The Great Defense "Nerf"

[Tisiphone]

Yeah that would be cool if the defense nerf wasn't so retardedly crippling for every class other than Warrior.

Is it really? Note that I'm asking openly, rather than begging the answer; I haven't played a combat class since the code overhaul. Still, if 'tis, it should be discussed and brought to light; I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention.

Does it remain a crippling factor even with some days played on the character? Does the hidden defense skill now have a ridiculously low cap for non guild-Warrior types? I got the impression that the starting levels of defense were simply lowered, rather than the levels across the board.

[Cutthroat]

I've seen a few other PCs I thought were non-warrior that looked like they had some high defenses. I wouldn't say it's retardedly crippling, but I haven't seen so many cases to prove either that it was crippling or still okay.

[Is Friday]

In my experience, you can't really get even half-way decent, (that is to mean, not dying to getting reeled to death by miniature creatures/newbie warriors) before getting a few of the branched skills in the non-warriors guilds. This means you'll have to follow the dumb skill tree to your respective "important" skill for 20-25 days played, and then still suffer the consequences of not being a warrior whenever you're getting into a fight.

In my opinion, this change to defense has forced everyone to go to clans to grind for years if they want their non-warrior to survive more than a few rounds in combat.

[Dalmeth]

In my opinion, this change to defense has forced everyone to go to clans to grind for years if they want their non-warrior to survive more than a few rounds in combat.

Seriously, that was the way it was before.

[Fathi]

While I don't have a ton of experience with playing before the code change, I can offer a bit of anecdotal evidence.

I'm not sure if this was the way it was before, but I've had a ranger with 30+ days of playtime, ample combat experience in both sparring and hunting, AND pretty darn good stats get their ass utterly handed to them by multiple characters who were -very- new. Simply because even their newbie-level parry and shield use were enough to fend my character off, and my character had to rely on dodging as a sole means of defense.

[Forest Junkie]

Couple the nerf with reel and critters can in turn reel your pc into oblivion.

[RogueGunslinger]

Hmm. I never really played before the changes either. But I can easily tell you that I've had a newbie character, who was a warrior, completely destroy more than a couple long lived non-warrior PC's. They were probably around 30+ days. If not more like 40-45.

[Dalmeth]

Not too long ago, I lost an exceptionally long lived, combat heavy ranger who lived through the parry nerf.  Yes, it was a parry nerf, if you recall.  Everything had a higher natural chance to parry and that caused an insane amount of dodging.  At least, that's how I remember it being explained.  I hailed it as a chance for non-warriors to finally get hits in on warriors, and for a little while, it was.  Then defense skills caught up, and it went back to the way it was before.  The primary difference now is that combat is faster than before.   There's also the fact that parry, shield use, and armor are utilized more, causing a greater degree of decay among those objects.

I can clearly remember times before the nerf when new warriors my character trained with completely obliterated them with likely half the play time.  It's just a simple fact, warriors dominate in face to face combat.

[Fathi]

I can clearly remember times before the nerf when new warriors my character trained with completely obliterated them with likely half the play time.  It's just a simple fact, warriors dominate in face to face combat.

I don't think anyone's arguing that warriors shouldn't dominate in face to face combat. I think the reason some people are upset is because they don't mind being dominated, they just don't want to be total fodder.

Having a 30-day combat leader ranger -lose- a spar to a newbie warrior wasn't a big deal to me. The thing that irked me was that it was often over in a very short amount of time. I wasn't expecting my character to go toe to toe at length with warriors, but I was thinking it was a little silly that a character with that much combat experience couldn't even hold their own for more than 10 'rounds' of combat scroll.

[Forest Junkie]

You're right Fathi, but one thing we should take into account revolves around stats. If a newbie pc has little combat experience, but amazing stats such as a high str roll, they are going to land some shots. Some nasty ones at that.

[Dalmeth]

Having a 30-day combat leader ranger -lose- a spar to a newbie warrior wasn't a big deal to me. The thing that irked me was that it was often over in a very short amount of time. I wasn't expecting my character to go toe to toe at length with warriors, but I was thinking it was a little silly that a character with that much combat experience couldn't even hold their own for more than 10 'rounds' of combat scroll.

Yeah, the speed of combat has increased considerably since the change.  There is a good argument to say that maybe it should be slowed down to give other guilds a chance, but aren't most of the other guilds hard enough to pin down, given the proper circumstances?

[Tisiphone]

What about vs. npcs?

[Fathi]

What about vs. npcs?

I'd say it depends on the NPC in question.

The same ranger I mentioned, at around 30-35 days of playtime, was still losing about 40-50 HP per fight when fighting things like a single scrab, a single gortok, etc. Upon branching parry and getting a bit more experience under her belt, she could destroy just about anything in her path.

Of course, this character had extremely good endurance, so they usually didn't end up getting reeled when fighting NPCs. I can imagine that things would have been substantially more difficult if she'd gotten a worse endurance roll and was frequently reeled.

[Dalmeth]

What about vs. npcs?

The character I refer to had some rather serious combat training, but I'd say at around thirty to forty days played, he was taking down raptors and the like.  There wasn't that much of a difference after getting parry, seeing as how he got it rather late, but up until then, he could bring down a wide variety of common dangerous critters.

[roughneck]

The problem for rangers is that hunting always comes down to a melee battle.  Nobody plays a ranger hoping to be able to stomp over warriors in combat but they do -need- to be able to take down a scrab or a gortok.  But as far as comparing guilds goes, now that shield use blocks arrows better and the parry skill also can block arrows rangers have less and less options of what they can do if a situation does come up that some badass warrior is after them.  In the end things work out, but I will say it sucks playing a ranger before you do some decent skill notching.

[Yam]

I've played a few merchants. They have had various amounts of combat training. I was never able to confidently take on a jozhal without a substantial lost in hit points even when wearing heavy armor and armed with a giant hammer.

[Malken]

*in his best KISS announcer voice*

You've wanted a class-based system, you've got a class-based system!

[jhunter]

A non-warrior, no matter how much combat experience they have shouldn't be standing toe-to-toe with a warrior anyway. I don't see what the problem is. A ranger should have different tactics against a melee class type. A merchant shouldn't really be in melee with -anything-. *shrugs*

[Thunkkin]

In the end things work out, but I will say it sucks playing a ranger before you do some decent skill notching.

Also frustrating, to a newbie like myself, is that I have no idea even what "skill notching" is.  Now, I'm perfectly content to "just play and discover" and if I branch a skill, "hurrah," and if I don't, "oh well."  But since it seems that everyone else is in on the skills secret, it makes me wonder ... I don't mind being a total push-over right now.  But once my character has had a decade or two of in-game training and life experience, will I still be a total wimp because I haven't known the secret combination of skills to "notch?"  I don't want (or expect) to be uber, but I _would_ like to see my character develop to his full potential (barring early death). 

So I think the situation is a bit bewildering for newbie non-warriors, since not only does it seem that we get stomped by anything and everything, but we have no idea how to actually develop our "class."  I've seen lots of people talk about the joys of "figuring it out" over the course of experimenting with many characters, and I'm fine with that and can appreciate it ... but I really don't want to throw away my character or put him at stupid risk just to figure out a game mechanic.  That seems incredibly OOC to me.  My first character died because I had no conception of what a non-warrior was capable of.  So, OK, lesson learned now ... but that was an OOC lesson that killed what would have been a pretty neat character. 

Anyway, I'm having fun and I enjoy some of the secrecy to the game, but it's frustrating to know that I'll have to go through all this OOC mumbo-jumbo in order to figure out how to just play the skill-side of my character.  Sorry for the semi-derail, since this isn't about defense per se, but it is about the experience of a non-warrior from the eyes of a new-comer.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

A strong leader who understands the OOC side of the game can explain to you IC how to do just about everything, and how to develop your character.

Furthermore, I want to be very clear about a fact. Non-warriors can very well become hard to touch. I've trained some.

[Synthesis]

If you haven't played a ranger or assassin before the defense nerf, and a ranger or assassin after the defense nerf, you really shouldn't be posting in this thread, because you have no idea what you're talking about.

NO IDEA.

Combat was -fine- before the nerf.  Warriors melted faces just -fine-, and rangers and assassins could still play in crucial supporting roles -without- having to rely on a warrior buddy to "tank."

I'd really like to know how the ratio of rangers:warriors has changed following the nerf.  Used to be, -everyone- was playing a ranger, because they could eventually fight fairly decently, and they got a bunch of cool skills to boot.  Now, there are actually posts in game basically begging for people to play rangers, because nobody wants to go through (edit: Or nobody survives) the 50+ day Ordeal by Fire it takes to reach the point where you no longer get your ass handed to you by your average local wildlife.

p.s. D-elves don't count for this discussion, because they play by a totally different set of rules.

[staggerlee]

A strong leader who understands the OOC side of the game can explain to you IC how to do just about everything, and how to develop your character.

Furthermore, I want to be very clear about a fact. Non-warriors can very well become hard to touch. I've trained some.

Agreed there.

In my experience non-warriors can become quite competent in a fight. They lack some of the skills that give warriors a substantial edge, but as far as the ability to avoid damage and deal punishment they get by just fine.   But it does take proper training and experience.

[Sokotra]

I didn't realize it was that bad.  I just thought that they changed it so that some single tough guy could still get beat up by a few noobs, just for realism sake unless the guy is like a super-ninja or something.  I could see how it could be annoying for a veteran ranger that is still getting owned by average critters in the wastes... but then again, I don't want to role up some 40 yr old veteran guard and not be able to defend myself just because I don't have hours and hours of sparring under my belt.  *shrug*  ...Which still happens, but I guess at least you can get a few friends and have a chance against someone that has been sparring every day for hours.  I don't know, I haven't seen every situation... I was just hoping they tried to balance things out a bit... especially for those of us that don't have as much time to play as we would like.

[Forest Junkie]

A strong leader who understands the OOC side of the game can explain to you IC how to do just about everything, and how to develop your character.

Furthermore, I want to be very clear about a fact. Non-warriors can very well become hard to touch. I've trained some.

Shatuka and other badass rangers were around before the nerf. It's still possible to become a badass with a ranger, but one definitely won't see them tanking a warrior.

I also agree that non-warrior guilds can and should lose to experienced warriors. However, this was already the case before the code change.

[flurry]

Everything remains playable, in my experience. Combat can be more dangerous, and certain NPCs are more dangerous. It's a harsh world. Having said that, I wouldn't mind of the pendulum swung back in the other direction some, but I don't think it's that bad.