Gaias 1.2 ... and yes, I'm not joking.

[Zwiebelchen]

The sewers will probably get some quest related content in the future.
However, they will not get random trash mobs, simply because I feel it would hurt the atmosphere.

@Kingsucker:
Don't worry, I have read your PM but decided against it. Sorry, but I basicly get a translation request every month, mostly from chinese, korean or brasilian players.
NONE of those I actually send the map to has ever released a translated version, so I won't do that anymore.

I'm sorry for those people that can't play the map because its english, but it can't be helped. English is the international language and everyone has to deal with that, the sooner the better.

Also, I feel that even simple english reading skills are more than enough to understand how the game works and read the skill descriptions and quest goals.

 

[Vestra]

Yeah there are massive communities that barely speak english who can manage even the basics behind gaias, it's a fairly self explanatory game as you go along.

 

[water_Knight]

I started to play a Japanese game some time ago just by clicking buttons and killing crap.

 

[_lycan]

Zwieb i talk spanish and english just if you want me to do a spanish version. (just incase)

 

[EloTheMan]

Gaming in Europe used to be very frustrating but its a lot better now days, only Spanish and Russian servers are hard to communicate with other players. Its also a bit frustrating each time you enter a game on Battle.net/Garena and its a translated version of a language you don't know.

 

[_lycan]

Gaming in Europe used to be very frustrating but its a lot better now days, only Spanish and Russian servers are hard to communicate with other players. Its also a bit frustrating each time you enter a game on Battle.net/Garena and its a translated version of a language you don't know.

then why do you play with people who aren't of your same language

 

[EloTheMan]

then why do you play with people who aren't of your same language

There are only dedicated DotA servers for my country, if I want to play something else I have to use open European servers or the general Battle.net hosting list.

But its not a big deal anymore, since I began playing online I see a lot better communication today.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Any news for 1.1n? I imagine it should be right around the corner.

 

[_lycan]

Any news for 1.1n? I imagine it should be right around the corner.

Zwieb hasn't even begun to beta test the boss so no.

 

[Ihazdialup]

I didn't know darklycan was zweib, well thanks for the info dar...I mean zweib.

 

[Vestra]

zwieb*

honestly ihaz you're all confused these days it's terrible

 

[Ihazdialup]

turrible* and I'm not confused? Am I? I don't know hmm....your a towel.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Sorry for the missing updates, but my band is currently preparing for a gig and this weekend was my gf's birthday, so no progress until monday.

 

[doubtful]

I didn't know darklycan was zweib, well thanks for the info dar...I mean zweib.

hahaha

 

[Ihazdialup]

Nice to see your bands still together, and im glad (this seriously is not sarcasm) that you choose real life, over this,

life > video games

 

[kevs926]

Hey Z, is it possible in warcraft to remove level requirements of Hero abilities?

Heroes can allocate skill points on 5 abilities max afaik. Would war3 engine allow something like getting agi/int/str every level but retaining cons and wisdom to once every 2 levels?

 

[water_Knight]

That is possible.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Would war3 engine allow something like getting agi/int/str every level but retaining cons and wisdom to once every 2 levels?

This is possible, but I like the idea that people are forced to take at least two different stats instead of doing pure monobuilds.


Just an update: Currently creating the core skill of the new boss encounter. Takes a little bit more to set everything up, as the boss interacts with its environment. But I think its going to be a pretty cool encounter once everything is done.

 

[kevs926]

This is possible, but I like the idea that people are forced to take at least two different stats instead of doing pure monobuilds.

it would not be recommended to go pure agi, int, or str. You will always need con, so monobuilds wont really happen.

you said something like this

But I love the idea that players can sacrifice HP for offensive potential if they wish so.

..so i thought of something that can be easily implemented and will be able to achieve this idea.

 

[Vestra]

Awesome, environment, sounds good

 

[Zwiebelchen]

it would not be recommended to go pure agi, int, or str. You will always need con, so monobuilds wont really happen.

you said something like this

..so i thought of something that can be easily implemented and will be able to achieve this idea.

I understand your reasoning, but doing so would decourage people to take a secondary stat because the primary stat will almost always be the better choice.
I recently changed AGI to be interesting for casters aswell, but if I allow to skip the level requirement, people will pump any leftover points in INT again.

Also, it would hurt the balancing in lower levels and increase the gap between hybrids and true classes again.

 

[kevs926]

I understand your reasoning, but doing so would decourage people to take a secondary stat because the primary stat will almost always be the better choice.

hmm, what do you consider a secondary stat? i always thought main attribute is the primary, consti is secondary and wisdom tertiary? As i see it there are times the secondary stat is more important than the primary.

It seems like you are already planning a different approach. Mine was suggesting only shifting between con and the primary attribute. At least your idea is the same, more offense for the cost of hp. So it would be something like:
1. Casters put few points in agi
2. Agi hitters putting few Str for ArP/Crit Dmg
3. Str hitters putting few Agi for aspd/CritChance

Although some have already been doing 2 & 3, i just dont think it is worth the hp lost.

 

[Vestra]

The stat system is really fine as is.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

hmm, what do you consider a secondary stat? i always thought main attribute is the primary, consti is secondary and wisdom tertiary? As i see it there are times the secondary stat is more important than the primary.

It seems like you are already planning a different approach. Mine was suggesting only shifting between con and the primary attribute. At least your idea is the same, more offense for the cost of hp. So it would be something like:
1. Casters put few points in agi
2. Agi hitters putting few Str for ArP/Crit Dmg
3. Str hitters putting few Agi for aspd/CritChance

Although some have already been doing 2 & 3, i just dont think it is worth the hp lost.

This. I changed the formulaes for the upcoming update to make the other stats more attractive, especially AGI for STR classes and AGI for INT classes. STR for AGI classes was always a good thing due to ArP but will still receive a little buff due to the new Crit-Damage formula.

 

[Vestra]

We're going to see some fancyyyyyyyy numbers at 50

 

[kevs926]

Would be nice to fight a boss that will be purely elemental at start. Boss would have gay shield/heals, strong nukes and the intended way to defeat it is after it ran out of mana. That point, the fight switches to elemental to physical. I always wanted to fight an enemy with mana problems.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Would be nice to fight a boss that will be purely elemental at start. Boss would have gay shield/heals, strong nukes and the intended way to defeat it is after it ran out of mana. That point, the fight switches to elemental to physical. I always wanted to fight an enemy with mana problems.

The upcoming 1.1n boss has mana management of some sort involved in order to be defeated.

 

[Vestra]

Speaking of upcoming 1.1n hows that going Zwieb, is it upcoming in a few weeks, or upcoming as in a few months.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Pretty busy during the last days, but it should be out soonish like in one or two weeks. Boss halfway done (though not balanced yet), attachment models are created (special thanks to Sunchips here), so its just a formality now.

 

[Vestra]

Alrighty good to know, we're all more than happy to jump on beta testing for balancing.

 

[galactcus]

so more 2 weeks until the new release?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Depends. New boss almost done now, depends a little bit on how good the balancing turns out and how much interation steps are needed. I think balancing it will not be an easy issue for me, because I am used to create encounters that have a rising complexity and difficulty with every new encounter I create. For this boss, it's different, as it should be easier to beat than Lady, Flame and Shade.
... which gives me a headache, actually, as the complexity of this encounter is above D3 waves+Lieutenant (waves are basicly a part of that boss, hence why you need to do waves again if you fail to kill the boss). It's a troubling thing to me to create an encounter, that forces the player to use certain strategies, but not make it too hard to beat without D3 experience.
My solution for this was to reduce the direct damage output the boss has, so that gear is not that important, but make it use spells that need to be avoided in order to survive. That way, it doesn't need that much gear to beat it, but still requires player skill.
However, a thing i'm currently struggling with is that in its current state, the boss favours certain group setups over others. *sigh*

I gotta say I'm so looking forward to creating the 1.2 encounters, when I can freely create bosses with both rising complexity AND difficulty level. It's hard to do this, but it's even harder to increase complexity while reducing difficulty. Surely I could go back to low complexity and difficulty, but seriously, how fun would it be to have another simple tank and spank encounter?

Also, the list of bugs has grown longer over the weeks, and those need to be fixed before release aswell.

 

[Vestra]

There is always the option of making it possible for pre d3, but making it immensely hard around those levels.

You can, also, place more pre d3 bosses to cover early items at a later point. Nobody likes a FULLY geared monk at the moment anyway.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

There is always the option of making it possible for pre d3, but making it immensely hard around those levels.

You can, also, place more pre d3 bosses to cover early items at a later point. Nobody likes a FULLY geared monk at the moment anyway.

This would hurt the game's learning curve. Earlier encounters should always have a lower difficulty than later encounters.

 

[Vestra]

This would hurt the game's learning curve. Earlier encounters should always have a lower difficulty than later encounters.

Yeah but I feel you're missing a bunch of mid game encounters, or the current midgame. D2 is overlevelled and run like, twice, specifically for the protector as opposed to AO, and the outer bosses have really, really shitty drops. I don't think I've ever seen someone use Shield of the Brotherhood for more than 10 minutes.

Because you've increased the time spent from 10 - 25, maybe encourage a few more early boss like encounters. A spider boss is a potentially good idea, anything for the whole squire - cleric - ranger - thief - magician lot to get off on and get something out of other than a Golem that doesn't even use hateful strike and sanev, who's frankly just a dick.

You can always build this boss as a new level 40 ^_^?

 

[EloTheMan]

You could do as they did in WotLK, make a normal mode and a heroic mode wherein the normal mode you only have to focus on the strategies and in the heroic mode you must focus on performance and harder strategies.

But I think there is room for a tank and spank encounter, just put a time stressing ability in that can, as an example, make the boss deal more damage over time.

 

[S0ulseeker]

You can always build this boss as a new level 40 ^_^?

If you do that think of the repercussions that would put on the leveling aspect of 1.2 content. It would completely ruin most of the quests and grinding for the new zone since players would just grind all the way up to 44 and be out of range for their quests and I don't want to see that. I want to experience the questing for 1.2 to its entirety.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I think the new boss will turn out pretty good. It has a nice style to it and will definitely be an interesting encounter (I really wanna see you guys metagaming this! )

Remember that both the Golem boss and the Protector and even the Lieautenant were bugged in the last versions. Those bosses had skills they never used due to order string conflicts. Though I doubt the golem will get more interesting because of that, the Protector will definitely get its spice back it once had.

Tank and spank encounters have only one purpose in lategame content (and I will only use them for meant-to-be-easy bosses or for this particular purpose):
Being a gear check.

That being said, one of the first bosses in D4 will be a said gear-check encounter, which is simply there to slow down the progress in the dungeon until a certain level of equipment is reached.
This simplifies balancing and secures that the content will not be completed in a couple of days.

To a certain degrees, the Blazing flame was a gearcheck encounter, but completely optional.

 

[galactcus]

will have new quests or mobs in the 1.1n? what level will be that boss? why lady have the same level as a revenant??

 

[kevs926]

will this new boss be level 28? then can you adjust d3 and shade boss by 1 more level each?

 

[Ihazdialup]

Seeing as its complexity is above, or on par with D3, could we maybe see some rare items that will be a parallel to d3, items, or maybe a small chance to drop a mana cystal? Could drop low level legendaries, at the 3% or 5% drop chance or whatever. That as you said that the red items now will be on par with the next tier blue items. So it could be like that, so Red item from new boss = D3 blue item.

 

[EloTheMan]

I really wanna see you guys metagaming this!

About that, how many players are you designing this boss for and at what level?

 

[Vestra]

If you do that think of the repercussions that would put on the leveling aspect of 1.2 content. It would completely ruin most of the quests and grinding for the new zone since players would just grind all the way up to 44 and be out of range for their quests and I don't want to see that. I want to experience the questing for 1.2 to its entirety.

I know I was joking lol, it would indeed ruin the upcoming content. I like the sound of the d4 boss being a gearcheck so people can't just jump straight in there for new gear come 1.2.

A SIDE NOTE ZWIEB, HOWEVER A VERY IMPORTANT POINT

Make Wristguards of the Grove a red/orange/legendary item

For an accessory, the bonuses it provides are outstanding. I've spoken to a few people and we all think it's worthy of the status. Truth be told it will reduce druid bitching by 50%.

So please, give wristguards its wings.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The new boss will be roughly at the same level of the Lieutenant. The loot will also be compareable.
The boss will be balanced for 4 people, like all world bosses so far. As always, you can also use 6 players to kill the boss to make it easier.

Revenants will have their level reduced in 1.1n. I forgot about it when changing the D3 boss and mob levels.

...
So nerf wristguards?

 

[Vestra]

nonono, give them an orange name. They are, as it stands, a legendary item for druids, without actually being legendary.

 

[Gotenks]

We think that wristguards are just too good to be such a common drop from shade we think it should be like "for now the only legendary druid item" just needs the red color of legendaries i think

 

[galactcus]

so zwiel about the new boss how many new equips? so they are in the same level as d3 equips?

 

[Ihazdialup]

Druids dont need another nerf, soul >.>!!!!

 

[S0ulseeker]

I'm not behind this one O_O; they weren't even asking for it to be nerfed they were just asking for wristguards to be changed to a legendary and perhaps decrease its drop rate as a result

 

[Vestra]

Wait what, it's drop rate is fine I feel I see it the least, maybe throw it on tier with other legendaries I suppose that's actually reasonable. What we're saying is indeed change it, but only because it's an item that's more than worthy of that status