|
| Logs - Articles - Poems and Songs - Comics - Images - Links |
|
|
|
|
||
|
On Monday, November 17, the After Hours administration finally implemented the new features that they had been coding for several months. Among these were new combat mechanics, new stat system, and added spells and skills for classes. Foremost, the main thing that players noticed was the change in stats. As mentioned in the previous issue of the Herald (October ed.) the stats are now percentage based. New information gleaned by the Herald reveals how the new system really works: The stats have been converted to a value between 0 and 300 (plus or minus 30-40). This would mean, for example, that your ability has a maximum of 300. However, this is shown in percentage terms on your score sheet. So if you have 150 strength, it is shown as 50 percent on your score. So what actually happens when you advance your ability stat? The stats are increased by half a percent at the guild each time you advance, so you will only have to advance 200 times to reach 100 percent if you start from a newbie 1/1 character. Look at the following example: Vortex enters guild. Str: 66.5 % (100.0 %) > advance str Str: 67.0 % (100.0 %) How it really happened: Vortex enters guild. Str: 120 (180) > advance str Str: 122 (180) Note the following two things: 1. While you only raised half a percent, in number value, this change was greater than 1 point (it was 1.8 or 2). 2. Unfortunately, the previous scores (say 100 str) were piped through a new table, and I noone I have talked to save the Gods (who won't speak) know exactly what the new values would are. And by this I mean, your previous strength score of 100 is now actually 250 or something like that. The maximums are also 280-330 from what I have seen. It just LOOKS like it's a percent. So the example above would really have been: Vortex enters guild. Str: 200 (310) > advance str Str: 202 (310) I know that doesn't really look big, but you advanced half a percent of 310, or 1.55 ability points. If you want to think about it another way, raising 10 percent would increase that 200 to 231, and yet you only need to type advance 20 times to advance 31 points. |
Perhaps the other thing that truly roused people was the way combat, and primarily, experience rewards are now distributed. Most people will find that they are now hitting harder and more accurately. Less visible is that the time it takes to kill monsters has gone down. What players are upset about is the fact that the experience rewards for these monsters has gone down. The elves in Hawkwind's Hideout once netted 1500, 800 and 350 experience approximately. Now they net roughly half of what they had before. From a non-subjective point of view, the wizards probably did this to offset the increased amount of offensive power that players had. Theoretically, if a player can kill twice the number of monsters in ten minutes, you should half his experience reward to keep the game stable. However, on a purely subjective point of view, I as a player would have liked to seen the experience table remain on the old settings. As it stands, it seems like the ratio of monsters killed per minute is not 2:1. It seems to me perhaps 1.2:1 or 1.4:1, which is to say the increase is marginal, but not a 100 % increase (There, I broke my vow that I would play the system for a week before I said a bad thing about it). Hopefully, this is a minor item that someone will fix, but in the worse case condition, I fear this will only mean longer playing time to reach 20/20, let alone reach one of the vast levels beyond 20/20 (which now, btw, goes up to 249/30). Despite the drawback, I think people enjoy the new lethality of combat. I heard from a mid-level player that said he was now bone-crushing with a bone sword which he had never done before. I as a monk, have only experienced a greater frequency of double very hard hits, but only stand at 92.5 % fight and 80 % dexterity, which by the way, took 714,000 experience to gain. One drawback I lament is that only the experienced veterans with 1000 hours such as Rapture or Farz will be the only ones to reach the upper reaches of the list, but definitely not reach above 26/30. I believe it will be struggle enough for new players to reach 20/20 with the lower boon to experience. In closing, I think everyone was really waiting for a new system that would make it easier to advance your character and thus have fun. While the new combat system is definitely a new experience which we all want to be a part of, the lower experience leaves a bad taste in the mouths of players. It is the conviction of this editor that I hope experience will be increased, if not put back to pre-implementation levels. |