Ring Balance Update coming early next week!

[S1mbo]

Lots of changes are coming, and they look great.

Armour changes are ideal. With stacking of different armour being more important than having the 'best' armour. This will make for a bigger variety of rings used when in crews.

Ring changes - with rage giving additional benefits, amazing. Even adrenaline might be useful now.

I almost didn't notice that you swapped which rings are in which ringsets. Overall the sets seem more balanced in terms of attack/buff. Will rings that have changed set (like divinity, teflon) get new animations and names to make them fit? After all a ninja is more likely to have some inner focus thing going on, rather than it being angelic. Although most others do fit nicely into their new sets.

[purplewiz]

Thank you for documenting the changes. I appreciate that in many cases you made the rings more attractive rather than rearranging the rest of the world to encourage their use.

The Armor Pool brings up a concern: will we be able to keep an eye on how much protection we and our crewmates have left as it is being ablated away? One of the huge problems with the whole buff system as it stands now is that for many of the buffs, we can't tell or plan for when they're about to wear off so it's often a "surprise! you're naked!" result.

If in real life we were wearing, say, plaster armor that was chipped at with each attack it absorbed, we would be able to see it going and know when we're about to run out. And perhaps even apply it again BEFORE it runs out. Which is a change I'd really like to see with such rings - if you apply it again before the effect times out, you get a time extension of the full amount starting when you applied it. It would give great choice as to how to use our stamina instead of guessing.

It looks like the eternal hack vs. mantis debate will still rage on. Which is fine.

I am just hoping the rings at RR1 will be effective, not like some now where it's RR4 or don't bother because at RR1 they're not worth the stamina. (Of course they won't be as effective as RR4, but there's a difference between "less effective" and "hitting at the EB with a strand of wet spaghetti" wink .

[Etherealsage]

purplewiz

The Armor Pool brings up a concern: will we be able to keep an eye on how much protection we and our crewmates have left as it is being ablated away? One of the huge problems with the whole buff system as it stands now is that for many of the buffs, we can't tell or plan for when they're about to wear off so it's often a "surprise! you're naked!" result.

The interesting thing is that buffs used to have a fade out effect right before they ran out. If that could be reimplemented, it'd solve the problem.

[i hate her.]

I'm really into this change, Q. It makes Shaman and Athlete look more appealing to me :3

[HermanIII]

I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. O.o I like using the Ninja set and having a speed boost on it rather than Pirate makes a whole lot more sence, but at the same time Divinity seems out of place. You might rename it Focus, focusing energy make much more sence for a ninja. I love divinity but my prefered AoE is Dervish. Perhaps changing dervish into Tornado or Vortex or something would help it fit in a little better with the Shamen Set. I think you ought to change the animation for divinity as wings seem more angel teritory. Also being a fan of Hornet's Nest I'm not sure I like the removal of fear from it's lower levels. Unless you increase it's attack power or increase the rate at which you gain rage in the game Hornet's Nest won't be used very often, though it's not used very often now either. sweatdrop I like the higher RR effects of most of the rings but it could cause quite a bit of unintentional aggro if you wanted to hit one monster and instead your shuriken or guns hits several targets at once. I love the update to Keen Eye, at present Keen Eye is one of the least used rings in the game for anything other than completing the Pirate Set. After this update the draw of critical hit rates going up and the ability to use it on others makes this ring useful, which it hasen't been since the game started. The way Knife Sharpen is fraised makes it seem like it belongs in the Demon Set sweatdrop . It doesn't really make any sence to me for Turtle to be in the Athlete Set. I like the proposed change to armor, and I have a couple of questions about it. Will damage taken by the damage pool armor be reduced by the persistent armor, and will you be able to use Turtle and Rock at the same time to give yourself double pool armor? I think that's all I have to say, I hope my commentsand suggestions helped. ^_^

[fyerolight]

I love the fact that we now we can use debuffs on the enemies (knife sharpen and adrenaline), and the fact that our attacks inflict the enemies with root, and stuff.
Very nice, Q!

[XxXx_JAVIER_xXxX]

NO!! you gonna change the angel set?? why??

[LabTech Kestin]

Hmm. The one thing I dislike a tiny bit is the rearranging of the ring sets...some of the rings don't fit their new "themes" as well as they did the old one. xp Otherwise, it looks great. I applaud the fact that most rings now have more than one part to their effects, like damage/debuff. (Sure makes it a lot easier to settle for only being able to wear eight at a time!) I also like that the rage ranks actually make more difference than they used to, but I hope that it will actually be worth using a ring at RR1 (and I can tell I'm not alone in this).

[crucifix of fate]

i find it very sad that there changing ninja! i loved that set it took me weeks to get it when i found out about it and there going to change it again... crying all though i am looking forward to hack...

[CrimsonDice]

I like the new ring changes and rage things, but why change some of the ring sets? Some of the ring combinations don't make sense at all. With some now I can see a change, like why Pirate now doesn't give you more loot drops while Angel does. I think Pirate should be more loot drops since you know pirates want the booty. I just personally think the sets should reflect what the names of them are rather than some odd combinations.

[Lei_Trigar]

nice, i like this. smile

[Angelus Domini]

It all sounds good except for the adjustment of the ring sets, doesn't make sense that Divinity is apart of the ninja set.

[Silent Superhero]

Okay, so... I guess I'll go by category.

Close combat: I'm excited to try out Mantis, and see how the willpower drain works. I love that Hack will now do damage over time.

Ranged: I'm looking forward to the DoT effect and root effect of shark attack. It will be a lot of fun to play with >D. I love the idea of being able to stun enemies with Solar Rays.
I'm not sure how I feel about increased rage increasing AoE. It could be very useful, but it could also be trouble if you unintentionally aggro more animated than you wanted to. (Although, I guess that's really dependent on player ability/skill).

Crowd control: I really like that Gumshoe and Duct Tape will be able to affect the area around the target, as well.

Defense: I love the sound of the new armor system. I am excited to try all of them out.
(Does potlid now work on allies instead of being self-only? Can improb. sphere work on yourself now? If so, that is very cool.)

Healing: I really like Wish being able to affect the area around the targeted person. It might just be me, but adding weight to Healing Halo seems a little random (although any added effect to make it more appealing is nice). I am so excited for divinity; I love that it will have a luck boost.

Buffs: I like all of them. I love the extra effects being added.

Debuffs: Very awesome. I am eager to try them out.

Ring Sets: Overall, I really like the sound of the new sets. I really love that the medic set now has a dodge boost, because that's exactly what medics need. The Shaman set and the Athlete set now sound very interesting to me.
It seems kind of odd to have the bonus for the Chef set be extra max health when it already includes Meat, though.

[Ungoliath]

Etherealsage

Ungoliath

Qixter

Armor Buff Stacking
Good questions on the armor system. Here's how it works:
Let's say you have a couple of persistent armor buffs *and* an armor pool buff.
The percentages do *not* add up to a big total. (For example, 15% + 15% + 15% does NOT equal 45% protection.)
Instead, the incoming damage is reduced by 15%, and then 15% again, and then 15% again.
After all persistent armor checks have been made, *then* we do the armor pool reductions. So, even though armor pool buffs are the biggest, it really pays to have the persistent armor on you so that your armor pool will last longer.
(Each armor pool is checked separately also.)

I'm a bit confused by this, Q. Could you explain it with one example, please? With apples and oranges sweatdrop

Say you have 3 15% armor buffs on you and something attacks you that would normally do 200 damage to you. Instead of reducing it by 45% (110 damage), it would be reduced by 15% 3 times; 200-15% = 170, 170-15% = 145 (rounded up), 145-15% = 123 (rounded down). 110 != 123. See the difference? The larger the original damage, the larger the disparity.

To put it simply, you'll never reduce your damage to 0 with armor. If you had 3 50% buffs on you, you'd reduce the damage by half 3 times rather than preventing 150% of the damage. So 300 damage? 300/2 =150; 150/2 = 75; 75/2 = 38 (rounded up).

Oh thanks! Now I get it. Loving you for that explanation :3

[loof ehT]

i am happy, ty smile

since the rage becomes scarce, the rage bonus on weaker rings still won't be worth equipping them

rings:
mantis: should have the bleed effect instead
hack: higher chance for critical hit instead
taunt: lowered accuracy instead
rock: please make the pool check last, after persistent armor ><
healing halo: luck bonus instead
divinity: dodge bonus instead (part of the ninja set)
fleet feet: dodge bonus instead
adrenaline: please don't

ring sets:
utter chaos here o0
new shaman and chef are great smile
the rest of the changes doesn't really make sense to me
angelic and ninja aren't worth equipping now