I think the solution here is to cap Transcendence. (Oh no an opinion about nerfing a something I’ve farmed for so long!) I mean, If IMC do want to protect Transcendence, They should at least have some guideline or limit to how far an item can be transcended.
A good way is to cap it to 100% and removing the Transcendence Stage marks. But IDK, people tend to complain about ways to balance out the game so meh.
transcendence must be a Nexon idea. I used to play maplestory, and their potential system was basically the same. Paying customers or those who played the market could do 10 times the damage of non-paying customers.
i thought it was IMC’s job to not let Nexon’s ideas spill over to the international version, but I guess not.
So what did Maplestory do in the end to fix the potential system? They created a new server called Reboot (which most people left for, including the whales, even though they had to start from scratch) which removed most of the whale advantage. I don’t know for exact sure since I quit before that happened but yea…ToS is headed in that direction.
In order to stop the bleed of players, something must be done to at least make it “seem” like it’s casual friendly.
They will not nerf it, IMC said it themselves. They will balance it to hand everyone transcendence 10.
Q: Item transcendence comes up too early in the game, and the effect it has on overall balance seems a little excessive.
A: Originally, we introduced the transcendence system to give items a higher degree of importance in the game. We don’t want to devalue transcendence, since it would negatively affect players who already invested in it, so we are reviewing ways to increase the supply of transcendence items in order to reduce the gap
If by any chance IMC changed mind and completely removed it or tone down. The balance will shift again in favor of clerics and Wizard because the best skills are on that tree. They nerf clerics/Wizard skills people will cry, tone down transcendence people will cry, make archers/swordsman viable people will cry.
Power creeping already exist in rank 7 (Hello ET) even before trans were introduced. You could say IMC balanced the damage based on ET hence they introduced transcendence so un-meta people could clear and farm there too.
We removed/tone down transcendence now we are back clearing ET in hours, then unmeta people will farm barnacles so they could buy lolo equips from meta people.
Honestly I think the transcendence system is FINE, but they should not have made the shards tradable. That’s what killed the system, imo. By making it so whales could reach r10 almost instantly it destroys the whole system.
So transcendence + ability to trade shards IMO is not fine, but transcendence w/o ability to trade the shards = fine imo.
Something to keep in mind for r9.
Transcendence is fine seriously. It fixes tons of problems that exist in rank 7. Thats why IMC wants to perfect it. Removed it we are back in stone age, (using stone to ignite fire in ET).
Untradable shards is a no-no too, because new people will cry they cant close the gap against veterans. Veterans have been farming for what since the introduction of Saalus. If one needed 1 yr to complete trans 10, newbie also has to farm in a year to be in the same league with veterans. Meaning veterans will bully newbie in 1 year.
It’s pretty normal that new players can’t immediately catch up to veteran players. That’s part of playing an MMO. A system like Diablo 3 where a new player can almost immediately catch up to veterans is also problematic because then you’re forever farming just to keep up with the status quo.
I truly would rather them scrap transcendance altogether and work in the classes themselves. If you say that a class has problems, then fix the class! do not implement this band aid!
It comes all back to IMC not listening to the player’s feedback on their game, the players have more experience than the developer, the only thing the developer has over the player is the inner workings of the game. why, would, you, not, listen?
I’d rather it took them long to maintain a balance across all 80 classes instead of playing whack-a-mole
The problem is the newbiew spamming the forums, maybe you want to preserve the seniority but what about the others?
Problem is that it will take tons of time balancing classes where balance doesnt even exist in this type of genre. They buff one class (overbuff,underbuff) where error is so prone. This is not starcraft 1 or chess but MMO.
Pyro is the prime example. lets say agny doesnt exist, they however incorporate the properties of agny into pyro skills. Still unbalance, because it overshadow elem 3 in regards to DPS class. Agny probably a fix for fire type skills classes that lacking in damage.
The problem is they’re not doing it.
Sure it would take them long, but the thing is they probably don’t even have a scale to which measure a class performance to begin with, it is not impossible, it is required, what were they doing during the development of the game? creating music? creating art assets? they take time but not years, they iterate a lot, but not forever. balance on the otherhand… it takes time, they had time and they delivered this. why?
Then try to balance lower rank classes so theyre viable in ET. Because ET exist before Transcendence. Just give 1 example.
This is a long standing problem that was given a bad solution that will create even further problems down the line. I don’t have to try anything it is not my product that is at the line. However I can kindly point the pitfalls of a product in hopes of its success.
Then will give example myself if you cant.
My example is pyro skills with agny properties. Just imagine agny dont exist. Is it balance or unbalanced? In ET or overall.
Create a scale first, tell me what is 1KG, can you measure friendship? it all comes down to measurements. set a base, then project the results onto that base and adjust. which is your scale? pyro? then kindly do give 3 examples of the same rank and how they surpass or fall behind.
The problem is they can’t remove transcendence anymore as it will cause a huge backlash especially to those who spent thousands of hours farming saalus/silver trying to get to high transcendence. And the RMT/whales who spent a lot of $ to get ahead.
Having transcendence drop like talt is also detrimental to the game too. It promotes power creep and makes the gap of the already not balanced classes widen more. Why bother to team with a SPR paladin 3 for more mdef when one can just transcend lv10 bracelets and necklaces. Why bother to group with a thaumaturge when weapon is easily transcendable.
Getting back to non tradable shards era also will create a backlash as players who created high transcendence items are suddenly months ahead of others.
This kind of leaves IMC with very little options on how to improve (or rather perfect in their terms) on transcendence, since they can’t really remove, increase drops nor revert back. One of the ways I feel, is to change the fundamental nature of transcendence, making it good to have but not making it the only way to progress in game.
Well my question is simple, because lets say im the one doing the balance and i see it that agny is good for pyro, not the item itself but the properties is it good?
You’ve set the scale, now proceed to do measurements, pyro on itself is your 1KG what weighs more? what weighs less?
Is adding weight to that 1 KG fair? it upsets the scale, we’re clear on that. but you’ve decided to use this as the baseline so, items do not exist, just skills.
If incorporating agny into pyro skills is unbalanced to you. Meaning it just proves my theory that it is so hard to balance individual classes where we have measurements like you speak of (probably in your mind elem 3 being overshadowed by pyro). What more on lots of classes? Say buff pelt to have lots of damage what about Dopple? buff defense of pelt what about murmillo? Measurement is subjective to you, to me, to others, to IMC. There is no middle ground but unbalance sh1t over and over.
Give transcendence, now everyone could outdamage each other and can be used in ET. No unbiased measurements.
You’ve just missed the point, balance should not take items into account when being first made if you do then you’ll never balance because you’ll be worried about adding more items!
First the scale, then work it and project it!
Scale is other classes above it, you cant over buff lower class to overshadow higher ranks. Like i said it is so biased to balance each class to make it viable. It is prone to errors too. You could probably overbuff this or that.