Vanguard Patch Notes Update #1

[Camerous]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

Because Sigil doesn't want anyone leveling too fast and then complaining about the lack of high end content, that's why.

Yet they are giving back to back double exp weekends? Your argument doesn't work based on that little fact.

As for me calling you a fucktard Danth.. Hell man nothing personal. :-) If I wanted to be personal I would have really attacked you. That was about like me calling my friends a bitch, nothing ment by it.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Don't lie Cam, you have no friends. 8(

[Camerous]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Don't lie Cam, you have no friends. 8(

Damn let a guy have at least one fantasy!

[Danth]

Understood, I'll remember that in the future.

I really don't see the point of the 2x exp weekends, as even without them I'm leveling faster than I did when WoW launched, despite there being no rest exp in this game. I don't exactly mind (I see leveling as sort of a nusiance that I won't mind being done with), but that seems odd for a game touted as having slower leveling than the competition.

Danth

[Hatorade]

Quote:
- Refresh timers for NPC snare, stun, and damage over time spells have been increased

Can somebody explain this to me, specifically the stun. I would wager that about 85% of the mobs that I have come across in this game have a stun. If you have more than 1 in camp, you get chain stuns. Why did they need to be able to stun more often?


refresh timers have been INCREASED....meaning less stuns snares etc.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Bongk

first off I know people are going to bitch becuse what I am about to say about 3 dotters but oh well...

Last night I was soloing 3-dot level 23 ghostly mariners and sailors for a quest. I had started this quest the day before and got halfway done.

For comparison sake I am a lvl 23 dsc with very good gear including to 2 rare lvl 30 fist (24dps) fist wraps.

The day before I would fight them and they would die before my endurance tap would wear off (it lasts 60 seconds)

Last night it took me 6 casts of end drain to beat them. So it was taking 6x longer and 6 minutes+ to beat the same mob that took 1 minute or less the day before.

Yes i know i shouldnt be soloing 3 dotters my level blah blah used it for comparison. I would call that a HUGE nerf even larger than the last one for me for some reason.

Try removing Soul Cutter from your soloing bar. Its completely useless, unless grouped. I used to use it, but now its just a waste of time/endurance. Our damage can be pretty good still, after some more messing around.

I'm only level 12, so i haven't really gotten the bulk of our attacks (we get what? 8 more, counting finishers?), but I'm fairly certain Blessed Wind/Void Hand/Cyclone Kick are still spammed higher end for the endowment.

Can't really complain that much, I suppose. We can still kill 3 dots without energy healing, all jin/endurance.


Also, with learning abilities from mobs now (Unless they just moved some from trainers to mobs, which would be a kick in the nuts, I was NEW abilities), I'd be willing to bet we either get a new endurance heal or a new damage attack.

All in all, I think my previous post was a bit overzealous. Its not THAT bad.

Also, I've been using a 2 hander, if that makes any difference. I'm sure it does for special attacks. 2 handers may be the way to go...Besides, lots of sexy heal focus on martial staves.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Camerous

Damn let a guy have at least one fantasy!

Dude, its okay, the blowup doll counts as a friend. So you do have friends...

Even if his name is Bob....

[Sithro]

Okay, so I asked this in a different thread, but I had the wrong specs.

My friend wants to play Vanguard with me, but she has a lower end PC. I'm wondering if she can play it, or play it in a few months when the game is optimized. What do you guys think?

NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE 256MB
2.41 GHz AMD Processor,
960 MB of RAM

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Sithro

Okay, so I asked this in a different thread, but I had the wrong specs.

My friend wants to play Vanguard with me, but she has a lower end PC. I'm wondering if she can play it, or play it in a few months when the game is optimized. What do you guys think?

NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE 256MB
2.41 GHz AMD Processor,
960 MB of RAM

That video card is an onboard video card that won't really be able to handle the game at all.

Video Card Stability Test - Benchmark Results

That card gets a score of 200 there when something like a 9700 pro(can hardly run vanguard) gets 500. And a top end card gets a score of 3000.

I'd have to say not without a new video card and would recommend more ram too.

[Sithro]

Originally Posted by Hachima

That video card is an onboard video card that won't really be able to handle the game at all.

Video Card Stability Test - Benchmark Results

That card gets a score of 200 there when something like a 9700 pro(can hardly run vanguard) gets 500. And a top end card gets a score of 3000.

I'd have to say not without a new video card and would recommend more ram too.

Hrm, that sucks.

So what MMO would you reccomend?

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Big W Powah!

Try removing Soul Cutter from your soloing bar. Its completely useless, unless grouped. I used to use it, but now its just a waste of time/endurance. Our damage can be pretty good still, after some more messing around.

I'm only level 12, so i haven't really gotten the bulk of our attacks (we get what? 8 more, counting finishers?), but I'm fairly certain Blessed Wind/Void Hand/Cyclone Kick are still spammed higher end for the endowment.

Can't really complain that much, I suppose. We can still kill 3 dots without energy healing, all jin/endurance.


Also, with learning abilities from mobs now (Unless they just moved some from trainers to mobs, which would be a kick in the nuts, I was NEW abilities), I'd be willing to bet we either get a new endurance heal or a new damage attack.

All in all, I think my previous post was a bit overzealous. Its not THAT bad.

Also, I've been using a 2 hander, if that makes any difference. I'm sure it does for special attacks. 2 handers may be the way to go...Besides, lots of sexy heal focus on martial staves.

And with the patch tonight, Soul Cutter is once again a damage staple. HUGE increase over last night, though the tooltip would hint at the detaunt being broken.

Soul cutter=+++

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Sithro

Hrm, that sucks.

So what MMO would you reccomend?

For someone that isn't a gamer WoW with min settings. It has a tiny learning curve and low system specs, you could teach a 5 year old to play the game for non raid encounters. See mob, spam 1,2,3 and rinse and repeat. Even WoW may be too much for the PC, that system is lucky to run solitaire =)

[Xitix]

Originally Posted by Bongk

umm have you played the game? you cant just mash anything as it pops, they all have costs that are quickly depleted.

Might depend some on class but I am not saying mash anything as it pops but that some of the skills/spells are often mashed soon as they pop. It's those that can be rolled into autoattack in some way. For example when I am fighting I cast my spells as needed but do [quick nuke, staff nuke, long nuke] when I am not casting anything else. Would be nice to be able to set these to autofire when I have autoattack on. That would mean a lot less key presses when doing easy mobs but still leave the option open to micromanage for harder stuff.

A big part is probably having to click each time I want to use the nuke on the staff I have equipped. Really tedious when fighting easy mobs to the point I often don't bother.

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Bongk

I have been a huge vG fanboy arguing with the hat3rs here very often. But I am losing steam here. All every patch brings is nerfs more nerfs and more nerfs.

Is there even any testing done there? Getting nerfed every fucking patch really pulls the fun out of the game.

I was already the lowest dps of every person in any group I joined and now i get gutted even more?

Nerfing endlessly fucking sucks the fun right out of the game.

With the way they run the game, the bugs and the performance I think I am starting to agree with the hat3rs this game is doomed. They seemingly have no fucking clue what they are doing.

Heres a clue, how about fixing all of our broken abilities before you keep nerfing us? I guess being one of if not the lowest dps class in the game wasn't low enough?

Weren't DSC supposed to be offensive healers? Why do I have to watch other classes solo 3-4 mobs to my one and I get nerfed and they do not?

BTW, really cute ass trick saying you raise our DPS in the patch and than gut us AGAIN. WTF...

Some issues just don't materialize until you go live. Remember, the game has only been out a little over a month. Some nerfs and tweaks are going to be necessary and happen with every MMOG both during beta and for a period of time following launch. That said, we've planned a lot better, given our experience making MMOGs in the past. I'm not going to say we're going to stop making tweaks in the future, or changes that some may consider a nerf -- after all, the long term health of the game is more important than the desires or wants of the individual. Making a more balanced game and our responsibilities as stewards of this evolving, virtual world and service mandates that we balance and tweak. That said, I think it's safe to say that these changes will happen less and less frequently as things settle down and reach more of an equilibrium.

But to be completely honest, in the future, whether it be a Live update or part of a major expansion, if we add significant content of mechanics to the game, undoubtedly we'll have to follow up with some tweaks again -- and some may be considered positive, and others unfortunately negative. These are just the facts of maintaining a service and a healthy MMOG for months and years. We don't like to nerf -- in fact we hate it. We certainly don't like upsetting people and will do our damndest to avoid them if at all possible. Heck, we play this game too, and many of us a LOT. But again, we have to look at the big picture and long term health of the game. While we love the fact that the game is out and we're in a live environment, and while we have a lot of cool plans for new features, classes, mechanics, areas to explore, updated areas, etc., which makes us excited and will continue to evolve Vanguard into an even more incredible game (like I've said, as cool as Vanguard is now (and yes, I realize there are issues and bugs), the Vanguard of 2008 is going to smoke the Vanguard of 2007, and the Vanguard of 2009 smoke 2008. We have a LOT of cool stuff planned (city building, mounted combat, ship to ship combat, better AI and more interesting dungeon layouts and population, eventually user generated content and a more dynamic world, and so much more). But as these things get added, either by the live team or as part of a major expansion, while we'll do our best to test things on test servers, etc. they will be going live and problems will be exposed. And those problems will have to be addressed.

Sorry to go so long on this, but I really want to be up front and clear about this. Again, we hate nerfing or upsetting anyone, but from the very beginning, in the very first FAQ we put up about the game years ago, we made a commitment that the long term and overall health of the game means that overall players will enjoy a better game and a better service. Some people may be affected adversely, or perceive they are, but overall and over time our commitment to maintaining a great game and a great service will pay off.

The alternative would be to let issues stay untouched and cause problems... say a class or classes are unbalanced so people over time feel compelled to play the more powerful classes even though they would have preferred to play another class. Or we leave an exploit in so players feel compelled to advance more quickly in certain areas of the world or by doing certain things, leaving the rest of the world and the opportunities to advance neglected. Or we don't add to the game in fear that we may make mistakes and have to address them, upsetting some people. We can't do that. Arguably the greatest thing about MMOGs is that they continue to advance and evolve -- they're never truly done. What an exciting upside -- to participate in a game that offers more and more the months and even years that you play it. Making the game both deeper and broader is what we've planned for Vanguard for so long. But then we're not perfect either, and we will make mistakes -- hopefully less because of the experience we have making these games -- but then we're pretty ambitious as well, as so we'll likely make brand new mistakes. For that I'll apologize up front, but when we do make mistakes or when something goes live and doesn't work exactly like we'd planned, or what wasn't apparent on dev servers, or on test servers, we will then have to fix the problems in a live environment. Some fixes, hopefully most, will make the majority of players happy. But some will be perceived as negative

What you do have is our commitment to be available and to explain our decisions and to listen to all of you. Hopefully this will minimize 'nerfs' and when they do occur you'll at least know why -- you may agree or disagree -- but we will both explain and listen, because we owe you guys that and because from the beginning Sigil has always stood for being up front and not hiding things -- stealth nerfs and the like.

Thanks for listening and for your understanding and patience as we continue to build upon the foundation that is Vanguard and take it places not only have we planned and dreamed about for years now, but also places we haven't even thought of yet

*bow*

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Vaxxx

Are you seriously telling me you like auto attack. I mean come on, I understand why it's there but it takes 0 effort, thought or decision making.

It does nothing for gameplay at all. You may not like "Mashing Buttons" but at least you are making some sort of decision.

Oh and in regards to "Button Mashing" what the hell is a video game. Last time I checked mashing buttons is usually an integral part of it. Wandering around a world, encountering an enemy, letting the game AUTOMATICALLY start swinging your sword and you walk away is not my definition of fun.

But then again maybe it is for you. Whatever floats your boat.

Auto Attack means I might as well set up a TV and start watching it while I fight.

I think it's only 'button mashing' if the clicks are meaningless. Hopefully if there are tactics involved in determining what abilities/spells/reactions are chosen depending on the situation, then button mashing becomes challenging and involving gameplay.

Is that always the case? No, but it's getting better. There's also the challenge of not overwhelming new players with a bunch of tactical decisions, but then at the same time we don't want the tactics to not be necessary until mid or high levels. I know I was playing tonight as a level 35 warrior and there was a lot to think about, lots of chains and reactions in combat. A heck of a lot more than my level 10 character (I had a higher level character artifically buffed so I could experience the mid level game and it was, and in a positive way, a lot more tactical and full of decisions). I would like to see that occur sooner, but again, there's the catch-22 of not overwhelming or making too complex the low level game. Ideally there should be a way to start a new character as an advanced player or as a new player, which is something we talked about, but has issues figuring out a way to do that and maintain balance.