Eikahe

Fuhreak wrote: »

@Eikahe
You back pedaled though. You spoke as if the vision that me and aggraphine speak of had no nerf to frenzy.
You shouldn't have said it would have "made frenzy more broken" if you understood that.

Regardless: Players have had access to Frenzy long enough. Even if all they do is make it give an extra xx% exp, most players (The majority) will be happy with the change.
If you're basing your entire strategy around a handful of people with frenzy (The minority) you're also still shooting yourself in the foot.
Pleasing the majority is the better move because it's less dependent on a handful of people being happy and has the most stable ground.
Long term support (A nerf to kishin and a global spawn increase) is the way to go.

I admit that I made a mistake in reading it, and I responded with a level of generality that I really shouldn't have. I've seen the notion that they should just increase the spawn rate and I wanted to state that it would only make Frenzy's existence even worse. However, you just said it yourself - a nerf to Kishin and a global spawn increase. If we want to go by that logic, yes, we would have to remove all sources of spawn rate increase and I would agree with that to an extent, however I still believe that there are better alternatives to all of this than gutting it all and adjusting all of the rates accordingly. Above all else, that's my major point. I didn't need the snark or the belittlement to be corrected on my mistake and I'm more than happy to own up to the fact that I misread the proposal and reacted according to what I thought I read.

I've been repeating myself a lot in several different threads since the Kishin nerf was put into place, and I feel as if there should be more discussion on what the changes people are advocating for would have on the game as a whole. I would like to keep this as civil as possible - if there's anything that I miss, please let me know and I'll add my piece of all of it so that everyone's points are made. None of these are in any order, simply explaining my personal thought process on the pros and cons as they're brought up. If there's anything that I've missed or anything that you'd like to argue, please, please do so - the more feedback received, the better fleshed out alternatives can become.

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Suggestion #1: Make Kishin Shoukan and its spawn increase effect a V Node/5th job skill
Pros:
-Easily accessible for the most important and longest content in the game - Arcane River and beyond
-Rates can be adjusted like other skills and have its maximum effect achieved at level 25
-Makes every class viable without needing to rely on Kanna to increase spawn rate for them
-Removes the reliance on the limited 15 totems a month to make any substantial progress when leveling slows to a crawl
-Keeps Frenzy Totem relevant for those who have it but keeps the gap small enough between them and Kishin/Wild Totem rates that there's less pressure to access Frenzy services, or punish Reboot players who have no access to Frenzy at all

Cons:
-Doesn't solve the 2 PC problem for 1-200 on its own and would need a secondary fix (ie unlimited totems at a cheaper price) to fully remove the problem
-Puts another wedge in progression for brand new players until they can become self-sufficient and farm enough nodestones to reliably max the skill on level 200+ characters
-Makes the current cooldown on Kishin Shoukan a hard nerf to Kanna
-Might have the side effect of maintaining 2 PC meta anyways with Beast Tamer or Bishop having Kishin V Node + HS/passive party abilities

Solutions/adjustments:
-Make totems cheaper and unlimited so players leveling characters under 200 can use totems to train them instead of relying on a second PC and a Kanna mule to achieve the same effect
-If implemented, remove the cooldown from Kishin Shoukan so Kannas can maintain their identity as a summoning class (can include removal of spawn rate increasing effect, or probably SHOULD in order to make the cheaper, easily accessible totems far more appealing as an option VS having a Kishin mule.

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Suggestion #2: Add the spawn rate effect of Kishin Shoukan to Kanna's link skill.
Pros:
-Vastly more accessible/universal, as Kanna's link skill is one of the best in the game for every class
-Completely removes the need to have a second Kanna mule as everyone would have the spawn rate increasing effect, rendering them 100% pointless and killing 2PC meta for good
-The ability to have multiple effects on link skills and to keybind/use them already exists, making it a very simple fix
-Keeps Frenzy Totem relevant for those who have it but keeps the gap small enough between them and Kishin/Wild Totem rates that there's less pressure to access Frenzy services, or punish Reboot players who have no access to Frenzy at all

Cons:
-Possibly TOO universal - would effectively be a free, 100% uptime spawn rate increase which speeds up progression (goes against Nexon's current rhetoric to maintain player retention by slowing progression down)***
-Renders Wild Totems completely and totally irrelevant except for the newest of new players, but even then, getting a Kanna to 120 can be done in hours from scratch

Solutions/adjustments:
-Compromise would need to be achieved between spawn rates and desired player progression speed between Nexon and the community in order to find the most success

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Suggestion #3: Remove Frenzy and Wild Totems, remove Kishin Shoukan, increase global spawn rates.
Pros:
-Puts each and every player on an equal playing field, similar to KMS
-Removes 2PC meta from the picture entirely beyond those crazy enough to make Bishop/Beast Tamer mules, which is virtually non-existent today
-Abolishes the need to build a second Kanna to achieve desirable rates

Cons:
-Those who own Frenzy Totems and have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on the game are among Nexon's biggest profit-makers and most dedicated players - alienating them could cause a huge drop in an already minuscule percentage of the game's overall profits.
-Equal =/= fair - arguments could arise on how legacy players have profited vastly off of old systems, as they have with other changes that have fundamentally altered the way the game has been played and how progression has worked (regardless of the stance people take on this topic)
-The mess of coding from over a decade of different regions implementing different content in different ways could make a universal spawn rate increase across every piece of content absurdly taxing and difficult, with inevitable bugs as a result
-Unfairly removes one of Kanna's summons without addressing the reason why it has been a problem this entire time - the spawn rate increase.

Solutions/adjustments:
-???

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Suggestion #4 [Reboot-focused]: Make Wild Totems as accessible as Hyper Teleport Rocks.
Pros:
-Makes spawn rate effects incredibly easy and affordable for all, removing the need for a Kishin mule
-Can be purchased as 1, 3, or 7 day intervals at an unlimited rate
-Much longer duration, making them simple to use for everyone

Cons:
-Does nothing to address non-Reboot servers, the existence of Frenzy Totems or the cooldown on Kishin Shoukan
-Makes a bigger gap between progression speeds between Reboot and non-Reboot servers, a source of conflict and debate within itself.
-May be made as inaccessible as the current Wild Totem through Reward Points if the rates are outlandish.

Solutions/adjustments:
-Find a sweet spot between duration and meso price so it remains reasonable/affordable for most players
-Remove spawn rate increase effect on Kishin so Wild Totem is more appealing of an option
-Provide MUCH more options to non-Reboot servers to be able to benefit from Wild Totem in order to bridge the gap between them and Frenzy Totem users, eg Maple Point Wild Totems, unlimited RP Wild Totems, etc.

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***: An argument against having spawn rate increase entirely is that it "speeds up the progression" of the game, and while this is a topic all on its own, I feel that it needs to be addressed here as it has a direct tie in with Kishin Shoukan and has for years. The fear is that if players are leveling faster, then they will quit faster and money will be lost as a result. However, this fails to address that leveling and farming speed already exist within a time-gated MONSTER of a curve through Arcane Force. People who want to even look at the highest content in the game still have to go through months, if not YEARS, of daily quests, leveling, gear progression, cubing, Star Forcing, etc etc etc to reach that point in the first place. For a single character.

At the current moment, to get Morass and Esfera Symbols to level 20, you need to do the daily quests every day for 335 DAYS in order to max them. How is this not "slow enough", exactly? And you have to do on every single character that you want to progress deeper than level 235. There's more than enough of a time sink to get to the endgame content.

There should be nothing wrong with players wanting a faster-paced experience to get closer to that point, especially when they're going to have to wait to get enough Arcane Force to get to the content they want us to reach. There are going to be players who will never reach that point, and those aren't the people that should be factored into the progression curve at all because they'll come and go no matter how much you try to achieve player retention as a result of slowing the process down. The primary focus should be on making the experience for the players that will stick around MORE ENJOYABLE versus more tedious and longer. Player enjoyment and happiness will always increase retention rates and spending more than nerfs and the chase for hollow metrics.

Fuhreak wrote: »

Eikahe wrote: »

It's nice to give them praise for the things they did right, but that shouldn't also detract from the terrible, backwards things they're doing with the complete gutting of Beast Tamer and the destruction of Kishin as "balances that make the game more healthy".

There are a million other threads for that though. Use them instead. It doesn't "detract from the terrible" but rather shows Nexon we're capable of more than just bashing them non-stop.
How can Nexon know what it's done right if players never let them know?

Maybe my response was a bit knee-jerk, but it was mostly in response to

DefectiveBlue wrote: »

I rather like all of the thought that went into the whole update with Rise and hope Nexon stays on this trend.

To me, it came off a little too blanket-y, if that makes sense. Like the negatives don't really exist and they 100% did a perfect job. There are plenty of other threads, sure, but a lot of them are just... incoherent blithering which dilutes the legitimate arguments people have. I figure there should be a mix of both reasonable good and reasonable bad. Like... I absolutely agree that the new digital coins are vastly better than looting them. The weird hybrid loot-dropping and UI events have thankfully gone right into the dumpster where they belong and having fun effects that are incorporated into coin capping helps a lot.

KevinZamora wrote: »

BoredErica wrote: »

I think they should make Kish a node skill so people are less pressured to have a Kanna. The current nerfs seem to hurt non-Kannas than Kannas, which just makes Kanna more essential. At this point I'd rather Kish be removed entirely than have to deal with any more weird changes. I'd rather not have to deal with any of this than to have to work with a jank Kish, where I suffer using but still feel obligated to use it to get the best rates. I'm personally okay with a slower game, even if it screws over so many people who haven't farmed much yet.

This honestly feels like the worst possible timeline for me.

Also, just stop making new classes and rebalance the old classes satisfactorily. If a class is to be OP, make it OP. Don't nerf it after people have sunk time into the characters. Of course they'd be upset.

100 Agree with you , but Nexon and producers literally annihilated the game with these latest changes. from add masteria .. (wow hi anyone training here? oh yes server reboot to today booters blasters and kanna) .. gollux ... the worst .. basic ideas ..pressure people want a rewamp, if it was their right ..but nexon ruined something simple and remove the progress of medium and low progress players .. removing the old gollux coins and replacing them with new ones ... the entry in lvl 170 was an optical illusion xd ...., medium, intermediate and well ... with that increased hp, attack, def, 1 entry a day and the drop .. ... for the hell I'm going to go to gollux better I go to the AH or together my mesos is a farm less .. .maple tour ... ursus ... forgotten ... seriousness ok ... with maple and its bosses and changes ...

and because these failures are mentioned, which are only miserable and some ... since if we count all of them up to ADELE's patch today ... it would be long .... as well as in reedit ... the good and the against and that can not be reversed because nexon did it

if nexon hadn't released the ADELE patch and only had the patch and MEMO of nerf kanna-bt- untradeables cubes- furytotems but no changes to frenzy totem, zaz .. people were leaving the game, simple because you are annihilating reboot us eu ( eu worse ..) and also the other servers, but ANNA thought about it .. we give ADELE AND THE NERF AND KANNA AND ETC .... it is very easy to trick people to keep it in the game to get $$ of these and of course with this new Patch THE WINNERS ARE THE? WHALES .... IF THE WHALES .... people who have everything lvl, mesos, teams, have no life ... they are going to run bosses. streamers .. obviously also hacker people, people less mesos, buy .. with .. money, the 3 pc goal that nexon originated today you see the results ...

.. one enters and looks WOW ... OMG ... the servers are full all the world is playing are 30 channels !!! ... those 30 shamans if they are full is because botters and hackers of different have already invaded everything and the channels are crashed as always if it is not 1 it is to another and the dc and lag and bugs continue ..

So many and many servers checks and maintenance will come, but the memo where anna "we are going to be more these changes for greater stability of the game" nerf kanna furys, intradeables etc etc etc etc "did not help at all in the end, the game is the same , but worse things will come, here it cannot be shown ... but from the crown and the people return to the game it was the best. The disastrous changes made people leave the game again Kishin nodeskill should have been the solution to these problems a long time ago, but it is a 2d game and many people came to the head that kishin was the problem, when the game had years and years of their own problems, ok no nodeskill kishin, increase the respwan in the channels ok ... neither ... well when anna goes home and among others that if she thinks about the progress of all the players and company

Masteria, from its inception years and years ago, was an absolute trainwreck from the very beginning. Even from the start, besides having a few good low level alternative maps to train at, the best thing it really introduced to the game was Ginger Ales. At the very least, the blockbuster gives a good medal and Gollux was great because of how it helped bridge the gap between mid and late game with the accessory sets, but the changes are a completely different can of worms that is completely off topic for this specific thread. Actually, most of your post is.

Frenzy Totem was, absolutely, a mistake and it's clear Nexon has been trying to limit that mistake by removing it from Philosopher's Books and Marvel Machine to avoid bringing more of them into the market and hopefully squeeze them out naturally. However, it's just another part of the current problem and outcry - it's not fair that people have such insane items that can fundamentally change the way the game is played while SIMULTANEOUSLY punishing everyone else who doesn't have it. If anything, the most community-friendly solution would be to recognize that the damage is done and make spawn rate increasing abilities incredibly accessible. There will always be a gap between Frenzy and Kishin, but people wouldn't mind as much if they weren't constantly being kicked in the throat for trying to make things even slightly easier on themselves. It doesn't reduce player retention by 'speeding up progression' - if that was the case, the majority of players with Frenzy Totems would've quit ages ago. Instead, they tend to be the most active players in the community BECAUSE they have something that makes the game more fun, makes ease of character leveling faster, makes getting through the tedium faster so that they can get to the parts of the game that really shine - big numbers, flashy skills, cool maps, boss fights and daily/weekly progression, all of which are already locked behind a FULL YEAR OF DAILIES. Progression is going to naturally happen because players still need to get Arcane Force. Slowing everything down otherwise makes no sense because people are going to be playing anyways.

Kishin was never directly the problem - it's the fact that it's a unique skill that only one class can get or a singular subtype of item has that is far too inaccessible to outweigh the raw necessity that the only class that provides it brings. Frenzy was a mistake, but its raw power comes from the fact that the only other options have been steadily and systematically destroyed over the years in a lopsided attempt to reduce muling and stall progression for higher player retention rates, therefore more potential spending power. I don't believe Anna should be the scapegoat for all of this, either - Nexon, as a whole, needs to learn how to be much more willing and open to open dialogues and discussions with its playerbase in order to properly understand the nuances and (realistic) desires of the fans of their game in order to provide a service that keeps people wanting to come back day after day. They need to take a page out of Cygames' or Jagex's books in how they interact with their consumer base, especially with such a small, passionate community around this game. This isn't all on Anna - it's on the Korean developers, it's on Nexon upper management, and it's on years of bad decisions that have plagued them with complications since the start: the constant addition of more and more servers in some kind of inflated belief that the game would endlessly grow (aka the capitalist wet dream), the wild and reckless implementation and creation of so much region-exclusive content that balancing everything is virtually impossible at this point, the lack of transparency that is excessively common in major Korean corporations (including Nexon)...

This might all seem off topic, but it all comes right back to the decision to nerf Kishin and punish players instead of elevating them and changing the game to match the current era. It's such a complex problem that has years upon years of history, and the move to nerf it was the absolute wrong choice because it simply doubles down on the fact that Nexon appears to not want to listen to the playerbase, refuses to be transparent with their motives while insulting the intelligence of their customers who can see exactly what they're doing, being unable to admit any faults of the past and setting things right. There are so many other options than this. All we're asking for, as a community, is that an alternative option is taken and that it's implemented rather than this backwards attempt at a 'balance'. Bandaid fixes won't cut it anymore.

BoredErica wrote: »

I think they should make Kish a node skill so people are less pressured to have a Kanna. The current nerfs seem to hurt non-Kannas than Kannas, which just makes Kanna more essential. At this point I'd rather Kish be removed entirely than have to deal with any more weird changes. I'd rather not have to deal with any of this than to have to work with a jank Kish, where I suffer using but still feel obligated to use it to get the best rates. I'm personally okay with a slower game, even if it screws over so many people who haven't farmed much yet.

This honestly feels like the worst possible timeline for me.

Also, just stop making new classes and rebalance the old classes satisfactorily. If a class is to be OP, make it OP. Don't nerf it after people have sunk time into the characters. Of course they'd be upset.

I personally don't want to see spawn rate increasers removed completely from the game, because our community isn't KMS - Western players have never been on the same hardcore grind standard as Korean players, so trying to force the game into an even tighter niche than it really needs to be only hurts the health of the game, which is, ironically, the exact opposite of what Nexon is touting they're doing with these "balance changes". But making spawn rate increasers accessible to everyone would make it so I wouldn't have to feel forced to play Kanna in order to gear every other class in the game up to a decent standard. Totems don't work - they're too expensive and they're too limited to make any sort of difference at all beyond a rare luxury every once in a blue moon.