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With the slowdown in ELR releases I thought I would take some time to review what has been released to date and share what I liked or disliked overall.
First of all, thanks to the dev team for focus and dedication in taking on this project and moving it towards the finish line. While there may be differing opinions on the success/failure of specific implementations I think we would all agree that we have some additional fun lore flavor to enjoy!
Likes
- The lore additions to bolt spells are really fun! I know a number of wizards (myself included) that are enjoying the burn effects from acid and fire. The soaking effect from water and stun effects from lightining seem like they will be fun as well.
- Changes to Slow were needed and much appreciated! I think the improvements moved this spell back into the useful category.
- I like the Water lore benefits for locksmiths to 403, 404, 407, and 408. I don't think they'll see much use pre-cap but I do see these benefits as something my locksmith rogue will train for post-cap.
- I appreciate that the dev team listened on Mana Focus (418) such that the spell is still reasonable for what it is.
- The enhancement to Mass Blur is probably one of the better mechanical defensive benefits to come out of the ELR.
- Last, but not least, Cone of elements looks like it will be a lot of fun! Due to the unusual syntax I need to revisit/redesign my function key setup for hunting before I'll be able to make any regular use of it but I am looking forward to doing so in the near future!
Dislikes
- While clearly NOT part of the ELR, the whole communication of the big three nerfs really overshadowed the ELR and took a lot of fun out of the whole review for me. I would have expected a little more insight into what was in the works to offset/replace some of the impact when the announcement was made. Instead this initially came across as something to look for in the ELR and then later as something that we wouldn't see in the ELR without any clarity if there was anything to expect even post ELR. As a result I spent at least a portion of the ELR being more frustrated and sad for the profession vs. being excited about some of the new releases that were being announced at the time. But I digress... back to my ELR dislikes.
- At some level, I was really hoping the ELR would do a great job of finally defining what it means to be a fire mage, earth mage, water mage, etc. Maybe you tried that and found it would be too much effort or too lopsided to implement something along those lines. At the end of the day I find the current definitions to be somewhat practical (though still slightly confusing) and less inspiring than I feel they could have been with a different approach.
- As a capped wizard, I generally don't die often, but when I do it is from manuevers or warding spells. When I heard there was going to be a focus on defense for the ELR I was hoping to see a bit more included to address either of these concerns.
- The added complexity to spell casting is annoying but it sounds like you have a fix in the works. I'm looking at you there Konacon! :p
- Re: The enhancement to 410/435 ewave. I think its a good enhancement to the spell but since I don't use either spell it's basically a net negative for me given that Water Elementals and Greater Watere Elementals will be the primary beneficiaries from this in my world. Personally I found 435 deadly enough (on the receiving end) that I'm really not looking forward to this being even more deadly than it was.
- Re: 520 Stone skin. I put this lore enhancement in the same category as 410/435. While I do use stone skin I really don't see the lore benefit as actually providing much real benefit to the wizard while at the same time it will provide a fairly significant benefit to the critters that cast this spell. So this one goes into the net negative column for me as well.
- Re: Elt Saturation (413): The lore benefits are a step in the right direction but I really feel you need to drop the warding requirement from this spell in order for it to see any actual use.
- As a player I am looking for tangible benefits that I can rely on and develop as I put more training into them. As a critter designer I would probably be looking for more random benefits that tend to spice up combat but aren't 'always on' such that players could still defeat them without having to have a constant offset to the buff. I'm not a fan of basing my defense on hoping I get a lucky roll. It feels like a lot of the 'slot machine' lore benefits (e.g. 430, 503, 507, 508, 510) were developed more with the critters in mind than they were for the players benefit. So this is a like from a spicing up combat perspective, and a dislike from a slot machine defense perspective.
-- Robert aka Faulkil
Fluke in the programming, or just your average everyday Konacode? ~ Konacon
Likes
-518 is pretty fun and works with a variety of different lores.
-502 is pretty good. I like the lore benefit.
-911: Pretty solid buff.
-905: Also solid.
-415: Really good. I kept expecting a GM to say "oops, this should be based on seed10 ranks" because it stands out so starkly from the rest of the brutally small percentages throughout the ELR. Props to whoever pushed to get the % formula on this one.
-508: You get points for style on this one.
-401/406/414: Looks good!
-418: Listened to the community and I think we ended up with an improved spell in the end.
-904 changes are pretty neat. I haven't gotten to play with these yet but they look good.
Almost
-504: I'd like to see the haste/slow benefit from air lore applied to the initial RT. Right now it's break-even until the critter swings. But I had to ward and spend mana for that so...
-501: Grogginess isn't a bad effect but I really think it should be applied to any warding over 100 and with a MUCH better proc chance.
-920: I like that you're trying to improve it, I feel it falls short. 20-26 sec vs 26-32sec really isn't that noticeable. They're both slow. Also the anchor thing should probably be baseline.
-901/910: Probably shouldn't apply stun cycles to unstunnable creatures. Damage seems capped way too low. No crit. Proc chance is tiny.
-425/430: Cool ideas. I'd definitely like to see some crit padding come into play, wizards are super fragile. But the math on these seems to make the odds of actually gaining benefit infinitesimal. That criticism accurately applies to a lot of the ELR in general, but these are particularly strong examples.
-410/435: If you're going to have ewaves affect flying creatures, make them hit the ground for gods' sakes. Also this is an across-the-board buff to critter ewaves and very few players will be getting the water lore advantages. That kinda stinks.
-413: Improved? Yes. Good? Um.. not really. I really think the idea of spending THIRTEEN mana on a TD dropper that has a chance at being WARDED is seriously misguided in general.
Dislikes
-412: Sigh. I really wish some critical thinking would go into fitting a spell into a niche. Right now this spell has no niche (other than ONE bizarro rogue who likes it, apparently). I can't think of a time I would rather cast this than 410, 912, 501 or even 504. The cost to benefit is just way off from something I think would be a 'good' spell. Even at 75-100AS malus this isn't a no-brainer. It's more expensive than other disablers (which also lower DS) and ONLY affects AS attacks. Cmans/critter maneuvers/spells/etc, are all still a threat.
-520: Creatures gain much more benefit from this than players. We've already explained why this is a waste. Many times. Loudly. It's not a waste on critters though, who tend to get hit a lot. They get massive gains from this ability. That's a real kick in the stones.
-512: The one place I tried the water walking effect, it didn't work. Also the base spell is awful and desperately needed tuning. The weak cold crit on ward is really not moving this into usable territory as far as I can see.
In general the direction for ELR has seemed to be to create lots of effects that have TINY chances of occurring. This is not a very empowering direction for the player. Making it feel like I have to 'get lucky' to see benefit from extensive TP investment does not give one a sense of accomplishment.
Concrete benefits that occur at discrete training-levels is what is appealing from a player's point of view. Opening up new avenues for spells like 505 @ 20 ranks, is way more appealing and gives a sense of elemental mastery. Giving me a 2% chance to cause grogginess on something that is already slept... Not so much.
"Making it feel like I have to 'get lucky' to see benefit from extensive TP investment does not give one a sense of accomplishment." -- Keithobad
Basically, if I'm trying to get lucky in the privacy of my own home (which is where I play most of my GemStone) then I would much rather get lucky in the privacy of my own home, than see a payoff from Lore training.
I want the Lore to be reliable, and give a benefit/unlock a new ability or whatever.
Basically, if I'm trying to get lucky in the privacy of my own home (which is where I play most of my GemStone) then I would much rather get lucky in the privacy of my own home, than see a payoff from Lore training.
I want the Lore to be reliable, and give a benefit/unlock a new ability or whatever.
