A profound sense of loss

[Emma]

I did read these suggestions, though it is not intended for Adventurers (or FP Agents) to be able to cast morphs on others any more, so such a buff would not work as described. It was a design decision to make the meaningful morphs be unique for the Adventurers, with exceptions made for the graft-casted morphs.

I am not particularly fond of having 1 aura for all situations, and prefer requiring the Adventurer to "commit" to the buff they want to apply to the team; it is very easy for Adventurers to change morphs, if the needs of the team changes.

Once 18.7 has been pushed to Live, we'll analyze what is there, make needed adjustments, and perhaps devise some new ways that Advs can support their team members, to hopefully assuage this profound sense of loss.

Today's T/L patchnotes say that adventurer morph team & other buffs have been removed. Your comments above discuss adventurers being able to apply a morph related buff to the team. How can we use our morph specific buffs to help/buff our teammates if we can't morph them? Or, are you saying that an adventurer's wolf buffs apply to teammates even if they are not in wolf form?

If I recall correctly we can no longer morph into wolf, cast wolf buffs and then change to sabretooth ... as changing to sabretooth cancels the wolf buffs. If this is correct, then how would our morph specific buffs help teammates that we can no longer morph?

Can you clarify? I am clearly confused by the comments above vs the statements in the .24 & .27 T/L patchnotes.

Emma

[Scvm]

I did read these suggestions, though it is not intended for Adventurers (or FP Agents) to be able to cast morphs on others any more, so such a buff would not work as described. It was a design decision to make the meaningful morphs be unique for the Adventurers, with exceptions made for the graft-casted morphs.

I am not particularly fond of having 1 aura for all situations, and prefer requiring the Adventurer to "commit" to the buff they want to apply to the team; it is very easy for Adventurers to change morphs, if the needs of the team changes.

Once 18.7 has been pushed to Live, we'll analyze what is there, make needed adjustments, and perhaps devise some new ways that Advs can support their team members, to hopefully assuage this profound sense of loss.

Patch Date: April 10, 2015 ... Removed Adventurer Team/Other morph buffs.

I think that adv nanos were some of the first that Genele started to make major changes to, and left with those changes only partially implemented has added a lot of confusion here. (apologies if that is inaccurate) Also, Auto giving out nanos that were supposedly supposed to have been deleted probably hasn't helped either.

I tend to agree with Michi's points, particularly that an all-in-one aura would be too dumbed down, but I still think the auras should each give something useful to teammates in any situation. Damage is the usual easy answer here, but not necessarily the right one.

Another thing! Can we expect to see some more of the long-ago foretold changes to some other nanos like the 1he/pistol/multi buffs (lose the lvl-locks on the 2 lowest and add new high level 1he/pistol buffs?) and root resist buff or... or even heals?

[Scvm]

Can you clarify? I am clearly confused by the comments above vs the statements in the .24 & .27 T/L patchnotes.

Emma

This is how they work right now on test: adv picks a form, casts team aura specific to that form, team gets the aura buff.

Stats given at 220.

• Tree aura: Healeff 7%, NanoEff 7%, HD 27, each at 220.
• Kitty aura: +71 damage, 110 AAO.
• Lizard aura: 1650 AC, 1100 HP, 1% reflect
• Wolf aura: 440 runspeed, 110 AAD, 440 percept.
• L33t aura: 110 runspeed, conceal 220, 7% crit.

[Ophiuchus]

Well, that's where I fundamentally disagree on the design decision to remove morphs from others

What use is a tank aura to the team? To a tank it's nice but that means either the advy has to be the tank, wasting the aura on others, or else if there's another tank then they have to play a game of agg-ball with the lizard advy who's just trying to give the actual tank a beneficial aura, again not helping the rest of the team. When I add that on top of the removal of reactive adaptation in combat e.g. calming a newly appeared add, losing the ability to buff lowbies some runspeed with parrot (combined with all of the nerfs over the last few years to transportation around the game world, most of which hardly bother vets but utterly kick newbies and lowbies...) it's all very disheartening to me.

I disagree with pretty much all of the core design philosophy changes being foisted on Advies. I don't see my advy being my second main any more with 18.7. that award will probably go to an MP or a Shade now. At least the MP will still be a decent assist and babysitter in a way that advys will have lost out on.
There is irony in removing the ability for advys to morph others to preserve their 'uniqueness', yet those others can morph themselves with grafts.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I did read these suggestions, though it is not intended for Adventurers (or FP Agents) to be able to cast morphs on others any more, so such a buff would not work as described. It was a design decision to make the meaningful morphs be unique for the Adventurers, with exceptions made for the graft-casted morphs.

I am not particularly fond of having 1 aura for all situations, and prefer requiring the Adventurer to "commit" to the buff they want to apply to the team; it is very easy for Adventurers to change morphs, if the needs of the team changes.

Once 18.7 has been pushed to Live, we'll analyze what is there, make needed adjustments, and perhaps devise some new ways that Advs can support their team members, to hopefully assuage this profound sense of loss.

Thank you for addressing this.

[Rockdizzle]

Since it seems we aren't getting a more flexible(for teammates) morph aura can we at least cast any aura with any morph.

First reason is that if say 2 or more advys happen to be in the same team they can't both use any morph they personally want AND benefit each other without running into situations like below. A raid fixes this kinda but than you just change 2 advys to 3 or more.
example 1: Advy 1 is in Lizard morph with Lizard aura ofc but also wants wolf aura for extra evades but Advy 2 wants Sabre morph to help his DD and team DD. Either Advy 2 has to morph Wolf thus losing a lot of personal DD and team loses dmg aura or Advy 2 can at least keep Sabre morph and just swap aura. I prefer the later option.

example 2: Advys 1 and 2 are both using Leet morph(the good one) while wanting Leet and Sabre aura together and the crit from leet morph, obviously finding a MA/Agent could solve the problem as MoP+sabre(either one) beats leet(top one) but if one is not available then either both Advy 1 and 2 stay Leet and have just leet aura or Advy 1 or 2 goes sabre and uses sabre morph.


The other reason as explained by others is the problem of the Team not getting the aura they want without forcing the Advy into a morph he doesn't want to use or not being able to use a more beneficial aura in certain situations.
example 1: Advy is tanking in Lizard morph but wants Sabre aura due to not needing the extra HP/reflect from lizard aura and can also hold agg with the extra dmg on teammates, instead team gets lizard aura.
*in this situation Lizard morph was required for taunts*

example 2: A team is raiding IPande and the doc is asking for Tree aura to help heal and a possible NT wants the nano dmg% while they move thru the place, First problem is that the Advy wants Sabre morph and the second problem is the tree morph literally turns the Advy into a tree stump stuck in the ground. Removing the tree morph to move is a possible solution but having to both recast tree morph AND the aura each time is not a great solution when the auras are slow to cast.


Solo wise this has little impact on advs as it's safe to assume they would cast the same aura and morph since the gain from mix matching them is limited and most choose a morph for each situation specifically, I highly doubt a Advy would use sabre aura for DD with tree morph for it's glorified PNH or Wolf morph with Lizard aura and expect to tank mobs better than with wolf aura.

This might not be the solution Advs want or even the best but it does seem like the easiest to do. Feel free to shoot it down if a better solution exists.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Since sabre and wolf and leet other are still in game it seems to make the most sense just to do a universal morph buff.

It makes the most sense from nearly every way you look at it.

I agree that if you got 2 advise into a team you could overlap advantages in the current system, but the boosts aren't so OP that it would make a huge difference.

Any way you cut it, OLD Motherwolf+Istare+eagle eye was significantly better any of the current morph buffs so I'm a bit miffed that michi hasn't brought them back up to a level commensurate with the old buffs.

[Emma]

Since sabre and wolf and leet other are still in game it seems to make the most sense just to do a universal morph buff.

It makes the most sense from nearly every way you look at it.

I agree that if you got 2 advise into a team you could overlap advantages in the current system, but the boosts aren't so OP that it would make a huge difference.

Any way you cut it, OLD Motherwolf+Istare+eagle eye was significantly better any of the current morph buffs so I'm a bit miffed that michi hasn't brought them back up to a level commensurate with the old buffs.

I don't know who or why the decision was made to change adv morphs so much, but the above says it all from my perspective. I want to be able to morph to wolf long enough to cast Mother Wolf & Istare and then change to whatever morph makes sense for the situation while Keeping Mother Wolf & Istare running.

Emma

[Auct]

I want to be able to morph to wolf long enough to cast Mother Wolf & Istare and then change to whatever morph makes sense for the situation while Keeping Mother Wolf & Istare running.

Emma

And that's part of the problem. With the current system you can get a portion of the benefits of one morph while using another. It sounds like the design decision was that each morph should be best for one thing and you should be choosing it based either on what you need or what benefits the team most.

It does sound like lots of people just want everything at once.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

And that's part of the problem. With the current system you can get a portion of the benefits of one morph while using another. It sounds like the design decision was that each morph should be best for one thing and you should be choosing it based either on what you need or what benefits the team most.

It does sound like lots of people just want everything at once.

If you don't read the posts, it would be hard to understand what people want.

There's no fix for that except reading the posts.

I'll summarize:

18.6: Advy offers 265 evades, 87 add damage, 415 RS, 30 AAO (Wolf), 20 AS skill, 980 perception

I don't care about sabre as it's far inferior so I'm not going to go into detail on the boosts.

In 18.7: Advy offers: 110 AAD, 640 perception, 800 RS, 22 add dmg



You see the problem?

[Rockdizzle]

All team/other morphs are now gone on test(saw it coming), Michi seems pretty set on keeping morphs to Adv/Agents excluding grafts so the universal aura won't be possible. Freeing the auras from their morphs is still the most easiest semi-fix I feel.

The auras will be weaker than the old Mother wolf aura alone due to the new auras stacking on the Adv also so any boosts to them are limited by what will not make Advs OP, Adjusting the morphs themselves can work I guess tho.

So in the end slightly stronger and free to swap around auras and morphs slightly nerfed compared to the gain from auras might be the way to go.

Excludes: Playful Cub(fine as is if aura is stronger), Hostile Hatchling(needs more HP or a 3rd morph between at 7kish) and Pronouncement of Greatness(leet morph needs more crit at least 12% at 200, as a froob MoP is better as auras need Specs).

• Pr0n0wnzm3nt 0f H4xx can be lowered to 15-16% crit with Squeaking from the Darkness at 10% crit and Furry Precision at 6%. Leet calms need a serious boost still too but that's unrelated.
• Sabre morphs need more AAO as the loss of Pred buff doesn't help at all, adding a small debuff to def is fine if both sabres get around 50 more AAO. Damage can be lowered by how much is added to aura. Feline Ferocity should look like Feline Rage, Claws of the Magal should look like Frenzy of Fur.
• Tree morphs need their own heal eff% and nanopool buff added as all the tree aura does is give the Heal eff% that the morph gave on live. ND can be added to both auras.
• Relation to Cerberus can have its evades/percep/RS lowered by how much is added to Lycanthropic Dexterity. Something like 250 evades on morph and 150 AAD on aura give or take.
• Aggressive Reptile can be adjusted based on how much is added to Kin of the Tarasque. Both auras are pretty good already tbh tho so not much change is needed I feel.

Just to repeat Morphs other/team are gone for good and Michi doesn't want a universal aura so unless it proves to be a serious problem our best option is to improve what we got and make it work.

The list is just ballpark numbers/ranges and mean't to just give an idea of what I was thinking.

*In 18.7: Advy at 220 offers: 110 AAD, 680 perception, 540 RS, 0 add dmg, 165 Aimed Shot * corrected and doesn't include Graft wolf as its no longer a Adv specific buff

[McKnuckleSamwich]

All team/other morphs are now gone on test(saw it coming), Michi seems pretty set on keeping morphs to Adv/Agents excluding grafts so the universal aura won't be possible. Freeing the auras from their morphs is still the most easiest semi-fix I feel.

The auras will be weaker than the old Mother wolf aura alone due to the new auras stacking on the Adv also so any boosts to them are limited by what will not make Advs OP, Adjusting the morphs themselves can work I guess tho.

So in the end slightly stronger and free to swap around auras and morphs slightly nerfed compared to the gain from auras might be the way to go.

Excludes: Playful Cub(fine as is if aura is stronger), Hostile Hatchling(needs more HP or a 3rd morph between at 7kish) and Pronouncement of Greatness(leet morph needs more crit at least 12% at 200, as a froob MoP is better as auras need Specs).

• Pr0n0wnzm3nt 0f H4xx can be lowered to 15-16% crit with Squeaking from the Darkness at 10% crit and Furry Precision at 6%. Leet calms need a serious boost still too but that's unrelated.
• Sabre morphs need more AAO as the loss of Pred buff doesn't help at all, adding a small debuff to def is fine if both sabres get around 50 more AAO. Damage can be lowered by how much is added to aura. Feline Ferocity should look like Feline Rage, Claws of the Magal should look like Frenzy of Fur.
• Tree morphs need their own heal eff% and nanopool buff added as all the tree aura does is give the Heal eff% that the morph gave on live. ND can be added to both auras.
• Relation to Cerberus can have its evades/percep/RS lowered by how much is added to Lycanthropic Dexterity. Something like 250 evades on morph and 150 AAD on aura give or take.
• Aggressive Reptile can be adjusted based on how much is added to Kin of the Tarasque. Both auras are pretty good already tbh tho so not much change is needed I feel.

Just to repeat Morphs other/team are gone for good and Michi doesn't want a universal aura so unless it proves to be a serious problem our best option is to improve what we got and make it work.

The list is just ballpark numbers/ranges and mean't to just give an idea of what I was thinking.

*In 18.7: Advy at 220 offers: 110 AAD, 680 perception, 540 RS, 0 add dmg, 165 Aimed Shot * corrected and doesn't include Graft wolf as its no longer a Adv specific buff

Thanks for the correction.

I completely agree with your approach, and it's what I was going to suggest.

On TL currently, relation to Cerberus gives 330 evades while the wolf aura gives 110 AAD. (110 of which are available to team)

On live, relation to Cerberus gives 110 AAD and all advy buffs (istare+mother wolf+top multi melee buff) gives 283 evades (265 of which are available to team)

So, basically currently, there is a near exact swap between self/team.

My preference is to keep the system that live has, because the nerf to team mates in TL is pretty bloody bad. However, I understand that that's not happening.

In general, however, I'd rather see (as you said rock), approximately 75% of the buff being available to team (i.e. 330/440), and 110/440 being solo/not available to team.

[JustinSane4]

If the design decision is for Advs to be better able to fill concrete roles (DD, healer, or tank) within a team, but less capable of buffing their team mates, then perhaps tree form needs to be strengthened so that Advs really can act has a healer. One thought is a complete heal with a 20 second line cooldown that can not be cast on self, and can only be used in tree form. Advs would still be clearly inferior to Docs as healers, but they would be much closer to a viable main healer in their own right.

[Litestrider]

What use is a tank aura to the team? To a tank it's nice but that means either the advy has to be the tank, wasting the aura on others, or else if there's another tank then they have to play a game of agg-ball with the lizard advy who's just trying to give the actual tank a beneficial aura, again not helping the rest of the team. When I add that on top of the removal of reactive adaptation in combat e.g. calming a newly appeared add, losing the ability to buff lowbies some runspeed with parrot (combined with all of the nerfs over the last few years to transportation around the game world, most of which hardly bother vets but utterly kick newbies and lowbies...) it's all very disheartening to me.

I really don't see eye-to-eye with any of this.

What use is a tank aura to the team? Well, we all know that hate never slips from the tank, and nobody ever takes an accidental hit. A tank aura will not only beef up the tank, but make everyone else healthier as well. As for "agg-ball", unless I missed something you don't have to taunt. The morph increases your aggressiveness a little, but it's like an enforcer helping out another enforcer, they can use challenger and perks and nanos and off-tank to help the main tank without ever stealing hate or causing things to get messy.

Calming a new add, well, pronouncement of greatness has a 1 second recharge, and Pr0n0unc3m3nt 0f Sl33p1n3ss has a middling cast time with no cap, it should be easily insta-cast. Bureaucrats have to spend 1 second casting their SL calms, and they seem to do just fine with those.

For buffing lowbie runspeed, the leet form gives runspeed. Sure maybe it's a fraction of what Caila's Form: Parrot used to give but it's still a whole lot more than other professions offer, and you can fight in the form as well. Plus you've got calms. Unless I'm mistaken adventurer is now the ONLY profession to ever offer runspeed and calms at the same time, even if the runspeed's a bit low and the recharge on calms is long it's still a winning combo and will make you a grade-A newbie-wrangler.

Sure the team buffs aren't as flexible or crazy good, but it seems like the main problem facing adventurers is simply that there's a (very small) sacrifice to accessing such an incredibly varied toolset, you can't just cast everything willy-nilly, there's some actual thought that has to go into the process.

But in the end, perhaps I'm just jealous. Because as I look over the changes to adventurer I can't help but realize that it's basically becoming what I always wanted agent to be, able to shift fluidly between several "professions" and fill different roles in the team as is dictated by the team composition or even the individual fight. To look at the situation above, an agent who wants to handle an add will have to cast true profession (1 second), then mimic profession (5 seconds), and then--with nerfed nanoskills and only low-level SL calms, only in bureaucrat--they can start casting their calm. And to switch back, adventurer takes 11 seconds for the morph to cool down and for another morph to be cast. Agent has to wait 20 agonizing minutes in a FP that may not be adding anything at all after the emergency. I guess my point is, I want a mimic toolset and broad options on a flexible character, it looks like I'm going to (continue to) ignore my agent and finish leveling my adventurer to get this. Or to put it another way: I think even Agent FP:Adventurer is going to be better at "False Professions" than Agent is.

[Chewy1]

Michi don't give in. Nerf em harder.... Lovechilds far too long

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Nerf advy teammates harder?

Soo, nerf everyone but advy?

Not sure what you're saying here :/

[Xindar]

Well, inactive for 6 months,... Pay 12 months subscription,log in to find all this going on...... why does there always have to be some non advy bring up what they think advies are .... lovechild bah.... give it up ...... go for a run round Bor and count up how many toons are around of each profession ..... good luck finding the ADVY cause they are already nerfed, are not wanted in teams, dont have team worthy nanos, .... and every other profession now has something that is ..... think I'll just run out and kill some snakes ... ..... advies were meant to be an all rounder, but that idea flew out the window,.... re think us and make us good at one thing like all other profs so we can have fun again

[Zwelgje]

12 months subscription,log in

Xin you're back? Go online, Bubu misses you in HoF org chat

mail me if you have thoughts etc. WB m8