アンスウェラー

The answer is 42.

I was away in the Australian Outback testing some “stuff” during the last week or so.

This is going to be a long, boring post to address the recent drama that spawned over in Aerialand…

Cards, ohnoes, PVP is dying!!!!one!!!elevenhundren!!!111

First of all, you guys are only seeing a very small part of the problem.

Taking Tanarin’s simulated numbers, Royce is running at around a 6x damage modifier for fire related spells, before cards/fragrances(incense) are figured.

Breakdown for Royce is as follow:

59% Affinity (+20% Spear of Dutchaf, +15% Fire slot 3, +4% from Tarots, +10% Magic Control, +10% Roaring Passion)
75% Movement (+50% Orth/Cerb, +15% from Armors, +10% from Weapon)
32% General (From Equips)
63% Enhance

Fast-forward to say 3 months later, when stuff like Nyarl’s crystal etc gets released. This is what I’m sitting at:

98% Affinity/Element (Kimono: 8%, 5 slot mirage: 40%, fire extra: 10%, magic control: 10%, red sphere gauntlet: 20%, red sphere eye: 10% +1 activation to all fire skills.)

82% Rush (Kerberos/Orthos: 50%, Scathach: 27%, Takemikazuchi: 5%) or 60% Shot (Kerberos/Orthos: 50%, Mithra: 10%)
0% Racial

General:
87% vs Chaos (Head: 3%, Kimono: 12%, Leg: 7%, Foot: 5%, Neck: 5%, Ring: 12%, Face: 5%, Hand: 5%, Comp: 15%, Earring: 10%, Anti-Chaos Talisman: 8%)
83% vs Neutral (Head: 3%, Kimono: 12%, Leg: 7%, Foot: 5%, Neck: 5%, Ring: 12%, Face: 5%, Hand: 5%, Comp: 15%, Earring: 6%, Anti-Neutral Talisman: 8%)
83% vs Law (Head: 3%, Kimono: 12%, Leg: 7%, Foot: 5%, Neck: 5%, Ring: 12%, Face: 5%, Hand: 5%, Comp: 15%, Earring: 6%, Anti Law-Talisman: 8%)
+ 39% from 13 Nyarl

LNC:
30% chaos (10% cloak, 20% Hokutoseikun)
0% neutral
20% law (20% Hokutoseikun)

Assuming same level of enhance (70%), Royce’s modifier is ~6.24

For me:

Chaos: 1.98 * 1.82 * 2.26 * 2 = ~16.28 (Rush) 1.98 * 1.6 * 2.26 * 2 = ~14.31 (Shot)
Neutral: 1.98 * 1.82 * 2.22 * 1.7 = ~13.59 (Rush) 1.98 * 1.6 * 2.22 * 1.7 = ~11.95 (Shot)
Law: 1.98 * 1.82 * 2.22 * 1.9 = ~15.19 (Rush) 1.98 * 1.6 * 2.22 * 1.9 = ~13.36 (Shot)

Even in the worst case situation, the existing gear/enchants on the JP server makes it possible for me to do close to TWICE Royce’s damage.

Even if we take out 13 nyarl for paravasti/5 of coins to maintain enhance or 5 of wand to work around the fire resistance penalty:

Neutral: 1.98 * 1.82 * 1.83 * 1.7 = ~11.21 (Rush) 1.98 * 1.6 * 1.83 * 1.7 = ~9.85 (Shot)

It’s still a good 50% more actual damage compared to what Royce is doing now.

Guess what? The gear alone makes it possible to 1 shot people.

I haven’t even factor in things like Windblade (cast a buff that increase str/mag/speed by ~0.15%/level i.e. ~13% more str/mag/speed at 90), the infamous Nocturne sets, the current mass of + activation, – cast speed etc…. stuff.

Cards and incense are over-powerful, no doubt about it. But to me, all they do is to bring the ongoing gear gap issue prematurely to light.

In a couple of months, you are going to see people with the appropriate gear/enchants doing the damage that the card/incense users are doing now, 1 shotting people who don’t have resist buffs on.

What are you going to do at that stage? Call for all gear to be banned?

PVP will never be balanced since Imagine is NEVER meant to be a PVP one in its core design.

Back to the “suggestion” thread.

ST(Salad Tosser) Finella will hereby tell you what Imagine’s engine can, and cannot handle.

Don’t expect Cave to do much for PVP when they aren’t even bothered to do things for the PVE aspect of the game.

Disabling CP/AP Consumables from PVP

Right now, the BP heals, Traesto stones yada yada are all programed as exceptions to an exception.

The item database is very messy and any further tempering will most likely break it. Case in point, BP heals were buggy for at least a month back when they were first introduced.

While there are fields to indicate whether an item is CP or not, there isn’t a field to mark skill effects.

Every consumables in the game trigger off a particular skill when it is used. e.g. the 100hp heal triggers off a 100hp heal skill.

Certain items that aren’t CP in nature triggers off the same skill effect as CP items. e.g. the reset stat effect from the free hourglass.

Bit of a history: A long, long time ago, damage increasing incense were sold in the various dungeon goatman for makka as XXX Jelly.

Only difference is that the effect from the jellies only last for 10mins.

While these jellies don’t exist on Aeria, they do on the JP server. In addition, there are also event items, like the recent Roasted Apples that have the same effect as damage incenses.

Cave would have to go through the entire item list and isolate out ALL of these items, something that isn’t that easily done, if they wish to disable them from being used in PVP.

There are only 3 BP heals while there are around a hundred items that mimic effects of damage increasing incenses.

Disabling 3 took a few weeks for them to get it right. How long do you think a hundred would take?

Balms

Balms of life operate off a completely different set of rules compare to other consumables.

The respawning options are hard-coded into the system and less a full revamp of the engine, there is no way to isolate balms to be specific area only

Again, this looks like a simple change, but requires fairly extensive changes.

Remove Incense Effect in PVP

Pretty hard to be done. Imagine is a very primitive game by design.

There is no functional difference between the PVP channel and other channels.

The only difference is that PC/PC devils targetable flag is switched on, and expert skill gain is set to 0.

Other than that, there’s no functional difference.

In fact, copies of Midgard exist on ALL the other channels, and copies of places like Babel exist on the PVP channel as well.

It’s just that there isn’t any direct way of accessing those areas.

The following sequence takes place when you sign up for a PVP match:
- Channel change to PVP channel
- Invisible buff is cast on the PC to increase HP total
- Screen loads

Upon a match ending:
- Buff removed
- Channel change back
- Screen loads

Every skill effect that work on one channel, will work on another as they are based off the same code base.

Theoretically, a buff check can be performed when the invisible buff is cast, and the appropriate debuff is cast.

But again, this has to go hand in hand with completely disabling incense from being used as the buff check/rebuffing can only be performed upon zoning in and/or a particular trigger is activated.

I’ll give an example to clarify this bit.

Ever step into the comp-hack at 3rd home?

Do you know that if you stand still upon zoning in, you won’t get hit by the virus debuff?

The virus debuff is only cast on you if you move and activate the trigger to spawn the pixies.

Even if you’re hit by the debuff, as long as you avoid the other activation points, you can wait for the debuff to fade off and it won’t be recast on you.

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5k AP Scarves

From what I’ve gathered, it was originally offered at the item mall for 2k or so, then raise to 6k before being reduced to 5k.

People are mostly not happy over the 2k -> 5k increase yada yada.

Now, time to put my pespective into words.

Right now, the scarf is still the 2nd best neck piece on the JP server, and it’s one of the oldest pierce of armor I have that still isn’t being replaced… yet.

The 2 better neck piece are:
Re: Maki’s Necklace: +1 int, +1 luck +1 sta, +5% gun/melee/magic damage, female only
Necklace of Will: +3 str, +3 mag, +3 speed, +3 luck, +5% gun/melee/magic damage, male only

Initially, Re: Maki’s Necklace requires you to have the original Maki’s Necklace from the St. Hermelin set and a clothes regenerator to “produce”.

The clothes regenerator costs 500cp to purchase off Cave’s item mall, which translates to 5000ap in Aeria.

Re: Maki’s Necklace then appear in 2 e-mail only lotteries as a “junk” reward. As a whole, the necklace is still worth ~10m

Necklace of Will is part of a voucher, but the voucher has been recycled several times, and the necklace itself has also appear as a “junk” reward in various lotteries.

As for the roping muffler(scarf), the voucher has appeared as a reward for three lotteries:
http://www.megatenonline.com/campaign/card090115.html
http://www.megatenonline.com/news/archive/news1872.html
http://www.megatenonline.com/news/archive/news1971.html

It has appear as a junk reward for 1 lottery:
http://www.megatenonline.com/news/archive/news1861.html

… and 2 other e-mail only lotteries.

Right now, the female roping muffler is still worth a fair bit on the JP server due to how rare Re: Maki’s Necklace is. Male version though has close to no worth due to the presense of the necklace of will.

US$50 for a necklace while expensive, isn’t really that bad considering how long it’ll last you, and there are already previous example of things being sold at that price. (Hi, Avalon)

In addition, Re Maki’s Necklace pretty much cost the same price on the JP server as well.

Besides, the mufflers are pretty close to being sold out in Aeria’s item mall, which means people ARE buying them.

If you want to blame anyone, those buyers are the one to blame.

Obviously the “keep things rare” is a crappy excuse and they are just trying to milk whatever they can since the Imagine dying sign is growing brighter and brighter. (This will be address in a later post)

Demand high = price increase. Demand low = price decrease.

It’s as simple as that.

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People can stick their fingers in their ears, going lalala, CP items are perfectly balance~ (*cough* Michael/arcnet *cough*)

But anyone with more than 2 braincells will know how much of an effect they have.

Again, both of this issues are caused by a fundamental issue: the game is too CP/AP based.

Aeria recognized this, which is probably why they brought the cards and scarves in as they perceived that there will be a demand for it.

I’ve already warned way back in June how broken the cards will be. Aeria GMs “read” my blog and yet they still went with it. Why? 1 word: money.