I’d do a lot of things, but most importantly:
- make the game into an MMORPG again
Now that the game has 64bit client and an upcoming internet protocol change, it’s time to allow bigger parties of 10 or 20 people, and I’d allow them into the current raids without rebalancing them.
- revitalize fields and bring back collections and gimmicks
field farming and exploration were the core activities back in the early days, and it was one of the strengths that a good MMORPG has, having maps fulfilling certain purposes.
Collections should be revamped to add percentage boosts so they are future-proof and independent from equipment level of the user, the same with the title/achievement boost (instead of +8 to all stats, +8% to all stats, and unlocking higher boosts at more titles collected to revitalize questing and collecting).
Gimmicks in the fields should be revamped to give content points so you don’t have to do all the raids again and again and do gimmicks of your choice instead.
- rebalancing the class build system
the class system is really difficult to balance with the current setup as every class has different strengths and different weaknesses. The classes need a better make-over to represent these advantages and disadvantages, for example, a sturdy class must be less mobile but much more tough than a class that has great mobility.
I’d set up the base modifiers per class for stat gains to work for base and equipment stats, and make the differences much more apparent.
For example, if your build has a blue/yellow defensive class, you will have higher defense and much higher HP, but negative attack stat gain from base stats and levels.
Having a green support class will give you average gain in all base status categories.
Having a red class will lead to a high attack stat gain (STR/INT) but low gains of all other stats.
These stat gains are all additive up to a 2.0 (meaning 200%) modifier,and would look like this:
Red: +0.5 STR/INT + 0.2 CON + 0.3 DEX/SPR
Blue/Yellow: -0.5 STR/INT +1.0 CON +0.5 DEX/SPR
Green: +0.3 STR/INT +0.4 CON +0.3 DEX/SPR
Purple: +0.3 INT +0.2 CON +0.5 SPR
To give an example, a Swordsman>Peltasta>Retiarius>Hoplite build would have the following modifiers:
STR: 0.5 -0.5 + 0.3 + 0.5 = 0.8 (meaning you gain 80% of your total base point, level up and equipment STR value; it’s a x0.8 modifier)
CON: 0.2 + 1.0 + 0.4 + 0.2 = 1.8 (meaning you gain 180% of your total base point, level up and equipment CON value; it’s a x1.8 modifier)
DEX: 0.3 + 0.5 + 0.3 + 0.3 = 1.4 (meaning you gain 140% of your total base point, level up and equipment DEX value; it’s a x1.4 modifier)
This would make support classes and defensive classes a lot bulkier while reducing their STR/INT gains at the same time, so you can balance around equipment values and have players decide if they want to have more attack or more HP and defense to play the game by making their build choices.
- change solo content to make it more accessible
Right now the greatest weakness of solo content is that it is both class check and equipment check.
This can be solved by introducing either a buff that boosts the damage of the player based on the build, or by having the enemies go through a warm-up phase that slowly decreases their defense over time while at the same time rising their attack over time, making it best for strong attack builds to finish it quickly while supports/defensive builds will have an easier time stalling and striking when the defense is low.
The time difference is still there since attack-based builds will usually clear faster nonetheless, but defensive and support classes at least can clear the content after investing more time into it.
I’d reduce the maximum entries of solo contents to 1 per content per week and boost loot accordingly so you don’t waste too much time if you are maining a rainbow or support build.