They're quick - but I'm much faster

Apologies for the lapse in updates - several real life changes ate into development time for a while there. =) Now that things have settled a bit, I'll discuss the latest pair of updates - the introduction of  Arokstrander (Nodeka's first world boss) and the latest set of footpad buffs.

Arok is actually an adaptation of a boss design from an unfinished area in my stash. (He was originally an ogre outcast tuned for four people, but his Saz-sari-fication buffed him up to world boss status.) As a more complex boss, he's not only strong in terms of stats, but also in terms of special mechanics which can make the encounter extremely challenging without preparation and coordination. (Currently, these mechanics are communicated throughout the battle - however, I know battles can be very spammy, so I'm always considering and open to suggestions regarding ways of communicating these more effectively.) It's a bit like the Invasion bosses, except that the abilities actually matter. =)

I decided to revamp him as a world boss while tweaking the intended content distribution for crafting. As I spruce up old areas via exploration/gathering, I also wanted to give them a bit of extra life through some "champion"-style boss mobs scattered throughout the world. (Currently, mob strength is fairly flat throughout each area - only a few PvE challenges deviate from that line, and I'd really like to see that change.)

I have a large stash of boss designs to pull from, and in the near future I'll be adapting them into interesting encounters of varying difficulty throughout the world. These will drop gear for now, and their loot tables will be split between gear and rare crafting materials in the future. Arok is on the moderately high end of the difficulty table in terms of mechanics and sheer strength - the next one will be a bit lower on the scale. Eventually, I'd like a number of unique boss encounters scattered throughout the world (even in lower areas, e.g. a G'kir champion in a mortal-only section with level-appropriate rewards.)

As for the footpad buffs, the motivation was simple - bring footies closer to par in terms of combat engagements. What acrobatics and obfuscate really do, numerically, is take the old stat bonuses from singularity of fate and apply them with 100% non-prevention uptime. (After testing, I increased the bonus amounts considerably as well, especially in the case of acrobatics.) This gives footpads a bit more of a chance to employ their tools without getting instantly smashed - they really feel better with the persistent agility and quickness bonuses that they used to lack - while giving them some offensive help in terms of speed and more dexterity.

Singularity of fate itself was then redesigned to be a bit of an accuracy manipulator (great for toe-to-toe combat, especially against stronger opponents). Singularity of focus, on the other hand, is more of a burst-and-escape tool, retaining its critical attack buff and now granting footpads access to free movement (which has always felt like the holy grail of footpad effects!)

I used to be a spy, until...

Quick balance update - all targeted scrying abilities (clairvoyance, astral travel, and shadow gaze) have been redesigned into non-targeted, multiple-player, area-limited scrying utilities. Thus, they can no longer be used on a specific target, but will instead tell you which players are in your current area.

Clairvoyance provides the greatest number of charges, but is the least reliable.

Astral travel provides fewer charges, but also applies an 'astral link' which very briefly allows casters to summon through no-portal rooms.

Shadow gaze is an area spy on a standard prevention, and is undetectable.

Oh, and Koj'ehr get bonus clairvoyance and astral travel charges thanks to 'distant understanding'. =)

The benefits of, and reasoning behind, this change include:

• Reduces the ease with which a PvP target may be "locked down". Redesigning the scrying abilities to be area-limited means that hunting down a specific person (especially in no-visit areas) requires actual effort and movement (whereas previously a single charge from a spybot would do, without even requiring a pause in running).
• Indirectly increases the value of hunting skills (such as shadow) and of ancillary detection skills (such as aspect of the seer and skyline interchange).
• Reduces the redundancy of utility provided by multiple casters. (Previously, having one spybot sharply reduced the value of further spiers.)

I had originally planned a targeted class discussion first (hi monks!), but we wanted to get this implemented and delivered to you first. Please feel free to discuss in the comments, as I swing back to individual classes and crafting.

Thanks for your feedback, patience, and encouragement - and thanks for playing!

Collate collate collate

Next up is part two of the class balance discussion. I'd like to thank all of you for your feedback - there are many really good points in there, and I'm honestly impressed with and appreciative of the thoughtfulness and level-headed discussion provided.

It's taking a bit of time to go through so much feedback, but I'm working on it (alongside running quick tests on the test server to get some actual numbers). I'll come back with part two soon, including a general balance overview and specific discussion on a pair of classes (likely monk + a caster).

Thanks for your feedback and patience!

Pre-Festival tips

Just to clarify for some who were confused - the new pre-Festival content is NOT the actual crafting system! It's just bonus content that uses a small part of the crafting infrastructure to let you collect commemorative gear. Crafting will officially be released when the first content drop is complete (I'm working on that right now).

Here are a few tips to get you started on the pre-Festival content!

* Step 1: Gather!

Experiment with the new 'explore' and 'gather' commands! These will allow you to build up your crafting resource pool and collect festival materials:

• a box of festive trimmings
• a maker's toolkit

There are 11 areas in total that have loot caches populated (well, 10, since I hadn't realized that one of the enabled areas isn't accessible yet...)



* Step 2: Make Tools!

Various players across the realm (those who participated in part one of the class balance discussion) will have festival recipes that they've learned. (It's also possible, although rare, to find these recipes out in the world.)

Players with these recipes can use 'crafting scribe' to create a single-use schematic for you. Once you have enough festival materials, these schematics allow you to create various festival tools:

• a set of festival bindings
• a festival buckle
• a spool of festival ribbon
• a set of festival hooks

* Step 3: Create Segments!

Ottregson and Elliveth have taken up residence in the Earthly Egress (above Ruushi, near Commandant Vai-shan). Ottregson will sell you schematics that can be turn festival tools into gear segments.


* Step 4: Get Gear!

Once you have acquired enough gear segments, you can create a piece of commemorative gear in one of two ways:

• You can use 'crafting combine' to combine multiple segments into a randomized piece of commemorative gear.
• You can purchase a schematic from Elliveth to construct a specific piece of commemorative gear using segments.

These pieces of commemorative gear each have a boon or a set bonus (you can use the 'boons' command to see a complete list of boons and set bonuses being granted by your gear)!

The Festival of Makers will officially begin on the day of the first crafting content drop; it will end some time after that. When the Festival ends, all commemorative gear will lose their bonuses. However, there will be some rewards for turning in full sets of the same type of commemorative gear (e.g. a sky-guard's braid, grips, tread, and two loops) - so hold on to your collections!

Hope you enjoy this little bonus! I'm very excited because the full crafting system is much deeper, a lot of fun, and most importantly - coming soon!

Party time approaches!

Huge update today!

Some of the more "internal" stuff - crafting infrastructure is now just about complete, and all crafting commands are now unlocked. I can now start developing the first content drop - we're close, folks!

The future arrival of crafting 3.0 will be marked by the Festival of the Makers, a celebration throughout the Nodekian realms with special content and rewards. In anticipation and to mark this milestone, I've released some temporary content as a sort of "pre-festival" bonus. This new content makes use of the now-available 'gather' and 'explore' commands, as well as the recipes which I'm distributing to class balance discussion participants - along with 'crafting scribe' and 'crafting combine'.

More information and tips to come tomorrow!

Just a draft

Crafting development is coming along. Since the 3/20 update, the following tasks have been completed on my test server in addition to bugfixes:

• "crafting specs" sub-command complete *
• "crafting spec major" and "crafting spec minor" sub-commands complete *
  
• "crafting recipes" sub-command complete *
• added new recipe draft functionality: basically an overflow recipe slot which, when a player's recipe list is full, allows her to "rescue" the most recent recipe that would be discarded otherwise

* complete = tested, fully functional, and unlocked to mortals

Work is now progressing on the scribe, discard, and study sub-commands.

On a separate note, thank you for all of the class discussion feedback under the Class Concerns post! Please keep posting if you have further feedback. I will be reading and collating this week, and I'll put together a follow-up post which will include a summary, a discussion of my thoughts on your feedback, and an opportunity for you to continue the dialog with responses to those thoughts.

As I mentioned online, I truly appreciate you contributing your thoughts, and I am considering putting together a special temporary-use reward for all constructive participants (in the form of a recipe which would be useful for a short time during the crafting roll-out - nothing really powerful, just a fun way of saying thanks).

Thanks for playing and chatting!

Class Concerns

While I'm working on crafting in the background, let's open up a discussion (THE age-old discussion!) on class balance.

Classes can feel undertuned or overpowered for many different reasons. Sometimes it's a problem with their overall kit, while at other times it's a specific skill or function causing the issue. Some might scale poorly with practices; some might have too much of an overall stat boost from spellups. There are some classes that are better at PvP than running and vice versa, and there are classes with interesting kits but for whom there aren't very many good racial fits.

I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments section. For ease of reading and replying, please break apart your feedback into one comment per class, with the name of the class leading. For example:

• Warlocks - Very disadvantaged in PvP. Clairvoyance needs more charges.
• Druids - I think druids have received too much of a boost under the new GMO system, especially when angry. They can run completely risk-free by trapping mobs into corners with trewan and projecting pellets in. Their power needs to be trimmed.

Looking forward to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

First Look

The "crafting" command will go live tonight. In addition to the base command (which lists the full set of sub-commands, a few of which have changed since the last blog entry), you'll initially have access to the "crafting score" sub-command to play with, as well as the "crafting appraise" sub-command (which won't tell you much about anything that's not a crafted item).

It looks small, but it's much huger than it looks - underneath the slow tease of the "crafting" command, the actual infrastructure for crafting 3.0 is being deployed onto live Nodeka for the first time! The toys are there, I just need to keep the chest locked a little longer while I polish, fix, and sand off the edges. =)

In addition, the "boons" command is now accessible as well. This lets you take a look at the boons and set bonuses that you (or another person) are receiving from gear. This of course ties into crafted items, but the boon/set functionality is a complete system of its own - if time permits I may toss out a few very minor, temporary example items onto live to show you what it all looks like while you wait for crafting. =)

Finally, I've updated the wounding algorithm as follows:

• An "upshift" has been added to the stat calculations for smaller players - weaker characters won't be penalized quite as heavily when applying/resisting wounds against larger players.
• The role of dexterity (for applying wounds) and constitution (for resisting wounds) has been strongly increased for larger players. These stats will now impact your wound interactions more effectively.
• NPCs are now harder to wound than before. (Note that if the mob's constitution is very low compared to your dexterity, the dex/con boost may mitigate or even overtake this effect.) However, their resistance to wounding damage has been reduced - they now suffer 75% of the normal bleed rather than 50%.

The overall effect should be to make wounding more viable for smaller characters and as a tool against certain NPCs.

Questions and comments are welcome as always - I'll continue to develop crafting in the meantime. We'll have a bit of a class balance discussion sometime in the near future as well - keep your eyes open!

"Crafting": the Command

We're going to hold off on live Nodeka updates for this coming week, as we do some monitoring to ensure that the server issues we encountered this past weekend are fully resolved. (The upcoming updates are pretty large, and we don't want to cloud any required issue resolution by throwing in more variables.)

Instead, I'll provide some previews this week of what you can expect to see in the next couple of live updates. This is the beginning of the "slow roll-out" of crafting functionality - I'll be polishing and testing each aspect of crafting, and unlocking them for mortal access one by one as they're ready!

The first update (which we're delaying for the week) will open up access to the "crafting" command. On its own, the command won't do much, but it will give you a list of all of the sub-commands that are possible through "crafting":


  [ Crafting Commands ]:

  Informational:                         
  crafting score [ player ]                - View your crafting statistics, or those of another player.
  crafting details                         - View your detailed crafting specialization history. **

  Crafting Tasks:                        
  crafting appraise < item >               - View an item's crafting-related attributes. **
  crafting dismantle < item >              - Dismantle an item for science and materials. **
  crafting plan < item > , < plan >        - Generate a plan to improve an item. **
  crafting execute < item > , < bag >      - Execute a plan to improve an item. **

  Recipes and Combines:                   
  crafting recipes                         - View the schematic recipes you've learned. **
  crafting draft < recipe >                - Create a crafting schematic from a recipe. **
  crafting discard < recipe >              - Discard a learned recipe. **
  crafting combine < scrap >               - Combine scraps into raw materials. **

  Specializations:                        
  crafting focus major < specialization >  - Select a major crafting specialization. **
  crafting focus minor < specialization >  - Select a minor crafting specialization. **

  ** This command is in testing (inaccessible to mortals), and will be released soon!

  For general help on crafting, type 'help crafting'.
  For details on a specific command, type 'help <command name>'.


As you can see, the "crafting score" subcommand will be available in the first update as well. This allows you to view your personal crafting scoresheet:


   Crafting Statistics                                                                 
   Name    Whim: nodeka.blogspot.com        Recipes Known              1 / 6  
   Skill   Novice - 7 %                     Proficiency           5 upgrades  
          
   Resource Pool   [ # # # # # + - - - - - - ]
          
   Major Specialization   Engraving             Rank    1   Progress    72 %  
   Minor Specialization   Tailoring             Rank    3   Progress    21 %  
         
   Repertoire   face, cloak, waist, chest, weapon                             
   Combines     cloth                                                                                                                             
   Total Plans Executed:           42   Total Items Dismantled:            2  
   Total Caches Gathered:          11   Total Material Combines:           8
         
   Workshop Location:   Entrance to the Nodekian Realms                       
   Workshop Area:       The Path of Guidance revamp                           
                                                                
              
In addition, you can use "crafting score" on OTHER players, as well! This will let you shop around for other crafters who may have the specific talents or skill level you're looking for - benefiting players with specific crafting needs, as well as dedicated crafters who would like to advertise their services.

"Crafting score" shows a more limited set of information when viewing other players:


   Crafting Statistics                                                                 
   Name    Nijlo: send email, not tell      Recipes Known              0 / 6  
   Skill   Beginner - 0 %                   Proficiency           0 upgrades  
          
   Major Specialization   Alchemy               Rank    1   Progress     2 %  
   Minor Specialization   Sporology             Rank    0   Progress    91 %  
         
   Repertoire   light
   Combines     metal, wood                                         

                                                                           

If you prefer to keep your information private, there is a toggle to prevent others from viewing your crafting info:

[ Crafting Stats Public ]:  off

This functionality is ready and will go live after this week, when we are ready to allow deployments again. In upcoming blog updates, I'll preview further crafting functionality as I finish the polishing and testing passes on each. Thanks for your patience and feedback!

Connectivity issue resolved

The connectivity issues have been resolved and Nodeka is once again accessible.

Thanks for your patience!

Temporary server issues 3/7

Hi all, just a heads up - Nodeka is currently experiencing some server issues. We're taking a look and I'll keep you updated here.

Thanks for your patience, everyone!

UPDATE: we believe that we've identified the cause, and anticipate having Nodeka back up within the next few hours. Thanks!

So very special

The very first rumblings will be live soon, folks. I will still need to lay more infrastructure before you can actually start crafting, but soon you'll be able to see the shape of the upcoming system more clearly (for example, through a new "score crafting" display).

This past weekend was spent cleaning up the specialization design and code. Here's the tentative list of Nodeka crafting specializations (names and details are of course subject to change):

Bladeforging *
Chainsmithing *
Gemology *
Platesmithing *
Tailoring *
Abjuration
Alchemy
Demonology
Engraving
Hide-shaping
Metallurgy
Pathfinding
Scaling
Shamanism
Sporology
Tanning
Threadcraft
Wilderken
Woodworking

Crafting will be available from a mortal level, although the rules will differ somewhat for lowbies. (This will be added after the basic crafting structure is live.) The first five (starred) specializations are the recommended "basic" techniques, and lowbies will be gently steered in that direction, but the ultimate choice is up to the player.

Players may focus on two specializations at a time (one major, one minor). Switching is allowed, but at the cost of progress. (However, the further you progress in a specialization, the easier it becomes to regain that progress if you take it up again after discarding it. Thus, a hypothetical omni-artisan who has "mastered it all" can switch with a greater degree of freedom than a wet-behind-the-ears apprentice.)

Benefits are to be revealed. =) Keep your eyes open, and thanks for your patience and feedback!