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• NA megaservers for patch maintenance – December 17, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• EU megaservers for patch maintenance – December 17, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
Thoughts from someone who sees both sides about Veteran Content Difficulty
I will keep this fairly short, I am a theory crafter maxing builds etc is what I find fun in games. Understandably then I have enjoyed the difficulty that the current veteran content provides. There is a middle ground though and it can be hard to find. Current veteran content is very easy if say you use one of the current meta builds such as crit surge heals on Sorcerer. And yes it takes some skill with dodging and blocking and paying attention to what is in your environment during a fight.
Encouraging good builds, good player skills(dodging, timeing etc), and group content is great, this is what I personally want from a game and what I am hearing both sides of this argument want. Currently at least 1 side is unhappy and no matter how well you try and balance something at least someone out there will be unhappy, the trick as most of us already know I imagine is to try and find the point where the most people are happy.
So what changes can be made? Well the overall difficulty could be reduced VERY slightly, this must be done gradually and carefully or the game is going to become far too easy. Currently if you try and say level up a skill that really isn't that great in most situations or you try a new build that has good fundamentals to it and in theory it should work well, has a bit of cc, has good resource management and synergy etc then that should work. Currently I have tried a few builds on Sorcerer in a few of the Veteran Areas, right around the Veteran 6 zone a lot of those builds that I feel SHOULD work don't. Even playing at an above average skill level you will die more often then you should. The difficulty should allow well designed builds such as these to still work in the Veteran 6+ areas. However the difficulty should be kept high enough that some randomly put together build that is in-cohesive or in theory has a good number of flaws, shouldn't work. That is a lot to ask of any game company as that is a delicate balance but is something that should be worked towards.
The other change I would like to see personally but am not sure on the thoughts of everyone else who plays is make the quests of the game(not the dungeons) Soloable. Even if the quest is gotten in a public dungeon (group dungeons *ones with achievements* and LFG tool dungeons *Spindleclutch etc* excluded) this quest should be able to be done without issue solo, you should not need a group. There are various activities in the game that are clearly meant for groups I do not think quests should be one of them. The only other possible exception to this rule in my mind would be quests in Craglorn.
I apologize, that was longer then I wanted it to be but let me know your thoughts on these.
Short Version:
Difficulty requires skill and allows for some experimentation with builds but does not force an Over the top Meta build or allow for a build that is put together poorly.
Most Quests in the game are designed to be soloable.
Encouraging good builds, good player skills(dodging, timeing etc), and group content is great, this is what I personally want from a game and what I am hearing both sides of this argument want. Currently at least 1 side is unhappy and no matter how well you try and balance something at least someone out there will be unhappy, the trick as most of us already know I imagine is to try and find the point where the most people are happy.
So what changes can be made? Well the overall difficulty could be reduced VERY slightly, this must be done gradually and carefully or the game is going to become far too easy. Currently if you try and say level up a skill that really isn't that great in most situations or you try a new build that has good fundamentals to it and in theory it should work well, has a bit of cc, has good resource management and synergy etc then that should work. Currently I have tried a few builds on Sorcerer in a few of the Veteran Areas, right around the Veteran 6 zone a lot of those builds that I feel SHOULD work don't. Even playing at an above average skill level you will die more often then you should. The difficulty should allow well designed builds such as these to still work in the Veteran 6+ areas. However the difficulty should be kept high enough that some randomly put together build that is in-cohesive or in theory has a good number of flaws, shouldn't work. That is a lot to ask of any game company as that is a delicate balance but is something that should be worked towards.
The other change I would like to see personally but am not sure on the thoughts of everyone else who plays is make the quests of the game(not the dungeons) Soloable. Even if the quest is gotten in a public dungeon (group dungeons *ones with achievements* and LFG tool dungeons *Spindleclutch etc* excluded) this quest should be able to be done without issue solo, you should not need a group. There are various activities in the game that are clearly meant for groups I do not think quests should be one of them. The only other possible exception to this rule in my mind would be quests in Craglorn.
I apologize, that was longer then I wanted it to be but let me know your thoughts on these.
Short Version:
Difficulty requires skill and allows for some experimentation with builds but does not force an Over the top Meta build or allow for a build that is put together poorly.
Most Quests in the game are designed to be soloable.
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