Im not sure how is it good to replace a BiS item by an other one. This is just moving the problem to an other location. I totally agree that this change isnt even encouraging the diversity, its just a replacement. We'll be running with eldritch and a bulette instead of bondings and a sell/con/rebel/archon. Whats the point to that? You made endgame dungeons built around those bondings set up, you increase mobs stats, you changed debuffs, you increased RI, and now you ask us to deal with all that with less stats but yet please go ahead and complete T9G with your bulette.
Mimicking said in one of those stream that devs are aware of the difficulties of playing multiple characters and that their current system wasnt alt friendly. Yet again, this is an other break to alt progression. Just because you are making some gear BtA doesnt mean that we wont have to get pets and eldritches or whatever again for our toons. Silly me that made bondings 12 for my 5 toons b/c i didnt want to swap all the time.
Bondings are overpowered of course, for etos elol or KR. This is totally true. But not for msp or tong. New players wont suffer those changes, thats for sure. There's absolutely no problem in completing t1/t2 with an augment or half the stats we have currently. But for endgame players? I would like you devs to go complete Tomb of nine gods on preview with the change you are currently suggesting, then we will talk about it again. That will be the only way for me to fully trust in the changes YOU are suggesting. Your players know the game better than you do, its the obvious truth. Don't ignore their feedback one more time. This isnt economy issues, this isnt a simple matter of coalwards or AD in leadership.
Mod 12B as I currently understand it (and I'm hoping I'm wrong): Reduce demand for bag space to decrease Zen store bag sales: Check. Reduce demand for Zen market companion sales: Check. Alienate established player base through bonding stone change: Check. Discourage new players by pushing finalized enchant upgrades back by several months/years: Check. What could go wrong?
I'm scratching my head as to the business model for these plans. The only one that makes sense from a business perspective is increasing the enchant rank caps as that will increase pres. and coal ward sales (Jubilee overstock investors rejoice, you can finally sell some of those). The refinement item change addresses a QOL issue raised by players, which makes some people happy, but doesn't actually improve sales. But what are you going to sell if your buyer/player base goes away (or at least the ones who actually spend money on the game)?
Will there be a cap (total/weekly accrued) on refinement points like some other currencies?
Wow.... second twitch streamer I've listened to that said they are looking for a new game now
Post edited by ravenskya on
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
So GF could not be hybrid anymore? My 15k GF with 3 r12 bondings (so much time and ad wasted on it) was good tank and did decent damage. I'm not interesting in being full tank or full dps. And I don't want to play another class. Should I just leave the game?
Depends how the changes play out, other than all we have right now being some very basic theorycrafting, which doesn't always account for any personal playstyle changes.
Personally I am in the same boat as you, I don't like glass tank dps builds at all, I get my kicks from tanking and being tough and hard to kill but it's nice to do some damage too. With possibly large changes to GF coming at some point in the (near?) future, I think it will probably best to go full tank with a Conc loadout for dailies.
Augments would give the most stable stats, won't have to worry about our LS/Defense dropping for however many seconds they will drop for when this change goes final.
But when the Bondings change goes final and the dust settles, then GF's have to wait additionally for the changes to the class as well. Not really a good scenario.
I have an OP tank geared to a similar level as my GF and right now, I'll probably just play that and leave my GF just sitting there for now. I realise most people won't have this option. But for me I'm not spending any more AD on my GF until I know what I need to spend it on.
Should you just build offencive and expect to be tanky? Answer given.
I have 80% dr and 200k hp so my build is not offensive. It's a good tank even for T3. GF's buffs is mediocre and damage will be mediocre in mod 12b. It will be useless class. Paladins still will be OP though.
So Bondings will now provide an average of 82.5% of stats at rank 12 and 97.5% at the new (expensive) rank 14 - whereas Augments will provide a continuous 100% regardless of rank and if equipped with r14 Eldritch will provide a continuous 176.5%.
Will someone please tell me how this has achieved balance.
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
Having spent the last 6 months or so getting more involved with the game (after a long hiatus) and working hard to understand the end game and work toward mastering it, I find these changes incredibly demoralizing. The timing of the announcement right before 2xRP feels especially destabilizing, since I—along with countless others—had saved and anticipated for this event and now find myself thrown into enormous uncertainty about how to move forward. These are not small balance changes, but large disruptions to the metagame with impacts in the multiple millions of AD for single toons—not to mention the impact on gearing up alts. The game just went from being a fun before/after work pastime to a source of stress and disappointment. Honestly, it's sad and upsetting, especially since many more pressing, legitimate concerns seem not to be being addressed by the development team, and many other rational avenues for addressing the power of bonding runestones seem not to have been considered (e.g., lowering the % but not uptime of bonding runestones, increasing the % stat transfer from augments or simply increasing the power of other non-bonding runestones, and so forth).
Investing time, energy, and money into this game depends on a certain level of trust that my time, energy, and money will be respected, and drastic, sudden moves like this undermine that trust to a large degree. The post and responses to it from the devs have not demonstrated a level of understanding or empathy for the playerbase, and that's unfortunate.
In short, the nature of the changes, timing of the announcement, and (lack of) anticipation and empathic understanding of genuine, legitimate concerns from the playerbase are seriously disturbing and undermine trust and faith in the developers and enjoyment of the game.
How will this effect the proposal to change SH boons? Will we see an even higher loss in stats requiring us to replace even more ArP on characters? Loss of ArP from companions and then loss from boons, and yet the increase in required ArP with the mod 12 changes. So, less power and such as we change over stats to compensate for the loss. Will we see a change to armor to allow the fix to stats or will we just have to all swap to new enchants?
And to those saying that "now" they can give better rewards, remember the key change and the "temporary" increase in drops. Just because they have made things much harder, DO NOT expect better drops, may in short term but after that back to the Wonderful drop rates of today.
I really don't mind the Bonding Runestones being reduced in output. They, along with guild boons, are the most balance tipping aspects of the game. My issue is with the uptime. Sadly not all of my characters are uber beings, and rather than using bonding stones to speed up the rate of dungeon charges, a couple of my characters rely on them from time to time just to survive. My Tank, for example, knows what his job is... he stands there and sucks up damage while guarding, but inevitably has to drop out from time to time to pop a daily and recharge the guard battery. Its at that point, not 30 seconds either side, that I want MY companion to be focused on keeping me alive. What about having a system that keeps Companions Gift active constantly... wait, don't throw spears at me yet... but gives a percentage of its maximum based on the companion's hit points? For example... say your companion has 1000 power and you have bonding runestones that offer 100 percent of its stats. While your companion is fit and full of hit points, you get 1000 power. But if the companion loses 25 percent of its hitpoints, your pow bonus drops to 750. If the companion gets dropped... you get squat, till it gets back up. This offers players a choice... high offence stats - likely to hit in peaks and troughs, not unlike "Sudden" ring effects , high defence - likely to keep you alive longer with constant buff, or a balance.
It would open up more options for companions, and fit around offence/defence requirements. With short offence boosts, YOU have the chance to use it, but with short defence boosts you just have to hope it comes at the right time.You can't ask Orcus to "hang on a minute till my bonding pops" in the same way that you can hold an attack till your bonding activates.
This change is done all wrong, BEFORE thinking about nerfing us you should take a deep look into the rewards that each dungeon is giving, only yesterday I got 2 Peridots from both chests in MSP, TWO fkn Peridots, so now with these nerfs the dungeon will become twice as long only to get the SAME 2 Peridots?!?! That's just wrong.
And you guys are grabbing the nerf hammer and putting it to the extreme, there's never a middle-ground with you and your 'quality of life' changes.
Those that are in the camp of "nerf this but not that", or "something had to be done" are missing the point. Many of us have invested heavily in time and/or money to obtain these bonding stones. Not to mention the comps and the gear they wear. I expect these items to remain the same as advertised. There is no room for compromise on this issue, none.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
So Bondings will now provide an average of 82.5% of stats at rank 12 and 97.5% at the new (expensive) rank 14 - whereas Augments will provide a continuous 100% regardless of rank and if equipped with r14 Eldritch will provide a continuous 176.5%.
Will someone please tell me how this has achieved balance.
A better comparison is:
Bonding r14 x 3 on offense: (whatever + 3150 Power from runestone slots) * 97.5%
vs
Eldritch r14 x 3 on defense: (whatever + nothing from runestone slots) * 176.5%
Eldritch is still on top though.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Those that are in the camp of "nerf this but not that", or "something had to be done" are missing the point. Many of us have invested heavily in time and/or money to obtain these bonding stones. Not to mention the comps and the gear they wear. I expect these items to remain the same as advertised. There is no room for compromise on this issue, none.
Yeah and when i bought my car in 2010 it was new but it's not new anymore. What's up with that?
For the record, i'm pissed too, but this 'I paid good money' argument isn't going to accomplish anything. You fork over cash at your own risk. Ever changing meta is a staple of MMOs. Focus on pointing out legitimate points on how this will break more than it will fix, or pointing out unintended changes that will break the economy. Make them see how this will earn them less money in the future, rather than complain about money you've already given them in the past.
A %50 uptime makes the bonding stones too unreliable. I have spent a lot of effort upgrading these stones for all of my characters and if the changes go through I will be at a loss. I do not believe "fixing" a product and making it useless after the customer has bought it is a good business model.
I dont understand this change surely the most common sense thing to do would be to rework augment companions and change the other runestones so they're on par with bonding runestones?
What is the point nerfing stuff now this is a stupid decision! All you're doing is annoying people and making these people quit the game
I dont understand this change surely the most common sense thing to do would be to rework augment companions and change the other runestones so they're on par with bonding runestones?
What is the point nerfing stuff now this is a stupid decision! All you're doing is annoying people and making these people quit the game
They did it partly so they could increase the rank of enchantments - that means more refining, which means more wards - so more money.
They are not bothered about more stats. If they were, they wouldn't keep adding new sources of stats. They want players at 15-16k to have new things to spend money on. Thing is, even this has been done badly.
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
Plus the loss of companion powers such as the Con Artist debuff of course. But to go from 285% to 97.5% of companion stats and the devs say "but hey, you can do a ton more refining and gain some of those missing stats back!" is not exactly comforting.
I guess I should thank them though as it makes quitting the game so much easier.
I've already been messaged by several guild members asking me if the guild is headed to another game and where we are going. That is what makes me sad about all of this.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Again, having downtime on bondings will create giant gaps in crit strike and armour pen, meaning 100% of DPS will switch to augments. The same is likely true for support, as now your recovery/defense takes a massive hit.
Lets do some extremely rough math! Since yall are a bit hysterical, maybe this will help put it into perspective. Using single stat enchants for simplicity, assuming a stat score of 1k per equipment piece.
3xR14 Bondings 1050*3=3150 Bonding Stats 3*1000=3000 Gear Stats 6*1000=6000 Enchant Stats ~1200 Comp Stats Total = 13350 Multiplier 1.95= 26.032.5 Stats **50% uptime (reasonable change if uptime stays at 100%)
Augment Pet 3x2000=6000 Runestone Stats 3x1000 = 3000 Gear Stats 6*1000 = 6000 Enchant Stats *Don't remember if Augments have comp stats Total = 15000 stats, 100% uptime
Augment with 3x Eldritch No Runestone Stats 3*1000=3000 Gear Stats 6*1000=6000 Enchant Stats Multiplier 1.765 Total=15,885 stats, 100% uptime
As you can see, there is no point in buying Eldritch and a pup, so that theory is squashed. The best combo is actually 2 Eldritch for a whopping 16,610 stat points.
Dev Feedback Considering this, please tweak the Bondings to be 100% uptime, with a multiplier in the 1.4-1.5 range and make Power share count as buffed power, not base, and not transfer. Then Bondings will still be BiS, but close enough to Augments that it lets players really choose what they want to use.
Player Feedback - Keep in mind that with 13 Enchantment slots on each Toon, at a gain of ~300 (single stat) per we're just shifting ~4000 stats to our Toons from the Bonding comps. Not a huge loss at the end of the day, especially if the uptime is changed to 100%, it will be less than 1000 Stat points lost.
P.S. A stat curve change has been coming for a while - Every MMO does it, usually once a year with a level cap increase. Read the writing on the wall, a lot of us have known it was coming for the last 6 months. I'm fairly certain it will come with Mod 13, and these changes are in preparation for that.
At the risk of my reply getting lost in the sea of justified concern and frustration: The change to bonding to reduce uptime to 50% is incredibly unforgiving and expensive for anyone who has balanced stats on their companions.
Many folks run Armor Penetration and Crit on companions, because the game's mechanics encourage you to put as much power and defense on your personal gear as possible.
The change to 50% uptime (aside from being a dramatic nerf for a heavily-invested item), completely ruins any stat balancing involving effectively capped stats like Armor Penetration and Crit, which for reasons cited above are almost always preferred on companions (in fact, "companion gear" from IG almost always featured these 2 stats prominently).
Recently, the companion stat drops from mod12 was fixed and gave folks the implicit go-ahead to finally invest in balancing their characters for the new RI cap (80 - 85%). This change negates all of that investment, as at the very least different enchantments will be required to move Armor Penetration back onto main gear.
It's just too much of a nerf, and it's absurdly punishing to anyone who actually followed through and balanced their RI for Chult.
I'll wait to see if this actually happens, but at first glance it sounds like these changes will result in significantly reduced summoned companion variety
Finally, this change is also a very big nerf to AC DC party utility. It sounds like this effective nerf is not considered to be a problem. I understand that power-sharing now is pretty big, but the proposed changes are absolutely pulling the rug out from about half the viable DC builds.
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jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
Again, having downtime on bondings will create giant gaps in crit strike and armour pen, meaning 100% of DPS will switch to augments. The same is likely true for support, as now your recovery/defense takes a massive hit.
Personally, I have already move my R12 bondings to my MoF, every possible feat and debuff I can give him is intended for groups, even chose Drow for the Faerie Fire debuff. I bought an Ambush Drake for him recently to ensure he can give every group I join access to as many buffs/debuffs as I possibly can.
The R12's came from my OP, the stats the R12's gave him were really really nice, but he doesn't need them, switching to augment for him was an easy choice.
As for my GF, am currently screwed along most players who main a GF. The Bonding changes can be worked around but added to that we all expect a major rework for GF at some point soon. We can't plan for that "soon" because nothing has been said. He's just gonna sit there with millions of AD worth of gear rotting away until someone pulls their finger out and tells us the information we need to know so we can move our GF's forward. I'm not even touching his R12 bondings and pet setup.
I'd prefer a smaller bondings bonus less than 65%, yeah, nerf them more we can handle it. And delete this silly cool down mechanic. Why did you even change it before then?
@noworries#8859 Everybody understands the bonding stones were overpowered to an extent, something has to be best in slot. Whilst I don't disagree with you guys nerfing them, I do disagree with you literally driving them into the ground making them worthless, nobody is going to want to hit the armour pen cap only 50% of the time or have 15 seconds of burst damage for it to then diteriarate into almost no damage when the bondings wear off.
I really hope you guys realise by nerfing them to the extent you are planning on doing so can honestly have no positive impact on the game at all. Even if it is for the cash for you guys, the amount of players this update will lose won't even make it worthwhile for you. If you wanted to make the other runestones viable then you should have buffed them, or decreased the amount slightly that bondings transferred. The 50% uptime just makes no sense.
Hopefully you come to your senses before it's too late...
Comments
1. what happened to bondings being the end game runestones while eldritch, profane, etc., are the, "stepping stone" runestones?
2. can anybody give an example, especially a dev, of bondings as they are now as over performing? strictly talking about 3x12
3. will there be compensation when these nerfs go live?
Mimicking said in one of those stream that devs are aware of the difficulties of playing multiple characters and that their current system wasnt alt friendly. Yet again, this is an other break to alt progression. Just because you are making some gear BtA doesnt mean that we wont have to get pets and eldritches or whatever again for our toons. Silly me that made bondings 12 for my 5 toons b/c i didnt want to swap all the time.
Bondings are overpowered of course, for etos elol or KR. This is totally true. But not for msp or tong. New players wont suffer those changes, thats for sure. There's absolutely no problem in completing t1/t2 with an augment or half the stats we have currently. But for endgame players? I would like you devs to go complete Tomb of nine gods on preview with the change you are currently suggesting, then we will talk about it again. That will be the only way for me to fully trust in the changes YOU are suggesting.
Your players know the game better than you do, its the obvious truth. Don't ignore their feedback one more time. This isnt economy issues, this isnt a simple matter of coalwards or AD in leadership.
Reduce demand for bag space to decrease Zen store bag sales: Check.
Reduce demand for Zen market companion sales: Check.
Alienate established player base through bonding stone change: Check.
Discourage new players by pushing finalized enchant upgrades back by several months/years: Check.
What could go wrong?
I'm scratching my head as to the business model for these plans. The only one that makes sense from a business perspective is increasing the enchant rank caps as that will increase pres. and coal ward sales (Jubilee overstock investors rejoice, you can finally sell some of those). The refinement item change addresses a QOL issue raised by players, which makes some people happy, but doesn't actually improve sales. But what are you going to sell if your buyer/player base goes away (or at least the ones who actually spend money on the game)?
Will there be a cap (total/weekly accrued) on refinement points like some other currencies?
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Personally I am in the same boat as you, I don't like glass tank dps builds at all, I get my kicks from tanking and being tough and hard to kill but it's nice to do some damage too. With possibly large changes to GF coming at some point in the (near?) future, I think it will probably best to go full tank with a Conc loadout for dailies.
Augments would give the most stable stats, won't have to worry about our LS/Defense dropping for however many seconds they will drop for when this change goes final.
But when the Bondings change goes final and the dust settles, then GF's have to wait additionally for the changes to the class as well. Not really a good scenario.
I have an OP tank geared to a similar level as my GF and right now, I'll probably just play that and leave my GF just sitting there for now. I realise most people won't have this option. But for me I'm not spending any more AD on my GF until I know what I need to spend it on.
Will someone please tell me how this has achieved balance.
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
Investing time, energy, and money into this game depends on a certain level of trust that my time, energy, and money will be respected, and drastic, sudden moves like this undermine that trust to a large degree. The post and responses to it from the devs have not demonstrated a level of understanding or empathy for the playerbase, and that's unfortunate.
In short, the nature of the changes, timing of the announcement, and (lack of) anticipation and empathic understanding of genuine, legitimate concerns from the playerbase are seriously disturbing and undermine trust and faith in the developers and enjoyment of the game.
Nerf the stats, not the uptime plz. The two together are a bit much...
And to those saying that "now" they can give better rewards, remember the key change and the "temporary" increase in drops. Just because they have made things much harder, DO NOT expect better drops, may in short term but after that back to the Wonderful drop rates of today.
My issue is with the uptime. Sadly not all of my characters are uber beings, and rather than using bonding stones to speed up the rate of dungeon charges, a couple of my characters rely on them from time to time just to survive. My Tank, for example, knows what his job is... he stands there and sucks up damage while guarding, but inevitably has to drop out from time to time to pop a daily and recharge the guard battery. Its at that point, not 30 seconds either side, that I want MY companion to be focused on keeping me alive.
What about having a system that keeps Companions Gift active constantly... wait, don't throw spears at me yet... but gives a percentage of its maximum based on the companion's hit points?
For example... say your companion has 1000 power and you have bonding runestones that offer 100 percent of its stats. While your companion is fit and full of hit points, you get 1000 power. But if the companion loses 25 percent of its hitpoints, your pow bonus drops to 750. If the companion gets dropped... you get squat, till it gets back up.
This offers players a choice... high offence stats - likely to hit in peaks and troughs, not unlike "Sudden" ring effects , high defence - likely to keep you alive longer with constant buff, or a balance.
It would open up more options for companions, and fit around offence/defence requirements.
With short offence boosts, YOU have the chance to use it, but with short defence boosts you just have to hope it comes at the right time.You can't ask Orcus to "hang on a minute till my bonding pops" in the same way that you can hold an attack till your bonding activates.
Just an idea...
And you guys are grabbing the nerf hammer and putting it to the extreme, there's never a middle-ground with you and your 'quality of life' changes.
Bonding r14 x 3 on offense: (whatever + 3150 Power from runestone slots) * 97.5%
vs
Eldritch r14 x 3 on defense: (whatever + nothing from runestone slots) * 176.5%
Eldritch is still on top though.
For the record, i'm pissed too, but this 'I paid good money' argument isn't going to accomplish anything. You fork over cash at your own risk. Ever changing meta is a staple of MMOs. Focus on pointing out legitimate points on how this will break more than it will fix, or pointing out unintended changes that will break the economy. Make them see how this will earn them less money in the future, rather than complain about money you've already given them in the past.
What is the point nerfing stuff now this is a stupid decision! All you're doing is annoying people and making these people quit the game
They are not bothered about more stats. If they were, they wouldn't keep adding new sources of stats. They want players at 15-16k to have new things to spend money on. Thing is, even this has been done badly.
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
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Currently
3xR12 Bondings
840*3=2520 Bonding stats
3*1000 = 3000 Gear Stats
6*700 = 4200 Enchant Stats
~1200 Comp stats
Total= 10920
Multiplier - 2.85 = 31,122 total stats
New
3xR14 Bondings
1050*3=3150 Bonding Stats
3*1000=3000 Gear Stats
6*1000=6000 Enchant Stats
~1200 Comp Stats
Total = 13350
Multiplier 1.95= 26.032.5 Stats **50% uptime (reasonable change if uptime stays at 100%)
Augment Pet
3x2000=6000 Runestone Stats
3x1000 = 3000 Gear Stats
6*1000 = 6000 Enchant Stats
*Don't remember if Augments have comp stats
Total = 15000 stats, 100% uptime
Augment with 3x Eldritch
No Runestone Stats
3*1000=3000 Gear Stats
6*1000=6000 Enchant Stats
Multiplier 1.765
Total=15,885 stats, 100% uptime
As you can see, there is no point in buying Eldritch and a pup, so that theory is squashed. The best combo is actually 2 Eldritch for a whopping 16,610 stat points.
Dev Feedback
Considering this, please tweak the Bondings to be 100% uptime, with a multiplier in the 1.4-1.5 range and make Power share count as buffed power, not base, and not transfer. Then Bondings will still be BiS, but close enough to Augments that it lets players really choose what they want to use.
Player Feedback - Keep in mind that with 13 Enchantment slots on each Toon, at a gain of ~300 (single stat) per we're just shifting ~4000 stats to our Toons from the Bonding comps. Not a huge loss at the end of the day, especially if the uptime is changed to 100%, it will be less than 1000 Stat points lost.
P.S. A stat curve change has been coming for a while - Every MMO does it, usually once a year with a level cap increase. Read the writing on the wall, a lot of us have known it was coming for the last 6 months. I'm fairly certain it will come with Mod 13, and these changes are in preparation for that.
Many folks run Armor Penetration and Crit on companions, because the game's mechanics encourage you to put as much power and defense on your personal gear as possible.
The change to 50% uptime (aside from being a dramatic nerf for a heavily-invested item), completely ruins any stat balancing involving effectively capped stats like Armor Penetration and Crit, which for reasons cited above are almost always preferred on companions (in fact, "companion gear" from IG almost always featured these 2 stats prominently).
Recently, the companion stat drops from mod12 was fixed and gave folks the implicit go-ahead to finally invest in balancing their characters for the new RI cap (80 - 85%). This change negates all of that investment, as at the very least different enchantments will be required to move Armor Penetration back onto main gear.
It's just too much of a nerf, and it's absurdly punishing to anyone who actually followed through and balanced their RI for Chult.
I'll wait to see if this actually happens, but at first glance it sounds like these changes will result in significantly reduced summoned companion variety
Finally, this change is also a very big nerf to AC DC party utility. It sounds like this effective nerf is not considered to be a problem. I understand that power-sharing now is pretty big, but the proposed changes are absolutely pulling the rug out from about half the viable DC builds.
The R12's came from my OP, the stats the R12's gave him were really really nice, but he doesn't need them, switching to augment for him was an easy choice.
As for my GF, am currently screwed along most players who main a GF. The Bonding changes can be worked around but added to that we all expect a major rework for GF at some point soon. We can't plan for that "soon" because nothing has been said. He's just gonna sit there with millions of AD worth of gear rotting away until someone pulls their finger out and tells us the information we need to know so we can move our GF's forward. I'm not even touching his R12 bondings and pet setup.
This comment is dedicated to @aspa12
Whatever happens it feels like the game has become easier if it wasn't for the bondings nerf I would be supporting you.
Everybody understands the bonding stones were overpowered to an extent, something has to be best in slot. Whilst I don't disagree with you guys nerfing them, I do disagree with you literally driving them into the ground making them worthless, nobody is going to want to hit the armour pen cap only 50% of the time or have 15 seconds of burst damage for it to then diteriarate into almost no damage when the bondings wear off.
I really hope you guys realise by nerfing them to the extent you are planning on doing so can honestly have no positive impact on the game at all. Even if it is for the cash for you guys, the amount of players this update will lose won't even make it worthwhile for you. If you wanted to make the other runestones viable then you should have buffed them, or decreased the amount slightly that bondings transferred. The 50% uptime just makes no sense.
Hopefully you come to your senses before it's too late...