ИДЕЯ ДЛЯ РИЗОМА

Hello there, not trolling this time. Let's be serious!

I have just come back (if I may say so) to Ryzom and I have a lot of things to comment:

- The aura's cooldowns (anti melee, anti magic, war cry, and range protection) are WAY TOO LONG (and so is the duration). It should be on a 2 minutes CD (down from 15) and a 4 seconds duration (down from 20/22).

- The auras should definitely be independent from one another: for instance, using war cry should not make the use of the other auras impossible.

- The auras should remain team linked but their time of desactivation should be shorter (let's say you can't activate the same aura for 2 minutes but don't forget they are independent so you can still activate more than one different aura at a time!)

- Sap/stamina/life auras should remain the same except that their CD should be shortened to 2 minutes (down from 15), with a 8 seconds duration (down from 20) but with a greater effect (800 increased regeneration instead of 100, for example).

- Same for self heal: should be on a 1 minute CD (down from 6min10s) with a reduced effect (1300 instead of 2600) but NOT independent from one another (it would be totally abusive otherwise).

- Invulnerability should be on a 10 minutes CD (down from 15) and should also be cancellable (use it a second time to abort its effect).

- Berserker should be on a 1 minute CD (down from 10m35s), with greater effect: increases damage of 250 for 15 seconds (down from 34) but costs you 300 damage every 5 seconds (up from 54 every 4 seconds)).

These changes are very easy to implement (it's only a matter of variables) and at the same time it would totally change the gameplay of Ryzom (both PvE and PvP wise). It would definitely make it more dynamic, more strategic, and it would really give a new look at some of the "never used" stanzas. It would also develop a certain team spirit with the use of independent and shortened auras which could, possibly, turn any kind of situation in your favor if used properly.

What do you guys think?

Hmmm, I never really considered aura mechanics to be broken. You know, except those times when MPA is clearly active, yet physical damage is inflicted...

I think that Developer(s) should focus on fixing bugs and implementing some new stuff, before we start balance things, that worked well for many years.

I don't really think that changing the duration of a spell and the CD is much of an effort though. It's only a question of changing variables whereas implementing new stuff is a considerable work (even if the creation part was done 10 years ago, some bugs might appear when added to the game).
And yes, I do think Ryzom needs to be balance, and even though it "has worked" for many years, there's still room for improvement. These changes could really change something and they cost nothing, so the question is: why not then?

Have to say I hate the idea of reducing cooldowns, even with a decrease in duration.  I specially hate the idea of being able to cancel invul.  I like that the benifit you gain from it comes with a penalty.    As auras are, they make players think before they use one.  This adds much to the game.  I fear your proposed change would just encourage spamming of auras.  I doubt you will get much support for trying to make the game easier.  Lastly, you have also given no argument as to why changing them would balance gameplay and even improve it!

I wholeheartedly agree to Lacuna. Messing with aura CD would mean "making the game easier", the way other MMOs ruined themselves and made them a boredom, driving away the old players without attracting new ones.

Planning the auras is an important part of game mechanics and team interaction and cooperation.

Granted, there is a bug in aura stacking since long time which should be fixed some day. I requires auras to be activated by no more than one team member otherwise the aura will malfunction.In fact, we got so used to that bug that it nearly became a feature :) so there is no urgent need to remove it. Yet it would not be that bad to have aura stacking (which is still working with a few powers like warcry) back in action.

I remember while I was discovering ryzom, and It's true that it was a bummer to see those huge cooldown on every aura or power and even autoregen.

Of course now I'm use to it. Those stanzas are mainly helps to survive to a unplanned threat. Strategic use of them during fights is limited, especially on long battles. It's far less important than the ability to switch from attacking to healing and vice-versa.

I understand a bit what is proposed here, and the argument that it would make the game more dynamic. It's would be a bit more like standard games with dozens of special powers you can use often.

It's true that it's not a big deal for Devs, but, I think it is really a big one for leveldesigners to find the right balance. If this is became a will, one should implement this on a test server, so everyone could see if it's more fun or not. We cannot just change the values like that.

This is very sensitive, because it may break habits of long time players (the worst ones^^). The one who adapts fast will have a great advantage. The others would be completly upset.

I actually agree with Klrs' whole idea of making the gameplay more dynamic. I highly doubt that a more dynamic gameplay makes a game easier in any way. I also have to say that there is a long way to go if you start caring about the long time players, since they most likely won't want to see the game evolve. (Ooh, sensitive subject.)

However, I am well aware that we lack the resources (such as devs and what not) to start balancing the game. It is true that before even thinking about balancing the game, the game needs to work as it is supposed to. Which is obviously not the case.

I still don't think that the power and aura cooldowns are a problem, in fact because you cannot hit an aura everytime you are in the slightest trouble you must learn to play/fight dynamically. I don't think that using auras more frequently is dynamic, it sounds boring- imagine being able to MPA everytime you have aggro, or warcry each time you start a pvp fight, you might as well make the boosts permanent!

not much of this topic makes any sense to me (says the guy that has but a few that are required to do a single npc boss)

played for years without speed, even after getting it i use it rarely, mostly for rez duty of a friend that's far away.

invul, rarely use it outside that one boss, same for warcry (only for npc boss), beserker (only for npc boss), all those other one's, don't even have them, (unless you count self heals, which i think are fine the way they are)

so from someone that's played a long time, they're an extra feature that works fine the way it is, and some of them aren't needed all that much.

ryzom's hard, and it's liked that way, near as i can tell, things that fall under this topic work just the way they should.

but that's my 2 dappers.

I, for one, am not saying that auras do not work properly. (Well, they actually don't, but it might be another topic.)
Placio : Klrs is proposing to reduce MPA cooldown but also reduce it's duration, which means finding the proper CD/Duration for which MPA would still be balanced. He proposed a 4 seconds duration, which does not make it anymore powerful than it actually is. It would probably be less powerful, actually, since 4 seconds can hardly save you from really tough situations in this game - while the actual duration saves you from almost any situation at all. So you're very, very, very... far from making the boosts permanent.
"in fact because you cannot hit an aura everytime you are in the slightest trouble you must learn to play/fight dynamically."
I do find this fact quite amusing, since Ryzom is probably everything but learning to play/fight dynamically. At least, not in PvE, Plac.

Talk : I'll go back to saying that a more dynamic gameplay does not make a game easier in any way. In FF14 as a melee DPS you have up to 24 skills to cast/25 seconds while dodging any and all spells the bosses cast at you + monitor your debuffs - and it gets quite hard.
Although, only updating the auras will not really affect the gameplay, but I believe it is one step to a more dynamic gameplay, even though everyone seems to think otherwise and even though older players will just tell you that everything works like a charm. *wink*

Thinking again about the proposal, I think that shortened auras (in durance and CD) would be a pain and a disgrace for PvE players patrolling alone or in small groups in high level areas. MPA as it is barely sufficient to get away from an attacking KP, or other larger pack of agro. Careful planning of all emergency measures at hand is crucial when moving in the more tricky parts of Atys. But having the protection time crippled would be bad.

For short term advantages, PvP players may still use eggs etc., and for such 5s-effects, the reinstatement of the advanced occupations may be considered/suggested. That one gave nearly godlike power for a few seconds, no reason to ruin MPA for.

I agree with Klrs (I was speaking to him when the idea came for this post) the real problem with Ryzom is not that it is hard it's that it's too repetitive.

Lets use the example of killing an npc boss:

Ele Player: Makes an assist and cast macro and presses it for the next 10-40 minutes.
Healer: Has a heal spell that they need to press for the next 10-40 minutes.
Tank: Keeps aggro away from casters, chooses targets.

Of course with a different setup it can vary and there are certain tricks to npcs but for the most part that is what is happening for npcs (excluding Pei-Ruz) and other bosses. The problem from that is that a physical player has no advantage over an alt repeating a spell over and over unless something goes wrong and they have to heal run around pop auras rez ect.

I seriously ask everyone reading this, do you think that this makes the game difficult or based on numbers?

Unfortunately Ryzom doesn't have enough players to be a number oriented game, and what Klrs is proposing is a way to make the game more fast paced and actually be using some of the limited number of actions that we have more often rather than mashing one key over and over.

Another example of this applied to damage is if elemental damage should be able to maintain Damage over Time (DoT) links while casting a nuke, also giving the player more things to do, and rewarding them with higher damage than just hitting one key over and over. (Yes I know you can pop enchants in between nuke casts to do more damage but that does require a lot of crystals).

Also Siela, I think the entire problem with Ryzom development is that they've focused on implementing new things more than having existing things work well, for example the built in mp3 player, like really what was the point of that?

Mestro, I think that your examples give a dead wrong impression. You are depicting the situation of a mob boss hunt once the minions have been avoided or killed, and a safe place to charge the boss has been found. Then, indeed, a fairly small team may do all of the job, and it will last depending on ele/melee damage in relation to the boss' HP. Btw., first of all, you have to find the boss, to single it out, and to secure the fighting ground.

Yet again, the ele has not only to cast, but, especially in small teams, also has to care for refill off the healer. The healer has to care for both tank and ele, with some priority to the tank's HP. The tank, namely in small teams, has sometimes to put on amps and care that healer and nuker stay in effect.

Some of this may be done with an alt, yet it means that you have to concentrate a lot, suffer no PW, and make no mistakes. It clearly means more than just spamming unless you have a pod of many alts and refer to illicit control tactics. And by the way, I saw not so small teams failing on bosses, which did not contain alts. Clearly, when concentrating on boss hunting with experienced players, it will be easier, and close to routine after some time. But for not so few, boss hunting, namely the biggest ones, remains a rare and often unique experience and an adventure.

Complaining about Sap Crystal need for enhanced fight/magic/heal is self-contradictory. Getting the crystals is part of the game, and there are several ways to achieve it. It is a good thing not to get everything for free (it is a different discussion whether faction points over NH are well balanced of not).

I do not say that Ryzom's combat system is the best possible. Yet it offers a fairly good compromise between versatility and fair chances under situation of different network latency and processor speed/RAM eqipment. The very versatile and fast schemes to change actions, gear, and weapons I saw in other games frequently gave advantages to the fastest connection and the strongest computer, which is some pay2win scheme in the end. Frequently, they allow widespread macro usage and build best practices widely published in the game and gamer forums making the game even more repetitive than Ryzom fighting.

Changing the fighting system requires thorough testing and often rebalancing. Not that it would not be interesting to have DoT working in a way that it may be called useable, range weapons useful out of PvP etc., there would a lot be left to desire. Yet I recall with annoyance of the constant changing and nerfing of magic and fight actions in an other game, where every trick giving some PvP fighters undue advantage, was immediately countered by changes of the combat system. That made the game a nuisance in PvE, which in turn led to introduction of PvE only actions, which were overpowered and made the game more boring instead of better.

And no, I do not think that there is one "entire problem with Ryzom development" other than that a fairly small and underfunded crew of developers has kept alive a game which was started by a much larger crew. That necessarily implies that they are parts remaining incomplete, abandoned, or finished in an abortive way. With some millions and flocks of developers this could be fixed easier. Hopefully, the forge will allow to go some steps into
that direction, too. But personally, I would rather advise to new content like missions, regions etc. instead of touching the combat system.

So, pressing a button once every 15min (considering it lasts 20sec, so when you're in danger, you activate it, and you're totally safe) is harder than pressing it once every 2min with just enough duration (4sec) to potentially save your life if you use it at the right time, is that what you're saying? If yes, I can't counter your argument because it makes no sense to me.

Ryzom is a "difficult" game (for a beginner), not because of the gameplay, but because of the HP pool, the fact that aggros follow you for ages, that it takes forever to level up and get correctly geared, that there's nobody currently playing the game to help you, etc.
The gameplay is slow and by that I mean extremely slow. As Mestro said, killing a NPC boss, except Pei, is really easy if everybody knows what he's doing (spam a few buttons): The tank keeps the aggro, the heal basically heals and the nuker drops the boss down. The 2 mages can easily heal themselves so that they don't run out of sap. Yes it takes a lot of time to kill a 270 boss being only 3 people, but in most cases, it works perfectly. Securing the fighting ground, as you call it... is that really difficult? Especially that a lot of bosses are non-aggro so you can just ignore the gards if you pull the boss away from them.
And since there's no real PvE in Ryzom (once again, if you compare it to other games, since that's all of us are doing now), I don't really know what this could negatively change after all.

PvP wise (and also if you often play solo), though, the game would become much more dynamic (changing from the traditional hit -> sit (regen) -> hit again while levelling or hit -> switch to amps -> enchant heal -> back to weapons in PvP because the auras would play a real role in the game compared to now where they're just panic buttons because you press them while in danger and you know you're totally out of trouble for half a minute).

I don't really know why I am bringing you guys arguments since Rook and Mestro brilliantly summarize my thoughts and ideas but I'm still trying to convince you that, if you play other games, you can really see what's wrong (and what's good!) in Ryzom as soon as you play it again.

That's true that it may take some time to change these numbers but it's better to have a dynamic game to me, rather than just a bugged and slow game. And I think that fixing bugs takes much more time than actually just changing some duration and CD (and why not, the DoT system as Mestro explained because they are completely useless right now).