[ I. Outposts ]

1) And to stay fair I would say that it is not normal that a q50 pick mat should give exactly the same thing as a q250 pick mat... Add 50 of focus bonus on the q50s and 250 of focus on the q250s for inst ance or something like that!!! [Submitted by nico1012 (FR)]

In order to make an Outpost 250 more interesting than a 50 concerning OP tools, we have thought of a few changes indeed: a tool 150 for instance would not allow to create items with a quality superior to 150. However this would reduce one of the interests of low-level OPs...

This is one suggestion among others; nothing will be done in that direction yet, but small improvements might be brought concerning the different Outpost rewards later, to balance them a little more.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

2) However, I think the fact that both sides have the same Outpost mats sucks... Maybe you should hire devs with imagination don't you think? It is not that hard to understand that if everyone has the same mat, attacking an Outpost is pretty pointless... [Submitted by r0man0 (FR)]

The new distribution is not equal... but more logical.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

3) What will we have? An FvF conflict even more important than before but concerning the OPS 50-100-150 which will have seen their mats randomly changed. [Submitted by athina (FR)]

Materials have not been randomly changed. Actually, when the Outposts 200 were revised, we realized that the Fyros would entirely lose access to one material. So we modified the overall distribution of materials; that's why 6 other Outposts had to be modified.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

4) There you are introducing a readjustment concerning the distribution of mats to come back to something more realistic, but you are not modifying those mats as concerns their effect. [Submitted by athina (FR)]

With a little bit of luck, some effects might be revised soon. I cannot be more specific because nothing is decided yet, the corrections to make are being discussed for now.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

5) Numerous attack/defense stages in Outposts are taking place tonight, and could be carried on tomorrow. What consequences will tomorrow's patch have on their progress? [Submitted by req04 (FR)]

A little calculation needs to be done here, which is not very easy to explain...
Bring forward the time of the beginning of the attack stage (or defense stage, which lasts 2 hours) of the Outpost by 3 hours. You then obtain a "theoretical" attack stage of 5 hours instead of 2.

If during this five-hour period the server is down at some point, then the war will be cancelled and automatically refund.

You will have to return to the Outpost to declare war again.

I am now going to give you a concrete example. Suppose the server stays down from 11 to 11:50 am.

The attack stage of your outpost begins at 10, and therefore ends at 12. Bring forward the beginning of this stage by 3 hours. You obtain the following period for the attack stage: [7; 12].

The server's closure is here included in this period of time. So the war over this Outpost will be cancelled.

Make the test with an OP whose attack stage begins at 3 pm: the period is thus [12; 5 pm].

In my example the server is down until 11.50. Therefore its closure is not included in the period; the attack stage will take place at 3 pm.

This 3-hour interval is some kind of a "safety rule" implemented to prevent battle stages from possibly taking place without anybody able to participate (it is the case when the server is locked after the patch, i.e. open but you are not able to log in).

-- Marjo [ Link ]

[ II. Spires ]

1) It's not obvious from the page mentioned in the first post, but how will Neutrals be affected by the teleportation/respawn rules? A region can be Neutral/Kami/Karavan. If Neutral, then anyone can port in. But if it's Kami can only Kamis or can Kami AND Neutral people port? [Submitted by boinged (EN)]

Neutrals won't be affected at all by the Spires: whatever the Spire built in the region, a neutral will still be able to teleport and respawn there.

The Spires document is becoming quite outdated now with all these little changes added; I have to think of updating it.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

2) If I'm a factioned player (and I am) whose PvP flag is off, then I get the negative from Spires but not the positive. I understand the story reasons for it, but from a gameplay perspective this seems unbalanced. [Submitted by oldmess (EN)]

It won't work that way. If you are factioned, and deactivate your PvP tag, then you will not benefit from the bonus of the Spires nor sustain their malus.
In fact, if you are not PvP engaged, what the Spires will affect are your teleporting abilities only.

Let's try to summarize all this mess. :p

You are karavan

- PvP on:
you benefit from the bonus of karavan Spires, and get the malus of the Kami ones.
you can TP in the Karavan and neutral regions; you cannot TP in the Kami ones.

- PvP off:

you don't benefit from the karavan bonus, nor get the kami malus.
you can TP in the Karavan and neutral regions; you cannot TP in the Kami ones.

You are neutral

(- PvP off)
you don't benefit from any bonus, nor get any malus.
you can use the neutral TP whatever happens in the regions. The two factions have no interest in preventing you from coming; they want you on their side. ;)

-- Marjo [ Link ]

[ III. Miscellaneous ]

1) It is possible to create/work on a scenario with multiple players? [Submitted by schlitza (DE)]

We're testing a multi-editor feature, but it's still uncertain whether or not we'll keep it in the final version, since there is a number of technical constraints which currently makes it not very usable.

-- Kadael [ Link ]

2) - Are the dodge and parry stats for 1-handed weapons not active or just not showing? (looking at info of weapon all show 0) [Submitted by rushin (EN)]

They are active, but all at 0. The values need to be defined.

- Is it really difficult to activate/show them? [Submitted by rushin (EN)]

It depends on what we decide to modify here. So far, the idea we had in mind was to use the 2-handed weapons as the reference to choose which values would be used for 1-handed weapons.

But then, the stanzas of the 1-handed melee would need to be tuned accordingly. If we activated the dodge/parry stats while keeping the stanzas in their current state, you could have to consume too much stamina for example; other imbalances may also appear.

If we only changed the stats values, it wouldn't be that "difficult" to do, but if we want to do it right and obtain a balanced 1-handed melee skill, then much more time would be required (designing, coding, testing, tuning, testing, tuning, testing again...).

As you already know, we cannot start working on such changes yet, as most of our resources are dedicated to the Ring, interface, Spires and a few other projects at the moment.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

3) On the Saga's roadmap, we can see that the release of R2 is scheduled for Q1 2006 and that the one of Chapter 4 (the arrival of the Spires) is right before.
I’d just like to know if Nevrax has more details about these dates. [Submitted by bquartz (FR)]

We do not have any specific dates to give you, however the Ring will more probably be released during the Q2 2006.

I also want to add that the patch for the Spires will be postponed, to arrive after the release of the Ring. I am currently updating the roadmap to switch those two productions, among other things.

I will leave it to Xavier to give you some information about the production of the Ring, he is more qualified to do that than I am (*turns head to the right* Xavier! You have to post about the Ring on the forum! You have no choice...).

-- Marjo [ Link ]

4) A small word on what will keep us occupied until then would be nice. Because this postponement, which is preferable for the release of an unfinished product, may annoy those who have been waiting for new things for a few months (…) [Submitted by desdi (FR)]

We know that; but time is missing and that is why the Spires need to be moved by the way.

Before the Ring, you will mainly see corrections of bugs/exploits, or perhaps see a few small improvements arrive following the topic What Bugs You the Most.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

5) How do you decide which posts you answer? [Submitted by clyser (FR)]

We don't really decide.

If, when reading forums, I come upon a question which has not been clarified yet, I look for the answer with the people concerned. Most of the time I go to see a dev (who may be busy or unavailable, or who is not necessarily the one who has the info, and redirects me), who explains things to me. Then I check the info with the testers if it is about gameplay, to be sure it is really what happens in game. From there I can write my answer, which is then re-read, and sometimes I have to reshape it. This process can be relatively short (less than an hour) or long (a few days) depending on everyone's availablity.

I got into the habit of writing down all the questions I see and I try to answer them as I go along on the forum, but I quickly let myself be caught up by time, and as the questions end up arriving faster than the answers, my list grows longer. In the end, some answers are posted sooner than others, depending on the time spent to gather the information. Having said that, it is still an improvement compared with the Q&A, on the boards the answers can come faster.

Concerning the implementation of stats, the devs do understand the problem of missing statistics. But, what if they "activate" them, an important series of tests will have to be carried out to make sure the balance of the game does not collapse, and maybe some of these statistics will have to be revised, and tested again... This is thus a long process which can quickly be spread over several months depending on the difficulties encountered. Remember for instance, that two-handed weapons had to be modified, along with the activation of their statistics.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

6) If they are patched tomorrow (new PvP timers), why did we discuss them yesterday? Why was it discussed at all? [Submitted by mazier (DE)]

The idea behind this news was to inform you about coming changes before they are done.

For this reason your feedback came before the patch (even though it wasn’t said it’d change anything on the planned changes). Before the patch, the feedback on the timers could only be theoretical, but truly valuable on such a thing can only be given when it has been concretely tested. For this reason, the devs wouldn't have been able to use the preliminary feedback either ways.

Now, as the patch is live, you can give more concrete feedback based on experience.

These timers can be easily adjusted. If your feedback now suggests that some changes are necessary, then the devs can change them in one of the following patches.

Note: your feedback isn’t the only one being taken under consideration, but those of the other servers as well.

For instance: if we have 20 suggestions saying: “The timer should be 20 minutes”, and 20 suggestions from the English and 30 from the French community telling to keep the timer as proposed, then it will be kept. We always create a full report of the feedbacks coming from the three communities, which is then used to decide.

-- Kadael [ Link ]

7) When will we have a reply from Nevrax about this thread? [Submitted by wyeth (EN)]

Now, as you ask for it. :p I've compiled the feedbacks of the 3 communities last week, and sorted them out from the most important ones (most asked through the 3 communities, most talked in game, already discussed in the past on the forums) to the less important ones. Which was easy for many suggestions, but harder for the less common ones.

There are about 370 entries in the list now. I'm still regularly reading what is posted here, to check if I sorted everything out properly, or if there are some new important feedbacks to be added.

This report is helping the devs deciding which features to improve first; they already had an overview with the tickets, but needed to know more accurately which improvements were the most wanted. Among the top priorities, they will pick up the features that are easy to improve and don't require much time first.

Currently however, as the devs will work on it only "when they can", that means no date can be given. Some changes might be added in any coming patch, depending on the time a dev finds or not to correct something from that list.

They plan to focus more deeply on this list once the current projects are released (the Ring, the Spires, the interface...).

-- Marjo [ Link ]

8) Just to know about what's planned for the taming or cosmetic branch or other, I mean the new branches? [Submitted by jerkaz (FR)]

Taming and cosmetics are indeed two skill branches we would like to see some day in the game. However, as we are already being occupied by several projects, creating these branches is not something on which we are able to focus in the months to come. But we are not giving up the idea in itself; yet, no working schedule has been planned about this so far.

-- Marjo [ Link ]

9) Why is launcher and autolauncher ammunition so bulky? Why such a disadvantage? Is there a legitimate reason explaining the "excessive" bulk of grenades and grapeshots? [Submitted by dolgan92 (FR)]

The launcher, when it was designed, was meant to be one of the most powerful weapons of the game in terms of damage (even the most powerful), used to start up hostilities against a pack of kitins or in PvP for instance, or as a backup weapon at a given time. But it was not designed to be used during the whole fight.

Since the beginning, this branch was not supposed to be a primary but a secondary skill: once the grenades had been used, the artilleryman had to use another skill if he wanted to carry on the fight.

The mektoubs could constitute a way to ensure a small reserve of grenades, and killing them could become strategic to immobilize the artilleryman (who ideally should not be able to access his grenades anymore).

But, since this skill branch was created, some other branches have been revamped (magic became more powerful to give just an example) but not this one, increasing the imbalance with time. This relative power thus disappeared with the modification of other settings of the game.

To put it in a nutshell, the big constraints concerning this branch were originally due to the importance of the damage inflicted. But now, they remain, even though the power compensation is gone.

A lot of things could use revision in the launcher skill, like simply the difficulty to grind this skill. Considering the constraints on the ammo, we could have imagined, for example, that it would take less XP to go up levels. That way, the constraint during battles would be kept, but would not excessively penalize the person willing to go up in that skill.

Another idea would be to rise a little the damage value a grenade can inflict, to give back a meaning to the constraints. The current level of power of the other skills in the game should be taken into account to see which values would be imputable, and then possibly readjust the constraints (of bulk and weight).

-- Marjo [ Link ]

[ Discuss it! ]