> @oria1 said: > I have to say, I like how you people focus on the tree and miss the forest. You give suggestions that only match your specific needs in the name of some "equality" that somehow should be given and not earned. Equality is and should be in opportunity and not in possession. Equal opportunity and equal chance for all to build what we need. We must all have equal ways to ordain something IF we are to work, farm, grind, or even get lucky, EQUALLY. Spend same time, equally. If we all have equal chances then there is nothing to complain about. > > What you guys propose, to give you either "special" boons because you cant or wont be in a guild and you don't want to go the extra mile to team up and work and obtain it, or even ask to reduce the boons for the people that put the effort to get it, is just... > > We worked, organized, had fun, had bad moments, got tired, planned events and got fed up but at the end we managed to build what we have but yeah just because you started now, or you are "anti-guild" or don't want to do the grind or whatever other reason, you should have it for free. Because a level 20 guild was created on its own or it was easy and its not the "result" of a year or more of hard work of a huge group of people. The gems, surplus, gold, ad, campaign currencies (to name a few) grow on trees and we didn't have to do anything. Shame on us Rank 20 (or any rank) guilds for farming to have what we have. > > Well if we are to think like that, I don't want to do T9G so please put the best gears in MC or even in lvling dungeons. I don't have the time to go or build groups and do hard content and while we are at it make chests drop rank 12s too.... ain't nobody got time for this. > > To the subject > > On a maxed out char, bondings at best will give you 20k-25k power. Now assuming you have 40-50k (including guild boon) on your own char, you can get to a good 70-80k total. So bonding stones will give you 40% at best, more power. > Is this to much or not... up to debate. > > On the other hand, a dc, a pally and a sw can give you what? The combined total of 280k power, at least that's what I think I saw at peek on me. So 25k+8k = 33k power from one side and 200k from the other... which is bigger? > > Try this small test if you may: > Do a dungeon (even etos will do) without any kind of power sharing but with bonding 12s and guild boons enabled and keep a record of the time and min / max hits (and deaths :P) > Then do the same run with 1 or 2 or even 3 of the above classes and record again. > As a 3rd test remove bonding stones (and guild boons) and do the run again with above classes. > > (not talking about the buffs, just the power share) > > What do you think your results will be. I know mine... On my cw that I use the dancing shield and therefore my bonding stones proc defence my max power is 40k (with guild boon) and with 2 dc I'm getting to 140k. With pally in the mix 165k-170k. Pause for a second and think, from 40k SELF BUFFED to 170k... but yeah, bondings are the problem of the fast kills at the boss. > > Not the power share > Not the multiplicative buffs > Not the interactions with self buffs and skills/items > > Don't get me wrong I never did and never will call or ask for "nerfs" etc.Life is what it is and we get to play with whatever cards are dealt to us but when we are to examine a problem, we need to look at it from the right prospective. Bondings were created at an era that there were no powesharing from DC or paly or sw and same goes for loyal gears etc. With just them we are doing decent. The real problem for fast kills lays elsewhere. > > Edit: I forgot to add the MAJOR problem/bug/glitch/exploit/undocumented feature call it whatever, that power sharing also affects companions which also gives as twice the buff through bondings...
hit the nail on the head, the buffs from gf,dc,op are the problem not only do they give you crazy buffs but they give your companion crazy buffs as well which in turn give you even more buffs, bonding stones don't need to be touched, on my gwf with self buffs I do roughly 1.4 mill ibs but with a perfect group i can hit 40 mill ibs so go figure what's over powered
I don't mind a bonding nerf, return of augments, or no summoned companions at all for all I care. But, as long as:
1. I can trade back, or somehow get back the AD value of the bondings (or most of it). Yes, balance is expected in MMOs, buffs, nerfs, cost lost, but from expiriance, nothing here done in proportions or smoothly, everything is extremely heavy handed. And if someone thinks that loosing millions of AD over night, that took months to get, is a good idea, then sorry, and feel free to loose your AD and compensate my wallet.
2. Adaptation of dailies to the new realities. New zones are balanced for bondings in mind, without, it will take considerably more time to do dallies and progress in the campaigns. This should be adapted to maintain the as is "god save us from more grindy dailies" and not let it get to "kill me now, I'm not doing dailies".
3. Dungeons, raids, etc.. Here and unlike the dailies, I personally don't want difficulty adjustment, IMO, while some dungeons can / should be short others should be long and difficult. I don't see an issue of doing a dungeon for few hours. But (Yes a but again), the rewards should reflect this. And not in some peridots or r5. Nerf power creep, no problem, nerf bondings, no problem, nerf classes, ok, make the runs difficult and long with some wipes and pug tears, great, but the reward should reflect this.
1. totally agree. 2. totally agree 3. agree with some caveats that kind of apply to the first two as well.
that big caveat is: when has cryptic actually changed reward trees meaningfully. so we all pressure ok if you're going to make this super difficult make the rewards better. cryptic.. *dragging feet.. yeah ok we can do that a little* 1 week later reverted to peridots and r5s....
they have done something along the lines of recompense in the past but iirc the recompense wasn't in the millions it would have to be in here. and for pc especially.. are they really going to give everyone the 6-8 million ad with the ad problems they already have?
I for one will be furious if the SH boons are nerfed. Some of us built the SH prior to AD vouchers and dumped MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pure AD into that HAMSTER coffer. We grinded the HAMSTER out of dragonflight and influence to get what was advertised. Find another way to correct the issues you've introduced when it comes to the SH boons.
As for bondings, at one time it would have upset me terribly to see a nerf come to these stones. Not so much anymore. I'm not rocking the end game content I once was.
1
arcanjo86Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,093Arc User
Considering how bonding runestones only come from zen shop purchases(originally, they can be listed on the AH after that) as far as I know it will really PO a lot of people if they nerf them.
specially players that spent real money on lockbox keys to upgrade bondings and see all that money spent thrown away.
4
arcanjo86Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,093Arc User
u do ELOL, VT, MC, ETOS, ECC, EGWD, CN faster with R12 BONdings for sure, but if Bonding are getting a nerf, they should start thinking about making the game more alts chars friendly, because without bonding u barelly cant help alts progress furtter and let players stuck on the 30minutes dungeon (Estimated times from the queue list), 2x30 dungeons+2x30skirmish +1h+ dailies and weekly quest this just on one toon without bondigs, add 7 more toons to that and u cant do all 8 class toons, it will drain a players life, and why alt friendly because im the kind of player that like to have all classes available for dungeons, nowadays we lack on dc players and tanks, having bondings helped me get my dc/op/gf on good way to recent end content areas(had help from other players when not using bondings), making it nerfed to a useless point will basicly ruin the game for me.
0
arcanjo86Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,093Arc User
tell them make eldricht runestone to work on both ofence and defence slots like bondings ^^
0
arcanjo86Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,093Arc User
I for one will be furious if the SH boons are nerfed. Some of us built the SH prior to AD vouchers and dumped MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pure AD into that HAMSTER coffer. We grinded the HAMSTER out of dragonflight and influence to get what was advertised. Find another way to correct the issues you've introduced when it comes to the SH boons.
As for bondings, at one time it would have upset me terribly to see a nerf come to these stones. Not so much anymore. I'm not rocking the end game content I once was.
even farming T2 dungeons for epic gear drop+ seal of the protector shoppping gear to donate to sh coffers because back then its salvage values was the same as the blue gear salvage, all that work lots of us at maxed guild did and to get to this time of the game and be waste of time with a nerf
"He has a shiny trophy and I do not. I want a shiny trophy!!" this is mostly what I am reading. Bonding stones are not the problem and never have been. The buffing system in this game is really out of whack and needs addressed first and foremost (maybe make buffs additive rather than multiplicative) then maybe fix some of the exploitable items in game that everybody knows about and never mentions on the forums. Lone wolfers join a guild for the love of the Gods and reap the benefits (MMOs are not single player games).
They should not nerf anything but implement harder content for people that Cryptic feels they are overpowered. They made us grind our HAMSTER off for SH boons and we are grinding AD trying to trade or buy those bonding stones... I don't see it as a problem. I think about it as a goal for my character. Then if everything is too easy... well, their job is to give us content and ours is to complete that content. You feel overpowered ? well, you can still try to solo every dungeon and have a good challenge.
@nitocris83 this rumour is making the rounds in facebook groups too, it's probably worth an official response as the usual paranoia is manifesting.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
1
mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
"He has a shiny trophy and I do not. I want a shiny trophy!!" this is mostly what I am reading. Bonding stones are not the problem and never have been. The buffing system in this game is really out of whack and needs addressed first and foremost (maybe make buffs additive rather than multiplicative) then maybe fix some of the exploitable items in game that everybody knows about and never mentions on the forums. Lone wolfers join a guild for the love of the Gods and reap the benefits (MMOs are not single player games).
if you mention exploit in forum is against the rules.
... We must all have equal ways to ordain something IF we are to work, farm, grind, or even get lucky, EQUALLY. Spend same time, equally. ... What you guys propose, to give you either "special" boons because you cant or wont be in a guild and you don't want to go the extra mile to team up and work and obtain it, or even ask to reduce the boons for the people that put the effort to get it, is just...
We worked, organized, had fun, had bad moments, got tired, planned events and got fed up but at the end we managed to build what we have but yeah just because you started now, or you are "anti-guild" or don't want to do the grind or whatever other reason, you should have it for free. Because a level 20 guild was created on its own or it was easy and its not the "result" of a year or more of hard work of a huge group of people. The gems, surplus, gold, ad, campaign currencies (to name a few) grow on trees and we didn't have to do anything. Shame on us Rank 20 (or any rank) guilds for farming to have what we have. ....
The problem is this: a player that joins lvl 20 guild did ZERO work/ZERO time/ZERO money and now has all the benefits from SH boons (which are HUGE). Another problem: a player in a low lvl guild that spend time/money to get items/bondings is still inferior to a player that is in lvl 20 guild, at some point a player of low lvl guild gets tired of farming SH boons and decides to join lvl 20 guild since the difference of boon bonuses is so huge that he can't ignore it.
And...your point being? You peeps should be happy that there are other peeps that grind their asses off. You get the benefits from other's hard work. These posts to nerf SH are probably coming from guild hoppers that get booted for not contributing.
1
valynstarfireMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 100Arc User
@robai, that is personal choices people have to make, fair or not.
SH Boons, nerfing the effects of SH Boons would be spitting in the face of those who worked hard to get them. I have toons in a Lvl 20 Guild, and (mostly) in a Lvl 13 Guild. Reducing either, I think will cause WAY too many people to get upset.
To those saying Bonding Stones are too powerful, meh. Maybe they are powerful, but perhaps it is more because of other factors that people were talking about with power/stat sharing. I have 1 toon out of 11 that has a full set of R12 Bonding Runestones, and am just starting a new set on another. I have no intention or desire to take that 1 set and bounce them around from character to character to have use them on everyone. If you do so, like the first line of this, that is your personal choice, and I will not fault anyone for whichever path they want to take.
To those saying don't compare Companions with Bondings to Augments, no, they should be compared some. All are companions. And I have a suggestion to buff Augments, but yet still keep Bondings as THE best, after all, people spent time and money getting them as high as they have.
This way, upgrading Augments provide a real benefit, not just a minor increase (overall) in their stats. And as I stated, this does not make Augments more powerful than Bondings, it just gives people more of an option.
Just my opinion, however, if you do like my suggestion on buffing Augments, pass it along, mention it in multiple places, even if you claim it for your own idea, I don't care.
0
valynstarfireMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 100Arc User
Oh, and to some of those posting about this, there has already been talks of increasing the level limit, and in all probability, they have worked on it some. I expect it to come within the next 2 full modules. I can hope that the process is better than the disaster that was Mod6.
The level increase will help reset the power creep. I don't necessarily look forward to it, especially if we go back to where you need better gear than what the dungeons reward you with to actually complete the dungeon. Will I automatically leave, no, I will give it a chance. Take it for what it is, and see how it fits for me. I think everyone should try the same.
However, if you want to just give up then, plz, feel free to pass me all your stuff. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx
"He has a shiny trophy and I do not. I want a shiny trophy!!" this is mostly what I am reading. Bonding stones are not the problem and never have been. The buffing system in this game is really out of whack and needs addressed first and foremost (maybe make buffs additive rather than multiplicative) then maybe fix some of the exploitable items in game that everybody knows about and never mentions on the forums. Lone wolfers join a guild for the love of the Gods and reap the benefits (MMOs are not single player games).
if you mention exploit in forum is against the rules.
exploit exploit exploit
3
santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Oh, and to some of those posting about this, there has already been talks of increasing the level limit, and in all probability, they have worked on it some. I expect it to come within the next 2 full modules. I can hope that the process is better than the disaster that was Mod6.
The level increase will help reset the power creep. I don't necessarily look forward to it, especially if we go back to where you need better gear than what the dungeons reward you with to actually complete the dungeon. Will I automatically leave, no, I will give it a chance. Take it for what it is, and see how it fits for me. I think everyone should try the same.
However, if you want to just give up then, plz, feel free to pass me all your stuff. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx
Don't know that I'd make it through another level cap raise. Not unless something was learned from the last one.
I think a mild nerf on bondings would be ok, and a slight boost to augments would be nice as well.
Bondings: I think a fair reduction would be lowering the % shared per rank by 5% which would make the stats 20 / 30 / 40 (surpassing augment here at Greater) / 50 / 60 / 70% at r12. This would reduce their effectiveness at r12 to 210% shared. Down by ~26%, but still really good.
Augments: I don't know if augments need an extra % shared (if bondings are lowered), but something that could help them is by truly making them (effectively) extra gear slots on the character that would proc any special effects (like UD rings, Chult jewelry, etc) as if the character were wearing the gear themselves. This would give them a niche that bondings can't give.
Nerfing SH boons: I know it apparently means I'm a loser that should play a different game, but I'm one of those evil solo players. That said, I DO NOT think SH boons should be reduced. That would be super, super uncool. They should have never been that good in the first place, but no, it's done, it is what it is, it needs to stay. What needs to be done is provide individuals (solo or small guild) a means to catch up with them. No, it shouldn't be easy, it should probably be insultingly difficult, but IT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE. I mean, come on, it's been 2 years.
Suggesting changes to bondings and strongholds after the money has already been collected and put in the bank for them makes me very cynical. Cryptic has been taking our time/money for these for how long now, and now they need a nerf? Come on.
The power coming from these expensive investments has been obvious from day one, so there is no credible way to play the 'we only just noticed how strong they are and have to make adjustments' card now. If you're going to sell character power like this, you can't take it away again once you have the money; all that does is make people mad with you and train them not to spend (either by staying and not paying, or going somewhere else where they don't feel like they're being taken advantage of for investing time/money in your game).
This suggestion is even more on the nose after additional power from companions has just been introduced in the form of extra bonuses from multiple legendary companions. Cryptic was so concerned about there being too much character power from companions, it decided that selling us even more of it was a good idea? Why would you add this if you thought companions are already giving too much power? Oh right, because you like taking our money.
If Mod 6 taught you anything, it should be that balancing for the top few percent of the game will only make the rest of the community very unhappy, with bad consequences for the size of your customer base. And I say that as someone who played through those changes, resisted the move to bondings on 2/3 of my characters, and does not belong to a high level guild.
My advice is that it's not good business to treat your customers like this. Stop trying to change the deal once you've gotten what you wanted from it. It's only going to get worse if these nerfs are immediately followed by some new addition to the game that brings us back to where we were power-wise and, surprise surprise, requires us to spend more money.
The game would be served much better by treating boons and bondings as they are as part of the game and balancing future content around them. Even after playing this game for years, I'm still really surprised that there aren't higher difficulty settings in dungeons for players who want more challenge (as opposed to players who say they want more challenge, but actually mean they want more loot too).
The problem is this: a player that joins lvl 20 guild did ZERO work/ZERO time/ZERO money and now has all the benefits from SH boons (which are HUGE). Another problem: a player in a low lvl guild that spend time/money to get items/bondings is still inferior to a player that is in lvl 20 guild, at some point a player of low lvl guild gets tired of farming SH boons and decides to join lvl 20 guild since the difference of boon bonuses is so huge that he can't ignore it.
What makes you think that if you join a r20 guild you stop giving or helping? In ours and lots of other guilds that I know and talk with other guild leaders, the stream of donations keeps going, and only the older members that helped build the guild have no obligations anymore.
What do you think? I just invite anyone to sit and do nothing? is that what you think will happen if you join a r20 guild? And when they will add new things for SH? you think they wont do anything then? We always keep building and maxing out the rest of structures or even few guilds started a 2nd guild to have explorers and/or space for more donations/members/alts. No one rides for free.
Even if that's was the case, for how many people do you think a guild has room for? there must be like 30 guilds at r20 each one has easy 130+ active accounts that helped the guild lvl. Most every guild also keeps 3-4 spots for just in case. That leaves 15 accounts per guild. 30 X 15 = 450 people out of how many thousands. and that is if we assume all r20 guilds want to be full which is hardly the truth.
I like how you think that because a low IL player will decide to join a r20 guild... he will. Then why don't you all decide that and see how it will work out. There are screening processes to most r20 guilds and it goes way beyond IL. but keep in mind that most don't even accept people below a certain IL point and its rare to make exceptions.
To conclude, Guild and Boons are 2 things that we build and it belongs to us. As such, we decide IF and to WHO we want to give or share with. That also includes way more things than boons. Otherwise we should stop giving items or enchants too, or share knowledge or have guild events. If we give a rank 12 to someone its unfair to you right? That player didn't work or pay for it either. I guess we should give a r12 to everyone to keep it fair. If we share a build that most others don't know and that person does well??? Said player didn't spend 100s of hours testing so he doesn't deserve it either. Why should anyone have benefits from joining a guild...
The boons its not a HUGE as you make it appear. Its hardly 20% more damage, the wheel of elements will give you that much. It does help but its not game breaking.
Raising lvl cap wont do a thing. If they combine it, like last time, with new ranks for enchants etc, it will get even worse. Some long time players will have BIS gear in a matter of weeks. More reasonable players will have BIS with the next 2x refine WE. The majority of new and casual players will wonder, why everything is so difficult and the BIS players will keep demanding more challenging content. BIS DCs sharing 100k unbuffed power while the rest struggles to reach 40k, great way, to level up the playing field.
The problem is this: a player that joins lvl 20 guild did ZERO work/ZERO time/ZERO money and now has all the benefits from SH boons (which are HUGE).
What makes you think that if you join a r20 guild you stop giving or helping? In ours and lots of other guilds that I know and talk with other guild leaders, the stream of donations keeps going, and only the older members that helped build the guild have no obligations anymore.
I would also add that some r20 guilds have an entry fee of some sort that is valued at millions in AD. To say a person can just go join any r20 guild for nothing is a gross understatement.
Bondings are broken because they come from Zen market. They must have been broken to motivate for purchases.
The problem with runestones is that you have many possibilities to give your companion meagre stat inctrease, or you have one possibility to give it high boost and transferable bonus to yourself in one go. Choose wisely.
So, the obvious solution would be to rework all runestones that (on rank 12) would split into following categories: 1. high boost for one stat, low bonding capability 2. low stat boost, high bonding capability 3. augmets in my opinion should not fall too behind the best bonding effect - as such companion brings just the stat boost, no activated benefit/or at least death of your companion should immediately result in terminating of the bonding effect But hey, that would be logical, supported diversity and nothing would be implicitly "the best", so no chance in happening.
SH boons - I feel that it is a problem, as they are too significant. You can skip Sharandar or something like that and you are OK, leave SH and you feel it badly.
Comments
> I have to say, I like how you people focus on the tree and miss the forest. You give suggestions that only match your specific needs in the name of some "equality" that somehow should be given and not earned. Equality is and should be in opportunity and not in possession. Equal opportunity and equal chance for all to build what we need. We must all have equal ways to ordain something IF we are to work, farm, grind, or even get lucky, EQUALLY. Spend same time, equally. If we all have equal chances then there is nothing to complain about.
>
> What you guys propose, to give you either "special" boons because you cant or wont be in a guild and you don't want to go the extra mile to team up and work and obtain it, or even ask to reduce the boons for the people that put the effort to get it, is just...
>
> We worked, organized, had fun, had bad moments, got tired, planned events and got fed up but at the end we managed to build what we have but yeah just because you started now, or you are "anti-guild" or don't want to do the grind or whatever other reason, you should have it for free. Because a level 20 guild was created on its own or it was easy and its not the "result" of a year or more of hard work of a huge group of people. The gems, surplus, gold, ad, campaign currencies (to name a few) grow on trees and we didn't have to do anything. Shame on us Rank 20 (or any rank) guilds for farming to have what we have.
>
> Well if we are to think like that, I don't want to do T9G so please put the best gears in MC or even in lvling dungeons. I don't have the time to go or build groups and do hard content and while we are at it make chests drop rank 12s too.... ain't nobody got time for this.
>
> To the subject
>
> On a maxed out char, bondings at best will give you 20k-25k power. Now assuming you have 40-50k (including guild boon) on your own char, you can get to a good 70-80k total. So bonding stones will give you 40% at best, more power.
> Is this to much or not... up to debate.
>
> On the other hand, a dc, a pally and a sw can give you what? The combined total of 280k power, at least that's what I think I saw at peek on me. So 25k+8k = 33k power from one side and 200k from the other... which is bigger?
>
> Try this small test if you may:
> Do a dungeon (even etos will do) without any kind of power sharing but with bonding 12s and guild boons enabled and keep a record of the time and min / max hits (and deaths :P)
> Then do the same run with 1 or 2 or even 3 of the above classes and record again.
> As a 3rd test remove bonding stones (and guild boons) and do the run again with above classes.
>
> (not talking about the buffs, just the power share)
>
> What do you think your results will be. I know mine... On my cw that I use the dancing shield and therefore my bonding stones proc defence my max power is 40k (with guild boon) and with 2 dc I'm getting to 140k. With pally in the mix 165k-170k. Pause for a second and think, from 40k SELF BUFFED to 170k... but yeah, bondings are the problem of the fast kills at the boss.
>
> Not the power share
> Not the multiplicative buffs
> Not the interactions with self buffs and skills/items
>
> Don't get me wrong I never did and never will call or ask for "nerfs" etc.Life is what it is and we get to play with whatever cards are dealt to us but when we are to examine a problem, we need to look at it from the right prospective. Bondings were created at an era that there were no powesharing from DC or paly or sw and same goes for loyal gears etc. With just them we are doing decent. The real problem for fast kills lays elsewhere.
>
> Edit: I forgot to add the MAJOR problem/bug/glitch/exploit/undocumented feature call it whatever, that power sharing also affects companions which also gives as twice the buff through bondings...
hit the nail on the head, the buffs from gf,dc,op are the problem not only do they give you crazy buffs but they give your companion crazy buffs as well which in turn give you even more buffs, bonding stones don't need to be touched, on my gwf with self buffs I do roughly 1.4 mill ibs but with a perfect group i can hit 40 mill ibs so go figure what's over powered
2. totally agree
3. agree with some caveats that kind of apply to the first two as well.
that big caveat is: when has cryptic actually changed reward trees meaningfully. so we all pressure ok if you're going to make this super difficult make the rewards better. cryptic.. *dragging feet.. yeah ok we can do that a little* 1 week later reverted to peridots and r5s....
they have done something along the lines of recompense in the past but iirc the recompense wasn't in the millions it would have to be in here. and for pc especially.. are they really going to give everyone the 6-8 million ad with the ad problems they already have?
As for bondings, at one time it would have upset me terribly to see a nerf come to these stones. Not so much anymore. I'm not rocking the end game content I once was.
They made us grind our HAMSTER off for SH boons and we are grinding AD trying to trade or buy those bonding stones... I don't see it as a problem. I think about it as a goal for my character.
Then if everything is too easy... well, their job is to give us content and ours is to complete that content.
You feel overpowered ? well, you can still try to solo every dungeon and have a good challenge.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Another problem: a player in a low lvl guild that spend time/money to get items/bondings is still inferior to a player that is in lvl 20 guild, at some point a player of low lvl guild gets tired of farming SH boons and decides to join lvl 20 guild since the difference of boon bonuses is so huge that he can't ignore it.
SH Boons, nerfing the effects of SH Boons would be spitting in the face of those who worked hard to get them. I have toons in a Lvl 20 Guild, and (mostly) in a Lvl 13 Guild. Reducing either, I think will cause WAY too many people to get upset.
To those saying Bonding Stones are too powerful, meh. Maybe they are powerful, but perhaps it is more because of other factors that people were talking about with power/stat sharing. I have 1 toon out of 11 that has a full set of R12 Bonding Runestones, and am just starting a new set on another. I have no intention or desire to take that 1 set and bounce them around from character to character to have use them on everyone. If you do so, like the first line of this, that is your personal choice, and I will not fault anyone for whichever path they want to take.
To those saying don't compare Companions with Bondings to Augments, no, they should be compared some. All are companions. And I have a suggestion to buff Augments, but yet still keep Bondings as THE best, after all, people spent time and money getting them as high as they have.
Common/Uncommon 100% Stats
Rare 115% Stats
Epic 130% Stats
This way, upgrading Augments provide a real benefit, not just a minor increase (overall) in their stats. And as I stated, this does not make Augments more powerful than Bondings, it just gives people more of an option.
Just my opinion, however, if you do like my suggestion on buffing Augments, pass it along, mention it in multiple places, even if you claim it for your own idea, I don't care.
The level increase will help reset the power creep. I don't necessarily look forward to it, especially if we go back to where you need better gear than what the dungeons reward you with to actually complete the dungeon. Will I automatically leave, no, I will give it a chance. Take it for what it is, and see how it fits for me. I think everyone should try the same.
However, if you want to just give up then, plz, feel free to pass me all your stuff.
xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx
Bondings: I think a fair reduction would be lowering the % shared per rank by 5% which would make the stats 20 / 30 / 40 (surpassing augment here at Greater) / 50 / 60 / 70% at r12. This would reduce their effectiveness at r12 to 210% shared. Down by ~26%, but still really good.
Augments: I don't know if augments need an extra % shared (if bondings are lowered), but something that could help them is by truly making them (effectively) extra gear slots on the character that would proc any special effects (like UD rings, Chult jewelry, etc) as if the character were wearing the gear themselves. This would give them a niche that bondings can't give.
Nerfing SH boons: I know it apparently means I'm a loser that should play a different game, but I'm one of those evil solo players. That said, I DO NOT think SH boons should be reduced. That would be super, super uncool. They should have never been that good in the first place, but no, it's done, it is what it is, it needs to stay. What needs to be done is provide individuals (solo or small guild) a means to catch up with them. No, it shouldn't be easy, it should probably be insultingly difficult, but IT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE. I mean, come on, it's been 2 years.
The power coming from these expensive investments has been obvious from day one, so there is no credible way to play the 'we only just noticed how strong they are and have to make adjustments' card now. If you're going to sell character power like this, you can't take it away again once you have the money; all that does is make people mad with you and train them not to spend (either by staying and not paying, or going somewhere else where they don't feel like they're being taken advantage of for investing time/money in your game).
This suggestion is even more on the nose after additional power from companions has just been introduced in the form of extra bonuses from multiple legendary companions. Cryptic was so concerned about there being too much character power from companions, it decided that selling us even more of it was a good idea? Why would you add this if you thought companions are already giving too much power? Oh right, because you like taking our money.
If Mod 6 taught you anything, it should be that balancing for the top few percent of the game will only make the rest of the community very unhappy, with bad consequences for the size of your customer base. And I say that as someone who played through those changes, resisted the move to bondings on 2/3 of my characters, and does not belong to a high level guild.
My advice is that it's not good business to treat your customers like this. Stop trying to change the deal once you've gotten what you wanted from it. It's only going to get worse if these nerfs are immediately followed by some new addition to the game that brings us back to where we were power-wise and, surprise surprise, requires us to spend more money.
The game would be served much better by treating boons and bondings as they are as part of the game and balancing future content around them. Even after playing this game for years, I'm still really surprised that there aren't higher difficulty settings in dungeons for players who want more challenge (as opposed to players who say they want more challenge, but actually mean they want more loot too).
Thanks.
What do you think? I just invite anyone to sit and do nothing? is that what you think will happen if you join a r20 guild? And when they will add new things for SH? you think they wont do anything then? We always keep building and maxing out the rest of structures or even few guilds started a 2nd guild to have explorers and/or space for more donations/members/alts. No one rides for free.
Even if that's was the case, for how many people do you think a guild has room for? there must be like 30 guilds at r20 each one has easy 130+ active accounts that helped the guild lvl. Most every guild also keeps 3-4 spots for just in case. That leaves 15 accounts per guild. 30 X 15 = 450 people out of how many thousands. and that is if we assume all r20 guilds want to be full which is hardly the truth.
I like how you think that because a low IL player will decide to join a r20 guild... he will. Then why don't you all decide that and see how it will work out. There are screening processes to most r20 guilds and it goes way beyond IL. but keep in mind that most don't even accept people below a certain IL point and its rare to make exceptions.
To conclude, Guild and Boons are 2 things that we build and it belongs to us. As such, we decide IF and to WHO we want to give or share with. That also includes way more things than boons. Otherwise we should stop giving items or enchants too, or share knowledge or have guild events. If we give a rank 12 to someone its unfair to you right? That player didn't work or pay for it either. I guess we should give a r12 to everyone to keep it fair. If we share a build that most others don't know and that person does well??? Said player didn't spend 100s of hours testing so he doesn't deserve it either. Why should anyone have benefits from joining a guild...
The boons its not a HUGE as you make it appear. Its hardly 20% more damage, the wheel of elements will give you that much. It does help but its not game breaking.
I would also add that some r20 guilds have an entry fee of some sort that is valued at millions in AD. To say a person can just go join any r20 guild for nothing is a gross understatement.
The problem with runestones is that you have many possibilities to give your companion meagre stat inctrease, or you have one possibility to give it high boost and transferable bonus to yourself in one go. Choose wisely.
So, the obvious solution would be to rework all runestones that (on rank 12) would split into following categories:
1. high boost for one stat, low bonding capability
2. low stat boost, high bonding capability
3. augmets in my opinion should not fall too behind the best bonding effect - as such companion brings just the stat boost, no activated benefit/or at least death of your companion should immediately result in terminating of the bonding effect
But hey, that would be logical, supported diversity and nothing would be implicitly "the best", so no chance in happening.
SH boons - I feel that it is a problem, as they are too significant. You can skip Sharandar or something like that and you are OK, leave SH and you feel it badly.