March Letter to the Players
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2003 6:18 pm
March Letter to the Players
Welcome to the March edition of the Asheron's Call Letter to the Players. The AC Live team, in between digging out of the snowstorms, has been extremely busy this past month. March will bring some long overdue changes to the denizens of Dereth. Although there's lots of upcoming content, there's really only one major change we'd like to tell you about before the patch, and that is Monster Rebalancing.
Over the past few months, we've been looking at every single creature in the game in terms of their relative difficulty vs. reward (in both XP and loot) and found that many were unbalanced for the game as it is today. To give you an understanding of what the issues were in examining this problem, we've written a brief Q&A.
Monster Rebalancing
1) What does "rebalance" mean?
Rebalance means adjusting the skills of the creatures to be more indicative of their level of difficulty.
2) Why rebalance monsters?
While it may not have appeared that monster difficulty was broken, through the years of Asheron's Call development we realized that, at any given time, one class of character would be more pronounced and able than the others. This has been due to an imbalance in creature defenses. We are adjusting this to bring a more acceptable level of difficulty for creatures.
3) Is it true that you are adjusting creature levels to mirror player levels more closely?
Yes, in a sense, but not in a restrictive manner. We are not looking to create cookie cutter levels. We are trying to give a more adequate representation of the creature level. For example, in some instances levels will be geared only toward an archer of that level; in others, a mage or melee character. The level is now just a more useful tool for you, the player, to gauge what you can or cannot fight.
4) I've heard that you are "nerfing" missile characters. Is this true?
No. We are doing nothing to missile characters directly. What we've stated is that the skill being adjusted for most creatures is their missile defense. This will alter, in some cases, the creatures that missile characters were hunting; however, the most relevant cases are those characters that were hunting creature far above their level.
5) I like/hate the new monster spawns. Why did you do this?
During the Virindi story arc, the monster redistribution was a result of Virindi influence over the world. Now that the Virindi are no longer influencing the land, some creatures have begun a natural migration while others make their way across the lands for their own dire purposes.
6) Are the new creatures (Drudge Bloodletters, Banderling Scalpers and Predators, Sclavus Lords, and Olthoi Warriors) balanced?
Olthoi Warriors are right where we want them. The Bloodletters, Scalpers, Predators and Lords are very close, though not perfect.
7) If you are adjusting creature levels, how am I going to earn experience with the XP reduction code?
Every effort is being made to ensure that leveling does not become a tedious measure of diminishing returns. To that end, we are giving creatures designed for a certain level of player a generous buffer in which the creature is still worthwhile to hunt. This does not mean that players will feel it necessary to hunt one grouping of creature until they level. (For example, Gardok has hunted Olthoi Soldiers as his main source of leveling creature from levels 40 to 50. He now finds that the Soldiers [Level 61] have become simple, yet still yield good experience. He had attempted to hunt Nobles before, but often found that he could hit them reliably enough to earn the same amount of experience as he could off of Soldiers. With the new rebalancing complete, he decides to test Nobles out again and finds that he is earning more experience on them now than he was on the Soldiers.)
Are you adjusting creature experience?
Yes. Creatures will reward you based on their level of difficulty. For most creatures, you will see an increase in the amount of experience that they yield, but for some you'll see a reduction. The goal is to stop the feeling of a leveling treadmill after level 80.
9) How is experience calculated?
While we cannot give you the exact model for this, we can give you some insight into how we are calculating creature experience. We first determine the level of character for which the creature is designed, then determine whether the creature is designed with deadlier skills than others (e.g., does it have War Magic?, is it Hollow? does it have a breath weapon?). If the creature does have deadlier skills, an enhancement modifier is added to the creature. We then determine how many characters would ideally be suited to face this creature. That number influences the experience yield as well. The final determinant is the creature's skills. The higher these are, the better the experience.
10) Are you taking away solo advancement?
Certainly not. We are well aware that one of the draws of Asheron's Call is the fact that a player can advance through levels alone. Creatures may be better suited for combat by multiple players, but they are still very defeatable solo. Of course, a group may increase significantly the amount of experience that you can earn over time, but this has been the case for a while.
11) What about the offensive skills of creatures?
These are being adjusted as well.
12) If you are adjusting creature skills, is there hope that player skills like Melee Defense, Missile Defense, and Magic Defense will have more use?
Yes. Part of this rebalancing action is to give credence to the skills to which players have chosen to pay attention.
While that's not all that's coming, the Re-balance is the only thing we wanted to give you a heads up on. As usual, for any updates on content, you'll just have to go adventuring. Thanks for reading, and thank you for playing Asheron's Call.
Welcome to the March edition of the Asheron's Call Letter to the Players. The AC Live team, in between digging out of the snowstorms, has been extremely busy this past month. March will bring some long overdue changes to the denizens of Dereth. Although there's lots of upcoming content, there's really only one major change we'd like to tell you about before the patch, and that is Monster Rebalancing.
Over the past few months, we've been looking at every single creature in the game in terms of their relative difficulty vs. reward (in both XP and loot) and found that many were unbalanced for the game as it is today. To give you an understanding of what the issues were in examining this problem, we've written a brief Q&A.
Monster Rebalancing
1) What does "rebalance" mean?
Rebalance means adjusting the skills of the creatures to be more indicative of their level of difficulty.
2) Why rebalance monsters?
While it may not have appeared that monster difficulty was broken, through the years of Asheron's Call development we realized that, at any given time, one class of character would be more pronounced and able than the others. This has been due to an imbalance in creature defenses. We are adjusting this to bring a more acceptable level of difficulty for creatures.
3) Is it true that you are adjusting creature levels to mirror player levels more closely?
Yes, in a sense, but not in a restrictive manner. We are not looking to create cookie cutter levels. We are trying to give a more adequate representation of the creature level. For example, in some instances levels will be geared only toward an archer of that level; in others, a mage or melee character. The level is now just a more useful tool for you, the player, to gauge what you can or cannot fight.
4) I've heard that you are "nerfing" missile characters. Is this true?
No. We are doing nothing to missile characters directly. What we've stated is that the skill being adjusted for most creatures is their missile defense. This will alter, in some cases, the creatures that missile characters were hunting; however, the most relevant cases are those characters that were hunting creature far above their level.
5) I like/hate the new monster spawns. Why did you do this?
During the Virindi story arc, the monster redistribution was a result of Virindi influence over the world. Now that the Virindi are no longer influencing the land, some creatures have begun a natural migration while others make their way across the lands for their own dire purposes.
6) Are the new creatures (Drudge Bloodletters, Banderling Scalpers and Predators, Sclavus Lords, and Olthoi Warriors) balanced?
Olthoi Warriors are right where we want them. The Bloodletters, Scalpers, Predators and Lords are very close, though not perfect.
7) If you are adjusting creature levels, how am I going to earn experience with the XP reduction code?
Every effort is being made to ensure that leveling does not become a tedious measure of diminishing returns. To that end, we are giving creatures designed for a certain level of player a generous buffer in which the creature is still worthwhile to hunt. This does not mean that players will feel it necessary to hunt one grouping of creature until they level. (For example, Gardok has hunted Olthoi Soldiers as his main source of leveling creature from levels 40 to 50. He now finds that the Soldiers [Level 61] have become simple, yet still yield good experience. He had attempted to hunt Nobles before, but often found that he could hit them reliably enough to earn the same amount of experience as he could off of Soldiers. With the new rebalancing complete, he decides to test Nobles out again and finds that he is earning more experience on them now than he was on the Soldiers.)
Are you adjusting creature experience?Yes. Creatures will reward you based on their level of difficulty. For most creatures, you will see an increase in the amount of experience that they yield, but for some you'll see a reduction. The goal is to stop the feeling of a leveling treadmill after level 80.
9) How is experience calculated?
While we cannot give you the exact model for this, we can give you some insight into how we are calculating creature experience. We first determine the level of character for which the creature is designed, then determine whether the creature is designed with deadlier skills than others (e.g., does it have War Magic?, is it Hollow? does it have a breath weapon?). If the creature does have deadlier skills, an enhancement modifier is added to the creature. We then determine how many characters would ideally be suited to face this creature. That number influences the experience yield as well. The final determinant is the creature's skills. The higher these are, the better the experience.
10) Are you taking away solo advancement?
Certainly not. We are well aware that one of the draws of Asheron's Call is the fact that a player can advance through levels alone. Creatures may be better suited for combat by multiple players, but they are still very defeatable solo. Of course, a group may increase significantly the amount of experience that you can earn over time, but this has been the case for a while.
11) What about the offensive skills of creatures?
These are being adjusted as well.
12) If you are adjusting creature skills, is there hope that player skills like Melee Defense, Missile Defense, and Magic Defense will have more use?
Yes. Part of this rebalancing action is to give credence to the skills to which players have chosen to pay attention.
While that's not all that's coming, the Re-balance is the only thing we wanted to give you a heads up on. As usual, for any updates on content, you'll just have to go adventuring. Thanks for reading, and thank you for playing Asheron's Call.