Greetings Taernians,
We’re back with another installment of our DevBlog. The intensive tests on the PTR have finished - it was a period marked with lots of emotions, some surprises, and many discussions. And that’s what we wanted. A PTR is only successful when you play, test, and share your opinions. Thank you very much for the hours spent on testing and filling out surveys.
However, let us remind you, although we’re sure most of you are already aware, that the DevBlog is not a changelog. You won’t find the final tables or numbers here. In this series, we’re focusing on explaining our intentions, showing our way of thinking and (most importantly) letting you see the real impact of your feedback on the development process.
The analysis of the surveys and discussions clearly showed one thing: launching the PTR was definitely a step in the right direction. Thanks to it, we know which ideas panned out and which require more work. Without your involvement, it’d be simply impossible.
We can now safely say that there’ll be another round of testing on the PTR. We want you to check the fixes we’ve made before they hit the main servers. If everything goes according to the plan, the test server will open on September 26th at 1 PM server time.
And now let’s move on to the conclusions and discuss the key elements that you’ve tested.
Intelligence - the Hottest Topic
We've read your comments and the introduction of a new attribute (Intelligence) was definitely the most debated. A lot of people felt this was a nerf to all the classes, especially Druid. However, we’d like to make it clear here that a nerf just for the sake of nerfing was never our intent.
What did we want to achieve by introducing Intelligence?
- The goal was to equalize the differences between magical and physical classes in the number of attribute points needed to cast buffs efficiently.
- We know that you’re very fond of strategizing. That's why we wanted to introduce another element of planning (so that you can decide whether to invest in Intelligence or dedicate more APs to buffing during combat).
- We wanted to make it so that casting buffs with 1 AP is not the obvious choice. It should be something that requires a conscious decision.
What are we changing?
After analyzing your feedback and some internal discussions, we’ve decided to rearrange and simplify the buff system while balancing the values so that the introduction of Intelligence isn’t a strong nerf and the disparities shown in the surveys are smaller. What changes?
- The most important change is the simplification of the difficulty mechanic which was a permanent feature of all buffs. From now on, the difficulty of a skill won’t be affected by the character level or the level of the skill. All skills will now have a constant AP requirement to be cast at 100%. The number of APs can be decreased by investing in Intelligence but the thresholds are set so that achieving 1 AP buffs requires little attribute investment. In practice, this will be a direct buff, especially for characters who wanted to level up their buffs but didn’t have access to gear that provided the right amount of Knowledge. In addition to that, buffs will provide extra bonuses with more Intelligence, e.g. extended duration or empowered effects. You can see more details in the table at the bottom of the paragraph.
- We are no longer reducing the duration of buffs. We’ve decided it wasn't a step in the right direction. We’ve also made some small fixes to Sheed’s Breath Control and Knight’s Sacrifice (the effects will last a round longer at some lower levels).
- What’s more, with higher Intelligence you’ll now be able to extend the duration of buffs which so far had to be recast every round, i.e. Knight’s Shield Block and Sheed’s Evasion. We want to see how you feel about this change and how it affects your gameplay. Protection will not be affected since it’d greatly compromise the balance.
- The buff to Druid skills remains unchanged - although the previous boost was adjusted to compensate for the need to invest in Intelligence and now the investment can be smaller, we don’t want Druids to feel wronged in any way.
From the surveys, we know that the gameplay (both solo and in a party) has become more difficult. The above changes are meant to restore the previous balance. Will it be so? We’ll check this during the next round of testing. Remember that we’re open to your feedback and your opinion matters to us a lot in the process of making changes.
Knight Rework - What Went Well and What We Will Fix
We've also checked how you felt about the changes to Knight. Most of the new stuff was well-received, but there are still a few things to polish.
What you liked:
- The new version of Calculated Strike – most of you gave this one a thumbs up.
- The rework of Purity Aura.
- The change to the debuff of Shield Block – generally well received.
- The buffed damage of Mighty Blow.
What we’ll improve:
- The tweaks to Sacrifice and Power of Unity were well received, but they still need some fine-tuning. We’re changing the way the effect’s strength is calculated. The caster’s level will no longer matter. We’re also balancing the values so that magical classes don’t have such a big advantage over physical ones.
- You didn’t like the changes to Shield Bash. You felt it was too weak and situational to be worth using. To address this, we’re mixing up the effects of Calculated Strike and Shield Bash.
- The bonus damage to Mighty Blow now comes from Shield Bash, so using a shield (instead of vambraces) is actually worth it.
- Shield Bash’s damage stays the same. Our tests have shown that the skill is already strong enough thanks to its powerful scaling with Strength.
- Shield Bash’s effects have been moved to Calculated Strike. At the same time, charges are gone and replaced with a fixed duration. To keep things balanced, the mental damage reduction was cut by 50%. In exchange, the old debuffs to enemy ranged and mental attacks are coming back, since Knights are giving up Knowledge as a stat. The effect duration is the same as Shield Bash (2–4 rounds).
- We also removed the dependency between the two skills. Shield Bash no longer needs the effect of Calculated Strike to trigger its effect (and vice versa).
Sheed and Voodoo – feedback takeaways
Sheed
Some of you said that Sheed lost too much damage at lower levels. We get where this is coming from - the change might have felt that way. However after checking closer, our tests paint a different picture: thanks to Front Kick, Sheed’s damage (especially on lower Chi Strike levels) is actually higher than before (Front Kick was almost always used and we expect the situation to stay the same after the changes). It’s also worth noting that the damage reduction only affects Adept and Master levels, so it doesn’t touch the lower level brackets at all.
On the positive side, you really liked Sheed’s synergy with ranged and physical classes, so we’re not planning changes there.
To answer a couple of specific questions:
- Front Kick - we limited its defense-lowering effect on purpose to avoid one skill providing a max debuff.
- Breath Control - this nerf turned out harsher than intended. We’re planning to lower the Intelligence requirements to use it efficiently and also increase its duration at the first 2 levels (higher levels are going back to the old duration).
Voodoo
Most of your comments here were about the damage of Pierce Doll. This will be addressed later when we overhaul the formulas of magical classes so that they also account for weapon damage.
As for Shadow Shield – after reviewing it, we agreed the Intelligence requirements were set too high. Since it’s basically the counterpart of Archer’s Survival Instinct, it should have the same requirements.
What Else Came up in the Surveys?
After the PTR, we also have feedback about some other features:
- Thick Skin and Dispersion Aura
Most of you liked the changes, though some felt they could be stronger. We’ll take another look at Thick Skin, since feedback suggests it feels weaker than intended on lower levels. Our goal was to make it more useful later in the game. We’ll see what further adjustments can be made.
- Elemental drif damage scaling
Opinions were mixed, but overall positive-leaning. In short: the difference is noticeable, but the drifs remain a mainstay of builds. - Wendigo and Greater Hawk instances as dynamic events
Mixed feedback again, though slightly more positive than negative. Based on your comments, we’re shortening the wait time between events by 30 minutes. As for entry items from the dynamic event and daily quest – opinions were split down the middle, with some saying it’s fine and others arguing there’s not enough of them. For now, we’re not making changes here. - Rewards from Wendigo and Greater Hawk instances
Responses were evenly split – some said the rewards were fine, others said they were too small. However, please keep in mind that these instances are special: it’s just the boss fight without any trash to clear. We don’t want them to turn into another Bear that can be farmed endlessly. - Daily quest rewards
These are harder to balance. Some of you think the rewards are fine, others think they’re too small. For now, no changes are planned, though we may revisit this in the future.
And one last bit of news
Congratulations! You’ve negotiated a subscription for unlimited build resets with Drygu. ;) The price will reflect the value it brings – so no, it won’t be cheap. Do let us know what you think would be a fair cost though!
Q&A – Your Questions, Our Answers
Thank you for your dedication and questions after the tests. Below you’ll find some of them - those that pertain to the most important aspects that need clarification. We hope our answers will clear up at least some of your doubts. If there’s something we didn’t cover, let us know. It’s hard to tackle everything at once, but we’ll keep answering your questions if more arise.
Are there any changes planned regarding the quality of debuffs for each class?
We want each debuffing class to have its own unique effect and strength. At the same time, none of them should be able to max out a defense or attack debuff with a single skill. That’s the reasoning behind the recent changes to Archer, and in the next update Sheed will get similar adjustments. And that’s not the end – the debuff system will continue to evolve as the game develops.
Are you sticking to the concept that a weaker attack zone equals higher damage?
Yes, that principle stays. We want weaker zones to be compensated with higher damage. At the same time, we’ll make sure that the differences between classes don’t grow too large. The first changes in this direction will come in the next update and affect Barbarians and Fire Mages. Later adjustments will be tied to the rework of the damage formulas of magical classes so that they also account for weapon damage.
Why does Voodoo keep dodging a well-deserved nerf?
We don’t favor or ignore any class. This update focused on Knights, elemental damage drifs, Intelligence, and some related changes. Voodoo damage hasn’t been forgotten – we just want to handle it in a way that doesn’t hit weaker characters and lower levels too hard, since they have far fewer attribute points. To do it right, we first need to rework the formulas of magical classes to include weapon damage. That’s a big change, affecting mobs as well, and it’ll take time. That’s why we split the work into stages, and Voodoo will be addressed later.
How do you plan to encourage players to run T4 instead of T3 solo? For example, how is a 15k Might player supposed to handle Beirn if they can’t solo any instance there?
We want to reward players more for taking on tougher challenges, especially group instances, which right now lose out to quick and easy T3 runs. We’re planning changes to rewards for challenging content across the whole game, not just Beirn.
For solo players, we’re considering adding Path of Discovery to Beirn so that they don’t have to go down to T3. As for Draugul, we’re thinking of changes to rewards or entry cost.
That doesn’t mean T3 will become useless. It’ll remain a stepping stone for weaker characters before they’re ready for solo content in Beirn. Rewarding will also be updated for lower tiers to make the system consistent.
Why did Sacrifice look the way it did, and how did it make it to PTR in that form?
One of our goals was to reduce the gap between Barbarians and Fire Mages. Barbarians, who attack last, should be hitting harder than ranged classes. Recently, that gap grew too big and the damage of endgame Barbarians became problematic. Sacrifice and Power of Unity were supposed to equalize this, so the disproportion was intentional. However, the tests have shown that, in some situations, the changes started favoring mages too much. The PTR will also have some errors resulting from incomplete development that we would have found during internal tests. That’s because these changes are implemented at an earlier production stage so that we can get feedback faster and detect any potential problems. That’s why you should treat the PTR as a transitional period and not the final product. In the case of Sacrifice, this worked very well, because you caught the issues immediately and let us know about it. We’ll be adjusting the formula in the next PTR session.
Do you think slowing fights down by nerfing classes (Intelligence, skill parameters) is a good move for mobile players? They simply have a different approach to gameplay and rewards.
And, when setting Intelligence values (PTR, first edition), did you consider support classes in the early and mid-game? They need to invest much more in Intelligence than other classes, making them fall behind in solo play. Why were the values set so?
The goal of adding Intelligence wasn’t to slow fights down but to reduce the gap between classes. For mages, casting buffs at 1 AP was natural while physical classes had to invest in Knowledge. Intelligence evens things out. We know it felt like a nerf at first, so in the next tests we’ll lower Intelligence requirements for buffs and increase its impact on buff duration. We also can’t forget that, over the years, gameplay and progression speed has skyrocketed thanks to things like drifs, orbs, legendaries, and multiple difficulty paths. We can’t keep speeding up progression forever, because it would trivialize the whole game.
Do you plan to outline how often balance updates will roll out? Will they be regular or ad hoc?
We’d like balance updates to appear regularly but in a lighter form – they’d focus mostly on skill values rather than their functionality. We also have one more big balance update planned - we’re reworking the formulas of magical classes so that they include weapon damage. This could make its way into the next year’s roadmap.
Do you plan to rework rares that lost useful stats in the current meta, e.g. the Gift of the Winged Lady giving Dexterity and Knowledge?
No, we’re not planning to change existing rares. The Gift of the Winged Lady, apart from attributes, has a huge drif capacity and empowers them. Up until now, physical classes benefited from it twice: it provided accuracy, defense, and easier buff casting. Mages mainly got accuracy and defense, since they already had the Knowledge for buffs. After the changes, the rare’s usefulness will be similar across all classes.
What about Intelligence later on? Will new content like the Challenge Arena or the new high-level instance affect this attribute in any way?
We’re not ruling it out. Intelligence and other attributes might get affected by future systems, like the Challenge Arena or the new endgame instance.
Assuming Intelligence is implemented, will it be possible to gain it outside of the attribute points we get when leveling up?
For example:
a) adding the attribute to gear
b) making it possible to add via flasks
c) guild buff
d) buff for weekly challenges
Will future gear require Intelligence?
In the future, Intelligence may become available from other sources, like flasks or buffs. For now, we’re not planning to make it a requirement for equipping gear. We want Intelligence investment to remain a personal choice that allows for different builds depending on needs and playstyle.
Will you share your intentions when it comes to balance?
We’ll be using DevBlogs to talk about our plans and reasoning behind balance changes. Stay tuned!
In the foreseeable future, our main goals are:
- We want to do smaller but more frequent balance changes.
- No blanket power buffs until new content arrives. Right now, characters are a bit too strong compared to mobs and bosses at the same level. If we have to pick between a nerf or a buff, we’ll go with a small nerf. Weaker classes may still get buffs but they’ll likely be accompanied with nerf to the stronger ones.
- Keep class diversity. We don’t want to steamroll everything into sameness.
- We want to make longer fights more profitable again - without them, combat boils down only to raw damage. The same applies to solo vs team play. Support classes suffer because of this.
Do you think the Sheed changes on the PTR (first edition) hit the top players the most while missing low- and mid-level Sheeds? Isn’t the Legend combined with the elemental drifs the real problem?
The reduction of Chi Strike damage only affects Adept and Master levels. Apprentice levels weren’t changed, so low-level Sheeds weren’t hit. Plus, thanks to Front Kick, which now boosts all their class skills, Sheeds’ damage at lower levels is actually higher than before.
Have you considered removing elemental stones and just buffing the damage of physical classes? Why do I need a stone in my epic when VD doesn’t?
Elemental damage drifs add variety and let you adapt your build to the situation – different mobs have different resistances. In the future, we may expand this system and give you more ways to manipulate damage types through drifs.
Why wasn’t Archer touched? Are you happy with its rework and the way Survival Instinct works?
This update focused on Knight, drifs, and Intelligence. The addition of Survival Instinct was well received and did its job – it reduced the number of Archer deaths compared to other classes. We know some defensive skills for other classes feel outdated and don’t meet the current expectations. That’s on our radar for future balance work.
What’s your view on Druid in the current meta? The addition of Rage pushed out Spring of Nature and Invigoration, same with drifs. Natural Resistance remains the weakest defensive skill and Druid has the lowest damage output in the game, which will get even worse due to Intelligence.
On top of that, it’s the only class without a main zone attack skill. Will this change?
This update was mainly about Knights and the new Intelligence stat. We’ll take a closer look at Druid in the future.
Why is VD the only class with no need to invest in Intelligence? It’s only useful for Shield and it’s not a skill cast often.
Voodoos have just one buff, and it’s defensive. It's also useful only in the toughest fights. To balance this out properly, we’d have to give them an offensive buff like other classes, which would be a big change and wasn’t the focus of this update.
This update is supposed to balance physical and magic classes. Will physical classes who used magical items be able to “transform” them into their physical equivalents? And will you allow flask resets, since physical classes don’t need Knowledge anymore (and Druid will need it less)?
We’re not planning to introduce any compensation of this type.
To wrap things up
The DevBlog is a place to share the “why” behind our decisions. You won’t find the final numbers here (for that, check out the changelogs). Our goal is to show the context and our reasoning, so that you know why we make the decisions we make and where we’re headed together. Every balance change triggers further decisions – that’s the reality of making an MMORPG. That’s why we want you to have clarity on why things change and why we do them a certain way.
The DevBlog is also your space – to share opinions, ask questions, and have a real impact before changes go live. Broken Ranks grows with you and thanks to you, and this collaboration helps us steer the game in a direction that makes sense for the whole community.
See you in the next installment of the DevBlog! Adventure awaits!
