Artifact Changes Review

[Docterchese 1,570]

Hey all,

 

After changes made to artifacts in late April, we'd like to open up another discussion on the balance of artifacts and how they could be further improved, now that the current round of changes has had a couple of months to sink in.

 

There is a separate topic about more general game balance issues too.

 

The devs are currently away for a few more weeks so nothing will happen immediately, and suggestions are as ever at the discretion of developers as to whether or not they'd be added.

 

Thanks for your input!

Edited July 21, 2015 by Docterchese

[Postes 5,282]

So do you want opinions regarding the artifacts themselves or the recharging?

[Capi 895]

So do you want opinions regarding the artifacts themselves or the recharging?

everything about them

[aamanus 1,488]

I'll post a list of my kingdom's view of the artifacts as they exist now, along with data gathered.

 

Edit: As promised.

 

Artifact specifics:

 

Crown - Fine

 

Ear - Fine

 

Mouth - Fine

 

Eye - Should be a guarenteed locate.  Currently just has a chance of locating (granted with the ability to penetrate nolo body casts).  

Would also be nice if the locate artifact component of it did not locate itself.  It does this around about 50% of the time.

It's not worth taking the eye out when you can simply spam locate soul casts as a priest, in its current state. 

 

Rod - Change active use to something useful.  Forrest Giant Strength does nothing for 40+ body strength accounts.

 

Charm - Fine

 

Finger - Good. Perhaps add the ability to use on other people?

 

Scale - Fine.

 

Scepter - Increase hit/reduce glance chance, as the current hit chance compared to other weapons is very small (as it is with regular mauls). Change active ability to an instant cast Fungus Trap around the user. Disable Rotting Touch until active timer is up.

 

Hammer - Incrase hit/reduce glance chance, as the current hit chance compared to other weapons is very small (as it is with regular mauls).  Change active ability to an instant cast Light of Fo (reduce healing effect). Disable Life Transfer until active timer is up.

 

Sword - Slight damage increase. Around 10% on current perhaps. Change active ability to an instant cast Fire Pillar around the user. Disable Flaming Aura until active timer is up.

 

The active ability changes bring some utility to the weapons instead of them simply being things to hit people with (a suggestion many people liked from the previous topic), and move away from the vague non-info about what the weapons active abilities actually are.

And the removal of the damage enchant from each helps to keep the effective damage of the weapons down if you choose to use the active ability.

 

Orb - Reduce AoE damage, remove the 50% chance for user to die.  If backfire must exist, have it simply do the damage to your own team, on a small chance.  Number of charges used on activation should be lowered.

As the orb exists, there is no reason at all use it. The damage it does can be nice, but a 50% chance of losing a fighter right out is more harful than a successful use is helpful.

 

General:

 

Increase max charges to around 50% of previous level.  This strikes a better balance between maintaining and usability of them.  Current maximums mean some artifacts if used properly must be recharged every few days.

Fix the charge status messages to match the new maximum charges - currently a fully recharged artifact gives a message suggesting it is almost out of charges.

Equipping/unequipping the scale and crown should not untame your pet.  Dropping should still do as intended.

Currently artifacts lose charges at different rates, even if not used.  Hammer and rod charges appear to decay faster than the others, even though the active is never used.

Active abilities on the Rod and Scepter currently cast phantasms of you if you're not Fo (for the Rod) or Libilia (for the Scepter).  This should be removed.

 

Magranon Priests:

 

Currently Magranon priests are nerfed when using the artifact weapons as their damage passive does not stack with the artifacts.

No other faith receives a nerf for using the artifacts. This should be addressed in some way.  Some suggestions are reduced heals for Fo, reduced spell damage for Lib etc.

 

Some other suggestions were thrown at me, such as the addition of artifacts for the new gods, but I think for now they go beyond the scope of the topic.

 

 

For those requestion an artifact reset so they can test them, in all honestly Wurm has a test server for a reason.  Currently GMs refuse to hand out the artifacts to players, and for the purposes of this topic I think players should be permitted to spawn the artifacts on the Test server and play with them.  Especially since the major complaint has been the weapons/armour, they can be tested very quickly and reliably.

Edited July 22, 2015 by aamanus

[Zol 133]

Well first off it would be nice if you could fix the charge messages. Since they now hold only 30 charges when you full charge them it says some sense of power or whatever 30/120 was before. Make a full message and then cut it into quarters, or even thirds. Anything to help indicate how many days it has approximately.

 

Example:

30 days left - It emits enormous/immense amounts of power

22-29 days left - It emits a fair bit of power

14-21 days left - It emits some sense of power

7-13 days left - It emits a very weak sense of power

0-6 days left - It emits no power at all. It will need to be recharged immediately or it will disappear.

 

 

Also remove the ability to make mines within 50 - 100 tiles of either light (obviously this means nothing for the BLs current location). JK wouldn't be able to hide in a mine 20-30 tiles away from the WL waiting for someone to recharge. They would have to stealth out in the open with their horses clearly visible.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Zol

[watkins141 994]

From what I've heard, when you dig up the arti's they start with the old max charge. Seems kinda silly to me. If I'm wrong someone correct me pls

Edited July 21, 2015 by watkins141

[Daolin 894]

Since only MR have had access as you know being a member, what exactly do you hope to achieve from this topic?  Speaking for chaos only of course but it seems like a blatant attempt to get them rebuffed based solely on the word of a group that they are unusable now.

 

Since when did city hall threads start getting posted based on someones personal agenda?

[Tiu 160]

Not sure what you mean by trolling, he asked our opinions on the matter and that is my opinion as a Chaos citizen based on my experience with the changes. I was trying to be succinct and now you have me writing two whole sentences taking up room from someone who has more to input... 

 

Since the original post has been deleted let me say it again more politely.

 

As a citizen of the Chaos server who is not in the Kingdom known as the Empire of Mol Rehan, I have next to no experience with the recent changes to the artifacts, nor have I heard any experience from third parties who are also not in the Empire of Mol Rehan. If this thread is actually going to take in all points of view, then the fact that the recent changes have so far done nothing to increase the likelihood of artifacts changing hands is an opinion. I do not know the influence the recent changes have had on the artifacts themselves, as I am not part of the Kingdom who controls them or spoke to anyone who does. I do not appreciate my answer being deleted simply because someone sees it as trolling, I have just wasted all of our time by retyping this as a paragraph.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Tiu

[Fooligun 591]

My question for the dev team/Rolf,

What is the tally for PVP kills on Chaos/Epic before and after these changes? Did the amount of PVP increase significantly after the changes were implemented in comparison to the last 3 months and the same 3 months last year/before the changes?

[MetalDragon 1,630]

in b4 accidental super buffs

No but seriously - asking the community about balancing items only accessible to a portion of the player base in day to day play activity is a bad idea especially as they are competitive items. There's only a small minority of players who will actively use the test server because you need to be in the cool crowed with a GM last I checked in order to play around with certain features and I was informed they were not allowed to spawn artifacts for testing purposes nowadays but whatever.

Devs, you should take on board the negatives of said items, match them to what you've actually coded rather than base what players assume is coded (like we do for many of you're wonderful features) and then decide whether it does need improvement.

Just please take into careful consideration if you're going to be adding an ability/buff to items that seem fine initially, due to how the game is designed there are horrible snowballing mechanics that makes it harder and harder to counter. Personally I'd look at the bigger picture and work from the ground up, rather than focus on selected areas and potentially cause more imbalance. (p.s. I say counter as if it's actually possible to counter snowballing in this game - it's not unless you just stack more numbers)

Edit: Previously all items should have a 'charge' usage - the weapons would only use a charge when drawing favour out of it - it's the worst bonus to a weapon thus these things only needed charging once every several months - if they are to be buffed as essential pvp weapons - they should lose charges on a more regular basis - this is my only real suggestion and also to keep the orb as a gamble item.

Edited July 21, 2015 by MetalDragon

[Propheteer 7,139]

The charge messages need to be fixed appropriately, so it views 30 charges as the maximum.

 

The artifacts that use 10 charges per use, use too much per use.

 

Weapon artifacts need new use features.

 

 

overall good change.

[Lulu 601]

The problem being is that the only Kingdom to be able to test these is Mol Rehan,

 

I'm not going to get into a debate about 'well come and get them' and you can see for yourself. This issue here is after they were changed MR reportedly said that they all suck except for the Crown of might and rod of beguiling. They were the only Artifacts they would bring to a fight.

 

From a Chaos PoV - We don't know how they work and for all we know MR 'could' be playing the changes down so they get buffed even more? Who knows.

 

A complete reset of the Artifacts put to ground and given all kingdoms a chance to acquire them with a further 3 months of testing would give you a clearer picture of how the changes are received.

 

For all I care, you could set a date for some fairness that MR will have all the Artifacts back in their possession with the charges they had before the reset, for example 21st October - let us dig them up use them and be able to give a non biased review on how we think they should be adjusted of simply kept as is.

[Docterchese 1,570]

Since only MR have had access as you know being a member, what exactly do you hope to achieve from this topic?  Speaking for chaos only of course but it seems like a blatant attempt to get them rebuffed based solely on the word of a group that they are unusable now.

 

Since when did city hall threads start getting posted based on someones personal agenda?

This thread was at the request of an e-mail from a player to us. In the thread I linked to in the OP (last post in it,) Rolf promised a new discussion about the artifacts. This is a fulfillment of that promise.

 

 

If I wanted to abuse my staff position for personal gain then I would do it in private. I would privately contact Rolf and other developers using the elevated position that I have. But instead, here is a fully open, transparent thread, where people of all kingdoms and servers can come to discuss artifacts. And, also, my sole involvement in this thread was to get permission to post it and to post it. Don't shoot the messenger.

 

I for one despise it when players go directly to developers to try and lobby for changes. Other than in some exceptional circumstances (e.g. where there may be an exploit, of which even then, you should speak to moderators who are better equipped to handle in-game issues quickly,) then there is no reason to talk directly to developers.

 

If somebody wanted changes to artifacts, they would have two choices - to either post a thread in the suggestions forum, which then has to be picked up by the team and acted upon, or to try and lobby the developers directly, which wastes dev time and does not open up a full discussion. Or, as promised, we can post this topic and let people discuss things transparently.

[Docterchese 1,570]

I appreciate the post, I do want to point out it looks as if that email was trying to convince someone to make an underhanded change while asking for a thread.

 

A lot of people will be dismissed despite having great ideas and opinions because they only have artifacts used against them and not with them, so i would hope that is kept in mind.

 

The e-mail has a few specific suggestions but the last sentence is what we've done, and also, ultimately, it was promised

 

And I do agree that not everyone has had a chance to use the artifacts offensively, and that will limit how effective the thread can be. I know first hand that there are a few bugs and annoyances after the arty changes (e.g. the timings,) at the very least the thread will hopefully be a bug reporting drive.

[TradingAlt 946]

sounds like something that can be arranged on the test server.

[Propheteer 7,139]

sounds like something that can be arranged on the test server.

 

It would be nice to be able to respawn a particular artifact with any of the tools provided for the interim of this discussion on the test server, as opposed to having request a GM that actually knows how to spawn them.

 

 

A lifting of the regulations on meditation, easier priesthood and champhood would also fit nicely with testing.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Propheteer

[Zol 133]

Change the way charges work, make it 1 day per charge. So everyday you lose one charge. Items that use up a full charge in a day should not lose an additional day to time, this will incentivize players to use them.

 

The three artifacts of vynora need to be changed.

 

All three need to use only 1 hour of charge time per use with the standard 1 hour cooldown. Effectively giving you 12 uses per charge.

 

The orb of doom needs to be a one and done use. Meaning once you use the orb it immediately goes to ground after dealing the damage. Break glass in case of emergency type deal.

 

The weapons (hammer and sword of mag, sceptre of ascension) need to either have an actual ability added to them or you need to double the amount of charges they hold.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Zol

[Naio 675]

--opinion changed--

Edited July 24, 2015 by Naio

[MetalDragon 1,630]

test server!  it worked for bridges, why not artifacts?

And how long did it take to narrow down all the issues with bridges - which are a pve mechanic.

Artifacts are pvp weapons and can vary in use in different circumstances, sure someone can test them (and again I believe you HAVE to have GM supervision documenting your 'tests' nowadays, IF they let you use artifacts anyway). You reckon you can get multiple people on test server to test how the weapons, special effects etc work in different circumstances and buffs? nah it's not a suitable testing ground for the playerbase to test. "if you want these things to be fairly balanced before they go live then you'll need to test these yourself, on the test server or you'll just have to make do with a potentially OP feature as I dunno what to test"

[AlphaWolfen 160]

Why not an idea to revamp the artifacts to be based on a set charge. Like 3000 charges. at full, this diminishes as its used either an action or being used in pvp when hitting. This cannot be recharged and once fully used it gets poofed to the ground like normal. Can also include if not used in like 1 week it will degrade quicker.

Edited July 21, 2015 by AlphaWolfen

[Keenan 5,539]

I don't think they add anything to Chaos. I don't get to see them, or use them. They don't affect me directly, and they seem to be more of a headache than they are worth.

I'd support removing them for a better system perhaps? Something more fluid and balanced?

[MrGARY 12,421]

From what I've heard, when you dig up the arti's they start with the old max charge. Seems kinda silly to me. If I'm wrong someone correct me pls

 

This is correct, pretty sure it was reported the first time we discovered it when we dug up the crown

 

After all the times I've given suggestions I just dunno anymore.  3 months of charge doesn't work, 1 month of charge doesn't work, mouth/eye/ear just get blown up too fast being used, the hammer hits hard as a truck but it just outright sucks at hitting things, the whole thing's just meh.  They will either suck, or be too good.  Whoever has the best "control" at the lights will control those artifacts just as always, which is expected.

 

Outside of my ideas in the past about special attacks for the sword/hammer/sceptre, I guess if we're using 30 days of charge just remove the charge drains on use.  Nobody is going to use something and recharge it once every few days unless they have that "control" at the lights, or the most people, etc

 

The only times I can really think of that people fought over artifacts is when people go to recharge, which will automatically favor whoever has the most numbers.  It's really easy to do because artifact recharge dates are "rare" and known, so it's easy to keep an eye out with locates/camping etc.  Changing that at all though could make recharging too easy.

 

Considering all the changes to artifacts over the years, I'm honestly not sure there is a real fix.  There's artifacts currently rotting in the ground because I guess nobody even cares? 

 

Maybe it's time to do a huge change afterall that I've disagreed with.  Get rid of charges, make locate artifact locate a chosen artifact, make the locate cooldown 5 or 10 minutes.  30 days or 3 months whatever it shall be (50 days imo?), make them autodrop.  No need to deal with "unfair" recharges (wl vs bl situations), no need to worry about losing because you will anyway, no need to worry about it being a pain to find them, etc

[Keenan 5,539]

This is correct, pretty sure it was reported the first time we discovered it when we dug up the crown

 

After all the times I've given suggestions I just dunno anymore.  3 months of charge doesn't work, 1 month of charge doesn't work, mouth/eye/ear just get blown up too fast being used, the hammer hits hard as a truck but it just outright sucks at hitting things, the whole thing's just meh.  They will either suck, or be too good.  Whoever has the best "control" at the lights will control those artifacts just as always, which is expected.

 

Outside of my ideas in the past about special attacks for the sword/hammer/sceptre, I guess if we're using 30 days of charge just remove the charge drains on use.  Nobody is going to use something and recharge it once every few days unless they have that "control" at the lights, or the most people, etc

 

The only times I can really think of that people fought over artifacts is when people go to recharge, which will automatically favor whoever has the most numbers.  It's really easy to do because artifact recharge dates are "rare" and known, so it's easy to keep an eye out with locates/camping etc.  Changing that at all though could make recharging too easy.

 

Considering all the changes to artifacts over the years, I'm honestly not sure there is a real fix.  There's artifacts currently rotting in the ground because I guess nobody even cares? 

 

Maybe it's time to do a huge change afterall that I've disagreed with.  Get rid of charges, make locate artifact locate a chosen artifact, make the locate cooldown 5 or 10 minutes.  30 days or 3 months whatever it shall be (50 days imo?), make them autodrop.  No need to deal with "unfair" recharges (wl vs bl situations), no need to worry about losing because you will anyway, no need to worry about it being a pain to find them, etc

 

In addition, what if they took damage at a specific rate? Instead of charges. So that whomever has them will eventually lose them. I don't see a point in having items that can be found and kept under lock and key and not used.

[Naio 675]

i guess the difference in our opinions, is that i'd rather them be balanced correctly in the first place, rather than give it a shot in the dark chance of being balanced, and " it gives everyone else a chance to test potentially OP and be OP for a short amount of time"

 

If you are making suggestions with the assumption that this discussion will result in unbalanced artifacts, and since that's the case saying "just make yolo changes and hope for the best and spread them out across chaos" i think that's a flawed view of things. if they aren't balanced, and stay too weak or beocme to strong, this thread will just pop up again in another few months, and then there's no point of any of this discussion we're having

[Lulu 601]

With what's been said about un able to test on the test server, what else do you suggest?

 

With what's been said how can you expect a fair judgement and set of suggestions from other kingdoms when only one kingdom has the use of the artifacts (chaos)?

 

We had to put our views across as to how we think they could be made less OP or buffed in the previous thread, because we were the ones receiving the damage, how can we possibly suggest how much more it needs nerfing or re-buffing or changing if we have no access to them, Live on the Chaos server or on the Test server.

 

Reset them as they have been in the past and get a broader section of the player base to test them in as many different scenarios as a live game server would.