I feel like I have an obligation to write something because there’s a lot of shouting that drowns out valid argument.
BEHOLD MY GIANT WALL OF TEXT!
The Pet "Nerf"
I really thought I wouldn’t have to do this, but…
Q: Does DECA have responsibility to compensate for those who paid for their Divine pets?
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Let’s refer to the terms of service for DECA and Kabam.
Taken from the ToS:
(V, iv)
We reserve the right, temporarily or permanently, in whole or in part, to modify, suspend or discontinue our Games without notice for valid commercial reasons without liability to you. Without limitation to the preceding sentence, we may periodically schedule system downtime for maintenance and other purposes.
(I,iv)
The Games may also include, where necessary, any additional services such as the acquisition of Virtual Currency (subject to the provisions of Section 12), which can be exchanged for purchasing digital objects, downloadable content, additional packets, additional functions, server changes, in-game name changes or any other additional functions (jointly: “Premium Features”), purchasing subscriptions, purchasing virtual objects in exchange for real currency as well as other additional services, in particular communicating with other players (e.g. forums, chat, user profile pages rankings etc.).
And just to make sure nobody tries to rebut with Section 13:
(XIII, i)
If Deca requires payment of a Fee for Virtual Currency, Premium Features or other services of Deca, then Deca shall only have an unlimited liability for damages if it acted willfully and with gross negligence. In the event of any violation of significant contractual duties, Deca shall also be liable in the event of slight negligence. Significant contractual duties or so-called cardinal duties in accordance with the law are such duties, which only allow proper execution of the Agreement and on the fulfilment of them you can depend.
This only applies if “Deca requires payment of a Fee for Virtual Currency”, and would thus only apply for Realm Gold.
E.G. You bought $100 worth of Realm Gold and only received 69 Gold.
And finally, to rebut the argument of German false advertising:
“Used to feed your pet in the pet yard”
Never has there once been a claim made by ANY developer/company that you could “feed your pet to make it heal 90hp/sec”. Heal isn’t even a guaranteed/available pet ability for every pet family in the first place.
And just in case you bought a divine pet during the Kabam Era:
Section IV
The information and materials provided on or through the Services, including without limitation, Virtual Currency (defined below), Site Items (defined below), and any other data, text, pictures, graphics, audio, video, icons, games, software, and upgrades for use in the Services (including any new levels, characters, and in-game items), links, and other content and features available on or through the Services (collectively, the “Materials”), excluding Submissions (defined below), are intended to educate and inform you about us and our business and provide you with access to the Services. The Materials are provided “as is” and your use thereof is entirely at your own risk.
Section V
We reserve the right, at any time, to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Materials, the Services, or any part or parts thereof with or without notice. You agree that Kabam will not be liable to you or to any third party for any such modification, suspension, or discontinuation.
TLDR: DECA is probably* not liable for compensation. Shush please. If you disagree then read the giant wall of text that you ALREADY AGREED TO by playing the game.
*Note: I am not a legal expert, however that does not make anything I have provided more or less correct. If somebody has more information that they would like to share, please comment it and ping the F@#$ out of me so I can share it, as I am here to provide information. Also, if you would like to see the EU terms of service as well, please ask me in the comments and I will provide the defense there as well. (I came prepared, those 5 hours of digging and reading the ToS becomes worth it if people are concerned about legality in the EU.)
Personally, I think that this “pet nerf” has been a long time coming, and I am hoping that this decision will free up potential game design for future content.
However, if these changes go through I think we can say goodbye to pet stasis. Most dungeons that apply it already shoot enough shots that a player is bound to become “In Combat” for.
Balance Changes for Priest
Let’s talk about the 3-second tome cooldown.
There’s no doubt about Priest being a very powerful endgame class; being able to almost instantaneously restore ~1/2 of a non-melee’s hp is very strong, not to mention it also giving the healing status effect. In a perma-death game like RotMG, having the ability to constantly prevent death is extremely valubale. I think that priest getting a nerf on healing is completely justified. Additionally, Priest’s current role is classified as “support without damage”, which makes its usage extremely polarizing. A class with usage only limited to team play is as equally as bad as a class that’s only able to pull its own weight while fighting alone(I’m looking at you rogue… also DECA please make Collector’s Monocle and Cloak of Bloody Surprises stack (or just make it so they have an exponentially decreasing bonus)). The wand buff is a very welcome change(dagger classes are fine, more on that later).
However…
“ALMOST INSTANTANEOUSLY.”
After spending quite a bit of time on testing today, I have realized that this 3-second cooldown is usually longer than 3 seconds*.
3 seconds is the base in-game cooldown, however we forget to acknowledge two important factors that prohibit a human from pressing their ability hotkey exactly every 3 seconds:
Input Delay & Server Response Time (which tends to be bad…)
After timing my inputs, I was able average an ability usage every 0.25 seconds during an attention-intensive fight. Along with an average 0.25 second server response time on testing, this makes the tome cooldown feel more like 3.5 seconds, especially because it doesn’t seem possible to buffer ability usage on RotMG unless you’re lagging really hard (which would make constant healing impossible in the first place)
Even with the most ideal situation, I do think that tomes have a cooldown that’s slightly too long.
Proposed Fix: 3s > 2.5s to account for human reflexes. (Also 3s too long but 2s too short 
)
*This might be wrong, probably requires further testing(in the form of a better computer and better internet service… I might also just be bad at spamming spacebar in attention-heavy fights)
About Daggers: Dagger classes are fine. With the new changes:
Foul vs. New Recomp
Foul: 95 - 175, Rogue stats: 50 atk, 75 dex
New Recomp: 130 -175 Priest stats: 50 atk, 55 dex
Stop comparing Sorcerer to Rogue, it’s comparing the highest dps wand class to the lowest dps dagger class and that’s unfair.
Exaltation
In my eyes, the concept of Exaltation is the long-term endgame goal that would be able to occupy a player’s time while waiting for new content updates to arrive. This system would prevent the need for constant events to keep the playerbase active, or just be extra incentive for people to run these dungeons (More incentive for people to clear dwarf miner and nest realm events). I for one think that this addition is a good experiment for adding endgame goals that aren’t just new dungeons.
However…
I was able to come up with a formula to calculate how many O3 runs you would have to complete factoring in total playtime.
We’re going to assume that an average player maintains a 9-5 job/has school, plays 3 hours every day on weekdays, and plays 6 hours every day on weekends…
(not including holidays for the sake of my own sanity).
800 dungeons (for all characters) / 5 days(3hrs * 1run/hr) + 2 days(6hrs * 1run/hr) =
29.62 > ~30 days to have max exaltation for a stat by running O3.
30 days might seem reasonable for such an increase, but that is under the assumption that this player can do a run every hour(runes for runs), doesn’t die a single time, and spends all of their free time for the entire month running O3.
I understand that this change gives us something to do while waiting for updates (stop ranting about DECA just wanting people to buy more keys that’s not a fair nor a valid argument on DECA’s part), but the drawback should probably cap at 5 lost completions.
If there isn’t this already (F*** me for not specifically asking for drawback percentages and extra details for exaltation), I propose a “completion protection” which prevents a player from dropping below a number of completions that they already have unlocked the bonus for.
E.G. Every 10 completed Oryx Sanctuaries, you hit a “floor” which grants you protection from dropping to lower than 10 completions upon death(for that specific character). If you were to die at 11 completions, you would be set back to 10. If you were to die at 44 completions, you would be set back to 40.
Final Concerns:
Transparency:
Player transparency? No! Not that kind of transparency!
(Well yes fix player transparency and allow us to go on a scale of 1-100% please)
I’m sure I’m speaking for the entire community here when I’m asking for a bit more constant developer transparency. More public testing sessions (even if it’s unchanged) would be nice to have and better formatted Q&A sessions would be nice to have.
Where is the Steam testing?
According to the RotMG March 2020 Census (courtesy of CrazyStorm), 35% of players are on steam. I’m hoping an explanation will come out soon for the lack of available testing there, or a fix if it’s currently just broken. Also, please don’t have a testing session during an event.
Disclaimer: This is testing, and I must stress that many changes going through are BEING TESTED AND ARE NOT CONFIRMED FOR PRODUCTION YET. Values are subject to change within the next 2-3 weeks. Please firmly grasp your horse.
Please correct me if any of this information is wrong. I don’t want to be spreading false information.
Overall, I’m quite excited for this update. Stat buffs, some well-needed balance changes, and the questionable decisions by DECA (mainly the loss of revenue for the sake of balance) helps restore my trust in the development team. I will be patiently waiting a response from the team addressing the community concerns however, as I’m hoping they will not keep us in the dark before the community tears itself apart.
This is it for now, I might add more later. Please comment down below if you have anything to say; I’m all ears for feedback and discussion.