Producer's Letter: Part 2

#82

I’ll make this simple - would you’ve flagged if RMGnoob said that?

#83

overall, i like the new changes.

motmg to september — lol rip my hopes of playing, i guess
item forge — pretty curious to see what those tokens are, would seem very nice if you earned like 10 or something for completing a dungeon boss or something
IC/OOC — i like this idea, it would make pets less busted which in the long run i think is great for the game
exaltation — seems like an good idea, but i would prefer character-based rather class-based. also, this sort of thing would be good if released in conjunction with something like elder realms, instead of it being a mindless grind-fest that farming 30 shatts would be. and yes i doubt an idea like elder realms will be coming out soon.
new fame bonus — yessss, its great to remove the thirsty/accuracy/friend of the cubes abilities so now i dont have to worry about accidentally losing them.

#84

I’d expect this game to die (:pensive:) before anything like the Elder Realms (oh glorious concept! Rai-hah) came to be, as that sounds like a multi year project while managing everything everything rise DECA does, but man, I’m generally happy for the changes happening right now. There were only a couple of minor things I mildly frowned at, but I’ll take some kind of progress. I know they’re royally ticking off some of the OG’s especially, but a agree that it’s at least a step in the right direction! I’m not afraid of change, as Realm has had a weird game structure from the beginning.

#85

Thank God, finally. That sounds like a solid concept.

This letter is overall great news. I’m really optimistic about the new features.

#86

the elder realms was just an idea, i agree that i doubt it would be coming out soon. its just that if there was a separate “realm” sort of thing where we could farm this stuff would be better than grinding 30 shatts.
i like the idea though, because its a different kind of challenge for endgame people, instead of just dungeons.

#87

Overall, I’m looking forward to the changes mentioned here. All together they seem pretty complicated, so I wonder how new players will be expected to learn about all of this (I think putting all of this in one detailed tutorial would be a bit overwhelming), but individually each item seems to solve some core issue rotmg has, so that added complexity will be worth it.

Item Forge (UT Exchange System)
While I’d kind of prefer UTs just being tradeable to diversify the market, this is a nice alternative for people who are tired of running hundreds of udls for their dbow. Main problems I see are:

  1. It’ll be impossible to balance in a way that makes everyone happy (not that they’d ever be happy anyways, there’s always something to complain about)
  2. It may result in people using less diverse gear. Right now, people use what they consider the best UT gear if they have it, but they’ll use other UTs if they don’t have their perfect set. With this in game, I can see people sticking to tiered weapons while they dismantle their non-best gear, since turning a mediocre UT into materials might be a better investment than using them and potentially dying (basically, I’m saying that stuff like Niles are worn uncommonly now, but they’ll be worn very rarely if at all after this is added).

All in all, I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, so I like it. The mock up looks pretty good too, though considering how many UTs we have in the game, I hope there’s a way to condense that forge list on the left so it isn’t just one huge list you have to scroll through.

IC/OOC
This is something that is going to upset many players who have put countless hours or tons of money into their pets, but I honestly think this is the best idea I’ve seen to solve the problem of pets, which I think everyone agrees made the game really unbalanced (and if you don’t agree, you should).

One thing people didn’t like in realm before pets was how you had to nexus whenever your health was low, even if you were in a safe area - you didn’t regain health quickly through vit alone, so if you didn’t have a pally or priest with you in any dungeon, you’d either have to dodge every single enemy shot or you’d have to wait a while in each room after clearing it, making even easy dungeons much slower to complete.

IC/OOC essentially removes pets from dangerous areas (technically you can get help from your pet if you’re good at dodging, but I can’t dodge to save my life sooo…), while letting you use them in safe areas - so the old situation I described above doesn’t come back.

I’m curious to see what the balancing changes will be. I personally would prefer if old dungeons (pre-pets) were left alone for the most part, while the endgame dungeons balanced around pets were rebalanced so as to not be impossible/impractical to complete, but if Deca wants to keep the current dungeon difficulty (ie. OT as a mid-game dungeon instead of being pretty difficult like it used to be) then pretty much every dungeon will require some big changes.

Exaltation
With the mostly stat-centric approach shown in the mock ups, I can’t help but feel like this will just cause power-creep, but I really like the overall idea of giving endgame players something to strive for beyond getting certain whites. The XP and sb boosts are interesting ideas, and I think there are a lot of cool directions this idea could develop to add depth to the player experience.

New Fame Distribution
I think some of the current fame bonuses are badly implemented or just plain bad (like doer of deeds and pacifist), but there’s something to be said about rewarding players for restricting their characters (like mundane and boots on the ground), plenty of games do that, and I hope restrictive bonuses aren’t removed .

As a whole, I’m glad fame is being worked on, since it wasn’t well implemented in the first place. 400 fame bonuses seems a little excessive though, unless players are only expected to receive a very small fraction of them. Imagine dying and watching your character scroll through 50+ (or 150+!!) lines of bonuses - it’d take away any meaning the individual bonuses have, tunnel rat is meaningful, but if you get 4 or 5 dungeon running bonuses, how much satisfaction will each one bring you? Will you even remember the names of any of the bonuses you got?

New Vault UI & New Vault Type
I both love and hate this. On one hand it will make vault storage so much easier and more organized, but on the other hand, I like the feel of vaults today - a ton of chests filled with dungeon rewards and gear - but the concept shown looks more like a bank interface (efficient, and boring), and I don’t know how it could be changed to keep the feel of current vaults while staying organized and efficient

I’m glad the mule vault solution is planned, though generally when the many-item-vault is proposed it only stores pots, while lots of players use items like decas and skins to store wealth. Maybe an expensive vault that can store lots of any item, but only one item at a time?

#88

IC/OOC system will definitely buff Resurrected Warrior’s Armor by amounts and make it even more viable for paladin to wear.

Just saying. Ain’t it @GammaGamer ? :wink:

#89

One can only hope.

At least I can get a good laugh at that evil toastrz.

#90

First of all, you’re delusional if you think nerfing pets wont have any effect on the state of the game.

Second of all, “desire to steamroll”? Really?

What will happen is that steamrolling will become harder, because pets facilitate it heavily.

PPE style? 6 hours.
Vault access? 5 minutes for people who have hundreds of pots stored up.

And I think this basically encompasses your entire argument. Not to make this a personal attack, but I think all of your points here could be solved by… y’know… learning to dodge.

RotMG is a game where death is your learning experience. You experiment in “new” dungeons without taking your life savings out of your vault, and through experience you learn patterns and get better at the game.

If you admit that you’re going to die with your omni in 2 days, then don’t take it out of your vault until you feel comfortable playing the game. Simple as that.

#91

sub-10 second 8/8 speedrun with stat candies.

#92

Bro you should have dodged more maybe you’d have completed that 2 man void.

Also too bad about the pet nerfs looks like you won’t ever be able to duo it again haha.

You’re totally missing the point. Look at my graveyard aside from my non-backpack 0/8 fame characters I really don’t die that often.

But that’s not the point.

It’s very simple. More deaths = more conservative play.

You can see lots conservative play in the game already.

  1. Take oryx for example. He starts his sun phase. What do people do? They sit outside and leech it (and for good reason that phase sucks).

  2. Are people taking their $$$$ ST bard set into halls? Nope.

  3. What happens when there’s a small group of players that enter a realm nest? 95% of people nexus.

People play conservatively. It’s what they do. Trying to make the game more hardcore won’t promote daring feats of superb dodging. It will promote a bunch of scaredy cats.

It will promote leeching, replaceable characters, and abstinence. It discourages gameplay.

Honestly none of those things are healthy for the game because then there’s basically no progression/no need for progression.

I don’t think the combat system will have a large overall change. However, it’s the flawed idea that making the game harder would somehow make the game more attractive.

If you think it’s hard to get people to do a nest now, it’s going to be worse if pets are nerfed.

Again, you seem to have your head in the sand. Why have there been so many cheaters in this game? They must love dying right? Why would making dying more common make anyone happier.

And you pride yourself on being free to play right?

Well let me be direct and say you’re a discord leech then. Despite your love for the discords, you’re not paying $2 per dungeon.

#93

Yeah, did you not hear or see the part where I was roasting myself for my bad play?

  1. Did you miss the part where I call myself bad? I mean granted if I duo a duo void with the OOC changes maybe I’ll actually bring consumables this time.
  1. You had no way of possibly knowing this, but me doing anything with them in the future is also probably a no in general. I’d also like it if you refrain from mentioning the duo again please. And no, please don’t ask me or bug the other individual about this.

You’re the one who said that you’d die with the omni in 2 days.

You mean the sets that most people don’t have yet?

That doesn’t already happen?
The “scaredy cats” will have to dodge now, instead of sitting in the group doing nothing either way. It will (hopefully) promote the longer range classes, which don’t have to tank shots to do damage, mitigating how utterly fucking broken melees are.

This is also ignoring the fact that you seem to be under the assumption that conservative play is inherently bad. You use the most extreme example of leeching, but what about people who don’t sit on things with their pet anymore?

Aren’t you complaining about steamrolling? Wouldn’t more conservative play lessen the steamrolls?

I think “nest” is the worst dungeon you could have picked here.
Besides me not, y’know, liking the nest discord in the first place, and also the fact that people are doing nests for the notes, and also the fact that the nest has pet stasis everywhere…

I don’t understand what you’re saying here… you’re saying that cheaters don’t like to die… in response to me saying dying is a necessary part of getting better at RotMG?

Aren’t you proving my point by using cheaters, the lowest skilled players possible, to counter this?

Aside from the fact that keys can be easily gotten f2p, and that I’ve also popped keys that I’ve gotten from the mystery keys before, you can’t criticize other people’s financial decisions.

If they don’t want to spend $2 (or their mystery key), nobody is forcing them, and they don’t ask for compensation.

I don’t see how you could accuse people of leeching when there’s nothing to leech off of.

#94

This is a good point and I think the term steamroll is being used too broadly.

My stance: I’m against forcing large groups of individuals into a discord dungeon popped by a key that costs $ to complete content that is essentially impossible without discord or incredibly risky without discord.

Honestly once I resign myself to running with a discord the increased speed at which a dungeon is completed has never concerned me.

I am willing to bet that a lot of people agree with me. It’s not the speed at which a discord completes content, it’s the fact that I feel forced to join said discord.

However, this doesn’t offer a solution to that. You’re still forced to get into a large group discord. The solution that Toastrz has concocted will only force discords to take longer to complete dungeons. As long as each key costs $2, you best believe dungeons are going to fill up regardless of what the optimal number of players for a dungeon is. And with worse pets you will want more priests for safety. So you’ll have 65 people in the dungeon.

I don’t bother with halls as much because of the rampant fullskip nonsense, but it’s clear to me that people prefer doing dungeons faster.

If pet nerfs happen, you’ll see fullskips go away. You’ll see rushing go away.

Does that sound exciting?

You’re still going to be in the discord, but now everything will be full clear.

Call me crazy, but I’m willing to bet that cheaters are some of the most skilled players in the game.

When the Oryx 3 testing server was up, everyone was popping lost halls. Why? Because they didn’t care one bit if they died.

I took the opportunity to learn halls rushing. I learned more spending hours on the testing server than I did in months of production.

Basically, cheaters with autonexus have the most opportunities to practice proper rushing. They can hone their skills with ease. They can use items without the fear of losing them.

I know for a fact that the most enjoyable gameplay I experienced was on the testing server. In my opinion the game should move towards the testing server experience.

These genius pet nerfs move the game in the opposite direction.

#95

Call me crazy, but being a cheater automatically puts you as the least skilled player in the game.

No, they’ll autonexus. Also cheating is a massive problem, especially with rushing, due to regular players having to compete with people who can see which pots have a flame in them. To get the official rusher role in Pub halls, you have to consistently get 3 pot rooms, however if there’s another 2 rushers who are cheating it’s practically impossible. It took me several runs to even get 1 run where I was the only rusher who didn’t nexus before 2 pot rooms, and it took me about 4 minutes to find a single flame due to the amount of hp scaling/not instantly finding the flame.

#96

I think its funny how you’re comparing everything to LH. Thats a pretty small sample size when we’re talking about the whole games content as well as any future content after the pet nerf.
Also important thing to remember: Lost Halls is easy as hell with experience. Theres 4 types of enemies, and three bosses with pretty simple phases when you have done like 40-50. And thats pretty nice because once you do a few runs in a large group, you can figure it out easily for smaller groups. You’re forgetting the fact that this ic/ooc will be released with (or around the same time as) exponential hp scaling, making it equally easy for an experienced player to complete lost halls in a small group as in a large group. Meaning once you know what you’re doing you can take all the time you need to regen (which really isnt long after you get the in combat mode fo wear off).
As for rushing— Im pretty sure deca knows what they’re doing. You can rush halls on a 3/8 wizard (def life speed). With this pet nerf rushing classes will be able to shine again. I assume you didnt play before pets, but this is still over 2x better than then as far as rushing (double vit/wis regen in combat, plus a pet out of combat). Also I think its a bit overpowered that a trickster can tp four times with base mana cap and no pet, then continue to regen enough mana for another tp every 2 seconds while rushing. The pet nerf will firstly make it an actual challenge to rush so not everyone can do it, and also require you to think about what set you want to wear now that there are two stats to consider (technically 5 because with a max divine theres no reason to focus hp def or mp). Remember, the two goals are to make vit and wis viable again, and to stop steamrolling. Who knows? Maybe when the game stops being a jackpot simulator and you actually have to think, some of the drop rates will be increased to compensate

#97

How uninformed do you have to be to think some guys are “the most skilled players” because they typed into google ‘gOdMoDe rOtMg hAx pLs i KeEp dYiNg’

I get where you’re coming from with this but you’re just factually wrong. I’m pretty sure skill involves not dying to stupid shit, and when a player downloads some random guy’s client to take care of that for them, then that directly translates into a lack of skill.

Another thing, it’s pretty obvious that a lack of death also directly translates into getting bored of the game faster. RotMG already suffers from a lack of real content to tackle, and when you take away one of the only limiters on player progression? They’ll just get all their fancy pixels from the supposed hardest dungeons in the game and quit simply because there’s nothing left for them to do. Cheaters have already negated the part of the game where they actually play the damn game, which is, believe it or not, a huge part of most video games.

I’m not exactly trying to defend said severe lack of content since I haven’t played the game in a while and I don’t intend to. But for those who haven’t gotten bored of it yet, hacks will just kill the fun for them.

The funny part of all this is that these ‘pet nerfs’ you keep crying about are actually a direct buff as long as you dodge. So to quote CandyShi,

For real. It’s not even that hard, but certain players are too insistent that double vit and wis regen when playing like a normal human being (aka pressing the wasd keys a couple of times while paying minimal attention to the game) is in fact a huge nerf and will kill the game instantly.

So to conclude, hacker man bad, deca man slightly less bad than before for not giving up on ic/ooc

#98

I may be wrong but I thought the wis and vit buff only occurred during in-combat?

#99

Yes, I literally know what the word literally means in literal space-time physics continuum.

#100

You got it switched. You stop healing while in combat, and heal very quickly when out of combat.

#101

I thought the out of combat was for pets and in combat was boosted vit/wis. Will vit/wis be at their current rate while in combat, or are they x2 always?