Is it just me?

[guyzer11]

Greetings fellow E&Ber's.....

Just voicing, today, my growing concern about the difficulty of the game from L95 and up. I know the game is far from finished and have seen great improvements recently (it's so awesome to see the fine works done by our devs)and hope this can be helpful. I have a maxed TT (Frissbee) which is the first toon I have ever been able to get to the max 150. This was done mostly by trade runs and although painfully boring at times the progress was quite rewarding. These days I work on a PW and a JE and have noticed the difficulty increase around 95 that's like flipping a switch. Suddenly I am dreading the next 4 lvls to get new guns or kit for my ship. And at times I just want to give up. Apparently I am not the only one, 90 % of my guild has reached this area and simply just quit playing, just when we could all help each other by group action. Perhaps the people I have joined with aren't geared that way but we all had a great time together in the early lvls, which leads me to think the balance of difficulty is a wee bit skewed. I still struggle on alone but have noticed the other remaining guild mates have adapted by creating alternate toons and grouping for strength with them. Works very well too by the results seen.

I had thought the group action was meant for raids and the really big mobs that you can't solo. The differences in play style for each player due to either skill or time allowed to play (we all can't play 18 hours a day or even at the same time of the day) makes grouping awkward and strained at times. Thus my beliefs of the max lvls group action. Is it just me? I would love to hear any other opinions and perhaps a reasoning of what I am missing if I am way off in this belief. Cause I know my ideas don't always match with what is right and like to think I can see and change to other ideas when enlightened. Thanks for listening and as Frissbee would say "Fly safe out there and if you can't do that aim to kill".

[Tienbau]

yeah there's a lot of work still to be done balancing things!

Any suggestions to what can be done?

A recent change to encourage more mining parties I'm trying out a mod which gives the field completion bonus to all group members, and if the field's been left un mined for a while the completion bonus starts doubling. I'm not sure if it'll work out but any other suggestions for things?

[Suricata79[IS]]

I honestly blame the job terminals, the lvl 50 and 75 terminals have very easy routes and since you can take 12 at a time (currently) you can level up at an insane pace, the lvl 105 jobs are harder and take longer time, this results in a slow down, which frustrates people that have gotten used to lvling so quickly. The other issue is people are using jobs so much ( as they are so good) that some are not bothering with mining or combat as the xp gain from those activities is not as quick. The solution I believe is reducing the mission log to 6 jobs, this will halve the lvling speed of the lower lvl jobs so players arn't getting to lvl 100 in a few days and make other content in the game more appealing again. The other issue is the trend in newer MMO's for people to race to the end lvl as though theirs a pot of gold there! Its also worth taking into account that the last 5-10 lvls of each xp type was hard in live, these lvl's arn't meant to be grinable in 1 job session :-)

EnB was all about the journey, hitting lvl 150 wasn't something alot of people did on live, moreso as you didn't have to be lvl 150 to do the endgame content.

[Terrell [BT]]

yeah there's a lot of work still to be done balancing things!

Any suggestions to what can be done?

A recent change to encourage more mining parties I'm trying out a mod which gives the field completion bonus to all group members, and if the field's been left un mined for a while the completion bonus starts doubling. I'm not sure if it'll work out but any other suggestions for things?

Sounds interesting. Glad to see mining getting a much needed overhaul. Thanks to you and Mr Merlin especially.

The Teinbau NPC in N7, will he eventually offer a mission? I check with him periodically with my JE and after answering "yes" to him about doing a mission he says.

"You're not worthy, you need to be an explorer, you're an explorer"

If so will his mission for explorers include the Sentinel and Scout?

I honestly blame the job terminals, the lvl 50 and 75 terminals have very easy routes and since you can take 12 at a time (currently) you can level up at an insane pace, the lvl 105 jobs are harder and take longer time, this results in a slow down, which frustrates people that have gotten used to lvling so quickly. The other issue is people are using jobs so much ( as they are so good) that some are not bothering with mining or combat as the xp gain from those activities is not as quick. The solution I believe is reducing the mission log to 6 jobs, this will halve the lvling speed of the lower lvl jobs so players arn't getting to lvl 100 in a few days and make other content in the game more appealing again. The other issue is the trend in newer MMO's for people to race to the end lvl as though theirs a pot of gold there! Its also worth taking into account that the last 5-10 lvls of each xp type was hard in live, these lvl's arn't meant to be grinable in 1 job session :-)

EnB was all about the journey, hitting lvl 150 wasn't something alot of people did on live, moreso as you didn't have to be lvl 150 to do the endgame content.

I think having a limit of 6 jobs is fine. Ultimately are all the stations with job terminals going to have jobs to do? If so will there be multiple levels of jobs at each stations or will each station specialize in one level of job, like it is now?

I can't say that I blame players for using the terminals for Explore XP, especially the JW and JT with key skills based on Explore level (Cloak, Scan, Fold Space), and no real advantage in earning explore XP compared to the Terrans and Progen from the same profession (warriors & traders respectively). It's also beneficial to keep EL and TL ahead of CL as much as possible regardless of race or class, since it means you can have your shields and reactors ahead of your weapons, and have fewer energy problems. For those reasons Trade runs and Jobs will probably be used plenty. (not to mention, levelling trade for building toons, helps support one self, and one's alts.)

Jobs are a very welcome addition for for all toons that lack the Negotiate skill, especially JEs, as they are more efficent than using Trade runs between Somerled & Fenris.

Perhaps as more content is made ready, and added to the game, there can be more missions (quests) for low level players, of all races and classes, that reward either trade or explore XP. Some for all, some tailored to profession, some to race, and some to specific classes. Might take a little stress off the job terminals, and give players other means to level their harder to level types of XP, non-explorers in particular.

[seekeronos]

I was going to write a most scorching post about not hauling out the Nerf Bat of Divine Might whenever someone makes a little more xp than someone else, but that seems not to be the case (at least at the moment).

Some observations

- Reducing the number of missions you can take (not just job terminal jobs) to a maximum of six, would also force players to clear old missions from NPCs.

- Some classes are functionally limited by having at least one mission slot more or less permanently tied up until after completing the OL135 Hull Upgrade, for example, TTs have the HU mission throughout most of the HU lifecycle, where TS does not.

- XP levels gained from jobs should not be nerfed down from current levels if theumber of missions slots are lowered.

- Terminal timers should not be re-introduced (as in live).

- Mining should *NOT* be forced into a best-results-only-by-grouping, nor should the game force non-miners to have to tag along with a miner to get xp.... that said, a Miner's primary source of xp should be from mining and selling the ores; a Trader's primary source of xp from trade runs/jobs and building; and a warrior's best xp from killing things and selling the loot.

Remember that a LOT of miners are loners.

Overall, I hope that we do not see a need to make the level grind any tougher: that said, it should take much longer to get from OL75 to OL150 than it did to get from L0 to OL75.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

*wields the Nerf Bat of Divine Might +2* hmm, oh.. nevermind.

[Terrell [BT]]

I was going to write a most scorching post about not hauling out the Nerf Bat of Divine Might whenever someone makes a little more xp than someone else, but that seems not to be the case (at least at the moment).

Some observations

- Reducing the number of missions you can take (not just job terminal jobs) to a maximum of six, would also force players to clear old missions from NPCs.

- Some classes are functionally limited by having at least one mission slot more or less permanently tied up until after completing the OL135 Hull Upgrade, for example, TTs have the HU mission throughout most of the HU lifecycle, where TS does not.

- XP levels gained from jobs should not be nerfed down from current levels if theumber of missions slots are lowered.

- Terminal timers should not be re-introduced (as in live).

- Mining should *NOT* be forced into a best-results-only-by-grouping, nor should the game force non-miners to have to tag along with a miner to get xp.... that said, a Miner's primary source of xp should be from mining and selling the ores; a Trader's primary source of xp from trade runs/jobs and building; and a warrior's best xp from killing things and selling the loot.

Remember that a LOT of miners are loners.

Overall, I hope that we do not see a need to make the level grind any tougher: that said, it should take much longer to get from OL75 to OL150 than it did to get from L0 to OL75.

I think you make some good observations Seeker. Perhaps it could work as follows:

Give every player that's below L135 a hull upgrade mission that stays in their log until all hull related missions are complete. I suspect that this will eventually happen on it's own, since in Live my Jen toons also had a mission tied to hull upgrades until they made Grandmaster and Ken'Shao.

Pick a total number of missions you can have in your log at once, 7 sounds nice since those below 135 will have one mission that stays until they reach their max hull. If the devs are feeling generous then 8.

I totally agree, the timers that required you to wait 5 minutes before taking a third job should NOT be returned. It makes jobs more monotonous than they need to be.

I agree with you completely on mining. Most mining will be done solo, or maybe with 1 other explorer. (includes Sentinel & Scout) I especially appreciate Mr Merlin for his ongoning changes to orefields, and making mining more solo friendly. Getting rid of Manes as such a common orefield guardian, particularily of high level orefields, makes explorer's lives easier, especially for JEs.

It's the nature of mining, that it makes most sense from the Explorer's point of view to go into the orefield alone most of the time. As only 1 explorer can mine any specific resource at any given time. It really didn't benefit warriors to team up with explorers either, they could make more XP, more money, and better loot hunting elsewhere or raiding.

I think in the case of Traders they have to mix combat in with building and Trade Runs. They are only going to get so much Trade XP from building items, which will vary with the size of their recipe book. Also when building for players that are significantly lower in level, they will get either minimal XP or none at all, depending on level of equipment built vs trade level. Also one can only go between Somerled & Fenris so many times before you're almost dying to do something else. This is a little less painful for Terrans, JT, and PT due to their larger cargo hold and Negotiate. (as it should be)

[guyzer11]

yeah there's a lot of work still to be done balancing things!

Any suggestions to what can be done?

Yes I do have a suggestion, the L6 shield (Normandy) seems to be my biggest hold back right now. Even with a Ward of Living Stone equipped I find the shield sap can't recharge soon enough on my PW, then the shield gives way to hull, then I'm running for my life. I'm sure you guys did your home work and the stats are correct but the effectiveness seems to be weak. Never thought I would say this about a PW but the L6 reactor(Warriors Heart) can pull it's weight much better then the shield. Along with the WOLS I have a L6 Pavis, combined with Combat Trance this gives me 50% resistance to explosive and still the shield drains like water running down a mountain trail. At first I thought there may have been some reverse effect action going on like with my L9 Model Z shield on Frissbee (the engineering equip buff doubles the equip time instead of reducing it by half) but, on versus off equip, bears out the correct stats for anything I have in use on the PW. All this stuff is PM of course to 200%.

There is the possibility I am using my gear wrong, or my tactics are frelled, not the sharpest tool in the shed here. Let me know what you think, and thanks for listening. 10ga.

[Suricata79[IS]]

yeah there's a lot of work still to be done balancing things!

Any suggestions to what can be done?

Yes I do have a suggestion, the L6 shield (Normandy) seems to be my biggest hold back right now. Even with a Ward of Living Stone equipped I find the shield sap can't recharge soon enough on my PW, then the shield gives way to hull, then I'm running for my life. I'm sure you guys did your home work and the stats are correct but the effectiveness seems to be weak. Never thought I would say this about a PW but the L6 reactor(Warriors Heart) can pull it's weight much better then the shield. Along with the WOLS I have a L6 Pavis, combined with Combat Trance this gives me 50% resistance to explosive and still the shield drains like water running down a mountain trail. At first I thought there may have been some reverse effect action going on like with my L9 Model Z shield on Frissbee (the engineering equip buff doubles the equip time instead of reducing it by half) but, on versus off equip, bears out the correct stats for anything I have in use on the PW. All this stuff is PM of course to 200%.

There is the possibility I am using my gear wrong, or my tactics are frelled, not the sharpest tool in the shed here. Let me know what you think, and thanks for listening. 10ga.

The WOLS is an inbalanced item that basically makes most peoples shields 3-4x what they should be, the sacrifice is that your recharge is dismal, the plus, is that you can take on mobs many levels above you which you normaly wouldn't. Basically low-mid level shieilds can not be balanced arounda device that is meant to be pretty rare, otherwise people without the device would have shields that recharge insanely fast. Also remember that on live, shield sap was not what a PW used as a primary killing method like some PW's are doing now, the pro of shield sap was extra burst damage, the con was it took your shields away, thus you are meant to use it spareingly. Your gear setup is fine, you just have to bare in mind that the slow recharge is the negative effect of having a shield cap far higher than it should be :-)

[Suricata79[IS]]

Just to respond to some of the concerns

Reducing the number of missions you can take (not just job terminal jobs) to a maximum of six, would also force players to clear old missions from NPCs.

That's exactly how it was in live, generally most players would not have more than a coupel of ongoing missions in thier pog though and due to the 2 jobs every 5 minute cooldown, it meant most players could happily have thier hull upgrade mission and 1 regular mission in thier log whilst doing 4 trade jobs.

- Some classes are functionally limited by having at least one mission slot more or less permanently tied up until after completing the OL135 Hull Upgrade, for example, TTs have the HU mission throughout most of the HU lifecycle, where TS does not.

Eventually, all classes should have thier hull upgrade missions in thier logs until lvl 135, just like in live, that should cut down the 'what lvl do I get my next hull upgrade' and 'where do I get my next hull upgrade' questions ingame :-)

- XP levels gained from jobs should not be nerfed down from current levels if theumber of missions slots are lowered.

Agreed, the currrent XP per job isn't actually that much different from live, its the fact you can do so many at a time that is breaking the XP gain rates currently

- Terminal timers should not be re-introduced (as in live).

Agreed, I'd much rather make higher lvl trade routes take a longer time and balance XP gain that way, rather than have players twiddling thier thumbs at a terminal. The 5 minute cooldown was also there to help prevent the terminal camping issues, such as no jobs been available as they'd all gone so fast, this is something that I'd rather fix by A. Reducing jobs able to be taken and B, Possabling increasing the number of jobs at a terminal.

- Mining should *NOT* be forced into a best-results-only-by-grouping, nor should the game force non-miners to have to tag along with a miner to get xp.... that said, a Miner's primary source of xp should be from mining and selling the ores; a Trader's primary source of xp from trade runs/jobs and building; and a warrior's best xp from killing things and selling the loot.

Generally, most activities in the game were better done in groups, although you'd get less XP mining or doing combat in a group per kill or resource harvested, the fact you could do it 2x as fast was where the bonus kicked in, so if both people were pulling thier weight, the XP gain would be greater, however, if one person was afk, the xp gain would actually be slower for the person been active. Currently, as the job terminals are allowing people to level so quickly, its actually diminishing choices of doing combat or mining to lvl up.

Overall, I hope that we do not see a need to make the level grind any tougher: that said, it should take much longer to get from OL75 to OL150 than it did to get from L0 to OL75.

Ideally, the level curve just needs tweaking so that you lvl quickly at first and slow down as you progress, its not about making the grind tougher per say, but rather having it smoother, instead of been a rollercoaster, whilst also allowing people to enjoy thier levels, afterall, there is little joy in getting a new shield or reactor when you can currently gain 20-30 levels a day doing jobs and thus actually bypass upgrading items altogether. I know in live I certainly didn't get any of my toons to lvl 100 in a week!

I think alot of people are forgetting that alot of the content that gets added to the game requires testing, that is what the stress test server is for, this inevitably means content will get tweaked after it is added to get it to where it is meant to be, afterall, some impacts on the game can not be seen until the players actually test it. I know some people see any 'nerf' as the end of the world, but sometimes these things genuinly have to be done sometimes to balance the game out. Remember, none of these changes have happened yet, but there is definatly a lvling rate issue at the moment and the job terminals are the main culprit currently.

[seekeronos]

the pro of shield sap was extra burst damage, the con was it took your shields away, thus you are meant to use it spareingly.

I believe you are referring to Shield Inversion: that allows you to use yours as a sort of directed energy weapon.

Shield sap basically leeches a portion of the mob's shield and adds it to your (PW) own, to be contrasted with the JE analogous skill, Shield Leech, which turns it to reactor juice, iirc.

[guyzer11]

The WOLS is an inbalanced item that basically makes most peoples shields 3-4x what they should be, the sacrifice is that your recharge is dismal, the plus, is that you can take on mobs many levels above you which you normaly wouldn't. Basically low-mid level shieilds can not be balanced arounda device that is meant to be pretty rare, otherwise people without the device would have shields that recharge insanely fast. Also remember that on live, shield sap was not what a PW used as a primary killing method like some PW's are doing now, the pro of shield sap was extra burst damage, the con was it took your shields away, thus you are meant to use it spareingly. Your gear setup is fine, you just have to bare in mind that the slow recharge is the negative effect of having a shield cap far higher than it should be :-)

It sounds like your referring to shield burn, shield sap takes shield from the enemy and gives it to your shield. I understand what your saying about the WOLS though which makes your recharge rate seem pathetic due to more shield to recharge. But honestly I can't imagine fighting without it at this lvl (L98) and the shield sap, I can barely kill 3 lvls over my CL now, which I thought should be possible with a normal fitting. The shield sap does give a nice chunk of damage but it's not for a quicker kill as the shield burn is. I use it mainly to keep in the battle instead of running off to recharge the shield. This gives me food for thought though and working on tactics without the WOLS may be interesting just to see what a normal recharge rate accomplishes. Thanks for the heads up ! 10ga.