About The New Balance

[Wombat]

This is an announcement that the Balance Project will soon begin a gradual shift in many game play factors. These changes may be temporary or they may be permanent, but will eventually shift towards a final system that uses equipment tiers, equalizes combat effectiveness in the class options, increases class options (assassin type character, melee/bow user, high dodge, high crit) and opens the door to a longer string of new equipment that will arrive with playerset 1.5 once playable such as one handed and two handed slashing and a polearm attack.

We are also changing approaches in game content that will attempt to address issues of multi-boxing and botting in new ways or mixing old approaches in new ways.

You will see a significant difference in the amount of damage dealt and the amount you can receive in all forms of combat, which have become too powerful to support a balanced combat system. You will also see a reduction in the amount of experience given by monster killing. Other factors will influence this balance. Please don't be alarmed by these changes. They have been avoided for far too long because of this issue.

A powerful two handed slashing weapon for a 90+ character would probably be +100 and the best attack given eventually in this system, as an example of what you may expect to see.

[noelleionscowl]

I'd like some new equipment. But, as always, I believe that this is too extreme. From what I read, you are lowering the amount of damage that the player does and increase the damage that the monsters do? And you're lowering the EXP for what? To make it even harder for honest people to work at this? And 100 damage max for a "powerful, two handed weapon" for a level 90? I'm a level 53, with a forest bow and iron arrows. I do... 130 damage on average to bunnies, and pinkies, and things like that. What kind of damage will I do to those now? 30? 40, at the most?

To be entirely honest, I haven't played this game in quite some time. I'm not sure if the stupid increases in prices have been lifted.

Personally, I believe that to deal with multiboxing, you should just get rid of the "stacking" idea, and keep the damage values and other things the same. This goes for declaring "armor to be of a much lesser quality", and slashing it's defense value. Personally, I think that you should introduce a... dark mage guy into the world, and announce that he's giving monsters more power, allowing them to do more damage, while you deal less. It's a more interesting solution than just cutting those values.

And what do you mean, by "avoided for far too long because of this issue"? What's that supposed to mean? Just because some people would like not to die after every ten seconds doesn't mean to me that you should draconically force everyone to adapt to this new style of playing.

-My day now-
Join the game. Talk to some of the people in Hurnscald. Get kicked out of Hurnscald due to my being a loser. See if the chiseling bastards who run the ferry have lowered their prices yet. No. See if Taro is back. No. Kill a mouboo over the course of a couple minutes with my best friend. No boxing, no hacks, and just some armor I got from quests. Work on killing log heads for a meager living off of roots, and create various things for myself out of the logs with magic to gain MP. Log off.

-My projected day-
Join the game. See that the ferry prices have increased to 20,000GP per trip. No taro. Shoot a maggot, doing 30 damage, while being attacked by its acidic spit, which burns my armor away, and does a good deal of damage, as well as poisoning me. Attack a fluffy. It shoots miniscule needles of fur at me, spearing my heart and temporal lobe, as well as causing acute liver failure. Kill the fluffy before it kills me. +5 XP! ...woot? Die from poison. Find out that the mana seed has revoked my magic license. Log off.

Yeah, the above two paragraphs were written after I had a little much.

All right. To head off some of the standardized answers:
1. Yes, I don't want to grind too much more. I now have a job, and I'll be attending school in a couple of months. I don't have time to do much grinding.
2. I'm shocked. Yes, I know I'm not supposed to. But my copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy just told me not to panic, and I'm not panicking.

[DariusBane]

noelleionscowl, may have admitted to having a few.

I've not had a few. Feel compelled to voice an opinion. The new balancing is really not good at all. I logged in after being away for a while and got shocked. I created a new account, new character. I often forget user name / passwords, no big deal. What is a big deal is the attitude given over the new balancing.

I asked about why bat wing prices had so drastically changed. "Newbies can't be rich!"
That was the gist of the reply. So I questioned a little more. The same stonewall reply. "There's major re-balancing, newbies can't be so rich. Look, I got three characters all at level 80 and am not rich."

So I asked further. I was only told it was due to newbies leveling up too quickly. That was one of the reasons I loved the game. Everyone got good stuff and could do so rather quickly. This made it more of a community as people would be inspired to do random acts of kindness. "Here, have fifty acorns and some iron ore!" Or, people would heal you because they were leveling up magic.

And no, I'm not advocating begging. Rather, I advocate a sense of community. As it is now, that won't be there. Everyone will now horde everything. Yes, I know the game's supplies will not run out. But there are items, monsters and so on not everyone can tackle right away. And yet they still come at you.

For example, the ferry ride to Hurnscald cost 250 up until you reach level 20, then 500. It used to be 5gp, Snowy Fields was 250. And I only see scorpion stingers as a means to make gp. They run 25gp a piece, everything else up to that point is the really expensive items, which you may need later one and are given out as monster point rewards. "Sure, I'll sell for Poltergeist Powders to have a boat ride."

So who made all these changes? Wombat? Was there player consideration? Who voted? Was there a vote? What are the main issues for the changes? Do the changes ultimately effective the goals of the game?

Oh wait, that's right. My wife once told me she overheard some of the devs and admins talking about how it was nothing more than a time waster. Well, there ya go. Sorry, I can find other games or things to do with life and time. I wrote this out of caring about the game, being a gamer. I know it is free, but if you were to ever charge, can guarantee you'd lose a lot of players with such changes. So please reconsider.

[noelleionscowl]

I've kinda given up TMW. I pop in from time to time, but I spend my time playing different games.
Minecraft, TDP4, NOVA 2, MC:BP, and NOVA Elite mainly. I've grown tired of seeing how horrible the world has become.

[Durian]

I don't know if TMW has always been this way but, there is far too much grinding. =\

[Hello=)]

I don't know if TMW has always been this way but, there is far too much grinding. =\

Yep, it is and it has been this way for a while, which is particularly annoying. I would suggest better reward rates (and tougher monsters to make it hard and unsafe to get these good-probability rewards). This would both make game less boring, more challenging and would eliminate ground for bots.

As for botting, I seen some RPGs solving botting issues in these ways:
1) XP you'll get for killing monster level is a some function of (player_level - monster_level) difference. So, killing weak monsters becomes inefficient to level up as your level increases. This kills easy ways of botting when hunting only some 1-3 types of monsters of similar levels: soon this would become inefficient, you will earn 0 or almost 0 XP and fighting another (tougher) monster giving more XP (at your level) may require serious bot modification. Implementing a fully blown AI capable of winning fights with an arbitrary monster is a challenging task.
2) Furthermore, fighting monsters of suitable level should have undefined outcome. You should have significant chance to die when fighting worth monsters if you playing bad. This will force humans to apply some tactic and strategic skills. Something that bots can't do well (even best AIs in games are playing reasonably dumb when they need to evaluate many factors, randoms and uncommon players actions all at once).
3) Some game mechanic seems to go even further and apply some extra "bad luck" to those who "behaves similar to bot". You walking at gy? Shooting one skele at a time? For whole hour? How about of ripper popping up near you? Or what about receiving several deadly crits in a row, even with good luck and def? True human will run away, or change tactic and deal with new challenges. Bot would have troubles making a proper decisions
4) It's nice idea to make monsters to guard their spawn areas or so. So if monster is pulled too far away from it's home and then loses target, it should return to it's home area. This would add up to those botters who are pulling "excessive" monsters from dangerous areas to kill just 1-2 monsters, often in stacks. How about returning all these 10 "excessive" skeles pulled by players back to their places to show they're not "excessive" at all and serve for their purpose of keeping dangerous area actually dangerous and deadly? Players should be unable to convert deadly areas into safe playgrounds
5) I'm sure there should be free running monsters who're running fast and hitting hard, capable of killing even best players in a few hits, only killable in a reasonable time by a teams of well orchestrated players who plays different roles. This will prevent game from being too monotonous and boring (you'll always have chance for some extra adrenaline and teamplay) and would make bots "life" a real headache as bots are not very good in carefully planned retreats or teamed actions .
6) Monsters should also attack healers for healing those who fights them. This would both make healer's life less boring and healbots would really dislike this idea .
7) Maybe some monsters should be able to use magic attacks at their will, to keep warriors nerved and challenge mages. And sure they should be quite common in dangerous areas.

[yubabax116]

I don't know if TMW has always been this way but, there is far too much grinding. =\

Keep in mind that not just tmw but alot of other rpg's use grinding whether its for money making or quests.

[Crush]

Hello TMWAthena tech and content devs.

Don't be discouraged by the negative reactions of some players. This always happens when you introduce necessary changes to a long-running online game which give players a disadvantage. Don't listen to those people who fail to see the big picture. Only do what you believe is the best for the game in the long run.

And most of all don't listen to those who demand that making gameplay decisions should be a democratic process driven by the community. Players always believe that fast and easy gameplay success is equal to a fun game experience - this can be the case but it can also be the opposite!

[yubabax116]

Hello TMWAthena tech and content devs.

Don't be discouraged by the negative reactions of some players. This always happens when you introduce necessary changes to a long-running online game which give players a disadvantage. Don't listen to those people who fail to see the big picture. Only do what you believe is the best for the game in the long run.

And most of all don't listen to those who demand that making gameplay decisions should be a democratic process driven by the community. Players always believe that fast and easy gameplay success is equal to a fun game experience - this can be the case but it can also be the opposite!

Your absolutely right! thanks for this and cheers

[DariusBane]

"Players always believe that fast and easy gameplay success is equal to a fun game experience - this can be the case but it can also be the opposite!"

Agreed. Conversely, having to sit and grind all day is not a fun gaming experience either.
There needs to balance, and a democratic means of user input may help in that. But of course, I am only full of half knowledge.

[Try-zar]

I'll throw in my own two cents here (since everybody else is).

I agree with both parties. A grind system is good and motivates players go after a target because it's challenging and rewarding to get. Another element is that it also promotes the need for players to work as a team with other players.

The problem with the grind system is that the reward should be equal to or greater to the effort put in and sadly it's not. This is why the iron ignots and coal idea fails. This is why making sure the new players can never get money or expensive armor easily also fails.

But let's for fairness sake use an example other than TMW. I've been playing a game based on Wing Commander Privateer called the asciisector. It's a pretty cool game and it follows the same grind method and expensive items system that TMW does. I had to play 3 days of 9 hour sessions each to make enough money to buy a 60 000 credit ship. I traded in my ship with the best ship armor, proper weapons, jump drive, targeting system, torpedoes, afterburner, et al (basically about 30k's worth of stuff) with an extra 30k on top of that for this new ship. Guess what? It had no weapons, the weakest armor, no afterburner, no jump drive. I had to sell my targeting system and long range scanner, my emc (all costing about 10k or more and sold at HALF or 1/4) of the price just so I could buy weapons and jump drive. I even had to sell my back armor to pay for everything. I did a few missions again because I now had a jump drive to get between systems.

And guess what? I stopped playing. Why do you ask? Because the reward wasn't worth the effort I put in.

I know from personal experience from programming multi-user games that sometimes users just suck, but sometimes they know a thing or two. You think TMW's grind is hard? You should have played mine. The death of my game came because I refused to listen to users because it was criticism and my game was really too hard. The rewards just weren't worth the effort and my game died. I foresee the same fate for TMW if we keep making it so hard for new players. Find ways to punish the 'rich' old players some other way. Stop making the new players suffer for the mistakes you guys made in the past. I'm not saying all the changes are bad, in fact the majority are great. Just learn the one thing I didn't. Make the reward be worth the effort - otherwise you are failing and losing yourself players.

[noelleionscowl]

Don't be discouraged by the negative reactions of some players.

That makes sense. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. /mao

This always happens when you introduce necessary changes

How's killing all hopes of ascending above level 3 necessary?

Don't listen to those people who fail to see the big picture.

What big picture? Refresh my memory, please. The big picture where a few level 99s who don't work and play TMW for seven hours a day lord it over the rest of us who struggle to kill maggots?

And most of all don't listen to those who demand that making gameplay decisions should be a democratic process driven by the community.

Damn. I was just about to call you a commie. And if that's so, why are there forums to discuss it?

Players always believe that fast and easy gameplay success is equal to a fun game experience - this can be the case but it can also be the opposite!

I have to agree with you here. I don't want to have to grind for a quest more than five hours or so. However, mindless grinding to accumulate enough money to get a sword is just lame.

[Legas]

If you make the game harder and tedious, more people will be botting, imho

[Leela]

I am just happy and I call myself very lucky, that I started playing this game and gathered my armour etc before the bigger changes happened.
So right now I can just play a little and enjoy that I don't have to struggle with the whole GP issue anymore and that I did the important quests back when they where doable "fast"

@Try-zar: You are very right about the rewards.
For people who do have a job, a family and a life this is just not cool. Who wants to spend the whole time ingame with a frustrating experience? Just for example: I spent 2.5 hours on mogguns getting ONE diamond but a shitload of coal. I need 20 diamonds and i do not need coal... do you really think it is a nice experience to spend 40 - 50 hours just to get that for a quest where the reward is a robe and a hat? (and buying is no option. a quest is for the experience of doing it, and this experience should have something fun/rewarding)

As for the "big picture"
Well if there is one and you have to mention that the players don't get the "big picture" well DO TELL. Tell us weird, stupid players about the big picture you are talking about. Because otherwise we might just keep babbling Chocolate Cupcake, we have no clue anyway so enlighten us.


though I must add that I really like the new system with the skills, some changes in drop rates, and that new quests and maps have been added.

cheers
Leela

[Nard]

Hello TMWAthena tech and content devs. Don't be discouraged by the negative reactions of some players.

+++ ( a negative reaction can be positive for the project though)

This always happens when you introduce necessary changes to a long-running online game which give players a disadvantage.

What makes you think that destroying the actual balance between content and grinding is a "necessary" change? A considerable effort has been made since last year to introduce new content which makes farming more bearable and made the game more attractive than before. Even if we forget the evident frustration your changes will produce on actual players, I am not sure that the changes you plan, will bring anything positive for new players. I don't think anybody in game thinks that high level players are too strong, or progress too fast, the main ( and only?) balance problem is between the warrior class and the others.

Don't listen to those people who fail to see the big picture.

Are you sure you that you can see it? The picture may be 3D and one eye cannot see the relief. Several point of vews are necessary to see the object as whole. Yours is a very particular one as you do not play the same way as regular players. This is the reason why game developing companies use game testers to fill the gap between developers and users.

Only do what you believe is the best for the game in the long run.

Who could disagree of course?

And most of all don't listen to those who demand that making gameplay decisions should be a democratic process driven by the community. Players always believe that fast and easy gameplay success is equal to a fun game experience - this can be the case but it can also be the opposite!

First most players don't ask the development to be a democratic process, but to be able to say their opinion, and that you listen (not hear) to them. This forum is made for it. Maybe some of them could be right, and some others become developers and join the project just as you did. Asking to other developpers and contributors to closes their eyes and ears will bring nothing positive to this game, but lead everybody into some wall.
TMW gameplay does NOT actually fast and easy success, provided you do not use "very advanced" clients or GM commands. A very active player has actually to play around one year to get from scratch (newbie) to about level 90-95, please keep that in mind. Do you really want it to be longer?
I personnally raised my main char without constant status reset (it should be the regular behaviour right? I had one though until now). I began to have real pleasure playing with it only when it was about level 90. What I think is that progress curve is too steep at the beginning (first 30-40 levels , and too flat near 100). Maybe you would obtain the results you want by simply by changing the curve's coefficients.
I am not sure that you are wrong with the changes you plan, future will say it. Nobody asks you to wonder everyday if you are wrong or right, Everybody has to do it periodically though. I cannot stay indifferent when you ask people to be close minded, this I am sure.