one on one, these guys are way out of line risk/reward style, unless you're talking max toons.

I'd just like to see a bit more info about why you think a chain casting, level 6 and 7 debuffing, high health, aggressive and friend-bring critter isn't worth 1.5 million.

Thanks :)

skerilis

07-28-2004, 05:34 PM

You ask for feedback, and get 16 pages (so far) of ppl telling you that they don't want this change. Your reply is we're doing it reguardless of what you want.

So why even ask for feedback?

Aaryna

07-28-2004, 05:36 PM

Regarding the freebie experience in September - will there be a way to avoid recieving this, and still talk to the criers?

If it's given out directly the first time you activate a crier in that event, then there's no way to see the crier messages in-game without recieving it.

If it's given out as a token that you have to give back to them, then you're stuck with a token for a month, since you can't crier it without recieving the XP. This assumes it's no-drop, of course - but if it wasn't no drop the only other way to make sure people can't hoard and abuse the tokens is to make it once per character.

One good way to do it is to recieve it when you @tell the crier a specific phrase, also once-per-character or with a timer longer than a month (since the reward will only exist for one patch)

paradoxlost

07-28-2004, 05:36 PM

well considering there was more than one topic in the LttP, i'm sure they'd like feedback on the other points too.

Quell

07-28-2004, 05:39 PM

Unfortunately, the fact that this makes you unhappy doesn't change the fact that we feel it is best for the game.

Consider this: Imagine that, by mistake, we added a lever to the game that when pulled granted a million XP. Naturally, some folks would be pretty happy to run up to this lever and pull it! And once folks got used to it being there, they'd probably be pretty unhappy if we removed it.

VERY VERY bad anology, an exp lever is forever different then hunting creatures. BTW YOU are the ones who created the HUGE level gap, by not making changes to the chaines much much earlier.

Now, obviously this is a terribly simplified comparison. The Marguls aren't XP levers, by any stretch of the imagination. But a lot of it does apply. For one thing, notice that I used the word "mistake". I'll quite openly state that raising the XP on these creatures to the pre-August levels was a mistake.

So your telling me you didnt even look at the outcome of raising the exp on those in the first place?

Regardless of all other concerns brought up -- crowding, comparisons to VoD, high-level hunting areas, soloing vs. fellowships, mage vs. melee balance -- regardless of all of that, the Marguls were giving out too much XP compared to their difficulty. If we didn't fix that base problem we'd just be throwing on band-aids.

So you did your best to BS us in the Lttp? Dont even try to cover your hiney on that one, your players are smarter then that.

Imagine there was a way that you could push a button in-game and then POOF, all of your stats and skills were maxed. That'd be cool, right? Well, sure... for a little while. But then there's no way to advance your character, and without some means of advancement, the game loses a lot of its enjoyment. So you get a burst of fun because, hey, you're a god now! But then once that burst wears off, the game as a whole is less fun.

Again there is just so ever a slight of difference between an exp button and working your tail off for 5 years to level.

Now that was obviously a worst-case scenario, but looking at a more moderate example, anytime that advancement becomes easier than intended it creates a number of problems. The first is that it can make the game "too easy" -- without the feeling of having overcome a challenge, rewards lose some of their sparkle. Having a max-tinkered RR sword isn't quite as interesting if we're just giving them out to anyone who asks, right? Having your melee defense skill maxed out isn't as cool if you just clicked one button after character creation to get there, right?

Same answere as above.

Now the advancement thing sort of leads into one of the complaints that I've seen, that there needs to be more to do at high levels. All I can say to that is that we're listening and that there are plans, but I can' t provide any details at the moment.

Youve been saying that for months. Caul crater WAS that content.

There's also the comparison problem. If creature of difficulty X is worth Y reward, then anytime we create a new creature of diffculty X or more, it needs to have reward Y or greater -- otherwise you'll ask us, "What's the point?" and go back to fighting that first creature.

HELLO. VOD, you still havent done anything about that. Its only been how long?

So that means that once this XY creature has been established in the game, the longer it stays in the more of a precedent it becomes and the more it influences new monthly content. It becomes harder and harder to change it the longer it stays. This situation is a perfect example -- if we'd lowered the Margul XP the month after raising it, we would've gotten some complaints (and some raised eyebrows) but nowhere near this many. If we leave it in another six months and THEN change it, we'll get even MORE complaints than we are now. This is a strong argument to resolve it as soon as possible.

No, this is a poor argument as to why not fix the things that are REALLY wrong on the high end game. There are very very few places to hunt "worthwhile" at the high end of the game. Instead of adressing issues that ARE the problem (90% trash mobs in VOD) for example, you just nerf the one good area 126+s had.

So, to summarize: The basic problem is that the Margul were worth more XP than their risk justified, and this problem spawns a whole host of sub-problems. Solving the sub-problems is only a band-aid solution. However the sub-problems do reflect other issues that have been brought up, such as the desire of players to have more activities at very high levels, and we are working to fulfill those desires.

The basic problem is that EXP chains were allowed to go on for as long as they did. The basic problem is that despite knowing that a vast majority of the player base has at least one 100+ char very little has been done to spread them out. The basic problem is that the marguls allowed people such as myself who never chained to have at least hope that one day they will be on par with them, and you are taking that away.

Saying things like thier risk vrs the reward was off kilter, makes me think that you were either fighting them on an admin, a maxed out char or just didnt bother to accually play at all. Once again ill ask. Do you people even play the game?????

We knew going into this that this change was going to be very unpopular, but we feel it is best for the long-term health of the game. Leaving unbalancing things in the game becomes more unbalancing the longer they stay in, and the more unbalanced the game becomes, the less fun it will be for you, the players.

If you would test the changes you make in advance in a "typical player" type situation you wouldnt have these problems. A noob could have told you 1.5 mill a kill was A LOT of exp. After three kills you should have known how fast marguls fell. One more reason i have doubts if you play the game or not.

magicspycko

07-28-2004, 05:45 PM

i must agree this change REALLY makes me wane quit and never look back :mad:

yakisoba_noodle

07-28-2004, 05:48 PM

Thanks for the lenghty reply, and you are right on all counts, from where I'm standing. Change the darn critters.

The more serious issue is one of quality control. How does one keep such little niggling mistakes from happening at all?

Example: Spikes are not fletching correctly. You can't make FC or AP deadly spikes, either with wrapped bundles or with bundles of components. THose are the ones I've tried, but there may be more. You folks MUST have tested that months ago when spikes went in, but it's broken now. Thus, you have a daunting QC problem: If it was broken all along, you have not tested enough. If it was working and another change broke it, you have an iterative QC issue and that's actually harder to solve. Eek.

Margul XP, on the other hand, was out of hand for a long time. Kudos for fixing it, but what happened? I would have thought that after the monster rebalance (so painstaking!) that there would be established paramaters for critter XP. This is not as tough as the spike problem, and far easier to collect data on (no one uses spikes, but LOADS of folks hunt Caul).

Keep up the good work, and good luck with your process. I wish you had decided to open up shop in Austin and not California.
--Yak

Doda

07-28-2004, 05:49 PM

Ibn you and your coworkers have a NASTY problem with nerfing stuff in game and MOST of it SHOULD be left alone!

The ash tooth nerf SHOULD NEVER happen!

Iasparailaun nerf is PROBABLY best left alone! You nerfed the XP chains, at least give us a easier way to level our trademules. The craft rewards so far have been a HUGE joke! My crafter needs 300 Million XP for the last point and I DONT think its going to happen 5k at a time!

Aerlinthe key nerf , WHY? Is this nerf so you can get a extra measure of some kind of sadistic pleasure?

Matty robe changes? WHY? I Like my robe the way it is. If its not broke DONT fix it! Make the new robes diffrent and let the old ones stay the way they are!

Biteing strike/crushing blow. This needs to be nerfed? MY gosh dont you guys test any of the stuff you put in game?

Caul XP : What you REALLY should do it create a few more places these spawns! People would be happy about it and you can use all the good PR you can get.

In closeing I would like to say QUIT NERFING STUFF!!!!!

You guys have a horrible history of nerfing stuff and screwing with stuff that SHOULD be left alone! MY gosh, do you lay awake at night thinking about stuff to nerf in game?

Honestly I was more happy in game when Ken Karl was the boss and nerfs didnt happen 5 times every patch! You guys nerf more stuff than you fix! Maybe you should devote some time to fixing some of the annoying bugs in game IN PLACE OF nerfs!

P.S. Ibn (nerfs alot) I apologise for calling you a liar about the banning last month. GoL was wrong and was banned with a proper reason.

rageofmages

07-28-2004, 05:50 PM

Your response Ibn shows nothing. Turbine has made far too many mistakes with regards to introducing content, to later reduce its effectiveness.

Four years later you would think you would have a grasp on how to introduce content correctly. Because I have been burned multiple times by decisions of Turbine, I will no longer support the company.

If you are curious to my seriousness, you can PM me for my account names, and I will be glad to give those. My accounts have been canceled, all 4 of them, because of this patch.

Peter

07-28-2004, 05:53 PM

Way to listen to your players.

Rhesus

07-28-2004, 05:58 PM

You know, there are other balance-related issues to mobs all over both Caul and VoD, but at this point, how can you expect any possible feedback from the players since you are (once again) demonstrating an inclination towards nerfing the imbalances into the ground than to try to balance them by changing the difficulty of the mobs?

For my part, I have said it before and will say it again. For their difficulty, Marionettes and Zefirs are by far, much much more difficult than Marguls for the rewards they offer in terms of both XP and loot.

And yes, there are more mobs out there that could use a tweak in XP or damage dealing, but I'd rather not have Turbine rob me of the pleasure of killing those mobs for what they offer.

Disgruntled but fate-resigned level 122 solo playing Battlemage

Deiwos_WE

07-28-2004, 06:00 PM

By the way, aren't the Virindi out on Caul worth about 1.3 mil (without fellowship affects)? Are you SERIOUSLY trying to tell us fighting a Virindi brings MORE risk then fighting a Biaka?!?

Korresh

07-28-2004, 06:00 PM

I think its an awful idea and I don't even hunt there, yet this change will affect me all the same.

I have one toon who can go to Caul, and have been hunting like crazy to get some of the better equipped ones up to level so they can be elligible. It been a motivator, and now that motivator will take a big torpedo.

The whole situation confuses me greatly and indicates that Turbine seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth.

The Caul Crater seems to have instilled more life into the higher level players than many things have in recent memory and Turbine continues to toot the Horn of Marketing to increase subscripitons...yet with alarming consistency nerf everything that becomes too popular.

Not to mention that announcing a nerf to the best high level motivator right on the heels of a rollback where you indicate your hardware is falling apart around you seems to be the ultimate in marketing idiocy.

Clearly not Turbine's most shining moment.

Let us continue to hope for someone in the organization to have a moment of clarity.

Elisabet of TAD

07-28-2004, 06:08 PM

Deiwos_WE: I'll say once again, from my perspective, its hard to see how, one on one, these guys are way out of line risk/reward style, unless you're talking max toons.

This especially makes no sense to me as the XP will be lower than that of the Virindi in the same area. I (being the wife Deiwos mentions) can take on 3-5 Virindi with little likelihood of being killed in that area - you won't catch me taking on Biakas alone :) How do these balance against the Virindi?

I certainly appreciate your explanation, Ibn. It's just as a person who has made all of my xp on my own (some vassal benefit - but vassals who were friends and I hunted with, not part of a chain), it is hard to understand why I'm going to be forced into Dungeons or VoD with big groups of fellows who may not share the same values as I to advance my skills.

The thing I have enjoyed the most about Caul is the opportunity to have smaller fellows with my friends and guildmates that provides us all, fun, lots of deaths and an XP return to boot.

I spend the majority of my time on AC involved in quests with guildmates that have the benefit of pure fun - which I truly love, but it was nice as a 126+ player to be able to enjoy hunting in a small group without resorting Lacuna or the Hive to work on skills.

One of my guildmates, Clav said it best I think:What I like best about Caul is that it's not mindless camping of an xp dungeon. You need to be in a fellow that can work together, you need to have a clue what you're doing and you can actually pick up some decent loot now and then.

Leveling is not the main focus of this game for me... but it pains me that most of the nerfs that have effected me in recent months were ones that are targeted to the people that abused the system.