Goblin Squad Member
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There is a partly answer in my thinking hat thread, but I would like a bit more details, and have some follow up questions.
Is there a plan to change the Boot/Glove references, they seems to be a bit unsuitable to what the actions do, and creates confusion when fitted with keywords from other things than Gloves and Boots gear...
Ah yes, I was told to bring the Compound question to Stephen via the forums (heh, blame Ryan if this list gets too long).
Short issue - Compound does more damage when it is not set-up/green than when it is.
There's another thread with damage details...and ponies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For keywords on gear:
Yes, more keywords matched will theoretically increase the effect potency (epow), but the epow is always contested against the effect protection (epro).
On beneficial effects this means that your Utility keyword matches are contested against your Armour keyword matches:
3 basic kW match on utility: 3 epow
3 basic kW match on armour: 3 epro
3:3 equals 100% effect power on the utility feat
3 basic on utility: 3 epow
2 basic 1 advanced on armour: 6 epro
3:6 equals 70% epow on utility feat (100%-30%)
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Goblin Squad Member
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So because the system can't distinguish help from harm, my armor is trying to protect me from a beneficial effect. Is this an MVP system that will be replaced later on, or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?
"You've got T2 armor but you're still wasting your time with T1 boots? What a slacker! If you don't advance every piece of your gear simultaneously, you're doing it wrong!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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So because the system can't distinguish heal from harm, my armor is trying to protect me from a beneficial effect. Is this an MVP system that will be replaced later on, or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?
"You've got T2 armor but you're still wasting your time with a T1 heal? What a slacker! If you don't advance every aspect of your character simultaneously, you're doing it wrong!"
IRC Heal arn't affected by neither positive nor negative effects on utilities by keywords.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IRC Heal arn't affected by neither positive nor negative effects on utilities by keywords.So because the system can't distinguish heal from harm, my armor is trying to protect me from a beneficial effect. Is this an MVP system that will be replaced later on, or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?
"You've got T2 armor but you're still wasting your time with a T1 heal? What a slacker! If you don't advance every aspect of your character simultaneously, you're doing it wrong!"
You're right. Edited to put the focus back on the gear, rather than the effects.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?
Stephen's explained this rationale a number of times.
In essence, they don't want a newbie buffer (or macro buff-bot) with crap equipment able to fully buff high-level Characters in T3 equipment just as effectively as a "real" Character could.
Imagine asking in WoW, "why can't my Level 1 Priest keep this Level 90 Fighter healed?"
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Goblin Squad Member
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... or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?Stephen's explained this rationale a number of times.
In essence, they don't want a newbie buffer (or macro buff-bot) with crap equipment able to fully buff high-level Characters in T3 equipment just as effectively as a "real" Character could.
Imagine asking in WoW, "why can't my Level 1 Priest keep this Level 90 Fighter healed?"
Okay, I suppose that makes sense. The conflict still seems odd within a single character's gear, though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Okay, I suppose that makes sense. The conflict still seems odd within a single character's gear, though.... or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?Stephen's explained this rationale a number of times.
In essence, they don't want a newbie buffer (or macro buff-bot) with crap equipment able to fully buff high-level Characters in T3 equipment just as effectively as a "real" Character could.
Imagine asking in WoW, "why can't my Level 1 Priest keep this Level 90 Fighter healed?"
Exactly. How does it work with my example of evasion?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly. How does it work with my example of evasion?Okay, I suppose that makes sense. The conflict still seems odd within a single character's gear, though.... or is it intended to penalize someone for using two different grades of gear?Stephen's explained this rationale a number of times.
In essence, they don't want a newbie buffer (or macro buff-bot) with crap equipment able to fully buff high-level Characters in T3 equipment just as effectively as a "real" Character could.
Imagine asking in WoW, "why can't my Level 1 Priest keep this Level 90 Fighter healed?"
As far as I know, we haven't been told what the base effects of utility items will be, before they're amplified or suppressed by the epow/epro comparison.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How will keywords on gear work? For example, with Evasion, will matching the keyword increase the length of my avoidance?
Stephen answered this directly some time back.
At that time, Effect Power only applied to the magnitude of Stacking Effects and the duration of Timed Effects. I think he was considering putting in a feature request for it to also apply to things like the distance of Charge, Knockback, and Evade but wanted to consider the ramifications.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Oh, hey, I ignore this thread all day and most of the questions are answered by the time I get here ;) .
Like Nihimon says, right now EPow vs. EPro only affects timed and stacking effects. I definitely want it to affect heals. It probably makes sense for it to affect things like Improved Critical and Precise, though there might be some weird corner cases there. There are a few like Shrug Off and Dispelling where it probably should have some adjustment, but the code would have to be revised to even have a variable involved that could be scaled. We're also toying with the idea of some timed effects that have a non-scaling time but a scaling potency.
I'm really ambivalent about scaling Charge, Evade, and Knockback. There are a lot of situations where that being adjusted, even in your favor, could completely throw off your whole strategy (e.g., you knew that your Knockback was just enough to punt someone right to your Fighter, but it wound up being longer than you expected and now the guy's out of range of everybody; you wanted to Evade but you accidentally outclassed the target enough that you Evaded right off a cliff). Also, in cases like Charge, it means the game client would have to constantly run checks against the target's EPro to tell you when you were in range to use an action with Charge. So I've been trying to make sure all actions that have one of those effects have some other benefit to increased keywords (either damage or additional effects). That's why Charge has an Immobilize and Evasion has Avoiding.
Also as pointed out by Nihimon, you shouldn't think of it as your armor protecting you from your own effects, you should think of it as the fact that you're functioning at higher level (as evidenced by using better armor) and your lower level stuff no longer being good enough. We could work out an Effect Protection total for beneficial effects that took a bunch of variables into account to create an accurate idea of "your level" which can scale when you're wearing worse gear than you can support so we don't penalize you for being a level 20 in level 10 gear... but it would basically be pretty close to just looking at the armor keywords you're matching.
We're also toying with the idea of some timed effects that have a non-scaling time but a scaling potency.
Such as "Stun 2 seconds" downgrading to "Immobilize 2 seconds" below a certain threshold. (you'd mentioned the idea before)
On that note, Interrupt downgrading to an attack penalty would be lovely. I don't mind that I cant interrupt someone in T2 armor with my T1+2 weapon and level 3 attack; but I do mind that the attack does *nothing* against that opponent besides a smidge of damage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hi Stephen, Ryan suggested I post a message on the boards to ask this and didn't want to create a separate thread.
I have Strength Domain giving me a Heavy Melee Attack +14 and Crusader Armor giving me a Heavy Melee Attack +11. Each of these when slotted alone show up on my character sheet. When I slot both of them though only the higher one applies. Are these two supposed to stack? Are Armor and Feature training benefits intended to stack?
I'm not Stephen, but I would guess "Yes."
That raises an important question, though: Do my Longbow attacks' Precise bonuses stack with my Bow Specialization Feature? I don't know because I can't check, but they should be!
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Feature feats and Armor feats should eventually stack, but for now they're both on the same channel. We got a quick fix to passive channels a little while ago to make it at least take the higher bonus and to separate Upgrades into their own channel, but there wasn't time to do the full feature improvement (which is that I actually list an explicit channel name for passives rather than them all being on the "passive" channel). If you look at the wiki data, the Channel column on the passive feats shows you whether things will eventually stack (e.g., if they're both on the Passive channel, only the higher bonus to the same trait will get used, but if one's on Passive and one's on Inherent, they'll stack completely).
I am relatively confident, but not certain, that Precise, Base Damage, and Improved Critical bonuses on an attack will stack with the same bonus on passives. They definitely are meant to.
Stephen, I noticed that Favored, which is supposed to add to base defense, does not show up on the Character sheet. The attack bonus does, though. Also, slotting the "Glory" Domain does not add anything to defenses on the character sheet. Does this mean they are not working properly?
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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For now, I'm pretty sure the skill bonuses are only checked when you queue something up.
Long term, the plan is to try to make it more dynamically scaling since we don't really want crafting feats and gear to be something you only care about for the five minutes a day you're actually queuing things up. But balancing the dynamic scaling with keeping it from feeling like we're forcing you to sit in your crafting gear is something we're very conscious of. Part of this is getting more of the Freeholder and Expert feats online so you can spec to be awesome at crafting and still pretty decent at adventuring by using synergy within the role.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would extending the duration of auctions from 2 days to 7 or 10 days be a "switch one number in a spreadsheet" change, an "extensive reprogramming of several game systems" change, or somewhere in between?
This may be a little lower on the priority list, and that's fine. I'd still like to know whether it would be a relatively quick fix, or if it would require significant programming time. I think it would be very beneficial to everyone who uses the Auction Houses, to buy or sell.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Would extending the duration of auctions from 2 days to 7 or 10 days be a "switch one number in a spreadsheet" change, an "extensive reprogramming of several game systems" change, or somewhere in between?This may be a little lower on the priority list, and that's fine. I'd still like to know whether it would be a relatively quick fix, or if it would require significant programming time. I think it would be very beneficial to everyone who uses the Auction Houses, to buy or sell.
+1
2 days is only useful if you are entrenched in the one settlement and stay there and never roam around.
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Would extending the duration of auctions from 2 days to 7 or 10 days be a "switch one number in a spreadsheet" change, an "extensive reprogramming of several game systems" change, or somewhere in between?This may be a little lower on the priority list, and that's fine. I'd still like to know whether it would be a relatively quick fix, or if it would require significant programming time. I think it would be very beneficial to everyone who uses the Auction Houses, to buy or sell.+1
2 days is only useful if you are entrenched in the one settlement and stay there and never roam around.
IF you're going to extend auctions, it ought to only be for ONE settlement, and I'd like to see that ACCOUNT-wide.
Otherwise, one seller or buyer can dominate many (perhaps all?) markets. The 2 day limit makes it more work for carpetbaggers, and some of us want more chances to create content with foreigners.
2 day auctions give us 400% more encounter chances with carpetbaggers than 10 day auctions.
Make people travel. We want to "encounter" them and create content.
I'm ok with 10 day auctions in a SINGLE settlement per account, because I suspect few of us expect to waylay a marketer in their hometown.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Interesting perspective, Savage Grace. If the Auction Houses are being used on a regular basis, I think you'll still have plenty of opportunity to, um, interact with traveling merchants. If the Auction Houses are ignored the way they were in Alpha, your pool of victims, I mean interaction buddies, will quickly dry up. 10 days might make merchants a little too safe, but 2 days drives people to use barter within their settlements, rather than travel with sacks of plunder, I mean goods for sale, on their person.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There seems a misconception here.
Merchants currently need to travel to out of the way settlements every 2 days to re-list stock and buy stock (there are no buy orders in the AH system yet). They MAY take the opportunity to bring goods with them to sell but that is not guaranteed.
Limiting the number of days goods list in the AH will simply mean no-one bothers trading with out of the way settlements unless a direct barter is arranged. The idea it will provide juicy gank targets compared to a longer AH time is a bit unfounded.
Example (real):
I currently need several 100 pine logs and several 100 coal and have an excess of silver and iron. It is simply not worth my while with 2 day listings to head out somewhere like Rathglen "just on spec" to see if I can sell my iron and find some coal. With the current AH system you need a trade alt at each end to handle the buy and sell or its simply not worthwhile.
While I acknowledge the "risk" not getting visitors, fewer carpetbaggers also might keep locals from being economically overwhelmed by more prosperous and powerful colonial powers.
Free trade is perhaps a topic worthy of its own thread.
It's not only about single players and their convenience. 10 day auctions would make it more convenient for a Walmart to put together caravan armies to march in and dominate your markets.
Now maybe some of you want to be economically dominated hoping for cheaper non-local stuff. I'm sure the strongest proponents of long auction rates at many settlements want to *BE* Walmart, but we know what happens to local merchants in a Walmart world. Many local merchants wind up changing professions. Fewer marketers means fewer targets, as well as maybe even fewer economy minded subscribers.
One big juicy target marching in every 10 days that I can't beat (and that my company and kingdom might be too afraid of to allow me to attack) has little appeal to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMHO they should copy Eve and limit the number of listings you can put on AH globally depending on your AH "feat". I think Eve had a doubling thing that would be easy to copy. So at level 1 (costs 1sp to buy) you can list one item, level 2 is 34 points, can list two items, level 3 is 155 points, can list 4 items (I'm copying the skillpoints from the knowledge skills). Yes, this is not in the base PF game, but PFO is a PvP MMO, and people that TT do not usually play to run Auction Houses.
That said, they ALSO need to copy the "buy orders" for AH if they want a really robust system. I really enjoyed the "PvP" aspect of playing AH in Eve, and I am hoping that GW can copy the interesting parts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMHO they should copy Eve and limit the number of listings you can put on AH globally depending on your AH "feat". I think Eve had a doubling thing that would be easy to copy. So at level 1 (costs 1sp to buy) you can list one item, level 2 is 34 points, can list two items, level 3 is 155 points, can list 4 items (I'm copying the skillpoints from the knowledge skills). Yes, this is not in the base PF game, but PFO is a PvP MMO, and people that TT do not usually play to run Auction Houses.
That said, they ALSO need to copy the "buy orders" for AH if they want a really robust system. I really enjoyed the "PvP" aspect of playing AH in Eve, and I am hoping that GW can copy the interesting parts.
My EVE main can list about 200 and he has the feat nowhere near max. You can also list on EVE market for up to 3 months.
The two features in EVE that would be great here are buy orders and contracts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would extending the duration of auctions from 2 days to 7 or 10 days be a "switch one number in a spreadsheet" change, an "extensive reprogramming of several game systems" change, or somewhere in between?
I'm pretty sure that merely changing the duration is essentially a one-line change. The impact of that change on the size of the auctions database, however, and any improvements that might need to be made as a result, are probably a good deal more complex.
