Of the many upcoming changes, I like other players have my own opinions on the priority of these changes and how we should implement them.  Here’s part of list with some explanation of what I feel should be priorities going forward.  This in no way reflects what Aeria shall work on first or suggest to the developers to finish.  These are simply my opinions and will work in connection with the other Game Sages and Masters for a more democratic approach…

1. Party Experience - As everyone knows, its currently being worked on with a new patch expected soon with a new system.  Personally I am against a limitless powerleveling system that would allow new players to reach levels in a single day others took weeks to gain.  However, experience should be spread out to all members more evenly, perhaps implementing a level restriction of +/- 25 levels of the party leader.  What this would allow is for a party with a leader of level 135 to party with players both level 160 and 110, therefore making it possible for a SSC party to play through without forcing players to kick people who could actually level there.
2. Stronger/Better melee AOEs - Would allow melee characters to lay down more AOE’s faster and changing the power of these AOEs slightly, bumping up the power of the level 1 skill and increasing them across the board but only marginally as you go up.  So why the lowest level might be increased by 10%, the level 10 would only be bumped by 1%.  These are not set in stone and I have not done the math, but the over all idea is to make them stronger and better.
3. Balancing Melee Leveling and Farming – Currently mages can not only level faster than melee but can  farm twice as fast as melee  on islands or out in the field.  I would not only want Duct open more often at fixed times, but add an extra experience boost to only melee classes (in the neighborhood of possibly 25%) and slightly higher drop rate (10%).  Additionally, I would like to make all melee finish moves have a low range AOE that does the same amount of damage as they normally would to all monsters or players in their immediate vicinity.  Plus, I would like to make it so melee characters do not have to stop moving or jump to continue attacking, so that when melee chase mages or archers they can attack the moving target instead of forcing them to stand still or jump towards their opponent.
4. Newbie Friendly Content – Adding more useful help for new players and more fun interactivity outside of the newbie quest.  While some version of this is scheduled to be added by the developers, this would also include fun lower level quests like the Roof Top Hop.  More things to help get players into the game and past the first few levels of boring fighting.
5. Duct  / Ladianes War Time - Like I mentioned above, having Duct more often (like three times a day, 8 hours apart) and changing Ladianes War to occur every 56 hours from last time it started.  This would allow equal ownership time for each castle owner and open the castle to more tribes being more fair to all.
6. East Ladianes Finished – A lot of content has yet to be added to the East side of Ladianes including brand new quests, monsters, dungeons and new island.  This will help a lot of 160+ leveling, speeding up the process and getting more players to the higher levels as soon as its opened.  Hopefully this will also take care of the overcrowded leveling areas.
7. Equipment Changes – This may also help with melee leveling and is scheduled to be added to the game after Open Beta.  Equipment requirements for mostly melee classes will be reduced to allow them to be used sooner.  Additionally they will have increased power, more defense for armor and more attack power for weapons.
8. Awaken Skills + Apprentice Skills – Again, scheduled to be added but soon brand new skills will be available that will not only greatly influence balance in higher level PvP matches but drastically change low level PvP matches.
9. Additional Classes/Skills – Return of the other 3 mage classes with increased power from their skills with sacrifice of requiring other color magics to use them. White mages with HP regen, Mdef, etc, Black Mages with Speed reductions, etc, Yellow Mages with attack buffs and speed increases.  Not entirely sure how all this would be implemented.
10. Tornado, Ghost Castle -  Additional PvP areas are always a plus, especially for these Red Honors and Blue Tears that do not yet have a place to farm.  This would also have a use for the now empty Tornado area and the stupid GC tournament.
11. Nation War Areas (Hau + FL) – Return of nations and the massive PvP wars they inspired.  Not sure how long something like this would take to implement especially because this is so broad a topic.  Would like to see a change to the format of the FL war and how nations are joined.
12. Special Weapons – This would cover a very broad selection of items, but would basically include things like “slow” weapons, hp/mp stealing weapons, protectors with additional AP or Mdef or others, with some exceptions to things like the Leni steal staff or the stun weapons.  Other things like Clergy Garments with boosted Def may be reduced or dropped.
13. Missions (Swp, Waste, Ramp) – This would cover some additional leveling issues and help push party leveling.  This would re-implement the “missions” or the boss monsters from the old TB, with Lizardmen in the Swamp, Skeleton Mages in the Wasteland, Insects in Rampao F1, and Eggs in both Delphiroth F1 and F2.
14. Increased Tribe Size (50-100%) – Basically what it says on the tin, increasing the tribe maximum size to 50% or 100% of the tribe leader’s level.  Would increase the number of players that can join a single tribe and hopefully reduce “emptiness” of tribes when some are not online.
15. Dungeon Better Experience – Possibly accomplished by just adding the “Missions” above, but it would be nice to get more experience while in a dungeon, as many of the monsters are packed together, often requiring a party to effectively level.  Much easier to level without ever entering a dungeon currently.
16. Rock Island, Tiaz – Not as powerleveling areas, but as return to the leveling areas of Boss monsters on Tiaz and Turtoids on Rock island and as a PvP area.  Both were fun to mess with and hang out on.
17. Increased Viewing Distance – Allow players to see further, viewing monsters from further away and reducing the sudden appearance of players and monsters due to lag.
18. Lv12 + Delphi Crafting NPCs - Unreleased new items and equipment to change higher level experience and PvP.
19. Additional Quests – Reintroduction of some of the old quests, including Teleport Scrolls and Roof Top Hop.
20. New User Interface – Something I’m torn on, as the new one promises more usefulness but at the same time appearance graphically ugly to me. I would like some sort of combination between our existing UI with their new one.

Remember, these are not official changes and only represent my opinions.  Aeria will work with the developers with things the players decide are more important by working with all the members of the GS team and looking over the player created threads on the forum.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Personal Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.