1. Change the way parry works.
Currently: The better you know your opponents weapon the better you parry.
Suggestion: Change this to a binary value instead. Either you know the weapon or you don't. This limit can be at for example 60% (so all races can get there with two pracs).
Motivation: While I understand that long lived characters should have an edge over newer characters. But these days that is fulfilled with edges and other rewards. This would mean there is less incentive to spam practice/rank alone as a warrior and more incentive to group. This gives the advantage of less soloing warriors while that newbie gnome shifter begs him for group and also a warrior that ranks does not feel like he is getting less powerful when he level up. This would also somewhat balance the advantage the dexy/smart warriors have today over the dumb giants.

2. Make it possible to learn defenses while observing the enemy, just like you can with weapon skills today. While the skill gains could be pretty rare they could at least be something so you don't feel that the dwarf axe spec you want to play either needs to spam defenses at 15 or be stuck with parry/dodge at 78% at level 40 (skill learn helps but that means it cannot be used on other things). Would be advantageous for mages, everyone that does not tank when they group up.

3. A bit of a dead horse. But change invokers so that their spells only need 90% to reach the next one (or change the concept fully, max 5 paths but no need for perfection for example). A lot of players are older now and have less time and the current way means that a potential fun class is limited by how much time you want sit and do nothing worthwhile in cf.

These changes are all trying to get more people grouping and less time spent on boring things. Which I find is needed now when the player base is so much smaller.

>1. Change the way parry works.
>Currently: The better you know your opponents weapon the
>better you parry.
>Suggestion: Change this to a binary value instead. Either you
>know the weapon or you don't. This limit can be at for example
>60% (so all races can get there with two pracs).
>Motivation: While I understand that long lived characters
>should have an edge over newer characters. But these days that
>is fulfilled with edges and other rewards. This would mean
>there is less incentive to spam practice/rank alone as a
>warrior and more incentive to group. This gives the advantage
>of less soloing warriors while that newbie gnome shifter begs
>him for group and also a warrior that ranks does not feel like
>he is getting less powerful when he level up. This would also
>somewhat balance the advantage the dexy/smart warriors have
>today over the dumb giants.

I think it's good that there are certain things I can prioritize, like weapon skills, to give myself a bit of an edge over the other guy who has more of a "throwaway-ish" or lower investment character than I do. If you choose not to worry about this, it doesn't matter THAT much anyway.

>2. Make it possible to learn defenses while observing the
>enemy, just like you can with weapon skills today. While the
>skill gains could be pretty rare they could at least be
>something so you don't feel that the dwarf axe spec you want
>to play either needs to spam defenses at 15 or be stuck with
>parry/dodge at 78% at level 40 (skill learn helps but that
>means it cannot be used on other things). Would be
>advantageous for mages, everyone that does not tank when they
>group up.

I'd vote for this. In fact, I'd vote for being able to learn any physical skill you know by observing an enemy perform it. The latter would be quite a bit trickier than just defenses, though. Or so I think.

>3. A bit of a dead horse. But change invokers so that their
>spells only need 90% to reach the next one (or change the
>concept fully, max 5 paths but no need for perfection for
>example). A lot of players are older now and have less time
>and the current way means that a potential fun class is
>limited by how much time you want sit and do nothing
>worthwhile in cf.

I could get behind some kind of Invoker reform. It's even come up in idle conversation recently. Unfortunately, it's not a project I think any of the people who can make happen are interested in. That's not a cop out, it's just a reality.

>These changes are all trying to get more people grouping and
>less time spent on boring things. Which I find is needed now
>when the player base is so much smaller.
>

Thank you for posting this stuff.

"If you choose not to worry about this, it doesn't matter THAT much anyway."

I tend to disagree with this. A lot of fights that tend to be extremely lopsided I later find out that the enemy didn't have their weapons perfected whereas all of mine were at 100% by level 25.

A lot of my characters that 'mysteriously cannot tank well' are ones where I did not practice weapons, contrasted with ones who tank amazing being the ones that I did.

I've heard a lot that 'it isn't that big of a difference' but I think for low hp classes that rely on tanking, even if it's only 2-3 hits in an entire fight that amounts to a huge difference.

So while statistically the difference might be small (in the order of 10%), over a large number of rounds of combat that relates to a 30%+ HP difference at the end of the fight and makes the fight look pretty lopsided.

Anyway, that's purely anecdotal but once I started mastering weapons I immediately noticed a massive difference in how easy it was for me to win fights purely with trip or bash.

Regarding the other argument (that its nice to invest more and therefore get more) - I mean I guess but it also prevents me from playing certain builds that I know will be *too* painful to practice on. Fire giant anything and orc anything for instance.

Make the next spell available at 90%, not 100. Now, mastery would probably still require you know, mastery, but it's not that important for a casual invoker.

If you're casual run a 5 path voker.

I support this thread. I think that in general, there are a lot of things that separate long lived characters from new characters, maybe too many. That guy whose been around for 350 hours probably has a tattoo, leader weapons, twice as many edges as me, maybe a third legacy or quest form...the fact that he has flails perfected and I have it at 85% is kinda like who cares?

Would allow me to play an orc too which I also approve of.

For example it's no longer a good idea to go flail/axe against a paladin or pull out a staff on an orc

nt

It would work exactly like it does now, they would parry like they do today as they don't know the weapons. The only difference would be that if someone knows a weapon to for example 70% they would parry like they knew it 100% today.

Perhaps not likely to be implemented as the imms have their own backlog and ideas but I hope some of those are to make the game less rewarding on pure grinding.