Sure.

See The Wind - Now does a pulsing skill boost based on ranged weapon in hand, defaults to LT with no weapon or melee weapon.

Instinct - Updated to 2 slots.

Cheetah Swiftness - Updated to 3 slots.

Curse of the Wilds - Updated to 3 slots, reduced effects to melee and ranged damage reduction. For creatures it also debuffs evasion, for players if may debuff evasion, shield or parry based on various things.

Bear Strength - Updated to 3 slots.

Wisdom of the Pack - Changed Locks boost to Tactics Boost, still does Wisdom.

Claws of the Cougar - Changed to brawling and pulsing in hand weapon boost.

Forestwalker's Boon - will be available for testing.

There may be some other minor slot cost/signature changes that I don't have the notes for, but that pretty well covers any major changes that I'm aware of.


FGM Ricinus
Logistics Lead
Magic, Sentients Team Member
Cleric Advocate

>Why is an intro spell being pushed to 2 slots?

>Remember that 2 spell slots should be roughly what an average spell costs.
-Raesh

There are intro spells that are 2 slots. Also other Evasion-boosting spells have gone up in cost. MM Seer's Sense is going from 1 to 3.

>Just extra cost...

A pain shared by every MU guild.

>>Wisdom of the Pack - Changed Locks boost to Tactics Boost, still does Wisdom.
>Why? Tactics really does nothing for us. Locks is at least a survival skill. You guys are going to take away a primary survival skill boost to add a tert lore boost? This makes sense?

I'd imagine it's because Rangers currently buff 8 survivals while 3.1 Thieves buff 7 (Up from 6) and current Necromancers buff 5 (Haven't checked their 3.1 changes, nor am I sure why they don't have a FA one, but then no guild does).

>Is the pulsing only so if you swap from brawling to weapons, it boosts them?

It's a minor nerf in that you don't just instantly get an always-on damage boost for half an entire skillset, it checks every few seconds and switches to the skill of the weapon you're holding.

>So basically, Ranger magic has already become a joke
>It's really hard to get excited about this guild

Man, you would have really hated being an Empath back in the day when literally half the Empath Spellbook was just to heal yourself, and when Rangers and Paladins had more spells anyways.

Kaeta Airtag

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

I don't think she was trying to troll so much as add perspective.

This is a community-based game, so while it looks like nerfing (and it does) - that's from where we're standing. Comparing it to the other guilds is necessary because they're looking to balance the entire world - not just Rangers by themselves.

@DR-Ricinus: Thank you for the swift response.

I know you're super busy, but if you get the chance to give us a better perspective on why the costs on a lot of our spells are going up while the effects are going down (or remaining unchanged) I know I'd appreciate it and I'm sure others would too.

Thanks again for your time.

-TPO
Karisalthna

Seems I missed a post in this thread, so, sorry to be responding a bit late to some of this stuff.

>>Why is an intro spell being pushed to 2 slots?

Yep, it's because of Evasion. We could change it to 1 slot, but it would have to boost something less critical.

>>So its costing an extra slot and being reduced in its effects? I guess it makes sense if a terrible spell like HB costs 3 slots.

I think I kinda already answered the COTW issue in the previous post. And it missed my listing, but HB is now 2 slots for 3.1.

>>Why? Tactics really does nothing for us. Locks is at least a survival skill. You guys are going to take away a primary survival skill boost to add a tert lore boost? This makes sense?

I didn't particularly see the theme of the spell making sense for locksmithing. If folks prefer a locksmithing boost to tactics, I'm perfectly happy with changing it back. Please bear in mind however that tactics will probably see more new usage than locksmithing will, and given that locksmithing is already a skill that moves at a primary rate for you, I would think more people would prefer a way to boost a skill that is harder to train.

>>I'm afraid to see what boon looks like once it's released.

So am I. Quite frankly I have no idea if anyone actually used this spell for anything in 2.x. But we'll have some time during Test to see if my attempt to do it justice is any good. Otherwise, we can talk about how to make it better.

FGM Ricinus
Logistics Lead
Magic, Sentients Team Member
Cleric Advocate

I forgot one other notable change:

Branch Break no longer has the double tap mechanic. It will either stun or knock unconscious based on how successful it is.


FGM Ricinus
Logistics Lead
Magic, Sentients Team Member
Cleric Advocate

>>Branch Break no longer has the double tap mechanic. It will either stun or knock unconscious based on how successful it is.

Oh good. So you're making it a lot easier to land a cast, and allowing us to cast it in non-wilderness areas to compensate for completely removing reliability, right? It would suck if it stayed the way it currently is, considering how weak rangers are with disablers, especially compared to other guilds. I feel like a gimp commoner who knows how to run away from a fight really well.

>>No, but if you have enough of a win

That's the problem, I never have enough of a win. My character is fairly balanced in stats, and since 3.0 was introduced, I have -never- been able to land any disabler outside of a 10 second COTW on anyone even remotely close to my circle. Now maybe it's my fault for trying to build a relatively balanced character instead of dumping all my stats into mentals.

>>Not sure what you mean by 'completely removing reliability', so I'll do my best to guess.

Yes, I meant the stun follow-up use of the spell, which I didn't think was unfair considering my experience with how difficult it is to land it in the first place, and the(in my opinion) unfair restriction of only being able to cast it in a wilderness area.

>>As far as removing the wilderness requirement.

I understand you're probably not the guy to whine to about ranger systems, but as a ranger, I'd just like you to know wilderness requirements suck. I think I've harped on this point enough.

>>Indeed.

Quite.

>>They even have more than some of the magic secondary guilds.
>>And one of them is currently the most grossly overpowered debuff in the game right now.

I'm not going to argue that COTW isn't great. It is, and I love it, and I understand that the debuff is probably a bit strong in its current form. What's not strong is the duration. I can't get more than one or two attacks before it falls off. Again, this might just be a stat issue, but I think for the sake of being worth that extra slot, maybe it's duration should be looked at.

>>There are a number of guilds that can lay claim to a need for more <insert righteous cause here>,

I completely understand, and I'm sure your plate is more than full. I don't mean to come off as a jerk, but I kind of am a jerk, so it comes off that way. I'm not screaming 'FIX IT NOW'. But, we're rangers. We don't get development. We get our abilities handed out to other guilds like halloween candy. It would be nice to not be last on the list for once.

Most of my complaints are better directed at someone in charge of Ranger development. I'd just like to not feel like spending so much time developing my ranger was a gigantic mistake because of how poor some of the design choices have been, in my opinion.

>>If you want to be helpful with this process, I look forward to hearing your opinion on things when we hit Test.

I will gladly volunteer my time to testing and providing feedback, but I have the notion that it won't be very well received.

>>GM's are falling into the same old trap they always do. BB knock out was too powerful, so instead of addressing the problem, you just make it harder to land.

That's not at all why BB changed (MB faced a similar change), it was changed because the double tap concept doesn't work well in the world of diminishing returns.

>>And since the GM brought it up, we are magic tert so maybe our magic should stink

Magic Tert guilds should have fully functional magic systems. The only place where magic terts are at a significant disadvantage to magic prime/secondary are in the number of spells and to some degree the scope of what their magic can do.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>>What's not strong is the duration. I can't get more than one or two attacks before it falls off. Again, this might just be a stat issue, but I think for the sake of being worth that extra slot, maybe it's duration should be looked at.

Durations for stat/skill debuff spells like this will be increasing across the board. Currently they run 15-50 seconds or so, in 3.1 they will be 1 to 2 minutes.


FGM Ricinus
Logistics Lead
Magic, Sentients Team Member
Cleric Advocate

Yes, things get released with bugs, even including logged bugs. This is always the case. Eventually release time comes and you're left asking if you want to postpone things further or just say "screw it, we're done." This is the way of all software. Sometimes you just decide that some bugs are incidental and you don't want to bother to fix them. Sometimes the reason for the bug being logged but ignored is in fact that it is not considered a major enough bug to justify delaying the next release, especially in an ongoing development environment. You shelve it to fix it later. I'm not privy to the conversations of the developers, naturally, but that's how I've seen things go.

And just because "everyone" knew something doesn't mean everyone knew it the same way. If something seems overpowered, players might react differently - one might try to keep it quiet, hoping to exploit it later. Another notices it is overpowered but sees it as massively so, ruining game balance forever. Another sees it as overpowered but only incidentally - a minor imbalance not likely to matter in the long term. Another cadre simply are so used to it that they don't care. Sorting out the difference in logged reports between these multiple different players is a daunting task, and developers often form their own opinions about how things look as well, further clouding the issue. Only months later may it become apparent that oh, group B was less than completely accurate, but more accurate than group C.

What you are really always going to run up against is that for every few bits of information you send, some is lost, simply by going into a machine that has been built differently than the sender - and thus will process and organize the data differently. That is, another person's brain. This hinders communication on both sides. So yes, more interaction will result in more misunderstanding, not because of some error, but in fact because of a foundational obstacle in communication. Data loss is unavoidable. It's why the game of "Telephone" exists.

teal deer; GMs are human beings, and human beings don't always understand each other, and sometimes they say "eff it, we're doing it live."

And at the moment, almost every guild has been feeling the "no development" pinch because almost all development has been turned over to bug fixing and rebuilding the entire game's system, but the reason they're doing it is so that it's easier and faster to change things in the future. There's also the release of major system updates for everyone and not just any one guild, like the crafting system.

Believe me, it's an odd group sitting around the "waiting for <s>Pets</s> Minions 3.0" fire, with Warrior Mages, Necromancers, and Rangers, but you're not alone in waiting.

---

"Izujesha doz uchubam!"

More cowbell...

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Actually I had a couple of requests about spells...

Compost: Could yall think about making this into a temporary "bucket" instead of being the same as our beseech? Have the spell create a sink hole where every so often the contents on the floor fall into it. Then when the spell goes away the sink hole closes and after a small amount of time disappears. This would make the spell much more friendly to group locations and useful overall. During the time before it goes away you could even make it dig-able so someone could open it up to get something out of it.

Awaken forest: Can the spawn please not disappear when you move rooms? The only time I use this spell currently is when I am mining a room. Moving around to hunt makes the use of this spell impractical and/or just annoying.

Wisdom of the Pack: You sure we can't talk you into making this into a pulsing crafting(based on the tool we are holding) skill bonus... we'd use that a ton more than a tactics skill bonus. In fact you'd make every ranger a happy camper doing this... the precedent would already be set with See the wind and Claws of the cougar.

Athleticism: You could add tactics into this augmentation skill which would bonus two skills like the rest of our augmentation spells.


Hopefully you'll consider going with a pulsing crafting skill bonus instead of tactics. Tactics may or may not get used depending on how the skill is developed but the other will definitely be used and become a popular spell.

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Caution: may scream about HUGE DRAMATIC AMAZING SIGNIFICANT loss

>>I don't see much reason for Rangers to have any crafting spells
I'd bet more rangers would use a crafting bonus spell than would use a tactics bonus spell. I don't see them giving a general lore bonus spell, but the precedent is already there with the weapon bonus spell to give us a crafting version. A tactics bonus spell is useful only if the skill pans out development wise, if it doesn't then it'll end up as a useless spell. I agree though that name wise tactics would fit better under Wisdom of the Pack.






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Caution: may scream about HUGE DRAMATIC AMAZING SIGNIFICANT loss

Thanks at least for considering changes to Compost and Awaken Forest. Even if it didn't fit under the name WOTP a pulsing crafting bonus spell would be fantastic. Heh you could call it "Tools of the Primate" or "Apes of the hamburger", hell I'd settle for "Spell to get the whiny rangers off my back".


Two last questions, any chance that our beseeches will be looked at anytime soon? Did yall consider the total cost of all a guilds spells versus the number of spell slots that they are able to get when deciding to up the slot costs on most spells?

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Beseeches are so broken at this point they are almost useless to get. Almost all of the beseeches other than the freebies need to have a near perfect bonus to get and you can barely keep it good enough out there to get the beseech. So many I know who have tried lately have given up getting them because there is only 1 place near any of them to get the beseech to perfect and then you go out working on it and pretty quick its down below what you need to get the beseech completed. Then someone sounds off at use Memory of nature. well at circle 35 or 40 or 50 most them cant cast it at all or high enough to give them more than 5 min. Ive pretty much given up on beseechs. The only one ive done anything with is beseech sun to dry to see if it can be improved with some kind of skill to produce better dried herbs. Otherwise its going to be useless to a better pyramid and again unused.

Ranger Pfanston and his soggy pup.

>> I'd like to get something done for Rangers once this push is done, either directed at beseeches, scouting skill, or companions.

Companions, companions, a thousand times companions.

> Why not tie in Wisdom of the Pack with new Companions we have been asking for, for 10 years. When we have the companion out with us, and cast the wisdom of the pack, the companion packs up and hunts with us. Tracks for us and we can follow, things like that.

That would require writing an entire new companion system. Making it give a Tactics buff requires ticking a box.

> And how would that be a bad thing?

One is going to happen in the next few weeks, the other is not.

> So why shouldn't [the companion system] be completely re-written to be more effective?

It should. And when that eventually happens, if there's a place for a spell that interacts with it, the spell will be written then. WOTP needs something to do now.

> What exactly do you think is the plan for companions?

I think I answered this in the preceding post.

<<I think I answered this in the preceding post.

Which means you dont know. Companions are slated for a complete re-write. We just need a GM to actually do it. There isnt much point in doing anything small with companions because it needs and is going to get a complete re-write. No point in band-aiding a fluff system at this point.

Falker