New Shift Change Killing Solo Player

I’m okay with the new shift change, but there are two issues with it. For solo players you are crippling them even with your new dungeon scaling and two, when you are fighting throwers they burn up shift in 1 or 2 rounds. Shift should not use up a counter against throwers with the new change if you keep it as is. There is also a bug with throwers who are held that can still throw. This needs fixed immediately if you are sticking with the shift counter system. First character I ever played I soloed to 1k. I would have quit immediately and wouldn’t be boxing 4-5 chars and paying those subscriptions as shift is now. I’m not sure why you changed it, but it has altered the gameplay for leveling lower level players. Even if you do make dungeons easier for the solo player, guess what? They level that much slower. If people want to duo or solo why not give them the 50% bonus exp? Why are we giving bonus for the more players you have? To encourage grouping? Ha…

I completely agree with this. I think they are adapting the game assuming everyone is multi boxing 6 accounts, not realizing the difficulty it causes people who are not.

I agree that solo players & small groups(duos) are disproportionally affected by the Shift change(nerf). I'm sure the argument could be made that this change affects parties of any size (as intended), but if the design decision was made looking at it only from a large group perspective, I could see how this change made logistical sense to challenge a well balanced group to have to now consider casting an extra shift per combat while the rest of the team hold down the fight.

Lets expand on this conversation to explain what made RatLabs decide to make this change now, and what balance adjustments can be made now that it is being sampled by a larger demographic. Legacy Shift wasn't great and we don't want to go back to requiring casting in combat only. Being able to cast and extend Shift before battles had become a necessary routine for all ranged combatants (wizards, throwers, some adventurers), and was somewhat taken for granted; I would assume an average character casting (pre-nerf) ext/shift would get 20+ Rounds.

Is 20+ rounds excessive? Maybe. It did create the mentality of cast it and forget it. I preferred the round method vs. 'on hit' method as you didn't really have to keep track of it swing by swing (at super fast F12 speed). But just cutting the amount of rounds would disproportionately affect longer fights vs. shorter fights; keeping in mind larger groups will finish fights faster too and less likely to run out of 'old' shift.

Changing Shift to a 'by hit' model isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just don't think they've hit the sweet spot yet. 15 hits is simply not enough for an average player.
In theory, this new Shift change could last More Rounds, or could be eaten up in one round depending on the mob(s) and your team size. So they did their job by making players be mindful of their Shift stat, but it shouldn't be the most important thing that makes or breaks a fight now.

I think the main difference is that if you are in an high end dungeon with 4+ characters and 1 of them is targeted, you can plan to cast the extra Invulnerability or Shift while the other characters control/heal/draw mobs attention. So the mindset of making it harder for larger groups in these new fancy AI dungeons to make Shift a factor to consider isn't a bad thing and the 'by hit' method may even work better for that.

..But as OP and others have stated, the 15 hit model is not favorable to solo/small group/lower level players. Wherein it is adding a (necessary) challenge to larger end-game group content, it now also penalizes other styles of play disproportionally across the board. Since Shift isn't a guaranteed number of rounds anymore, we cant be as flexible with our round by round decisions, knowing that any round we are targeted will likely mean the difference of being able to heal or hold or shift and choose wrongly and die.

The main difference for solo/small groups is that you are getting hit and you are losing your shift much more frequently then if there are 5 other targets.

My suggestion for balancing Shift better, is to look at it like Invul. Invul lasts a decent amount of 'rounds', soaks up the expected amount of hits, and needs to be recast frequently enough to not feel like a huge burden. Before, Shift was a non-thought. ..now you run the risk of having to cast it every other round in some battles, which by yourself means doing nothing else=you lose.

Make Shift last as long as Invul. It actually balances the warrior/wizard (and don't forget us thief throwers too) out more by fixing our defense spell to mirror/match the tank defense spell. I'm still not in love with the idea of having to squint-track how many shifts I have left, but it will cut down in the amount of times shift will need to be recast for solo/duo players.

..Sorry so long, not to hijack the post, just seen a lot of talk for or against this topic on both Channels, some people really upset and quitting, and though I am doing my best to adapt, I haven't been as excited to run harder content with my solo or duo group lately and i'd attribute it in part to this change.

Some thoughts:
In general, shift is an extremely strong defensive spell. Stronger than invulnerability, even.
I think shift was too long duration before. Now it's too short duration. Easy fix: increase number of charges. I like the per-hit shift idea but it needs more charges.

I'd like to see shift reduced in power but increased in duration from its current 15 charges. Maybe it has 30 charges but characters (and monsters) have a 50% chance to shift when struck, instead of a 100% chance. Or maybe it starts at 100% chance to shift and it decreases by 2% every time you're struck until you recast it.

Being struck by a throwing weapon should not cause you to shift. This is annoying/frustrating in battle.
I like how shift does not scale with SDM anymore. Like invulnerability. Low int warriors need the option to shift + heal when they are low health, too.

Related to shift, lets discuss dispel. Being dispelled during combat often means instant death. If shift was too strong, then dispel is definitely too strong. Maybe shift should not be dispellable? Being dispelled and losing all your buffs (invis, invul, etc) in a single turn is bad enough already.

Having shift = invul seems to make the most sense here. The per hit countdown method is not feasible or fun for the casual solo or two-boxer. Not everyone wants to run 3+ accounts to be viable in all content.

I'd like to see shift reduced in power but increased in duration from its current 15 charges. Maybe it has 30 charges but characters (and monsters) have a 50% chance to shift when struck, instead of a 100% chance. Or maybe it starts at 100% chance to shift and it decreases by 2% every time you're struck until you recast it.

Lets not make it any worse. Being limited to a set amount of hits And a random chance to fail for a glass-cannon is dangerous business.

Increasing the charges should be a fair compromise for all. This can be tweaked over time if it's found too penalizing (like now) or too lenient (like before).

Previous shift was too OP. Made PvE brainless and PvP extremely boring.

That being said, for the majority of the content, the counter to the change is to just cast it before every fight. This is also boring and not skill testing. Starvation was removed to not punish people who forgot to eat. Shift change punishes those who forget to shift.

But for PvP and end game dungeons (where the fights actually exceed the shift duration) a change was/is def required. Maybe there's a happy medium in the charges… maybe there's something else? Idk, I'm old and stupid.

Previous shift was too OP. Made PvE brainless and PvP extremely boring.

I think most people who continue to play this game enjoy the brainless grinding with instant gratification. Those who don’t, quit after a few months. We don’t want to play a difficult strategy game. We just want to grind, chat, & trade. Those who enjoyed strategy and difficult fights were the solo/duo people who are being forced out with this change.

Is the test server no longer a viable option for testing changes to the game? In particular, the number of charges for Shift could have been tested and calibrated for play. As mentioned here, 15 charges is just a giant middle finger to solo/2-box players. You could have changed it to a group spell, with something like 60 charges for the whole group, even if that group is one person. I know you're trying to please everyone, and it isn't easy., but rushing changes into the game has bad consequences.

Is the test server no longer a viable option for testing changes to the game? In particular, the number of charges for Shift could have been tested and calibrated for play. As mentioned here, 15 charges is just a giant middle finger to solo/2-box players. You could have changed it to a group spell, with something like 60 charges for the whole group, even if that group is one person. I know you're trying to please everyone, and it isn't easy., but rushing changes into the game has bad consequences.

I thought about having a group spell as a suggestion, but how do you make it so that your hitters aren’t getting shift cast on them when you don’t want it?

Seems like there was so much focus on how to make this high end dungeon more entertaining that they lost site of the repercussions that would affect everyone else.

Shift needs fixed before prestige 2 is released or they are going to get a lot of people abandoning the game.

Previous shift was too OP. Made PvE brainless and PvP extremely boring.

I think most people who continue to play this game enjoy the brainless grinding with instant gratification. Those who don’t, quit after a few months. We don’t want to play a difficult strategy game. We just want to grind, chat, & trade. Those who enjoyed strategy and difficult fights were the solo/duo people who are being forced out with this change.

I don't think you need to limit yourself to one or the other.

Since change ran hRax and hFD with my 2 wizards and it was still brainless. The only difference is I have to cast shift before every fight. And honestly, if I forgot it just meant I might have to heal once, still never died.

On the other hand, if you want to think a little, you can do something like ToD. Here I have to watch my wizard's shift and decide when I want to spend a turn reshifting. Or maybe I can't because AMA is up. It's just a different Realm experience. Not every cave has to be for every player. And even myself, I'll not always want to do ToD but I like that there's an option like it now.

The only disappointment here for me is there's no counter play to the NPC's perma-shift. I thought Iron Chains would be a cool spell to use here on my Giant Adv.

The only disappointment here for me is there's no counter play to the NPC's perma-shift. I thought Iron Chains would be a cool spell to use here on my Giant Adv.

I hear that! I was pumped when they said they were going to do some balancing. Finally hybrids are going to get some love with new armor and abilities. Nah, we’re going to nerf shift. Lol

Like the shift changes less the more I play. It just forces you to cast before every fight, doesn't change interactions at all. No skill testing, just the same as hunger was before it was removed. I'm only penalized if I forget to do it.

The 25 charge duration is only relevant in ToD and if you want to combat shift there just throw in more dispels.

Bump. Casting shift before every fight is brutal.

Bring back OG HoS! I'm lazy and willing to take the hit for using a terrible helm slot item. Yea casting shift every fight is brutal/not adding to the game play.

I think that shift should at least last the whole fight, instead of charges. I don't know how charges work, but my thief died a lot today in the swamp. Yesterday she could hold a shift for an entire fight. I don't think shift should last forever, but at least an entire fight would be good. Also, why have things we can summon to detract monsters from if it doesn't work anymore? That is just plain stupid. You are trying to kill the wizards!

Shift has not changed in over 4 months

I didn't care for shift lasting for over 8 hours but the charges don't feel nice either. What was the true idea behind the change to charges which was 15 to start and buffed to 25? Also while were asking questions why were fist weapons damage increased to match dagger damage and make daggers completely an obsolete weapon? Same damage but 1 heals you that's the easiest decision to make ever.