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Gems nerfed - the least elegant solution to a pressing problem
Lichthammer
Member Posts: 51
These are the new gem stats as reported from the TestLive server:
Lvl | Name | Stat on Live | Stat on Test-Live |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80 | Vicious Cabochon Star Ruby | +8.9 1HE dmg | +0.5 1HE dmg |
80 | Scything Cabochon Star Ruby | +8.9 2HE dmg | +0.5 2HE dmg |
80 | Thrusting Cabochon Emerald | +8.9 Dagger dmg | +0.5 Dagger dmg |
60 | Brutal Teardrop Peridot | +4% Fatality | +1% Fatality |
80 | Sacred Cabochon Golden Bery | +14.3 Holy mgc dmg | +2 Holy mgc dmg |
80 | Evasive Oblique Emerald | +0.5% Evade Chance | +0.2% Evade Chance |
80 | Inviolate Cabochon Star Ruby | 0.4% Melee Invulns | 0.2% Melee Invulns |
80 | Immutable Cabochon Tyrian Sapph | 0.3% Magic Invulns | 0.1% Magic Invulns |
80 | Unyielding Cabochon Emerald | 1.6% Crushing Invn | 0.3% Crushing Invn |
80 | Tenacious Cabochon Emerald | 1.6% Slashing Invn | 0.3% Slashing Invn |
80 | Quenching Cabochon Star Sapphire | 1.4% Fire Invuln | 0.3% Fire Invuln |
The change is good in that it should eliminate the oneshotting problem and bring some balance to PvP again. However, they still chose the most crude way of solving the problem, and in the process made crafted gear kind of pointless. Looking at my sword now, which is a level 80 blue drop (Diregore, not crafted), it will be superior to any combination of gems on a level 80 crafted sword - because the gems with stats that - one must assume - were meant to be equal to fixed stats on non-crafted items, but not stackable, now do very little. If you wanted to emulate the stats on any weapon all you had to do was to go with different gems. One +physical damage, one +fatality chance, and one proc of some kind and look - your very own custom sword with stats that are remarkably similar to dropped weapons but still hand-picked by you. This hits armour even harder, as most armour sets or individual pieces have notoriously stupid stat allocation, whether they are class-specific or not.
My sword still has +11 Physical Damage on it, but it only has one iteration of that modifier. I like to think that they intended for gems to do the same, but at the same time allow for mixing and matching and increased customization through choosing your own modifiers. I can think of numerous other ways to solve this than the current heavy-handed nerf solution, in fact I believe you could roll back gem changes all the way to before +immunity gems were nerfed if they had done something like this:
Option one: Coloured sockets. Gems of a certain colour only fit in a certain colour socket, perhaps two colours of gems in one type of socket (three in total), as there are more gem colours than sockets on items. These should not overlap though, so that you never have one socket that allows for instance red/yellow and another one that allows blue/red, or you could still stack same-colour gems. And never two sockets of the same colour on a single item.
Basically, all damage gems are red. So you could have one damage gem per item. Compared to now, that would cut down the base dps of a high-quality crafted set to 1/3 of its current values, and that is quite enough. At the same time it would even the playing field a little when it comes to buying and selling gems - instead of damage gems going for 10-15 gold each and everything else being worthless, the price on damage gems would drop and the price on proc/stamina/stat gems would increase accordingly.
Option two: Only allow one gem of each prefix per item.
This should be even easier than making the sockets coloured. All gems have a prefix that determine their stat. Essentially, if you stick one gem with the "Scything" (+2HE Damage) prefix in a gem, you cannot add another Scything gem (regardless of it being of much higher or lower quality or not) to the same item. So you can still have multiple gems of the same colour, but not of the exact same type.
Both of these would fix the rampant stacking issue by lowering the total amount of +damage you can possibly achieve to 1/3 of what it is today, without making crafting disciplines obsolete and gemmed gear absolutely trivial. You would still be able to mix and match in a way that let you customize stats to your liking rather than going with the predetermined options of drops, but crafted gear would then adhere to the same "rules" as drops - only one of each particular modifier on any weapon or armour piece, no matter how many different modifiers there are.
How hard could it be to solve an issue - an issue that has thrown PvP balance in a supposedly PvP-orientated game into total disarray - without at the same time breaking three crafting professions? I'm still satisfied they actually acknowledged the issue and decided to do something, but the solution seems like a panicked shot from the hip. Maybe because you just realized you terminally fucked up a month ago and since then have spent your time actively ignoring the issue until it hit you in the back of the head in the form of the sudden evolution of the constant trickle of account cancellations into a massive waterfall of fail.
Why am I posting this here and not on the official boards? Fair question, the answer is as follows: I've been banned from the official boards for a while, likely because I made threads similar in nature to this one, albeit on different subjects that were more appropriate at the time. Maybe you'll take notes anyway, Famine?
PS. Note that if you quit the game a month ago and still run around drooling all over the place with your Failcom avatar, your opinions in this matter will be discounted by default. Thank you.
Tusende kroppar alla döda och svala! | I blog.
Comments
There are very few devs still working on this game.. They had to take the easiest possible 'fix' and go with it. Its exactly the same as the female swing speed issue.
They fail to see the big picture (comparing crafting gear to raiding gear). All they saw was a big glaring problem, and took the easist route to fix it. There simply is no overall design decision.. no "how does this fit into the overall mechanisms of the game".
They killed crafting.
Lol yes they invested all that money and now only few of them are left to work on it.
As for the gem nerf, it seems a bit unbalanced atm on test live, for some thing crafted armor is still better but this should be tweaked more.
Thank god Age of Oneshooting will be at least over.
Futilez[Do You Have What It Takes ?]
Good thing I quit after two months. Seems like Failcom is continuing their downward spiral. I was a gemcrafter.. most of the gems were useless as it was. Because of no twinking, all of the weaker gems were just an obstacle of reaching the highest tier, forgotten as quickly as you learned them. Now even the high end gems are useless because they can't take a little time to make a correct fix.
You always know it's bad when your fans come up with simplistic ideas to fix everything that ails the situation.. and they still ignore it. This isn't even a matter of rushing a game out quickly anymore. It's starting to turn into a VG situation. To this day, VG applies patches that complete destroy other areas of the game. Well... good luck WAR.