Gaias 1.2B(8) released: Introducing the Soul Vault!

[SHBlade]

To be honest the Reds wouldn't be red if they weren't very rare. Also, having 1 giving 5%+ attack speed aura I know that the red's surely aren't that much of an improvement over good blue ones.

In any case, souls play not even a secondary but a tertiary role in the game really. Your hero with lvl 50 souls will be something like 15% stronger, which is only slightly noticeable.

Some people will probably say that this is wrong and that they are alpha omega part of the game, but I doubt that to be true. For comparison, Enchanting in Wow (pre-TBC) was not required for doing a more uptier raid like BWL (Blackwing Lair), but the elite guilds wanted you to have the best enchantments for maximum efficiency. I think souls in Gaias Retaliation are kinda the same. They can add an extra edge, but are hardly a have or fail addition to the game. In conclusion, if you want to just play the game, items and playing well can get you to the end, while if you want perfectionism you can get the best souls for complete power.

-Sorry SH, I know you are a perfectionist Gaias fanatic

Maybe then give them a little boost, cause difference between blues and reds and time spent to get them makes reds not worth an effort.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

I also believe red souls should be a "yeah you need to farm a LOT or be lucky to get this and even then it doesnt have a huge effect just looks damn cool" sort of thing. I'm already starting to replace my red souls with blue because it's much easier to get them and therefore farm up a decent stat combo. Seems fine to me this way.

However, the lategame stats are too much. How can you not think that a 15 percent increase in overall hero strength is not a big deal? Jumbo you're literally the only one that thinks this way and with zero justification.

I guess I'll just have to farm up a good soul and hit you with the raw data to make you understand.

 

[Jumbo]

Raw data is nothing compared to real gameplay. If you can defeat the game = Win. If you can defeat the game with 15% extra power = win (+more win if you like being extra powerful or are a completionist).

Conclusion: In both cases, you have the chance to try and complete stuff.

Even if I am wrong, how can you seriously say it's overpowered when you don't know what the new content is yet? We have only seen the first boss.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

You're looking at it backwards Jumbo. That is not how games are developed. New bosses are balanced around the power levels of current heroes, that is why there won't be an issue with the new content whether souls give +5percent power or +500percent power - it will just be balanced accordingly. The issue is the soul system's effect on the current meta (even the beta boss will need to be rebalanced after this soul update if the soul percentage boosts aren't nerfed). If the impact is too high, much of the current challenge (which honestly isn't too high to begin with) will be lost.

Making the player too strong with a new system hurts the balance of a game.

 

[Jumbo]

Well you are right.
Still though, I won't draw any conclusions regarding the new content. You remember how Hill Giant was in first release of Foothills? Much stronger than it ended up being. Zwieb can basically make everything über hard if he wants to (which we know he doesn't) - also in relation to the upcoming items. In any case, balancing is a delicate thing.

My point is obviously not to defy the fact (and your post) that souls are powerful and make a significant difference. What I am trying to say is simply that - if a comparison to PreTBC Wow's Enchanting makes sense - it is an extra buff which can be achieved by power players or others with a lot of time to play, but people without them can still complete the same content - though at a slower and more dangerous pace.

When I said gameplay (contrary to raw data) in my previous post, what I meant was that both Soul lvl 50 leg players and other players can die if playing poorly. Anyone can die in a boss fight mistake. Some players are simply not very good, but they can still farm souls to lvl 50 and have 2 legs. That is what I meant. Hope you get my point bro.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Raw data is nothing compared to real gameplay.

K. Here's some real gameplay.
The point I'm trying to make: The current scaling of souls makes highly difficult (near impossible) meta fights effortless.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Its 15% stats from ITEMS though. Which at the moment max's out at like +50? So in turn that makes the soul grant a whopping 7 bonus strength from your items. Its really not that big of a boost. Keep in mind you're only getting to 15% if you get a double stack as well. The only stat I have issue with is the crit chance one, as 15% crit chance from a soul is EXTREMELY strong, and can be used by every single class.

Also Jumbo I think your perspective is a bit off here. Remember souls can be obtained starting even at level 1. By the time someone trains 12 characters from 25 to 50, they should accumulate a fair bit of souls, and should be able to achieve some decent ones. No "hardcore" grinding will be required, it just feels like it at the moment because we've already completed the current content. So having really nice souls will be similar to having extra gear slots to fill, I don't see anything wrong with making them a core benefit type thing.

 

[Jumbo]

Yeah Box. Everyone can get Souls. But not everyone will have the patience to lvl them to 50 (especially not several sets).

EDIT: But I agree with you that they are a core feature. I just hope they will stay on the secondary side of things and not become too much like "another item slot".
I agree with you on the critical chance being ridiculous.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Yes they will lol. Simply leveling characters from 25 to 50 will level the souls as well. The souls should hit 50 WELL before every character hits level 50. It also will be exponentially easier when we get level 50 content, assuming our souls still gain experience when our characters are level 50.

 

[Jumbo]

But you see, not everyone wants to play every character. Many ppl stick to a few classes. Also keep in mind that souls dont get xp from quests so the hero lvling is significantly faster than soul lvling.

-But yes, when lvl 50 content is added everyone will get 50 souls easily .

EDIT: Actually maybe the resistances should be considered too. If they are going to serve any purpose in further versions, keeping soul resistances on a low impact effect will be vital. Resistances need to mainly be countered with gear so souls shouldn't play a prominent role there (I'd say max 10% pr soul effect)

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Resistances on souls are basicly balanced by the fact that you need to be extremely lucky to get the right ones and that your soul slots are limited.

There are 6 resistance types. The chance that you get one for every element on just 7 slots (while still having good general purpose souls) are extremely slim. And if you manage to do that (and take the sacrifice in slots for it), then all power to you for a mere 15% increase on a non-double stat.

Critical Strike chance is kind of overrated though. Remember that 15% crit only adds 7.5% more damage if we apply the base of 150% crit damage. Even with a 200% crit damage it would only be a 10% damage increase.

@SHBlade: reds don't drop from normal mobs.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

If you don't want to nerf souls at all, the test boss is going to need some buffs. At the very least a 15 percent HP increase. I would say foothills also but I doubt you care about that so much. D3 is pretty easy with overlevelling anyway so that doesn't matter.

 

[Jumbo]

@Zwieb
about the resistances: well this all depends on whether there will be boss fights for all resistance types in the future or not.

 

[Manipulation]

which bosses/areas drop reds?

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

@Zwieb
about the resistances: well this all depends on whether there will be boss fights for all resistance types in the future or not.

The effective resistance cap is still 75 right? You can reach that with gear choices and Confidence passive, so its not like resistant souls bring anything new here. Also, FL is still pretty strong (at the appopriate level) even when you have full resistance so I'm guessing any full elemental damage bosses in the future will be the same (boss is balanced with max resistance in mind).

 

[Jumbo]

Demon you didn't get my point but nevermind this. It's a futile debate anyway until we have the new content.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Critical Strike chance is kind of overrated though. Remember that 15% crit only adds 7.5% more damage if we apply the base of 150% crit damage. Even with a 200% crit damage it would only be a 10% damage increase.

That warrants a 5600HP buff for garg

-test spoiler

and 12900HP buff for test boss

to preserve the current balance of the game. Looks pretty significant to me. Unless you intended souls to make the current endgame easier.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

This data is useless without context. What group setup did you test this with? How many people, what was the gear, how much time did it take to kill the boss, etc.?
I scaled the boss down from 149000 to 129000 HP in the last update, as player feedback found it hard to kill it even with an optimized group within the enrage timer. That was before the implementation of souls, though, so I might revert the HP back to where it was before that.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

What do you mean context? The boss is currently well balanced for 4 heroes (bishop/sorcerer/crusader/berserker)+ merc (You'll have to ask Jombu/Ihazdialup/epraikc1 for the replay - my pc crashed towards the end), souls will just make it easier. Can't expect me to find a group with decently levelled souls this quickly (we're still looking for nice combinations before committing to levelling them). I'll upload a replay for -test kill with souls to the cave boss thread when we're ready, probably within the week. As far as gear/level goes you have to expect lvl47-50 with max gear at this point, foothills has been out for ages and isn't particularly difficult to raid.

What my post implied was, if your DPS output is increased by 10%, doesn't that mean bosses should have 10% more HP to preserve balance? I don't see why context or anything is necessary, just seems like common sense to me. What exactly am I missing here?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I'd love to see kill replays from the latest version, so I can put up my own analysis, yes.
Especially regarding battering ram, which still does not seem right.

 

[Jumbo]

It wasn't Ihaz, it was Box in our group.

I dont have a replay. Box tell us if you have it or we will have to kill it again and make a new replay.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Oh. Right. Dial's laptop is pepsi. Well I'd want to fight it again for fun anyway.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Update to 1.2B(11) please... important bugfix!

As always in the maps section.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

You should probably wipe vaults, since its probably not that difficult to load the old version for people to exploit as they see fit. Same can be said for the leveling method using basic classes as well.

Souls haven't been out too terribly long, I dont think anyone would be missing much progress on their souls. You said it was possible to use the exploit unwittingly, so some people with reds may have them through the exploit without realizing it as well.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

That would mean my 40 hour soul project going to trash.

You should probably wipe vaults, since its probably not that difficult to load the old version for people to exploit as they see fit. Same can be said for the leveling method using basic classes as well.

You can't really think about players that willingly exploit bugs in older versions, those are the players that will just play cheat versions even if you code wipe. Those that randomly got a few red souls most likely would not have gotten good combos anyway (the aura effects aren't exactly OP, I drop reds for good combo blues in a heartbeat).

Maybe I'm just salty because I requested a vault code wipe a week ago and it didn't happen so I just continued farming and levelling them only to see its now on the cards when I'm pretty much done. If it happens I'll probably just be annoyed for a while then do it again.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

No codewipe. I said to myself in the past that I won't wipe codes without having at least a technical advantage when doing so (like adding new stuff to the code).

Since vaults don't have a -comp feature, a vault wipe will happen as soon as I implement new features that the current vault anyway.

So far, I only have two "placeholder" variables for possible vault upgrades implemented. I'm not sure what to do with those yet, but if it somehow turns out I need more than just those, I would have to wipe anyway.


For example, adding new stats to souls (like attack procs) would be impossible in the current vault save implementation, except if it is a legendary aura, which still has 6 unused slots.


So, let's just put it that way: depending on what I want to do with vaults in the future, a wipe will come eventually anyway. Until then, the meta is screwed anyway.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Yeah, vault wipe is totally cool if there is new stuff to work towards. If there's new combos it would make sense to replace some current souls anyway.

 

[TooMuch]

Souls Level Gains

So regarding these new souls. Are you telling me that if you are max level, and therefore do not gain experience points, that you cannot level up souls you acquire while playing your main class?

Is this intended?
I hope not. Cause, forcing someone to play a low level or start anew just to lvl up a soul to max seems self defeating... If the point was to fine tune your already max class.

though ofc, I may be missing something since this is a new feature.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

So regarding these new souls. Are you telling me that if you are max level, and therefore do not gain experience points, that you cannot level up souls you acquire while playing your main class?

Is this intended?
I hope not. Cause, forcing someone to play a low level or start anew just to lvl up a soul to max seems self defeating... If the point was to fine tune your already max class.

though ofc, I may be missing something since this is a new feature.

Souls will still gain XP even if you are level 50. However, only from 46+ mobs.

 

[TooMuch]

Ah okay. Just gotta wait then for the newer content. Nice Implementation of this system though. Definitely adds diversity.

 

[Mullock]

How do i get Legendery Soul?



I WANT LEGENDERY SOUL!!!!! !!!

 

[Noe1]

How do i get Legendery Soul?



I WANT LEGENDERY SOUL!!!!! !!!

Red souls drops from bosses=)
*captain obvious on the rescue*

 

[Mullock]

Red souls drops from bosses=)
*captain obvious on the rescue*

Red soul drop from all boss?

 

[Ihazdialup]

Red soul drop from all boss?

Nope, only bosses after a certain level range

 

[SL1D3N]

where is the soul vault? i have obtained a soul but cant find it anywhere lol....

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Bottom left corner of the map, teleport to it via the teleport option on your hero.

 

[unifreshman]

1.you have to put the soul on your main body and click on it.
2.you will find teleport option to soul vault on town teleport page

 

[HaLF1]

Help, i cant find "Whitepine Mountains" for quest Gaias retaliation Part III (30).
And i cant find wizard-hat for quest "Got style (19)"

Map ver. 1.2b (6)

 

[BoxOfFaith]

We can't access the mountains yet, thats for a later version.

The hat is dropped from crabs inside of the second dungeon. Its not a 100% drop.

 

[Hawajska]

These are Lobsters not Crabs Damnit!!!

Want someone to mistake You with an Orc?

 

[Devlain]

These are Lobsters not Crabs Damnit!!!

Want someone to mistake You with an Orc?

I thought they were Makrura =O

 

[muzzel]

Crayfish