Class balancing and potion/food cooldowns

[Kruell]

Two things that need to be kept in mind here. First is when adjusting the values make sure that solo players can still survive and functions in areas geared to their level range. What I mean is let's make sure there are no leveling monsters in an area that can do more damage in a round than the potions available are capable of covering. People won't venture away from the arenas or into level appropriate areas if they die often to simple monsters. There should be a fear of dying but each fight shouldn't be a trial where the players is hoping their potions hold out before the monster overwhelms them. Food can help but they have to survive the fight to be able to eat.

Second is we have got to do better for casters. Between low mana recovery items and high resistance monsters everywhere it is very hard to level any caster solo. Mana items are uncommon drops compared to potions and my lvl 17 necromancer can fill up his inventory and have to be back in town for refills long before he gets enough experience to level. We also have to make sure the monsters aren't super powerful. We've worked on this with AGI but way too many monsters have high WIS beyond what the average character leveling on them can overcome with reliability. This is a build issue. We need to make sure we don't give monsters uber AGI, WIS, or AC... it just skews any balancing attempts. Nothing like a lvl 7 animal with 24 agi and 21 wis... (nobody levels on those guys for a reason)

[NiteHawk]

Two things that need to be kept in mind here. First is when adjusting the values make sure that solo players can still survive and functions in areas geared to their level range. What I mean is let's make sure there are no leveling monsters in an area that can do more damage in a round than the potions available are capable of covering. People won't venture away from the arenas or into level appropriate areas if they die often to simple monsters. There should be a fear of dying but each fight shouldn't be a trial where the players is hoping their potions hold out before the monster overwhelms them. Food can help but they have to survive the fight to be able to eat.

Second is we have got to do better for casters. Between low mana recovery items and high resistance monsters everywhere it is very hard to level any caster solo. Mana items are uncommon drops compared to potions and my lvl 17 necromancer can fill up his inventory and have to be back in town for refills long before he gets enough experience to level. We also have to make sure the monsters aren't super powerful. We've worked on this with AGI but way too many monsters have high WIS beyond what the average character leveling on them can overcome with reliability. This is a build issue. We need to make sure we don't give monsters uber AGI, WIS, or AC... it just skews any balancing attempts. Nothing like a lvl 7 animal with 24 agi and 21 wis... (nobody levels on those guys for a reason)

Agreed.

For the mana thing though the next patch should really solve it, but I agree, some MP drops could help too. The rest is defo build flaws that can be fixed.

[Aieron]

If we do nerf potions then I think some classes will struggle a lot though. I know barbs chug potions like crazy when fighting Rotting Dead (I think this mob is a bit too strong).

Also for this: One thing though is that all classes won't be good in all areas. Thee issue is right now we don't have ENOUGH level 21-24 areas to go around, that is probably the first area that has that sort of stuff, so I don't think it should be based on them.

I think undead are typically more tougher, and have more HP, but they can be healed to dead, and probably DB'd in the future. (Single mob DB)

We don't even have the most MAX potions yet and it's just going to get worse though if we don't adjust 8)

You focused too much on the mob I highlighted and not my underlining point . Pretty much what Kruell said covered my thoughts though.

[Lateralus]

I hear you on mana drops being a bit lower off my monsters. I try to make sure only casting types are dropping mama and since there are a bit less they drop less as well. As for the high wis or difficult monsters please let me know ones you have run across. I feel like I do try to balance out agi wis Ac stats so they are stronger in certain areas than others.

[Aieron]

While thematically I agree with casters dropping mana items, they are also the ones with higher int/wis usually and not ideal for casters to level on.

[NiteHawk]

I think mana drops should still be more rare as health just to state. I don\t suddenly want every monster dropping mana. HP to MANA is abut 1/3rd the total, which could be around the same drop rate. (1/3 of hp pots.)

[Lateralus]

ive upped the mana drops slightly and lowered wis slightly on a few monsters than makes sense (rotting dead and a few others). thanks for the input!