Quote: Keyral on 04/05/2012, 10:02 AM - viewAnd they'd do the same before as well, as you stated. This had a random chance of setting them back, but as other people have said, if you used the best you had (which large guilds would have easy access to), the rate of it failing was very low, let alone of it regressing.

Smaller guilds wouldn't have access to all the gold gear they'd need and would take longer because of a higher fail chance. Now, with not needing to either use lesser materials that fail more or have to grind a lot for Gold items to sac, it should be easier to gather the powder needed and easier overall to get +12 gear.

That's the thing that you seem to be missing: it's easier for everyone. Hardcores would have everything +12 anyways, now they just get it a little faster. Casuals on the other hand get better chances and will be able to +12 things with less overall hassle and item cost, making +12 more attainable for them.



Quote: Keyral on 04/05/2012, 10:02 AM - view

It was easy for Hardcores before and now. Before, they either had tons of money to throw for gear fodder or time to grind over and over again to get the gear fodder. Compared to now which will be the same grind, but instead just for money to get the powders.

Casuals didn't have the time or the money to buy or grind for the gear to get the best possible results, and every regression just increased the needed costs that much more. Without the chance of regression and making the items needed a simple powder, it will allow them to spend a lot less money to enchant, making it much easier for them.

That's what you Hardcore "supporters" don't get. You try to make it seem as if this only helps you and hurts the casuals, while in reality this won't affect Hardcores in any negative way and will help Casuals a lot.




Also, I'll bring this up once more: in a game advertising itself as being an Action game based on skill, things like this only detract from the matter. The more even the gear is between players, the more PVP fights are won by skill and team-work (if numbers are even enough).

Quote: knoxxer on 03/31/2012, 10:51 AM - view

Lord knows we wouldn't want anybody to lose.

I was just about to preorder this game since it looked to be akin to vanilla Phantasy Star Universe. Originally if you failed a grind (PSU's version of enchanting for those who never played it) the weapon broke. Permanently.

Then people complained when they took their only Tomoirod or Mayrod or whatever and tried to grind it to +10 (the max) and it broke. Rather than waiting until they had enough cash/spare materials and weapons, people pushed beyond what they could afford to lose.

And the great SEGA wept. It altered the grinding system so that weapons no longer broke upon failure. Weapons reverted to +0 status, and their maximum grind level was reduced by one. IE: A 1/10 that failed became a 0/9. A 3/9 that failed became a 0/8 and so forth. Un unnecessary change, but at least it still provided some sense of substantial money sink.

Within a month hundreds of people had full 10/10 S rank weapon pallettes. (6 weapons on a pallette I think it was.) This was aided by a dupe glitch that allowed an infinite supply of S+10 grinders for maximum success chance that SEGA didn't do enough about. People grew bored and the great mass exodus from PSU began.

This in contrast to MAYBE a dozen folks having a single +10 weapon in the first two months. I only knew a few people who had one +9 in vanilla PSU in the first couple months. And those were for the easier to grind C, B, or A rank weapons. If anyone had a +10, it was not common knowledge. It was frustrating when you lost/failed, but very gratifying when you got a +9, +8, heck, even a +5. The popluation went down a bit from rage quitters in the first few months, but overall did extremely well until they screwed it up.


Tera's crafting system was already more forgiving than both versions of PSU as you didn't lose the ability to go to +12, let alone lose the weapon outright. Now, however, you can't even fail whatsoever? What is the point?

Just another watered down experience where everyone will be the same and have the same stuff and grow bored.

Doesn't Tera wan't to be different from other MMO's? Try a new approach? Attract an audience that will remain and not grow bored once everyone hits end game in a month with max gear? Subscribers will, as in _every_other_MMO flock to the next thing as soon as it launches as they'll be bored of Tera. (Or flock back to WoW, the other common result of a stale game)

Tera promised to be "hardcore" yet waters down the very elements that set itself apart from the commonplace. I have doubts it will retain a substantial audience with all the "Westernizing" going on when being a non-westernized game was what made it interesting. In catering to a different audience, it has moved away from its primary selling point.

Very, very disappointed yet not surprised.

Uhm you can fail. And it isn't free to fail. You lose the item you were using to upgrade and you lose the powder you were using to upgrade it with, which if you read the statement he said you would realize is pretty expensive.

Quote: Minea on 03/30/2012, 07:22 PM - view

Quote: Minea on 03/30/2012, 07:22 PM - view

On a related note, this is actually amusing. On one end they talk about "trimming" frustration, on the other they further BoPize gear (and from what we know, de-facto enchant fodder) which strengthens (already present) another layer of frustration.

Quote: Keyral on 04/05/2012, 09:09 AM - view

Yeah. Nuff said.

Marked below are my opinion and thoughts on the changes to enchanting and my thoughts on tweaking the changes to better fit the community.

------IF YOU'RE SKIMMING THIS IS MY OPINION------
I don't think people are really thinking about what a risk versus reward system is. In the initial version of the enchanting system you had a chance for failure and loss of mats in addition to a potential loss of a previous success and thus an additional loss of mats. Time is the other component of loss, but neither of these costs are anything other than cost. There is not risk, and here's why. I could accomplish the same impact on the economy and your game by simply creating a vendor that sold +12 scrolls that had a randomly generated cost of mats and gold for your account. In addition the scroll would then put a random amount of time that it took to fully effect your item. For example the timer is 1 month and every 2.5 days your item gains a +1 until it hits +12. I have created a system that requires the same amount of investment all the way around. The only risk you face is that your RNG may be better or worse than someone else’s in either system. This is why the system needed to be fixed.

To give you at least some idea of what I perceive to be risks versus reward system, with actual risk, consider the following. Using the new enchanting system as a base you would create a safe enchanting cap of, let’s say, +9. This would mean that you have a chance to fail your enchanting but it does not go backwards and there are no other consequences. However, if the system was to have risk involved, I would have the +10, +11, and +12 enchants have a chance upon failure to actually lower the maximum enchant available to the weapon permanently. This would still allow a much more, straight forward system that would be fair to everyone, while still allowing those on the other end of the argument to have their risk and hardcore feeling if they managed to get a +12. However, it's not my opinion that this actually what the community wants as it is still only RNG based.

I don't actually think that what people in the community want is to win the RNG slot machine by luck, or beat it by dumping time or money into it. What they want is a feeling of accomplishing something that not everyone can. The concern that the opposing side has to this is that it can create an unfair advantage. I think the trick is to allow the "hardcore" to have an advantage but only slightly. The feeling of superiority and accomplishment is the real reward, a couple extra stats are gravy so no need to have a huge difference.

------IF YOU'RE SKIMMING THIS IS MY SUGGESTION------
If I was able to create the system I would take the tweaked version that has just been proposed and cap the enchants at +10 for that portion. That way everyone can at least get to that point and everyone would be equally able to get gear to be less of a factor. Part of what I find (pretty sure most of the community as well) to be attractive about TERA is the possibility of skill outshining gear. Now you have a system that should satisfy the part of the community that doesn't like the "hardcore’s" version, but they shouldn't be left out in the cold as they are part of the community as well. For them I envision a solo instance much like the one on the Isle of Dawn (without the healer though) that contains 2-3 bosses with very unique drops. First they amount of gold the bosses dropped would be above average as at the very least it needs to be worth your time, but they wouldn't drop gold if they dropped one of their other items. The bosses would also drop one of two other items.

The first being a "+11/+12" scroll that you would need to even attempt to push your enchant higher, this item would bind to you on pick up. The second would be a statless weapon for your class that adds 30% chance of success when used with your scroll. These statless weapons would not bind as the need for the scroll makes sure people are skilled enough to finish the instance but don't necessarily have to farm it ensuring that peoples amount of time to play is less of a factor than their skill. You would be able to use up to 3 weapons per scroll to get a maximum of 90% chance of success. Even though its not actually risk it will still help maintain the tension. The difference in stats between +10 and +12 shouldn't solely outweigh skill but will allow for a feeling of accomplishment and superiority for those able to achieve it.

Regarding the difficulty of the instance itself I personally think the bosses should have at least 2-3 tactics for the different styles (melee, ranged, heals) but that in each case the bosses should be unforgiving in the amount of damage they do. It should not be able to be outgeared, the bosses should do a percentage of your health in damage so that you can't power through any mechanic they possess. I think getting hit 2 maybe 3 times should kill you outright, with a move here and there killing you instantly if you fail it. This idea is just my initial vision and is in no way fully fleshed out but it's my hope that the community looks at this and comes up with their own ideas that can bridge the gap rather than just attacking those that don't share their opinion.

@MooseOfWoe & Pharazon: don't bother. I totally agree, but anyone disagreeing with you will simply disregard your posts, as they can't think of a proper rebuttal, or call you out on posting a "wall of text".

This is one of the best things they could have done for the game.

There was NO "risk" in RNG crafting. You speak of "hardcore"? Please. There is nothing hardcore about staring at a vendor, dropping gold on materials, and then hoping the fates that be favor you. People in the west do not enjoy being jerked around by the random number gods hoping they can upgrade their equipment to merely competitive levels. That's right, competitive. If you wanted to compete with other players, you MUST enchant your equipment to high levels. +12 only made the RNG that much worse. People have been asking for the reduction of all this RNG for ages before beta, telling horror stories of playing Aion and getting punched in the face by random numbers. An RNG system like that is a product of F2P cash shops that charge you to not get degraded or shattered, and has no place in a western P2P game.

Personally, I would have preferred if they had made it a bit more interesting - require certain gathered materials for each level so the player can choose to drop gold on enchanting or go out and put in the effort to gather the stuff they need themselves, for example, but this is the next best thing.

^
Sorry but western players want their games more skill dependent and less stat/gear or RGN/luck dependent. That is why PvP servers were offered as a hardcore alternative to the K-tera system. This is a similar change.

I don't know people are complaining so much. You still loose your mats on failure and you still fail just as much. On top of that this game is every bit as gear and level dependent as it was before the change, so gear dependent that it surpasses likely 99% of the games on our market in that quality. I have trouble thinking of a game released in the last decade that is as gear dependent as this one. If you really wanted the K-Tera "stats determine the victor" game, you still have that. If most of us had our way, you wouldn't NEED to enchant so heavily to even feel you contribute. The game was marketed as a skill-based action game.

This news is god awful. Once again EME is screwing over the actual 'hardcore' MMO players, to please the bit*hy carebears. The worst part is that they are taking the opinions of the CBT players into consideration. A large number of these CBT players will not be playing the game when it hits live, and therefore their opinions shouldn't freakin matter. A decision this large should have been left until 2-3 months down the road after live. I am seriously p*ssed off about this.

I hope someone at EME is reading this. I will be keeping my pre-order, but after that first month I'm outta here. You have effectively destroyed my want to play this game, and you will not be getting my money.

tdlr;
Eff you EME, I'm out.