Autumn 2023 Pt. 1 - Newbie bonus and Order bonus tweaks
Nov 24, 2023 0:00:37 GMT 1
Nishikienrai likes this
Post by Belouch on Nov 24, 2023 0:00:37 GMT 1
Game Update - Autumn 2023 (Part 1)
-Newbie bonus tweaks
-Crafting XP changes
-Order bonus tweaks
-Bugfixes
Newbie bonus tweaks
As you know the purpose of the newbie bonus is to help new players catch up faster to the older playerbase.
We have kept boosting this bonus overtime, to ensure that new players can become relevant PvP wise in a much shorter time. Recently we boosted it quite frankly, with a starting bonus of 2.35x XP for new Order tribes. The duration of the bonus was extended as well. As it was stated nothing is engrave in stone and we monitor the effect of every change to make sure they are finely balanced. In this specific case, it seems that we may have gone a little overboard, and it also encouraged some behaviors that we didn't exactly anticipate, and we feel the need to make some correction.
Unintended results:
In addition to these effects, we also had a small code glitch:
The bug is now fixed, and to limit the deviations observed as well as to refocus the newbie bonus on its intended objective, we have made a few corrections described here.
Some of these changes will have retroactive effects, which is something we really dislike doing and try to avoid as much as possible, but we have reached some situations which are frankly aberrant, like how a 8 week old char is #1 runic, miles ahead of the rest, beating characters who have literally spent years specializing in it with full turn dedication and countless relic uses.
Newbie Bonus Range Changes
We are back to the purpose of the newbie bonus here, which is to give them a strongly boosted general progression, but not a crazy way to specialize to beat the whole game in one craft in just a few weeks time.
This change will be retroactive for newbie players with a general skill > 400. All the XP beyond this point will be recalculated without the newbie bonus, to obtain the new final skill.
This specific setback value will also include the bug fix, where newbie bonuses were giving 4x XP instead of 3x XP when above 100% double XP rate, which will have a significant effect on the result.
The retroactive effect will only affect Sorcery and Runic skills.
We understand the frustration of seeing skills reduced, and are sorry that we had not foreseen this loophole when boosting the bonus (competitive players are often more inventive than we are!).
We will work with the most affected characters to try and make these changes in a way that is as fair to them as possible (taking into accounts the runes they lost for example).
Crafting XP Changes
We made some increases to low level crafting after we noticed a long term trend and issue with newcomers and often suggested behavior. It was commonly known that masters would give you the best XP and are unmatched for early skills, so to be a little more optimal a player would often want to play very boringly, staying near the capital, not interacting with many systems or items, and sometimes even needing to pay gold to train with masters. Sometimes, a new player would want to make their first items or upgrades such as tier 2 themselves, and not take handouts. To alleviate this, and to encourage players to actually cut wood, craft items, mine ores, and so on, we want to boost the baseline XP for crafting if you are low level in that craft.
The following changes apply to the follow skills: Masonry, Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Woodworking, Stoneworking, Alchemy, Sorcery, when crafting.
These values are notably before XP multipliers from newbie bonus, or events.
These changes do not affect Sorcery spirit catches, only crafting.
These changes hopefully allow new characters to get baseline crafting going in a quicker time, be slightly more self sufficient while exploring more features of the game, have a more interesting game experience and avoid some boring, turn-burning gameplay.
We realize that these changes will affect the income of masters and we have a way in mind to make up for it in a future update.
XP when failing to cut logs or raw stone
Alongside the above change, and for the same reason, cutting wood and cutting raw stone will now give you full XP for turns even if you fail, and will also gives you the new XP values if you fall between the skill ranges detailed above.
This is a global change and applies to all characters, not just young ones.
Order bonus tweaks
Currently Order side benefited from two bonuses:
The first one stays untouched (except for the general newbie bonus changes explained earier).
The second one is now split into three parts:
The rational behind this is simple:
We will not give detailed information on what the threshold values use or how high they are, otherwise we know you guys, you'll play right along the line
These bonuses are only temporary and somewhat artificial, but we are hoping they help make the game more interesting in the long run.
Bug fixes
-Bugfix: Fixed an error with Raid Jackal spirit being uncatchable.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error with protection type labeling on shields with runes on the character sheet.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where PVP kill leadership XP rewards were too high in some cases.
-Bugfix: Fixed an oversight from legacy TPS where gold coins in the town hall, and items in the mason hut and dwelling buildings were not placed on the ground when a specific building or town was razed or a group was disbanded.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where certain active spells did not show as active or their remaining time in cast.php
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where special powers were not displayed in certain inventory views (remote dwelling, vault, etc)
-Bugfix: Fixed a legacy code issue where facts character lookup page didn't know what genders were.
-Bugfix: Fixed a database error with the automated checking of general skill and weapon skill rank changes.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where Patrol actions were not getting full benefit in areas above 20% spawn rate.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error that could've allowed someone to briefly train over 400 alone. No one has benefitted from this.
-Bugfix: Fixed numerous system errors with items classified as ID 0 of its type.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where newbie bonus multiplier was too high over 100%.
-Newbie bonus tweaks
-Crafting XP changes
-Order bonus tweaks
-Bugfixes
Newbie bonus tweaks
As you know the purpose of the newbie bonus is to help new players catch up faster to the older playerbase.
We have kept boosting this bonus overtime, to ensure that new players can become relevant PvP wise in a much shorter time. Recently we boosted it quite frankly, with a starting bonus of 2.35x XP for new Order tribes. The duration of the bonus was extended as well. As it was stated nothing is engrave in stone and we monitor the effect of every change to make sure they are finely balanced. In this specific case, it seems that we may have gone a little overboard, and it also encouraged some behaviors that we didn't exactly anticipate, and we feel the need to make some correction.
Unintended results:
- Turn-free general training (Sorcery, Runic) being independent of turns (and therefore time) can be trained virtually limitless under the newbie bonus at its max %, giving some potentially absurd results
- Since Sorcery XP is heavily dependent on the amount of spirits you can catch, this newbie bonus doesn't mean you will only go faster, but also that you will go much higher than older players. This point was rightly raised by several players.
- This creates an incentive for new players to focus exagerated efforts on these skills, instead of catching up to the rest on more meaningfull aspects for which the bonus is primarly intended to be for.
In addition to these effects, we also had a small code glitch:
- The newbie bonuses was giving 4x XP instead of 3x XP when above 100% double XP rate.
The bug is now fixed, and to limit the deviations observed as well as to refocus the newbie bonus on its intended objective, we have made a few corrections described here.
Some of these changes will have retroactive effects, which is something we really dislike doing and try to avoid as much as possible, but we have reached some situations which are frankly aberrant, like how a 8 week old char is #1 runic, miles ahead of the rest, beating characters who have literally spent years specializing in it with full turn dedication and countless relic uses.
- Newbie XP Bonus will apply at full value from 10-399 skill for general skills.
- Newbie XP Bonus is fully disabled above 400 skill for general skills.
We are back to the purpose of the newbie bonus here, which is to give them a strongly boosted general progression, but not a crazy way to specialize to beat the whole game in one craft in just a few weeks time.
This change will be retroactive for newbie players with a general skill > 400. All the XP beyond this point will be recalculated without the newbie bonus, to obtain the new final skill.
This specific setback value will also include the bug fix, where newbie bonuses were giving 4x XP instead of 3x XP when above 100% double XP rate, which will have a significant effect on the result.
The retroactive effect will only affect Sorcery and Runic skills.
We understand the frustration of seeing skills reduced, and are sorry that we had not foreseen this loophole when boosting the bonus (competitive players are often more inventive than we are!).
We will work with the most affected characters to try and make these changes in a way that is as fair to them as possible (taking into accounts the runes they lost for example).
Crafting XP Changes
We made some increases to low level crafting after we noticed a long term trend and issue with newcomers and often suggested behavior. It was commonly known that masters would give you the best XP and are unmatched for early skills, so to be a little more optimal a player would often want to play very boringly, staying near the capital, not interacting with many systems or items, and sometimes even needing to pay gold to train with masters. Sometimes, a new player would want to make their first items or upgrades such as tier 2 themselves, and not take handouts. To alleviate this, and to encourage players to actually cut wood, craft items, mine ores, and so on, we want to boost the baseline XP for crafting if you are low level in that craft.
The following changes apply to the follow skills: Masonry, Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Woodworking, Stoneworking, Alchemy, Sorcery, when crafting.
- Training Skills 0-99, you will gain 14 Base XP per turn crafting (+55% XP). Tribes which are good in these crafts will gain 15, and tribes that are excellent will gain 16. This is better than masters, so the most effective way to train up for new characters.
- Training Skills 100-199, you will gain 12 Base XP per turn crafting (+33% XP). Tribes which are good in these crafts will gain 13, and tribes that are excellent will gain 14. This is same XP as masters, but without the negative side of paying gold and being near cap.
- After 200 Skills, you will gain 9 Base XP again, with good being 10, and excellent being 11.
These values are notably before XP multipliers from newbie bonus, or events.
These changes do not affect Sorcery spirit catches, only crafting.
These changes hopefully allow new characters to get baseline crafting going in a quicker time, be slightly more self sufficient while exploring more features of the game, have a more interesting game experience and avoid some boring, turn-burning gameplay.
We realize that these changes will affect the income of masters and we have a way in mind to make up for it in a future update.
XP when failing to cut logs or raw stone
Alongside the above change, and for the same reason, cutting wood and cutting raw stone will now give you full XP for turns even if you fail, and will also gives you the new XP values if you fall between the skill ranges detailed above.
This is a global change and applies to all characters, not just young ones.
Order bonus tweaks
Currently Order side benefited from two bonuses:
- +15% newbie bonus
- +5% spawn rate when exploring/moving
The first one stays untouched (except for the general newbie bonus changes explained earier).
The second one is now split into three parts:
- It is increased to +10% spawn rate for low-to-medium tier players (so 22% spawnrate if normal rate is 20%)
- It is at +5% for medium tier to very-high tier players (so 21% spawnrate if normal rate is 20%)
- It is at 0% for the most elite-tier players (think top-10 whole of Agonia)
The rational behind this is simple:
- We want to keep boosting the Order faction as a whole. The game will be much more fun if the power gap is narrow. We have many event ideas in mind which require a smaller gap and just wouldn't work well right now.
- We want the Order faction to be stronger as a whole, but the top of the pyramid should be a fair(er) fight.
- A strong faction is better than a weak faction with a few top characters.
We will not give detailed information on what the threshold values use or how high they are, otherwise we know you guys, you'll play right along the line
These bonuses are only temporary and somewhat artificial, but we are hoping they help make the game more interesting in the long run.
Bug fixes
-Bugfix: Fixed an error with Raid Jackal spirit being uncatchable.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error with protection type labeling on shields with runes on the character sheet.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where PVP kill leadership XP rewards were too high in some cases.
-Bugfix: Fixed an oversight from legacy TPS where gold coins in the town hall, and items in the mason hut and dwelling buildings were not placed on the ground when a specific building or town was razed or a group was disbanded.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where certain active spells did not show as active or their remaining time in cast.php
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where special powers were not displayed in certain inventory views (remote dwelling, vault, etc)
-Bugfix: Fixed a legacy code issue where facts character lookup page didn't know what genders were.
-Bugfix: Fixed a database error with the automated checking of general skill and weapon skill rank changes.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where Patrol actions were not getting full benefit in areas above 20% spawn rate.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error that could've allowed someone to briefly train over 400 alone. No one has benefitted from this.
-Bugfix: Fixed numerous system errors with items classified as ID 0 of its type.
-Bugfix: Fixed an error where newbie bonus multiplier was too high over 100%.