Hey there. Pls reconsider the uptime thing. U can nerf the bonding stones if u have to but changing it to 50% uptime sucks. Players hate unreliable stats. U cant work with them
Well in that case DEV TEAM, I just want to thank you for wasting the last 4-5 months of my life as I worked toiled tooth and nail for hours upon hours grinding AD (and on top of that bought Zen) in order to obtain rank 12 bondings for 4 of my alts FINALLY after 2 years of play. Now I can look forward to being weaker than before instead of enjoying stronger characters following all my hard work.
Not only that but I will have to make gear changes on every character since all have bonding powered Armor Pen.
I am not sure I will be able to play without disgust after all this goes down. Great work!
Came here to ask about if the legendary pets bonus will apply 100% of the time for bonding companions, or if that will now be 50% uptime too?
Also I have to say, please don't make this change. Its really not needed. Bondings are great and that's why people have spent so much time on money getting them. All you need to do is boost augments, and really is that even needed? there are still people who use them in there current state.
Please, please, please, don't pull the rug from everyone who put so much into this. Thanks.
There are currently 8 Bulette pups in the AH, the cheapest (a green) is 1.7mil AD. A single Rank 12 Eldritch runestone (2 in AH) are 5mil AD. Save up or buy zen guys cause BIS augment option is going to be expensive and HARD to come by.
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
I've been investing time and REAL MONEY into these Bonding Stones. For you to make such an enormous change in these items after so much of my time and money have gone into buying Coalescent Stones from the Zen market to get to where I am with them currently, I'm seriously thinking I need to find a new game. I can understand a minor shift for balancing reasons but there isn't even that in this change. You are going to break this game.
That argument boils down to, "You can never change the meta of a MMO because people invest in that meta."
They're not breaking the game, they're fixing an imbalance between similar-yet-different game mechanisms. Your investment in bondings won't suddenly be wasted money. They will be more in balance with other, similar options.
You cannot break a meta by replacing it with another. Eldritch Runestones, Bulette pups am guessing will be the next BiS items. There might be a little variation on that, the problem is, most people in this game just want the optimum builds, wrong or right. Nerfing the duration and their percentage effectiveness is probably going to kill their use for most people. Before we had self reviving companions, most would opt for augments.
The amount of times you hear people say what's the best pet I should use really showsd this, they didn't care about pets that enhanced their own builds, they just wanted optimum pets. I guess we won't be hearing those questions as much, or when we do the reply will be, buy a stone.
I wonder if you have considered how these changes impact the Paladin class.
After multiple 'rebalances' the Protection Paladin has managed to establish a build where it can match the Guardian Fighter in buffing capability through Aura Gifts. The power sharing from this was increased significantly via bonding stones.
These changes will not only reduce the Paladins ability to buff, but also their ability to survive, as power is the only stat that increases the effectiveness of Templars Wrath (temp health gain).
If the Paladin is to survive this change you will need to look at their ability to offer a viable alternative to the GF in terms of group benefit. Personally, I will be considering stripping my 15.3k OP and moving all of his r12 enchantments to my 11k Guardian Fighter.
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
These changes are too much. Here's all you have to do:
Change (nerf) the stat ratio from the current 400 points = 1% to 600-800 points = 1% No other nerfs. Players will be unhappy but then add in rank 14 enchantments so that players can get power back. It will give us a new goal to work towards. Nerfing bonding uptime will anger too many players. Who will spend money to upgrade bondings when they only have 50% uptime? How will my dps characters survive solo in Chult when my bondings are down? They wont. Do you how many cryptic developers were fired due to past mistakes? Do you know how many new mmo's are coming out soon? Tread lightly, very lightly.
Great, "fix" something that will HAMSTER off pretty much everyone who plays that is not a new player. Here's an idea, fix something that is really broken like the TR class doing 60% less DPS than a comparable GWF (and I have both and do dps test them thank you very much). That would make people HAPPY and not quit.
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
Could we get a vendor with whom we can trade our bonding runestones for other runestones of equal level, please? I don't remember the new rp salvage value of a r12, but I would imagine it's somewhere between too low and "doubt I'll ever buy Zen again, thanks for asking".
I'm disappointed to go back to a design where only one pet is BiS. It's going to be just armies of baby bulettes from here on, or whatever other augment gets released with three defensive slots. It kills all variety in the game and needlessly so.
It went from augments to pets to augments again. It's the same thing, just the pendulum swings the other way.
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frozenfirevrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,475Community Moderator
If you guys go ahead with this you will lose aloooooot of players
If Mod 6 couldn't kill this game, I very much doubt this will.
What's the problem with Mod 6 anyways? I never felt anything wrong with it (I play only on one character)... Dungeons going away? Dungeons going away didn't have any financial implication for the people... They didn't lose what they had.
As someone that always rage and throw my toys out of the basket i have to say I am going to be cautiosly optimistic about the changes.
Firstly i think it would be nice to be able to move the rp currency between toons like you do with gold or ad using bank.(evetnhough that is not happening)
The new refinement process does seem that it might be easier to understand for new members though this will destroy weapon and armor enchant prices. I think this is good too : )
The nerf of bonding is a bad thing for me but i guess we will survive .... i will just not be able to do To9G anymore.
The one thing that bugs me though is the timing of this anouncement if i knew about this before the drop of mod 12 and companion changes i would not have upgraded my current main companion and saved at least 1.5 mil AD. This is not a good thing.
The removal of 2X refinement wil seriously hamper new players and low level players in their attempt to get their weapons,neck and waist upgraded. that is not a good idea and maybe should be reconcidered ... mayby just have 2X ref work on your artifact gear.
EDIT : Oh and before i forget how will this affect leadership now will it be completely useless or still be able to make rp items like res bags .
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Does the change to bondings mean you’re going to rebalance the Tier 3 and Tier 4 dungeons? Because as it stands the level of difficulty of the dungeons are balanced with the stat boost of the bondings. If the bondings stat boost was to be brought down to 195% instead of 285% it would still be functional, but by cutting the bonding’s uptime in half it means the whole difficulty of the new dungeons need to be readjusted down to a Tier 2 level.
Se my comment earlier in the thread. We are getting a nice power boost from the r14's, so in the end the change in player combat power might even be positive.
We'll have to put in a lot of work/money to grow into that power though.
If you think an extra few stats from rank 14s is going to compensate for Bondings, then you you might want to recheck exactly how many stats bondings give.
The final fight in Tomb does not leave you with much room for error. The group can make 1, maybe 2 mistakes. The lower stats (even with Rank 14s), means fights will be longer and therefore there is a higher rate of error/mistakes. The end game dungeons will have to be tweaked when these changes go live.
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
I think it worth considering the total game player combat power situation.
They are giving us a fair bit of more combat power from the r14's. So even if the bondings are nerfed the total change in player combat power might not be negative but could even be positive.
Of course we will have to work to grow into that combat power, but that is the nature of mmorpg's.
It is unlikely they would have given us the r14's without the bondings nerf, that would make the players way too powerful versus the content.
With this change we'll have to chose between bursty boost from bondings, and somewhat lower but reliable boost from augments, with both more or less at same total value.
We're raging now, but once we see the stats on our character sheets and know what we have to aim for am guessing we'll calm down a great deal. If Bulette pups are going to be the new meta, they are going to be as expensive as Legendary mounts.
The only way I can think of preventing this is either increase the numbers of Bulette in the game, promoting a a new meta almost identical to Bondings we have now or remove the ArP stat from Eldritch Runestones, and have them provide % increase regardless of whether it is slotted in an offense or defense slot.
ArP boons in many guilds will now make ArP a redundant stat if the power you can get get from enchantments greatly overperform a guilds power boon. This will also mean, people will avoid armor with ArP stat just like they do now with Regeneration. So as it stands currently, when this nerf hits, Regeneration and ArP removal from player priorities will make building a character easier unless the items with the most Crit come with ArP.
We'll likely have enough ArP with the guild boon to last us to mod 20, Enchantments that provide ArP Like Darks and Savages will likely fall by the wayside although their Defensive stats will provide some protection for their continued use.
If you go through with this, there is only one companion that is Best-in-Slot and it's the Bulette Pup because all other augments have at least one offensive slot. To get the maximum stats, a player needs the 100% from an augment plus the combined 76.5% from three Eldritch Runestones... which is more than the average stat boost of 97.5% from the bonding runestones because of the halved duration. Please, consider this through. Do we really have to go back to a system where only one choice is the best one?
A Rank 12 Eldritch currently only provides a 12% Augmentation Boost if loaded in Defense slot. You also don't get a +840 buff and only a +700 if loaded in Offence but then you loose the Augmentation.
With the new stats (from the technical thread), a rank 14 will give 25.5%, Hence and Augment with 3x Defense will give 176.5% with 100% up time. ANd there is only 1 augment that has 3 defense slots.
"> @strathkin said: > A Rank 12 Eldritch currently only provides a 12% Augmentation Boost if loaded in Defense slot. You also don't get a +840 buff and only a +700 if loaded in Offence but then you loose the Augmentation."
Yes. But with the proposed changes and fully upgraded, it will be 25.5%.
Also, This needs to be addressed, Have you guys already fixed the LEGENDARY BONUS from companions? Implementing this current change on top of a not smoothened out still buggy "FEATURE" will just cause headaches not only for us players but for you developers too since this will surely cause unintended stuff. Kindly update us. Thank you.
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Less than 1 % of the player base will now be able to play tomb of the nine gods ... this is bad it will widen the gap between bis and medium level players. and medium players will get agrevated because they are un able to progress due to inability to do t09g
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
If you guys go ahead with this you will lose aloooooot of players
If Mod 6 couldn't kill this game, I very much doubt this will.
What's the problem with Mod 6 anyways? I never felt anything wrong with it (I play only on one character)... Dungeons going away? Dungeons going away didn't have any financial implication for the people... They didn't lose what they had.
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Less than 1 % of the player base will now be able to play tomb of the nine gods ... this is bad it will widen the gap between bis and medium level players. and medium players will get agrevated because they are un able to progress due to inability to do t09g
I don't know where this 1% stat is coming from. And I also don't understand how players who don't run tomb are held in progress. It's not like the gear or anything in to9g is essential to anything. If to9g is the most difficult dungeon in the game, I have no problem for it being exclusive. for time. It's not like everyone in GW2 is running fractal 100, and it's not like everyone in WoW is raiding everything.
As I said, I see a problem there, and it's the loot. Now, more than ever, we need more loot in chests.
This happens when developers make the mistake of creating something overpowered (speaking generally here, this is the case on every game). Players tend to make this a trend, ignoring all other options. After that the drama begins, leading to a dead end. Developers realise that this is too strong since no one is using anything else and decide to tone it down. On the other hand players scream murder because they invested money and resources for it. Both sides are right and some short of ugly compromise will be made, leaving everyone discontent. Sadly the blame belongs to the game company that acts with a short term "money grab" tactic, ignoring the long term consequences. One of the consequences from these changes is that a part of the playerbase decides to quit (I did on a different game some years ago). I don't have high level bondings, so I am not severly hurt, but I can understand the players who complain.
One solution I could suggest is to allow players to exchange their bonding stones with an equal level runestone of their choice.
1. I think it is quite amusing someone has started a "more I quite type comments" thread extracted from here. This reminds me a lot of what happened at mod 6. Don't laugh it off - I remember seeing my guild empty at mod6 - it was horrible and 95% of those people never came back. Please don't dump my comment there ....
2. I want to add my voice to those who are not happy with the bonding changes. You are already nerfing everyone's rank 12s by introducing rank 14s. Don't double nerf bonding - do boost other things. Make refinement simpler - that sounds like a good idea (as long as you can still move items around between toons). But refinement has, since the introduction of quartermaster's and wanderer's fortune, not been the bottleneck for progress.
Full disclosure - I have 4 sets of bondings, albeit only one set at rank 12s - I had planned to change that this weekend, but as you can guess there's no chance of me doing that now.
3. Uptime here is crucial - in the past when bondings had limited uptime they were a concious alternative to augements. As proposed they will simply be weaker and make it hard to use them to build effective toons. Unless you can control when you have the boost it becomes very very frustrating to use.
4. Content is built to take into account bondings at the moment. In our alliance there are still people who are struggling their way up doing ELOL, VT etc. Please make it easier for them to get up to the same level, do NOT take people who made investment down. I know lots of people who are not even being considered for groups in the new content and frankly the content is hard enough that it is near impossible to carry anyone. Your changes are not fixing that.
5. Refining DID need a change. But tbh you are not addressing the worst part of refining which is the success percentages of preservation wards. On first glance you go "oh - I can get to rank 12 easier" but that's not going the be the measure anymore. In fact, you have made it HARDER to get to BiS than ever! Unless you cut the price of pres and coal wards by 75% all you are doing is setting everyone back to have to struggle to reach the same point. This is not fun and is going to turn many players off. By all means streamline things and get rid of double RP. I hated the process as much as anyone.
6. This is a huge change. Please give it more time and seriously think about what you're looking at. Please consider boosting companions (all those with fixed stats are a waste at present) and fixing performance issues and bugs before making a change like this that will take a lot more energy to get right. Hell - bring back some of the old dungeons as epics - I am sure that'll be less work!
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Less than 1 % of the player base will now be able to play tomb of the nine gods ... this is bad it will widen the gap between bis and medium level players. and medium players will get agrevated because they are un able to progress due to inability to do t09g
I don't know where this 1% stat is coming from. And I also don't understand how players who don't run tomb are held in progress. It's not like the gear or anything in to9g is essential to anything. If to9g is the most difficult dungeon in the game, I have no problem for it being exclusive. for time. It's not like everyone in GW2 is running fractal 100, and it's not like everyone in WoW is raiding everything.
As I said, I see a problem there, and it's the loot. Now, more than ever, we need more loot in chests.
With this nerf, the hunt gear will be better. You get more crit, that you will lose a ton of, from the hunt gear.
And that's a bad thing? That BiS gear will be a little bit more than a super marginal upgrade? It will have more weight, but not having it will still not be essential to anything.
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Less than 1 % of the player base will now be able to play tomb of the nine gods ... this is bad it will widen the gap between bis and medium level players. and medium players will get agrevated because they are un able to progress due to inability to do t09g
I don't know where this 1% stat is coming from. And I also don't understand how players who don't run tomb are held in progress. It's not like the gear or anything in to9g is essential to anything. If to9g is the most difficult dungeon in the game, I have no problem for it being exclusive. for time. It's not like everyone in GW2 is running fractal 100, and it's not like everyone in WoW is raiding everything.
As I said, I see a problem there, and it's the loot. Now, more than ever, we need more loot in chests.
Seals of the brave = Primal gear = level 500 gear = higher il = some people want it.
I mean heck, when people are yelling all around + 15 k for this and this dungeon.. you start to laugh... and then you want higher IL...
If your mobs are getting killed too fast, there's a simple solution: Boost the mobs.
If your Bonding stones are outperforming your Eldritch runestones, and you don't like that, for some reason (despite it opening far more pets than having everyone rely on Augments does), then boost the Eldritch stones. No need to nerf the Bonding Stones.
Bondings far outperform everything else (I have them, I know first-hand). The design choices are to adjust bondings or to adjust everything else in the game.
Power is relative. Increasing mob defense and eldritch performance is the same thing as decreasing bonding performance.
Bringing bonding into the same general realm as other options increases player choice and can only benefit the game.
it's like a young DM playing D&D for the first time, who magics away the Paladin's +5 Holy Avenger out of jealously, because he thinks its his job to "beat" the player, rather than make sure everyone has a good time.
A good DM doesn't hand out a +5 Holy Avenger in the first place if the rest of the party has +1 Daggers, yet that's what happened when bondings went from being a trade-off to being the best choice under all circumstances. In a pen & paper game, it's easy enough for a DM to recover by letting the other party members find nice weapons of their own and toughening up the opposition. In a MMO, it's far more work and risk to rebalance everything around that one +5 Holy Avenger.
You're kidding right? Cryptic gave these out. When told there was no cooldown it was said to be WAI. Now it's not. And you say HAMSTER like "In a MMO, it's far more work and risk to rebalance everything around that one +5 Holy Avenger." Well guess what buddy? Cryptic has to do all of that anyway. Know why? Because everything endgame, literally every HAMSTER thing, was balanced not around an average team but a team all running 3xR12 bondings. So where's the rebalance for the massive nerf?
You say this introduces choices. I don't see that. You get the choice of a companion with bonding giving significantly less stats for what we already built, with less uptime, with the downsides of getting lost, randomly aggroing things, getting knocked off but oh maybe they have a debuff and maybe if supports time it well you get powersharing too.
Or you get an augment with 2 or 3 defense slots, and get constant stats, sure a bit less peak and no massive power sharing loop, but no random losing the stats, missing companions, aggroing HAMSTER or debuffs.
Why are they doing this vs buffing augments, why this vs making bonding less special and giving all runes the same effect as bonding but lowering the percentage overall as a total. Or hell, even make it the same but change the stat curve so it's 95% at 14. Or leave it 95% at 12, 13 and 14.
The point is, this is half assed and you know it. Without a full revamp and rebalance all this does is screw us and take our hard earned progress away. My fiancee and I have spent a few hundred on a game we enjoyed but if this goes through as is without a rebalance to content Cryptic can forget that. I won't be spending another dime. In fact I can't say for sure I'd even stick around if it goes through as is without a rebalance.
I was no reluctant to a slight nerf of bondings, but reducing both % and uptime duration is too much for me, sorry. Especially uptime. Complete non-sense.
I'm worried by this change. I'm not a BiS "end game" player, I've never been to FBI or SVA. I'm just an average Joe progressing through the game at a steady pace. On my main I've played all campaigns in order over the last year. This has me in Chult with a touch over the recommended 12k iLevel, including my R12 bondings. As solo player this content is challenging. To the point that if I'm tired or in some other way not on it then I have to go do something else because I spend too much time travelling between camp fires and the place I'm trying to get to. I like that. One shotting red caps isn't much fun. I may not be the most skilled player, or have a sub-optimal build. In my experience that makes me pretty typical. If I loose 50% up time on my bondings plus reduced stats. I suspect I will have to retreat from Chult all together. I like to play the solo content and if I'm suddenly unable to participate in the content I have naturally reached that will have a significant negative impact on my enjoyment of the game. The uptime is the big issue. I will be able to adjust to reduced stats and over time regain them, but I will have no option but to go back to an augment. I can't imagine taking on the batiri camp with stats that fluctuate that wildly.
The difficulty curve for the campaign areas and Dungeons is not smooth and that design decision I assume is related to the fact that player power progression is not smooth either. I still very clearly remember going from an augment to R10 bondings after a double refinement and it was like someone had taken my musket away and given me an AK-47. It appears to me that this change will unbalance the game, in PvE the environment will be winning.
If you go ahead with this change. Please, please, please give us some new augments and stuff the 12b lockbox with them, otherwise the multi-millionaires will take this change in their stride and leave the rest of us scrubs floundering.
Last thought. Most augments (companions actually) have poor active bonuses, so not only will we loose stats, up-time of those stats many of us will also either be loosing the active bonus from our Archon or the debuff from con artist/sell sword.
I should add in all seriousness - a big thank you for realising this BEFORE the double RP event and charge bonus. Yes, this is a bad idea, but you are giving a bit of a fair warning.
Comments
Hey there. Pls reconsider the uptime thing. U can nerf the bonding stones if u have to but changing it to 50% uptime sucks. Players hate unreliable stats. U cant work with them
Not only that but I will have to make gear changes on every character since all have bonding powered Armor Pen.
I am not sure I will be able to play without disgust after all this goes down. Great work!
Also I have to say, please don't make this change. Its really not needed. Bondings are great and that's why people have spent so much time on money getting them. All you need to do is boost augments, and really is that even needed? there are still people who use them in there current state.
Please, please, please, don't pull the rug from everyone who put so much into this. Thanks.
The amount of times you hear people say what's the best pet I should use really showsd this, they didn't care about pets that enhanced their own builds, they just wanted optimum pets. I guess we won't be hearing those questions as much, or when we do the reply will be, buy a stone.
After multiple 'rebalances' the Protection Paladin has managed to establish a build where it can match the Guardian Fighter in buffing capability through Aura Gifts. The power sharing from this was increased significantly via bonding stones.
These changes will not only reduce the Paladins ability to buff, but also their ability to survive, as power is the only stat that increases the effectiveness of Templars Wrath (temp health gain).
If the Paladin is to survive this change you will need to look at their ability to offer a viable alternative to the GF in terms of group benefit. Personally, I will be considering stripping my 15.3k OP and moving all of his r12 enchantments to my 11k Guardian Fighter.
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
Change (nerf) the stat ratio from the current 400 points = 1% to 600-800 points = 1%
No other nerfs. Players will be unhappy but then add in rank 14 enchantments so that players can get power back. It will give us a new goal to work towards. Nerfing bonding uptime will anger too many players. Who will spend money to upgrade bondings when they only have 50% uptime? How will my dps characters survive solo in Chult when my bondings are down? They wont. Do you how many cryptic developers were fired due to past mistakes? Do you know how many new mmo's are coming out soon? Tread lightly, very lightly.
Here's an idea, fix something that is really broken like the TR class doing 60% less DPS than a comparable GWF (and I have both and do dps test them thank you very much). That would make people HAPPY and not quit.
I'm disappointed to go back to a design where only one pet is BiS. It's going to be just armies of baby bulettes from here on, or whatever other augment gets released with three defensive slots. It kills all variety in the game and needlessly so.
It went from augments to pets to augments again. It's the same thing, just the pendulum swings the other way.
Firstly i think it would be nice to be able to move the rp currency between toons like you do with gold or ad using bank.(evetnhough that is not happening)
The new refinement process does seem that it might be easier to understand for new members though this will destroy weapon and armor enchant prices. I think this is good too : )
The nerf of bonding is a bad thing for me but i guess we will survive .... i will just not be able to do To9G anymore.
The one thing that bugs me though is the timing of this anouncement if i knew about this before the drop of mod 12 and companion changes i would not have upgraded my current main companion and saved at least 1.5 mil AD. This is not a good thing.
The removal of 2X refinement wil seriously hamper new players and low level players in their attempt to get their weapons,neck and waist upgraded. that is not a good idea and maybe should be reconcidered ... mayby just have 2X ref work on your artifact gear.
EDIT : Oh and before i forget how will this affect leadership now will it be completely useless or still be able to make rp items like res bags .
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings..
2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party.
Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
The final fight in Tomb does not leave you with much room for error. The group can make 1, maybe 2 mistakes. The lower stats (even with Rank 14s), means fights will be longer and therefore there is a higher rate of error/mistakes. The end game dungeons will have to be tweaked when these changes go live.
The only way I can think of preventing this is either increase the numbers of Bulette in the game, promoting a a new meta almost identical to Bondings we have now or remove the ArP stat from Eldritch Runestones, and have them provide % increase regardless of whether it is slotted in an offense or defense slot.
ArP boons in many guilds will now make ArP a redundant stat if the power you can get get from enchantments greatly overperform a guilds power boon. This will also mean, people will avoid armor with ArP stat just like they do now with Regeneration. So as it stands currently, when this nerf hits, Regeneration and ArP removal from player priorities will make building a character easier unless the items with the most Crit come with ArP.
We'll likely have enough ArP with the guild boon to last us to mod 20, Enchantments that provide ArP Like Darks and Savages will likely fall by the wayside although their Defensive stats will provide some protection for their continued use.
> A Rank 12 Eldritch currently only provides a 12% Augmentation Boost if loaded in Defense slot. You also don't get a +840 buff and only a +700 if loaded in Offence but then you loose the Augmentation."
Yes. But with the proposed changes and fully upgraded, it will be 25.5%.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
If to9g is the most difficult dungeon in the game, I have no problem for it being exclusive. for time. It's not like everyone in GW2 is running fractal 100, and it's not like everyone in WoW is raiding everything.
As I said, I see a problem there, and it's the loot. Now, more than ever, we need more loot in chests.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
One solution I could suggest is to allow players to exchange their bonding stones with an equal level runestone of their choice.
2. I want to add my voice to those who are not happy with the bonding changes. You are already nerfing everyone's rank 12s by introducing rank 14s. Don't double nerf bonding - do boost other things. Make refinement simpler - that sounds like a good idea (as long as you can still move items around between toons). But refinement has, since the introduction of quartermaster's and wanderer's fortune, not been the bottleneck for progress.
Full disclosure - I have 4 sets of bondings, albeit only one set at rank 12s - I had planned to change that this weekend, but as you can guess there's no chance of me doing that now.
3. Uptime here is crucial - in the past when bondings had limited uptime they were a concious alternative to augements. As proposed they will simply be weaker and make it hard to use them to build effective toons. Unless you can control when you have the boost it becomes very very frustrating to use.
4. Content is built to take into account bondings at the moment. In our alliance there are still people who are struggling their way up doing ELOL, VT etc. Please make it easier for them to get up to the same level, do NOT take people who made investment down. I know lots of people who are not even being considered for groups in the new content and frankly the content is hard enough that it is near impossible to carry anyone. Your changes are not fixing that.
5. Refining DID need a change. But tbh you are not addressing the worst part of refining which is the success percentages of preservation wards. On first glance you go "oh - I can get to rank 12 easier" but that's not going the be the measure anymore. In fact, you have made it HARDER to get to BiS than ever! Unless you cut the price of pres and coal wards by 75% all you are doing is setting everyone back to have to struggle to reach the same point. This is not fun and is going to turn many players off. By all means streamline things and get rid of double RP. I hated the process as much as anyone.
6. This is a huge change. Please give it more time and seriously think about what you're looking at. Please consider boosting companions (all those with fixed stats are a waste at present) and fixing performance issues and bugs before making a change like this that will take a lot more energy to get right. Hell - bring back some of the old dungeons as epics - I am sure that'll be less work!
It will have more weight, but not having it will still not be essential to anything.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
I mean heck, when people are yelling all around + 15 k for this and this dungeon.. you start to laugh... and then you want higher IL...
You say this introduces choices. I don't see that. You get the choice of a companion with bonding giving significantly less stats for what we already built, with less uptime, with the downsides of getting lost, randomly aggroing things, getting knocked off but oh maybe they have a debuff and maybe if supports time it well you get powersharing too.
Or you get an augment with 2 or 3 defense slots, and get constant stats, sure a bit less peak and no massive power sharing loop, but no random losing the stats, missing companions, aggroing HAMSTER or debuffs.
Why are they doing this vs buffing augments, why this vs making bonding less special and giving all runes the same effect as bonding but lowering the percentage overall as a total. Or hell, even make it the same but change the stat curve so it's 95% at 14. Or leave it 95% at 12, 13 and 14.
The point is, this is half assed and you know it. Without a full revamp and rebalance all this does is screw us and take our hard earned progress away. My fiancee and I have spent a few hundred on a game we enjoyed but if this goes through as is without a rebalance to content Cryptic can forget that. I won't be spending another dime. In fact I can't say for sure I'd even stick around if it goes through as is without a rebalance.
Especially uptime. Complete non-sense.
The difficulty curve for the campaign areas and Dungeons is not smooth and that design decision I assume is related to the fact that player power progression is not smooth either. I still very clearly remember going from an augment to R10 bondings after a double refinement and it was like someone had taken my musket away and given me an AK-47. It appears to me that this change will unbalance the game, in PvE the environment will be winning.
If you go ahead with this change. Please, please, please give us some new augments and stuff the 12b lockbox with them, otherwise the multi-millionaires will take this change in their stride and leave the rest of us scrubs floundering.
Last thought. Most augments (companions actually) have poor active bonuses, so not only will we loose stats, up-time of those stats many of us will also either be loosing the active bonus from our Archon or the debuff from con artist/sell sword.