Epic Claw set and more stealth nerfed

[Cetus]

I disagree
Most of the players that frequent this forum undestand the intricacies of loot mechanics and power creep.
Players are constantly looking for weapons/gear to compliment the levelling and endgame content.

Cost/sacrafice for tweak gear is well understood by players that are analyzing every new piece of loot to see how it will best compliment various builds.

Problem we have now is random keymash lootgen that produces garbage... this mechanic is ok for that diamond in the ruff from general random chest generation, but fails for Quest and Raid gear.

Raid gear really needs to follow a theme and bring out gear that fills voids for players. Something unique and usefull to every class and/or specific classes. Each named item has to be looked at and balanced for its usefullness.
If it lacks comparatively then it should get an extra slot. if it is Op then give it a negative effect offset..

like Bloodrage Symbiot.. used to be a great item.. now is kind of ok.. the beneifts of poison/disease immunity with DR 5/- and -2 Con meshed well. After changes to Poison/Disease any DR 5/Magic item was effectively better.
This could have been fixed by having it proc a 10% disease/poison/rage pot effect when stuck.. what we got.. nothing...

My all time favorite is custom crafting aka Shroud. this gave lots of variety and many unique and unusual usefull items.
I had a whole selection of variable stuff I could craft to fit whatever deemed weakness or buff I felt was usefull.
These shroud effects are what I would have liked to see slottable in epic gear (give epic gear T1,T2,T3 stack slotting).
This would give me the sense of progression by allowing me to replace shroud by slotting those effects on epic Gear but also require me to work for it.


Alchemical crafting in my opinion was a fail.. a few good items, limited choices, subpar shield crafting choices.
Great for monks as this was the first real option for DR breakers of shroud level crafting... but overall lacked as there were so few variations.


From the Dragons I would have expected Strong elemental Strengths and weaknesses..
Like Red Dragon armor to give 30 Fire Resist, 33% Fire absorption and 33% susceptibility to cold damage.
Great for those non-cold situations.. but against a cold based Mob ... hang on gotta Gear swap...or suffer the consequences.
Upgrade Augments to slot stuff like cold absorption to offset negative or add more fire resistance/absorption.. etc...
Similar for other dragons...

For Epic Gear....
-What would endgame tanks want to augment their tanking ability...
-what do healers want for endgame raid healing,
-What books have you read and thought ooohh that would be cool in the game I could make a ... variation....
-What unique defense items would a player want against pesky/annoying mobs like air elementals, earth elementals...
-What would every class want as a neat interesting item... like Water walking sandals for all water surfaces..dont equip while under water...
-Epic Gear should be 2 levels better than any random drop.
-Consolidates gear that cant be consolidated anywhere else.

Point being... The sense I get from a lot of this epic gear is that it is random keymashed. I dont get the impression when I look at this gear that it has been generated by someone who plays high end content and is grinding for gear/weapons to be the best they can be.

We all look at the new gear and think of how it will benefit us or improve what we have...
If it fails in that regard.. meh my regular version is better.. meh shroud is better, meh Why would I drop litany for that, meh that doesnt augment or replace Torc, meh why run this raid..... maybe if I drop this and swap that it it might be the same as what I had before...dont think so.. show me the candy/carrot.

We need a sense of betterment or consolidation or even something unique or fun as we run more difficult content and progress.
Rehashing old or weaker stuff isnt going to cut it, and all this has to be done with powercreep in the background and character development in the foreground.

Nicely done jot

Feather, please read this if you care about the quality of your deisgns.

[Symerith]

Nicely done jot

Feather, please read this if you care about the quality of your deisgns.

Seconded.

[RoelHeeswijk]

Taking the top 1% down a few stacking damage is hilariously ineffectual compared to hurting all the people who aren't in that position

Uhm, how are 'all those people' hurt, exactly? For them it doesn't matter if the claw set is artifact or any other type. Only the ones with both planar and claw are affected.

Implying that there was a change to some item that hit everyone just because that top 1% was gaining too much from that item is quite misleading.

[RoelHeeswijk]

Nicely done jot

Feather, please read this if you care about the quality of your deisgns.

Please don't. Don't listen to a guy who's all time favorite in loot design is the horrible OP fail that is shroud. It will probably again land you in a position where you can't make interesting loot for the next 5 years to come.

[Forzah]

Uhm, how are 'all those people' hurt, exactly? For them it doesn't matter if the claw set is artifact or any other type. Only the ones with both planar and claw are affected.

Implying that there was a change to some item that hit everyone just because that top 1% was gaining too much from that item is quite misleading.

Problem with these guys is that even the slightest nerf sets them off in a nerd-rage. At that point they are no longer open for reason, and start to exaggerate the effects of the nerf. Not making these things stack hardly changes anything. I mean, you do about 2% less damage? It is barely noticeable. I'm actually quite happy with the change, since it doesn't force me to gear in a certain direction for max damage; now I can just pick one damage set and invest in nice defensive gear on the newly freed up slots.

[RoelHeeswijk]

I was about to write a post about how I actually like this change, then deleted it all and started over.

In my opinion, it's good that you are typing the bonuses in the game, for both balance and for clarity (while you're at it, explicitly type the threat bonus that the set grants as well. Will that too become an artifact bonus?).
I don't agree with you in changing the functionality of old items, I'd say type them as stacking 'untyped', cut your losses and do the typing better in the future. But it's acceptable.

However, the real issue I have is with the nerfing of the planar focus. This may sound strange, but even though I like some limitations to stacking off gear, I think for weapons this should not be the case. Having to choose between claw set and some other set because they don't stack makes for interesting build choices, but the planar set doesn't work like that because of weapon swapping.
I understand the planar set is designed for this, and in a way I like the tension it creates. Ideally you want to swap trinket also when swapping weapon. (ideally ideally you might want to change another item too because of that, cascading into potentially a whole different gear layout). So it is slightly more powerful for players who take the effort to have the right setup every battle, while at the same time it's not useless for the ones who don't want to. It's good to create situations where a lot of extra effort generates a little more edge.
But making the set bonus not stacking is just too clunky. These weapons should simply become better when you wear the accompanying trinket, which is clunky enough in itself.

Also, when you force people to build for a specific weapon too much, the local optimum becomes too great and new content is less exciting. A new weapon will not look very interesting because you would lose your set bonus so you also need a new trinket. and some other source for +4 artifact damage. I'm not saying every new item should be a local improvement over the current, but you have to strike a balance in this and constraining the bonus type of the planar set is overdoing this.

Then again, Subterfuge already suffers from this, so you might as well ruin another one :-/

[RoelHeeswijk]

Having consistent classifications for set bonuses also makes it easier for new and existing players to understand what benefits are available to them. Players could upgrade to a higher-level set bonus that included a higher damage bonus, for example, or choose to use a completely different set bonus that is more in-line with their current character's level and goals.

Remember that just giving a bonus a type doesn't actually help that much in informing the player so that they can make a decision about what is best for them. You also need to specify how that bonus type stacks. 1+2+2 can be either 2, 3 or 5 and there is hardly any way to tell.

[Shade]

Remember that just giving a bonus a type doesn't actually help that much in informing the player so that they can make a decision about what is best for them. You also need to specify how that bonus type stacks. 1+2+2 can be either 2, 3 or 5 and there is hardly any way to tell.

Currently stacking rules for damage bonus is pretty simple.

Has a bonus type: Doesn't stack with like types.
Untyped: Stacks.

[JOTMON]

Please don't. Don't listen to a guy who's all time favorite in loot design is the horrible OP fail that is shroud. It will probably again land you in a position where you can't make interesting loot for the next 5 years to come.

I am curious .. what is it about should you don't like?
-A large range of craftible items/Weapons
-Unbound ingredients that can be farmed/purchased
-Bound Shards that for the most part require you to run the quest to craft the tiers.
-The ability to craft usefull items that can be customized for any playable class/race.
-Requirement to run 20+ times to select a cleansing stone to be able to equip more than 1 shroud gear item.
~Challenge/development/grind/usefullness/versatility/TR reusability... all the elements are there..

The only downfall that shroud has powercreep wise in my opinion was that the crafted items did not level scale upon tier crafting, but when this came out Shroud was endgame and there was no such thing as TR. This does allow TR toons to equip shroud fully crafted items at level 11/12 putting them ahead of any non-TR. In the grand scheme of things is still pretty meaningless. TR's have already worn out the levelling content and are rehashing old material.


Compared to Eveningstar quest items you can buy from the auctionhouse without ever having run the quest, or commedation turn-ins for an hours effort running randoms in the kings forest?.. These are the Op items as far as I am concerned.. ease of access powerful named loot with little effort.

Problem with these guys is that even the slightest nerf sets them off in a nerd-rage. At that point they are no longer open for reason, and start to exaggerate the effects of the nerf. Not making these things stack hardly changes anything. I mean, you do about 2% less damage? It is barely noticeable.

When you are out on a ocean ship and you see an iceberg coming towards you... Hey isnt that neat...an iceberg...
oh wait what ship are we on... TITANI.... oh F..eather...........
Consoidating current Untyped to overlapping Artifact changes so far... ~Tip of the iceberg~

So you are happy you dont have to grind for specific items, you can pickup whatever item fits and be content you didn't have to challenge yourself to get better gear or tweak out nuances for that 2% increase.

If you are happy with medeocrity and dont want to be the best that you can be... than good for you.

There is nothing that says we have to grind for every piece of stacking gear, we have driven ourselves to obtain those unique items. Some are happy with basic gear and play the game just fine, others will grind relentlessly for those exceptional hard to get unique items. Neither version should be game breaking, but at the same time there needs to be a recognizable difference between those that strive and those that dont.

For most players the challenge to be better and get better stuff is the driving force to play the game and seek out the most difficult content.

I'm actually quite happy with the change, since it doesn't force me to gear in a certain direction for max damage; now I can just pick one damage set and invest in nice defensive gear on the newly freed up slots.

Slotting for defensive gear to replace the non-stacking offensive gear is a different choice than seeking out new offensive stacking gear.
You were never forced to have stacking offensive gear if you wanted a blend of offense and defense.

If you are still optimizing offensive gear.. It means you have to find other options and other different sources of stacking gear.
For some it means dropping the planar set and going back to litany... or keep the planar set and get the new goggles, or some other choice.



Corrections to items are understandable, that is not the issue.. targetting changes without balancing or correcting affected items at the same time is the issue.
Claw set didnt have a slot because it was a powerful stacking bonus.. removing the stacking bonus leaves this set disadvantaged vs other comperable items... hence Nerfed..

The vague promise of possibly looking at correcting this in some future update is a cop out.

I would rather have seen Cordovan/Feather have the foresight to do something like changing the claw set to a pre-slotted +4 alchemical Hit/Damage and not have that particlualr augment drop in game.. this would allow you to keep the +4 Alchemical hit/damage or cleanse the slots and put something else there.

[Vellrad]

Currently stacking rules for damage bonus is pretty simple.

Has a bonus type: Doesn't stack with like types.
Untyped: Stacks.

Usually its correct, but there are few bonus type of the same name that stacks when values are different (like dodge/exceptional)

[Systern]

Usually its correct, but there are few bonus type of the same name that stacks when values are different (like dodge/exceptional)

Exceptional now only comes in +1. The old Exceptional +2s are now Insightful, which don't stack with +3s...

Although, your point is valid. Dodge and Healing Amp would have been better examples.

[zwiebelring]

As long as there is no published data on the impact of that loss there is no qualitative conclusion possible.

What is left is a change, which gives poeple more options if they do not own the set yet. And having more options on identical bonuses is an overall improvement. At the moment. Future will show if that is true or not.

Since there are many other redundancies on gear setups, that +4 just seems to be one more redundant bonus, if you want to use Planar Focus and Claw set.

[knockcocker]

Set bonuses should be untyped IMO. End of.

[Ape_Man]

Set bonuses should be untyped IMO. End of.

/signed

[Vellrad]

Exceptional now only comes in +1. The old Exceptional +2s are now Insightful, which don't stack with +3s...

Although, your point is valid. Dodge and Healing Amp would have been better examples.

Only exceptional stat was removed. There are more exceptional bonuses.

[RoelHeeswijk]

I am curious .. what is it about should you don't like?

The power level in general. The damage output (and relative unrestrictedness) of a lit II khopesh is so ridiculous compared to other onehanders, it took 19 updates until it was surpassed. Not to mention the HP items and other stuff.
And of course the ML specifically. Certainly not the biggest mistake in item design but up there.

Power should be creeping. Not lurching ahead creating a boring low after it.

Sure everyone 'likes' shroud loot, but if it causes all other loot to be not liked in comparison, it's still bad design.

[JOTMON]

The power level in general. The damage output (and relative unrestrictedness) of a lit II khopesh is so ridiculous compared to other onehanders, it took 19 updates until it was surpassed. Not to mention the HP items and other stuff.
And of course the ML specifically. Certainly not the biggest mistake in item design but up there.

Power should be creeping. Not lurching ahead creating a boring low after it.

I dont believe Shroud was ever a bad design, a lack of foresight or followup to adjust the ML of items as they were tier crafted perhaps, but to be fair I think you forget that getting these greensteel items is not a easy task (excluding those with access to huge amounts of plat/tradable resources and several capped alt toons to farm ingredients).

These shroud items would require easily 30+ Shroud runs (likely more) assuming they are also looking at crafting gear items, other clickies and more than 1 weapon to go along with it. By the time you can fully craft Greensteels you were already at or close to Heroic level cap.

the ML only applies to TR's since non-TR's will not be able to obtain the BTC shards to craft these items before being levelled into shroud and beyond.

currently random drop level 20+ items are on par with these weapons.
Also, crafting offers the ablility to custom craft InateMetaltype whatever Burst weapon of Greater Whatever Bane.

Variety and desirability are needed, packs and quests themes need to have their unique perks.
The best of these items should not be easily obtained or purchased.

Sure everyone 'likes' shroud loot, but if it causes all other loot to be not liked in comparison, it's still bad design.

This i believe is flawed thinking...
you are essentially saying that making good loot that people like is a bad design because no one will like the bad loot they make.

The goal should be to make good balanced loot and good progressive loot.
If something is unbalanced then it needs something to bring it back into sync..like OP situational items with side effects etc... or a unusual slot or extra slot .. whatever...
There will allways be a continued desirability to get that slightly better items, or get that clickie,buff, situationally usefull item, or consolidation of multiple things.

[Ape_Man]

I'm just happy it made 15 pages like I predicted . . .

Nothing's gonna change, Turbine doesn't listen to us, we will be nerfed.

But I'll be damned if I bother to farm for another one of their idiotic set bonuses again.

[Miow]

I'm just happy it made 15 pages like I predicted . . .

Nothing's gonna change, Turbine doesn't listen to us, we will be nerfed.

But I'll be damned if I bother to farm for another one of their idiotic set bonuses again.

Glad i didn't go after the new ones(although i do have a gloves set in the bag......yes i farmed that)

[Postumus]

If you are happy with medeocrity and dont want to be the best that you can be... than good for you.

You make some good points but I don't think this is one of them. Being non-plussed with a change that barely affects overall damage output is hardly being "happy with mediocrity." I don't agree with the tip of the iceberg analogy either as 99.9% of slippery slope arguments don't pan out and never come close to the doom prophesied by their proponents.


I also believe Cordovan and understand why this change is being made to simplify and standardize stacking bonuses rather than buy into the conspiracy theories claiming Feather does this intentionally do make his new loot look better. It seems to be a minor correction (since it appears it only stacks the way it does now because the bonuses weren't well thought out) that is necessary for the overall good of the game. Or if not 'the game,' for the good of the devs who will be designing gear in the future.