(LOCKED) Beta Elphame's Arena Ruleset Feedback

First off, let me reiterate that I am stoked for EA. Love the 100 level cap and PvP on everywhere, as well the experimental nature. I am also ready to go live, even though for the most part I think this recent iteration nerfed wizards. Each iteration can have its own metagame, and that will be a feature that keeps things interesting and fresh.

Super salty about the mana situation for Wizards.
A) It makes them substantially item dependent
B) It makes them much more limited in power compared to hitters.

At first, I thought wizards were just 100% complete garbage this iteration. My level 40 wiz had 160 mana. Enough for a Lightning bolt or 2 and then some orbs each battle. I made due and was able to level him in PvE, but theres no way he could contribute in a PvP battle or any difficult world boss. He has a usefulness of 5 rounds or less.

Then I went to someones House Drop, and got some Imp Leather, and his mana pool 5x'ed. So now I don't know the degree of garbage that wizards are, less garbage it seems, but it raises a new point which makes me salty. They are substantially more item dependent than my worst fear. With no gear on, my wizard has 85 mana. Thats not enough for one Fireball, a spell he learned at like level 8.

intel/meditation/level needs to be the majority of mana available to wizards, similar to End + Level for HP. The ratio of +HP armor for most warriors is a pretty good magnitude and should be mimicked for mana. My Warrior in full Obsidianite will have his HP increased by 40% or 50% maybe? My Wizard in Imp Leather (cant image Daemon leather) has his mana pool 6x'ed from naked.

Plus I don't want to wear heavy leather. I like to run in cloth. In imp leather he's at like 80% encumbrance, which makes him dependent on a BoS or BoC (i eventually found one BoS after level 40) or to sacrifice an intel/end ring slot for a Strength one.

Furthermore, with no mana regen in combat, warriors can out last wizards easily with one Orb of Healing. You can't stop them from using it, the way Spell Blast or AMA can stop a casted heal, and 30 charges is way more than my wizards mana pool. So spells need to be able to 1 hit kill, or they cant ever kill…. Not a good situation

I think I'll be rolling two hitters when we go live.

Other notes:

• Myst is pretty much useless in PvP. In live PvP 100% of my spells were shrugged. I tested myst against my own toon and eventually got one cast through, but most of those were shrugged. Plus the mana cost, incidence of shrugging, and round duration are all inferior to Orb of Holding. So level 1-3 Myst is useless in PvE too.
• Wizards are still pretty much forced to get Level 3 Sorc; that's fine I guess.
• Will there be enough weapon diversity? If Executioner Axe and BC are super heavy, then everyone is just going to use 2H. Seems like most are doing that now.
• Still too grindy. I think we should strive to get people to the level 20-30 range quickly, with the intent of fostering a vibrant, encounter based PvP environment

Super salty about the mana situation for Wizards.
A) It makes them substantially item dependent
B) It makes them much more limited in power compared to hitters.

intel/meditation/level needs to be the majority of mana available to wizards, similar to End + Level for HP. The ratio of +HP armor for most warriors is a pretty good magnitude and should be mimicked for mana. My Warrior in full Obsidianite will have his HP increased by 40% or 50% maybe? My Wizard in Imp Leather (cant image Daemon leather) has his mana pool 6x'ed from naked.

I'll concede that very, very early on, mana is a bit of a challenge. But once you have a few pieces of +MP gear, it feels pretty good. Maybe there's a perfect mix of stats/skills/gear for MP but I do support at least a level of reliance on gear. This gives wiz chase items, which they did not have the previous round. And for the most part, I'm floating mana which regens super quick after combat, very little downtime. Only several encounters force me to conserve mana and make choices.

Plus I don't want to wear heavy leather. I like to run in cloth. In imp leather he's at like 80% encumbrance, which makes him dependent on a BoS or BoC (i eventually found one BoS after level 40) or to sacrifice an intel/end ring slot for a Strength one.

This is a punishment for a choice made at the character selection screen. If you want the highest possible SDM, there has to be a drawback. My wizard wears armor, carries a shield and shortsword and most of the treasure. Does not have encumbrance problems but also isn't highest DPS.

Furthermore, with no mana regen in combat, warriors can out last wizards easily with one Orb of Healing. You can't stop them from using it, the way Spell Blast or AMA can stop a casted heal, and 30 charges is way more than my wizards mana pool. So spells need to be able to 1 hit kill, or they cant ever kill…. Not a good situation

There is for a sure a small Theurgism issue which I brought up in my post a few posts back. However, as I'm approaching the higher levels, I can see how the meta might unfold and a well piloted wiz will do just fine.

• Myst is pretty much useless in PvP. In live PvP 100% of my spells were shrugged. I tested myst against my own toon and eventually got one cast through, but most of those were shrugged. Plus the mana cost, incidence of shrugging, and round duration are all inferior to Orb of Holding. So level 1-3 Myst is useless in PvE too.

Having a toon with myst I disagree with this one. There is however the Wand of Zerk issue.

• Wizards are still pretty much forced to get Level 3 Sorc; that's fine I guess.

This is correct and I think just a cost of the trade lol.

• Will there be enough weapon diversity? If Executioner Axe and BC are super heavy, then everyone is just going to use 2H. Seems like most are doing that now.

I'm axe. Last round Bubs had BC and dunked on fools with it. Would love to see Maul and Mace get some love but likely for a future iteration based on previous discussions.

• Still too grindy. I think we should strive to get people to the level 20-30 range quickly, with the intent of fostering a vibrant, encounter based PvP environment.

Yes, but even further. For a useable PvP skillset, likely need level 60+. Some midlevel combat along the way is fine and fun, but real choices and balance later on (at least as close to balance as we've seen in awhile)

I have a thought about putting the baldies to use. Make the color progression for baldies:

White - level 1
Green - level 3
Blue - level 10
Yellow - level 25
Pink - level 50
Purple - level 75
And have some ceremonial ribbon for 100.

Each color baldy unlocks the ability to use weapons and armor of that color text. The levels are my suggestions and I'd love to hear discussion about them.

Also, the color system could protect against ganking newbs. For example, you'd have to be at least blue to get jumped, and you could only be jumped by blue or lower. You could make it that way for each color, that you can only be jumped by that color or lower.

Consumable items and their speed of use in battle needs adjusted as has been said specifically WoZ.
I feel NPC's may need their MDM/SDM evaluated and adjusted as PCs have been capped at 100 some of these NPCs are a bit overtuned in my opinion.
Targoth needs a slight nerf or the trash in his cave needs a slight buff, as of now it feels off.

Concerned about weapon skills. Leveling up in a skill doesn't always give an extra attack as witnessed when I went from level 2 Maul to level 3 Maul. It feels bad. If the concern is that by ensuring an extra attack on 2 handed weapons upon a skill level up will make them overperform 1 handed weapons, I would suggest instead of leaving this as is, let the 2 handers get +1 attack per skill up, and have 1 handers get +2 attacks every other skill up to compensate perhaps.

Speaking of 1 hand, 1hand weapons and shield feel extremely inferior to 2 handers so far in my testing. I have yet to see a case where wielding a one hander and a shield would serve my hitter better than just using a hard hitting 2 handed weapon. Also the 1 square 1 handed weapons feel even worse and no point to do it. Some love needed there, not sure if adding a square is the cure all or something else but as is no one will be using 1 square weapons.

Losing xp on death is fine and all but since our xp is capped at 2k per fight I would suggest lowering the xp loss on death a bit.

I like where wizards are, yes they are a bit gear reliant now but welcome to the warriors world. Warriors have always been gear reliant and the fact that wizards weren't is why they were better and the meta. Now they're more in line and the choice between hitter and caster feels like a meaningful choice and both feel perfectly viable. I would suggest adding in +1 mana per intel point on creation to help with the lack of mana until gear is found though. It's a bit rough for non wizard casters who don't start with newb gear that has +mana on it.

Warriors pose a problem wherein with limited BP and forced into a ls/shield at start your choice is to level those two skills to get ahead but realistically once you find a worthwhile weapon whether this be a 2hander, maul, axe, or club you've already possibly wasted some bp's or limped along until your lucky random weapon drops. Coupled with hitter adventurers being better out the gate with combat stance, warriors could use a little love here. I'd suggest either scaling back bp costs on weapons solely for warriors or letting them start with level 2 in all weapons as Khego suggested.

I propose adding in Lesser Hives. I know we don't want too many caves but I feel that one fits a nice slot. I tend to go to targs after unknown and end up needing to run it almost exclusively for a long while as IC and fenris cave is just too beefy for me. LH would be a good segue cave from Targs for those early levels.

Thanks for attending my TED talk.

Here's my hot take on a few ideas about this version of Elphame's Arena ruleset:

I love the changes to mana, but I would agree that starting out wizards need a little bit more mana. I also think that Troll Leather gear does not provide enough HP/MP in particular MP. Troll Leather should add more, and maybe so should Deamon Leather. Imp leather seems good.

I'm not even sure if Caster Stance is working for Adventurers, but Combat Stance seems to add a bit of MDM.

Spells still kinda feel a bit out of whack, SDM should play more of a role instead of just skill level.
On the topic of spells I think some spells simply cost way too much mana.

I would love to see a small boost to sdm/mdm that scales to character level. Like a +1% of both per level. Maybe make special rules for each class, as long as they are all adding up to the same % bonus.

I'm in favor of adding another cave or two. Lesser Hives seems like a good option.

The amount of gold you get compared to the amount of gold it takes to repair for warriors is pretty brutal… but I kinda like it.

I also agree we should re-color and scheme the baldrics for EA to be something different and custom.

The weight on some items seems wrong. Many items are just simply way too heavy.

Heavier items should bring in more gold than they do now.

It would be nice to have a special weapon for each weapon type. (2h has Wrath, Club has BC, etc.)

I'm excited to see what comes of these seasons as I love experimental changes and flipping the rules on their head. Keep up the great work Rat Labs! :)

Good Evening,

It seems that wizard spell damage is not scaling as one increases the skill level within the spell circle or with level. My level 14 human wizard with rank 4 Elem is doing 20 damage with Flame Orb. He crits with Flame Orb for 31 points of damage. I created another wizard with the same exact stats to confirm that the damage was the same at level 1. Increasing to rank 2 med on the level 1 wizard still showed his crits at 31 damage and non crit damage at 20-21. I will try increasing the med rank on the level 14(16) wizard to see if his damage improves.

Very much like most of today's updates.

Bouncing around TRO a bit, things are generally a little harder (as you can be less reliant on myst) but XP is more rewarding.

If this is the way with myst, a few thoughts…

*I think summons could use a buff. Shadow Warrior needs more health/armor and more attacks. Summon Undead (And likely Night Friends, didn't test that one) maybe the tiers need reorganized to 100 cap, the mobs I get are pretty janky. I don't have Daemon yet. I don't have the thaum summons.

*King Kilrogs could use a slight melee DPS tone down.

*The BDE boss fights difficulty skyrocketed. And this is ok, but the rewards have to match it. Only white loot on Fuloron feelsbadminton. Especially with longer spawn times!!

Misc:

*Still cannot equip weapon, or switch weapon, in combat.

*Flame Orb is white while other useful orbs are green.

*Would like to see FoD PvP drop rules applied to Tulors and Fuloron. Want the big loot, comes with risk.

Hi there - generally am enjoying the experience with EA and it seems to be on the right track. Last update was nice as it toned down movement rate a bit for melees and ever so slightly upped XP which was a welcome move.

I have 4 main concerns with EA at this point which I think are vital to it's health and pvp balance.

1. Theurgism is still crazy OP. It's nuts that the BP cost was REDUCED across the board for a skill which enabled you to circumvent dex, intel, spell circle, and mana restrictions. Wand of Bezerk going off before a single target zerk cast no matter the users dex feels really bad for PvP balance. Not to mention that a Theurgism user can repeatedly greater heal and even counter-attack in the same round. Theurgism just breaks so many game rules, and is very good - it should have a VERY steep cost.

2. Being able to equip a weapon in combat. Either this needs to happen or fumble needs to go.

3. Number of weapon attacks (specifically axe and maul). In my testing I was consistently getting 4 attacks/round with expert level weapon skill and AoC. Master level axe/maul made no difference in attacks per round. GM skill level still gave me 4 and sometimes 5 attacks. I know melee's are Tier 1 right now but it really feels bad to invest 20+ build points and not get a return on that investment. Same goes for spell damage (see Salteris post above).

4. World Boss spawn rate. I'm not really feeling the reduced WB spawn rates at all. 90% of PvP interactions come from WB hunters running into eachother. Personally, I think a faster spawn rate creates more activity amongst players and increases the chance that they will interact and engage in PvP. It's pretty boring when no bosses are spawning and everyone is just doing their own thing with no reason to visit different areas. Reduce WB loot rate if you need to, but I would much rather play a game where WB are spawning regularly and there is good activity in WB/PvP tab. One boss spawning every hour or two just creates a snooze fest followed by a speedy clickfest to see who is fastest (or still awake).

Thanks for taking this feedback into consideration!

I'll concede that very, very early on, mana is a bit of a challenge. But once you have a few pieces of +MP gear, it feels pretty good. Maybe there's a perfect mix of stats/skills/gear for MP but I do support at least a level of reliance on gear. This gives wiz chase items, which they did not have the previous round. And for the most part, I'm floating mana which regens super quick after combat, very little downtime. Only several encounters force me to conserve mana and make choices.

I think we are arguing about degrees here, then. My experience was that Imp gear is not a "chase" item but, a minimum necessity. I had level 3 Myst for ~15 levels, but after testing it a handful of times, I determined half my mana for a chance at stun was not worth it, so then never used it again, until I got 4 items of Imp Leather from Bcuppz lawn.

This is a punishment for a choice made at the character selection screen. If you want the highest possible SDM, there has to be a drawback. My wizard wears armor, carries a shield and shortsword and most of the treasure. Does not have encumbrance problems but also isn't highest DPS.

Again, I am all for costs. I am happy to sacrifice AR for lower carrying weight (for the purpose of faster casting). But since no +Mana cloth exists, I don't have as many options available. I can drop 1 piece of Leather for some plain old Hose, but that cost is quite steep, losing both AR and Mana (and potential of + Shield enchants).
You do have a valid point that now Strength on a wiz is not a 100% wasted attribute, bringing Humans/Orcs/Giants closer in line to the long dominant Elf Wiz.

There is for a sure a small Theurgism issue which I brought up in my post a few posts back. However, as I'm approaching the higher levels, I can see how the meta might unfold and a well piloted wiz will do just fine.

That is reassuring to hear, I will have to take your word for it. Though I will note PvP should be balanced to a lower-than-max level, perhaps 60 or 70? Depends on the PvE Experience curve more than anything I guess

Final (Hopefully) Content Tweak Suggestions

If I don't mention a zone or mob, I'm happy with it! Please keep in mind… It's ok for some things to be hard! In fact, it's good!

Unknown
*Suggest removing dungeon or at least obliterating the loot, including the bones and chests. Doesn't jive with EA, only place people can be unseen and level. Produces more gold/hour than end game content. And well, I want to actually see everyone scrambling around the Havenwoods at launch!

Havenwoods & Deadly Wolf Woods
*Suggest adding a good alignment ratling, Holy Ratling? Enid's Ratling? Or some good alignment humanoid equivalent level/power to the roaming undead, thieves and bounty hunters. (That also don't have necro/acid resistance!)
*NHW: Suggest increasing mob density
*WHW: IF Unknown is removed, suggest Increase grouping %
*Suggest reducing Daemon Ratling's movement speed.
*DWW: Suggest removing Howling Terror, Blood Fenris and Hell Hound while increasing amount of WOLF, RABID and ALPHA. Keep regular old Grey Fenris.
*DWW: Suggest increasing grouping %.

Leinster/Kurz Road and the Bloodwoods
*West BW and SW BW feel unused and LKR feels out of order… suggestions:
*LKR: Suggest changing content so it's similar to last leg of Unknown (Wraiths, Bounty Hunters, Thieves, decent grouping %).
*West BW: Suggest Ogre, Troll Sorcerer, Troll Elementalist, Ogre Mage, Ugly Ogre, Seraph and Seraph Warrior
*SW BW: Suggest Ogre Chief, Troll King, Howling Terror, Blood Fenris, Hell Hound, Seraph Thaumaturgist and Cleric Humanoid.
*SE BW: Suggest increasing mob density.

Killing Fields
*Suggest adding Devils (After latest Myst changes, they're not the chumps they once were)
*Suggest adding Paladins (Or a level ~125-175 good alignment equivalent) (Without necro/acid resistance!)

Imp City
*Suggest increasing mob density.
*Suggest small nerf to King Krux (was buffed last week but too far)

Tulors
*Suggest making 1-2 rooms of the south path (towards locked door) forced combat

PvP
*Suggest copying FoD drop rules to Tulors and Fulorans. High reward areas deserve high risk!

Misc Notes
*Level 4 Thaum Spells very rare. Assume this is based on lack of good aligned mobs. Suggest add to other tables or increase density of good mobs.
*Suggest changing drop only spellbooks text color. (These two items assume no Marvin type shop)
*Daemon Leather is rarely better than Imp Leather. Suggest reducing Imp Leather ceiling and/or increasing DL floor. Haven't paid enough attention if this is also true with Obs vs Adm.
*Fin Shoes and Fin Boots similar HP/MP gain. Suggest Boots more HP (melee) and Shoes more MP (caster)
*Warrior Bounties too frequent (Found LKR, SE BW and DWW). Suggest diversifying yo funds.
*Tulors Bounties in both East and West FoD. Where the FHP bounties at?
*Suggest removing Thanksgiving Collectibles from loot tables.

Final Thoughts: An EA Epilogue

The Unknown – I suggest removing this entirely or tweaking it. At first, I really liked the ability to knock out easy quick levels but the more I did this the more I realized I dislike this. For one it puts you locked away in a cave that no one else comes into which is opposite of the rest of the entire experience, and second it produces far too good of loot for folks. IF it were to stay in, I would suggest turning it into another open world cave complete with PvP and a world boss. Can move Snaggletooth in there or repurpose Fatty to make an appearance.

The Havenwoods – The Havenwood areas need a little more love. I’d suggest more groupings and a more seamless counterclockwise experience. Ratling Run is a great start and North Havenwood feels like the perfect next move, where as to me West Havenwood and South Havenwood feel like the experience change over doesn’t really line up well with the slight difficulty increase. I actually at one point was getting LESS experience in West Havenwood on most fights than I was in North Havenwood. Possible solutions are to very very slightly increase xp in those areas or very very slightly reduce the difficulty jump. Conversely you could also just add a World Boss to each of those areas.
Named Weapons – Having named weapons is fun and exciting when found. I love that we have them as it gives folks something to hope for. However, there is disparity between what weapon types have named weapons. Axe, club, 2 hand sword, long swords, daggers, and throwers all seem to have named weapons. What’s missing is mace, maul, claw and short sword. May not be in line for this iteration which makes me sad, but I would suggest further iterations take into account that some folks may actually want to go with these weapon types and will be discouraged from doing so since there is no carrot on the rope for them.

Robes/Skirts – I am torn here, I sort of like how not too many people are running around with robes and skirts on, but at the same time feel like those are Realm staples. If left alone, totally cool. If I were to make a suggestion on it, it would be to have really rare robes and skirts that drop with random enchantments. Perhaps they could be the only items to drop with str/dex chants?

Leathers- I have yet to find a single piece of Daemon Leather, I see people complain about it not being better than Imp Leather of which I have found a lot of. Troll Leather and Imp leather are quite abundant and the disparity of stats between the two is HUGE. I would suggest squishing that disparity a bit to allow this rare, supposed to be end game carrot of Daemon Leather to be what it was meant to be. Suggest reducing Imp Leather a slight bit and pumping up Troll Leather a slight bit. Then perhaps Daemon Leather can be the end game goal of cloth/leather wearers.
IA on rings/ammies- Apparently this still happens, would suggest removing IA from anything that isn’t armor.

Overworld – The overworld feels a bit lackluster to me. I find myself more drawn to caves because of the World Bosses and just general ability to more likely find a PvP fight. Not 100% sure how to alleviate this but I suggest that perhaps more World Bosses or better spread of enemies and groupings to make the Overworld feel more of a good option. Areas seem to either be way too easy and therefore not worth running or way too difficult and therefore not worth running.

Theurgism – I’d be remiss to not discuss this. Let me preface with the fact that I absolutely LOVE that Theurgism is a legitimate option and not a wasted option like other skills. However, it is performing too well for the BP cost imo. I would suggest reverting the BP costs to be Intel related while the effectiveness of Theurg items are Endurance related. Perhaps that would feel better? The hunt to find the Theurg items feels right, and the power feels right if you go deep in Theurg, it’s just the cost to go deep in Theurg is not dependent on anything and is the same cost regardless of toon build so it makes it a no brainer choice for all toons.

Master and GrandMaster spells – At first, I really liked the idea of having to hunt for more things that I’d need. Now after weeks of playing, it feelsbadman.jpg. I would suggest re-adding M/GM spells to be purchasable with the caveat of utilizing Marvin and a significant gold cost to do so. If you place Marvin in a cave you would create a junction where players would need to go there to get their spells and chances would be high that would foster high amounts of PvP in that area. This sounds like a great thing! The gold cost on M/GM spells could be raised more than what they initially are thereby creating a goldsink for the best of spells. If this is done, I would suggest turning Marvins jump status off as that would just create griefers who constantly kill him to prevent others from buying their spells…..or maybe that could be fun?

FIVE chants in Elementalism - Was hoping to be able to spend some BP on these to use on a wiz hitter, then was smacked with the reality that they last a total of 1 round. That pretty much makes them absolutely useless spells. I would suggest a count akin to Invuln on them. Still have to renew them fairly regularly, but would make them less of a useless spell.

Challenger Server - Couple of things I REALLY REALLY liked from the Challenger Server would be nice to see here but maybe they'd be OP not sure but figured I'd bring them up either way. The first was the pick 26 or whatever where you can essentially use your stats however you'd like. You can make a 3/20/20/5 giant wiz if you so wanted to. Was unique and fun and having the non standard races perform different felt good. The other was the racial passives. That may be OP in this environment not sure, but it was a nice touch imo.

Overall, I commend you on a well-done test server! It has been a pleasure playing this and really brought back a love of Realm for me. If there is anything at all I can help with on any of this stuff, you know I am always more than willing to throw down. Can’t wait until it goes live launch!

Far too many thieves in zones like FoD. Close to every screen has at least one, one screen had four. Worse than mosquitos. I understand you want gold sinks, but swarms of annoying pests are not a fun gaming experience.

Far too many thieves in zones like FoD. Close to every screen has at least one, one screen had four. Worse than mosquitos. I understand you want gold sinks, but swarms of annoying pests are not a fun gaming experience.

Doesn't immo prevent them from successfully stealing?

Far too many thieves in zones like FoD. Close to every screen has at least one, one screen had four. Worse than mosquitos. I understand you want gold sinks, but swarms of annoying pests are not a fun gaming experience.

Doesn't immo prevent them from successfully stealing?

Thief's fingers are hurt while trying to pick Thwack's pockets!
Thief's fingers are hurt while trying to pick Thwack's pockets!
Info> Thief stole 1067 gold from you!
Thief loses 7HP to poison.

No.

Ahh. Well that sucks.

Gold sink idea for EA: Use the altars in Leinster to tie in "storyline"
Pray and consume X gold to gain a time gated blessing.

Enid - Gain regen
Duach - Gain DMP
Finvarra- Gain MDM boost
Mabon- Gain SDM boost
Despothes- Gain random immolation
Elphame- Gain random shield and weapon chant

Obviously only allowing one in use at a time, but if the X gold is right and the boosts are small and not OP I would blow some gold on that.

Had to attempt to give one small storyline idea to use :)

This is to document what I discovered earlier about fumbling cyclops. Every cyclops' club is either enchanted admantium (1 perm) or enchanted enchanted admantium (2 perms). The ones with one perm change name from "Enchanted Admantium Club" to "Admantium Club" after logging, but retain the perm and pink text. The "Enchanted Enchanted Admantium Club" comes in purple text (rarity: mythical) or white text (rarity: null) and retain their names after logging. The white text clubs have higher damage stats. Also, the ones with 2 perms can have the same perm twice.

The Server Ruleset book can't be read until the end, scrolling stops at "The weight at which you start being penalized for encumberance has "