To start this off, yes, this is my first forum post. I have currently logged 447 hours into the game and I’ve used the lifestaff as a primary weapon the entire duration with a full-support build.
Now that introductions are out of the way, I’m here to share my thoughts on changes that need to happen for this game to become even greater. Let’s start with the most heated topic… The Paladin.
Heavy Armor Healers:
This is where someone wielding lifestaff wears heavy armor + onyx gems, and have 50-200 points in constitution. Some sacrifice healing output to tank more damage, and others sacrificing some tankiness to heal more.The Problem:
Takes up to 5 people to kill 1 healer = This is NOT healthy for any game as heals in an MMO (with massive battles + PVE) needs strong heals (AOE and single target) to be viable. However the counter to strong heals has always been ‘target the healer’. They shouldn’t be a free kill, but they shouldn’t take upwards of half a minute to kill either ESPECIALLY when they’re caught stranded/alone.
There’s currently no reason for healers to wear anything else = light armor does not grant any healing bonus, and heavy armor has no real penalty, especially when you can get borderline 1-shot by ranged users and CC is incredibly strong in this game. Wearing light in wars, PVE, and OPR is basically throwing.
People opt to run lifestaff as a secondary for solo-leveling, duels, and in PVP = because why not? Free heals, perma-pocketing, and no downsides aside from giving yourself a massive advantage.
Potential Solutions:
The obvious first answer is to make light armor viable in PVP. Very slightly increase the physical dmg resistances it has to offer OR make it so gems (like onyx) are 10% more effective in light armor. Also fix the 20% healing bonus for light/medium armor because they are not working.OPT #1 = Class-based Armor:
- In order to use Heavy Armor, you must put either 200 points into constitution or 200 points into strength (or have an even split in both at 150)
This change would mean no more heavy armor healers. It also gives more meaning to people who are playing brawler weapons (like GA/hammer) or tanks (SnS)- In order to use Light armor, you must have 200 points in int, focus, or dex. This negates brawlers who already do immense dmg from one-shotting other light-armor users when they already have immense CC and AOE cleaves/abilities
- medium armor can be worn by anyone
Why is this a solution? Healers will no longer be as tanky as a tank with perma/infinite healing. One of the tanks I run with often feels useless because healers are as tanky as he is (if not moreso).
OPT #2 = Healing Penalty:
- When wearing heavy armor, receive a 30% healing debuff penalty.
This may not be the best solution, however, because there’s a lot of perks which grant bonus healing and can be worked around. Healing would still be pretty strong and you’d still get people trying to run this.
OPT #3 = Lifestaff Mandatory Healing
- Either make it so heals are 50% LESS effective when you swap off of lifestaff, or make them disappear altogether. In order for this change to go through, the Amber gem MUST be fixed so lifestaff users can actually deal dmg when not using their staff (currently the Gem does not scale properly)
Currently there’s no reason NOT to run lifestaff. In many OPR matches, you’ll see nearly everyone running lifestaff. They all spam heals on point and dive in with their weapons or they run full-solo flanks and just heal themselves when in danger.
This not only reduces the purpose of a fully-specced healer since everyone relies on themselves, but also means theres a lot of heals… everywhere. Additionally frustrates fully-specced healers because their high-healing circles are overwritten by someone with only 100 points in focus and thus reduces overall healing effectiveness for your whole teamOPT #4 = More Anti-Heal Options
- only one is not enough, but don’t go too crazy with it or you’ll have healers ditching the role completely. They already only get one weapon, don’t make the experience too tedious unless you want to add a better debuff cleanse option (new weapon?)
With the biggest issue addressed, lets mention something else you hear about a lot… Outpost Rush.
OUTPOST RUSH
The current issues can be fixed relatively simply.Outnumbered:
- for some reason the match often starts with 19v11 and the team with more players gets a massive advantage. Either fix your balancing system to make more even matches or give the underdog team bonus dmg or dmg reduction.
Spawncamping:
- currently the biggest plague in outpost rush is when one team spawncamps the enemy team. Two solutions could be either adding a permanent unkillable brute outside each spawn that acts as a ‘bodyguard’ to the entrance. Or add a ‘poison/debuff’ which slowly saps the enemies strength the longer they are within 20M of the spawn entrance
Scoring:
- knockdowns/kills/assists need to be re-evaluated. Either change it so the person who dealt the most damage gets an ‘assist’ or ‘kill’ when the player dies within a certain timeframe of dealing dmg, or weigh knockdowns the same as ‘kills’. Or weigh dmg-done more on the scoreboard.
Brutes:
- The damage is acceptable. The health is acceptable. The CC is acceptable… but not all three at once. One thing has to change. Either reduce their CC by half (increased boulder cooldown and/or pull cooldown), reduce their health by 30% (and make it so their health CANNOT be restored by ‘retreating’), or reduce their dmg by 30%.
- make it so only one brute can be spawned by each team at each point. Theres no reason they should be able to spawn one on each side of each point.
- If none of the above options are acceptable, then increase the cost it takes to spawn them to 750.
AFK:
- If players earn less than a certain number of points when compared to the match’s duration, they get no rewards (this excludes people who joined late). Or make a better AFK detection system. Some people just go bot and chop trees before going AFK from time to time.
Re-queuing:
- add a ‘stay in queue’ option. If you sign-up for outpost rush, you’re sometimes waiting for over 30minutes to find a game. Players like to be able to do their elite chest runs, gathering, or crafting during these times. Running back to town to ‘re-queue’ after every OPR is simply ridiculous. Other option is to let us sign-up for OPR on the map.
^ also PLEASE let us minimize the ‘queue’ window for OPR. It takes up so much of the screen.Baron:
- if the enemy team is over 75% more ahead of the losing team (in score), make it so they cannot freeze the weaker teams score. They can still kill baron to prevent their score from being locked, or they can prevent the enemy from killing her, but they should not be able to give themselves an advantage in a game they’ve basically already won. Implementing this means the losing team may actually have a chance to turn things around rather than just being kicked while they’re down.
Now for other QOL changes (much simpler things), here are some suggestions.
Crosshairs:
- crosshair customization or more options. The current one is too big and often hard to see.
Azoth:
- if you’ve reached your Azoth cap (1000/1000) let any excess Azoth we earn be transformed into Azoth bottles.
- if the above option is rejected, let us have 2000 azoth
OR - bag quality effects your encumbrance fee. High quality bags mean you have a reduced ‘azoth’ fee when traveling. Sometimes one trip with a full bag costs 500+azoth… that’s ridiculous and penalizes players for upgrading bag space.
Crafting:
- currently theres no point in maxing out these super-grindy trades because they make no money
- mobs drop high tier potions like candy and invalidate the arcana potion profession
- most weapons/armor that can be crafted are worse than the ones dropped by mobs in dungeons
- in order to fix this, make better legendary weapon recipes that allow players to pick more than 1 perk for the weapon. If needed, make ‘legendary crafting mods’ that are more rare than normal ones
Localized Territory Resources:
- theres no reason to travel to many territories especially once you finish the questline or reach level 60. For example, Restless Shore, Mourning Dale, Cutlass Keys, ETC.
- if each teritory held an important resource unique to it (or an abundance of one thing) that would bring more travel incentive to the area. For example, Ebonscale could have an abundance of gold/plat/silver. It would potentially transform the area to be a jewelcrafting paradise/hub.
- we already sort of have this with areas like Monarh’s being iron-heavy, windsward full of hemp, and Reekwater with Azoth water, but other areas need specialty too.
PVP Zone:
Add a new outpost territory with an large selection of end-game resources thats PVP only. Elites, Orichalcum and more. This area will allow for open-world PVP brawls, and would let people fight for the resources rather than getting griefed by others who like dragging mobs to them while they harvest. PVE player will still get their safe zones to do the same thing, but adding one new outpost area for PVP will open a lot of endgame potential (guild expeditions to the PVP/warzone where they try to gather). It will not hold any new resources or benefits, just make PVP more viable end-game.
Arenas and small-scale PVP:
- more arenas like the Siren
- 2v2, 5v5 arenas for players to PVP in with a server scoreboard
STORE SKINS:
- let them be dyable. It doesn’t matter if they can only be dyed with ‘paid’ store dyes. Bottom line is that non-store skins feel ‘better’ because we can customize them. Letting us dye store skins would make people want to buy them a lot more.
SKINS FOR FEMALES:
- yes… the ‘robinhood’ and ‘count’ skins are great! I’m sure the upcoming ‘harvest king’ will be amazing too! But imagine the uproar if you only released ‘marionette’ ‘countess’ and ‘harvest queen’ with no male-designed skins?
- Either create female counterparts to your released skins or add more female skins AND in-game armor set options. Currently you just ‘warp’ skin and armor designed for the male body on female characters. This makes them hyper-bulky and cheap looking.
- a great example is the ‘runic fox’ skin which was made for the female body. If I wear it and stand next to a friend wearing male-designed armorsets or skins, they look 20% wider than me, bulkier and aften just look like… male characters.
- add a dress skin, i dare you. People (ladies) wore dresses in the past. If a male players wants to put a dress on their character, LET HIM. But for all that is holy, please… add more skins designed with the female/feminine character model in mind.
BARBER SHOP:
- let us be able to pay an NPC on the street to dye our hair, chance our hairstyles, and our face paint/makeup. Or let us change these things at our homes or the inn or pub, doesn’t matter where! Thank you.
TRANSMOG:
- you make amazing armor… but no one wears it because most are replaced with the oh-so valued voidarmor… which is… um… unique looking. Add more skins in the store or add transmog.
DEATH AUDIO:
- when your ally is low, you get a ‘ping’ notification. You get another ping if/when someone dies. This is the same sound as normal ‘pings’. Please change the audio or pitch of the dying ping because it really confuses healers when they hear their allies ping objects or locations.
SERVER MERGE:
- please give a hopeful timeline for when this will take place… many people are just abandoning their lower population server for higher population ones because they’re tired of waiting but some people cannot transfer anymore due to no more tokens or fear of long queues. More people would stay if they knew when the merges would be happening.
COMPANY PURPOSES:
- let company governors pay 15K to ‘buy access to a guild hall’ (which could be the building next to the warboard). Each company can only invest in one guild hall at a time (like an inn). This guild hall will have a recall cooldown of 4hrs (like a house the guild can use). It has a shared storage of 2k weight that any guild member can put stuff in or take stuff out (like the treasury).
- if thats not possible, then let a governor have the option to buy a tier 4 house as a ‘company house’ with the same options mentioned as above.
- Let guilds set ‘daily missions’ for their members. Like ‘gather ammunition for the upcoming war’ 0/1000), etc.
AUDIO FAILURE:
- when recalling to your house, you get a bug that says ‘port failure’. Relogging is the only way to fix it.
SKILL SPECIALIZATION:
- currently everyone can do anything… this kills the market and idea of ‘having a profession or specialty’
- in a future update if the game increases the level cap and trade skills cap, then it would be neat if you could make it so you can only ‘specialize’ in 2 skills of each category (ex 2 refining, 2 gathering, etc). Everyone can get 200 lvls for all trades, but getting to 300 can only be done in a few. This means theres more market value for the people who can craft/gather certain things and player-to-player trading will increase.
This is a personal wish, however, and I understand people who disagree.
Sorry for all the words.
TL:DR; I love this game and would love to see some improvements in various areas! PLEASE keep the comments (if there is any) civil. Thank you!