hot-key J removes or restores power, I'm happy to say. I would miss hot-key O (fortifications) but I can understand that in the event of active defenders that could get frustrating. I would be delighted to have Drink and Eat hot-keys for great grinding happiness. I really, really like the hot-key T behavior of selecting that piece of UI but not actually shooting the extra valuable potion on the floor. This also makes it super easy to set up my bottle of booze as a target in place of that extra valuable potion. I do not need a hot-key for speak: advertise the wonders of Advanced Thrown Weapons.
B5 to B6 Pain Points
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
1.) Spawn plane priority. It feels like many skills and choices that feed in to this, but then most of them get overridden by what, pact use and faction alignment? Even when using one of the skills that supposedly override? I can't even figure out why my characters appear where they do half the time. I feel like the factors could be clarified in one place, and if there's a skill that offers an 'override' for character points it should be the final say unless the manual very clearly states that ['Pact use overrides this']. I really don't think faction membership should override transcension/empyreal/hellspawn.
2.) Transcended infusion - Transcended characters infuse to their morality, not their selected alignment. Morality is hard to control and a pain in the butt to transcended, since most strategies of play tend you towards evil. If you're a transcended character and want to join team evil fine, make a choice and actively select an evil faction then do your evil - and do it well. But unfactioned transcended should be pushing neutrality no matter what Namm thinks about their actions. They chose carefully joining T2, and a flippant decision to break a door at -19.9 MO should not override that.
2.) Transcended infusion - Transcended characters infuse to their morality, not their selected alignment. Morality is hard to control and a pain in the butt to transcended, since most strategies of play tend you towards evil. If you're a transcended character and want to join team evil fine, make a choice and actively select an evil faction then do your evil - and do it well. But unfactioned transcended should be pushing neutrality no matter what Namm thinks about their actions. They chose carefully joining T2, and a flippant decision to break a door at -19.9 MO should not override that.
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
So this thread was started in search for clearly-actionable stuff with fairly simple solutions, and we are serious about implementing things from it. It's worth saying that B6 is going to have to be pretty light on mechanics changes. Various things that happened in 2024 significantly reduced the ability of effectively every member of devteam to participate here for reasons both good and bad, and that's adjusted our sense of what's plausible accordingly. A recent dev call and discussions since have focused on trying to get consensus on what we can do in the short term.
I realize what's a simple solution and what isn't isn't always obvious from outside the codebase.
As per a recent dev call, in a pending update enchanted weapon activation is going away, though there'll still be a cost of another kind. We're hopeful that this will make enchanted weapons more accessible.
The latter - sure, that's a thing we can do, and it makes sense. That said, it affects a one-digit number of active characters - factionless transcends are pretty rare.
I realize what's a simple solution and what isn't isn't always obvious from outside the codebase.
A planned update is to make NPCs possible pet targets, but make attacks on NPCs cost meaningfully more pet MP than attacks on PCs and pets. This is so you can attack NPCs if they're what you find while hunting, but without petmasters just insta-sterilizing the map. We can adjust this "higher cost" number up or down to get the desired degree of accessibility.Jorus wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:05 pm I think one of my biggest problems with PMs is their inability to use their pets against NPCs currently. I understand NPCs will probably not be introduced at B6 start, but will most likely be introduced as the breath progresses. My suggestion is that Titan pets (assuming they and pets in general aren't reworked significantly) can target NPCs.
I'd be curious which classes and builds you still see soloing the ward followed by clearing in 2025. We had thought that was mainly IB and that rebalances had addressed that.GreatCatatonic wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:06 pm Fairly minor complaints on my part;I've been quite pleased with this Breath.
- The ease of solo raiding - I think it's no secret that some classes are a bit overtuned, but I feel characters shouldn't normally be able to break a ward AND kill half a dozen people inside in an AP cycle. Solo wardbreaking is fine; I wouldn't want to have to coordinate recaps with someone else if I'm a combat class, but I'd expect the basher to be mostly tuckered out after that. I'd suggest pushing bash buffs over to spellcasters try to require more balanced raid teams, but some of the solo raiders are already spellcasters, so maybe just remove them altogether if the classes' outputs are already high enough?
- Enchanted weapons - I was one of the biggest champions of nerfing enchantments, and I would still prefer to see innates (and mundanes!) be on par with them, but I recognize that the nerf hit a little too hard. Even if the numbers still work out, the convoluted nature of employing them killed most of my desire to use them. Activation is a great idea, but I found myself wanting my MP for other things slightly more. Perhaps lowering the activation cost would help that, but I think the main obstacle to their use were the comparable innates that most classes had. Maybe stripping some of those would push certain classes to be expected to use enchanted weapons and keep the market for their enchanters consistent.
As per a recent dev call, in a pending update enchanted weapon activation is going away, though there'll still be a cost of another kind. We're hopeful that this will make enchanted weapons more accessible.
The dev team generally likes the idea of replacing decay with caps for primary petmasters, though implementing this might be a breath-change thing depending on the schedule of the dev taking this on.sohdbrimks wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:49 pm 1) Pet decay
I wish all petmasters worked similar to the Ele with a cap and no decay, liches could have a much higher cap for ghouls/skellies like 30 for example (both pets would share the same cap)
B6 isn't going to reuse any B5 maps; at the same time there aren't any plans to rework B5 maps between now and breath end. B6 Valhalla does something really, really different than prior Nexus maps and does it as a core feature.sohdbrimks wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:49 pm 3) Map size
While this breath the map was a pretty good size, I tend to favor smaller maps so people are more likely to run into each other etc. While it is interesting to have some remote places I don't like too many of them. My least favorite parts of this map are both Shrek ears in Cord and a lot of Purg in general.
The former is a bug with a pending fix.Thenixon wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2025 8:08 pm 1.) Spawn plane priority. It feels like many skills and choices that feed in to this, but then most of them get overridden by what, pact use and faction alignment? Even when using one of the skills that supposedly override? I can't even figure out why my characters appear where they do half the time. I feel like the factors could be clarified in one place, and if there's a skill that offers an 'override' for character points it should be the final say unless the manual very clearly states that ['Pact use overrides this']. I really don't think faction membership should override transcension/empyreal/hellspawn.
2.) Transcended infusion - Transcended characters infuse to their morality, not their selected alignment. Morality is hard to control and a pain in the butt to transcended, since most strategies of play tend you towards evil. If you're a transcended character and want to join team evil fine, make a choice and actively select an evil faction then do your evil - and do it well. But unfactioned transcended should be pushing neutrality no matter what Namm thinks about their actions. They chose carefully joining T2, and a flippant decision to break a door at -19.9 MO should not override that.
The latter - sure, that's a thing we can do, and it makes sense. That said, it affects a one-digit number of active characters - factionless transcends are pretty rare.
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
Pain Point #1:
- Too hard to interact people across time and distance in the Nexus, and give them reasons to communicate with each other. Most AP cycles feel empty, aside from what we were doing 15 years ago in NW (talking in strongholds, raiding, playing hide and seek but when the game had many more people/different people).
Solution:
- Add skills and effects that allow players to interact across time and distance.
- Good examples of from existing skills: Reforged in Grace, Eye of Death, font traps
Recommend to add skills in the following vein that allow players to mess with each other even if they aren't playing and burning AP simultaneously:
1 (WM) - Allow WMs to release feral pets: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5991
2 (Lich) - Released wraiths report kills to original owner: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6282
3 (Wizard) - Increase power/reduce cost of augury. Add more utility to spell parry/spell trap (think of how fun font traps are)
4 (Doom Howler) - Buff Gremlins to hide and then ambush passersby?! Bugfix mark of the wendigo and allow it to target anyone inside a building, who can then be drawn from the building if the doom howler stays within 5 tiles for the next 24 hours and is not killed.
5 (Eternal soldier) - Buff soldiers to be able to ambush (auto-attack from hiding and then automatically run inside and re-hide) - cool raid defense, groups of ES could set traps in the outside world like bandits.
6 (Elementalist) - Wind or earth powers to view or search the area around their stronghold, for hidden or invis, without moving from the stronghold. Allow creation of certain traps on certain tiles based on affinity, and report to elementalist when they are triggered.
7 (Archon) - Dread Gaze allows them to sanctify a certain area 3x3 within 10 tiles, see anyone walking through, and blast anyone not good with one shot per time they cross into the space.
8 (Void Walker) - Add to an existing assassin skill the ability to mark someone for death. When VW clicks mark for death, it randomly marks someone on that tile. VW needs to stay within 5 tiles of that person for 24 hours. They can then click "Assassinate X" button to attack (and be counterattacked by aura) by that player as long as they are on the same tile (regardless of if they are outside the door). Pets will not defend.
Pain Point #2:
- Killing outside of raids can be pretty empty and lacking interactions with other players, sometimes. Hunting not necessarily hard but it is tedious and repetitious.
Solution:
- Add skills and interactions to make hunting fun.
- Good examples from existing skills: Demon Tracker, Angel Tracker, Eye of Death, Augury
1) Update finding hidden to be a bit easier, and also give VWs more uniqueness: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5984
2) Give VWs back enhanced senses.
3) Players can create lairs over time, like building a font. Takes 5 searches to find a lair. Takes 2 searches to find a player if they are in their lair.
4) See above skills which bring more hunting mini-games and counters to certain classes.
5) Give innate footstep tracking skills to myrmidons, paladins, pariahs that let them see footsteps (directional) for 5 minutes after a player moves. The occasional footstep chase would be fun, and counterplay is "sit still for 5 min and kill whoever is following you" or "use any of the million ways to teleport after a raid" or "die".
Pain Point #3:
- Competition is fun, add more ways for players to compete that aren't raiding.
- Good example: Fallen endgame
Solution:
- Give weekly or monthly tallies of various statistics on the front page, so that players and factions can work towards something entertaining.
- Player kills (NPCs don't count).
- Potions brewed.
- Class specific champions (champion player for each month gets minor buff or just notoriety)
- Revenant is based on revelation of maeval type murdering of as many different types of classes as possible
- Fallen is based on how evil they are
- Lightspeaker is based on healing
- Conduit based on crafitng
- Void walker - killing champion based on assassinations (using assassination skill), stealth champion based on how many people walked past while outdoors without finding you.
- etc
General fix recommendations:
- Conduit endgame turns into a single permabuff that makes potions trivial to make. Different powers could give between crafting conduits, fighting conduits, and something else fun (e.g. access to a new pocket space with cool portals or something?)
- Remove bug where pact debt adds 6 deaths to the counter each time. Make it just re up the counter to maximum, or add 1 if you are already at 6 deaths, or something. Using pacts and then spawning in stygia for next 30 deaths is not fun or particularly useful to gameplay.
- Wraiths have not attacked pets since around August 2024 and the second patch that messed with lich morality when wraiths are released. I have brought this up in #is-this-a-bug 4-5 times.
- Too hard to interact people across time and distance in the Nexus, and give them reasons to communicate with each other. Most AP cycles feel empty, aside from what we were doing 15 years ago in NW (talking in strongholds, raiding, playing hide and seek but when the game had many more people/different people).
Solution:
- Add skills and effects that allow players to interact across time and distance.
- Good examples of from existing skills: Reforged in Grace, Eye of Death, font traps
Recommend to add skills in the following vein that allow players to mess with each other even if they aren't playing and burning AP simultaneously:
1 (WM) - Allow WMs to release feral pets: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5991
2 (Lich) - Released wraiths report kills to original owner: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6282
3 (Wizard) - Increase power/reduce cost of augury. Add more utility to spell parry/spell trap (think of how fun font traps are)
4 (Doom Howler) - Buff Gremlins to hide and then ambush passersby?! Bugfix mark of the wendigo and allow it to target anyone inside a building, who can then be drawn from the building if the doom howler stays within 5 tiles for the next 24 hours and is not killed.
5 (Eternal soldier) - Buff soldiers to be able to ambush (auto-attack from hiding and then automatically run inside and re-hide) - cool raid defense, groups of ES could set traps in the outside world like bandits.
6 (Elementalist) - Wind or earth powers to view or search the area around their stronghold, for hidden or invis, without moving from the stronghold. Allow creation of certain traps on certain tiles based on affinity, and report to elementalist when they are triggered.
7 (Archon) - Dread Gaze allows them to sanctify a certain area 3x3 within 10 tiles, see anyone walking through, and blast anyone not good with one shot per time they cross into the space.
8 (Void Walker) - Add to an existing assassin skill the ability to mark someone for death. When VW clicks mark for death, it randomly marks someone on that tile. VW needs to stay within 5 tiles of that person for 24 hours. They can then click "Assassinate X" button to attack (and be counterattacked by aura) by that player as long as they are on the same tile (regardless of if they are outside the door). Pets will not defend.
Pain Point #2:
- Killing outside of raids can be pretty empty and lacking interactions with other players, sometimes. Hunting not necessarily hard but it is tedious and repetitious.
Solution:
- Add skills and interactions to make hunting fun.
- Good examples from existing skills: Demon Tracker, Angel Tracker, Eye of Death, Augury
1) Update finding hidden to be a bit easier, and also give VWs more uniqueness: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5984
2) Give VWs back enhanced senses.
3) Players can create lairs over time, like building a font. Takes 5 searches to find a lair. Takes 2 searches to find a player if they are in their lair.
4) See above skills which bring more hunting mini-games and counters to certain classes.
5) Give innate footstep tracking skills to myrmidons, paladins, pariahs that let them see footsteps (directional) for 5 minutes after a player moves. The occasional footstep chase would be fun, and counterplay is "sit still for 5 min and kill whoever is following you" or "use any of the million ways to teleport after a raid" or "die".
Pain Point #3:
- Competition is fun, add more ways for players to compete that aren't raiding.
- Good example: Fallen endgame
Solution:
- Give weekly or monthly tallies of various statistics on the front page, so that players and factions can work towards something entertaining.
- Player kills (NPCs don't count).
- Potions brewed.
- Class specific champions (champion player for each month gets minor buff or just notoriety)
- Revenant is based on revelation of maeval type murdering of as many different types of classes as possible
- Fallen is based on how evil they are
- Lightspeaker is based on healing
- Conduit based on crafitng
- Void walker - killing champion based on assassinations (using assassination skill), stealth champion based on how many people walked past while outdoors without finding you.
- etc
General fix recommendations:
- Conduit endgame turns into a single permabuff that makes potions trivial to make. Different powers could give between crafting conduits, fighting conduits, and something else fun (e.g. access to a new pocket space with cool portals or something?)
- Remove bug where pact debt adds 6 deaths to the counter each time. Make it just re up the counter to maximum, or add 1 if you are already at 6 deaths, or something. Using pacts and then spawning in stygia for next 30 deaths is not fun or particularly useful to gameplay.
- Wraiths have not attacked pets since around August 2024 and the second patch that messed with lich morality when wraiths are released. I have brought this up in #is-this-a-bug 4-5 times.
-
sohdbrimks
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:49 am
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
I really wish we could un-nerf enhanced senses, I think hiding is too easy rn
IIRC when es was first nerfed there was no NPCs in the game yet, and I remember complaining how empty the game felt
Then NPCs were introduced soon after and made things a bit better
Now imagine if we combine both: old es + NPCs
I think it would make the game feel much more alive
And if people only want XP they would rather target NPCs in the open, so hidden players would actually be a bit safer than old breaths
-
ColeMedina
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 7:40 pm
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
I have been on and off this breath, I am back now getting and getting some more play time in as I have some more downtime lately.
So far the most enjoyable thing outside of raiding for me has been just hunting and aping out of the SH somewhere, and hoping the next day I can continue on my destruction path if I am alive.
I really like the idea of being alive by day and not inside a SH would give a damage bonus, possibly make you harder to find if hiding on a square, maybe get built up dodge/soak or something all the way to a cap of some kind. Don't know how feasible it is, but if there was an indicator of who had been alive the longest day wise, or maybe a top 10 you could see at anytime, might really introduce some hunting and competition among everyone. Be really exciting to knock that top player off or see if you can get there. Maybe making a caveat that you need to make a kill every (2) days or however many days to keep the bonuses and streak alive. Could have achievements based off these, and separate achievements "bounties" for killing people who have got on the leaderboard, or go past 3-4 days or something. Then you have bounty points, could even just get them randomly out hunting as an extra trackable. Might have a lot less SH sitting, more action outside, and these people would still be able to take part in raiding and stuff, maybe give a maximum like tick they can be in SH before losing the survivor buff, or iron-man buff, whatever, so they can still get in to trade and do stuff.
I also like the idea of being out hunting in an area for so long and maybe making a type of "Lair" mentioned previously. By that maybe inside the lair you get an alert if someone has entered it, you can see invisible people on your lair tile, and if you go into the lair to get them you get damage bonuses. Can only gain the lair option after x days with kills or something and can then plop it down inside an unused non SH space or something. Maybe gain a teleport to option that takes so long to replenish.
Just really like the idea of some minor gimmick style changes to encourage free roam, while also allowing those not taking part actively, to still take part ie: hunting the survivors/iron men when they leave SH if they want, or happen upon one.
So far the most enjoyable thing outside of raiding for me has been just hunting and aping out of the SH somewhere, and hoping the next day I can continue on my destruction path if I am alive.
I really like the idea of being alive by day and not inside a SH would give a damage bonus, possibly make you harder to find if hiding on a square, maybe get built up dodge/soak or something all the way to a cap of some kind. Don't know how feasible it is, but if there was an indicator of who had been alive the longest day wise, or maybe a top 10 you could see at anytime, might really introduce some hunting and competition among everyone. Be really exciting to knock that top player off or see if you can get there. Maybe making a caveat that you need to make a kill every (2) days or however many days to keep the bonuses and streak alive. Could have achievements based off these, and separate achievements "bounties" for killing people who have got on the leaderboard, or go past 3-4 days or something. Then you have bounty points, could even just get them randomly out hunting as an extra trackable. Might have a lot less SH sitting, more action outside, and these people would still be able to take part in raiding and stuff, maybe give a maximum like tick they can be in SH before losing the survivor buff, or iron-man buff, whatever, so they can still get in to trade and do stuff.
I also like the idea of being out hunting in an area for so long and maybe making a type of "Lair" mentioned previously. By that maybe inside the lair you get an alert if someone has entered it, you can see invisible people on your lair tile, and if you go into the lair to get them you get damage bonuses. Can only gain the lair option after x days with kills or something and can then plop it down inside an unused non SH space or something. Maybe gain a teleport to option that takes so long to replenish.
Just really like the idea of some minor gimmick style changes to encourage free roam, while also allowing those not taking part actively, to still take part ie: hunting the survivors/iron men when they leave SH if they want, or happen upon one.
Re: B5 to B6 Pain Points
I've been playing since NW, and I'm just speaking for myself (and maybe other players like me?) that like wandering tiles and finding/fighting. I'm very happy that the game has become as complicated and intricate as it has but I think a lot of it has become faction-centric...which I think inherently brings with it a little bit of gatekeeping and barrier to entry. I've never seen a faction in NC be anything other than friendly and inviting - but I also think it's human nature that some people want to play a game like this without hopping into discord.
In all of B5 I think my favorite small tweak was the change in AP for characters that remained outside a stronghold. I saw it a very economical way to encourage players to exit the strongholds and interact with one another - which to me is a much better ecosystem than one that caters solely to pockets of strongholds. It didn't take away from players that enjoyed faction and stronghold gameplay, but did nudge the rewards for exiting the house.
In all of B5 I think my favorite small tweak was the change in AP for characters that remained outside a stronghold. I saw it a very economical way to encourage players to exit the strongholds and interact with one another - which to me is a much better ecosystem than one that caters solely to pockets of strongholds. It didn't take away from players that enjoyed faction and stronghold gameplay, but did nudge the rewards for exiting the house.